Listen, is it true that Celine and Hemingway died on the same day?
Hope you’re all right...
Keep ‘em crying,
yrs,
Henry Chinaski
I took the sheet out of the typer, folded it, hand-printed the address on an envelope, stuck it inside, found a stamp, and there it was: my writing for the night. I sat there, finished the rest of the wine bottle, opened another one and walked downstairs.
Jon had turned off the TV and was sitting there. I brought two glasses and sat down next to him. I poured them around.
“The typer sounds hot,” Jon said.
“Jon, I was writing a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Have a drink.”
“All right.”
We both had one.
“Jon, you’ve paid me to write this fucking screenplay...”
“But, of course...”
“I can’t write it. I’m up there trying to write the thing and you’re down here listening for the sound of the typer. It’s hard...”
“I could go some place at night.”
“No, listen, you are going to have to move! I can’t go on this way! I’m sorry, man, I’m a dog, a heel, I’m the heel of a dog! Do dogs have heels? Anyhow, you’re going to have to find a place to live. I can’t write this way, I’m not man enough.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. But I was going to have to move anyhow.”
“What?”
“François is coming back. His business in France is done. We are going to have to find a place together. I am looking now. In fact, today I think I found a place. I just didn’t want to bother you with all this.”
“But are you guys able to...?”
“We have money. We are consolidating our resources.”
“Christ, then will you forgive me for wanting to throw you into the street?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I was only worried about how to tell you that I had to move out.”
“You wouldn’t bullshit an old drunk, would you?”
“No. But have you written anything?”
“A smidge...”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure, buddy.”
I went upstairs, brought down the pages, put them on the coffee-table. Then I went back upstairs, went into the bedroom.
“Come on, Sarah, we’re going to celebrate!”
“Celebrate what?”
“Jon’s moving out. I’m going to be able to write again!”
“Did you hurt his feelings?”
“I don’t think so. You see, François is coming back, they have to find a place together.”
We went downstairs. Sarah got another glass. Jon was into the screenplay.
He laughed when he saw me.
“This stuff is fucking great! I knew that it would be!”
“You wouldn’t bullshit an old drunk, would you?”
“No. Never.”
Sarah sat down and we had a quiet drink together.
Jon spoke. “I used Wenner Zergog’s phone to call François. I found out François fucked up. He got canned. He got a few days’ pay, then got canned. Same old thing...”
“Like what?” asked Sarah.
“He’s a great actor but now and then he goes crazy. He’ll just forget the script and the scene he’s supposed to be doing and do his thing. It’s a sickness, I think. He must have done it again. He got canned.”
“What does he do?” I asked.
“It’s always the same. He does all right for a while. Then he fails to follow direction. I will tell him, ‘You walk over there and say your line.’ He won’t do it. He’ll walk somewhere else and say some other line. And I’ll ask him, ‘Why do you do this?’ and he’ll answer, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’ Once we were shooting and he walked away and pulled down his pants and bent over. He wasn’t wearing shorts.”
“God damn,” I said.
“Or, he will say things like, ‘We must hasten the natural process of death.’ Or, ‘All men’s lives diminish me.’ “
“Sounds like a hell of a guy.”
“Ah, he is...”
We drank into the early morning, far into the early morning.
I awakened about noon and went downstairs and knocked at Jon’s door. There was no answer. I opened the door. Jon was gone. There was a note.
Dear Hank and Sarah:
Thanks much for all the drinks and everything. I felt like an honored guest.
Hank, your screenplay is a justification of my belief in you. It is even better than that. Please continue it.
I will phone you soon with my location and phone number.
This is a wonderful day. It’s Mozart’s birthday. There will be beautiful music all day....
yrs, Jon
The note made me feel terrible and good at the same time, which was the way I felt most of the time anyhow. I went upstairs, pissed, brushed my teeth and got back into bed with Sarah.
16
That night without Jon listening downstairs, the screenplay began to move. I was writing about a young man who wanted to write and drink but most of his success was with the bottle. The young man had been me. While the time had not been an unhappy time, it had been mostly a time of void and waiting. As I typed along, the characters in a certain bar returned to me. I saw each face again, the bodies, heard the voices, the conversations. There was one particular bar that had a certain deathly charm. I focused on that, relived the barroom fights with the bartender. I had not been a good fighter. To begin with my hands were too small and I was underfed, grossly underfed. But I had a certain amount of guts and I took a punch very well. My main problem during a fight was that I couldn’t truly get angry, even when it seemed my life was at stake. It was all play-acting with me. It mattered and it didn’t. Fighting the bartender was something to do and it pleased the patrons who were a clubby little group. I was the outsider. There is something to be said for drinking—all those fights would have killed me had I been sober but being drunk it was as if the body turned to rubber and the head to cement. Sprained wrists, puffed lips and battered kneecaps were about all I came up with the next day. Also, knots on the head from falling. How all this could become a screenplay, I didn’t know. I only knew that it was the only part of my life I hadn’t written much about. I believe that I was sane at that time, as sane as anybody. And I knew that there was a whole civilization of lost souls that lived in and off bars, daily, nightly and forever, until they died. I had never read about this civilization so I decided to write about it, the way I remembered it. The good old typer clicked along.
The next day about noon the phone rang. It was Jon.
“I have found a place. François is with me. It’s beautiful, it has two kitchens and the rent is nothing, really nothing...”
“Where are you located?”
“We’re in the ghetto in Venice. Brooks Avenue. All blacks. The streets are war and destruction. It’s beautiful!”
“Oh?”
“You must come see the place!”
“When?”
“Today!”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to miss this! There are people living under our house. We can hear them under there, talking and playing their radio! There are gangs everywhere! There’s a large hotel somebody built down here. But nobody paid their rent. They boarded the place up, cut off the electricity, the water, the gas. But people still live there. THIS IS A WAR ZONE! The police do not come in here, it’s like a separate state with its own rules. I love it! You must visit us!”
“How do I get there?”
Jon gave me the instructions, then hung up.
I found Sarah.
“Listen, I’ve got to go see Jon and François.”
“Hey, I’m coming too!”
“No, you can’t. It’s in the ghetto in Venice.”
“Oh, the ghetto! I wouldn’t miss that fo
r anything!”
“Look, do me a favor: please don’t come along!”
“What? Do you think I would let you go down there all by
yourself!” I got my blade, put my money in my shoes. “O.K.,” I said....
We drove slowly into the Venice ghetto. It was not true that it was all black. There were some Latinos on the outskirts. I noted a group of 7 or 8 young Mexican men standing around and leaning against an old car. Most of the men were in their undershirts or had their shirts off. I drove slowly past, not staring, just taking it in. They didn’t seem to be doing much. Just waiting. Ready and waiting. Actually, they were probably just bored. They looked like fine fellows. And they didn’t look worried worth a shit.
Then we got to black turf. Right away, the streets were cluttered: a left shoe, an orange shirt, an old purse...a rotted grapefruit. . . another left shoe...a pair of bluejeans...a rubber tire...
I had to steer through the stuff. Two young blacks about eleven years old stared at us from bicycles. It was pure, perfect hate. I could feel it. Poor blacks hated. Poor whites hated. It was only when blacks got money and whites got money that they mixed. Some whites loved blacks. Very few, if any, blacks loved whites. They were still getting even. Maybe they never would. In a capitalistic society the losers slaved for the winners and you have to have more losers than winners. What did I think? I knew politics would never solve it and there wasn’t enough time left to get lucky.
We drove on until we found the address, parked the car, got out, knocked.
A little window slid open and there was an eye looking at us.
“Ah, Hank and Sarah!”
The door opened, shut, and we were inside.
I walked to the window and looked out.
“What are you doing?” asked Jon.
“Just want to check the car now and then...”
“Oh, yes, come look, I’ll show you the two kitchens!”
Sure enough there were two kitchens, a stove in each, a refrigerator in each, a sink in each.
“This used to be two places. It’s been turned into one.”
“Nice,” said Sarah, “you can cook in one kitchen and François can cook in the other...”
“Right now we are living mostly on eggs. We have chickens, they lay many eggs...”
“Christ, Jon, is it that bad?”
“No, not really. We figure we are here for a long stand. We need most of our money for wine and cigars. How’s the screenplay coming?”
“I’m happy to say that there are quite a few pages. Only sometimes I don’t know about CAMERA, ZOOM IN, PAN IN...all that crap...”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”
“Where’s François?” asked Sarah.
“Ah, he’s in the other room...come...”
We went in and there was François spinning his little roulette wheel. When he drank his nose became very red, like a cartoon drunk. Also, the more he drank the more depressed he became. He was sucking on a wet half-finished cigar. He managed a few sad puffs. There was an almost empty bottle of wine nearby.
“Shit,” he said, “I am now 60 thousand dollars in the hole and I am drinking this cheap wine of Jon’s which he claims is good stuff but it is pure crap. He pays a dollar and 35 cents a bottle. My stomach is like a balloon full of piss! I am 60 thousand dollars in the hole and I have no visible means of employment. I must...kill . . myself...”
“Come on, François,” said Jon, “let’s show our friends the chickens...”
“The chickens! HEGGS! All the time we eat HEGGS! Nothing but HEGGS! Poop, poop, poop! The chickens poop HEGGS! All day, all night long my job is to save the chickens from the young black boys! All the time the young black boys climb the fence and run at the chicken coop! I hit them with a long stick, I say, ‘You muthafiickas you stay away from my chickens which poop the HEGGS!’ I cannot think, I cannot think of my own life or my own death, I am always chasing these young black boys with the long stick! Jon, I need more wine, another cigar!”
He gave the wheel another spin.
It was more bad news. The system was failing.
“You see, in France they only have one zero for the house! Here in America they have a zero and a double zero for the house! THEY TAKE BOTH YOUR BALLS! WHY? Come on, I’ll show you the chickens....”
We walked into the yard and there were the chickens and the chicken coop. François had built it himself. He was good that way. He had a real talent for that. Only he hadn’t used chicken wire. There were bars. And locks on each door.
“I give roll call each night. ‘Cecile, you there?’ ‘Cluck, cluck,’ she answers. ‘Bernadette, you there?’ ‘Cluck, cluck,’ she answers. And so on. ‘Nicole?’ I asked one night. She did not cluck. Can you believe it, through all the bars and all the locks they got Nicole! They have taken her out already! Nicole is gone, gone forever! Jon, Jon, I need more wine!”
We went back in and sat down and the new wine poured. Jon gave François a new cigar.
“If I can have my cigar when I want it,” said François, “I can live.”
We drank a while, then Sarah asked, “Listen, Jon is your landlord black?”
“Oh, yes...”
“Didn’t he ask why you were renting here?”
“Yes...”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him that we were filmmakers and actors from France.”
“And he said?”
“He said, ‘oh.’ “
“Anything else?”
“Yes, he said, ‘well it’s your ass!’ “
We drank for some time making small talk.
Now and then I got up and went to the window to see if the car was still there.
As we drank on I began to feel guilty about the whole thing.
“Listen, Jon, let me give you the screenplay money back. I’ve driven you to the wall. This is terrible....”
“No, I want you to do this screenplay. It will become a movie, I promise you...”
“All right, god damn it...”
We drank a bit more.
Then Jon said, “Look...”
Through a hole in the wall where we were sitting could be seen a hand, a black hand. It was wriggling through the broken plaster, fingers gripping, moving. It was like a small dark animal.
“GO AWAY,” yelled François. “GO AWAY MURDERER OF NICOLE! YOU HAVE LEFT A HOLE IN MY HEART FOREVER! GO AWAY!”
The hand did not go away.
François walked over to the wall and the hand.
“I tell you now, go away. I only wish to smoke my cigar and drink my wine in peace. You disturb my sight! I cannot feel right with you grabbing and looking at me through your poor black fingers!”
The hand did not go away.
“ALL RIGHT THEN!”
The stick was right there. With one demonic move François picked up the long stick and began whacking it against the wall, again and again and again...
“CHICKEN KILLER, YOU HAVE WOUNDED MY HEART FOREVER!”
The sound was deafening. Then François stopped.
The hand was gone.
François sat back down.
“Shit, Jon, my cigar is out! Why don’t you buy better cigars, Jon?”
“Listen, Jon,” I said, “we’ve got to be going now...”
“Oh, come now...please...the night is just beginning! You’ve seen nothing yet...”
“We’ve got to be going...I have more work to do on the screenplay...”
“Oh...in that case...”
Back at the house I went upstairs and did work on the screenplay but strangely or maybe not so strangely my past life hardly seemed as strange or wild or as mad as what was occurring now.
17
The screenplay went well. Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole pro
cess allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically, that’s why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.
One of my past ladies had screamed at me, “You drink to escape reality!”
“Of course, my dear,” I had answered her.
I had the bottle and the typer. I liked a bird in each hand, to hell with the bush.
Anyhow, the screenplay went well. Unlike the novel or the short story or the poem where I would take a night or two off from time to time, I worked on the screenplay each night. And then it was finished.
I phoned Jon. “Well, I don’t know what we have but it’s finished.”
“Great! I’d come to get it but we’re having kind of a lunch party down here. Drinks, food, guests. François is the chef. Can you drive the screenplay down?”
“I’d like to but I’m afraid to drive it down there.”
“Oh, shit, Hank, nobody is going to steal that old Volks.”
“Jon, I just bought a new BMW.”
“What?”
“The day before yesterday. My tax accountant says it’s tax deductible.”
“Tax deductible? That doesn’t seem possible...”
“That’s what he told me. He said that in America you have to spend your money or they’ll take it away. Now they can’t take mine away: I don’t have any.”
“But I’ve got to see that screenplay! With something to show the producers I can really get going.”