Not without the roller skates she wasn't.
I was surprised as hell to learn that, having come up with the name Rule for my private detective in this story back in 1981, I used it again for my hero cop in the novel ROAD KILL aka JOYRIDE in 1994. Not Slade this time but just plain Joe. Either senility had already begun to settle in by then or I just like the name Rule for persons of the detective persuasion.
You live in New York, especially if you live anywhere near the Park, you can get pretty testy in the summertime. Joggers, skateboarders, rollerbladers—skaters when this was written—they all seem out to get you. Not to mention the delivery boys on bikes or the busses and cabs and commuters. It used to be you looked at the direction traffic was flowing and if nothing was coming you crossed the street. Now you look both ways and if you want to avoid a hospital bed as much as I do usually you do it twice. People are hurtling through New York these days like all the dogs of hell are yapping at their heels and maybe they are.
I don't really like public exercise. I'm old-fashioned. I believe sweating should be done in private, at home or in your own back yard or maybe in a gym. Hence the Jogger Murders.
And what the hell did ever happen to reading?
My sympathies are with the cave bear.
My comment on the World Trade Center is now regrettable, to say the least.
THE OLD DAYS
Stroup lit up a Winston. He set his scotch down on the bar. The glass was almost empty. Aside from Stroup and Robert and Diana the bartender so was the bar.
"What're you gonna do once you can't smoke in bars anymore, Stroup?" said Robert.
"I'm gonna smoke in bars, Robert. It's not us they're gonna fine, it's the owners. Fuck the owners."
"The owners'll just throw you out, Stroup."
"I'll go someplace else."
"So? They'll throw you out of there too."
"I'll go someplace else. Will you quit interrupting me for chrissake? I'm trying to tell you a story here. I'm trying to tell you how it was. I'm trying to tell you about the old days. You got cigarettes on the brain. I got pussy."
He drained the scotch and waved to Diana for another. Diana was looking pretty good tonight. He wondered if she'd ever let him fuck her. If you are what you eat, Stroup thought, he could be Diana by morning.
"Anyway, so this Julie person is all over me in there. I mean, she is fashion-model gorgeous. Tall, slim. I figure she's in her twenties. Me, I'm thirty-three. I got a belly. She's goat on this teeny little two piece jumpsuit, shorts and top, and I'm holding my glass in front of me talking to her and she keeps brushing my knuckles with her tits. My knuckles tell me there's no bra. I don't give a shit if she spills the scotch all over me. I'm wondering how I got so lucky. Okay, so her two brothers are looking at me kinda funny. Okay, so they're built like construction machinery. I figure she knows what she's doing even if she is a little drunk.
"But these two guys keep looking at me. Like I'm sandwich meat and they're deciding if they want deli or pizza. Then she leans over and sticks her tongue in my mouth and the next thing I know one of the brothers has got her by the left arm and the other's got the right and they haul her off the floor and all the way out of the bar before I can even get my wind back.
"Next thing you know they're coming through the door again and they are pissed. Who the fuck do I fucking think I am? and all this shit. I'm gonna get my ass kicked for sure. No question. But this girl, this Julie, she comes in right behind them. Gets between us. Turns and whispers to me, I'll be back, and then she's saying it's not his fault for chrissake, come on, let's go! let's go! let's go! and the brothers do. It's a miracle! I don't get so much as shoved here."
"Jesus, Stroup."
"You got that right."
He lit another Winston. Diana brought him his drink.
"What're you gonna do when you can't smoke in here anymore?" Diana said.
"Go somewhere else. You think I come in here for my health, Diana? You won't even let me fuck you. Why is everybody so concerned about my welfare all of a sudden? Do I look sickly or something?"
"Who says, Stroup?"
"Who says what?"
"Who says I wouldn't let you fuck me."
"Don't do this to me, Diana. And what are you smiling at Robert for?"
"You could always quit. Get the patch. Go on a program."
"A program? A program? Jesus, Diana, anything with twelve steps isn't worth climbing. That's what they make elevators for. Pour Robert a drink on me, okay? I gotta finish this story.
"So I order another scotch and I'm maybe halfway through it when Julie's back again, she's as good as her word. Already I love this girl. Let's go she says but it sounds much better this time and shoves her tongue down my throat again. I ask her what about her brothers and she says don't worry about my brothers so I pay up and we get the hell out of there. It's now maybe four in the morning on this nice warm summer night.
"But now we got a problem. We can't go back to my place because Carla's there and we can't go to hers because of her brothers so we head for the park, we're necking all the way down 72nd Street all the way to the park and finally we sit down on a bench and I've got this raging hard-on because I've already found out that there's nothing inside that jump suit, either top or bottom.
"We get up and start walking again after awhile and she's got her hand inside my jeans wrapped around my pecker like I'm some Schnauzer on a leash and she's walking her dog into the park. It's getting light outside. It's damn near dawn. She's laughing and I'm laughing and pretty much the first tree we come to she pushes me up against it and unzips me and pushes aside the leg of the jumpsuit and there we are, fucking against this tree in Central Park at dawn. This old guy comes along walking his real dog so we wave at him. When we finish I zip it up and we go out for coffee."
"Central Park at dawn? Are you out of your mind, Stroup? What if a cop came by?"
"I'm not finished. So we're sitting drinking coffee in this greasy spoon and she asks me how old I am and I tell her. Then she asks me how old I think she is. I say I dunno, twenty-one, twenty-two and she laughs and says fifteen. See, I was screwing jailbait in Central Park at dawn. What do you figure? Twenty years at Rikers? Five off for good behavior?"
"Jesus, Stroup!"
"Right again. But see, that's how it was back then. It was a crazy time. I pick up this woman one night at a disco, her breath smells a little funny. It's not a smell I've ever smelled before, y'know? But she's great-looking and she feels great and I find out later that she's great in bed too and a little while after that I find out why her breath smells so funny. She's on coke, speed, opium, Quaaludes and poppers. All at the same time. And of course the vodka. She's a walking pharmacy, this woman. A fucking hospital dispensary is what she smells like.
"I got used to it. She was a hell of a dancer."
Robert's drink arrived. "Thank you very much, Diana," he said and smiled.
She smiled back. "You're very welcome, sir."
"Well aren't you two Mr. and Mrs. Polite," said Stroup. "Don't go all British on me, all right?" He held up his glass. "Me too, Diana. So listen to me. I walk into this place Paalson's one night —it's gone now—great pickup joint. I order a drink and look the place over and there's this terrific brunette down the other end and she sees me looking at her and crooks her finger at me, motions me over.
"We start talking and she's smart and funny and sexy as hell. Turns out she's a dominatrix, y'know? A pro, a hooker for godsakes in this middle-class West Side bar. Well, I know a bit about that scene because I've just finished this piece on a downtown S&M club for Genesis or Swank or something, and turns out she knows the place, she works out of there sometimes. We know some of the same people. Big George the bouncer. Denise, the little black mistress. So now we're really hitting it off.
"Finally she asks me if I want to go to her place. Hell, yes, I tell her but no offense, I'm not into paying for it. That's okay, she says, buy me another drink. So I do and off we go. W
e get to her place —it's a big one-room apartment right off West End Avenue with a huge king-sized bed—and right away what she wants to do is to tie me up, tie me to the bed.
"Nah, I tell her, I'm only into straight sex but once again, no offense. That's okay, she says I haven't had straight sex for a while, it'll make a change but how about some of these? And she pulls this big black box out from under the bed and inside she's got all these dildos and vibrators and cuffs and whips and creams and black leather everything, dozens of items in there, all stacked and packed, real neat.
"I never tried one of those cock rings I tell her.
"Fine, she says. And assures me she disinfects them after every use. So we try a couple on for size. We find one that fits and it's really kinda neat, feels good. You ever try one?"
"No."
"You should. Anyway she's going down on me in this highly expert way when I hear a key in the latch and the door opens and in steps this blonde kid. She takes her mouth away but she's keeping me hard with this equally expert handjob and meantime they have this conversation, her and the kid. He's her roommate, see, also a hooker. He's got this trick and needs the bed in oh, about an hour, is that okay? Sure, she says.
"He goes out again and she goes back to sucking me off and finally we're fucking and when it's over we have a glass of wine and smoke a Winston or two and finally I get dressed and she pats my ass as I go out the door. I don't have her phone number and damned if I can remember her name. I go to her building once a couple weeks later and buzz what I think is her apartment but I get no answer. Never saw her again."
"That's kind of sad, Stroup."
"Sad my ass. One of the best nights of my life. I gotta piss."
He got up and at the urinal reflected that it was too bad but there was no way he was going to be able to tell this guy Robert how it was back then in the City. Hell, there was one night there when his father and he had gone out together just for a drink or two and they both got lucky and they both got laid and his father had been about seventy. How could you explain that to somebody who had never been there? It was impossible.
He thought women in New York these days were a sorry piece of work all told. Either they sported Sharper Image double-wide strollers and guzzled Starbucks by the gallon or they pierced their eyebrows and tongues and had shampoo barcodes tattooed on their necks. Either that or they were fitness junkies who ate nothing but organic sprouts and miso. In Stroup's estimation vegetarians should be grilled and eaten. You want the bottom of the food chain? You got it.
Where were the old days? Where was the heat?
He walked out and there was Robert writing something on a cocktail napkin and passing it across the bar to Diana. She slid it into her jeans.
"We were just talking about you," he said.
"You were? What about me?"
"You try too hard sometimes, Stroup. No offense. But it's like you're on a mission, y'know?"
"What kind of mission?"
"Never mind," said Robert.
"No. What kind of mission? You can say whatever you want to me. No problem."
"Like your dick is Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of you is just cavalry, artillery and air support."
"What? My dick is gonna liberate Iraq?"
"That's the point. I doubt it. Think about it, Stroup. Diana? My turn to buy this time, okay?"
"Nah," Diana said. "This one's on the house."
She poured and they drank. After awhile when she was out of earshot Stroup turned to Robert and said, "So what was on the napkin? Phone number, right?"
"That's right," he said.
"I don't suppose it's business."
"No. Not business."
"That's what I thought. Well, here's to you, Robert. Here's to you, my friend."
And Stroup thought that maybe it wasn't so very much different from the old days after all. For all the stories like the ones he'd been telling here tonight there had been about a dozen or two that went pretty much like this one.
They didn't make for much in the telling, though.
He preferred his.
He lit a Winston.
The cigarette thing? He didn't know.
This is a new one—written for the 2004 Delirium ultra-limited-limited edition. Like the novella SHEEP MEADOW STORY from TRIAGE it resurrects my old buddy Stroup again. For the Delirium book a very real Robert won the toss to have his name inserted in the story, hopefully not to his immense distress. I would and will buy him a drink whenever he presents himself. Even if he did get the girl...
PART II:
BEYOND THE PAIL
Author' s Note
Coincidental with being asked to do a new edition of BROKEN for Delirium Books I had for a couple of months previous been going through the tearsheets and hard copy from some of my older magazine stuff with an eye toward putting together my first nonfiction collection—scribblings on my own work and other people's work, memoir, musings, whatever. I didn't know what would fit and what wouldn't, and since a lot of it was written on either an old IBM Selectric or an Apple 2E—5 1/2 inch discs, folks, back in the days when a floppy truly was a floppy—I figured what the hell, enter it all on your computer, print it out, see what you've got, and then edit.
Some of it did make it into the book. But most of it went directly into the pail where it belonged. Hence the title of this section.
These four pieces didn't.
I felt they still said something—however squalid—about the era. Firsthand observations on just how perverse and silly a lot of us were back then. Myself included. They didn't fit the book. They were of a piece but the tone was all wrong. Not exactly dogs in the chicken coop but close enough. I'd intended to hold them aside anyway with an eye toward doing some small lurid chapbook one of these days, and then when Delirium came to me asking if I had anything that hadn't been reprinted for a while and which I could somehow tweak a little to make it special, I thought of BROKEN and I thought of these four yarns to do the tweaking.
I offer them, once again, very much at my own risk. Especially since they're true, god help me.
Read them at yours.
UGLY GEORGE:
CABLE TVs PRINCE OF PICKUP
Tuesday, 11:32 p.m.
As soon as Paula hears the polka music (tayattata-yattata-yattata-ya) she leaves the room.
She's not a fan.
The Manhattan Cable tuner is turned to Channel J—The Ugly George Hour of Truth Sex and Violence. Paula has seen The Ugliness and is not amused. "Reprehensible," was her comment.
At the moment George is in a hallway with Wallie who calls herself a graphic artist. ("Our first dimly-lit hallway," exalts the overdub.) Wallie has big dark nipples that George likes and he is posing her in that funny cheesecake Russ Meyer way of his, hands on hips and spine arched to the extent that if you turned her over you could probably beat eggs in the small of her back. He shoots her from below to accentuate the loll of her breasts. She is holding and squeezing them together. Wallie is from Westchester and has just finished high school. "One of us has a hard-on," George says. She laughs, nervous. George asks her to shake them. She does. Then he asks her to move slightly so she can't be seen from the street.
The rest, for George, is typical. A girl getting naked in a New York office building while George interviews her about her "busty" condition. How tits change your life. At first she's reticent to strip completely but George convinces her. Women will do the strangest things. She wads her panties into her mouth and draws them slowly out again, sucking them off for the camera.
We move on. To an ad for the Charles Nelson School of Self-Defense. To a plea for letters and photographs to The Ugliness' new mailing address. "Hi, boys and girls—whip 'em out. Your pens and pencils, that is."—To an on-the-street interview with Robert Guillaume of Benson, notable for George's lead question. "How does it feel to play a flunky?" To the usual footage taped at Naked City, Indiana—usual because Naked City is a sponsor—which gives George a chance to vent his spl
een at the girls of New York. ("All you liberated females, are you ready to be in a nude beauty contest? Do you know that we have Communists in this country called feminists who think they can tell other women what to do with their bodies?")
To an interview with one of the contestants, the Number One Female Sword Swallower in the World. ("What prize did she win? Did she get The Ugliness after the contest? Stay tuned.") Then back to New York for a feminist rally at Grand Army Plaza. More spleen. And finally another request for photographs, stated in George's strange arch way of proceeding from the negative. "Be sure not to send any pictures of yourself to Ugly George if you're really liberated. That's right, if you're out of the closet and a beautiful young virgin, be sure not to send photos of yourself like these, from Montana and Indiana, because then someone might think you're liberated and can think for yourself. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" With which captious remarks the screen abruptly blanks and the half-hour "Hour" is over.
Paula returns to the room.
"I don't see how you can stand that man," she says.
"You'll meet him tomorrow," I tell her. "He's coming over for the interview. Be sure to smile."
"I hate duplicity," she says.
Wednesday, 1:25 p.m.
Paula smiles at him. He's wearing hiking shoes, Wranglers and a faded red tee-shirt. There are nearly one hundred pounds of port-a-pack video equipment on his back, a Sony DXC 1610 color camera and an SLO 340 Betamax which barely clears the cabinet in the hall. He lowers the equipment to the couch and my cats sniff at it furtively. He is not ugly. His features are regular and he has good brown eyes that gaze at you directly. He will not tell you his age—though I place him in his late thirties—his real name, or where, specifically, he comes from.