The Kid (35 page)

 

 

MUSIC? CHARLIE PARKER.
How I got so into him?
Bird Lives!
by Ross Russell. Billie Holiday? Well, with her, Roman, to tell the truth, and Slavery Days, she had the records! Then too I wanted to love what Basquiat loved, and that was CPRKR. Old old school, Tupac, I used to not be able to stand him, now I like that shit sometimes. Bach, Roman would put him on sometimes, I started to like its realigning my gray space. I don’t have that much except clothes, some CDs, and my books. Roman wanted me to look good, but I’m cool in ripped jeans and a T-shirt. Everyone is getting or has phones. Who would I call? What do you need to dance? Classes and your body.

This is my room for now. I put a lock on the door. “All the time I was there, I never had a lock on the door. Who comes in here but us?” “That’s you,” I tell him. I want privacy. Shit, he owns this sucker, or his parents do. How’s that for a start in life! My room. Scott said don’t worry about how long. We’re supposed to rotate, take turns with the maintenance, but nobody wants to do it right now except me. Snake’s in love with his man, plus he already put in three months. My Lai already did it, “loft duty,” as she calls it. Amy just got here and is sharing with three friends in the Village, and they totally love living together. So hey, I can stay. I need to get a New York State ID or a license, but I don’t drive yet.

We were sucking java juice in Starbucks when Scott went to get a refill and Snake got up to go to the bathroom; My Lai had left to do some shopping. It’s just the two of us, me and Amy, and she leans in. “So what’s your color?” “Huh?” “You know, purple, emerald, black, burgundy, blue? For
la chambre
?” I’m not feeling it with her no more, I think, but I tell her blue. What shade? Umm, my second-favorite color: the color of the almost-night sky, a lot darker than we did the walls. Who cares, really, she’s starting to get on my nerves. I kinda like being by myself.

Scott comes back with four espressos on a tray. Snake bounds out of the bathroom. “Nothing better than a good shit!”

Scott laughs.

“It’s true, and you know what I love.” Snake.

“No, tell us,” I say in what evidently doesn’t come off as sarcastic, because he keeps talking.

“How the people who are waiting in line when you open the door look at you like you’re from outer space when they smell shit. Like, hello, folks, it’s a bathroom!” Snake.

“Thanks for the coffee, Scott,” Amy says.

“No thing.”

I break off another piece of her Divine Fair Trade chocolate bar. “Well, take the whole thing, why don’t you.”

At that, I snatch the chocolate and my backpack and dash up to the counter. They’re laughing at the table. I smile back at them and stuff the rest of the chocolate bar in my mouth.

“I’m going to get you!” she shouts, shaking a fist at me.

I ask the guy at the counter, “You guys still hiring?”

“That’s the manager,” he says, nodding at a fat, red-haired guy who darts into the back and comes back with an application.

“Fill it out now or bring it in the next time you come in.”

The chocolate is still in my mouth. I look at the wrapper, Divine, right on. What’s divine? Dancing, chocolate, getting my dick sucked, getting in deep, reading, being able to lock the door to my room and read a book without hearing Roman lisp, “What you is reading?” What else? Ballet class, leather, ripped jeans, downtown, dancing in sync with My Lai. Can girls suck dick? That would be divine, to have someone I like make me feel like Roman did going down on me. To be good enough to be in a famous company even if I didn’t stay in it, to just know my shit was phat enough to get in. Travel? Paris? Japan?

After rehearsal Amy hands me a plastic bag.

“Ehh, er . . . what’s this?”

“A present,” she says, and turns and heads for the elevator.

I pull two white seven-day candles out the bag and Tommy Hilfiger four-hundred-thread-count 100 percent Egyptian cotton sheets, king, cobalt blue. Like duh, she’s ready. I’m scared. Maybe all that shit Roman said about me is true. Maybe she’ll think I’m stupid if she ever really talks to me; Scott, her, even Snake’s crazy ass graduated from college. How do you eat pussy? I know girls like that. Shit, just go ahead and wash the mattress pad and blankets you been sleeping on and put the sheets on the bed. The candles will be cool with the ceiling fluorescent off.

 

 

“ARE YOU GAY?”
she whispers.

“No,” I say, “and don’t you ever say some shit like that again.”

I have the white seven-day candles burning in the corners near the head of the bed.

“Why? I’m bi, Snake’s another world! And My Lai says if it can walk—”

“I don’t care what anyone else is. I’m telling you what I am, OK?”

“OK, OK, whatever. I . . . I don’t care. I want to be your friend
whatever
the deal is. That’s what I was really trying to say.”

She leans over and kisses me. Inside, I’m trembling, but it’s because I hear her asking again, even though her lips are on mine,
Are you gay?
I feel helpless, flat. She lifts her T-shirt; I see her breasts, get excited, and pull her toward me. I never noticed just how tall she was, she’s almost as tall as me. She leans down and pulls her tights off and throws them on top of my leather bag in the corner. I grab her shoulders and pull her closer to me like in the movies, only in the movies the girls is hardly ever as tall as you. I run my fingers through her silky hair, beautiful like a chick in a magazine. She wraps her arms around my waist, squeezes me. You can hear the sounds of traffic on the street even on Sunday, that’s Manhattan.

“We don’t have to worry about anybody coming?”

“They can’t get in if they do come. I’ve locked the elevator door. No one else has a key except me and Scott. And Scott, if he comes, ain’t coming back here. This is my room.”

I look at the poster,
L’Acrobate.
The gray and white figure distorted beyond being a body, that’s how I want to dance, not like the acrobat but the way that dude paints. I grab her butt pull her closer. Touching her breasts excites me, heat surges through my body, I glide my fingers along her rib cage, the hair under her arms is blond, there’s not a scar on her anywhere. I lean forward kiss her. Next to the heat in my belly is a cold gray something that feels like a little frozen pearl. Fear? She takes my hand and puts it between her legs. She smells hot, real good, it’s like cheese or something; her hair is bristly, not soft like I expected. Her cunt tightens around my fingers, whoa! What girls got. I smile; her smell is all up my nose, making me hard. She’s all white and blond. I feel a surge of what, power? I don’t know: Joy? Power? This is the ultimate, ain’t it? I wish there was a mirror here; I want to see our bodies next to each other, entwined. I’m getting more excited, I remember Brother John jacking off looking at the pictures of black men and white men together, and then he had pictures of these white women with enormous tits, I would jack off with him looking at me looking at the white women (but never any black girls). She pulls my briefs down; I wonder does she feel like I feel. Does my black shine fuck her up inside, turn her on. Shit, I’m gonna murder her with my dick! Feel fear, like that minute, millisecond in the park, you not sure whether you got a killer or vanilla. She touches my penis. Groan, go there, yeah, go there. It feels right, like Jaime only righter because it’s a girl. She gets on her knees. Kisses it, opens her lips. I push my hips, thrust just a little, she gags. What’s up with that? She stops rubbing my butt and legs, gets up off her knees, and walks over to the bed made up neat. I ain’t no slob, see what they teach you in an orphanage, oh, shut up will you, get over it, you ain’t there no more. She’s laying on the bed now, her flat belly, her smelly good blond bush gleaming pink from the inside. Je
zus
! She’s ready! I go lay on top of her, press my lips on hers, stick my fingers in her pussy, yeah! Pussy! Put my hands on her breasts. I’m grinding my pelvis on top of her. She opens her mouth, I don’t like to kiss that much. I kissed Jaime, no big thing, but I didn’t like it, his tongue like hers, a fish trying to swim in my mouth, little teeth nipping my lips. Whew, it seems like I’m grinding away what little hard-on I had. And I know my shortie is ready. It had been a little hard back then when she was sucking on it. Now I feel like ice cream. Sweat is breaking out on me, but not from excitement. The pearl in my belly is a boulder now. I got to fuck this cutie good! She gots a banging body I want to walk down the street with. I lean over take her tight tittie in my mouth, suck, she starts to grind her pelvis, she likes that. She wants my dick in her! I want my dick in her. Ride this bitch. I don’t know what’s wrong.

“Turn over,” I tell her.

“What?”

“Turn over,” I repeat.

“What for?”

“Nothing,” I say, and throw myself back down on her grinding. Pressing my lips to hers, getting no action. I know my dick would get hard if she would suck it or let me in back. I’m used to that. I lick the side of her face like Roman used to do to my scar. She giggles. Is she laughing at me? I feel like slapping the shit out of her. She pulls out from under me, pushes me over, and climbs on top of me. She’s grinding on top of me, eyes squeezed shut. She don’t want to look at me? I’m feeling her titties, feels great. I don’t know what’s wrong. God, please don’t let this happen to me. You know I got mad equipment. Please please
please
. She leans down kisses me, then she starts to inch up my chest till her pussy is in my face. I . . . I feel kinda trapped. I try to lick my tongue in there a little. Cough. She moves back down, her eyes open now, she gets on her side, pulls me on mine, she starts kissing me and rocking; I’m rocking back, but I can feel myself just hanging there. I want to die. She’s stroking me now. She stops. “Not in the mood,” she says soft. I can’t talk. I close my eyes, will myself not to cry.

 

 

SEXUAL HISTORY?
How can I tell it except with my body as I move through space after space downtown in painted black boxes? I look at the latest review of us in
Downtown Voice,
the picture is of me naked, except for the black leather jockstrap, in arabesque. They call me what I’ve told Herd to call me, Jones—Abdul Jones: “. . . despite Jones’s infiltrating power . . .” then they go on to trash Scott’s choreography. “My name is Abdul Jones. Period. Shut up. I don’t care what I told you yesterday, today it’s Abdul. Get with that.” The article doesn’t mention Snake, or Scott, except by way of shitting on his choreography; My Lai’s like fucking Oprah or something, everybody loves her: “Virtuosic line . . . difficult intelligence opening into a cacophony of movement.” Cacophony? They mean she’s a fine-ass freak, but they can’t say that, can’t say, Hot. No one ever mentions Ricky.

Nothing about him should surprise me after the time we went out to bring back sandwiches and he refused to walk on the sunny side of the street, saying he was black enough. He’s what color? Fucking beige! Shit, compared to me he’s
white.
So why I’m surprised when he dumps on My Lai, I don’t know.

“If she’s Chinese and this is supposed to be a piece about identity, she should—”

“Well, number one,” Scott had said, “
she’s
right here, so you can address her directly.”

But he didn’t, he just kept digging till they both got nasty.

“Well, you missed a couple of meetings, but I’ll explain as best I can. I’m not really dealing with that identify thing like you’re talking about—you know: Chinese, Mexican, like, ‘Whoop whoop-de doo, I here and I so happy to be here, just give me some scented toilet paper and a green card—’”

“What would you know about that?” Ricky snapped.

“Nothing, motherfucker. And I ain’t Chinese.”

“Well, what
are
you, then!”

“Listen.” My Lai restarts, trying to be cool and calm. “The piece revolves around an atrocity committed by Americans—”

“That nobody knows about, that happened in another century.” Ricky again.

“Well, Ricky, isn’t that more the reason to do it?” My Lai.

“What about the politics of
now
?”

“This is now as far as I’m concerned. We got
now
because people fucking forgot
then,
” Scott says.

“What’s your real beef, man?” I ask.

“You. No, I’m just kidding. Look at what the strong companies in the city are doing. This shit we’re doing is getting too politico for me.”

“First it’s not political enough, not about
now;
then it’s ‘too politico’?” This from Amy.

“Are you trying to say good-bye?” Scott asks.

“I said it,” Ricky says, and grabs his bag and heads for the elevator.

“Later,” I say.

“Yeah, man. The best!” Snake.

I look at My Lai. “Cool,” she says.

Hey, my sentiments exactly. Fuck his barrel ass.

I want My Lai. She doesn’t scare me. We get our heads shaved together at the four-dollar barber school on Tenth Street. One of these days, I’m gonna ask her to pierce me. I know she did Amy’s navel. She usually wears a wide leather wristband; without it you can see the raised scars lighter than the rest of her skin on her left wrist. I nudge her with my knee, trying to get her to break the awkwardness of Ricky’s exit and get us moving again.

“Here, everybody,” she says in her director voice. “It’s a packet of Xeroxes on the My Lai massacre and Vietnam. Read everything. And see you at ten Saturday.”

I flip through some of it on my way down the elevator—Ho Chi Minh? I’m the youngest, but even so it’s not just me—no one here is old enough to remember Vietnam or even know a Vietnam veteran; I mean, they are serious grayheads. I read the shit when I get back to my room. This shit is crazy, unbelievable, but at the same time you know it’s true and, like Ricky said, long fucking gone. The world is on to the next thing, the new worst thing. Maybe Ricky was right, we should be too? Normal guys from normal families and shit did this—killed babies and raped girls, that’s worse than any shit I ever did.