The Bell Tolls for No One

  “You said that yesterday. I can’t get my goddamned writing done.”

  “You can write while I’m here. I won’t mind.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We do have things in common.”

  “Like?”

  “Like we both like Knut Hamsun and Celine.”

  “I’m going to the fucking racetrack.”

  “This early?”

  “This early.”

  When I got back at 7 p.m. she was still sitting on the same spot on the couch, still smoking and drinking and the radio was still on to the classical music station. Mozart was on. “How’d you do?”

  “I lost.”

  “Some woman phoned while you were out.”

  “What was her name?”

  “She didn’t leave a name.”

  “What’d she want?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  I walked into the bathroom and let the bathtub water run. I came out and got a beer.

  “Listen. I want to know something,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Have you fucked my sisters yet?”

  “No.”

  “You will.”

  Meg got up and turned out all the lights. Then she lit the four big candles she had purchased. She had brought along the holders in a large paper bag along with a copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I walked into the other room, undressed and got into the tub. She walked in holding a candle. “You’ve got the body of a young boy. You’re an amazing man.”

  “Don’t forget, Meg, you promised to leave tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I will. There are other men.”

  She walked out holding the candle high.

  When I came out again she was sitting in the same area of the couch. Suddenly a large flame arose beside her. It must have been two feet tall. She didn’t see it.

  “Meg, for Christ’s sake, get up!”

  “What is it?”

  “The fucking apartment’s on fire!”

  She stood up and I ran into the kitchen and came out with a pot of water. I pulled the cushion aside and poured the water into the hole. Meg had dropped a lit cigarette into the couch. I came out and poured more water into the hole.

  “We’re going to have to babysit this thing all night. They can flare up in a moment.”

  So we sat there for two hours drinking and pouring water into the couch and listening to classical music on the radio. Meg talked throughout the two hours about her ex-husband, about her trip to Greece, she talked about D.H. Lawrence and A. Huxley, she talked about her sisters. Then she blew out all the candles but one and we went to bed. She brought her bottle and her glass with her and her cigarettes and she sat them on the nightstand beside her. She poured a drink, lit a cigarette, and sat up in bed. I stretched out and closed my eyes.

  “Let me suck you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I want to suck you.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m tired from the horses and I’m about to puke.”

  I turned on my stomach and tried to sleep. She sat there drinking and smoking her cigarettes. “I’ll make you eggs Benedict for breakfast,” she said.

  In the morning she was back on the couch, the radio was on, and she was smoking. I got dressed and walked out there.

  “O.K. Meg, this is the morning and you’re leaving.”

  “When will we get together again?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”

  Meg had this gigantic purse and she started stuffing everything into it.

  “There’s this cowboy. I met him in a bar. I went home with him. He’s got this big house. His children have left. He has this big house and he wants me to stay with him.”

  “Why don’t you give it a try?”

  “Why don’t you bite your own dick off?”

  “That’s pretty hard to do.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  And she was gone like that, door closed, and off down the walk. I walked into the bedroom and noticed that she had burned a hole in the bed lampshade with her candle. I turned the hole in the shade toward the wall. There was a knock on the door. I walked over and opened it. It was Meg.

  “My car isn’t running right.” She had a Mercedes.

  “Oh shit, now wait.”

  “It’s true, it hardly runs. I can’t drive it that way. It’ll never make Claremont. It won’t make the freeway.”

  I walked out and checked the motor, the wiring, and so forth. Then I drove it around the block. It stalled and wouldn’t go over 10 miles an hour.

  “There’s a Mercedes place right around the corner,” said Meg. “I’ve seen it. Drive it on in.”

  The mechanics were sitting around drinking beer. A girl came out with her breasts hanging out and had Meg sign a worksheet. “We’ll check it out and give you a ring,” said one of the mechanics waving his beercan at us.

  We went back to my place and turned on the radio. I poured myself a Scotch out of Meg’s bottle.

  “Go ahead and write,” she said, “it won’t bother me.”

  I sat there and drank Scotch with beer chasers and we waited for the phone to ring. It did.

  When Meg finished talking she came out. “It’s going to cost me $400,” she said, “good thing I brought my checkbook.”

  “When will it be ready?

  “Maybe Thursday, Friday for sure.”

  That meant Saturday.

  “What day’s this?” I asked.

  “Wednesday.”

  Meg sat down at her favorite place on the couch. “There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “They’re crooks but I need my car.”

  “Sure.”

  “My oldest sister owns her own horse and has nice legs. You like nice legs, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to promise never to fuck either of my sisters.”

  “I promise.”

  Meg stood up, walked into the kitchen with her drink, and said, “I’ll make us some eggs Benedict.”

  Then she turned up the radio louder. It was Brahms again.

  Gary picked up the phone. It was Joan.

  “Listen, I’m worried,” she said, “she won’t be back, will she?”

  “Who?”

  “Diane.”

  “I told you, Diane went to Nevada. She was going to get herself a ‘Summer Man.’ I’m supposed to be her ‘Winter Man.’ This is July 7. You are my ‘Summer Woman’.”

  “I’ve heard about Diane.”

  “All nice things, I suppose?”

  “No.”

  “Listen, she lives in her place, and I live in mine. She’s in Nevada with her Summer Man or her Summer Men.”

  “I don’t want to be attacked by any roller derby queen.”

  “She’s in Nevada.”

  “I heard about the time she . . . ”

  “Don’t believe it. You know how people talk. Make us some fried shrimp and coleslaw.”

  “All right.”

  Gary hung up.

  The intercom buzzed, he hit the button, and Marie came through:

  “A Mr. Charles K. Strunk to see you.”

  “And he’s from where?”

  “He won’t say.”

  “All right, let him in.”

  The door opened. The man had on a skintight purple outfit with a crude circle on front: Mars behind a flash of lightning. He had on a thick wide belt with spikes sticking out of it. His face was very red. He looked like a wino.

  “Strunk,” he said, “Charles K. Strunk.”

  “Gary Matton,” Gary said.

  They shook hands and Gary told him to sit down.

  “We need to,” said Strunk, “build these runways so the flying saucers can land. That is their problem. They are unable to land because they need special runways. They have been attempting to land since 1923.”

  “Do you think the function of a modern art museum is to build runways for flying saucers?”


  “I can’t find sympathy for my plan anywhere else.”

  “We all have problems. I once had a lady friend who hated food and only weighed 80 pounds who wanted to climb this 8,000-foot mountain in high heels.”

  The phone rang. It was Joan again: “Do you want french fries?”

  “I love french fries. Yes, make plenty of them. Are you all right?”

  “I’m all right,” she said and hung up.

  “Did your lady friend climb the 8,000-foot mountain?” asked Strunk.

  “I don’t know. She ran off one night in the rain and never returned after we drank three or four bottles of cold duck.”

  “This runway must be made entirely of zinc.”

  “Where can I reach you if we get something going?”

  “Don’t be funny.”

  “You mean you . . . ”

  “Yes.”

  “But if you landed, why can’t they?”

  “The strip must be made entirely of zinc.”

  “And you look like us.”

  “No, you look like us.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for one: sexual powers.”

  “Such as?”

  “We can copulate for 12 hours.”

  “And?”

  “We have no need for food, water, sleep, or war.”

  “Then what do you want down here?”

  “We want to try some of your women.”

  “You mean, you’ve been trying to land since 1923, flying around since 1923 in those saucers just because you want to try some of our women?”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize that we have mostly pathogenic orgasms?”

  “Yep. And we’ve got to have zinc runways.”

  Charles Strunk stood up. They shook hands again. “You’ll hear from me.”

  Then he was gone.

  When Gary got home—which was a middle court in a courtyard just off the edge of the massage parlors—Joan had the shit ready and was in her miniskirt, and Gary boiled himself in hot bathwater, drinking vodka 7s with beer chasers, lighting an occasional Salem or Mary Jane, and when he got out he put on some fresh shorts for decency and told Joan he wasn’t hungry, and she sat on the couch and he could just see her white legs tickling out, and she was unhappy but durable and Gary kept drinking in bed, and then the phone rang and it was Diane back from Nevada and she said, “I know you’re with another woman but that doesn’t matter to me. I want you to come get your stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I mean your bathrobe, your photo albums, and that $2 cane you purchased at K-Mart when you twisted your ankle trying to dance to that Greek music.”

  “I mean,” Gary said, “why don’t you burn all that stuff or trash it? It doesn’t interest me.”

  “I INSIST,” she said. “I INSIST you come get that stuff out of here! That’s all I ask. I don’t ask any more.”

  “Look, didn’t you hear me, just burn it or trash it. It really doesn’t matter.”

  “No, I INSIST, I INSIST, I INSIST.”

  “All right.”

  Gary began to get dressed Joan noticed.

  “Where you going?”

  “I’m going over there.”

  “Where?”

  “Diane’s.”

  “You’re going to fuck her.”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Wait. You don’t understand women.”

  “Only women understand women,” she said.

  “That could be the problem,” Gary said.

  When he got there Diane didn’t give him the bathrobe, the photo album or the $2 K-Mart cane. She simply began to beat upon him. Gary pushed her to the floor and began to walk away. She reached up and grabbed the arm of his coat, ripping it completely off. A ring of spittle was about her mouth.

  “You can’t get away with this!” she screamed. “You’ll never get away with this! Never, never, NEVER!”

  “All I want to do is to get away from you.” Gary walked toward the door. Diane was up and upon him, fists beating upon his ears, his neck, his eyes, his mouth . . . ”

  “Goddamn you,” he said, “just keep it up and I’ll give you a goddamned good one, I’ll show you up FAST!”

  “I DON’T CARE! I DON’T CARE! HIT ME, HIT ME! KILL ME, I DON’T CARE!”

  Then there was this long insane wail. The neighbors would think he was murdering her. Gary opened the door and walked out. She was upon him, upon his back, upon his sides, beating and wailing. In one sense he was frightened, in another sense he was immune to all of it because he felt it was unfair: a cheap-shot action. The world was not always a propitious place.

  “RUN FROM MY HOUSE!,” she screamed. “RUN FROM MY HOUSE! I DEMAND THAT YOU RUN FROM MY HOUSE!”

  Gary opened the door and began walking down the long steep cement stairway to the street. Diane kept beating upon him, balance was almost impossible. He struck back. He landed a good right hook to the rib cage. She stood stunned for a moment in a corner of the stairway under a dripping ivy plant. Before she recovered and got herself down in the street, Gary had the car door unlocked and he was inside driving away with her fists beating against the glass.

  Gary was back in his shorts, they’d be drinking a couple of hours and he was coming out of the bathroom toward the bedroom when Joan asked, “Shall I get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “Somebody’s at the door.”

  “O.K.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and worked at his drink. Then he heard Diane’s voice: “Hello, I just came to check on my rival. I want to see what you look like.”

  There was no answer.

  Oh, thought Gary, this is O.K. This is real humane and reasonable. I’ll pour them both a drink. Then they can both agree that I’m a fine sort. Gary stood up. Then Diane said, “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

  There was a screaming. And a whirling of bodies. Gary got up to separate them, fell across the end of a barbell he never used, and wrenched his knee. When he got up hobbling in his shorts he heard the screams from central hell. The women ran out the door and down the courtyard. He rushed forward, fell again, then got up. He looked down at his belly. It was very white. Then the screams stopped. Diane walked in and sat in a chair near the door. Gary closed the door and got a beer and sat down and waited. The police arrived.

  “Open up. Open the door.”

  “No,” said Gary, “you’ve got no rights to enter.”

  “Ask them if they’ve got a search warrant,” said Diane.

  “You got a search warrant?”

  “We don’t need one. We have to know if there’s somebody being murdered in there.”

  “There isn’t. It’s just a family argument.”

  “Is that woman your wife?”

  “Only under the law of the jungle.”

  A period passed. Then the police got a key from the landlady and opened the door. “I refuse to allow you the right to enter,” said Gary.

  “Shut up, buddy,” said the cop with the short blonde eyebrows. But both of the cops just put the edges of their shoes into the room. Then the cop with the short blonde eyebrows looked at Diane.

  “Did you attack that other woman?”

  “Attack?” she asked. “Who attacked who? Look at my blouse!”

  Diane’s blouse was torn, one arm of it almost ripped off.

  “What’s your relationship to the man?” the cop asked.

  “Look, Diane,” Gary said, “you don’t have to answer that question.”

  The cop moved one foot further in and bent his body forward.

  “All right, sir, if you interrupt me one more time I’m going to have to arrest you under code #82a-9b17 which means direct and malicious interference against the stability of mathematical fact-finding . . . ”

  “All right,” said Gary, “I’ll keep quiet.”

  The cop with the
short blonde eyebrows and Diane kept interchanging questions and answers.

  “All right, sir,” said the cop, finally turning toward Gary, “which of these women do you want?”

  “I’ll take that one,” said Gary, pointing to the woman in the chair near the door.

  “All right, sir,” said the cop and he closed the door. Gary heard them both walking down the center of the courtyard. “That fellow,” he heard one of them say to the other, “seems to know what he is doing.”

  That made Gary feel better and he stood up and walked to the kitchen and poured himself another drink from the rum and pear juice. When he came out he looked at Diane and said “Why don’t you take a bath? Somehow you’ve managed to piss all over yourself.”

  And it was true her clothing was darkened with urine. Maybe, he thought, that’s where the expression “pissedoff” came from. Diane walked into the bathroom. He heard the water running, pulled back the covers of bed, and crawled in there. He stayed in there listening to the water run. Then the phone rang. Gary picked it up.

  “It’s Strunk, Charles K. Strunk. Are you going to give us that zinc runway?”

  “Yes, I’ve decided to. I do believe that there is a way to manipulate the Modern Museum of the Arts funds.”

  “May I suggest areas of landing and completion?”

  “All right. Keep in touch. We’ll work it out.”

  “O.K,” said Strunk and hung up.

  A few moments later, Diane walked out of the bathroom toweling her beautiful body.

  “I heard you on the phone. It was that bitch again, wasn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I’m going to build a zinc landing strip for the men from outer space.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Diane got under the sheets and blankets and they were back together again, once more.

  Outside of La Paz, about an hour and a half, there is this jungle and it’s a strange jungle; there are no reptiles or animals, just birds, very odd birds, all beaks or all tail, and they lived off the fruits of the trees and shit all the time—as did the natives. The natives lived almost forever, especially the men, they’d walk by brown and bent and thin and with these rags around their waists but the rags did very little good (I thought) because their balls and cocks flopped out and hung down, and the men looked at you and knew that they would still be there—in that jungle—long after you were gone. The women seemed to sit more, doing things with their hands—masturbating—but for it all, they looked sadder and died earlier, which is a complete reversal, say, of a city like Santa Monica, Calif. Anyhow, I was with the Peace Corps teaching rehabilitated alcoholic paraplegic once-thieves the rudiments of geometry and algebra. The Peace Corps people kept coming back from that place with gooney-bird eyes and so they finally sent me to try to bring it together, me and my wife, Angela.