Stabs at Happiness

by Todd Grimson

  The weather was sped-up in the clouds above and traffic moved past in a stop-and-go rhythm with accelerations of motors and some horns.

  “What was that?” Donya said but Mahnoosh didn’t answer while a silver automobile slowed and then moved faster, sleek and blurred. Donya however had some other phenomenon in mind. The traffic meant little to her.

  Farid, disembodied, somewhere, said “Yeah?”

  “Remember when I was in your head?” Mahnoosh asked.

  “You still are, baby, you still are.”

  Romantic, so romantic. Donya, looking at her, she knew.

  LAMENTATIONS OF BABYLON

  Androgyny was in fashion. Full frontal nudity. Glitter bands. Boys wore makeup and high heels. Nixon was president.

  It was 1973. Cheap sequins were in the air.

  Nobody wanted to spend any more time thinking about Vietnam.

  The first time they talked, at a party upstairs on 2nd Avenue, Jean-Luc, in his black-rimmed glasses, asked the pretty transvestite: “What’s your name?”

  “Kim.”

  “What?” Jean-Luc couldn’t quite hear: other voices and music partially drowned out their words.

  “Kim. It’s Chinese.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “Sure I am. Kim Wong.”

  “You don’t look Chinese at all.”

  “Kim White?”

  Knifey guitar chord while Lou Reed deadpanned something about vicious flowers.

  Then more guitar.

  The Babylonians conquered the Sumerians and took over Sumer, absorbing and assimilating their culture. Then, after a few hundred years, the barbarian Assyrians conquered Babylonia and ruled it, with their fierce new laws, until the Babylonians, together with the neighboring Elamites and Medes, were able to successfully rebel and decimate the hated Assyrians, seemingly wiping them off the face of the earth.

  “I want to make something like Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra,” Jean-Luc said, thumb and index finger squeezing Paulie’s left nipple while it grew, pouty, erect. “There’s something very sexy about the Biblical epic,” interrupting himself with a sticky kiss, their warm tongues exploring each other’s mouths. “William Wyler’s Ben Hur, Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis?, DeMilles’ Samson and Delilah … anything about Baghdad or the Arabian Nights, with Steve Reeves or maybe Sinbad… You ever thought about that name? No… not Steve Reeves.”

  “Ben Hur,” Paul said, squirming a little, nude in Jean-Luc’s arms.

  He loved himself more and more in the heat of Jean-Luc’s worship, eyes shut now, glued lost in delusion and dream as his body was explored and spread open like a big flesh flower, luscious plum-red anal sphincter forming a sensitive blossom in the golden light. Oh. Oh.

  And so Paul Fairchild got the part.

  Routine will change. You’ll be with more people and popularity will increase. Due to unusual schedule, eating habits may become erratic. Don’t neglect nutrition.

  Kimberly sat like a woman, walked like a woman, had buttocks and breasts and legs like a woman. She didn’t have to go to the electrolysis parlor because she never grew any facial hair to be removed. The estrogens had shrunk her penis, redistributed body fat—and in so doing had given her a good shape and lovely legs. The legs especially pleased her because you see a lot of drag queens with bad legs, legs in which the muscles stand out like cords. Women’s legs have subcutaneous fat which accounts for their smooth shape. In high heels, the difference is strikingly apparent.

  The delicacy of her facial structure made it seem hard to imagine her, even without the makeup, as a boy and not a girl. She had been dressing strictly as a female for the last three years. Pierced ears, shaved armpits and legs, boobjob, hormone shots and long brown hair. No one ever questioned her right to use the ladies’ room.

  The only thing she didn’t have was a vagina, and she was fascinated with them. She wanted to understand them and how they worked. When she had a lot of money, she paid a woman named Janet de Sade to do an S&M number on her. She smoked Algerian hashish to get in the mood. She groveled at Janet de Sade’s feet, which were shod in shiny shiny black patent spiked heel boots.

  It made Jean-Luc sad when he contemplated the fact that Kimberly was not real. She would not last. Nothing does. Nothing does, but…

  Jean-Luc knew Janet de Sade too. She wanted to star in a documentary about all the twisted things people paid her to do. Maybe he’d do it, but it felt like selling out. It was so cheap.

  He admired people who sought to change who they were, who did not accept being born as a peasant, or as an awkward boy, as an Edward, Edwin, Edgar, Ed or Eddie… how he hated that name! Much better, even if partly as a joke, to reinvent oneself as Jean-Luc.

  But everything was a joke, he told Kimberly, who was lying incompletely dressed posed on a pillow like Olympia for Manet.

  Astronomy was a joke. Astrology was a joke. Biology was a joke. The Roman Empire was a joke. Cancer. The War in Vietnam. The Renaissance. Enlightenment. Industrial Revolution.

  “Was that on TV?”

  “Yes, Kim. That was on TV.”

  “But they said ‘The Revolution will not be televised.’ Was that a joke?”

  “That was a joke. The Revolution was televised. It just didn’t get very good ratings.”

  “Do you have any more Dexedrine?”

  He wasn’t sure. Some of the white pills had scattered on the floor. He wanted to be organized, but there was some law of thermodynamics leading to Entropy which said, “Not so fast.”

  Anyone might be cast into slavery in a region where small nations were constantly fighting and capturing large numbers of each other’s citizens.

  The Slave Auction, then, was a choice scene, thrilling the imaginations of the spectators, especially regarding the dispersal of the young, attractive specimens, who might be put to use as sexual toys.

  Paul looked less effeminate when dressed up as the King, primarily because of the braided fake beard he wore. His costume consisted of a long, smooth tunic, partly decorated with rich embroidery in horizontal and diagonal bands. The headdress of the King was a fez-shaped tiara with a conical spike. He also wore a diadem, bracelets, mascara and rings.

  The King enjoyed respect as a supernatural being not only from his officials but from other supernatural beings. He stood in front of a painted background, and then went up to his throne. He had an itchy back. Then he recited a poem:

  For ten thousand miles

  the landscape

  Spreads out like

  a beautiful brocade.

  Gentle sunshine.

  Light breezes. Smiling flowers,

  All the birds sing together at once.

  Humans and animals rise up, reborn, in the sun.

  What could be more natural?

  Oh beauty of the lion, the iguana and the red bird!

  There is black & white footage of lions tearing apart roebucks and gazelles, then a closeup of the lion resting later, panting, his eyes closing—as he has seen all that he needs to see today.

  Three muscular men in lion-costumes fuck a young man named Mario who is on mescaline and will not be heard from here again. He may imagine he is in prison. Sing Sing. Maybe this scene is somewhat evil, Jean-Luc thinks. He loves it though. He wishes he were Mario even as he wants Mario torn apart.

  Jean-Luc moves his lips but says nothing aloud. These thugs want more money than was agreed. One of them punches Jean-Luc. His lip bleeds. They steal things on their way out, still wearing lion-costumes as they walk down Saint Marks Place, one carrying a small television set with antenna, extension cord dragging on the sidewalk behind.

  There is graffiti on the walls.

  By 363 A.D., the ruins of Babylon had been made into a royal game preserve for the Persian king Shapur the First. Most of the towers had fallen, but the walls, though breached in many places, still stood. Nebuchadnezzar had built these walls a thousand years before.

  The Jewish prophet Jeremiah had said, “And Babylon shal
l become a heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant.”

  The Christians used Babylon, after Sodom and Gomorrah, as a symbol of man’s wickedness and the wrath of God. Also, Babylon was used as a codeword for pagan Rome, enemy of the early Christian church.

  Jean-Luc wasn’t Jean-Luc Godard. But he had directed a version of Breathless when he was in high school. It was nine minutes long.

  The Third Annual Miss G.G. Beauty Contest, including over fifty of the most gorgeous and convincing transvestites ever assembled, was so well-attended both by the community and the press that a large number of very unhappy local color type individuals had to be turned away at the door.

  The twenty semi-finalists appeared before the judges in bathing suits, the true test of successful female impersonation. There were several “shims” or “she-males” within that group who could challenge the judgment of even the most discriminating connoisseur of femininity.

  The contestants were rated for Charm, Elegance, and Poise, as well as, of course, Sex Appeal and Beauty. According to Kimberly and to several others “in the know,” it was all rigged in advance: the fix was in before they ever came out onto the runway. Some rich bitch from Long Island, named Darcy, whose sugar-daddy owned the lease, was crowned Miss G.G. 1973.

  Everywhere corruption and depravity.

  Raymond Faye was going to Paris soon to work on his next one-man show; but in the meantime he agreed to appear in just one scene as the Grand Vizier.

  He was dressed outrageously, and would bring in different gifts from off-camera and drop them in front of the throne. Paul sat staring fixedly ahead, taking no notice, seemingly hypnotized or in a state of suspended animation, surrounded by the court of mannequins in exotic costume, moved into different positions between each shot.

  “The King of Persia sends his regards,” said Raymond, in his droll manner, and carelessly dropped an armload of egg-beaters onto the floor.

  “Amenhotep the Third, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Kings, wishes you a very happy birthday,” Raymond said, and dropped a large vase, which broke into shards, disclosing a rubber snake.

  Between each shot, the floor was swept clean. Beverly, who was generally willing to do the shit jobs when on drugs, brandished the broom.

  “The Witch of Endor sends you her most pious solicitations,” said Raymond, as he let loose doves, which flew all around, followed by the camera even when they swooped out of the confines of the set.

  “Princess Al Capone…”

  Raymond took a bite out of a sandwich, one of several on a plate. A Ham and Swiss on Rye, from Aristotle’s Delicatessen on 13th.

  A slave boy, bound with Saran Wrap, courtesy of the King of Saran. The boy held a flower. He smiled right at the camera. Very nice. Oh, what a cute kid. Nude. He blinked his eyes. Moved. Stopped. Again the smile.

  Raymond teased him with a long red feather, then felt him up. Kiss kiss. The King remained unmoved.

  Elements of timing, luck ride with you. Be aware of color combinations—you’ll look especially good in indigo, electric blue. Intuition will serve as reliable guide.

  Paulie sort of resembled the late actor Alfred Paget as he had appeared, with mascara and a phony beard, in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, playing the pleasure-loving Belshazzar.

  Kimberly, on the other hand, as the Princess Beloved, was much prettier than the actress Seena Owen had been in the same role back in 1915. Maybe Kim was not as pretty as Mae Marsh, or Blanche Sweet, or the Gish sisters at their best, but she was definitely prettier than Miss Owen.

  At least once in her life every woman in the land was supposed to prostitute herself in the Temple of Ishtar. However, wealthy women took all the precautions they could to avoid an encounter with an unwanted stranger by surrounding themselves with a great number of female attendants. They would have made an arrangement with someone, perhaps even their husbands, to meet them there.

  The majority of women, though, adorned in their best finery and jewels, seated themselves in the holy enclosure and awaited whatever partner the gods might see to provide. A man had only to toss a coin (of any denomination, though as a token of respect a higher value might bring one greater joy), and utter, “The goddess Ishtar prosper thee,” and he could not be refused. The beautiful women were taken care of swiftly; ugly ones might wait a long time.

  Beverly, barely five feet tall, hair cut short so that she looked like a cute little boy, went into Union Square Park and bought some downers from a black guy in a knit cap.

  “You gonna be here later, case my friends want some?”

  “Sure man,” the guy said, shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to the other, perhaps in some correspondence with his languid chant “Ups and Downs; Ups and Downs.”

  Beverly had smoked some dope about an hour before. Her head was still pleasantly buzzed. She only asked the guy if he’d be there later to try to insure that it wasn’t a burn. The pills looked right, but you could never be one hundred per cent sure. She’d been to this park often enough she shouldn’t get ripped off. She wasn’t sure if this guy recognized her or not – but then, she wasn’t sure if he recognized anyone.

  “Hey, don’t you usually have a dog?”

  He smiled then. “Yeah, I do.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got sick.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Sure is, man. Protects me from Big City White Devils, shit like that. I think someone put a spell on him. But he’s getting better, gonna be all right. Had to get me some of the right medicine, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear he’s better. Catch you later.”

  “Later, yeah. Ups and Downs.”

  In another scene, the god Shamash was seated, while a person half-man and half-bird was brought to him.

  Jean-Luc was not sexually attracted to Kim. It was too hard to tell her from a real girl. In fact, it could not be done in ordinary circumstances, unless you cast a critical eye. Jean-Luc occasionally slept with girls, teenyboppers, pulling down their jeans from behind, especially if there was another boy in the bed, but in such cases he preferred to enter the girls as he did the boys, inhabit their rectums while using slow friction on sensitive sphincters.

  Dark salty vaginas had unfortunate associations. Is the rectum a grave? Norman Mailer thought so or something. In An American Dream his hero while fucking went from the Cunt into the Asshole, from Heaven into Hell, a description which seemed over-wrought. Protest too much and all that.

  The Harem of the King were all mannequins, as were the members of the Royal Court. They were all individually and extravagantly clad, literally dripping with cheap costume jewelry and phony strings of pearls. Paul rolled around on the floor with one or the other of them, fought with them, struck them, whipped them, shouted at them, finally allegedly screwing one in the ass.

  “There, you fucker, take that! There! How do you like that? Well, there’s more where that came from. If you don’t start acting more lively you’re going to find yourself in some Pretty Deep Shit. You ungrateful bitches. I hate you. You’re going to be sorry you ever met me. You should have treated me better when you had the chance. Just you wait. You’ll be up there on the platform at the Slave Auction, begging me to forgive you, to take you back, while some greasy Phoenician licks his lips and throws his drachmas on the block. You know what they do in Phoenicia? Do you? You don’t want to know. Really. You can’t imagine. You think we’ve got perverts here, just wait till you land in Phoenicia. You’ll wish you were back here sucking my toes.”

  Zoom in on a capsized, impassive mannequin.

  Babylonia, thanks to a sophisticated system of irrigation based on a clever network of canals, waterways, and dams, was in its time the richest granary in the world. With the final fall of Babylon in 538 B.C., the irrigation system became neglected. The Tigris and Euphrates periodically overflowed and even changed course altogether, flooding the region without control. By th
e 20th century, the area had become a desolate and dreary landscape, a far cry from the lush farmlands of so long ago.

  Focus on desire, emotional involvement, ability to transform dreams into realities. People are drawn to you with their problems —you’ll be invited to join “secret sessions.” Member of opposite sex feels you are not living up to potential.

  She loved candy, but she’d only take one bite. Clark, who’d fallen for her a bit, fascinated despite being straight and having a girlfriend, bought Kimberly some Grand Marnier truffles. She thanked him gracefully, modestly, and then just took one bite.

  “Here, you have the rest.”

  And she put it to his lips and made him eat it, seemingly taking vicarious pleasure in the idea of the flavor in his mouth.

  Clark watched her one day, when she was changing costume, wearing only panties and bra, and she saw him looking. She gave him a special smile.

  The vast play battleground had been constructed by Jean-Luc’s nephew, his eldest brother’s son, who was ten years old and lived in Brooklyn Heights. Jean-Luc had seen the detail that Stephen put into his elaborate train-set, with all the figures and little bushes and trees, and it came to him that the patent artificiality, filmed in extreme close-ups, including the manipulating hands (hands of the gods), would be perfect for simulating big battles.

  He had to buy the materials, and the hundreds of plastic little Indians who could be transformed into warriors of the past, but Stephen was enormously excited by the project. His friend Ira helped him. Jean-Luc paid Stephen thirty dollars, of which Ira got twelve.

  THE BABYLONIANS vs. THE ASSYRIANS

  THE BABYLONIANS vs. THE ELAMITES

  THE BABYLONIANS vs. THE ISRAELITES

  Each battle was different from the last. Stephen and Ira were delighted to be able to set things afire, pierce figures with needles and daub them with blood, behead them, move about the chariots with their little horses wearing plumes, knock down the gate.