Women: A Novel

  “MOMMY, it hurts!”

  I looked at the cut. It was almost invisible.

  “Look,” I told Lydia finally, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I know.”

  Lisa looked up at me, the tears were coming and coming. “Lisa won’t let anything bad happen to her Momma,” Lydia said.

  I opened the door, closed the door and walked to my 1962 Mercury Comet.

  4

  I was editing a little magazine at the time, The Laxative Approach. I had two co-editors and we felt that we were printing the best poets of our time. Also some of the other kind. One of the editors was a 6-foot-2 subnormal high school drop-out, Kenneth Mulloch (black), who was supported partly by his mother and partly by his sister. The other editor was Sammy Levinson (Jewish), 27, who lived with his parents and was supported by them.

  The sheets were printed. Now we had to collate them and staple them into the covers.

  “What you do,” said Sammy, “is throw a collating party. You serve drinks and a little bullshit and let them do the work.”

  “I hate parties,” I said.

  “I’ll do the inviting,” said Sammy.

  “All right,” I said, and I invited Lydia.

  The night of the party Sammy arrived with the sheets already collated. He was a nervous sort with a head-tic and he hadn’t been able to wait to see his own poems in print. He had collated The Laxative Approach all by himself, and then stapled the covers on. Kenneth Mulloch was not to be found—he probably was either in jail or had been committed.

  People arrived. I knew very few of them. I walked to my landlady’s in the back court. She came to the door.

  “I’m having a big party, Mrs. O’Keefe. I want you and your husband to come. Plenty of beer, pretzels and chips.”

  “Oh, my God, no!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve seen the people going in there! Those beards and all that hair and those raggedy-ass clothes! Bracelets and beads … they look like a bunch of communists! How can you stand people like that?”

  “I can’t stand those people either, Mrs. O’Keefe. We just drink beer and talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You watch them. That kind will steal the plumbing.”

  She closed the door.

  Lydia arrived late. She came through the door like an actress. The first thing I noticed was her large cowboy hat with a lavender feather pinned to the side. She didn’t speak to me but immediately sat down next to a young bookstore clerk and began an intense conversation with him. I began drinking more heavily and some of the drive and humor left my conversation. The bookstore clerk was a good enough sort, trying to be a writer. His name was Randy Evans but he was too far into Kafka to accomplish any kind of literary clarity. We had published him in The Laxative Approach rather than hurt his feelings and also to get distribution for the magazine through his bookstore.

  I drank my beer and wandered around. I walked out on the back porch, sat on the stoop in the alley and watched a large black cat trying to get into a garbage can. I walked down towards him. He leaped off the garbage can as I approached. He stood 3 or 4 feet away watching me. I took the lid off the garbage can. The stench was horrible. I puked into the can. I dropped the lid on the pavement. The cat leaped up, stood, all four feet together upon the rim of the can. He hesitated, then brilliant under a half-moon, he leaped into it all.

  Lydia was still talking to Randy, and I noticed that under the table one of her feet was touching one of Randy’s. I opened another beer.

  Sammy had the crowd laughing. I was a little better at it than he was when I wanted to get the crowd laughing but I wasn’t very good that night. There were 15 or 16 men and two women—Lydia and April. April was on ATD and fat. She was stretched out on the floor. After an hour or so she got up and left with Carl, a burned-out speed freak. That left 15 or 16 men and Lydia. I found a pint of scotch in the kitchen, took it out on the back porch, and had a bite now and then.

  The men began leaving gradually as the night went on. Even Randy Evans left. Finally there was only Sammy, Lydia and myself. Lydia was talking to Sammy. Sammy said some funny things. I was able to laugh. Then he said he had to go.

  “Please don’t go, Sammy,” said Lydia.

  “Let the kid go,” I said.

  “Yeah, I gotta go,” said Sammy.

  After Sammy left Lydia said, “You didn’t have to drive him away. Sammy’s funny, Sammy’s really funny. You hurt his feelings.”

  “But I want to talk to you alone, Lydia.”

  “I enjoy your friends. I don’t get to meet all kinds of people the way you do. I like people!”

  “I don’t.”

  “I know you don’t. But I do. People come to see you. Maybe if they didn’t come to see you you’d like them better.”

  “No, the less I see them the better I like them.”

  “You hurt Sammy’s feelings.”

  “Oh shit, he’s gone home to his mother.”

  “You’re jealous, you’re insecure. You think I want to go to bed with every man I talk to.”

  “No I don’t. Listen, how about a little drink?”

  I got up and mixed her one. Lydia lit a long cigarette and sipped at her drink. “You sure look good in that hat,” I said. “That purple feather is something.”

  “It’s my father’s hat.”

  “Won’t he miss it?”

  “He’s dead.”

  I pulled Lydia over to the couch and gave her a long kiss. She told me about her father. He had died and left all 4 sisters a bit of money. That had enabled them to be independent and had enabled Lydia to divorce her husband. She also told me she’d had some kind of breakdown and spent time in a madhouse. I kissed her again. “Look,” I said, “let’s lay down on the bed. I’m tired.”

  To my surprise she followed me into the bedroom. I stretched out on the bed and felt her sit down. I closed my eyes and could tell she was pulling her boots off. I heard one boot hit the floor, then the other. I began to undress on the bed. I reached up and shut off the overhead light. I continued undressing. We kissed some more.

  “How long has it been since you’ve had a woman?”

  “Four years.”

  “Four years?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you deserve some love,” she said. “I had a dream about you. I opened your chest like a cabinet, it had doors, and when I opened the doors I saw all kinds of soft things inside you—teddy bears, tiny fuzzy animals, all these soft, cuddly things. Then I had a dream about this other man. He walked up to me and handed me some pieces of paper. He was a writer. I took the pieces of paper and looked at them. And the pieces of paper had cancer. His writing had cancer. I go by my dreams. You deserve some love.”

  We kissed again.

  “Listen,” she said, “after you stick that thing inside me, pull it out just before you come. O.K.?”

  “I understand.”

  I climbed on top of her. It was good. It was something happening, something real, and with a girl 20 years younger than I was and really, after all, beautiful. I did about 10 strokes—and came inside of her.

  She leaped up.

  “You son-of-a-bitch! You came inside of me!”

  “Lydia, it’s been so long … it felt so good … I couldn’t help it. It sneaked up on me! Honest to Christ, I couldn’t help it.”

  She ran into the bathroom and let the water run into the tub. She stood in front of the mirror running a comb through her long brown hair. She was truly beautiful.

  “You son-of-a-bitch! God, what a dumb high school trick. That’s high school shit! And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time! Well, we’re shackjobs now! We’re shackjobs now!”

  I moved toward her in the bathroom. “Lydia, I love you.”

  “Get the hell away from me!”

  She pushed me out, closed the door, and I stood out in the hall, listening to the bath water run.

>   5

  I didn’t see Lydia for a couple of days, although I did manage to phone her 6 or 7 times during that period. Then the weekend arrived. Her ex-husband, Gerald, always took the children over the weekend.

  I drove up to her court about 11 AM that Saturday morning and knocked. She was in tight bluejeans, boots, orange blouse. Her eyes seemed a darker brown than ever and in the sunlight, as she opened the door, I noticed a natural red in her dark hair. It was startling. She allowed me to kiss her, then she locked the door behind us and we went to my car. We had decided on the beach—not for bathing—it was mid-winter—but for something to do.

  We drove along. It felt good having Lydia in the car with me.

  “That was some party,” she said. “You call that a collating party? That was a copulating party, that’s what that was. A copulating party!”

  I drove with one hand and rested the other on her inner thigh. I couldn’t help myself. Lydia didn’t seem to notice. As I drove along the hand slid down between her legs. She went on talking. Suddenly she said, “Take you hand off. That’s my pussy!”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Neither of us said anything until we reached the parking lot at Venice beach. “You want a sandwich and a Coke or something?” I asked. “All right,” she said.

  We went into the small Jewish delicatessen to get the things and we took them to a knoll of grass that overlooked the sea. We had sandwiches, pickles, chips and soft drinks. The beach was almost deserted and the food tasted fine. Lydia was not talking. I was amazed at how quickly she ate. She ripped into her sandwich with a savagery, took large swallows of Coke, ate half a pickle in one bite and reached for a handful of potato chips. I am, on the contrary, a very slow eater.

  Passion, I thought, she has passion.

  “How’s that sandwich?” I asked.

  “Pretty good. I was hungry.”

  “They make good sandwiches. Do you want anything else?”

  “Yes, I’d like a candy bar.”

  “What kind?”

  “Oh, any kind. Something good.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich, a swallow of Coke, put them down and walked over to the store. I bought two candy bars so that she might have a choice. As I walked back a tall black man was moving toward the knoll. It was a chilly day but he had his shirt off and he had a very muscular body. He appeared to be in his early twenties. He walked very slowly and erect. He had a long slim neck and a gold earring hung from the left ear. He passed in front of Lydia, along the sand on the ocean side of the knoll. I came up and sat down beside Lydia.

  “Did you see that guy?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus Christ, here I am with you, you’re twenty years older than I am. I could have something like that. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

  “Look. Here are a couple of candy bars. Take one.”

  She took one, ripped the paper off, took a bite and watched the young black man as he walked away along the shore.

  “I’m tired of the beach,” she said, “let’s go back to my place.”

  We remained apart a week. Then one afternoon I was over at Lydia’s place and we were on her bed, kissing. Lydia pulled away.

  “You don’t know anything about women, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can tell by reading your poems and stories that you just don’t know anything about women.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Well, I mean for a man to interest me he’s got to eat my pussy. Have you ever eaten pussy?”

  “No.”

  “You’re over 50 years old and you’ve never eaten pussy?”

  “No.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “No, it’s too late for you.”

  “I’ve always been a slow starter.”

  Lydia got up and walked into the other room. She came back with a pencil and a piece of paper. “Now, look, I want to show you something.” She began to draw on the paper. “Now, this is a cunt, and here is something you probably don’t know about—the clit. That’s where the feeling is. The clit hides, you see, it comes out now and then, it’s pink and very sensitive. Sometimes it will hide from you and you have to find it, you just touch it with the tip of your tongue….”

  “O.K.,” I said, “I’ve got it.”

  “I don’t think you can do it. I tell you, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “Let’s take our clothes off and lay down.”

  We undressed and stretched out. I began kissing Lydia. I dropped from the lips to the neck, then down to the breasts. Then I was down at the bellybutton. I moved lower.

  “No you can’t,” she said. “Blood and pee come out of there, think of it, blood and pee….”

  I got down there and began licking. She had drawn an accurate picture for me. Everything was where it was supposed to be. I heard her breathing heavily, then moaning. It excited me. I got a hard-on. The clit came out but it wasn’t exactly pink, it was purplish-pink. I teased the clit. Juices appeared and mixed with the cunt hairs. Lydia moaned and moaned. Then I heard the front door open and close. I heard footsteps. I looked up. A small black boy about 5 years old stood beside the bed.

  “What the hell do you want?” I asked him.

  “You got any empty bottles?” he asked me.

  “No, I don’t have any empty bottles,” I told him.

  He walked out of the bedroom, into the front room, out the front door and was gone.

  “God,” said Lydia, “I thought the front door was locked. That was Bonnie’s little boy.”

  Lydia got up and locked the front door. She came back and stretched out. It was about 4 PM on a Saturday afternoon.

  I ducked back down.

  6

  Lydia liked parties. And Harry was a party-giver. So we were on our way to Harry Ascot’s. Harry was the editor of Retort, a little magazine. His wife wore long see-through dresses, showed her panties to the men, and went barefoot.

  “The first thing I liked about you,” said Lydia, “was that you didn’t have a t.v. in your place. My ex-husband looked at t.v. every night and all through the weekend. We even had to arrange our lovemaking to fit the t.v. schedule.”

  “Umm….”

  “Another thing I liked about your place was that it was filthy. Beer bottles all over the floor. Lots of trash everywhere. Dirty dishes, and a shit-ring in your toilet, and the crud in your bathtub. All those rusty razorblades laying around the bathroom sink. I knew that you would eat pussy.”

  “You judge a man according to his surroundings, right?”

  “Right. When I see a man with a tidy place I know there’s something wrong with him. And if it’s too tidy, he’s a fag.”

  We drove up and got out. The apartment was upstairs. The music was loud. I rang the bell. Harry Ascot answered the door. He had a gentle and generous smile. “Come in,” he said.

  The literary crowd was in there drinking wine and beer, talking, gathered in clusters. Lydia was excited. I looked around and sat down. Dinner was about to be served. Harry was a good fisherman, he was a better fisherman than he was a writer, and a much better fisherman than he was an editor. The Ascots lived on fish while waiting for Harry’s talents to start bringing in some money.

  Diana, his wife, came out with the plates of fish and passed them around. Lydia sat next to me.

  “Now,” she said, “this is how you eat a fish. I’m a country girl. Watch me.”

  She opened that fish, she did something with her knife to the backbone. The fish was in two neat pieces.

  “Oh, I really liked that,” said Diana. “Where did you say you were from?”

  “Utah. Muleshead, Utah. Population 100. I grew up on a ranch. My father was a drunk. He’s dead now. Maybe that’s why I’m with him….” She jerked a thumb at me.

  We ate.

&nbsp
; After the fish was consumed Diana carried the bones away. Then there was chocolate cake and strong (cheap) red wine.

  “Oh, this cake is good,” said Lydia, “can I have another piece?”

  “Sure, darling,” said Diana.

  “Mr. Chinaski,” said a dark-haired girl from across the room, “I’ve read translations of your books in Germany. You’re very popular in Germany.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “I wish they’d send me some royalties….”

  “Look,” said Lydia, “let’s not talk about literary crap. Let’s do something!” She leaped up and did a bump and a grind. “LET’S DANCE!”

  Harry Ascot put on his gentle and generous smile and walked over and turned up the stereo. He turned it up as loud as it would go.

  Lydia danced around the room and a young blond boy with ringlets glued to his forehead joined her. They began dancing together. Others got up and danced. I sat there.

  Randy Evans was sitting next to me. I could see he was watching Lydia too. He began talking. He talked and he talked. Thankfully I couldn’t hear him, the stereo was too loud.

  I watched Lydia dance with the boy with the ringlets. Lydia could move it. Her movements lurked upon the sexual. I looked at the other girls and they didn’t seem to be dancing that way; but, I thought, that’s only because I know Lydia and I don’t know them.

  Randy kept on talking even though I didn’t answer. The dance ended and Lydia came back and sat down next to me.

  “Ooooh, I’m pooped! I think I’m out of shape.”

  Another record dropped into place and Lydia got up and joined the boy with the golden ringlets. I kept drinking beer and wine.

  There were many records. Lydia and the boy danced and danced—center stage as the others moved around them, each dance more intimate than the last.

  I kept drinking the beer and the wine.

  A wild loud dance was in progress…. The boy with the golden ringlets raised both hands above his head. Lydia pressed against him. It was dramatic, erotic. They held their hands high over their heads and pressed their bodies together. Body against body. He kicked his feet back, one at a time. Lydia imitated him. They stared into each other’s eyes. I had to admit they were good.