I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek Page B

mercury vapor lights bring the bugs and the bugs bring the birds. Supposed to cut down muggings. Or at least line the pockets of a few contractors. I had to buy fucking venetian blinds to sleep.”
    â€œYou need earplugs, too,” Marisol said. She rose from the dark bed and crossed through the streaky bluish beams, then raised the blinds. The glare bestowed on her bare body the luster of a statue. “Liking the view in the vapor lights?” she asked. “Ever think of a window as an erogenous zone?”
    â€œAlways the exhibitionist,” Joe said. “But why not? You’re beautiful as a statue.”
    â€œStatues are by nature exhibitionists, even when they’ve lost their arms or boobs or penises. Where’s your mirror? I want to watch statues doing it in mercury vapor.”
    â€œNo mirror.”
    â€œYou don’t have a mirror? Don’t tell me—it’s at the Chink’s.”

    â€œIt’s in the alley.”
    â€œThat’s a novel place to keep it. I may be an exhibitionist but I’m not going to screw in the alley.”
    â€œIt’s broken.”
    â€œSeven years’ bad luck, Joe. Poor unlucky bloke doesn’t get to watch the statues with their shameless minds.”
    â€œ Allora !” Joe said. “It’s not that broke.”
    He went down the back stairs into the alley. The mirror was still where he’d set it beside a trash can. April’s morning-glory dress was gone; some size-six bag lady must have had a lucky day. The mirror no longer appeared to be cracked, as if it had healed itself. It reflected an arc light. Nighthawks screeched. No one was playing an accordion in the alley, not that Joe thought there would be, but he could still hear it, a song he’d heard as a child, something about blackbirds doing the tango that his grandpa played on Sundays when he’d accompany scratchy 78s on his red accordion. Joe listened, trying to identify the open window from which the song wafted. Every window was dark. The music was coming from his window. He saw the flare of a lighter, and a silhouette with its head at an awkward angle, gazing silently down at him.
    Marisol was still at the window, smoking a reefer, her back to him, when he returned to the room. “You didn’t get mugged. See, those new streetlights must be doing their job,” she said.
    He propped the mirror against the wall.
    â€œI’ll share,” she said, and exhaled smoke into his mouth. He felt her breath smoldering along the corridors of his mind. She handed him the reefer, and the crackle of paper as he inhaled echoed off the ceiling. “That paper’s soaked in hash oil,” she said. The accordion pumped louder, as if it tangoed in the next room. Lyrics surfaced in his mind and dissolved back into melody. “ E nell’oscurita ognuno vuol godere … in the darkness everyone wants pleasure.” When he opened his eyes, he could see in the dark.
“L’amor non sa tacere … love can’t keep silent …” She was in his arms, and he smoothed his hands over her shoulders, down her spine, over her hips, lingering on and parting the cheeks of her sculpted ass.
    â€œHave any oil?” she whispered.
    â€œWhat kind of oil?”
    â€œLike you don’t want me that way. Almond oil, baby oil, bath oil, Oil of Olay, Vaseline if that’s all you got.”
    â€œHoppe’s Number Nine,” he said.
    â€œThat’s a new one on me.”
    He gestured with the reefer to the bottle in the ashtray next to the Old Spice on the bureau top. She picked it up and sniffed. By the lighter’s flame, she read the label aloud: “‘Do not swallow. Solvent frees gun bores of corrosive primer fouling and residue. Preserves accuracy.’ Jesus, Joe! Don’t you have some good, old-fashioned olive oil? What-a kinda Day-Glo are you?”
    â€œMaybe in the kitchen,” Joe said.
    Brandishing