Kill Kill Faster Faster (10 page)

M
arkie rush out of Joey’s office to go to the set, he late, and not too long after, Fleur come in. She say, I got to talk to you. Joey You want to go have a coffee with me?

Sure, he say. Sure. Why not?

They walk along the water, cut east on Twenty-third Street.

She say, Where do we go? And he say, You tell me, cool like, because the day before he was thinking once more, so hard, how he can’t see her anymore, but already that’s gone, he give that up.

She take his arm, say, Let’s go to the Chelsea Hotel. I want you to rub your cock all over my face. I want to lay in bed with you and I want to look at you. I want to smell you. I want to hear the sound your cock makes as it slaps against my cheek. I want you to put your cock in my mouth and I want to suck you and I want to watch you come.

They walking and Joey thinking about her and feeling her presence next to him, full aware of her, the way she walk, the space she take up.

He can’t help feel her, this flower, this Fleur. He can really feel her next to him, her energy or whatever, the vibe she putting out. Her aura.

She take his hand. They walking not too fast, but determined, like they know where they going through the cold, although they don’t know where they going. They walking the streets of New York, and the city walking with them, right there with them, looking into the people’s faces, the faces looking back at them, people looking at her through the vapor of their breath, sneaking their looks at her, or looking at her frankly, him thinking they thinking, what she doing with some ugly fuck like that?

Come here, she says, grabbing him by the lapels, pulling him to her, kissing him right there on the street in front of everybody. It’s too far, she say. Where is that hotel?

Joey say he don’t know, I think it’s still a couple of blocks thataway. She say, Come in here. Let’s go in here instead.

She drinking a coffee. I drinking a beer. It the Bar Blu. I look around, the dark, no one see us, we safe. We in the back of the bar, the dark bar, no one near us, no one even in this room. The waitress come in, say, Can I take your order?

We not eating. We just drinking, I say.

Fine with me.

On the table there is a salt shaker and a pepper shaker. There is a ashtray and packets of sugar and pink Sweet’n Low and blue Sweet’n Low, blue for boy, pink for girl, but I don’t drink no Sweet’n Low.

Flowers don’t take no sweetener in her coffee. She drink her coffee black.

The beer I drink is in a green bottle. I forget what brand. But I remember the feel of the bottle, the cold of it and the beads of perspiration, and I remember peeling the label while she talk to me.

The waitress come back.

You all right? Need anything else? Another beer, cowboy?

The conversation ain’t started for real yet. Flowers ain’t said what’s on her mind.

She say, Joey?

I say, I just can’t do this no more, Flowers. I can’t.

She say she know.

A man with a goatee come by with a pair of shoes. He look in the back room, see us, then come in. Red and gray pumps, he say, For the lady. Give me what it’s worth, brother.

In the face of the city, I am sitting in the back room of a bar with a woman from Algeria. She a writer. She wrote a book about prostitution. Prostitution is something she have experience with, and that is good, because people say you should write about what you know. She write the book about her life. That is also good because she know about her life. She sit here in front of me, her coffee in front of her.

I say no thanks to the man with the goatee with the shoes that are red and gray pumps.

Flowers looking into my eyes in a very steady, even way, saying, Your cock in my mouth, your cock slapping against my forehead, rubbing against my eyes. I look back into her eyes and I feel my cock against them, I really do, and I try to keep up, I try to keep my eyes as steady and focused as she keeps her eyes. But I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I break off.

Don’t worry, Joey, Fleur say. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. You don’t have to feel guilty. As a matter of fact, Joey, I consider your concern for me an insult.

She put her hand on mine.

I’m not protecting you, Fleur.

No, you’re not, she say. You’re protecting yourself.

She says, Joey, I never meant this to happen. I never knew I was going to fall in love with you. It just happened. It just came over me.

Joey grunt, he say he know.

She say, Did it happen the same way for you?

I guess, he says. Yeah.

She like to talk writing with Joey. Everybody like to talk writing with Joey.

I’m writing, she says. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m writing a book in my mind. I hope you don’t mind, baby. I’m writing a book about you.

I
t don’t matter if Fleur wanted Joey to fall in love with her or not. It don’t matter because if she wanted him to or not, now he is. Now he is in love with her.

There’s nothing he can do. He can try to walk away, but he can’t.

Mark me on this one, he tried to walk away, and he still trying, but he not strong enough.

Joey not strong enough to say he history.

So what Joey do?

Tell me.

Tell me what Joey to do, and I tell Joey.

Fleur say, Joey. Joey, I love you so much. She say, How we get involved like this? How we fuck up like this? She say, I take what I can of you, because I know I can’t have it all.

Did I tell you Fleur has a child of her own? She and Markie have a child. A little girl.

Did I tell you that?

Markie a proud papa. Markie say, She the apple of my eye.

She eight months old. Fleur say Markie a very good father.

It her, she say. She not a very good mother.

She say she don’t know, but when she look at her baby, she don’t feel anything. She say, You’d think when I look at her I’d feel a bond or something, but no, there is nothing there. Even when she was born I felt completely separated. Isn’t that weird?

She say she never wanted a child. It was Mec’s idea. He wanted her stop taking the Pill. He said the Pill was dangerous and fuck up her body. He tell her he concerned about her because he love her. He tell her she should stop. She say no, but he throw away the packet that she keep in the medicine cabinet. She shrug like it no big deal, she say if it mean that much to him, so be it, okay. She say, Joey, you should have seen me when I was on the Pill, it made my tits like this.

Joey nod, smile. He don’t exactly know how she want him to react, what she want him to say. He not use to any of this. Joey in the dark. Joey like a dupe.

Fleur hold his gaze, tell him it only in America where men are so obsessed with women’s breasts, do he know that? Fleur always trying to educate him. That very peculiar because Fleur much younger than Joey. Joey’s life made Joey so old.

Fleur know the truth about Joey. She know how Joey like to make love. How he like to put his hand on her breast, cup her breast, and let his other hand hang and find its way between her legs and touch her clit and separate the lips of her cunt and feel the moist, the wet, and slip a finger inside her or let the tip of his pointer finger rest on her clit and press, just leave the pressure there, another finger, the middle, slip inside her, one finger, two, inside her, push up toward the clit, on the underside, find a spot, his other hand on her breast, cupping her, the nipple becoming hard against the palm, him looking down see the deep stain of the aureola, large and perfect, him lean over, his hand still inside her, his mouth find her nipple, he kiss her, he kiss her breast, touch the tip of her nipple with his tongue, run the circumference of the dark patch, she moan, he feel the spot inside her, he concentrate now on that, he feel so deep inside her and she moan. She moan. O my brothers.

S
MACK IS BACK!

Joey read the headline. Joey stare at the headline.

Smack is back!

Just what Joey needs.

If smack is back, Joey scared shitless.

Joey weak. Joey know that. Joey know he weak. You won’t get no argument from Joey.

It don’t take too much for Joey to feel the pull of the smack, the pull of the street. That taste for the doojie never leave you, not really. It puts the fear of God in you, puts the humility in you to know how weak you really are. That the line is just there and you can cross over it so easy. And where do that leave you? How many people Joey know who is dead and buried now from that very pull? See the bodies? Nobody die beautiful from addiction ravage.

Fleur is doing that to him. Bringing him back. Back from where he came.

Joey is trying to figure it all out.

Joey is a good man. Deep down inside him, Joey a good man.

And because deep down inside Joey is a good man, Joey is always trying to figure it out.

The problem with figuring it out is figuring it out is always one step ahead of him.

Joey can talk to Markie. Markie can come in Joey’s office and say, Joey, let’s go out, grab a bite of lunch. They can sit down over tuna salad or a bologna sandwich or a hamburger. Markie can say, So how’s it going, Joey? How you feeling? You okay?

And Joey can say, Everything’s fine, Markie. Everything’s okay. I’m okay.

No, really, how you doing? You adjusting, boyo? It can’t be easy. You getting everything you need?

Markie all emotional and up front and right there and concerned and showing who he is deep in his soul and the horror of deception is washing over Joey, except the waves of it is like acid waves, not water waves, acid waves like burning him and torturing him and eating him away from the epidermis to the internal organs, and his bones is pitted and he pick up Markie’s eyes, so imploring and earnest, and he hold them, hold his gaze, but then he can’t look no more and Markie must think Joey’s back on the smack or doing something fucked up, even if Joey say, Sure, guy, no problem.

Markie ain’t leaving it there.

Joey, you know, I worry about you. To me you’re like a brother, man. Not only did I put my name on the line for you with the parole board, bro, but I put my heart. My heart on the line. I’m in your corner, b. You’re the one. You and me, we can go to the top. I can help you, but I don’t make no bones about this, I’m counting on you to help me. So I got my own lookout invested in all this. I’m being up front with you, boyo.

Markie puts his hand on Joey’s hand. Joey feels like pulling it away, it feels too much like some fag making a pass at another fag in some bar in the far West Village or on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, you know, covering his hand, stroking it.

I want to, Markie. I want to, Joey say, pulling his hand away now. You know that, man. I’m not interested in fucking up. I’m not interested in going back to the lockup, that’s for sure. I want to do the best I can. I’m trying. I am. Or at least I think I am.

Joey shrug, smile like he vulnerable and stupid and at Markie’s mercy. Which in fact he is, bottom line.

Sure, I know that, boyo, Markie say. You’re crispy, you’re the shit, you really are, Joey. You’re the man. Nobody can touch us when we’re up there in the rarefied air. You got that?

Got it.

Joey wonder what Markie would be saying if he really knew what was happening, if he knew Joey was fucking Fleur. If Markie knew Joey and Fleur were having a love affair, if that’s what you want to call what Joey and Fleur are having.

Joey and Fleur, they talk about it.

They have these long, heartfelt conversations. Conversations about their love, about their love for Markie, about betrayal, and doing the right thing and shit like that.

That’s all they talk about.

Joey and Fleur, they wonder where they are, what they’re doing, mutually professing, the both of them swearing to love Markie, not wanting to hurt Markie, telling how Markie saved each of their lives.

And maybe that’s the point. They both owe Markie their lives. But neither is so ready for payback. The vig is too steep.

Or maybe Joey is with Fleur like an addiction and maybe that’s weak. Like the heroin, Joey can’t help it.

Dr. Judy says on the radio on Z100 that “Can’t help it” is a “Love Phone” no-no.

Everybody can help it, Dr. Judy says. She say, Don’t tell me you’re having an affair with your boss’s wife, but it’s not your fault. You can’t help it? Poor baby, of course you can help it. Who’s in charge of yourself if not you? Of course it’s your fault. Whose else fault is it? It’s always your fault. Take responsibility. Take responsibility for your actions. There’s always something you can do about it.

Think about it.

You can always walk away or turn your back. You can always be bigger than you are. You don’t always have to give in to the flesh.

From where he’s lying on his cot, Joey thinks about what Dr. Judy’s saying all right.

What else is there to do?

He’s always thinking Dr. Judy understand him, is talking directly to him across the airwaves. He imagines he’s in her office, on the floor for some reason, on all fours. His naked ass is in the air and he’s exposed. He’s told her what he’s got to tell her, and now he’s waiting for his punishment, waiting to be fucked in the ass, and he wants it, he wants her to hurt him royally, and she’s telling him, Dr. Judy is, You got a beautiful ass, Joey. I want to hurt you there and I want you to like it and come to your senses. I’m trying to help you. You with me on this?

Sometimes lying in the halfway, his cheap Sony mono radio, the single black plastic earpiece like a nipple plugged into his ear, Joey thinks how lost he is, how low. Joey wonders what’s going to happen, but that’s a lie, Joey knows. Joey knows what’s going to happen. He can’t sleep and he knows he has to tell Fleur once and for all that he can’t go on.

Truth be told he’s already told her that like ten times already, like twenty times. Or twice at any rate, or three times.

He says to Fleur, I can’t do this no more, baby. It’s not like I don’t love you. I do. I do love you, but Markie’s my guy. Markie trusts me. Markie put everything on the line for me.

Fleur says she understands.

She says, Joey, I love you, too. That’s what matters. I can’t let you go. But if I have to I will. If that’s what you want. Whatever you want, baby. I don’t want to see you suffering. You’ve already suffered enough.

But the next day she’s either in his office or on the phone or she’s left him a message and he calls her back on the voice mail right away and leaves her a message too, saying he’s sorry, and she’s on the phone right back at him saying, I left you a message, baby. Did you get it?