Angel of Brooklyn (40 page)

I won’t forget you
.

Paul

Dear Angel
,

I think you should let me take you out. I could show you a real good time. They don’t call me the horse for nothing! I’ll be waiting by the Ziz coaster. Shall we say midnight on Saturday? I’ll walk right up to you. I know what you look like. Though I might not recognize you with your clothes on!

See you Saturday
,

Billy (the horse) xxx

Oh Angel from the highest heavens
,

You touched me last night. Not in the physical sense, but right down deep in my heart. I got your message. I know what it means all right, so you needn’t worry yourself about that. I counted the blinks, like you wanted me to. I feel the same. What shall we do? Thing is, I’ve been married fifteen years this next fall and she’s not a bad person, but she isn’t an angel either. What I’m trying to say is, that’s not for you to worry about. We haven’t had intercourse in a while. She’s like a sister to me. We’ll figure something out
.

Twenty-nine blinks
.

Yr Lionel

Dear Miss
,

Divine things must be loved to be known
.

J.V
.

Angel
,

I spent my last cent on you. I think you should do more than just stand there like a statue. I’m telling you this for your own good and if you don’t listen then you’ll go out of business. I’ve had girls for less than half the price you charge (some French) who will let me do anything I want to them. Looking at you, it’s like sitting in a church. For that price, I would at least like a bit of a feel-up
.

Robbie

Miss
,

Love’s heralds should be thoughts

Which ten times faster glide than

the sun’s beams

Driving back shadows over

low’ring hills;

Therefore do nimble-pinion’d

doves draw love;

And therefore hath the wind-swift

Cupid wings
.

From an admirer

Dear Angel of Brooklyn
,

You are one sweet creature. I would like to have you as my pet. I have a dog. I’d treat you better than my dog. And I love that dog! I’d like to put you on a leash and take you everywhere
.

I am touching myself as I write this
.

Buggs

Angel
,

I am leaving my girlfriend tomorrow. I have all yr pictures. I’d rather have yr pictures than my girlfriend. She’s a prude
.

I love you
,

Eddy

Dear Angel
,

I sat there and I wanted to put it in you
.

Thought I’d tell you
.

You are the best-looking thing in America
.

RJ

Dear Angel of Brooklyn
,

Will you marry me?

Dr Victor P. Holcombe (New Jersey)

Dear Angel
,

Are you the girl who works in Lyle’s Cafeteria?

I’ve bet five dollars that you are
.

Jackie

3. The Bone Yard

There really were quiet places at Coney. There were corners where you could just sit and drink a carton of lemon, rub your head and hide yourself from the crowds. Most people who worked on the park knew
where
they were. The broken bench by the forgotten rock pool. There was an abandoned chalet near the Alpine railway. Once upon a time there had been a disused bandstand, it had been a good place to creep to because there you could stretch out and the rides were nothing but hums, the people all gone, the occasional screech from the coasters, but you could cope with that because you’d be relaxed and lying down, hands underneath your head, looking up inside the roof that had been painted black with silver constellations, and though the paint was flaking and some of the stars were missing, you could still spend your lunch break looking at Venus. Then they pulled it down. So now, her favourite place was what they called the Bone Yard.

Behind the steeplechase and the fence where they’d hung
Keep Out
and
Danger
signs stood the warehouses and mechanics’ yards. Here they kept the tools, the grease that slicked down the tracks, the rows of mechanics’ uniforms that hung in bottle-green lines; there were oil cans and safety harnesses, rule books and books that told you what to do in an emergency, just in case you’d forgotten all your training, and you couldn’t remember the weight-and-pulley system of the cars, or the way to pummel a person’s chest if their heart had stopped beating, or
in case of electrocution
.

One of these warehouses was home to the broken-down rides, the rides that had lost their shine, or popularity, or the scenery that needed mending, the metal palm trees that were waiting for a repaint, a mountain in need of more snow, a skeleton with half its bones missing (some pranksters had taken off the skull and were walking around the park with it like Hamlet).

Beatrice liked the quiet of the Bone Yard. The mechanics were rarely in there, preferring to work out of doors, or to take whatever it was they were fixing into one of the smaller warehouses where they could chew the fat, keeping the doors open for a gulp of fresh air and a view of the ladies who sometimes walked past. Beatrice would nod to Blake, sitting bare-armed in the gatehouse, and she’d step inside this hollow-sounding dreamland where her footsteps would rattle. She would walk around, as if she were at some fancy museum, stopping now and then, looking up at the giant flaking lips of the empty-headed clown. She liked the way the sunshine pierced through the holes in the wall, shooting things.

4. Gold Teeth, Bare Feet and Muscles

Behind the double blindfold she could see them all again. Some of them were blurs, sitting there like nothing. Others? Well. She’d had a bad day. It had been one of those days when it had been almost impossible to stare blank-faced at the nickel-shaped spot on the wall. Billy had a headache, and she could see him rubbing the back of his neck every few minutes. Did he have a glass of water? Would he be better off sitting down? Would he be all right if it came down to a fight? Not that there’d ever been any fights. Just a few scuffles from men who’d thought their time wasn’t up, or who’d been making crude remarks, or spitting onto the floor. ‘We do not stand for spitting,’ Billy had said. ‘Gimme a break,’ said the man. ‘I have to do something.’

‘Would you like some aspirin?’

‘Nah,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t believe in aspirin.’

‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘I won’t let them near you if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said.

‘Anyway, it’s my own fault, I deserve all the pain, I stayed up late drinking vodka, playing cards with Marta and Magda, and I swear they can read each other’s minds, they had me over a barrel.’

Billy was all right, but Beatrice couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering. She began to look at the men instead of over their shoulders. And then, when she went back to her room for a nap, they were there again, sitting in front of her, and they were hardly daring to blink – they didn’t want to miss so much as a second of their allotted time – they were licking their lips, opening their mouths, hands on their knees, staring.

The man with the shiny gold teeth opened his mouth and a fat row of metal flashed at her, his tongue rolling over his gums, slowly, then quicker, as her eyes had darted back to the nickel and she’d tried her best to focus on the wall. He looked like a sailor. His skin had been burnt by the sun, and not just for the season, it had a battered look, like leather. Then his fingernails started tapping on the teeth, like he was playing some kind of xylophone, and Billy had started to rub the back of his neck again, and the teeth were nibbling the man’s bottom lip in a way that suggested something else, until Beatrice was counting off the minutes. Her favourite girls’ names. Her classmates in Normal. Aileen. Annie-Mae. Gemma. Bernadette. Recalling the menu at
Franny
’s, placing an order, French-style mussels, fried potatoes, a small glass of beer, and how much would it come to, and when Billy opened the drape, she’d almost said, that’s a dollar fifty to you.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, twenty minutes later came the man with bare feet. A respectable-looking gentleman, if there ever was such a thing inside this booth, sweating in a formal-looking suit, loosening his collar, he could have stepped right out of an office, he could have been a lawyer, a medical man, a dusty-fingered librarian. He had a pleasant kind of face. A neatly combed moustache. And then she had noticed his feet.

They were bare. She quickly looked down at her own bare feet. Then back towards his. They looked strange. Naked. The way they jutted out from his dark formal pants. They were long, and pink, and hairless, and he kept digging his big toes into the floor, twisting, like he was trying to make a couple of holes, then all his toes would ripple, like some underwater creature; she couldn’t take her eyes off them. Where on earth were his shoes? How had he walked here? She looked up. He was smiling. Wriggling his toes and smiling. It was a most extraordinary sight. When Billy eventually moved towards the curtain, he consulted his pocket watch and nodded at her courteously before disappearing through the drape.

‘Did you see him?’ said Beatrice. ‘What did you think of that?’

‘That his boots might be pinching?’

‘It looked obscene,’ she said.

Still, the day wasn’t over and after two quiet, nondescript men when she’d been able to look at the nickel at last, figuring out where she was going to eat that night (Riccardo’s Spaghetti House), the muscleman appeared. He was short and squat. Strutting like a crow. He looked uncomfortable in his clothes, as if his skin was trying to burst out of the tightly stitched seams; he kept adjusting himself in the chair, grunting slightly, looking hot. Billy shuffled. He didn’t like men who might be able to take him down – mind you, size wasn’t always the issue. The muscleman looked harmless; he was well turned out, and at least he was wearing a clean pair of boots.

After a couple of minutes the man began unbuttoning his jacket, but this didn’t disturb her, after all, it was another uncommonly hot day, and who could blame the guy? Then the jacket went over his knee. Then a couple of buttons were popped on his shirt, then a couple more, until before she knew it he was opening up his shirt, pulling out
his
bulging arms with their shiny sprouting veins and sitting in his vest. What was Billy doing?

The man grinned. He began flexing his arms at her, the way a strongman might impress the crowd. Beatrice closed her eyes. When she opened them again she tried to fix her stare on the nickel. Billy hadn’t moved. She couldn’t say anything. She’d promised herself at the start that she would never use her voice unless it was absolutely necessary, and she still wasn’t sure that it was. The man was in his chair. He hadn’t threatened her in any way, he was simply showing off his muscles and stroking them like kittens. He was grinning at her, as if to say, ‘So what do you think of them?’ She gave him a half-smile. What if he turned nasty?

Just before his time was up he gave them one last long loving stroke, pulling on his shirt, taking his time with the buttons as if it were part of the act; he seemed to be breathing heavily, or was she imagining things? No, he was definitely panting. He removed his jacket from where it was lying on his lap, rubbing the bulge that was now sitting in his pants for all the world to see, shaking out his legs. She looked away. Billy opened the drape and when she looked back he was gone.

‘Did you see that? He took off his clothes,’ said Beatrice. ‘I thought I was going to faint. Why didn’t you do something?’

Billy rubbed the back of his neck and swallowed. ‘I was all set to dive in, but do you know who that was?’ he said. ‘I didn’t recognise him right away, but that was Beansy Tombs the champion strongman and wrestler. I thought it best to keep my mouth shut. He’s a dangerous type. He knows all the famous criminals; plays around with the big boys.’ Billy shrugged. ‘Look at it this way, let’s be grateful he didn’t touch you up, he didn’t cause any trouble and he left when his time was up. That’s all we could have asked for in a punter.’

‘Beansy Tombs?’

‘For sure. He’s always in the papers,’ said Billy. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t recognise him.’

‘I’m surprised they let him in.’

‘They wouldn’t have had any choice,’ said Billy. ‘And if it was Nancy who took the booking, well, let’s just say he has a way with all the ladies.’

‘He does?’ She shivered, pulling a wrap around her shoulders. ‘He sure did nothing for me.’

Later, in Riccardo’s Spaghetti House, sitting in the corner booth,
she
was sure she could see him again, between the pictures of olive trees and a gondola shaped from glass. She was sure she could feel his bulging piggy eyes, looking her up and down, and it made her feel cold. Wasn’t that him on the opposite table, laughing with a brittle-faced woman, drumming his big fat hand on the table, making all the waiters jump? She asked Marnie.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘That’s the guy from the circus. The one the clowns jump all over, using him like a springboard. I can’t remember his name, it’s Tommy, or Timmy, or something.’

‘Timmy? He doesn’t look like a Timmy,’ she said, twisting spaghetti round her fork.

‘It’s Toby,’ she said. ‘I remember now.’

‘Did you see Beansy Tombs?’

‘No.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘But I know a girl who went out with him for a while – apparently he’s as sweet as anything once you get to know him. He treated her real well, bought her all sorts of fancy things with French words on the boxes, and he asked her to call him baby boy – you know, when they were doing it – and he slept with his thumb in his mouth and she had to tuck him in real tight cooing like his mamma. Mind you, I swore on my life I’d never tell, so you’d better swear back, or I’ll be in awful big trouble.’