What Is All This? (3 page)

Herbert bent down to tie his wife's shoelaces, one hand and knee touching the pavement. A Fifth Avenue bus pulling out of a stop sent exhaust fumes in his direction. He held his breath, finished tying one of the shoes, and looking up saw her large body standing over him like an equestrian statue still draped with its unveiling cloth.

“I'd do it myself if I wasn't so heavy,” she said.

“You're not that heavy,” he said, and untied and tied the laces of the other shoe just in case.

“But you shouldn't be doing that, Herb. It's not a man's job. I should lose weight; tie my own shoes.”

“Don't be silly.” That was it. Both shoes tied neatly and tight. Maybe he should have tied double knots so he'd be sure they wouldn't come loose. But then later at home, if she didn't ask him to untie the laces while the shoes were on her feet, she'd make him take out the knots after she'd forced the shoes off her feet, and that always hurt his fingertips. It was a damn nuisance this bending, tying, retying, looking at her ugly scuffed shoes with the stockened big toe sticking out of the opening in front. It was almost the same style his mother and all her illiterate friends wore some fifty years ago. Now maybe if his wife wasn't so heavy and her feet not so swollen most of the time, she'd be able to wear high heels like other women her age and begin to look like somebody. But what wishful thinking that was, and he stood up, spit into his hanky and rubbed it on his dirty hand, then folded it and carefully stuck it back into his coat's breast pocket.

“So many people walk on Sunday it's amazing,” she said.

“Not so amazing. We do it.”

“But on Sunday? I'm saying, everybody?”

“Sunday's as good as any other day. Less crowded.”

“But so many people walking when no stores are open, I can't see.”

“So they don't spend money; that's bad?”

“And what do you want them to do, die with every cent?” She looked at her shoes. “You know, I think you tied them too tight.”

“Why, it hurts?”

“I wouldn't ask if they didn't, Herb.”

“I thought I tied them loose enough. Though you should know what's wrong with them. You're wearing the things.”

“I'm not trying to pick an argument. I say they're tight. I mean—I know, especially the right. Now will you please untie them some?”

He was glad he hadn't double-knotted the laces. He started to bend down, his wife now breathing more heavily above him, but quickly straightened up and looked around.

Before, when she had asked him, he also looked, but just quick ones so she wouldn't suspect anything. There were fewer people on the street then and nobody seemed to be looking his way. But now the street was more crowded and people seemed to be looking everywhere. They didn't see anything interesting in front of them, they looked in the store windows. If nothing interesting was in the windows, they looked around the sidewalk. A man tying his wife's shoelaces was interesting; untying them, even more so.

“Maybe I should stand here all day and get my feet swelled till they're limp and blue, is that what you want?”

“No, of course not.”

Then what?”

“Try walking a little more. Maybe they're not that tight.”

“Walk and get lame? You'd like that better? You got so much money where you can throw it into some doctor's window?”

“Did I say that?” his voice almost a whisper.

His wife, apparently satisfied with his answer, dropped her scolding finger. A painful expression creased her nose. She looked suspiciously at her shoes and attempted to stand on her left foot. Her fat jiggled and her bosom heaved. She got her foot about three inches off the ground.

“You know, it's really killing me,” she said to the back of his head.

“You tied them before like a madman.”

“What?” He was watching a group of schoolgirls, dressed nicely in sweaters and kneesocks and skirts, jump out of a cab, laugh and fumble over the change they each contributed to the fare, and cross the street. He still heard them laughing, one exceptionally pretty one with her long red hair like silk bouncing, as his wife pointed to her feet.

“I'm saying it hurts, Herb—do you hear?”

He'd stoop down. After all, she was his wife and he knew he had to get it over with eventually, so get it done now and that'd be that. But squatting down, his thighs spread apart, the first thing he did was feel his crotch. His pants were dry. He glanced at them and saw they weren't stained with urine either, which was a good sign. Because lately he'd occasionally let himself go: just short spurts and not from any excitement or anything. It was only that something had gotten wrong inside him like so many other men his age got, and he sometimes couldn't control himself. His wife knew about it, and when she wasn't shouting at him for staining his pants so much, she'd be urging him to see a doctor who takes care of such things. But he'd hold off that visit a week or two longer to see if his trouble would go away by itself. He heard it sometimes did.

A young couple stopped a few feet away to look at the store window behind him. The Tailored Woman was what the store was called, and some very nice clothes and accessories it had also. He looked up at his wife's breasts drooped massively over him. They never looked good when she tried stuffing them into one of her baggy dresses. Maybe in her skimpy nightgowns, when they swung back and forth, unstrapped and partly hidden, maybe then they looked best. But she should only have the figure to go into one of those dresses in the window. And he should only have the money to buy it. A real fortune they must cost. But say he did have the money—what good would it do? A laugh, that was the good it'd do, because she'd never lose an ounce. Money she could but weight never. He looked back at the couple. They were now watching a white sports car zoom downtown. Herb, his legs aching, rose and also watched the car as it screeched to a stop at the corner when the traffic light turned red. With that car the driver could have easily made it through the light, he thought. The car, waiting for the light to turn green, revved its motor and exploded two loud pops through its tailpipes. Then it switched gears, retched, bucked like a horse at the starting gate, and took off down the avenue, turning at 55
^th
Street and disappearing.

“What is it, Herb? You're interested in everything but me today.”

“I was looking at that white sports car.”

“Car? That was a car? That's a toy car. It couldn't fit three.”

“Maybe, but it looked nice and went fast.”

“Fast? Marilyn's friend's husband had one, and fast it went into a tree. Lucky he was insured and not hurt.”

“For someone who's careless, any car could hit a tree.”

“You know him that well to say he's careless? Anyway, can I change back the subject?”

“Huh?”

The shoes, Herb, the shoes. Because one minute more and I'll be crippled for life.”

“Walk over to that water thing there.” He pointed to a polished bronze spigot attached to the outside of the store.

“Why?”

“Because you could put you foot up on it, which'd be easier for me.”

“You can do it right here. Come on, Herb—for me.”

What did she say this morning? “It's a nice day”? “Such a beautiful day”? Some nonsense like that when she said they should take the subway to Columbus Circle, walk along Central Park South on the building side because that's such a refined area, and then go to Rockefeller Plaza where all the pretty flowers are, and from there they'd maybe stop in for coffee and take the bus home. But once on the train she decided to get off at 59
^th
and Fifth instead, and now only two blocks they've walked and already she's asked him twice to do her laces. By 55
^th
Street she'll say she's dead tired, stop, complain, make him bend down and feel if one of her ankles is more swollen than the other, then tell him they should take the Fifth Avenue bus downtown now because her legs hurt real bad and they can just as easily see the store window displays and flowers from the bus. But an idea like hers he never should have listened to in the first place. He should really just hail a cab and ride away without her for once, which would serve her a good lesson. Besides, the Fifth Avenue bus doesn't give free transfers crosstown where they're going like the Lexington Avenue bus does, but try get her to walk the three short blocks to Lexington and she'd holler like he's never heard. So today's the last fall Sunday of the year that'll be beautiful, as she said. But how did she know? The weatherman's her uncle?

“Herb?”

“What?”

“Herb!”

She meant business. He squatted down, for all he had to do was give her one more excuse and she'd jump down his throat even worse. People walk past? What did it matter? Yell, she could do better than anyone in the world. And the people? Already they started looking like he thought before. But he had no reason to complain. This wasn't his avenue. It was stupid even thinking it was for a second.

He looked around to prove his point. A woman walked by with her very proper-looking blond daughter. Both of them had nice clear rich voices and were smartly dressed, their faces and noses handsome and small—but not in the air like some people. Still, some things he could tell: they didn't want to mingle with you and for your own personal good you shouldn't try to have anything to do with them. Another woman walked towards him, a small dog trailing at the leash she held. Now she he immediately knew he didn't like—a real anti-Semite. He could tell just by her cold sour look like she had a stomachache and then traipsing past him like she owned the street. Because why did she look at him like that? Something she didn't like? His wife? Her beaten-up old shoes? This man on his knee? She didn't like that? Maybe she didn't like anything. Whatever the reason, this street was city property, kept up with taxes paid by all of them, so if she thought she had any more rights on it than they, she was crazy. He, he'd tie, untie, retie, untie and tie again if he liked, and she could go and make faces at them all her life and see how much it bothered him.

He switched his weight to his other foot and began tying the shoelaces just as he'd been taught as a boy to tie them. The black laces wrapped easily around one finger, under the loop, under the loop again, and after pulling tight he had a bow—a good one. But as a boy he was always glad to have people watch him tie, especially when he first learned how and his relatives praised him without his mother's coaxing. But here? Well, for one thing his wife appreciated it, and he guessed that was something. And then it was a good bow as he had said, like one he could hardly make anymore with his rotten fingers, and it was also much neater than when he'd done it as a boy, with the loops of the bow equal on both sides. He undid the laces on the other shoe, even though they seemed loose enough, and retied them also.

“How do they feel?” he said, patting the square fronts of both shoes and looking up.

“Eh?”

“I said how do they feel?”

“Fine.”

“Not too tight?”

“No, fine, just fine. Both are perfect, Herb.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“Just get the fuck out of here.”

“You're firing me? Good. Because I can't stand you and this place.”

“I'm not firing anyone. You're quitting, and never come back.”

“I'll come back for my paycheck.”

“Don't bother. It'll be in the mail.”

I go downstairs, change into my street clothes, throw my bowtie against the dressing room wall and step on it so the metal clasp breaks, leave the restaurant and head home.

On the next street a man says “Dig it, man, dig it. Right up here, ten bucks, satisfaction guaranteed.” He holds out a flyer.

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, man, dig it, no harm to look. Put it away for later.”

I take the flyer and read it as I walk.
$10
, it says.
Girls, muchaches, girls. Complete private sessions
.
No extra charges
. On it is a photo of a nude woman sitting on a bed. Very young and beautiful, bandanna around her forehead, lots of pubic hair.

I put the flyer into my pocket. I've thought about going to one of these places and felt it would either cost much more than the flyer said or I was afraid of getting a disease or mugged or that the women were being exploited and I wanted no part in that. But now I don't care what happens to me or who's being exploited; I just want to forget the manager and job and looking for another one and have a good time. I only have about fifteen dollars on me, so what can they take? And for a disease I can always get a free clinic shot.

I go back. Man's still handing out flyers, smiles and says to me “Go dig it, man,” and I open the door and walk upstairs. Second-floor door's open and the room I step into is like a small lobby of a cheap hotel.

Woman behind a desk says “Yes?”

“Uh…”

“Want to join the fun? Ten dollars.”

I give it to her.

“And eighty cents tax.”

“Didn't say anything about tax, not that I won't pay it.”

“You mean the handouts downstairs? Look again.”

She gives me one. Where it says
taxes included
, it's been crossed out. I don't take out the one in my pocket to see if it's been crossed out too. I give her a dollar and she gives me twenty cents change. “What do I do now?”

“Give your bag to the attendant there and come back.”

A man's standing in front of an opened closet. He takes the athletic bag my waiter's uniform and other things are in and puts it on a shelf.

“No tag?”

“Yours is the only bag like that,” he says. “It'll be here.”

I go back to the desk and say “Now what?”

“You can't do anything without a ticket. Here, give it to your girl.” It's like a movie ticket. “Like to sign our guest register first?”

She turns it around and gives me a pen. Register's also like a hotel's. None of the names seem real.
Bob Smith. Jack Brown. Joe. Dick D. Pegleg Pete
. I sign
James George
, which is my real name reversed.

“I'll let you in.” She goes through a curtain behind her and opens a door from the inside about ten feet away. I go in. She returns to her desk. Six women sit around a table in the middle of the room. They're pretty and fairly young and either in leotards or brief swimsuits. There are benches against all four walls, and I sit on one. An older man is sitting on a bench across the room. He's wearing a coat on this humid summer day and sunglasses with mirrors for lenses, and seems to be enjoying himself just by looking at the women.

Sit for a while, I tell myself. Don't be in any rush. There's just this guy and you, so you got a complete choice. Listen to how they speak and what they say. Make the right decision from it. Pick the one you think has the best combination of looks and personality and even intelligence and doesn't seem abrasive and will be the most fun. Right after I finish thinking this I choose the youngest-looking woman mostly because she is so young and it seems as if this could almost be her first day here. She's around eighteen or nineteen, less than half my age. She's actually beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I've ever been with. Perfect features and skin. Long black hair, slim body in black leotards. Long muscular legs, tiny waist and small breasts. She looks like a dancer. She seems bored and isn't talking with the other women. Radio music's playing and she seems to be listening to it. I go over to her, tap her shoulder. She looks up. I give her my ticket. She stands, flashes a smile and says “Follow me.”

I follow her through the door to the lobby, past the checkroom and desk to a small room off a hallway. She shuts the door. “What do you want, half and half?”

“What's that?”

“You haven't been here before?”

“No.”

She seems disappointed and looks around. A bucket of dirty water's on the floor. Looks like someone spit several times in it. She feels the water with her finger. “It's cold. I better get some warmer water to wash you with.”

“Don't worry, I'm clean.”

“No, I have to. I'll be back. Sit down. Take off your clothes.”

She goes. I take off my shirt and hang it on a hook. My pants and shorts on a different hook and then my shoes and socks. I look in the mirror. I flatten my hair back, fold my arms, sit on the bed. The room is mostly this single bed against the wall. No window. Bucket of water and a stool with a folded towel on it. She comes back with a basin of water.

“Got some warmer water for you. And soap. They seem to have none here.”

“I don't see any. By the way, you mentioned half and half. What is it?”

“Half blow job, half screw. You want that?”

“Sure. Is there anything else I can get?”

“Nothing I give. Come here.” I walk over to her “Hold the pan.” I hold the pan. She drops the soap in the water, takes my penis in one hand and starts washing it, “Wait a minute, we got a problem. This thing won't fit in me. I should've asked you to undress before I got the water, but this thing isn't even semi-erect yet.” She drops my penis.

“What do I do?”

“Whatever you do, you're not going in me. I'm sorry, but I got some more working to do today and I'm not the biggest girl in the world, know what I mean? You want me to just blow you, that's something different, but not if it's going to take too long.”

“I want the other thing too.”

Then pick one of the other girls who looks bigger.” She puts the soap on the stool, takes the basin from me and dumps the water into the bucket. She pulls my ticket out from inside her shoe, where I never saw her put it, and gives me it.

“Listen, how can I tell who's bigger than who, because I don't want to run into the same problem?”

“Anyone older than me and with a bigger behind's usually good. Just any of them then, because you see I'm too slight. Use that towel. Sorry. Bye.” She leaves with the basin.

I dry myself, get dressed and go back to the lobby. “I still have my ticket,” I say to the woman behind the desk, showing it.

“I know. Let me come around.” She lets me in. Most of the women look at me when I walk in and then resume talking.

The man with the sunglasses and coat is still there smiling.

There's a new woman, in purple shorts and red T-shirt, but I can only see a little of her face. I change benches so I can get a good look at her. She's cute: small nose, little eyes and pouty lips. She looks at me, smiles nicely, and then looks back at her shoes. Another woman has a gorgeous figure I see when she stands up and looks at me and winks. But her hair's bleached platinum and looks like it'd feel like straw. And she's chewing gum very hard and snapping it, and I don't like hair like that or the sound or smell of chewing gum. Some other time, because of her great body, I might choose her if I ever come back here, which I think I will. It seems fair, reasonably clean, no hustle, and the women are attractive and mostly young. But now I want someone who seems as if she almost doesn't want to be chosen and who at least has the appearance of being modest, like the one in purple shorts. I go over to her and hold out my ticket.

She looks up. “Oh yeah, I forgot,” she says, and laughs. “My mind was lost somewhere.” She takes my ticket and says “Over here,” and I follow her to a room right off this one. It's three times as large as the first one and has a dresser, chair, sink, window with drapes over it, bathroom mirror screwed to the wall and the same single bed. “Take off your clothes. Water in the sink takes too long to get warm and I want to wash you, so I'll be right back.”

“You're not going to believe this…”

“What?”

“Forget it; it's ridiculous.”

“No, what? I want to know,”

“I'm already very clean.”

“Everyone's very clean, honey, but everyone's got to be washed. Only way I know if you are is when I do it myself, okay?”

“Fine.”

She leaves. I take off my clothes and sit on the bed. There's stirring behind the wall with the mirror. I stand and look in the mirror and see myself and also some kind of movement behind it. The movement stops but there's still an outline of a head with lots of hair around it, like the woman has. I sit in the chair and cross my legs and keep my eyes on a different wall than the mirror's. I don't want her thinking I'm suspicious in any way she'd think wasn't normal, as I don't want to be asked to leave if that's what they do when they're suspicious of you.

She comes in with a basin of water with a bar of soap in it. “Sorry I took so long. Could you stand so I can get you washed?”

“Want me to hold the pan?”

“Sure, honey, that'll be as good as my resting it on the chair.”

I hold the pan and she washes and dries my penis. I put the pan on the chair. She takes off her shoes and shorts and I lie on the bed.

“Make some room for me, honey.”

“Excuse me.” I slide close to the wall. She sits on the edge of the bed.

“What do you want?” she says.

“Is there anything besides half and half?”

“Sure, plenty. Want me to fly you around the world?”

“What's that?”

“I suck you all the way around, ass and cock. You never had it, it's great.”

“Do I get to come in you?”

“For ten dollars more. Without coming in me it's only five dollars more.”

“What else is there besides that?”

“Sixty-nine. That'll cost you five more. But there you also get to come inside me. If you want to stick it in my ass that's another ten dollars no matter what else we do or where you come in me, because that one takes a little longer and isn't the easiest to do.”

“Nah, I don't think so.”

“I can give you a quarter fly around the world for five dollars more where you also come in me.”

Thanks, but I think I'd just like half and half.”

She takes off her shirt, lies across my chest and holds my penis and stares at it. “What's this?”

“What's what?”

This stuff leaking out of you. I don't like the looks of it. Sure you don't have something?”

“Positive. It's probably just come.”

“I hope so.” She wipes the tip with her fingers and puts my penis in her mouth. I play with her nipple. Her eyes are closed while she's doing it. About two minutes later she sits up, wipes her mouth with her wrist, gets on her back and opens her legs. I get on top of her and only go a little ways in.

“Push in all the way, honey. You're not doing us any good hanging outside.”

“I thought we'd play with each other a little till we're both ready.”

“Why do we got to play? You're ready, I'm ready, come on.” I go all the way in, grab her head, shoulders, back of her neck.

“It'd help if you moved a little too,” I say.

“I will. I just wanted to make sure you were settled.” She moves. I come.

I get out before she gives me any sign I should and roll over on my side.

That was quick,” she says.

“I guess it's been a long time.”

“Yeah? If you want, for another five, you can do it again if you think you can be quick.”

“I don't know if I can do it that fast again.”

“How long you think you need?”

“If I take an eight-minute rest or so and then you play with me a little, maybe a total of fifteen minutes.”

That's too long for another five. For another ten I'll wait the eight minutes with you here before we start again.”

“I don't even think I can guarantee anything that fast. I better just forget it.”

“Next time don't wait so long to come here, okay? Then you won't have to do it so fast and can get more out of it.” She gets off the bed. I do too. Cleans herself with a washrag and sink water and says “Don't you want to wash yourself too?”

“I guess so.” I go to the basin and start soaping my penis.

“I'll help.” She washes it for me over the basin on the chair, gives me a paper towel to dry it with.

Thanks.”

She puts on her shorts and shoes. I put on my undershorts and pants and sit down and take my socks out of my pants pocket.

“My socks were in my pocket—”

“What, honey?” She was putting her shirt over her head and didn't hear me.

“My socks. I just wanted to explain. They were in my pocket because I already got undressed and dressed here once when another girl right before you—you weren't in the main room at the time—she said I was too big for her when she was washing me.”

“Which one was she?”

“Girl in black leotards. Very young.”

“Very, very young with her long black hair brushed straight down in back? Very pretty?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know her name. No, you're big all right, though not where you're that unusual. Sure that was her real reason for refusing you?”