Iguana

by G.D. Peters


On a Tuesday night Mark Casey was opening at the Lone Star for Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John. How he got the gig I could not imagine, Casey was a virtual neophyte, and the Lone Star was a major venue, not to mention that Mac Rebennack was a huge name in the industry. But Casey's manager was an old-school guy, he'd managed nightclub singers from the fifties and sixties, and apparently still had some connections. I expected to see him at the club. I took a cab down Fifth Avenue with Greta and Flynn--Marlene was working late--and we stepped out of the cab onto the sidewalk at 13th Street. The Lone Star stood three stories tall, with three Lone Star Texas State flag banners draped over the windows of the upper floors. Across the top of the building was draped another banner that read: TOO MUCH AIN'T ENOUGH, and above it, looking out over Fifth Avenue with its jaws open and a silent screech issuing from its throat, the sculpture of the giant iguana.

"Look at that," I said to Greta, pointing at the great reptile.

"It looks hungry," she said.

"Looks mad," Flynn said.

Just inside the front door a young man behind the counter greeted us, and located our names on Mark Casey's guest list. While we were there, the door opened and a woman came through and stood behind me.

"Are you on the guest list?" the host said to her.

"I don't know," she said.

I leaned over the counter. "Dude, that's Rickie Lee Jones," I told him, and he did a double-take.

"Oh, jeez," he said. "You can come in."

She touched me on the arm to say thank-you and moved past me toward the bar.

"She's shorter in person," Greta said.

"And prettier," Flynn said.

Greta gave him a look. "Oooh, Chuck E.'s in love."

Greta had moved out of the apartment she had shared with her ex, and in with her parents, but that had not thrown us together in the way I had hoped. Rather, it seemed to have thrown us apart, and I never after had the sense that she was involved with me in the same way. She would look at me with her small smile and dark piercing eyes, a snow leopard, mythical and elusive.

An iron staircase stood at the end of the bar, a short flight that made half a winding spiral toward an open door on the second floor. As we moved into the room, Casey appeared in that open doorway, and came down the steps. He stopped when he saw us.

"I'm just getting some gear, I'll be right back," he said, and rushed out. "You want a hand," I called after him, but he was already gone. A minute later he was back, with guitar in hand and an equipment bag slung over his shoulder. "Come on up," he said, and we followed him up the metal staircase. Behind us the bar resounded with talk and laughter and music from the P.A. and the sound of bottles coming onto the bar and ice pouring into bins and the ching of a register and the clang of a cowbell if someone left a tip. At the top of the steps we found the small room jammed with musical gear and furnished with two sofas. Sitting on one sofa was Dr. John himself, Mac Rebennack, unmistakable in his trademark beret and sunglasses, a silk scarf hanging loosely around his neck. On the other sofa was a very beautiful and petite young woman with dark curly hair and cupid's bow lips of deepest red.

"You're Libby Titus," Flynn said to her, and her face brightened.

"Yes," she said.

"I have your record," Flynn said.

"Really! You and two others!"

"I saw you on Saturday Night Live, when was that, two years ago? I was in law school up in Syracuse, I went out and bought it right away. It's great."

"Hear that, hon?" she said to Mac Rebennack. "Someone knows me."

Flynn handed her a business card. "I'm Ambros Boros."

"He's my manager," Mark Casey said, although that wasn't true.

"Really? I need a manager."

"I'd love to manage you, I think you're incredible."

She looked at his card. "Ambros Boros, Attorney and Counsellor at Law. I'll call you."

She looked at Mac Rebennack. "Should I call him?"

Mac looked at Flynn. He didn't say anything, and I was thinking that this was who Flynn was, he did things, he met people. And now out of the blue he had met Mac Rebennack and Libby Titus.

"I'll give you a call," she finally said, although to my knowledge she never did.

There was a connecting room to the left, which Mac's bandmates presently occupied, and Casey's bandmates arrived with the rest of their gear, and the three of us returned to the bar to ease the cramped quarters. At a little after nine Casey took the stage, which was a raised platform five feet off the ground and situated on the main floor just beyond the staircase. We watched from the corner of the bar, and Casey seemed energized by the company in attendance. I saw Casey's manager sitting with another middle-aged man at a table against the wall, and was sure he must be a record company executive. At one point, when Casey was at the piano, I saw Mac Rebennack watching from the top of the staircase. An hour later, when Mac and his band were on the stage, Casey again brought us upstairs.

"That was a great set," Flynn told him.

"How was the sound in the room?"

"Sound in the room was great."

"You see Dr. John watching you?" I said.

"Was he?"

"Top of the steps."

"Probably thinking I have to share the piano with this hack," Casey said. Then he turned toward the side room. "Hey, check this out." He led us through the room and out a door that opened onto the building's tar-papered rooftop. At the far corner, perched tall and magnificent and iridescent green against the black moonlit night, was the giant iguana, suspended in midair by a standing scaffold that supported the entire sculpture.

"Will you look at that."

"He's pretty pissed."

"He's pretty something."

"It's a she," Greta said, and we looked at her. "You guys..."

"I said it was pretty."

Casey lit a joint and passed it around, and we remained on the rooftop for twenty minutes, sipping smoke and drinking from Flynn's flask of Jack which he pulled from his leather jacket.

"You're well prepared," Greta said to him.

"Little belly warmer."

The door swung open and Steven Barr, Mike Wellin, and Barry Samms emerged onto the rooftop.

"I thought I might find you here," Steven said.

Flynn turned and walked toward the far corner and stood beneath the iguana, looking out over the front ledge of the building, and Greta joined him.

"That doesn't seem fair," Casey said as we greeted the newcomers.

"What?"

"Flynn gets the booze and the girl."

I looked but the two of them were obscured beneath the shadow of the beast.

"And the joint," I said.

"What are you guys talking about," Steven said.

"Flynn's pulling an end around."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Ray doesn't trust him with his woman."

"No, I trust him. Not sure if I trust the woman."

The door again opened and we were joined by Casey's bandmates, all carrying handfuls of bottled beer. We heard the stylized piano and distinctive drawl of Mac Rebennack filtering through the stairwell: I was in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time... I lifted my eyes to see the moon, full and bright and clear as a flood light against the black curtain of night.

Later, Casey drove Flynn and Greta and me to Café Central on Columbus, and we ordered Heinekens and we wound down and recapped the night.

"Barry noticed that you avoided him," I said to Flynn.

"Barry is better off if I avoid him," Flynn tipped up his Heineken.

"You don't like Barry?" Greta said.

"I didn't say I hated him."

"Don't sugar-coat it," I said. "Tell it like it is."

"I never used the word hate." He pulled out his flask and took a swig, and offered it to Casey.

Casey shook his head no. "I'm driving," he said, and reached for it and took a swig and handed it to me.

Greta went to the ladies room.

"I've been meaning to ask you about Fifty-Fourth Street," I took a swig and returned it to Flynn.

"They're going to litigate."

"I know, but I feel responsible."

He took a last swig for himself and returned the flask to the inside pocket of his jacket. "Wha'd you think was gonna happen, you recommend an attorney."

"I thought they might leverage themselves a better buy-out, but not challenge the plan. Why recommend a friend?"

"Listen, I kept myself out of it so you wouldn't be involved. People talk to their neighbors. You're not responsible for that."

"I know, but the deal is going down the tubes, Alan Zane's gonna drop the conversion altogether, and nobody gets anything."

"They'll keep their homes."

"Yes, but..."

"What's wrong with that?"

"What are you, a humanitarian or a lawyer?"

"Are they mutually exclusive?"

"Are they not?"

"That's a dim view."

"That's a dime view," Casey said. "The dim view is a nickel more."

"You might want your nickel back," Flynn said.

"I could buy a nickel-bag."

"Listen to you two, I'm trying to be serious."

"Now that's a dim view."

"I don't see a lot of humanity anymore." I jiggled the salt shaker against the tabletop. "Especially in lawyers."

"Jesus, Quinn, jaded at twenty-five? When did you become a pessimist?"

"I don't know. This business doesn't help. I look at the Pellani's and I wonder what the hell I'm doing?"

"You're doing some good. You probably saved their home. You think those people wanna move from that little apartment?"

"I know they don't, but..."

"Listen, you pick your fights. You rob from the rich; leave the poor alone. You gotta believe in something. Else what's it all for?"

I remembered what Nick had told Wellin and me. "According to Nick, six and a half hours."

They both stared at me.

"You have to ask Nick," I said.

"Anyway, Grace Pellani is laid up a little bit," Flynn said. "I don't think they could move right now, no matter."

"What's wrong with Mrs. Pellani?"

"I don't know. Husband says she's tired all the time. Seeing some doctors, taking some tests."

"Meanwhile, you take one view of the Pellani's, and on the other hand, I was in the office this week when John Faranitti called for Alan Zane. What's that all about?"

"What that's all about is I'm brokering the deal." Flynn raised his beer in toast.

"But how did those two come together?"

"What? Alan sells real estate, John buys real estate, marriage made in heaven."

"How did he find the building?"

"Quinn, it's real estate, it's public record. There's nothing unethical about it, if that's what you mean? You want a finder's fee?"

"I can't take a finder's fee for my employer's property!"

"No, you can't. That would be unethical."

"It just seems very coincidental."

"Nothing coincidental about it. John asked me to find him a property and I knew where to look. Nothing in life is free."

Greta returned and Flynn stood to leave. "I need to get back."

Casey stood, too. "I'll drop you guys."

"Hey, you guys like Vonnegut?" Flynn said.

"Kurt Vonnegut? Hell yes."

"He's giving the sermon on Sunday at a church on the west side."

"Vonnegut? A sermon? On Sunday?"

"Palm Sunday," Greta said.

"Palm Sunday. You wanna come? Let's all go."

"We're going to my cousin's in Westchester," Greta said.

"I'll go." I looked at Casey. "What about you?"

"Falls Church." His family in Virginia.

"Well, I like Vonnegut," I said to Flynn. "This ought to be interesting."

We'll meet you outside," Flynn said, and I saw him with the waitress at the front of the restaurant, paying the check.

"His money's no good," I called out, and Flynn looked back and waved.

"You can put the money in the basket on Sunday."

"I heard some of that," Greta said. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing, just business. What about you two? You kind of disappeared on the rooftop before. What kind of business was that?"

Greta lowered her head and gazed at the tabletop, and I felt my stomach going sideways.

"Is something happening?"

"I don't know." She looked at me.

"I see."

"But nothing's going to happen."

"If it's happening, then it's happening. How do you stop something from happening?"

"Because he wouldn't." She peeled at the label of her Heineken. "To you, I mean."

"What would stop him?"

"He's got principles."

"I've seen the way his principles work. And what about you?"

"I haven't got any. But I won't, either."

"That's comforting as hell."

We did not go home together that night. Instead, we went out to the street to ride back across town with Casey and Flynn. Casey had traded his red Datsun for a little brown Subaru wagon with a luggage rack on top, the better to lug the band's gear. We piled into the car on Columbus Avenue. Flynn held the back door for Greta, and when he closed it and reached for front passenger door, Casey pulled away. He drove twenty feet and stopped, and we laughed as Flynn came slowly down the avenue toward the car. He walked alongside and stood away from the door, peering in at Casey through the open passenger window.

"I go a mile, you want two, is that it?"

"Precisely," Casey said, and drove off again. He stopped another twenty feet off, and we laughed some more as Flynn trudged after us. Once more he bent to peer through the open window.

"A Judas; I knew it. Well, Phil Pablo you always have, but me..."

And Casey drove off, laughing. Flynn returned another time. He reached the rear bumper and I wondered whether Casey was going to do it again when the car jerked downward and I turned to see Flynn's legs disappearing above the rear hatchback window, and heard him above us on the roof. A second later his head and arms appeared at the front windshield, a stunned and drunken look on his inverted face. Casey pressed lightly on the gas and eased forward, and Flynn disappeared again, up to the rooftop.

"Hey, be careful," Greta said, and Casey pulled slowly to the curb and rolled down his window. He stuck his head out and looked up.

"You okay?" he called, and Flynn's crazed face appeared over the side.

"Hell yes, open the gate, I'm riding this pony."

"Hang on, cowboy." Casey pulled away from the curb and turned from the concrete canyons of the upper west side onto the 81st Street transverse that snaked through Central Park. He drove slowly at first, and then Flynn leaned over the side and yelled, "Come on, bring it on!"

Casey stepped on the gas, and we wound through the turns as the car gained speed. With the windows open I smelled the flinty aroma of soil, and saw new leaves on limbs that had stood naked through the prison of winter, reaching over the battlements as if they might climb out.

"You're going too fast," Greta said from beside me on the back seat. I looked over Casey's shoulder and watched the speedometer glide past fifty-five. Flynn's feet kicked about the roof as his weight shifted with the swerving car, and Greta watched the ceiling. We heard Flynn's voice through the window, yodling like a bronc-buster as we came through the last turn and stopped at the light. The car shook as Flynn came over the side and landed lightly on his feet beside the passenger door. He pulled it open and slid into the seat as the light turned green and Casey drove across Fifth Avenue.

"Jesus, that was great."

"That was sick."

"It was a little scary."

"I'm glad we didn't pass any cops. I wonder what that fine would be?"

"What just happened?"

"Do you have some kind of death wish?" Greta said.

"Death wish? I have a life wish. I want to taste every flesh of life."

"You won't if you keep doing stuff like that."

Flynn turned to face her over the headrest, his mouth turned in a thin smile. "No, you're wrong," he said quietly. "It's things like that that bring the flesh between your teeth." He gazed at her a moment, and turned back.

"Besides," he added, "there's too much damned life to live." He reached for the dashboard and shoved in the tape protruding from Casey's cassette deck. It slid and clicked, and presently we heard the Mark Casey band through the stereo.

"New tape?"

"Just a rough mix," Casey said. He looped through the neighborhood and double-parked in front of Flynn's apartment. Across the street, the Catholic school lay in darkness within a tall cyclone fence that rose beyond the street lamps like the walls of a penitentiary. A shadow of the cross atop its dome fell across the schoolyard and spilled onto the sidewalk where a homeless man was camped on a length of cardboard pulled close against the fence, his dirt-brown feet naked beneath the pink fluorescent streetlight. Beside the schoolyard to the left was the red façade of the firehouse. Above the closed garage door a sign in gold lettering on a black background read "44 ENGINE COMPANY 44." Beneath the sign, every inch of firehouse was painted bright fire-engine red.

Flynn turned to us. "Night, guys," he said. "See you tomorrow and we'll do it again."

He hit the eject button and the cassette popped out, and he slid it from the deck and held it in the air between him and Casey.

"Mine?"

"Oh, Flynn, that's my only copy, man."

"Your only copy in the car," Flynn slid the tape into his jacket. "I'm guessing you have two more sitting on your desk at home." He jumped out of the car and came around the front, staring at Casey through the windshield.

"Only one," Casey said through the open window. It was their usual protocol. Flynn approached the window and the two of them slapped hands and gripped, and we watched as Flynn leapt up the steps of his building.

"That guy is like a...what kind of animal is he like?" Greta said.

"I don't know," I said. "Warren plays rugby with him. Says you can't catch him if he gets a step. Wings on his feet."


-from a novel in progress-


G.D. Peters' short stories have appeared in Folio, South Dakota Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, and more than half a dozen additional literary magazines and journals. In 2009 he received his MFA from The City College of New York, where he currently teaches literature and creative writing.