One night I was drunker than usual. I refused to punch in. “This is it,” I told them.
The Elf was in trauma. “How will we make it, Chinaski?”
“Ah.”
“Give us one more night!”
I got his head in the crook of my arm, squeezed; his ears turned pink. “Little bastard,” I said. Then I let him go.
22
After arriving in Philadelphia I found a roominghouse and paid a week’s rent in advance. The nearest bar was fifty years old. You could smell the odor of urine, shit and vomit of a half century as it came up through the floor into the bar from the restrooms below.
It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Two men were fighting in the center of the bar.
The guy to the right of me said his name was Danny. To the left, he said his name was Jim.
Danny had a cigarette in his mouth, end glowing. An empty beerbottle looped through the air. It missed his cigarette and nose, fractionally. He didn’t move or look around, tapped the ashes of his cigarette into a tray. “That was pretty close, you son of a bitch! Come that close again, you got a fight on your hands!”
Every seat was taken. There were women in there, a few housewives, fat and a bit stupid, and two or three ladies who had fallen on hard times. As I sat there one girl got up and left with a man. She was back in five minutes.
“Helen! Helen! How do you do it?”
She laughed.
Another jumped up to try her. “That must be good. I gotta have some!”
They left together. Helen was back in five minutes.
“She must have a suction pump for a pussy!”
“I gotta try me some of that,” said an old guy down at the end of the bar. “I haven’t had a hard-on since Teddy Roosevelt took his last hill.”
It took Helen ten minutes with that one.
“I want a sandwich,” said a fat guy. “Who’s gonna run me an errand for a sandwich?”
I told him I would. “Roast beef on a bun, everything on.”
He gave me some money. “Keep the change.”
I walked down to the sandwich place. An old geezer with a big belly walked up. “Roast beef on a bun to go, everything on. And a bottle of beer while I’m waiting.”
I drank the beer, took the sandwich back to the fat guy in the bar, and found another seat. A shot of whiskey appeared. I drank it down. Another appeared. I drank it down. The juke box played.
A young fellow of about twenty-four came down from the end of the bar. “I need the venetian blinds cleaned,” he said to me.
“You sure do.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing. Drink. Both.”
“How about the blinds?”
“Five bucks.”
“You’re hired.”
They called him Billy-Boy. Billy-Boy had married the owner of the bar. She was forty-five.
He brought me two buckets, some suds, rags and sponges. I took the blinds down, removed the slats, and began.
“Drinks are free,” said Tommy the night bartender, “as long as you’re working.”
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”
It was slow work; the dust had caked, turned into embedded grime. I cut my hands several times on the edges of the metal slats. The soapy water burned.
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”
I finished one set of blinds and hung them up. The patrons of the bar turned to look at my work.
“Beautiful!”
“It sure helps the place.”
“They’ll probably raise the price of drinks.”
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy,” I said.
I took down another set of blinds, pulled out the slats. I beat Jim at the pinball machine for a quarter, then emptied the buckets in the crapper and got fresh water.
The second set went slower. My hands collected more cuts. I doubt that those blinds had been cleaned in ten years. I won another quarter at the pinball then Billy-Boy hollered at me to go back to work.
Helen walked by on her way to the women’s crapper.
“Helen, I’ll give you five bucks when I’m finished. Will that cover?”
“Sure, but you won’t be able to get it up after all that work.”
“I’ll get it up.”
“I’ll be here at closing. If you can still stand up, then you can have it for nothing!”
“I’ll be standing tall, baby.”
Helen walked back to the crapper.
“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”
“Hey, take it easy,” said Billy-Boy, “or you’ll never finish that job tonight.”
“Billy, if I don’t finish you keep your five.”
“It’s a deal. All you people hear that?”
“We heard you, Billy, you cheap ass.”
“One for the road, Tommy.”
Tommy gave me the whiskey. I drank it and went to work. I drove myself on. After a number of whiskeys I had the three sets of blinds up and shining.
“All right, Billy, pay up.”
“You’re not finished.”
“What?”
“There’s three more windows in the back room.”
“The back room?”
“The back room. The party room.”
Billy-Boy showed me the back room. There were three more windows, three more sets of blinds.
“I’ll settle for two-fifty, Billy.”
“No, you got to do them all or no pay.”
I got my buckets, dumped the water, put in clean water, soap, then took down a set of blinds. I pulled the slats out, put them on a table and stared at them.
Jim stopped on his way to the crapper. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t go another slat.”
When Jim came out of the crapper he went to the bar and brought back his beer. He began cleaning the blinds.
“Jim, forget it.”
I went to the bar, got another whiskey. When I got back one of the girls was taking down a set of blinds. “Be careful, don’t cut yourself,” I told her.
A few minutes later there were four or five people back there talking and laughing, even Helen. They were all working on the blinds. Soon nearly everybody in the bar was back there. I worked in two more whiskeys. Finally the blinds were finished and hanging. It hadn’t taken very long. They sparkled. Billy-Boy came in:
“I don’t have to pay you.”
“The job’s finished.”
“But you didn’t finish it.”
“Don’t be a cheap shit, Billy,” somebody said.
Billy-Boy dug out the $5 and I took it. We moved to the bar. “A drink for everybody!” I laid the $5 down. “And one for me too.”
Tommy went around pouring drinks.
I drank my drink and Tommy picked up the $5.
“You owe the bar $3.15.”
“Put it on the tab.”
“O.K., what’s your last name?”
“Chinaski.”
“You heard the one about the Polack who went to the outhouse?”
“Yes.”
Drinks came my way until closing time. After the last one I looked around. Helen had slipped out. Helen had lied.
Just like a bitch, I thought, afraid of the long hard ride…
I got up and walked back to my roominghouse. The moonlight was bright. My footsteps echoed in the empty street and it sounded as if somebody was following me. I looked around. I was mistaken. I was quite alone.
23
When I arrived in St. Louis it was very cold, about to snow, and I found a room in a nice clean place, a room on the second floor, in the back. It was early evening and I was having one of my depressive fits so I went to bed early and somehow managed to sleep.
When I awakened in the morning it was very cold. I was shivering uncontrollably. I got up and found that one of the windows was open. I closed the window and went back to bed. I began to feel nauseated. I managed to sleep another hour, then awakened. I got up, dressed, barely made it to the hall bathroom and vomited. I undressed and g
ot back into bed. Soon there was a knock on the door. I didn’t answer. The knocking continued. “Yes?” I asked.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Can we come in?”
“Come in.”
There were two girls. One was a bit on the fat side but scrubbed, shining, in a flowery pink dress. She had a kind face. The other wore a wide tight belt that accentuated her very good figure. Her hair was long, dark, and she had a cute nose; she wore high heels, had perfect legs, and wore a white low cut blouse. Her eyes were dark brown, very dark, and they kept looking at me, amused, very amused. “I’m Gertrude,” she said, “and this is Hilda.”
Hilda managed to blush as Gertrude moved across the room toward my bed. “We heard you in the bathroom. Are you sick?”
“Yes. But it’s nothing serious, I’m sure. An open window.”
“Mrs. Downing, the landlady, is making you some soup.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“It’ll do you good.”
Gertrude moved nearer my bed. Hilda remained where she was, pink and scrubbed and blushing. Gertrude pivoted back and forth on her very high heels. “Are you new in town?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not in the army?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.”
“No work?”
“No work.”
“Yes,” said Gertrude to Hilda, “look at his hands. He has the most beautiful hands. You can see that he has never worked.”
The landlady, Mrs. Downing, knocked. She was large and pleasant. I imagined that her husband was dead and that she was religious. She carried a large bowl of beef broth, holding it high in the air. I could see the steam rising. I took the bowl. We exchanged pleasantries. Yes, her husband was dead. She was very religious. There were crackers, plus salt and pepper.
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Downing looked at both of the girls. “We’ll all be going now. We hope you get well soon. And I hope the girls haven’t bothered you too much?”
“Oh no!” I grinned into the broth. She liked that.
“Come on, girls.”
Mrs. Downing left the door open. Hilda managed one last blush, gave me the tiniest smile, then left. Gertrude remained. She watched me spoon the broth in. “Is it good?”
“I want to thank all you people. All this…is very unusual.”
“I’m going.” She turned and walked very slowly toward the door. Her buttocks moved under her tight black skirt; her legs were golden. At the doorway she stopped and turned, rested her dark eyes on me once again, held me. I was transfixed, glowing. The moment she felt my response she tossed her head and laughed. She had a lovely neck, and all that dark hair. She walked off down the hall, leaving the door ajar.
I took the salt and pepper, seasoned the broth, broke the crackers into it, and spooned it into my illness.
24
I found a job as a shipping clerk in a ladies’ dresswear shop. Even during World War II when there was supposed to be a manpower shortage there were four or five applicants for each job. (At least for the menial jobs.) We waited with our application forms filled out. Born? Single? Married? Draft status? Last job? Last jobs? Why did you leave? I had filled out so many job forms that long ago I had memorized the right answers. Having gotten out of bed quite late that morning I was the last to be called. A bald man with strange tufts of hair over each ear interviewed me.
“Yes?” he asked, looking at me over the sheet.
“I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.”
“Oh, a writer, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What do you write?”
“Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel.”
“A novel, eh?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“‘The Leaky Faucet of My Doom.’”
“Oh, I like that. What’s it about?”
“Everything.”
“Everything? You mean, for instance, it’s about cancer?”
“Yes.”
“How about my wife?”
“She’s in there too.”
You don’t say. Why do you want to work in a ladies’ dress shop?”
“I’ve always liked ladies in ladies’ dresses.”
“Are you 4-F?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see your draft card.”
I showed him my draft card. He handed it back.
“You’re hired.”
25
We were down in a cellar. The walls were painted yellow. We packed our ladies’ dresses into oblong cardboard boxes about three feet long and a foot or a foot and a half wide. A certain skill was needed in folding each dress so that it did not become creased in the carton. To prevent this we used cardboard fillers and tissue, and were given careful instructions. The U.S. Mail was used for out of town deliveries. We each had our own scale and our own postage meter machine. No smoking.
Larabee was the head shipping clerk. Klein was the assistant head shipping clerk. Larabee was the boss. Klein was trying to move Larabee out of his job. Klein was Jewish and the owners of the store were Jewish and Larabee was nervous. Klein and Larabee argued and fought all day long and on into the evenings. Yes, evenings. The problem, as it was in those days during the war, was overtime. Those in control always preferred to overwork a few men continually, instead of hiring more people so everyone might work less. You gave the boss eight hours, and he always asked for more. He never sent you home after six hours, for example. You might have time to think.
26
Whenever I went out into the hall of the roominghouse Gertrude seemed to be standing there. She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed you to suffer for it. It made her happy. I didn’t feel too bad either. She could easily have shut me out and not even have allowed me to be warmed by a glimpse of it. Like most men in that situation I realized that I wouldn’t get anything out of her—intimate talks, exciting roller-coaster rides, long Sunday afternoon walks—until after I had made some odd promises.
“You’re a strange guy. You stay alone a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was sick long before that morning you met me.”
“Are you sick now?”
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t like people.”
“Do you think that’s right?”
“Probably not.”
“Will you take me to a movie some night?”
“I’ll try.”
Gertrude swayed in front of me; she swayed on her high heels. She moved forward. Bits of her were touching me. I simply couldn’t respond. There was a space between us. The distance was too great. I felt as if she was talking to a person who had vanished, a person who was no longer there, no longer alive. Her eyes seemed to look right through me. I couldn’t make a connection with her. I didn’t feel shame for that, only rather embarrassed, and helpless.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“I want to show you my bedroom.”
I followed Gertrude down the hall. She opened her bedroom door and I followed her in. It was a very feminine room. The large bed was covered with stuffed animals. All of the animals looked surprised and stared at me: giraffes, bears, lions, dogs. The air was perfumed. Everything was neat and clean and looked soft and comfortable. Gertrude moved close to me.
“You like my bedroom?”
“It’s nice. Oh yes, I like it.”
“Don’t ever tell Mrs. Downing that I asked you in here, she’d be scandalized.”
“I won’t tell.”
Gertrude stood there, silently.
“I have to go,” I told her finally. Then I went to the door, opened it, cl
osed it behind me, and walked back to my room.
27
After losing several typewriters to pawnbrokers I simply gave up the idea of owning one. I printed out my stories by hand and sent them out that way. I hand-printed them with a pen. I got to be a very fast hand-printer. It got so that I could hand-print faster than I could write. I wrote three or four short stories a week. I kept things in the mail. I imagined the editors of The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s saying: “Hey, here’s another one of those things by that nut…”
One night I took Gertrude to a bar. We sat at a table to one side and drank beer. It was snowing outside. I felt a little better than usual. We drank and talked. An hour or so passed. I began gazing into Gertrude’s eyes and she looked right back. “A good man, nowadays, is hard to find!” said the juke box. Gertrude moved her body to the music, moved her head to the music, and looked into my eyes.
“You have a very strange face,” she said. “You’re not really ugly.”
“Number four shipping clerk, working his way up.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Love is for real people.”
“You sound real.”
“I dislike real people.”
“You dislike them?”
“I hate them.”
We drank some more, not saying much. It continued to snow. Gertrude turned her head and stared into the crowd of people. Then she looked at me.
“Isn’t he handsome?”
“Who?”
“That soldier over there. He’s sitting alone. He sits so straight. And he’s got all his medals on.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“But it’s not late.”
“You can stay.”
“No, I want to go with you.”
“I don’t care what you do.”
“Is it the soldier? Are you mad because of the soldier?”
“Oh, shit!”
“It was the soldier!”
“I’m going.”
I stood up at the table, left a tip and walked toward the door. I heard Gertrude behind me. I walked down the street in the snow. Soon she was walking at my side.