The Fuck Up (13 page)

Although it was chilly outside, I slowly became intoxicated over the spectacular windfall. It was like winning a lotto without even waiting on the long line with losers; a poem published and a loft in SoHo. Standing in the iciness, outside looking in, a fanatical fantasy unfurled: palls of hashish and marijuana smoke streamed from the loft skylight, dust bunnies of cocaine gathered trembling in the chandelier. The permanent temperature of my abode would never breach above or below the mid-eighties so that nude bodies would never be made self-conscious by the cold. There would be no more hard or edgy surfaces to fall against. I: a sultan who had finally found his harem, a thick juicy nerve in search of well-deserved stimuli. Poetry would be written between orgasms. Tonight long-deserved rewards had finally toppled into my lap. I returned to the moment, reentered the restaurant and resumed my seat and pose.

“So who is my patron going to be?”

“Please don’t ask me that,” Marty responded.

“Why such a big secret about his identity?”

“Sergei is very nervous about his privacy being invaded.”

“And what exactly is his need for a gay?”

“Well, other than the fact that he thinks they’re cleaner, I think his girlfriend might be coming to town. I’m not sure. He might feel insecure about that.”

“So he wants a court eunuch?”

“I guess so,” Marty replied with a grin. “But you’re gay, so all that is settled.”

In his mind I was gay and in this instance that meant I was invincible. I could witness the interlocking of the sexes and remain unfettered. So after I had polished off my pierogis, Marty explained that the celebrated but insecure Sergei would be notified and we’d all have a meeting.

The long ride
to Brooklyn that night seemed much shorter. When I got in, Helmsley was deep asleep. He had slept silently during my voyage to and from Manhattan. Silently I undressed and cuddled to sleep with the thought that this hard couch under me would soon be replaced by a king’s bed. Sleep came quickly.

The lights were suddenly flipped on. Through squinted eyes I made out the figure of Angela.

“Hey! Turn off those lights,” I moaned, and then pulled a pillow over my face.

“I oughta throw you the fuck outa here!” she yelled back drunkenly. “Who the fuck you think you are?”

“What is going on?” I heard Helmsley say, and looking up I could see him knotting a bathrobe over his pajamas.

“This cocksucker cursed me out and I’m gonna teach him who’s dumb,” Angela said, pointing at me.

“Christ, Helmsley, she’s drunk.” Looking into Helmsley’s puzzled face, I knew he was in for a tough one.

“Ya just gonna stand there?” she addressed him.

“Look Angela, I didn’t give you my key so that you could barge in here like a lunatic.”

“You faggot! God wasted a dick on ya.”

“Let’s go to bed,” he replied. Grabbing both her shoulders, he slowly tried to steer her into his room.

“I oughta get my brothers to kick the shit out of ya. That’d put hair on yer chest.” In a moment Helmsley succeeded in enclosing her in his room, but several seconds later, I heard a scream—hers. A moment later, a cry, his, and once again the door smashed open and she reemerged, stopping before me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I want you out.”

“This ain’t your house,” I replied.

“Don’t tell me what the fuck house this is, I’ll bash ya.” Helmsley now limped out of his room, cupping his testicles over his pjs.

“Angela!” he winced. “Stop this now!”

But she was beyond him. Her eyes were targeted toward me now. Helmsley proved himself ineffective as a protectorate. I looked to the floor and saw my shoes and pants. Glancing toward the window, I noticed it was almost dawn.

“I want you out of this fuckin’ house,” she repeated as she stared at me.

“I ain’t going.”

“Please,” Helmsley appealed. “Go.”

“I ain’t going.”

“I’ll give you money for a hotel,” he implored.

“No.”

“I’ll get him out for you,” Angela said, taking a step forward.

“No,” Helmsley commanded.

“Then call the fucking police!” Angela yelled. Helmsley stood still and looked about miserably. She screamed louder this time, “Call the fucking police!”

Helmsley went over to the phone and looked at me pleadingly. “For God’s sake, please go. Just for now.”

“No, Helmsley,” I replied. “If you can’t rule your own house you should go into your room and let me handle it.”

“YOU DIAL THE POLICE GODDAMN YOU!”

Helmsley snatched up the phone nervously and started dialing. As he did, a victorious sneer smeared over the bitch’s face.

“I got your own friend calling the cops on yer, yer a pair of fucking faggots.”

“I thought you were going to bash me,” I taunted.

Her face started lacing back and tightening. Before I knew it, she jumped forward and tore the bandage off my right arm. When I stood up, she clipped me, a right cross to my head. Falling backwards, I reached out to grab her, trying to regain my balance. Accidentally I shoved her. She fell backwards right through the old oak coffee table. Now she was screaming and hollering.

“He hit me! The bastard hit me!”

“It was an accident,” I replied as I tugged on my pants. Helmsley hurdled
over his fallen lover and was punching me all over. He was bigger and stronger than I, so I tried running, but he pinned me down with his knees on my shoulders. All the anger that she had generated and he had stored was punching out on me. I tried to talk to him, but suddenly I felt the hem of my pants being pulled up. Catching a glimpse beyond Helmsley’s anchored torso, I saw Angela drunkenly yanking up my bare leg, and I howled as her molars pierced deep into my calf.

Quickly and instinctively I kicked her in the face, catapulting her against the wall and onto the floor in a heap. She lay still now. Helmsley saw that she was badly hurt. He bolted off and attended his beloved maniac. Grabbing my shirt, shoes, and coat, I wobbled out the front door.

Several yuppies walking in an unintentional formation must have thought it a strange sight on their way to work, when they saw me wearing little else but pants, madly limping down Clinton Street. Suddenly a police car with sirens blaring turned a corner and screeched in front of Helmsley’s door. The son of a bitch had actually called them. Goose pimples or not, I wasn’t going to dress until I was a couple blocks clear of the serpent’s love nest. I dressed in a doorway and inspected my leg. Both the upper and lower bridge of her teeth had sunk deeply into my calf. Upon careful inspection I noticed a tiny patch of flesh and sinew ripped off altogether. It was probably sitting in the bottom of Angela’s leathery stomach. I tied a tourniquet around my knee and hobbled to the F. Not knowing where else to go, I got off at Broadway/Lafayette and walked up Broadway, finally ending up at the Loeb Student Center at NYU. I limped my way to a booth in the cafeteria downstairs. There, I recuperated over four cups of tea squeezed out of a single tea bag. My jaw had a deep bruise, my neck and chest pulsated and everything else swelled. But the bloodiest gem of my lacerations was the tear in my right leg. With napkins and rubber bands, I was able to sop up and control the ooze of blood, but I was still worried about infection.
I finally decided to go to one of the most merciless and dreaded places in the city, a hospital.

Since I owed Saint Vincent’s money for repairing the cut arm, I started hobbling northeastward toward Beth Israel. As I walked, the wound reopened. I kept stopping and trying to curtail the bleeding.

I wasn’t in pain, but by the time I reached Second Avenue I was numb and dizzy. I paused a moment in front of the Saint Mark’s Cinema, just to catch my breath. I didn’t recognize anyone inside. By the time I finally arrived at Beth Israel, the self-applied battle dressing along with the hem of my pants and right shoe were all soaked in blood. I staggered into the emergency ward. Quickly a novice nurse laid me on a gurney and started cutting away at the pants.

“He hasn’t been admitted yet,” I heard the head nurse remark. Someone questioned me, and then the young nurse returned to the wound. She cleaned it out and brought over an intern, a young Indian woman. She quickly stitched all the frayed flesh ends into an integrated calf, and dashed off to the next impatient patient. As a final fuck you to that wimp bastard, I told the hospital people I was Helmsley and gave his location as my billing address.

After a couple of hours of recuperation, it was time to go. The Zeus Theater was only a couple of blocks away, and it was already late afternoon, so I slowly staggered there for work.

I arrived a half hour before my scheduled time. Today was going to be my first solo flight. I was supposed to manage the theater alone. But when Miguel saw me his mouth fell open in disbelief.

“Are you a masochist?”

“No.”

“What’s with you? Every time I see you you’ve been wounded.”

“Fate’s a sadist.”

Miguel offered to cover that night’s shift, but I could tell that he was looking forward to having the night off. He had been working every night for the past two weeks, ever since the manager whom I was replacing had quit. I was equally eager to see if I could handle the job. He planted a thankful kiss on my cheek, promised to call, and left.

All I had that day was the watery tea at the NYU student center, so I appropriated some money from the petty cash drawer, and I went out to get some food. I went over to the Korean greengrocer, which had just opened a salad bar, and put together a complex salad. Then I hobbled back to the theater, and slowly ate it down. I began my first inspection of the theater. Toilet paper was stocked in the bathroom. All the fire codes were being observed. Checking the screen, I noticed that all the acts of fellatio and sodomy were correctly in focus and all the grunts and moans were distinctly audible. Along some of the seats, I saw the dark silhouettes of pleased patrons in rhythmical motions. Life was following art in the theater. I was about to dip back into the office when I heard someone address the box office lady, “Is Miguel here?”

“Miguel?” she replied. I turned to see the oily subway kid who was initially recommended the job by Tanya. Before the box office lady could tell him that Miguel wasn’t here, I stepped up and spoke to him.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Miguel?” he asked. Silently I went around to the turnstile and opened the door for him.

“Why?” I said.

“Tanya sent me for the manager’s job.”

“I needed someone a week ago. Where the hell were you?” I replied, and then concluded, “I filled the spot.”

“Shit,” he replied.

“Sorry,” I replied. He vanished back into the night.

Proceeding back into the office, I took out the portable TV to forget the dirty deed. The kid shouldn’t have taken so long. I turned on the TV.

The only time I had ever watched TV in the recent past was when I was depressed. After about five minutes of watching a sitcom, the funniest part of which was the laugh track, I lost reception.

Finding nothing else to do, I started cleaning the accumulations out of my pockets. Other than soiled tissues, I found a “Be A Cashier In Six Weeks” mail order coupon, which in my former unemployed despair I had pulled from a subway advertisement. The bottom of my pocket was impaled with broken toothpicks and lined with pulverized after-dinner mints that I had taken from the Italian restaurant where Helmsley had treated me, pre-Angela. Finally I came across an unknown phone number scribbled on a loose piece of paper. This I threw into the garbage with everything else. But no sooner did I drop it than I remembered that it belonged to the career woman I had met during the hold-up. I push-dialed her number, but got a recording mandating use of the newly implemented 718 area code. I remembered that she said she lived in Brooklyn Heights, and I dialed the number again, properly. This time I got a mellow “hello.”

“Hi.” I tried to sound at ease. “I hope this isn’t a bad time to call.”

“Who is this please?”

“I’m the guy you took to the hospital the other day, after the hold-up.”

“The would-be poet.”

“How did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“That I got a poem published. You didn’t see it in print, did you?”

“No,” she replied. “I mean, I don’t know. I only remember your mentioning Hart Crane. Where did you get a poem published?”

“In the
Harrington Quarterly,
the upcoming issue.”

“Congratulations, best of luck with…” A clicking sound interrupted. “Oh excuse me, I’ve got call waiting.”

She clicked her phone and talked to some other party for a while, giving me time to locate a target. I decided that I would ask her for lunch the next day.

“I’m sorry for keeping you,” she finally said, “but I’ve got a long distance call on the other line, and I’m going to be a while, so I’ve got to go.”

“One request. Can we go for lunch tomorrow?”

“Look, I’m about ten years your senior.”

“Maybe, but you’re a lot younger than your age and I’m a lot older than mine.”

“Ten years is ten years.”

“All it really means is that you’ll have more to say than me.”

She giggled and told me to give her a call in the mid-afternoon, and that ended the conversation. I toured around the theater a bit and returned to the little office. I tried watching TV again but soon lost reception again. Eventually I buzzed the projectionist booth and announced I was coming up. When I arrived, she swung open the door and asked what I wanted.

“Just checking to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Well I would have notified you otherwise, wouldn’t I?” she replied.

“Sorry for bothering you,” I said and turned to leave.

“Hold on there. There is one thing.” She led me into a back room. “Look at this.” She pointed out a large rusty pot filled with stagnant water.

“Why don’t you dump it?” I replied, not knowing what else she might have wanted.

“Because the roof’s leaking, stupid.”

“Okay I’ll make a report of it.” And again I turned to go.

“Hey stupid, how are you going to make a report on something you haven’t seen?”