THE BLUE ANGEL

In the heat, going outside is bad. But staying inside, alone, is worse.

Kitty is knocking around in the big Fifth Avenue apartment she hves in with Hubert, her fifty-five-year-old actor boyfriend. Hubert is making a comeback. He's shooting a film in Italy with a hot young American director, and then he's going to L.A. to shoot the pilot for a TV series. Kitty will join him in Italy in a couple of days and then go to L.A. with him. She thinks: I'm only twenty-five. I'm too young for this.

At five o'clock, the phone finally rings.

"Hello, Kitty?" It's a man.

"Yeeeees?"

"Is Hubert there?"

"Noooooo."

"Oh, this is Dash."

"Dash," Kitty says, somewhat confused. Dash is Hubert's agent. "Hubert's in Italy," Kitty says.

"I know," Dash says. "He told me to call you and take you out if I was in town. He thought you might be lonely."

"I see," Kitty says. She realizes he's probably lying, and she's thrilled.

They meet at the Bowery Bar at ten. Stanford Blatch eventually shows up. He's a friend of Dash's, but then again, Stanford is a friend of everyone's.

"Stanford," Dash says. He leans back against the banquette. "Where's the new place to go? I want to make sure my ward here has a good time this evening. I think she's bored."

The two men exchange glances. "I hke the Blue Angel," Stanford says. "But then again, I have particular tastes."

"The Blue Angel it is," Dash says.

The place is in SoHo somewhere. They walk in, and it's a seedy joint with plywood platforms for dancing girls. "Slumming is very big this summer," Stanford says.

"Oh please. I've been slumming for years," says Dash.

"I know. You're the type of person who will be talking on his car phone and say, 'Could you hold on please? I'm in the middle of getting a blow job on the Palisades Parkway and I'm just about to come, " Stanford says.

"Sunset Boulevard only," Dash says.

They sit down right in front of one of the platforms. In a little bit, a woman comes out. She's carrying a bouquet of daisies that looks like she plucked them out of a crack in the sidewalk. She's totally nude. She's also skinny with cellulite. "You know something's really wrong when you see a skinny girl with cellulite," Kitty says, whispering in Dash's ear.

Dash looks at her and smiles indulgently. Okay, I can handle this, Kitty thinks.

The woman grabs a feather boa and begins dancing. She plucks out the flower petals. She's totally sweaty. She lies down and rolls on the dirty platform, and when she gets up, she has bits of chicken feathers and ragged petals and dirt stuck all over her body. Then she opens her legs and thrusts herself toward Kitty's face. Kitty is certain she can smell the woman. But she thinks, Okay, I've survived this.

Then a dyke couple comes out. They perform. The little woman moans. Then the bigger woman starts choking her. Kitty can see the veins sticking out on the little woman's neck. She's really being strangled. I'm in a snuff club! Kitty thinks. Stanford orders another glass of white wine.

The big woman grabs the little woman's hair and pulls. Kitty wonders if she should try to do something. The woman's hair comes off, and it's a wig and underneath she has a fuchsia crewcut.

"Show's over," Dash says. "Let's go home."

Outside, it's still hot. "What the hell was that about?" Kitty asks.

"What else did you expect?" Dash says.

"Goodbye, Kitty," Stanford says smugly.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1096