Love and Will (3 page)

I address the card to Dana, drop it in the street's mail container, dogfight, lamppost light, make everything turn out all right.

And then that Will who became Guil who wrote si jamais revient cette femme, Je lui dirais Je suit lui content.

My old man's snoring, the snow's now pouring.

Will's tight, his poems trite, maybe sleep will shorten his halfwit's height.

To her living room ceiling's attached a double-sized hammock, first time I met her she wore gobs of blue eye shadow but no other makeup.

Losing sight, nighty-night—oh one other thing she said was will you go fly a kite.

Falling, stalling.

I was crossing Broadway in the eighties when the light turned red and traffic sped past. I waited at the crosswalk on one of those islands in the middle of the avenue when a dog rushed at me from the benches and sunk its teeth into my leg. I tried shaking it off. It growled but wouldn't let go. I swatted its head with my book and it snapped at my swinging hand and then put its teeth back into my calf. I yelled “Goddamnit, whose dog is this, call it off.”

Three transvestites were sitting on the row of benches with two more normally dressed homosexuals. They were all looking and laughing. I kicked the dog with my other foot and it yelped but ran away this time as I fell to the ground. The five men laughed much harder, seeing me on my behind. I got up. The light turned green. My pants were ripped where the dog had bit me and I felt saliva or blood or both leaking into my socks from the wound. The dog was sitting between two transvestites, licking himself. One of the transvestites tied a tattered cord to the scarf around the dog's neck and patted its head where I'd hit it. I limped over.

“That your dog?” I said.

“I'm not talking.”

“You just talked, Jersey,” one of the more normally dressed homosexuals said.

“Why you going and tell this nice man what my name is, you pimp and a half?”

“I didn't tell him. I was only addressing you by what I thought was your name. It isn't?”

“Why didn't you call your dog off?” I said to Jersey.

“That's my business and when I want it to be yours, I'll tell you.”

“But he bit me.”

“I thought he just psyched you out.”

“He sunk his teeth into my leg twice.”

“Oh yeah? Show me. I got to have proof.”

I pulled up my pants leg to the calf. Blood was dribbling out of both sets of bites.

“Whoo whoo,” one of the other transvestites said. “Show us some more leg, honey. You're getting me hot.”

“Oh God,” and I let my pants leg down.

“God had nothing to do with it,” he said.

“Who said that before you just said it?” Jersey asked him. “Some famous old movie queen.”

“Beulah.”

“That's it—the grape. Oh, she was so funny and great.”

“Your dog been vaccinated?” I said to Jersey.

“People are vaccinated. And for smallpox and polio, not animal bites.”

“Then dog shots. Has he had them?”

“Hundreds of times.”

“Where's his license?”

He looked at his nails, buffed them on his thigh. “I don't like this color,” he said to the transvestite next to him. “You?”

“How do I know he hasn't rabies then?” I said.

“How do I know you haven't rabies?” Jersey said.

“Don't you think it's important I know? Be reasonable. If he has rabies, all I have to do is get treated for it.”

“Now listen you. Either give us some more gam or make tracks. You're becoming a nuisance.”

“He has nice legs though,” the transvestite next to him said.

“Too fat,” the third one said.

“Those are muscles, not fat.”

The other two men were laughing behind a newspaper. Jersey was opening a bottle of nail polish. I said “You're all nuts and I'm calling a cop,” and crossed the avenue.

“Bye, toots,” a couple of them said. I turned around. The two other transvestites were standing and waving handkerchiefs at me. Jersey was polishing his nails.

A block away I saw two policemen talking to a man. The man was gesturing with his hands in a way I'd never seen before and when I came over, speaking a language I'd never heard.

“Excuse me, officers, but I have to report something.”

“Just a second,” one of them said. “This guy's trying to tell us something that's obviously pretty important to him but we can't make out a word he says. That's not some Caribbean form of Spanish or South America, is it?”

“Habla Espanol or Portuguese?” I said to the man.

“Caper hyper yoicher,” he said.

“Die Deutsch. Sprechen sie Deutsch or Français?”

“Yoicher caper hyper.”

“We are trying to find out what language you are speaking or you can understand,” the policeman said very slowly to him.

“Hyper yoicher caper,” he seemed to say, “caper yoicher hyper.”

Then he shook his head and rolled up his trouser leg and pulled down his sock and pointed to a set of teeth marks on his ankle and dried blood around it and made barking sounds and imitated an animal or human being baring his teeth and biting down hard with them.

“You've been bitten?” the policeman said.

“That's what happened to me just now,” I said. “By a dog.”

“It did?—Dog? Chien? Cane?” he said to the man. “Mange cane?”

“Yoicher hyper caper yoicher,” the man said. “Yoicher. Yoicher.”

I showed the man my own bite marks and pointed to his ankle and he nodded and smiled and said “Ya ya ya ya.”

“Where?” I pointed to our bites and then to the island a block away and made barking sounds and said “There?”

“Ya ya ya ya. Caper caper hyper yoicher.”

“You've both been bitten by dogs then,” the policeman said. “You think the same one?”

“I think we ought to go and find out,” I said.

“What do you say, Kip?” he said to his partner.

“Let's go over and see,” Kip said.

We all went over to the island. The five men were still sitting there. “Officer,” Jersey said, standing up as we approached them, “I want to make a complaint against this man,” looking at me.

“Just a second,” the policeman said. “These two men have a complaint against you. This your dog?”

“That's exactly what my complaint's about. The foreigner I've never seen till before. All I know is I'm sitting here when suddenly he's yelling and babbling at us and then left. But this one,” pointing to me, “tried to accost me last night along the park side of Central Park West. When I refused to go into the park with him or do what he wanted me to right there against the park wall for the whole city to see, he said he'd come back to get his revenge on me. Well he didn't last night. But ten minutes ago he tried to attack me on this bench. That's why my dog bit him. Out of protection for me.”

“That true?” Kip said to me.

“It's so ridiculous I won't even answer it,” I said.

“See?” Jersey said. “Now if you don't mind, I'm exhausted and going home.” He started to walk away with his dog. Kip stopped him and told him to sit.

“Why? This man only proved who's right.”

Milos, the foreigner, started to shake his fist at Jersey. Jersey told him to stick it up. He shook both fists at Jersey. Jersey said “Maricon!” and turned around and shook his behind in Milos's direction. Milos jumped at him and had to be pulled away by the policemen. He shouted at Jersey “Hyper hyper yoicher caper. Caper!”

“What language he speaking?” Jersey said.

“We're trying to find out,” Kip said. “Any of your friends maybe?”

“Foreign language,” one of the transvestites said, sewing a button to his shirt. “I hate them. They should all be sent back on the boats tonight.”

“Has your dog a license?” the policeman said to Jersey.

“What's your name, officer?” Jersey said.

“John.”

“My dog has a license, John, but it must have fallen off in the scuffle with this man,” meaning me.

“There was no scuffle,” I said to John.

“You've already proven yourself a liar,” Jersey said. “Now you should shut up.”

Just then a derelict walked over and asked me what was wrong. “Dispute,” I said.

“Got a quarter?” he said.

“Will you please leave me alone?”

“Just give me a quarter.”

“Get out of here,” Kip said, giving him a dime and shoving him off.

“I'm really at a loss what to do for you guys,” John said to me. “Kip?”

“You could press charges and we could take him in if you want,” Kip said to me.

“That won't do any good,” I said. “His dog should be picked up by the ASPCA and tested for rabies. That way we won't have to take the shots ourselves.”

“You're not taking my dog there,” Jersey said. “He can't even stand being cooped up in my apartment.”

“I'll call in,” John said. He tried his two-way radio. It didn't work.

“Don't look at me, buddy,” Kip said. “Mine's in the repair shop.”

“I'll call from the pay phone.” I went with John to the drugstore across the street. While he phoned I bought a bottle of iodine, applied it to my wounds and then, back on the island, to Milos's ankle.

A squad car came with its siren going and emergency lights twirling. “You buzzed?” the sergeant said from the car.

“We want to know what to do about the dog,” John said.

“You should have asked the desk for that.” He contacted the station house on the car radio. The station house said “Normal procedure, with or without a dog license, is for ASPCA to take the mutt and quarantine it for seven days. I'll get them over.”

We waited. The station house called back a few minutes later and said the ASPCA drivers were on strike. “You fellows will have to bring the dog to the pound yourselves.”

“He's not getting in my car without a cage,” the sergeant told the station house.

“Hold on.” Later: “No cages. All borrowed at one time or another, since no real need for them till now. We can get one by tonight. Take the dog owner's name and address and tell him we'll pick up the dog at nine sharp tomorrow when we have a cage.”

“He won't give the right address,” I said to the sergeant.

“Also get the names and addresses of an immediate family member and his present employer,” the sergeant said to Kip.

“They're all be phonies,” I said.

Jersey said to Kip “I don't work now but I'll give you three genuine addresses which I have the papers to prove them: my own, my mother's and my best friend's where I usually stay.”

“Which one will you be at tomorrow at nine when we come to pick your dog up?”

“My mother.”

“You be there now, you hear?” the sergeant said from the car.

“I promise. My mother's a good woman. Not like me. I swear by everything holy and her name that I'll be there at nine with my dog.”

“Bull,” I said.

“Faggot,” he said to me. “You'll never get anything from anyone around here from now on. I'll tell them. ‘Pull in your asses when you see him,' I'll say. ‘That faggot's dangerous and mean.'—Can I go now?” he asked Kip.

“Let him loose,” the sergeant said.

Jersey walked away with his dog. His friends remained on the bench, talking about movies now: which ones they liked or disliked. The sergeant had said he'd drive Milos and me to a hospital, but suddenly his twirling lights and siren were on and he drove off.

“They were supposed to take us to emergency,” I said to John.

“I could get another squad car for you, but it might take a while. You'll be better off by bus.”

“We have to go to the hospital and be treated now,” I said to Milos.

“Yoicher hyper caper.”

I jabbed at myself while I nodded, made a cross in the air and pointed downtown. He looked confused. I hailed a cab and urged Milos to get in with me. During the ride I asked the driver if he'd ever heard this language before and I said to Milos “Say something. Speak. Hospital. L'hopital, Milos,” and I pointed downtown and to my wounds and his bad ankle and nodded and he said “Yoicher caper hyper hyper” and the driver said

“No, I never have.”

Milos and I went to the admitting window of the emergency room of the hospital and I told the man there “We were both bitten by the same mangy dog and would like to be treated for possible rabies right away.”

He gave us forms to fill out and bring back to him when we were finished.

We sat in the crowded waiting room. One man waiting to be treated must have been in a razor or knife fight. His cheek and neck were slashed, blood was all over his head and clothes. Seeing me looking at him, the man beside him said “Window fell on his head. No joke. Second-story window, smash, frame and all down on us both, but it got him like in a horseshoe game and only grazed my arm.” Another woman must have run into a nest of bees. I don't know where in this city. Maybe she kept her own hives. And a baby with a swelled-up belly and a young girl with towels wrapped around both hands. I filled out my form, took my wallet out and removed some identification papers and pointed to Milos's pocket and he did the same. All his papers were written in letters I didn't recognize. Then I saw a business card of a Hungarian restaurant on the East Side. “You Hungarian?” I said.

“Hungarian.”

I said to the waiting room “Anyone here speak Hungarian?”

A woman stood up. “I don't,” she said.

Several people laughed.

“But I'm Finnish,” she said.

This time even a few of the sick and injured people laughed.

“But the two languages are somewhat alike. They're both branches of the Finno-Ugric.”