The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories

  Finally, he gave the body a little shove. She floated off, half underwater, the strands of long hair whirling about the body. She was still beautiful, dead or whatever she was.

  She began to float away from him, caught in some tide. The sea had her.

  Then suddenly he turned from her, tried to swim back toward the shore. It seemed very far away. He made it in with the last stroke of his strength, rolling in with the force of the last breaker. He picked himself up, fell, got up, walked forward, sat down beside Bill.

  “So, she’s gone,” said Bill.

  “Yeh. Shark meat.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever be caught?”

  “No. Give me a drink.”

  “Go easy. We’re getting close to the bottom.”

  “Yeah.”

  They got back to the car. Bill drove. They argued over the final drinks on the way home, then Tony thought about the mermaid. He put his head down and began to cry.

  “You were always chickenshit,” said Bill, “always chickenshit.”

  They made it back to the rooming house.

  Bill went to his room, Tony to his. The sun was coming up. The world was awakening. Some were awakening with hangovers. Some were awakening with thoughts of church. Most were still asleep. A Sunday morning. And the mermaid, the mermaid with that dead sweet tail, she was well out to sea. While somewhere a pelican dove, came up with a glittering, guitar-shaped fish.

  TROUBLE WITH A BATTERY

  I bought her a drink and then another drink and then we went up the stairway behind the bar. there were several large rooms there. she had me hot. sticking her tongue out at me. and we played all the way up the stairway. I took the first one, standing up, inside the door. she just slid back her panties and I put it in.

  then we went into the bedroom and there was some kid in the other bed, there were two beds, and the kid said, “hello.”

  “it’s my brother,” she said.

  the kid looked real thin and vicious, but then almost everybody in the world looked vicious when you thought about it.

  there were several bottles of wine along the headboard. they opened a bottle and I waited until they both drank from the bottle, then I tried some.

  I threw a ten on the dresser.

  the kid really drank at the wine.

  “his big brother is the great bullfighter, Jaime Bravo.”

  “I’ve heard of Jaime Bravo, he fights mostly out of T.,” I said, “but you don’t have to give me any bullshit.”

  “o.k.,” she said, “no bullshit.”

  we drank and talked for some time, just small easy talk. and then she turned out the lights and with the brother there in the other bed, we did it again. I had my wallet under her pillow.

  when we finished she hit the light and went to the bathroom while her brother and I passed the bottle. while the brother wasn’t looking I wiped off on the sheet.

  she came out of the bathroom and she still looked good, I mean after two shots at it, she still looked good. her breasts were small but firm; what there was of them really jutted. and her ass was big, big enough.

  “why did you come to this place?” she asked, moving toward the bed. she slid in beside me, pulled up the sheet, pulled from the bottle.

  “I had to get my battery charged across the street.”

  “after that one,” she said, “you’ll need a charge.”

  we all laughed. even the brother laughed. then he looked at her:

  “is he all right?”

  “sure he’s all right,” she said.

  “what’s all that?” I asked.

  “we have to be careful.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “one of the girls was almost murdered up here last year. some guy gagged her so she couldn’t scream and then took a pen knife and cut these crosses all over her body. she almost bled to death.”

  the brother dressed very slowly, then left. I gave her a five. she threw it on the dresser with the ten.

  she passed the wine. it was good wine, French wine. you didn’t gag.

  she put her leg up against mine. we were both sitting up in bed. it was very comfortable.

  “how old are you?” she asked.

  “damn near half a century.”

  “you can sure go, but you look real beat-up.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not very pretty.”

  “oh no, I think you’re a beautiful man. didn’t anybody ever tell you?”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the men you fuck.”

  “no, I don’t.”

  we sat there a while, passing the bottle. it was very quiet except that you could hear a little music from the bar downstairs. I passed into a kind of dream-trance.

  “HEY!” she yelled. she jammed a long fingernail into my bellybutton.

  “ow! god damn!”

  “LOOK at me!”

  I turned and looked at her.

  “what do you see?”

  “a fine-looking Mexican-Indian girl.”

  “how can you see?”

  “what?”

  “how can you see? you don’t open your eyes. you keep your eyes in little slits. why?”

  it was a fair question. I took a good pull at the French wine.

  “I don’t know. maybe I’m afraid. afraid of everything. I mean, people, buildings, things, everything. mainly people.”

  “I’m afraid too,” she said.

  “but your eyes are open. I like your eyes.”

  she was hitting the wine. hard. I knew those Mexican-Americans. I was waiting for her to get nasty.

  then there was a rapping on the door that damn near shitted me out. it was flung open, viciously, American-style, and there was the bartender — big red brutal banal bastard.

  “ain’t you through with that son of a bitch yet?”

  “I think he wants some more,” she said.

  “do you?” asked Mr. Banal.

  “I think so,” I said.

  his eyes eagled over to the money on the dresser and he slammed the door. a money society. they thought it was magic.

  “that was my husband, sort of,” she said.

  “I don’t think I want to go again,” I said.

  “why not?”

  “first, I’m 48. second, it’s kind of like fucking in the waiting room of a bus station.”

  she laughed. “I’m what you guys call a ‘whore.’ I must fuck 8 or ten guys a week, at least.”

  “that sure doesn’t help my cause.”

  “it helps mine.”

  “yeh.”

  we passed the bottle back and forth.

  “you like to fuck women?”

  “that’s why I’m here.”

  “how about men?”

  “I don’t fuck men.”

  she pulled at the bottle. she must have taken a good one-quarter of it.

  “maybe you’d like it in the ass? maybe you’d like a man to fuck you in the ass?”

  “you’re talking crazy now.”

  she looked straight ahead. there was a little silver Christ on the further wall. she kept looking at the little silver Christ on his cross. he was very pretty.

  “maybe you’ve been hiding it. maybe you want somebody to fuck you in the ass.”

  “o.k., have it your way — maybe that’s what I really want.”

  I got the corkscrew and pulled out the top of a new French wine, meanwhile getting a bunch of cork and shit into the wine as I always did. only a waiter in the movies could open a French wine without that trouble.

  I took the first good gulp. cork and all. I handed her the bottle. her leg had dropped away. she had a fish-like look on her face. she took a good swallow.

  I took the wine back from her. the little splints of cork didn’t seem to know where to go in the bottle. I got rid of some of them.

  “you want me to fuck you in the ass?” she asked.

  “WHAT?”

  “I can DO it!”

  she got out of bed and went to
the top drawer of the dresser and strapped this belt around her waist and then faced me — and there, looking at me, was this BIG celluloid cock.

  “ten inches!” she laughed, pushing out her belly, jutting the thing toward me, “and it never gets soft and it never wears out!”

  “I liked you better the other way.”

  “you don’t believe my big brother is Jaime Bravo the great bullfighter?”

  there she was standing there with this celluloid cock on, asking me about Jaime Bravo.

  “I don’t think Bravo could cut it in Spain,” I said.

  “could you cut it in Spain?”

  “hell, I can’t cut it in Los Angeles. now please take that ridiculous artificial cock off…”

  she unhooked the thing and put it back in the top dresser drawer.

  I got out of bed and sat in a straight-backed chair, drinking the wine. she found another chair, and there we sat across from each other, naked, passing the wine.

  “this reminds me somehow of an old Leslie Howard movie, although they wouldn’t shoot this part. wasn’t Howard in the Somerset Maugham thing? OF HUMAN BONDAGE?”

  “I don’t know those people.”

  “that’s right, you’re too young.”

  “did you like this Howard, this Maugham?”

  “they both had style. plenty of style. but, somehow, with both of them, hours or days or years later, you felt gypped, finally.”

  “but they had this thing you call ‘style’?”

  “yes, style is important. many people scream the truth but without style it is helpless.”

  “Bravo has style, I have style, you have style.”

  “now you’re learning.”

  then I got back into bed. she came on in. I tried it again. I couldn’t make it.

  “you suck?” I asked.

  “sure.”

  she took it in her mouth and got it out of me.

  I gave her another five, dressed, took another drink of wine, and made it down the stairway, across the street to the gas station. the battery was fully-charged. I paid the attendant and then backed on out, hit up 8th ave. a cop on a bike trailed me for 2 or 3 miles. there was a pack of CLORETS in the glove compartment and I took them out, put in 3 or 4. the cop on the bike finally gave up and tailed after a Jap who made a sudden left turn without blinkers or hand signal on Wilshire blvd. they deserved each other.

  when I got to my place the woman was asleep and the little girl wanted me to read to her from a book called BABY SUSAN’S CHICKEN. it was terrible. Bobby found a cardboard carton for the chicks to sleep in. he set it in a corner behind the kitchen stove. and Bobby put some of Baby Susan’s cereal in a little dish and set it carefully in the carton, so the little chicks could have some dinner. and Baby Susan laughed and clapped her fat little hands.

  it turns out later that the 2 other chicks are roosters and Baby Susan is a hen, a hen who lays a most wondrous egg. I’ll say.

  I put the little girl down and went into the bathroom and let the hot water run into the tub. then I got into the tub and thought, the next time I get a dead battery I’ll go to a movie. then I stretched out into the hot water and forgot everything. almost.

  The President of the United States of America entered his car, surrounded by his agents. He sat in the back seat. It was a dark and unimpressive morning. Nobody spoke. They rolled away and the tires could be heard on a street still wet from the preceding night’s rain. The silence was more unusual than it had ever been before.

  They drove along a while and then the President spoke:

  “Say, this isn’t the way to the airport.”

  His agents didn’t answer. A vacation had been scheduled. Two weeks at his private home. His plane was waiting at the airport.

  It began to drizzle. It looked as if it might rain again. The men, including the President, were dressed in heavy overcoats; hats; it made the car seem very full. Outside, the cold wind was steady.

  “Driver,” said the President, “I believe you’re on the wrong course.”

  The driver didn’t answer. The other agents stared straight ahead.

  “Listen,” said the President, “will somebody tell that man the way to the airport?”

  “We’re not going to the airport,” said the agent to the President’s left.

  “We’re not going to the airport?” the President asked.

  The agents were again quiet. The drizzle became rain. The driver turned the wipers on.

  “Listen, what is it?” asked the President. “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s been raining for weeks,” said the agent next to the driver. “It gets depressive. I’ll certainly be glad to see a little sunshine.”

  “Yes, me too,” said the driver.

  “Something’s wrong here,” said the President, “I demand to know…”

  “You are no longer in a position to demand,” said the agent to the President’s right.

  “You mean? …”

  “We mean,” said the same agent.

  “Is it to be an assassination?” asked the President.

  “Hardly. That’s old-fashioned.”

  “Then what…”

  “Please. We have orders not to discuss anything.”

  They drove for some hours. It continued to rain. Nobody spoke.

  “Now,” said the agent to the President’s left, “circle again, then turn in. We’re not being followed. The rain has been very helpful.”

  The car circled the area, then turned up a small dirt road. It was muddy and now and then the tires spun, slipped, then gripped again and the car went on. A man in a yellow raincoat held a flashlight and directed them into an open garage. It was an isolated area with many trees. A small farmhouse sat to the left of the garage. The agents opened the car doors.

  “Get out,” they told the President. The President did so. The agents kept the President carefully between them, although there wasn’t a human within miles except for the man with the flashlight and the yellow raincoat.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t have done the whole thing here,” said the man in the yellow raincoat. “It certainly seems much riskier the other way.”

  “Orders,” said one of the agents. “You know how it is. He’s always gone a lot on intuition. He does so now, more than ever.”

  “It’s very cold. Do you have time for a cup of coffee? It’s ready.”

  “That’s good of you. It’s been a long drive. I presume the other car is all ready to go?”

  “Of course. It’s been checked again and again. Actually, we’re about ten minutes ahead on the timetable. That’s one reason I suggested the coffee. You know how he is about precision.”

  “O.K., then, let’s go in.”

  Keeping the President carefully between them, they entered the farmhouse.

  “You sit there,” one of the agents told the President.

  “It’s good coffee,” said the man in the yellow raincoat, “hand-ground.”

  He walked around with the pot. He poured himself one, then sat down, still in the yellow raincoat, only the headpiece thrown on the stove.

  “Ah, it is good,” said one of the agents.

  “Cream and sugar?” one of them asked the President.

  “All right,” he said …

  There wasn’t much room in the old car but they all managed to get in, with the President again in the back seat. … The old car also slipped in the mud and rutholes but made it back to the road. Again, it was a silent ride most of the way. Then one of the agents lit a cigarette.

  “Damn it, I just can’t stop smoking!”

  “Well, it’s a hard thing to do, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried about it. Just disgusted with myself.”

  “Well, forget all that. This is a great day in History.”

  “I’ll say so!” said the one with the cigarette.

  Then he inhaled …

  They parked outside an old roominghouse. It continued to
rain. They sat there some moments.

  “Now,” said the agent next to the driver, “get him out. It’s clear. Nobody on the streets.”

  They walked the President between them, first through the front door, then up 3 flights of steps, always keeping the President between them. They stopped and knocked at 306. The signal: one knock, pause, 3 knocks, pause, two knocks …

  The door was opened and the men quickly pushed the President inside. The door was then locked and bolted. Three men were waiting inside. Two were in their 50’s. The other sat in an outfit that consisted of an old laborer’s shirt, 2nd-hand trousers that were too large and ten dollar shoes, scuffed and unpolished. He sat in a rocker in the center of the room. He was in his 80’s but he smiled … and the eyes were those same eyes; the nose, the chin, the forehead hadn’t changed much.

  “Welcome, Mr. President. I’ve waited a long time on History and Science and You, and all have arrived, on schedule, today …”

  The President looked at the old man in the rocker. “Great God! You’re … you are …

  “You’ve recognized me! Others of your citizens have made jokes about the similarity! Too stupid to even realize that I was …

  “But it was proven that…

  “Of course, it was proven. The bunkers: April 30th, 1945. We wanted it that way. I’ve been patient. Science was with us but at times I had to speed-up History. We wanted the right man. You are the right man. The others were too impossible — too alienated from my political philosophy… You are far more ideal. By working through you it will be easier. But as I said, I had to speed-up the reel of History a bit… my age … I had to …

  “You mean …?”

  “Yes. I had your president Kennedy assassinated. And then, his brother …

  “But why the 2nd assassination?”

  “We had information that that young man would have won the presidential election.”

  “But what are you going to do with me? I’ve been told that I’m not to be assassinated …”

  “May I introduce Drs. Graf and Voelker?”

  The two men nodded at the President and smiled.

  “But what is going to happen?” asked the President.

  “Please. Just a moment. I must question my men. Karl, how did it go with The Double?”

  “Fine. We phoned from the farm. The Double arrived at the airport on schedule. The Double announced, that due to weather conditions, he was canceling the flight until tomorrow. Then The Double announced that he would take a pleasure drive … that it pleased him to be driven about in the rain …”