Read City of Night for Free Online Page B

asked.
               He looks at me steadily: “Was I wrong?” he asks me, but hes looking at me smiling confidently.
              
               “I just asked what you said.”
               “You heard me,” he says, without looking at me now, completely sure now.... “Well, for chrissake, you wanna come or not?”
               “Yes.”
               “Then come on, we’re getting wet.”
               That world has opened its door, and I walk in.
               In the taxi he asked me have I eaten—and I have but I say no because I might as well make up for the greaseburgers earlier—you would too, as a citizen of the grubby world. “All right, we’ll go eat,” he said. This reminded him of A Funny Story. “I was in this Swank place once,” he says, “and at the table next to me is this old woman, see, and shes with this great big beautiful blond boy, probably she picked him off the docks, hes uncomfortable as hell in a tie—he says to the waiter, ‘I want wiver and onions.’ The woman’s embarrassed, see, she says in a low voice, ‘Dear, why dont we have some Chateaubriand?—it’s wonderful here.’ ‘Wiver and onions,’ he insists. ‘Some lobster?’ she say. ‘Wiver and onions! Wiver and onions!’ he kept repeating. It broke me up.”
               At the restaurant he isnt sure theyll let me in dressed in levis. “But it aint so swank,” he says, “and they know me here.” Inside, I ask for the most expensive steak, still remembering the greaseburgers.... He peers at me, half-smiling: “No wiver and onions for you, huh?”
               Later, in his apartment, he said, “Why are you so nervous, aint you been with a cocksucker before?—thats what I am, pal and I aint ashamed of it.” He got into a purple robe, and I lay back and fix my eyes on a picture on the wall: rainclouds, a sad tree draped in something like moss—a skeleton vine, I think. If I squint, the tree looks like a shawled Mexican woman. I stop looking at the picture immediately. I try to stop thinking.... I feel him touch my body—hesitantly at first, despite his bravado; then more freely, intimately. For one wild instant I want to run out.... Then I heard his voice; indignant: “Why are you holding it, for chrissake?”
               “So you wont bite.” I wish instantly I hadnt said that.
               He laughs, and Im relieved strangely. “Jesus!” he said. “You are green!... Where are you from?—the backward South somewhere?”
               I purposely didnt answer, trying to forget El Paso. I listen to the rain, to the Wind lashing at the windows. And I feel a mixture of panic and excitement—one moment as if somehow Im being liberated, at last; another moment as if Ive entered a world for which Im not really prepared.
               I move away from him.
               “Christ, what now?” he says, and he sat up abruptly. He wrapped the purple robe modestly about himself. “Hell,” he says, “you dont have to look at me.” He handed me a cigarette. “Whats your name, pal?”
               I told him my first name.
               Hes annoyed. “My name is Ed King,” he said precisely. “K-i-n-g. What the hell are people afraid of giving their last names for?...” Then almost gently: “Was that your first time on 42nd Street?”
               I told him yes.
               “It aint good,” I heard him say through the sound of the rain. (It reminds me of the showers at the YMCA earlier—except that eventually the rain would stop, but the showers will go on Forever.... Crazily Im remembering a Mexican kid song: “Let it rain, let it rain, Virgin of the Cave....”) He moves away, sits on a chair a few feet from me, looking at me. “No,” he repeats, “it aint no good—whattaya wanna hang around the streets for? Youre a nicelooking