Margie was going to go out with this guy but on the way over this guy met another guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat opened the leather coat and showed the other guy his tits and the other guy went over to Margie’s and said he couldn’t keep his date because this guy in the leather coat had showed him his tits and he was going to fuck this guy. So Margie went to see Carl, Carl was in, and she sat down and said to Carl, “This guy was going to take me to a café with tables outside and we were going to drink wine and talk, just drink wine and talk, that’s all, nothing else, but on the way over this guy met another guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat showed the other guy his tits and now this guy is going to fuck the guy in the leather coat, so I don’t get my table and my wine and my talk.”
“I can’t write,” said Carl. “It’s gone.”
Then he got up and went to the bathroom, closed the door, and took a shit. Carl took four or five shits a day. There was nothing else to do. He took five or six baths a day. There was nothing else to do. He got drunk for the same reason.
Margie heard the toilet flush. Then Carl came out.
“A man simply can’t write eight hours a day. He can’t even write every day or every week. It’s a wicked fix. There’s nothing to do but wait.”
Carl went to the refrigerator and came out with a six-pack of Michelob. He opened a bottle.
“I’m the world’s greatest writer,” he said. “Do you know how difficult that is?”
Margie didn’t answer.
“I can feel pain crawling all over me. It’s like a second skin. I wish I could shed that skin like a snake.”
“Well, why don’t you get down on the rug and give it a try?”
“Listen,” he asked, “where did I meet you?”
“Barney’s Beanery.”
“Well, that explains some of it. Have a beer.”
Carl opened a bottle and passed it over.
“Yeah,” said Margie, “I know. You need your solitude. You need to be alone. Except when you want some, or except when we split, then you’re on the phone. You say you need me. You say you’re dying of a hangover. You get weak fast.”
“I get weak fast.”
“And you’re so dull around me, you never turn on. You writers are so…precious…you can’t stand people. Humanity stinks, right?”
“Right.”
“But every time we split you start throwing giant four-day parties. And suddenly you get witty, you start to TALK! Suddenly you’re full of life, talking, dancing, singing. You dance on the coffeetable, you throw bottles through the window, you act parts from Shakespeare. Suddenly you’re alive—when I’m gone. Oh, I hear about it!”
“I don’t like parties. I especially dislike people at parties.”
“For a guy who doesn’t like parties you certainly throw enough of them.”
“Listen, Margie, you don’t understand. I can’t write anymore. I’m finished. Somewhere I made a wrong turn. Somewhere I died in the night.”
“The only way you’re going to die is from one of your giant hangovers.”
“Jeffers said that even the strongest men get trapped.”
“Who was Jeffers?”
“He was the guy who turned Big Sur into a tourist trap.”
“What were you going to do tonight?”
“I was going to listen to the songs of Rachmaninoff.”
“Who’s that?”
“A dead Russian.”
“Look at you. You just sit there.”
“I’m waiting. Some guys wait for two years. Sometimes it never comes back.”
“Suppose it never comes back?”
“I’ll just put on my shoes and walk down to Main Street.”
“Why don’t you get a decent job?”
“There aren’t any decent jobs. If a writer doesn’t make it through creation, he’s dead.”
“Oh, come on, Carl! There are billions of people in the world who don’t make it through creation. Do you mean to tell me they’re dead?”
“Yes.”
“And you have soul? You are one of the few with a soul?”
“It would appear so.”
“It would appear so! You and your little typewriter! You and your tiny checks! My grandmother makes more money than you do!”
Carl opened another bottle of beer.
“Beer! Beer! You and your god damned beer! It’s in your stories too. ‘Marty lifted his beer. As he looked up, this big blonde walked into the bar and sat down beside him…’ You’re right. You’re finished. Your material is limited, very limited. You can’t write a love story, you can’t write a decent love story.”
“You’re right, Margie.”
“If a man can’t write a love story, he’s useless.”
“How many have you written?”
“I don’t claim to be a writer.”
“But,” said Carl, “you appear to pose as one hell of a literary critic.”
Margie left soon after that. Carl sat and drank the remaining beers. It was true, the writing had left him. It would make his few underground enemies happy. They could step one notch up. Death pleased them, underground or overground. He remembered Endicott, Endicott sitting there saying, “Well, Hemingway’s gone, Dos Passos is gone, Patchen is gone, Pound is gone, Berryman jumped off the bridge…things are looking better and better and better.”
The phone rang. Carl picked it up. “Mr. Gantling?”
“Yes?” he answered.
“We wondered if you’d like to read at Fairmount College?”
“Well, yes, what date?”
“The 30th of next month.”
“I don’t think I’m doing anything then.”
“Our usual payment is one hundred dollars.”
“I usually get a hundred and a half. Ginsberg gets a thousand.” “But that’s Ginsberg. We can only offer a hundred.”
“All right.”
“Fine, Mr. Gantling. We’ll send you the details.”
“How about travel? That’s a hell of a drive.”
“O.k., twenty-five dollars for travel.”
“O.k.”
“Would you like to talk to some of the students in their classes?”
“No.”
“There’s a free lunch.”
“I’ll take that.”
“Fine, Mr. Gantling, we’ll be looking forward to seeing you on campus.”
“Goodbye.”
Carl walked about the room. He looked at the typewriter. He put a sheet of paper in there, then watched a girl in an amazingly short mini skirt walk past the window. Then he started to type:
“Margie was going to go out with this guy but on the way over this guy met another guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat opened the leather coat and showed the other guy his tits and the other guy went over to Margie’s and said he couldn’t keep his date because this guy in the leather coat had showed him his tits…”
Carl lifted his beer. It felt good to be writing again.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR?
We got to go to the exercise yard twice a day, in the middle of the morning and in mid-afternoon. There wasn’t much to do. The men were friends mostly on the basis of what had gotten them into jail. Like my cell-mate Taylor had said, the child molestors and indecent exposure cases were at the bottom of the social order while the big-time swindlers and the racket heads were at the top.
Taylor wouldn’t speak to me in the exercise yard. He paced up and down with a big-time swindler. I sat alone. Some of the guys rolled a shirt into a ball and played catch. They appeared to enjoy it. The facilities for the entertainment of the inmates didn’t amount to much.
I sat there. Soon I noticed a huddle of men. It was a crap game. I got up and went over. I had a little less than a dollar in change. I watched a few rolls. The man with the dice picked up three pots in a row. I sensed that his run was finished and got in against him. He crapped out. I made a quarter.
Each time a man got
hot I laid off until I figured his string was ended. Then I got in against him. I noticed that the other men bet every pot. I made six bets and won five of them. Then we were marched back up to our cells. I was a dollar ahead.
The next morning I got in earlier. I made $2.50 in the morning and $1.75 in the afternoon. As the game ended this kid walked up to me. “You seem to be going all right, mister.”
I gave the kid 15 cents. He walked off ahead. Another guy got in step with me. “You give that son of a bitch anything?”
“Yeah. 15 cents.”
“He cuts the pot each time. Don’t give him nothing.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Yeah. He cuts the pot. He takes his cut each roll.”
“I’ll watch him tomorrow.”
“Besides, he’s a fucking indecent exposure case. He shows his pecker to little girls.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I hate those cocksuckers.”
The food was very bad. After dinner one night I mentioned to Taylor that I was winning at craps.
“You know,” he said, “you can buy food here, good food.”
“How?”
“The cook comes down after lights out. You get the warden’s food, the best. Dessert, the works. The cook’s good. The warden’s got him here on account of that.”
“How much would a couple of dinners cost us?”
“Give him a dime. No more than 15 cents.”
“Is that all?”
“If you give him more he’ll think you’re a fool.”
“All right. 15 cents.”
Taylor made the arrangements. The next night after lights out we waited and killed bedbugs, one by one.
“That cook’s killed two men. He’s a great big son of a bitch, and mean. He killed one guy, did ten years, got out of there and was out two or three days and he killed another guy. This is only a holding prison but the warden keeps him here permanent because he’s such a good cook.”
We heard somebody walking up. It was the cook. I got up and he passed the food in. I walked to the table then walked back to the cell door. He was a big son of a bitch, killer of two men. I gave him 15 cents.
“Thanks, buddy, you want me to come back tomorrow night?”
“Every night.”
Taylor and I sat down to the food. Everything was on plates. The coffee was good and hot, the meat—the roast beef—was tender. Mashed potatoes, sweet peas, biscuits, gravy, butter, and apple pie. I hadn’t eaten that good in five years.
“That cook raped a sailor the other day. He got him so bad the sailor couldn’t walk. They had to hospitalize that sailor.”
I took in a big mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy.
“You don’t have to worry,” said Taylor. “You’re so damned ugly, nobody would want to rape you.”
“I was worrying more about getting myself a little.”
“Well, I’ll point out the punks to you. Some of them are owned and some of them aren’t owned.”
“This is good food.”
“Sure as shit. Now there are two kinds of punks in here. The kind that come in punks and the prison-made punks. There are never enough punks to go around so the boys have to make a few extra to fulfill their needs.”
“That’s sensible.”
“The prison-manufactured punks are usually a little punchy from the head-beatings they take. They resist at first.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Then they decide it’s better to be a live punk than a dead virgin.”
We finished our dinner, went to our bunks, fought the bedbugs and attempted to sleep.
I continued to win at craps each day. I bet more heavily and still won. Life in prison was getting better and better. One day I was told not to go to the exercise yard. Two agents from the F.B.I. came to visit me. They asked a few questions, then one of them said: “We’ve investigated you. You don’t have to go to court. You’ll be taken to the induction center. If the army accepts you, you’ll go in. If they reject you, you’re a civilian again.”
“I almost like it here in jail,” I said.
“Yes, you’re looking good.”
“No tension,” I said, “no rent, no utility bills, no arguments with girlfriends, no taxes, no license plates, no food bills, no hangovers…”
“Keep talking smart, we’ll fix you good.”
“Oh shit,” I said, “I’m just joking. Pretend I’m Bob Hope.”
“Bob Hope’s a good American.”
“I’d be too if I had his dough.”
“Keep mouthing. We can make it rough on you.”
I didn’t answer. One guy had a briefcase. He got up first. The other guy followed him out.
They gave us all a bag lunch and put us in a truck. There were twenty or twenty-five of us. The guys had just had breakfast an hour and a half earlier but they were all into their bag lunches. Not bad: a bologna sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich and a rotten banana. I passed my lunch down to the guys. They were very quiet. None of them joked. They looked straight ahead. Most of them were black or brown. And all of them were big.
I passed the physical, then I went in to see the psychiatrist.
“Henry Chinaski?”
“Yes.”
“Sit down.”
I sat down.
“Do you believe in the war?”
“No.”
“Are you willing to go to war?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me. I stared down at my feet. He seemed to be reading a sheaf of papers in front of him. It took several minutes. Four, five, six, seven minutes. Then he spoke.
“Listen, I am having a party next Wednesday night at my place. There are going to be doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, actors, all that sort. I can see that you’re an intelligent man. I want you to come to my party. Will you come?”
“No.”
He started writing. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote. I wondered how he knew so much about me. I didn’t know that much about myself.
I let him write on. I was indifferent. Now that I couldn’t be in the war I almost wanted the war. Yet, at the same time, I was glad to be out of it. The Doctor finished writing. I felt I had fooled them. My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.
I didn’t want to be awakened by some man with a bugle. I didn’t want to sleep in a barracks with a bunch of healthy sex-mad football-loving overfed wise-cracking masturbating lovable frightened pink farting mother-struck modest basketball-playing American boys that I would have to be friendly with, that I would have to get drunk with on leave, that I would have to lay on my back with and listen to dozens of unfunny, obvious, dirty jokes. I didn’t want their itchy blankets or their itchy uniforms or their itchy humanity. I didn’t want to shit in the same place or piss in the same place or share the same whore. I didn’t want to see their toenails or read their letters from home. I didn’t want to watch their assholes bobbing in front of me in close formation, I didn’t want to make friends, I didn’t want to make enemies, I just didn’t want them or it or the thing. To kill or be killed hardly mattered.
After a two-hour wait on a hard bench in a cesspool-brown tunnel with a cold wind blowing they let me go and I walked out, north. I stopped for a pack of cigarettes. I stopped in at the first bar, sat down, ordered a scotch and water, peeled the cellophane from the package, took out a smoke, lit up, got that drink in my hand, drank down half, dragged at the smoke, looked at my handsome face in the mirror. It seemed strange to be out. It seemed strange to be able to walk in any direction I pleased.
Just for fun I got up and walked to the crapper. I pissed. It was another horrible bar crapper; I almost vomited at the stench. I came out, put a coin in the juke box, sat down and listened to the latest. The latest wasn’t any better. They had the beat but not the soul. Mozart, Bach and
the Bee still made them look bad. I was going to miss those crap games and the good food. I ordered another drink. I looked around the bar. There were five men in the bar and no women. I was back in the American streets.
PITTSBURGH PHIL & CO.
This guy Summerfield was on relief and hitting the wine bottle. He was rather a dull sort, I tried to avoid him, but he was always hanging out the window half-drunk. He’d see me leaving my place and he always said the same thing, “Hey, Hank, how about taking me to the races?” and I always said, “One of these times, Joe, not today.” Well, he kept at it, hanging out the window half-drunk, so one day I said, “All right, for Christ’s sake, come on…” and away we went.
It was January at Santa Anita and if you know that track, it can get real cold out there when you’re losing. The wind blows in from the snow on the mountains and your pockets are empty and you shiver and think of death and hard times and no rent and all the rest. It’s hardly a pleasant place to lose. At least at Hollywood Park you can come back with a sunburn.
So we went. He talked all the way out. He’d never been to a racetrack. I had to tell him the difference between win, place and show betting. He didn’t even know what a starting gate was, or a Racing Form. When we got out there he used my Form. I had to show him how to read it. I paid his way in and bought him a program. All he had was two dollars. Enough for one bet.
We stood around before the first race looking at the women. Joe told me he hadn’t had a woman in five years. He was a shabby-looking guy, a real loser. We passed the Form back and forth and looked at the women and then Joe said, “How come the 6 horse is 14 to one? He looks best to me.” I tried to explain to Joe why the horse was reading 14 to one in relation to the other horses but he wouldn’t listen. “He sure as hell looks best to me. I don’t understand. I just gotta bet him.” “It’s your two dollars, Joe,” I said, “and I’m not lending you any money when you lose this one.”
The horse’s name was Red Charley and he was a sad-looking beast indeed. He came out for the post parade in four bandages. His price leaped to 18 to one when they got a look at him. I put ten win on the logical horse, Bold Latrine, a slight class drop with good earnings and with a live jock and the 2nd leading trainer. I thought that 7 to 2 was a good price on that one.
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