In the City of Shy Hunters Read online

  Eleven years old, Rose said. Roosevelt Washington King, Rose said, Rolled up the window all the way into the felt slot, my father’s face pushing against the window. One cop took his gun and hit Elijah King upside the head, then my pa down and the cops kicking him.

  Not a sound, only the blows to my father, the cops’ nigger-nigger-nigger, and the breath going out of my father.

  Inside the car, from Mama not a sound, not a word, only the horrific whisper, the admonition to us her children in the backseat of the ’49 Buick Special to hush, eat your ice cream, don’t make one peep, keep your eyes on the floor, keep your mouths closed no matter what.

  I never said a word, Rose said, But I did not look at the floor. I looked out the window, watched my father, Elijah King, watched Elijah King’s face while the cops broke his ribs and busted his nose.

  It was the blood on the whitewall, Rose said, Father’s blood on the whitewall tire and the chrome Buick hubcap. The bloodstain on the whitewall when we got home that never scrubbed off for good. The blood there on the whitewall was the moment, Rose said, The moment that after, life and living was different.

  * * *

  SARAH VAUGHAN WAS singing “Slow Boat to China.” After Sarah Vaughan, the jukebox would go through Etta James, “At Last,” Chuck Mangione’s “Children of the Sanchez,” and Aretha singing “Drinking Again.”

  Fish Bar sounded like dogs barking. That night at Fish Bar when Rose stopped talking, all around us, dogs barking.

  Rose went to pee; we ordered more drinks around. When Rose got back, I rolled cigarettes with one hand like I can, lit each cigarette. Fiona sat back, put her leg over my leg. Rose wiped the sweat off his shiny head with the Fish Bar cocktail napkin from under True Shot’s soda and lime.

  True Shot. Extra lovely urban Injun, Spirit Schlepper, AA. True Shot at the table, drinking his soda and lime same as ever. A silver ring on every finger, even his thumbs, the red bandanna around his head, his hair tied back in a bun, the way I like it. The blue-beaded horizontal and the intersecting beaded-red vertical buckskin bag hanging on the strand of buckskin around his neck. Designer mirror sunglasses.

  True Shot put his index with the silver ring onto the bridge of his mirrors. All his rings catching the green and amber light. The light of the flame in the red candleholder. Then True Shot moved his hand down to his neck, put his palm against the buckskin bag.

  The moment that after you’re different.

  It is this way, True Shot said, Let me tell you a story.

  It never failed. Whenever True Shot started out with It is this way, the drums and the rattles always started going in my mind. Like he’d brought his own sound track with him.

  You may tell of power, True Shot said, And how power is received only when you are on the battlefield, only when approaching the enemy ready to fight for life, only then are things told—what power has been given, what power you must use. It is at such a time that power, previously hidden, enters you.

  It is this way, True Shot said. It was a time of fasting. I call it fasting, True Shot said, But really I was out of frog hides. Flat broke.

  One morning I woke up, True Shot said, Put my clothes on, walked out my apartment door, and just started walking. At Washington Square, I started walking up Fifth Avenue, walked up Fifth Avenue, past Fourteenth, through midtown, the Plaza, walked along the park until the park ended, walked across town on 110th Street to Broadway, kept on walking up, through Harlem, kept walking until the city was behind me, the riches to rags behind me, and I was on the palisades of the Hudson River. There was the river and the sun on the river, big brown smooth lava rock, and trees everywhere. I found me a rock under a tree and I sat. The little people—the lizards and salamanders—were laying out in the sun, dashing under rocks, playing hide-and-seek.

  Something about the rock, the rock and the little people, made me sit on the rock for three days and nights. I didn’t even know I was on the rock for that long until after.

  I’d lost three days and nights before, True Shot said, But never sober.

  But we’ve all been captured by the little people, True Shot said, At one time or another; we just always forget.

  When I came to, when the rock and the little people let me go, it was dark. My heart felt good, my head was clear, and my belly was empty.

  At Dyckman Street, I jumped the stile and got on the A downtown. The clock on the platform said two-eighteen. There were only three people besides myself in the subway car, a middle-aged African American woman in a nurse’s uniform, a young Puerto Rican man in a shiny suit, and a drunk, a white man, laying across the seat, a stack of The New York Times for a pillow. At 190th Street, a white man in a gray trench coat and a Yankees ball cap got on. His black horn-rimmed glasses were taped together in the middle. Two more stops went by. Nobody got on or off.

  At 168th, the train stopped. There was no one on the platform and no one got on the train. When the doors closed, the man in the trench coat and ball cap pulled out a gun. He started yelling something about foreigners, waving the gun around, pointing the gun every which way.

  The man turned his ball cap around, and all at once, in the light, his skin was white like milk and his eyes were huge and blue through the magnified glasses. The white man told the people on the train to sit next to each other, to where the white man pointed with his gun, told them to sit next to the drunk man.

  Nobody looked at anybody else. Nobody moved.

  The white man screamed, high-pitched and crazy, shot the gun, the bullet going out an open window. The nurse and the Puerto Rican man got up, moved next to the drunk. I got up and sat down with them.

  At 163rd Street, the train stopped, the doors opened. Nobody moved. There was no one on the platform and no one got on the train. The doors closed.

  The white man went to the woman first. He held on to a pole, sliding down as he knelt in front of the woman, the white man with the blue eyes a smiling mask, the gun always pointed at her. Made the woman hike up her white dress so you could see her through the panty hose. The white man with the huge blue eyes put the gun onto the woman’s crotch.

  At 155th Street, the train stopped, the doors opened. Nobody moved. The white man kept the gun on the woman down between her legs. There was no one on the platform and no one got on the train. The doors closed.

  The white man went to the Puerto Rican man next, holding the gun straight-armed, pointed at the man’s face. Just then the drunk rolled over, shouting something from his dream. The white man hit the drunk man hard in the face with the gun. Blood gushed out his nose and the drunk man went limp.

  Then: Suck this, Pedro! the white man yelled and he put the gun into the Puerto Rican man’s mouth.

  At 145th Street the train stopped, the doors opened. The white man kept the gun in the man’s mouth, pulling the man’s head back by the hair, the white man’s huge blue eyes not a blink in the neon. There was no one on the platform and no one got on the train. The doors closed.

  When the white man got to me, True Shot said, The nurse was crying and the Puerto Rican man was sobbing. The white man told me to take my pants off. My intention, True Shot said, Was to stand up and do that very thing, but something got into my arm and my arm reached out and slapped the white man’s face, knocked the glasses off his face—his poor squinty blue eyes—then slapped him again. Then my arm reached out and grabbed the gun and then I shot the white man, where the tape had been on his glasses, shot him between the eyes.

  At 135th street, the train stopped. There was no one on the platform and no one got on the train. Everyone got off. I carried the drunk man out over my shoulder, laid him down on the platform.

  When the train pulled out, I looked back, True Shot said. What power had been given: A rattlesnake was curled up on the seat where I’d been sitting.

  Imagine that, True Shot said, A rattlesnake right here in New York City. On the A train no less, True Shot said.

  OUTSIDE FISH BAR’S window, the early sun made the smog burnt
peach and the buildings on East Fifth maroon and navy shadows. My hand, my arm, fingers, my cigarette were shadows on the table.

  Fiona made a joke that she had no shadow, that she was a vampire. Fiona was sitting so her shadow wasn’t on the table, and when Fiona said she was a vampire, I looked at her close, her white skin almost blue, kohl around her eyes like two smashed grapes, and for a moment I believed her.

  Dogs barking. Coyotes, wolves maybe. Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and “Lush Life.”

  Rose crossed his legs, his foot against my calf. He reached for his Brandy Alexander, his bracelets clack-clack. True Shot slurped the bottom of his soda water, rattled the ice cubes in his glass, put the green swizzle stick in his mouth. His knees were against my knee.

  We all looked at Fiona.

  Fiona, beautiful according to Fellini. Beautiful the way New York is beautiful: something monstrous, wrong, dark, corrupt, bigger than you, important, too much attitude, always compelling. High cheekbones. Skin all milk and blueberries. Roman nose. Her right upper lip crooked up to the nostril, even with the three operations. Her voice Tallulah Bankhead from years of practice before she had a roof in her mouth. Too many cigarettes already.

  Fiona’s black snakes with red-rubber-band tails stuck out from under her backwards baseball cap. She was wearing all black as usual, lips so red against her pale white skin they had a life all their own.

  She and Rose—and now that I think of it, Ruby and True Shot and me too—ultimate drag queens. It was our appearance of being real.

  Fiona’s black leotard leg was draped over my legs, her elbow brushing my crotch.

  Cool. I can fuck you blind and keep it simple.

  Try me.

  At our table in the corner by the window, huddled around a flame in a red glass, all of us, body to body to body to body. The touch that proves you’re not alone, that someone else is there.

  Fiona ordered just one more Southern Comfort, and Peter the bartender-owner walked through the blue smoke of the bar with the bottle and poured her glass half full. It was way after four and the bar was closed. Fiona took out her compact and looked at herself in the mirror, powdered across her forehead, down her cheeks, her chin, down her nose.

  Then the lipstick.

  Fiona’s long fingers stroked the red from the left top lip down, to the corner of the mouth. Then one red swipe across the bottom lip. Then up to the scar, the vertical scar from under the nostril through the lip, just left of center. Lip line and skin not a line there. Fiona’s long fingers with the lip liner made the line.

  Cool, Fiona said, puckered her lips.

  You could understand so much by just how Fiona said cool.

  Fiona snapped her compact closed.

  I see that I am playing at being beautiful, Fiona said. She took a breath and pressed her red lipstick lips together.

  I see, I said, That you are enjoying playing at being beautiful.

  Fiona looked around the table, into Rose’s eyes. True Shot’s mirrors looked into my eyes.

  I’m twice her size, just as drunk.

  The fates lead her who will, Fiona said, Who won’t they drag.

  And just like that, we are laughing. Fiona and Rose and True Shot and I embraced, holding on to our drinks, our cigarettes, holding on for dear life, laughing so hard our gums showed, so hard that man and woman, white and Indian and black, gay and straight, all went away between us and there we were just four people laughing.

  The moment that after you’re different.

  The night Harry died, Fiona said. AIDS. I was on the couch. I woke up and Harry was sitting up in bed. Harry had a tube running up his arm that ran to his heart, and there was a pump that made a whirring sound that pumped medicine into Harry’s heart. Harry’s cat, Madonna, was sitting by the pump. The only light in the room was the amber night-light, the Christmas-tree-light kind you plug in the socket.

  Fiona’s lips were rubber around the words. Harry told me, Fiona said, I’m the luckiest man. Life is absolutely, mysteriously beautiful. Life has always been here all around me, in me, of me, has always been this fascinating mystery, but it wasn’t until now that I have been present, been aware enough, to witness. I am here now in this room in this light with the sound of the pump and Madonna watching the pump and listening to the pump, and just now, Fiona, you were snoring and I realized I was alive and I was aware. When you’re thirsty, Harry said, Water is so beautiful.

  I got up, Fiona said, Poured a glass of water, took the glass of water to Harry. I sat on the bed and helped Harry hold his head up. I put the glass to Harry’s lips. Harry took a sip. Harry said, Beautiful, just beautiful. And then all at once, Harry was staring at me; his eyes rolled up and Harry wasn’t present, wasn’t there with me anymore.

  LENA HORNE’S “Where or When.” Snot on Fiona’s broken lip. She wiped her nose, smeared the red. Her bird hand perched on my big farm hand, my bitten cuticles. Dogs barking. Then Fiona’s ear was at my chest, and Fiona’s heartbeat and my heartbeat were one heartbeat.

  In all the world, our heartbeat the only thing.

  THAT NIGHT IN Fish Bar, not one of us knew what we were really talking about. We were all just talking talking, playing at talking, and then we were talking about the one moment. The one moment that before it we were going this way and after it we were going that way.

  Didn’t know.

  Personae.

  True Shot, Rose, Fiona, me. None of us knew that when we started talking about the one moment, what we were talking about was death.

  BUT IT’S NOT the truth. We were never all of us in Fish Bar together.

  The way this all happened together was only in me.

  BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  The airplane landed at La Guardia, August 3, 1983. My first time ever in New York City, and in all the world, I was leaning up against a cement wall, an unrelenting fluorescent light above me, the bill of my red ball cap the only shade for miles. Exhaust fumes. I was minding my business, just outside the doors where you claim your baggage, waiting for the express bus to the city. My wallet was in my inside jacket pocket. Inside my chest, no room for breath. Sweat rolling from my pits. My duffel bag was against the wall next to me. On top of my duffel bag, my suitcase with the travel stickers on it, and on top of the suitcase, my backpack. I was rolling a cigarette with one hand like I can when I saw the van. A 1970 maroon Dodge van with hippie calligraphy DOOR OF THE DEAD on the side.

  Door of the Dead was a game my sister Bobbie and Charlie 2Moons and I used to play.

  I took it as a sign.

  Blue smoke was coming out the back of the van and people were climbing inside, through the side door, white people all in black. Black leotards, black luggage, black hats, black shoes.

  Then, just like that, Ruby Prestigiacomo’s face was smiling right in front of me.

  Don’t let the van spook you, Ruby said. We just bought it from the band, Ruby said, smiling, The Door of the Dead band.

  There’s room for one more, Ruby said. You’ll be all night here waiting for a cab. I can give you a ride for fifteen dollars. Cab’ll cost you twenty-five.

  Inside my chest, near the sore place where I smoke, so easy, I felt Ruby’s smile.

  I wished I could be so easy, wished I could smile like that.

  My wallet was still in my inside jacket pocket. Ruby just kept there, kept standing in the unrelenting fluorescence, smiling, too close, his blue eyes the way crazy people look at you, moving in on you, like when you go to kiss somebody. Blue eyes and thick red-blond hair, blond hair on his forearms. Beautiful. The kind of skin that freckles and tans gold. His red polyester shirt—buttons open so far down I had to avert my eyes. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. A silver ankh dangling from his queer ear, soul-patch triangle of red-blond hair just under his bottom lip.

  Ruby Prestigiacomo, what am I going to do with you?

  All death did was make Ruby smile all the more.

  YOU’RE GOING TO wait
all night here for a cab, Ruby said. Fifteen dollars, Ruby said, Anywhere in Wolf Swamp.

  Wolf Swamp? I said.

  Manhattan, Ruby said.

  Ruby reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an old blue Velcro wallet, pulled the wallet open, and from the wad of papers pulled out a business card. Ruby’s fingers were long and thin and there was grease under his thumbnail. Thumb print of grease on the business card.

  ROMEOMOVERS SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS were the words on the card, WOLF SWAMP. Under SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS was DOG SHIT PARK, then under DOG SHIT PARK was RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO, under RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO a phone number, then under the phone number was CLYDE TRUE SHOT EXPERIENCED DRIVER.

  Shit on a business card.

  What’s Dog Shit Park? I said.

  Lower East Side, Ruby said. It’s a park. Tompkins Square, but everybody I know calls it Dog Shit Park.

  Where you going? Ruby said.

  Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, I said.

  Between Second and Third, Ruby said.

  Ruby grabbed my duffel bag and my old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. I picked up my backpack and followed Ruby past the line of people waiting for taxis. My wallet was in the inside pocket of my jacket.

  The four white people all in black were sitting on their luggage in the back of the van, all of them with big red lips, even the man. Big hoops in their ears, all of them smoking cigarettes.

  They’re from France, Ruby said, Vogue magazine. They only speak French except for fuck you. You got the fifteen dollars?

  My wallet from my inside jacket pocket, when I opened it, my money was suddenly public domain opened up like that on the street. I gave Ruby a ten and a five, stuck my wallet back in my inside jacket pocket.

  Bonsoir, I said in French.

  The French Vogues all looked like mannequins. They all said quick French things back. Twice as hot inside the van. I sat down where I was standing, started doing what I always do when I don’t know what to do, rolled a cigarette with one hand like I can, French Vogue mannequins all around watching me. When I got the cigarette rolled, I offered the cigarette to the man French Vogue first. He looked away, poked his left shoulder up, pointed his hand and took the cigarette, silver loop dangle side to side, the fuck-you smile on his red lips, red lips pursing, French grunt.