Dreams From Bunker Hill

by John Fante

  Meanwhile the treacherous Magua has dismounted and comes slithering toward church door. He enters unseen and swoops down on Priscilla, cups hand over her mouth, and drags her outside. Throwing her upon back of his horse, he mounts behind her and rides off just as Sheriff Lawson appears in doorway. Taking dead aim, Magua fires rifle at Sheriff and bullet strikes him in shoulder. Lawson staggers but does not go down. Instead he lurches toward Magua, who rides off with the struggling Priscilla.

  Wounded but undaunted, Sheriff gropes to his horse, mounts, and rides in pursuit. Over hill and dale he follows fleeing Indian and girl. They come to a creek in the foothills and stop. Bleeding and weak, Lawson rides up, then falls to the ground. Eagerly Magua dismounts with menacing tomahawk. Fierce battle, men rolling and twisting, Priscilla watching in horror. They fall into creek. Magua leaps upon weakened Sheriff and tries to drown him, but Sheriff frees himself.

  Too weak to resist further, Sheriff collapses in water. With yell of triumph Magua raises tomahawk to strike. Suddenly the crack of a rifle breaks the stillness. Magua falls into the water. Priscilla, smoking rifle in her hands, dismounts and rushes to Sheriff. She drags him from creek. Weakened but defiant, Sheriff throws arms around her. They rise and stagger away. In the water Magua lies dead.

  Back in Sin City church siege goes on. Whites slowly gain upper hand. Launch counter attack. Hand to hand combat. Many Indians retreat. Others captured by townsfolk. A dozen savages being led to city jail. In the distance come Priscilla and Sheriff Lawson. Strapped across their horse is body of dead Magua. Great cheer from townsfolk. Priscilla runs into father’s arms.

  Epilogue. Bright Sunday morning. Songfest comes from church. Inside Priscilla leads choir in “Oh Gentle Jesus.” Church packed with townsfolk listening reverently. In back pews, segregated from others, are a dozen captive Indians, penitent, heads bowed. Sheriff comes to Priscilla’s side. She looks up adoringly. Fade out.

  So there it was, the whole dirty business. My screenplay, without a line of my work in it, in fact an altogether different story, impossible for me to have concocted. I laughed. It was a joke. Somebody was playing around. It was impossible. I went into the house and sat there smoking cigarettes, suddenly aware of the falling rain, the sweet sound of it on the shingle roof, the sweet smell of it coming through the front door. No question about it, Edgington was right. My only course was to have my name removed from the title. I picked up the telephone and dialled Cyril Korn.

  “Yeah?” he barked.

  “Hello, Korn. This is me. Have you read the story?”

  “I liked it.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “It’s a great western.”

  “Take my name off.”

  “What?”

  “Remove my name from this monstrosity. You hear me? I want no part of it.”

  There was a long silence before Korn spoke again. Then he said:

  “Suit yourself, kid. This is good news for Velda. She’ll get a solo credit now.”

  “She can have it.” I hung up.

  The rain came down in sheets, whipping the leaves from the eucalyptus trees, digging little rivers across the yard and into the gutter. I drank a glass of wine. Edgington stepped out of the kitchen. He had heard my conversation with Korn.

  “You did right,” he said. “It was self preservation. You had no choice. If you’d listened to me this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You should have joined the Guild. I’ve been telling you for three months.”

  The cold rainy wind swept in through the front door, chilling the room. Edgington went to the fireplace and lit the gas logs. He took a tobacco sack from his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, tossing it to me.

  It was marijuana. There were cigarette papers in the sack. I had smoked marijuana only once before, in Boulder, and it made me sick. It was time to get sick again. I rolled a cigarette. We sat looking at one another, drawing down the weed into our lungs. Edgington laughed. I laughed too.

  “You’re a rotten no-good sonofabitchin English limey toad,” I said.

  He nodded agreement. “And you, sir, are a miserable, disagreeable dago dog.”

  We lapsed into silence, smoking the grass. I picked up the manuscript.

  “Let’s do something to it,” I said.

  “Let’s burn it.”

  I took it to the fireplace and dropped it on the flames. The pot was taking over. I took off my shirt.

  “Let’s be Indians,” I said. “Let’s burn her at the stake.”

  “Great,” Edington said, pulling off his shirt.

  “Let’s take off our pants,” I said. We laughed and kicked off our pants. In a moment we were naked, dancing in a circle, making what we thought were Indian cries. From the clouds came a clap of thunder. We laughed and rolled on the floor. Edgington had a beer. I drank a glass of wine. The downpour was earshattering. I rushed out and we held hands and danced round and round laughing. I ran into the house, sipped on my wine and ran outside again. Edgington rushed in, took a swig of his beer, and joined me in the rain. We lay on the grass, rolling in the rain, shouting at the thunder. A woman’s voice pierced the storm. It was from next door.

  “Shame on you, Frank Edgington,” she screamed. “Put on some clothes before I call the police.”

  Frank got to his feet and shoved his bare bottom toward her

  “That for you, Martha!”

  We ran into the house. Standing before the fireplace, dripping wet, we watched the sparks from Velda’s screenplay dancing up the chimney. We looked at one another and smiled. Then we performed a fitting climax to the whole crazy ritual. We pissed on the fire.

  Now a curious thing happened. I looked at Edgington’s sopping hair and rain-soaked body and I did not like him. I did not like him at all. There was something obscene about our nakedness, and the burning screenplay, and the floor wet from rain, and our bodies shivering in the cold, and the insolent smile from Edgington’s lips, and I recoiled from him, and blamed him for everything. After all, hadn’t he sent me to Cyril Korn, and hadn’t Cyril Korn brought me together with Velda van der Zee, and hadn’t Edgington sneered and scoffed all the weeks that I had been writing the screenplay? I no longer liked this man. He disgusted me. Similar thoughts must have boiled up in his brain for I noticed the hostile sharpness of his glance. We did not speak. We stood there hating one another. We were on the verge of fighting. I picked up my clothes, walked into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After that it was a feud. When he was at work in the studio I loafed about, drinking wine and playing the radio. Day after day the rain beat down. I sat at my desk in the bedroom and tried to write. Nothing came. It was the house, Edgington’s house. I had to get away from him. Whenever he returned from the studio I pretended to be busy at the desk pecking at the typewriter. He stayed only a short while, then he was gone again. One day I found an old New Yorker in a stack of magazines. It contained a story Edgington had written. I tore it up. I began going out, getting into my car and driving off in the rain. The storm was exasperating. The streets were like rivers. Manhole covers popped from storm drains. Trees fell. Wilshire was a barricade of sandbags. The streets were deserted. I drove into Hollywood and sat in a saloon on Wilcox, drinking wine and playing the pinball games. Sometimes I parked at Musso-Frank’s and sloshed through the rain to the restaurant. I knew no one. I ate alone and felt my hatred for the town. I went next door to Stanley Rose’s bookshop. Nobody knew me. I hung around like a bird seeking crumbs. I missed Mrs. Brownell and Abe Marx and Du Mont. My memory of Jennifer Lovelace almost broke my heart. Knowing those few had made me feel as if I knew thousands in the city. I drove to Bunker Hill and parked in front of the hotel, but I could not bring myself to go inside. Suddenly I had a dream, a beautiful dream of a novel. It was about Helen Brownell and myself. I could taste it. I could embrace it. All at once the self pity drained from me. There was life still, the
re was a typewriter and paper and eyes to see them, and thoughts to keep them alive. I sat in my car at the top of Bunker Hill in the rain and the dream enfolded me, and I knew what I would do. I would go to Terminal Island and find myself a fisherman’s shack on the sandy beach and sit there and write a novel about Helen Brownell and myself. I would spend months in that shack, piling up the pages while I smoked a Meerschaum pipe and became a writer once more in the world.

  I hoped to pack my stuff and get out of there before Edgington returned, but as I drove up to his bungalow I saw his car in the driveway. I got out and ran through the rain to the house. Frank lay on the couch reading a book. He said “Hi.” I walked past him into my room and began to pack. After a while he arose and stood in the bedroom door with a magazine in his hand.

  “I bring you good tidings of great joy,” he smiled, holding out the magazine. It was a copy of Daily Variety. I spread it open and saw red pencil markings around a front page story. It read:

  Velda van der Zee, who screenplayed Sin City for Liberty Films, will also direct opus, according to producer Jack Arthur. Film casting will terminate this week and shooting will commence in Arizona.

  I was in shock, but hid it from Edgington, and tossed him the magazine. “This makes you very happy, doesn’t it?” I said. He smiled and shrugged.

  “C’est la vie.”

  I went back to my packing, filled a suitcase and carried it out to the car, where the rest of my things—typewriter, books, clothing—were piled up in the back seat. Now that I was ready to leave for the last time there was one matter not concluded. I stood beside the car and gathered resolve. I would probably never encounter Edgington again. How could I impress upon him the memory of this departure on this rainy day? At last I resolved the matter and walked back to the house. He was on the couch.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said.

  He stood up and offered his hand. “Good luck, dago.”

  I hit him in the face and knocked him down on the couch. He sat there nursing a nosebleed. I walked back to the car and drove away. I shouldn’t have struck Edgington. He had been hospitable and friendly and generous and kind. But I couldn’t bear his arrogance. He was too successful for me. He had it coming. I had no regrets. That was life. I was sorry for his nosebleed, but he deserved it. As for Velda van der Zee, fuck her. What was another director? The town was crawling with them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I drove to Avalon Boulevard and south to Wilmington. It was almost sunset as I passed over the bridge onto the big sandbar known as Terminal Island. The rain had washed the sand from the road and I drove on pavement to the little fishing settlement a mile or so from the canneries. There were six rustic bungalows, all in a row facing the channel waters a hundred yards down the beach. None of the bungalows appeared to be occupied. I drove slowly past them. Each showed a “For Rent” sign on the front porch. Then I noticed a light in the last house. Exactly like the others, the house was dark green and rainsoaked. The light shone through the open front door. I pulled to a stop and ran through the rain to the porch.

  In ten minutes I had rented one of the cottages and moved in. It was the center cottage, combination bedroom, living room, and a kitchen and bath. Twenty-five dollars a month. I did some quick calculations and realized that I had enough money to live there for ten years. I had it made.

  The place was paradise, the South Pacific, Bora Bora. I could hear the sea. It came whispering, saying shshsh, for it was always low tide, the island protected by a breakwater. The nights were wondrous. I lay on my small cot and felt the memory of Velda van der Zee slipping from me. In a few days it had vanished. I listened to the sea and felt my heart restored. Sometimes I heard the bark of seals. I stood in the door and watched them in the shallow water, three or four big fellows playing in the soft tide, barking as if to laugh. The city was far away. I had no thought of writing. My mind was barren as the long shore. I was Robinson Crusoe, lost in a distant world, at peace, breathing good air, salty, satisfying.

  When day broke I walked barefoot in the water, in the moist sand, a mile to the cannery settlement, teeming with workers, men and women, emptying the fishing boats, dressing and canning the fish in big corrugated buildings. They were mostly Japanese and Mexican folk from San Pedro. There were two restaurants. The food was good and cheap. Sometimes I walked to the end of the pier, to the ferryboat landing, where the boats took off across the channel to San Pedro. It was twenty-five cents round trip. I felt like a millionaire whenever I plunked down my quarter and sailed for Pedro. I rented a bike and toured the Palos Verdes hills. I found the public library and loaded up on books. Back at my shack I built a fire in the woodstove and sat in the warmth and read Dostoevsky and Flaubert and Dickens and all those famous people. I lacked for nothing. My life was a prayer, a thanksgiving. My loneliness was an enrichment. I found myself bearable, tolerable, even good. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to the writer who had come there. Had I written something and left the place? I touched my typewriter and mused at the action of the keys. It was another life. I had never been here before. I would never leave it.

  My landlady was a Japanese woman. She was pregnant. She had a noble kind of walk, small steps, very quiet, her black hair in braids. I learned from her how to bow. We were always bowing. Sometimes we walked on the beach too. We stopped, folded our hands and bowed. Then she went her way and I went mine. One day I found a rowboat flopping along the shore. I got in and rowed away, doing poorly, for I could not manage the oars. But I learned how, and pulled the skiff all the way across the channel to the rocks on the San Pedro side. I bought fishing equipment and bait, and rowed out a hundred yards beyond my house and caught corbina and mackerel, and once a halibut. I brought them home and cooked them and they were ghastly, and I threw them out upon the sand, and watchful seagulls swooped down and carried them away. One day I said, I must write something. I wrote a letter to my mother, but I could not date the letter. I had no memory of time. I went to see the Japanese lady and asked her the date of the month.

  “January fourth,” she said.

  I smiled. I had been there two months, and thought it no more than two weeks.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One afternoon as I dozed, I heard a car outside. I went to the door and watched a long red Marmon touring car pull up to the house next door. The car had a royal insignia painted on the hood—a crown with crouching lions in red and gold. Beneath was the inscription: Duke of Sardinia. The driver of the car shut off the engine and stepped down. He was short and powerful, his black hair in a crew cut. He was so muscular he seemed made of rubber, his arms like red sewer pipe, his legs so thick a space separated them. He saw me and smiled.

  “How you say?” he asked.

  “Fine, fine. How you?”

  “Purty good. You live here?”

  “Yep.”

  “We neighbors.” He crossed to me and shook my hand. I nodded at his Marmon.

  “Duke of Sardinia, what’s that mean?”

  “I am son of the prince of Sardinia. Also champion of the world.”

  “You a weight lifter?”

  “Rassler. World champion. I come here to train.”

  He moved to the wagon hitched to the back of the car. It was a two-wheeled vehicle with enormous spokes, a big cart. The bed of the vehicle was piled with gym mats, weight-lifting paraphernalia, and sports equipment. He began unloading the cart.

  “Who you?” he asked.

  I told him.

  “Italiano?”

  “Sure.”

  He smiled. “That’s good.”

  I watched him unload the cart for a while. Then I went inside. It had been weeks since I sat down before the typewriter. I began a letter to my mother. After a while I felt a pair of intense eyes drilling the back of my neck. I turned. The Duke stood in the doorway watching me.

  “Come in,” I said.

  He entered and carefully inspected the room, the walls, the sink, and finally the typewriter.
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  “Write some more,” he said, gesturing. “Don’t stop.” He sat across from me and I pecked away at the letter.

  “What you write?” he asked.

  “Stories. Movies. Sometimes poetry.”

  “You make money?”

  I laughed. “Naturally. Big money.”

  He grinned doubtfully and stood up. “I go now. Time to work out.”

  Half an hour later I heard the cluck and clatter of cartwheels as the Duke of Sardinia pulled the empty cart out upon the beach. He was in wrestler’s tights and barefooted, hitched to the tongue of the cart by a strap about his waist and another strap from his forehead down to the front of the cart. He pulled the cart without effort, the big wheels crunching in the soft sand. After he had gone a few yards he snatched a shovel from the cart and began filling the vehicle with sand. I walked out and watched him. Sweat was popping from his back and down his neck. He worked furiously.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Workout,” he panted, continuing to shovel. It wasn’t long before the cart was full. He threw the shovel atop the load, adjusted the harness around his waist, fixed the strap about his forehead, grunted mightily and began to pull. The wheels dug into the sand, but there was no progress. He struggled, his feet gave way, he fell, he struggled and tried again. I pitied him. I leaped to help him, butting my shoulder against the back of the cart. It began to move. The Duke turned in shock and saw me. Enraged, he grabbed me under the armpits and threw me across the sand. I landed on my back with a thud that took my breath away.

  “No,” he said, shaking his fist. “Go away. I train myself.”

  I sat there gasping, watching him get into his harness and try again. The Duke of Sardinia! He had to be crazy. I turned my back and went into the house. An hour later I stepped out on the porch and saw him far down the beach. He seemed barely to move, like a distant turtle. It was two hours before he pulled the cart up to his house. His body was awash with sweat. Sand clung to the sweat, and he looked frosted, and very tired. I watched him trot to the edge of the water, then fling himself into the depths. He played in the water like a short, stumpy fish. It was dark when he dragged himself out and came back to his porch. I watched him towel off.