Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  “Put another finger in,” she said. But he didn't want to dissipate the sensation. The one finger inside her connected him to her in a current that rushed back and forth from there to his own groin, pausing there, then rushing back. He didn't want to risk anything that might change that. He felt her clitoris hardening, growing wetter, the moisture thicker. He lowered his head to look even closer.

  Across the grass, the wind slid with a sensual sigh like a distant voice, stirring the grass and an unformed memory of Manny's, only a part of it abandoned, never to be forgotten, mixed now with the intense fragments of these new moments.

  With a finger of his other hand, he spread the soft vaginal lips wider, allowing them to close, spreading them again, delicately. At his touch they loosened, became fuller. He continued staring, as close as he could come before it would blur—he wanted to see what he felt.

  Scarlett Fever reached over, under his body, to hold his engorged cock. When she touched it, he pulled away. He would erupt! He wanted to extend this exploration, this sensation of heat and desire and fear that lodged in his throat, his groin, then radiated outward from the touch of his fingers througout his whole body. He kept one finger exploring inside her.

  The other hand raised her dress so that only one breast was uncovered. It was small! He felt angry, betrayed. He wanted to pull down that part of her dress, cover the offensive smallness. But fascination tugged. He touched it. The sensation of coursing heat—which had hinted of withdrawing—extended from his finger inside her legs to his finger on her nipple, on through his tightening, drying throat and into his groin. His finger outlined first the nipple—which grew!—then the outer circle, slightly rougher flesh, and then the breast itself, its roundness. Now he could look at it closely. Touching it had made it seem much larger. His tongue darted out—once—on the nipple. He withdrew to see what he had moistened.

  “Fuck me, Money, cummon,” she said. She opened her legs wide. He didn't want to stop feeling her. She pushed up her hips. He allowed another finger to enter the incredible smoothness. Her hand grasped his hard cock, trying to pull it out. It pulsed at her touch. He pulled his pants down and pushed his body onto hers and buried his cock into her. He came in that one shove, cum drained out of every part of him—his limbs, his muscles, his bones, his veins—in a moment he wished would last forever. She raised her hips to receive the erupting rush and offer hers. When it ended, he rolled back onto the grass, leaving his pants down.

  Scarlett Fever arranged her dress and sat up. She adjusted his pants, buckling his belt. “You wanna go to the West-Sky now?” she asked him.

  “Yes!” Manny wanted noise, sights—anything that would thwart his feelings; he did not know how he felt now, had felt—and he didn't want to know, didn't want to feel. He was contained in heat, his body steaming, his— …

  “You fags get the hell away from down there or I'll call the cops!'’

  Manny welcomed even that voice, a man's harsh voice, coming from a window above the trees. It helped to blot out all knowledge of what he had experienced.

  Scarlett Fever called up at the voice, “We're not fags, motherfucker!”

  A pause. Then the man's voice said, “Oh, you're a girl—well—uh—why don't you and— …?”

  “Fuckin’ pervert!” Scarlett yelled back as they walked back to Santa Monica toward the West-Sky. “You ever make it with fags?” Scarlett asked Manny casually.

  “No,” Manny said. He didn't care what they talked about, as long as it would ebb his feelings.

  “Revolver does,” Scarlett said. “Just once a week. Tuesdays or Thursdays, I forget which.”

  In the courtyard, the familiar figures milled—the youngmen and girls with color-streaked hair, carefully torn clothes, vinyl and leather, swastikas and crosses. Manny looked at them with intense attention.

  “We really mean it,” Scarlett said absently, looking at the crowd shoving restively.

  “What?” Manny asked her.

  She said, “Oh, you know—nothing.”

  Inside the West-Sky, Manny welcomed the obliterating burst of noise. Young male and female bodies prowled from room to room, looking at each other in mock challenge that might erupt into laughter or become bloody. Scarlett and Manny walked into the main room.

  Revolver was ending a song. He saw Manny and he finished slowly:

  … louder! louder! louder…

  than the sound of pain.

  Bodies in the oval clearing were shoving, pushing, wrestling ritualistically. Revolver grabbed his guitar and pretended it was a machine gun. He aimed at the audience, moving the guitar in a jerking arc:

  “Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat!” he fired at them.

  Manny knew: Yes, Revolver was different from the others.

  Three or four youngmen rushed the stage, to assault Revolver. Four guard-bouncers pulled them back toughly. One of the youngmen spat at Revolver, who dodged, avoiding the spittle. As the bouncers shoved them out, another of the youngmen spat—this time at no one, anyone. Then all around, the audience began to imitate the sound of spitting—laughing, making a hissing sound without moisture. Manny watched and watched and watched. Almost as if he were crossing himself, he outlined the intersecting lines he had scratched onto his chest.

  Late that night in Revolver's battered car, Manny, Scarlett Fever, Revolver, and Razor, one of the three others in the band—a small youngman with enormous eyes and a Mohawk-style swatch of hair—drove to an abandoned church in an area of demolished and partially demolished houses left deserted for a freeway never built.

  “Some black guys collect rent,” Revolver laughed. “They're our landlords, man. They say they own the area. We give them whatever we can, and they keep it cool for us, warn us about pigs.”

  They entered the gutted church through loose boards at an entrance. Ahead, a candle was burning on a table. A girl with frizzled hair colored in different shades was there. They called her X. Crash—another of the four in the Unholy Communion—was already there, too; he too had a Mohawk cut. Manny put down the bundle of his clothes. X lit another candle and began heating up some cans of food.

  “This Friday night we'll do the ‘Filthy Bodies’ song,” Revolver said. “It's our last day—gotta do a piece they'll remember. Really remember—and understand.” Looking at Manny, he plucked at a guitar, muffling its sounds. He sang softly.

  The boards at the door parted. If they were cops, it was too late; so Revolver just went on:

  Ya say you got a body in the image

  of a lord— …

  The three at the door were not cops; they moved in—a girl, two men—one looked like a cowboy. There were others who lived in this area. But if too many moved into one place, there would be raids.

  Manny stared at the three new people.

  X told them they had to find their own place. They left.

  Revolver slept with Scarlett Fever, Manny slept alone on the floor, the others scattered about the darkness.

  In the morning they drove the hidden car back into Los Angeles, and they all separated. Manny went to the tattoo shop on Sunset. The man knew him by now. Soon Manny would approach him. Manny felt the tall man was waiting for that.

  He spent another night in the abandoned church with the others; he met them at the West-Sky. It was always the same there—always a fight, sometimes shocked blood—reaction to violence. Manny watched it. The rage in East L.A., in El Indio, on Main Street—even in his sister when she added another layer of paint to her face—that was real rage containing a thousand clear angers and needs. Here, anger decorated the faces. Violence without its reasons, indifferent anger forced into visibility, violence protesting … itself. That's how Manny was viewing it now.

  He thought Revolver must see the West-Sky that way, too—but Manny wasn't sure. Unlike most of the others who were born with new identities and costumes at night, Revolver was Revolver night and day; he lived the life others pretended. No, it was not just the black, black hair that reminded Manny of
El Indio. Just as Indio had belonged to and escaped from only to be slaughtered by the gangs he knew so intimately, so, too, Revolver seemed at times to sneer at the shell of anger, the sketches of rage; he expressed contempt for it but welcomed being accepted as one of its symbols. Yet his songs, most times, had a direct defiance none of those of the other groups did.

  That night in the abandoned church they sat eating from the candle-heated cans, passing them around. The boards at the door parted. Three tall black men stood in the darkness. One of them said, “Pigs comin’,” and then the “landlords” disappeared beyond the loosened boards.

  X blew out the candles. The church collapsed under darkness. Not even whispers—until it was safe. Razor lit a match, then a candle. Manny had been sitting with Revolver. They were talking softly now. When Razor lighted another candle, Revolver got up from the floor and said to Manny, “Okay, Money, yeah.”

  That night Manny slept with Scarlett Fever.

  Again in the morning, they drove into Los Angeles and scattered.

  This time Manny waited across the street until he saw the man come in. He dashed into the traffic, hearing screeching brakes, flung curses. Manny walked into the tattoo parlor. The illustrated tattoos wound like red and blue veins on the walls.

  The tall thin man listened to Manny, leaning one ear toward him like a priest hearing confession. Then he said nothing.

  “Please.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to. Please!”

  “It'll take at least two sessions, maybe three—hour or more each time. I've got to draw the design; you're lucky I'm an artist. And there's a week between each time, for the scabs to form— …” He went on.

  Three weeks! “No,” Manny said. “Tonight.”

  “Impossible,” the man said. But he did not turn away.

  Manny felt sucked into his eyes.

  He kept remembering the man's eyes as he walked into the courtyard of the West-Sky that night. Scarlett Fever got him in. Revolver was singing in the blue and red light; Razor, Crash, and the other youngman were behind him. The audience quivered within the coiled energy.

  A girl whirled around in the pit of male bodies. She was very beautiful, wearing black pants and a black top. She took off the top, and whoever could get near her fondled and licked her breasts, her thighs. A fat guard rushed to them, as if to join the sexual frenzy; instead, he seized her, pulling her away, while another guard shoved the gathering youngmen. The girl kicked and screamed.

  “Fuckin’ fascist commie pigs!”

  Manny moved away from Scarlett Fever, who stared at him, then at Revolver, again at Manny. Manny waited at the edge of the stage, the edge of the light.

  Revolver began the “Filthy Bodies” song:

  Ya say ya got a soul!

  Well, if I cut ya with a knife,

  Show me your breathing soul,

  Your bleeding soul.

  An’ I'll believe ya.

  Manny walked up the few steps to the stage.

  I see your body,

  Now show me your soul,

  An’ I'll believe ya.

  Manny entered the lighted shadows. The jumping of the audience decreased. Silence grew, to receive Revolver's words:

  Ya say ya got a soul an’ a body in

  the image of some lord,

  But if ya ever had a soul— …

  Manny stood within the light. The writhing of bodies faded toward the pantomime of action. Revolver shouted into the spreading silence before them:

  An’ if you ever had a soul, you

  let them carve it out

  An’ didn't even care!

  Now all ya got is filthy meat

  an’ filthy bones!

  Filthy flesh. An’ rotten blood! Now show me your goddam soul!

  Manny began opening the buttons of his shirt. Revolver smiled, nodded. Manny remembered the burrowing gaze of the tattoo artist. Revolver's eyes were like that. Revolver screamed at the crowd:

  Ya got a filthy body

  an’ that's all!

  An if it's in anybody's image

  It's your rotting own!

  Manny stood next to Revolver. Scarlett Fever walked to the lap of the stage and looked up at the two like an innocent supplicant.

  Silence clamped the rough audience.

  Revolver sang fiercely:

  I can cut

  Your gut

  With a knife.

  Plunge an’ slice

  Ya up an’ down,

  An’ then I'll ask you,

  Where's your fuckin’ soul?

  Sharp buzzing ripped the silence. Revolver thrust ferociously:

  All I see's a bleeding filthy wound!

  An’ ya lettem do it,

  Ya lettem do it to ya!

  Manny took off his shirt. The naked Christ was on his chest. It had pubic hair over full genitals. The thorned head was tilted between Manny's pectorals. The feet were nailed at his navel. The pinioned hands touched each of Manny's nipples. The figure was drawn with black ink, the careful lines coated with colodion—to keep it intact. The varnished sheen gleamed like nail polish. The body radiated in the one funnel of light enclosed by darkness.

  “He's got a naked Jesus!” someone loosed the ready frenzy. They pushed to look at it, those in front telling those in back what they saw; the ones in back fighting to get in front—bodies massing.

  Revolver screamed with urgent rage.

  Where's your holy soul!

  AN’ WHAT THE FUCK D'YA DO TO MINE!

  Manny froze before the surging mob. Even the girls rushed into the squashed throng. Pushing, the guards unleashed more chaos.

  Manny felt the spittle. They were spitting on his chest, on his chest and on the naked, really naked Christ. He felt the spittle running down his flesh, and at last he felt relief from the years-long burning on his hand. It had to be here in a sea of indifferent anger. The more they spat, the more the spittle ran down his shining flesh, the more relief he felt. He raised his arms out, and he leaned his head, sideways.

  Lost Angels: 3

  “That's where they burned her?” Lisa saw the weedy vacant lot framed by two small wooden houses not even smudged by smoke. Leaves of trees clasped yellow flowers.

  “I saw it on TV!” Jesse said excitedly, remembering the ring of tear-gas-masked cops like giant ants, the helicopters like giant mosquitoes. “They surrounded the house, and they threw one of those grenades that light up! And she and the others tried to escape through the crawl space under the house, but the smoke was— …” His mind shifted to Cody, challenging bullets. Alone.

  Orin studied the lot where he was sure the house he had been searching for last night had stood. No trace of it now—the fire, the smoke, the bullets, the screams; not even the ashes of the charred structure. The slabs of plaster that had survived must have been smashed to dust.

  The lot is in the meandering outskirts of Watts, which is the core of the black ghetto. Its boundaries widened when the Watts riots occurred in 1965. Rebelling against ubiquitous white cop faces and store owners—on a hot, hot night, and goaded by a confrontation between a black man and a white cop—protesting crowds gathered. In surrogate anger, captive frustration, Negroes set fire to anything—buildings, houses; flames leaping to their own homes and stores. They flung rocks and bottles, sent bullets zinging at anything—soon at the invading tanks and jeeps of the National Guard. A black-smoked sky hovered close over the wail of sirens. Sniping and looting jumped from neighborhood to neighborhood, as far away as 50th Street. Some Negroes, Mexicans, and the few other white people who still lived in those areas fled. With guns and helicopters and expert fire, police conquered the battlefield.

  Negroes inherited the surrendered areas. It is in that wide fringe of Watts that the ragged Symbionese Liberation Army was scorched on live television by cops who hated niggers and Patricia Hearst even more for being with them.

  “Patty burned to death shouting at the cops.” Jesse James was thinking about Cody.
Today Jesse had decided to abandon his cowboy hat, to get more of the tanning sun, which seemed to slide off Orin's fair skin.

  “She didn't die,” Orin said. “She wasn't in this house. She had left. She watched it all on television, like everyone did. They caught her later, she did time, she's free now—but I just wonder how free.” He pondered that. “Depends.”

  “Man, was her family rich,” Jesse said.

  “They were so mean to her.” Lisa was too young to remember, but she substituted Ingrid Bergman, brave-eyed on the scaffold, burning as Joan of Arc. Bergman was Maria, too. Lisa held Pearl to her chest, to protect her from evoked fire. “And she was so good.”

  Orin pronounced in that tone that announced he was “teaching”: “Maybe she was good, maybe she wasn't. She could have been right, and she could have been wrong when she joined the rebels.”

  “But, Orin”—Lisa remembered the rich girl—“what if she joined them because there was nowhere else to go, and no one else to go with?”

  “All depends,” Orin reasoned. “Depends on what they told her and what she heard. What she heard's just as important as what they said, see? And what if her parents told her wrong? Or the rebels? What she listened to, how she heard it—that's what matters. Sometimes good is bad—seems.”

  From his tightened lips, Jesse and Lisa knew any further question risked his bolted silence. Like last night when they had asked him how that woman on television had brought him here. “I told you,” was all he said. There were those times when he invited questions, though, and he did it with a look. He could “speak” with his eyes—Jesse was beginning to think that and he was beginning to understand that mixed language. “How you gonna know when right's wrong?” Jesse risked, sounding casual.

  “You look around, like for evidence—and then you'll know if you're right.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse pondered.

  That way of saying that something was so, and it was so—and if it wasn't, he made it so. Like now. Lisa wasn't even convinced this was the site of the house Orin had been looking for since yesterday evening. He'd just driven past the lot and said, “That's it!” It all looked too peaceful for the terrible things they were describing—and besides, there was nothing about it in Jesse's guidebook. Lisa looked down at Pearl Chavez and warned, “You've got to mind—and stay pretty!”