Wounds, page 4
part #2 of Voice of Blood Series
“Oh, dear. We know he has an irresponsible streak—as I’m sure you know, too.”
“Yes,” said Daniel. “I do indeed.”
“Ordinarily we do try to screen our applicants better—I do apologize for our track record—”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Daniel. “I would never have imagined myself to be such a bad employer. Maybe I complain about New York too much and they take me seriously.” He chuckled casually into the phone, pausing as he scrubbed soap into his faded black cotton T-shirt. Assistants, at least, were useful in that they did the laundry; in his case, a lot of it consisted of pre-treating troublesome protein stains. “But I do appreciate the efforts of the agency—”
“We are concerned, nevertheless, Daniel, and we would very much appreciate it if he contacts you if you could let us know—this is an issue with the INS and we’d like to keep things neat and tidy, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly,” said Daniel, startling at the sound of the door buzzer. “Now I really must go, there’s someone at the door. Good night.”
The laundry service had sent Daniel a new person—a man in his early fifties, thick-necked, tobacco-colored, a plush black mustache, heavy musculature stretching the bleached-white material of his uniform shirt. “Is Noor ever coming back?” Daniel asked ingenuously, handing over the black mesh bag.
“He is still in hospital,” said the man gruffly. “He had operation, most of his spleen was removed.”
“Oh, dear God, that’s terrible. Excuse me, good-bye, thank you.”
Daniel kicked the door closed behind him. Barely an hour left before he had to be at the club in Nolita, a good half-hour’s drive away. And he wasn’t yet dressed.
Being rushed would not help his glamour. He decided to put on makeup at the club, since he’d have a good hour of sitting around before he actually had to take the stage. He had his props and music already packed; his dress, gloves, shoes, stockings, and shawl already laid out on his bed ready to slip on. He glanced at the mirror in the foyer of the apartment; his hair was clean and full and sparkling today, only requiring the lightest touch of a curling iron to change it from a rock star shag into a soft mane of ebony waves. His eyebrows needed plucking.
This could be done. No reason for panic. It would not do to be nervous.
“Idiot,” he said to himself, pulling his shirt over his head and unzipping his jeans, “you’re ninety-seven. You’ve done more cabarets than she’s had hot dinners.”
He put on his dressing-up music.
The dress, ingeniously fitted so that he had no need for false breasts, a long narrow sheath of iridescent black silk taffeta; the stockings of colorless sheer nylon, fastening to soft rubber clasps of purple satin garters; black and silver stiletto-heeled pumps that had not worn out since he got them in 1933; long black satin gloves to cover his black-haired forearms and impossible hands; three yards of the finest black sheer sprinkled with silver flecks and edged with a thousand jet crystals to soften his jutting white shoulders and protect his pretty neck from the wind, spitting hard fragments of rain.
He seized a moment to enjoy the sight reflecting from the long mirror in his closet. That was half the satisfaction; and if the sight of himself did not make him nearly giddy with pleasure and excitement, he could hardly hope to bring about the same response in anyone else. He threw back his head, stripped off a glove, and, with his inch-long glossy black fingernails, touched the jut of his Adam’s apple, prominent because of his thinness. Without the shawl, he could not come close to passing as a woman. Looking like a Real Girl had never been his desire; he wanted to look like a gorgeous man in a dress, just a little bit all wrong. Thrilling dissonance.
He poked at the bulge at the front of his dress. “This certainly won’t help me look feminine,” he said. “C’mon, Little Bastard, let’s go fuck with people.”
At the club (a restaurant called Remy’s during the day, and either Gemini or Cuntbox at night, depending on who held the reins), Daniel marched in through the front door. Three men had already arrived, two of them drinking martinis and eating tapas and one of them dancing by himself at the edge of the stage. On stage, the Supreme Gina (also known as Gary Osterman) wrestled with a microphone stand that wouldn’t extend any higher than crotch level. She shot a look of absolute poison at Daniel. “Are you too pretty-pretty to help me out here?”
Daniel stroked his ebony waves with one gloved hand. “If I tear this shawl, my darling, I’ll have to kill everyone here.”
“No big loss. Present company excepted, of course, and by present company, I mean me.”
Daniel swept past through the kitchen. There was no point in trying to be pleasant to the Supreme Gina; if he told her that her dress was fantastic, she’d complain about how much it cost; if he apologized for being late, she’d remind him that he was late last time, too. In the past, Daniel had fun making the Supreme Gina trip over her skirt when going on stage, or belch in the middle of her showpiece lip-synch “Baby Love,” but after a year of being Featuring Daniel Blum as Frau Herr, the game had gotten boring. Now he just let the Supreme Gina work herself into her little snits and did his show.
“Backstage,” in the lavatories and kitchen-storage area, emergency eyelashes were replaced, lips were freshly glossed, and privates poked and taped and hoisted. “I’m getting this fucker cut off!” yelled Cindy Cameltoe, hopping on one foot as she pulled on a fresh pair of thick beige panty hose.
“Careful or you’ll run your tights,” Daniel advised mildly, dropping his makeup case into a bathroom sink and sucking in his cheeks at the mirror.
“Careful or your face will stick like that,” said Cindy Cameltoe.
“It already has,” said Daniel.
She kissed the air next to his face. Cindy Cameltoe was a big heavy trannie in her late twenties, tonight in a Wonder Woman miniskirt that nearly exposed the aforementioned fucker and a sequined bullet-bra bustier. Her breasts were huge and magnificent, purple Bettie Page wig immaculate, face glimmering with thick tan pancake makeup. It didn’t quite hide the jail-pastime teardrop tattoo on her cheekbone. “Do I look all right?” she begged. “Jenny and I are up first. I’m not prepared at all.”
“You look wonderful,” Daniel said. “Something new tonight?”
“Yeah, will you watch?”
“If I can,” he promised.
“You look wonderful tonight,” Cindy Cameltoe sighed, fingering the shawl. “This is so beautiful. Where’d you get it?”
“I’ve had it for so long I forgot.” Daniel sighed and smiled. “I gotta put my face on. I’d like to see your thing . . .”
Jenny Juicemaster sidled up and put her arm around Cindy Cameltoe. “I’ve seen her thing, and it ain’t much,” she put in. Jenny was butcher, more rock ‘n’ roll, in studded leather corset and platinum-blonde mullet hair. Her tits were very fake and a little lopsided. Without Daniel having to say anything, she adjusted them. “Contents may shift during transit,” she explained. “I gotta say, Frau Herr, you don’t really look like you’re dressed for a party good time tonight. This is more chichi elegant funeral wear.”
“Wasn’t it you who told me I look like a ghost, anyway?” Daniel patted on white powder.
Jenny shrugged. “Better go, honey,” she sang to Cindy. “We have to do our Laverne and Shirley bit . . .”
“ ‘Schiemiel, schlmozel,’ ” Cindy replied with a laugh. “See you later, Danny boy.”
“Make money,” said Daniel.
“Make money! Girl . . . Is there even anybody here yet?”
“Couple of people,” said Daniel. “Not a lot.”
“Ohhhh boy,” said Jenny. “The Supreme Miss Gina is gonna be on the warpath tonight. You’d think the bitch didn’t have a day job.”
Daniel didn’t make money from his performances. If he made tips, he gave them to the other girls, knowing they needed the money far worse than he. When he was young, and human, he had performed for the money; the scraps of pocket change, enough to buy a meal, a drink, a few sniffs of cocaine, a book, a bauble for the next sexual conquest. But even then, he performed for those fleeting moments of pleasure in the eye contact with the audience, catching those delicious flutters of awe, desire revealed. He did it for love. Or the illusion of love. And was there a difference?
“. . . Daniel, you’re getting makeup on your scarf.”
He glanced up; Antoine, spit-curls peeking from under a jaunty cream-colored beret, stood next to him, although the top of Antoine’s head was at the level of Daniel’s shoulder. Antoine was a Real Girl or, at least, the perfect simulacrum of such; dainty, olive-skinned, a dead ringer for Natalie Wood, post-op and quivering with the real and synthetic hormones that she gulped like handfuls of candy. Her voice sounded like wood flutes. Daniel hastily unwrapped the shawl from the sink and shook tiny golden particles off the fabric.
“You were really lost in there.”
“Sometimes that happens when I’m looking at myself,” Daniel confessed.
Antoine scoffed delicately. “I bet it does.”
From the stage came the boom, thump, and wail of Diana Ross on tape. “Are there people out there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I can’t bear to look until I’m there. If there’s a lot of people, great! And if there’s not, then there are fewer people to make fun of you if you fuck up.”
“You’re not gonna fuck up.” Daniel chuckled.
“No, I’m not,” said Antoine.
Daniel arched his eyebrow. “Is this your version of ‘Break a leg,’ little girl?”
Antoine shrugged and toyed with her little bone-handled pocketbook. “No . . .”
“Don’t fuck with me when I’m nervous.”
“Why are you nervous? You’re always so . . . in command.” Antoine rubbed one hand against the front of Daniel’s dress, where there were no breasts to fill out the points at his bodice, and the Little Bastard had gone away.
“I invited someone who I really want to impress,” Daniel said, finishing his eyes. “Tonight’s very important to me. I’m doing an old song . . . I know I can do it, because I’ve done it before.”
“I’ve never figured out why you still do these gigs,” Antoine said. “Gina doesn’t like you. You give away all your money.”
“Why do you dress in vintage Chanel? Why the French manicure? I haven’t figured out why you gave up . . .” He glanced at the smooth front of her skirt. “. . . All that.”
“ ’Cause it wasn’t me,” Antoine retorted.
Daniel shrugged, as if to say, so there.
She made a tiny sound of concession and lowered her eyelashes. “Good luck, anyway,” Antoine purred. “I hope you impress whoever it is that you want to impress.”
“I usually do.”
Antoine went away, humming, and Daniel returned to his face. At times it was difficult not to rip the throats out of every single person encountered in a day, particularly pretty little sadists like Antoine and her good-luck bullshit. He wondered if Antoine ever saw fangs behind the crimson lips; she was the sort who liked to court danger, anyway. She knew her life wouldn’t be long or healthy, hips and lips plumped with silicone and forearms pimpled with needle tracks.
Daniel couldn’t resist looking out into the house from behind the corner separating the kitchen from the rest of the place; more patrons had arrived, although tonight’s show was far from standing room only. Only the usual suspects were there; transvestites from the sublime to the grotesque, cloudy-eyed career fag hags and their quivering alcoholic idols in cravats, boys in actual boy clothes but with gestures and accents all their own. Only half a house. Daniel sighed. But for the cut of the clothes, it might have been the same crowd from the Mikado Bar in 1930, after-hours, smoking bad cigarettes, gulping schnapps, picking each other up by glances across the room.
He caught sight of something creeping in the shadows at the very back; colorless in the dark, nearly bent double, a faint flash of pale face without eyebrows. He tried to burrow through the susurrus of minds in the club, most of them fortunately focused on Cindy Cameltoe and Jenny Juicemaster on stage playing patty-cake to “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and thus easy to ignore; but he couldn’t find anything; the creeping creature, now huddled in a chair with the coat hood up, might as well have been made out of the wood of the chair.
Daniel rummaged quickly in his makeup case for his cards, wrapped his shawl around his neck and face, and rushed to the bar, where the Supreme Gina’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Sammy filled his splashed tray with cocktail glasses. Daniel mentally tapped Sammy on the shoulder, and the man looked up, smiling when he saw who it was. “Oh, hey, how’s it going?” Sammy whispered.
“I have a favor to ask you. Send this with a glass of champagne to the young lady in the far corner.” From the folds in his shawl, he produced a card with the number of the cell phone with the red metallic faceplate; he used that phone the least frequently, which meant that it worked most reliably, and there was not a single living being left who had the number.
“Ooh, on the make?” Sammy deftly pinched the card between his fingertips and slipped it into the pocket on his apron. “No problem. And I think you’re up next, aren’t you?”
“She’s a dealer,” Daniel replied. “Now that Ricky took off, I need to make my own connections . . .” Gently, without touching, Daniel pushed him away.
“I’ll talk to you about it later,” Sammy said, and smoothly raised his tray above his head. “Time for you to go on—get back there!”
“Let’s hear it again for the Titsome Twosome, Miss Jennifer Juicemaster and Miss Cindy Cameltoe!” The Supreme Gina shouted half to the house and half backstage. “Shit, I haven’t seen that much jiggle since that Jell-O shot party on Halloween—oh, honey, I know you were there, I still have the stains on my dress! Fortunately the dress is white, too . . . Thank you for coming out to another glorious evening at Gemini. I am your splendid hostess, the Supreme Gina, and I am a Gemini. How many of you gorgeous people are lucky enough to be Geminis? No, it’s great! I have two separate walk-in closets.” The Supreme Miss Gina toyed with the microphone cord, wrapping it around her shoulders as she stalked back and forth across the stage, squinting nearsightedly at the cheerful hecklers in the front row. Behind her, Cindy set up Daniel’s props. “What was that, sweetie? Split personality? Yep, here’s one, and here’s two.” She glanced down at the front of her sequined gown and whipped her hand out at the audience. “Don’t look at me like that, you’ll curdle my makeup. We’re all beautiful here, aren’t we, boys, girls, and otherwise? Yes, we’re all beautiful, and just a little bit crazy, which helps us survive. Yes, child. Next up—shut up now! Next up, we have our featured performer. This is a very, very special creature; she’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Even if you were here at Gemini last time. She’s got multiple personalities worse than Sally Field. Girl? She will move you, she will freak you, she will terrify you, she will soothe you. . . . Ladies and gentlemen and whatever the fuck that thing is, I give you, tonight at Gemini, sieg Heil—Frau Herr!”
Daniel made his body into a whip, a long slim tightly wound riding crop, the metal heels of his shoes sinking gently into the low carpet on the stage and the beads edging the shawl clicking together. Daniel did not allow himself to notice the liquor-warm applause; he blocked out everything farther than the edge of the stage, any objects besides the microphone stand and tall four-legged stool next to it. If he listened to the audience, if he allowed himself into their minds, he would lose his concentration, let his voice slip out of control, stumble on the hem of his dress. None of these things had ever happened, but tonight would not be a good first time.
He reached his mark, stopped, and gazed up into the lights. He glanced over to where the drab lump squatted; her eyes were unreadable at this distance with the distraction of the stark white spotlight on his face. Enough, then, that she was there, with a glass of champagne in front of her. Time for him to sing.
Frau Herr’s whole act was in German; it was simpler than attempting to come up with saucy witticisms that could come close to the gleefully scatological words of the other performers. The spoken words weren’t much, anyway; a good evening, an introduction, an explanation. Let the other trannies mouth the words to other divas’ standards; he would sing his own song, and an original one, not something they’d ever heard. He nodded at the handsome young lesbian who ran the sound board and she nodded back, starting his tape. He had recorded his own music, as well—a slightly out-of-tune piano recorded in a Mafia bar uptown while the staff moved and worked around him without being able to see him, and guitar recorded in his study, mixed together just well enough to sound good through Gemini’s mediocre P.A.
The microphone was just a prop. He didn’t need it to amplify his voice, and if he sang at something even approximating full voice, there wouldn’t be an unbloodied ear in the house. So many microphones had been destroyed by his proximity before he learned that they were unnecessary. It was his own mike, glamorous and classy and vintage, an Electro-Voice Cardyne 731 the size of two conjoined fists and gleaming immaculate chrome. Back when the mike worked, it transformed his voice into something dictatorial and faceted; too bad that was back in the Fifties, and that he’d since snapped its delicate ribbon innards.
With just a little extra breath and a tightening of the muscles in his throat . . .
“Synkopieren”; Eva had written the song for him in 1929, the end of their relationship; she was still in love with him, although his attention had wandered back across the gender divide and now Daniel wanted a man, a strange little Italian with eyes like ice-water, who spoke no German. Eva wrote songs the way others wrote in their journals. Gorgeous Eva, abandoned Eva, Eva who spent an hour patiently teaching a jazz song to her faithless lover and the next evening hanged herself in the lavatory of the Mikado. The bottom of her vocal range was almost exactly the same as the top of Daniel’s. She played the guitar she’d learned in summer camp and smacked his hand when he became distracted. “Listen,” she admonished, “I wrote this song just for you; the least you could do for me is try to remember it.”
