The Road to Los Angeles (20 page)

Highest Prices Paid For Old Gold.

An idea! The solution to all my problems. The escape of Arturo Bandini.

I entered.

"How late do you stay open?"

The Jew did not look up from his accounts behind the wire.

"Another hour."

"I'll be back."

When I got home they were gone. There was an unsigned note on the table. My mother had written it.

We have gone to Uncle Frank's for the night. Come right over.

The bed coverlet had been stripped off, as well as one pillow case. They lay in a heap on the floor, dotted with blood. On the dresser were bandages and a blue bottle of disinfectant. A pan of water tinted red sat on the chair. Beside it lay my mother's ring. I put it in my pocket.

From under the bed I dragged the trunk. It contained many things, souvenirs of our childhood which my mother had carefully saved. One by one I lifted them out. A sentimental farewell, a look at past things before flight by Bandini. The lock of blonde hair in the tiny white prayer book: it was my hair as a child; the prayer book was a gift on the day of my First Communion.

Clippings from the San Pedro paper when I graduated from grade school; other clippings when I left high school. Clippings about Mona. A newspaper picture of Mona in her First Communion dress. Her picture and mine on Confirmation Day. Our picture on Easter Sunday. Our picture when we both sang in the choir. Our picture together on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. A sheet of words from a spelling match when I was in grade school; 100% over my name.

Clippings about school plays. All of my report cards from the beginning. All of Mona's. I wasn't smart, but I always passed. Here was one: Arithmetic 70; History 80; Geography 70; Spelling 80; Religion 99; English 97. Never any trouble with religion or English for Arturo Bandini. And here was one of Mona's: Arithmetic 96; History 95; Geography 97; Spelling 94; Religion 90; English 90.

She could beat me at other things, but never at English or religion. Ho! Very amusing, this. A great piece of anecdote for the biographers of Arturo Bandini. God's worst enemy making higher marks in religion than God's best friend, and both in the same family. A great irony. What a biography that would be! Ah Lord, to be alive and read it!

At the bottom of the trunk I found what I wanted. They were family jewels wrapped in a paisley shawl. Two solid gold rings, a solid gold watch and chain, a set of gold cuff links, a set of gold earrings, a gold brooch, a few gold pins, a gold cameo, a gold chain, little odds and ends of gold — jewels my father had bought during his lifetime.

"How much?" I said.

The Jew made a sour face.

"All junk. I can't sell it."

"How much though? What about that sign: Highest Prices Paid For Old Gold?"

"Maybe a hundred dollars, but I can't use it. Not much gold in it. Mostly plate."

"Give me two hundred and you can have all of it."

He smiled bitterly, his black eyes pinched between froggy lids.

"Never. Not in a million years."

"Make it a hundred and seventy-five."

He pushed the jewels toward me.

"Take it away. Not a cent more than fifty dollars."

"Make it a hundred and seventy-five."

We settled for a hundred and ten. One by one he handed me the bills. It was more money than I ever had in my life. I thought I would collapse from the sight of it. But I didn't let him know.

"It's piracy," I said. "You're robbing me."

"You mean charity. I'm practically giving you fifty dollars."

"Monstrous," I said. "Outrageous."

Five minutes later I was up the street at Jim's Place. He was polishing glasses behind the counter. His greeting was always the same.

"Hello! And how's the cannery job?" I seated myself, pulled out the roll of bills, and counted them again.

"Quite a roll you got there," he smiled. "How much do I owe you?" "Why - nothing." "Are you sure?" "But you don't owe me a cent."

"I'm leaving town," I said. "Back to headquarters. I thought I owed you a few dollars. I'm paying off all my debts." He grinned at the money.

"I wish you owed me about half of that money." "It's not all mine. Some of it belongs to the party. Expense money for traveling."

"Oh. Having a farewell party, eh?"

"Not that kind of a party. I mean, the Communist Party." "You mean Russians?"

"Call it that if you like. Commissar Demetriev sent it. Expense money."

His eyes got bigger. He whistled and put down his towel.

"You a Communist?" He pronounced it with the wrong accent, so that it rhymed with Tunis.

I got up and went to the door and looked carefully up and down the street. Returning, I nodded toward the rear of the store.

I whispered, "Anybody back there?" He shook his head. I sat down. We stared at one another in silence. I wet my lips. He looked toward the street and back at me again. His eyes were bugging in and out. I cleared my throat.

"Can you keep your mouth shut? You look like a man I can trust. Can you?"

He swallowed hard, and leaned forward.

"Keep it quiet," I said. "Yes. I am a Communist."

"A Russian?"

"In principle — yes. Give me a chocolate malted."

It was like a stiletto jabbed in his ribs. He was afraid to take his eyes away. Even when he turned to put the drink in the mixer he looked over his shoulder. I chuckled and lit a cigarette.

"We're quite harmless," I laughed. "Yes, quite."

He didn't say a word.

I drank the malt slowly, pausing now and then to chuckle. A gay little fearless laugh floated from my throat.

"But really! We're quite human. Quite!"

He watched me like a bank robber.

I laughed again, gaily, trilling, easily.

"Demetriev shall hear of this. In my next report I shall tell of it. Old Demetriev will roar in his black beard. How he'll roar, that black Russian wolf! But really - we're quite harmless — quite. I assure you, quite. But really, Jim. Didn't you know? But really -"

"No I didn't."

I trilled again.

"But surely! But certainly you must have known!"

I got up and laughed very humanly.

"Aye — old Demetriev shall hear of this. And how he'll roar in his black beard, that black Russian wolf!"

I stood in front of the magazine stand.

"And what is the bourgeoisie reading tonight?"

He said nothing. His bitter hostility stretched like a taut wire between us, and he polished glasses in a fury, one after another.

"You owe me for the drink," he said. I gave him a ten dollar bill.

The cash register clanged. He drew out the change and smashed it down on the counter. "Here you are! Anything else?" I took all but a quarter. That was my usual tip. "You forgot a quarter," he said. "Oh no!" I smiled. "That's for you - a tip." "Don't want it. Keep your money."

Without a word, only smiling confidently, reminiscently, I put it into my pocket.

"Old Demetriev - how he'll roar, that black wolf." "Do you want anything else?"

I took all five issues of Artists and Models from his shelf. The moment I touched them I knew why I had come to Jim's Place with so much money in my pocket. "These, I'll take these." He leaned over the counter. "How many have you got there?"

"Five."

"I can only sell you two. The others are promised to

somebody else."

I knew he was lying.

"Then two it is, Comrade."

As I stepped into the street his eyes bored into my back. I crossed the schoolyard. The windows in our apartment were unlighted. Ah, the women again. Here comes Bandini with his women. They were to be with me on my very last night in this town. All at once I felt the old hatefulness.

No. Bandini will not succumb. Never again!

I wadded the magazines and threw them away. They landed on the sidewalk, flapping in the fog, the dark photographs standing out like black flowers. I went for them and stopped. No, Bandini! A superman does not weaken. The strong man allows temptation at his elbow so he can resist it. Then I started for them once more. Courage, Bandini! Fight to the last ditch! With all my strength I wheeled away from the magazines and walked straight ahead toward the apartment. At the door I looked back. They were invisible in the fog.

Sad legs lifted me up the creaking stairs. I opened the door and snapped the light on. I was alone. The solitude caressed, inflamed. No. Not this last night. For tonight I depart like a conqueror.

I lay down. Jumped up. Lay down. Jumped up. I walked around, searching. In the kitchen, in the bedroom. The clothes closet. I went to the door and smiled. I walked to the desk, to the window. In the fog the women flapped. In the room I searched. This is your last battle. You're winning. Keep on fighting.

But now I was walking to the door. And down the stairs. You're losing; fight like a superman! The grumbling fog gulped me. Not tonight, Bandini. Be not like dumb, driven cattle. Be a hero in the strife!

And yet I was on my way back, the magazines in my fist. So there he creeps — that weakling. Again he has fallen.

See him slinking through the fog with his bloodless women. Always he will slink through life with the bloodless women of papers and books. When it ends they will find him, as yet in that land of white dreams, groping in the fog of himself.

A tragedy, sir. A great tragedy. A boneless fluid existence, sir. And the body, sir. We found it down by the waterfront. Yes, sir. A bullet through the heart, sir. Yes, a suicide, sir. And what shall we do with the body, sir? For Science — a very good idea, sir. The Rockefeller Institute, no less. He would have wanted it that way, sir. His last earthly wish. A great lover of Science he was, sir — of Science and bloodless women.

I sat on the divan and turned the pages. Ah, the women, the women.

Suddenly I snapped my fingers.

Idea!

I threw down the magazines and raced about looking for a pencil. A novel! A brand new novel! What an idea! Holy God, what an idea! The first one failed, of course. But not this. Here was an idea! In this new idea Arthur Banning would not be fabulously wealthy; he would be fabulously poor! He would not be searching the world on an expensive yacht, searching for the woman of his dreams. No! It would be the other way around. The woman would search for him! Wow! What an idea! The woman would represent happiness; she would symbolize it, and Arthur Banning would symbolize all men. What an idea!

I started writing. But in a few minutes I was disgusted. I changed clothes and packed a suitcase. I needed a change in background. A great writer needed variation. When I finished packing I sat down and wrote a farewell note to my mother.

Dear Woman Who Gave Me Life:

The callous vexations and perturbations of this night have subsequently resolved themselves to a state which precipitates me, Arturo Bandini, into a brobdingnagian and gargantuan decision. I inform you of this in no uncertain terms. Ergo, I now leave you and your ever charming daughter (my beloved sister Mona) and seek the fabulous usufructs of my incipient career in profound solitude. Which is to say, tonight I depart for the metropolis to the east — our own Los Angeles, the city of angels. I entrust you to the benign generosity of your brother, Frank Scarpi, who is, as the phrase has it, a good family man (sic!). I am penniless but I urge you in no uncertain terms to cease your cerebral anxiety about my destiny, for truly it lies in the palm of the immortal gods. I have made the lamentable discovery over a period of years that living with you and Mona is deleterious to the high and magnanimous purpose of Art, and I repeat to you in no uncertain terms that I am an artist, a creator beyond question. And, per se, the fumbling fulminations of cerebration and intellect find little fruition in the debauched, distorted hegemony that we poor mortals, for lack of a better and more concise terminology, call home. In no uncertain terms I give you my love and blessing, and I swear to my sincerity, when I say in no uncertain terms that I not only forgive you for what has ruefully transpired this night, but for all other nights. Ergo, I assume in no uncertain terms that you will reciprocate in kindred fashion. May I say in conclusion that I have much to thank you for, O woman who breathed the breath of life into my brain of destiny? Aye, it is, it is.

Signed.

Arturo Gabriel Bandini.

Suitcase in hand, I walked down to the depot. There was a ten-minute wait for the midnight train for Los Angeles. I sat down and began to think about the new novel.

proofed by Erky /// 16-09-2004