“No!”
“God damn you!”
Wanda stood up. She took her napkin and slapped James’ face once and then again, hard.
James looked down into his plate of uneaten eggs. He spoke softly.
“I want you out of my house. I don’t want you here…”
Wanda just stood there. Then she laughed.
“Why, you old fuck! After all these years of taking care of you, you think I’m just going to walk out of here?”
“I’ll give you the money…”
“You’ll give me the money? I handle the money around here.”
“I don’t want you here…”
Wanda walked around the table and stood over him.
“Why you big baby! That’s what you are, a big baby!” she laughed.
“I hate you,” he said.
“You hate me, you ungrateful old man? Who cuts your hair, your toenails, pays your bills? Who makes your dental appointments? Who protects you from people? Who washes the shit out of your shorts? Who feeds you? You’d be dead in a week without me!”
James sat there over his eggs as Wanda stood there.
“I want to die,” he said, “I don’t care anymore…”
“No use dying, old boy, you can still make us some money. I know Stanhouse is going to give us that half million. And all you have to do is say a few lines, or mumble a few. Anyhow, if you die now, you’ll only go to hell.”
“This is hell…”
“Yeah, for me. Now, Jimmy, I’m telling you for the last time. Eat those eggs!”
James hated those eggs. They were dry and burned. He only felt like eating when he felt good and Wanda just stood there not understanding how or why he felt like he did. When he had first met her she had seemed so nice. She had laughed at everything he said, she had sat with him in the projection room while they watched his old films and she had said, “You were really better than Brando and a hell of a lot more man!” After his four wives and his endless girlfriends, Wanda had finally seemed the answer. But it had changed, it had changed all around.
He picked up the plate of eggs and threw them on the floor.
“I won’t eat these eggs!”
Wanda stepped back a moment. She was a large woman with straight black hair, cut short. She stiffened and she smiled.
“Well, well, well. Look here, we have a bad boy here today, a very bad boy!”
Wanda walked over and finished off her sherry. Her cigarette had gone out. She lit her cigarette. Then she walked to the kitchen closet. She came back with a whisk broom, a dustpan and a wastebasket. She stood over James with them and then suddenly threw them at him. They struck him, then clattered to the floor.
“Now!” she said, “you clean up that mess!”
James just sat there staring at the table. She stood over him. He could feel her there. Like something impossible. A pain gripped his throat, then his head. He sat there.
“Well,” she said, “get going!”
Still, he sat there.
“Well, I’m not going to wait much longer!”
Then he said it:
“Go to hell!”
“What? What did you say?”
“I said, go to hell!”
Wanda leaped on him like a leopard. His chair fell backwards. She had a grip on his head and they rolled on the floor. She was partly on top of him, an arm locked around his head. Her strength surprised him. He could hardly breathe, but he could hear her:
“You old fool, you don’t know the misery it’s been living with you…”
James couldn’t breathe. It was getting worse. He felt that it was over for him and he didn’t mind that except somehow he really resented it that it was at the hands of Wanda. Then he saw the fork on the floor. Then he had the fork in his hand and he plunged it into her back as hard as he could. Wanda screamed and leaped up. James scrambled to his feet. Wanda stood there trying to reach the fork in her back, screaming. It was in a place that she couldn’t quite reach with either hand. She looked awful with that fork stuck in there and the blood coming down. Then she stopped screaming and just looked at him. She had the look of an animal in a trap.
“It’s not going to kill you, Wanda,” he said, “it’s just a fork.”
“Pull it out, Jimmy!” she commanded.
She turned her back to him and he stared at the fork sticking out there. It was firmly in place and the blood was flowing. He was surprised at all the blood. The blood made Wanda real again. It was like when they first met: she was human after all.
“Pull it out, Jimmy!”
“I will, Wanda, if you will promise me something…”
“Just pull the fork out!”
He looked at the fork in her back. He remembered how they used to make love. How every day was a good day. How it felt so good to care for somebody again and how it felt so good to be loved again. How everything had seemed funny, there were so many things to laugh at. Why did it go away? He had never wanted it to go away.
“You’ve got to promise me something…”
“All right, I promise! What is it?”
“If I pull the fork out will you go away and leave me alone?”
“I promise! Now pull it out!”
James grabbed the fork with both hands and pulled.
“Christ,” he said, “it’s really in there!”
“Pull, you son-of-a-bitch! You’re the leading man, you’re the movie star, remember?”
James remembered his movies and it gave him strength. The fork came out and he had it in his hand and he looked at it. Wanda whirled, furious, grabbed the fork and they stared at one another. Then she suddenly plunged it into his stomach. She pulled it out and jammed it in again and pulled it out. James fell to the floor holding his gut.
“Now we’re even,” he said helplessly, looking at her.
“You senile asshole!” she screamed. “I always hated you and your movies!”
She moved over him and jabbed the fork at his face. She pulled it back as he grabbed at his mouth with both hands. She stuck the fork into his stomach again. She leaped on him and rolled him over screaming, “I hate you, I hate you!”
Once more she jammed the fork into his stomach, pulled it out. Then she stopped. James lay very still, not looking at her, almost not breathing. She dropped the fork, got up and walked back to the table, sat down. She then saw his plate, his eggs, his potatoes on the floor. When she saw that, the anger left her. Her eyes became very wide and almost beautiful. With a rush a sudden remorse came over her. It was odd. Now, she cared for him. He had been a strange and a wonderful and famous man. He had gotten old. But that wasn’t his fault. Now she didn’t want the money. She only wanted him alive. She wanted him there with her. Far off she heard a dog barking. That dog was alive. When something was alive it was unique, exceptional, no matter what the circumstances.
Wanda inhaled, exhaled, very conscious of doing so. She didn’t dare think of James.
The dog barked again.
She took the bottle, poured another sherry. She drank it down. She looked around. It was a beautiful house.
The phone rang. Wanda picked it up.
“Hello?”
It was Stanhouse. Stanhouse said it was okay about the half million. He was ready to come over with the papers when James could see him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stanhouse,” Wanda said, “we’ve talked it over and James has decided to give up acting.”
She hung up quietly.
Off in the distance the same dog barked again.
an evaluation
I’ve seen 70,000 horse races
and often
like this afternoon
as the horses slowly approached
the gate,
I thought, this is insanity,
I am murdering the hours,
I am tearing my heart out and
stamping on it with my
feet,
this is a madhouse,
this is towering stupidity,
&nb
sp; this is death laughing at
me.
this is just another 8 hour
job.
the sun came down,
a bell rang and they broke
from the gate
and were off down the
track,
and I thought, does it
really matter?
where’s the glory here?
it’s just repeat and
repeat and
repeat,
the grinding hours,
the routine.
it was a
business,
it was a
fake.
the game was getting old,
I was getting old.
they came around and into
the stretch,
the son-of-a-bitch, it was
the 7 horse, my horse,
drawing away at about 9-to-one.
I had a ten on it.
it paid $90.20.
I decided to stay for one more
race.
what would I do at home
at 3:30 in the
afternoon?
sleep?
I strolled toward the
payoff
window.
a fellow had to keep his
hand in the
action.
neon
today at the track they gave
all the patrons
neon caps.
the caps glowed and
said
HOLLYWOOD PARK.
some of those jerk-offs
wore their caps
backwards.
25 thousand neon
heads.
faces of
greed.
stone
faces.
faces of
horror.
blank wall
faces.
idiot eyes
under
neon.
fat white
stupefied
husbands and
wives.
Oakies with
blond hair.
screechers
preachers
poachers
punks…
left-overs,
half-dead,
part
warm.
neon
neon.
cement
faces.
blithering
voices.
neon over
nothing.
I thought I was
in hell.
maybe I was in
hell.
a day-glow
inferno of
festering
hell.
they think this is the way it’s done
he saw me walking into the track and he stood
waiting, he was a jockey’s agent and I only knew
him slightly
but then he moved toward me,
“Hey, Hank, I want to ask you something…”
I stopped.
he said, “Listen, I know this fellow, he’s a friend
of mine and he writes poems, really wonderful
poems…”
“I can’t help him,” I said and began walking
off.
“Yes, you can, all you have to do is to get on the
telephone!”
“No, I can’t…”
I walked further off.
“WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO THEN?” he yelled.
“SEND HIS WORK TO A GOD-DAMNED PUBLISHER!” I
yelled back.
then I was up the escalator and that was
over.
if I ever owned a horse I would never use one of
his jocks.
meanwhile, I checked the tote.
my selection was reading 5-to-one.
nice way to right a day that had started
wrong.
the pile-up
the 3 horse clipped the heels of
the 7, they both went down and
the 9 stumbled over them,
jocks rolling, horses’ legs flung
skyward.
then the jocks were up, stunned
but all right
and I watched the horses
rising in the late afternoon,
it had not been a good day for
me
and I watched the horses rise,
please, I said inside, no broken
legs!
and the 9 was all right
and the 7
and the 3 also,
they were walking,
the horses didn’t need the van,
the jocks didn’t need the
ambulance.
what a beautiful day,
what a perfectly beautiful day,
what a wondrously lovely
day—
3 winners in a
single race.
12 minutes to post
as we stand there before the purple mountains
in our stupid clothing, we pause, look
about: nothing changes, it only solidifies,
our lives crawl slowly, our wives deprecate
us.
then
we awaken a moment—
the animals are entering the track:
Quick’s Sister, Perfect Raj, Vive le Torch,
Miss Leuschner, Keepin’ Peace, True to Be,
Lou’s Good Morning.
now, it’s good for us: the lightning flash
of hope, the laughter of the hidden gods.
we were never meant to be what we are or where
we are, we are looking for an out, some music
we are betting on the miracle again
there before the purple mountains
as the horses parade past
so much more beautiful than
our lives.
as the poems go
as the poems increase into the thousands you
realize that you’ve created very
little.
it all comes down to rain, the sunlight,
the traffic, the nights and the days of the
years, the faces.
leaving this will be easier than living
it.
typing one more line now as
a man plays a piano through the radio.
the best writers have said very
little
and the worst,
far too much.
the telephone
many women I have known have
been very much connected to
the telephone.
they can talk virtually for
hours.
it is their manner of
measuring where they
are or are
not.
some women have major
problems with aging
and with
men.
on the telephone they
speak of
real and imagined
injustice,
they let loose their
poison,
they justify their
beliefs and
positions.
my wife has been
speaking to one of her
gender
back east.
the conversation is
now proceeding
into its second
hour.
if a psychiatrist or
a psychologist
were listening
their notes would be
bulging with
references to
trenchant
instability and
gratuitous masturbation
of the
psyche.
but I am neither psychiatrist
nor psychologist.
I am just the poor
son-of-a-bitch
who has to pay
the
phone bill.
a misogynist who
writes these
poems.
HIDEAWAY
Harry walked into the bar and found a stool alone. Nobody on either side of him. The bartender dragged his bloated body up and Harry ordered a scotch and water. The barkeep waddled off. He was wearing dark brown pants. His butt was wide, gross. Harry stared at the sagging buttocks, watched the wrinkles in the back of his pants. Then Harry glanced around. Nothing but lonely middle-aged guys who wanted to talk about the Rams or the Dodgers or something equally senseless.
The bartender came back with the drink. Harry paid him but the bartender kept standing there. He was wearing a faded blue t-shirt with a hole near the left shoulder. He leaned against the bar and his belly flopped over the wood. He kept looking at Harry and Harry could hear him breathing.
“What do you want?” Harry asked him.
“I wanna welcome ya to the Hideaway.” The bartender grinned through his greasy lips.
“Thanks,” said Harry.
The bartender reached under the bar and came up with a wooden cup. He grinned foolishly at Harry, shook the container up near his ear, lowered it and flipped out a pair of dice. “All the boys,” he said, “are going to roll to see who buys the next round of drinks. Low number buys. You wanna join us?”
The conversation in the bar stopped. The juke box was silent. Harry noted that most of the patrons were dressed in dirty white t-shirts. Some of them were skinny, with long thin arms and the t-shirts hung from them like dirty rags. Others were fat or muscular and the t-shirts gripped them snugly, creeping up toward their armpits leaving their hairy bellies and bellybuttons exposed. One guy was dressed in a heavy jacket that was much too large for him. They all seemed to be waiting for his answer.