In the City of Shy Hunters (20 page)

Then Chef Som Chai walked in from the kitchen and stood right in the center of us waiters, his chef's hat just high enough for me to see over.

Quiet only New York can get that fast.

Hello, Chef, Mack Dickson said.

Hello, Chef, Joanie said.

Hello, Chef, Davey Dearest said.

Hello, Chef, Walter said.

The chef looked at Fiona, then me, then Harry.

How's it going, Chef? Fiona said.

Hello, Chef, I said.

Harry barked like a dog three times, loud. Didn't growl.

Then Daniel, the boss's brother, walked in through the swinging red doors.

Hey, Spud, Daniel said to me. Can you stay after work tonight? I need to have a talk with you.

Everybody—Mack, Walter, Joanie, Davey, Fiona, Harry, Georgette, even Chef Som Chai—laughed out loud all at once, then tried not to laugh, and quick they left the room, yawning, covering their mouths, coughing, all of them, even Georgette, into the kitchen, into the dishwashing room, through the swinging red doors, into the dining room, away, and then it was just me and Daniel standing there. I wasn't laughing.

What's wrong? Daniel said. What the fuck's so funny? What'd I say?

Through the swinging red doors, I was out of there. In the dining room in nothing flat.

SNOW ON CHRISTMAS
Eve. Big flakes coming down in the mercury-vapor light. On the R downtown, slick parkas and the smell of wet wool. My first Christmas in New York.

No Charlie 2Moons.

I was just some guy in a ball cap and a pea coat sitting in an orange plastic chair, in the unrelenting fluorescence, roar all around, speeding through massive rock tunnels under massive Manhattan buildings, some guy, me, Merry fucking Christmas, already dead, everybody around me on the train already dead too. Some guy in a white beard and red cap walking through the subway car shaking his can for change. The floor of the train New York gray slush.

Snow on the cast-iron steps. I unlocked the door to 205 East Fifth Street, stamped my feet on the wet gray rug. In the hallway, in the long narrow hallway painted blue, under the fluorescent halo, I walked to my mailbox and there, beyond the mailboxes, just under the stairs, leaning against the door to the basement: the dead man, on the floor, wavy raven hair, the needle still stuck in his arm. Blood all down his arm
that was thick and in the light looked black running down onto his pants, down onto the floor, down between his legs, down to a dark pool. Looked like the needle in his arm had poked a hole and let out a black snake in him that had kept him alive.

The dead guy's face, free of blood, stone smooth, his eyes, just his eyes rolled up.

Charlie 2Moons.

I sat down right there on the floor next to the black snake. Laid my face into the pool of blood. Sucked up the blood. Charlie's blood. Blood that I didn't want to live without. My own blood.

Out of my mouth, the unmistakable sound.

But it's not the truth.

The dead guy wasn't Charlie.

The next thing I knew, what was coming down the stairs was the kind of Moroccan shoes that point up at the toe, yellow, huge. The huge yellow Moroccan shoes were connected to black ankles and thick black calves and then African cloth tied around Rose's middle, bare chest.

Argwings Khodek, I said.

In the unrelenting fluorescence, Rose was black as the snake.

The dead guy's eyes weren't looking up at me anymore. They were looking up at Rose. At Rose's beautiful gold loop in his queer ear.

Jump through the gold loop.

Rose took one look at the dead guy on the floor, raised just his eyes up to the unrelenting fluorescence, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then walked over to me, put his arm across my shoulder, turned me around.

Rose put my right hand in his, his big hand open on mine, his Sahara Desert palm against my sweaty palm, bracelets clack-clack.

Never touch me.

Rose gave me a hand up.

My friends all call me Rose, he said.

My face was smiling. I stopped smiling.

Hello, Rose, I said. My friends, I said, All call me Will.

Rose looked over to the dead guy lying in the narrow blue hallway, his wavy raven hair, the needle stuck in his arm, the black snake running out of him; then Rose looked up again at the halo of bright fluorescence from above.

Even myself, Rose said, I am just here, isn't it?

I stared at Rose. At Rose's mouth, the inside color of his lips.

I don't understand, I said, What you just said, I said.

Even myself I am just here, isn't it?—is what I said, Rose said.

Rose smiled, and when he smiled, my eyes went straight to the gap between his two front teeth.

I just got back from a tour of East Africa, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack. And in East Africa, especially on the island of Lamu where they speak the purest Kiswahili—the word is not
Swahili
, that's incorrect; the correct word is
Kiswahili
—I'd be standing there in the street or in a bar or wherever and a native man—
Mwanainchi
—would walk up to me and that's how he'd introduce himself. He'd say, Even myself I am just here, isn't it?

Fluorescence the sound of insects.

What
you
need is a cocktail, Rose said.

Rose took me by the arm, the way a man takes a woman by the arm when he escorts her. Rose held me up on the one side, the banister held me up on the other, all the way, Rose and me, that way up the stairs, Rose talking talking about Africa, to his apartment door, dogs barking on the other side, me against the wall while Rose unlocked his door, opened his door, then dogs every which way, and then Rose's arm was in mine again, and all at once my legs weren't under me anymore, and I was in Rose's never-touch-me big black arms, bracelets clack-clack. Rose carried me, talking talking, over the threshold, and all around under me was dogs, barking barking dogs.

I'm a big man and big men don't get carried and there I was being carried, my whole body touching Rose. Rose took off my ball cap, unbuttoned my pea coat.

Rose's bathroom was pink—sink, bathtub, toilet, tile on the walls, floor tile, shower curtain—everything pink except for the gold frame around the mirror and the gold lights in the shape of flowers on either side of the mirror and the gold frame around the photograph of Elizabeth Taylor sitting on the sink.

Pink?
Rose said. White people are pink, Rose said.
Fuchsia
, Rose said. The correct name of the color in my toilet—Rose used the French pronunciation,
twalette
—is
fuchsia
.

Fuchsia twalette.

My head was in Rose's fuchsia twalette, fountain mouth. Barfing like Bobbie used to, lid up, holding on to the twalette's sides.

When I flushed and rinsed and could stand without holding on to the sink, when I didn't need Rose's gold-framed mirror anymore, I walked back out of Rose's bathroom, through his dark bedroom, everything draped in velvet with just his lava lamp on. On his bedstand, next
to the Joey Heatherton bed, incense going next to a Buddha as big as half the bed, and an oil painting of Elizabeth Taylor in her white swimsuit in
Suddenly Last Summer
as big as the Buddha.

The apartment was Tallulah Bankhead Went to Africa. Red velvet curtains hanging from Rose's windows. An Italian crystal chandelabra from the ceiling. Faux leopard-skin throws, faux zebra-covered pillows, texture, texture, texture.

On the carved wood African coffee table with a brass top was a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses in a brass vase, a tin lunch box with a cowboy on it, a bunch of long stick matches, a paperback book,
Antigone
, Rose's pack of Gauloise no-filters, an ashtray that was Dwight D. Eisenhower smiling, a two-gallon jug filled with an amber liquid, and two glasses—Baccarat crystal glasses—and a bottle of Courvoisier VSOP.

Sitar music.

Rose was sitting in his purple-velvet overstuffed chair, his legs crossed. Rose had put a top on—another African-looking thing all white and soft with lace around the neck. His head was shaved. I learned later on, Rose's head was always shaved and the different hair he had was all wigs.

My body had stopped shaking, my throat was raw and nasty. I sat on Rose's fainting couch, the blonde, fainting. I was policing my body, newshoe stiff.

I thought the dead guy was Charlie, I said, 2Moons.

Rose poured a glass of VSOP for me and a glass for himself and offered me a Gauloise. I took the Gauloise and Rose lit it for me with one of the long stick matches and then lit his.

No, Rose said, That was not your lovely Charlie 2Moons, that was Ricardo, the super.

Ricardo the voodoo super? I said.

Le même
, Rose said.

The cowboy on the tin lunch box was Randolph Scott. Out of the lunch box, Rose took a pipe the shape of a penis—not a huge penis like you see in the magazines, but just a penis, an erect penis attached to a set of balls.

Now
this is pink
, Rose said.

Then Rose took something wrapped in cellophane out of the lunch box.

Chocolate, Rose said but he said it the French way,
Sho-ko-lat
.

The Sho-ko-lat looked like a big rabbit turd to me. Rose put the rabbit-turd Sho-ko-lat in the pipe at the base of the penis and lit the rabbit turd and held the pipe by the balls and sucked on the erect pink penis head and then passed the thing to me.

In my hand, I held an erect pink penis by the balls.

Third rule, Rose said. It's all metaphor, Rose said. It's all drag.

So I went ahead and sucked on the metaphor.

Just out the door and down the stairs, in the long narrow blue hallway, the unrelenting fluorescence, the fluorescent insect sound was the black snake run out of the dead guy's arm, thick black down his arm, down onto his pants down onto the floor into the hole where the linoleum buckled and was a low linoleum valley, the thick black lake.

My mother's nerves.

I took another toke on the erect pink penis.

Rose's dogs were all lined up on the Persian carpet, sitting on Rose's feet.

Mary, Rose said: part Alaskan wolfhound, part Tuesday Weld.

Mona, Rose said: part poodle, part overweight Italian girl.

And Jack Flash, Rose said: part terrier, part dictator, part bundle of love.

All dogs are Buddha, Rose said.

Rose held the erect pink penis by the balls in his extra-lovely hand, his Sahara Desert palm, then handed the erect pink penis to me.

It's yours, Rose said.

The pink penis in my hands looked exactly like mine. Lifesize.

I set the pipe in my open palm, right hand.

It looks familiar, I said.

I mean, Rose said, It's my
gift
to you. Your erection, Rose said.

My face was smiling. I stopped smiling. Sat and held the erect pink penis in my hand, not the way you'd hold a pipe but the way you'd hold your erect pink penis.

Second rule, Rose said. You've got to be one to get one. Now you got one.

The Jews have their mezuzahs, Rose said, The Catholics their crucifixes, Native Americans their eagle feathers. It's a totem, Rose said, Something outside you to remind you that you have what it takes.

Rule number four, Rose said. Law of the jungle, Rose said. You have to have an object so you can treat your struggle as if it were outside.

Then:
Ceci nest pas une pipe
, Rose said.

That French? I said.

It is, Rose said. Magritte, to be exact. Magritte stunned the art world by a simple painting of a pipe, on which, Rose said, were the words:
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
.

This is not a pipe, Rose said.

Rose's long black index pointed at the erect pink penis in my hands.

But in this case,
Ceci n'est pas un penis, c'est une pipe
, Rose said.

I set down the erect pink penis that wasn't a penis on the brass table.

Where did you get it? I said.

Randolph Scott had it, Rose said. In a lunch box.

All the while I'd been sitting there, every once in a while Rose's eyes went off and stared at something behind me. At first I thought maybe Rose had the kind of eyes that don't focus, so when they're looking at you they're not looking at you, but then I turned around to see what it was behind me and it was a painting of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.

Just above Rose's armchair, on the south wall, was a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor the way she looked in the wedding gown in
Father of the Bride
.

All around the room, everywhere you looked, photos and paintings of Elizabeth Taylor.

So, Rose? I said. You're really into Liz.

Rose rolled just his eyes up to heaven. His shoulders went up and his chin went down, bracelets clack-clack.

Rule number five, Rose said. Never call Elizabeth Taylor Liz.

That's when Rose, sitting in his purple-velvet overstuffed armchair, his huge yellow Moroccan shoes crossed, feet up on the brass table; Rose's red, black, and green African skirt gathered at his knees, the black skin of his ankles, calves, knees, the bottom part of his huge black thighs, exposed; the dozen red roses, the paperback
Antigone
, the two-gallon jug with the amber liquid, the Dwight D. Eisenhower ashtray, the Randolph Scott lunch box; Rose a Gauloise in one hand and his VSOP Baccarat crystal glass in the other—that's when Rose said this important, this beautiful, this incredible thing:

I am very shy, Rose said.

And so is Elizabeth, Rose said. In fact, Elizabeth Taylor is the only person in the world shyer than I.

Most people misconstrue this for standoffishness, Rose said, But it is not. It is
social terror
, Rose said. The Shy Hunter is terrified that others will destroy the truth within his heart, Rose said, And so the Shy Hunter armors himself.

No one surprises a Shy Hunter, Rose said. Not even death, because the Shy Hunter has covered his ass and, thus armored, he watches and waits and studies meticulously, hunting the world for prey.