In the City of Shy Hunters

Tom Spanbauer

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782397618
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Shy, afflicted with a stutter, and struggling with his sexuality, Will Parker comes to New York to escape the provincial western towns where he grew up. In New York, he finds himself surrounded for the first time by people who understand and celebrate his quirks and flaws. He also begins an unforgettable love affair with a volatile, six-foot-five African-American drag queen and performance artist named Rose. But even as he is falling in love with Rose and growing into himself, Will must watch as AIDS escalates from a rumour into a devastating tragedy. When a vicious riot erupts in a local park, Will seizes the chance to repay the city for all it has taught him, in a climax that will leave readers shaken, fulfilled, and changed.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER
ONE

The airplane landed at La Guardia, August 3, 1983. My first time ever in New York City, and in all the world, I was leaning up against a cement wall, an unrelenting fluorescent light above me, the bill of my red ball cap the only shade for miles. Exhaust fumes. I was minding my business, just outside the doors where you claim your baggage, waiting for the express bus to the city. My wallet was in my inside jacket pocket. Inside my chest, no room for breath. Sweat rolling from my pits. My duffel bag was against the wall next to me. On top of my duffel bag, my suitcase with the travel stickers on it, and on top of the suitcase, my backpack. I was rolling a cigarette with one hand like I can when I saw the van. A 1970 maroon Dodge van with hippie calligraphy DOOR OF THE DEAD on the side.

Door of the Dead was a game my sister Bobbie and Charlie 2Moons and I used to play.

I took it as a sign.

Blue smoke was coming out the back of the van and people were climbing inside, through the side door, white people all in black. Black leotards, black luggage, black hats, black shoes.

Then, just like that, Ruby Prestigiacomo’s face was smiling right in front of me.

Don’t let the van spook you, Ruby said. We just bought it from the band, Ruby said, smiling, The Door of the Dead band.

There’s room for one more, Ruby said. You’ll be all night here waiting for a cab. I can give you a ride for fifteen dollars. Cab’ll cost you twenty-five.

Inside my chest, near the sore place where I smoke, so easy, I felt Ruby’s smile.

I wished I could be so easy, wished I could smile like that.

My wallet was still in my inside jacket pocket. Ruby just kept there, kept standing in the unrelenting fluorescence, smiling, too close, his blue eyes the way crazy people look at you, moving in on you, like when you go to kiss somebody. Blue eyes and thick red-blond hair, blond hair on his forearms. Beautiful. The kind of skin that freckles and tans gold. His red polyester shirt—buttons open so far down I had to avert my eyes. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. A silver ankh dangling from his queer ear, soul-patch triangle of red-blond hair just under his bottom lip.

Ruby Prestigiacomo, what am I going to do with you?

All death did was make Ruby smile all the more.

YOU’RE GOING TO wait all night here for a cab, Ruby said. Fifteen dollars, Ruby said, Anywhere in Wolf Swamp.

Wolf Swamp? I said.

Manhattan, Ruby said.

Ruby reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out an old blue Velcro wallet, pulled the wallet open, and from the wad of papers pulled out a business card. Ruby’s fingers were long and thin and there was grease under his thumbnail. Thumb print of grease on the business card.

ROMEOMOVERS SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS were the words on the card, WOLF SWAMP. Under SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS was DOG SHIT PARK, then under DOG SHIT PARK was RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO, under RUBY PRESTIGIACOMO a phone number, then under the phone number was CLYDE TRUE SHOT EXPERIENCED DRIVER.

Shit on a business card.

What’s Dog Shit Park? I said.

Lower East Side, Ruby said. It’s a park. Tompkins Square, but everybody I know calls it Dog Shit Park.

Where you going? Ruby said.

Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, I said.

Between Second and Third, Ruby said.

Ruby grabbed my duffel bag and my old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. I picked up my backpack and followed Ruby past the line of people waiting for taxis. My wallet was in the inside pocket of my jacket.

The four white people all in black were sitting on their luggage in the back of the van, all of them with big red lips, even the man. Big hoops in their ears, all of them smoking cigarettes.

They’re from France, Ruby said, Vogue magazine. They only speak French except for fuck you. You got the fifteen dollars?

My wallet from my inside jacket pocket, when I opened it, my money was suddenly public domain opened up like that on the street. I gave Ruby a ten and a five, stuck my wallet back in my inside jacket pocket.

Bonsoir, I said in French.

The French Vogues all looked like mannequins. They all said quick French things back. Twice as hot inside the van. I sat down where I was standing, started doing what I always do when I don’t know what to do, rolled a cigarette with one hand like I can, French Vogue mannequins all around watching me. When I got the cigarette rolled, I offered the cigarette to the man French Vogue first. He looked away, poked his left shoulder up, pointed his hand and took the cigarette, silver loop dangle side to side, the fuck-you smile on his red lips, red lips pursing, French grunt.

Then it was a cigarette for each of the others, each accepting with a choreography of stance, silver loop, hair tossing.

Sophistication.

Savoir faire.

Postured disregard.

Sexy totale.

Shit from Parisian Shinola.

I’ll have one of those too, Ruby said. Then: Where’d you learn to roll a cigarette like that?

A friend of mine, I said. Charlie 2Moons, I said, Taught me, I said, A long time ago.

I have my mother’s nerves, so sometimes I stutter.

Language my second language.

CLYDE TRUE SHOT Experienced Driver was big, everything about him big, extra lovely as Rose would say—chest, belly, thighs, shoulders, arms, hands. His big hands on the steering wheel, on both hands on every finger, even the thumbs, the same silver ring. From the side I was on, True Shot’s nose was a hook that poked out of two high cheekbones. His hair was black and thick and long and tied back in a bun with a red paisley bandanna tied around his head. From his neck, a beaded buckskin bag. The horizontal line was blue trader beads and the intersecting vertical line, red beads. The buckskin bag hung from a buckskin necklace.

No doubt about it, I was staring. Same way as when you stare at a big snake. And big snakes always look back. On a lava rock ledge in full sun, the big snake doesn’t want to even move, but the snake turns, and his eyes end on you.

On me. True Shot put his eyes on me. I mean, his mirrors.

True Shot’s mirrors. An accessory True Shot never went without, his mirrored Armani sunglasses.

When True Shot put his mirrors on me, I could see myself in there on the surface, a circus freak, distorted at the state fair, my big circus nose and mustache and bug eyes.

I saw him first! Ruby said. He’s mine!

Clyde True Shot? I said.

Drop the Clyde, Ruby said. He’s just True Shot.

True Shot, I said. Would you like, I said, A cigarette?

No, thank you, Ruby said. He don’t smoke socially.

There was a hand on my shoulder, and it was the French Vogue man handing me one of his cigarettes, rolled fat.

Merci, I said, lit the cigarette, inhaled. Marijuana? I said.

Fucking hashish, French Vogue said.

In the rearview mirror, True Shot’s mirrors were on me. Smoke big, True Shot said. His voice was soft, resonant, like a child singing a lullaby in a culvert.

TRUE SHOT AT the wheel, Ruby riding shotgun, French Vogues, me; we are inside, in our smoke cut through with high-beam headlights. Outside, all about us, out the windshield in front, out the windows in back: stars, speeding light, red and amber, huge white flying saucers, eyes.

I was rolling another cigarette, rolling six more cigarettes around. I was not speaking French or any words of any language. My butt was burning on the van floor, so I sat on the old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. Drops of sweat all around me.

True Shot hit the brakes and under us was a screeching. We swerved. One French Vogue banged her head on the side of the van. We slid to a stop. From out Ruby’s window, I could see a wall of concrete. A backhoe. An electric sign pointed repeating yellow arrows at Ruby’s head. There was water flowing onto the right lane of the roadway, and mud. I thought it was mud. The electric yellow made the water look like thin buttermilk. There were cans and things floating. From the embankment, the thin buttermilk was a waterfall onto the roadway over a truck tire and the back seat of a car. Then the turds. I smelled and I knew: The milk was a river of sewage. True Shot started honking.

Fuck! Ruby said. We should have taken the fucking tunnel.

Fuck! the French Vogues all said. Fuck!

Then: Watch for cops! True Shot said.

True Shot shifted into first and turned the steering wheel to the right.

Watch for cops! Ruby yelled back at us.

Then Ruby watched the right side and True Shot the left side, and True Shot guided the van through the narrow space in between the backhoe and the electric yellow arrow sign. Milk-shit river lapped at the bottom of the side door. There was a bump and the front right tire went up on the curb, then another bump for the back right tire. True Shot hugged the wheel, leaned forward, and aimed the van in between the line of traffic on the left and a wall of concrete on the right.

Clyde True Shot, race-car driver, hit the gas.

WE ARE AN arrow, Door of the Dead arrow, howling through, tilted, banking, racing down where you’re not supposed to go, right wheels on the curb, left wheels in the gutter, guard-rail concrete wall only inches from us to the right. To the left, Day-Glo traffic cones, and the Volkswagen Chevrolet Ford Toyota line of cars, pickups, semis, and limousines traffic jam. Where we’re heading hellbent is in between, space enough or not.

Ruby’s forehead is shiny with lights on the sweat. Ruby’s bones poking through, his smile skeleton big. He’s staring straight ahead, like all of us, at the trajectory, our thrust, but he’s watching True Shot too. Ruby loves True Shot and he’s watching True Shot, race-car driver, the two of them two guys, rodeo yee-haws, Friday-night homeboys, going fast, right-flanking one mile, two miles, three miles of traffic jam and counting.

French Vogues lit French cigarettes. Fuck. Merde. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Toll booth! True Shot yelled, like this was Nintendo and toll booth was the dragon. The right front wheel bumped off the curb back onto the road, then the right rear wheel. True Shot shifted down to second.

Watch for cops! True Sh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Copyright