Chump Change

by Dan Fante

  “Let me try it again, Mr. Berkhardt. I’ll do a good job. I’ll be teachable. I need the gig.”

  He could see I was serious. “Why should I? You’ll just blow it. You’re a bad risk, Bruno.”

  “I’m tired.”

  He looked at me intently. “Fuck up once and you’re gone. Agreed?”

  “No problem.”

  17

  WITH THE TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS, I PUT GAS IN THE DART and checked under the hood. With oil, it came to twenty bucks. Then Jonathan Dante’s dog and I went to Thrifty’s Drug Store in Marina del Rey and bought all name brands: Six pints of Jack Daniels’ and two cartons of Marlboro Red. I got a two-hundred and fifty pill size of Tylenol for me and the dog, for when the Percodans ran out, a large bag of Fritos and magazines—People. Time. Newsweek. Then I got six cans of the most expensive dog food in the store, men’s hair spray (because I’d never tried it), a few paperback novels, three polyester dress shirts marked medium, a new clip-on tie, deodorant and Old Spice after shave. When I cashed in at the counter, I counted the paper money. I had twenty-two bucks left.

  I loaded the stuff and the dog in the car and drove to the beach in Playa del Rey, passing the acres of undeveloped swampland west of Lincoln Boulevard, where Culver Boulevard dead-ends at the ocean. There, I parked the Dart in a big empty lot with a padlocked ticket booth. The chain was down and no attendant was on duty so I pulled right up, as far as I could, to the wide, white beach.

  Winters in L.A. keep the shoreline temperature in the fifties and sixties, and, since this stretch of coast was no good for surfing, I was alone. I stayed in the car and let Rocco loose, while I opened the Fritos and cracked a new pint of Jack and started reading the first paperback novel.

  The corn chips were good and salty but I was unable to get beyond the second page of the book because of the piss-poor writing style. My old man’s intolerance for bad writing had rubbed off on me. I thought, shit, I can do this! I can write better than this! Unable to go on, I flung the book into the back seat.

  When I looked around, Rocco was out of trouble down the beach, hobbling after a sea gull.

  The purchase of the next novel had been a gamble. I’d gotten suckered in by the blurb on top and the name of its author: “Fifteen weeks on the Best Seller List.” Seven hundred pages. Stanley King. Page one lost me immediately, but I tried more pages, hoping to catch the balls of the book. Finally, I threw it away too.

  I had a hunger to read something worth reading, to be spoken to by someone talking the truth. Remembering a used bookstore on Venice Boulevard where, when I was in high school, I had first found Hubert Selby’s Last Exit To Brooklyn, I decided to drive by, hoping the place was still there.

  I called to Rocco and folded the Fritos’ bag closed. It took the old pooch a minute of me clapping my hands and calling until he could get to his feet and limp back to the car. It pained me to watch him.

  I went up Culver, then east on Centinela then right on Venice Boulevard. I was there in five minutes.

  Without looking up, the guy behind the counter said they were out of Selby. So I took my time and nosed around in Hemingway and Saul Bellow. Nothing grabbed me.

  The counter man knew books. When I asked about E.E. Cummings he barked out the shelf and row. He was a reader and knew his inventory.

  I found the Cummings, but it was the wrong mood. I tried Bukowski. It was okay but I couldn’t grab on. Finally, giving up, I turned and headed past the counter, when something made me think of my father. I’d stopped asking the question in bookstores years before, because the answer had always been the same. Something made me try again. “Ever hear of Dante? Jonathan Dante?”

  He smiled. His proud brain must have catalogued every title in the store. “We have one of his books. D-a-n-t-e. Right?”

  “Right. Which book?”

  “Follow me.”

  I trailed him back to a small separate area of the fiction section that seemed reserved for rare and out of print books. I hadn’t noticed the special designation sign, COLLECTORS FICTION. Immediately, I spotted an original translation of Demian by Herman Hesse, out of print at least forty years. Then he pointed and I saw one of my father’s old paperbacks leaning against Hemingway’s, A Movable Feast, like two beleaguered soldiers in shabby uniforms. Tired and lonely. Both books were the same size.

  He pulled out Ask The Wind and handed it to me. I held the skinny volume in my hand, trying to remember when I’d read it last. Five years? Ten? I’d lost my own personal copy long ago. I’d even forgotten that a paperback existed. The hard cover edition had been the big seller, three thousand copies, and was the only one my father had retained copies of. The smaller version was extinct immediately.

  After he handed me the book, the clerk walked away. Over his shoulder, he said, “If you want it, its twenty-nine ninety-five. Only original Dante paperback we’ve ever had. Very rare.”

  It was unpretentious and light in my hand. When I opened it, the spine crackled. The pages were hard and dry. This was all that was left of my father.

  I began to read. About the Mexican girl and her sandals and the young, broke writer wanting to impress her, to fall in love…spilling the coffee on the table top over the nickel. Page after page, each line read like the singing from a Latin high mass.

  The honesty was as painful as I remembered. My father’s strong exposed heart was everywhere. This novel was Dante’s masterpiece, written before the fat screenwriting pay checks from Hollywood had turned him into a par golfer and a bitter old shit.

  I wanted to yell out, to share this, to make sure another living person knew who the writer was who’d fashioned the experience on these pages, the greatness of this work. If his book were being read I’d be doing something for my father. There would be two people reading his work. Two might be four.

  The store was empty, except for the clerk.

  “Have you read this?” I called to the guy, ten yards away, up front by the register. I held the book above my head.

  “Is that the Hemingway?” he yelled back.

  “No. Dante. Ask The Wind.

  “No.”

  I brought it forward to the counter with me, holding the slender volume as though it were my father’s ashes. I handed it to the young clerk. He was on the phone, but put the call on hold. “This is better than Hemingway,” I said.

  “I don’t know Dante’s stuff,” he said. “But I’ve read all of Hemingway. I think The Old Man And The Sea is the finest piece of American fiction.”

  “If you like Hemingway, this will change how you think about writing. It’ll kick your ass. It still kicks mine.”

  He looked at me skeptically. He was the expert. He knew the inventory. I was wasting his time. He whispered for effect, “Sir, Ernest Hemingway was a very great writer.”

  “I know Hemingway,” I said, “you’re right, he was wonderful. Dante has—had—a different kind of power. Driven. Honest. In-your-face kind of writing.”

  The kid was unconvinced. “I’ll get to it someday,” he said, setting the thin volume down on the counter, nodding at the blinking hold button on his phone. “Are you buying this?…Twenty-nine ninety-five.”

  The original price of Ask The Wind was printed in bold in the upper right hand corner of the cover as part of the artwork, “25 Cents.”

  His dismissive attitude pissed me off. I held the book up and pointed to the cover price. “How much did you say?”

  “It’s a rare collector’s item. The owner of the store sets the value. He prices all the scarce editions. I know, the owner is my father.” He picked the book up and opened the cover, pointing at the penciled-in price on the inside. “See,” he said, “twenty-nine ninety-five.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said. “But let me ask you something; I can see you’re busy—I’ll buy the book now and take it home…but when I’m done, if I bring it back, will you borrow it and read it?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is better than Hemingway, goddammit! I
want you to find out for yourself.”

  The remark made him suspicious. This kid was cynical and oversold like everybody else in America. “Look,” he said, “I’m in school. I don’t have a lot of free time now. Do you want this book or not?”

  “What about contempt prior to investigation? You might be holding something very important in your hand! All that I’m saying is that this is great fiction.”

  He rang it up. “ The total is thirty-two forty-three. Are you buying this or not?”

  Having it was as important to me as breathing. “Absolutely,” I said. “I’m not leaving without it.”

  He watched as I dug in my pocket for my money. Suddenly, it came to me that I might not have enough. I’d spent like a extravagant putz at the drug store, impulsively, scooping up throw-away junk that I’d never need.

  The paper dollars were wadded and stuck together in a clump as they came out. They hit the counter with my change, and scraps of notes I’d written to myself, my comb, match books and a couple of ballpoint pens—a fistful of shit.

  I did my best to separate, unwrinkle, and count at the same time, mouthing the total as I went. I had twenty-three dollars and fifty-four cents, coins and all.

  “I’m short, about nine bucks,” I said. “I haven’t got enough with me.”

  He’d observed the process like an admitting cop at the county jail drunk tank. I’d kept his on-hold call waiting too long. “I can see that…just leave me a deposit and come back when you have the balance. I’d be willing to set the book aside for you.”

  “No, I don’t want to do that.”

  Now he was openly disgusted. He turned from me and punched the hold button on his phone and petulantly addressed the caller on the other end of the receiver. “May I get back to you?” he said into the phone. “It seems we have a situation here.”

  He then hung up.

  “Okay,” he said, facing me, folding his arms, “do you want to pay by check?”

  “No.”

  “Look sir, we have no mind reading section here. Your total is $32.43 with tax. What do you want to do?”

  It was then that I remembered my wife’s Visa credit card. I knew it was void and shit-useless but I hoped that because the purchase was inexpensive, that he might not run it through his verification process. “What about plastic? You take that, right?”

  “Of course,” he said, as if I were a senile geriatric, “Visa and Master and American Express. Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I forgot that I had the card with me.”

  After I handed him the plastic he checked the expiration date. I knew that the card looked completely valid. But his interaction with me must have annoyed him enough to follow the full procedure, because he swiped the card anyway. I was screwed.

  Thirty seconds later, I could see the readout as it moved across the little computer window next to the register in a trail of bold green block letters, “Invalid Card…Invalid Card…Invalid Card.” His machine didn’t give the reason.

  “What’s the problem?” I said, sure I was busted, and ready like a thief to snatch the book and run from the store.

  He was reexamining the card. “I don’t know…” Then he looked up—he’d read the embossed letters on the face. “Your name’s Dante too! Bruno Dante.” He held it up. “Are you related to Jonathan Dante? The Dante that wrote this book?”

  I felt shame, exposure. I hadn’t wanted him to know. My praise for my father’s writing had been excessive and now, because of my relationship, the clerk would probably reject my opinion of the excellence of the book. I nodded yes. “He was my father,” I said, experiencing the fullness of the heat in my face.

  “Your card’s no good…what do you want to do?”

  I couldn’t stop. I had to take a chance…I wanted the book and there was nothing to lose. “He just died a few days ago,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s been years since I’ve seen a copy of Ask The Wind. It’s his best book. I lost my only copy a long time ago.”

  The register kid was wearing hip, wire-framed, gold glasses and a long-sleeved plaid shirt that they sell in Westwood in men’s boutiques near the UCLA campus. This was an arrogant college smart-ass brat, a know-it-all.

  His eyes had changed. “My father has a lung tumor. Cancer,” he said, his eyes fixed on the cash register’s keys. “I’ve been in charge of this store for three months while he’s on chemo. He won’t be coming back.”

  He then swept the money from the counter into his hand. “How much did you say was here?”

  I said, “Twenty-three dollars.”

  “Sold…take the book.”

  18

  AFTER PICKING UP MY LEADS AT THE DREAM MATES International office, I swung by Tara Kerns’ condo, dropping off five videos of eligible single males and borrowing $100 until pay day. We had a few drinks first, and Tara made me promise to come back later. She walked me to the Dart and I introduced her to Rocco. She pretended to think he was cute.

  My six p.m. lead was in Venice. On 26th Avenue. A remodeled craftsman house built before 1920. Number eighteen. Mrs. Nancy Cooper.

  I arrived early, parked around the corner, and sat outside in the car smoking, sipping from a pint of Jack and reading my copy of, Ask The Wind.

  I had a good feeling about this demo. I was keeping my word to Berkhardt. The collar of my clean new shirt was scraping my neck and my new clip-on tie was neat and in place. At 5:59 p.m. I walked up the concrete steps and knocked on the thick, wood front door.

  Nancy was in her late sixties; but plastic surgery, suction and the reconstruction of her ass, face and breasts had reduced her sags and made her appear much younger. She answered the door in pink, skin-tight sweat pants and a matching cutoff T-shirt that exposed her tanned tummy. Her hair was white-blond and her lipstick matched the pink “CA” logo ironed on the front of the shirt.

  When she said, “Hi honey, c’mon in,” it ruined the whole deal. The voice was derived from a throat and lungs that had chain-smoked for fifty years. Hearing her sandpaper voice made me think of Lucille Ball. She could easily have been a character out of Ask The Wind. My mind was bringing the residue of Jonathan Dante’s book into the house with me. I’d read the first fifty pages in less than half an hour, breathing life into myself with each phrase. Each comma.

  I followed Nancy into the living room, watching her spiked heels as they jabbed the Persian rug. I was hauling my presentation materials and videos under my arm, amused by the realization that this woman was only a couple of years younger than my own mother. I admired her desire to stay attractive and young, and I could already see that those characteristics might easily be used to convince her to join DMI. I was feeling the potential of my second sale.

  Nancy had money. Her place had been professionally decorated. There was original artwork everywhere, and the walls of the living room had been upholstered in what looked like raw silk.

  My hostess sat down opposite me on one of the two pink leather sofas, and scooped up a pack of Camel filter cigarettes and a lighter from the mirrored coffee table. “I smoke,” she rasped in pure Bronxese.

  “No problem,” I said. Thinking that I was establishing customer rapport, I took a book of matches from my pocket, lit her cigarette, and my own too.

  Also on the table was a tall crystal glass half-full of red wine or liqueur. “Drink? Beer?” she asked, nodding at her glass.

  “What you’re having looks fine. I’ll have that.”

  “An after dinner drink. Sweet.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Nancy called over her shoulder. “Elpedia, un otro vaso con el mismo para el senor. Rapido, por favor. Immediatamente!”

  A fat Mexican woman poked her head out of the kitchen. “Okay, Senora Cooper.”

  We started right off on the DMI questionnaire. I asked my preliminary stuff while I let her work her way down the form.

  My drink came on a tray with a half-full bottle of Bristol Cream. Elpedia set it down with a coaster. I sipped my glass whi
le she finished up the form.

  When Nancy handed the clipboard back, I could see that she’d skipped a lot of the boxes, mostly neglecting the personal preference section. So I started asking the questions she hadn’t answered. “What type of potential lifetime partner appeals to you?” I read from my sheet. “You can be general or specific.”

  She looked annoyed. “The luvva type, what else?”

  “Okay,” I said, checking the appropriate box, “but could you be a bit more specific?”

  “I travel to PV and Cancun four times a year. A nice Mexican boy. Pretty. Taller than me. Central American would be okay. Twenty-five to thirty. Education, etcetera, isn’t important, but I like a good swimmer. The athletic type is nice.”

  I was making notes, checking more boxes, finishing my first glass of sherry. I poured myself another, and topped off Nancy’s glass.

  She went on. “Somebody who smokes or doesn’t mind if I do.”

  Remembering my conversation with Berkhardt, I continued sticking with the presentation, reading from the next section, but I could tell that the questions were out of sync with my client’s interest level. “Nancy, please list the important things that you would like to have in common with your dream mate?”

  The inquiry brought a grin from Mrs. Cooper, and a laugh-cough that went on for several seconds. “What interests would you guess?”

  I laughed, too, but my answer was to gain control and bring Nancy down to earth. “We’re talking about a forty year age difference,” I said.

  She lit another cigarette, then threw her lighter on the table. “Let’s cut to the finish part, honey, the ass-end! I’m a direct kind of person. What I want is a companion, a sweetie pie. That’s what I told the phone girl when we talked yesterday. I like ‘em young and his not having money is no problem. He wouldn’t even need a job because I’ve got enough for the two of us. If you want, I could employ him as my house-boy. What I like about Dream Mates is the video part. I can order what I want and not screw around with losers. You’re here to show me videos. Do your job.”