Чарльз Буковски. Юг без Севера (engl)
Charles Bukowski. South Of No North. Stories of the buried life
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OCR: Слава Янко ? http://yanko.lib.ru/
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LONELINESS
Edna was walking down the street with her bag of groceries when she
passed the automobile. There was a sign in the side window:
WOMAN WANTED.
She stopped. There was a large piece of cardboard in the window with
some material pasted on it. Most of it was typewritten. Edna couldn't read
it from where she stood on the sidewalk. She could only see the large
letters:
WOMAN WANTED.
It was an expensive new car. Edna stepped forward on the grass to read
the typewritten portion:
Man age 49. Divorced. Wants to meet woman for marriage. Should be 35 to
44. Like television and motion pictures. Good food. I am a cost accountant,
reliably employed. Money in bank. I like women to be on the fat side.
Edna was 37 and on the fat side. There was a phone number. There were
also three photos of the gentleman in search of a woman. He looked quite
staid in a suit and necktie. Also he looked dull and a little cruel. And
made of wood, thought Edna, made of wood.
Edna walked off, smiling a bit. She also had a feeling of repulsion. By
the time she reached her apartment she had forgotten about him. It was some
hours later, sitting in the bathtub, that she thought about him again and
this time she thought how truly lonely he must be to do such a thing:
WOMAN WANTED.
She thought of him coming home, finding the gas and phone bills in the
mailbox, undressing, taking a bath, the T.V. on. Then the evening paper.
Then into the kitchen to cook. Standing there in his shorts, staring down at
the frying pan. Taking his food and walking to a table, eating it. Drinking
his coffee. Then more T.V. And maybe a lonely can of beer before bed. There
were millions of men like that all over America.
Edna got out of the tub, toweled, dressed and left her apartment. The
car was still there. She took down the man's name, Joe Light-hill, and the
phone number. She read the typewritten section again. "Motion pictures."
What an odd term to use. People said "movies" now. Woman Wanted. The
sign was very bold. He was original there.
When Edna got home she had three cups of coffee before dialing the
number. The phone rang tour times. "Hello?" he answered.
"Mr. Lighthill?"
"Yes?"
"I saw your ad. Your ad on the car."
"Oh, yes."
"My name's Edna."
"How you doing, Edna?"
"Oh, I'm all right. It's been so hot. This weather's too much."
"Yes, it makes it difficult to live."
"Well, Mr. Lighthill . . ."
"Just call me Joe."
"Well, Joe, hahaha, I feel like a fool. You know what I'm calling
about?"
"You saw my sign?"
"I mean, hahaha, what's wrong with you? Can't you get a woman?"
"I guess not, Edna. Tell me, where are they?"
"Women?"
"Yes."
"Oh, everywhere, you know."
"Where? Tell me. Where?"
"Well, church, you know. There are women in church."
"I don't like church."
"Oh."
"Listen, why don't you come over, Edna?"
"You mean over there?"
"Yes. I have a nice place. We can have a drink, talk. No pressure."
"It's late."
"It's not that late. Listen you saw my sign. You must be interested."
"Well . . ."
"You're scared, that's all. You're just scared."
"No, I'm not scared."
"Then come on over, Edna."
"Well . . ."
"Come on."
"All right. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."
It was on the top floor of a modern apartment complex. Apt. 17. The
swimming pool below threw back the lights. Edna knocked. The door opened and
there was Mr. Lighthill. Balding in front;
hawknosed with the nostril hairs sticking out; the shirt open at the
neck.
"Come on in, Edna . . ."
She walked in and the door closed behind her. She had on her blue knit
dress. She was stockingless, in sandals, and smoking a cigarette.
"Sit down. I'll get you a drink."
It was a nice place. Everything in blue and green and very
clean. She heard Mr. Lighthill humming as he mixed the drinks, hmmmmmmm,
hmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm . . . He seemed relaxed and it helped her.
Mr. Lighthill -- Joe -- came out with the drinks. He handed Edna hers
and then sat in a chair across the room from her.
"Yes," he said, "it's been hot, hot as hell. I've got air-conditioning,
though."
"I noticed. It's very nice."
"Drink your drink."
"Oh, yes."
Edna had a sip. It was a good drink, a bit strong but it tasted nice.
She watched Joe tilt his head as he drank. He appeared to have heavy
wrinkles around his neck. And his pants were much too loose. They appeared
sizes too large. It gave his legs a funny look.
"That's a nice dress, Edna."
"You like it?"
"Oh yes. You're plump too. It fits you snug, real snug."
Edna didn't say anything. Neither did Joe. They just sat looking at
each other and sipping their drinks.
Why doesn't he talk? thought Edna. 'It's up to him to talk. There
is something wooden about him. She finished her drink.
"Let me get you another," said Joe.
"No, I really should be going."
"Oh, come on," he said, "let me get you another drink. We need
something to loosen us up."
"All right, but after this one, I'm going."
Joe went into the kitchen with the glasses. He wasn't humming anymore.
He came out, handed Edna her drink and sat back down in his chair across the
room from her. This drink was stronger.
"You know," he said, "I do well on the sex quizzes."
Edna sipped at her drink and didn't answer.
"How do you do on the sex quizzes?" Joe asked.
"I've never taken any."
"You should, you know, so you'll find out who you are and what you
are."
"Do you think those things are valid? I've seen them in the newspaper.
I haven't taken them but I've seen them," said Edna.
"Of course they're valid."
"Maybe I'm no good at sex," said Edna, "maybe that's why I'm alone."
She took a long drink from her glass.
"Each of us is, finally, alone," said Joe.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, no matter how well it's going sexually or love-wise or both,
the day arrives when it's over."
"That's sad," said Edna.
"Of course. So the day arrives when it's over. Either there is a split
or the whole thing resolves into a truce: two people living together without
feeling anything. I believe that being alone is better."
"Did you divorce your wife, Joe?"
"No, she divorced me."
"What went wrong?"
"Sexual orgies."
"Sexual orgies?"
"You know, a sexual orgy is the loneliest place in the world. Those
orgies -- I felt a sense of desperation -- those cocks sliding in and out --
excuse me ..."
"It's all right."
"Those cocks sliding in and out, legs locked, fingers working, mouths,
everybody clutching and sweating and determined to do it -- somehow."
"I don't know much about those things, Joe," Edna said.
"I believe that without love, sex is nothing. Things can only be
meaningful when some feeling exists between the participants."
"You mean people have to like each other?"
"It helps."
"Suppose they get tired of each other? Suppose they have to stay
together? Economics? Children? All that?"
"Orgies won't do it."
"What does it?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe the swap."
"The swap?"
"You know, when two couples know each other quite well and
switch partners. Feelings, at least, have a chance. For example, say I've
always liked Mike's wife. I've liked her for months. I've watched her walk
across the room. I like her movements. Her movements have made me curious. I
wonder, you know, what goes with those movements. I've seen her angry, I've
seen her drunk, I've seen her sober. And then, the swap. You're in the
bedroom with her, at last you're knowing her. There's a chance for something
real. Of course, Mike has your wife in the other room. Good luck, Mike, you
think, and I hope you're as good a lover as I am."
"And it works all right?"
"Well, I dunno . . . Swaps can cause difficulties . . . afterwards. It
all has to be talked out . . . very well talked out ahead of time. And then
maybe people don't know enough, no matter how much they talk . . ."
"Do you know enough, Joe?"
"Well, these swaps ... I think it might be good for some . . . maybe
good for many. I guess it wouldn't work for me. I'm toomuch of a prude."
Joe finished his drink. Edna set the remainder of hers down and stood
up.
"Listen Joe, I have to be going ..."
Joe walked across the room toward her. He looked like an elephant in
those pants. She saw his big ears. Then he grabbed her and was kissing her.
His bad breath came through all the drinks. He had a very sour smell. Part
of his mouth was not making contact. He was strong but his strength was not
pure, it begged. She pulled her head away and still he held her.
WOMAN WANTED.
"Joe, let me go! You're moving too fast, Joe! Let go!"
"Why did you come here, bitch?"
He tried to kiss her again and succeeded. It was horrible. Edna brought
her knee up. She got him good. He grabbed and fell to the rug.
."God, god ... why'd you have to do that? You tried to kill me . . ."
He rolled on the floor.
His behind, she thought, he had such an ugly behind.
She left him rolling on the rug and ran down the stairway. The air was
clean outside. She heard people talking, she heard their T.V. sets. It
wasn't a long walk to her apartment. She felt the need of another bath, got
out of her blue knit dress and scrubbed herself. Then she got out of the
tub, toweled herself dry and set her hair in pink curlers. She decided not
to see him again.
BOP BOP AGAINST THAT CURTAIN
We talked about women, peeked up their legs as they got out of cars,
and we looked into windows at night hoping to see somebody fucking but we
never saw anybody. One time we did watch a couple in bed and the guy was
mauling his woman and we thought now we're going to see it, but she said,
"No, I don't want to do it tonight!" Then she turned her back on him. He lit
a cigarette and we went in search of a new window.
"Son of a bitch, no woman of mine would turn away from me!"
"Me neither. What kind of a man was that?"
There were three of us, me, Baldy, and Jimmy. Our big day was Sunday.
On Sunday we met at Baldy's house and took the streetcar down to Main
Street. Carfare was seven cents.
There were two burlesque houses in those days, the Follies and the
Burbank. We were in love with the strippers at the Burbank and the jokes
were a little better so we went to the Burbank. We had tried the dirty movie
house but the pictures weren't really dirty and the plots were all the same.
A couple of guys would get some little innocent girl drunk and before she
got over her hangover she'd find herself in a house of prostitution with a
line of sailors and hunchbacks beating on her door. Besides in those places
the bums slept night and day, pissed on the floor, drank wine, and rolled
each other. The stink of piss and wine and murder was unbearable. We went to
the Burbank.
"You boys going to a burlesque today?" Baldy's grampa would ask.
"Hell no, sir, we've got things to do."
We went. We went each Sunday. We went early in the morning, long before
the show and we walked up and down Main Street looking into the empty bars
where the B-girls sat in the doorways with their skirts up, kicking their
ankles in the sunlight that drifted into the dark bar. The girls looked
good. But we knew. We had heard. A guy went in for a drink and they charged
his ass off, both for his drink and the girl's. But the girl's drink would
be watered. You'd get a feel or two and that was it. If you showed any money
the barkeep would see it and along would come the mickey and you were out
over the bar and your money was gone. We knew.
After our walk along Main Street we'd go into the hotdog place and get
our eight cent hotdog and our big nickel mug of rootbeer. We were lifting
weights and our muscles bulged and we wore our sleeves rolled high and we
each had a pack of cigarettes in our breast pocket. We even had tried a
Charles Atlas course. Dynamic Tension, but lifting weights seemed the more
rugged and obvious
way.
While we ate our hotdog and drank our huge mug of rootbeer we played
the pinball machine, a penny a game. We got to know that pinball machine
very well. When you made a perfect score you got a free game. We had to make
perfect scores, we didn't have that kind of money.
Franky Roosevelt was in, things were getting better but it was still
the depression and none of our fathers were working. Where we got our small
amount of pocket money was a mystery except that we did have a sharp eye for
anything that was not cemented to the ground. We didn't steal, we shared.
And we invented. Having little or no money we invented little games to pass
the time -- one of them being to walk to the beach and back.
This was usually done on a summer day and our parents never complained
when we arrived home too late for dinner. Nor did they care about the high
glistening blisters on the bottoms of our feet. It was when they saw how we
had worn out our heels and the soles of our shoes that we began to hear it.
We were sent to the five and dime store where heels and soles and glue were
at the ready and at a reasonable price.
The situation was the same when we played tackle football in the
streets. There weren't any public funds for playgrounds. We were so tough we
played tackle football in the streets all through football season, through
basketball and baseball seasons and on through the next football season.
When you get tackled on asphalt, things happen. Skin rips, bones bruise,
there's blood, but you get up like nothing was wrong.
Our parents never minded the scabs and the blood and the bruises; the
terrible and unforgivable sin was to rip a hole in one of the knees
of your pants. Because there were only two pairs of pants to each boy: his
everyday pants and his Sunday pants, and you could never rip a hole in the
knee of one of your two pairs of pants because that showed that you were
poor and an asshole and that your parents were poor and assholes too. So you
learned to tackle a guy without falling on either knee. And the guy
being tackled learned how to be tackled without falling on either knee.
When we had fights we'd fight for hours and our parents wouldn't save
us. I guess it was because we pretended to be so tough and never asked for
mercy, they were waiting for us to ask for mercy. But we hated our parents
so we couldn't and because we hated them they hated us, and they'd walk out
on their porches and glance casually over at us in the midst of a terrible
endless fight. They'd just yawn and pick up a throw-away advertisement and
walk back inside.
I fought a guy who later ended up very high in the United States Navy.
I fought him one day from 8:30 in the morning until after sundown. Nobody
stopped us although we were in plain sight of his front lawn, under two huge
pepper trees with the sparrows shit-ting on us all day.
It was a grim fight, it was to the finish. He was bigger, a little
older and heavier, but I was crazier. We quit by common consent -- I don't
know how this works, you have to experience it to understand it, but after
two people beat on each other eight or nine hours a strange kind of
brotherhood emerges.
The next day my body was entirely blue. I couldn't speak out of my lips
or move any part of myself without pain. I was on the bed getting ready to
die and my mother came in with the shirt I'd worn during the fight. She held
it in front of my face over the bed and she said, "Look, you got bloodspots
on this shirt! Bloodspots!"
"Sorry!"
"I'll never get them out! NEVER!!"
"They're his bloodspots."
"It doesn't matter! It's blood! It doesn't come out!"
Sundays were our day, our quiet, easy day. We went to the Bur-bank.
There was always a bad movie first. A very old movie, andyou looked and
waited. You were thinking of the girls. The three or four guys in the
orchestra pit, they played loud, maybe they didn't play too good but they
played loud, and those strippers finally came out and grabbed the curtain,
the edge of the curtain, and they grabbed that curtain like it was a man and
shook their bodies and went bop bop bop against that curtain. Then they
swung out and started to strip. If you had enough money there was even a bag
of popcorn; if you didn't to hell with it.
Before the next act there was an intermission. A little man got up and
said, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you will let me have your kind attention . .
." He was selling peep-rings. In the glass of each ring, if you held it to
the light there was a most wonderful picture. This was promised you! Each
ring was only 50 cents, a lifetime possession for just 50 cents, made
available only to the patrons of the Burbank and not sold anywhere else.
"Just hold it up to the light and you will see! And, thank you, ladies and
gentlemen, for your kind attention. Now the ushers will pass down the aisles
among you."
Two ragass bums would proceed down the aisles smelling of muscatel,
each carrying a bag of peep-rings. I never saw anybody purchase one of the
rings. I imagine, though, if you had held one up to the light the picture in
the glass would have been a naked woman.
The band began again and the curtains opened and there was the chorus
line, most of them former strippers gone old, heavy with mascara and rouge
and lipstick, false eyelashes. They did their damndest to stay with the
music but they were always a little behind. But they carried on; I thought
they were very brave.
Then came the male singer. It was very difficult to like the male
singer. He sang too loud about love gone wrong. He didn't know how to sing
and when he finished he spread his arms, and bowed his head to the tiniest
ripple of applause.
Then came the comedian. Oh, he was good! He came out in an old brown
overcoat, hat pulled down over his eyes, slouching and walking like a bum, a
bum with nothing to do and no place to go. A girl would walk by on the stage
and his eyes would follow her. Then he'd turn to the audience and say, out
of his toothless mouth, "Well, I'll be god damned!"
Another girl would walk out on the stage and he'd walk up to her, put
his face close to hers and say, "I'm an old man, I'm past 44 but when the
bed breaks down I finish on the floor." That did it. How we laughed! The
young guys and the old guys, how we laughed. And there was the suitcase
routine. He's trying to help some girl pack her suitcase. The clothes keep
popping out.
"I can't get it in!"
"Here let me help you!"
"It popped out again!"
"Wait! I'll stand on it!"
"What? Oh no, you're not going to stand on it!"
They went on and on with the suitcase routine. Oh, he was funny!
Finally the first three or four strippers came out again. We each had
our favorite stripper and we each were in love. Baldy had chosen a thin
French girl with asthma and dark pouches under her eyes. Jimmy liked the
Tiger Woman (properly The Tigress). I pointed out to Jimmy the Tiger Woman
definitely had one breast larger than the other. Mine was Rosalie.
Rosalie had a large ass and she shook it and shook it and sang funny
little songs, and as she walked about stripping she talked to herself and
giggled. She was the only one who really enjoyed her work. I was in love
with Rosalie. I often thought of writing her and telling her how great she
was but somehow I never got around to it.
One afternoon we were waiting for the streetcar after the show and
there was the Tiger Woman waiting for the streetcar too. She was dressed in
a tight-fitting green dress and we stood there looking at her.
"It's your girl, Jimmy, it's the Tiger Woman."
"Boy, she's got it! Look at her!"
"I'm going to talk to her," said Baldy.
"It's Jimmy's girl."
"I don't want to talk to her," said Jimmy.
"I'm going to talk to her," said Baldy. He put a cigarette in his
mouth, lit it, and walked up to her.
"Hi ya, baby!" he grinned at her.
The Tiger Woman didn't answer. She just stared straight ahead waiting
for the streetcar.
"I know who you are. I saw you strip today. You've got it, baby, you've
really got it!"
The Tiger Woman didn't answer.
"You really shake it, my god, you really shake it!"
The Tiger Woman stared straight ahead. Baldy stood there grin-ning like
an idiot at her. "I'd like to put it to you. I'd like to fuck
you, baby!"
We walked up and pulled Baldy away. We walked him down the street. "You
asshole, you have no right to talk to her that way!"
"Well, she gets up and shakes it, she gets up in front of men and
shakes it!"
"She's just trying to make a living."
"She's hot, she's red hot, she wants it!"
"You're crazy."
We walked him down the street.
Not long after that I began to lose interest in those Sundays on Main
Street. I suppose the Follies and the Burbank are still there. Of course,
the Tiger Woman and the stripper with asthma, and Rosalie, my Rosalie are
long gone. Probably dead. Rosalie's big shaking ass is probably dead. And
when I'm in my neighborliood, I drive past the house I used to live in and
there are strangers living there. Those Sundays were good, though, most of
those Sundays were good, a tiny light in the dark depression days when our
fathers walked the front porches, jobless and impotent and glanced at us
beating the shit out of each other, then went inside and stared at the
walls, afraid to play the radio because of the electric bill.
YOU AND YOUR BEER AND HOW GREAT YOU ARE
Jack came through the door and found the pack of cigarettes on the
mantle. Ann was on the couch reading a copy of Cosmopolitan. Jack lit
up, sat down in a chair. It was ten minutes to midnight.
"Charley told you not to smoke," said Ann, looking up from the
magazine.
"I deserve it. It was a rough one tonight."
"Did you win?"
"Split decision but I got it. Benson was a tough boy, lots of guts.
Charley says Parvinelli is next. We get over Parvinelli, we get the champ."
Jack got up, went to the kitchen, came back with a bottle of beer.
"Charley told me to keep you off the beer," Ann put the magazine down.
'" 'Charley told me, Charley told me' . . . I'm tired of that. I won my
fight. I won 16 straight, I got a right to a beer and a cigarette."
"You're supposed to stay in shape."
"It doesn't matter. I can whip any of them."
"You're so great, I keep hearing it when you get drunk, you're so
great. I get sick of it."
"I am great. 16 straight, 15 k.o.'s. Who's better?"
Ann didn't answer. Jack took his bottle of beer and his cigarette into
the bathroom.
"You didn't even kiss me hello. The first thing you did was go to your
bottle of beer. You're so great, all right. You're a great beer-drinker."
Jack didn't answer. Five minutes later he stood in the bathroom door,
his pants and shorts down around his shoes.
"Jesus Christ, Ann, can't you even keep a roll of toilet paper in
here?"
"Sorry."
She went to the closet and got him the roll. Jack finished his business
and walked out. Then he finished his beer and got another one. "Here you are
living with the best light-heavy in the world and all you do is complain.
Lots of girls would love to have me but all you do is sit around and bitch."
"I know you're good. Jack, maybe the best, but you don't know how
boring it is to sit around and listen to you say over and over again
how great you are."
"Oh, you're bored with it, are you?"
"Yes, god damn it, you and your beer and how great you are."
"Name a better light-heavy. You don't even come to my fights."
"There are other things besides fighting. Jack."
"What? Like laying around on your ass and reading Cosmopolitan?"
"I like to improve my mind."
"You ought to. There's a lot of work to be done there."
"I tell you there are other things besides fighting."
"What? Name them."
"Well, art, music, painting, things like that."
"Are you any good at them?"
"No, but I appreciate them."
"Shit, I'd rather be best at what I'm doing."
"Good, better, best . . . God, can't you appreciate people for what
they are?"
"For what they are? What are most of them? Snails, blood-
suckers, dandies, finks, pimps, servants . . ."
"You're always looking down on everybody. None of your friends are good
enough. You're so damned great!"
"That's right, baby."
Jack walked into the kitchen and came out with another beer.
"You and your god damned beer!"
"It's my right. They sell it. I buy it."
"Charley said . . ."
"Fuck Charley!"
"You're so god damned great!"
"That's right. At least Pattie knew it. She admitted it. She was proud
of it. She knew it took something. All you do is bitch."
"Well, why don't you go back to Pattie? What are you doing with me?"
"That's just what I'm thinking."
"Well, we're not married, I can leave any time."
"That's one break we've got. Shit, I come in here dead-ass tired after
a tough ten rounder and you're not even glad I took it. All you do is
complain about me."
"Listen. Jack, there are other things besides fighting. WTien I met
you, I admired you for what you were."
"I was a fighter. There aren't any other things besides
fighting.
That's what 1 am -- a hghter. That's my tile, and 1m good at it. The
best. I notice you always go for those second raters . . . like Toby
Jorgenson."
"Toby's very funny. He's got a sense of humor, a real sense of humor. I
like Toby."
"His record is 9, 5, and one. I can take him when I'm dead drunk."
"And god knows you're dead drunk often enough. How do you think I feel
at parties when you're laying on the floor passed out, or lolling around the
room telling everybody, 'I'M GREAT, I'M GREAT, I'M GREAT!' Don't you think
that makes me feel like an ass?"
"Maybe you arc an ass. If you like Toby so much, why don't you go with
him?"
"Oh, 1 just said I liked him, I thought he was funny, that
doesn't mean I want to go to bed with him."
"Well, you go to bed with me and you say I'm boring. I don't know what
the hell you want."
Ann didn't answer. Jack got up, walked over to the couch, lifted Ann's
head and kissed her, walked back and sat down again.
"Listen, let me tell you about this fight with Benson. Even you would
have been proud of me. He decks me in the first round, a sneak right. I get
up and hold him off the rest of the round. He plants me again in the second.
I barely get up at 8. I hold him oft again. The next few rounds I spend
getting my legs back. I take the 6th, 7th, 8th, deck him once in the 9th and
twice in the 10th. I don't call that a split. They called it a split. Well,
it's 45 grand, you get that, kid? 45 grand. I'm great, you can't deny I'm
great, can you?"
Ann didn't answer.
"Come on, tell me I'm great."
"All right, you're great."
"Well, that's more like it." Jack walked over and kissed her again. "I
feel so good. Boxing is a work of art, it really is. It takes guts to be a
great artist and it takes guts to be a great fighter."
"All right. Jack."
"'All right, Jack,' is that all you can say? Pattie used to be happy
when I won. W^e were both happy all night. Can't you share it when I do
something good? Hell, are you in love with me or are you in love with the
losers, the half-asses? I think you'd be happier if I came in here a loser."
"I want you to win. Jack, it's only that you put so much empha-sis on
what you do . . ."
"Hell, it's my living, it's my life. I'm proud of being best. It's like
flying, it's like flying off into the sky and whipping the sun,"
"What are you going to do when you can't fight anymore?"
"Hell, we'll have enough money to do whatever we want."
"Except get along, maybe."
"Maybe I can learn to read Cosmopolitan, improve my mind."
"Well, there's room for improvement."
"Fuck you."
"What?"
"Fuck you."
"Well, that's something you haven't done in a while."
"Some guys like to fuck hitching women, I don't."
"I suppose Pattie didn't bitch?"
"All women bitch, you're the champ."
"Well, why don't you go back to Pattie?"
"You're here now. I can only house one whore at a time."
"Whore?"
"Whore."
Ann got up and went to the closet, got out her suitcase and began
putting her clothes in there. Jack went to the kitchen and got another
bottle of beer. Ann was crying and angry. Jack sat down with his beer and
took a good drain. He needed a whiskey, he needed a bottle of whiskey. And a
good cigar.
"I can come pick up the rest of my stuff when you're not around."
"Don't bother. I'll have it sent to you."
She stopped at the doorway.
"Well, I guess this is it," she said.
"I suppose it is," Jack answered.
She closed the door and was gone. Standard procedure. Jack finished the
beer and went over to the telephone. He dialed Pattie's number. She
answered.
"Pattie?"
"Oh, Jack, how are you?"
"I won the big one tonight. A split. All I got to do is get over
Parvinelli and I got the champ."
"You'll whip both of them, Jack. I know you can do it."
"What are you doing tonight, Pattie?"
"It's 1:00 a.m. Jack. Have you been drinking?"
"A few. I'm celebrating."
"How about Ann?"
"We split. I only play one woman at a time, you know that Pattie."
"Jack . . ."
"What?"
"I'm with a guy."
"A guy?"
"Toby Jorgenson. He's in the bedroom . . ."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. Jack, I loved you ... maybe I still do."
"Oh, shit, you women really throw that word around ..."
"I'm sorry. Jack."
"It's o.k." He hung up. Then he went to the closet for his coat. He put
it on, finished the beer, went down the elevator to his car. He drove
straight up Normandie at 65 m.p.h., pulled into the liquor store on
Hollywood Boulevard. He got out and walked in. He got a six-pack of
Michelob, a pack of Alka-Seltzers. Then at the counter he asked the clerk
for a fifth of Jack Daniels. While the clerk was tabbing them up a drunk
walked up with two six-packs of Coors.
"Hey, man!" he said to Jack, "ain't you Jack Backenweld, the fighter?"
"I am," answered Jack.
"Man, I saw that fight tonight. Jack, you're all guts. You're really
great!"
"Thanks, man," he told the drunk, and then he took his sack of goods
and walked to his car. He sat there, took the cap off the Daniels and had a
good slug. Then he backed out, ran west down Hollywood, took a left at
Normandie and noticed a well-built teenage girl staggering down the street.
He stopped his car, lifted the fifth out of the bag and showed it to her.
"Want a ride?"
Jack was surprised when she got in. "I'll help you drink that, mister,
but no fringe benefits."
"Hell, no" said Jack.
He drove down Normandie at 35 m.p.h., a self-respecting citizen and
third ranked light-heavy in the world. For a moment he felt like telling her
who she was riding with but he changed his mind and reached over and
squeezed one of her knees.
"You got a cigarette, mister?" she asked.
He flicked one out with his hand, pushed in the dash lighter. It jumped
out and he lit her up.
POLITICS
At L.A. City College just before World War II, I posed as a Nazi. I
hardly knew Hitler from Hercules and cared less. It wa just that sitting in
class and hearing all the patriots preach how we should go over and do the
beast in, I grew bored. I decided to become the opposition. I didn't even
bother to read up on Adolf, I simply spouted anything that I felt was evil
or maniacal.
However, I really didn't have any political beliefs. It was a way of
floating free.
You know, sometimes if a man doesn't believe in what he is doing he can
do a much more interesting job because he isn't emotionally caught up in his
Cause. It wasn't long before all the tall blond boys had formed The Abraham
Lincoln Brigade -- to hold off the hordes of facism in Spain. And then had
their asses shot off by trained troops. Some of them did it for adventure
and a trip to Spain but they still got their asses shot off. I liked my ass.
There really wasn't much I liked about myself but I did like my ass and my
pecker.
I leaped up in class and shouted anything that came to my mind. Usually
it had something to do with the Superior Race, which I thought was rather
humorous. I didn't lay it directly onto the Blacks and the Jews because I
saw that they were as poor and confused as I was. But I did get off some
wild speeches in and out of class, and the bottle of wine I kept in my
locker helped me along. I was surprised that so many people listened to me
and how few, if any, ever questioned my statements. I just ran off at the
mouth and was delighted at how entertaining L.A. City College could be.
"Are you going to run for student body president, Chinaski?"
"Shit, no."
I didn't want to do anything. I didn't even went to go to gym. In fact,
the last thing I wanted to do was to go to gym and sweat and wear a
jockstrap and compare pecker-lengths. I knew I had a medium-sized pecker. I
didn't have to take gym to establish that.
We were lucky. The college decided to charge a two dollar enrollment
fee. We decided -- a few of us decided, anyhow -- that that was
unconstitutional, so we refused. We struck against it. The college allowed
us to attend classes but took away some of our privileges, one of them being
gym.
When time arrived for gym class, we stood in civilian clothing. The
coach was given orders to march us up and down the field in close formation.
That was their revenge. Beautiful. I didn't have to run around the track
with my ass sweating or try to throw a demented basketball through a
demented hoop.
We marched around and made up dirty songs, and the good American boys
on the football team threatened to whip our asses but somehow never got
around to it. Probably because we were bigger and meaner. To me, it was
wonderful, pretending to be a Nazi, and then turning around and proclaiming
that my consitutional rights were being violated.
I did sometimes get emotional. I remember one time in class, after a
little too much wine, with a tear in each eye, I said, "I promise you, this
will hardly be the last war. As soon as one enemy is eliminated somehow
another is found. It's endless and meaningless. There's no such thing as a
good war or a bad war."
Another time there was a communist speaking from a platform on a vacant
lot south of campus. He was a very earnest boy with rimless glasses,
pimples, wearing a black sweater with holes in the elbows. I stood listening
and had some of my disciples with me. One of them was a White Russian,
Zircoff, his father or his grandfather had been killed by the Reds in the
Russian revolution. He showed me a sack of rotten tomatoes. "When you give
the word," he told me, "we'll begin throwing them."
It occurred to me suddenly that my disciples hadn't been listening to
the speaker, or even if they had been, nothing he had said would matter.
Their minds were made up. Most of the world was like that. Having a medium-
sized cock suddenly didn't seem the world's worst sin.
"Zircoff," I said, "put the tomatoes away."
"Piss," he said, "I wish they were hand grenades."
I lost control of my disciples that day, and walked away as they
started hurling their rotten tomatoes.
I was informed that a new Vanguard Party was to be formed. I was given
an address in Glendale and I went there that night. We sat in the basement
of a large home with our wine bottles and our various-sized cocks.
There was a platform and desk with a large American flag spread across
the back wall. A healthy looking American boy walked out on the platform and
suggested that we begin by saluting the flag, pledging allegiance to it.
I always disliked pledging allegiance to the flag. It was so tedious
and sillyass. I always felt more like pledging allegiance to myself, but
there we were and we stood up and ran through it. Then, afterwards, the
little pause, and everybody sitting down feeling as if they had been
slightly molested.
The healthy American began talking. I recognized him as a fat boy who
sat in the front row of the playwriting class. I never trusted those types.
Sucks. Strictly sucks. He began: "The Communist menace must be stopped. We
are gathered here to take steps to do so. We will take lawful steps and,
perhaps, unlawful steps to do this . . ."
I don't remember much of the rest. I didn't care about the Communist
menace of the Nazi menace. I wanted to get drunk, I wanted to fuck, I wanted
a good meal, I wanted to sing over a glass of beer in a dirty bar and smoke
a cigar. I wasn't aware. I was a dupe, a tool.
Afterwards, Zircoff and myself and one ex-disciple went down to
Westlake Park and we rented a boat and tried to catch a duck for dinner. We
managed to get very drunk and didn't catch a duck and found we didn't have
enough money between us to pay the boat rental fee.
We floated around the shallow lake and played Russian Roulette with
Zircoff's gun and we all lucked through. Then Zircoff stood up in the
moonlight drunk and shot the hell out of the bottom of the boat. The water
started coming in and we ran her for shore. A third of the way in the boat
sank and we had to get out and get our assholes wet wading to shore. So the
night ended up well and hadn't been wasted . . .
I played Nazi for some time longer, while caring for neither the Nazis
nor the Communists nor the Americans. But I was losing interest. In fact,
just before Pearl Harbor I gave it up. The fun had gone out of it. I felt
the war was going to happen and I didn't feel much like going to war and I
didn't feel much like being a conscientious objector either. It was catshit.
It was useless. Me and my medium-sized cock were in trouble.
I sat in class without speaking, waiting. The students and the
instructors needled me. I had lost my drive, my steam, my mox. I felt that
the whole thing was out of my hands. It was going to happen. All the cocks
were in trouble.
My English instructor, quite a nice lady with beautiful legs asked me
to stay after class one day. "What's the matter, Chinaski?" she asked. "I've
given up," I said. "You mean politics?" she asked. "I mean politics," I
said. "You'd make a good sailor," she said. I walked out . . .
I was sitting with my best friend, a marine, in a downtown bar drinking
a beer when it happened. A radio was playing music, there was a break in the
music. They told us that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. It was announced
that all military personnel should return immediately to their bases. My
friend asked that I take the bus with him to San Diego, suggesting that it
might turn out to be the last time I ever saw him. He was right.
NO WAY TO PARADISE
I was sitting in a bar on Western Ave. It was around midnight and I was
in my usual confused state. I mean, you know, nothing works right: the
women, the jobs, the no jobs, the weather, the dogs. Finally you just sit in
a kind of stricken state and wait like you're on the bus stop bench waiting
for death.
Well, I was sitting there and here comes this one with long dark hair,
a good body, sad brown eyes. I didn't turn on for her. I ignored her even
though she had taken the stool next to mine when there were a dozen other
empty seats. In fact, we were the only ones in the bar except for the
bartender. She ordered a dry wine. Then she asked me what I was drinking.
"Scotch and water."
"Give him a scotch and water," she told the barkeep.
Well, that was unusual.
She opened her purse, removed a small wire cage and took some little
people out and sat them on the bar. They were all around three inches tall
and they were alive and properly dressed. There were four of them, two men
and two women.
"They make these now," she said, "they're very expensive. They cost
around $2,000 apiece when I got them. They go for around $2,400 now. I don't
know the manufacturing process but it's probably against the law."
The little people were walking around on the top of the bar. Suddenly
one of the little guys slapped one of the little women across the face.
"You bitch," he said, "I've had it with you!"
"No, George, you can't," she cried, "I love you! I'll kill myself! I've
got to have you!"
"I don't care," said the little guy, and he took out a tiny cigarette
and lit it. "I've got a right to live."
"If you don't want her," said the other little guy, "I'll take
her. I love her."
"But I don't want you, Marty. I'm in love with George."
"But he's a bastard, Anna, a real bastard!"
"I know, but I love him anyhow."
The little bastard then walked over and kissed the other little woman.
"I've got a triangle going," said the lady who had bought me the drink.
"That's Marty and George and Anna and Ruthie. George goes down, he goes down
good. Marty's kind of square."
"Isn't it sad to watch all that? Er, what's your name?"
"Dawn. It's a terrible name. But that's what mothers do to their
children sometimes."
"I'm Hank. But isn't it sad . . ."
"No, it isn't sad to watch it. I haven't had much luck with my own
loves, terrible luck really . . ."
"We all have terrible luck."
"I suppose. Anyhow, I bought these little people and now I watch them,
and it's like having it and not having any of the problems. But I get
awfully hot when they start making love. That's when it gets difficult."
"Are they sexy?"
"Very, very sexy. My god, it makes me hot!"
"Why don't you make them do it? I mean, right now. We'll watch them
together."
"Oh, you can't make them do it. They've got to do it on their own."
"How often do they do it?"
"Oh, they're pretty good. They go four or five times a week."
They were walking around on the bar. "Listen," said Marty, "give me a
chance. Just give me a chance, Anna."
"No," said Anna, "my love belongs to George. There's no other way it
can be."
George was kissing Ruthie, feeling her breasts. Ruthie was getting hot.
"Ruthie's getting hot," I told Dawn.
"She is. She really is."
I was getting hot too. I grabbed Dawn and kissed her.
"Listen," she said, "I don't like them to make love in public. I'll
take them home and have them do it."
"But then I can't watch."
"Well, you'll just have to come with me."
"All right," I said, "let's go."
I finished my drink and we walked out together. She carried the little
people in the small wire cage. We got into her car and put the people in
between us on the front seat. I looked at Dawn. She was really young and
beautiful. She seemed to have good insides too. How could she have gone
wrong with her men? There were so many ways those things could miss. The
four little people had cost her $8,000. Just that to get away from
relationships and not to get away from relationships.
Her house was near the hills, a pleasant looking place. We got out and
walked up to the door. I held the little people in the cage while Dawn
opened the door.
"I heard Randy Newman last week at The Troubador. Isn't he great?" she
asked.
"Yes, he is."
We walked into the front room and Dawn took the little people out and
placed them on the coffeetable. Then she walked into the kitchen and opened
the refrigerator and got out a bottle of wine. She brought in two glasses.
"Pardon me," she said, "but you seem a little bit crazy. What do you
do?"
"I'm a writer."
"Are you going to write about this?"
"They'll never believe it, but I'll write it."
"Look," said Dawn, "George has got Ruthie's panties off. He's fingering
her. Ice?"
"Yes, he is. No, no ice. Straight's fine."
"I don't know," said Dawn, "it really gets me hot to watch them. Maybe
it's because they're so small. It really heats me up."
"I know what you mean."
"Look, George is going down on her now." '
"He is, isn't he?"
"Look at them!"
"God o mighty!"
I grabbed Dawn. We stood there kissing. As we did her eyes went from
mine to them and then back to mine again.
Little Marty and little Anna were watching too.
"Look," said Marty, "they're going to make it. We might as well make
it. Even the big folks are going to make it. Look at them!"
"Did you hear that?" I asked Dawn. "They said we're going to make it.
Is that true?"
"I hope it's true," said Dawn.
I got her over to the couch and worked her dress up around her hips. I
kissed her along the throat. "I love you," I said.
"Do you? Do you?"
"Yes, somehow, yes . . ."
"All right," said little Anna to little Marty, "we might as well do it
too, even though I don't love you."
They embraced in the middle of the coffeetable. I had worked Dawn's
panties off. Dawn groaned. Little Ruthie groaned. Marty closed in on Anna.
It was happening everywhere. I got the idea that everybody in the world was
doing it. Then I forgot about the rest of the world. We somehow walked into
the bedroom. Then I got into Dawn for the long slow ride. . . .
When she came out of the bathroom I was reading a dull dull story in
Playboy.
"It was so good," she said.
"My pleasure," I answered.
She got back into bed with me. I put the magazine down.
"Do you think we .can make it together?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do you think we can make it together for any length of time?"
"I don't know. Things happen. The beginning is always easiest."
Then there was a scream from the front room. "Oh-oh," said Dawn. She
leaped up and ran out of the room. I followed. When I got there she was
holding George in her hands.
"Oh, my god!"
"What happened?"
"Anna did it to him!"
"Did what?"
"She cut off his balls! George is a eunuch!"
"Wow!"
"Get me some toilet paper, quickly! He might bleed to death!"
"That son of a bitch," said little Anna from the coffeetable, "ifI
can't have George, nobody can have him!"
"Now both of you belong to me!" said Marty.
"No, you've got to choose between us," said Anna.
"Which one of us is it?" asked Ruthie.
"I love you both," said Marty.
"He's stopped bleeding," said Dawn. "He's out cold." She wrapped George
in a handkerchief and put him on the mantle.
"I mean," Dawn said to me, "if you don't think we can make it, I don't
want to go into it anymore."
"I think I love you. Dawn."
"Look," she said, "Marty's embracing Ruthie!"
"Are they going to make it?"
"I don't know. They seem excited."
Dawn picked Anna up and put her in the wire cage.
"Let me out of here! I'll kill both of them! Let me out of here!"
George moaned from inside his handkerchief upon the mantle. Marty had
Ruthie's panties off. I pulled Dawn to me. She was beautiful and young and
had insides. I could be in love again. It was possible. We kissed. I fell
down inside her eyes. Then I got up and began running. I knew where I was. A
cockroach and an eagle made love. Time was a fool with a banjo. I kept
running. Her long hair fell across my face.
"I'll kill everybody!" screamed little Anna. She rattled about in her
wire cage at 3 a.m. in the morning.
LOVE FOR $17.50
Robert's first desire -- when he began thinking of such things -- was
to sneak into the Wax Museum some night and make love to the wax ladies.
However, that seemed too dangerous. He limited himself to making love to
statues and mannequins in his sex fantasies and lived in his fantasy world.
One day while stopped at a red light he looked into the doorway of a
shop. It was one of those shops that sold everything -- records, sofas,
books, trivia, junk. He saw her standing there in a long red dress. She wore
rimless glasses, was well-shaped; dignified and sexy the way they used to
be. A real class broad. Then the signal changed and he was forced to drive
on.
Robert parked a block away and walked back to the shop. He stood
outside at the newspaper rack and looked in at her. Even the eyes looked
real, and the mouth was very impulsive, pouting just a bit.
Robert went inside and looked at the record rack. He was closer to her
then and sneaked glances. No, they didn't make them like that anymore. She
even had on high heels.
The girl in the shop walked up. "Can I help you, sir?"
"Just browsing, miss."
"If there's anything you want, just let me know."
"Surely."
Robert moved over to the mannequin. There wasn't a price tag. He
wondered if she were for sale. He walked back to the record rack, picked up
a cheap album and purchased it from the girl.
The next time he visited the shop the mannequin was still there. Robert
browsed a bit, bought an ashtray that was moulded to imi-tate a coiled
snake, then walked out.
The third time he was there he asked the girl: "Is the mannequin for
sale?"
"The mannequin?"
"Yes, the mannequin."
"You want to buy it?"
"Yes, you sell things, don't you? Is the mannequin for sale?"
"Just a moment, sir."
The girl went to the back of the shop. A curtain parted and an old
Jewish man came out. The bottom two buttons of his shirt were missing and
you could see his hairy belly. He seemed friendly enough.
"You want the mannequin, sir?"
"Yes, is she for sale?"
"Well, not really. You see, it's kind of a display piece, a joke."
"I want to buy her."
"Well, let's see . . ." The old Jew went over and began touching the
mannequin, touching the dress, the arms. "Let's see ... I think I can let
you have this ... thing... for $17.50."
"I'll take her." Robert pulled out a twenty. The storekeeper counted
out the change.
"I'm going to miss it," he said, "sometimes it seems almost real.
Should I wrap it?"
"No, I'll take her the way she is."
Robert picked up the mannequin and carried her to his car. He laid her
down in the back seat. Then he got in and drove off to his place. When he
got there, luckily, there didn't seem to be anybody about and he got her
into the doorway unseen. He stood her in the center of the room and looked
at her.
"Stella," he said, "Stella, bitch!"
He walked up and slapped her across the face. Then he grabbed the head
and kissed it. It was a good kiss. His penis began to harden when the phone
rang. "Hello," he answered.
"Robert?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"This is Harry."
"How you doing. Harry?"
"O.k., what you doing?"
"Nothing."
"I thought I'd come over. Bring a couple of beers."
"O.k."
Robert hung up, picked up the mannequin and carried her to the closet.
He pushed her back in the corner of the closet and closed the door.
Harry really didn't have much to say. He sat there with his beer-can.
"How's Laura?" he asked.
"Oh," said Robert, "it's all over between me and Laura."
"What happened?"
"The eternal vamp bit. Always on stage. She was relentless. She'd turn
on for guys everywhere -- at the grocery store, on the street, in cafes,
everywhere and to anybody. It didn't matter who it was as long as it was a
man. She even turned on for a guy who dialed a wrong number. I couldn't go
it anymore."
"You alone now?"
"No, I've got another one. Brenda. You've met her."
"Oh yeah. Brenda. She's all right."
Harry sat there drinking beer. Harry never had a woman but he was
always talking about them. There was something sickening about Harry. Robert
didn't encourage the conversation and Harry soon left. Robert went to the
closet and brought Stella out.
"You god damned whore!" he said. "You've been cheating on me, haven't
you?"
Stella didn't answer. She stood there looking so cool and prim. He
slapped her a good one. It'd be a long day in the sun before any woman got
away with cheating on Bob Wilkenson. He slapped her another good one.
"Cunt! You'd fuck a four-year-old boy if he could get his pecker up,
wouldn't you?"
He slapped her again, then grabbed her and kissed her. He kissed her
again and again. Then he ran his hands up under her dress. She was well-
shaped, very well-shaped. Stella reminded him of an algebra teacher he'd had
in high school. Stella didn't have on panties.
"Whore," he said, "who got your panties?"
Then his penis was pressed against the front of her. There was no
opening. But Robert was in a tremendous passion. He inserted it between the
upper thighs. It was smooth and tight. He worked away. For just a moment he
felt extremely foolish, then his passion took over and he began kissing her
along the neck as he worked.
Robert washed Stella with a dishrag, placed her in the closet behind an
overcoat, closed the door and still managed to get in the last quarter of
the Detroit Lions vs. L.A. Rams game on T.V.
It was quite nice for Robert as time went on. He made certain
adjustments. He bought Stella several pairs of underpants, a garter belt,
sheer long stockings, an ankle bracelet.
He bought her earrings too, and was quite shocked to learn that his
love didn't have any ears. Under all that hair, the ears were missing. He
put the earrings on anyhow with adhesive tape. But there were advantages --
he didn't have to take her to dinner, to parties, to dull movies; all those
mundane things that meant so much to the average woman. And there were
arguments. There would always be arguments, even with a mannequin. She
wasn't talkative but he was sure she told him once, "You're the greatest
lover of them all. That old Jew was a dull lover. You love with soul,
Robert."
Yes, there were advantages. She wasn't like all the other women he had
known. She didn't want to make love at inconvenient moments. He could choose
the time. And she didn't have periods. And he went down on her. He cut some
of the hair from her head and pasted it between her thighs.
The affair was sexual to begin with but gradually he was falling in
love with her, he could feel it happening. He considered going to a
psychiatrist, then decided not to. After all, was it necessary to love a
real human being? It never lasted long. There were too many differences
between the species, and what started as love too often ended up as war.
Then too, he didn't have to lie in bed with Stella and listen to her
talk about all her past lovers. How Karl had such a big thing, but Karl
wouldn't go down. And how Louie danced so well, Louie could have made it in
ballet instead of selling insurance. And how Marty could really kiss. He had
a way of locking tongues. So on. So forth. What shit. Of course, Stella had
mentioned the old Jew. But just that once.
Robert had been with Stella about two weeks when Brenda phoned.
"Yes, Brenda?" he answered.
"Robert, you haven't phoned me."
"I've been terribly busy, Brenda. I've been promoted to district
manager and I've had to realign things down at the office."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Robert, something's wrong ..."
"What do you mean?"
"I can tell by your voice. Something's wrong. What the hell's wrong,
Robert? Is there another woman?"
"Not exactly."
"What do you mean, not exactly?"
"Oh, Christ!"
"What is it? What is it? Robert, something's wrong. I'm coming over to
see you."
"There's nothing wrong, Brenda."
"You son of a bitch, you're holding out on me! Something's going on.
I'm coming to see you! Now!"
Brenda hung up and Robert walked over and picked up Stella and put her
in the closet, well back in one corner. He took the overcoat off the hanger
and hung it over Stella. Then he came back, sat down and waited.
Brenda opened the door and rushed in. "All right, what the hell's
wrong? What is it?"
"Listen, kid," he said, "it's o.k. Calm down."
Brenda was nicely built. Her breasts sagged a bit, but she had fine
legs and a beautiful ass. Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could
never cure her eyes of that. Sometimes after love-making a temporary calm
would fill her eyes but it never lasted.
"You haven't even kissed me yet!"
Robert got up from his chair and kissed Brenda.
"Christ, that was no kiss! What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong!"
"It's nothing, nothing at all . . ."
"If you don't tell me, I'm going to scream!"
"I tell you, it's nothing."
Brenda screamed. She walked to the window and screamed. You could hear
her all over the neighborhood. Then she stopped.
"God, Brenda, don't do that again! Please, please!"
"I'll do it again! I'll do it again! Tell me what's wrong, Robert, or
I'll do it again!"
"All right," he said, "wait."
Robert went to the closet, took the overcoat off Stella and 'if led her
out of the closet.
"What's that?" asked Brenda, "what's that?"
"A mannequin."
"A mannequin? You mean? . . ."
"I mean, I'm in love with her."
"Oh, my god I You mean? That thing? That tiling?"
"Yes."
"You love that thing more than me? That hunk of celluloid, or
whatever the shit she's made of? You mean you love that thing more
than me?"
"Yes."
"I suppose you take it to bed with you? I suppose you do things to ...
with that thing?"
"Yes."
"Oh . . ."
Then Brenda really screamed. She just stood there and screamed. Robert
thought she would never stop. Then she leaped at the mannequin and started
to claw and beat at it. The mannequin toppled and fell against the wall.
Brenda ran out the door, got in her car and drove off wildly. She crashed
into the side of a parked car, glanced off, drove on.
Robert walked over to Stella. The head had broken off and rolled under
a chair. There were spurts of chalky material on the floor. One arm hung
loosely, broken, two wires protruding. Robert sat down in a chair. He just
sat there. Then he got up and went into the bathroom, stood there a minute,
and came back out. He stood in the hallway and could see the head under the
chair. He began to sob. It was terrible. He didn't know what to do. He
remembered how he had buried his mother and his father. But this was
different. This was different. He just stood in the hallway, sobbing and
waiting. Both of Stella's eyes were open and cool and beautiful. They stared
at him.
A COUPLE OF WINOS
I was in my 20's and although I was drinking heavily and not eating, I
was still strong. I mean, physically, and that's some luck for you when not
much else is going right. My mind was in riot against my lot and life, and
the only way I could calm it was to drink and drink and drink. I was walking
up the road, it was dusty and dirty and hot, and I believe the state was
California, but I'm no longer sure. It was desert land. I was walking along
the road, my stockings hard and rotted and stinking, the nails were coming
up through the soles of my shoes and into my feet and I had to keep
cardboard in my shoes -- cardboard, newspaper, anything that I could find.
The nails worked through that, and you either got some more or you turned
the stuff around, or upsidedown, or reshaped it.
The truck stopped alongside of me. I ignored it and kept walking. The
truck started up again and the guy rode along beside me.
"Kid," the guy said, " you want a job?"
"Who've I got to kill?' I asked.
"Nobody," said the guy, "come on, get in."
I went around to the other side and when I got there the door was open.
I stepped up on the running board, slid in, pulled the door shut and leaned
back in the leather seat. I was out of the sun.
"You wanna suck me," said the guy, "you get five bucks."
I put the right hand hard into his gut, got the left somewhere in
between the ear and the neck, came back with the right to the mouth and the
truck ran off the road. I grabbed the wheel and steered it back. Then I cut
the motor and braked. I climbed out and continued to walk along the road.
About five minutes later the truck was running along next to me again.
"Kid," said the guy, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean you
were a homo. I mean, though, you kind of half-look like a homo. Is there
anything wrong with being a homo?"
"I guess if you're a homo there's not."
"Come on," said the guy, "get in. I got a real honest job for you. You
can make some money, get on your feet."
I climbed in again. We drove off.
"I'm sorry," he said, "you got a real tough face, but look at your
hands. You got ladies' hands."
"Don't worry about my hands," I said.
"Well, it's a tough job. Loadin' ties. You ever loaded ties?
"No."
"It's hard work."
"I've done hard work all my life."
"O.k.," said the guy, "o.k."
We drove along not talking, the truck rocking back and forth. There was
nothing but dust, dust and desert. The guy didn't have much of a face, he
didn't have much of anything. But sometimes small people who stay in the
same place for a long time achieve minor prestige and power. He had the
truck and he was hiring. Sometimes you have to go along with that.
We drove along and there was an old guy walking along the road. He must
have been in his mid-forites. That's old for the road. This Mr. Burkhart,
he'd told me his name, slowed his truck and asked the old guy. "Hey, buddy,
you want to make a couple of bucks?"
"Oh, yes sir!" said the old guy.
"Move over. Let him in," said Mr. Burkhart.
The old guy got in and he really stank -- of booze and sweat and agony
and death. We drove on until we came to a small group of buildings. We got
out with Burkhart and walked into a store. There was a guy in a green
sunshade with a bunch of rubber bands around his left wrist. He was bald but
his arms were covered with sickly long blond hair.
"Hello, Mr. Burkhart," he said, "I see you found yourself a couple more
winos."
"Here's the list, Jesse," said Mr. Burkhart, and Jesse walked about
filling orders. It took some time. Then he was finished. "Anything else, Mr.
Burkhart? A couple cheap bottles of wine?"
"No wine for me," I said.
"O.k.," said the old guy, "I'll take both bottles."
"It'll come off your pay," Burkhart told the old guy.
"It doesn't matter," said the old guy, "take it off my pay."
"You sure you don't want a bottle?" Burkhart asked me.
"All right," I said, "I'll take a bottle."
We had a tent and that night we drank the wine and the old guy told me
his troubles. He'd lost his wife. He still loved his wife. He thought about
her all the time. A great woman. He used to teach mathematics. But he'd lost
his wife. Never a woman like her. Blah blah blah.
Christ, when we woke up the old guy was sick and I wasn't feeling much
better and the sun was up and out and we went to do our job: stacking
railroad ties. You had to stack them into ricks. The bottom stacking was
easy. But as we got higher we had to count. "One, two, three," I'd count and
then we'd let her go.
The old guy had a bandanna tied around his head and the booze poured
out of his head and into the bandanna and the bandanna got soaked and dark.
Every now and then a sliver from one of the railroad ties would knife
through the rotten glove and into my hand. Ordinarily the pain would have
been unbearable and I would have quit but fatigue dulled the senses, really
properly dulled them. I just got angry when it happened -- like I wanted to
kill somebody, but when I looked around there was only sand and cliffs and
the overn dry bright yellow sun and no place to go.
Every now and then the railroad company would rip up the old ties and
replace them with new ones. They left the old ties laying beside the tracks.
There wasn't much wrong with the old ties but the railroad left them laying
around and Burkhart had guys like us stack them into ricks which he toted
off in his truck and sold. I guess they had a lot of uses. On some of the
ranches you'd see them stuck in the ground and strung with barbed wire and
used as fences. I suppose there were other uses too. I wasn't much
interested.
It was like any other impossible job, you got tired and you wanted to
quit and then you got more tired and forgot to quit, and the minutes didn't
move, you lived forever inside of one minute, no hope, no out, trapped, too
dumb to quit and nowhere to go if you did quit.
"Kid, I lost my wife. She was such a wonderful woman. I keep thinking
of her. A good woman is the greatest thing on earth."
"Yeh."
"If we only had a little wine."
"We don't have any wine. We gotta wait until tonight."
"I wonder if anybody understands winos?"
"Just other winos."
"Do you think those slivers in our hands will creep into our hearts?"
"No chance; we've never been lucky."
Two Indians came by and watched us. They watched us a long time. When
the old guy and I sat down on a tie for a smoke one of the Indians walked
over.
"You guys are doing it all wrong," he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You're working at the height of the desert heat. What you do is get up
early in the morning and get your work done while it's cool."
"You're right," I said, "thanks."
The Indian was right. I decided we'd get up early. But we never made
it. The old guy was always too sick from the night's drinking and I could
never get him up on time.
"Five minutes more," he'd say, "just five minutes more."
Finally, one day, the old man gave out. He couldn't lift another tie.
He kept apologizing about it.
"It's all right, Pops."
We got back to the tent and waited for evening. Pops layed there
talking. He kept talking about his ex-wife. I heard about his ex-wife all
through the day and into the evening. Then Burkhart arrived.
"Jesus Christ, you guys didn't do much today. You figure to live off
the fat of the land?"
"We're through, Burkhart," I said, "we're waiting to get paid."
"I got a good mind not to pay you guys."
"If you got a good mind," I said, "you'll pay."
"Please, Mr. Burkhart," said the old guy, "please, please, we worked so
god damned hard, honest we did!"
"Burkhart knows what we've done," I said, "he's got a count of the
ricks and so have I."
"72 ricks," said Burkhart.
"90 ricks," I said.
"76 ricks," said Burkhart.
"90 ricks," I said.
"80 ricks," said Burkhart.
"Sold," I said.
Burkhart got out his pencil and paper and charged us for wine and food,
transport and lodging. Pops and I each came up with $18 for five day's work.
We took it. And got a free ride back to town. Free? Burkhart had fucked us
from every angle. But we couldn't holler law because when you didn't have
any money the law stopped working.
"By god," said the old guy, "I'm really going to get drunk. I'm going
to get good and drunk. Aren't you, kid?"
"I don't think so."
We went into the only bar in town and sat down and Pops ordered a wine
and I ordered a beer. The old guy started in on his ex-wife again and I
moved down to the other end of the bar. A Mexican girl came down the
stairway and sat down next to me. Why were they always coming down stairways
like that, like in the movies? I even felt like I was in a movie. I bought
her a beer. She said, "My name is Sherri," and I said, "That's isn't
Mexican," and she said, "It doesn't have to be," and I said, "You're right."
And it was five dollars upstairs and she washed me off first, and then
later. She washed me off out of a little white bowl that had painted baby
chickens chasing each other around the bowl. She made the same money in ten
minutes that I had made in a day with some hours thrown in. Monetarily
speaking, it seemed sure as shit you were better off having a pussy than a
cock.
When I came down the stairay the old guy already had his head down on
the bar; it had gotten to him. We hadn't eaten that day and he had no
resistance. There was a dollar and some change by his head. For a moment I
thought of taking him with me but I couldn't take care of myself. I walked
outside. It was cool and I walked north.
I felt bad about leaving Pops there for the small town vultures. Then I
wondered if the old guy's wife ever thought about him. I decided that she
didn't, or if she did, it was hardly in the same way he thought about her.
The whole earth crawled with sad hurt people like him. I needed a place to
sleep. The bed I had been in with the Mexican girl had been the first I had
been in for three weeks.
Some nights earlier I had found that when it got cold the slivers in my
hand began to throb. I could feel where each one was. It began to get cold.
I can't say that I hated the world of men and women, but I felt a certain
disgust that separated me from the craftsmen and tradesmen and liars and
lovers, and now decades later I feel that same disgust. Of course, this is
only one man's story or one man's view of reality. If you'll keep reading
maybe the next story will be happier. I hope so.
MAJA THURUP
It had gotten extensive press coverage and T.V. coverage and the lady
was to write a book about it. The lady's name was Hester Adams, twice
divorced, two children. She was 35 and one guessed that it was her last
fling. The wrinkles were appearing, the breasts had been sagging for some
time, the ankles and calves were thickening, there were signs of a belly.
America had been taught that beauty only resided in youth, especially in the
female. But Hester Adams had the dark beauty of frustration and upcoming
loss; it crawled all over her, the upcoming loss, and it gave her a sexual
something, like a desperate and fading woman sitting in a bar full of men.
Hester had looked around, seen few signs of help from the American male, and
had gotten onto a plane for South America. She had entered the jungle with
her camera, her portable typewriter, her thickening ankles and her white
skin and had gotten herself a cannibal, a black cannibal: Maja Thurup. Maja
Thurup had a good look to his face. His face appeared to be written over
with one thousand hangovers and one thousand tragedies. And it was true --
he had had one thousand hangovers, but the tragedies all came from the same
root: Maja Thurup was overhung, vastly overhung. No girl in the village
would accept him. He had torn two girls to death with his instrument. One
had been entered from the front, the other from the rear. No matter.
Maja was a lonely man and he drank and brooded over his loneliness
until Hester Adams had come with guide and white skin and camera. After
formal introductions and a few drinks by the fire, Hester had entered Maja's
hut and taken all Maja Thurup could muster and had asked for more. It was a
miracle for both of them and they were married in a three-day tribal
ceremony, during which captured enemy tribesmen were roasted and consumed
amid dancing, incantation, and drunkenness. It was after the ceremony, after
the hangovers had cleared away that trouble began. The medicine man, having
noted that Hester did not partake of the flesh of the roasted enemy
tribesmen (garnished with pineapple, olives, and nuts) announced to one and
all that this was not a white goddess, but one of the daughters of the evil
god Ritikan. (Centuries ago Ritikan had been expelled from the tribal heaven
for his refusal to eat anything but vegetables, fruits, and nuts.) This
announcement caused dissension in the tribe and two friends of Maja Thurup
were promptly murdered for suggesting that Hester's handling of Maja's
overhang was a miracle in itself and the fact that she didn't ingest other
forms of human meat could be forgiven -- temporarily, at least.
Hester and Maja fled to America, to North Hollywood to be precise,
where Hester began procedings to have Maja Thurup become an American
citizen. A former schoolteacher, Hester began instructing Maja in the use of
clothing, the English language, California beer and wines, television, and
foods purchased at the nearby Safeway market. Maja not only looked at
television, he appeared on it along with Hester and they declared their love
publicly. Then they went back to their North Hollywood apartment and made
love. Afterwards Maja sat in the middle of the rug with his English grammar
books, drinking beer and wine, and singing native chants and playing the
bongo. Hester worked on her book about Maja and Hester. A major publisher
was waiting. All Hester had to do was get it down.
One morning I was in bed about 8:00 a.m. The day before I had lost $40
at Santa Anita, my savings account at California Federal was getting
dangerously low, and I hadn't written a decent story in a month. The phone
rang. I woke up, gagged, coughed, picked it up.
"Chinaski?"
"Yeah?"
"This is Dan Hudson."
Dan ran the magazine Flare out of Chicago. He paid well. He was
the editor and publisher.
"Hello, Dan, mother."
"Look, I've got just the thing for you."
"Sure, Dan. What is it?"
"I want you to interview this bitch who married the cannibal. Make the
sex BIG. Mix love with horror, you know?"
"I know. I've been doing it all my life."
"There's $500 in it for you if you beat the March 27 deadline."
"Dan, for $500,1 can make Burt Reynolds into a lesbian."
Dan gave me the address and phone number. I got up, threw water on my
face, had two Alka-Seltzers, opened a bottle of beer and phoned Hester
Adams. I told her that I wanted to publicize her relationship with Maja
Thurup as one of the great love stories of the 20th century. For the readers
of Flare magazine. I assured her that it would help Maja obtain his
American citizenship. She agreed to an interview at 1:00 p.m.
It was a walk-up apartment on the third floor. She opened the door.
Maja was sitting on the floor with his bongo drinking a fifth of medium
priced port from the bottle. He was barefooted, dressed in tight jeans, and
in a white t-shirt with black zebra-stripes. Hester was dressed in an
identical outfit. She brought me a bottle of beer, I picked up a cigarette
from the pack on the coffee table and began the interview.
"You first met Maja when?"
Hester gave me a date. She also gave me the exact time and place.
"When did you first begin to have love feelings for Maja? What exactly
were the circumstances which tripped them off?"
"Well," said Hester, "it was . . ."
"She love me when I give her the thing," said Maja from the rug.
"He has learned English quite quickly, hasn't he?"
"Yes, he's brilliant."
Maja picked up his bottle and drained off a good slug.
"I put this thing in her, she say, 'Oh my god oh my god oh my god!' Ha,
ha, ha, ha!"
"Maja is marvelously built," she said.
"She eat too," said Maja, "she eat good. Deep throat, ha, ha, ha!"
"I loved Maja from the beginning," said Hester, "it was his eyes, his
face ... so tragic. And the way he walked. He walks, well, he walks
something like a tiger."
"Fuck," said Maja, "we fuck we fucky fuck fuck fuck. I am getting
tired."
Maja took another drink. He looked at me.
"You fuck her. I am tired. She big hungry tunnel."
"Maja has a genuine sense of humor," said Hester, "that's another thing
that has endeared him to me."
"Only thing dear you to me," said Maja, "is my telephone pole piss-
shooter."
"Maja has been drinking since this morning," said Hester, "you'll have
to excuse him."
"Perhaps I'd better come back when he's feeling better."
"I think you should."
Hester gave me an appointment at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon the next
day.
It was just as well. I needed photographs. I knew a down-and-out
photographer, one Sam Jacoby who was good and would do the work cheap. I
took him back there with me. It was a sunny afternoon with only a thin layer
of smog. We walked up and I rang. There was no answer. I rang again. Maja
answered the door.
"Hester not in," he said, "she gone to grocery store."
"We had an appointment for 2:00 o'clock. I'd like to come in and wait."
We walked in and sat down.
"I play drums for you," said Maja.
He played the drums and sang some jungle chants. He was quite good. He
was working on another bottle of port wine. He was still in his zebra-
striped t-shirt and jeans.
"Fuck fuck fuck," he said, "that's all she want. She make me mad."
"You miss the jungle, Maja?"
"You just ain't just shittin' upstream, daddy."
"But she loves you, Maja."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
Maja played us another drum solo. Even drunk he was good.
When Maja finished Sam said to me, "You think she might have a
beer in the refrigerator?"
"She might."
"My nerves are bad. I need a beer."
"Go ahead. Get two. I'll buy her some more. I should have brought
some."
Sam got up and walked into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door
open.
"I'm writing an article about you and Hester," I said to Maja.
"Big-hole woman. Never fill. Like volcano."
I heard Sam vomiting in the kitchen. He was a heavy drinker. I knew he
was hungover. But he was still one of the best photographers around. Then it
was quiet. Sam came walking out. He sat down. He didn't have a beer with
him.
"I play drums again," said Maja. He played the drums again. He was
still good. Though not as good as the preceding time. The wine was getting
to him.
"Let's get out of here," Sam said to me.
"I have to wait for Hester," I said.
"Man, let's go," said Sam.
"You guys want some wine?" asked Maja.
I got up and walked into the kitchen for a beer. Sam followed me. I
moved toward the refrigerator.
"Please don't open that door!" he said.
Sam walked over to the sink and vomited again. I looked at the
refrigerator door. I didn't open it. When Sam finished, I said, "O.k., let's
go."
We walked into the front room where Maja still sat by his bongo.
"I play drum once more," he said.
"No, thanks, Maja."
We walked out and down the stairway and out to the street. We got into
my car. I drove off. I didn't know what to say. Sam didn't say anything. We
were in the business district. I drove into a gas station and told the
attendant to fill it up with regular. Sam got out of the car and walked to
the telephone booth to call the police. I saw Sam come out of the phone
booth. I paid for the gas. I hadn't gotten my interview. I was out $500. I
waited as Sam walked toward the car.
THE KILLERS
Harry had just gotten off the freight and was walking down Alameda
toward Pedro's for a nickel cup of coffee. It was early morning but he
remembered they used to open at 5 a.m. You could sit in Pedro's for a couple
of hours for a nickel. You could do some thinking. You could remember where
you'd gone wrong, or where you'd gone right.
They were open. The Mexican girl who gave him his coffee looked at him
as if he were a human being. The poor knew life. A good girl. Well, a good
enough girl. They all meant trouble. Everything meant trouble. He remembered
a statement he'd heard somewhere: the Definition of Life is Trouble.
Harry sat down at one of the old tables. The coffee was good. Thirty-
eight years old and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered
where he had gone wrong -- or right. He'd simply gotten tired -- of the
insurance game, of the small offices and high glass partitions, the clients;
he'd simply gotten tired of cheating on his wife, of squeezing secretaries
in the elevator and in the halls;
he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's parties and
birthdays, and payments on new cars and furniture payments -- light, gas,
water -- the whole bleeding complex of necessities.
He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soon enough
and the drinking came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had
nothing, and he found out that having nothing was difficult too. It was
another type of burden. If only there were some gentler road in between. It
seemed a man only had two choices -- get in on the hustle or be a bum.
As Harry looked up a man sat down across from him, also with a nickel
cup of coffee. He appeared to be in his early forties. And was dressed as
poorly as Harry. The man rolled a cigarette, then looked at Harry as he lit
it.
"How's it going?"
"That's some question," said Harry.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
They sat drinking their coffee.
"A man wonders how he gets down here."
"Yeah," said Harry.
"By the way, if it matters, my name's William."
"I'm called Harry."
"You can call me Bill."
"Thanks."
"You got the look on your face like you've reached the end of
something."
"I'm just tired of the bum, bone-tired."
"You want to get back into society, Harry?"
"No, not that. But I'd like to get out of this."
"There's suicide."
"I know."
"Listen," said Bill, "what we need is a little cash the easy way so we
can get a breather."
"Sure, but how?"
"Well, there's some risk involved."
"Like what?"
"I used to do some house burglaring. It's not bad. I could use a good
partner."
"O.k., I'm just about ready to try anything. I'm sick of watery beans,
week-old doughnuts, the mission, the God-lectures, the snoring..."
"Our problem is how to get where we can operate," said Bill.
"I got a couple of bucks."
"All right, meet me about midnight. Got a pencil?" "No." "Wait. I'll
borrow one."
Bill came back with a stub of pencil. He took a napkin and wrote on it.
"You take the Beverly Hills bus and ask the driver to let you off here.
Then walk two blocks north. I'll be there waiting. You gonna make it?"
"I'll be there."
"You got a wife, kids?" asked Bill. "Used to have," Harry answered.
It was cold that night. Harry got off the bus and walked the two blocks
north. It was dark, very dark. Bill was standing smoking a rolled cigarette.
He wasn't standing in the open but was back against a large bush.
"Hello, Bill."
"Hello; Harry. You ready to start your new lucrative career?"
"I am."
"All right. I've been casing these places. I think I've got us a good
one. Isolated. It stinks of money. You scared?"
"No. I'm not scared."
"Fine. Be cool and follow me."
Harry followed Bill along the sidewalk for a block and a half, then
Bill cut between two shrubs and onto a large lawn. They walked to .the back
of the house, a large two storey affair. Bill stopped at the rear window. He
sliced the screen with a knife, then stood still and listened. It was like a
graveyard. Bill unhooked the screen and lifted it off. He stood there
working at the window. Bill worked at it for some time and Harry began to
think: Jesus. I'm with an amateur. I'm with some kind of nut. Then the
window opened and Bill climbed in. Harry could see his ass wiggling in. This
is ridiculous, he thought. Do men do this?
"Come on," Bill said softly from inside.
Harry climbed in. It did stink of money and furniture polish.
"Jesus. Bill. I'm scared now. This doesn't make any sense."
"Don't talk so loud. You want to get away from those watery beans,
don't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then be a man."
Harry stood while Bill slowly opened drawers and put things in his
pockets. They appeared to be in a dining room. Bill was stuffing spoons and
knives and forks into his pockets.
How can we get anything for that? thought Harry.
Bill kept putting the silverware into his coat pockets. Then he dropped
a knife. The floor was hard, without a rug, and the sound was definite and
loud.
"Who's there?"
Bill and Harry didn't answer.
"I said, who's there?"
"What is it, Seymour?" said a girl's voice.
"I thought I heard something. Something woke me up."
"Oh go to sleep."
"No. I heard something."
Harry heard the sound of a bed and then the sound of a man walking. The
man came through the door and was in the dining room with them. He was in
his pajamas, a young man of about 26 or 27 with a goatee and long hair.
"All right, you pricks, what are you doing in my house?"
Bill turned toward Harry. "Get into that bedroom. There might be a
phone there. See that she doesn't use it. I'll take care of this one."
Harry walked toward the bedroom, found the entrance, walked in, saw a
young blonde about 23, long hair, in a fancy nightgown, her breasts loose.
There was a telephone by the night stand and she wasn't using it. She flung
the back of her hand to her mouth. She was sitting up in bed.
"Don't scream," said Harry, "or I'll kill you."
He stood there looking down at her, thinking of his own wife, but never
a wife like that. Harry began to sweat, he felt dizzy and they stared at
each other.
Harry sat down on the bed.
"Leave my wife alone or I'll kill you!" said the young man. Bill had
just walked him in. He had an arm lock on him and his knife was poking into
the middle of the young man's back.
"Nobody's going to hurt your wife, man. Just tell us where your
stinking money is and we'll leave."
"I told you all I've got is what's in my wallet."
Bill tightened the arm lock and drove the knife in a bit. The young man
winced.
"The jewelry," said Bill, "take me to the jewelry."
"It's upstairs ..."
"All right. Take me there!"
Harry watched Bill walk him out. Harry kept staring at the girl and she
stared back. Blue eyes, and the irises were large with fear.
"Don't scream," he told her, "or I'll kill you, so help me I'll kill
you!"
Her lips began to tremble. They were the palest pink and then his mouth
was upon hers. He was bewhiskered and foul, rancid, and she was white, soft
white, delicate, trembling. He held her head in his hands. He pulled his
head away and looked into her eyes. "You whore," he said, "you god damned
whore!" He kissed her again, harder. They fell back on the bed together. He
was kicking his shoes off, holding her down. Then he was working his pants,
getting them off, and all the time holding and kissing her. "You whore, you
god damned whore . . ."
"Oh No! Jesus Christ, No! Not my wife, you bastards!"
Harry had not heard them enter. The young man let out a scream. Then
Harry heard a gurgle. He pulled out and looked around. The young man was on
the floor with his throat cut; the blood spurted rhythmically out on the
floor.
"You've killed him!" said Harry.
"He was screaming."
"You didn't have to kill him."
"You didn't have to rape his wife."
"I haven't raped her and you've killed him."
Then she began to scream. Harry put his hand over her mouth.
"What are we going to do?" he asked.
"We're going to kill her too. She's a witness."
"I can't kill her," said Harry.
"I'll kill her," said Bill.
"But we shouldn't waste her."
"Go ahead then, get her."
"Stick something in her mouth."
"I'll take care of it," said Bill. He got a scarf out of the drawer,
stuck it in her mouth. Then he ripped the pillow slip into shreds and bound
the scarf in.
"Go ahead," said Bill.
The girl didn't resist. She seemed to be in a state of shock.
When Harry got off. Bill got on. Harry watched. This was it. This was
the way it worked all over the world. When a conquering army came in, they
took the women. They were the conquering army.
Bill climbed off. "Shit, that sure was good."
"Listen, Bill, let's not kill her."
"She'll tell. She's a witness."
"If we spare her life, she won't tell. It'll be worth it to her."
"She'll tell. I know human nature. She'll tell later."
"Why shouldn't she tell on people who do what we do?"
"That's what I mean," said Bill, "why let her?"
"Let's ask her. Let's talk to her. Let's ask her what she thinks."
"I know what she thinks. I'm going to kill her."
"Please don't, Bill. Let's show some decency."
"Show some decency? Now? It's too late. If you'd only been man enough
to keep your stupid pecker out of there ..."
"Don't kill her. Bill, I can't. .. stand it.. ."
"Turn your back."
"Bill, please . . ."
"I said, turn your god damned back!"
Harry turned away. There didn't seem to be a sound. Minutes passed.
"Bill, did you do it?"
"I did it. Turn around and look."
"I don't want to. Let's go. Let's get out of here."
They went out the same window they had entered. The night was colder
than ever. They went down the dark side of the house and out through the
hedge.
"Bill?"
"Yeah?"
"I feel o.k. now, like it never happened."
"It happened."
They walked back toward the bus stop. The night stops were far between,
they'd probably have to wait an hour. They stood at the bus stop and checked
each other for blood and, strangely, they didn't find any. So they rolled
and lit two cigarettes.
Then Bill suddenly spit his out.
"God damn it. Oh, god damn it all!"
"What's the matter, Bill?"
"We forgot to get his wallet!"
"Oh fuck," said Harry.
A MAN
George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small
portable T.V. His dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were
undone, he needed a shave, and ash from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto
his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning. Sometimes the burning ash
missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing it away.
There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and
answered the door. It was Constance. She had a fifth of unopened whiskey in
a bag.
"George, I left that son of a bitch, I couldn't stand that son of a
bitch anymore."
"Sit down."
George opened the fifth, got two glasses, filled each a third with
whiskey, two thirds with water. He sat down on the bed with Constance. She
took a cigarette out of her purse and lit it. She was drunk and her hands
trembled.
"I took his damn money too. I took his damn money and split while he
was at work. You don't know how I've suffered with that son of a bitch." "
Lemme have a smoke," said George. She handed it to him and as she
leaned near, George put his arm around her, pulled her over and kissed her.
"You son of a bitch," she said, "I missed you."
"I miss those good legs of yours , Connie. I've really missed those
good legs."
"You still like 'em?"
"I get hot just looking."
"I could never make it with a college guy," said Connie. "They're too
soft, they're milktoast. And he kept his house clean. George , it was like
having a maid. He did it all. The place was spotless. You could eat beef
stew right off the crapper. He was antisceptic, that's what he was."
"Drink up, you'll feel better."
"And he couldn't make love."
"You mean he couldn't get it up?"
"Oh he got it up, he got it up all the time. But he didn't know how to
make a woman happy, you know. He didn't know what to do. All that money, all
that education, he was useless."
"I wish I had a college education."
"You don't need one. You have everything you need, George."
"I'm just a flunkey. All the shit jobs."
"I said you have everything you need, George. You know how to make a
woman happy."
"Yeh?"
"Yes. And you know what else? His mother came around! His mother! Two
or three times a week. And she'd sit there looking at me, pretending to like
me but all the time she was treating me like I was a whore. Like I was a big
bad whore stealing her son away from her! Her precious Wallace! Christ! What
a mess!" "He claimed he loved me. And I'd say, 'Look at my pussy, Walter!'
And he wouldn't look at my pussy. He said, 'I don't want to look at that
thing.' That thing! That's what he called it! You're not afraid of my pussy,
are you, George?"
"It's never bit me yet." "But you've bit it, you've nibbled it, haven't
you George?"
"I suppose I have."
"And you've licked it , sucked it?"
"I suppose so."
"You know damn well, George, what you've done."
"How much money did you get?"
"Six hundred dollars."
"I don't like people who rob other people, Connie."
"That's why you're a fucking dishwasher. You're honest. But he's such
an ass, George. And he can afford the money, and I've earned it... him and
his mother and his love, his mother-love, his clean l;ittle wash bowls and
toilets and disposal bags and breath chasers and after shave lotions and his
little hard-ons and his precious love-making. All for himself, you
understand, all for himself! You know what a woman wants, George."
"Thanks for the whiskey, Connie. Lemme have another cigarette."
George filled them up again. "I missed your legs, Connie. I've really
missed those legs. I like the way you wear those high heels. They drive me
crazy. These modern women don't know what they're missing. The high heel
shapes the calf, the thigh, the ass; it puts rythm into the walk. It really
turns me on!"
"You talk like a poet, George. Sometimes you talk like that. You are
one hell of a dishwasher."
"You know what I'd really like to do?"
"What?"
"I'd like to whip you with my belt on the legs, the ass, the thighs.
I'd like to make you quiver and cry and then when you're quivering and
crying I'd slam it into you pure love."
"I don't want that, George. You've never talked like that to me before.
You've always done right with me."
"Pull your dress up higher."
"What?"
"Pull your dress up higher, I want to see more of your legs."
"You like my legs, don't you, George?"
"Let the light shine on them!"
Constance hiked her dress.
"God christ shit," said George.
"You like my legs?"
"I love your legs!" Then george reached across the bed and slapped
Constance hard across the face. Her cigarette flipped out of her mouth.
"what'd you do that for?"
"You fucked Walter! You fucked Walter!"
"So what the hell?"
"So pull your dress up higher!"
"No!"
"Do what I say!" George slapped again, harder. Constance hiked her
skirt.
"Just up to the panties!" shouted George. "I don't quite want to see
the panties!"
"Christ, george, what's gone wrong with you?"
"You fucked Walter!"
"George, I swear, you've gone crazy. I want to leave. Let me out of
here, George!"
"Don't move or I'll kill you!"
"You'd kill me?"
"I swear it!" George got up and poured himself a shot of straight
whiskey, drank it, and sat down next to Constance. He took the cigarette and
held it against her wrist. She screamed. HE held it there, firmly, then
pulled it away.
"I'm a man , baby, understand that?"
"I know you're a man , George."
"Here, look at my muscles!" george sat up and flexed both of his arms.
"Beautiful, eh ,baby? Look at that muscle! Feel it! Feel it!"
Constance felt one of the arms, then the other.
"Yes, you have a beautiful body, George."
"I'm a man. I'm a dishwasher but I'm a man, a real man."
"I know it, George." "I'm not the milkshit you left."
"I know it."
"And I can sing, too. You ought to hear my voice."
Constance sat there. George began to sing. He sang "Old man River."
Then he sang "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." He sang "The St. Louis
Blues." He sasng "God Bless America," stopping several times and laughing.
Then he sat down next to Constance. He said, "Connie, you have beautiful
legs." He asked for another cigarette. He smoked it, drank two more drinks,
then put his head down on Connie's legs, against the stockings, in her lap,
and he said, "Connie, I guess I'm no good, I guess I'm crazy, I'm sorry I
hit you, I'm sorry I burned you with that cigarette."
Constance sat there. She ran her fingers through George's hair,
stroking him, soothing him. Soon he was asleep. She waited a while longer.
Then she lifted his head and placed it on the pillow, lifted his legs and
straightened them out on the bed. She stood up, walked to the fifth, poured
a jolt of good whiskey in to her glass, added a touch of water and drank it
sown. She walked to the trailer door, pulled it open, stepped out, closed
it. She walked through the backyard, opened the fence gate, walked up the
alley under the one o'clock moon. The sky was clear of clouds. The same
skyful of clouds was up there. She got out on the boulevard and walked east
and reached the entrance of The Blue Mirror. She walked in, and there was
Walter sitting alone and drunk at the end of the bar. She walked up and sat
down next to him. "Missed me, baby?" she asked. Walter looked up. He
recognized her. He didn't answer. He looked at the bartender and the
bartender walked toward them They all knew eachother.
CLASS
I am not sure where the place was. Somewhere north-east of California.
Hemingway had just finished a novel, come in from Europe or somewhere, and
he was in the ring fighting somebody. There were newspapermen, critics,
writers -- that tribe -- and also some young ladies sitting in the ringside
seats. I sat down in the last row. Most of the people weren't watching Hem.
They were talking to each other and laughing.
The sun was up. It was some time in the early afternoon. I was watching
Ernie. He had his man, was playing with him. He jabbed and crossed at will.
Then he put the other fellow down. The people looked then. Hem's opponent
was up at 8. Hem moved towards him, then stopped. Ernie pulled out his
mouthpiece, laughed, waved his opponent off. It was too easy a kill. Ernie
walked to his corner. He put his head back and somebody squeezed some water
in his mouth.
I got up from my seat and walked slowly down the aisle between the
seats. I reached up and rapped Hemingway on the side.
"Mr. Hemingway?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"I'd like to put on the gloves with you."
"Do you have any boxing experience?"
"No."
"Go get some."
"I'm here to kick your ass."
Ernie laughed. He said to the guy in the comer, "Get the kid into some
trunks and gloves."
The guy jumped out of the ring and I followed him back up the aisle to
the locker room.
"You crazy, kid?" he asked me.
"I don't know. I don't think so."
"Here. Try on these trunks."
"O.k."
"Oh, oh ... they're too large."
"Fuck it. They're all right."
"O.k., let me tape your hands."
"No tape."
"No tape?"
"No tape."
"How about a mouthpiece?"
"No mouthpiece."
"You gonna fight in them shoes?"
"I'm gonna fight in them shoes."
I lit a cigar and followed him out. I walked down the aisle smoking a
cigar. Hemingway climbed back into the ring and they put on his gloves.
There was nobody in my corner. Finally somebody