I'd moved uptown, but my favorite places and people were still in the East Village and Lower East side. This was before gentrification, or at least before the mad, unstoppable rush of it. Alphabet city was still dodgy--used syringes on the stoops, used condoms on the basement steps. 1st and 2nd Avenues were slowly cleaning up, but still had their personality. Not like now.

 I'd been drinking happy hour drinks at the Tile Bar on 1st and 7th Street, then walked boozily across the Street to the International Bar, which was like the Tile Bar's  grungier mirror image and had a slightly later and cheaper happy hour. Strong drinks, 2 for 1. As usual, Edgar was there. After years of spending every day and evening at the Tile Bar, he'd suddenly crossed the street.

Edgar occupied, even when alone, the large round table in the corner, just as he had once done across the street; a mournful, long-haired stork, bent over and scribbling in a large notebook, occasionally looking around and taking in the bar scene with a snarling mumble.

Edgar would ignore you if you greeted him, so I didn’t say hello or wave, just sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. After a couple of minutes he unfolded himself from behind the table and came over,  hand extended in his usual courtly manner.

 “Hi, Edgar,” I said.

 "B, my man, I see you have been drinking at the Tile Bar."

 "Yeah. Don't see you there much lately."

 "Never, my man. Bunch of fucking lowlifes there."

 "Same as ever."

 "'Same as ever' my ass. Fucking 1st Avenue scum. Couldn't take it any more, so here I am. Plus now they've got the yuppies and frat boys coming over from Jersey."

 "Sure, but it's Tuesday. Just locals tonight."

 "Yeah. Lowlife scum." Suddenly he raised his glass in the air: "Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;/And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;/And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil/Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod."

 "Gerard Manley Hopkins, " I said, gesturing for another beer.

"My man, you are  indeed a credit, a prince.  Luisa, put that on my tab."

I suspected that the real reason Edgar  shunned the Tile Bar was  his enormous, unpaid bar bill. Word didn't seem to have gotten across the street.

I should mention that Edgar's name wasn't Edgar. He told me what it was once, but I've long forgotten. He was Edgar to me because when my wife, that is, my now-ex-wife, saw him for the first time, hunched over his table at the Tile Bar, she thought he was Edgar Winter. She went over for a closer look.

"Are you Edgar Winter?" she asked.

"For you, lovely lady, I can be whatever you wish." Apparently her influence extended to me.

Edgar was now shaking his long white hair sadly. "My man, I was so sorry to hear that you and your lovely lady split."

"We didn't," I said.

"She's a jewel, a gem. A pearl amongst rubies. It's too bad."

"Edgar, we didn't split up."

"No? Then let's celebrate. Luisa, two glasses of your finest whiskey!"

After the drinks, Edgar begged off. "My man, I must ask your forgiveness, but the muse calls. Adieu."

He returned to his corner, bending his storky altitude back behind the table.

 While I was engaged with Edgar, a few people had wandered in. A couple of places to my right sat a genuinely stunning woman with sandy-red hair and 1950s cat glasses. She smiled. I smiled. She asked me where I was from, what I was doing, the usual. She was visiting from England. After a while, I realized I didn't have to say anything; she just talked... and talked, a slightly frantic chatter that would have been annoying if it weren't swathed in a gorgeous voice and accent. The main thing I took in is that she as waiting for a friend whose flight was delayed. There was more about her dog, her publishing job, her  cousin in California, her trip to Japan....  I just sat drinking, letting myself be pleasantly lulled by her warm butterscotch voice and nodding occasionally. Besides, she seemed to need it. She seemed almost too controlled, too breakable, the stream of chatter in some way holding her together. I thought of Emily Dickinson on speed.

Several rounds later, the bell on the door tinkled and a short, plump, middle-aged guy walked in. Fu Manchu mustache. Leather jacket over a Hawaiian shirt. Fishing cap.  Poppy eyes behind thick round glasses. He was so short that he had to make a little hope just to get onto the barstoll, the one between Emily and I. He smiled at her and she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. "Oh Willy Willy Willy Willy..." she almost sobbed. Willy whispered into her ear and they slid off their stools and walked, arm in arm, down the bar, past the furiously scribbling  Edgar, and out the back door to the patio.

I sipped my drink. Sometime in the course of Emily's monologue I 'd switched to Myers's and OJ. Luisa liked me, so what I was drinking was dark rum with a small splash of orange juice for flavor and propriety. The bell tinkled again and a tall, black-haired woman walked in. Gorgeous dark eyes, full lips. She hung her coat on the rack, revealing a very short leather dress and boots. She took the stool to my left, wrapping her long, legs around each other.  She kept giving the stool seat little swivels, a few degrees left, then right, then left. Luisa took her order and brought her a glass of red wine.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Beatrice." I introduced myself. (It never rains but it pours, I thought.). We small-talked for a bit, then big-talked--music, movies, life. She was smart, fun, sexy. After a couple of more drinks for both of us, she still hadn't stopped swivelling. I guess she noticed me noticing.

"Sorry, but my pussy is killing me."

"I'm...  sorry?"

"I just got my clit pierced."

It's my curse to have a cashew-sized bladder, and it always goes off when things get interesting. I told her, "Hold that thought," and scurried to men's room at the back.

When I got back, Beatrice leaned in and whispered, "God, that woman  is beautiful." I swivelled a bit and glanced.

Willy and Emily  had come back in while we talked. He sat to my right,  elbows on the bar, watching Luisa mix. Emily held his right arm with both of hers, resting her head on his shoulder, eyes half- closed. Her face was dreamy. Unbreakable.

Umm-Hmm.

"I know," I said. " Who'd have put her with him?" The whisper had brought us closer.

"You never know," she said, "There's a lady at the dungeon, she must be  over forty and plump, you'd never look twice at her on the street. But in her element--wow."

I drained my drink. "Dungeon?"

"Yeah, I'm a pro-dom. She straightened and held out her hand. Mistress Diana."

I shook it. "Sorry, I don't have an alias."

"That's OK. You can call me Beatrice. You're not a prospect." She laughed.

"No?"

"No. I can spot a real sub anywhere. You're not it."

Fo the past minute or so, I had been conscious that something in my head was... odd. Now it was all over me. My head was full of helium, and it was floating slowly upward, carrying my body after it to the ceiling. I turned and looked at Willy. He was watching me, smiling.

"You son of a bitch," I said.

"Good stuff, huh? Lily said you were a nice guy, keeping her company. I appreciate it."

"Yeah," I said. "It's good."

I turned back to Beatrice. "I've just been dosed."

"That guy?"

"Yeah. It's OK."

"You want to go somewhere?"

"Your place?"

"My boyfriend's there. You hungry?"

"Sure." I couldn't have gotten my mind around the idea of food, much less eaten.

We walked out into the  chill. Bright, bright lights, dark, dark night. I hadn't done H in well over a decade. Beatrice has holding onto my arm, which was good, or I'd have just sunk down on the nearest convenient stoop. She was as tall as me, and strong. We ended up in a diner, I slid into a soft chair: bliss.  Beatrice ordered an omelette. I ordered a beer. My head was wobbly as a baby's, but I was adjusting. She seemed to enjoy it all, taking care of me. Then I suddenly realized where we were.

"This is Quentin Crisp's table," I said.

"Who's Quentin Crisp?"

So I told her, as best I could in my condition,  about Quentin Crisp and The Naked Civil Servant, and how on any given day there was a good chance you'd see Quentin at this very table, very proper in his hat and cloak.

"He sounds like somebody I'd like to meet."

"So show up at this place some afternoon and buy him a drink."

"He won't mind?"

"As long as you're buying, he'll talk your ear off. Am I drooling?"

We talked, or she talked, for hours. Or anyway it seemed like hours. She had a theory, or we came up with a theory, about masks and identity and domination. She had a client who was a federal judge. But what was he really--a federal judge who played at being a slave, or a slave who played at being a federal judge?

Beatrice was all right. Towards morning, she took a cab all the way uptown with me, just to make sure I got in the door.

To be continued....