Tyrone told Elizabeth he lived in Brooklyn. Sometimes he couldn’t get home because he didn’t have a token. She lent him money and told him she didn’t want it back. He always tried to pay her back. He’d grab her hand, shake it and hold it. He needed affection, to be touched. She’d shake his hand and then, after he’d passed by, she’d wave her hand in the air. She didn’t think she’d catch something. He was a sad case.
— I’ll wash your windows, I’ll do your windows, today, anytime, Tyrone said.
— No no. No, thanks, she said.
— I’ll do a good job, you’ll see.
— I’ll pay you if you do it.
— You’ll see how clean I can get them.
— No no, Tyrone. Thanks, but no, not today.
— You don’t have to pay me. I’ll do a good job.
Voluntary servitude alarmed her, she’d been a volunteer. She’d had other slavish offers, to rub her back, massage her feet, do her floors, suck her cunt, whatever. She didn’t take them up, not for long, anyway. It’s easy to be a casual sadist.
She didn’t want the pleasure. A man’s face, blurry, ashen, a trashy hotel room, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, picture imperfect, sounds muted, the tape played often, had worn itself out, rubbed itself out. It speeded up and slowed down, and the pictures were smeared, run through too often, everything in pieces, he doesn’t matter. Rocket to oblivion. She didn’t want that. No sense to it, she thought. He tried to take me down with him, but in the end I ruined him. He’s a ruined man today, Elizabeth remembered contentedly.
Everyone should confess.
Sometimes Hector used Tyrone to clean the halls. He probably didn’t pay him, or he paid him next to nothing. Hector permitted Tyrone to do it, gave him the chance to work, because he didn’t want to bother to do it himself. Tyrone needed approval, so he’d do anything. You have to be in pretty bad shape yourself, reduced to petty inhumanities, to take advantage of retarded people. Hector was oppressed and oppressive.
Tyrone would clean the halls and stairs. But since he hadn’t been properly hired — the Big G didn’t know or wouldn’t approve, Hector should be doing it, it was his job — Tyrone’s work had to be accomplished surreptitiously. Tyrone didn’t have access to a sink and clean water. He’d mop the six floors with the same bucket of dirty water. The dirt was pushed around, spread from corner to corner. Elizabeth always thanked him, because the floors looked a little better, the dirt was diluted, thinned into dark streaks. All Tyrone wanted was to be thanked.
When Elizabeth offered Tyrone money for cleaning the halls, he refused. He seemed hurt by her offer. Offended. He’d say no, and awkwardly offer his big hand to shake hers, and they’d shake, and then she’d walk away. She tried not to look back, then she did. He’d be smiling at her and nodding his head.
Today, he held her there. She was trapped. Tyrone showed her pictures of his wedding. Maybe his wife was slightly retarded too. They both looked blissfully or uncomfortably out of it. Tyrone was happy about the wedding. Marriage was the highpoint of many people’s lives. It was pathetic. She thought she should buy Tyrone a present. Roy would tell her not to get any more involved than she was. Elizabeth had as many compunctions as compulsions.
What do you call a midget psychic on the lam?
What?
Small medium at large.
Tyrone reminded her of the money slave. Roy and his friend Joe hooked up with the money slave years ago. Joe saw an ad in the Village Voice about earning money writing music reviews, no experience necessary. Joe and Roy contacted him. Easy money.
It was a hustle. The money slave wanted another kind of transaction — he wanted them to make him work, wanted them to order him to work, he demanded them to force him over the telephone to work harder for them, to make him make money for them, to take two jobs, even three, to support them. He paid them to say that. He phoned them, and they’d accommodate him.
They met with him in person occasionally. The money slave would hand over the money he’d asked Roy and Joe to order him to earn for them. Elizabeth followed Roy to one of his meets with the money slave, at the World Trade Center. From behind a column she watched Roy make the exchange with the money slave. He was an average-looking white guy, a low-level Wall Street suit.
Roy was supposed to be the money slave’s master. It’s hard to be a master if you’re not trained for it. There’s an art to everything. The money slave probably didn’t have a family to make demands on him or to give purpose and meaning to a life of pallid corporate indenture. He was a lonely guy with strange, memorable desires. He explained to Roy, If you made me take a second job, that would make you the most important thing in my life.
One day when the money slave was groveling, squealing, on the phone — Tell me to work harder, tell me, tell me to take a third job to support you, tell me, make me work harder for you — suddenly Roy couldn’t control himself. He laughed. The money slave was insulted, embarrassed. He hung up. He never called again. Roy lost the gig. The money slave paid for his own brand of humiliation. He had needs, desires. The city offered him anonymity. He could buy workers, substitutes. When he wanted, who, where, what kind, for how long. Roy laughed at an inappropriate moment. He couldn’t keep it up, even for the money.
That was a while ago.
Someone else’s fantasy is a joke, a comedy.
Tyrone walked west. The Big G and Hector trapped him. They were talking to him. The Big G was shaking a hypocritical white finger at him. They’d castigate him, Gloria especially, she’d mete out some punishment for him, and call it work. The Big G didn’t want him around, Hector did if he could use him. Tyrone was unpredictable, but he was harmless.
Yelping boys from the Boys Club were being rounded up and put on buses to summer camp to keep them from becoming murderers. A two-week idyll in the country for the underprivileged. The underprivileged’s mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers were hanging around, sad, bored, impatient, happy, waiting to wave good-bye. The Boys Club was tied to the police. They could do anything.
Tompkins Square Park was leafy and green. The trees’ shadows marked sidewalk oases. Mothers, fathers, and assorted child-care workers parked themselves on benches near the sandpit. They had their stations and watched their kids. They fanned themselves.
After the cops’ attack on the park squatters one summer night, which was like living in Salvador for that night, with a helicopter whirring overhead and tear gas and hundreds of people running and hundreds of police chasing them, and after the cleanup of the park, which was closed for a year, its entrances transformed into Checkpoint Charlies, the sandbox was free of dog and human shit. No one argued about that.
A few park insurgents were asleep under lightweight blankets. It was quiet.
Ernest had wanted to be a priest. It killed her. Ernest needed to right their situation. He was a spiritual guy. He believed in God, Christ, and the Virgin. God was closing the century. The Crusades would look like the Easter parade.
The Hispanic guy from the bike store was repairing bikes on the sidewalk.
Ernest was propelled by faith and God’s grace. He was deluded, millions of people were. Huge numbers of people. Religion made her sick. Supreme beings and redemption. People expected to be redeemed like bottles or recycled, to return as birds or dogs or grains of sand, and go on and on. Ernest needed to make things right. She really didn’t care why.
The smell of beer, pungent and musty, oozed to the pavement from the bars. At Brownies tonight: 700 Miles and Hooch. Elizabeth liked being in bars just before they were full. Nothing like a bar. Nothing like a bartender. Nothing like loose talk. People she knew weren’t drinking much. Everyone wanted to be in control. The older you got, that’s all you had, control.