On the Stroll: A Novel

by Alix Kates Shulman

Overview

A teenage runaway from Maine gets an eye-opening introduction to life on the streets of New York City
Robin catches a bus from her home in Maine to New York City to escape her tyrannical father. With no money and little hope of finding a decent job, the sixteen-year-old girl is easy prey for a hard-luck pimp named Prince. He quickly gains Robin’s trust and introduces her to the seedy underbelly of the city, a world of sex, drugs, and lies in which she must fight to survive. A homeless woman named Owl, who was once beautiful and bold, befriends Robin as they both struggle to take control of their lives.  On the Stroll is a moving, gritty picture of the people who find themselves on society’s margins and a heartrending look at the ultimate costs of homelessness and prostitution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453238370
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	04/03/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Alix Kates Shulman (b. 1932) is the celebrated author of fourteen books, including the bestselling novel Memoirs of an Ex–Prom Queen (1972), which established her as a primary figure in feminism’s second wave. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Shulman studied philosophy at Columbia University and received an MA at New York University. She became a political activist, joining the Congress of Racial Equality in 1961 and the Women’s Liberation Movement in 1967. Her other novels include Burning Questions (1978), On the Stroll (1981), In Every Woman’s Life . . . (1987), and Ménage (2012). She has also written the memoirs Drinking the Rain (1995), A Good Enough Daughter (1999), and To Love What Is (2008);a biography of Emma Goldman entitled To the Barricades (1971); and A Marriage Agreement and Other Essays: Four Decades of Feminist Writing (2012). Shulman lives in Manhattan and continues to speak frequently on issues such as writing, feminism, and reproductive choice.
Alix Kates Shulman (b. 1932) is the celebrated author of fourteen books, including the bestselling novel Memoirs of an Ex–Prom Queen (1972), which established her as a primary figure in feminism’s second wave. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Shulman studied philosophy at Columbia University and received an MA at New York University. She became a political activist, joining the Congress of Racial Equality in 1961 and the Women’s Liberation Movement in 1967. Her other novels include Burning Questions (1978), On the Stroll (1981), In Every Woman’s Life . . . (1987), and Ménage (2012). She has also written the memoirs Drinking the Rain (1995), A Good Enough Daughter (1999), and To Love What Is (2008);a biography of Emma Goldman entitled To the Barricades (1971); and A Marriage Agreement and Other Essays: Four Decades of Feminist Writing (2012). Shulman lives in Manhattan and continues to speak frequently on issues such as writing, feminism, and reproductive choice.

Read an Excerpt

On the Stroll

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By Alix Kates Shulman

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1981 Alix Kates Shulman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-3837-0

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CHAPTER 1

The small circle of Midtown New York surrounding the Port Authority Bus Terminal for a radius of half a dozen blocks goes by many names. Tour guides call it the Crossroads of the World. The hookers who work it know it as the stroll. Pimps call it the fast track. Three-card monte players speak of Forty-Deuce. Maps show the neighborhood as Clinton. But to the stagestruck and starstruck it is still Broadway, to tourists it is Times Square, to the old people and derelicts who live off discards from the teeming Ninth Avenue food stalls of Paddy's Market it is more aptly Hell's Kitchen, and to the New York City Police, Vice Squad, and Mayor's Special Task Force on Crime it is simply the Midtown Enforcement Area.

What you see of this amazing neighborhood depends on the season, the hour, and your game. Are you a tourist after entertainment? A thrill-seeker? Are you an adolescent hunting freedom, a healer searching out the damned, an aged survivor seeking shelter and food for one more day? Whoever you are, you will probably see what interests you and turn away from the rest.

Here, for instance, on a weekend night, scores of theatergoers tip their waiters at ten to eight, tuck their credit cards into their wallets, and rush unseeing past the whores and hustlers lounging in the doorways of the stroll. By nine, as these innocents are applauding first-act chorus lines, second-shift diners are sipping espresso in the darkened interiors of Restaurant Row, preparing for the embarrassment of checking anonymously into a midtown hotel for half a night of illicit love with someone else's spouse. Though tied to the neighborhood by passion, these desperate adulterers conduct their affairs foolishly unaware that just down the street the Live Sex Acts are pulling in the marks, the dirty book parlors of 42d Street are doing a brisk business, and one block over behind the bus station the elderly homeless and alley cats slowly circle the vegetable stalls for handouts from grocers' assistants at closing time. Taxi drivers pull up before the emptying theaters and lock their doors until they find their fares, then speed quickly away. Their passengers dissect the show, oblivious of the gang of hoodlums across the street and of the men on the corner passing around a bottle of Midnight Special in a brown paper bag. For one moment, a speeding police car racing the wrong way up a one-way street, siren screaming, may startle pedestrians, cabbies, and passengers alike into wondering what terrible act they may be forced to witness. But soon the sound disappears and they resume their talk, unaware of the shopping-bag ladies and men who, expecting rain, either make their way to St. Agatha's to jockey for a bench on which to sleep or cautiously take a seat in the inadequate waiting room of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

It was here in the bus station on a Friday night that the shopping-bag lady known to locals as Owl (and to the rookie cop patrolling the station as, simply, "one of your cleaner types") had her second mystical vision in twenty years. The first had come to her at the gate fifteen minutes before takeoff in Chicago's O'Hare Airport. The vision, she always believed, had been set in motion by a radio playing a Spanish-from-Spain version of "Siboney." She never discovered the source of the music (there were no radios at the gate, no airport Muzak in those days, and they were ready to board); yet the gypsy falsetto of that slightly Oriental song had brought into perfect harmony all the inhabitants of that exotic land: the mystic saints, the imperial guards, Ferdinand and Isabella, the Moors, the beautiful black-haired Iberian peasant women washing clothes on the riverbanks, the silent young men in the bars of Madrid, flamenco dancers, and, having herself once spent several months in Spain with an international refugee unit after the war, her own humble self, together with everyone she had ever known. Like mystics down through the ages, she had seen then in a flash the perfect unity of life. She would have traded her own to have the vision continue, but once it had ended, she was both sorry and glad: she had a plane to catch and a daughter to meet.

This time, however, she was only sorry. She had nowhere to go and no daughter. This second vision, coming some twenty years later, was far more timely, for her luck had long since run out. When during her worst times she'd touched bottom, her vision had drawn her back up. Maybe now that she was sinking again she was getting another lift from Beyond.

Here is what Owl saw that early evening as she sat among her shopping bags, resting her legs, in the main waiting room of the bus station.

Around her in the circle of molded plastic seats carefully designed to preclude a snooze sat the usual array of weary travelers, hustlers, and unknowns. In the center of the circle was a row of four pay-TV sets, their swivel bases bolted to chairs. In the tan plastic chairs facing the screens, eyes glazed, mouths slightly open, sat several large, unmoving teenaged males. Occupying the surrounding seats were families with crying babies, weary commuters, madmen, and innocents. Some of these no doubt waited for buses; others, like Owl herself, simply passed the time. All were shielded from too deep a scrutiny of each other (and themselves) by a thin curtain of complacency that concealed reality.

Now suddenly, without warning, Owl saw the curtain part. For perhaps ten seconds truth was revealed to her. She saw that all the people in the waiting room, together with everyone else alive in the universe at that particular instant, were in unique possession of a rare, infinitely precious and mysterious gift casually (so casually!) called life.

The light of this knowledge filled Owl with wonder and love. Before her enchanted eyes the ordinary differences among the living she had learned to recognize over more than half a century—differences in station and temperament, in awareness and privilege, in age, health, achievement, sorrow, fate—all disappeared and became as nothing beside that one miraculous singularity they shared. They had lived! They lived! Her feet hurt her, her welfare check was late, she had no one and no place, but she was infinitely blessed. If she had believed in God she might have called her vision religious, but she had always stood firmly with the atheists in matters of theology. Sister Theresa of the Shelter and Father Glendon who fought the pimps were the best citizens of the neighborhood, and the Church that backed them up was one of the few remaining places that embraced the homeless; but nothing they did could establish the truth of their beliefs. Truth was established otherwise. Truth was ... not what you believed, not what you proclaimed, but what you saw.

And what Owl saw as she rested in the waiting room at seven o'clock on that otherwise uneventful Friday evening was that out of the infinity of inert souls past or possible, these and no others had been chosen to live, to partake of blessed life, and among them was herself. She peered hard at reality, searching for someone she knew. Her mother? Her lost boy? But like the cats and birds Owl fed each day, all absolutely equal in her eyes, everyone there in the room, bathed in life, looked equally precious. In that clear, vivid light, cats, birds, humans were all connected. One with her. Any waif she made a home for was her child. She saw that life was a gift, a precious gift, and she swelled with happiness.

Then, as suddenly as it had parted, the curtain closed, the veil descended, and she was once again seated among her shopping bags in the uncomfortable waiting room of the bus station, alone, disconnected, without hope, awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder from the man in blue.

Prince sipped at his coffee and looked nervously at his watch. Time to go; the bus from Boston was due in any minute. He knew he shouldn't be drinking coffee at all, but he hated this bus station crawling with cops, it made him nervous, and he had to do something for his nerves.

That wasn't all. The place was full of scum, smelly old hags, detectives, he-shes, perverts.... It was as bad as the sin hole of Hong Kong where he'd once spent three days' shore leave. But this was the best place to cop a girl. He'd heard there were lots of them coming through lately from Boston, and though waiting for a bus was a longshot, he had to get himself a girl, at least check it out.

Even when he spotted a likely prospect climbing off a bus and looking around, it was tricky to catch her. She might know someone already, she might be meeting her mother, she might slip away before he had a go at her, or run for a cop. Still, he had to take his chances. He was getting desperate. Today he had a pocketful of bills from last week's three-card monte game: enough to catch a bitch if his luck held out. Wasn't every chick a potential ho? And wasn't he a good-looking dude who could sweet-talk his way like the best of them? He knew how to be gentle, modest, loving; he could also be forceful, fierce, intense. He understood what women needed and what he needed. He money, they love: that winning combination.

Another time he might have blown his bucks in a day, as he and his buddies had done in each new port. He liked good clothes and good times. But in the navy with that paycheck growing all the time and nothing to spend it on at sea, life had been different. Now years had passed since he'd seen a paycheck. He was overdue on his hotel bill, his wheels were in the shop, for a long time he'd sent nothing to his mother. Since Sissy had blown he needed money fast. So instead of partying, he'd got his copping clothes cleaned and pressed, had a manicure, a shave, and a shine, and prepared the rest for flashing. A fat roll of singles topped by three twenties in a gold money clip and a handful of silver dollars to give weight even to loose change were the oil that made his charm hum. Now all he needed was the chick to go for it. And soon. His stomach, which had kept him from signing up for another hitch at sea, was acting up all the time now. He used to be able to ignore it, but it seemed to be getting worse. Since he'd been alone it seemed to him he was always thinking about it—his stomach or his bad tooth or the way his hair had started coming out in his comb. Like his mother, he had fine, black, silky Filipino hair; but his fair-haired father, he'd been told, had been half bald at thirty. His luck, he'd probably gotten all his father's bad traits. Or else he was just getting old.

Old? He never thought he'd get old, not the Prince. But he had to do his pushups every morning now, he had to watch what he ate or his nerves would give out. If he'd jumped ship in Tahiti he might never have aged. It was the street that turned you old, keeping you hustling morning to night. In Tahiti, the women were for you, not against you. When you were hungry you picked a breadfruit off a tree or caught yourself a fish. But here, he felt thirty-five, not twenty-five. Who starts losing his hair at twenty-five? The place was turning into a sewer. The fags were everywhere and spreading. Crackos pulled knives in the street, winos sprawled in the gutters and pissed on the pavement as if they owned the place, perverts came right up to you, bag ladies, panhandlers, freaks roamed the streets like they were home. Even the cops had started dressing up like old women. They all belonged in Bellevue, but no one cared. If he hadn't wrecked his wheels he would have gone to Florida long ago, found out where Sissy was, and.... But now, unless he pawned his ring, he couldn't spare the cash for bus fare. And who could he trust? No one.

For a brief moment he imagined the future in the sparkle of the diamond in his ring. A lady with that sparkle in her eyes and brains enough to understand his needs. But he was a practical man and knew how far he could get on dreams. For now, it was enough to hope the girl wasn't so dumb that she'd let herself get picked up by the Runaway Squad. He'd try to warn her. Some of the young ones from out of state were so dumb they wound up costing you more than they gave you, even if they had no mileage on them at all. Or so scared that they got themselves addicted. And some were so smart you couldn't hold on to them long enough to make them pay off. Better, then, to cop and blow—take what you could get and cut her loose. On the other hand, if he caught one with a little money it might be better to try to disappear until she spent it, and then move on in. He'd have to figure it out carefully and play it close. It wasn't an easy game. He bent down to the shiny reflecting surface of the cigarette machine to comb his hair. Not bad, he thought. He smoothed down his mustache and flashed a smile. Handsome son-of-a-bitch. Then, bouncing on the balls of his feet like his running partner, Sweet Rudy, he sauntered down to the gate to meet the Boston bus.

Robin Ward looked out over the steamy streets of Hell's Kitchen from the Greyhound window and wondered how she'd ever find Boots. The city was so vast. Buildings, stretching as far as she could see in all directions, pressed down on her like waves on the sea; as soon as you rolled past one block of them another was upon you and another after that. Where was the shore? She felt a momentary panic, the first since she'd boarded the bus in Maine eight hours before. She'd left home so abruptly she hadn't had time to be afraid. As soon as Billy had told her that their father was sitting in the principal's office with a cop and two men, she'd run home for her backpack and money and got ready to split. On the ferry from the island she'd been terrified her father would stop her; but once the bus had taken her out of the Portland station without him on board, every turn of the wheels had brought relief, and on the highway she'd been actually happy.

"But how do you know they called him in about you?" Billy had asked her, for Luke Ward had three kids in the school to answer for. She didn't know, but she had a good idea. She had watched Boots turn on her smile and relieve two men of several hundred dollars, then disappear. Besides, even if her father had been called in about one of the boys, chances were she'd still wind up getting the blame. With her father on the warpath, why wait and see? She was sorry to have put in most of the semester and not get credit, but if those two men were who she thought they were, running was safer than sticking around to see what developed. From the day she first ran away at eight to look for her mom to the time she'd been picked up with Boots on the highway for hitchhiking, running had always been easier. The only difference was this: the other times she'd run because she wanted to; this time she ran because she had to. This time she couldn't go back. Her past was finished, like sand pictures erased by the tide.

She pressed her nose against the window as if to squash the past. She needed a new name. She had pale skin that pinked in the sun and peeled, never tanning even in summer. Too delicate a skin for the Maine coast, said her mother. And indeed, she had a fragile look that kept her apart and made even the bullies ashamed when they teased her more than they teased others. She had a bump in her nose she hated, but otherwise she looked like an old poster for spring, with a small, delicate child's mouth that seemed smaller still when she was ready to cry and that opened into a bright disarming smile in those rare moments when she felt delight. Though her smile would now never grace the pages of any yearbook, it would carry her far, she hoped—farther than the school she had left abruptly in the middle of eleventh grade. With her mouth, her guileless hazel eyes, pale lashes, and the sweet voice that ranged from childlike innocence to haughty disdain, she hoped to pull off masterpieces of deceit. Already she had perfected a wide range of poses in her brief life and she considered herself an actress of no little talent. In a mere sixteen years she had accomplished painful and difficult deceptions. And still her full range had not begun to be tested and she had a whole life ahead of her. Once she got it together to have a portfolio made hinting at the variety of moods and ages she could do (for she could still pass for thirteen if she tried and with difficulty do twenty) she'd be on her way. Peter had suggested that New York was a little premature, that she ought to try herself out in Portland or Boston first, but she disagreed. The fare to New York was not all that much more than to Boston, and Boots, who had sent her a postcard with a New York number, had gone directly there and made it.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from On the Stroll by Alix Kates Shulman. Copyright © 1981 Alix Kates Shulman. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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