Chapter 48
After a moment the attorney agreed. He became peeved when he asked for a sack and Dutchman said she didn't have any.
"Closet Beat," I said, after the lawyer had left.
Dutchman laughed, her d.y.k.e laugh.
Dutchman is a d.y.k.e; I've never seen her with a woman or heard of such Sapphic episodes, but I came on to her once and she wouldn't hop into bed with me. The only fifteen other women who wouldn't ride the banana boat with me were, not to put too fine a point on it, lesbians. They'd even told me so, when declining my favors... One time, after a jam session, I'd brought it up with Chango Chingamadre, and he had said, "Who caaares?"
Well, I don't Dutch...
... She's family. She is a friend.
"I worry about Chango..." Dutch said.
"What?" I'd been thinking of the gig tonight, about maybe going home and taking a nap, maybe taking the old upright and practicing. East Saint Louis Toodle-oo. Maybe something by Bird. I never played more than one or two songs before a gig. I might jam for hours afterwards. But not before the gig.
"I don't know." I gave her that don't-despair smile (it's what she calls it). "Maybe we should get him into Bellevue."
Dutch shuddered. "Cold Turkey. I dunno."
"I do." I had been there. I'm no Ishmael, but I'm no Ahab, either, not anymore. People quit when they are ready to quit. Not before. But there is the first step, and Cold Turkey is one first step, one Nanf.u.c.kingtucket sleigh ride.
"M.E.," Dutchman said. "I've heard a lot about the Queen of Night. And it doesn't sound like a good scene."
"Yeah, well." I laughed. "A wh.o.r.ehouse that does double duty as a shooting gallery isn't my idea of a good scene."
"I've heard they're mercenary b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-won't even feed the girls; keep em locked up, doped, and half-starved. Not even a fridge on the premises."
"But they got a house band, Dutch."
"They're too tight to even have a decent cathouse band. From what I've been told, you hear 'em, and even if you're stoned out of your cranium, you just want to do your business and split. I call that cold-blooded mercenary."
Her outburst made me curious. "How do you know so much about wh.o.r.es?"
"My great-grandmother ran a very popular bordello in Rotterdam."
"You never told me-"
"You never asked. Anyway, she kept a buffet, heaping plates and bowls of erwtensoep, spinach tarts, sateh, plover's eggs, smoked salmon, duck sausages, waffles, all laid out on lace tablecloths... lunch and dinner. And full bar. The Queen of Night doesn't even have ice for booze, let alone food."
"But you don't even serve food, Dutch."
"I at least serve pretzels," she yelled.
"So now you're an authority on the Queen of Night?"
"I have my sources."
"Rasputin." I hooted.
"I have my sources."
I remembered something, about Rasputin. His tour bus, with his "See The Village! An Epiphany & A Meal, Such A Deal!" banners all over it. He always brought them into the Potato Head for espresso and the Beat poetry books Dutchman kept in stock. His name was Rasmussin, but we all called him Rasputin, because of his Svengalish ways with the ladies. Dutchman even had the hots for him. Which I resented. I resented him for trying to convert her. It wasn't her fault-Rasputin had those pheromones, s.e.x hormones. He was clearly overs.e.xed.
This arrangement, between Dutchman and Rasputin, was quite good in a business sense. But G.o.ddammit, if my friend wanted to be a d.y.k.e, then who was Rasputin to lay a bourgeois patriarchal routine on her-? And using s.e.x-?!
He would come in with his chiropractors' wives from Chicago, dermatologists' divorcees from Des Moines, and Rotarian widows from Richmond, and, while they were ordering espresso or cognac, while they were buying Beat books, he would stand there and irradiate her with his pheromones.
I had seen this. Time and again. So I had to make a moral decision. Either tell her, in which case she'd run upstairs and get all dolled up... or not tell her, in which case he might be too distracted with the seduction of one of his touristas to work on Dutchman.
"Rasputin, he's coming today-" Dutchman's a big girl, big enough to make her own mistakes.
"I thought it was tomorrow."
"Remember, last week; he said he was changing the schedule."
Dutchman was lifting the wooden grids she kept on the floor, behind the bar. "I'd better hurry and hose these off. They're filthy."
"Need any help?"
"You've gotta go home, nap, and practice-remember?"
Later, on Bleeker Street, I ran into Raj'neej, an East Indian Welshman of sorts. He always sounded like Dylan Thomas when he talked. Not the Welsh, but the drunk, bit.
"M.E." We slapped hands. "Have you by any chance seen Chango-"
"No." I lied.
"I heard he's hanging out at the Queen of Night's, jamming with the house band."
"Yeah." I remembered something Chango'd said. "Secret Music he calls it."
"... 'S secret all right; I go there about a year ago with my drummer, and I hear the house band, hear isn't the word for it. They stand in a corner, with their eyes closed, fingering their axes like worry beads, and sway. But no sound. A lot of the cats in the room sway too, their eyes closed too. I see my drummer close his eyes, and sway. So I say to myself, when in Rome, shut my lids too. And faintly, ever so faintly, I hear a buzz, a sort of minor chord. There's an odor, too, a vague smell of cheap perfume. But the more I focus on either the music, or on the aroma, the more they fade. And I start to get a headache, like my cranium says f.u.c.k that scene, so I open the eyes. But everyone still sways, eyes still closed, waiting for a wake-up call. It's a drain, M.E., a real energy suck... I think of the Vetala and Rakshasa of India-"
"Vetala? Rakshasa?" I'd never heard the terms before.
"India's vampires, who first play tricks, suck your will, then hypnotize you into doing their will. Then they dine on your horse, or on you-I don't really believe it. I don't disbelieve it, either; so I leave everyone to their individual karmic dances. I go in a room and find agitated gents at the walls, peeping in on some
I looked at Raj'neej in amazement; I had no idea what occult scene he was getting at, but it made me anxious. I remembered the skirt I had glimpsed at Potato Head.
"I'd like to give Chango a break; he's too good to waste."
"Yeah?"
"I've got a gig for tonight; we need skins." Raj'neej was the coolest pianist I'd heard in a long time; he could've blown Brubeck away. h.e.l.l, Dutchman snoring could've blown Brubeck away. But Raj'neej was good... not Monk, mind you, but good.
"Too bad." I almost wished I hadn't lied. But... "He lost his cabaret card, y'know."
"I could get him a bogus one. Everyone else is clean-if we have a junky sitting in for one or two gigs, there won't be any ha.s.sles. He could use the bread, he might get straight."
"Go to Potato Head Blues. Tell Dutchman I sent you."
"I know Dutchman." Raj'neej paused, and blushed. "I've heard-is it true she's a d.y.k.e?"
"Ask her and see."
I was in the middle of the dream of dreams when the phone of phones rang its ring of rings. I picked it up. "M.E., 's Dutch; Chango Chingamadre, he's..."-she fought back sobs-"turning gray!"
"I'll be there!" I hung up. And I was there, in no time. I ran those seven blocks past needle-head Applejackers slamming into each other as they waltzed their junky waltz in front of bebop music stores, past asthma-inducing bookshops and a zillion bistros, I ran them faster than I'd run any distance before; in terms of speed, I ran one-hundred-thirty-second notes, arpeggiated. I ran up the rickety alley steps to the Dutchman's loft, which was above Potato Head Blues. She answered the door.
"Raj'neej, he's in the bedroom, walking him."
"Have any milk-?"
"For the cat, yeah-"
"-Forget the cat, boil some." I hurried into the bedroom, where Raj'neej was trying to walk Chango around the room. He was dragging him over his shoulder. Chango, though a foot taller than Raj'neej, must have been thirty pounds lighter... and Raj'neej was a bit on the Bantam Weight side himself.
Chango looked like one of those El Greco paintings of the dead Nazz, all gone to gray and rigor mortis.
I went into the c.r.a.pper, and found the needle, filled with blood. And the heroin. I tasted the heroin. Looked at the matches. At the spoon. At the matches. And flushed that junk down the toilet.
I then smelled a sweet jasminy perfume, which was odd. The perfume couldn't have been Dutchman's, too bourgeois. Dutchman always used an after-shave. Maybe, I thought at the time, it was from one of Dutchman's apocryphal girlfriends.
And I heard a distant buzzing noise, like a band playing far away, or underwater, on another world. And, just like Raj'neej, when I tried to focus on the music, it faded.
I took the needle to Dutchman, along with the spoon: "Get rid of it. Take it down the alley and dump it." The milk was ready. "I'll take this."
I took the pan. Into the bedroom. "His pulse, it's light," Raj'neej told me.
I heard the front door close. "Lay Chango on the bed." His muscles were slack, his breathing was coming slowly-but it was coming, he wasn't too cold, or sweating too much. I lifted the eyelids: the pupils had followed Sputnik into s.p.a.ce.
"He showed up, and we told him about the gig." Raj'neej was blowing it. "He said he needed Dutchman's bathroom to clean up."
"Go to the kitchen and get a cup. Put sugar and cocoa in it." I got a towel from the bathroom and wet it, and began to slap Chango's face with the tip-nothing hard. No response. Nada. Raj'neej came back with the cup. I took it from him and mixed it with the hot milk.
I noticed I'd left a scorch mark on the dresser. Oh well. I mixed the cocoa and milk, stirring it. "Raj'neej, take the towel and slap Chango's face-" He did so, too vigorously. "Lightly. We want to wake him up, not beat him up, at least not until he's over it."
I drank the cocoa, slowly. It was good.
Raj'neej looked up at me drinking the cocoa. He s.h.i.+ned it on, and kept slapping Chango; it was working. Chango mumbled.
I heard the door open and close. And caught a glimpse of Dutchman's skirt as she walked past the doorway, one of those ruffled numbers a Puerto Rican might wear. But not Dutchman. No, that dress was just like what I'd seen that afternoon, just like what Raj'neej had seen at the Queen of Night's. It had to be nerves, seeing things like that. Then I smelled that perfume again. Chango muttered an oath in Spanish.
"Let's get him up." I held him by one shoulder and Raj'neej held him by the other.
I had taken my coat, which was designed for New England winters or summers in San Francisco, and draped it over Chango Chingamadre. We walked. To the living room. Back through the hall, to the bedroom. Back to the living room.
"My gig starts in an hour," Raj'neej whined.
"We might get him well enough to play. He's not too bad."
At one point, when we were in the bedroom, we heard the door open. Dutchman had returned with pots of coffee.
We pumped Chango full of coffee. And after he had thrown up a hearty dinner, we pumped him full of more. And more coffee. We kept walking, finally deciding to walk Chango down the stairs, down around the corner, to the front of the Potato Head, and inside, for more coffee. The Potato was busy.
Rasputin was minding the bar-it surprised me, the decency of the gesture. Of course, he was chatting up a nice lady. We drank more coffee. Raj'neej used the pay phone to ring a cab.
The pay phone rang. Rasputin answered.
He gestured to me. I went and picked up the phone. I was late. First set starts in five minutes. I told them I'd had to help Dutchman take a friend to the hospital, and asked Lou if they could do the first set without me. It'll be funny for a trio playing with only keyboards and drums. I rea.s.sured them I would be there for the second set.
I was wrong.
The cab arrived and took Raj'neej and Chango Chingamadre off to the club date, in some Uptown s.p.a.ce. They too missed the first set. At least they made the second. And managed to bring the house down on the third.
Not that I'm complaining.
I was going to run back to my place, to get my ba.s.s. Dutchman asked me if I could come upstairs. For a drink. To help her calm down. She was a lonely d.y.k.e. And I was her friend. How can a friend refuse?
"Do you remember a few years ago, when we were still 'underground'?"
I sighed: "Those days were intense. Too intense, for M.E."
She laughed sympathetically. "Yeah." Then, took a bottle of cabernet from her wine rack. "And that wild poetry reading, where Ginsberg showed up?"
"The"-I busted every time I remembered it-"the crackers."
"I sent Chingamadre to get crackers; give him the money, and he comes back with every safecracker in Manhattan."
"And the cops thought there was a burglars' convention going on, and stormed in and broke the gla.s.s window and the mirror, and stole the bra.s.s eagle from your espresso machine."
"I thought Chango'd stolen it, for the longest while."
We talked about other times, and drank the wine, and went to bed. I am not sympathetic to those who subscribe to the Diddle And Tell school, the We Did It In Our Clothes school, the We Did It In The Shower school, the We Did It On The Kitchen Table school. (Nor would I confirm the existence of a Middle English tattoo on her f.a.n.n.y: Brid Liveth.) Dutchman was a d.y.k.e.
The next night we were tearing through our second set, and I saw someone seated by the stage: Dutchman. Dutchman in a dress.
She wore these gorgeous silver glad rags that caught all available light and tossed it back like confetti. She hadn't come to see me do a gig in quite a while. I dedicated the next song to her. And she bought us a round of drinks.
Then I dedicated the next song to her, and she smiled. But no drinks came forth.
And then another party came in. They also sat by the stage, two tables away from Dutchman. I saw that dress again, the phantom dress, so resplendently Latin, and looked at the face... which I was certain had to be beautiful. But all I saw was two emerald eyes that said, h.e.l.lo, and the more I tried to focus on her facial features, the more I was only able to see the eyes, which said, you make the most gorgeous music I have ever heard, please join us at our table, I turned away and caught a look from my pianist-he looked worried. He mouthed something. I read his lips: "Queen of Night."