Lovey Saves the Day
Manuel Igrejas
I worked on the recycling truck for the Bloomfield, NJ Department of Public Works and I got fired on Christmas Eve, 1980. Like the goose I was, I got the holiday axe. Why did I get fired? I forgot their made up reasons, but the real story was that one week before Thanksgiving I had a shouting match with my boss, Fausto Farina after months of his psychotic tirades that left our crew feeling useless and helpless. He had a heart attack that night and all fingers pointed to me so I knew I was doomed. I had worked for the town for five years and for that last month all eye contact was at a minimum. Fausto was mean-spirited, ugly, corrupt and incompetent --and I hated him. I felt no remorse about his heart attack and was disappointed that he recovered.
Pink slip and severance check in hand, I stumbled back to my spare, sunny apartment. Lovey was on the couch, gazing at the small mimosa tree near the front window. She seemed mesmerized. The mimosa had just bloomed and its delicate pink flowers gave off a tantalizing fragrance. The mimosa leaves folded at night. Lovey did not. I picked Lovey up as if she were a Magic 8 Ball and asked her, what the fuck do I do now? I thought she turned her beautiful head a millimeter and lowered her eyes infinitesimally, which I intuited as Ask Again Later. Who was Lovey? Ask again later.
After 10 bumpy years of marriage and one last explosive argument, I stormed out of our apartment one sunny summer afternoon with only the clothes on my back, never to return. One more word from either of us would have resulted in homicide. It was my time for shouting matches with dramatic endings. I hated leaving my son behind but there was no alternative. We loved each other once and we loved our child so we tried it this way and that way, inventing brave new ways to coexist but the fuse had been lit years before and this was the explosion. I was a tall, shaky, depressed string bean. I was thirty years old and I was gay.
My car was like the rest of my life, troubled: a 1968 two door Chevy Biscayne, puke green and polka-dotted with primer. I bought it from my nemesis, Nicky Nardone, star of the tree department and the whole DPW yard. Short, swaggering, with a Frito Bandito mustache and coal black eyes, he was ferociously volatile and ferociously sexy. My soft manner and autodidact’s cultivated voice (I stole it from Ronald Colman) made me as exotic as a flamingo to Nick and the rest of the DPW guys. Nick was married with two kids and fucking women on the side but that didn’t stop him from being alternately flirty and abusive with me, especially after I told him I was gay. There were even a few fistfights that were like macho mating dances and, I must confess, exhilarating. When we were alone he would whip out his big creamy cock and wave it at me--and so proudly we hail! Nick and I had great sexual chemistry without all the nasty old sex, which suited me just fine. The ugly Chevy was the last of the toxic transactions in our tumultuous relationship.
The Chevy cost fifty bucks and when I handed Nick the money he said, “If you and the car last six months, it will be a miracle.” Aww. It was like a Hallmark Card from Satan. Forewarned, I didn’t expect much but I didn’t expect much from anything or anybody.
The Biscayne’s passenger door was so banged up I could only open it from inside and sometimes the driver’s side door stuck too. When that happened, I would slide in through the always stuck half-open window. This clunker handled like a tank on city streets but could sail on the highway. Unfortunately, in heavy traffic with too much shifting it often got stuck in second gear, just like me. For the Biscayne, I slid under the car and whacked the gear back in place with a hammer. When I got stuck in second gear, I slid under somebody and got banged.
Coming home near dawn after a night of dancing at The River Club, the Biscayne stalled at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, coughed up black smoke and had to be towed away never to be seen again.
When I worked for the Bloomfield DPW I could walk to work so I didn’t need the car every day. When I got fired I needed wheels again so I bought a used red VW Beetle in good condition. It was my dream car: sleek, functional, prole wheels with a flair and it comfortably accommodated my 6’2 frame. After years of driving big trucks and double clutching over the sound of grinding gears, the little Beetle felt like sitting atop a pretty lady bug flitting from place to place, shifting creamy gears with my pinky or just by raising my eyebrow.
I was on unemployment so to be able to pay for the Bug and to catch up on my massive debt I applied for a job as a bartender at The Chateau, a catering hall about a mile away. The ad in the Newark Star Ledger said experience preferred but not necessary.
I was interviewed in a small, cluttered office off the main ballroom by Marty, the manager. He was thirtyish, scrawny, dark and intense, like a chain smoking muskrat that had just crawled out of the sewer.
“You got any bartending experience?” His voice was gravelly and his tone was serious but there was some kind of twinkle in his haunted dark eyes.
“No.”
“What’s in a gin and tonic?” he spat.
“Gin and tonic?”
“Scotch and soda?”
“Scotch and soda?”
“What’s in a screw driver?”
“Vodka and orange juice?”
“See? Look how much you know already,” Marty said. “We are in the party business. I want Party People. Nobody on the rag.”
I almost, said, Oh, I’m not on the rag, but kept my trap shut.
I was hired.
After 10 years of manual labor, (5 with the railroad and 5 with the DPW) and being covered in grime, it was nice to get dressed up to go to work for a change. I channeled John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and hummed the tune as I slid on my tight black pants, buttoned my white shirt. I finger fucked my curly hair to get it just right, then put on the silly shiny black polyester vest with Chateau crest on the breast pocket and stuck my fat clip-on bow tie in that pocket. After years of clunky steel-toed work boots, it was a treat to shine my one good pair of shoes, which, luckily, were black. In them, I felt like I could fly if I flapped my arms hard enough.
The Chateau was all glitz and shvitz, part palazzo, part fortress. Its gleaming mock limestone exterior combined columns, cherubs, gargoyles, wood beams and turrets. Frosted gold mirrors lined the halls and white spiral staircases led to upstairs and downstairs rooms. The banquet rooms were all color coded and the Gold Room was the biggest and most expensive. Then there was Silver, Rose and Blue.
The Chateau vibe was part Catskills and part Keg Party, with some elderly bartenders and waitresses who started when Marty’s mom ran the business out of her kitchen in Newark, you know, Party People. They were balanced by a squad of juicy young students bursting out of their dreary polyester uniforms. At 30, I was ten important years older than them, the cool patient older brother to some of them; to others, the suave older man from the glamorous adult who could teach them a thing or two. A dozen or so of these boys and girls haunted my steps and poured out their adorable tales of woe about mean parents and cheating boy or girlfriends. We all usually worked Friday nights, and double shifts on Saturdays and Sundays and in the heat and frantic pace of catering we formed a shorthand that bonded us. Because I’d had much tougher jobs, I could seem comparatively wise and mellow. My young friends didn’t have to know I shared my Spartan apartment with a mannequin I found on the street when I drove the recycling truck. That was Lovey.
She had no legs and no arms and her face was a perfect cameo, with high cheek bones and cool blue eyes. The bemused arch of her pale eyebrows reminded me of the great Noir actress Jane Greer in Out Of The Past and her small head was always tilted to the right, quizzical but encouraging. Her small hard breasts were like upturned vanilla cupcakes. She was bald, which only added to her allure. Non-threatening, non-judgmental, non-human, her quiet, constant presence was a great comfort to me. When I went out at night I propped her near the window so her silhouette would deter burglars and trick me into thinking she was waiting up for me.
I was often drunk and wired after working a party and had to go places to blow off steam. One of them was Doops, a new and glamorous bar in East Orange with a big dance floor and hot bartenders. Wearing my bartender uniform gave me extra balls and before I walked into the club I psyched myself into believing that I was the owner of the joint and was just checking on my investment. It got me a lot of action. When I stumbled home with somebody, there was Lovey patiently waiting. Most guys commented on her but nobody said anything memorable. One guy got up out of my fold out bed and naked, went over to Lovey and put his crotch in her face. To me that was sacrilege so I threw him out and I probably became a story he tells to this day (if he’s still alive): the weird guy with the dummy. That’s OK, as long as I’m the weird, hot guy. When I was feeling particularly raggedy and lonely I brought Lovey into bed with me and her cool, hard form was cold comfort but beat nothing and no one at all.
What did I want? To meet a handsome, witty man in his late forties who was a painter or musician. Someone calm and wise who could fill in the blanks of my checkered education and soothe my frazzled nerves, while being good in the sack. I didn’t meet him. Instead I was a magnet for cute boys who needed a daddy. I was a daddy who missed his son. I met them all at Doops where I could always flirt with Frank, the sexy Italian bartender. With his dark curly hair, dark eyes and mustache he looked like a lot of the gay porn stars of the day. With his big brown eyes and soft voice every conversation he had with me and just about every other customer at the bar suggested an amiable bottom’s availability. No great fireworks but a lovely cuddle. If you didn’t get a date, you felt like Frank was your date and you weren’t invisible. It worked out for Frank, his tips were colossal.
I was a good club dancer and if I started moving on the dance floor on my own I could always snag somebody. I loved to dance since I was a little kid when we went to the Portuguese Club dances and I instinctively wandered onto the dance floor and just started moving. In high school, I was one of the few white boys who could dance the fast dances. The other one was my best friend, Joe Azzopardi, and everybody knew he was gay. Joe yes. Me? Nah! Like being gay, good dancing affects one out of ten boys, sometimes simultaneously.
One of my lost boy playmates was Zeke, who was in school in California and visiting his Jersey parents. He was small and delicate with a beautiful profile, curly brown hair and the taut body of a modern dancer. He was clever and literary and read me his favorite passages from Swann’s Way as a kind of foreplay that connected mind and body. He taught me the correct pronunciation of Marcel’s last name, which I assumed was Prowst.
I met John at Doops too. A beefy, handsome Italian boy with fluffy blond hair and a deep, sexy, voice that rumbled through my body when we lay together. He was a sweet soft snuggle bear. John had a lot of money, or acted like he did. He drove a snazzy 380Z and always had a big wad of cash which he spent on fancy dinners with me. I wanted to object. I was 30, he was 20, I was supposed to be the sugar daddy in this situation but hey, I was poor and hungry and a guy’s gotta eat.
One night I was at the Doops, flirting with Frank. A young guy with long tawny hair and a wide open face came to the bar. Everything about him was unlikely and arresting: green eyes, a noble Roman honker, a scraggly mustache and wide, generous mouth. His red shirt was several buttons open exposing his tawny chest fur and a Puka necklace. His name was Vincent and he was that most prized of all Jersey tomatoes, Italian. Frank liked both of us and decided to play matchmaker, giving us free drinks and telling us what a cute couple we made. Vincent told us he was 25. We believed him and after last call, he and I stumbled back to my place.
He was a good kisser and when we got naked he confessed to being 18. Uh oh. I paused but didn’t stop. He was too adorable to resist and he seemed to know the ropes. His peach fuzz bubble butt had the perfect bounce. Though he was young, his previous dates must have been huge or plentiful because his passageway was generous. We fell in love, of course. I got married when I was 20 to a girl I met at 18 so this was my first romance in a long time. Vincent and I had a lovely time together, he had a puppy’s amiability and growl and when he thought hard, his tongue popped out.
It was a chore meeting his teenage friends and listening patiently to their inane chatter but we were both good dancers so that helped keep our love alive. Vincent was a total baby bottom, which was allowed at that age. Twinks hadn’t been invented yet. Back then, most guys were versatile and total bottoms, though necessary, were regarded with disdain.
One shockingly warm Palm Sunday, we decided to drive to the Island Beach in his big old Monte Carlo. On the entry road to beach parking there was some congestion and the car in front of us stopped short at a red light. It caused a chain reaction of dents and crumpled bumpers. Six cars pulled over to the side of the road to await the police. The passengers of every car were teenagers.
“My mom is gonna kill me!” they all wailed, just about in unison. I shrugged and puffed on a Marlboro. I was thirty. My mom was satisfied with a phone call every few weeks. What was I doing in this scene?
It lasted six months and then Vincent said, I can’t do this anymore. I understood and was devastated. The thing about dating younger guys is, they really want what they want—they think. And then, they don’t. If you willingly get into the playpen you can’t cry when you get poked in the eye with a rattle.
I was lonely and heartbroken again. I wanted to take a break from bars. Working at parties, I was getting flirted with, stimulated, then driving home alone to trusty Lovey. Was there some other way to connect with men?
I’d read about bath houses, saw their ads in gay rags and was curious about them. I imagined them as gay snake pits churning with drug fueled orgies. There was one in Newark. I did some recon missions, scoping out its nondescript entrance tucked into a busy, gaudy block of bodegas and cheapo furniture stores at the edge of Newark’s downtown.
I left a party completely buzzed one night and drove there in my Chateau uniform. I pressed a button and got buzzed in through two sets of doors into a cool, clean gray lobby with a small snack bar to the left and a small check in counter to the right. A handsome, muscular man with gray hair and a gray muscle tee stood behind it, blending in perfectly with the décor.
“How can I help you?” he asked in a soft, deep voice.
“I would like to, um, come in,” I said. Duh. I was in.
He looked quizzical.
“You know what this is, right?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t expect to find pussy here, right?”
“Right.”
A thin handsome younger guy with red hair folded towels in the small room behind the front desk. He wore a black tee. The scent of fabric softener filled the lobby.
The manager’s name was Russ. He shook my hand and welcomed me. He introduced the towel boy, Tommy, his boyfriend. Tommy handed Russ two fresh, clean towels right out of the dryer. Russ handed them to me with a set of keys to a room. Tommy gave me brief tour of the first floor: the locker room, the steam room, the showers and sauna, the TV/orgy room and escorted me to a small room on the first floor that would be mine for the night.
“Have fun!” he said, brightly. “If you need something, sing out.”
The charming welcome from two handsome men, the clean, mellow interior put me completely at ease. It was all so…so…wholesome!
I took a shower and wandered around the two floors, there were 10 rooms on each floor. I was more curious than horny. The rest of the place continued the hushed gray motif and smelled clean and inviting with a nice whiff of man funk drifting among the grunts and whispers. On the top floor at the end of the hall was a big dormitory/orgy room. I heard sounds first, then made out six men in different combos--I reached out and touched the smooth marble haunch of a fucker and my cold hand made him flinch. I wandered around in a happy daze, past rooms where men sat in near darkness or displayed themselves proudly in bright light. It was all a little too much so I went back to my little room and sat on the cot, not sure what to do next.
Tommy popped his head in. “You doing OK?”
“Yes. My first time here so, you know, getting adjusted.”
“You take your time, baby.” He sat next to me and kissed me on the cheek.
I turned and met his lips. He closed the door. I had a boner. He pulled off my towel and went down on me. There are few things finer than getting head from a handsome man. It feels so good AND looks good too.
The Club Baths became a regular stop after a job. You could stay for 8 hours and sleep it off, if that’s what you wanted to do. The variety of men made it fun and I met some spectacular ones. If I wasn’t interested I tried to find a ways to discourage them politely. One older guy stormed away from my door and hissed, “Today’s trade is tomorrow’s competition.” A brilliant passage from the gay bible: the Old Queen Testament. The first time I got turned down was like a punch in the face.
I met Kenny at the Club Baths. He was in his fifties, had a face like a bulldog, a thick, squat body and a soft Carolina drawl. His dark rug looked cheap up close and from fifty paces but his mustache was real as was his crush on me. We messed around a couple of times but then I kept him at bay (variety!) and just chatted with him. He was an engineer with a major corporation and traveled the world. For whatever reason, he was tongue tied around me but liked to hear my voice, which reminded him of wind chimes. When he traveled he sent me postcards from exotic places, thinking of you in Jakarta, Montevideo or Rotterdam in a swirling hand. What he really wanted was real date with me. I thought, why not?
Kenny picked me up in his electric blue Oldsmobile Toronado, the most luxurious car I’d even seen and I thought about moving into it as I settled into its velvety baby blue passenger seat. He took me to dinner at Le Perigord, a beautiful French restaurant, then to see the Broadway play, Crimes of the Heart. It was all very nice but Kenny had nothing to say and when I asked him about his travels he changed the subject back to me. We drove back to my place in silence. Lovey was by the window. Kenny never noticed her. I poured two glasses of wine and then he did me. As he got ready to go, he pulled a box of Godiva chocolates out of his coat and left it on my kitchen table with a card on it. When he left I opened the box of chocolates and the envelope with a Hallmark Card in it. With Love To My Special Friend. Inside the card was a check for $500. Now, that’s a good date.
I unfolded the lumpy sofa bed and picked up Lovey. When I looked at her, it seemed as if she were biting her lip and her eyes were gazing in the opposite direction, trying to avoid mine. Okay. But I didn’t ask Kenny for the money. Lovey and I slept apart that night and the next morning, she forgot the whole thing…I think.
Fade out, fade in: December 22, 1981, the night before the night before the night before Christmas.
The annual holiday party for Saint Mary’s hospital. I was now a seasoned bartender and there was still the senior brigade and the college kids, with only a few people in my age range. One of them was Betsy, who was thin, waspy and slightly older than me and it was a relief to talk to an adult. Smart and frazzled, she seemed out of place among the burly older waitresses and the dewy college girls. She used to live in Manhattan where she had a career in advertising. Her husband worked on Wall Street. They lived in a big old house in Montclair with their two kids. Why was she working as a waitress? Her husband was a coke head in rehab and their house was in foreclosure. She’s was her wit’s end and doing whatever she could to keep a roof over their heads. Using their car always caused some kind of argument so since she lived nearby and so her husband could have the car in case of emergencies, I usually picked her up on the way to The Chateau and took her back home again. We gossiped about the job and she complained about her troubled husband. Having been a troubled husband, it was interesting to hear an unhappy wife’s perspective. Betsy called me a man without a country. I was happy to be a man without an unhappy wife.
She was worried about me, she said. I seemed so lost. She chain-smoked and usually downed a couple of glasses of Seagram’s 7 before every job and drank all the way through if she could get it. I felt sorry for her. She had her demons. I had mine.
Though it was against the rules, I always drank on the job and, when the coast was clear, I snuck drinks to the staff, including Marty, the boss. After cocktail hour we had to go out on the floor and take drink orders. I got pinched a lot. A very drunk older woman insisted I was the newscaster John Stossel and dragged me onto the dance floor. It happened that the band was good, The River Street Cheaters, and they were doing a hot version of Rick James’ Give It to Me Baby, one of my favorite tunes. I was able to escape the drunk woman’s damp, apricot sour infused embrace and do some solo moves. A very pretty girl guest who was a good dancer joined me and a cheering circle formed around us. After that if the music was right, especially when The Cheaters were on duty, and the vibe was right I could wander out to the dance floor, start to move on my own and a girl guest usually joined me. I would look at Marty frowning on the sidelines. He usually gave me a thumbs up. Thumbs down--I stopped.
The night of the Saint Mary’s party, I picked Betsy up at her big old Victorian house. She was in the driveway, smoking and shaking. She had just had a big fight with her husband.
I had a half pint of Old Bushmills in the glove compartment and handed it to her. She took a deep swig and was still shaking. We pulled into The Chateau’s parking lot and saw the red van that belonged to the River Street Cheaters. Phew! At least the music would be good.
Van, the handsome, mellow guitar player, was leaning against the van, puffing on a joint. Though the band was great at rocking out on dance music, I particularly liked when Van soloed on the One Note Samba during cocktail hour, singing along with his deep, velvety voice. At the dinner break when the rest of the band chowed down in kitchen or shot up in the parking lot, Van stayed on the floor and played. He said he liked the way I danced and I said I liked the way he sang. He asked me what my favorite song was. I told him: The Closer I Get to You, sung by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. He sang it whenever he played the dinner break just for me and it made the hectic nights much more palatable. Someday I would be ready for a good guy like Van but for now it was Lovey and an assortment of drive-bys.
I slipped Betsy the bottle of whiskey and she stuck it in her bag. “See you inside.”
I went up to Van. “Good to see you, sir.”
“Good to see you¸ sir.” He handed me the joint. After a couple of puffs, I said, “Tonight’s the night, man” thinking for you and me
”Oh yeah,” Van said, probably not thinking what I was thinking.
I grabbed his bicep. “See you inside.”
“Oh yeah.”
When I got inside I stood at the top of the winding gold staircase for a moment and looked below the pendulous glowing chandelier to my bustling co-workers in their penguin outfits. The older women expertly wrapped skirts around the buffet tables while the younger ones put water in the chafing dishes. I was happy to see that Wesley was the other bartender on duty. He was good natured church going family man and the only black person on the banquet floor, though the kitchen was filled with Haitians that year. Wesley saw me and called out, “There he is!”
Everybody looked up and with a staircase to dramatically descend I was compelled to say, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
And it was a bumpy night. Holiday parties were always the rowdiest. Saint Mary’s Hospital was a crumbling old landmark in a distressed neighborhood and was scheduled to close so this was their last Christmas together. Before the party started I knocked back a few gin and tonics until I had drunk myself into a state of nerveless, boneless functionality that kept my demons at bay--though I could hear them barking in the background. I wanted to get to point where I was just liquid. I did my trick, you know, where I made three drinks at once and never spilled a drop. I kept up a snappy patter. Betsy kept checking on me because I was heading….somewhere. Her belligerent compassion got on my nerves.
“I’m sho worried about you.” She was drunk.
When it was time to clear the heavy brass service plates off the tables, the guys always pitched in and carried the loaded trays into the kitchen. Because I was drunk, the tray full of brass plates didn’t seem so heavy this time. As I crossed the dance floor I stepped on a piece of cantaloupe from the intermezzo. I started to skid and could have wound up under a pile of brass. In my next-best-thing-to-liquid state I turned the slide into a skip and hop. Van saw it and alerted the Cheater’s drummer who added some drum beats, cymbals and a cow bell. I straightened up and made up a step that was a little march and slide that got me to the entrance to the kitchen. There was a drum roll. People cheered and I took a bow.
A short, sassy young woman with a pixie cut and tight red dress kept coming to the bar. She said she danced with me at another party and she wasn’t going to leave without dancing with me again. She had a great rack that she knew how to show off and she knocked back double shots of Stolichnaya. She said her name was Darlene.
“Are you a Mousketeer?” I asked.
“You asked me that the last time!” She beckoned me to lean forward. When I did, she kissed me. Her lips felt good.
“What do you do at the hospital?”
“Admonitions,” I thought she said. I imagined her at work. “You should cut down on your drinking.”
“Huh?”
“Admissions! Admissions!”
My eyes followed her to the dance floor. She was in the middle of a circle of young beef, grinding her voluptuous little body up against most of them.
“You can definitely tap that,” said Church Deacon Wesley.
The River Street Cheaters were cranking up the music before the dinner course was served, one great tune after another to work up people’s appetites. They started with Weekend by Loverboy, then Tainted Love, then The Cars’ Shake It Up. Darlene came and got me and I stayed on the dance floor while poor Wesley covered for me. When I looked over at him, I shrugged and he, shaking it up, waved back, keep going, while he danced in place. I was getting to that sweet spot where I was pure fluid and my feet weren’t really touching the ground. When I looked over at the bar again, nobody was behind it and guests were pouring themselves drinks. Wesley was on the dance floor now and Marty, the manager was dancing in a corner with Patti, the whory waitress with the big ass.
The music stopped.
It was time for the dinner course. We all came to our senses and went back to work.
Wesley and I repaired the damage to the bar and met the rush. This was a hard-drinking crowd and the wine course with dinner was of little interest to them.
“I bet you never saw a bunch of party animals like us, huh?” a beefy young guy said as he grabbed ten bottles of Heineken to take back to his table.
“You guys really know how to party,” I said for the 100th time. It was my standard pitch for a tip. Van was alone on the platform stage. He was singing I Can See Clearly Now while the guests dug into their Prime Rib and The Cheaters were on break.
Betsy was the last one out of the kitchen with her dinner tray. She was wobbling and I remembered that she took the pint of Irish whiskey. She could usually drink anybody under the table but she was in bad shape tonight. I eased up behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and took the tray from her. We went to her table together and she served the food, English style with two large utensils, while I held on to the tray.
Van sang The Closer I Get to You. He smiled at me and I imagined he was, as always, dedicating the song to me. If I didn’t pass out, I was going to ask him out for a late bite, or back to my place. I just wanted to lay down with his pleasing form, velvety voice and gentle soul after this long, ugly day. I wanted to run my fingers through his long, thick chestnut hair. While I was transmitting my intentions to him with my eyes, Betsy came up to me and turned my face toward hers. ”I’m sho worried about you. You know that?”
Yeah, yeah. I waved her away. I didn’t want Van to get the wrong idea. But, oh yeah, I had to take her home after the party. The Cheaters took the stage again. It was time to crank up the music and get this party done. Wesley and I worked the tables, hoping to snag some tips but everybody was too toasted. We were operating on the flip side of my pleasure to serve you: Get Drunk, Get Sick, and Go Home.
But---
I didn’t really want this party to end. As long as I was here with these people, I had a context: The Dancing Bartender. Outside of The Chateau, after this party I was nobody. I wanted to keep drinking until I was barely conscious, then jump in my car and drive toward the horizon and hope that I would fly off a cliff or just evaporate.
The Cheaters were in high gear, cranking out one great tune after another, the entire staff of the hospital was on the dance floor; doctors danced with cleaning staff and there was a lot of dry humping going on. Wesley was bumping with Patty, the whory waitress. I was winded and started to clean up the bar.
Darlene came and said, No, no, no, no. She pulled me onto the floor and she didn’t have to tug too hard. Being this drunk and dancing this hard was the best form of oblivion. Next stop: evaporation. Darlene’s firm body was pressed up against me in all the right places. She had her legs wrapped around one of mine and sent me hot labial Morse code. D Train’s You’re The One for Me, Cameo’s Word Up, Lime’s Your Love. While I was in the Darlene pretzel, I watched Van, wailing on the rhythm guitar and using his deep pipes to drive the tunes forward. His jacket was off and his shirt was open. My vest was off and my shirt was open. The River Street Cheaters were pros and they were reading this party right: it was the night before the night before Christmas, the hospital was closing and more than half the people in the room wanted oblivion.
They launched into Abacab, the Genesis tune which I didn’t think of as dance music. Van was on bass for this one. They extended the instrumental break and poured on the bass. The whole room of tired hospital and catering staff turned into one sinuous writhing serpent undulating across the dance floor. The music got inside all of us and told us what to do next. Oh yeah, this is exactly the way I want to evaporate.
Darlene and I wound up in the belly of the beast. She opened my shirt all the way and put her little head on my chest, then slid slowly down my body. There was a chanting circle around us: go! go! go! I slid to my knees and leaned back.
The music stopped. I fell backwards on my ass. Wesley had to give me a hand getting off the floor. The Cheaters started playing Donna Summer’s Last Dance, the musical equivalent of a bitch slap and the signal to The Chateau staff to get it together and shut the party down, a long, messy process.
Betsy came up to me. She had been crying. “You’re a disaster. You know that? I’m really worried about you .How are you going to get home tonight?” Her face looked like a crumpled tissue.
“I’m OK, really. Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself,” I said though I knew I was in bad shape. Thank God my little red VW ladybug knew the way.
“You should know that your girlfriend with the big tits is in the ladies room, puking her guts out.” Betsy said in that snappy voice, the one she probably used on her husband.
“Poor Darlene,” I said, though I didn’t care one way or another.
“She’s a tramp,” Betsy snapped.
When we got out to the parking lot, The Cheaters were long gone and Van, of course, was not waiting for me.
I saw Patty and Wesley making out in her car in the back of the parking lot.
It was 2:15 am.
“We need to get you coffee,” Betsy said.
“I don’t want coffee.”
“Then we need to get me coffee. If I go home like this I will wake that bastard up, scream my head off and stab him in the chest.”
There was no place open nearby at this hour.
“What about your place? I just need some coffee and a few minutes to compose myself.”
“Um.” I wanted to get rid of her.
“Please!”
So I brought her back to my place. It felt wrong. She was just a woman I gave a lift now and then. Now she was a drunk and angry woman in my house.
“Oh, my,” Betsy said when I turned on the lights. “You poor thing.”
“Works for me,” I said.
She sat on the couch next to Lovey. “Oh my!”
“That’s two Oh mys. You reached the limit.”
“What is this thing? It’s creepy!”
“That’s Lovey. I rescued her from a garbage can.” I was in the kitchen making coffee.
“Send her back!” Betsy said. “And what’s with you and tits? Is this some kind of fetish?”
I thought I didn’t hear it right and popped my head into the living room. Some kind of radish?
“Is what some kind of what?”
“Fetish!” She said in her steely voice.
“Coffee will be ready in a minute,” I said and sat on the couch with her.
“Move that…that thing!” She pointed at Lovey.
I picked Lovey up and put her near the window, looking out. I didn’t want her to see whatever came next. She had been subjected to too many ridiculous scenes.
“Fuck the coffee,” Betsy started to clumsily unbutton my shirt. “You like the way I do this? Am I as good at the tramp with the big tits?”
“Huh? Wait. Stop.”
She tore off her vest and started to tear at the buttons on her blouse.
“Wait!” I said.
“You do it! You fucking do it!
I unbuttoned her blouse. She tore off her bra. She lay back on the couch.
She grabbed her breasts. “How do you like these, big boy? How do they compare to that tramp you were dancing with? Huh? Huh? Are they as nice as the fucking robot’s?”
She was kissing my neck now and pulling me on top of her.
“What robot?”
“That creepy bald thing over there. What about my tits? Huh?
They were the perfectly fine breasts of a drunken woman I didn’t like anymore.
I was on top of her and, alas, I had a boner.
“Yeah, that’s nice. Give it to me. I’ll show that bastard!”
“Huh?”
She pulled my cock out and guided it to her center. Where were her panties?
I hesitated, pulled back.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you fuck another man’s wife?” Her voice was like a guillotine.
“No.” I got up, zipped up. “You have to go.”
“What? Okay. I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry.” She was crying now.
“Yeah. Whatever. Get your stuff together.” I stumbled over her panties then pointed at them. “Don’t forget those.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”
“No more talking.”
I drove her home in silence. No goodbye.
When I got back home, Lovey had turned from the window and was staring at me. Her expression was new to me: her eyebrows were raised and her mouth was open as if she were saying: “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know either,” I sighed. I picked her up, stroked her cool smooth head and sat her next to me on the couch.
I turned on the little black and white television I found on the curb, before I found Lovey. It was on Channel 5 and one of my favorite movies, Swing Time with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire had just started. Perfect. I put my arm around Lovey’s small shoulders and pulled her closer to me. Her beautiful little head rested on my bony shoulder. She was relenting. She knew what I was up against. The gorgeous film pranced and sparkled before us. It was cold and Lovey shivered, or was that me? I pulled her closer. Ginger Rogers sang Pick Yourself Up to Fred. Our heads touching, Lovey and I let their talent and grace pick us up and carry us away from all things insignificant and mortal. On the night before the night before Christmas, life was good.
__________
Though he has always been a writer, Manuel Igrejas is known in theater as the longtime publicist for Blue Man Group, among many other innovative artists. Igrejas fiction is included in Men on Men 4,“Egghead Payne” is available on Amazon.com, and his story “Lovey” was in the Summer 2017 issue of Chelsea Station. His first two plays were the well-reviewed Shrinkage, Kitty and Lina. Other plays: Miss Mary Dugan and Hassan and Sylvia (Best Play Awards at the 2010 and 2011 Fresh Fruit Festivals). Margarita and Max was named Best Short Play in 2013 Midtown Festival. Miss Mary Dugan, Hassan and Sylvia Margarita and Max and NSA are available at www.indietheaternow.com. NSA, was an O’Neill semi-finalist 2013 and well-reviewed in its Stage Left Studio run, July-August 2014. Other plays include Chantal, Doofus, Chair and Pittsburgh! For more information, visit: www.mannyigrejas.com.