I do not know how I passed the day. Dr. Schussler’s office was quiet, no patients, no sound machine, and the emptiness of the adjoining room made my loneliness feel particularly acute. Finally night fell. The guard would be gone. I went down to Union Square to lose myself amongst the crowd.
A tall Christmas tree stood in the center of the square, as did a Jewish candelabrum, its eight lights already lit. I could only wonder what the patient felt as she gazed upon that Jewish symbol. Last year, it was probably no more to her than a civic show of ecumenical spirit. But now, while crossing the square, as she would have to do to negotiate the shopping district, did she find the candelabrum oppressive? Wish she could return it to its former irrelevance? Mexico offered the patient many opportunities for relaxation, I thought, not the least its relative shortage of Jews.
But I could not long retain these thoughts of the patient. All around me a sort of frenzy seemed to be in progress. Great convoys of shoppers went by in furious motion, sailing in noisy groups, as if something desperately needed to be purchased and the shops might close at any moment. The crowds were full of shouting young men. Heavy shopping bags kept clipping me behind the knee. I was pushed into the street by a raucous, half-drunken group; no sooner did I regain the sidewalk when I was pushed aside by another. A passing car spattered my pants leg with mud.
I fled the square and wandered in the now-dark business district, where I soon found myself before a grill with a long wooden counter, at which sat a row of gentlemen who were taking their dinner. As this seemed to be the sort of establishment where a man dining alone might feel comfortable, I went in, joined the gentlemen, and contentedly passed two hours listening to the banter between diners and waiters, who, it seemed, had acquaintanceships of long standing.
It was when I left the grill that something seemed to change in my very metabolism. It might have been the effect of the deserted business district, where the stoplights blinked their reds and yellows into empty streets. Or perhaps it was the faded frivolity of Union Square, where discarded wrappings were trapped in the shrubbery, and a large blown bow, like some horrid spider, skittered across the sidewalk. I only know that, before I knew what I was doing, I hailed a cab, settled in my seat, and asked the driver, Would you perhaps know a bar called A Little More?
The driver put his arm on the seatback and did a slow turn around to look at me.
Sir, are you sure you want to go there?
I was not sure of anything. My body seemed not to belong to me.
Yes, I said. Please take me there.
The driver said nothing as he drove us across Market Street, proceeded what seemed to me east and south for several blocks, then traveled under an elevated roadway. We came to a district I had never seen before, a wide boulevard lined with warehouses, now dark. Then we turned up a short street that dead-ended into a parking lot.
Are we there? I asked. Where are we?
The driver gestured toward the far side of the parking lot. Back that end, he said.
I paid the fare.
Want me to wait? the driver asked.
Why would I want you to wait?
Okay, sir. You know best.
And he drove away.
41.
Once the sound of the cab faded off, I could hear music spilling out of a doorway. The night had turned cold and blustery, and as I crossed the crowded parking lot, the music came and went, blown about by the wind.
In the entranceway was a woman sitting on a barstool, who stood at my approach.
You lost, buddy? she asked.
She was an average-looking woman with a pleasant face, wearing a white shirt and chinos, with a parka around her shoulders—nothing to identify her as a lesbian, to my eye. Her manner was not exactly hostile, but she was wary and a little amused, I thought.
A friend asked me to meet her here, I said.
Another woman came to join her. She looked precisely like my idea of a lesbian: big, heavyset, mannish. The words “bull dyke” came to mind involuntarily. What’s he doing here? she said to the first woman.
Says he’s meeting a friend.
They both laughed, looked me up and down, and finally the first