Vanishing Rooms

by Melvin Dixon

  Which is why I wanted to be a dancer in the first place. Gestures. Movement. Getting control of your body. Not like those times when I was a kid and couldn’t stop crying for the itchy rash covering my ass and all I could do was a two-step in pain, hollering “Mama! Daddy! Phillip! Somebody help me!” The medicine wasn’t working, and for the first time I was on my own, dancing solo around a waiting basin of hot water and salves that would tighten the skin on my butt and hurt even more. By the time I was grown nobody could see the rash, so I knew I could hide things. Like the keloid behind my ear no one could see. Not even my brother Phillip, who had left by then. It was Aunt Lois who screamed at me when I went ahead and had my ear pierced. She said it was vulgar. And when the keloid appeared, I knew it was her curse on me for acting so grown. But she never even saw it. I wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction.

  My two-room apartment is at the back of the building where it’s quiet enough for me to meditate, do yoga, even dance with records playing loud with no trouble from the neighbors. Sometimes in the summer, I run in the park along Riverside Drive. It’s not what you’d call jogging, my huffy-puffy high step, up down two three. That night, I was just too tired. I did my own warm-up stretches with the window open to let some of the October breeze off the Hudson keep me company. Then ballet positions: first, second, third. Old positions, new positions. Maybe tomato soup and green salad for dinner. Maybe some television. Get clothes ready for tomorrow, I reminded myself. I was doing part-time secretarial work three mornings a week until one o’clock. Then I was in one dance class or another for the rest of the day. I was hoping Jesse would be there next time. I wasn’t just watching him. He was watching me.

  And I wasn’t going to think about him any more. I didn’t need to get involved. Before you knew it I’d have to explain about the sitz baths and why my ass is three shades darker than the rest of me. But his hands had just the right tenderness I remembered from before when Mama and Daddy and Phillip took turns staying up with me and holding me when the rash on my butt burned too hot for me to lie down and sleep.

  Then I did my yoga positions: right leg crossed into half-lotus, deep breathing. Cross left leg over. Breathe again. Cup your hands in the center of the groin, the center of concentration, energy. Inhale straight up into the chest. Exhale slowly, ever so slowly. Hands rest cupped at the center, elbows at ease on kneecaps. Let your thoughts come and go. Release them and breathe to a slow count-two-three, one-two-three, until you are empty. A memory came up and wouldn’t leave until I gave it some space. The three count was me marking time to a tap dance. I was in front of two rows of skinny, awkward girls, all white, repeating after me, “shuffle-step, shuffle-step, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe. Shuffle-step, shuffle-step, bend down, bend down, bend down, bend down.” Our arms in a triangle, hands at the waist.

  “And again,” said Miss Goldberg.

  We counted louder that time; she gave me another cue. “Now heel-step, heel-step, toe-step, toe-step.”

  “And again,” said Miss Goldberg. “Again.”

  The repetition was killing us. Some girls couldn’t keep up.

  “Heel-step, heel-step, toe-step, toe-step.”

  My memories were ballerinas gliding in and out on point. Just when I wanted to hold on to them, they were whisked out of reach. But one memory hung around like the ugly duckling left out of “Swan Lake,” clucking and cackling in my head. It was that freckle-faced Elizabeth whose mother complained to Miss Goldberg about me, a black girl, leading the dance steps and exercises. But she didn’t say it like that. Had to be sneaky with her evil. I was just too short, you see, and the taller girls like her Elizabeth couldn’t follow, and my rhythm was throwing her off, making her mess up. Never mind that the other girls could get it right. Miss Goldberg ignored the complaint and kept me out front. Somebody had to lead the dance of the six-year-olds or the whole “Pixies in the Park” wouldn’t go right.

  Elizabeth’s mother complained again. This time she talked to other mothers who brought their knitting and Ladies’ Home Journals to the waiting room until our hour of class had finished. And just when we had learned the final kick-two-three, lunge-two-three to end the piece in time for the public recital at Cardinal High, the mothers threatened to take their girls out of the revue. Miss Goldberg was fighting mad, her face red as the ribbons on our tap shoes! She looked like she was going to explode and set our high-waist tutus on fire. “I’m the instructor here,” she said. “I know what’s best.” The mothers wouldn’t budge. We girls stood straighter in line than ever before. The mothers’ anger hung like a wall, measuring our lunge, kick, toe-step and bow. Not one of us dared move.

  Miss Goldberg tapped her foot real quick. She turned to us, then back to the mothers. “All right,” she said. “You’ll see for yourselves. We’ll have two run-throughs. Elizabeth, you lead first. Ruella, next.” She sucked in her teeth and tut-tutted her head back and forth. “All this just before dress rehearsal, and the programs have yet to be folded. What next?” She turned back to the mothers as we were lining up, knees raised, hands on hips, feet ready to go. “Now watch, all of you,” Miss Goldberg glared. “Then tell me which one’s better.”

  I was scared. I took my old place at the far end of the second row. Just then my mother walked in, took one look at me, and didn’t say a word. She stared at me the whole time. Elizabeth started: “Shuffle-step, shuffle-step, toe-heel, toe-heel, bend down, shuffle-step.” Her pace got faster and the directions she called out made us tap all off the beat. I had to stop cold when the girls in front backed up and those at the side headed right at me on the kick-two-three, turn-two-three. And if that wasn’t bad enough, poor Elizabeth did the final lunge before the music had finished. Her mother stood up, mouth wide open, steely eyes ready to time-step Elizabeth’s face all knotted up to cry. Everybody looked at them. Me, too. “Well,” she said, turning from the mothers to us and back to the mothers again. “How was my Elizabeth to know? The goddamn record was slow. It wasn’t her fault. Was it, Elizabeth? Stop that crying, Elizabeth, I’m taking you home. These people don’t know anything about dance. Come on.”

  Then it was my turn. I was even more afraid. They all watched me, counted on me, and here I was trying to remember the right count. Well, the dance wasn’t perfect, but we stayed in line. Our final lunge-two-three finished with the music. I didn’t take a full breath until the mothers clapped and grinned their approval. My mother smiled that “silent victory” smile of hers and put her arms around my shoulders. The girls giggled and pinched me for luck, and we ran to change into our street clothes. I never heard my mother say a thing to the others. On the day of the recital, Elizabeth took sick. She never came back to our Tuesday-Thursday 3:30 class at Miss Beverly Goldberg’s Contemporary Dance Emporium.

  I blinked my head clear and moved on to a yoga headstand. Arms bent in a triangle on the floor, elbows pointed away, legs bent and moving up and up and over the neck. Headstand. Deep breathing. Relief, like salve on feverish skin. And I remembered how my skin cracked and bled. Mama had to coax me to sit in a basin of warm water. I screamed. Phillip rushed in and saw me crying through the hurt of the skin knitting itself back and my legs twitching. Phillip saw me naked and didn’t turn away in disgust at my blistered skin. He loved me like I was and made me feel pretty. Why couldn’t other men be like him?

  After ten minutes of yoga I was ready for soup and salad, television and bed. I had to be at the office before nine to open the mail and schedule appointments. I was already in bed when the phone rang and some man’s voice came thick and raspy and nervous over the wire like he was calling long distance. “Jesse,” he said and waited for me to say something. Sure I remembered him. But how’d he get my number? He didn’t say anything and I wasn’t going to push because he sounded scared. Terrified. Something horrible had happened right in his neighborhood. His friend Metro, stabbed to death. Who wouldn’t want to be with someone? I let him come right over. Why not? I had plenty of room. Two rooms. I
didn’t ask right away about all that had happened. When he came in he said he had no other safe place to go. I let him spend the night. I gave him my bed and didn’t get in it until he was fast asleep. I saw how really handsome he is; so good-looking it’s more than delicious, it’s dangerous.

  He slept like a dead man and never moved. In the morning I found him curled up like a sausage. He had Phillip’s nose all right, and the same complexion. I dared myself to check it out. I went into my trunk, hidden under a flowerprint cloth. I dug out Phillip’s high school photograph and simply stared at it. And then his voice came back to me as calm as ever.

  “Come on, Lil’ Sis, the water’s nice and warm.”

  “Naw.”

  “It won’t hurt. You’ll feel good and won’t itch anymore.”

  “Naw.”

  Then Mama said I could have ice cream later.

  “Naw,” I said. The basin of water looked treacherous. But what did I know, a five-year-old in pain? I stomped and stomped, pumping my legs like pistons in an angry engine.

  “Here, take my hand,” said Phillip. “Take it.”

  I looked into his eyes, as round and clear as the basin of salves. His eyes were harmless so the water had to be, too. I took his hand. Phillip guided me like a partner in a waltz, back step, side step, one-two-three, one-two-three.

  “Bend your knees,” he said. “Nice. Nice. Good girl.”

  And with my eyes fixed on his and on Mama smiling behind him, I let Phillip ease me into the water and felt its cool caress on my fiery rash. My skin tightened, the itch subsided. The water was like silk covering me. I let out the air trapped in my chest.

  Phillip was my first dance partner, until I learned to go solo, that is. Then Jesse held me in arabesque and eased me back to the ground.

  Jesse was still asleep when I got ready for work. I wrote him a note that I’d be back at one o’clock. I set out some orange juice, instant coffee, and toast with a little butter on the side. Yes, he had Phillip’s nose, and lips full of some flavor I hadn’t yet tasted. But where is Phillip? He’s put away safely now. Have you seen him? No. What have you done to him? Nothing. He’s your brother, isn’t he? I don’t want to get involved. Girl, what are you hiding? I don’t want to think about it anymore. Oh, Ruella, ain’t you ever gonna learn? I guess not.

  Lonny

  YOU CAN’T WALK ON 12TH STREET no more on account of the leaves covering the ground. Even in Abingdon Square just this side of Key Foods where only two or three maples give shade there are leaves everywhere, and when I walk outside I step on them. Some stick to my heels and scratch against the ground in a hurt voice. When it rains the leaves turn to mush and dirty my sneaks—not Adidas, but cheaper ones just as good. Even inside houses and buildings you got leaves brought in by all kinds of people. It’s October, the season of yellow, copper, gray, and red, real red. The leaves are cut-off hands curling up like fists. If they grab for my sneaks, I just walk faster and harder to get them off. Like that faggot reaching for me out of the dirt and shedding red like some gray bone tree. You know the trees I’m talking about. You’ve seen them faggots. They all over this city like flies on shit. You hear the scratchy tumble of red leaves everywhere until someone rakes the place clean. Don’t let nobody tell you that leaves don’t talk. They pile up on you like something or someone is gonna burn.

  The funny thing is whether it happened like you remember it happening or if your head changes it all, gets the people and action messed around. I’d talk to the other fellahs, but they’d think I was trying to punk out, see, and make like it was more than it was. Simple. We was getting back at him for trying to come on to me. You know, like I was some goddamn bitch. He probably wanted all of us, not just me, although we got him really scared by then, turning pale and twitching his eyes like he couldn’t believe it was really happening to him out there alone at 4:30 in the morning in October. Wasn’t he smiling at us? I remember his lips curling up, then down, his mouth moving like he was eating up the beer stink and smoke until he gagged. He acted weak, hungry, drugged up worse than the rest of us, but almost like getting fucked in the ass was an end to it. The hunger, I mean. I could tell he was hungry. We all could.

  That night wasn’t the first time I seen him. In fact, I seen him several times and knew where he lived. Sometimes I seen him go toward the docks and meat-packing houses. Why? Drink, maybe. There are a few bars around there where I’ve never been. He could have been one of the guys, you know, going after a six-pack at the corner grocery. He wore track sneaks—real Adidas—and jeans and a plaid flannel shirt opened from the neck on down. That day you could feel the season change right in the air, so I thought it was funny seeing the open V of his chest like that. The morning chill had cooled off what was left of Indian summer, but it was too early for leather jackets and thick collars. I thought he was one of the guys ’cause he didn’t swish like them over at Sheridan Square that got makeup on or their hair too neatly trimmed around the neck. This guy walked like a regular fellah. Someone you’d want to talk to, or chase pussy or get shit-faced on Budweiser with, like we do most nights. Yeah. I seen him. Lots of times. Sometimes he didn’t even know I was seeing him. Not until the day I was gonna meet Cuddles after his job when he actually came up close to me. It was near Cuddles’ meat-packing house up by the docks and burned-out piers where Little West 12th Street runs into traffic on the downtown detour from the closed-up West Side Highway.

  He’s just walking and I’m walking. I look at him. He looks at me. I don’t mean nothing by looking at him close like that, face to face. He doesn’t look like no faggot. So I nod “Hey, man,” and keep on walking. I mean, I want to be civil and shit. He might be able to lay me on to some drugs. But I say what I say, and he nods, and both of us go our separate ways. Easy, see. But damn, man, no sooner do I reach the door to Cuddles’ job where he’s supposed to be waiting but ain’t, than I turn around and see that guy looking at me. He’s watching my ass. Checking me out like you check out a bitch. Like he wants something from me. Needs it. Scheming how he’s gonna get it. But he ain’t making no moves. Cuddles finally comes outside and slaps me on the shoulder. I turn around and the guy is gone. Good thing, too. With Cuddles, I forget about him ’cause we’re gonna get Maxie and Lou and ride around. I don’t give a fuck about that guy looking at me.

  Before joining the others, Cuddles and me have a beer where they don’t check IDs. A little pre-drink drink. Get ready for the night. We always have good times. We tight, Cuddles and me. Cuddles’ father makes him work after school. Trade school. My old man died too soon to make me do nothing. Half the time I live in the streets. I should quit school, get a full-time job. Get the cash Cuddles has most times—where I got to ask my Moms to spot me some coins, mostly for cigarettes. Don’t need no subway fare. Just jump the turnstile soon as the train screeches in. I do the best I can. Cuddles is the one in the money. Ain’t tight-assed about it either, which is why we hang together. I like him better than Maxie or Lou, but I can’t tell them that, not even Cuddles, ’cause he’ll start calling me names and picking on me ’cause I’m only fifteen and he’s older. Just a little older.

  “Two drafts, what d’ya say?” I tell him.

  “Just what I need. Throat’s tight as a damn drum.”

  “Mine’s like a hose, man. Only it’s empty.”

  “What’s eating you? I been working all day.”

  “Shit, man, this dude, you know, like the rest of them in the Village. Always coming on to you, checking you out like you some bitch.”

  “They think it’s their turf, Lonny. We just tourists, you know.”

  “Yeah. Faggots is everywhere.”

  “You ain’t got nothing to worry about, long as they keep a distance.”

  “But this dude acted like he wanted it and could get it.”

  “He say anything to you, man?”

  “Naw, he just kept looking.”

  “He touch you, Lonny? He touch you?”

  “Why you wanna know?”
I say, but nothing else, just set my jaw tight so he’ll know not to fuck with me. You can never tell about Cuddles. Always fucking with somebody.

  “Drink up, Lonny. The guys gonna be mad ’cause we got a head start.” Cuddles slaps me on the shoulder and ruffles my stringy hair.

  I’m grinning now, feeling stupid, too.

  “I know what you need, man,” he says. “Let’s get the rest of the guys and blow outta here.”

  I don’t say nothing more to Cuddles and just “Hey, man” to Maxie and Lou waiting for us at the motorcycle garage in Chelsea. Lou has his machine up on the racks and comes toward us, wiping the grease off his hands. Maxie sits on a locked bike and leans forward and back like he’s speeding down I-95 and going into a long S-curve. He thinks he’s in some kind of pro race, but ain’t none of us old enough for the big time yet. Some places you got to be eighteen. I’m just a year away from quitting school if I want. Maxie is out of school already, but he don’t have a job. Maybe ’cause his round pink face is full of acne. Cuddles is blond and older than me by a couple of months. He’s funny, and you never know if he’s gonna turn on you, especially if he can act big around Lou and Maxie. Lou is eighteen and works at the cycle garage where we hang out. I usually get Cuddles after his job ’cause he’s near where I live. We walk the rest of the way. Sometimes Cuddles has his moped and we ride over. Junior cycle, we call it. Wish I had one.