Cage's Bend

by Carter Coleman

  “I’ve been known to. What I’d like to do now is smoke some herb.”

  “Burn a bone? Why didn’t you say so?” Tiffany pulls a little banana-shaped spliff from her gown pocket, hands it over. “Don’t be shy. Go on. Light it up. This is San Francisco.”

  I start it off the end of the cigarette, pull in a deep toke, pass the joint, let it go.

  “You know where I can buy some socks?”

  “Hosiery? Condoms?” She blows smoke in my face and winks. “What you mean by socks?”

  “Tube socks.”

  She laughs, hands me the joint.

  “Seriously I need some athletic socks. You know, a five-and-dime.” I hold the end in my fingers so her saliva won’t touch my lips.

  “Five-and-dime,” Tiffany says. “Talkin’ in code, like you’re trying to score something.”

  “You know a Walgreens or Kmart, a store with cheap socks?”

  “Settle down, handsome.” She sucks in a toke and blows it out the corner of her mouth. “Corner of Gough and Turk, not far.”

  I stand up.

  “Go get your guitar and croon for me,” she says.

  “My feet are cold. I got to get some socks.”

  “I got all the condoms you need,” she says.

  “Thanks for the smokes.” I head up the hill. My legs are springy, my thighs strong, my step light. I just needed a straight twenty-four hours to be good as new. The whole night lies in front of me. Endless possibility. All of human nature on display. All the races of the world washed up in this port city. On Gough I find a Rite Aid that sells tube socks in packs of three. I buy two packs and some Dr. Scholl’s medicated powder. Outside on the sidewalk, I take off my boots, powder up my feet, pull on a pair of socks, pour more powder in the boots, and pull them back on. Preventive medicine. I pass St. Mary’s, a Catholic cathedral, then stop in an empty Jefferson Square. The night is clear. I lie back on a bench and try to see the stars but the city lights let only a few show through the glare.

  “Hi.” A guy in a business suit appears out of nowhere by my head.

  I sit up quickly, leap up to my feet. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “What if I was? What were you going to do?”

  “Put your cock in my mouth.”

  “Oh, you San Francisco boys. Not quite so many of you back where I come from.”

  He laughs. “Where’s that?”

  “Planet organic.” It’s too dark to see his face. Mid-fifties?

  “I’ll pay you twenty bucks to let me give you a blow job.”

  “My cock is worth twice that. It’s big and sweet.”

  “Is it?”

  “You’ve never licked a cock so big in your life.”

  “Really? Can I see?”

  “No money, no honey.”

  He pulls out a wallet, takes out two bills, holds them out. I grab the cash out of his hand and sprint across the square, thinking, Don’t look back, they might be gaining on you. He never says a word. When I hit the street, I glance over my shoulder and see him halfway between the bench and the street, not moving, his head hanging down, so pitiful that I almost go back and return his cash. Ill-gotten gains. A shudder of creepiness shakes my body. I jog on down the street.

  I swing by the El Dorado to see if Emma has returned. Tiffany has gone from the stoop. William Burroughs hands me the key without a word. The room is empty. For a few seconds I panic because I don’t see my pack and guitar and then I find them under the bed where I’d left them. I put my new socks in my pack, wet my hair and comb it back, early Elvis style, hold it down with a little hand lotion. Then I grab my guitar, fly back down the stairs, and drop the key on the desk. I tell the old man, “Got to put a little work in every day or you just can’t feel good about yourself.”

  He grunts.

  “Like you. Earning the daily bread.”

  “I’d rather be on a range firing ten rounds a second.” He purses his lips together like an asshole.

  “Very violent hobby. Don’t you golf?”

  “Do I look like Tiger Woods?”

  “No, you look more like the trainer in the ring corner who sponges the boxer’s face, slaps grease on his cuts. That kind of thing.”

  His mouth flashes gold, rows of fillings, as he laughs.

  “Whom do you imagine that you’re shooting on the range?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Remember, you can sin by thought, word, or deed.”

  “That’s who I shoot. The fathers that fucked me up.”

  “Therapy,” I say. “Later, gunslinger.”

  I head out into the evening to ply my temporary trade. The Tenderloin is more crowded now. People are milling around the garish entrances to the strip joints, sex shops, and dive bars. I catch a bus on Geary east toward the Bay and stay with it as it turns north on Kearny. Watching the blocks flash by, I feel buoyant with eighty bucks in my pocket and Tinker Bell’s doss-pad. There are only a few mute, defeated, gray riders on the bus, so I start strumming Muddy Waters songs, singing above the engine noise. When I get off at Columbus, the old black driver says, “Son, you ain’t bad for a white boy.”

  “Thank ya, cap’n.” I tip an imaginary hat, then swing off the stainless-steel pole over the three steps and out onto the street.

  I walk up to City Lights bookstore and through the windows watch a handful of lonely people browsing the shelves. I stole a copy of the Tao the morning I arrived, put it back the same afternoon with a flower pressed in its pages. I try to think of some Ferlinghetti lines and I can’t, so at the mouth of the alley across from the front door, I lean against a post that holds street signs that say END and JACK KEROUAC and try to conjure up a passage from On the Road. I used to know so many.

  A businesswoman about my age comes out of City Lights and walks to the point of the sidewalk where Columbus meets Kerouac, right across the alley. She raises her hand for a taxi. I strum the opening of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” then chant, “Because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time”—she listens, amused, smiling slightly—“the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

  “Bravo!” She digs in her handbag, then throws some change. “Bellisimo.”

  “Thank you, gorgeous.” I start playing “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

  She looks out at Columbus.

  “How many miles must a bipolar man fly,” I sing, “before he can settle and land?”

  She looks back at me. Everyone knows someone bipolar and they’re usually very interesting people. People are curious.

  “The answer of my end.” I go through Dylan’s refrain, playing the guitar loud.

  She glances at the street, sees a taxi coming, flags it down, looks back at me.

  I launch into an old Eagles tune, improvise the lyrics. “Come on, gorgeous, stop and think twice.”

  The taxi pulls up and she opens the door, gets in slowly.

  “Take a chance you won’t regret,” I sing.

  A lonely career girl, she watches me through the open door until I finish the line.

  “Better than dinner with a TV set.”

  She blows me a kiss and pulls the door shut.

  “You’re not a bad musician,” says someone on the other side.

  I wave good-bye at the woman, then turn and see a guy in his late forties with a goatee and corduroy blazer, total beatnik look, a ghost from the fifties. “You’ve got a good voice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You just need to train yourself more.” His tone is kind. “I can see that you’re out here paying your dues as a musician.”

  “Haven’t come very far in eight years, I guess.” Sixteen really, but I never played geetar in the black dog days.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he say
s quickly. “And I ought to know since I teach music in a high school nearby.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Say, would you like a coffee or a sandwich next door?”

  “At the famous Vesuvio, where Kerouac and Dylan Thomas drank themselves under the table?”

  “That’s the one.” He sticks out his hand. “Karl.”

  I can tell he spells it with a K. “As in Marx?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Cage.” I shake his hand. “Yeah. I’m hungry.”

  We cross Kerouac Alley and pass under the stained-glass sign. Yellow light pools beneath the lamps, reflects off the surface of dozens of framed pictures on the dark paneling. A campy young waiter sucks on his pen while I order an Anchor Steam and an avocado sandwich. Karl orders a coffee and carrot cake.

  “You AA?” I ask after the waiter leaves.

  Karl says, “Twelve years.”

  “Thank God for Dr. Bob,” I say. “He helped me a few times.”

  “But you fell off the wagon again.” His face is calm, concerned.

  “Some time ago.” I shrug. “My life is particularly disorganized at the moment but alcohol is a symptom, not the root. I’m not drinking much. I’m naturally high.”

  “You’re manic-depressive?”

  “The current terminology is ‘bipolar,’” I say as the drinks arrive. The beer’s tasty.

  “I have friends . . .” Karl nods. “You should go back on your meds.”

  I’m starting to get pissed off. “Listen, dude, thanks for playing the Good Samaritan, but you can back out of my kitchen right now. You’re starting to rattle my pots and pans.”

  “It’s cool,” Karl says. “Ah, here comes the carrot cake.”

  “And I’m not gay, okay?”

  Karl laughs. “Neither am I, man. I was just complimenting your singing by buying you a meal. All right?”

  “Thanks, Karl. You’re a good guy.”

  “If you get hungry, there’s an AA breakfast every morning at St. Francis of Assisi right up Columbus.”

  William Burroughs smiles when he sees me come inside. Handing me the key, he says, “The young lady is entertaining, sir.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves.” I bound up the stairs. There’s music inside the room. I knock on the door. “Carlin—I mean Emma?” Nothing. “Em!” I turn the lock slowly. Inside is dark and still like a tomb with U2 songs for hymns. The only light is the glow from the gas burner on one side and fluorescence falling in from the bathroom on the other. I slip in quickly, shut the door quietly.

  In the kitchenette corner a man, hard to see in the orange light, has a bare foot up on the counter. As my eyes adjust, I see he is sticking a needle between his toes. From the bathroom come the sounds of vomiting. Across the dark room, Emma’s cradling the toilet. The guy says, “Cotton poison,” without looking at me. I go into the bathroom and find a rag, wet it with warm water, and lift her gently up by the chin to wipe off her face. She looks like she just ran a marathon. Her eyes are less remote. She mouths a word I can’t make out.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Are you sure?”

  The corners of her mouth turn up in the beginning of a smile and then a convulsion racks her body and she turns away. I hug her from behind until she is quiet, then wipe off her face. I walk back in the room where the music is much louder now and the guy is sitting cross-legged with his back to the cabinet doors, swaying to his own beat. I kneel by him and say into his ear, “How can I help her?”

  “You can’t.” He doesn’t open his eyes.

  “Will she be okay?”

  He doesn’t answer, keeps swaying off time.

  “Will she be okay?”

  Emma’s body shudders but I can’t hear her. I shake the guy by his shoulders. “Hey, will she be okay?”

  He looks at me from across the canyons of his mind. I shake him hard once more. He opens his eyes, says, “Fuck off,” and closes them. I go back to the bathroom. With the side of her face resting on the toilet seat, Emma is sobbing. Her white Issey Miyake crimpolene gown is drenched with sweat. I raise the hem up, lift her by the waist an inch to get the dress over her knees and up her legs. She’s wearing faded Patagonia stand-up shorts. I pull the dress over her head. She puts up no resistance, just raises her arms. She’s not wearing a bra. Her breasts would fit perfectly in champagne cups. She is beautiful. I wrap her in a towel, lean her against the tub, then go to the kitchen and get some water from the tap. She shakes her head as I put the glass to her lips.

  “Keep yourself hydrated,” I tell her.

  She takes a sip.

  “We can wash that cotton poison away,” I tell her.

  She takes a swallow. Then another.

  “Imagine your body washing that poison away.” My voice is slow, soothing. “Wash it out of your blood.”

  She finishes the glass. I fill it up from the bathroom sink, hold it back to her mouth. “Wash it out of your body. Wash it all away and you’ll feel better. You’ll keep feeling better.”

  I talk her into a trance, almost hypnotize her, get her to drink several glasses of water before she throws up again, and then I make her drink several more, talk soothingly to her for a long time as she leans against the bathtub.

  She speaks for the first time: “I’m sleepy.”

  I lift her out of the towel and carry her in a fireman’s hold to the bed, lay her down. The other guy is gone. I take her Patagonia shorts off. The size of her bush surprises me. I lift her legs up high in the air by her ankles, pull the bedspread out from under her, lower her to the sheet, cover her up. “You are deep, deep within yourself,” I tell her. “You are completely relaxed, completely at harmony. Go in your mind to Yosemite. Picture the sheer face of El Capitan rising up tall and straight, a granite monolith high against the sky. You are as calm as the mountain. The poison is going, flushing from your system.” I keep talking, checking my watch. After twenty minutes I pull back the sheet, reveal her beautiful body, pick her up. She puts her arm around my neck. “You’re going to pee now, flush it all out of your body. After you pee, all the poison will be gone.”

  I set her down on the toilet. I can see her face clearly in the light. Her eyes are closed but she is smiling. “Let it out!” I command, like my hypnotherapist used to do to me, and she starts to pee a steady stream like a garden hose filling up a pool, for a full ninety seconds. “The poison is going, going out, out, draining from your body.” She dabs herself dry and raises her arms. I pick her up, flick the flush handle down with my foot. “Now you’re going to sleep, a deep, deep sleep, such a deep sleep, and when you wake up, you will want to go clean. We’ll go camping in Yosemite. You can flush it all out. I’ll help you through it. Providence brought us together, two PKs on the streets of San Francisco. You can beat the monkey.” I lay her down on the bed and keep talking, painting a picture of a clean future in the mountains, her blood as pure as a mountain stream, after she has fallen asleep, embedding those hypnotic suggestions. Together we can make it.

  Harper

  “Do you have the authority to clear this trade?” I ask an asshole at Merrill who equivocates. I spit a jet of tobacco juice. “Well, get me the organ-grinder. I’m tired of talking to the monkey!” I hang up on him in midsentence, spin my chair to my third screen, and search a medical database for “nymphomania”:

  Nymphomania signifies a woman’s excessive or pathological desire for coitus. There have been few scientific studies of the condition, but those patients who have been studied usually have had one or more sexual disorders, often including female orgasmic disorder. The woman often has an intense fear of losing love and attempts to satisfy her dependence needs, rather than to gratify her sexual impulses, through her actions. This disorder is a form of sex addiction.

  From my window on the eightieth floor of the World Trade Center is a blighted landscape of factories and freeways. Light flares off the glass towers of Newark. Every time I look up from m
y screens, I wish we had an office on the north side and a vista of the Manhattan canyons rather than the depressing collage of postindustrial Jersey. The office is an oven. The record heat caught the tower’s air-conditioning off guard. It’s ninety-four degrees outside. Must be ninety-eight in here. My hands ache and I wonder if I’m getting carpal tunnel syndrome. I set my glasses on the desk, push the lever to lean back in my Aeron chair. Two kernels of pain about six inches apart radiate from my spine. I lean forward and push the lump of Copenhagen out of my mouth into the throat of a Snapple tea bottle, gargle with Evian, and spit it all in the bottle.

  Standing up, I see my reflection in the window, the bulge around the middle visible under my shirt. My StairMaster has been dormant for weeks. Make that months. I walk toward Asgar, an Indian programmer we picked up cheap.

  “How’s it going, Asgar?”

  “Hi, Harper.”

  “You are a living legend,” I say slowly.

  “Okay, Harper.” Asgar smiles uneasily.

  “We’re going out of business. We’ll all be ruined.” I pat him on the back, smiling widely like an idiot. “You’ll be deported.”

  “Okay, Harper.” Asgar smiles and nods, embarrassed that he doesn’t understand. He’s a whiz at what he does and he can read instructions fine, so we tell him what to do by e-mail, but he doesn’t comprehend one word we say.

  “Leave the man alone,” Dooner calls from his desk without glancing from his screens.

  “Hi, Aidan,” Asgar says, then goes back to his screen, testing a new part of the program to project tiny changes in stock price. Through the day Asgar tracked ten thousand stocks, tick by tick, as many as a hundred thousand ticks per stock from every kid who bought a share to every mutual fund that bought five thousand, and now he’s collating the results.

  Dooner pops up from his chair and shouts across the room at the trading desk. “How many shares left of IBM?”

  “A hundred grand,” Ronbeck yells back.

  The other four traders turn to watch Dooner, a redheaded hulk who could have been an extra in a Braveheart battle scene, who screams, “The specialist smells you like rotten meat. You held on too long all day. Buy twenty-five thousand right fucking now. They want to be fully long by the close. You got twenty minutes.”