Been Going Down so Long It Looks Like Up to Me

Eyeball Contemplates his drink, a shining column the size of a roll of half dollars. It is bracketed by a pair of platform shoes, six-inch jobs with sequins and tiny Statues of Liberty embroidered on each toe. The topless has gone to work. With the halting grace of an English scissors jack, she lowers herself into position, a bouncing forearms-on-thighs squat. Delicately, she fingers the edge of the black-satin G String, then, hooking a thumb under the elastic strap, begins snapping it in time to the music on the jukebox. And. My. Whole. World. Lies. Waiting. Behind. Door. Number. Three. Eyeball feels stupid, consigned to a corner. He doesn't know what is expected of him. The topless draws aside the triangular curtain.

"Ever want to be a gynecologist?"

What's a five-syllable word like that doing in a place like this? Eyeball quickly reviews the life choices that brought him to this moment. In high school, (continued on page 128)Been Going Down So Long(continued from page 125) he took a Kuder Preference test, one of those green things you poked holes in with a pen. Or clipped to a clothesline and blasted with a 12-gauge, as Eyeball did. His guidance counselor had suggested a career in journalism.

"Don't get your finger caught."

Eyeball wipes his hand on a napkin. Not from nervousness. Courtesy. To remove condensation picked up from the chilled glass. He reaches forward. The first contact is tentative. Mildly adhesive. An insult to every gynecologist in the country. The topless doesn't even scream. After five seconds, she releases the garter, severing the relationship and very nearly Eyeball's index finger at the first joint. The regulars snort, exchange glances. Obviously, the kid is a beginner. He'll learn.

•

"Where is the action in this town?"

Having bounced that question off the Plexiglas security barriers of five successive New York cabs, with no luck, I am beginning to take the silence personally. The fault does not lie with my delivery. Practiced. Offhand. Hip. A cross between the kind of guy who does this on every business trip and the kind of guy to whom the possibility has just occurred that--somewhere--action exists for the asking. So far, my drivers have been Ph.D. candidates in one obscure study or another, whose idea of a good time involves getting locked overnight in the public library with a flashlight and The True Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

My new driver doesn't look promising. Having sorted through the previous fare, he stashes it in the floor vault, turns, pushes open the money tray, blows out the cigarette ashes and asks where I'm headed. I tell him the Algonquin Hotel and explain the nature of my quest.

The flag drops and ten or so of the 8,000,000 stories in the naked city break from the gate. At last, I've found a live one. "Well, there's this place down by the docks. A leather bar. It's got one of the best pool games in the city. People go there to hustle or get hustled. Everybody's famous. On weekends, it sponsors gay revues and fist-fucking contests for the sailors. A regular Ted Mack amateur hour.

"On weekdays, the place gives equal time to straights with a businessmen's luncheon special. A topless waitress and all you can eat. For a dollar, you can cop a feel or go down on the girl. A dollar a touch, a dollar a lick. Can't beat prices like that, can you? If you want to check it out, pick up a copy of the Screw that came out this morning. Al Goldstein wrote a column on the place. He says the action depends on the girl, but what else is new? It always depends on the girl. Story of my fucking life."

I ask him why a waitress who, if I had gotten it right, exposed the parts of her body below the waist in the exercise of her duties would be called a topless.

"If you're staring a girl in the bush, you think you're going to remember her face?"

The elevator operator at the Algonquin does not have a copy of Screw in his stack of papers, thank you. I pick one up at a stand on Broadway, from a blind news dealer. Not bad for an omen. While I'm waiting for the light to change, a very attractive girl buys a copy of Screw, pressing exact change into the dealer's hand with a smile that he feels, rather than sees. I am seized with immediate, undying love. I imagine asking her to lunch. "Oh, I was just checking the ad I placed in 'Personals.' Here it is. 'Gracious lady in Sutton Place apartment seeks meaningful relationship.'" The one genuine come-on in a page filled with ads placed by real-estate agents who have property to move on Sutton Place. It is minutes before I can walk.

•

The next morning, I call up Nathaniel Bynner, my old college roommate, for brunch. We meet at Maxwell's Plum, a singles club on the Upper East Side that features brass nudes and arrogant waiters in equal proportion. I discreetly spread the issue of Screw on the table, knowing that it will be mistaken for The New York Review of Books. While Nat reads Goldstein's column, I watch two girls at the next table. They are dressed in identical black Danskin tops, or they use the same jar of body paint in the morning. The topic of discussion seems to be sexual response. ("How long does your orgasm last?" "From now . . . to now." Terrific: a definition of the phrase "I guess you had to be there.") Nathaniel interrupts my reverie.

"So you're going to pay for it?"

"Depends on what you mean by it. I have, on occasion, paid for an indefinite antecedent. Loved every minute of it, too. Unless you think life is a total waste of money, you always get what you pay for."

"No, I'm serious. Don't you have any reservations about engaging in commercial sex?"

"Just because Holden Caulfield didn't make it with the girl in the green dress, we all have to be sensitive? I'm not betraying the sexual revolution. If I am, it's my second offense. Last time I was in New York, curiosity and an expense account got the better of me. I checked out this high-class massage parlor. The brochure said, 'All Major Credit Cards Accepted,' but they wouldn't take my Carte Blanche. So I signed over all of my traveler's checks for the basic program--massage, whirlpool, hot-rock sauna, mirrored room, etc. When I was alone in the room with the girl, she explained that she worked for tips and that the size of the tip determined the quality of the service. I didn't know how much money I had left, so I started counting it out on the massage table. As the stack of bills grew, so did I. I felt like Basil Rathbone in an old Sherlock Holmes movie. Hello! What have we here, Watson? The transaction itself was the turn-on. I was amazed."

Nathaniel dismisses my amazement. "You just discovered one of the seventeen measures of the strength of the dollar. I want to know the clinical details."

"I had enough money for the French program. We discussed the auteur theory of film making, the works of Claude Chabrol and specifically the significance of Orson Welles's nose in the movie Ten Days' Wonder. Incredible insight. That girl could have written for The New Yorker. No, scratch that. She was too intelligent; she would have seen through the hype for Nashville."

"So you dropped a hundred bucks for an hour of movie reviews, when you thought you were getting an hour of sex. Nice move, Sagebrush."

"Did I say that? I received an adequate massage. I've had better. Also, the girl gave incredible head. However, I'm not sure that a topless lunch bar can be compared with a massage parlor. A different standard of economics applies, for one thing. You notice a hundred dollars, but what's a couple of bucks? It's more like an honorarium. I figure these chicks are wealthy socialites who like their work so much they agree to do it for a dollar a lick."

Maybe.

•

The cab lets me out near a windowless two-story brick motel, the only building on an odd-shaped block that is as far west as you can go and still be on Manhattan. That alone should qualify the area as a sexual frontier. The wide cobblestone streets that isolate the building from the neighboring warehouses and meat-packing plants seem confused: Is this the place? There is almost nothing to indicate that the motel houses a bar, except for an unmanned sandwich board, propped on the sidewalk by a fireplug: topless dancers. New girls every day. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The eight is taped over. I assume the bar is making preparations, in case Goldstein's column gets picked up by the media and the Beautiful People, known for keeping ridiculous hours, decide to make eating out an "in" thing. ("Baron von Furburger, et al., were seen last night at. . . .")

I push through double doors into a cavernous room. The place seems emptier than it is. High dark ceiling. Low hanging lights. No booths. No tables. No mirrors. None of the tiny breakable items that create "atmosphere." Just a rectangular bar in the middle of the room, a walled (continued on page 172)Been Going Down so Long(continued from page 128) fort surrounded by red stools. The owner knows his clientele. The room is permanently cleared for action. Although I can't spot the drains, I suspect that at closing time they simply hose the place down and leave it at that.

At the moment, there is only one girl, topless or otherwise, in view. She is behind the bar, checking the levels of quart bottles with orange fingernail-shaped spouts. A Sheer Strip Band-Aid rides high on one breast, a tiny accent mark. Pasties and a few square inches of satin between her legs barely meet the legal definition of decent exposure. Like a Las Vegas showgirl, she is secure in her nakedness. Effective. Not exactly open to small talk, either. Why fish for compliments when you can dynamite the whole fucking pond? I take a corner stool, facing the door, and order a vodka and tonic. The girl breaks my ten and leaves nine singles. Can't beat prices like that.

Nothing seems to be happening. In the absence of action, I look for details. My eyes adjust to the darkness; near the top of the black walls I notice a mural, a zodiac of constellations, each called Scorpio Rising. A very amateur artist has depicted, in white brush strokes, a bevy of reclining motorcyclists, whose idea of indolence seems to have been ripped out of a Cosmo centerfold. The leather-boy motif is continued toward the back of the room, where ceiling-to-floor chains act as a divider. On the other side, a pool table is being interrogated under a conical light by several sunglassed blacks. One of the players takes a break and claims a corner stool at the bar and orders a glass of ice water. He keeps his eyes on the game, waiting to see if the table will change its story.

The first of the dockworkers arrives, to take the third corner stool. He is built like William Bendix ten years after The Life of Riley. Double-knit stretch bell-bottoms, an acetate shirt and aviator glasses, tinged pink with embarrassment. He is a professional drinker. Calling for some Jose Cuervo, he establishes a rhythm and builds it slowly, like a juggler adding balls to a spinning arc. Lime. Salt. Tequila. Lime. Salt. Tequila. A brief pause to rebalance his eyes. Lime. Salt. Tequila. It could go on forever, if not all night.

The second of the dockworkers arrives. Before taking the fourth corner stool, he presses a few buttons on the jukebox nestled behind the plywood divider leading to the men's room. A country-and-western song spreads across the room. ("Every shot of bourbon seems to miss/The target if there is one don't keep still/I aim to maim, but then I guess/There are times I would settle for a kill.") This guy is serious. I get the idea that I am out of my league.

I marvel at the unspoken etiquette at work here; the same principle that keeps members of a porno-film audience just out of range of one another seems to dictate the seating. Perhaps the phenomenon is related to nature's famed Fibonacci sequence, the mysterious force that places leaves at discreet intervals on a limb for maximum exposure to sunlight. Keep your distance, the essence of religious freedom.

A man and a woman--Andy Capp and Flo from the Sunday funnies--tug each other into place on a pair of stools and order a pitcher of beer.

Two men in ties and matching suits enter the room, buy a six-pack at the bar and assume a casual stance by a rail that runs along one wall, as far from the action as possible. When either empties a can, he crushes it in his fist and tosses it into a nearby wastebasket. They are from the D.A.'s office.

The scene is set. It is time for the topless to go to work. She clambers up onto the bar and, without hesitation, takes position over my drink. Why me, Lord?

•

I am back at the beginning, staring at the original Rorschach. A voice intones the warning: You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you see can and may be used against you later. How, I ask myself, do you go down on a woman standing over your head? She doth bestride the narrow bar like a colossus and we petty men walk under her huge legs and peep about to find ourselves, uh, honorable caves. Men at some time are masters of their fate. But not now, Shakespeare.

•

Moments later, I am nursing my finger. The dockworkers are laughing. The girl has separated a dollar from the stack beside my drink and slipped it into a sweat-band on her wrist. I order a straight vodka from the bartender. Mixed drinks are like mixed emotions--inefficient--they hinder action.

•

The topless stands before the player. He points to the G string and snaps his fingers. No tricks. The girl tugs on a slipknot and the cloth triangle disappears into her hand. He extends his right hand, palm up, fingers extended, the image of nonchalance. (Adam of the Sistine Chapel: "Gimme some skin.") She positions herself and begins a circular motion. The player speaks and the topless changes her tempo and axis of rotation. If you're gonna use me, use me till you use me up. The player breaks contact abruptly and walks back to the game, where he picks up a chalk and readies his cue, duplicating the girl's motion. Articulate. Concise. Competent.

The topless stops in front of the drinker, who gives no sign that he is aware of her. She waits for the rhythm to include her. Lime. Salt. Tequila. Lime. Salt. Tequila. Cunt. Lime. Salt. Tequila. The man knows how to quench a thirst.

The Sunday funnies are agape. The little woman reaches into a carpetbag purse, pulls out a dollar, waves it toward the topless and then nods toward her husband. Andy Capp looks eager, if not totally there. The topless wraps one leg around his neck, cradling his head in her crotch. I am mystified by the exchange. Maybe the woman is disgusted by her husband's carnal habits but feels that, as an understanding wife, she must supervise his activity through these, the cavity-prone years. Maybe she is one of those women who are victimized by oral sex ("Every time he wants me out of the room, he goes down on me, keeps me on the other side of my orgasm") and she'll take relief any way she can. Maybe the little woman is proud of her man's ability. Andy Capp, without coming up for breath, twitches his hand on the bar. Another bill floats out of the carpetbag, to be tucked into the sweatband.

Raising his glass, if not his eyes, to the topless, the second dockworker abstains. He is a purist, he likes his alcohol straight. The girl understands.

Two long-haired Scandinavian giants duck through the door, refugees from a beer commercial. No chickenshit arm wrestling for these guys. They want Gusto! Big Giant picks the topless off the bar with one arm, hoists her to his shoulder and alternates between a stein of beer, handed to him by his side-kick, and the world's finest chaser. Judging by the movements of his head, he's one of those guys who believe that as you're only going around once, you might as well go around once. Slow, deliberate circles. The girl is ecstatic. She braces herself against Big Giant's chest and writhes in mid-air. This is beggar's ballet. A pas de deux worthy of Nureyev and Fontaine, at a fraction of the cost. At the finish of the dance, she kneels and allows Big Giant to kiss the space between her breasts.

She turns to his side-kick. Little Giant describes what he wants done. The topless goes into a backbend, then arches. The skin stretches tight across her stomach; the pasties rise from her nipples like cymbals. And, touching only one point on this half circle of tension, Little Giant's tongue. Brute strength is challenged by technique. He is allowed to kiss the space between her breasts.

One of the D.A.'s men tries to crush a full can of beer.

A rumpled businessman scowls at the hippies from the other side of his martini. A five-spot face up on the bar establishes his credit. A man doesn't have to be a long-hair to give good head. He grabs the top-less by the buttocks, collides with her, slams shut a desk drawer on accounts payable. The girl appreciates dramatic tension. She bucks, appears to struggle, then relents, pulling him into her, tousling what is left of his hair.

I am moved by the democracy of it. I realize that I am enjoying the spectacle, that everyone in the bar, which is now full, is having a good time. You can see it on their faces. There are no pockets of quiet desperation. I am on my seventh straight vodka. The owner is no fool. Like beer nuts and free popcorn, something about the bar snacks here increases the thirst. Another girl begins to work the bar. The original topless has come full circuit and is in front of me once more. I pocket my wire rims, retiring the transparent eyeball for the night, and brushing apart her hair, draw her toward me. I notice that her thighs are smooth muscular, deafening. The secret word is announced. Glossolalia. The gift of tongues. I cease to be aware of details or individual gestures. We fall into place. We are graceful. We are strong. Lifting her from the bar, I introduce her to a position that would send Olga Korbut to a chiropractor. I am allowed to kiss the space between her breasts.

•

The next day. I meet Nathaniel for lunch. At least I think it is the next day. It might not be Nathaniel, for that matter. I'm flying on autopilot, locked in a holding pattern over the New Jersey swamps, waiting for the hangover to clear.

"Well. Sagebrush, how'd ya do?"

I recount the details: Nat probes for the meaning. He wants interpretation, not action. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. The telephone number of the topless.

"I'm not sure I can. Like Bobby Fischer says, I don't believe in psychology, I just believe in good moves. Most of the guys at the lunch bar are convinced that they have the fastest tongue in the West. Give them ten seconds with a woman, any woman, and she'll come. If she doesn't, it's her own fault. The place is carefree, defiant. It's too weird to be neurotic, right? Going down on a woman in public is an exercise of personal freedom. I don't need this, I WANT this. And it's an accomplishment. When these guys go to heaven, they can look Saint Peter in the eye and say. 'In my life. I've performed cunnilingus on X number of women. I have witnesses.' It won't matter if some of the women were topless. I'm a man of my word. I can pass a lie-detector test. As long as you don't go into detail, the language doesn't lie.

"As to whether the girls enjoy themselves: A woman who has to maintain her balance on a two-foot walkway several feet off the ground while wearing six-inch platforms isn't going to get off on ten seconds of oral sex. The girls are exhibitionists; their minds are always on their act--collecting the dollar bills, cleaning themselves with an alcohol-soaked towel between customers. Very delicate, that. But I think they get off on people who make them look good. When you do something in front of people, you don't ask if your partner is satisfied, you ask the audience if the performance was satisfying. Once you get that figured, it's easy to be a star."

Nathaniel volunteers to accompany me back to the bar to collect additional data. We are too late. Goldstein's column has entered the collective unconscious of New York. The bar is three-deep with people you never see in daylight. West Point cadets. Every sociology student in the city. Countless dudes impersonating Geraldo Rivera and the Eyewitness News team. Absolutely no one impersonating Tom Snyder. The air is vibrant with anxiety. In the back room, the gashed green felt of the pool table testifies to the general nervousness. People eye one another, wondering if their neighbors have a communicable disease. If the girls do. Having to ask for a complete medical history spoils the romance. The regulars have fled. Four girls are working the walkway. Dollar bills are thrust into G strings and bra straps, like cash offerings to a statue of the Virgin Mother. I am recognized, waved to by the original topless. She points to the crowd and shrugs. The bar has been discovered. Or busted. Or both. The topless has gone the way of the bottomless cup of coffee. No one can make the opening move. For a dollar, they will wave it in your face. Proximity, not involvement. Nothing is delivered. The return to voyeurism is sad. Crippling. I don't want it. I don't need it. We leave.