arved in the streets.
I was alone, walking. On my side of the street just before reaching the
first boulevard on the long walk home there was a small neglected store. I
stopped and looked in the window. Various objects were on display with their
soiled price tags. I saw some candle holders. There was an electric toaster.
A table lamp. The glass of the window was dirty inside and out. Through the
rather dusty brown smear I saw two toy dogs grinning. A miniature piano.
These things were for sale. They didn't look very appealing. There weren't
any customers in the store and I couldn't see a clerk either. It was a place
I had passed many times before but had never stopped to examine.
I looked in and I liked it. There was nothing happening there. It was a
place to rest, to sleep. Everything in there was dead. I could see myself
happily employed as a clerk there so long as no customers entered the door.
I turned away from the window and walked along some more. Just before
reaching the boulevard I stepped into the street and saw an enormous storm
drain almost at my feet. It was like a great black mouth leading down to the
bowels of the earth. I reached into my pocket and took the medal and tossed
it toward the black opening. It went right in. It disappeared into the
darkness.
Then I stepped onto the sidewalk and walked back home. When I got there
my parents were busy with various cleaning chores. It was a Saturday. Now I
had to mow and clip the lawn, water it and the flowers.
I changed into my working clothes, went out, and with my father
watching me from beneath his dark and evil eyebrows, I opened the garage
doors and carefully pulled the mower out backwards, the mower blades not
turning then, but waiting.
42
"You ought to try to be like Abe Mortenson," said my mother, "he
gets straight A's. Why can't you ever get any A's?"
"Henry is dead on his ass," said my father. "Sometimes I can't
believe he's my son."
"Don't you want to be happy, Henry?" asked my mother. "You
never smile. Smile and be happy."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," said my father. "Be a man!"
"Smile, Henry!"
"What's going to become of you? How the hell you going to
make it? You don't have any get up and go!"
"Why don't you go see Abe? Talk to him, learn to be like him,"
said my mother . . .
I knocked on the door of the Mortensons' apartment. The door opened. It
was Abe's mother.
"You can't see Abe. He's busy studying."
"I know, Mrs. Mortenson. I just want to see him a minute."
"All right. His room is right down there."
I walked on down. He had his own desk. He was sitting with a book open
on top of two other books. I knew the book by the color of the cover:
Civics. Civics, for Christ sake, on a Sunday.
Abe looked up and saw me. He spit on his hands and then turned back to
the book. "Hi," he said, looking down at the page.
"I bet you've read that same page ten times over, sucker."
"I've got to memorize everything."
"It's just crap."
"I've got to pass my tests."
"You ever thought of fucking a girl?"
"What?" he spit on his hands.
"You ever looked up a girl's dress and wanted to see more? Ever
thought about her snatch?"
"That's not important."
"It's important to her."
"I've got to study."
"We're having a pick-up game of baseball. Some of the guys
from school."
"On Sunday?"
"What's wrong with Sunday? People do a lot of things on
Sunday."
"But baseball?"
"The pros play on Sunday."
"But they get paid."
"Are you getting paid for reading that same page over and over?
Come on, get some air in your lungs, it might clear your head."
"All right. But just for a little while."
He got up and I followed him up the hall and into the front
room. We walked toward the door.
"Abe, where are you going?"
"I'll just be gone a little while."
"All right. But hurry back. You've got to study."
"I know . . ."
"All right, Henry, you make sure he gets back."
"I'll take care of him, Mrs. Mortenson."
There was Baldy and Jimmy Hatcher and some other guys from school and a
few guys from the neighborhood. We only had seven guys on each side which
left a couple of defensive holes, but I liked that. I played center field. I
had gotten good, I was catching up. I covered most of the outfield. I was
fast. I liked to play in close to grab the short ones. But what I liked best
was running back to grab those high hard ones hit over my head. That's what
Jigger Statz did with the Los Angeles Angels. He only hit about .280 but the
hits he took away from the other team made him as valuable as a .500 bitter.
Every Sunday a dozen or more girls from the neighborhood would come and
watch us. I ignored them. They really screamed when something exciting
happened. We played hardball and we each had our own glove, even Mortenson.
He had the best one. It had hardly been used.
I trotted out to center and the game began. We had Abe at second base.
I slammed my fist into my mitt and hollered in at Mortenson, "Hey, Abe, you
ever packed-off into a raw egg? You don't have to die to go to heaven!"
I heard the girls laughing.
The first guy struck out. He wasn't much. I struck out a lot too but I
was the hardest hitter of them all. I could really put the wood to it: out
of the lot and into the street. I always crouched low over the plate. I
looked like a wound-up spring standing there.
Each moment of the game was exciting to me. All the games I had missed
mowing that lawn, all those early school days of being chosen next-to-last
were over. I had blossomed. I had something and I knew I had it and it felt
good.
"Hey, Abe!" I yelled in. "With all that spit you don't need a raw egg!"
The next guy connected hard with one but it was high, very high and I
ran back to make an over-the-shoulder catch. I sprinted back, feeling great,
knowing that I would create the miracle once again.
Shit. The ball sailed into a tall tree at the back of the lot. Then I
saw the ball bouncing down through the branches. I stationed myself and
waited. No good, it was going left. I ran left. Then it bounced back to the
right. I ran right. It hit a branch, lingered there, then slithered through
some leaves and dropped into my glove. The girls screamed.
I fired the ball into our pitcher on one bounce then trotted back into
shallow center. The next guy struck out. Our pitcher, Harvey Nixon, had a
good fireball.
We changed sides and I was first up. I had never seen the guy on the
mound. He wasn't from Chelsey. I wondered where he was from. He was big all
over, big head, big mouth, big ears, big body. His hair fell down over his
eyes and he looked like a fool. His hair was brown and his eyes were green
and those green eyes stared at me through that hair as if he hated me. It
looked like his left arm was longer than his right. His left arm was his
pitching arm. I'd never faced a lefty, not in hardball. But they could all
be had. Turn them upside down and they were all alike.
"Kitten" Floss, they called him. Some kitten. 190 pounds.
"Come on, Butch, hit one out!" one of the girls pleaded. They called me
"Butch" because I played a good game and ignored them.
The Kitten looked at me from between his big ears. I spit on the plate,
dug in and waved my bat.
The Kitten nodded like he was getting a signal from the catcher. He was
just showboating. Then he looked around the infield. More showboating. It
was for the benefit of the girls. He couldn't keep his pecker-mind off of
snatch-thoughts.
He took his wind-up. I watched that ball in his left hand. My eyes
never left that ball. I had learned the secret. You concentrated on the ball
and followed it all the way in until it reached the plate and then you
murdered it with the wood.
I watched the ball leave his fingers through a blaze of sun. It was a
murderous humming blur, but it could be had. It was below my knees and far
out of the strike zone. His catcher had to dive to get it.
"Ball one," mumbled the old neighborhood fart who umpired our games. He
was a night watchman in a department store and he liked to talk to the
girls. "I got two daughters at home just like you girls. Real cute. They
wear tight dresses too." He liked to crouch over the plate and show them his
big buttocks, that's all he had, that and one gold tooth.
The catcher threw the ball back to Kitten Floss.
"Hey, Pussy!" I yelled out to him.
"You talkin' to me?"
"I'm talking to you, short-arm. You gotta come closer than that or I'll
have to call a cab."
"The next one is all yours," he told me.
"Good," I said. I dug in.
He went through his routine again, nodding like he was getting a sign,
checking the infield. Those green eyes stared at me through that dirty brown
hair. I watched him wind-up. I saw the ball leave his fingers, a dark fleck
against the sky in the sun and then suddenly it was zooming toward my skull.
I dropped in my tracks, feeling it brush the hair of my head.
"Strike one," mumbled the old fart.
"What?" I yelled. The catcher was still holding the ball. He was as
surprised at the call as I was. I took the ball from him and showed it to
the umpire.
"What's this?" I asked him.
"It's a baseball."
"Fine. Remember what it looks like."
I took the ball and walked out to the mound. The green eyes didn't
flinch under the dirty hair. But the mouth opened up just a bit, like a frog
sucking air. I walked up to Kitten.
"I don't swing with my head. The next time you do that I am going to
jam this thing right up through your shorts and past where you forget to
wipe."
I handed him the ball and walked back to the plate. I dug in and waved
my bat.
"One and one," said the old fart.
Floss kicked dirt around on the mound. He stared off into left field.
There was nothing out there except a starving dog scratching his ear. Floss
looked in for a sign. He was thinking of the girls, trying to look good. The
old fart crouched low, spreading his dumb buttocks, also trying to look
good. I was probably one of the few with his mind on the business at hand.
The time came, Kitten Floss went into his wind-up. That left hand
windmill could panic you if you let it. You had to be patient and wait for
the ball. Finally they had to let it go. Then it was yours to destroy and
the harder they threw it in the harder you could hit it out of there.
I saw the ball leave his fingers as one of the girls screamed. Floss
hadn't lost his zip. The ball looked like a bee-bee, only it got larger and
it was headed right for my skull again. All I knew was that I was trying to
find the dirt as fast as I could. I got a mouthful.
"SEERIKE TWO!" I heard the old fart yell. He couldn't even pronounce
the word. Get a man who works for nothing and you get a man who just likes
to hang around.
I got up and brushed the dirt off. It was even down in my shorts. My
mother was going to ask me, "Henry, how did you ever get your shorts so
dirty? Now don't make that face. Smile, and be happy!"
I walked to the mound. I stood right there. Nobody said anything. I
just looked at Kitten. I had the bat in my hand. I took the bat by the end
and pressed it against his nose. He slapped it away. I turned and walked
back toward the plate. Halfway there I stopped. I turned and stared at him
again. Then I walked to the plate.
I dug in and waved my bat. This one was going to be mine. The Kitten
peered in for the non-existent sign. He looked a long time, then shook his
head, no. He kept staring through that dirty hair with those green eyes. I
waved my bat more powerfully.
"Hit it out, Butch!" screamed one of the girls.
"Batch! Batch! Batch!'" screamed another girl. Then the Kitten
turned his back on us and just stared out into center field.
"Time," I said and stepped out of the box. There was a very cute girl
in an orange dress. Her hair was blond and it hung straight down, like a
yellow waterfall, beautiful, and I caught her eye for a moment and she said,
"Butch, please do it."
"Shut up," I said and stepped back into the box. The pitch came. I saw
it all the way. It was my pitch. Unfortunately, I was looking for the
duster. I wanted the duster so I could go out to the mound and kill or be
killed. The ball sailed right over the center of the plate. By the time I
adjusted the best I could do was swing weakly over the top of it as it went
by. The bastard had suckered me all the way.
He got me on three straight strikes next time. I swear he must have
been at least 23 years old. Probably a semi-pro.
One of our guys finally did get a single off him.
But I was good in the field. I made some catches. I moved out there. I
knew that the more I saw of the Kitten's fireball the more I was apt to
solve it. He wasn't trying to knock out my brains anymore. He didn't have
to. He was just smoking them down the middle. I hoped it was only a matter
of time before I golfed one out of there.
But things got worse and worse. I didn't like it. The girls didn't
either. Not only was green eyes great on the mound, he was great at the
plate. The first two times up he hit a homer and a double. The third time up
he swung under a pitch and looped a high blooper between Abe at second base
and me in center field. I came charging in, the girls screaming, but Abe
kept looking up and back over his shoulder, his mouth drooping down, looking
up, looking like a fool really, that wet mouth open. I came charging in
screaming, "It's mine!" It was really his but somehow I couldn't bear to let
him make the catch. The guy was nothing but an idiot book- reader and I
didn't really like him so I came charging in very hard as the ball dropped.
We crashed into one another, the ball popped out of his glove and into the
air as he fell to the ground, and I caught the ball off his glove. I stood
there over him as he lay on the ground.
"Get up, you dumb bastard," I told him. Abe stayed on the ground. He
was crying. He was holding his left arm.
"I think my arm is broken," he said.
"Get up, chickenshit."
Abe finally got up and walked off the held, crying and holding his arm.
I looked around. "All right," I said, "let's play ball!"
But everybody was walking away, even the girls. The game was evidently
over. I hung around awhile and then I started walking home. ..
Just before dinner the phone rang. My mother answered it. Her voice
became very excited. She hung up and I heard her talking to my father.
Then she came into my bedroom.
"Please come to the front room," she said. I walked in and sat on the
couch. They each had a chair. It was always that way. Chairs meant you
belonged. The couch was for visitors.
"Mrs. Mortenson just phoned. They've taken x-rays. You broke her son's
arm."
"It was an accident," I said.
"She says she is going to sue us. She'll get a Jewish lawyer. They'll
take everything we have."
"We don't have very much."
My mother was one of those silent criers. As she cried the tears came
faster and faster. Her cheeks were starting to glisten in the evening
twilight.
She wiped her eyes. They were a dull light brown.
"Why did you break that boy's arm?"
"It was a pop-up. We both went for it."
"What is this 'pop-up'?"
"Whoever gets it, gets it."
"So you got the 'pop-up'?"
"Yes."
"But how can this 'pop-up' help us? The Jewish lawyer will still have
the broken arm on his side."
I got up and walked back to my bedroom to wait for dinner. My father
hadn't said anything. He was confused. He was worried about losing what
little he had but at the same time he was very proud of a son who could
break somebody's arm.
43
Jimmy Hatcher worked part time in a grocery store. While none of us
could get jobs he could always get one. He had his little movie star face
and his mother had a great body. With his face and her body he didn't have
trouble finding employment.
"Why don't you come up to the apartment after dinner tonight?" he asked
me one day.
"What for?"
"I steal all the beer I want. I take it out the back. We can drink the
beer."
"Where you got it?"
"In the refrigerator."
"Show me."
We were about a block away from his place. We walked over. In the
hallway Jimmy said, "Wait a minute, I've got to check the mail." He took out
his key and opened the lock box. It was empty. He locked it again.
"My key opens this woman's box. Watch."
Jimmy opened the box and pulled out a letter and opened it. He read the
letter to me. "Dear Betty: I know that this check is late and that you've
been waiting for it. I lost my job. I have found another one, but it put me
behind. Here's the check, finally. I hope that everything is all right with
you. Love, Don."
Jimmy took the check and looked at it. He tore it up and he tore the
letter up and he put the pieces in his coat pocket. Then he locked the
mailbox.
"Come on."
We went into his apartment and into the kitchen and he opened the
refrigerator. It was packed with cans of beer.
"Does your mother know?"
"Sure. She drinks it."
He closed the refrigerator.
"Jim, did your father really blow his brains out because of your
mother?"
"Yeah. He was on the telephone. He told her he had a gun. He said. If
you don't come back to me I'm going to kill myself. Will you come back to
me?' And my mother said, 'No.' There was a shot and that was that."
"What did your mother do?"
"She hung up."
"All right, I'll see you tonight."
I told my parents that I was going over to Jimmy's to do some homework
with him. My kind of homework, I thought to myself.
"Jimmy's a nice boy," my mother said. My father didn't say anything.
Jimmy got the beer out and we began. I really liked it. Jimmy's
mother worked at a bar until 2 a.m. We had the place to ourselves.
"Your mother really has a body, Jim. How come some women
have great bodies and most of the others look like they're deformed?
Why can't all women have great bodies?"
"God, I don't know. Maybe if women were all the same we'd
get bored with them."
"Drink some more. You drink too slow."
"O.K."
"Maybe after a few beers I'll beat the shit out of you."
"We're friends, Hank."
"I don't have any friends. Drink up!"
"All right. What's the hurry?"
"You've got to slam them down to get the effect."
We opened some more cans of beer.
"If I was a woman I'd go around with my skirt hiked up giving all the
men hard-ons," Jimmy said.
"You make me sick."
"My mother knew a guy who drank her piss."
"What?"
"Yeah. They'd drink all night and then he'd lay down in the bathtub and
she'd piss in his mouth. Then he'd give her twenty- five dollars."
"She told you that?"
"Since my father died she confides in me. It's like I've taken his
place."
"You mean . . . ?"
"Oh, no. She just confides."
"Like the guy in the tub?"
"Yeah, like him."
"Tell me some more stuff."
"No."
"Come on, drink up. Does anybody eat your mother's shit?"
"Don't talk that way."
I finished the can of beer in my hand and threw it across the room.
"I like this joint. I might move in here."
I walked to the refrigerator and brought back a new six-pack.
"I'm one tough son-of-a-bitch," I said. "You're lucky I let you hang
around me."
"We're friends, Hank."
I jammed a can of beer under his nose.
"Here, drink this!"
I went to the bathroom to piss. It was a very ladylike bathroom,
brightly colored towels, deep pink floormats. Even the toilet seat was pink.
She sat her big white ass on there and her name was Clare. I looked at my
virgin cock.
"I'm a man," I said. "I can whip anybody's ass."
"I need the bathroom, Hank . . ." Jim was at the door. He went into the
bathroom. I heard him puking.
"Ah, shit . . ." I said and opened a new can of beer. After a few
minutes, Jim came out and sat in a chair. He looked very pale. I stuck a can
of beer under his nose.
"Drink up! Be a man! You were man enough to steal it, now be man enough
to drink it!"
"Just let me rest a while."
"Drink it!"
I sat down on the couch. Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would
always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could
get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn't become obvious
yourself. I looked over at Jimmy.
"Drink up, punk."
I threw my empty beer can across the room.
"Tell me some more about your mother, Jimmy boy. What did she say about
the man who drank her piss in the bathtub?"
"She said, 'There's a sucker born every minute.'"
"Jim."
"Uh?"
"Drink up. Be a man!"
He lifted his beer can. Then he ran to the bathroom and I heard him
puking again. He came out after a while and sat in his chair. He didn't look
well. "I've got to lay down," he said.
"Jimmy," I said, "I'm going to wait around until your mother comes
home."
Jimmy got up from his chair and started walking toward the bedroom.
"When she comes home I'm going to fuck her, Jimmy."
He didn't hear me. He just walked into the bedroom. I went into the
kitchen and came back with more beer.
I sat and drank the beer and waited for Clare. Where was that
whore? I couldn't allow this kind of thing. I ran a tight ship.
I got up and walked into the bedroom. Jim was face down on the bed, all
his clothes on, his shoes on. I walked back out.
Well, it was obvious that boy had no belly for booze. Clare needed a
man. I sat down and opened another can of beer. I took a good hit. I found a
pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and lit one.
I don't know how many more beers I drank waiting for Clare but finally
I heard the key in the door and it opened. There was Clare of the body and
the bright blond hair. That body stood on those high heels and it swayed
just a little. No artist could have imagined it better. Even the walls
stared at her, the lampshades, the chairs, the rug. Magic. Standing there .
. .
"Who the hell are you? What is this?"
"Clare, we've met. I'm Hank. Jimmy's friend."
"Get out of here!"
I laughed. "I'm movin' in, baby, it's you and me!"
"Where's Jimmy?"
She ran into the bedroom, then came hack out.
"You little prick! What's going on here?"
I picked up a cigarette, lit it. I grinned.
"You're beautiful when you're angry . . ."
"You're nothing but a god-damned little kid drunk on beer. Go home."
"Sit down, baby. Have a beer."
Clare sat down. I was very surprised when she did that.
"You go to Chelsey, don't you?" she asked.
"Yeah. Jim and I are buddies."
"You're Hank."
"Yes."
"He's told me about you."
I handed Clare a can of beer. My hand shook. "Here, have a drink,
baby."
She opened the beer and took a sip.
I looked at Clare, lifted my beer and had a hit. She was plenty of
woman, a Mae West type, wore the same kind of tight-fitting gown -- big
hips, big legs. And breasts. Startling breasts.
Clare crossed her wondrous legs, a bit of skirt falling back. Her legs
were full and golden and the stockings fit like skin.
"I've met your mother," she said.
I drained my can of beer and put it down by my feet. I opened a new
one, took a sip, then looked at her, not knowing whether to look at her
breasts or at her legs or into her tired face.
"I'm sorry that I got your son drunk. But I've got to tell you
something."
She turned her head, lighting a cigarette as she did so, then faced me
again.
"Yes?"
"Clare, I love you."
She didn't laugh. She just gave me a little smile, the corners of her
mouth turning up a little.
"Poor boy. You're nothing but a little chicken just out of the egg."
It was true hut it angered me. Maybe because it was true. The dream and
the beer wanted it to be something else. I took another drink and looked at
her and said, "Cut the shit. Lift your skirt. Show me some leg. Show me some
flank."
"You're just a hoy."
Then I said it. I don't know where the words came from, but I said it,
"I could tear you in half, baby, if you gave me the chance."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"All right. Let's see."
Then she did it. Just like that. She uncrossed her legs and pulled her
skirt back. She didn't have on panties.
I saw her huge white upper flanks, rivers of flesh. There was a large
protruding wart on the inside of her left thigh. And there was a jungle of
tangled hair between her legs, but it was not bright yellow like the hair on
her head, it was brown and shot with grey, old like some sick bush dying,
lifeless and sad. I stood up.
"I've got to go, Mrs. Hatcher."
"Christ, I thought you wanted to party!"
"Not with your son in the other room, Mrs. Hatcher."
"Don't worry about him, Hank. He's passed out."
"No, Mrs. Hatcher, I've really got to go."
"All right, get out of here you god-damned little piss-ant!"
I closed the door behind me and walked down the hall of the apartment
building and out into the street. To think, somebody had suicided for that.
The night suddenly looked good. I walked along toward my parents' house.
44
I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay
poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted.
Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have
to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it
sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer,
anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have
children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work
every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to
be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's
Day . . . was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would
rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to
sleep.
My father had a master plan. He told me, "My son, each man during his
lifetime should buy a house. Finally he dies and leaves that house to his
son. Then his son gets his own house and dies, leaves both houses to
his son. That's two houses. That son gets his own house, that's three
houses . . ."
The family structure. Victory over adversity through the family. He
believed in it. Take the family, mix with God and Country, add the ten-hour
day and you had what was needed.
I looked at my father, at his hands, his face, his eyebrows, and I knew
that this man had nothing to do with me. He was a stranger. My mother was
non-existent. I was cursed. Looking at my father I saw nothing but indecent
dullness. Worse, he was even more afraid to fail than most others. Centuries
of peasant blood and peasant training. The Chinaski bloodline had been
thinned by a series of peasant-servants who had surrendered their real lives
for fractional and illusionary gains. Not a man in the line who said, "I
don't want a house, I want a thousand houses, now!"
He had sent me to that rich high school hoping that the ruler's
attitude would rub off on me as I watched the rich boys screech up in their
cream-colored coupes and pick up the girls in bright dresses. Instead I
learned that the poor usually stay poor. That the young rich smell the stink
of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise
it would be too terrifying. They'd learned that, through the centuries. I
would never forgive the girls for getting into those cream-colored coupes
with the laughing boys. They couldn't help it, of course, yet you always
think, maybe . . . But no, there weren't any maybes. Wealth meant victory
and victory was the only reality. What woman chooses to live with a
dishwasher?
Throughout high school I tried not to think too much about how things
might eventually turn out for me. It seemed better to delay thinking . . .
Finally it was the day of the Senior Prom. It was held in the girls'
gym with live music, a real band. I don't know why but I walked over that
night, the two-and-one-half miles from my parents' place. I stood outside in
the dark and I looked in there, through the wire-covered window, and I was
astonished. All the girls looked very grown-up, stately, lovely, they were
in long dresses, and they all looked beautiful. I almost didn't recognize
them. And the boys in their tuxes, they looked great, they danced so
straight, each of them holding a girl in his arms, their faces pressed
against the girl's hair. They all danced beautifully and the music was loud
and clear and good, powerful.
Then I caught a glimpse of my reflection staring in at them -- boils
and scars on my face, my ragged shirt. I was like some jungle animal drawn
to the light and looking in. Why had I come? I felt sick. But I kept
watching. The dance ended. There was a pause. Couples spoke easily to each
other. It was natural and civilized.
Where had they learned to converse and to dance? I couldn't converse or
dance. Everybody knew something I didn't know. The girls looked so good, the
boys so handsome. I would be too terrified to even look at one of those
girls, let alone be close to one. To look into her eyes or dance with her
would be beyond me.
And yet I knew that what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it
appeared. There was a price to be paid for it all, a general falsity, that
could he easily believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end
street. The band began to play again and the boys and girls began to dance
again and the lights revolved overhead throwing shades of gold, then red,
then blue, then green, then gold again on the couples. As I watched them I
said to myself, someday my dance will begin. When that day comes I will have
something that they don't have.
But then it got to be too much for me. I hated them. I hated their
beauty, their untroubled youth, and as I watched them dance through the
magic colored pools of light, holding each other, feeling so good, little
unscathed children, temporarily in luck, I hated them because they had
something I had not yet had, and I said to myself, I said to myself again,
someday I will be as happy as any of you, you will see.
They kept dancing, and I repeated it to them. Then there was a
sound behind me.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
It was an old man with a flashlight. He had a head like a frog's head.
"I'm watching the dance."
He held the flashlight right up under his nose. His eyes were round and
large, they gleamed like a cat's eyes in the moonlight, But his mouth was
shriveled, collapsed, and his head was round. It had a peculiar senseless
roundness that reminded me of a pumpkin trying to play pundit.
"Get your ass out of here!"
He ran the flashlight up and down all over me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I'm the night custodian. Get your ass out of here before I call the
cops!"
"What for? This is the Senior From and I'm a senior."
He flashed his light into my face. The hand was playing "Deep Purple."
"Bullshit!" he said. "You're at least 22 years old!"
"I'm in the yearbook, Class of 1939, graduating class, Henry Chinaski."
"Why aren't you in there dancing?"
"Forget it. I'm going home."
"Do that."
I walked off. I kept walking. His flashlight leaped on the path,
the light following me. I walked off campus. It was a nice warm night,
almost hot. I thought I saw some fireflies but I wasn't sure.
45
Graduation Day. We filed in with our caps and gowns to "Pomp and
Circumstance." I suppose that in our three years we must have learned
something. Our ability to spell had probably improved and we had grown in
size. I was still a virgin. "Hey, Henry, you busted your cherry yet?" "No
way," I'd say.
Jimmy Hatcher sat next to me. The principal was giving his address and
really scraping the bottom of the old shit barrel.
"America is the great land of Opportunity and any man or woman with a
desire to do so will succeed . . ."
"Dishwasher," I said.
"Dog catcher," said Jimmy.
"Burglar," I said.
"Garbage collector," said Jimmy.
"Madhouse attendant," I said.
"America is brave, America was built by the brave . . . Ours is a just
society."
"Just so much for the few," said Jimmy.
". . . a fair society and all those who search for that dream at the
end of the rainbow will and . . ."
"A hairy crawling turd," I suggested.
". . . and I can say, without hesitation, that this particular Class of
Summer 1939, less than a decade removed from the beginning of our terrible
national Depression, this class of Summer '39 is more ripe with courage,
talent and love than any class it has been my pleasure to witness!"
196
The mothers, fathers, relatives applauded wildly; a few of the students
joined in.
"Class of Summer 1939, I am proud of your future, I am sure of
your future. I send you out now to your great adventure!"
Most of them were headed over to U.S.C. to live the non- working
life for at least four more years.
"And I send my prayers and blessings with you!"
The honor students received their diplomas first. Out they came.
Abe Mortenson was called. He got his. I applauded.
"Where's he gonna end up?" Jimmy asked.
"Cost accountant in an auto parts manufacturing concern. Somewhere near
Gardena, California."
"A lifetime job . . ." said Jimmy.
"A lifetime wife," I added.
"Abe will never be miserable . . ."
"Or happy."
"An obedient man . . ."
"A broom."
"A stiff . . ."
"A wimp."
When the honor students had been taken care of they began on us. I felt
uncomfortable sitting there. I felt like walking out.
"Henry Chinaski!" I was called.
"Public servant," I told Jimmy.
I walked up to and across the stage, took the diploma, shook the
principal's hand. It felt slimy like the inside of a dirty fish bowl. (Two
years later he would be exposed as an embezzler of school funds; he was to
be tried, convicted and jailed.)
I passed Mortenson and the honor group as I went back to my seat. He
looked over and gave me the finger, so only I could see it. That got me. It
was so unexpected. I walked back and sat down next to Jimmy.
"Mortenson gave me the finger!"
"No, I don't believe it!"
'Son-of-a-bitch! He's spoiled my day! Not that it was worth a fuck
anyhow but he's really greased it over now!"
I can't believe he had the guts to finger you."
"It's not like him. You think he's getting some coaching?"
"I don't know what to think."
"He knows that I can bust him in half without even inhaling!"
"Bust him!"
"But don't you see, he's won? It's the way he surprised me!"
"All you gotta do is kick his ass all up and down."
"Do you think that son-of-a-bitch learned something reading all those
books? I know there's nothing in them because I read every fourth page."
"Jimmy Hatcher!" His name was called.
"Priest," he said.
"Poultry farmer," I said.
Jimmy went up and got his. I applauded loudly. Anybody who could live
with a mother like his deserved some accolade. He came back and we sat
watching all the golden boys and girls go up and
get theirs.
"You can't blame them for being rich," Jimmy said.
"No, I blame their fucking parents."
"And their grandparents," said Jimmy.
"Yes, I'd be happy to take their new cars and their pretty
girlfriends and I wouldn't give a fuck about anything like social
justice."
"Yeah," said Jimmy. "I guess the only time most people think about
injustice is when it happens to them."
The golden boys and girls went on parading across the stage. I sat
there wondering whether to punch Abe out or not. I could see him flopping on
the sidewalk still in his cap and gown, the victim of my right cross, all
the pretty girls screaming, thinking, my god, this Chinaski guy must be a
bull on the springs!
On the other hand, Abe wasn't much. He was hardly there. It wouldn't
take anything to punch him out. I decided not to do it. I had already broken
his arm and his parents hadn't sued mine, finally. If I busted his head they
would surely go ahead and sue. They would take my old man's last copper. Not
that I would mind. It was my mother: she would suffer in a fool's way:
senselessly and without reason.
Then, the ceremony was over. The students left their seats and filed
out. Students met with parents, relatives on the front lawn. There was much
bugging, embracing. I saw my parents waiting. I walked up to them, stood
about four feet away.
"Let's get out of here," I said.
My mother was looking at me.
"Henry, I'm so proud of you!"
Then my mother's head turned. "Oh, there goes Abe and his parents!
They're such nice people! Oh, Mrs. Mortenson!"
They stopped. My mother ran over and threw her arms about Mrs.
Mortenson. It was Mrs. Mortenson who had decided not to sue after many, many
hours of conversation upon the telephone with my mother. It had been decided
that I was a confused individual and that my mother had suffered enough that
way.
My father shook hands with Mr. Mortenson and I walked over to Abe.
"O.K., cocksucker, what's the idea of giving me the finger?"
"What?"
"The finger."
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"The finger.'"
"Henry, I really don't know what you're talking about!"
"All right, Abraham, it's time to go!" said his mother. The Mortenson
family walked off together. I stood there watching them. Then we started
walking to our old car. We walked west to the corner and turned south.
"Now that Mortenson boy really knows how to apply himself!"
said my father. "How are you ever going to make it? I've never
even seen you look at a schoolbook, let alone inside of one!"
"Some books arc dull," I said.
"Oh, they're dull, are they? So you don't want to study?
What can you do? What good are you? What can you do? It
has cost me thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you! Suppose
I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?"
"Catch butterflies."
My mother began to cry. My father pulled her away and down the block to
where their ten-year-old car was parked. As I stood there, the other
families roared past in their new cars, going somewhere.
Then Jimmy Hatcher and his mother walked by. She stopped.
"Hey, wait a minute," she told Timmy, "I want to congratulate Henry."
Jimmy waited and Clare walked over. She put her face close to
"line. She spoke softly so Jimmy wouldn't hear. "Listen, Honey,
any time you really want to graduate, I can arrange to give you
your diploma."
"Thanks, Clare, I might be seeing you."
"I'll rip your balls off, Henry!"
"I don't doubt it, Clare."
She went back to Jimmy and they walked away down the street. A very old
car rolled up, stopped, the engine died. I could see my mother weeping, big
tears were running down her cheeks.
"Henry, get in! Please get in! Your father is right but I love
you!"
"Forget it. I've got a place to go."
"No, Henry, get in!" she wailed. "Get in or I'll die!"
I walked over, opened the rear door, climb