There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.

– François de La Rochefoucauld

Continued from yesterday.

They take off on his motorcycle. I decide to go. I am not ready to give up yet, so I freshen up my make up and me and my floppy heel walk down to Third Street and Ave C to Roxanne’s apartment.  When I arrive, brown paper bags and straws in tow, I wade through the smelly mess that fills her apartment and make my way to the bedroom where they are hanging out on her bed. I am immune to the chaos and the stench by now, but the man looks a little frightened. As I pass, he sits up, peeling off a snowball wrapper that is stuck to his back.

At Joe Coleman’s Odditorium. NYC 1998 – L to R, Amy, JS, Johnny Depp

“Roxanne,” he spits, as he rubs his beard with the palm of his hand leaving a mouth covered in cat hair, “You seriously need a maid.” He jokes as if any self-respecting maid would tackle such a mess.

Roxanne giggles and agrees too nicely, trying to make light. I feel bad for her. I know her mess is a real problem for her. “Well,” I say defensively as I plop on a pile of pink tulle in the corner that looks like it won’t bite.

“As they say in Texas, if you can¹t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

I gave him a slight glare as I drink my beer through a straw. He thinks I am joking but I’m not. I’m fed up with the long line of guys in Roxanne’s life who have seen her apartment, fucked her on the hairball-covered bed, and then end it later because she is “too crazy.” Gee ya think?

But the man likes this and laughs. “Well you’ve got a pair of balls on ya!”

“She does,” Roxy blabs. “Everyone thinks she’s so shy… But I know better! Ever since she shot me that sideways look at work” she continues the story but fades away. I keep studying the man. I decide he is fairly handsome, and I wonder if men, real men not waiflike imitations will ever find me attractive. Shit, I can’t even get my poet junkie to fall for me, much less a normal guy. Just as well, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life anyway.

It looks like they are getting cozier. Time for me to leave.

I’m tired but not too tired to shuffle south across Houston Street. After all, maybe he is home and doesn’t realize the phone is off the hook. But after a few buzzes and many tears I give up and head west. In a final hurrah, my heel finally breaks loose, paying homage to my night of rejection. I limp halfway home, not finding a cab until I reach Broadway.

The sidewalks are still sparkling. I am friendly, hoping at least for a bit of encouragement in the form of a flirty cab driver. Sometimes this makes me feel better. It doesn’t take much. But not even he will oblige me.

At work the next day, wearing my old shoes and last night¹s make up, I get a call from Roxanne. “Amy,” she spouts, her tone is a mix of excitement and anger. “Johnny just called.”

“Oh really? Are you getting a free tattoo?” I laughed.

“Amy.” She pauses. “He wants your number.”

“What?” I ask as I feel my cheeks burning. “Didn’t you sleep with him?”

“No,” she said. “He left a few minutes after you did.”

“Really?” I was in shock, yet somewhere deep down not completely. This had never happened before-a man, not some homeless lunatic, but a real man asking for my number. It was terrifying. As much as I was flattered, I still couldn’t do it. It was too incestuous, him cozying up to her last night. I did have a shred of self-respect left in me. Plus as cool as she was playing it now, I could sense just a twinge of jealousy in her voice and I knew that somewhere down the line, the next time her Paxil script ran out, I’d be dubbed a man stealer.

“No way,” I say without complete conviction.

“He wants us to meet him out tonight.” She continues ignoring me.

“No way,” I say again, knowing she will keep talking me into it.  “He’s like …old.”

“I know… I know,” she said. “But I’ll go with you… It’ll be fun. Do it for my back…”

Scabvendor.com is happy and proud to introduce Amy Fields as a guest writer today. Amy, a native Texan, for many years was a fashion model, designer and writer in New York City. For the next few days we will be featuring excerpts from her book-in-progress in between our regular blog programming.

Amy is not only a hugely talented writer, but is also a best friend and important member of Jonathan Shaw’s extended family. She has shared these excerpts from her wonderful book, recounting in detail the night she met Jonathan and her initial opinions of him which eventually led to a profound and beautiful five year “marriage” relationship.

Amy now lives in Los Angeles with her present husband, Dharma Punx founder Noah Levine and their one year old daughter Hazel. She remains a close and cherished best friend and confidante to Jonathan.

“Hey Amy!” Roxanne beams as I pass, ever the perky one.

“Hey!” I say trying to match her enthusiasm and force out a smile for her victim as I take a closer look. He seems like a biker type- leather vest, nicer than most. It’s brown, and has designs tooled in it with red thread. This he wears with a skintight navy and white horizontally striped t-shirt. A wink and a nudge to sailors past, it suits him somehow. The lights from the bar flash off the lenses of his black rimmed fifties style glasses. It strikes me as strange as Roxy and I both had a preference for the young and the dirty, and this guy although rugged is not dirty and not young either judging from the grey streak in his otherwise brown mustache and goatee, giving him a most feline quality.

I continue to make my way to the corner where May is saving a seat for me when I hear, “Aren’t ya gonna introduce me to yer friend, Roxanne?”

“Oh sorry Johnny, this is my friend Amy”

“Hi,” I say again, not really wanting to socialize until I had a few drinks in me. Besides, he is Roxanne’s problem as usual, not mine.

“Wellllll,” he grins widely, flashing what looked like two gold teeth complete with a diamond and a ruby encrusted in them. “A tall drink of water for my thirsty eyes.”

Weirdo! I think, giving him an obligatory sideways smile as I make my way to the corner where I can see Roger has a cape cod waiting for me. I quickly down it and it is replaced with another. I need to preemptively numb myself for the prospect of Haydn not picking up tonight. Hoping that if I get drunk
enough maybe I¹ll be too tired to uninvitedly make the trek to his building and lean incessantly on his buzzer, as was my habit. This usually ending in me trudging back to the west side, a rejected stalker.

“No luck?” May asks.

“Nope, not yet.” I reply like its no big deal.

As May and I talk I make a rule for myself- one call for every drink. Still it’s hard to focus on her. I keep looking at the pay phone. The shiny pirate is in my line of sight. He keeps flashing this sinister yet childlike grin every time he catches me. Finally he gets up and Roxanne comes over.

“What’s up with the old dude?” I ask.

She laughs, casually blowing me off like she always dated old dudes. “That’s Jonathan Shaw,” she says as if it meant something. I give her an and so what look. “Remember when we were looking for Dave?” Oh no! my insides shudder. She had only recently stopped blabbing about Dave the glassblower.

He was a guy Roxanne had met a few months ago who had wanted to take her home, professing his undying love for her right there in the hallway of Coney Island High. But she¹d declined, I’m certain in protest to my always leaving her for Haydn, only to wake up the next morning, deciding he really was the love of her life and that she¹d made a huge mistake. So I agreed to help her hunt him down, certain that if I didn’t I’d never hear the end of it. All we knew about this guy was that his name was Dave; he was a glass blower from Seattle, had a dragon tattoo on his head and was hanging out with some Hells Angels. So the next night, after a few shots of courage we marched our dirty boots through the snow down to third street, stood between two barrels of fire, and did the forbidden- knocked on the door of the HA clubhouse. Roxanne assured me it was fine that they¹d once when she was living in her car a while back they had given her tuna fish sandwiches. We were  greeted by a big blob of hair with glaring eyes. After begrudgingly hearing us out, he grunted twice and anticlimactically slammed the door in our faces. We then went to the illegal yet street front tattoo shop on St Mark’s where I remembered now Roxanne asking for Johnny saying she was a friend of his girlfriend’s whom she told me called him Daddy. This detail I remember because shockingly it did not repulse me.

“Oh right.” I come back to the present. That was his tattoo shop. ”I thought he had a girlfriend.”
“Well, I guess they broke up!” she says excitedly, not at all upset for her former friend. “Maybe I can get him to finish my back.”  One of the many veins of her existence- the unfinished humble beginnings of a tattoo on her otherwise clean back. It was meant to be some fantastic, award-winning piece- a garden of life and death or something like that. But in its present state it resembled more of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, the beginnings of an outline with two or three pitiful looking leaves hanging from her
shoulder.

“Yay!” I say, looking over to where he sat, beaming boyishly, a halo surrounds him, light bouncing from his every orifice. Suddenly, I feel sorry for him. He seems nice enough. I wonder if people used him often just to get free tattoos; if the ex, the one that called him “Daddy” ditched him after she was sufficiently covered. Oh well, you can’t rape the willing I guess.

After the third phone call, busy again, I begin to accept that Haydn isn’t going to pick up tonight. Accepting this involves two tequila shots and a cigarette. I need to seriously begin numbing the functions of my brain
before it’s time to go home and I am left alone, just me and my synapses. May has given up. I can’t blame her. She has to go all the way back to Queens.

“Tell yer friend to come over here, she looks lonely,” I hear the man say.
“Yeah, come on over Amy.” Roxanne motions me over with her hand. I mentally roll my eyes while I force yet another smile and drag my stool around the corner. It’s worse than I thought. Not only am I drugless, dissed and disheveled, but now I’ll be forced to watch this man ogle Roxanne while she bounces and giggles the night away. She keeps repeating the same story about when she met his ex while they were both living at The Hotel 17. I guess they’d had some fly by night plan of starting a band together, which
shockingly was never realized. My brain is weary of this and my mouth hurts from the fake smile that’s been pasted on it. I regret my Southern upbringing that always requires politeness.

The man tries to make small talk with me perhaps trying to change the subject, but I answer him shortly. I’m not in the mood. I am debating whether or not to call one more time. He¹’s on his own. I try to send him ESP signals that he doesn¹t have to be nice to me, Roxanne will probably sleep with him anyway, but he is persistent and he keeps trying to talk to me. So much so that when the bar closes and they decide to go to Roxanne’s apartment, he invites me to come along.
“Really?” I look at Roxanne, trying to judge if she wants company or not.
She’s often scared to bring guys to her apartment on account of the mess.

“Yeah, come Amy.” She seems genuine.  I wonder if the man is thinking he’s going to get something kinky. It wouldn¹t be the first time. There was Andrew, the bicycle messenger who worked for a weed delivery service. We’d all had a good night, too much fun to separate so we went to Roxanne’s place
and made out all night listening to The Best of Leonard Cohen.

     God is in the details. Ash Wednesday, party’s over. But the bright yellow flowers on my porch are all wilted and limp now from the obscene, senseless heat of the day. Hasn’t rained in over a week now. The same dreary pre-Lenten dry season that surrounded all my frantic comings and goings two years ago when it all started: The long, crazy saga of Narcisa.

     The same familiar raucous Carnaval music, pounding drums and swaggering truculent trombones raged away on the street down below this week. Just like two years ago when this all started. But Narcisa’s finally clean and sober now. Coming up on six months too. How? Only by the grace of God.

     She’s still not very friendly though. Especially ever since this fucking Carnaval started. Probably misses raising hell. Can’t say I blame her… Peace and equalibrium and sobriety aint always all they’re cracked up to be.
     The pale blue sky above my head looking up from this hammock says it all.
     Bo-ring!

     Shit. I want to sleep but my mind won’t stop. Drugs were a great help with stuff like that. But that’s all over now. Just for today. Over. No wonder Narcisa’s cranky. Can’t blame her, looking at the wilted limp-dick yellow flowers against the backdrop of that shitty pale blue sky and deserted buildings of Downtown Rio…

     But now a never-ending flock of giant feathery seagulls is gliding silently overhead, so close I feel like a spy in Birdland or something. Cutting across that bland listless blue sky like a marching storm trooper procession, copper colored against the setting sun. Night is falling again and life seems livable once again now. Giant seagulls flying high, riding the invisible winds of earth and yes, God is in the details.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

     A crazy fog has just rolled in off the sea, suddenly converting Copacabana into a humid surreal night time nether world of terror. As if it wasn’t ugly and strange enough to begin with in the middle of this dark carnival of lost souls. Actually the fog seems to have even taken some of the edge off the stark sharp ugliness. Night four of this pre-apocalypse Carnaval where everything seems so sordid and common and dull. Never have I seen such a frightful assortment of fat, ugly deformed looking bitches out on a ho-stroll. Never. Not here, not nowhere. Its like a horror show out here.

     And now with this unseasonable fog rolling in its all in perfect creep show order to make a profoundly disturbing spectacle of the whole depressing affair. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so spooky. What was just revolting an hour ago has suddenly become downright terrifying. Shadowy old flabby-ass fuck-monsters creeping around in a foggy horror movie creep show scenario that damn near gives me the chills. Think its time to get back on the bike and split this scene, take a ride over to Lapa and hope I don’t get stabbed in the back for the gold in my teeth over there. Where have all the sweet little whores of yesteryear gone?

     The other day when I commented to Narcisa how I couldn’t find a decent looking bitch out here anymore, she just smiled enigmatically and informed me that she had cast some kinda spiteful voodoo magic spell and it wasn’t gonna happen for me anymore out here. Well that may well be so. But that don’t mean shit to me. I’m out here anyway and for me its all grist for the poetry mill goddammit! Fog, fat asses, flabby rubber monster mask faces, fried egg tits and all. Whatever don’t kill me makes me meaner. And more depraved. Not necessarily a bad thing in these final days of humanity. I feel like a Pit-Bull in a world of Chihuahuas tonight….

     An hour later I walk thru the fires of hell in Lapa. The gates to the lower regions are wide open now. Walking through slime and piss and snot and filth over fetid cobblestone streets, gasping for breath in the piss-stinking sweaty mist of drunken masses, pounding drums, voices singing, screaming, shouting… Then right in the middle of all the stupid apocalyptic mayhem and dementia, I saw it – a ghost. Not just any old ghost, but a true demon, an angry shit spitting fire and brimstone demonic entity, a lost soul out on a day-pass from the darkest regions of hell. One of Narcisa’s old friends who kept going, taking it to the limit. Now she’s a toothless old beggar, rolling in the gutter, filthy, with a nuthouse crewcut, the shaved head adding to the overall cadaverous screaming skull look. Nice.. Spitting drunk, demented, violent, crazy. Looks like a walking mummy with AIDS. Thinks she’s got it going on too. That’s the worst part… Made me think.

**NOTE SIMILARITIES

     There but for the grace of God goes the whole fucking human race. The only thing standing between me and such a fate is the small degree of humility I’ve somehow aquired from the multiple ass-kickings life has bestowed on me like a shower of holy Grace. Guess that’s what it takes. Multiply that by 8 billion and you got a pretty good vision of the near future of the planet. Party down!

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

     I’m listening to the sound of a horn from down on the street. Not a car’s horn but one of those old-fashioned bicycle air horns with the little rubber bubble you squeeze. Toot toot. I hear that horn and imagine the cart it’s attached to and I see a skinny mulatto pushing the shiny little hand painted wooden cart filled with homemade bread and sweet cakes up the cobblestone hill below my perch here in the hammock on my porch at the top of it all. Up and down. All day long. Toot toot.

     The only time it stops is when he stops to transact a sale. In my mind’s eye I can see him stopping the cart before a crumbling one story pink colonial house with fading paint and weeds growing from cracks in the façade. A round woman who looks grey and disheveled but glowing with a weary life energy stands over the cart as he folds back the heavy clear plastic to accommodate her probing brown hand. I hear distant Carnaval drums pounding away like some strange machinery. She takes her stuff and he wraps it up. She pays him and he moves on, pushing his little cart up the hill some more. Toot toot.

     Then the tooting horn is still again. Another sale I think as I lay here in the hammok looking out over the bay. I feel a pleasent breeze on my naked skin blowing all the way from Africa invisible out there over the infinite stretch of blue water that fades away to nothing. A big black seagull glides silently overhead. I can hear a motorcycle’s engine far off in the distance. I need to piss but I don’t want to get up from this hammock. I’m hungry and would like some fresh crab stew from the lunch counter down the hill… But I don’t wanna get up from the hammock.

     A helicopter speeds by noisily overhead and I think of my mother laying in her grave. Another lazy day. Sunday. Day three of this long, senseless carnival of doomed souls. Somewhere a fire rages out of control. Somewhere a woman is crying. Somewhere people are smoking marijuana and laughing. I want to sleep and dream of elsewhere. But the horn is in my ear and I have to get up and piss. Toot toot toot toot.

     As I stand pissing into the drain at the edge of my porch I hear voices singing across the way as Carnaval heats up for another day. The sun is hot on my torso. I guess I’ll go down the hill and get some food, take a motorcycle ride through another day on earth.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.