The Same River Twice Read Online Free Page A

holding hands stepped off the curb to avoid me.
    The following day, I called in sick to the warehouse and stayed in the tub all day. When the water cooled, I refilled it, still hearing that laughter throbbing in my head. I was sure I’d found a circus freak, a hermaphrodite, the only one in the city and perhaps the entire country. At nineteen, it was beyond my understanding that a grown man would impersonate a female. Not all transvestites are gay, I later learned, but mine was. This seemed a crucial difference between the city and the hills—Appalachian men could acceptably fornicate with daughters, sisters, and livestock, but carnal knowledge of a man was a hanging offense.
    I ate lunch daily at a diner on Great Jones Street. The joint was a showcase of deformity—goiters swelled throats, and tumors jutted from bodies, stretching gray skin. Hair sprouted in odd places. The owner kept a sawed-off shotgun close at hand. One day a stray woman appeared in a booth. She was short and dark, wearing tight pants which I studied closely for a telltale bulge. She noticed my observation and I quickly looked away. She moved near.
    â€œAre you a mechanic?” she said. “My car needs work.”
    â€œNo. I’m an actor. Are you a girl?”
    â€œEverybody I know is bisexual now.”
    â€œNot me,” I said. “Want to go to the museum on Saturday?”
    â€œCan’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œJust can’t. Why don’t you visit me in Brooklyn on Sunday.”
    â€œWhere’s Brooklyn?”
    She laughed and spoke loudly to all. “He wants to know where Brooklyn is!”
    The simple purity of Jahi’s directions enthralled me: Take the Flatbush train to the end and get out. Walk down the street and go left. Ring the second bell. Finding a place at home involved landmarks such as the creek, the big tree, or the third hollow past the wide place in the road. After the quantum mechanics of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn sounded like simple geometry. I bought a new shirt for the date. That she was black didn’t matter—she was female and I was lonely. We were both at the bottom of our republic’s fabled melting pot.
    Noisy people thronged the streets of Flatbush Avenue. Tattoos covered the men like subway graffiti. Women wore neon skirts drawn so tight that their thighs brushed audibly at every step. The stores were barred by padlocked gates that reminded me of ramparts under siege.
    Jahi’s apartment was absolutely bare save for a couch, a table, two chairs, and a bed. We drank wine and passed a joint. After four hours she seduced me because, she later told me, I had not pounced on her all afternoon. She considered me a southern gentleman. I didn’t mention the white trash truth—every country boy knew city women would breed quicker than a striking snake. Expecting sex as urban custom, I was in no hurry. Plus I didn’t know much about it.
    When the time came, I pounded into her, spurted, and rolled away. She raised her eyebrows and blinked several times.
    â€œAre you a virgin?” she said.
    â€œHow could I be?”
    â€œYou don’t have to use your whole body. Just your hips.”
    â€œI know,” I said quickly.
    â€œLook, nobody knows until they learn.”
    â€œI’ve read about it plenty.”
    â€œI’m not saying anything against you, Chris. Everybody’s different and you may as well learn about me.”
    She stood on the bed and told me to look at her body very carefully. I’d never seen a woman fully nude before. Jahi had a peculiar frame—strongly muscled dancer’s legs, a delightful bottom, and the dark torso of a young girl. Her small breasts sported enormous nipples, ebon pegs an inch long, hard as clay. A few black hairs surrounded them, reminding me of crippled spiders.
    She lay beside me and invited me to touch her everywhere, methodic as a surveyor, covering every square inch. Next she