Topless

by D Keith Mano

  an active priest, so I can do unseemly things. Bert’ll run The

  Car tonight. You wanna see New Yawk? Lemme take you to a

  quiet place by the ocean. It’s called Coney Island.”

  So we did. Some off-color places wear their sleaze as if it

  were a fine veneer. Coney Island is one of those places. Kay

  was both fascinated and afraid. As for me, I was into frightening

  myself—to numb the fear of being the non-Rev. Mike Wilson.

  There is at Coney Island a cylindrical machine called the Hell

  Hole—it whirls so forcefully that a kind of centrifugal glue sticks

  your body to the wall. THEN, the floor drops twenty feet. And

  you are hung there, saved only by the substitution of one physical law for another. As the law of Jesus, agape, perfect love, obviates the law of man. But you must spin—ah, spin hard—to

  keep Jesus’s law in effect. O r the downward weight will prevail.

  As you might guess I was looking for significance that night.

  Kay and I did well. I love showing her things. And she has—

  great quality—a genuine interest in whatever event or artifact

  you might bring to her attention. Kay has never developed an

  ironic stance—critical, but not ironic. There is no cynicism in

  her. (New York babies cry cynically: “ You think you could

  bring a bottle, it’s too much trouble, huh?” ) She swept me up.

  And, sure, we were both a little frenzied in our pleasure, trying

  to avoid The Subject. But—after a beer or three—I began to feel

  hopeful again. We were having fun together, is what I mean.

  We got Monday’s Post at 2 a.m . PRIEST RAN TOPLESS

  MURDER BAR, it said. “ Defrocks Self in Emotional Ceremony.” There was a picture of me, vestment neck pulled up, looking like a Ku Klux Klansman.

  “ I better get you to Ethel’s ,” I said. “ Before the vultures

  gather. ’ ’

  “ Not Ethel. Not tonight. Somehow I don’t see me being civil

  to Ethel right now. I ’m afraid I ’d tell her just what I think of

  her.”

  “ A motel?”

  “ N o.”

  ‘ ‘My place must be under surveillance. ’ ’ I thought a moment.

  “ Unless you’re game for a little adventure.”

  “ A little adventure would be an improvement.”

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  * * *

  So I rang each doorbell in the apartment building behind

  mine, and, as always, some sap let us in. We sneaked up five

  stories to the roof, across the heat-squishing asphalt, to the parapet. .

  “ You jump over that?’’ Kay said.

  “ It’s only like three, four feet across.”

  “ But it’s many, many, many feet down.”

  “ Watch.” I got up on the ledge and jumped across. Then I

  jumped back. “ Don’t look down is the trick. You ran track in

  high school. Here, look, I ’ll draw a distance of five feet from

  . . . say this piece of pipe t’that stick.” I did. “ Okay, jum p.”

  Kay did. “ So what’s the difference?”

  “ My imminent death.”

  “ It’s in the mind.”

  “ You want me t’jump across that canyon?”

  “ Yes.”

  “ Why?”

  “ Because it’s the only way we can have coffee and a decent

  night’s sleep. Here, I ’ll go first—give me your purse—and I ’ll

  be ready t’catch you.”

  I stood on the far side, hands out, waiting. Kay considered.

  She put her hair back in a knot as though she might be more

  aerodynamically efficient that way. Then she looked at me and

  said, “ I ’ve followed you t’New York, I can go another four

  feet.” And jumped.

  And almost missed. Kay had taken off on her right leg—but,

  for some reason, the left leg had reservations. Her leap was

  ultimately hesitant—and I had to grab Kay by the blouse front

  to keep her from dropping backward, down. We fell to the rooftop, in an embrace of relief.

  “ I thought,” Kay said, “ you wanted me t’die. I thought you

  were going t’let me fall.”

  “ I didn’t ,” I said. “ I can’t afford another death.”

  “ Is that why?”

  “ Also I love you.”

  And we kissed fiercely. We wolfed each other down.

  It was hot in the apartment: still, I shouldn’t have taken my

  shirt off. But I was impatient as usual and, because of that, I

  overbid a weak hand. Kay sat on the far side of my kitchen table,

  against the wall—in a position the 82nd Airborne couldn’t have

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  taken by frontal assault. We were both a little bemused, even

  shaken, by what had happened on the roof. Both of us probably

  overvalued it. Both of us were still defensive. We held hands

  across the table. For a while she and I talked about my now

  limitless (or empty) future, then Kay said,

  “ What’d you tell your girlfriend about me?”

  “ Tell? Nothing. It’s none of her business. And she’s not my

  girlfriend. ’ ’

  “ Did you tell her we’d been having sexual problems? That I

  wasn’t good in bed?’ ’

  “ No. Hell, no.”

  “ The infidelity maybe I can understand. And bear. But not

  the humiliation. I ’m a private person, Michael. I was brought

  up that way. Never do I want my personal life discussed.”

  “ Hey, I wouldn’t do that.” Then, because Kay had irritated

  me with her moral hard-lining, I said, “ I know you well enough

  by now.”

  “ Do you? Do you really? And is that a—a burden t ’you? Old

  uptight Kay?”

  “ No, it isn’t a burden. And you’re not uptight, you’re morally

  correct. I respect that. And I hope for your forgiveness.”

  “ May I ask—have you broken with what’s her name?”

  “ Yes,” I said. “ I threw her out last night, after you left.

  B u t - ”

  “ But what?”

  “ But she may not have broken with m e.”

  “ She loves you. Poor Michael. Everyone loves him. Everyone needs his pastoral care. ”

  “ I ’m not a priest any more. I ’m just a guy.”

  ‘ ‘Just an attractive bachelor with a lot of money in New York.

  Hard tim es.”

  “ W hat’re you getting at, Kay?”

  “ Well—the bonds are broken. Lord God almighty you’ie free

  at last. One can hardly expect you t’settle down now. This is

  your big opportunity t’sow some more wild oats—”

  “ Kay, go easy.”

  “ No. No. Listen t’what I ’m saying. It makes perfect sense.

  This just isn ’t the moment for you t’settle down—certainly not

  with m e.”

  “ Kay—”

  “ Let m e finish. It makes perfect sense. After all, I knew you

  back when. When the touch of your hand conferred a blessing.

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  When you had God’s franchise. Maybe you still do. Maybe not.

  But I certainly can’t just drop my respect for—my awe of—your

  office. And you don’t want that. You want t’start new. You don’t

  want someone who, every day, reminds you of what you were. ’ ’

  “ I want you—”

  “ Yes, I ’m sure. But not just me. You’ve felt al
l that power

  you have over women—”

  “ Stop it. Power over women? In the last month I ’ll tell you

  what I ’ve felt. I ’ve felt fear. And bodily pain. And shame. And

  my own deceitfulness. And in the midst of that, three women

  have died. My brother is probably dead. I ’m one piece of evidence away from a murder trial—and the superstitious part of me says I ’m guilty. That’s what I *ve felt this month. And it hasn’t

  been pleasant. I ’ve learned, Kay. I ’ve learned a lot.”

  “ I hope,” she said. Then, standing: “ Show me your bathroom.”

  As Kay moved by me, I reached* for her long waist. Two

  considerations motivated me. One: I wanted the comfort of her

  touch. Tvo: I couldn’t remember whether or not Berry had left

  her spare diaphragm in the medicine cabinet. So I put my head

  into the crook of Kay’s neck, swung her as if in a pre-rehearsed

  routine, and brought us down together on the living-room couch.

  It was a miscalculation. First of all, we were hot—and my

  naked chest was both threatening and sweaty: mammalian. Second, Kay had last seen that same couch occupied by a naked and bitchy rival. Third, you just don’t go spontaneous on Kay.

  She has to think things out.

  “ Not now, Michael. Let me up.”

  I didn’t. I kissed her. I said, “ Kay, Kay.”

  “ Let me up.” And she pushed at me.

  “ How very forgiving,” I said.

  “ Forgiving doesn’t mean I haveta cough up my self-respect.

  Forgiving doesn’t mean I haveta be another trophy on your

  apartment wall—”

  “ Oh, forget it.” I let her up. “ Forget it.”

  “ How do I know that woman doesn’t have syphilis or

  A ID S -? ”

  “ Please. I really wasn’t trying t’crowbar you into bed. I ’m

  not that desperate. ’ ’

  ‘ ‘Goodbye, Michael. ’ ’

  “ Come on. I didn’t mean desperate that way—”

  “ Goodbye, Michael.” And Kay was at the door. “ I don’t

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  think I ’m the right woman for you just now. Maybe some other

  tim e.”

  “ When I grow up?”

  “ Yes!” she said. “ Yes, dammit, when you grow up.”

  I fell asleep on the couch. Kay was still far from me. Moreover, I had forfeited the protection of my church—all its institutional resources: advice and work and community and, yes, medical benefits. Naturally I had disagreeable dreams. First,

  Jesus asked me to take up my cross and follow Him—but the

  stupid thing was too heavy. It was made of rusty steel girders

  riveted in place. Then I began—I don’t know—receding from

  everyone and every place. Things got smaller: I was at the wrong

  end of the telescope. Or I got small. Then I felt pain across the

  middle of my forehead and I was blind. ‘ ‘The yolks of my eyes

  have broken,” I thought.

  Then Jako’s call woke me up.

  I heard his voice on the Phone-Mate speaker. It was full of

  grief.

  “ Mr. M ike,” he said. “ Please be there, Mr. Mike. Ohhh.”

  “ Jako,” I said. “ W hat’s wrong?”

  “ I can’t move, Mr. Mike. I got the phone in my hand and

  that’s all I can d o.”

  “ Did you fall? Are you sick?”

  “ Mr. Mike, it’s no fair—”

  “ What Jako? W hat’s up?”

  “ There is a dead person in here with me, Mr. Mike. She

  looked at m e.”

  “ She? A dancer? Who?”

  “ Your own Miss Ttilip. ’’

  “ Berry . . . Jako. Just stay where you are and don’t touch

  anything.”

  “ Oh, don’t you worry ’bout that,” he said.

  MONDAY, JULY 25

  Someone had decapitated Berry.

  Her head was on the bar, jammed upright, eyes open: looking

  more puzzled than afraid. And her nude body, stringed with

  blood, sat three stools away, leaning forward over the bar—the

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  way confirmed drinkers sit. I didn’t begrudge Jako his nervous

  collapse. It was horrid: the feeling of detachment in it. The head

  staring out. The nude, headless body hunched. There was

  dreamy terror in that composition. As if the killer were bored

  with it all. Murder is one thing—but murder without passion is

  abominable. And everywhere I stepped, Berry’s clotting blood

  sucked at my sneaker soles.

  She had been executed on the stage. I found an axe propped

  against the cigarette machine. The blade was glossy, as women’s

  fingernails are, with blood. It gleamed with blood. And there

  was a seashore smell, of salt and brackish tides.

  I called Ethel first. I wanted to have Weintraub with me. Then

  I rang the homicide department. While we were waiting Jako

  and I sat by the phone holding hands. Most of all, I didn’t want

  to think of that warm, brown otter-child who had shared my

  bed. Berry, that child, bore no resemblance to what lay on the

  bar, what slumped over it. Most of all—I am ashamed to say—

  I was too afraid for myself to care about her.

  “ I read by the paper,” Jako said in a small voice, “ how that

  you’re a reverend.”

  “ I resigned yesterday.”

  ‘‘Still you could bless her, isn’t that so?”

  “ I am. Inside I ’m blessing her.”

  “ She was a nice girl. But she messed with drugs too much.”

  “ I didn’t know,” I said. “ I didn’t know.”

  Then the door opened and half the entire world came in.

  We all went down to the precinct house in Long Island City—

  so that Mike Wilson could experience the outward and visible

  signs of incarceration and be intimidated. Let me tell you, the

  insincere green of those walls is enough to stagger anyone’s

  resolve. Weintraub, throughout, was conducting a real estate

  deal with the Helmsley people on his cellular phone. I think he

  presumed I was guilty. At one point, while waiting for his opposite number in the Helmsley organization, Weintraub leaned over and murmured, “ There any insanity in your family?” He

  was planning a plea bargain already. Instead of life imprisonment at hard labor, I ’d get life imprisonment weaving baskets.

  Yet I couldn’t complain about Ethel. Weintraub was expensive

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  and he got respect. His time must’ve cost Ethel thousands—or

  the virtue of two of her female children.

  My mind, needless to say, was on high simmer. Colavecchia

  and Daniels asked questions about Berry. But, in fact, they told

  me more about her than I told them. Berry was a known drug

  dealer, with one arrest for heroin possession three years before.

  (She got probation.) This news was stunning enough. But then

  there was the question of her love for me.

  How much, I wondered, had been real—how much a junkie’s

  riff? Part of me, the coward part, was trying to rationalize guilt.

  The truth was, Tanya’s death had affected me more. By this time

  certainly my surprise mechanism was worn through. I allow

  myself that. But, yes, to some God-forsaken degree, I felt relief

  that Berry had been killed. And everyone around me, I thought,


  sensed it—this guy has just seen a decapitated corpse and he’s

  remarkably unemotional. The decapitated corpse of his girlfriend no less. Daniels and Colavecchia and Cribbs took it all in. That really worried me: suddenly they were being so nice.

  Maybe it was Weintraub. Maybe (I favored this theory) Colavecchia and the others thought they had me cornered.

  Because, of course, I could provide no decent alibi. Berry

  had been killed some time between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m ., when I

  was asleep on the couch. Or so I said. No one had seen me enter

  or leave (one of the “ photographers” was a cop) until 8:24,

  after Jako’s call. I told them about my secret approach from the

  rear apartment roof. This seemed to embarrass them (the cops

  on stakeout had missed that). But it also gave me the M .O. of

  an Iraqi terrorist. Hell, f would’ve arrested me.

  At a point, just before we reached the precinct house, I said,

  ‘ ‘Guys, just once, I ’m innocent. I didn’t do it. ”

  “ It’s a formality, M ike,” said Daniels. “ We just wanna get

  your testimony dow n.”

  “ You’re really a Catholic priest?” said Colavecchia.

  “ Episcopal. I was until ..yesterday.”

  “ Well, whatever. You’re a fuckin’ New York celebrity. Like

  Bemie Goetz or Robert Cham bers.”

  And so I was. The entire block had been cordoned off. Several hundred media people—even media people from small FM

  stations—were backed against blue police sawhorses. Not to

  mention that unaffiliated tribe who follow the lurid as an avocation.

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  “ One word to a newsman,” said Weintraub, “ and I double

  my retainer.”

  The New York Post late edition said—what did you expect?—

  HEADLESS, TOPLESS. MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN.

  Weintraub was firm. “ These are the ground rules,” he told

  Colavecchia and Daniels and Cribbs. “ My client is appalled at

  the murder of this young girl. He’d like t’help your investigation.

  However—the moment I feel you’re treating him not as a friendly

  witness but as a suspect, that moment I order him t’shut up. I ’ll

  rule on the questions, Mike. Don’t answer quickly, I may wanna

  object.”

  At that moment a sergeant entered. He took Daniels aside.

  Then Daniels and Colavecchia and Cribbs all left for a conference. Weintraub called the Helmsley people. I stared out the window until a cameraman spotted me: then I ducked back.