Women

65

Back in L.A., there was almost a week of peace. Then the phone rang. It was the owner of a Manhattan Beach nightclub, Marty Seavers. I had read there a couple of times before. The club was called Smack-Hi.

"Chinaski, I want you to read a week from Friday. You can pick up about $450."

"All right."

Rock groups played there. It was a different audience than at the colleges. They were as obnoxious as I was and we cursed one another between poems. I preferred it.

"Chinaski," Marty said, "you think you have trouble with women. Let me tell you. The one I've got now has a way with windows and screens. I'll be sleeping and she'll appear in the bedroom at 3 or 4 am. She'll shake me. It scares the shit out of me. She stands there and says, 'I just wanted to make sure you were sleeping alone!'"

"Death and transfiguration."

"The other night, I'm sitting and there's a knock on the door. I know it's her. I open the door and she isn't there. It's 11 pm and I'm in my shorts. I've been drinking and I'm worried. I run outside in my shorts. I had given her $400 worth of dresses for her birthday. I run outside and there are the dresses, on the roof of my new car, and they're on fire, they're burning! I run up to pull them off and she leaps out from behind a bush and starts screaming. The neighbors look out and there I am in my shorts, burning my hands, snatching the dresses off the roof."

"She sounds like one of mine," I said.

"O.K., so I figured we were through. I'm sitting here two nights later, I had to work the club that night, so I'm sitting here at 3 am drunk and in my shorts again. There's a knock on the door. It's her knock. I open it and she isn't there. I go out to my car and she has more dresses soaked in gasoline and burning. She had saved some. Only this time they are burning on the hood. She leaps out from somewhere and starts screaming. The neighbors look out. There I am again in my shorts trying to get these burning dresses off the hood."

"That's great, I wish it had happened to me."

"You should see my new car. It has paint blisters all over the hood and the roof."

"Where is she now?"

"We're back together. She's coming over in 30 minutes. Can I put you down for the reading?"

"Sure."

"You outdraw the rock groups. I never saw anything like it. I'd like to bring you in every Friday and Saturday night."

"It wouldn't work, Marty. You can play the same song over and over, but with poems they want something new."

Marty laughed and hung up.

66

I took Tammie. We got there a little early and went to a bar across the street. We got a table.

"Now don't drink too much, Hank. You know how you slur your words and miss your lines when you get too drunk."

"At last," I said, "you're talking sense."

"You're afraid of the audience, aren't you?"

"Yes, but it's not stagefright. It's that I'm there as the geek. They like to watch me eat my shit. But it pays the light bill and takes me to the racetrack. I don't have any excuses about why I do it."

"I'll have a Stinger," said Tammie.

I told the girl to bring us a Stinger and a Bud.

"I'll be all right tonight," she said, "don't worry about me."

Tammie drank the Stinger down.

"These Stingers don't seem to have much in them. I'll have another."

We had another Stinger and another Bud.

"Really," she said, "I don't think they're putting anything into these drinks. I better have another."

Tammie had five Stingers in 40 minutes.

We knocked on the back door of the Smack-Hi. One of Marty's big bodyguards let us in. He had these malfunctioning thyroid types working for him to keep law and order when the teeny-boppers, the hairy freaks, the glue sniffers, the acid heads, the plain grass folk, the alcoholics-all the miserable, the damned, the bored and the pretenders-got out of hand.

I was getting ready to puke and I did. This time I found a trash can and let it go. The last time I had dumped it just outside Marty's office. He was pleased with the change.

67

Want something to drink?" Marty asked.

"I'll have a beer," I said.

"I'll have a Stinger," said Tammie.

"Get a seat for her, put her on the tab," I told Marty.

"All right. We'll set her up. We're S.R.O. We've had to turn away 150 and it's 30 minutes before you go on."

"I want to introduce Chinaski to the audience," said Tammie.

"O.K. with you?" asked Marty.

"O.K."

They had a kid out there with a guitar, Dinky Summers, and the crowd was disemboweling him. Eight years ago Dinky had had a gold record, but nothing since.

Marty got on an intercom and dialed out. "Listen," he asked, "is that guy as bad as he sounds?"

You could hear a woman's voice over the phone. "He's terrible."

Marty hung up.

"We want Chinaski!" they yelled.

"All right," we could hear Dinky, "Chinaski is next."

He started singing again. They were drunk. They hooted and hissed. Dinky sang on. He finished his act and got offstage. One could never tell. Some days it was better to stay in bed with the covers pulled up.

There was a knock. It was Dinky in his red, white and blue te

Dinky looked at us. "Was I really that bad? I want to know. Was I really that bad?"

Nobody answered.

Dinky looked at me. "Hank, was I that bad?"

"The crowd is drunk. It's carnival time."

"I want to know if I was bad or not?"

"Have a drink."

"I gotta go find my girl," Dinky said. "She's out there alone."

"Look," I said, "let's get it over with."

"Fine," said Marty, "go get it on."

"I'm introducing him," said Tammie.

I walked out with her. As we approached the stage they saw us and began screaming, cursing. Bottles fell off tables. There was a fist fight. The boys at the post office would never believe this.

Tammie went out to the mike. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "Henry Chinaski couldn't make it tonight…"

There was silence.

Then she said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Henry Chinaski!"

I walked on. They jeered. I hadn't done anything yet. I took the mike. "Hello, this is Henry Chinaski…"

The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn't give it to them they'd run you right into the ocean.

There was a refrigerator on stage. I opened it. There must have been 40 bottles of beer in there. I reached in and got one, twisted the cap off, took a hit. I needed that drink.

Then a man down front hollered, "Hey, Chinaski, we:'repaying for drinks!"

It was a fat guy in the front row in a mailman's outfit.

I went into the refrigerator and took out a beer. I walked over and handed him the beer. Then I walked back, reached in, and got some more beers. I handed them to the people in the first row.

"Hey, how about us?" A voice from near the back.

I took a bottle and looped it through the air. I threw a few more back there. They were good. They caught them all. Then one slipped out of my hand and went high into the air. I heard it smash. I decided to quit. I could see a lawsuit: skull fracture.

There were 20 bottles left.

"Now, the rest of these are mine!"

"You go

"I'm go

Applause, jeers, belches…