We Only Eat Life

by Regina Edelman

Many living bodies will pass through the bodies of other creatures. That is to say, uninhabited houses will pass in pieces through inhabited houses, giving them something useful, and bringing with themselves their own harm. This is to say, man’s life is made up of things which are eaten, and they bring with them the part of the man which is dead.

–Leonardo da Vinci

I read to Daryl for him to approve my writing:

Yesterday I fasted and went to the doctor for a checkup. My doctor is Chinese, but grew up in São Paulo where I came from, and practices here in Chinatown where I live now. The Chinese markets here display tables full of food propped outside their storefronts onto the sidewalk, and even sell live turtles for soup. I think they’re for soup. I only have vague knowledge of how to cook a turtle, and I don’t even understand eating them in the first place. Once Daryl’s old roommate told me that he saw a party of diners in a Chinatown restaurant cooking a turtle in a pot over sterno in the center of the table. Alive, the poor beast tried to run away from death, which is certain we all know, but closer to that turtle. The poor thing tried to climb the hot walls of the pot, but how could the innocent run from the cowardice of her condemnation? The Chinese party pushed her back down to the bottom of the pot with its water close to boil. They laughed until the poor turtle died. Horrible! Cruel! But is it any different than the killing of cow, chicken, pig, fish, the poor sheep, or how many other lives in other places and times we don’t know of on Earth? It’s not a question of who eats what, no matter what hemisphere. The fact is that we only eat life. The only difference depends on whether we kill in sophisticated form, fast with no crying, or brutally like worms do. The sun, father of colors and lights showed clear and tinted the fruits in the Chinatown market: fresh vegetables covered in spines, green leaves that we know, that we don’t know, strange roots, ducks hung upside-down, chicken feet, testicles, and ribs of cow or pig, intestines hard to define if pig’s intestines or what are exposed for sale in the butchers’ and restaurant windows. Dried and salted strange little creatures like cockroaches are merchandise too in the exotic markets. A scenario in the pasture of man on my way to the doctor’s office on Canal Street filled with children yelling playing running, and old ladies who told fortunes. A shoe repairman squatted on a stool with his tools laid out on the sidewalk, busy with his customers waiting for their shoes. Clumps of men and women played dominos at tables in Columbus Park. Women fed the pigeons in spite of sign plates that read, Do Not Feed the Pigeons, on the park fence. If I was a pigeon, I’d like to raise my family in Manhattan, easy food here, for man, squirrel, rats, and cockroaches.

A fish at least two feet long jumped from a table. He twisted on the hard sidewalk, despairing without oxygen. With a spear, the fishmonger hooked the fish’s head and put him back on the sale table where he belonged now.

Daryl stopped reading and looked seriously at me. “This is beautiful, Gina,” he said. “What are you going to do with this?”

“I’m going to write a novel.”

“You can write a novel. We have a lot of work to do,” he said.

©2009 Regina Edelman

Busy as a Call Girl on Valentine's Day - 4 of 4

I woke disturbed by the same bad dream I always have of being chased by the police because someone told a lie about me. Janey and I showered together then dried each other off with threadbare bath house towels from a warm pile on top of the hot water pipes. Then bundled again, somewhere between Williamsburg and Greenpoint, we walked silently west toward the East River, Manhattan skyline red and gold beyond. She knew a man on the sidewalk and they talked a few steps away from me.

Walking away with her, I asked, did you sleep with him?

Just figure I slept with every man I talk to.

On the subway ride under the river into the city, I chewed on that pill and the last three days. We ate breakfast in a greasy spoon in the East Village before Janey said, I have to go.

Where?

A job.

Where?

Can’t say. I’m not sure. My work is irregular.

What do you do?

Help friends.

Help friends?

Like I said, it’s irregular. People don’t always need help.

I picked up the check and we split our ways.

I waited for Janey to call, but she didn't, busy as a call girl on Valentine’s Day, so I went back out for a drink to fill in the time until I die.

My carrot-topped friend Constance sat on a bar stool at the far end of my favorite haunt, a brilliant purple octopus tattoo engulfing her freckled left shoulder. I bought a round and told her, I been seeing this girl. She’s a stripper. I been taking her out. She won’t tell me where she works since the strip joints closed.

I can tell you, she dates men for money.

We went to the steam baths with a stripper friend of her’s.

Let me put this nice. You’re a trick.

She gave me this jacket.

I think a guy named John had the jacket before. Watch out. There’s two of them. They’ll steal all your money they can.

They don’t got to steal. I’ll give it to them. I don't care.

You should.

That night, the phone rang and Janey said, I have to talk to you.

I don’t want to talk anymore.

I have to see you.

What do you want?

I don’t want anything. I have to see you, Big Daddy. You know where to meet me. I have to see you now. I need to see you. I can’t tell you over the phone.

You got it. I’m leaving.

I trudged uptown from Chinatown through the slush and was surprised to see Tommy and Banana sitting in the window of an Italian restaurant on the way. They waved me in.

Where you going, Big Daddy? Tommy asked.

You look tired, Big Daddy, Banana said. Sit down. Have a drinkypoo.

I’m going to see Janey for the last time.

Have a little nibble, Big Daddy, Banana urged, hoisting a forkful of spaghetti under my nose. Tomato and meatballs. Your favorite.

I’m not hungry, I said, chomping the spaghetti. She could have taken me for more if she wanted. I tell you, a prostitute can fake love better than a frigid woman can fake she likes being touched. I don’t know.

At least a whore let’s you off the hook, Tommy said.

Shut up, Banana said.

I schooled Tommy, you know they beat you with oak branches for twenty bucks at the Russian baths.

Drink a little, he said.

I ain’t thirsty. Where you get that sweater?

Banana.

Nice. You’re lucky. You like this leather jacket? You can have it. You need something funky.

What’s the matter, Big Daddy?

I know exactly how this is going to turn out, I said, got up and took a taste of Tommy’s bitter black beer, then tramped the last blocks to the Starbucks in the East Village where Janey wanted to play our story out.

In back on a plush seat, she made herself small again on my chest, on my lap, and asked, remember you said you want me to be safe and happy?

Sure.

I need money, however much you can give me. I hate to ask.

I gave her nine hundred cash, more than I really had, and said, I ain’t no sugar daddy.

No, you’re not the type. You’ll pretend you don’t know me if you see me on the street tomorrow, but I’ll remember you for the rest of my life. She kissed me and said, Happy Valentine's Day.

Next: Handsome in America by Regina Edelman

Busy as a Call Girl on Valentine's Day - 3 of 4

Janey called and said, I stayed over my friend Carson’s last night, didn’t get home till this morning. We stayed up, talked all night. I told her about you. You’ll love Cars.

She a stripper too?

Yeah? So?

You got a lot of stripper friends?

She’s my only friend. She knows what being a society dropout is like. She says I shouldn’ta told you and your friends I strip, but I like to be honest. You want to meet her, meet us at the baths later?

When I got there, Janey was sitting in front on the top step. She wore the gray hood of her sweatshirt low over her brow like a boxer, a white towel around her throat. She looked down and smiled at me, squeezing lemon halves into a plastic gallon jug of spring water between her legs.

This is the secret not to dehydrate, she said.

I hiked up the steps, kissed her lips, her eyes.

Carson’s coming later, Janey said and jumped up. Let’s go in! She took my hand and led me up to the counter. This is my friend, she told the desk clerk. Treat him good.

I leaned my elbow on the countertop and gawked at nothing much, old Russian couples drinking vegetable juice at linoleum tables, a wrinkled Rembrandt print captioned Bathsheba at her Bath hung in a pine frame on the wall behind them. The clerk banged a long metal box across the battered desktop.

Put valuables in box, he said blandly.

Janey flirted with him, and then rolling a thick rubber band with a locker key up over my bicep, pulling the little hairs on my arm along the way, she muttered in my ear, Jackass won’t give us a discount. You pay later. Men’s locker's to the left. I’ll meet you back here. A layer of hot wet air slowly rolled over my face and made me sleepy.

Exhausted from the heat, a skinny Japanese boy slept naked in a chair in a corner of the men’s locker. I stripped, slipped into a thin robe from a stack of robes, put a brown washcloth on top of my head, then waited for Janey in the hall.

I wasn't the only one who noticed when she came out the women’s locker in a macramé bikini. Guys herded around her.

C’mon baby, she said and took my hand, cutting them off. Those guys wanted me dead, maybe Janey did too. I always get what I want from men, she went on. A couple days ago, I saw a man I know at the front desk. I rubbed up on him and asked can I get in on his ticket. I always get in free or half price at least.

She tugged my hand downstairs where robed men and women milled from one steam room to the next. Pushing past cedar doors into a great brick room, moist eucalyptus seared my lungs. Half naked bathers sat spaced like broken teeth on three tiers of wet leaf-covered stone steppes. The hot air got hotter the higher we climbed to the top row where we hunkered down next to an old goat with more hair on his back than on top of his head. He turned a spluttering spigot in the stone wall, splashing cold water into a twenty gallon plastic bucket. Across the great hot hall, a girl moaned, two brawny men flogging her with long leafy branches. One beat her back; the other whipped the bottoms of her feet.

What a way to go! the old goat bleated, pouring the bucket of cold water over his pate. Rapture! he shivered.

At the bottom of the circled steppes, in the center of the wet concrete floor, the eucalyptus-steeped water made a hollow sound dropping down the drain. Strangely, a cantor across the way wailed an eerie song that echoed though my body like a ghost. The bathers broiled, hypnotized. I surrendered to the heat, lowering my head between my legs, and closed my eyes. Red dots swam in ink. My bones warmed, I spaced out when suddenly shocking ice water splashed my neck.

Wow! I shouted, jumping.

You like that? Janey asked, giving a drum solo of karate chops to my neck. Hey, look who’s here!

Baby girl! a mousy brunette squealed in a Bronx accent and clambered up the steps in shocking pink flip flops two sizes too big. Who’s the handsome man?

Big Daddy, Janey said, Carson Welch. Cars, this is Big Daddy I was telling you about.

Sizing me up with a grin, the perky mouse ran her fingers through her short curly hair. Hi. Nice to know you, she said. First time here? Purifies the system, don’t you think? Gets the dirt out. All this hot air, I mean.

I feel good, I said a little dizzy.

You’re flushed, Carson said.

You’re not used to it, Janey said. Me and Cars can stay in heat for hours.

We got practice, Carson added. You don’t.

See how soft my skin is? That’s from coming here for years, Janey said, offering her leg on my lap. Feel.

I rubbed her thigh, her calf.

Carson leaned over, exposing long nipples lolling in loose hammocks under my nose. You seem like a nice guy. I don’t see many.

Isn’t she beautiful, Janey said, caressing Carson’s cheek. We had it tough. Me and Cars are used to dating creeps. That’s what I like about you. You don’t look at other girls. Janey moved a hand under my thin shorts and Carson kissed my neck.

I’m not making this stuff up. It’s true; two hot women paid all their attention to me in the sauna. I wasn't handsome or rich, except for a hundred thousand dollars I inherited from my stepfather when he died, so is it possible I'm good?

It’s too hot, I said. I can’t take it. I’m stepping out a sec.

Drink some lemon water, Janey said. I left the bottle at the far end of the long bench in the hall. You got to stay hydrated.

I kissed her salty lips and shambled down and out the blonde double doors. Sitting at the end of the bench in the middle of the spa, I tried to focus, and tugged the plastic jug of lemon water tucked in our towels from under the bench and took a swig. I tried to think, but felt lazy. A sleepy walrus dropped his towel from round his droopy waist and dove deep into a pool the size of a mattress. Chicks showered together and men shaved in a row of sinks and mirrors. A twink in nothing but blue mud on his face brushed the back of his hand across his boyfriend’s nipples. The walrus pulled his pinkened body from the icy pool, elbows akimbo, and the floor said

Janey blew in my ear from behind. C’mon in the wet steam with us. It’s Car’s favorite room, she said and gulped and gulped the lemon water before passing the jug to Carson. Then they took my hands and we padded like mad, me and my girls, into another sauna, just the three of us. I couldn’t see my nose or the shape of the room in the thick steam then found a tiled bench under my hand. Someone touched my knee.

Be careful what you wish for, Carson said. Steam bath makes you feel like a millionaire. You know? Everyone feels good in the womb. A body is a body, more or less. Who got money anyway? You? I never did, or if I did, I always blew it. Orphans never have money.

I know what you mean.

Maybe you do if you're a real writer. Maybe you don’t. Lemme tell you, I been doing this life alone. Everyone asks what I get out of it. They ask if I do it because I’m a drug addict, but I don’t live for that. I can show those phony do-gooders in so-called nice society knowledge I got out of this life that they couldn’t get if they wanted. They can’t get understanding in straight life because they're too afraid and never saw nothing and never had any sympathy for what they saw unless it profited them. I get money that comes and goes in this life, sure, but I see what's going on. You know? Because, see, there's lots of things you have to know that you can't know in society. It’s a different way to stand up and see how people really are. I knew a writer like you once who was slave to bosses who gave payola to school administrators so they'd buy the salesman's schoolbooks. Writer had to shut up about his bosses' crimes if he wanted to eat. He hated being slave to thieves and liars, slave to retarded bosses who didn't know they were slaves too, just slaves who stole from other slaves. That writer just couldn't believe eveyone he turned to thought it was okay to steal from innocents, everywhere he turned those cynical good ones who don’t do anything but work a thieving nine to five, send their kids they're embarrased by to school if they go, come home, cook dinner, and go to meaningless sleep or maybe go to a movie once a week or out to McDonald’s and cheat on their wives. The writer can't get a job because everyone—everyone everywhere—is in cahoots hiding their crimes. They care less he's innocent, because the society of companies like liars and cowards. What do you think? Who wants to be in that society? It's better to work for yourself, but if you’re going to do it, you got to do it the right way. You can’t do it the wrong way. I’m twenty-two. On Eleventh Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street there’re some girls who are so pretty and smart they could do anything they want with their power, but they got a fucking curly haired pimp riding around in a big old fucking car, Rolls Royce, a Mercedes, a big Cadillac, all souped up. She’s been working five years. Sure, she dresses nice. She got nice comforts, but when she leaves him she gets none of that. You understand me? He gets it all, just like the school book salesman who thinks his vices are his virtues. After five years, what does she have when she leaves or he puts her out? You know what? The same thing she came in with. Nothing and no references. Anyway, before I buy some tricky punk a Mercedes Benz, this that and the other, I’m gonna work for myself. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I could write a book about it.

You two just relax, Janey said. Breathe it in. Forget about creeps. Let's go ahead into the future.

We slowed our breathing some before I bowed out and drifted upstairs to dress. I paid for everyone then waited at the juice bar, sipping a coke, scrutinizing Bathsheba at Her Bath, and wondering about the upsidedown world.

It was raining and snowing when we got outside. Warm and relaxed inside, we kissed Carson goodbye then started to walk to the subway.

I don’t want to take the subway, I said. Let’s take a cab.

Bougie, she said. Bourgeois, bourgeoisie.

We held hands in the cab over the Manhattan Bridge to Greenpoint, then tromped against the sleet and slush to the back of an old house, and down her basements steps. I waited silent in the dark next to an old boiler while she unlocked her apartment door.

Warm inside, hot water pipes pinged and hissed. Under a snow-filled window well, a cozy crazy quilt smothered a thick mattress on top of giant iron bedsprings, a black rotary phone in a bramble of bills and letters on a card table beside a torn pleather reclining chair. In the far corner, tiny toys, marbles, charms, stuffed animals, and greeting cards taped to the wall formed an altar on two sides of a small futon mattress on the floor, new age and inspirational magazines and paperbacks with titles like Psychic Sapian and Stars Inside Your Head strewn everywhere.

I like to sleep in both beds, Janey explained then played her messages, smiling at me like I’m in on a joke. A guy on the machine said he’s in town and can he see her for a drink.

Stupid prick, she said, hasn’t called in months. Now he wants a fuck.

She showed me a photo of a guy with long blonde hair like Fabio running on a beach. Then she showed me one of her on the same beach in the macramé bikini, flashing her tits for the guy, his thumb on the camera lens.

Yale boy, she said, sitting on the tall bed, taking her boots off. Thought he was so big, so full of himself and his apartment on the upper east side.

I’m on your side, I said, rubbing her ass as she laid on her stomach. I mean, in the class war.

You can rub my ass all you want. It relaxes me. That’s why I don’t mind when men rub my ass at work. It’s my sleeping pill.

Your skin is soft.

That’s what they say.

This will keep me alive for at least another week.

I feel alive now too, like I can see things. All life in the universe is vibrating energy. I can feel the vibrations changing my molecular structure right now. Everything is vibrating. Everything is alive, even that chair.

A chair can’t have children. A chair doesn’t eat. Chairs aren’t alive.

Janey unbuttoned my jeans. You don't know what you're talking about.

You a call girl?

That’s a personal question, don’t you think? You worried it’s gonna cost you or you get off thinking you get it for free and everyone else got to pay? Lots of men fall in love with me for the wrong reasons. Janey got off the bed and went to her closest. Here, I got something for you, she said, tossing a beautifully battered tan leather coat with giant lapels on the bed. It’s cheesy, she said, an artist’s coat. You need something funky besides me. It’s got two buttons missing. Janey got on top. Put your legs together and stay still, she coaxed. Let me milk you. Then she heated up, flushing red.

©2009 Daryl Edelman

To be continued...

Busy as a Call Girl on Valentine's Day - 2 of 4

Next morning, Janey and I loitered in bed. Sun through the windows splashed her uncovered body.

You’re beautiful.

What’s beautiful? Some guys like chocolate, some, vanilla. You like Rocky Road.

Are you kidding? You could be a movie star.

I know. Maybe I had a chance a long time ago, but I blew it, always pissing my karma away.

What are you saying? You're a beautiful young woman with your whole life ahead of you. I’m happy you’re here now.

I wish I didn’t stay over. I’m trying to break my pattern sleeping with men the first night.

Suddenly hungover, I rested my head between her full breasts that smelled like peaches.

You touch me like it’s no big deal. You should hesitate a little. I mean, I wish my skin felt too good for a man to stand so much pleasure at once. I hope someday some guy will feel like that about me. Let’s get out, she said abruptly. I’m hungry.

I tagged after her into the shower. Don’t be mad. I’d do anything for you, I said, poking my head in under the spray.

Shampoo my hair. Wash me.

I lathered Janey up and down and kissed her sweet toes. Where do you live? I asked. I want to send you flowers.

I’m not the kind of girl men give flowers to.

I don’t believe that.

She lifted my face in her hands and kissed me with pity in her eyes before she stepped out of the shower and left to dry off in the other room. Suddenly, Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded from the CD player.

Sorry! Janey shouted over the thumping bass, lowering the volume.

Toweling off, I squinted out the bathroom door at Janey on the couch at the far end of the loft, naked from the waist down in one of my old UNC T shirts. She pulled one sock on, then the other.

You’re too good to be true, I said, yanking my shorts up. I’m starving!

I don’t want to go to some stuffy restaurant where I can’t be myself dressed like I am.

I think I know a close place that’s not too bad. If we don’t like it, we can leave. Don't worry. We can go anywhere. I have money.

Bundled up, we held hands all the way from Chatham Square to the Odeon in Tribeca, sun rising on our backs.

Just like I pictured, Janey said in the foyer. White tablecloths, peaked napkins, and clean pitchers of clear ice water to cleanse our dirty shame. You like nice places. We look out of place in these giant mirrors.

A waiter in a starched white smock showed us to the back where we smeared in the same side of a booth. After long silence, I asked, does your family know you strip?

Everyone knows what I do. Daddy’s a pervert.

Whada’ya mean? Something happen?

Nah, don’t get crazy. Daddy’s proud of me. He used to say I’m so beautiful, boys would pay to see me and take my picture. He was right.

What about the rest of your family?

I love my sister. Her husband’s a biker. He abandons her and their kids for weeks at a time to orgy in the Massachusetts woods with the Sons of Excellence motorcycle club. Once he got up drunk in the middle of dinner and said he was going to rob a convenience store. Sissy cried and begged him to stay at the table, but the badass was back in time for pie and ice cream, his pockets stuffed with cash. All kinds in my family. Got a brother’s a preacher. He tried to stop me from stripping my first time, came to the joint and caused a scene. We ain’t talked since.

How’d you start stripping?

Got fired from my job by my boyfriend, then he kicked me out of his house. Left high and dry, I thought of a place I could make money, just like Daddy said, just outside the city limits. Mrs. Peleg, sweet lady that owned the bar, paid me by the hour. She didn’t have to.

She didn’t have to pay you?

That’s the diff between stripping in the city and in the country. In the city, you gotta pay the house fee to use the stage and dance the floor. Mrs. Peleg didn’t charge the girls; she paid us five dollars an hour. Also, farm boys are different than city men. Those farm boys felt blessed, grateful to see a naked woman. They happily tipped all they could. They were sweet. Businessmen treat women like whores. Everyone knows salesmen don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

You still see your family?

My mom and dad, my sister last Christmas. Hey! I got an idea! Let’s surprise my brother, go see him sermonize. I never saw him preach. I bet he’s good! We could camp out, sleep in the woods.

Maybe we could, I said, proud of our fast intimacy, and traced my finger in the air after breakfast to tell the waiter to bring the bill.

Back on the sidewalk, I remembered the seven hundred bucks I gave Janey last night. I couldn’t remember if she gave me the money back or not, but couldn’t bring myself to ask or even check my knee pocket in front of her, and so I put her in a taxi headed uptown.

I’ll call you later! she shouted, hanging out the cab window to her waist, blowing kisses.

Tramping my way home, I tore into the Velcro pocket on my knee and found the crisp seven hundred simoleons deep inside. Janey didn't care about my money. We were together because we were both born outsiders who needed each other.

©2009 Daryl Edelman

To be continued…

Busy as a Call Girl on Valentine's Day - 1 of 4

by Daryl Edelman

This story originally appeared in Sex and Guts, a website and magazine edited by Gene Gregorits and Lydia Lunch in 2003.

Our dizzy little party laughed, drunkenly sashaying through fat falling snowflakes past the Russian and Turkish Baths on East Tenth Street. I had my arm around Tommy’s beautiful Japanese girlfriend, Banana. Twenty years ago, me and Tommy roomed together at college in a stinking Colorado cow town named after the huckster who said, go west, young man. Tommy used to practice his flute in our blue enamel dorm cell, high-pitched spears of sound ricocheting from wall to wall, splitting my skull whenever I tried to get some shut-eye. Nowdays, Tommy gets top dollar piercing ears on Broadway, usually showing up for after hours drinks wearing a tuxedo with slim sexy Banana on his arm. God-damn handsome Tommy.

How you doin’, lil sister? Tommy carried on, his sure fire charm aimed at a bundled-up redhead wearing horn-rim glasses coming down the snow covered concrete steps in front of the baths. You like to join us for dinner? C’mon, it’s just across the street.

On me, I said and sucked in my gut. You don’t gotta pay.

I am hungry, the redhead said.

We’re safe as TV, Banana coaxed, girl to girl. I’m Banana. Tommy and Banana always reeled them in for me.

Well, okay. I’m Janey. So what’s for dinner?

Shabu-Shabu, Banana said. Vegetables and sliced steak in boiling seaweed stock with two sauces, sesame soy and radish vinegar.

Wow! Sounds fun! Sounds great!

I held the paper door open to the Japanese restaurant. Tommy and Banana sat on one side of the white cedar table, Janey and me on the other. Janey’s glasses tumbled off when she wriggled like a caterpillar out of her pullover sweatshirt, long red hair falling over her pretty freckled shoulders. I’m parched, she said, puckering her plump red lips.

Hot sake, I waved to the waiter. All around.

Thank you, Big Daddy! ebullient Banana shouted.

Big Daddy is a good writer, Tommy talked me up, slapped my cheek. He’s real smart.

I’d like to be a writer, Janey said.

Tommy plays flute. Banana studied violin at Julliard, I said, and put my arm around Janey’s shoulders, leaned in, and filled her tiny cup with sake. You smell nice like peaches. Reminds me of something, someone. Where have I seen you before? You look familiar.

Uhh, ever have a lap dance?

Sure.

Janey said, I shouldn’t say, but I’ll be honest. I’m a stripper.

People could get the wrong idea, Banana said, understanding.

I overfilled Janey's cup, spilling sake on the lacquer tabletop. Thoughtfully, Tommy broke the surface tension of a tiny alcoholic puddle with a fingertip, parting the rice wine sea in half like Moses.

Actually, I haven’t danced since November when Giuliani closed the clubs, Janey said, lacing her soft fingers through mine on the bench between us. So lately, I’m broke. Thank you so much for inviting me to dinner.

My pleasure, I assured.

Absolutely, Tommy agreed. I see why you’re a stripper. You got gorgeous knockers. They’re huge! Are they real?

Banana shot Tommy the hairy eyeball. You’re rough, she rebuked, her delicate nostrils flaring. Low class.

You got a mean streak, Tommy, I said.

Everyone gotta pile on me? he complained. You think I’m cold hearted?

After a while of confused stares, waiters brought more sake and platters of food. Banana sifted the strange colorful vegetables through her slender fingers into the pot of boiling water in the center of the table. I mixed in a fistful of steak and Banana skimmed the gray scum from the top of the bubbling stew with a big wooden spoon.

I know what it’s like to be busted, Tommy said. When I first came to the good city, after a couple lean months without a gig, I filed a police report, said my flute was stolen at Grand Central Station to get the insurance money. What else could I do? Got to eat.

I asked Janey, how much do you need?

Seven hundred bucks, she said. This month’s rent. What’s today?

Eleventh, I said, unraveling our fingers, and then pulled out my wallet, counting seven crisp green portraits of Benjamin Franklin on the table. I can help.

What’re you doing? Tommy asked.

I like to help, I said. I’m a patron of beauty.

You don’t even know me, Janey said, sliding the money back under my sake cup.

I know I want you safe and happy, and not to worry, I said, pressing the bills under the water bottle in Janey’s open knapsack. Forget about it.

Janey wrapped her warm arms around my neck and kissed me full on the lips. I can’t, really, angel, she said. You should keep your money.

Are you ready for your vegetables, Big Daddy? Banana asked, distracting me with a ladle full of broccoli.

Nothing green! I shouted, shaking my palm over my plate.

Don’t force him, Tommy said. He’s carnivorous.

My grandfather also only likes to eat meat; I let him get away with it too, Banana said, setting stained brown broccoli over white rice on Tommy’s plate. The old pervert cheated on my grandmother. He kept young women in the pool house. Year in, year out, they came and went. Everyone in our family knew. No one ever said a thing, not my father, mother, me, my brothers or sisters.

How awful, Janey said, playing with the pocket on my knee, tearing and retearing the Velcro flap.

Your grandfather paid the cost to be the boss, Tommy said.

That was how it was. Before she died, my grandmother lost her mind. She rolled rice balls out of her own shit and tried to serve them at dinner in a bowl.

Ha!

Senile, Tommy explained.

Maybe she didn’t lose her mind. Maybe she was angry for revenge on the family for ignoring the truth.

I need a smoke, Banana said, waving two fingers across her lips. How about you, Janey?

Janey gave me a wink then nipped my earlobe, slipping out her side of the bench to go outside with Banana.

What do you think of her? I asked Tommy after the girls stepped out to smoke. She’s out of my league, right?

What are you crazy?

I think she likes you more than she likes me. You asked her to join us.

She likes you, she likes you. What’s the matter with you?

I’m nuts.

You just think you’re nuts. Tommy clapped my shoulder.

I ordered more sake when the girls came back. We drank until no one could talk straight. Then I showed off and paid the check.

Thank you, Big Daddy, Banana said.

Yeah, thanks, Big Daddy, Tommy said.

Janey said, I’ll thank you later.

T, B, and J had a couple last smokes together on the street corner before everyone kissed goodbye. Then Tommy and Banana caught a cab uptown and I asked Janey out for a nightcap.

We made out at a bar. Janey slipped in between my thighs, making her body small and vulnerable on my chest. Already stinking drunk, we left half our drinks on the bar, staggered out, then took a cab to my place down in Chinatown.

Where are we? she asked, lying back on the cool flannel sheets of my bed, kicking one battered cowboy boot off with the other. I guess it don’t matter. It don’t matter where we come from or if there is a god. Questions like that just drive a person crazy. We eat. We fuck. With a graceful leg, she slung her elastic sweatpants across the room.

Ahab never harpooned Moby Dick like I speared Janey. She pushed a pinky in my ass.

I love you, I blurted.

Don’t say that, she said, her eyes hesitating, her thoughts running dead end to dead end, hunting for the right thing to say. I love you too, she repeated.

I pulled out and took a loving mental snapshot of my snot on her surprisingly red rug.

To be continued...

Edelman-Eggers Letters 1

Dear Reader,
I do not intend to post letters of everyone who once wrote me. The only object of the letters in this document is to show my struggle to be alive and strong to narrate that I didn’t follow the steps of prostitution or become a thief, but wanted to study to say: beaten, the fleas were not enough to make me weak and now I stand alive on top of earth, begging of you a chance to explain the crude truth of bare life is not what makes us nuts, but the old ideas of man.

How can one be published if not by the skill of a letter? Maybe through a friend’s recommendation, but I have no friends in the literary world, so my option is to write and win a voice.

When I was about to finish my yet unpublished manuscript, Garments of Fleas, my husband, Daryl Edelman, told me to write a letter to Dave Eggers because he was coming to Donnell Library in Manhattan in a few days to talk about his book, What is the What. So I wrote him the following letter:

New York, April 26th, 2007

Dear Dave Eggers:
You are a master teacher to me, an idol.

Forgive me if it is not the proper time to deliver this letter to you, but I can’t miss this opportunity since I came to appreciate your brilliance in flesh. We all have to begin from a certain point, and my hope is that I can begin with the best.

I’m a native of Brazil who grew up carrying water to survive, but my head is strong, so I flew to America at the age of forty, uneducated, schooled only until 14. I couldn’t speak English, but I had an unconscious ambition to be a novelist to push mankind’s evolution ahead into the infinite. I learned English as a second language in free classes in New York while I worked and lived in a garment broker’s office, importing clothing from Brazil to America.

Destiny brought me a loving husband, a comic book writer and editor who presented me with books instead of a brilliant ring. I learned how to be a writer from the books, picking geniuses’ brains such as yours, Scott Fitzgerald’s, Galileo Galilei’s, and so many more that I can’t list them all here. Whoever created school had no school to go to, so I educated myself.

Directed by my husband, a master editor and my mentor, I have been writing a novel for the past two and a half years, and I wrote a masterpiece! It’s based on the true story of a hopeless girl (me) in poverty, daughter of black slave ancestors, imprisoned in a psychological karma Christian civilization put me in on earth there in Brazil, but as I said, my head is strong, so I escaped, and here I am in firm thoughts that you’ll request to read my creation and help me publish it.

I thank you very much for your attention.

Sincerely,
Regina Edelman

After his speech, Daryl delivered my letter. Dave Eggers folded it and put it in his pocket! I wondered, will he pay attention to my voice?

At the time, my husband and I had to move in exasperation from a building run by Related Rentals because I might suggest we felt we were being attacked by the staff of the building (The Related story will be narrated for your appreciation and judgment later, dear reader, for you to judge if I had reason or not to believe my family was under attack by family men with children).

The days went on; we left the Related trauma slowly behind, and my full happiness shone back when my e-mail inbox delivered the message:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Eggers"
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 3:50 PM
Subject: Great letter

I just found your letter in my backpack. I have no idea when you gave it to me, but you wrote a very good and intriguing letter. By all means send me your masterpiece. And though I can promise nothing (I'm so swamped I can barely breathe), I will try to read it and send what thoughts and advice I can.

Yours,
Dave
849 Valencia Street
San Francisco CA 94110

From: "Regina Edelman"
To: "Dave Eggers"
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

Hi Dave,
I just cannot believe you wrote me back! It is one of the most happy moments of my life! Thank you for your return!

You caught me in the middle of moving from one place to another. I tell you, I can't breathe either! I still have some polishing of my novel to do, but will be done with the work by the end of the month. I will send it to you with great pleasure!

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Regina
my new address and phone:
[redacted]

To be continued…