Authors: Darcey Steinke
T
HE BUS JUMPED ITS LINE, STOPPED, BIG BLUE SPARKS FELL PAST
my window. The driver put on his gloves and went outside to connect the pole to the lattice of electrical wiring overhead. I could feel random electricity heating up my skin, upsetting my stomach, creating a tingly static in my head. I had to get off the bus, though the Indian man in the back warned me not to. He wore pukka beads and held a brown bag of Mad Dog in the low-slung pocket of his coat. He made me think how capitalism works best in the least-spiritual countries. In the Mexican deli on the corner I bought a quart of beer and some nougat the lady told me was homemade.
It felt good to be out. The air was fresh and occasionally I saw a fellow insomniac like myself. All this was mine: the dark houses, the liquid streets and the night clouds overhead hiding frozen stars. I walked past the Castro Theater, where a man plays the organ before the movie starts, and the Thai restaurant across the street where Bell and I always had salads with warm peanut sauce. Some things were familiar, but it still gave me the creeps to be down here. The artifice outside the buildings and the decor inside seemed overly ornate, even hysterical. In one gift-shop window homosexual merchandise was emphasized, a variety of cards with naked men and rubber penises with little feet.
I stopped: in a window I saw Bell at the bar, whispering intimately into another man's ear. A lizard slithered around inside my stomach. I could kill him, the way he leaned in and lay his arm loosely around the man's neck. I wondered if Bell preferred to sodomize or be sodomized . . . or was he a cocksucker? I suddenly felt dizzy and leaned up against the stucco wall. I wanted Bell to love me. A drag queen in a fur coat rushed by me and went into the bar next door. I followed her into the 500 Club. It was more crowded than the other after-hour clubs and didn't seem as seedy with its bright tiki lights. I sat there watching people pass. The jukebox nearby was filled with camp hits and Judy Garland songs, and there were framed photos of weight lifters hung against the black carpeted walls. I chose a still-warm stool by the door and ordered a bourbon. The young bartender, a Japanese man in tight white jeans and a half-buttoned tropical shirt, smirked when he set down my drink. There was a covey of leather monsters talking in the corner. I thought I recognized a few from parties at Pig's. Middle-aged men watched music videos, twisting their heads whenever the door opened. If you didn't count the drag queen I was the only woman here.
A fat man came in wearing acid-washed jeans and a baby-blue shirt open at the neck to show his gold zodiac medallion. He carried a shopping bag over his arm. A bald man he called Billy came to him and they both went to the back of the bar. The fat man slipped off his pants. The looseness of his skin and his black ankle socks reminded me of my grandfather. From the bag he took a black gown, as he stepped into it he told Billy that in Europe girls were wearing black dresses with fresh flowers in their hair.
“Zip it up,” he said. “I want to see how it hangs.”
“Oh, I know how it hangs,” Billy said and the whole bar laughed.
Billy tried to zip it. He told the man to suck in. He tried to pull the sides together, but he couldn't get the zipper up.
“Oh well,” the fat man finally said. A taffeta skirt didn't fit either and he couldn't even get the satin wedding suit over his chest.
“That last one would have looked great on you,” Billy said and walked back to his seat at the bar.
“I thought I was a perfect size sixteen and it's a shame because I can't return them,” he said, his hands shaking as he folded the clothing carefully back into the bag.
“They didn't fit?” the bartender asked, trying to break the awkward silence.
“No,” he said. “I'm getting too fat to be a girl.” He grinned at Billy as he squeezed past a table to his place at the bar. He ordered a drink, then started talking about a man they both knew who had this boyfriend, Jeffrey, that couldn't be trusted.
The door opened again and a dwarf came inside. He put his foot on the bar rail and jumped up on a stool near me. Everyone knew him and said hello. His name was Hector and his little pants and white shirt made him look like a boy at his first communion. He ordered a seltzer, he said, because he'd been getting into trouble lately.
I ordered a double, slung it down hoping some man here would think I was reckless and come over. When I scanned the room there was a man who was watching, but he averted his eyes. Maybe I'd blown it or he'd decided I was a slut. He read a book, which was an odd thing to do in a bar at this hour. It made him seem like he wanted to delineate himself. Was he gay? He did remind me of Bell with his poised ambiguity. It was a well-cultivated masculinity tottering on the edge of femininity and it appealed to me so much. He was the sort of man Bell would fancy.
But maybe he only wanted to watch me. He turned a page of his book and sipped his drink, the ice hit his teeth awkwardly and he shot a side glance at me. I smiled. He smiled back, put his glass down on the table and walked over to order another drink. He got a dollar's worth of quarters to play songs on the jukebox. While he perused the selections I turned my chest slightly toward him, readied for the second I'd raise my eyes like the whores at Carmen's.
“It's all so camp,” he said and shook his head.
I didn't answer. He asked me if I had a favorite.
“‘Sexual Healing,’” I said.
He liked that. I liked the way his pants hung loose around his hips and how he smelled like raspberries. He seemed very clean in his white T-shirt and new running shoes.
“Want to come over and sit with me?” he asked shyly. I nodded. He ordered me another drink and carried both of ours back to his table. He set them down, pulled out my chair and settled down in his own. I took a mouthful of bourbon. He closed his book—its plastic dustcover worried me—and leaned back in his chair, straightened his legs so the soles of his shoes brushed my bare ankle. He said his name was Jonathan. His expression was watchful and I wondered if I should have agreed to sit down.
“So why would you come to a place like this?” he asked.
I didn't like his tone and felt myself get angry, my voice rise as I explained myself. “Because homosexual men fascinate me. That they only want each other, that they consider the same sex mysterious.” I sipped my bourbon. The taste reminded me of desire. Jonathan sat up and leaned toward me, curved his open hand around his cheek and forehead, opened his eyes wider. “There's something wrong with me,” I told him. “It's hard for me to be with regular men. I don't know why, maybe it's just that I like the demeanor of gays better. I don't like sports bars or rock clubs or the steakhead heterosexuals I see on the street. Besides . . . why does anyone go into the dragon's den?”
He smiled weakly, his mouth wet and slightly open. “We better go somewhere else,” he said in a low voice. “I can tell that you're a complicated girl.”
C h a p t e r
S e v e n
I
T WAS HALLOWEEN NIGHT AND THE STREET SOUNDED OF FIRE
crackers and shouting. I lay languid in the tub, watching vapor rise off the hot water around me. Steam swirled up through the candlelight. I bought the candles at a store across the street that always smelled of sandalwood and musk. They sold bone crucifixes, colored saint beads and little statues of St. Francis. The Mexican lady had scented oils for love or winning money, one called Fiery Wall of Protection and a smaller bottle of pink liquid called Guardian, which she said attracted angels to watch over babies. When I was sick last year Bell had bought a special remedy, a mason jar of green liquid. He'd opened the bottle, dipped his fingers and run them lightly over my feverish skin. There was a sudden smell of mint. The elixir was first cool, then warm, like a winter kiss.
I soaped a washcloth, slid it into the ridge of my rear, pressing it just inside my anus, then rung it out and ran the bar of soap over it again until the material was thick with lather. Sliding the cloth into the folds of my pussy, soaping up the hair, I thought about douches and feminine sprays and the jokes high school boys used to make about women smelling like fish. What was it that made everyone so uncomfortable? Women worry that the scent reveals their sexuality and makes them vulnerable as dogs in heat. To men, the smell evoked the mysteries of the female body, which were cosmic but also threatening.
The cheap candles smelled of animal fat, dripping wax dark as ink on the porcelain tub. I let my hands, palms up, float to the top, the wrinkled tips breaking the surface. My hand had seemed separate when I jerked off the man from the gay bar last night. Each finger had a mind of its own and an eye in its tip. I watched the hand work on his cock, make an orifice out of fingers, squeeze down until he closed his eyes, imagining an ass as huge as the universe. Now the skin of my fingers was loose and gray as a cadaver. What could they be plotting? I wondered if the function of my body might be different from the function of my mind. I sensed the peace one found if they subverted either mind over body like a monk, or body over mind like a whore. You could hold both only if they were separated and severely so, like the right and left brain when the fissure is broken in surgery. I was trying by trusting my animal instincts over my intellectual ones.
Outside a man screamed something in Spanish. All good things are coming to an end, I thought, and though I knew it was true, I wasn't sure if I meant for me or for everyone. Divorce had given me the horrific sensation that the two sides of myself were at odds. I am the worst kind of person, attractive, overeducated, raised with middle-class delusions of grandeur. But it's not just me; family life in America sucks, because if you're even a bit smart, the pressure from your family to jump classes is excruciating. There's this insane idea that materialism creates status. Even if you make some headway, it's an internal jump. You're always middle-class, talking on your cellular phone with your color TV muted. We should never have cast ourselves like gods, on TV or in movies—it ruined our memories, made us long and lust, in love now only with the image of ourselves. And perfected others: the nicest guys I see are characters on TV.
I've mesmerized myself watching the water droplets loosen from the faucet. They catch light before joining their multiple selves. There is a bit of motion at the edge of my vision, it's the snake. I've seen it moving in the drapes, shifting in the blankets.
T
HE RAIN STOPPED AND WARM MEXICAN AIR BLEW INTO THE
streets. A little girl passed painted up like a whore, but it was too late for little girls. Ahead, on the other side of the street, a group of skinheads came toward me, angry about something. Hands deep in their pockets, they jumped on one another like monkeys trying to copulate. Some wore hooded sweatshirts and hockey masks over their shaved heads. A few carried baseball bats or cartons of eggs. I saw the swastikas on their jackets and the familiar White Brotherhood logo. I was wearing an outfit of Madison's: red velvet bell-bottoms and a rhinestone-studded shirt and was worried they'd bother me. The tallest one, in a hockey mask, banged his bat against the brick wall. I turned, started to walk back the way I came when there was a sudden thud, then a burst like heavy rain. He'd shattered the window of the transvestite lingerie store. Tranced by the foam-filled bras and high heels as big as a strong man's work boot he reached in and took a garter studded with rhinestones. He looked like a monster holding a kitten. The skinheads were startled by the objects in the window which could so easily change them. A man came out from the next building in a ratty bathrobe, his eyes smeared with make-up.
“FAGGOT!” one screamed and they were suddenly on him. “Queer, butt blaster, fudge pirate!” They bashed his head against the hood of a parked car. The steely echo of the hood, absorbing the force of their fists on his body, made me shiver with nausea. It would have gone on forever but the police pulled up, lights flashing. One skinhead ran, then they all did.
“God damn,” the man said, reeling. He touched his head where blood was matting in his hair. Another man came out from the apartment building in stretch pants and high heels. He helped the man to the doorway of the shop and held him while he sobbed.
San Francisco confounded me. First it seemed utopian, with the blue skies, pervasive Mediterranean light, palm trees, organic vegetable stores that sold strawberry juice, the children in funky handmade sweaters. But all that was an overlay—misleading and cosmetic. Underneath was a history of decadence: the opium dens in Chinatown, the thousand whores who worked the gold rush, the voodoo and witchcraft shops. Even the fast-moving fog was nightmarish. There were leather monsters fucking dogs and each other in the alleyways of SoMa and the living dead haunting the Castro cafés. Sure, there were hippies gentle and peace-loving, but there was also the Manson family, the SLA and the Jim Jones Kool-Aid test. And California is the outpost of rigid conservatism . . . the home of Nixon and Reagan. Satanists are in the hills, chanting Latin, drinking urine, forcing candles into the tops of rotten deer heads. And, of course, there was Hollywood, the mimetic desire capital of the world.
From way up the block Carmen's was explosive. Each time the door opened, music hammered out and the crowd spilled outside. Curtained windows upstairs had continuous plays of light and shadow, which meant the rooms were occupied. On the front door was a newsprint picture of a plane crash and over it Madison had drawn the devil's eyes and a round howling mouth. I paused for a moment with my fingers on the handle listening to the pulse of music, knowing Madison was teasing the audience with her pelvis.
Inside I let my eyes adjust to the black light. There was a sudden jerk to my right. In the dark spot reached only by nipples of electronic light, a lap dancer, a new girl, was straddling a man who smiled leeringly at her, his white teeth glowing. She needed extra money and would let the men put their cocks inside of her. With his hands on her hips the man manipulated her body, up and down. She swayed back from him, as if he'd just said something rude.
Drag queens danced on the bar in miniskirts and floppy hats. Madison was dancing topless, wearing denim short-shorts. She had greased her body so it gleamed under the bluish light. The lap dancers wore garters and push-up bras, the men in rumpled business suits, some in cotton sweaters and polyester pants hiked over their bellies. There was a man in a devil mask with a bow tie that squirted water. A woman passed me with a huge extension wig and another in diamond-studded glasses. Lita, the early evening bartender, was grumpy, hated the jumpsuit Madison forced her to wear. She said a drunk man had pinched her tit and whenever she reached into the cooler for a frosted glass, it hurt.
I started washing the backed-up glasses, helped Lita pour beers, all the time watching Madison pulse her hips toward the ceiling. I was busy cracking beers, taking money. When I looked up again she was gone and I imagined her on the back stairs, getting a drink of water, putting on her white robe.
But then she was near me, leaning out of the stairwell shouting that she wanted to talk in the bathroom. I followed her. Everyone was drunker than usual and it was a relief to step out of the noise and laughter into the quiet. She locked the door, put down the toilet seat and sat. I hadn't noticed how red the walls were and how people had scratched things into the paint—the letters reminded me of little bones . . .
NIGGERS ARE BETTER LOVERS, PUSSY IS GOD
. Someone knocked on the door, Madison ignored it. I noticed through her damp make-up that she looked tired. Pubic hair had gathered on the damp porcelain and someone had left her black bikini underwear rolled up in the corner.
She rubbed the track marks on her arms and tipped her head back, as if wanting the play of colored lights on the underside of her eyelids. I was amazed how she could go for days without sleep. How when she was hurt you could tell only by the movement of her hands. She had no one, so no restrictions either. She couldn't understand worrying about not having a boyfriend or a husband or a baby. Where was her weak spot? Did Pig teach her one person could love another blindly? Or had Pig disappointed her, shown how everyone who loves you needs to control you. Madison thinks that to devastate yourself is somehow life-affirming. I was reminded of a tar-covered cat, a pretty lizard that can shed multiple skins. She looked at me then.
“Susan's not here. Want to make some real money?”
I nodded. Madison stood, opened the door. We entered the noisy bar full of men's faces, numerous and similar as kidney beans. “It will be a relief,” she said. “Kneel down to it.”
F
ROM INSIDE SUSAN'S ROOM I COULD HEAR THE FISH TANKS
bubbling and men's footfalls in the hall. The room had the glowing muted tones of a baroque painting, with its gold glass lamps and orange satin spread. The black garter belt and stockings were in the closet as Madison had said. I secured the garter over my hips and affixed each strap to the top of the stocking. I cracked the seal on the Wild Turkey and swigged directly from its lip, convincing myself I was waiting for my husband, who was coming up the stairs in his black banker shoes, locking up our house. His footsteps creaked on our wood floors, then padded on the carpeted stairs. He would talk to me while he undressed, say, “I think we should get some tulip bulbs for the garden.” I'd hear his hangers cling in the closet as he hung up his pants, then the rich smell of his body coming toward me.
There was a tentative knock, the kind a doctor makes to see if you've used the paper gown to cover up. I said, “Come in.” He was as old as my father, hair combed over his bald spot like a gym teacher, his features ragged and pointed like an eagle's. I started to pull off my clothes and he came over, sat on the other side of the bed and undressed. When I asked him what he wanted he said tersely, “To have sex.”
I heard him rip the condom package and that sticky elastic sound as he rolled it down. He turned toward me quickly and threw one leg over, burying his face in my neck. He forced his cock in and began a series of anxious little thrusts. There was a print of a princess with a pale pinched face above the bed. I noticed how his underarms stank and the ridiculous way he held his mouth pinched up like a rectum. Both his stench and his expression reminded me of the professor I had slept with in college.
The long hairs flapped from his bald head, swayed over my face. He warned me he was going to come and when he did his back arched and he moaned. Relaxing his body weight on top of me, he sucked air for a while, then rolled away, pulled his condom off and lobbed it into the trash can. While he was dressing he watched me with an expression of hate and lust. I leaned back against the headboard, watched him leave, felt the skin of my vagina tingle. I stared at the bulbous lamp on the nightstand, something seemed to be inside of the gold brass waiting to get out. It was an ugly lamp with a faux-suede shade. I thought of how the Nazis had made lamp shades out of people's skin.
The door opened again, slowly, as if the next man hoped to catch me fucking the first. This one was chubby with a little black beard.
“Put your butt up high,” he said, closing the door behind him. I got on all fours, cradled my head in my arms, and raised my ass. He unlatched his belt, then his fly, his pants rustled to the floor. Kneeling on the bed in back of me, “Up higher,” he said and pressed his cock in, dug his fingernails into my ass. After several long breathy strokes he said, “My brother is going to come in here and put his dick in your mouth, he'll pull your hair until his cock is in to the hilt and you'll moan.
“Moan,” he said, and I did. “We'll fuck you every day because you have a nice tight pussy and you liked to be fucked in the ass.” He pulled hard and told me he could kill me if he wanted, that nobody would care. I felt his loose tummy resting on my lower back like a rat. His pace accelerated and he made a sound like clearing his throat as he came. He tried to lean over me, to grab my tits, but I jumped away and went into the bathroom, wet a washcloth and wiped my pussy. I looked at the bright sink, the water gurgling in the toilet, the fringe of a towel hanging on a rack by the door. With my hands I pulled my hair straight back and looked into my eyes.
I am still myself.
I remembered after the abortion in college going to a blind shrink, how he held my hand, put his fingers around my wrist. “You're thin,” he said. “Is that a problem?” I liked how his one eye was yellowish and glowed like a moon. “You are a girl who has been lonely,” he said. “Why do you choose that dark path?”
Madison came in, went over to the bed and poured bourbon into a glass. I put my bell-bottoms on, buttoned my studded shirt. “So was it horrible?” she asked. It was a question similar to the kind my father used to ask when he first left my mother. “Are you O.K.?” he would ask and the only answer would be yes. “It's hard the first few times,” she said handing the glass to me. “They haunt you like one-night stands, but if you just relax, it happens. It gets to be like passing people on the street.”