The Collected Novels of Charles Wright

by Charles Wright

  Laughing playfully, I forced the woman’s head downward to get a reaction.

  The tall woman kissed the head of my penis delicately once, the second time with feeling. She went down with the obedient movements of a child. She was a passable Head server. I wanted her door of life and pushed her down into the grass.

  “You can’t make me do it,” the woman cried. “I don’t know what you think I am.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Rotten bastard.”

  I stood up and couldn’t control my laughter. “Get out of here.”

  “I wasn’t bothering you, and I never said I wouldn’t kiss it,” the woman cried. “Could I have another drink?”

  ANOTHER LATE summer’s morning with the humidity holding tight, no chance of rain. Angry traffic jammed. Silently people trot forward as if they were Communists. But I’m moving, moving fast, checking into the Kenton Hotel on the Bowery. I must stay skulled and get my head together, guard the mini-bank account. I must hold on, hold on, and wait for summer’s end. Will the summer never end? The Kenton’s mare’s nest is cheap, fairly clean (this was before the junkie takeover, before the W.P.A. Off Broadway project moved next door). The hotel proper is on the second landing. You walk up steep marble steps, ancient, Baltimore-clean. You imagine that a Jim Dandy tripped up these steps after having a few with Eugene O’Neill’s Iceman. But that was a long time ago. After high noon, you will be accosted by muggers, drunks, panhandlers. Those clean, cracked marble steps will be inhabited by sleeping, wounded, or dead men. You will inhale excrement, urine, vomit. Nausea builds; blast-off time is seconds away; and you are blinded by the bone-white brilliance of the steps and walls; and you have a sense of falling and become frightened. Where are you going? What are you doing here? What happened? “My God!” the self-pitying other voice cries. No matter, no matter.

  So you grit your teeth, breathe carefully, take one step at a time. Ah! There is the great varnished door, the glass upper half a mosaic of fingerprints—but you’ve made it. Safe.

  * * *

  Skulled in the whitewashed cubicle, where the ceiling is high like in an old-fashioned mansion. Chicken-coop wire encloses the top of the cubicle. But there is no air. Only pine disinfectant, roach killer. Countless radios, two phonographs, and one television blast—this is the upper-class section of the hotel, and all the transient men are black.

  The bed is lumpy with thin gray sheets, uncomfortable, like a bunk on a troop ship. No matter, no matter. There is a jug of mighty fine wine, a carton of cigarettes. I dismissed the voices, the music, the odors. I checked in to get my head together and write, but a few soldiers from the Army of Depression broke ranks. Now they brought up the rear. When would the bastards make it back to company headquarters?

  Stoned, feeling surprisingly good, walking down Broadway, below Fourteenth Street. Less than a block away, I spot this dude on the opposite side of the street. There’s something about his movements. Something isn’t kosher, I’m thinking, as the dude crosses over to my side of the street and eases into a dark store entrance. It so happens this is where I turn the corner. Now, we’re on the same side of the street. But he’s in the store entrance of his corner, which faces Broadway, and I’m turning my corner, going west, picking up a little speed.

  And who comes cruising along but “Carmencita in blue.” Just tooling along like two men who are out for a good day’s hunt in the country.

  The squad car pulls over to the curb, and I go to meet them. The driver seems friendly. He’s smiling. “Do you have any ID?”

  “No. Some son of a bitch stole my passport, and I wish you’d find the schmuck.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Down the street. I’m sure I can find something that will verify who I am.”

  A brief silence. Calm as an opium head, I casually lean against the squad car.

  “Are you the good guys or the bad guys? You see, I’m out to save the city from corruption like you guys. I’m working on my sainthood this year.”

  The cop sitting next to the driver takes off his cap and runs his hand through his straight, dark hair, which is combed back from his forehead. His nose is shaped exactly like a hawk’s.

  “He’s too much,” Hawk Nose said.

  “Jesus,” I lamented. “Are you guys stoned or am I stoned?”

  The pleasant driver liked that one. He was getting his jollies off, and so was Charles Wright.

  Then Hawk Nose came on with: “We’re looking for somebody. We wanna bust somebody’s balls.”

  There was a touch of cold reality in his voice.

  Equally real, I replied, “Well, if you bust my balls, you’d better leave me on the sidewalk.”

  Still smiling, the driver made a playful lunge for his gun, or what I hoped was a playful lunge.

  Hawk Nose, still in his tough, cop-shitting bag, was visibly irritated.

  “There was a robbery a few minutes ago,” he said, “and you fit the description of the guy. Height, weight, everything.”

  Everything meant color. And for a second I had a high fantasy of someone trying to masquerade as me. I started to tell them about the dude in the store entrance. But he didn’t look like me and had probably disappeared anyway.

  So I stood up straight and waited for the next line.

  It was a long time coming; no doubt they were turning different endings over in their minds.

  “You’d better not do anything,” Hawk Nose warned, “or else we’ll lock your ass up.”

  “Good morning,” I said, smiling.

  And two of New York’s finest rode off into the lambent dawn.

  The homosexual has come of age, displaying what he has always hidden, mentally, physically—testicles. Yet despite Gay Lib, there are enough unregistered closet cases to form a commonwealth about the size of Puerto Rico. But the types I’m concerned with here do not belong to either world, yet are as united as grass to earth. That third army of men. Buddies. Masturbating moviegoers, traditional shirt-and-tie men, images of father and grandfather. The ruddy-faced retired firemen, with the Daily News turned to the racing results. But hot lips wants to race down. Men who go to cheap movies and bars where three drinks will cost the price of one. Not much has been written about the Homosexual Bowery, where masculine sex outnumbers “girlie” sex.

  In moments of grand depression, I think of myself as the Cholly Knickerbocker of the Bowery, writing about young and old men in the last act of life. Men who sit in the foyer of hell as they wait to be escorted into the ballroom of death. But it is always cocktail hour for the “girls” who are sometimes called garbage and ash-can queens. Their past lives and wine have pushed them beyond The Boys in the Band. I’m thinking of one queen in particular. Now what kind of female would wear a ratty fur jacket on a summer morning? But once he/she sort of had it together: white-framed dark glasses, jet-black dimestore wig, white halter, lime-green shorts (before the hot-pants vogue), plus a wad of dirty rags. This queen not only wipes off car windows at Houston and Second Avenue, but tries to engage motorists in conversation and, like a visiting celebrity, hops up on the hood of a car, announces: “I’ve just arrived from Hollywood.” You may laugh or choke with disgust but the queen is for real. Sometimes 5 P.M. traffic is stalled: the queen is dancing, waving to her fans.

  The closet cases are another story. Masculine, they open under the toll of whiskey and wine. Masculine gestures give. A grand lady is talking, inviting, and to hell with the buddies, the bartender, the crowd of regulars. No matter, no matter the closet is open. Until tomorrow. But we’ve been to that country before, too, haven’t we? At least we have read the travel folders, and our friends have visited that country. Well, now we’re heading down the trail, deep into Marlboro country (before the appearance of James Jones’s From Here to Eternity Pall Mall cigarettes were considered effete. Now Pall Mall is the “hard-hat” cigarette, the jail-house cigarette). The Marlboro men would be the first to admit it, sober or stoned. These men have been the backbone of o
ur army, navy, and marine corps. Many of them were the heads of families. Most of them blame the opposite sex for their defeat. So they turned to whiskey, wine, and the company of men.

  They do not hate women. They avidly watch and comment on the hippie girls and the blue-collar Puerto Rican and Italian women of the neighborhood. On payday and welfare day, most of them never get laid. But a surprising number of them have each other. Between the “weeds” (any place where the grass is high), jail, and prison, and the for-men-only hotels of the Bowery . . . something happened. Who lit the first flame and where? All I know is what I’m going to tell you.

  In most cases, I do not even know their names. But I have seen them on the Bowery for a long time and have kept a mental file on them. I know the clean-shaven ex-army sergeant will be on the sidewalk come morning. About a month from now, he will look as he does this morning. I know the pipe-smoking old sailor has a photographic collection of nude teenage boys.

  I know that at high noon, two winos entered the Chinese Garden. Each had a pint of La Boheme white port. They sat on the second entrance steps and talked and drank as men will do. Then one of them sprawled out, resting his head on the other’s leg. He’s passing out, I thought. But his friend looked down at him and caressed his face. The man turned his head and went down. At high noon. In full view of passing traffic.

  The father and son are a Bowery legend.

  “Oh, shut up,” said the queenly father in a tough voice.

  “Listen,” the son told him. “I went out and worked to buy that wine. Don’t tell me to shut up.”

  “Snotty-nosed bitch,” the father said.

  “You’re just mad because I love John Wayne.”

  Now in my time I have observed quite a few men and women serving head. But the first prize has to go to a crew-cut man in his early thirties. There is a solid, Midwestern look about him. Even now he looks as if he owns a small successful business and can afford to take his family to New York for a holiday. If he is not self-employed, he is his boss’s backbone. I suppose that is why he serves head with such passion. The other day, Crew Cut was going through a desperate scene in the Chinese Garden. His trick was a nervous little man who kept scanning the garden, while folding and unfolding a newspaper. He looked at me, crossed his legs, and pretended to read. It was very comical. I felt like saying: “Get with it and don’t mind me. I am communing with my thirty-nine trees.” Finally, Nervous Joe tried to block my view with the newspaper.

  On another occasion, just before darkness set in, a young white man and a slightly older, slender black man were sitting about twenty feet from me, drinking dark port wine. They were sitting near the streetlight. But did I really see the black man place his head between the other man’s legs? No, my eyes are tired, my mind is tired.

  Presently the two men got up and walked over and sat down under a tree, almost directly in front of me, the sidewalk separating us. But I could not hear what they were saying. All I could do was watch the black man stretch out on the grass, then turn to the young white man, who sat with his back against the tree. Finally, he stood up, and I heard him say, “I’ll see you around.”

  The slightly older black man decided to pay me a visit.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I don’t have a goddamn thing.”

  “Wish I could help you.”

  “But you can’t,” I told the man.

  He thought about this briefly, then spotted a tall, long-haired blond man walking through the garden. He took leave of me and ran after the tall young man, who ignored him. Nevertheless, the black continued to run down his game. He puts his arms around the blond man. Suddenly the blond swung at him, and one, two, three, the fight was on. The blond had the slender man pinned against a tree and cursed him. The slender black man rubbed the blond’s buttocks. The blond bolted up from the ground and walked away silently with the black following. They stopped and began talking. The slender black man tipped up on his toes and kissed the blond’s lips. The blond young man protested but relented, and then they moved over into the tall grass and made love.

  And why are they more comfortable talking about baseball than about their sex lives?

  Mail arrives as if programmed by a doomsday computer: P.E.N. dues, Xeroxed McGovern letters, Museum of Modern Art announcements and bills, a request to subscribe to a new little magazine for twelve dollars per year; they would also like me to write for them, gratis. Another one of Maggie’s HELP notes from Paris.

  Dear Charles:

  What the hell is going on? Are you all right? You haven’t invited me to the States. In fact, you said nothing. Should I return to the States? Well, the goddamn French are out of town. A holiday and I am grateful. Received a goddamn letter from my brother. He’s a square-headed, cheap son of a bitch. I tore up the letter and went out and got stoned. But the following day, I received a wonderful letter from Mother. I don’t know how she does it. She’s in a wheelchair now but still advises the garden club, plays a mean game of bridge, etc. I felt rather good after Mother’s letter. But I’ve got to get out of Paris. I’ve had the goddamn French. I was thinking about Spain. Shit. I’d probably run into M., the bastard. He still owes me a bundle. I heard he was on Gib, gambling. Mister Big-Time Spender. Why don’t we meet somewhere? Do you have any money? Is the book finished yet? I will have to sort of tuck in until the first of the year which means no new clothes.

  But if I were back in the States, I could shop at Klein’s, Orbach’s. Take care and write. WRITE. Remember: I am your friend.

  Love

  Maggie

  Visited my broker, who has an office at First Street and the Bowery. Tony is familiar with junkies, artists, and writers. He remembers Kate Millett from the old days. I pick up the portable typewriter, chat briefly with Tony, and make it up to the Kenton.

  “I am a writer if I never write another line,” Tess Schlesinger wrote many years ago. No doubt it was a euphoric moment. But I’ve lost that passion. Scott Fitzgerald and his dazzling green light! His rich, hopeless dream: “Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.”

  But I’m knocking down wine, have swallowed my sixth Dexie of the day. A goddamn tic has started under my right eye. I have almost a dozen books that I’ve read and enjoyed. Then read, son of a bitch.

  I stare at the typewriter, mounted on a gray metal nightstand, have a great fantasy: Miss Carolyn Kizer has jumped off the Washington Monument. Miss Kizer did not respond to my request for an application from the National Council on the Arts. Even after I got important people to intercede for me, it was another month before the lady replied. Ah! She was sorry to hear of my financial difficulties. The lady had recently read marvelous reviews of my bête-noire novel The Wig. The novel had been published almost four years ago, and government funds were tight, but would I be interested in a job as writer-in-residence at a small black college in the South?

  Absurd truths, absurd lies. Drinking again and remembering when—the United States Information Agency used certain passages from The Messenger. And one heard and read of writers who had received grants and hadn’t published one book, or writers who had received grants and were reviewed on the back pages of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. One also heard of writers who received grants because they knew someone or had slept with someone.

  Perhaps I should follow the advice that I’ve been given over the years: buy a tweed suit or whatever type of suit is fashionable at the moment and make the literary-cocktail la ronde. You know, even blacks do it.

  And your father or my father might do it. I’ll never do it: But I’ll knock down more wine and go out on the fifth-floor fire escape of the Kenton Hotel.

  From this distance the view is glorious. The pollution screen even filters the burning afternoon sun. There is no breeze. A sort of suspended quiet, although I can see traffic moving down Chrystie Street; children playing ball in the park; drunks in twos and threes, supporting buddies like wounded soldiers after the ba
ttle of defeat. Toward the east, a row of decayed buildings has the decadent beauty of Roman ruins. But only at a distance. Trained pigeons, chickens, and junkies inhabit those rooftops. Taking another drink, I think: I wish I could fly, fly, far away.

  Here, there, again, and always, the Why of the last seven years. Skulled depression as I sit and watch the sun disappear. Aware of the muted, miscellaneous noises that drift up from the street, I am also aware of the loss of something. Thinking of all I’ve done and not done. Thinking and feeling a terrible loss.

  “Man, they jumps,” Sam exclaimed. “Didn’t you know that?”

  Sweet-potato brown, Sam has a Hitler, Jr., mustache. An icepick scar outlines his left cheek like a nervous question mark. His small bright black eyes seem to recede as if the sight of another pair of eyes was somehow indecent. We had worked together briefly in the Catskills, and I had helped him through several bad Manhattan scenes. His wife had taken the three children and gone to California with another woman. Sam’s running buddy, “Two-Five,” a thirty-three-year-old crippled Vietnam veteran, was beaten to death on the Bowery. But Sam was laid back now. He had it together. A wide-brimmed, eggshell, plantation straw hat raffishly knocked back on his head. The thin white body shirt was new. He wore lilac bell-bottoms, trimmed in red. The Florsheim patent-leather boots had a permanent shine.

  “You can’t even see the motherfuckers,” Sam said.

  “I thought you said you could.”

  “You can’t see the babies, and even the big ones are like spies. They good at hiding out.”

  “Oh shit, baby.”

  “Wait until they start walking,” Sam laughed.

  “Man, are you putting me on?”

  “It ain’t Mission Impossible. Now, do like I told you. I’ll check with you later. Gotta go to Brooklyn and see my sister. She’s fighting with the landlord again.”