“Why don’t you just print out directions?” My co-worker pulled off her glasses and put down People magazine. Her eyes were out of focus like someone waiting to be informed by a doctor that they were blind. Most people with reading glasses had that look.

“Firstly because Americans can’t read maps and secondly we might get lucky.” I was wearing a leprechaun tie and a forest green Donegal Tweed. Maybe one of the passers-by might give our shop a shot.

“Lucky how?” Janet refocused her eyes on the parade-goers.

“Someone might buy something.” I was half-Irish. My mother’s mother was born in the Year of the Crow. She came to America at the age of 12. Nana said she was lucky. I might not play cards or gamble in casinos, but I believed in survival of the luckiest over the fittest every day of the year. Today was no exception.

“Buy what?” Janet put down People. A bus commuter had left the magazine on the subway. She would take most of the week to read it. “We have no crosses, no NYC charms, no Claddad rings. That’s all these people buy besides beer and something green.” Janet came from Brownsville. People from that Brooklyn neighborhood understood the needs of other people. It had been mixed in the 50s.

“Nothing wrong with drinking beer.” My grandmother had brewed beer in her Jamaica Plains cellar during the Prohibition. I celebrated Beermas at least once a week. Guinness was good for pregnant moms.

“My father said whiskey was invented to keep the Irish from ruling the world.” Her prejudice against Spirits was distorted by her tribe’s love of God. I knew only a few Jewish drunks.

“We ruled the world before your Yahweh wrote 10 Commandments of Don’t.” Moses’ tablets had created a land of No. I preferred more of a yes world and told Janet, “Stop being so negative.”

“Not so negative? Our store is in a basement. Only three things function in a basement. A bar, a brothel or a boiler.” Janet’s morning Valium was wearing off faster than mascara on a crying whore. Her hands shook with desperation, as she pointed a long fingernail to the bathroom for the benefit of an older lady in distress. “Plus our merchandise is dreck. Who staying at the Plaza would buy this crap?”

“A blind man might.” My friend Richie Boy had partnered up with two losers. One a thief and the other broke. We hadn’t made a sale this month and only two in February, but I had a shot at selling a million-dollar ruby and had two emerald rings put away in the safe for a Texas oilman. Selling one would pay off my debts. “We might get lucky.”

“2009 is not a year for luck.” Janet had been blown-dried too many times, so that her coif resembled a thatched peasant hut. One session at the upstairs beauty salon would have repaired the damage. Last year she grossed $200,000. This year she’d be lucky to hit 50K. 2009 was no 2005.

“It could be worse.” Rain was the norm for most St. Patrick’s Day. The Neponset River in Boston had flooded its bank on Evacuation Day 1968. In Lower Mills Station only the tops of the trolley cars were visible. Today was blue skies and fleecy clouds. It was a good day to be Irish.

“That’s what’s scaring me.” Janet plucked a Valium from within her purse. A doctor friend had put her on the suicide watch. I made sure she only ate one. Within ten minutes she achieved her desired level of apathy, her eyes fixed on People’s photos, as if the young girls in pretty clothes mirrored her past.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I left the store, signaling to a security guard to keep an eye on Janet. There might not be customers, however the previous week two thieves had clipped three shops with bad credit cards.

I had a coffee at the Austrian pastry shop and then visited the other stores. Not a single one of the day’s walk-ins had purchased a gift from the luxury stores. No musk-ox sweater, no Sea Island cotton shirts, no imported alpaca blankets. St. Patrick’s day was shaping up to be another goose egg and I returned to our store infected by Janet’s pessimism,

“It’s your friend, Richard.” Janet handed over the phone and buried her face in the magazine.

“How’s it going?” Richie Boy was in his store on 47th Street.

“Lots of green going for a pee.” It was as if someone was handing out flyers on 5th Avenue advertising PEE IN THE PLAZA.

“Any sign of that Arab?” St. Patrick’s Day on 47th Street was as dead as the Plaza.

“None.”

Several hundred Saudis had been staying at the Plaza for over a month. Yesterday one came down to the Retail Collection. He looked at an emerald ring. It belonged to Richie Boy’s partner. The color was off and the cracks had been filled with resin. The price was ridiculous and I had told the Saudi to come back tomorrow. The two emerald rings in the safe were hued by the Columbian jungle. “Come-backs’ were rare at the Plaza and I was already planning on returning the rings to the Afghani dealer later this afternoon.

“Is anything ever going to happen there?” Richie Boy was losing sleep over this store.

“I’d like to say yes.” It had taken 400 years for Ireland to free most of the island from the British. The struggle had sometimes seemed hopeless, but the Retail Collection was worst. The Plaza had been a destination for over 100 years, however the new Israeli new owners had trashed the legend to sell condos and had invested nothing in advertising for the Retail Collection. Even worse the sound system was stuck on same nine insipid world songs. Sometimes working here felt like Guantanamo Bay Lite and I said to Richie Boy, “This place is a lost cause.”

“I’m going to give it another couple of weeks and then pull the plug.” Richie Boy’s father had been against the deal from the start. Closing would prove him right and the old man never liked being in the wrong. “Just keep my partners from ripping me off.”

“You got it.” I hung up the phone. Janet’s eyes were stuck on the same page. Many bosses would have fired someone in her condition. Her mental condition was our secret. Victor McLaughlin’s stunning performance of betrayal in THE INFORMER had forever prejudiced me against snitches.

The five hours to closing threatened to stretch their length beyond three-hundred minutes, until an elegant woman in her early 40s descended on the escalator. Cherry-red hair framed a face white as an equinal moon. Her slender body had never borne an extra ounce of weight. Her sophistication was not derived from designer clothing, but life itself. The woman stepped off the escalator. The salespeople snapped to attention, as her stiletto heels clicked on the tiled floor.

Janet put down her magazine, took off her reading glasses, and rose from her chair. Years of experience had honed her radar for a potential customer. Her eager smile was a masterpiece of Park Avenue dentistry and I hated telling her, “Janet, she’s coming to see me.”

“You?” Disappointment tremored her face.

“She’s an old friend.” I walked to the store entrance and embraced Dove. Her taut body was a testament to good living. We were only about a year apart, but her face was that of a thirty year-old except for the grey world-weary eyes. Her youth had nothing to do with plastic surgery. The injections of her Swiss rejuvenation clinics bordered on magic.

I released Dove and introduced the two.

“You two are friends?” Janet couldn’t believe that someone so ‘fabulous’ could be my friend.

“We know each other since CBGBs.” Dove and I had met at the bar. The Ramones had been on stage.” Dove had been a rail-thin blonde desperate to become the 2nd coming of Nico. Several punk groups promoted Dove as tomorrow’s darling. She lived too much for today to be anyone’s tomorrow and opted for a career as a Senator’s mistress. She had been a woman so long, that few people knew her as Dave. “Over thirty years ago. I once saved his life.”

Dove’s husky voice recounted her taking revenge on a thug from New Jersey who had beaten me with a baseball bat outside of a Paloma Picasso party. He had acquired a permanent squint after she stuck a cigarette in his eye. Janet listened to our conversation while pretending to read her magazine, while Dove surveyed the jewelry under glass.

“If you see anything you like, I’ll be happy to show it to you.” Janet had a tendency to step on other salespeople’s toes. This practice was considered bad form and I admired her lack of shame. I wasn’t much better at starving my fellow workers.

“When your friend Richie Boy told me that he had opened a store in the Plaza, I had expected South Sea pearls, Burma rubies, and pink diamonds.” Dove wrinkled the delicate cartilage of her nose with displeasure. Her taste ran toward Madison Avenue and Place Vendome.

“Pretty crappy stuff.” Richie Boy’s busted partner had loaded the cases with second-hand merchandise and out-of-style closeouts from bankrupt jewelers. Subsequently our inventory was an unavoidable embarrassment, but I had two aces in the hole.

“I have something in the safe that might interest you. Emerald green for St. Patrick’s Day.”

One emerald cost about $200,000, but the other was in her price range. I held up a 5-carat Sea-Green Emerald surrounded by a micro-pavee of diamonds in an 18K gold and platinum ring. The stone evoked the slopes of the Connemara Hills after an afternoon rain. I had spent a wet autumn within sight of the Seven Pins.

“Nothing greener than Ireland where it’s either rained,  raining, or about to rain. Wetter than a bucket of beer.” Dove had been out of the country a long time. Me too. Neither of us had stayed in touch during our years of exile. Hearing her laugh made me realize how much I missed her, although not enough to give her the ring for free. We haggled on the price like two old nuns over the baptismal name of an abandoned baby.

“$32,000 and not a dollar more.” Dove dipped into her pocketbook and withdrew a clutch of c-notes. “Green good?”

“Even better on St. Patricks’ Day.” I eyed Janet. This was 100% my sale. She had seen the Jewish version of THE INFORMER and was no yenta. I called the owner of the emerald and beat him down an extra $1000, insuring Richie Boy would get his bone. His partners would get nothing. I counted out the money. It was about an inch thick. My commission would fit in my wallet without changing the cut of my trousers.

“So now that’s out of the way.” Dove glanced at her delicate Audemar-Picat watch. I had seen an identical model on 47th street for $120,000. Dove was living well beyond my means. “I think it’s time for a drink.”

“Drink?” I liked drinking, although mostly a little later in the afternoon into the dusk. The bars were empty during those hours and the drinks were usually half-priced.

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day. You’re Irish. I’m Irish.” Dove turned to Janet. “You don’t mind if I steal your partner for a few minutes. We have a little catching up to do. How’s the Oak Bar these days?”

“It isn’t what it used to be.” Janet had stuck her head in the famed bar once. $16 glasses of wine were beyond her means. Mine too, but $9 Stellas were affordable. We went upstairs. The bar was packed, but we found two stools at the bar. The bartender remembered Dove. She was fairly unforgettable. She ordered two Jamesons.

“A little heavy for the early afternoon.” I stayed away from whiskey on most occasions.

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day. It’s never too early.” Dove clinked my glass. She held her drink like a woman, but drank like a man. Some masculine traits were harder to camouflage than others.

“Never too late either.” We hadn’t seen each other in eight years. That span of time was bridged in a second by her holding my hand. Her life revolved around the fashion seasons in Paris. I amused her with my tales of Thailand. Two wives. Two kids. An arrest for copyright infringement. Coming back to take care of a crazed dog in Palm Beach and finally opening the store in the Plaza. “I thought the Plaza. Big sales. I’d work four years and retire again. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We’ll be lucky to last out the month.”

“Could be worst.” Dove eyed a table of politicians in the corner. One nodded to her with respect. She had been the mistress of a US senator. He had been dead for more than twenty years, but his power remained on her skin. “You could be back in Ballyconneeley.”

“That wasn’t so bad.” My mother’s death wish had been for me to visit Ireland.

“Your mother wanted you to find someone like your aunts and sisters to marry, so you rent a house from Sir Robert Guinness. Not cheap either for off-season and you end up in a haunted cottage.”

“It used to be a schoolhouse.” The cold house was situated on the edge of the bogs. They dated back to the Ice Age. The walls were wrapped by the winds off that primitive plain. I did hear voices from time to time.

“Ghosts of the beaten boys.” Dove signaled Orlando for two more Jamesons. “And the only women you found out there were knocked-up teenagers and lesbians.”

“I’m glad you find it so humorous.” I had thought at the time that my mother didn’t approve of my lifestyle from her perch in Heaven.

"No one really laughs at their successes. Failures alone are funny.” The bar was getting crowded. Several men eyed Dove with interest. Rich men. Young and old. The veneer of elegance slid off her skin with the third whiskey. She laughed with the haughtiness of a whore regaining the best corner in Manhattan. “I like being here.”

“You’re staying at the Plaza?”

“Not a chance.” She admired the emerald in the early afternoon light filtering through the Oak Bar’s wide windows. “I’m strictly a St. Regis girl.”

“I like the King Cole Bar.” I hadn’t had anything to eat today. The whiskey was rotting in my belly. I slid off the stool. “Dove I have to get back to work.”

“Not before you see some of the parade.” Dove hooked her arm over my elbow. She was taller and stronger than me. Maintaining her figure required hours in the gym. “You worried that that girl working with you is going to steal the store?”

“No, more like she’ll have a nervous breakdown.” My co-worker lost her money with Bernie Madoff. The 60 year-old Jerseyite had no idea how to make her next Botox payment, but Janet was no thief.

“Janet will be fine. The diamond on her finger is worth $50,000. She’ll survive without you for another 30 minutes.” Dove had just bought an expensive ring and the customer was always right. “You’re seeing the parade whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t like the parade.”

“Everyone loves a parade.” Dove led us down the marbled hallway to the foyer.

The muted drums muttered louder with every step. A high school band was performing Michael Jackson’s BEAT IT. The playlist had expanded during my absence, but I had other reasons for shunning the parade than music.

“I’m from Boston. The parade has nothing to do with me.” The parade through Southie had been a riot waiting to catch fire at the end of Broadway. Marchers congregated at the dozen bars in that odd intersection. By mid-afternoon the orderly procession had evolved into a milling donnybrook. Fisticuffs were the rule. A plastic shillelagh filled with sand finished most fights. Broken noses and black eyes, marks of honor for the following days. That martial mirth soured after the Bussing Riots of 1975. Hate became synonymous with South Boston and I left my hometown for good.

“You’ve been living in New York over 30 years.” Dove checked our reflection in the mirror. Other eyes were on us. The security man at the hotel entrance studied my partner. He sensed something amiss with her, but the doubt in his eyes revealed that he couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong with the picture. Dove passed for a woman, because she had been just that. For most of her life.

“Are you talking about gay people not being allowed to march?” Dove ignored the guard’s scrutiny. There was nothing left of the boy from Queens. She was 100% upper-class and a lady to boot.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” I pushed my way through the revolving door. The high school band was in front of the Sherry-Netherlands. 5th Avenue was packed twenty deep. The sky was blue to heaven and the temperature balmy for March.

“Are you coming out of the closet?” Dove stood on the steps. Her mouth softened to a smile. Twenty years in Europe would never change her being a New Yorker.

“I’m straight, but I don’t like exclusion in the Land of the Free.” Gays and Lesbians have fought for the right to express their Gaelic spirit without success.

“Land of the Freaked more like it and especially with our brethren. Sex is a taboo subject. No one talks about knocked-up teenage girls or predatory priests. I don’t understand why anyone gay would want to associate themselves with this crowd.”

“Because we’re all Irish.” My younger brother had crusaded for acceptance by the straight world. His radio show 1-in-10 had been a big hit for Boston gays. He died of AIDS without the battle won. I carried on his struggle in my own way.

“Most gays think everyone is gay.” The crowd was applauding a troupe of prancing Irish dancers. We walked off the steps. The senior doorman greeted Dove. She had been a guest at the Plaza many times with the Senator.

“They’re not 100% wrong.” I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t bi. Outlaws had no sexual designation.

“Except with you.” Dove had attempted to seduce me many times. She almost succeeded the night she stuck the cigarette in my attacker’s eye. Too much cocaine had protected us from becoming more than friends. “I wanted you so much. Still do.”

“I’m an old man.” I was flattered by her desire, but I was faithful to both my Thai wives. “Set in my ways.”

“The parade is over a hundred years old. It’s set in its way too.” No woman liked ‘no’ for an answer and she walked a little faster into the crowd.

“It’s the only parade to march up 5th Avenue. The others head downtown.” I held Dove’s hand. Her fingers and palm were teenage soft. I regretted my stubborn ways, for I hadn’t been with a woman for months.

“And that too will never change.” Her words sounded hard.

“And neither will I or how I feel toward you.” I pulled her closer. We made a nice couple. I could tell that by the admiring looks from the crowd. They actually envied us. I peered over their heads at the marchers. The mayor was waving to his constituents. A few drunks cursed him for tearing down Yankee Stadium. Coming from Boston I was glad to see the House that Ruth Built in ruins.

His eyes swung in our direction, then narrowed, as if he recognized Dove. She knew a lot of people thanks to the Senator. He waved to her, as the parade halted for another of his photo-op on 5th Avenue.” You want me to ask him about including gays in the parade?”

“He’s looking for a 3rd term not political suicide.” He was a mayor of the rich and the champagne years were gone for the moment. “There’ll never be a gay contingent in this parade. The Ancient Order of Hibernians are scared if they let in the gays and lesbians that there’ll be a float dedicated to Ireland’s most famous homosexual, Oscar Wilde.”

“Or banners honoring Roger Casement.” The revolutionary had been martyred by the British for his politics, not his homosexuality.

“Or bands playing songs of Sinead O’Connor.”

“That might be too much to ask.” The singer had told the Pope to fuck off on TV. That statement had branded her as dangerous to the Church. There were greater dangers to the young than a shaved-headed pop star.

“Although I wouldn’t mind hearing JUMP AROUND by House of Pain.”

That music video had featured New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Bands, politicians, majorettes, the crowds. Cops, drunks, and fights. The latter was another reason to avoid the parade. The brawls could turn very ugly and the cops rarely interfere before someone got hurt.

“It could be arranged. After all, I know people.”

Female parade-goers gazed at her forest green Armani suit cut two inches over her knees with envy. The outfit cost more than most of them earned in a year. I could live off the price of her high heels for a month. Several pedestrians whispered to each other. They thought she was famous without realizing the source of that fame. Dove was one of a kind.

“I think they want your autograph.” In my clothes I looked like her driver.

“I’m not famous.” Dove posed for her admirers. She could have been an aging French actress or a retired ballerina. Her poise had been perfected after years of practice.

“You were always famous for me.”

“More infamous than famous.”

“Less of either than you could imagine. Paris is such a small town for the wicked. Same faces. Same stories. All the time thinking of New York.”

“You could have stayed here.” Her senator died in her arms during sex. His senator’s family didn’t contest the will to avoid a scandal. The deal had been for Dove to stay out of the limelight.

“Things would have been bad for me here. Too much money and too many bad friends.” She basked in the detoured memory of that path. “It would have been glorious, but it’s not too late for gays to march in their memory.”

She pulled me forward to the police barricade. Two officers turned to stop her forward progress. Dove whispered to one. He glanced over his shoulder to a distinguished-looking man in his 70s. The man motioned to the policeman to let Dove over the barrier.

“You want to come?” This was her show, but it was nice of her to ask.

“No, I’ll be going back to work.” I pointed to her ring finger. The stack of hundreds filled my jacket pocket. Some of it would go to my wives. “Thanks for everything.”

“My pleasure.” She held up her hand. The emerald shone in the afternoon sun like a pagan god’s eye. It was that good. “Call me at the St. Regis tomorrow. We’ll have drinks.”

“Consider it a date.”

She blew a kiss and strode up to the man. He greeted Dove with a kiss on the cheek and linked his arm with hers. He was her yes-man for the day, but I wasn’t jealous. They made a nice couple too. Dove had that effect on most men.

I would close the shop, send Janet home, pay the dealer for the emerald ring, pass by 47th Street to drop off Richie Boy’s share, and then go to drink in the East Village. Some friends were at a small Irish bar. I’d buy a few rounds. We’d tell stories about haunted schoolhouses and kissing Catholic girls. Most of them would be true.

The parade resumed its uptown progress and Dove disappeared from sight. I smiled to myself thinking that there were gays in the parade. Not just Dove, but men and women from all walks of life. All Irish or wanting to be, because on St. Patrick’s Day everyone loved the Irish.

We used to sometimes go to Atlantic City.  Neil would play at the low stakes table while I wandered around with the baby strapped to my chest and poked my nose in the shops.  I liked the colorful lights and sounds.  I found some of the people fascinating, particularly the women who stayed all day and played with the same quiet intensity as the men.  I was particularly enamored of anyone in unusual hats or sparkly outfits or giant earrings or long, gaudy painted nails or leather fur-trim designer clothes – I would love these people for dressing the part, for wearing things that told me how important it all was to them.  I would usually vow at some point or another to learn to play poker myself but, to this day, have not gone through with it.  Too busy to learn, to busy to play, always too busy.

                When our second child came, it became impractical to go to Atlantic City so my husband contented himself with the faceless opponents he found on his phone.  But there was no reason for this, he realized – the city is full of underground gambling clubs.  After nosing around a bit among friends, he discovered one in midtown that was a good fit.  And so, one night a week, he would leave me with the kids and venture out at night to go and play poker for a couple of hours.  But one night, to satisfy my immense curiosity, he took me with him.  We called a babysitter for the kids and made it a date night.

                I don’t know what I was expecting, Guys and Dolls, some sort of swanky mobster affair.  Men in fedoras with guns tucked in holsters.  Curvy women in velvet and lipstick.  Cocktails and cigars.  Gangsters.  Or maybe James Bond.  Roulette wheels and blackjack tables.  Men in dinner jackets, their women dripping with diamonds.  I had my best shoes on, Tory Burch boots with four inch heels, and wore a tight skirt and my hair down in cascading curls.  We took a cab to midtown, then wandered around for a bit because we were lost.  I was beginning to regret wearing those shoes.  Then we found it, a non-descript office building that was easy to miss.  We took the elevator up and got off at a floor that looked like any other floor in any other office building in Manhattan, one with old, linoleum floors, peeling paint and noisy, grit-laden radiators in the bathroom.  Our destination was off to the right.  We pushed right through – the door was open.  No secret knocks or nefarious looking men guarding the front.  I saw my mistake as soon as we walked in.  My perception of what I would find had been a complete fantasy.  I shot my husband a look – he had been encouraging it.

                The “underground gambling den” was really just one dark-walled room that served as a small business during the day.  Office equipment had been pushed to one side.  The windows were covered with drapes, the lights bright.  There were three large oblong tables that seated about 10 – two tournament tables and one cash table.  There were about 30 people in the room, almost every seat filled.  They used rolling office chairs.  There was a single screen mounted near the ceiling that showed a timer that counted down the minutes left in each tournament.  The guy who runs the poker club greeted us -  he couldn’t have been more than 25 years old.  He was tall and bean-pole thin and wore glasses and had a bit of a moustache that looked like it might have taken him days to grow.

                “Jordan!”  My husband clasped his hand.  “This is my wife.”

The young man looked at me appraisingly but respectfully and with obsequious interest.  Neil had told me that Jordan was very excited about his fledgling business and took it seriously and wanted it to succeed.  I could see it all in his demeanor.

“Welcome.”  He said.  “Can I get you a drink?  Water?  Soda?”

                “Water.”  I said.  “Thanks.”

“You have a cash game going?”  Neil asked.

“Of course.”  Jordan gestured to one of the tables.  “Do you want to play?”  He asked me.

`               “No, thanks.”  I said.  “I’m just going to watch.”

Jordan pushed two chairs closer to the table and I set mine away from the table, behind Neil.

The dealer cut the deck, flipped the cards and began to throw them to the players.  I looked around the table.  It was composed almost exclusively of young single men in their twenties.  They were white, black, Asian, Indian – all American, all dressed in jeans and sweats.  There were only two other women in the room besides me, both of them in their sixties, both heavy and dressed in pants and big sweaters.  “Regulars.”  Neil whispered to me.  “They’re here every night.” 

                There was only one person dressed in any way that was interesting to me, a young man in his twenties, enormously overweight, who wore a dirty baseball cap with a Ron Paul pin in it and a Ron Paul sweatshirt.  He had large jiggling cheeks and smooth-shaven white skin and gigantic dark eyes that made him look like a very intense, overgrown baby.  After his cards were dealt, he put a lucky charm on top of them – a small chess piece, a knight, made of smoked glass.  He did it every time.

                “So do you think Ron Paul’s going to get it?”  Neil asked him.

                “Nah.  I wish.”  

                “What about Romney?”

                “Nah.”  He said dismissively.  “Might as well vote for Obama.”

                Neil had only put in for $40 worth of chips but the young men on either side of my husband and the young man in the Ron Paul hat each had at least $300 or $400 worth of chips before them.  As time wore on, it became clear that, though there were 10 people sitting at the table, the contest here was between these three people.  My husband held his own for awhile but, in the end, was no match for them.  Seeing him flounder was a new experience for me.   He is a decade older than me and always seemed to know things I didn’t know.  This is probably why I’ve always seen him as the kind of guy who, in every situation, wound up holding the reins.

Jordan sat down across from us.  “So what do you think of this?  Monday is going to be ladies night.”  He was not looking at me when he said it but I could tell it was for my benefit.  “I thought I would offer a prize for the best player that night.  Maybe, like, a gift-certificate for a mani-pedi.  And I’ll offer a prize for best female player in any quarter – like maybe a full day at a spa.  So what do you think?”  He still wouldn’t look at me.

“I think Monday should be strip poker night,” said Ron-Paul-hat, grinning in his fat cheeks.

People snickered but Jordan ignored them.  Then everyone fell quiet.  The cards had been dealt, the players now taking it all in.  I sat and watched, understanding little.  I had been sitting there for over an hour watching my husband lose his chips bit by bit.  I was getting bored and was ready to go but then he won a moderate-sized pile and so we decided to stay a bit longer.  More chips to play.

                At one point, a buzzer rang out.  The poker clock up on the screen near the ceiling, set for ten minutes each time, had, again, run itself down to zero.  The three dealers, one at each table, all young men, collected their chips and stood up and new dealers, also young men, took their places.

                “They are all taking breaks?”  I asked.

                “Yes.”  The young man to my right said.  “It gets, mentally, very tiring.”

                Jordan stood up then and addressed the room.  “How about pizza.  Anyone want pizza?”

                “Yeah, pepperoni.”  Said Ron-Paul-hat.

                “How many for pepperoni?

                “No, wait!  Anchovies!”  Ron-Paul-hat, grinning again.  He had little, corn niblet teeth.

                “You’re buggin’”

                “Put up your hands if you want pepperoni.”  Jordan said.  “Okay.  Pepperoni it is.  Anyone want anything else from the outside world?”

                “Hookers.”  Someone called out from another table.

                “Coke!”

                “Yeah, aw right!  Hookers and coke!  The Friday night special!”  Laughter.

                “It’s Wednesday.”

                “Wednesday is meth night.”  Jordan cracked.  More snickers all around.  The dealers kept dealing.  Everyone fell quiet.  Calmly, the young men flipped up their cards at one corner and took a look.

 Elioutte Green is the pen name for a writer based in Manhattan. She holds a MFA from Columbia and her work has been published in various small journals. She is presently completing her first novel.

A Barney's window display of Lady Gaga's work has legendary multi-media performance artist Colette's notorious creations written all over it.

Colette, whose seminal performance art and multi-media installations originated out of New York City's vibrant art scene in the 1970's has traveled to museums and galleries all over the world; including the Guggenheim; MOMA; and The Whitney.

Upon seeing Barney's Lady Gaga window display in midtown, Colette takes to the streets in protest to send a clear message to the Gaga camp that Colette is standing outside the door and must be invited in and given proper respect.

When the company needed a production assistant, they hired one of my musician friends, a handsome Texan who went on to become so famous that years later, I learned about his death from an obituary on the front page of the New York Times. He’d played with everyone from Yoko Ono to Judy Collins, Bette Midler to the Talking Heads. But that was later. Back then, he needed a day job and we worked together in the studio, saw each other in the same West Village bars at night. It was a cash economy, before credit cards and ATMs, five and ten dollar bills passing from hand to hand.

One evening, as Don and I rode the elevator heading to the southbound 8th Avenue subway, I handed him the $5 I had borrowed the night before. He grinned and said, in his Texas drawl, “I may not be free, but I am extremely reasonable.”

And the elevator full of stone-faced New Yorkers laughed aloud.

Though there was hardcore action, too, as I did raid a crack house in the Bronx with Curtis and a group of reporters from the Washington Times. After scaling a ten-foot wall and entering thru the back door, Curtis threw me a pillow and instructed me to wrap it around my right arm. “For the pitbull!” he yelled.

It was Joe Allen who invited us to Restaurant Row and housed us in an abandoned restaurant he owned next door – Broadway Pasta, now a swanky restaurant called Brazil Brazil. For every four-hour patrol of the street and neighboring parks, we were rewarded with a family meal from one of ten restaurants on the Row. I have been in every one of those kitchens.

If the meal was fish, Joe Allen would personally deliver a burger to me, as I am allergic to seafood. That’s the kind of guy he is! In those days he wore golf shirts and always appeared tan, like he just returned from Florida, or Palm Springs. He had a famous girlfriend, too -- Chita Rivera. Chita would call out to the patrol from across the street and yell, “Hola, Fellas!” One time she hiked up her skirt outside the restaurant and danced a minute or two of Jerome Robbins’ choreography from “West Side Story.” I used to think she was mocking us, but I now suspect she was merely reliving her life with a different gang from the West Side. Another story.

There's little need for Angels in post-Guiliani New York. Joe Allen now has restaurants all over the world. Lisa and Curtis are radio personalities. Chita Rivera went on to win yet another Tony Award. And me, well, sometimes I awake from a bad dream in the dark hours of the morning wrapping a pillow around my arm; but then, more often than not I'm sweetly comforted by the haunting echoes of a woman singing -- “I like to live in America!”

John Quilty is a writer who lives in New York City.

At first I planned for a Netbook to do my writing on the go. Keyboard, long battery life and reasonable price were the enticing factors. I checked out a Netbook on display inside the Staples store on 6th Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan. It radiated heat like the Arizona desert on a summer day, while a nearby HP Touch Pad, an iPad-like tablet, felt only slightly warmer than room temperature. The price tag for the TouchPad screamed from the tag $99! But hastily handwritten text in small letters below whispered that it was sold out.

After Hewlett Packard announced the fire sale of discontinued Touch Pads at $99 apiece, the TouchPad rush commenced on the web and in store. My next stop was Office Depot down the block. “Do you sell tablets?” I asked two Office Depot employees,  tall, muscular men leisurely conversing in the empty store. Unsure whether I was inquiring about computers or medicine one of them said reluctantly - “Check downstairs” - a vague reply worthy of my vague question.

Instead I went to Best Buy located on 5th Avenue and 44th street. “If you want the $99 HP tablet, come tomorrow at 9AM”, the Best Buy employee assured me, “We will have 250 of them.”

9:30 AM the next morning, I was there, eager as a boy scout on a treasure hunt. The line spanned about 300 feet, from Best Buy’s front door to the corner of the block. Most people in the line looked young (below 40) and relaxed. They were peering into their smart phones and simultaneously talking to people next to them. It looked like a friendly meeting of like-minded people preferring for some reason to stand in a line instead of a circle. People here owned more than enough computer equipment. Some of them hoped to make a quick dollar but most, it seemed to me, came to buy something that was slated to become an instant antique.

Waiting in line I could not take my mind away from the diminishing supply of the Touch Pads. But soon the serenity of the crowd overtook me. I befriended a young man, a Help Desk team leader at the MBC who arrived here at 7:30AM. He was seventh in line when the store opened. He got his first TouchPad and now was back in the line hoping for one more catch.

Tourists glanced at us and some stopped to inquire what was happening. A tourist with an Israeli accent would not believe that anything with the plug would sell for less than 100 dollars. “99 dollars, 99 dollars” he repeated in disbelieve. “Join us friend, Empire State Building will not run away”, I felt like saying to him.

My biggest surprise was how efficiently the Best Buy people were managing the line. Patrons could get into the store without waiting but the only way to the coveted TouchPads was through our line. The Best Buy man at the door let people from the waiting line inside the store in groups of five. “Go to the man in the yellow shirt “he guided aspiring TouchPad owners in the commanding voice, “don’t deviate”.

Someone tried offering a bribe for the TouchPad to a Best Buy employee who flatly declined. Another employee stopped a teenager who tried to cut into my group of five. The group-of-five idea was a stroke of  Best Buy genius. You may swallow an offence if someone cuts in line in front of you when you're alone, but the party of five together as a group will not tolerate a 6th intruder.

I ended up spending over $200. I bought more memory (you always end up spending more on memory), a wireless keyboard and the docking station for the Touchpad. Still it was a good deal considering it costs HP more than $300 to make one.

At work colleagues looked at my TouchPad with envy and they tried ordering from different websites. They are still waiting for vendors’ assurances that their product is not sold out.

This is the 21st century, but at times there is no alternative to good old legwork.

Stas Holodnak originally from Ukraine now lives and writes in Bay ridge, Brooklyn. Links to his stories can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/stasholodnaklinks/.

A year later while browsing a thrift store on the Lower East Side, my friend spotted a Dior handbag that looked like her grandmother’s. When she opened it, she found a napkin inside with a message written on it in her grandmother’s handwriting! The message on the napkin read: “Help me! Please get me out of here!” My friend left the handbag in the thrift store. She wanted no bad memories.

Just today while walking down 57th Street with my friend, we were overwhelmed by a giant Dior handbag – the world’s largest handbag – outside a boutique near Madison Avenue. The enormous two-story handbag is an exact replica of the one the old lady used to carry. The one she always lost. The one that mysteriously ended up in a thrift shop. The one that became so large no one could ever lose it again.

John Quilty is a writer who lives in New York City.

While the maitre d’ was escorting us to our table, Barbara gave my arm an annoying pinch while gasping wide-eyed that Jolie Gabor, mother to Magda, the infamous Zsa Zsa, and Eva was sitting at a table in the center. I had noticed the large jovial group and some of the women bejeweled.

 During the course of our dinner, Barbara began to complain how it was like pulling teeth to get any one of her males to volunteer to help wallpaper her kitchen. I think I saw tears well up in her mink-lashed cocker spaniel eyes when she switched her tone from being pissed off to heartbreakingly lonely. The topic of women’s lib and its pros and cons arose and suddenly, perhaps under the influence of her third glass of white wine, Amy, who believed and rightfully so that we were still too young to concern ourselves with men or kitchens, began to ululate like Tarzan.

I noticed a man seated across the room at the Jolie Gabor table cock an ear. Then without the slightest hesitation, he got up to make his way over to us.

“It’s Tarzan!”Amy shrieked.

It was Tarzan. But in my eyes he was Johnny Weissmuller, five time Olympic gold medalist swimmer and one time bronze.

“That’s not the way to do it,” he said annoyed, all 6 ft. 3 of him.

A waiter appeared like a miracle from out of nowhere to swiftly and graciously slide a chair under Mr. Weissmuller’s rear, I think preventing him from putting it into reverse and careening through the swinging kitchen door.

He was still handsome decked out in his well-tailored tuxedo. The cuffs of his starched white ruffled shirt revealed embroidered initials that repeated themselves as ornate gold and diamond links, and around his neck hung his medals.

The others sort of sat there with ridiculous grins on their faces but I, a swimmer for all my life, looked upon him in awe.

“I’m a swimmer,” I said, rather like an idiot.

After a few minutes of cordial chat, this absolute sweetheart of a man rose from our table, almost taking all of it with him. Later I read somewhere that he'd recently had hip surgery and a broken leg.

Denise Falcone is a writer who lives in New York City. Her New York stories have appeared in J Journal, Antique Children, Kerouac's Dog, and others.

“I’m just returning the key to the supply closet,” I said, heading over to the corkboard to hang it back up. I did not want to get drawn into whatever they were talking about. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and I felt like fainting. Karen squinted at me over the top of her glasses and smiled: “Ah, I wondered who’d been rooting around in there.”

“Bobby’s been in the closet for a long time,” Marco said, in a low, mischievous growl. He rubbed his short grey beard. The tattoos on his upper arms leered out from underneath his skintight T-shirt.

I laughed but didn’t take the bait. Marco and I were friends on Facebook and his status updates showed a remarkable propensity for gay innuendo. And in person, if you let him get started, he was even more relentless .

But Karen wasn’t feeling so discreet either. “Yes, Bobby would be a bear, right?” She looked over at Marco with a conspiratorial smirk.

With my thick, luscious brown beard and hairy chest, I would be a bear, I thought proudly—if I were gay, of course.

“Oh no,” Marco said with exaggerated surprise. He was looking at me very sternly, suppressing a smile. “Bobby is no bear. He’s more of an … otter.”

I was a bit offended. I’d always kind of thought of myself as a bear. A few years ago, during the dark time after college but before the even darker time after after-college, I’d worked at an independent video store in the West Village. The neighborhood was teeming with homosexuals (or so it seemed to me), and gay pornography was one of our specialties. Titles like Bear Patrol and Free Fur All lined the walls of the seedy little porno room in the back of the store, so I knew what bears looked like: hairy, muscular, dressed in leather, and carrying a nightstick. I’d also seen plenty of pictures of bears on Marco’s own Facebook page. Hardly a week went by without him posting a dozen or so pictures of a weekend “Bear Picnic” or “Bear Hiking Trip” (not surprisingly, bears enjoy the outdoors) or “Bear-E-Okee,” all full of hairy thirtysomethings that, frankly, looked a lot like me. Perhaps I wasn’t old enough? Or burly enough? Gay subcultures seemed so nuanced, I was surprised they could even keep track.

I’d been finding myself embroiled in a lot of these awkward little gay scenarios lately. I’m a bit of a loner, so my day-to-day routine didn’t involve going to that many different places, and it seemed like more and more of these daily stops were becoming tricky due to the presence of gay, or potentially gay, men that I was convinced had crushes on me. But perhaps I was just being paranoid. I mean flattering myself. When I tried out this theory on a friend of mine (that gay men were constantly ogling me and that my awareness of this was adding unnecessary stress to my otherwise banal errands), she said that I have “difficulty” in most scenarios that involve casual interaction with strangers and was likely blowing it way out of proportion.

Nevertheless, I’d started avoiding the bodega near my apartment in Park Slope because of a gay clerk’s overzealous greetings and small talk. And the way he stared at me! It started out innocently enough, with him paying extra-special attention to my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich orders on Sunday mornings. I was usually hungover, worn out from a long night of drinking alone, or a shorter but somehow more abusive night of drinking with others and feeling alone, so perhaps my defenses were lowered, but I liked the way he smiled at me and said, “Helloooo … bacon, egg, and cheese, right?” before I even had a chance to speak. I’d stand off in the wings pretending to read the newspaper, as he lovingly laid a slice of cheese over the egg and called out, “Salt and pepper?” I’d wait a moment, so as to dampen any impression that I might be at his beck and call, then I’d rush forward saying, “Yes, yes, thank you.”

It wasn’t long before he started complimenting me on my beard, which was lovely, I realized, and apparently impossible for gay men to resist, so I took it gracefully. I’m very susceptible to flattery. And in fact, I was sort of fascinated by his appearance as well. His perfectly round bald head glistened, and his huge blue eyes were always popping with curiosity, the way I imagined mine might, if I didn’t always feel so fatigued. I was simultaneously impressed and appalled by how friendly he always seemed, and he was almost charming, in an exceedingly goofy way.

But being friendly is exhausting for me (this is one of the few drawbacks of being such a stalwart introvert), and sometimes I want to order a bacon, egg, and cheese without being flirted with. I began to dread going in there, and I realized I could only humor this kind of thing for so long. I’d wake up on a Sunday morning with a pounding headache and sit on the couch miserably thinking to myself, “All I want right now is coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese, but if I go down there, I’ll have to talk to him.” Some days, the dread was so severe I wouldn’t even leave the house, subsisting instead on a box of Rice-a-Roni or Lipton Noodles and dark, milkless coffee brewed in my own coffeemaker. The fact that I’d also have had to go to the bodega if I wanted milk was a bitter pill to swallow that always sent me into a small rage.

Finally, one day when I was feeling brave enough to venture out to the store, he looked up at me expecting the friendly greeting we’d established over the last few months, I snubbed him. I ignored him completely and walked past as if we’d never exchanged hellos before. He was stocking the orange juice refrigerator, kneeling on the dirty floor, and I was overwhelmed by the smallness and sadness of our lives. I was able to collect my meager purchases (toilet paper, soup, milk, cheese) without interacting with him directly. It was obvious to both of us that I had ignored him on purpose, and now the spell was broken. Our little romance was over. I thought that would make it easier to go back in there in the future, but in fact it only made it harder.

Simultaneously, there was also a similar situation going on at Cosi in Midtown, near the magazine publisher where I worked. Once a week, I had a powerful need to consume a turkey and cheddar melt, so I left the hermetically sealed little room where they kept the copy editors and headed out into the midtown Manhattan lunch-hour feeding frenzy.

At Cosi, the prudent first move was always to steel myself with a warm little scrap of bread from the communal bowl they had stationed at the beginning of the line. With my grizzly-man beard, unwashed jeans, and sweater, I always felt out of place in the sea of pant-suited and humorless career women, jocular post-frat boys in light-blue button-downs, and cranky European tourists. “I might look at one of these women and smile,” I’d think, “if this were another life,” but actually I couldn’t bring myself to look at any of them. I was too blinded by their chatter and perceived hostility.

Here, my gay interlocutor was not the person taking the lunch orders, or even one of the half-dozen folks in the sandwich-and-salad assembly line, but the slight, feminine boy at the cash register. His mop of dark hair was mostly hidden under a flaccid Cosi cap, and the faint shadow of a mustache on his upper lip did nothing to diminish the girlish aspect of his face. If Marco were with me, he’d probably dismissively call the fellow a “twink.” (They had plenty of that genre at the video store as well, perhaps even some involving twinks and bears, though based on my cursory scans of the boxes, it seemed like kind was usually paired with kind.)

Cosi was packed during lunch hours, so my attitude was always get in and get out as quickly as possible. This meant, of course, that my interactions with the boy were more hurried and subtle than those with my bald friend at the deli, but again I got the strong and very definite impression that he liked me. His eyes seemed to be looking at me, rather than through me, past me, past everyone, onto the street and into oblivion, like the other wretches with his job. I imagined his whole world snapped into focus a bit more when he saw me approaching, a lovely bearded stranger here to rescue him from the doldrums of another day spent ringing up sandwiches. In any case, he certainly became more attentive, smiling at me slightly, with almost imperceptible amusement—or so it seemed to me, for in the world of midtown Manhattan lunch lines there can be no overt displays of affection.

A few times our hands touched as he was handing me my change, and he didn’t draw away quickly in alarm; perhaps he even let his hand linger on mine for a split second longer than necessary. When I worked at the video store, I tried that trick on a few of the pretty female customers, but I seemed to remember them recoiling in disgust. However, perhaps my slightly warped and impoverished sense of self was overruling reality. In my mind, I am like a bearded god in the eyes of homosexual men, but like some pathetic hairy troll in the eyes of beautiful women. So whenever his hand grazed mine, I smiled and tried to act naturally. I didn’t want to appear rude, but I also didn’t want to lead him on.

Once again, I felt the situation was becoming too familiar. One of the things I like most about living in New York is the absolute anonymity. As soon as I feel obligated to exchange familiar greetings with a person—the chatty doorman at a friend’s apartment building, the brisk Mexican woman who sells me coffee in the morning, the obese and obviously lonely neighbor in the laundromat on a Saturday afternoon—I begin to dread seeing them. And if those interactions are laced with unspoken gay romantic undertones, then they really become too much to bear. So I quickly found myself withdrawing my affection and natural friendliness, which, again, was becoming strained. And in fact, he seemed to be withdrawing as well, perhaps slightly ashamed to have been subtly flirting with a bearded stranger to begin with. I sensed that he was not nearly as self-assured as his goofy bald counterpart at the bodega in Brooklyn.

Incredibly, a similar but even more disruptive situation like this had also developed at my local gym. This one caused me the most consternation, as avoidance was not really an option. At that time in my life, I felt like I had to continue to sculpt and maintain my body, plus the gym seemed vital to my mental health.

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but one particularly muscle-bound jock and I somehow became trapped in a pattern of exchanging the most intense and awkward man-on-man eye contact I have ever experienced in my life. As most gym-goers know, making eye contact is something that is generally not done. In fact, most people at the gym tend to act a bit scared of each other (the women especially seemed skittish toward me); there is a lot of forced politeness, and whatever exchanges do occur are brief and tense. No one wants to “invade each other’s space,” so to speak. Plus, the fact that nearly everyone is wearing headphones further prevents conversation. Before I’d joined the gym, I had imagined (and hoped) that the atmosphere would be more sexually charged somehow, but it wasn’t. Except, unfortunately, between me and this … dude.

It never failed: I’d go dashing up the stairs after doing some bench presses, ready to grab a towel and mount the stair-climbing machine, and I’d look to my left and there he’d be, staring at me. I’d round the corner, heading toward the free weights, glance up, and there he’d be, barreling toward me, staring at me. I’d head into the locker room, drenched in sweat, eager to strip off my headphones and T-shirt, and there he’d be, suddenly, clad in nothing but a tiny white towel, staring at me.

His body was phenomenal. I could admit that. It was no wonder it seemed like he was always at the gym (I tried going at different times of day and night in an effort to avoid him, to no avail). In order to build and maintain a body of such absurdly statuesque proportions, you’d have to be there all the time. He was several inches taller than me, his chest and arms were chiseled, and his stomach was flat and defined, but it was his legs that were really impressive. His buttocks, thighs, and calves were all ripping with muscle that was perfectly in proportion to his heaving upper body. In contrast, my own legs were a source of constant shame. They looked and felt (both physically and psychologically) too skinny, but I found leg exercises to be too tedious to really correct this problem. I’d look down at my legs, at my sneakers really, as I hurried past this Adonis in a skimpy white towel. My face felt hot and, absurdly, my heart was racing, the way it did in middle school whenever I saw a girl I liked.

He had an interesting face. I suppose that was the original problem; he caught me looking at him. He had a strong chin, which was angular and smooth and always immaculately shaved, dark eyes and dark, spiky hair, which he wore very closely cropped on the sides. This combination of features made him look a bit like a Japanese anime character, although if I had to guess, I bet he was from New Jersey.

Actually, now I do remember how this all started. The gym was about two blocks downhill from my apartment; and Prospect Park, where I went running during the warmer months, was about four or so blocks uphill from my apartment. Sometimes on my way downhill to the gym, or on my way uphill to the park, I would pass this spiky-haired gym bunny as he was also either coming from or going to the gym. (I don’t think either of us lived very busy lives.) The first one or two times this happened, I may not have even recognized him. Most likely, I just noticed that he looked familiar, if I noticed him at all. But then, perhaps the third time this happened, I had a simultaneous flash of recognition and fit of friendliness, and I did something unthinkable: I nodded in recognition at him, breaking the invisible plane that usually exists between strangers and establishing actual, furtive human contact. (How I wished I could take that back later!) He nodded back. And so our new nodding-in-recognition rapport was established. Then, for a while, it actually seemed like I didn’t see him at the gym anymore, just in the outside world, in the vicinity of the gym, and so we would nod hello, each thinking, in a very masculine, non-gay way, I presumed, “Oh, there’s that dude from the gym.”

Strangely, while I was OK with this dynamic of nodding hello to a guy in the real world that I recognized from the context of the gym, when I started seeing him again at the gym and he wanted to continue (or even, I feared, escalate) this nodding relationship in that context, I wanted no part of it. It was absurd to have to nod hello at this guy every time I saw him at the gym, which started to feel like every time I went in there. And even more unsettling, he seemed to want more than that. It was almost as if he wanted to talk to me. For what reason though, I couldn’t fathom—at first. Perhaps he was just a lonely straight guy. Maybe he just wanted to have a beer or something, make a new friend. But, no, I thought … that is madness.

Back in the office one afternoon, as I was scrutinizing some proofs, Marco came in and said, “Hey Bobby, you claim to be straight, you should know this: How many players on a hockey team?”

I didn’t really look up. I could imagine the smirk on Marco’s face well enough. “I don’t watch hockey,” I said. “And what do you mean ‘claim’ to be straight? Is there some debate about this?”

Marco laughed. He was standing by the window looking down at the city, perhaps evaluating its relative hetero or homosexuality as well.

Then, as if to cast further doubt on the matter, I said, “So I looked up ‘otter’ and you were right, an otter is just a skinnier bear.”

“Mmmhmm,” Marco said, glancing back at me and drawing the sound out—as if he found otters delicious.

It would be kind of nice to be an otter, I thought to myself, or a bear, to have a cozy little niche clearly designated like that; to be eagerly accepted by a group based on the way I look. I’ve never had that. In fact, I’ve never really been a part of any group, not even any of the ones that are based on the feeling of not fitting in.

I looked up to say something to Marco, something witty about otters and bears perhaps, or maybe even something serious and sincere about people, but he had already wandered out of the room.

Rob Williams is a mercenary copywriter and copy editor who currently lives above a meat market in the East Village. You can find more of his stories at www.itmustbebobby.com.

Photo by Mike Baird 

“Police cruisers,” I say, taking in the block. “A whole shit load.”

We’ve been tracking each other since Penn Station, this voice and I, for precautionary reasons I’m told, and this is where it ends: Thin Blue Lines everywhere.

Now this voice is raspy and a little but harsh. I swear, sometimes it’s as though I’m speaking directly to danger, which is partly why I’ve called. I can hear giggles on her end of the line, my guide telling me not to worry. “Just the local precinct, Boo, some of our best customers. Now jus’ turn the corner an’ we’re two doors down. Press the butt’n when you get here. I’ll buzz you in.”

As I follow her instructions down to the very last splotch of gum on the sidewalk, I can’t help agonizing over being so predictable with my brothel selection. I could have been spanked up in Harlem. I could have been nailed to a cross in Chelsea. Decadent, depraved, and hopeless is what I was hoping for.

Instead, I went with CLEAN, SAFE, DISCREET. DELICIOUS PENTHOUSE PETS WITH WINDOW VIEW OF THE SKATING RINK. Yet once inside it’s apparent that other than fully functioning female parts (of which I’m still not completely certain) these women do not resemble Penthouse Pets in any figment of a troubled man’s imagination. And unless they plan on tossing my charred remains from the roof of this building, there’s not much chance of getting that view of the skating rink either.

It’s a dark, two bedroom apartment. I start getting that pins and needles feeling right away, still young enough to believe in secret identities, the super-hero-in-training that inhabits male souls. The old Spidey senses start to tingle. I’m reaching for utility belts that aren’t there and peering around corners for traces of Kryptonite. I’m scared, not horny, and I’ll need every shred of make-believe I own to get me through this.

As far as I can tell there are two women here, the one who opens the door, allowing me to enter, and the one on the couch ignoring me. The one on the couch is white, clammy, and cadaverous. She’s obviously been chain smoking for awhile and is grinding out another butt into an overflowing tray atop a glass coffee table. She’s wearing a sweat-suit as gray as her flesh and has long, dishwater blond hair streaming down her shoulders. I’m assuming she’s off duty. I’m praying to Baby Jesus, as well as Allah that she’s off duty. She leans forward to light up again and I quickly look away.

The woman who opened the door is on my right, hand still poised on the knob. She sounds like the woman who guided me in, but any witty repartee we shared earlier has vanished. It’s obvious we’ve never spoken before in our lives. In heels she’s around my height, just under six feet, and the red dress she’s wearing does absolutely nothing for her, hugging her small breasts to her chest then down to a pear shaped bottom. With the television light twitching off her face, it’s tough to say whether she’s black, white, or Latina.

My first baby steps forward and the hardwood floors begin to creak. She gestures to the unfortunate smoke cloud across the room, tells me to have a seat, get comfortable, this may take awhile. I’d like to know how far along we are in the process, as though the sounds of company policy and operating procedures might lend some sense to this. I’d like a comforting woman’s voice to explain things.

“So- how much do I get,” I blurt. “And what’s it gonna cost?”

My voice sounds nervous and shaky, very unsuper-hero-like. It’s obvious I’ve broken some kind of code by speaking out of turn. Red Dress scans me quickly then glances over a shoulder in the direction of what I imagine used to be a kitchen. It’s a large, separate cubicle with small openings cut into the walls like a machine-gun nest. I can tell by the way she keeps looking back that she’s waiting for instructions, as if the holes might suddenly start to speak. There’s someone back there, behind that wall, standing in the dark.

She’s got herself an ace.

It’s good to have an ace.

“You get our company, of course, baybee,” she eventually says, shutting the door hard, bolting it shut behind me. “Now, please, go and have a seat.”

The woman on the couch is watching porn, the post-millennium kind, everyone tan, everyone fit enough to be the trainer at the local gym. That incredibly lucky pizza boy of the Seventies has vanished. Now the cameraman’s in on it. We see what he sees, travel with him on his adventures. It’s also cable porn so nothing too graphic is visible. The camera shows heads bobbing into unseen genitals and intercourse is really just an awkward way of pushing someone across a bed. Normally, I view porn in ten to twelve minute intervals. The prospect of sitting fully clothed, watching this stuff as though it were a real film with characters to root for and a plot to unravel, is mind numbing. So after ten minutes of silence I’m convinced the woman on the other end of the couch is made of straw, a smoking head propped atop a sweat-suit stuffed with hay, like that thing the neighbors drag out every year at Halloween.

She must see me eyeing the remote, but never says a word. I look down again, back to her, lift my eyebrows, comment on the porn, “Hey, she’s pretty,” then end up peering down at the coffee table to stare at the glass. At some point she must have raised her cigarette for a good toke because there are streams of smoke disbanding into the projecting light of the TV, but I never actually see her do it.

There’s some muffled conversation coming from the other end of the apartment. I strain to hear, listening for key words like, “stab, kill, toss body in weeds off The Belt,” but come away with nothing. Rising from the couch, I contemplate some dingy curtains hanging from the ceiling behind the TV. I want to make sure there’s an actual window back there in case I have to jump and not some brick wall with Rod Serling waiting for his cue.

I tug on a stream of it. It’s softer than I thought, but dusty and reeking of smoke. There are two small burn marks at its center, staring back at me like ghost’s eyes.

“Would you leave that alone, please, and come sit down?”

Who said that? I reel around, peeking over a shoulder, then recheck the curtains to see if Serling wants a piece of me. It must I’ve been her, but she never flinches, and her face shows no indication of having just spoken.

I head back to the couch smiling. “Hey, pretty neat the way you throw your voice like that.” I grab the remote then sit back down. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m changing the fucking channel. Bravo!’s running Actor’s Studio repeats all week long and Gwyneth’s up next. You’re gonna love this. Trust me.

Plumes of smoke fan across the table as I find my program then gesture at the tube. “Hey, look at Gwyn. Ain’t she pretty? Our generation’s Grace Kelly if she wanted it. Good head on her shoulders, too. Just like you.”

More smoke.

I settle into the couch, watch the end of the interview. Guy with the beard and blue cards wants to know what Gwyneth’s favorite curse word is.

Balls.

Her favorite curse word is “Balls.”

Red Dress clip clops down the hall on stiff heels, her thighs swishing together like helicopter blades. “Sir,” she says, “we’re ready for you now.”

My head jerks at the sound of her. I’d actually forgotten why I’d come. I place the remote back on the table, thinking, Balls, balls, balls... I spring from the couch, bending forward at the waist. The woman looks right through me, smoke pouring from her mouth and nostrils.

“So..," I begin, “thank you for frightening the shit outta me, but other horrors await down that hall.”

She slowly leans forward then does something remarkable. She tells me to go fuck myself, right hand feeding her mouth the cigarette as she speaks. There’s some semblance of a grin on her squiggly lips as she does this, face all done up with TV light like some low budget Jolly Roger.

“Sir!” Red Dress booms, tearing me from the burning side-show before me. “Must everything be said to you twice?”

We start across the room. The volume on the tube cranks up instantly, Gwyneth’s sweet nasal rasp giving way to robotic porn once more. I’m led into a room at the back of the hall, but it’s really just another holding cell. Its interior is sparse and dim. A reddish tint illuminates from a lamp with no shade, giving my skin a bloody shine when I pass a hand over it. There’s a window opposite the door covered with the same hard plastic on a shower stall, making the city outside all blurry and mottled with light.

The bed is empty and sagging, but covered with clean blue sheets. The thought of them touching my skin makes me itch. Minutes go by and I’m wondering what the holdup could be. This can’t be good for either of us. Red Dress looks surprised to see me when I peek out the door, but with her eyebrows shaved then tattooed back into place like a pair of bat’s wings, I really have no indication how she feels.

I could present her with a beautiful array of diamonds. That’s the look I’d get.

I could flash her at church. Same look.

I could be this incredible pain in the ass causing trouble in a whorehouse and never really know the consequences until it’s too late.

“Sir, if you can’t wait patiently, and if I have to speak to you again...” She never finishes her sentence, just points me down the hall and sends me to my room.

I turn away, head bowed, dejected. I’ve made my whore angry and the room’s funky lighting is starting to give me a headache. I’m back at the window, staring into the shower stall, silently cursing the magazine that gave this place a four and a half pecker rating. No chance of me ever getting naked here nor will one of my shiny credit cards be leaving my wallet this evening. My clothes are already starting to thank me, nestling against my skin the way a house settles into its foundation. I better explain the bad news.

“What the fuck? Didn’t I say..? Look, you brain damaged or somethin’?”

“I’m sorry, miss. I’m not feeling very wanted around here so I guess, I guess we won’t be having sex tonight.”

“What?”

“Uh, what I’m trying to say is, I’m sure you have a lovely vagina. I just won’t be paying you to stick my penis into it.”

I start down the hall, passing a small bathroom on the right. I’m angling for the exit when Red Dress steps in my way, flexing her legs in this dangerous, Tina Turner Rollin’ Down the River sort of way. It seems like she’s about to leap forward, checking me into a wall. I brace for impact.

“Look, Boo,” she says, gently cupping a hand to my right shoulder. “We jus’ bein’ cautious, is all.” She’s patting my sleeve, guiding me back down the hall. She smells clean, but smoky. I think she may be wearing a wig, but only glance it at once, resting stiff and shoe polish perfect atop her head. She tells me these are just precautions, that since I’m new and don’t particularly fit any one category, I should view these hesitations as a compliment considering what usually slinks through that door.

We just takin’ it slow, Boo,” she assures me, tickling the nape of my neck with long, curlicue fingernails. I like it when she calls me Boo, as if I’m some kind of ghost who could vanish whenever he felt like it. I start thinking, yeah, maybe... Maybe I could stick around a while. “Beatriz,” this loud, gurgling voice suddenly rattles from behind a wall. “Don’ baby ‘em! Let the nigga go if he wan’ go.”

It’s a deep voice, one that could use a good throat clearing. I picture its vocal cords layered in flesh, packed with cords of muscle, a voice that might play outside linebacker for the Jets, a voice that could do some harm.

“Who was that?”

“Cy.”

“Who is Cy?”

“Cy is I, muthafucka, and you gettin’ close. You gettin’ real close.”

Why did he have to say it like that?

Pride. If it’s not lust then pride or some other deadly sin just waiting around the corner, a pleasure, really, this masculine energy, always having to make no one steals it and leaves you with nothing.

“Close?” I’m saying, mocking Cy outside his cell. “Close to what... Muthafucka?”

‘Muthafuckas’ start ricocheting off the walls, his, mine, hers, but the Jolly Roger in the other room is pretty much still quiet. I slap Beatriz’ hand off me, accidentally knocking her into the open bathroom.

“Close?” I keep shouting, searching for an angle. “Close to the trigger of this Glock? Is that how close I am, Cy?” I start flapping down the hall like there’s something inside my coat.

Beatriz recovers quickly, the great ones always do. She kicks off her pumps, throwing each one at my face. She’s headed my way and crouching down low for leverage. She won’t be calling me Boo anymore either. “Oh no you di’ent,” she says, “No you just did not!”

Her momentum sends us crashing into the wall next to the exit. She’s clawing my face with those corn chip fingernails of hers, letting loose a stream of curses normally reserved for comic book strips- exclamation points, dollar signs, and asterisks. Her free hand starts searching my waist, patting me down, feeling me up. “Cy!” she screams at the kitchen wall. “Dis bitch ain’t got no gun! Cyrus, get da fuck out here!”

I’d really prefer not to meet Cyrus, and I tell him so. Beatriz is currently riding my back, forearms locked around my throat, so my words come out sort of hoarse and raspy.

“No, ah, Cy, really. You don’ need to come out here. I was just on my way out. I swear.”

I’m determined not to go down, reeling back and forth while Beatriz digs her feet into my haunches.

“The door, Cyyyyyy,” I slur, “All I want is the door.” I can feel the veins in my neck start to bulge, the blood racing to my temples. Taking two steps forward then a hard one back, I slam Beatriz against the bolted doorway. The air rushes out of her and I’m hoping the fight has left with it. She sort of clings to me like a bear skin rug after this. I flip her off, her mean little body skidding down the hall.

I’m collapsed at the waist and gasping. Beatriz is actually threatening to get up, but I jerk forward, like maybe I’ll plant a boot in an eyebrow if she does. She stays put, but a long scraping noise can be heard inside the kitchen area, the sound of something heavy shifting in its seat.

“Son, I come out there, you don’t see the light a day,” Cyrus tells me, relaxed, the height of restraint. An eerie second passes where I consider his words, him callin’ me son, and the importance of the light of day.

So I’m standing here, sweating and bleeding in one of Manhattan’s finest whore houses, when it hits me how wonderful it might be to one day hear a tiny voice say something like, “Granpappy, tell us the one about the whore with the crazy eyebrows, pleeeaaase!”

Okay. The light of day. Why not?

I tell Cyrus that I understand exactly what he means. “Please, sir, really, all I’m looking to do is leave.” I’m waving to the blank wall as if he was standing right in front of it. “No hard feelings ‘bout all those ‘motherfuckers’ and everything...”

Cyrus starts to chuckle, a cross between an asthmatic’s wheeze and a ghoulish howl. He tells me how lucky I am that he’s in a good mood tonight, then says, “Boy, you so crazy, you make crazy crazy...” He laughs some more then thankfully gets bored with the whole mess.

“Beatriz... Show dis man the door.”

“Yeah, Beatriz,” I whisper once she’s up and fumbling with the lock. “Show this man the muthafuckin’ door.” Beatriz promises to cut me to ribbons should we ever meet again then swings the door wide open. I can almost see the stairs from where I’m standing. I slip past her, stopping abruptly at the threshold to say my goodbye:

“Hey, change that fucking channel back to Bravo!”

No answer, nothing, until one bony digit rises up over the precipice of the couch like a last fuck you from the grave. It hovers for a second, glowing in the unnatural TV light, then slowly sinks back into the couch. Beatriz, of course, looks completely astonished. We both watch in stunned silence then regard each other with contempt. The door slams shut just shy of my nose. I can hear ol’ Bea fumbling with the locks once again, muttering something about somebody being a total fucking asshole.

My first steps for the stairs, the street, the rest of my life, this painful stitch surfacing below the ribs. I check my face for scratches, fingers tapping out some Morse code gibberish on a cheek. All things considered, I think it went pretty well back there.

I limp through Penn Station, ice cream cone in one hand, slice of pizza in the other, clots of dried blood dotting my neck. I stare up at the board and wait for my gate with the rest of demented Long Island. This homeless guy near me is rousted from sleep by a cop. He’s barefoot and bleary eyed, tendrils of hair sweeping his face when he looks up. The cop behind him is just a slouch shouldered entity performing a task. I hand the guy my pizza when he stands because all I really want is the ice cream. He takes it in stride, as if we’d planned it, like it was my job to feed him and he was going to pass the crust to someone else. I can feel him eying my fucked up appearance as he moves past. He takes a few more steps then stops. “Young man,” he says, “I’ve seen you before and often wondered what happens when you come to my city..?”

He turns toward the escalator on flat feet, folding the slice up to his face, and then disappears around a corner. I chomp into my cone, cream dribbling down my chin. The sugar does its thing, revving me back up, settling me down. My number comes up on the board. I shamble to the gate, dissolving down the steps like the ice cream in my throat.

JB McGeever’s stories have appeared in Hampton Shorts, $pread Magazine, and the Southampton Review, with nonfiction in The New York Times, Newsday, The Long Island Press, City Limits Weekly, and Family Circle.