On the uptown side of Forty-second Street, perhaps five doors east of Eighth Avenue, there was a hole-in-the-wall shop much like the others, except that it seemed to specialize in sadomasochistic material. It had all the other specialties as well, of course, but its S-and-M section was proportionately larger. There were videos ranging from $19.98 all the way up to $100, and there were photo magazines with names like Tit Torture.
I looked at all of the videocassettes, including the ones made in Japan and Germany and the aggressively amateurish ones with crude computer-printed labels. Before I was halfway through I had ceased really looking for Rubber Man and his heartless partner. I wasn't looking for anything. I was just letting myself soak up this world to which I'd been so abruptly introduced. It had always been here, less than a mile from where I lived, and I had always known of it, but I'd never let myself sink into it before. I'd never had reason to.
I got out of there, finally. I must have been in the shop for close to an hour, looking at everything, buying nothing. If this bothered the clerk he kept his annoyance to himself. He was a dark-skinned young man from the Indian subcontinent, and he kept his face expressionless and never said a word. In fact no one in the shop ever spoke, not he, not I, not any of the other customers. Everyone was careful to avoid eye contact, browsing, buying or not buying, and moving into and through and out of the store as if genuinely unaware of anyone else's presence. Now and then the door would open and close, now and then there'd be a jingly sound as the clerk counted out change into somebody's palm, quarters for the video booths at the back. Otherwise all was silence.
I took a shower as soon as I got back to my hotel. That helped, but I still carried the aura of Times Square around with me. I went to a meeting that night and took another shower and went to bed. In the morning I had a light breakfast and read the paper, and then I walked down Eighth Avenue and turned left on the Deuce.
The same clerk was on duty, but if he recognized me he kept it to himself. I bought ten dollars' worth of quarters and went into one of the little booths in back and locked the door. It doesn't matter which booth you select because each contains a video terminal hooked into a single sixteen-channel closed-circuit system. You can switch from channel to channel at will. It's like watching television at home, except the programming is different and a quarter buys you a scant thirty seconds of viewing time.
I stayed in there until my quarters were gone. I watched men and women do various things to one another, each some variation on an overall theme of punishment and pain. Some of the victims seemed to be enjoying the proceedings, and none looked to be in any real distress. They were performers, willing volunteers, troupers putting on a show.
Nothing that I saw was much like what I'd seen at Elaine's.
When I got out of there I was ten dollars poorer and felt about that many years older. It was hot and humid out, it had been like that all week, and I wiped sweat off my forehead and wondered what I was doing on Forty-second Street and why I'd come there. They didn't have anything I wanted.
But I couldn't seem to get off the block. I wasn't drawn to any other porno stores, nor did I want any of the services the street had to offer. I didn't want to buy drugs or hire a sexual partner. I didn't want to watch a kung fu movie or buy basketball sneakers or electronic equipment or a straw hat with a two-inch brim. I could have bought a switchblade knife ("Sold only in kit form; assembly may be illegal in some states") or some fake photo ID, printed while-U-wait, $5 black-and-white, $10 color. I could have played Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, or listened to a white-haired black man with a bullhorn who had absolute conclusive proof that Jesus Christ was a full-blooded Negro born in present-day Gabon.
I walked back and forth, back and forth. At one point I crossed Eighth and had a sandwich and a glass of milk at a stand-up lunch counter in the Port Authority bus terminal. I hung out there for a while- the air-conditioning was a blessing- and then something drove me back onto the street.
One of the theaters had a pair of John Wayne movies, The War Wagon and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. I paid a dollar or two, whatever it cost, and went inside. I sat through the second half of one film and the first half of the other and went outside again.
And walked some more.
I was lost in thought and not paying attention when a black kid stepped up next to me and asked me what I was doing. I turned to look at him and he stared up at me with a challenging look in his eyes. He was fifteen or sixteen or seventeen, around the same age as the boy murdered in the film, but he looked far more streetwise.
"I'm just looking in a store window," I said.
"You been lookin' in every window," he said. "You been up and down the block time and time again."
"So?"
"So what you lookin' for?"
"Nothing."
"Walk on down to the corner," he said. "Down to Eighth, and then around the corner and wait."
"Why?"
"Why? So all these people don't be lookin' at us, that's why."
I waited for him on Eighth Avenue, and he must have run around the block or taken a shortcut through the Carter Hotel. Years ago it was the Hotel Dixie, and it was famous for one thing- the switchboard operator answered every call, "Hotel Dixie, so what?" I think they changed the name about the same time that Jimmy Carter took the presidency away from Gerald Ford, but I could be wrong about that, and if it's true it's probably coincidence.
I was standing in a doorway when he approached, walking south from Forty-third Street, his hands in his pockets and his head cocked to one side. He was wearing a denim jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. You would have thought he'd be roasting in that jacket, but the heat didn't seem to bother him.
He said, "I seen you yesterday and I seen you all day today. Back an' forth, back an' forth. What you lookin' for, man?"
"Nothing."
"Shit. Everybody on the Deuce be lookin' for somethin'. First I thought you was a cop, but you ain't a cop."
"How do you know?"
"You ain't." He took a long look at me. "Are you? Maybe you are."
I laughed.
"What you laughin' at? You actin' strange, man. Man asks do you want to buy reefer, do you want to buy rock, you just give your head a quick little shake, you don't even look at the man. You want any kind of drugs?"
"No."
"No. You want a date with a girl?" I shook my head. "A boy? Boy and a girl? You want to see a show, you want to be a show? Tell me what you want."
"I just came here to walk around," I said. "I had some things to think about."
"Sheeeee," he said. "Come on down to the Deuce to think. Put on my thinkin' cap, come on down to the Street. You don't say what you really want, how you gonna get it?"
"I don't want anything."
"Tell me what you want, I help you get it."
"I told you, there's nothing I want."
"Well, shit, plenty of shit I want. Say you gimme a dollar."
There was no menace to him, no intimidation. I said, "Why should I give you a dollar?"
"Just 'cause you an' me be friends. Then maybe on account of we friends, I be givin' you a jay. How's that sound?"
"I don't smoke dope."
"You don't smoke dope? What do you smoke?"
"I don't smoke anything."
"Then gimme a dollar an' I won't give you nothin'."
I laughed in spite of myself. I glanced around and no one was paying attention to us. I got out my wallet and handed him a five.
"What's this for?"
" 'Cause we're friends."
"Yeah, but what do you want? You want me to go somewhere with you?"