Walking across Third and Hill to Angel’s Flight, I climbed aboard the trolley and sat down. The only other passenger was a girl across the aisle reading a book. She was in a plain dress and without stockings. She was rather attractive but not my style. As the trolley lurched into motion she moved to another seat. No ass at all, I thought. An ass, yes, but without the splendor of Jennifer Lovelace’s. Without nobility, without the grandeur of a thing of beauty. Just an ass, a plain common ass. It was not my day.
I got off the cablecar at the top of Angel’s Flight and started down Third Street toward my hotel. Then I decided on a cup of coffee and a cigarette in the small Japanese restaurant a few doors ahead. The coffee erased my gloom and I walked on to my hotel. The landlady sat behind the desk in the lobby. The first thing I noticed was a copy of The American Phoenix. It was exactly where I had placed it three weeks ago. Annoyed, I walked boldly to the desk and picked it up.
“You haven’t read it, have you?”
She smiled, hostile. “No, I haven’t.”
“Why not?” I said.
“It bored me. I read the first paragraph and that was enough for me.”
I put the magazine under my arm.
“I’m moving out,” I said. “Real soon.”
“Suit yourself.”
I walked away and down the hall. As I turned the key in my door I heard the click of a lock across the hall. The door opened and the girl from the trolley stepped out. She still carried the book. It was Zola’s Nana. She smiled in greeting.
“Hi!” I said. “I didn’t know you lived here.”
“I just moved in.”
“You work around here?”
“I suppose you’d call it that.” She made a sensual glance. “Would you like to see me?”
“When?”
“How about right now?”
I didn’t want her. Nothing of her lured me, but I had to be manly. These situations could only be resolved in one way.
“Sure,” I said.
She turned on the tiny flame of sensuality in her eyes and pushed open her door.
“What are we waiting for?” she said.
I hesitated. Lord help me, I thought, as I crossed the hall and entered her room.
She followed me inside and closed the door.
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Arturo,” I said. “Arturo Bandini.”
She held out her hands and removed my coat.
“How much?” I asked.
“A fin.”
She guided me around to face her and began unbuttoning my shirt. Hanging it over a chair she crossed to the bathroom.
“See you in a minute.”
She entered the bathroom and closed the door. I sat on the bed and pulled off my clothes. I was naked when she emerged. I tried to hide my disappointment. She was clean and bathed but somehow impure. Her bottom hung there like an orphan child. We would never make it together. My presence there was insanity. She grasped my rod and led me to the bathroom. She washed and soaped my loins and her fingers kneaded my joint determinedly, but there was no response. I could only think of Jennifer Lovelace and the gallantry of her flanks. Then she towelled me off and we went back to the bedroom and lay on the bed. She spread herself out naked and I lay beside her.
“Go ahead,” she said. I traced one finger through her pubic hair.
“Do you mind if I read?” she said. “Hand me my book.”
I gave her the book and she opened it to her place and began to read. I lay there and wondered. Good God, what if my mother were to walk in? Or my father? Or Heinrich Muller? Where would it all end? She nodded toward a bowl of apples at the bedside.
“Want an apple?” she asked.
“No thanks.”
“Give me one please.”
I handed her an apple. And so she read and ate.
“Come on, honey,” she coaxed. “Enjoy yourself.”
I swung my legs out of bed and stood up.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice hostile.
“Don’t worry. I’ll pay you off.”
“Would you like me to suck you?”
“No,” I said.
She slammed the book shut.
“Do you know what’s the matter with you, sonny? You’re queer. That’s what’s the matter with you. You’re a fag. I know your kind.”
She grabbed my coat, pants, underwear, shoes and socks, raced to the door and threw it all in the hall. I stepped out and began gathering my things.
“I owe you five bucks,” I said.
“No, you don’t. You don’t owe me a thing.”
I groped through my coat pocket for the door key. Down the hall, watching me with her arms folded, was Mrs. Brownell, the landlady. I turned the key and jumped into my room.
I felt relieved, saved, rescued. I went to the window to look at all of the great city spread below me. It was like a view of the whole world. Far to the southwest the sun struck the ocean in bars of heavenly light. A message from God. A sign. The Infant Jesus in the manger, the light from the Star of Bethlehem. I fell on my knees.
“Oh blessed Infant Jesus,” I prayed. “Thank you for saving me this day. Bless you for the surge of God’s goodness that moved me from that room of sin. I swear it now—I will never sin again. For the rest of my life I will remember your glorious intercession. Thank you, little Son of God. I am your devoted servant forever henceforth.”
I made the sign of the cross and got to my feet. How good I felt. How recharged with the feelings of my early boyhood. I had to get in touch with Jennifer Lovelace. I dressed and went out to the lobby. At the pay station I dialed Du Mont’s number.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“I’m at my hotel. What’s Jennifer Lovelace’s phone number?”
He gave it to me and I wrote it down.
I went back to my room and sat at the typewriter. I typed for fifteen minutes—two pages of heartbreak. I folded the paper and walked out of the hotel to the pay station across the street and telephoned Jennifer. Unfolding my notes, I heard the telephone ringing.
“Hello.” It was she.
“Jennifer, this is Arturo Bandini.”
There was a silence. The sweat popped from my skin. My voice quivered.
“Jennifer, I want you to forgive me. I don’t know why I destroyed your beautiful manuscript. It was simply a matter of inexperience. I’m a good writer, Jennifer. I can prove that. I’ll bring you some of my work. You’ll see what a superb writer I am. I didn’t mean to ruin your manuscript. I’m not a critic, Jennifer. I only followed Du Mont’s instruction. I made a terrible mistake. Won’t you let me see you and explain? I’d like to tell you what a wonderful talent I am. Please, Jennifer. Give me the chance to explain….”
There was more to say, but she cut in.
“How about Sunday?”
“Any day, any time. You name it.”
She gave me her address in Santa Monica and I wrote it down.
“Thank you, Jennifer. You won’t regret this.”
She hung up.
Chapter Three
The sun hit my face like big golden eye, wakening me. It was Sunday morning and it promised a bright and glorious day. I shot out of bed, opened the window wide and called out to the world, hello everybody! Good luck to all! A good day, a fresh day. I remembered my father in Colorado at the kitchen sink on a bright spring morning, singing with happiness as he shaved. O Sole Mio. I stood before my bathroom mirror and sang it too. Oh God, how good I felt! How was it possible? For breakfast I peeled and ate two oranges.
In my fine Goodwill pinstripe suit and my rakish fedora, I tucked a copy of The American Phoenix under my arm and strode out to conquer a woman. Down Olive Street I marched on the clear Sunday morning. The city seemed deserted, the street was quiet. I paused and listened. I heard something. It was the sound of happiness. It was my own heart beating softly, rhythmically. A clock, that’s what I was, a little happiness machine. I crossed Fi
fth Street to the Biltmore Hotel. Well-dressed folk moved in and out through the revolving doors. They were people like myself, neatly attired, the better class. At the main entrance stood a uniformed doorman. He looked ten feet tall as he saluted me. I returned the salute.
“Do you have the time, sir?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s eleven o’clock, sir.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I walked to the curbing and looked at a long line of taxi cabs, a waiting driver in each. Suddenly an idea exploded in my head. I would take a taxi to Jennifer’s. All my life I had wanted to take a taxi, but for a number of reasons, all financial, I had never done so. Now I could do it. I could arrive in style. I could sweep up to her house, wait for the driver to open the door, then leap out like a prince. The doorman came to my side.
“Taxi, sir?”
“Yes, sir.” He opened the door of the nearest taxi and I got inside. The driver swung around and looked at me.
“Where to, sir?”
“1724 Eighteenth Street, Santa Monica.”
“Pretty long fare,” he said.
“It’s of no consequence,” I answered. “No consequence at all.”
The cab drew away from the curb, turned right on Seventh Street, then right on Hope Street to Wilshire Boulevard. I watched the street and the shops and felt a lump in my throat. What a wonderful city! Look at all those beautiful people walking in their fine garments as they came from churches and window shopped along the bright boulevard. No doubt about it, this was my day, my city.
The cab driver was right. It was a long fare—seven dollars and twenty cents worth. He punched the meter and I studied the final figure. I stepped out of the cab and handed the driver a ten-dollar bill. He dug out the exact change, which I counted. Then it occurred to me that tipping was also the custom. He was watching me. I handed him a dime.
His lip curled. “Gee, thanks.”
I turned away and looked at Jennifer’s house. It was out of Mother Goose, a yellow and white Victorian fantasy with cupolas at both corners of the second story. The cupolas were adorned with wood panels of carved spools and intricate patterns of scrolls and twirling figures. It was a wedding cake, complete in every detail except the bride and groom. It sat there proudly in an enclosure of huge fir trees, strangely out of place, belonging instead to the Land of Oz. Jennifer’s house! I saw the big comfortable chairs on the veranda and smiled at the thought that her marvellous bottom had graced them all.
She came to the door as I mounted the porch stairs.
“Hello!” she smiled. “I’m glad you came. Please come in.”
She pushed open the screen door and I walked inside. The room was dazzling. A grand piano, luxurious chairs, gigantic Boston ferns, Tiffany lamps, and a large painting in oils above the fireplace—of a child with long curls. She permitted me enough time to study the portrait as she explained that it was a painting of herself.
“Do sit down,” she said. “Mother and Dad are at mass. They should be back soon.”
“Did you go to mass this morning?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Are you a Catholic?”
“What else?” I smiled. “The church has been part of my family for generations.”
“Then you went to mass this morning?”
“Naturally. Missing mass is a mortal sin. Surely you know that.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
I sat down. “As a matter of fact I had something of a theological dispute with my confessor this morning.”
She smoothed out the seat of her yellow sun suit as she sat down. Her bottom filled the chair like a lovely egg in a nest.
“Where’s your parish?” she asked.
I knew that somewhere in Los Angeles there had to be a St. Mary’s Church, and I answered, “Saint Mary of Guadalupe.”
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she exclaimed. “I love that church.”
“I often pray there.”
“You were saying something about a dispute with your confessor. What did you mean?”
“I’ll tell you, but only in strictest confidence. The sacred seal of the confessional.”
She gasped and her hand touched her bosom. “Should you?” she asked.
“I must,” I said. I wrung my hands in my lap for a moment or two and then I continued.
“You remember the debauchery of your manuscript? Have you forgotten how I destroyed it in wanton disregard for your feelings? Have you forgotten your anger at the outrage?”
She nodded solemnly.
“When I entered the confessional and faced the priest my one question was—had I committed a mortal sin in ruining your work? Was it an extreme offense against the law of God? Would he forgive me for it? The priest looked at me through the screen and thought a moment, and then he said, ‘The desecration of any artistic achievement is one of the great sins against the law of God.’”
She seemed terribly impressed and stood up.
“Would you like a coke, Mr. Bandini?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She walked quickly toward the kitchen, her glorious ass following her in ritualistic cadence.
I went after her and she took a couple of cokes from the refrigerator and handed one to me. We opened the bottles and drank. There was a covered picnic basket on the table. I lifted the lid and peeked inside.
“That’s for us,” she said.
“We’re going someplace?”
“The beach.”
“The ocean?”
“Naturally.”
“Can we swim?”
“That’s what it’s for.”
“I don’t have any swimming trunks.”
“You can borrow a pair of my brother’s.”
We finished our cokes.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Carrying the picnic basket, I followed her down the back stairs to the garage where a two-door Chevy was parked. I put the basket in the back seat and slid in beside her. She started the engine and drove down the alley to the cross street and turned into traffic.
A mile north of the Santa Monica pier on the Pacific Coast Highway was a cluster of beach bungalows, weather beaten and very old. We drew to the curb and got out. A wooden path led us through a high fence to one of a dozen cottages built on the sand. She turned a key in the door of the first cottage and we went inside. The bungalow belonged to her family. It was not pretentious—a stove, a refrigerator, table and chairs. Off the kitchen were two bedrooms. She went into one and emerged in a black bathing suit, tossing me a pair of trunks. While I undressed she went outside and ran toward the surf. I stripped off my clothes and frowned at my lily-white body. It reminded me of a pink pig, and I dreaded the shock in her face when I made my appearance. But she wasn’t shocked at all as she lay on the warm sand and read The American Phoenix through dark horn-rimmed glasses.
The ocean was staggering. I forgot my pale, sunless body and stared in wonder. The beach was almost deserted. A group of children came trotting past, stopping to stare at me; then giggling, they trotted on. Carefully I permitted the small waves to cover my toes as I splashed along in pleasure. Gradually I moved into deeper water and began to swim, invigorated by the cool tangy surf. Colorado seemed an eternity away. I told myself that at this moment my mother had arrived home from mass and was preparing lunch. She was probably thinking of me even as I thought of her.
I kept glancing at Jennifer. She was absorbed in the magazine and paid no attention to me. I stood before her and caught her attention.
“Watch!”
I did a handspring, then another, and a third. She smiled vaguely and turned back to the magazine. I had other tricks, for I had been a member of the tumbling team at Colorado University.
“Watch this one!”
I did a number of cartwheels. She looked up and gave me a distracted smile.
“Watch this!”
I got up on my hands and walked out into the water until my hands and shoulders were sub
merged. Then I tumbled off my balance. I looked toward the beach. Jennifer was gone. I saw her wade through the sand and enter the cottage. I went after her.
She was taking things from the picnic basket—lettuce, onions, tomatoes—washing them in the sink, then cutting them up in a wooden bowl. She had put on a cocktail apron over her sleek black bathing suit. It made me gape. Her figure was voluptuous, tantalizing, irresistible. I lit a cigarette and my hand shook, and I thought the moment has come. It’s now or never. Don’t be a dummy. Act. This time will never come again. Be brave. You’ve got nothing to lose. Everything to gain. I stood up and flung myself at her, falling to my knees and throwing my arms around her waist.
“I love you,” I said. “I want you.”
She twisted her superb hips to escape my grip. I clung like a tiger. She lifted the salad bowl and brought it down on my head. I felt the inundation of mayonnaise, olive oil and vegetables as I sprawled on the floor, dragging her down upon me.
“You fool!” she screamed. “Let me go! You crazy fool!”
We were caught up in some sort of inexplicable violence, wrestling with one another, sliding across the floor, fighting a meaningless combat. She screamed when I bit her ass. She got to her hands and knees and crawled out of my grasp and into the bedroom, kicking the door closed.
I sat panting in the quagmire of salad dressing. What had I done? On the messy floor was my copy of The American Phoenix, smeared with oil and mayonnaise. What now, I asked. Go, I said. Take flight. Get out of here. I crawled into a chair and saw scratch marks on my chest and legs. The end of the world. The end of me. The end of my love. The bedroom door opened and she stepped out. She was towelling off her body, smearing away the salad dressing. She didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You sonofabitch!” she said. She picked up her keys from the table and went to the door. “And another thing,” she snapped, “there’s no such church as St. Mary’s of Guadalupe!”
She went out. I followed her through the front gate to the highway. She entered her car and drove away.
I wanted to cry, but my stupidity overwhelmed me. I went back to the bungalow, took off the bathing trunks and got under a cold shower. I towelled myself off, dressed, closed the cottage doors, and stepped out beside the highway. Across the street bathers were climbing down the steep path from the top of the palisades. I crossed the highway and started up the path. It took me to Ocean Avenue and a street car depot. I took the next car and rode back to my hotel.