Love Monkey (10 page)

The waitress comes back with our drinks. At the next table two white guys and a black guy sit down and start arguing about sports. One of them, the biggest, is wearing a backward baseball cap. It's a look that says, “I'm so proud to have made it to the first rung of Wall Street that I'm prepared to spend up to fifty dollars tonight.” The big guy banters strenuously with the waitress. I watch. I love seeing other guys strike out.

Julia lets out another puff of smoke. It corkscrews over her head. Everything she does has this style to it.

“So how was the movie?” she says.

“It was okay,” I say. “I like old movies better.”

Her eyes widen. “You are so right. I don't understand why there's one theater that shows old movies and a hundred theaters that show new movies. Isn't that so ass backwards? I mean, if you go in a bookstore, they have a table full of new stuff in front, and the whole rest of the store is old books.”

“Same with CD stores.”

“Does everything have to be so relentlessly
now
?” she says. “I
wish everything would slow down. I wish time would start moving
back
wards.”

“Well. As Woody Allen said, that would mean I'd have to sit through the Ice Capades again.”

“I like getting older,” she says. “I just want history to go back. There's a lot of stuff I missed. The Beatles. JFK.”

“Let's fight it.”

She smiles. “Yes, shall we? But how.”

“Never read a book that's less than ten years old.” Easy for me. I don't read much anyway.

“
Yes.
And only black-and-white movies.”

“Unless they have Steve McQueen in them.”

“Mmm,” she says. “Or Hugh Grant. Or Jack Nicholson.”

“You can't like Hugh Grant and Jack Nicholson,” I say. “That's like me saying I want to marry either Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe.”

She shrugs. “At least I want to sleep with the
liv
ing, Grandpa.”

“Maybe you don't know what you want.”

“Sure I do. Somebody who's like Hugh when I want him to be like Hugh and like Jack when I need that.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. “And how are the young bucks supposed to figure out today's mood?”

“That's just the thing,” she says, blowing more smoke. “If you can't
read
, don't pick up the book.”

She looks exactly like Gloria Grahame when she says this. The turned-up nose schooled in long-distance bullshit detection. The way she cocks that eyebrow of hers. You should never cock a weapon indoors. Somebody could get hurt.

“Do you know,” I venture, “who Gloria Grahame was?”

She half-closes her eyes. Her mouth falls into a lopsided grin. She looks as if she's entered a trance. “She was the haunted drunken diva in
The Bad and the Beautiful
. She was my favorite
character in
Oklahoma!
, for God's sake. The Girl Who Can't Say No. That was the
best
song. ‘Every time I lose a wrestling match, I get a funny feeling that I won.' She must have been the first character ever in the history of the movies to make it okay and fine to be a total slut. She didn't have to pay for her sin in the end. She didn't go crazy or get killed.”

“You kind of remind me of her,” I say.

“Do I now?”

This earns me another drink.

“I could never figure out Gloria Grahame,” I say. “You always got the feeling that she could end up marrying the hero, or—”

“Or garroting him,” she says. “She was like a more fem Lauren Bacall. Oh,
oh
. Do you know
In a Lonely Place
?”

“Know it? Memorized it.”

“That little speech he gave her, do you remember it?” she says.

“Sure. In the car. ‘I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me.' ”

“And,” Julia says, taking a big philosophical drag, “ ‘I lived a few weeks while she loved me.' I love hard-boiled despair.”

“The look on her face when Bogart tells her that,” I say. “That face could imply anything.”

“So right. Why speak when you can imply?”

Spoken like a true grab bag.

“What are you doing at
Tabloid
?”

“Please,” she says. “The
Southeastern Connecticut Poetry Review
doesn't pay.”

“Maybe there's poetry in what we do. We're just trying to get the rhythm of the massacre. The song of squalor.”

“I'll bet you can write,” she says, lighting another cigarette.

“I earn a nice living at it,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow.

“What?” I say.

“No. I mean,
write
.”

Poof. A little guilt dart hits me in the throat. There are times when I've thought about growing up, cashing in however many talent chips I have, getting down to work. But there's always something good on TV.

“Maybe I will, sometime,” I tell her.

“Will you write a story about me?” she says.

“No,” I say.

She looks hurt.

So I say, “You could only be a novel.”

Save! And the crowd goes wild. I've won another drink. I catch her looking at me in a different way.

“What's with that look?” I say.

“Nothing. It's just, I don't know. You're one of the few redheads I've met who doesn't have that disgusting orange hair.”

“Umm, thanks?”

“No offense, of course.” She puts a hand on my hand and gives me the look of the big-bucks newswoman in the primary-colored jacket who gets paid to make people cry.

I look at her hand, hoping it'll stay there a while. “You wish you had it,” I say. “Don't you.” My hair would look much better on a girl. All girls wish they had red hair. Sometimes I think the only reason any of them ever go out with me is that they're plotting to shear me in the night and make a run for it to the wig shop.

She laughs. Reclaims her hand. “I could do a lot with your hair.”

“You're looking at me like a German shepherd looks at a steak.”

“I like your nose, too,” she says.

“Oh. Well that, you can have.”

“Okay. Now you have to pay me a compliment.”

This throws me. Where do I begin? With the
a
's?

“Why?” I say.

“I just gave you two of them.”

“ ‘Not disgusting' is a compliment?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let me think about this.” I look at the floor. I look at the ceiling. I tuck my chin down and look up at her shyly. “Julia,” I say. “Honestly? I have to be serious for a second. Of all the girls I've known—”

I think she's holding her breath.

“You're one of many who does not make me puke.”

She laughs. But she looks a little relieved.

“You still owe me one, you jerk,” she says.

“And you have mysterious eyes,” I say.

That half smile again. As she starts to doodle with a crayon.

“That'll do,” she says.

“Draw a picture of you,” I say.

“Okay, but you have to do one of you,” she says.

I take a crayon out of the little glass jar and start sketching out an epic. I can't draw. There are a lot of things I can't do. This does not stop me from trying to do them.

I'm trying to see what she's doing but she's blocking me.

“Uh-uh-uh,” she says, without looking up from her work.

I'm drawing a massive stadium. A cheering throng. The perspective always kills me. I need an eraser.

She's switching crayons. “Gimme a yellow,” she says.

“Almost done with it,” I say. “What are you drawing?”

“Shhh,” she says. “Genius at work.”

The guys at the next table are looking. The closest guy to me, a guy in a snazzy suit and overly shiny shoes, taps me on the elbow.

“Excuse me,” he says, with four-margarita authority. “I have a question for you.”

“Not now,” I say.

“Just one question,” he says.

“Leave us alone,” I say, giving him a look. “
Seriously
. I mean it.”

“Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?”

Big laughs from the I-can-tie-my-own-tie table.

Julia looks up.

“Hey,” says the black guy. “Didn't I see you at recess?”

They laugh some more. This time they all slap each other's body parts. Julia keeps her head down.

“Please,” I say.

“Buddy,” says the third guy, a really huge piece of meat. “Ask your little daughter if she wants to suck on my lollipop.”

Julia pretends not to hear this either.

“Enough,” I say. Looking the third one in the eye. The big guy.

“Ooooh,” he says. “Whatcha gonna do?”

I don't say anything. I keep drawing.

“Done!” Julia says.

“Let me see,” I say.

“You first,” she says.

So I show her. Me with rippling muscles, calf-high boots, a shield, a sword. Long red hair flowing out underneath my helmet. The crowd adores me. The lion and the tiger are in midleap. I don't look worried. I smile the cruel smile of a hardened killer.

“That's ex
act
ly how I see you,” she says. “Only why do you appear to have a learning disability?”

“That's my rakish grin,” I say.

“I'd say more of a maniacal leer,” she says.

“Guess you don't know steely-eyed determination when it's staring you in the face,” I say.

“Goofy-eyed, with possible lack of bowel control, is what I'm seeing,” she says.

“Hey,” says the black guy at the next table. “Hey. Pi
cas
so.”

I ignore them. Julia looks uncomfortable.

“Hey,
Rem
brandt,” says the suit.

“What?” I say. The drinks are settling in. Feeling a bit feisty.

“You do nudes too? Of her?” says the suit.

Julia looks deeply uncomfortable.

“You're being rude,” I point out to the gentlemen.

“Hey,” says the big guy. “Hey,
Shakes
peare. Can I have your autograph?” he says.

Shakespeare?

“Sure,” I say. I lean over to the table of mirth and take one of their crayons out of their little jar. On their butcher paper, I write, in the most elegant and painterly script I can manage, “Gogh.”

“ ‘Gogh,' ” says the big oaf. “That's it? You only got one name?”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I say. “I forgot the rest of my name.” And I lean over and add, “Fuck yourself.”

You can probably guess what happens next.

“What's that supposed to mean?” says the big guy.

“Pardon my French,” I say.

Now Julia looks afraid. All three of the guys stand up. I stand up too.

“Listen, buddy,” says the suit, poking me in the chest. “Don't you see us? Can you count to
tres
?”

The suit and the black guy are about my height. I look from one to the other. “Maybe,” I say. “Why don't we step outside and discuss it?”

The three guys confer for a second. And then they laugh.

Julia looks alarmed.

“Yeah,” I say. “You'll probably win. Eventually. But I guarantee that by the time it's done, I'm going to put one of you in the hospital. Who's it gonna be?”

They just stand there for a second. I sit down and have another sip.

They sit down. “Why don't you just chill,” says the suit.

“We'll just forget all about it,” I say. “Right after you apologize to my friend.”

They grumble a little. Julia gives me a crooked smile of relief.

“Yeah, you're right,” says the suit. “We were outta line.” And they go back to advising each other on how to manage the New York Mets.

Julia's eyes widen. She exhales as if she's been underwater for several minutes. “Well!” she says. “Do you know where the bathrooms are?”

I point the way. She passes behind me. Then stops and puts a hand on my shoulder. She leans over till I can feel her breath settling on my earlobe. “You
brute
,” she whispers.

As soon as she's gone, the suit nudges me. “Hey,” he says.

“So great,” I say. I swear my eyes are warm, as if I've been staring into a fireplace all evening.

“She's hot,” says the black guy. “What do you think, Mike?”

“Most hot,” says Mike, brushing something invisible off his suit.

“She's okay,” says the big guy.

I glare at him.

“Ned, this is Tom,” says Mike.

“So,” says Shooter. “You getting this tab or what?”

“I said two rounds. For you and
one
accomplice. You almost blew it with the gorilla.”

“What are you talking about?” says Shooter.

“You don't think it looks a little ridiculous, me offering to take on two guys my size plus King Kong over there? You oversold the gag.”

“It's called
at
mosphere, Tom,” Mike says. “He was in my brother's frat.”

“I thought he'd be perfect,” says Shooter. “Look at him. The man exudes Wall Street dickhead. Christ, he even went to Florida State.”

“Florida,” says the hulk.

“I can tell he went to Florida. That's not the point,” I say.

“How do you know I went to Florida?” says Ned.

“Your baseball cap,” I say. “Your jacket. And is that a gator on your watch?”

“What's wrong with Florida?” says Ned, who looks even bigger now that he's standing.

“Sit, you animal,” Shooter says. “What was
up
with that Shakespeare shit?”

“All right, all right, everybody,” Mike says. In college, he used to tell everybody he was going to be a UN diplomat someday. He always wanted to charm his way out of violence. Which is why Shooter and I have long considered him a bit of a pussy.