Women (26 page)

“What?”

“I must sleep in the middle.”

“That’s all right.”

I kept mixing drinks and soon we ran out. I phoned the liquor store. “I want …”

“Wait, my friend,” he said, “we don’t start making home deliveries until 6 pm.”

“Really? I push $200 a month down your throat. . . .”

“Who is this?”

“Chinaski.”

“Oh, Chinaski. . . . What is it you wanted?”

I told the man. Then, “You know how to get here?”

“Oh, yes.”

He arrived in 8 minutes. It was the fat Australian who was always sweating. I took the two cartons and set them on a chair.

“Hello, ladies,” said the fat Australian.

They didn’t answer.

“What’s the bill, Arbuckle?”

“Well, it comes to $17.94.”

I gave him a twenty. He started digging for change.

“You know better than that. Buy yourself a new home.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Then he leaned toward me and asked in a lower voice, “My God, how do you do it?”

“Typing,” I said.

“Typing?”

“Yes, about 18 words a minute.”

I pushed him back outside and closed the door.

That night I got in bed with them, with me in between. We were all drunk and first I grabbed one and kissed and fondled her, then I turned and grabbed the other. I went back and forth and it was very rewarding. Later I concentrated on one for a long time, then turned and went to the other. Each waited patiently. I was confused. Gertrude was hotter, Hilda was younger. I reamed butt, laid on top of each of them but didn’t stick it in. I finally decided on Gertrude. But I couldn’t do it. I was too drunk. Gertrude and I went to sleep, her hand holding my cock, my hands on her breasts. My cock went down, her breasts remained firm.

It was very hot the next day and there was more drinking. I phoned out for food. I turned the fan on. There wasn’t much talking. Those German girls liked their drinks. Then they both went out and sat on the old couch on my front porch—Hilda in shorts and bra and Gertrude in a tight pink underslip without bra or panties. Max, the mailman, came by. Gertrude accepted my mail for me. Poor Max nearly fainted. I could see the envy and disbelief in his eyes. But, then, he had job security. . . .

Around 2 pm Hilda announced that she was going for a walk. Gertrude and I went inside. Finally it did happen. We were on the bed and we played our openers. After a while we got down to it. I mounted and it went in. But it went in sharply to the left, like there was a curve. I could only remember one other woman like that—but it had been good. Then I got to thinking, she’s fooling me, I’m not really in there. So I pulled it out and stuck it back in. It went in and took a hard left turn again. What shit. Either she had a fucked up pussy or I wasn’t penetrating. I persuaded myself to believe she had a fucked up pussy. I pumped and worked while it bent around that hard left turn.

I worked and worked. Then it felt as if I were hitting bone. It was shocking. I gave up and rolled off.

“Sorry,” I said, “I just don’t seem to have it today.”

Gertrude didn’t answer.

We both got up and dressed. Then we went into the front room and sat and waited on Hilda. We drank and waited. Hilda took a long time. A long, long time. She finally arrived.

“Hello,” I said.

“Who are all these black men in your neighborhood?” she asked.

“I don’t know who they are.”

“They said I could make $2,000 a week.”

“Doing what?”

“They didn’t say.”

The German girls stayed 2 or 3 days more. I still kept hitting that left turn in Gertrude even when I was sober. Hilda told me she was on Tampax, so she was no help.

They finally collected their things and I got them into my car. They had large canvas bags that they carried over their shoulders. German hippies. I followed their instructions. Turn here, turn there. We climbed higher and higher into the Hollywood Hills. We were in rich territory. I had forgotten that some people lived quite well while most others ate their own shit for breakfast. When you lived where I lived you began to believe that every place else was like your own crummy place.

“Here it is,” said Gertrude.

The Volks was at the bottom of a long winding driveway. Up there somewhere was a house, a large, large house with all the things in it, and around it, that such houses have.

“You had better let us walk up,” said Gertrude.

“Sure,” I said.

They got out. I turned the Volks around. They stood at the entrance and waved to me, their canvas backpacks slung over their shoulders. I waved back. Then I drove off, put it into neutral, and glided down out of the mountains.

87

I was asked to give a reading at a famous nightclub, The Lancer, on Hollywood Boulevard. I agreed to read two nights. I was to follow a rock group, The Big Rape, each night. I was getting sucked into

the show biz maze. I had some extra tickets and I phoned Tammie and asked her if she wanted to come. She said yes, so the first night I took her with me. I had them put her on the tab. We sat in the bar waiting for my act to go on. Tammie’s act was similar to mine. She promptly got drunk and walked up and down in the bar talking to people.

By the time I was ready to go on Tammie was falling over tables. I found her brother and told him, “Jesus Christ, get her out of here, will you?”

He led her off into the night. I was drunk, too, and later on I forgot that I had asked that she be taken away.

I didn’t give a good reading. The audience was strictly into rock, and they missed lines and meanings. But some of it was my fault too. I sometimes lucked out with rock crowds, but that particular night I didn’t. I was disturbed by Tammie’s absence, I think. When I got home I phoned her number. Her mother answered. “Your daughter,” I told her, “is SCUM!”

“Hank, I don’t want to hear that.”

She hung up.

The next night I went alone. I sat at a table in the bar and drank. An elderly, dignified woman came up to my table and introduced herself. She taught English literature and had brought one of her pupils, a little butterball called Nancy Freeze. Nancy appeared to be in heat. They wanted to know if I would answer some questions for the class.

“Shoot.”

“Who was your favorite author?”

“Fante.”

“Who?”

“John F—a—n—t—e. Ask the Dust. Wait Until Spring, Bandini.”

“Where can we find his books?”

“I found them in the main library, downtown. Fifth and Olive, isn’t it?”

“Why did you like him?”

“Total emotion. A very brave man.”

“Who else?”

“Celine.”

“Why?”

“They ripped out his guts and he laughed, and he made them laugh too. A very brave man.”

“Do you believe in bravery?”

“I like to see it anywhere, in animals, birds, reptiles, humans.”

“Why?”

“Why? It makes me feel good. It’s a matter of style in the face of no chance at all.”

“Hemingway?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Too grim, too serious. A good writer, fine sentences. But for him, life was always total war. He never let go, he never danced.”

They folded up their notebooks and vanished. Too bad. I had meant to tell them that my real influences were Gable, Cagney, Bogart and Errol Flynn.

Next thing I knew I was sitting with three handsome women, Sara, Cassie, and Debra. Sara was 32,3 classy wench, good style and a heart. She had red-blond hair that fell straight down, and she had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. Debra was Jewish with large brown eyes and a generous mouth, heavily smeared with blood-red lipstick. Her mouth glistened and beckoned to me. I guessed she was somewhere between 30 and 35, and she reminded me of how my mother looked in 1935 (although my mother had been much more beautiful). Cassie was tall with long blond hair, very young, expensively dressed, modish, hip, “in,” nervous, beautiful. She sat closest to me, squeezing my hand, rubbing her thigh against mine. As she squeezed my hand I became aware that her hand was much larger than mine. (Although I am a large man I am embarrassed by my small hands. In my barroom brawls as a young man in Philadelphia I had quickly found out the importance of hand size. How I had managed to win 30 percent of my fights was amazing.) Anyway, Cassie felt she had an edge on the other two, and I wasn’t sure but that I agreed.

Then I had to read, and I had a luckier night. It was the same crowd, but my mind was on my work. The crowd got warmer and warmer, wilder and enthusiastic. Sometimes it was them who made it happen, sometimes it was you. Usually the latter. It was like climbing into the prize ring: you should feel you owed them something or you shouldn’t be in there. I jabbbed and crossed and shuffled, and in the last round I really opened up and knocked out the referee. Performance is performance. Because I had bombed the night before my success must have seemed very strange to them. It certainly seemed strange to me.

Cassie was waiting in the bar. Sara slipped me a love note with her phone number. Debra was not as inventive—she just wrote down her phone number. For a moment—strangely—I thought about Katherine, then I bought Cassie a drink. I’d never see Katherine again. My little Texas girl, my beauty of beauties. Goodbye, Katherine.

“Look, Cassie, can you drive me home? I’m too drunk to drive. One more drunk driving rap and I’ve had it.”

“All right, I’ll drive you home. How about your car?”

“Fuck it. I’ll leave it.”

We left together in her M.G. It was like a movie. At any moment I expected her to drop me off at the next corner. She was in her mid-twenties. She talked as we drove. She worked for a music company, loved it, didn’t have to be at work until 10:30 am and she left at 3 pm. “Not bad,” she said, “and I like it. I can hire and fire, I’ve moved up, but I haven’t had to fire anybody yet. They’re good folks and we’ve put out some great records. ...”

We arrived at my place. I broke out the vodka. Cassie’s hair came down almost to her ass. I had always been a hair and leg man.

“You really read well tonight,” she said. “You were a totally different person than the night before. I don’t know how to explain it, but at your best you have this . . . humanness. Most poets are such little prigs and shits.”

“I don’t like them either.”

“And they don’t like you.”

We drank some more and then went to bed. Her body was amazing, glorious, Playboy style, but unfortunately I was drunk. I did get it up, however, and I pumped and pumped, I grabbed her long hair, I got it out from under her and ran my hands through it, I was excited but I couldn’t finally do it. I rolled off, told Cassie goodnight, and slept a guilty sleep.

In the morning I was embarrassed. I was sure I would never see Cassie again. We dressed. It was about 10 am. We walked to the M. G. and got in. I didn’t talk, she didn’t talk. I felt the fool, but there was nothing to say. We drove back to The Lancer and there was the blue Volks.

“Thanks for all of it, Cassie. Think nice thoughts about Chinaski.”

She didn’t answer. I kissed her on the cheek and got out. She drove off in the M.G. It was, after all, as Lydia had often said, “If you want to drink, drink; if you want to fuck, throw the bottle away.”

My problem was that I wanted to do both.

88

So I was surprised when the phone rang a couple of nights later and it was Cassie.

“What are you doing, Hank?”

“Just sitting around. ...”

“Why don’t you come over?”

“I’d like to. ...”

She gave me the address, it was either Westwood or West L. A.

“I have plenty to drink,” she said. “You needn’t bring anything.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t drink anything?”

“It’s all right.”

“If you pour it, I’ll drink it. If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

I got dressed, jumped into the Volks, and drove to the address. How many breaks did a man have coming? The gods were good to me, of late. Maybe it was a test? Maybe it was a trick? Fatten Chinaski up, then slice him in half. I knew that might be coming too. But what can you do after a couple of 8-counts with only 2 rounds left to go?

Cassie’s apartment was on the second floor. She seemed glad to see me. A large black dog leaped on me. He was huge and floppy and male. He stood with his paws on my shoulders and licked my face. I pushed him off. He stood there wiggling his butt and making begging sounds. He had long black hair and appeared to be a mongrel, but what a big one he was.

“That’s Elton,” said Cassie.

She went to the refrigerator and got the wine.

“This is what you should drink. I’ve got plenty of it.”

She was dressed in an all-green gown which clung tightly to her. She was like a snake. She had on shoes sequined with green stones, and once again I noticed how long her hair was, not only long but full, there was such a mass of it. It came down at least to her ass. Her eyes were large and blue-green, sometimes more blue than green, sometimes the other way around, depending upon how the light hit them. I noticed two of my books in her bookcase, two of the better ones.

Cassie sat down, opened the wine and poured two.

“We kind of met somehow during that last encounter, we touched somewhere. I didn’t want to let it go,” she said.

“I enjoyed it,” I said.

“Want an upper?”

“All right,” I said.

She brought out two. Black cap. The best. I sent mine down with the wine.

“I’ve got the best dealer in town. He doesn’t rip me off,” she said.

“Good.”

“You ever been hooked?” she asked.

“I tried coke for a while, but I couldn’t stand the comedown. I was afraid to go into the kitchen the next day because there was a butcher knife in there. Besides, 50 to 75 bucks a day is beyond me.

“I’ve got some coke.” I pass.

She poured more wine.

I don’t know why, but with each new woman it seemed like the first time, almost as if I had never been with a woman before. I kissed Cassie. As I kissed her I let one hand run through all that long hair.

“Want some music?”