Ablutions Page 5

  At these words the man gradually uncoils. He loosens his fists and rights his stool and moves to sit beside Monty. He orders another double vodka tonic, smiling now as though nothing has happened, and he thanks you when you bring the drink over. His name, he says, is Joe, and he shakes Monty's hand and extends a hand to Madge, who makes a kissing sound but otherwise does not acknowledge him. (Joe does not appear to think this strange.) The three of them become fast friends and throughout the night you hear Joe asking Monty questions:

  "How do you make a baby sleep if it doesn't want to sleep?"

  "How much do electric razors cost?"

  "What is death rock?"

  "How does rice grow? Do you know what I mean? How does it grow?"

  Monty answers as well as he can, all the while buying drinks for the group. Joe moves in closer and when Monty calls him a curious boy, Joe says that he is very curious indeed, and he rests a hand on Monty's, and five minutes later they stand and leave the bar together. Things are strange and just got stranger and Madge remains behind, her arm working to drain her glass and then the partially full glasses of Monty and Joe, and you say to her, "Looks like it's just you and me, Madgey." Her drinks are empty and you bring her another on the house. Sucking on a Lucky Strike, she fills her cheeks with smoke and exhales in your face. She raises the drink to her lips.

  Monty now pays for Joe's movies and drinks in addition to Madge's and his own, and his tips disappear, and he does not speak to you anymore about his favorite special effects and will no longer look you in the eye. He is in love with Joe and grasps his hand beneath the bar and becomes jealous if Joe should look at or speak with any women. Joe does not love Monty and you suspect he is not much interested in men but only playing a part until something more agreeable comes along. Sometimes he leaves with these bar women and Monty's heart breaks; he swears his revenge on the whores of the world and drinks well past happy hour, gleefully spending the money that would be Joe's, saying to Madge that it's just the two of them now, like before, but the next day or the day after Joe will be back, grinning and crazy in his eyes, with Monty at his side, swooning at Joe's dimples and Roman profile. Madge for her part is unaffected by the drama, though she now sits one stool away from her drinking partners and seems for unknown reasons to have warmed to you and once even smiled in your direction when you were doing a funny dance for Simon.

  Toward the end of each month when his welfare money and medications have run out Joe begins acting erratically and will usually by the twenty-ninth or thirtieth have thrown a fit and been ejected from the bar. These episodes sometimes happen quickly, in the time it takes to smash a pint glass on the floor, and you will look up to find Joe screaming at the television or the ceiling or into a void, a dark space in the room. Other times his mood will deteriorate in slow stages throughout the night: He will enter the bar with his frenzied eyes and sit with his drink, enthusiastic about his good fortune and friends, when some imperceptible injustice captures his attention and poisons the very soil of his earth, and his conversation drops off and he will begin brooding, then mumbling, then cursing and shouting, and then he will be tossed onto the sidewalk where he will wail and punch holes in the sky. You come to recognize Joe's warning signs and give him room to offend or be offended by someone other than yourself—a lone customer or one of the other bar employees or, as is usually the case, Monty, who afterward is left behind to apologize and pick up glass shards and pay for any damages. Although it is part of your job description to suppress any violence until security arrives, you do not intervene in Joe's tantrums because you have become truly afraid of his eyes and you believe it is only a matter of time before he kills someone, and you do not want to die at the bar, at the hands of a man in flip-flops and a Señor Frog's poncho.

  Monty can no longer support both the drinking and cinema habits of this unfortunate crew, and they forgo the movies to spend afternoons and early evenings at the bar. The omission of entertainment in their lives takes its toll on their self-esteem, and Monty and Joe no longer speak to each other except to order drinks or comment on certain television happenings, and so begins their comprehensive degeneration: Monty's every move and gesture is motivated by money and love worries. His hygiene, already dubious, falls further into decline so that people grimace at his approach and gather their things as he sits down beside them. Unaware, Monty jabs his thumbs into his temples, suggesting unchecked and tacit pain. When Joe sits beside him, Monty wants to moan—the unobtainable prize, Joe is now openly on the lookout for another meal ticket. He has become commonly cruel, and will order top-shelf vodkas for the sport of watching Monty's wretched, shivering reaction. Monty holds his wallet like a sick bird and you see in his eyes he will be driven crazy by hopeless love if he cannot slow the process down somehow.

  As interesting as all this is, you find yourself focusing more and more on Madge, studying her in secret, and you begin to get an idea about her that you cannot shake, an idea you decide you must get to the bottom of, but in order to do this you will have to speak with her, and you begin asking her questions about her childhood and hometown and mother and father, though she will not so much as nod at you. You tell her that if she will only say her full Christian name aloud you will give her drinks on the house for the entire night up until closing time, and her head jerks and her mouth creaks open but she does not make a noise. Then you offer her drinks on the house until she is dead if she will only say the word hello, and you see that she is heated to the marrow of her bones by the thought of it, and yet she still says nothing but stands stiffly and walks out the door and does not return again that night. (Monty and Joe heard this last offer and are both shouting "Hello! Hello! Hello!" at you.)

  The idea you have about Madge is that she is a man, and this is confirmed the next night when she walks into the bar, alone and sober, and tells you in a deep voice that Monty and Joe have hatched a plan to hit you with a club and rob you, and that they will arrive in half an hour to do just this. She says that Joe is all-the-way crazy and speaks about killing constantly and once went after her with a Swiss Army knife. Monty is half crazy and will do whatever Joe says so long as they stay together. She says they have been up for three days on bad amphetamines and that you must lock the door at once and wait for them to move on, but the idea of Joe knocking hard on the door with you alone in the darkened bar is too much to bear and you are walking toward the phone to call the police but Madge becomes alarmed and begs you not to, saying that she loves Monty, that she is all alone, and that Joe will soon be dead or in jail and then her and Monty's life will return to its former harmonious state. She is crying and you tell her you are sorry but will simply have to call the police, and she coughs through her tears and says that she knows another way, and she borrows a pen and writes this out on a napkin:

  Dear Montgomery,

  The bartender knows cuz I told him. I'm sorry but Joe's a low-down Dog and I love you and you will Die if you go back to Prison. I am leaving this town but will write c/o your Mom once I get somewhere.

  Goodbye now,

  Tim

  Madge dries her face and asks for a piece of tape to stick the note on the front door, only there is no tape and she says she will use a piece of chewing gum. You walk her out and you lock the door behind her and wait. Three cigarettes later you hear this: Footsteps approaching, crinkling paper, a murmur of voices, and the sound of footsteps hurriedly retreating. You will not see Monty, Madge, or Joe at the bar again.

  It is September 15, the day Simon is to be murdered in his front room, and a group of regulars and bar employees gather in his apartment to watch over him throughout the night. The Teachers arrive bearing medical supplies, margarita mix, and a blender. Next comes Curtis. He is wearing his usual policeman getup along with a pair of silver and gold spurs attached with string to his worn brown loafers. "They blow the look but still sound cool," he says. He is saving up for a pair of motorcycle-cop boots. Behind him is the child actor. He looks a little yellow and yo
u rush over to ask about his health. Is he experiencing any lapses in energy? Any pains in his right side beneath the rib cage? Does he find that surface wounds are taking an abnormally long time to heal? He says he is feeling fine. He is on call for a Where Are They Now game show that pays fifteen thousand dollars per episode. He will never forget what you've done for him, he says, and when the checks start rolling in you can be sure he'll be spending his money at the bar. You sigh, and return to the corner with your whiskey. You notice a familiarity between the child actor and Curtis and it dawns on you that they spend time together outside of the bar. You can see them sipping morning beers in San Fernando Valley strip clubs and you dig your palm heels into your eye sockets and make a long wheezing sound. Curtis finds a NASCAR race on television and turns this up so loud it sounds as if the cars are in the room with you.

  Merlin shows up with a case of warm Pabst and is grudgingly admitted—there is an unspoken belief that he has an unnatural hand in Simon's forthcoming demise. Simon has already drunk a bottle and a half of wine and his eyes are glazed and he is confused by Merlin's arrival. "What are you doing here?" he asks. Merlin shrugs. Simon will drink himself into oblivion tonight. "What are you doing here, mate?" he asks you. "I'm here to kill your killer," you say, and he smiles, and thanks you. He is drinking from the bottle now.

  The doormen arrive and display their weapons: Flick knives, handguns, brass knuckles, Mace, a sawed-off shotgun, and a canister of tear gas. The notion that someone may soon be killed is intoxicating to the group and they gather around a large pile of cocaine like wiggling piglets on a tit. All are indulging save for Merlin and Simon and yourself. You are watching Merlin who is watching Simon who is watching the door. Merlin is smiling with smug satisfaction; Simon looks as though he will cry or shout out in pain and for the first time since you have met him you can read his true age, the untold years lingering about his eyes and mouth. You are not sure if it is the lighting in the apartment or his present concerns but he does look like a man about to die. "What are you doing here?" he asks again. "You're going to be murdered tonight," you tell him. "Oh," he says. He looks at Merlin and then back at the door.

  The room is nearly full when two prostitutes arrive. No one will admit to ordering them but you suspect Curtis and the child actor are responsible. They say nothing, lest they are forced to pay. When the women are inside, a doorman fluent in their language steps forward to begin the haggling process. He says he wants to go "around the world," and you, not understanding, envision a kind of pinwheel to which he will be attached and, you suppose, flayed. The prostitutes name a price and the doorman asks what it will cost for everyone other than the suddenly silent Teachers to also make the trip, and after a head count and private conference between the two professionals a price of two thousand dollars is reached. The doorman takes up a collection and hands over one thousand in mangled tens and twenties. He says he will return in half an hour with the other thousand; he orders the prostitutes to strip and dance in the interim and he exits the apartment at a run, whooping shrilly. (This noise is upsetting to Simon. In the back of his mind he knows there is some approaching danger and wonders if this sound is the indication of its onset. He is gripping his chest and panting and this is when you fall platonically in love with him.)

  The prostitutes are now naked, and the uglier of the two—they are both very ugly—sits on the armrest of your chair and asks in a husky voice how exactly you are going to fuck her. She is not interested in your answer and is only looking for a simple adjective before moving down the line but her breasts are like rocks in socks and a purple cesarean scar divides her belly and you are laughing uncontrollably. She calls you a slimy faggot and moves on to Curtis, who is beckoning from the couch, waving a phony police badge. She sits on his lap and he takes out his erection—patchily depigmented, you notice, like his hands—but the prostitute will not touch it until the doorman arrives with the rest of the money. The child actor is watching Curtis's erection and barking. He pours beer on it and Curtis howls over the roar of cars on the television. The child actor begins howling. Everyone is howling.

  The doorman shows up with the money—he will not say how he got it, though it is understood it was not taken from his own savings—and the prostitutes get on their hands and knees beside each other. They are penetrated from behind while fellating men in front of them and you watch this much in the way one watches gory surgery on television. Everyone is on cocaine and cannot ejaculate and the prostitutes cannot get a word in edgewise and are being worked like plow horses. There is a hiccup in the party when Curtis begins sodomizing one of the prostitutes without first asking; he is reprimanded and sent to the back of the line to change his condom. He is still wearing his sunglasses and loafers and you tell him how much you like his spurs and he thanks you. He is listlessly masturbating.

  In the far corner, away from the others, sit Merlin and Simon and The Teachers. You walk over and Merlin reaches for your whiskey but the thought of his mouth on your bottle displeases you and you snatch it away, handing it to Simon before emptying it yourself, saying to Merlin's glare, "Did you want some? You should have said so." Merlin says nothing but shows you his teeth. The Teachers are upset about the presence of the prostitutes and Terri says that they are nothing but a couple of whores. You think it is humorous to call a prostitute a whore, and you laugh, and Terri tells you to shut up and begins trembling and then crying and you do not know why, and you do not care why. You return to your chair.

  One by one you hear the men drop off until only the child actor is left pumping away. His body is red and hairless and he looks like an enormous newborn baby and his prostitute's grunting face is buried in the carpet—her thighs are trembling and it looks as though she will soon collapse. At last he finishes and falls in a heap by the front door, which you notice is slowly, evenly opening. A small black boy is standing in the doorway looking in at the party and Merlin, seeing this, jumps from his chair and screams, "Mean little nigger!" The boy is shocked by what he has just been called and by the state of the room—the child actor groaning and cursing, the prostitute with her flushed backside still in the air, the pile of cocaine and weapons on the coffee table—and his mind rushes to make sense of it all. But he has little time to ponder as the doormen, some partially clothed, some still naked, are gathering weapons to slay him. He is chased down the street and you hear him shrieking as he goes, and Simon staggers after them, shouting that the boy is only his neighbor's son and that he isn't mean at all. "He wouldn't hurt a housefly," he tells you. One of his eyes is closed, the other is bloodshot.

  The two prostitutes are standing naked in the kitchen, gargling with mouthwash and wiping themselves with tissues. They are talking about the finer points of common-law marriage, also the difficulties of child rearing. "Once the state gets ahold of your kids, there's nothing to do but say a prayer and make some more," one says, and the other slowly nods. Crossing back to his seat Simon gets his feet tangled in a pair of pants and falls head-first onto the corner of the table, knocking himself out. The curtains are illuminated with the first light of the morning and Simon's blood spreads across the floor and toward the walls. The door is blue. You look for a telephone and find a red one on the floor beside the couch. You jump when it begins ringing. Simon's feet are twitching and Merlin rushes out the door with his few remaining Pabsts under his arm. You pick up the telephone and say hello. The Teachers enter the room and begin screaming.

  The new tenants discover Curtis in their closet and force him onto the street where he is robbed of his leather jacket, mirrored sunglasses, and holsters—he throws his spurs into the gutter and spits. He spends the next three days and nights blubbering in anonymous alleyways, plotting revenge killings and elaborate suicide parades that he hasn't the intelligence, energy, or courage to execute. Looking in the phone book he finds that his parents, whom he has not seen in many years, are living in the San Fernando Valley, and he calls them collect to plead his case. His mother refuses to
fetch him but says she will permit a visit or short stay if he can find his own way, and he throws himself at the mercy of an MTA driver who tells him he can ride for free so long as he stops crying and sits in the rear of the bus. Curtis locates the house and finds his parents sipping Arnold Palmers on a creaking porch swing, a gentle vision that fills his heart with heat and gratitude, only his parents are not happy to see him and are quick to remind him of his many faults and his weird sex escapades. They point to a corner of the garage, a chalk-drawn outline that is to be his living space; they give him a list of chores and tell him that if he should ever fail to complete them he will be immediately and permanently banished from his parents' home and affections. He signs the list and a rental agreement and weeps like Christ on the cross as he mows the dead lawn.

  Each year at Christmas you drink whiskey sours for two weeks. The bar smells of pine boughs and glows red and green with Christmas lights and you are reminded of a time several years back when you lived in the North. It was cold and rainy and you were a laborer and this was your drink, whiskey sour with a cherry and a lemon wedge. At night you met with friends at the corner bar and spoke of the little daily things: An accident on the work site, a prank played, things you had stolen from the home of your employer, something unfortunate your sociopathic uncle had done. There was a young woman behind the bar; you liked to watch her reach. She sold you pills over the counter, so when you entered the bar you would shake the rain off your hat and Pendleton coat and say, "Double whiskey sour and two blues, please." You would dry your hands on your pants so as not to dissolve the pills and in twenty minutes would be overcome with a wonderful, fleeting sadness. A string of Christmas lights blinked year round over the bar, which is why you are reminded of your time there each December. You still get calls and invitations to visit the northern town but you don't dare return, as some piece of the memory would certainly be ruined. Everything changes and rarely for the better. But you honor this faraway place with two weeks' worth of whiskey sours at the close of every year, and this will have to do for now.