The Road to Los Angeles (15 page)

"Poo poo poo," said Mona.

"Don't sneer — you preposterous monster!"

She made a contemptuous noise in her throat, pulled her book about, and now her back was facing me. Then, for the first time, I noticed the book she was reading. It was a brand new library book, with a bright red jacket.

"What's that you're reading?"

No answer.

"I'm feeding your body. I guess I have the right to know who feeds your brains."

No answer.

"So you won't talk!"

I rushed over and tore the book from her hands. It was a novel by Kathleen Norris. My mouth flew open with a gasp as the whole shocking situation revealed itself. So this was how matters stood in my own home! While I sweated my blood and bone away at the cannery, feeding her body, this, this, was what she fed her brains! Kathleen Norris. This was modern America! No wonder the decline of the west! No wonder the despair of the modern world. So this was it! With me, a poor kid, working my fingers to the bone, trying my best to give them a decent family-life, and this, this, was my reward! I tottered, measured the distance to the wall, staggered toward it, fell over backward toward the wall, and drooped there, gasping for breath.

"My God," I moaned. "My God." "What's the matter?" my mother said. "Matter! Matter! I'll tell you what's the matter. Look what she's reading! Oh God almighty! Oh God have mercy on her soul! And to think that I'm slaving my life away, me, a poor kid, ripping the very flesh from my fingers, while she sits around reading this disgusting pig-vomit. Oh God, give me strength! Increase my fortitude! Spare me from throttling her!"

And I tore the book to shreds. The pieces dropped on the carpet. I ground them with my heels. I spat on them, drooled on them, cleared my throat and exploded at them. Then I gathered them up, carried them into the kitchen, and heaved them into the garbage can.

"Now," I said. "Try that again."

"That's a library book," Mona smiled. "You'll have to pay for it."

"I'll rot in jail first."

"Here, here!" my mother said. "What's this all about?"

"Where's that fifteen cents?"

"Let me look at your thumb."

"I said, where's that fifteen cents."

"In your pocket," Mona said. "You fool."

And I walked out.

Chapter Eighteen

I CROSSED THE schoolyard toward Jim's Place. In my pocket jingled the fifteen cents. The schoolyard was graveled, and my feet echoed upon it. Here is a good idea, I thought, graveled yards in all prisons, a good idea; something worth remembering; if I were the prisoner of my mother and sister, how futile to escape in this noise; a good idea, something to think about.

Jim was in the back of the store, reading a racing form. He had just put in a new liquor shelf. I stopped in front of it to examine the bottles. Some were very pretty, making their contents appear most palatable.

Jim put down his racing form and walked over. Always impersonal, he waited for the other fellow to speak. He was eating a candy bar. This seemed most unusual. It was the first time I ever saw him with anything in his mouth. I didn't like the looks of him either. I tapped the liquor case.

"I want a bottle of booze."

"Hello!" he said. "And how's the cannery job?"

"It's all right, I guess. But tonight I think I'll get drunk. I don't want to talk about the fish cannery."

I saw a small bottle of whiskey, a five-ounce bottle with contents like liquid gold. He wanted ten cents for that bottle. It seemed reasonable enough. I asked him if it was good whiskey. He said it was good whiskey.

"The very best," he said.

"Sold. I'll take your word and buy it without further comment."

I handed him the fifteen cents.

"No," he said. "Only a dime."

"Help yourself to the extra nickel. It's a tip, a gesture of personal goodwill and fellowship."

With a smile he would not take it. I still held it out, but he put his palm upward and shook his head. I could not understand why he was always refusing my tips. It wasn't that I only offered them rarely; on the contrary, I tried to tip him every time; in fact, he was the only person I ever tipped.

"Let's not start this all over again," I said. "I tell you I always tip. It's a matter of principle with me. I'm like Hemingway. I always do it second-nature."

With a grunt he took it and jabbed it into his jeans. "Jim, you're a strange man; a quixotic character shot through with excellent qualities. You surpass the best the mob has to offer. I like you because your mind has scope."

This made him fussy. He would rather talk of other things. He pushed the hair from his forehead and ran his hand over the back of his neck, pulling at it as he tried to think of something to say. I unscrewed the bottle and held it up. "Saluti!" And took a swig. I didn't know why I had bought the liquor. It was the first time in my life I ever put out money for the stuff. I hated the taste of whiskey. It surprised me to find it in my mouth, but there it was indeed, and before I knew it the stuff was working, gritty against my teeth and halfway down my throat, kicking and tearing like a drowning cat. The taste was awful, like burning hair. I could feel it way down, doing strange things inside my stomach. I licked my lips. "Marvelous! You were right. It's marvelous!" It was in the pit of my stomach, rolling over and over, trying to find a place to lie, and I rubbed hard so the burning on the outside would equalize the burning within. "Wonderful! Superb! Extraordinary!" A woman entered the store. From the corner of my eye I got a flash of her as she stepped to the cigarette counter. Then I turned around and looked at her. She was a woman of thirty, maybe more. Her age didn't matter: she was there - that was the important thing. There was nothing striking about her. She was very plain to see, and yet I could feel that woman. Her presence jumped across the room and tore my breath from my throat. It was like a deluge of electricity. My flesh trembled in excitement. I could feel my own breathlessness and the rush of red blood. She wore an old faded purple coat with a fur neckpiece attached. She was not aware of me. She didn't seem aware of herself. She glanced in my direction and then turned and faced the counter. For a flash I saw her white face. It disappeared behind the fur neckpiece and I never saw it again.

But one glance was enough for me. I would never forget that face. It was a sickly white, like the police photographs of a criminal female. Her eyes were starved and grey and big and hunted. Her hair was any color at all. Brown and black, light yet dark: I didn't remember. She ordered a pack of cigarettes by tapping the counter with a coin. She didn't speak. Jim handed her the pack. He didn't feel the woman at all. She was just another customer to him.

I was still staring. I knew I shouldn't stare that much. I didn't care though. I felt that if she would only see my face she would not object. Her furpiece was an imitation squirrel. The coat was old and threadbare at the hem, which reached to her knees. It fit her closely, lifting her figure toward me. Her hose were gun-metal, with streaks where the weave had got loose and run down. Her shoes were blue, with lop-sided heels and frazzled soles. I smiled and stared at her confidently because I was not afraid of her. A woman like Miss Hopkins upset me and made me feel absurd, but not the picture women, for instance, and not a woman like this woman. It was so easy to smile, it was so insolently easy; it was so much fun to feel so obscene. I wanted to say something dirty, something suggestive, like pheew! I can take whatever you've got to offer, you little bitch. But she did not see me. Without turning she paid for her cigarettes, walked out of the store and down Avalon Boulevard toward the sea.

Jim rang up the sale and returned to where I was standing. He started to say something. Without a word to him I walked out. I just walked right out of there and down the street after that woman. She was more than a dozen steps away, hurrying toward the waterfront. I didn't really know I was following her. When I realized it I stopped dead in my tracks and snapped my fingers. Oh! So now you're a pervert! A sex-pervert! Well well well, Bandini, I didn't think it would come to this; I am surprised! I hesitated, tearing big slices out of my thumbnail and spitting them out. But I didn't want to think about it. I would rather think about her.

She was not graceful. Her walk was stubborn, brutish; she walked defiantly, as if to say, I dare you to stop me from walking! She walked with a zig-zag too; moving from one side of the wide sidewalk to the other, sometimes at the curbing and sometimes almost bumping the plate glass windows at her left. But no matter how she walked, the figure under the old purple coat rippled and coiled. Her gait was long and heavy. I kept the original distance she maintained between us.

I felt frenzied; deliriously and impossibly happy. There was that smell of the sea, the clean salted sweetness of the air, the cold cynical indifference of the stars, the sudden laughing intimacy of the streets, the brazen opulence of light in darkness, the glowing languor of slitted crescent moon. I loved it all. I felt like squealing, making queer noises, new noises, in my throat. It was like walking naked through a valley of beautiful girls on all sides.

About half a block down the street I suddenly remembered Jim. I turned to see if he had come to his door to learn why I had hurried away. It was a sickly, guilty feeling. But he was not there. The front of his bright little shop was deserted. The length of Avalon Boulevard showed not a sign of life. I looked up at the stars. They seemed so blue, so cold, so insolent, so far away and utterly contemptuous, so conceited. The bright street lamps made the boulevard as light as early twilight.

I crossed the first corner as she reached the front of the theater in the next block. She was gathering distance, but I allowed it. You shall not escape me, O beautiful lady, I am at your heels and you have no opportunity to elude me. But where are you going, Arturo? Do you realize that you are following a strange woman? You have never done this before. What is your motive? Now I was becoming frightened. I thought about those police cruisers. She drew me on. Ah — that was it — I was her prisoner. I felt guilty, but also I felt I was not doing wrong. After all, I am out for a bit of exercise in the night air; I am taking a walk before retiring, Officer. I live over there, Officer. I have lived there over a year, Officer. My Uncle Frank. Do you know him, Officer? Frank Scarpi? Of course, Officer! Everybody knows my Uncle Frank. A fine man. He'll tell you I'm his nephew. No need to book me, under the circumstances.

As I walked along the bandaged thumb slapped against my thigh. I looked down and there it was, that awful white bandage, slapping away with every step, moving with the motion of my arm, a big white ugly lump, so white and glaring, as if every lamp in the street knew of it and why it was there. I was disgusted with it. To think of it! He bit his own thumb until the blood came! Can you imagine a sane man doing that? I tell you he's insane, sir. He's done some strange things, sir. Did I ever tell you about the time he killed those crabs? I think the guy is crazy, sir. I suggest we book him and have his head examined. Then I tore the bandage off and threw it in the gutter and refused to think about it again.

The woman kept widening the distance between us. Now she was a half block away. I couldn't walk faster. I was going along slowly and I told myself to hurry it a bit, but the idea of the police cruisers began to slow me down. The police in the harbor were from the Los Angeles central station; they were very tough cops on a tough beat and they arrested a man first and then told him why he was arrested, and they always appeared from out of the nowhere, never afoot, but in quiet, fast-moving Buicks.

"Arturo," I said, "you're certainly walking into trouble. You will be arrested for a degenerate!"

Degenerate? What nonsense! Can't I go for a walk if I feel like it? That woman up ahead? I don't know a thing about her. This is a free country, by God. Can I help it if she happens to be moving in the same direction as I? If she doesn't like it, let her walk on another street, Officer. This is my favorite street anyhow, Officer. Frank Scarpi is my uncle, Officer. He will testify that I always go for a walk down this street before retiring. After all, this is a free country, Officer.

At the next corner the woman stopped to strike a match against the wall of the bank. Then she lit a cigarette. The smoke hung in the dead air like distorted blue balloons. I sprang to my toes and hurried. When I got to the motionless clouds I lifted myself on tiptoe and drew them down. The smoke from her cigarette! Aha.

I knew where her match had fallen. A few steps more and I picked it up. There it lay, in the palm of my hand. An extraordinary match. No perceptible difference from other matches, yet an extraordinary match. It was half burned, a sweet-smelling pine match and very beautiful like a piece of rare gold. I kissed it.

"Match," I said. "I love you. Your name is Henrietta. I love you body and soul."

I put it in my mouth and began to chew it. The carbon tasted of a delicacy, a bitter-sweet pine, brittle and succulent. Delicious, ravishing. The very match she had held in her fingers. Henrietta. The finest match I ever ate, Madam. Let me congratulate you.

She was moving faster now, clots of smoke in her wake. I drew big draughts of them down. Aha. That movement in her hips was like a ball of snakes. I felt it in my chest and finger tips.

Now we were advancing toward the cafes and pool-halls along the waterfront. The night air plinked with the voices of men and the distant click of pool balls. In front of the Acme, stevedores suddenly appeared, pool cues in their hands. They must have heard the click of the woman's heels on the sidewalk, because they came out so suddenly, and now they were out in front, waiting.

She passed along a lane of silent eyes, and they followed her with a slow pivoting of necks, five men lounging in the doorway. I was fifty feet behind. I detested them. One of them, a monster with a bailing hook stuck in his pocket, took the cigar from his mouth and whistled softly. He smiled to the others, cleared his throat, and spat a silver streak across the sidewalk. I detested that ruffian. Did he know there was a city ordinance forbidding expectorating on a sidewalk? Wasn't he aware of the laws of decent society? Or was he merely an illiterate human monster who had to spit and spit and spit for sheer animalism, a loathsome, vicious urge in his body which forced him to blech out his vile spleen whenever he felt like it? If I only knew his name!