Women (2 page)

“Yes,” I said, “you’ve got me down. I like it. But it looks almost finished. I’m going to be depressed when it’s done. There have been some great mornings and afternoons.”

“Has it interfered with your writing?”

“No, I only write after it gets dark. I can never write in the day.”

Lydia picked up her modeling tool and looked at me. “Don’t worry. I have a lot more work to do. I want to get this one right.”

At her first break she got a pint of whiskey out of the refrigerator.

“Ah,” I said.

“How much?” she asked holding up a tall water glass.

“Half and half.”

She fixed the drink and I drank it right down.

“I’ve heard about you,” she said.

“Like what?”

“About how you throw guys off your front porch. That you beat your women.”

“Beat my women?”

“Yes, somebody told me.”

I grabbed Lydia and we went into our longest kiss ever. I held her against the edge of the sink and began rubbing my cock against her. She pushed me away but I caught her again in the center of the kitchen.

Lydia’s hand reached for mine and pushed it down the front of her jeans and into her panties. One fingertip felt the top of her cunt. She was wet. As I continued to kiss her I worked my finger down into her cunt. Then I pulled my hand out, broke away, got the pint and poured myself another drink. I sat back down at the breakfast nook table and Lydia went around to the other side, sat down and looked at me. Then she began working on the clay again. I drank my whiskey slowly.

“Look,” I said, “I know your tragedy.”

“What?”

“I know your tragedy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen,” I said, “just forget it.”

“I want to know.”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“I want to know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“O.K., if you give me another drink I’ll tell you.”

“All right.” Lydia took my empty glass and gave me half-whiskey, half-water. I drank it down again.

“Well?” she asked.

“Hell, you know.”

“Know what?”

“You’ve got a big pussy.”

“What?”

“It’s not uncommon. You’ve had two children.”

Lydia sat silently working on the clay. Then she laid down her tool. She walked over to the corner of the kitchen near the back door. I watched her bend down and pull her boots off. Then she pushed down her jeans and her panties. Her cunt was right there looking at me.

“All right, you bastard,” she said. “I’m going to show you you’re wrong.”

I took off my shoes, pants and shorts. I got down on my knees on the linoleum floor, and then eased down on top of her, stretching out. I began to kiss her. I hardened quickly and felt myself penetrate her.

I began to stroke . . . one, two, three. . . .

There was a knock on the front door. It was a child’s knock— tiny fists, frantic, persistent. Lydia quickly pushed me off. “It’s Lisa! She didn’t go to school today! She’s been over at. . . .“Lydia jumped up and began pulling her clothes on.

“Get dressed!” she said to me.

I got dressed as quickly as I could. Lydia went to the door and there was her five year old daughter: “MOMMY! MOMMY! I cut my finger!”

I wandered into the front room. Lydia had Lisa on her lap. “Oooo, let Mommy see. Oooo, let Mommy kiss your finger. Mommy will make it better!”

“
MOMMY
, it hurts!”

I looked at the cut. It was almost invisible.

“Look,” I told Lydia finally, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know.”

Lisa looked up at me, the tears were coming and coming.

“Lisa won’t let anything bad happen to her Momma,” Lydia said.

I opened the door, closed the door and walked to my 1962 Mercury Comet.

4

I was editing a little magazine at the time, The Laxative Approach. I had two co-editors and we felt that we were printing the best poets of our time. Also some of the other kind. One of the editors was a 6-foot-2 subnormal high school drop-out, Kenneth Mulloch (black), who was supported partly by his mother and partly by his sister. The other editor was Sammy Levinson (Jewish), 27, who lived with his parents and was supported by them.

The sheets were printed. Now we had to collate them and staple them into the covers.

“What you do,” said Sammy, “is throw a collating party. You serve drinks and a little bullshit and let them do the work.”

“I hate parties,” I said.

“I’ll do the inviting,” said Sammy.

“All right,” I said, and I invited Lydia.

The night of the party Sammy arrived with the sheets already collated. He was a nervous sort with a head-tic and he hadn’t been able to wait to see his own poems in print. He had collated The Laxative Approach all by himself, and then stapled the covers on. Kenneth Mulloch was not to be found—he probably was either in jail or had been committed.

People arrived. I knew very few of them. I walked to my landlady’s in the back court. She came to the door.

“I’m having a big party, Mrs. O’Keefe. I want you and your husband to come. Plenty of beer, pretzels and chips.”

“Oh, my God, no!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve seen the people going in there! Those beards and all that hair and those raggedy-ass clothes! Bracelets and beads . . . they look like a bunch of communists! How can you stand people like that?”

“I can’t stand those people either, Mrs. O’Keefe. We just drink beer and talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“You watch them. That kind will steal the plumbing.”

She closed the door.

Lydia arrived late. She came through the door like an actress. The first thing I noticed was her large cowboy hat with a lavender feather pinned to the side. She didn’t speak to me but immediately sat down next to a young bookstore clerk and began an intense conversation with him. I began drinking more heavily and some of the drive and humor left my conversation. The bookstore clerk was a good enough sort, trying to be a writer. His name was Randy Evans but he was too far into Kafka to accomplish any kind of literary clarity. We had published him in The Laxative Approach rather than hurt his feelings and also to get distribution for the magazine through his bookstore.

I drank my beer and wandered around. I walked out on the back porch, sat on the stoop in the alley and watched a large black cat trying to get into a garbage can. I walked down towards him. He leaped off the garbage can as I approached. He stood 3 or 4 feet away watching me. I took the lid off the garbage can. The stench was horrible. I puked into the can. I dropped the lid on the pavement. The cat leaped up, stood, all four feet together upon the rim of the can. He hesitated, then brilliant under a half-moon, he leaped into it all.

Lydia was still talking to Randy, and I noticed that under the table one of her feet was touching one of Randy’s. I opened another beer.

Sammy had the crowd laughing. I was a little better at it than he was when I wanted to get the crowd laughing but I wasn’t very good that night. There were 15 or 16 men and two women—Lydia and April. April was on
ATD
and fat. She was stretched out on the floor. After an hour or so she got up and left with Carl, a burned-out speed freak. That left 15 or 16 men and Lydia. I found a pint of scotch in the kitchen, took it out on the back porch, and had a bite now and then.

The men began leaving gradually as the night went on. Even Randy Evans left. Finally there was only Sammy, Lydia and myself. Lydia was talking to Sammy. Sammy said some funny things. I was able to laugh. Then he said he had to go.

“Please don’t go, Sammy,” said Lydia.

“Let the kid go,” I said.

“Yeah, I gotta go,” said Sammy.

After Sammy left Lydia said, “You didn’t have to drive him away. Sammy’s funny, Sammy’s really funny. You hurt his feelings.”

“But I want to talk to you alone, Lydia.”

“I enjoy your friends. I don’t get to meet all kinds of people the way you do. I like people!”

“I don’t.”

“I know you don’t. But I do. People come to see you. Maybe if they didn’t come to see you you’d like them better.”

“No, the less I see them the better I like them.”

“You hurt Sammy’s feelings.”

“Oh shit, he’s gone home to his mother.”

“You’re jealous, you’re insecure. You think I want to go to bed with every man I talk to.”

“No I don’t. Listen, how about a little drink?”

I got up and mixed her one. Lydia lit a long cigarette and sipped at her drink. “You sure look good in that hat,” I said. “That purple feather is something.”

“It’s my father’s hat.”

“Won’t he miss it?”

“He’s dead.”

I pulled Lydia over to the couch and gave her a long kiss. She told me about her father. He had died and left all 4 sisters a bit of money. That had enabled them to be independent and had enabled Lydia to divorce her husband. She also told me she’d had some kind of breakdown and spent time in a madhouse. I kissed her again. “Look,” I said, “let’s lay down on the bed. I’m tired.”

To my surprise she followed me into the bedroom. I stretched out on the bed and felt her sit down. I closed my eyes and could tell she was pulling her boots off. I heard one boot hit the floor, then the other. I began to undress on the bed. I reached up and shut off the overhead light. I continued undressing. We kissed some more.

“How long has it been since you’ve had a woman?”

“Four years.”

“Four years?”

“Yes.”

“I think you deserve some love,” she said. “I had a dream about you. I opened your chest like a cabinet, it had doors, and when I opened the doors I saw all kinds of soft things inside you—teddy bears, tiny fuzzy animals, all these soft, cuddly things. Then I had a dream about this other man. He walked up to me and handed me some pieces of paper. He was a writer. I took the pieces of paper and looked at them. And the pieces of paper had cancer. His writing had cancer. I go by my dreams. You deserve some love.”

We kissed again.

“Listen,” she said, “after you stick that thing inside me, pull it out just before you come. O.K.?”

“I understand.”

I climbed on top of her. It was good. It was something happening, something real, and with a girl 20 years younger than I was and really, after all, beautiful. I did about 10 strokes—and came inside of her.

She leaped up.

“You son-of-a-bitch! You came inside of me!”

“Lydia, it’s been so long … it felt so good … I couldn’t help it. It sneaked up on me! Honest to Christ, I couldn’t help it.”

She ran into the bathroom and let the water run into the tub. She stood in front of the mirror running a comb through her long brown hair. She was truly beautiful.

“You son-of-a-bitch! God, what a dumb high school trick. That’s high school shit! And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time! Well, we’re shackjobs now! We’re shackjobs now!”

I moved toward her in the bathroom. “Lydia, I love you.”

“Get the hell away from me!”

She pushed me out, closed the door, and I stood out in the hall, listening to the bath water run.

5

I didn’t see Lydia for a couple of days, although I did manage to phone her 6 or 7 times during that period. Then the weekend arrived. Her ex-husband, Gerald, always took the children over the weekend.

I drove up to her court about 11 am that Saturday morning and knocked. She was in tight bluejeans, boots, orange blouse. Her eyes seemed a darker brown than ever and in the sunlight, as she opened the door, I noticed a natural red in her dark hair. It was startling. She allowed me to kiss her, then she locked the door behind us and we went to my car. We had decided on the beach—not for bathing—it was mid-winter—but for something to do.

We drove along. It felt good having Lydia in the car with me.

“That was some party,” she said. “You call that a collating party? That was a copulating party, that’s what that was. A copulating party!”

I drove with one hand and rested the other on her inner thigh. I couldn’t help myself. Lydia didn’t seem to notice. As I drove along the hand slid down between her legs. She went on talking. Suddenly she said, “Take you hand off. That’s my pussy!”

“Sorry,” I said.

Neither of us said anything until we reached the parking lot at Venice beach. “You want a sandwich and a Coke or something?” I asked. “All right,” she said.

We went into the small Jewish delicatessen to get the things and we took them to a knoll of grass that overlooked the sea. We had sandwiches, pickles, chips and soft drinks. The beach was almost deserted and the food tasted fine. Lydia was not talking. I was amazed at how quickly she ate. She ripped into her sandwich with a savagery, took large swallows of Coke, ate half a pickle in one bite and reached for a handful of potato chips. I am, on the contrary, a very slow eater.

Passion, I thought, she has passion.

“How’s that sandwich?” I asked.

“Pretty good. I was hungry.”

“They make good sandwiches. Do you want anything else?”

“Yes, I’d like a candy bar.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, any kind. Something good.”

I took a bite of my sandwich, a swallow of Coke, putthem down and walked over to the store. I bought two candy bars so that she might have a choice. As I walked back a tall black man was moving toward the knoll. It was a chilly day but he had his shirt off and he had a very muscular body. He appeared to be in his early twenties. He walked very slowly and erect. He had a long slim neck and a gold earring hung from the left ear. He passed in front of Lydia, along the sand on the ocean side of the knoll. I came up and sat down beside Lydia.

“Did you see that guy?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ, here I am with you, you’re twenty years older than I am. I could have something like that. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

“Look. Here are a couple of candy bars. Take one.”

She took one, ripped the paper off, took a bite and watched the young black man as he walked away along the shore.

“I’m tired of the beach,” she said, “let’s go back to my place.”

We remained apart a week. Then one afternoon I was over at Lydia’s place and we were on her bed, kissing. Lydia pulled away.