“You’re a vicious son of a bitch, Eddie. I like you.”
“You and Rod McKuen are my favorite poets.”
“What?”
“Yes, you two guys are the only poets I can stand.”
I let that go. Soon we seemed to be driving along in the country. There were trees and space everywhere. Eddie stopped the car. “Get out,” he said.
I got out.
“O.K,” he said, “I want that 500 dollar check. You’re going to sign it over to me, Edward Mahler.”
“And you’re going to suck your mother’s left tit.”
The first punch came so fast I couldn’t see it. I swung from the heels and missed his head by two feet. He sunk one into my gut and I dropped to my knees and vomited up ten dollars worth of booze. I got back up.
“What did you say that name was?”
“Eddie Mahler.”
“Got a pen, Eddie? I lost mine giving out all those autographs.”
“Sure.”
I walked over to his car and put the check on top of the car roof. It was very wet in the moonlight. I signed the check over to Eddie, handed him the check and the pen and we got back into the car. “The least you can do, punk, is to drive me back to the hotel.”
“Don’t call me a punk.”
“Drive me back to the hotel, punk.”
He started the car, and we drove off. “I want you to meet my mother first. She’s always admired your stuff.”
“All right.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Compared to what’s happened, that’s easy.”
“Sure.”
“Eddie, if this ever gets out, I’m finished. I’m supposed to be the tough guy, the man of the streets. Hell, if this gets out nobody will ever buy my books.”
“I don’t want to compound anything. I’ll keep quiet.”
“I’m not speaking of morals or ethics or anything, Eddie, but that money’s really mine. And . . . hey, shit, what happened to my wristwatch?”
I looked over and Eddie had on two wristwatches. “Give me my wristwatch, punk.”
Eddie slipped my watch off. I put it back on. “One time I’m on the floor drunk, passed-out and I feel somebody lift my wristwatch, then I feel somebody pulling at my finger, he’s trying to get my ring off. I look up and he’s got out this knife, he’s going to peel down my finger to get my ring and it’s not worth $3. You ought to have heard me holler. He scattered.”
“I’ll pay you back $100 a month from this check I took from you,” said Eddie.
“No good,” I said, “you’re driving me back to the hotel. Then we’re going to sleep it off and I’m going to duke it out with you again when I’m sober.”
“O.K, but first I want you to meet my mother.”
Eddie’s mother was very nice. A young blonde. I mean young compared to me. Neither Eddie or I mentioned anything about the check. His mother mixed us all some drinks and we drank an hour or two, then left. Before we left Eddie went to the closet and gave me one of his shirts, a nice purple and white striped job. I put it on, mine had somehow gotten bloodied and ripped during the fight. Before we left, Eddie’s mother got out these photos of her ex-husband, a rather famous gangster who’d been gunned down by the cops. We all did a bit of mourning and weeping for him, me mostly. Then we had another drink and left.
In the hotel in the morning I awakened first, shit and showered. Eddie was out. My first thought was to sneak downstairs and holler cops. But somehow that was out. I got back into bed and opened a warm beer. No refrigeration in the fucking place. Eddie rolled over. “Hey,” he said.
“Yeah?”
Eddie got up, went to his pants and took out his wallet. He walked over and handed me the check. “I knew I could never take this. I knew I’d give it back when I woke up in the morning.”
“Eddie, I’ll take it.”
The kid started getting dressed. “Care for a warm beer?”
“O.K.”
I broke one open for him. Eddie finished dressing, then finished the beer. I found a pen and wrote my address down. “Write me, Eddie.”
He took the slip of paper, put it in his pocket and walked out the door. That’s about all there was to that reading except I met Slim de Bouffe and his girlfriend in this bar later, they were going to get me to the airport and I told them the story as we drank green beer in a place they were mopping up with a very strong disinfectant and we almost vomited together. “You mean you couldn’t take him?” asked de Bouffe.
“I couldn’t take him,” I answered.
Then we all got up and walked over to a sweeter-smelling place.
They were both 7 years old and they found the hole in the fence and crawled through.
“He usually sits out in the yard in this chair. He just sits there looking kind of mad.”
“He might kill us, Billy.”
“Look, Red, he’s in enough trouble, he won’t kill us.”
“You say he looks mad.”
“He’s just pissed. He don’t go to the market or eat out or anything. He sends people out for his things. We got to look out for his people.”
“I’ll bet he has guards everywhere.”
“Not too many, Red, just two or three. I come here every day. I never been caught yet.”
“You like to look at him, Billy?”
“Yeah. Only today I think I want to talk to him.”
“Talk to him?”
“Yeah. Now keep down low against those bushes. Now lay down here.”
“O.K.”
“See him, Red? He’s sitting in that big chair with his cane, he’s just looking off into space, looking mad.”
“I see him.”
“Let’s crawl closer.”
“How about the guards?”
“Oh, they just walk around. They get careless. If we had a gun we could kill him right from here.”
Billy pointed his finger, moving his thumb down: “Pow!”
“I’m scared, Billy!”
“Me, too. That’s the fun of it. Keep crawling closer.”
“It’s him, Billy, it’s him! I’ve seen him on TV, I’ve seen his picture in the papers!”
“Sure it’s him, Red. Who do you think he is?”
“He does look mad! It’s just like seeing God!”
“It’s better, we can talk to him.”
“You—still going to talk to him?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve made up my mind. Keep crawling toward him.”
“I’ve pissed my pants, Billy.”
“It doesn’t matter. Keep moving up.”
“I pissed my pants, Billy, I’m so scared I pissed my pants.”
“I could hit him with a rock now. Red. He’s just looking off into space. Soon we’ll be able to reach out and touch him.”
They crawled closer. Soon they were out of the brush and they crawled along the lawn, closer and closer. They were 12 feet away, then six. Then they stopped. They just remained quiet, breathing.
Finally Billy said, “Hey!”
The man in the chair was jolted upright, dropping his cane. “Christ! . . . what is it?”
“We came to talk to you,” said Billy, standing up. Red stood up too, looking down at the spot on the front of his pants.
“Red pissed his pants, we’re sorry about that.”
The man picked up his cane and pointed it at the boys.
“You goddamned kids get out of here!”
“We want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Now get your asses out of here!”
“My father didn’t vote for you,” said Billy. “He tells people that.”
“Well, the way it worked out, somebody must have.”
“Why did you do it?” asked Billy.
“Do what?”
“Do what you did.”
“You kids live around here?”
“Sure. What do you think?” asked Billy. “You think we flew down from Mars?”
“It would
n’t surprise my ass in the least.”
“Why do you use dirty language?”
“Sorry.”
“All your men were sentenced to jail. Aren’t you sorry for your men?”
“All men are guilty of something.”
“Do you mean all men should be in jail?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Does your wife still go to bed with you after what you did?”
The man lifted his cane and pointed it at Billy. “You stay out of my sex life!”
“I’ll bet she doesn’t anymore.”
“What do you know about sex?”
“Plenty.”
“O.K., what is it?”
“It’s something to do to make yourself feel good so you can go on and do all the things that don’t make you feel so good.”
“That’s not Webster but it’s not bad.”
Then there was silence. The man turned and looked off into space again. Some minutes passed. Then Red said, “I kind of like you, anyhow.”
Billy turned to Red: “What the hell’s wrong with you? He’s no good. He ought to be in jail with the rest of those guys!”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I guess, Red,” said the man, “the least you can do for me is vote Republican when you grow up.”
“Herbert Hoover was a Republican and he let the people starve to death!” said Billy.
“How do you know that?” asked the man.
“My uncle told me.”
“O.K., that’s good enough.”
“Both those Kennedys were good guys and look what happened to them.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Somebody ought to kill you!”
“So my wife can go to bed with another man?”
“No. Just because you STINK!”
“Boys, I think this interview is over.”
Billy and Red stood there looking at him. A solitary bird flew past between them, quickly, looping up and down like a fantasy and then it was gone. The man leaned upward in his chair. Then he screamed out: “HARRY! DOUG! OVER HERE!” quickly but heavily. They were young and well dressed and had revolvers drawn. They were each adorned with the latest hairdo and the latest clothing style.
“WHERE THE HELL’S MY SECURITY? WHAT YOU GUYS BEEN DOING, PLAYING SCRABBLE IN THE ROSE BOWER OR WORSE?”
“How’d these fucking kids get in here?” asked the taller of the security guards.
“Ask them,” said the man.
“How’d you kids get in here?”
“A hole in the fence.”
“But everything’s wired!”
“What’s wired?”
“Oh, shit, we got to check the wiring,” said the taller of the security men to the shorter, “get your ass on Mr. Bell now and get Del Monico over here, and FAST!”
“Listen,” said Billy, “I think we’ll be going home now.”
“Hold it now!” said the remaining security man, “don’t move!”
“Let them go.”
“Don’t you want me to process them?”
“What the hell you going to find? You’ll find that one of the kids has pissed his pants and the other has a father who is a plumber and gets drunk every Saturday night.”
“All right, kids,” said the security guard, “you can go now.”
Billy turned and began to run and then Red ran after him. Red was a better runner than Billy and he passed him and got through the hole in the fence first.
“Anything I can do for you?” the security guard asked the man.
“Yeah. Get the hell out of my sight, Now!”
It was done and the man in the chair leaned back again. You could hear the ocean if you really listened. He really listened. He still held the cane in his right hand. The veins of that hand were not relaxed.
Harry walked into the bar and sat down. “Scotch and water,” he told the bar-keep. Harry had some thoughts on bars. They were infested with the second-lowest breed of humanity. The race-track’s got the first lowest breed of humanity. Having just gotten in from the track he was completing a meaningless day. At least the jukebox wasn’t on and nobody was shooting pool. He remembered the days you used to be able to come into a bar and stare into the mirror until you got drunk. Or you beat the shit out of somebody or got the shit beat out of you. And you used to be able to win at the racetrack and occasionally meet a woman of high quality. But why cry? Everyone lived in the same world as you did. Or so they said. He got the first drink down and ordered another.
When he looked up there was a lady in her mid-40s, large purple blouse, sagging breasts, overtight skirt showing pot belly, two heart-shaped blue earrings on long silver chains, and in the center of her face—a blaze of orange lipstick, glistening wet. The earrings fascinated Harry. The lady managed to move her head just enough to keep the earrings bouncing inanely—the blue hearts leaped and jumped and whirled on either side of her head. “Hi! I’m Janice!”
“Harry.”
“You new in town?”
“In the world.”
“Ta! Ain’t that somethin’? Can I ask you somethin’?”
“Shoot.”
“Shoot”?
“Speak.”
“Are you a slave or a master?”
“I remain humble among the multitudes: I’m a slave.”
“What’s a slave?”
“A man who can’t reach his own asshole with his dick.”
“You’re bitter.”
“No, I just can’t reach.”
“Do you believe in love?”
“Yes, but only for other people.”
Janice got up and brought her drink down, blue heart earrings jumping like jazz discovering Bach. She had on false eyelashes two and one-half inches long. “I wanna buy you a drink.”
“O.K.”
“You like money?”
“Better than youth, fame or virgins.”
Janice ordered the drinks and said, “You come home with me and you’ve made yourself 50 bucks.”
“Fine. I’ll do anything but drink buttermilk.”
“Oh, good, then we’ll make it 75 bucks.”
They drank up and he followed her out. It was a pink Mercedes. She angled off from the curbing, breaking traffic in half, horns going, the blue hearts jumped . . . She swirled up a half-moon driveway and pulled in front of a large three-story house. The garage door opened like a large, terrifying and mindless mouth but she jumped out of the car, opened Harry’s door and pulled him out.
“Come, my darling, I just can’t wait!”
“I wonder,” he said, “what the third-lowest breed of humanity does?”
He followed her up the stairway and into the house.
Nice, he thought, a guy like Sugar Ray Robinson could use something like this.
He found himself in a large leather chair overhung with a lamp on one side and a parrot on the other. Janice ran into the other room. Then the parrot looked at him and said, “Now eat your spinach, darling.”
“Oh,” said Harry to the parrot, “why don’t you go flog yourself off?”
“After you eat your spinach, darling!”
“What?”
“Now eat your spinach, darling . . . ”
Janice came in with two large drinks, gave him one, then sat on the couch across from him. Harry drained half his drink; his temples damn near gagged and a photograph of Man of War coerced before his eyes, then vanished. He drained the other half.
“Keep them coming,” he said.
Janice walked into the other room. Harry stared at the parrot. The parrot stared back. Then the parrot looked away, bored.
She handed him the drink. “What I want you to do, you may not like.”
“For $75 I believe that any man could stand a minor diminishment.”
“Maybe. Drink your second drink first.”
Harry did that. Janice got up and walked out. He waited. Janice walked back in.
She threw the material on his lap. “You p
ut that stuff on.”
Harry picked it up and looked at it. “Great Grandmother of Christ, don’t you know I’m half-crazy already? This could carry me into the shit-stained land of absentia.”
“Seventy-five bucks. Put it on.”
“Yes.”
“The bedroom,” she said, “is one sharp corner to the left.”
Harry carried the stuff into the bedroom: a little boy’s short pants—black—and a blouse, ruffled, silky and white; underwear with designs of rockinghorses, moons and candy canes upon it; two ankle-length stockings, white.
He worked his way into the stuff and walked out. Janice put another drink into his hand as he sat down. He drank it halfway down—no vision of Man of War this time.
No vision at all.
“You’re a nice boy,” she said.
“Now,” said the parrot, “eat your spinach, darling!”
“What have I got myself into?” asked Harry.
“Seventy-five bucks.”
“Did Job have to suffer like this to stay on the payroll?”
“You keep saying clever things! You are my bright little boy!”
“Look, why don’t we just fuck and get it over with?”
“If you keep saying things like that, Harold, I’m going to have to wash your mouth out with soap!”
Janice got up and walked to the telephone, dialed, waited.
“Harriet? Harriet, my boy is back home! Won’t you come over and see my boy? You will? I’m so happy! We’ll be waiting!”
Janice hung up.
“Another drink,” said Harry. Janice went to the kitchen and stoked up another, brought it out, handed it to him. “Now Harold, I got a note from your teacher today and she said that you had been bad in school, that you had pulled a little girl’s pigtail and stuck it in the inkwell! Why did you do that, Harold, bad boy!”
“Because she’d been finger-fucking her sister while the other girls were playing volleyball!”
“Harold! I told you about dirty words! One more time and you get the soap!”
“Now,” said the parrot, “eat your spinach, darling!”