Go down in your own way
And every day is the right day
And as you rise above the fear-lines in his brow
You look down
Hear the sound of the faces in the crowd
Pink Floyd, Fearless
Niagara. I remember, a few years ago, meeting two women in the tiki lounge on the lower level, a blonde and a brunette, both of them striking amazons. Some guy was trying to wow them with silly magic tricks and, being all balls and no finesse, I blew up his game only to crash and burn myself.
The blonde’s name was Hogan, believe it or not. I made a joke about Hogan’s Heroes, a joke she didn’t appreciate in the least. Said she owned a motorcycle. I asked her about the size of her engine and she launched into a tirade about how she hated that line of inquiry. For a while my foot was lodged so firmly in my mouth I was only able to say, “Mmmph? Mmmph!” Finally spat out my foot and asked the two girls how they knew each other. “Oh, she takes care of me,” the brunette said, grabbing her girlfriend by the waist. I swallowed. “You guys are way outta my league,” I said, and then slowly backed away.
If only I knew then what I know now. If only they’d taken me back to their lair and forced me to go down on them all night. I’ve always had a set of vaguely submissive fantasies, not silly spanking nonsense but something more subtle and more dangerous than that. I’ve never met a woman who fancied being in charge. Well, there’s Jen, our dominatrix friend, but I tower over her. Or maybe that’s supposed to be the kink of it.
Niagara. We met Jack, Jill and two married college friends down there on Saturday. Jack and Jill brought along a pretty brown-haired girl they’d met on craigslist—just for kicks I’ll call her Layla. When I greeted her she smiled brightly, “I’ve heard so much about you.” Oh boy. You just know that’s trouble. The two of us ended up sitting on a leather bench downstairs as everyone else milled about. She used the word “lifestyle,” which is unusual for a single woman—a sign she’s more than just a dabbler.
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And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Les and I step off the Bergenline, carrying an overnight bag stuffed with necessities, and onto the disheartening streets of the oddly-named West New York, New Jersey. It sits here, clinging to the coastline in the shadow of spaceship Manhattan, its sole function to sustain the People’s Army of capitalism, and to breed the next generation. We wander aimlessly until we locate an open bodega. It begins to drizzle and our pretty dominatrix comes to rescue us—a little white girl in a big black pickup truck.
The dog emerges from her master’s office, long claws going clickety-clack against the hardwood floor. She barks at us and hides behind Jen’s legs. We walk down the long hallway into the kitchen and the dog follows a few paces behind us. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. I decide the sound must drive Jen mad.
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It was getting late, or rather early, by the time we emerged from the subway. Williamsburg, an orgy of warehouses and hastily-erected low-rises, looked just as shabby as ever. Trash bins overflowed. Half the storefronts were shuttered. I frowned. “What the hell are we doing here?”
We located the address on Metropolitan and ascended the stairs to a sprawling loft. “It’s free if you take off your clothes,” a woman at the door said. I chuckled. “That’s alright… we’ll pay the five bucks.” Indeed, most people were clad in elaborate white outfits, save for a handful of pasty-fleshed gentlemen.
Emma looked in need of rescue. “I’m so glad you guys came out,” she said, sounding both drunk and enthused. We bought a round of crappy drinks, vodka that murdered my palette, and went out to have a gander at the roof. Emma locked her arms around my waist a couple times to keep from stumbling.
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My mother drops me off and I’m hanging out with this clique of aggressively bisexual college women who work at an orphanage. I’m of indeterminate gender, but I might be female.
We hear about a big fire at the orphanage in which a young girl perished. One of our own, a blonde girl, is the lead suspect. Enter a hardboiled detective who’s got big 70s hair and an outmoded tan jacket. Our detective is somehow romantically entangled with the suspect, and when we visit the “recent” crime scene (I say “recent” because there’s nothing left but a foundation, a few blackened boards, and a lush field of vibrant green grass that pokes up through the concrete) he sings her an aria proclaiming his undying love. Everyone seems to think she’s doomed.
The women decide to go shopping.
I’m male again and I’m walking up to this clothing store/nightclub at Broadway and Houston. I get in line outside because you have to show ID and pay 75 cents to get in. The people around me are all involved in various alternative relationships—I call them the alt-sexuals. An old lady interviews a young man who has two girlfriends in tow. “So, is she your girlfriend, young man?” “Well, she’s, uh, just a friend,” he sez. “Oh, like a friend… with benefits?” the old lady asks. And then they’re out of earshot. I chuckle to myself. I have to write about this.
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We’re on the subway platform and I’m watching Leslie stroll a few paces ahead. A guy wearing oversized headphones cranes his neck to stare at her ass and makes a hissing noise, sssst, calling out to her like she’s an animal.
Pupils dilate. Heart quickens. Muscles tense. I blink and I can see the capillaries pulsing.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yell, as much for his benefit as for the other people on the platform. I’m marking my territory—that odd moment when you remember you’re nothing but blood and guts and sinew and reproductive organs. I’m indignant, too, wanting to rid all the subway platforms in all the world of these cocksuckers.
Headphones pulled aside now, he’s challenging me. “What did you say?”
Turning to face him, dead on. “I said shut the fuck up. Bitch. That’s no way to treat a woman.” I size him up, already planning my opening gambit should he decide to charge, and I have no idea who’d win. It’s a confidence game. I fix a steely gaze. Bring it.
But he’s already lost his resolve. He’s mumbling, averting his gaze.
“Well, that was entertaining,” I say, pulling Les to me.
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The four of us are crammed into a booth at Art Bar, downing potent cocktails. I’ve got one and a half martini glasses of Blue Sapphire in front of me and I’m struggling to keep up with Emma. How can such a tiny chick absorb so much liquor?
“So, who’s Ruben?” Natalia’s asking me.
Ruben Rubin: promoter extraordinaire—diminutive, personable, tirelessly devoted to good times. Anyone who’s anyone who gets around knows Ruben. We met at a shabby underground party in 1999 and I soon counted myself among his circle of revelers. In my heyday I worked 80 hour weeks and raged on the weekends—pre-game drinks at 2200h, hit a club at 0200h, wait for Ruben’s call at 0500h… after-party’s at so-and-so’s place on the UES, penthouse suite. Yeah, and bring some girls. Sometimes we’d line up three of these after-parties in a night, my eyes wide as saucers at the sight of it all: heaping plates of blow, nineteen-year-old models with sunken eyes and rusty pipes, Harvard grads dabbling in better living through chemistry—C, X, K, G—mixing and matching the alphabet. Stumble home at 1600h, get up at midnight and do it all over again. Those were lost weekends. Going home when the cock crows is for amateurs.
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Wolf down a plate of mac-n-cheese. Finish your beer. Throw on those pants with the frayed edges and a few small holes in them. You bought them that way. Grab a shirt off the hanger—the one Nova calls your “dirty shirt.”
Beware of the woman who lies in wait behind a parked van. Too late: she’s sprung her trap and nabbed your cab. Another taxi comes along in a minute, cutting across three lanes and nearly sideswiping an ice cream truck. Your girlfriend shoos the lumbering beast off. Outta the way! Doo dee dum dee doo, the truck drones on.
Navigate the city grid to Jack-n-Jill’s, down past sleepy doorman buildings where money comes home to roost. Be prepared for that look Jack always gives you because you’re always late. The two girls are gussied up and appear not at all the way you remember them. Make an exaggerated formal gesture of kissing the German girl’s hand—something she’ll remember—and then chill on the couch. Laconic tonight, aren’t you? Nothing a few drinks won’t fix.
Natalia’s spent the past two hours preening and prepping. You call her and she’s still holed up at home, walking around topless and fretting over her assortment of dresses. Tell her you’ll meet her in 20 minutes. Your girlfriend rides with Jack-n-Jill and you, lucky you, get to escort the girls. It’s starting to rain now and the cab scoots down the Franklin D. Roosevelt like a hydrofoil.
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The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence … and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still able to gobble it up.
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
I’m getting that shell-shocked feeling again. It’s the way I felt back in the fall of 2001, wandering the streets of New York like a ghost. When the tourists would sidle up to the sarcophagus to take a good snapshot for the folks back home I’d stand there on the verge of chewing them out. This ain’t some spectacle packaged for your amusement, I’d think. Somewhere down in that hole I used to buy sweet bean pastries from the sushi place. And then I’d rush off to a meeting up there in the sky. With people whose lives would end mid-sentence.
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