And here they are—everyone standing at attention when Jamey in his camel-hair coat wanders like a general onto the territory.
In the clammy recesses of the deteriorating theater, men cruise with dexterity that comes from practice and desire. There’s one kid with high-waisted slacks and corn-silk hair—but he’s too girly.
A man with roan sideburns and a cut-off Garfield T-shirt looks better. His jeans are skintight, his sneakers ultraviolet-white. The connection is triggered, although his eyes turn skeptical when Elise follows—I’ll just watch, she whispers nervously—and he keeps walking, self-conscious, resentful, and showing off.
They end up in worn velvet seats, Jamey in the middle. The guy deftly unbuttons his jeans and takes out his cock—skinny and snakelike. The hair is trimmed. Jamey takes out his own, uncertain. The guy strokes himself, and looks at Jamey’s face then at Jamey’s cock then at his own cock, and then makes the rounds again, with an expression that’s fierce but emotionless.
He gruffly directs Jamey to stand, facing him, his bare ass on the seat back. And now the stranger takes Jamey’s cock into his mouth.
Jamey loses it and gets it back. His legs are trembling, his thighs go rigid, but he won’t touch the man’s head, keeps his fists on his own waist. He does raise himself by tilting his hips—he can’t help it—his hips are getting higher—higher—higher!
Later in bed, Elise asks questions.
“It was the same but different,” he answers, still in awe.
“Would you do it again?”
“Most of what I felt came from you watching.”
“I loved watching,” she says, eyes bright with jealousy.
She talks about the dark auditorium, how other men were near but invisible, the heat and the illicit big space—and Jamey just observes her face. She licks her lips, holding braids like a rope. She’s amped up and tumbling over observations.
“You used me,” he says jokingly at one point.
She doesn’t deny it like he expects her to—she just laughs, shrugs. “I’m bored. It’s wintertime. We need things to do.”
Washington Square Park. Hash smoke twirling, ice in the fountain, a girl with broken fingernails strums her ukulele. Elise thinks she sees Jodi—someone she knew in Bridgeport—pushing a stroller with another girl, and she pulls Buck to a halt to watch.
Jodi looks at the beeper clipped to her tight black jeans. The girls part with a hand slap, one of them says something funny because they laugh, turn their high heads and strut in opposite directions with smiles.
Yeah, it’s Jodi. Fur-trimmed hood, like a German shepherd.
Elise squints. It might be cool to say Hi, to say Holy shit whatchu doing here, talk gossip, meet the baby. She watches her walk under the arch, stopping once to fuss with the kid. Gone.
Let her go.
Brainwaves from the old world, marcelled squiggles of energy, infrared forces try to hijack Elise’s own ways. It’s like that—it’s science. When she’s with the tribe, it’s hard not to live like the tribe, think like them, love like them, die like them.
When she was at the juvenile center, girls were all on the rag at the same time, their bodies synched up with no intention or permission.
Back in Bridgeport, life repeated itself every day. The women would lean elbows on the kitchen counter and bitch. Pile into someone’s car, babies on laps, laughing and smoking. Take over a section at the playground or Dairy Queen.
A girl is in or she’s out—she can’t loiter on the threshold with the door open.
Denise drags girls in synthetic lace dresses and plastic Mary Janes to church, shouting hello to people, her giant face shining with love. An addicted, compulsive, close-minded, gambling, pre-diabetic, angelic, giant-busted survivor, resurrected from minimum wage, from last night’s battle in the bedroom, from self-loathing. But when Elise tried to drag Denise away from that world, her mother made it clear that if Elise was going to jump ship, she better jump alone. And so she did.
And here she is.
Jamey and Elise haven’t driven the BMW for weeks, and today it makes a strange rattle.
He pops the hood in brittle sunshine.
“What the…?”
They don’t even know what they’re looking at.
An old man limps by, carrying a newspaper, and peers over their shoulders.
“Aw, shoot. Know what that is?” the stranger asks, smiling lopsided.
“What?” Elise says, fixated on the tiny bones.
“Rats is eating they dinner up in your engine. Ha-ha, that happen to my sister Maureen.”
“Chicken bones?”
“Yup. Must be from the KFC ’round the corner, you know. They gets all their bones from the dumpster, then use this hidey-spot for they dinner.”
Jamey and Elise collect skeletal parts from their machine. Grinning with absurdity.
A week later, Jamey sees blue glitter on the sidewalk before looking up to the crushed window. Inside: tinfoil burned with grime, seats pushed back.
The car is his big, black ceramic pram. Why does he keep it? He wonders that while waiting in the oil-reeking garage for it to get fixed.
It’s a queasy little afternoon, and they’re hungry—but there’s nothing in the house. Jamey doesn’t want to go outside, but Elise lures him into the brisk day with the idea of Broome Street Bar hamburger pitas. The place is quiet, a calico cat stealing from corner to corner looking for scraps. Jamey and Elise are greasy-fingered and laughing when a shadow falls across the table.
“Jamey! What the hell, man!”
It’s Matt.
“Hey,” Matt says to his entourage, “this is my buddy, Jamey Hyde.”
The two guys—shirts untucked under yellow cashmere sweaters, sockless ankles in duckboots, eyes bloodshot—shake hands with Jamey. They barely nod at Elise.
“Dag.”
“Shep.”
Jamey is speechless.
“Dude, you’re the most gossiped-about human being I know,” Matt says. “Everyone says you two are holed up shooting dope together.”
“Who’s everyone?” Jamey asks. And where did Matt learn language like “holed up” and “shooting dope”?
“Bennett told me you’re painting now? You got a gallery or some shit?”
Jamey manages to clear his throat. “Gallery?”
“Are you coming back this semester? You’re like living the anarchist dream.” Matt hungrily memorizes Jamey’s threadbare camel-hair coat and demeanor. He flicks his gaze at Elise, then away.
“What are you doing in New York?” Jamey asks.
“I’ve been spending most of my weekends here, these days. Hanging. Shep’s folks live on Crosby Street,” Matt brags.
Shep is dipping Skoal and Dag has coke powder on both nostrils.
“Crosby Street, that’s great,” Jamey says.
“I’m sure we’ve met, man,” Shep says grandly. “I know who you are.”
Dag pipes up. “We’re headed to the Palladium. I’m promoting tonight with my buddies.”
“Maybe we’ll see you there.” Jamey stands up. “Matt, good catching up.”
Jamey drops a couple twenties on the table and leads Elise out.