Cuddles comes over and just stands there like I’m taking too much time. Shit, he got his. I’m getting mine. He watches me. I try to say something, anything. His eyes hold me. Her eyes pinch tiny again, and I feel the pull way down between my legs. I get it in my throat and say, “You see me, Cuddles?” And he says, “Yeah man.” The girl breathes deeply, but she don’t say nothing. It’s just me and Cuddles. Me and him with words. “You see me getting this pussy?”

“Yeah, I see you, man.”

“I’m getting it. I’m getting it, Cuddles.” And my head goes light all of a sudden as if a weight was easing off me and going her way, maybe his. My hands grip the ends of the jacket like they’re the spokes of a wheel turning me. My head circles faster than my body or her head below mine as I push my face against the cloth and away from her tiny eyes and straw hair. I feel Cuddles’ eyes on me again, then her eyes on me. The smell of denim and armpits make me tingle all over and tingle again until my whole body heaves and pulls. The jacket lets go the smell of grease and body all in my face, and I can’t do nothing but let go myself. The bitch had nothing to do with it. Riding on empty, I ease up. She smoothes her skirt back into place. I don’t say nothing and she don’t say nothing. We walk outside.

Maxie hands her the twenty dollars. She looks like she could cast a spell. “You better be glad Roscoe ain’t around. He’d be on all your asses for this lousy twenty bucks.”

We rev up for the ride downtown. Cuddles brushes off his jacket and climbs behind Lou at the handlebars. “I was just shitting you, Lonny, about that faggot stuff. You cool, man. I seen you. You cool.”

“I know,” I tell him. “I know I’m cool.” I slap him on the back. I climb up on Maxie’s bike. I ain’t grabbing tight this time. In a minute we’re gone.

Jesse

Jesse

What was I doing eighty blocks uptown with this woman whose eyes were windows on me? How did I get here? Took the A train to 59th Street, changed to the Broadway #1 local, got out at 86th Street, and walked two blocks south, two blocks west. Watched for traffic leaving the West Side Highway and came this close to jumping into the filthy Hudson.

Inside, Rooms asked me, “You were lovers for a long time?” She joined me on the couch. It was her couch, her apartment.

“Yes.”

“I can’t imagine what it was like.”

“Neither can I, sometimes,” I said. “No, that’s not true.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said.