We sat and sipped our wine.
“We’ll let you know very soon about the article. I’m sure we’ll take it…. But you’re not at all the way I expected you to be….”
“What do you mean?”
“Your voice is so soft. You seem so nice.”
Lydia laughed. We finished our wine and left. As we were walking toward my car I heard a voice. “Hank!”
I looked around and there sitting in a new Mercedes was Dee Dee Bronson. I walked over.
“How’s it going, Dee Dee?”
“Pretty good. I quit Capitol Records. Now I’m running that place over there.” She pointed. It was another music company, quite famous, with its home office in London. Dee Dee used to drop by my place with her boyfriend when he and I both had columns in a Los Angeles underground newspaper.
“Jesus, you’re doing good,” I said.
“Yes, except …”
“Except what?”
“Except I need a man. A good man.”
“Well, give me your phone number and I’ll see if I can find one for you.”
“All right.”
Dee Dee wrote her phone number on a slip of paper and I put it in my wallet. Lydia and I walked over to my old Volks and got in. “You’re going to phone her,” Lydia said. “You’re going to use that number.”
I started the car and got back on Hollywood Boulevard.
“You’re going to use that number,” she said. “I just know you’re going to use that number!”
“Cut the shit!” I said.
It looked like another bad night.
14
We had another fight. Later I was back at my place but I didn’t feel like sitting there alone and drinking. The night harness racing meet was on. I took a pint and went out to the track. I arrived early and got all my figures together. By the time the first race was over the pint was surprisingly more than half gone. I was mixing it with hot coffee and it went down easily.
I won three of the first four races. Later I won an exacta and was nearly $200 ahead by the end of the 5th race. I went to the bar and played off the toteboard. That night they gave me what I called “a good toteboard.” Lydia would have shit if she could have seen me pulling in all that cash. She hated it when I won at the track, especially when she was losing.
I kept drinking and hitting. By the time the 9th race was over I was $950 ahead and very drunk. I put my wallet in one of my side pockets and walked slowly to my car.
I sat in my car and watched the losers leave the parking lot. I sat there until the traffic thinned out then I started the engine. Just outside the track was a supermarket. I saw a lighted phone booth at one end of the parking lot, drove in and got out. I walked to the phone and dialed Lydia’s number.
“Listen,” I said, “listen, you bitch. I went to the harness races tonight and won $950. I’m a winner! I’ll always be a winner! You don’t deserve me, bitch! You’ve been playing with me! Well, it’s over! I want out! This is it! I don’t need you and your goddamned games! Do you understand me? Do you get the message? Or is your head thicker than your ankles?”
“Hank …”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t Lydia. This is Bonnie. I’m baby sitting for Lydia. She went out tonight.”
I hung up and walked back to my car.
15
Lydia phoned me in the morning. “Whenever you get drunk,” she said, “I’m going out dancing. I went to the Red Umbrella last night and I asked men to dance with me. A woman has a right to do that.”
“You’re a whore.”
“Yeah? Well, if there’s anything worse than a whore it’s a bore.”
“If there’s anything worse than a bore it’s a boring whore.”
“If you don’t want my pussy,” she said, “I’ll give it to somebody else.”
“That’s your privilege.”
“After I finished dancing, I went to see Marvin. I wanted to get his girlfriend’s address and go see her. Francine. You went to see his girl Francine one night yourself,” Lydia said.
“Look, I never fucked her. I was just too drunk to drive home after a party. We didn’t even kiss. She let me sleep on her couch and I went home in the morning.”
“Anyhow, after I got to Marvin’s, I decided not to ask for Francine’s address.”
Marvin’s parents had money. He had a house down by the seashore. Marvin wrote poetry, better poetry than most. I liked Marvin.
“Well, I hope you had a good time,” I said and hung up.
I had no sooner hung up when the phone rang again. It was Marvin. “Hey, guess who came by real late last night? Lydia. She knocked on the window and I let her in. She gave me a hard-on.”
“O.K., Marvin. I understand. I’m not blaming you.”
“You’re not pissed?”
“Not at you.”
“All right then …”
I took the sculpted head and loaded it into my car. I drove over to Lydia’s and put the head on her doorstep. I didn’t ring the bell. I started to walk away. Lydia came out.
“Why are you such an ass?” she asked.
I turned. “You are not selective. One man’s the same as another to you. I’m not going to eat your shit.”
“I’m not going to eat your shit either!” she screamed and slammed the door.
I walked to my car, got in and started it. I put it in first. It didn’t move. I tried second. Nothing. Then I went back to first. I checked to be sure the brake was off. It wouldn’t move. I tried reverse. The car moved backwards. I braked and tried first again. The car wouldn’t move. I was still very angry with Lydia. I thought, well, I’ll drive the fucking thing home backwards. Then I thought about the cops stopping me and asking me what the hell I was doing. Well, officers, I had a fight with my girl and this was the only way I could get home.
I didn’t feel so angry with Lydia anymore. I climbed out and went to her door. She had taken my head inside. I knocked.
Lydia opened the door. “Look,” I asked, “are you some kind of witch?”
“No, I’m a whore, remember?”
“You’ve got to drive me home. My car will only run backwards. The goddamned thing is hexed.”
“Are you serious?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
Lydia followed me out to the car. “The gears have been working fine. Then all of a sudden the car will only run backwards. I was going to drive it home that way.”
I got in. “Now watch.”
I started the car and put it in first, let out the clutch. It jumped forward. I put it in second. It went into second and moved faster. I put it into third. It moved nicely forward. I made a U-turn and parked on the other side of the street. Lydia walked over.
“Listen,” I said, “you’ve got to believe me. A minute ago the car would only run backwards. Now it’s all right. Please believe me.”
“I believe you,” she said. “God did it. I believe in that sort of thing.”
“It must mean something.”
“It does.”
I got out of the car. We walked into her house.
“Take off your shirt and shoes,” she said, “and lay down on the bed. First I want to squeeze your blackheads.”
16
The ex-Japanese wrestler who was into real estate sold Lydia’s house. She had to move out. There was Lydia, Tonto, Lisa and the dog, Bugbutt. In Los Angeles most landlords hang out the same sign: ADULTS ONLY. With two children and a dog it was very difficult. Only Lydia’s good looks could help her. A male landlord was needed.
I drove them all around town. It was useless. Then I stayed out of sight in the car. It still didn’t work. As we drove along Lydia screamed out the window, “Isn’t there anybody in this town who will rent to a woman with two kids and a dog?”
Unexpectedly a vacancy occurred in my court. I saw the people moving out and I went right down and talked to Mrs. O’Keefe.
“Listen,” I said, “my girlfriend needs a place to live
. She has two kids and a dog but they’re all well-behaved. Will you let them move in?”
“I’ve seen that woman,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “Haven’t you noticed her eyes? She’s crazy.”
“I know she’s crazy. But I care for her. She has some good qualities, really.”
“She’s too young for you! What are you going to do with a young woman like that?”
I laughed.
Mr. O’Keefe walked up behind his wife. He looked at me through the screen door. “He’s pussy-whipped, that’s all. It’s quite simple, he’s pussy-whipped.”
“How about it?” I asked.
“All right,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “Move her in….”
So Lydia rented a U-Haul and I moved her in. It was mostly clothes, all the heads she had sculpted, and a large washing machine.
“I don’t like Mrs. O’Keefe,” she told me. “Her husband looks all right, but I don’t like her.”
“She’s a good Catholic sort. And you need a place to live.”
“I don’t want you drinking with those people. They’re out to destroy you.”
“I’m only paying 85 bucks a month rent. They treat me like a son. I have to have a beer with them now and then.”
“Son, shit! You’re almost as old as they are.”
About three weeks passed. It was late one Saturday morning. I had not slept at Lydia’s the night before. I bathed and had a beer, got dressed. I disliked weekends. Everybody was out on the streets. Everybody was playing Ping-Pong or mowing their lawn or polishing their car or going to the supermarket or the beach or to the park. Crowds everywhere. Monday was my favorite day. Everybody was back on the job and out of sight. I decided to go to the racetrack despite the crowd. That would help kill Saturday. I ate a hard-boiled egg, had another beer and stepping out on my porch, locked the door. Lydia was outside playing with Bugbutt, the dog.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m going to the track.”
Lydia walked over to me. “Listen, you know what the racetrack does to you.”
She meant that I was always too tired to make love after going to the racetrack.
“You were drunk last night,” she continued. “You were horrible. You frightened Lisa. I had to run you out.”
“I’m going to the racetrack.”
“All right, you go ahead and go to the racetrack. But if you do I won’t be here when you get back.”
I got into my car which was parked on the front lawn. I rolled down the windows and started the motor. Lydia was standing in the driveway. I waved goodbye to her and pulled out into the street. It was a nice summer day. I drove down to Hollywood Park. I had a new system. Each new system brought me closer and closer to wealth. It was simply a matter of time.
I lost $40 and drove home. I parked my car on the lawn and got out. As I walked around the porch to my door Mr. O’Keefe walked up the driveway. “She’s gone!”
“What?”
“Your girl. She moved out.”
I didn’t answer.
“She rented a U-Haul and loaded her stuff in it. She was mad. You know that big washing machine?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that thing’s heavy. I couldn’t lift it. She wouldn’t let the boy help her. She just lifted the thing and put it in the U-Haul. Then she got the kids, the dog, and drove off. She had a week’s rent left.”
“All right, Mr. O’Keefe. Thanks.”
“You coming down to drink tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try to make it.”
I unlocked the door and went inside. I had lent her an air-conditioner. It was sitting in a chair outside of the closet. There was a note on it and a pair of blue panties. The note was in a wild scrawl:
“Bastard, here is your air-conditioner. I am gone. I am gone for good, you son-of-a-bitch! When you get lonely you can use these panties to jack-off into. Lydia.”
I went to the refrigerator and got a beer. I drank the beer and then walked over to the air-conditioner. I picked up the panties and stood there wondering if it would work. Then I said, “Shit!” and threw them on the floor.
I went to the phone and dialed Dee Dee Bronson. She was in. “Hello?” she said.
“Dee Dee,” I said, “this is Hank….”
17
Dee Dee had a place in the Hollywood Hills. Dee Dee shared the place with a friend, another lady executive, Bianca. Bianca took the top floor and Dee Dee the bottom. I rang the bell. It was 8:30 PM when Dee Dee opened the door. Dee Dee was about 40, had black, cropped hair, was Jewish, hip, freaky. She was New York City oriented, knew all the names: the right publishers, the best poets, the most talented cartoonists, the right revolutionaries, anybody, everybody. She smoked grass continually and acted like it was the early 1960s and Love-In Time, when she had been mildly famous and much more beautiful.
A long series of bad love affairs had finally done her in. Now I was standing at her door. There was a good deal left of her body. She was small but buxom and many a young girl would have loved to have her figure.
I followed her in. “So Lydia split?” Dee Dee asked.
“I think she went to Utah. The 4th of July dance in Muleshead is coming up. She never misses it.”
I sat down in the breakfast nook while Dee Dee uncorked a red wine. “Do you miss her?”
“Christ, yes. I feel like crying. My whole gut is chewed up. I might not make it.”
“You’ll make it. We’ll get you over Lydia. We’ll pull you through.”
“Then you know how I feel?”
“It has happened to most of us a few times.”
“That bitch never cared to begin with.”
“Yes, she did. She still does.”
I decided it was better to be there in Dee Dee’s large home in the Hollywood Hills than to be sitting all alone back in my apartment and brooding.
“It must be that I’m just not good with the ladies,” I said. “You’re good enough with the ladies,” Dee Dee said. “And you’re a helluva writer.”
“I’d rather be good with the ladies.”
Dee Dee was lighting a cigarette. I waited until she was finished, then I leaned across the table and gave her a kiss. “You make me feel good. Lydia was always on the attack.”
“That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“But it can get to be unpleasant.”
“It sure as hell can.”
“Have you found a boyfriend yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I like this place. But how do you keep it so neat and clean?”
“We have a maid.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll like her. She’s big and black and she finishes her work as fast as she can after I leave. Then she goes to bed and eats cookies and watches t.v. I find cookie crumbs in my bed every night. I’ll have her fix you breakfast after I leave tomorrow morning.”
“All right.”
“No, wait. Tomorrow’s Sunday. I don’t work Sundays. We’ll eat out. I know a place. You’ll like it.”
“All right.”
“You know, I think I’ve always been in love with you.”
“What?”
“For years. You know, when I used to come and see you, first with Bernie and later with Jack, I would want you. But you never noticed me. You were always sucking on a can of beer or you were obsessed with something.”
“Crazy, I guess, near crazy. Postal Service madness. I’m sorry I didn’t notice you.”
“You can notice me now.”
Dee Dee poured another glass of wine. It was good wine. I liked her. It was good to have a place to go when things went bad. I remembered the early days when things would go bad and there wasn’t anywhere to go. Maybe that had been good for me. Then. But now I wasn’t interested in what was good for me. I was interested in how I felt and how to stop feeling bad when things went wrong. How to start feeling good again.
“I don’t want to fuck you over, Dee Dee,
” I said. “I’m not always good to women.”
“I told you I love you.”
“Don’t do it. Don’t love me.”
“All right,” she said, “I won’t love you, I’ll almost love you. Will that be all right?”
“It’s much better than the other.”
We finished our wine and went to bed….
18
In the morning Dee Dee drove me to the Sunset Strip for breakfast. The Mercedes was black and shone in the sun. We drove past the billboards and the nightclubs and the fancy restaurants. I slouched low in my seat, coughing over my cigarette. I thought, well, things have been worse. A scene or two flashed through my head. One winter in Atlanta I was freezing, it was midnight, I had no money, no place to sleep, and I walked up the steps of a church hoping to get inside and get warm. The church door was locked. Another time in El Paso, sleeping on a park bench, I was awakened in the morning by some cop smacking the soles of my shoes with his club. Still, I kept thinking about Lydia. The good parts of our relationship felt like a rat walking around and gnawing at the inside of my stomach.
Dee Dee parked outside a fancy eating place. There was a sun patio with chairs and tables where people sat eating, talking, and drinking coffee. We passed a black man in boots, jeans, and with a heavy silver chain coiled around his neck. His motorcycle helmet, goggles and gloves were on the table. He was with a thin blond girl in a peppermint jumpsuit who sat sucking on her little finger. The place was crowded. Everybody looked young, scrubbed, bland. Nobody stared at us. Everybody was talking quietly.
We went inside and a pale slim boy with tiny buttocks, tight silver pants, an 8-inch studded belt and shiny gold blouse seated us. His ears were pierced and he wore tiny blue earrings. His pencil-thin mustache looked purple.
“Dee Dee,” he said, “what is happening?”
“Breakfast, Donny.”
“A drink, Donny,” I said.
“I know what he needs, Donny. Give him a Golden Flower, double.”
We ordered breakfast and Dee Dee said, “It will take a while to prepare. They cook everything to order here.”