Friends Like These

EXTRACT

1

Arriving in New York for the first time was like wearing a sign that said CHEAT ME.

            Muggers mugged. Junkies jacked up. Pickpockets picked pockets. Flashers flashed, rapists raped and perverts perved. Psycho bag ladies shouted obscenities at miscellaneous crazies. You could get shot just for being in the path of a bullet. AIDS knew where you lived.

            Heaps of garbage stank on every corner. Taxis honked, hawkers shouted, brakes screamed. Women jeered, flirted, complained in a barely comprehensible language. Gedda hell oudda heah! Don’ fuckwidme mistah. The midday sun bounced off ten million glaring surfaces.

            Dragging her suitcase out of the station on the hottest day of the year, Beth dripped sweat. Signs made unhelpful suggestions: Seventh Avenue, Eighth. Thirty-first Street. Thirty-third. She didn’t dare ask directions for fear of being taken for a fool. Or worse, a tourist.

            She stuck out her arm and a taxi swerved. Shoving her suitcase on to the seat, she fell in after it and closed the door.

            ‘Christopher Street,’ she gasped, hoping he’d know where that was. And then, just like that, they were off. The sweet smell of decay blew in through the open window mixed with exhaust fumes and melted tar.

            Beth sat back in the cab and sighed. Remember this time and place, she thought. New York City, June 1983. This is where it starts.

            Already her life felt like a miracle. 

2

‘Which corner?’ In the mirror the driver waited for an answer, rolled his eyes.

            Which corner? She frowned. Why did it matter?

            He screeched to a halt. ‘Two thirty-five,’ he said, shaking his head, thinking (no doubt) he could have charged this girl anything.

            She fumbled in her purse, found three dollars, handed it over, threw open the door and fell out on to the melting sidewalk with her bag.

            ‘Keep the change,’ she whispered as he sped away.

            The lock on the building’s front door was broken. Inside, a single bulb illuminated peeling paint and a row of dented metal mailboxes. The heat was unbearable. She hauled her suitcase to the foot of the stairs and began to climb, stopping on each landing to wipe the sweat from her hands.

            On the fifth floor she flicked the light switch and recoiled.

            A figure sat slumped against the door, glaring. ‘It’s about fucking time. I’ve been waiting in this hellhole all day.’

            Beth gaped.

            ‘Open the door, for fuck’s sake.’ The strange girl snatched Beth’s keys. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, pushing her own suitcase in first. ‘Christ what a fucking dump.’

            ‘I’m …’

            ‘I know who you are. You’re Rachel’s friend. Bernie. Betsy. Barbie.’

            ‘Beth.’

            A dark hall led to a tiny living room (no window) with a door on each side. The kitchen was only big enough for one person, the bathroom too small for a sink. A definite scurrying in her peripheral vision when she turned on the light. Cockroaches.

            The apartment came furnished. In the living room, a Chinese scroll hung sideways over a small oatmeal-coloured sofa, like you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room. A wooden folding chair and a small glass coffee table completed the suite. The only shelf held a dusty wine bottle covered in drips.

            Rachel’s sister dumped her bag in the near bedroom and ran the water in the kitchen, waiting unsuccessfully for it to cool. ‘I’m Dawn. Tom should be here already. He has the keys.’

            Beth hated people referring to strangers as if you should know them. Who was Tom? Her boyfriend? Her cat?

            ‘Oh,’ Beth said. ‘Thanks for letting me live here.’

            ‘Couldn’t afford it without you. Have to find a job. You got one, right?’ She looked Beth up and down, as if to say, If you got a job, I can get ten.

            Beth nodded.

            ‘We’ve got to do something about this place. I can’t live in a fucking slum.’

            ‘Do you mind if …’ Beth edged towards the door.

            ‘Be my guest.’

            Beth dragged her bag into the second bedroom. Small double bed, narrow bedside table, chest of drawers. Barely room for a person. Bare bulb overhead.

            How could it be so hot?

            Across the way, a brick tenement identical to theirs had fire escapes running up and down like zips on a biker jacket. She opened the window and stuck her head out over the street, desperate for air. A muffled clamour rose from below. It was hotter outside than in.

            Stripping off her clothes, she fell back on the bare mattress.

            Ugh, she thought. I need a shower.

            The door to Dawn’s room was closed when Beth stepped out in a towel. She hurried to the bathroom, stood under the cold shower till her blood cooled, then stood dripping on the wet tile floor. No bath mat, no shower curtain. Water trickled from the ceiling and ran down the walls; the entire apartment had become a rain forest. She was sweating again by the time she reached her bedroom.

            Beth made the bed and unpacked into the chest of drawers. A few stray items at the back – green nylon underpants, torn T-shirt, single grey sock – she dumped guiltlessly in the trash.

            And that was it. Home.

            Lying naked on the bed, she spread the damp towel over her torso. If you didn’t move, it wasn’t too bad.

            As the light slipped away, Beth heard a male voice in the next room. Must be Tom, she thought. Not a cat, then. She lacked the energy to check. It was too hot to get dressed. Too hot to talk. Definitely too hot to talk to Dawn.

            Outside, singing, swearing and shouting rose up in a spew of noise. New York City after dark sounded savage.

            She turned off the light and tried to sleep.

3

The next morning, Beth woke early, dressed and went out. The bars on Christopher Street were closed, clientele gone to their beds or someone else’s. Ten minutes of wandering led her to The Acropolis, a blue, white and chrome Greek coffee shop. Within seconds she’d been steered to a counter seat, a menu slapped in front of her.

            ‘Coffee?’ The waiter held up a pot.

            She nodded, grateful. He filled a heavy white mug and slid a metal container of milk in front of her.

            Beth ordered the Breakfast Special – two eggs any style, pancakes, hash browns, bacon, sausage and toast. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before. Her plate arrived with far too much food, but she ate it all, accepting extra toast and coffee because it was free. The waiters treated her with reassuring indifference.

            After breakfast, with no desire to encounter Dawn and Tom, she set off exploring. From the air-conditioned coffee shop, outdoors hit her like a hammer. Not even ten and already creeping up towards 100 degrees.

            She walked and walked. And looked and looked. And walked. And looked. Veered into a pizza joint.

            ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Could I please have some water …’

            The pizza man filled a giant waxed cup with water and ice. He waved when she reached for her wallet. ‘I’m not gonna charge you for ice.’

            Her hands, thick with heat, dipped into the cup.

            For hours, Beth sat in Washington Square watching people come and go. All around her, New Yorkers in sunglasses, stiletto heels, flip-flops and roller skates flowed from here to there and back again, impervious to weather and everything else.

            Eventually she got up and wandered off again through the streets. She stopped at a store advertising air-con and exotic gifts, with hash pipes, ropes of silver jewellery, T-shirts printed with marijuana leaves and books of Indian poetry in the window. Inside it stank of patchouli. She took her time, searching the glass cases as if for something specific, though the salesgirl ignored her. Wreathed in cool air, Beth’s eyes glazed over with pleasure. Could she stay here all day?

            Her damp clothes began to turn icy.

            ‘You need help?’ The girl looked up at last. She was young, hippieish.

            Beth pointed to a large black-and-white poster of Debbie Harry looking sideways at the camera. ‘How much is that?’

            ‘It’s the last one and it’s torn. You can have it for a buck.’ Not waiting for assent, the woman pulled it off the wall and rolled it up.

            ‘You want the tacks?’

            Beth nodded and exchanged them for a damp dollar bill from her pocket. Indian goat bells tinkled on the door as she left.

            For a few seconds the heat outside was bliss.

            Box fans formed a pyramid in front of a hardware store. Get ’Em While They’re Hot said the handwritten sign. She bought one, and a cheap desk lamp.

            Back on her block, the party she’d heard the night before was in full swing. It wasn’t frightening down here, just giddy and feverish. Men in tight satin micro shorts or jeans and tank tops arrived outside bars where people already gathered to drink, talk, hold hands and kiss. Couples dressed head to toe in leather strolled past oblivious to the heat. She’d never noticed gay people back home; they all must live here.

            Beth threw her shoulder at the front door and flicked on the light. The bulb blew with a flash and she trudged up to 5E in the dark.

            Nobody home, much to her relief. Dumping her treasures on the bed, she set up her new lamp. It was better than the ghoulish overhead but nothing could fix the depressing atmosphere of the place. The only cheering feature was a slim bookcase pushed up against the living-room wall, with best-sellers from past years, a few classics, and half a dozen old books with brightly illustrated covers. Some previous tenant had been a reader. She plugged in the fan and switched it to high, then stood on her bed to hang the poster. Tacks slid easily into the flimsy wall.

            Beth stepped back. Debbie Harry looked strong. I will surround myself with strong women, she thought. And become like them.

            Stripping down to her T-shirt, she dozed off to the noisy whoosh of the fan, waking early evening in a drugged haze, her sheets damp with sweat, hungry but unwilling to brave the endless stairs. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed scuttling.

            Both windows faced the street so there was no chance of a cross-breeze. Beth soaked her T-shirt in cold water and wore it to bed. When she woke at midnight it was bone-dry, so she soaked it once more and went back to sleep, clammy, hot and cold at once.

            From deep within a heat-haze dream she heard Dawn and Tom come in.

            Saturday night on Christopher Street sounded like an insurrection.