Never had I seen anything more astonishingly sexual and lush. And her eyes were on mine. The effect was so strong that I had to turn away. When I looked again it was as before. I walked on. What does one do? What is the password, or what hope, when a man is 54 and still feels all those designs and patterns and traps and wonderments? Why didn’t they hurry up and fix my fucking car?
I crossed and walked down the stairway to the boardwalk that led to Venice. I was still badly hungover. Breakfast hadn’t helped much. It was hardly down. It hung about halfway up and halfway down. “Drunkenness and suicide are the bedmates of the writer,” somebody had almost said once. It was true; I’d never known a good writer who was not either an alcoholic or a doper or both.
“Charles!”
I walked over. It was a man about 28, dark-haired, big. He had on glasses and needed a shave. “You don’t know me,” he said. “I’ve read your books.”
“I’m sick,” I said, “and walking around while they fix my car.”
“My car’s at Sears. I’m getting a new battery. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Too sick. I never drink before noon.”
“I’m sick, too.”
“Come on. Let’s sit down. I’m wobbly.”
We walked over to a bench facing the ocean. “Venice depresses me,” I said, “especially when you get down to that Jewish sandwich shop and these hard cases, these Tim Leary dropouts demand 20 cents.”
“Yeah, it’s bad. And the liberals down here, the anarchists, the Communists—nothing’s happening, Mrs. Jones—so they turned into transvestites. They’re really only half into it but they’re into it.”
“What do you do, kid?,” I asked, “just sit on these benches and rot and wait?”
“I write scripts for television.” He named one of the shows he wrote. I didn’t know it. All I watched on television was the boxing matches. He went on: “I just wrote two scripts, got $6,000 for each of them. Each took about eight hours. I hardly remember writing them. The money’s so easy I can’t resist, I can’t stop.”
“You’ve got a right. It beats working for McDonald’s.”
Just then a large tractor affair making much noise and painted yellow came by behind us. My friend held his ears. “Jesus, I can’t stand it! What are they doing with that thing? What does it mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. The city buys those things and then sends them out to belabor a couple of guys sitting on a bench with a hangover. That’s their function. It’s that simple.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“You shouldn’t be out here. You ought to be home in a chair with a vodka-7 in your hand.”
“I have come out here to get away from my wife.”
“Sorry.”
“I came in drunk last night and she says I hit her. I don’t remember. It was something about two ashtrays, one was on top of the other. I couldn’t stand it.”
“A lot of things preceded those two ashtrays.”
“Yes.”
“I have trouble with women, too.”
“Yeah, I’ve read your shit.”
“They read your writing, they know what you are. Then they come in and try to change you. Don’t drink, if you love me. Learn the fox-trot. Attend the family picnic. See your local pastor.”
“Why do they do that?”
“I don’t know why, totally. But I think I have part of it. The woman is the child-bearer and the child-trainer, whether she knows it or not, whether she wants it or not she has this inherent streak. Raising a child to most women means raising it as per the woman’s knowledges and prejudices. It’s hard work. So she begins by trying to be the man-trainer. If they are able to train the man, they feel that surely they’ll be able to train the child. We are the great testing ground for somebody else’s future.”
“Maybe that’s why I hit her.”
“No, it was the ashtrays.”
“I’ve got a secretary. She’s not much but I fuck her.”
“That’s what secretaries are for, especially if they are women’s libbers.”
“Do the women hate you?”
“No, they hate the men who agree with them.”
“My secretary helps me write.”
“That’s good. What do you do, tape it and let her type it?”
“No. I lay down on top of her and I play with her tits. I keep laying down on top of her and playing with her tits and she writes. Soon it’s over and we’ve got something.”
“It comes harder for me. I use two sheets of paper and a carbon.”
“That whole TV scene is too bizarre, it really is. After lunch the producers will send out a chauffeur in a limousine and they’ll come back with some 13-year-old girls.”
“Marvelous. Think of a 13-year-old girl. It must be goodness beyond goodness.”
“That’s not for us, my friend.”
“No, you’ll just keep writing your scripts and sitting here on this bench for 40 more years. Not much will change.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. See those bars holding up those swings? Well, they’ll be a little thicker, that’s all. And rounder. And they’ll be of some silver substance that will glow in the sun.”
“Yeah. And the women will just wear little dots over their cunts and tits, the littlest of dots.”
“Yes, only the cunt will have moved up from between the legs and be placed under the left arm pit.”
“Oh no. And guys will walk about on two cocks like legs.”
“That’s it. Well, I have to go see if my car is fixed.”
“I have to go see if my car is fixed, too.”
“Your name is?”
“Joe.”
“I’ll see you again sometime, Joe.”
“Yeah, sometime when my car is getting fixed and your car is getting fixed.”
I left him there and began the long walk back to 6th street. Everything was all right for some blocks, and then when I was four or five blocks away from the Bug Builders I heard footsteps behind me, female footsteps. I was walking slowly and she was walking just as slowly about a yard behind me and a little to the left toward the street side. It went on for a full block. On the next block she still followed me.
This can’t be true, I thought. I’m addled, goofy, inept. It’s the hangover, the sea air.
I slowed to let her by. As I slowed, she slowed. I slowed more; she slowed. I gave up and walked my normal pace. She followed along, a yard behind and a little to the left on the street side. Then we came to a signal. We both waited, her just the same distance behind me. When the signal changed I bent over as if to tie a shoelace. She walked past me and across.
On the next block I followed her, just a yard behind. She was bowlegged, just a bit, about 32, but she had a most marvelous behind. Well, not quite. It seemed a bit square, somehow. But after a while I got to like that squareness. It revolved with the power of the mare who knew she was there, still dangerous and damned able; not just able to catch the cock but the soul, too. It was under a tan dress and it moved. Her hair was very black and knotted into a tight, stern bun, and you knew if it were let loose it would flow down to her hips. And the hips were much there. My eyes went from the buttocks to the hips to the neck, down to the hips again and then settled upon the buttocks: the power to save a man or kill a man or ignore a man. I followed her for two blocks. Then at the next signal she crossed the street away from me. I stood and watched her. She walked across the parking lot and toward a small semi-grocery and liquor store. Just as she got to the doorway she turned and looked back at me. Her face flushed a deep red. Then she walked into the store. I was on 6th street. Bug Builder’s was three-quarters of a block the other way. I walked on down and into the office. I was lucky: my car was ready.
I met the Crottys quite by accident. That is, I was looking for a new place to live and they both came to the door and looked at me through the screen.
“I saw your ‘vacancy’ sign. And this woman’s pregnant. We need a place to live.
”
The woman’s name was Darlene and I had gotten her pregnant after taking her to the racetrack. Mrs. Crotty got the key and took us to an apartment in the upper back. I took the place and Mr. and Mrs. Crotty simply became people I paid the rent to. He was 58, she was 55. The only time I saw them was when they drove their Volks to the market. They had no visitors except a son and a daughter who came by separately and sporadically.
Darlene and I lived together without much velocity or hope. The child was born, we lived together three more months, then the split came. Darlene and the child moved a few blocks away and I moved down to the front court.
It was a good place to drink beer, there by the front window facing the street. The typewriter was there, and outside large green brush covered everything, along with the vines and small trees.
The Crottys, who hadn’t liked Darlene, became noticeable. I’d come home and find large paper bags against the door. The bags contained various items: green onions, oranges, apples, tomatoes and sometimes a shirt. Mrs. Crotty would knock in the mid-afternoons. “Don’t eat anything, I’m going to bring you a plate.” The plate was most often fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green peas, tomatoes and green onions, plus biscuits. She also made a good boiled beef plate. And every other night Mrs. Crotty would come down about 8:30 p.m. slightly intoxicated, and say, “Come on down and drink with us.”
When I came down, Mr. Crotty would be passed out across the table, head in arms; he would be in his undershirt and tan army pants. Full and near-full bottles would be here and there about the table. The breakfastnook was always very clean and the red radio would be on to a popular music station. “Paddy,” she’d say, “wake up. We’ve got a guest.” Up the head would come and he’d look at me. “Hi! How ya doin’? Have a drink.”
Mrs. Crotty would set a full quart of Eastside in front of me. We’d drink from early evening until 3 or 4 in the morning. Most of the nights were the same. We’d sing the old songs, songs of the twenties and thirties. We’d talk about the crazy people in the neighborhood or about crazy people we had known. Mr. Crotty was a good storyteller, but he’d soon pass out again.
“Well, Mrs. Crotty, I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, shit, stay. That old fart-sack , just because he passes out it don’t mean nothing.”
I’d stay or Mrs. Crotty would get angry. Sometimes, although not too often, I’d kiss her, a long hard kiss, spreading her lips back. Finally, after many more cigarettes and a few more bottles of beer, I’d leave.
The conversations, each time I went down there, were about the same. Mrs. Crotty and I would discuss our hemorrhoid operations. We’d talk all about the depression days of the thirties. We’d talk about the days we used to sit around in bars. And like all drunks, we’d get around to God, finally. But the Crottys got very upset when God came around, or the Pope; I wasn’t very much interested in either of them and it made them furious, almost to the point of murder. I tried to stay away from that area.
The drinking was every other night and sometimes I got out of stride or I’d be at the typewriter. Mrs. Crotty would come down.
“We’re drinking. We’ll be looking for you.”
“I can’t make it.”
“Can’t make it? Why?”
“I’m at the typewriter.”
“Ah, piss on that typewriter! Come on down, we’re drinking!”
“I’ve got to finish this thing.”
“Come on to the door. I want to tell you something.”
“O.K.”
“Listen, you rotten son of a bitch, I told you we’re drinking. Now you son of a bitch, come on down!” Mrs. Crotty never swore when she was sober.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Crotty. I can’t.”
Then she would unleash her total drunken vocabulary. She was pretty good. She would reappear in 30 minutes and make another pitch. If I didn’t respond, I’d get the note under the door next:
“Bastard, you never paid me back that 50 dollars I lent you and if you don’t pay it back I’m going to the police.”
One night I didn’t make it down and somebody bumped into their court with their automobile while trying to park in the apartment house lot across the way. I heard his voice:
“HEY, WHERE IN THE HELL DID YOU LEARN TO DRIVE?”
“WHO ARE YOU?” the guy in the car hollered back.
“I’M PATRICK CROTTY AND I OWN THIS GODDAMNED DUMP, THAT’S WHO I AM! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?”
There was no answer.
Meanwhile the Crottys and my days went on. Then I met a madwoman, her name was Gerda.
“I don’t like the Karates,” she said.
“It’s the Crottys,” I said.
Gerda would stand in one of my windows and scream into the street. She screamed as if I were mutilating her.
“What the fuck you doing?” I’d ask.
“I’m enhancing your reputation.”
“Let’s leave it the way it is.”
Gerda was mad. The front door to my place was made of glass. If she came over and I wasn’t home, she’d break all the glass panels out of the door. Sometimes she’d do it when I was there.
“She’s crazy,” Mr. Crotty would say replacing the glass panels, “what do you see in her?”
“I guess it’s her body.”
There were pieces of glass all over the rug. I always drank barefoot in my place and I gathered all these pieces of glass in both feet. I had to go to a doctor and have them sliced out.
“How did this happen?” my doctor would ask.
“A woman.”
After a month or so I left the Crottys. I moved out and went to live in Gerda’s house. She charged me rent, too. Then I broke the glass out her front door. Gerda and I had difficult days and nights. One night she ran me out and I went to a motel on Western Avenue and drank a quart of Cutty Sark. In the morning I went over and got my shit, packed it into my car and drove around looking for a place to live. I passed the Crottys. There was a sign on the front lawn: VACANCY. I went back and knocked.
“What happened?”
“She ran my ass off.”
“I told you she was crazy.”
“I know. I saw your VACANCY sign. What you got open?”
“It’s your old place. We fixed it up nice.”
“Can I move back in?”
“Sure, but it’s 10 bucks more, we fixed it up.”
“All right.”
I gave them a month’s rent and moved back in. It had been fixed up all right. They’d even taken the glass door out and replaced it with a wooden one. Brown bags full of goodies appeared at the door again, plus the free dinners. We had our Eastside drunk, sang songs. Mr Crotty passed out and I kissed Mrs. Crotty.
Then two or three nights later I vanished. I was gone overnight. The next day I came back about evening. Mr. and Mrs. Crotty were standing in the driveway.
“Where have you been?”
“Gerda’s.”
“I thought so,” said Mrs. Crotty.
“I’m moving back to her place.”
“But she’s insane, don’t you know?”
“I know.”
“There’s no hope for you,” said Mr. Crotty. Then they marched up the driveway and vanished into their court. I went inside and packed.
A week later I was packing again to leave Gerda’s place. I didn’t even drive past the Crottys. I found a place on Oxford Avenue with roaches behind the refrigerator.
I forgot the Crottys for some months, then one evening I was driving in their neighborhood. They had rented my front court, there were lights on in there. I drove on up the driveway, parked and got out. I knocked. Mrs. Crotty answered the door. Mr. Crotty stood behind her.
“I thought I might bring some beer by,” I said.
“We’re watching TV,” said Mr. Crotty.
“Wrong night, eh?”
“Yes.”
“O.K. Maybe I can catch you again on the right night.”
“O.K.”
I got in my car and drove off. I never went back. I moved from the roach place to a court at Carlton Way and Western. About a year went by. One afternoon I went into the liquor store at The Market Basket. As I was standing waiting to get my beer bagged, I noticed somebody staring at me. He had changed. He had seemed to have melted. But it was Mr. Crotty standing by the water fountain just outside the grocery department. I walked up. “Christ,” I said, “not you.”
“Yes, we shop around, you know.”
“Where’s Grace?”
“She’s outside. She’ll be in in a minute.”
I waited. It was a hot summer day in the low 90s. The glass doors opened and there was Mrs. Crotty.
“Hi!” I said.
“Hank!” she said.
He had melted and she had grown; her face was much fatter, she seemed taller and in all the heat she had on a thick black coat, thick heavy collar, long; her face was redder, she was pale. I hardly remember what was said. Some niceties. We were all sober. Then I left. The glass doors opened and I carried my bagged beer to the car, got in, started up and drove off. I don’t think I’ll ever see them again.
1.
Well, so Mailer and his cohorts got him out, he was a writer, there was a book, I haven’t read it—all I know is what I read in the papers while I’m crapping. So, as you know, the writer put the knife to a waiter, “wasting him” as the boys in my time used to say. Which was not good for Mailer either. All right, here we have two writers and a waiter. No we have two writers. Which brings something to this ribbon which is spinning now before me: a man can be a good writer without being good at anything else; in fact, he can be pretty bad at everything else and usually is. Of course, there are people who are pretty bad at everything else and they can’t write either. I might get to reading In the Belly of the Beast one of these days. I never could get through The Naked and the Dead, feeling it was too close a feed-off on Hemingway. But N. Mailer is an excellent journalist, and while not fit to sit on a parole board, he did what he felt he had to do. So did the other writer.