“It’s all right.”
“Put the pancakes on.”
I walked to the jug and poured another drink.
…I was riding a camel across the Sahara. I had a large nose, somewhat like an eagle’s beak, but yet I was very handsome, yes, in white robes with green stripes. And I had courage, I had murdered more than one. I had a large curved sword at my belt. I rode toward the tent where a fourteen year old girl blessed with great wisdom and with an unpunctured hymen was eagerly waiting on a thick oriental carpet…
The drink went down; the poison shook my body; I could smell the flour and water burning. I poured a drink for Jan, I poured another drink for me.
At some point during one of our hellish nights World War II ended. The war had always been at best a vague reality to me, but now it was over. And the jobs that had always been difficult to get became more so. I got up each morning and went to all the public employment agencies starting with the Farm Labor Market. I struggled up at 4:30 a.m., hungover, and was usually back before noon. I walked back and forth between the agencies, endlessly. Sometimes I did get an occasional day’s work unloading a boxcar, but this was only after I started going to a private agency which took one third of my wages. Consequently, there was very little money and we fell further and further behind with the rent. But we kept the wine bottles lined up bravely, made love, fought, and waited.
When there was a little money we walked down to Grand Central Market to get cheap stew meat, carrots, potatoes, onions and celery. We’d put it all in a big pot and sit and talk, knowing we were going to eat, smelling it—the onions, the vegetables, the meat—listening to it bubble. We rolled cigarettes and went to bed together, and got up and sang songs. Sometimes the manager would come up and tell us to keep quiet, and remind us that we were behind with the rent. The tenants never complained about our fights but they didn’t like our singing: I Got Plenty Of Nothing; Old Man River; Buttons And Bows; Tumbling Along With The Tumbling Tumbleweeds; God Bless America; Deutschland über Alles; Bonaparte’s Retreat; I Get The Blues When It Rains; Keep Your Sunny Side Up; No More Money In The Bank; Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf; When The Deep Purple Falls; A Tiskit A Tasket; I Married An Angel; Poor Little Lambs Gone Astray; I Want A Gal Just Like The Gal Who Married Dear Old Dad; How The Hell Ya Gonna Keep Them Down On The Farm; If I’d Known You Were Coming I’d A Baked A Cake…
43
I was too sick one morning to get up at 4:30 a.m.—or according to our clock 7:27 and one half. I shut off the alarm and went back to sleep. A couple of hours later there was a loud noise in the hall. “What the hell is it?” asked Jan.
I got out of bed. I slept in my shorts. The shorts were stained—we wiped with newspapers that we crumpled and softened with our hands—and I often didn’t get all of it cleaned off. My shorts were also ragged and had cigarette burns in them where the hot ashes had fallen in my lap.
I went to the door and opened it. There was thick smoke in the hall. Firemen in large metal helmets with numbers on them. Firemen dragging long thick hoses. Firemen dressed in asbestos. Firemen with axes. The noise and confusion was incredible. I closed the door.
“What is it?” asked Jan.
“It’s the fire department.”
“Oh,” she said. She pulled the covers up over her head, rolled on her side. I got in beside her and slept.
44
I was finally hired on at an auto parts warehouse. It was on Flower Street, down around Eleventh Street. They sold retail out the front and also wholesaled to other distributors and shops. I had to demean myself to get that one—I told them that I liked to think of my job as a second home. That pleased them.
I was the receiving clerk. I also walked to a half dozen places in the neighborhood and picked up parts. It did get me out of the building.
During my lunch period one day I noticed an intense and intelligent looking Chicano boy reading that day’s entries in the newspaper.
“You play the horses?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can I see your paper?”
I looked down the entries. I handed the paper back.
“My Boy Bobby ought to take the eighth.”
“I know it. And they don’t even have him on top.”
“All the better.”
“What do you think he’ll pay?”
“Around 9 to 2.”
“I wish I could get a bet down.”
“Me too.”
“When’s the last race go off at Hollywood Park?” he asked.
“‘5:30.”
“We get out of here at 5:00.”
“We’d never make it.”
“We could try. My Boy Bobby’s going to win.”
“Just our luck.”
“Want to come along?”
“Sure.”
“Watch the clock. At 5:00 we’ll cut out.”
At five minutes to 5:00 we were both working as near the rear exit as possible. My friend, Manny, looked at his watch. “We’ll steal two minutes. When I start running, follow me.”
Manny stood there putting boxes of parts on a rear shelf. Suddenly he bolted. I was right behind him and we were out the rear door in a flash, then down the alley. He was a good runner. I found out afterwards that he had been an all-city quarter-miler in high school. I was four feet behind him all the way down the alley. His car was parked around the corner; he unlocked it and we were in and off.
“Manny, we’ll never make it.”
“We’ll make it. I can tool this thing.”
“We must be nine or ten miles away. We’ve got to get there, park, then get from the parking lot to the betting window.”
“I can tool this thing. We’ll make it.”
“We can’t stop for the red lights.”
Manny had a fairly new car and he knew how to switch lanes. “I’ve played every track in this country.”
“Caliente too?”
“Yes, Caliente. The bastards take twenty-five per cent.”
“I know.”
“It’s worse in Germany. In Germany the take is fifty per cent.”
“And they still get players?”
“They still get players. The suckers figure all they got to do is find the winner.”
“We’re bucking sixteen per cent, that’s rough enough.”
“Rough. But a good player can beat the take.”
“Yes.”
“Shit, a red light!”
“Fuck it. Go on through.”
“I’m going to hang a right.” Manny abruptly switched lanes and cut right at the signal. “Watch out for squad cars.”
“Right.” Manny could really tool that thing. If he could bet horses like he drove, Manny was a winner.
“You married, Manny?”
“No way.”
“Women?”
“Sometimes. But it never lasts.”
“What’s the problem?”
“A woman is a full-time job. You have to choose your profession.”
“I suppose there is an emotional drain.”
“Physical too. They want to fuck night and day.”
“Get one you like to fuck.”
“Yes, but if you drink or gamble they think it’s a put-down of their love.”
“Get one who likes to drink, gamble and fuck.”
“Who wants a woman like that?”
Then we were in the parking lot. Parking was free after the seventh race. Track admission also was free. Not having a program or a racing form was a problem, though. If there were any scratches you couldn’t be sure which horse on the tote board was yours.
Manny locked the car. We started running. Manny opened up six lengths on me in the parking lot. We ran through an open gate and down into the tunnel. Manny held his six lengths through the tunnel, which at Hollywood Park is a long one. Coming out of the tunnel and into the track proper, I closed up on Manny until I was only five lengths back. I could see the horses at the gate. We sprinted toward the betting windows
.
“My Boy Bobby…what’s his number?” I yelled at a man with one leg as we ran past. Before he could answer I could no longer hear him. Manny ran toward the five dollar win window. When I got there he had his ticket. “What’s his number?” “8! It’s the 8 horse!” I got my $5 down and got the ticket as the bell rang shutting off the mutual machines and starting the horses out of the gate.
Bobby read 4 on the board off a 6 to one morning line. The 3 horse was the 6 to 5 favorite. It was an $8,000 claimer, a mile and one sixteenth. As they came around the first turn the favorite had a three-quarter length lead and Bobby was laying off his shoulder, like an executioner. He was loping loose and easy.
“We should have gone ten,” I said. “We’re in.”
“Yeah, we’ve hooked the winner. We’re in unless some big-ass closer comes out of the pack.”
Bobby layed on the favorite’s side halfway around the last turn and then made his move sooner than I expected. It was a trick jocks used sometimes. Bobby came around the favorite, dropped down on the rail and made his run right then instead of later. He had three and one half lengths at the top of the stretch. Then out of the pack came the horse we had to beat, the 4 horse, he read 9 to one but he was coming. But Bobby was gliding. He won on a hand ride by two and one half lengths and paid $10.40.
45
The next day at work we were questioned about our sudden departure. We admitted we had made the last race and also that we were going again that afternoon. Manny had his horse picked and I had mine. Some of the guys asked if we would take bets out for them. I said that I didn’t know. At noon Manny and I went to a bar for lunch.
“Hank, we take their bets.”
“Those guys don’t have any money—all they have is the coffee and chewing gum money their wives give them and we don’t have time to mess around with the two dollar windows.”
“We don’t bet their money, we keep their money.”
“Suppose they win?”
“They won’t win. They always pick the wrong horse. They have a way of always picking the wrong horse.”
“Suppose they bet our horse?”
“Then we know we’ve got the wrong horse.”
“Manny, what are you doing working in auto parts?”
“Resting. My ambition is handicapped by laziness.”
We had another beer and went back to the warehouse.
46
We ran through the tunnel as they were putting them in the gate. We wanted Happy Needles. We were only getting 9 to 5 and I figured we wouldn’t win two days running, so I just bet $5. Manny went $10 win. Happy Needles won by a neck, getting up on the outside in the last few strides. We had that win and we also had $32 in bad bets, courtesy of the boys at the warehouse.
Word got around and the boys at other warehouses, where I went to pick up parts, placed their bets with me. Manny was right, there was seldom a payoff. They didn’t know how to bet; they bet too short or too long and the price kept hitting in the middle. I bought a good pair of shoes, a new belt and two expensive shirts. The owner of the warehouse didn’t look so powerful any more. Manny and I took a little longer with our lunches and came back smoking good cigars. But it was still a rough ride every afternoon to make the last race. The crowd got to know us as we came running out of that tunnel, and every afternoon they were waiting. They cheered and waved racing forms, and the cheers seemed to grow louder as we went past them on the dead run to the betting windows.
47
The new life didn’t sit well with Jan. She was used to her four fucks a day and also used to seeing me poor and humble. After a day at the warehouse, then the wild ride and finally sprinting across the parking lot and down through the tunnel, there wasn’t much love left in me. When I came in each evening she’d be well into her wine.
“Mr. Horseplayer,” she’d say as I walked in. She’d be all dressed up; high-heels, nylons, legs crossed high, swinging her foot. “Mr. Big Horseplayer. You know, when I first met you I liked the way you walked across a room. You didn’t just walk across a room, you walked like you were going to walk through a wall, like you owned everything, like nothing mattered. Now you got a few bucks in your pocket and you’re not the same any more. You act like a dental student or a plumber.”
“Don’t give me any shit about plumbers, Jan.”
“You haven’t made love to me in two weeks.”
“Love takes many forms. Mine has been more subtle.”
“You haven’t fucked me for two weeks.”
“Have patience. In six months we’ll be vacationing in Rome, in Paris.”
“Look at you! Pouring yourself that good whiskey and letting me sit here drinking this cheap rot-gut wine.”
I relaxed in a chair and swirled my whiskey around with the ice cubes. I had on an expensive yellow shirt, very loud, and I had on new pants, green with white pinstripes.
“Mr. Big-Time Horseplayer!”
“I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world’s greatest horseplayer.”
“Horse shit!”
“No, horseplayer.” I drained my whiskey, got up, and made myself another.
48
The arguments were always the same. I understood it too well now—that great lovers were always men of leisure. I fucked better as a bum than as a puncher of timeclocks.
Jan began her counterattack, which was to argue with me, get me enraged and then run out into the streets, the bars. All she had to do was to sit on a barstool alone and the drinks, the offers would follow. I didn’t think that was fair of her, naturally.
Most of the evenings fell into a pattern. She’d argue, grab her purse and be gone out the door. It was effective; we had lived and loved together for too many days. I had to feel it and feel it I did. But I always let her go as I sat helpless in my chair and drank my whiskey and tuned in the radio to a bit of classical music. I knew she was out there, and I knew there would be somebody else. Yet I had to let it happen, I had to let events take their own course.
This particular evening I sat there and something just broke in me, I could feel it breaking, something churned and rose in me and I got up and walked down the four flights of stairs and into the street. I walked down from Third and Union Streets to Sixth Street and then west along Sixth toward Alvarado. I walked along past the bars and I knew she was in one of them. I made a guess, walked in, and there was Jan sitting at the far end of the bar. She had a green and white silk scarf spread across her lap. She was sitting between a thin man with a large wart on his nose, and another man who was a little humped mound of a thing wearing bifocals and dressed in an old black suit.
Jan saw me coming. She lifted her head and even in the gloom of the bar she seemed to pale. I walked up behind her, standing near her stool. “I tried to make a woman out of you but you’ll never be anything but a god damned whore!” I back-handed her and knocked her off her stool. She fell flat on the floor and screamed. I picked up her drink and finished it. Then I slowly walked toward the exit. When I got there I turned. “Now, if there’s anybody here…who doesn’t like what I just did…just say so.”
There was no response. I guess they liked what I just did. I walked back out on Alvarado Street.
49
At the auto parts warehouse I did less and less. Mr. Mantz the owner would walk by and I would be crouched in a dark corner or in one of the aisles, very lazily putting incoming parts on the shelves.
“Chinaski, are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not sick?”
“No.”
Then Mantz would walk off. The scene was repeated again and again with minor variations. Once he caught me making a sketch of the alley on the back of an invoice. My pockets were full of bookie money. The hangovers were not as bad, seeing as they were caused by the best whiskey money could buy.
I went on for two more weeks collecting paychecks. Then on a Wednesday morning Mantz stood in the center
aisle near his office. He beckoned me forward with a motion of his hand. When I walked into his office, Mantz was back behind his desk. “Sit down, Chinaski.” On the center of the desk was a check, face down. I slid the check face down along the glass top of the desk and without looking at it I slipped it in my wallet.
“You knew we were going to let you go?”
“Bosses are never hard to fathom.”
“Chinaski, you haven’t been pulling your weight for a month and you know it.”
“A guy busts his damned ass and you don’t appreciate it.”
“You haven’t been busting your ass, Chinaski.”
I stared down at my shoes for some time. I didn’t know what to say. Then I looked at him. “I’ve given you my time. It’s all I’ve got to give—it’s all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.”
“Remember you begged for this job. You said your job was your second home.”
“…my time so that you can live in your big house on the hill and have all the things that go with it. If anybody has lost anything on this deal, on this arrangement…I’ve been the loser. Do you understand?”
“All right, Chinaski.”
“All right?”
“Yes. Just go.”
I stood up. Mantz was dressed in a conservative brown suit, white shirt, dark red necktie. I tried to finish it up with a flair. “Mantz, I want my unemployment insurance. I don’t want any trouble about that. You guys are always trying to cheat a working man out of his rights. So don’t give me any trouble or I’ll be back to see you.”
“You’ll get your insurance. Now get the hell out of here!”
I got the hell out of there.
50
I had my winnings and the bookie money and I just sat around and Jan liked that. After two weeks I was on unemployment and we relaxed and fucked and toured the bars and every week I’d go down to the California State Department of Employment and stand in line and get my nice little check. I only had to answer three questions: