Money

  But she still didn't say anything. Instead, she asked me why I thought I drank so much, and I told her why I thought I did.

  'I'm an alcoholic,' I said.

  'No you're not, you're just a greedy kid with nothing better to do. Aren't you tired of it?'

  'Yes, I'm tired. I've been tired of it for years ... Yes, I'm tired.'

  Twenty minutes later we stood outside on the spongy pavement. Before us, across the road, the line of shop windows glistened like a strip of film — Manhattan and its little concerns: a Thai laundry, a handbag hospital, a delicatessen (' "Lonnie's" — For A Better Sandwich' — 'No Nukes' — 'Sorry. Closed'), a florist's forest, a Zen nicknackery which welcomed all major credit cards, a diesel bookstore. Martina and I performed the uncertain dance of people parting, with its limited steps. She still faced me, but her shoulders had already begun to turn away... If you're small and the thing you evade is big (have you ever had this dream?), then the only place to hide is a place where the big thing can't fit. But then you have to stay there, in the small place, or must even shrink to cower deeper. I'm tired of the small place. Me, I've fucking had it with the small place. I'm tired of being watched and not knowing it. I'm tired of all these absences.

  'Okay, look,' I said desperately. 'Help! Give me books to read. Point me out a book to read.' I gestured across the road at the blind shopfront. 'Something educational.'

  She folded her arms and thought about this. I could tell she was pleased.

  'All right?' I said.

  Together we crossed the lumpy street. I was told to wait outside. The bookstore window features fanned stacks of the most recent scrotum-tightener from the feminist front: it was called Not On Our Lives and it was by Karen Krankwinkl. I scanned the xeroxed blurbs and reviews. A married woman with three children, Karen believed that all lovemaking was rape, even when it didn't seem that way to either of the participants. Her brave and beaming face was duplicated on the reversed covers. Well, Karen, I wouldn't rape you with a ten-foot pole. But then, perhaps all chicks get to look like that, when they've been raped a few thousand times.

  Martina returned. She had bought me a hardback. Possibly it was secondhand, but it still looked like five bucks' worth of book, I reckoned.

  'What's the damage?' I asked.

  'Nothing. It's on me.'

  'When can I call you?'

  'When you've read it,' she said, and turned away.

  ——————

  Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, bad locked the hen-houses for the night, I read, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. I stretched, and rubbed my eyes. Was the whole book going to be like this ? I mean, did I detect some satirical intent here? Well, that was all right. I can take a joke. I clasped my hands behind my neck, and considered. What the fuck are pop-holes?.,, You see? The bookish, the contemplative life. Martina, she's even cured my tinnitus. Not a squeak for over three hours. The big thing about reading and all that is—you have to be in a fit state for it. Calm. Not picked on. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts, without interference. On the way back from lunch (I walked it) already the streets felt a little lighter. I could make a little more sense of the watchers and the watched. This book from Martina — we split lunch, so it's a present, a proper present, God damn it. How long has it been since I got a present from a girl? I'll call her now and thank her for the book. What could be simpler.

  Delicately I reached for the telephone. I paused with my fingers on the plunger. Fatal. And then the whole bomb went off in my face.

  'Fat chance, man. No chance. Just you forget it right now. You and her? You? Her? What kind of book she give you, pal? Self-help?'

  And he laughed, and went on laughing. His laughter made a terrible sound — nothing to be said about it, really. But my grip tightened and I quietly urged him, 'Get your laugh fixed, boy. Or fixed again. Everyone can tell it's false. Hey. Hey. Why don't you leave me alone? How about that?'

  'And miss out on all this? Are you kidding? Answer me something. You tell her about Sunday night? You tell her you slept rough?'

  'What?'

  'Sunday night. Remember? That was the night that just walked right over you.'

  'So,' I said, 'you did it.' This had occurred to me, but I'd hoped that the attack had been random. In my state, you're always hoping things are random. You don't want things assuming any shape on you.

  'Uh-uh. I just watched.'

  'You did it... you cruel son of a bitch.'

  'No! I didn't do it. With her heels, with her high heels! A woman did it.'

  The line went dead but oh how my head came alive. A door blew open and the pent sounds burst out fleeing. For a loathsome instant I felt her awkward quivering weight on my back as she found her feet, and her voice saying... What? Dah, no—let us abort this memory here and now. I made calls. The airline. Home, with no reply. And Martina, but just to say goodbye. These calls, they gave me no grief. Only Fielding made demands on me. Only Fielding had more penance to exact.

  ——————

  'Spunk,' I said,'— it's an honour.'

  I glanced sideways at Fielding Goodney, who shrugged.

  'We loved Prehistoric,' I went on. 'You were terrific. I mean it. You were absolutely — you were terrific, Spunk.'

  I felt Fielding nudge me in the gloom.

  'Words fail me. I tell you, Spunk — I, it really got to me, your interpretation there. We want you. We want you for Good Money. Spunk, that's what we're here today to tell you... Fuck it, Fielding,' I said, 'let's go with Meadowbrook or Nub Forkner or whoever. I don't need this.'

  'Good. Very good. Sit down, please,' said Spunk Davis.

  We were on the fortieth floor of the UN Plaza. Fielding and I had been buzzed in, cased, X-rayed and heavy-petted by two security guards in plum blazers. 'Davis, Spunk,' the man had repeated ruminatively, among the potted plants and intercom banks and closed-circuit TV screens. 'It's in another name.' He cleared us and we rode the lift's rush of nausea, slurped up, up.

  'I'm Mrs Davis,' said the little old lady who answered the door. Well, I suppose she wasn't that old, but her shrunk face was laboriously lined, with deep concentrations round the eyes and mouth. Lined, then lined again, and again. You get this effect when you gaze through a file of London trees in winter, and the naked branches criss and cross until only motes of light remain, in peeping triangles. A worked and working face. But the eyes were bright.

  'Oh. Hi,' I said.

  'Mrs Davis,' said Fielding gravely. Then he kissed her hand and held it close to his chest. This courtesy, tenderly performed, seemed right out of place to me, but it went down okay with Mrs Davis, who peered up at Fielding for quite a time before she said, 'Are you saved?'

  While Fielding dealt with that one ('Oh ma'am, but yes,' he began) I turned to face a kitchen or parlour, plain in its shapes but full of manrnade coatings and colours. A dark, low-browed gent sat there in pampered profile, his once-powerful frame encased in a double-breasted needlestripe suit. Spunk Senior, presumably. He glanced at the TV on the chintzy sideboard (bobbing basketballers), he glanced at his watch (the movement limp and stoical), he glanced at me. We briefly exchanged brute stares. We recognized each other for what we were. With tongue and teeth he gave a tight rasp and turned away in boredom or vexation or distaste. Yeah, one look at him and even I had to say to myself — the ladies, the poor ladies. They get it every time. I was in no sort of nick for this encounter, I admit, full of fear and afternoon scotch and the homeward tug. Now I had Mrs Davis's hand on my arm and her pleading face saying, 'And are you saved, sir?'

  'Pardon?'

  'Yes he's saved also, dear,' intervened Fielding, and I said, 'Yeah. Me too.'

  'I'm glad. Spunk's at the end of the hall.'

  She led us past a series of dun-walled anterooms through whose windows the burnished leagues of the East River fired off all their flame. I saw a pool-table, a polythene-wrapped three-piece suite, various devotional ornaments and gewgaws with their special p
ale glow. That glow I didn't need. We entered a dining-room as dark as a cinema with a glistening figure at the head of the long table. Mrs Davis slipped back into the light. It was five o'clock.

  'Two years ago,' the actor continued. 'You auditioned me.' He laughed disgustedly. 'For a commercial.'

  'Yeah?' I said. 'I really don't remember.' His voice — he had a certain valve or muscle working on it. I recognized that strain. I talked the same way at his age, fighting my rogue aitches and glottal stops. Glottal itself I delivered in only one syllable, with a kind of gulp or gag half way through. Spunk here was trying to tame his bronco word-endings and his slippery vowels. I speak all right now, though. But I tell you, it's a tiring ten-year haul.

  'I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough. For your commercial.'

  'No kidding,' I said. 'You remember what commercial it was?'

  'No, I don't remember. Put it out!'

  He meant my cigarette. 'Where?'

  Tut it out!'

  'Jesus,' I said, and appealed to Fielding. This is just a dramatized Hangover, I thought. I dragged mightily and in the mauve gleam I could see Davis more clearly, the bunched muscles in their tanktop. His head had an odd tilt or cock to it, set on the shoulders as if he were looking up from the bars of a drop-handled bike. He was smiling.

  'All right,' he said. 'Smoke. Since the word got out on Prehistoric I've seen a whole bunch of scripts. Road movies, good-ole-boy stuff, get the girl, happy ending.' He shook his head. 'Now I'm interested. I'm interested in Good Money. But let's get some things straight. What's your attitude to this Doug character?'

  'Uh, largely sympathetic.'

  'He's a degenerate.'

  'He's got problems you wouldn't believe.'

  'Listen. I won't smoke and I won't drink and I won't have sex.'

  'In the film.'

  'In the film.'

  Well that's that, I thought. But then I thought on a while and raised my finger. 'Will you have hangovers?'

  'Certainly,' he said. 'I am an actor.'

  'Wait a minute. You had sex in Prehistoric.'

  'That was a primitive man, Self. Something else worries me. The fight. Tell me something, all right? Why would I want to fight with an old man?'

  I noticed that Fielding was also staring expectantly at me. This will be over soon. Like everything else, this is getting nearer to being over.

  'It's kind of the climax,' I said. 'You and Lorne, you're fighting over the girl. Also the money. It —'

  'Yeah yeah. But you don't fight with old men. Not like that. Not with fists.'

  'How about if you lost the fight? How about that? Or what if you hit him on the head with a car-tool?'

  He looked at me pityingly, a full flat mouth on a chunky chin. 'It wouldn't ever happen,' he said. 'I'd take him out some other way. There are other techniques ... hypnosis, mindpower. Anyhow this we can fix. Herrick tells me you have a first draft two weeks away from completion. You'll come here and we'll talk again. My mother will see you out.'

  Half way to the door I swivelled and, as if simply following the script of this particular hangover, strolled back to the table and came to a halt with my hands in my pockets a few feet from Davis's chair. He looked up at me. Yes, even his face was muscular, as though he pumped iron with his ears. I said, 'We'll meet one day.'

  'Uh?'

  'Room 101.'

  'Pardon me?'

  'Forget it. You know, I really liked your film. It said something to me. I'll be seeing you, Spunk.'

  ——————

  We stood in the hot sandy bucket of the street, watching First Avenue's wall of death. The road rises sharply here as the tunnel fans out and climbs back into the air. Now the cars thumped and bucked on the ramp, the uptown stampede from the traps of the underpass. Fielding had waved away the Autocrat, and we idled, considering, the producer in his dove-grey suit, the director in boxy charcoal and troubled flesh. You know, the minute we got in there, the studs in my back had started to tickle, to rustle hatefully. Maybe it would be smart to let a medic in on this — there might be dirt in those wounds. Or maybe I could guts it out with penicillin, from my personal supply. In California, how much are backs? A night spent gummed to the plane's polyester would give me the full story either way. Home. Go home.

  'So,' I said, 'another nutter. Just what we need. What's all this "saved" stuff? What does saved mean?'

  'Born again. Fundamentalism, Slick, the most coarse and proletarian of all American creeds. Nicodemus, John 3. Unless a man is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'

  'Uh?'

  The Bible, Slick. You ever read it?'

  'Yeah, I read that.'

  'Spunk's very religious. The kid's a saint, you know that? He works in the hospitals, he goes down to the projects in the Bronx. All the money his dad doesn't blow on the women and the ponies, Spunk gives to charity.'

  'Like I said. Another nutter.'

  'We need him. We do need him. With him the mix is just right. He's perfect for us. That kid is going to be very, very big. Spunk's hot, Slick. Hey,' he said, and laughed briefly, 'you think he has a permit for those muscles? Now I know what's worrying you and you can relax. He's controllable. Doris will account for all that in the script and he'll fall into line the second he sees hard print. They all will. Besides, he likes you. They all do. Say, it's too bad you have to get back. Things are moving, John.'

  I said, to hell with it, I could do the budgeting and storyboarding just as well in London. If Doris Arthur came through with the script ahead of schedule, he could zip it over in a Poseidon wallet within twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, Fielding promised, he would hire the loft or the studio and line up the auditioning for the bit parts — the waiters, the dancers, the gangsters.

  'We'll have some fun with that,' he said. 'The future looks bright, Slick.'

  We embraced, a tight clasp with cheeks touching — but dead butch, naturally. Man, did I need that living squeeze. Now the Autocrat was nosing down the kerb. He had me doublesign some contracts on the hood (the usual: once under 'Co-signatory', once under 'Self'). Then he waved, and vanished behind the black glass.

  I walked the line of midtown under the sun's red stare. In the Ashbery I was informed by reception that my tab 'was all taken care of by Mr Goodney, who had moreover reserved Room 101 until further notice. This was a concession of a kind. Fielding deeply disapproved of the Ashbery, I knew, and was always on at me to take a suite, or a floor, of the Bartleby or the Gustave on Central Park South. But the Ashbery was more my speed. And I was settled here now.

  So then you pack and do all that. As I slipped Martina's book between the folds of my best suit, Felix knocked and entered bearing a white package the size of a small coffin, flamboyantly fastened with a blood-pink bow. Selina has a bra-and-pants set of just that colour. Selina. I have big plans for Selina. Well, another present, eh?

  'Delivery,' he said, straightening. Even in the at-ease position Felix seemed to be jogging on the spot.

  'Here, Felix. You've been a real pal.'

  He took the note but his face stayed quizzical. 'This is a big bill, man. You drunk?' he asked pleasantly, and smiled.

  There are few things better than the reluctant black smile: worth a hundred dollars. Worth more. The slopes of his eyelids were infinitely dark, making the stare louder and the smile more furtive. This would always give Felix a cheeky look, even when he stopped being a black kid and started being a black man. Perhaps I had the same look once, though I've lost it now. At school the masters kept telling me to wipe it off my face. But I never knew I had it, so how could I wipe it off?

  'Go on,' I said. 'It's not my money really. Buy a present for your girlfriend. Or your mother.'

  'Now you take it easy now,' said Felix.

  The black case lay on the bed beside the white box. I tugged the ribbon and lifted the lid and heard myself give a harsh shout of anger and rejection and probably shame. I tore it to pieces with my bare hands. Then I stood in the centre of th
e room thinking, whoops, hold it, hold on. But there were a good few tears backed up my tracks and now was as bad a time as any. Out it all came. I'll tell you what my present was and I think you'll understand. There was no message inside, only a plastic lady, veal-pale, moist-looking, with open grin.

  You know, I've been told that I don't like women. I do like women. I think chicks are cool. I've been told that men don't like women, period. Oh yeah? Who does then? Because women don't like women.

  Sometimes life looks very familiar. Life often has that familiar look in its eyes. Life is all vendetta, conspiracy, strong feeling, roused pride, self-belief, belief in the justice of its tides and floods.

  Here is a secret that nobody knows: God is a woman. Look around! Of course She is.

  4

  ABOVE the entrance to the saloon bar there is a picture of Shakespeare on the swinging sign. It is the same picture of Shakespeare that I remember from schooldays, when I frowned over Timon of Athens and The Merchant of Venice. Haven't they got a better one? Did he really look like that all the time? You'd have thought that by now his publicity people would have come up with something a little more attractive. The beaked and bum-fluffed upper lip, the oafish swelling of the jawline, the granny's rockpool eyes. And that rug? Isn't it a killer? I have always derived great comfort from William Shakespeare. After a depressing visit to the mirror or an unkind word from a girlfriend or an incredulous stare in the street, I say to myself: 'Well. Shakespeare looked like shit.' It works wonders.

  'Here, Fat Vince,' I said,'—what did you have for your breakfast this morning?'

  'Me? I had a soused herring for my breakfast this morning.'

  'Lunch?'

  Tripe.'

  'And what are you going to have for your dinner?'

  'Brains.'

  'Fat Vince, you're a sick man.'

  Fat Vince is beer-crate operative and freelance bouncer at the Shakespeare. He's been in and out of this place every day for thirty-five years. So have I, in my head anyway. I was born upstairs, after all. He sipped his beer. Fat.Vince looks like shit too, and so does his son Fat Paul... I have a feeling for Fat Vince, partly because he's a fellow heart-sufferer. His heart keeps attacking him, as mine will attack me one day. Fat Vince has a feeling for me also, I reckon. Every couple of months he takes me aside and, his breath sweet with trapped drink, asks me how I am. No one else does this. No one. He talks to me about my mother sometimes. Fat Vince is a widower too.