Ten Little New Yorkers (2 page)

T
o lose a cat in a big city is one of the greatest tragedies God can throw at you. Some, who've been spiritually deprived since childhood, don't have a clue what it means to have a cat, lose a cat, love a cat, or be a cat. When a child is lost or runs away, or a spouse goes out for cigarettes and never comes back, part of the sadness comes with the realization, heavily laced with guilt, that they don't want to return. Even if the cat, man, woman, child is a total asshole, you always tend to blame yourself. Maybe if I'd only cut his little grapefruit up in neat segments the way he liked, he wouldn't have left me. Maybe if I'd been stronger, maybe if I'd been gentler, maybe if I'd been green or black or blue or whatever it is that I'm not and could never be, then this shit wouldn't have happened. People of good conscience always tend to blame themselves but the truth is that the fucking cat just wanted to see the world. Or the lover got tired of you or didn't like the way you ate bagels or thought he was king of the gypsies. He or she was very much like the cat. They all wanted out.

But when a human wants to come back, all he has to do is come back. Even a small child can tell somebody, “I want to go home.” A cat can never do this, even if it wants to. The cat must depend upon the humanity of a cold world. Of course, I suppose there are times when so must we all.

Ratso finally succeeded in his efforts to suck, fuck, or cajole me out of the loft. The rain, I noticed, had abated somewhat. It was no longer a biblical downpour. Now it was merely a fine mist with an occasional teardrop ladled in to keep it honest. Ratso and I decided it might be bracing to walk to Chinatown, so we ankled it up Vandam and across to SoHo. As fate would have it, we passed a building on Prince Street with a cat watching us carefully from a large bay window. Possibly the cat's interest was piqued by Ratso's bright-red hooded outfit.

“You know,” I said, “whenever I used to see a cat in a window before, I used to say to myself, ‘I have my cat and that's somebody else's cat.' ”

“That's a brilliant fucking observation, Sherlock.”

“Now that my cat is gone, I don't say that anymore. Now I say, ‘Every cat is my cat.' Especially the strays.”

“Cuddles was a stray,” said Ratso. “I still remember the night we found her.”

I remembered it, too. It was so cold Jesus was pissing icicles. We found Cuddles in a shoebox in an alley off Mott Street. The U.S. Olympic hockey team had just beaten the Russians. Ratso had been ecstatic. I'd been moderately pleased myself. Cuddles had merely been cold. Of course, her name wasn't Cuddles yet. She was just a tiny black-and-white kitten, all alone, freezing to death in a shoebox in Chinatown. We named her Cuddles after Kacey Cohen. It'd been her nickname in school. I picked up the little kitten and put her in the warm pocket of my coat and took her home. I wished I could've done the same for Kacey, but it was too late for that.

“I just hope heaven looks like Chinatown in the rain,” I said.

A soft comforting pillow of raindrops had started to fall past the neon walls of Mott Street as Ratso and I marched determinedly onward into the oblivious night. When we came to 67 Mott Street, we ankled a sharp right into Big Wong's. Just before we entered the establishment, however, we both partook of a little tradition that had grown up between us over the years. We stood out on the sidewalk like two Depression-era shivering souls watching the friendly Chinese cooks ladling noodles into the huge steaming pots of soup. The cooks, indeed, were so familiar with Ratso and myself that they would occasionally dash a ladle of soup against the window to playfully startle us out of our mesmerized state. This, it seemed, was a very big joke to them. Ratso and I, I now believe, very possibly knew something they didn't. We knew that life was the joke.

“Don't be so hard on yourself,” said Ratso, as the waiter showed us to our customary table right next to the stairs that led down to the dumper. Was it possible, I wondered, that for the first time all day, Ratso had noticed my fragile, world-weary demeanor? Maybe I
was
being too hard on myself. Hell, I'd already tried blaming everybody else for the apparent shipwreck that was my life. My sister Marcie had told me an old Vietnamese saying that very possibly applied here. “Whenever you point the finger of blame at somebody else, just remember there are three fingers pointing back at you.”

“The truth is,” Ratso was saying, “that no amateur private investigator in the city has solved as many high-profile cases as you, Sherlock. It's a little boring for both of us when you don't have a case. That's because neither of us has a day job. Or a life, for that matter.”

“If those are intended as words of comfort, Watson,” I said, “your bedside manner may require a trip to the cleaners.”

“What would you rather hear, Sherlock? Some bullshit bedside manner, or the truth? The truth is you're the greatest detective in New York and you don't even seem to know it. You've cracked cases that the NYPD and the FBI only wished they could've solved. You're just coming off one of your biggest years and you're singin' the blues. Okay, so your cat ran away—”

“The cat did not run away.”

“Okay. The cat booked reservations on the
QE2
and took a sabbatical to the south of France. What's the difference? The cat's gone but you're still here, and you've got some pretty impressive notches on your cigar this year. You found the missing puppethead, or rather, the cat found it. What the hell?”

“The cat
did
find the puppethead,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe there
is
something to the
Curse of the Missing Puppethead.
”

“I can't believe a great scientific mind like yours is telling me this shit. Sherlock, get a grip on yourself! Fuck the puppethead! You found the hit-and-run killer of Big Jim Cravotta's kid! You saved Chinga's life! Aren't you proud of that?”

“I don't know. He doesn't call. He doesn't write.”

Somewhere in the course of this inquisition Ratso managed to order about seven dishes for the two of us. I had hoped that once the food arrived it might occupy his attention for a while, but sadly, that was not to be the case. He just continued to talk and eat at the same time, and it was not a pleasant spectacle to observe.

“What about
The Prisoner of Vandam Street,
Kinkstah? Yeah.
The Prisoner of Vandam Street.
Remember? You were right and everybody else was wrong! Remember that one, Kinkstah?”

“Can't say I do, Watson, it's happened so often. That's how I know I'm right. When everybody else is wrong.”

“So that's your secret.”

“You see, Watson, this is why I never reveal my methods. Once I explain it, some asshole, present company excluded, of course, always thinks it's easy. It's really not that important whether you're right or wrong, it's what you do with it. Willie Nelson, whom I call ‘the Hillbilly Dalai Lama,' always says: ‘Keep doin' it wrong 'til you like it that way.' ”

“But can't you at least enjoy all your successes, Sherlock?”

“Of course not. A mender of destinies never enjoys his successes, Watson. Ask Rambam.”

“
You
ask Rambam.”

“I have. He hates it when he puts somebody in prison. The same with Kent Perkins. I once asked him where he was going and he said, ‘To Arizona, to ruin a man's life.' People I've helped put away hate me. They'd kill me if they could. Their families hate me. Their children hate me. The cops hate me. Our waiter hates me. Everybody hates me, Watson.”

“That's because you're a sick fuck, Sherlock.”

“Ah, Watson, how very intuitive you are! Indeed I am a sick fuck, as you say. I am sick of what you call my successes. Yet only one thing can make me well.”

“What's that, Sherlock?”

“Justice, Watson. Justice.”

“Have you tried the roast pork over scrambled eggs,” he said.

I
'm not sure Ratso ever understood the weight that rests upon the spiritual shoulders of the mender. I also don't know how well Theo really understood Vincent. He loved him, of course. He was the only one who ever bought a fucking painting. The other artists loved the sunshine, it was said, but Van Gogh loved the sun. When you die, he said, you just take a train to a star. It's hard to understand a guy like that. You can't blame Theo or Ratso or Paul or John or Luke. It's sometimes enough just to know when you're in the presence of greatness. The great man himself may be a total clueless asshole, but maybe that's part of what makes him great. He doesn't just sing the song—his magic is that he gives it to you.

What I'm saying is that Ratso, in a fine Dr. Watson–like manner, skipped blithely through our little adventures, never fully realizing that each one took away another little piece of Janis's heart. Like the other Village Irregulars, he felt the excitement of the hunt. Like the others, he felt the joy of being a part of something bigger than himself. But in the end, he didn't feel the weight, and he didn't feel the hate. None of them did. Except Rambam, of course. He was a licensed private investigator. He understood what it was like to stand in a dark alley somewhere, trying not to play God. But there weren't any support groups for this kind of thing. You just did it as long as you could. Then you packed your busted valise and took a train to a star.

It was a particularly cold winter in New York. It always seemed to be particularly cold in New York. Maybe it was because I was usually in Texas in the summertime. Like a bird of passage, I would drift down there to thaw out, dry out, and generally hobnob with all the friendly ghosts of Echo Hill. Echo Hill invariably made me feel rich in the coin of the spirit. Then I'd head back up to New York and freeze my assets. To paraphrase Dr. Jim Bone, I found myself living between the legend and the lamppost. I didn't have a home. I didn't want a home. For way too long now I'd been homesick for heaven.

I sat down at my old battle-scarred desk, hoisted the cap from Holmes's cranium, and reached deep inside his brains for a Cuban cigar. I took my trusty butt-cutter out of my pocket and lopped off another butt. Some measure their lives by when their passports expire. Some measure their lives in coffee spoons. Some measure their lives in butts, Cuban cigar or otherwise. I belonged to the latter butt-measuring category. I fired up the cigar just about the time the phones started ringing.

As you might or might not be aware, I have two red telephones at opposite ends of my desk, and they've been there so long I'm not even sure anymore
why
they're there. I'm not even sure anymore why
I'm
here. Maybe the red telephones represent the whorehouse of the human spirit. Maybe my presence indicates the return of the whore. Maybe you know the answers better than I do. Maybe you should be writing the fucking book and I should be over there in the rocking chair by the fire saying, “What's this asshole nattering on about?”

I picked up the blower on the left. I puffed pontifically on the cigar for a brief moment.

“Start talkin',” I said.

“Dis is Big Jim Cravotta and I'm comin' over dere ta rip your heart out!”

“You're too late.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Rambam. “Are you still feeling fucking sorry for yourself?”

“Who better to feel sorry for?”

“How about me? My Jewish dominatrix turned out to be a born-again lesbian working for the ATF.”

“That's a shame.”

“Not really. I'd rather be the spanker than the spankee.”

I leaned back in the chair and puffed patriotically on the cigar as a small parade passed before my eyes of all the crazy shit Rambam and I had done together on both sides of the law. I saw the American flag going by. Then the flag of Israel. Then the Texas flag.

“I said, ‘I'd rather be the spanker than the spankee,' ” said Rambam.

“Is there an echo in this room?”

“Is there an echo in this room?”

I puffed the cigar for a long moment and watched the smoke of life drift upward to the man-made sky.

“What the hell's wrong with you, Kinky? I know you very fucking well, but I've never known you to be this blue this long. I've seen your smiles, your frowns, your ups, your downs. I can't really say that I've ever grown accustomed to your face. But I've got to tell you, you do sound pretty fucked up.”

“It's been a rough year.”

“Everybody's had a rough year. Why is this little private investigator different from all other little private investigators?”

“I miss my cat.”

“I miss my Jewish dominatrix. Hold on. I'm going to stitch that one onto my holster. That is, after I blow a few holes in the ceiling to shut up these neighbors.”

“Try living under a lesbian dance class.”

“You call that living?”

“Not really.”

Things had been so quiet lately that even Winnie Katz's little Isle of Lesbos had not seemed to be making its presence known to man. The loft felt emptier without the cat and the lesbians. The whole city felt hollow.

“Look, man,” said Rambam, “if things are really that bad, maybe you ought to get out of here for a while. You could go to Hawaii and hang out with your friend Hoover.”

“Hoover's busy writing features for the
Honolulu Advertiser
about saving the descendants of Princess Kaiulani's flock of peacocks from being euthanized by some condominium committee.”

“Why don't they just euthanize the condominium committee?”

“Hoover suggested that, I believe. When Princess Kaiulani died at the age of twenty-three, the royal peacocks all cried, as did the people of Hawaii. Now they have Starbucks and the Hula Bowl and the fucking condominium committee. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, now is the time for their tears.”

“Why don't you go back to Texas for a while? Help Cousin Nancy and Tony with the Rescue Ranch. Working at Utopia might be just what the doctor ordered.”

“I can't work at Utopia. I'm the Gandhi-like figure. Gandhi-like figures never work.”

“Tell me about it. I'm watching about seventeen of them right now in the street outside my window. They're all watching one guy with a shovel. Of course they don't call themselves Gandhi-like figures. They call themselves City of New York maintenance workers.”

I could see the whole picture in my mind. Rambam standing at his window watching the seventeen maintenance workers standing around on the street watching the one guy working with the shovel. Most of us, I reflected, are just like them. We are merely observers of life. We leave the real digging and the heavy lifting to others. Why get your hands dirty if you don't have to?

“You could go to Vegas,” Rambam was saying. “You always liked Vegas.”

“What are you? A fucking travel agent?”

“Go visit your magician friends, Penn and Teller. Maybe they can make your grumpy attitude disappear.”

This, I felt, was truly the pot calling the kettle black. Rambam had enormous grumpy potential himself. It was just that whenever one of us became deeply depressed, the other one would become positively chirpy. This, of course, proved all the more irritating to the one who was grumpy.

“What was that your dad always used to say about being depressed?”

“Oh, yeah. ‘Cheer up. It only gets worse.' ”

“He was right, by the way. But don't let it bother you. If you refuse to leave the city, your only alternative is to stay busy.”

“I know that, Dr. Freud. The problem is, like the great Sherlock Holmes, I'm currently between cases.”

“You are aware,” said Rambam, “that Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character.”

“Scientists aren't sure of this.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“They're not sure of him either.”

I liked people who may or may not have existed. People like King Arthur and Robin Hood and myself. Maybe the great detective of Baker Street wasn't real. Maybe he was merely the thinking man's Jesus Christ. Maybe if Jesus were around today he'd be doing what I was doing. Maybe he'd be standing around Times Square listening to people telling him to get a job. Maybe he'd get a job. Maybe his job would be standing around outside Rambam's window with all his disciples watching a guy with a shovel. Maybe not.

“Kinky? Are you there?”

“Part of me's here. Part of me's wandering around some alley in the dark.”

“That's okay, I guess. Just as long as nobody ties tin cans to your tail.”