Below you will find an exclusive, never-before-imbibed excerpt from Settlers Landing, my forthcoming novel from ITNA Press. If you like it, you can read another excerpt at The White Review. If you love it, then please pre-order a copy — true, it don’t come out till November, but pre-orders help a lot. Really.
It is true, somehow, owing to a mystery perhaps enshrouded in those hurricane winds blowing in off the mid-Atlantic, Miami is a place where Mrdok is often able to resolve things, harvest wholly fresh ideas. Much of the time they come to him when he is engulfed in one or a larger number of hedonistic pursuits. Well, one would be wrong to impose a harsh sentence of judgment on a man simply for allowing his defenses to drop to a level low enough to accommodate certain sultry vices every now and again. Throughout the history of genius, countless examples persist of men whose positioning on the precipice of greatness has gone unquestioned, who nevertheless have required moments of salubrious re-fueling, as it were, in order to keep their engines revved up and in gear (if that is the proper metaphor…)
–Woo-hoo!—Mrdok’s voice comes thundering in from the enclosed patio.
Myself, I tend to remain embedded within my suite of rooms on these South Beach excursions. I’ve never taken well to the searing heat of the tropics, and, though Mrdok always requires me to be present during these refueling/brainstorming sessions in Miami, I usually elect not to partake in the preferred activities designated by the locale. The chief reason being, of course, that duty preserves me from such indulgences; while Mrdok has his own particular way of working on these occasions, another hand, and frequently another mind, is required to fulfill the feats of divinated inspiration that often arise. Since I am not nearly as talented as Mrdok when it comes to fully containing myself in certain situations, I find it best to absent my participation so as to remain busy with more practical affairs.
In the day’s case, I was just putting the finishing touches on one of those niggling Manhattan matters, namely the dispersal of Belle Encoding’s diminished assets into—
–Gordo, get in here! Mrdok interrupts. Get that lard ass in here!
I follow the scented trail of the boss’s voice. Mrdok, in polka dotted boxer shorts, is surrounded by three lesser-clothed ladies whose names I’ve long forgotten and Mrdok himself likely never learned, met at a club off Millionaire’s Row earlier in the evening’s festivities, courtesy of Nell…
–That’s Gordo—pointing at me—and this fat fuck, he can fart the entire soundtrack to The Sound of Music.
Oh, not this again.
Two of the whores erupt in giggles; the third, dazed in a drunken drugged oblivion, forgets to laugh. Or else never learned how.
–C’mon, Gordo. Give it a go! Then I gotta tell you an idea. Sniff. Our new city. Girls, did you know we, I am building a whole new city? Yeah yeah. It’s gonna be named after me. Mrdokia. It’s gonna be the Tokyo of North America! Doesn’t that sound good?
The whores seem unimpressed.
–Go on, Gordo. Let’s hear Edelweiss. From the ass horn. Your favorite instrument.
–Well, I…
–These ladies love the musicals, don’t you, girls? I swear, this is gonna be like Broadway in Miami!
Blushing, for, I must admit, modesty has always delayed me in unleashing these displays. My failure at impromptu perhaps derailing me from a fully formed career in the business of show…
–I’m serious. He’s the Miles Davis of flatulence! And you can quote me on that… Hey, turn that shit off!
Jean-Pierre, our handsome Benneton-attired Haitian butler, taps the iPad in his hand and the thumpity hip-hop belching from the hidden speakers sputters off, returning the room to its dim blue glow of high octane silence. The chill lighting suddenly imbuing the stale sex atmospherics with air-conditioned anticipation of the command performance.
–Mrdok, I’m afraid I haven’t really prepared…
For, in truth, it is a rather discreet talent, one that I tend to preserve among equals and intimates. While it might sound rather unique to amateur ears, pétomanie, as it has been deemed in the Gallic tongue, is an ancient, venerated, and much storied art form—well, art with a capital F, if you’ll allow me… No less a figure than Saint Augustine (about whom I authored an incomplete dissertation) wrote, in his City of God, of ancient practitioners of the craft, performers endowed with such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at will, so as to produce the effect of singing. Later in the medieval period, the court of King Henry II in England played host to Roland the Farter, a court jester whose flatulence performances fulfilled his Christian duty in keeping His Royal Highness merry throughout the annual Christmas celebrations. While I do not wish to subject the reader at present to an entire historical treatise, which anyway would require several volumes, suffice to mention one final, more recent example, named by an eminence no less grise than Salvador Dalí as the second greatest artist of all time (the first being, naturally, himself), as it gives us a deeper, more modern insight into the scientific facet behind this age-old phenomenon: Joseph Pujol. Pujol made, at an early age, the same discovery as I slightly later in life: that he had the natural ability to breathe through his rectal cavity. Indeed, for such divinated gentlemen (for I have yet to read of any ladies endowed with such a gift), the rectal opening serves as a second mouth, through which Nature broadcasts her opera. Through a rigorous self-discipline, Pujol endeavored to develop this precocious talent, taking in up to two quarts of air at a time. By moderating the force through which it was expelled, he could sustain musical notes of varied timber and pitch. Eventually, he was able to develop an entire repertoire that would keep the crowds at no less an esteemed venue as the Moulin Rouge rolling in the aisles in performances that could last up to ninety minutes. By one account, a poor soul in the audience even died of a heart attack while witnessing one of these shows; you can’t buy much better publicity than that! It is true, and somewhat surprising, that no one of prominence in the Americas has risen to contribute to the prolongation of this form of entertainment. After all, America being the entertainment capital of the entire world, one would think that in the hallowed halls of Radio City and/or the Hollywood scene, such a performer could be found. But none has graced the stage or the silver screen over the past hundred years. While I myself never harbored the ambition to, like Monsieur Pujol, turn this modest ability into a professional career, I did make this idiosyncratic talent of mine known early on. In my sophomore year of high school, I won second prize in the annual talent contest for my solo rendition of I’m Proud to be an American—an accolade that brought with it a certain amount of controversy, as one of the judges objected that I had neglected to include one of the verses (the lesser known one that starts From the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee…), a rather debatable claim, considering I had the entire audience on my side (they had been clapping in rhythm throughout, mesmerized), that nonetheless robbed me of first prize. And in my acquaintanceship with Mrdok, my discreet talent has naturally brought countless hours of delight. On this particular night, however, it has been many moons since I’ve practiced, and so I fear that I might not have the endurance required to sustain my way through the entirety of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s famed classic. For just like any other wind instrument, the anus must be kept properly oiled and taut in order to be played at random. This is something that professionals like Monsieur Pujol were fully cognizant of, their organic horns maintained in stupendous condition through a dedicated regimen of strenuous exercise, massage, and pampering.
–Just shut up and fart! bellows Mrdok through his cocaine mustache, impatience furrowing his brow. We wanna hear it! Fart, you fat fuck, fart!
The whores begin to chant in unison. Mrdok commences to sing along his own variation on the lyrics:
–Dyke! A queer, a female queer—
With his vocal encouragement, the wind begins to break in accompaniment:
Pfff. Pf pf. Pf pf pf pf. Pffffrp—
–Ray! A drop of golden cum—
–Mrdok, I think I may need a microphone to continue—
–Fag! A name you call yourself—
The whores hysterical flabbergasted laughing now—
Pfffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrprffffffffffppppppppppppppp—.
And with that, I’m afraid my overworked, ill-prepared sphincter gave out, letting one go that was so enormous, so large and loud, that it very well might have stirred both Rodgers and Hammerstein from their graves. The room deflated. The hills were no longer alive.
–Well. Thank god we’re not in an enclosed space.
The Black whore emits a loud cackle that bounces off the chrome bar and echoes throughout the lounge. I go out past the pool, now craving the beach’s nighttime quietude. Thankful to get it at this time of the year; Mrdok will sometimes insist on coming down here at spring break, teenagers recklessly braying and snotting and belching and puking and fucking upon the shores, not a moment of silence passes the week’s entirety. In lieu of shells, a long piece of dental floss embedded in the dark sand. Turning away from the crashing waves, the orange lamps alighting the shore, an insistent ugliness to their glow’s endurance, as though brattily denying the very force of night. Old man saunters forth, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned, flapping in the wind. He holds a stick in his hand, German Shepherd trots past eagerly, dipping its snout in at the lip of the water then hastily retreating back to its master on semi-dry sand. I trail behind them mindlessly for a while, toward the neon sleaze up ahead. Suddenly find ourselves, myself, wandering up Ocean Drive. Still shoeless in the shoeless night. But who cares? It’s Florida. Sand gives way to concrete. Feet hardly notice. Mind lost in the night’s tropical mindlessness. My wanderings take me up Millionaire’s Row. Lured off the main stretch by the palm trees down Española Way. It’s a breezy, empty night. South Beach feels nearly abandoned. Down past American Apparel, its fall window display meant to evoke a sleazy shack lifestyle, so distant from the Miami Beach aesthetic as to be incomprehensible. Through the open doors of a bar, I hear the unmistakable sound of Miles Davis’s horn. I drift inside. Despite my barefoot state, the gruff bouncers standing guard outside don’t say anything. Perhaps they are too bored to notice or care.
The place is nearly empty. The slim, waifish Cubano bartender, hair dyed in blue and red shades of cotton candy, asks what’ll it be—then, to my surprise, calls me handsome. Grapefruit and Absolut, comes his rhyming answer. Behind the bar, a mishmash of lighted shelves extending up to the ceiling contains a display of the bar owners’ collection of weird memorabilia—ram’s head with a hand-sized mirrored disco ball hanging off one of its horns, plastic pink flamingo (for those who reach a state of drunkenness which requires a visual reminder of where they are, one surmises), shark head with a wig hanging out of its mouth—along with the expected amalgamation of bottles. Hanging from the ceiling upside down throughout the interior, an array of mannequins in costumage, from hip rock ‘n’ roll all the way up to Bruce Lee. Even one in full astronaut regalia. A sole young lady sits at the end of the bar smoking. Dress stretched stripish to reveal a magnificent muscled form, earlobes stretched in concert with thick black implements denoting the era’s transgressive youth, face painted gothically in rouge et noire extremis. Mind if I join you? I feel compelled to ask.
–Whatever you want, dude, comes coughing in response an unmistakably male voice.
–Oh, I’m sorry—taken aback—I didn’t realize…
–What? You never seen a beautiful woman before?
S/he blows smoke at the model airplane hanging over the bar.
–Well… I really happen… not to mind…
–Ohhh, thank Jesus for that! I have no idea what I would do, how I would be able to cope, if you minded.
Exhalation of sarcasm fills the entire bar.
–Well, are you gonna sit there and bore me to tears all night or are you gonna buy me a drink? Carlos!
The young bartender wanders over.
–Yes, mama?
–Granma needs a drink. And this faggot wants to buy her one.
–The usual?
–Yeah. With extra spice this time.
Feeling compelled to introduce myself at this juncture, I tell the creature my name.
–Pleased. I’m Harry Mary, it responds without extending a hand.
–I do believe, I speak in to her produced cloud, that this is from Bitches Brew. If I’m not mistaken.
–Close, but no Tom of Finland cigar, responds the drag queen. It’s the album that came after. Jack Johnson.
–Jack Johnson I’ve certainly heard of. He was the famous boxer. They made a movie about him. The Great White Hope, starring James Earl Jones. But who is this Tom of Finland you refer to? Oh wait… Is he the one playing those fabulous guitar lines?
Harry Mary spits a mouthful of drink across the bar.
–Carlos, this fucking queen is out of her mind! Which sand dune did you dig this one out from?
–Did I say something amusing…?
–… Wait, are you actually serious? Haha. Disbelieving. Well, fuck a duck. Where do you come from, honey? Jacksonville? Daytona?
–Well, if you really want to know…
–Trust me, I don’t.
I’m Jack Johnson heavyweight champion of the world. I’m black alright and they’ll never let me forget it—
–I mean, you do realize you’re in a gay bar, don’t you?
–Well… Not exactly, no.
–It’s not exactly a gay bar, you mean? Or else you weren’t exactly aware?
–Well. Both, I suppose.
–Aha, stop it. This queen’s killing me.
–Don’t you worry, honey, says Carlos the bartender. Everyone’s welcome at Kill Your Idol.
–Kill Your… ?
–Idol.
–That’s a funny name for a bar!
–What happened to your shoes, sweetheart?
–I must have left them behind… At the house…
–Queen’s in a daze.
–You know something about dazes, don’t you?
–Hail Mary.
Now we are joined by a young man with glasses and beard in a sequined miniskirt and ripped t-shirt with the Turkish flag on it.
–This here’s Brianna Häagen Dazs. Heiress to the Häagen Dazs fortune.
–Really?
Sensing a networking opportunity, I begin feeling around my pockets for my card.
He shakes his head.
–This girl’s full of shit.
–Harry Mary wraps herself around his waist nonetheless.
–She be my pimp daddy. My main squeeze. So if you want some action, Miss Gordina, you’re gonna hafta go through this bitch.
–Well, I wasn’t… planning for any action tonight… I mean, I really…
–Haha, don’t look so serious, sweetheart. She’s only joking. She’ll do you for free! You want another drink, Marybeth? I know. It’s a slow night. Why don’t we all do a round of shots?
All of these young men, it seems they know each other quite well, without knowing me at all. Still, temporarily at least, in this very moment I start to feel as though they’ve accepted me as one of their own—even though I have nothing to do with this particular community. Yet this feeling is precisely, I suddenly realize, what is needed after the evening’s travesty; for when I walked into this bar, I felt something less than human. And it would require a great deal more than just a lone alcoholic beverage to return my diminished powers to a functional state. I simply cannot go back to the house and face Mrdok in this condition. I am, I silently ruminate, attached to Mrdok; not so much like an appendage; I feel myself more a kind of organ, without which, the vital juices may very well fail to flow. At the same time, were I to sever myself from Mrdok’s person, then I would become little more than a curiosity to be glossed once over before being tossed in the discard heap; for devoid of my function, what use am I? It is true that I am typically kept so busy in the performance of my duties that I scarcely have time to consider these matters in such depth. But here I am, in the pit of humiliation, drink in hand, mixing my metaphors into a most putrid and inedible stew. It isn’t just the evening’s failed performance that brings me down to such a low level. That has almost certainly brought it on. But now there is something else. It is as though an abyss of rank dread has been hit upon in some excavation of my soul, only to open up and overtake me through my exposure to its radiation. It is not that I am afraid of Mrdok; it is more that, at times such as these, I am struck with a fear that is inadvertently refracted through the person of Mrdok; a paralyzing fear of failure. There, now I’ve said it. Measured next to a man whose omnipotence simply dwarfs me, I can only move through life by ignoring those parts of my being that simply don’t stand up to his measured greatness. Mrdok is, in a sense, not merely the man I am destined to serve, but simultaneously my safety net. This puts us in a peculiar status as to one another. I know he could, more or less, venture forward without me, continue to prosper. But were I to fall—to let Mrdok down, to let myself down—to cause some unprecedented disaster that would prove to be the undoing of either or both of us—this would be a devastation I could not fathom to endure. Just as my very personal conception of success in the worldly sphere is indelibly tied to, epitomized by Mrdok, so I cannot conceive of failure in a personal sense, and the sudden realization of this frightens me beyond any coherent act of reckoning.
Of course, I cannot even pretend to articulate such anxious thoughts to my new companions—undoubtedly they would have a hard time understanding me were I to attempt it. And so I settle upon second best, and proceed to get roaring drunk.
Before I myself am fully aware what is happening, I’m on the bar, my t-shirt tied around my neck, kicking aside glasses as I shuffle my way down to the other end.
–Oh yeah, Miss Thing! Go, girl!
–Go Jiggly! Go Jiggly! Go Jiggly!
Totally oblivious, I am, to the sound of glass bottles breaking on the floor, my companions dispersed across the space in an equal state of willed reckless disregard. Even Carlos, the bartender, has neglected his duty in favor of the dance floor, demonstrating a rather recent dance move they inform me is known as the Twerk, and involves a swift demonstrative movement of the flabbergasted buttocks. Meanwhile, the lone bouncer sits by the entrance with a sort of impervious grin smeared across his face. It is hard to decipher what his new job is in the evening’s reversion to a state of anarchy. Certainly no new customers are coming in, the night has reached its expiration. He seems hardly bothered by it, a rather amused spectator to this Dionysian outburst of degeneration.
–Shake dat ass, Jiggly! Shake dat jiggly ass!
I oblige the young creatures of the night, although I’m still not sure why they have taken to calling me Jiggly all of a sudden, when I already introduced myself as Gordon. One name I have bluntly omitted from the night’s conversational proceedings is Mrdok’s, since above all else I have an ethical obligation to never mention my boss’s name unless I am operating in an environment in which I have been explicitly ordained to do so. And it is freeing!—so few questions of a personal or professional sort posed, thankfully, as the queens, as they refer to one another, prefer instead to engage in a sort of playful banter, a back-and-forth of sexual insult and innuendo that becomes more outrageous with each fresh drink poured.
–Throw yr hands in the fuckin air! Wiggle yr jiggle like you just don’t care!
Eventually, even the bouncer reaches his peak of tolerance. Assuming a parental role, he makes a watch gesture at Carlos.
–Okay, kittens. One more drink and it’s closing time. Daddy says so.
By the time I make my way back to the house, after promising my young companions I’ll return to the bar on my next business trip to Miami, the moon has already begun its retreat. Rather than confront the security regiment at the front entrance—which would be rather embarrassing, given my shoeless state—I opt to re-trace my steps on the beach and enter through the back lounge area.
Most of the security apparatus is in the lounge at this point anyway, as I soon discover.
–Here comes Gordo, announces one guard to another. Instantly I feel a pang of remorse and guilt for having stayed away for so long.
–About time, comes the second’s confirmation.
–What happened?
–He must’ve done about ten grams of blow in one night. Man, I’ve lived in Miami for a long time, I aint never seen nothin like that.
–But that’s not all, resounds the deep voice of the first.
–Well… What? What is it?
–… He done lost his hand.
–… What?
Without waiting for their response, I make my way into the lounge. The three hookers are scattered about the room, nervous expressions as though trying to ignore the situation going on around them. Mrdok, coked up beyond all coherence, still in the boxers I’d left him in earlier, is walking directionlessly around the room muttering to himself, the stump at the end of his right arm indeed naked beneath the soft light.
–Keith Richards the gi-tar player from the Rolling Stones say if the coke is good, you only need to do one line for the entire night, then you good to go.
I turn around to face the baboon.
–I know who Keith Richards is, I tell him sternly, and if you intend to hold on to your job, I’d advise you to refrain from any further commentary and find that hand.
The guard walks backward toward the pool, hands in the air.
It takes a minute or three for Mrdok to register my tired presence.
–These whores… Gordo… Look!… My hand… I don’t know… where… Hand—gone!… See? They took my… I can’t find… I called security I—
–Did you take it off at some point, Mrdok?
–I… off? What the… No! No off!
He recommences pacing.
–Mrdok. Be still a moment.
He goes over to the bar, grabs the silver card in his good left hand, begins to make a line from the forlorn pile.
–No more blow, Mrdok! Not now. We’ve got to find your hand first.
–… My hand?
Looking down at the stump.
–What happened to my hand?
Goodness gracious. I turn to the one security guard still standing in the room.
–Did you check all the bathrooms?
–We did a pretty thorough sweep.
–It’s time for round two. Mrdok, sit still for a minute. Over here, on the love seat.
I go over to the girls. The Black one and the Latin one sit across from one another before the fake fireplace, staring mesmerized into the flames being broadcast across the screen.
–Any idea where his hands might have gone, ladies?
–Shit, says the Black one. I didn’t even know that thing was fake till it done came off.
–Most people don’t. That’s the point. When did it come off?
–He was in da hot tub in da bafroom wif J-Nell over there. That’s when she start screamin. We din’t know what the hell. Ran inside, even though wed been told not to. Hell, we just wanted to make sure he wuddnt killin her or nuffin. Sho nuf, bodyguards got there before we did. J-Nell come runnin out all covered in suds. I don’t know where he went, the guards told us don’t come in there and so me and J-Nell come back in here.
–Gordo! Mrdok’s voice suddenly comes bellowing from across the room. The whores stole my hand! Whores stole my—
–Shut yo ass up, comes J-Nell’s response. What the hell use I got for a extra hand? Thing aint even real.
The security guard steps over and places his fingers lightly on Mrdok’s chest to keep him seated.
–These fuckin goons stole it, he now announces. Security goons! Can’t trust any of these fuckers down here. Fuckin south Florida. Fuckin bunch of crooks.
–And you the biggest one of all, whispers the goon.
–What was that?!
–Nothin.
So I decide to go check out the scene in the master bedroom for myself since this little interrogation is going nowhere. Guilt evaporated, as I reason that my being present in the house undoubtedly would not have prevented the mishap from occurring. I certainly would have absented myself in my own rooms for most of the night, which would have granted them the same amount of time required to lose the hand. Sobered by the hour of crisis, there is no doubt that the hand will reappear, and likely in one of the most predictable pockets—no pun intended. They don’t call me Mrdok’s second mind for nothing.
The scene in the bathroom predictable enough. Half-full tub, spillage of water and suds upon the floor, underclothes strewn about, bottles of champagne and shampoo competing in the disarray. No hand in sight, none in the by-now cold water as I swish my hand around then quickly wipe its potential sewage off with the nearest towel. I do notice something odd, though: the light in the walk-in closet is on. Nobody ever goes in there except for Mrtol on those rare occasions she deigns to visit, usually separate from Mrdok, as it contains her Miami wardrobe. I step inside, half-expecting to catch one of the hookers red handed in the act of plunder. But, alas, save for a wettened bathrobe lying upon the floor, it appears as though nothing has been disturbed by any human—or, in the whores’ case—subhuman entity.
It is the same bathrobe that Mrdok always wears around the Miami property, and I can swear I saw him wearing it earlier in the evening, the day… I pick it up, check the two deep pockets. No hand. Nothing other than a cigarette lighter, which is strange, since Mrdok only smokes on the rarest occasion…
I carry the robe slung over my shoulder into the lounge as a thought occurs to me.
–Mrdok, I say, did you go anywhere else this evening?
Mrdok too busy grinding his jaw to respond.
–Girls, you can answer the question.
The one called J-Nell grunts.
–Where the hell would we go, him coked up like that? Motherfucker cuddnt even get uh ‘rection.
–There are plenty of places in South Beach where a gentleman in Mrdok’s state might find entertainment.
–Honey, you can do a fuckin full cavity search, nameless Latin whore interjects. You aint gonna find nothin on dis ass.
–For real, though… Can we go now? It must be getting on six in the motherfuckin a.m.
–You can go once we’ve found the hand, I tell them sternly.
–How the hell we gon help you find it when we cant go inside the house? This shit is unfair, man.
–I know. It’s like I in prison all over again.
–Here. Keep yourselves entertained.
I slide over a tray of Colombia’s finest.
–Drinks at the bar.
–Shit, says J-Nell, then snorts up a line for the hell of it.
A full scan of the house. Sans my suite of rooms, of course, since only I have the key to those—there’s no way the hand might have landed there.
Down the hallway, past the family photos (current: Mrtol and Jaco, previous wives and sons conspicuously absent), plus extended family, namely, Tony Fatballs, closer to Mrdok than his own father. I enter the code to the master bedroom on the electronic lock. It looks relatively untouched, having been cleaned after the previous night’s debaucheries and not slept in since.
(–Sides, the white whore could be heard to break her silence in the other room, he seems to know so much, why don’t he just fart out the answer?
(Her outburst met by a chorus of cackles, a veritable witches’ coven. As soon as the hand is found, I will put those whores back out on the street where they belong, and Mrdok to bed.)
Conchita has done a rather desultory job of making the bed, I see, with a couple of creases on the silk coverlet visible without any real strain of the eye. I make a mental note to reprimand her for this error. All that money spent on tuition at the local hospitality academy wasted, it seems. That’s the problem with Floridians. Swamp people. Always seeking out new ways to disappoint their generous benefactors.
Lackluster, the effects of sleeplessness suddenly pressing down upon me. I make my way into the west wing, its crown being the octagon-shaped office, where Mrdok conducts some of his more important work when in Florida. I cast my eyes up and down the floor-to-ceiling black walnut with silver crestings pronouncing the built-in bookcases with fake ancient volumes and glassed-in displays holding a handful of Mrdok’s most prominent awards, trophies, and honorable degrees—still no hand. Out onto the porch, overlooking the stretch of private beach in the near distance, and, in the foreground, a garden of silver—yes, more silver—fountains and cobblestone walkways amongst the lovingly tended foliage. Well, at least the gardeners are still up to the task. Though no hand in sight.
Down the marble staircase to the front entrance, where arriving guests are greeted by a seventeen-foot silver mermaid sculpture by a renowned Danish contemporary artist whose name escapes me at this exhausted hour. I make my way up into the common areas, reminding myself to skip over the four remaining bathrooms (with travertine floors and showers, just FYI), since the security personnel has already agreed to review those. It is a shame, it suddenly occurs to me, that these areas do not see more in the way of entertainment and visitors. But Mrdok, a man of habit and insistence, is wont to conduct the great majority of his affairs in the comparatively banal, though no less comfortable environs of the lounge whenever this Miami estate calls out to him. There are practical reasons for this, as the nature of the current night’s company makes shimmeringly crystalline.
Past the abandoned ballroom, with nearly four thousand square feet of chiseled marble floors in which is reflected the burning rays of the mammoth antique chandelier hovering above, I make my way into the kitchen. While I realize the chances of Mrdok’s having trespassed its grounds within the past twenty-four are slim to nil, I find myself in dire need of refueling. With its fittings for the most sophisticated of gourmands, the kitchen happens to be my favorite room on the entire property. (The smallish kitchenette in my own quarters, in its reduced modesty, does not even rate a comparison, I am sad to report.) Its marble floors give the slippered feet a sensation of sweeping elegance as they glide across the sapphire-inspired elegance, the façades of all the furnishings, fittings, and appliances custom molded to elicit a most irrepressible sheen that just barely overenunciates a sense of dignified, well-earned superiority. Beneath these glimmering moldings, one finds outstanding custom cypress cabinets and a full range of Wolf appliances. I enter the code on the electric lock and the pantry door opens before me. Among its perks, a walk-in refrigerator whose temperature gradually drops into a deep freeze, stocked with every item one might expect to find in a supermarket (to accommodate any late night whim that might come the maestro’s way) in addition to a number of imported items—Russian caviar, Korean ginseng, rhino horn, and, frighteningly and somewhat inexplicably, the frozen head of a jaguar—not likely to be found in even the more upmarket outlets of our otherwise fine country.
I remove from the shelf a box of Triscuits, then put it back, opting instead for a collection of white cheddar Cheez-Its. Then a jar of gourmet peanut butter from the shelf holding some two dozen unopened spreads of all sorts. I then dash into the fridge, where my trusty can of whipped cream is retrieved from its usual hiding spot.
I then set about making myself a most salubrious (if I am using the word right) hors d’oeuvre, one that my mother engineered especially for me in my youth, with each tiny cracker slathered with a good delectation of that thick brown gook and crowned with a spot of sweet white foam. The admixture of salted cheesiness, nutty richness, and a dose of naughty sugary splat nearly impels the imbiber to stomp his feet upon the marble, so scrumptious is the munching. I find myself getting carried away as my enjoyment increases, discarding the butter knife altogether and simply dipping the crackers one after another into the jar, littering them into my wide open gorge, and spraying increasingly liberal effusions of white foam down my throat.
As I proceed to desiccate and masticate my way through to the bottom of the Cheez-Its box, all that chewy crunchy deliciosity, I become more and more oblivious to all else that is happening around me. Losing myself, I come to feel as though I’ve been found. Bits and pieces flying out of my mouth, I have no idea where they might land—I can’t stop the munching. I don’t want to. I loosen my belt, my pants fall down around my ankles. Before I know it, I have the frying pan out, melting what must be half a pound of butter, into which I drop a Tupperware container full of tagliatelle I retrieved from the fridge, and relish the soundtrack of the sizzle as I splatter some oil and hot sauce on to the pasta and attack the smoking mass with gleaming spatula…
Back in the lounge, Jean-Pierre gently turns on the radio. The summer’s hit R&B love jam comes jiving through the speakers, crooned by a Grammy-winning pop star renowned for her ability to hit notes so piercingly high that at outdoor stadium concerts, birds have been known to come tumbling out of the sky:
I want a real Dutch lover
Who won’t blow my cover
A real Dutch lover
I won’t accept another
The ladies of the night set to finishing off the coke and talk at each other while Mrdok sits grinding his jaw on the white leather loveseat.
–He be bein all weird n shit, mackin on my feet lak he done want to eat my toes or sumfin. I’m lahk I don’t care, man, as long as dey pay, I’m happy jest to make it outta there without havin to traffic in too fine a line a work, you know what I’m sayin?
–Yeah, I get it.
–See, girl, I from Montgomery—
–Where dat at.
–Alabama.
–Oh.
–And up there, once you trick with all the police chiefs, the politicians, they lawyers, folks start gettin real nervous. Start lookin fo ways to run yo ass outta town.
–That’s how you wind up here?
–Sho nuf.
–Thass some small town shenanigans.
–Like you only good for one season.
–Aint you have any regulars up there?
–Course I got regulars. Some of em high up too. I don’t know. It’s a different scene. Different scene.
–High up in Montgomery aint shit next to high up in Miami.
Yeah I was feelin down, needed to get away
I went to Amsterdam to smoke some big fat jays
And look at pretty tulips growin by the big canal
That’s when I saw him come walkin out of Café Royale
–See, the thing about Miami is—
–You don’t have to tell me, girl. Born and raised.
–Naw, but the thing is, Miami’s vacationland. I got regulars here alright. But half my regulars don’t even live in Miami.
–Me too. Like this dick over here. I bet this mofo don’t spend more than three nights a year in this house. No offense, baby.
–Were you out there last Sunday when Laronda got jumped outside the Fontainebleau?
–Say what?!
–Laronda. Got her ass beat.
–What you talkin bout?
–Oh there was some rapper and his crew.
–What rapper?
–I forget his name. One of those out of town niggas always in Miami.
–Lil Bigfoot?
–Yeah, that it.
–Mm damn. I remember when he drop that track Outta Space Niggas. I was like, what?!
–See, they was like five girls already up in that shit. Motherfucker got a damn Tesla—
–What?!
–Model X.
–Rented no doubt.
–See, the thing is, he already had Laronda. Been partyin with her for days before those other bitches showed up. Tell her he’s gonna put her in his next video, all that shabazz.
–Aint we all heard that shit before.
–How many videos you been in, girl?
–Girl, I aint out to be in no videos. Them broke ass muthafuckas. They all for show.
It wasn’t that kinda spot, if you know what I mean
There weren’t no colored lights, neither red nor green
But the beating of my heart went thumpity-thump
I knew in a sec I had just fallen for this lump
I need a real Dutch lover
Not some lousy glue huffer—
–When’d you get started up in Montgomery?
–Fourteen.
–Fourteen?!
–Girl, no fuckin way…
–Girl, I looked older for my age…
–At that age…
–What happened to Laronda?
–Say what?
–Laronda.
–Got her ass jumped.
–That’s what you said.
–Some other hos come down, they be from Little Haiti or some shit, I don’t know. They was some tough ass hos, what I heard. She tryin to get in the car, these other bitches said no way, it’s our turn to party. Dey cussin n screamin on the avenue. One of em throwed a punch. It ended with Laronda in the middle of the damn street.
–Shit.
Gravity yanks the coke booger off J-Nell’s Lee Press-on Nail. She stares half-absently at the floor, wondering where it has gone, then gives up and cuts herself another line.
–Lord, I tell you, were I to do it all over again…
–You wouldn’t be on the game?
–Now I didn’t say that, girl…
–Oh, don’t go there, mi amour.
–Would you, though?
Fielding anxiety, the whore called Santana sings along to the last verse.
He took me to his houseboat right across from a windmill
We ate some cheese and talked all night upon the water still—
–Do what?
–You think it’s gonna get better? Any of it?
–Worse places to be than Miami.
–Montgomery?
–Never go back there again.
–Wait a minute. How you tellin me that in this day and age, the twenty-first motherfuckin century, they can go and run a white girl out of town? I mean any town. Dat’s some wild west shit up in there.
–First off, I aint white.
–Like hell you aint.
–Nope.
–What is you then, gringa?
–I’m Native.
–The fuck.
–What tribe.
–I’m Creek.
–That a thing? No shit.
–I shit yo skanky ass not. Born on a reservation outside Montgomery.
–From the reservation to the escort agency. That’s some American Dream Come True shit right there.
–Creek… ?
–Creek Indians of Alabama. Used to be the whole state was our land. Alabama is an Indian name. Means Here We May Rest.
At that, Mrdok suddenly rouses from his zombification.
–Here we may rest! Hey! I like that!
The whores eye their client despicably, then silently and communally agree to ignore his outburst.
–That’s crazy, girl. How you get turned on to the ho game all the way out there in the wilds of Alabama?
–A man.
–Of course.
–White man.
–Mm hmm.
–Guess you could call him a boyfriend. Though that’s more how I felt at the time.
–It sho do fly by quick, don’t it.
–Not fast enough.
–This white guy called AJ. Shaggy blonde ass motherfucker. He done made all these promises.
–Cos that’s what a man do.
–Man, I thought he had all the answers. That he was gonna rescue me out of that shit. Cos you know our reservation wasn’t nothin but a damn trailer park by this point. Buncha drunk half dead Indians wanderin around.
–I thought they done turned them all into casinos. At least get the money from them white muthafuckas.
–Naw. Village elders. Didn’t want it. Say it aint the right thing to do. I don’t know, man. I just wanted outta that junk.
–So what’d this AJ do.
–Thought he was different from all the white men used to come on the reservation. Cops and whisky sellers. We barely left with nothin, save for our misery. They damn try and come steal that away too.
AJ different. Got a tattoo of a spine on his spine. Runnin down the length of it. I thought that was real neat. Certainly cooler than the goddamn roses and dragons I seen on most white men’s skin.
AJ liked to talk real sweet. And I wasn’t a virgin or nothin. Lost that at twelve. Thought it was supposed to be somethin real special, it wasn’t. But we don’t talk about that.
He like to party, AJ. At first it was the usual. Smoke, pills. We moved on up the ladder. Then one day he’s all like, We out in the boondocks, girl. Let’s move to the city. Montgomery’s where it’s at. We can stay with my cousin till we find a job.
I say what the hell. Aint no use rottin on the reservation. Course we argued, me and my ma. Don’t go, don’t go. But I went anyway. I knew a lot for sixteen. Thought I did. But obviously what I knew didn’t cover it. Not for what was about to come.
Montgomery aint that far. But it’s actually another world. I mean literally. For us, it’s technically another country. I’d say it wasn’t what I was expectin. His cousin, for one thing, livin in a Motel 6. We supposed to share the other bed. His cousin this big ol redneck name Lewis. Try to tell me he an expert on Indians, but he don’t know shit. He just like to talk. Say the white man did us all a big favor teachin us how to get civilized and shit. I say my civilization is older than yours, asshole. I ask him where his folk come from, he say he don’t know. Europe, Spain or some shit. England. He don’t even know, he just throwing names of countries out in the air. That’s white people in the twenty-first century for you. They don’t even know where their damn people come from half the time, yet they think that gives them a right to rule over everything. I told him he can say anything, but one thing we Indians have proved time and time again is we don’t cheat. We don’t steal. We don’t lie. It aint part of our culture, our heritage. And they done all that to all of us. Killed us too. That’s why we are the way we are today. All fucked up like.
Anyway. Turns out, Lewis likes to party too. Even moreso. Worked out like this. Lewis was our supplier. The one with the connections. He could do the trade, get the gear. AJ served as the boss, then. That left me to be the worker, the earner. I think you know where this is going…
At the time, I didn’t like to look at it that way like. I mean, by then I had a habit to feed. That and AJ loved me. That makes a difference. Well, things got desperate. I got sick. Started to feel things again. Once you start to feel things, after livin that way for so long, bein so numb, you start to realize things too. Reality hits, and it’s painful. Like. Certain kinds of love just aint real, turns out.
That’s when I started to leave. It was a process. One of my johns, he helped. Gave me a place to go and get clean. Once the junk got out of my system, I said I aint workin the motels, the streets no more. Gettin out of the west side of town. That’s where all the junk is in Montgomery. Was. (I don’t know about now.) And I knew Lewis and AJ, they was out lookin for me. They was gonna bring my ass back in. I made it easy for em. Without me, how they gonna get the money they need to pay for the room, the money they need to score.
But I didn’t want to go back to the reservation neither. How’m I gon face my ma after all that? So I went exclusive. Hooked myself up with a agency. Just like y’all do it down here. Got to see how it works. High end. Better than the online profile thing. You get the johns who’re willing to pay for that extra layer of protection like. Protects your ass, too, from all the bums and psychos.
–My best friend a gay boy, goes J-Nell, got into this fancy college up in NYC. One night we get drunk, we trippin on acid, we decide, I gon come up there live with him. Seemed natural at the time. Lotsa odd things do, when you trippin. We get up there, we livin in some mangy ass dorm room, I sleepin on the floor. I said shit, gotta get my ass a job. Y’know, like, shit just got real. I’d been doin phone sex work down here in Miami, thought it was real easy, y’know. Any bitch with a first grade education and a lil bit of imagination can drag that shit right outta the bag.
–Mm hm. Those were the days.
–Phone sex? That even a thing anymore?
–Girl, you’d be surprised. Some of these old timers who growed up with it can’t let it go.
So I look on Craigslist, start goin to all these interviews. Turns out, nary a one of them is for actual phone sex. NYC, baby, they got all sortsa scams runnin up there, I’ll tell you. I was like, I aint gonna do no porno, I aint gonna be doin no prostitution, and like, you want me to actually pay to rent a booth in this shit? I’m like, hell no.
Finally, the most honest place I go to, it turns out to be this dungeon, run by this woman called Lee Ann.
–A dungeon?
–Like, house of horrors n shit?
–No, dummy. Like SM. You know, they got all these Wall Street muthafuckas up there all into this kinky ass shit.
–Like bein spanked and stuff. I done that before.
–I done had to fist a nigga’s ass once.
–Oh girl, worse. I had this one man come in, his teeth be all rotten. Come in, start pullin out a motherfuckin wrench outta his briefcase. I’m like, whatchu want me to do? He’s all like, baby, I want you to pull my teeth out, one by one, while I jerk off.
–Say what?
–That’s what I said. More precisely, I said there aint no W to the A to the motherfuckin way I be goddamn pullin that dental shit. I don’t care how much you thinkin to pay me.
–Ahahahaha! He done thought he was gonna save money going to your ass insteada the dentist—
–What did your girl Lee Ann say?
–Oh, she cool. I actually enjoyed working there. Never made us do a goddamn thing we didn’t feel comfortable with. She said Girls, you got to set your own limits.
–I aint never heard of no woman pimp before. How much the house take?
–Fitty cent.
–Say what?
–Diane’d come in, be all like Where my fitty cent at? At first I tried to resist it, be like uh-uh, aint no such thing as fitty cent in dis whirl. But then I got to thinkin that it’s fair tho. When you think about it. Dey got NYC rents to pay. Shit aint cheap.
And when you think, we wuddnt doin all dat much. Some days you just sittin there bored, no customers comin in. Lee Ann real nice, for a white bitch. Might buy us Chipotle those slow days. Always try to look out for me. Give me the real good clients. I was like her daughter or sumfin.
See, the thing is, there were no actual sex. I didn’t feel myself to be a actual prostitute. That’s what made the job nice. Also what kept the cops away. She didn’t even hafta bribe em like a regular house would. She used to tell me, don’t let em touch you, girl. We aint covered.
Still. There were the occasional nastiness. I damn knowed lotsa stuff. How to tie the men up. Hot wax. CBT.
–What that?
–Cock and ball torture.
–Girl…
–I know. They was even a bathtub. I aint gon tell you what that was for.
But I’s good. Got me a bit of a followin, had my regulars. My favorite client, he a rich dude from New Jersey. His whole thing be like public humiliation. Liked to take me shopping, Saks Fifth Avenue, I mean fancy ass bling shit. Buy me diamonds, haute couture. Goddamn anything I pointed at—pricier, the better.
–Girl where’d he get all that money from?
–Girl, I never asked. Probly a mafioso. Lots of thems into that kinky shit, y’know. So he’d take me shoppin, buy me all this bling. This was ontoppa my hourly rate of two-fitty, mind you.
–Damn!
–We get up to the cash register to pay, I just have to start rippin on him right there in front of the sales girl. Bein all, you filthy pig, you so disgustin, I’m likin to puke right now lookin at your ugly face, you Dumb Broke Pathetic Bitch Ass Muthafucka…
The girls all come from the same agency, Nell’s Girlz. Nell, not to be confused with J-Nell, is a forty-five-year-old man who doubles as an agent in the adult film world, with which there is unsurprisingly much overlap. Mrdok employs Nell’s services often when he is in Miami, though he never takes the same girls twice—more of a security precaution that I myself insist on, lest word break out and a scandal—no, we can’t even think about that, it’s far too awful to consider…
–Took me three fuckin times—the Cuban whore, now throwing her story into the barrel, cos at this time of night (or is it morning already?), who really cares, might as well tell everything—three motherfuckin times. This goddamn ocean. You grow to hate it. Growin up down there. It surround you, you can never get away. Up here, everyone think—these Miami Cubanos, they think down there, it’s the government that’s oppressive. But it’s not. It’s the ocean. The ocean that imprisons us. That ocean, the puta madre of us all. We all hate it. Stuck on that island. No hope there. So what do we do? We spend all our time scheming ways to get off it. Attach yourself to a tourist, tryn get married. Me and my friends, we used to hang out by the ATM machine in Havana Old Town. That’s how desperate we were. How obvious. We didn’t know any better. Those days, there was only one CUC-dispensing ATM in all Havana. Now, I heard there’s more. Used to run out of money round three in the p.m. Can you imagine? Course, foreigners were the only ones ever used it. It was like a money supply for the tourists. Had to think of ways to approach em, get between them and that cash, real subtle-like. Me, I could speak good English. Learned at university. Was studying science, biology. I dropped out, cos what’s the point in Cuba. Wasn’t all that hard to get money outta them. A certain kind of man. You get to figuring it out over time. They come to Cuba all alone, by themselves, ninety percent chance they’re there for one thing. Pussy or dick. More often pussy. You’d take em to places. Feed em some line. Say hey I know where they got the best rum. Not this Hemingway tourist shit, baby. You go there, they gonna rip you off. Come with me, papi, I got the place. You’d be surprised how much money you make. Problem is, place like Cuba, there aint nothin to spend it on. So you’re left, at the end of the day. With your dream. Cos that’s all there is.
–How’d you get out of there?
–Those dreams. They lead to something eventually. Dreams and money, that leads to action. Boats leave all the time. Go to Cuba today, talk to any random person on the street. I’ll bet you right now fifty dollars they’ll have someone in their family who’s over here, that left on one of them boats. It’s just a thing they have. People wanna leave.
Like I said, took me three times. Leave and never come back. You get fed up, the boredom. Every day the same damn thing, nothin changin. When you’re young, you want adventure. Down there, it’s not just bein poor. That’s only a small part of it. The main thing is: no chance of adventure. And the same ol same ol is so tiring.
First time, coast guard caught us. We was barely across anyway, just a few hours. Caught and sent back.
Second time was awful. We got misdirected, there was an argument on board over who was really supposed to be doin the navigatin. So stupid. We ended up drifting towards Mexico. People were dehydrated. One guy fell in the water, almost got his leg ate off by a shark. Finally, after couple days this insanity, a boat came and rescued us. Awful. I still shudder when I remember that one.
Third time, what can I say. I’m here, aint I? Fucking big fat American dream. See, thing about us Cubans is, we naïve. Think America’s the big answer. Like we gonna live in one of them music videos we see, drive a Benz truck, live in some mansion. That it’s all just yours for the taken.
I told myself I was gonna do real work when I got here. Something respectable. I don’t know what. Just somethin. Live a decent life. See, the thing is, when I was in Cuba, I didn’t even think of myself as a prostitute. I mean, I did what I did. But it wasn’t like: this is my job. This is my destiny. It was more like… I don’t know what. That just wasn’t it.
I got to America, what happens. Ha. Well. Here, at least, I know what it is I am. You figure that out real quick. Over here, there aint no blurry middle ground, no ma’am. If you’re a whore, then that’s just what you are.
Into the room I stumble, hunger finally satiated—but still having failed at the task at hand—which is, in fact, the retrieval of a hand. With my own I point and let out a yelp.
–Cat! Cat! Cat!
So engrossed were the hookers in their incessant mindless babble, they and Jean-Pierre alike had failed to notice the entrance of a stray pussy with mangy fur, who is bent over one of the silver plates licking at the cocaine residue.
At this, the three erupt in unanimous laughter.
–Well I be goddamned!
–Mierda!
–A crackhead cat! Hahahaha—
As I chase the filthy creature out into the night…
That’s when I see it. The waters of the pool, shimmering in their multi-hued underwater lighting display, programmed by one of America’s top fireworks specialists (whom we also hired out at Shelter Island for Mrtol’s annual birthday celebration.) I have to blink twice to ensure it isn’t a digestion-induced mirage. For didn’t I walk past the pool on the way back from the bar? Hadn’t the security personnel, now nowhere in sight, been standing by the pool when I returned? The same pool that Mrdok had installed to look at, above all, for others’ enjoyment, for him to watch others enjoying themselves in. The same pool whose waters he had not bothered to part since acquiring the property some six years ago. For there, in the midst of its waters, came floating: Mrdok’s artificial limb.
I sidle back into the lounge, silently extending hand to master. He stares emptily at it for half a minute or so, as though struggling to register what it is, who it belongs to. When the circuitry finally connects, he takes it and quickly reconnects it to the stump on his right arm, then looks up at me.
–Where’d you find it?
Before I can answer, the hookers have risen, stretching, heading toward the main entrance.
–Time to get paid.
–And we need taxis, hon. If your chauffeur aint given us a ride.
Hand in place, Mrdok rises revivified.
–Wait! No! Don’t leave!
I stifle a sigh, rest my exhausted posterior upon a barstool.
–We still have more coke! More jams… More money!
The whores look at one another groggily, then at Mrdok, then at me.
I rest my chin in my hands, trying not to sob.
–Hey, Gordo! Mrdok shouts too loud. Tell these bitches how much I’m worth right now.
J-Nell unfastens her bikini top, liberating her triple D’s.
I take out my phone, dutifully, only to find another piece of bad news, a text message from the home office: Lallyburt says no.