and into the epicenter of my brain. If I close the windows,
however, I will probably die. But it is the vibration, in this
case the endless clucky thumping of the badly abused instruments, that worms its way under my skin to make me itch with discontent, irritation, a rage directed, in this case, at
Italian weddings, but on other nights at French crooners, at
Jaggerish deadbeats, at Elvisian charlatans, at Haggardish
kvetchers, and even, on occasion, at Patti Pageish or even Peggy
Leeish dollies embellished by brass.
I watch the limos pulling up, parking in front of the fire
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hydrants and no-parking signs. I see a man in a tux tear down
with his bare hands a no-parking sign. I see an endless supply
of kids attending these adult parties. The house used to be a
synagogue. One day it was empty. Then a man with many
boys moved in. The boys had tattoos and did heavy work and
had lean thighs. They all lived on the top floor. The parties
were on the lower two floors. The boys flew a flag from the
top floor. I called it never-never-land. The parties drove me
mad.
The women who went into the house were never contemporary cosmopolitan women. They always wore fluffy dresses or full skirts and frilly blouses, very fifties, suburban, dating,
heavy makeup. Even the youngest women wore wide formal
skirts, maybe even with crinolines, in pastel colors, and their
hair was set and lacquered. They were deferential and flirty
and girlish and spoke when spoken to. Sometimes they had a
corsage. Sometimes they wore female hats. Sometimes they
even wore female gloves or female wraps. Always they wore
female shoes and female stockings and stood in a female way
and looked very fifties, virgin ingenues. They never met the
rough boys from the top floor, or not so that I could see. They
came with dates. There were floral arrangements inside, and
white tablecloths, and men in white jackets. Then, during the
day, the boys from the upper floor would ride their bikes or
get wrecked on drugs. Once my favorite, a beautiful wrecked
child who at fifteen was getting old, too covered with tattoos,
with hair hanging down to his shoulders and some beautiful
light in his eyes and thighs, had a young girl there. She too was
beautiful, dark, perfect, naked, exquisite breasts and thighs,
they hung out the window together and watched the sun rise.
They seemed exquisitely happy: young: not too hurt yet, or
young enough to be resilient: he must have been hurt, all
tattooed and drugged out and in this house of boys, and she
had been or would be, and I prayed for her as hard as I have
ever hoped for myself. That she was and would be happy; that
she was older than she looked; that she would be all right. It
was only at dawn that the human blood seemed to have washed
out of the cement and that injury seemed to disappear: and
men began emerging from the park where they had been
