People in Trouble (15 page)

Peter jammed his hands into his pockets as he walked down Sixth Avenue.

He knew she threw those things around just to hurt him.
 
She had to let him know she was going to do whatever she wanted no matter how it made him feel.
 
Fuck her.
 
He could have affairs too, he just didn't.

There was that actress in The Blacks, Sandra King.
 
He could have had an affair with her.
 
Her skin tone was perfect for stage light.
 
She had a smooth deep tan, like fine leather.
 
He hadn't lit many black casts before and he couldn't stop looking at her in the light.
 
Her hair was straightened, which was not the style in those days.
 
She wore it back, showing off a hairline that was a designer's dream, the way the Mexican shoreline looks from an airplane.
 
It framed her face perfectly.
 
Kate was still painting scenery then, and she often got fed up easily and left early while Peter stayed working late.
 
Sandra had big bony features and her skin was pulled as tightly as --her hair, stretched taut over her chest.
 
She wore large earrings -and jerked her hands up and down as she spoke, as though she were pulling herself up a bramble-covered hill.
 
He wanted to see her by the ocean.
 
He remembered a vivid fantasy of standing seaside on a cliff at night with his arms around her looking out -over the water together until the first amber rays of dawn would sneak into the sky.
 
So, one day, he slipped a cut of Bastard Amber -into the gel frame and as she turned stage right, he brought up the blue and then eased in the BA slowly, maybe a twenty count.

It was only up to level three but it was there and she was by the sea.

Peter remembered how the night was cold but her body was warm and as the water growled onto the shore, he knew he'd be entering her and lying with her under many blankets.

In reality they did have coffee once.
 
She was married to a Jewish actor.
 
They had one child.
 
She was worried about the usual things.

After the show closed he didn't see or hear of her for years until one morning when they ran into each other jogging around Washington Square Park.
 
She said she was divorced and -working as a buyer for ladies' swimwear.

Peter was wearing a new black leather jacket.
 
It was so soft I-and smelled great, like a comfortable chair or the country.
 
It gave him some feeling of sensuality and security on those dark, cold -New York City gray days.
 
The winter made the streets quiet for -a moment, almost reflective, and gave it the illusion of being safe and manageable.
 
There were practically no loud noises at those times.

He stopped at the Cineplex Odeon Home Quad Movie Center - - (formerly the Waverly Theater) to consider a movie.
 
There was an action romance with hip young actors, a British import that was clearly slow, and two star vehicles.
 
He could tell from the posters that the male star vehicle involved various forms of mechanized death and the female one contained a variety of fake foreign accents.
 
Then he noticed two women, half his age, kissing against a car.
 
He stared at them.
 
They were beautiful really, both with long dark hair and he was glued to their absolute abandon, kissing so openly right there on the avenue.

Their dungarees were -rubbing against each other.
 
One had her fingers hooked in the other one's belt loops.
 
As the other kissed her neck she turned her head and then, accidentally really, her eyes met Peter's full on.
 
She was flushed with cold and lust.
 
As soon as she caught this man staring at her, she flashed a laugh like a knife.
 
It was a weapon, a stare and an icy resistance.
 
Her gaze was a powerful sexual defiance of him and his.
 
But then their eyes locked in sudden recognition which transformed her expression.
 
It literally fell off her face and clattered onto the sidewalk and was replaced, immediately, with guilt.
 
It was so clear a change that Peter saw, in a jolt that froze his skin to the leather, that he had finally confronted Molly face to face and at the same time he had caught her cheating on his wife with another woman.
 
He felt offended for Kate's honor and then ashamed for his own.
 
But he had finally seen that face in full.

She has a mustache, he thought.
 
And she's fat.
 
Not fat exactly, but definitely out of shape.
 
Her clothes don't fit well.

He was surprised.
 
Kate took such care with how she looked, so he imagined that any woman she'd be involved with would too.
 
A woman is a woman, after all.
 
She should be attracted to the kind that she wants to be.
 
But this one swaggered.
 
He'd have known she was gay immediately.
 
As soon as there was any real difference of opinion she'd be a real bitch, not conceding anything to a man, just for the principle.
 
Then he'd have to make excuses to get away before she accused him of being a sexist.

They were all like that.

Molly turned from him and spoke to her companion, who looked up at first but then turned away as well.
 
They walked down the block holding hands and never looked back.
 
Peter knew this because his eyes followed them all the way.
 
Then he paid for the movie, not remembering which one he'd chosen, and headed directly for the men's room.
 
Once inside, he stood in the stall sweating, holding his balls and rocking back and forth.
 
It left a smell on his hands that he liked.
 
His balls were leaking.

Peter thought about the most unusual thing.
 
He remembered a long-ago lost memory from college, of a day like this one in New England.
 
John Craig stopped him in the school cafeteria to say that he knew a girl who would fuck five guys that night at her -brother's apartment.

Johnny would let Peter be one of those guys.

They all went over there and sat on the living room couch giggling at first and then somberly sipping Scotch as each, one - - I after the other, passed behind the closed bedroom door.
 
Fifteen -minutes later, each would reemerge, tousled, flustered and grin rung.
 
Peter was last.

He wasn't used to drinking and felt tingly and light.
 
He was hard the whole hour waiting for his turn.
 
But something about the smell of that bedroom made him dizzy when he first stepped in.
 
It was rank, like a slaughterhouse, and there was scum all over the sheets.
 
He took down his pants and she made a little wet cup on her stomach with her hands and saliva that he slid in and out of until he came.
 
Then he stood up with his pants at his knees and looked at her and said, "Why are you doing this?"

But she just laughed.
 
The expression on her face was so blank and frightening that he grabbed onto his balls and rocked back and forth, back and forth, holding on to a towline to safety.

Molly took Pearl to the bus station early Wednesday morning and spent the rest of it staring out the window over a cup of plain tea.
 
At noon she wandered over to work, which began with a hello to Danny who ran the concession stand.
 
They began every day by drinking Cokes with extra syrup so they could be peppy for the customers.
 
She could eat as much as she wanted to of anything that couldn't be counted, which meant unlimited soda and popcorn but no Goobers or Raisinettes because they would show up missing on the inventory.
 
Then she sat in her booth, put in new colored ticket rolls, filled out the cash sheet and did the crossword puzzle.

The double feature that day was The Damned and The Night Porter, so that attracted all the Nazi freaks and so-called decadent types plus a lot of masturbators and some film students.
 
Every once in a while a thin nervous man would approach the window and not ask for a ticket.

He would not reach for his wallet.

"Justice?"
 
she'd ask, with the same inflection she used to say "Night Porter?"
 
Then he'd slip a yellow piece of paper through the money slot and she'd say, "Thank you.
 
Have a nice day."

Not all the men making drop-offs were that mysterious.
 
A few sauntered by with friends.

-"Wait a minute, will ya?
 
I have to drop this off.
 
Hi there.

Are you from Justice?"

Then she'd smile and he'd smile and he'd go on his way.

One guy got into the full spirit of things by saying "Thank you, sister," flashing a victory sign with two fingers on his right hand followed by a fisted salute.
 
Either he was an old radical or he was showing off the manual technique he'd picked up at the Mineshaft.

All day long she collected little slips of yellow paper and never once looked at them, taking her assignment as a messenger quite literally.

Then Kate came up to the window in fedora and pinstripe.

`I"Night Porter?"

"The Damned, please.
 
I miss you.
 
When can we get together?

I'm horny.
 
When do you get off work?"

Now that Kate was wearing men's clothes she'd gotten a lot more forward, Molly noted.
 
And here she was coming and asking directly for things.
 
Maybe it wouldn't take quite so many days for the phone to ring as it used to.
 
On the other hand it bothered Molly a little to hear Kate say she was horny because that's what -her husband was for and if he wasn't living up to the demands of his marital duties then why was this guy still in the picture?

"I have to go to a meeting tonight.
 
It's in the same building --as your studio.
 
It has to do with AIDS.
 
Do you know an older -black man who lives there named James Carroll?"

"You know my hours are so weird that I don't get to see many of the other tenants, but 1may have met him at some point."

"He's got a younger boyfriend, looks like a meditator."

"Maybe."

"Why don't you come with me?
 
Why don't you sneak into this ticket booth for one moment and feel my ass while the boss is busy freebasing?"

Kate reappeared at quitting time and witnessed the final three drop-offs with great interest.
 
She flipped through the papers as they walked along.

"These are all eviction notices," she said.

"I thought so."

"They're all from my new landlord."

"Who's that?"

-"New York Realty.
 
It's a Home subsidiary, I think.
 
See, it says right here that his company is the plaintiff.
 
. . on every one of these cases.
 
I just got the announcement two weeks ago that he had purchased my building, but I didn't get any eviction notice.
 
Look, these three slips are all from my address."

"Do you know them?"
 
Molly asked looking over Kate's arm.

"There might even be more than these.
 
I think there are three or four other people collecting today."

"Who are these tenants?"
 
Kate asked, still thumbing through the yellow slips.
 
"Pablo Guzman.
 
That must be the Latin guy in apartment twelve with a diamond stud in his ear.
 
And number five?"

"Isn't that the young guy with the punk haircut who wears sunglasses at night?"

"Maybe.
 
And number three, O'Rourke.
 
I've often wondered about him actually.
 
He used to go out every evening quite late and come back three hours later.
 
I could hear him locking and unlocking his door.

Not recently though."

"I hope not.
 
Cruising is no longer cool, I think.
 
Who knows, actually.
 
Anyway, it looks like all the gay men in your building are being evicted.
 
Does it list the charges?"

"Pets.
 
They're all being thrown out for having pets."

"Like dogs and cats?"

"Yes, it looks like every other gay man in the neighborhood is being evicted.
 
How do they know who's who?"

"Well, we'll find out tonight," Molly said, moving in under Kate's arm.

They kissed.

"Spare change?"