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me while I sightsee with Kay. A far-fetched assumption, which
I have not yet talked over with Ethel.
But Kay will be here until August 12th—two weeks. How can
I sustain such a complex charade for that long?
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Shouldn’t I confess over the phone and save the poor woman
atrip?
Still, part of me wants to see Kay. Like Berry said, “ Priests
do not marry topless dancers.” And I want to marry someday,
but not yet.
On the other hand, I may not be a priest for much longer.
5 a.m.
Just now, God help me, I found a Ziploc bag full of cocaine
under the front seat of my new rental car. I dropped some change
and was fingering down for it between my feet when I felt a soft
thing. I only picked this car up at noon yesterday. Who could’ve
put it there? Avis may try harder—but somehow I don’t think
they’re trying that hard.
What to do? Right now I ’ve got the bag stuffed under my sink
with the Ajax and Boric Acid Roach Control. Pretty obvious. I
expect a court-ordered search momentarily. I could throw the
stuff out, but I suspect there’s more where that came from. All
someone has to do is plant a half-ounce or so at The Car and
w e’re out of business. And it doesn’t take much imagination to
figure who’s behind this spider’s stratagem.
Fucking Leonard.
OK, what I ’ll do, I ’ll give the coke to Joe Solomon tomorrow.
If I ’m up front about it, maybe the narc people will think I ’m
innocent. (THINK?—I am innocent. But I ’ve forgotten what
being innocent feels like.) Also, I better take Berry into my confidence when she gets here. I trust her judgment. In ways, oddly enough, Berry’s like Kay. She knows how people think.
Oh, and I forgot, Manning was in tonight—a touchy moment.
I broke into three layers of sweat when I saw him. Raskolnikov
and the whole of Crime and Punishment flashed before my eyes.
Between the cops and Kay and Ethel and drug plants and Uzis
and the church I ’m beginning to lose the coordinates of sanity.
So—what else?—I decided to bite the bullet and confront
Manning. I went to his table and said, “ I ’m the manager. Can
I get you anything?”
Manning looked right at me and a really freakish smirk flared
in one mouth comer. His face is fleshy as a bloodhound’s, but
he has many tiny teeth. And he’s bigger than I thought, at least
six two. Manning said, this priest said,
“ What you can do, you can put some decent cunt up there
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on stage. I ’m sick of all the Brazilian twat.” (Tanya was my one
U.S. citizen.)
The way Manning pronounced those rancid four-letter words
for the female portion made me sick—they had a schoolboy
prurience to them. I felt he was getting some kind of release by
talking filth to me. (Of course, if I hadn’t known who Manning
was, “ cunt” and “ twat” would’ve struck me as standard lift-
the-leg male tastelessness.)
But Manning certainly doesn’t recognize me.
Yet.
Took Tanya home—the only bright moment in my day. (It
makes Berry jealous and, mea culpa, I enjoy that.)
Tanya was in a positive mood, having pulled down no less
than $850 dollars. I commented on her drawing power. Men, I
said, seemed to know when she was dancing—even if it wasn’t
one of her regular Saturday gigs.
“ Oh,” she said, “ that’s because I call them.”
“ You call them?”
“ Well Costanza does it mostly. I have a Rolodex with forty-
five names on it. Men appreciate that: a personal call makes
them feel special. I thought you knew about it.”
“ Knew?”
“ That’s why I get paid extra, silly. It’s for my expenses. Tony
and I agreed on that a long time ago. I work hard, Mike, I ’m
going t’make it as an actress, because I ’m motivated. And I
know howta use my resources.” Tanya started to cry—one of
her more available resources.
“ Are things better at home?”
“ Better? They’re fine.”
“ Aaah. Well—last time I drove you home, well, I thought
there was some tension.”
“ Tension?” She seemed surprised. “ That was excitement
you felt. Coscanza is a very exciting woman.”
“ Yes.” I thought that one over. Then I said, “ Have you always been gay?”
“ Mike. Don’t tell anyone about me and Costanza. It turns
men off. Men live in hope.”
“ You’re, uh, sick of men, is that it? Because they all fawn on
you and act stupid?”
“ Men are OK. I like men. I had a normal childhood. And
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it’s important t’my aspirations that men care for me. I ’m really
a down-home girl. I want kids and a fireplace. But right now
men are, well, kind of predictable. The men I meet aren’t, you
know, stars. A star will put me in my place some day. The way
Costanza does now. I need t’be put in my place. ’ ’
“ I see.”
“ But—and I ’m not just saying this—if it wasn’t for Costanza,
I ’d be turned on by you. You treat me pretty cool. That’s a
pleasure.”
“ The strong, silent type.”
“ You’re a mystery person,” she said. “ There are very few
mystery people in the world. ’ ’
So now, of course, I ’m thinking lewd thoughts about Tanya,
too. She got to me. She put me on her Rolodex.
SUNDAY, JULY 17
5 p.m.
It’s quite domestic here. I sit in my underwear—the radio said
94 degrees—and write this journal. Berry is across the room,
on my bed, sewing a G-string. (I booked her as a replacement
for Graciela tonight.) On TV, the Yanks are losing to Detroit
late in the second game of a doubleheader. Berry made burgers
and a very imaginative salad for late lunch. Then she played her
guitar. (She’s taking a course in music composition at The New
School.) Her fingering is quite accomplished. And her voice,
though small, is accurate and graceful. Witty, too. Her ballad
“ Topless Girl,” sung with a mock country/western twang, goes:
Her tits a in ’t all homegrown
Mostly stuffed with silicone
Yet they’re worth fifty cents apiece
So stick a dollar to her thigh
She ’ll manufacture a sweet sigh,
Aaah, yes, baby, harder, mmmm—
A nd send you running, running, running
To your wife.
(Refrain)
She’s topless once again,
The bosom buddy to all men,
Standing there—fleshing out the night.
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And, since we got up at noon or so, Berry and I have screwed
three times. I roar so loudly when I come that I ’m hoarse now:
there is pained despair in it. And such pleasure. Such shocking
pleasure.
Berry woke me twice—I was, she said, arguing in my sleep.
I don’t remember an argument
. I remember a terrifying moment—though it sounds funny—when I was confronted by all the chickens I had eaten in my lifetime. And an angry bunch
they were. I presume they represent my sins. Or the people that
I ’ve hurt. But it was quite distressing. You can put away a lot of
chicken in 28 years. Imagine them all fluffed up and indignant,
with sharp TEETH.
We almost went to church. I wanted to. (I’ve gotta start that
sermon.) But it seemed to tempt fate—showing up where I might
be recognized. And then there was the coke. I didn’t want to
leave it under the sink unsupervised. And the thought of kneeling at an altar rail with (Berry says) at least four ounces of cocaine in my pocket struck me as, I don’t know, blasphemy
perhaps. So we fucked instead. I like easy answers.
Ber has remained an Episcopalian and still attends Saint Mat’s
with her mother and father. Or so she tells me. It may be unfair,
but I suspect she’s just trying to impress me. My guess is: Berry’s spiritual life is rather pedestrian. (On second thought, I wish mine were more pedestrian.) But, oh, the look of love in her
bright brown eyes.
Orgasm is a pretty revealing thing. No wonder John Donne
compared it to God’s ravishing grace. Men and women spend
so much time maneuvering (personeuvering?) for control. He’s
cool. She’s disdainful. But no woman can disdain you when she’s
coming. (If she comes, and Ber COMES.) It is the nakedness-
of-nakedness. The vulnerable, shameless, grateful moment. No
greater gift is there for a man—when a woman presents him
with the pleasure of her helpless pleasure. God’s love comes that
way, without reservation . . . have I found a sermon text?
Do I love Berry? I wonder. I certainly can’t keep my mitts
off her. It’s a magic moment—we live with so many voluptuous
images that say DON’T TOUCH—magic when a man first realizes he has permission to be familiar with a woman’s private zones. Without getting slapped, reprimanded or, horrors,
laughed at. I keep exercising my new license: and, better yet,
Ber does the same. (Kay would NEVER touch my cock.) Ber
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went down on me this morning while I was still asleep. “ Just
to watch it grow,” she said.
Best of all, we kiss. And kiss. Our mouths are the same size—
NOTHING in a sensual dynamic is more important than mouth-
to-mouth ratio. I once dated a bright, sweet girl with a huge
mouth. She ate half my face when we kissed. Couldn’t get her
to pucker. Finally it became so distasteful, I picked a fight and
lit out. But Ber is imaginative and gentle. No tonsil swabber.
It’s lovely. Restful. We dock like space capsules and orbit, just
orbit.
Ber is now in charge of booking—tho’ no one realizes it yet.
I let her make up the schedule, since Ber knows the women
better than I do. I may give her some nights behind the bar as
well—that way I ’ll have at least two employees that I can trust.
And, of course, I ’ll be able to sidle down the bar every once
in a while and put my hand on her ass.
As for my prayer life, I would pray for it, if I had any.
5:30 a.m.
It wasn’t cocaine. It was, Joe told me, some kind of French
laxative—I forget the name—that dealers use to cut cocaine with.
What should we make of this? They just wanted to scare me?
They wanted me to stick frog Ex-Lax up my nose? They’re too
cheap to waste good cocaine on me? What? And who are they?
(And yet—between you and me—I tried the stuff. It made my
head buzz. I got high. Am I going crazy?) I wish people would
stop jerking me around.
But I did the right thing, going to Joe. He’ll tell the narc
people. Leonard, apparently, is working at Belle’s in College
Point, a topless dive owned—GET THIS—by Linese. Have our
enemies gone into league? Or . . . Or was Leonard on Linese’s
payroll while he was working here? There is a certain logic to
that. It would give Linese access to sabotage. Who knows? I ’m
on my way to the weirdo ward.
And, at around ten p.m ., I had a really unpleasant confrontation.
I was seated at the bar watching other men watch Berry (it’s
more of a turn-on for me than watching Ber direcdy). In fact,
now that I have an emotional stake in her, it’s hard for me to
watch Berry dance at all. I mean, her sub-sexual transactions up
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there—tongue wetting lip, making eye contact, separating her
buttocks ever so slightly with her hands—I mean they’re very
persuasive. It’s hard to distinguish them from the gestures that
I ’m honored with when we’re in bed together. I don’t say Berry’s
insincere with me. I KNOW she isn’t. But THEY, the men, are
so completely taken in. They suspend disbelief and—for a moment, at least—think they have been chosen.
By MY woman. Eatcha heart out, Charlie.
And, of course, Norm is right. I ’d been to bed with Ber, on
and off, all day—and still she was separate, a mystery. A spectral
land of soft curves and interesting nooks. There is no let-up.
Repression of the male sex urge is a matter of constant vigilance.
And not worth it.
I don’t mean that.
Anyway—throughout my sexual reverie (it was a slow night)
there was this ruddy-faced, short, white-haired man sitting
maybe six barstools away. About fifty-five years old. Could be
sixty. He was keeping us in the black—knocking shots of Wild
TVnkey down with beer. A practiced drinker. Broken veins all
over die nose. After his eighth shot in two hours, Connie put
me on notice that there might be trouble. (We get sad, methodical drinkers on Sunday night.) I wasn’t worried—though something about the guy struck me as familiar.
Finally he calls Connie over. Tells her he’d like to buy me a
drink. Connie reports this, and I wave to him and say, “ Don’t
drink on duty, thanks anyhow. ” And the guy comes toward me,
off his stool. He’s pretty steady. But there’s an energy around
him that I ’m not pleased by.
“ Not even a drink with mel Special occasion.” He touches
my knee. I don’t care for this intimacy.
“ Pardon,” I say. “ Have we met?”
“ No,” he says, “ but somehow I feel like I know you. Prick.”
“ Ah—” I said. “ I think you’ve had one too many. Connie—
this gendeman won’t be drinking any more tonight. Not here at
least.”
“ No more drinks? Not even for John Watson—whose daughter you killed? Prick.”
“ You’re Bub—Cherry’s father?”
“ Yah, I am. Come t’take her poor carcass home. But I hadda
drop by here and pay my respects—to the place, to the man who
drove my child t’what she did. ’ ’
“ Look. I can understand—”
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“ You have no kids. You can’t understand shit. And this’’—
he pointed at the stage—“ this sucks. This is an unholy corruption. Not even as honest as being a whore. I curse you for dragging my daughter into this—”
“ Wait
—hold on. Cherry was a dancer long before I met her. ’ ’
“ Bullshit. I ’ve read her letters. Detective Daniels showed
them t’me. They can’t get you on a murder rap—but it was
murder, nonetheless. You seduced her ’til she was crazed. They
should castrate you.”
“ I didn’t touch your daughter—”
“ That’s not what her letters say. Her letters say you had t’do
with her. Prick. ’ ’
“ Then she was fantasizing—”
“ Come on. I thought you were more of a man, admit it. Why
would she fantasize? Huh, prick?”
And I blew. I said:
“ Because she’d been running away from a shitty childhood
with an alcoholic father and an alcoholic mother. You got drunk
so much she never knew who you were. Or who she was. Why
was your precious 18-year-old daughter in New York, anyway,
you self-important old sot? Couldn’t ’ve been much fun watching
Dad stagger around. She had more of a family here in this shit-
house than she had with you—”
And he took a swing. Hit me in the sternum and knocked
me, quite ignominiously, off the bar stool. Berry, thank God,
came down from the stage, tits flying, and tied Watson up in a
clinch.
Whereupon he started to cry on her neck. I took a walk outside and left it to the woman.
But I was pissed. They seek me out, the angry and the unstable. Maybe some pastoral odor comes off me still. I don’t know.
Meanwhile, it has become obvious that Cherry’s diary is hot
stuff. And everyone, certainly Colavecchia and Daniels, is disposed to believe her version, not mine. Not Mike the Prick’s.
Did Cherry want to hurt me? I never saw that in her. Not once.
But look how things have turned out.
Mike. They’ve turned out this way because you live in the
House of Lies. He’s right—brothels are more honest. Here everything has distortion built into it. Young children who pretend to be femmes fatales. Nudity that is a costume, damn it. Promises sold for a dollar. Colored lights and blaring music. And the stinking haze of alcohol. You wonder there are misconceptions?
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You wonder that fantasies bloat and take precedence over the
real?
Unholy corruption—well put.
And an unholy corruption that—without drugs and electronic
poker—is losing money. Think I ’ll replace Salome (her silicone
