City of Night (Rechy, John)

by John Rechy

  2

  Tunes Square, New York, is an electric island floating on a larger island of lonesome parks and lonesome apartment houses and knifepointed buildings stretching Up. (I will think dazedly one night: Someday this city will tear its wharf-lined fringes from the ocean and soar in desperation to the Sky. . . .)

  Times Square is the magnet for all the lonesome exiles jammed into this city. . . . And this is how I found that world of Times Square.

  In the incessantly running showers of the Sloane House YMCA the day I arrived in New York, the big hairy man made conversation with me; where am I from and what am I doing and am I working yet (“No? Good. I mean good that you dont have to be anywhere at a set time.”), and will I come to his room and he’ll buy hamburgers. Hes a merchant marine, tanned from a recent Voyage to somefarwhere—on his way now to Boston with I imagine a roll of money big enough to make me greedy. Unfairly, Im almost broke—$20.00 when I left Chicago, and one phone number what said nervously we must have lunch sometime. And no prospect of a job which will pay me before the money runs out.

  In the tiny cubicle-room facing the courtyard across which a lonesome youngman, also undoubtedly just arrived in the City, played a doleful guitar by his window, we sit eating oniony greaseburgers and ignoring the persistent sound of the running showers. For a moment, I think it’s the hurricane.

  Outside, in the hallway, doors open and close. The sound of feet walking up and down never stops. A hurried conversation outside, a door closes.

  Even before this man speaks it, I know that something of what Ive come to find in this city will soon be revealed in this room.

  “They dont call this Y the French Embassy for nothing,” the merchant marine laughs. He has sized me up slyly: broke and green in the big city—and he said: “You wouldnt be broke if youd been at Mary’s last night—thats a place in the Village and everything goes.” He watches me evenly for some reaction, determining, Im sure, how far he can go how quickly. “So I spot this cute kid there—” Hes still studying me carefully, and when I dont say anything, he continues with more assurance: “So I spot him and I want him—yeah, sure, Im queer—whatya expect?” he challenges. He pauses longer this time, watching me still calculatingly. He goes on: “And the kid’s looking for maybe a pad to flop in and breakfast—bes not queer himself, I dont like em queer: If I did, Id go with a woman—why fuck around with substitutes? . . . So this kid goes with me—Im feeling Good, just off the ship, flush—I lay 50 bucks on him.”

  A strange new excitement wells inside me.

  He adds slyly, confident now that hes got me interested: “If youda been there I woulda preferred you. . . .” He places his hairy hand on my leg. “Unfortunately, Im almost broke now,” he says, “but I got some more pay coming soon.”

  I stand up quickly; pause only for a moment at the door.

  He calls after me:

  “Hell, if you decide to make that scene later, try Times Square—always good for a score. . . . And play it dumb—they dig that.”

  I stand on 42nd Street and Broadway looking at the sign flashing the news from the Times Tower like a scoreboard: The World is losing. The hurricane still menaces—the sky ashen with night rainclouds, and looking at it, which is suddenly like a shroud, I panic, I think about this wailing concrete island, and I cant even swim: an island—and the shrouded sky makes it a Cage.

  Along this street, I see the young masculine men milling idly. Sometimes they walk up to older men and stand talking in soft tonea—going off together, or, if not, moving to talk to someone else.

  The subway crowds surged in periodic waves, blank newyork faces, as if, for air, they had just crawled out of the little boxes in the automat for say a quarter and two nickels.

  I feel explosively excited to be on this street—at the sight of the people and the lights, sensing the anarchy. . . . The merchant marine’s story about the youngman he had picked up -and the implied offer of sexmoney to me—have acted on me like a narcotic that makes me crave it.

  Predictably (and the life I have come to find is unfolding swiftly before me) the newyork cop comes by, to Welcome me, I will think later. He was shaped appropriately like a zero. Watching his approach, the other aimless youngmen leave their stands along the street. Stopping before me, the cop says to me in a bored, automatic, knowing tone: “Why dont you go to the movies, kid? . . . I aint seen you before—so I dent feel like running you in.”

  I take his advice. Two Sexy foreign movies at the Apollo theater: I surrender to the giant cavernous mouth with decaying brown seats for teeth—gobble!—Where you’ll see me often later, in the balcony. But I kept thinking about the hurricane. Im nervous.

  Outside, the rain is coming furiously. I stand under the marquee wondering where to go. Im reacting instinctively to this world, studying the stances of other obviously drifting youngmen.

  Then he walks by me, hat slouched to one side, dont-give-a-damn walk: a grayhaired middle-aged man—and says—exactly how he came on: verbatim: “I’ll give you ten, and I dont give a damn for you.” I follow the man, who has paused a few feet from me.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  He looks at me steadily: “Was I wrong?” he asks me, but hes looking at me smiling confidently.

  “I just asked what you said.”

  “You heard me,” he says, without looking at me now, completely sure now. . . . “Weu, for chrissake, you wanna come or not?”

  “Yes.”

  Then come on, we’re getting wet.”

  That world has opened its door, and I walk in.

  In the taxi he asked me have I eaten—and I have but I say no because I might as well make up for the greaseburgers earlier—you would too, as a citizen of the grubby world. “All right, we’ll go eat,” he said. This reminded him of A Funny Story. “I was in this Swank place once,” he says, “and at the table next to me is this old woman, see, and shes with this great big beautiful blond boy, probably she picked him off the docks, hes uncomfortable as hell in a tie—he says to the waiter, ‘I want wiver and onions.’ The woman’s embarrassed, see. she says in a low voice, ‘Dear, why dont we have some Chateaubriand?—it’s wonderful here’ ‘Wiver and onions,’ be insists. ‘Some lobster?’ she say. ‘Wiver and onions! Wiver and onions!’ he kept repeating. It broke me up.”

  At the restaurant he isnt sure theyll let me in dressed in levis. “But it aint so swank,” he says, “and they know me here.” Inside, I ask for the most expensive steak, still remembering the greaseburgers. . . . He peers at me, half-smiling: “No wiver and onions for you, huh?”

  Later, in his apartment, he said, “Why are you so nervous, aint you been with a cocksucker before?—thats what I am, pal and I aint ashamed of it.” He got into a purple robe, and I lay back and fix my eyes on a picture on the wall: rainclouds, a sad tree draped in something like moss—a skeleton vine, I think. If I squint, the tree looks like a shawled Mexican woman. I stop looking at the picture immediately. I try to stop thinking. . . . I feel him touch my body—hesitantly at first, despite his bravado; then more freely, intimately. For one wild instant I want to run out. . . . Then I heard his voice; indignant: “Why are you holding it, for chrissake?”

  “So you wont bite.” I wish instantly I hadnt said that.

  He laughs, and Im relieved strangely. “Jesus!” he said. “You are green! . . . Where are you frotn?—the backward South somewhere?”

  I purposely didnt answer, trying to forget El Paso. I listen to the rain, to the Wind lashing at the windows. And I feel a mixture of panic and excitement—one moment as if somehow Im being liberated, at last; another moment as if Ive entered a world for which Im not really prepared.

  I move away from him.

  “Christ, what now?” he says, and he sat up abruptly. He wrapped the purple robe modestly about himself. “Hell,” he says, “you dont have to look at me.” He handed me a cigarette. “Whats your name, pal?”

  I told him my first name.

  Hes annoyed. “
My name is Ed King,” he said precisely. “K-i-n-g. What the hell are people afraid of giving their last names for? . . .” Then almost gently: “Was that your first time on 42nd Street?”

  I told him yes.

  “It aint good,” I heard him say through the sound of the rain. (It reminds me of the showers at the YMCA earlier—except that eventually the rain would stop, but the showers will go on Forever. . . . Crazily Im remembering a Mexican kid song: “Let it rain, let it rain, Virgin of the Cave. . . .”) He moves away, sits on a chair a few feet from me, looking at me. “No,” he repeats, “it aint no good—whattaya wanna hang around the streets for? Youre a nicelooking kid,” he goes on, “not what I would call Handsome,” he says indifferently, “but—umm—youll do—”

  He lost points.

  “—but kinda Sexy, maybe, if you like your type—”

  He gained the lost points, plus a few.

  “—maybe a little new—but Available—” He hurled the last word at me.

  And he lost the points hopelessly.

  “—so, cummon, whattaya wanna hang around the streets for?” he went on. “Go on back Home and marry your girlfriend—you gotta girlfriend?—and raise lots of anottynosed little bastards, and I’ll tell you what: Keepem away from New York—all those fuckin cities—are you from L.A.? No? Keepem away from there too—you look like you could be—I was there once, L.A.—too many creeps for me, though: like a nuthouse. . . . That Pershing Square!—it’s a loony asylum! . . . 42nd Street, thats the lowest, though. All those lights, sure you think theyre Pretty—Im tellinya, listena-me, they aint: It’s bullshit—got the same fuckin lights in New Orleans—are you really from the South? New Orleans maybe—no, you wouldnt be so nervous if you were—12 years old there and youd know Everything: hell, I know a 12-year-old boy there, hustles. But all this shit aint worth knowing, like I say. It was Chicago for me,” he said. He squashes the cigarette into a butt-crammed ashtray; the butts squirm like gutted white worms.

  “You still wanna make the ten bucks?” he asked me abruptly.

  I panic. I think hes lost interest; and I realize uncomfortably how important it is, to me, that he still want me. “Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah!—say yes sir, punk!—aint you got Respect for your elders?—hell, Im twice as old as you are, dont forget that. . . . Greedy bastards—allasame. . . . Well, then, for chrissake, I aint even got a quarter’s worth from you,” he says, coming back to the oed. “Now stop squirming and dont hold it—relax, if youre gonna go along with it—at least pretend you enjoy it—what the hell, I should pay and you act like you dont give a damn?—punks, allasame. I was like you once—you believe it?” he says, “and now look at me, playing the other side of this goddam game. What the hell, pal, people change, remember that, dont forget it for a moment, remember that and dont be so fuckin cocky. Now lay back, close your goddam eyes and stop staring at me like Im a goddam creep—hell, I aint ashamed of nothing. Pretend Im some milkfed chick back in—wherever the hell youre from. . . . Thats it, thats better. . . . Relax. . . . Thats it. . . .”

  Later, he adjusted his robe modestly again, reached for his pants, handed me a $10.00 bill. “Thats what you came for, aint it?—so take it,” he said looking at me very long.

  I take the bill, crush it quickly into my pocket. Suddenly the room is explodingly hot. I want to leave quickly.

  “And say thankyou, cantcha?” he adds, looking away now.

  The roles we have just played for each other seem to materialize harshly now that it’s over.

  “And heres three more bucks for cabfare,” he said. “It’s always goodluck to give cabfare,” he added. “You-wanna-come-back-sometime? . . . Hell, I dont care. I can pick up a different punk any night, see—and no skinny wiseass punk pulls any shit on me, pal, I know judo like the best of em. . . . But youre kinda new, I like that. Available, but kinda new. . . . Take my advice, I know what Im tellinya, go Home and get Married,” he says guiltily, “that streetll swallow you so deep you wont know where you got sucked in, and it wont even throw you up like bad beer, itll digestya—” He gnashed his teeth harshly. “Hell, youll become a part of the 42nd Street army of punks—steeping in movies, cant make it; everybodys had you: the dayll come nobody wants you—then what? . . . Bad scene, bad scene. . . . So you wanna see me again or not? Tellyawot, we’ll have dinner again, wanna have dinner?—how about Friday?”

  “All right-Friday,” I say quickly, I want to get out. Im sure I wont be there.

  “You know where the public library is?” he asked me. “Fifth Avenue and 42nd—here, I’ll write it down so you wont forget. I’ll meet you there on the steps, between the two statues, the two lions—Friday, seven oclock, if you want to—and dont go fuckin around 42nd Street, you got ten bucks—dont be greedy. Is it a date? If you dont show, hell, I’ll know you took my advice: went Home, got married—put down this fuckin life. I’d prefer that, for your sake, pa!—but if you dont take that advice, be there, punk. . . . Shit, I might as well take advantage of you if youre gonna stick anyway—someone else will. . . .”

  The hurricane hadnt come, and it was a cool night, like those Texas winternights when my mother piled coats on us to keep us warm and the heating stove glowed orange at the stomach like a grotesque ironman. . . .

  I did show up. I stand between the statues of the two lions on the steps of the public library.

  Hes disappointed that I didnt dress up. Im wearing a black turtleneck sweater thinking cornily he’ll like it. He didnt. “1 wanted to show you the nightclubs, pal,” he said. “Cant go in that circus outfit—now we’ll have to go where theyll let you in.” Himself, hes carefully dressed, youll notice. He just got a haircut, he smells of cologne. . . . “You shoulda worn a suit,” he said. “Whats the matter?—dont you have any other clothes?”

  Again in his apartment—later (after dinner and an expensive movie during which, at least five times, he asked me if I wanted popcorn)—it was much easier than before. “Youre learning,” he said, “now youll never go back home—” and adds cautiously, “Can I take your picture like that?” I said no. “Suit yourself,” he said aloofly, “no difference to me, Ive had better, you believe it—and bigger.” Then he asked me, coughing between words, if I wanted to move in with him. Not now, I said, maybe later. “Thanks, Ed,” I said.

  “Ed!” he shouted indignantly, although I had called him that all night. “Mister King to you, punk!—respect me a little, cantcha? . . . Hell, if you dont wanna move in, suit yourself But think about it,” he said, “better than the all-night movies, and thats where youll end up—hell, you can sleep on another bed, I’ll get one for you, I wont bother you—expect sometimes, maybe—when I feel like it—I aint no wolf, pal.”

  We agreed to meet again, again between the two lions.

  “I—uh—kinda—like you,” he said hesitantly as Im leaving. “But dont get no ideas,” he added quickly, “theres dozens just like you—all of you even get to look alike—pictures in a fuckedup album. What the hell, I dont give a damn for you or all the others like you, like I toldya: dime a fuckin dozen, no fuckin good. . . . If youre there to meet me, okay. If not, theres someone else around the comer—just as good, maybe better. . . . But be there, punk—between the two lions.”

  3

  In the morning of the day I was to meet him again, I moved out of the Y—away from the never-stopping showers and the fixed looks along the hallways; the doors opening and closing all night.

  And I moved into that building on 34th Street known as The Casbah for its menagerie of Twilight people, and I added to the shadows in one of those thousands of hallways in New York City in immense apartment houses erected in the large American cities before buildings grew tall and skinny rather than short and fat. They squat self-consciously in the midst of slick skyscrapers waiting sullenly to be bought, torn down, replaced: And this one has four cagelike elevators corresponding to each of the building’s wings; moving up and down grudgingly like tired old ladi
es constantly grumbling about their present, unmerited station of life. . . .

  As I stand in the hallway opening the door to the room I had rented, a woman with burningly demented eyes just seems to appear. “Im Gene de Lancey, sweetie,” she said. I live down the hall with my husband—his name’s Steve. And I want you to consider us your Best Friends.” Then she disappeared, leaving behind her the odor of strong perfume and wine. . . .

  At night, on my way to meet Mr. King, I walk through Times Square. And along that street—outside the Italian restaurant featuring squirming spaghetti for 40 a plate; before the racks of magazines with photographs of almost-naked youngmen like an advertisement for this street; along the moviehouses, the subway entrances; along that fourth-of-july colored street: I saw the army of youngmen he knew so well —like photographs in a strange exhibition: slouched invitingly, or moving back and forth restlessly; pretending to be reading the headlines flashing across the Tower—but oblivious, really, of the world those headlines represent (but an integral part of it); concerned only with the frantic needs of Inside—Now!!

  I move on, that cold, autumnal newyork night, and this time the sky was dotted with sad cold stars—and I walk through Bryant Park behind the library, the fallen leaves crunching beneath my feet like spilled popcorn—I walk past the shadows of staring lonesome men along the ledges, suddenly astonishingly real in the instant flickering light of a struck match—then shadows again, faceless—and I get the feeling in the park now that silence is a person listening to Me, watching. . . . I waiked into the library, from 42nd Street, through the echoing halls, toward the Fifth Avenue entrance.