Topless

by D Keith Mano

  that a dancer from Brooklyn will demand. I mean, I guess, that

  Brazilians don’t insist on being treated like human beings. Which

  is an immense relief.

  This fracas left me with Chinga and, yes, Daphne alternating

  for the entire night. Lars-Erik was ecstatic. And we had to watch

  Daphne depants herself three more times. It is not an act that

  bears repeating. L-E, the snake, didn’t tip her once.

  But, Lord, we know that the law is good, if a man uses it

  lawfully. Knowing that the law is not made for righteous man,

  but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for

  sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and

  murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for

  them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for

  liars, for perjured persons and for those who frequent The

  Smoking Car on Northern Boulevard in an evil time.

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  TUESDAY, JULY 5

  5 a.m.

  My hand is shaking. I have a case of panic-induced diarrhea—

  it’s taken me sixteen minutes to start this paragraph.

  I ’ve been found out.

  Maybe I brought it on myself. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve fired

  Glenda. But, you see, that happens when you take one morality

  and then juxtapose it against another—especially when that other

  is totally antithetical. Strains are likely to occur. I ’ve been operating in the DMZ between two ethical systems. I ’ve been trying not to judge (compassionate liberal that I am). But every once in a while something so grotesque, so inhuman occurs that

  it awakens the sleeping priest in me. (The priest I ’ve put to sleep,

  rather.) Because, with him looking over my shoulder, I could

  not function here. I would close the place down tomorrow—

  nieces, Ethel and all.

  But tonight what Glenda did sent voltage through my Christian nerve ends. And the priest came alive, in an epileptic fit of indignation.

  You see, too many guys were ordering Kahlua. A little thing,

  but even the amateur me registered it. Men just don’t drink

  Kahlua in front of other men. It isn’t, shall we say, the macho

  thing to do. And a Kahlua hangover is like the final Yoo-Hoo.

  But there they were: two cabbies with Kahlua. Two UPS men

  with Kahlua. This went on for about three hours. I had to send

  Freddy down for a couple more bottles. Actually, I guess that’s

  what alerted me. Until now we’ve had the same half-empty Kahlua bottle in the rack since I got here. But, you see . . .

  Glenda was selling her breast milk at $10 a shot.

  Yes.

  I caught Glenda just as she was coming out for her 1: IS a.m.

  set. She passed from table to table—she’s been dancing for a

  decade, everyone knows her—and I saw her pour something

  white into each Kahlua glass.

  I confronted her. She admitted it readily enough.

  Glenda is one of those women who try to be super-ballsy.

  (Willow is another.) Because they’re wild (and women) you’re

  meant to forgive them for being outrageous. It’s supposed to be

  eccentric or cute. Glenda said something about Grade A, homogenized. Something about being a universal mother. I didn’t

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  hear her, I just blew. All my impacted guilt and anger and fear

  broke through.

  “ Get out, you disgusting slut,” I said. “ You’re fired and

  you’ll never work here again.”

  “ Hey.” Glenda went to anger. “ Listen, snot-nose—I ’ve done

  this after every kid I had. It’s a tradition.”

  “ It’s a fucking abom ination,” I said. And I took her bag—

  she had put it on the stage lip—I took her bag and threw it toward

  the locker room. “ Get out,” I said. “ Get out now.” Then I

  grabbed Jako’s pail and I went from table to table. I dumped

  every Kahlua I could find. I offered drinks on the house: no one

  took me up on it. And most left. Leonard gave me an eye-rolling

  look, like “ Your days are numbered in this business, kid.”

  That left Berry on stage. Berry of the wig, dark glasses and

  1940’s film mannerisms. Berry who isn’t intimidated by me. I

  sat at the bar—empty stools on either side of me. (No one felt

  like small talk with the boss.) After a while Glenda rushed past,

  her face sheeted and pasty with tears. I looked up—to avert my

  glance—and saw Berry. And suddenly I was swept by an incredible surge of lust. I started getting an erection right there—

  the first I ’ve had at The Car. My God, I thought, I enjoy hurting

  women. But it wasn’t that. O r not entirely that. It was Berry’s

  flesh.

  Her breasts are soft, they don’t have great tone, but they’re

  sloped like the tip of a Dutch girl’s wooden shoe. With the big

  pink nipples poking up. Her waist is slim, but her belly—in it—

  is distinct and round. A Botticelli. And her legs are coltish—

  without adult definition—but lull of prancing fun. I looked up.

  Berry took her breasts in her hands and offered them to me. I

  looked away. Not because I was offended. Because she could

  see I was turned on.

  And when her set was over, Berry came down. She sat beside

  me.

  “ M ichael,” she said—and in that “ Michael” I heard, should

  have heard, another time, another place. She sounded like Kay.

  “ M ichael,” she said, “ I think you’re being hard on Glenda.”

  “ I don’t ,” I said. “ You can’t tell me there’s no health department violation in what she did. If there isn’t, there should be. Exchange of bodily fluids—”

  “ But that’s not why you fired her.”

  “ No, you’re right, it’s n o t.”

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  “ Give her a suspension. She needs this gig. She’s a great

  mother.”

  “ She’s a caricature of a mother. And, anyway” —this just

  jumped out of me—“ I ’m sick of great mothers.”

  “ You’re wrong. Her husband’s on disability. She’s supporting

  the whole bunch with topless.”

  “ Not my problem.”

  “ Well,” Berry said. “ I thought priests were supposta forgive.”

  I slapped my legs together like a little girl whose skirt has

  hiked up. I wanted to deny it. But I saw that would be impossible. Berry knew. And I knew why she had never been afraid of me.

  “ Who told you?” I said. “ Pearl?”

  “ Does Pearl know? I guess she would. No, Pearl didn’t tell

  me—I ’m Theresa Ottomanelli’s little sister. Berry. Bernadette.

  You remember Theresa—she was Amanda’s best friend. You

  wouldn’t recognize me. I was thirteen and fat when you knocked

  Amanda up. And, son-of-a-bitch, you never paid me the slightest

  attention. I was in love with you once. We all were. We younger

  sisters.”

  “ Berry—”

  “ Drive me home tonight,” she said. “ And give Glenda another shot.”

  Angie. Amanda. Luke the Duke. Mouse Calich. Gina. Lois

  Manheim. McAlevey. Ellis Lodge. And our Junior Auxiliary:

  younger sisters, younger brothers. Berry wore braces then.

  She had a chubby, androgynous body. And, Lord, I was too


  preoccupied to notice, anyway. I was just another kid who

  attended Young People’s Fellowship meetings at St. Matthias

  because it was the only place you could meet a girl. Father

  Mac knew we had not gathered to make His path straight—

  yet he tried, anyway, to use the opportunity as best he could.

  While we went from crush to crush—and dreamed of dark

  purple hickeys.

  Berry. That Berry. I tried to extract—from the lush stuff of

  this sensual woman—the child core. But all I could remember

  was a little troll-girl who covered her mouth when she giggled.

  If I ’m 28, she must be 25 now.

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  “ Where d ’you live?” I asked, when she got into the Lincoln.

  But Berry took her time. She felt the upholstery. She examined

  my dashboard. She lit a Marlboro.

  “ On Twentieth Avenue,” she said. “ With my parents, where

  I ’ve always lived.”

  “ I ’d rather not drive through that neighborhood just now.”

  “ Nothing has changed, Mike. They go t’bed at 10 p.m. We’ll

  pass through like ghosts. ’ ’ And Berry put her hand on my knee.

  So we drove: and I enjoyed it. Past Shea Stadium, along

  Northern Boulevard, left on 154th Street. Through Flushing, into

  Whitestone. Past the house I spent my life in. (The new tenants

  have added a second story, made it a two-family.) Through the

  quiet, tree-thick streets, where a black man would feel out of

  place, as I felt out of place in Bubbles’s neighborhood.

  My ball field is gone. The rude wooden bleachers behind Our

  Lady have been knocked down. People park where once I went

  deep for fly balls. There is a shopping mall where Mr. Zinkle’s

  azalea farm stood. But, otherwise—Berry was right—it hasn’t

  changed. I asked about Amanda.

  “ She’s in Georgia someplace. Two kids. Married to an air

  force pilot. She came back to Saint M at’s last Christmas. Ugly

  kids—she’s put on thirty pounds. You got out while the getting

  was good.”

  “ I didn’t want to. I had no say in the matter. I was the wild

  oat sower—in another time they would’ve castrated m e.”

  “ D ’you know how much we loved you? All of us—Diane,

  Sue Welles and Sue Harbort. Kitty Spelling. Me. You were a

  star: it’s not that we begrudged, you know, Amanda. We were

  rooting for both of you. But any of us would have given up, oh,

  American Bandstand, t’have that baby in u s.” She laughed.

  “ And I hadn’t got my first period yet.”

  “ I was preoccupied back then.”

  “ You were beautiful. Shy, with your hair wild, and your biceps shining. And we all looked for your cock when you had tight shorts on. You threw me over your shoulder and tossed me

  into a pickup truck that last church field day we had before you

  left. You touched me. You, who never smiled. Who had the

  world on his shoulders.”

  “ Can that be true?”

  ‘ ‘Hey, it was a pretty boring neighborhood. Little girls haveta

  fantasize.”

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  “ You’re not a little girl now.”

  “ No. I ’m not.”

  “ Berry—”

  “ Are you still a priest?”

  “ Yes—”

  “ And no one but Pearl knows?”

  “ No one must know. I ’m doing this for Ethel and Tony and

  my nieces. I don’t want t’ruin my career. Believe me, I don’t .”

  “ I won’t tell. My parents think I work at an all-night diner.

  S o - ”

  “ S o - ”

  “ We’re both on the lam, you might say. And we know each

  other. And, you know, you can talk to m e.”

  “ I ’m glad.”

  “ There’s just a couple of things—”

  “ Yes—”

  ‘ ‘I need some Saturday bookings. And I want you t’kiss me. ’ ’

  “ Berry—”

  “ Mike, I know you’re a priest. I know why you became a

  priest. I knew your brother when he was a kid. You can be

  yourself with me. I ’ve watched your face in The Smoking

  Car. You hate lying, you hate being someone you’re not. I hate

  it, too. God, I ’m no sex merchant, I ’m just a music student who

  needs money. We’re both in hiding. Let’s hide together. Please,

  please, please. Kiss m e.”

  And I did. I kissed Berry often. Our mouths fit one inside the

  other, perfectly, as nature engineers things when it wants a species to survive. I touched her: I touched her breasts. And tears, like children on sleds, rushed down her cheeks. She was grateful

  to me. And I was grateful to her.

  God, the release, the release. It was exquisite.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 6

  Can’t write, too tired.

  Thought of Berry the entire day.

  Ethel called, furious. Police all over the house. Colavecchia

  and Daniels got a warrant to search Tony’s things. It is a murder,

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  after all. But, as of ten p.m ., they had found nothing. I could’ve

  saved them their time—Tony didn’t kill Rita. But who did?

  The Gaucho? He came in tonight and scared us all. I didn’t

  think Leonard was capable of deference. But he is deferential to

  the Gaucho. So, for that matter, am I. Leonard and the Gaucho

  “ talked” in the kitchen. And, from time to time, others—even

  little Norm Hohol—went back to . . . pay respects, I guess.

  Berry Ottomanelli. Does that mean Little TUrk in Italian?

  Kay called. I was so nice to her, so effusive about our future,

  that I made her suspicious. I think.

  Lazarus has a huge abscess near the base of his tail.

  Berry’s breasts. Soft as soap bubbles.

  Better buy some condoms. In New York, Brooklyn, somewhere.

  Can’t anyone hear me? I ’m yelling “ Catch me! Catch me!”

  as loud as I can. Catch me at it, Kay. Catch me, Queens Diocese. Catch me, please.

  Before I get away with it.

  Berry. I tell myself this can’t be just a coincidence. That some

  circle—from my previous sin to my present sin—is closing. That

  this is fate. That this was meant to be. That it is all, you know,

  a learning experience.

  But it isn’t.

  It’s just a weak soul giving way to temptation.

  And, deep inside—at center—I ’m truly worried about just one

  thing. I worry about how I ’ll perform in bed.

  THURSDAY, JULY 7

  Afternoon

  Just got back from the vet.

  Cats are eerie. Pearl brought a cardboard animal carrier in

  and—zow—Lazarus disappeared. H e’s never been to a vet. He’s

  never seen a cat carrier. Nonetheless, some instinct said, Splits-

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  ville, I ’m on my way, you won’t have this cat to kick around any

  more. He dove into the basement and simply vanished. It’s a big

  place, but neat, and there were four of us saying “ Kitty, Kitty. ’ ’

  No sign. Gone.

  Animal instincts interest me of late.

  So we sat for three hours saying things aloud like, “ I hope

  we don’t see a cat around here. The one thing I really can�
�t stand

  is a cat. Nice day, lucky there aren’t any cats t’spoil it.” This

  conversation was orchestrated by Bubbles. (She was dancing

  with Rochelle, my token Black, who has a Cockney accent.)

  Cats are perverse, Bubbles said. They can’t help it. If you want

  a cat to eat nutritious food, hide it. Human, in other words.

  Sure enough, Lazarus appeared. Wary but interested. “ Oh,

  no,” said Bubbles. “ If that cat jumps up here it’ll ruin my set. ”

  (Lazarus has been known to sleep on stage, paws up, through

  an hour’s worth of dancers.) Then Bubbles lay down—with a

  long peacock feather. She made irresistible feather movements:

  she was a shrew, she was a garter snake, she was autumn leaves

  falling.

  Got him.

  And the vet says to me, “ Jesus, this cat has beer on his

  breath.”

  “ I ’ll give him a Cloret,’’ I said.

  5 a.m. or so

  Now, of all things, I ’m worried about money. Having promised

  Ethel that I ’d increase our take at The Car, I feel like a yuppie

  computer salesman trying to make his July nut. And everyone

  is watching me. In the midst of raunch, sleaze and brutal murder, an even gamier stench of bourgeois materialism pongs my olfactory nerve.

  No question, pulling the plug on our Joker Poker machine

  has hurt the house—and the higher-spending part of it, as well.

  Jako and Leonard and I humped the J P into a distributor’s truck,

  like we were bums-rushing a drunk.

  To compensate—even in lust there are marketing strategies—

  I have instituted the audition hour. (Good idea, if I do say so.)

  From five to seven on weekdays—a slow time for us—we hold

  open try-outs. Customers, like Romans in the Colosseum, get

  to thumb up or thumb down after a five-minute set. That way

  we all sample free flesh, the clientele and me. (Word has only

  been out since the weekend, and already seven girls have gone

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  up. Some good ones, too—three will make their debuts at Pearl’s

  shindig). With us the girls don’t have to pay an agency fee. So

  we are at least 10% more attractive than Linese’s joint.

  Tony evidently felt that the quality of his product mattered:

  sexier girls, bigger crowds. I snuck up to Rabies and scouted

  Linese’s roster: some of his women have about as much sensual