I arrived in Manhattan in greasy jeans and a six dollar haircut. I was twenty-one. I wore clothes I’d been wearing since high school. My body hadn’t changed. I was 120 pounds, a sliver of an idea. The year was 1991. My clothes were the clothes of a salvage lot boy. People on the sidewalk didn’t seem to notice. They pushed through their days with an importance I didn’t understand. Briefcases held entire worlds. Handbags were clutched like bejeweled secrets. New York had not yet been sanitized by Giuliani; it was still dirty enough to feel dangerous. I lived in New York during the spring semester of my junior year of college. The college I attended in Iowa offered an off-campus study program. I could live in Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York for a semester. I chose New York.
It was late January. My plane landed at JFK. It was cold, but not as cold as Iowa. It was a wetter cold. It sunk through one’s body. I walked down sidewalks I’d only dreamed of, the Manhattan of a hundred films. I was among the anonymous and the faceless. A thousand dreams turned behind the eyes of each face I looked into. How did she get here? What did he do for a living? I walked among them. I too was anonymous.
Three other students from my college had chosen to live in New York for a semester. We were all boys. Other than William the Blind, they were the only people I knew in New York. In 1991, William the Blind was a young writer with two novels and a book of short stories under his belt. I hadn’t met him yet. I was nervous.
Before we left for New York, the college advised us to be on our best behavior. We were representing the college, after all. I only knew the three other boys in passing. It was a small college. One boy was a theatre major. One boy was a business major. The third boy, my roommate, was a musician. I was majoring in English. We had simple American names. The college placed us on the fourteenth floor of a pre-war hotel. It was called the _____ _____ Hotel. It was dirty but familiar, like an old friend coming off a three day meth binge. We were juniors, all twenty-one. We were in the greatest city in the world. She opened her legs to us. We went inside. We drank, and drank some more. I took in her odor. She beckoned me, undressed me, and stripped me naked. She showed me many things. I cannot name them all.
Our favorite bar didn’t have a name. The business major was from Omaha. I think these guys are homos, he said. I looked at the clientele. They were old perfumed dolls wrapped in cellophane. I recognized the history of secret lives. I think you’re right, I said. Brian shrugged. Doesn’t matter, he said.
The boy I got along with the easiest was the theatre major. Shockingly, he wasn’t queer. He had a girlfriend. She was a theatre major, too. The theatre major was interested in set design. Why, I asked. I like the idea of creating new worlds, he said. We’re not that different, I said. No, he said. One night I went with Kevin, the theatre major, to the unnamed bar. A man approached him as we sat talking on our barstools. I’m with him, Kevin said, pointing a finger in my direction. The man looked me up and down, made a hissing noise and walked away. It was as if I didn’t exist. He must like Asians, Kevin said. A rice queen, I said. Kevin laughed. We ordered a pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft. People came and went. Most of them were old men. We were the youngest people in the bar. Somewhere north of our third pitcher I told Kevin he was beautiful. Thank you, he said. I kissed him on the lips. You’re drunk, he said. Have another beer, he said. He laughed as he poured warm beer into my glass. It was the extent of our romance.
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I walked the streets of Manhattan at night. I walked them alone. The college had warned us not to. The sidewalks didn’t know the letters in my name. I liked the idea of not having a history. I could be anything I wanted to be. I chose to be a piece of garbage. I had a size twenty-nine waist and a clean white dick. I would fuck anything. I would only be young once, I thought. I found myself on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Grand Street. There were Asian characters on the marquees and Asian characters in the shadows. I wished Kevin, my beautiful Chinese friend, were with me. I heard a voice come from a wedge between two buildings. Hey boy, you need some company? Yes, I said. How polite, I thought. This is a great town. An old black woman emerged from the shadows. She wore a calico rabbit fur coat. It fell to her ankles in a rainbow. The material looked cheap and prickly. We’re both poor, I thought. She grabbed my hand. Her hand was calloused and grimy. Mine was soft and unfamiliar with the dark shadows of the world. I felt very worldly, walking with a lady of the shadows. An elderly man tapping a cane on the sidewalk looked at us. He quickly looked elsewhere. The woman pushed open the glass door of an apartment building. The lobby smelled of mothballs and sickly layers of old paint. She guided me to a stairwell. She got on her knees, her coat sweeping the floor beneath us. With a snap of her wrist she unbuttoned my jeans. She opened the fly of my briefs. In a moment my penis was in her mouth. Her mouth was warm yet somehow detached. I looked down. My penis had a condom on it. I felt the warm rush of history. I came into the condom. She stripped it off, spat, and threw it on the floor. I pushed myself back inside my jeans. She opened the door. The night hit us full-on. It was much colder than it had been only a few moments earlier. I gotta eat, she said. How much money you got? I pulled my wallet from my front pocket. My father told me to keep it there. Harder to steal, he said. I had a twenty and two ones. Twenty dollars, I said. Is that all you got? I searched the pockets of my jeans. I removed stray change and a few subway tokens. I opened my hands to show her I was telling the truth. Give it to me, she said. I gave her everything. She fingered the night’s quarry. After a moment she handed the subway tokens back to me. You gonna need those, honey. We walked together a few more steps. She touched the small of my back, then turned and disappeared into the shadows. I searched my pockets. I was hungry and now I had nothing.
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I’d wanted to be a musician, not a writer. I shared this with the musician. So why aren’t you a musician, he asked. Because I can’t read music, I said. He laughed. I didn’t like the musician. I thought I did, but I didn’t. He came from a wealthy family. His parents were divorced. His father lived in Chicago. His mother lived in Santa Fe. He was an only child. He had a real name but everyone called him by his nickname. I’ll call him Chad. He laughed like a strangled finch. He was a drummer. I don’t want to play something dumb like the drums, I said. I want to play keyboards. A short thin sound passed between his lips. The words pissed him off. I knew they would.
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The college placed us on the fourteenth floor of an old hotel near W 75th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. I could see the Beacon Theatre from my window. Kevin roomed with Brian, and I roomed with Chad. I wanted to room with Kevin. We weren’t given a choice. I tried to like Chad. He made it difficult. He was very particular about his face, his clothes. He kept his drums in a corner near the door. They’re very expensive, he said. His father had shipped them from Iowa to New York. They took up a lot of room. I had to be very careful when I opened the door. I was a writer. All I needed was a notebook and a pen. The room didn’t have a desk. When I wrote I lay on my stomach on my bed. It didn’t affect my writing. In New York we had four professors who worked closely with us. There was a music professor, an art professor, an English professor and a theatre professor. The music professor was a man in his late sixties named Murray. He lived in Manhattan during the week. He spent the weekends in Marblehead, Massachusetts. I suspected he was queer. I wore tighter shirts on the days I met with him. I looked ridiculous, a toothpick with a nylon stretched over it.
The art professor was named Kathy. She lived in the city full-time. She had a studio on W 39th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. She was in her late forties. She had short-cropped hair and a long, severe face. She wore heavy black glasses. They sat on the bridge of her nose or dangled from a beaded necklace that appeared to be handmade. The English professor was a woman in her late fifties named Ana. She had written articles for the Village Voice and other periodicals of some note. Before the New York semester I’d written to Ana and asked her if it would be possible to meet with William the Blind. I told her of The Rainbow Stories, how his words had changed the way I thought about writing. She said she would see what she could do. It shouldn’t be that difficult, she said. I studied his words. The words rearranged my thought patterns. I waited to hear back from her. I had my doubts. I drank, got stoned, went to class, and slept with my girlfriend. November bled into December. I continued writing. The sentences I wrote got longer and longer. I didn’t like them. They sounded false. I scratched dark lines through them. I was awake most nights. I hacked at my words until only the bones remained. Snow fell outside my dorm room window. I wanted my words to fall as lightly as the snow.
My girlfriend read books about the collapse of the Soviet Union. She didn’t have much time for me. If she was busy I’d walk back across campus to my dorm room. I’d get stoned and strip down to my underwear. I was a junior. I lived alone. My dorm room was on the eighth floor of The Tower. It was known by most kids as the dork’s dorm because one had to have a 3.0 or higher to live in it. I often wondered what happened behind the bland doors of the other dorm rooms. Were people getting stoned, drinking, having sex? Calling their mothers to ask for more money? Sometimes when I was bored I’d get stoned and play a game I’d read about in Hustler magazine. I tied an end of my belt to my doorknob. I looped the other end around my neck. I pulled the belt tight and leaned forward until I nearly passed out. I pushed the pads of my feet against the door. My body was a compressed spring. I drifted in the darkness. The dim flash of orange on the underside of my eyelids illuminated the room. I felt the warm rush of history. The floor was concrete. It was easy to clean.
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My advisor called me into his office shortly before fall semester ended. The writer has agreed to meet with you, he said. Congratulations. Please remember to use your time wisely. I promised him I would. I left his small office. I imagined the young writer living in New York. I returned to my dorm room. I looked at his photograph on the dust jacket of You Bright and Risen Angels. He looked mild and bookish. It was a lie, I thought. He had witnessed the horrors of the world. He recounted them with clinical precision. Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of the earth is uniform. I memorized the words. I, too, lived in darkness.
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William the Blind had published three books. The books had caused a bit of a stir in the literary world. I owned all three in hardcover. The Rainbow Stories had changed the way I perceived the world. Someone in the world shared my afflictions. I would work with William and report what I had learned to my professors. Was it possible to learn how to write? I didn’t think so. But I thought it possible to relearn how to see.
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Ana was in her late fifties. She and her husband had an apartment on the Upper West Side. I looked closely at her face. I could tell she had been beautiful when she was young. She and her husband did not have children. Two small dogs sat on the sofa near her. I sat across from Ana in a wingback chair. The dogs flattened their ears against their heads. They pointed their noses toward me and regarded me with suspicion. Ana’s apartment was filled with books and paintings. I couldn’t tell if the paintings they were right side up or upside down.
Ana was massive. Her thighs were two great logs that sat cooling in a fire. Not even the elements could alter them. William will meet with you soon, she said. Yes, I said. In a few days, I said. Her husband popped his head around a partition that separated the kitchen from the living room. He was a balding man with a slight build. He wore a cardigan and tie. I was sure he was retired. Would you like a glass of wine, he asked. Yes, I said. I didn’t know anything about wine, though I’d once gotten deathly-drunk on a bottle of Night Train in high school. The only thing I was sure of was my ignorance. You’ll need a typewriter to write, Ana said. I have an old IBM Selectric. You may borrow it, if you like. Thank you, I said. I’ll have it delivered to your hotel, she said. The dogs looked at me from their perch near Ana’s legs. You’re garbage, they said.
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The musician possessed a certain beauty that came from privilege, but his outlook soured anything remotely beautiful about him. He could play music but he didn’t understand the meaning of compassion. His parents’ divorce had little effect on him. He’d been sour a long time. What’s wrong with you? I asked. I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. He unbuttoned his shirt. He stripped off his undershirt. He had the body of a malnourished boy. He held a bottle to his chest. The smell of cologne filled the air, changed its shape. I didn’t wear cologne or jewelry. I didn’t wear a watch. I did nothing to ornament my body. A writer should be faceless and forgettable. I rolled onto my stomach. I wrote notes in my composition book. He pulled on a clean t-shirt. I’m going out, he said. Good, I said. He closed and locked the door. Thoreau wrote how vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. I believed Thoreau was telling me I needed to fuck more whores, but I wasn’t sure. I kicked off my shoes and drifted, the sounds of Manhattan squawking fourteen floors below me.
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Ana’s IBM Selectric was delivered to the hotel by courier. When it arrived I went out and purchased a cheap writing desk from a thrift shop. It was made of wood, simple and unadorned. I carried it through the lobby and into the elevator. The clerk nodded and continued reading a paper. I returned to the lobby and asked the clerk if he had a spare chair I could borrow. He had a thick Indian accent. I’ll see what I can find, he said. Ana’s Selectric was reddish-orange. It had rounded edges. It was very heavy. I moved my writing desk under the window and placed the Selectric in the center of it. I plugged it in and turned it on. The typewriter had a satisfying hum. I liked the chunky sound it made when I ran my fingers over the home row. The desk clerk rang a few hours later. I found a chair, he said. Thank you, I said. I would now record everything Manhattan had to teach me on clean white sheets.
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I came home drunk after spending an evening with Kevin. We went to a club to meet people. Everyone assumed we were together. Neither of us found a stranger to go home with. I didn’t think Kevin would sleep with anyone. He seemed very committed to his girlfriend. I decided the next time I went out I would go alone. I wanted to witness the flesh parade the city had to offer. Kevin was at my side. I sheared off the top of my skull, scooped out my brain and soaked it in rum. We left the club near closing time and disappeared into the bowels of the subway. I’d forgotten how to walk. My feet were in my shoes but they weren’t cooperating. Up and down, I told myself, up and down. We exited the subway and walked a few blocks. The smudged glass doors of our hotel stood before us. Kevin rang the buzzer. The night clerk let us in. Kevin pushed the door open. I hooked a finger in one of his belt loops and followed him into the elevator.
Kevin helped me to my door. After I unlocked it he walked down the hall toward his room. I pushed the door open but something was blocking the doorway. I pushed harder. Hey, asshole! Chad yelled. Those are my fucking drums! I was disappointed to see Chad home so early. Sorry, I said. I shut the door with a click. Manhattan was safely contained on the other side of the door. Chad reminded me how expensive his drums were. I’m sorry, I said. You’re drunk, he said. I sat on the chair the desk clerk had loaned me. I don’t touch your stupid typewriter, asshole. I looked at Chad and covered my ears with my hands. He raised a middle finger. You need to get laid, I said. Fuck off, he said. I lined my fingers up on home row. Each time I pressed a button I heard a solid chunk chunk chunk but nothing came out right. I hit the keys with a violence that manifested itself as nonsense on the paper. I bent over the desk and opened the window. The cold wind of Manhattan settled on the blankets. I grabbed the cord of the Selectric and gave it a quick yank. I picked it up with both hands and tossed it out the window. Jesus Christ! Chad yelled. A loud crash sounded in the street below. Someone shouted fuck you! I opened the door. Chad and I raced toward the elevator at the end of the hall. I can’t believe you did that, he said. It was very late. The night clerk looked up as we passed his desk. I buzzed the door open. I pushed the heavy glass toward the night. A few people strolled along the sidewalk like ghosts. Ana’s typewriter sat in the middle of the street, mangled and unrecognizable. Chad and I picked the pieces off the street and dropped them in a gutter behind a salt-stained car. I’m fucked, I said. Chad laughed. We should get back inside, he said. It was the first time the little finch had laughed in weeks.
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I was at the Village Vanguard with Kevin, Chad, Brian, and our music professor Murray. A band I didn’t recognize was playing music I didn’t know. It was apparently popular with old white men. Murray ordered a drink. We watched him for subtle cues. Order a drink, he said. You’re all twenty-one. Once Murray’s approval had been secured we ordered drinks. I ordered a rum and Coke. Chad ordered an old fashioned, a drink he’d obviously heard his father order. Kevin ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. Brian ordered a rum and Coke, which surprised me. He usually drank beer.
Halfway into the second set Murray asked how my writing was coming. Not good, I said. I threw Ana’s typewriter out the window the other night. Fourteen floors down, I said. I illustrated my point by dragging my index finger from an imaginary hotel window to the imaginary street below. Boooooooooeeeewwwww, I said. Pwwwwccchhhhh. Someone kicked me under the table. Murray laughed. You’re joking? I wish I were, I said. Murray didn’t appear surprised. I laughed and took another drink. I was young and strong. Murray was old and weak. What could he do to me? Murray quietly cleared his throat. The band played for another half hour. When they finished we got up and said goodnight. Murray quickly turned and headed out the door. It was cold outside. The warmth of the club had nearly lulled me to sleep. Outside, the rain reminded me that I was alive and very much alone in a big city that didn’t know my name. Taxis chortled and honked, their wheels in cahoots with the wet asphalt. Did that really happen? Kevin asked. I shook my head yes. My stomach felt heavy. I knew I’d made a mistake.
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Two days after my confession Murray came to see me at my hotel room on the fourteenth floor. He was dressed in dark green slacks and a brown cardigan. He reminded me of a religious studies professor I’d taken a class with in Cedar Rapids. Gather up your things, he said quietly. I placed my clothes and my books in my ugly brown suitcase. I threw my composition book on top of everything. I closed the suitcase and snapped the latches in place. I’ll need your room key, Murray said. I dug into my jeans pocket. I followed Murray into the elevator. Nothing was said between us. He looked down. I looked down. I considered the worn floor of the elevator. It had no knowledge to impart. Murray stopped at the front desk. The clerk seemed to understand I was checking out. He nodded. Murray thanked him. Let’s grab something to eat, Murray said. He held the hotel door open for me. A cab was waiting. I got in. Murray got in behind me. At the café I placed my pathetic suitcase against the wall of the booth. It suddenly seemed very small. Murray sat across from me. He placed his order. I ordered a large breakfast. I wasn’t sure when I’d eat again. The waitress brought our drinks. Once she was out of earshot Murray said you’ve been expelled from the program. I’m sorry. You can’t stay in your old room. And it’s best if you don’t associate with the other students. I stared at my iced tea. Should I return to Cedar Rapids? I asked. I think you need to return home. I don’t have enough money for a plane ticket, I said. Perhaps you should contact your parents, Murray said. We’ve rented you a hotel room for three nights. You should have things sorted out by then. I’m sorry, son. I brushed away a tear with the back of my hand. My face felt hot. You could’ve killed someone, Murray said. You’re damned lucky.
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I took a bus to William and Janice’s apartment on East 66th Street and York Avenue. William was preparing to go on a trip to a faraway land, a land of ice and mystery. He showed me a handmade book he called The Happy Girls. The cover was made of metal. What should I do? I asked. William the Blind was only eleven years older than me, but those eleven years had been very instructive. They kicked me out of the program. I’ve been expelled from school. I don’t have any money, I said. I was on the verge of crying. I did not want to cry in front of William the Blind. William was very patient and very polite. He had the patience of a much older man. The Happy Girls was illuminated by red bulbs. I must have looked like a lost child scanning the aisles of a grocery store for its mother. Batteries, William said. He thought for a moment. Well, you’re young. You have a nice body. You could dance for money. Dancing always leads to other things, you know. You could do that, William said. William’s girlfriend Janice had made beef jerky for his trip. He bit off an end and handed it to me. It tasted good. I never thought of that, I said. I didn’t want to admit to William the Blind that the idea of prostitution scared me. It was fine if other people sold their bodies, but I didn’t want to resort to selling my own. There was death, disease, and queer bashing to consider. It was too much to turn over in my mind. I was not brave like William the Blind. I never would be. I said yes, I would do that. I lied. Good luck on your trip, I said. I left the student apartment that William and Janice shared near the Memorial Sloan - Kettering Cancer Center on East 66th Street and York Avenue. I wouldn’t see him again for another twelve years. When I saw him again we would both be in Los Angeles, far away from New York. I would be old and he would be older. The years would pass between us as years pass between brothers. The names remain the same and nothing seems to change.
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Magda lived on the twelfth floor of the _____ _____ Hotel. The first time I saw her I was feeding a roll of quarters into a payphone in the lobby. I was talking to a friend in Rio Minolta. I turned and there was Magdalena. She was slowly walking through the lobby. She was in her late sixties. She was dressed in red and gold. She wore a flamboyant hat. She moved very deliberately. It pained me to watch her walk. I was dressed in my usual garb, old Levi’s and a black t-shirt. Magda slowly lifted a hand and waved. I waved back. I saw her again at the mailboxes a few days later. She wore a different hat. I was expecting a letter from my mother. Someone said hello. I turned. It was Magda, though I didn’t know her name at the time. I said hello. She stepped closer and grabbed my penis through my jeans. You’re such a sweet boy, she said. Come see me sometime. I’m in 1216. She turned and shuffled toward the elevators. Was she a succubus? A demon roaming the halls of the hotel? I wasn't sure. I was too naive to understand such things.
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I found myself at her door. I was holding my ugly brown suitcase. Magda was poor but she had two small television sets. One was in the bedroom. The other sat on the counter in the kitchen. They were always on. They spoke to me in Spanish. I liked this because I didn’t have to think. Her front door opened into a kitchen and a living room. The bathroom was in one corner. The bedroom was nothing more than a bed separated by thrift store partitions. A heavy green fabric was draped across the partitions. Her window looked out onto a different view of the city than the one Chad and I had shared. I couldn’t see the Beacon Theatre from her window. I leaned out as far as possible. No, no, mijo. You’ll fall! Like many New Yorkers, her entire life was contained in five hundred square feet. My bedroom back home in Rio Minolta was smaller than a whore’s shoe closet. I was used to small spaces.
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I quickly determined Magdalena was not a woman, though she always dressed as one. I didn’t own the words to describe her. She often kept both televisions on simultaneously. They were on Spanish channels, though not the same channel. Broadcasters echoed and mimicked each other. Commercials battled for my attention. Garish shows clanged against each other like Fiesta ware. I was convinced Magda was trying to rewire my brain. She cooked things I didn’t like. The dishes were hot and spicy. I didn’t recognize the names she used. I bent over the commode one evening and watched everything I’d eaten exit my mouth in a violent red swirl. I was too weak to shower. Magda bathed me. Why get dressed if you’re not going out? Magda asked. If I wanted money all I had to do was walk or lie around the apartment in my briefs and nothing else. I would sit across from her in the kitchen with my ass on a flimsy chair, my legs draped across the sofa. Her apartment was an exact replica of the one I’d shared with Chad. It was small and chipped and dull. The muscles of my legs twitched like a rabbit held against its will. I stretched out on the sofa with my hands behind my head and the heels of my feet against the opposite armrest. I became so accustomed to wearing only briefs that I once stepped outside the door and realized I had no clothes on as I waited for the elevator. I jogged down the hall and knocked on Magda’s door, a pink naked idiot.
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Magdalena was from Ecuador. I was born Nicolás Lara, she said. I come here when I was very little, just a girl. My mother was very disappointed when I was born. I already have three boys, she said. I want a girl! Growing up I knew I had a boy’s body but I was really a girl. I told my mother. Never tell anyone, she said. Life will be very hard for you. I come to New York. It was much different back then. Not so expensive. I went to school to learn English. I taught myself how to walk like a boy, but it was no use. I was not a boy. I learned English. I cleaned houses. I made money but I was very sad. One night I went to a club with a friend and saw mariposas, men dressed as women. I finally found others like me. I missed my home, mi familia, but I knew it could never be like this. I would never be free. Magda held a pocket square to her eye. I listened to her story. I searched for Nicolás Lara under the clothes, the makeup. I could not find him.
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One evening I lay on the sofa watching Sábado Gigante. I drifted off, woke up, drifted again, dreamt I was wearing a uniform. I pushed a broom in a parking lot. Was it my father’s wrecking yard? A pad of asphalt sat in front of his office, but I didn’t recognize the surroundings. I felt a vague presence hovering over me. The broom made swishing sounds as I pushed a small pile of gravel along the black surface. Someone whispered my name. I opened my eyes to find Magda leaning over me. She was bathed in the phosphor-blue light of the television. She had the twisted face of a demon. She slowly rematerialized into human form. She was dressed in a pink nightgown. I looked for breasts. I couldn’t see any. She clicked her nails against my skin and slowly pulled my briefs to my ankles. I lay motionless. I tried to speak. I couldn’t. Magda pulled a kitchen chair close to the sofa. She sat on it. Play with yourself, she said. I closed my eyes. I moved my hands over my body. I pictured Kevin’s face. The flickering light of the television tinted my skin milk-blue. I heard a rustling in the darkness. Magdalena murmured words I didn’t understand. After I finished she cleaned me with a dry washcloth. She held the washcloth to her nose. Her face looked younger, her hair darker. I want to take a shower, I said. Go ahead, mijo. I crossed the floor with my bare feet. The floor was very cold. Just beyond Magdalena’s window Manhattan squonked and hissed. I wondered how many apartments entertained unnamed horrors behind closed doors.
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Can I have some money? Of course, mijo. Get my purse. She always called me by something other than my name – honey, mijo, baby. I was not a baby. I was twenty-one. I never corrected her. She fed me. She let me live with her. She rarely touched me. What did I care if she got off watching me walk around in my underwear? If I had to jerk off for her, so be it. I was hungry and the city waited outside the door. We all make accommodations. Adjust, focus, rewire. Mother once told me men are never satisfied. She was right. Plates in the earth moved against each other. Mountains slowly turned to sand. The seafloor drifted from blue to darkness, and things between Magda and me quickly changed.
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I became a prostitute. I offered myself to her three nights after I moved in. Candles were lit. An old Spanish movie played on the television in the bedroom. It was her idea of romance. Her eyes were obsidian. Some unknown creature conspired behind them. I lay on the bed. Her hands drifted over my body. I started pulling off my briefs. She stopped me. Let me do it, she said. I felt her nails against my skin. Her gnarled fingers played my body like a grand piano. They summoned notes I didn't recognize. Your skin is so white, she said. I shut my eyes. Her mouth closed over me. I felt weak. I couldn’t move. I thought only of good things. I was grateful to be out of the cold and away from everything I knew. I thought of the money she gave me. Sometimes we are vampires, and sometimes we fall prey to them.
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The days stretched out like an old snake warming itself in the sun. There was always a Spanish program on the televisions. Candles flickered in the shadows. Magdalena blessed the dark corners of the apartment with pungent oils. She spoke to black formless shadows. They whispered back. She applied makeup in the morning but never went anywhere. I grew bored. I read my books, the only books in the apartment in English, but I quickly grew tired of them. Magda had an old pair of hair clippers in the medicine cabinet. I stripped off my briefs one morning as she watched television and boiled a pot of tea on the stove. I plugged the clippers into an outlet above the bathroom sink. I turned them on without a guard in place. I started from the front of my scalp and moved the clippers over my skull. The oily buzzing of the clippers was reassuring. My hair fell into the sink, the wastebasket, on the floor. When I was done I scooped up my hair and put it in the trash. My scalp was white. I rubbed my hands against it. Hair drifted into the sink. I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. When I stood under the water black pieces of me swirled down the drain. I felt lighter. The water ricocheted off my skull. I turned the water off and dried my scalp with an old soft towel that had been washed a hundred times. I dried my body and walked nude into the little kitchen where Magda sat watching her program. My skin was pink from the hot shower. It tightened and pulled against itself. Magda rarely turned the heat on. Too expensive, she said. I stood naked before Magda, bald and pink. She stifled a little cry. She crossed herself. You’re not a boy anymore, she said. She hugged me in the cold air of the apartment. I felt trapped. If I don’t leave soon, I thought, I may never leave.
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I got a job as a short order cook at a small diner near Amsterdam Avenue and West 80th Street. The old man who hired me was friendly but terse. You done this kind of work before, kid? Yes sir, I said. Can you start tomorrow? Yes sir. Call me Lloyd, he said. You’ll start at minimum wage. You live close by? 75th Street and Amsterdam, I said. Good. Make sure you’re here on time. Come with me. I followed him into a small office with a sign on the door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. He took down Magdalena’s phone number, which was really the phone number of one of the three payphones in the lobby. He handed me a black apron. This one’s yours. I’ll see you tomorrow, yes? Yes sir, I said. Call me Lloyd, he said. I shook his hand and told him thank you. Be sure you’re here at 6 A.M., he said.
I would be free of Magda’s apartment with its Spanish programs and butterscotch walls. I would be free of her restless hands, if only for a few hours. I walked toward the hotel. Magda had talked to the night clerk. He lives with me now, she said. I never saw my friends Kevin or Brian. I imagined them somewhere in the city taking tours with professors and writing down important things in notebooks. I thought of the musician, my stupidity at tossing the typewriter out the window. I stretched onto the bed and cried with my back against the sound of the dueling televisions. I sensed Magdalena was standing behind me. What’s wrong, mijo? I thought of my mother and father, my siblings. I thought of my friends in Cedar Rapids. I was very far away from everything I knew. I got a job today, I said. The cold air of the apartment brushed against my back. Oh, that’s good, she said. That’s very good. She rolled me onto my back. Despite her age, she was very strong. Her hands tugged at the waistband of my jeans. I ran my hand over the surface of a wall. Nothing in the world belonged to me, not even myself.
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I worked long enough to collect one paycheck. The money was very insignificant. I smelled of grease each afternoon as I made my way home. The smell stayed in my hair. Shampooing my scalp didn’t help. I hated my job. I hated Magda’s bony fingers. I hated Manhattan.
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I told Magda I wanted to go home. She was upset. She sat at the little kitchen table and shook like a dog. She held a pocket square in her hand. She dabbed her eyes. Her eyeliner was smeared against the broken surface of her cheeks. Do what you must, dear. If you want to go home, you should go home. I understand. Broke and broken, I called the elevator. When the doors opened I approached the payphone in the lobby downstairs. I dialed my father’s number. It was late March. I’d been living with Magdalena for a month. I’d told my father I lived with an older woman. What he didn’t know was the older woman was a man from Ecuador who dressed as a woman. My stepmother answered the phone. She sounded five thousand miles away. I asked to speak to my father. Rio Minolta was three hours behind New York. It was early evening on the west coast. I want to come home, Dad. My father was silent. I imagined him sitting in his La-Z-Boy, watching one of his programs. You tired of living in that big city, son? Yes, I said. I did not hesitate. Well, come on home. I’ll put money in your account. Call us with your flight number. We’ll pick you up. I replaced the receiver in its cradle. I got back in the elevator and made my way up to 1216. I unlocked the door. Magdalena sat on a chair watching the television in the kitchen. She would not look at me.
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My entire life fit inside a small ugly brown Samsonite. I packed my clothes and the few books I’d brought from home. I threw my notebook in my suitcase. Nothing I’ve seen is worth saving, I said. Don’t say that, Magda said. You may think that now, but it’s not true. The things you learned here will mean something to you one day. Trust me, mijo. She gave me oranges for the trip. She gave me a handful of candies wrapped in crepe paper. The gold foil of the candies shone through the paper. I didn’t like the candies. I didn’t like Magda’s old ways. But she had kept me off the street. When I was cold, she kept me warm. I tried not thinking of the other things. There was always a price to pay. I opened the crepe paper and stuck a few candies in my pocket for the flight home. On the plane I leaned against the Plexiglas and imagined my father picking me up at the airport in his old Ford truck. I pulled the shade down to blot out the light. I wanted to forget Manhattan, forget Iowa. I awoke when the plane hit a patch of turbulence. I pushed my hand into my pocket and removed one of Magdalena’s candies. An old man sitting next to me tried making conversation, but I ignored him. The butterscotch candy was cheap and brightly-colored, much like Magda. The best candies are those that are unwrapped, eaten, and quickly forgotten.
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It would take many years to learn that a writer is never up front and center, a writer is always in the shadows. A writer observes; he does not participate. A writer must take notes in his head. People don’t trust people who carry notebooks. A writer never passes judgment on people who populate her fiction. A writer loves words but also knows when to do away with them. I thought I understood these things when I was young. I did not. I only understood one volume setting: loud. I was a fool. I shouted yet I had nothing to say. I was a compass yet I had no sense of direction. A real writer has no soul, William the Blind said. A writer’s job is merely to observe and reflect, to be a mirror and a chameleon. William tried telling me this. I was young. I did not listen. It would take years to learn what he meant. I tripped. I fell. I shunned friends and family. I spent days in my bedroom at my keyboard. I typed until my back ached. I spoke to black formless shadows. They whispered back. I emerged from the darkness. The sun was very bright. At last, I thought. I am a recording angel.
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I’ve only returned to New York twice since I lived there so long ago in 1991. The streets have the same names. The buildings are the same, but there is a subtle difference. The danger is gone. The sidewalks are clean. I see my face reflected in shop windows. Old grates and metalwork have been burnished by people who were not born there. I miss the dirt. I walked by my old hotel, the hotel where I lived, where Magda lived. It is no longer called the _____ _____ Hotel. It is no longer a hotel. It now houses condos, or apartments, or flats. It doesn’t matter. I could not afford to live here now. Neither could my teacher, William the Blind. The true artist and the middle class have been trampled underfoot by a million polished soles. The shop windows look through me. They do not see me. I thought of Magdalena, how kind she’d been to me. I’d treated her poorly. I’d been ungrateful. I was young. I was sure she was dead. I got drunk in the Village and raised a glass to her. An old queen tried hitting on me. I pushed through him and stumbled toward the door. I pissed in an alley near W 10th Street and Waverly Place. Fuck you, New York. Fuck the brocaded nouveau riche with their rhinestoned assholes. I never knew you.
Magdalena died a few years after I left. She died in 1993, when I was twenty-three. River Phoenix also died in 1993. It was such a shock because we were the same age. 1993 was a bad year. Two plus three is five. Not a good number.
I never wrote to Magda, as I said I would. Once I returned to Rio Minolta she rarely crossed my mind. She had shared her bed, her tiny apartment, her life with me. We talked in her kitchen among cutlery and old china. She lit a candle in front of her mother’s image every day. She taught me to have faith in myself. You are your own person, she said. No one can take your beauty from you. You must live life while you are young, she said. When you’re old all you have left are shadows.
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I have very few things left from my time in New York. There is an old composition book. A few faded photographs. A New York public library card issued to me by the borough of Manhattan. A bill from Dr. Irene Shapiro, a physician on Central Park West who treated an unidentified illness I wrestled with for a week. There is Kevin’s face, lingering in my mind. In late March the grey concrete of the sidewalks flowed into the gutters, the alleyways, the passages between thoughts. All these things fit neatly inside a funerary box that measures six inches wide by ten inches long. I put it away and seldom open it. It is in a closet somewhere in Rio Minolta, in a home that no longer feels like home. I tick days off the calendar. Each strikethrough equals one day closer to death. I am alive, and my time here is very brief. I packed my suitcase and took the A train to John F. Kennedy. Before I left Magdalena held me one last time, her entire body shaking beneath her clothes. She pushed a tight roll of money into my jeans pocket. Live each day like you’ve got a full refrigerator, mijo. The bastards won’t know the difference.
*
p.s. Hey. Writer extraordinaire and d.l. James is back this weekend to share another piece of his novel-in-progress with us in special post form, and a lustrous compelling thing it is, so please take some time to get it under your considerable belts and then speak to him re: the effect, thank you. And mightiest of thanks to you, James! So, tomorrow I leave on a trip to the middle of France, specifically this region called Auvergnes, where I'll be hold up, endeavoring to work on my troubled novel and some other projects in league with my artist friend Zac, who'll be using the isolation and concentration to work on some projects of his own, albeit with some mini-escape trips to explore the area, which is famous for its history as the volcanic region of the country. What this means in terms of the blog is this: Apart from a new slaves post late next week, the blog's post aspect will be in reruns until I get back. As far as the p.s. goes, my idea/plan is to pop in here a couple of times during that period to do the p.s. and catch up. That'll likely happen spontaneously and without forewarning, so I guess expect the expected on an unexpected schedule. Early the following week, everything will return to normal here. Makes sense? Probably, right? ** Scunnard, Well, thank you, sir. You good? What's up and new? ** S., Nice stack. Like the color neg stuff. Color neg is an underrated way to go. Everyone, writer/artist S.'s Emo image stackage project continues apace and classically at this location. An 80s party? Why? Well, why not? I only know/like the Cult's obvious hits, which would be, what, oh, 'She Sells Sanctuary' and, uh, oh, 'Love Removal Machine'. I wasn't so hot on that album Ian Astbury did with Boris last year or whenever. He's a big Sunn0))) fan, though, god love him. I don't know. Hope the party rocked. Stay your own personal equivalent of gold. ** Cobaltfram, Yes, RIP: Chinua Achebe. Understood about the approach to the classics. I feel like I read everything for tech and style, old or new. Or that's what I concentrate on and then the content filters in simultaneously however it does. So, if classics are too content-y and narrative-y and all that, they might as well be 'Gone With the Wind' to me. Yeah, I know Morton Feldman's work. Liked it a lot back in the day when I was way into contemporary serious music. I saw him 'perform' his work a few times. I don't think of him as a minimalist at all. That tag seems really, really off to me. Yeah, I think 'modern classical music' informed my work somewhat. Maybe sneakily or something. Not as consciously as experimental film and experimental non-classical music has. I think maybe the pace and tempo, and, of course, the non-linear structures and dissonance, were the most influential. I don't know. ** David Ehrenstein, You remember them? I guess VK always seemed so heterosexual with a dash of bi-curiosity that no other possibility ever crossed my mind. And I guess my fantasies don't need an external patine of truthiness or something. Well, I suppose that's pretty obvious, ha ha. I wish Soderbergh had made the long-in-process 'Cleo' musical written by Robert Pollard before he quit. That's my one big complaint. ** Alistair McCartney, Hi, A! Oh, I see, yes, about the extra material and possible other books. That sounds quite comforting. Are you going to try to jump into one of them, or are you going let yourself have a phase of pure real world living for a while? Thanks, man, about my troubled novel thing. I don't know. I hope so. No, the Iceage hanging out will be during a big Scandinavian theme park-visiting road trip coming up in May. Take good care, my pal. ** L@rstonovich, Hey! Ah, I remember you guitar nazi guys. You were so charming and down to earth and everything, ha ha. Oh, shit, on the heave ho from your contentious friend. But it sounds like these tete-ouch-tetes fade out kind of quickly? But, yeah, that sucks. You feeling righter now, 24 further hours later, I hope, I suspect? ** Steevee, I guess Soderbergh has proven that his interests lie way all over the place? I don't know. I know people who work with him, and I certainly have never gotten the impression that he's at all homophobic, but, I don't know. I guess we'll see. When do you see the Liberace film? ** _Black_Acrylic, Yay, a fellow John Foxx fan at last! High five! Cool, excited about the MK piece, of course, and, again, of course, the Joe Meek Day would be amazing. Sure. 'The Pyre' will be easy for you because there's no text/talking whatsoever during the performance part, and the 'book' component that arrives at the end of the performance part, and which is written by me, will be bilingual. So, yeah, no sweat at all. ** Misanthrope, Well, at least it has your photo on it. That's cool. I always liked Shaq. I thought he was kind of a genius. I haven't followed him at all since he left the Lakers other than when he says or does something extracurricular that makes the news. ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi! Oh, I haven't read 'Le dernier à parler'. I'm not even sure if it has been translated. Hunh. I'll go check. You have a very lovely weekend and beyond! ** White tiger, Hi, Math! You'll be fine and stronger yet, I know you will. Oh, you told me how to decode that! Thank you! Now I'm really excited, and I'm going to look at it with more complicated eyes. I'm loving it. It's fucking beautiful. Lots of love from me. ** Okay. Go back up there and read James' wonderful work if you haven't already. The blog will return on Monday with a hopefully exciting rerun post. I will see you guys, p.s.-wise, before too long at all, I think, so just take care and hang in there until then, okay?