The Last Bender, Chapter 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

          Barca Langousto was tucked away in a quiet residential block on the east side, occupying the first two floors of an old brownstone. Standing guard by the coat check was a formidable Maitre D’, in cut-away coat and tails, wearing the prosperity of his belly with comfort. As soon as I stepped in he went on full alert. I hadn’t looked in a mirror, except in the rearview of the cab, where I had dragged a comb across my head and tried to wipe Braque’s blood off my face and hands. The hack had handed me a wad of toilet paper but that didn’t help much and the blue serge was stiff and black. It wanted no more executions.

          At the bar sat a woman in a black evening gown. The neckline plunged between her breasts, made a knot and opened around her belly, which was pierced and tattooed with henna. She wore a red felt cloche and leather gloves, purse and belt. Next to her sat a squeaky pink businessman who paid more attention to his drink than her.

          The bartender worked slowly, as if nothing in the world bored him more than his job. Nothing could shake him up or stir him to panic, not doubt, not laughter. He had a distant, deadpan gaze and didn’t squint or tilt his head when he tossed a cherry into the center of a Rob Roy, without spilling a drop. Anyone dumb enough to pour her heart out to him would find it spinning in the blender with crushed ice and pineapple juice.

          I watched the man and woman closely and stoked my courage, knowing I’d need a full head of steam to face my opponent at the podium. Finally he looked up and said, “Sir, you have to leave.”

          “But I have a reservation.”

          “Out, now.”

          “And I said I have a reservation.”

          “Look. You can’t even stand in this restaurant looking like that. If you don’t leave now I will call the police. And you know what they’ll do.”

          “Where’s Wanda Watts? I’m meeting her for dinner.”   The woman talked to the man but he ignored her.

          “I can’t give out that information.”

          Her dark glowing features became strained. Her neck tensed. “Could you tell Mrs. Watts that Mr. Bartell is here please? I’m five minutes late.”   She touched his shoulder and he pushed her hand off, downing the dusky rose drink with the quarter inch of white foam on top and sliding it forward for a refill.

          The Maitre D’ pursed his lips. He made a slight kissing noise and a little man with a black DA and gold waiter’s coat appeared. They whispered back and forth. I watched the couple some more. The bartender placed another cocktail in front of the pink squeak who animatedly sipped off the meniscus.

          The waiter vanished and the Maitre D’ condescended to say,  “One minute, sir,” before fixing his face in a catatonic stare.

          The woman touched the man’s shoulder again and began to plead with him and again he pushed her hand away. She rolled her eyes and pulled faces. When that didn’t work she got pissed off and took a purse out of her pocket book, which she checked for cash. Very quietly she pushed her hand down into the dress and rummaged around a bit. She looked up and caught me watching her. I smiled. She seemed at first to be embarrassed but that didn’t last. She returned the smile and showed me she had something in her hand which she casually scattered on top of his drink. Then she slapped a ten on the bar and walked out, bumping my shoulder on the way. “Excuse me,” she said.

          The man sipped his drink, turned slowly around on his stool and glared at her, picking the pubic hair out of his teeth. She said to me, “Mest men would give their left nut for a taste of that. How ‘bet you?”

          “I don’t go for sloppy seconds,” I said.

          “Den’t sweat it. He ain’t been in the box in years.”

          “Well, it ain’t your lucky night lady. I got too much business to contract.”

          “Every night’s my lucky night, mister. Without you, I geh home, tek a hot soak and lie there sweatin’ bullets. My best man,” she said, holding up her hand and wiggling her fingers, “and me. That minus the chet chat pets me up without tryin’. Bon appetite.”   The door banged behind her.

          The waiter returned to the Maitre D’ whose rigamortized gull reminded me of those HypEreal plaster casts of every day folk you sometimes see installed in shopping centers. But he wasn’t fooling anyone. His peripheral vision was getting time and a half and his ears were getting double. He and the waiter started in on the whispering business again. The waiter looked drunk. The air smelled vaguely of shellac. After a lot of eyebrow pyrotechnics it became obvious that they were involved with each other and that all this had nothing to do with me. Someone on the floor was slipping booze to the gold coats and the penguin was snorting about it. This didn’t help my case any. I was about to interrupt with a piece of the third degree when the door opened and Wanda Watts walked in.

          “Mr. Bartell. I’m sorry I’m late.”

          “Bonjour Madame Vatt. Do you really know this man?”

          “Yes dear. We have a date for dinner.”

          I said, “I don’t give a fig for all this dicker. Tell this dried fruit I’m O.K. and let’s get down to it. I’m starved.”

          “Ignore him. His mind swims in sewers all day.”   She pulled off her elbow length gloves and handed them along with the raccoon stole to the coat check. She looked very elegant. Her red satin blouse was open to the third button and showed a lot of black strap and cup. It was tucked into a pair of airtight leather bells.

          She swung the giant bag off her shoulder and hunted through it, mumbling, “My pied a terre is upstairs, Mr. Bartell. Jack. Go clean yourself up. David has some suits but I don’t recommend them. However, a young man with whom I used to bend fenders left a few of his things. The fit looks the same.”

          “I’d say you have a good eye for detail.”

          “Well, a long memory anyway. Now hurry up. I’ll wait fifteen minutes at the bar. If you don’t waste time shaving and plucking your eyebrows you should make it.”

          I went up to the studio apartment and found the suits. David’s were the usual academic clown suits that made car upholstery look chic. That left lover boy’s duds, a mustard yellow cotton casual, a seersucker suit, and a shimmering maroon tux. Plus a few sweater vests that made me look like a pack animal. I decided to call Evalyn St. Claude. I felt jumpy about Braque.

          “Evalyn,” I said.

          “Who is this?”

          “It’s me, Jack.”

          “Jack? Who? Oh!  Jack. Jack.”

          “Knock it off.”

          “Oh, you are absolutely no fun at all. It took all afternoon just to get your shoes off and now you’re back in the girdle.”

          “I don’t have time to fence. You’ve got to tell me why your husband and David split.”

          There was a long silence. “It was ideological,” she said finally, in a quavery voice.

          “Ideological? What the fuck–“

          “I can’t explain. It’s crazy.”

          “But you’ve got to explain.”

          “Well I just can’t, O.K.? Now leave me alone.”

          “Evalyn–“

          “I’m hanging up now!”

          “Don’t do that!  Don’t!  Clara Turback is dead.”

          Another long silence.

          “Are you sure?” She sounded cold and suspicious.

          “Quite. They cut off her head and packed it in ice.”

          She gave a little cry. The cold and suspicion were falling apart. Death is like that. Cold, suspicious, decomposing in the dark. Her voice cracked. “I can’t believe they really did it.”

          “Did what?”

          “I have to go Jack. Be careful babe.”   And she hung up.

          Ideological.

          I put on the seersucker suit, washed my face and hands, splashed on some of her perfume, and headed out the door. At the bar Wanda said, without looking at me, “Did you have to take a bath in it?”   She spoke then to the bartender. “Alfred, I’m taking this with me. Send along another in ten minutes.”   It wasn’t clear if she meant me or the drink. She hopped off the barstool and wiggled around in her pants. I wondered if they made her ass numb. They were so tight you could see her stretch marks.

          Someone at every table knew her. She touched cheeks, shoulders and hands, asked what one lawyer with jowls thought of his dinner, inquired after another’s poached crappy. It took forever to reach our table, which had an unobstructed view of the fireplace.

          “Everything is good, especially the game,” she said, opening a menu.

          There was something stuck in my teeth. I tried to suck it free. I said, “I’m glad to hear that. I’d hate to think you were taking me to some joint that really blows.”

          “I’m charmed, Jack. Absolutely, resolutely charmed.”

          “So what’s the deal?” I asked, as she pretended to look over the menu.

          “Not till we’ve eaten.”

          “Is this some sort of a test?”

          “Well, if it is, I must be the one on trial.”   She finished her drink. It was a green, iceless thing. “Now where the hell is that drink I ordered?”

          “I think you got two, maybe three minutes left.”

          “Ten minutes are up when I’m done. Your clock needs cleaning. Waiter!  Garcon!”

          There seemed to be a number of waitorial castes. The gold-coated ones were at the very bottom. Then came red. Then black without tails, followed by black with tails. Black with tails were the Maitre D’ and this other guy, grey and wretched and as easy to read as a French psychiatrist, who ran around weighed down by a gold medallion suspended from a red ribbon around his neck. A man in black without tails responded to her call, dour, as if you’d stitched his mouth closed.

          “Another one for me, Leonard. Jack? What’s your poison?”

          “I don’t know. Make it a Stinger.”

          “Not a Peggy Lipton?”

          “What am I supposed to say now? Save it for the Swiss, Miss Watts.”   I turned to Leonard and said, “If I may presume to call you Leonard,” he tipped his head, “I don’t think we’re ready to order yet.”

          “You don’t have to make fun of him. Just tell him to go away and not come back till you do something.”   She pulled on her fingers like gloves.

          “Leonard,” I said. “When I stand on the chair and swing my dick around, you come back and take our order. Till then, beat it.”

          “Very well, sir.”

          “Now, was that so hard?”   She took out a brown 100 and lit it. “Honestly. You’d think you’d been raised by wolves. It was a beautiful day, was it not?”

          “It was not. My friend got gunned down in the rain. And my partner is in the back of the Cut The Rug van with Clara Turback.”

          She lay down the menu and scraped an ash off her shirt. No matter how I sucked I could not dislodge the food. I tried to taste it but it just tasted old. I tried to think of everything I’d eaten that day and couldn’t remember anything besides the coffee and pastille with Stronghole. Had I eaten any popcorn at Juice’s headquarters? It didn’t even seem like the same day. I distinctly remembered feeling ill at ease around that whole popcorn business.  

          I must have been really going at it because, when she laid down the menu and scraped the ash off her shirt she looked at me very oddly and asked, “What on earth are you doing now?”

          “I think I’m ready to order,” I said, trying to stop. I felt like a dog with fleas.

          “Well. Proceed then.”

          “Look. I’ve never been here. You’re his friend. Do ya mind? Calling him over I mean. It kind of gives me–” I pointed to my stomach and made a sad face. “Indigestion.”

          She looked at me very severely. “You don’t think I’m going to let you out of it?”

          “Don’t be an asshole, Wanda. Get the fucking waiter.”

          “I don’t know if I like you more when you’re being vain and over polite or when your sticking both feet in it. Now stand up and swing.”

          The table next to us stopped eating, a couple of geezers with young women and two overdressed kids who looked like they’d been printed out on contact paper and stuck to the chairs. Wanda wiggled her fingers and gagged and everyone at the table started to laugh and stare at me. Before any other tables caught the bug I said, “All right. It’s your guy’s joint.”   Then I stood up on the cushion (noticing for the first time what nice cushions they were, little turquoise things with fine needle point embroidery) and cleared my throat.

          Wanda slapped my leg and glared at me. Everyone else in the room, about twelve full tables, stopped eating and talking and stared. They were waiting for me to do something, to speak. “Get down from there,” she hissed. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

          I stood down to general conviviality.

          “Will you stop at nothing to embarrass me?”   She lit another cigarette. A gold coat came, emptied her ashtray and put it back before she could finish her first drag. She would be hard to keep up with if you were one of the gold.

          Leonard was back in the picture, standing off to the side. Gold arms loaded down the table with food:  bread, a dish of olive oil like a slick of algae, a platter of antipasto (roasted red and yellow pepper, pickled cauliflower, sausages, prosciutto, two kinds of melon, pepperoncini) and a dip of mashed anchovy, garlic and olive. She raised her eyebrows and Leonard inclined his head in her direction. “Mr. Bartell is ready to order now.”   After the suspended dick swinging her voice became so dry it made me thirsty. I took a sip of the Stinger and it went down like sugary goat urine. My stomach did a couple of flips and started to digest itself.

          The Stinger loosened up whatever was stuck in my teeth considerably. I applied copious amounts of saliva and said, between squirts, “I don’t see rabbit on the menu. You got anya that?”   It came free. I rolled it on my tongue and swallowed it down.

          “We’re all out of rabbit at the moment sir.”

          “That’s too bad,” I said. “I was so looking forward to wild rabbit stewed with red wine and onions. Got anything else really gamy? I mean, something that’ll really stink up the joint. Elderly Elk? Bear?”

          “The horse shit is very good tonight, sir.”

          “I don’t think so, Leonard. Not this evening. Tell me. How’s the quail club?”    

          “Superior. Boned whole quail are grilled over chardonnay grape vines. It’s served on semolina and dark rye with arugula, radicchio, red onions, oven-dried tomatoes, with a cilantro chipotle aioli and jalapeno ramp vinaigrette. It comes with a salad of lambs quarters and purslane and frisee, and frites of parsnip, Japanese yam and turnip.”

          “Better bring me a cola with that. Large. No ice. Thanks.”

          “I’ll take the porterhouse. Rare. Fries. A bottle of claret, two glasses, tell Jacques to choose something decent but nothing too decent, we aren’t celebrating here, at least not yet. Salad with dinner. Stuffed mushrooms and broiled tomato before. Another of these and tell Jacques to decant the claret. Do it out back. I trust you.”

          “Very well Madam.”   He took the menus and faded into the wallpaper.

          “How’s your drink?” she asked.

          “About what I’d expected. Why is David willing to sell out St. Claude?”

          “You’ll get your man tomorrow. What possible difference could it make why anyone is doing anything?”

          “It matters to me. Why didn’t you tell me David and Evalyn St. Claude were still in love?”

          “Because they aren’t.”

          “But they met as children. They were high school sweethearts. She’s Barker’s daughter.” Broiled tomatoes and stuffed mushrooms, sizzling on an iron plate, arrived. One waiter dished them out onto small plates while another twisted black pepper, a third drizzled olive oil and a fourth shaved Parmesan cheese on top. I felt this warm current jet through me. The alcohol had done its job.

          “Dig in,” she said. “And let’s ditch the cocktails. They’re flat and awful. How about some champagne?” I didn’t know about that. “A split then. Please?”   She raised her chin. “I’ll fellate your Dover sole for you if you do.”   She snapped her fingers sharply and surveyed the room for helpless rodents to devour. Maybe bugs wasn’t on the menu but everyone else was.

          The dinner went on like that. Every time I asked her a question she’d offer me some food or drink, delicacies I’d only read about in newspapers. She’d bark at the waiters and when they arrived tell them I wanted something. I ate a couple of mushroom caps and soaked up a tomato with the sour dough bread. It reminded me of meals my mother made when she had time, weekends and holidays. We always ate well. Even meat loaf wrapped in bacon and caraway potatoes were good the way she made them. And at least once a month my grandfather made egg pasta, which she tossed with tomatoes and basil from the garden. The old man showed me how to do it but I didn’t really care. It gave me and Mary the creeps to see his dirty, knuckly old hands breaking up the egg yolks and sinking into the flour, the way it clumped and clotted on his fingers, and the perverse twinkle in his eye as he kneaded the dough and slapped it like he did our bare bottoms getting out of the tub.

          Before the entrees arrived, over the needle froth of nose tickling bubbles I asked, “Is David with St. Claude or is he on the lam?”

          “The lamb isn’t as good as the goat I’m afraid. God. I love this champagne.” The chef rose through the dining room like dough, handing out blinis and gold caviar, kissing and bellowing his way toward us. She called him Andre. I began to realize everyone was drunk. Every waiter, busboy, captain, food runner, sous chef, dishwasher, expediter, cashier, coat check, bar back and porter was three sheets to the wind. They had boozy eyes, fingers and noses. They peed on their feet. They sneezed on the food and roared and laughed and smooched and tickled. From the kitchen laughter chased vehement argument in dizzying, dust kicking circles that banged pots, knocked over brooms and blew out pilot lights. Wine, beer and liquor flowed from beaker, amphora, bottle, jug, jar, cask and bladder into mugs, flutes, steins, goblets, highballs, schooners and shot glasses. It sloshed over knuckles, dribbled down chins, leaked into panties, soaked beards, shirtfronts and pubic hair. It salted cock-tips and vulvas. Alcohol was wept, drooled, blown out the nostrils, perspired, pissed, honked and shitted. They exhaled it, spat it, swirled it, iced it, salted it, limed it, sugared it, and exchanged it tongue to tongue. It was in the food and the cleanser, in the mouth wash and air freshener. They sang about it and fought about it and read books about it. They did everything but pray to it.

          Over steak and quail club, which looked like road kill, quite drunk, smoking between courses, I pestered her with questions. But she never let her orthodontic smile perish, even when lipstick rubbed off on her teeth and a flush spread across her chest. When they brought the chocolate cheesecake, her nipples leapt to attention.

          This dense confection we washed down with Armagnac and espresso. By then, it was like I was staring at a giant vortex draining into her face. I struggled to remain conscious but at the same time I had awakened a thirst so powerful, I had to pour in drink after drink. Soon there were mirrored vortices, the one opening at my mouth, terminating in my asshole, and the other in hers. Between the two, I felt my brain and skull shatter and mix with hers and in the world of nerveless pictures we sucked each other’s surface down and ground the glass to dirt.

          Next thing I know darkness touched me. I was being chugged along. Some impulse was at work. Some peristaltic process on the surface of the air propelled me through it towards the zone whose light was beyond my ken. Lacking feelers for this light, lacking rods and cones and simulacra, I was defied by it and cast adrift through grey serenity punctuated by sudden eruptions of vertiginous glare. I sought the pillow, the moist spare tire, the warm hovel, the patient navel, the soft expanse between breast and arm pit, sought secretion in the neck, pleaded for blanket, for cushion, rug or couch, swimming through this random, vague, slowly dispersing and dispersible element.  

          She elongated stood to my Lilliput. Her vast elastic carmine hood tacked montane to cloud and snow line brow, denuded, waved overhead. My toes in velvet weed let go. I forgave the air its mismanufracture. I forgave her order and sought in the pieces conversation and number. Blue compensation swelled out like bellying sacks. The rump surged forward, a yellow surf sucking in the sun’s fire and propelled through sand. From her lips, a fine asking spray, droplets lit by headlights.

          Back and forth we jerked. Nighttime sank to my lower gut, a poisonous, heavy coal. Now blobs of black and white opened and closed one on top of the other and my topographic face sprang in and out. Erupting out of my back, a crystalline, needled spine that marched like a slowly assembled gill to my forehead, stiff with erotic promise, strange and translucent, webbed with blood, cold, wet and sharp. She touched the spines with each finger and licked the septic blood drops off. My poison burned her lips. They fizzled into masses of yellow-white grease. Teeth emerged from the sides of her cheek and fell to the floor with a rattle.

          All dark. Spinning against time. Orbiting the wrong planet. The unsynchronized collapse of every ellipsis into wobbling paths. Then, corruption. Static hisses, horns honking, voices like scar tissue thick and unformed. The boiled off face of the world grows back in fibrous, webbed masses of tender ribbons.

          Through these hanging silk scarves I wandered, picking up words along the way. Then, it gushed between my teeth. Bucket upon bucket. One by one they assembled. Each contraction forced it up. Stinging, spraying, washing back, I coughed and spit and choked. The world started to hang together, loosely. She said, “Well Mr. Bartell, it’s a good thing you dressed for dinner.”

          I stared up at her from the tile. The world assembled around her crotch, loosely. She had planted her feet on either side of my chest. Her naked legs were like hundred story buildings. Semen dripped out of her onto my belly.