Ladies' Man (18 page)

Suddenly I felt as though my surroundings were mocking me, my travel plans—but it was a different type of embarrassment than the phone call shame—it was a sobering embarrassment. This was what Europe would be for me—Kenny the loner, slurping cappuccino, going to movies and debating whether to try to score or not. Europe. Wherever I could go, I would take my head with me. I felt like I was sitting there sipping my cappuccino under false pretenses, like I was on the lam, laying low from reality in that two-bit Parisian Disneyland. Like if the two pussies from the circle jerk place were reality cops and they were stalking Broadway and Seventh Avenue looking for me, I could have hid right where I was with all the other cinema fans.

On the lam. On the
double
lam. If I ever ran into Jackie di Paris again I would be so much hamburger: The guy gets a call, gets dragged down to Times Square and then gets stood up. If that was me I'd turn head-hunter. On the lam. My whole
life
was lived on the lam. All I ever did was grab a chick and hide out, lay low. What the hell was I afraid of? Even when I wasn't living with a chick, when I was living with those guys, all I ever did was try to figure out how not to be there. All I ever did was maneuver for an opening, a space away from them all. That was the reason I started working income tax with my uncle—so I could be in an earning position strong enough to move out, to live alone—to go into hiding. "I need my space, my privacy." I had it in spades, my space. And I did right by calling up Jackie di Paris. I fucked it up for sure, but I was on the right track.
I
needed people. I didn't even have senile pinochle partners to buddy with. Something told me it was going to be a bitch of a straggle because laying low sounded like a real fine idea most times, but there was more to be had, there was more to be had. And I wasn't the only one. I looked around the room—at least half the people there looked like rejects from
The Fugitive
. All the old ladies, the Lincoln Center dancers, bassoon players, Columbia University instructors, professional Communists, used-book-store owners. We were
all
on the fucking lam. Everybody there might not be biding from a nude twat with a microphone or an enraged postal clerk, but whatever they
were
hiding from, if those reality cops were going to pull tip front to raid that joint they had better bring with them some king-sized paddy wagons.

I took a cab home. When I got to my door I couldn't find my keys. Then I remembered putting them on the floor of the stroke booth so they wouldn't jangle when I jerked off. After kicking the door for twenty minutes like an enraged baboon I called a locksmith. I could have gone back down to Times Square and found them, but I was afraid if I walked into that booth again I would never come out.

The locksmith was a young dude about my age but he had shoulder-length hair and tiny round glasses that reminded me of one of the artists I sold the stuff to on Spring Street. He had my door open in three minutes, changed the cylinder in another five and gave me new keys. Set me back thirty-five bills. I invited him in for a cup of coffee but he declined. After he left, I got the first solid night's sleep in a week.

Thursday morning came on like the weatherman remembered it was February. The wind was a sidearm bitch and as I made coffee my windows were moaning like kazoos. When I got downstairs the bus stop and parking regulation poles were jerking back and forth like they were in a tug of war. Loose trash and newspapers skipped down the street faster than taxis.

I took a bus down to the diner and did some oatmeal with the boys. Al lent me an extra case for the day. I laid on them the story of my two-hundred-dollar sale in the loft and I got back the expected barrage of
Daily
News-mentality comments on long hair and artists. At first I got into my attitude about being the wise owl among the birdbrains and feeling sorry for myself, but then, I figured, I knew how they were going to respond
before
I brought the whole thing, up, and then when they did I wound up down on them and sorry for myself. So, question—why did I bring it up to begin with? What was I trying to prove? These guys were clods, artists were from Saturn, and in the middle was me, a man without a country. Poof me.

The free sample of the day was a small, round, rubber-spiked scalp massager that fit into the palm of your hand.

Due to the wind-chill factor I decided it would be a good day to find an enormous building that would take from nine to five to go through and picked a twenty-story affair on Charles Street. I had worked it before; it was decent enough. The only problem was that it was a doorman building. Technically doormen weren't allowed to let solicitors inside but some you could slip two, three dollars to and they would go for "coffee in their minds. Once I swung a bribe with a doorman I never" forgot his name. When I came back six months later I could greet, him like a long-lost friend, kibitz, laugh, slip him his money and get down to work. Heavy warmth always blew people away and if you came on friendly to most people, they would walk your dog through a minefield for you.

The doorman at Charles Street was an Irish dude named Phillip. The last time I was there he showed me the Silver Star he'd won at Okinawa, told me about his family, half here, half in Ireland, and after we bullshat for a while hipped me to which tenants were more likely prospects than others. He even hipped me to which tenant would probably give me a blowjob if I played my cards right. What he failed to tell me about that tenant was that he was a guy. I had gone through the building savoring and saving 10J for last and when I knocked on the door some dude answered who looked like my barber.

After breakfast, I took a ride with Jerry, and he dropped me off on his way to the Lower East Side. Before heading for the building I slipped into a luncheonette on the corner and bought a coffee to go.

"Hey, Phillip!" I grabbed his hand while he was still trying to place my face. "Remember me?"

Phillip was thin, fiftyish, wore a dark blue uniform and tortoise-shell glasses.

"Oh! Yer the Bluecastle House fellah!" He gripped my hand harder. "Yes the guy ay sent up to Ten-J." He laughed. His voice had a high biting leprechaun inflection like a voice-over on a TV ad for Irish tourism.

"Yeah, yah bastad." I lightly punched his arm. "But
I'll tell you, you were right on target." I winked and for a second a saints-preserve-us look crossed his face. "Hey! I'm kiddin'!" We both laughed. Me in reassurance, him in relief.

I handed over the coffee. He took it like a gift for Father's Day. "Here you go, it's cold outside."

"That's kind of you." He smiled, bobbing his head in thanks as he placed it on his small lobby desk next to a miniature TV.

"Okay, Mr, Phil, I'm gonna get to work." I clasped his hand again with both of mine, slipping a five into his palm, and walked toward the elevator.

"Oh!" I backtracked and took out a scalp massager from my pocket "Here." On the back was a plastic loop to slip around your middle finger for a better grip. "You see, you slip in your sazeech like this"—I put my pinky in the loop, then flipped over the massager to the rubber-spiked side—"so when you're schtupping with the old lady she'll come like summer rain." I left him examining it in his hands.

It was another good day. I averaged a sale a floor for the top ten floors and by noon I'd totaled sixty dollars. I did some lunch in an egg restaurant, then took a cab the four blocks to a high-rise on Fourteenth Street and by four o'clock I'd collected another fifty dollars' worth of orders.

When I got home, the
Post
was curled up in its spot on the doorknob like a daily reminder of "Whatcha gonna do
tonight
, Kenny?" The apartment was dark even though it was twenty minutes shy of five o'clock. I hung up my suit, put on dungarees and a sweatshirt, flopped on the bed with the paper and turned on the cartoons.

Beach Red
was still playing at the Little Carnegie, but
The Loves of Isadora
was gone. Instead the second feature was
Anzio
. Now that made sense at least. I laid on my stomach and watched cartoons with one eye. I buried one side of my face in my pillow. My arms were straight down my sides and I felt a trickle of drool slip over one corner of my mouth and spot my pillow. Sit-ups. Go do your sit-ups.
You
go do your sit-ups. The phone rang and I almost slammed my head through the wall. La Donna. Parents.

"Kenny?" A familiar male voice but I couldn't place it.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, it's Donny."

"Donny!" I jumped up and clicked off the TV. "How you doin', man?"

"Pretty good, pretty good. Whacha up to?"

"Not a thing," I blurted.

"Listen, Kenny, they painted my crib this morning an' these fuckin' fumes are makin' me nauseous. I can't open the windows cause a the cold an' the fuckin' heat's on like full blast."

"Hey, you wanna come up?" I would have begged
Trim
to come up.

"Well, I was thinkin' maybe you could invite me up for dinner if you were a real nice guy and not a fuckin' prick, or even if you
were
a fuckin' prick maybe we could at least eat out someplace."

"Hey, Donny, come on up." I was grinning and my skull was pounding with joy. "You know where I live?"

"You sure it's cool? You think you better check with your old lady?"

"She ain't here, it's no problem. You got the address?"

"Yeah. Listen, I'll pay for the food."

"Get fucked. You know how to get here?"

"What, the uptown local?"

"Seventy-ninth Street, walk down to Seventy-seventh, I'm three buildings up from the deli on Broadway. Two ten West, apartment ten B."

"What, in about two hours?"

I squinted at the digital. "It's ten after five. Figure seven, okay?"

"You got it."

"I'll make nice… You like chicken?"

"Hey, do beavers piss on flat rocks?"

"Maybe after we'll go downtown, do a movie, get laid." I winked to the phone.

"Sounds good, my man."

"Awright! At seven, Donny."

"Hang in there, kid."

I hung up, snapped my fingers. "WAAO!" I yelled and started dancing with my shoulders. I felt like a million big ones. I ran into the kitchen. I had plenty of vegetables but the chicken was frozen. I would have to run down to the supermarket. I turned on some lights. I couldn't help dancing. I ran down the foyer in my stockinged feet and slid into the front door, did an about face and slid into the living room. Isaac Hayes on the machine. I held my fist in front of my mouth and did the whole midnight show. Then I straightened up the living room. My joint was always neat so in fifteen minutes I was heading out the door. I felt so goddamn good I didn't even feel the cold. It was like the first few weeks with La Donna. I picked up chicken thighs, a can of bread crumbs. Next door at the liquor store I got a bottle of Bolla Valpolicella. I hated wine but it seemed like an adult purchase for a dinner. I wasn't sure I had a corkscrew so I bought one at a hardware store on Broadway. By six I was whacking up a salad in the kitchen and double-dipping the chicken thighs in bread crumbs and eggs. By six-thirty the salad was covered and in the refrigerator, the breaded chicken was laid out in a baking pan in the unlit oven, the salad dressing was sedimenting in an old fashioned glass on the counter and the dining table was set like a window display for tableware in Bloomingdale's. I put a package of frozen broccoli in the sink, washed up and slipped into some leisure threads which would show off the fantastic shape I kept myself in. I put John Coltrane on the changer. Even though I only had a slight interest in jazz, it seemed to me, like the wine, the thing to do.