watch the streets to see where we are and w e’re going towards
where I live but up and down blocks, it doesn’t seem direct but
I don’t know because I don’t drive and I don’t know if there’s
one-w ay streets and the meter’s o ff anyw ay and he’s English
like in films with a distinguished accent, sort o f tough like
Albert Finney but he talks quiet and nice, a little dissonant; he’s
sort o f slim and delicate, you know how pretty a man can be
when he’s got fine features, chiseled, and curls, and he’s sort o f
waif-like, kind o f like a child in Dickens, appealing with a pull
to the heart, street pretty but softspoken, not quite hard, not
apparently cynical, not a regular N ew Y ork taxi driver as I’ve
seen them, all squat and old, but graceful, lithe, slight, young,
younger than me probably, new, not quite used but not
untouched, virginal but available, you can have him but it isn’t
quite right to touch him, he’s withdrawn and aloof and it
appears as a form o f refinement, he’s delicate and finely made,
you wonder what it would be like to touch him or if he’d be
charmed enough to touch you back, it’s a beauty without
prettiness except this one’s pretty too, too pretty for me, I
think, I never had such a pretty, delicate boy put together so
fine, pale, the face o f an old, inbred race, now decadent,
fragile, bloodless, with the heartrending beauty o f fine old
bones put together delicately, reconstructed under glass, it
w ouldn’t really be right to touch it but still you want to, just
touch it; and you couldn’t really stop looking at him in the
m irror o f the taxi, all the parts o f his face barely hang together,
all the parts are fragile and thin, it’s delicate features and an
attitude, charm and insouciance but with reserve, he puts out
and he holds back, he decides, he’s used to being wanted, he’s
aloof, or is it polite, or is it gentle? He turns around and smiles
and it’s like angel dust; I’m dusted. I get all girlish and
embarrassed and I think, really, he’s too pretty, he doesn’t
mean it, and there’s a real tense quiet and we drive and then he
stops and w e’re there and I hand him the two dollars because
we agreed and he says real quiet, maybe I could come in, and I
say yes, and I’m thinking he’s so pretty, it’s like being in a
m ovie with some movie star you have a crush on only he’s
coming with you and it’s not in a movie but you know how a
crush on someone in a film makes you crazy, so weird, as if
you could really touch him even though he’s flat and on film
and the strange need you think you have for him and the things
you think you would do with him, those are the feelings,
because I have a stupid crush, an insane crush, a boy-crazy
crush, and I am thinking this is a gorgeous night with the
visitation o f this fine boy but I am so fucking drunk I can
