grayspike

A weekend in New York was just what I needed to escape my summertime blues. Out of town friends and another from way out of town yanked me beyond the morose valley.

Marianne Ive mentioned before. Former college classmates of mine made us a quintet. Drake and the Cool Chicks, Tatiana and Inez. We attended school out West.

Drakes brush cut has gone completely gray. A thin man, hes starting to flesh out.

Inez remains dark and quite feline. Despite her reputation to the contrary, shes seldom been volatile in my presence. Her eyes brilliance and smile often urge me towards sacrificing our friendship upon the altar of intimacy.

Then theres Tatiana. Drake, she and I met one another at different times yet through coincidence share many same acquaintances. That is we met the same people independently.

The overlap, after we finally diagrammed it, was uncanny. She eventually introduced us to Inez, who knew nobody and was a stranger to each and all.

Tatiana is blonder now. Shes also far more refined these days. Or as I prefer, shes less open, more concealed. Rough experience has taught her how to start suppressing generosity and effusiveness.

Moreover, after abusive husbands, bad boyfriends, stifling jobs which belittled her, Tatiana graduated into the less nave school of living. Hard knocks is one thing, Few among us deserve being figurative punching bags.

Despite the years my minds eye still sees her fresh beauty. Freshman beauty. One gloriously sunny day on the Mall, naturally luminous without cosmetics, a white sun dress making her slim contours vague, we talked too earnestly for us to ever consider going beyond that.

I shouldve been less noble. Maybe I couldve spared her a big measure of grief. Then again perhaps I wouldve become her lifes most regrettable man.

Our solid friendship has endured. This must suffice.

As always when theyre visiting, we performed the stations of the tourist. (It costs 14 bucks to hang out on the Empire State Observation Deck. Its not a site many locals frequent.)

My guests also over-indulged in pub-crawling. (Hey, Siren, I figured for certain wed cross each other in McAleers or at El Teddys.) Hampered by too many real-life obligations, they cant exceed nightlong mischief at home. Even if the time and freedom were there, they couldnt because their respective Mountain West cities shut early.

Marianne joined us Sunday. Although she held tickets to Agassi-Federer, Marianne deemed meeting people who knew me during my formative adult years more important. I bet she hoped it would be more entertaining, too.

Id been sparing describing her to them. Not out of embarrassment. Food has to be bought. Rent must be paid. But because their lives are so different. While my friends, the women especially, park their children and come to New York seeking, ah, invigoration, they ultimately prefer their zest mild.

I think Marianne, the old Marianne, had grit and horseradish ground into her being. I imagined she wouldve seen them as dilettantes. Like characters from some modern rendition of an E.M. Forster novel. No need to imagine how they saw her. At least initially. Mysterious. Knowing. Sly. A European. Corrupt just enough to make skin tingle.

Fortunately, both parties exhibited sufficient manners which fomented nothing more than unfounded mutual suspicion beneath good behavior.

After the Red Sox-Yankees game, Drake and I pulled up seats beside the newly-bound trio in a downtown lounge. The Cool Chicks drank mojitos to banish Saturday night hangovers. Marianne occupied herself and honed her English by telling them a bleached for virgin American sensibilities version of her life.

In all that slushy white, Marianne managed to bring up Aziza. By the time us baseball fans had arrived, Marianne had piqued them with Aziza.

The Cool Chicks actually volunteered abandoning Manhattan for the Bronx. (The Bronx!?) They desired uncovering the elusive Aziza, a woman Marianne had sanitized into someone unrecognizable.

Informed and involuntarily compelled to follow by the newly enthused and their persuasive instigator, I mustered all the whole-hearted support possible. Drake was confused. He wondered why we were trouping back to the Bronx.

Marianne and I knew a lot of spots where Aziza likely ought have been. If not at that moment, then recently.

Other than Riverdale, in which part of the borough hadnt Aziza temporarily settled? She seemingly had mattresses, if not whole apartments, throughout the Bronx at one time or another. If it werent for our bouncing against each other at every address, no way I wouldve gotten so familiar with the place.

And if I hadnt known Aziza, Marianne would needed to have struggled mightily to conjure her.

Aziza shimmied in mid-to-low end strip clubs. Before living exacted high prices, she had a sleek bod. Unfortunately, an around-the-way girl face scotched her from making big money or career-boosting contacts in Manhattans exclusive clubs.

Oh, and as the years mounted she lost herself in greater amounts of drugs. Christmas, when I last saw her, okay, when we last screwed, she swung between Xanax and cocaine.

Years ago when having money galore was still brand new to Marianne, she bunked at my old apartment during her visits. She didnt start patronizing hotels until marriage. Im sure she favored continuing the previous arrangement but three people between those walls mightve stressed us all. Besides, when she gave propriety a go, her husband wouldve seen our closeness as unseemly.

Now such consideration is laughable. A German-born Turk, he proved a bigger dog than me. Once their union became legal, both discovered he much preferred blondes than brunettes like his wife. I dont know why she keeps him. It cant be love any more. Nor because of their child, a daughter he treats indifferently.

Perhaps Marianne holds onto him as a persistent reminder. The bad fuck taken to extremes.

Long before the Turk, Marianne desired wallowing in an American skin shop. Maybe she wanted to see and reflect on just how far shed come in life. Or maybe she wanted to study the exchanges between American women and men.

Instead she saw Aziza. Marianne didnt swing towards Dorothy, though admittedly when the right woman filled her crosshairs it inflamed her need for a taste.

In those days, Aziza maintained vampire hours. Exclusively. Middle of summer and shed remain alabaster. She didnt strut as much as swagger. Defiance rather than sweet invitation looked down from those stages.

One softening feature: Azizas eyes. Centered in big round whites, irises the richness of chocolate. Occasionally she emphasized those eyes by rimming them with kohl.

Then we werent swapping favors often. So when Marianne asked the pertinent questions, I worried whether Aziza would response satisfactorily.

As go-between (or pimp you decide) I broached the matter as delicately as one could confined in a hot, crowded, noisy room full of drunk, horny, baying guys and gossamer-clad hard-bodied women. Difficult at first. Not that Aziza wasnt flattered. (Are women more receptive to entreaties from their own sex because they have true affinity for the female form? Or are men just as resistant because society has ingrained in us that such activity may indicate an intolerable unmanly kind of deviance?)

No, Azizas reluctance was far more base. She didnt like Germans. Okay. The German language. It grated her ears. Only after convincing her Marianne was one German whose English was better than many natives not a stretch at all did she consent.

In their ice-breaking meeting the two brassy chicks I knew became coy. They reverted into a girlishness I believed both had shaken off long before their respective first menses. I felt like an intruder although I was glad to watch.

Brief as Mariannes stays were, the two usually made time for each other. And it had to be some kind of infatuation because Aziza happily risked venturing into daylight for her.

The closeness surprised me. Especially on Mariannes part. Aziza had short fingers and thick ankles. Deciphering her as I had, I thought she wouldve dismissed such features as belonging to a peasant.

The Bronx foreign territory to Marianne, theyd tangle at my place while I worked. Even after Marianne cleaned and straightened up, meticulous as she was, I could sense Azizas visits.

Tough to describe how I knew. Residual heat on the couches or across the bed. Their mingled pheromones fogging the affected rooms perhaps? Too often the result was my easy arousal while watching Marianne perform the most mundane tasks.

Some nights my dreams allowed me entry during their early afternoon fevers. Having pleased and pleasured both women, seeing Azizas plush round bottom, Mariannes flat belly, their muscular legs entwined, the Germans hard mouth insistent against the Kosovars pillow lips, became my favorite delirium.

Sometime during their explorations, Marianne uncovered that Aziza was Muslim. (Her affiliation was loose. Only recently had Aziza heeded the muezzin and began removing sausage chunks from her pizza before devouring the slice.) The fact delighted then inspired Marianne.

One afternoon I returned home and the vaguest hint of apple-scented tobacco curled at my door. Farther inside I noticed my apartment strangely immaculate. The sole disorder, an abaya draped over the couch back. (!) This obvious clue intrigued me. I picked up and sniffed the shapeless black garment.

Aziza marked its interior. Marianne left heavy traces where lips brushed against fabric.

Ive always wondered about the genesis and extent of their role-playing. I suspected that an impressionable Marianne had retained too much purple immersion from the novels of Kurban Said.

Thats who Marianne sought last Sunday. Aziza, a thoroughly secular libertine who voluntarily costumed herself in the most repressive article of clothing since the chastity belt. The contradictions boggled.

To get the Cool Chicks and Drake involved, blindly involved, we told them several defining truths about Aziza. She immigrated with her family from the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia to Brooklyn. The parents eventually owned a pizzeria there. Finally if the clan had remained in Yugoslavia during its dissolution and conflict, its likely Serbs wouldve slaughtered the males, then raped and killed the women. (Or as Aziza joked, Knowing the Serbs, killing then raping us.)

Aziza told us this before Western news organizations reported horrors from there. We werent impressed by her prescience. Just how well she knew her former neighbors.

As much as riding the el through low- and mid-rise Bronx landscapes entertained my other visitors, did on-the-ground proximity disturb them. On summertime streets the music is incessant. If one is unused to Caribe beats, one could mishear the constant beats as intrusive. Claves and drums do indeed agitate blood.

Comfortable with the prevalence of spoken Spanish, they were slightly unnerved by its local speakers lack of deference. The Mountain West has a stricter social order than our frenzied metropolis. A great portion of Latinos there seem comparatively timid to this Easterner. Friends residing there would be hard-pressed to dispute my impression. Also, it suits them. Even Inez.

Here, the majority speaking Spanish come or are descended from the Caribbean Basin. They dont defer, yo. Any provocation, real, or better imagined, theyre stuck in your grille. Out-of-towners might consider such interactions aggressive. Thats normal here.

Aziza appeared at none of her haunts. People who ought to have seen her failed remembering when they last had. No tracks led to where shed gone. Her trail, like the day, faded.

At the end I had no pithy comment.

Instead I got stuck remembering the little hearts she scratched on the fabric of my cars ceiling. By the way that constellation still gazes down. Pictures and our bodies secrets aside, those are the only other tangible reminders I have of Aziza.

Tatiana, I think it was Tatiana, offered vapid cheer behind empty hope.

Kiez girl pragmatist supreme Marianne disabused any pie-in-the-sky sentiment. About our friend turning up to seal a happy end, Marianne deflected it with a coda of: Yeah. Under a pile of leaves.