Women: A Novel

  “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.

  50

  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!”

  51

  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.

  52

  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.

  53

  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?”

  Tamm e 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.

  54

  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 stuff in. 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 a
s 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….

  55

  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.