A Dance at the Slaughter House Read online

Page 12

 

  Nothing that I saw was much like what Id seen at Elaines.

  When I got out of there I was ten dollars poorer and felt about that many years older. It was hot and humid out, it had been like that all week, and I wiped sweat off my forehead and wondered what I was doing on Forty-second Street and why Id come there. They didnt have anything I wanted.

  But I couldnt seem to get off the block. I wasnt drawn to any other porno stores, nor did I want any of the services the street had to offer. I didnt want to buy drugs or hire a sexual partner. I didnt want to watch a kung fu movie or buy basketball sneakers or electronic equipment or a straw hat with a two-inch brim. I could have bought a switchblade knife ("Sold only in kit form; assembly may be illegal in some states") or some fake photo ID, printed while-U-wait, $5 black-and-white, $10 color. I could have played Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, or listened to a white-haired black man with a bullhorn who had absolute conclusive proof that Jesus Christ was a full-blooded Negro born in present-day Gabon.

  I walked back and forth, back and forth. At one point I crossed Eighth and had a sandwich and a glass of milk at a stand-up lunch counter in the Port Authority bus terminal. I hung out there for a while- the air-conditioning was a blessing- and then something drove me back onto the street.

  One of the theaters had a pair of John Wayne movies, The War Wagon and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. I paid a dollar or two, whatever it cost, and went inside. I sat through the second half of one film and the first half of the other and went outside again.

  And walked some more.

  I was lost in thought and not paying attention when a black kid stepped up next to me and asked me what I was doing. I turned to look at him and he stared up at me with a challenging look in his eyes. He was fifteen or sixteen or seventeen, around the same age as the boy murdered in the film, but he looked far more streetwise.

  "Im just looking in a store window," I said.

  "You been lookin in every window," he said. "You been up and down the block time and time again. "

  "So?"

  "So what you lookin for?"

  "Nothing. "

  "Walk on down to the corner," he said. "Down to Eighth, and then around the corner and wait. "

  "Why?"

  "Why? So all these people dont be lookin at us, thats why. "

  I waited for him on Eighth Avenue, and he must have run around the block or taken a shortcut through the Carter Hotel. Years ago it was the Hotel Dixie, and it was famous for one thing- the switchboard operator answered every call, "Hotel Dixie, so what?" I think they changed the name about the same time that Jimmy Carter took the presidency away from Gerald Ford, but I could be wrong about that, and if its true its probably coincidence.

  I was standing in a doorway when he approached, walking south from Forty-third Street, his hands in his pockets and his head cocked to one side. He was wearing a denim jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. You would have thought hed be roasting in that jacket, but the heat didnt seem to bother him.

  He said, "I seen you yesterday and I seen you all day today. Back an forth, back an forth. What you lookin for, man?"

  "Nothing. "

  "Shit. Everybody on the Deuce be lookin for somethin. First I thought you was a cop, but you aint a cop. "

  "How do you know?"

  "You aint. " He took a long look at me. "Are you? Maybe you are. "

  I laughed.

  "What you laughin at? You actin strange, man. Man asks do you want to buy reefer, do you want to buy rock, you just give your head a quick little shake, you dont even look at the man. You want any kind of drugs?"

  "No. "

  "No. You want a date with a girl?" I shook my head. "A boy? Boy and a girl? You want to see a show, you want to be a show? Tell me what you want. "

  "I just came here to walk around," I said. "I had some things to think about. "

  "Sheeeee," he said. "Come on down to the Deuce to think. Put on my thinkin cap, come on down to the Street. You dont say what you really want, how you gonna get it?"

  "I dont want anything. "

  "Tell me what you want, I help you get it. "

  "I told you, theres nothing I want. "

  "Well, shit, plenty of shit I want. Say you gimme a dollar. "

  There was no menace to him, no intimidation. I said, "Why should I give you a dollar?"

  "Just cause you an me be friends. Then maybe on account of we friends, I be givin you a jay. Hows that sound?"

  "I dont smoke dope. "

  "You dont smoke dope? What do you smoke?"

  "I dont smoke anything. "

  "Then gimme a dollar an I wont give you nothin. "

  I laughed in spite of myself. I glanced around and no one was paying attention to us. I got out my wallet and handed him a five.

  "Whats this for?"

  " Cause were friends. "

  "Yeah, but what do you want? You want me to go somewhere with you?"

  "No. "

  "You just givin me this here. "

  "No strings. If you dont want it-"

  I reached for the bill and he snatched it away, laughing. "Hey now," he said. "You dont be givin an takin back. Didnt your mama teach you bettern that?" He pocketed the bill, cocked his head and gave me a look. "I still aint got you figured out," he said.

  "Theres nothing to figure," I said. "Whats your name?"

  "My name? Why you want to know my name?"

  "No reason. "

  "You can call me TJ. "

  "All right. "

  " All right. Whats your name?"

  "You can call me Booker. "

  "What you say, Booker?" He shook his head. "Shit, you some-thin, man. Booker. One thing you aint, you aint no Booker. "

  "My names Matt. "

  "Matt," he said, trying it out. "Yeah, thats cool. Matt. Matt. An thats where its at, Matt. "

  " And thats the truth, Ruth. "

  His eyes lit up. "Hey," he said. "You hip to Spike Lee? You seen that movie?"

  "Sure. "

  "I swear you hard to figure. "

  "Theres nothing to figure. "

  "You got some kind of a jones. I just cant make out what it is. "

  "Maybe I havent got one. "

  "On this street?" He whistled tonelessly. He had a round face, a button nose, bright eyes. I wondered if my five dollars would go for a vial of crack. He was a little chubby for a crack head and he didnt have the look they get, but then they dont get it right away.

  "On the Deuce," he said, "everybody got a jones. They got a crack jones or a smack jones, a sex jones or a money jones, a speed-it-up or a slow-it-down jones. Man aint got some kind of a jones, what he be doin here?"

  "And what about you, TJ?"

  He laughed. "Oh, I got me a jones jones," he said. "I all the time got to be knowin what kind of a jones the other dudes got, and that be my jones, an thats where its at, Matt. "

  I spent a few minutes more with TJ, and he was the best five-dollar cure I could have found for the Forty-second Street blues. By the time I headed back uptown I had shaken off the pall that had cloaked me all day. I had a shower and ate a decent dinner and went to a meeting.

  The next day the phone rang while I was shaving, and I rode the subway to Brooklyn and got some work from a Court Street lawyer named Drew Kaplan. He had a client who was charged with vehicular homicide in a hit-and-run death.

  "He swears hes innocent," Kaplan said, "and I personally happen to think hes full of shit, but on the chance that hes actually telling his attorney the truth, we ought to see if theres a witness somewhere who saw somebody else run over the old lady. You want to give it a go?"

  I put in a week on it, and then Kaplan told me to let it go, that theyd offered to let his client plead to reckless endangerment and leaving the scene.

  "And theyll drop the homicide charge," he said, "and I very strongly advised him to go for it, which he finally agreed to do once he got it into his head that this way he wont be serving any ti
me. Theyre gonna ask for six months but I know the judgell agree to probation, so Ill say yes to the deal tomorrow unless you just happened to find the perfect witness since I talked to you last. "

  "I found somebody just this afternoon. "

  "A priest," he said. "A priest with twenty-twenty vision who holds the Congressional Medal of Honor. "

  "Not quite, but a strong solid witness. The thing is, shes positive your guy did it. "

  "Jesus Christ," he said. "This is somebody the other side doesnt know about?"

  "They didnt as of two hours ago. "

  "Well, lets for Gods sake not tell them now," he said. "Ill close it out tomorrow. Your check, as they say, is in the mail. Youre still a guy who doesnt have a license and doesnt submit reports, right?"

  "Unless you need something for the record. "

  "As a matter of fact," he said, "what I need in this case is to not have something for the record, so you wont submit a report and Ill forget this conversation that we never had. "

  "Fine with me. "

  "Great. And Matt? Somewhere along the line you ought to think about getting yourself a ticket. Id give you more work, but theres stuff I cant use you on unless youve got a license. "

  "Ive been thinking about it. "

  "Well," he said, "if your status changes, let me know. "

  KAPLANS check was generous, and when it came I rented a car and drove up to the Berkshires with Elaine to spend some of it. When we got back Wally at Reliable called and I got two days work in connection with an insurance claim.

  The film Id seen became part of the past, and my emotional connection to it faded. It had affected me because I had seen it, but in truth it had nothing to do with me or I with it, and as time passed and my life got back on its usual course, it became in my mind what it in fact was- i. e. , one more outrage in a world that overflowed with them. I read the paper every morning, and every day there were fresh outrages to take the sting out of the old ones.

  There were images from the film that still came to my mind now and then, but they no longer held the same charge for me. And I didnt get back to Forty-second Street, and I didnt run into TJ again, and scarcely thought of him. He was an interesting character, but New York is full of characters, theyre all over the place.

  The year went on. The Mets faded and finished out of the race, and the Yankees were never in it. Two California teams met in the Series, and the most interesting thing that happened during it was the San Francisco earthquake. In November the city got its first black mayor, and the following week Amanda Warriner Thurman was raped and murdered three flights above an Italian restaurant on West Fifty-second Street.

  Then I saw a mans hand smooth a boys light brown hair, and it all came back.

  Chapter 7

  I had eaten breakfast and read two newspapers by the time the bank opened. I got the cassette from my safe-deposit box and called Elaine from a pay phone on the street.

  She said, "Hi. How were the fights?"