Aside from the chores, the movement would be based in classic images of women from Giselle to Appalachian Spring, with Lena Home in Stormy Weather, Eartha Kitt as herself, and as a Charlestonian, Cypress couldn’t leave out Scarlett O’Hara. The divas of femininity bewitched too many generations, convinced them that the joys of women were deceit and dependence.

“Hi, sweetheart!” Cypress heard a shout that made her walk faster. Maybe she was being recruited for one of the blow-job massage parlors. She plunged into the crowd, making diagonals, the shortest distance between two points, etc., but the “Hi, sweetheart” stayed on her ass. At the light she had to wait for a Con Ed truck to make a left turn. Somebody grabbed her shoulder. Cypress turned to knock whoever in the hell it was into the ground, underneath the ground, off the planet, but it was Ariel Moröe of The Kushites Returned, looking like he had been on an excursion in hell.

Several of his front teeth were missing. There were keloids from knife slashes around his eyes, his neck, and upper chest. The twenty pounds he’d lost left his bones peeking through everything he had on, including the skin-tight black leather pants with zippers up the legs. He looked like a middle-aged pixie suffering from anorexia. Cypress couldn’t get over the change. Why, Ariel had been so vital, so magnificent in his capes and panache. Talking as if he still had all his teeth, he said,

“Hi, Cypress. We haven’t seen you in such a long time. Where you been keeping yourself, girl?”

But Cypress only wanted to know what had happened. “Ariel, what have you done to yourself?” He ignored that, and lit a Sherman.

“We’re going back to San Francisco next week. Would really be good to have you back. New York’s taken its toll on my first-line soloists.”

Cypress thought, “New York’s taken its toll on more than your first line, buddy,” yet Ariel continued to project into the future, all the wonderful things he’d do when he got his group back to San Francisco. Finally, Cypress blurted, “Ariel, can you still dance? I mean are you strong enough yet?”

“Oh, this.” Ariel felt the most protruding scars on his face with his free hand. “Yeah, I’m not where I usedta be, but it’s not as bad as it looks, darling.”

Cypress felt like slapping him, but she couldn’t bring herself to strike anything as fragile as Ariel appeared right then.

“How’d this happen, Ariel? You look awful. My god.”

“I made a mistake, that’s all. A bad choice of character, you know. I thought he was such a sweet boy, but look . . .” Ariel pulled up the sleeve of his flowered shirt. A hunk of flesh was missing and a hollow shape etched by teeth marks remained. Keloids there, too. Cypress felt nauseous.

“Doggish, huh?” Ariel chimed.