by Henry Miller
All eyes were focused on Ned. He blushed and stammered.
“What is this?” said Marcelle. “What did he say that was so wonderful?”
“I guess I’ll have to say it for him,” I said. I took Mona’s two hands in mine and looked into her eyes. “This is what he said, Mona. . . . ‘I never knew that one human being could transform another human being as Mona has transformed you. Some people get religion; you got love. You’re the luckiest man in the world.’ “
Mona: “Did you really say that, Ned?”
Marcelle: “How is it I haven’t transformed you?”
Ned began to sputter.
“I guess he needs another drink,” said Marcelle.
“No, drink only satisfies the lower appetites,” said Ned. “I’m searching for the elixir of life, which is water, according to Henry.”
“I’ll give you your elixir later,” Marcelle rejoined. “How about some cold chicken now?”
“Have you any bones?” I asked.
Marcelle looked perplexed.
“I want to eat them,” I said. “Bones give phosphorus and iodine. Mona always feeds me bones when I’m exalted. You see, when I’m effervescent I give off vital energy. You don’t need bones—you need cosmic juices. You’ve worn your celestial envelope too thin. You’re radiating from the sexual sphere.”
“What does that mean in plain English?”
“It means that you feed on seed instead of ambrosia. Your spiritual hormones are impoverished. You love Apis the bull instead of Krishna the charioteer. You’ll find your Paradise, but it will be on the lower level. Then the only escape is insanity.”
“It’s as clear as mud,” said Marcelle.
“Don’t get caught in the clockwork, that’s what he means,” Ned volunteered.
“What clockwork? What the hell are you talking about, you two?”
“Don’t you understand, Marcelle?” I said. “What can love bring you that you haven’t got already?”
“I haven’t got anything, except a lot of responsibilities,” said Marcelle. “He gets it all.”
“Precisely, and that’s why it feels so good.”
“I didn’t say that! . . . Listen, what are you talking about? Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m talking about your soul,” I said. “You’ve been starving your soul. You need cosmic juices, as I said before.”
“Yeah, and where do you buy ’em?”
“You don’t buy them . . . you pray for them. Didn’t you ever hear of the manna that fell from the sky? Ask for manna tonight: it will give tone to your astral ligaments . . .”
“I don’t know anything about this astral stuff, but I do know something about ass,” said Marcelle. “If you ask me, I think you’re giving me the double-entendre. Why don’t you go to the bathroom for a little while and play with yourself? Marriage has a queer effect on you.”
“You see, Henry,” Ned broke in, “that’s how they bring things down to earth. She’s always worrying about her nookie, aren’t you, dear?” He stroked her under the chin. “I was thinking,” he continued, “that maybe we ought to go to the burlesque tonight. That would be a novel way to celebrate the occasion, don’t you think? You know, it gives you i-deas.”
Marcelle looked at Mona. It was obvious they didn’t think it was such a hot idea.
“Let’s eat first,” I suggested. “Bring that coat in, or a pillow . . . I might want something on the side. Talking about ass,” I said, “did you ever take a good bite . . . you know, a real bite? Take Marcelle, for instance . . . that’s what I call a tempting piece of ass.”
Marcelle began to titter. She put her hands behind her instinctively.
“Don’t worry, I’m not biting into you yet. There’s chicken first and other things. But honest, sometimes one does feel like tearing a chunk out, what! A pair of teats, that’s different. I never could bite into a woman’s teats— a real bite, I mean. Always afraid the milk will squirt into my face. And all those veins . . . Jesus, it’s so bloody. But a beautiful ass . . . somehow you don’t think of blood in a woman’s ass. It’s just pure white meat. There’s another delicacy just below the crotch, on the inside. That’s even tenderer than a piece of pure ass. I don’t know, maybe I’m exaggerating. Anyway, I’m hungry. . . . Wait till I drain some of this piss out of me. It’s given me a hard-on, and I can’t eat with a hard-on. Save some of the brown meat for me, with the skin. I love skin. Make a nice cunt sandwich, and slap a little cold gravy over it. Jesus, my mouth’s watering . . .”
“Feel better now?” said Ned, when I had returned from the bathroom.
“I’m famished. What’s that lovely puke over there—in the big bowl?”
“That’s turtle shit with rotten eggs and a bit of menstrual sauce,” said Ned. “Does that whet your appetite?”
“I wish you’d change the subject,” said Marcelle. “I’m not overly delicate but puke is one thing I don’t like to think about when I’m eating. If you have to talk dirt I’d rather you talked sex.”
“What do you mean,” said Ned, “is sex dirt? How about that, Henry, is sex dirt?”
“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation,” I answered. “The other eight are unimportant. If we were all angels we wouldn’t have any sex—we’d have wings. An airplane has no sex; neither has God. Sex provides for reproduction and reproduction leads to failure. The sexiest people in the world, so they say, are the insane. They live in Paradise, but they’ve lost their innocence.”
“For an intelligent person you do talk a lot of nonsense,” said Marcelle. “Why don’t you talk about things we all understand? Why do you give us all this shit about angels and God and the booby hatch? If you were drunk it would be different, but you’re not drunk . . . you’re not even pretending to be drunk . . . you’re insolent and arrogant. You’re showing off.”
“Good, Marcelle, very good! Do you want to hear the truth? I’m bored. I’m fed up. I came here to get a meal and borrow some money. Yeah, let’s talk about simple, ordinary things. How was your last operation? Do you like white meat or dark? Let’s talk about anything that will prevent us from thinking or feeling. Sure, it was damned nice of you to give us twenty dollars right off the bat like that. Mighty white of you. But I get itchy when I listen to you talk. I want to hear somebody say something . . . something original. I know you’ve got a good heart, that you never do anyone harm. And I suppose you mind your own business too. But that doesn’t interest me. I’m sick of good, kind, generous people. I want a show of character and temperament. Jesus, I can’t even get drunk—in this atmosphere. I feel like the Wandering Jew. I’d like to set the house on fire, or something. Maybe if you’d pull your drawers off and dip them in the coffee that would help. Or take a frankfurter and diddle yourself. . . . Let’s be simple, you say. Good. Can you let a loud fart? Listen, once I had ordinary brains, ordinary dreams, ordinary desires. I nearly went nuts. I loathe the ordinary. Makes me constipated. Death is ordinary—it’s what happens to everybody. I refuse to die. I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to live forever. Death is easy: it’s like the booby hatch, only you can’t masturbate any more. You like your nookie, Ned says. Sure, so does everyone. And what then? In ten years your ass will be crinkled and your boobs will be hanging down like empty douche bags. Ten years . . . twenty years . . . what difference? You had a few good fucks and then you dried up. So what? The moment you stop having a good time you grow melancholy. You don’t regulate your life—you let your cunt do it for you. You’re at the mercy of a stiff prick. . . .”
I paused a moment to get my breath, rather surprised that I hadn’t received a clout. Ned had a gleam in his eye which might have been interpreted as friendly and encouraging—or murderous. I was hoping somebody would start something, throw a bottle, smash things, scream, yell, anything but sit there and take it like stunned owls. I didn’t know why I had picked on Marcelle, she hadn’t done anything to me. I was just using her as a stooge. Mona should have int
errupted me . . . I sort of counted on her doing that. But no, she was strangely quiet, strangely impartial.
“Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest,” I resumed, “let me apologize. Marcelle, I don’t know what to say to you. You certainly didn’t deserve that.”
“That’s all right,” said she blithely. “I know something’s eating you up. It couldn’t be me because . . . well, nobody who knows me would ever talk that way to me. Why don’t you switch to gin? You see what water does. Here, take a good stiff one. . . .” I drank a half glass straight and saw horseshoes pounding out sparks. “You see . . . makes you feel human, doesn’t it? Have some more chicken—and some potato salad. The trouble with you is you’re hypersensitive. My old man was that way. He wanted to be a minister and instead he became a bookkeeper. When he got all screwed up inside my mother would get him drunk. Then he beat the piss out of us—out of her too. But he felt better afterwards. We all felt better. It’s much better to beat people up than to think rotten things about them. He wouldn’t have been any better if he had become a minister: he was born with a grudge against the world. He wasn’t happy unless he was criticizing things. That’s why I can’t hate people . . . I saw what it did to him. Sure I like my nookie. Who don’t? as you say. I like things to be soft and easy. I like to make people happy, if I can. Maybe it’s stupid but it gives you a good feeling. You see, my old man had the idea that everything had to be destroyed before we could begin to have a good life. My philosophy, if you can call it a philosophy, is just the opposite. I don’t see the need to destroy anything. I cultivate the good and let the bad take care of itself. That’s a feminine way of looking at life. I’m a conservative. I think that women have to act dumb in order not to make men feel like fools . . .”
“Well I’ll be damned!” Ned exclaimed. “I never heard you talk this way before.”
“Of course you didn’t, darling. You never credited me with having an ounce of brains, did you? You get your little nookie and then you go to sleep. I’ve been asking you to marry me for a year now but you’re not ready for that yet. You’ve got other problems. Well, someday you’ll discover that there’s only one problem on your hands—yourself.”
“Good! Good for you, Marcelle!” It was Mona who suddenly burst out with this.
“What the hell!” said Ned. “What is this—a conspiracy?”
“You know,” said Marcelle, as though she were speaking to herself, “sometimes I think I really am a cluck. Here I am waiting for this guy to marry me. Suppose he does marry me—what then? He won’t know me any better after marriage than before. He’s not in love. If a guy’s in love with you he doesn’t worry about the future. Love is a gamble, not an insurance racket. I guess I’m just getting wise to myself. . . . Ned, I’m going to stop worrying about you. I’m going to leave you to worry about yourself. You’re the worrying kind—and there’s no cure for that. You had me worried for a while—worrying about you, I mean. I’m through worrying. I want love—not protection.”
“Jesus, aren’t we getting rather serious?” said Ned, baffled by the unexpected turn the conversation had taken.
“Serious?” said Marcelle mockingly. “I’m walking out on you. You can stay single for the rest of your life—and thrash out all those weighty problems that bother you. I feel as though a big load had been taken off my shoulders.” She turned to me and stuck out her mitt. “Thanks, Henry, for giving me a jolt. I guess you weren’t talking such nonsense after all. . . .”
22
Cleo was still the rage at the Houston Street Burlesk. She had become an institution, like Mistinguette. It’s easy to understand why she fascinated that audience which the enterprising Minsky Brothers gathered every night under their closed roof garden. One had only to stand outside the box office of a matinee, any day of the week, and watch them dribble in. In the evening it was a more sophisticated crowd, gathered from all parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey. Even Park Avenue contributed to its clientele, in the evening. But in the bright light of day, with the marquee looking like the aftermath of smallpox, the Catholic church next door so dingy, woebegone, so scroungy-looking, the priest always standing on the steps, scratching his ass by way of registering disgust and disapprobation. It was very much like the picture of reality which the sclerotic mind of a skeptic conjures up when he tries to explain why there can be no God.
Many’s the time I had hung around the entrance to the theater, keeping a sharp eye out for someone to lend me a few pennies to make up the price of admission. When you’re out of work, or too disgusted to look for work, it’s infinitely better to sit in a stinking pit than to stand in a public toilet for hours—just because it’s warm there. Sex and poverty go hand in hand.
The fetid odor of the burlesque house! That smell of the latrine, of urine saturated with camphor balls! The mingled stench of sweat, sour feet, foul breaths, chewing gum, disinfectants! The sickening deodorant from the squirt guns leveled straight at you, as if you were a mass of bluebottle flies! Nauseating? No word for it. Onan himself could scarcely smell worse.
The décor too was something. Smacked of Renoir in the last stages of gangrene. Blended perfectly with the Mardi Gras lighting effects—a flushed string of red lights illuminating a rotten womb. Something disgracefully satisfying about sitting there with the Mongolian idiots in the twilight of Gomorrah, knowing all too well that after the show you would have to trudge it back home on foot. Only a man with his pockets cleaned out can thoroughly appreciate the warmth and stench of a big ulcer in which hundreds of others like himself sit and wait for the curtain to go up. All around you overgrown idiots shelling peanuts, or nibbling at chocolate bars, or draining bottles of pop through straws. The Lumpen Proletariat. Cosmic riffraff.
It was so foul, the atmosphere, that it was just like one big congealed fart. On the asbestos curtain remedies against venereal diseases, cloak and suit ads, fur trappers, tooth-paste delicacies, watches to tell time—as if time were important in our lives! Where to go for a quick snack after the show—as if one had money to burn, as though after the show we would all drop in at Louie’s or August’s place and look the girls over, shove money up their asses and see the Aurora Borealis or the Red, White and Blue.
The ushers. . . . Ratty, jailbird types, if male, and floozy, empty shits, if the other sex. Now and then an attractive Polish girl with blond hair and a saucy, defiant mien. One of the dumb Polacks who would rather earn an honest penny than turn up her ass for a quick fuck. One could smell their filthy underwear, winter or summer. . . .
Anyway, everything on a cash-and-carry basis—that was the Minsky plan. And it worked too. Never a flop, no matter how lousy the performance. If you went there often enough you got to know the faces so well, not only of the cast but of the audience too, that it was like a family reunion. If you felt disgusted you didn’t need a mirror to see how you looked—you had only to take a glance at your neighbor. It should have been called “Identity House.” It was devachan hindside up.
There was never anything original, never anything that you hadn’t seen a thousand times before. It was like a cunt you’re sick of looking at—you know every liverish crease and wrinkle; you’re so goddamned sick of it that you want to spit in it, or take a plunger and bring up all the muck that got caught in the larynx. Oh yes, many a time one had the impulse to let fire—turn a machine gun on them, men, women and children, and let ’em have it in the guts. Sometimes a sort of faintness came over you: you felt like sliding to the floor and just lying there among the peanut shells. Let people walk over you with their greasy, smelly, shitty shoes.
Always a patriotic note too. Any moth-eaten cunt could walk out front-and-center draped in the American flag and by singing a wheezy tune bring down the house. If you had an advantageous seat you could catch her wiping her nose on the flag as she stood in the wings. And the sob stuff . . . how they liked the mother songs!
Poor, dopey, dog-eared saps! When it came to home and m
other they slobbered like wailing mice. There was always the white-haired imbecile from the ladies’ room whom they trotted out for these numbers. Her reward for sitting in the shithouse all day and night was to be slobbered over during one of the sentimental numbers. She had an enormous girth—a fallen womb most likely—and her eyes were glassy. She could have been everybody’s mother, so goofy and docile she was. The very picture of motherhood—after thirty-five years of childbearing, wife beating, abortions, hemorrhages, ulcers, tumors, ruptures, varicose veins and other emoluments of the maternal life. That nobody thought of putting a bullet through her and finishing her off always surprised me.
No denying it, the Minsky Brothers had thought of everything, everything which would remind one of the things one wanted to escape. They knew how to trot out everything that was worn and faded, including the very lice in your brains—and they rubbed this concoction under your nose like a shitty rag. They were enterprising, no doubt about it. Probably left-wingers too, even though contributing to the support of the Catholic church next door. They were Unitarians, in the practical sense. Bighearted, open-minded purveyors of entertainment for the poor at heart. Not a doubt about it. I’m sure they went to the Turkish baths every night (after counting the money), and perhaps to the synagogue too, when there was time for it.
To get back to Cleo. It was Cleo this night again, as it had been in the past. She would appear twice, once before the intermission and a second time at the end of the show.
Neither Marcelle nor Mona had ever been to a burlesque before; they were on the qui vive from start to finish. The comedians appealed to them; it was a line of filth they were unprepared for. Yeoman work they do, the comedians. All they need are a pair of baggy trousers, a pisspot, a telephone or a hatrack to create the illusion of a world in which the Unconscious rules supreme. Every burlesque comedian, if he is worth his salt, has something of the heroic in him. At every performance he slays the censor who stands like a ghost on the threshold of the subliminal self. He not only slays him alive for us, but he pisses on him and mortifies the flesh.