Whores for Gloria

by William T. Vollmann

  That story was so sweet I think I'm going to puke, sneered the ungrateful girl, at which Jimmy frowned and started to wonder how much longer to put up with her and he wondered also whether her sadness were as plain, as honest as a fat whore spread-eagled against a brick wall or was it phony in fact like a whore whose face was so powdered and wigged that she was like a smooth white plastic doll with plastic black hair and plastic earrings and plastic white teeth that matched her new white dress and just above her crotch a plastic ruby glittered as she stood against the wall so happily and the headlights of cars pitched by like gobs of napalm and it was very dark.—The girl had hardly touched her drink although the ice cubes were melting nicely.

  It sounds kind of sappy I guess said Jimmy drinking his fourth Budweiser which the bartender had popped down in front of him at a single majestic incurve of Jimmy's finger but without Gloria I wouldn't be anything wouldn't even know myself.

  I'm not sure how to put this said the girl very seriously so that he liked her again but do you think some people are just not meant to get loved? I mean you can try and try so hard and it just never happens.

  Oh baby don't ever think that or no one will love you you gotta maintain a positive attitude stay in combat readiness keep your eyes peeled especially a gal as beautiful as you shouldn't have any trouble why my friend Dinah (she's not half as beautiful as you) she gets all the dates she wants so just keep your chin up and keep LOOKING yes said Jimmy from his vantage point of solved universal problems like one of those brick hotels that looked down on the corner where Nicole used to stand holding to the fire alarm pole (but as Luna said Nicole had gotten stabbed) being in love Jimmy said is a beautiful feeling it makes me take big steps walk fast knowing the whole Tenderloin belongs to me. I could go ANYWHERE because I'm master of all I survey.

  If you have such a great relationship with your wife the girl pounced at last where's she now? And how come you wear old clothes and need a shave? And if you don't mind my saying so did you know that you could use a bath?

  Well uh said Jimmy gripping the counter hard she's visiting with our friend Phyllis in the hospital who got kidnapped last week when she was waiting for the bus you see this bastard whom they haven't caught yet took her right across the Bay Bridge and onto the freeway you know way out of the territory and he said he was going to drive her up into the Orinda hills and rape her so she had to jump out of the car at sixty miles an hour and her face was cut open from here to here and she's been at SF General ever since. Gloria said I'm gonna get her a big bunch of roses I said get her some candy from me they say with plastic surgery she'll look as good as before, but you never know I mean that's the kind of thing they always say to make you feel better. Me, I don't trust doctors.

  Why can't you be straight? the girl said. I don't care what your story is as long as it's straight.

  Honey you OK? said Jimmy.

  No, the girl said, and looking sharply at her Jimmy saw that her face was quivering like a disturbed pool of water whose reflected images keep shimmering and shaking like a girl about to cry. I'm sorry, she said. I can't help it I can't help it! Just leave me alone.

  In that case, said Jimmy brightly, maybe I better go tidy up the place for Gloria before she gets back, but here's three bucks to buy yourself another drink and I do want you to know that I'm rooting for you and wish you all the best.

  You and your Gloria, the girl said, make me so fucking sick.

  15

  The cave of sheets

  Jimmy walked around all night admiring the whores and thinking how nice it would be to stick his tongue up their dirty asses oh—oh! but the unhappy girl had upset him with her weeping ways; it now seemed that he could never be tranquil anymore like the transparent greenness inside a nice fat botde of Cutty Sark, with the surface of the whisky barely trembling so that you know that it is there and waiting for you to drink it and it is right in front of you and all you have to do is reach over half a foot and start unscrewing that navy-white cap with the clipper ship on it and Jimmy had once counted all the sails on that ship let's see in his mind's eye a bank of four and two banks of five big ones each but Jimmy rarely drank Cutty Sark anymore because it was not that cheap a drunk. So maybe Code Six was right, and Jimmy did need to escalate it a little farther. He saw a pair of dirty panties on Larkin Street, but they were not good enough; he had to buy them from a whore to make them pure. In his dreams of Gloria he was hammering at Being, hammering at lightness to shape someone who would not turn her face away from him the way the whores he flatbacked did; she had to have a shape; he could no longer bear a glowing white facelessness for a face no matter how holy it was; he had to have Gloria and Gloria had to be comfortable with all her things around her—not as many as Imelda Marcos's shoes, but enough to make her feel at home. But even this late (it should be said) Jimmy still knew that he was pretending like Phyllis pretended with a pretty wig whose locks half hid lips pouted into a heart, with false eyelashes meticulously applied, with the same care that an entomologist might apply to reassembling the legs of some rare and brittle millipede that he hoards inside his cabinet of types, and he remembered how Melissa had said to him well one of the things I used to do to combat that boredom was building forts, building like a little cave with the sheets, crawling under it, like a little tent I was inside by myself, setting up housekeeping, just pretending I was somewhere else. It was kind of easy in that dark environment. That's what being a kid is about, pretending. You've got to pretend you're this, pretend you're that, pretend you're a grownup, pretend you're not, pretend you're somebody else. —That's right Melissa, sighed Jimmy to himself sitting on his bed, and when you're a grownup you've got to pretend you're with somebody else. What a lot of work and trouble everything is.

  The questions

  Gloria, are you still crying? I guess you're just doing what you've got to, but I wonder if happiness is growing inside you? Is it going to be a boy or a girl? A girl I guess because all the whores were girls. I'm just trying to understand you Gloria but it's so hard. I'm doing what I can. If I love you hard enough will I be able to see you? How many more happy stories do I have to hear because they're sticking to me like mud and making me walk more and more heavy so I need to know how many? How many? Gloria, do you understand what I'm saying? Gloria, I never stop thinking about you.

  16

  Peggy and Classic

  When he met old Peggy ten nights later on the corner of Ellis and Jones, his SSI check cashed by kindly Pearl, he could tell just by looking at her that she was a shooter, though whether she shot coke or smack he couldn't say, nor was it really his business out here among the dark dirty old buildings that must have been nice once before he was born.— Jimmy was glowing with power. He was Homo erectus. Tonight he said to himself tonight I'm gonna GET Gloria I'm gonna have her once and for all because I've heard so many stories that I'm almost there and one more batch will get me there kissing her fingers like cloud-fingers rolling over the Tenderloin at sunset and I'll love her because no matter what that bitch at the Coral Sea said Gloria is and will be my wife. My wife! I can taste her all around me so I know she's in me I'm in her and we'll be together soon as that old whore starts talking she looks like a talker and I have money so what more can I say what more do I need?

  Peggy was combing her stringy greasy hair and talking to a younger prettier whore whom Jimmy knew as Classic whatever her real name was (Jimmy believed that whores were like other actresses and deserved to have the glamor of their stage names respected), and Classic wore a button saying PRICE IS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE and now Peggy was sitting like a grinning frog on the hood of the Lincoln that Jimmy and Code Six liked (so someone had moved it from Larkin Street; so someone owned it and might even care about it; imagine that), and her T-shirt was hiked up to show her fat smooth thighs, and her face was dirty with the rupture of so many little veins, and she was leaning back on her blotchy arms to make her breasts stick out, and her long black hair streamed down her shoulders. Peggy al
ways combed her hair. She couldn't help the way that her face looked anymore but the least she could do for her self-respect was to keep her hair nice. She was also proud of her white white teeth which matched the whites of her eyes as she sat beaming at the traffic with crossed legs and looking so carefree as if she had time and time but of course when men rented her her meter began running; that was how she survived.—When Jimmy wandered up to them and said how ya doin' girls sure is a lovely night with you in it even if it is foggy and chilly and windy! it was Classic who turned to face him with the calm assumption that he must want her because she was the pretty one; as for Peggy, being as Jimmy had already noted a shooter and therefore so sad and weak-worn and grimy in face and form and fingernails, she was so used to being passed over that she didn't even bother to glance at him but Jimmy just stepped closer and closer to Peggy until his shadow fell across her face and then she looked up and when she breathed the skin contracted in her skinny throat and the corners of her mouth twitched and Jimmy grinned and then Peggy understood at last that he was interested. Classic had already hopped into a man's car. As she rode away, Jimmy saw her smiling at the driver and her lips were moving very fast and she was brushing her hair around her face to make the moment even more romantic, but she kept one hand on the door handle.

  You know a safe place? said Jimmy.

  This alley's pretty good, Peggy said. The only thing I ever touch though is a rubber. I don't give no head without a rubber. I don't fuck without a rubber. I had a guy offer five hundred dollars for a date and I told him sorry that doesn't cover my health.

  I'll just stick it in you real quick, said Jimmy, and afterward you can tell me stories.

  OK but you gotta give me the money first. Don't worry; I'm honest.

  If you're not I'll just blow my brains out, laughed Jimmy.

  Oh don't do that, said Peggy, bored. Too many people ahead of you. You gotta stand in line to do that.

  Jimmy put his arm around her and she suffered that and they went into the alley and Jimmy thought she was going to take him between two cars but they walked around the corner and there were three pimps or dealers sitting on the steps by the garbage can and Peggy said to them would you mind taking a little walk while I do my business? When they left, Peggy pulled her dress up above her waist and knelt down in the filth of the street and stuck her ass out with her cunt bulging down beneath it as if only its matted and sticky hair kept it from bursting out from between her legs; that stinking bush of hers really resembled a black spider lurking there and clinging there, and Peggy's legs were covered with dark ovals and boils and there were scabby bumps on them as satisfying to the touch as the pleasure-dots on a french tickler, the sorii on a fern-leaf, and Peggy raised her ass high and dry to make it easy for Jimmy to get into her cunt and she buried her face in her crossed arms on the highest step. A Vietnamese boy watched out the window.

  Jimmy said to himself Gloria must be with her somewhere although I don't see her; I just have to keep looking for her oh Gloria Gloria.

  When he was done Peggy wiped herself and said are you married?

  Yes, said Jimmy.

  A lot of men are married, Peggy said, letting her dress fall back down her legs. They just need a little satisfaction. So I can honestly say that I've brought some marriages together.

  Jimmy said well honey tell me some happy stories.

  Peggy said I don't know any.

  Fine Jimmy said then I want you to tell me stories about things that happened to you and things you expect to happen to you in the future.

  OK, said Peggy. But I don't want no one to see me just talking like this. They'll think I'm a snitch.

  Well then keep your eyes about you, Jimmy said. And move over just a little because there's another lady here although you can't see her and she wants to sit down, too.

  Whatever, said Peggy.

  Get to it.

  I came to the city before college, said Peggy, did two years of college, got a real good job, job went bankrupt day before Christmas. As you know, I'm a white girl in the Tenderloin, so there ain't no cause for me to be broke. So I came up here on the hill and made real good money on my first day. I worked all day without pulling my pants down, so that was OK, 'cause I was pretty nervous, wondering if they was on the up and up. It was mosdy blow jobs. I always made sure I was in the front seat, where I could have my hand on the handle and jump out if I needed to.

  One time I was standing on Geary and Jones and I don't usually date black men but it was pretty hot out policewise and so I made an exception. Black guy drives up in a nice car, looks pretty proper, he's got a briefcase in the back seat. That's what we check for—what kinda business he might be in. And another thing I don't like is anybody taking me past Market Street. That's too far out of the territory. I allowed him to do that. He took me to this empty truck stop and he kept fondling my hair; he kept saying he had a fetish for my hair. Asked me to put my hair in a ponytail. So I put my hair in a ponytail, 'cause you know some people get kinda kinky, and so then he talked me into sitting in the back seat, how much more comfortable that would be. I was still a little leery of sitting in the back seat. If you're scared of me he says I'll take you back no problem. I really needed the money. You know, I'm out here on a day to day basis, never know where I'm gonna sleep, so I don't sleep with anybody for free. You know I gotta make sure I have the cash in my pocket. So I let him talk me into goin' ahead and gettin' in the back seat. So he tells me to turn my back to him, 'cause he wants to massage my shoulders and play with my ponytail. So I turn around. First thing he does is grab my ponytail and yank me down in the seat. Soon as I hit that seat I looked at him and said that sucks; somehow I knew this was gonna happen. He says all you got to do is cooperate I won't hurt you and he says I want you to take off your pants. I took off my pants. I was pretty shook by now; I was like in tears, 'cause I didn't know like what he was gonna do. You know, all the time we'd been drivin' there he kept the conversation goin' like he was a real nice guy. He really snowed me. He yanked me, and I knew that he was gonna rape me. I asked him would you please wear a rubber with me I said I'll cooperate I'll work with you I'll make sure that you're gonna get a good piece of ass to be honestly truthful. He says hey I'm into safe sex that's OK. So he put the rubber on and proceeded to rape me; it didn't last long at all; and he asked me to throw my clothes out of the car. I said no I'm not gonna do that I just can't do that. I was afraid he was gonna drive me down the road some, let me out naked. So when I refused I guess he realized OK she gave me a good job she did what I told her to do everything was cool, so he let me get out right then and there. He had his car pointed to the direction he needed to go. He'd backed in. So I got out and he just spun away to where I couldn't get his license plate number. That was one of my scariest moments, 'cause this was really humiliating. And so I had to walk miles back. My man at that time was in the pen for parole violation, and so I really didn't have any backup. Nobody knew what car I got in; nobody knew what kinda danger I mighta been in. I asked around, and he's done it quite a few times with women who have ponytails.

  Gloria

  He was so close to Peggy now and he could see the dirty wrinkles that went all the way around her neck in a tree-bark pattern and he could see the little black sore on her chin and the veins on her eyes but he also saw the fine profile of face that she still had and the hair she took such pride in and the soft look in her eyes as she sat remembering because even if most things hadn't been happy at least they were her memories and someone else wanted her to share them with him—why, it didn't matter. So Jimmy sat and listened thinking she's a good woman with a lot in her and as soon as he had thought this there seemed to him to be a majestic echoing hollowness to the things she said as if there were caverns and caverns inside her and then his heart began pounding because he thought there must be room then for you-know-who.