The New Yorker Stories полностью

“One time, when I was on vacation with Sander, I picked up a trick in Puerto Rico,” Ned said. “We were going at it at this big estate where the guy’s employer lived, and suddenly the guy, the employer, hears something and starts up the stairs. So I ran into the closet—”

“He played football in college,” Richard said.

I smiled, but I had already heard this story. Ned had told it at a party one night long ago, when he was drunk. It was one of the stories he liked best, because he appeared a little wild in it and a little cagey, and because somebody got his comeuppance. His stories were not all that different from those stories boys had often confided in me back in my college days—stories about dates and sexual conquests, told with ellipses to spare my delicate feelings.

“So I grabbed whatever was hanging behind me—just grabbed down a wad of clothes—and as the guy comes into the room, I throw open the door and spring,” Ned was saying. “Buck naked, I start out running, and here’s my bad luck: I slam right into him and knock him out. Like it’s a cartoon or something. I know he’s out cold, but I’m too terrified to think straight, so I keep on running. Turns out what I’ve grabbed is a white pleated shirt and a thing like a—what do you call those jackets the Japanese wear? Comes halfway down my thighs, thank God.”

“These are the things he thanks God for,” Richard said to me.

Ned got up, growing more animated. “It’s all like a cartoon. There’s a dog in the yard that sets out after me, but the thing is on a chain. He reaches the end of the chain and just rises up in the air, baring his teeth, but he can’t go anywhere. So I stand right there, inches in front of the dog, and put on the shirt and tie the jacket around me, and then I stroll over to the gate and slip the latch, and about a quarter of a mile later I’m outside some hotel. I go in and go to the men’s room to clean up, and that’s the first time I realize I’ve got a broken nose.”

Although I had heard the story before, this was the first mention of Ned’s broken nose. For a few seconds he seemed to lose steam, as if he himself were tired of the story, but then he started up again, revitalized.

“And here’s the rest of my good luck: I come out and the guy on the desk is a fag. I tell him I’ve run into a problem and will he please call my boyfriend at the hotel where we’re staying, because I don’t even have a coin to use the pay phone. So he looks up the number of the hotel, and he dials it and hands me the phone. They connect me with Sander, who is sound asleep, but he snaps to right away, screaming, ‘Another night on the town with a prettyboy? Suddenly the bars close and Ned realizes his wallet’s back at the hotel? And do you think I’m going to come get you, just because you and some pickup don’t have money to pay the bill’?”

Eyes wide, Ned turned first to me, then to Richard, playing to a full house. “While he was ranting, I had time to think. I said, ‘Wait a minute, Sander. You mean they didn’t get anything? You mean I left my wallet at the hotel?’ ” Ned sank into his chair. “Can you believe it? I’d actually left my fuckin’ wallet in our room, so all I had to do was pretend to Sander that I’d gotten mugged—sons of bitches made me strip and ran off with my pants. Then I told him that the guy at the hotel gave me the kimono to put on.” He clicked his fingers. “That’s what they’re called: ‘kimonos.’ ”

“He didn’t ask why a kimono?” Richard said wearily. He ran his hand over the stubble of his beard. His feet were tucked beside him on the sofa.

“Sure. And I tell him it’s because there’s a Japanese restaurant in the hotel, and if you want to wear kimonos and sit on the floor Japanese style, they let you. And the bellboy thought they’d never miss a kimono.”

“He believed you?” Richard said.

“Sander? He grew up in L.A. and spent the rest of his life in New York. He knew you had to believe everything. He drives me back to the hotel saying how great it is that the scum that jumped me didn’t get any money. The sun’s coming up, and we’re riding along in the rental car, and he’s holding my hand.” Ned locked his thumbs together. “Sander and I are like that again.”

In the silence, the room seemed to shrink around us. Sander died in 1985.

“I’m starting to feel cold,” Richard said. “It comes up my body like somebody’s rubbing ice up my spine.”

I got up and sat beside him, half hugging him, half massaging his back.

“There’s that damn baby again,” Richard said. “If that’s their first baby, I’ll bet they never have another one.”

Ned and I exchanged looks. The only sound, except for an intermittent hiss of steam from the radiator, was the humming of the refrigerator.

“What happened to your paws, Rac?” Richard said to me.