Seven Days in Rio by Francis Levy

change my pants. I had a hunch that The Gringo could turn into a hub for me, the way Newark is for Continental or Minneapolis-St. Paul for Northwest. If I was going to catch my connecting fucks at The Gringo, I had to start out on the right foot. I wanted to walk in strong and self-assured, not apologizing for an unseemly crotch. For johns and Tiffanys alike, appearances are everything. I may know all about Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze, and the anti-Oedipus , but the average Tiffany won’t care about my erudition when she spots me standing at the bar sporting a crotch stain. In fact, my education had never really produced results when it came to my relationships with Tiffanys. In all my years frequenting dens of sensuality, I had never found that my intellectual credentials got me better-looking girls or discounted fees.
    You never know what is going to come out in conversation. That is one of the basic principles I learned in my years of psychoanalysis. When I first went into treatment, I had no inkling of all the shit that existed inside of me, both literally and metaphysically. One of the first reactions I had to analysis was that I couldn’t stop going to the bathroom. It went on for days. No sooner had my intestines quieted down than all the excreta of my childhood, which had been forgotten in the bowels of my personality, pressed insistently for immediate evacuation.
    I noticed the old, used-up literary Tiffany staring at me quizzically. “How are you enjoying the Marcuse?” I blurted out, apropos of nothing.
    “I love all these Marxist guys from the Frankfurt school, but I was finding it hard to concentrate with all the hullabaloo,” she shot back, a wry grin curling her lips.
    “You don’t happen to know of a decent dry cleaner who does spot work?”
    “With your American dollars you’re almost better off buying a new pair of pants.”
    It turned out that in addition to her life as a hooker and displaced New York intellectual, Tiffany ran a haberdashery out of her brothel. She had a few samples of her wares right there in her doorway. It turned out she had been married to a garmento named Sammy Cohen, who had manufactured piece goods in a loft on 37th Street and who was, in fact, a major supplier of trouser legs. She knew all about the kind of Brooks Brothers seersucker suit I was wearing.
    “I don’t know if I can match them exactly, but I can give you something that will get you through the night, and then I’ll set you up with a real Hong Kong-style tailor tomorrow.”
    Tiffany laid aside her book and led me up a rickety flight of stairs. Even though she was an old woman, she was still practiced in having a man follow her into the grimy room she used to turn tricks. She had varicose veins and walked with a slight limp, but still had the air of a lady of the night ready to weave a magic spell over her john. There are certain men who are attracted to older women, and I was sure that Tiffany had her loyal clientele, even if I knew I wasn’t going to be one of them. I was prepared to walk out if she started taking her clothes off. As it happened, I was the one doing the undressing in the stark room, with its single cot and scattered piles of washcloths. The only touch of color was provided by one of those old posters of Che Guevara in his signature beret, making the place look like my Columbia dorm room circa 1967.
    Tiffany told me to take my pants off while she dragged a big box of garments out of a closet and started to root through it for slacks. I was afraid she was going to offer to throw in a little favor at no extra charge, maybe a blowjob to go with my new slacks.
    I had removed my pants and was standing in my boxers. I still had on my seersucker jacket, my button-down collar shirt, and my bowtie when she instructed me to take everything off.
    “We have to work from the bottom up in a case like this.”
    I tend to be shy, hiding myself under the sheets even in the presence of the most immodest