A Fairy Tale of New York (13 page)

Walking west under the floodlit canopies. Fat short men following tall slender women in and out. Playground of all the Sourpusses. Paying mints for part interest in a piece of ass. Patted and steered past scrambling doormen. Planted in seats of dining rooms. Like a cherry in the middle of a pie. That everyone wants a slice of. Now head north up Fifth Avenue. More canopies. Into the stacked palaces of the rich. Turn east. Between the shadows of the grey stone town houses. And come to an empty space in the sky. A high board fence around a massive excavation. Little grilled in platform where you can look down and down. Mounds of exploded rock. Strewn mesh blankets of steel. A lonesome steam shovel. Scaffolding down five stories into murky ear splitting darkness. Bed hatted carpenters hammering. Under floodlights. Men bending wire and cutting steel. Huge crane rearing from a truck up into the sky. And a black sign. In the center of which are four large gold letters.

VINE

At another street corner Christian stopping. A blaring stream of cars in a traffic jam. Long black limozine pausing and purring. A grey gentleman sitting four feet away. Deep in his upholstery. Legs crossed with black silk socked ankles. Shirt cuffs closed with golden links. His pale hand offering to his lips an iced martini. Which makes what's left of my own threadbare world crumble. Look up for solace at Fanny Sourpuss's windows. One dimly lit, flanked by pillars, a gabled cornice above. Shade half down. Said she could set me up. Make me a vice president of a corporation. Give me chauffeurs and them plenty of cars to drive. And then I'd sit back. Hardly seen nestled in all the steam. I'd make. Because I'd be. Such hot shit.

Mr Kelly on duty. Said hi Mr Peabody. And as we ascended said long time, no see. Stepping out in the little lobby. Pushing the pearl buzzer and waiting. Mr Kelly before sliding his doors closed says your aunt is in. Since late afternoon. Chauffeur brought her back with stacks of packages from shopping. And Christian again pushing the buzzer. And knocking. Silence inside. Then a creak. On the other side of the door. Stand here unwanted. By everyone. All rushing to new faces. Past the old they already know. And find so handy to step on. I dread to stop to think. What a god forsaken unpleasant struggle life has been.

Christian beating a fist against the white panelling. And shouting. Open up in there Fanny I know you're home. And then her face. Peeking out between the elegant antique chain latches. Looking me up and down.

"You're drunk."

''You 're damn right I am."

"And I 'm busy. Goodbye."

Door closing. Latches clicking. Another anguished incurable moment stamped on my passport. To all whom it may concern. Prevent the bearer from free ass. Deny all lawful aid and grant any hindrance. Even molest if possible. Two knuckles rapidly swelling on my fist. Fanny is in there. Explode her with lust. As a kid I played the most dirty filthy disgusting games. Down cellars. Up alleys and prostrate in vacant lots. Little girls to whom I wagged my prick asking me do you want to see what I have. Always said yes. Out of chivalry.

Cornelius standing back. Aiming. Mid point in the panelling. Many's the deeply moving memory I've lost in distress. Comfort my left wrist with my right hand. Put the least used shoulder through first. Closed the door in my face. After inviting me into all her tempting nooks. Tasting to her delight my ovoid canapes. Washed down with brimming thimble fulls of the juice of generations. I don't squeeze lightly.

Cornelius sailing across the little lobby. By the plastic flowers. Under the white ceiling. The door swings open and Fanny Sourpuss in a gold silk dressing gown stands back. As I go flying in. Right across the hall. Whistling past the door to the living room. Slow enough just to catch a glimpse of Glen in his underpants dragging trousers as he hot foots it towards the kitchen.

"I'll get him. I'll get him."

"You leave him alone Cornelius. You're drunk."

''You 're god damn right I 'm drunk and I 'll kill that Glen.''

''I 'm calling the police.''

"Don't move."

"Now wait a minute Cornelius, what makes you think you have any right to come barging into my apartment like this uninvited."

"I have a right."

"You have like hell."

"I have. And I'm going to get that Glen. Running around here without his clothes. It's a disgrace.''

"Ha ha you should talk."

"What was he doing."

"Just what you do when you come here.''

"You cheap bitch."

"O boy. Wow. That's just terrific. I'm a cheap bitch. For your information I'm an expensive bitch. And to you I'm priceless. That's how you get me so cheap. What happened to your hand."

"None of your business.''

"O boy. I telephone you and you answer like I was something the cat dragged in. Now you come running round here like you own me."

"You 've been away.''

"I was skiing. Don't look at me that way. As if that wasn't all I was doing. Because it sure wasn't. I can have all the guys I want. Anytime I want. And I do. They have a name for me. I'm a nymphomaniac.''

Christian slowly bowing his head. Loosening his fists as he stands. Fanny watching. Two big tears plopping from his eyes. Go smashing down and bouncing right off the tip of my toes. "Where they sink into the carpet.

"O jesus christ Cornelius. What the hell are you doing. 0 jesus. What awful thing are you doing to me. You're the most unpredictable son of a bitch I've ever come across. I can't say anything now to unsay what I said. You just make me angry. So damn angry. Please. Does it mean anything. If I say I'm sorry. What do you expect me to say. We all can't be like you. I'm not sure I want to be either. 0 dear. Please. Will you let me do something. Can I put my arms around you. Please. Just let me do that. I want to so much. And to hold you. Because god I think you need me."

You

Tiny

Little

Man

14

Lying the night next to a body who owns some of the fortune one treads with footsteps on the pavements of this city. Awake to a hammering on pipes. Fanny in tight blue jeans brought me breakfast. The tray laden beneath her naked breasts. Said she had to go to a board meeting. And dressed as I cowered in bed with a hangover quaffing glass after glass of grapefruit juice out of a giant can. Bravely followed by a plateful of long thin strips of bacon, toasted corn muffins, grape jelly and coffee. I crapped dropping it from the stars like an angel. And showered singing in perfumed lathers.

Her worried eyes when Fanny came back at one o'clock. Stood in the doorway in a brown neat suit throwing off her black cape. And veins bluer under her skin. I sat listening to a vesper in the white room, thinking of Europe. And as an ebony black maid came vacuuming Fanny said let's get the hell out of here, it's such a beautiful day.

We lay on the grey beach. Long rolling waves pounding the sand. Seagulls dipping beaks in the foam. Fanny said she hadn't been in a subway for years. And didn't want to go. I said all right don't and walked away up the block. Byes blazing she ran after me. Slammed a charley horse with her hard little fist into my arm. My shoulder slumped with a molar loosening pain. And laughing we went down into the dark roaring interborough rapid transit. Could see her anxious watchful eyes. Darting over the endless people. Fat women bundled in their coats. Old men zipped up in jackets, white socks in crumpled shoes, staring out from their dreams. A rabbi in black holding the hand of a wide eyed little boy. Picture of Miss Subways. Wears the same smile Miss Musk wears. "When she knows I'm staring through her dress at her body beautiful. The sun out. Crossing the islands of Jamaica Bay. The dirt and grime of the train windows. Shacks on the flatland marshes and muddy inlets. Smoke from garbage dumps. And at the last stop, across strange pavements, we headed for the ocean. Down the block between grey empty houses. Walking the boardwalk she held my arm tugging and hugging. Balmy breezes blowing back her hair. Clutched me lying on the sand. Planes landing and taking off from the airport. On the horizon ships. The sun warm. Sea scented air. The ocean crashing its waves. Fanny holding hands, said Cornelius.

"Must be the ass hole of the world out here but this is the loveliest day I've had for years. No matter whatever else happens, I'll always be glad I knew you.''

Lying on the sand till darkness. Her hand gently playing with my friendly front tail. Which made me bark and bite her throat. Howling with sweetest agony. As she moved her blond head down and rolled her lips and tongue in a long lullaby on my flute. My hands up under her cape. Warmed by her juicy overflowing breasts. Out here in the greying darkness along this shore. Under signs which say frozen custard, gift shop, pizza playland and cigars at city prices. As a little boy I feared sharks out there under water. Which tore a boy's white skin into red bloody pieces. Pull down Fanny's drawers. He died with people screaming and running up out of the waves. Pulsing fresh oils between her legs. Soft comfy and warm. Dear god please let me win. Give this apprentice mortician out of a job a chance. Remember the favours I did now. Distributing justice in my youthful backyards to all those lousy neighborhood hypocrites. Who shouted and shook fists at me when I was just a fun loving defenceless kid. Smashed tomatoes on summer screens to spray Friday night bridge players with a measle like decoration. Planned forays with another midnight friend. People with meanness on their faces who were dirty lousy rats sentenced to suffer. Here on earth. Especially on Saturday nights. When wearing three pairs of socks we dug each plant shrub and bush and exchanged the whole god damn lot with the garden next door. Miller's roses growing on Sunday morning in the Duffy's garden. Now Duffy's dahlias blooming their colors along the Miller's borders. As Sunday morning they looked up twice frowning over the edges of their newspapers. Not knowing who the fuck to shake a fist at. Two of them property owners in shirt sleeves, pillars of the community standing hands on hips viewing the situation. As I strolled by their picket fence to church. Later after much shouting and brooding suspicion they both sued each other. Me the mastermind at midnight work. Fanny trying to squeeze every last drop out of my balls. Pick one off like a plum with a snap of her fingers. Blast my white eager gush into her. As she groans up her steps of pleasure. Dark wind blowing above our heads. A chill rising with the tide. An ocean liner's lights ablaze heading for Europe. Sun pink glint'of a plane's wings sweeping over the water, changing pitch of the engines as they go in to land. First time I ever got drunk was out here. Came with a gang of other boys. All the way from the Bronx. Days swimming on the beach and nights groaning with sunburn. On the porch of a bar on One Hundred and Third Street met a black haired dark eyed beauty of a girl. From east side downtown Manhattan. And a policeman later found me reeling along the boardwalk and said it was a disgrace, a kid drunk at his age.

Fanny and I stopped in a corner drug store. With a black and gold glass sign which said Pharmacy. Sat across a plastic topped yellow table. Man in his white coat and brown mustache served us two hot chocolates with a double dose of cream on top. Two cookies each on the side of our saucers. Called us madam and sir in his broken accent and bowed as he handed out two long polished spoons and placed between us a jar of colored straws. Brought a napkin dispenser and said there you are folks, enjoy. Fanny smiling and reaching out her hand over mine with all her diamonds glittering, all her smooth slender wrist loaded with gold. Way out here in lonely Far Rockaway.

Through that unemployed week. I lay in bed each morning. Breakfasting from a silver tray engraved with a large stag. Beading the nice clear print of the Wall Street Journal. The thunderous precious ingots shovelled back and forth. The vast mergers. The silent monster profits. Some of them delivered right to Fanny's door. While I was drinking creamy coffee, slapping bologna and salami slices between butter slathered golden toasted Jewish rye bread. Chewing it down with gusto. And at twelve as I descended, Mr Kelly saying hi Mr Peabody and gave me the day's barometric pressure. Following which, without a trace of innocence, he frequently farted.

"Look at that. Look what they do. They could go and arrest a dozen big gangsters robbing this city blind and instead they come and take away this little guy's living.''

And as four o'clock approached I walked on to the Game Club. Sparred a fistic and verbal round or two with O'Kourke. Getting daily less terrified of seeing Vine. Till one afternoon lying on my back on a bench in the steam. Gestating on all the god damn flood of money flowing through this country's secret conduits that I haven't got a license to fish in. And an attendant came in and said Mr Christian there's a very important letter waiting for you out at the front desk. I thought the committee for membership had convened to take a vote of confidence to throw me out. For moral meanderings and tricky Far Bockaway turpitudes. Seen windswept and blown on a beach. Socking it into the said Fanny Sourpuss.

The long white envelope was passed over the marble counter. In this evening's lobby sprinkled with elderly yachting gentlemen. Went to a green leather chair behind a pillar. To tear it open and read. Scrawled in a tiny neat hand.

My dear Cornelius,

I quite understand your hesitancy in not showing your face around the old branch. I know that in the past there have been a few uncommendable slip ups but although you don't deserve any medals for discretion, your last delinquency wasn't all your fault. I consider myself as much to blame as anybody. I have tried without success to get in touch with you at your address and hope this finds you. I want you to come and see me. I'll be at my west side branch every day from ten a.m. till one p.m. Do that for me.

Yours most sincerely,

Clarance Vine

p.s. I hereby cancel your remaining debt to me of $243.21.

C.V.

Woke one night. During a dream that Vine was running an airborne burial service. With a hearse plane, flower plane and planes carrying the mourners to an airport surrounded by a cemetery. Fanny's bedside lamp on. She lay face up, her head cushioned by the billowy pillow. Could just see over the edges of mine. Her eyes staring at the ceiling out of their pools of moisture overflowing down her cheeks. Reach for her arm to ask what was the matter. And I didn't. For fear I'd touch something untouchable deep in her secret pool of sorrow. A look on her face. That something was running away she couldn't catch. Yesterday I saw people who knew her, waving as they left the oak panelled room where Fanny and I met for a drink after I waltzed down from the club. They kept smilingly shaking their arms and she looked straight through them.

Took Fanny on a trip north out of Grand Central Station. Clutching each other in the tiny little world abuilding we made out of our lives. Said why don't we just go and get on any train. After I have a pee. Went up steps into the great pissoir. Chose one of the marble latrines. Where three gents were standing wild eyed side by side, feverishly pulling their stiff white pricks. Told Fanny on the train. When I'd recovered from my shock. Said she wished she could see. Her dream was to be fucked in her three throats, top bottom and back, by three pricks while holding two more, one in each hand. Gave her a religious feeling she was being crucified. And made me wretched with jealousy all the way to Mount Kisco. Walked around town. Then cross country. Relieved I never saw four guys. But everyone staring as they sped past on the road. Showed her the white clapboard house where my little brother and I had been sent in the summers. The lake we swam in and belted poor bulging eyed bull frogs over the head with canoe paddles as they sat grunting peacefully in the water. Always watch out where you sit sunning.

On the way back to town police stopped to arrest us as vagrants. Fanny flashed sixteen one hundred dollar bills. And they arrested us as crooks. Three phone calls later locating Fanny's lawyer they apologised and let us go, said someone heard my accent and was suspicious I was a spy.

The big train thundering back towards the city, it began to rain. Saw a face I knew from the Bronx as a boy. Just clipped our tickets as if he'd never seen me before. An only child to whom his parents gave everything. Even his false teeth to replace those I knocked out in a fight. Watched him go down the aisle and back into the past, in his blue conductor's uniform. His mother and father pampering him as a princeling. The world later on casually slamming him in the balls.

Fanny bought me a pair of rat skin gloves. And she knelt nights in an array of jewels and gowns by the side of her round tiny dining room table. As I tore into rare thick steaks and defenceless mounds of creamed spinach. Running lower and lower in cash. Getting higher and higher up Fanny. Our bodies clapping together on the bed. In sweaty crescendoes. Through musical interludes over the radio. My own naked recitals I gave at the piano. Fanny blowing me through a slow movement to an incredible tune my fingers played. Soft or hard it seemed my cock was hardly ever out of her mouth. Unless it was in her somewhere else. And the sudden midnight arrest we watched of the murderess across the street. Who shot her lover seven times down the spine. Red lights flashing, blue uniforms disappearing into the building. Ambulances and squad cars taking everybody away. And before we went to sleep, the murderess was free on bail. Returning triumphantly in her giant chauffeured limozine.

Now this morning Fanny tightening my tie said my poor little baby wear your gloves and let Glen take you over to Vine, I insist. Please Cornelius, it will make you feel so much better getting out of a chauffeured car. And I walked. Flashing my shoeshine. Gloriously stubborn to the last. Approaching this elaborate yellowed brick emporium. Five stories high. Bay trees in big barrels at the entrance. Brown carpeted lobby. Not a sign of green anywhere. Man with a pince nez and waxed twirled mustache asks can I help you.

''Yes, I've come to see Mr Vine."

''He's busy right now. Your name please.''

"Cornelius Christian.''

"O. In that case, Mr Christian I think Mr Vine would like to know you're here. I've heard a lot about you. Nice to meet you. My name is Nathaniel Hardwicke. Excuse me please, won't you. Please, do be seated. And here, have something to read if you like."

Wow. That guy could bury you with both hands tied behind his back. Striped trousers and cutaway coat. Almost joins his hands in prayer as he speaks. Soft calming words. Calling you hither. Makes you feel apologetic for being alive.

Mr Hardwicke bowing Christian into an elevator. Up two floors. Past a nodding smiling girl with, my god, another of Vine's drum majorette trophies on her desk. Turn right down a corridor lined with photographs of celebrity funerals. Into an ante room full of evergreens. A heavy panelled door marked private. Which Nathaniel opens. Into a large room. Clarance seated behind a massive mahogany crescent desk. Immaculate and dark suited as always. Facing out from a corner flanked by two windows. Three gentlemen with big cigars, seated before him. One a baby faced enormity swelling out of his chair. One shadowily familiar with a bandaged jaw and head, gravel voiced in sun glasses and three feet wide. Another hawk nosed and four feet wide.