Cynthia Bond - Ruby

Then there were the arms. Firm, cuffed, creamed, soft, wide, beneath crisp white and linen. Elbows bent against brass or wooden bars. Or stretching for a filterless behind a ducktail, pomade darkening a narrow strip of tobacco roll. Reaching for bourbon and melting ice. Arms rising, banded, weighted and swift. Ready for protection and pain.

Then there were the hands. The old dykes carried countries in the valley of their palms. Rivers ran from the rise of their fingers, the blunt of their nails. Thumbs jutting out, peninsulas coasting the sweat of a glass or thigh. Pinching the edge of a Camel or clit. They walked sex in the crook of their smiles, in the cut of their eyes. Ruby discovered that they were the best men she had ever known. For their manhood coagulated in the raw shimmer of spirit, not groin. It electrified the thrust of their tongues and fingers.

Abby Millhouse, the Page Three’s bouncer and the club manager’s best friend, was tall, plain and crackled white. She had let Ruby into the club after barring her for a long nice beat. Ruby had flashed the kind of smile that let her know that tonight, if Abby played it just right, she might have company. That night Ruby called Abby her “Little Jack Horner.” Because at forty-seven, Abby was the first woman to slip her wide, crooked thumb past Ruby’s panties, bury it and twist slowly, steadily and with firm deliberation, until, in a gush of slick awareness, Ruby learned the true magic of opposable thumbs. Ruby loved to trace the mighty chip in Abby’s front tooth with her tongue. She kissed the healed carvings along Abby’s legs, and her missing kneecap, which Abby revealed with pride after four bourbon and sodas. She’d nearly been beaten to death by the infamous Batman and Robin, two cops notorious for attacking and killing old butches, fairies and drag queens near Washington Square, and in hidden alleys of the West Village. The doctors had told Abby she would never walk again. Ruby smiled at the thought of such a pronouncement over the angry body of her Manby, Ruby’s word for Abby, which she would caw softly during sex, as the gristle warrior became melted cheese under the dome of Ruby’s thighs.

When Ruby told Abby that she’d come to New York to find her mama, Abby pressed into her heart and said, “Maybe you already have.” So one week after they’d met Abby came to the Roger Williams Hotel and watched as Ruby packed her life into two paper grocery bags. She filled them with: one midnight dress, one rabbit stole, one pair of black pumps, two Peter Pan padded bras, three pairs of panties, one pair of capri slacks, a black turtle-neck, hair supplies, toothbrush, makeup and an old clinking Band-Aid tin filled with quarters. Abby carried the tan bags seventeen blocks to 275 East Twelfth, apartment 7. Ruby rented her body to Abby now, curled her life into Abby’s warm lap.

Inside Abby’s skinny railroad apartment, there was a naked mattress lopsided on the floor tiles, a single ceiling bulb skitting dim then bright. One foldout tin chair and a card table with one weak leg jimmied against the wall to keep it from spilling over. Only a hot plate and a pot for boiling. Ruby quickly spent Abby’s savings on a Westinghouse stove, and ate the meals that Abby prepared for her. She took down Abby’s torn sheet and hung new mint voile curtains instead. Introduced Abby to installment payments and finance charges in only four weeks. They painted the walls Pistachio. Ruby decided. Abby painted.

Ruby chose many things. Under her tutelage Abby went to a barber for the first time in her life, instead of snipping her own brindle-colored hair. It lay down and cooed against the width of her neck. She began sporting ties and jackets that Ruby had selected, and took on a new distinction at Page Three. Ruby played her part so well that all the girls in the club saw Abby in a new light. Ruby glittered against her in the dark. And when the police came at two o’clock one Saturday in June, as Abby and Ruby were leaving after closing, it was Ruby who chose to give the boys a blow job in the backseat so they’d leave Abby alone.

Abby waited against the shadowed wall, trying not to look into the car’s cloud windows. Car 224—Batman and Robin. When they’d called Abby over and opened the door of their squad car, Ruby had walked up to them in her stead, giggling like she was a bit tipsy, which she wasn’t. She’d leaned into the car until the red-faced Irish Batman grinned. He had glanced over at Abby, whispered to Ruby then laughed out loud. Ruby had slipped in and the windows had been rolled up. But Batman squeaked the window down to stare in Abby’s direction as soon as Ruby’s head slipped out of sight.

After a time, Ruby stumbled out laughing, waving good-bye. Until 224 drove around Avenue A. Then her face fell. Abby and Ruby walked home in silence, their feet crunching on the sidewalk, walking into the spill of lamplight and out of it again. Laughing cars rolling past them, then fading. The sky fogged black.

Abby put a cigarette between her lips and lit it. The spin of flint and flame cast light on the puff red of her eyes. She quickly snapped the Zippo shut and inhaled deeply as they walked. As was their custom, Ruby reached out and took the cigarette from Abby’s lips and took a long drag, coughing just a bit as she always did when she puffed Abby’s Camels.

Ruby was drawn to the bright red hair of a magnificently bedraggled queen as she stumbled towards them, beyond drunk, mascara streaked to her chin, black hose torn at the knee and ankle. She winked at Ruby.

“Got ’nother cig?”

Abby motioned to the cigarette in Ruby’s hand. “Last one.”

The drag queen paused and wavered. “S’right. Got a nickel?”

Abby reached into her pocket and gave her a quarter.

She winked now at Abby. “Thankzz, honey-pie.”

They parted ways. The redhead teetering on sky high heels. Ruby took another deep puff of the Camel as they walked. Then reached to replace the cigarette between Abby’s lips. Abby paused. Averted her mouth for just a fraction of a second. Then took the cigarette, wiped the butt clean, of Ruby, of the fogged police car. Watching, Ruby felt her face flush hot. Before Abby could bring the cigarette to her mouth, Ruby snatched it from her, turned around and called out to the queen half a block away, “Hey!” Then walking swiftly to her, reaching her. “You want it?”

The woman nodded. Her lips furry pink. Eyes blood red, rimmed in spider black.

“Thankzz, pretty.” The queen reached for the cigarette.

“Trade.” Ruby motioned to the quarter.

“That’s not right.” Then looking at the cigarette longingly she handed Ruby the quarter. She grabbed the cigarette, inhaled hard, swallowing the smoke in. She stumbled away mumbling, “Know that’s not right.”

Abby had stopped by the light. Ruby walked quickly past her, then had to wait on the stoop for her to open the door. When they walked into the soft green apartment, Abby asked Ruby, “What did that queen say to you?”

Ruby lied without blinking, “She asked me if I missed dick too.”

Abby stood bone still. “What. Did you say?”

Ruby started undressing. She unzipped and peeled off her dress in a quick easy movement. “I said, ‘Sure I do,’ ” she kicked off her shoes. “ ‘—but I got a fix tonight so I’m cool.’ ”

Ruby unsnapped her bra. Stepped out of her panties and sauntered into the bathroom.

Her hand shook as she locked the door and climbed naked into the comfort of the empty white bathtub, Abby’s quarter still in her palm. She turned the knobs and watched as the steaming water rose. Ruby opened her hand, looked at the coin and thought of the furrier. Remembered then how quickly she had thrown away the man’s card. But his quarter had been something else. So were all the quarters now filling her Band-Aid box.