Whores for Gloria

by William T. Vollmann

  Later that night they had their first fight when Jimmy walked Gloria home and when he was almost at her house he started kissing her and kissing her and then he said Gloria I want to make love to you so bad and Gloria said I'm not ready I can't come to you yet until I remember everything and Jimmy said please Gloria do you love me or don't you? aren't I buying memories for you? then Gloria slapped his face and said how can you talk to me that way when you know that I do love you Jimmy and Jimmy said I'm sorry and Gloria said let me go this instant and don't say another word to me and she went inside slamming the door and Jimmy knew that she was crying. The next day he was forgetful at work and the boss said are you sick and Jimmy said sort of and the next day the boss said Jimmy pull yourself together and the next day the boss said Jimmy, I'll give you two choices: quit or get fired and the next day Jimmy knocked on the door and Gloria half-opened it and said well Jimmy what do you have to say to me and Jimmy said I'm sorry Gloria and she said I'm sorry I overreacted and she said come in and we'll talk about it and she said kiss me and she said come in here and close the door and now really kiss me.

  11

  Phyllis and Luna

  Have you ever looked at an old street-whore's hand? Dirty worn creases deep as cuts, fingertips callused and peeling, thumb blackish-grey, but the whole hand so pale under the dirt, and so lean and tired like the wrist up which march buttons of sores . . . That hand has worked hard at giving love to strangers, or giving what strangers call love, or what strangers want instead of love—no, it is love because work is love no matter what or how.

  Phyllis's hands looked like that.

  Phyllis went home to Luna where they lay together with eyes glowing so lovingly because Luna had become a habit like the fire hydrant in front of the Nitecap that a million dogs had peed on, like the bus stop pole that Dinah had leaned against so long that she had worn away a palm-sized place in the yellow paint. Then Phyllis injected the smack very slowly into her vein, holding her breath to better appreciate the goodness and blessedness of it like Virgin Mary candy full of sunlight and ocean fruit, and she was happy until it wore off at which point she picked a fight with inoffensive Luna and then sat on the bed staring down at the night of parked cars and heavy barred gates of hotel lobbies and barred storefronts like jails and sidewalks empty where there was no business, corners packed with black men selling drugs, corners occupied by blondes wearily waggling ass, and Phyllis said they might as well just lay me in the earth! Of course there isn't even any dirt in this place, except on people's hands. Maybe they could bury me in shit. Plenty of that around here, at least.

  Oh, stop your whining said Luna, who was still sulking.

  You suppose there's anything after death? said Phyllis.

  How the hell should I know? Why don't you just quit it. Whatever it is that you need to keep you going, figure it out and get it. It ain't me, girl, and it sure ain't your fix.

  It's death, laughed Phyllis.

  Oh, dry up, yawned Luna. Here, have a beer. Who were you with this afternoon?

  That nigger bitch and a pervert that wanted his dick sucked. Later on he made us tell him shit. You know. Whatever it takes.

  Luna went to the window.—You know that girl Nicole? she said. Well, she got stabbed.

  Dead?

  You hard of hearing or you just got cunts for ears?

  Good riddance, said Phyllis after a while. She had AIDS anyway. I hate people with AIDS.

  12

  Jack and Dinah

  Those Tenderloin hotel rooms were havens, not just worlds into which the Vice Squad looked and listened, bugging the elevators of the Hotel Canada for instance as everybody was convinced, so that Dinah was well aware that someday, some night, she might look through her window and see across the alley into a wall of many windows, and behind one of those windows the curtains would be drawn a little back and there she would see two glowing green circles like cat's eyes; but they were in fact Laredo's detective night-eyes, serenely horrible in their electronic night-vision goggles that magnified her in their circles as Laredo spread the curtains apart with her hands, not smiling, not frowning, but faindy green-glowing from cheek to chin like rotten algae . . . yes, this hotel room was a real home—although, it is true, it was not a home of luxury where people could go to lie down when they were sick and listen to the soothing hiss of the teakettle, to watch their can of soup boiling on the stove when they were hungry and cold; but it was a home none the less; it was what Dinah and Jack had. If Laredo had in fact been surveying through her binoculars the ugliness of the room in the hotel where Dinah and Jack lived, with nothing in it, hardly, but a bed and a dresser and bloody scraps of toilet paper, she might have thought what animals, and how horrible, and what else is new, and when do I go back to Hawaii, until Jack got up and reached behind the window and brought over a record. No record player was anywhere near. The record was a version of Chopin's Nocturnes. It was Jack's favorite thing in the world. He read the performance notes on the jacket (which he knew almost by heart) and slid the record out a little so that its glistening blackness caught the light and then he pushed it back with his thumb and set the album behind the window again.

  Dinah lay naked on the bed. Her body smelled like Jimmy's sweat. Her cunt was full of Jimmy's come.

  I get hard just looking at you, Jack said.

  Are you, dear? laughed Dinah.

  We might as well play hide the salami, said Jack.

  Dinah laughed. She clicked her stiletto in and out. Jimmy had given it to her.—Yeah, I like this, she said. Know what? I'd get a motherfucker and say come on motherfucker get with it gimme all your money gimme all your goddamned money right now. —She laughed and laughed.

  Would you stop that? yelled Jack. Stop laughing like some goddamned sheep!

  Dinah laughed and popped her stiletto in and out.

  You sure are nothing to fuck around with, said Jack, half-amused. You're getting high fuckin' with that knife. Your little thing is starting to juice up and shit. Why, you vixen!

  Jack

  Jack looked great, although he had scars. He didn't have junky ways. He just had a 3 cc syringe. Every morning he woke up to something like morning sickness and had to get his speedball right away, but he wasn't addicted. If he didn't shoot up, on the first day his body would say all right you motherfucker I'm gonna GET you, but on the second day he would be OVER it, man; he would be healthy as pie.

  Dinah

  Leroy and Laredo caught Dinah the next night.—That's how it goes, said Leroy. Just remember the game. Tonight you got caught.

  So what? Dinah said.

  Tomorrow night you'll probably get away with it, Leroy said.

  I'm not worried about it, Dinah said.

  They drove her down to the station now, where streetlights shone down upon the sidewalk, and all the police cars were very black and white and logical.

  You know what I want? Dinah said. I want to go to school at the community college with girls who think the worst thing in life is when their mothers won't buy them a new blouse.—Because she was drunk, she cried easily. —There are worse things in life, she said, but I don't want to think about 'em anymore.

  Laredo and Leroy didn't say anything. They had heard that before.

  13

  Phyllis and her friends

  Phyllis got busted, too—for smack. No one knew who'd snitched on her. Linda, Luna and Fawn moved out of the Hotel Canada. Linda and Fawn got busted or left town; no one saw them anymore. Luna moved to the Paradise Hotel.

  14

  The Kum Bak Club

  Jimmy parked himself on a bar stool at the edge of a row of old men with round heads and glasses; their complexions were like tanned blankets. A few months back Jimmy had had a Korean whore who was real good and tight and he always used to tease her come on babe let's pop into the Kum Bak Club because that's Korean for come back isn't it and I'll always come back to you.—You crazy, laughed the whore, you just a big white crazy boy!—Ever since then Ji
mmy liked to drop by the Kum Bak Club once in a while. The whore always used to drink coffee there; she said their coffee was the best in the Tenderloin. During happy hour a Budweiser and a coffee were only two dollars. Jimmy ordered a Budweiser and a coffee and sat there drinking the Budweiser and the German barmaid asked him you vant a Glas? and Jimmy said thanks no and watched the steam rising slowly from the coffee that the Korean whore was never going to drink.

  The Black Rose

  Blinking lights rippled like domino stacks or windblown grass or a secret cipher of winking jewels, hard and round and yellow, with the wave of blinking sweeping across the top of the wide rectangular mirrors behind the bar and down their sides and under them and then the blinking lopped down between them like a descending ferris wheel at some night circus, curving below the glowing pinkish-purple square with the black rose on it, and the longer Jimmy stared at the black rose the more beautifully it glowed until it outshone the reddish warmth of the popcorn machine and the bloody-red light-globes on the ceiling that each hummed with its own little fan, and Jimmy had a Budweiser and tipped the pretty barman a dollar and sipped and sipped slowly and the sweet-malt taste of it with its chemicals and bad water was as natural in his mouth as the taste of his own breath and Jimmy watched the whores in the mirror; oh, there were so many interesting people there, hairstyles like cotton candy, and the video songs were loud and he felt the presence of people all around him being happy so that he was happy and he had another beer and a black girl who was really stacked set her money-tray down beside him and the lights flashed and everything flashed blue and red. But Jimmy wondered where Cecily was. He did not ask anybody. It did not matter that much. But he was used to her; he liked her.

  Pretty Little Fishes

  Jimmy walked up the hill on Jones Street to Ellis and on the way he saw a big pimp hitting a whore in the face saying oh you thought you could walk from me hah bitch? hah bitch? hah bitch? now you go out there and get some money! and Jimmy walked up Jones to O'Farrell and he saw a pimp being reasonable and explaining to his bitch no don't try it that way don't try to tell me how to cook pork feet and Jimmy walked up Jones to Geary and saw the most beautiful blonde he had seen all night with big strong thighs and a black miniskirt and he said how's it going but the blonde ignored him and Jimmy walked up Jones to Post and saw a grocery store on the corner and all the sudden a hankering came over him for a beef stick so he went in and a whore came in to buy cigarettes and when she came up to the counter, her pimp pushed his way through the men in line and took the pack out of her hands and opened it and pulled half a dozen cigarettes out and the whore paid with a twenty and the clerk was about to hand her a bunch of dollar bills with coins on top when the whore said you can keep the small change I can't carry it around with me, so the clerk dropped the coins back in the register and gave her the dollar bills and the whore lifted her leg as gracefully as a ballet dancer and let her shoe dangle on the ball of her foot and slid the money in.

  Sebastian's

  Jimmy walked up Jones to Sutter and stood looking into Sebastian's with its red-light globe like a flower, its watermelon-green one like a glowing bud, its green sphere and orange sphere, and men in business suits were leaning against the bar arguing, and Jimmy thought actually I feel kind of down I think I could use a drink, so he went into Sebastian's and sat down and noticed that all the men were looking at him and after a while the man next to him got up and moved his drink to another stool and Jimmy had a sick feeling wondering if they saw him as he saw Code Six who sometimes stood in the middle of sidewalk, grey-grimed with grief, wobbling on his legs, bending and muttering and stinking, and Jimmy sniffed at himself but he didn't smell bad, but some of the men laughed to see him sniffing himself, so he got up and left. The bartender had never served him.

  The Coral Sea

  Hey pal they all said to Jimmy when he swept triumphantly into the Coral Sea, and Jimmy took a seat at the bar beside a girl who sat bitterly stirring her drink and Jimmy thought at first that she was a whore and started talking to her but the girl just kept saying I'm so sick of myself and Jimmy said why sweetie what's so bad and the girl said no matter what I do I'm always lonely and I get attracted to men who don't care about me so they aren't there when I call them on the phone and Jimmy said now listen I used to be a sad sack myself until I met my wife Gloria who made me so happy she's always patient takes care of me when I'm sick buys me new clothes listens to me really listens not that she doesn't have her faults everyone has faults everyone's gotta stink sometime I'm not ashamed to admit it but Gloria's shown me how to squeak by and the girl looked him up and down saying what does she have that I don't? and Jimmy said probably nothing since as I can see you shoot from the hip (nice hip, too) and you are hip yep a straight-up gal a classy number number one and if I'd met you first I bet you could have made me just as happy well speaking of happiness can I buy you a drink? and the girl said please and Jimmy said another for her and three Budweisers for me. And just trying to enhance her evening he cried good for you sweetheart for saying please because please is the MAGIC WORD! She said why do I hate myself so much? and he pretended not to hear and gulped both beers down and felt a dry achey puckering behind his forehead, as if the beer were sucking things out of his brain.

  I hate myself hate myself hate myself! the girl shouted, but everybody in the bar including Jimmy again pretended not to hear because it might be that her self-hatred was the base of her integrity which everyone had to have like that blonde whore Jimmy remembered from the time before Nicole, the blonde whore who'd pulled her wedding dress down hunching her pale shoulders looking at him out of the corner of her eye biting her lip and he saw the welts and scars of beatings beatings beatings on her back and those were what embarrassed her; that was how she kept herself, by being embarrassed about being beaten when she was undressing in front of strange men who were going to fuck her; once Jimmy had seen and said nothing, she smiled at him so gratefully and finished taking off her clothes, now relaxed and basking in her sexual power over him just like all the others . . .

  Yessir, said Jimmy, I'll tell you, said Jimmy (gulping his third Budweiser very thirstily), Gloria and I have known each other since we were little kids. Can you believe that, twinklepie? Some people think that kind of romance only happens in stories but that's because they never get to know their neighbors really know them in out in out which breaks my heart because then they miss out on the best of life that girl next door stuff know what I'm saying?

  The trouble is, said the girl, in my hotel the room next door is vacant. Somebody died in it. They sealed it up. Aside from that your idea's bloody brilliant.

  How about the other side of you? said helpful Jimmy. Maybe he hypothesized there's some guy in there looking at you through a hotel in the wall every night thinking wow what a peculiarly pretty little pussycat if only I could screw her inscrutable I'd have it made, and if you go with him first thing you know sugardoll down comes the happiness curtain.

  Mister there is no other side of me. I live at the end of the hall.

  Well said Jimmy there's always the fire escape just kidding see what happened was our mothers were friends. That made it easier I guess. So we were always playing together come to think of it I can't remember when Gloria wasn't with me.

  I thought little boys and little girls were supposed to hate each other, she said. I hated boys.

  Maybe that's your problem hon because what this world needs is more love three times a day like toothpaste like K-Y jelly to lubricate all the things you live through good and bad until the memories ah memories are like treasures you want to hear one?

  Since you bought me a drink I guess I have to put out, the girl said. Talk away. God you are so corny.

  Once said toastmaster Jimmy once when we were kids my mother took Gloria and me down to Tijuana to get our teeth filled because we both had cavities and the dentists were cheaper down there, so we got our fillings which I remember as clear as if someone had told me the whole sto
ry just last week and then we drove back to the border where there was a wait like there always is in life in love in hospitals and it was so hot in the car since my mother made us keep the windows up (I think she was kind of nervous about some Mexican ramming into her for the insurance because I can remember her honking the horn every minute looking back and forth like a trapped rat not daring to turn off the motor and all the time telling us to be quiet and shaking her head no real fast if some Mexican kid knocked on the windshield trying to sell flowers or clean the windshield) anyhow we sat there in the heat for hours it seemed so Gloria and I got restless as kids will you know like kids smashing bortles on the sidewalk not that we were bad kids said Jimmy as the girl stirred her drink as if the fate of the world depended on an absolutely even distribution of ice cubes so said Jimmy when this Mexican came by yelling chiclets! chiclets! or however you say it he meant gum Gloria and I both started whining until my mother got brave or desperate enough to roll down her window and buy us some, then I remember how happy Gloria and I were, sitting together as close as you and me right now and Jimmy slid his hand into the girl's lap and she just looked at it until he took it away chewing our gum said Jimmy while a Mexican boy ran up and cleaned the windshield for a quarter even though my mother kept shaking her head no . . . well that gum tasted as good as Gloria's kisses and I can taste it now that taste of happiness babe you should have seen us blowing bubbles arguing over who could blow the biggest—and then all the sudden our fillings popped out! So after all that wait we had to go back to the dentist's. But on the way there Gloria and I mixed up the fillings in the gum so I'd have some of hers and she'd have some of mine and it always makes me feel good to know that I have some of Gloria's fillings in my mouth.