by D Keith Mano
four of you.but they’ll need eight stretchers t’cart your bodies
out of here. I have family connections.” I lit one Angelo’s cigarette for him and went back to the bar.
Leonard was irked by this. He wanted a fight. Later, while I
was talking to Berry (she tries to draw me out), Leonard made
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snide remarks about how much time I was spending with the
women. Me, I said, I ’ll spend whatever time I feel like spending. “ You’re cutting inta yer own income,” he said. “ These cunts are paid t’make the customers buy drinks. Not t’jerk the
boss off.”
Otherwise The Smoking Car can have a kind of Left Bank
tone to it (Left Bank of the East River). Morale seems high.
Though the regular clientele may be blue collar, there is a
college-educated, even arty element. Two or three writers. At
least one professor (political science). A pianist. This is not to
mention the 2,536 movie and TV producers—all of whom are
casting next week—all of whom will give speaking parts to a
topless dancer tomorrow, provided she’ll sit on his face tonight.
(That sort of language is becoming natural to me. Imagine what
my first sermon after The Car will be like. “ And Moses said to
God, ‘Listen Boss, cut the bullshit, parting the fuckin’ Red Sea,
we don’t have the budget!’ ” )
For instance, there’s Norm Hohol. Norm is an international
backgammon champion with total recall. There were six of us
standing around him. Norm asked us each for—what was it?—
social security number, phone and one other thing . . . car licenses. Two hours and six straight shots of Wild Turkey later he repeated the information exactly. Norm gives a remarkable neck
massage, which, he claims, has gotten him laid a lot. “ Women
cherish adept fingers in a man,” he told me.
Norm dresses in a white suit out of Faulkner and affects a
languorous way. He is also incredibly lanky. Long, lanky fingers. Lanky man’s nose. His shoulders are rounded, as if he’d been ducking low ceilings. And his hand gestures seem to have
one extra finger joint in them. This lankiness represents a marvelous performance—particularly when you realize that Norm is only four foot eleven. If that. He sits on telephone books at
the bar. But the women really go for him—as they went for
Toulouse-Lautrec, I guess.
Lars-Erik is an artist. A glib one. And art is also a good shtick.
Lars-Erik wears a beard, which covers—not too successfully—a
face gnawed on by acne long ago. Nature has turned this into a
secondary sexual trait. Somehow Lars-Erik’s pits and pocks have
the romantic clout of a Heidelberg scar. It looks like Lars-Erik
has seen life. It ruined his skin, but it was worth it.
Lars-Erik sketches the women (he will ask their permission
first—we don’t allow cameras here either). His drawings are
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D. Keith Mano
quick, accurate, subtle and ALWAYS flattering. You know how
human nature is: farmers, as Father Mac used to say, love a
farmer’s joke. Everyone enjoys an image of him- or herself.
Lars-Erik will do two sketches, give the girl one and keep one
for himself. This is, I think, an economy. H e’s either poor or
cheap—and it’s less expensive than tipping. Lars-Erik can nurse
a tequila sunrise all night. The baigirls get cranky around him.
Lars-Erik has done a drawing of me—at least that’s what he
says. He wouldn’t show it to me: “ I can’t finish it yet,” he said.
“ Your face hasn’t settled. You haven’t figured out what attitude
you’re taking yet.” Uh-huh. It’s probably my half-mustache.
I don’t socialize that much—I wouldn’t want Leonard to think
I ’m enjoying myself. And, anyhow, the sound level reduces conversation to a primate speed. But I see faces that interest me.
Faces that are becoming familiar.
There’s a gay couple—they come in to hold hands and comment on the lingerie. There’s a 250-pound biker with agate-type tattoos and a T-shirt that says FREE LEONA HELMSLEY. (He
is surprisingly generous.) And a condor of a man, very distinguished, with a floppy hat and cloak outfit that Svengali must have worn. He sits far from the stage, hat on. As if he were, I
don’t know, reviewing our show for the “ Arts and Leisure”
section.
And then there is the Gaucho. A man who exhales coldness
through a well-designed facsimile of warmth and good fellowship. The Gaucho had his arm around me one minute after Leonard introduced him. And, throughout, I could feel this
pressure in his fingers that said, “ Dear friend, I ’d kill you as
soon as shake your hand. But right now I don’t feel like killing
you. So let’s have a beer instead. ”
H e’s unbelievably handsom e, the Gaucho. It’s an old-
fashioned look—Ramon Navarro or something. He wears a
leather and silver outfit that’s more Gucchio than gaucho. Boots,
hat and a suntan so perfect it looks basted on. You could laugh
at this Borscht-circuit ethnic kitsch. I didn’t.
The Gaucho had a wad of hundreds so fat it was thicker
than a rolled up Ace bandage. He gave each dancer two hundred bucks. There was one exception. The one—Gabriela, a Brazilian—wasn’t indignant or hurt, as you’d expect. She
looked panicky. As for Jako—to him the Gaucho is a God.
Jako got a C-note. He stood there with his broom, nodding,
nodding. And not only because of the money (half his take-
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home), because he bought the whole costume bit. To Jako
this was the Cisco Kid in Queens or something. Jako doesn’t
distinguish well between today and yesterday, real and unreal. He now calls me “ Mr. Tony” with absolute conviction.
And I ’ve given up correcting him.
So the Gaucho put his arm around my shoulder (muscular as
a faigin’ bridge cable it is) and he said:
“ Tony was a wonderful man. Bright, bright, bright. Tony had
class, Tony was an educated man. Not like the putas you see in
this business. It was a pleasure t’do business with him.” All
these past tense verbs unnerved me.
“ I ’m glad. Uh—what kind of business was that?”
“ Little things. Maybe, now and then, we made a killing. I
import from South America. Now and then, he’d see a bargain.
Like I say, Tony was bright. Bright. So . . . What are the police
saying now?”
“ Not much. False alarms. He was seen in Seattle, of all
places. Maybe. Who knows?”
The Gaucho then leans down and, with great sincerity, he
says, “ No matter what you hear, I did not kill him.”
“ Oh.” I said. “ I ’m glad.”
‘ ‘Why should I kill Tony? Huh? I owed him money—he didn’t
owe me money. And, in case you think I ’m gonna welsh on my
debt. Here.”
He handed me $10,000 in hundreds.
“ Give this to Ethel. Tell her my heart bleeds for her. Tell her
I think Tony’s brother is doing a wonderful thing—keeping the
show open here. I know it must’ve disrupted your life.”
“ It’s—it’s interesting work. For a while.”
“ There you got it. For a while. After that, it starts gettin’ to
&nb
sp; ya. Y’deal with creeps all day, you turn into a creep. Build it up
and get out. My advice to you.”
“ Yes.”
“ Now I gotta tell that prick manager of yours I can’t fix his
parking ticket. Excuse m e.” He squeezed my rib cage like a
python. “ Anything I can do, just call. And, be careful, that
money’s gonna fall outa your pocket.”
This place distorts everything. Naked women dance sensually, but they’re unavailable. Ersatz good fellowship is spread and exaggerated and then turned into anger by alcohol. And
there was $10,000 hanging out of my pocket. Where does this
money come from? Does Ethel know? The import business,
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D. Keith Mano
indeed. I feel like my feet are being set in cement. Tony. Did
you want me t’know all this about you? Should I cut and run
now before I learn any more?
And the women dance on. These sharp reminders of our sensual nature . . . They’re all so strange. And young. Young. They live expressionist lives. Everything is hyperbole and heightened
event. Like plants forced in a hothouse. They’re so mature, so
aware—that they’ve never had a chance to grow up. It’s all movement, movement, movement. And no substance.
Lord, I wish them all some peace tonight.
TUESD—
TUESDAY, JUNE 28
It’s not Tuesday, it’s Wednesday.
It’s not Tuesday . . .
Because I couldn’t write this on Tuesday. I couldn’t write at
all. The horror of it gassed me—I kept smelling rot, human rot,
inside my nose. The CORRUPTION of the body. And her stink
was somehow, vulgarly, noxiously sensual. Fertilizer.
It was a terrible day in my life.
And there are moments now—God forgive me—when I hope
my brother is dead.
Let me see . . .
Yesterday morning Jako came in late and drunk—at about
10:30, 10:40. (He should’ve been in around eight.) The john
was a slit trench—I ’d even begun to mop at it myself, while
smoking a cigarette to mask the male stench. (It was a day for
rich smells.)
So I was a little sharp with him. And, when Jako started
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talking nonsense—what I thought was nonsense—I didn’t pay
attention to it. After all, the man was drunk. Even when sober,
Jako’s brain isn’t fully insulated.
It went like this.
“ G’moming, Mr. Tony.”
“ You’re two hours late. And you’ve been drinking again.”
“ It just went on and on, boss. Last night just went oh and
on. And, Lawdy, here’s another day. But I sure was glad t’see
your car this morning.”
“ I bet.”
“ It’s been a long tim e.” At this point I wasn’t listening to
Jako. I figured he’d gone off on one of his Pinteresque monologues. I was behind the bar. ‘ ‘It’s been a long time in the shop—
too long for a fine car like that white Lincoln.”
“ Mmm-hmm,” I said.
“ But it needs a wash. For fi’ bucks I give it a wash.”
“ I don’t feel like washing a rental car, thanks. And you’ve
got plenty t’do right here.”
“ That’s no rental car. I got the plates myself, Mr. Tony. That
time you send me out t’the mo’ vehicle bureau.”
“ Jako—”
“ And it’s got a ticket on it right now.”
“ What?” I said. “ It can’t .” I looked at my watch. The meters outside are good for two hours on a buck. I still had forty-five minutes. I said that: “ I still have forty-five minutes.”
“ No, sir, Mr. Tony. What you got is a ticket.”
“ God damn, that’s crazy.” But I headed for the front door
anyway. Truth is, I ’d gotten a $40 ticket on Friday and I was
slightly paranoid. But there was nothing—just a paper handout
from some carpet-shampooing place jammed beneath the wiper.
“ Jako,” I said—he had followed me out onto the sidewalk—
“ Jako, this is not a ticket, this is stupid advertisement. Now get
inside and start doing some work for a change.”
“ That’s not your car, Mr. Tony—” he said.
I really heard little metal objects jingling inside my head
then—the man exasperated me. I said—loudly, I ’m afraid—I
said,
“ I am not Tony Wilson. And this is my car. See, it has my
New York Post in the front seat. See. Y’gotta stop drinking day
and night, Jako. Y’gotta—”
“ How come if it’s your car it don’t have your ’nitials on the
door?”
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D. Keith Mano
“ Because.- Rented. Cars. Don’t. Come. With. Initials. On.
The. Door. That’s why, Jako.” I was yelling at him in a brutal
monotone. But it wasn’t getting through. And then he said:
“ Mebbe so. Mebbe so. But that white Lincoln up the com er
got your ’nitials. Right there. ’ ’ He pointed east. ‘ ‘Got your lucky
dice sittin’ on the dashboard. ” I looked. I could see the rear left
fin and half the trunk of another 1990 Lincoln. White. “ It’s got
a ticket on it,” Jako told me. “ And the license plate say TOP
LESS. Just like always.”
It was Tony’s car, of course. The one he’d been driving the
day he disappeared. Initials on the door APW—Anthony Pierce
Wilson. It was Tony’s car and—to m e, then—that meant Tbny
was around someplace. I even ran over to a Burger King across
the Boulevard and looked for him. But then the ticket registered
with me. It had 8 a.m . on it—when the 8-9 a.m. no parking
restriction took effect. Tony (I only thought of Tony driving) had
parked it there during the night.
I ran back into The Car and called Ethel.
We made a mistake then. Ethel was so excited, so optimistic—and I could think of nothing beyond seeing my brother and getting free of The Car—that we didn’t reflect. Ethel knew there
was a spare set of keys for Tbny’s Lincoln on the big ring Leonard had. And Leonard came in at just that juncture. So I volunteered to drive the Lincoln to Malba. I could hear Amy yelling,
“ Daddy’s car is back. Daddy’s car is back.”
It started right up. There was a quarter tank of gas left. I tried
the lights and the windshield wipers: everything was in order.
Aside from the lucky dice, Tony hadn’t left much personality in
the car. I began driving toward Malba. Now and again, at red
lights, I rummaged through the glove compartment. Registration, insurance, Chrysler Corp. manuals, a pacifier, an ice scraper. No butts in the ashtray. And the radio was tuned to
WKCR-FM, a college talk and jazz station.
I got to Bayside Avenue, driving down Murray Street, on the
way to Whitestone and Malba when it hit me—I SHOULDN’T
DO THIS. This, the car, might be evidence in some criminal
proceeding. Auto theft at least. And now my fingerprints were
all over everything. I tried to hold the steering wheel gingerly—
I looked down to my hands.
And at that moment I almost hit a kid on a tricycle.
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I swerved. Then, to avoid a double-parked car, I braked hard
and swerved again.
And a thuddy sound came from the rear of
the Lincoln.
It was an awful noise—though maybe, in retrospect, I give it
too much credit. A thud in three parts: thud-thudd . . . d ’thud.
And a few seconds later I smelled it. The primal ooze had been
stirred up.
I drove for another block or two. I did turn off the music—
that was instinctive—but the denier in me drove on for a while.
Then I stopped. I got out. I was in a middle-class heartland:
hedges and rose bushes—the sort of place you see a million
Christmas lights from, when your plane banks in to La Guardia.
There were two women walking, each behind a baby carriage.
And an old man painting a trellis. And sparrows rubbing themselves down in the dirt. And my heart beating its fist in my chest: punching me.
Because, I had guessed, you see, and I thought it was Tony.
I thought my brother was dead.
And then I opened—God, God, God—I opened the trunk.
It was Rita.
And, I thought, Jesus, she’s a black woman. Tony was with
a black woman. But her skin wasn’t black—it was putrefying.
And, though most of her was wrapped in some kind of plastic,
I could see—I will ALWAYS see—the face. She looked like a
terrified horse, a bit in its mouth, the teeth so long, so horsey
long, rearing back. And the wire around her dark blue-black
throat had cut through, slicing as much as strangling—the tissue
swollen and fatty where the metal had embedded itself.
And then I inhaled. The aroma of her rotting caught my vomit
reflex perfecdy. I didn’t bend over and retch. Puke just blopped
out of me and down my shirt front. I ’ve attended the dying. But
this was not death as I had ever known it. This was an artifact
in the trunk of my car—an ancient leathery thing, dug from a
peat bog perhaps. So different, so strange, as to be another
species—but one that had known unforgiving human brutality.
And maybe somewhere my brother lay black and still, too. I
vomited again just as I reached the old man painting his trellis.
Of course, I didn’t know it was Rita Madera then. I only
learned her name today, Wednesday, this morning. Wretched,
