City of Night (40 page)

           “Shall I freshen up your tea?”

           “No, thanks, Ive had enough.”

           “Tea is very invigorating in the afternoon, especially after a big lunch,” he insisted curiously—and poured out another cup.

           It seemed so ludicrous—this hybrid movie-set room (like a small-scale parody, at times, of a medieval chamber, with anachronistic touches of Contemporary California) and the man in the incredible costume—so ludicrously incongruous it all seemed, to sit sipping the carefully laid out tea (and cookies!) from the small tilac-decorated china cups.

           Glancing over the teacup, into another room (to avoid looking directly at this man and thereby to thwart his excoriating gaze by not acknowledging it—and throughout lunch he had hardly spoken, concentrating merely on studying me), I catch sight of a foot—just the tip—jutting from behind the slightly open door.

           I asked Neil: “Are you alone?”

           “Oh, yes! Just you and me—and my cat,” he answered, savoring the tea loudly as if to induce me to take mine.

           I dismiss the foot, which hasnt moved. It is probably a shoe—or, more likely, a boot—tossed behind the door.

           The telephone screams, and I almost drop the cup nervously. Excusing himself, Neil goes into the other room. He steps carefully over the jutting foot as he goes through the door. The door, slightly farther ajar now, reveals, still unmoving, what is definitely a boot.

           “Hello?” he answers the telephone. A pause. “Hello?” again. Silence. I hear him hang the telephone up. There is a shuffling sound of moving in that next room. The boot disappears entirely.

           “Ive been getting these Mysterious Calls,” Neil explained, returning. “At least once a day—sometimes more often. Someone calls up, listens to my voice, doesnt say a word.”

           “Someone must be trying to bug you,” I offered.

           “Oh, no!” he exclaimed adamantly, obviating such a simple explanation. “Nothing like that!... Im convinced it’s someone who just wants to know—
has
to Know!—that someone, somewhere—someone like Me—exists. Eventually,” he predicted solemnly, “whoever it is will speak to me, and he’ll ask me if he can come up.... Oh, you may not know it, but I am rather—well, I’ll say it: Why not?” (Except that he said it like this: “Whu-I NOT-” and he shrugged his fleshy shoulders—or, rather, attempted to: The warning stretching sound of the shirt rejected the movement.) “I am rather Famous in California.”

           “Because of your costumes?”

           “‘Dressing up,’” he corrected me coolly, “does not mean wearing
costumes!
” He finished his first cup of tea—offered me another cup, which I refused. “When I spoke to you the other night in the bar,” he told me, “it was because I felt a certain propinquity—I mean,” he added carefully, “a certain interest.”

           “You stood out—even in that bar,” I said tactfully.

           Again, it wasnt what he wanted to hear. “What I mean,” he said testily, “is that I felt you were ‘ready.’”

           “Ready for what?”

           He avoided the question mysteriously.

           A furry amber cat curled like an ostrich plume about the man’s boots, then jumped lithely on his lap. Neil began to stroke the cat absently. In the long silence that followed, I could hear the satisfied purring of the animal as it pressed itself against the leather costume. As if just realizing that he’d been stroking the cat, Neil pushed it away suddenly, thrusting it angrily to the floor. He almost lifted it away with the tip of his boot. “I hate him when he becomes snivelingly affectionate!” he said.

           He rose precariously from the chair. The tight costume would not even allow him to walk easily. And when he opened a drawer in the antique desk, he crouched before it uncertainly, rigidly to keep his clothes intact. He brought out a box, removed a key from another smaller box, opened the first, and took out a stack of pictures which he brought over to show me.

           I prepared myself. That world, being a world of fleeting contacts, has a great attachment to photographs, as if to lend some permanence to what is usually all too impermanent. But I know before Ive seen them that the ones Neil will show me will be far from ordinary—will, in fact, be a part of a game Im convinced hes playing with me.

           Withholding the pictures dramatically, he said proudly: “These are only some of my Converts. People just Radiate toward me. And I open the world theyve been hunting—hunting, mind you, without even knowing it sometimes. That way, I help them find Themselves.” He spoke as if delivering a familiar speech. “You should see some of the ones that come to me—so timid: Just knowing someone like Me exists helps them. Even the first time, they walk out the door differently: Proud. Erect. Glad to be: Men!... I lead them carefully. I open doors for them, slowly.... They call me up—I had a call from a youngman in Seattle the other day. He’d heard about me, through friends—and he wanted to come down especially to see me. Why, I get calls all the time from Los Angeles.... And, well, Whu-I NOT?” He attempted another shrug, again frustrated. Dreamily: “I like to see youngmen coming out—I like to see them—well, flower out—...Rather,” he corrected himself hastily, “I like to see them burst out
Violently!
And I watch them move in the direction they were meant to go. Theyre like Disciples, discovering The Way.... Sometimes,” he said wistfully, assuming a benign look as he gathered his hands over the photographs on his lap, “sometimes—I get the feeling that Im something of a—... yes, something of a Saint.”

           I look at “The Saint” in the strange costume. His stare challenges mine. With a flourish, he spreads the photographs on a table before me as proudly as a peacock spreads his tail.

           There are youngmen dressed as military officers of long-ago periods, cowboys, motorcyclists, policemen, pirates, gladiators.... Single, they seem to have menaced the camera. In groups, they depict scenes of violence.... I lay the pictures down without looking at the rest.

           “I took every one of them myself,” he sighed.

           The cat had returned surreptitiously, winding in and out of Neil’s legs. Again, he shoved it away with his boot, this time much more violently. He watched as the cat moves away.

          
“And now!”
Neil announced. “Ill show you My Real Collection!—the most complete in California—and (Whu-I NOT) possibly in the United States!—though Ive heard theres a man near Griffith Park in Los Angeles who has a pretty good collection,” he condescended. “His name is—... Dan? Stan? Something like that. But Ive been told hes not at
all
like Me!”

           He ushered me into the bedroom. When he pushed open the door, past which I thought I had seen an unmoving foot earlier, I start.

           There are two men in the bedroom: a policeman wearing sun-glasses and a motorcyclist, legs spread, hands planted on hips, his head thrust forward as if ready to attack with gloved, clenched fists.

           Seeing me start, Neil laughs. “Theyre manikins!” he announced triumphantly at the deliberate deception. “They look terribly real, dont they?” He went fondly to the dummy dressed as a policeman, and he adjusted the cap, to one side; to the motorcyclist now and changed his stance, lowering the head to emphasize further the impending thrust. “I prefer this one.” He indicated the motorcyclist. “He looks more—oh, Rough!”

           The room has about it a twilight darkness—the same indefinite antiqueness as the living-room. The bed is covered with a shiny black-leather spread. Creating the illusion of a throne, a high-backed carved chair faces a three-paneled full-length mirror. Behind the chair, dark drapes brocaded along the edges are held back majestically by a gold cord. The furniture here belongs to that limbo-historical movie period.... The manikins have been sedulously arranged so that their reflections, in the mellow light, are reproduced realistically from a variety of angles in the mirrors.

           “I had them made especially,” Neil is explaining, eyeing the dummies like an infatuated lover. “Theyre not always dressed this way. I change their clothes to whatever suits my mood.... Incidentally,” he added proudly, “most of these clothes Ive designed Myself (Im a very Talented freelance artist, you know)—and then I have them custom-made.”

           Stirring himself out of his awe, he slid open a panel of doors, displaying an incredible array of costumes—a mesh of colors, of brocade, studs; jackets, pants, vests. He stands to one side like a painter undraping his Masterpiece. “Dozens and dozens and dozens,” he points out, “all different sizes, all different periods!” Beneath the costumes are about fifty pairs of boots, all kinds, all colors.

           From a shelf on top, Neil pulled a large brown leather box, carefully pushing away stacks of hats (cowboy hats, military and motorcycle caps; plumed helmets). Inside the box are whips, leather gloves, handcuffs, straps. He exhibits these like a woman showing her most precious jewelry—or her trousseau. “All of this is insured,” he explained.... He even had a leather handkerchief.

           He returned to the costumes, pulling out a jacket here, a vest there, a pair of chaps, pants—holding them before me—his expression rapt; his voice awed (the tone one would use in a church); his movements ritualistically careful (as a bride would touch her wedding gown). Throughout this display, he studies me as he presents each item; awaiting any reaction he can grasp, any clue as to my interest. I know instantly that I would like to see myself in these costumes. And he knows it too. He sighed contentedly.

           “Would you like me to dress you up?” he asked me.

           I feel suddenly apprehensive, but I dont answer.

           “I’ll use the very basic this first time, I’ll go slowly, nothing too elaborate.” He coaxes me like a doctor with a child. “Another time, when Ive studied you more, I’ll really show you. This time I’ll just open the door just—oh—about a fourth of the way.”

           He interprets my silence as acquiescence. With sureness, he removes clothes from the closet, becoming progressively more excited as he touches them adoringly, worshipingly, reverently. His trembling hands reject an elaborately studded jacket, which he held treasuringly for a long moment—choosing more “conventional” clothes; admonishing himself: “Not the first time, not the first time”—but vaunting each idolized piece of clothes he nevertheless rejects.

           He has forgotten the restrained movements that the clothes hes wearing demand. His shirt is bulging out over his stomach. He has loosened the belt, the vest. Straps dangle. The shirt protrudes in a satanic tail behind him. Hes becoming sadly disheveled. The whole costume sags. Prespiration runs down his flushed face. Hes huffing.

           Ritualistically, like a servant who adores his job, whose purpose in life is subservience, he begins to remove my clothes (not as another person might, for the sake of the nakedness emphasizing the sexuality of the act: no, not at all like that: with him, it seems to be the actual act of obeisance that is exciting him). He had led me carefully away from the mirrors. When Im stripped, he doesnt touch my body, hardly even glances at me.

           First a pair of skintight black denim pants; a tapered shirt, russet-colored, which he leaves open halfway down my stomach. I wonder what this costume will ultimately be. It seems he is improvising for over-all effect: to create a fantasy which, like the furniture, will merely suggest something rather than be anything specific.... A pair of black boots which come to the knees; when he slips the boots onto my feet, his head bends brushing the slick leather with his cheek.... Black leather gloves. A hat which arches slightly on the sides. He added a thick large-buckled belt about my waist. Rushing to the leather box in the closet, he removed a long coiled whip, which he planted firmly in my hand. And he announced apocalyptically:

           “A plantation overseer!”

           Automatically I turn to face the panel of mirrors; but Neil blocks my view quickly.
“Not yet!”
After a few moments, he steps aside dramatically.

           “I present you to you—to You as You have always wanted to be,” he said solemnly.

           Clearly, this is me as
he
wants to see me. But I feel excited by the reflection of myself. Possibly noticing this, Neil stands before me again, once more blacking my reflection, as though my own fascination threatens to shut him out of the fantasy.

           “It’s just a hint,” he said in that awed tone. “Nothing extraordinary. Another time, I’ll Really Show You!” I notice his voice is changing strangely. What is he trying to convey by those vaguely recognizable accents?

           With a jolt of awareness which almost took my breath I realize that he is now speaking in the slightly slurred Southern sounds of a field hand! My first impulse was to laugh; my next, to remove the clothes and leave this fantastic man.

           But Neil is already saying: “Now we’re ready. Now we can really begin The Initiation.” Like a well-trained acolyte, he bowed. His actions revolt and fascinate me. I am overwhelmed by the ritualistic attention, excited by the image of myself in the mirror. He knows it too. But I am sure hes misinterpreting that excitement, which is merely for
myself
in these clothes, narcissistically, not for what the clothes themselves must represent to him.

           He approached me slowly. Fascinatedly, he moved around me, arranging the mirrors so that both of us can see the reflections from different angles; careful, always, to be in the framed image. He led me to the elaborately carved chair before the mirror.

           He knelt.

           Without warning, he flung himself stomach down on the floor, and now all his actions will become astonishingly feverish. His head burrowed between the boots; his tongue glides hungrily over the glossy surface; his hands caress the leather, reach now for the belt. He looped his fingers urgently behind it. Releasing the belt, his hands move treasuringly down the costume. His mouth gnaws into the opening at the top of one boot, then the other, his teeth cling to the straps inside. Frenziedly, he raised my foot with one hand, turned himself face up on the floor. And he held the boot poised over his face. From his throat emanate gasping groans; his eyes are deliriously wide, as if to magnify the scene beyond his ordinary vision. With one desperate hand, he pressed down on my leg from the knee, attempting to bring the boot against his craving mouth.