Hercules and Love Affair — Hercules Theme (2008)
A third-person narrative tale of what happens when the beats make the panties drop
He put up a fight
Showed us his might
Little boy Hercules
We took him to town
Pushed him around
Little boy Hercules
“Ipanema Restaurant. Yeah, sis. It’s a Clinton gig. Well, not like, DIRECTLY for Hillary, but, she’s winning, so it’s all love…Yeah…Wear a ball gown. Me? I’m bartending. Glittery top and leather booty shorts, bitch. I’m trying to get CHOSE. These old white ladies want this expensive ass cha cha. You know…oh I KNOW you know…HAHAHAHAHA!”
Esmeralda DiGregorio isn’t the name that 41-year old, Lower East Side of Manhattan resident Edson Lopes was born with. But, once you saw him, in drag, with his naturally curly, shoulder-length black hair swept behind his right ear, 43 inches of lean, toned legs encased in latex leggings, black, six-inch, Louboutin pumps, either some sort of jewel-bedecked 36 DD bra or elaborate corset and dancing to Latin disco hits, it all made sense.
Edson arrived in Manhattan, in 1991. The then 15-year-old having spent the $100,000 in Brazilian real he found stuffed in his mother’s mattress in their one-bedroom flat in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. He found what became $25,000 American dollars after his mother, Bruna, was brutally murdered for having a portrait of the then President of Brazil, Fernando Collor de Mello, in the front window of their home.
Mello was accused of corruption, but Bruna found him to be attractive in a manner similar to David, Edson’s father who died of a sudden heart attack before he was born. The neighborhood gangsters who were very much against Mello’s presidency broke into their flat, and then, with frightening efficiency and dart-like precision, fired a 9MM bullet into her head. 14-year-old Edson woke with the sunrise, and was drawn to his bedroom window facing their meager backyard, overrun by tumbleweeds and three-month-old garbage bags filled with rats, horseflies, and mealworms. He saw three young men in West German National Team soccer gear dumping dirt on what looked like…oh GOD, his mother, in the ground. Edson didn’t cry. He calmly went into her bedroom, ripped back the now blood-splattered faded carnation pink fitted sheet from her aged and warped queen-sized mattress. He saw the $100,000 real neatly rubber-banded in the hole Bruna cut and stored her earnings from being a singing busker in front of the grocery each weekend for the past decade.
Edson landed in New York City only armed with the knowledge that Studio 54 nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan was where very wealthy people paid tons of money to party and listen to music. He had seen a TV special from there as a child, something where The Cover Girls were performing “Show Me” to a massive crowd of beautiful people. Edson knew at that point, that if he were to ever do anything in life, it’d be something like being on that stage or in that crowd. Following the stunning sight of his mother being buried in a freshly dug hole in his backyard for her political beliefs, he figured, “there’s probably not going to be a better time to make that happen.”
Edson never made it to Studio. He did still, however, make it to Manhattan, and into an apartment on the Lower East Side. Instead of being where he now lives, he now, instead, owns the whole building. How he got there, well, that’s an amazing story unto itself.
Edson became Esmeralda Digregorio as a last-ditch job. He was selling crack cocaine to party boys at clubs like Limelight for a while, and that more than kept the roof over his head. At 14, Edson was wandering below 14th Street in New York City in his “cool American boy” outfit that consisted of a Bart Simpson t-shirt and baggy, black, button-fly Levis jeans that were three sizes too big for his stunningly bony and angular, 5'10" and 145-pound frame. His New York Giants hooded Starter winter coat and Los Angeles Raiders skull cap covering his shaggy brunette bowl cut and an aqua-colored LL Bean backpack meant for a kindergarten student completed the outfit. Still, nothing could hide his almost effeminately soft hazel eyes, sharp, pointed chin, long, thin neck, broad shoulders, and long, slender fingers. He fit the bill for “cool,” but as far as “awkward” was concerned, he definitely had the market there, too.
“Yo. You slingin’? You look like you slingin’?” Diamond Darel was originally Diamond D, but then a rap producer blew up with that name. Darel was born Darryl, but having a name similar to Darryl Strawberry and dealing cocaine wasn’t cool. And Darrell Griffith was a big NBA star, so that name was kinda too hot and known, as well. Darel saw Edson, and his classic dope boy gear, at Union Square. He called him over, and said, “hey young blood, if you ain’t slingin’, then you should be. You trying to get muh-nay?”
Edson wasn’t going to explain that he was ALREADY quite well paid, as there were ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills in his backpack. “Yes, yes sir, I would like to get some money. For what?”
“Take this bag to this man sitting in the window of the cafe on Macdougal. He’s going to give you a bag back for it. Put that in your backpack and I’ll give you 20%. That cool?”
One trip to Cafe Reggio to deliver $5,000 of vialed and ready-to-sell crack cocaine later and Edson Lopes made $365,000 tax-free dollars in 1991 and a million more in 1992. By 1994, he was 18, living in Manhattan, and cooking up his OWN stash in an apartment next door to his own, where nude bottle service waitresses earned extra income cooking and bagging crack that Edson — now moonlighting as a barback at various clubs around New York City — would sell to anyone in VIP looking for a fix at the right price.
At 18, Edson decided to bartend. It’s the decision that changed his life. Six foot tall, olive-skinned and hazel-eyed gentlemen with sharp, modelesque features that appeal to all genders and sexual orientations don’t grow on trees. As well, when those gentlemen also have access to premium drugs at premium prices, their value goes up accordingly. However, it’s when said gentleman decides to crossdress for Halloween and gets told “you are sex” by a patron at a special gala event at the Museum of Modern Art that there’s suddenly unlimited worth potential attached to their presence.
Esmeralda Digregorio was a name borne of expedience and convenience. The MoMA event was a special fundraiser that Bobby Bonilla, the taciturn, yet popular New York Mets outfielder, was hosting, and he was in need of “the baddest bartenders in New York City.” Sensing that a population that was far wealthier than club kids with daddy’s credit card would be there, Edson signed up. The public relations girl who’s sister he employed in his bedroom drug empire called back, and noted that “Bobby only wanted girls.” Edson noted this, and on a whim — or an LSD laced marijuana cigarette, your choice — had an idea.
Luis Salcedo and Carmine Constantino were the Cuban-Puerto Rican and Italian-Greek duo who ran the Liberty Deli that was next door to Edson’s building. Luis was a portly man of just under five feet and six inches of height who in his six decades of life had closely trimmed his now salt-and-pepper Hitler-style mustache for 35 of those years. Furthermore, he’d worn monochrome adidas tracksuits, white leather house slippers, and a tracksuit color-matched bandana for 25 of them, seemingly daily. He had smooth chocolate brown skin, spoke with a heavy accent, and always played salsa and disco music from the moment the doors opened at 11 AM to when they closed at midnight. “Don’t make me be misunderstood like Santa Esmeralda, mamacita,” is what he’d always say when a young woman would giggle at his come ons as they were leaving the shop. He’d silently chuckle when closing the door, always ending the conversation politely with, “Ju come back again, I give you…say…ten…TEN percent discount, my sweetheart. For ju!”
As for Carmine Constantino, he was completely bald and clean shaven, with beady black eyes, a long, thin nose, and thin lips that very rarely ever cracked a smile. He wore heavily starched, and typically white, pale blue, or slate grey dress shirts with a cursive “CC” monogram above the cuffs that if not one decade old in yellowed age, would make him look like he was a millionaire. This, on top of black bell-bottomed slacks and black leather Puma “Clyde Frazier”-style sneakers that more closely aligned with his $75,000 of debt to the Internal Revenue Service.
“Eddie…Edsonnnn…you’re gonna do what?!?!? You’re gonna end up like one of those fags at the discos. First step, you dress like a lady. Then, you start with the boys. Then, the drugs. Then, you get the AIDS and you die. You wanna die immediately? Get that AIDS. Surprised it hasn’t killed Magic Johnson yet.”
“Carmine. Brother. You know I have my business. I also want to open a Latin techno club in Little Brazil. I have part of the money to do it. And they say that only women bartenders can work this MoMA party where I KNOW I can meet an investor. So, I’m gonna dress up. It sounds crazy, but hell. It’ll take me at least another year to make a million dollars. And I am absolutely positive I can meet someone tonight. None of that fag shit, Carmine, this shit is just another hustle.”
“Ehhh, I wouldn’t, but you know what, you’re a good boy, and I get it. So you say you need a last name? To be a drag queen? Divine. What’s her name? RuPaul? One name. Wha…what? Oh. Only for one night. For their tax purposes. So, you’re gonna lie? Ha! Hilaaaarious. Outstanding. Hmmmm…DiGregorio. Yeah, DiGregorio. As long as you get the fake chest cannon thingamabobs to look like Cha Cha from Grease. Now that, that was a hot piece of ass. With black hair, too. Aw shit man. If you’re gonna do that shit, do it up.”
Esmeralda DiGregorio. It was quite the name…but it fit. It totally fit.
Esmeralda DiGregorio met marcie barbarella in 2013 while the latter was experiencing her career shift from modeling to DJing. Esmeralda was ten years removed from nightlife ownership, and one year into being a “fabulous celebrity mixologist.” Edson was “full time Esmeralda” at this point. 1994 turned into 2001, and Edson showed up at Carmine Constantino’s funeral as Esmeralda, in black leather-style leggings, thigh high black stiletto pleather boots, a Liberty Deli t-shirt blanketing 36 DD “chest cannon thingamabobs,” covered by a sheer black taffeta shawl. Edson-as-Esmeralda’s long black hair? pinned to the left with a giant red rose over her right ear, nestled in her hair. In attendance with her, a cute, damned near white Puerto Rican boy whose name he always forgot. “Nigga looked just like Allan Houston, though,” alluding to the tall 20-year-old struggling waiter-turned-actor who was Esmeralda’s flavor of the week.
“Eddie…Edsonnnn…you’re gonna do what?!?!? You’re gonna end up like one of those fags at the discos. First step, you dress like a lady. Then, you start with the boys. Then, the drugs. Then, you get the AIDS and you die. You wanna die immediately? Get that AIDS. Surprised it hasn’t killed Magic Johnson yet.”
Lady? Absolutely. Boys? Sometimes. Drugs? Using, cocaine, high off his one-time supply. AIDS? Not by a long shot. Carmine, now deceased and laying in the casket wearing the sport coat that matched his bell bottoms, along with a black and white checkerboard tie, and white shirt terribly dingy and faded around the collar, and yes, poking out just beneath his aged black suit jacket, monogrammed cuffs.
Carmine Constantino? Not dead of cancer. No, he died from AIDS. AIDS transmitted to him by Luis Salcedo, his long-time business partner and live-in boyfriend. But Esmeralda never knew that.
“None of that fag shit, Carmine, this shit is just another hustle.” That’s what Edson told Carmine seven years prior. But it was always so much more complicated than that.
Esmeralda DiGregorio was one inch taller than marcie barbarella. And since both of them favored trolloping about among the crowd at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas when not both working in the Jack Daniels Artist Experience in six-inch heels though they were on the hot, hard, and tiring to walk on asphalt of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the six foot five and six foot foot inch tall women, respectively, in heels, couldn’t miss each other. Esmeralda was pouring tooth numbingly not-so watered down Gentleman Jack and Cokes, while marcie spun neon rave-flavored hip-hop tracks that sounded and felt like the experience someone’s eyes have after they are exposed to Rorschach tests for six consecutive hours. Both did their jobs with such hilarious levels of dispassionate malaise that they couldn’t help but become friends.
They were twinning on purpose, outfit-wise. The sponsor had them decked out in neon tube tops emblazoned with the Jack Daniels logo, which they were then tasked to pair with black tights and matching colored neon Pleaser stripper pumps. marcie’s immediately trademark blonde ponytail was matched by Esmeralda’s similar do, and they both wore the sponsor’s Ray-Ban Aviator-style complimentary sunglasses.
When the nights slowed down, marcie and Esmeralda wandered about too high ravers in too strange clothing, bonding over stories of hanging out in fabulous nightclubs with folks who looked just like this.
“I think I sold you drugs. Yeah girl. Pacha. Downstairs bar. Steve Angello. 2009. You and your homegirls were dressed in like, these fabulous silver sequin tops and had these amazing disco ball earrings. I 100 percent sold you coke for them.”
“Oh God. THAT WAS YOU? Holy shit. Damn, yo. You really DO this shit. I will NEVER forget that night. Wasn’t like, the air conditioner broken or something? We got STOOPID high. And drunk. God, we were fucked up for like, three days. Know what’s funny? I still have those earrings, too. Almost packed them for this!”
“Yeah…and THANK YOU, honey. I never expected this shit to ever get THIS far. Like, look at me. Itty bitty titties, ass ain’t real, but this face and this waist…yeeeeah, makes muh-nay!”
“Yo. I CAN-not believe that it was YOU. Yo. You really out here LIV-VING. Who knew? Yeah gurl. Take my email. I have an apartment in Brooklyn, and you’re in Queens, so like, Manhattan. We’ll meet in the middle. Ha!”
marcie lived in a studio apartment in November 2016. She was saving for the stereotypical “rainy day.” “Rainy day” meaning the idea of spending a month at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, and potentially doing a series of debauched photo shoots to basically increase her number of bookings and her booking fees. That, as well as a promised gigs spinning between bands at the Viper Room, dropping an all trip-hop set at Low End Theory, and an open format set at Hyde Lounge, topping off what her friends assured her was “like, the most ultimate month of gigs a DJ at [her] level could ever have.”
It was a calculated risk, one that found her living in a no bedroom, half-kitchen, half-bathroom studio apartment in Williamsburg, where the clock and wall art-sized, three foot long, throwback Swatch watch on her iridescent gold-painted wall read 7 PM. She was dressed in something that wasn’t the evening gown that Esmeralda told her to wear, but something more “marcie” appropriate. Gold sequined baggy sweater style top, matching, hip-hugging and gold-sequined bell bottoms, and gold stiletto heels. She’d even sprayed her curled ponytail into place with glitter-enhanced hairspray.
And then she heard the murmurs through the walls from next door.
“Ah shit. Well babe, if he wins, then fuck. I can always cash in my mother’s inheritance, and along with my 401K, I presume we can get to my step-father in Lucerne, right?”
Gianna and Marc Luc lived next door. Marc Luc and Gianna Accola were a newlywed couple. Gianna was a trust-fund kid who’d invested her deceased parents’ Yahoo stock into a career as a caterer and chocolatier. Marc Luc was her aspiring Swiss diplomat boyfriend. They were loaded, but struggling, both having invested a lot of their savings, and income, respectively, into careers that were floundering. They both were always stunned when they realized they lived next to a “superstar,” and they generally exchanged all of the pleasantries and shared holiday meals together when possible.
marcie checked her phone and scanned to her CNN app. “Trump surges ahead” the latest headline stated, and nonplussed, marcie merely dropped a folder named “slow-mo disco shit” from a folder on her MacBook onto a thumb drive.
“Marc Luc, this is bad. This is so bad. Like, marcie. She’s black. This is so bad for her. He’s a monster. And me. I’m a WOMAN. What about if I accidentally get pregnant again, huh? That abortion I had? Oh that’s obviously not going to even be a THING? And you’re a diplomat? Do you even have time to be a FATHER? No. You don’t. Goddammit. We have to leave. We MUST leave. Like, now.”
“You’re frantic my dear. Positively frantic. marcie knew, remember. The blacks, they knew. You know the history better than I do. And Gianna, we have the best doctors money can buy. Even without Roe v. Wade, you CAN and WILL have another abortion if need be. You’re going as mad as those women at pilates you know. God, it’s horrible, but just stop.”
marcie slipped on her Beats by Dre headphones at this point, just to block out the sound. Listening to the couple next door have sex was just as frustrating as hearing them talk politics. Then, she picked up her massive Louis Vuitton purse she carried to classier gigs like these, and set off to grab an Uber into Manhattan.
“The first song sets off the evening on the right foot,” Marcie reminded herself as she stood behind the turntables. She pressed the flashing green button on her CDJs, and out came the sounds of Hercules and Love Affair’s 2008 single “Blind.”
As a child, I knew
That the stars could only get brighter
That we would get closer
Get closer
Leaving this darkness
Behind
Now that I’m older
The stars should lie upon my face
When I find myself alone
Find myself alone
It set the right tone. Any gig with Esmeralda behind the bar required peak disco vibes because, well, the only reason you hire a 6' 5" rail-thin Brazilian drag queen to bar-tend and his 6' 4" black female friend to DJ in a room filled with 5' 7" ex-Caucasian debutantes aged 25 years past that point is so that the amazons can get the party started.
But there wasn’t much to celebrate. Heels were already off, and in their place, it looked like there were a room of prima ballerinas in ballet flats and expensive short sequined gowns in a rainbow of colors. The red white and blue helium balloons that festooned each brown oak dining table appeared to be already drooping, as someone, or more appropriately, something, had sucked the air out of this gathering of The Stepford Wives’ knitting circle with assorted husbands strewn about in slim fitting gray suits lacking shoulder pads setting upon the slumped shoulders of men who clearly lacked backbones. The tapas on the table appeared overcooked and under-eaten. Skewers of grilled beef and sausage, fried fish croquettes, yuca fries, and the most wilted of black bean and kale salads sat idly to the left of marcie’s booth. They smelled delicious, and she immediately reasoned that she’d shimmy up to the wait staff and barbacks to save her a few trays so she wouldn’t have to go to Dean and Deluca this week.
But back to the song. It’s one of those absolute party jams that started as a gay disco anthem and evolved into being the soundtrack for like, a cat food commercial. Thus, it’s the kind of song that as soon as you push play, and here’s the scene…
Esmeralda behind the bar, screaming “Oooop ooop martinis over here…whoop whoop margaritas over there…is it all over my face…I really…oh shit! marcie! You gotta hit my Loose Joints shit! Oh lawd! If this orange man winning, we gonna party like it’s the end of the fucking wooooorld! Yeeeeah bissshhhhh!”
“Okay,” marcie thought. “We’ll go from ‘Blind,’ to ‘Is It All Over My Face’ for Ezzie, then I’ll get into that Dennis Edwards ‘Don’t Look Any Further,’ and for those two black girls in the corner with those kinky ass afros who look LIT on Hennessy, I’ll blend into Lil Wayne’s ‘Way of Life’ and Junior MAFIA’s ‘Get Money’ remix. Hmmm…this might not be so bad after all.”
There was a little movement to the floor, but not much. Antony Hegarty’s lead vocal on “Blind” is so well mixed that him saying the words “find myself alone” really hit the room kinda hard, and the feeble two-steps on the makeshift dance floor in front of the makeshift DJ booth at the very ritzy restaurant kinda fell flat. Quick mixing through five songs that should’ve been a total of 20 minutes in roughly one-third the time left marcie needing to grab the microphone and make an announcement at roughly 10:30 PM.
“Hey y’all. So it looks like this motherfucker’s gonna win. Yeah, I know. I’d say boo him really hard as well, but what is that ACTUALLY going to do except leave all of us emotionally empty. I mean, we have food, we have drink, we have music, and most importantly, we have each other, and I think we should probably celebrate that. So, I’m gonna switch it up a bit, and play a song that my mother played a lot when times got sad at home when I was a child…”
marcie had become a model at 13, and spent most of her childhood as a pageant contestant. Thus, her brain knew more about being fried by peroxide or being under a hairdryer than being shaped by Motown hits. But, as a DJ, she knew, you play to your audience, and THAT WAS THIS AUDIENCE. The hang-dog faces, the tear-stained mascara dripping down cheeks, the thin-lipped faces turned in increasingly drunken snarls. It was easy, and moreover, it was working.
“YAAAAAS SISTERS. That idiota won’t stop our shine! We’re women! We’re men! We’re still free, and still beautiful! Shots of sambuca…on me…right now!”
While marcie had her head turned towards the bar along the far right hand wall, about a good 35 feet away, she didn’t notice the man who was standing to her left.
“Excuse me? But…but you are one of the most stunn…”
marcie turned around and stared into the eyes of the most generically not attractive yet totally intriguing men she’d ever laid eyes upon. He had a military style crew cut that clearly intimated “yes, I just got back from an armed conflict,” that framed a square cut jaw and a wrinkled dimple in a smile that showed a jigsawed smile complete with chipped incisors, discolored gums, and a sliver of kale between his two front teeth. As well, his brown suit with burnt sienna stripes matched the color of his eyes, and he was wearing a highly starched beige broadcloth dress shirt with a brown button down collar, and a checkerboard red, white, and brown tie. She stared at his shoes. Brown oxford, clearly vintage. The wide cut and tapping sound of the heavy sole as he shifted his weight gave it away.
“stunning…you’re stunning. Peter Simonsen. That’s my name. I’m back from serving for our country’s Navy as a Lieutenant Commander of a force that took down Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. I haven’t seen land in five years, and my sister just passed out. I don’t know anyone else here. Given who just got elected President, I’m going to probably re-enlist for active service again tomorrow. Iraq. Getting half my ass blown off is better than being here. If I’m going to get my ass blown off, then I need to shake it tonight. That being said, can I request ‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins, please?
marcie had removed her headphones and paid attention to Peter’s request. That being said, he did definitely bear a strong resemblance to a young Kevin Bacon. And given what he looked like, she put together a quick back-story sketch in her head. Peter looked about 25. He was already wrinkling because he was from Iowa. His too-drunken sister that he motioned to had what looked like the Univeristy of Iowa’s Hawkeye logo on a brooch over her left breast, so that probably made sense. Des Moines. He dropped out of high school. He seemed a smart kid, probably deserved college. But no. His father died while in the field harvesting corn, so Peter didn’t make it past junior year. So, that wrinkle came from what was two super-hot summer and fall harvests that just baked his skin and aged him ten years.
The military came knocking for him because he probably lost the farm. His sister was older, a state college alum, probably an ad executive in New York City. He joined the Navy because he was raised landlocked and wanted to get as far away from Iowa as possible. The Indian Ocean was his first deployment, and when he got back, he landed at LaGuardia and was crashing on his sister’s couch. The suit? Something he’d cobbled together from his dad’s closet, and he’d meticulously kept the clothes in tip-top shape for a day just like this. His interest in her? Well, when are you going to see a supermodel standing that close to you in real life? He shot his shot.
It worked like a charm. marcie dropped the most milquetoast of bangers from a section on her thumb drive entitled “MAD CORNY.” As the room perked up, Esmeralda shrieked from behind the bar, “Y’all want to see this cha cha, cha cha? I got y’all beetches!” Esmeralda did a sashaying and seductive version of Alfonso Ribiero’s “Carlton” dance from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and made a beeline for Peter. Peter and Esmeralda joined hands and did the most awkward attempt at half swing dance meets half Lambada she’d ever seen. Esmeralda, as marcie had seen what seemed like a million times before, had aggressively pulled Peter into her crotch, and they’d begun to sway back and forth. Usually, this was the test. If a gentleman was a little more conservative, he’d back off a bit, the feeling of a likely slightly-erect six inch penis probably not what he’d be in the mood for feeling. However, Peter was definitely liberal, and grabbed Esmeralda by both of her ass cheeks, causing Ezzie to lose balance on her teeter-totter black patent leather Loubutins. Realizing this, he juggled his hands lower, and swept her legs around his waist. Now, this party was interesting. Here was this randy soldier man dry humping his sexy drag queen friend wearing an sequin-covered aqua bodysuit, and leather booty shorts. The Stepford Wives were cheering, and the rest of the staff at Ipanema Restaurant were whispering in snatches of Spanish that she removed her headphone from her left ear to hear, “Oh, mierda, eso es un hombre … o lo es. Guau. ¡Van a follar! HAHAHAHAHA!”
This was all usually a part of the act, and usually something involving, say, Deniece Williams’ “Let’s Hear It For The Boy,” or, for a more straight laced white lady crowd like this, something like Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” But this? This was something primal and unique. This (literally) corn-fed farm boy was fake fucking marcie’s best friend while everyone cheered him on. This wasn’t some sort of half-assed attempt at John Travolta and Karen Lynn Gorney’s Latin hustle to Tavares’ “More Than A Woman” in Saturday Night Fever. No, this was much more someone looking for one last connection, and taking it wherever he could get it. If it wasn’t election night, and this wasn’t a restaurant, this would be on the edge of pornography. It wasn’t right, but, for one night, it was definitely okay. Noting that the two young, and woke-ish black ladies she’d spotted earlier were now very drunkenly up and moving, the Whitney Houston song with that same title seemed appropriate. Maybe she’d get a diva sing along, maybe she’d hopefully get the wild ass white dude with…no…that definitely didn’t seem like his finger up Esmeralda’s asshole…but it damned well could be. She had to switch up this energy. But that’s definitely not what happened next.
Friday night you and your boys went out to eat
Then they hung out, but you came home around three
If six of y’all went out
Then four of you were really cheap
’Cause only two of you had dinner
I found your credit card receipt
Esmeralda DiGregorio saw Donetra and Sharece (the two young, kinky Afroed black women in very non form-fitting, retro-style, black satin gowns with shoulder pads, for whom this song was ideally played) sashaying barefoot into the midst of a massive dance circle of female, Caucasian, mid-level corporate managers. They were singing the open of this 1999 Whitney Houston song, so she squealed, the piercing shout causing Peter Simonsen to let free his grip on her thighs. “Aw shit boo thangs! Let’s get a sing along going!”
Esmeralda dramatically high kicked her way to the DJ booth, where with two raised eyebrows and a dramatic tilt of her head, marcie was alerted to the fact that something wild was afoot.
“marcie, farm boy is down to fuck, yo. I’m saying. Mad dick friction was going down, and you know, I’m definitely not gay for that shit for NOTHING. NOT IT. NOT ME. He kept whispering that he had a room across the street. Soooo…babe…what we gonna do? There’s like eleventy million drunk, depressed, and basic as shit white and black bitches on that dance floor. But he’s trynna get with the flava. Lawd. Don’t think I didn’t see him over here, either.”
“Ezzie. Boo. I’m WERK-KING. Save the drama. But shit. It is what it is. Some of us got it and some of us don’t, right? What. You. You ain’t seriously thinking what I THINK YOU’RE THINKING.”
“Gurl. I know. I BEEN KNOWN. But this guy, I don’t know. He REALLY need some pussy like, yesterday. I’ll wait in the lobby. Fuck. My feet are SCREAMING. You finish up here in what…30 minutes…it’d be what…like, another 30? You put the shit down and then he’s like, asleep, and then we bounce? Yo.You would be an American heroine. Amelia Earhart or some shit.”
“LOL. He IS kinda cute. And yeah. Shit. Sheeeit. Yeah. You MIGHT be right. Go grab him before Pollyanna outchea does. Let him know we down.”
“In vino veritas, right, ladies?”
Room 501 at The Hotel At Times Square overlooked nothing and dimmed none of the din of Broadway and the center of the free world a mere three blocks away. Peter Simonsen was wearing a white v-neck, tagless, and brand new Fruit of the Loom t-shirt he’d purchased in a three-pack from a homeless man outside of the hotel, along with baggy black boxer shorts with a slightly faded crotch, and nothing else. He was completely shorn of all hair on his body save his head, which prior to everyone sitting down in the room — Peter at the two foot by four foot cherry wood-pained press board work table pouring a tall glass of Shiraz into a short plastic cup, marcie, heels kicked off in the corner next to her purse, on the right edge of the bed at 7 PM to Peter, and Esmeralda, shoe-less as well, sitting along the other edge of the bed, at 5 PM, facing him — he’d mentioned was because “the ocean air is hot, and hair traps heat.” The time was actually 1 AM, the party ending with marcie jokingly playing Nas’ 2008 election hit “My President is Black,” and even funnier wishing everyone “love, peace, and soul” when she finished her set.
“But yes, in vino veritas. Let me tell you two the truth. I brought you two ladies up here because, well…like I told marcie, I’m going to be heading back to war tomorrow. And I’m probably going to die. That being said, like Sheryl Crow would say, “all I wanna do is have a little fun before I die!”
Peter half-jokingly gave a grandiose wave of his right arm as if he was offering a toast two his two visitors, who were, amazingly enough, not drinking. It wasn’t for lack of thirst, it was because he hadn’t offered. They’d walked betwixt the Corinthian columns in the lobby and up a steep and winding marble staircase to a rickety old elevator that emptied onto a slightly dingy seeming floor. The room was small, one of those modern renovations of a very old hotel that, even still, was almost ten years past needing yet another update. The bed dominated the space, and was one of those king-sized feather-soft deals. marcie looked around. After looking at her rose gold Rolex and noting how late it was, sitting there and being regaled by a guy who was turning whiter and cornier by the second wasn’t cool, but after standing in one spot in six-inch heels for four hours, it was semi-ideal.
“Yes, ladies. Here’s my idea. I want to have sex with one of you for money while the other one watches. You. You’re Brazilian, right? I want to fuck you while your DJ friend watches? Is that okay?
“Well…problem. I’m a him. And I’m not against money, but fuck.”
“No shit. Fuck. So this changes like, EVERYTHING, huh?”
“Yeah bruh. EVERYTHING.” Edson Lopes put extra bass in his voice to nail the point.
“Well, Miss Dee-Jay. What about you? Are you down for this? I think I’m out of your league, but I…I have…I have…money.”
“Well, if you’re going to pay her, then you should pay me too.”
“You too?”
“Yes, ME TOO.”
“You know, I might be out. I’m actually not a whore. Like, if this was on some, ‘oh you’re a serviceman shit,’ some, ‘doing a solid for the troops whatever,’ I can wash that shit out of my pussy in an hour and clean my house to forget. Because ALL, and after tonight we should mean ALL of you white dudes ARE. ON. ONE.”
It turns out that Peter Simonsen had $10,000 in $100 bills in a duffle bag at the bottom of his luggage. While marcie had stated her harangue, he’d shuffled off to his luggage, and then dumped the rubber banded balls of money on the bed.
“Yeah, real talk, I know this makes me shit. But hell. I. HAVE. MONEY. I’m PLEADING. And who’s ever going to know. Like ever. I’m probably going to get smart bombed to hell by ISIS as soon as I get to Iraq. Or something. Nobody will ever know and each of you have five-thousand good reasons to be excited and angry to see my name on some monument to dead soldiers somewhere.”
marcie stood up, and stared Peter in the face. She motioned to Esmeralda to do the same thing. Without saying a word, the woman and the drag queen approached the still standing Peter. With about a foot in between the three of them, marcie removed her shimmering gold top and threw it amidst the balled up money on the bed. Her tiny breasts perkily appeared from under the iridescent gold fabric. As her faux hazel eyes locked with his fear-filled baby browns, she spoke again.
“So, Peter. $10,000. For me to blow this drag queen until she cums all over me. You don’t touch us, you don’t touch yourself. But, if you ARE going to die, and you’re this shitty of a human being, I want you to see sex you’d never wanted but need to have be the very fucking last thing you EVER see and appreciate on Earth.”
“Fuck. Ummm…I’m not into that.”
“Well I’m not into dirty hotel rooms with dudes who turn into even shittier dudes by the second. And ummm…yeah…Ezzie…Ezzie…you okay?”
“marcie, you’re kidding me, right?”
“You said ME TOO.”
“marcie, I don’t know. I don’t…”
marcie forcibly reached under Esmeralda’s matted tangle of black hair to the base of her scalp. She pulled her head back and mouth into hers, and they kissed. It was a long, deep, and slow one, the kind between a man and a woman who have felt love between each other that’s emerged into a whole other space. It’s not as filthy as the room or as dirty, on multiple levels, as the money that was on the bed — and on the line. Rather, it was something more based in friendship with benefits, the benefit of having the potential of a soulmate.
Edson Lopes’ cock strained against both the leather shorts and the aqua bodysuit he was wearing. He stared into Paul Simonsen’s eyes, and then into marcie barbarella’s and he was deeply entranced in lust. She stripped Edson naked, kissing every inch of his deathly nervous body, going even as far as to strip off his shorts, allowing his cock to spring forth at strained attention and fall, as it naturally did, to the right of his bodysuit. Somehow he’d never, in 23 years, ever been in this position.
“None of that fag shit, Carmine, this shit is just another hustle.” That’s what he’d said to Carmine Constantino, the closeted gay grocer who’s adoration of yes, “fag shit,” killed him. So, it’d never come to this. Looking down, he could feel his powdered foundation caking on his face, but he looked down and saw his entirely purple six-inch cock being primed by a light skinned black woman with blonde hair and small tits that he’d probably wanted to fuck himself for at least a good five years, but never quite felt comfortable doing so. He wasn’t going to fuck, but again, confusingly, it was a hustle with a weird side of “non-fag fag shit” on top for even more confusing measure.
marcie began to roughly and quickly stroke Edson’s cock. He was on the edge, and she didn’t want it to be a pretty moment for the creep that was the thirf person in the room. Peter Simonsen, said third person, was staring down at marcie, his eyes entranced by the remnants of the glittering hairspray she’d used earlier. Edson began to shake rather violently, at which point, marcie stopped harshly jerking, and lolled her tongue around his dick as she breathed hot, seductive air on his cock and balls.
Edson cried as he came. Big, nasty tears of confused pleasure. marcie swallowed a great amount of his sperm, but just as much ended up on her tits, down her stomach, and there was even a splotch on her knee where she’d knelt as she blew him to completion. As she arose, she wiped her mouth, chest, and stomach with an edge of the white comforter, staining it with Edson’s cum.
From there, she hastily put back on her gold sweater-top. She grabbed the duffle bag that contained the money, and quickly also grabbed her purse. She quickly visually counted the money and put half of the rubber-banded money in her purse, and threw the half that was now in the duffle bag over to Edson, who was now, dressed, and more than ever before, the hustler he wanted to be two decades ago. marcie? This was an incredibly stupid night where she’d somehow found a way to do the wrong right thing for all parties involved. Bittersweetly, she stepped into her heels, and marched out of the door. Peter Simonsen? $10,000 less rich than he was an hour beforehand, and now poorer for ever even believing that he was a decent man who’d tried to save his father’s farm, failed, gone to war, come back home. In one election night, and because of one terrible decision, he’d lost so much of his decency and humanity.
marcie barbarella made it back to Williamsburg by 3 AM. Esmeralda DiGregorio folded herself into a Lyft back to Queens, as she had a bartending gig at noon. As marcie turned the corner on the third floor of her brand new apartment building, she heard Gianna Accola silently weeping as she spoke to her husband Marc Luc about cancelling their lease. She paused just long enough in front of their door to hear Gianna talking about how she’d NEVER again see her Aunt Sadie’s Doberman pinschers at Christmas. Pausing to share a tear outside and empathizing with the newlywed’s sad dilemma, marcie opened her purse. She ripped a sheet of paper out of her day planner, grabbed a pen, and wrote, “You two deserve this, and all the world’s happiness, so much more than me.” In front of their door, she left, 20 rubber banded balls of money, equalling $5,000.
marcie then entered her own apartment. Pausing as she saw her still-opened MacBook on her coffee table, she sat on her black leather couch, observed the gold wall and Swatch watch style clock in front of her, and pressed play on her Apple Music account as she immediately dozed, with what was a now crusted over stain on the right knee of her gold sequined bell bottoms.
He put up a fight
Showed us his might
Little boy Hercules
We took him to town
Pushed him around
Little boy Hercules
