Authors: Joshua Braff
“Yup.”
“For a porn flick?”
“He's really excited.”
Last year Leo decided to make his first porn film. Tiki and a guy named Stew having sex on an empty N train. It became something of a local hit at the Imperial. He's made twelve or so more in recent months and now wears a beret when he shoots and yells “Action!” at the top of his lungs.
“He can't just use a mattress?”
“David?” says a soft voice behind me. She's wearing large, white sunglasses and a brown suede skirt. It's relief I feel mostâto see her face, to see her dressed. I smile and my bruised skin stretches and aches.
“I'm really happy you're here,” I say.
She reaches to touch my face, her eyes focusing on my mouth.
“Jocko, this is Sarah.”
He offers his hand.
“
REDUCED TO CHOPPED MEAT BY SMUT PEDDLERS AND PIMPS
.”
“He hit you,” she says.
“No, no.”
“You David's girlfriend?” Jocko says.
She smiles at me. “No.”
“Cuz he really needs one. We all tell him.”
“Let's take a walk,” I say.
Jocko pats me on the back with his tongue out and Sarah and I cross the street. “I heard you at the door,” she says. “I saw him hit you. I came out right after but you were gone.”
“We don't have to talk about that.”
“I know. You must have a lot of questions.”
“You left your family?”
She nods. “My mother talks to me. Listen, it's a long, fucked-up story.”
We look at each other and she's embarrassed.
“It's not safe, Sarah.”
“I've never felt unsafe.”
“I don't believe you.”
“I haven't.”
“Maybe you should try typing,” I say, and her lips harden, a little shocked. “Or how aboutâ?”
“It's good enough for you.”
“I never said that.”
“I don't need your advice or your opinion of me, David. I live alone now. Okay? All I do is stand there, nothing else . . . and they pay me.”
“Just stand there?”
“Stand there.”
“Nude.”
“Big deal. It's not like I'mâ”
“It's a long way from yeshiva.”
“I didn't come here for a lecture.”
“Okay.”
“I came here to tell you about your sister.”
Our eyes meet and she starts to smile.
“Where is she?”
“How long has it been since you've seen her?”
“Too long. Where is she?”
Over Sarah's shoulder I see Tiki's head pop out of the theater entrance. She's looking for someone.
“Brooklyn,” says Sarah.
Holy mother of things large and small. There is no sound as my mind absorbs these words. Under my noseâall this time.
“I wasn't sure if I should tell you.”
“She called you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last week. She's getting married.”
Thump, thump, thump, goes the heartbeat in my lip. Married. Right, good, seventeen years old. Perfect. Hasn't been permitted to be alone with a boy in her whole life. Of course married, wonderful,
mazel tov
, a wedding to someone bearded and smelly, like the butcher in
Fiddler on the Roof
. A singing man with a bloody apron and Theodore Bickel's face.
Od Yishama B'arai Yehuda U'vchutzos
. Let it speedily be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of my sister being forced to screw through a penis-sized hole in a sheet.
“You're upset.”
“I need to see her,” I say.
“She's in Kingsford, at her stepfather's apartment. Avram.”
“Do you have an address?”
“David!” Tiki yells, finally spotting me. “Thank God. Come here,
quick
. It's your dad.”
“What happened?”
“I don't know.”
I run across the street and inside, where Brandi's in the lobby, teary eyed and shaken.
“Is he okay?”
“He just slapped Ira in the face.
Help
me.”
“Slapped him?”
“Ira came into the office and started screaming. The next thing I see is your father's hand against his face. He's lost it this time.”
“Where is he now?”
“He's up there,” she says, pointing at the ceiling.
I bolt past the bar and the stage where an afternoon bachelor party is under way. My father and Ira are coming down the stairs.
“Dad!”
He faces me with fury in his eyes. “David, Get this fuckin' ass wipe away from me before I rip his throat out!”
“Hold on,” I say. “Talk to me.”
Ira's left eye is bruised. “I'm calling the cops,” he growls.
“This motherfucker booked a gang bang. Ira booked a gang bang in
my
theater.”
“It's a business move!” Ira says. “And it's my goddamn theater too.”
“Just like the movies, Ira? Is that a business move too, or do you just want to see my wife getting
shtupped
on a cherry picker? Huh? Which is it?”
“That was
her
decision, Arbus! She's a grown woman. And she's not your wife until you marry her!”
“Where the hell are the fuck films of
your
wife, Ira, gettin' banged like a rag doll? I want to see those, I'll buy all of 'em without telling you so we can run 'em on every screen we got. Sound good, ya schmuck?”
“You act like
I
fucked her. They're old movies, Marty. It was
her
idea, anyways! How many goddamn times do I have to say it?”
My father walks right up to him again, his right fist clenched. Then Brandi appears and gets between them. “No more fighting!”
“C'mon, Dad,” I say, but when I touch his shoulder he jolts away, glaring at Ira.
“Did you just say
you
fucked her?” he says.
“
No
, Martin, listen for a change. I said you're
acting
like I fucked her.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not!”
“Did you?”
“I hate you, Marty,” Brandi says. “I've had enough.”
My father looks at me. “He just went and bought the films. Is that a scumbag or is that a scumbag? What else don't I know about these two?”
“I gave Ira permission,” Brandi says.
“And why didn't you ask
me
, Arlene? Why ask this putz?”
“They're
classics
!” Ira screams. “It's a business move. It was twenty years ago for Christ's sake!”
“You're both lying to my face.”
“Forget it,” Ira says, “Just keep booking burlesque acts, Marty. I'm finished!”
My father's arms raise and he brings his fist down on his own leg. “Tell me right now if you fucked my girlfriend, Ira.”
Ira waves his hand at him in disgust. “Go kill yourself, Martin. I'm tired of your bullshit! I'm a married man who's trying to make a buck for his family so go back to 1940 with your dear old dad and book all the crap acts you can find.”
It's a knee-jerk thing, the leaping across Brandi and smashing Ira's face with his elbow.
“
Auuugh!
” Ira screams, holding his nose as his knees buckle.
“Jesus Christ,” says Brandi, taking off her heels before kneeling to Ira. My father glares at the two of them before running away.
“Dad!” I'm chasing after him now. Sarah's with Jocko when I get downstairs. We all watch my father climb up on the stage. Tiki's got a bachelor on her lap, who's wearing nothing but his striped boxer briefs. “Jocko, call Leo,” I yell.
“He's picking up the phone booth, remember? Why's your dad on stage?”
“Cut it off, cut the music off!” my father screams, waving
up at the sound booth. The music lowers and eventually stops. “Get off,” he orders Tiki and the bachelor. “We're closing early. Get the fuck off my stage!”
Tiki runs off but the drunken bachelor puts his arm around my father. My dad shoves the guy away and he comes back for more.
“Get the hell away from me,” my father barks.
“What are you doing to my party?”
“Look at you, you stupid pig. Pigs!” he says. “Look at all the pigs. Go home to your ugly mothers you pigs! Look at you.
You, you . . . you, you
. You'd all fuck
mud
! Horny scumbags!”
Brandi walks on stage and whispers something into my father's ear.
“Show us your cans!”
“Without further ado,” Sal announces through the speakers, “over a hundred films and over a million rock hard fans and appearing in booths in constant loop downstairs in booths three, eight, and twelve, let's have a warm Imperial welcome for Las Vegas's own Ms. Veronica Saint
Jaaaames
!”
Veronica walks out, frightened, her eyes wide. She drops to her knees, bowing to my father, and Brandi leads him off the stage.
“What is wrong with you?” Brandi chastises him, but he's gone again, up the stairs.
“Let him cool off,” she tells me. I follow him up there anyway, though, and watch him enter the empty peep
chamber. I try to open the employee door in the back. It's locked so I go around and into one of the peep booths. It smells like B.O. and cleanser but the floor is dry. A miracle. As I put a token in the slot, the shade slowly lifts and there he is with his head in his hands, sitting on the pink circular mattress in the center of the room. He doesn't look up when I knock on the Plexiglas.
“Dad?” When he finally sees me I try to smile. “Unlock the door.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No!”
The hair on his head is pure white and matted to his scalp. He rubs his temples with fingertips, shakes his head. “I'm done,” he says. “I did it and now I'm done.”
It's silent as we both hear the bassy thump from downstairs. The sound of applause and whistles for Veronica.
“Will you let me in?” I say.
“Where were you?” he says, looking up at me through the Plexi. He can't see me. “I was outside.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to someone.”
“Well I needed you.”
“I have news, Dad.”
“And I couldn't find you. When I need you I want you here. How am I supposed to find you if I need you?”
“I didn't know you needed me.”
He nods, concedes, and we're silent for a while.
“Debra's back.”
The shade starts to drop and I root around for more tokens. I only have one and I put it in the slot. There's my father, staring at me as the shade rises.
“She called?” he says.
“No. Sarah is downstairs. Remember Sarah?”
“No.”
“Atlantic City. The rabbi's daughter. She knows where Debra is.”
He lowers his head into his hands.
“Let's go together,” I say. “We'll ring the doorbell.”
“You still don't get it. I love her, she's my daughter, but she's been taught to hate me. Don't you get it?”
“She's getting married.”
“Married?”
“I know.” The shade drops again. “I'm out of tokens.”
“She's sixteen years old.”
“Seventeen, Dad. Her birthday wasâ”
There's a knock on the employee door. Then another. “Open the door,” Brandi says. “Marty! Open this door.”
“Talk to her,” I say through the shade. “Just talk to her, Dad.”
I don't hear anything and then he coughs. Brandi knocks again and I lean against the wall of the booth, just waiting for him to come out. The audience below us is loud for a minute and when it fades we're left with the music: “Lay down and boogie and play that funky music till you die.”
“Is she gone?” he asks.
“Go talk to her.”
“You love me,” I hear my father say. “That's why you're in there. Because you love me.”
My old man. He never says things like this. “I do.”
“I deserved to lose her, ya know. We were both selfish parents.”
“You didn't lose anything. She's in New York. Can we talk outside? So I can see you.”
I hear him rise from the mattress and follow the sound of his footsteps. I meet him at the employee door. We pass the office and the dressing rooms without either of us being seen, then head down the stairs and through the theater, where the stage is empty but the bachelor party is in full swing. When we get to the lobby, Brandi and Ira are there. No Sarah.
“Did you see a girl?” I say.
“Instead of my calling the cops,” says Ira, “Why don't you just pay for my X-rays out of pocket. I take cash.”
“You're fine,” my father grumbles.
“I'm not here for your morality, you cocksucker. I'm here because this is my business. Gang bangs make money all over the place, not just on the strip. Okay? Burlesque? Comedy? Willy Fuckin' Sapley? Are you kidding me? They don't bring in shit and never will again. I don't commute from Long Island every goddamn day to make friends. I'm here to pay my bills, Martin. Go live in West Palm Beach if it's too hot for you, pal. Because it's only gonna get hotter from here on in.”
My father says nothing, just looks up at Brandi.
“Accusing me of adultery when I have a wife and children is pretty fucked up, Martin. You think after all these years I could think of such a thing.” He laughs and looks up at Brandi, a full foot taller than him. “Okay . . . I'm not saying I haven't thought about it.”
Brandi rolls her eyes and my father clenches his jaw, his teeth. He tries to calm himself by walking to the front window.
“I'm kidding, I'm kidding.”
“He's kidding, Dad,” I say, suddenly glimpsing Sarah outside. “Look. That's her. From Atlantic City, remember?”