In the City of Shy Hunters Read online

  Then it was a cigarette for each of the others, each accepting with a choreography of stance, silver loop, hair tossing.

  Sophistication.

  Savoir faire.

  Postured disregard.

  Sexy totale.

  Shit from Parisian Shinola.

  I’ll have one of those too, Ruby said. Then: Where’d you learn to roll a cigarette like that?

  A friend of mine, I said. Charlie 2Moons, I said, Taught me, I said, A long time ago.

  I have my mother’s nerves, so sometimes I stutter.

  Language my second language.

  CLYDE TRUE SHOT Experienced Driver was big, everything about him big, extra lovely as Rose would say—chest, belly, thighs, shoulders, arms, hands. His big hands on the steering wheel, on both hands on every finger, even the thumbs, the same silver ring. From the side I was on, True Shot’s nose was a hook that poked out of two high cheekbones. His hair was black and thick and long and tied back in a bun with a red paisley bandanna tied around his head. From his neck, a beaded buckskin bag. The horizontal line was blue trader beads and the intersecting vertical line, red beads. The buckskin bag hung from a buckskin necklace.

  No doubt about it, I was staring. Same way as when you stare at a big snake. And big snakes always look back. On a lava rock ledge in full sun, the big snake doesn’t want to even move, but the snake turns, and his eyes end on you.

  On me. True Shot put his eyes on me. I mean, his mirrors.

  True Shot’s mirrors. An accessory True Shot never went without, his mirrored Armani sunglasses.

  When True Shot put his mirrors on me, I could see myself in there on the surface, a circus freak, distorted at the state fair, my big circus nose and mustache and bug eyes.

  I saw him first! Ruby said. He’s mine!

  Clyde True Shot? I said.

  Drop the Clyde, Ruby said. He’s just True Shot.

  True Shot, I said. Would you like, I said, A cigarette?

  No, thank you, Ruby said. He don’t smoke socially.

  There was a hand on my shoulder, and it was the French Vogue man handing me one of his cigarettes, rolled fat.

  Merci, I said, lit the cigarette, inhaled. Marijuana? I said.

  Fucking hashish, French Vogue said.

  In the rearview mirror, True Shot’s mirrors were on me. Smoke big, True Shot said. His voice was soft, resonant, like a child singing a lullaby in a culvert.

  TRUE SHOT AT the wheel, Ruby riding shotgun, French Vogues, me; we are inside, in our smoke cut through with high-beam headlights. Outside, all about us, out the windshield in front, out the windows in back: stars, speeding light, red and amber, huge white flying saucers, eyes.

  I was rolling another cigarette, rolling six more cigarettes around. I was not speaking French or any words of any language. My butt was burning on the van floor, so I sat on the old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. Drops of sweat all around me.

  True Shot hit the brakes and under us was a screeching. We swerved. One French Vogue banged her head on the side of the van. We slid to a stop. From out Ruby’s window, I could see a wall of concrete. A backhoe. An electric sign pointed repeating yellow arrows at Ruby’s head. There was water flowing onto the right lane of the roadway, and mud. I thought it was mud. The electric yellow made the water look like thin buttermilk. There were cans and things floating. From the embankment, the thin buttermilk was a waterfall onto the roadway over a truck tire and the back seat of a car. Then the turds. I smelled and I knew: The milk was a river of sewage. True Shot started honking.

  Fuck! Ruby said. We should have taken the fucking tunnel.

  Fuck! the French Vogues all said. Fuck!

  Then: Watch for cops! True Shot said.

  True Shot shifted into first and turned the steering wheel to the right.

  Watch for cops! Ruby yelled back at us.

  Then Ruby watched the right side and True Shot the left side, and True Shot guided the van through the narrow space in between the backhoe and the electric yellow arrow sign. Milk-shit river lapped at the bottom of the side door. There was a bump and the front right tire went up on the curb, then another bump for the back right tire. True Shot hugged the wheel, leaned forward, and aimed the van in between the line of traffic on the left and a wall of concrete on the right.

  Clyde True Shot, race-car driver, hit the gas.

  WE ARE AN arrow, Door of the Dead arrow, howling through, tilted, banking, racing down where you’re not supposed to go, right wheels on the curb, left wheels in the gutter, guard-rail concrete wall only inches from us to the right. To the left, Day-Glo traffic cones, and the Volkswagen Chevrolet Ford Toyota line of cars, pickups, semis, and limousines traffic jam. Where we’re heading hellbent is in between, space enough or not.

  Ruby’s forehead is shiny with lights on the sweat. Ruby’s bones poking through, his smile skeleton big. He’s staring straight ahead, like all of us, at the trajectory, our thrust, but he’s watching True Shot too. Ruby loves True Shot and he’s watching True Shot, race-car driver, the two of them two guys, rodeo yee-haws, Friday-night homeboys, going fast, right-flanking one mile, two miles, three miles of traffic jam and counting.

  French Vogues lit French cigarettes. Fuck. Merde. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Toll booth! True Shot yelled, like this was Nintendo and toll booth was the dragon. The right front wheel bumped off the curb back onto the road, then the right rear wheel. True Shot shifted down to second.

  Watch for cops! True Shot yelled.

  Watch for cops! Ruby yelled.

  One of the French Vogues, a woman, reached down, opened the sliding side door. Blast of hot air, city lights, guard rail right there speeding by, air. I held my hand against my heart, my wallet in my inside jacket pocket, pulled my cap off, knelt forward, head out the side door. Wind blowing in my hair.

  There it was right in front of us: the yellow-and-black-striped toll booth STOP arm coming down. True Shot shifted into second.

  Geronimo! True Shot yelled. Geronimo! Ruby yelled.

  I closed my eyes.

  The yellow-and-black-striped toll booth STOP arm karate-chopped into the roof of the Door of the Dead van.

  But it’s not the truth.

  I knelt back, opened my eyes. Through the back windows, the yellow- and-black-striped toll booth STOP arm was locked in place behind us.

  Out the windshield, out the back windows, out the side door, there were no cops.

  True Shot yelled, Welcome to Wolf Swamp! And we cheered, all of us, me and the French Vogues, these people I didn’t know—we cheered. I rolled more cigarettes, lit six all around, and we smoked and smoked, and it wasn’t long before: Waldorf Hysteria! Ruby yelled.

  True Shot pulled up to the bright curb. The doorman opened the van’s side door. He wore a powder-blue military uniform. He was speaking French, snapping his fingers. Young brown men in matching outfits rushed to the van.

  One by one, the French Vogues stepped out. The doorman took each French Vogue by the hand. One by one, the bellhops slid the monogrammed alligator luggage out of Door of the Dead van.

  Alligators, True Shot said.

  Dangerous cargo, Ruby said.

  Faux alligators, True Shot said.

  Worst kind, Ruby said.

  The only good faux alligator, Ruby said, Is a dead faux alligator.

  Every extra lovely muscle in True Shot was laughing. Ruby too, but Ruby had to put his fist over his mouth. A deep cough was coming up, rattling Ruby’s bones. Ruby’s arm held his side.

  I stuck my head out the van’s side door, looked left, right, then all around, then up. Waldorf Astoria.

  Lunch at the Waldorf was a game my mother and I used to play.

  Hysteria. The lights of Waldorf Hysteria were bright bright, unrelenting. The light was inside me, moving through me. On the street was the swirl and flash of lights, a high off-pitch ringing, and something else: a sound, like in monster movies. The footfall of a huge monster.

  ALL DODGES SOUND
the same when you start them up.

  Ruby reached behind True Shot and, from out of a heap, pulled a five-gallon bucket, turned the bucket over, brushed the bottom off, patted it, and said, Here, come up and sit on this bucket, up here between us.

  My wallet was in my inside jacket pocket.

  Can get stuffy back there, Ruby said. Then: Here, this’ll help, he said, and pulled a can of Budweiser out from its plastic ring and handed me the beer, put the joint to his Ruby lips, inhaled, and passed the joint to me.

  This’ll help too, Ruby said, holding his breath and sucking in the words like you do.

  It’ll take the edge off, Ruby said. Ruby was smiling.

  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

  I offered the joint to True Shot.

  He don’t smoke socially, Ruby said.

  I handed the joint back to Ruby. Opened the can of beer.

  Driving more like floating.

  Punch in that Sioux tape! Ruby said.

  True Shot punched in his Sioux tape and both he and Ruby, all at once, started singing, howling, and crying singing, Indian songs like in Fort Hall when Bobbie and Charlie 2Moons and I lived on the rez.

  Where are we? I said.

  When my words came out, they did not stutter.

  True Shot and Ruby looked at me, looked at each other.

  Broadway, Ruby said.

  You ain’t from here, are you? Ruby said.

  Broadway? I said.

  Earth, Ruby said. His famous smile.

  New York, Ruby said. Here, he said, putting both his hands on my shoulders and pushing down. Here.

  Now here, Ruby said, Or nowhere, Ruby said. Depends on the space in between.

  Outside the windows of Door of the Dead van, neon vegetable stands passed, windows, concrete columns, lampposts, traffic, parked cars, wires, and lights: green, amber, red, go, wait, stop.

  The wind was blowing Ruby’s gold-red hair.

  You know, Ruby said, sucking on the joint, I’ve been trying to figure out who you look like. He handed the joint to me.

  And I think I’ve figured it out, Ruby said. What do you think, True Shot? Handsome Einstein or intelligent Tom Selleck?

  True Shot’s bandanna. His mirrors. The silver ring on every finger, even his thumbs. The buckskin bag with the blue horizontal and the red vertical hanging on the buckskin necklace. True Shot’s lips, under his mirrors, moved.

  Handsome Einstein, True Shot said.

  His voice, the child out of the culvert, hollering into the wind.

  You sure? Ruby said.

  Selleck can’t look intelligent, True Shot said.

  Then: What’s your name? Ruby asked.

  William, I said. William Parker.

  Friends call you Bill?

  Will, I said.

  I’ll call you Will then, Ruby said. Ruby’s smile.

  This here’s True Shot and I’m Ruby Prestigiacomo.

  Glad to meet, I said, You guys, I said.

  I shook Ruby’s hand, went to shake True Shot’s, but thought, He don’t shake hands socially, so I just looked at him.

  I didn’t expect, I said, New York folks to be so friendly.

  Ruby ate the roach.

  When you’re in the Spirit Schlepping business like ours, Ruby said, Friendly’s just part of the program. Besides, that’s bullshit. New Yorkers can be the friendliest people you ever met.

  Not what I’ve heard, I said. Back west, I said, Where I’m from, folks think New Yorkers are rich Jews, I said, Mafia Italians, and black guys in gangs who play basketball and kill white people.

  Ain’t too far off, Ruby said.

  Then: Where back west?

  A bunch of places, I said. Jackson Hole, I said. Most of my time in northern Idaho, but I was born in Pocatello.

  Ruby turned his head around quick, put his hands to his cheeks, and screamed: In a trunk in the Princess Theater!

  Then Ruby was laughing the way you do on good dope. I started laughing too, though I didn’t know why.

  You know, Ruby said. The song, A Star Is Born, Ruby said. Judy Garland!

  I was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho, Ruby sang.

  Never heard it, I said.

  Then: Brooklyn, Ruby said. I was born in Brooklyn. Bensonhurst.

  I waited for True Shot to say where he was born, but he didn’t.

  Staying here long? Ruby asked.

  Living here, I said, Now. Got an apartment: Two-oh-five East Fifth Street.

  Got a job? Ruby asked.

  Restaurants, I said.

  Hard time to get a restaurant job, Ruby said. August. You might try Life Café, Tenth and B, on the northeast corner of Dog Shit Park. You could tell them Ruby Prestigiacomo sent you, but it won’t do any good.

  Dog Shit Park, I said.

  Yeah, Ruby said. You remember—Tompkins Square, not far from you.

  Why’d you move here of all places? Ruby said.

  Shit happens, I said.

  Seemed like a good idea at the time, I said.

  If I can make it here I’ll make it anywhere, I said.

  But it’s not the truth.

  Of all the things I could’ve said right then, practiced things I didn’t stutter, I said this: Because I was afraid to, I said. And also, I said, Because I’m looking for someone.

  True Shot’s mirrors were on me from the left, and from the right Ruby’s too close with his breath.

  Ruby crossed his hazel eyes. Crossed over, huh? Ruby said.

  Crossed over? I said.

  That’s when you stop being one way and start being another, Ruby said. Not something many people can do, or want to do. In fact, Ruby said, The only people who cross over, cross over because they’re on some kind of Mission Impossible.

  I could no longer live and stay the way I was, I said.

  But it’s not the truth.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Then: Two-oh-five East Fifth Street! Ruby yelled, the same way as Waldorf Hysteria!

  We were stopped on a street, in front of a building, double-parked. True Shot turned the engine off.

  Between Second and Third, Ruby said, On the street where you live.

  I have often walked down this street before, Ruby sang.

  THE SIOUX TAPE’S drums was the way my heart was beating. Sweat rolling down from my pits, my head still floating. I was way stoned, sitting on a bucket between a guy named True Shot and a guy named Ruby Prestigiacomo, and there I was in all the world, double-parked in front of 205 East Fifth Street, between Second and Third.

  From Door of the Dead van, the light above the steps of 205 East Fifth Street was right behind Ruby’s head. The mercury-vapor streetlamp light the color of dust storms, ocher through the windows, hard edges, New York angles.

  I knew it, Ruby said, Soon as I saw you.

  What? I said.

  True Shot’s going to tell you a story, Ruby said.

  What story? I said.

  Who can tell? Ruby said. Maybe the Secret of Wolf Swamp.

  My suitcase with the travel stickers on it, my duffel bag, and my backpack were all lined up. I went to open the side door when Ruby put his hand on my knee, grabbing my knee the way you do when you’re trying to keep something still.

  My butt was on the bucket.

  Just then outside big thunder and a flash of light.

  But it’s not the truth. The thunder wasn’t outside. The thunder was inside me, the flash inside.

  True Shot raised his head up and looked at the roof of the van. From under the chin, True Shot didn’t look Indian at all, or any one way. He just looked like a kid on a summer night looking up at the stars.

  So Will Parker . . . True Shot said.

  Handsome Einstein . . . Ruby said.

  In True Shot’s mirrors, I was a red ball cap with crooked bottom teeth.

  Only silence inside Door of the Dead van. True Shot cleared his throat, spit out the window. He put his fingers up to the buckskin bag with the b
eaded blue horizontal and the red vertical hanging from the buckskin necklace, turned around, and put his mirrors onto me.

  Just like that, True Shot took my hand, open palm to open palm, and put his fingers in with mine, his silver rings against my fingers.

  It is this way, True Shot said, You will find your friend.

  I will? I said, How do you know?

  True Shot just knows, Ruby said.

  Meanwhile, True Shot said, Have some fun while you wait for the will of heaven.

  The porch light in True Shots’ mirrors made it look like I had a halo around my head.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said something like thanks or Okay see ya, and pulled my hand away.

  RUBY GOT OUT of the van and opened the side door, and I stepped out. Smoke out onto the street. For a moment, I thought the smoke was my body smoking. My feet were standing in a rectangle of earth, the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree—cement sidewalk everywhere else but where I was standing. My wallet was in my inside jacket pocket.

  Ruby and 1 were about the same: six foot two. I had twenty pounds on him. Something about the way Ruby looked right then—his jaw, the skin of his face below his sidebum—so beautiful. When I stood full up, I was face-to-face with Ruby’s smile.

  Ruby poked his finger in my chest. The will of heaven, Ruby said, Is in your heart.

  Then: New York, new place, Ruby said.

  His hands pressed down the lapel of my corduroy coat.

  Handsome Einstein new self-concept, Ruby said.

  New concept new name, Ruby said.

  New name? I said.

  When you cross over, Ruby said, You need a new name.

  Will of Heaven! Ruby said, his arm in the air; his hand cupped, fingers and thumb together like Italians do, five points of a star: his grand easy smile.

  From inside the van, True Shot yelled, William of Heaven! Ho!

  Ruby pulled the hair tie from around his ponytail and shook his head. His red-blond hair was shiny all the way to his shoulders.