Cha-Ching!, page 13
Theo was looking at the shots of young men who’d gotten New York Yankees symbols buzzed into their heads when she heard the buzzer stop and the shop door open.
A man on crutches came in, pulled a blue bottle out of the side pocket of his backpack and said, “Can I leave this here?”
He seemed sketchy. The barber looked at him as if he were a fly circling his dinner, not quite close enough to swat.
“I’m gonna leave this here, okay?” the man said again holding out the blue bottle.
The barber glanced at him, turned his buzzer back on and continued to circle around Theo’s head with his one arm. The man crutched forward and now Theo knew he was on something because he had a relaxed, underwater opiated speech that Theo recognized. She wondered why a man who was carrying an entire backpack would feel as if that bottle was the one thing weighing him down. Maybe there was something hidden inside it, like drugs. He took another crutch step into the shop, and Theo watched the barber continue to ignore him as he set his water bottle down on the windowsill.
The barber flicked his eyes at the man, and the man mumbled, “This is dangerous,” and lifted the crutch straight out, pointing the tip at the barber like a child pretending he has a gun.
The barber finished with the buzzers and fumbled around in his drawer.
Theo took the barber’s cue and feigned indifference. She realized the man wasn’t threatening them—he was showing them that the metal had pushed through the rubber stopper at the bottom and he didn’t want to walk on the tile floor with his broken crutch.
“I’ll come back tomorrow for that,” he said, pulling the barbershop door closed. The barber watched him go, continuing his fumbling in the drawer. With great effort he lifted an enormous pair of scissors. They seemed like a joke, something to trim a hedge. Now Theo could see there was something physically wrong with his hand—the effort it took, how he steadied the scissors with his other hand like a paw. For a second she worried about getting a haircut from a man who didn’t have two functioning hands, but of all the places Theo stuffed her feelings, barbershops were at the top of the list.
She wanted to make small talk with the barber, ask him if he’d ever seen the movie Giant. Theo and Sammy had gone to see it earlier in the week at the movie house that showed old movies, and two-thirds of the way through the screen had turned into psychedelic garble and the house manager had come out to say the reel had been chewed up in the projector. Everyone got coupons for free popcorn and a movie. She and Sammy couldn’t believe they weren’t going to see how the movie ended.
“Have you been busy because of the holidays?” Theo started.
The barber turned off the buzzer and looked at Theo.
“Off the top?” he said.
“Yes,” Theo said, watching him touch his ear. She realized he was wearing a hearing aid.
“This much,” he said, holding a few inches between his fingertips.
“Okay,” Theo said.
He nodded and picked up the hedge trimmers again. Theo watched him hack at her hair like it was some sort of irritating weed in his vegetable garden and was thankful when he put the hedge trimmers down. She studied her haircut in the mirror and was surprised how good it looked considering her fears. The barber unbuttoned her drape and began to lather her neck and face with shaving cream. Never in her life as a sirma’amsir had someone tried to shave her face. He thinks I’m a man Theo thought as she watched him open the straight razor. He steadied the open blade in his good hand with his bad hand.
“Everything’s fine,” she thought, her heart pounding. “If it’s my fate to have my throat slit open by a paralyzed barber while getting my face shaved, so be it.”
The barber pulled the straight razor down the side of her face under her sideburns, and she sat there listening to the sound of the blade scraping her skin. Then he dragged it down the other side, continuing until all of the shaving cream was gone. He took a bottle of bright blue tonic and dribbled some on his hand and slapped the sides of Theo’s face until the skin tingled. Then he put his fingers on her head and rubbed her scalp. When he was all finished Theo said, “Thank you.”
The barber touched his hearing aid again, and said, “Ten dollars.”
She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her pocket and handed it to him.
He made a face and then turned to his cash box to root around for change.
“Keep the change. Merry Christmas,” she said.
Theo walked out, her face still tingling with the tonic.
•
It felt good to give her winnings away. Plus, she had so many hundred-dollar bills there seemed no end to them. Theo left the barbershop feeling dapper and grateful to be alive, but when she got within a few blocks of the library she felt her stomach starting to get nervous. She stopped at a display of flowers outside a bodega, settling on a bunch of variegated yellow-and-orange roses. She paid for them and battled an impulse to pull a tallboy of Budweiser from the icy barrel next to the register. She was not going to drink today, despite last night’s setback. She didn’t want to fall into her bad habits. Her thoughts were like cars rushing down the highway in a video game and she was a frog, trying to hop across five lanes to safety. It took all her energy to not buy the beer.
As she walked toward the library she was feeling a mix of butterflies and bravado. She already had her speech planned out. She would give Marisol the flowers and ask her if there were any books on how to build miniature bird bicycles. She had considered buying her a blue lovebird she’d seen in the pet store window. “Need I say more?” she would say, setting the cage down on the checkout desk. When she’d told Sammy the idea she’d said maybe that was a bit much.
While she waited for the light to change Theo read the neon flyers taped to the light pole.
get paid to drink alcohol
Was God speaking to her directly? She tore off one of the bright pink strips, and one from the green flyer that simply said depressed?
It was like a work fair designed specifically for her.
“How was Atlantic City?” she heard someone say.
Marisol was standing next to her.
“Uh. Hi.”
“Did you win money?”
“Actually yes,” Theo said. “Here.”
She handed Marisol the flowers. She took them, seeming a little stunned.
If possible, Marisol looked even hotter than Theo had remembered. She was wearing tight black jeans with knee-high black leather boots and a fitted black peacoat.
“I’m job hunting,” Theo said, gesturing to the flyers.
“I should join you,” Marisol said, pulling off a phone number for herself. “I just got laid off.”
“What?”
Marisol nodded. “Right in time for Christmas.”
“Fuck. That sucks.”
Marisol ran her finger over the edge of the rose.
“Maybe you’d like to be in the depression study together,” Theo said, excitedly.
Marisol just stood there holding the flowers. A cold wind had picked up and blown a few strands of her long hair into her lip gloss. She plucked at them.
“Can I buy you dinner? Or a drink? Or take you to Atlantic City? I’m considering becoming a professional gambler.”
“Atlantic City sounds good,” Marisol said.
“Really? I have a truck.”
Marisol gave her a small smile.
“Or maybe you want to be alone?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Marisol said.
“Okay. Wait here a second.”
Marisol watched Theo run across the street and drop her library books through the return slot. She jogged back across the street, winded.
“I’ve got to quit smoking,” Theo said, pulling a cigarette out of her pack.
“Do you want to go to the city?” Marisol said.
“Now?”
“Yeah. I feel like I ought to show you the real New York since you just moved here.”
It had started to snow.
“Snow,” Theo said, smiling.
“Wait till you live here awhile. It won’t be so exciting.”
Theo looped her arm through Marisol’s and they walked to the subway with their heads bent down against the cold. On the train, Theo pulled out her copy of Crime and Punishment.
“You ever read this?”
“How weird. That actually used to be my favorite book.”
“Why? I loved The Gambler and Notes From the Underground, but I can’t seem to get into this one.”
“I bet you loved The Gambler,” Marisol teased. “Do you always call girls you just met from Atlantic City at 2 am?”
“Only if I really like them.”
Theo wanted to take Marisol’s hand but she was cradling the flowers. Plus they were sharing the train with a boys’ sports team, loudly shouting back and forth to each other.
By the time Marisol said, “This stop is ours” and grabbed her hand to get up, Theo was trying to figure out if she’d say yes or no if Marisol offered her a drink.
The subway station smelled like piss and wet wool coats. The combination of rush hour and the holidays made her feel like they were in a movie. When they emerged from the station onto the street, the air was filled with a sugary smell.
“What’s that smell?” she asked Marisol.
“Nuts for nuts! Have you ever had them?”
“No.”
Marisol led Theo to a food cart where a man was selling hot nuts.
“I’m a nut,” Theo told him.
“What kind do you want?” Marisol asked.
“The peanuts,” she said because they were familiar.
Marisol started to pay, but Theo stopped her.
“No,” Theo said, retrieving the wad of cash from her pocket. “I won all this money.”
Marisol just looked at her.
“You can’t just get the peanuts,” Marisol said.
“Can I try all of them?” Theo asked.
“I’m out of chestnuts,” the nuts man said.
“I would love a job like this,” Theo told Marisol. “Cary Grant could sleep on the ground next to me all day.”
“Who’s Cary Grant?” Marisol asked.
“My dog.”
The man filled a waxed bag with warm candied cashews, peanuts and almonds, and handed it to her. Theo let the sugar coating on a single candied peanut dissolve on her tongue and then offered the bag to Marisol, who poured a few almonds into the palm of her hand and popped them in her mouth like they were pills.
“Do you like them?” Marisol asked.
Theo nodded happily. She felt like someone on the top of a holiday cookie tin, jovially trudging through snowdrifts, wearing a bright red winter hat and matching scarf, with perfect circles of red rouge on each of her cheeks. She took Marisol’s hand and led her out of the crowd and up against the side of a building.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked.
But Marisol kissed her first, her mouth a mix of candied nuts and cigarettes. Theo pinned Marisol’s body against the wall and they kissed a long time, until Theo felt drunk. She only worried fleetingly about getting bashed in the head with a crowbar for being gay. Finally, Marisol pulled away and led Theo back onto the crowded sidewalk. Everyone who passed them had arms filled with packages and bags preparing for Christmas. Theo offered Marisol more nuts.
“I’ve got a bad tooth,” she said. The confidence Marisol had diplayed until then, mostly in a certain pursing of her lips, was gone now. She looked ashamed.
“Me too,” Theo said. “I need my wisdom teeth pulled. My friend Big Vic told me Bellevue has a low-income dental clinic.”
“Ooh, we could have a public hospital date after we have a romantic getaway as participants in the depression study,” Marisol said. “Okay, stop here. You are about to witness some quintessential New York.”
Below them was a crowded ice-skating rink.
“What’s this?” Theo asked.
“Rockefeller Center.”
Theo stared at Marisol. She wanted to kiss her again.
“You want to skate?” Marisol asked.
“Down there?”
The group of people gathered around the ice-skating rink suddenly let out a wild cheer.
“What just happened?” Theo asked.
“Someone fell. Everyone cheers when someone falls.”
“That’s nice,” Theo said, smiling.
“Want to try it?”
“Okay.”
Theo had only skated a couple of times in her life but decided to adopt a fearless attitude. Plus, she could use it as an excuse to hold Marisol’s hand. If they kept moving then they were still on a date, and if they were still on a date then Theo was still the dapper gentleman with the long red scarf on top of the holiday cookie tin, the world a perfect place full of ice-skating butter-cookie eaters. The rink was packed with teenagers and excited children shrieking in delight at each fall. Theo wished Cary Grant was there, in her own double pair of ice-skates. After stiff-legging her way around the perimeter of the rink a few times she mustered up the courage to let go of the wall. Marisol was a natural—not doing anything too advanced like backward skating or loops, but gliding easily. Every once in a while she’d look back at Theo and laugh sweetly. Theo pushed off hard and dug into the ice, passing Marisol, and tried to bow like an old movie star, one arm across her body. Her feet tangled underneath her and she went facedown into the ice. She tasted blood and heard the crowd cheer wildly.
ten
Aside from a bloody lip, Theo was fine. On the subway ride home Marisol teased her about her skating skills and kissed the thin cut on her bottom lip. Theo felt as if all the happiness in the world were emanating from that cut. And while she kissed Marisol back, she didn’t care that her lip hurt or that there might be a gaybasher lurking about.
“Do you want to get a drink?” Marisol asked as the train crossed from Manhattan into Brooklyn.
“Sure,” Theo said, not wanting her date to end.
“Do you mind if we run by my place first? It’s right off the subway.”
“Is that a pickup line?” Marisol nodded, then pulled her off the N train at 59th Street and headed toward the door of Sammy’s bar, The Looney Bin.
Joey wasn’t outside.
“Are you taking me to The Looney Bin?” Theo asked.
“How do you know about The Looney Bin?”
“My roommate bartends there.”
“Really?”
“I’m going to poke my head in and say hi to her,” Theo said.
“I’ll meet you in there. I’m just going to run upstairs,” Marisol said.
It was slow inside The Looney Bin, and Joey was sitting at the end of the bar next to one of the dancers who was putting on makeup.
“Girl!” Sammy said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m on a date with Marisol,” Theo whispered. “She lives upstairs.”
“Really?”
Theo nodded. Everyone in the bar was watching the news.
“Oh my God,” Theo said, seeing the woman who’d won the three-million-dollar lotto. “She finally came forward.”
“She’s a high school teacher,” Sammy said.
Theo watched a heavyset woman navigate through a crowd of reporters.
“The ticket was in her coat pocket,” Sammy said.
Joey flipped through the channels with a remote, stopping at another news station. Sammy filled a glass with Coke, and Theo drank it while watching a story about an environmental group that had accused the Navy of dumping thousands of gallons of fuel into the ocean so their planes would be light enough to land on aircraft carriers.
“I can’t wait till all this shit is done,” said Candy, who’d come and stood next to Theo.
The first time Theo met Candy she was flirting with Sammy while wearing nothing but what appeared to be a single shoelace wrapped around her entire body. Candy was the only out queer stripper at The Looney Bin, and each night she got dropped off in a red Mustang convertible by her butch. They were doppelbangers—both with short bleached Afros—Candy’s Afro femme to her girlfriend’s butch.
“Can’t wait till what’s done?” Theo said lighting a cigarette, offering Candy one.
“Till it’s all fucking over. The whole fucking thing. The whole fucking human race.”
Sammy was pouring tequila shots for everyone sitting at the bar, sliding two toward Candy and Theo.
“You drinking, girl?” Sammy gestured to the tequila.
“I hate tequila,” Theo said.
“Hi,” Marisol came in and touched Theo on the arm.
“This is my friend Sammy,” said Theo, introducing Marisol.
“Hi,” Sammy said.
“Hello.” Marisol shook Sammy’s hand.
“What are you guys up to?” Sammy asked.
“We might go to Atlantic City,” Theo said.
“Really? Two nights in a row? You should just move there.”
“I got laid off today,” Marisol said. “My schedule is pretty open.”
“That sucks.” Sammy poured a tequila shot for Marisol.
“Girl, you should work here. You could make mad money,” Candy told Marisol.
“I wouldn’t have a commute,” Marisol said, clinking glasses with Candy before they both downed the shots.
“Joey,” Candy called, “come here.”
Joey kissed one of the strippers on the cheek, set down the remote and walked down to where Candy was.
“My girl here wants a little work, can you help her?”
Joey looked Marisol up and down.
“I know you, right?”
“I live in one of the apartments upstairs. I’ve passed you in the hallway before.”
“You ever dance before?”
