A Manhattan Ghost Story (28 page)

And I heard, just behind me: “You is really a dumb ass, ain’tchoo?”

I nodded, felt my knees begin to quiver, said, “Yes, I am.”

 “Whatchoo doin’ down here anyway?”

“Looking for someone,” I answered, “looking for a woman.” And there was general, easy laughter in the room.

The man behind me said, “Yeah, well, ain’t we all,” paused, went on, “See that phone over there?”

I looked to my left, my right; I saw a phone booth against the wall to the left of the bar; the bartender was looking at me, something close to disgust on his face. “I see the phone,” I said.

“Good. You go on over there, put your dime in, and phone the cops. Go ahead.”

“No. I don’t think I want to do that.”

“But I
want
you to do it,” said the man behind me, and I felt the point of his knife against my lower spine.

I said, “Could you tell me why?”

“Cuz I’m
fair
,” he answered.

I walked the length of the bar, felt several dozen pairs of eyes on me, heard laughter, heard someone—the bartender, I think—cursing under his breath. Several people pushed half-heartedly at me, taking me by surprise—I tilted away from them, nearly fell, which elicited quick laughter. I stopped in front of the phone booth, looked at the bartender, who was looking at me, and said, “You’re going to allow this?”

He looked down at the bar, swiped at it with a white cloth, and shook his head in disbelief. I stepped into the phone booth, searched my pockets, and came up with several quarters, a few pennies, but no dimes. I looked at the man with the knife. It was the first time I’d been able to see his face well. He was in his early twenties, perhaps his late teens, with a broad, flat nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. He wore his hair very short, and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he talked. I asked him if he had a dime.

“I ain’t got no dime,” he said, and he sounded confused. He looked around, at the bartender, at the big man, at the other people near the bar, “Hey, any you gotta dime?”

The big man shook his head. “I ain’t got no dime,” he said, shrugged, went on, “We ain’t none of us got no
dimes
at all!” And he grinned. “But you can use a quarter—the phone company’ll let you use a quarter, and if you ask, they’ll send you the difference in the mail.” Another grin; his teeth were large, white, shiny. “Why don’tchoo use a quarter?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Okay,” and took the receiver off the hook, held it to my ear, put a quarter in. Nothing. I looked at the man with the knife, nodded at the phone. “I don’t think it works.”

He said, “It don’t work?” Another grin. “I thought it worked.” His grin faded. He shrugged. “Guess you can’t call the police, then. Guess you gonna have to come outa there—come on outa there.”

I stepped out of the phone booth; he backed away from me. His knife was pointing at the floor. He held it up, near his face, so the blade was between his eyes, pointing up: “Hey, man, you wanta
see
somethin’?”

I took my wallet out. “No.” I offered him the wallet. My hand was quivering. He looked at the wallet as if confused, “I don’t want your fuckin’ money; I don’t want to buy nothin’; I ain’t in need of buyin’ nothin’. Hey—” He looked around, at the bartender, at the big man. “Hey, any you in needa buyin’ somethin’?” The bartender shook his head; the big man shook his head; all of them—about twenty of them—shook their heads: “No,” they said, nearly in unison, “we ain’t in need a buyin’ nothin’.”

I noticed that nobody at the bar had a drink, that all the bottles on display were empty.

The man with the knife looked back; he grinned, said again—the knife still pointing upward, midway between his eyes—”You wanta see something?” and he pushed the knife hard into his forehead so it was buried to the hilt, and then twisted it, still grinning, right, left, and pulled it out. It was clean. He said, “Never could do that before; can do it now—neat, huh?”

“Jesus,” I breathed.

“Hurts a little, hurts just a little; little twinge, still tied in they tell me, still tied in, can’t help the hurt, still tied in, but it’s kind of a talent, you know, kind of a wild talent, putting the knife in, pulling it out, still hurts, still hurts, a little twinge, not bad, I like it,” and he did it once again, his grin broader now, an almost sexual grin, and I watched, open-mouthed, and the bartender watched, and the big man watched; all of them watched. And when he was done, there was applause in the room, a few cheers, and the big man got off his stool, came over and announced that the thing the man with the knife had done was “kid’s stuff,” that he was going to do something “even better, wait and see,” and he took the knife from the young man (who scowled), pulled his own shirt up, and made a very deep incision in his belly, a square incision six inches wide, reached in and withdrew several feet of gut, which he held up for all to see. “How about
that
!” he said proudly, “How about
that
!” And a woman came over. She was in her twenties, with long, well-coiffed hair, and a hard, much-used look about her: “Gimme that!” she said, and the big man stuffed his intestines back, handed her the knife, tucked his shirt in. She grinned, gouged an eyeball out, popped it into her mouth—

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I breathed.

But they weren’t listening to me. The woman got louder applause than the big man, a few more cheers, so she did the same thing with the other eyeball. And I heard, above the cheers and the applause:

?Aaaaabnnnneeerrr?!”

I stopped breathing for a moment, and looked frantically around the room. There were several women there, ten at least, most of them Phyllis’ age or close to it, and because of the haze and the darkness there, and the background noise, I had trouble locating the source of the voice.

But I did locate it. After a few moments.

She was on the opposite side of the room, in a doorway, under a sign that read LADIES/GENTS. She was naked, and her face was obscured by darkness and smoke; she had her arms extended. I started for her. She stepped back. I yelled, “Phyllis, please, wait—” and ran toward her. She stepped back again. And was gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I met a man on East 82nd Street who was gay and wanted me to spend the night with him. His name was Jerry Swan,
Dr
. Jerry Swan—pediatrician—and he said that he maintained a loft apartment in a former electrical parts warehouse near Second Avenue. I offered him fifty dollars to let me spend the night in the apartment,
sans
sex, and he accepted, certain, I think, that he’d be able to swing me around and have some fun.

I was feeling very bad. I was beginning to doubt where I was exactly, literally in what world I was, and I trusted no one. Which meant that I trusted everyone, of course. Or had no choice but to trust everyone. Even Dr. Jerry Swan, gay pediatrician.

We were going to walk to his apartment. He explained, on the way, that he carried a gun. “You come here without a gun, you’re a goddamned fool!” he said. I conceded, very willingly, that I was a fool. “What
are
you doing down here, anyway?” he went on.

“I’m looking for someone,” I answered.

“Oh? Who?”

“A woman.”

“Too bad.” He grinned. “Maybe I know her. Maybe I can help.”

“No. I don’t think so. She’s a black woman. Her name’s Phyllis.”

He shook his head. “No. Don’t think I know any black women named Phyllis. Sorry. Kind of an odd name for a black woman, though, don’t you think?”

“It’s her name,” I said.

“And she lives around here?”

“I’ve seen her around here. I saw her at Smitty’s.”

He chortled. “Hah, you go to that place and you’re a goddamned fool. Why’d you go in there?”

“I was being chased by a man with a knife,” I answered.

He nodded sagely. He was blonde, though his hair was thinning dramatically, lean, and he walked gracefully, not at all effeminately; his stride betrayed a certain power. “Yes, sir,” he said, “we do get lots of people chasing other people with knives. Unfortunate, but true. Why was he chasing you?”

I thought a moment. “Out of habit, I think.”

“And you say he chased you into Smitty’s?”

“Yes.”

“Bad place, Smitty’s.”

 “Yes, I found out.”

“You go in there, you’re a goddamned fool.”

I was getting a little nervous. We made a turn onto East 83rd Street, headed toward Second Avenue. “Tell me who you are,” I said.

“I told you that,” he said.

“And if I don’t believe you?”

“Your beliefs are no concern of mine, my friend.” He nodded to indicate the end of the street. I looked. There was a large, windowless brick building there. “My place,” He said. “I’ve lived in it for quite some time now. Thirty years now.”

“Thirty years?” I was incredulous. He didn’t look to be much past forty.

“Thirty years. Maybe thirty-five. I don’t know; you lose track. You mark time; you lose track.”

I stopped walking. He went on a few yards, stopped, looked back. “And you want to know what I don’t miss at all? I
don’t
miss those goddamned little kids pissing all over me.”

“Good Christ!” I whispered.

He turned, started walking again. “Don’t miss little kids pissing all over me one tiny bit,” he ranted, “one tiny bit, not one tiny bit, no; you coming there, you! You coming? You’re welcome; show you a good time; you’re welcome at my house—” Which was the last I saw of him because I turned and walked quickly away.

I met an older man dressed in a brown turtleneck sweater and gray slacks on East 85th Street. He called himself Mr. Winchell and he was walking a small dog. He said the dog’s name was Peaches: “After my wife,” he said. “Her name was Peaches.”

I told him that I was looking for a place to eat.

He asked, “What kind of place?”

“Any place,” I answered. We were walking together toward Second Avenue, Peaches trailing behind on a leash. “Anyplace at all,” I went on.

“Do you like Chinese?”

“Not particularly.”

“German? French?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Irish, then? Stewed potatoes, corn bread?”

“Anything.”

“We’re very big on eating.” His voice was getting louder. “We’re so damned
big
on eating; we
love
to eat: we eat Chinese; we eat French; we eat Irish, English, too; we
love
to eat—Italian, Spanish, it’s all the same to us—right Peaches?” He yanked hard on the leash; Peaches whimpered. “We do surely love to eat; we’re very
big
on eating!” He was shouting now, and beginning to gesticulate wildly. It wasn’t doing Peaches any good; he was being yanked this way and that as if he amounted to nothing at all. The man ranted on, “We eat Chinese; we eat French; we eat Japanese—it doesn’t matter to us!” Peaches was now all but flying through the air and squealing in pain at the same time. “Christ,” I said, “you’re hurting that animal!” But he didn’t hear me. I grabbed hold of his arm. It did no good. Wherever his arm went, I went—I was thrown, like Peaches, forward, back, forward again, up several inches, forward.

So I let go of him.

And watched him move off toward Second Avenue that way, yanking his little dog around and ranting about eating Chinese and eating Japanese and eating Irish.

I think that I laughed at him.

I heard “Aaaabnnneerrr!” I turned to my right, looked down a little alley there. I saw Phyllis at the end of the alley, her face obscured, as if she were wearing a kind of yellow veil—and I called to her, “Phyllis, wait for me, please!”

But she didn’t.

Not then.

Serena Hitchcock buzzed me up, but would not let me into her apartment.

“I’m not going to let you in, Abner,” she said. She had opened her door only a few inches; I could see that she was dressed in a blue robe, and I guessed that I had interrupted her in a bath, or in lovemaking. “I don’t even want to talk to you; you make me nervous.”

“I know that, Serena. I’m sorry.”

“And you don’t smell very good. Where have you been?”

I sniffed; I smelled nothing. I supposed that if I did smell bad, I had gotten used to it. I grinned boyishly; I hoped it was charming. “I don’t know where I’ve been, Serena. I need to talk to someone. Anyone. And I thought of you.”

“I’m flattered, Abner.” She clearly wasn’t. “But I am afraid that I have company.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

“Yes. And so you’ll have to go away.”

I shook my head. “I have no place to go, Serena.”

She grimaced. A man’s face appeared above her; it was craggy, with a full, dark gray beard, and intelligent blue eyes. He smiled. “Hello,” he said. “Do you want something?”

“I, uh—” I began, and faltered.

“Money?” he said. “Is that what you’re after?”

“No,” I said. “I have money.”

“Good,” he said, “so do we.” And he pulled Serena back and closed the door.

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Haloween, 1965

Sam stopped working at the last screw on the top hinge and nodded at the plastic bag just outside the circle of candles. “Wanta get me a Mallo Cup there, Abner?”

I went over to the bag, peered inside, saw little, because of the darkness, stuck my hand in. I shrugged. “It’s empty, Sam.”

“The shit it is. I put a half-dozen Mallo Cups in there and I know I didn’t eat all of ‘em.”

I checked the bag again. “You must have, Sam, because the bag is empty.”

“Damnit to hell!”

“They’ll just rot your teeth out anyway, Sam.”

 “Yeah, yeah, you sound like my mother, Abner.” He began working at the last screw again. He’d been working at it for some time, five minutes, at least.

“Probably rusted, huh, Sam?” I suggested.

“Got it,” he said.

“You got it?” I was surprised, apprehensive.

He held the screw up in his fingers. “Got it!” he said again, as if declaring some great victory. He stuck the screw in his pocket, studied the hinges, and the edge of the vault door for a while. Finally, he cursed.

I said, “What’s the matter, Sam?” and went over to him.