They Dream of Billy Idol
By e. horn
Harry had brought Jenny to the dentist in Chinatown, because she
insisted on having all of her fillings removed. She had come to believe
that the voices she was hearing - so many that they sounded like the
crowd at a baseball game - were radio signals she was receiving via her
dental work. Harry reasoned that a trip or two to Dr. Chang would ease
this compulsion. At the least, she would have x-rays and a thorough
cleaning. At worst, he might have to convince her that the cleaning had
actually been the removal which she so desperately sought. The dentist
played along.While her x-rays were being developed, they stood in the hall outside
the waiting room . It was the end of August and the place was packed
with children getting check-ups before the start of the school year.
They were on the second floor landing of an old four-story walk up. The
entire floor was take up with a warren of small dental examination
rooms, labs and offices of Arthur Chang, D.D.S.. The first floor was a
Hunan restaurant. The upper floors housed the offices of Chinese
accountants, lawyers, insurance brokers and travel agents pushing cheap
fares to Hong Kong and Taiwan. There was one window which looked out over the corner of Mott and Worth. A rickety wooden railing guarded the stairway. A young woman in a white lab coat had her back to them as she stared out the window and smoked a cigarette.She turned and looked at them. She was a skinny Chinese girl about
nineteen or twenty years of age with a plain face, rendered a more
interesting by subsiding teenage acne which had left some mild permanent
damage in its wake. She had attempted to cover it with a thick layer of
make-up which approximated her sallow complexion. Her pixie haircut had been bleached to the color of mango which clashed with her skin tone and her dark brown, almost black, lipstick and nail polish. She wore a short black tee-shirt under the open lab coat. The shirt came to about three inches above her navel. Her jeans, which were ripped out at the knees, rode her hips a few inches below. Something had been written on the exposed skin of her abdomen in medium blue ball-point ink. She had blue tinted contact lenses which, in the poor light, gave her appearance of
an evil ghost- woman Harry had once seen in a kung fu movie. She glanced at the middle-aged white man and the teenage Chinese girl with obvious curiosity. "Hi, I'm Billy Idol," she broke the ice. "Well, at least
that's what my friends call me - because I'm so crazy about Billy Idol."
She pointed to the writing on her tummy. Harry bent closer so he could
see the titles of popular Billy Idol songs, scrawled helter-skelter
around her navel. Then she pointed to the holes in the knees of her
jeans. On her right knee was written "Billy"; on the left was "Idol".
"So, are you guys like... er... together?" she asked.Harry was charmed. For all of her bizarre efforts at worldliness, there
was something appealingly innocent about the little kook. Harry decided
to string her along. It would add a little fun to an otherwise tedious
afternoon. "We're dating," he told her. Jenny turned toward him and
angrily punched him in the shoulder."That's cool..." Billy Idol crooned, without skipping a beat. "So, like
what do you do?""We go to concerts," Harry said. "In fact we've actually been to see
Billy Idol at the Garden." This was true. Jenny's mother, Harry's
girlfriend, thought that, at 17, Jenny was too young to go to these
things by herself. The girl didn't have any friends. The 40 year-old
Chinese mother wasn't about to take her. So Harry was recruited. He
didn't really mind."Cool..." intoned Billy Idol. Then she went on to rattle off a list of
concerts she had attended, the titles of all the albums she owned, her
inventory of memorabilia and finally her plans to get back stage, where,
presumably she would blow her hero or do anything else he demanded of
her.Jenny was fascinated. She couldn't help but stare in gawky silence. Of
the two of them, only Harry spoke, and even he was at a loss to keep his
own little joke running in the face of this wacky idolatry. He too was
fascinated. He found himself feeling mildly jealous of Billy Idol, the
real Billy Idol, that is. Then the girl stamped out her cigarette and
announced that she had to "get back inside". She left them in stunned
silence on the landing.For the two weeks between dental appointments, Jenny could barely think of anything but the crazy girl they had met. There was no more talk of the troublesome fillings. She wondered if, when they returned for her
cleaning, they would see her again. She wondered what the girl would be
wearing - what she would say. She asked if they could take her to a
Billy Idol concert with them. If it hadn't been for all this chatter,
Harry would probably have forgotten about the girl by the time they had
hit the street. But with these constant reminders, he began to fantasize
about her, himself. In the dreams, the girl would accompany them back to the apartment. Since there was no way to edit Jenny out of the
fantasies, anything that happened necessarily involved her too. Harry
was invigorated.This was the first time that Harry had allowed himself to think about
Jenny in that way. Sure, they spent so much time alone in the apartment
together, and Jenny was so pretty and seductive in a youthful sort of
way, that such thoughts would be inevitable. There was even a time he
had accidentally walked in on her as she was changing. She was naked
from the waste up and her exposed breasts, lavender nipples contrasted
against paper white skin, were the most beautiful he had seen. She had
looked up at him and smiled, deliberately slow to cover up. His sudden
erection had embarrassed him and he immediately excused himself to the
other room, where he fought off an urge to go back in and start
something. That scene would flash through his mind every-now-and-then.
And there were other thoughts, but Harry had successfully warded them
off, until now.When they finally returned to the dentist's office, Billy Idol was no
where to be found. While Jenny was getting her cleaning, Harry inquired
about the strange girl that worked there, the one who called herself
'Billy Idol', but no one had heard of her. Harry realized that he had
assumed that, because she wore a lab coat, she had worked there as some kind of assistant or technician. He realized how stupid he had been to think that such a nit-wit could work in a dental office - at least
carrying any responsibility that would require a lab coat. She hadn't
said, "I have to go back to work," after she finished her cigarette. What
she had said was, "I have to get back inside." She probably worked in a
nearby beauty parlor or nail salon. She was probably there for a
root canal.Jenny was openly disappointed. She was silent on the subway back to her mother's apartment. She turned on the television and lay on the couch,
watching MTV without a word. It was hot for August and the ancient air
conditioners could not keep up with the heat. Jenny was wearing loose
soft cotton gym shorts and a tank top with no bra. Harry, who was
accustomed to walking around the apartment in his underwear, had
stripped down to his boxer shorts. He lay on the thick carpet. The two
of them lay there sweating in disappointed silence.Suddenly Jenny spoke. "I think I love her," she said. Harry was almost
tempted to ask whom she was talking about. He had been surprised by this declaration. He wasn't sure what it meant. He wondered..."Me, too," he said.
More time passed. The noise from the television was oppressive. The heat was oppressive. Then Jenny spoke again. "Do you mind if I take off my clothes?" she asked. She didn't wait for Harry to respond. She pulled
off her top and her shorts and tossed them on the floor near where Harry
was laying. He looked up at her. There was writing, in blue ink, in
several places about her body. He got up and stood over where she was
laying on the couch in order to get a better look. On her right breast,
above the lavender nipple was written, "Billy"; on the left was "Idol".
Around her navel was written, "Hot in the City". Just above the line of
her pubic hairs were written the words, "White Wedding".Jenny reached over and pulled Harry's boxers down around his knees.
There was something inscribed on his dick, also in blue ink. It looked
like "Dancing elf". Harry started to get hard as she took him in her
hand to see better. It turned out that it read "Dancing With Myself".
"Isn't it about time we rubbed that off, Harry?" she asked."About time, indeed," Harry replied.