Highs in the Low Fifties by Marion Winik

Author:Marion Winik
Language: eng, fra
Format: epub
Publisher: skirt!
Published: 2013-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Friday night came. But before that, just a half-day before that, came my period. Tsunami style. I was in despair. How was I going to have sex for the first time in so long while I was hemorrhaging? Plus, considering I had already told him I have hepatitis C (part of the I-didn’t-get-AIDS speech), there were not just aesthetic but health issues. Oh, Jesus Christ. Maybe I should just cancel the whole date.

But I’d already taken Jane up to her dad’s in Pennsylvania. I’d put on my black pants and dark blue satin top with sparkly buttons. I’d lined my eyes and glossed my lips, and then I’d taken a little detour. I was standing in front of the refrigerator eating leftover collard greens with my fingers. I make great collards. I wondered dreamily whether I should bring him a sample. Oh right, a Tupperware bowl of collard greens and maybe some Jheri-curl cream, too.

J.J. lived in a part of town I had not visited before. Once an elite neighborhood, it had then descended most of the way into hood-dom. Now it was on its way back up again. J.J.’s place was as close to a mansion as a row house could be, with arched windows and pillars and curved balconies. It was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence draped in chains and titanium locks. Letting me in was a complex procedure.

Inside was a world of wonders.

There was room after room with walls painted in dark jewel tones and windows cloaked in thick velvet curtains. Each room contained a certain type of item, displayed on shelves and pedestals and in backlit glass cases. The first was Buddhas: golden, wooden, jade, stone, each with its hands in the classic mudra, its face wearing a meditative smile. Next was hourglasses. Some were tiny. Some were waist-high. Some were Victorian, others seemingly Egyptian.

After that, we came into a sort of living room, or at least the first room with couches and chairs. It featured models of clipper ships and framed oil paintings hung almost edge to edge.

Could a straight man really live here? A straight, single, black ex-con? It seemed more like some obscure museum in an outlying arrondissement of Paris than a home. But wait, there was more: Out back, in addition to the Vette I’d already seen, there was a vintage Bentley, a huge, brand-new SUV, and a gleaming Harley-Davidson the size of a twin bed in its own heavily secured trailer. Finally we went through an enormous basement filled with pallets of rugs, furniture, paintings, and God knows what else.

J.J. explained that after he’d gotten out of jail, he had a little trouble landing a job, so he’d entered various fields of self-employment, antiques dealer and real estate agent among them.

Perhaps there had been others.

After a series of winding staircases through media rooms and guest quarters, we arrived at the level of the royal boudoir. The bed was covered in lustrous brocade and meticulously arranged satin throw pillows. One wall of the room was made entirely of stained-glass windows.

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