Ladies' Man Read online

In front of the two kids, an older guy in a gravy-colored raincoat was leaning against the building. He was short, fiftyish, blubberized and toupeed. His nervous darting wall-eyes made Peter Lorre look like a squinter. Every time a cab honked he” started blinking in spasms. In front of him, two other guys were talking. One guy was tall, dressed in baggy chinos and a lightweight dungaree jacket. He had the longest, pointiest head I’d ever seen; it was shaped like a slip-on pencil eraser. His hairline began a good two inches above his temple as if his hair had been glopped on like whipped cream on Jell-O. He wore bottle-bottom glasses, the heavy black frames held together with rubber bands at the joints, and his elevator forehead was sprinkled with pimples. The guy he was talking to looked like Rasputin’s dwarf—a Mad Russian. About five feet even, scrawny, dressed in a pea coat, he was balding but combed his hair forward in sparse bangs over his eyes like Moe of the Three Stooges. He held one arm across his gut supporting the elbow on the other arm, which was slowly stroking a goatee that looked more like a collection of long chin hairs than a beard. As the guy with the glasses talked, the Mad Russian kept massaging his chin and staring up at him with hungry gleaming eyes as if trying to figure out how to knock out that big turkey so he could cook him in a pot.

  “I—I feel kinda good today.” He had a meek voice. “I wrote a new joke. My cousin is so dumb”—he pushed his glasses up his nose—“my cousin’s so dumb he had to take a color-by-number course in graffiti.”

  The Mad Russian didn’t laugh, only smiled wolfishly licking his lips and rhythmically tugging his chin hairs.

  The comic shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know, I kinda like it, and I also picked up this.” He took a switchblade out of his back pocket, shook it in front of his face and out snapped a comb. The fat popeyed guy jumped, but nobody noticed. He started combing his bird’s nest as if to illustrate further that it really wasn’t a knife.

  La Donna stared at all of them, horrified and ashamed. She looked like she was ready to walk. I felt sorry for her and put my hand on the back of her, neck again, but she shook it off. A hefty-looking Jewish chick emerged from a taxi, shouted at the taxi driver, “Remember, twelve noon New Year’s Eve nineteen seventy-nine behind the soccer stadium in Istanbul. Be there!” and ran across the sidewalk to the end of the line, which was us. She briskly rubbed her hands and made a loud brrr sound. “This train go straight out to Montauk, or do I have to change at Babylon?”

  La Donna looked away like don’t fuckin’ bother me. I smiled, jammed for a comeback line. La Donna’s rudeness pissed me off to no end. I could never stand people who couldn’t even transcend their own shit, just for the sake of politeness if nothing else.

  “You a singer or a comedian?” She pointed a nose as big as a shark fin at me.

  Neither.” I shrugged. “I’m a lion tamer. I used to gig with Terrytoon Circus.”

  “A lion tamer,” she whispered behind her hand to an invisible third party on her left. She raised her eyebrows and gave a short uh-oh whistle. “Well, how you doin’, Lion- Tamer, what’s your name?”

  I felt embarrassed telling her my name, as if it didn’t count.

  “Kenny Becker.” I extended my hand.

  “Mona Nucleosis.”

  Even though La Donna was making a big point of being disinterested she choked a snort over that one.

  “You a comedienne, Mona?”

  In response she whipped out a Plasticene tear sheet from her shoulder bag. It was the front page of the second section of a six-month-old New York Times. “The Big Apple’s Ladies of Laughter—Top 15 Comediennes.” She was number thirteen.

  “Hey, La Donna, look at this!”

  She turned, glared at me and glanced at the page without focusing her eyes. A big solid blond dude came up behind Mona. He was built like a fullback and wore a black vinyl, lightweight, wet-look jacket over a floral ; body shirt open to the sternum. He had enough chest hair for a national park and six strands of gold chains were crisscrossing under his collarbone. He stood there with a permanently arched eyebrow rolling his shoulders and absently high-stepping in place like a boxer waiting for ring intros. He was dressed for the wrong time of year, but snow or no, the look on his face was, hey, fuck weather. His dark brown chest fur clashed with his metallic blond hairdo. The guy was heavy into Streaks ‘n’ Tips.

  He caught my eye as I was checking him out and thrust his arm toward me. By reflex I raised my shoul , der to block a punch but he only extended a paw.

  “Jackie di Paris.” He said it like he was answering the question “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Kenny Becker.” The handshake was of course a bone-popper. Mona was gawking at him, her tongue hanging out like a club tie.

  “Jackie, this is Mona.”

  “Hey, Mona!” He winked. “You a real moaner or what?” He laughed, squeezing her shoulders. She made a strangle face and popeyes for my benefit.

  “Awright, Mona the moaner!” He laughed. “Yeah.” Letting her go and breathing into his fist.

  La Donna turned slightly, gave him the once-over and turned back. My stomach slipped a few inches. I didn’t want to notice her. “Hey, I saw that.” He pointed at her, grinning in triumph. He rocked side to side, rubbing his hands and blowing into his fists as if he was waiting for the 6:00 a.m. shape-up down at the longshoremen’s hiring hall.

  “Jackie di Paris, huh?” I figured him for a bouncer trying to be a singer. “That your real name?”

  “John di Marco, di Paris is my stage name.” He squinted at me. “You’re from the Bronx, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You Jewish?” like a polite accusation. -

  “Yeah.” What about it, douchebag.

  “Oh.” He shrugged like it wasn’t serious. “Where you from?”

  “Burke Avenue.”

  “I’m from Belmont Avenue. Yon know Belmont Avenue?”

  “Sure, I know Belmont You don’t live there no more, do you?”

  “Now? Nah, I’m over here now. Up on Eighty-sixth 1 Street, Germantown.” He nodded uptown.

  “You sing?”

  He shrugged and pouted, “I’m tryin’, you know? I got nice pipes. I got stage presence. I used to be a bodyguard for Peter Lemongello… it’s all fucking bullshit. What kinda work you do?” He squinted.

  “Me?” Brain surgeon. “I’m in sales.”

  He laughed. “What the fuck does that mean?’.’

  “Whata you mean, what the fuck does that mean?” I snapped, pissed and embarrassed.

  . “Sales could be anything, right?” He shrugged. “You a VP or a clerk?”

  “Neither.” I turned away.

  “Myself”—he poked my arm—“I’m now in commit-nications.” He waited for me to turn back to him, his head cocked, chin pointing to his shoulder, a smirk plastered on his lips. “I sort mail for the post office.

  All the difference in the world. I lightened up, dipped my head in acknowledgment, “Door-to-door.”

  Mona started talking to the guy who came on line behind Jackie.

  “You know, I’ll tell you something, you never know who’s going to make it doing what in this world.” He put his hands inside his rib-high jacket pockets and scanned the street. “And the God’s honest truth, I don’t know about you, you know, door-to-door, but I put in forty fuckin’ hours a week in that goddamn PO. That’s forty hours working with every low-life bastard that can pass a multiple-choice exam to get a federal job. Punching out a time card to take a crap, vending machine -coffee with every meal.” He dropped his voice, still staring out at the street “Getting chewed out by some bullshit nigger with two years’ seniority on me. And I swear to God, if I didn’t believe I was destined from some fuckin’ greatness for something a hell of a lot better…” He rubbed his mouth. “I dunno, so we’ll see.

  I’m feelin’ pretty good tonight, so well see. You a singer, too?” He raised his chin in my direction.

  “Me? Nah, I’m down here with my girlfriend, she’s a singer.”


  “Who, her?” He tilted his head back and to the right where Mona was yakking away. He looked like he was in pain.

  I jerked back and squinted too, like gimme a break.

  “La Di.” I turned La Donna around. “La Donna, this is Jackie di Paris.”

  “Hey, now you’re makin’ sense.” He held out both hands palms up. “How you doin’, baby.” He leaned forward and kissed her under her ear, holding the other side of her face in the flat of his palm. Then he straightened up holding both of her hands in his. “I’m sure you’re a very fine singer, and I’m sure you’ll do very well tonight.” He winked at me.

  La Donna frowned and nodded awkwardly.

  “Wha, you nervous?” He jerked back and looked outraged.

  She mumbled “A little” and tried to extract her hands.

  “What are you nervous about?” he sneered. “Don’t fuckin’ worry, they’re all fuckin’ jibones out there.”

  “Thank you.” She pulled one hand free. He let go of the other one and drew me and La Donna into a huddle. “Also”—he had his arms around our shoulders—“there’s no fuckin’ competition,” he whispered, raised his head, peered at the line and ducked back into the huddle. “You ever see such a line-up of freaks?”

  At that moment a ripple of energy pulsed up the line. We turned around; a tall, thin guy in a sealskin coat and a lamb’s-wool Cossack hat was working his way up to us, cradling a clipboard and handing out yellow Community Chest Monopoly cards.

  “Name?”

  “La Donna.” She straightened up, gave him all her attention, like this joker had the power. She tilted her ‘head and read her name as he wrote it on the clipboard.

  “La Donna what?”

  “Just La Donna.” She held her manila folder” with her fingertips.

  “Singer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He handed her a yellow card. The number thirteen was written on the back in red Magic Marker. “You’re number thirteen. Be here no later than nine. Any drinks you have at the bar you pay for. You got ten minutes up there, one song. If you want piano accompaniment you have to supply the music. If you’re late you’re out. Name please?”

  “Nah, I’m with her.” I took her by the elbow, waved good-bye to Jackie, who was getting his number, and ushered her across the street.

  “What time is it now?” she asked.

  “Ten after five. We got almost four hours. You wanna go to a movie? They got Heart of Glass playing at the Coronet.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You wanna rent a hotel room and screw around?” Hah. “No, seriously, if you want we got time to go back to the house and fall out for a few hours.”

  “Please, I can’t stand that house sometimes.”

  “So move out, bitch”—that too under my breath. Sometimes she would hurt me in such a way I always felt like a schmuck if I tried to bring it to her attention.

  “You hungry?” We stood in front of an East Side deli; all I had had all day was wheat germ cereal and coffee.

  “I’m cold,” she winced.

  “Well, let’s get some soup or hot chocolate or some-thing.”

  It was one of those Renaissance delis with chandeliers hanging from heavily spackled red ceilings, the walls plastered with gold-veined mirrors and oil paintings of clowns and sunsets with little price tags in the corners. The menus were quilted, plush and big as baby books. All that so they could jack up the price of a hot dog.

  “Look at this joint.” We sat across from each other at a booth the sides of which were shaped like curlicued sea waves. “The Borgias used to come in here for their pastrami.” Across from us was the floor-length meat and appetizer counter. “Meanwhile they still got the slobs with the T-shirts and flabby chests slicing the white-fish, right?” I winked at her. Her hands were clasped in front of her face, elbows on the table, both thumbs pressed against the bottoms of her front teeth. On the bottom shelf of the meat display case sat three huge hors d’oeuvre trays of tightly rolled cold cuts and cheese laid out in a sunburst pattern under yellow-tinted cellophane like a food version of the June Taylor dancers. Each platter had a name and an East Side address pinned on the cellophane. I wanted to make some clever comment about the trays to La Donna, but she looked like she was waiting out a biopsy report. An old-time waiter, short, bald with salt and pepper sideburns and mustache, came by, order pad in hand. He wore a food-stained chest-high apron under a red monkey jacket.

  “Whata you want, babe?”

  “Just tea.”

  I didn’t think we were allowed to order just tea. “Look, I just want coffee now, we’ll order in a few minutes, okay?”

  He closed the order pad without writing anything down and, staring over our heads, slowly walked toward the coffee and hot water service station. “You talk to your sister today?”

  “No.” La Donna slid her thumbs up to her forehead; “La Di…” I cupped her elbows in my hands. “Listen, Mommy, you’re gonna be fine tonight.”

  “I wish to God you would stop reassuring me, okay?” She didn’t raise her head or move her elbows.

  The waiter reappeared, a full cup in each hand, waiting for me to take my arms off the table. He was staring back toward the kitchen.

  “Sorry.” I leaned back against the booth. He walked away without asking us for our orders.

  “Whata you want, La Donna, you want me to split? I’ll split” I spit that out as, offhand and abrupt as I could.

  “No,” she mumbled. I couldn’t see her face behind her thumbs, which had climbed up to her hairline. She started to cry. “No.” She pulled wetly on her nose, then flattened her hands across her face, shuddering silently.

  For what it’s worth, at that moment I felt bettor than I had all day. I leaned over the table and kissed her knuckles, which were directly over her eyes.

  “Everything is gonna be okay.”

  “Sit over here.” She pouted and patted the Naugahyde next to her, hiding her eyes with the other hand.

  I slid under the table and popped up next to her. She still wouldn’t uncover her eyes. “Hold me. You haven’t held me all day, you know,” she said half-sulking.

  “Oh, Mommy.” I hugged her as hard as I could. I loved her badly. Madly. She laid her head on my chest and I was in heaven.

  The waiter came back, and I opened one of the mammoth menus, rubbing my hands together as if to kindle my appetite. “God, now I’m starving! Whata you want, baby, you want a Vic Damone or a Joe Namath?”

  “I’ll have a tuna salad on rye.” She wiped her eyes with her napkin.

  “Yeah, and ah, I’ll tell you, I’m torn between a Duke Ellington and an Albert De Salvo myself.”

  When the waiter split again, I moved my hand along her thigh under the table, and I could feel her body downshift, relax against my arm. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. Slowly she moved the flat of her palm in a U-curve from the inside of my thigh over the bulge of my crotch to the other thigh. I was so surprised I almost pushed her away. If there had been a power failure, I would have taken her right there, under the table.

  “It’s been a long time, Kenny,” she whispered, running her hand back along the same route.

  “Eight days and six hours,” I said.

  She snorted softly. “Well, you’re In trouble tonight.”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?”

  “It’s what it is.”

  We straightened up when the waiter returned with the food. I couldn’t eat. My insides were one big sexknot.

  After the deli, I talked her into going to see a movie which wound up being about depression in Los Angeles, a movie which didn’t win me any awards for clever-ness. By the time the movie was over it was eight o’clock and La Donna was into her black dog funk again. We had a couple of drinks at a fancy Greek diner and returned to Fantasia. I had a nice buzz going, but La Donna just got more tense, if that was possible.

  Fantasia was laid out in two rooms. The front room was
an ordinary bar that led through a sliding plastic curtain into a cabaret.

  The bar was packed, primarily with the people from the line clutching their Monopoly cards and waiting to be called onstage by the T-shirted maître d’, who was guarding the plastic curtain. Besides the entertainers, the only other people in the bar were out-of-towners making their way toward the maître d’ and their reserved tables inside. Loud, suburban contractors and their wives, drunk Texans, Jap businessmen, medical students; assholes, all assholes. They all seemed to be giggling, too.

  We grabbed two stools along the bar and ordered drinks. The bar area looked like the day room at Bellevue. Twenty people aching for a break, comedians ranking everyone in sight, the singers- doing nasal warm-ups or posing in their minds for album covers, high-pitched laughter, forced laughter, barking, fast talking, mumbling to walls, praying and pacing, everybody pacing. Any second I expected a nurse to come in wheeling a stainless steel tray with rows of Dixie cups containing pills. Every time the curtain parted people tensed, craned their necks to peer into the next room to catch a glimpse of the floodlit foggy stage. We couldn’t hear the acts—the sound didn’t carry—but we could see faces at tables, see if people were laughing, smiling or just talking to each other, ignoring whoever was dying from diarrhea up by the mike. Whenever everybody else would wheel toward the parting curtain, La Donna would wheel in the opposite direction toward the street.

  “What number they up to?” She grabbed her elbow across her chest and hunched her shoulders.

  “Four, five, like that You got time, you wanna take a walk?”

  “No.” She shook her head at her boots, then sud-denly looked up at me with them baby grays. “You really think I’m gonna be good?”

  I fell apart with love again. “The best, La Di.” It didn’t seem to take much for me to fall apart. All she had to do was act like she needed me. “And you look fuckin’ wild, kid.” That was true. She was wearing a silvery gray embroidered peasant blouse tucked into a heavy, black wool, shin-length maxiskirt over brand-new, round-toed black Fryes. Her hair was swirled up in a bun and she had big half-moon mother-of-pearl earrings dangling almost to her jawline. “Just fuckin’ wild.”