People in Trouble

by Sarah Schulman

  Coming out the front door, Molly saw a short, husky black man waiting for her on the sidewalk. He was not leaning against the brick or sitting on the steps. He was jumping up and down instead, trying to keep warm.

  ‘Molly, hey you got any checks for me?’

  ‘Charlie, I took your name off my mailbox. This is my friend Pearl.’

  He shook Pearl’s hand formally.

  ‘Nice to know you.’ Then he said, ‘Molly, I got to talk to you for a minute.’

  ‘Okay, but only a minute. I have to go to a funeral.’

  The two of them went off together for a private conference by the mailbox, hands jammed in their pockets, feet stomping in various rhythms just to keep warm.

  ‘Charlie, I gave up on you. We kept making appointments and you never showed up.’

  ‘I had things you know. I had to go see my mother.’

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He kept looking around like someone who hated him could show up at any moment.

  ‘Look, Molly, I need a certified letter for the Energy Assistance Program. This can mean two hundred and fifty dollars for me. I went to the shelter and it’s crazy there. They keep the lights on all night and the crazies don’t stop screaming. I need a letter that says I’m your roommate and I pay gas and electric so I can get energy assistance. The same kind you gave me before, certified.’

  ‘Okay,’ Molly said, ‘but I can’t do it now. My friend died, I have to go to the funeral. I’ll meet you here at nine in the morning and we’ll get it notarized.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Show up, okay?’

  He was gone very quickly.

  Molly took out a pen and wrote his name back on the mailbox.

  ‘Is he going to show up?’ Pearl asked.

  ‘No,’ Molly said. ‘Did you know that you have to have an address to get welfare? I didn’t know that until this year.’

  Then they started out for the church.

  ‘How’s work?’ Pearl asked.

  ‘I go there and watch the movies. They change every day. My only problem is how to prolong my happiness.’

  ‘Oh, come off of it.’

  ‘Sometimes I get tired of having to choose between taking a subway or going for coffee, but I like being relaxed.’

  ‘Molly, you’re going to have to do something substantial eventually.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Uh … graduate school?’

  ‘In what, computer science?’

  ‘I don’t know … social work? You already do it, might as well get a paycheck.’

  ‘Pearl, if I ever become a social worker, please shoot me and put me out of my misery. This is the Me Generation, remember? There are no more social services to administer. I’d have to wait until the return of the welfare state before there’d be any jobs to get rejected from.’

  ‘Can I ask you a personal question on a dangerous subject?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How could Kate have sex with her husband after having sex with you?’

  ‘What is that, a compliment?’

  Pearl took out a packet of Drum tobacco and started rolling a cigarette.

  ‘Yes, I still smoke. No comments please. Anyway, I just brought up this tender topic because isn’t that your beloved standing across the street?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Right there. You say she’s not coming out, but take a look at that.’

  When Molly turned she stopped and they both stared through the traffic at Kate walking past Union Square Park. She didn’t seem to see them at all. Her hair was orange against the green overcast cool and she was dressed as a man.

  ‘Does she wear drag often?’ Pearl asked with some doubt.

  ‘Never, I’ve never seen that before.’

  ‘Well, something’s going on.’

  Kate was a man. Anyone in the street would have thought so. But she was a better man than most because she was so strikingly handsome in her black suit. She strode powerful and erect like a well-bred charming man. A male model perhaps. A movie star. She didn’t wear a white button-down. She was much too stylish for that. Kate, the man, wore a soft blue shirt designed for a sexy strong man’s leisure. It was cut to hang from his neck and muscles. Kate was thrilling. She was the most handsome man on the street.

  ‘Molly?’ Pearl asked, not moving at all.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you fully understand what you’re dealing with here?’

  ‘No,’ Molly said, starting to walk again and then stopping one more time to take a hard last look. ‘I have no idea.’

  21

  MOLLY

  When a friend finally dies of AIDS there usually is not much surprise and often some kind of relief for everyone involved because the man they loved was suffering too much. Also, the people around him needed to go on. These funerals were frequent ghastly habits that crept into the structure of everyone’s personal life. In fact, for Molly, at this point, there were a number of people that she only or mostly saw at funerals.

  ‘Look,’ Pearl said. ‘There’s Jeff’s family from Rochester.’ Huddled stiffly in a quiet corner were the out-of-place contingent of relatives experiencing a variety of emotions that ranged from pure loss to sheer embarrassment. They appeared to be as miserably uncomfortable with their surroundings as they were with one another.

  Molly hadn’t seen Bob Catmull since Ronnie’s funeral but she had thought about him from time to time. He was a particular kind of personality that always reminded other people of something. He looked very healthy, she noted with relief as he smiled warmly, crossing the room.

  ‘Bob,’ she said, reaching out. ‘It feels good to see you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, being a tall sleek man with a mane of gray hair and a long tall Western drawl. ‘I am healthy and happy, praise God.’ It was half put-on, half deep cowboy roots. Bob had one of those voices heard over the radio in Nebraska advertising cattle feed. ‘I’m having some apartment troubles lately, but isn’t everyone?’

  There was something about the way he spoke that made the people talking with him want to sound that way too. So, after five minutes, there would be a room full of Brooklyn cowboys and one real McCoy.

  ‘Someday,’ Pearl said, ‘there is going to be nothing in this city but condominiums and projects.’

  ‘Like Clockwork Orange,’ said Bob. ‘And we’ll be the droogies, son of a bitch.’

  They all stopped talking for a while and looked around. Different people responded differently to funerals, and then again, it depended on who had died. Some people were usually numb. Some were resolved. Some had other things on their minds. Most cried their eyes out of their heads.

  ‘Have you heard from Mario?’ Molly asked.

  ‘You know,’ Bob said, lowering his voice and then his head. He was about six foot four and had to bend way down to tell a secret. So, everyone around him always knew when he had something to hide. Also, since his head was higher than everybody else’s, you could always see his expression.

  ‘I just can’t imagine another one of those times when you call up an old friend and get that damn tape announcing that his number has been disconnected. And I can’t harbor the thought of writing to Mario just to get the letter returned, stamped “deceased.” That happened to me last July and it was horrible. I have decided to wait until Mario gets in touch with me and I know and pray that he will.’

  ‘Look, Bob,’ Molly said. ‘Let’s get together sometime. There are a lot of better places to meet than in church.’

  ‘I firmly agree.’

  They turned away from each other for a moment again and scanned, once again, the faces in the crowd just to see if Mario was there.

  ‘Hey, Bob,’ she asked, pulling on his beaded belt, which came up to her chin. ‘Who is the guy standing over there in the corner?’

  It was the same man she had seen handing out p
amphlets at the vigil in early fall. And he was still just as femme. His brown skin shone against a pink wool suit, and she saw at least six rings through his left ear. He was involved in a serious, quiet discussion with three other men, one of whom was the surfer with the brown ponytail, who comfortably held the black man’s hand.

  ‘That’s James Carroll. The hunk on his left is his lover Scott. They’re very old friends. Do you know them? They’re extraordinary. James in particular is a very clear and passionate man.’

  Bob said ‘passionate’ with an emphasis on the p that brought out his Baptist roots and made him sound like the preacher man in a tiny white church in the middle of nothing but pasture.

  ‘I got a flyer from him at the AIDS vigil. What’s that group he’s working with?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, Molly dear. There are not many choices right at the moment. If you are discreet you will know exactly what I am telling you now. There are a number of wonderful men who have absolutely nothing to lose. James is taking a sow’s ear full of bitterness and transforming it into a silk purse.’

  The music started then as the gathering filed into the chapel.

  Jeffrey had planned his own funeral and so it started with Nina Simone wanting to know what being free would feel like. The whole service was just like Jeff, sentimental, deliberate and goofy. There was a rainbow gay liberation flag draped over his coffin and fresh strawberries and figs for everyone to eat. There were silly pictures of him pasted up on the walls so people could walk around remembering this or that. Then different friends spoke about little things; his recipe for strudel, the time he dyed his hair blue, how badly he played the clarinet. They read aloud from some of his early newspaper articles against the closing of the-baths. He’d said that if the city closed them, they wouldn’t stop sex, just drive it farther underground and make it harder for the information to get out. There were many different feelings in the chapel listening to those words. They talked about the time he’d taken in a man who had no money and helped him to die, the time, the time. Jeffrey’s was one short life filled with kindness and mistakes. He was another human being dead for no reason. A regular, special person. Then the tape played Billie Holiday singing ‘These Foolish Things,’ Molly thought, they remind me of you, Jeff. Then the family moved to the front and brought in a rabbi who got to stand up at the end and say, ‘Yiskadol veh yiskadosh shemay rabah,’ which seemed to be the only part of the whole event that they could understand. That was when they cried.

  Most of Jeffrey’s friends wept here and there but generally got caught up in watching and listening to all that was being presented. There was no meditation time until the end when everyone walked out of the chapel into the yard to stand in a light flurry of snow. They held hands quietly and let the snow fall on their faces. It clung to some beards and a few long eyelashes and gave each person the chance to look up into swirling endless activity coming toward them with no visible beginnings. That’s when Molly finally cried. Then that was that.

  On the way out through the hallway onto the street Molly saw Bob again, this time conferring with James Carroll. They spoke to each other and both looked her way and smiled. She smiled back. They waved at her. She waved back. It was late afternoon by that time and the crowd was dispersing into the rest of their lives. But Molly stopped short on her way out and walked over to where the two men were standing.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Pearl asked as they walked down toward the West Village.

  ‘He wants me to do him a favor.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. An old friend of Bob’s? All I know is that he is the only person in the world who has come to me with something substantial to do in the face of all these funerals. I’m tired of feeling helpless in hospital rooms.’

  ‘What did he ask you to do?’

  They both turned their collars up. They looked like two regular lesbians on a cold day. Only, Pearl looked very beautiful and Molly was only beautiful if you loved her. On every block there were men and women with no place to go who were bundled up under newspaper and old clothes or lying on ventilation grates to catch heat from the subway.

  ‘He asked me if I would collect papers for him on Wednesday. He said that all 1 have to do is stay in the ticket booth at Cinema Village and men will come by to drop them off.’

  ‘What kind of papers? How double-oh-seven can you get?’

  ‘I don’t know, Pearl. Then he wants me to go over later that evening to an address he wrote down on this matchbook.’

  ‘To make the drop?’

  Pearl had a Twilight Zone-Untouchables hush in her voice.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where is it, Molly, some abandoned warehouse in Red Hook?’

  Molly dug deep in her pocket.

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s the same building as Kate’s studio.’

  22

  KATE

  Spiros had morbid taste when it came to choosing restaurants. In the last year they had lunched or dined at Exterminator Chili, Pasta Death and Saigon. This new place was called Embalming Fluid and was part of a chain of wine bars that Horne Realty had opened up around town. It wouldn’t have been Kate’s choice, but Spiros needed to have opinions on all trends in urban life.

  He had already finished half a bottle of wine by the time Kate got to the restaurant. She knew it would take two more halves before any real negotiating could begin.

  ‘How are you, my dear? My dear Kate, how are you?’

  He was her dealer and so she had to trust him and absolutely could not afford to do so because after all, as Peter always pointed out, Spiros was not an artist. The most reassuring fact that she kept in her head at all times was that the only way he could make money was if she did too. Otherwise it was like being with Daddy again, intimate insecurity.

  Whatever contradictions were posed by Spiros, the old drunk who had made millions in the new country and stolen hundreds of thousands from the old one, he had changed her life. Opening up his world to her had brought Kate the necessary prestige and cash to live the way she wished. No more sets for bad plays. No more earnest art students. No more commercial design work. She had freedom from all this thanks to Spiros, the man who had taken more time with her work and career than anyone, even Peter. Spiros took the time to understand every detail because his income, in small part, depended on it.

  They chatted. He had big lips. They began with the weather, glossed over Kate’s suit and tie and moved on to more personal topics. That new artist. This old one. Two men had died. The Whitney Biennial. His daughter was going to Greece.

  ‘Order whatever you want,’ he always told her.

  It made life so much more pleasurable to have these occasional indulgences. Indulgence in this case being part investment, partly the reason for the investments.

  Spiros was old and soft and white. He had soft hands and never behaved improperly with artists although he did have a habit of getting drunkenly overfamiliar with waitresses on occasion. His artists confided in him, as Kate did, because he changed their lives. How could she not tell him the truth?

  ‘I spied on Molly from across the street, watching her going into a funeral. The mourners greeted each other very warmly. Peter was right, these are unusual funerals. There is a sincere but familiar grief, a practiced one.’

  ‘You don’t mean to tell me that both you and Peter voyeur on AIDS funerals?’

  ‘Yes, we’re ambulance chasers.’

  ‘Well, Kate, that might make a good theme for a piece, you know.’

  ‘What a thought. No.’ She shuddered. ‘No. What disturbs me the most is Molly going off to another one of those funerals and not even calling to tell me about it, not letting me know in any way that she might need some extra love. She likes to stand next to monsters to prove to the world how good she is. She’s good on purpose.’

  ‘Well, what other decent excuse is there?’

  Spiros laid
a pudgy hand on Kate’s sleek one. Her fingers were longer and her fingernails were shorter.

  ‘And Peter still sits there looking silly sometimes and older when he’s tired. He speaks evenly, totally sure that he’s right, will admit no doubts. We talk about new scripts, new lighting plans, what we saw at the theater, socks and our usual stylish conglomeration of interests.’

  She smiled.

  ‘When we see friends he discusses Baudrillard and Jack Dejohnette and repeats his observations from night to night until he finds new ones.’

  ‘Those are fine topics for conversation,’ Spiros said gently. ‘I know. We’re both so tasteful and intellectual.’

  ‘However,’ Spiros said, watching the last drops empty into his glass. ‘As Thomas Mann said, “Only beginners think that those who create, feel.” And to that I add necessarily.’

  Kate lifted her wineglass like a man.

  Spiros watched her arm move. She saw him.

  ‘Kate, I know what you are saying. You have the same opinions about a lot of old topics and struggle over the same issues and ask each other to run errands. Now tell me your new proposal.’

  Spiros sat back and watched her speak. Kate could see he was listening. She felt articulate and natural. She tried putting her hands in and out of her jacket pockets for emphasis and that worked well too. Then she discovered that straightening out her suit jacket occasionally contributed to her authority In these clothes Kate felt capable of suggesting absolutely anything and making it sound reasonable. Then she was done.

  ‘Kate. What you are suggesting is an installation. I am an art dealer. I only sell paintings that people can pay for with a check and take home in a cab.’

  Were her cheeks flushed? She had embarrassed herself. It wasn’t worth trying to convince a gallery owner of something he couldn’t make money from. Why had she been so naïve?

  ‘But I do sense a new kind of seriousness in you, a new level of investigation and I want to support it as fully as I can. Last week I was contacted by a prominent businessman, well actually his assistant for cultural affairs.’