Tales From Cushman Row

by Suanne Laqueur

  Copyright © 2017 by Suanne Laqueur

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Suanne Laqueur/Cathedral Rock Press

  Somers, New York

  www.suannelaqueurwrites.com

  Cover Design by Tracy Kopsachilis

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  This book depicts situations involving consenting adults having consensual adult sex using adult language. Reader discretion advised. Batteries not included.

  No ponies, larks, finches, centaurs or Pegasi were harmed during the making of this book.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Tales from Cushman Row

  God’s Sister

  The Mindful Horndog

  The Bottom

  Smug

  The Role Loneliness Played

  Shrinks & Kinks

  What About My Asshole?

  Confused Desire

  A Little Spring

  Come Here, You Moron

  Into the Softness

  Blood

  Water Play

  Some Beautiful Day

  Kind of Loving You

  I Can’t Even Do But Want

  Tell Me

  One For the Road

  Babbling in That Weird Language

  I Was Five When You Were Born

  We Wants It

  Room Service

  Three-Input

  Barbed Wire

  You’ve Been Here Before

  The Advocate’s Cape

  His Father’s Arm

  Exactly What I Wanted

  Harris Tweed

  Watching the Birds Move

  Words Matter

  Three Things

  Stones

  Thank You

  About The Author

  Also by Suanne Laqueur

  Introduction

  These are scenes and scribbles either cut from the final draft of A Charm of Finches, or written with no intent of ever being in the final draft. They were just written.

  There is no arc or chronology to this collection. It’s not a story and not supposed to be. The scenes will contradict each other. Sometimes they’ll repeat. A lot of it is going straight from the notebook to the page here. It’s my weird head and The Thing.

  There’s a lot of sex in here. In fact, it’s mostly sex. Frankly, friends, full disclosure and trigger warning: this is a fuckfest. It gets pretty raw and not that you need my advice, but I wouldn’t plow through it in one sitting. If you do, I suggest you have a good cleansing read lined up afterward. Like Nietzsche.

  Writing all this sex served a certain purpose. Two purposes.

  Purpose One: When I started to write Finches, before the character of Geno was created, I wanted to get Jav laid. Spectacularly laid. He deserved it. It was time to let him figure out who he was, emotionally and sexually. And I wanted to see what kind of game this new guy Steffen Finch had. Was he the transitional person or was he The One? And furthermore (I start too many sentences with ‘and’), could I write honest and believable gay sex?

  So I poured a glass of wine and opened a new word doc. Cracked my knuckles, cleared my throat and ventured in. Don’t think about it being two men, I thought. Think about it being two humans. It’s not gay sex, it’s just sex. This is Jav. You know Jav better than anyone else on earth. Whatever Stef turns out to be, just make him good for Jav at this point in time. Tell the story.

  For the next two months, I drank and told the story. Stories. Yeah, I could write this. In fact, I couldn’t stop writing it. It was time to get on with the book, but…

  “These two won’t stop screwing,” I complained to my friend Camille. “I’m literally drinking wine and writing them in bed every goddamn day. It’s like my new hobby.”

  Writing Jav and Stef fooling around, messing around, screwing, shtupping, carrying on and making love was a piece of layer cake. It was ten kinds of fun. It got kind of worrisome. Was there going to be an eventual book or was it going to be just a boozy fuck-ton of gratuitous boning?

  In hindsight, I can say that all this fooling around, used or not, was necessary to not only establish Jav and Stef’s relationship, but to give me a solid foundation to stand on. I needed the passionate tenacity of their love to fall back on as I started researching for Geno’s story.

  Which brings me to Purpose Two.

  There’s always a post-partum collapse after a book is released. After five books, I expected it. I knew it was coming. But after Finches, I was a wreck. After putting this challenging and important story into the world, I was completely, totally, utterly wiped out and exhausted and drained. The tank so empty, it didn’t even have fumes. Elizabeth Gilbert says the only thing to do after a triumph or a flop is to go back “home,” wherever it may be. So I did. I went back to where Finches started, and I wrote Jav and Stef scenes until I felt better. Their love grounded me again. Brought me back to center. Brought me home.

  Which is the most important job I have.

  —SLQR

  November 14, 2017

  Somers, New York

  Tales from Cushman Row

  God’s Sister

  Typical. I busted my butt on this NPR transcript and then ended up cutting it from the final draft of Finches. I know I’ve said this before but poor Camberley Jones. I have the best intentions of making her a lead character, but in the end, it’s only her voice I need. But it’s the kind of voice that builds an empire. —SLQR

  “Tell Me a Story”

  Transcript from the National Public Radio series, Moments in Time

  Karen Stark: You’re listening to Moments in Time. I’m Karen Stark, thanks for joining us.

  Author Gil Rafael is best-known for the short story “Bald,” which was made into the critically-acclaimed movie in 2004, starring Kristin Scott Thomas. He’s since published a collection of short stories and a novella, as well as being a regular contributor to GQ, Esquire and the New Yorker. His first full-length novel is being released this September. It’s called The Trade and tells the story of a young woman who works in the World Trade Center on the eve of 9/11. While the terrorist attacks make a tragic end for thousands, it allows this one woman an opportunity to escape her abusive marriage and create a new life.

  Producer Camberley Jones met up with Gil Rafael on his home turf of Manhattan, where he’s working on his next book. Or rather, he was working on his next book, but the research has taken him on an interesting and personal journey.

  [Sound: Exterior, street scene, cars, voices]

  Camberley Jones: Author Gil Rafael is doing field research in the Latino neighborhoods of New York City. He’s collecting stories. Latin American folktales. Rather than read them, he wants to listen to them, straight from the elders of these ethnic enclaves.

  Today he’s in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, which has one of the highest concentrations of Mexican immigrants in the city. He’s made no appointments nor scheduled meetings. He simply walks the neighborhood streets, looking for oral traditions on the stoops and corners.

  Gil Rafael: It used to be that wakes were principal occasions for storytelling. When extended family gathered to mourn and you sat up with the dearly departed. When their grief took a rest, people would tell stories. Other times these tales would be told after dinner or at the mar
ket. Or during work breaks on large plantations.

  So I come to these neighborhoods looking out for the senior immigrants. People who would remember these storytelling occasions. The abuelos and abuelas on the steps or the porches. I just start walking and start looking. I always find someone and I’m always touched by how willing they are to talk to me.

  Jones: Gil approaches a silver-haired lady sitting on a stoop of a duplex on 47th Street.

  Rafael: Buenas dias, señora

  Unidentified woman: Buenas dias, niño.

  Rafael: Me llamo Javier…

  Jones: Gil Rafael is a pen name. He introduces himself with his real name, Javier Rafael Gil deSoto. He’s first-generation Dominican-American, his parents immigrated in the early sixties. He grew up in the Corona section of Queens before moving to the larger, established Dominican neighborhood of Inwood, at the tip of Manhattan.

  The woman’s name is Inez and she’s eighty-four. After she was widowed in 1990, she came to the states from Mexico to live with her daughter. Gil asks if she knows any stories. Folktales or legends from her childhood.

  Rafael: ¿Conocen alguna historias?

  Inez: ¿De historias, niño? ¿Qué tipo de historias?

  Rafael: Un cuento popular. Una vieja leyenda. De tu infancia.

  Inez: Oh, sí, sí, sí. Por supuesto. Siéntate, querido.

  Jones: She invites Gil to sit on the stoop, noble as a queen granting an audience. Other family members come out to listen as well. Her tale starts out as a well-known Christmas story, but then takes a surprising turn.

  Inez (In Spanish): When Jesus was born, three kings came to visit him and adore him. One was an American, the other was a Mexican, the last was an Indian.

  When they arrived, all three knelt and worshipped the child, then each gave a present. The American king gave money. The Mexican king gave Jesus some swaddling clothes. And the Indian king, who was very poor, had nothing to give, so he danced before Jesus.

  Jesus told them he would grant each a gift and asked what they wanted.

  The American king said he wanted to be smart and have power. And Jesus granted his wish. For that reason Americans are powerful.

  The Mexican King said he wished to believe in the saints and pray. And for that reason Mexicans believe in the saints and pray.

  Then Jesus asked the Indian king what he wanted, and the Indian king said he was very poor and humble and would take whatever Jesus would give. So Jesus gave him seeds of corn and wheat and melons and other fruits. And that’s why Indians have to work always to live.

  [Laughter, spoken Spanish]

  Rafael: You can see how Latino folklore blends Old World and New World. Medieval and ancient story types that came with the Spanish conquest were re-framed within Native American narratives. The result was a new mixed lore of European and native heritage. All these new tales are heavy with religious imagery and influence. You’ll hear God and the Virgin and saints and angels mixed up with more native or pagan-sounding characters.

  Jones: A middle-aged man called Mariano speaks up.

  Mariano: When I was a young kid, my grandmother and my aunts told a story. A creation story, like Genesis. But it had one part that always bothered me. So the story goes like this:

  “The true God took up one ounce of earth and began to work it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked God’s sister.

  God answered, ‘Something you might not know more about than I.’”

  And I’d stop my grandmother right there, saying “Wait, abuela. Wait, wait. God’s sister? God has a sister?”

  [Laughter]

  Mariano: I couldn’t let it go. “What do you mean, God’s sister? That’s not in the bible. Who is she? What happened to her? Where did she go?”

  Rafael: What did they say?

  Mariano: They wouldn’t tell me. “Never mind, never mind, it’s not important, it’s just an expression.” But I minded. You know? If God had a sister, well… That must have come from somewhere, right? It must’ve been a native influence or something. A sneaky way to remember an old goddess.

  Jones: Gil Rafael’s been collecting stories for weeks now and plans to write a compilation of Latino folklore.

  Rafael: I didn’t choose this project, it kind of chose me. I was starting to write a fantasy-adventure story I’d been kicking around for about five years. I had a bunch of characters in my head and a bare bones plot. Then I realized I had to build a world for them to exist in. And a world needs gods. Or goddesses. It needs its legends and myths and heroes and villains. So I started researching mythical archetypes and it got me wondering about my own heritage. I didn’t know any Dominican folktales. Or at least, if I’d even been told them, I’d forgotten.

  So I like to eat breakfast at this one restaurant up in Inwood. Big Dominican neighborhood. I’ve been eating there for years and they know me pretty well. The owner’s mother is there sometimes, she’s in her late seventies, maybe. One day I tell her what I’m doing and ask if she knows any Dominican legends or old stories. Her eyes light up and she laughs, and she tells me about Don Dinero and Doña Fortuna. Mr. Money and Mrs. Fortune, arguing about who was more important.

  What struck me, besides it being a good story, was the effect the telling had on some of the other patrons in the restaurant. Like the place got hushed and people turned in their chairs and booths to listen. A lot of them nodding, like they knew the story. Oh yes. This is true. And at the end, some of them recited the last line as if it were a response to a prayer in church, “Without good fortune, money is nothing.”

  All at once I had this fire in my belly to hear more. But I didn’t want to read them, I wanted to hear them. Listen to them being told in their natural habitat, so to speak.

  That’s the funny thing about being a writer. Or any kind of artist, I guess. Sometimes an idea comes to you and it patiently waits its turn. Other times, it’s like a cat lying across your keyboard, demanding attention right now or it will make your life hell. I’ve learned not to fight with the muse. I never win. So I closed up the adventure story and started hitting the streets. It seems to be what I’m supposed to be doing because it’s opening up gates in my mind and giving me a lot of other ideas.

  It’s also satisfying in a soulful kind of way. It’s giving my heritage back to me. I left home when I was seventeen and became estranged from my people. My parents are both gone now, and my sister as well. I just have one nephew. Him and I are the last Gil deSotos. He knows less than I do about these legends, so it’s not only interesting work to me, it feels like important work as well. It means something.

  Jones: I spent four days following Gil Rafael from neighborhood to neighborhood. Jackson Heights, which is home to Argentineans, Columbians and Uruguayans. Corona, which has moved from being a Dominican neighborhood to a largely Ecuadorian one. From the Salvadorian enclave in Flushing to the Hondurans in the Bronx, to the Puerto Ricans in Bushwick, Spanish Harlem and Loisaida, Gil finds the abuelas and asks…

  Rafael: ¿Cuéntame una historia?

  Jones: Sometimes he takes notes. Mostly he sits and listens.

  Rafael: It’s more polite. But also, I like to take in the whole story and then see what sticks in my head. Usually whatever lingers around in my mind is the thing I want. Then I have to quick write it down or it will dance off looking for another storyteller. I hate when that happens.

  Jones: Gil takes out his notebook, its pages filled with scribblings.

  Rafael: This book is my life. Okay, so here’s a thing that stayed with me after hearing some of the Mexican stories. “One day a poor man who had no ears, no thumbs and no big toes.” I could totally make a character from that. Oh, and this. “It was the chocolate hour.” I mean, that’s one you hear twice. First time, oh. Second time, oh.

  Jones: The chocolate hour.

  Rafael: Wouldn’t that be a great book title? Anyway, I noticed how nearly all legends and tales begin with the word “once.” As if it n
ever happened before the telling or since. A lot of the stories end with death or a wedding. Problems are solved quickly and justice is swift and immediate. He killed the man and all was well.

  Jones: And then it was the chocolate hour.

  Rafael (laughing): Exactly. Funny, but a lot of times, the unlikable guy ends up winning. The tales don’t always leave you satisfied. They’re often unfair. But always they have a little saying at the end, like a curtain call for the teller. They’re all so similar, I started writing them down. Here. Mexico: “This tale will last if it’s true. If it’s just a tale, it’s through.”

  Bolivia: “That’s the story. There’s no more.”

  Costa Rica: “And I? I went in one end and came out the other so you, my friends, could tell me another.”

  Panama: “My tale goes only to here. It ends, and the wind carries it off.”

  Chile: “Here ends my story, and the wind carries it out to sea.”

  Now here’s something you hear both at the beginning and end of Latin American stories: “Listen and learn it, learn to tell it, and tell it to teach it.” I love that. It just beautifully describes the work I’m doing right now. Listen to learn. Learn to tell. Tell to teach.

  Jones: Gil Rafael’s novel The Trade comes out in September and you can read an excerpt on our website, along with another Latin American folktale he collected from the immigrant neighborhoods.

  For Moments in Time, this is Camberley Jones in New York City.

  The Mindful Horndog

  From reading my books, you may have figured out I don’t really like to write about conflict within a relationship. I like to write about strong, loving relationships in the face of conflict.

  So Jav and Stef had this adorable meeting in Guelisten. I wrote the drive back to New York and it was easy and fun, the chemistry was great. Excellent. Everything is going to plan.

  The Thing looked up from filing its nails. You should throw a wrench in it.

  “Now?” I said.