In the City of Shy Hunters (3 page)

When the train pulled out, I looked back, True Shot said. What power had been given: A rattlesnake was curled up on the seat where I'd been sitting.

Imagine that, True Shot said, A rattlesnake right here in New York City. On the A train no less, True Shot said.

OUTSIDE FISH BAR
'
S
window, the early sun made the smog burnt peach and the buildings on East Fifth maroon and navy shadows. My hand, my arm, fingers, my cigarette were shadows on the table.

Fiona made a joke that she had no shadow, that she was a vampire. Fiona was sitting so her shadow wasn't on the table, and when Fiona
said she was a vampire, I looked at her close, her white skin almost blue, kohl around her eyes like two smashed grapes, and for a moment I believed her.

Dogs barking. Coyotes, wolves maybe. Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and “Lush Life.”

Rose crossed his legs, his foot against my calf. He reached for his Brandy Alexander, his bracelets clack-clack. True Shot slurped the bottom of his soda water, rattled the ice cubes in his glass, put the green swizzle stick in his mouth. His knees were against my knee.

We all looked at Fiona.

Fiona, beautiful according to Fellini. Beautiful the way New York is beautiful: something monstrous, wrong, dark, corrupt, bigger than you, important, too much attitude, always compelling. High cheekbones. Skin all milk and blueberries. Roman nose. Her right upper lip crooked up to the nostril, even with the three operations. Her voice Tallulah Bankhead from years of practice before she had a roof in her mouth. Too many cigarettes already.

Fiona's black snakes with red-rubber-band tails stuck out from under her backwards baseball cap. She was wearing all black as usual, lips so red against her pale white skin they had a life all their own.

She and Rose—and now that I think of it, Ruby and True Shot and me too—ultimate drag queens. It was our appearance of being real.

Fiona's black leotard leg was draped over my legs, her elbow brushing my crotch.

Cool. I can fuck you blind and keep it simple.

Try me.

At our table in the corner by the window, huddled around a flame in a red glass, all of us, body to body to body to body. The touch that proves you're not alone, that someone else is there.

Fiona ordered just one more Southern Comfort, and Peter the bartender-owner walked through the blue smoke of the bar with the bottle and poured her glass half full. It was way after four and the bar was closed. Fiona took out her compact and looked at herself in the mirror, powdered across her forehead, down her cheeks, her chin, down her nose.

Then the lipstick.

Fiona's long fingers stroked the red from the left top lip down, to the corner of the mouth. Then one red swipe across the bottom lip. Then up to the scar, the vertical scar from under the nostril through the lip, just left of center. Lip line and skin not a line there. Fiona's long fingers with the lip liner made the line.

Cool, Fiona said, puckered her lips.

You could understand so much by just how Fiona said cool.

Fiona snapped her compact closed.

I see that I am playing at being beautiful, Fiona said. She took a breath and pressed her red lipstick lips together.

I see, I said, That you are enjoying playing at being beautiful.

Fiona looked around the table, into Rose's eyes. True Shot's mirrors looked into my eyes.

I'm twice her size, just as drunk.

The fates lead her who will, Fiona said, Who won't they drag.

And just like that, we are laughing. Fiona and Rose and True Shot and I embraced, holding on to our drinks, our cigarettes, holding on for dear life, laughing so hard our gums showed, so hard that man and woman, white and Indian and black, gay and straight, all went away between us and there we were just four people laughing.

The moment that after you're different.

The night Harry died, Fiona said. AIDS. I was on the couch. I woke up and Harry was sitting up in bed. Harry had a tube running up his arm that ran to his heart, and there was a pump that made a whirring sound that pumped medicine into Harry's heart. Harry's cat, Madonna, was sitting by the pump. The only light in the room was the amber night-light, the Christmas-tree-light kind you plug in the socket.

Fiona's lips were rubber around the words. Harry told me, Fiona said, I'm the luckiest man. Life is absolutely, mysteriously beautiful. Life has always been here all around me, in me, of me, has always been this fascinating mystery, but it wasn't until now that I have been present, been aware enough, to witness. I am here now in this room in this light with the sound of the pump and Madonna watching the pump and listening to the pump, and just now, Fiona, you were snoring and I realized I was alive and I was aware. When you're thirsty, Harry said, Water is so beautiful.

I got up, Fiona said, Poured a glass of water, took the glass of water to Harry. I sat on the bed and helped Harry hold his head up. I put the glass to Harry's lips. Harry took a sip. Harry said, Beautiful, just beautiful. And then all at once, Harry was staring at me; his eyes rolled up and Harry wasn't present, wasn't there with me anymore.

LENA HORNE
'
S
“Where or When.” Snot on Fiona's broken lip. She wiped her nose, smeared the red. Her bird hand perched on my big farm hand,
my bitten cuticles. Dogs barking. Then Fiona's ear was at my chest, and Fiona's heartbeat and my heartbeat were one heartbeat.

In all the world, our heartbeat the only thing.

THAT NIGHT IN
Fish Bar, not one of us knew what we were really talking about. We were all just talking talking, playing at talking, and then we were talking about the one moment. The one moment that before it we were going this way and after it we were going that way.

Didn't know.

Personae.

True Shot, Rose, Fiona, me. None of us knew that when we started talking about the one moment, what we were talking about was death.

BUT IT
'
S NOT
the truth. We were never all of us in Fish Bar together.

The way this all happened together was only in me.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER
ONE

T
he airplane landed at La Guardia, August 3, 1983. My first time ever in New York City, and in all the world, I was leaning up against a cement wall, an unrelenting fluorescent light above me, the bill of my red ball cap the only shade for miles. Exhaust fumes. I was minding my business, just outside the doors where you claim your baggage, waiting for the express bus to the city. My wallet was in my inside jacket pocket. Inside my chest, no room for breath. Sweat rolling from my pits. My duffel bag was against the wall next to me. On top of my duffel bag, my suitcase with the travel stickers on it, and on top of the suitcase, my backpack. I was rolling a cigarette with one hand like I can when I saw the van. A 1970 maroon Dodge van with hippie calligraphy
DOOR OF THE DEAD
on the side.

Door of the Dead was a game my sister Bobbie and Charlie 2Moons and I used to play.

I took it as a sign.

Blue smoke was coming out the back of the van and people were climbing inside, through the side door, white people all in black. Black leotards, black luggage, black hats, black shoes.

Then, just like that, Ruby Prestigiacomo's face was smiling right in front of me.

Don't let the van spook you, Ruby said. We just bought it from the band, Ruby said, smiling, The Door of the Dead band.

There's room for one more, Ruby said. You'll be all night here waiting for a cab. I can give you a ride for fifteen dollars. Cab'll cost you twenty-five.

Inside my chest, near the sore place where I smoke, so easy, I felt Ruby's smile.

I wished I could be so easy, wished I could smile like that.

My wallet was still in my inside jacket pocket. Ruby just kept there, kept standing in the unrelenting fluorescence, smiling, too close, his blue
eyes the way crazy people look at you, moving in on you, like when you go to kiss somebody. Blue eyes and thick red-blond hair, blond hair on his forearms. Beautiful. The kind of skin that freckles and tans gold. His red polyester shirt—buttons open so far down I had to avert my eyes. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. A silver ankh dangling from his queer ear, soul-patch triangle of red-blond hair just under his bottom lip.

Ruby Prestigiacomo, what am I going to do with you?

All death did was make Ruby smile all the more.

YOU
'
RE GOING TO
wait all night here for a cab, Ruby said. Fifteen dollars, Ruby said, Anywhere in Wolf Swamp.

Wolf Swamp? I said.

Manhattan, Ruby said.

Ruby reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an old blue Velcro wallet, pulled the wallet open, and from the wad of papers pulled out a business card. Ruby's fingers were long and thin and there was grease under his thumbnail. Thumb print of grease on the business card.

ROMEOMOVERS SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS
were the words on the card,
WOLF SWAMP
. Under
SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS
was
DOG SHIT PARK
, then under
DOG SHIT PARK
was
RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO
, under
RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO
a phone number, then under the phone number was
CLYDE TRUE SHOT EXPERIENCED DRIVER
.

Shit
on a business card.

What's Dog Shit Park? I said.

Lower East Side, Ruby said. It's a park. Tompkins Square, but everybody I know calls it Dog Shit Park.

Where you going? Ruby said.

Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, I said.

Between Second and Third, Ruby said.

Ruby grabbed my duffel bag and my old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. I picked up my backpack and followed Ruby past the line of people waiting for taxis. My wallet was in the inside pocket of my jacket.

The four white people all in black were sitting on their luggage in the back of the van, all of them with big red lips, even the man. Big hoops in their ears, all of them smoking cigarettes.

They're from France, Ruby said,
Vogue
magazine. They only speak French except for
fuck you.
You got the fifteen dollars?

My wallet from my inside jacket pocket, when I opened it, my money was suddenly public domain opened up like that on the street.
I gave Ruby a ten and a five, stuck my wallet back in my inside jacket pocket.

Bonsoir,
I said in French.

The French Vogues all looked like mannequins. They all said quick French things back. Twice as hot inside the van. I sat down where I was standing, started doing what I always do when I don't know what to do, rolled a cigarette with one hand like I can, French Vogue mannequins all around watching me. When I got the cigarette rolled, I offered the cigarette to the man French Vogue first. He looked away, poked his left shoulder up, pointed his hand and took the cigarette, silver loop dangle side to side, the fuck-you smile on his red lips, red lips pursing, French grunt.

Then it was a cigarette for each of the others, each accepting with a choreography of stance, silver loop, hair tossing.

Sophistication.

Savoir faire.

Postured disregard.

Sexy totale.

Shit from Parisian Shinola.

I'll have one of those too, Ruby said. Then: Where'd you learn to roll a cigarette like that?

A friend of mine, I said. Charlie 2Moons, I said, Taught me, I said, A long time ago.

I have my mother's nerves, so sometimes I stutter.

Language my second language.

CLYDE TRUE SHOT
Experienced Driver was big, everything about him big, extra lovely as Rose would say—chest, belly, thighs, shoulders, arms, hands. His big hands on the steering wheel, on both hands on every finger, even the thumbs, the same silver ring. From the side I was on, True Shot's nose was a hook that poked out of two high cheekbones. His hair was black and thick and long and tied back in a bun with a red paisley bandanna tied around his head. From his neck, a beaded buckskin bag. The horizontal line was blue trader beads and the intersecting vertical line, red beads. The buckskin bag hung from a buckskin necklace.

No doubt about it, I was staring. Same way as when you stare at a big snake. And big snakes always look back. On a lava rock ledge in full sun, the big snake doesn't want to even move, but the snake turns, and his eyes end on you.

On me. True Shot put his eyes on me. I mean, his mirrors.

True Shot's mirrors. An accessory True Shot never went without, his mirrored Armani sunglasses.

When True Shot put his mirrors on me, I could see myself in there on the surface, a circus freak, distorted at the state fair, my big circus nose and mustache and bug eyes.

I saw him first! Ruby said. He's mine!

Clyde True Shot? I said.

Drop the Clyde, Ruby said. He's just True Shot.

True Shot, I said. Would you like, I said, A cigarette?

No, thank you, Ruby said. He don't smoke socially.

There was a hand on my shoulder, and it was the French Vogue man handing me one of his cigarettes, rolled fat.

Merci,
I said, lit the cigarette, inhaled. Marijuana? I said.

Fucking hashish, French Vogue said.

In the rearview mirror, True Shot's mirrors were on me. Smoke big, True Shot said. His voice was soft, resonant, like a child singing a lullaby in a culvert.

TRUE SHOT AT
the wheel, Ruby riding shotgun, French Vogues, me; we are inside, in our smoke cut through with high-beam headlights. Outside, all about us, out the windshield in front, out the windows in back: stars, speeding light, red and amber, huge white flying saucers, eyes.

I was rolling another cigarette, rolling six more cigarettes around. I was not speaking French or any words of any language. My butt was burning on the van floor, so I sat on the old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. Drops of sweat all around me.