Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

coffee?”
    She looked up and smiled. Wistfully, he thought. She shook her head and said, “Thanks.” She was devastating.
    “What about dessert?”
    Another no.
    O.K., he thought, so much for the standard conversation ploys. It’s time for the heavy-duty back-up patter.
    “Didn’t like the french fries, huh?”
    She patted her tiny waist. “I’m allergic to them. They look wonderful, though.”
    “One or two won’t hurt you.”
    “I’ve never seen round ones like that. They look like potato chips with a thyroid condition.”
    He chuckled manfully. Now we’re getting somewhere, kiddo. But keep it loose as a goose. Nothing heavy. And move slow, for God’s sake, move slow….
    She folded her napkin across her plate. Shit! She was going to ask for her check!
    She smiled again. “May I …?”
    “Do you know you look exactly like Lola Falana?” Subtle as shit. If that didn’t scare her off, nothing would. Her face didn’t change, though. She was still smiling. “You want to buy me a drink, don’t you?”
    “Uh … yeah, as a matter of fact.”
    “What time do you get off work?”
    “Ten o’clock.”
    “It’s a date, then?”
    “You bet. My name is Brian.”
    “I’m D’orothea,” she said.
    Across town at The Endup, Michael Tolliver threaded his way through a forest of Lacoste shirts. Mona was with him.
    “Well, this clinches it, Mouse.”
    “What?”
    “I am definitely a fag hag.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
    “Look around the goddamn room, would you? I’m the only woman here!”
    Michael grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around to face the bar. A robust-looking woman in Levi’s and a work shirt was tending bar. “Feel better now?”
    “Terrific. Look … are you gonna change or what?”
    “I think I’m supposed to register. Will you be all right if I leave you here?”
    “Probably. Goddammit.” She winked and slapped him on the behind. “Give my regards to Bert Parks.”
    The bartender directed Michael to a man in charge of registration. The man took Michael’s name and vital statistics and issued him a numbered paper plate on a string. He was Number 7.
    “Where do I … uh … change?”
    “In the ladies’ room.”
    “Figures.”
    There were already three guys in the ladies’ room. Two of them had stripped down to their jockey shorts and were placing their clothes in plastic bags provided by the management. The third was smoking a joint, still decked out in recycled Vietnam fatigues.
    “Hi,” said Michael, nodding to his fellow gladiators.
    They smiled back at him, some with more calculation than others. They reminded him of his competition in the 1966 Orlando High School Science Fair. Artifically flippant. And hungry for victory.
    Well, he thought, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.
    “Can we … are we supposed to stay in here until our turn comes up?”
    A blond in Mark Spitz briefs smiled at Michael’s naïveté. “I don’t know about you, honey, but I’m gonna mingle. They might be giving out a Miss Congeniality award.”
    So Michael slipped into the crowd, wearing only his paper plate and the jockey shorts he had bought at Macy’s the day before.
    Mona rolled her eyes when she saw him.
    “It’ll pay the rent,” said Michael.
    “Don’t get too cocky. I think I just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger come out of the ladies’ room.”
    “You’re such a comfort, Mona.”
    She snapped the elastic in his shorts. “You’ll do all right, kid.”

D’orothea’s Lament
    A S ARRANGED, BRIAN MET HER AT THE WASHINGTON Square Bar & Grill.
    She was draped decoratively against the bar, brown eyes ablaze with interest as she chatted with Charles McCabe. The columnist seemed equally fascinated.
    “You know him?” asked Brian, when she broke away to join him.
    “I just met him.”
    “You work fast, don’t you?”
    She gave him a playful shove. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
    D’orothea was a model, he learned. She had worked in New York for five years, peddling her polished onyx features to Vogue and Harper’s, Clovis Ruffin and Stephen Burrows and “everybody else who was hopping on the Afro bandwagon.”
    She had made money, she admitted, and lots of it. “Which ain’t half bad for a girl who grew up in Oakland B.A.”
    “?.A.?” asked Brian.
    She smiled. “Before Apostrophe. I used to be Dorothy Wilson until Eileen Ford turned it into Dorothea and stuck an apostrophe between the D and the o. “ She arched an eyebrow dramatically.