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by D Keith Mano

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  D. Keith Mono

  dancing. What can I tell you?—the girl is beautiful. Disney dust

  flashes around her. And Tanya’s dancing—she works hard at it,

  so serious—her dancing is complex, graceful, and, well, imaginative.

  Still, men—about ten of them—are laughing at her. Tanya

  executes an athletic leg kick, they laugh. She performs an acrobatic plié, they laugh. Tanya is distressed. She can tell something is wrong, but doesn’t know just what. I don’t know either.

  She stares at herself in the mirror: nothing. (I think she’s myopic, I ’ve seen her with glasses.) More laughter.

  Tanya is about a sweat’s thickness away from tears.

  At which point Leonard arrives above my left shoulder.

  “ Better go tell your girlfriend her tampon string is hanging

  out. I think it’s a health violation—you care so much about the

  law. ’ ’ And he walks away.

  More laughter. Sure enough, the string is hanging and it’s—

  oh, Lord—pink. Whaddem I gonna to do? I can’t humiliate

  Tanya by pointing it out. But she’s being humiliated anyhow.

  I go over to Connie—bright, humane, mature Connie. The

  sensible person I can count on. I whisper:

  “ Tanya’s—”

  “ Got her period, yeah. We all noticed. I ’m surprised she’s

  got any blood in her. I thought she already had formaldehyde in

  her veins.”

  “ Would you tell her, I—”

  “ No, I wouldn’t tell her. Not if her nipples were on inside-

  out. And no other girl in this room would either. You been on

  stage with her? She’ll put her stiletto heel in your eye if you

  cross into her ‘territory, ’ which is three quarters of the stage and

  all the m en.”

  “ Connie—for me—”

  “ Mike, you’re banging her, you go tell her.”

  “ I am not banging Tanya.”

  “ That’s not the way I hear it.”

  “ You hear wrong.”

  “ I don’t care who you fuck, anyway. But your taste comes

  off a movie theater floor. ’ ’

  “ Thanks, Connie. You’ve been my rod and my staff.”

  So I had to tell Tanya. It was gruesome. She leaned down to

  me, hands on kneecaps, eyes wide. So young. So flawless. So

  light-as-a-kitten’s-eyeblink.

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  And then she ran off the stage. And didn’t come back. Which

  pleased the Brazilian girl who was dancing with her. Until then

  the Brazilian had been upstaged, out-danced and made to look

  like a gravid tapir by contrast.

  Tanya came out of the women’s room at about 3:45, having

  missed one-and-a-half sets. She had made up her face twice,

  but I could still see tear paths. They all seem so little, so helpless, off the stage, off their high-high heels.

  “ Please take me home,” she said.

  “ Sure,” I said. I left Leonard with the cash—but I know

  roughly how much should be there. And, from the stage, Connie

  said, “ Good night, you two.”

  We drove in silence over the 59th Street bridge, down Second

  Avenue. She lives on 8th Street—with what Tanya earns I ’d expect better. When we had pulled up outside the door, I handed Tanya her pay, and said:

  “ I didn’t dock you for the sets you missed. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “ Thanks.”

  “ Why don’t you get out of this insane business? Look what

  happened t’Rita. You’ll crack. You’re too sensitive. You have

  real talent—I mean, I think you do. I enjoy watching you dance.

  Go be a secretary, waitress—something. Model—aren’t you

  beautiful enough t’be a model, f God’s sake?”

  “ This is New York, Mike. It’s hard. Everyone is beautiful.

  In The Car I ’m beautiful—at Elite or Ford I ’m just another face.

  And I ’m only five-foot-six. A model hasta be at least five-nine. ”

  “ T anya-”

  “ Besides. I ’ve got someone t’take care of.” And—bingo—

  Tanya started to cry again. I touched her arm and it was as if I

  had pulled—I don’t know—the rip cord of a parachute. Her emotions, I mean.

  She fell into my arms. Her lips kissed up my cheek, up

  my neck. And I was knocked hazy by a cloud of lilac perfume. Tanya had just a T-shirt on under a light jacket, no bra. And my hand—inadvertently, I mean it—brushed her left

  breast. Just enough to feel that marvelous, young, feline,

  springy resilience.

  Then she was out of the car and gone.

  * * *

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  D. Keith Mono

  I ’m not in love with Tanya. I do not have a crush on her. I ’m

  sure she just likes me, just likes. That’s all. I am not going to

  bed with her.

  But, frankly, I don’t mind if people think I am.

  SUNDAY, JULY 3

  Morning

  Woke myself twice last night with vicious leg cramps. I must

  be tensing in fear as I dream (don’t remember what about, thank

  God). And y e t. . . and yet there was a damp, slippery area on

  the sheet. It seems crazy, I haven’t had a wet dream.in ten years,

  b u t . . . could it be? Could it be that my nightmares—my terrors—arouse me sexually? That sort of nightmare REALLY

  frightens me. Is there a lovely, evil incubus hovering in the air?

  Sleep also not helped by endless cherry bomb explosions—

  I ’d forgotten how noisy New York can get on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th

  and 5th of July.

  Late afternoon

  I am EXASPERATED with Ethel. I cannot figure the woman

  out. Okay, it is understood that I won’t bring Rita up. Too “ negative.” Tony is alive and he didn’t kill anyone. (Certainly he didn’t kill his mistress—Ethel is heavily into denial when it

  comes to Tony’s relationship with Rita.) Ethel sits there talking

  about The Car like she was Don Corleone, all the while diapering an infant. She is—I will say this—she is the Total Mother.

  She’s always attending to those kids. And they respond to her:

  they’re beautiful, very open, confident, bright. Amy, for one,

  reads better than I do. This afternoon she said to me, “ No, you

  aren’t Daddy.” Slapped her thighs in a petulant way. It was cute

  and heart-clutching. Whenever I come over, for the first ten

  minutes, they all hover around me. As if they expected me to

  metamorphose into Daddy. As if I were a Tony in training.

  Which maybe I am.

  Leonard—

  No, before I go into that—one hilarious scene I must set down.

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  We’re sitting near the pool, Ethel and I. I ’m sucking on a

  Coke (I have no intention of drinking around Ethel). I ’m sucking

  away, a little preoccupied, and I look over to the pool—about,

  say, ten yards away from where I ’m sitting.

  And there is an arm coming out of the pool. It’s fumbling around

  on the pool edge, obviously trying to find something. Which kid?

  I thought. But then I did a quick count, and all four girls are there.

  Who is in the pool? The arm is now very agitated. It rejects a

  rubber duck, it rejects a beachball. It’s a pissed-off arm.

  And so I say to Ethel, “ Uh, I do believe there’s someone in

  your pool.”

  “ Yes,” says Ethel.

&n
bsp; ‘‘Uh—I think the someone is having difficulty. ”

  “ Yo,” yells Ethel. ‘‘You all right?”

  “ My wig! My wig, dammit! He’s here and I can’t find my

  wig.”

  Sure enough, about four feet away from the arm, I see a bright

  pink hairy thing . . . I thought it was a Nerf ball or something.

  And right beside the wig is a pair of glasses.

  “ Com-ing,” says Ethel, as if this were another of her children. “ Vanity, vanity, vanity.”

  From the pool. “ Don’t gimme that bullshit. I got a right t’my

  dignity—don’t go snotty just because your ovaries are still working—”

  Meanwhile Ethel has picked up the wig and glasses. By now

  she is kneeling poolside. Ethel jams the wig on someone’s head

  as if it were an army helmet. Then she grabs with one arm (she

  is powerful) and—alley-oop—up comes PEARL out of the pool

  (like she was a pot roast Ethel had left on the stove too long).

  In a string bikini.

  “ Time you got out,” says Ethel. “ You’re turning blue.”

  “ That’s my regular color without makeup, you schmuck,”

  says Pearl.

  “ I ’m not looking,” I said.

  “ Why not, prick?”

  “ Do you want me to?”

  “ No.”

  Indeed I got glimpse enough. Imagine a Perdue chicken in a

  G-string.

  Another thing I don’t understand is the Pearl/Ethel relationship. They’ve known each other a long time, so there is much

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  D. Keith Memo

  history I haven’t shared. Sometimes Pearl is rude to Ethel. And

  Ethel doesn’t mind, or seem to—except for bad language in front

  of the girls. Other times Pearl is almost maternal. They’re close,

  I must remember that.

  Right off, Pearl (in Ethel’s bathrobe, which fits her like the

  Atlantic Ocean fits a porpoise) Pearl, to gain back the face she’s

  lost, says:

  “ So if the church cops find out you’re running a tit-joint—so

  whatya think they’ll do?”

  “ No one’ll find out,” says Ethel. “ You certainly won’t tell

  them .”

  “ Would they excommunalize you?”

  “ Excommunicate,” says Ethel. Then, to me, she says, “ Hold

  this.” And hands me a full diaper. You cannot put a full diaper

  down anywhere.

  ‘ ‘Would they make you wear an iron collar? Would they bum

  you as a steak?”

  “ At the stake,” says Ethel.

  “ I can speak English—you didn’t go to Harvard, miss. All

  you are is a human incubator.”

  “ You wanna get dumped back in the water?”

  “ No. You almost broke my back last tim e.”

  “ Just girls playing. ” Ethel said to me: her smile was kind of

  comical. I smiled back, and then Ethel said, “ Leonard tells me

  you shut down the Joker Poker machine last night.”

  “ Leonard gets up early—”

  “ You did?” says Pearl. “ You shut the machine down?”

  “ He did. Just after Leonard rang up a straight flush. H e’s just

  like Tony—headstrong.”

  “ Leonard must’ve been irked,” says Pearl.

  “ He had some choice expressions.”

  “ M ike,” says Ethel, “ I ’m gonna ask you t’tum the machine

  back on tonight.”

  “ Ethel, I caught him paying out. That was our deal. I see a

  payoff and I close it dow n.”

  “ Now, wait. Hear me out.”

  “ W hat?”

  “ Leonard agrees he made a mistake. Put the machine back

  on—no payments, but at least we get the small customers.”

  “ No, no, no. I don’t believe Leonard. H e’ll start paying off

  outside or something. You hired me because you didn’t trust

  him—now you listen to his bullshit.”

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  “ Just like Tony,” said Ethel. “ Mike—the problem is, you

  see a lot of money at The Car. You see it coming in, but you

  don’t see it going out. We’re working on a tight margin here.

  Tony left me debts—”

  “ The answer is no. You hired a priest because you thought

  he’d be honest. Now you’re stuck with m e.”

  “ I hired you, Mike, because you were my only man’s brother.

  And your blood is in these kids’ veins.”

  “ Ethel. I promise you: I ’m making the right decision. I don’t

  want the cops coming in. I hear things—in the long run it’s

  better. ’ ’

  “ Okay,” said Ethel. “ But it’ll be harder—”

  “ No, it won’t be. We don’t need that illegal stuff. We’ll make

  just as much money if I haveta walk up and down Northern

  Boulevard with a sandwich sign on.”

  “ The church will love that,” Pearl said.

  “ What d’you think?” Ethel asked Pearl.

  “ He’s doing a good job. He’s fair. The girls like him. Joe

  Solomon loves him. I think, if Mike says sales will go up, you

  should give him rope enough t’hang himself.”

  “ Watch out for those women, Mike,” said Ethel. “ That’s the

  start of trouble.”

  “ I have a woman already, and that’s another thing—Kay said

  she’ll be here in two weeks or so. What do I do then?”

  “ No problem. I ’ve thought about that. Lou Maso, who owns

  Tony’s Trattoria—even the same name—says he’ll let you come

  in and pretend t’be the owner. So you can show your girlfriend.

  It’s a big place. You’ll sit at Lou’s table and he’ll give you respect. On m e.”

  “ Don’t ever underestimate your sister-in-law,” said Pearl.

  I don’t. Oh, I don’t. I went out there meaning to be firm. I

  was firm. I stood up for my principles. And Ethel turned it all

  back on me. Now I ’ve got to work like a Stakhanovite to beef

  up our gate receipts.

  This is quicksand, I do believe.

  Evening

  Slowest night yet. But, of course, when you deal with topless

  dancers, NOTHING is easy. Even the boredom—it reaches such

  an intense level it seems, well, thrilling. Like passing a kidney

  stone.

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  D. Keith Mano

  * * *

  First of all, someone yelled “ Fuck you” and threw a string

  of firecrackers in through the front door. I suspect two pre-teen

  black kids who are ALWAYS trying to sneak a look. There is a

  diamond-shape glass window set in the front door. You can’t

  see anything through it—as long as the girls stay on stage. But

  last week I opened the door and there’s Kareem and Ali—or,

  rather, Kareem is on Ali’s shoulders. They both gave me an

  “ Ain’t me, boss” smile. Then Ali ran away—forgetting that

  Kareem was on his back. Kareem got deposited on his coccyx.

  “ Don’t rush it,” I said. “ W hat’s your hurry?”

  “ Man, I got time t’make up for,” said Ali, giving me the

  finger. Apparently he considers his infancy and childhood to be

  one long sexual opportunity lost.

  “ It isn’t worth all the fuss,” I yelled after them, remembering

  Amanda. I don’t think they have pubic hair yet.

  At one point—about 9:30—there were no customers in the

  ba
r. I read. Connie studied. (We weren’t talking after last night—

  so much for enduring friendships.) Freddie slept. Bubbles, topless and tipless, was gearing up to toss a fit. Not an angry fit: in this girl there are those adolescent forces, huge power suiges of

  passion, that, psychics say, can make poltergeists appear. Set

  mysterious fires. Cause sofas to move. She overwhelms me—

  she always wants SOMETHING TO HAPPEN.

  After a while Jako walked past with the garbage, and Bubbles

  invited him up on stage. At first I said, No—then, hell, what did

  it matter? And, much to my astonishment, Jako can dance. He

  was an old tap hoofer in die 1950’s. (Bubbles knew this—it’s

  typical of her. I ’ve seen her listen to toothless men and idiots.)

  It was fun to see. This skinny old black dancing arm-in-arm

  with a huge (I didn’t realize how huge) adolescent child. First

  he taught Bubbles a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo. Then she showed him

  her famous shuffle-to-the-bedroom. They took each other off.

  Then they did a rather complex pas de deux which had—I don’t

  know—a rehearsed look to it. Fetching, it was.

  I gave Jako a five dollar bill. He nodded, picked up a Steel

  Sack full of old ravioli and left.

  How long, I ask myself, can I get away with this? Fortunately,

  both tabloids seem to have lost interest in Rita’s death. For the

  time being. Someone from Newsday called requesting an interview. And Lars-Erik has a girlfriend who freelances for New

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  York. But I put them both off. I don’t need publicity just now.

  I ’m supposed to check in at the diocesan office. I ’ve put that off:

  now I ’ll need a good excuse for my procrastination. I hate lying

  to bishops. I don’t know why: they’re just men, they deserve the

  same disrespect we give everyone else.

  Tuesday, no—Wednesday. Wednesday I ’ll go out to the Cathedral.

  In many ways—think about it—my occupation hasn’t changed.

  I ’m still a pastor, still an authority figure. I still have a congregation that comes to me for advice. In fact, it’s the same stupid confessions, hassles, pretty much. “ My boyfriend is seeing another woman.’’ “ My landlord is harassing m e.’’ “ My parents don’t understand m e.” I try to avoid fly-paper involvements at

  The Car. After all, my position is, shall we say, equivocal. The

  Christian advice I should give is compromised somewhat by my