on Vicki for all my information. I wasn't much good at
talking to people. Well, then we packed onto a bus, sweating and giggling
and looking at each other. From the end of the bus line to the hotel was
about two blocks and Vicki kept me informed:
"There's a place to eat, and there's a liquor store for you, there's a
bar, and there's a place to eat, and there's another liquor store ..."
The room was all right, in front, right over the water. The T.V. worked
in a vague and hesitant way and I flopped on the bed and watched while Vicki
unpacked. "Oh, I just love this place!" she said, "don't you?"
"Yes."
I got up and went downstairs and across the street and got beer and
ice. I packed the ice in the sink and sunk the beer in. I drank 12 bottles
of beer, had a minor argument of some sort with Vicki after the tenth beer,
drank the other two and went to sleep.
When I woke up, Vicki had bought an ice chest and was drawing on the
cover. Vicki was a child, a Romantic, but I loved her for it. I liad so many
gloomy devils in me that I welcomed it.
"July 1972. Avalon Catalena" she printed on the chest. She didn't know
how to spell. Well, none of us did.
Then she drew me, and underneath: "No neck and bad as hell."
Then she drew a lady, and underneath: "Henry knows a good ass when he
sees one."
And in a circle: "Only God knows what he does with his nose."
And: "Chinaski has gorgeous legs."
She also drew a variety of birds and suns and stars and palm trees and
the ocean.
"Are you able to eat breakfast?" she asked. I'd never been spoiled by
any of my past women. I liked being spoiled; I felt that I deserved to be
spoiled. We went and found a fairly reasonable place where you could eat at
a table outside. Over breakfast she asked me, "Did you really win the
Pulitzer Prize?"
"What Pulitzer Prize?"
"You told me last night you'd won the Pulitzer Prize. $500,000. You
said you got a purple telegram about it."
"A purple telegram?"
"Yes, you said you'd beat out Norman Mailer, Kenneth Koch, Diane
Wakoski, and Robert Creeley."
We finished breakfast and walked around. The whole place didn't add up
to more than five or six blocks. Everybody was seventeen years old. They sat
listlessly waiting. Not everybody. There were a few tourists, old,
determined to have a good time. They peered angrily into shop windows and
walked, stamping the pavements, giving off their rays: I have money, we have
money, we have more money than you have, we are better than you are, nothing
worries us; everything is shit but we are not shit and we know everything,
look at us.
With their pink shirts and green shirts and blue shirts, and square
white rotting bodies, and striped shorts, eyeless eyes and mouthless mouths,
they walked along, very colorful, as if color might wake up death and turn
it into life. They were a carnival of American decay on parade and they had
no idea of the atrocity that they had inflicted upon themselves.
I left Vicki, went upstairs, crouched over the typewriter, and looked
out the window. It was hopeless. All my life I had wanted to be a writer and
now I had my chance and it wouldn't come. There were no bullrings and boxing
matches or young senoritas. There weren't even any insights. I was fucked. I
couldn't get the word down and they'd backed me into a corner. Well, all you
had to do was die. But I'd always imagined it differently. I mean, the
writing. Maybe it was the Leslie Howard movie. Or reading about the life of
Hemingway or D. H. Lawrence. Or Jeffers. You could get started writing in
all sorts of different ways. And then you wrote a while. And met some of the
writers. The good ones and the bad ones. And they all had tinkertoy souls.
You knew it when you got into a room with them. There was only one great
writer every 500 years, and you weren't the one, and they most certainly
weren't the ones. We were fucked.
I turned on the T.V. and watched a bag of doctors and nurses spew their
love-troubles. They never touched. No wonder they were in trouble. All they
did was talk, argue, bitch, search. I went to sleep.
Vicki woke me up. "Oh," she said, "I had the most wonderful time!"
"Yes?"
"I saw this man in a boat and I said 'Where are you going?' and he
said, 'I'm a boat taxi, I take people in and out to their boats,' and I
said, 'o.k.' and it was just fifty cents and I rode around with him for
hours while he took people to their boats. It was wonderful."
"I watched some doctors and nurses," I said, "and I got depressed."
"We boated for hours," said Vicki, "I gave him my hat to wear and he
waited while I got an abalone sandwich. He skinned his leg when he fell off
his motorcycle last night."
"The bells ring here every fifteen minutes. It's obnoxious."
"I got to look in all the boats. All the old drunks were on board. Some
of them had young women dressed in boots. Others had young men. Real old
drunken lechers."
If I only had Vicki's ability to gather information, I thought, I could
really write something. Me: I've got to sit around and wait for it to come
to me. I can manipulate it and squeeze it once it arrives but I can't go
find it. All I can write about is drinking beer, going to the racetrack, and
listening to symphony music. That isn't a crippled life, but it's hardly all
of it either. How did I get so limited? I used to have guts. What happened
to my guts? Do men really get old?
"After I got off the boat I saw a bird. I talked to it. Do you mind if
I buy the bird?"
"No, I don't mind. Where is it?"
"Just a block away. Can we go see him?"
"Why not?"
I got into some clothes and we walked down. Here was this shot of green
with a little red ink spilled over him. He wasn't very much, even for a
bird. But he didn't shit every three minutes like the rest of them, so that
was pleasant.
"He doesn't have any neck. He's just like you. That's why I want him.
He's a peach-faced love-bird."
We came back with the peach-faced love-bird in a cage. We put him on
the table and she called him "Avalon." Vicki sat and talked to him.
"Avalon, hello Avalon . . . Avalon, Avalon, hello Avalon . . . Avalon,
o, Avalon . . ."
I turned on the T.V.
The bar was all right. I sat with Vicki and told her I was going to
break the place up. I used to break up bars in my early days, now I just
talked about breaking them up.
There was a band. I got up and danced. It was easy to dance modern. You
just kicked your arms and legs in any direction, either held your neck stiff
or whipped it like a son of a bitch and they thought you were great. You
could fool people. I danced and worried about my typewriter.
I sat down with Vicki and ordered some more drinks. I grabbed Vicki's
head and pointed her toward the bartender. "Look, she's beautiful, man!
Isn't she beautiful?"
Then Ernie Hemingway walked up with his white rat beard.
"Ernie," I said, "I thought you did it with a shotgun?"
Hemingway laughed.
"What are you drinking?" I asked.
"I'm buying," he said.
Ernie bought us our drinks and sat down. He looked a little thinner.
"I reviewed your last book," I told him. "I gave it a bad review.
Sorry."
"It's all right," said Ernie. "How do you like the island?"
"It's for them," I said.
"Meaning?"
"The public is fortunate. Everything pleases them: icecream cones, rock
concerts, singing, swinging, love, hate, masturbation, hot dogs, country
dances, Jesus Christ, roller skating, spiritualism, capitalism, communism,
circumcision, comic strips, Bob Hope, skiing, fishing murder bowling
debating, anything. They don't expect much and they don't get much. They are
one grand gang."
"That's quite a speech."
"That's quite a public."
"You talk like a character out of early Huxley."
"I think you're wrong. I'm desperate."
"But," said Hemingway, "men become intellectuals in order not to be
desperate."
"Men become intellectuals because they are afraid, not desperate."
"And the difference between afraid and desperate is ..."
"Bingo!" I answered, "an intellectual! . . . my drink . . ."
A little later I told Hemingway about my purple telegram and then Vicki
and I left and went back to our bird and our bed.
"It's no use," I said, "my stomach is raw and contains nine tenths of
my soul."
"Try this," said Vicki and handed me the glass of water and Alka
Seltzer.
"You go and toddle around," I said, "I can't make it today."
Vicki went out and toddled and came back two or three times to see if I
was all right. I was all right. I went out and ate and came back with two
six-packs and found an old movie with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, and
Randolph Scott. 1939. They were all so young. It was incredible. I was
seventeen years old then. But, of course, I'd come through better than them.
I was still alive.
Jesse James. The acting was bad, very bad. Vicki came
back and told me all sorts of amazing things and then she got on the bed
with me and watched Jesse James. When Bob Ford was about to shoot
Jesse (Ty Power) in the back, Vicki let out a moan and ran in the bathroom
and hid. Ford did his thing.
"It's all over," I said, "you can come out now."
That was the highlight of the trip to Catalina. Not much else happened.
Before we left Vicki went to the Chamber of Commerce and thanked them for
giving her such a good time. She also thanked the woman in Davey Jones'
Locker and bought presents for her friends Lita and Walter and Ava and her
son Mike and something for me and something for Annie and something for a
Mr. and Mrs. Croty, and there were some others I have forgotten.
We got on the boat with our bird cage and our bird and our ice chest
and our suitcase and our electric typewriter. I found a spot at the back of
the boat and we sat there and Vicki was sad because it was over. I had met
Hemingway in the street and he had given me the hippie handshake and he
asked me if I was Jewish and if I was coming back, and I said no on the
Jewish and I didn't know if I was coming back, it was up to the lady, and he
said, I don't want to inquire into your personal business, and I said,
Hemingway you sure talk funny, and the whole boat leaned to the left and
rocked and leaped and a young man who looked as if he had recently had
electro-therapy treatment walked around passing out paper bags for the
purpose of vomiting. I thought, maybe the seaplane's best, it's only twelve
minutes and far less people, and San Pedro slowly worked toward us,
civilization, civilization, smog and murder, so much nicer so much nicer,
the madmen and the drunks are the last saints left on earth. I have never
ridden a horse or bowled, nor have I seen the Swiss Alps, and Vicki looked
over at me with this very childish smile, and I thought, she really is an
amazing woman, well, it's time I had a little luck, and I stretched my legs
and looked straight ahead. I needed to take another shit and decided to cut
down on my drinking.
THE WAY THE DEAD LOVE
1.
It was a hotel near the top of a hill, just enough tilt in that hill to
help you run down to the liquor store, and coming back with the bottle, just
enough climb to make the effort worthwhile. The hotel had once been painted
a peacock green, lots of hot flare, but now after the rains, the peculiar
Los Angeles rains that clean and fade everything, the hot green was just
hanging on by its teeth -- like the people who lived inside.
How I moved in there, or why I'd left the previous place, I hardly
remember. It was probably my drinking and not working very much, and the
loud mid-morning arguments with the ladies of the street. And by midmorning
arguments I do not mean 10:30 a.m., I mean 3:30 a.m. Usually if the police
weren't called it ended up with a little note under the door, always in
pencil on torn lined paper: "dear Sir, we are going to have to ask you to
move quick as poscible." One time it happened in mid-afternoon. The
argument was over. We swept up the broken glass, put all the bottles into
paper sacks, emptied the ashtrays, slept, woke up, and I was working away on
top when I heard a key in the door. I was so surprised that I just kept
fanning it in. And there he stood, the little manager, about 45, no hair
except maybe around his ears or balls, and he looked at her on the bottom,
walked up and pointed, "You -- you are OUT OF HERE!" I stopped stroking and
laid flat, looking at him sideways. Then he pointed at me. "And YOU'RE outa
here too!" He turned around, went to the door, closed it quietly and walked
down the hall. I started the machine again and we gave it a farewell good
one.
Anyway, there I was, the green hotel, the faded green hotel, and I was
there with my suitcase full of rags, alone at the time, but I had the rent
money, was sober, and I got a room in the front facing the street, 3rd
floor, phone outside my door in the hall, hotplate in the window, large
sink, small wall refrigerator, a couple of chairs, a table, bed, and the
bathroom down the hall. And although the building was very old, they even
had an elevator -- it had once been a class joint. Now I was there. The
first thing I did was get a bottle and after a drink and killing two roaches
I felt like I belonged. Then I went to the phone and tried to call a lady
who I felt might help me but she was evidently out helping somebody else.
2.
About 3 a.m. somebody knocked. I put on my torn bathrobe and opened the
door. There stood a woman in her bathrobe. "Yeah?" I said. "Yeah?"
"I'm your neighbor. I'm Mitzi. I live down the hall. I saw you at the
telephone today."
"Yeah?" I said.
Then she came around from behind her back and showed it to me. It was a
pint of good whiskey.
"Come on in," I said.
I cleaned out two glasses, opened the pint. "Straight or mixed?"
"About two thirds water."
There was a litle mirror over the sink and she stood there rolling her
hair into curlers. I handed her a glass of stuff and sat down on the bed.
"I saw you in the hall. I could tell by looking at you that you were
nice. I can tell them. Some of them here are not so nice."
"They tell me I am a bastard."
"I don't believe it."
"Neither do I."
I finished my drink. She just sipped on hers so I mixed myself another.
We talked easy talk. I had a third drink. Then I got up and stood behind
her.
"OOOOOOh! Silly boy!"
I jabbed her.
"Ooouch!! You ARE a bastard!"
She had a curler in one hand. I pulled her up and kissed that thin
little old lady's mouth. It was soft and open. She was ready. I put her
drink in her hand, took her to the bed, sat her down. "Drink up." She did. I
walked over and fixed her another. I didn't have anything on under my robe.
The robe fell open and the thing stuck out. God, I'm filthy, I thought. I'm
a ham. I'm in the movies. The family movies of the future. 2490 A.D. I had
difficulty not laughing at myself, walking around hung to that stupid prong.
It was really the whiskey I wanted. A castle in the hills I wanted. A steam
bath. Anything but this. We both sat with our drinks. I kissed her again,
ramming my cigarette-sick tongue down her throat. I came up for air. I
opened her robe and there were her breasts. Not much, poor thing. I reached
down with my mouth and got one. It stretched and sagged like a balloon half-
filled with stale air. I braved on and sucked at the nipple as she took the
prong in her hand and arched her back. We fell backwards like that on the
cheap bed, and with our robes on, I took her there.
3.
His name was Lou, he was an ex-con and ex-hard rock miner. He lived
downstairs in the hotel. His last job had been scrubbing out pots in a place
that made candy. He had lost that one -- like all the others -- drinking.
The unemployment insurance runs out and there we are like rats -- rats with
no place to hide, rats with rent to pay, with bellies that get hungry, cocks
that get hard, spirits that get tired, and no education, no trade. Tough
shit, like they say, this is America. We didn't want much and we couldn't
get that. Tough shit.
I met Lou while drinking, people walking in and out. My room was the
party room. Everybody came. There was an Indian, Dick, who shoplifted
halfpints and stored them in his dresser. Said it gave him a feeling of
security. When we couldn't get a drink anywhere we always used the Indian as
our last resort.
I wasn't very good at shoplifting but I did learn a trick from Alabam,
a thin mustached thief who had once worked for the hospital as an orderly.
You throw your meats and valuables into a large sack and then cover them
with potatoes. The grocer weighs the lot and charges you for potatoes. But I
was best at getting Dick for credit. There were a lot of Dicks in that
neighborhood and the liquor store man was a Dick too. We'd be sitting around
and the last drink would be gone. My first move would be to send somebody
out. "My name's Hank," I'd tell the guy. "Tell Dick, Hank sent you down for
a pint on the cuff, and if there's any questions to phone me." "O.k., o.k.,"
and the guy would go. We'd wait, already tasting the drink, smoking pacing
going crazy. Then the guy would come back. "Dick said 'no!' Dick said your
credit's no good anymore!"
"SHIT!" I would scream.
And I would rise in full red-eyed unshaven indignation. "GOD DAMN,
SHIT, THAT MOTHER!"
I would really be angry, it was an honest anger, I don't know where it
came from. I'd slam the door, take the elevator down and down that hill I'd
go ... dirty mother, that dirty mother! . . . and I'd turn into the liquor
store.
"All right, Dick."
"Hello, Hank."
"I want TWO FIFTHS!" (and I'd name a very good brand.) "Two packs of
smokes, a couple of those cigars, and let's see . . . a can of those
peanuts, yeah."
Dick would line the stuff up in front of me and then he'd stand there.
"Well, ya gonna pay me?"
"Dick, I want this on the bill."
"You already owe me $23.50. You used to pay me, you used to pay a
little every week, I remember it was every Friday night. You ain't paid me
anything in three weeks. You aren't like those other bums. You got class. I
trust you. Can't you just pay me a dollar now and then?"
"Look, Dick, I don't feel like arguing. You gonna put this stuff in a
bag or do you want it BACK?"
Then I'd shove the bottles and stuff toward him and wait, puffing on a
cigarette like I owned the world. I didn't have any more class than a
grasshopper. I felt nothing but fear that he'd do the sensible thing and put
the bottles back on the shelf and tell me to go to hell. But his face would
always sag and he'd put the stuff in the bag, and then I'd wait until he
totalled the new bill. He'd give me the count; I'd nod and walk out. The
drinks always tasted much better under those circumstances. And when I'd
walk in with the stuff for the boys and girls, I was really king.
I was sitting with Lou one night in his room. He was a week be- hind in
his rent and mine was due. We were drinking port wine. We were even rolling
our cigarettes. Lou had a machine for that and they came out pretty good.
The thing was to keep four walls around you. If you had four walls you had a
chance. Once you were out on the street you had no chance, they had you,
they really had you. Why steal something if you can't cook it? How are you
going to screw something if you live in an alley? How are you going to sleep
when everybody in the Union Rescue Mission snores? And steals your shoes?
And stinks? And is insane? You can't even jack-off. You need four walls.
Give a man four walls long enough and it is possible for him to own the
world. So we were a little worried. Every step sounded like the landlady's.
And she was a very mysterious landlady. A young blonde nobody could screw. I
played her very cold thinking she would come to me. She came and knocked all
right, but only for the rent. She had a husband somewhere but we never saw
him. They lived there and they didn't. We were on the plank. We figured if
we could fuck the landlady our troubles would be over. It was one of those
buildings where you screwed every woman as a matter of course, almost as a
matter of obligation. But I couldn't get this one and it made me feel
insecure. So we sat there smoking our rolled cigarettes, drinking our port
wine and the four walls were dissolving, falling away. Talk is best at times
like that. You talk wild, drink your wine. We were cowards because we wanted
to live. We did not want to live too badly but we still wanted to live.
"Well," said Lou, "I think I got it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I poured another wine.
"We work together."
"Sure."
"Now you're a good talker, you tell a lot of interesting stories, it
doesn't matter if they're true or not -- "
"They're true."
"I mean, that doesn't matter. You got a good mouth. Now here's what we
do. There's a class bar down the street, you know it, Molino's. You go in
there. All you need is money for the first drink. We'll pool for that. You
sit down, nurse your drink and look around for a guy flashing a roll. They
get some fat ones in there. You spot the guy and go over to him. You sit
down next to him and turn it on, you turn on the bullshit. He'll like it.
You've even got a vocabulary. O.k. so he'll buy you drinks all night, he'll
drink all night. Keep him drinking. When closing time comes, you lead him
toward Alvarado Street, lead him west past the alley. Tell him you are going
to get him some nice young pussy, tell him anything but lead him west. And
I'll be waiting in the alley with this."
Lou reached around behind the door and came out with a baseball bat, it
was a very large baseball bat, I think at least 42 oz.
"Jesus Christ, Lou, you'll kill him!"
"No, no, you can't kill a drunk, you know that. Maybe if he was sober
it'd kill him, but drunk it'll only knock him out. We take the wallet, split
it two ways."
"Listen, Lou, I'm a nice guy, I'm not like that."
"You're no nice guy; you're the meanest son of a bitch I ever met.
That's why I like you."
4.
I found one. A big fat one. I had been fired by fat stupidities like
him all my life. From worthless, underpaid, dull hard jobs. It was going to
be nice. I got to talking. I didn't know what I was talking about. He was
listening and laughing and nodding his head and buying drinks. He had a
wrist watch, a handful of rings, a full stupid wallet. It was hard work. I
told him stories about prisons, about railroad track gangs, about
whorehouses. He liked the whorehouse stuff.
I told him about the guy who came in every two weeks and paid well. All
he wanted was a whore in a room with him. They both took off their clothes
and played cards and talked. Just sat there. Then after about two hours he'd
get up, get dressed, say goodbye and walk out. Never touch the whore.
"God damn," he said.
"Yeah."
I decided that I wouldn't mind Lou's slugger bat hitting a homer on
that fat skull. What a whammy. What a useless hunk of shit.
"You like young girls?" I asked him.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Around fourteen and a half?"
"Oh jesus, yes."
"There's one coming in on the 1:30 a.m. train from Chicago. She'll be
at my place around 2:10 a.m. She's clean, hot, intelligent. Now I'm takin' a
big chance, so I'm asking ten bucks. That too high?"
"No, that's all right."
"O.k., when this place closes up you come with me."
2 a.m. finally made it, and I walked him out of there, toward the
alley. Maybe Lou wouldn't be there. Maybe the wine would get to him or he'd
just back out. A blow like that could kill a man. Or make him addled for
life. We staggered along in the moonlight. There was nobody else around,
nobody in the streets. It was going to be easy.
We crossed into the alley. Lou was there. But Fatso saw him. He threw
up an arm and ducked as Lou swung. The bat got me right behind the ear.
5.
Lou got his old job back, the one he had lost drinking, and he swore he
was only going to drink on weekends.
"O.k., friend," I told him, "stay away from me, I am drunk and drinking
all the time."
"I know. Hank, and I like you, I like you better than any man I ever
met, only I gotta hold the drinking down to weekends, just Friday and
Saturday nights and nothing on Sunday. I kept missing Monday mornings in the
old days and it cost me my job. I'll stay away but I want you to know that
it has nothing to do with you."
"Only that I'm a wino."
"Yeah, well, there's that."
"O.k., Lou, just don't come knocking on my door until Friday and
Saturday night. You may hear singing and the laughter of beautiful seventeen
year old girls but don't come knocking on my door."
"Man, you screw nothing but bags."
"They look seventeen through the eye of the grape."
He went on to explain the nature of his job, something to do with
cleaning out the inside of candy machines. It was a sticky dirty job. The
boss only hired ex-cons and worked their asses to death. He cussed the ex-
cons brutally all day long and there was nothing they could do about it. He
shorted them on their checks and there was nothing they could do about it.
If they hitched they were fired. A lot of them were on parole. The boss had
them by the balls. "Sounds like a guy who needs to be killed," I told Lou.
"Well, he likes me, he says I am the best worker he ever had, but I hadda
get off the booze, he needed somebody he could depend on. He even had me
over to his place one time to do some painting for him, I painted his
bathroom, did a good job too. He's got a place in the hills, a big place,
and you oughta see his wife. I never knew they made women that way, so
beautiful -- her eyes, her legs, her body, the way she walked, talked,
jesus."
6.
Well, Lou was true to his word. I didn't see him for some time, not
even on weekends, and meanwhile I was going through a kind of personal hell.
I was very jumpy, nerves gone -- a little noise and I'd jump out of my skin.
I was afraid to go to sleep: nightmare after nightmare, each more terrible
than the one which preceded it. You were all right if you went to sleep
totally drunk, that was all right, but if you went to sleep half-drunk or,
worse, sober, then the dreams began, only you were never sure whether you
were sleeping or whether the action was taking place in the room, for when
you slept you dreamed the entire room, the dirty dishes, the mice, the
folding walls, the pair of shit-in pants some whore had left on the floor,
the dripping faucet, the moon like a bullet out there, cars full of the
sober and well-fed, shining headlights through your window, everything,
everything, you were in some sort of dark corner, dark dark, no help, no
reason, no no reason at all, dark sweating corner, darkness and filth, the
stench of reality, the stink of everything: spiders, eyes, landladies,
sidewalks, bars, buildings, grass, no grass, light, no light, nothing
belonging to you. The pink elephants never showed up but plenty of little
men with savage tricks or a looming big man to strangle you or sink his
teeth into the back of your neck, lay on your back and you sweating, unable
to move, this black stinking hairy thing laying there on you on you on you.
If it wasn't that it was sitting during the days, hours of unspeakable
fear, fear opening in the center of you like a giant blossom, you couldn't
analyze it, figure why it was there, and that made it worse. Hours of
sitting in a chair in the middle of a room, run through and stricken.
Shifting or pissing a major effort, nonsense, and combing your hair or
brushing your teeth -- ridiculous and insane acts. Walking through a sea of
fire. Or pouring water into a drinking glass -- it seemed you had no right
to pour water into a drinking glass. I decided I was crazy, unfit, and this
made me feel dirty. I went to the library and tried to find books about what
made people feel the way I was feeling, but the books weren't there or if
they were I couldn't understand them. Going into the library was hardly easy
-- everybody seemed so comfortable, the librarians, the readers, everybody
but me. I even had trouble using the library crapper -- the bums in there,
the queers watching me piss, they all seemed stronger than I -- unworried
and sure. I kept going out and walking across the street, up a winding
stairway in a cement building where they stored thousands of crates of
oranges. A sign on the roof of another building said JESUS SAVES but neither
Jesus or oranges were worth a damn to me walking up that winding stairway
and into that cement building. I always thought, this is where I belong,
inside of this cement tomb.
The thought of suicide was always there, strong, like ants running
along the underside of the wrists. Suicide was the only positive thing.
Everything else was negative. And there was Lou, glad to clean out the
inside of candy machines to stay alive. He was wiser than I.
7.
At this time I met a lady in a bar, a little older than me, very
sensible. Her legs were still good, she had an odd sense of humor, and had
very expensive clothes. She had come down the ladder from some rich man. We
went to my place and lived together. She was a very good piece of ass but
had to drink all the time. Her name was Vicki. We screwed and drank wine,
drank wine and screwed. I had a library card and went to the library every
day. I hadn't told her about the suicide thing. It was always a big joke, my
coming home from the library. I would open the door and she would look at
me.
"What no books?"
"Vicki, they don't have any books in the library."
I'd come in and take the wine bottle (or bottles) out of the bag and
we'd begin.
One time after a week's drinking I decided to kill myself. I didn't
tell her. I figured I'd do it when she was in a bar looking for a "live
one." I didn't like those fat clowns screwing her but she brought me money
and whiskey and cigars. She gave me the bit about me being the only one she
loved. She called me "Mr. Van Bilderass" for some reason I couldn't figure.
She'd get drunk and keep saying, "You think you're hot stuff, you think
you're Mr. Van Bilderass!" All the time I was working on the idea of how to
kill myself. One day I was sure I would do it. It was after a week's
drinking, port wine, we had bought huge jugs and lined them up on the floor
and behind the huge jugs we had lined up ordinary-sized winebottles, 8 or 9
of them, and behind the ordinary-size bottles we had lined up 4 or 5 little
bottles. Night and day got lost. It was just screwing and talking and
drinking, talking and drinking and screwing. Violent arguments that ended in
love-making. She was a sweet little pig of a screw, tight and squirming. One
woman in 200. With most of the rest it is kind of an act, a joke. Anyhow,
maybe because of it all, the drinking and the fact of the fat dull bulls
screwing Vicki, I got very sick and depressed, and yet what the hell could I
do? run a turret-lathe?
When the wine ran out the depression, the fear, the uselessness of
going on became too much and I knew I was going to do it. The first time she
left the room it was over for me. How, I was not quite sure but there were
hundreds of ways. We had a little gas jet stove. Gas is charming. Gas is a
kind of a kiss. It leaves the body whole. The wine was gone. I could hardly
walk. Armies of fear and sweat ran up and down my body. It becomes quite
simple. The greatest relief is never to have to pass another human being on
the sidewalk, see them walking in their fat, see their little rat eyes,
their cruel 2-bit faces, their animal flowering. What a sweet dream: to
never have to look into another human face.
"I'm going out to look at a newspaper, to see what day it is, o.k.?"
"Sure," she said, "sure."
I walked out the door. Nobody in the hall. No humans. It was about 10
p.m. I went down in the urine-smelling elevator. It took a lot of strength
to be swallowed by that elevator. I walked down the hill. When I got back
she would be gone. She moved quickly when the drinks ran out. Then I could
do it. But first I wanted to know what day it was. I walked down the hill
and there by the drugstore was the newspaper rack. I looked at the date on
the newspaper. It was a Friday. Very well, Friday. As good a day as any.
That meant something. Then I read the headline:
MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK
I didn't quite get it. I leaned closer and read it again. It was the
same:
MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK
This was in black type, large type, the banner headline. Of all the
important things that had happened in the world, this was their headline.
MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK
I crossed the street, feeling much better, and walked into the liquor
store. I got two bottles of port and a pack of cigarettes on credit. When I
got back to the place Vicki was still there.
"What day is it?" she asked.
"Friday."
"O.k.," she said.
I poured two glasses full of wine. There was a little ice left in the
small wall refrigerator. The cubes of ice floated smoothly.
"I don't want to make you unhappy," Vicki said.
"I know you don't."
"Have a sip first."
"Sure."
"A note came under the door while you were gone."
"Yeah."
I took a sip, gagged, lit a cigarette, took another sip, then she
handed me the note. It was a warm Los Angeles night. A Friday. I read the
note:
Dear Mr. Chinaski: You have until next Wednesday to get up the rent. If
you don't, you are out. I know about those women in your room. And you make
too much noise. And you broke your window. You are paying for your
privileges. Or supposed to be. I have been very kind with you. I now say
next Wednesday or you are out. The tenants are tired of all the noise and
cussing and singing night and day, day and night, and so am I. You can't
live here without rent. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I drank the rest of the wine down, almost lost it. It was a warm night
in Los Angeles.
"I'm tired of fucking those fools," she said.
"I'll get the money," I told her.
"How? You don't know how to do anything."
"I know that."
"Then how are we going to make it?"
"Somehow."
'That last guy fucked me three times. My pussy was raw."
"Don't worry, baby, I'm a genius. The only trouble is, nobody knows
it."
"A genius at what?"
"I don't know."
"Mr. Van Bilderass!"
"That's me. By the way, do you know that Milton Berle's cousin was hit
on the head by a falling rock?"
"When?"
"Today or yesterday."
"What kind of rock?"
"I don't know. I imagine some kind of big buttery yellow stone."
"Who gives a damn?"
"Not I. Certainly not I. Except -- "
"Except what?"
"Except I guess that rock kept me alive."
"You talk like an asshole."
"I am an asshole."
I grinned and poured wine all around.
ALL THE ASSHOLES IN THE WORLD AND MINE
"no man's suffering is ever larger than nature intended." --
conversation overheard at a crapgame
1.
It was the ninth race and the horse's name was Green Cheese. He won by
6 and I got back 52 for 5 and since I was far ahead anyhow, it called for
another drink. "Gimme a shota green cheese," I told the barkeep. It didn't
confuse him. He knew what I was drinking. I had been leaning there all
afternoon. I had been drunk all the night before and when I got home, of
course, I had to have some more. I was set. I had scotch, vodka, wine and
beer. A mortician or somebody called about 8 p.m. and said he'd like to see
me. "Fine," I said, "bring drinks." "Do you mind if I bring friends?" "I
don't have any friends." "I mean my friends." "I do not give a damn," I told
him. I went into the kitchen and poured a water glass %'s full of scotch. I
drank it down straight just like the old days. I used to drink a fifth in an
hour and a half, two hours. "Green cheese," I said to the kitchen walls. I
opened a tall can of frozen beer.
2.
The mortician arrived and got on the phone and pretty soon many strange
people were walking in, all of them bringing drinks with them. There were a
lot of women and I felt like raping all of them. I sat on the rug, feeling
the electric light, feeling the drinks going through me like a parade, like
an attack on the blues, like an attack on madness.
"I will never have to work again!" I told them. "The horses will take
care of me like no whore EVER did!"
"Oh, we know that Mr. Chinaski! We know that you are a GREAT
man!"
It was a little greyhaired fucker on the couch, rubbing his hands,
leering at me with wet lips. He meant it. He made me sick. I finished the
drink in my hand and found another somewhere and drank that too. I began
talking to the women. I promised them all the endearments of my mighty cock.
They laughed. I meant it. Right then. There. I moved toward the women. The
men pulled me off. For a worldly man I was very much the highschool boy. If
I hadn't been the great Mr. Chinaski, somebody would have killed me. As it
was, I ripped off my shirt and offered to go out on the lawn with anybody. I
was lucky. Nobody felt like pushing me over my shoelaces.
When my mind cleared it was 4 a.m. All the lights were on and everybody
was gone. I was still sitting there. I found a warm beer and drank it. Then
I went to bed with the feeling that all drunks know: that I had been a fool
but to hell with it.
3.
I had been bothered with hemorrhoids for 15 or 20 years; also
perforated ulcers, bad liver, boils, anxiety-neurosis, various types of
insanity, but you go on with things and just hope that everything doesn't
fall apart at once.
It seemed that drunk almost did it. I felt dizzy and weak, but that was
ordinary. It was the hemorrhoids. They would not respond to anything -- hot
baths, salves, nothing helped. My intestines hung almost out of my ass like
a dog's tail. I went to a doctor. He simply glanced. "Operation," he said.
"All right," I said, "only thing is that I am a coward."
"Vel, ya, dot vill make it more difficult."
You lousy Nazi bastard, I thought.
"I vant you to take dis laxative der Tuesday night, den at 7 a.m. you
get up, ya? and you gif yourself de enema, you keep gifiing dis enema until
der wasser is clear, ya? den I take unudder look into you at 10 a.m. Vensday
morning."
"Ya whol, mine herring," I said.
4.
The enema tube kept slipping out and the whole bathroom got wet and it
was cold and my belly hurt and I was drowning in slime and shit. This is the
way the world ended, not with an atom bomb, but with shit shit shit. With
the set I had bought there was nothing to pinch the flow of water and my
fingers would not work so the water ran in full blast and out full blast. It
took me an hour and a half and by then my hemorrhoids were in command of the
world. Several times I thought of just quitting and dying. I found a can of
pure spirits of gum turpentine in my closet. It was a beautiful red and
green can. "DANGER!" it said, "harmful or fatal if swallowed." I was
a coward: I put the can back.
5.
The doctor put me up on a table. "Now, chust relox der bock, ya? relox,
relox . . ."
Suddenly he jammed a wedge-shaped box into my ass and began unwinding
his snak