Numb (13 page)

“Let me know if this hurts,” she said as she squeezed my right knee. Mal winked and said, “Ouch.”

It turned out that both Jerry and Debbie were EMTs, and Jerry even had a degree in nursing. As Jerry sewed up my cut, Mal and I talked. Mal was finally warm in a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt from a bag he'd left with Jerry earlier. We sipped at some coffee and I
realized that we hadn't talked this casually since leaving the circus.

“You need to come around more often,” he said. “I'd forgotten how much fun you can be.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a blue T-shirt. Superman's
S
stood on the chest.

“What's this?”

“Now you can be my sidekick, my Superboy.”

Jerry drank a beer while pulling sutures through my forehead. “Superboy wasn't a sidekick. He was Superman when he was young.”

Mal's face paled and his lips disappeared as he tensed. “Who was his sidekick?”

Jerry thought about it. “Didn't have one. Not like Batman. Not regular. Jimmy Olsen? But he doesn't really count.”

“Why?”

“No costume, no powers, no consuming need to be a hero.”

Mal stared at the line of black threads sewn into me.

Debbie cleaned blood out of the washcloth in the bathroom sink. Mal's clothes were piled in the tub behind her. They smelled of sewage and she made a face at us from the doorway. “How can you stand to dip into that river water?”

Mal spoke over the edge of his cup. “It's a necessary evil.”

Jerry said, “Practice makes perfect.” He snipped the thread he'd just knotted above my eye. “You're done.”

I decided I didn't want to know what Jerry meant by practice. There were so many questions I could have asked, but I was more interested in being accepted by the group. They were odd, maybe a little dangerous, but they had taken me in and made me feel at home. It was like the circus all over again, I thought. It didn't occur to me until later that my time calling Tilly's circus “home” had ended in a lion's cage. Our little group spoke until early in the morning, not about any one thing or even things worth remembrance. Remembering the specific words was unimportant. Something unnamable surrounded us, something I couldn't find elsewhere. That we spoke at all seemed key, that we looked at each other and smiled and sometimes spoke over and around ourselves, that we ran out of drinks and food and that by the end half of us were asleep on the floor and that when the sun came up I dozed in a cab rolling over the Manhattan Bridge back to Brooklyn and I could see the skyline as only a cluster of buildings, not stars locked to the ground, that the liquid fire on the water had just been office light reflections, and the rattle of the trains sounded as long and loud when they passed as they had the night before, whether my friend leaped or not.

THE DAY AFTER
our run on the bridge I woke in Hiko's brownstone with two swollen, black eyes and a purple lip. The jagged stitches in my forehead were the most casual thing about me. I looked as if I had been hit by a car.

I lay on the living room sofa. I woke just before noon. I could hear Hiko making herself lunch in the kitchen. Without saying anything I went upstairs, showered, and dressed. I thought that making myself presentable and smelling clean would soften my disappearing act the night before.

When I crept down the stairs and found Hiko drinking ice water in the living room, she tilted her head toward me and said, “Did you have fun last night?” No anger in her voice, just the question, and I thought there
had to be more than that. Did she know about my black eyes? She couldn't see them. I wondered if I had screamed something in my sleep, some sort of confession.

“I guess so.”

“You know, if you're going to go out, just leave a message on the answering machine. I didn't know where you were until Karen called.”

Karen had called. “When did she call?”

“Around midnight. I guess it was when she left you and Mal at the bar.”

I stepped down the hallway and into the bathroom off the kitchen. In the mirror were my black eyes and the ragged stitches in my forehead. I hadn't imagined it. I had been clobbered by the bridge. For some reason Karen was creating alibis for me. First at the gallery, now this.

Hiko spoke to me from the living room. “Michael called. To remind you of a photo shoot?”

I'd forgotten completely. I called a car service and rushed to get something to eat. On my way out I went to Hiko in the kitchen. I gave her a kiss, certain she could smell the guilt mixed with perspiration on my skin, certain she could sense the bruises on my face.

The photo studio filled the first floor of what had been a warehouse near Chambers Street. Along the walls were giant sculptures and paintings made from found materials. The largest looked like a water buffalo stuck in a gold-leaf frame. It was titled “Self-Portrait.”

I was late. I enjoyed a perverse pleasure in making Michael sit and wonder, calling me on his cell phone. He was on it when I walked in, his eyes narrow and lips tight. When I took off my sunglasses his face went blank. He took in my dark-rimmed eyes. “What the fuck happened to you?” he said. “Is there somebody we should sue?”

A woman in six-inch heels teetered toward us. Even in her stilettos she stood five inches shorter than me. She said, “Lord, you look hideous. Is it makeup?” She had on a black suit and the shoes had a leopard print. She set a pile of papers that promised to spill everywhere on a nearby chair.

She flashed her teeth at me. “I'm from the magazine.” We shook hands and she leaned in to take a closer look at my face. “What happened to you?”

“I ran into a scaffold,” I said.

“Amazing.” She smiled at Michael. “We'll have to use that in the article.”

Michael immediately shifted from concern to professional pride. “Didn't I tell you? He's fantastic.”

She finally let go of my hand. “Grade A, extra large.”

Michael pointed out the others wandering around the room. The photographer wasn't much taller than the magazine rep. One assistant adjusted diffusers—large white screens to break up the light—from the top of a ladder. A second assistant teased the backdrop drape over a metal rod that ran the length of the room. They constructed one of those nonexistent neverwheres that magazines all seem to take place in.

Through an open door at the far end of the room I could see several women walking around. Michael grabbed my arm. “Oh, by the way. I think I'm in love with the model they brought for you. She's the set of legs right through there.”

We stood at the front of the room watching parts of women flash by the doorway, and Michael told me all he knew about the model, Emilia, whose profile apparently had been on the rise for six months. She had a long neck and thick brown hair and light green eyes. “She's about all I want in life,” he said. I didn't know how to interpret that.

The magazine rep appeared at my elbow. “Watch out,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “I hear she's nuts. Likes to get into kinky relationships and ruin the man when she breaks it off.”

The conversation in the other room stopped and she stepped through the doorway to meet me. I thought that, since I had seen her on magazine covers before, I would be ready to see her in person. I wasn't. First, her height surprised me. In bare feet she was a couple of inches taller than me. Second, she was stunning—in nothing more than sweatpants and a white T-shirt. I suddenly thought,
She may be all I want in life too.

She spotted me when she walked in. She said something to the photographer and then Michael took my arm again and led me forward.

“We are going to go talk to her,” he said. A command for me or himself? I didn't know.

Soon everyone clustered at the center of the room and we all shook hands, as if I hadn't just done so minutes earlier.

From the back doorway came two more people, a tall blond man with a mustache and a woman who looked like another model.

Michael said, “These are the costumers.”

“Costumers?”

The blond man sauntered up to me, held my elbow between two fingers, and guided me to a changing area that was really just a curtain over a doorway. “You'll find it all in there, babydoll,” he said. I found “it,” a black suit with an Italian name. The tie was Italian too, but no relation.

I stepped out and everyone eyed me and murmured approval. In the mirror by the curtain I looked at myself. It fit me perfectly, made me realize the poor fit of both the suit I'd arrived in and the one purchased from Dave's studio, nail holes and all. Above the handsome suit hung two black eyes and threads poking out of my forehead, almost holding shut the cut greasy with antibiotic ointment.

The photographer called me over and snapped a roll of just me. He didn't ask me to do anything. Instead, he walked around me and held three different conversations with the magazine rep, his assistant, and the blond costumer. Emilia changed behind the curtain, helped by the other costumer into something that made them both
swear and laugh. I forgot to smile at the photographer and so most of the photos turned out with me looking distracted. The silhouettes on the curtain had my attention.

At the end of the first roll, Emilia stepped out in a leather dominatrix outfit. The blonde appeared from the hallway with a cardboard disk painted on one side like a bull's-eye. She hung it by a hook on my belt, making me the target, my ass in particular. Emilia held a bat driven through with nails at vicious angles. The photographer took a roll of shots of Emilia reeling back, as if just about to tattoo my ass out of the park.

“Look mean,” he told her. “Get it from deep within you. You really want to hit him.” He snapped away. “Angry, but with a smile on your face.”

Emilia pretty much ignored me. Despite what the rep had said about her and the dominatrix outfit, she seemed pretty normal to me. Not mean at all. She glowed: her parts covered in leather gleamed like a polished floor, parts revealed shone healthy and pink and squeezed out at me, pinned me in place, tacked between aroused and bored.

No one told me to do anything, so I did nothing. I yawned and they took photos of that. I put my hands in my pockets and found two pieces of paper, one a little bigger than the other. While cameras clicked, I took them out and read them. The small one said,
Inspected by Number 3
. The other, handwritten, said,
Just be patient. This
won't hurt much.—E.
I laughed and looked at Emilia, who smiled and winked, then poked at me with the bat. It wasn't an angry smile, so the photo was no good for the magazine. It was a nice, genuine, “I'm friendly and I like you” smile.

As the photographer adjusted the lighting, Emilia said, “I enjoyed your film.”

“Thanks.” I tried imagining which film it might be.

The photographer clapped his hands. “No time for talking. Emilia, change costumes.”

She stepped into the changing area and the costume woman practically attacked her. Another batch of giggles burst from behind the curtain. Michael and the photographer smoked and made rude comments. “This is going really well,” Michael called to me. “But if you are thinking of having sex with her, you should remember who you're dealing with.”

I wished that I was alone. I looked at Michael and thought about what he might tell Hiko. I hadn't thought of her until then and I realized that was probably wrong. In my hand I rolled and unrolled Emilia's note.

I had to confess. I walked over to Michael. “She gave me a note.”

“This isn't high school.” It sounded like a reprimand. “Don't be silly.”

Emilia came out from behind the screen. She wore a fur bikini so small I could tell she shaved or waxed most of her body. She wore a wig shaped like a lion's mane
with built-in cat ears. She wore cat's-paw gloves and between her legs I could see a tail swinging seductively.

Everyone laughed except me. I wasn't bored anymore.

“All right,” the photographer said as he plucked the disk from my back and attached it to my belt buckle. The target hung over my groin. “Let's shoot some more.”

Emilia came toward me, the small triangles barely covering her breasts, a hint of the right nipple peeking out. The fur looked as if it stood on end, like an animal's fur rising as it hunted. Her skin had gooseflesh, the bumps showing from her wrists to her shoulders, and all along her sides, her hips and stomach, down to the very low, arresting triangle of fur at her groin. The fur there was longer than the top piece; she looked almost more like a cavewoman.

“You're cold.” I felt stupid for saying it.

“A little.” She smiled.

She dropped to her knees, raised her paws in the air, and rested them against my stomach, her mouth in a smile, all teeth. She growled and squinted her eyes playfully.

“Perfect,” someone said. For a moment I had no idea who the hell it could have been and looked around the room wondering who these strangers were. Blinded by a flash, I remembered the photographer. I looked back at Emilia and tried swallowing. The flashbulbs popped and the camera clicked away as she clawed at my pants and,
despite the clumsy-looking paws, undid my belt. The target fell to the floor at my feet.

Michael said something and the photographer kept taking shots. “Hang that on your chest,” Michael said. “On your breast pocket.” Emilia picked up the target, adjusted the hook on the back, and snagged it to the jacket's pocket. It hung over my heart. She tapped her claws against it, a light ticking sound, and smiled as she glanced over her shoulder at the camera. She arched her back.

The camera clicked.

Emilia said, “Let's see the scar that big kitty left on you. It's on your thigh, right?”

I muttered a few vowel sounds and futilely tried to push her hands away. Someone said, “I don't think this can be on the cover.” Nervous laughter from the spectators, but the camera clicked. She went as far as getting my fly down when I grabbed her paws.

“Let's stop there.”

“All right.” She pulled the zipper partway up. Running her hand down my thigh, she asked, “It's under here—right?”

I said it was.

“I'll have to see it later.” Then she turned her head and bit my pants leg, pulled at it with her teeth. The photographer finally stopped.

“Beautiful.” He turned to the magazine editor, who nodded and said that would do it.

Emilia pulled herself away and smiled up at me. “That's certainly enough for me. I'm cold and tired.”

Everyone began to pack up. Main lights were turned on. The spots shut off. Michael put on his jacket and finished a conversation with the magazine rep. He gestured at me, then pointed at my pants, at my fly half down and the belt undone, a wet spot on my leg where she had kissed it.

I stood at the center of the room. Emilia changed behind the curtain. She removed her bikini top and the gloves and dropped them into a black bag. She pulled her white T-shirt out of the bag, but waved me over instead of putting it on. She stood half nude. I tried not to stare.

“I want to see you again,” she said.

“I live with someone.”

She laughed and shrugged, then pulled the top over her head. Her breasts moved gently beneath the white cotton. She still had the furry crotch. I thought maybe it wasn't a bikini at all. Maybe it was just her.

As she pulled her hair back she said, “Bring your live-in lady friend along.” Her navel poked out from underneath her shirt and I realized that I wanted to put my tongue in it.

“She's blind.” I don't know why this seemed important at the time.

“So don't let her drive.” She laughed again. It started and stopped without warning, like a child's. “Give me
your number. I've got to go to LA for a week, but when I get back I'll give you a call.”

“I don't know.”

“Yes, you do. Give me your number.”

From her bag she pulled a pen. I found a blank piece of paper in my wallet, wrote Hiko's number on it, and handed it to her. As she read it her fingers brushed over the numbers. “What's this?”

Across the paper were tiny raised dots. I said, “It's Braille.” I'd forgotten that I still had the last page cut from Hiko's book in my wallet, never certain what to do with it.

“Cool,” she said as she ran her fingers back and forth across the bumps.