The knife was still pink from the heat. He held it between the ear and the skull. He held it there. Then he threw the knife into a corner of the kitchen, hard. It clattered and bounced, then was still.
“Shit! I can’t do it! Come on, let’s get the hell out of here!”
Marty walked right out of the kitchen and Kell followed him. They walked through the front room and out the front door and to the car. They got in and Marty backed it out of the drive, took a left on the unpaved lane that led down out of the hills. He looked at Kell. “Got a cigarette?” Kell dug out the pack, pulled out two, lit them both and handed one to Marty.
“Thanks, I’ll let the old man know where the Kid is as soon as we get a few hundred miles away. And don’t say a fucking thing to me. I don’t want to hear a fucking thing out of you!”
It was 9:30 p.m. It was September. The gas tank read full. Marty turned on the radio. Of all things it was Ray Charles. Marty winced. Kell didn’t say a fucking thing.
it’s difficult for them
some university profs
find me crude, crass, obvious,
repetitive and pornographic
and I often am,
I sometimes deliberately
am
but this should not concern
them,
they have their friends, their
compatriots, their peers
writing the poesy
which they find
admirable.
but why they rage
against me
in their critical essays
is what I find
strange.
now, I don’t like their work
either,
find it pale,
contrived, overworked
and a century behind the
times
but
I don’t attack them
critically,
I just stop reading them
and I don’t hate them,
I don’t care how many books
they publish or who does or
doesn’t read
them.
yet, they are very concerned
about my existence
and my large readership,
and almost hysterically
upset
that in some places
I am accepted as an
original writer of some
power.
I tend to ignore this, why
can’t they?
if they want their place in
literary history,
fine, they can have
it,
I don’t give a damn.
all I want to do is
my work
anyway
I choose to do it,
all I want is the next line
and the line after
that.
what they do and who they
are and what they want
and what they say and what
they write
has no interest for me
and, unfortunately for
them, no interest to most others
living, dying or about to be
born, uh
huh.
think of it
think of it, there were fellows like
Kierkegaard and Sartre
who found existence
absurd,
who battled against
anxiety and anguish,
nothingness,
nausea,
and death hanging over them
like a
Damocles sword
while there are other men
now
so empty of concern
that their first thought of the
day is
when are they going to have
lunch?
granted, it could be more
to live, say, as a fly, an
ant, a mugwump,
but as a human,
just think,
as a human
to live
thusly,
as millions do
again and again.
of course, hell is other
people,
the waste, the waste,
all flushed away
like
it, like
that.
the garage mechanic
walking toward you
with dead
eyes.
chicken giblets
he’s like you, she said, he locks himself in
his basement room and he doesn’t want
to see anybody.
I want you to meet him.
I don’t want to meet him, I said.
we were driving south down Western.
I want some chicken giblets, she said.
god damn it, I said.
what’s the matter? she asked.
I want a drink, I said.
well, I want some chicken giblets,
she said.
I pulled into an all-night drive-in,
opened the door, gave her some
money and she went to the
counter and ordered.
it was 3 in the morning.
she stood there eating her chicken
giblets.
two men walked up.
she started talking to them.
she was smiling.
then they all were laughing.
she had finished eating her
giblets
they kept talking and
laughing.
5 minutes, I thought.
then I looked at my watch.
after 5 minutes I backed my car out of
there and drove off.
I was sitting back in my apartment
having scotch with a beer
chaser when there was a knock
on the door.
I got up and opened it.
it was her.
what the hell happened to you?
she asked.
nothing, I said.
well, pay the cabby, she
said.
there was a cabby standing
behind her.
yeah, he said, pay me.
hey buddy, I said, step closer.
he did.
yeah, he said.
go fuck yourself, I said.
hey, man, he said, I gotta get paid!
I didn’t ride in your cab, buddy.
but she’s yours, he said.
she’s not mine, I said.
whose is she then? he asked.
you take her.
I closed the door.
about ten minutes passed.
there was a knock on the door.
I opened it,
it was her.
she pushed her way in.
gimme a drink, she said.
pour your own, I said.
she did.
she sat in a chair with her drink.
my brother stole my purse,
she said, he took all my
money.
he’s on drugs, I said.
so am I, she said.
east Hollywood
and the black sky came in like a
knife
and if you were alive you were
lucky
and if you were dead
you never knew
it.
the lover
at that apartment in east Hollywood
I was often with the hardest numbers
in town.
I don’t speak as a misogynist.
I had other people ask me,
“what the hell are you doing, anyhow?”
they were floozies, killers, blanks.
they had bodies, hair, eyes, legs,
parts
and often it was like
sitting with a shark dressed in a
dress, high heels, smoking, drinking,
swallowing pills.
the nights melted into days and the days
collapsed into nights
as we babbled on, sometimes
bedding down, badly.
because of the drink, the uppers, the
downers, I often imagined
things—say, that this one was the
golden girl of the golden heart and
the golden way of laughter and love
and hope.
in the dim smokey light the long hair
looked better than it was, the legs
more shapely, the conversation not as
bare, not as vicious.
I fooled myself pretty well, I even
got myself to thinking that I loved
one of them, the worst one.
I mean, why the hell be negative?
we drank, drugged, stayed
together through sunset,
sunrise, played Scrabble for 8
or ten hours at a
stretch.
each time I went to piss she
stole the money she needed.
she was a survivor, the
bitch.
after one marathon session
of 52 hours of whatever we
were doing
she said, “let’s drive to
Vegas and get married?”
“what?” I asked.
“let’s drive to Vegas and
get married before we
change our minds!”
“suppose we get married,
then what?”
“then you can have it any
time you want it,” she told
me.
I went in to take a piss
to let her steal the money
she needed.
and when I came out I opened
a new bottle of wine
and spoke no more of the
subject.
she didn’t come around as
much after that
but there were others.
about the same.
sometimes there were
more than one.
they’d come in twos.
the word got out that
there was an old sucker
in the back court, free
booze and he wasn’t
sexually demanding.
(although at times something
would overtake me and I
would grab a body and throw
in a sweaty horse copulation,
mostly, I guess, to see if
I could still do it.)
and I confused the mailman.
there was an old couch on
the porch and many a morning
as he came by I’d be sitting
there with, say, two of them,
we’d be sitting there,
smoking and
laughing.
one day he found me alone.
“pardon me,” he said, “but can
I ask you something?”
“sure.”
“well, I don’t think you’re
rich…”
“no, I’m broke.”
“listen,” he said, “I’ve been
in the army, I’ve been around
the world.”
“yeah?”
“and I’ve never seen a man with
as many women as you have.
there’s always a different one,
or a different pair…”
“yeah?”
“how do you do it?
I mean, pardon me, but you’re kind
of old and you’re not exactly a
Casanova, you know?”
“I could be ugly, even.”
he shifted his letters from one hand to the
other.
“I mean, how do you do it?”
“availability,” I told him.
“what do you mean?”
“I mean, women like a guy who is always
around.”
“uh,” he said, then walked off to continue his
rounds.
his praise didn’t help me.
what he saw wasn’t as good as he thought.
even with them around there were unholy periods
of
drab senselessness, despair,
and worse.
I walked back into my place.
the phone was ringing.
I hoped that it would be a female
voice.
no win
to live in a jungle
where each face is a face of
horror,
where each voice grates,
where bodies walk
without grace,
where the only communion
is between the dead and
the dead.
to live in a place
where empty faces
and common bodies
win
beauty contests.
to live in a place
where being alone
is always better than being
with someone.
to live a lifetime
with just your
fingernails
more real than
the multitudes,
to roll a 7 in hell
with nothing in the
pot,
that’s what this life
is.
THE STAR
He sat in the garden chair watching the birds dig into the freshly watered lawn. He was James Stagler, 81, ex-movie star. He was remembered for his major roles in such epic movies as Skies Over Bermuda, The Brooklyn Kid, Son of the Devil, A Big Kill, and The Ten Count. Those were his principal films, although he had appeared in hundreds of others and had also starred in a Broadway musical, Kickin’ High.
“Lunch!” He heard the woman’s voice, and he rose slowly from his chair, made his way gingerly across the lawn toward the house. James entered from the yard door and walked to the dining room table. He still somewhat resembled the leading man from the 1940s, except his hair was white and his eyes seemed to have disappeared into his face. His eyes stared out as if he was hiding within himself. As he neared the table the woman, Wanda, screamed at him:
“For Christ’s sake, how many times have I told you to wipe your feet? Now, take your shoes off and put them outside!”
James did as he was told. Then walked back to the table in his stocking feet, sat down. Wanda had come to his 75th birthday party one evening with some of his friends and she had simply stayed. Now he didn’t see much of his friends anymore. Wanda, who was 34 years younger, now handled his social affairs and his financial affairs. There had been sex between them at first but that had stopped years ago. James sat down to a plate of eggs and fried potatoes. Wanda sat across from him with a glass of sherry and lit a cigarette. She glared at James.
“Christ, I couldn’t sleep last night! You were snoring again! I don’t know what I’m going to do!”
The phone rang. It was there on the table next to Wanda. Wanda always answered the phone.
“Yeh? This is the James Stagler residence. You’re talking to Wanda Bradley, Mr. Stagler’s agent. No, you can’t speak to Mr. Stagler. What do you want? An interview for what magazine? What do you pay? I thought so, we don’t give unpaid interviews.”
Wanda banged the phone back into the cradle, glared at James again.
“Don’t put so much butter on your toast! How many times do I have to tell you?”
James wasn’t hungry. He liked to eat when it was quiet. It was seldom quiet. The phone rang again. Wanda snatched it up as if she were angry at it.
“Yes? Oh, Mr. Stanhouse. Listen, I told you, 500 grand if you want him in your movie…yes, I know it’s a cameo role! No, you can’t speak to Jimmy! Yes, he’s all right, he’s fine, I see to that! Now, if you agree to the 500 thousand, bring over the papers and we’ll dust hi
m off.”
Wanda put the phone down again, took a drink of her sherry.
“Eat your eggs! I didn’t cook them for nothing!”
“I don’t want to eat, Wanda.”
“Eat those eggs!”