In the City of Shy Hunters (11 page)

I'm sorry, Janet said, I can't do that.

Behind Janet were big windows, the old kind of big windows like in Saint Joseph's School that were dark wood and you need a long stick
with a hook on the end to open the top part. The top part of the windows were open. It was already a hot day.

My face was still smiling.

I've come a long way, I said, To find Charlie 2Moons, I said, It's very very important, I said. I must give him a message.

Janet just kept smiling like you do when you don't know what else to do.

On my way out, when I was at the door, Janet said, I do hope he's all right!

Was he sick? I said.

No, Janet said, quick, It's just that I worry about him.

The gay cancer? I said.

Janet quick pulled a tissue from a tissue box and swiveled her chair around to face the big wood windows.

The sun was shining on the green leaves of the trees. No wind. Just bright sun on leaves.

Janet blew her nose, and when Janet turned around again, she looked like she knew what she was doing. She thought. I could see the tears.

Charlie 2Moons is a very gifted young man, Janet said. And a dream-boat, Janet said. A real charmer.

Janet's smile wasn't a business smile anymore, just a smile.

I think the whole place was in love with him, Janet said. When he left the program, Charlie was living in Columbia housing, but now that he has left, I don't know where he's moved and he left no forwarding address.

Janet reached for another tissue, dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose.

What about this Sebastian Cooke? I said. Can you tell me how to get in touch with him?

Sebastian Cooke is in Paris, Janet said. Have you read his book on Andy Warhol?

Charlie's? I said.

Sebastian's, Janet said.

No, I said.

It's fantastic, Janet said.

Where in Paris? I said.

Janet's breath in, her breath out. Janet leaned her head onto her hand. I went to touch her arm, but didn't.

Why are you crying? I said. What's the matter with Charlie?

Janet looked up at me, tears down her cheeks. Her nose was red. She made a gesture with her hand, the tissue in her hand, waving, not at me, but waving things to the side, out of the way.

Give me your phone number, Janet said, And I'll be in touch with you.

On a piece of scrap paper, I wrote down my name and phone number.

Here's my card, Janet said. We'll be in touch.

In my wallet, next to the Romeo Movers card, I put Janet's business card.

In all the world, my cowboy boots walking down the marble steps of Dodge Hall, with each step my lips moved with the syllables of his name.

Char-

lie

2

Moons.

Se-

bas-

tian

Cooke.

Char-

lie

2

Moons.

CHAPTER
FOUR

C
afé Bistro on 46th Street was where I finally got a job.

My first day at work, as soon as I walked in the front door, Daniel, the boss's brother, lifted his wrist up, shirtsleeve rolled to the elbow, hairy arm, Rolex.

Thought your horse mighta threw ya, Daniel said. Or were you planting your potato over at Show World?

Show World?

Don't ever fucking be late again! Daniel said.

Daniel's face was a mask over his face, handsome underneath like Ruby, but while Ruby was turning into a skeleton, Daniel's face was something still alive floating in old water.

Find Muffy, Daniel said. Muffy's the one training you.

Through the swinging red doors was a room, like a parlor, shelves from floor to ceiling, two espresso machines, a long counter. A person sat behind another counter and a cash register. To the right was an arch and the dish room—stacks of glass racks, old-food smell, the dishwasher loud, steam and spray.

My mother's nerves.

Through the arch in front of me, two stories high, was the kitchen. Red-brick walls, shiny cement floor painted gray, stainless-steel shelves and racks and countertops, steam rising, smoke, the air full of hanging pots and pans. Frying grease. Convection oven air blasting. A side of beef lying on a butcher block. Lamb hanging from a hook. Unrelenting fluorescence from above.

Pots and pans slamming together. Little Asian men, all in white, white caps, yelling.

Muffy? I said. My voice a tiny thing in the bright loud room.

A man on the other side of a stainless-steel counter was chopping lettuce.

Muffy? I said to him, smiled.

The man yelled some kind of kung fu, slammed the knife down on the cutting board—lettuce every which way—then waved it in the air between me and him; he slashed the knife back and forth, brought the knife back behind his head, threw the knife past my ear into a cardboard box of Idaho potatoes behind me.

Hell of a fix. Up Shit Creek. In a world of hurt.

Everyone in the kitchen laughing, Asian men all looking at me, laughing.

Then: Eat! Eat! Kung Fu lettuce guy yelled.

Another man from behind the steam table yelled, Plate! Plate!—pointing at a pile of plates—Eat! Eat!

Rice and a thick stew with meat that was gray.

Kung Fu lettuce guy threw a plate of lettuce onto the stainless-steel counter. Salad! Salad! he yelled. Eat! Eat!

In the dining room, back out through the swinging red doors, a round table of brown men all staring at me. I walked past the table with the plate of thick stew with meat that was gray, the plate of salad. Brown men in white bus coats and white shirts, laughing.

Then: two men and a woman sitting at a table. Waiters. White people.

My name's Will, I said. I'm the new waiter. May I join you?

The men didn't look up; finally the woman did, right at me.

No, the woman said, looking back to her crossword puzzle. That place is saved for Mack.

Mack? I said.

Mack Dickson, she said.

The two men looked at me, looked me up and down. What's important. What's wrong. Went back to eating deli sandwiches.

My deep breath. The exhale brought my eyes to the ceiling. Painted up there, the Sistine Chapel God extended his finger and Man reached out for it, the way we'll always reach.

Other places on the ceiling were clouds and cherubs and pastoral settings. The walls were mirrors. Two columns, Corinthian, divided the room. A wall made to look like a crumbling wall connected the two columns just high enough for privacy on the banquettes. The bar carved maple; a mirror in the bar back; the bar top, zinc.

All the tables were covered with linen and over the linen pieces of butcher paper. On each table a small jar filled with crayons.

On the table where I sat down alone, from the jar, I picked a red Crayola, and with the red Crayola I drew one big red circle on the butcher paper.

* * *

YOU
'
RE GOING THIS
way and then shit happens and then you're going that way.

The moment that after you're different.

Welcome to Café Cauchemar, she said.

The chandelier behind her. I looked for her shadow on the table. Curly black hair poked up under a Yankee cap, a T-shirt, nipples through the pink Day-Glo T-shirt, ninety-eight pounds, black bicycle pants, the book she was holding, Joseph Campbell's
Myths to Live By
.

Fiona. I looked up from the red circle and there was Fiona. I put both feet parallel on the floor, my back straight up against the chair, rested my arms around my middle, chin out, shoulders square, new-shoe stiff, big smile.

When the woman is beautiful, before I know it, my body is at attention.

What's important. What's wrong.

Deep blue eyes, white white skin. Something wild about her mouth.

I had to take another breath.

Her upper lip a life all its own.

When she smiled, the scar.

Cauchemar? I said. Isn't this Café Bistro?

Nightmare Café, Fiona said. It's French. I'm the one who's training you.

You're Muffy?

No, Fiona said, her lip New York drop-dead fuck-you. My name is not Muffy. My name is Susan, Fiona said, Susan Strong.

Oh, I said. Daniel said that Muffy was the one.

Susan! Susan
Strong
, Fiona said.

Fiona pointed her index straight at my nose.

Listen up, she said. This is important, she said. Not Muffy! I'm not Muffy anymore. I'm Susan Strong. Understand?

Things start where you don't know.

When I met her, she was Muffy Macllvane trying to be Susan Strong. She wasn't Fiona yet. Not yet. It was only at the end, after Ruby named her, that she became Fiona.

FROM UNDER THE
chandelier, we went to the three waiters' stations, then to the bar. Then through the swinging red doors to the parlor, through the archway into the kitchen, Fiona talking talking.

Café Bistro, Café Cauchemar, Fiona said, A bistro owned by a Jew, its authentic French cuisine cooked by Thais, tables cleaned and bused,
your cappuccino delivered by Puerto Rican busboys when you can find them, dishes washed by Mexicans, served by the generally white, almost young, not quite beautiful
l'Amérique Profond
survivor smiling the drop-dead smile—the actor, singer, dancer, the presenter of the finest medley of fresh vegetables, the musaline sabayon sauce at your table, the ironed white shirt, the black bow tie, the spotted black pants, black sensible shoes, the clean white apron, hair pulled back, fresh-lipsticked unisex clean-shaven slave to attitude, the faggot, the Broadway baby, the hopeful fool this city feeds on, at your table, at your service: the waiters.

The waiters are Davey Dearest and Walter, and Joanie and Mack, Fiona said, Besides me and Harry. Joanie's the worst, one of those fashion disasters who gets all her hair cut off and wears too much lipstick and four earrings in each ear. Be different if she was a lesbian, would give meaning to such heavy accessorization and a reason for being such a bitch.

Then there's
Homo perfectus
, Mack Dickson—Mack Son of Dick. Whatever you do, you don't want to incur the wrath of Mack Dickson.
Thee
. . .
perfect
. . .
gay
. . .
man
. A Mack Attack is hard to survive. Mr. Poopy Pants himself, Big Baby Torpor right there in front of your eyes. Total Caravaggio—did you see the movie?
Caravaggio
? Fiona asked. Harry and I decided that movie should have been subtitled:
or How I Lost My Mind to Have a Perfect Body
. Derek Jarman needs to get a life.

A real Nazi with a tortured gym body—Mack Dickson, Fiona said, Voted for Ronald Reagan and proud of it. Coordinates his socks and underwear. Just check it out in the locker room. Today's Wednesday, so that means his shorts and his socks are red. That's what Harry says. Wednesday it's red. When Mack grows up he wants to be a shallow ugly woman with an attitude and bad fashion sense—namely, Joanie.

Davey Dearest and Walter are actors, nothing more to say, Fiona said. Usually what they're doing when they're talking to you is trying out a human emotion to see if they can make you believe they're feeling it. Life vérité. Walter's the ectomorph with bad toxins in his fat cells so his overriding human emotion is depression and existential facticity. Actually, Walter just drinks too much coffee. Davey Dearest looks like Richard Gere, so Davey's overriding emotion is whatever Richard Gere's is. Watch out for falling gerbils. Davey just became a Buddhist. Any questions?

There are six sections in the dining room, Fiona said, Section One through Section Six. Sections Four, Five, and Six, Fiona said, Are the sections you want to get assigned to because that's where Andy Warhol—excuse me while I throw up—and Whoopi Goldberg and Bette Midler and Faye Dunaway and Ellen Burstyn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mariel Hemingway and Mary Travis and Leonard Bernstein and David Byrne and Isabella Rossellini and Patti LuPone and James Taylor and Francis Ford Coppola and Judd Hirsch and Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro and the doctors and lawyers and Wall Street yuppies who order lavishly and tip double the tax are always seated.

Waiters are always started out in Sections One and Two and then theoretically, Fiona said, Are moved to Section Three, then even Four and Five, and—Yahweh be praised—Six.

Sections One and Two are by the bar, where Daniel, the boss's brother, eats his dinner and drinks his wine spritzers and you have to grind fresh pepper onto his soft-shell crabs or his steak
frites
or his couscous that he never eats because his only diet is cocaine, and where the heavy-lidded, jaw-grinding Eurotrash trust funders sit and sit and sit and smoke and order bottled water
con gaz
and refills of espresso or cappuccino or iced decaf cappuccino and then at best leave change, never quarters, under the saucer.

Theoretically
you move from Sections One and Two to Sections Three, Four, Five, and Six, Fiona said, But actually you can't get there from here. There: Three, Four, Five, and Six, Fiona said. Here: One and Two. In order to get to Three, Four, Five, and Six you have to sell the specials and your bar check has to be high and you have to sell desserts. Every morning the owner, Daniel's brother, goes through your checks and writes down the number of specials you sold and tallies your bar-check dollars per customer spent on booze and what percentage of your customers ate desserts. The waiter with the highest sales gets Sections Three, Four, Five, or Six.

Here's the problem, Fiona said. Only the customers who order specials and cocktails and bottles of Veuve Clicquot and crème caramel and
torte tartin
and profiteroles are seated in Sections Four, Five, and Six—when it's busy they're seated in Section Three, too—but never, never are these customers seated in Sections One and Two.

It's the same story with the bar, Fiona said. Every week Daniel's brother, the boss, tallies the bartenders' pour. The better the pour the better the shift. Any questions?

I've been at Café Cauchemar for over a year, Fiona said, And Harry's been here two, and neither one of us has ever had Section Three, Section Four, Section Five, or Section Six.