Two women came into the bar with matching black leather jackets. Epaulets, belts hanging, zippers on the sleeves. Yes, tie me up with those jackets, wind the sleeves around my chest. One was pretty, one was not, I didn’t care anymore. Tie me up with your leather, sweetheart, bind my arms and legs, flagellate, flagellate, dance to the music, tie me up and I’m yours. I downed the martini in front of me. What was that, my third, fourth? And then the Sea Breezes on top of them. Maybe Veronica was waiting for me, maybe she had been calling. I could use it tonight, yes. A few kisses, a few tweaks of those gorgeous nipples, and then slip it to her, that would be something.
One of the black leather jackets sat down at the bar beside me. My poor luck was holding, it wasn’t the pretty one. She was thin, angular, her chin sharp, her hair like a sloppy Dorothy Hamill. And what was that on her cheek, that thin white line? It was a scar. Oh, God, now that was sexy. Maybe my luck was changing, a leatherclad vixen with a scar on her cheek.
She leaned on the bar and faced me. “Enjoying the view?”
A line, I thought. What I needed to do was to give her a line. My thinking had grown thick, but I could come up with a line, at least. “It’s fine,” I said. “It just got better.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said bitterly. “We just love to provide an evening’s entertainment.”
What had I done now, I wondered. I didn’t understand what she was saying. Maybe she was for sale, but if so she was a strange looking hooker.
The bartender came over. “Back off, Sharon, we’ve talked about this before.”
“I’m just sick of the gawkers,” said Sharon.
“That’s not why he’s here.”
“Then tell me, J.J., what is he doing here?”
“He came in for a drink. I can tell the ones who are here to look.”
It dawned on me then. It came close to clarity, a thought just hovering out of reach, and then slammed into me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought it was a sports bar.”
“You got to change that name,” said Sharon as she slid away from me.
“I was wondering where the televisions were,” I said.
“Let me get you another round on the house,” said J.J.
“Maybe I should get going.”
“There’s no rush. Sharon’s just a bitch sometimes but basically she’s all right.”
So I had another round and by the end of it the place was spinning and I couldn’t focus on anyone enough to gawk and so Sharon was finally safe from my gaze. The place filled up quickly, it was Tuesday night after all, and I watched them all as they came in. There were younger women and older women and pretty pretty women and ugly women and fat and fatter and skinny women. There were all kinds of women and for some reason, the drinks probably or the secret knowledge I had or some typical male perversion forcing its way to the surface, but for some reason I found them amazingly sexy. I wanted to date them all, to make love to them all, to each of them become a friend and confidant. I was in love with the whole damn room, J.J. especially, with her cute pug nose and freckles. Even Sharon with that scar, yes, I wanted her too. Every damn dyke there I wanted so much it hurt. Hell is being surrounded by all that you want without any possibility of getting it: hell is pure wanting without satisfaction. Hell was being in that bar, in love with the unobtainable. Hell was my life.
Enough with the self-pity already; I had things that needed doing. I slipped off my stool and crawled to the back of the bar, where there was one bathroom and a phone. I peed a river and afterwards fished in my pocket for a quarter and placed a call. Then I left a sweet tip for J.J. and staggered out of that palace of denial and into the soggy, moonless night.
47
I WAITED PURPOSELY in the shadows of Veronica’s building for another old lady with shopping bags to come along, but it was too late for that. The little courtyard was strangely silent, the plastic-encased elevator was still. The drinks started turning in my stomach and a flowering nausea rose in my throat. While I stood there, concentrating on that blossoming bud, it started raining. I panicked for a moment, not knowing what to do, and then sick and wet I rushed into the vestibule and rang doorbells up and down the metal grid, rang all but hers. One by one they shouted at me through the intercom. “Pizza,” I shouted back in a series of badly accented responses and finally someone, hungry and with pepperoni on the mind, let me in. I walked up the stairs to her floor and then carefully down the thin carpet of her hallway. Her door was locked this time. I rapped it hard with my knuckles. There was no answer but I could see a light through her peephole. I knew she was there, so I rapped on, rapping hard enough and long enough to make my knuckles bleed. Through the alcohol I didn’t feel pain so much as a numbed sensation that I knew would evolve into pain. I kept rapping until she shouted at me, “Go away.”
“Oh, let me in, Veronica.”
“I can’t.”
“Jimmy told you not to let me in, right?”
“He’s furious.”
“I have to see you. Let me in or I’ll throw up right here in the hallway.”
“Do it and go.”
“Let me in,” I said. “Let me explain, at least.”
“Go away.”
I leaned my head against the cool of her door and shouted, “Just tell me one thing, one little thing. Tell me one thing and I’ll leave.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t tell me to go away again either.
“Just tell me if Bissonette was better in the sack than me.”
There was nothing for a long moment. Then the metallic click of her unlocking the door. By the time I pushed it open she was already walking away from me. She was dressed seriously, in jeans and a white shirt, heavy shoes. It was a different look for her, a good look, I thought as I lurched into the apartment, ever entranced by her shifting appearances. She sat on the couch, demurely, legs drawn beneath her, head turned to look out the back window onto the rear parking lot. The cast to her face was tense, locked. I got a hard-on looking at her.
On my way toward her I tripped over a suitcase standing upright not far from the door. With the little dignity I could muster I pulled myself up from the floor. She was making it a point not to look at me. I grabbed the handle of the offending suitcase and lifted. It was packed, but packed light, a bag packed for a weekend at the shore.
“Where the hell are you going?” I asked.
“Any suggestions?” she said.
“I hear Cleveland is beautiful this time of year.”
She wanted to smile but held back. I walked over to the couch and stood beside her, swaying a bit, my raincoat shedding tears, and then I dropped down hard onto my haunches and leaned back, trying to look natural sprawled on her floor. The room was spinning on me, but she wasn’t, she was tightly in focus and breathtaking.
“So what about Bissonette?” I said.
“How do you know about Zack?” she asked calmly.
“The police found his little black book,” I said. She was in there, under the name Ronnie, nothing else, no last name, no address, no phone number, just Ronnie. And five stars.