Socrates didn’t acknowledge the applause and whistles. Leaning heavily on his ivory-handled black cane, his body teetered like a rickety wooden-and-barbed-wire fence. He disappeared through a side door and out of sight.
Holencraft shot me a flinty glance from the opposite end of the hall and waved me toward him. I smiled and waited for him to come to me. From behind, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. I swiveled around and was about to give this Mr. Blanding’s guy my icy-eye brush-off when — Nathaniel! I wanted to jump up and wrap my arms and legs around him. I knew better. He’d changed his wardrobe. No more outfits designed by Che & Fidel, Inc. Here stood Mr. Suntanned Middle America in navy blue chinos, a lime-green Lacoste polo shirt, and brown loafers. He looked so out of place among all the pallid faces and their ordained black garb. (Is “garb” short for Garbo or garbage?) His hair was shading gray, cut short and neat, his face clean shaven below new, black-framed glasses. He caught me staring at his nose, which stuck out like a half-blind plastic surgeon had pinned a pink rubber eraser on the end of it. “Yeah, I look like Cyrano but without his poetic gifts.”
His soulsmell, even after all the hiding and unjust charges, was imbued with the pristine and hopeful odors of a newly gessoed canvas. As I was about to give him a polite hug and verbal pinch, Holencraft clawed the knotted end of my bandana and leaned over to kiss me. I backed away.
“Alexander, this is uh, um …” Nathaniel interrupted me—
“Philip Noland, an old friend of Salome’s.”
“I need to talk to Philip. Alone.”
Holencraft gritted his perfect teeth in displeasure. “I thought we had a rendezvous.”
“We agreed on a potential meeting to talk of my modeling for you. Nothing more. Nat … um … Philip is an old friend.”
Holencraft eyed Nathaniel as if he were mentally photographing him. He looked perplexed — how could I choose to go with this doughnut-bodied big-nosed guy over a stud as handsome as him? “Okay, but I will hold on to my ticket to Salome’s back room.”
I lightly grazed his arm with my fingernails. “Alexander, I know exactly what you want. Don’t piss me off by acting like a proprietary male beast, or you have no chance of cashing that ticket. Behave like a good boy and you never know …” I grinned voluptuously and turned away.
I tucked my arm around Nathaniel’s waist. “I’m so happy, really, truly happy to see you.”
He removed my arm and backed away from me. “You must be very careful. Meet me at the Odessa in half an hour. Please, do not tell anyone where you are going or who you are meeting.”
I waded through the crowd doing my kissy-kissy come-hither-to-my-show. Then I headed to the Odessa, a favorite of Nathaniel’s but not of mine. The place oozed with the odor of foam rubber, or maybe fossilized blini, bulged from the torn, red plastic seats. In lieu of tablecloths, a thin film of syrup, sour cream, applesauce, french fry grease, and coffee covered each table. The waitresses, graduates of the Joseph Stalin Charm School, took pride in wiping the tables down so that any free crumbs landed on your lap. Flies performed kamikaze missions first on your meal, then on your face.
Nathaniel was seated at a back booth. “So, Mr. Philip Noland, what the hell have you been up to the last five years? Besides running from the outlaws who call themselves the ‘protectors of the people’ and having some defrocked doctor enhance your nose.”
“Mainly that. Being a nine-to-five blender. It’s been heavy times for me. I live in the Southwest. So-called enemy territory. It’s not. I’ve realized that Nixon’s ‘silent majority’ is ready for us, if we learn how to talk to them without sounding so snotty.”
“Being restrained must give you some major case of heartburn. Like this food.”
“Delectable.” He rolled a blini around his tongue. “Salome, for your own good, I can’t divulge too much. They are still running black bag ops on me. Even though we got rid of the Trickster, and the Congress is investigating the secret government, I don’t trust them to end it.”
We left the Odessa and strolled around Tompkins Square Park. Nathaniel’s once nervous energy now seemed just nervous. His eyes were fidgety and his gait furtive and unassured. The park was still seedy with the homeless living in cardboard boxes. The street kids blasted dump-truck-size boom boxes. Everyone seemed high on something, be it junk, glue, or spray paint fumes.
“Don’t worry, Nathaniel, this is a cop-free zone.”
“Yes, these are our Untouchables. No one gives a shit about them. Maybe I should move here and they’d get off my case.”
“Why’d you risk coming back? Because you needed to see me?”
“If you knew how often …” His eyes watered ever so slightly. “My mother has incurable liver cancer. My sister is taking care of her alone. I need to be with them.” He sighed. “My lawyers are close to swinging a deal with the Feds.”
“Oh, Nathaniel. I am so sorry.”
“Me, too. Only, after decades of imbibing any fluid containing alcohol, it’s not a surprise.”
At the corner of 9th and B we stopped in front of the Christodora. A miniskyscraper built in the ’20s, it had fallen into a shambled shell of itself — like me, now. After a fire, the city had it condemned. It got a makeover later, in the ’90s, with the “whitey-fication”—that’s what Nathaniel called gentrification. I often snuck around the boards and yellow tape and foraged inside, peeling off the blue-and-white wallpaper with its images of St. Christine and collecting ornaments for ready-mades and collages.
“Let’s go in.” I stuck a finger through the belt loop of Nathaniel’s pants and tugged at him. We stepped over two grizzled fellows with their bottles of Thunderbird couched between their legs, sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway. The ground-floor rooms were shooting galleries lit by candles. The higher you climbed, the emptier it got. A few rooms were lit by the sudden flash of hash pipes. Light from streetlamps flickered through the cracked windows. We climbed the staircase to the ninth floor and found an empty room with a view of the East River and Brooklyn to one side and the World Trade Center to the other. We made love, which, this time, was dreamy. He understood the pleasure of my pleasure in being multiorgasmic. After, I climbed onto the sill facing south toward the river and the Statue of Liberty. The sky, a mix of Wolf Man — movie blue-blackness and low, foamy white clouds with a peekaboo moon imbued the city with an eerie tranquility. Nathaniel squeezed me against his chest.
“I want to go with you. I don’t want you to disappear on me for another five years. I’ll even skip my show.” He smiled almost sardonically. “What? Are you living with someone? I don’t care.”
“No, no one else. It’s been impossible for me to keep up a relationship. I’ve had to move and I can’t tell the truth to anyone”
“I already know the truth, and I’m my own movable fiesta.”
“Salome.” He bowed his head. “If the Feds make a deal, I hope to get some time with my mom and then it’s off to prison. If not, it’s back into hiding. It’s the opposite of your razzmatazz New York life. No readings or openings. If you dress like this,” he teased, “you might get arrested.”
“I can do it. I can. It’d be good for Alchemy, too. You have to meet him. You’ll love him.” I could tell he was thinking, You can’t and why would you … for me?