City of Night by John Rechy Read Free Book Online Page A

punks—sleeping in movies, cant make it; everybodys had you: the dayll come nobody wants you—then what?... Bad scene, bad scene.... So you wanna see me again or not? Tellyawot, we’ll have dinner again, wanna have dinner?—how about Friday?”
               “All right—Friday,” I say quickly, I want to get out. Im sure I wont be there.
               “You know where the public library is?” he asked me. “Fifth Avenue and 42nd—here, I’ll write it down so you wont forget. I’ll meet you there on the steps, between the two statues, the two lions—Friday, seven oclock, if you want to—and dont go fuckin around 42nd Street, you got ten bucks—dont be greedy. Is it a date? If you dont show, hell, I’ll know you took my advice: went Home, got married—put down this fuckin life. I’d prefer that, for your sake, pal—but if you dont take that advice, be there, punk.... Shit, I might as well take advantage of you if youre gonna stick anyway—someone else will....”
               The hurricane hadnt come, and it was a cool night, like those Texas winternights when my mother piled coats on us to keep us warm and the heating stove glowed orange at the stomach like a grotesque ironman....
               I did show up. I stand between the statues of the two lions on the steps of the public library.
               Hes disappointed that I didnt dress up. Im wearing a black turtleneck sweater thinking cornily he’ll like it. He didnt. “I wanted to show you the nightclubs, pal,” he said. “Cant go in that circus outfit—now we’ll have to go where theyll let you in.” Himself, hes carefully dressed, youll notice. He just got a haircut, he smells of cologne.... “You shoulda worn a suit,” he said. “Whats the matter?—dont you have any other clothes?”
               Again in his apartment—later (after dinner and an expensive movie during which, at least five times, he asked me if I wanted popcorn)—it was much easier than before. “Youre learning,” he said, “now youll never go back home—” and adds cautiously, “Can I take your picture like that?” I said no. “Suit yourself,” he said aloofly, “no difference to me, Ive had better, you believe it—and bigger.” Then he asked me, coughing between words, if I wanted to move in with him. Not now, I said, maybe later. “Thanks, Ed,” I said.
               “Ed!” he shouted indignantly, although I had called him that all night. “Mister King to you, punk!—respect me a little, cantcha?... Hell, if you dont wanna move in, suit yourself But think about it,” he said, “better than the all-night movies, and thats where youll end up—hell, you can sleep on another bed, I’ll get one for you, I wont bother you—expect sometimes, maybe—when I feel like it—I aint no wolf, pal.”
               We agreed to meet again, again between the two lions.
               “I—uh—kinda—like you,” he said hesitantly as Im leaving. “But dont get no ideas,” he added quickly, “theres dozens just like you—all of you even get to look alike—pictures in a fuckedup album. What the hell, I dont give a damn for you or all the others like you, like I toldya: dime a fuckin dozen, no fuckin good.... If youre there to meet me, okay. If not, theres someone else around the corner—just as good, maybe better.... But be there, punk—between the two lions.”
     

          
    3
     
               In the morning of the day I was to meet him again, I moved out of the Y—away from the never-stopping showers and the fixed looks along the hallways; the doors opening and closing all night.
               And I moved into that building on 34th Street known as The Casbah for its menagerie of Twilight people, and I added to the shadows in one of those thousands of hallways in New York City in immense apartment houses erected in the large American cities