In the City of Shy Hunters (28 page)

Not so in Fish Bar. One guy pulled his pants down and mooned Ronald Reagan and Nancy while Harry took the photograph. Two lesbian women felt up Nancy while Harry took the photograph. Three union guys all stood flipping Ronnie and Nancy the bird. Another guy took Harry and Ronnie in the bathroom and pulled his cock out and made like Ronald Reagan was sucking his cock, then made like he was cornholing Ronald Reagan.

Twenty exposures, one hundred dollars.

Performance Art, Fiona said. Cool.

Harry went home about two-thirty. He said he was tired. Said he had a date. A Green Date.

But Harry was more than tired.

The monster's heavy footfall, a ripple in Fiona's Southern Comfort, my Crown Royal, what was left of Harry's Heineken.

Fiona and I wanted to keep going, so we kissed Harry good night and walked to Third and Avenue C, to a secret after-hours club Fiona heard about called Network.

Fiona's long white arms and white legs were poking out of a little black dress. The moon was almost full and I remember the moonlight on Fiona's arms. The sky wasn't a dark sky with stars. The sky was navy blue with a white jet stream heading uptown.

In all the world, three o'clock in the morning, Fiona, the moonlight on Fiona, and me standing in the middle of Third Street at Avenue C. Third Street same as all the other streets down here—just a street and a bunch of doorways to six-story walk-ups. Not an after-hours club in sight.

New York is cold
, Fiona sang,
But I like where I'm living. The music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

What's that? I said.

That's a line from “Famous Blue Raincoat,” Fiona said.

Leonard Cohen? I said.

Then: Now's a good time, I said.

For what? Fiona said.

Leonard Cohen, I said. The song. You said you would sing me the song.

“Famous Blue Raincoat”? Fiona said.

No, I said. The other one you told me about.

“Song of Bernadette”? Fiona said.

That one, I said.

Cool! Fiona said.

Fiona in her spotlight for life, under the streetlamp light, the solitary illumination in the night, in her little black dress, three in the morning. Fiona stood straight, her white marble-statue arms at her sides, feet square beneath her on the pavement. Just over her shoulder, the moon.

Fiona cleared her throat, started singing, was off-key, tried again, stopped.

Quiet as only New York can get that fast.

This is making me nervous, Fiona said.

Why? I said. You have a captive audience.

I don't know, Fiona said.

Are you playing at being nervous? I said. Or
being
nervous? It's all so
Tony and Tina's Wedding
, I said. Can't you be synchronistic?

Go fuck yourself, Will, Fiona said.

Then, in all the world, the hope of theater to lay bare the human heart, the scar on Fiona's red lip a life all its own.

Beautiful according to Fellini.

Fiona sang Leonard Cohen's song how her heart was inside her, the way my heart was inside me too, on fire the way the night was, longing for things that probably weren't going to come, and sad because I knew they probably weren't, but still foolish enough to wish, but most of all clear and smooth and beautiful.

On the corner of Third and Avenue C, the darkness outside the circle of light was the dark side of the moon. Inside the spotlight Fiona's marble-white arms up Patti LuPone Evita.

Muffy Macllvane, Susan Strong, Fiona Yet.

Wounded by a blow of love.

I walked to the curb, stood behind a car.

Where you going? Fiona said. Wasn't I great?

You were great, I said. I got to pee.

It was a lie.

Pee? Fiona yelled, Not on Third Street! This is the Hell's Angels' block. They catch you pissing here and you're in deep shit.

Can I pee on Avenue C? I said.

Cool, Fiona said. Just go up a ways and point it toward Fourteenth.

My cock pointed toward 14th Street, I didn't pee. Chin quivering, silent, pointed toward 14th Street, my back to Fiona.
Won't you let me hold you?
Instead of peeing, I started crying.

When I got back to Third Street, Fiona was skinny white arms and legs, up one stoop, then down, then up another.

Where the fuck is this fucking place? Fiona yelled.

Two guys in white T-shirts and Levi's and earrings and a woman with a bald head in a faux leopardskin jumpsuit came out of doorway. They were smoking and laughing and stumbling into each other. One guy
messed the other guy's hair, and the guy said, Watch the hair, man! And the other guy said, Fuck you
and
your hair! Then they looked at the bald woman and said it to her—Fuck you
and
your hair!—and all three of them laughed.

Fiona and I walked up the stoop where the three fuck-you-and-your-hairs had come from. Fiona knocked on the door. The Most Beautiful Asian Man in the World, with bleached-white hair, opened the door.

What you here for? the Most Beautiful Asian Man said.

We're here to party, Fiona said.

The door opened, and Fiona and I stepped into a vestibule where other people were standing. The door closed behind us. Fiona gave the Most Beautiful Asian Man in the World twenty dollars. I gave him twenty dollars.

There were maybe seven people in the vestibule. No Charlie 2Moons. One guy had a flask and he took a drink, then passed the flask to Fiona. Fiona said cool and took a drink and handed the flask to me. Somebody made a joke about
Candid Camera
. I looked up and there was a camera in the corner of the vestibule on the ceiling.

Looking for UFOs, one woman said. Uninvited Fuck-Offs.

Underdeveloped Foreign Organizers.

Ultra-Feminine Onanists.

Ultimate Fellatio Orgasm.

We were all laughing when the door in front of us opened.

There was a long bar on the right and just enough space to walk between the wall and the stools at the bar. Beyond the bar was a room that looked like somebody's kitchen in the fifties. Square black-and-white tiles on the floor, chrome
Father Knows Best
tables and chairs. The light in the room like the light on a kitchen stove or in a telephone booth. Mostly dark, tiny bright fluorescences, big film-noir shadows.

Charlie 2Moons was everywhere, in every face, in every beat of the music.

Marvin Gaye was singing “Give It Up.” Fiona checked her purse and we walked into the dark shadows of people dancing.

There was a table for two under the window. Venetian blinds on the window—the old big white horizontal kind. Southern Comfort two rocks for Fiona, In the Ditch for me. The table next to us was black men and women dressed to the nines, passing a joint. Fiona smiled when she saw me staring at the joint.

It ain't Omaha, Fiona said.

Idaho, I said.

Fuck Idaho.

I rolled a cigarette. Fiona rolled a joint.

Kiss?

The DJ was standing in a box like a pulpit at the top of some stairs. All he had was a stereo hi-fi, a lot like Bobbie's only bigger speakers, and when the song was over you had to stand and wait for the next song or go sit down.

In the Ditch the second round, and Fiona asked me to dance. I stood right up, even though I only dance alone in my apartment, lights off, Sony Walkman on. My big long body doesn't move the way a man's big long body's supposed to. At least not in Pocatello, Idaho, or Boulder, Colorado, or Bozeman, Montana, or Hope, Beyond Hope.

Fuck 'em. Those little-town blues.

Who cares what a bunch of assholes think? Take what's wrong with you and make art out of it. Martha Graham meets Joe Cocker.

So when Fiona asked me to dance I stood right up because of all the things I just told you, and because it was Fiona who asked me, and because the last time I'd danced, not counting naked alone in my room, was when I danced that night with Charlie 2Moons in the barn.

It was a slow one. “Love and Affection,” Joan Armatrading.

Fiona leaned her body against my body, her bushel of hair under my chin, her head against my chest, the long firm muscles of her arms, her shoulders, so white.

Standing with Fiona, I was the boy when we danced, my hand on her hip, my other hand holding up her hand, our feet on the black-and-white checkered tiles, the venetian blinds pulled, the kitchen stove light, the smell of her body and something secret, waiting for the record to drop.

The needle on the record, that sound, our invitation to faraway, Fiona and I dancing in somebody's after-hours kitchen, smiling, somewhere else.

Only your body can know another body.

Because you see it, you think you know it. Your eyes think they know. Seeing Fiona's body for so long, I thought I knew her body.

I'll tell you something, so you'll know: It's not the truth. Only your body can know another body.

My hand on her back, my hand in her hand, her toes up against my toes, Fiona's body wasn't sections of a body my eyes had pieced together. In my arms was one long uninterrupted muscle, a body breathing life, strong and real.

And the strangest thing, this wonder woman Susan Strong my eyes had known was the girl when we danced, following me. Where I moved, she moved.

Fiona let go my hand and put both her arms around my waist. She leaned back and looked up at me. Her eyes clear, open. Her broken lip fuck-you.

You smell good, I said.

I see that you are playing at being a great dancer, Fiona said.

To know the power of the dance, I said, Is to dance with God.

Fiona made her face like a vampire's and put her hands around my throat. Just who the fuck
are
you? Fiona said.

Fiona's eyes, a Spanish dancer who's trained to use her eyes.

First you're some cowboy from Ohio rolling cigarettes with one hand, Fiona said.

Idaho, I said.

Then you tell me you can't fuck, Fiona said, And that day—remember that day in Cauchemar?—just as you told me that, when I looked at you there was a beautiful light all around you, and I thought: Cool. This guy is being very genuine.

Then later on you're whining like every other sorry mother's son, Fiona said.

Then you're walking out the door with Chef Som Chai under your arm, Fiona said. Then you're Daniel's slave interest.

Then, at
Shopping for an Honest Man
, at
my
performance piece, I look out into the audience through the hole in the curtain and there you are male-bonding with Argwings Khodek, my Absolute Ultimate Idol.

And now you're Section Six, Fiona said, And I'm still fucking the dog in Sections One and Two. I ought to kick your fucking ass.

Fiona grabbed my ass.

And I got two brothers, Fiona said, So don't think I can't.

The song stopped about then, there was a scratch at the end, then silence. Dogs barking and big shadows and smoke and sweat and kitchen-stove light. My feet on the black-and-white kitchen tile were twice the size of Fiona's.

Surrounded by a room full of Charlie 2Moons.

Who am I?

Where are your brothers? I said.

Greenwich, Connecticut, Fiona said. Twins, both tax lawyers, both queer.

Both? I said.

The Hyannisport Homos, Fiona said. YUFAs, Fiona said. Young Urban Faggot Attorneys.

Fiona hit her fists against my chest once, hard.

Come on, Will, Fiona said, Cop to it! I asked you a question.

I AM A
white male six-foot-two one hundred and ninety pounds, thirty-one years old, brown to blond hair, hazel eyes, big butt, big legs, big nipples, should be bigger in the chest and arms. Big spirit, big body, big nose, crooked bottom teeth, little dick. Crossed-over scared stallion.

Five people I know: Ruby, True Shot, Rose, Susan Strong, Harry. One's a junkie, one's a spirit schlepper, one's a Shakespearean drag queen, one's idiot-savant mother fucked a truck driver, one is New York's only Irish Catholic homosexual. Two I count as friends, Rose and True Shot. One is just a voice on my answering machine, Ruby. One is attached to the other one, Harry. I cry too much. Think about Bobbie too much. I am on a journey. I have a task: Find Charlie 2Moons and ask his forgiveness.

Nobody really knows who they are, I said. Even God don't know.

Cut the crap, Will! Fiona said.

Then: Why should I tell you, I said, Who I am?

Because I'm your friend, Fiona said.

Fiona put her hand on my cheek, on my forehead. I took the chance and looked her straight in the eye.

You said everything's a performance piece, I said. Life is an art and art is a game, I said. This is all an illusion, I said.
Asobase kotoba
. So why not continue playing? I said, I see that you are playing at being a great Susan Strong, I said, And I'm playing at being a great Will Parker, I said. If that's all there is, why not keep it that way, I said, And just keep dancing?