Jewel of the Moon: Short Stories, Page 6

  He took a long slow drink of beer, sighting the woman over the edge of his glass. She’s a hot number and she’s got class. He could tell good clothes when he saw them, he’d formerly been in women’s wear.

  He turned his head toward the street, but he knew she was still watching him. Then suddenly, he remembered he was married; but he’d forgotten Joyce as if she’d never existed. It goes to show you, he reflected, how things go.

  He looked again, into those beckoning eyes, and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, wondering what in hell he was going to do next.

  She stood up, her body slim, pixyish. Elegant. She walked toward his table as unselfconsciously as a cat, and sitting down beside him said, “I’m out of matches. Do you have one?”

  He stared at her dumbly, still unsure of the next move. He wasn’t a runaround, he and Joyce had a nice once-a-week relationship. Oh, he gave the secretaries a peck now and then at the Christmas office party, but that was just employee relations, and this—looked like the real thing. The woman was reaching toward him, was taking the lit cigarette from his fingers and applying it to the end of her own. “You look like a lost puppy dog,” she said, exhaling smoky words across the table at him.

  “Just having a bite.”

  “Really, darling,” said the woman, in a suggestive caliber of tone.

  This babe would blow the Green Bush Country Club to bits.

  He continued gaping at her, realized his mouth was open and shut it promptly. Her voice came, throatier this time, huskier. “Are you alone?”

  “I’m here with my wi— my company. Convention. World Trade Center.”

  “Yes, I can see how worldly you are,” said the woman, running her ankle against his shin.

  “Well—” He struggled for words. “I find you—attractive.” There, it was out and it felt good and she liked it too, look at her smiling, my lord what a smile, the little girl is dynamite. He felt something move in the pit of his stomach. This one, he suddenly realized, isn’t for laughs.

  “I live nearby,” said the woman.

  “Is that so?” Here it comes, Jonesey, and don’t forget to ask how much before you examine the goods.

  “We might go there for a drink in private.”

  “We might do just that.” He called for the bill. “And the young lady’s too.” He paid them and checked his bankroll. He had enough to buy any kind of show.

  “Thank you,” said the woman. “I have some very good bourbon at home.”

  “OK,” said Mr. Jones, standing up. OK, OK.

  The sun was setting on the river and he could smell the sea blowing up the street as they walked along. The woman took his arm, pressing her breast into his bicep. This is your real New York afternoon, thought Mr. Jones, the kind where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Well, I can take care of myself. Woodrow Jones wasn’t born yesterday.

  Her building was nothing special, but at least it looked safe. He walked up the stairs behind her, watching her lovely slim hips moving gracefully as she climbed. He thought of Joyce, and what she would say if she knew that at this moment her husband was following a strange dame’s rear end up a stairway in the hopes of having a showdown with her.

  “Here we are,” said the woman, turning down the hall toward a shadowy doorway. He waited as she put her key in the lock, but she turned suddenly and pressed herself against him. Her lips met his and her mouth opened with excitement. She’s not a pro, she’s just a healthy American woman and I turn her on.

  “We’d better go inside,” she said softly, and opened the door. He followed her in and was met by a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t one of your bohemian dumps, but a bright, tastefully appointed apartment; he knew something about tasteful appointments, he’d been in furniture for years before shifting to women’s wear. “Nice place,” he said, following her through the kitchen, into the living room.

  “I’m glad you like it,” she said, and with a flick of her finger set her hi-fi going; another flick lowered the blinds. “I’m sorry if I’m going too fast,” she said, “but I start work in an hour.”

  “I’m pressed for time myself.”

  “Then I suggest we make the most of it.” She came toward him, her hands moved swiftly, and the next thing he knew his pants were in a heap at his ankles. He stepped out of them hurriedly as she removed her blouse. Half-naked she came against him then, and pressed her small firm breasts into the fabric of his shirt. He put his arms around her, crushed her against himself, then slipped his hands down inside her slacks. “Why don’t we take these off—” His hands and hers worked together, and she stepped out of her slacks, and stood before him clad only in black panties, and he knew a good quality undergarment when he saw it.

  She stepped back, smiled again, then put her hands into the waistband of the lacy thing and lowered it.

  Mr. Jones thought he was dreaming, saw the afternoon flash past him like a drowning man sees his life. He struggled for words, found none, caught himself on the edge of nausea.

  “What’s wrong,” said the slender creature, “don’t you like me?”

  “My god,” gasped Mr. Jones, unable to move, unable to think, unable to take his eyes off this incredible being with real tits and a peter.

  He felt his mind struggling to shift things into place. The woman was beautiful, soft, classy—but she had a mans ding-dong!

  She stepped toward him. “I can make you feel much better.”

  “I’m getting out,” said Mr. Jones, reaching for his pants.

  “Don’t be silly,” said the creature, rubbing her breasts against him. “We’ve come this far—” She stroked his face. “—and there aren’t many like me back home.”

  “Christ in heaven,” groaned Mr. Jones. He could not figure out the goods and now he was afraid to examine them. There were the tits alright, a sweet pair. But below, flapping in the air—

  Mr. Jones went for his pants.

  “Relax, lover,” said the creature, lowering herself slowly down, her breasts brushing his thighs, her hands going into his boxer shorts.

  Mr. Jones stared desperately at the ceiling. You had to go through with some things, that was all. Or else you look like a tourist.

  His boxer shorts went down to his ankles and he felt a kiss on the tip of his peter. I’m being sucked off, thought Mr. Jones with alarm. But he had to admit the sensation was not all that bad, was, when you closed your eyes, kind of a nice affair.

  Then, with a flash of relief, he realized he wasn’t cheating on good old Joyce. This was just a little locker room horseplay.

  Just a mild tension reliever.

  His knees grew weaker, buckled beneath him, and he sank down into a chair, the creature still clinging to him. Sensations of delight shot up and down his legs. He felt himself being drawn out of himself, weak, giddy. A key executive, reflected Mr. Jones, needs to unwind now and then.

  The creature was on top of him, fondling him, causing his hips to raise involuntarily in spasms of joy. Your New York blow job, thought Mr. Jones, thrashing in the chair.

  He lay back exhausted, quietly pulling himself together. When he got to his feet, his strange partner handed him his pants. “Thanks,” said Mr. Jones, dressing quickly. “Well, I’m off.” He headed toward the door.

  “Come again, darling,” said the creature, letting him out.

  Mr. Jones felt it best not to encourage conversation.

  He slipped into the hallway and went quickly down the stairs.

  * * *

  “Woodrow, I found the most wonderful painting!”

  Mrs. Jones was waiting in their room at the Vista. Triumphantly she pointed to a large canvas propped up on a chair.

  Mr. Jones examined it carefully. It appeared to be made of colored mudpies thrown on a bedsheet.

  His wife walked back and forth, admiring the canvas from all directions. “Where were you, dear, out for a walk?”

  “Yeah, I picked up a bite to eat.”

  “Was it a nice place?”
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br />   “Just one of your Village joints,” said Mr. Jones.

  Fading Tattoo

  Monica and I had known Greta, as you know someone you buy things from—a few pleasantries as we’d paid her for her antiques. She wasn’t really an antique dealer, but a trader in bric-a-brac, none of it very old, but she didn’t charge much either, as she lacked the conceit necessary for the inflated pricing one finds along the New England coastline in summer.

  “I can’t sleep nights,” she said to me. She was thin, with her gray hair frizzed out, and her eyes had deep circles under them.

  “I know a good method,” I said. “A hypnotist gave it to me.” Greta’s watery eyes showed interest toward this exotic technique. “You count backwards to yourself— ninety-nine, deep asleep, ninety-eight, deep asleep, and when you start to drift, you say sleep now.”

  “I’ll try that,” said Greta, then added, “I get up in the middle of the night and have a cup of coffee.”

  I suggested that might make it harder to fall back to sleep and that she substitute hot milk, but Greta swore by a cup of coffee in the middle of the night. However, the next time I saw her she told me she’d been counting backwards and had gotten some sleep, which pleased us both.

  On the visit following that, we were greeted by her husband, a little man who, like many country people, either forgot or refused to wear dentures, which gave a simpleton’s flavor to his speech.

  Monica asked him the price of a bookcase, a fine oak piece with sliding glass doors. They used it to store afghans, which Greta crocheted herself, and it was never for sale but we always asked, just in case. Her husband looked at it now, and we could see the wheels turning. Would we finally own it, after all? I was ready to pay a considerable price, if only because we’d waited so long.

  “Ninety dollars,” he said, with determination, and we tried to restrain ourselves a bit in saying we’d buy it, at once, but I could not help wondering where Greta would put her afghans now.

  I then found a ridiculous incense burner, shaped like a roly-poly little turbaned Hindu smoking a hubble-bubble, his mouth a round hole through which the smoke would come out—so that went onto the counter in front of Greta’s husband, who wrapped it in newspaper; he was quite roly-poly himself and in his own way a miniature, for he was old and shrinking, I suppose, and had, like my little Hindu, been staring into space when we entered the shop.

  Monica had by this time found a strange pair of pink table lamps, from the thirties. “I’ll light them for you,” said Greta’s husband, and we handed them over, onto his counter. He plugged them in and turned the switches; the upright cylinders of pink glass glowed. “They’re from the depressed era. They go in the bedroom.”

  Monica and I made a few obligatory rationalizations for this nonsensical purchase, and Greta’s husband began to wrap the lamps in newspaper. I noticed a tattoo on his arm, its edges obliterated by time; I angled my head this way and that, and then realized it was a woman’s face in profile. “That’s an old tattoo.”

  He looked down at the fuzzy face on his forearm. “Fifty years I’ve had that thing and never could get rid of it. My wife always gave me trouble about it, all the time we been married. I lost her last week.”

  The shop seemed to alter itself around him, a collection that would grow no more; Greta’s puzzle was finished and the pieces in the glass cases and on the shelves were all there would be. Her husband sat at the center of it, as in a dead queen’s chamber, surrounded by her treasure—old jewelry, knick-knacks, fountain pens, and watches with hands stopped, resting on velvet.

  Monica began babbling condolences, her words unimportant, only the tone, that we’d liked Greta, for her decent prices, for how nicely she kept her treasures, for being unable to sleep at night.

  “I’m seventy-three,” he said. “She was ten years younger. I never expected to be sittin’ here like this.” He looked around him in the shop. I was looking at the soft-edged tattoo, of a woman’s fading face; Greta hadn’t liked it but somehow it was her, there on his arm.

  “I see her everywhere,” he said. “I even had to turn my bed around.” He spoke from his stool behind the counter, his toothless gums spraying out his poetry. “I went fishin’ yesterday, but I had to come back in. I could see her there, sittin’ in the boat. We done everything together, hunting fishin’, you name it.”

  He’d gotten out a cardboard box, and was laying our pink bed-lamps into it. “You don’t do a lot of things you should have done.” He looked up at me. “I never had a pit’cher made of her. Snapshots, yes, but not a real pit’cher. That’s what you want, a real pit’cher, so you can have her right there in front of you . . .”

  His round paunch pressed up against the counter as he placed the lamps gently side by side in the box. “The government said she’d be gettin’ her social security check now, seein’ as she turned sixty-three, but it turns out they just give two hundred dollars for the burial and nothin’ more.” He looked up at us. “It don’t seem right, with Greta havin’ paid into it all her life.”

  He picked up the roly-poly Hindu dreamer and placed him on top of the lamps. “She was a wonderful worker. Work, work, work.” He pointed at the oak case we’d just bought. “All those africans are hers, stitched every one of them. She could copy anything. I’ve seen her countin’ the stitches in something and then she’d sew the same thing up herself.” He sewed the counter with his stubby fingers, then stopped, looked at us. “You’ll want a receipt . . .”

  He took out a pad and a pen. “I’m not much at writin’. Figures, yes, I can add them up, but writin’ never come easy to me. Greta always took care of that.” He handed the pen to Monica. “I been practicin’ now though. I go at it at night—” His hand labored through the air. “Cup. Saucer. And you can read it. But if someone’s in the shop and I get the least bit nervous, it all just goes right out of my head. Look here—” He leafed through the receipt pad, pointing at a number of legible pages. “Customers wrote those up. Now here’s one of mine—” He chuckled softly. “You’d never know what’s writ there, would you . . .”

  “Like a doctor’s prescription,” said Monica, and I wished she hadn’t said it, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was done with doctors for now. “Dealers especially, they need a clear receipt, so they just write their own.”

  Monica was writing ours, though we didn’t need it, clear or otherwise, but it was ritual, to be made in the old queen’s chamber, and I too seemed to see her there, watching over him, through her careful arrangement of old photo albums, postcards, and ivory fans.

  We made our goodbyes and walked to the door, leaving the roly-poly little man at his counter, where he would stare into space, seeking in the shop for a whisper he alone might hear. With wet gums he would answer, and Greta would hear a young man speaking, from long ago, with sparkling teeth and brand-new tattoo.

  Victory

  at North Antor

  Paddling students was the rule at North Antor High School. The instruments of punishment were manufactured by students in wood shop under the guidance of their teacher, Hammerhead Hanson. Mr. Hanson’s standards were high; each paddle must be of hardwood, with a finely tooled handle and plenty of heft in the weight. These crafted paddles were then distributed to the other teachers at North Antor, and used accordingly.

  Shrimp Spondoni, a student of Hammerhead Hanson, was presently engaged in making a paddle to be used against his fellow students. He did not like the idea, but being only four foot eleven inches tall he had other things to worry about, such as staying four foot eleven.

  The smell of wood shop gave him pleasure, and he liked the smooth finish he was putting on the paddle. But the soul of the instrument made him uneasy. It would seek him out, like a heat-sensing weapon, and he would get it in the ass.

  Working beside him was his friend Dick Fontana, Basketball Dick, tall, lean, top scorer in the league, a guy who was going somewhere, in Shrimp Spondoni’s view. He himself was going nowhere. After graduating from manu
al trades, he’d know how to make tie racks and paddles, would be able to wire a doorbell and hook up a toilet, and be qualified to apprentice to some tradesman. Since all the apprentice positions went to the sons of union men, he’d get a job shoveling shit.

  But Basketball Dick Fontana would get a scholarship, and would leave North Antor far behind him.

  “Put some thought into your work, Spondoni,” said Hammerhead Hanson, coming by to check on the progress of the paddle. “That’s an important item you’re creating. It’s going to be Miss Lee’s own paddle.”

  Shrimp Spondoni’s cheeks burned at the thought of Miss Lee, the one sexy teacher in North Antor—given to wearing tight skirts, in the habit of crossing her legs beneath her desk, and often seen leaning forward in a loose blouse that opened just enough to be interesting.

  “And I’m making her paddle,’ said Shrimp, after Hammerhead Hanson walked off.

  “Put a heart on it,” said Dick Fontana.

  “I’ll put something on it,” said Shrimp, but in fact he only put several coats of shellac on it, so that it gleamed brilliantly, and reflected the lights and faces in Wood Shop 4.

  He knew there was something disgusting about what he’d done, about the tender care he’d given to the instrument of destruction—but there was something disgusting about everything at North Antor, and even more disgusting was the fact that he was still only four foot eleven with no sign of further growth in sight. He’d have to stand on a box at graduation ceremonies.

  The bell sounded, ending wood shop with Hammerhead Hanson. Shrimp and Dick Fontana moved down the hall to electric shop with Short Circuit Smith. Short Circuit Smith was an ex-wrestler turned teacher. He was not much bigger than Shrimp, but he was tougher than wrapped wire and his use of a paddle had made hard cases like Tony One-Punch Toraldo grit their teeth to keep from crying out as destruction ascended, up through the air, paddle whistling in Short Circuit’s hand.

  He was seated at his desk, bald and scowling, as his students entered. “How’s it going, Mr. Smith,” said Shrimp.