Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame (15 page)

you know

I sat on the same barstool in Philadelphia for

5 years

I drank canned heat and the cheapest wine

I was beaten in alleys by well-fed truck drivers

for the amusement of the

ladies and gentlemen of the night

I won’t tell you of my life as a child

it’s too sickening

unreal

but what I mean

I finally went to see my friend Eddie

after 30 years

he was still in the same house

with the same wife

you guessed it:

he looked worse than I did

he couldn’t get out of his chair

a cane

arthritis

what hair he had was

white

my god, Eddie, I said.

I know, he said, I’ve had it, I

can’t breathe.

then his wife came out. the once slim

Eve I used to flirt with.

210 pounds

squinting at me.

my god, Eve, I said.

I know, she said.

we got drunk together. it was several hours later

Eddie said to me,

take her to bed, do her some good,

I can’t do her any good any

more.

Eve giggled.

I can’t Eddie, I said, you’re my

buddy.

we drank some more.

endless quarts of

beer.

Eddie began to vomit.

Eve brought him a dishpan

and he vomited into the

dishpan

telling me between spasms

that we were men

real men

we knew what it was all about

by god

these young punks

didn’t have it.

we carried him to bed

undressed him

and he was soon out,

snoring.

I said goodbye to Eve.

I got out and got into my car

and sat there staring at the house.

then I drove off.

it was all I had left to do.

he comes out at 7:30 a.m. every day

with 3 peanut butter sandwiches, and

there’s one can of beer

which he floats in the baitbucket.

he fishes for hours with a small trout pole

three-quarters of the way down the pier.

he’s 75 years old and the sun doesn’t tan him,

and no matter how hot it gets

the brown and green lumberjack stays on.

he catches starfish, baby sharks, and mackerel;

he catches them by the dozen,

speaks to nobody.

sometime during the day

he drinks his can of beer.

at 6 p.m. he gathers his gear and his catch

walks down the pier

across several streets

where he enters a small Santa Monica apartment

goes to the bedroom and opens the evening paper

as his wife throws the starfish, the sharks, the mackerel

into the garbage

he lights his pipe

and waits for dinner.

this Friday night

the Mexican girls at the Catholic carnival

look especially good

their husbands are in the bars

and the Mexican girls look young

hawk-nosed with cruel strong eyes,

asses warm in tight bluejeans

they have been taken somehow,

their husbands are tired of those warm asses

and the young Mexican girls walk with their children,

there is real sorrow in their cruel strong eyes,

as they remember nights when their handsome men—

not now any longer handsome—

said such beautiful things to them

beautiful things they will never hear again,

and under the moon and in the flashing of the

carnival lights

I see it all and I stand quietly and mourn for them.

they see me looking—

the old goat is looking at us

he’s looking at our eyes;

they smile at each other, talk, walk off together,

laugh, look at me over their shoulders.

I walk over to a booth

put a dime on number eleven and win a chocolate cake

with 13 colored suckers stuck in the

top.

that’s fair enough for an ex-Catholic

and an admirer of warm and young and

no-longer used

mournful Mexican asses.

they don’t make it

the beautiful die in flame—

suicide pills, rat poison, rope, what-

ever…

they rip their arms off,

throw themselves out of windows,

they pull their eyes from the sockets,

reject love

reject hate

reject, reject.

they don’t make it

the beautiful can’t endure,

they are the butterflies

they are the doves

they are the sparrows,

they don’t make it.

one tall shot of flame

while the old men play checkers in the park

one flame, one good flame

while the old men play checkers in the park

in the sun.

the beautiful are found at the edge of a room

crumpled into spiders and needles and silence

and we can never understand why they

left, they were so

beautiful.

they don’t make it,

the beautiful die young

and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.

lovely and brilliant: life and suicide and death

as the old men play checkers in the sun

in the park.

terrible arguments.

and, at last, lying peacefully

on her large bed

which is

spread in red with cool patterns of flowers,

my head and belly down

head sideways

sprayed by shaded light

as she bathes quietly in the

other room,

it is all beyond me,

as most things are,

I listen to classical music on the small radio,

she bathes, I hear the splashing of water.

crud, he said,

hauling it out of the water,

what is it?

a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said.

no, said a guy standing by us on the pier,

it’s a Billow-Wind Sand-Groper.

a guy walking by said,

it’s a Fandango Escadrille without stripes.

we took the hook out and the thing stood up and

farted. it was grey and covered with hair

and fat and it stank like old socks.

it began to walk down the pier and we followed it.

it ate a hot dog and bun right out of the hands of

a little girl. then it leaped on the merry-go-round

and rode a pinto, it fell off near the end and

rolled in the sawdust.

we picked it up.

grop, it said, grop.

then it walked back out on the pier.

a large crowd followed us as we walked along.

it’s a publicity stunt, said somebody,

it’s a man in a rubber suit.

then as it was walking along it began to breathe

very heavily, it fell on its

back and began to thrash.

somebody poured a cup of beer over its head.

grop, it went, grop.

then it was dead.

we rolled it to the edge of the pier and pushed it

back into the water. we watched it sink and vanish.

it was a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said.

no, said the other guy, it was a Billow-Wind Sand-Groper.

no, said the other expert, it was a Fandango Escadrille

without stripes.

then we all went our way on a mid-afternoon in August.

man, he said, sitting on the steps

your car sure needs a wash and wax job

I can do it for you for 5 bucks,

I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything

I need.

I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.

when I came down 4 hours later

he was sitting on the steps drunk

and offered me a can of beer.

he said he’d get the car the next

day.

the next day he got drunk again and

I loaned him a dollar for a bottle of

wine, his name was Mike

a world war II veteran.

his wife worked as a nurse.

the next day I came down and he was sitting

on the steps and he said,

you know, I been sitting here looking at your car,

wondering just how I was gonna do it,

I wanna do it real good.

the next day Mike said it looked like rain

and it sure as hell wouldn’t make any sense

to wash and wax a car when it was gonna rain.

the next day it looked like rain again.

and the next.

then I didn’t see him anymore.

a week later I saw his wife and she said,

they took Mike to the hospital,

he’s all swelled-up, they say it’s from the

drinking.

listen, I told her, he said he was going to wax my

car, I gave him 5 dollars to wax my

car.

he’s in the critical ward, she said,

he might die…

I was sitting in their kitchen

drinking with his wife

when the phone rang.

she handed the phone to me.

it was Mike. listen, he said, come on down and

get me, I can’t stand this

place.

I drove on down there, walked into the

hospital, walked up to his bed and

said, let’s go Mike.

they wouldn’t give him his clothes

so Mike walked to the elevator in his

gown.

we got on and there was a kid driving the

elevator and eating a popsicle.

nobody’s allowed to leave here in a gown,

he said.

you just drive this thing, kid, I said,

we’ll worry about the gown.

Mike was all puffed-up, triple size

but I got him into the car somehow

and gave him a cigarette.

I stopped at the liquor store for 2 six packs

then went on in. I drank with Mike and his wife until

11 p.m.

then went upstairs…

where’s Mike? I asked his wife 3 days later,

you know he said he was going to wax my car.

Mike died, she said, he’s gone.

you mean he died? I asked.

yes, he died, she said.

I’m sorry, I said, I’m very sorry

it rained for a week after that and I figured the only

way I’d get the 5 back was to go to bed with his wife

but you know

she moved out 2 weeks later

an old guy with white hair moved in there

and he had one blind eye and played the French Horn.

there was no way I could make it with

him.