Tours of the Black Clock

38

LEONA CHECKS THE COATS at the Top Dog. She’s dark and dimpled, not one of the really beautiful women of the club but not plain either. The first time I see her, which is about five minutes after the first time I walk through the door, I know I’ll have her, I know she’ll be my first woman. I may have to work at it, but not that hard. She stares at me the whole night.

This begins my career as the doorman for Doggie Hanks. I wouldn’t make too much of it, it’ll only last about fourteen months and not once in that time do I see anything particularly interesting. “Just how shady is this?” I ask him one night, and he says, “Prohibition’s legal now, kid,” a non sequitur but I know what he means. The clientele is a mix of the completely respectable and the faintly dubious, none necessarily any more suspicious than the clearly underage doorman. I’m never called upon to escort anyone out, though a couple of times Doggie does suggest I sort of shift my attention in the direction of someone who risks getting out of hand. I guess the mere sight of me is always enough, which is the way Doggie likes it. “And he’s smart too,” he’ll say to this person or that. “So let’s see him do something smart,” the other person will say, and Doggie retorts, “He doesn’t have to do anything smart. You can just take my word for it.”

I have Leona my second week, one night after the club has closed. We’re back among the coats that got left behind by people too inebriated to remember them. Because it’s my first time I’m a little nervous, it’s probably not the most impressive performance. Still, Leona screams like she’s being impaled; when I begin to stop she croaks in my ear, “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare.” She wants the light off but I have to leave it on because in the dark I see these things I don’t want to see, the faces of Indian women, and I hear these things I don’t want to hear, voices from the dark of a doorway; so the light stays on.

Leona wants me to go home with her afterhours but that isn’t what I have in mind. For a month or two I sleep at the club on a couch in one of the offices upstairs until I get some money together for a room. I begin to do what I’ve been waiting to do. For a while I do it on a table in the cloakroom and later when I get my own room about seven blocks from the club, a room all of ten feet by twelve, with a bed and small dresser for my clothes and a table by the window, I do it there. Then I work up the courage to borrow the typewriter in Hanks’ own office and in the early mornings around six or seven o’clock I teach myself how to use it, one slow finger at a time, until I’ve finished with what I’ve already written out by hand. When Doggie catches me in his office he’s not very pleased about it; for the first time he scares me. Billy the driver happens to be there and is extremely amused. “Sorry,” I can only say, “didn’t mean anything.” Hanks is smoking mad. “Didn’t mean anything,” I keep muttering, “sorry,” over and over. Hanks nods to Billy. “Solicitous as hell,” he says. Billy guffaws.

“What’s this?” Hanks picks up my old beatup issue of Savage Nights next to the typewriter. He shakes his head. “Our fucking doorman’s making with the words,” he says to Billy, then he throws the magazine down and sighs deeply. “You want to use the machine it’s OK, kid,” he says, “but not in my office. You can take it down to the cloakroom where you’ve been boinking my check-in girl.” I look at him surprised and he says, “Yeah I know about that, too. Look, don’t get it into your head there are things it’s better for me not to know about. There’s nothing that it’s better for me not to know about.” He looks over his shoulder at Billy and turns back to me smiling. “When you’re done with the machine, Billy will bring it back up for you.” All the amusement goes right out of Billy’s face. I want to laugh out loud.

Sometimes when I’m typing in the cloakroom Hanks sits out in the empty club in a booth with a girlfriend, or a business associate; then he comes by and sticks his head in. Or I’ll finish up and while Billy’s carrying the typewriter into the office, pale and fuming, I catch a glimpse through the door into Doggie’s private washroom, and he’s standing there with a razor in his hand and his face white with cream. As he shaves it smooth and rinses the razor he calls out to me and asks how the words are coming. Over the months I make up stories about some of the people who come into the club, once or twice I’m stupid enough to ask Hanks the wrong question as a bit of research. Like if he’s killed many men. I never figured him for a somber man, but he answers somberly, “You’re talking like a little kid now. Who I’ve killed and whether I’ve killed isn’t a joke.” I’m appalled by myself at this moment, but eight years from now it will seem small potatoes, compared to the mortifications to come.