Hating Olivia: A Love Story (26 page)

T
his Johnston dude has a thing for you, doesn’t he?” I said to Livy when we got back to the apartment.

She flushed and turned away. “You’re out of your mind.” “I don’t think so. It was written all over him. He was scoping the both of us like a fucking vulture.”

“So what do you care if somebody else admires me?” “At least you admit it…. ”

“Get off my back, Max! For four years I’ve put up with your crap, listening to you rant and rave about everything and everybody you hate, pretending you’re a
genius,
sucking the lifeblood out of me like a leech! At least Duke Johnston can take care of himself! At least he can hold down a job and pay his own rent! He may not be a millionaire or famous, but he doesn’t have a pretentious artistic bone in his body, thank God! He knows how to make a
decision!
To him life is black or white, right or wrong, not all anguish and torture—and books! So leave him alone, too, would you!”

“So now you’re defending this hunk of shit…. ”

“And don’t call him names! Duke’s a man’s man. Maybe that’s what I should have had from the beginning.”

“Oh, is that so? Tell me more.”

“I’m not going to explain anything to you, Max. You and I have wasted too much time talking. Talk talk talk, that’s all you ever do. I’ve had enough of your talking and books and philosophy. I don’t even want to have to
think
anymore.”

“Just be sure you don’t bring any more crabs home, Liv.”

“Go to hell, Max!”

“I’m already there, in case you haven’t noticed.”

J
ust like in the early days, strange things began happening. When the telephone rang, I’d pick it up and hear nobody at the other end. Livy was gone all hours, which she blamed on
overtime at her job. The refrigerator was always empty, but since I lived on cigarettes and coffee and Livy never ate a meal at home, there seemed no point in stocking it.

The little old lady who lived in the apartment beneath us moved out and a new couple moved in. They were noisy as elephants when they did, cursing and hollering, smacking into the walls with their furniture, cranking up the volume on their music. Taking possession of 4C was a party that went on all day and half the night.

The next morning I was jolted awake by the blast of a horn—a trumpet or cornet—traveling up through the floorboards.
Fuck my ass
—I’d never heard anything so loud in my entire life. I yanked on my jeans, checked under the bed, and went downstairs to investigate.

It was the new tenant, all right. When I rapped on the door, he refused at first to answer. Instead he went on blowing his brains out as if his life depended on it. I banged again. No dice.

I stomped back upstairs and tried to eat breakfast. The new neighbor was still serenading the heavens. What made the clamor all the more unbearable was that bugle boy was completely devoid of musical ability. He was capable of nothing but flat belches and farts that bore no resemblance to melody and hadn’t an ounce of rhythm. It wasn’t pop, it wasn’t jazz, it wasn’t improv, it wasn’t anything. A two-year-old child who’d never touched an instrument could have done better. After a few hours of the shit, I thought I’d go bonkers. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep. When I picked up my ax and strummed, I couldn’t hear a single note I produced.

When Satchmo finally clamped the lid on his session, I went back down the stairs and pounded on his door again. This time he opened up.

“Yeah? Whadya want?”

I checked him out. A lug with a forehead that was nothing but thick black eyebrows that met in the middle. No light shining in his bovine eyes. He scratched his puffy, naked belly as he looked me over. I tried to peek over his shoulder for a glimpse of the girlfriend. Apparently she was smarter than I was—she’d gone out, probably to work.

“Your trumpet playing is driving me fucking insane.” There was no point in mincing words.

“I gotta practice. I don’t practice, I don’t work.”

“You here every day?”

“Yup. All day long. Just me and my horn.”

“You don’t have a job or anything like that?”

“Nope. Only money I earn is when I get a gig.”

“Haven’t been working much lately, have you?”

He took the jibe head-on. “Nope. That’s why I gotta practice.” Just like I thought—dense.

I didn’t know what to do. What
could
I do? I wanted to punch the guy’s lights out, but what would it have accomplished? Besides, I was still recovering from my last brawl. I had the feeling it would be useless to politely request that he lower the volume. Fuming, I turned around and climbed back up to 5C.

From that moment onward, it was total war. Whenever Maynard Ferguson’s asshole started to blow, I had no choice but to retaliate. I was the ugly American, he was Hirohito after Pearl Harbor. I dribbled a basketball on the floor. I donned my old factory boots and hopped up and down like a jumping jack on a pogo stick. When I tuckered myself out, I flipped the stereo speakers facedown on the bare floorboards, threw some early Stones or Zeppelin on the turntable, and maxed out the volume.

But nothing deterred the lummox. When I ran out of ideas, I called the cops.

“If he plays his trumpet or whatever the hell it is between the hours of six
A.M.
and ten
p.m.,
there’s not a thing we can do. The city ordinance reads ‘no unnecessary noise between the hours of
ten P.M. and six A.M.,’
“ said the desk sergeant.

“You wouldn’t consider that kind of racket a disturbance of the peace?”

“Not according to the letter of the law, it ain’t. Look, I feel bad for you, sir, but…. ”

My only chance at a legal recourse was gone. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to last.

47.

The telephone buzzed at nine thirty in the morning. It was my boss at the motel, Billy Stankowski.

“Don’t bother coming in today, Max.”

“What’s up, Billy? You giving me a vacation day?”

I was trying to make Billy laugh. Guys like me never rate vacation days.

“Very funny, Max. No. No vacation day. We’re going to have to let you go, man. I’m sorry.”

“Shit.
… What the hell did I do wrong?”

“It was the little things, Max. Especially the coming in late all the time. This place that has to be run like a Swiss watch. I mean, you’re okay, but not good enough.”

The job itself I didn’t give a damn for. It was the paycheck I couldn’t do without. That paltry two-fifty a week was the only thing that allowed me to feel anything close to a human being these days. Without an income of some sort, I was fucked all over again, at the complete mercy of my wild woman.

“I’ll change, Billy, I swear. I’ll get on the bus even earlier.” Naturally he’d caught wind that Livy had taken the wheels away.

“Too late, Max. We already got somebody else. See, it was
the other stuff, too. When that crazy girlfriend of yours cuts your dick off by telephone, it’s embarrassing for the customers, know what I mean? And we can’t make a habit of letting you sleep in the vacant rooms overnight without paying. Max, you’re a good guy and all, but your personal life is more than I can handle.”

“I can’t deny it’s a fucking mess, Billy. The truth is it’s more than
I
can handle.”

“Want some advice?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“You’re probably not gonna like it.”

“Well, everybody else has tried. You may as well take your shot.”

“Unload her, man. The sooner, the better.”

“You don’t get it, Billy. That’s because you sleep in a bed of roses with Marilyn.”

“Sorry, Max. Look at it this way. At least you’ll be able to collect unemployment benefits.”

He had something there. A decent guy. Billy Stankowski was the only man I never hated for firing me.

L
istening in an impotent rage to the shitty horn player in the apartment below for hours on end was what my life had finally come down to. I had no strength left to fight back; it simply consumed too much psychic energy. Short of assaulting the guy, there was nothing I could do to stop him from making noise. Somehow it didn’t seem to be worth going to jail over. The dude had me licked. Join the queue.

Livy didn’t give a damn at all about the situation since she was never around. As a matter of fact, whenever we did run into each other, she seemed increasingly preoccupied.

“Max, let’s go for a walk.”

Another spring was closing in on us that day in April she rushed in all out of breath. “You mean like
now?”

Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were ablaze. She was standing just inside the door, vibrating. “Sure … what’s the big rush?”

“It’s just … I have something to say to you, and maybe if we get out of here it’ll be …
easier.”

Why couldn’t she just speak her piece right there in the breakfast nook? I grabbed my jacket and went along with her anyway. We were at the park entrance when she opened up. Red-breasted robins were stabbing at worms in the rolling lawn. The tulips were bursting into bloom. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which was an unreal shade of blue. Somewhere in the country they were playing baseball.

“Max … Max, you have to admit it’s not working out between us. It hasn’t worked out between us in a long, long time. We need to be away from each other.”

It was the first and only time in all these years she hadn’t made that same request in a state of extreme rage, so I knew this time was different. Besides, what she was saying was the truth. There wasn’t even any point in arguing with her.

I didn’t know what the hell I was feeling: rage, panic, anticipation. My gut pitched. It was the break I’d been waiting for.

“I gotta buy a car first,” I mumbled, mostly to myself.

“It’s okay. Use your unemployment money to get a clunker. As soon as you sell your book, you’ll be rolling in the green.”

“Right…. ”

Knowing Livy, there was a man in the wings. I couldn’t be 100 percent sure, but I had the feeling I knew who it was.

She couldn’t even look at me. “Then it’s set?” she asked with more softness in her voice than I’d heard in months.

“Yeah.”

I sucked in the fresh air and tried to look on the positive side: at least I wouldn’t have to listen to Dizzy fucking Gillespie anymore.

48.

After scouring the used-car ads I turned up a ten-year-old Rambler Ambassador with eighty-five thousand miles for $350. Not bad. Livy lent me the Nova to drive out to Livingston for a looksee. The owner was a jelly-bellied suburban papa jumpy as a cat in heat to get the vehicle off his hands. He grinned and fidgeted while we stood in the driveway. The sweat rolled off his greasy face in big droplets. “I’m telling you, this baby really treated me nice…. ” He patted the flaking battleship-gray hood. The vehicle was a dinosaur one step from the junkyard. I took it for a test spin with him sitting beside me, jabbering about its merits the whole time. The transmission slipped a little and the rear panel of the passenger’s side had been punched in, but I was assured that those things were nothing a couple of minor repairs couldn’t cure. On the other hand, the air conditioner was powerful, the heater worked, and the brakes were almost new. I knew the real score—that eighty-five thousand miles was a fairy tale, and at a few hundred smackers I couldn’t expect a Bentley. Back in his driveway we haggled a little. I worked the guy down to two-fifty, but he wouldn’t go a penny lower. He signed over the certificate of ownership, and the beast was mine….

This was my plan. A new job first, then a place to crash. I
spent all day on the phone, trying to line up interviews. Getting a pad was going to be tough without a steady source of income. If I couldn’t come up with something, I’d have to settle for a flophouse or the big YMCA in Montfleur. I didn’t fancy bunking with the fruits and mental cases, but when you had nothing, clean sheets were better than the street.

Livy was frantic for me to go. As soon as I agreed to vacate the premises, she was up to her old tricks. For three straight days and nights she failed to put in an appearance at the apartment on Roseland Avenue. When she finally did show, it was to exchange a load of dirty laundry for a few clean outfits. Dressed in jeans and sweater she looked damned fine. Her spirits were upbeat, the highest they’d been since our early days. There was an electric excitement in her limbs, born of the confidence and optimism of someone about to embark on a new adventure. Offhandedly I asked her what she’d been up to, but she was slippery. All she wanted to know was when I planned to split for good.

“As soon as I find somewhere to go. Don’t worry, it won’t be long now.”

She ducked into the shower, locking the bathroom door. She stayed in there for an hour beneath the roar of water. When she emerged she was wrapped in a heavy towel like a nun in a habit. I followed her into the bedroom. She kept herself demurely covered.

“Max. Please. Leave. It wouldn’t be
proper
for you to see me naked.”

She was fucking somebody else, and that somebody else was Duke Johnston.
She never, ever mentioned his name anymore—a dead giveaway.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. The parts of me that weren’t numb felt something like sadness and relief.

“Where have you been for the past three days?” I asked, mostly out of boredom.

“None of your business. I don’t ask you where you go and what you do, do I?”

It was a familiar speech, one I recalled from a long time ago, when the guy on the receiving end was none other than Edward, poor, hapless Edward.

“Are you screwing Duke Johnston?”

She wheeled around to face me.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you, Liv. And you don’t have to lie to me. I’m just curious, if you want to know the truth.”

“Believe whatever you want, Max.”

“What happened to us, Liv? What the hell happened?”

She stopped fooling with her hair in the mirror and stared at me. The laser beams in her eyes were hard as marble.