Ladies' Man (23 page)

I walked over to Ninety-third and Columbus, where we had lived. The
building
was there at any rate, but the windows were sheeted over with gray metal and the building entrance was plastered with posters for long-gone Latino concerts. I guess they didn't live there anymore.

I was out of a job. That was serious stuff. Come on, Kenny, let's get heavy here. I walked from Ninety-third Street to Twenty-eighth Street, worked up an appetite, decided to have a nice fish dinner. I was eating too much red meat anyhow. Walked back up to Columbus and Seventy-seventh Street. By walking I saved a dollar's worm of tokens.

I sat over my bluefish dinner remembering how much I hated fish. Behind me a gigantic plastic trout was mounted on a long oval board. To the left of me two thin faggots, one with a trimmed beard, discussed research grants. To the right, a young couple argued over a mound of steamers who
relatively
speaking had a better backhand, given the fact that she had been taking lessons for six years and he for less than a year.

What I hated most about eating alone in a restaurant was the embarrassment. It was like announcing publicly how fucked up you were. If you're eating alone, you should look for a place with a counter. Eating alone at a counter is less obvious. I'd bought a
Post
so I could at least bury my nose in something. I skimmed the classifieds. After two minutes I was sweating and felt like I was going to cry. I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging at the greasy strands. I had lost my job and I was all alone.

"Are you okay?" The waitress stood over me, her short blond hair wrapped in a blue paisley kerchief.

"No, I lost my job, and I'm all alone."

That took her aback.

"Oh, you poor baby."

"It's true. I just got fired and I don't have any friends. I got fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and that's the size of it."

She touched my arm. "Aw, I wish there was something I could do."

"You can go out with me after work."

"Naw, my boyfriend…"

"You can treat me to dessert then."

"Dessert comes with the dinner." - "Well, you can give me extra whipped cream on top. And I'll take it now."

She laughed, I laughed. "Just bring me my extra whipped cream." I turned to the movie page in the
Post
. I started reading the paper backward, skimmed the theater page. Then a whole page of announcements for singles' dances, mainly in Queens and Brooklyn, about half in synagogues. Not on your life. I needed something hipper, faster, looser. I didn't want to score in a bouse of worship. I needed a bar. A singles' bar. A singles' bar. It sounded like the first good idea I had had all night. A singles' bar. It was eight-fifteen. Early. I passed on dessert and trotted home. Young man. I was a young man. Strong. Tight. White. And ready to love.

I burst into my house like Eliot Ness, threw off my coat, dropped a Barry White and two James Browns on the machine, tore off the rest of my clothes, jumped into the shower and started to prep. No soap. That night I did Vitabath. It left a tangy essence. Organic Apricot Creme Rinse, Shampoo Gel and Conditioner. Three rinses, jump out. I had laid the bath towels on the radiator and they were as warm as muffins. James Brown was shrieking in the living room and I was standing in front of the mirror holding that fist mike, squeezing out high E over C, one shoulder up because
I
had a brand-new bag.
I
was gonna do the Mother Popcorn and
I
was going to a singles' bar where
I
was going to find
her
.

I shaved my face as carefully as if my skin were the turf around the eighteenth hole of a PGA golf course. Slapped Aqua Di Selva on my palms and drew my hands in a wet noose around the back of my neck, behind my ears and did a figure eight across my chest. Baking soda underarm spray. Talcum powder. I ran into the living room, raised the volume on the stereo, ran back into the John to do a twenty-minute hot comb. Into the bedroom where I slipped on white Jockeys. No good. Off they came and on went rust-colored bikinis. They made me look like I had acromegaly of the cock. I checked my front and profile in the full-length for possible paunch. Not a chance. Checked to see if I had a cute ass. Girls always notice a dude's cute ass. I was in business.

All the while I was fighting down a queasy feeling, as if I was about to reenlist or buy the Brooklyn Bridge. In the back of my mind I knew what I was doing, that I was blowing it again. Scared, I was trying to bury my brains by burying my dick. Trying to fuck my fear, but fuck it, I couldn't deal with it any other way. So there I was dressing to the nines and trying to feel like Tony singing "Tonight" in
West Side Story
. It was Las Vegas night in my heart, and I had selective amnesia.

I put on pearl gray continental slacks, a thick wool hot pink turtleneck and my black velvet sports jacket. I took off the jacket and changed the sheets on the bed to crisp cool chocolate browns, turned the reversible fake velvet bedspread from its print side to its solid beige side. Put on the jacket again, went into the kitchen, filled a brandy snifter with a triple shot of Lemon Hart white rum, a squirt of o.j., chugged
that
down for a nice buzz, went into the bedroom, pulled a college anthology of essays on modern theater from a shelf, dog-eared it in a few places, set it on my night table, turned off all but the dramatic lights and I was gone.

I had a nice buzz in the cab over to the East Side. I loved rum. I fantasized about buying a lot of good booze. Scotch, gin, rum, vodka, whiskey. It was good to have a well-stocked bar. A well-stocked bar. That phrase had a nice ring to it. It sounded substantial. Solid. I got off on Second Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street. Dirty Ernie's was supposed to be pretty good. It was set up as a fake English pub. There was sawdust on the floor and a dark-stained wooden chest-high room divider separating the place into a bar-pick-up area and a dining area. There were three tall bartenders—white shirts, thin ties, and towels hanging like miniaprons from their waists. A large color television over the bar.

It was nine o'clock. Too early. There were only two or three women and eight or nine guys. The guys freaked me out. They looked like they came from rural Canada. Pressed chinos, crisp plaid shirts buttoned to the neck, glasses that caught the entire bar, short, almost cowlicked hair. They stood there swaybacked, one hip higher than the other, their arms folded across their chests. They stared hard across the barren floor with weird frozen smiles as if girls were going to materialize out of the sawdust.

It was nine o'clock on a Friday night and those heart-breakers had been waiting for action for at least an hour. Them and me. Me in my velvet and continentals. It was nine o'clock and I was there, too. But I was different. I was special. They weren't me. No sir. No way. The girls were blue-ribbon hogs, but in that place any girl became a hot number. Every- woman was the last girl on earth. One chick had a bare midriff and it seemed as lust-inspiring and provocative as a bikini in midtown.

For the next hour I sat at the .bar, drinking rum and pretending to watch a basketball game which had orange guys against green guys. People started piling in. I was having a hard time getting rolling so I continued watching the tube. A lot of guys watched the tube, leaning against the bar or the room divider, their drinks tucked under their armpits like footballs. There was no sound on, but we all watched that fucking game with a burning intensity like we were politicos and the screen was flashing election results. I didn't even know who the hell was
playing
. My elation was taking a bath. Around me guys swamped girls like pigeons after croutons, blurting out lines so transparent and tacky that even
I
was offended. No wonder nobody ever got laid. I watched. I listened. I was an observer. A girl nearby, the brittle remains of an almost-melted ice cube floating on top of her half-hour-old drink, listened politely.

"I'm thinking about goin' back to work with George. You know, Harrison? I'm tired of Jaggers' crap.- George owes me from way back. He called me this morning but I wasn't in."

Her eyes darted like mice. A pocketbook dangled from the crook of her elbow.

A fat girl walked in wearing one of those bright green phosphorescent chokers that the spades were selling in Times Square. Her neck glowed in the dark. Guys around her were suddenly obsessed with science. Frowned intelligently, opened their come-ons with ques-tions about the chemical properties of phosphorescent paint.

I felt like I was coming down with lockjaw I felt so pulled into myself. I was a walking cave-in. A girl leaned against the room divider watching the game by herself. She was built like a bear but she was alone and if I didn't make a move in the next few minutes I knew I wouldn't make a move all night.

"This place is something else, huh?"

She made a noise.

"This, ah, this is my first time here. I'm, ah, on assignment. I'm writing an article for
Playboy
on sex. You wouldn't
believe
what I can write off as research, hah-hah." What the hell was wrong with me? What shine.

"Oh yeah?" She gazed over my left shoulder.

"Do you, ah, do you like basketball?"

" 'Scuse me." She split.

Who the fuck was she to walk away from me? I got laid more than God. I was deeper than the Pacific. I wouldn't even have
looked
at her outside of a shithole like this. If La Donna were ever to walk into a place like this, they would shit. They would die. She had more class, more presence, was more beautiful… If She came through that-goddamn door the silence that would fall over this place would be religious. What the hell was I doing this for? La Donna was royalty. I was used to royalty, subtlety, refinement. A night in the sack with me changed women's lives, gave new definitions to the word "desire." On assignment from Playboy—sweet Jesus.

The guy next to me was a hasty shaver. Tiny shreds of toilet paper stuck in festive red clots to his neck and chin.

The girls kept crowding in. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't think. I couldn't think. Everything I could have said sounded so fucking stupid. A pretty girl was talking to two chinks. Piss me off. Talk to me! Talk to me!
Please
don't make me say something stupid. I couldn't take it. Couldn't do it alone.

Every schmuck there had a partner. I needed somebody to laugh and elbow with. Slap palms with after I
blew it with a chick by saying I was cm assignment from
Playboy
. I needed reinforcements. I needed to pick up a gay first, a friend first,
then
some tail.

The place was now jammed. I went outside, found a pay phone and got Donny's number from Information. Nobody answered.

I walked over to a new place, Fahrenheit's. It had a different layout. There was no dining area, just a bar along one wall, several small tables and a dance area. On a raised platform a goateed guy played a guitar. He finished "Welcome Back Kotter," then jumped into a Mamas and Papas medley.

This place was less crowded; there was more space. No one was dancing. I bought a rum and o.j. A thin, sad-looking girl stared at the singer, her thumb hooked. over the top of her drink.

"You know, I've been standing here fifteen minutes wondering what to say, so I'm just gonna say that." I gave her a Mexican bandit grin.

She mumbled something and I was off and running.

"You know"—I winced seriously—"there are so many isolated people here. I can't tell what they want, what they need." I came on like Dr. Kenny's one-man sensitivity clinic. Her arms were folded as if she were cold. I stretched back to the bar to deposit my glass. When I turned back some guy had squeezed between us and was riffing on her like a demon.
Her
fucking loss. That was it. I started looking for a guy.

There were three prospects within ten feet of me. One was picking his nose, the other two weren't. One down. Both the other guys were good-looking dudes. The guy nearest me was my height, slim and blond. The other was shorter, more muscular and dark like me. I liked him better. He was dressed nice—tweed pants, two-tone shoes and a brown turtleneck.

"That guy's fucking horrible," I muttered to him and smirked in the direction of the singer.

He chuckled.

"This guy always play here?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I never been here."

"Oh yeah? Me neither." The guy sounded Brooklyn despite his Ivy threads and my accent degenerated until
I talked like an extra from
Marty
. "Beasts." I grimaced, scanning the women. "All fucking beasts. I'd like to dip their faces in dough and make animal crackers."

"They ain't all bad," he said mildly and I felt like a shit. They weren't all bad at all. He was a better person than me.

"You from Brooklyn?"

"Yeah." He smiled. "You?"

"Manhattan." I made it sound like Brooklyn. "Whereabouts in Brooklyn, Bensonhurst?"

"Bay Ridge, you know Bay Ridge?"

"Sure, my cousin lives in Bay Ridge. You know a guy named Mark Becker?"

He shook his head.

"My name is Kenny." I casually extended my hand. "Kenny Becker." I seemed more nervous introducing myself to this guy than I had been trying to score.

He took my hand briefly in a short shake. "Terry Saperstein. You know something, Kenny? You're right, this guy
is
fucking horrible," he sidemouthed.

I got a weird feeling of comfort when he said that. It was like the time Fat Al asked me what was wrong and called me by name in the diner that morning. Maybe Terry and I would become friends.

"It's fucking hard to get laid in here. All the fucking girls are in teams."

"Yeah." He smiled.

"It's like the reason girls come here in teams is so each one can make sure the other doesn't have too good a time." I jutted my chin at two pretty girls in dungarees and blazers. "Like those two trombones over there."

I bought another drink. When I finally got my change and turned around Terry was gone.

"Kenny, over here." Terry was sitting in between the two girls, an arm extended to me. He worked faster than the Flash. "Kenny, this is Felice, she's from Manhattan, too!" He offered me the girl with cupcake-sized tits and a Winky Dink smile.