by Lee Thomas
At the threshold to the room, he stopped. He blinked. He tried to comprehend the sight before him.
A man with a gnarled gray beard, dressed like a tramp in tattered layers of clothes and a hat with a brim that looked as if it had been gnawed by rats, stood at the end of the bed. The gasping noise emerged from his parted lips. A younger, thickly built man, knelt before the grizzled hobo. His head moved back and forth in smooth motions, his lips sliding along the hard shaft of the older man’s cock.
Butch’s head grew light again, only this time it was not the whirling sense of vertigo, but rather the heart-racing sensation of plummeting from a great height. Butch’s face burned hot and the uneasy fire spread through his whole body. He told himself he was disgusted, but he couldn’t look away.
The old man, whose eyes had been fixed downward on the scalp of the boy servicing him, groaned and gasped and then lifted his head. He noticed Butch and a flicker of concern skipped across his face before vanishing. He raised his grimy hand and waved Butch forward.
The foul invitation startled him out of his dazed state. Butch flinched and backed away and made for the spiral staircase as quickly as his feet would carry him.
Back in his room, Butch stomped from one wall to the other. His fists clenched tightly. His heart pounded in his chest. The perverse act he’d witnessed above was wholly unspeakable. He couldn’t get the weathered hobo’s face, mouth, and filthy beckoning hand from behind his eyes.
Had Rory known what kind of a place he was sending Butch to? Had he known that Rossington was lodging a fairy? Was Rossington a fairy himself? Butch remembered so little about his meeting with the man he couldn’t even conjure a face to go with the name. Still he refused to believe Rory would knowingly have sent him here. Maybe it was just the kid. Rossington might not know a thing about what the punk got up to when he wasn’t home. If he didn’t then someone needed to tell him, needed to wake him up and set him straight. If he did know…
All of the pacing burned away his minimal energies, and Butch forced himself back into the bed. He pulled the blankets up high on his chest, just under his chin. He closed his eyes but the wrinkled face with the rat’s nest beard surfaced against the dark screen of his eyelids. Then he was seeing the man’s cock, thick with pronounced veins, and the punk’s lips sliding over it. More memories emerged, older memories. A summer’s night on the edge of the lake near his father’s house, lying on the still-hot rocks and looking at the sky, talking to his older cousin Michael as the two of them masturbated. Gazing at the stars, lost in the miracle of speckled lights, Butch grew nervous when he felt his cousin’s hand moving over his belly and taking over the task of stroking… A freezing night in a rundown boarding house in Indianapolis. Touring with Mack Mack McCauley’s Traveling Wonder Show, he shared a room with a comic named Hatteras. On stage, Hatteras was all energy, dancing and sliding from wing to wing as he delivered off-color jokes and sang songs that would have been inappropriate in legitimate theaters. Off stage, Hatteras presented a different personality. Quiet. Sullen. Behind his back the other performers had taken to calling the comic “The Weeping Clown.” He drank excessively and snorted cocaine when he could get it. One night, when the weather was so brutal it hadn’t allowed excursions outside, Butch had joined Hatteras in a binge. In the early morning hours, Hatteras began to undress Butch, whose moral cloth was saturated with bad whiskey. Then Hatteras undressed himself, revealing a surprisingly toned body. He sat Butch on the edge of the bed and proceeded to perform the same act Butch had just witnessed upstairs. In the morning it had been easy to write the incident off as drunken tomfoolery. He’d been out of his mind, soused. It was all the excuse he needed, until it happened again and a third time.
The sound of footsteps on the metal staircase and whispered voices startled Butch out of his dazed reflection. He rolled in the bed, turning his back to the archway. The front door opened and closed. A moment later the air in the room shifted, and Butch felt certain the punk had entered his room. He kept his eyes closed and pretended to ignore the existence of such a man.
Chapter 17
Nostalgia and the Blank Page
The soles of Rabin’s shoes rapped loudly on the cold tile floor as he entered the lobby of Crane Hospital. He waved a good morning to the aging bald man behind the welcome desk. The man smiled, waved back, and then returned to reading his newspaper. In the corridor, Rabin turned right onto the staircase and climbed to the second floor where he made another right and continued down the cold corridor, which smelled of ammonia and lemon. He paused at the nurses’ station, but only for a moment to say “Good morning” to the women there. Three nurses of varying age, all wearing wool cardigans over their white uniforms, returned his greeting. He did not notice the overly inquisitive nurse among them, and he hoped he wouldn’t find her in Irene’s room.
When he entered he was surprised to see his wife awake, and more surprising than that, she actually smiled when she saw him in the doorway. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d regarded him as a welcome visitor rather than just another stranger.
“How’s my girl?” Rabin said.
“You came,” Irene replied.
“I did.”
Rabin walked around the bed to the window and set his newspaper and thermos on the table there before going to Irene’s side and leaning over to kiss her brow. When he looked at her, he saw her eyes were not clouded by drugs or by disease, and he felt a surge of happiness. It was a similar emotion to the one he’d felt earlier, holding the ice pick in his hand, standing over the young man who bled out on the rug of a filthy apartment. They were not the same emotion, but they were unquestionably related.
“And how are you feeling this morning?” he asked brightly. He scooped up her hand in his.
“A bit chilly,” Irene said. “We could use some more logs on the fire.”
“I’ll speak to the nurses.”
“You say the funniest things,” Irene told him, amused and shaking her head.
She doesn’t know where she is, he thought. The joy he’d felt skipped like the needle on a 78, but it came back to the groove when she said his name.
“Paul,” she said.
“Yes, darling.”
“I’ve been here a very long time.”
“Too long.”
“Seems like I’ve always been here, Paul. Even when I wasn’t lying in this bed, it seems like I was, and the other times—the days, the years with you in our house—seem like a dream and I’m waking up and can hardly remember them anymore.”
“You aren’t well.” He stroked her hair and squeezed her hand. The warmth of her palm soothed him, coaxed a bit of the joy back.
“Paul, I’ve been here a very long time,” she repeated. “And I’m scared.”
“I know,” he said, “but I may have found something to help. I’ll be leaving in a couple of days to retrieve it, and then you’ll be home with me and your knitting, and everything will be like it was. You’ll see.”
The corners of her mouth twitched as if she were trying to smile.
“Do you remember our wedding day?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“And Christmas and the Fourth of July?”
“We’ve shared many of those. Which do you mean?”
“Any of them,” she said. “I know I should remember them, know they mean something, but there’s nothing there except the words.”
“It’ll come back,” he told her. If he’d extracted accurate information from Humphrey Bell, he could use the oddly named “Rose” to repair Irene’s damaged mind. It would fill the holes, bridge the gaps. “All of it will come back.”
“Do you remember the night of the street fair?” Irene asked. “The first one? Right after we were married?”
They’d eaten frankfurters and sauerkraut and paraded up and down the streets near the apartment he’d rented. They’d held hands and said very little to one another, pleased enough with one another’s companionship, strolling f
rom one makeshift booth to the next, eyeing the food and trinkets offered at each. Surrounded by hundreds of their neighbors, Rabin had felt that he and Irene were completely alone in the sense that they were different, somehow blessed. The other men and women and the children they had bred were nothing more than animated puppets trudging about like a display created for the happy couple’s amusement. They were all so gray and dull. They didn’t share the light that had ignited and warmed Mr. and Mrs. Rabin, and therefore they were not the equals of this couple, more like a bland, mimicking species that had not yet evolved to this place. It was a youthful conceit—the notion that only he and his bride could know such happiness, such love, such life.
It had been a wonderful night up until Irene had taken sick with a stomach malady, most likely from a poorly cooked sausage.
“Of course I remember,” he said.
“And after the fair? Do you remember that?”
“You were very sick.”
“After the fair, you had to go out.”
“Did I?” Rabin asked.
“You had to meet a friend.”
“I can’t imagine leaving you that night. You were very sick.”
“That was later. I was fine when we got home. But you had to meet a friend, and you told me you’d be back before ten.”
Rabin considered what he remembered about that day. Amid the images of the fair and standing outside the bathroom listening to the grating sounds of Irene’s sickness, he recalled a face, now smeared by decades of distance. It belonged to a slovenly, obese man, whose name he no longer remembered. But names rarely mattered. What mattered was getting the rope around the disgusting neck and placing his knee in the center of the flabby back and pulling and twisting until the man—whom he now remembered was dying because he’d welched on a bet—stopped struggling.
“Who can remember?” he asked, patting Irene’s hand.
“I’ve been here so long,” she whispered. “Paul, I’ve been here forever.”
“I’m going to make you well.”
“You can’t. This isn’t about you or about the doctors. It’s me. I did this to myself. I know I did.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Some things you want to forget, you wish you didn’t know. You wish them away. You wish to forget. I wished to forget, and now my wish is coming true.”
“Why would you want to forget?” he asked. “We have had a lovely life together, haven’t we?”
“Together,” she said and closed her eyes.
“That’s my good girl,” Rabin said. “You rest and quit exciting yourself over such nonsense. You’ll be right as rain in no time.”
“This is my punishment.” Her eyes flashed open. She looked around wildly and yanked her hand out of his. “The one thing I want to forget is the only thing I can remember. This must be Hell. This must be just like Hell. Wishing to forget and losing everything but the thing you most want gone.”
He tried to calm her, reaching for her hand, which flapped madly in the air, and shushing her to no avail.
“The street fair,” she cried. “The damnable street fair and those awful sausages and the stench—all of those people smelling of dead flowers and the slaughterhouse and coal. And you. And that man. And the rope. And his eyes, bulging. And you, smiling. Smiling.”
A nurse appeared in the doorway and Rabin whipped his head toward her. “Get out,” he said through gritted teeth. The woman flinched, mouth dropping into a ludicrous O. Then paralyzed like a man facing a gun barrel. “Get out!” he roared, and the nurse fidgeted as if experiencing a minor seizure before fleeing the threshold.
“I can’t” Irene cried. “I can’t get out. I’m lost.”
Rabin backed away from the bed and his wife. Sobs racked her now and her hands slapped at her sides.
She knew. She always knew. All these years, pretending…lying! How could she? How could she know and still live with me, live with herself?
A doctor ran into the room, followed by a nurse and an enormous orderly. They pounced on Irene: the nurse and orderly holding her arms down as the doctor yanked a hypodermic from the pocket of his white coat and targeted the crook of Irene’s elbow.
“I’ve been here so long,” Irene wailed.
Rabin slipped into the hallway. He hurried toward the stairs, and his wife’s voice echoed, accompanying the rapping of his shoes on the cold tile floor.
Chapter 18
The Way It Is in Rossington’s House
Four a.m. and the club was winding down. The second dancer had left the stage more than two hours ago, and Bones had climbed onto his piano bench to send mellow jazz into the smoke-thick air. His tunes prowled and sank beneath the skin, rubbing against bone and organ like affectionate predators, soothing flesh but eyeing the soul. Only a few patrons remained in the main room of Lady Victoria’s. Hollis Rossington made a lap through the club, checking on the paying customers.
A good house tonight, he thought. People feel bad and we make them feel good. He’d feel better himself if more of the deadbeats left their flasks at home and bought their hooch at the bar. Maybe then he’d get ahead of the accountants.
Most of the customers paid their thirty cents to enter the club, and their wallets promptly snapped shut, unless they were buying something sweet and cheap in which to pour their rum. He’d tried enforcing a drink minimum, but the results had been disastrous—all but empty chairs for two weeks running. The fact no customers were purchasing liquor didn’t change the fact that Hollis still had to pay the cops and the city officials for the privilege of having booze on the premises. As a result, Lady Victoria’s was a place of pleasant distraction, not the gold mine outsiders assumed, much to Hollis’s frustration. More evenings than not, they barely managed to scrape enough together to keep the dancers paid and the lights on. Before Black Friday, Lady Victoria’s had featured six dancers a night: half of them women, and the other three boys in gowns. The boys were the real draw. Dancing ladies were a dime a dozen in New Orleans, but a feminine veneer with something different between the legs brought out the wallets, or at least it had.
Now he could only afford two dancers per night, one of each, and keeping them satisfied with spotty payment was getting harder every day, though Hollis couldn’t imagine anywhere else they might make a profit.
He crossed the club, nodding to the dregs, waving, forcing a hard smile to remain on his lips. At the bar he nodded to Mickey, a sign that he was ready for his coffee. This was a nightly event, so the percolator was already gurgling on the plate behind the bar. The barkeep filled a glass mug with the rich liquid and then poured in the cream, which swirled and spread like a storm cloud. Mickey stirred the beverage with the handle of a spoon, clinked the silver against the glass rim, and then handed the drink across the bar. Carrying the steaming mug, Hollis left the main room and entered a gloomy L-shaped hall. In his office, a small, windowless, paneled room; he locked the door behind him, shutting out the prowling piano music. An aged phonograph with a dented bell sat on the table to his left, and he cranked the handle with a smooth, precise motion, in time with music not yet playing. He placed the needle on the disk and a static hiss filled the office before the first whining strains of a guitar echoed through the bell. A mournful voice followed, singing of hope and loss. Hollis proceeded to his desk, where he dropped into his chair. He sipped his coffee and the rich beverage coated his tongue with the dueling flavors of smooth cream and bitter roasted bean.
He cleared his mind. The guitar twanged in sorrow and he hummed the melody in a smooth baritone register.
Hollis pictured the record’s musician on a dusty track of road in front of a ramshackle home in which the woman he loved ignored his impassioned melody and pretended he didn’t exist. Hollis opened his eyes and looked at the ledger on his desk. After another sip of coffee he considered the hours ahead, the tedious job of totaling the evening’s receipts and going through a stack of bills. He thought about Butch, terribly ill and confined to his b
ed. Thoughts of Lionel quickly followed, and he hoped the kid wasn’t making things difficult for their houseguest. He’d instructed Lionel to steer clear of the guest room, which on reflection was a mistake. Hollis knew that if he placed boundaries around Lionel the kid’s primary goal would be to kick them down.
As with most evenings, he put off the calculations and administrative annoyances so he could enjoy his privacy. This was the only time he could listen to music and breathe his own air and be with his thoughts. It never happened at home. Lionel was so demanding of his time and attention. At the club, he was in constant demand—meeting and greeting his customers, shaking hands, chatting and telling jokes. He lived a life that often startled him. The good of it, the bad of it: the whole of it was beyond the imaginings of a kid from Oregon.
Hollis slid his chair back. He crossed to a narrow closet door and pulled it open. Carefully he slid a box away from the back of the space and reached behind it, awkwardly balancing on the balls of his feet to get the greatest reach. His fingers grazed a cardboard edge, and he leaned a shoulder against the jamb for support. Once he had a firm grasp on the card, he lifted it free. He carried the mounted poster to his desk, opened the long top drawer and propped the poster inside, where it sat like a piece of art on an easel.
Holding his coffee, Hollis leaned back in his chair and stared at the image of himself, a dozen years younger, clad in snug black shorts and matching boots. Where had that kid gone?
Having Butch in the house had rekindled an intense nostalgia in Hollis, a longing for his days on the mats. The training. The packed arenas and theaters. Cheering admirers. The company of athletes. The crowds had loved his flamboyant boasts and strutting gait, and they’d paid good money to sit in his shadow as he stalked the mats, teasing an opponent before dropping the lug on his tail. His coach had always told him to focus on the science of the sport, and maybe the old man had been right, but even if he’d perfected his holds and his breaks, his career would have ended just as quickly.
