C h a p t e r

F i v e

I WENT HOME LATE IN THE MORNING BECAUSE I KNEW BELL WAS at work. I had slept badly at Madison's. A dream of cockroaches crawling into my mouth haunted me and I was worried the stranger would be suddenly beside me, his thick cock nudging my ass. At dawn the couple upstairs started fucking. The woman made a sudden bark of discomfort, but the man coached her into pleasure saying, “Like this. Just like this.”

The apartment wasn't much different than when I'd left yesterday. There were still dirty glasses in the sink and a warm smell of eggs mixed with the clove cigarettes Bell lately favored. The ashtray was filled with butts smoked super low the way poor men do. But the place was already bizarre, the Bible opened to the Easter story and a mazelike drawing tacked up over the bed. The sheets on the futon were tangled. I hoped it meant Bell had slept badly, but to me they implied passion as well. With Bell there was always this OTHER. We never spoke of it, but I knew he was more excited with me after he saw someone dancing at a club or when he saw a man or a woman on the street he admired. And when he encouraged me to wear lingerie or get my hair cut short like a boy's it really wasn't so I would look sexy, but so I would resemble this other, an erotic abstraction in his head.

I broke the seal of the pint I had bought across the street and drank. There was something sustaining about the cold glass lip and the hot taste of bourbon. It was harder to break down the apartment than it had been to leave, there was something torturous about initiating the ritual of MINE and YOURS. I got the packing tape from the odds-and-ends drawer in the kitchen and put together the boxes. Loading quickly, I packed my shoes, several ratty sweaters and a blanket. I got the tiny wooden treasure chest my grandfather had made me and the paperweight with the white rose inside. I took my lithograph of the angel, my old felt hat and the tea strainer from the kitchen. Sorting through the silverware drawer for my favorite spoon I felt my heart beating hysterically. I got in the closet, sat against the far wall looking out into the room. Remembered how Bell had once lured me out of here, from what he called my poodle bed, by putting a cream puff on a plate on the floor. And how my parents had divided their belongings: my father left first, then asked my mother formally in letters to send a certain photo, his suit with the cuffed pants, his old jazz records. Sitting in Bell's aroma, rubbing his materials against my cheek, I decided that all this was my fault because I was the worst kind of person; a pretty girl with high expectations who wanted more, but couldn't define more and prayed it wasn't just a matter of marrying money. I heard the incessant traffic on Bush Street, thought of heroines in novels. They were always optimistic and naive whether they were old women or whores. They were always beautiful, as if only the lovely had courage enough to go out into the world. They were smart in a dumb way, that inarticulate intelligence men seemed to like. They did crazy things because of love and in the end always realized something stupid that was obvious all along.

I skimmed every inch of the twisted sheets for sperm stains, worried that Bell had already taken a lover. Was it true that a man who really loved you would wait before he took new lovers? Or would the more desperate man seek a new lover immediately? Lately, I didn't trust the typical maxims of love, I know I sometimes loved men I cheated on more than ones I'd been true to. And besides, what did it mean that I didn't want him sleeping with anyone. It seemed territorial, had more to do with my will than any feeling for him. But that's the way it was with Bell from the beginning. It was his old girlfriend that started my obsession. I decided I wanted him once I'd heard about her: that she was five years older, had bleached blond hair, could speak French, that her father beat her and probably, most importantly, that she still wanted Bell. It was around these ridiculous facts my obsession with him flowered. But that wasn't really true, because when I thought of his lovely genitals, his narrow face, how he smiled with pleasure when I talked, how his body was warm, how it seemed to love me, I knew that I loved Bell, not only the mystery that surrounded him.

I spotted Kevin's wedding invitation lying under the table and crawled out of the closet. The envelope was worn fuzzy along the opening. I found a picture of Bell I liked and stuck both into my cardboard box. The two boxes and a green trash bag were all I had. It pleased me, I was like a monk or a disciple, I didn't need but a few bits of clothing. But staring at the sheen of the plastic I felt miserable. I was twenty-nine, and if I accumulated things at the same rate until I was ninety I would only have six boxes and three trash bags. But what did it matter? I wanted to stop thinking that accumulating things—people, houses, cars—could comfort or save me. But the thought of having nothing scared me, it was too much like being dead.

I dragged the bag to the lobby, then carried down the boxes, thought of sliding the key under the door, but decided to keep it. I might feel like spying on Bell or things could get desperate and I might need to sell my books or my radio. It was damp on the front steps. I sat there in a stupor trying to decide if I should flag a yellow cab or go back up and call the gypsy car service.

A cab came around the corner and I stood, motioned for it to stop. The driver pulled over, he was a congenial Arab who helped me load my things into the trunk. In the shadow of the cab I could see the I.D. card with his photo and his name—Amud. His smile was well practiced as he asked about the framed photo I carried on my lap.

“It's my mother,” I said. “She was Miss America and later became a doctor.” The cabbie looked at me through the rearview mirror, first with lifted eyebrows in an expression of sudden interest. But when he saw how my mouth was loose from drinking and the crazy glaze covering my eyes he hunched his shoulders and drove faster. I often lied about my mother, as if saying what she might have been could somehow help her. Bolstering my mother was like pretending your boyfriend loved you. I leaned my head against the window frame, letting the cool air dry the perspiration on my face. This upset the cabbie.

“Your father, he helps you?” The cabbie turned toward me very slowly, trying to see if he could sense the refinement that was usually under the hippie clothes of young San Francisco women.

“I'm on my own,” I said. This seemed to bother him. He pressed the gas, shook his head.

“A girl should not be like you are.” I wanted to answer but couldn't think of anything to say, and the cabbie didn't look at me again. He turned on the radio to a channel with scratchy Arabian music and drove anxiously, revving the engine and edging forward at the lights. At Madison's he helped me unload my stuff, shaking the trash bag to see if I was crazy enough to move garbage. He took my money and drove off toward Market Street.

Upstairs I could tell Madison had been there. She had left a portable TV and some sprayed carnations in a milky vase. The flowers were ugly and when I turned on the TV there was only aggressive static like the TV sets at Carmen's. These things frightened me and made me wonder if Madison had really meant to make me feel welcome.

I placed my grandfather's chest on the TV, tacked my Kandinsky postcards over the nightstand, draped a scarf over the headboard and leaned my mother's photo against the wall. It's amazing how a well-placed scarf and a photograph can transform a cement-block hotel room or a studio like this from any place into some place familiar. I dumped out the trash bag, folded my clothes into the drawers. The room still seemed creepy with the fake wood dresser and the metal institutional bed. Even the cubist poster was angular and soulless like a machine. There were distant sounds of activity in the building. It conjured up the last person who lived here, a little man with bad teeth who ate sardines and read cheap pornography. He had a heart attack in the tub jacking off. “There is nothing so lovely,” he thought, “as a very young girl.”

I crushed the boxes with my foot and stored them in the closet, certain this was only transitional. Madison's closet was spectacular, like a rack of costumes in an actor's dressing room. There were beads and belts—one nail alone for crosses and rosaries. There were no current-style clothes, which made me wonder if Madison might be older than I thought or maybe ageless like a vampire. I fingered the rich wine-colored velvet, smooth white satin, her colored vinyl, decided to try some on. First a sleeveless mini-dress. When I stepped into my reflection I thought I was my mother. This was the style I remembered her in, or maybe it was this scenario, because I used to go through her clothes, smell her perfumed bras and slips—lie on her bed thinking of her body with my father's. But I looked more like Madison than my mother and I thought how malleable women are, with clothes they can look like virgins or whores or housewives. Their earrings give information, hemlines speak, eye shadows imply. I remember how Bell sometimes ridiculed my big sweaters and jeans, said I looked like a student. He'd point out women he thought were fashionable, usually ones in well-tailored black clothes. Sometimes I wanted new clothes, but when I stepped into little gray dressing rooms with the hooks on one side and mirrors on the other, the store's fluorescent light blaring underneath the door, I felt vulnerable and stupid and it was impossible to decide on anything.

There was a scrap of newsprint with Madison's handwriting scrawled all over in the dress pocket. I wanted to read it, but heard the door rattle and a key in the dead bolt. Madison came in carrying a tube of toothpaste and a package of toilet paper. She was startled to see me in her dress but didn't say anything. Instead she went into the bathroom and ran water to brush her teeth. I quickly pulled the dress off, turned to find my clothes on the bed.

“Nice butt,” she said. “You could make a lot of money with a butt like that.” Madison laughed, flopped down on the bed, watched me pull up my jeans. “What's your story?” Madison asked.

“I'm just a girl like any other.”

Madison smiled. I could see I pleased her and I wanted deeply to do so again.

“Have you ever had an abortion?”

“Yeah,” I said, “once in college.” It seemed a strange thing for her to ask me. So quickly she reduced people to two things, their most violent experiences and their sexual desires.

“Sobering, ain't it?” she said, scanning the things I put up around the room. She fingered the blue silk scarf.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

She looked at me to show how easily I slipped into formalities. “Carson City. Aren't you going to ask me what my daddy does?” She smiled. “My mother said he was a cowboy but she's a liar. Another time she pointed to the guitarist on a video and said that was my father. My second stepfather moved us around a lot, crazy places like Spokane and some place in Mexico. He sold things: tanning beds, fire alarms. I've lost track of them now and we will never find each other.”

“That's too bad,” I said, though I knew it wasn't what she wanted me to say.

“I wish I were a lizard hatched in the desert sun.”

I sat down on the bed by her feet. “I'll only be here until I get a job.”

“You're going to work for me. Come over to the bar around one o'clock tonight.” Standing abruptly, she moved toward the door. “Did they wake you?” she asked, pointing upstairs.

“It sounded like he was hurting her.”

Madison shook her head. “She just pretends because he likes to think he's hurting her.”

After she left I listened for her footsteps on the stairs, then on the sidewalk until they mixed with others and became untraceable. I looked at the clock. There was an intolerable pain connected with time now. I thought of drinking. I thought of masturbating, of watching a man fuck me in the ass, screwing me like a dog. These fantasies scared me now. I couldn't always control the men. They did horrible things, their faces contorting in evil pleasure.

The phone rang and when I answered I could tell by the heavy breathing it was Pig. “Madison,” she said, “Madison, is that you? Don't torture me, it took a lot to call you,” she said loudly. “I want to see you. I sent a girl, but I couldn't tell her what I really wanted to say . . . I know you're there . . . could you come out here, honey? Could you?” The helpless sound of her voice made me feel cruel and I whispered, “You're a fat old fool.” When I said it I heard a sharp intake of breath and a sound like she had fallen against a table and the phone rattled onto the floor.

I felt bad, but no way could I call back to apologize. So I called my own mother. She answered on the first ring and told me excitedly that my father's cousin had died. “I always liked him so much,” she said, “so what if he left his wife for a year or two and ran off with his secretary, when that was over he came right back to her. They got married again and everything. There is something primal about first love.”

She allowed men their wanderings if they were rich or if they eventually smartened up. She wasn't exactly a situational moralist, more a financial one. I told her we had moved. She took the number and I said I had to go. She pretended I hadn't spoken, said, “The crazy thing is since I found out he died, I've been buying things. Just yesterday I bought a stereo and today these little Persian rugs for my car—I feel free.” She giggled girlishly. I told her again I had to go.

“Why do you always call me when you have so little time to talk?”

“Sometimes it makes me sad to talk to you.”

“Because you're afraid you'll turn out like me?”

That wasn't it exactly, more that her equation seemed tragic in such a trivial way . . . drunken father, no-good husband, that once she was beautiful and now she was fat, that she probably hadn't had sex in ten years, that her life had shrunk to a dollar sign. It was the only currency she felt comfortable dealing in, it was the only thing she trusted. “No,” I said. “You just remind me I'm going to die.”

“And get petty in the meantime?”

“Good-bye, Mom,” I said. As I hung up I heard her say, “You're no different than anyone else, Jesse.”

I lay on the bed, watching the light fall. I could see a sign across the street that said GirlsGirlsGirls. Above it a window with green drapes. The moon was rising over the brick skyline, outlining the highway ramps by the water.

I remembered Madison's note, heaved up out of bed and got it from the pocket of the mini-dress. I could still read in the half-light.

I was pregnant, on X, couldn't really focus on anything. Boys kissing in the corner. I couldn't get into the bathroom to take a piss and stood waiting in line, watching a tall thin boy spin around so that his skirt flew up showing his net panties. When the door finally did open two girls and a boy in a red sequined sweater walked out laughing. There was a strobe that made me happy, until I saw in its pulse my boyfriend with a girl on his lap. I turned my head—that is his way—I said eight times fast and then faster until it went with the music and did not seem so bad.

I put the paper into my little wooden chest, latched it, set the alarm for midnight and turned out the light.

THE BARTENDER TOLD ME TO GO UPSTAIRS. IT WAS A RELIEF TO get away from the leering men at the bar. The stairs were steep, covered in bruise-blue linoleum. At the top was a white door with a black sign that said PRIVATE. I put my hand on the doorknob and there was a sudden buzz. I pushed it open. The hallway was dark and because I didn't know the geography of the place I stood still for a moment letting my eyes adjust. The air was warm and damp and I could hear the sound of bubbling water. I walked ahead. There were giant fish tanks set into the wall on either side, dreamy angel fish, transparent guppies and pencil-thin silver ones. The tanks alternated with doors and windows. Moving toward the spiral staircase, I thought the woman in the first window was a mannequin, but then she looked up. A well-practiced look, a touch of naïveté, a question, and the perfect amount of distance, the kind of distance that elicits desire. She wore a white corset, the same shade as the shag carpet. There were other women, one wore a blond floor-length wig. She spread her legs, showed me her rouged cunt.

The blue lights made it seem like the whole place was underwater. I climbed the metal stairs. Madison's room was huge with the same thick white carpet, round white couches and a bed with a fuzzy white bedspread. Madison was near a white table, sitting in a white leather bucket seat. She wore a baby doll nightgown and patent leather go-go boots and said without turning, “Could you help me?” She was carefully heating the bottom of a silver spoon with a lighter. She slapped her forearm, made a fist, told me she hadn't medicated herself yet this morning, asked if I would hold her bicep until she found a vein.

“Couldn't you use something else?” I asked.

“I want you to do it,” she said fiercely, “NOW.” She slapped her other hand against the table and I quickly clamped my fingers thumb to thumb around her upper arm.

“Tighter,” she said, “these veins aren't for shit anymore.” Her arm marbled, then turned pink, the veins puffed up and she finally found one she liked, in the delicate underside of her forearm. She loaded the syringe. I hated how the needle slipped in, as if her flesh were butter. There was a bloody backwash that tinted the heroin rose.

“Let go,” she said, pulling the syringe out. She pressed a tissue over the vein, folded her arm up, then slid back into the chair. When Madison saw how startled I looked she laughed.

“You're not one of those people who consider seeing your parents argue intense?”

“I think seeing a seagull with a broken wing on the side of the road can be just as horrible as—”

“As what?” Madison asked. “Getting raped?”

“No,” I said, “of course not. I just don't think there is a real hierarchy of pain.”

Madison nodded. “Fair enough. So what's your opinion of blow jobs?” Her smile was not a smile at all.

“Do you have some kind of philosophy about them?”

Madison rolled her head dreamily toward me. I could tell the drug was taking effect. “Well, many powerful things seem based on them: rockets, skyscrapers, guns. But, in a way, they're all pitiful. When I have one in my mouth I think of it like a dumb worm. It doesn't know the difference between a cunt, a hand or a mouth. And while the men think I'm either servile or kind, depending on their feelings for me, I know that it's a service. When I give head, I'm like a mechanic. The cock is a car. The car's owner, just like the owner of the cock, knows nothing about me or how I really feel about him.”

“It's all so esoteric.”

“Esoteric?” she repeated angrily. “Tell me how you lost your virginity.”

“No,” I said. “Let's talk about my job.”

“Tell me what happened, it's part of the interview,” she said. “And sit down over here by me.” She patted the chair near her.

I didn't want to tell the story and tried to change the subject by asking how tips were at the bar. She ignored me and said, “Please continue.”

“O.K.,” I said, “I'll tell you, but it won't prove anything.”

Madison looked up slowly, her eyes were glassy now and she smiled.

“I rode the bus down to Georgia. It smelled horrible, because an old lady in the back had shit in her pants and I remember thinking how the trees and shrubs on the back roads seemed lushly malignant. He picked me up. We drove to a subdivision where he and other boys from the college had a duplex. We went up to his room, it was sparse, anemic with calculus textbooks in a metal bookshelf and a mattress on the floor. He undressed me and placed my hand on his little cock. Afterward, he went to the bathroom and I found a gold earring stuck between the wall and the bed.”

“Let me tell you mine,” Madison said, she sat up in her chair and reached for the light, turned it away so we sat more in the shadows. I thought of dark confessionals and how when I take a new lover I always dim the light. “Sometimes, just kissing I got so wet my underwear would be soaked. There was this guy. He told me he wanted us to have a baby. Sure I fell for it, I chose him over the other groping potheads. But after a while he kept bugging me to fuck, he would scream every time I said I wasn't ready. He started to talk in baby talk to me and he'd say I was the same as little girls we saw on the street. I got angry. And while he was away two friends of his came over and asked me if I'd have sex with them. I said I would and they took me to an apartment. I think it was one of their uncles’. It was empty with just a single lawn chair and a card table. I leaned against the wall and they fucked me one after another.”

“And you never told your boyfriend?”

“No, we did it right after and I pretended to be a virgin.”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“Why? That's how I felt.”

I was aware of being clichéd, sentimental and wanted to show her I could be as tough and raw as herself.

“What's the worst thing you ever saw?”

“My father with a boner.” She laughed hard, then her face pulled up suddenly, as if she had thought of something horrible. “I'm not unwilling to die,” she said, looking at me with sleepy eyes. “After a while the men who come around here seem as inconsequential as flies.”