Women

"YOU FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!" some guy screamed.

"Thank you, Aunt Tilly," I answered.

I sat down, adjusted the mike, and started on the first poem. It became quiet. I was in the ring alone with the bull now. I felt some terror. But I had written the poems. I read them out. It was best to open up light, a poem of mockery. I finished it and the walls rocked. Four or five people were fighting during the applause. I was going to luck out. All I had to do was hang in there.

You couldn't underestimate them and you couldn't kiss their ass. There was a certain middle ground to be achieved.

I read more poems, drank the beer. I got drunker. The words were harder to read. I missed lines, dropped poems on the floor. Then I stopped and just sat there drinking.

"This is good," I told them, "you pay to watch me drink."

I made an effort and read them some more poems. Finally I read them a few dirty ones and wound it up.

"That's it," I said.

They yelled for more.

The boys at the slaughterhouse, the boys at Sears Roebuck, all the boys at all the warehouses where I worked as a kid and as a man never would have believed it.

In the office there were more drinks and several fat joints, bombers. Marty got on the intercom to find out about the gate.

Tammie stared at Marty. "I don't like you," she said. "I don't like your eyes at all."

"Don't worry about his eyes," I told her. "Let's just get the money and go."

Marty made the check out and handed it to me. "Here it is," he said, "$200…"

"$200!" Tammie screamed at him. "You rotten son-of-a-bitch!"

I read the check. "He's kidding," I told her, "calm down."

She ignored me. "$200," she said to Marty, "you rotten…"

"Tammie," I said, "it's $400…"

"Sign the check," said Marty, "and I'll give you cash."

"I got pretty drunk out there," Tammie told me. "I asked this guy, 'Can I lean my body against your body?' He said, 'O.K.'"

I signed and Marty gave me a stack of bills. I put them in my pocket.

"Look, Marty, I guess we better be leaving."

"I hate your eyes," Tammie said to Marty.

"Why don't you stay and talk awhile?" Marty asked me.

"No, we've got to go.

Tammie stood up. "I have to go to the ladies' restroom."

She left.

Marty and I sat there. Ten minutes went by. Marty stood up and said, "Wait, I'll be right back."

I sat and waited, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. I walked out of the office and out the back door. I walked to the parking lot and sat in my Volks. Fifteen minutes went by, 20, 25.

I'll give her 5 more minutes and then I'm leaving, I thought.

Just then Marty and Tammie walked out the back door and into the alley.

Marty pointed. "There he is." Tammie walked over. Her clothes were all messed up and twisted. She climbed into the back seat and curled up.

I got lost 2 or 3 times on the freeway. Finally I pulled up in front of the court. I awakened Tammie. She got out, ran up the stairs to her place, and slammed the door.

68

It was a Wednesday night, 12:30 am and I was very sick. My stomach was raw, but I managed to hold down a few beers. Tammie was with me and she seemed sympathetic. Dancy was at her grandmother's.

Even though I was ill it seemed, finally, to be a good time-just two people being together.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it. It was Tammie's brother, Jay, with another young man, Filbert, a small Puerto Rican. They sat down and I gave each of them a beer.

"Let's go to a dirty movie," said Jay.

Filbert just sat there. He had a black carefully-trimmed mustache and his face had very little expression. He didn't give off any rays at all. I thought of terms like blank, wooden, dead, and so forth.

"Why don't you say something, Filbert?" Tammie asked.

He didn't speak.

I got up, went to the kitchen sink and vomited. I came back and sat down. I had a new beer. I hated it when the beer wouldn't stay down. I simply had been drunk too many days and nights in a row. I needed a rest. And I needed a drink. Just beer. You'd think I could hold down beer. I took a long pull.

The beer wouldn't stay down. I went to the bathroom. Tammie knocked, "Hank, are you all right?"

I washed out my mouth and opened the door. "I'm sick, that's all."

"Do you want me to get rid of them?"

"Sure."

She went back to them. "Look, fellows, why don't we go up to my place?"

I hadn't expected that.

Tammie had neglected to pay her electric bill, or she didn't want to, and they sat up there by candlelight. She had taken a fifth of mixed margarita cocktails I had purchased earlier in the day up there with her.

I sat and drank alone. The next beer stayed down.

I could hear them up there, talking.

Then Tammie's brother left. I watched him walk in the moonlight towards his car…

Tammie and Filbert were up there alone together, by candlelight.

I sat with the lights out, drinking. An hour passed. I could see the wavering candlelight in the dark. I looked around. Tammie had left her shoes. I picked up her shoes and went up the stairway. Her door was open and I heard her talking to Filbert… "So, anyway, what I meant was…"

She heard me walking up the stairs. "Henry, is that you?"

I threw Tammie's shoes the remainder of the way up the stairway. They landed outside her door.

"You forgot your shoes," I said.

"Oh, God bless you," she said.

About 10:30 the next morning Tammie knocked on the door. I opened it. "You rotten goddamned bitch." "Stop talking that way," she said. "Want a beer?"

"All right."

She sat down. "Well, we drank the bottle of margaritas. Then my brother left. Filbert was very nice. He just sat and didn't talk much. 'How are you going to get home?' I asked him. 'Do you have a car?' And he said he didn't. He just sat there looking at me and I said, 'Well, I have a car, I'll drive you home.' So I drove him home. Anyhow, since I was there I went to bed with him. I was pretty drunk, but he didn't touch me. He said he had to go to work in the morning." Tammie laughed. "Sometime during the night he tried to approach me. I put the pillow over my head and just started giggling. I kept the pillow there and giggled. He gave up. After he left for work I drove over to my mother's and took Dancy to school. And now here I am…"

The next day Tammie was on uppers. She kept ru

"Forget tonight."

"What's wrong with you? Plenty of men would be happy to see me tonight."

Tammie slammed out of the door. There was a pregnant cat sleeping on my porch.

"Get the hell out of here, Red!"

I picked up the pregnant cat and threw it at her. I missed by a foot and the cat dropped into a nearby bush.

The following night Tammie was on speed. I was drunk. Tammie and Dancy screamed at me from the window above.

"Go eat jerk-off, ya jerk!"

"Yeah, go eat jerk-off, you jerk! HAHAHA!"

"Ah, balloons!" I answered, "your mother's big balloons!"

"Go eat rat droppings, ya jerk!"

"You jerk, you jerk, you jerk! HAHAHA!"

"Fruit fly brains," I answered, "suck the cotton out of my navel!"

"You…" began Tammie.

Suddenly there were several pistol shots nearby, either in the street or in the back of the court or behind the apartment next door. Very near. It was a poor neighborhood with lots of prostitution and drugs and occasionally a murder.

Dancy started screaming out the window: "HANK! HANK! COME UP HERE, HANK! HANK, HANK, HANK! HURRY, HANK!"

I ran up. Tammie was stretched out on the bed, all that glorious red hair flared out on the pillow. She saw me.

"I've been shot," she said weakly. "I've been shot."