Choke

Chapter 31

DENNY'S ALREADY SITTING RINGSIDE in the dark, sketching on the yellow pad in his lap, three and a half empty beer bottles on the table next to him. He doesn't look up at the dancer, a brunette with straight black hair, on her hands and knees. She snaps her head from side to side to whip the stage with her hair, her hair looking purple in the red light. With her hands, she smooths the hair back off her face and crawls to the edge of the stage.

The music is loud dance techno mixed with samples of dogs barking, car alarms, Hitler youth rallies. You hear sounds of breaking glass and gunshots. You hear women screaming and fire engine sirens in the music.

"Hey Picasso," the dancer says, and she dangles her foot in front of Denny.

Without looking up from his pad, Denny takes a buck out of his pants pocket and slips it between her toes. On the seat next to him is another rock wrapped in his pink blanket.

For serious, the world is gone wrong when we dance to fire alarms. Fire alarms don't mean fires anymore.

If there were a real fire, they'd just have somebody with a nice voice announce, "Buick station wagon, license number BRK 773, your lights are on." In the event of a real nuclear attack, they'd just shout, "Phone call at the bar for Austin Letterman. Phone call for Austin Letterman."

The world won't end with a whimper or a bang, but with a discreet, tasteful announcement: "Bill Rivervale, phone call holding, line two." Then, nothing.

With one hand, the dancer takes Denny's money from between her toes. She lies on her front, her elbows propped on the edge of the stage, squashing her breasts together, and says, "Let's see how it turned out."

Denny makes a couple fast lines and turns the pad for her to see.

And she says, "That's supposed to be me?"

"No," Denny says, and turns the pad to study it himself. "It's supposed to be a composite order column the way the Romans made. See here," he says, and points to something with his smudged finger, "see how the Romans combined the volutes of the Ionic order with the Corinthian acanthus leaves but still kept all the proportions the same."

The dancer, she's Cherry Daiquiri from our last visit here only now her blond hair's dyed black. On the inside of one thigh is a little round bandage.

By now I've walked up to look over Denny's shoulder, and I say, "Dude."

And Denny says, "Dude."

And I say, "It sounds like you've been at the library again."

To Cherry, I say, "It's good you took care of that mole."

Cherry Daiquiri swings her hair in a fan around her head. She bows, then throws her long black hair back over her shoulders. "And I tinted my hair," she says. With one hand, she reaches back for a few strands and holds them out near me, rubbing them between two fingers.

"It's black now," she says.

"I figured it's safer," she says, "since you told me blondes have the highest amount of skin cancer."

Me, I'm shaking each beer bottle, trying to find the one with any beer left to drink, and I look at Denny.

Denny's drawing, not listening, not even here.

Corinthian Tuscan composite architraves of the entablature ... They should let some people into the library by prescription only. For serious, books about architecture are Denny's pornography. Yeah, first it's a few rocks. Then it's fan-tracery vaulting. My point is, this is America. You start out with hand jobs and progress to orgies. You smoke some dope and then, the big H. This is our whole culture of bigger, better, stronger, faster. The key word is progress.

In America, if your addiction isn't always new and improved, you're a failure.

To Cherry, I tap my head. Then I point my finger at her. I wink and say, "Smart girl."

She's trying to bend one foot behind her head and says, "You can't be too careful." Her bush is still shaved, her skin still freckled pink. Her toenails are silver. The music changes to a blast of machine-gun fire, then the whistle of falling bombs, and Cherry says, "Break time." She finds the slit in the curtain and she's gone backstage.

"Look at us, dude," I say. I find the last bottle of beer and it's warm. I say, "All women have to do is get naked, and we give them all our money. I mean, why are we such slaves?"

Denny flips over the page on his pad and starts something new.

I move his rock to the floor and sit down.

I'm just tired, I tell him. It seems women are always bossing me around. First my mom, and now Dr. Marshall. In between, there's Nico and Leeza and Tanya to keep happy. Gwen, who wouldn't even let me rape her. They're all just in it for themselves. They all think men are obsolete. Useless. As if we're just some sexual appendix.

Just the life support system for an erection. Or a wallet.

From now on, I say, I'm not giving any more ground.

I'm going on strike.

From now on, women can open their own doors.

They can pick up the check for their own dinners.

I'm not moving anybody's big heavy sofas, not anymore.

No more opening stuck jar lids, either.

And never again am I ever going to put down another toilet seat.

Hell, from now on I'm peeing on every seat.

With two fingers, I give the waitress the international sign language for two. Two more beers, please.

I say, "Let's just see women try and get along without me. Let's just watch their little female world grind to a halt."

The warm beer tastes from Denny's mouth, his teeth and Chapstick, that's how bad I need to drink right now.

"And for real," I say, "if I'm on a sinking ship, I'm getting in the lifeboat first."

We don't need women. There are plenty other things in the world to have sex with, just go to a sexaholics meeting and take notes. There's microwaved watermelons. There's the vibrating handles of lawn mowers right at crotch level. There's vacuum cleaners and beanbag chairs. Internet sites. All those old chat room sex hounds pretending to be sixteen-year-old girls. For serious, old FBI guys make the sexiest cyberbabes.

Please, just show me one thing in this world that is what you'd think.

To Denny I say, this is me talking, I say, "Women don't want equal rights. They have more power being oppressed. They need men to be the vast enemy conspiracy. Their whole identity is based on it."

And Denny turns just his head, owl-style, to look at me, his eyes bunched under his eyebrows, and he says, "Dude, you are spiraling out of control."

"No, I mean it," I say.

I say I could just kill the guy who invented the dildo. I really could.

The music changes to an air raid siren. Then a new dancer struts out, glowing pink inside some sheer baby doll lingerie, her bush and breasts so almost there.

She drops one strap off her shoulder. She sucks on her index finger. Her other shoulder strap drops, and it's only her breasts that keep her lingerie from falling to her feet.

Denny and me both watching her, the lingerie drops.