Dead Nude Girls
By Kevin Filan © 2006



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Every time I come she's faded a little bit more.

Amidst the weeds where the Empire Burlesque once stood Vera pirouettes to remembered music. Clouds hang low over the Hudson River. Across the street a LUXURY CO-OPS: 1 AND 2 BR. OFFERING BY PROSPECTUS ONLY sign memorializes the staircase where Vera fell to her death.

"How you doing, Toots?"

Vera flinches. Her head lolls on her broken neck, then comes to rest on her ample bosom. A rat dashes beneath the woodpile that used to be the main stage. Vera reaches up and turns her face toward Charley, then smiles as mist turns to drizzle.

"Hey, Sweetiepie!"

Charley tips his hat, revealing the bullet hole in the center of his forehead. "Sorry, Toots, didn't mean to startle you."

"That's okay. It's been a while, Charley."

"I know. It's been nuts down at Central. If it ain't a new crop of dead to haul in, it's a séance. Everyone in New York is either dying or getting spiritual. I been like a one-legged man at an asskicking contest."

"It's been slow here for a while. Nobody has time for dancers since they shot Kennedy." Vera smiles. "At least I got time to practice my ballet steps." She looks around the weedy lot. "I hope the economy picks up soon. You know how Hugo gets when he's not working."

The stormclouds blow in from the Palisades, heavy and blue-black as the bruise over Vera's right eye. Again with that strutting little bastard Hugo Charley thinks as drizzle turns to rain.

"You worry too much about that bum. He don't treat you right."

Vera's head bobs forward as she nods agreement.

"He needs to control that temper of his. Just yesterday he knocked me down a flight of stairs." She points toward the LUXURY CO-OPS sign. "My neck is still bothering me. I'm lucky I didn't get killed!"

"You're a nice girl. You could do a lot better than him."

"He didn't mean it."

The streetlight flickers on. In the halogen glow Charley can read the fluorescent orange FUCK YOU spraypainted behind Vera.

One of these days there ain't gonna be anything left of her at all.

"He don't like me working here. I told him Isadora Duncan danced naked, but he said nobody wore raincoats to see Isadora Duncan."

Charley snorts. "It never bothered him when he was strutting around in that fancy suit you bought him."

"He needed it for interviews." She puts her ankle atop a weathered sawhorse and begins her barré exercises. "Next week the Brooklyn Ballet is holding tryouts for the '64 season. It don't pay that much but it's a start. Maybe then I can quit working here and Hugo won't get so jealous."

"You'd oughta just give him his walking papers."

"It's sweet you worry about me so much, Charley." She lifts Charley's hat, kisses him on the powder burn atop his bald spot. "But don't worry. I can take care of myself."

An SUV pulls up at the light. Miles Davis drifts soft and sweet from the driver's open window.

"Hey, that's my cue, Sweetiepie. You see Hugo, tell him I'm looking for him."

Lightning flashes across the sky. The SUV pulls away with the thunderclap, taking Miles along with him. Vera leaps across the field as Miles fades and rain turns to downpour.

* * *

Dave the Dead Vegan Social Worker rolls a joint. A wide-eyed boy behind a chain-link fence watches him from the screen. Crustyfred yawns, exposing the moldy safety pin in his lower lip.

"I keep trying to get her out and about. But all she wants to do is talk about Hugo."

Dave licks the paper's edge, then turns to Charley.

"And for the past six months all you've been talking about is Vera. You really need to put this in perspective, Charley."

"I just wish there was something I could do. I hate to see her haunting that place waiting for the bum what sent her over here. Especially since I never liked that little bastard anyway."

Dave raises an eyebrow. "Do you really want to hold on to baggage from your past life?"

Charley struggles for a rejoinder, then frowns as the music swells. "Hey, I thought you said this was a French film. How come they ain't showed no boobs yet?"

The limbless torso beside Crustyfred nods in agreement. "Thees ees not entertainment. Thees makes Damiens embarrassed to call himself Frenchman."

Dave lights the joint. Three rows away a frowning usher shines a flashlight from the land of the living. Damiens buries his face in the popcorn as Crustyfred throws up a trackmarked arm.

"Whoa! Chill out with the lights, Live Dude!"

"When you said they was playing The 400 Blows this ain't exactly what I expected."

"Come on, Charley." Dave passes the joint to Crustyfred. "This is one of Truffaut's great films."

"Bah! Thees movie ees merde! Damiens speets on Truffaut! Ptui!"

Crustyfred frowns as the music swells again.

"Dude! You're getting spit in the popcorn."

"Ohhh… Damiens ees sorry he ees getting speet een popcorn. Next time he weel eat weeth hees hands eenstead. You fuck."

"Stop complaining and pass that reefer over here," Charley says.

"Whoa, I didn't know you smoked, dude!"

"What, you think people just started smoking reefer yesterday?"

Across the aisle in the land of the living the frowning usher turns to his pimply friend.

"You smell pot?"

The flashlight beams cut across the world of the dead again.

"There's nobody there."

"I'm telling you, this place has been haunted ever since they tore down that squat."

"Fuckin-A right, Live Dude." Crustyfred rummages about in the barrel for some spit-free popcorn. "Quit being a corporate slave! Rise up and fight the power like Carlos Marx did when he founded the People's Republic of Cuba. Owww!!!"

Crustyfred rubs the needle that still dangles from his abscessed arm. "You slapped my needle, dude."

"Because you were flapping your lips. What are you screaming like that for? You ain't got your Communications with the Living license yet."

Crustyfred pouts. "I never figured they had fascists in the afterlife."

"I never figured they had morons, so that makes us even." Charley passes the joint to Dave. "I can't believe you of all people ain't outraged. This poor girl still in love with the guy what abused her."

Dave shakes his head sadly. "You can't save everybody, Charley."

Charley leans back.

"Hey, this reefer is pretty good. Reminds me of the stuff I used to get off the spades in Harlem."

Dave rolls his eyes. "We don't call them 'Spades' any more, Charley."

"Sorry about that. The Coloreds, I mean."

* * *

"I brought somebody here what I think you should talk to."

St. Gerard Majella steps over a rotting New York Press and into the lot. Lounge music drifts muted and funky from the café next door. Vera rises from a plie into a pointe tendu, her torn silk scarf fluttering in the muggy summer air.

"Vera, this is Saint Gerard Majella. Jerry, this is Vera."

Gerard sits down uncomfortably atop a pile of bricks. Vera bows again, then wraps her scarf around her pasties.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Vera. Charley has told me a lot about you."

"Thank you, Father. We don't see many priests in here. At least not too many who still come in dressed like they're on the job."

Gerard blushes. "I'm not a priest, I'm a lay brother."

Vera's head lolls back and forth as she nods sympathetically. "It's an honor to meet you anyway, St. Gerard."

Gerard goes from red to crimson. "You don't have to call me 'Saint,' really, it's OK…"

"Jerry's a little shy, but he's all right. Holiest guy you'd ever want to meet. We play poker every Friday." Charley paces about the newly cleaned space where the woodpile used to be. "So, Jerry, why don't you tell her about how she needs to concentrate more on spiritualist matters and less on that bum Hugo."

"He's not a bum!" Vera's head jerks wildly as she stamps her foot down. "He just can't help himself sometimes, that's all."

Gerard nods sympathetically. "So many people don't understand the difference between wickedness and weakness. I'm glad that you do."

"Weak?" Charley mutters. "Not too weak that he couldn't break her neck."

"It wasn't his fault I fell down the stairs. I been feeling faint ever since I started dieting for the tryouts."

The lounge music segues into a soft samba.

"Oooh, perfect! I can practice modern dance." She looks at Gerard apologetically. "It was very nice meeting you, Father."

"I'm not a priest, really…"

Heat ripples off the pavement as Vera turns away in syncopated 4/4 time.

"Is that all you're gonna do? You're gonna let her go on moping about some bum what beats her up?"

"I can't ask her to stop loving somebody, Charley."

"Oh, fercryinoutloud. What's the matter with you? The guy beat her to death and you think she should just forgive him?"

Gerard looks at Charley, puzzled. "You think she shouldn't?"

The samba picks up steam. Vera leaps into the air, then floats down in a long pas de deux. Gerard's halo shimmers in her pasties as the samba comes to a climactic end.

"That was great, Toots, great." Charley jerks his thumb toward Gerard. "The kid here wanted to ask you out for dinner tomorrow."

"Ummm… I …"

"Like I said, he's a little shy. Don't mind him."

"I don't mind him at all." Vera smiles. "I think he's adorable."

"Come on, Kid." Charley nudges Gerard's shin. "Ask the lady out. Who's gonna turn down a dinner invite from a saint?"

"You're a very good dancer." Gerard goes from crimson to maroon. "I'm sure you'll do really well at tryouts. But it's not good that you're feeling faint. You need to eat something. Charley and I are going to a Misa tomorrow. They're going to have a lot of food there. Would you like to come with us?"

"You're really sweet, Father. But I can't. What if Hugo comes back and I miss him? I better wait here."

"Don't worry about Hugo. He ain't got nothing to be jealous about. If there's anybody you can trust on a platoonic date, it's Jerry. And besides I'll be there to chaperone. It'll be swell. You oughta see the spread those Dominicans lay out. Rice and beans till it's coming out your ears."

"I can't, Charley. I gotta be in shape for tryouts next week. No sense in going off my diet now. I've lost just about everything I need to lose."

* * *

"So all the way out here you drove to tell me the lady's acting stupid over a bum. And I'm supposed to do what about this?"

The late Ira Levinson, M.D., refills Charley's glass and then his own. Across the street two seagulls argue beneath the RED LOBSTER sign. The porch swing's creaking harmonizes against the surf's distant roar and the Long Island Expressway drone.

Charley sips his Manishevitz. "I figured maybe you'd have some advice. You're a woman doctor, ain't you?"

"I'm a gynecologist, not a shrink. Flip her upside down, I may be able to tell you something. Otherwise, what do I know?"

Sunset blazes off the gold Star of David which hangs amidst Dr. Ira's chest hair. A breeze rustles the wind chimes above them.

"If I knew about women would I have married my second wife?" Dr. Ira shakes his head. "I was heartsick when she got this place." He looks around the porch, grinning. The whitewashed blackamoor planter grins back at him. "Let's see her get me out now. I got a court order for you right here." He gestures obscenely, then holds the near-empty bottle up to the sky.

"You want the rest of this?"

"Please. This Kosher wine ain't bad. Maybe those winos is onto something."

Dr. Ira scowls. "I hate this shit. But ever since my son-in-law decided he was a Lubavitcher it's all I get. And here's a hava nagilah to you too, you little putz." Dr. Ira tops off Charley's glass. "My daughter and your friend should start a support group for women who love bums."

Charley lights his last cigarette. "At least you got someone what cares for you on the other side."

The biggest seagull flies off with a half-eaten hush puppy in its bill. Dr. Ira watches as it catches a breeze and soars toward Massapequa.

"My second wife hated seagulls. Rats with feathers, she called them. I always liked them myself. You ever read Jonathan Livingston Seagull?"

Charley shakes his head as the last hot orange slice of sun sinks beneath the RED LOBSTER sign.

"That was after my time."

"You should check it out. They don't write great literature like that anymore."

* * *

Dave lays three fives on the battered table. In the space between the cracked window and the warped windowsill a pigeon preens its feathers.

"So eight months ago, out of nowhere, you decided to visit Empire again?"

Moonlight shines through Dave as he shakes his head knowingly.

"I've seen this before, Charley." Dave reaches for the unsalted plantain chips. "You're feeling your mortality."

Charley lays down two pairs, sevens and nines.

"Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but I been aware of my mortality for a while now."

Crustyfred lays down Damiens' nine high straight.

"Dude, we're winning." Crustyfred looks down at Damiens. "Who would have figured you'd have the best hand in the place?"

"Oh-ho-ho-ho. Damiens ees glad the East Village has eets own eediot."

Charley empties his beer as Dave passes Charley the plantain chips.

"You'd be passing over about now if you hadn't been shot. And you're mad as hell at Hugo because he had the life that you missed and he fucked it up."

Damiens snorts.

"Ohhhh… poor Charley! He died suddenly. Damiens feels so sorry for heem. Damiens ees happy he have hours of torture to prepare for the afterlife."

St. Gerard Majella lays down his cards.

"Does four of a kind beat a straight? I always forget."

"Sacre bleu!!!" Damiens spits out plantain chips. "Eeet ees a meeracle. You fuck!"

"I'm sorry," Gerard says, blushing. "I didn't mean to beat you, really."

"This ain't got nothing to do with my mortality." Charley reaches for another beer. The pigeon coos softly, then flies out the hole in the roof.

"I'm just worried about Vera, that's all. And I'm mad at Hugo on account of he was always a no-account hot-tempered strutting little bastard even before he put her in the conditioning she's in."

"You shouldn't talk about Hugo like that, Charley." Gerard sips his Coca-Cola. "If Vera can forgive him, why can't you?"

Charley eyes his poker buddies ruefully.

"Christ, how can I win? I'm between a social worker and a saint here."

* * *

"All this practice is paying off. I'm really getting flexible."

Sunset filters grey-orange through the plastic sheets atop the roofbeams. Vera places her foot atop a sawhorse, then rests her forehead on her knee. The faded sequins on her shoe sparkle dull pink in the diffuse light.

"I just wish my neck would clear up. But I'm sure it will be better by the time the season starts."

Charley sits down atop the pile of boards and sighs.

"Vera, the '64 season has been over a long time."

Raindrops patter off the plastic.

"I been meaning to tell you for a while, except I was afraid you'd get upset. Look, Toots, Hugo didn't just hurt your neck when he knocked you down those stairs. He did a hell of a lot worse than that, the lousy bum."

Vera meets Charley's gaze. A garbage scow's horn rings out low and mournful as a baritone sax.

"You think I don't know I'm dead, Charley?"

A thin rivulet splashes through Vera. The garbage scow's horn responds to its own echo with another mournful blast.

"But … you kept talking about tryouts… and how you was waiting for Hugo… "

"What else did you want me to talk about?" Vera smiles as her gaze turns inward toward her dreams again. "Besides, Hugo's gonna be here sometime, ain't he, Sweetiepie?"

"Hugo's gonna be here sometime," Charley agrees, unsure what else to say. The wind picks up; the dull patter goes from 3/4 to 6/8. Vera pirouettes across freshly laid concrete, leaving no footprints as she spins in time with the raindrops.

* * *

The old man hides beneath the covers as Charley enters his flophouse cubicle. The bare bulb casts chickenwire shadows on the threadbare blanket.

"Easy there, Hugo. I ain't gonna hit you."

Charley sits down on the worn mattress. The old man squints from beneath the covers.

"You forget your drinking buddies in your old age? It's me. Charley. From Empire Burlesque." Charley waits for a long moment. "The place where Vera used to work."

"Charley?" Hugo grins broadly, exposing his missing front teeth, then his grin melts into spasms of coughing. "I ain't seen… you in … a long time…"

"It's been a while."

"Yo! Shut up, Gramps!" a deep-voiced man yells from an adjoining cubicle.

"The kids today got no respect," Hugo whispers. A cockroach knocks down paint flakes as it scurries up the plywood wall. "Three months ago a bunch of kids beat me up real bad. Can you believe it? Doctors didn't think I'd make it, but I showed them. I ain't dying till I'm damn good and ready."

Hugo grins. For a second Charley can almost see the strutting bantamweight in his Italian suit, then the light changes and there is only a sad battered derelict trying not to cough.

"Sure, Hugo."

"How's the old joint doing?"

"It ain't. They tore it down years ago."

"Can you believe it? And I didn't even know." Hugo looks down at the grimy floor. "I never went back, even after I got out. I figured everyone was still sore about Vera."

Charley shakes his head. "No point in being sore."

Hugo coughs again. His fingernails are purple as the bruise under his eye as he clutches the blanket and fights desperately for air. The radiator at the end of the hallway kicks on with a low train whistle. The high metal tang of steam joins the smell of sweat and mold and dying old man as Hugo catches his breath. His fingernails go from purple to azure.

"I never forgot her. Every single day since it happened I wished I done things different. I took every anger management course Sing Sing had. Even the ones they didn't make me take. And finally I learned to control my temper. Can you believe it?" Hugo laughs sadly. "But now it don't make no difference."

"No harm in improving yourself. A man's got to be progressory, even if he is in the slammer."

"Twenty-eight years, six months and seventeen days." Hugo turns his gaze to the peeling plywood. "And I deserved every minute. I didn't want them to let me out. Can you believe it?" His whispered words crumble to hacking and wheezing again; this time his fingernails stay purple as he catches his breath. "I knew there wasn't nothing out here for me no more."

"I know the feeling."

Hugo smiles again, looking through Charley as his eyes focus on forty years ago. "She was really something, Charley. Really something. And she liked you too. You should have seen the way she carried on when you got capped. I had to carry her out of your wake."

Hugo's eyes widen. When he speaks again his voice is not a whisper but nearly a scream. "Wait a minute. You got capped."

"Motherfucker." The deep voice again. "You won't shut up, I shut you up."

The door flies open. Hugo whimpers and tries to hide beneath the blankets. Charley steps into the world of the living with a hard low right. The deep-voiced man gags and clutches his stomach. Charley shoves him into the hallway, then pins him against the cinderblocks by the throat.

"What the hell's the matter with you, bullyizing an old man? You oughta be ashamed of yourself. Somebody needs to beat your ass till you get some respect installed."

The deep-voiced man gazes down at the bullet hole beneath the rim of Charley's pork pie hat.

"Santa muerte!"

"No, Santa Claus. Now ho-ho-ho and get the fuck out of here, Pancho."

Urine darkens the man's baggy pants as Charley lets go of his throat. He reels back into the wall, his gold Puerto Rico necklace sparkling in the incandescent light. Charley stands between him and Hugo's cubicle, five feet and four bristling inches of Brooklyn attitude.

"You heard me. Adios. Vamoose. El scram-o."

The deep-voiced man turns and runs screaming for the stairs.

"Yo! Shut up, motherfucker!" another voice yells.

Hugo cowers in the corner, whimpering as he raises a withered arm for the blow. Charley closes the cubicle door.

"So I'm …"

"A bum? Yeah, but I'm doing you a favor." Charley points to the corpse lying atop the cot, its face covered by the threadbare blanket. "That punk was supposed to beat you to death. I sent you off with a heart attack."

Hugo turns away from his body, grinning.

"Is…"

"Yeah, yeah. Come on, you bum."

* * *

"Why are we holding a party up here when there's a perfectly good bar downstairs?" Dr. Ira grumbles. Vera and Hugo sit next to him, holding hands as they lean against the new drywall. Outside the window a winter storm brews over the Palisades.

"They got workmen coming in and out of there at all hours. You wanna be scaring someone into a heart attack? Besides, we got everything we need for a party right here."

Charley pats his battered cooler contentedly. "I been holding on to this since I worked that overturned beer truck on the BQE." His smile becomes a grin. "Brought over three souls and a hearse full of Budweiser."

"All right, dude! The four major food groups: barley, water, malt and hops... OWWW!!!" Crustyfred pulls away from the cooler rubbing his arm. "You hit my needle, man."

"Wait your turn, you Bolshevik bastard. You want one, Hugo?"

Hugo shakes his head. "I'm on the wagon. I ain't had a drink since… well, you know."

Vera eyes the withered old man beside her adoringly, then rests her head on his shoulder. "I'm so proud of you, sweetheart."

Dave the Dead Vegan nods approval, then returns to rolling another joint. Beside him Damiens sneers as he looks down at his beer can.

"Damiens ees so happy you eenvited heem to your party. He only weeshes you had found overturned straw truck."

"You're in luck, my limbless friend." Dr. Ira reaches into his pocket. "I was on my way back from McDonald's when I crossed over. Been carrying this damn thing ever since." He pulls out a straw, inserts it in Damiens' beer. "To everything there is a season."

"Merci. Damiens takes back everything he ever said about Jews."

"I'm touched." Dr. Ira looks over at Vera and Hugo. "For your next lifetime, you should put in to be a matchmaker."

Vera looks up from Hugo's shoulder and grins at Charley. "Isn't he a Sweetiepie."

The door opens. The dead fall silent as two men enter from the land of the living.

"Isn't this fantastic?" The man in the blue Urban Outfitters jacket waves his hands expansively at the bare room. "You can just feel all the positive energy."

His friend in the teal jacket smiles. "Girl, you been calling Miss Cleo's hotline again."

"Go ahead, be that way," Blue Jacket sniffs. "Every time I walk in here I feel like I could just fly across the floor. This was made to be a dance studio."

Vera grins broadly as they close the door behind them. "Did you hear that, Hugo?"

"I heard it, baby." Hugo drops to one knee, taking her hand. "May I have this dance?"

Vera blushes. "Sure, Hugo."

Dr. Ira tips back his beer as Hugo puts his arm around Vera's waist.

"I feel a song coming on."

Charley rolls his eyes. "Oh, Christ, he's gonna sing."

"Feelings…"

Damiens belches.

"Sacre bleu! When they reep Damiens apart with horses he does not make noises like thees!!!"

"Feelings…"

Charley looks over at Dave as Vera and Hugo waltz together.

"I don't know what the hell's going on anymore."

Dave shrugs and lights his joint. "You don't get all the answers over here either."

"Feelings … WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA Feelings!!!"

"Please, no more! Has Damiens not suffered enough?"

Snowflakes patter against the window. Hugo clutches Vera tightly as they drift across the dance floor. Dr. Ira reaches for a high note and hits a medium one instead. Charley looks out the window as the season's first blizzard wipes everything clean.