Early for an appointment at UNIS, I found
Aristotle’s Diner a haven. Until a voice
declaimed, What this culture
lacks is shaft, shaft and bulge. There’s too
much tits and ass, blonde
bimbos in bikinis slapped on the laps of overweight
middle-aged men. Angelica laughs
at the embellished theory snippets
my story too unreal, like Chinatown’s
sudden commotion after lunch.
We linger over bamboo shoots, marvel at ones
that spiral, pass over the big ones
the ones more expensive. Why
are price scales based on size? she spats,
my Lower East Side diva.
Here’s a little story, she begins as we set out
for Washington Square Park. I’m
walking to the train station
this morning feeling blue because I know
B. is never going to call
when coming toward me I see this young couple.
Street vendors try to capitalize
on our sentiments, sell black
and white photographs matted
and framed. And she steps in dog
shit and almost has a mental breakdown, no joke.
Angles from below, swallowed
in shadow from above, all
hover and light, steel and glass agleam.
She stands there scraping her dog-
shit-covered-foot on the pavement, cursing the gods.
Some catch construction, the men specks
on beams, suspended above city.
And I’m thinking, Doesn’t she know
that means good luck? But whatever.
A dove’s view, Baryshnikov in boots, overalls,
hard hat, straddled steel against inner
thigh, flared arc of the welder.
Anyway, she lifts her leg to see if her attempts
have been in vain. They have.
Decade after decade reproductions shift : color
postcards cast each tower in pink tints,
red, white, blue wrapped on pins,
a flutter in the foreground : foreigners,
businessmen demand “how much?”
And in that moment, her boyfriend takes the flimsy
napkin from the deli which he got
with his coffee and he wipes her foot!
Now, that’s love. Or something.
Shit, that’s what I want.
We decide to visit the Pink Pussy Cat in search
of a new vibrator, and this is not
the first time I accompany
her on such a trip. Drunk last time
we marveled at a drugstore’s
beaded-off backroom, sobered as we compared
prices : buy two cheaper devices
or one expensive apparatus
that does both? Remember I decided
on that animal print model
with three speeds? Well I’m ready to upgrade.
The store walls have the usual :
leather harnesses and masks,
whips and switches, handcuffs, chaps,
cat suits and cock rings.
I contemplate buying a matched set but decide
on kama sutra lotions nestled in-
between the edible panties
and genital-shaped candies.
Matthew, feel this! Befuddled
by the uncanny texture of skinthetic orifices,
by the butt plugs and anal beads,
I urge us to our mission.
A hundred vibrators line the glass
cases : metallic, plastic, enamel;
long, extra long, wide; some nothing more
than a huge phallic abstraction,
others an exact replica
of some porn star’s member, veins,
balls and all. I think men feel
threatened by vibrators, she says, contemplating
a dildo with a suction cup. B.
thinks I’m going to become
desensitized. Replacement anxiety.
It’s pathetic; they
feel competition from an inanimate object. She
passes on a purchase, marks
the trip as research, and we
work our way North and East
part near a private park
in Gramercy. Adjacent apartments shadow
its metal bars and gates. Perhaps
it’s the park but the city
feels quieter. I notice grids etched
in her face. Life goes on,
she offers. Perhaps she feels it too, recalls
that Tuesday morning shift at Bronx
State Psychiatric, her patients’
ramblings real. They knew. I miss hear.
Neutered? No. Castrated.