Chapter 9

Godard’s night doorman, Felix, opened the cab door as Sami, decked out in a miniskirt and halter for night at the clubs, stepped in.  “Have a nice evening, Miss Stone.”

Suddenly, Liz burst out from the building, wearing nothing but a long sweatshirt and pajama bottoms.  Seeing Sami step into the cab, she rushed up swinging her handbag.  “Oh, Sami, are you heading downtown?”

Sami looked up at Liz’s stressed out face, still covered with cold cream.  “Why, yes.  You look terrible.”

“Thanks, I needed that.”  She continued to wipe the cold cream hurriedly off with her Kleenex.  “Miss Stone, my niece is diabetic and the twit let her insulin supply get down to nothing.  She just phoned me about it.  I need to get to the pharmacy on 48^th and Lexington.  Can I hitch a ride?”

“Of course.”  Sami motioned her in, as Felix tipped his hat and closed the door.

As the cab headed downtown, Sami smiled.  “You know, your niece could have picked a better time.”

Liz wiped the last bit of cold cream off and stuffed the saturated Kleenex into her handbag.  “Tell me about it.  God!  Bet the monitoring boys are laughing their asses off.”  She took her fingers and opened her eyelid as far as it would go.  “Bite me you perverts!”

“Want that I look away so that…”

“Fuck’em.  Sorry.  What are you gonna do?”

“Wait for Urian to get us our private time, I guess.”

“Yeah.  Shit.  I really appreciate this, Miss Stone.”

“No problem.  Sami.  Okay?  I’m Sami.  I only let my co-workers slap me with the Miss.”

“Oh, yes, I heard Urian refer to your paralegal job this morning.  Must be very exciting.”

“Boring.”

“What?” said Liz.

“Corporate litigation attorneys are the bottom feeders of excitement, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, no… I always thought…”

“You were wrong.  Takes two shots of tequila to just get my mind un-bored every night.”

“Oh, yes.  The clubs.”

“You ever go out?  Clubbin,’ I mean?”

“Clubs?  Oh, my God.  No.”

“They’re not that scary, Liz.  Even with that cream disguise on.”

“Oh, I know.  It’s just that I have so much to do… never any time.”

“Well, if you ever do, give me a call.  We could drop a few and get you acquainted to some new experience... just for the boys in monitor-land.”

Liz squirmed in her seat and looked out the window at the street sign.  “Oh, good. We’re almost there.”

Sami smiled.  “You can bring Robert, too, if you want.  Doesn’t cramp my style.  One guy, two chicks.  Usually helps getting through the stanchions as well.  Bouncers get off on lifting the velvet for a threesomes.”

Liz chuckled.  “You’re really not at a loss for words, are you?”

“Goes with the territory.  Only way to shut up attorneys is to talk faster and harder than they do.  Forty-eighth, coming up.”

“Oh, thank you, Sami.  Nice talking with you.”

“So, don’t forget to call when your horns need filing down.  I dance every night.”

“Horns?”

“In case you want to leave Robert behind.”  She winked and turned toward the driver.  “Need to make a short stop on the corner of forty-eighth, driver.”

The driver nodded and pulled to a stop on the other side of the intersection.  “Forty-eighth.”

“Thanks, again, Liz.”

“Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure.  Hope the kid’s alright.”

Liz stepped out and turned back, saying, “Oh, I’ll get this right back to her.  She’ll be fine.  Have a nice night.”

“Oh, let’s hope it gets better than nice,” she said with an oozing sexual tone.

The cab pulled away and Liz stood for a moment watching it disappear into traffic.  Jesus.  That’s somebody to write home about.

                                                      ---

It wasn’t often that Sami could be dissuaded from standing in line at a club-of-choice, but the number of anxious Goths waiting to crash the party at The Cricket was too much.  After trying to persuade three different girls to let her cut in, even offering them ten bucks to let her have their place in line, she became discouraged and started walking away, meandering through the desolate sections of what had once been just another industrial section of Queens.  Today, however, it was a thriving express train stop from Manhattan that was “the” place to hang.  Sami liked to hang.  However, she was not one to roam the desolate streets around the boutiques and clubs that lined the Queen’s waterfront mecca for nightlife lovers.  So, what was it that urged her on?  She couldn’t come up with a sure answer, but her ear was telling her she was getting closer to the sound of strings jamming.  The music was probably coming from a loft somewhere around the corner. 

She found herself drawn to the strange mix of Asian and contemporary jazz scales played by a cello and bass.  The staccato picking sound of the Koto became frenzied as she crossed the street.  The building now opposite her on the other side was dark, save for the top floor’s windows.  She paused and leaned against a light post and gazed up at the loft windows that ran from one end of the building around the corner to the other end of the building. 

At the doorway of the building stood a man having a cigarette.  He would puff; write something down on a folded piece of paper, then take another puff, then hum.  As he started pacing, whatever he was concentrating on overtook his sense of direction and he wandered out onto the street, still puffing and jotting down notes.

Suddenly, it became apparent that he was drifting her way.  With an abrupt realization, he jumped on seeing her.  “Shit… scared shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” said Sami.  “Sorry.  Just listening for a minute.  Sorry,” and she started to walk away.

“No.  I’m sorry.  Hell, never scare a potential patron away, right?”  He extended his hand.  “I’m Jonah, and that’s my motley group trying to mix a couple of cultures together.  You like it?”

Sami smiled at the rather short man dressed in jeans and what looked like a fashioned military jacket, complete with padded shoulders and epaulets, draped over a cheesy branded t-shirt showing a hovercraft moving up the Hudson River with the New York skyline behind it.  The inscription read, “22 minutes to upstate… where the real action is.”  Feeling obliged, she said, “Yeah.  Yeah, I… think I like it.”

Jonah returned the smile.  “Don’t feel bad.  Most people don’t know what to say.  It’s kinda weird, mixing the diatonic and pentatonic scales, but we’re… oh, sorry again.  Me and my rambling.”

“No,” she said.  “I’m really enjoying this… what did you call it, diatonic and pentatonic?”

“Yeah.  So, if you want, you can come up and see what you’re hearing.  Just us guys.  If you smoke, though, gotta do it down here.”  He raised his cigarette and shrugged.  “Bad, Jonah, but… could be worse.”

Sami started crossing the street toward the building.  “Not really.  That shit’ll kill ya.”  She looked back.  “You coming?”

Jonah shook his head.  “Wow, you really want to come up?”

“Why not?  Old experiences can get kinda boring.”

                                                      ---

Roxanne was just fine with old experiences.  Just fine.  Sitting at her computer, she shuffled a large number of words around the screen with her mouse, giving the cluster a swirling feel of the Milky Way.  “So, where does this take us, Squirrelly?  Huh?  You gonna screw with my head tonight, or is this completely up to me?

Ramon leaned in toward the monitor.  “She talkin’ to me?”

Wyatt chuckled.  “Hey, that woman doesn’t need you to talk to.  That Squirrel she keeps referring to is all over her recording tonight.  Some kind of alter ego or somethin’.”

Ramon grinned.  “Wouldn’t mind gettin’ into her clustering exercise.  Damn, she works in a strange way.”

They both stared at her computer screen where she continued to draw lines from one word to another, creating an astrological chart-like configuration.  Shrinking the screen, she now pulled up a fresh, blank screen, and started to lay down her script.

Wyatt sighed.  “Wonder who the unlucky victim is in this one?”

Krauslin looked up from his work sheets.  “Hey, you guys, there’s others needing your lecherous eyes as well.  Give her a break.”

Wyatt didn’t move his gaze.  Instead, he started copying down her cluster of words.  “Wonder if I can do that?”

Ramon moved through several screens, then settled back on Richard.  “Whoa!  He’s still with that lady.”

Richard sat before a large plate of bare oyster shells, crumbs of sourdough bread, and an empty bottle of Pouilly Fuisse.  Seated across from him was Kathy—her hand cupped over the top of his.  Their eyes remained fixed on each other, as she asked, “And then?”

Richard blinked and let his eyes wander to the left, seeking refuge from that place he didn’t like to go.  “It was just high school, you know.  Guys do that.  Bernie Jaibowicz even had it worse.  They pulled his pants down in the hall, class break time.  At least he had nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You mean he was hung?”

Richard looked back, then away again.  “He was Jaibowicz, for Chrissake.  Me... I had other talents, I guess.”

“Like?”

“I knew the scriptures like nobody else.”  He turned back to her for a reaction. 

She looked at him blankly.  “I’ve known a couple of preachers before.  They knew things the scriptures didn’t teach them.”

“You’re hard to read, you know?  You don’t even smile at your own jokes.”

“I wasn’t joking,” she assured him.  “One taught me how to fish… fly fish.  Six months later, I won a fly-fishing contest in Montana.  The other taught me how to skat.”

“Skat?”

“You know, jazz… skat talkin’ through a song.”

“Oh, that skat.”

“The piano player and I got along great just because of that preacher.  But, that’s not why you told me about them taking your pants and hiding them.”

Richard lifted the bottle and seeing it was empty, asked, “Would you like another bottle?”

“No, thank you.  Coffee would be fine.”

Richard motioned for the waiter.  The restaurant part of Torino’s was dark and very old country.  Candles provided most of the light, while the textured StuccoLugano walls with alcoves holding tapestries completed the warmth that had kept the two occupied for the past two hours, telling each other their life stories. 

At 3:30 A.M., it was getting close to closing, as the waiter reminded them.  “Two coffees,” he said.  “I don’t mean to rush you, but we do close at four.”

“Oh, no problem,” said Richard.

As the waiter returned to the kitchen, Kathy smiled.  “You didn’t even realize we’d been here two hours, did you?”

“Nope,” he said, pulling his hand out from underneath hers and taking a sip of water.

As he placed the glass back down on the table, she took his hand and placed it back where it had been—beneath hers.  “So, the pants incident left you feeling like a schmuck with a little dick, eh?”

“You don’t mince words, do you Kathy?”

“So, the pants incident left you feeling embarrassed with your privates exposed.  That better?”

“Yeah.  Kinda… I guess.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed with me.  I’ve seen the biggest and the tiniest.  You don’t strike me as one that I’d have a problem with.”

“Kathy… I’m really not up for…”

“Neither am I.  Just creating some closure to a subject that you find difficult to talk about.  I’m not ready for gettin’ laid.  Might not be for a long time.  So, you see, we’re in good company with each other.”

Richard visibly relaxed and put his other hand on top of hers.  “No one has ever been this blunt with me before.”

“Well, it helps to get gang raped to set your priorities straight, you know?”

The waiter stepped up and placed the coffee down.

“Thank you,” Richard said.  Turning his attention back to Kathy, he asked, “How are you going to… I mean, you make your living…”

“Hookin’?  It’s been good to me, but, you know, invested well, lived frugal, let the guys spend their money… I’m okay.”

Richard lifted one hand and sipped his coffee.  She did the same.

“You know, Kathy, you’ve had one or both my hands in yours for the past hour or so.  I don’t get it.”

“Didn’t your mother ever hold your hand when you were hurting?”

Richard paused just long enough to use all his will power to hold back the rush of tears that wanted to come out.  Swallowing a couple of times, he said, “No.  No, I don’t remember any of that.  She died when I was three.”

Wyatt reached over, smacked Ramon who was all wrapped up with Richard’s screen.  “Hey, get on with it.  You’re lettin’ that old time sentimentality get to you.  Doesn’t happen that way any more.”

Ramon took a deep breath and grabbed his pencil, sticking it in his electric sharpener.  “Yeah.  But history is history, isn’t it?  Poor fucker.”

Wyatt chuckled.  “Not that kind of fucker.  Ah uh.  Not for long, Ramon.  Not for long.”

                                                      ---

Gloria hung the last pair of nylons over the shower bar and sighed.  Massaging her shoulder, she reached in the medicine cabinet and retrieved some Excedrin.  Popping two in her mouth, she cupped some water, swallowed, looked at herself in the mirror, shook her head and turned out the light as she exited.  Shuffling down the hall, she passed  Marge’s room.  The door was ajar and she could see she was sleeping deeply.  Walking into her room, she closed the door, paused, turned around and locked it.

She turned on the overhead light, the two bedside lamps, and the TV, then plopped down on the bed.  She folded her arms and stared at the wall.  After a few minutes she glanced up at the light, got up, turned it off, repeating the process with the bedside lamps, and sat back down in the blue glare of TV’s late night/early morning infomercial.  She looked at the clock.  5:25 AM.  “Fuck it,” she mumbled.  “Gotta try.”

She clicked off the TV and curled up with the pillow.

Now, only the night-lights throughout the apartment burned. 

Puzzle, their Persian cat, stepped onto the hallway, pranced forward, glanced into Marge’s room and continued.  Once in the kitchen, she sat and tongued her legs.  After a few moments, she went to her water bowl and took a long drink, her gentle lapping bringing the only other sign of life to the apartment, save the night-lights.   All was quiet.  In the distance, the faint sound of a sirens could be heard—the normal ambiance for New York City at 5:30 in the morning.

Suddenly, a torturous shriek filled the halls.

Gloria thrashed momentarily, then rolled off the bed, hitting the floor, seeming paralyzed, her expression one of unrestrained terror.

Richard jerked up from his pillow, his eyes crazed, his mouth agape with terror.