Chimney Stacks

A man stands in front of the window of a darkened restaurant. Sage is on Park Avenue South, between twenty fourth and fifth streets, and it has been closed for a period of years. The man leans forward and looks inside. The tables are set with table cloths and salt and pepper shakers. The bar is still stocked, and there is a large bouquet of dead flowers on the sill of the window, beneath the painted name. The restaurant has remained unchanged since the man first noticed it a year ago, and he makes a point to pass by at least once a week and peer in. Can it be that the salts and peppers occasionally switch sides? Or does the man negate the colors in his mind? He looks at his reflection in the window. The face is obscured but the line of his hair is as it should be, and the drape of his suit is perfect, as ever. He carries no wallet, nor cell phone, nor identification; his suit bears no maker's mark. There are ten one hundred dollar bills in his left trouser pocket and out of the right he pulls a rectangular piece of malachite. Green and smooth in his hand, he caresses it with his thumb. This empty restaurant is the one constant for him in the city. His name is not Avery Green.

Green steps into the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis. It's not very busy yet and he orders a negroni. Later, a woman stands next to him at the bar, waiting for the bartender's attention. Blond with a Jean Seberg haircut and glassy blue doll's eyes. She glances at Green.
"Are you drinking a Cosmo?" She smiles, playfully insulting.
"A negroni. What are you having? Let me get it for you."
She waves him away. "I have an account. Do you want another one of those?"
"Thank you."
"Didn't you go to Francis Xavier?"
"School was forever ago, wasn't it? You were friends with Charles Brennan, I think."
Charles Brennan doesn't exist. She looks doubtfully at him.
"I think so! For like a semester or something. Sorry, Natalie Edgewater."
"Wonderful to see you again."

Now Green is with them. A large group of what may be considered bright young things. Their money is too old for them to appear in the tabloids, but the generic face is to be seen all over New York. They aren't too polite to say they don't know him, they simply don't care. He's someone new to talk to, and possibly attended school with some of them. They drink at the King Cole until nearly two. Natalie closes the tab to her account. They descend on the street.

Natalie's townhouse is on ninety first street between Park and Madison Avenues. Five stories of lighted windows and music. Everyone from the bar and more arrive before them. Green is affable and charming. He drifts through clots of people in living rooms, libraries, and various kitchens. He has no discernible accent except to say, if anyone thinks about it, which they don't, that he's definitely American. Natalie keeps him in sight for the most part, disappearing occasionally into rooms with friends, closing doors behind her. She emerges bright eyed and pale faced.

Natalie and Green are in her father's study.
"He's never here anymore," Natalie says. "The family wants to sell the place. They spend most of the time in Connecticut these days."
"It's very pretty up there."
"It's so boring!" Natalie looks at Green, behind the desk. She comes around the desk and pulls at his tie. "Don't you want to loosen that up? It's been a long day."
Her pulling the tie tightens the knot. It's uncomfortable and makes the knot look bad. It's irritating. Green turns and subtly adjusts it. He cocks his head at a photograph, there is a platinum Dunhill lighter next to it with the engraved initials A.E.
"Is that your father?"
"Yeah, that's him. That's when he was running for Congress. He was one of the Democratic candidates in our district. Gore Vidal was the other."
"I remember he ran."
"Yeah, well. Vidal beat him. So he became friends with Mailer and published a book of his poems."
"Oh, I don't think I've run across that one."
"You wouldn't. Dad had a little vanity press."

Green asks where the nearest bathroom is. Hers, she says. Just two doors down the hall. To the right after you enter the bedroom. Green stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom. There is a pink toothbrush with some wear in a cup next to the sink. He brushes his teeth with it, dries it on a towel and puts it back exactly where it was. He wipes out the sink and suddenly smiles at himself in the mirror.

Natalie is waiting for him in the bedroom. They're at an impasse. With nothing else to say, she looks at his shoes.
"Those are nice. Sturdy."
"They're brogues."
"Allen Edmonds."
"What?"
"Banker's shoes."
"These are very nice shoes."
She's been crossing the room to him. She smooths his lapel. It doesn't need smoothening. He lets his hand rest on her throat. He can feel her pulse and her breathing. The music is quieter now, the people are beginning to leave.
"It's morning," he says.
"You can stay here if you want."
"Thanks. I'll just sleep on a couch."
She laughs, embarrassed, taken aback. "Or here." He's very close, leaning into her. "Where are you from?" she asks.
"I'm from here." He kisses her.

Later, Green has found a room with a suit caddy. Green presses his pants and showers with the suit jacket on a hanger in the bathroom to steam. After the shower he brushes out any wrinkles in the elbows and the seat and dresses.

The large house is silent as Green makes his way down the hall toward the study. His walk is businesslike, the floorboards creak. At the picture of Natalie's father, he pulls the rectangular piece of malachite out of his right pocket. It's a little dull and smudged and Green polishes it on his shirt. He picks up the platinum Dunhill lighter and replaces it exactly with the malachite before the picture. The lighter goes into his right trouser pocket and he leaves.

* *

Avery Green stands outside the Pegu Club on Houston Street. A young woman comes out of the bar, a cigarette in her hand. She looks around her and catches Green's eye. He pulls out his lighter and flicks the side striking bar. She notices the initials.
"Nice lighter."
"Thanks."
"What are the initials for?"
"My name."
There is a long pause.
"Well, what is it, stupid?" she asks and laughs.
"Allen Edmonds," says Green, laughing as well. "Like the shoemaker."

Quiet XES

A tall girl was breaking up with her boyfriend on the phone. She wasn't quite crying. She hung up. "You look a little like Snow White. Except, you know. Shorter skirt." She lifted her phone a little. "He wanted it. Now he won't even see it." I said it can't rain all the time. She looked at me. "I heard it in a movie." She took off. My short, fat, gay, Indian companion came out of the bar. I was leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He told me I looked like I was trolling for some butthole. We went inside XES.

It was Friday at eleven and the bar was crowded, but there were still two seats. XES is a stopping off point for the gays and their one girl friend. They meet at there before heading to the more popular bars. I watched it swell and empty. A bus stop.

My companion pushed his way through the dance floor to the bathroom. I ordered us beer. The bartender asked for identification. I showed him mine and he asked who was drinking the other. I told him it was okay, he wasn't Indian like that. XES is loud. He didn't hear, and set my companion's beer behind the bar. I yelled that it was okay, I wouldn't be drugging it. Young, spiked haired, humorless Asian bartender. He looked through me then started making some gay cocktails. My companion appeared in the seat beside me, ID out. The bartender squinted at it. "Is that Apache?" My companion made a feather with his hand at the back of his head. He drank most of the Budweiser in one pull. "If you have to piss, watch out for the fat one dancing. She's a mess." We were silent for a moment. He said you know you're a bitter old queen when you start referring to all men as she. "You're twenty six."

XES is typically loud. Bass and falsettoed women's vocals. Some new Britney Spears came on. Slow, filthy, saddening, herion-rape beats. Loud. You have to get right in their ear when you talk. This is the point. It's comfortable for friends to scream at each other and for strangers it's an immediate forced intimacy. You get over awkward hellos when your mouth is on an ear. "Are you German?" Someone screamed at me. I shook my head. He looked at me again. "No, you're all like, 'I'm from Brooklyn.'" He trailed his hand across my shoulders and left with his group.

My companion was having trouble with his husband. He was in New Mexico digging fossils of human feces. There is no signal in the desert. He said he's getting old. He was worried about becoming the man at the corner of the bar. Alone, drinking a pint of ice water and a Stolichnaya martini with olives. Pursed mouth, arched eyebrow, cradling the glass, pinky out. Looking like he's over everything and I remember when I was twenty one, too, honey. But secretly terrified to talk to anyone but the bartender, who was busy.

He disappeared. The bar emptied and never quite filled again. We drank Jameson. A block of songs from the nineties played. You are always on my mind. 100% pure love. Rhythm is a dancer. More and more and I found myself thinking about a few years spent in South Beach then. Before Mtv found it, before the condos. I thought about the AWOL Marine and his friend who only wore sarongs. Young wild-eyed tea dancers.

I blinked and found myself in a cab hurtling uptown with my companion and two of his new friends. We were at Columbus Circle.

I crossed fifty eighth street. A cab honked at me. He was yelling. "What?" I stopped in front of him and lit a cigarette. He was huge and African and angry. He wrenched the steering wheel, threw the cab into park, and opened his door. I strolled away. My companion came out of the bar. I saw in his face what was about to happen to me. I dragged on my cigarette and waited for the punch to come. Right on the back of my head. I wanted it. Why not? Let's go. "Donkey punch." I heard the cab door slam and the cab take away. My companion went back inside. I tossed my cigarette away and fell into the next taxi that would take me.

Cement

You're never ready for the sound of an empty apartment. Mine has cement for its floor and ceiling. The walls too. This morning there were carpets on the floor and curtains on the sides of the windows. It looks very white in here now. I keep on clicking my tongue on the top of my mouth.

You flush the toilet. It's too noisy. The chair scrapes the floor. My glass of whiskey bangs against the desk.

I'm looking for a funny picture to illustrate an empty cement room. I've found a panda, and another of some tiles.