Boys of Life (9 page)

I'd sit there and Look at him and wonder what it must have felt

like when he finally decided to di) it how he must've been incredibly

Med I couldn't even imagine being that scared. Hut 1 also wanted him i mpletely calm. 1 wanted him t> he watching .ill

this from "tuc- dist.nue th.it didn't have anything to do with him. 1

wanted him t.. he- indifferent n> it.

I knew if wasn't like th.it

I 1 l.iiii the huuk shut and shove it hack up on the- shelf and I

.in ot th( 'In alphabet avenues where Lt pretty

much looked hk* and .ill they'd have t" do was put

up tl be.

□ PAULRUSSELL

for no reason—and sometimes gunshots. At least that's what I always thought they were: gunshots. And probably they were. I think I told you how the windows had plastic over them, so I never knew what was going on out there once it got dark. I could only try and imagine it. I'd picture Carlos making his way back from Brooklyn, slinking from cover to cover, hiding behind garbage cans, dashing across empty streets. All these narrow escapes—from what, I didn't know. I'd lie in bed in that apartment and follow him like it was different frames in some comic book, and then I'd get to the end but he wouldn't be home yet; so I'd have to start all over, slow it down some, add a few more scrapes. And then finally he was home. I'd hear him tramping up the stairs. He never knew how happy I was to see him come in that door. How I wanted to throw my arms around him just for making it back—because even if he didn't know how close a call it'd been, I did. I knew he'd barely made it back.

All that was just at night; the day never bothered me. The scary stuff went away, and I was free as a river. I could go anywhere.

Partly it was what Carlos wanted me to do—be out on my own having adventures, learning about things. "You got the universe at your feet," he'd tell me. "The stars, the sewer, the semen—it's all yours, kid. Now go out and take it." At night he always seemed really happy to listen to me tell him where I'd gone, what I'd done, so I started saving up stuff to tell him. When I'd get home I'd lie there and figure out ways to put it together so it'd be interesting to him. The more outrageous, the better he liked it.

I remember—there was this one man with a goli club, this grizzled old fellow. I don't know who he was or where he was from, but he walked around with a golfclub all the tunc and would just Start yelling for no reason, and banging with his goli club on garbage earn and Btaii railingi or whatever he could find making .» racket, and not caring who he,ml. I'd sec him all over the city, carrying that goli club ovei

houldei and yelling not .it anybody, but just to hear himself yell, I gue

e time I came out of the apartment, and he wai itandii tin- itreet like he was waiting then- t<>t me. There wai this little tree

it wai |usi gro* Ing up from a ^ ra< k In

'.ilk n u.i the "iil\ green thing around. I'd watched it tote

us leave* thai fall, and not* if wai .»ll ipindly ami naked. I liked that

I he I lid in.in tOOd tl le It; then .ill Oi .1 sudden he hauled

ith his eM.lt club hacking it. "Onl\ Ood can make a

BOYSOFLIFE D

tree," he was yelling. "Only fucking God can do that. I Iftcn, all you

queers and niggers, listen to this you Jew, onlv God can make a fucking tree. Just you try." All the time he was yelling, he kepi swinging the hell out of that cluh till he broke the little tree trunk right in halt.

I couldn't move—I stood there watching him d^ th.it, and then when he was through, he shut up and moved on down the street. 1 went over to the tree, but it was a goner. And a second ago it was as alive as you or me.

I don't know why, but we were always showing up in the same place. It got to be so that old man would recognize me. He'd watch me—I could tell he was watching me. I saw him in Central Park, by the lake, and over on the piers by the Hudson River, and where the tram goes across to Roosevelt Island.

One day I took the ferry to Staten Island. I was down at the tip of Manhattan where the boat was leaving from, and all these people were crowding into the building there. I wandered in, curious what was up, and since it only cost a quarter to go, which was all I had, I thought why the hell not? Staten Island was someplace I'd never been before.

The boat was terrific—it kept thumping along in this high wind, and spray pumping up, all the time the city with its tall buildings I there behind us getting smaller and smaller and we're staying exactly the same. Suddenly I heard this yelling in my ear. I turned around and there he was, standing practically behind me on the deck at the back of the boat tq watch the view from.

"All the fucking saints of this goddamned city go walking around on craw-asses and nails," he was yelling, "every fucking one of them. And out of nowhere too. Did you ever see the stinking lightbulb that could crank out all the saints that're walking on their craw*asses and nails in this fucking city, did you ever see that.'" Then suddenly he started swinging that golf club of his. It nearly hit me, hut I was about an inch too far away, and then it did hit this man who was standing next to me right in the shoulder, and it hit an old lad) on the leg. People were yelling and screaming and pushing. About five guys lumped the old man and started punching him down and tugging at his golf club—but he wouldn't give it up. He kept yelling, only now everybody was yelling. I didn't do a thinu I stood there watching, looking my shoulder at the city getting smaller ,\nd smaller behind us, ,md then back at the heap o\ people on the floor with that old man and his t:<>lf club at the bottom of it. Finally these two security guards came down

□ PAUL RUSSELL

with billy clubs and worked their way into the crowd and took the old man off. I think he never let go of that golf club.

"He'll show up again," Carlos said that night, in bed, when I told him about it. "He's bound to—when you least expect it. But I guarantee, you'll see him again."

It'd sort of freaked me, there on that boat—it was such a close call. Every once in a while the city'd give me some close call like that, and then part of me wouldn't want to go out for a few days. But I made myself. Back in Owen, at the city pool, if I had a bad turn off the high diving board I'd always climb right back up there and jump again. Otherwise I knew I'd get spooked. It was something Ted and I'd call each other on—we'd make sure the one of us who flubbed scrambled right back up there and did the dive again.

There was an even closer call than that day on the ferry. It'd been lousy out all morning—rain and sleet and stuff—so I stayed put there in the apartment. Sammy talked to me for a while, and I was doing shots of Canadian Club and cups of tea to keep me from getting too bored. Somehow what Sammy was telling me got me all impatient—talking to him could make me want to walk till my legs ached. I'd shoot out ot that apartment and do this quick clip for maybe ten blocks till I wis breathing hard and the air cleared my head. Which is what I did now,

I was pretty drunk so I sailed right along. It was days like this when I longed for my bike back in Owen, to cover the whole town in no time. I'd see bike messengers zooming in and out ot traffic like maniacs, and I'd wish that was me. I uuess I could probably have picked up some bike somewhere, it I really wanted it -but I just never did. Though I did pick up a few bike messengers, I uuess to make up tor it, when I started doing that sort ot thing .1 tews yean down the line.

I should tell you oik- thing before I go any farther, In those dayi ir wasn't hike messengers I was into, or ,m\ oi the guys 1 sam when 1

-ut walking. 1 didn't look at other gUVS. But I did look at girti I

! guess because it you'd asked me Was 1 .1 queer? I'd have laid oi

i\. I me,m, looking back on it, 1 don't know what 1

thou Ing with t larloi I guess I didn't put an) kind oi n ime

U ith 1h.1t ( kit thing's toi sine 1 ne\ et

yseli I wai queei 01 gaj 01 anything like that, and like I say, when I w ruj these women I thought were

10 gorgeous, the) made m) heart ache Maybe It was knowing some when te.ilK wa that made me look at those women

even th<

B O Y S O F L I F E D

I didn't know that's what I was doing. All I know is, every once in a while I'd find myselt following some girl 1 thought was really great* looking, and feeling this kind of homesickness. Thar might sound strange, but it's the only thing I know to call it. I'd follow her tor blocks, till she went into sonic building or store and 1 lost her. I'd follow her down into the subway, and ride the same ^ar with her, which is the way I got around to a lot of those neighborhoods I'd never have thought of going to otherwise. I didn't want anything from those women I followed, I never made any move to walk up and try to st.irt a conversation or anything. I just wanted to he near them tor a while before I lost them.

Sometimes one of them would notice me, and I'm sure she thought I was this total goon hanging around like I was-and I'd have thought the same thing if I was her. But I wasn't doing it to he creepy. I was doing it out of some kind of sadness that was inside me.

But back to my other close call. I'd gone to the public hhrars, to find that picture from the ghetto I had to touch base with every in a while. I'd been sitting in the big reading room, where there're these long tables with lamps, and probably a hundred people in there all being quiet and reading to themselves. I'd take that picture hook and spread it open and study it for maybe halt an hour, always feeling like somebody was going to come tell me I shouldn't be there, though nobody ever did. And I guess I came to feel at home there, in some weird way, because I kept coming back. Which is hard to believe— me. Tony, in a library—but there I was.

I put the book back on the shelf, feeling sad but also happy from studying that picture. When I went outside the sun had come out—it was one of those blustery winter days when you think maybe spril going to come sometime. There on the front steps of the hbrar\, standing by one of those stone lions, was this girl talking to two black guys. She was just leaving them, they were s.iym^ "Catch you l.ircr" to her, and she held up her red sequined pocketbook and pointed to it. She was about my age, blond hair so white-blond she must've d\cd it. and black boots and a black skirt and a black leather i.icket. At tirst I thought she was some kind o\ boy in drag—but then I made up my mind, no, it had to be a girl. Actually, I have to say I knew right she was a hooker, just by the way she was walking and sort oi keeping her eye out for stuff. I followed her down Forty«second toward the Square, being careful the whole time to keep her from noticing me. I

□ PAUL RUSSELL

didn't want her to talk to me or anything—I wouldnYve known what to say. I was just interested in her, I just wanted to see where she went.

I haven't thought about that girl in ages. She's probably dead now, which is a weird thing to say, but I'd be fooling myself about everything if I didn't think it was true. Just like that boy and his sister in the ghetto. What I remember is how interested I was in her—about everything in her life, and also how far away she felt, like I was never going to know anything about her. She had these slim hips to die tor, and a way oi' walking down the street that totally melted me.

She wandered all over Times Square, stopping to look in the windows o( camera stores, and talking to people here and there—mostly other hookers, I could tell. Then around Thirty-ninth Street she went into a movie theater, one of those XXX places showing Barbed Wire Dolls or some other movie like that. Actually, I think it was something called Chained Heat. I waited for a minute on the other side of the street, thinking, Okay, that's it, I've lost her. These things always ended somewhere, just like that. But then tor some reason, instead of walking on like I usually did, I crossed over the street and went inside the movie theater after her.

I'd never been in a place like that before—Carlos hadn't vet started taking me out to the Adonis on what was his idea of a date—SO 1 didn't know what to expect. There was this dull red lobby with nobodv around except .1 gir) m .» i _:n\isv silver jacket.

"Looking tor something, kid.'" he asked me.

I s ( »rt oi fell like bolting ri^ht there, but that was back in mv totally tearless days, and 1 thought, What the hell.' I'd wade on in. It the water gOl too high, I knew how to swim.

Id bun about the Uirl with the white-blond hair, how 1 thought 1 knew her I'd seen her troin across tin- Street, and it she was who 1

thought slu- was, she was somebody 1 needed to talk to about something

I have n»» idea what he thought about that. All he said, in this

'YOU not hit I take."

"I'm ju I told him.

"Well, then you folio* me," he said, lie took me downstairs and

i- h.illw.i\ with dun led lightbulbt I Vtt) tCfl

melled like \.mm 11 >rs, but the) were

all dosed. At th. the hall wai anothei door, and then we went

thet room, whk h 1 nuess

uple

B O Y S O F L I F E D

of fat men sitting at them drinking, and in the back of the room w

On the stage this short little white nun was fucking a black woman

in her behind. She was bent over on her hands and knees, and she had

these great big breasts like cow's tits flopping back and forth while he

tucked her.

I'd never seen two people fucking before, only dogl and such like,

and it made me feel queasy. Every time he pushed in, she made this grunting sound, and they were both covered in sweat thai was all shiny

under the red lights. He had this black curly hair, bushy like an Afro, and a sort oi hook nose. He was really ugly. 1 m^t stood there And watched, and in about a minute he groaned and screwed up his face and you could tell he was coming.