Ladies' Man (21 page)

"Naw." My underwear was damp. I moved up a step, then down a step.

"Well, I
can
sing, but it's
hard
, Kenny! It's hard. But you make it worse. You're breathing down my neck, thinking I suck, you
smother
me, Kenny!"

"Naw." Again, a bleat.

"I know what happened Monday. It was a
clown
show, and Sunday's showcase is gonna be
another
clown show. Maybe I got a hundred clown shows after that. But I was
good
Monday night! And Sunday I'll be
better
! And I'll be better and better and soon those assholes are gonna stop laughing!"

"I know," I said weakly.

"I don't ever want you to see me sing again, 'cause you don't
want
me to make it! You don't
believe
in me, you don't
care
about me, you don't
love
me."

"I do." A squeak. I felt myself starting to cry, not sad tears but the panicky stop-stop-please-stop tears that my rageball mother used to reduce me to when I was six. I began squirming.

"All you care about is my cunt! And you can't figure out
why
I don't wanna fuck with you anymore? Well, then
you're
the helpless one!
You're
the stupid one.
You're
the goddamn
Bluecastle House
man!" She started bawling, doubling over in a half-crouch as if she had stomach cramps. "I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna make it!"

My face melted down like a Greek tragedy mask. I stood six steps below her in my own weeps.

"I'm gonna make it too," I said halfheartedly. Nightmare of sadness. I slowly backed down a step, hoping I would slip and smash the back of my head. "I think you're a good singer," I whispered weakly, lamely.

She turned, went inside and slammed the door.

"I'm gonna make it too, La Donna."

I stood there like Dondi. At some point I turned and started walking down Eighty-eighth Street lost in thought, dragging my feet like I had had a stroke. Behind me came a sharp wooden whack. I ducked. La Donna shouted "Kenny!" When I wheeled around she was flying down the street to me.

"Yah!" I shouted. The brownstone door was swinging back and forth on its hinges. Before I could raise my arms she grabbed me around the ehest and bear-hugged, her chin drilling into my collarbone.

"Oh, Kenny, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was horrible to say to you what I said. I'm
so
sorry, baby. I'm so crazy. Everything's got me
so
scared."

"It's okay, baby. It's okay." I laughed with joy. I didn't want to waste time hugging her. I wanted to break free, snag a cab and take her home. I saw a Checker and tried to hail it, but La Donna wouldn't let go.

"No, Kenny, no." Like we were in bed.

"What?" . "No, not yet, Kenny."

"It's cold, baby." I laughed uneasily.

"I'm not going back yet, Kenny. Please, the other stuff I said is real. I need time, Kenny. I need some time. I really do, I really do…" Her chin was still nailed to my chest, her eyes angled upward at me, wet and desperate. She started talking fast and crazy as if I was an executioner who could sometimes be bribed.

"I want this so bad. I can't with us… We're not… We're like… We're not
happening
, we're fighting, and I can't da both. I need to concentrate. We're not
helping
each other. You need time, too, Kenny. You got to figure things out, too."

What time. What. No good. No goddamn good. "What… How much time?" Twisting my face, blurting the question like a six-year-old's "AmIgonnagettaneedle?" Three empty cabs and two buses floated downtown past us.

"I don't know!" She released me and her hands fluttered and swooped like trapped birds in front of my chest, I grabbed them. Her palms were spongy with sweat. She wasn't wearing a coat It was freezing,

"Oh please, Kenny. I know you love me. You just don't… Hove you too, I do, but can't you '
see
, we're not, can't you
see
. Every day is like—look,, I'm not doing us justice now. I need this space. I'll come back. I
swear
it, Kenny. Please? Please?" Begging. She made me feel as if I was doing something horrible to her. I backed away as if to deny responsibility. I'm no monster. Don't make me into a monster.

"Sure, sure." I shrugged, backpedaling. "I understand. Sure."

She calmed down and caught her breath. Rubbed her arms across her chest. "Kenny, I just need to be selfish now. I don't have enough in me for you- and what I want to do. Let me just get something going. Then we can…"

"Just tell me how long." Splotchy islands of perspiration sprouted on my stomach and chest. I felt like barking and scratching myself behind my ear with my foot "A day, a week, three months, what… ? Gimme something to hang it oh, okay? Gimme some mother-fucking perspective, okay? Because…"

"I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!" she whisper-whined, crouching and jumping up and down like a little girl having to pee.

"Okay. Okay. Okay." I moved forward, then backward, hand up. "Relax, sweetie, it's okay." My mind was going a mile a minute. I didn't want her to leave. I didn't want to go home alone. "Can I just tell you something?"

"What?" She didn't hear me. Her eyes were all over the place. She started walking back and forth, her face slashed with her imprisonment to my presence.

"Can I just tell you something?" I repeated halfheartedly.

"What!" She danced in place. She wouldn't have heard a word I said. Shit Shit shit shit. "Never mind. It's okay." Defeated, I extended my arms for a paternal bon voyage hug.

She grabbed me again, her chin finding the same spot, squeezed until she trembled. I could smell sweat "I love you, Kenny. Thank you, my loves," She sprang away from me and trotted back to the brownstone.

I stared at my shoes as they chewed up the pavement, one after the other. Thank you, my love. Thank you, my love. When I finally looked up I had hoofed it to Seventy-ninth and Broadway. What the hell did I ever do that was so goddamn bad she had to do
Prisoner of Zenda
takes on me? You want to fly? Take off. Don't lay it on me. Damn, I'm more lay back than death. Don't lay it on me.

It's just as well I didn't tell her what I wanted to. I wanted to share a memory with her. It would have been inappropriate. If it clicked with her it would have been dirty pool, and if she didn't respond I would have folded like a chaise longue right on the street corner. I wanted to remind her of the first time we said "I love you" to each other. It was our first night back in New York after LA. She was staying over at my place. We were in bed, heavy and cozy after a slow-motion ball. I was lying on my back. She was on her side curled into me, her nose nuzzling and burrowing into my armpit to find a comfortable spot for sleep. The covers were up at her neck and my chest. I had never felt so safe and capable of protecting someone. I said, "I love you." She said, "I love you." And there it was, as natural and as un-self-conscious as baby breath. It was so simple, the timing so perfect, neither of us remembered saying it for days afterward.

Her "I love you, Kenny. Thank you, my love" was a pile of bullshit. She could have squeezed me till my ribs cracked, stuck her tongue down my throat until she tasted my dinner. It was bullshit—it was a hug of relief; she was getting away from me. "Thank you, my love." She never said "My love" like that, like a ham actress. Okay. So I'm Kenny Solo for a while again. I can handle it. Until she gets straight. Until
she
gets straight.
Dig me
.

And who the hell did she think
she
was? I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it.
You're
the goddamn Bluecastle House man. Fuck
you
, bitch. If it wasn't for me, if I wasn't
paying
for Bossanova, if, what ungrateful… She didn't have to worry about me wanting her to fail—that attitude of hers would bomb her out soon enough. I hoped she made it. G'head, make it, bitch. I'll die of vitamin deficiency sitting front row center your opening night at the Winter Garden, with a big goddamn sign on my chest. "I would've eaten but I had to pay for singing lessons." No goddamn joke. Don't yell at me. You want to talk to me then you talk, but don't goddamn yell at me like everything's black and white. Screwy bitch, that's not right. Maybe I did think she shouldn't go on with her singing but that was for her own goddamn good.

It was my delivery day, which meant I had to go out to Long Island City to the warehouse to pick up the orders I took that week and spend all day backtracking my sales, delivering goods and collecting money. I rented a neighbor's car every Friday for ten bucks, the only time I needed my own wheels. Otherwise I was a staunch believer in what my old man used to say: "If you can't get there with five dollars' worth of cab, then it ain't worth goin'."

I hated Long Island City. It was the ugliest place north of hell—factories, warehouses, grit, shit and cars. I usually went there early because if I showed up at eight-thirty-like most of the salesmen I would never get
Bluecastle House then I ran into the better the day would be.

But as much as I hated Long Island City, I loved getting there. Since I so rarely drove a car, I always got a rush revving up my neighbor's Mustang, pulling out into early morning Manhattan and cruising as bad as I could be over the Queensboro Bridge. That Friday I could have just kept going, done a wheelie on the bridge like Roy Rogers goosing Trigger, whipped around and headed west I could've hooked up with some roadside diner waitress in New Mexico, lived with her for two weeks, then moved on, hooking up with some young museum tour guide in Tucson. After her two weeks were up I would drive north to Seattle and do' two weeks with a young antique store owner. And then I would just keep going, two weeks affairs, two a month, twenty-four a year. Yessireebob. Just like some big fucking gerbil.

All the way to Long Island City I daydreamed about my roadside diner waitress in New Mexico. Had to be a divorcee, too.

I sat in the diner with the boys. The Mustang was triple-locked up the ass, double-parked in front, so I could watch it from the booth. It had $500 worth of merchandise piled in the trunk and the back seat.

I stayed put as Maurice, Jerry and Al filed out the door.

"You want some more coffee, Kenny?"

"Please."

Charlene poured me a cup, then sat across from me yawning into her hand. "Oh God, I didn't sleep at all last night." Her gypsy hoops gleamed in the sunlight She could have been anywhere from forty to sixty. "One a my kids got the flu. I was up all night." She massaged her neck.

"How old?"

"Huh?" Her chin was touching her chest.

"How old's the kid?"

"It's the little one, he's eleven."

"What's your husband do, Charlene?"

"Packy? Packy was a mover. He worked for a moving van company."

"What do you mean 'was,' you mean he retired?" Be cool.

"Packy? Oh no. I mean 'was' meaning we're divorced." Tilt.

"Huh." I sipped my coffee while she thumbed through the breakfast orders on her pad.

"You live in the Village?"