Last night Roy and Elizabeth were watching TV. In a commercial, a woman and man were about to have sex or just had sex. He comes to her from behind, drapes a silk robe around her shoulders, and nuzzles the back of her neck.
— You never do that to me, Elizabeth said.
— We’ve never been in a commercial together, Roy said.
No one obliterates the rage and empty craziness that ignites want. Your release is dressed up as pleasure, and it relentlessly tries to limit its damage and change its image.
Your soundcheck is in the mail, one musician said to another.
What’s the first thing you do when you see a spaceman?
You park, man.
Her need was ugly to her, a salivating, gaping mouth. Commercials addressed the sloppy void, and Elizabeth liked commercials. They were anti-death. You had to be alive to buy things.
Elizabeth heard the orgasms of the women below. They could hear hers. The tenants acted as if they didn’t hear anything, as if they lived in soundproof boxes, otherwise being in close quarters couldn’t work. Thin walls make bad neighbors.
Tenants pretended to be deaf and blind to each other. For sounds like orgasms and fights, acknowledgment was taboo.
Cool orgasm you had last night.
That fight about washing the dishes — when you threw the dishes on the floor — incredible.
Music volume was something else. There was a rock musician who used to live above her. His band started practicing at 2 A.M.
The guy was stoned when Elizabeth appeared in a robe at his door at 3 A.M.
— This has got to stop, she said.
— Is this waking you? he asked.
He asked his question at the door with a roomful of musicians behind him, and all of them had to turn down so he could hear himself and her response. A microphone was plastered to a woman’s open mouth. Stacks of black equipment were mounted everywhere. The gaggle of musicians gaped at the sleep-deprived female intruder.
— Your drummer’s playing a full drum kit, you’re all amplified, you’re right above me, and you’re asking me if this is waking me? Are you out of your mind?
He was too lamebrained to respond, too drugged-out.
Now, she concentrated on the matter at hand and the matter in her. Elizabeth came, Roy came. Roy always delivered. Then he turned on his computer. He entered cyberspace where no one knew his name.
BBQ didn’t deliver. She’d pick up dinner tonight, she felt more generous after sex. She switched on News Channel 4. Al Roker. Sue Simmons. News was nothing without them.
Everything was as stupid and smart as the best show on TV. TV was a plain place, a plain face. People trusted a plain face. TV voices were sonorous, electromagnetic. TV was a habit and a bunch of regular guys, always available. She was a TV baby and TV was home away from home at home.
People want the facts, the news, fantasies were news, facts were fantasies. All fantasies were true, all news was good news, no news was bad news. A father beat his child to death, a dog found its way home, a country has a famine. Everyone wants some excitement, but not too much. No one wants to have to leave home, no one has to, TV’s a domestic animal. Elizabeth’s appetite for food, news, disaster, gossip was healthy or unhealthy. She adjusted to disasters, watched them become less alarming over time. The unusual mutated into the usual. The grotesque was homey. They sent in the serious news clowns when things were really bad.
O.J. Simpson had been charged for the murders of his exwife and her friend. New York was charged up for the Knicks game. It was an OK news night.
Elizabeth walked down the dirty stairs and out the disgusting vestibule. Fatboy was with her on a leash. He slowed her up, sniffing and pissing. Everyone’s less threatening with a dog, unless it’s a pit bull.
The street was holding its collective breath. We won’t breathe until the night says yes. Humidity hung in the at, dampening Elizabeth’s low spirits. People were getting off work sporting a weekend mentality. Others were working, dealing, others were buying their good time.
A man who lived in New York City couldn’t stand it anymore. So he moved to Montana. His closest neighbor was ten miles away. The first month was great — he didn’t see anyone. It was quiet. After three months he started to get restless. After six months he was so bored, he thought about moving back to the city. A neighbor called. He invited him to a party. The neighbor said, Get ready for a lot of drinking, fighting, and fucking. Great, the man said. Who’ll be there? You and me, the neighbor said.
Hector shot a jaundiced eye in her direction. He tipped his hat. It inspired the usual panic. His courteous gesture was meant to obscure his hatred of her. All gestures disguised something worse.
Hector’s in disgrace.
Maybe he was humiliated by the Big G, maybe she used her big mouth to tear him down in front of his wife. Maybe he’d take his revenge like one of those postal workers who returns a week after being fired with an AK-47 and slaughters his former boss and five colleagues. Walking into any post office, arguing in a post office, was tinged with the possibility of a civil service employee going berserk.
Elizabeth didn’t want to be in Hector’s line of fire when he went psycho. She’d complained about the halls, Gloria had opened her big mouth to him, compromised her, and now he’s in disgrace. TENANT MURDERED BY DISGRACED SUPER.
The acerbic super waved her over.
— Did you see that filth Jeanine in the doorway last night?
— I don’t think…
— She was giving a blow job right out there in a doorway. She’s filth.
— She’s OK.
— She’s an animal.
The acerbic super sneered. He thought everyone was an animal. He cleaned up after people. He bagged garbage and placed covers on garbage cans. During the snowstorm of 1993, no garbage was collected for days. The acerbic super bagged and rebagged garbage, tried to keep his sidewalk clear, hosed the blackened snow away with hot water. Late at night, homeless and poor people scavenged and tore the bags apart and spilled the trash over the sidewalk. The acerbic super had to bag it all again.
She didn’t blame him for being pissed off.
Some scavengers didn’t tear bags apart. Some searched through the garbage and retied the bags. Most didn’t. Supers were responsible to landlords and landlords to the City for the careless actions of the desperate who didn’t give a kissless fuck about the block. They were hungry, scrounging for scraps, and everyone acknowledged that and blamed them without fury. The acerbic super had to clean up after them. He hated them.
Paulie was home with Hoover. They lived in a storefront, behind a window to the street. Elizabeth could always see in. They could see her seeing in. Hoover was lying on his side, his legs apart. He wasn’t panting. Some Filipinos were congregating in the new Filipino-owned cafe. The West Indian guys were loading out for a gig. They’d been busted some nights ago. Everyone was back.
Jeanine was on the corner. Weekend busy. The other drug runners noticed Elizabeth and Jeanine, took the scene in, no hostile comments or looks. One of them petted Fatboy. Fatboy rolled over and spread his legs obscenely.
— You see this, Liz, people getting high on the block. The boss doesn’t want it, so we don’t get high on the block, but the customers come and they’re so desperate, they’ll smoke on the block. They’ll just pull it in the doorway and take a crack pipe and smoke the crack in the door, and that’s not right. We argue with them, tell them to get off the block. It scares people walking down the street. They know us, but they see people they don’t know, and it scares them. It’s bad for us ’cause it’s like always our fault. That’s what’s probably bringing the cops down on us a lot too.