She nodded.
"What, another soap opera?"
She nodded.
"It sounds like interesting work."
She looked away from me, toward a painting of a fat redheaded nude woman.
"Take this," I said, holding my hand out toward her.
She looked at the hand, then at me. "What's that?"
"Fifty bucks change. I worked five days. You gave me a hundred."
"Keep it" she said.
"Quit pouting and take the money, goddamnit."
She glared at me and grabbed the money out of my hand; stuffed it in her little black purse. Apparently she was a free spirit who didn't like getting sweared at.
The ham sandwich came and it was thin and stale and as bad as I remembered the chicken. The tea was okay; it tasted vaguely of oranges. I liked it. She drank hers, too, but whether she liked it or not, I can't tell you.
When we finished, I helped her into her coat and I paid and we went out onto the chilly street; it wasn't snowing, but the wind was still blowing around the snow we already had.
"You want a lift?" I asked her.
"I can walk; it isn't far."
"It's cold. My car's just down the block there. See? Come on."
She shrugged, hugging her black fur collar up around her face, falling into step with me.
I helped her up onto the running board and inside, and got around on the driver's side and got in and started it up.
"I got a heater in this thing." I said, getting that going.
"That's nice." she said noncommittally.
"Where to?"
"East Chestnut." She gave me a street address.
I drove.
"Who was that guy who answered the phone when I called today?"
"That's Alonzo."
"Oh? Who's Alonzo?"
"He's a painter."
"What's he paint?"
As if to a child, she said, "Pictures."
"What kind?"
"Experiments in dynamic symmetry, if you must know."
"Oh. Where's he live?"
"With me."
"Oh."
It was dark now, though my headlights caught the swirling snow; over on the right, two men walked hand in hand. That didn't surprise me, not in Tower Town. Just like Mary Ann living with some guy called Alonzo didn't surprise me; it disappointed me. but it didn't surprise me: it wasn't uncommon to see two names on a mailbox in this neighborhood- one a man's, the other a woman's. Unmarried couples were part and parcel of Tower Town like the talk of free love and individualism. Women in Tower Town liked to hold on to their individuality, and their independence- and their names.
After a while, I pulled over and she started to get out.
Tllwalkyou,"Isaid.
She looked at me; thought that over. Then shrugged.
I turned the car off and followed her down the boardwalk sidewalk to a dilapidated four-story frame building. The entrance was in the alley, up an outdoor staircase that was painted red, perhaps as a political symbol, perhaps symbolizing that one took one's life in hand as well as the flimsy banister when going up those creaky' stairs.
We entered a small kitchen furnished with a table, a one-burner oil stove, and a chair; there was a sink with some dirty dishes in it, and a cupboard- no icebox. The walls were bare yellow plaster, cracking; pieces had fallen off. She lay her coat and beret on the table, and said. "Would you like some tea?"
"Sure," I said.
"Take off your coat and stay awhile." she said flatly, filling an oddly shaped copper teapot at the sink.
I lay my coat on top of hers.
"Go on in and meet Alonzo," she suggested.
What the hell. I thought; I went in and met Alonzo.
He was sitting in the middle of the floor. The room was dimly lit, and so was something he was smoking: from the smell of burning incense in the room. I figured it was a muggle, a marijuana cigarette. He was a little blond boy of about twenty in a vermilion sweater and corduroys; he didn't seem to notice me come in.
It was a big room, with a high ceiling and a skylight; but there wasn't much furniture in it- just a mattress covered by messed-up blankets, and a chest of drawers against one wall, looking lonely and out of place, like it had wandered in accidentally, off the street. The walls were hung with startling modernistic paintings: loud colors, distorted shapes, sound and fury signifying guess what. They hurt the eyes; they hurt mine, anyway.
"You paint this stuff," I asked him.
"I painted them."
"Does that one have a name?" I asked, pointing to a canvas where red, green, and blue weren't getting along.
"Certainly. That's Man's Inhumanity to Man."
"How'd you arrive at that?"
He looked at me with a smirk and eyes the color of soot. "The way I arrive at all my titles."
"Which is?"
He shrugged. "When I finish a work, I hold it one way, then another, and just keep tilting it till it suggests something. Then I title it."
"Tilt and title, huh?"
"You could put it that way."
"I just did. I take it you're Alonzo."
He stood, smiling. "You've heard of me?"
"Mary Ann mentioned you."
"Oh," he said, a little disappointed. "I talked to you on the phone today, didn't I?"
"I believe so."
He sucked on his muggle, held the smoke in; then he spoke, and it was like somebody speaking while taking a crap. "I suppose I'm expected to get the hell out of here."
"I wouldn't know why," I said.
"I don't do menage," he said, waving both hands, including the one with the muggle. which had served its purpose by now. He dropped it to the wooden floor and ground it out, walked to one corner of the room, where an old corduroy jacket was tossed, and put it on and left me alone with the paintings.
Pretty soon Mary Ann came in with two cups and saucers. She handed them both to me and went across the room and through a doorless doorway into darkness. I stood there like a cigar store Indian, balancing the two cups of tea, with no furniture to set them on, and finally walked over and used the top of the dresser for hers, and stood sipping mine.
She came out in a trailing black kimono with red and white flowers on it; it was belted at the waist with a black sash, and the white of her legs flashed as she walked toward me and then stood with hands on her hips.
"How'd you like Alonzo?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
"About as much as his paintings." I said.
She tried not to smile, then said. "I think they're good."
"Really?"
The smile won out. "No. Not really. Come on."
I followed her through the doorless doorway, which as she pulled an overhead string lit up and turned out to be a small connecting hall, with a bathroom to the right, and another room straight ahead, which she led me to.
It was a smaller room, but big enough for the four-poster bed within; the walls were draped with blue batiks and so was the ceiling. It reminded me of a booth on a midway. Against the dark blue-batiked walls were a couple of pieces of furniture, for a change, including a small dresser and a makeup table with round mirror; on the makeup table was a small cylindrical art-deco lamp that provided the only light in the room. The only window was painted out, black.
"You and Alonzo don't share…" I searched for a polite way to put it.
"A bedroom?" she smiled. "No. Why should we?"
I shrugged. "You live together."
"We're roommates." she nodded. "But mat's the extent of it."
I sat on the edge of the four-poster, then quickly got up; but she tugged my arm until I sat again and sat next to me. with a wry little smile.
"Poor baby." she said. "You're confused."
"I just don't understand Tower Town. I guess."
"Alonzo likes boys."
"You mean he's a fairy?"
"That's it."
"Oh. And you're sharing rent, then."
"That's right. It's a nice big studio apartment, but it took the two of us to throw in together to be able to afford it."
"Why Alonzo?"
"We're friends. He's an actor as well as a painter. We did a play together, with the Impertinent Players. You know… a little theater group."