Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  No, that wasn’t acceptable.

  He said, “That’s the way it is.”

  She said she didn’t think so, but she was willing to take her chances with that.

  He said, “No, I mean it,” and he stopped it.

  The next time they meet, it is by chance. Eight years have passed. They meet on a street in a larger town. She looks the same. He immediately thinks of that night. It excites him to think of it. He has remarried and so has she. She says, “We have some unfinished business.” He can’t believe it. “We do,” he says, and he loves her for saying it, but as he stands there he starts remembering more of it, remembering bringing her inside, her lying down on the living room floor, her body literally going out of control on her, cramping on her, her moans embarrassing the hell out of him, him in the bedroom talking to his wife, the moans coming through the walls, him saying, No, no, nothing happened, she’s just weird, is all, his wife saying, You did, didn’t you, I know you did, if you didn’t why would you even be in here saying anything, you’d be out there trying to help! Why don’t you, you bastard, can’t you finish what you’ve started, you can’t, can you?

  “But no,” he says, “I’m flattered,” he says, “but I really can’t.”

  She smiles as he says this.

  “I thought you’d say that,” she says, “I could see it in your face, and I think that’s amusing,” she says, “because what you are is a male chauvinist pig, you realize that, and what’s more this whole fucking town is full of men like you who think they’re men, but they’re not.”

  “A male chauvinist pig!” he says. “No,” he laughs, “you’re certainly wrong there.”

  She laughs too.

  They stand there for a moment looking at each other.

  Then she smiles at him and suddenly kisses him on the cheek.

  “So long, John Wayne,” she says, walking past him, “I’ve got to run.”

  “Hey!” he says to her, starting to go after her.

  “No,” she says back over her shoulder, “I really do have to run. Bye-bye.”

  Girls

  “She wasn’t yelling or anything, just running toward a group of hooches we’d set on fire, probably to get some kids out or something. A couple of kids ran out of one of the hooches, and there weren’t any others so that was okay, we checked that, but she probably didn’t know it, didn’t know we’d checked it, so she just kept running even though we were yelling at her. The lieutenant told me to fire a burst over her head. I did, but she went down. I thought I’d missed her, all we wanted to do was have her stop, but when we went over and looked, I’d hit her, all right, she was lying facedown and the back of her head wasn’t there.

  “All I had to say at the court-martial was that I was ordered to fire over her head and thought I had, but I hit her, and I’m sick about it. They exonerated me, but out in the hall after it was over, one of the officers called me a dumb hick son of a bitch and said it was assholes like me that were ruining the Army.

  “I do feel shitty about it, and I did it, it’s there, there’s nothing I can do about it, I killed other people there, I know that, but that doesn’t bother me, that was exciting, I liked it, but I never knew for sure. I always wanted to. I thought I think I’ll paint my bullets so when we count I’ll know for sure it was me. I knew I had, see, so I really didn’t have to know for sure, but this was different. I had a nice girl over there. At first I bought her, then she was just mine. It’s hard getting used to American girls again. Everything they think goes right across their faces. You can see right through them.

  “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. That’s what they always wanna know. Who the hell does? Some guys do, I guess. I had this one girl the other night. I’d picked her up on the beach and brought her over to the motel. I told you my car was broke down, didn’t I? Well, I’d called my mom for help. I needed sixty bucks or so for some new pushrods, and instead of wiring it to me, since I’m in Seal Beach, she drives down right away. Well, I’m in there starting to get it on, right, and in she walks. She doesn’t even knock! No shit! She just looks at us, turns around, and walks out! I had to go outside and catch her. She was really pissed. I had to laugh. She asked me what good was all this running around doing me? I said I didn’t know. She said if I really wanted to be an actor, like I said, I should move back to L.A. and go to UCLA winter quarter, they’ve got the best acting school in the country. Use your GI Bill, she said. I don’t know. Maybe I will. I don’t know yet. It’s a thought.”

  Welfare

  “The universe isn’t as mysterious as you think. Hidden laws no one has told you about eventually make themselves known. If, for example, twenty minutes before your second wedding, this one taking place in Oxnard, California, you stand outside the offices of the Justice of Peace and find yourself arguing with your wife-to-be as to whether or not she will be faithful and she says she can’t say, she doesn’t know, no one knows what the future holds, she can’t say yes to something she doesn’t know the answer to, you better conclude the argument with no yes, no marriage. If you don’t, and she doesn’t agree, the marriage then taking place, three years later here are three sentences you will hear: (1) ‘Sex isn’t that important’; (2) ‘It’s just another way of knowing someone’; (3) ‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’”

  Power

  “You can’t be nice and give them that sweetness and candle-light talk. ‘Cut the shit, man.’ I love that. I love them. That look. Those high cheekbones. They’ll cut you right off. You ignore them, you have to ignore them. The better-looking they are, the more you ignore them. You say, ‘Who are you? What do you do anyway? I don’t give a shit what you think. If I want to be nice to you I’ll be nice to you. Fuck that. Fuck you.’ Ah, they love that. They love power. All Scandinavian girls are like that. They go right for it. Sensitivity, no. Looks, no. But bust them, yes. Once you bust them, you’ve got them spread. It’s true. You know how you’ve got them across your lap, you’re moving them across your lap, and they get that hazy look in their eyes. Hmmmm, you know that look, ah, God, and they’re the only ones, too, those blue, blue eyes, and you start to pull it out and they say, ‘No, no, don’t,’ and their arms and legs go all steely around you, so you pull back and ‘Pow, pow,’ slap them right across the kisser, ‘Don’t tell me what to do, don’t ever tell me what to do.’ Ah, shit, man, they love it. You’ve got to do it that way. Then you’ve got them.”

  Beauty

  “They think because they see it it’s theirs. They’re like that, all of them, that it’s just there for them. They think it didn’t exist before they saw it, that as soon as they see it they can put their hands on it, that it’s theirs to put their hands on because they see it. They never can. The only ones that can are the ones that don’t grab for it, the ones that lay back, and they only can if I decide they can. I certainly remember when the change came in me. I remember the exact moment. It was at a party. I couldn’t get Paul to say anything. I don’t mean at the party, I mean at any time. He would never talk to me. Not about anything. I tried all kinds of things to open him up. I was telling this woman I really respected about it, an older woman. I can’t get that man to open up to me, I said. I said, I’d really like to get in his head for a while, to see what is really going on with him, to really know what he thinks. I said, I’d give anything to know what is going on with him. How old are you, she said, twenty-five? I said I was. She said, Yeah, that’s about right. She said, Because I’m twenty-eight and there’s no way I’m gonna be trying to find out what’s in some man’s head. If he can’t open his mouth and tell me himself, she said, forget it, who needs it.”

  Wings and Soul

  “I don’t know,” he said, “there might not be a damn thing left.”

  “Let’s go see, huh, Weird?” he said to the cat.

  Walking into the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator.

  “Look at this.”

  It was completely empty.

  “She took all the food, huh?�
� said Bruce. “She took all the furniture and she took all the food?”

  “Well, let’s eat out then,” I said.

  The cat was rubbing itself against Cliff’s leg.

  “Radical!” said Bruce.

  “Naw,” Cliff said, “it’s too fucking late. What time does your plane leave?”

  “Midnight,” I said.

  “Well, fuck. You’d think she’d at least leave something for poor ol’ Weird. She loves the ol’ Weirdster, you know.”

  Bruce and I laughed.

  “Sure, Cliff,” Bruce said to him.

  “C’mere. I want you guys to see this.”

  He walked off toward the bathroom.

  “Look at this. You haven’t seen this.” He was unwinding the bandage from his hand. A long, deep-looking cut, barely scabbed-over, curved across his palm.

  “Jesus, Cliff!” I said.

  “Not that. I mean this.”

  He snapped on the light.

  It was blood. Blood on the walls. In long smears. More was on the tile over the tub. In splatters on the mirror over the sink.

  Blood-soaked towels lay wadded up on the floor.

  “Jesus Christ!” I said. “All that from your hand?”

  “Yep.”

  “From that one cut?”

  “That’s it.”

  “She did that?”

  “Unbelievable!” Bruce said. “She’s a fucking maniac!”

  “Isn’t she,” said Cliff.

  “Take a look at this.”

  I was looking in the toilet. A gold wedding band lay motionless on the porcelain bottom of the bowl. It shone in the water.

  “Was that in there this morning?”

  “No,” Cliff said.

  He laughed.

  “C’mon,” Bruce told us, “let’s get out of here.”

  “Suits me,” I said.

  “No.”

  Cliff was looking in the bowl.

  “Nice touch, that girl.”

  I looked at him. His head was turned so I couldn’t see his face.

  “She must of come back while we were out picking you up at the airport.”

  “Well, let’s go,” Bruce said. “We’ll make a night out of it. You can catch another flight, can’t you?”

  “Out having fun, was how she put it.”

  “For sure,” I answered.

  The cat appeared around the door. It looked at us, then turned and left.

  “Fun.”

  “Well, let’s go,” Bruce said.

  “No.

  “No,” he said again, looking up at us. He wasn’t crying. I thought he had been, but he hadn’t.

  “You guys go on.”

  “Sure,” I agreed, stepping past him.

  “Listen,” Bruce said, “she’ll be back.”

  “No, Bruce,” he answered, “no, she won’t. That’s a fucking stupid thing to say. I don’t need that.”

  Bruce looked at him.

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Right,” Bruce said. He stepped back. “It is. I apologize. You’re right. That was really stupid.”

  “I hate her, you know. I hate her fucking guts! I’m the one that told her to go! To get her fucking ugly ass out of here! It was me!”

  He turned away again.

  This time he was crying.

  We stood there watching him go through it.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’m really sorry I brought you guys here. I didn’t mean to do this.”

  “Hey, Cliff,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  Apache Trails

  Phillip,

  When I was a girl, four years old, my mom gave a party and at some point late in the evening I was still awake (my dad was overseas) and a man came in my room and sat down on my bed. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but he sat and talked with me, and he did something remarkable. He took a book and put it under my pillow. He told me to keep it there, that whenever I felt I wasn’t a part of things, it wouldn’t make any difference because I would have something of my own to do. All I had to do was take the book out and read it. I was too young then to know how to read, and he probably didn’t know that, and I’m sure if he had he still wanted to plant that seed, and to this day I don’t know who he was, but I do know the effect that had on me: I still believe people are understanding and compassionate.

  And I assume that first about them.

  Experience has shown me that other people weren’t as lucky as that, and they distrust others first. And when they see compassion/niceness in people they think it’s weakness.

  I think you’ve made that mistake. You’ve seen my compassion as unsureness, my niceness as weakness.

  I’m not saying this in any sentimental idea of us ever seeing each other again, but I do know that in the future when you meet someone, if you judge them as you did me, even if it is you that leaves first again, once more you’ll be alone.

  Gloria

  Blue Skies

  SPRING

  I‘m into making my room as visually attractive as possible. I buy old lace curtains and have plants. I do needlepoint. I was into the feminist thing for a time. I moved in with three other girls. Women should support other women. It’s a rough world out there. But it was just a tight circle among them. It was a defeat. I certainly didn’t expect that. And you don’t get over defeat either. People say you do but you don’t. Sure, you can rationalize it and say, Yes, I’m actually stronger at the broken place than I was before, but it isn’t true. You don’t get over it. You may be stronger at the broken place, but that just sets you up to get broken at some other place. So I moved out of there and now I’m living with three boys. They confuse me, too, but at least they’re safe. I said to one, “Where are the men anymore?” and he said, “Where are the women?”

  “A thing that intense has to burn out. I saw one of the last notes she left her: ‘Sometimes I think you want more of me than there is to give.’ I know if I saw someone looking into my eyes with that kind of intensity I’d be afraid. No one can meet that kind of need.”

  SUMMER

  Ned, the island of Mykonos looks exactly like this. I live three minutes from this street. Life is primitive here—it is paradise! I live very cheap here. My baggage was stolen in Rome. So I am here for the summer. If you can, please write me: General Delivery, Mykonos Is., Greece. I rent a room for 3.00/a day, soon to move to a cheaper place. All the gay men in the world, I think, congregate in Mykonos—the influx begins now!

  Love, Kitty

  FALL

  “Two people don’t have to rot together. He showed me that. He and Ray don’t. They give each other the freedom to be what they are. And that means if one has feelings that go somewhere else, then he has to be free to go somewhere else, then he’s free to bring that experience back to the relationship. It’s a pretty hard thing for most people to do. I’m really grateful to him for that. And I’ve had another insight. I’d been going out heavily. We’d all dress up and go out dancing. Studio One, the Unicorn, places like that. And I was sitting there watching everyone dance, and it suddenly occurred to me, No wonder I never meet anyone—how could I in these places? Not if you’re female.”

  WINTER

  Kit, I am writing this before we talk. What we talked about, I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. But, Kitten, really when I walked in this morning that was the end. But still never forget I’ll miss you, and I love you very, very much. We’ve had a lot together. It won’t end. This is only temporary, I hope. It’s up to you also. I realize it takes two, but I can’t take it anymore. There’s a limit. But I just wanted you to know how much I really care. And how much thought it took to come to this. So, Kit, I hope you understand and still love me.

  Forever, Julia

  Come Home Please

  “I just now realized I never asked you if you like the name I picked out for him. Which is quite selfish on my part. He is too much.
He climbs up and down my ribs, chins himself now and then, then decides he is getting out of there and starts to dig a hole right in my side. Usually the left side. So then the right side of my tummy is completely flat and you can see him trying to push his way out of the left side until I can’t stand it anymore and I move him to the center. This makes him very upset and he starts beating on my ribs and then on my tummy so I get sick. Like I said, if you were here I would undoubtedly take it out on you, the closest person, and you would hate me for being such a bitch. And I would hate you for thinking I was a bitch. Can’t you see it all now, but wouldn’t it be wonderful?”

  Paradise Passing By

  We’re going in the room and Gail says, Grandma talks about passing over to the other side, she calls it the other side, she talks about people who are already there. We go over and look at her. Anne touches her arm. She is Anne’s grandmother and she opens her eyes at the touch, but Gail keeps her from talking. Anne stands there looking down at her. The sheet is up under her chin and little pink cloth gloves are on her hands. All the flesh is gone from under her skin. She smiles at Anne then closes her eyes. A trickle of blood comes out her nose and lies in a bright smear across her lips. It isn’t hemorrhage, it is blood from where she has rubbed her nostrils raw. That’s what the gloves are for, Gail says, to keep her from opening the sores in her nose. I look at the gloves. Tiny dots of blood are bright on the tips of the pink fingers.

  I look at her arm lying outside the sheet. It lies over a long, yellowish plastic tube extending out from under the sheet. The tube goes down into a large, opaque plastic jar on the floor. Fluid is running in the tube. The skin of her arm is silvery and reflects light. She says something. I look up. Gail is wiping off her mouth. Her eyes are open again.