The Road to Los Angeles (17 page)

"Arthur Banning lit his expensive, handsome, briar, pipe, and called to one of his underlings, a mere second mate, and asked that underling for a match. That worthy, a famous well-known, and, expert, character, in the world of ships, and the naval world, a man of international reputation, in the world of ships, and, sealing wax, did not impugn, but pro-offered the match with a respectful bow of obsequiousness, and, young Banning, handsome, tall, thanked him politely, albeit with a bit of gauche, and, then, resumed his quixotic dreaming about the fortunate girl who would some day be his bride and the woman of his wildest dreams.

"At that moment, a hushed moment, there was a sudden, stark, hideous, cry, from the hideous labyrinth of the briny sea, a cry that mingled with the flapping of the frigid waves against the prow of the proud, expensive, famous, Larchmont VIII, a cry of distress, a woman's cry! The cry of a woman! An appealing cry of bitter agony and deathlessness! A cry for help! Help! Help! With a quick glance at the storm-ridden waters, young Arthur Banning, went through an intense photosynthesis of regimentation, his keen, fine, handsome, blue, eyes looked away as he slipped off his costly evening jacket, a jacket which had cost $100, and he stood there in youthful splendor, his young, handsome, athletic, body, that had known gridiron struggles at Yale, and, soccer, at Oxford, in England, and like a Greek god it was silhouetted against the red rays of Old Sol, as it dipped into the waters of the blue Mediterranean. Help! Help! Help! Came that agonizing cry from a helpless woman, a poor, woman, half-naked, underfed, poverty-stricken, in cheap garments, as she felt that icy grip of stark, tragic, death, around her. Would she die without assistance? It was a crucible, and, sans ceremonie, and, defacto, the handsome Arthur Banning dove in."

I wrote that much at one fell swoop. It came to me so fast that I didn't get time to cross my t's or dot my i's. Now there was time for a breathing spell, and a chance to read it through. I did so.

Aha!

Wonderful stuff! Superb! I had never read anything like it before in my life. Amazing. I got up, spat on my hands, and rubbed them together.

Come on! Who wants to fight me? I'll fight every damned fool in this room. I can lick the whole world. It was like nothing on earth, that feeling. I was a ghost. I floated and soared and giggled and floated. This was too much. Who would have dreamed of it? That I should be able to write like this. My God! Amazing!

I went to the window and looked out. The fog was descending. Such a beautiful fog. See the beautiful fog. I tossed kisses into it. I stroked it with my hands. Dear fog, you are a girl in a white dress and I am a spoon on the windowsill. It has been a hot day, and I am hot all over, so please kiss me, dear fog. I wanted to jump, to live, to die, to, to sleep wide awake in a dreamless dream. Such wonderful things. Such wonderful clarity. I was dying and the dead and the ever-living. I was the sky and not the sky. There was too much to say, and no way to say it.

Ah, see the stove. Who would have believed it! A stove. Imagine. Beautiful stove. Oh stove I love you? From now on I shall be faithful, pouring my love upon you every hour. Oh stove, hit me. Hit me in the eye. Oh stove, how beautiful is your hair. Let me pee in it, because I love you so madly, you honey, you immortal stove. And my hand. There it is. My hand. The hand that wrote. Lord, a hand. Such a hand too.

The hand that wrote. Me and you and my hand and Keats. John Keats and Arturo Bandini and my hand, the hand of John Keats Bandini. Wonderful. Oh hand land band stand grand land.

Yes, I wrote it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, of the titty committee, ditty, bitty, committee, I wrote it, ladies and gentlemen, I wrote it. Yes indeed. I will not deny it: a poor offering, if I may say so, a mere nothing. But thank you for your kind words. Yes, I love you all. Honestly. I love every one of you, peew, stew, meew, pheew. I love especially the ladies, the women, the womb-men. Let them disrobe and come forward. One at a time please. You there, you gorgeous blonde bitch. I shall have you first. Hurry please, my time is limited. I have much work to do. There is so little time. I am a writer, you know, my books you know, immortality you know, fame you know, you know fame, don't you, fame, you know him, don't you? Fame and all that, tut tut, a mere incident in the time of man. I merely sat down at that little table yonder. With a pencil, yes. A gift of God - no doubt about it. Yes, I believe in God. Of course. God. My dear friend God. Ah, thank you, thank you. The table? Of course. For the museum? Of course. No no. No need to charge admission. The children: admit them free, for nothing. I want all children to touch it. Oh thank you. Thank you. Yes, I accept the gift. Thank you, thank you all. Now I go to Europe and the Soviet Republics. The people of Europe await me. A wonderful people, those Europeans, wonderful. And the Russians, I love them, my friends, the Russians. Goodbye, goodbye. Yes, I love you all. My work, you know. So much of it: my opus, my books, my volumes. Goodbye goodbye.

I sat down and wrote again. The pencil crawled across the page. The page filled. I turned it over. The pencil moved down. Another page. Up one side and down the other. The pages mounted. Through the window came the fog, bashful and cool. Soon the room filled. I wrote on. Page eleven.

Page twelve.

I looked up. It was daylight. Fog choked the room. The gas was out. My hands were numb. A blister showed on my pencil finger. My eyes burned. My back ached. I could barely move from the cold. But never in my life had I felt better.

Chapter Twenty

THAT DAY AT the cannery I was no good. I mashed my finger on the can dump. But thank God no harm was done. The hand that wrote was untouched. It was the other hand, the left hand; my left hand is no good anyway, cut it off if you like. At noon I fell asleep on the docks. When I awoke I was afraid to open my eyes. Was I blind? Had blindness stricken me so early in my career? But I opened my eyes, and thank God I could see. The afternoon moved like lava. Someone dropped a box and it hit me on the knee. It didn't matter. Any part of me gentlemen, but spare my eyes and my right hand.

At quitting time I hurried home. I took the bus. It was my only nickel. On the bus I fell asleep. It was the wrong bus. I had to walk five miles. Eating dinner, I wrote. A very bad dinner: hamburger. It's all right, Mama. Don't you dare fuss about me. I love hamburger. After dinner I wrote. Page twenty-three, page twenty-four. They were piling up. Midnight and I fell asleep in the kitchen. I rolled off the chair and cracked my head against the stove leg. Tut tut, old stove, forget it. My hand is all right, and so are my eyes; nothing else matters. Hit me again, if you like, right in the stomach. My mother pulled off my clothes and put me to bed.

Next night I wrote until dawn again. I got four hours' sleep. That day I brought paper and pencil to work. On the bus going to the cannery a bee stung me on the nape of the neck. How absurd! A bee to sting the genius. You silly bee! Be on your way, if you please. You should be ashamed of yourself. Suppose you had stung me on the right hand? It's ridiculous.

I fell asleep again on the bus. When I woke up the bus was at the end of the line, clear over on the San Pedro side of Los Angeles Harbor, six miles from the cannery. I took the ferry back. Then I took another bus. It was ten o'clock when I reached the cannery.

Shorty Naylor stood picking his teeth with a match.

"Well?"

"My mother's sick. They've taken her to the hospital." "That's too bad," was all he said.

That morning I sneaked from work to the lavatory. I wrote in there. The flies were numberless. They hovered over me, crawled on my hands and on the paper. Very intelligent flies. No doubt they were reading what I wrote. Once I stood perfectly still so that they might crawl over the tablet and examine every word thoroughly. They were the loveliest flies I had ever known.

At noon I wrote in the cafe. It was crowded, smelling of grease and strong soup. I hardly noticed it. When the whistle blew I saw my plate before me. It hadn't been touched.

In the afternoon I sneaked back to the lavatory. I wrote in there for half an hour. Then Manuel came. I hid the tablet and pencil.

"The boss wants you."

I went to see the boss.

"Where the hell you been?"

"My mother. She's worse. I was using the telephone, calling the hospital."

He rubbed his face.

"That's too bad."

"It's pretty serious."

He clucked.

"Too bad. Will she pull through?"

"I doubt it. They say it's only a matter of moments."

"God. I'm sorry to hear that."

"She's been a swell mother to me. Perfect. I wouldn't know what to do if she passed on. I think I'd kill myself. She's the only friend I have in the world."

"What's the trouble?"

"Pulmonary thrombosis."

He whistled.

"God! That's awful."

"But that's not all."

"Not all?"

"Arteriosclerosis, too."

"Good God Almighty."

I felt the tears coming and sniffed. All at once I realized that what I had said about my mother being the only friend I had in the world was true. And I was sniffing because the whole thing was possible, with me, a poor kid, slaving my life away in this cannery; and my mother dying, and me, a poor kid without hope or money, slaving away hopelessly while my mother expired, her last thoughts of me, a poor kid, slaving away in a fish cannery. It was a heart-breaking thought. I was gushing tears.

"She's been wonderful," I said, sobbing. "Her whole life has been sacrificed for my success. It hurts me to the core."

"It's tough," Shorty said. "I think I know how you feel."

My head sank. I dragged myself away, tears streaming down my face. I was surprised that such a bare-faced lie could come so near breaking my heart.

"No. You don't understand. You can't! No one understands this thing I feel."

He hurried after me.

"Listen," he smiled. "Why don't you be sensible and take the day off? Go to the hospital! Stay with your mother! Cheer her up! Stay a few days — a week! It'll be all right here. I'll give you full time. I know how you feel. Hell, I guess I had a mother once."

I gritted my teeth and shook my head. "No. I can't. I won't. My duty is here, with the rest of the fellows. I don't want you to play favorites. My mother would want it this way too. Even if she were drawing her last breath I know she would say so."

He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "No!" I said. "I won't do it."

"See here! Who's the boss? Now you do what I tell you. You get out of here and get up to that hospital, and stay there until your mother is better!"

At last I gave in, and reached for his hand. "God, how wonderful you are! Thanks! God, I'll never forget this."

He patted my shoulder.

"Forget it. I understand these things. I guess I had a mother once."

From his wallet he drew a picture. "Look," he smiled.

I held the faded photograph to my blurred eyes. She was a square, bricky woman in a bridal gown that fell like sheets out of the sky, tumbling at her feet. Behind her was an imitation background, trees and bushes, apple blossoms, and roses in full bloom, the canvas scenery slit with holes plain to see. "My mother," he said. "That picture's fifty years old." I thought she was the ugliest woman I ever saw. Her jaw was as square as a policeman's. The flowers in her hand, held like a potato-masher, were wilted. Her veil was crooked, like a veil hanging from a broken curtain rod. The edges of her mouth were hooked upward in an unusually cynical smile. She looked as though she despised the idea of being all dressed up to marry one of those damned Naylors.

"It's beautiful - too beautiful for words."

"She was a wonder all right."

"She looks it. There's something soft about her — like a hill in the twilight, like a cloud in the distance, something sweet and spiritual; you know what I mean — my metaphors are inadequate."

"Yeah. She died of pneumonia."

"God," I said. "To think of it! A wonderful woman like that! The limitations of so-called science! And it all started from a common cold, too, didn't it?"

"Yeah. That's what happened all right."

"We moderns! What fools we are! We forget the unearthly beauty of the old things, the precious things - like that picture. God, she's marvelous."

"Yeah. God, God."

Chapter Twenty-one

THAT AFTERNOON I wrote on a picnic bench in the park. The sun slid away and darkness crept from the east. I wrote in the half-light. When the damp wind rose out of the sea I quit and walked home. Mona and my mother knew nothing, thinking I was arriving from the cannery.

After supper I began again. It wasn't going to be a short story after all. I counted thirty-three thousand, five hundred and sixty words, not including a's and an's. A novel, a full novel. There were two hundred and twenty-four paragraphs, and three thousand five hundred and eighty sentences. One sentence contained four hundred and thirty-eight words, the longest sentence I had ever seen. I was proud of it and I knew it would stupefy the critics. After all, not everybody could get them off at that length.

And I wrote on, whenever I could, a line or two in the mornings, all day at the park for three days, and pages at night. The days and nights passed under the pencil like the running feet of children. Three tablets were packed with writing, and then a fourth. A week later it was finished. Five tablets. 69,009 words.

It was the story of the passionate loves of Arthur Banning. In his yacht he went from country to country seeking the woman of his dreams. He had love affairs with women from every race and country in the world. I went to the dictionary for all my countries, and there was none I missed. There were sixty of them, and a passionate love affair in each.

But Arthur Banning never found the woman of his dreams. At exactly 3:27 a.m. on Friday, August 7th, I finished the story. The last word of the last page was exactly what I wished.

It was "Death."

My hero shot himself through the head.