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  “Jack-off in your hat,” said Smitty. “You ain’t any better than we are.”

  The Cuban, who knew no English, chuckled at Smitty’s anger and continued to stroke the boy’s muscles.

  “Ow!” went Smitty when the man touched the blue eagle tattooed on his arm. “Don’t. That’s new. Still sore.” He snapped the Cuban’s suspenders.

  The tattoo was identical to the one on Mick’s arm. Mick sat on the end of the sofa in nothing but skivvy shorts, the cotton hiked up to his hips, his torso looking like a stack of shiny white boulders. He solemnly turned the pages of a Mickey Mouse comic book.

  An Englishman and a young American studied Mick from the other end of the sofa. The two had arrived together and introduced themselves as Prospero and Ariel. It was a private joke they expected nobody else to understand.

  “So who shall it be? What about the sallow youth in the corner?” Prospero nodded at the boy sitting by the oscillating fan, Bunny.

  The fan lifted the sweep of hair off Bunny’s damp forehead each time it passed. Bunny’s eyes were closed. He occasionally twitched or scratched himself, as if bitten. His sleeves were buttoned around his wrists tonight so nobody would see the needle marks. It had been two days since his last fix and Bunny desperately needed to make some money. Now that he was here, he felt too sick to do anything.

  “Too runt-of-the-litter,” said Ariel. “Pity doesn’t excite me.”

  “Then it’s going to be our Bohunkus Americanus?” Prospero meant Mick.

  “Will you let me make my own damn choice?”

  “Since it’s my birthday present to you, you can at least let me share in the choosing. How about the foul-mouthed urchin? Like a real-life Dead End Kid.”

  Lou, a fifteen-year-old who lived in the neighborhood, stood by the food and ate a baloney sandwich, hurriedly, in case Mrs. Bosch walked in. Lou came here only when his mother worked the night shift at a defense plant in Queens.

  The Englishman turned nasal and American to imitate the voice of a street kid: “Look at me, fellas, I’m fuckin’, I’m fuckin’.”

  “The Dead End Kids are your fantasy,” said Ariel. “I want something more adult.”

  Two very adult, thick-necked petty officers sat stiffly on the chairs against the wall, looking like nervous schoolgirls at a dance. Carlo had met them the night before at Mary’s, on Eighth Street, and given them Valeska’s card. Nobody knew if they were customers or trade.

  The door opened and Mrs. Bosch entered, escorting a handsome young man in a tailored light gray suit and no hat. Already nervous, the man froze when he saw half-clad men in the room. He apparently had been expecting something else.

  “This is our leetle club, Mr. Jones.” Valeska waved her account book at the room. “Just like Carlo tell you. If you like the Stage Door Canteen, you will luf us. Make yourself at home. If you do not see what you want, you need only ask. Would you like a cold refreshment?” She suddenly noticed Lou, holding half a sandwich behind his back. “You are still here? It is getting late. I will not have your mother coming here again, looking for you.”

  “Aw, Mrs. Bosch. Can’t I stay for just one blowjob?”

  “Boy! Not to talk like that here! Scat!” But she turned to the new Mr. Jones. “Unless you be wanting him.”

  Jones pinched his mouth shut and shook his head.

  “Only a child,” Valeska agreed. “We let him hang about because he amuses us.” She hurried Lou out the door with a slap to the back of his head. “Everybody having a goot time? Anyone needs anything, you just ask. Have a sit, Mr. Jones. Enjoy.” She closed the door behind her.

  Jones stared at the door, then drew a deep breath and tried to stand very tall and arrogant. He stepped toward the sofa and carefully sat down between Mick and Ariel. He sat there like a stone, noticed Mick’s legs, looked away, heard the opera aria and looked around the room until he saw Sash and the phonograph. He smiled contemptuously at the music, then turned to Mick. “You just get into port, sailor? Uh, you are a sailor, aren’t you?”

  “Like hell I am,” Mick growled, not looking up from his comic book.

  Jones instantly lost the confidence he had mustered. He quickly moved to the edge of the sofa, so he wouldn’t see Mick.

  Ariel leaned backwards and forwards, annoyed at having his view of Mick blocked. That forced him to make up his mind. He leaned behind Jones and said, “Hey fella? You want to go upstairs?”

  Jones bent over and gripped his knees, trying to get out of the way.

  Mick looked up and shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” He stood up and tossed the comic book behind him. He slowly turned around, letting the room see he had been chosen once again.

  “I knew it,” Prospero whispered. “I knew you’d pick him.”

  “Oh, be quiet,” said Ariel, placing his hand on Mick’s back to guide him out.

  Mick corrected him, putting his hand on Ariel’s back, then opened the door for Ariel, like a gentleman with a lady.

  On their way up the dimly lit stairs, Mick and Ariel passed Hank coming down the steps behind a man with a moustache and wedding ring. Mick and Hank nodded to each other, indifferently.

  The man with the moustache left Hank at the sitting room door without so much as a good-night. Hank was used to that by now. The house was full of guys who thought money took the place of manners. It took the fun out of sex. Hank watched his customer go down the stairs, then entered the sitting room.

  Lily Pons was soaring again and Smitty, cuddled under the Cuban’s arm, howled like a dog with her.

  Hank glanced around to see if anyone new had come in. His two weeks here had made him familiar with the regulars, both paying and paid. His fellow whores were an odd bunch. He couldn’t say he especially liked them. Each had a peculiar fear or pride that was always getting pinched by someone. It was like that on board ship, too, but there, beneath the nerves and tempers, people shared a trust in each other that held things together. Here, people were afraid to trust.

  Hank spotted Jones on the sofa, staring at him. Hank was barefoot, had taken off his top and wore a sleeveless T-shirt, but his white bellbottoms were enough to announce he was Navy. Juke was right—some guys went nuts over uniforms. Or maybe this guy just liked them big and blond. After the man with the moustache—just Hank’s mouth, but it had taken forever and Hank’s lips were still numb and red—he was in no hurry to go back upstairs with someone else. And this fellow looked like just another useless civilian. Hank tried to save one go each night for a foreigner who might say something handy. Or, barring that, someone Hank actually wanted to lay. But after two weeks here, Hank had forgotten what it was like to be so horny a glance from the right kind of guy could give you a hard-on. Sex was a chore when you didn’t need it.

  The beer pitcher was empty and Hank was thirsty. He went back out and down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “Hey there, Blondie. Was it top or bottom this time?” Juke stood at the sink, breaking up a block of ice with a hammer.

  “None of your beeswax.” Hank took a milk bottle full of cold water from the icebox and drank straight from the bottle.

  “You see the man you’re looking for?”

  Hank lowered the bottle. “What man? What’re you talking about?”

  Juke laughed, high and sharp. “You seem to be looking for somebody. Somebody in particular.”

  And Hank understood. The boy still didn’t know what Hank was doing here. “Hogwash. I’m just looking to make a little money.”

  “I hear you. And you don’t fall in love with guys. Love is for women and making babies. You say. But here you are, hanging around like you’re waiting for somebody in particular. Lena wonders if it’s that dago from the night we was arrested.”

  “Lena?” said Hank. “Who’s Lena?”

  “Personal friend of mine. But you’ll never meet her. Not while you sit pining around for a wop with skinny legs.”

  Hank smiled and sat at the table. “You’re just jealous, boy. You wish I was chasing you.
”

  “Ha! You wish, farmboy. I know you’re dying to get your hands in my pants.”

  “I’d sooner stick my hands in a meat grinder.”

  “I hear you. But I’d brown a dead mule before I let you lay one cracker hand on my black butt.”

  “Dead mule be a step up for you.”

  Hank had learned how to deal with Juke. You played along. Juke’s sexual teasing was as much a game as the joshing Hank knew from Texas or the blunt insults he remembered from city boys on his ship. Hank could play Juke’s game once he decided there was no malice in it. Or real sexual feeling. They mocked and teased each other like two randy straights who could say it all to each other, because they knew they had no intention of ever jumping into bed together. Or that was how Hank saw it. He trusted Juke knew that Hank was white and Juke wasn’t and nothing could happen between them. Hank had seen Juke go upstairs with the rare white man who went in for that sort of thing, but those men were crazy. Juke said so himself.

  The boy was forever telling Hank things, drawing him aside to share a nasty comment or dirty secret about one of the whores or regulars. Hank went to Juke now and then when he wanted a little conversation—or not conversation, really, but the shared noise that passed for company with Hank when he was lonely. He had learned to like the boy’s noise. Funny thing, but maybe because of the color line between them, like a good safe wall, Hank found Juke to be the one soul here he felt like trusting.

  “That hammer’s too much for your bitty hands,” said Hank. “Want me to do that?”

  Juke stopped banging at the ice. He looked at Hank, square in the eye. Then his gaze slipped from Hank’s eyes, the way it often did, the way coloreds back home never quite looked at whites. It was funny to see that with Juke, who was usually so northern and uppity. It made Hank uncomfortable, as if he liked Juke being uppity.

  Juke suddenly turned away and smashed the hammer into the ice. Fresh chunks bounced around in the sink and two smaller pieces flew out. “You think I’m too nelly for ice?” he sneered over his shoulder. “Uh uh, doll-face. You just sit there, rest your peter and dream about your mysterious stranger.” And he resumed smashing the ice, more furiously than before.

  There were moments when Hank wanted to tell Juke why he seemed to be looking for someone, why he was here. Hank was lonely with his secret.

  “And you may gaze at my butt,” said Juke, “and wish.”

  Something crashed upstairs, then thudded, and there was shouting.

  “Whooey!” cried Juke, grinning. “Miss Muscles again?”

  Hank jumped up from his chair and ran out to the front hall, Juke right behind him. They looked up the stairwell.

  The door to the room on the second floor opened and people crowded into the doorway to look up to listen to the noise on the third floor. Hank and Juke ran up the stairs, past the listeners, towards the shouting.

  They were coming up the last flight of stairs when a door flew open, throwing light on the brown wallpaper up there. A naked body tumbled backwards from the door and fell against the wall.

  “You little son of a bitch!” Mick shouted. “I ain’t no cunt!”

  Hank raced up the last steps, Juke right behind him. Juke was laughing. He seemed to love seeing whites go at each other.

  Ariel stood naked against the wall, hands covering his mouth and nose, his eyes wide open, his bony legs shaking. Mick, naked, stepped toward him, stepped back, his hard cock wagging like a blackjack while he shook his fists at the man.

  “You think I’m a punk? You think you can stick your prick in me like I was some damn pansy? I oughta break your pansy neck.”

  Hank rushed up to Mick to keep him from getting to Ariel.

  “You see this?” Mick flexed one arm. “You see this?” He grabbed at his cock and balls as he hollered over Hank. “You think I’m a woman?”

  “Take it easy, Mick. The guy didn’t know your drift, that’s all.” Hank laid his hands on Mick’s rock shoulders and lightly pushed him back toward his room. Hank wouldn’t mind getting off with Mick, if the man weren’t crazy.

  “That pansy expected me to roll over for him!”

  “I pay you good money!” Ariel blubbered. “Why shouldn’t you do what I want!”

  Juke giggled and patted Ariel’s chest. “Hush, baby. You’re getting blood on me.”

  Ariel’s nose was bleeding over his mouth and chin. He sprayed bits of blood at Juke when he sputtered. His pale skinny frame shivered and Juke supported him by one arm.

  “I’m a man!” Mick shouted. “Don’t anybody forget it!”

  A door down the hall opened and Smitty and the Cuban looked out. They had just started and the Cuban still had his trousers on, which he held up with both hands, Smitty his boxer shorts. Smitty came down the hall. “Mick! What happened, Mick? What’d the little bastard do to you?”

  “Keep out of this,” said Hank. “We’re just cooling him off.”

  “Keep out! This is my buddy! Nobody pulls anything on my buddy when I’m around!” Smitty was almost as muscular as Mick, but a head shorter.

  “Get the fuck away,” said Mick. “All of you. This is between me and him.”

  “You can forget me,” said Ariel. “Because I’m leaving. You people are nuts. When somebody pays for a whore, they expect—”

  “Who you calling a whore?” Mick shouted.

  “Yeah, who’s a whore?” cried Smitty.

  Hank had to press all his weight against Mick to keep him from lunging at Ariel.

  Juke drew the man away from the wall. “Time we cleaned you up and got you out of here. While you’re still in one piece.”

  “Madam! Madam!” the Englishman hollered from below. He ventured up the stairs while he called down for Mrs. Bosch. The others were still crowded in the door to the sitting room, hearing more than they saw. The Englishman called up. “Chester? Are you all right?”

  “I refuse to stay here another minute,” said Ariel. “I demand my clothes.”

  “Mick, darling. The gentleman needs his clothes.” said Juke, suggesting Mick get out of the door to the room.

  “Come on, Mick. Screw ’em. Just a bunch of fairies.” Smitty took Mick from Hank and started him down the hall. “Josie? You mind if my buddy joins us?” he called down to the Cuban. “He’s sort of upset.”

  “I’m a man, a man,” Mick muttered as he stepped heavily down the hall, making and unmaking fists while the sides of his squared buttocks flexed and unflexed. He walked with his legs far apart, as if he had to step around his genitals. The Cuban looked pleased as he closed the door behind Smitty and his friend.

  Prospero, the Englishman, had come to the top of the stairs. “You couldn’t be satisfied with a sweet, harmless boy,” he scolded. “You had to feast with a panther.”

  “Oh shut up. You and your lower classes.”

  They took Ariel into the room, returned the bed to its place against the wall and sat him on it. Juke poured water from a pitcher into a bedpan and brought it over. “You’re a mess, baby. Couldn’t you tell that queen treats her cherry like it was a diamond?”

  Prospero took over, wiping his friend’s face with a cold washcloth and chiding him for choosing “the thug.” His wiping grew gentler, his grip on his friend’s back firmer. Hank intended to leave, but it was so strange seeing one man treat another like they were husband and wife, or parent and child. Then the man began to kiss the blood off Ariel’s chin.

  “That’ll be all,” he told Juke and Hank. “You can go. And please close the door behind you.”

  Hank pulled the door shut and Juke said, “What do you bet Mrs. Bosch charges them for each other?”

  Nothing surprised Hank anymore. Mick was crazy about his asshole. Men married other men, then came here together to get a taste of a real man. As if a man were more of a man if you had to pay for him. The Englishman had gotten worked up seeing his boyfriend beat up, and Hank had been with customers who wanted him to beat them, whip them with a belt or even spit on them
, things Hank couldn’t do because his heart wasn’t in that. Were they sick or was he stupid?

  Mrs. Bosch was on the second floor, herding everyone back into the sitting room. “Things are fine. Nothing is wrong. Enjoy yourselves.” She turned to Juke as he came down the stairs. “And what have you done now?”

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” said Juke. “A john got too friendly with Miss Muscle and she tried ripping the man’s head off. But Blondie and I sewed him back together.”

  Mrs. Bosch looked to Hank, who confirmed the story with a nod. She shook her head and sighed. “That Mick. He is all boy. Still, I would throw him out on the street if he was not so popular. So what is happening now?”

  Juke told her who was doing who and where.

  “Always with the horseplay, you boys. Do you not realize we are running a business? Okay, Juke. Back to the kitchen. You have had your fun for tonight. And you, Hank Fayette, make with the customers. I am losing money talking to you.”

  “I just finished with a customer,” Hank said. He was annoyed with the woman for the way she spoke to Juke, for the way she never thanked him or Juke for keeping the peace, for her way of conveniently forgetting Hank’s real purpose in being here.

  “Yes. And he tells me you showed no enthusiasm.”

  “I got him off!” Hank said indignantly.

  “Yes? Well, some people are never satisfied. You must work harder. The customer is always right. We must all work twice as hard, now that Mick is indisposed.”

  Hank and Juke shared a quick look over the woman—Hank disgusted, Juke coldly amused—as Juke started down the stairs and Hank was hauled into the room by Mrs. Bosch, who looked around for unattached men. Hank wished she were a man. Then, when this assignment was over, he could slug her.