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

before buildings grew tall and skinny rather than short and fat. They squat self-consciously in the midst of slick skyscrapers waiting sullenly to be bought, torn down, replaced: And this one has four cagelike elevators corresponding to each of the building’s wings; moving up and down grudgingly like tired old ladies constantly grumbling about their present, unmerited station of life....
               As I stand in the hallway opening the door to the room I had rented, a woman with burningly demented eyes just seems to appear. “Im Gene de Lancey, sweetie,” she said. “I live down the hall with my husband—his name’s Steve. And I want you to consider us your Best Friends.” Then she disappeared, leaving behind her the odor of strong perfume and wine....
               At night, on my way to meet Mr. King, I walk through Times Square. And along that street—outside the Italian restaurant featuring squirming spaghetti for 40¢ a plate; before the racks of magazines with photographs of almost-naked youngmen like an advertisement for this street; along the moviehouses, the subway entrances; along that fourth-of-july colored street: I saw the army of youngmen he knew so well—like photographs in a strange exhibition: slouched invitingly, or moving back and forth restlessly; pretending to be reading the headlines flashing across the Tower—but oblivious, really, of the world those headlines represent (but an integral part of it); concerned only with the frantic needs of Inside— Now!!
               I move on, that cold, autumnal newyork night, and this time the sky was dotted with sad cold stars—and I walk through Bryant Park behind the library, the fallen leaves crunching beneath my feet like spilled popcorn—I walk past the shadows of staring lonesome men along the ledges, suddenly astonishingly real in the instant flickering light of a struck match—then shadows again, faceless— and I get the feeling in the park now that silence is a person listening to Me, watching.... I walked into the library, from 42nd Street, through the echoing halls, toward the Fifth Avenue entrance.
               Through the door, I see him standing on the steps, between the two lions, waiting for me. He is even more neatly dressed than before. Smoking. He looks at his watch, looks toward either side of the street I can almost smell the sweet cologne. Carefully dressed and talcumed, clothes freshly pressed, his grayish hair combed neatly....
               Frantically trying to look good for me!
               Suddenly I turned back, away from him, down the hall and the stairs, out the 42nd Street entrance, through the park waiting somehow like a Trap—through the popcorn-crunching leaves, the shadows of the trees grotesque in the faint autumn moon like in a witchstory... the stars hugely unconcerned.
               And I take the subway back to 34th Street, to that giant spider building I had moved into....
               And days later I saw him again, on Times Square, as he crossed the street cockily with a hoodylooking black-haired boy to get into a cab. He glanced at me, turned away quickly.
               His hat still slouched defiantly to one side.
     

          
              
    CITY OF NIGHT
     
               FROM THE THUNDERING UNDERGROUND—THE MAZE of the New York subways—the world pours into Times Square. Like lost souls emerging from the purgatory of the trains (dark rattling tunnels, smelly pornographic toilets, newsstands futilely splashing the subterranean graydepths with unreal magazine colors), the newyork faces push into the air: spilling into 42nd Street and Broadway—a scattered defeated army. And the world of that street bursts like a rocket into a shattered phosphorescent world. Giant signs—Bigger! Than! Life!—blink off and on. And a great hungry sign groping luridly at the darkness screams:
    F * A * S * C * I * N