this guy is
going to fuck the guy in the leather coat, so I don't get my table and my
wine and my talk."
"I can't write," said Carl. "It's gone."
Then he got up and went to the bathroom, closed the door, and took a
shit. Carl took four or five shits a day. There was nothing else to do. He
took five or six baths a day. There was nothing else to do. He got drunk for
the same reason.
Margie heard the toilet flush. Then Carl came out.
"A man simply can't write eight hours a day. He can't even write every
day or every week. It's a wicked fix. There's nothing to do but wait."
Carl went to the refrigerator and came out with a six-pack of Michelob.
He opened a bottle.
"I'm the world's greatest writer," he said. "Do you know how difficult
that is?"
Margie didn't answer.
"I can feel pain crawling all over me. It's like a second skin. I wish
I could shed that skin like a snake."
"Well, why don't you get down on the rug and give it a try?"
"Listen," he asked, "where did I meet you?"
"Barney's Beanery."
"Well, that explains some of it. Have a beer."
Carl opened a bottle and passed it over.
"Yeah," said Margie, "I know. You need your solitude. You need to be
alone. Except when you want some, or except when we split, then you're on
the phone. You say you need me. You say you're dying of a hangover. You get
weak fast."
"I get weak fast."
"And you're so dull around me, you never turn on. You writers
are so ... precious ... you can't stand people. Humanity stinks,
right?"
"Right."
"But every time we split you start throwing giant four-day parties. And
suddenly you get witty, you start to TALK! Suddenly you're full of
life, talking, dancing, singing. You dance on the coffeetable, you throw
bottles through the window, you act parts from Shakespeare. Suddenly you're
alive -- when I'm gone. Oh, I hear about it!"
"I don't like parties. I especially dislike people at parties."
"For a guy who doesn't like parties you certainly throw enough of
them."
"Listen, Margie, you don't understand. I can't write anymore. I'm
finished. Somewhere I made a wrong turn. Somewhere I died in the night."
"The only way you're going to die is from one of your giant hangovers."
"Jeffers said that even the strongest men get trapped."
"Who was Jeffers?"
"He was the guy who turned Big Sur into a tourist trap."
"What were you going to do tonight?"
"I was going to listen to the songs of Rachmaninoff."
"Who's that?"
"A dead Russian."
"Look at you. You just sit there."
"I'm waiting. Some guys wait for two years. Sometimes it never comes
back."
"Suppose it never comes back?"
"I'll just put on my shoes and walk down to Main Street."
"Why don't you get a decent job?"
"There aren't any decent jobs. If a writer doesn't make it through
creation, he's dead."
"Oh, come on, Carl! There are billions of people in the world who don't
make it through creation. Do you mean to tell me they're dead?"
"Yes."
"And you have soul? You are one of the few with a soul?"
"It would appear so."
"It would appear so! You and your little typewriter! You and
your tiny checks! My grandmother makes more money than you do!"
Carl opened another bottle of beer.
"Beer! Beer! You and your god damned beer! It's in your stories too.
'Marty lifted his beer. As he looked up, this big blonde walked into the bar
and sat down beside him . . .' You're right. You're finished. Your material
is limited, very limited. You can't write a love story, you can't write a
decent love story."
"You're right, Margie."
"If a man can't write a love story, he's useless."
"How many have you written?"
"I don't claim to be a writer."
"But," said Carl, "you appear to pose as one hell of a literary
critic."
Margie left soon after that. Carl sat and drank the remaining beers. It
was true, the writing had left him. It would make his few underground
enemies happy. They could step one notch up. Death pleased them, underground
or overground. He remembered Endicott, Endicott sitting there saying, "Well,
Hemingway's gone, DOS Passes is gone, Patchen is gone. Pound is gone,
Berryman jumped off the bridge . . . things are looking better and better
and better."
The phone rang. Carl picked it up. "Mr. Gantling?"
"Yes?" he answered.
"We wondered if you'd like to read at Fairmount College?"
"Well, yes, what date?"
"The 30th of next month."
"I don't think I'm doing anything then."
"Our usual payment is one hundred dollars."
"I usually get a hundred and a half. Ginsberg gets a thousand."
"But that's Ginsberg. We can only offer a hundred."
"All right."
"Fine, Mr. Gantling. We'll send you the details."
"How about travel? That's a hell of a drive."
"O.k., twenty-five dollars for travel."
"O.k."
"Would you like to talk to some of the students in their classes?"
"No."
"There's a free lunch."
"I'll take that."
"Fine, Mr. Gantling, we'll be looking forward to seeing you on campus."
"Goodbye."
Carl walked about the room. He looked at the typewriter. He put a sheet
of paper in there, then watched a girl in an amazingly short mini skirt walk
past the window. Then he started to type:
"Margie was going to go out with this guy but on the way over this guy
met another guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat opened the
leather coat and showed the other guy his tits and the other guy went over
to Margie's and said he couldn't keep his date because this guy in the
leather coat had showed him his tits . . ."
Carl lifted his beer. It felt good to be writing again.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR?
We got to go to the exercise yard twice a day, in the middle of the
morning and in mid-afternoon. There wasn't much to do. The men were friends
mostly on the basis of what had gotten them into jail. Like my cell-mate
Taylor had said, the child molestors and indecent exposure cases were at the
bottom of the social order while the big-time swindlers and the racket heads
were at the top.
Taylor wouldn't speak to me in the exercise yard. He paced up and down
with a big-time swindler. I sat alone. Some of the guys rolled a shirt into
a ball and played catch. They appeared to enjoy it. The facilities for the
entertainment of the inmates didn't amount to much.
I sat there. Soon I noticed a huddle of men. It was a crap game. I got
up and went over. I had a little less than a dollar in change. I watched a
few rolls. The man with the dice picked up three pots in a row. I sensed
that his run was finished and got in against him. He crapped out. I made a
quarter.
Each time a man got hot I laid off until I figured his string was
ended. Then I got in against him. I noticed that the other men bet every
pot. I made six bets and won five of them. Then we were marched back up to
our cells. I was a dollar ahead.
The next morning I got in earlier. I made $2.50 in the morning and
$1.75 in the afternoon. As the game ended this kid walked up to me. "You
seem to be going all right, mister."
I gave the kid 15 cents. He walked off ahead. Another guy got in step
with me. "You give that son of a bitch anything?"
"Yeah. 15 cents."
"He cuts the pot each time. Don't give him nothing."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Yeah. He cuts the pot. He takes his cut each roll." "I'll watch him
tomorrow."
"Besides, he's a fucking indecent exposure case. He shows his pecker to
little girls."
"Yeah," I said, "I hate those cocksuckers."
The food was very bad. After dinner one night I mentioned to Taylor
that I was winning at craps.
"You know," he said, "you can buy food here, good food."
"How?"
"The cook comes down after lights out. You get the warden's food, the
best. Dessert, the works. The cook's good. The warden's got him here on
account of that."
"How much would a couple of dinners cost us?"
"Give him a dime. No more than 15 cents."
"Is that all?"
"If you give him more he'll think you're a fool."
"All right. 15 cents."
Taylor made the arrangements. The next night after lights out we waited
and killed bedbugs, one by one.
"That cook's killed two men. He's a great big son of a bitch, and mean.
He killed one guy, did ten years, got out of there and was out two or three
days and he killed another guy. This is only a holding prison but the warden
keeps him here permanent because he's such a good cook."
We heard somebody walking up. It was the cook. I got up and he passed
the food in. I walked to the table then walked back to the cell door. He was
a big son of a bitch, killer of two men. I gave him 15 cents.
"Thanks, buddy, you want me to come back tomorrow night?"
"Every night."
Taylor and I sat down to the food. Everything was on plates. The coffee
was good and hot, the meat -- the roast beef -- was tender. Mashed potatoes,
sweet peas, biscuits, gravy, butter, and apple pie. I hadn't eaten that good
in five years.
"That cook raped a sailor the other day. He got him so bad the sailor
couldn't walk. They had to hospitalize that sailor."
I took in a big mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy.
"You don't have to worry," said Taylor. "You're so damned ugly, nobody
would want to rape you."
"I was worrying more about getting myself a little."
"Well, I'll point out the punks to you. Some of them are owned and some
of them aren't owned."
"This is good food."
"Sure as shit. Now there are two kinds of punks in here. The kind that
come in punks and the prison-made punks. There are never enough punks to go
around so the boys have to make a few extra to fulfill their needs."
"That's sensible."
"The prison-manufactured punks are usually a little punchy from the
head-beatings they take. They resist at first."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Then they decide it's better to be a live punk than a dead
virgin."
We finished our dinner, went to our bunks, fought the bedbugs and
attempted to sleep.
I continued to win at craps each day. I bet more heavily and still won.
Life in prison was getting better and better. One day I was told not to go
to the exercise yard. Two agents from the F.B.I, came to visit me. They
asked a few questions, then one of them said:
"We've investigated you. You don't have to go to court. You'll be taken
to the induction center. If the army accepts you, you'll go in. If they
reject you, you're a civilian again."
"I almost like it here in jail," I said.
"Yes, you're looking good."
"No tension," I said, "no rent, no utility bills, no arguments with
girlfriends, no taxes, no license plates, no food bills, no hangovers . . ."
"Keep talking smart, we'll fix you good."
"Oh shit," I said, "I'm just joking. Pretend I'm Bob Hope."
"Bob Hope's a good American."
"I'd be too if I had his dough."
"Keep mouthing. We can make it rough on you."
I didn't answer. One guy had a briefcase. He got up first. The other
guy followed him out.
They gave us all a bag lunch and put us in a truck. There were twenty
or twenty-five of us. The guys had just had breakfast an hour and a half
earlier but they were all into their bag lunches. Not bad: a bologna
sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich and a rotten banana. I passed my lunch
down to the guys. They were very quiet. None of them joked. They looked
straight ahead. Most of them were black or brown. And all of them were big.
I passed the physical, then I went in to see the psychiatrist.
"Henry Chinaski?"
"Yes."
"Sit down."
I sat down.
"Do you believe in the war?"
"No."
"Are you willing to go to war?"
"Yes."
He looked at me. I stared down at my feet. He seemed to be reading a
sheaf of papers in front of him. It took several minutes. Four, five, six,
seven minutes. Then he spoke.
"Listen, I am having a party next Wednesday night at my place. There
are going to be doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, actors, all that sort. I
can see that you're an intelligent man. I want you to come to my party. Will
you come?"
"No."
He started writing. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote. I wondered how
he knew so much about me. I didn't know that much about myself.
I let him write on. I was indifferent. Now that I couldn't be in the
war I almost wanted the war. Yet, at the same time, I was glad to be out of
it. The Doctor finished writing. I felt I had fooled them. My objection to
war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that
hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a
small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at
my own leisure.
I didn't want to be awakened by some man with a bugle. I didn't want to
sleep in a barracks with a bunch of healthy sex-mad football-loving overfed
wise-cracking masturbating lovable frightened pink farting mother-struck
modest basketball-playing American boys that I would have to be friendly
with, that I would have to get drunk with on leave, that I would have to lay
on my back with and listen to dozens of unfunny, obvious, dirty jokes. I
didn't want their itchy blankets or their itchy uniforms or their itchy
humanity. I didn't want to shit in the same place or piss in the same place
or share the same whore. I didn't want to see their toenails or read their
letters from home. I didn't want to watch their assholes bobbing in front of
me in close formation, I didn't want to make friends, I didn't want to make
enemies, I just didn't want them or it or the thing. To kill or be killed
hardly mattered.
After a two-hour wait on a hard bench in a cesspool-brown tunnel with a
cold wind blowing they let me go and I walked out, north. I stopped for a
pack of cigarettes. I stopped in at the first bar, sat down, ordered a
scotch and water, peeled the cellophane from the package, took out a smoke,
lit up, got that drink in my hand, drank down half, dragged at the smoke,
looked at my handsome face in the mirror. It seemed strange to be out. It
seemed strange to be able to walk in any direction I pleased.
Just for fun I got up and walked to the crapper. I pissed. It was
another horrible bar crapper; I almost vomited at the stench. I came out,
put a coin in the juke box, sat down and listened to the latest. The latest
wasn't any better. They had the beat but not the soul. Mozart, Bach and the
Bee still made them look bad. I was going to miss those crap games and the
good food. I ordered another drink. I looked around the bar. There were five
men in the bar and no women. I was back in the American streets.
PITTSBURGH PHIL & CO.
This guy Summerfield was on relief and hitting the wine bottle. He was
rather a dull sort, I tried to avoid him, but he was always hanging out the
window half-drunk. He'd see me leaving my place and he always said the same
thing, "Hey, Hank, how about taking me to the races?" and I always said,
"One of these times, Joe, not today." Well, he kept at it, hanging out the
window half-drunk, so one day I said, "All right, for Christ's sake, come on
. . ." and away we went.
It was January at Santa Anita and if you know that track, it can get
real cold out there when you're losing. The wind blows in from the snow on
the mountains and your pockets are empty and you shiver and think of death
and hard times and no rent and all the rest. It's hardly a pleasant place to
lose. At least at Hollywood Park you can come back with a sunburn.
So we went. He talked all the way out. He'd never been to a racetrack.
I had to tell him the difference between win, place and show betting. He
didn't even know what a starting gate was, or a Racing Form. When we
got out there he used my Form. I had to show him how to read it. I
paid his way in and bought him a program. All he had was two dollars. Enough
for one bet.
We stood around before the first race looking at the women. Joe told me
he hadn't had a woman in five years. He was a shabby-looking guy, a real
loser. We passed the Form back and forth and looked at the women and
then Joe said, "How come the 6 horse is 14 to one? He looks best to me." I
tried to explain to Joe why the horse was reading 14 to one in relation to
the other horses but he wouldn't listen. "He sure as hell looks best to me.
I don't understand. I just gotta bet him." "It's your two dollars, Joe," I
said, "and I'm not lending you any money when you lose this one."
The horse's name was Red Charley and he was a sad-looking beast indeed.
He came out for the post parade in four bandages. His price leaped to 18 to
one when they got a look at him. I put ten win on the logical horse. Bold
Latrine, a slight class drop with good earnings and with a live jock and the
2nd leading trainer. I thought that 7 to 2 was a good price on that one.
It was a mile and one sixteenth. Red Charley was reading 20 to one when
they came out of the gate and he came out first, you couldn't miss him in
all those bandages, and the boy opened up four lengths on the first turn, he
must have thought he was in a quarter horse race. The jock only had two wins
out of 40 mounts and you could see why. He had six lengths on the
backstretch. The lather was running down Red Charley's neck; it damn near
looked like shaving cream.
At the top of the turn six lengths had faded to three and the whole
pack was gaining on him. At the top of the stretch Red Charley only had a
length and a half and my horse Bold Latrine was moving up outside. It looked
like I was in. Half way down the stretch I was a neck off. Another lunge and
I was in. But they went all the way down to the wire that way. Red Charley
still had the neck at the finish. He paid $42.80.
"I thought he looked best," said Joe and he went off to collect his
money.
When he came back he asked for the Form again. He looked them
over. "How come Big H is 6 to one?" he asked me. "He looks best."
"He may look best to you" I said, "but off the knowledge
of experienced horseplayers and handicappers, real pros, he rates about 6 to
one."
"Don't get pissed. Hank. I know I don't know anything about this game.
I only mean that to me he looks like he should be the favorite. I gotta bet
him anyhow. I might as well go ten win."
"It's your money, Joe. You just lucked it in the first race, the game
isn't that easy."
Well Big H won and paid $14.40. Joe started to strut around. We read
the Form at the bar and he bought us each a drink and tipped the
barkeep a buck. As we left the bar he winked at the bar-keep and said,
"Bamey's Mole is all alone in this one." Barney's Mole was the 6/5 favorite
so I didn't think that was such a fancy announcement. By the time the race
went off Barney's Mole was even money. He paid $4.20 and Joe had $20 win on
him.
"That time," he told me, "they made the proper horse the favorite."
Out of the nine races Joe had eight winners. On the ride back he kept
wondering how he had missed in the 7th race. "Blue Truck looked far the
best. I don't understand how he only got 3rd."
"Joe you had 8 for 9. That's beginner's luck. You don't know how hard
this game is."
"It looks easy to me. You just pick the winner and collect your money."
I didn't talk to him the rest of the way in. That night he knocked on
my door and he had a fifth of Grandad and the Racing Form. I helped
him with the bottle while he read the Form and told me all nine
winners the next day, and why. We had ourselves a real expert here. I know
how it can go to a man's head. I had 17 straight winners once and I was
going to buy homes along the coast and start a white slavery business to
protect my winnings from the income tax man. That's how crazy you can get.
I could hardly wait to take Joe to the track the next day. I wanted to
see his face when all his predictions ran out. Horses were only animals made
out of flesh. They were fallible. It was like the old horse players said,
"There are a dozen ways you can lose a race and only one way to win one."
All right, it didn't happen that way. Joe had 7 for 9 -- favorites,
longshots, medium prices. And he hitched all the way in about his two
losers. He couldn't understand it. I didn't talk to him. The son of a bitch
could do no wrong. But the percentages would get him. He started telling me
how I was betting wrong, and the proper way to bet. Two days at the track
and he was an expert. I'd been playing them 20 years and he was telling me I
didn't know my ass.
We went all week and Joe kept winning. He got so unbearable I couldn't
stand him anymore. He bought a new suit and hat, new shirt and shoes, and
started smoking 50 cent cigars. He told the relief people that he was self-
employed and didn't need their money anymore. Joe had gone mad. He grew a
mustache and purchased a wrist watch and an expensive ring. The next Tuesday
I saw him drive to the track in his own car, a '69 black Caddy. He waved to
me from his car and flicked out his cigar ash. I didn't talk to him at the
track that day. He was in the clubhouse. When he knocked on my door that
night he had the usual fifth of Grandad and a tall blonde. A young blonde,
well-dressed, well-groomed, she had a shape and a face. They walked in
together.
"Who's this old bum?" she asked Joe.
"That's my old buddy. Hank," he told her, "I used to know him when I
was poor. He took me to the racetrack one day."
"Don't he have an old lady?"
"Old Hank ain't had a woman since 1965. Listen, how about fixing him up
with Big Gertie?"
"Oh hell, Joe, Big Gertie wouldn't go him! Look, he's dressed
like a rag man."
"Have some mercy, baby, he's my buddy. I know he don't look like much
but we both started out together. I'm sentimental."
"Well, Big Gertie ain't sentimental, she likes class."
"Look, Joe," I said, "forget the women. Just sit down with the
Form and let's have a few drinks and give me some winners for
tomorrow."
Joe did that. We drank and he worked them out. He wrote nine horses
down for me on a piece of paper. His woman. Big Thelma -- well. Big Thelma
just looked at me like I was dog shit on somebody's lawn.
Those nine horses were good for eight wins the next day. One horse paid
$62.60. I couldn't understand it. That night Joe came by with a new woman.
She looked even finer. He sat down with the bottle and the Form and
wrote me down nine more horses.
Then he told me, "Listen, Hank, I gotta be moving out of my place. I
found me a nice deluxe apartment right outside the track. The travel time to
and from the track is a nuisance. Let's go, baby. I'll see you around, kid."
I knew that was it. My buddy was giving me the brush-off. The next day
I laid it heavy on those nine horses. They were good for seven winners. I
went over the Form again when I got home trying to figure why he
selected the horses he did, but there seemed to be no understandable reason.
Some of his selections were truly puzzling to me.
I didn't see Joe again for the remainder of the meet, except once. I
saw him walk into the clubhouse with two women. Joe was fat and laughing. He
wore a two-hundred-dollar suit and he had a diamond ring on his finger. I
lost all nine races that day.
It was two years later. I was at Hollywood Park and it was a
particularly hot day, a Thursday, and in the 6th race I happened to land a
$26.80 winner. As I was walking away from the payoff window I heard his
voice behind me:
"Hey, Hank! Hank!"
It was Joe.
"Jesus Christ, man," he said, "it's sure great to see you!"
"Hello Joe ..."
He still had on his two-hundred-dollar suit in all that heat. The rest
of us were in shirt sleeves. He needed a shave and his shoes were scuffed
and the suit was wrinkled and dirty. His diamond was gone, his wrist watch
was gone.
"Lemme have a smoke. Hank."
I gave him a cigarette and when he lit it I noticed his hands were
trembling.
"I need a drink, man," he told me.
I took him over to the bar and we had a couple of whiskeys. Joe studied
the Form.
"Listen, man, I've put you on plenty of winners, haven't I?"
"Sure, Joe."
We stood there looking at the Form. "Now check this race," said
Joe. "Look at Black Monkey. He's going to romp. Hank. He's a lock. And at 8
to one."
"You like his chances, Joe?"
"He's in, man. He'll win by daylight."
We placed our bets on Black Monkey and went out to watch the race. He
finished a deep 7th.
"I don't understand it," said Joe. "Look, let me have two more bucks,
Hank. Siren Call is in the next, she can't lose. There's no way."
Siren Call did get up for 5th but that's not much help when you're
betting on the nose. Joe got me for another $2 for the 9th race and his
horse ran out there too. Joe told me he didn't have a car and would I mind
driving him home?
"You're not going to believe this," he told me, "but I'm back on the
dole."
"I believe you, Joe."
"I'll bounce back, though. You know, Pittsburgh Phil went broke half a
dozen times. He always sprung back. His friends had faith in him. They lent
him money."
When I let him off I found he lived in an old rooming house about four
blocks from where I lived. I had never moved. When I let Joe out he said,
"There's a hell of a good card tomorrow. You going?"
"I'm not sure, Joe."
"Lemme know if you're going."
"Sure, Joe."
That night I heard the knock on my door. I knew Joe's knock. I didn't
answer. I had the T.V. playing but I didn't answer. I just laid real still
on the bed. He kept knocking.
"Hank! Hank! You in there? HEY, HANK!"
Then he really beat on the door, the son of a bitch. He seemed frantic.
He knocked and he knocked. At last he stopped. I heard him walking down the
hall. Then I heard the front door of the apartment house close. I got up,
turned off the T.V., went to the refrigerator, made a ham and cheese
sandwich, opened a beer. Then I sat down with that, split tomorrow's
Form open and began looking at the first race, a five-thousand-dollar
claimer for colts and geldings three years old and up. I liked the 8 horse.
The Form had him listed at 5 to one. I'd take that anytime.
DR. NAZI
Now, I'm a man of many problems and I suppose that most of them are
self-created. I mean with the female, and gambling, and feeling hostile
toward groups of people, and the larger the group, the greater the
hostility. I'm called negative and gloomy, sullen.
I keep remembering the female who screamed at me: "You're so god damned
negative! Life can be beautiful!"
I suppose it can, and especially with a little less screaming. But I
want to tell you about my doctor. I don't go to shrinks. Shrinks are
worthless and too contented. But a good doctor is often disgusted and/or
mad, and therefore far more entertaining.
I went to Dr. Kiepenheuer's office because it was closest. My hands
were breaking out with little white blisters -- a sign, I felt, either of my
actual anxiety or possible cancer. I wore working-man's gloves so people
wouldn't stare. And I burned through the gloves while smoking two packs of
cigarettes a day.
I walked into the doctor's place. I had the first appointment. Being a
man of anxiety I was thirty minutes early, musing about cancer. I walked
across the sitting room and looked into the office. Here was the nurse-
receptionist squatted on the floor in her tight white uniform, her dress
pulled almost up to her hips, gross and thunderous thighs showing through
tightly-pulled nylon. I forgot all about the cancer. She hadn't heard me and
I stared at her unveiled legs and thighs, measured the delicious rump with
my eyes. She was wiping water from the floor, the toilet had overrun and she
was cursing, she was passionate, she was pink and brown and living and
unveiled and I stared.
She looked up. "Yes?"
"Go ahead," I said, "don't let me disturb you."
"It's the toilet," she said, "it keeps running over."
She kept wiping and I kept looking over the top of Life
magazine. She finally stood up. I walked to the couch and sat down. She went
through her appointment book.
"Are you Mr. Chinaski?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you take your gloves off? It's warm in here."
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind."
"Dr. Kiepenheuer will be in soon."
"It's all right. I can wait."
"What's your problem?"
"Cancer."
"Cancer?"
"Yes."
The nurse vanished and I read Life and then I read another copy
of Life and then I read Sports Illustrated and then I sat
staring at paintings of seascapes and landscapes and piped-in music came
from somewhere. Then, suddenly, all the lights blinked off, then on again,
and I wondered if there would be any way to rape the nurse and get away with
it when the doctor walked in. I ignored him and he ignored me, so that went
off even.
He called me into his office. He was sitting on a stool and he looked
at me. He had a yellow face and yellow hair and his eyes were lusterless. He
was dying. He was about 42. I eyed him and gave him six months.
"What's with the gloves?" he asked.
"I'm a sensitive man. Doctor."
"You are?"
"Yes."
"Then I should tell you that I was once a Nazi."
"That's all right."
"You don't mind that I was once a Nazi?"
"No, I don't mind."
"I was captured. They rode us through France in a boxcar with the doors
open and the people stood along the way and threw stink bombs and rocks and
all sorts of rubbish at us -- fishbones, dead plants, excreta, everything
imaginable."
Then the doctor sat and told me about his wife. She was trying to skin
him. A real bitch. Trying to get all his money. The house. The garden. The
garden house. The gardener too, probably, if she hadn't already. And the
car. And alimony. Plus a large chunk of cash. Horrible woman. He'd worked so
hard. Fifty patients a day at ten dollars a head. Almost impossible to
survive. And that woman. Women. Yes, women. He broke down the word for me. I
forget if it was woman or female or what it was, but he broke it down into
Latin and he broke it down from there to show what the root was -- in Latin:
women were basically insane.
As he talked about the insanity of women I began to feel pleased with
the doctor. My head nodded in agreement.
Suddenly he ordered me to the scales, weighed me, then he listened to
my heart and to my chest. He roughly removed my gloves, washed my hands in
some kind of shit and opened the blisters with a razor, still talking about
the rancor and vengeance that all women carried in their hearts. It was
glandular. Women were directed by their glands, men by their hearts. That's
why only the men suffered.
He told me to bathe my hands regularly and to throw the god damned
gloves away. He talked a little more about women and his wife and then I
left.
My next problem was dizzy spells. But I only got them when I was
standing in line. I began to get very terrified of standing in line. It was
unbearable.
I realized that in America and probably everyplace else it came down to
standing in line. We did it everywhere. Driver's license:
three or four lines. The racetrack: lines. The movies: lines. The
market: lines. I hated lines. I felt there should be a way to avoid them.
Then the answer came to me. Have more clerks. Yes, that was the
answer. Two clerks for every person. Three clerks. Let the clerks
stand in line.
I knew that lines were killing me. I couldn't accept them, but
everybody else did. Everybody else was normal. Life was beautiful for them.
They could stand in line without feeling pain. They could stand in line
forever. They even liked to stand in line. They chatted and grinned
and smiled and flirted with each other. They had nothing else to do. They
could think of nothing else to do. And I had to look at their ears and
mouths and necks and legs and asses and nostrils, all that. I could feel
death-rays oozing from their bodies like smog, and listening to their
conversations I felt like screaming "Jesus Christ, somebody help me! Do I
have to suffer like this just to buy a pound of hamburger and a loaf
of rye bread?"
The dizziness would come, and I'd spread my legs to keep from falling
down; the supermarket would whirl, and the faces of the supermarket clerks
with their gold and brown mustaches and their clever happy eyes, all of them
going to be supermarket managers someday, with their white scrubbed
contented faces, buying homes in Arcadia and nightly mounting their pale
blond grateful wives.
I made an appointment with the doctor again. I was given the first
appointment. I arrived half an hour early and the toilet was fixed. The
nurse was dusting in the office. She bent and straightened and bent halfway
and then bent right and then bent left, and she turned her ass toward me and
bent over. That white uniform twitched and hiked, climbed, lifted; here was
dimpled knee, there was thigh, here was haunch, there was the whole body. I
sat down and opened a copy of Life.
She stopped dusting and stuck her head out at me, smiling. "You got rid
of your gloves, Mr. Chinaski."
"Yes."
The doctor came in looking a bit closer to death and he nodded and I
got up and followed him in.
He sat down on his stool.
"Chinaski: how goes it?"
"Well, doctor . . ."
"Trouble with women?"
"Well, of course, but . . ."
He wouldn't let me finish. He had lost more hair. His fingers twitched.
He seemed short of breath. Thinner. He was a desperate man.
His wife was skinning him. They'd gone to court. She slapped him in
court. He'd liked that. It helped the case. They saw through that bitch.
Anyhow, it hadn't come off too badly. She'd left him something. Of course,
you know lawyer's fees. Bastards. You ever noticed a lawyer? Almost always
fat. Especially around the face. "Anyhow, shit, she nailed me. But I got a
little left. You wanna know what a scissors like this costs? Look at it. Tin
with a screw. $18.50. My God, and they hated the Nazis. What is a Nazi
compared to this?"
"I don't know Doctor. I've told you that I'm a confused man."
"You ever tried a shrink?"
"It's no use. They're dull, no imagination. I don't need the shrinks. I
hear they end up sexually molesting their female patients. I'd like to be a
shrink if I could fuck all the women; outside of that, their trade is
useless."
My doctor hunched up on his stool. He yellowed and greyed a bit more. A
giant twitch ran through his body. He was almost through. A nice fellow
though.
"Well, I got rid of my wife," he said, "that's over."
"Fine," I said, "tell me about when you were a Nazi."
"Well, we didn't have much choice. They just took us in. I was young. I
mean, hell, what are you going to do? You can only live in one country at a
time. You go to war, and if you don't end up dead you end up in an open
boxcar with people throwing shit at you . . ."
I asked him if he'd fucked his nice nurse. He smiled gently. The smile
said yes. Then he told me that since the divorce, well, he'd dated one of
his patients, and he knew it wasn't ethical to get that way with patients .
. .
"No, I think it's all right. Doctor."
"She's a very intelligent woman. I married her."
"All right."
"Now I'm happy ... but .. ."
Then he spread his hands apart and opened his palms upward . . .
I told him about my fear of lines. He gave me a standing prescription
for Librium.
Then I got a nest of boils on my ass. I was in agony. They tied me with
leather straps, these fellows can do anything they want with you, they gave
me a local and strapped my ass. I turned my head and looked at my Doctor and
said, "Is there any chance of me changing my mind?"
There were three faces looking down at me. His and two others. Him to
cut. Her to supply cloths. The third to stick needles.
"You can't change your mind," said the doctor, and he rubbed his hands
and grinned and began . . .
The last time I saw him it had something to do with wax in my ears. I
could see his lips moving, I tried to understand, but I couldn't hear. I
could tell by his eyes and his face that it was hard times for him all over
again, and I nodded.
It was warm. I was a bit dizzy and I thought, well, yes, he's a fine
fellow but why doesn't he let me tell him about my problems, this isn't
fair, I have problems too, and I have to pay him.
Eventually my doctor realized I was deaf. He got something that looked
like a fire extinguisher and jammed it into my ears. Later he showed me huge
pieces of wax ... it was the wax, he said. And he pointed down into a
bucket. It looked, really, like retried beans.
I got up from the table and paid him and I left. I still couldn't hear
anything. I didn't feel particularly bad or good and I wondered what ailment
I would bring him next, what he would do about it, what he would do about
his 17 year old daughter who was in love with another woman and who was
going to marry the woman, and it occurred to me that everybody
suffered continually, including those who pretended they didn't. It seemed
to me that this was quite a discovery. I looked at the newsboy and I
thought, hmmmm, hmmmm, and I looked at the next person to pass and I thought
hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmm, and at the traffic signal by the hospital a new black
car turned the corner and knocked down a pretty young girl in a blue mini
dress, and she was blond and had blue ribbons in her hair, and she sat up in
the street in the sun and the scarlet ran from her nose.
CHRIST ON ROLLERSKATES
It was a small office on the third floor of an old building not too far
from skid row. Joe Mason, president of Rollerworld, Inc., sat behind the
worn desk which he rented along with the office. Graffiti were carved on the
top and sides: "Born to die." "Some men buy what other men are hanged for."
"Shit soup." "I hate love more than I love hate."
The vice president, Clifford Underwood, sat in the only other chair.
There was one telephone. The office smelled of urine, but the restroom was
45 feet down the hall. There was a window facing the alley, a thick yellow
window that let in a dim light. Both men were smoking cigarettes and
waiting.
"When'd you tell 'im?" asked Underwood.
"9:30," said Mason.
"It doesn't matter."
They waited. Eight more minutes. They each lit another cigarette. There
was a knock.
"Come in," said Mason. It was Monster Chonjacki, bearded, six foot six
and 392 pounds. Chonjacki smelled. It started to rain. You could hear a
freightcar going by under the window. It was really 24 freightcars going
north filled with commerce. Chonjacki still smelled. He was the star of the
Yellowjackets, one of the best roller skaters on either side of the
Mississippi, 25 yards to either side.
"Sit down," said Mason.
"No chair," said Chonjacki.
"Make him a chair. Cliff."
The vice president slowly got up, gave every indication of a man about
to fart, didn't and walked over and leaned against the rain which beat
against the thick yellow window. Chonjacki put both cheeks down, reached and
lit up a Pall Mall. No filter. Mason leaned across his desk:
"You are an ignorant son of a bitch."
"Wait a minute, man!"
"You wanna be a hero, don't y