Poles Apart (15 page)

“Hey. Those door handles. It’s no coincidence, right? I mean, it’s no fluke, you know, choosing those particular letters and putting them in that order?”

He smirked and shook his head.

“Man, the only fuckin’ fluke is that you’re still standing here. Now walk!”

I held up my hands in surrender.

“I’m walking, I’m walking,” I said, and hustled around the side of the building.

I passed by the fire escape up to my kitchen door and continued on to the loading dock. The big bay door was open. Light from inside and from two powerful security lamps mounted on the outside wall illuminated the elevated concrete outcropping. I stopped in the alley and looked up. There, bathed in light, was an absolutely gorgeous, tall, and shapely young woman, dressed in a Wonder Woman costume. Well, “dressed” might not be the right verb. Her suit looked as if it had been applied with a spray gun. To me, most people are tall. But I could see that even leaning on the railing, smoking, and reading a paperback, she was tall – easily taller than I. All that was missing was her golden lariat and invisible plane. (Well, for all I knew, her invisible plane could well have been parked right next to me.) Knowing now exactly what enterprise had moved in below my apartment, encountering Wonder Woman didn’t really surprise me at all.

Having written for cosmetic magazines for the preceding five years or so, I knew a professional job when I saw one. Her face was stunning, framed perfectly by flowing black hair. Her make-up seemed to light up her eyes, cheekbones, and lips from within. I just stood there, paralyzed by the art and beauty of her face. It’s also possible that what was revealed and concealed by her skimpy, skin-tight superhero suit may have played a minor role in my paralysis. I’m not proud of that. I was reminded yet again of the
conflict between my intellectual commitment to feminism and the more reflexive hormonal response of the primitive man still lurking somewhere inside me. It was troubling. I zeroed my eyes in tightly on hers and looked nowhere else.

“Um, excuse me. Sorry to interrupt your reading, but I live just upstairs, there.” I pointed up. “And I really need to speak to someone in charge.”

She sighed, lowered her book, and lifted her eyes to mine. She was even more striking when looking directly at me.

“Look, if you’re here to complain about the music, don’t even bother. Our psycho leader had it written into the lease that he could blast that mindless, relentless, soul-destroying, electronic shit, twenty-four seven. Sorry, you’re
SOL.”

“Well, I can’t say I love the music, but there’s a more, um, immediate issue,” I explained. “That big honking light fixture of yours is about to plummet to the floor.”

She pushed off from the railing, flicked her cigarette into the alley, and stood up. She must have been nearly six feet tall. In my mind, I recited the mantra. Focus on her eyes. Focus on her eyes.

“What are you talking about? What light fixture?” she asked.

I pointed up to my apartment window.

“It’s mounted up through my kitchen floor with a massive nut and bolt. But it’s coming loose, and squeaking and shaking. The thing’s going to come down if we don’t tighten it up. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

She moved her hand through her hair and then pulled her ebony mane right off her head. She hung the flowing black wig over the metal rail and then raked her own short, shiny, chestnut brown hair. She stopped, looked up at my kitchen door, then lowered her eyes along the wall of the building.

“Uh-oh. Is that bolt-thingy right up there, say, about eight feet in from that wall?”

I just nodded.

“Holy fuck!” she said. “And it’s coming loose?”

I nodded again. It was a little jarring to hear an F-bomb burst from the mouth of a bona fide superhero.

“Holy fuck!”

Still jarring the second time.

She turned and ran through the big loading-bay door. I hustled up the concrete steps and joined her in what turned out to be the kitchen. An open door off to the side revealed a long counter and a wall of rectangular mirrors, each with perimeter lighting. Three more scantily attired women were leaning forward in the chairs facing the mirror working on their faces. Next to the dressing room were double push doors, one with
In
stencilled on it, and the other with, as you might expect,
Out
. Several attractive women bearing trays of food were walking through the
Out
door while still more attractive women with trays of dirty dishes and empty glasses barrelled through the
In
door. Each time either door opened, the sound of a very large crowd and the infernal music spilled in.

Wonder Woman walked to the
Out
door and peered through its round porthole of a window. She motioned me over and pointed through the glass.

“That’s where the bolt goes up, right?”

I looked through but could see no heavy light fixture hanging from the ceiling.

“Where?” I asked.

She pointed again.

“Right there! Right in front of you.”

She was pointing directly at a polished chrome pole anchored at one end to the floor and at the other to the ceiling, around which gyrated, not one, but two of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. They both had long blond hair and were dressed in nothing but come-hither smiles, dangly earrings, and glowing perspiration. All was revealed in an instant. Literally. It all suddenly made sense. I finally understood. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m actually a quick study.

Just be calm, I told myself. Don’t react. Just relax. We’re all adults here. Just be calm.

“Holy shit!” I shouted. “There’s a stripper’s pole bolted to my kitchen floor!”

“Hey, we call it a dance pole.”

“Right. Sorry. Holy shit!” I shouted. “There’s a dance pole bolted to my kitchen floor!”

“Calm down!” she ordered. “We got to get it tightened before the Boobsey twins get hurt.”

“They call themselves the Boobsey twins?” I asked.

“Nah, that’s just what I call them.” She looked again through the porthole, then quickly swung open the
Out
door.

“Lewis!” she called over the music. “Lewis!”

She then waved her hand frantically and closed the door again.

Another gigantic black man stepped through the
In
door nearly knocking me back out onto the loading dock.

“So sorry, man. Are you okay?” he asked, helping me to my feet.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, massaging my shoulder. “Serves me right, standing right behind the
In
door.”

“No time for this!” Wonder Woman snapped.

“Right,” I said.

“Lewis kind of has a few roles around here. Mainly security, but also a little maintenance, a little unloading, and, um, some other services,” she explained to me. “Sorry, I don’t even know your name.”

“Everett. Everett Kane.”

“Shawna Hawkins. Nice to meet you.” Wonder Woman shook my hand before turning to Lewis. “So, Lewis, Everett lives upstairs. The dance pole goes up through his kitchen floor, and it’s coming loose. We need to tighten it up fast. Can you help?”

“Can I help?” he repeated, breaking into a broad smile. “That’s what I do! I help! That’s why I’m here.”

“Well, it’s got to happen now or Suzy and Tammy might end up impaled on the pole.”

“I’m not too sure what ‘impaled’ means, but I think I get the idea,” Lewis replied. “Is it a big nut on a bolt?”

I nodded.

“Hang on a sec.”

Lewis trotted over to the far side of the kitchen where a dark blue plastic toolbox rested on a low shelf. He flipped it open, grabbed a very large wrench, and headed for the loading dock.

“I’m on in ten, so over to you, boys.” Shawna waved as she disappeared into the mirrored dressing room.

I led Lewis up the fire escape and into the kitchen. The racket made by the loose pole was now much louder than it had been when I’d left the apartment ten minutes earlier. We didn’t have much time. I pushed the kitchen table out of the way, revealing the nut and bolt assembly. It was wobbling and hopping around almost as if two well-toned sisters might be swinging on the pole one floor below.

Lewis immediately sized up the situation and dropped to the floor, wrench poised.

“That nut only had a few turns left on it,” he said, as he cranked the wrench.

With each turn, the rattling and metallic squeaks softened until only the percussive beat of the music was left. He leaned into the wrench, straining. The nut and bolt were fused into one solid unit again.

“Crisis averted,” I said, as this giant pulled himself back to his feet.

“We didn’t meet formally downstairs,” I said. “I’m Everett Kane.”

“Great to meet the man upstairs,” he replied as he beamed. “I’m Lewis Small.”

“Your name is Lewis Small?” I said before thinking. “You don’t exactly live up to your name.”

“Yep, that’s my God-given name,” he said, the smile still fracturing his face. “I think it’d be way worse if I was a little tiny guy. No one really bugs me about my name.”

“I can’t imagine anyone bugs you about anything,” I said. “Just how big are you?”

He had the grace to laugh.

“Six-ten, 275.”

“Wow.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“You mean, how big am I?” I clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Well, um, I’m five-nine – you know, average height – and 160.”

“Yep. Just about what I figured,” Lewis said. “When you work security, you learn to size people up pretty quickly. You look taller, by the way.”

“You think?” I brightened. “Thanks. That’s what I’ve always thought, too.”

Although, when standing next to him, on tippy-toes, it felt like I was just tall enough to carry on an intelligent conversation with his navel.

Lewis, still smiling, was eyeing the rest of the apartment.

“Can I take a peek around?” he asked. “I’ve never been up here.”

“Sure. Help yourself.” You can go wherever you like, do whatever you want, I thought to myself. Stay as long as you like. It’s all entirely up to you.

He wandered around a bit.

“Hey, this is really nice, man. You’ve done a nice job up here.”

“Thanks. I’ve only been in a few weeks, so I’m still sorting out a few things,” I said. “So what exactly do you do for, you know,
XY?”

“My real job is security.”

“Really? I can’t imagine why they’d put someone like you on security.”

He looked perplexed for a second or two before he started chuckling and pointing at me.

“You’re a funny guy, Mr. Kane. I like you.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“Call me Everett, please,” I said.

“So, anyhow, Everett, I make sure nobody gets too out of control when it comes to booze and beer, and the girls. You know.”

“The women,” I interjected.

I must stop blurting things out without thinking them through, particularly when directed to a six-foot-ten, 275-pound giant, smiling or not.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just ignore me,” I replied. “Have you had to throw anyone out yet?”

“Nope. Most of them are pretty well behaved. I handed out a few warnings, but Mr. B screens members pretty good before letting them in. So everyone’s been cool so far.”

“Mr. B?” I said. “You mean Mason Bennington?”

“I just call him Mr. B.”

“Um, what’s he like?”

“Well, he can get a bit cranky. Sometimes a lot cranky, like tonight. But he’s been good to me. I got a job and that’s something. So I just roll with it. No skin off my nose.”

“What do you think he’s upset about tonight?” I asked.

“Who knows, man? He doesn’t say much to me, but something crawled up his ass this afternoon and really pissed him off.”

“You don’t say,” I said, wondering if I looked and sounded as casual as I hoped to.

He reached over and picked up the current issue of
Make-Up Artist
magazine from the coffee table in the living room.

“Hey, why do you have this?” he said, as he started to leaf through it. “Your girlfriend leave it here?”

“I wish I could tell you that my girlfriend had left it here, but that would presuppose the existence of a girlfriend.”

He looked a little puzzled again.

“Forget it. I mean I’m very single right now. And I write for that magazine, sometimes. Check out the story about the Broadway make-up guy toward the back.”

Lewis flipped through it and then stopped to read.

“Yeah, I wrote that piece.”

“No shit! So are you some kind of make-up hotshot?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? I can barely tell eyeliner from a sharpie. But I know how to string words together. I’m a freelance writer. I write for quite a few different, um, publications.”

“That is so cool, Ever-man! Wish I could write,” he said. “Hey, you don’t mind if I call you Ever-man, do you? I’m always making up nicknames for people. It’s kind of a thing of mine.”

“Lewis, has anyone in your entire life ever complained about a nickname you’ve given them?”

He looked at the ceiling for a few seconds with his brow furrowed.

“Nope. I don’t think so.”

“Right. I’d say you can call me whatever you like, whenever you like, and I’ll always answer in a polite and timely fashion.”

He laughed.

“You’re a funny guy, Ever-man,” he repeated. “Do you mind if I borrow this mag? Um, there might be some useful tips and stuff, you know, for the girls.”

“Wome–” I started, but caught myself and covered it with a cough. “I mean, no worries, of course. I’ve got quite a few cosmetics zines lying around. Help yourself.”

“Thanks, man,” he said as he pumped my hand and headed for the fire escape. “I better get back down there. It’s almost closing time.”

My hand tingled when he released it. I flexed my fingers to make sure I still had full mobility.

“By the way, I thought last call in Florida was 2 a.m.,” I said.

“It is. But Mr. B set us up as a private men’s club. We don’t have to follow the same liquor rules as bars. Works out pretty well for us,” he said. “Let me know, Ever-man, if the nut starts to come loose again, and I’ll zip back up and crank her tight.”