Norman's Date

Norman came in the bar and told me this one night.

Norman always has great stuff to say. About painting and people he knows and Europe. Personalities and marvelous accomplishments. Fashionable kinda stuff, in a way. But one night he came up with this.

He was drinking. He had one hand holding up his very expensive trench coat. He had a Gauloise dangling outa his mouth. He said, "I met a woman, huh, the other night. Boy!" He was talking and puffing the Gauloise, his coat pushed back, a couple a guys and me listening. We got drinks. It wasn't even late. Nobody was drunk.

"Yeah, I'd been at the Five Spot," he said. He was talking like it was real—he was earnest, ya know. "I was listening to Monk. And I saw this babe digging the music. She was listening—she smiled—she was weaving, she had a glass. Ya know. I started watchin' her.

"She was great, man. Great-lookin'. Long and slender and blonde. And dolled up. But good taste. Even some goddamn jewelry. And I hate jewelry, but on her it looked great. Really great.

"And she spotted me after a while. I was playin' it cool. Ya know. I thought maybe her ol' man was in the John and was comin' right back. Shit. I didn't want no trouble. The music was great, too. That crazy Monk. And Wilbur. And that goddamn 'Trane was learning to play Monk's tunes. Ya know?"

Norman held up his glass and gestured at us; there were maybe two others and me in our knot. He gestured for drinks all around. He was lighting another Gauloise with the stump he had in his mouth.

He shrugged acknowledgment as we held up our glasses, saluting him. Norman is a generous guy, in a way, but he comes on tough. An ex-captain in goddamn bombers in World War Two. He's always got a scowl on his puss. People who don't know him think he's an asshole. A couple of friends of mine, even. Ya know, Norman was making a little money then. Flyin' back and forth to Paris. Had regular shows there and a good gallery in New York. Big abstract-expressionist canvases, big as hell. Like the paint soaked in. He had his own style. You could tell a Norman anywhere once you'd seen 'em.

I got to know him through Frank. He was always jam up with painters, 'specially the abstract expressionists. De Kooning, Kline, Guston, Hartigan and even Rivers.

Cedar Bar. The early Sixties, before Malcolm and hot street shit sent people flying every which way. But we hung tough then. We hung. And bullshit. Massive mountains of it got laid down in that joint.

"So she looked at me," Norman was saying, "right in the eye. Hey. What a look! It went right through me. My pecker started to turn over just a little bit. Ya know. This babe was really good-lookin', no shit!"

We were sipping and Norman's a good storyteller. He brought in the whole nuance of the thing, the environmental vibes. So to speak, at the time. He described the woman. He really described her. She sounded good, like a cross between Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe (I think those were his references) but not "whorish," he said, not at all whorish. Real nice!

Norman's a big, square-jawed Jewish guy with a permanently sneering lower lip. It gives him character. But actually, he's a sweet guy in a lotta ways. He'd probably give you his last dime—but he ain't never gonna get to that, not no last dime, knowing Norman. He knows what's happening, and being broke ain't in it!

"Monk was doing his wild dance." Norman demonstrated. Oh, shit! I was laughing. Fuckin' Norman, don't dance, please, get on with the goddamn story.

"And the babe was gettin' warmer and warmer. I could feel it across the room. Warmer right there. Across the room. Through the music. Over the people. The babe was sending, like, fuckin' heat rays across the room. And I started thinkin'. I wasn't thinkin' shit. But the ding-dong was clearly on the move. And we were still fifteen feet apart. And Monk was squattin' down and...." Norman demonstrated again. He came up and gestured with the glass again. And John brought another round.

"When the set was over, she looked away. I said, 'Shit, a fuckin' tease. This bitch!' But then the fuckin' broad turned and looked me right up and down from eyehole to peehole. Yeah, she laid them baby-blue glimmers right on the tip end of my pecker." We howled.

"How'd you know it was the tip end?" Fuckin' drunk Basil always got some contentious shit to raise—he was beginning to get a little potted.

"Hey, you know where somebody's lookin', goddamn it!" Norman pretended to be incensed. We laughed.

I said, "Basil never had nobody look at his drunken ass—he's too fuckin' drunk."

"What? What?" Basil chugaluged his brew. "You wanna see the eyeprints on my ding-a-ling?"

Norman made the jerk-off sign. Everybody almost fell down.

John, the bartender, came over, said, "What are you fuckin' guys bullshittin' about now? Goddamn Norman lying about something again?"

"John, kiss my ass, will ya?" Norman said. "Give us a fucking free round and quit butting in the customers' fucking conversation.

"So then, like, while she was shootin' the heat rays at my Johnson, I started to return it full up, ya know."

"What'd you do, pee?" (Basil again.)

"Ya prick, shaddup!"

"Let him finish."

"Go 'head, Norman."

"It was crowded as hell in the Five Spot. Monk and 'Trane, man. That's bad bad. Not just bad but bad bad!"

"Yeah, yeah," everybody said. "Amen to that." And it was bad bad—check the records.

"So I started over," said Norman.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I started over. Not goofy, like Basil."

Basil shrugged, chugaluged and waved for another at John, who was now standing behind the bar, cocking an ear; he knew the kind of good stories Norman could tell.

"I started over, very cautious and cool. Like I was moving through the crowd, like maybe I was going to the john or to somebody else's table, right?"

"Yeah," we said, encouraging and encouraged.

"And then, when it looked like I might pass the table, I turned, like slow...." Norman gave the A-number-one demo of Norman Valentino, eyes squinting sexily, shoulders pulled back, his trench coat hung over that one arm, ever-present drink in hand.

"She looked up at me, maybe she'd never taken her eyes away, I dunno. But when I turned, she caught me again from pecker to soul and back again. Whew."

We whewed, too. John smirked but listened even harder. Basil was grinning silently and making funny motions with his body that I decided were cheerleading stunts.

"And then I was standing there over the table and she was whispering, almost, her voice was low and soft, like quiet. People all around cackling and howling, like they do in intermission. Pushing back and forth. And I was standing there with this wild-looking woman stroking me through the eyes clear down to the balls!"

Norman was outdoing himself. We were getting rapt and dumping beer down us or whatever—no, I think I was drinking bourbon and soda.

"She said, 'So why are you standing? There's room.' I guess I kept staring.

" 'You just want to look?"

" 'Huh.' I dunno if I said 'Huh.' But probably I did, but she thought it was something else with the cigarette. 'Hi,' I said, and she laughed. With that uncanny, quiet, low voice.

" 'Hi, yourself. I was wondering were you coming over or what? I thought for a while you might be just window-shopping.'

"I laughed and eased into the seat. I sort of held the glass up, like a toast, as I sat, and she did the same.

" 'Whatcha drinking?' It's always my first statement to any broad, no matter how she looks. She was drinking that goddamn Dubonnet on the rocks. I shoulda...."

"What?" Basil snapped out of his slow, drunken grin. "Dubonnet, for Christ's sake. Who the hell drinks that?"

"Shaddup, will ya, drunk?" I think it was White propped against the bar, at least as drunk as Basil, kibitzing. "I wanna hear the goddamn story."

"OK, OK." Basil started to order another round, but John was already drawing it. "So what happened next, Norman? Goddamn it, this is gettin' good." And Basil began to chugalug again.

"Yeah. We started talking, ya know. I told her about me. She said she'd seen some a my work at Castelli's. She told me she was even at an opening of mine."

"Yeah, a fuckin' art lover!" Basil was smirking and White was frowning at him, an unserious frown.

"She told me she used to paint when she first came to the Village, but she got bored. She worked in an ad agency. She was a model. She even went out to Hollywood."

"Yeah, Hollywood!" White cheered.

"Shaddup, drunken bastard," Basil jeered unseriously.

"So what'd she do then?" I wanted to keep the story moving. Stories turn me on. 'Specially from guys like Norman, because you keep waitin' for some slip-up so you can tell it's bullshit, or else it's real and you pick up some info.

"She said she was thinking about it. She said she saved up some money, so she was between careers. She even wanted to play the goddamn violin, took lessons and everything. But nothin'.

"Anyway, we were gettin' cozy—Monk came back out. She kept on with the Dubonnet and I was sloshing down bourbon and waters like they were gonna ration the shit the next day. She was purring at me. Asking me about art. Asking me about my life.

"She told me she'd never married. That she'd lived with a few guys a couple times but nothing serious. She was twenty-seven—just my age category." Norman was 37 then. "And, man, once I got close to her, she looked even better. Smooth, smooth ivory skin. Pale-red lips. These blue-gray peepers that seem like they keep wanting to change colors." And then Norman chugaluged. "And a set of fuckin' "—he made a cupping motion—"breasts."

Basil and White turned and squinted at Norman at the same time. I was laughing so it made a little sound of air rushing out between the teeth. We said, almost at the same time, "Breasts?"

"Yeah, goddamn it!"

Wow, after the air, I let out what we all had got simultaneously. "Hey, Norman, I never heard you say 'breasts.' I thought them things upon the ladies' chests was (continued on page 160)Normans Date(continued from page 98) boobs. Or boobies. Ain't that what he calls 'em?"

"Norman with a goddamn woman with some breasts is hard to take." It was White's most coherent statement of the evening.

"These were breasts, lads." And he got another set-up from John.

John was shaking his head back and forth. "Come on, Norman, don't slow down now. Let's hear about the goddamn breasts, for Christ's sake!"

"By the end of Monk's set, we were both mellow. We already got the next day planned out for lunch, a trip to my gallery, a show. More Monk and 'Trane the next night. Then she said, 'I think it's time to head in. If we get too drunk, we'll only go to sleep.' "

It was the desired turning point of the story, so all the circle of the narrated-to got closer and, armed with the last free drink, licked our lips and waited for the next installment. Even Domenick, who was half listening and half trying to ignore Norman, 'cause he didn't like him, cocked a blatant ear and dragged his eyes off a passing lady painter's ass.

"Yeah, she said that. I hadn't even asked to go to her place. But she just pops out with it. Bam. 'Sleep, hell,' I told her. 'I'm not in a sleepin' mood. Alcohol don't put me to sleep. It just makes me mean.' And she laughed that low laugh and her eyes were changing colors, it seemed."

" 'I like that in men,' she said. 'Mean and very physical.' "

"Wow," Basil said. "Wow. She said, 'Very physical,' huh? You shoulda called White."

"Shaddup, drunk. Go on, Norman."

" 'You're coming home with me, right?' she said."

"Hey, you ain't even told us the woman's name," I put in. It just occurred to me. Maybe this was the slip-up I expected.

"He don't wanna tell us her name because he wants to keep a good thing secret." Domenick spoke for the first time, a little ironically and a trifle sourly.

"Shaddup, Domenick," Basil grinned. "You didn't tap nobody on the shoulder when that last fat ass floated by, either." Domenick was cooled out.

"Monica. Monica Hess," Norman said straightforwardly.

"Oh, a German babe," I came on with some academic shit.

"Yeah, I guess—but she didn't press it. She said she'd grown up in a small town in the Middle West—in Ohio, actually. In fact, she comes from a town called Hess, Ohio, named after her fucking grandfather."

"Wow!" we howled. This bastard scored was the general sentiment. A fuckin' painter and a rich bitch.

"A rich, sexy...."

"Beautiful...."

"Yeah...."

"Bitch."

Smoke would get in Norman's eyes and he'd squint. And you wouldn't know, sometimes, what kind of expression was on Norman's face, really.

"She told me a lot about herself. Her childhood. All the different careers. She said she couldn't find a man to satisfy her, either."

"Wow," a general "Wow" came from us. And anticipation hooked us together like a rope.

"To satisfy her?" White punched Basil so sharply, Basil ugghed in drunken pantomime, like it hurt. It did, but he was too drunk to care.

"So you naturally volunteered for that gig," I chuckled.

"Yeah." Norman was grinning now. A strange light in his eyes. "Yeah. I volunteered, all right. On the goddamn spot. My pecker was starting to rise like a fuckin' flag on the Fourth of July!

"So we get to her place. Ya know? She lives on Fourth Avenue. Park Avenue South."

"Fuck that," White spat.

"Fuckin'-a-tweety," Basil wet us with affirmation.

"Come on with the story, Norman." It was Domenick, maybe thinking Norman's ending would be so weak it would give the whole thing up as bullshit.

Norman never even looked at him. He rasped at John through the open end of his lips, "Buy the loud guy a drink on me."

"Where on Fourth Ave?"

"You know the building that looks like a convent or a tourist attraction in an old European village?"

"Yeah. Hey, that's a pretty heavy-looking building. What's the goddamn rent in there?"

"She said she pays four-fifty. A month." And this was the early Sixties.

"Jeez, what's in the goddamn place?"

"Hey, it's worth it. The inside of the joint is no quaint shit. It's super moderne." Norman used the French pronunciation. "And—get this—there's a goddamn doorman inside. But we went around to the back entrance on Broadway she's got a key for and went in. Went to an elevator and—get this—the elevator only stopped at her floor."

Everybody was now sufficiently impressed. On the real side.

I pressed. "You mean everybody in that joint's got their own elevators?"

"I dunno. But she has."

"Wow."

"So we slid right in and up. The elevator door opened right into her apartment."

"Yeah?"

"And it's laid out gorgeous. Rugs everywhere. Not the wall-to-wall. But different Indian and Persian rugs. Oriental rugs on different parts of a hardwood floor. She's got modern furniture in some rooms, old antiques in others. Glass and leather and plastic shit some places. Wood and easy chairs other places. The living room is modern. She's got paintings everywhere."

"Any of yours?"

"Yeah. Yeah. She has a big orange painting that Castelli sold last year. It's called Orange Laughter. But she has a Kline, a Guston, a big De Kooning woman. A fuckin' Larry Rivers naked person."

"The one he did of Frank with the dangling pecker?"

"No—it was more modest." Norman was being ironic. "Hey, she has a Franken-thaler. A goddamn Rauschenberg. A Jasper Johns."

"What the hell is this woman, a goddamn art buyer?" Basil.

"She's just got money, fool." White.

"Art buyers got money."

"Well, she's loaded," Norman said. "It's maybe an eight-room apartment. A couple bedrooms, a guest room. Full kitchen. Books. Records. Big Fisher components. Speakers in all the rooms. She pushed a button and there's a goddamn Morty Feldman piano concerto on."

"Fat-ass Morty!"

"So what happened, man? Shaddup, you guys!"

"We listened to Morty. We listened to Earl Brown. David Tudor and John Cage. Monk. We drank. We talked. The view is great-—great! We lay in front of her goddamn fireplace. She even played some Basie and we danced. We talked and talked. And then we got undressed on the floor. What a body!"

Everybody now was pushed forward, heads thrust at Norman like we could see the big, pretty breasts and round, peach-like behind. The long blonde hair draped around her when she let it down, cushioning her head and neck and back and the downstairs hair yellow, too, and the odor coming out of her that Norman almost sung about.

"So we did it first on the floor. She undressed like her clothes were burning her. But it was sexy, mates, I tell you. And there she was. And in a very few seconds...."

"There you were...." I shot in.

"Yeah."

Laughter.

"And what is there to say about big thighs pulling open of their own accord? And eyes hot as a weird, blue stove?"

"Wow."

"A couple hours later, we went again. She was quieter then but clung real tight. She even dug her nails in my back just a little when the whistle blew."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." We were whistling and beating on the chairs.

"Yeah, Norman, tell it," White wobbled.

"And then, just before we went to sleep—it was about two then—she told me a little saying her mother told her. It goes, 'No matter how much you might get hurt, there's love that can heal you.' "

"Was it good, Norman?" Basil smirked.

"It was very, very good. Exquisite body. And she knew what she was doing. She knew all the right spots."

" 'No matter how much you might get hurt,' " I repeated, " 'there's love that can heal you.' "

"Yeah. I felt good. Hey, it was heavenly. Heavenly. And then she sang a little song. Some kind of folk tune. Maybe it was European. I dunno. I thought it was Mother Goose or somebody. No words—just humming and a kind of refrain she repeated."

"Hey, man, that sounds great," White had stood up straight to say. Getting as sober as he could for the official congratulations.

"Heavy stuff, young Norman," I added.

"Hooray for Norman," Basil sputtered.

"Not only do people buy his paintings but he gets to fuck beautiful girls that sing, for Christ's sake!" This tickled Domenick.

But then Norman looked at us with another thing in his face and voice. "Yeah, yeah. It was good. I thought it was beautiful—the fire. I even picked her up and carried her and laid her in the big bed."

"Hey, that's a line from Frank Yerby," I kibitzed him admiringly.

"Yeah." Norman puffed and puffed on the cigarette now. And John had a big smile, pulling his head up and down, slowly affirming the reality of the tale.

"But then, after that, I went to the window, finished another bourbon and smoked a cigarette, looked down at Fourth Avenue."

"It was that cool, huh?"

"Yeah. And after that, I went and lay down beside her. In the little night light, I could see still how beautiful she was, and I felt, Shit, it's my fuckin' lucky period. Goddamn. So I lay out. I was painting pretty good. Another show in a couple months. A couple bucks in my pocket. And this fantastic sweet thing next to me in the half-dark."

"Wow."

Norman got another drink and pulled himself up straight.

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow," he said, his eyes clouding over like a windshield without a defroster on a suddenly frosty day. "And then, about an hour or so later ... I guess; I was sleeping. And I dunno, I just felt ... something just got in me. Something woke me up...."

"Uh-huh."

"And I opened my eyes, raised up a little in bed—my eyes had to get used to the half-dark. But I noticed, too, Monica is raised up in bed. Full up. My eyes focused and I suddenly saw her. She was sitting there, man, straight up in bed ... and she had a pair of scissors held up in the air! And then she saw I saw her and our eyes met."

"What?" Like it came from all of us at once, and then the word just hung a second in the whistling smoke and half-crumpled and half-floated to the floor.

But I could tell, I could see, Norman wasn't lying. He wasn't. And now he was repeating the last part, so it could really penetrate.

"Yeah, she was sitting there in the dark with a pair of fucking scissors."

"Why?" Basil finally asked, almost sober now.

We looked at each other and at Norman.

Norman coughed from the smoke in his face, the cigarette still dangling. His eyes played over us, convinced us without the least opposition. "Whatta you mean, why?" he said. "How the fuck would I know? I sure as hell wasn't staying around to find out."

We all finally let it out, the caged-up air—the surrogate terror in it and even an inch of curious delight. Norman's eyes glowed a little, and he grinned the grin of the escaped hunter.

But then a cold glaze replaced his living eyes, and the ice of death came into his face. The cigarette should've dropped, but it was stuck to his bottom lip, even with his mouth hung open.

"What's happening...?" I—the rest of us—looked at Norman, then turned to look over our shoulders. There was a blonde woman now standing just inside the bar's entrance.

She began to walk toward us. I thought, Hey, now this. Norman's slip-up is coming right straight out with the lying shit. But Norman looked ashen. I didn't think a mere lie could do that. We were starting to grin, like I guess it had also occurred to the others, too, that what Norman had told us was a really well-told lie. And now here was the chick in person to uncover the lie.

But before our smiles could tumble into place and replace our quizzical stares, Norman's ashen silence transmitted a howl of deep fear to us all. Not lightweight bullshit. So when we looked at the woman as she strode straight toward us, unnoticed by the rest of the raucous barflies, what we saw made us all believers.

The bitch had a pair of scissors in her hand. And as she came toward us, she held them up and waved them slowly back and forth, like a wand. But they were covered, even dripping, with very fresh blood.

" 'She undressed like her clothes were burning her. But it was sexy, mates, I tell you.' "