Women

71

Four or five days passed. The phone rang. It was Tammie.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Listen, Hank. You know that little bridge you cross in your car when you drive to my mother's place?"

"Yes."

"Well, right by there they're having a yard sale. I went in and saw this typewriter. It's only 20 bucks and it's in good working order. Please get it for me, Hank."

"What do you want with a typewriter?"

"Well, I've never told you, but I've always wanted to be a writer."

"Tammie…"

"Please, Hank, just this one last time. I'll be your friend for life."

"No."

"Hank…"

"Oh, shit, well, all right."

"I'll meet you at the bridge in 15 minutes. I want to hurry before it's taken. I've found a new apartment and Filbert and my brother are helping me move…"

Tammie wasn't at the bridge in 15. minutes or in 25 minutes. I got back in the Volks and drove over to Tammie's mother's apartment. Filbert was loading cartons into Tammie's car. He didn't see me. I parked a half a block away.

Tammie came out and saw my Volks. Filbert was getting into his car. He had a Volks, too, a yellow one. Tammie waved to him and said, "See you later!"

Then she walked down the street toward me. When she got near my car she stretched out in the center of the street and lay there. I waited. Then she got up, walked to my car, got in.

I pulled away. Filbert was sitting in his car. I waved to him as we drove my. He didn't wave back. His eyes were sad. It was just begi

"You know," Tammie said, "I'm with Filbert now."

I laughed. It welled out of me.

"We'd better hurry. The typer might be gone."

"Why don't you let Filbert buy the fucking thing?"

"Look, if you don't want to do it just stop the car and let me out!"

I stopped the car and opened the door.

"Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, you told me you'd buy that typer! If you don't, I'm going to start screaming and breaking your windows!"

"All right. The typer is yours."

We drove to the place. The typer was still there.

"This typewriter has spent its whole life up to now in an insane asylum," the lady told us.

"It's going to the right person," I replied.

I gave the lady a twenty and we drove back. Filbert was gone.

"Don't you want to come in for a while?" Tammie asked.

"No, I've got to go."

She was able to carry the typer in without help. It was a portable.

72

I drank for the next week. I drank night and day and wrote 25 or 30 mournful poems about lost love.

It was Friday night when the phone rang. It was Mercedes. "I got married," she said, "to Little Jack. You met him at the party that night you read in Venice. He's a nice guy and he's got money. We're moving to the Valley."

"All right, Mercedes, luck with it all."

"But I miss drinking and talking with you. Suppose I come over tonight?"

"All right."

She was there in 15 minutes, rolling joints and drinking my beer.

"Little Jack is a nice guy. We're happy together."

I sucked at my beer.

"I don't want to fuck," she said, "I'm tired of abortions, I'm really tired of abortions…"

"We'll figure something out."

"I just want to smoke and talk and drink."

"That's not enough for me."

"All you guys want to do is fuck."

"I like it."

"Well, I can't fuck, I don't want to fuck."

"Relax."

We sat on the couch. We didn't kiss. Mercedes was not a good conversationalist. She wasn't interesting. But she had her legs and her ass and her hair and her youth. I'd met some interesting women, God knows, but Mercedes just wasn't high on the list.

The beer flowed and the joints went around. Mercedes still had the same job with the Hollywood Institute of Human Relationships. She was having trouble with her car. Little Jack had a short fat dick. She was reading Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. She was tired of abortions. The Valley was nice but she missed Venice. She missed riding her bicycle along the boardwalk.

I don't know how long we talked, or she talked, but much, much later she said she was too drunk to drive home.

"Take off your clothes and go to bed," I told her.

"But no fucking," she said.

"I won't touch your cunt."

She undressed and went to bed. I undressed and went into the bathroom. She watched me coming out with a jar of Vaseline.

"What are you going to do?"

"Just take it easy, baby, take it easy."

I rubbed the Vaseline on my cock. Then I turned out the light and got into bed.

"Turn your back," I said.

I reached one arm under her and played with one breast and reached over the top and played with the other breast. It felt good with my face in her hair. I stiffened and slipped it into her ass. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her ass toward me, hard, sliding it in. "Oooooohh," she said.

I began working. I dug it in deeper. The cheeks of her ass were big and soft. As I slammed away I began to sweat. Then I rolled her on her stomach and sunk it in deeper. It was getting tighter. I nudged into the end of her colon and she screamed.

"Shut up! Goddamn you!"

She was very tight. I slipped it even further in. Her grip was unbelievable. As I rammed it in I suddenly got a stitch in my side, a terrible burning pain, but I continued. I was slicing her in half, right up the backbone. I roared like a madman and came.

Then I lay there on top of her. The pain in my side was murder. She was crying.

"Goddamn it," I asked her, "what's the matter? I didn't touch your cunt."

I rolled off.

In the morning Mercedes said very little, got dressed and left for her job.

Well, I thought, there goes another one.

73

My drinking slowed down the next week. I went to the racetrack to get fresh air and sunshine and plenty of walking. At night I drank, wondering why I was still alive, how the scheme worked. I thought about Katherine, about Lydia, about Tammie. I didn't feel very good.

That Friday night the phone rang. It was Mercedes.

"Hank, I'd like to come by. But just for talk and beer and joints. Nothing else."

"Come by if you want to."

Mercedes was there in a half hour. To my surprise she looked very good to me. I'd never seen a mini-skirt as short as hers and her legs looked fine. I kissed her happily. She broke away.

"I couldn't walk for two days after that last one. Don't rip my butt again."

"All right, honest injun, I won't."

It was about the same. We sat on the couch with the radio on, talked, drank beer, smoked. I kissed her again and again. I couldn't stop. She acted like she wanted it, yet she insisted that she couldn't. Little Jack loved her, love meant a lot in this world.

"It sure does," I said.

"You don't love me."

"You're a married woman."

"I don't love Little Jack, but I care for him very much and he loves me."

"It sounds fine."

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Four times."

"What happened? Where are they tonight?"

"One is dead. The other three are with other men."

We talked a long time that night and smoked any number of joints. Around 2 am Mercedes said, "I'm too high to drive home. I'd total the car."

"Take your clothes off and go to bed."

"All right, but I've got an idea."

"Like what?"

"I want to watch you beat that thing off! I want to watch it squirt!"

"All right, that's fair enough. It's a deal."

Mercedes undressed and went to bed. I undressed and stood at the side of the bed. "Sit up so you can see better."

Mercedes sat on the edge of the bed. I spit on my palm and began to rub my cock.