What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
Page 11
told me
when things get bad
she’ll come and
bring me
lovely living
angels.
I phoned her
an hour ago
holding a
sharp knife
in my
left hand.
the phone service
said
they’d
leave the
message.
Hollywood Ranch Market
she was 32 years younger
than I was
with a body fit for the
gods.
it was 2:30 a.m.
we’d lived together for
8 months
and she shook me,
“Hank?”
“yeah?”
“I have to have some
deep fried
chicken gizzards!”
“what? again?”
“I’ve got to have them now!”
“all right.”
we got up and dressed.
outside it was beginning to
rain.
we drove to the Hollywood
Ranch Market.
she ordered her
deep fried
chicken gizzards
and I ordered an ear of corn
and a roast beef
sandwich.
it was beginning to rain harder
and as we waited
a man without legs
rolled up on a little platform
he had an unforgettable face
with black eyes and
a large nose.
he grabbed my woman around
the calf of one of her
legs
with a hand the size of a
table radio:
“hey, Cleo, baby! how ya
doin’?”
“Beef-o!” she replied,
“you son-of-a-bitch, how ya
doing?”
“great, baby, great! got a
light?”
Beef-o had a king-size Marlboro in his
mouth.
she bent over and lit him
up as one of her breasts almost
slipped out of
her blouse.
“you’re looking great, baby,
great! who’s the guy? that your
old man? hey, man, how ya doin’?”
I bent over to shake and
my hand vanished into his.
after some more small talk
Beef-o rolled off into the
rain and she said,
“can you wait a minute?
I want to run down and see
Billy John. Billy John’s just got one
arm but he’s the neatest guy
you ever met! be right back!”
I paid for the orders
and stood there in the rain
holding the
bags for 10 or 15 minutes.
then Cleo came back,
“Billy John’s not there, I
don’t know what happened
to Billy John…”
back in bed we sat upright
eating. I finished my corn
and my sandwich. she put her
gizzards down.
“they just don’t taste right,
they just don’t taste like they
used to taste.”
she stretched out.
then her young lips parted
red red red with lipstick.
bits of chicken gizzard still
clung to the corners
of her mouth.
she began to
snore.
I sat and listened to the rain
then I switched out the
light.
I knew then that
I had to get out of east Hollywood!
they didn’t even bother to
fix the streets
anymore.
rape
the Free Verse Poets whispered
that Julia only gave it to the
Rhyming Poets, or at least
she was always seen only with
them.
the Free Verse Poets put it into my head
to go on over there and score
one for Us.
early on that 4th of July evening
I had Julia up against the refrigerator
trapped
when this 19-year-old boy
walked into the kitchen and asked,
“hey, mom, what’s going on?”
we were introduced and went into
the other room. I poured the boy
a half glass of Jack Daniels
and watched his delicate lips
pucker as he took little sips.
that would teach him not to
get in the way of his mother’s
erotic life.
then there was a knock on the
door and in came Monzo the
poet and his wife
Denise. Denise hated me with
a hatred
much more powerful than
Monzo’s poems.
I figured the only way to
accomplish my mission
was to drink them all senseless:
the son, Monzo, his wife and
Julia. then
I’d ravish Julia.
I had brought along enough
beer and whiskey
to accomplish this.
we drank and then the fireworks
came on at the Los Angeles
Coliseum
and by standing at the window
we could watch the show.
everybody seemed delighted.
“terribly dull shit,” I said.
“Chinaski,” Monzo’s wife said,
“you are so negative!”
I placed my hand on Julia’s ass
as we watched, I pinched her ass,
fondled the crack.
the boy was in the bathroom
vomiting.
then somebody said, “oh,
my god!”
some of the fireworks had fallen
into the tall palm trees
in the street outside
and they were burning,
one setting fire to another.
“now,” I said, “there is something
that is really beautiful!”
“oh, Chinaski,” Monzo’s wife said,
“you are such an obnoxious
son-of-a-bitch!”
the fire engines came and soon spoiled
it for me. we sat down and drank some
more.
they talked. they used terms
like lower-class, middle-class, upper-
middle-class, upper-upper-class. they talked
about personal communication. they talked about the
environment and Dylan Thomas. they
discussed communes and organic gardens.
they spoke of Yoga. they talked about unstructured
schools and about growing grass
indoors with ultraviolet light. they talked
about Tim Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,
about the war in Vietnam and how they liked
certain cartoonists like Robert Crumb.
they talked about love-ins, they
talked about smoke-ins. they talked about
how everybody was fucking the American
Indian. and they drank very little while I
drank a great deal. I soon realized that
they had decided to stick it out with Julia to
keep her from being ravished.
I finally gave up
got back to my car
and drove to my place on
DeLongpre Avenue
where I uncapped a beer
lucked upon some Wagner
on the radio
and then my landlady in the back
/>
came out and we went
over to her place
where we drank two quarts of Eastside beer
one after the other
while her old man
in a white torn undershirt
his head resting on the table
slept peacefully.
she talked about
Catholicism
(she went to mass every Sunday)
and the horrors of
hemorrhoids and gallstones
(and operations for same)
and in between we sang songs
from the 30’s,
Bing Crosby songs and the like,
and when I left there at
5 a.m.
it was unclearly the 5th of July
and I had forgotten all about
my failure to ravish
Julia.
gone away
they were not quite looking at one
another nor were they trying to look
away.
they sat quietly on the uncomfortable
metal chairs in the small
glass-enclosed waiting room.
there must have been
13 or 14 of them
men and women
they looked neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable
as
I stood there
waiting for one of them
to speak
because
I didn’t know which one
was the one in charge.
they were all in civilian clothes
and finally I asked:
“pardon me, but could somebody tell
me which room Betty Winters is in?”
“Betty Winters?” asked a man
dressed completely in matching brown.
I noticed he had a large ring of keys
fastened to his belt.
“yes,” I answered, “I’ve come to
visit her. these are visiting hours,
aren’t they?”
there was no answer.
the man in brown got
out of his chair. he looked at
a chart on the wall.
“Betty Winters is in 303 only she’s
not there. she took restricted
leave.”
the man in brown walked
back to his chair and
sat down.
the other people had remained
detached and motionless.
I almost asked, “is she coming
back?” but I already knew what
the man in brown knew:
if she didn’t return she was
too insane to know she wasn’t
sane enough
and if she did return she was
sane enough to know that she was
insane.
Betty Winters had asked me
to come visit her that day.
like most other afternoons
it was a wasted afternoon
for me.
as I walked back down the hall
a man ran along
in front of me. he jumped
and skipped
as he ran along
slapping at invisible marks on the
wall with his hands. he
never seemed to miss. suddenly he
let out a shout
darted into a side room and
without looking back
slammed the door
behind him.
note left on the dresser by a lady friend:
WINE: at present you are buying about 60 bottles
per month
retailing at $5 a bottle
which comes to a total of $300 a month
(plus tax).
if you can cut this down to 30 bottles a month
(one bottle per night) and buy your wine
by the case at 10% discount you will only spend
$135. the amount saved will be approx. $165 per month
or
$1980 yearly!
DINING OUT: at present you go out to eat about
4 nights a week and it costs about $25 a night, including
drinks, which comes to a total of $400 per month. cut
your
dining out to 2 nights a week and to about $20 each
night
(much less if you eat Chinese). this will come to
about $160 a month (plus tips). the amount saved will be
approx. $240 a month, or $2880 a year!
TELEPHONE: at present you have been spending about
$200 per
month. this one’s easy: no more long distance calls! this
will cut your expense in half. the amount saved will be
$100 a month,
or $1200 per year.
RACETRACK: at present you are spending (losing)
about
$90 a week. Hank, you’ve just got to figure out
a new betting system, for this comes to $360 per month!
so my dear, by cutting down on wining, dining, long
distance
calls and losing at the track
you will save approx. $865 a month, or
get this:
$10,380 per year! REALLY!
get ready,
get set,
GO!
legs
Houdini was caught off guard
by a kid
who punched him in the belly
before he was ready.
he hadn’t inflated his air vest
yet.
the same thing happened to me
at a party once:
I told this big guy:
“go ahead, hit me in the belly
as hard as you can! I have abs of
steel!”
just then a young girl with beautiful
legs
crossed them
and I caught a glimpse
of miraculous thigh
just as the big guy
drove his fist straight through my
stomach wall.
the pain was almost tranquil
and I couldn’t see
then it got real bad
and I lifted my drink
and had some
and a while later
when I could talk
I told the big guy:
“now it’s my turn!”
“yeah, right,” he said and vanished into
the crowd.
the girl with the beautiful legs
left early
with somebody else.
later on that night
I drank a pint of whiskey
straight
without stopping.
there was really nothing else left
for me
to do, and I got a
well-deserved
smattering of
applause.
the artist
“look,” I say, “you shouldn’t have broken in
here, it’s just not done…”
“why not? we waited out there for 2 hours.”
“you’re taking a chance of getting sliced
from gullet to asshole,” I tell him.
“I often lay here in the dark
and don’t want to be
bothered…”
“but I thought we were friends…”
“you shouldn’t think. it’s harmful.”
“Hank, I haven’t painted a thing this year.
I’m hurting.”
“that’s your dirty laundry. you’re living with your
mother.
she’ll powder your
bunghole…”
“you don’t like me, do you?”
“you’re always talking about Art,”
I tell him. “I don’t like Artists, I don’t like
you, I don’t like most
people, I don’t like door-knockers.
I never knock on an
y man’s door;
I expect the same.”
“do you want me to leave?”
“of course.”
“do you have a five?”
“I don’t carry fives.”
“do you have a one?”
“I don’t carry ones.”
“do you have any small change?”
“never carry it. holes in my pockets.”
after he leaves I go into the kitchen and see where he
and his
girlfriend broke in. she had sat through the whole
conversation
with a 15 cent Mona Lisa smile on her
face.
I need two new hooks on
the screen. then I go and check my hunting
knife. might be better to gut him
the next time he crawls
through
there.
better for him, better for me,
better for his mother,
better for Art.
revolt in the ranks
I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half
handicapping tomorrow’s
card.
when am I going to get at the poems?
well, they’ll just have to wait,
they’ll have to warm their feet in the
anteroom
where they’ll sit gossiping about
me.
“this Chinaski, doesn’t he realize that
without us he would have long ago
gone mad, been dead?”
“he knows, but he thinks he can keep
us at his beck and call!”
“he’s an ingrate!”
“let’s give him writer’s block!”
“yeah!”
“yeah!”
“yeah!”
the little poems kick up their heels
and laugh.
then the biggest one gets up and
walks toward the door.
“hey, where you going?” he is
asked.
“somewhere where I am
appreciated.”
then, he
and the others
vanish.
I open a beer, sit down at the
machine and nothing
happens.
like now.
life of the king