Good Night and Good Luck Zhang Body Massage
I didn't want to go at all but it was the right thing to do so I went and when I left sadness covered me like a fine mist. I walked to the Promenade, where the setting sun painted purple and orange across its glittering palette of steel and glass and I sat, and I sat, and I sat, and it got colder and colder. There will always be beauty in truth but sometimes the truth ain't beautiful at all.
I stood and I walked up Montague, where things are still familiar but most of the faces and the storefronts have changed. I lived here once. It feels like it was another life now.
It was getting late and the shops and restaurants were pulling down the grates and turning off their lights.
I passed the diner where Lucky used to work. Still there, still open, new name, new people. I peered in the window and knew I couldn't walk in and sit down. I turned on my heel and across the street I saw it. Second floor neon, the stuff I look for every day, new hands, new faces, new legs, new eyes. I crossed the street and went up the stairs.
On the door was a reflexology diagrams with the network of muscles, bones and nerves that make the body work. Disparate and distinct parts in one glorious whole, a single organism fueled by separate systems dependent on each other. One fails, the rest fail with it.
Beyond that door it was a dingy little place with short walls and curtains, three stalls, no shower, nothing special. A lady named Lily was the only one working. A heavy set woman somewhere in her forties with a soft, peaceful face, she wasn't anything to look at but she had an air of calm about her that felt right.
$35 for a half hour, $55 for an hour. Brooklyn Heights, no bargains here. I didn't care. Another man would have gone for a stiff drink or two and sat with his thoughts and memories at the end of a bar. I was here instead. I went for the half and got undressed.
I took off my coat, my hat, my shoes, and then my watch. I was wearing a watch I had owned for more than 20 years. Something about the precision of the instrument, the way the tiny pieces work together in a glorious and well-orchestrated ballet...something about measuring the endless forward march of everything, every word, every touch, every kiss. Something about it feels right.
I lay down and Lily came in and started wordlessly touching me softly. I always take a hard massage but today I said nothing. I needed warmth, I needed, softness, I needed love...but this was all I had, so I took it and it was mine.
Like that guy at the end of that bar I have my memories, too. We were lovers once, Lucky and I. A long time ago, we were lovers and more. She was a waitress at the all night diner and I was a guy who fucked waitresses, but it was more than that. I wandered in there one night and ordered eggs and she made a joke and I laughed a little louder than I should have and she smiled.
I waited all night for her, drinking coffee and writing in the grubby little notebook where I kept my dreams. When her shift ended I offered to walk her home, and we wandered down Montague Street to the Promenade, where the sun was rising behind us as we stood and we looked at the most beautiful city the world has ever known, with shards of sunlight reflecting off the skyline I touched her cheek lightly and kissed her and that was the way it began.
She was percolating with life. She couldn't keep herself from looking and laughing at beauty and truth. Her name was Lucy but I called her "Lucky" because she made me feel like the luckiest guy in New York when I was with her.
That was 20 years ago, and to see her the way she is today was worse than seeing her dead. There is nothing left of her. Bad luck and sadness have taken from her whatever the disease could not, and there was no way I could even pretend. No way at all.
And now I needed these hands, Lily's hands. Without them I was alone. Without them I was just one piece, one more part without a whole. I needed her touch and then...the timer rang. The half hour was over. I looked at her and I knew I was bleeding everywhere. My eyes were glass and my arms were stiff and that was how time passed and how life was lived but god damn this was not living.
I asked her to finish me and then I would go. I offered to pay for more time but she said no. She knew what I wanted and she cast a knowing glance at my crotch and nodded. I am transparent at all times, even when I am utterly opaque.
Lily squeezed a little oil on her hand and rubbed my soft cock and I responded immediately. She got up on the table and sat between my legs, where she started milking my cock with both hands. Faster, faster...Then slowly with her right hand as she ran her left hand over my balls.
Faster again...and faster and harder and I wasn't there yet. Beads of sweat formed on her brow. I couldn't let go, I wouldn't let go.
I remember a time when Lucky and I were laying in bed smoking and something I said came out wrong and backwards and she stood on that bed, towering above me, and she started jumping up and down, silently staring me down. Her feet everywhere, the bedsprings creaking, a look of terror in my eyes, and then the bed broke and we crashed together and she was on top of me and I kissed her neck and everything was ok, everything was right again and that was all it took.
Lily pulled harder and harder. She slowly pushed a finger into my ass. I had to let go. I had to break it, throw it all away, make it right by making it gone for good and then I knew what I needed to do and then I came and my left leg shook like a dog walking in from the rain.
I looked at Lily and I felt the cold pallor lift and I laughed out loud. "I know I'm hard work." I said. "Your wife is very lucky," she said. "I don't have a wife." I answered, and I gave her my smile and she smiled back and it was over.
I got dressed and I gave her 60 bucks. It was more than the usual but I was grateful to give it. She handed me a card and I pocketed it.
I walked back down to the Promenade and I stood there and listened to the sounds of the cars on the Expressway below. You can't stop time, you can't turn it back or ask it to wait. Its march doesn't stop for pain or joy but if I couldn't make it stop, I could pretend, and I took my watch off and I held it in my hand and I threw it high and hard and I watched it spin in the air and catch the moonlight and then fall to earth where it shattered and was no more.
Walking back the street was dark and quiet. I stood under Lily's neon sign and I watched the diner through a window for a minute. I felt Lily's card in my pocket and I looked at it. "Good Luck Zhang, Inc." it said. The neon light above me went out and I tossed the card in the trash.
There will always be beauty in truth but sometimes the truth ain't beautiful at all. Good bye Lucky, good night and good bye.
