wasn’t allowed to go walking, he had to stay cooped up all summer in Mr. Stein’s building with Bones the living skeleton and Stretcho the human pretzel; and Marvin Dobbs whose face was carved down the middle as if with an axe, leaving him two foreheads, two noses, two mouths; and Abigail Alicia, the World’s Most Illustrated Woman, who was covered every inch in biblical scenes, Noah’s Ark marching two by two up her spine, Lazarus rising on one thigh and the walls of Jericho tumbling on the other, Lucifer cast out of her navel, Moses sermonizing above her mount. Between her breasts the tattoo read
My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices
, but over the cleft of her ass when she turned her back to scratch it said:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, we remembered Zion
.
All over the house there were women hungry to feed him. Some gave him cookies, some candies, some cake. Even Oceana gave him Snickers and let him watch her in her bath, the woman had nipples like baby’s thumbs.
The room where Oceana lived with his Cousin Humberto was set up like a gym with barbells and exercise machines, and when Humberto came home from whipping on the Wall of Death, he lifted weights in bikini shorts, his shaved body all oiled and greased, the Yankees on the radio, and the wild horses rearing and plunging, careening out of control. Some nights he’d gentle them and stroke their manes, let them nuzzle his hand, and others he’d ride them straight into walls, it all depended on what pills he’d took, and how Reggie Jackson did.
After he was gone a snail’s trail of suntan lotion marked every place he’d passed, and Oceana sat drinking tea in an old bathrobe, sewing sequins on padded bathing suits for the Traverse Triplets, while Abel Bonder threw knives at the wall.
This man had a withered right hand. According to Oceana he had been a star years back, one of the biggest names in the business, but he’d had an accident or something, anyway his hand was ruined, and now he had to relearn his trade, teach himself to throw lefty. A squit of a man always in a fresh-pressed black suit and black tie, black shoes shined to mirrors, he looked like a mortician, and all day long he threw knives in different patterns, a fan, a pyramid, sometimes a heart. But the blades never seemed to fly right. Instead of hitting the target solid, they fluttered and scrabbled, dying quails, with the radio tuned to
Make-Believe Ballroom
, all these sappy old songs like one great sigh,
Mona Lisa
and
Deep Purple
and
Stardust
, and Willie sitting in the window, stuck.
On the table next to him was a bottle of Spanish brandy with a picture of a courtyard in old Seville, a red lantern in an orange tree, a young gypsy girl with a fan and combs in her hair sipping from a crystal goblet, and a masked caballero in a swirling cape leaning over her, proffering a blood-red rose.
There must have been a gimmick or maybe fluorescent paint in the label, some trick like that. At any rate, when Oceana got to drinking and the liquor level fell, the whole courtyard lit up, the lantern glowed, the gypsy’s fan seemed to flicker and dance, the red rose turned to flame.
And Able Bonder handed Willie his knives. Showed him how to hold them, how to sight and aim.
A natural
, Abel Bonder called him. Then the man went out for a walk and didn’t come back alive. The knives were orphaned.
By rights they should have been Willie’s, that’s what the deceased would have wished, but Mr. Stein took them in lieuof rent. Just because he was the man he was. A blinded jackdaw who hoarded every souvenir he could lay hands on, the bearded lady’s shavings, flakes and scabs from the lizardskin boy, he plain couldn’t bear to be parted. So he garnished Abel Bonder’s blades, and locked them in his safe, and soon the season ended.
Marvin Dobbs and Abigail Alicia transferred to Florida, Oceana took a job at Nathan’s. Then nobody drank from the
My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices
, but over the cleft of her ass when she turned her back to scratch it said:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, we remembered Zion
.
All over the house there were women hungry to feed him. Some gave him cookies, some candies, some cake. Even Oceana gave him Snickers and let him watch her in her bath, the woman had nipples like baby’s thumbs.
The room where Oceana lived with his Cousin Humberto was set up like a gym with barbells and exercise machines, and when Humberto came home from whipping on the Wall of Death, he lifted weights in bikini shorts, his shaved body all oiled and greased, the Yankees on the radio, and the wild horses rearing and plunging, careening out of control. Some nights he’d gentle them and stroke their manes, let them nuzzle his hand, and others he’d ride them straight into walls, it all depended on what pills he’d took, and how Reggie Jackson did.
After he was gone a snail’s trail of suntan lotion marked every place he’d passed, and Oceana sat drinking tea in an old bathrobe, sewing sequins on padded bathing suits for the Traverse Triplets, while Abel Bonder threw knives at the wall.
This man had a withered right hand. According to Oceana he had been a star years back, one of the biggest names in the business, but he’d had an accident or something, anyway his hand was ruined, and now he had to relearn his trade, teach himself to throw lefty. A squit of a man always in a fresh-pressed black suit and black tie, black shoes shined to mirrors, he looked like a mortician, and all day long he threw knives in different patterns, a fan, a pyramid, sometimes a heart. But the blades never seemed to fly right. Instead of hitting the target solid, they fluttered and scrabbled, dying quails, with the radio tuned to
Make-Believe Ballroom
, all these sappy old songs like one great sigh,
Mona Lisa
and
Deep Purple
and
Stardust
, and Willie sitting in the window, stuck.
On the table next to him was a bottle of Spanish brandy with a picture of a courtyard in old Seville, a red lantern in an orange tree, a young gypsy girl with a fan and combs in her hair sipping from a crystal goblet, and a masked caballero in a swirling cape leaning over her, proffering a blood-red rose.
There must have been a gimmick or maybe fluorescent paint in the label, some trick like that. At any rate, when Oceana got to drinking and the liquor level fell, the whole courtyard lit up, the lantern glowed, the gypsy’s fan seemed to flicker and dance, the red rose turned to flame.
And Able Bonder handed Willie his knives. Showed him how to hold them, how to sight and aim.
A natural
, Abel Bonder called him. Then the man went out for a walk and didn’t come back alive. The knives were orphaned.
By rights they should have been Willie’s, that’s what the deceased would have wished, but Mr. Stein took them in lieuof rent. Just because he was the man he was. A blinded jackdaw who hoarded every souvenir he could lay hands on, the bearded lady’s shavings, flakes and scabs from the lizardskin boy, he plain couldn’t bear to be parted. So he garnished Abel Bonder’s blades, and locked them in his safe, and soon the season ended.
Marvin Dobbs and Abigail Alicia transferred to Florida, Oceana took a job at Nathan’s. Then nobody drank from the
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