“It’s not you, it’s him, and it’s not normal, it’s abuse, sexual abuse, and it takes a certain type of sick, psychopathic mind to commit sexual abuse. I had a dog, a female dog named Christmas, and the thought of fondling her never entered my mind, ever.”
“Maybe you should have. Maybe it would have made you a more interesting human being.” The corners of her mouth were pinched downward in a way I’d never seen. It was like a Venetian carnival mask she took out solely for special festivals of indignation.
We finally reached the entrance to the 59th Street subway station. She turned to me slowly and stared into my eyes. I thought it was a strange moment for her to want to kiss me.
“You bore me.”
I was right, a kiss was far from her intention.
“You bore me.” Three words said flatly before she walked down the stairs and left me standing there feeling like a jilted husband. She had chosen a bestiality-bent ingrate over me. I had those odd soda-bubble butterflies in my gut, the kind I’d get as a little boy right before I’d start to cry. I did not want to be seventeen years old and crying on 60th Street in the middle of the afternoon. So I started spitting.
I spat on the sidewalk like it was sick dogfucking Barry’s face and maybe even her face if she ever treated me this way again. No. I would never have the courage to do that to her. Never.
I spit until the butterflies went away and I felt certain the tears were not going to come. I spit the whole way home.
seventeen
Whoever it was Lou was waiting for finally arrived. She was a short, wiry young woman with close-cropped but unevenly cut blond hair. Very similar in style to Lou’s. She wore a baggy black suit which gave the impression of a little kid playing dress-up with her father’s clothing. She smelled like booze, Old Spice, Doublemint gum (which she chewed nonstop), and cigarettes.
Lou didn’t introduce us. I watched them greet each other and sipped my gin and tonic. The taste reminded me of something I couldn’t put my finger on.
“Mona, Mona, Mona, Mona!” He kissed her on both cheeks with his lips pursed into a ridiculous tiny circle, then allowed her to slide into the booth next to him. He made it a point to always be in the outside seat.
She settled onto the vinyl bench and started talking like she had just come back from a bathroom break and was resuming a conversation that had been going on for hours: “I’m not calling her back. She wants to be First Lady and put on airs, that’s fine for whoever, but don’t think I’m gonna kiss fucking ass. She forgets who brought her around in the first place.”
Lou didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what she was saying. “Do you want a drink, Mona? Hey, Tim, get us another round.”
This time he held up a handful of bills. He gave me a ten and shoved the rest into Mona’s right hand, which simultaneously passed a small fold of tinfoil into his left hand. Springing to life, he dashed to the bathroom and disappeared. Mona took Lou’s pack of Marlboros and all the coins he’d left on the table. She stuck them in the big pockets of her suit jacket and sealed herself into the phone booth. I finished my drink and went to the bar to order another round. I felt high and happy and wanted a cigarette even though I wasn’t a smoker. The alcohol buzzed me enough courage to ask a leathery-skinned man with a fallen face for a cigarette. He looked at me sideways as he sipped something brown from a small glass. Then he slid his pack of Benson & Hedges toward me.
“Here ya go, champ.” Champ was much better than Tim. He seemed happy to offer me the smoke and insisted on lighting it for me. I sucked it hard as the flame ignited the paper and tobacco. A big draft of smoke filled my throat and lungs. I was suffocating as I tried to hold it in, and then I let it all out in a fit of coughs, hacks, and gags.
“Easy does it, buckaroo.” From deep in his throat came a long, wheezy, and phlegmy laugh. I kept on coughing and retching and must have turned green. The more I choked, the more he laughed. The bartender joined in the hilarity as he chuckled his way over to me with three gin and tonics. When I regained my composure, I handed the cigarette back to its original owner, who raised both hands over his head like I was mugging him at gunpoint.
“I don’t want it. Why don’t you save it for a rainy day.” Another thick mucous laugh followed. “Maybe when you get a little hair on your balls.”
I had gone from champ to buckaroo to prepubescent. I killed the cigarette, smothering the life out of it, and grabbed the drinks.
When I returned to the booth, Mona and Lou were nowhere to be found. The phone booth was empty and I was alone. “Duke of Earl” began playing on the jukebox: “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Earl, Earl, Duke of Earl, Earl, Earl, Duke of Earl . . .” It was not my selection but
