Dogrun Page 2
He snapped some photos of the body and asked, “Was the deceased sick in any way?”
“Nope.”
“On medication?”
“None that I knew of,” I replied honestly. His occasional forays into drugs hardly qualified as medication.
“You didn’t dress him?” he asked, a question that struck me as odd.
“Not today.”
“I know this is odd, but when was the last time you had relations with the deceased?”
“Well, he wasn’t deceased when we last did it,” I muttered, slightly embarrassed.
“I just need to know about his physical prowess.” He leaned close to me, not wanting the cop to hear.
“Let’s see, not in the past month or so,” I responded. I was not counting all failed efforts. He looked Primo over. I told him that when I first came home, I thought he was alive. I thought he talked to me, but it must have just been the TV.
“Do you have any idea what he died of?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he replied without looking up. The ME filled out some forms and asked about next of kin. I explained that his mother lived in the Fiatbush section of Brooklyn.
“We won’t be able to release the body just yet, but you can make arrangements,” the ME said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, nervously.
“We take the body for an autopsy, then afterward, you pick him up and handle the interment.”
“Hey, I don’t … I’m not …” I tried to say I wanted nothing more to do with any of this.
“So call the mother,” the ME said, suggesting he had been down this road before. “I’m sure she knows what to do and would rather hear the news from someone she knows.”
“I guess I can handle that,” I replied, not hiding my reluctance. Then a warning light went off. “Suppose she doesn’t want him?”
“Then the city will dispose of his corpse.”
“Oh.” A new thought bubbled up. “Is it possible that he knew he was going to die?”
“I’m sure he knew when his heart stopped,” the ME said, looking at the cop. Both smiled at the shallow gallows humor.
“I mean, was he sick? Is it possible he had some terminal illness?”
“Offhand,” he replied, “I’d say probably not. But I won’t know till I get him on the slab. It’ll all be in the death certificate.”
“You couldn’t call me?” I smiled, trying to play the helpless female.
“You can get the death certificate downtown. I don’t make house calls.”
With his big black briefcase in hand, the ME walked out, commuting to a new death scene. Officer Miranda called EMS on my phone, then slowly rose to his feet, about to walk out the door.
“You don’t want a dog, do you?” I asked him as Numb licked the cop’s hands and rubbed up against his large legs.
“Sorry, but I already got one,” he said as the phone rang. The machine answered. It was my old neighbor, Joey Lucas. I picked up before he could hang up.
“How you doing, hon?” Joey asked in his usual Breakfast of Champions tone.
“Primo died.”
He paused reverently, perhaps twinged with guilt, as he had never cared for Primo. Then he offered, “Why don’t I come over?”
“I think I should be alone. I’m still waiting for the ambulance to remove his corpse. I feel like we’re on our last date.”
“I’ll be thinking of you,” he said somberly. “Call if you need anything.”
I thanked Joey and hung up.
chapter 2
Joey Lucas was about twenty years older than I. Like Primo, he was a romantic anomaly. Where Primo begged, pleaded, and whined his way into my heart, Joey was the only man who had ever rejected me, the only man I told to fuck off, and the only man who sent flowers with an apology begging my forgiveness for not having sex with me. How could I reject someone like that? He was also the strangest hybrid of Old World macho and cyber-age New Millennium.
About two years ago when my last boyfriend, the Gregor, first moved in with me, he got a new computer and eagerly hooked up onto the Internet. We both had our own little e-mail addresses, and for about two exciting weeks we lived little e-lives. Instead of writing at night, which I should have been doing, I got lost in the maze of stupid chat rooms and stuck in nonsensical websites. Roughly six months into my cyberlife, I received an odd e-mail from Payuptime@aol.com. Payuptime wrote, “I located your address through a search and wonder if you could be that little golden-haired Mary Bellanova I remember from so many years ago? Were you born in Hoboken? Is your mother’s name Stella and your father’s Rudolph? Did you live at 1025 Washington Street near the Maxwell House Coffee plant? My name is Joey Lucas, and I lived upstairs from you. Do you remember me? Ask your ma if you don’t. My wife was Rosemary, and I had a girl a little younger than you, Jenny. I was wondering what became of you and your family. I am dying to hear from you and get an update. Please write and let me know if you’re you. Love Joey Lucas.”
What I remembered was a nice innocuous man named Joe, who lived upstairs with his wife and baby. He seemed to know everyone who passed him, and he did a lot of public eating. His daughter was about five years younger than me, so I couldn’t play with her. From time to time, he’d give me a Tootsie Roll. His sudden interest seemed odd but harmless. I jotted off a quick response telling him all was well—“We’re all older and fatter. None of us have any great discoveries or inventions to our name. Mom’s okay, living on Long Island. I’m in the scintillating East Village trying to make it as a writer (ha!). How’re Rosemary and Jenny? Stay in touch, Luv, Mary.” I sent the e-mail and forgot about it.
About two weeks later my phone rang. The machine picked it up. I heard a confident male voice speaking. “Mary dear, this is Joey. I hope my calling is okay. I looked you up in the book and figured I’d give you a ring… .” I picked up the phone.
“Payuptime, is this you?” I joked.
“None other,” he said and laughed back. “Listen, can I wine and dine you?”
“God, I don’t know.” I had this healthy fear of intrusion. But the outgoing message on my machine stated that this was Gregory and Mary’s number, so I felt a slight security inasmuch as it clarified that I was in a relationship.
“Listen,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “If you’re busy or just don’t want to get together, I certainly understand. But I swear this is nothing weird or anything. I just remember you as a little girl. I figured I’d take a leap and ask you to dinner, my treat. It would all be in public the entire time.”
My growing years in Hoboken were a blur. Because they were difficult times for Ma, she rarely spoke about them. Subsequently I had developed an acute curiosity about that duration of my life, and I hoped my former neighbor could fill me in. Besides, Joey sounded so down-to-earth and we would be meeting in public. We agreed upon the Yaffa Café at eight o’clock.
Later that day I tried calling my mother, but I got a traffic jam of busy signals. Since high school, I had had trouble with Ma. It was as though the word hello meant fuck you—we would fight on contact. Our relationship was a three-legged race, and we were constantly moving out of sync. People said we were both too much alike. Perhaps. But we loved each other and were doing our best to get along.
I thought about bringing the Gregor to the dinner, but he was such an uncomfortable, ill-at-ease human, and I knew the encounter would be awkward enough, so I brought my small spray of Mace instead. At eight-fifteen that evening, I took the short flight down the steps, entered into the Yaffa, and searched from table to table. In the backyard I spotted him, an attractive older man sitting over a goblet of red wine, trying to read some in-your-face East Village newspaper in the candlelight. Joey looked a lot more handsome than I remembered, but he was vaguely familiar. He was also the only older guy dining solo.
“Joey?” I asked. He didn’t respond at first. Then as if some delayed timer buzzed, he looked up startled with a big smile.
He rose t
o his feet, tall and slim, took my hand, and kissed it theatrically. We joked, ordered, and talked. The evening wasn’t so bad. When I ordered one of the more modestly priced entrées, he insisted I have a more expensive dish. When I asked for a Coke, he upgraded it to a Chianti. We chatted about our Hoboken days. He remembered a lot more than I did and talked about what it was like being born and growing up in Sinatra’s hometown. He politely inquired about my parents. I explained that my father was no longer alive and my mother had recently retired from teaching grade school. She had moved to Long Island years ago. Although I didn’t detect any sexual energy, he seemed to have some deeper interest in meeting with me. Perhaps he was curious to see how people aged. I found him sincerely charming.
After dinner, we sauntered around the neighborhood. I showed him the Calcutta-like beggars luxuriously sprawled along Avenue A, and told him how I had moved here after college a few years ago. He mentioned that he had a small yet successful collection agency; he hunted down everyone from loan-defaulted students to deadbeat dads.
“How are Rosemary and Jenny?” I changed the subject, as I was presently being pursued by my student loan officer.
“They’re fine,” he replied and didn’t say anything else. When we crossed Fourth Street, he added, “Actually, I got divorced a few years ago, I’m single now. Jenny is grown and lives with her mother. I don’t see her as much as I’d like.” That remark elucidated everything. Joey missed his little girl and was looking for a surrogate.
“Life can get complicated,” I said, trying to offer some relief.
“You know, that mother of yours,” he said out of the blue, “she was a real looker.”
“She takes after her daughter.”
“I’d love to get together with her for dinner sometime,” he said. “And by the way, tell her that she doesn’t have to worry about my old monkey wrench. If she still has it, she can consider it a gift.” He laughed.
“She borrowed a monkey wrench?”
“Actually, your father did,” he replied as he walked me to my door.
“It was nice meeting you again, Joey,” I said grateful that the evening had ended without incident.
“It was a true pleasure seeing you,” he said, and then, to my surprise, he reached in his pocket and took out a small velvet-lined box. Inside were a beautiful pair of earrings.
“Holy cow.” I couldn’t believe it, particularly because my lobes weren’t even pierced.
“It’s just a little something. Don’t worry about it meaning something or something.” If he thought I was going to return them, he was mistaken. I was starved for gifts.
When I got upstairs, it was still early, so I tried my mother again. This time she answered, “Guess who I just had dinner with?”
“Brad Pitt,” she replied, always aiming high.
“Better—Joey Lucas.”
“Joey Lucas, the old upstairs neighbor?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow, how is he?”
“Fine, and he looks great.”
“He was always such a nice guy. Please don’t do anything awful to him,” she said, suggesting I was some kind of sex-starved nitwit. Only a mother could be so effortlessly and mindlessly obnoxious. I sidestepped a fight by saying good night.
As I stared at Primo’s still form, I considered calling my mother. But it was getting late and I didn’t want to wake her up. Finally the ambulance came. Two burly boys put Primo’s body in a large black plastic carrying case, a garbage bag for defunct humans, and toted him away. Alone, I finally felt this wave of sadness eventually interrupted by the realization that I had to use the bathroom. There I discovered, not surprisingly, that Primo had left me an unflushed memento. I contemplated calling Primo’s mother, but figured she’d be asleep. Besides, it was late, I was tired, and the only thing that my temp work really required of me was coming in on time.
After a variety of cruddy jobs, I had finally got my shit together on a résumé. With my nominal typing skills and recently acquired ability not to make sarcastic remarks to a boss, I had secured a nice long permatemp gig at a corporate law firm. Recently, though, that had been scaled back to day-by-day temping.
As I brushed my teeth, I realized that I was going to need a new roommate to pay the rent, so I moved Primo’s guitar case and the banana boxes that he had been living out of from his room to my already cluttered one. Then I did the dishes, undressed, and stared at the bed. Primo had been lying on it dead for the past few hours. I changed the sheets and slowly, delicately lay down on it. Eventually I drifted off to a tortured sleep that yielded a weird dream about peeling a huge avocado; both the leathery black skin and the yucky green meat came off in my hands. The entire time, I knew I was subconciously peeling Primo.
Early the next morning I bolted upright. The dog barked, and I wondered where Primo was, then remembered. I had this freaky sensation that a mouse had been crawling on me. I hadn’t actually seen any rodents for a while, but every East Village apartment not constructed in the past five years harbored the possibility of mice. In order to convince me to throw out all the glue traps and poison, Primo swore that rodents were scared to come out while Numb was around. But I knew the animal was too much of a wuss to ever attack. It was about six in the morning, two hours before I intended to get up. My first thought was that I had to call Primo’s mother, but I couldn’t remember her first name. She was listed in Primo’s phone book under M for “Ma.”
I spent about an hour sitting at my desk, looking over the stories in The Book of Jobs. Over the years and after countless submissions, three of them had been published in oddly named, utterly undistributed literary magazines. During my final year of college, I entered the Portisan Writing Contest with a tale called “From Kmart to Chaos,” about a “sales associate” named Kay who works and lives the Kmart lifestyle. Her home is a Martha Stewart showplace until a gas leak blows it to smithereens. Her entire family is killed, and she is left trapped in her own limbless and faceless body, clothed in Kathy Ireland separates. She spends the rest of her days lying in a hospital bed, connected to life support, contemplating chaos.
When I won the award, I decided to move to the big city and try my shaky hand at writing. But art was the first casualty in the struggle to survive in New York. In the years since I arrived here, I had been hammered down and recut, all the extraneous parts of my life melted in the great cauldron of exhaustion.
By the time I ate, washed, applied cosmetic war paint, and slipped into work clothes, I was all out of delays. It was time to notify Primo’s mother. I toughened up and dialed.
As soon as I heard the hello, I introduced myself.
“Mary what?” Mrs. Schultz asked.
“Your son’s girlfriend.”
No response.
“You know, your son—Primo?”
“Yeah.”
“I spoke to you on your birthday.” Primo had drunkenly put the phone to my ear and made me say, “Hello Ma.”
“Yes,” she finally flickered. “You were the one with the eyes.”
“Mrs. Schultz—” I began. I could vaguely hear Regis and Kathie Lee in the background.
“My name is June,” she said. “My mother named me Juniper—idiot!”
“It’s a nice name, June, but I have bad news for you.” I waited for some indication that she was seated or braced. When I heard the volume of the TV drop, I knew she was ready.
“Your son has died.” No response.
“He’s at the city morgue.” No response.
“The medical examiner is holding his body. He wants you to call and claim him.” Still no response. “If you have a pencil, I’ll give you the number.”
“How’d he go?” she asked, never changing her tone.
“It wasn’t painful, but they really don’t know.” Then, for the sake of closure, I speculated, “It might have been drug-related.”
“He had a rheumatic heart,” she added.
“I’m really sorry, June.”
I was going to be late. When I opened the apartment door, the dog dashed out. I hauled it back in and realized it had peed on the kitchen floor. I had to find the animal a new home.
While at my temp station, I couldn’t help but dwell on my relationship with Primo. It had ended a lot earlier than last night. A few months ago the sex had run its course, and I knew the deadbeat had no place or money, and that he was pretending nothing was wrong with the relationship so that he could leech off of me. What was even worse was that I had let him. He owed me a month of back rent.
Around noon, I checked my messages and found two new calls, one from Zoë and the other from my old roommate in college, Emily, who informed me that in a few weeks her band would be performing at Brownies. She had come to New York with a Bonnie Raitt fixation, traded her pickup truck for an electric guitar, and decided to be a rocker. She was a bass player in an all-chicks country-western band, Crapped Out Cowgirls. Since I had dabbled with the guitar in college, when we both wound up in the city Emily riddled my machine with musical questions I couldn’t answer. I would bump into her steadily about three times a month. Each time she belonged to a different band: the Fuddy Duddies, Untenable Positions, and Yo Mama. The dislocated troubadours of the East Village were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle eternally reconfiguring themselves into ever newer bands. I dialed Zoë and asked her if she could guess what I had in common with 65 percent of New York and 40 percent of America.
“You’re severely depressed?”
“Not severely. That’s only six percent of America.” I got all my stats from Cosmo.
“You’re illiterate and suffer from voter apathy?”
“Yes, but I’m also single.”
“Primo dumped you?” She sounded truly shocked.
“Not really.” A question I had from yesterday popped into my head. “What color lipstick did you have on the other night at Void?”