by Robert Stone
He left the phone booth and went quickly out to the street. For a while he walked away from the bay, toward the hills and the lights. In the first block he came to, there were two winos butting shoulders to see which of them could knock the other down. The stopped the game as he came up and approached as though they would panhandle him, but as he passed them they only stood panting and stared.
“I’m the one in the middle,” Hicks told them.
In the next block a camperload of freaks sat eating white bread and bologna sandwiches on the sidewalk beside their vehicle. Hicks paused to watch them eat. One of the boys turned around to glare at him and he was offended. “I’ll fuck everyone of you,” he declared.
“Oh, wow” one of the girls said through a mouthful of bread and meat. They turned their backs on him.
“I was only kidding,” Hicks said. “I wouldn’t really.”
In a third block was a bar with playing cards and wheels of fortune painted on the windows. The inside walls were dark blue and decorated with the same symbols but the customers were mainly old men. Whatever arcane scene once informed the place had moved on. Hicks sat down at the bar and continued with his party.
His head was going bad. The painted cards and dark walls oppressed him. Accumulated venom—from Etsuko, Owen, the blacks in the Gateway—was fouling his blood. He did not get drunk very often and sometimes then he did a gulf formed between his own place and the field of folk. His own place was represented by a tattoo he wore on his left arm. It was the Greek word E’σθλós Hicks understood it to mean Those Who Are. When people asked him what it meant he often told them it meant that he was paranoid.
A familiar rage descended on him; it was like a binding in which he could hardly breathe and only blows could loosen it.
He sat drinking, trying to writhe free. For a while he tried to escape by pondering what things he might do with the money, but the money was in the hands of devious fuck-ups, and he became even angrier.
Just as he was attempting to summon sufficient self-interest to remove himself from the street, a rabbit-mouthed longhair came into the place, chewing on a toothpick, and settled himself a short distance up the bar. It occurred to Hicks that the youth might attach to the old action; he found the kid’s presence and proximity disproportionately offensive.
The youth ordered a beer in a New York accent and drank it with a pill. He dropped his toothpick on the bar. When he saw that Hicks was looking at him, he said:
“What do you say, Cap?”
When Hicks did not reply, he flashed him a quick approving downward glance.
The kid was a pogue. It seemed to Hicks that if he got any drunker and his place any lonelier and more savage he might actually have some sort of a shot at him. The prospect, however remote, revolted him.
“You see the fight last night? What a fuckin’ slaughter, right?” The kid advanced a step or so closer. “I tell you the only way you get a nigger to bleed is put a razor in your glove.”
Hicks decided that he was crazy. He was not opposed, in principle, to beating up on crazy people.
“I’m from New York,” the kid said. “You been there lately?”
Hicks finished his beer.
“Nobody asked you where you were from. Mind your fucking business.”
“Far out,” the kid said. He did not seem at all discouraged.
It was on rails now, Hicks thought. He became impatient for the thing to begin.
The kid studied him thoughtfully as though on the point of a decision.
“You’re one mean motherfucker, right?”
Hicks shrugged and stood up, his right shoulder stooped.
“I’m what?”
The kid began talking fast New York.
“I said you were a bad motherfucker, man like you look like you could handle yourself. Like I wouldn’t fuck with you.” He held his hand out with the palm facing Hicks as if to intercept a blow.
“I thought you were.”
“Jesus, Cap, I apologize. I’d buy you a beer and a ball but I ain’t got the bread. This is my last quarter I swear to God.”
“I don’t want your beer, pogue.”
“C’mon. Don’t call me that.”
“I don’t want your beer, pogue.”
“O.K.,” the boy said, “if you’re gonna be like that.”
Hicks had been counting on hitting him. But both he and the boy were aware of how drunk he was, and there was need for caution. The need for caution infuriated Hicks the more.
“I tell you what, Cap,” the kid said after a moment, “you want to help me waste a dude?”
Hicks stared at him.
“I got a meet with this faggot. He’s a really loaded dude, man, he’s got like five-hundred-dollar suits. He’s got this jewelry and a Rolex and shit and all these credit cards. You want to take him off?”
The boy moved closer.
“I could do it myself but this dude is like big. If there’s two guys, one guy has a blade—no problem.”
Hicks looked into his eyes. They were nearly sky blue with touches of amphetamine pink at the corners and long dark lashes. When he spoke, he rubbed his jaw with his thumb so that his fingers covered his mouth. He was one of the worst-smelling people Hicks had ever encountered.
“He’s a Jew from television, a big faggot. We show him the blade, man, he’ll shit his pants.”
“You’re putting me on,” Hicks said.
It was almost funny. Maybe it was funny.
The kid took a cigarette from his shirt pocket without removing the pack. He was a museum of yardbird reflexes.
“I swear to God,” the kid said. “You want a piece of this?”
Hicks’ anger was broken. He stared at the kid in wonder.
“With two guys, man—what do you say?”
“Have a beer,” Hicks said.
The youth smiled. When he smiled his upper teeth settled on his lower lip, and he discharged air between them. If he had smiled a moment sooner Hicks would have cracked his skull. But Hicks had no desire to strike him now. The kid was a whole trip, the whole arcana. You couldn’t just hit such people. They were holy.
“You the one with the blade?” Hicks asked.
The youth looked down at his own leg, and his eyes closed for a moment in sensuous anticipation.
Hicks kicked him in the shin. His foot struck a large object under the trouser cloth.
“What the fuck is that?”
The youth smiled modestly. “A bayonet.”
Hicks laughed and struck the bar with the palm of his hand.
“You’re not a self-respecting person.”
“The fuck I ain’t,” the kid said. “That’s why I got this man, because I’m a self-respecting person.”
“You have a name?”
“Joey,” the kid said. “This girl in Long Island used to call me Broadway Joe because I look a lot like Joe Namath.”
“That’s fine,” Hicks said. “You can just call me Cap. I like it.”
“Groovy,” Joey said. “What it is, I gotta telephone him. He’s set up in this motel over by the marina. I go up first, right? Then I let you in. See, the dude is a lush and we give him time to get mellow. Listen, you sure you’re up for this?”
“Sure,” Hicks said. “I hate the bastards. Give me his phone number. I’m gonna call him and I’ll ask for you. Like I got a message or something for you. You tell me on the phone I should make it another time, but I won’t hear of it. Tell him you’re sorry I have to come up, but you’ll get rid of me in a hurry. Play a role.”
Broadway Joe appeared to think about it. “Yeah,” he said. “O.K.”
Hicks copied out the number on an envelope and had another drink while Joey telephoned.
“C’mon, Cap. Let’s go to work.”
“I wait here,” Hicks said. “I call you from here. I got a car. I can be over there in a couple of minutes.”
“No,” Joey said. “Run me over there. You can call from some joint over there.”
“I ain’t using my car for this. You get yourself over there, we put the stuff in his car. Anyway, I don’t want to hang around over there. I don’t like it there.”
“All right,” the kid said. He gave Hicks another smile and poked a finger at his testicles. “I’ll be seein’ you. You ain’t gonna let me down, right?”
“No way,” Hicks said.
When Broadway Joe was gone, Hicks went to the men’s room. In the process of returning to the bar, he was made to realize that it might be extremely difficult to make his way back to the Y. After a while, he got up again and dialed the number on the envelope. There was a firm businesslike hello.
“Hi, there,” Hicks said.
“Who’s this?”
“This is Cap, doll. Your boyfriend Broadway Joe has a bayonet. He’s gonna do you some nastiness with it tonight. He’s on his way right now to fuck you over.”
“Fuck me over?”
“It won’t be as nice as it sounds,” Hicks said.
After a thoughtful interval the man on the phone told Hicks that he was not exactly astonished.
“Then there’s you,” the man said. “What’s your story?”
Hicks was outraged.
“I’m a nice fella,” he said. “I’m a good citizen. That’s my story.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” the man said. “Are you big?”
Hicks sighed. He was thoroughly drunk.
“I’m enormous,” he told the man. “I’m this huge motherfucker.”
“I know what would be fun,” the man said. “Turnabout is fair play. Why don’t you come over and we’ll put a little terror in Joey’s young life?”
Hicks hung up and went back to the bar. There was a sign over it he had not noticed before that said:
Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.
“That’s pretty good,” Hicks said to the bartender.
The bartender was a yellowing old man; he turned and looked at the sign with disapproval.
“I didn’t put it up. It was here.”
As Hicks went out, the old bartender reached up and took the sign down. There was no point in provoking people.
It was cold outside and the street was dimmed by fog.
“No place for me,” Hicks said.
He walked looking over his shoulder. A few doors down from the bar he caught sight of a city bus coming his way and he forced himself to sprint for the corner. Stepping aboard, it seemed to him that somewhere in the course of his short run he had seen Broadway Joe, in an alley or doorway or up a sidestreet. He was too drunk to be certain.
He stood beside the nervous driver, fumbling for change; by the time he had the money in hand, he realized that the bus had carried him all the way to Jack London Square, within a short walk of the Y. He put the change away, exchanged hostile stares with the driver, and climbed carefully down to the curb.
When he was upstairs in his room, he put a Band-aid over the spy-hole and loaded his thirty-eight with the ammunition he had purchased for it. Before filling all the chambers, he put in a single cartridge and spun the cylinder. He did it three times, and each time the shell came up flush with the barrel. He could not determine whether this was a good or a bad omen.
Waking the next morning, wretched and poisoned, he found the pistol lying on his lamp table among a litter of bullets, cellophane, and pieces of the cartridge box. He was deeply ashamed. It was Uncontrolled Folly.
ALL THROUGH THE LAST HOURS BEFORE DAYLIGHT, Marge dreamed. At the end of each dream she would be shocked awake by a curious neural explosion, stay conscious long enough to understand that her head ached, then slide again into sleep. But it was hardly like sleeping at all.
And the dreams, one after another, were bad stuff indeed. Janey teetering on a ledge with a storm-gray New York cityscape behind her, water towers, sooty brick. Something about a mad friar and fruit with blood on it. Something terrible among trees. Each dream incorporated her headache.
Afoot, she was edgy, cramped, accident prone. Coffee burned. A saucer broke. There were two caps of dilaudid left to her but she took some Percodan instead.
She drank the burned coffee as she waited for the Percodan to take. When she felt well enough she read some nursery rhymes to Janey. The nursery-rhyme book had a glossy colored picture of the Old Woman Who Lived in A Shoe; The Old Woman’s many children balanced in the shoe’s eyelets, swung on the laces, swarmed into the margins in bright dirndl skirts and lederhosen. There must have been fifty. Fifty children. Janey wanted to know each one’s name.
“That’s Linda.
“That’s Janey like you.”
Fritz. Sam. Elizabeth.
Marge felt like weeping.
“I don’t know all their names, sweetheart. How could I know all their names?”
“Oh,” Janey said.
When the downstairs bell rang, Marge stood up suddenly and the rhyme book dropped to the floor.
“Oh my God,” she said.
Janey stood looking up at her. She stared at the door for a moment and then went to press the buzzer that opened the street door.
“Janey, go ride your horsie for a while.”
Janey’s horsie stood in a fenced-off section of the backyard, a red plastic horse on springs. Sometimes when Janie rode it, she would pass into a kind of trance and bounce for over an hour in an unvarying rhythm with a blankness in her eyes which Marge found alarming. But Janey was not in the mood for horsie riding and she began to pout. Marge could hear a man’s step on the hall stairs.
“Get,” she screamed at Janey. “Get down there.” Janey began to cry.
“Get, get,” Marge shouted, shooing the child away. Janey ran to the top of the steps that led from her bedroom to the yard and stood just outside the door, tear-stained and obstinate. Marge closed the bedroom door. The man outside knocked.
“Yes?” Marge inquired. She stood motionless in the center of the room staring at the closed door.
“It’s Ray,” the man said.
Marge forced herself to open the door to him; he went quickly past her with a glance. He was suntanned and short-haired. He had cold eyes. Janey had insinuated herself back into the living room but when she saw the man she fled, through her bedroom and down the steps to the yard.
Ray set a dun-colored AWOL bag down on the living-room table and went to look out the window.
“I’m not ready for this,” Marge told him.
He looked at her without sympathy.
“What do you mean you’re not ready for this?”
“I haven’t got the money,” she said. Even in her own ears, the whine grated.
“Why, you dumb cooze,” the man said softly.
She was trembling. That morning she had put on a dirty purple sweater and a pair of jeans out of the laundry bag. She felt soiled and contemptible.
“I mean I haven’t got it here,” she told the man.
He sat down in a wicker chair and rubbed his eyes.
“You got any coffee?”
Marge hastened to the kitchen. She poured the burned coffee she had been drinking into the sink and put on a fresh pot. Ray was pacing the living room.
“I called you, right? How come you don’t have it?”
“I missed the bank. I went to the aquarium.”
When she turned from the stove he was standing in the kitchen doorway with a slim smile.
“You didn’t say anything on the phone about the aquarium. You said you’d be ready.”
“I know,” Marge said. “I really don’t know why. I didn’t want to on the phone. I was going to go to the bank today.” The man was knitting his brows in mock concentration. “Somehow I thought you’d come at night.”
“I hope you got off on the fish,” he said. “You’re not getting shit until I get paid.”
“Any way you want to do it.”
He looked her over and she hung back against the louvered kitchen doors, ashamed.
“When are your people coming to
pick up?”
“Tomorrow, I think.”
He turned his back on her and walked to the window.
“What do you mean tomorrow, you think? What is this shit?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, “yes it is tomorrow. The twentieth.”
“If I beat up on you and took off your smack I’d be within my rights,” he told her. “You can’t deal with people in this outrageous fucking manner.”
“I’m sorry,” Marge said.
“They get suspicious. They get mad.”
“I understand,” she said.
To her surprise, he smiled again.
“You’re not trying to fuck me over, are you, Marge? You and some people?”
“Well, no” Marge said. “Honestly. It’s just me and John.”
“You and John,” Ray said.
When the coffee boiled, he asked for whiskey to put in it but Marge had nothing in the house except cassis. He poured some over his black coffee.
“I got a hangover,” he explained.
“Me too,” Marge said.
He blew on the coffee.
“You a junkie, Marge?”
Marge tried to smile.
“Jesus,” she said lightly. “Do I look like a junkie?”
“That’s not always a factor.”
“Well, I’m not,” she said.
He stood by the window frowning, listening to the springs of Janey’s horsie in the yard.
“What’s that?”
“It’s my daughter’s toy horse.”
He nodded and sat down on a cushion, clasping his hands between his knees.
“You’ve seen John?” she asked him.
“Yeah, I’ve seen John. If I hadn’t seen John I wouldn’t be here, right?”
“How is he?”
“Fucked up.”
“Is he really in bad shape?”
“He ain’t in no worse shape than you.” He looked her over again, rather sourly. “You concerned or just curious?”
“Concerned,” she said.
“Who are the people you’re selling to?”
“Friends of friends.”
“You mean you don’t know them?”
“I don’t know people like that,” Marge said. “John set it up. He knows a lot of weird people over in Nam. He’s good at that sort of thing.”