Heather nods. “No white should show.”
I say, “Can you picture the time before melanin?”
Heather raises herself on the balls of her feet and kisses the side of my mouth.
The mob surges all around us, moving with tiny shuffling steps.
We are sitting in a private box on the left side above the orchestra. The house lights are down and the women onstage are singing to each other and staring into the audience. According to the program, they are singing in English, but it is impossible to understand them and my attention is focused on the seat backs of the row in front of us where a thin digital screen shows a scrolling transcription of the lyrics.
Heather is sucking my thumb.
Next to me, Cynthia’s boyfriend, Clay Harrison Adams, whispers, “When’s your IPO?”
I say, “We’re not trying to be the world’s leading distributor of butt plugs.”
He says, “Oh.”
The stage is darker now and the women are gone. They have been replaced by a dancing mob and bright-colored balloons. In the background a tiny green light is flashing.
Suddenly I have the urge to climb on top of my seat and throw my head back and scream. I have this urge every time I go to the theater. I believe it is a similar instinct to the one I have to turn on the engine of my car when the mechanic has his hand inside it. Or the impulse I feel on subway platforms to push the man next to me in front of the oncoming train. Or when I imagine swerving my car into a group of pedestrians and feeling the dull cracks of their heads against my windshield and gazing at the wet smears of their blood. Or when I think of diving through the plate glass of the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center and plunging, back arched, head up, gleaming shards of glass falling all around me, into the middle of the herd of ice-skaters circling sixty-seven stories below.
Clay says, “Johnson and Johnson?”
“What?” I say, turning to him.
“The butt plugs. Leading distributor.”
I sigh. “I don’t know, guy.”
“Oh,” he says.
I think about throwing him over our balcony and watching him drop, arms and legs windmilling, into the front row.
With all these impulses, there is the idea stage, then the imagination stage, then the spine-tingle, adrenaline-shot, testicle-clench moment when you know that you are actually going to do whatever it is.
But you never do.
During intermission Heather and I get on one of the mirror-walled elevators and ride it until we are alone. She pushes the Run-Stop button. A voice comes over the intercom asking if everything is all right. Heather begins unbuttoning my shirt. The voice from the intercom says that if the elevator does not begin moving in the next five minutes it will call the fire department. Heather licks my chest. I put my arms around her. The voice tells us not to panic.
Heather pulls away from me and takes two steps backward, smiling slightly, and presses herself against the brass handrail. As she leans onto the handrail, her dress drifts up and I can see the thin black string of her panties. I move close to her and she kisses me hard and runs her hand along the back of my neck and along my shoulder and down my arm and then she takes my hand and puts it gently between her legs. Her underwear is already moist. I grab hold of it and pull so that the narrow strip rubs against her. She gasps. I slide my hand under the wet fabric and touch the soft, slick skin and then I ease my middle finger inside her. She tips her head back and moans. I suck on the skin of her neck. Her perfume has a bitter taste.
She says, “Oh my God.”
I kneel down in front of her and grip the backs of her thighs and pull her close to me, resting my head just below her ribs.
She strokes my hair. “How much do you want me?” she whispers.
I groan against her stomach.
Back in my seat, I can smell Heather on my fingers and I can taste her when I lick my lips.
In front of us, dozens of miniature chandeliers hang on long cords from the ceiling. In the hallways behind us, the lights flash off and on and an usher closes the door to our box. The cords begin to retract and the chandeliers float toward the high ceiling.
Heather whispers, “What’s wrong with you lately?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been even more distant than usual.”
I say, “I’ve been walking the path to emotional detachment.”
She frowns. “This is Kelly’s idea?”
I nod. “We’re working in stages.”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but the two women are singing again. They are slumped in lawn chairs. They wear straw hats and white dresses. They draw out a single note so long that I have to take a deep breath in sympathy. The urge to scream washes over me again.
The words click by in white block letters on the digital screen in front of me. IT’S HOT, says the screen, IT’S HOT.
Part Two: Violence
The man by the door is wearing a beige turtleneck and a leather jacket. He leans us against the wall and frisks us quickly.
Kelly says, “Won’t you at least buy me dinner first?”
The man sighs. “Haven’t heard that one yet this week.”
Dexter is sitting in the far corner on a hydraulic chair that looks like a life raft. The man cutting his hair wears a long white shirt that says м коса across the chest. The room smells of cocoa butter. The floor is covered with hair.
The man beside Dexter is almost as thick as he is and has a big jagged scar along his jaw. He wears a cream-colored suit and a silk shirt.
The only other man in the barbershop lounges on a leather sofa in the corner opposite Dexter. His entire body seems frozen, including his eyes, which are locked on mine.
Dexter raises his head and looks at me in the mirror. “Looking good, baby,” he says.
I smile. “You remember Kelly?”
He shrugs. “Why not?”
“Good to see you again,” Kelly says.
Dexter grunts. He jerks his head toward the window. “That your new whip?”
“Yeah.”
“Whip?” Kelly whispers.
“Car,” I tell him.
Dexter whistles. “Fuckin’ ay. You niggers must be flush.”
“We can’t complain,” I say.
“I thought you were supposed to call me before you went public.”
“We will.”
He frowns. “So how come you niggers are rolling Bill Gates-style all of a sudden?”
I look around at the bodyguards. “You think you have enough security?”
“Can’t be too careful.”
“I don’t remember anyone ever taking a shot at Butkus.”
Dexter grins. “He wasn’t a Nubian king.”
“All right, I don’t remember anyone taking a shot at Willie Lanier.”
“That was a different era. It’s all haters out there these days. Can’t stand to see a brother living the dream.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Dexter’s barber opens a drawer in the counter in front of him and changes the guard on his clippers.
Dexter says, “You watch me in the Pro Bowl?”
I nod.
He says, “They’ve never seen anything like me.”
The barber removes the guard from his clippers and carefully shapes Dexter’s sideburns. He unsnaps Dexter’s maroon smock and passes the razor over the back of his neck. He pours alcohol onto a cotton ball and runs it around Dexter’s hairline. He douses him with talcum powder.
Dexter says, “That’s enough. Don’t give me any of that Afro-Sheen shit.”
The barber nods.
Dexter shrugs out of his smock and stands. He is an inch or two taller than I am. He is wearing a white knit tank top. His body is like a clenched fist.
“Shame the way you’re letting yourself go,” I say.
Dexter snorts. He takes a fat wad of bills from his pocket, peels one off the top, and hands it to the barber.