Dogrun Page 4

  It wasn’t until a few days passed that I came home to find Primo leaning on a parked car across from my front stoop after work.

  “Hi,” he said, as I stood there hoping to miraculously disappear.

  “How are you?” I had to say something.

  “I’m here to apologize,” he began and looked nervously to the ground. He stepped closer so that he didn’t have to talk above a whisper. He seemed to be torn. “You haven’t called me, and obviously something is wrong.”

  “I’ve just been very busy.” I preferred the silent treatment. Sex and then no follow-up call.

  “Obviously it’s more than that.”

  “No, it’s not,” I stammered. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

  “Look, can we walk a bit?”

  We headed toward Houston. “It took me years to realize that sex for men is completely different than it is for women. Sex is a big amusement park, and I guess the woman is the ride. But I think for women, it’s something far more vulnerable, like a way of testing our trust. Like you would’ve liked me better if I hadn’t done anything.” My silence was intended as a confirmation of this. “I have this strange sense that you ordinarily don’t go as far as you did the other night,”

  “No,” I confessed. I couldn’t look up at him. He took my hand in his and kissed it.

  “I’m not good at humbling myself, but I think the world of you. I enjoy being with you, and I was honored that you trusted me.” He produced a perfect rose from inside his jacket pocket and handed it to me. It was all so tacky and wonderful.

  “If you just give me the opportunity, I’ll prove to you that you don’t have to feel you made the wrong decision.” Mr. Hallmark couldn’t have stitched it up any better.

  All that was just months ago, but now, probably because he was dead, it seemed like years ago.

  Numb seemed to be in gastrointestinal pain, pacing, wincing, giving me that awful, wet-eyed look. It had to go bad. I rose, threw a raincoat on over my underwear, slid on sneakers, leashed the beast, and walked it.

  Twenty minutes later, when the dog inscrutably found that ideal spot, it went. As I brought it upstairs, feeling the chill in my bones, I again vowed to take it to the ASPCA before the week was over. It was ten o’clock, and I was late for the job. The subways were jammed, the ride labored. The streets were packed and seemed too small for the city’s swollen populace. After decades of being unpopular, New York was now the place to be.

  When I arrived I was given a new workstation. Yesterday’s desk had been taken by an earlier temp. I answered phones that no one knew the numbers to, and was given a cryptic document to fax to Siberia.

  By eleven, I found the shadow of an opportunity to sneak into an empty cubicle to quickly check my messages. In addition to one from my landlord telling me that I was late with the rent, I received one from Primo’s mother asking if I could call her.

  I dialed immediately. “Hello, Ms. Schultz. This is Mary Bellanova.”

  “The medical examiner called and asked me to pick up Primo.” I could hear her TV blaring in the background.

  “Do they know what he died of?”

  “Cardiac seizure.”

  “Did he say what caused it?” I asked.

  “Oh, he said that he didn’t believe that Primo knew he was sick in advance.” She paused, as though she were trying to remember something. Then she added, “I’ve called the Malio Funeral Home.”

  “When is the burial?” I asked.

  “He’s being cremated.”

  “What are you doing with his ashes?”

  “Actually, I was hoping maybe you could help me,” she said. “He’s spent the past twenty years living in that filthy Village, so it seems right that he should be spread there.”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to do it?” I asked, slightly perturbed with this strangely uninvolved mother.

  “I’m wheelchair-bound,” she explained. She sounded TV-bound.

  “I’ll be glad to—” I couldn’t finish the phrase. She gave me her address and told me she would call me once she had possession of the urn.

  “You know, Primo has a dog. You wouldn’t be interested in taking him, would you?” I managed to squeeze in.

  “I’m afraid of dogs,” she concluded.

  When I hung up I felt an instant chill, a fear at how life can be wrapped up so neatly. Clinging to the hope that Primo’s life—and all human life—was not so close to oblivion, that a person could not be as easily disposed of as a goldfish, I remembered that Primo had a Cambodian ex-wife. I decided that I could tell her about Primo’s death. And maybe she would mourn for this sad man.

  Going through my purse, I located the name of the young divorcée, Sue Wott. I called information, asked the automated operator for a residence in Manhattan, and spelled the name out quickly. In a few moments the human came on and said that her name was not listed.

  For lunch I went to a wilted, overpriced Korean salad bar near work and got a brown muffin and a black decaf to go. The free corporate coffee tasted like army surplus ink. Back at my anonymous desk I was given a pile of pointless documents to copy, a task obviously designed to keep me busy for the bulk of the afternoon. The Xerox machine at the office did not have an automatic feeder, and each copy had to be done individually. Feeling the futility of it all, I grabbed the phone, located an outside line, called information, got the number, and called the Film Archives on Second Avenue and Second Street, where Helga said Sue Wott’s films had once been shown.

  When the box office girl put me through to the manager, I asked if they knew of a certain Sue Wott.

  “You must not be a regular,” a male responded with a mix of pissiness and prissiness. “Otherwise you’d know that she hasn’t had a film here in about ten years. I don’t know her number anymore.”

  “You don’t know if she’s in the city anymore, do you?”

  “She’s a rock-and-roll diva now, thank God.”

  “Why thank God?”

  “She’s a nut. And since then she had that kid.”

  “Kid?” I confirmed.

  “Yeah, about six years ago.”

  “You don’t know who the father is?”

  “No, and I don’t want to know.”

  “You couldn’t give me a clue of how I could track her down?”

  “I remember someone saying that she was stripping.”

  “Stripping?”

  “Yeah, in a striptease parlor.” He asked, if I did track her down, not to mention him. I promised, and he hung up.

  A striptease parlor. You didn’t hear many places called parlors anymore. The word was dying. I returned to my Xeroxing, eager to catch up to my self-determined schedule. The shift supervisor stepped in to see me working at a frantic pace.

  “You don’t have to kill yourself,” she said, pleased with my rapid rate of copying and collating, unaware of my sidetracking. I thanked her, and as soon as she stepped out, I called Zoë at work.

  “It’s busy here,” she said in a whisper. “What’s up?”

  “Remember Primo’s wife?”

  “The crazy Cambodian?”

  “Yeah. I heard she had a job as a stripper.”

  “Shake it, baby.”

  “Where would she strip in the city?” I asked.

  Long ago, when Zoë first came to the city, she validated her deepest insecurities by doing a brief stint as a stripper.

  “What was the bombshell’s name again?” she asked.

  “Sue Wott.”

  “She probably has an alias.” Zoë had called herself Kitty when she stripped. “If she lived in the East Village, she probably hit either the Baby Doll or Billy’s Topless.”

  Zoë’s boss must have turned a corner, because she hung up without saying good-bye.

  I called information and got the numbers for both Billy’s Topless and the Baby Doll Lounge. When I called Billy’s, the female bartender answered over the jukebox.

  “Do you have a dancer named Sue Wott?”

&
nbsp; “Who, what?” she clowned.

  “Do you have an Asian dancer?”

  “China Blue dances weekend nights.” It was Tuesday.

  “You probably wouldn’t know if she was married to a Primo Schultz, would you?” She hung up. I called the Baby Doll. The music there was louder, the background conversation more grinding.

  “Do you have a dancer named Sue Wott?” I asked.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Do you have any Asians working there?”

  “Yeah, Minnie Belle.”

  “You wouldn’t know if she’s married?”

  “Why, are you a Mormon?” He added, “She’s divorced I think.”

  “What days does she strip?”

  “Thursday.” I thanked him and hung up. I called Zoë and told her I was going to pay a visit. Claiming that her life had been too peaceful lately, she asked if she could tag along.

  Thursday after work, Zoë and I met at the Starbucks on Fifty-first and Broadway, and walked over to the subway, where we each used the last ride on our MetroCards and squeezed into the rear car of an overcrowded, poorly ventilated R train.

  The doors slid shut and the stops filed off; Forty-second, Thirty-fourth, Twenty-eighth. More people got on than off, pushing Zoë and me closer together so that we were right up against each other. Tightly pressed together, she asked, “You don’t think that you’re going a bit overboard with this, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to a strip club to meet an ex-wife of Primo’s. I mean, you never showed this much interest in him when he was alive.”

  “He was never this interesting,” I explained.

  We got off the train at Canal Street, and Zoë led the way.

  It was not even dark yet, and the streets below Canal were drained dry. A silent suspense built up in the few blocks we walked. By the time we reached Sixth Avenue, we both felt a bit nervous. Standing in front of the place, I noticed a stupidly misspelled sign that read, “sTopless Dancing.” Zoë lit up a ciggy, so I did too, and we both took deep drags.

  “I’ve never gone into one of these places,” I confessed with a grin.

  “Just make believe we’re the toughest dykes on the block.”

  “Right on, sis,” I said, exhaling my fumes.

  Zoë pushed through the doors, turned left, and went inside. Instantly I felt eyes spearing us from all directions. The bar was filled with chunky, darkly dressed men facing fleshy feminine ghosts—strippers working for their tips. One, a robust Russian, was lying sidelong like a Botticelli, opening her wide marble thighs to show where the thin G-string held back a bundle of pubic hair. Another skinnier girl was sliding and straddling the aluminum poles. In contrast to the motionless male spectators, the women looked like a pair of human animals begging for food. I didn’t think of it as degrading, particularly after hearing how much money they made every week. They were using as much as being used.

  “Which one is Minnie Belle?” Zoë asked the lady bartender, an over-the-hill Latina with her boobs pushed up over her bustier.

  “She just finished dancing. She’ll be coming out in a moment.”

  Stripping was an anachronism. Girls stopped actually stripping in the fifties. Nowadays, they just wore strings and “danced.” We both took stools. Zoë ordered a lite beer. Needing to stay sober, I went with a soda. The skinnier of the two dancers, who was in the middle of her routine, smiled at Zoë. She had almost no body to speak of, but she had an incredibly cute, girlish face and long blond hair. Zoë smiled back at her. The stripper waved Zoë over. I remained by the bar, far too nervous to move. After two songs, Zoë took a five from her purse and slipped the bill into the elastic band of the stripper’s G-string. Some creep hooted.

  The stripper grabbed Zoë’s hand and wouldn’t let it go. A Gloria Gaynor song came on, so Zoë stepped over to the aluminum poles that hemmed the dancers in and started shaking it with the blond. A few of the men started laughing and making adolescent remarks, but it didn’t stop the two gyrating women. Watching the blond lift the hem of Zoë’s skirt a few inches and simulate oral sex, one of the quieter guys started dropping a flurry of single dollar bills into the corral. I knew the only reason Zoë was acting this way was her compulsive disorder to be the center of all male attention.

  After a few songs, I saw a gorgeous Asian girl wearing glossy black high heels step out from the center door. She had long black braided hair that covered her skinny rear. Her beautiful eyes with thick dark lashes checked out the man-infested darkness. She was wearing a checkered blue shirt knotted over a red bra.

  Some boyish lad, who reminded me of a young Mickey Rooney, hijacked her before I had a chance to ask her about Primo. Another older fellow, who looked starched up like a marine, was waiting for her in the wings. Mickey the lad bought her a drink and started to talk to her. She listened and laughed easily, chugging down her cocktail. A big bull pigeon was chirping for the blond stripper to undress Zoë as their dance turned into a slow grind. I lit another cigarette and noticed that Mickey was only halfway done with his drink before Minnie Belle took the liberty of signaling to the bartenderette for a refill. The blond stripper was pulling Zoë’s zipper up and down behind her back.

  “When you dancing, sweetcake?” some half-wit asked.

  “When hell freezeth over,” I replied biblically and ordered a second Diet Coke.

  “Well, considering the weather lately, this might be a bad year for that.” He was cute but young, like a cross between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

  “What do you do?” I asked, not wanting to waste any time. If he didn’t have some entertaining artistic pursuit or wasn’t pulling down at least six figures a year, I was going to abort this conversation in its first trimester.

  “Unemployed,” he replied good-naturedly.

  “How are you hoping to pay for my refill?” I asked, deciding to see how far I could ride him before he would walk off.

  “I saved enough just for that,” he replied. If he wasn’t cute, I wouldn’t have wasted another moment on the bar stool.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three,” he said. He must have been kidding.

  “You got ID?” He showed me his driver’s license. He wasn’t kidding, which shot apart my belief that male lechery began at forty.

  “I’m thirty,” I told him.

  “You look great,” he replied, earning himself one big point.

  “Where do you live?” I asked, wondering how far men came to see these dancing girls.

  “A short happy walk from here.” He lost half a point for that one.

  “How big is your appointment?” I asked tiredly.

  “My appointment was at three o’clock. A complete cleaning.” He opened his mouth, showing off his pearly whites. “No cavities. My apartment, however, is a massive cavity, a lofty space waiting for your queenly presence.” I noticed that mousey Mickey was escaping the deadly grip of Minnie Belle.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to scram,” I said to the unemployed charmer.

  “Here.” He handed me a business card. “Give me a call if you want to go for coffee and talk.” I took the card just as the starched marine was stepping up to the bat, offering Minnie Belle a drink.

  “Can I speak to you a sec?” I asked, cutting him off.

  “Wait your turn, sister,” said the sarge.

  “At ease,” Minnie Belle said to the man, who was still in the Vietnam of the mind.

  “Is your name Sue Wott?” I skipped ahead.

  “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while, and don’t want to hear for another long while. She’s out of the circuit.”

  “You wouldn’t know how to get a hold of her?”

  “We have a common friend, Lydia.”

  “Could you give me her number?” The sergeant was making angry guttural sounds.

  “I’d rather give Lydia your number,” Minnie replied.

  “My boyfriend just died,” I explaine
d. “He was Sue Wott’s exhusband. I’m trying to find out if he was the father of her kid. If he is, I think she’d want to know.”

  “Last I heard she was in some all-girl rock-and-roll band—Nutty and the Sexy.” I thanked her and gave her my phone number. Minnie was on to her next victim.

  The youth I had talked to had vanished. His card read, “Alphonso Del Guardio, Jjd. LLC.” I had no idea what academic degree these enigmatic initials signified.

  I looked over to collect Zoë, but she was still flirting with the blond boneshell. She’d been nice enough to come to this pit with me, so I didn’t want to interrupt whatever it was she had going.

  I sidled up to the counter, where another barfly landed and started his buzzing.

  “Hi,” he gurgled. With waxy cheekbones, sunken eyes, and sucked-in lips, he looked heroin chic.

  “Hi.”

  “Work here?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Want a drink?”

  “Diet Coke with lemon.” He ordered some imported suds for himself.

  This one was strictly in love with himself, telling me his boring life story. How he grew up in Brooklyn with six brothers and a father who took the strap to him if he messed around too much, and how that explained what was wrong with kids today. This was one thing I had loved about Primo. He understood that nobody wanted their ear used like a toilet bowl. As this sad sack talked his heart out, I heard some maudlin Billy Joel song come bleating out of the jukebox. It reminded me of the time I was stuck chaperoning a bunch of old high school friends who blew in from Long Island. I had to guide them around the city, and for some reason Primo tagged along. Even they were having a dull time, so we dipped into some touristy Midtown bar.

  While they were sipping their beers, Primo slipped off to the bathroom, or so I thought. A karaoke machine was rusting in the rear. He put a dollar in, picked up the mike, and started singing Billy Joel à la Sid Vicious. It was incredibly stupid and perfect all at once. The out-of-towners thought it was romantic. I started laughing.

  “Yeah, it’s funny, ain’t it?” the barfly remarked, thinking I was laughing at his boring repartee. Maybe I was PMSing, or maybe I just felt trapped by this insufferable bore, but I found myself missing Primo gravely. Tears came to my eyes.