A Matter of Love in da Bronx (8 page)

Pasha, I can see your hands reaching out to feel my breasts. Grub.

--That's right! The next fucking day when you came in and told me I might get by provided the marker laid the pattern out as you suggested I got a million things jumping down my throat and I forgot! I forgot! I'm going to kick that fucker marker bastard right in the balls!

Come, Pasha, let me teach you the ways of love. Mold.

--So if we use your original design, and eliminate part of the panel, then your estimate for the material will be right, and we can come out all right!

There's no need to send all the others away, to keep me as your very own. Though, I'm pleased I please you, Pasha, mine, in ways you did not dream possible. Excrement.

Don't you worry about the foreman. I'll worry the foreman! I'll take care of your production tickets, and you'll find an extra hundred bucks in your paycheck for the designing work you've done. What I'd really like to give you is this hundred dollar bill. Ever own one of these, have you? A-fucking hard to come by. I'll tell you that. We'll just wait until everyone leaves so we can be alone. You see, my wife doesn't understand what I need.

How do you read me so well, Pasha! Where does thine depth of understanding spring? How fortuitous for me your talent lies in arousing my desire that you might with equal skill quench my calorific quim. Enema.

--Whatdayamean you'll be late for class? Fuck the class! How long you been here? Five-six years? Didn't I do nice by you? Treat you right? Give you a chance to do some real dress designing. Don't I give you a job? Worth keeping right? And all what I'm asking is to be nice to me right back. Come on! Take the C-note. Hundred bucks just to let me...you know...let me... In. My finger... Nothing more. Behind.

Shitbrain.

Mary found herself in the Chock Full of Nuts just east of Broadway leaning heavily on the counter, listlessly stirring a coffee--an indifferent appetite for the hamburger before her. There just had to be some signal system that would allow her to communicate more carefully with herself rather than go into disconnect, separating herself neatly into components each doing a different task. It wasn't a question of a personality disorder. She had that pretty much figured out. Yet, had she spoken to anyone about her capacity the instant diagnosis would be multiple personality disorder, schizoid in the least, with ego dysfunction brought on with early menstrual trauma complicated by regenerative figmental relapses. In her own mind, simply she had the ability to do two things at once. Born and bred partly in boredom. A true self-defensive mechanism. Early school grades. Ho-hum, teacher. No, no skipping a grade for you, so learn to write upside down;...and backwards; ...and mirror image; ...now try it all left handed. Ho-ho-ho-hum! As if just plain school wasn't bad enough. Then came sanctifying sanctum sanctotum Sunday school: Question--Which are the chief sources of sin? Answer--The chief sources of sin are seven: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth, and they are commonly called capital sins. Question: What is pride? Answer--Pride is an excessive love of our own ability so that we would rather sinfully disobey than humble ourselves. Question: What effect has pride on our souls? Answer--Pride begets in our souls sinful ambition, vainglory, presumption and hypocrisy. Question: What is covetousness? Answer--Covetousness is an excessive desire for worldly things. Question: What effect has covetousness on our souls? Answer--Covetousness begets in our souls unkindness, dishonesty, deceit and want of charity. Question--What is lust? Answer--Lust is an excessive desire for the sinful pleasures forbidden by the Sixth Commandment. Question: What effect has lust on our souls? Answer: Lust begets in our souls a distaste for holy things, a perverted conscience, a hatred of God, and it very frequently leads to a complete loss of faith. Glib you are with the back and forth, how about somebody try some of mine? Question--How come I've completely lost my faith and have yet to lose my hymen? I've never been married, so how can I break the Sixth Commandment; Thou shalt not commit adultery, if I've never known the sinful pleasures I'm not to have? Or, do you say fornication of itself is forgiven? Ho-hum. More boring. And Sunday school, too, helped teach me how to escape through the window of my mind. But, the best reason I acquired the talent came from my father. I can never remember Rocco Dolorosso not being in the wheelchair though it's been since before I went to high school. I don't remember him as a gentle soul before then, but since he's been home all the time and in that wheelchair he's a firstwater tyrant. How he yearned always to lecture, to scold, to berate, to harangue hour after month after year! How the scar on his forehead would turn blooddrained white accenting his unshaven, whiskery face; the snarl to his lips showing the dirty, badbroken teeth; the hunching in the chair making him even smaller than he was. He was really a mean-spirited, pitiful fellow who blatantly disregarded and discarded all of his own human attributes. He thought no one knew this because he thought no one knew he could really walk. Mary knew. Not right away. But she found out. Then, by the third time he held her captive--a freshman in high school--while he fulminated so crazily against her on inane subjects for more than three hours, Mary began to develop the cinema screen behind her eyes. That's where life began while the robot took care of Station One--the outer self that performed and operated as a normal human being, functioning on level above a mouthbreathing retard. Excellent mode for the subway ride home. Very good for the classroom. Supreme at Mass. The very best for boring times, alone, alone with others or just with others. A marvelous place to disappear.

--Earth to Mary... Louisa Golczek. Blonde, big, bosomy; about twenty-eight, happy face, pleasant-pretty, not beautiful; swinging walk; excitement-seeker. Why shouldn't Goldberg try to blame you, Mary. He's been using your designs all these years, and not paying you one cent for them. You could work anywhere on the street for anyone you wanted. I don't know why you don't give yourself a break, and do it. I know you're going to win the school award this year. I know it. And that cheap bastard says he's going to put extra money in your envelope, he never has yet! Why don't you call him on it? Just once! I would've grabbed that hundred bucks and shoved it up his rear end. He really wanted to do that? Just that? What a pervert! Like a baby playing with ka-ka. You know, Mary, that's not the only sweatshop in town, so why do you put up with his crap? I know. I know... Permanently puckered red-red lips take in a bit of datenut bread, sip of coffee.

Weezy, thanks for the rescue, for coming to his office for me. Another second I would've been sitting on his finger.

--Gotta protect my own alibi. Good thing you told me to come for you, too. You know, if you're not going to eat that hamburger, I think I'd better. This creep that's picking me up might turn out to be real cheap and not buy me dinner... No big Mac until the second date! Thanks, Mary.

How did the world revolve in this fashion for her? Getting caught up with a home that was worse than a boarding house; in a job that was worse than stultifying; and with an only friend some few years younger than her who was crazy about anything that wore pants and for whom she lied so she could go out and screw around. It really wasn't that much of a thing to do. What made it distasteful, possibly, was the idea that maybe she'd like to be doing the same thing. The opportunity was remote the way her parents--her father, mostly--kept her chained to the frontdoorstep, demanding she account for every second of her time that she was out of their sight. Why did she allow it to be her world? She really couldn't tell herself, though she suspected the foundation was fear, fear of some unknown thing that could possibly hurt her. It could be anything. And nothing. Louisa still asked her every time to double date with her. No more of that nonsense. No sooner did she take the back seat than Don Juan reached for her snatch. It made for very short rides and long times in between blind dates. The pressure came. Louisa's date would admonish her not to bring along "friends what don't put out..." Then, Louisa herself, asking what the hell she was keeping it for? A virginal sacrifice? No! And neither would she be some sacrificial virgin for some singleminded concupiscent rutter later to be discarded with as much deference as so much septic effluvium. No, thank you. And, one step above that level, for mutual satisfaction and embellishment? To meet the need? Too many knowns to know about before leaping into that cauldron. Would she enjoy it? Would she be brutalized? Would it be demeaning, giving away an irrecoverable part of her? Would she get pregnant? Would she get a disease? Course, she never said anything like this to Weezy, but Louisa intimated quite broadly that she'd been fucking men a long time and had been pretty goddamned lucky in lots of ways. Besides, she loved it better than anything else she could do on earth. Not that Weezy was one, but some whores were just lucky that way--getting paid to do something they'd be just as glad to give away. Well, that might be all right for Weezy, but she might not be so lucky, so Mary held back with one slithering thought in her mind which was that she'd get laid at least once before she reached forty--ten years to go. And when that time came, it sure wouldn't be with Vito Cigrugli, the greasy baker, whose only redeeming characteristic for her parents--not for her--was that they tolerated him, no small accomplishment. Mary didn't learn until long after she was out of high school that whenever she dared consider a date, and invited the fellow home to pick her up to meet her parents, her father usually found a neat way of phrasing his concern for his daughter's chastity. With Mary out of hearing, the lad would be sat within range for him to poke him in the chest with his index finger, and ask, "What'sa you name again?" Then, he'd say something like, "Well, John--or Tony--or Frank--I suppose you want to fuck my daughter? Well, let's get this straight. You have to fuck me first, you understand?" It wasn't long before the story made the rounds of the high school, and when Mary heard it, she thought it was the funniest story ever told. It was only after she heard it came from a man in a wheelchair that she realized who they were talking about, which effectively ended her search for romance with the neighborhood boys. But, Vito, the baker, appeared to be prosperous--a most redeeming quality according to Ma and Pa--at least, he owned a bakery and had never once been married in his forty-odd years, which, to Mary, confirmed his least redeeming quality, which was that he was a schnook. Once she confided in Louisa, "Oh! Weezy! He's such a bore!" To which Louisa replied, "...which is not as bad, you'll learn, as lonely..." So far, Louisa was only close, not right about that. In the meantime, aid and abet romance, at least for Louisa.

--Weezy, don't be late tonight. I don't like to stand alone at night. You know...?

--Always plenty of people around Eden Farms...You'll be okay.

--That's not the point, and you know it. A woman, waiting, alone. It looks bad. No, I really didn't want the hamburger. That Goldberg upsets me so much...I wish I could quit...

--Forget him. He's a pig. Take my portfolio for me so I don't have to drag it around? Doesn't really add much to a date. If you've got a couple drawings to spare stick them on top with my name on them so I can show them to my old lady as work I did in class tonight. Really a brainstorm of you to say I enrolled in the Fashion Institute with you. Perfect excuse three nights a week. They don't know, my folks, old country clods what I'm really doing. They think it's America's dream come true for me.

--Did you hear what I said? Don't be late! Damn! Already smoked all my cigarettes for the day.

--Here. Take mine. Really. What you got for cigarettes I got for something else. Besides, I'll make my date buy me a pack. And I ate your burger. I promise, ten o'clock, Cinderella, right on the dot, usual place. You going to walk down to school? The rain's let up?

--I'll just finish my coffee... You go on.

--Later! Going.

--Weezy? Take care! To the wind. Gone, she was. Tossing her head like that, does it mean she'll trust to luck? Take her chances? Who cares? No, she won't walk to school tonight. Sick of the place after all these years. Teacher's pet. Help with the new students, with the same new problems, teaching the same old stuff on the same old merry-go-around and around. Sought as a relief for life's tedium all too soon it, too, melded into life's tedium. Like the cup's dregs of coffee. Outside, in an open doorway, a fine mist sheeting phantasmagorian smorgasbord of people, afoot, acar, abus, ataxi, atruck, abike, amuck. One of Weezy's cigarettes. When there are no others, this is the passion of life. Portfolios on the tile, leaning against the clammy wall, a match brings life to the subalternate phallicism. Tick insuck. To prime for the allimportant big firstdrag. Then, go. Incoming. Deep. Full glow to the tip. Rasping scratch down the throat. Satisfying, tasteful lungfill. Outgo. Thick, foggy exudation factitiously effecting a bombburst. Incognito? No. Better. Unseen. Mary denied herself the extravagance of consuming the whole and entire cigarette in one drag. She would love to live as she smoked. Some slight twirling of the senses that became rescued by her safeplace, the shore. This was where her soul was born, in a softshell clam a rod's length from high tide where life's improbabilities crashed and thundered harmlessly about. Where, she knew, her spirit would forever sail on rising currents as timeless as shrieks of soaring, skyfilled seagulls in harmony with the waving saw-grass on the evermoving sandunes in springtime. Which, indubitably meant that between that and her present postulation something had gone awry. Maybe. Maybe that is as was to be! Moot point. Who wants to be right from the grave?
Per dictum
she should be moving down toward Seventh and Twenty-seventh. But,
per Mary
, that would be diametric. Uptown. Near home. Eden Farms. Skip classes. Again. Meet her Friend-who-loves-fucking Louisa. But! Be ready for Lily Dolorosso's ponderous inquisition: --So what did you learn new tonight? Forget the grammatical reduplication, if you know what I mean. Sure, Ma. I learned tonight you don't try to take a big-broad's ass without an extra-long dick. Oh! Yes! The teacher was quite pleased with my answer, better still with the demonstration that followed and we put it all down in charcoal and pastels on newsprint in less than twenty-seconds per. Didn't I go well, Ma? Now you want to brush my hair and tell me all about woman's burden riding the cotton burro to be careful yet of sitting on a boy's lap without putting at least a NYTimes in between us so his rising phenomenon won't injab the babymakingstickystuff up my cunt. Good! Mamma! You did well! Now, forget all that and tell me where I can get laid? You see, Mamma, it's one thing to be lustful, another to be listlessly lustful. Not going after the satisfaction of the desire for one reason or another. The validity immaterial. When did I see my first wondrous penis? What grade was it? No matter, naughty little boy beside me pulling his teenie pecker out to show it to me and raising his eyebrows applauding himself. Little runt. My brother, Joe, doesn't count; he was moved out of my bedroom into the living room pretty quick. What became traumatic were the years in between the time I found out what was involved in the sex act. When girltalk came to sex, I heard hard-on, erection, boner, and such; but it was a long time before I understood really the mechanics involving the transformation of a limp penis into a penetrating tool. In fact, I was dying to see one do its thing. I wanted to feel one, I still do. Torn between excessive curiosity, and abnormal shyness, my self-education took strange turns. First, the fig-leaf on all those gorgeous statues of fantastic men-bodies told me the mystery was worth uncovering. Where museums and art books failed, so did marriage and medical books. The few flashers I saw gave down-grading performances. I knew I was on the trail when I almost saw an erect penis in Bronx Park, but the guy was too far away, plus the fact that I knew immediately exactly what he was doing. The zoo gave me plenty to look at until my brother dragged me away from the monkey cage where it must've been the season because quite a few of them were there joyfully whacking away at their bright red pencil-thick penees. Then, Hurrah! As a junior in high school a chance visit to a friend's house. She wasn't too bright, not anyone I'd want to spend two seconds with, really, a boring drag. But, she shows me her father's supposedly hidden fuck books. Dozens of them! A library! Pictures. Descriptions. She and I are suddenly inseparable; I had to have my fill on every aspect of sex I could get. Her parents were ecstatic she had me as a friend, the same as they would be with anyone who didn't mouthbreathe and drool. They didn't know it, but all summer long I was drooling, and dribbling, but not from my mouth. When the family moved away, I discovered porno films, department of continuing adult education. Wow! What an exciting activity to watch. All of this book larnin' didn't really fill the whole bill, so by the time I was graduating high school I was still asking the Purple Passioned Ladies what "it" was like. I almost seriously considered their advice: Words won't do it, Honey, but if you gotta know, and you need an excuse, go to the prom, pretend you're drunk and get yourself laid. It just so happened I wasn't that popular, and wasn't asked to the prom. I kept the excuse handy, but--never found anyone I thought I'd like to use it with. Love? Is that what you asked me? Love? That's some emotional thing; good, like puppy love, and teacher love, and boy-jock love, and move star Robert Redford love; Oh! Yes! That can capture my full concentration. And so, too, does the feeling that fills my groin as I watch a four-foot long erect penis slip into a four-foot high hairy, pinky vagina in an Art Film movie house in Eden Farms in the Bronx. My attempt to not seem to be a woman is to wear a cloche pulled down hard, my raincoat collar up. I don't dare look yet, but I can feel the eyes of someone sitting in the exact same row at the far end. See him? Cap. Raincoat. Hunkering down deep in his seat. Almost trying to be invisible. Like me.