rhinosplode

New Jack Hustler
by J. Wasserman

Sharon's sort of an old friend from the Old Country, or at least where we grew up, and that we both ended up here in Lancaster has been wonderful, because she is a nice girl with solid athletic arms and big shoulders and smells nice, she somehow washes her clothes exactly the same way her mother used to, I guess, because they kind of smell like they dried near Compo Beach even though that particular beach is about 225 miles to the northeast of here. The city smells too but not nearly as fresh, it's that stale city smell of club kids and exhaust and cigarettes and El Caminos and greasy food, and what makes Lancaster sort of interesting to visitors--once you've been here a while you stop noticing this sort of thing--is that the city smell is sort of smushed down by this pervasive rural scent, fresh-cut grass and lake air and the ripeness of cows. On our last night in this dirty old town, we sit on the flat prickly roof of my rented place in the West End, a neighborhood of square blocks crammed with rowhomes, shirtless men and scampering dark-eyed children in too-big shorts, quiet professorial couples, cheap dive bars, a couple of corner grocery stores run by old ethnic stereotypes, a thrift store called Carlos', long nights on flaking front porches, and college kids passing through.

I follow Sharon off the roof and down the fire escape, my feet slipping a bit and my adrenaline flowing because heights aren't exactly my favorite thing in the world but I have to deal with them if I want to sit up on the roof I suppose, and we kind of cross the street diagonally, taking our time because there are no cars coming from either direction, and we sit on the green plastic-upholstered sofa on Sam and Elyse's porch so we can watch the Brothers Wickersham try to get That One Kid to stop doing the Hustle on his own personal maroon '82 Volvo wagon, the one with the faded bumperstickers all over the back, not just on the bumper. The Kid doesn't pay them any attention as he dances on and on in small circles, the stereo in his car not too loud, but loud enough that we can hear it through the open windows of the Volvo over on Sam and Elyse's porch while we watch That One Kid keep on just dancing dancing dancing as the fat Brother threatens first to call the Finest and then to smash the Kid's fucking head in with a fucking shovel.

The fatter Brother is wearing his green muscle shirt again, because it's Saturday night and it's his fightin' shirt, and there's nothing the fatter Brother wants more than to actually fight That One Kid. His muscles ripple somewhere in his flabby arms but rather than the intended intimidation the effect is more of a rather thick soup or like a goulash that somehow became home to a spastic Loch Ness Monster. We watch, glugging our beers, as the fatter Brother grabs the old metal coal shovel that leans against the Brothers' porch railing and we hear him yelling above the crescendoing (but politely so) disco strains for his brother not to call the cops this time, he going to bust That One Kid's head right the hell open.

"Son, there's a-gonna be a whuppin' tonight," the fatter Brother informs That One Kid.

"Do it," says the CD.

"Get down off that car so I can knock yer damn teeth out."

"Do do doot do doot do doot doot doot."

And now his pirate-obsessed and slightly svelter brother, the one who was committed a few years ago after trying to saw off his hand so he could mount a hook on there, comes outside with the cordless and says that he's just called the cops, so Lenny ought to put that there shovel down, at which news the fat Brother is obviously disappointed but one of these days it really will be smashing time and no cop in all of Lancaster will be able to recognize That One Kid's pulverized body, except maybe by the disco suit it will be oozing out of.

"Do the hustle," chirps the CD, and the instrumental break kicks in.

Safe on Sam and Elyse's porch, beer-filled, quiet, I voice my thoughts. "The problem with the Brothers Wickersham, the way I see it, is that they just do not appreciate modern dance as art."

Sharon takes a massive and unladylike swig from her brown bottle and I fall in love with her. I continue. "And I've seen those guys around town--I saw them in line for Swan Lake at the Fulton last winter. They love ballet."

"Just not disco?" Sharon asks. "What about--"

"Just not modern dance. Period. Interpretive, hip-hop, you name it. The fat one went apeshit on their old TV when PBS was showing nothing but Michael Flatley specials during that pledge drive."

"What a beast!" Sharon exclaims. I can smell the beer on her breath.

"Yeah, no kidding. And then the next day I saw him come in with a new TV. I guess he felt bad, but still, he needs to control his anger. I mean, it's just step-dancing."

That One Kid Hustles on, sweat starting to show through his natty gray suit. He is Hustling hard, taking his dancing as seriously as he takes anything. He's removed his tie and is swinging it around his head like a lasso. He's of perfectly average build, That One Kid is, and to see him on the street or at the supermarket you wouldn't think that he was such a fantastic disco machine. But he is.

The heavy summer air turns red and blue and sort of screamy as a couple of police cruisers pull up and Sharon and I decide to cheese it back to my place because we've just remembered that stupid Lancaster law about how you can't have open containers of alcohol out on public streets, so we sort of hide our Yeungling bottles behind our butts and crab-walk back to Home Base so we don't wind up in the slammer on our last night in town.

When we get back to what is still my place we climb back up the fire escape, me first this time, but about halfway up I kind of stop and turn around because it sounds like Sharon's stopped on the first landing and she has, she's just looking up and down the street as if memorizing it for an interrogation, so I turn and go back down a couple of stairs so I'm level with her, and my god she really is pretty, her arms crossed and lips sort of smalled down like an old daguerreotype of a society lady from the olden days, and the lights off the crappy "pizza" place that keeps changing its name shine behind her like the shiny bits of mica or whatever it is that winds up in sidewalks sometimes and that are really set off well by black hardened circles of gum waiting to be stepped on, and I envelope her in one of the big kind-of-sweaty bear hugs I have a reputation for being quite adept at and I suddenly feel hot tears on my upper arm. They mingle with the muggy night air and bathe me in darkness and love.