The Christmas Kid

Leaving Paradise

WHEN GILLIS OPENED HIS eyes, the window shade had rolled up on itself and the furnished room was sluiced with hard, white, merciless light. He didn’t move. His tongue felt thick and furry, and there was something ridged and padded over his right eye. His right hand lay flat beside the pillow, and he saw the raw, pink-skinned knuckles, and then he closed his eyes again, remembering Saturday night at the Paradise.

No, no, he thought, that didn’t happen. But it had happened, all right, and as he returned, feeling a coarse gas moving between his brain and his skull and a dull pain throbbing in his shoulder and something sharp stabbing his ribs, Gillis saw fragments of the night before, like scenes from a movie with the reels mixed up.

He saw the big pitchers of beer on the bare plastic-topped table in the booth along the wall of the huge saloon. He saw Curly and Vito laughing, and bowls of pretzels, and heard the jukebox pounding. The Stones: “Brown Sugar.” The dance floor full, and Vito talking about the girl from Coney Island and the things she could do, and Curly egging him on. The lights were dim, red, rose-colored, blood-colored, and the dance floor throbbed, and more people came in, guys and chicks, and a few old dudes, guys at least thirty, cruising around the edges of the hall, looking at the young women. Another tune:

Then as he turned again in bed, he saw the great blinking neon sign, bright against the Brooklyn sky: THE PARADISE. And being hurt. And voices. No. That was later. No, first there was the girl in the pink sweater. Or was that last week at the Paradise? He sat up in the narrow bed in the hot bright morning room and touched the ridge over his eye. A bandage. And remembered a dark-skinned doctor in the emergency room, leaning over him, his eyes large and tired, peering at him. No, that was later, too. That was all later.

He was in the Paradise, he and Vito watching Curly dance with a green-eyed Puerto Rican girl, putting on all his baddest moves, chopping space out of the crowd, while more and more people came in, and the waitress brought more beer, and then Gillis glanced back at the door and he saw her. It was Cathy.

“Hey, there’s that chick from the dry cleaner,” Vito said, his voice loud above the music. “The one you like, man. That Cathy.”

She was wearing tight white jeans and a black turtleneck and high-heeled red shoes, and she was with a small, compact, red-haired guy in a sport jacket. They were walking to the corner where the Quiñones crowd hung out. Gillis hated that crowd. All of them went to college, and when he talked to them, Gillis felt slow and stupid. Quiñones was a tall Puerto Rican who wore blue blazers and gray socks, and always looked as if he knew something that nobody else knew. Gillis watched him embrace the short red-haired guy, and shake hands formally with Cathy.

“Maybe she’s gonna leave the dry cleaner store,” Vito said. “Maybe she’s gonna go to college.”

“Shut up, Vito, will you please?” Gillis said, and drank his beer. That’s when the girl with the pink sweater came in. Right there. Short, with a big pink hairdo, and chewing gum. Came right over and grabbed his hand and took him out on the floor. Rod Stewart singing “Passion.” The girl in the pink sweater chewing gum like it was her job. And Gillis saw Cathy dancing with the red-haired guy. She was staring right into the guy’s eyes. And the guy was dancing in a tight, bundled-up way, every move precise. Gillis felt big and clumsy.

“That’s it,” he said to the girl in the pink sweater.

“Whaddya mean? I’m just warmin’ up!”

He walked away and she grabbed his arm and he pushed her and she tottered and fell. He heard her cursing, but Gillis kept walking to the booth. Curly was there, and the green-eyed Puerto Rican girl was dancing with Quiñones now, and Curly was dripping with sweat. Gillis lifted the pitcher in both hands and took a long swallow. Then the girl in the pink sweater stood over him.

“You do that again, you big faggot, and I’ll kick your knees off.”

“Get outta here while you can walk,” Gillis said, and the girl stalked off, and he sat there staring at the wet tabletop. Curly was laughing. He remembered that. Curly was laughing. And when he looked through the crowd, he saw Curly again, and he was laughing, and Quiñones was laughing, and the red-haired guy was laughing, too. Everybody was laughing.

“Who is that guy, anyway?” he said. “The red-haired jerk.”

And Curly said the guy’s name was Carder, or Carlton or something. Part of that college crowd. From Staten Island or someplace. Gillis remembered him vaguely now. In a sports car. A foreign job. Coming to the gas station. Alone. Always alone. Paid with a credit card, too. Now he’s with Cathy.

“I thought you was goin’ with her, Gillis boy,” Curly said.

“Hey, I just took her out a coupla times,” Gillis said, sipping from a glass now. “She’s nothin’. She don’t mean a thing to me. Not a thing.”

“I don’t know, Gillis boy. You sure got a funny look on your face.”

He remembered that, and drinking, and Vito dancing, and then Curly with the green-eyed Puerto Rican chick again, and more drinking, and the music pounding. And then he was pushing his way across the dance floor to the corner where the Quiñones crowd was standing, and he saw Cathy beside the red-haired guy, Carder, or Carlton, or whatever his name was. There was panic in her eyes. Her hand went to her throat.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

“Gillie, I’m with—”

“I said, let’s dance,” he said, grabbing her wrist. You took what you wanted in this world. No other way. “Now!”

And then he felt a sharp pain in his right arm, and the red-haired guy was in front of him, looking up in a cool way. He was smiling.

“That’s bad manners, man,” the red-haired guy said, in a way that made Gillis afraid. “I think you ought to apologize. To Cathy. And to me.”

And Gillis did what he had done so many times before; knowing what he would do, from beginning to end.

“Let’s go outside,” Gillis said. “We’ll settle this there.”

The red-haired guy was still smiling. “I don’t want a fight, pal,” he said. “I want an apology.”

And Cathy said: “Oh, Gillis, stop, don’t ruin everything.”

“Outside,” Gillis said.

The red-haired guy shrugged, turned to Cathy, and sighed: “Wait here.” Quiñones was there now, trying to calm things down. Gillis remembered that; trying to settle it. But the red-haired guy was walking out the door past the bouncer, peeling off his coat, and then Gillis was behind him, and so were Curly and Vito and Quiñones, and then he and the red-haired guy faced each other in the parking lot.

Gillis loaded up on the right hand, the right hand that had dropped so many other people in parking lots and outside bars and in school yards and on beaches. He came in a rush, and threw the right hand, and felt terrible pain in his belly, and then a swirl of chopping motions, and he looked up and saw the Paradise sign, and Curly’s astonished face. Then he was up, and then down again, his face in the gravel, something wet on his face and hands; blood. He got up one final time and hit the smaller man, but the smaller man was still smiling and then there was more pain, and a high, bright light, and broken pieces of speech, and a scream, and he was in the gravel again, and he stayed there, afraid. I can get up, he thought. But I won’t.

“Stop,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Please stop.”

And now he was in the furnished room, with the morning light as cruel as truth, thinking: Everything is different now. I dogged it, and they all know it. The little guy made me quit. I’ll never walk down the avenue the same way. I’ll never walk into the Paradise the same way or hang around the gas station the same way. Everything is different. And I hurt. I hurt.