and Roza and Davidoff also imbibed, both uttering a Hebrew toast, perhaps prayer for the dead, as they did so. With a wave to Roza’s aunt lurking in an upstairs window, we were off.
If you’ve ever been on a carnival thrill ride at Coney Island or some such place, you will then know how that evening felt. Everything a blur, everything in motion, shouts, screams, open mouths, then the occasional stillness that has such import it becomes burned into the memory from amidst the maelstrom. Such was that night. Miracles, marvels, and many other things besides as we celebrated my newfound fortune. Down 6th Avenue we went, and down into some foreign, almost infernal, world we descended. I wish I could relate more of the night, but with so much a haze, again, it is only the marvels that stand out.
It began at Duffy’s Point, perhaps the most decent establishment we would venture into the entire night. Silver passed the flask, glasses were raised, and the minstrels, a bunch of Irish waifs, struck the first chords. From there, already with a gaggle of drunken followers, we went to the Paladin, where Davidoff’s impatience for drinks made the barkeep so irate that he flicked beer foam into Davidoff’s shocked face. From there to the Gas-house where a man referred to Sherpa as a nigger and had his nose broken for his efforts while Sherpa somehow didn’t even get a speck of blood or gristle on his shirt. On for a quick sup at a chinaman’s chophouse before reaching the underground gin mill the Copper Penny, where a scaly eye peered at us through the peep-hole. It was only at the Penny that we paused, Silver taking Roza’s arm quickly as he solemnly informed her, “This is not a place for ladies.” Roza laughed and such a laugh it was, head thrown back with the deepness from her strong throat, those green and amber eyes flashing. “Since when has an actress been considered a lady?” she smirked, grabbing the flask from his coat. Drinking heartily, Roza pounded the door directly beneath the watch-man’s eye and all together we reeled inside.
The Penny was bedlam, and we were yet another group of inmates taking charge of the asylum. The throngs pressed back and forth from the bar to the dance floor, and Sherpa’s beautiful crimson shirt the only way of maintaining a bearing as we waded in. Somehow Silver found us a snug near the back (the man had a talent, a genius in fact, for such things) and we piled in, Roza positively hot against my shoulder as she stripped off the cashmere and reached for glasses. Toasts, more toasts, more toasts again, and Sherpa in red was on the dance floor, stepping lightly from one bird to another as his fancy dictated, a small, reeking cigar burning continuously from the corner of his mouth. Silver, like always, had discovered an acquaintance from his Tammany days and was plotting the downfall of the reformers who’d taken over City Hall. Roza in the heat took off her hat and let her dark, dark hair hang loose. With a cry, she too was out on the dance floor, next to Sherpa, and together, well, together they burned the dance floor down. Even amidst the uncouth floods, space cleared for them to cut the rug. God knows what those steps actually were, and I, with my leg and all, hardly knew whether they were doing the Turkey Trot, the Collegiate Shag, or the Charleston, thankfully a craze just then in its infancy. I must admit, for a time I felt a pitiable, self-pitying envy for Sherpa, understanding for the first time Davidoff’s equally pitiable predicament. He was almost comatose from all the drink, and though I felt nothing but scorn at the time, he could hardly be blamed for falling out. Remember: accustomed more to the frolics of coffee house malingerers, he was hardly in his element with a former carnie, a Latino pirate, and a hardened Tammany man. Even now I can hardly think of a group better suited to heavy indulgence. Still, I too was a bit worse for the wear at the moment, and let my sodden mind wander for a time. Then coming back up, I saw Roza and Sherpa standing in front of the table. My expression must have given me away, for Roza turned and laughed to Sherpa, “Oh, look at Robert—he’s jealous.” Admirably on his part, Sherpa gave a look of concern, though if it was for my feelings or because of worry that my often-terrible temper was going to explode was difficult to tell. Then Roza did as no other woman had done before, or since: she grabbed my hand, began lifting me from the snug (“Oh, come on, Robert!”) and brought me out onto the dance floor.
I hardly knew what to do with myself. Inebriated or not, I felt as though my face was on fire from blushing. Roza held both my hands as we waited for the band, a quintet of blacks led by a chubby pianist named Kid Memphis, to start up again. Fortunately for me, they broke not into one of those flapping, shaking frenzies, but into a slow, tinkling ragtime tune. Roza threw her head back again at the sound, delighting in the maudlin piano, and pulled me close. Her fingers ran along my neck, tugging sometimes lightly at my hair, and I held onto her. Again, it was as though her very fingers were singing, singing this time directly to me, the ragtime rolls spinning up and down my spine. I was transfigured, and transformed, by Roza, by Kid Memphis, by the whiskey and the heat and the money roll and the other couples clutching each other within the Copper Penny, and for the one time in my life I felt as though I had become water. My leg, always so gnarled and gripped and tripping on itself, loosened, becoming water itself, and with it my hips and my hands as well as I pulled Roza closer, even daring to kiss her neck. She did not resist that or my hands now at hers hips tightly, but sighed and shook her hair back so I could kiss even more of her throat as the ragtime piano rolled on and on, and we rolled with it.
After that, all became a wash again. Somehow or another, we returned to the snug, hauled Davidoff to his feet, and were out of the Penny, into the Bowery and back to the Half-Shell, Roza and I arm in arm the whole walk. Barreling through the saloon doors and seeing Maud at the counter, I wondered if Silver was going to be in for it. But Maud said a nary a word, instead disappearing to the back to fetch huge mugs of tea with lemon and a plate of soda bread made just that evening. Chairs were scrounged from various empty berths, and all together we sat, sipping and sobering and smacking our lips at the delicious bread and strawberry preserves. Old Bear came out for the party as well, bonking each of us in turn with his fat black head, and Silver didn’t even dispute the cat’s Old World origins. Instead, he just yawned and muttered over and over, “What a night, what a night. Not since Pay-or-Play came in at 100 -1 has the Bowery seen such a night . . .” I myself couldn’t take my eyes off Roza, and my every glance was met with an equal glance. Seeing Davidoff slumped and passed out in his own chair, she rose. I thought for a terrible second that she was going to awaken the schlub so he could escort her back to her aunt’s house. Instead, she removed her long overcoat and, with cruel finality, gently covered him with the cashmere. Ever a gentleman, Silver kept his eyes discreetly pinned to his lap as Roza and I ascended the stairs to my berth. Before I shut the door, the top hat was carefully placed on the knob.
The next day, I could hardly contain myself. I escorted Roza— even lovelier in her dawn disarray—to her aunt’s, then fairly raced back to the Half-Shell to boast of my conquest. Enchanted, I had been spared the worst of the binge’s aftereffects, but neither Silver nor Sherpa was so fortunate. I found them hunched over in the lobby chairs, moaning, holding their heads, and slurping tea again. Unmerciful, I talked a mile a minute, regaling their aching ears with my exploits.
“You should have seen her! God almighty, but she has the appetite of a man. She asked about the top hat, I made up some dumb excuse, but she brushed my lies aside. ‘You’re quite the Casanova,’ she teased, toying with my shirt as I toyed with the buttons of her cream dress. We were standing near the bed, and then, the dam finally broke. We were on the bed, kissing and kissing and kissing, our clothes getting caught on elbows or ankles, and we began to laugh at our own spectacle. I wondered how she would react to my twisted knee and the grotesque bone, and for a moment I tried to keep it concealed beneath the sheet, but she murmured something I couldn’t understand and caressed it all the more, kissing me all over. She climbed atop me, so light and so long-bodied all at once. As I ran my hands over her, I realized with a squawk that she had shaved her pussy! It was almost too much, and she giggled at her own impudence or at my own astonished, excited reaction or both. Then, by god, then we had at it. ‘C’mon, Robert, make me disappear,’ she teased again as she mounted me, directing my hands and fingers wherever she wished. Gentlemen, we went on for hours, hours, and that is the truth. Can you imagine, a shaved cat! Until you’ve experienced that . . .”
