“It’s not just tonight you don’t know what to do with.
Your whole life is a burden to you. You frown a lot, Joe. And you pick things up and put them down.” He looked pointedly at the book of matches. “You have plans for burning down the world. But you’re losing a lot of motion, a lot of time. You’ve got to get cool. Find out what you want and rule out everything else, and then you’ll be cool as can be. Now: What have you got to do?”
“Find out what I want?”
“Correct. And then?”
“Ummrn.”
“Rule out …” Perry coached.
“Rule out everything else.”
“Right. Now again.”
“Find out what I want, and rule out everything else.”
“You’re getting tuned in, Joe. That was lesson one. Here’s exercise one: this room. What is there in it that you want? Just name it, anything at all, and I’ll see to it you get it.”
Joe started to scan the room with his eyes, and Perry said: “Look at me. Maybe that will help you, Joe. That’s it. Now I’ll ask you again: Is there anything at all you want?”
Joe studied Perry’s face, straining to find a clue in it. But he found none.
“You know, Joe, there are people and quite a few hundred of them at that who would pay out considerable sums of money to be in your position right now: locked in a room with me and being asked what they want.”
Joe was actually dizzy from the mental effort he was expending. Another long moment passed. Then suddenly Perry was off the bed and standing before Joe’s chair, looking down at him. His movement from the bed had been so quick as to be almost violent. The quiet of the place and the mood Joe felt had been instantly annihilated, and now a strange young man had hold of his shirt front, was gripping him in a way that compelled him to look up into his face.
He was surprised to find no anger or violence in the man’s eyes, as there had been in his movements. He was simply looking into Joe’s face in a gently penetrating way, and when he had looked for a long moment, he said, “If we’re going to be friends, Joe, there’s just one rule …”
Joe felt he was living through some miracle: This stranger, a fine and handsome and knowledgeable and authoritative person, was turning his powers, his focus, his friendship, upon such an unworthy object as himself. Surely he had made some mistake in judgment, selecting Joe Buck for his attentions. When he discovered his error that would be the end of it. Meanwhile Joe was terrified of making some wrong gesture, speaking some stupid giveaway word that would hasten Perry’s departure. He tried to think up ways of stalling off this inevitable blunder, little words and gestures that would nudge it gently forward in time. But he wasn’t up to it. He knew he wasn’t up to it. Perry was too wise, too far ahead of the game, he couldn’t be fooled.
... and the rule is, no crap. There is to be no crap. None. I am sick of people who know what they want and won’t take it, won’t even speak up and name it. When I say to you, ‘What do you want, Joe,’ you answer. You just say whatever that thing is you want. You understand me?”
“Yeah. Yeah I do, Perry, I do.”
“That’s good.” His face broke gradually into a smile, and then he released Joe’s shirt front and sat on the edge of the bed, bridging with his eyes the few feet of space between himself and Joe. When Joe’s eyes had joined his own, he said, “Say it now. Name the thing you want.”
Stupid bastard, Joe said to himself, say something, talk up, can’t you talk up? So stupid you don’t know what you want? Say something, say anything, and that’ll be a start.
“I, uh, I think I might, uh, be—um-uh …” He closed his eyes and frowned, inclined his head toward his body, as if what he wanted were trapped somewhere in his stomach, and might be conjured out of him by an act of will.
“Just say it,” Perry encouraged him. “Whatever it is.”
“Hopeless. I’m hopeless.” Oh Jesus Christ! he thought, the truth is an ugly sonofabitch. He lifted his shoulders, wanting his face to disappear into his body.
When he opened his eyes, he half expected Perry to be on his way out the door. Instead he was looking at him as gently as ever, and with even more concern than before.
“Why? Tell me why you’re hopeless, Joe.”
“Shee-it, Perry, I may as well tell you, I am dumb. I am. I am one dumb sombitch. I don’t know shee-it. I can’t talk right, I can’t think straight.” He laughed, but his face was grave. He saw nothing funny at all. For he had hung some ugly, ungainly, unforgivable thing in the air between them and it had to be pushed away; he hammered at it with his laughter. But he couldn’t get at it. The more he laughed, the bigger it got.
Suddenly he saw in his mind a beautiful picture: Sally Buck’s gravestone, pure white and utterly blank, needing to be filled in, inscribed. The crayon in his head drew a quick sketch on the stone, a cartoon of himself, and that somehow made him easier: The picture was complete. He could look at Perry again.
“I keep thinkin’,” he heard himself saying, somewhat to his surprise, “that what I’ll do is I’ll keep worshing them dishes and then they’ll bring in some more and I’ll worsh ‘em, and then uh …”
“And then …”
“And then I’ll come up here and sleep some, and then I’ll worsh some more dishes and then I’ll, um …”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll, uh …” He put his arm forward and shook it, waving his hand back and forth, as if to indicate that the word was somewhere in the room.
“Just say it, Joe.”
“Die.”
Oh! Oh shit! What kind of thing to hang in the air is that? Kill it, kill it!
He tried one quick harsh blast of laughter. No, that wasn’t going to get rid of the thing. Nothing would. It: was too big, too ugly.
In his mind there was a shovel, and he placed the shovel in the hands of some shadowy creature, and this creature set about using the shovel to dig a grave next to Sally’s. And then there was an open coffin sitting next to the new grave, and the coffin had a beautiful young person in it: himself. Oh, oh goddammit, he thought, is that all I get? Just a coffin for all my being young, a coffin for all my juice, and all my good looks? The sadness of it overwhelmed him, and suddenly he was crying, writhing on the floor of that H tel room looking at a stranger’s dirty sneakers, gasping for breath. He felt the necessity of getting that stranger out of the room, and he said, “Go,” but that was all he could get out, for there was something inside of him now far bigger than his lungs and it was using up all the space where breathing was supposed to take place, and not only that, it was poking at his liver and into his heart and all his vital places, and it hurt like a handful of knives in him. The dirty sneakers had a person in them. What’s it want? What’s it want with me? What’s this sombitch want with me? his mind demanded over and over again. Don’t he know I’m, I’m, I’m …
The stranger took hold of his shoulders and pushed him onto his back with great force, and then Joe was being sat upon, straddled by him. These actions were sudden enough to drive out the big, sharp-edged, heavy horror that was in him. Now he breathed again, emitting sound with each exhalation of breath, and the groans comforted him: Only live people made such noises. His face was wet. Apparently he’d been crying; but he wasn’t ashamed of it. It was the marijuana, that’s all; it wasn’t his fault.
He looked at Perry straddling him there, and at his face, hovering very near his own. And he heard him speak in his friendly, deep, sweet and dark narcotic voice, “Now I’ll bet you feel a whole lot better, don’t you, Joe?”
Pinned. He was pinned down, pinned down by somebody friendly, wise, calm. Good.
At last!
What now?
“So now,” Perry continued, “all you got to do is let me know, give me a signal what you want. Otherwise, how can I give it to you?”
Who is this bird setting on my belly? Is he God? Is he Santy Claus? Is he magic? Give me what I want? Is he crazy? He ask me once again, just once
more, I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him all right. Tell him I want me a blonde lady to fuck, and have her take care of me all my life, a blonde lady with long eyelashes and fat dimply knees, got to have meat on them knees, and wear a yellow dress with real tits inside, no foam rubber like poor old Sally, and be home a lot and bring me stuff to eat in front of the TV, and her come up to me during the horseshit part and say to me, Cowboy, I love you so, and have her cry about how much she loves me. Tch tch, I’ll say to her, I never in my life seen anybody love somebody as much as you love me, how come is that anyway? And then have her say, with her voice milky as her tits, Why? Why I love you? Cause you’re Cowboy Joe Buck and you do me so good, and you don’t waste your juice trying to make a living when you don’t know how anyway. And besides they’s something special about a cowboy that loves as good as you and takes his time with it. So you just set back handsome and hard and tell me what you want from the kitchen. Jello? With cream on it? And how about a peach and a drumstick, sweetheart, for you to nibble while I sing you Blue Moon. And then we’ll make love here on the floor and when it’s over you sing me git along little dogie git along git along git along little dogie git along …
8
“That’s nothing unusual,” Perry said. “Marijuana often induces hunger.” They were sitting at the counter of an all-night eating place somewhere on the highway, Perry smoking and drinking coffee, Joe finishing the last of two hamburgers.
“Want another one?” Perry said.
Joe shook his head, his mouth too full to speak. He felt wonderful, like a baby who has cried his lungs out and then been spanked and fed. He felt inexpressible warmth toward Perry.
“Who’s Sally?” Perry asked.
“Sally! How you know about Sally?”
“You said her name a lot, while you were having that crying jag. Is she an old girl friend?”
“Yep! An old girl friend.” Lie! That’s a fine way to do, he told you he likes the truth! Yeah, but a grown man can’t go telling somebody he been babbling about his gramaw.
“What would you like to do now, Joe? It’s only four a.m.”
“Me? What I want to do? Hell with what I want to do! What do you want to do?”
“No, no, this is your night, Joe. You say what you’d like to do.”
“I’d like to do what you’d like to do.”
“No. You say.”
“But Perry, I don’t know shee-it about stuff to do and all.”
“Yes you do. You know what you like. Everybody does.”
“Well, I, uh, I’ll tell you what we used to do in the army. That’s all I know about and it don’t amount to nothing, but what we’d do, we’d go into Columbus and pick us up a whore, and that was all they was to it. Never nothing special.”
“Is that what you want now?”
“Now? Shoot! You mean now?”
“Yes, now. Do you want a woman now?”
“Aw, hell, I don’t have to have a woman. Shoot, I’m just fine as I am, I don’t need anything like that.” Joe stirred his coffee in silence for a moment. Then he looked at Perry and said: “Why? You want one?”
“Never mind about me. You want a woman, right?”
“Well …”
“You do, don’t you?”
“Oh, I suppose if they was something right here pulling at my elbow, I’d just as leave grab onto it, but I, uh, don’t want you to go to no trouble.” And then, hopefully, he added: “Unless you want one, too.”
Perry said, “No.”
“Well then, to the devil with it—uhm, unless you mean they’s something close by. Where it wouldn’t be too much trouble. And we could just, uh—”
Perry rose. “Come on.”
He started to hand the cashier a five-dollar bill but Joe tore it from his hand and gave the woman a ten. Then he took the five and pushed it into Perry’s hip pocket. Perry smiled and said nothing.
On the edge of the parking lot was an outdoor telephone booth. Perry left the door open. Joe leaned against the side of the booth, listening. After a moment of dialing and waiting, Perry said:
“Juanita? This is Perry. Perry! That’s right. Now listen, Juanita, this is what I want you to do for me. Juanita, don’t talk so loud, you’re hurting my ear. Hold the phone away from you, you’re blasting me. Now listen, is Dolores there? No, I don’t want to talk to her. You just wake her up, Juanita. I said, wake her up! I’m bringing someone nice for her, a very handsome young—Keep still, Juanita, just listen. Wake her up and give her a good bath, and we’ll be around in about half an hour.”
He hung up. Joe was standing there with his mouth open, shaking his head back and forth slowly, unable truly to grasp his good fortune. He was like a child to whom a guardian angel has chosen to make a material appearance. “Perry, you goddam sombitchl” he said, his voice trembling with love.
In the car, on the freeway, Perry said, “You know, Joe, you’ve wrecked my evening.”
Joe was alarmed. “What? What’d I do?”
“Well, you see, a great deal of my pleasure comes from spending Marvin’s money on other people. And you wouldn’t let me pick up that tab back there.”
Joe laughed, relieved.
“No,” Perry said, “I’m serious. Don’t ever do that again.”
“Say, Perry, is that uh, Marvin fella, is he some relative or other?”
“Oh no, he’s just my employer. I’m employed by Marvin.”
“Oh! Oh, I see. He’s your boss.” For a moment this seemed to clear the matter up. But as Joe reviewed in his mind the scene that had taken place between the two, he realized this new information only increased his confusion. “Boss, huh?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m employed by Marvin to perform a highly specialized service. I’m supposed to remind him how loathsome he is, and my remuneration is based upon the extent to which I succeed. I held my first such position in the East some years ago, and I learned something invaluable. I learned to look beneath what people say they want and give them what they’re really screaming for under their breath.
“Light this for me, will you?” He handed Joe a cigarette. Joe leaned forward, huddling against the windshield, and lighted the cigarette. He placed it between Perry’s lips. Perry puffed on it, then removed it from his mouth and continued to speak:
“For instance, you’ll find that people who have the most to say about their great appetite for tenderness are really just asking for terror. Only they don’t quite know how to pronounce it, I suppose. I’m not talking about people who simply want tenderness and shut up about it. I’m talking about the ones that babble about it endlessly. You can bet that any form of kindness, or even just decent treatment, would make them sick. On the other hand, you can’t really give them straight terror either, even though they worship it, because they’re too chickenhearted to take what they want. You learn to be terribly cool, and measure everything out with teaspoons, and call it by other names.
“Nothing can be simply what it is. Even while they’re groveling in full horror, they have to think it’s love. So you touch them on the head occasionally. But not too often. And then pretend it never happened. The same with terror: Don’t deliver too much. Just promise it with your eyes and punctuate with small wounds: Never draw blood.
“Now with Marvin, I think I’m doing extremely well. Initially—I mean before he met me—he looked upon himself as something about the size and value of a worm. But he couldn’t bear such an exalted position, it was too burdensome, he just couldn’t wear the mantle, he was desperate. And now, in just a few short months, I’ve reduced him to the point where he’s just sort of an underfed maggot, and he’s delighted with the progress we’ve made. Couldn’t you tell? Didn’t he seem pleased?
“But this won’t last, I’m afraid. Marvin’s too ambitious. Ultimately, he’ll want me to step on him entirely, just lower my heel, so to speak, and grind him out of existence altogether. However, I haven’t actually signed on for that. I’m much better at these intermediate stages wh
ere some subtlety is required; I’m no good with hammers and bread knives and such. Besides, Marvin can’t afford to be murdered, not on his salary. I suppose if he’s lucky, somebody might lose control some day and do the thing for free. But not me. I know my work.”
“I’ll say you do,” Joe said. “You sure do know a lot. How old is a fella like you anyway, Perry?”
“Twenty-nine—going on a hundred.”
“Hell, I’m twenty-five,” Joe said, “and I’ve just pissed away my life, Perry, I swear I have. For instance, I didn’t really get the whole drift of what you was talking about just now. What do you think of that?”
Midnight Cowboy Page 6