Memoirs of a beatnik Read Free Page A

the men's room.
    12

    February Continued
    Frankie, an Italian racketeer of about thirty, checked in for a minute. "Honey," he said, with his thick New York accent, "is dat guy bothering you? Should I get ridda him?"
    "It's OK, Frankie," I told him. "I think I can handle him OK."
    Frankie went back to his post of hooker-watching. He had two little girls working for him, and one of them was currently on the dance floor. I looked after him, grateful as always for his gruff solicitude—sort of like having an extra-tough big brother.
    Dreamily now, I remembered the night we had met Frankie, Susan and I. We had been walking through the Village, not exactly sure where we wanted to be, or how to get there, when he loomed in front of us, ferret face, straight black hair, and peg pants, studying us with shrewd, heroin-glazed eyes. "Don't be embarrassed, and don't be afraid," he had pronounced slowly, as if the words had some profound, cosmic meaning, as if they were some kind of oracle. "Don't be embarrassed and don't be afraid," he had repeated, blocking our path. When he told us to come with him, we had followed him without question, and he had led us to this bar which had become haven and home to us.
    Susan had just sat down again when the younger of the two boys I had been watching in the doorway—Robin, I remembered—appeared suddenly at our table and spoke to me.
    "My friend wants to talk to you. He asked me to ask you to come outside."
    I wasn't sure whether I liked or disliked the mixture of egotism and shyness that sent this message—was it a request or an order?—into my dark, warm world. The young man standing before me was full of light. I recalled the austere beauty of his friend-the dark Tartar eyes and the narrow face-and I stood up to leave.
    "I'll see you," I said to Susan. "You'll be OK?"
    She took a drag on her cigarette with practiced, seventeen-year-old toughness. "I'm fine," she said. "You go ahead."
    I had a few misgivings, but I squelched them. Turned back for a moment at the archway, to see Robin sitting in my seat talking to Susan, holding both her hands in his. I pushed my way through the crowd at the bar, opened the door, and stepped into the cool, fresh night air.

    February Continued
    Wind, a sprinkling of rain. And a young man who looked like a mischievous pirate waiting for me at the bottom of a flight of wrought-iron steps.
    All he said was "Hi" as he took my hand and slipped it inside his jacket pocket with his own, but his face showed relief and delight, and I was glad I hadn't quibbled over protocol. We walked through the streets and alleys in silence at first, the wet grime of the city covering our feet in their sandals. Cobblestones underfoot, slippy and slidy. Alleys with dark loading platforms, where we stopped occasionally to kiss. Foolish jokes and giddy talk, which sparkled like the rain. And in one place, a coffin standing simply, grimly, on the sidewalk outside a tenement, urging us home to warmth and love. If we had needed any urging.
    We had made it up the one flight of stairs in the clean, well-painted hallway, and into the strange yellow and black apartment I was lying in now. Good, warming brandy, and Ivan slipped off my sandals and washed the city grime off my feet and his own with a hot towel. Slipped off my clothes with an awkwardness that made me trust him. Only slightly more sure of himself than I was, as I undid belt and buttons, uncovering that slim, olive-skinned body. My own whiteness gleamed in the light of that big candle, and the twenty-odd smaller candles placed here and there about the room.
    The brandy set the lights to spinning around me. The brandy and his touch on my breasts. His mouth on mine as he undid my hair. I was kneeling on the straw rug, his cock in my mouth. My mouth was exploring the long smooth lines of his legs. The point of my tongue was tickling his balls, my hair fell over his feet as I nipped and fondled his ankles. He lay on the straw mat with me;