I kept smashing the rock against the lock. Sometimes I missed and my hand hit the lock or the metal box itself. Skin ripped, blood flowed. I gathered myself and gave the lock one final blow. It opened. I took it off and opened the metal box. There was no telephone. There were a series of switches and some heavy cables. I reached in, touched a wire, and got a terrible shock. Then I pulled a switch. I heard the roar of water. Out of 3 or 4 of the holes in the concrete face of the dam shot giant white jets of water. I pulled another switch. Three or four other holes opened up, releasing tons of water. I pulled a third switch and the whole dam let loose. I stood and watched the water pouring forth. Maybe I could start a flood and cowboys would come on horses or in rugged little pickup trucks to rescue me. I could see the headline:

HENRY CHINASKI, MINOR POET, FLOODS UTAH COUNTRYSIDE IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS SOFT LOS ANGELES ASS.

I decided against it. I threw all the switches back to normal, closed the metal box, and hung the broken lock back on it.

I left the reservoir, found another road up the way, and began following it. This road seemed more used than the other. I walked along. I had never been so tired. I could hardly see. Suddenly there was a little girl about 5 years old walking towards me. She wore a little blue dress and white shoes. She looked frightened when she saw me. I tried to look pleasant and friendly as I edged towards her.

“Little girl, don’t go away. I won’t hurt you. I’M LOST! Where are your parents? Little girl, take me to your parents!”

The little girl pointed. I saw a trailer and a car parked up ahead. “HEY, I’m LOST!” I shouted. “CHRIST, AM I GLAD TO SEE YOU.”

Lydia stepped around the side of the trailer. Her hair was done up in red curlers. “Come on, city boy,” she said. “Follow me home.”

“I’m so glad to see you, baby, kiss me!”

“No. Follow me.”

Lydia took off running about 20 feet in front of me. It was hard keeping up.

“I asked those people if they had seen a city boy around,” she called back over her shoulder. “They said, No.”

“Lydia, I love you!”

“Come on! You’re slow!”

“Wait, Lydia, wait!”

She vaulted over a barbed wire fence. I couldn’t make it. I got tangled in the wire. I couldn’t move. I was like a trapped cow. “LYDIA!”

She came back with her red curlers and started helping me get loose from the barbs. “I tracked you. I found your red notebook. You got lost deliberately because you were pissed.”

“No, I got lost out of ignorance and fear. I am not a complete person—I’m a stunted city person. I am more or less a failed drizzling shit with absolutely nothing to offer.” “Christ,” she said, “don’t you think I know that?” She freed me from the last barb. I lurched after her. I was back with Lydia again.

It was 3 or 4 days before I had to fly to Houston to give a reading. I went to the track, drank at the track, and afterwards I went to a bar on Hollywood Boulevard. I went home at 9 or 10 pm. As I moved through the bedroom towards the bathroom I tripped over the telephone cord. I fell against the corner of the bed frame—an edge of steel like a knife blade. When I got up I found I had a deep gash just above the ankle. The blood ran into the rug and I left a bloody trail as I went to the bathroom. The blood ran over the tiles and I left red footprints as I walked about.

There was a knock on the door and I let Bobby in. “Jesus Christ, man, what happened?”

“It’s DEATH,” I said. “I’m bleeding to death… .”

“Man,” he said, “you better do something about that leg.”

Valerie knocked. I let her in too. She screamed. I poured Bobby and Valerie and myself drinks. The phone rang. It was Lydia.

“Lydia, baby, I’m bleeding to death!”

“Is this one of your dramatic trips again?”

“No, I’m bleeding to death. Ask Valerie.”

Valerie took the phone. “It’s true, his ankle is cut open. There’s blood everywhere and he won’t do anything about it. You better come over. …”

When Lydia arrived I was sitting on the couch. “Look, Lydia: DEATH!” Tiny veins were hanging out of the wound like strings of spaghetti. I yanked at some of them. I took my cigarette and tapped ashes into the wound. “I’m a MAN! Hell, I’m a MAN!”

Lydia went and got some hydrogen peroxide and poured it into the wound. It was nice. White foam gushed out of the wound. It sizzled and bubbled. Lydia poured some more in.

“You better go to a hospital,” Bobby said.

“I don’t need a fucking hospital,” I said. “It will cure itself… .”

The next morning the wound looked horrible. It was still open and seemed to be forming a nice crust. I went to the drugstore for some more hydrogen peroxide, some bandages, and some epsom salts. I filled the tub full of hot water and epsom salts and got in. I began thinking about myself with only one leg. There were advantages:

HENRY CHINASKI IS,

WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE

GREATEST ONE-LEGGED

POET IN THE WORLD

Bobby came by that afternoon. “You know what it costs to get a leg amputated?” “$12,000.” After Bobby left I phoned my doctor.

I went to Houston with a heavily bandaged leg. I was taking antibiotic pills in an attempt to cure the infection. My doctor mentioned that any drinking would nullify the good the antibiotic pills had.

At the reading, which was at the modern art museum, I went on sober. After I read a few poems somebody in the audience asked, “How come you’re not drunk?”

“Henry Chinaski couldn’t make it,” I said. “I’m his brother Efram.”

I read another poem and then confessed about the antibiotics. I also told them it was against museum rules to drink on the premises. Somebody from the audience came up with a beer. I drank it and read some more. Somebody else came up with another beer. Then the beers began to flow. The poems got better.

There was a party and a dinner afterwards at a cafe. Almost directly across the table from me was absolutely the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She looked like a young Katherine Hepburn. She was about 22, and she just radiated beauty. I kept making wisecracks, calling her Katherine Hepburn. She seemed to like it. I didn’t expect anything to come of it. She was with a girlfriend. When it came time to leave I said to the museum director, a woman named Nana, at whose house I was staying, “I’m going to miss her. She was too good to believe.”

“She’s coming home with us.”

“I don’t believe it.”

… but later there she was, at Nana’s place, in the bedroom with me. She had on a sheer nightgown, and she sat on the edge of the bed combing her very long hair and smiling at me. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Laura” she said.

“Well, look, Laura, I’m going to call you Katherine.”

“All right,” she said.

Her hair was reddish-brown and so very long. She was small but well proportioned. Her face was the most beautiful thing about her.

“Can I pour you a drink?” I asked.

“Oh no, I don’t drink. I don’t like it.”

Actually, she frightened me. I couldn’t understand what she was doing there with me. She didn’t appear to be a groupie. I went to the bathroom, came back and turned out the light. I could feel her getting into bed next to me. I took her in my arms and we began kissing. I couldn’t believe my luck. What right had I? How could a few books of poems call this forth? There was no way to understand it. I certainly was not about to reject it. I became very aroused. Suddenly she went down and took my cock in her mouth. I watched the slow movement of her head and body in the moonlight. She wasn’t as good at it as some, but it was the very fact of her doing it that was amazing. Just as I was about to come I reached down and buried my hand in that mass of beautiful hair, pulling at it in the moonlight as I came in Katherine’s mouth.

Lydia met me at the airport. She was horny as usual. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “I’m hot! I play with myself but it doesn’t do any good.”

We were driving back to my place.

“Lydia, my leg is still in terrible shape. I just don’t know if I can handle it with this leg.”

“What?”

“It’s true. I don’t think I can fuck with my leg the way it is.”

“What the hell good are you then?”

“Well, I can fry eggs and do magic tricks.”

“Don’t be funny. I’m asking you, what the hellgood are you?”

“The leg will heal. If it doesn’t they’ll cut if off. Be patient.”

“If you hadn’t been drunk you wouldn’t have fallen and cut your leg. It’s always the bottle!”

“It’s not always the bottle, Lydia. We fuck about 4 times a week. For my age that’s pretty good.”

“Sometimes I think you don’t even enjoy it.”

“Lydia, sex isn’t everything! You are obsessed. For Christ’s sake, give it a rest.”

“A rest until your leg heals? How am I going to make it meanwhile?”

“I’ll play Scrabble with you.”

Lydia screamed. The car began to swerve all over the street. “YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU!”

She crossed the double yellow line at high speed, directly into oncoming traffic. Horns sounded and cars scattered. We drove on against the flow of traffic, cars approaching us peeling off to the left and right. Then just as abruptly Lydia swerved back across the double line into the lane we had just vacated.

Where are the police? I thought. Why is it that when Lydia does something the police become nonexistent?

“All right,” she said. “I’m taking you home and that’s it. I’ve had it. I’m going to sell my house and move to Phoenix. Glendoline lives in Phoenix now. My sisters warned me about living with an old fuck like you.”

We drove the remainder of the way without talking. When we reached my place I took out my suitcase, looked at Lydia, said, “Goodbye.” She was crying without making a sound, her whole face was wet. Suddenly she drove off toward Western Avenue. I walked into the court. Back from another reading… .

I checked the mail and then phoned Katherine who lived in Austin, Texas. She seemed truly glad to hear from me, and it was good to hear that Texas accent, that high laughter. I told her that I wanted her to come visit me, that I’d pay air fare both ways. We’d go to the racetrack, we’d go to Malibu, we’d … whatever she wanted. “But, Hank, don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“No, none. I’m a recluse.”

“But you’re always writing about women in your poems.”

“That’s past. This is present.”

“But what about Lydia?”

“Lydia?”

“Yes, you told me all about her.”

“What did I tell you?”

“You told me how she beat up two other women. Would you let her beat me up? I’m not very big, you know.”

“It can’t happen. She’s moved to Phoenix. I tell you, Katherine, you are the exceptional woman I’ve been looking for. Please, trust me.”

“I’ll have to make arrangements. I have to get somebody to take care of my cat.”

“All right. But I want you to know that everything is clear here.”

“But, Hank, don’t forget what you told me about your women.”

“Told you what?”

“You said, ‘They always come back.’”

“That’s just macho talk.”

“I’ll come,” she said. “As soon as I get things straight here I’ll make a reservation and let you know the details.”

When I was in Texas Katherine had told me about her life. I was only the third man she had slept with. There had been her husband, an alcoholic track star, and me. Her ex-husband, Arnold, was into show business and the arts in some way. Exactly how it worked I didn’t know. He was continually signing contracts with rock stars, painters and so forth. The business was $60,000 in debt, but flourishing. One of those situations where the further you were in debt the better off you were.

I don’t know what happened to the track star. He just ran off, I guess. And then Arnold got on coke. The coke changed him overnight. Katherine said she didn’t know him anymore. It was terrifying. Ambulance trips to hospitals. And then he’d be back at the office the next morning as if nothing had happened. Then Joanna Dover entered the picture. A tall, stately semi-millionairess. Educated and crazy. She and Arnold began to do business together. Joanna Dover dealt in the arts like some people deal in corn futures. She discovered unknown artists on the way up, bought their work cheap, and sold high after they became recognized. She had that kind of eye. And a magnificent 6-foot body. She began to see a lot of Arnold. One evening Joanna came to pick up Arnold dressed in an expensive tight-fitting gown. Then Katherine knew that Joanna really meant business. So, after that, she went along whenever Arnold and Joanna would go out. They were a trio. Arnold had a very low sex drive, so Katherine wasn’t worried about that. She was worried about the business. Then Joanna dropped out of the picture, and Arnold got more and more into coke. More and more ambulance trips. Katherine finally divorced him. She still saw Arnold, however. She took coffee to the office at 10:30 every morning for the staff and Arnold put her on the payroll. Which enabled her to keep the house. She and Arnold had dinner there now and then, but no sex. Still, he needed her, she felt protective towards him. Katherine also believed in health foods and the only meat she ate was chicken and fish. She was a beautiful woman.

Within a day or two, about 1 pm in the afternoon there was a knock at my door. It was a painter, Monty Riff, or so he informed me. He also told me that I used to get drunk with him when I lived on DeLongpre Avenue.

“I don’t remember you,” I said.

“Dee Dee used to bring me over.”

“Oh yeah? Well, come on in.” Monty had a 6-pack with him and a tall stately woman.

“This is Joanna Dover,” he introduced me to her.

“I missed your reading in Houston,” she said.

“Laura Stanley told me all about you,” I said.

“You know her?”

“Yes. But I’ve renamed her Katherine, after Katherine Hepburn.”

“You really know her?”

“Fairly well.”

“How well?”

“She’s flying out to visit me in a day or two.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

We finished the 6-pack and I left to go get some more. When I got back Monty was gone. Joanna told me that he had an appointment. We got to talking about painting and I brought out some of mine. She looked at them and decided that she’d like to buy two of them. “How much?” she asked.

“Well, $40 for the small one and $60 for the large one.”

Joanna wrote me out a check for $100. Then she said, “I want you to live with me.”

“What? This is pretty sudden.”

“It would pay off. I have some money. Just don’t ask me how much. I’ve been thinking of some reasons why we should live together. Do you want to hear them?”

“No.”

“One thing, if we lived together I’d take you to Paris.”

“I hate to travel.”

“I’d show you a Paris you’d really like.”

“Let me think it over.”

I leaned over and gave her a kiss. Then I kissed her again, this time a little longer.

“Shit,” I said, “let’s go to bed.”

“All right,” said Joanna Dover.

We undressed and climbed in. She was 6 feet tall. I’d always had small women. It was strange—every place I reached there seemed to be more woman. We warmed up. I gave her 3 or 4 minutes of oral sex, then mounted. She was good, she was really good. We cleaned up, got dressed and then she took me to dinner in Malibu. She told me she lived in Galveston, Texas. She gave me her phone number, the address and told me to come and see her. I told her that I would. She told me that she was serious about Paris and the rest. It had been a good fuck and the dinner was excellent too.

The next day Katherine phoned me. She said she had the tickets and would be landing at L.A. International Friday at 2:30 pm.

“Katherine,” I said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“Hank, don’t you want to see me?”

“I want to see you more than anybody I know.”

“Then what is it?”

“Well, you know Joanna Dover …”

“Joanna Dover?”

“The one … you know … your husband …”

“What about her, Hank?”

“Well, she came to see me.”

“You mean she came to your place?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“We talked. She bought two of my paintings.”

“Anything else happen?”

“Yeah.”

Katherine was quiet. Then she said, “Hank, I don’t know if I want to see you now.”

“I understand. Look, why don’t you think it over and call me back? I’m sorry, Katherine. I’m sorry it happened. That’s all I can say.”

She hung up. She won’t phone back, I thought. The best woman I ever met and I blew it. I deserve defeat, I deserve to die alone in a madhouse.

I sat by the telephone. I read the newspaper, the sports section, the financial section, the funny papers. The phone rang. It was Katherine. “FUCK Joanna Dover!” she laughed. I’d never heard Katherine swear like that before.

“Then you’re coming?”

“Yes. Do you have the arrival time?”

“I have it all. I’ll be there.”

We said goodbye. Katherine was coming, she was coming for at least a week with that face, that body, that hair, those eyes, that laugh… .

I came out of the bar and checked the message board. The plane was on time. Katherine was in the air and moving towards me. I sat down and waited. Across from me was a well-groomed woman reading a paperback. Her dress was up around her thighs, showing all that flank, that leg wrapped in nylon. Why did she insist on doing that? I had a newspaper, and I looked over the top, up her dress. She had great thighs. Who was getting those thighs? I felt foolish staring up her dress, but I couldn’t help myself. She was built. Once she had been a little girl, someday she would be dead, but now she was showing me her upper legs. The goddamned strumpet, I’d give her a hundred strokes, I’d give her 7-and-one-half inches of throbbing purple! She crossed her legs and her dress inched higher. She looked up from her paperback. Her eyes looked into mine as I watched over the top of the newspaper. Her expression was indifferent. She reached into her purse and took out a stick of gum, took the wrapper off and put the gum in her mouth. Green gum. She chewed on the green gum and I watched her mouth. She didn’t pull her skirt down. She knew that I was looking. There was nothing I could do. I opened my wallet and took out 2 fifty dollar bills. She looked up, saw the bills, looked back down. Then a fat man plopped down next to me. His face was very red and he had a massive nose. He was dressed in a jumpsuit, a light brown jumpsuit. He farted. The lady pulled her dress down and I put the bills back in my wallet. My cock softened and I got up and went to the drinking fountain.

Out in the landing area Katherine’s plane was taxiing toward the ramp. I stood and waited. Katherine, I adore you.

Katherine walked off the ramp, perfect, with red-brown hair, slim body, a blue dress clinging as she walked, white shoes, slim, neat ankles, youth. She wore a white hat with a wide brim, the brim turned down just right. Her eyes looked out from under the brim, large and brown and laughing. She had class. She’d never show her ass in an airport waiting area.

And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.

Katherine moved toward me. That long clean red-brown hair. Texas women were so relaxed, so natural. I gave her a kiss and asked about her baggage. I suggested a stop at the bar. The waitresses had on short red dresses that showed their ruffled white panties. The necklines of their dresses were cut low to show their breasts. They earned their salaries, they earned their tips, every cent. They lived in the suburbs and they hated men. They lived with their mothers and brothers and were in love with their psychiatrists.

We finished our drinks and went to get Katherine’s baggage. A number of men tried to catch her eye, but she walked close by my side, holding my arm. Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were, and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding love back and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then usually, there was trouble.

At my place Katherine opened her suitcase and took out a pair of rubber gloves. She laughed.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Darlene—my best friend—she saw me packing and she said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And I said, I’ve never seen Hank’s place, but I know that before I can cook in it and live in it and sleep in it I’ve got to clean it up!’”

Then Katherine gave off that happy Texas laugh. She went into the bathroom and put on a pair of bluejeans and an orange blouse, came out barefooted and went into the kitchen with her rubber gloves.

I went into the bathroom and changed clothes also. I decided that if Lydia came by I’d never let her touch Katherine. Lydia? Where was she? What was she doing?

I sent up a little prayer to the gods who watched over me: please keep Lydia away. Let her suck on the horns of cowboys and dance until 3 am—but please keep her away… .

When I came out Katherine was on her knees scrubbing at two years’ worth of grease on my kitchen floor.

“Katherine,” I said, “let’s go out on the town. Let’s go have dinner. This is no way to begin.”

“All right, Hank, but I’ve got to finish this floor first. Then we’ll go.”

I sat and waited. Then she came out and I was sitting in a chair, waiting. She bent over and kissed me, laughing, “You are a dirty old man!” Then she walked into the bedroom. I was in love again, I was in trouble… .

After dinner we came back and we talked. She was a health food addict and didn’t eat meat except for chicken and fish. It certainly worked for her.

“Hank,” she said, “tomorrow I’m going to clean your bathroom.”

“All right,” I said over my drink.

“And I must do my exercises every day. Will that bother you?”

“No, no.”

“Will you be able to write while I’m fussing around here?”

“No problem.”

“I can go for walks.”

“No, not alone, not in this neighborhood.”

“I don’t want to interfere with your writing.”

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.”

Katherine came over and sat by me on the couch. She seemed more a girl than a woman. I put down my drink and kissed her, a long, slow kiss. Her lips were cool and soft. I was very conscious of her long red-brown hair. I pulled away and had another drink. She confused me. I was used to vile drunken wenches.

We talked for another hour. “Let’s go to sleep,” I told her, “I’m tired.”

“Fine. I’ll get ready first,” she said.

I sat drinking. I needed more to drink. She simply was too much.

“Hank,” she said, “I’m in bed.”

“All right.”

I went into the bathroom and undressed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and hands. She came all the way from Texas, I thought, she came on a plane just to see me and now she’s in my bed, waiting.

I didn’t have any pyjamas. I walked toward the bed. She was in a nightie. “Hank,” she said, “we have about 6 days when it’s safe, then we’ll have to think of something else.”

I got into bed with her. The little girl-woman was ready. I pulled her towards me. Luck was mine again, the gods were smiling. The kisses became more intense. I placed her hand on my cock and then pulled up her nightie. I began to play with her cunt. Katherine with a cunt? The clit came out and I touched it gently, again and again. Finally, I mounted. My cock entered halfway. It was very tight. I moved it back and forth, then pushed. The remainder of my cock slid in. It was glorious. She gripped me. I moved and her grip held. I tried to control myself. I stopped stroking and waited to cool off. I kissed her, working her lips apart, sucking at the upper lip. I saw her hair spread wide across the pillow. Then I gave up trying to please her and simply fucked her, ripping viciously. It was like murder. I didn’t care; my cock had gone crazy. All that hair, her young and beautiful face. It was like raping the Virgin Mary. I came. I came inside of her, agonizing, feeling my sperm enter her body, she was helpless, and I shot my come deep into her ultimate core—body and soul—again and again… .

Later on, we slept. Or Katherine slept. I held her from the back. For the first time I thought of marriage. I knew that there certainly were flaws in her that had not surfaced. The beginning of a relationship was always the easiest. After that the unveiling began, never to stop. Still, I thought of marriage. I thought of a house, a dog and a cat, of shopping in supermarkets. Henry Chinaski was losing his balls. And didn’t care.

At last I slept. When I awakened in the morning Katherine was sitting on the edge of the bed brushing those yards of red-brown hair. Her large dark eyes looked at me as I awakened. “Hello, Katherine,” I said, “will you marry me?”

“Please don’t,” she said, “I don’t like it.”

“I mean it.”

“Oh, shit, Hank!”

“What?”

“I said, ‘shit,’ and if you talk that way I’m taking the first plane out.”

“All right.”

“Hank?”

“Yes?”

I looked at Katherine. She kept brushing her long hair. Her large brown eyes looked at me, and she was smiling. She said, “It’s just sex, Hank, it’s just sex!” Then she laughed. It wasn’t a sardonic laugh, it was really joyful. She brushed her hair and I put my arm around her waist and rested my head against her leg. I wasn’t quite sure of anything.

I took women either to the boxing matches or to the racetrack. That Thursday night I took Katherine to the boxing matches at the Olympic auditorium. She had never been to a live fight. We got there before the first bout and sat at ringside. I drank beer and smoked and waited.

“It’s strange,” I told her, “that people will sit here and wait for two men to climb up there into that ring and try to punch each other out.”

“It does seem awful.”

“This place was built a long time ago,” I told her as she looked around the ancient arena. “There are only two restrooms, one for men, the other for women, and they are small. So try to go before or after intermission.”

“All right.”

The Olympic was attended mostly by Latinos and lower class working whites, with a few movie stars and celebrities. There were many good Mexican fighters and they fought with their hearts. The only bad fights were when whites or blacks fought, especially the heavyweights.

Being there with Katherine felt strange. Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren’t with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and fucked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.

The first fight was a good one, lots of blood and courage. There was something to be learned about writing from watching boxing matches or going to the racetrack. The message wasn’t clear but it helped me. That was the important part: the message wasn’t clear. It was wordless, like a house burning, or an earthquake or a flood, or a woman getting out of a car, showing her legs. I didn’t know what other writers needed; I didn’t care, I couldn’t read them anyway. I was locked into my own habits, my own prejudices. It wasn’t bad being dumb if the ignorance was all your own. I knew that some day I would write about Katherine and that it would be hard. It was easy to write about whores, but to write about a good woman was much more difficult.

The second fight was good, too. The crowd screamed and roared and swilled beer. They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes— they’d be back in captivity the next day but now they were out—they were wild with freedom. They weren’t thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

All the fights were good. I got up and went to the restroom. When I got back Katherine was very still. She looked more like she should be attending a ballet or a concert. She looked so delicate and yet she was such a marvelous fuck.

I kept drinking and Katherine would grab one of my hands when a fight became exceptionally brutal. The crowd loved knockouts. They screamed when one of the fighters was on the way out. They were landing those punches. Maybe they were punching out their bosses or their wives. Who knew? Who cared? More beer.

I suggested to Katherine that we leave before the final bout. I’d had enough.

“All right,” she said.

We walked up the narrow aisle, the air blue with smoke. There was no whistling, no obscene gestures. My scarred and battered face was sometimes an asset.

We walked back to the small parking lot under the freeway. The ‘67 blue Volks was not there. The ‘67 model was the last good Volks—and the young men knew it.

“Hepburn, they stole our fucking car.”

“Oh Hank, surely not!”

“It’s gone. It was sitting there.” I pointed. “Now it’s gone.”

“Hank, what will we do?”

“We’ll take a taxi. I really feel bad.”

“Why do people do that?”

“They have to. It’s their way out.”

We went into a coffee shop and I phoned for a cab. We ordered coffee and doughnuts. While we had been watching the fights they had pulled the coathanger and hotwire trick. I had a saying, “Take my woman, but leave my car alone.” I would never kill a man who took my woman; I might kill a man who took my car.

The cab came. At my place, luckily, there was beer and some vodka. I had given up all hope of staying sober enough to make love. Katherine knew it. I paced up and down talking about my ‘67 blue Volks. The last good model. I couldn’t even call the police. I was too drunk. I’d have to wait until morning, until noon.

“Hepburn,” I told her, “it’s not your fault, you didn’t steal it!”

“I wish I had, you’d have it now.”

I thought of 2 or 3 young kids racing my blue baby down along the Coast Highway, smoking dope, laughing, opening it up. Then I thought of all the junkyards along Santa Fe Avenue. Mountains of bumpers, windshields, doorhandles, wiper motors, engine parts, tires, wheels, hoods, jacks, bucket seats, front wheel bearings, brake shoes, radios, pistons, valves, carburetors, cam shafts, transmissions, axles—my car soon would be just a pile of accessories.

That night I slept up against Katherine, but my heart was sad and cold.

Luckily I had auto insurance that paid for a rental car. I drove Katherine to the racetrack in it. We sat in the sundeck at Hollywood Park near the stretch turn. Katherine said she didn’t want to bet but I took her inside and showed her the toteboard and the betting windows.

I put 5 win on a 7 to 2 shot with early lick, my favorite kind of horse. I always figured if you’re going to lose you might as well lose in front; you had the race won until somebody beat you. The horse went wire to wire, pulling away at the end. It paid $9.40 and I was $17.50 ahead.

The next race she remained in her seat while I went to make my bet. When I came back she pointed to a man two rows below us. “See that man there?”

“Yes.”

“He told me he won $2,000 yesterday and that he’s $25,000 ahead for the meet.”

“Don’t you want to bet? Maybe we all can win.”

“Oh no, I don’t know anything about it.”

“It’s simple: you give them a dollar and they give you 84 cents back. It’s called the ‘take.’ The state and the track split it about even. They don’t care who wins the race, their take is out of the total mutual pool.”

In the second race my horse, the 8 to 5 favorite, ran second. A longshot had nosed me at the wire. It paid $45.80.

The man two rows down turned and looked at Katherine. “I had it,” he told her, “I had ten on the nose.”

“Oooh,” she told him, smiling, “that’s good.”

I turned to the third race, an affair for 2-year-old maiden colts and geldings. At 5 minutes to post I checked the tote and went to bet. As I walked away I saw the man two rows down turn and begin talking to Katherine. There were at least a dozen of them at the track every day, who told attractive women what big winners they were, hoping that somehow they would end up in bed with them. Maybe they didn’t even think that far; maybe they only hoped vaguely for something without being quite sure what it was. They were addled and dizzied, taking the 10-count. Who could hate them? Big winners, but if you watched them bet, they were usually at the 2 dollar window, their shoes down at the heels and their clothing dirty. The lowest of the breed.

I took the even money shot and he won by 6 and paid $4.00. Not much, but I had him ten win. The man turned around and looked at Katherine. “I had it,” he told her. “$100 to win.”

Katherine didn’t answer. She was beginning to understand. Winners didn’t shoot off their mouths. They were afraid of getting murdered in the parking lot.

After the fourth race, a $22.80 winner, he turned again and told Katherine, “I had that one, ten across.”

She turned away. “His face is yellow, Hank. Did you see his eyes? He’s sick.”

“He’s sick on the dream. We’re all sick on the dream, that’s why we’re out here.”

“Hank, let’s go.”

“All right.”

That night she drank half a bottle of red wine, good red wine, and she was sad and quiet. I knew she was connecting me with the racetrack people and the boxing crowd, and it was true, I was with them, I was one of them. Katherine knew that there was something about me that was not wholesome in the sense of wholesome is as wholesome does. I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn’t fit the other. I didn’t care.

The fucking was very good that night, but it was the night I lost her. There was nothing I could do about it. I rolled off and wiped myself on the sheet as she went into the bathroom. Overhead a police helicopter circled over Hollywood.

The next night Bobby and Valerie came over. They had recently moved into my apartment building and now lived across the court. Bobby had on his tight knit shirt. Everything always fitted Bobby perfectly, his pants were snug and just the right length, he wore the right shoes and his hair was styled. Valerie also dressed mod but not quite as consciously. People called them the “Barbie Dolls.” Valerie was all right when you got her alone, she was intelligent and very energetic and damned honest. Bobby, too, was more human when he and I were alone, but when a new woman was around he became very dull and obvious. He would direct all his attention and conversation to the woman, as if his very presence was an interesting and marvelous thing, but his conversation became predictable and dull. I wondered how Katherine would handle him.

They sat down. I was in a chair near the window and Valerie sat between Bobby and Katherine on the couch. Bobby began. He bent forward and ignoring Valerie directed his attention to Katherine.

“Do you like Los Angeles?” he asked.

“It’s all right,” answered Katherine.

“Are you going to stay here much longer?”

“A while longer.”

“You’re from Texas?”

“Yes.”

“Are your parents from Texas?”

“Yes.”

“Anything good on t.v. out there?”

“It’s about the same.”

“I’ve got an uncle in Texas.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, he lives in Dallas.”

Katherine didn’t answer. Then she said, “Excuse me, I’m going to make a sandwich. Does anybody want anything?”

We said we didn’t. Katherine got up and went into the kitchen. Bobby got up and followed her. You couldn’t quite hear his words, but you could tell that he was asking more questions. Valerie stared at the floor. Katherine and Bobby were in the kitchen a long time. Suddenly Valerie raised her head and began talking to me. She spoke very rapidly and nervously.

“Valerie,” I stopped her, “we needn’t talk, we don’t have to talk.”

She put her head down again.

Then I said, “Hey, you guys have been in there a long time. Are you waxing the floor?”

Bobby laughed and began tapping his foot in rhythm on the floor.

Finally Katherine came out followed by Bobby. She walked over to me and showed me her sandwich: peanut butter on cracked wheat with sliced bananas and sesame seeds.

“It looks good,” I told her.

She sat down and began eating her sandwich. It became quiet. It remained quiet. Then Bobby said, “Well, I think we’d better go… .”

They left. After the door closed Katherine looked at me and said, “Don’t think anything, Hank. He was just trying to impress me.”

“He’s done that with every woman I’ve known since I’ve known him.”

The phone rang. It was Bobby. “Hey, man, what have you done to my wife?”

“What’s the matter?”

“She just sits here, she’s completely depressed, she won’t talk!”

“I haven’t done anything to your wife.”

“I don’t understand it!”

“Goodnight, Bobby.”

I hung up.

“It was Bobby,” I told Katherine. “His wife is depressed.”

“Really?”

“It seems so.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a sandwich?”

“Can you make me one just like yours?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’ll take it.”

Katherine stayed 4 or 5 more days. We had reached the time of the month when it was risky for Katherine to fuck. I couldn’t stand rubbers. Katherine got some contraceptive foam. Meanwhile, the police had recovered my Volks. We went down to where it was impounded. It was intact and in good shape except for a dead battery. I had it hauled to a Hollywood garage where they put it in order. After a last goodbye in bed I drove Katherine to the airport in the blue Volks, TRV 469.

It wasn’t a happy day for me. We sat not saying much. Then they called her flight and we kissed.

“Hey, they all saw this young girl kissing this old man.”

“I don’t give a damn… .”

Katherine kissed me again.

“You’re going to miss your flight,” I said.

“Come see me, Hank. I have a nice house. I live alone. Come see me.”

“I will.”

“Write!”

“I will… .”

Katherine walked into the boarding tunnel and was gone.

I walked back to the parking lot, got in the Volks, thinking, I’ve still got this. What the hell, I haven’t lost everything.

It started.

That evening I started drinking. It wasn’t going to be easy without Katherine. I found some things she had left behind— earrings, a bracelet.

I’ve got to get back to the typewriter, I thought. Art takes discipline. Any asshole can chase a skirt. I drank, thinking about it.

At 2:10 am the phone rang. I was drinking my last beer.

“Hello?”

“Hello.” It was a woman’s voice, a young woman.

“Yes?”

“Are you Henry Chinaski?”

“Yes.”

“My girlfriend admires your writing. It’s her birthday and I told her I’d phone you. We were surprised to find you in the phonebook.”

“I’m listed.”

“Well, it’s her birthday and I thought it might be nice if we could come to see you.”

“All right.”

“I told Arlene that you probably had women all over the place.”

“I’m a recluse.”

“Then it’s all right if we come over?”

I gave them the address and directions.

“Only one thing, I’m out of beer.”

“We’ll get you some beer. My name’s Tammie.”

“It’s after 2 am.”

“We’ll get some beer. Cleavage can work wonders.”

They arrived in 20 minutes with the cleavage but without the beer.

“That son-of-a-bitch,” said Arlene. “He always gave it to us before. This time he seemed scared.”

“Fuck him,” said Tammie.

They both sat down and announced their ages.

“I’m 32,” said Arlene.

“I’m 23,” said Tammie.

“Add your ages together,” I said, “and you’ve got me.”

Arlene’s hair was long and black. She sat in the chair by the window combing her hair, making up her face, looking into a large silver mirror, and talking. She was obviously high on pills. Tammie had a near-perfect body and long natural red hair. She was on pills too, but wasn’t as high.

“It will cost you $100 for a piece of ass,” Tammie told me.

“I’ll pass.”

Tammie was hard like so many women in their early twenties. Her face was shark-like. I disliked her, right off.

They left around 3:30 am and I went to bed alone.

Two mornings later, at 4 am, somebody beat on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s a redheaded floozie.”

I let Tammie in. She sat down and I opened a couple of beers.

“I’ve got bad breath, I have these two bad teeth. You can’t kiss me.”

“All right.”

We talked. Well, I listened. Tammie was on speed. I listened and looked at her long red hair and when she was preoccupied I looked and looked at that body. It was bursting out of her clothing, begging to get out. She talked on and on. I didn’t touch her.

At 6 am Tammie gave me her address and phone number.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

It was a bright red Camaro, completely wrecked. The front was smashed in, one side was ripped open and the windows were gone. Inside were rags and shirts and Kleenex boxes and newspapers and milk cartons and Coke bottles and wire and rope and paper napkins and magazines and paper cups and shoes and bent colored drinking straws. This mass of stuff was piled above seat level and covered the seats. Only the driver’s area had a little clear space.

Tammie stuck her head out the window and we kissed.

Then she tore away from the curb and by the time she reached the corner she was doing 45. She did hit the brakes and the Camaro bobbed up and down, up and down. I walked back inside.

I went to bed and thought about her hair. I’d never known a real redhead. It was fire.

Like lightning from heaven, I thought.

Somehow her face didn’t seem to be as hard anymore… .

I phoned her. It was 1 am. I went over.

Tammie lived in a small bungalow behind a house.

She let me in.

“Be quiet. Don’t wake Dancy. She’s my daughter. She’s 6 years

old and she’s asleep in the bedroom.”

I had a 6-pack of beer. Tammie put it in the refrigerator and came out with two bottles.

“My daughter mustn’t see anything. I still have the two bad teeth which makes my breath bad. We can’t kiss.”

“All right.”

The bedroom door was closed.

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got to take some vitamin B. And I’m going to have to pull my pants down and stab myself in the ass. Look the other way.”

“All right.”

I watched her draw liquid into the syringe. I looked the other way.

“I’ve got to get it all,” she said.

When it was done she turned on a small red radio.

“Nice place you got here.”

“I’m a month behind on the rent.”

“Oh …”

“It’s all right. The landlord—he lives in the place up front—I can hold him off.”

“Good.”

“He’s married, the old fuck. And guess what?”

“I can’t.”

“The other day his wife was gone somewhere and the old fuck asked me to come over. I went over and sat down and guess what?”

“He pulled it out.”

“No, he put on dirty movies. He thought that shit would turn me on.”

“It didn’t?”

“I said, ‘Mr. Miller, I have to leave now. I have to pick Dancy up at school.’”

Tammie gave me an upper. We talked and talked. And drank beer.

At 6 am Tammie opened the couch we had been sitting on. There was a blanket. We took off our shoes and climbed under the blanket with our clothes on. I held her from the back, my face in all that red hair. I got hard. I dug it into her from behind, through her clothing. I heard her fingers clawing and digging into the edge of the couch.

“I’ve got to go,” I told Tammie.

“Listen, all I’ve got to do is to make Dancy some breakfast and drive her to school. It’s O.K. if she sees you. Just wait here until I get back.”

“I’m going,” I said.

I drove home, drunk. The sun was really up, painful and yellow… .

I had been sleeping on a terrible mattress with the springs sticking into me for several years. That afternoon when I awakened I pulled the mattress off the bed, dragged it outside, and leaned it against the trashbin.

I walked back in and left the door open.

It was 2 pm and hot.

Tammie walked in and sat on the couch.

“I’ve got to go,” I told her. “I’ve got to go buy a mattress.”

“A mattress? Well, I’ll leave.”

“No, Tammie, wait. Please. The whole thing will take about 15 minutes. Wait here and have a beer.”

“All right,” she said… .

There was a rebuilt mattress shop about three blocks down on Western. I parked in front and ran through the door. “Fellows! I need a mattress … FAST!”

“What kind of bed?”

“Double.”

“We’ve got this one for $35.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Can you take it in your car?”

“I’ve got a Volks.”

“All right, we’ll deliver it. Address?”

Tammie was still there when I got back.

“Where’s the mattress?”

“It’ll be along. Have another beer. You got a pill?”

She gave me a pill. The light shot through her red hair.

Tammie had been voted Miss Sunny Bunny at the Orange County Fair in 1973. It was four years later now, but she still had it. She was big and ripe in all the right places.

The delivery man was at the door with the mattress.

“Let me help you.”

The delivery man was a good soul. He helped me put it on the bed. Then he saw Tammie sitting on the couch. He grinned. “Hi,” he said to her.

“Thanks very much,” I told him. I gave him 3 dollars and he left.

I went into the bedroom and looked at the mattress. Tammie followed. The mattress was wrapped in cellophane. I began ripping it off. Tammie helped.

“Look at it. It’s pretty,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

It was bright and colorful. Roses, stems, leaves, curling vines. It looked like the Garden of Eden, and for $35.

Tammie looked at it. “That mattress turns me on. I want to break it in. I want to be the first woman to fuck you on that mattress.”

“I wonder who will be the second?”

Tammie walked into the bathroom. There was a silence. Then I heard the shower. I put on fresh sheets and pillow cases, undressed and climbed in. Tammie came out, young and wet, she sparkled. Her pubic hair was the same color as the hair on her head: red, like fire.

She paused before the mirror and pulled in her stomach. Those huge breasts rose toward the glass. I could see her, back and front, simultaneously.

She walked over and climbed under the sheet.

We slowly worked into it.

We got into it, all that red hair on the pillow, as outside the sirens howled and the dogs barked.

Tammie came by that night. She appeared to be high on uppers.

“I want some champagne,” she said.

“All right,” I said.

I handed her a twenty.

“Be right back,” she said, walking out the door.

Then the phone rang. It was Lydia. “I just wondered how you were doing. …”

“Things are all right.”

“Not here. I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

“And I don’t know who the father is.”

“Oh?”

“You know Dutch, the guy who hangs around the bar where I’m working now?”

“Yes, old Baldy.”

“Well, he’s really a nice guy. He’s in love with me. He brings me flowers and candy. He wants to marry me. He’s been real nice. And one night I went home with him. We did it.”

“All right.”

“Then there’s Barney, he’s married but I like him. Of all the guys in the bar he’s the only one who never tried to put the make on me. It fascinated me. Well, you know, I’m trying to sell my house. So he came over one afternoon. He just came by. He said he wanted to look the house over for a friend of his. I let him in. Well, he came at just the right time. The kids were in school so I let him go ahead… . Then one night this stranger came into the bar late. He asked me togo home with him. I told him no. Then he said he just wanted to sit in my car with me, talk to me. I said all right. We sat in the car and talked. Then we shared a joint. Then he “kissed me. That kiss did it. If he hadn’t kissed me I wouldn’t have done it. Now I’m pregnant and I don’t know who. I’ll have to wait and see who the child looks like.”

“All right, Lydia, lots of luck.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up. A minute passed and then the phone rang again. It was Lydia. “Oh,” she said, “I wondered how you were doing?”

“About the same, horses and booze.”

“Then everything’s all right with you?”

“Not quite.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I sent this woman out for champagne… .”

“Woman?”

“Well, girl, really …”

“A girl?”

“I sent her out with $20 for champagne and she hasn’t come back. I think I’ve been taken.”

“Chinaski, I don’t want to hear about your women. Do you understand that?”

“All right.”

Lydia hung up. There was a knock on the door. It was Tammie. She’d come back with the champagne and the change.

It was noon the next day when the phone rang. It was Lydia again.

“Well, did she come back with the champagne?”

“Who?”

“Your whore.”

“Yes, she came back. …”

“Then what happened?”

“We drank the champagne. It was good stuff.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, you know, shit …”

I heard a long insane wail like a wolverine shot in the arctic snow and left to bleed and die alone… .

She hung up.

I slept most of the afternoon and that night I drove out to the harness races.

I lost $32, got into the Volks and drove back. I parked, walked up on the porch and put the key into the door. All the lights were on. I looked around. Drawers were ripped out and overturned on the floor, the bed covers were on the floor. All my books were missing from the bookcase, including the books I had written, 20 or so. And my typewriter was gone and my toaster was gone and my radio was gone and my paintings were gone.

Lydia, I thought.

All she’d left me was my t.v. because she knew I never looked at it.

I walked outside and there was Lydia’s car, but she wasn’t in it. “Lydia,” I said. “Hey, baby!”

I walked up and down the street and then I saw her feet, both of them, sticking out from behind a small tree up against an apartment house wall. I walked up to the tree and said, “Look, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

Lydia just stood there. She had two shopping bags full of my books and a portfolio of my paintings.

“Look, I’ve got to have my books and paintings back. They belong to me.”

Lydia came out from behind the tree—screaming. She took the paintings out and started tearing them. She threw the pieces in the air and when they fell to the ground she stomped on them. She was wearing her cowgirl boots.

Then she took my books out of the shopping bags and started throwing them around, out into the street, out on the lawn, everywhere.

“Here are your paintings! Here are your books! AND DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN! DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN!”

Then Lydia ran down to my court with a book in her hand, my latest, The Selected Works of Henry Chinaski. She screamed, “So you want your books back? So you want your books back? Here are your goddamned books! AND DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN!”

She started smashing the glass panes in my front door. She took The Selected Works of Henry Chinaski and smashed pane after pane, screaming, “You want your books back? Here are your goddamned books! AND DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR WOMEN!”

I stood there as she screamed and broke glass.

Where are the police? I thought. Where?

Then Lydia ran down the court walk, took a quick left at the trash bin and ran down the driveway of the apartment house next door. Behind a small bush was my typewriter, my radio and my toaster.

Lydia picked up the typewriter and ran out into the center of the street with it. It was a heavy old-fashioned standard machine. Lydia lifted the typer high over her head with both hands and smashed it in the street. The platen and several other parts flew off. She picked the typer up again, raised it over her head and screamed, “DON’T TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN!” and smashed it into the street again.

Then Lydia jumped into her car and drove off. Fifteen seconds later the police cruiser drove up. “It’s an orange Volks. It’s called the Thing, looks like a tank. I don’t remember the license number, but the letters are HZY, like HAZY, got it?”

“Address?”

I gave them her address… .

Sure enough, they brought her back. I heard her in the back seat, wailing, as they drove up.

“STAND BACK!” said one cop as he jumped out. He followed me up to my place. He walked inside and stepped on some broken glass. For some reason he shone his flashlight on the ceiling and the ceiling mouldings.

“You want to press charges?” the cop asked me.

“No. She has children. I don’t want her to lose her kids. Her ex-husband is trying to get them from her. But please tell her that people aren’t supposed to go around doing this sort of thing.”

“O.K.,” he said, “now sign this.”

He wrote it down in hand in a little notebook with lined paper. It said that I, Henry Chinaski, would not press charges against one Lydia Vance.

I signed it and he left.

I locked what was left of the door and went to bed and tried to sleep.

In an hour or so the phone rang. It was Lydia. She was back home.

“YOU-SON-OF-A-BITCH, YOU EVER TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WOMEN AGAIN AND I’LL DO THE SAME THING ALL OVER AGAIN!”

She hung up.

Two nights later I went over to Tammie’s place on Rustic Court. I knocked. The lights weren’t on. It seemed empty. I looked in her mailbox. There were letters in there. I wrote a note, “Tammie, I have been trying to phone you. I came over and you weren’t in. Are you all right? Phone me… . Hank.”

I drove over at 11 am the next morning. Her car wasn’t out front. My note was still stuck in the door. I rang anyhow. The letters were still in the mailbox. I left a note in the mailbox: “Tammie, where the hell are you? Contact me… . Hank.”

I drove all over the neighborhood looking for that smashed red Camaro.

I returned that night. It was raining. My notes were wet. There was more mail in the box. I left her a book of my poems, inscribed. Then I went back to my Volks. I had a Maltese cross hanging from my rearview mirror. I cut the cross down, took it back to her place and tied it around her doorknob.

I didn’t know where any of her friends lived, where her mother lived, where her lovers lived.

I went back to my court and wrote some love poems.

I was sitting with an anarchist from Beverly Hills, Ben Solvnag, who was writing my biography when I heard her footsteps on the court walk. I knew the sound—they were always fast and frantic and sexy—those tiny feet. I lived near the rear of the court. My door was open. Tammie ran in.

We were both into each other’s arms, hugging and kissing.

Ben Solvnag said goodbye and was gone.

“Those sons of bitches confiscated my stuff, all my stuff! I couldn’t make the rent! That dirty son-of-a-bitch!”

“I’ll go over there and kick his ass. We’ll get your stuff back.”

“No, he has guns! All kinds of guns!”

“Oh.”

“My daughter is at my mother’s.”

“How about something to drink?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“Extra dry champagne.”

“O.K.”

The door was still open and the afternoon sunlight came in through her hair—it was so long and so red it burned. “Can I take a bath?” she asked. “Of course.” “Wait for me,” she said.

In the morning we talked about her finances. She had money coming in: child support plus a couple of unemployment checks with more to come.

“There’s a vacancy in the place in back, right above me.”

“How much is it?”

“$105 with half of the utilities paid.”

“Oh hell, I can make that. Do they take children? A child?”

“They will. I’ve got pull. I know the managers.”

By Sunday she was moved in. She was right above me. She could look into my kitchen where I typed my things on the breakfast nook table.

That Tuesday night we were sitting at my place drinking; Tammie, me and her brother, Jay. The phone rang. It was Bobby. “Louie and his wife are down here and she’d like to meet you.” Louie was the one who had just vacated Tammie’s place. He played in jazz groups at small clubs and wasn’t having much luck.

But he was an interesting sort.

“I’d rather just forget it, Bobby.”

“Louie will be hurt if you don’t come down here.”

“O.K., Bobby, but I’m bringing a couple of friends.”

We went down and the introductions went around. Then Bobby brought out some of his bargain beer. There was stereo music going, and it was loud.

“I read your story in Knight,” said Louie. “It was a strange one. You’ve never fucked a dead woman, have you?”

“It just seemed like some of them were dead.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I hate that music,” said Tammie.

“How is the music going, Louie?”

“Well, I’ve got a new group now. If we can hang together long enough we might make it.”

“I think I’ll suck somebody off,” said Tammie, “I think I’ll suck off Bobby, I think I’ll suck off Louie, I think I’ll suck off my brother!”

Tammie was dressed in a long outfit that looked something like an evening dress and something like a nightgown.

Valerie, Bobby’s wife, was at work. She worked two nights a week as a barmaid. Louie and his wife, Paula, and Bobby had been drinking for some time.

Louie took a gulp of the bargain beer, started to get sick, jumped up and ran out the front door. Tammie jumped up and ran out the door after him. After a bit they both walked in together.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Louie said to Paula.

“All right,” she said.

They got up and left together.

Bobby got out some more beer. Jay and I talked about something. Then I heard Bobby:

“Don’t blame me! Hey, man, don’t blame me!”

I looked. Tammie had her head in Bobby’s lap and she had her hand on his balls and then she moved it up and grabbed his cock and held his cock, and all the time her eyes looked directly at me.

I took a hit of my beer, put it down, got up and walked out.

I saw Bobby out front the next day when I went to buy a newspaper. “Louie phoned,” he said, “he told me what happened to him.”

“Yeah?”

“He ran outside to vomit and Tammie grabbed his cock while he was vomiting and she said, ‘Come on upstairs and I’ll suck you off. Then we’ll stick your dick in an Easter egg.’ He told her ‘No’

and she said, ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you a man? Can’t you hold your liquor? Come upstairs and I’ll suck you off!’”

I went down to the corner and bought the newspaper. I came back and checked the race results, read about the knifings, the rapes, the murders.

There was a knock. I opened the door. It was Tammie. She came in and sat down.

“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry if I hurt you acting like I did, but that’s all I’m sorry for. The rest of it is just me.”

“That’s all right,” I said, “but you hurt Paula too when you ran out the door after Louie. They’re together, you know.”

“SHIT!” she screamed at me, “I DON’T KNOW PAULA FROM ADAM!”

That night I took Tammie to the harness races. We went upstairs to the second deck and sat down. I brought her a program and she stared at it a while. (At the harness races, past performance charts are printed in the program.)

“Look,” she said, “I’m on pills. And when I’m on pills I sometimes get spaced and I get lost. Keep your eye on me.”

“All right. I’ve got to bet. You want a few bucks to bet with?”

“No.”

“All right, I’ll be right back.”

I walked to the windows and bet 5 win on the 7 horse.

When I got back Tammie wasn’t there. She’s just gone to the ladies’ room, I thought.

I sat and watched the race. The 7 horse came in at 5 to one. I was 25 bucks up.

Tammie still wasn’t back. The horses came out for the next race. I decided not to bet. I decided to look for Tammie.

First I walked to the upper deck and checked the grandstand, all the aisles, the concession stands, the bar. I couldn’t find her.

The second race started and they went around. I heard the players screaming during the stretch run as I walked down to the ground floor. I looked all round for that marvelous body and that red hair. I couldn’t find her.

I walked down to Emergency First Aid. A man was sitting in there smoking a cigar. I asked him, “Do you have a young redhead in there? Maybe she fainted … she’s been sick.”

“I don’t have any redheads in here, sir.”

My feet were tired. I went back to the second deck and began thinking about the next race.

By the end of the eighth race I was $132 ahead. I was going to bet 50 win on the 4 horse in the last race. I got up to bet and then I saw Tammie standing in the doorway of a maintenance room. She was standing between a black janitor with a broom and another black man who was very well dressed. He looked like a movie pimp. Tammie grinned and waved at me.

I walked over. “I was looking for you. I thought maybe you’d o.d.’d.”

“No, I’m all right, I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s good. Goodnight, Red… .”

I walked off toward the betting window. I heard her running behind me. “Hey, where the hell you going?”

“I want to get it down on the 4 horse.”

I got it down. The 4 lost by a nose. The races were over. Tammie and I walked out to the parking lot together. Her hip bounced against me as we walked.

“You had me worried,” I said.

We found the car and got in. Tammie smoked 6 or 7 cigarettes on the way back, smoking them part way, then bending them out in the ashtray. She turned on the radio. She turned the sound up and down, changed stations and snapped her fingers to the music.

When we got to the court she ran to her place and locked the door.

Bobby’s wife worked two nights a week and when she was gone he got on the telephone. I knew that on Tuesday and Thursday nights he would be lonely.

It was Tuesday night when the phone rang. It was Bobby. “Hey, man, mind if I come down and have a few beers?”

“All right, Bobby.”

I was sitting in a chair across from Tammie who was on the couch. Bobby came in and sat on the couch. I opened him a beer. Bobby sat and talked to Tammie. The conversation was so inane that I tuned out. But some of it seeped through.

“In the morning,” Bobby said, “I take a cold shower. It really wakes me up.”

“I take a cold shower in the morning too,” said Tammie.

“I take a cold shower and then I towel myself off,” Bobby continued, “then I read a magazine or something. Then I’m ready for the day.”

“I just take a cold shower, but I don’t wipe myself off,” said Tammie, “I just let the little drops stay there.”

Bobby said, “Sometimes I take a real hot bath. The water’s so hot that I’ve got to slip in real slow.”

Then Bobby got up and demonstrated how he slipped into his real hot bath.

The conversation moved on to movies and television programs. They both seemed to love movies and television programs.

They talked for 2 or 3 hours, nonstop.

Then Bobby got up. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, please don’t go, Bobby,” said Tammie.

“No, I’ve got to go.”

Valerie was due home from work.

On Thursday night Bobby phoned again. “Hey, man, what are you doing?”

“Not much.”

“Mind if I come down and have a few beers?”

“I’d rather not have any visitors tonight.”

“Oh, come on, man, I’ll just stay for a few beers… .”

“No, I’d rather not.”

“WELL, FUCK YOU THEN!” he screamed.

I hung up and went into the other room.

“Who was that?” Tammie asked.

“Just somebody who wanted to come by.”

“That was Bobby, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You treat him mean. He gets lonely when his wife is at work. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Tammie jumped up and ran into the bedroom and started dialing. I had just bought her a fifth of champagne. She hadn’t opened it. I took it and hid it in the broom closet.

“Bobby,” she said over the phone, “this is Tammie. Did you just phone? Where’s your wife? Listen, I’ll be right down.”

She hung up and came out of the bedroom. “Where’s the champagne?”

“Fuck off,” I said, “you’re not taking it down there and drinking it with him.”

“I want that champagne. Where is it?”

“Let him furnish his own.”

Tammie picked up a pack of cigarettes from the coffee table and ran out the door.

I got out the champagne, uncorked it and poured myself a glass. I was no longer writing love poems. In fact, I wasn’t writing at all. I didn’t feel like writing.

The champagne went down easy. I drank glass after glass.

Then I took my shoes off and walked down to Bobby’s place. I looked through the blinds. They were sitting very close together on the couch, talking.

I walked back. I finished the last of the champagne and started in on the beer.

The phone rang. It was Bobby. “Look,” he said, “Why don’t you come down and have a beer with Tammie and me?”

I hung up.

I drank some more beer and smoked a couple of cheap cigars. I got drunker and drunker. I walked down to Bobby’s apartment. I knocked. He opened the door.

Tammie was down at the end of the couch snorting coke, using a McDonald’s spoon. Bobby put a beer in my hand.

“The trouble,” he told me, “is that you’re insecure, you lack confidence in yourself.”

I sucked at the beer.

“That’s right, Bobby’s right,” said Tammy.

“Something hurts inside of me.”

“You’re just insecure,” said Bobby, “it’s quite simple.”

I had two phone numbers for Joanna Dover. I tried the one in Galveston. She answered. “It’s me, Henry.” “You sound drunk.” “I am. I want to come see you.” “When?” “Tomorrow.” “All right.”

“Will you meet me at the airport?” “Sure, baby.” “I’ll get a flight and call you back.”

I got flight 707, leaving L. A. International the next day at 12:15 pm. I relayed the information to Joanna Dover. She said she’d be there.

The phone rang. It was Lydia.

“I thought I’d tell you,” she said, “that I sold the house. I’m moving to Phoenix. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

“All right, Lydia. Good luck.”

“I had a miscarriage. I almost died, it was awful. I lost so much blood. I didn’t want to bother you about it.”

“Are you all right now?”

“I’m all right. I just want to get out of this town, I’m sick of this town.”

We said goodbye.

I opened another beer. The front door opened and Tammie walked in. She walked in wild circles, looking at me.

“Did Valerie get home?” I asked. “Did you cure Bobby’s loneliness?”

Tammie just kept circling around. She looked very good in her long gown, whether she had been fucked or not.

“Get out of here,” I said.

She made one more circle, ran out the door and up to her place.

I couldn’t sleep. Luckily, I had some more beer. I kept drinking beer and finished the last bottle about 4:30 am. I sat and waited until 6 am, then went out and got some more.

Time went slowly. I walked around. I didn’t feel good but I started singing songs. I sang songs and walked around—from bathroom to bedroom to the front room to the kitchen and back, singing songs.

I looked at the clock. 11:15 am. The airport was an hour away. I was dressed. I had on shoes but no stockings. All I took was a pair of reading glasses which I stuffed into my shirt pocket. I ran out the door without baggage.

The Volks was in front. I got in. The sunlight was very bright. I put my head down on the steering wheel a moment. I heard a voice from the court, “Where the hell does he think he’s going like that?”

I started the car, turned the radio on and drove off. I had trouble steering. My car kept pulling across the double yellow line and into the oncoming traffic. They honked and I pulled back.

I got to the airport. I had 15 minutes left. I had run red lights, stop signs, had exceeded the speed limit, grossly, all the way. I had 14 minutes. The parking lot was full. I couldn’t find a space. Then I saw a place in front of an elevator, just large enough for a Volks. A sign read, NO PARKING. I parked. As I locked the car my reading glasses fell out of my pocket and broke on the pavement.

I ran down the stairway and across the street to the airline reservations desk. It was hot. The sweat rolled off me. “Reservation for Henry Chinaski. …” The clerk wrote out the ticket and I paid cash. “By the way,” said the clerk, “I’ve read your books.”

I ran up to security. The buzzer went off. Too much change, 7 keys and my pocketknife. I put them on the plate and walked through again.

Five minutes. Gate 42.

Everyone had boarded. I walked on. Three minutes. I found my seat, strapped in. The flight captain was talking over the intercom.

We taxied down the runway, we were in the air. We swung out over the ocean and made the big turn.

I was the last one off the plane and there was Joanna Dover.

“My god!” she laughed. “You look awful!”

“Joanna, let’s have a Bloody Mary while we wait for my baggage. Oh hell, I don’t have any baggage. But let’s have a Bloody Mary anyhow.”

We walked into the bar and sat down.

“You’ll never make Paris this way.”

“I’m not crazy about the French. Born in Germany, you know.”

“I hope you’ll like my place. It’s simple. Two floors and plenty of space.”

“As long as we’re in the same bed.”

“I’ve got paints.”

“Paints?”

“I mean, you can paint if you want.”

“Shit, but thanks, anyhow. Did I interrupt anything?”

“No. There was a garage mechanic. But he petered out. He couldn’t stand the pace.”

“Be kind to me, Joanna, sucking and fucking aren’t everything.”

“That’s why I got the paints. For when you’re resting.”

“You are a lot of woman, even forgetting the 6 feet.”

“Christ, don’t I know it.”

I liked her place. There were screens on every window and door. The windows swung open, large windows. There were no rugs on the floors, two bathrooms, old furniture, and lots of tables everywhere, large and small. It was simple and convenient.

“Take a shower,” said Joanna.

I laughed. “These are all the clothes I have, what I’m wearing.”

“We’ll get you some more tomorrow. After you have your shower we’ll go out and get a nice seafood meal. I know a good place.”

“They serve drinks?”

“You asshole.”

I didn’t take a shower. I took a bath.

We drove quite a distance. I had never realized that Galveston was an island.

“The dope runners are hijacking the shrimp boats these days. They kill everybody on board and then run the stuffin. That’s one reason the price of shrimp is going up—it’s become a hazardous occupation. How’s your occupation going?”

“I haven’t been writing. I think it’s over for me.”

“How long has it been?”

“Six or seven days.”

“This is the place. …”

Joanna pulled into a parking lot. She drove very fast, but she didn’t drive fast as if she meant to break the law. She drove fast as if it were her given right. There was a difference and I appreciated it.

We got a table away from the crowd. It was cool and quiet and dark in there. I liked it. I went for the lobster. Joanna went for something strange. She ordered it in French. She was sophisticated, traveled. In a sense, as much as I disliked it, education helped when you were looking at a menu or for a job, especially when you were looking at a menu. I always felt inferior to waiters. I had arrived too late and with too little. The waiters all read Truman Capote. I read the race results.

The dinner was good and out on the gulf were the shrimp boats, the patrol boats and the pirates. The lobster tasted good in my mouth, and I drank him down with fine wine. Good fellow. I always liked you in your pink-red shell, dangerous and slow.

Back at Joanna Dover’s place we had a delicious bottle of red wine. We sat in the dark watching the few cars pass in the street below. We were quiet. Then Joanna spoke.

“Hank?”

“Yes?”

“Was it some woman who drove you here?”

“Yes.”

“Is it over with her?”

“I’d like to think so. But if I said ‘no’ …”

“Then you don’t know?”

“Not really.”

“Does anybody ever know?”

“I don’t think so.” “That’s what makes it all stink so.” “It does stink.” “Let’s fuck.” “I’ve drunk too much.” “Let’s go to bed.” “I want to drink some more.” “You won’t be able to …”

“I know. I hope you’ll let me stay four or five days.” “It will depend on your performance,” she said. “That’s fair enough.”

By the time we finished the wine I could barely make it to bed. I was asleep by the time Joanna came out of the bathroom… .

Upon awakening I got up and used Joanna’s toothbrush, drank a couple of glasses of water, washed my hands and face and got back into bed. Joanna turned around and my mouth found hers. My cock began to rise. I put her hand on my cock. I grabbed her hair, pulling her head back, kissing her, savagely. I played with her cunt. I teased her clit for a long time. She was very wet. I mounted and buried it. I held it in. I could feel her responding. I was able to work a long time. Finally I was unable to hold back any longer. I was wet with sweat and my heart beat so loudly that I could hear it.

“I’m not in very good shape,” I told her.

“I liked it. Let’s have a joint.”

She produced a joint, already rolled. We passed it back and forth. “Joanna,” I told her, “I’m still sleepy. I could use another hour.”

“Sure. As soon as we finish this joint.”

We finished the joint and stretched out in bed again. I slept.

That evening after dinner Joanna produced some mescaline.

“You ever tried this stuff?”

“No.”

“Want to try some?”

“All right.”

Joanna had some paints and brushes and paper spread on the table. Then I remembered she was an art collector. And that she had bought some of my paintings. We had been drinking Heine-kens most of the evening, but were still sober.

“This is very powerful stuff.”

“What does it do?”

“It gives you a strange kind of high. You might get sick. When you vomit you get higher but I prefer not to vomit so we take a little baking soda along with it. I guess the main thing about mescaline is that it makes you feel terror.”

“I’ve felt that without any help at all.”

I began painting. Joanna turned the stereo on. It was very strange music, but I liked it. I looked around and Joanna was gone. I didn’t care. I painted a man who had just committed suicide, he had hung himself from the rafters with a rope. I used many yellows, the dead man was so bright and pretty. Then something said, “Hank …”

It was right behind me. I leaped out of my chair, “JESUS CHRIST! OH, JESUS SHIT CHRIST!”

Tiny icy bubbles ran from my wrists to my shoulders and down my back. I shivered and trembled. I looked around. Joanna was standing there.

“Never do that to me again,” I told her. “Never sneak up on me like that or I’ll kill you!”

“Hank, I just went to get some cigarettes.”

“Look at this painting.”

“Oh, it’s great,” she said, “I really love it!”

“It’s the mescaline, I guess.”

“Yes, it is.”

“All right, give me a smoke, lady.”

Joanna laughed and lit us up two.

I began painting again. This time I really did it: A huge, green wolf fucking a redhead, her red hair flowing back while the green wolf slammed it to her through lifted legs. She was helpless and submissive. The wolf sawed away and overhead the night burned, it was outdoors, and long-armed stars and the moon watched them. It was hot, hot, and full of color.

“Hank …”

I leaped up. And turned. It was Joanna behind me. I got her by the throat. “I told you, goddamn you, not to sneak up …”

I stayed five days and nights. Then I couldn’t get it up any more. Joanna drove me to the airport. She had bought me a new piece of luggage and some new clothing. I hated that Dallas-Fort Worth airport. It was the most inhuman airport in the U.S. Joanna waved me off and I was in the air… .

The trip to Los Angeles was without incident. I disembarked, wondering about the Volks. I took the elevator up in the parking area and didn’t see it. I figured it must have been towed away. Then I walked around to the other side—and there it was. All I had was a parking ticket.

I drove home. The apartment looked the way it always had— bottles and trash everywhere. I’d have to clean it up a bit. If anybody saw it that way they’d have me committed.

There was a knock. I opened the door. It was Tammie. “Hi!” she said.

“Hello.”

“You must have been in an awful hurry when you left. All the doors were unlocked. The back door was wide open. Listen, promise you won’t tell if I tell you something?”

“All right.”

“Arlene went in and used your phone, long distance.”

“All right.”

“I tried to stop her but I couldn’t. She was on pills.”

“All right.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Galveston.”

“Why did you go flying off like that? You’re crazy.”

“I’ve got to leave again Saturday.”

“Saturday? What’s today?”

“Thursday.”

“Where are you going?”

“New York City.”

“Why?”

“A reading. They sent the tickets two weeks ago. And I get a percentage of the gate.”

“Oh, take me with you! I’ll leave Dancy with Mother. I want to go!”

“I can’t afford to take you. It’ll eat up my profits. I’ve had some heavy expenses lately.”

“I’ll be good! I’ll be so good! I’ll never leave your side! I really missed you.”

“I can’t do it, Tammie.”

She went to the refrigerator and got a beer. “You just don’t give a fuck. All those love poems, you didn’t mean it.”

“I meant it when I wrote them.”

The phone rang. It was my editor. “Where’ve you been?”

“Galveston. Research.”

“I hear you’re reading in New York City this Saturday.”

“Yes, Tammie wants to go, my girl.”

“Are you taking her?”

“No, I can’t afford it.”

“How much is it?”

“$316 round trip.”

“Do you really want to take her?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“All right, go ahead. I’ll mail you a check.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what to say. …”

“Forget it. Just remember Dylan Thomas.”

“They won’t kill me.”

We said goodbye. Tammie was sucking on her beer.

“All right,” I told her, “you’ve got two or three days to pack.”

“You mean, I’m going?”

“Yes, my editor is paying your way.”

Tammie leaped up and grabbed me. She kissed me, grabbed my balls, pulled at my cock. “You’re the sweetest old fuck!”

New York City. Outside of Dallas, Houston, Charleston, and Atlanta, it was the worst place I had ever been. Tammie pushed up against me and my cock rose. Joanna Dover hadn’t gotten it all… .

We had a 3:30 pm flight out of Los Angeles that Saturday. At 2 pm I went up and knocked on Tammie’s door. She wasn’t there. I want back to my place and sat down. The phone rang. It was Tammie. “Look,” I said, “we have to think about leaving. I have people meeting me at Kennedy airport. Where are you?”

“I’m $6 short on a prescription. I’m getting some Quaaludes.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m just below Santa Monica Boulevard and Western, about a block. It’s an Owl drugstore. You can’t miss it.”

I hung up, got into the Volks and drove over. I parked a block below Santa Monica and Western, got out and looked around. There was no pharmacy.

I got back in the Volks and drove along looking for her red Camaro. Then I saw it, five blocks further down. I parked and walked in. Tammie was sitting in a chair. Dancy ran up and made a face at me.

“We can’t take the kid.”

“I know. We’ll drop her off over at my mother’s.”

“Your mother’s? That’s 3 miles the other way.”

“It’s on the way to the airport.”

“No, it’s in the other direction.”

“Do you have the 6 bucks?”

I gave Tammie the six.

“I’ll see you back at your place. You packed?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

I drove back and waited. Then I heard them.

“Mommy!” Dancy said, “I want a Ding-Dong!”

They went up the stairs. I waited for them to come down. They didn’t come down. I went up. Tammie was packed, but she was down on her knees zipping and unzipping her baggage.

“Look,” I said, “I’ll carry your other stuff down to the car.”

She had two large paper shopping bags, stuffed, and three dresses on hangers. All this besides her luggage.

I took the shopping bags and the dresses down to the Volks. When I came back she was still zipping and unzipping her luggage.

“Tammie, let’s go.”

“Wait a minute.”

She knelt there running the zipper back and forth, up and down. She didn’t look into the baggage. She just ran the zipper up and down.

“Mommy,” said Dancy, “I want a Ding-Dong.”

“Come on, Tammie, let’s go.”

“Oh, all right.”

I picked up the zipper bag and they followed me out.

I followed her battered red Camaro to her mother’s place. We went in. Tammie stood at her mother’s dresser and started pulling drawers out, in and out. Each time she pulled a drawer out she reached in and mixed everything up. Then she’d slam the drawer and go to the next. Same thing.

“Tammie, the plane is ready to take off.”

“Oh no, we’ve got plenty of time. I hate hanging around airports.”

“What are you going to do about Dancy?”

“I’m going to leave her here until Mother gets home from work.”

Dancy let out a wail. Finally she knew, and she wailed, and the tears ran, and then she stopped, balled her fists and screamed, “I WANT A DING-DONG!”

“Listen, Tammie, I’ll be waiting in the car.”

I went out and waited. I waited five minutes then went back in. Tammie was still sliding the drawers in and out.

“Please, Tammie, let’s leave!”

“All right.”

She turned to Dancy. “Look, you stay here until Grandma gets home. Keep the door locked and don’t Jet anybody in but Grandma!”

Dancy wailed again. Then she screamed, “I HATE YOU!”

Tammie followed me and we got into the Volks. I started the engine. She opened the door and was gone. “I HAVE TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF MY CAR!”

Tammie ran over to the Camaro. “Oh shit, I locked it and I don’t have the key for the door! Do you have a coat hanger?”

“No,” I screamed, “I don’t have a coat hanger!”

“Be right back!”

Tammie ran back to her mother’s apartment. I heard the door open. Dancy wailed and shouted. Then I heard the door slam and Tammie returned with a coat hanger. She went to the Camaro and jimmied the door.

I walked over to her car. Tammie had climbed into the back seat and was going through that incredible mess—clothing, paper bags, paper cups, newspapers, beer bottles, empty cartons—piled in there. Then she found it: her camera, the Polaroid I had given her for her birthday.

As I drove along, racing the Volks like I was out to win the 500, Tammie leaned over.

“You really love me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“When we get to New York I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before!”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

She grabbed my cock and leaned against me.

My first and only redhead. I was lucky… .

We ran up the long ramp. I was carrying her dresses and the shopping bags.

At the escalator Tammie saw the flight insurance machine.

“Please,” I said, “we only have five minutes until take-off.”

“I want Dancy to have the money.”

“All right.”

“Do you have two quarters?”

I gave her two quarters. She inserted them and a card jumped out of the machine.

“You got a pen?”

Tammie filled out the card and then there was an envelope. She put the card in the envelope. Then she tried to insert it in the slot in the machine.

“This thing won’t go in!”

“We’re going to miss the plane.”

She kept trying to jam the envelope in the slot. She couldn’t get it in.

She stood there and kept jamming the envelope at the slot. Now the envelope was completely bent in half and all the edges were bent.

“I’m going mad,” I told her. “I can’t stand it.”

She jammed a few more times. It wouldn’t go. She looked at me. “O.K., let’s go.”

We went up the escalator with her dresses and shopping bags.

We found the boarding gate. We got two seats near the back. We strapped in. “You see,” she said, “I told you we had plenty of time.”

I looked at my watch. The plane started to roll… .

We were in the air twenty minutes when she took a mirror out of her purse and began to make up her face, mostly the eyes. She worked at her eyes with a small brush, concentrating on the eyelashes. While she was doing this she opened her eyes very wide and she held her mouth open. I watched her and began to get a hard-on.

Her mouth was so very full and round and open and she kept working on her eyelashes. I ordered two drinks.

Tammie stopped to drink, then she continued.

A young fellow in the seat to the right of us began playing with himself. Tammie kept looking at her face in the mirror, holding her mouth open. It looked like she could really suck with that mouth.

She continued for an hour. Then she put the mirror and the brush away, leaned against me and went to sleep.

There was a woman in the seat to our left. She was in her mid-forties. Tammie was sleeping next to me.

The woman looked at me.

“How old is she?” she asked me.

It was suddenly very quiet on that jet. Everyone nearby was listening.

“23.”

“She looks 17.”

“She’s 23.”

“She spends two hours making up her face and then goes to sleep.”

“It was about an hour.”

“Are you going to New York?” the lady asked me.

“Yes.”

“Is she your daughter?”

“No, I’m not her father or her grandfather. I’m not related to her in any way. She’s my girlfriend and we’re going to New York.” I could see the headline in her eyes:

MONSTER FROM EAST HOLLYWOOD DRUGS 17 YEAR OLD GIRL, TAKES HER TO NEW YORK CITY WHERE HE SEXUALLY ABUSES HER, THEN SELLS HER BODY TO NUMEROUS BUMS

The lady questioner gave up. She stretched back in her seat and closed her eyes. Her head slipped down toward me. It was almost in my lap, it seemed. Holding Tammie, I watched that head. I wondered if she would mind if I crushed her lips with a crazy kiss. I got another hard-on.

We were ready to land. Tammie seemed very limp. It worried me. I strapped her in.

“Tammie, it’s New York City! We’re getting ready to land!

Tammie, wake up!”

No response.

An o.d.?

I felt her pulse. I couldn’t feel anything.

I looked at her enormous breasts. I watched for some sign of breathing. They didn’t move. I got up and found a stewardess.

“Please take your seat, sir. We are preparing to land.”

“Look, I’m worried. My girlfriend won’t wake up.”

“Do you think she’s dead?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

“All right, sir. As soon as we land I’ll come back there.”

The plane was starting to drop. I went into the crapper and wet some paper towels. I came back, sat next to Tammie and rubbed them over her face. All that makeup, wasted. Tammie didn’t respond.

“You whore, wake up!”

I ran the towels down between her breasts. Nothing. No movement. I gave up.

I’d have to ship her body back somehow. I’d have to explain to her mother. Her mother would hate me.

We landed. The people got up and stood in line, waiting to get out. I sat there. I shook Tammie and pinched her. “It’s New York City, Red. The rotten apple. Come around. Cut out the shit.”

The stewardess came back and shook Tammie.

“Honey, what’s the matter?”

Tammie started responding. She moved. Then her eyes opened. It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one’s self, like a fingernail.

Tammie got out her mirror and started combing her hair. The stewardess was patting her shoulder. I got up and got the dresses out of the overhead compartment. The shopping bags were up there too. Tammie continued to look into the mirror and comb her hair.

“Tammie, we’re in New York. Let’s get off.”

She moved quickly. I had the two shopping bags and the dresses. She went through the exit wiggling the cheeks of her ass. I followed her.

Our man was there to meet us, Gary Benson. He also wrote poetry and drove a cab. He was very fat but at least he didn’t look like a poet, he didn’t look North Beach or East Village or like an English teacher, and that helped because it was very hot in New York that day, nearly 110 degrees. We got the baggage and got into his car, not his cab, and he explained to us why it was almost useless to own a car in New York City. That’s why there were so many cabs. He got us out of the airport and he started driving and talking, and the drivers of New York City were just like New York City—nobody gave an inch or a damn. There was no compassion or courtesy: fender jammed against fender, they drove on. I understood it: anybody who gave an inch would cause a traffic jam, a disturbance, a murder. Traffic flowed endlessly like turds in a sewer. It was marvelous to see, and none of the drivers were angry, they were simply resigned to the facts.

But Gary did like to talk shop. “If it’s O.K. with you I’d like to tape you for a radio show, I’d like to do an interview.”

“All right, Gary, let’s say tomorrow after the reading.”

“I’m going to take you to see the poetry coordinator now. He has everything organized. He’ll show you where you’re staying and so forth. His name is Marshall Benchly and don’t tell him I told you but I hate his guts.”

We drove along and then we saw Marshall Benchly standing in front of a brownstone. There was no parking. He leaped in the car and Gary drove off. Benchly looked like a poet, a private-income poet who had never worked for a living; it showed. He was affected and bland, a pebble.

“We’ll take you to your place,” he said.

He proudly recited a long list of people who had stayed at my hotel. Some of the names I recognized, others I didn’t.

Gary drove into the unloading zone in front of the Chelsea Hotel. We got out. Gary said, “See you at the reading. And see you tomorrow.”

Marshall took us inside and we went up to the desk clerk. The Chelsea certainly wasn’t much, maybe that’s where it got its charm.

Marshall turned and handed me the key. “It’s Room 1010, Janis

Joplin’s old room.”

“Thanks.”

“Many great artists have stayed in 1010.”

He walked us over to the tiny elevator.

“The reading’s at 8. I’ll pick you up at 7:30. We’ve been sold out for two weeks. We’re selling some standing-room tickets but we’ve got to be careful because of the fire department.”

“Marshall, where’s the nearest liquor store?”

“Downstairs and take a right.”

We said goodbye to Marshall and took the elevator up.

It was hot that night at the reading, which was to be held at St. Mark’s Church. Tammie and I sat in what was used as the dressing room. Tammie found a full-length mirror leaning against the wall and began combing her hair. Marshall took me out in back of the church. They had a burial ground back there. Little cement tombstones sat on the earth and carved on the tombstones were inscriptions. Marshall walked me around and showed me the inscriptions. I always got nervous before a reading, very tense and unhappy. I almost always vomited. Then I did. I vomited on one of the graves.

“You just vomited on Peter Stuyvesant,” Marshall said.

I walked back into the dressing room. Tammie was still looking at herself in the mirror. She looked at her face and her body, but mostly she was worried about her hair. She piled it on top of her head, looked at it that way and then let it fall back down.

Marshall put his head into the room. “Come on, they’re waiting!”

“Tammie’s not ready,” I told him.

Then she piled her hair up on top of her head again and looked at herself. Then she let it fall. Then she stood close to the mirror and looked at her eyes.

Marshall knocked, then came in. “Come on, Chinaski!”

“Come on, Tammie, let’s go.”

“All right.”

I walked out with Tammie at my elbow. They started applauding. The old Chinaski bullshit was working. Tammie went down into the crowd and I started to read. I had many beers in an ice bucket. I had old poems and new poems. I couldn’t miss. I had St. Mark’s by the cross.

We got back to 1010. I had my check. I’d left word that we didn’t want to be disturbed. Tammie and I sat drinking. I’d read 5 or 6 love poems about her.

“They knew who I was,” she said. “Sometimes I giggled. It was embarassing.”

They had known who she was all right. She glistened with sex. Even the roaches and the ants and the flies wanted to fuck her.

There was a knock on the door. Two people had slipped through, a poet and his woman. The poet was Morse Jenkins from Vermont. His woman was Sadie Everet. He had four bottles of beer.

He wore sandals and old torn bluejeans; turquoise bracelets; a chain around his throat; he had a beard, long hair; orange blouse. He talked, and he talked. And walked around the room.

There is a problem with writers. If what a writer wrote was published and sold many, many copies, the writer thought he was great. If what a writer wrote was published and sold a medium number of copies, the writer thought he was great. If what a writer wrote was published and sold very few copies, the writer thought he was great. If what the writer wrote never was published and he didn’t have the money to publish it himself, then he thought he was truly great. The truth, howevet, was that there was very little greatness. It was almost nonexistent, invisible. But you could be sure that the worst writers had the most confidence, the least self-doubt. Anyway, writers were to be avoided, and I tried to avoid them, but it was almost impossible. They hoped for some sort of brotherhood, some kind of togetherness. None of it had anything to do with writing, none of it helped at the typewriter.

“I sparred with Clay before he became Ali,” said Morse. Morse jabbed and shuffled, danced. “He was pretty good, but I gave him a workout.”

Morse shadow-boxed about the room.

“Look at my legs!” he said. “I’ve got great legs!”

“Hank’s got better legs than you have,” said Tammie.

Being a leg-man, I nodded.

Morse sat down. He pointed a beer bottle at Sadie. “She works as a nurse. She supports me. But I’m going to make it someday. They’ll hear from me!”

Morse would never need a mike at his readings.

He looked at me. “Chinaski, you’re one of the two or three best living poets. You’re really making it. You write a tough line. But I’m coming on too! Let me read you my shit. Sadie, hand me my poems.”

“No,” I said, “wait! I don’t want to hear them.”

“Why not, man? Why not?”

“There’s been too much poetry tonight, Morse. I just want to lay back and forget it.”

“Well, all right… . Listen, you never answer my letters.”

“I’m not a snob, Morse. But I get 75 letters a month. If I answered them that’s all I would ever do.”

“I’ll bet you answer the women!”

“That depends. …”

“All right, man, I’m not bitter. I still like your stuff. Maybe I’ll never be famous but I think I will and I think you’ll be glad you met me. Come on, Sadie, let’s go… .”

I walked them to the door. Morse grabbed my hand. He didn’t pump it, and neither of us quite looked at the other. “You’re a good old guy,” he said.

“Thanks, Morse. …”

And then they were gone.

The next morning Tammie found a prescription in her purse. “I’ve got to get this filled,” she said. “Look at it.” It was wrinkled and the ink had run.

“What happened here?”

“Well, you know my brother, he’s a pill head.”

“I know your brother. He owes me twenty bucks.”

“Well, he tried to get this prescription away from me. He tried to strangle me. I put the prescription in my mouth and swallowed it. Or I pretended to swallow it. He wasn’t sure. That was the time I phoned you and asked you to come over and kick the shit out of him. He split. But I still had the prescription in my mouth. I haven’t used it yet. But I can get it filled here. It’s worth a try.”

“All right.”

We took the elevator down to the street. It was over ioo degrees. I could hardly move. Tammie started walking and I followed along behind her as she weaved from one edge of the sidewalk to the other.

“Come on!” she said. “Keep up!”

She was on something, it appeared to be downers. She was woozy. Tammie walked up to a newsstand and began staring at a periodical. I think it was Variety. She stood there and stood there. I stood there near her. It was boring and senseless. She just stared at Variety.

“Listen, sister, either buy the damned thing or move on!” It was the man inside the newsstand.

Tammie moved on. “My god, New York is a horrible place! I just wanted to see if there was anything about the reading!”

Tammie moved along, wiggling it, wobbling from one side of the pavement to the other. In Hollywood cars would have pulled over to the curbing, blacks would have made overtures, she would have been approached, serenaded, applauded. New York was different; it was jaded and weary and it disdained flesh.

We were into a black district. They watched us walking by: the redhead with the long hair, stoned, and the old guy with gray in his beard walking behind her, wearily. I glanced at them sitting on their stoops; they had good faces. I liked them. I liked them better than I liked her.

I followed Tammie down the street. Then there was a furniture store. There was a broken down desk chair out in front on the sidewalk. Tammie walked over to the old desk chair and stood staring at it. She seemed hypnotized. She kept staring at the desk chair. She touched it with her finger. Minutes went by. Then she sat down in it.

“Look,” I told her, “I’m going back to the hotel. You do whatever you want to do.”

Tammie didn’t even look up. She slid her hands back and forth on the arm rests of the desk chair. She was in a world of her own. I turned and walked off, back to the Chelsea.

I got some beer and took the elevator up. I undressed, took a shower, propped a couple of pillows against the headboard of the bed and sucked at the beer. Readings diminished me. They were soul-sucks. I finished one beer and opened another. Readings got you a piece of ass sometimes. Rock stars got ass; boxers on the way up got ass; great bullfighters got virgins. Somehow, only the bullfighters deserved any of it.

There was a knock on the door. I got up and opened it a crack. It was Tammie. She pushed in.

“I found this dirty Jew son-of-a-bitch. He wanted $12 to fill the prescription! It’s 6 bucks on the coast. I told him I only had $6. He didn’t care. A dirty Jew living in Harlem! Can I have a beer?”

Tammie took the beer and sat in the window, one leg out, one arm out, one leg in, one holding on to the raised window.

“I want to see the Statue of Liberty. I want to see Coney Island,” she said.

I got myself a new beer.

“Oh, it’s nice out here! It’s nice and cool.”

Tammie leaned out the window, looking.

Then she screamed.

The hand that had been holding on to the window slipped. I saw most of her body go out the window. Then it came back. Somehow she had pulled herself back inside. She sat there, stunned.

“That was close,” I told her. “It would have made a good poem. I’ve lost a lot of women in a lot of ways, but that would have been a new way.”

Tammie walked over to the bed. She stretched out face down. I realized she was still stoned. Then she rolled off the bed. She landed flat on her back. She didn’t move. I walked over and picked her up and put her back on the bed. I grabbed her by the hair and kissed her viciously.

“Hey…. What’re you doin’?”

I remembered she had promised me a piece of ass. I rolled her on her stomach, pulled her dress up, pulled her panties off. I climbed on top of her and rammed, trying to find her cunt. I poked and poked. It went in. It slid further and further in. I had her good. She made small sounds. Then the phone rang. I pulled out, got up and answered it. It was Gary Benson.

“I’m coming over with my tape recorder for that radio interview.”

“When?”

“In about 45 minutes.”

I hung up and went back to Tammie. I was still hard. I grabbed her hair, gave her another violent kiss. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was lifeless. I mounted her again. Outside they were sitting on their fire escapes. When the sun started to go down and some shade appeared they came out to cool off. The people of New York City sat out there and drank beer and soda and ice water. They endured and smoked cigarettes. Just being alive was a victory. They decorated their fire escapes with plants. They made do with what there was.

I went straight for Tammie’s core. Dog fashion. Dogs knew best. I whammed away. It was good to be out of the post office. I rocked and socked her body. Despite the pills she was trying to speak. “Hank …” she said.

I came finally, then rested on her. We were both drenched with sweat. I rolled off, got up, undressed, and walked to the shower. Once again I had fucked this redhead 32 years younger than I was. It felt fine in the shower. I intended to live to be 80 so that I could then fuck an 18 year old girl. The air conditioner didn’t work, but the shower did. It felt really good. I was ready for my radio interview.

Back in L.A., there was almost a week of peace. Then the phone

rang. It was the owner of a Manhattan Beach nightclub, Marty Seavers. I had read there a couple of times before. The club was called Smack-Hi.

“Chinaski, I want you to read a week from Friday. You can pick up about $450.”

“All right.”

Rock groups played there. It was a different audience than at the colleges. They were as obnoxious as I was and we cursed one another between poems. I preferred it.

“Chinaski,” Marty said, “you think you have trouble with women. Let me tell you. The one I’ve got now has a way with windows and screens. I’ll be sleeping and she’ll appear in the bedroom at 3 or 4 am. She’ll shake me. It scares the shit out of me. She stands there and says, ‘I just wanted to make sure you were sleeping alone!’”

“Death and transfiguration.”

“The other night, I’m sitting and there’s a knock on the door. I know it’s her. I open the door and she isn’t there. It’s 11 pm and I’m in my shorts. I’ve been drinking and I’m worried. I run outside in my shorts. I had given her $400 worth of dresses for her birthday. I run outside and there are the dresses, on the roof of my new car, and they’re on fire, they’re burning! I run up to pull them off and she leaps out from behind a bush and starts screaming. The neighbors look out and there I am in my shorts, burning my hands, snatching the dresses off the roof.”

“She sounds like one of mine,” I said.

“O.K., so I figured we were through. I’m sitting here two nights later, I had to work the club that night, so I’m sitting here at 3 am drunk and in my shorts again. There’s a knock on the door. It’s her knock. I open it and she isn’t there. I go out to my car and she has more dresses soaked in gasoline and burning. She had saved some. Only this time they are burning on the hood. She leaps out from somewhere and starts screaming. The neighbors look out. There I am again in my shorts trying to get these burning dresses off the hood.”

“That’s great, I wish it had happened to me.”

“You should see my new car. It has paint blisters all over the hood and the roof.”

“Where is she now?”

“We’re back together. She’s coming over in 30 minutes. Can I put you down for the reading?”

“Sure.”

“You outdraw the rock groups. I never saw anything like it. I’d like to bring you in every Friday and Saturday night.”

“It wouldn’t work, Marty. You can play the same song over and over, but with poems they want something new.”

Marty laughed and hung up.

I took Tammie. We got there a little early and went to a bar across the street. We got a table.

“Now don’t drink too much, Hank. You know how you slur your words and miss your lines when you get too drunk.”

“At last,” I said, “you’re talking sense.”

“You’re afraid of the audience, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s not stagefright. It’s that I’m there as the geek. They like to watch me eat my shit. But it pays the light bill and takes me to the racetrack. I don’t have any excuses about why I do it.”

“I’ll have a Stinger,” said Tammie.

I told the girl to bring us a Stinger and a Bud.

“I’ll be all right tonight,” she said, “don’t worry about me.”

Tammie drank the Stinger down.

“These Stingers don’t seem to have much in them. I’ll have another.”

We had another Stinger and another Bud.

“Really,” she said, “I don’t think they’re putting anything into these drinks. I better have another.”

Tammie had five Stingers in 40 minutes.

We knocked on the back door of the Smack-Hi. One of Marty’s big bodyguards let us in. He had these malfunctioning thyroid types working for him to keep law and order when the teeny-boppers, the hairy freaks, the glue sniffers, the acid heads, the plain grass folk, the alcoholics—all the miserable, the damned, the bored and the pretenders—got out of hand.

I was getting ready to puke and I did. This time I found a trash can and let it go. The last time I had dumped it just outside Marty’s office. He was pleased with the change.

Want something to drink?” Marty asked.

“I’ll have a beer,” I said.

“I’ll have a Stinger,” said Tammie.

“Get a seat for her, put her on the tab,” I told Marty.

“All right. We’ll set her up. We’re S.R.O. We’ve had to turn away 150 and it’s 30 minutes before you go on.”

“I want to introduce Chinaski to the audience,” said Tammie.

“O.K. with you?” asked Marty.

“O.K.”

They had a kid out there with a guitar, Dinky Summers, and the crowd was disemboweling him. Eight years ago Dinky had had a gold record, but nothing since.

Marty got on an intercom and dialed out. “Listen,” he asked, “is that guy as bad as he sounds?”

You could hear a woman’s voice over the phone. “He’s terrible.”

Marty hung up.

“We want Chinaski!” they yelled.

“All right,” we could hear Dinky, “Chinaski is next.”

He started singing again. They were drunk. They hooted and hissed. Dinky sang on. He finished his act and got offstage. One could never tell. Some days it was better to stay in bed with the covers pulled up.

There was a knock. It was Dinky in his red, white and blue tennis shoes, white t-shirt, cords and brown felt hat. The hat sat perched on a mass of blonde curls. The t-shirt said, “God is Love.”

Dinky looked at us. “Was I really that bad? I want to know. Was I really that bad?”

Nobody answered.

Dinky looked at me. “Hank, was I that bad?”

“The crowd is drunk. It’s carnival time.”

“I want to know if I was bad or not?”

“Have a drink.”

“I gotta go find my girl,” Dinky said. “She’s out there alone.”

“Look,” I said, “let’s get it over with.”

“Fine,” said Marty, “go get it on.”

“I’m introducing him,” said Tammie.

I walked out with her. As we approached the stage they saw us and began screaming, cursing. Bottles fell off tables. There was a fist fight. The boys at the post office would never believe this.

Tammie went out to the mike. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “Henry Chinaski couldn’t make it tonight… .”

There was silence.

Then she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Henry Chinaski!”

I walked on. They jeered. I hadn’t done anything yet. I took the mike. “Hello, this is Henry Chinaski… .”

The place trembled with sound. I didn’t need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn’t give it to them they’d run you right into the ocean.

There was a refrigerator on stage. I opened it. There must have been 40 bottles of beer in there. I reached in and got one, twisted the cap off, took a hit. I needed that drink.

Then a man down front hollered, “Hey, Chinaski, we:’repaying for drinks!”

It was a fat guy in the front row in a mailman’s outfit.

I went into the refrigerator and took out a beer. I walked over and handed him the beer. Then I walked back, reached in, and got some more beers. I handed them to the people in the first row.

“Hey, how about us?” A voice from near the back.

I took a bottle and looped it through the air. I threw a few more back there. They were good. They caught them all. Then one slipped out of my hand and went high into the air. I heard it smash. I decided to quit. I could see a lawsuit: skull fracture.

There were 20 bottles left.

“Now, the rest of these are mine!”

“You gonna read all night?”

“I’m gonna drink all night… .”

Applause, jeers, belches… .

“YOU FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!” some guy screamed.

“Thank you, Aunt Tilly,” I answered.

I sat down, adjusted the mike, and started on the first poem. It became quiet. I was in the ring alone with the bull now. I felt some terror. But I had written the poems. I read them out. It was best to open up light, a poem of mockery. I finished it and the walls rocked. Four or five people were fighting during the applause. I was going to luck out. All I had to do was hang in there.

You couldn’t underestimate them and you couldn’t kiss their ass. There was a certain middle ground to be achieved.

I read more poems, drank the beer. I got drunker. The words were harder to read. I missed lines, dropped poems on the floor. Then I stopped and just sat there drinking.

“This is good,” I told them, “you pay to watch me drink.”

I made an effort and read them some more poems. Finally I read them a few dirty ones and wound it up.

“That’s it,” I said.

They yelled for more.

The boys at the slaughterhouse, the boys at Sears Roebuck, all the boys at all the warehouses where I worked as a kid and as a man never would have believed it.

In the office there were more drinks and several fat joints, bombers. Marty got on the intercom to find out about the gate.

Tammie stared at Marty. “I don’t like you,” she said. “I don’t like your eyes at all.”

“Don’t worry about his eyes,” I told her. “Let’s just get the money and go.”

Marty made the check out and handed it to me. “Here it is,” he said, “$200… .”

“$200!” Tammie screamed at him. “You rotten son-of-a-bitch!”

I read the check. “He’s kidding,” I told her, “calm down.”

She ignored me. “$200,” she said to Marty, “you rotten …”

“Tammie,” I said, “it’s $400… .”

“Sign the check,” said Marty, “and I’ll give you cash.”

“I got pretty drunk out there,” Tammie told me. “I asked this guy, ‘Can I lean my body against your body?’ He said, ‘O.K.’”

I signed and Marty gave me a stack of bills. I put them in my pocket.

“Look, Marty, I guess we better be leaving.”

“I hate your eyes,” Tammie said to Marty.

“Why don’t you stay and talk awhile?” Marty asked me.

“No, we’ve got to go.

Tammie stood up. “I have to go to the ladies’ restroom.”

She left.

Marty and I sat there. Ten minutes went by. Marty stood up and said, “Wait, I’ll be right back.”

I sat and waited, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. I walked out of the office and out the back door. I walked to the parking lot and sat in my Volks. Fifteen minutes went by, 20, 25.

I’ll give her 5 more minutes and then I’m leaving, I thought.

Just then Marty and Tammie walked out the back door and into the alley.

Marty pointed. “There he is.” Tammie walked over. Her clothes were all messed up and twisted. She climbed into the back seat and curled up.

I got lost 2 or 3 times on the freeway. Finally I pulled up in front of the court. I awakened Tammie. She got out, ran up the stairs to her place, and slammed the door.

It was a Wednesday night, 12:30 am and I was very sick. My stomach was raw, but I managed to hold down a few beers. Tammie was with me and she seemed sympathetic. Dancy was at her grandmother’s.

Even though I was ill it seemed, finally, to be a good time—just two people being together.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it. It was Tammie’s brother, Jay, with another young man, Filbert, a small Puerto Rican. They sat down and I gave each of them a beer.

“Let’s go to a dirty movie,” said Jay.

Filbert just sat there. He had a black carefully-trimmed mustache and his face had very little expression. He didn’t give off any rays at all. I thought of terms like blank, wooden, dead, and so forth.

“Why don’t you say something, Filbert?” Tammie asked.

He didn’t speak.

I got up, went to the kitchen sink and vomited. I came back and sat down. I had a new beer. I hated it when the beer wouldn’t stay down. I simply had been drunk too many days and nights in a row. I needed a rest. And I needed a drink. Just beer. You’d think I could hold down beer. I took a long pull.

The beer wouldn’t stay down. I went to the bathroom. Tammie knocked, “Hank, are you all right?”

I washed out my mouth and opened the door. “I’m sick, that’s all.”

“Do you want me to get rid of them?”

“Sure.”

She went back to them. “Look, fellows, why don’t we go up to my place?”

I hadn’t expected that.

Tammie had neglected to pay her electric bill, or she didn’t want to, and they sat up there by candlelight. She had taken a fifth of mixed margarita cocktails I had purchased earlier in the day up there with her.

I sat and drank alone. The next beer stayed down.

I could hear them up there, talking.

Then Tammie’s brother left. I watched him walk in the moonlight towards his car… .

Tammie and Filbert were up there alone together, by candlelight.

I sat with the lights out, drinking. An hour passed. I could see the wavering candlelight in the dark. I looked around. Tammie had left her shoes. I picked up her shoes and went up the stairway. Her door was open and I heard her talking to Filbert… . “So, anyway, what I meant was …”

She heard me walking up the stairs. “Henry, is that you?”

I threw Tammie’s shoes the remainder of the way up the stairway. They landed outside her door.

“You forgot your shoes,” I said.

“Oh, God bless you,” she said.

About 10:30 the next morning Tammie knocked on the door. I opened it. “You rotten goddamned bitch.” “Stop talking that way,” she said. “Want a beer?”

“All right.”

She sat down. “Well, we drank the bottle of margaritas. Then my brother left. Filbert was very nice. He just sat and didn’t talk much. ‘How are you going to get home?’ I asked him. ‘Do you have a car?’ And he said he didn’t. He just sat there looking at me and I said, ‘Well, I have a car, I’ll drive you home.’ So I drove him home. Anyhow, since I was there I went to bed with him. I was pretty drunk, but he didn’t touch me. He said he had to go to work in the morning.” Tammie laughed. “Sometime during the night he tried to approach me. I put the pillow over my head and just started giggling. I kept the pillow there and giggled. He gave up. After he left for work I drove over to my mother’s and took Dancy to school. And now here I am… .”

The next day Tammie was on uppers. She kept running in and out of my place. Finally she told me, “I’ll be back tonight. I’ll see you tonight!”

“Forget tonight.”

“What’s wrong with you? Plenty of men would be happy to see me tonight.”

Tammie slammed out of the door. There was a pregnant cat sleeping on my porch.

“Get the hell out of here, Red!”

I picked up the pregnant cat and threw it at her. I missed by a foot and the cat dropped into a nearby bush.

The following night Tammie was on speed. I was drunk. Tammie and Dancy screamed at me from the window above.

“Go eat jerk-off, ya jerk!”

“Yeah, go eat jerk-off, you jerk! HAHAHA!”

“Ah, balloons!” I answered, “your mother’s big balloons!”

“Go eat rat droppings, ya jerk!”

“You jerk, you jerk, you jerk! HAHAHA!”

“Fruit fly brains,” I answered, “suck the cotton out of my navel!”

“You …” began Tammie.

Suddenly there were several pistol shots nearby, either in the street or in the back of the court or behind the apartment next door. Very near. It was a poor neighborhood with lots of prostitution and drugs and occasionally a murder.

Dancy started screaming out the window: “HANK! HANK! COME UP HERE, HANK! HANK, HANK, HANK! HURRY, HANK!”

I ran up. Tammie was stretched out on the bed, all that glorious red hair flared out on the pillow. She saw me.

“I’ve been shot,” she said weakly. “I’ve been shot.”

She pointed to a spot on her bluejeans. She was not joking anymore. She was terrified.

There was a red stain, but it was dry. Tammie liked to use my paints. I reached down and touched the dry stain. She was all right, except for the pills.

“Listen,” I told her, “you’re all right, don’t worry. …”

As I walked out the door Bobby came pounding up the stairs. “Tammie, Tammie, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”

Bobby evidently had had to get dressed, which explained the time lag.

As he bounced past me I told him quickly, “Jesus Christ, man, you’re always in my life.”

He ran into Tammie’s apartment followed by the guy next door, a used car salesman and a certified nut.

Tammie came down a few days later with an envelope.

“Hank, the manager just served me with an eviction notice.”

She showed it to me.

I read it carefully. “It looks like they mean it,” I said.

“I told her I’d pay the back rent but she said, ‘We want you out of here, Tammie!’”

“You can’t let the rent go too long.”

“Listen, I have the money. I just don’t like to pay.”

Tammie was completely contrary in her ways. Her car wasn’t registered, the license plate tabs had long ago expired, and she drove without a driver’s license. She left her car parked for days in yellow zones, red zones, white zones, reserved parking lots… . When the police stopped her drunk or high or without her i. d., she talked to them, and they always let her go. She tore up the parking tickets whenever she got them.

“I’ll get the owner’s phone number.” (We had an absentee landlord.) “They can’t kick my ass out of here. Do you have his phone number?”

“No.”

Just then Irv, who owned a whorehouse, and who also acted as bouncer at the local massage parlor walked by. Irv was 6 foot 3 and on ATD. He also had a better mind than the first 3,000 people you’d pass on the street.

Tammie ran out: “Irv! Irv!”

He stopped and turned. Tammie swung her breasts at him. “Irv, do you have the owner’s phone number?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Irv, I need the owner’s phone number. Give me his number and I’ll suck you off!”

“I don’t have the number.”

He walked up to his door and put his key into the lock.

“Come on, Irv, I’ll suck you off if you tell me!”

“You really mean it?” he asked hesitating, looking at her.

Then he opened the door, walked in and closed it.

Tammie ran up to another door and beat on it. Richard opened the door cautiously, with the chain on it. He was bald, lived alone, was religious, about 45 and looked at television continually. He was as pink and clean as a woman. He complained continually about the noise from my place—he couldn’t sleep, he said. The management told him to move. He hated me. Now there was one of my women at his door. He kept the chain on.

“What do you want?” he hissed.

“Look, baby, I want the owner’s phone number… . You’ve lived here for years. I know you have his phone number. I need it.”

“Go away,” he said.

“Look, baby, I’ll be nice to you. … A kiss, a nice big kiss for you!”

“Harlot!” he said “Strumpet!”

Richard slammed the door.

Tammie walked on in. “Hank?”

“Yes?”

“What’s a strumpet? I know what a trumpet is, but what’s a strumpet?”

“A strumpet, my dear, is a whore.”

“Why that dirty son-of-a-bitch!”

Tammie walked outside and continued to beat on the doors of the other apartments. Either they were out or they didn’t answer. She came back. “It’s not fair! Why do they want me out of here? What have I done?”

“I don’t know. Think back. Maybe there’s something.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Move in with me.”

“You couldn’t stand the kid.”

“You’re right.”

The days passed. The owner remained invisible, he didn’t like to deal with the tenants. The manager stood behind the eviction notice. Even Bobby became less visible, ate t.v. dinners, smoked his grass and listened to his stereo. “Hey, man,” he told me, “I don’t even like your old lady! She’s busting up our friendship, man!”

“Right on, Bobby. …”

I drove to the market and got some empty cardboard cartons. Then Tammie’s sister, Cathy, went crazy in Denver—after losing a lover—and Tammie had to go see her, with Dancy. I drove them down to the train depot. I put them on the train.

That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading at Venice Beach. She was about 28, fair body, pretty good legs, a blonde about 5~feet-5, a blue-eyed blonde. Her hair was long and slightly wavy and she smoked continuously. Her conversation was dull, and her laugh was loud and false, most of the time.

I had gone to her place after the reading. She lived off the boardwalk in an apartment. I’d played the piano and she’d played the bongos. There was a jug of Red Mountain. There were joints. I got too drunk to leave. I had slept there that night and left in the morning.

“Look,” said Mercedes, “I work right in your neighborhood now. I thought I might come by to see you.”

“All right.”

I hung up. The phone rang again. It was Tammie.

“Look, I’ve decided to move out. I’ll be home in a couple of days. Just get my yellow dress out of the apartment, the one you like, and my green shoes. All the rest is crap. Leave it.”

“O.K.”

“Listen, I’m flat broke. We don’t have any money for food.”

“I’ll wire you 40 bucks in the morning, Western Union.”

“You’re sweet. …”

I hung up. Fifteen minutes later Mercedes was there. She had on a very short skirt, was wearing sandals and a low-cut blouse. Also small blue earrings.

“You want some grass?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She took the grass and the papers out of her purse and started rolling some joints. I broke out the beer and we sat on the couch and smoked and drank.

We didn’t talk much. I played with her legs and we drank and smoked quite a long time.

Finally we undressed and went to bed, first Mercedes, then me. We began kissing and I rubbed her cunt. She grabbed my cock. I mounted. Mercedes guided it in. She had a good grip down there, very tight. I teased her a while, pulling it almost all the way out and moving the head back and forth. Then I slid it all the way in, slowly, in lazy fashion. Then suddenly I rammed her 4 or 5 times, and her head bounced on the pillow. “Arrrrggg… ” she said. Then I eased up and stroked.

It was a very hot night and we both sweated. Mercedes was high on the beer and the joints. I decided to finish her off with a flourish. Show her a thing or two.

I pumped on and on. Five minutes. Ten minutes more. I couldn’t come. I began to fail, I was getting soft.

Mercedes got worried. “Make it!” she demanded. “Oh, make it, baby!”

That didn’t help at all. I rolled off.

It was an unbearably hot night. I took the sheet and wiped off the sweat. I could hear my heart pounding as I lay there. It sounded sad. I wondered what Mercedes was thinking.

I lay dying, my cock limp.

Mercedes turned her head toward me. I kissed her. Kissing is more intimate than fucking. That’s why I never liked my girlfriends to go around kissing men. I’d rather they fucked them.

I kept kissing Mercedes and since I felt that way about kissing I hardened again. I climbed on top of her, kissing her as if it was my last hour on earth.

My cock slid in.

This time I knew I was going to make it. I could feel the miracle of it.

I was going to come in her cunt, the bitch. I was going to pour my juices into her and there was nothing she could do to stop me.

She was mine. I was a conquering army, I was a rapist, I was her master, I was death.

She was helpless. Her head rolled, she gripped me and gasped, as she made sounds… .

“Arrrgg, uuggg, oh oh … oooff … oooooh!”

My cock fed on it.

I made a strange sound, then I came.

In five minutes she was snoring. We both were snoring.

In the morning we showered and dressed. “I’ll take you to breakfast,” I said.

“All right,” Mercedes answered. “By the way, did we fuck last night?”

“My god! Don’t you remember? We must have fucked for 50 minutes!”