Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  “You scared me,” I said. “No, seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s exactly the same pipe as the other kind. All the sinks in town are fitted with it, it’s been that way for ten years. It`s good stuff.”

  “No, no, no. No good. It’s not REGULATION!!”

  “Really, don’t worry about it…”

  “Don’t try to swindle me! I want things done according to regulation.”

  It always happens to you at the end of the day, just when you’re totally beat. Nobody’s willing to throw in the towel. I ran my hand through my hair.

  “Listen,” I said. “I do my job, you do yours. I’m not going to ask you what kind of dynamite you use to take a hill. If I use telephone tubing it’s because I know what I’m doing.”

  “I want a regulation installation, you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. And I suppose that all the weirdness you do in the sink, that’s regulation, too. Look, just pay me and let’s forget about it. That thing’s not going to budge for twenty years, I guaran-”

  “Nothing doing! You’re not getting one penny until you change it!”

  I looked the old fruitcake right in the eye. It was clear I was wasting my time with him, and I wasn’t interested in overtime. All I wanted was to get back in my little car, roll down the windows, smoke a cigarette, and go home in peace, that’s all. So I walked up to the sink, bent my knee, and kicked the U joint with all my might. I managed to break off half of it. I turned to the guy.

  “There you go,” I said. “Something’s wrong with your sink.

  You’d better call a plumber.”

  The old man hit me in the face with his crop-I felt a line of fire from my mouth to my ear. He looked at me, his eyes gleaming. I smashed him in the head with my pipe. He backed up into the wall and put his hand on his heart. I didn’t go get him his pills. I just split.

  I felt my cheek burning all the way home. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a red-purple stripe. One corner of my mouth was swollen-it made me look even more exhausted than I was. It seemed to put into motion some process that made all the fatigue from the past few days show up on my face. I wasn’t a pretty sight. Caught in a traffic jam, I was able to recognize all my brothers in misery-we all looked alike. Same wounds, or almost. Every face ravaged by a week of meaningless work fatigue, privation, rage, and boredom. We crept forward a few yards each time the light turned green, without saying a word.

  Betty saw the welt the minute I walked in. My cheek was all puffed up, glistening. I didn’t have the heart to make up a lie-I told her exactly what had happened. I poured myself a tall drink and she jumped on me:

  “That’s what you get for clowning around all day long! It had to happen!”

  “Shit, Betty. What are you talking about?”

  “Spending your days on your knees under a bunch of fucking sinks, rubbing elbows with garbage cans, unplugging all sorts of shit, putting in toilets… you think that’s smart?”

  “Who cares? It’s not important.”

  She came up close to me. In a sugar-coated voice she said, “Tell me, do you know what I’ve been doing all these days? You don’t know? Well, I’ve been recopying your book! I’ve been at it day after day, and sometimes at night-it keeps me up nights, for your information!”

  Her voice got more and more bitter. I poured myself another one and grabbed a handful of peanuts. She didn’t take her eyes off me.

  “I am convinced that you are a great writer. Can you get that through your head at least?”

  “Listen, don’t start up again with that. I’m tired. Being a great writer is not going to put food on the table. I think you’re working too hard on that thing. It’s giving you delusions of grandeur.”

  “But God! Don’t you see that someone like you shouldn’t have to stoop? Don`t you understand that you don’t have the right to do that?”

  “Hey, Betty… you gone nuts?”

  She grabbed me by the lapels. I almost spilled my scotch.

  “No, it’s you who’s nuts! You’re not with it at all! It makes me sick to see how you spend your time. What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you open your eyes?”

  I couldn’t help sighing. The crummy day just wouldn’t end.

  “Betty… I’m really afraid you think I’m someone I’m not.”

  “No, stupid! I know who you are! I just didn’t know you were so thick! I’d rather see you out just walking around, gawking, anything-that would be normal. But instead you go out and deaden your mind with a bunch of sinks, and you think it’s very cool…”

  “I’m doing a little fieldwork in human relations,” I said. “I’m trying to store up a maximum of infor-”

  “Oh, cut the bullshit! I’ve already said that I want to be proud of you, to admire you, but I think the idea really bugs you! I think you’re doing all this to annoy me!”

  “No, I’d never do anything to annoy you.”

  “Well, it seems that way to me, I swear. I mean, Jesus, try to understand. You don’t have time to do a hundred different things with your life. Don’t think you’re going to get out of it with a few witty remarks. You’d be better off facing it once and for all: you’re a writer, not a plumber.”

  “How can you tell the difference?” I asked.

  We glared at each other across the table. She looked like she was ready to slit my throat.

  “You’re going to give me a lot of work,” she said. “Yeah, you probably will-but for now there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m warning you, I’m not going to give in. I’m telling you it bugs me to live with a guy who comes home at seven o’clock at night, plops his toolbox on the table and sighs: ‘THIS REALLY GETS ME DOWN!’ How do you think I feel when in the afternoon I’m completely absorbed in your book and the telephone rings and some creep asks where you are because something just went blooey in his toilet bowl? I can almost smell the shit! How do you think I feel when I hang up? Some hero…”

  “Look, I think you’re going overboard. I think it’s a good thing that there are plumbers. I can tell you I’d rather do that than work in an office.”

  “Lord, don’t you understand anything? Don’t you see that with one hand you’re pulling my head out of the water and with the other you’re dunking me in again?”

  I was going to tell her that it was a good metaphor for life in general, but I didn’t. I just nodded and poured myself a glass of water and went to drink it looking out the window. It was almost dark out. The writer wasn’t very sharp, and the plumber was dead. It was after this conversation that I started slowing down. I tried at least not to work in the afternoon, and things changed right away. Permanent good times came back between Betty and me-we recaptured the flavor of peaceful days, we winked at each other again.

  The plumber had trouble getting up in the morning after the writer had gone to bed at three o’clock. He had to be careful not to wake Betty up-to heat the coffee without his face falling in it. He yawned, unhooking his jaw. It was only when he set foot on the street that he started emerging. The strap from his toolbox sawed his shoulder in half.

  Betty was sometimes still sleeping when he came home. He would jump in the shower, then wait for her to wake up, smoking a cigarette at her side. He would look at the paper piling up next to the typewriter, listen to the silence, or play with a rolled-up pair of panty hose at the foot of the bed.

  By the time Betty woke up the writer was deep in a session of self-introspection, a small dreamy smile on his lips. Usually they fucked, then had breakfast together. It was the good life for the writer. He felt just a bit tired, that was all, and when the sky was clear he liked to take a nap on the terrace, listening to the noise coming up from the street. The writer was cool. He never worried about money. His brain was empty. Sometimes he asked himself how he had ever managed to write a book-it seemed so far away now. Maybe he’d write another one someday, he couldn’t really say. He didn’t want to think about it. Betty asked him the question once, and he told her that he just might, but it
made him uneasy for the rest of the day.

  When he got up the next morning, the plumber had a serious hangover. He waited until his client turned around, then threw up in the shower stall. It gave him the willies. Sometimes he hated that fucking writer.

  8

  Before we knew it the evenings started getting cooler, and the first leaves fell from the trees and filled the gutters. Betty went to work on my last notebook and I continued to putter around here and there to earn enough money to keep us going. Everything was fine except that now I found myself waking up at night, eyes wide in the dark, brain burning, squirming around in bed as if I’d swallowed a snake. All I had to do was reach out my arm-I’d put a new notebook and pencil right next to the bed-but this song and-dance had been going on for two days, and no matter how I racked my brain I couldn’t come up with the slightest new idea. Nothing came out at all-but nothing-so every night the big writer went down for the count. He had lost his muse’s phone number, the poor jerk; he’d even lost his desire to call, and he didn’t even know why.

  I tried to convince myself that it was a case of temporary constipation. To shake things up a little, I started doing some electrical work in the afternoons. I replaced wires, installed junction boxes, put in switches with dimmers for atmosphere-all the way up at night, then down to just a glimmer to fuck in. But even with all the puttering I felt my soul dragging. I had to stop regularly to down a beer. Only when evening came on did I start to feel better-almost normal. Sometimes I was downright joyful, the alcohol helped me through. I’d go up to Betty and bend over the typewriter:

  “Hey, Betty, no use wearing yourself out-I got nothing left inside, my balls are gone…”

  I thought this was funny as hell. I gave the top of the machine a good punch.

  “Let’s go,” Betty said. “Out. Go sit down, and stop screwing around. You’re talking like a jerk.”

  I sank down in an armchair and watched the flies fly. When it was warm I’d leave the terrace door open and toss my empty beer cans outside. The message I heard inside was always the same: where? when? how?-but I was having trouble finding a buyer for my troubled soul. I wasn’t even asking for much, just two or three pages would do the trick, just something to get me started. I was sure that all I had to do was start. I had to laugh, it was all so stupid. Betty shook her head and smiled.

  After that, I would start making dinner and my worries would go out the window. I’d do a little shopping with Bongo. The fresh air woke me up. And if I started going a bit off the deep end again while cracking an egg or grilling a leek, it didn’t really matter-I would just look forward to sitting down to eat with the two girls, and try to be as lively as they were. I’d look at them talking, sending sparks back and forth in the living room. Usually I would get into sauces-the girls said I was a genius with sauces-they always cleaned their plates. People also said I was a genius as a plumber. And as a fly fucker-how did I stack up there? After all those years of peace, I was perfectly within my rights to wonder what was happening to me. It was like trying to restart an old locomotive, overgrown with weeds. It was terrifying.

  ***

  The day Betty finished typing my book, my stomach was in knots. My legs hurt. I was standing on a chair, tinkering with a lamp, when she told me. It was like taking zoo volts in your hand. I climbed down slowly, holding onto the back of the chair for dear life. I acted moderately impressed.

  “Well, it took you long enough… Listen, I got to split. Got to buy some fuses.”

  I wasn’t listening to what she said-I didn’t hear anything anymore. I just walked calmly to my jacket. I was like the actor onstage who gets shot in the guts but won’t go down. I slipped my jacket on and went down the stairs, not breathing until I hit the door.

  Out on the street, I started walking. A little breeze came up with nightfall, but soon I found myself covered with sweat. I slowed down. I noticed that Bongo was following me. He ran ahead of me, then waited for me to catch up. I don’t know why he did that. There seemed to be a smell of blind confidence in the air, and it was getting on my nerves-the smell of emptiness, too.

  I went into a bar and ordered a tequila, because it works fast and I needed a jolt. It’s hard to accept that the good times are gone-I’ve always thought so. I asked for another tequila and then I started feeling better. There was this guy next to me, totally blasted, staring at me with his glass in both hands. I saw him attempt to open his mouth and I egged him on.

  “Come on, that’s it… What kind of bullshit are you going to hand me?” I asked him.

  Once I had extricated myself from the bar I felt much better. Everybody was crazy and life was woven from absurdity. Luckily there were always a few good moments-everybody knows what I’m talking about-and if only for that it’s worth living. The rest is meaningless. In the end nothing changes anything. I was convinced of the ephemeral nature of all things. I had half a bottle of tequila in my belly and was seeing palm trees in the street, swept away in the wind.

  There was a surprise waiting for me back at the house. A half-bald blond guy, about forty-five, with a pot belly. He was sitting in my favorite chair, with Lisa on his lap.

  Now Lisa was a normal girl with a pussy and tits, and occasion ally she used them. Sometimes she would stay out all night and just show up the next morning to change and go to work. I would run into her in the kitchen. You can tell at a glance a girl who’s been fucking all night. I was happy for her-I hoped she’d gotten the most out of it. I shared these little moments with her without saying a word; it brightened up my day. I knew then that I was a privileged character, that life had sprinkled a handful of gold dust in my eyes, that I could handle anything. We made a great little trio. I knew I could fix every sewer in town as long as I could stop at five o’clock, take a shower, and meet the two of them there-one handing me a glass and the other one an olive.

  As a general rule, Lisa didn’t discuss the men she met, or those she fucked. She would just say it wasn’t worth going into and laughingly change the subject. Naturally she never brought a guy back to the house. Believe me, she would say, the one I let walk through that door has got to have something the others don’t.

  So I was floored when I walked in and saw this guy sitting there in his shirtsleeves with his tie loosened, raising his glass to me to say hello. I realized I was standing in front of the rare bird. Lisa introduced us with bright eyes, and the guy jumped up to grab my hand. His cheeks were red; he reminded me of a bald headed, blue-eyed baby.

  “By the way,” Betty asked, “did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yeah, but it took me a while.”

  Lisa put a drink in my hand. The guy looked at me and smiled. I smiled back. In a flash, I had the situation well in hand. His name was Edward but people called him Eddie. He’d come to open a pizzeria in town, he bought a new car every two months and laughed a lot. He sweated lightly. He seemed happy to be there. An hour later, it was like he’d known us for twenty years. He put his hand on my arm while the girls were talking in the breakfast nook.

  “So tell me, man… they say that you write…” he said.

  “You might say that,” I said.

  He gave me a wrought-iron wink.

  “Make money at it…?”

  “It depends. It’s not steady.”

  “Anyway,” he said. “Sounds pretty good. You write your little story, you take it easy, you go to the bank…”

  “You got it.”

  “What area you write in?” he asked.

  “Gothic novels,” I said.

  How does a girl’s brain work? I asked myself all evening long surely I was missing something. This Eddie guy-I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, besides that he drank like a fish, talked like a fool, and laughed all the time. I’d given up counting the things in life that surprise you, though. I like to keep my eyes open-you never know when you’re going to learn a thing or two. Take Eddie-it turned out that my first impression was wrong. Eddie’s an angel.
>
  By the time we got to the baba au rhum, he had talked me to death, but all things considered it wasn’t so bad. Being loud and dumb once in a while-provided you have a good cigar-is not the end of the world. Eddie had brought champagne. He popped the cork and looked at me, then poured me a big glass.

  “Hey, I want you all to know how happy I am that we get along so good together- no really, I swear… girls, your glasses…”

  The next morning, Sunday, he showed up with a big suitcase while we were eating breakfast. He gave me a wink.

  “I brought a few things with me… I like to feel at home…”

  He took out two or three rather short kimonos, a pair of slippers, and some underwear. Then he went into the bathroom. He came out thirty seconds later wearing one of the kimonos. The girls clapped. Bongo picked his head up to see what was going on. Eddie’s legs were short, white, and incredibly hairy. He spread his arms out to be admired.

  “Better get used to it,” he said. “It’s the only thing I like to wear around the house.”

  He came and sat down with us, poured himself some coffee, and started talking again. I felt a little like going back to bed.

  I spent the early afternoon with Betty packaging copies of my manuscript and looking up publishers’ addresses in the phone book. By now I was resigned to it. I approached it with a certain detachment, though once I thought I noticed a little spark coming out of my fingertips as I wrote the name of a well-known publisher. I lay down on the bed with a cigarette in my mouth. Betty came over to me. I felt fine. I felt light as a feather-geared down, somehow.

  I was starting to give Betty the eye and play with her hair when I heard a noise on the stairway. Two seconds later there was Eddie, dancing around under our noses with a bottle and three glasses.

  “Hey, you two, what’s with all the whispering? Listen, I got to tell you what happened to me…”

  Lisa, Lisa, I thought, whatever drove you to this?

  Later he got us all to climb into the car to go to the racetrack. The sky was getting cloudy, but the girls got excited. The radio cranked out miles of commercials, and Eddie laughed his head off. We got there for the start of the third race. I took the girls to the bar while Eddie bought tickets. I was bored already. It’s always the same-the people run to the betting windows… the horses run… the people go to the fence… the horses finish… the people run back to the betting windows-about as exciting as a soccer game. At the homestretch, Eddie would punch at the air, and his ears would turn red; two seconds later, he was pulling his hair out. He’d crumple his tickets up and throw them on the ground, whining.