What’s Happening? (16 page)

Gene grabbed her under the armpits as the stool fell to the floor. All the guys laughed as Gene held Laura in midair, returning her to the conversation. Laura managed a scared smile as she stood and righted the stool.

“I could introduce you to a very good friend of mine that size,” Raoul suggested, his eyes narrow, a thin smile on his face.

“Here I am,” Dick exclaimed, outspreading his arms, a sneery smile twisting his mouth.

“I guess you don't want to know me,” said Raoul. “I'm a lot bigger than that.”

“Come on you guys. Like, you know I'm the champ when it comes to that,” Gene boasted.

“How about this size,” Raoul suggested, further taunting Laura. He brandished a shot glass, moving it near Laura's mouth to see if she could fit the rim into her mouth. “Think you can handle this size?” He laughed.

“Come on now. You guys are awful.” She shuddered with revulsion. “Who could ever do a thing like that?” She wanted them to stop now, but it was too late. Anything she said or did would be laughed at. She gritted her teeth angrily, searching for an opportunity to escape without being mocked.

“Baby,” said Gene, “there's nothing wrong with going down on a person. Man, like I dig it myself.”

“I'm hip you do, man,” Raoul injected with a sly snicker.

“I'm talking about women, man, … women. Only someone like you who goes down on guys would think of something like that. When I go down on somebody, man, like all they got between their legs is hair.” He stared fiercely at Raoul.

“I dig that kind of action myself,” Dick leered boldly.

“I didn't hear any cat mention goin' down on a guy. I guess you just got that on your mind,” added Raoul.

Gene glared at the smirk on Raoul's face.

“It keeps you healthy, you know?” Dick released through his rat mouth, enjoying the pleasure of hearing weird words bandied about. “It's good for everything. Makes hair grow on your chest.”

“I got hair on my chest,” said Raoul. “I need something to part it.”

They all laughed loudly, boisterously, enjoying the evil release. The pace of their evil feast was increasing, reaching a frenzy pitch.

“How about we have a contest to see who can eat Laura the best, and she'll go down on the winner,” Gene suggested laughingly. The others laughed and howled their approval.

Laura's smile sickened further. How could she get out of there, she wondered? She didn't care where she went, how cold it was, how alone she would be.

“You guys are crazy.” She was stunned, unable to say more. If only Sammy would come to her end of the bar, she thought. He'd protect her. She could escape then.

“Man, I'll eat her so much she won't be able to stand it,” Raoul boasted.

“Are you kidding, man?” Gene said dismissing Raoul's statement. He began to say something. The words described something he would do to Laura. It was so revolting, so degenerate, so physically, humanly inconceivable and fantastic that the rest of his statement was blotted from her ears as her insides wrenched. Her stomach began to pull up toward her throat.

The group laughed raucously at Gene's comment. They reveled in this ribald horror and taunting.

Laura's smile was rancid as her insides swirled.

“I'd crawl bare-ass over a mile of broken beer bottles just to hear her piss in a canteen cup from a telephone pole,” Dick added irrelevantly, not to be outdone.

The group snickered.

Laura steadied herself on her seat. She readied herself to leave but she felt faint. She felt she'd fall on the floor if she stood up.

“I'll see you later,” Raoul said as he began to walk to the front to greet some well-dressed people who entered. He smiled at them, pointing gallantly to a table.

“You guys are awful, really awful,” Laura said seriously, too upset to protest more. “You make somebody feel awful. I don't mind talking like that and kidding around, but don't keep it up like that.”

“Aww, we were only kidding you, baby, you know that,” Gene said placatingly, not wanting her to leave yet.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she apologized, not caring one way or another.

They all stood quietly, looking around the bar. Laura was trying to edge off the stool.

“I'm going to cut, man,” Dick announced. “I've got to git. I'll see you around.”

“Okay, man. Take it easy.”

“Which way are you walking?” Laura asked.

“I'm going to Pandora's. You going over?”

“Yeah, I'm going home. I think I'll go now. See you, Gene. So long, Sammy.”

Sammy didn't hear her weak voice through the noise and the music in the background.

“Sammy!” she called louder.

He looked up.

“So long.”

“So long, take it easy.” He smiled.

Raoul leered condescendingly as she followed Dick out the door.

“What are you doing these days, Dick?” Laura asked to start a new subject as they walked toward the Avenue of the Americas. She wasn't enthralled by Dick's company, but where else could she go? To whom could she speak? She couldn't go to the apartment, and every place else was dead, empty.

“I'm taking pictures now. Remember I was working for Joe Turner a while ago. Well, like I saved some bread and bought me some equipment, and like I started on my own. Now I'm my own boss.”

“That's pretty cool. How're you doing?”

“Paying my rent, and like that. You know, I'm not knocking down any doors, but I'm keeping going.”

“That's great.”

“You're getting a job tomorrow, hanh?” he inquired.

“Yeah. How'd you know?”

“I was standing right behind you when you were talking to Gene, wasn't I?”

“Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I might get the job tomorrow. I need the money.”

“You're still shacking with Jeannie and Rita, aren't you?”

“Yeah, but still, I have to pay rent and buy myself some clothes and things.”

“Tell your old man to send you some loot.”

“Yeah … Fat chance of that. Christ, they're always complaining about money. You know, there's so many kids and all …”
What a lousy, lonely world
, she thought. If only people would listen to her once in a while. If only they'd stop taunting her.

“You have a lot of brothers?”

“Only one brother, but I have four sisters. They're all older than me. Everybody's older than me. By the time I'd get any money from them I'd be walking in the street with no clothes on.”

“Listen, baby, if you find yourself without any clothes, you don't have to walk the streets. You can come over to my place.” He fluttered his eyebrows.

“Thanks a lot,” Laura said curtly, looking ahead.

“What does your old man do?”

“Works as a longshoreman and gets drunk.”

“Those longshoremen get good money.”

“So do bars and crap games and shylocks and all the rest of the working man's sucker traps.” These revived thoughts angered her. She was tired of being abused, stepped on.

“You know, I never heard you say so much at one time.”

She didn't look at him. She was talking to herself out loud, looking straight ahead.

“I can talk. I can say a lot of things. Of course, where I lived, Christ, you couldn't say anything out of the way. My old man is the kind of guy that believes in hitting women and children. Everybody was a threat to him, everybody was a stranger. He'd come home rough and tough all the time, always showing he was the boss. He used to beat my old lady and the kids, and get drunk and gamble. He was a gem. After a while, my old lady, with nothing else to do, got on her own booze jags, … and then all the kids really had to shift for themselves. One of my sisters got picked up for prostitution.”

“No kidding?” That was keen to Dick.

Laura didn't answer. She couldn't bring herself to say offensive things.

“I was the youngest. Instead of that being in my favor, that was my tough luck. I wasn't only helpless, but abandoned. I had to take care of myself.”

“How about your brothers and sisters. Didn't they help you?”

“They were so busy working, keeping their souls and bodies together, they could hardly be bothered with me. What the hell, I was only a skinny kid. I don't mind that they were all worrying about themselves. Everyone had it tough. My old man might have been poor, hard working, all that crap—although he wouldn't have been poor if he didn't gamble and drink so much—but that didn't mean he should have five kids. That's the trouble with poor people; they're poor because they're ignorant, too God damn dumb to get out of their rut, to do anything about it. They're so God damn dumb that they keep getting themselves further and further involved, drinking to forget they're poor, gambling, hoping that they'll make it the easy way because they can't figure any other way to get out of the hole. Ever go to a race track?”

“No, I can't afford to get into one.”

“My old man gave me a big day out once. Took me to Jamaica with him. All you see around there are these sleasy characters trying to make the big time the easy way. All they have to do is hit one big one, a few small ones—too lazy to figure out something that'll really get them out of the hole. They want it the easy way, without thinking. I can't forgive him, say he was too dumb to realize the difference. He should have been able to realize the difference. Either that or have been sterilized. I wasn't unhappy when I wasn't existing. I didn't know the difference. And some idiot who couldn't control his loins, who had to have an emotional release from the hell he continually intensified for himself, had five kids. He doesn't know a fucking thing about kids …”

“He must have known a
fucking
thing,” Dick remarked jokingly.

Laura flickered a momentary smile. She was fuming and spuming anger now. “You know, I think that ignorant people shouldn't be allowed to have kids.”

“Hey, … that's a coukie thing to say. How are you gonna say to someone you can't have kids?”

“As easy as they can say to someone, ‘Get into that electric chair, Charlie.'”

Dick was silent. Laura fumed quietly, her mind racing inside herself.

“Don't you get along with any of your brothers and sisters?”

“The only one I got along with is my sister Joan. She's the youngest next to me. We tried to take care of each other once in a while. The rest of them bother me, or give me a pain, or something.”

“What do you mean they bother you?”

“Ahhh, … they call me skinny, or ugly, or stupid things like that. You know, they think it's a big joke,” she said quickly, not wanting to talk about it any longer. “I wouldn't ask them for the right time.”

“I don't think you're skinny or ugly, baby.” Dick patted her rear end.

“Hey, … you son-of-a-bitch. Watch your hands.”

“Oh, what the hell, a little goose won't hurt you, will it?” Dick said, wanting to again enjoy the sound of his salacious words. It was pleasureful for him to talk these words aloud.

“Why don't you just leave me alone,” Laura pleaded. “Don't start any crap with me, hanh?”

“What do you mean, don't start any crap? What did I do?”

“Nothin'. You didn't do a thing. And like don't bother, … okay? I don't want to be bothered.”

“Come here,” Dick said with sudden determination. He pulled her into the darkened doorway of a closed store. “Come here, you little bitch.” He pulled her to himself, held both her hands in one of his hands, thrusting his other groping hand between her legs. He squeezed her femininity viciously.

“You bastard!! You rotten, filthy, dopey bastard,” she screamed as she struggled, trying desperately to jerk one of her hands free from his grip. The pain of his grip between her legs was excruciating. “Leave me alone,” she screamed in agony.

Her screams excited Dick more.

Laura finally pulled one of her hands loose and dug her nails frantically at his eyes.

“Why you rotten little bitch,” he burst with pain, his grip loosening as her nails sank into the flesh. He shoved her away as he felt the warm stinging stiffness of wounds spread down his face.

Laura fell backward, landing hard on the sidewalk. She scrambled to her feet and began to run.

“Come here you little bitch,” he yelled, running after her. He ran as fast as he could, his teeth bared and clenched.

Laura could hear his footsteps falling just behind her. Slowly, he closed the gap between them. Laura tried running faster, terror mounting within her. The gap remained constant for half a block. Then, the bulk of his weight started to slow him down. The gap started to open as he could summon no more speed from his body. He made an all-powerful lunge at her, kicking his foot. He missed and stumbled into the street, hobbling to catch his balance.

“You little bitch,” he screamed as her fleeing, running image diminished. “I'll kill you.”

Her footsteps echoed throughout the street as she ran desperately from her enraged suitor. The sound diminished as she turned the corner. Laura sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she ran frantically across Seventh Avenue toward the quiet, dark, warm apartment, where, she hoped, she could escape the people who beset her.

10

The cold, quiet dawn filtered yellow through the drapes which sealed Tom's apartment from the outside world. The loud, rude noises of the world were stilled, the pounding footsteps of walkers had vanished, the shrill voices of women calling their children from the street were silenced. The clangor and clamor of the past was only a memory. Now, its inhabitants hidden, the world seemed pure and clean, majestically poised to blossom with the beauty of a new day. It was like the respite after a violent battle, after the attacker had come for a long time, and now an eerie stillness, a serene magnificence, pervaded everything.