In the City of Shy Hunters (53 page)

Margo's large hand went up and pointed west.

Well, Margo said, The place smelled like
sperm
. The industrial gray carpeting, I swear, must have been saturated. Dottie and I started giggling. Can you imagine? Two chairs from Robert Mapplethorpe, everything smelling of sperm, and we get the giggles?

Are there cabs down here? Dave asked.

Dad! Hunter or Gus said.

We can walk, Fiona said. It's not far.

Walk? Margo said.

Walk? Dave said.

Walk? Hunter or Gus said. Mom, Dad!

Mother! Gus or Hunter said.

Hunter or Gus raised his arms up, then slapped his arms against his thighs. We're walking across the Lower East Side at night?

Margo was between her sons. Her legs were long too, like Fiona's. Margo took a big step east on East Fifth and grabbed Hunter and Gus both by the arm, pulling them to her.

Don't be so serious, you guys! Margo said, This is a free country. And besides, Margo sang, Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Margo's laugh, exactly like Fiona's. High, off-key. Something mean in it.

Dave put his arm over Fiona's leather shoulders and Fiona walked with her father, khakis to leather. At the corner of Second Avenue, the
WALK
/
DON
'
T WALK
was
DON
'
T WALK
. Dave leaned over, kissed Fiona on the cheek.

Harry and I brought up the rear.

On the corner of Fifth Street and First Avenue, a small woman, dark hair and skin, in Levi's and a Levi's jacket, walked up to us. She was barefoot.

San Simeon? she asked.

Dave reached into his pocket and pulled out some change and put the change in the woman's hand.

Dave! Margo whispered loud. Mayor Koch said not to give these people any money. They'll just buy drugs.

To hell with Ed Koch! Dave said. He's a latent Republican!

And a fag! Fiona said.

Up Avenue A, Harry and I were following the Macllvane men. Margo and Fiona were arm in arm, in the lead.

Connecticut Matron meets Leather Queen.

On all the street corners, tennis shoes hanging from the telephone wires. Fiona turned around and said, loud enough for the whole street to hear, Third Street is the safest block in the city.

Two black guys in hooded sweatshirts turned around and looked at the group of us following Fiona.

It's the Hell's Angels' block, Fiona said loud, But these days everybody's a Hell's Angel. Still, Fiona said loud, Don't try and piss on their block!

Fiona said loud, There's a mortuary not far from here on First Avenue. Right next to it used to be the Club Baths.

Muffy! Hunter or Gus said.

The dish is, Fiona said loud, There was a door between the Club Baths and the mortuary. Of course, Fiona said, The door existed only for those who were into fucking dead people.

Necrophilia, Margo said, like she'd say
espadrille
or
Jack Russell terrier
.

Door of the Dead.

It's closed down now, Fiona said loud.

Because of that disease? Margo said.

Mom! Dad! Hunter, or Gus said.

Then, in all the world, Fiona, Margo, Dave, Hunter, Gus, Harry, and I were at the entrance to Tompkins Square Park. Dog Shit Park.

Hunter or Gus said, We're
not
walking through there, Muffy!

My name is not Muffy, Fiona said.

What
is
your name these days? Margo said.

Susan Strong, Fiona said.

We can't walk through there, Hunter or Gus said. It's ten o'clock at night!

Then Fiona said, It's no different in there from anywhere else down
here. Come on! Fiona said. We're homosexuals, we're feminists, we're liberal Democrats. It's cool!

In the lamplight, Harry looked green.

Harry, are you feeling all right? I said.

Fuck you, Muffy! Hunter or Gus said.

Then, all at once, the whole Macllvane family, Margo and Dave and Hunter and Gus and Muffy, were yelling at one another. All of them all at the same time.

She's always got something to prove! Fucking chip on her shoulder!

Don't say fuck to your sister!

Dad, this is Tompkins Square Park. You can say fuck in Tompkins Square Park!

What's wrong with being a liberal Democrat? Fucking Republicans don't give a shit about poverty!

Don't say fuck in front of the children!

Mom! Dad!

This is Dog Shit Park! You can say fuck in fucking Dog Shit Park!

I'm sure if Muffy thinks it's OK to walk through here, it's OK to walk through here!

My name's not Muffy!

I'm sure if—Susan Strong—thinks it's OK ...

Don't patronize me!

Who's patronizing? I'm just trying to remember your fucking name!

What are you afraid of? This is a city park!

Goddammit, why do we always go through this?

Because your daughter is an asshole!

Always something to prove!

Don't call your sister an asshole.

Then: But she
is
an asshole.

It was Fiona's mother. It was Margo. Margo wasn't yelling, she just said it, and everybody stopped. Even Fiona.

Muffy
was an asshole, Margo said, And
Susan Strong
is an asshole, and whoever she's going to be next will be an asshole too, Margo said.

Dave and Hunter and Gus were all standing together. Fiona wasn't standing with them, she was standing alone. Margo was standing alone too, leaning. Margo's blue eyes on Fiona's blue eyes. Fiona's blue eyes back.

Harry had his hand on his chest.

Harry's lips at my ear: Bitch fight to the death.

And so am
I
, Margo said to Fiona. A liberal rich-bitch Connecticut Democrat asshole.

Mother and daughter's lips large, laser.

First time ever when Fiona had nothing to say.

Margo took one long stride over to Fiona. Fiona didn't move. Margo looped her arm, the same white as Fiona's, inside her daughter's arm.

He lives around here, doesn't he?

Who? Fiona said.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Margo said.

Then mother took daughter's arm. They walked that way, those females, through the wrought-iron arched gate of Dog Shit Park.

Abandon all hope! Margo said, her large hand waving an arc under the wrought-iron arch,
TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK
, Ye who enter here!

This ain't no walk in the park! Fiona said.

Fiona's head-back laugh, just like her mother's.

Dave and Hunter and Gus and Harry and I followed.

Fuck Hope.

INSIDE DOG SHIT
Park, the trees were big shadows hanging in the wind above us. Through the low brush, a couple of small fires. Shadows sitting around the fires. What kept us walking was that Dog Shit Park still looked enough like a city park: winding sidewalks, benches along the side, lamp-posts from the turn of the century—some of them still working. Dave knew the name of the style of lampposts they were and who designed them. There were wrought-iron fences and gargoyles and lions and fountain stuff made out of concrete that Dave knew the names of too.

Margo's low heels on the winding sidewalk and Fiona's stilettos and leathers and chains were the only sounds beside the wind above us in the trees. Now and then low sounds from one of the small fires we passed by. I suppose we were about halfway through the park when Margo moved in closer to Dave and Fiona walked closer to me and Harry, and Hunter and Gus moved in closer too. None of us were talking, not even our leather tour guide, Fiona.

Then all at once, through the dark trees, out of the navy blue sky, a bright silver moon was above us.

Oh! Margo said, Look at the moon!

A gibbous moon, Dave said.

Right next to me, Harry looked up, the moon on his face, one of those immortal marble-statue expressions on Harry's face.

In all the world, there we were, the Macllvanes and Harry and me, huddled together in a clearing in Dog Shit Park staring up through
the trees, glow-in-the-dark statues in the silver light, staring at the moon.

I looked down, and right next to me, right by my leg in the silver light, on a bench were the faces of two children asleep under a black plastic bag.

Then through the trees and out of nowhere, out of the dark, just like that, all around us, under blankets, coats, clothes, canvas tarps, plastic, people of every color and size you can imagine sitting and lying on the benches, looking up at the moon.

This one woman lying on the bench next to Harry put out her hand, palm up. The moonlight on her palm.

Harry gave her a dollar.

She said, Thank you. She had no teeth.

At the band shell, a sign was stretched across the stage. There was a fire burning in a barrel just under the sign, the red letters, red paint running down.

HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS
.

The moon in the navy blue sky, the wind in the trees, the red dripping words
HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS
floating back and forth, back and forth, above the barrel of fire.

Under the banner, huddled around the fire, people, hundreds of people, lying on the ground.

My God! Dave said. I can't believe this!

Dogs were running all over.

No Charlie 2Moons.

Harry and I took the lead. The winding winding sidewalk. We came to a place where the lamppost was working, shining silver light out, a closer moon, silver light through the leaves, shadows of leaves—a place in a park under a lamppost just like the place in the park in the movie in Manhattan where Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dance in the light and the shadows and sing a romantic song.

In the lamppost's silver light was a woman hunched over on a bench. She had no hair. When she looked up, at first I thought it was the shadow, but then I could see, under her eyebrows around her eyes, was painted black. She was wearing nothing, no shoes. The woman's body was white arms and legs and thighs and breasts and shoulders naked. Skin on a body naked and glowing in the light.

A man in a ball cap with a stringy ponytail—he had all his clothes on—a gold ring on the side of his boot, was kneeling in front of the woman. A scarf was tied around her upper arm, a scarf around his upper
arm too. He was sticking the needle in the woman's arm, pushing the needle in, slowly up and down, side to side. They were making low heroin sounds.

The man looked up, his eyes scared rabbit in the headlights. Above us, birds flew out of a tree. What we saw in the man's eyes we all looked away from. We on the tour made a wedge, walked closer together, faster, counting every step, past the kneeling man and the naked woman.

When we were in the English elms, Avenue B almost right next to us, almost safe out of the park, we were all breathing easier. Harry O'Connor stood up on a bench. Behind Harry's head from where I was standing were the bright red letters: Life Café.

Harry raised his arms, cleared his throat dramatically. Margo, Fiona, Dave, Hunter, Gus, and I looked up at Harry with all the hope of theater to lay bare the human heart.

Quiet only New York can get that fast.

Harry's Irish tenor booming through the English elms, through the park, out all over Manhattan. Harry sang:

I'll be homeless for Christmas,
You can forget about me.
Reagan got my dough,
And I'm so po'.
Were peasants throughout the country.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where food stamps redeem.
I'll be homeless for Christmas—
If only this all was a dream
.

Just like that, applause and cheers from the crowd underneath the juniper bush.

Harry bowed deeply.

I put my arm across Harry's legs to hold him steady.

Margo and Dave and Hunter and Gus and Fiona and I—we all looked at each other in the silver light and laughed at the surprise applause and cheers from the crowd under the juniper bush.

In all the world, two liberal Democrats, two YUFAs, a leather dominatrix, Harry and I and a world of homeless people, everybody clapping clapping.

Standing ovation.

* * *

THINGS START WHERE
you don't know.

You're going this way and then shit happens and then you're going that way.

That's when the heroin guy, gold ring on his boot, jumped from nowhere out of the bushes. Out of the navy blue night, just like that, he was a dark figure between us and the mercury-vapor light on Avenue B, his ball cap, his ponytail bouncing.

Harry was still standing on the bench. Dave and Hunter and Gus quick stepped in front of Margo and Fiona—Dave in the middle, Hunter on one side, Gus on the other. The men locked their arms together.

Fuck this shit! Fiona said, and pushed Hunter or Gus aside, stepped out in front, next to Harry on the bench, behind me.

The heroin guy was yelling something. I didn't know what he was yelling. I knew it was English and it was loud and you could see spit come out of his mouth with the light the way it was, and also you could see the bruises and purple bumps on his arms and you could see he was weaving back and forth.

Then: This is my home! the guy was yelling. Fucking yuppies get out of my park!

The wind in the English elms, the mercury-vapor light through the leaves, pieces of light the color from another incarnation moving moving all over the ground, around us.

The guy stepped or tripped forward even closer to me, and the light was plain as day on the knife blade side to side, up and down.

I could smell the guy, he was that close.

First the eyes. His eyes in between, somewhere else. Not on the premises. And then his smile, the light on the knife blade hand to hand, back and forth, up and down under his smile.

His smile, that smile. A finger drawing a circle around my heart. Ruby Prestigiacomo, what am I going to do with you?

Just what the fuck is so fucking funny? Ruby said, looking up at Harry on the bench. What the fuck you singing about, man? Ruby said. These are my people!