He frightened himself. He had forgotten Clarence. He didn’t deserve to stay in Clarence’s apartment, and the women were right to throw him out. He looked at the thick stack of bills in his hand and wanted to feed it back into the machine. It was too late for that, so he hid it in his wallet for now, only the wallet wouldn’t close. It was like a steel spring with so much money in it.
He was startled by a furious drumming out front. He turned and saw James outside, pressing his body into the window and making faces like a polyp against the glass. Arnie stood beside him, doing anything James did. Lloyd sat in the cab, still idling at the curb.
Michael smiled and wagged his stiff wallet at them, then slipped the wallet upright into the inside front pocket of his jacket. He walked out the door. “Daddy’s loaded,” he announced.
“All for us?” James laughed and patted the thickness over Michael’s heart. “Oh Uncle Mike. Not another evening of champagne cocktails and caviar.”
“If you love Daddy you’ll drink every last bit,” said Michael in a low, worldly voice. What movie was that from? James’s silliness allowed Michael to be silly and he suddenly felt wonderful.
Lloyd watched coolly as they crowded back into the cab, but showed something like a smile for Michael.
James ordered the driver to take them toward Broadway and Houston. “We’ll know where we’re going when we get there.”
“Odeon?” Lloyd said listlessly.
“Don’t be jejeune. They wouldn’t let us in with you dressed like that.”
“How about that Thai place?” Arnie suggested.
“You’re really in a rut. Uncle Mike’s giving us a chance to try something extraordinary tonight. Aren’t you, Uncle Mike?”
“We’ve got money to burn,” Michael assured them. He remembered something about the money bothering him at the bank, but it seemed to have floated off. He really was drunk. Money to burn, he thought with satisfaction. What did he need it for anyway? What would happen if he spent it all? Not only what was on him but what was in the bank, interest, principal, everything. Well, for one thing, the women couldn’t so blithely expect him to find his own place. He wondered how one went about spending so much money at once. Maybe spending this five hundred dollars would show him if it were a real possibility or not. A large sum of money with no future and no past was intoxicating.
They arrived laughing and stifling laughs at a downtown building with two limos parked out front. Michael felt even Lloyd was laughing now, although whenever he remembered to look at Lloyd he found the guy as cool and solid as ever. A twenty from Michael got them into a series of rooms like the brothels Michael had seen in paintings in Paris, but maybe he thought that only because there was a table full of people speaking French. Everyone here kept glancing up and looking disappointed, as if they’d just missed seeing someone famous. They all seemed to have come here for a fabulous party, only nobody knew if they were too early, too late, or even at the right address.
Michael didn’t care, he had another gin and tonic in front of him, then a plate of roast beef and parsley, but those weren’t important to him either. His euphoria was much grander than the sum of its parts. He could walk through walls, he was so drunkenly happy. James nodded at a woman across the room and said, “Actress-slash-model,” which Michael found hysterical although he had no idea who the woman was. Arnie laughed, too, but laughed even harder when Michael got his attention with a stern look, then let out a loud belch. Lloyd, looking utterly at home here despite his white T-shirt, methodically ate a lobster.
The fashionably dressed woman who waited on them brought the bill and Michael paid it: just a little over two hundred dollars even with the tip. James was impressed, Arnie was embarrassed, and Lloyd didn’t look.
Out on the street, a man in a green plaid sports coat stood beside one of the limousines and read the New York Post. Michael walked right up to him, shouted, “Taxi!” and burst out laughing.
The man looked up. He had a youngish face and a little middle-age mustache. “You boys going somewhere? I got an hour to kill. Arriving in this vehicle will get you into any club you can name. You interested?”
“How much?” asked Michael, still laughing. When the man said forty, Michael pulled out his money and paid him. “Hey fellas! Look what I got!”
The man checked his watch and opened the door for them. Lloyd promptly climbed in, but James had to hustle Arnie through the door, holding him under one arm and laughing something at his ear.
“Hey.” The man wagged a finger at them. “I’m cool. But no monkey-business, hear?” He gently closed the door after Michael.
They sat sealed in a silent bubble of tinted glass and leather upholstery. All sank back and sighed, even Lloyd. The ticking of the dashboard clock made James and Arnie giggle. The man climbed into the front seat and asked where they were going.
“Boybar,” said Lloyd and told him where it was. “Wait until they see me pull up in this.”
They rolled through the street, everything altered by the tinted glass and smoothness of movement, as if they were floating through a dreamed city. All too soon, they dollied down a familiar street with sidewalks full of people, only it looked like an aquarium through the limo windows. People glanced and looked away, pretending not to notice the limousine.
“Can you pull up another foot?” said Lloyd. “So they can see me through the door when we get out.”
The man looked at the anonymous entrance to the bar and parked just so. He got out and professionally opened the door on Lloyd’s side. “Have fun, boys.”
Without the tinted glass, St. Mark’s Place looked shabby and grim, like a room lit by a naked light bulb. If the three bouncers inside the glass door to the Boybar were impressed or surprised by the limo out front, they didn’t show it. There was a five-dollar cover charge and Michael paid it for all of them. They went down the hall and stood in a bare space with a long crowded bar at one end.
“This place sucks scissors,” said James. “All that East Village attitude. We should’ve gotten that guy to take us straight to The World. But nooooo. Mr. Lower East Side had to play showdog for all his little Boybar buddies.”
Lloyd finished looking around for faces he knew. “You wanna go to The World, we’ll go to The World. I don’t care.”
Michael grinned and sang, “I don’t wanna set The World on fire—”
Something was wrong; nobody laughed.
Michael tried a little attitude. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to The World.” He turned around and walked toward the door, immediately followed by the others. “Too Bridge-and-Tunnel,” he told the sullen bouncers as he strutted past.
The limousine was gone, of course. They had to walk over to Second Avenue to catch a cab, through street vendors, future and former junkies, and a pocket of heavy metal music. Arnie flagged down a cab, and this time Lloyd sat up front with the driver. Michael resumed humming his song, waiting for somebody to get it.
Another fare, another bill from his wallet, only the wallet remained as stiff and bulky as ever, even when Michael paid more money to a doorman or bouncer in the dark, rundown lobby of what once had been a theater. And he kept finding the smaller bills he received as change wadded up in his other pockets. His clothes seemed infested with money tonight.
Lloyd went off to check his leather jacket while Michael followed James and Arnie up a big staircase that looked like it had been left out in the rain. The red wall beside it was badly water-stained and a few scabs of gold gilt remained on the banister. There was music upstairs, pounding like a heart, a raw kind of disco except nobody called it disco anymore. Climbing stairs toward music immediately reminded Michael of the dances at Earl Hall, where he had finally entered and climbed a long banistered stairway toward a ballroom, and The Saint, where he climbed industrial stairs into a flashing, futuristic dome full of—
There was no dance at the top of these stairs. The enormous dance floor beneath the lofty ceiling was deserted. Music
pounded from two speakers the size of refrigerators on the empty stage at the far end of the floor, but the twenty or so people here only stood around on the balcony overhead or at the bar in the back. The high ceiling looked badly scuffed, as if people had once danced up there.
“Oh damn. We’re too early,” James whined.
“Well, some of us have to work tomorrow,” said Arnie.
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” Michael said with a grin.
He was bouncing on the balls of his feet to the music. The beat of the music, the sight of so much open, empty space in front of him: he couldn’t stop himself. He stepped out on the floor, almost skipping to the music, and began to dance, lifting his knees and flailing his arms. People told him he danced like a spastic chicken, but he didn’t care, not tonight, not even when he glanced up at the balcony and saw a few people coldly looking down, watching a skinny kid in a dark suit, white shirt and no tie dancing alone on this great pale floor. It felt good to let go with his body, just as he’d been letting go with his money. He looked back at James and Arnie, wanting them to join him out here, dancing toward them and back out again, trying to draw them out on the floor.
They stayed where they were, barely glancing at Michael, pretending not to know him. It seemed money bought you the right to only so much silliness.
Michael promptly stopped dancing and casually walked back to them. “You guys need another drink,” he told them. “We all need drinks. Where’s Lloyd?”
Nobody knew and nobody cared. They went to the bar, where Michael was tempted to let the two twits buy their own drinks. They had grown too accustomed to Michael’s money and were not showing the proper appreciation for his company. Then he remembered that spending this money was supposed to accomplish something that had nothing to do with James and Arnie, although he couldn’t remember exactly what. James and Arnie ordered beers and Michael stuck to his gin and tonic. “Never mix, never worry,” he said, then winced when he recognized the phrase was his father’s.
More people arrived but nobody was dancing yet. Michael stood with James and Arnie against yet another wall and watched people. A pack of boys, three or four years younger than they were, stood in the opposite corner in jeans and jerseys. They had a tough, loud quality that made them look like gaybashers. Only the self-consciousness of their haircuts was gay.
“Hmmm,” went James. “The younger generation. Killer twinkies.”
“Isn’t that Lucian Whatzits over there?” said Arnie.
“Lucian Brock?” said James. “It can’t be. I heard he’s real sick.”
“I know. But I’m sure that’s him. Over there in the Armani jacket and gray sweatshirt.”
Michael looked with them and saw a lean man wearing an elegant jacket over a sweatshirt and jeans, a haircut like peachfuzz and hollow cheeks. He knew the name only as that of someone in the art scene, a painter or dealer or something.
“Why does he have to be here?” said James. “I mean, shouldn’t he be at home in bed?”
“Maybe he’s in, what’s it called when you feel better for a while?” asked Arnie.
“Remission,” Michael said. He closed his eyes and turned away. “What’s upstairs?” he asked, pointing at the balcony.
“Another bar. More people standing around looking cool,” said James.
“Let’s go up there. I want to check it out.” Michael wanted to get away from the man they said was sick. He wasn’t afraid of the man; he just didn’t want to look at him. He stole another look at the man as he led James and Arnie toward the stairs.
The balcony was narrow and the rose-colored light made the people who stood up there look like waxworks. Around the corner was a large dark room with another bar and a woman bartender, the woman’s face and glassy bottles behind her all lit from below against blackness. Michael finished his drink so he could order another.
“And two Heinekens for my boys here,” he told the woman.
James set his half-full bottle down so he could take a new beer, but Arnie held up the bottle already in his hand and said, “None for me. I’m fine.”
“Two,” Michael repeated and paid for the beers and his gin and tonic with a twenty. “Keep the change.”
“Go ahead and take it,” James whispered to Arnie.
But the new bottle sat on the bar, Arnie pretending not to see it, yet ashamed to know it was there. Trying to hide his shame, he swept his hand over his receding hairline and blandly smiled toward the music outside.
“What’s wrong?” said Michael. “You all of a sudden don’t like my money?”
“What?” went Arnie. “Oh no, I’m fine, Michael.” He showed the half-finished beer in his hand again. “I just—You don’t need to spend any more money on me.”
Michael suddenly hated him. He wanted to obliterate him and James with money, buy them a thousand drinks and see them passed out in their own puke. “You and your fag sweaters,” he sneered. “You been sucking off my money all night. Two little whores.”
Arnie gazed dumbly at him, then looked at James, needing James to let him know what to say or feel.
“Uh oh, Uncle Mike’s on the rag,” teased James, shifting his eyes uncertainly inside his glasses.
“You fags make me sick,” Michael spat. “I’ve been wasting my money on two silly fags.” He turned and sailed out of the room.
He felt wonderful for telling them off, as if he’d been wanting to tell them off all night. Tricks, he thought contemptuously. Hiding their nothingness in attitude.
He stood on the balcony and waited for them to trail after him, the way they had trailed after him and his money before. When they didn’t, when he found himself alone on the balcony with his back to the barroom, his wonderful feeling began to fall. He lifted the full glass in his hand and swallowed, gripping the low balcony parapet with his free hand while he gulped a coldness that tasted like pine, something that should lift him above his emotions and turn feelings into mere thoughts. When ice began to knock his teeth and burn his upper lip, he lowered the glass and looked down and saw a few people below, dancing.
A dozen guys danced down there, almost in pairs, with enormous spaces around each person. Most of them were the “killer twinkies” James had pointed out, but there was one boy dressed almost like Michael: the white shirt buttoned at the collar, the lightweight jacket from a dark suit, and then, a sweetly young touch, a pair of baggy gray shorts that hung over his knees, like knickers. Michael was so eager to join the dancing he wanted to vault over the parapet to get down there. He knew it was further down than it felt, knew he was as drunk as a ghost. He balanced his empty glass on the lip of the balcony and hurried downstairs to find someone to dance with.
Down below, it felt less simple and more intimidating than it had appeared from above. Michael scuttled around the edges of the dance floor, looking for someone who stood alone and moved slightly to the music, as desperate to dance as Michael was. He saw Lloyd again, a white T-shirt slumped against a shadowy wall, a lazy look of boredom on his face that seemed intended as a challenge, or invitation. Michael was through with those jerks for tonight, Lloyd too, and he walked by that white shadow without even looking at him. Instead, Michael found himself looking at Lucian Block or Brock, whatever his name was, the man they said was sick.
He stood on the risers in front of the downstairs bar, talking to another man as Michael approached him. He seemed more gaunt than ill, but the idea of his illness made him more real than anyone else here, unnervingly real. The other man was thin and balding, with an anemic mustache that also suggested illness. Once the idea of illness appeared, everyone seemed suspect, the way seeing an amputee on the street can make you feel for the next few minutes that any arm or hand that isn’t in plain sight might not be there. Everyone was suspect, but being told this man actually had it concentrated the reality on him. As Michael walked past, he heard Lucian say,”… a little ice chest for my medication.”
He had intended to get as far from them as possible,
but he suddenly stopped, just twelve feet beyond them. He remembered he had cigarettes and decided he had stopped here to smoke one. Lighting a cigarette, he could watch the two men, Lucian in particular, who was turned toward him.
He did not know what he was watching for. He did not know why he was afraid of the man. He was not afraid of the disease, not really, not after what he’d been through. Not anymore. But he was afraid of the man and fascinated by his fear, which seemed to be why he stood here and looked. Despite the last drink, his thoughts had turned back into emotions, but he was too drunk to find or invent plausible causes for what he was feeling.
A cheer ran through the entire room. The lights had dimmed, except over the stage at the other end where two smooth young men in white underpants now stood and danced. Michael noticed them, then returned his full attention to Lucian.
The guy with the anemic mustache laughed and leered over the boys on stage. Lucian remained calm and perfect. He had a genuine cool, nothing like that of James or the others when their masks were in place, but a genuine cold wisdom that put him beyond pleasure. Michael felt it must be the death sitting just beneath the man’s skin that made him so silent, handsome, and terrifying.
Lucian nodded at his friend and walked away. He walked by Michael—so close Michael could’ve touched him if he’d been ready—and went to the bar.
Michael followed. He stood just behind him, studying his long thin neck and the freckled scalp visible through his short downy hair. The wrist that stretched from the sleeve of the elegant jacket when he paid for his club soda was like a bundle of wires sheathed in skin. He turned around, settled his back against the bar, and calmly sipped, without seeing Michael.
Michael stepped up to the bar and stood beside him. Not looking at the man, he felt his presence more strongly than ever, like a center of gravity. He turned around, too, glimpsing an enormous speckled ear, settled his own back against the bar, and faced the dance floor, which was so crowded now you couldn’t tell who danced with whom. Because he was drunk, everyone here seemed drunk tonight, drunk and weightless, everyone but the man beside him.
In Memory of Angel Clare Page 13
