Run With the Hunted (52 page)

“Thirty years is too much?”

“Of course.”

“How about 20?” asked Serge, looking at Arlene.

“Twenty years is acceptable. Thirty years is obscene.”

“Why don't you both get women your own age?” asked Arlene.

They both looked at her. “She likes to make little jokes,” said Jorg. “Yes,” said Serge, “she is funny. Come on, look, I'll show you what I'm doing …”

They followed him into the bedroom. He took off his shoes and lay flat on the bed. “See? Like this? All the comforts.” Serge had his paint brushes on long handles and he painted on a canvas fastened to the ceiling. “It's my back. Can't paint ten minutes without stopping. This way I go on for hours.”

“Who mixes your colors?”

“Lila. I tell her, ‘Stick it in the blue. Now a bit of green.' She's quite good. Eventually I might even let her work the brushes, too, and I'll just lay around and read magazines.”

Then they heard Lila coming up the stairway. She opened the door, came across the front room and entered the bedroom. “Hey,” she said, “I see the old fuck's painting.”

“Yeah,” said Jorg, “he claims you hurt his back.”

“I said no such tiling.”

“Let's go out and eat,” said Arlene. Serge moaned and got up.

“Honest to Christ,” said Lila. “He just lays around like a sick frog most of the time.”

“I need a drink,” said Serge. “I'll snap back.”

They went down to the street together and moved toward The Sheep's Tick. Two young men in their mid-20's ran up. They had on turtleneck sweaters. “Hey, you guys are the painters, Jorg Swenson and Serge Maro!”

“Get the hell out of the way!” said Serge.

Jorg swung his ivory cane. He got the shorter of the young men right on the knee. “Shit,” the young man said, “you've broken my leg!”

“I hope so,” said Jorg. “Maybe you'll learn some damned civility!”

They moved on toward The Sheep's Tick. As they entered a buzzing arose from the diners. The headwaiter immediately rushed up, bowing and waving menus and speaking endearments in Italian, French and Russian.

“Look at that long, black hair in his nostrils,” said Serge. “Truly sickening!”

“Yes,” said Jorg, and then he shouted at the waiter, “HIDE YOUR NOSE!”

“Five bottles of your best wine!” screamed Serge, as they sat down at the best table.

The headwaiter vanished. “You two are real assholes,” said Lila.

Jorg ran his hand up her leg. “Two living immortals are allowed certain indiscretions.”

“Get your hand off my pussy, Jorg.”

“It's not your pussy. It's Serge's pussy.”

“Get your hand off Serge's pussy or I'll scream.”

“My will is weak.”

She screamed. Jorg removed his hand. The headwaiter came toward them with the wagon and bucket of chilled wine. He rolled it up, bowed and pulled one cork. He filled Jorg's glass. Jorg drained it. “It's shit, but O.K. Open the bottles!”

“All the bottles?”

“All the bottles, asshole, and be
quick
about it!”

“He's clumsy,” said Serge. “Look at him. Shall we dine?”

“Dine?” said Arlene. “All you guys do is drink. I don't think I've seen either of you eat more than a soft-boiled egg.”

“Get out of my sight, coward,” Serge said to the waiter.

The headwaiter vanished.

“You guys shouldn't talk to people that way,” said Lila.

“We've paid our dues,” said Serge.

“You've got no right,” said Arlene.

“I suppose not,” said Jorg, “but it's interesting.”

“People don't have to take that crap,” said Lila.

“People accept what they accept,” said Jorg. “They accept far worse.”

“It's your paintings they want, that's all,” said Arlene.

“
We
are our paintings,” said Serge.

“Women are stupid,” said Jorg.

“Be careful,” said Serge. “They also are capable of terrible acts of vengeance …”

They sat for a couple of hours drinking the wine.

“Man is less delicate than the locust,” said Jorg finally.

“Man is the sewer of the universe,” said Serge.

“You guys are really assholes,” said Lila.

“Sure are,” said Arlene.

“Let's switch tonight,” said Jorg. “I'll fuck your pussy and you fuck mine.”

“Oh no,” said Arlene, “none of that.”

“Right,” said Lila.

“I feel like painting now,” said Jorg. “I'm bored with drinking.”

“I feel like painting, too,” said Serge.

“Let's get out of here,” said Jorg.

“Listen,” said Lila, “you guys haven't paid the bill yet.”

“
Bill?
” screamed Serge. “
You don't think we are going to pay money for this rotgut?
”

“Let's go,” said Jorg.

As they rose, the headwaiter came up with the bill.

“
This rotgut stinks,
” screamed Serge, jumping up and down. “
I would never ask anyone to pay for stuff like this! I want you to know the proof is in the piss!
”

Serge grabbed a half-full bottle of the wine, ripped open the waiter's shirt and poured the wine over his chest. Jorg held his ivory cane like a sword. The headwaiter looked confused. He was a beautiful young man with long fingernails and an expensive apartment. He was studying chemistry and had once won second prize in an opera competition. Jorg swung his cane and caught the waiter, hard, just below the left ear. The waiter turned very white and swayed. Jorg hit him three more times in the same spot and he dropped.

They walked out together, Serge, Jorg, Lila and Arlene. They were all drunk but there was a certain stature about them, something unique. They got out the door and went down the street.

A young couple seated at a table near the door had watched the entire proceedings. The young man looked intelligent, only a rather large mole near the end of his nose marred the effect. His girl was fat but lovable in a dark blue dress. She had once wanted to be a nun.

“Weren't they magnificent?” asked the young man.

“They were assholes,” said the girl.

The young man waved for a third bottle of wine. It was going to be another difficult night.

—H
OT
W
ATER
M
USIC

sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 junkies,

female.

brown paper bags filled with trash are

everywhere.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon.

they talk about madhouses,

hospitals.

they are waiting for a fix.

none of them work.

it's relief and foodstamps and

Medi-Cal.

men are usable objects

toward the fix.

it is one-thirty in the afternoon

and outside small plants grow.

their children are still in school.

the females smoke cigarettes

and suck listlessly on beer and

tequila

which I have purchased.

I sit with them.

I wait on my fix:

I am a poetry junkie.

they pulled Ezra through the streets

in a wooden cage.

Blake was sure of God.

Villon was a mugger.

Lorca sucked cock.

T.S. Eliot worked a teller's cage.

most poets are swans,

egrets.

I sit with 3 junkies

at one-thirty in the afternoon.

the smoke pisses upward.

I wait.

death is a nothing jumbo.

one of the females says that she likes

my yellow shirt.

I believe in a simple violence.

this is

some of it.

turmoil is the god

madness is the god

permanent living peace is

permanent living death.

agony can kill

or

agony can sustain life

but peace is always horrifying

peace is the worst thing

walking

talking

smiling,

seeming to be.

don't forget the sidewalks

the whores,

betrayal,

the worm in the apple,

the bars, the jails,

the suicides of lovers.

here in America

we have assassinated a president and his brother,

another president has quit office.

people who believe in politics

are like people who believe in god:

they are sucking wind through bent

straws.

there is no god

there are no politics

there is no peace

there is no love

there is no control

there is no plan

stay away from god

remain disturbed

slide.

 

I was leaning against the bar in Musso's. Sarah had gone to the lady's room. I liked the bar at Musso's, bar just as bar, but I didn't like the room it was in. It was known as the “New Room.” The “Old Room” was on the other side and I preferred to eat there. It was darker and quieter. In the old days I used to go to the Old Room to eat but I never actually ate. I just looked at the menu and told them, “Not yet,” and kept ordering drinks. Some of the ladies I brought there were of ill-repute and as we drank on and on, often loud arguments began, replete with cursing and spilling of drinks, calls for more to drink. I usually gave the ladies cab fare and told them to get the hell out and I went on drinking alone. I doubt they ever used the cab fare for cab fare. But one of the nicest things about Musso's was that when I returned again, after fucking up, I was always greeted with warm smiles. So strange.

Anyhow, I was leaning against the bar and the New Room was full, mostly with tourists, they were chatting and they were twisting their necks and they were giving off rays of death. I ordered a new drink and then there was a tap on my shoulder.

“Chinaski, how are you?”

I turned and looked. I never knew who anybody was. I could meet you the night before and not remember you the next day. If they dug my mother out of her grave I wouldn't know who she was.

“I'm all right,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, thanks. We haven't met. I'm Harold Pheasant.”

“Oh yeah. Jon told me you were thinking of …”

“Yes. I want to finance your screenplay. I've read your work. You've got a marvelous sense of dialogue. I've read your work:
very
filmatic!”

“Sure you won't have a drink?”

“No, I have to get back to my table.”

“Yeah. What ya been doing lately, Pheasant?”

“Just finished producing a film about the life of Mack Derouac.”

“Yeah? What's it called?”

“
The Heart's Song.
”

I took a drink.

“Hey, wait a minute! You're
joking!
You're not going to call it
The Heart's Song?
”

“Oh yes, that's what it's going to be called.”

He was smiling.

“You can't fool me, Pheasant. You're a real joker!
The Heart's Song!
Jesus Christ!”

“No,” he said, “I'm serious.”

He suddenly turned and walked off …

Just then Sarah came back. She looked at me.

What are you grinning about?”

“Let me order you a drink and I'll tell you.”

I got the barkeep over and also ordered another for myself.

“Guess who I saw in the Old Room,” she said.

“Who?”

“Jonathan Winters.”

“Yeah. Guess who I talked to while you were gone.”

“One of your x-sluts.”

“No, no. Worse.”

“There's nothing worse than those.”