by Rebecca Katherine Hirsch
It was a stormy night, a lusty night. Alright, fine, it was the afternoon. But the wind that blew athwart my loins had the murky ink-blob luster of the night. Anyhow, I was staggering through wind gusts that smacked me over the head, but as I was walking with a giant wooden laundry rack, I smacked the wind right back. The wind and I had been through this before and we would be through it again. But this time, from the intersection of 4th and University to 30th and 8th, it would change us forever. It was at the southwestern corner of 30th Street and 8th Avenue that I met the man who would change my afternoon and color the events that would follow for at least a week and a half. Outside the Bikini Bar, betwixt a torrent of angry homeless women and a dimly lit Subway, I saw a stream of iridescent light. This was the intersection where I met Rat Eyre.
Rat was an equine boy. I’d known him briefly over the years as the small, blondish, cartoon character of a Maryland kid who had written me letters from various foreign locales and asked for my hand in marriage. Not really. But he seemed to be taken with my 19-year-old wildness, my sinuous form, the luscious way that I went from kissing one boy on a sofa to another on a loofa. Really, I can understand the attraction.
I saw Rat standing on the northeastern corner of the street, waiting for his New York host, but I, transfixed, frustrated and curiously aroused, had decided to hide behind a trash can and watch him struggle: He, white of shirt, yellow of flannel, short of stature and blonde of hair, goatlike of being, pants of pants, shoes of some sort, glasses, a beard desperate to exist; I, hair strewn lasciviously to the winds, black linen coat, blue smallish sweater, green dress and sash, white socks and shoes and giant wooden laundry rack. Clearly, we were meant to be. But where would we wander? Koreatown? He’d just escaped home from an over-extended teaching stint in Korea, so it only seemed right that I should cart him back to the ones who’d done him wrong. After all, we were only four and a half blocks away. But K-town held bad memories for my love. We loitered outside illicit noodle dens, but Rat sickened with despair. I, in solidarity, suggested we leave, but he was drawn, unduly, to the ones who’d kept him country-held for three long months. He had to have more.
And thus, a dozen halfheartedly deciphered Korean bank signs later, Rat and I scurried from the mid to the East of the isle. We found ourselves a handy bodega and filled ourselves with foodstuffs we had never before experienced. Orangina, so sensual! Cream soda, so wild! We bummed around bodega to bodega, discovering new comestible pleasures at every scum-filled turn. The wind beat down upon our breasts, but since it was the afternoon, the sun was plentiful and we kept on.
I spoke ill of every passing Manhattan neighborhood as we walked, optimistically, from one heaping geographical sector to another. By the time we got to Chinatown, I reckoned him ripe for an egg tart. And so we partook of my old Chinese bakery: egg tarts, taro bubble tea and the pleasant 3-for-$1 bags, which I lovingly held to my bosom.
I’ll have it known that while this walk transpired I pointed out all the places of my previous employment and sprinkled them with historical anecdotes. This building here, that hunk of metal there and… where is it? Wait for it, wait for it… there it is, the Brooklyn Bridge! At this point, we’d clambered onto the Williamsburg Bridge, the two southern Manhattan to Brooklyn bridges shimmering in the distance. We had made the final Manhattan stretch. Never again would we love in this borough. As the sun was setting fatalistically (it was a cold afternoon), he thrust his frozen hands into my coat pockets under the pretext of cold. But I wasn’t impressed. I’d been over this bridge with kids from Maryland before.
So we journeyed the bridge. Aghast at my ethnic intolerance, Rat Eyre ventured to shake me of my deep Hasidic hatred. He dared, nay, forced me to ask one Hasid for the time, the date and the direction to the bridge, which I did with great difficulty. We were growing weary. When we finally reached home (my home), we lovingly consumed a block of very inexpensively priced cheese. Though the Poles who opened their window above and sat on their deck chairs below looked on, I allowed the Jew with a Gentile name to smoke out of my window. Rat Phineus Eyre. The only thing better than a Jew is a Jew incognito, I always say.
So we drank, we jeered! We talked of things dear. Ales for he, mysterious green stuff for me. His dying in Korea and stabbing in Ecuador, I listened attentively to it all. Without glasses he looked much more like a block of play-dough with mish-mashed features and a general camel-like air. At some point I collapsed onto the white bed in the middle room and he rubbed my legs whilst making disparaging comments excusing his behavior as I drifted in and out of mysterious green alcohol sleep.
And then: I ran into my bedroom, theatrically slammed the door and woke the next morning to find my tights mysteriously hanging in the bathtub. Just kidding. Well, I’d like to think I woke the next morning to find my dress in the trash can, barrettes in the sink and Rat Eyre inexplicably gone for good but all I found was the missing Rat, the tights I’d left sloppily hanging in the bathtub because they needed to be washed and everything else in its place.
My giant combative wooden laundry rack was safely, cleanly reclining on the floor. The white guest bed was out in the middle room and a note from the camel man was left on the table- it wished me a nice life, thanked me for the cheese and gave me advice on chewing chocolate on the left side of my mouth. Well, hell. That wasn’t what I expected.
