The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin Page B

his breath. “I work two jobs. I can have friends. You want ribs or lamb?”
    â€œUh . . . lamb, please.” It was “world-famous,” after all. “Is your mother cooking tonight?”
    â€œNah, she’s at St. Paul’s polishing candlesticks. She does it every month. Creamed spinach and bread rolls?”
    â€œYou bet.”
    Lasko rose and conveyed the order to the redheaded girl as she filled a platter by the stove. There was something about the way he murmured into her ear, touching her arm ever so slightly, that made Andy wonder about them.
    â€œIs she your girlfriend?” he asked as soon as the girl had left them alone with their massive dinners.
    Lasko made a face. “Why would you think that?”
    â€œI dunno. You were so nice to her.”
    Lasko stabbed a stub of roast potato with his fork. “You get a lot more food that way.” He winked at Andy and proceeded to chew vigorously. “I wanna show you something when we’re done, but you can’t make a big hoo-ha, okay? Just act natural in front of customers. I don’t wanna rile the old man.”
    That was all the incentive Andy needed. The nature of his challenge remained vague, however, until they had polished off their plates and headed back into the boisterous dining room, where Lasko stood next to the hat hooks and cast his eyes suggestively toward the wall. It was an exaggerated gesture that anyone watching would surely have noticed. He would make a terrible spy, Andy thought.
    â€œWhat?” he whispered. “The hats?”
    â€œThe wall, ignoramus.”
    The wall was a yellowish green dulled by years of grease, the same pressed tin that covered all four walls of the dining room. The pattern was the standard swirl of flowers and flourishes, all but erased in places by layers of paint. Nothing about the wall struck Andy as remotely worthy of making a big hoo-ha.
    â€œIt looks old,” he offered, trying to make a stab at it.
    â€œPseesnpukrs,” Lasko mumbled. (Or at least that’s what Andy heard.)
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œ Pseesnpukrs .”
    â€œSorry, I still don’t—”
    â€œC’mon!” Lasko grabbed his tweed cap off a hook and headed for the door. Andy followed him into the silky night, still toting the valise and feeling chastened and simple-minded. Lasko blazed a trail along the railroad tracks, where a weedy swath of gravel and broken glass finally gave him the privacy he needed.
    â€œPussies and peckers,” he blurted. “Didn’t you see them? They’re everywhere.”
    â€œOn the wall?”
    â€œYessiree! All them little curlicues are nothin’ but sex organs. Some of ’em are pussies and peckers at the same time. Whatchacallit? . . . hermapherdike.”
    Andy frowned. “Not on purpose, though? The pattern, I mean?”
    â€œHell yeah, buddy. Fifty years ago that place was a whorehouse!”
    The thundering silence that followed had to be filled by someone, so Lasko obligingly did it. “No offense. I just think it’s a hoot that my mama and Father Garamendi and that snooty Mrs. Snow all sit there and never even see it.”
    â€œYeah,” said Andy without much conviction, since he himself had sat there and never even seen it.
    â€œYou have to be lookin’ for it,” Lasko added generously.
    â€œGuess so,” said Andy.
    Lasko picked up a piece of gravel and chucked it down the tracks. “I don’t care about your mama or the Blue Moon or nothin’. No matter what anybody says. I figure we got more in common than most people in this hellhole. Hell, you’re a lot smarter’n I am. You memorize poetry and shit. You read books.”
    I not only read them, thought Andy, I carry them down the railroad tracks in a heavy valise for no earthly reason in the dead of night.
    Lasko was picking up speed now, building toward something with every breath. “Shake a