Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

eyes, Mary Ann pushed the button for the third floor. “This isn’t like Altered States, you know. It isn’t a psychedelic number. It’s whatever you want it to be. Brian, promise me you won’t be a wiseass with the attendant. They take this place seriously.”
    “Right.” Brian assumed an appropriately sober expression. “Are you actually a member here now?”
    “I signed up for ten floats,” said Mary Ann. “I can take them anytime.”
    “How much was that?”
    “A hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
    Brian whistled.
    “That’s not so much,” said Mary Ann. “Not for what it does for me. Besides, it’s close to work and I …”
    “Where are you getting this kind of money?”
    “What kind of money?”
    “We’ve been living like lords for the past week, Mary Ann. Ever since you got back from Hillsborough.”
    “We may have splurged a bit now and then.”
    “Yeah.” Brian counted on his fingers. “Dinner at L’Oran-gerie. Uh … scalper’s tickets to Liza Minnelli. That big motherfucker floral horseshoe you sent Michael when he left on the tour. Have I left anything out?”
    Mary Ann wouldn’t look at him.
    “It’s that old lady,” persisted Brian. “She’s giving you money, isn’t she?”
    “Brian …”
    “Just tell me that much, O.K.?”
    “All right!” said Mary Ann. “She’s giving me money. Are you satisfied now?”
    “I knew it! She’s buying hot consumer tips from you!”
    The elevator door opened. “Very funny,” said Mary Ann, striding briskly across gray industrial carpeting. “Will you behave yourself now?”
The room assigned to Brian contained a Samadhi tank and a private shower. The tank stood chest high, roughly as long and wide as a twin bed. According to the attendant, it contained ten inches of water in which 800 pounds of Epsom salts had been dissolved.
    “Is it dark in there?” asked Brian.
    The attendant nodded. “Completely. We also have earplugs, if you like.”
    “How do I know when my hour is up?”
    “They play music,” said Mary Ann.
    “In the tank?”
    The attendant smiled euphorically. “Pachelbel.”
    “My favorite,” said Brian.
    Mary Ann shot daggers at him. “I’ll be in the tank across the hall.”
    Brian winked at her. “Last one to Nirvana is a rotten egg.”
    It took him several minutes to get used to it, to accept the fact that he could relax, even sleep, lying flat on his back in the pitch darkness, suspended like a fetus in this vat of warm, viscous water.
    The earplugs, furthermore, obliterated everything but the sound of his own breathing.
    It was not what he wanted.
    He crawled out of the tank, showered off the salty slime, and stole across the hallway to Mary Ann’s room. Still naked, he knocked on the door of her tank.
    The vinyl-covered hatch opened slowly, revealing the whites of her eyes.
    “Brian! You scared me to death!”
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “Did they see you come over here?”
    Brian shook his head. “Cohabitation is against the rules?”
    “It’s supposed to be a womb, Brian.”
    “And I should go back to mine, huh?”
    Finally she smiled at him. “You’re just the worst.”
    “Anyway,” said Brian, “we can tell them we’re twins.”
They were floating in space, fingertips touching.
    “I’ll make a deal with you,” whispered Brian.
    “What?”
    “If you’ll tell me about your secret mission to Hillsborough, I’ll tell you about Jennifer Rabinowitz.”
    “No deal.”
    “I’ll tell you, anyway.”
    “I figured you would,” said Mary Ann. “Who is she?”
    “Just a Good Time Charlene I used to know.”
    “And?”
    “And … I didn’t fuck her while you were in Hillsborough.” Mary Ann laughed. “Terrific.”
    “I could have. Easy as pie. She knew about you and didn’t mind …”
    “Brian, I don’t mind.”
    “I knew that, too. She didn’t mind and you didn’t mind, and she knew that I knew that you didn’t mind. I had the whole goddamn world’s permission to fuck Jennifer Rabinowitz, and I didn’t do it.”
    She squeezed his hand affectionately. “I don’t think there’s a medal for that, sport.”
    “I don’t want a medal,” he murmured. “I want you to know what it means.”
    “I know what it means,” she said softly.

A Man Like Saint Francis
    B EHIND THE WHEEL OF HIS RED 1957 CADILLAC EL Dorado Biarritz, Father Paddy took on a disturbingly secular aspect. Prue could see why the car was a continuing embarrassment to the archdiocese, but she also