I paused a moment for breath and took another swallow of gin. Ned was watching me with mouth wide open.
«Go on!» he said, «keep it up!» «You like it, do you?»
«It's marvelous,» he said. «Real passion there. I'd give anything to be able to get worked up to that pitch... Go ahead, say anything you want. Don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. I'm nobody....»
«For God's sake, don't talk like that—you take the steam out of me. I'm not putting on an act... I'm serious.»
«I know you are—that's why I say go ahead! People don't talk this way any more... leastways not the people I know.»
He rose to his feet, slipped an arm in mine, and gave me that charming Klieg-light smile of his. His eyes were big and liquid; the eyelids were like chipped saucers. It was amazing what an illusion of warmth and understanding he could give. I wondered for a moment if I had underestimated him. Nobody should be spurned or rejected who gives even the illusion of feeling. How could I tell what struggles he had made, and was still making perhaps, to rise to the surface? What right had I to judge him —or anybody? If people smile at you, take your arm, give off a glow, it must be that there is something in them which responds. Nobody is altogether dead.
«Don't worry about what I think,» he was saying in that rich, pastoral voice. «I only wish Ulric were here... he would appreciate it even more than I.»
«For Christ's sake, don't say that, Ned! One doesn't want appreciation... one wants a response. To tell you the truth, I don't know what I want of you, or of anybody, for that matter. I want more than I get, that's all I know. I want you to step out of your skin. I want everybody to strip down, not just to the flesh, but to the soul. Sometimes I get so hungry, so rapacious, that I could eat people up. I can't wait for them to tell me things... how they feel... what they want... and so on. I want to chew them alive... find out for myself... quick, all at once. Listen...»
I picked up a drawing of Ulric's that was lying on his table. «See this? Now supposing I ate it?» I began to chew the paper.
«Jesus, Henry, don't do that! He's been working on that for the last three days. That's a job.» He tore the drawing from my hand.
«All right,» I said. «Give me something else then. Give me a coat... anything. Here, give me your hand!» I made a grab for his hand and raised it to my mouth. He pulled it away violently.
«You're going nuts,» he said. «Listen, hold your horses. The girls will be back soon... then you can have real food.»
«I'll eat anything,» I said. «I'm not hungry, I'm exalted. I just want to show you how I feel. Don't you ever get this way?»
«I should say not!» he said, baring a fang. «Christ, if it got that bad I'd go to a doctor. I'd think I had the D. T's, or something. You'd better put that glass down... that gin isn't good for you.»
«You think it's the gin? All right, I'll throw the glass away.» I went to the window and threw it into the courtyard. «There! Now give me a glass of water. Bring a pitcher of water in. I'll show you... You never saw anybody get drunk on water, eh? Well, watch me!»
«Now before I get drunk on the water,» I continued, following him into the bathroom, «I want you to observe the difference between exaltation and intoxication. The girls will be coming back soon. By that time I'll be drunk. You watch. See what happens.»
«You bet I will,» he said. «If I could learn to get drunk on water it would save me a lot of headaches. Here, take a glass now. I'll get the pitcher.»
I took the glass and swallowed it down in one gulp. When he returned I swallowed another in the same fashion. He looked on as if I were a circus freak.
After five or six of these you'll begin to notice the effect,» I said.
«Are you sure you don't want a wee drop of gin in it? I won't accuse you of cheating. Water is so damned flat and tasteless.»
«Water is the elixir of life, my dear Ned. If I were running the world I'd give the creative people a bread and water diet. The dullards I'd give all the food and drink they craved. I'd poison them off by satisfying their desires. Food is poison to the spirit. Food doesn't satisfy hunger, nor drink thirst. Food, sexual or otherwise, is only satisfying to the appetites. Hunger is something else. Nobody can satisfy hunger. Hunger is the soul's barometer. Ecstasy is the norm. Serenity is the freedom from weather conditions—the permanent climate of the stratosphere. That's where we're all headed... towards the stratosphere. I'm already a bit drunk, do you see? Because, when you can think of serenity it means that you've passed the zenith of exaltation. At one minute past twelve noon night begins, say the Chinese. But at zenith and nadir you stand stock still for a moment or two. At the two poles God gives you the chance to leap clear of the clock-work. At the nadir, which is physical intoxication, you have the privilege of going mad—or of committing suicide. At zenith, which is a state of ecstasy, you can pass fulfilled into serenity and bliss. It's now about ten minutes after twelve on the spiritual clock. Night has fallen. I am no longer hungry, I have only an insane desire to be happy. That means I want to share my intoxication with you and everybody. That's maudlin. When I finish the pitcher of water I'll begin to believe that everybody is as good as everybody else: I'll lose all sense of values. That's the only way we have of knowing how to be happy—to believe that we are identical. It's the delusion of the poor in spirit. It's like Purgatory equipped with electric fans and streamlined furniture. It's the caricature of joyousness. Joy means unity; happiness means plurality.»
«Do you mind if I take a leak?» said Ned. «I think you're getting somewhere now. I feel mildly pleasurable.»
«That's reflected happiness. You're living on the moon. As soon as I stop shining you'll become extinct.»
«You said it, Henry. Jesus, having you around is like getting a shot in the arm.»
The pitcher was almost empty. «Fill it up again,» I said. «I'm lucid but I'm not drunk yet. I wish the girls would come back. I need an incentive. I hope they didn't get run over.»
«Do you sing when you get drunk?» asked Ned.
Do I? Do you want to hear me?» I began the Prologue to Pagliacci.
In the midst of it the girls returned, loaded with packages. I was still singing.
«You must be high,» said Marcelle, glancing from one to the other of us.
«He's getting drunk,» said Ned. «Ore water.»
«On water?» they echoed.
«Yes, on water. It's the opposite of ecstasy, he says.»
«I don't get you,» said Marcelle. «Let me smell your breath.»
«Don't smell mine... smell his. I'm satisfied to get drunk on liquor. Two minutes after twelve it's night time, says Henry. Happiness is only an air-conditioned form of Purgatory... isn't that it, Henry?»
«Listen,» said Marcelle, «Henry's not drunk, you're the one who's drunk.»
«Joy is unity; happiness is always in the majority, or something like that. You should have been here a little earlier. He wanted to eat my hand. When I refused to oblige him he asked for a coat. Come on in here... I'll show you what he did to Ulric's drawing.»
They looked at the drawing, one corner of which had been chewed to a frazzle.
«That's hunger for you,» Ned explained. «He doesn't mean ordinary hunger—he means spiritual hunger. The goal is the stratosphere where the climate is always serene. Isn't that it, Henry?»
«That's it,» I said, with a grave smile. «Now Ned, tell Mona what you were telling me a moment ago...» I gave him a hypnotic blink and raised another glass to my lips.
«I don't think you'd better let him drink all that water,» said Ned, appealing to Mona. «He's finished one pitcher already. I'm afraid he'll get dropsy—or hydrocephalis.»
Mona gave me a searching look. What's the meaning of this act? it said.
I put my hand on her arm, lightly, as if I were laying a divining rod on it. «He has something to say to you. Listen quietly. It will make you feel good.»
All eyes were focused on Ned. He blushed and stammered.
«What is this?» said Marcelle. «What did he say that was so wonderful?»
«I guess I'll have to say it for him,» I said. I took Mona's two hands in mine and looked into her eyes. «This is what he said, Mona... ' I never knew that one human being could transform another human being as Mona has transformed you. Some people get religion; you got love. You're the luckiest man in the world.'»
Mona: «Did you really say that, Ned?» Marcelle: «How is it I haven't transformed you?» Ned began to sputter.
«I guess he needs another drink,» said Marcelle. «No, drink only satisfies the lower appetites,» said Ned. «I'm searching for the elixir of life, which is water, according to Henry.»
«I'll give you your elixir later,» Marcelle rejoined. «How about some cold chicken now?» «Have you any bones?» I asked. Marcelle looked perplexed.
«I want to eat them,» I said. «Bones give phosphorus and iodine. Mona always feeds me bones when I'm exalted. You see, when I'm effervescent I give off vital energy. You don't need bones—you need cosmic juices. You've worn your celestial envelope too thin. You're radiating from the sexual sphere.»
«What does that mean in plain English?» «It means that you feed on seed instead of ambrosia. Your spiritual hormones are impoverished. You love Apis the Bull instead of Krishna the charioteer. You'll find your Paradise, but it will be on the lower level. Then the only escape is insanity.»
It's as clear as mud,» said Marcelle.
«Don't get caught in the clock-work, that's what he means,» Ned volunteered.
«What clock-work? What the hell are you talking about, you two?»
«Don't you understand, Marcelle? I said. «What can love bring you that you haven't got already?»
«I haven't got anything, except a lot of responsibilities,» said Marcelle. «He gets it all.»
«Precisely, and that's why it feels so good.»
«I didn't say that! ...Listen, what are you talking about? Are you sure you're feeling all right?»
«I'm talking about your soul,» I said. «You've been starving your soul. You need cosmic juices, as I said before.»
«Yeah, and where do you buy 'em?»
«You don't buy them... you pray for them. Didn't you ever hear of the manna that fell from the sky? Ask for manna to-night: it will give tone to your astral ligaments...»
«I don't know anything about this astral stuff, but I do know something about ass,» said Marcelle. «If you ask me, I think you're giving me the double entendre. Why don't you go to the bathroom for a little while and play with yourself? Marriage has a queer effect on you.»
«You see, Henry,» Ned broke in, «that's how they bring things down to earth. She's always worrying about her nookie, aren't you, dear?» He stroked her under the chin. «I was thinking,» he continued, «that maybe we ought to go to the burlesk tonight. That would be a novel way to celebrate the occasion, don't you think? You know, it gives you ideas.»
Marcelle looked at Mona. It was obvious they didn't think it was such a hot idea.
«Let's eat first,» I suggested. «Bring that coat in, or a pillow... I might want something on the side. Talking about ass,» I said, «did you ever take a good bite... you know, a real bite? Take Marcelle, for instance... that's what I call a tempting piece of ass.»
Marcelle began to titter. She put her hands behind her instinctively.
«Don't worry, I'm not biting into you yet. There's chicken first and other things. But honest, sometimes one does feel like tearing a chunk out, what! A pair of teats, that's different. I never could bite into a woman's teats—a real bite, I mean. Always afraid the milk will squirt into my face. And all those veins... Jesus, it's so bloody. But a beautiful ass... somehow you don't think of blood in a woman's ass. It's just pure white meat. There's another delicacy just below the crotch, on the inside. That's even tenderer than a piece of pure ass. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating. Anyway, I'm hungry... Wait till I drain some of this piss out of me. It's given me a hard-on, and I can't eat with a hard-on. Save some of the brown meat for me, with the skin. I love skin. Make a nice cunt sandwich, and slap a little cold gravy over it. Jesus, my mouth's water-ing...»
«Feel better now?» said Ned, when I had returned from the bathroom.
«I'm famished. What's that lovely puke over there —in the big bowl?»
«That's turtle shit with rotten eggs and a bit of menstrual sauce,» said Ned. «Does that whet your appetite?»
«I wish you'd change the subject,» said Marcelle. «I'm not overly delicate but puke is one thing I don't like to think about when I'm eating. If you have to talk dirt I'd rather you talked sex.»
«What do you mean,» said Ned, «is sex dirt? How about that, Henry, is sex dirt?»
«Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation,» I answered. «The other eight are unimportant. If we were all angels we wouldn't have any sex—we'd have wings. An aeroplane has no sex; neither has God. Sex provides for reproduction and reproduction leads to failure. The sexiest people in the world, so they say, are the insane. They live in Paradise, but they've lost their innocence.»
«For an intelligent person you do talk a lot of nonsense,» said Marcelle. «Why don't you talk about things we all understand? Why do you give us all this shit about angels and God and the booby-hatch? If you were drunk it would be different, but you're not drunk... you're not even pretending to be drunk ...you're insolent and arrogant. You're showing off.»
«Good, Marcelle, very good! Do you want to hear the truth? I'm bored. I'm fed up. I came here to get a meal and borrow some money. Yeah, let's talk about simple, ordinary things. How was your last operation? Do you like white meat or dark? Let's talk about anything that will prevent us from thinking or feeling. Sure, it was damned nice of you to give us twenty dollars right off the bat like that. Mighty white of you. But I get itchy when I listen to you talk.. I want to hear somebody say something... something original. I know you've got a good heart, that you never do any one harm. And I suppose you mind your own business too. But that doesn't interest me. I'm sick of good, kind, generous people. I want a show of character and temperament. Jesus, I can't even get drunk—in this atmosphere. I feel like the Wandering Jew. I'd like to set the house on fire, or something. Maybe if you'd pull your drawers off and dip them in the coffee that would help. Or take a frankfurter and diddle yourself... Let's be simple, you say. Good. Can you let a loud fart? Listen, once I had ordinary brains, ordinary dreams, ordinary desires. I nearly went nuts. I loathe the ordinary. Makes me constipated. Death is ordinary—it's what happens to everybody. I refuse to die. I've made up my mind that I'm going to live forever. Death is easy: it's like the booby-hatch, only you can't masturbate any more. You like your nookie, Ned says. Sure, so does every one. And what then? In ten years your ass will be crinkled and your boobs will be hanging down like empty douche bags. Ten years... twenty years... what difference? You had a few good fucks and then you dried up. So what? The moment you stop having a good time you grow melancholy. You don't regulate your life—you let your cunt do it for you. You're at the mercy of a stiff prick...»
I paused a moment to get my breath, rather surprised that I hadn't received a clout. Ned had a gleam in his eye which might have been interpreted as friendly and encouraging—or murderous. I was hoping somebody would start something, throw a bottle, smash things, scream, yell, anything hut sit there and take it like stunned owls. I didn't know why I had picked on Marcelle, she hadn't done anything to me. I was just using her as a stooge. Mona should have interrupted me... I sort of counted on her doing that. But no, she was strangely quiet, strangely impartial.
«Now that I've gotten that off my chest,» I resumed, «let me apologize. Marcelle, I don't know what to say to you. You certainly didn't deserve that.» «That's all right,» said she blithely, «I know something's eating you up. It couldn't be me because... well, nobody who knows me would ever talk that way to me. Why don't you switch to gin? You see what water does. Here, take a good stiff one...» I drank a half glass straight and saw horse shoes pounding out sparks. «You see... makes you feel human, doesn't it? Have some more chicken—and some potato salad. The trouble with you is you're hypersensitive. My old man was that way. He wanted to be a minister and instead he became a book-keeper. When he got all screwed up inside my mother would get him drunk. Then he beat the piss out of us—out of her too. But he felt better afterwards. We all felt better. It's much better to beat people up than to think rotten things about them. He wouldn't have been any better if he had become a minister: he was born with a grudge against the world. He wasn't happy unless he was criticizing things. That's why I can't hate people... I saw what it did to him. Sure I like my nookie. Who don't? as you say. I like things to be soft and easy. I like to make people happy, if I can. Maybe it's stupid but it gives you a good feeling. You see, my old man had the idea that everything had to be destroyed before we could begin to have a good life. My philosophy, if you can call it a philosophy, is just the opposite. I don't see the need to destroy anything. I cultivate the good and let the bad take care of itself. That's a feminine way of looking at life. I'm a conservative. I think that women have to act dumb in order not to make men feel like fools...»
«Well I'll be damned!» Ned exclaimed. «/ never heard you talk this way before.»
«Of course you didn't, darling. You never credited me with having an ounce of brains, did you? You get your little nookie and then you go to sleep. I've been asking you to marry me for a year now but you're not ready for that yet. You've got other problems. Well, some day you'll discover that there's only one problem on your hands—yourself.»
«Good! Good for you, Marcelle!» It was Mona who suddenly burst out with this.
«What the hell!» said Ned. «What Is this—a conspiracy?»
«You know,» said Marcelle, as though she were speaking to herself, «sometimes I think I really am a cluck. Here I am waiting for this guy to marry me. Suppose he does marry me—what then? He won't know me any better after marriage than before. He's, not in love. If a guy's in love with you he doesn't worry about the future. Love is a gamble, not an insurance racket. I guess I'm just getting wise to myself.... Ned, I'm going to stop worrying about you. I'm going to leave you to worry about yourself. You're the worrying kind—and there's no cure for that. You had me worried for a while— worrying about you, I mean. I'm through worrying. I want love—not protection.»
«Jesus, aren't we getting rather serious?» said Ned, baffled by the unexpected turn the conversation had taken.
«Serious?» said Marcelle mockingly. «I'm walking out on you. You can stay single for the rest of your life—and thrash out all those weighty problems that bother you. I feel as though a big load had been taken off my shoulders.» She turned to me and stuck out her mitt. «Thanks, Henry, for giving me a jolt. I guess you weren't talking such nonsense after all....»
22
Cleo was still the rage at the Houston Street Burlesk. She had become an institution, like Mistinguett. It's easy to understand why she fascinated that audience which the enterprising Minsky Brothers gathered every night under their closed roof garden. One had only to stand outside the box office of a matinee, any day of the week, and watch them dribble in. In the evening it was a more sophisticated crowd, gathered from all parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey. Even Park Avenue contributed its clientele, in the evening. But in the bright light of day, with the marquee looking like the aftermath of small-pox, the Catholic Church next door so dingy, woe-begone, so scroungy-looking, the priest always standing on the steps, scratching his ass by way of registering disgust and disapprobation. It was very much like the picture of reality which the sclerotic mind of a sceptic conjures up when he tries to explain why there can be no God.
Many's the time I had hung around the entrance to the theatre, keeping a sharp eye out for some one to lend me a few pennies to make up the price of admission. “When you're out of work, or too disgusted to look for work, it's infinitely better to sit in a stinking pit than to stand in a public toilet for hours—just because it's warm there. Sex and poverty go hand in hand.
The fetid odor of the burlesk house! That smell of the latrine, of urine saturated with camphor balls! The mingled stench of sweat, sour feet, foul breaths, chewing gum, disinfectants! The sickening deodorant from the squirt guns levelled straight at you, as if you were a mass of bottle flies! Nauseating? No word for it. Onan himself could scarcely smell worse.
The decor too was something. Smacked of Renoir in the last stages of gangrene. Blended perfectly with the Mardi Gras lighting effects—a flushed string of red lights illuminating a rotten womb. Something disgracefully satisfying about sitting there with the Mongolian idiots in the twilight of Gomorrah, knowing all too well that after the show you would have to trudge it back home on foot. Only a man with his pockets cleaned out can thoroughly appreciate the warmth and stench of a big ulcer in which hundreds of others like himself sit and wait for the curtain to go up. All around you overgrown idiots shelling peanuts, or nibbling at chocolate bars, or draining bottles of pop through straws. The Lumpen Proletariat. Cosmic riff-raff.
It was so foul, the atmosphere, that it was just like one big congealed fart. On the asbestos curtain remedies against venereal diseases, cloak and suit ads, fur trapp..., tooth-paste delicacies, watches to tell time—as if time were important in our lives! Where to go for a quick snack after the show—as if one had money to burn, as though after the show we would all drop in at Louie's or August's place and look the girls over, shove money up their asses and see the Aurora Borealis or the Red, White and Blue.
The ushers... Ratty, jail-bird types, if male, and floozy, empty shits, if the other sex. Now and then an attractive Polish girl with blonde hair and a saucy, defiant mien. One of the dumb Polaks who would rather earn an honest penny than turn up her ass for a quick fuck. One could smell their filthy underwear, winter or summer...
Anyway, everything on a cash and carry basis— that was the Minsky plan. And it worked too. Never a flop, no matter how lousy the performance. If you went there often enough you got to know the faces so well, not only of the cast but of the audience too, that it was like a family reunion. If you felt disgusted you didn't need a mirror to see how you looked—you had only to take a glance at your neighbor. It should have been called «Identity House». It was Devachan hindside up.
There was never anything original, never anything that you hadn't seen a thousand times before. It was like a cunt you're sick of looking at—you know every liverish crease and wrinkle; you're so goddamned sick of it that you want to spit in it, or take a plunger and bring up all the muck that got caught and the larynx. Oh yes, many a time one had the impulse to let fire—turn a machine gun on them, men, women and children, and let 'em have it in the guts. Sometimes a sort of faintness came over you: you felt like sliding to the floor and just lying there among the peanut shells. Let people walk over you with their greasy, smelly, shitty shoes.
Always a patriotic note too. Any moth-eaten cunt could walk out front-and-center draped in the American flag and by singing a wheezy tune bring down the house. If you had an advantageous seat you could catch her wiping her nose on the flag as she stood in the wings. And the sob stuff... how they liked the mother songs!
Poor, dopy, dog-eared saps! When it came to home and mother they slobbered like wailing mice. There was always the white-haired imbecile from the Ladies' Room whom they trotted out for these numbers. Her reward for sitting in the shit-house all day and night was to be slobbered over during one of the sentimental numbers. She had an enormous girth—a fallen womb most likely—and her eyes were glassy. She could have been everybody's mother, so goofy and docile she was. The very picture of motherhood—after thirty-five years of child-bearing, wife-beating, abortions, haemorrhages, ulcers, tumors, rupture, varicose veins and other emoluments of the maternal life. That nobody thought of putting a bullet through her and finishing her off always surprised me.
No denying it, the Minsky Brothers had thought of everything, everything which would remind one of the things one wanted to escape. They knew how to trot out everything that was worn and faded, including the very lice in your brains—and they rubbed this concoction under your nose like a shitty rag. They were enterprising, no doubt about it. Probably Leftwingers too, even though contributing to the support of the Catholic Church next door. They were Unitarians, in the practical sense. Big hearted, open-minded purveyors of entertainment for the poor at heart. Not a doubt about it. I'm sure they went to the Turkish Baths every night (after counting the money), and perhaps to the synagogue too, when there was time for it.
To get back to Cleo. It was Cleo this night again, as it had been in the past. She would appear twice, once before the intermission and a second time at the end of the show.
Neither Marcelle nor Mona had ever been to a burlesk before; they were on the qui vive from start to finish. The comedians appealed to them; it was a line of filth they were unprepared for. Yeoman work they do, the comedians. All they need are a pair of baggy trousers, a piss-pot, a telephone or a hat rack to create the illusion of a world in which the Unconscious rules supreme. Every burlesk comedian, if he is worth his salt, has something of the heroic in him. At every performance he slays the censor who stands like a ghost on the threshold of the subliminal self. He not only slays him alive for us, but he pisses on him and mortifies the flesh. Anyway, Cleo! By the time Cleo appears everybody is ready to jerk off. (Not like in India where a rich nabob buys up a half dozen rows of seats in order to masturbate in peace.) Here everybody gets to work under his hat. A condensed milk orgy. Semen flows as freely as gasoline. Even a blind man would know that there's nothing but cunt in sight. The amazing thing it that there is never a stampede. Now and then some one goes home and cuts his balls off with a rusty razor, but these little exploits you never read about in the newspapers.
One of the things that made Cleo's dance fascinating was the little pom-pom she wore in the center of her girdle—planted right over her rose-bush. It served to keep your eyes riveted to the spot. She could rotate it like a pin-wheel or make it jump and quiver with little electric spasms. Sometimes it would subside with little gasps, like a swan coming to rest after a deep orgasm. Sometimes it acted saucy and impudent, sometimes it was sullen and morose. It seemed to be part of her, a little ball of fluff that had grown out of her Mons Venus. Possibly she had acquired it in an Algerian whore-house, from a French sailor. It was tantalizing, especially to the sixteen-years olds who had still to know what it feels like to make a grab for a woman's bush.
What her face was like I hardly remember any more. I have a faint recollection that her nose was retrousse. One would never recognize her with her clothes on, that's a cinch. You concentrated on the torso, in the center of which was a huge painted navel the color of carmine. It was like a hungry mouth, this navel. Like the mouth of a fish suddenly stricken with paralysis. I'm sure her cunt wasn't half as exciting to look at. It was probably a pale bluish sliver of meat that a dog wouldn't even bother to sniff. She was alive in her mid-riff, in that sinuous fleshy pear which domed out from under the chest bones. The torso reminded me always of those dressmaker's model whose thighs end in a framework of umbrella ribs. As a child I used to love to run my hand over the umbilical swell. It was heavenly to the touch. And the fact that there were no arms or legs to the model enhanced the bulging beauty of the torso. Sometimes there was no wickerwork below—just a truncated figure with a little collar of a neck which was always painted a shiny black. They were the intriguing ones, the lovable ones. One night in a side show I came upon a live one, just like the sewing machine models at home. She moved about on the platform with her hands, as if she were treading water. I got real close to her and engaged her in conversation. She had a head, of course, and it was rather a pretty one, something like the wax images you see in hairdressing establishments in the chic quarters of a big city. I learned that she was from Vienna; she had been born without legs. But I'm getting off the track.... The thing that fascinated me about her was that she had that same voluptuous swell, that pear-like ripple and bulge. I stood by her platform a long time just to survey her from all angles. It was amazing how close her legs had been pared off. Just another slice off her and she would have been minus a twat. The more I studied her the more tempted I was to push her over. I could imagine my arms around her cute little waist, imagine myself picking her up, slinging her under my arm and making off with her to ravish her in a vacant lot.
During the intermission, while the girls went to the lavatory to see dear old mother, Ned and I stood on the iron stairway which adorns the exterior of the theatre. From the upper tiers one could look into the homes across the street, where the dear old mothers fret and stew like angry roaches. Cosy little flats they are, if you have a strong stomach and a taste for the ultra-violet dreams of Chagall. Food and bedding are the dominant motifs. Sometimes they blend indiscriminately and the father who has been selling matches all day with tubercular frenzy finds himself eating the mattress. Among the poor only that which takes hours to prepare is served. The gourmet loves to eat in a restaurant which is odorous; the poor man gets sick to the stomach when he climbs the stairs and gets a whiff of what's coming to him. The rich man loves to walk the dog around the block—to work up a mild appetite. The poor man looks at the sick bitch lying under the tubs and feels that it would be an act of mercy to kick it in the guts. Nothing gives him an appetite. He is hungry, perpetually hungry for the things he craves. Even a breath of fresh air is a luxury. But then he's not a dog, and so nobody takes him out for an airing, alas and alack. I've seen the poor blighters leaning out of the window on their elbows, their heads hanging in their hands like Jack-o'-Lanterns: it doesn't take a mind-reader to know what they're thinking about. Now and then a row of tenements is demolished in order to open up ventilating holes. Passing these blank areas, spaced like missing teeth, I've often imagined the poor, bleeding blighters to be still hanging there on the window-sills, the houses torn down but they themselves suspended in mid-air, propped up by their own grief and misery, like torpid blimps defying the law of gravitation. Who notices these airy spectres? Who gives a fuck whether they're suspended in the air or buried six feet deep? The show is the thing, as Shakespeare says. Twice a day, Sundays included, the show goes on. If it's short of provender you are, why stew a pair of old socks. The Minsky Brothers are dedicated to giving entertainment. Hershey Almond Bars are always on tap, good before or after you jerk off. A new show every week—with the same about old cast and the same old jokes. What would really be a catastrophe for the Minsky gents would be for Cleo to be stricken with a double hernia. Or to get pregnant. Hard to say which would be worse. She could have lockjaw or enteritis or claustrophobia, and it wouldn't matter a damn. She could even survive the menopause. Or rather, the Minskys could. But hernia, that would be like death— irrevocable.
What went on in Ned's mind during this brief intermission I could only conjecture. «Pretty horrible, isn't it?» he remarked, chiming in with some observation I had made. He said it with a detachment that would have done credit to a scion of Park Avenue. Nothing anyone could do about it, is what he meant. At twenty-five he had been the art director in an advertising concern; that was five or six years ago. Since then he had been on the rocks, but adversity had in no way altered his views about life. It had merely confirmed his basic notion that poverty was something to be avoided. With a good break he would once again be on top, dictating to those whom he was now fawning upon.
He was telling me about a proposition he had up his sleeve, another «unique» idea for an advertising campaign. (How to make people smoke more— without injuring their health.) The trouble was, now that he was on the other side of the fence nobody would listen to him. Had he still been art director everybody would have accepted the idea immediately as a brilliant one. Ned saw the irony of the situation, nothing more. He thought it had something to do with his front—perhaps he didn't look as confident as he used to. If he had a better wardrobe, if he could lay off the booze for a while, if he could work up the right enthusiasm.... and so on. Marcelle worried him. She was taking it out of him. With every fuck he gave her he felt that another brilliant idea had been slaughtered. He wanted to be alone for a while so that he could think things out. If Marcelle were on tap only when he needed her and not turn up at odd hours—just when he was in the middle of something—it would be ducky.
«You want a bottle opener, not a woman,» I said.
He laughed, as though he were slightly embarrassed.
«Well, you know how it is,» he said. «Jesus, I like her all right... she's fine. Another girl would have ditched me long ago. But—.»
«Yes, I know. The trouble is she sticks.»
«It sounds rotten, doesn't it?»
«It is rotten,» said I. «Listen, did it ever occur to you that you may never again be an art director, that you had your chance and you muffed it? Now you've got another chance—and you're muffing it again. You could get married and become... well, I don't know what... any damned thing... what difference does it make? You have a chance to lead a normal, happy life—on a modest plane. It doesn't seem possible to you, I suppose, that you might be better off driving a milk wagon? That's too dull for you, isn't it? Too bad! I'd have more respect for you as ditch digger than as president of the Palm Olive Soap Company. You're not burning up with original ideas, as you imagine, you're simply trying to retrieve something that's lost. It's pride that's goading you, not ambition. If you had any originality you'd be more flexible: you'd prove it in a hundred different ways. What gripes you is that you failed. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to you. But you don't know how to exploit your misfortunes. You were probably cut out for something entirely different, but you won't give yourself a chance to find out what. You revolve your obsession like a rat in a trap. If you ask me, it's pretty horrible... more horrible than the sight of these poor doomed bastards hanging out of the windows. They're willing to tackle anything; you're not willing to lift your little finger. You want to go back to your throne and be the king of the advertising world. And if you can't have that you're going to make everybody around you miserable. You're going to castrate yourself and then say that somebody cut your balls off....»
The musicians were tuning up; we had to scoot back to our seats. Mona and Marcelle were already seated, buried in a deep conversation. Suddenly there was a full blare from the orchestra pit, like a snarl of prussic acid over a tight tarpaulin. The red-haired fellow at the piano was all limp and boneless, his fingers falling like stalactites on the keyboard. People were still streaming back from the lavatories. The music got more and more frenetic, with the brass and the percussion instruments getting the upper hand. Here and there a switch of lights blinked, as if there were a string of electrified owls opening and closing their eyes. In front of us a young lad was holding a lighted match to the back of a post-card, expecting to discover the whore of Babylon—or the Siamese twins rolling in a double-jointed orgasm.
As the curtain went up the Egyptian beauties from the purlieus of Rivington Street began to unlimber: they flung themselves about like flounders just released from the hook. A scrawny contortionist did the pin-wheel, then folded up like a jack-knife and, after a few flips and flops, tried to kiss her own ass. The music grew soupy, alternating from one rhythm to another and getting nowhere. Just when everything seemed on the verge of collapse the floundering chorines did a fade-out, the contortionist picked herself up and limped away like a leper, and out limped away like a leper, and out came a pair of incongruous buffoons pretending to be full-blown lechers. The back curtain drops and there they are standing in the middle of a street in the city of Irkutsk. One of them wants a woman so bad his tongue is hanging out. The other one is a connoisseur of horse flesh. He has a little apparatus, a sort of Open Sesame, which he will sell to his friend for 964 dollars and 32 cents. They compromise on a dollar and a half. Fine. A woman comes walking down the street. She's from Avenue A. He talks French to her, the fellow who bought the apparatus. She answers in Volapuk. All he has to do is turn on the juice and she flings her arms around him. This goes on in ninety-two variations, just as it did last week and the week before—as far back as the days Bob Fitzimmons, in fact. The curtain drops and a bright young man with a microphone steps out of the wings and croons a romantic ditty about the aeroplane delivering a letter to his sweatheart in Caledonia.
Now the flounders are out again, this time disguised as Navajos. They reel about the electric camp-fire. The music switches from «Pony Boy» to the «Kashmiri Song» and then to «Rain in the Face». A Latvian girl with a feather in her hair stands like Hiawatha, looking towards the land of the setting sun. She has to stand on tip-toe until Bing Crosby Junior finishes fourteen quatrains of Amerindian folklore written by a cow-puncher from Hester Street. Then a pistol shot is fired, the chorines whoop it up, the American flag is unfurled, the contortionist somersaults through the block-house, Hiawatha does a fandango, and the orchestra becomes apoplectic. When the lights go out the white-haired mother from the lavatory is standing by the electric chair waiting to see her son burn. This heart-rending scene is accompanied by a falsetto rendition of «Silver Threads Among the Gold». The victim of justice is one of the clowns who will be out in a moment with a piss-pot in his hand. He will have to measure the leading lady for a bathing suit. She will bend over obligingly and spread her ass so that he can get the measurements absolutely correct. When that's over she will be the nurse in the lunatic asylum, armed with a syringe full of water which she will squirt down his pants. Then there will be two leading ladies attired in negligee. They sit in a cosy furnished flat waiting for their boy friends to call. The boys call and in a few moments they start taking their pants off. Then the husband returns and the boys hop around in B. V. D's, like crippled sparrows.
Everything is calculated to the minute. By the time 10:23 strikes Cleo is ready to do her second and final number. She will have just about eight and a half minutes to spare, according to the terms of the contract. Then she will have to stand in the wings for another twelve minutes and take her place with the rest of the cast for the finale. Those twelve minutes burn her up. They are precious minutes which are completely wasted. She can't even get into her street clothes; she must show herself in all her glory and give just one little squirm or two as the curtain falls. It burns her up.
Ten twenty-two and a half! An ominous decrescendo, a muffled two-four flam from the drums. All the lights are doused except those over the Exits. The spot-light focuses on the wings where at 10:23 to the dot first a hand, then an arm, then a breast will appear. The head follows after the body, as the aura follows the saint. The head is wrapped in excelsior with cabbage leaves masking the eyes; it moves like a sea urchin struggling with eels. A wireless operator is hidden in the carmined mouth of the navel: he is a ventriloquist who uses the deaf-mute code.
Before the great spastic movements begin with a drum-like roll of the torso, Cleo circles about the stage with the hypnotic ease and lassitude of a cobra. The supple, milk-white legs are screened behind a veil of beads girdled at the waist; the pink nipples are draped with transparent gauze. She is boneless, milky, drugged: a medusa with a straw wig undulating in a lake of glass beads.
As she discards the tinkling robe the pom-pom becomes the tom-tom and the tom-tom the pom-pom.
And now we are in the heart of darkest Africa, where the Ubangi flows. Two snakes are locked in mortal combat. The big one, which is a constrictor, is slowly swallowing the smaller one—tail first. The smaller one is about twelve feet long—and poisonous. He fights up until the last breath; his fangs are still spitting, even as the jaws of the big snake close about his head. A siesta in the shade now follows in order to give the digestive processes full sway. A strange, silent combat produced not by hatred but by hunger. Africa is the continent of plenty in which hunger reigns supreme. The hyena and the vulture are the referees. A land of chilly silences split by furious snarls and agonizing screams. Everything is eaten warm and uncooked. Life so abundant whets the appetite of death. No hatred, only hunger. Hunger in the midst of plenty. Death conies quickly. The moment one is hors de combat the process of devoration sets in. Tiny fishes, mad with hunger, can devour a giant and leave him a skeleton in a few minutes. Blood is sucked up like water. Hair and skin are instantly appropriated. Claws and tusks makes weapons or wampum. No waste. Everything is eaten alive amidst blood-curdling snarls and screams. Death strikes like lightning through forest and river. The big fellows are no more immune than the little ones. All is prey.
In the midst of this ceaseless tussle the remnants of the human kingdom stage their dances. Hunger is the solar body of Africa, the dance is the lunar body. The dance is the expression of a secondary hunger: sex. Hunger and sex are like two snakes locked in mortal combat. There is no beginning nor end. One swallows the other in order to reproduce a third: the machine become flesh. A machine which functions of itself and to no purpose, unless it be to produce more and more and thus create less and less. The wise ones, the renunciators, seem to be the gorillas. They live a life apart: they inhabit the trees. They are the most ferocious of all—more terrible even than the rhino or the lioness. They utter piercing, deafening screams. They defy approach.
Everywhere throughout the continent the dance goes on. It is the ever-repeated story of dominion over the dark forces of nature. Spirit working through instinct. Africa dancing is Africa trying to lift itself above the confusion of mere reproduction.
In Africa the dance is impersonal, sacred and obscene. When the phallus becomes erect and is handled like a banana it is not a «personal hard-on» we see but a tribal erection. It is a religious hard-on, directed not towards a woman but towards every female member of the tribe. Group souls staging a group fuck. Man lifting himself out of the animal world through a ritual of his own invention. By his mimicry he demonstrates that he has made himself superior to the mere act of intercourse.
The hoochie koochie dancer of the big city dances alone—a fact of staggering significance. The law forbids response, forbids participation. Nothing is left of the primitive rite but the «suggestive» movements of the body. What they suggest varies with the individual observer. For the majority, probably nothing more than an extraordinary fuck in the dark. A dream fuck, more exactly.
But what law is it that keeps the spectator rigid in his seat, as though shackled and manacled? The silent law of common consent which has made of sex a furtive, nasty act to be indulged in only with the sanction of the Church.
Observing Cleo, the image of that Viennese torso in the side-show reverts to mind. Was Cleo not as thoroughly excommunicated from human society as that seductive freak who was born without legs? No one dares to pounce upon Cleo, any more than one would dare to paw the legless beauty at Coney Island. Though every movement of her body is based on the manual of earthly intercourse no one even thinks of responding to the invitation. To approach Cleo in the midst of her dance would be considered as heinous a crime as to rape the helpless freak of the sideshow.
I think of the dressmaker's model which was once the symbol of feminine allure. I think how that image of carnal pleasure finished off below the torso in an airy skirt of umbrella ribs.
Here's what's passing through my head....
We are a community of seven or eight million people, democratically free and equal, dedicated to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness for all—in theory. We represent nearly all the races and peoples of the world at the height of their cultural attainments—in theory. We have the right to worship as we please, vote as we please, create our own laws, and so forth and so on—in theory.
Theoretically everything is ideal, just, equitable. Africa is still a dark continent which the white man is only beginning to enlighten with Bible and sword. Yet, by some queer, mystical agreement, a woman called Cleo is performing an obscene dance in a darkened house next door to a church. If she were to dance this way in the street she would be arrested; if she were to dance this way in a private house she would be raped and mangled; if she were to dance this way in Carnegie Hall she would create a revolution. Her dance is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. It is archaic, primitive, obscene, tending only to arouse and inflame the base passions of men and women. It has only one honest purpose in view—to augment the box office receipts for the Minsky brothers. That it does. And there one must stop thinking about the subject or go crazy. But I can't stop thinking.... I see a mannikin who under the lustful gaze of the cosmopolitan eye has assumed flesh and blood. I see her draining the passions of a supposedly civilized audience in the second biggest city in the world. She has taken on their flesh, their thoughts, their passions, their lascivious dreams and desires, and in doing so has truncated them, left them with stuffed torsos and umbrella ribs. I suspect that she has even robbed them of their sexual organs, because, if they were still men and women, what would hold them to their seats? I see the whole swift performance as a sort of Caligari seance, a piece of deft, masterful psychic transference. I doubt that I am sitting in a theatre at all. I doubt everything, except the power of suggestion. I can just as easily believe that we are in a bazaar in Nagasaki, where sexual objects are sold; that we are sitting there in the dark with rubber sexes in our hands and masturbating like maniacs. I can believe that we are in limbo, amidst the smoke of astral worlds, and that what passes before the eye is a mirage from the phenomenal world of pain and crucifixion. I can believe that we are all hanging by the neck, that it is the moment between the springing of the trap and the snapping of the cerebro-spinal cord, which brings about the last most exquisite ejaculation. I can believe that we are anywhere except in a city of seven or eight million souls, all free and equal, all cultured and civilized, all dedicated to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Above all, I find it most difficult to believe that I have just this day given myself in holy wedlock for the third time, that we are seated side by side in the darkness as man and wife, and that we are celebrating the rites of spring with rubber emotions.
I find it utterly incredible. There are situations which defy the laws of intelligence. There are moments when the unnatural commingling of eight million people gives birth to floral pieces of blackest insanity. The Marquis de Sade was as lucid and reasonable as a cucumber. Sacher Masoch was a pearl of equanimity. Blue Beard was as gentle as a dove.
Cleo is becoming positively luminous in the cold radiance of the spotlight. Her belly has become a swollen, sullen sea in which the brilliant carmine navel tosses about like the gasping mouth of a naufrage. With the tip of her cunt she tosses floral pieces into the orchestra. The pom-pom becomes the tom-tom and the tom-tom the pom-pom. The blood of the masturbator is in her veins. Her teats are concentric veins of stewed purple. Her mouth flashes like the red sear of a tusk ripping a warm limb. The arms are cobras, the legs are made of patent leather. Her face is paler than ivory, the expressions fixed, as in the terra cotta demons of Yucatan. The concentrated lust of the mob invades her with the nebulous rhythm of a solar body taking substance. Like a moon wrenched from the fiery surface of the earth, she disgorges pieces of blood-soaked meat. She moves without feet, as do the freshly amputated victims of the battle-field in their dreams. She writhes on her imaginary soft stumps, emitting noiseless groan of lacerating ecstasy.
The orgasm comes slowly, like the last gouts of blood from a geyser in pain. In the city of eight million she is alone, cut off, excommunicated. She is giving the last touches to an exhibition of sexual passion which would bring even a corpse to life. She has the protection of the City Fathers and the blessings of the Minsky Brothers. In the city of Minsk, whence they had journeyed from Pinsk, these two far-sighted boys planned that all should be thus and so. And it came about, just as in the dream, that they opened their beautiful Winter Garden next door to the Catholic Church. Everything according to plan, including the white-haired mother in the lavatory.
The last few spasms.... Why is it that all is so quiet? The black floral pieces are dripping with condensed milk. A man named Silverberg is chewing the lips of a mare. Another called Vittorio is mounting a ewe. A woman without name is shelling peanuts and stuffing them between her legs.
And at this same hour, almost to the minute, a dark, sleek chap, nattily attired in a tropical worsted with a bright yellow tie and a white carnation in his button-hole, takes his stand in front of the Hotel Astor on the third step, leaning his weight lightly on the bamboo cane which he sports at this hour of the day.
His name is Osmanli, obviously an invented one. He has a roll of ten, twenty and fifty dollar bills in his pocket. The fragrance of an expensive toilet water emanates from the silk kerchief which cautiously protrudes from his breast pocket. He is as fresh as a daisy, dapper, cool, insolent—a real Jim Dandy. To look at him one would never suspect that he is in the pay of an ecclesiastical organization, that his sole mission in life is to spread poison, malice, slander, that he enjoys his work, sleeps well and blossoms like the rose.
To-morrow noon he will be at his accustomed place in Union Square, mounted on a soap box, the American flag protecting him; the foam will be drooling from his lips, his nostrils will quiver with rage, his voice will be hoarse and cracked. Every argument that man has trumped up to destroy the appeal of Communism he has at this disposal, can shake them out of his hat like a cheap magician. He is there not only to give argument, not only to spread poison and slander, but to foment trouble: he is there to create a riot, to bring on the cops, to go to court and accuse innocent people of attacking the Stars and Stripes.
When it gets too hot for him in Union Square he goes to Boston, Providence, or some other American city, always wrapped in the American flag, always surrounded by this trained fomentors of discord, always protected by the shadow of the Church. A man whose origin is completely obscured, who has changed his name dozens of times, who has served all the Parties, red, white and blue, at one time or another. A man without country, without principle, without faith, without scruples. A servant of Beelzebub, a stooge, a stool pigeon, a traitor, a turncoat. A master at confusing men's minds, an adept of the Black Lodge.
He has no close friends, no mistress, no ties of any kind. When he disappears he leaves no traces. An invisible thread links him to those whom he serves. On the soap box he seems like a man possessed, like a raving fanatic. On the steps of the Hotel Astor, where he stands every night for a few minutes, as though surveying the crowd, as though slightly distrait, he is the picture of self-possession, of suave, cool nonchalance. He has had a bath and a rub-down, his nails manicured, his shoes shined; he has had a sound nap, too, and following that a most excellent meal in one of those quiet, exclusive restaurants which cater only to the gourmet. Often he takes a short stroll in the Park to digest his repast. He looks about with an intelligent, appreciative eye, aware of the attractions of the flesh, aware of the beauties of earth and sky. Well read, travelled, with a taste for music and a passion for flowers, he often muses as he walks on the follies of man. He loves the flavor and savour of words; he rolls them over on his tongue, as he would a delicious morsel of food. He knows that he has the power to sway men, to stir their passions, to goad them and confound them at will. But this very ability has made him contemptuous, scornful and derisive of his fellow-man.
Now on the steps on the Astor, disguised as a boulevardier, a flaneur, a Beau Brummel, he gazes meditatively over the heads of the crowd, unperturbed by the chewing gum lights, the flesh for hire, the jingle of ghostly harnesses, the look of absentia-dementia in passing eyes. He has detached himself from all parties, cults, isms, ideologies. He is a freewheeling ego, immune to all faiths, beliefs, principles. He can buy whatever he needs to sustain the illusion that he needs nothing, no one. He seems this evening to be more than ever free, more than ever detached. He admits to himself that he feels like a character in a Russian novel, wonders vaguely why he should be indulging in such sentiments. He recognizes that he has just dismissed the idea of suicide; he is a little startled to find he had been entertaining such ideas. He had been arguing with himself; it had been quite a prolonged affair, now that he retraces his thoughts. The most disturbing thought is that he is unable to recognize the self with which he had discussed this question of suicide. This hidden being had never made its wants known before. There had always been a vacuum around which he had built a veritable cathedral of changing personalities. Retreating behind the facade he had always found himself alone. And then, just a moment ago, he had made the discovery that he was not alone; despite all the change pi masks, all the architectural camouflage, some one as living with him, some one who knew him intimately, and who was now urging him to make an end of it.
The most fantastic part of it was that he was being urged to do it at once, to waste no time. It was preposterous because, admitting that the idea was seductive and appealing, he nevertheless felt the very human desire to enjoy the privilege of living out his own death in his imagination, at least for an hour or so. He seemed to be begging for time, which was strange, because never in his life had he entertained the notion of doing away with himself. He should have dismissed the thought instead of pleading like a convicted criminal for a few moments of grace. But this emptiness, this solitude into which he usually retreated, now began to assume the pressure and the explosiveness of a vacuum. The bubble was about to burst. He knew it. He knew he could do nothing to stay it. He walked rapidly down the steps of the Astor and plunged into the crowd. He thought for a moment that he would perhaps lose himself in the midst of all those bodies but no, he became more and more lucid, more and more self-conscious, more and more determined to obey the imperious voice which goaded him on. He was like a lover on his way to a rendezvous. He had only one thought—his own destruction. It burned like a fire, it illumined the way.
As he turned down a side street, in order to hasten to his appointment, he understood very clearly that he had already been taken over, as it were, and that he had only to follow his nose. He had no problems, no conflicts. Certain automatic gestures he made without even slackening his pace. For instance, passing a garbage can he tossed his bank roll into it/ as through he were getting rid of a banana peel; at a corner he emptied the contents of his inside coat pocket down a sewer; his watch and chain, his ring, his pocket knife went in similar fashion. He patted himself all over, as he walked, to make sure that lie had divested himself of all personal possessions. Even his handkerchief, after he had blown his nose for the last time, he threw in the gutter. He felt as light as a feather and moved with increasing celerity through the sombre streets. At a given moment the signal would be given and he would give himself up. Instead of a tumultuous stream of thoughts, of last minute fears, wishes, hopes, regrets, such as we imagine to assail the doomed, he knew only a singular and ever more expansive void. His heart was like a clear blue sky in which not even the faintest trace of a cloud is perceptible. One might think that he had already crossed the frontier of the other world, that he was now, before his actual bodily death, already in the coma, and that emerging and finding himself on the other side he would be surprised to find himself walking so rapidly. Only then perhaps would he be able to collect his thoughts; only then would he be able to ask himself why he had done it.
Overhead the El is rattling and thundering. A man passes him running at top speed. Behind him is an officer of the law with drawn revolver. He begins to run too. Now all three of them are running. He doesn't know why, he doesn't even know that some one is behind him. But when the bullet pierces the back of his skull and he falls flat on his face a gleam of blinding clarity reverberates through his whole being.
Caught face downward in death there on the sidewalk, the grass already sprouting in his ears, Osmanli redescends the steps of the Hotel Astor, but instead of rejoining the crowd he slips through the back door of a modest little house in a village where he spoke a different language. He sits down at the kitchen tale and sips a glass of buttermilk. It seems as though it were only yesterday that, seated at this same table, his wife had told him she was leaving him. The news had stunned him so that he had been unable to say a word; he had watched her go without making the slightest protest. He had been sitting there quietly drinking his buttermilk and she had told him with brutal, direct frankness that she never loved him. A few more words equally unsparing and she was gone. In those few minutes he had become a completely different man. Recovering from the shock, he experienced the most amazing exhilaration. It was as if she had said to him: «You are now free to act!» He felt so mysteriously free that he wondered if his life up to that moment had not been a dream. To act! It was so simple. He had gone out into the yard and, thinking; then, with the same spontaneity, he had walked to the dog kennel, whistled to the animal, and when it stuck its head out he had chopped it off clean. That's what it meant—to act! So extremely simple, it made him laugh. He knew now that he could do anything he wished. He went inside and called the maid. He wanted to take a look at her with these new eyes. There was nothing more in his mind than that. An hour later, having raped her, he went direct to the bank and from there to the railways station where he took the first train that came in.
From then on his life had assumed a kaleidoscopic pattern. The few murders he had committed were carried out almost absent-mindedly, without malice, hatred or greed. He made love almost in the same way. He knew neither fear, timidity, nor caution.
In this manner ten years had passed in the space of a few minutes. The chains which bind the ordinary man had been taken from him, he had roamed the world at will, had tasted freedom and immunity, and then in a moment of utter relaxation, surrendering himself to the imagination, had concluded with pitiless logic that death was the one luxury he had denied himself. And so he had descended the steps of the Hotel Astor and a few minutes later, falling face downward in death, he realized that he was not mistaken when he understood her to say that she had never loved him. It was the first time he had ever thought of it again, and though it would be the last time he would ever think of it he could not make any more of it than when he first heard it ten years ago. It had not made sense then and it did not make sense now. He was still slipping his buttermilk. He was already a dead man. He was powerless, that's why he had felt so free. But he had never actually been free, as he had imagined himself to be. That had been simply an hallucination. To begin with, he had never chopped the dog's head off, otherwise it would not new be barking with joy. If he could only get to his feet and look with his own eyes he would know for certain whether everything had been real or hallucinatory. But the power to move has been taken from him. From the moment she had uttered those few telling words he knew he would never be able to move from the spot. Why she had chosen that particular moment when he was drinking the buttermilk, why she had waited so long to tell him, he could not understand and never would. He would not even try to understand. He had heard her very distinctly, quite as if she had put her lips to his ear and shouted the words into it. It had travelled with such speed to all parts of his body that it was as though a bullet had exploded in his brain. Then—could it have been just a few moments later or an eternity?—he had emerged from the prison of his old self much as a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. Then the dog, then the maid, then this, then that—innumerable incidents repeating themselves as if in accordance with a pre-established plan. Everything of a pattern, even down to the three or four casual murders.
As in the legends where it is told that he who forsakes his vision tumbles into a labyrinth from which there is no issue save death, where through symbol and allegory it is made clear that the coils of the brain, the coils of the labyrinth, the coils of the serpents which entwine the backbone are one and the same strangling process, the process of shutting doors behind one, of walling in the flesh, of moving relentlessly towards petrifaction, so it was with Osmanli, an obscure Turk, caught by the imagination on the steps of the Hotel Astor in the moment of his most illusory freedom detachment. Looking over the heads of the crowd he had perceived with shuddering remembrance the image of his beloved wife, her dog-like head turned to stone. The pathetic desire to overreach his sorrow had ended in the confrontation with the mask. The monstrous embryo of unfulfillment blocked every egress. With face pressed against the pavement he seemed to kiss the stony features of the woman he had lost. His flight, pursued with skillful indirection, had brought him face to face with the bright image of horror reflected in the shield of self-protection. Himself slain, he had slain the world. He had reached his own identity in death.
Cleo was terminating her dance. The last convulsive movements had coincided with the fantastic retrospection on Osmanli's death....
23
The incredible thing about such hallucinations is that they have their substance in reality. When Osmanli fell face forward on the sidewalk he was merely enacting a scene out of my life in advance. Let us jump a few years—into the pot of horror.
The damned have always a table to sit at, whereon they rest their elbows and support the leaden weight of their brains. The damned are always sightless, gazing out at the world with blank orbs. The damned are always petrified, and in the center of their petrifaction is immeasurable emptiness. The damned have always the same excuse—the loss of the beloved.
It is night and I am sitting in a cellar. This is our home. I wait for her night after night, like a prisoner chained to the floor of his cell. There is a woman with her whom she calls her friend. They have conspired to betray me and defeat me. They leave me without food, without heat, without light. They tell me to amuse myself until they return.
Through months of shame and humiliation I have come to hug my solitude. I no longer seek help from the outside world. I no longer answer the door-bell. I live by myself, in the turmoil of my own fears. Trapped in my own phantasms, I wait for the flood to rise and drown me out.
When they return to torture me I behave like the animal which I have become. I pounce on the food with ravenous hunger. I eat with my fingers. And as I devour the food I grin them mercilessly, as though I were a mad, jealous Czar. I pretend that I am angry: I hurl vile insults at them, I threaten them with my fists, I growl and spit and rage.
I do this night after night, in order to stimulate my almost extinct emotions. I have lost the power to feel. To conceal this defect I simulate every passion. There are nights when I amuse them no end by roaring like a wounded lion. At times I knock them down with a velvet-thudded paw. I have even peed on them when they rolled about on the floor convulsed with hysterical laughter.
They say I have the makings of a clown. They say they will bring some friends down one night and have me perform for them. I grind my teeth and move my scalp back and forth to signify approval. I am learning all the tricks of the zoo.
My greatest stunt is to pretend jealousy. Jealousy over little things, particularly. Never to inquire whether she slept with this one or that, but only to know if he kissed her hand. I can become furious over a little gesture like that. I can pick up the knife and threaten to slit her throat. On occasion I go so far as to give her inseparable friend a tender jab in the buttocks. I bring iodine and court plaster and kiss her inseparable friend's ass.
Let us say that they come home of an evening and find the fire out. Let us say that this evening I am in an excellent mood, having conquered the pangs of hunger with an iron will, having defied the onslaught of insanity alone in the dark, having almost convinced myself that only egotism can produce sorrow and misery. Let us say further that, entering the prison cell, they seem insensitive to the victory which I have won. They sense nothing more than the dangerous chill of the room. They do not inquire if I am cold, they simply say—it is cold here.
Cold, my little queens? Then you shall have a roaring fire. I take the chair and smash it against the stone wall. I jump on it and break it into tiny pieces. I kindle a little flame at the hearth with paper and splinters. I roast the chair piece by piece.
A charming gesture, they think. So far so good. A little food now, a bottle of cold beer. So you have had a good evening this evening? It was cold outdoors, was it? You collected a little money? Fine, deposit it in the Dime Savings Bank to-morrow! You, Hegoroboru, run out and buy a flask of rum! I am leaving to-morrow... I am setting out on a journey.
The fire is getting low. I take the vacant chair and beat its brains out against the wall. The flames leap up. Hegoroboru returns with a grin and holds the bottle out. The work of a minute to uncork it, guzzle a deep draught. Flames leap up in my gizzard. Stand up! I yell. Give me that other chair! Protests, howls, screams. This is pushing things too far. But it's cold outdoors, you say? Then we need more heat. Get away! I shove the dishes on to the floor with one swipe and tackle the table. They try to pull me away. I go outside to the dust-bin and I find the axe. I begin hacking away. I break the table into tiny pieces, then the commode, spilling everything on to the floor. I will break everything to pieces, I warn them, even the crockery. We will warm ourselves as we have never warmed ourselves before.
A night on the floor, the three of us tossing like burning corks. Taunts and gibes passing back and forth.
«He'll never go away... he's just acting.»
A voice whispering in my ear: «Are you really going away?»
«Yes, I promise you I am.»
«But I don't want you to go.»
«I don't care what you want any longer.»
«But I love you.»
«I don't believe it.»
«But you must believe me.»
«I believe nobody, nothing.»
«You're ill. You don't know what you're doing. I won't let you go.»
«How will you stop me?»
«Please, please, Val, don't talk that way... you worry me.»
Silence.
A timid whisper: «How are you going to live without me?»
«I don't know, I don't care.»
«But you need me. You don't know how to take care of yourself.»
«I need nobody.»
«I'm afraid, Val. I'm afraid something will happen to you.»
In the morning I leave stealthily while they slumber blissfully. By stealing a few pennies from a blind newspaperman I get to the Jersey shore and set out for the highway. I feel fantastically light and free. In Philadelphia I stroll about as if I were a tourist. I get hungry. I ask for a dime from a passerby and I get it. I try another and another— just for the fun of it. I go into a saloon, eat a free lunch with a schooner of beer, and set out for the highway again.
I get a lift in the direction of Pittsburgh. The driver is uncommunicative. So am I. It's as though I had a private chauffeur. After a while I wonder where I'm going. Do I want a job? No. Do I want to begin life all over again? No. Do I want a vacation? No. I want nothing.
Then what do you want? I say to myself. The answer is always the same: Nothing.
Well, that's exactly what you have: Nothing.
The dialogue dies down. I become interested in the cigarette lighter which is plugged into the dashboard. The word cleat enters my mind. I play with it for a long time, then dismiss it peremptorily, as one would dismiss a child who wants to play ball with you all day.
Roads and arteries branching out in every direction. What would the earth be without roads? A trackless ocean. A jungle. The first road through the wilderness must have seemed like a grand accomplishment. Direction, orientation, communication. Then two roads, three roads... Then millions of roads. A spider web and in the center of it man, the creator, caught like a fly.
We are travelling seventy miles an hour, or perhaps I imagine it. Not a word exchanged between us. He may be afraid to hear me say that I am hungry or that I have no place to sleep. He may be thinking where to dump me out if I begin to act suspiciously. Now and then he lights a cigarette on the electric grill. The gadget fascinates me. It's like a little electric chair.
«I'm turning off here,» says the driver suddenly. «Where are you going?»
«You can leave me out here... thanks.»
I step out into a fine drizzle. It's darkling. Roads leading to everywhere. I must decide where I want to go. I must have an objective.
I stand so deep in trance that I let a hundred cars go by without looking up. I haven't even an extra handkerchief, I discover. I was going to wipe my glasses but then, what's the use? I don't have to see too well or feel too well or think too well. I'm not going anywhere. When I get tired I can drop down and go to sleep. Animals sleep in the rain, why not man? If I could become an animal I would be getting somewhere.
A truck pulls up beside me; the driver is looking for a match.
«Can I give you a lift?» he asks.
I hop in without asking where to. The rain conies down harder, it has become pitch black suddenly. I have no idea where we're bound and I don't want to know. I feel content to be out of the rain sitting next to a warm body.
This guy is more convivial. He talks a lot about matches, how important they are when you need them, how easy it is to lose them, and so on. He makes conversation out of anything. It seems strange to talk so earnestly about nothing at all when really there are the most tremendous problems to be solved. Except for the fact that we are talking about material trifles this is the sort of conversation that might be carried on in a French salon. The roads have connected everything up so marvelously that even emptiness can be transported with ease.
As we pull into the outskirts of a big town I ask him where we are.
«Why this is Philly,» he says. «Where did you think you were?»
«I don't know,» I said, «I had no idea... You're going to New York, I suppose?»
He grunted. Then he added: «You don't seem to care very much one way or another. You act like you were just riding around in the dark.»
«You said it. That's just what I'm doing... riding around in the dark.»
I sank back and listened to him tell about guys walking around in the dark looking for a place to flop. He talked about them very much as a horticulturist would talk about certain species of shrubs. He was a «space-binder», as Korbyski puts it, a guy riding the highways and byways all by his lonesome. What lay to either side of the traffic lanes was the veldt, and the creatures inhabiting that void were vagrants hungrily bumming a ride.
The more he talked the more wistfully I thought of the meaning of shelter. After all, the cellar hadn't been too bad. Out in the world people were just as poorly off. The only difference between them and me was that they went out and got what they needed; they sweated for it, they tricked one another, they fought one another tooth and nail. I had none of those problems. My only problem was how to live with myself day in and day out.
I was thinking how ridiculous and pathetic it would be to sneak back into the cellar and find a little corner all to myself where I could curl up and pull the roof down over my ears. I would crawl in like a dog with his tail between his legs. I wouldn't bother them any more with jealous scenes. I would be grateful for any crumbs that were handed me. If she wanted to bring her lovers in and make love to them in my presence it would be all right too. One doesn't bite the hand that feeds one. Now that I had seen the world I wouldn't ever complain again. Anything was better than to be left standing in the rain and not know where you want to go. After all, I still had a mind. I could lie in the dark and think, think as much as I chose, or as little. The people outside would be running to and fro, moving things about, buying, selling, putting money in the bank and taking it out again. That was horrible. I wouldn't ever want to do that. I would much prefer to pretend that I was an animal, say a dog, and have a bone thrown to me now and then. If I behaved decently I would be petted and stroked. I might find a good master who would take me out on a leash and let me make pipi everywhere. I might meet another dog. one of the opposite sex, and pull off a quick one now and then. Oh, I knew how to be quiet now and obedient. I had learned my little lesson. I would curl up in a corner near the hearth, just as quiet and gentle as you please. They would have to be terribly mean to kick me out. Besides, if I showed that I didn't need anything, didn't ask any favors, if I let them carry on just as if they were by themselves, what harm could come by giving me a little place in the corner?
The thing was to sneak in while they were out, so that they couldn't shut the gate in my face.
At this point in my reverie the most disquieting thought took hold of me. What if they had fled? What if the house were deserted?
Somewhere near Elizabeth we came to a halt. There was something wrong with the engine. It seemed wiser to get out and hail another car than to wait around all night. I walked to the nearest gas station and hung around for a car to take me into New York. I waited over an hour and then got impatient and lit off down the gloomy lane on my own two legs. The rain had abated; it was just a thin drizzle. Now and then, thinking how lovely it would be to crawl into the dog kennel, I broke into a trot. Elizabeth was about fifteen miles off.
Once I got so overjoyed that I broke into song. Louder and louder I sang, as if to let them know I was coming. Of course I wouldn't enter the house singing—that would frighten them to death.
The singing made me hungry. I bought a Hershey Almond Bar at a little stand beside the road. It was delicious. See, you're not so badly off, I said to myself. You're not eating bones or refuse yet. You may get some good dishes before you die. What are you thinking of—lamb stew? You mustn't think about palatable things... think only of bones and refuse. From now on it's a dog's life.
I was sitting on a big rock somewhere this side of Elizabeth when I saw a big truck approaching. It was the fellow I had left farther back. I hopped in. He started talking about engines, what ails them, what makes them go, and so on. «We'll soon be there,» lie said suddenly, apropos of nothing.
«Where?» I asked.
«New York, of course... where do you think?»
«Oh, New York, yeah. I forgot.»
«Say, what the hell are you going to do in New York, if I ain't getting too personal?»
«I'm going to rejoin my family.»
«You been away long?»
«About ten years,» I said, drawing the words out meditatively.
«Ten years! That's a hell of a long time. What were you doing, just bumming around?»
«Yeah, just bumming around.»
«I guess they'll be glad to see you... your folks.»
«I guess they will.»
«You don't seem to be so sure of it,» he said, giving me a quizzical look.
«That's true. Well, you know how it is.»
«I guess so,» he answered. «I meet lots of guys like you. Always come back to the roost some time or other.»
He said roost, I said kennel—under my breath, to be sure. I liked kennel better. Roost was for roosters, pigeons, birds of feather that lay eggs. I wasn't going to lay no eggs. Bones and refuse, bones and refuse, bones and refuse. I repeated it over and over, to give myself the moral strength to crawl back like a beaten dog.
I borrowed a nickel from him on leaving and ducked into the subway. I felt tired, hungry, weather-beaten. The passengers looked sick to me. As though some one had just let them out of the hoose-gow or the alms house. I had been out in the world, far, far away. For ten years I had been knocking about and now I was coming home. Welcome home, prodigal son! Welcome home! My goodness, what stories I had heard, what cities I had seen! What marvelous adventures! Ten years of life, just from morn to midnight. Would the folks still be there?
I tiptoed into the areaway and looked for a gleam of light. Not a sign of life. Well, they never came home very early. I would go in upstairs by way of the stoop. Perhaps they were in the back of the house. Sometimes they sat in Hegoroboru's little bedroom off the hall where the toilet box trickled night and day.
I opened the door softly, walked to the head of the stairs which were enclosed, and quietly, very quietly, lowered myself step by step. There was a door at the bottom of the steps. I was in total darkness.
Near the bottom I heard muffled sounds of speech. They were home! I felt terrifically happy, exultant. I wanted to dash in wagging my little tail and throw myself at their feet. But that wasn't the program I had planned to adhere to.
After I had stood with my ear to the panel for some minutes I put my hand on the door knob and very slowly and noiselessly I turned it. The voices came much more distinctly now that I had opened the door an inch or so. The big one, Hegoroboru, was talking. She sounded maudlin, hysterical, as though she had been drinking. The other voice was low-pitched, more soothing and caressing than I had ever heard it. She seemed to be pleading with the big one. There were strange pauses, too, as if they were embracing. Now and then I could swear the big one gave a grunt, as though she were rubbing the skin off the other one. Then suddenly she let out a howl of delight, but a vengeful one.' Suddenly she shrieked.
«Then you do love him still? You were lying to me!»
«No, no! I swear I don't. You must believe me, please. I never loved him.»
«That's a lie!»
«I swear to you... I swear I never loved him. He was just a child to me.»
This was followed by a shrieking gale of laughter. Then a slight commotion, as if they were scuffling. Then a dead silence, as if their lips were glued together. Then it seemed as if they were undressing one another, licking one another all over, like calves in the meadow. The bed squeaked. Fouling the nest, that was it. They had gotten rid of me as if I were a leper and now they were trying to do the man and wife act. It was good I hadn't been lying in the corner watching this with my head between my paws. I would have barked angrily, perhaps bitten them. And then they would have kicked me around like a dirty cur.
I didn't want to hear any more. I closed the door gently and sat on the steps in total darkness. The fatigue and hunger had passed. I was extraordinarily awake. I could have walked to San Francisco in three hours.
Now I must go somewhere! I must get very definite—or I will go mad. I know I am not just a child. I don't know if I want to be a man—I feel too bruised and battered—but I certainly am not a child!
Then a curious physiological comedy took place. I began to menstruate. I menstruated from every hole in my body. When a man menstruates it's all over in a few minutes. He doesn't leave any mess behind either.
I crept upstairs on all fours and left the house as silently as I had entered it. The rain was over, the stars were out in full splendor. A light wind was blowing. The Lutheran Church across the way, which in the daylight was the color of baby shit, had now taken on a soft ochrous hue which blended serenely with the black of the asphalt. I was still not very definite in my mind about the future. At the corner I stood a few minutes, looking up and down the street as if I were taking it in for the first time.
When you have suffered a great deal in a certain place you have the impression that the record is imprinted in the street. But if you notice, streets seem peculiarly unaffected by the sufferings of private individuals. If you step out of a house at night, after losing a dear friend, the street seems really quite discreet. If the outside became like the inside it would be unbearable. Streets are breathing places...
I move along, trying to get definite without developing a fixed idea. I pass garbage cans loaded with bones and refuse. Some have put old shoes, busted slippers, hats, suspenders, and other worn-out articles in front of their dwellings. There is no doubt but that if I took to prowling around at night I could live quite handsomely off the discarded crumbs.
The life in the kennel is out, that's definite. I don't feel like a dog any more anyway...I feel more like a tom-cat. The cat is independent, anarchistic, a free-wheeler. It's the cat which rules the roost at night.
Getting hungry again. I wander down to the bright lights of Borough Hall where the cafeterias blaze. I look through the big windows to see if I can detect a friendly face. Pass on, from shop window to shop window, examining shoes, haberdashery, pipe tobaccos and so forth. Then I stand a while at the subway entrance, hoping forlornly that some one will drop a nickel without noticing it. I look the news stands over to see if there are any blind men about whom I can steal a few pennies from.
After a time I am walking the bluff at Columbia Heights. I pass a sedate brown stone house which I remember entering years and years ago to deliver a package of clothes to one of my father's customers. I remember standing in the big back room with the bay windows giving out on the river. It was a day of brilliant sunshine, a late afternoon, and the room was like a Vermeer. I had to help the old man on with his clothes. He was ruptured. Standing in the middle of the room in his balbriggan underwear he seemed positively obscene.
Below the bluff lay a street full of warehouses. The terraces of the wealthy homes were like overhanging gardens, ending abruptly some twenty or thirty feet above this dismal street with its dead windows and grim archways leading to the wharves. At the end of the street I stood against a wall to take a leak. A drunk comes along and stands beside me. He pees all over himself and then suddenly he doubles up and begins to vomit. As I walk away I can hear it splashing over his shoes.
I run down a long flight of stairs leading to the docks and find myself face to face with a man in uniform swinging a big stick. He wants to know what I'm about, but before I can answer he begins to shove me and brandish his stick.
I climb back up the long flight of stairs and sit on a bench. Facing me is an old-fashioned hotel where a school-teacher who used to be sweet on me lives. The last time I saw her I had taken her out to dinner and as I was saying good-bye I had to beg her for a nickel. She gave it to me—just a nickel—with a look I shall never forget. She had placed high hopes in me when I was a student. But that look told me all too plainly that she had definitely revised her opinion of me. She might just as well have said: «You'll never be able to cope with the world!»
The stars were very very bright. I stretched out on the bench and gazed at them intently. All my failures were now tightly bound up inside me, a veritable embryo of unfulfillment. All that had happened to me now seemed extremely remote. I had nothing to do but revel in my detachment. I began to voyage from star to star...
An hour or so later, chilled to the bone, I got to-my feet and began walking briskly. An insane-desire to repass the house I had been driven from took possession of me. I was dying to know if they were still up and about.
The shades were only partially drawn and the light from a candle near the bed gave the front room a quiet glow. I stole close to the window and put my ear to it. They were singing a Russian song which the big one was fond of. Apparently all was his bliss, in there.
I tiptoed out of the areaway and turned down Love Lane which was at the corner. It had been named Love Lane during the Revolution most likely; now it was simply a back alley dotted with garages and repair shops. Garbage cans strewn about like captured chess pieces.
I retraced my steps to the river, to that grim,, dismal street which ran like a shriveled urethra beneath the overhanging terraces of the rich. Nobody ever walked through this street late at night —it was too dangerous.
Not a soul about. The passageways tunneled through the warehouses gave fascinating glimpses of the river life—barges lying lifeless, tugs gliding by like smoking ghosts, the skyscrapers silhouetted against the New York shore, huge iron stanchions with cabled hawsers slung around them, piles of bricks and lumber, sacks of coffee. The most poignant sight was the sky itself. Swept clear of clouds and studded with fistsful of stars, it gleamed like the breast-plate of the high priests of old.
Finally I made to go through an archway. About halfway through I felt a huge rat race across my feet. I stopped with a shudder and another one slid over my feet. Then a panic seized me and I ran back to the street. On the other side of the street, close to the wall, a man was standing. I stood stock still, undecided which was to turn, hoping that this silent figure would move first. But he remained immobile, watching me like a hawk. Again I felt panicky, but this time I steeled myself to walk away, fearing that if I ran he would also run. I walked as noiselessly as possible, my ear cocked to catch the sound of his steps. I didn't dare to turn my head. I walked slowly, deliberately, barely putting my heels down.
I had only walked a few yards when I had the certain sensation that he was following me, not on the other side of the street, but directly behind me, perhaps only a few yards away. I hastened my steps, still however making no sound. It seemed to me that he was moving faster than I, that he was gaining on me. I could almost feel his breath on my neck. Suddenly I took a quick look around. He was there, almost within grasp. I knew I couldn't elude him now. I had a feeling that he was armed and that he would use his weapon, knife or gun, the moment I tried to make a dash for it.
Instinctively I turned like a flash and dove for his legs. He tumbled over my back and struck his head against the pavement. I knew I hadn't the strength to grapple with him. Again I had to move fast. He was just rolling over, slightly stunned, it seemed, as I sprang to my feet. His hand was reaching for his pocket. I kicked out and caught him square in the stomach.
He groaned and rolled over. I bolted. I ran with all the strength I had in me. But the street was steep, and long before I had come to the end of it, I had to break into a walk. I turned again and listened. It was too dark to tell whether he had risen to his feet or was still lying there on the sidewalk. Not a sound except the wild beating of my heart, the hammering of my temples. I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. I felt terribly weak, ready to faint. I wondered if I would have the strength to climb to the top of the hill.
Just as I was congratulating myself on my narrow escape I saw a shadow creeping along the wall down where I had left him. This time my fear turned my legs to lead. I was absolutely paralyzed. I watched him creeping closer and closer, unable to stir a muscle. He seemed to divine what had happened; his pace never quickened.
When he got within a few feet of me he flashed a gun. With that I instinctively put up my hands. He came up to me and frisked me. Then he put his gun back in his hip pocket. Never a word out of him. He went through my pockets, found nothing, cuffed me in the jaw with the back of his hand and then stepped back towards the gutter.
«Put your hands down,» he said, low and tense.
I dropped them like two flails. I was petrified with fright.
He pulled the gun out again, levelled it, and said in the same even, low, tense voice: «I'm givin' it to you in the guts, you dirty dog!» With that I collapsed. As I fell I heard the bullet spatter against the wall. It was the end. I expected a fusillade. I remember trying to curl up like a foetus, crooking my elbow over my eyes to protect them. Then came the fusillade. And then I heard him running.
I knew I must be dying, but I felt no pain.
Suddenly I realized that I hadn't even been scratched. I sat up and I saw a man running after the fleeing assailant with a gun in his hand. He fired a few shots as he ran but they must have gone wide of the mark.
I rose to my feet unsteadily, felt myself all over again to make certain that I was really unhurt, and waited for the guard to return.
«Could you help me,» I begged, «I'm pretty rocky.»
He looked at me suspiciously, the gun still in his hand.
«What the hell are you doing here this hour of the night?»
«I'm weak as a cat,» I mumbled. «I'll tell you later. Help me home, will you?»
I told him where I lived, that I was a writer, that I had been out for a breath of fresh air. «He cleaned me out,» I added. «Lucky you came along...»
A little more of this lingo and he softened up enough to say—«Here, take this and get yourself a cab. You're all right, I guess.» He thrust a dollar bill in my hand.
I found a cab in front of a hotel and ordered the driver to take me to Love Lane. On the way I stopped to get a package of cigarettes.
The lights were out this time. I went up by the stoop and slid lightly down to the hallway. Not a sound. I put my ear to the door of the front room and listened intently. Then I stole softly back to the little cell at the end of the hall where the big one usually slept. I had the feeling that the room was deserted. Slowly I turned the knob. When I had opened the door sufficiently I sank to all fours and crept in on hands and knees, feeling my way carefully to the bed. There I raised my hand and felt the bed. It was empty. I undressed quickly and crawled in. There were some cigarette butts at the foot of the bed—they felt like dead beetles.
In a moment I was sound asleep. I dreamt that I was lying in the corner by the heart, with a coat of fur, padded paws and long ears. Between my paws was a bone which had been licked clean. I was guarding it jealousy, even in my sleep. A man entered and gave me a kick in the ribs. I pretended not to feel it. He kicked me again, as though to make me growl—or perhaps it was to make me let go of the bone.
«Stand up!» he said, flourishing a whip which had been hidden behind his back.
I was too weak to move. I looked up at him with piteous, bleary eyes, imploring him mutely to leave me in peace.
«Come on, get out of here!» he muttered, raising the butt end of the whip as if to strike.
I staggered to all fours and tried to hobble away. My spine seemed to be broken. I caved in, collapsed like a punctured bag.
The man coldly raised the whip again and with the butt end cracked me over the skull. I let out a howl of pain. Enraged at this, he grasped the whip by the butt end and began lashing me unmercifully. I tried to raise myself but it was no use—my spine was broken. I wriggled over the floor like an octopus, receiving lash after lash. The fury of the blows had taken my breath away. It was only after he had gone, thinking that I was done for, that I began to give vent to my agony. At first I began to whimper; then, as my strength returned, I began to scream and howl. The blood was oozing from me as if I were a sponge. It flowed out in all directions, making a big dark spot, as in the animated cartoons. My voice got weaker and weaker. Now and then I let out a yelp.
When I opened my eyes the two women were bending over me, shaking me.
«Stop it, for God's sake, stop it!» the big one was saying.
The other was saying: «My God, Val, what's happened? Wake up, wake up!»
I sat up and looked at them with a dazed expression. I was naked and my body was full of blood and bruises.
«Where have you been? What happened?» Their voices now chimed together.
«I was dreaming, I guess.» I tried to smile but the smile faded into a distorted grin. «Look at my back,» I begged. «I feels broken.»
They lay me back on the bed and turned me over, as if I had been marked «fragile».
«You're full of bruises. You must have been beaten up.»
I closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened. All I could recall was the dream, that brute standing over me with a whip and lashing me. He had kicked me in the ribs, as if I were a mangy cur. («/'W give it to you in the guts, you dirty dog!») My back was broken, I remembered distinctly. I had caved in and sprawled out on the floor like an octopus. And in that helpless position he had lashed away with a fury that was inhuman.
«Let him sleep,» I heard the big one say.
«I'm going to call an ambulance,» said the other.
They began to argue.
«Go away, leave me alone,» I muttered.
It was quiet again. I fell asleep. I dreamt that I was in the dog show; I was a chow and I had a blue ribbon around my neck. In the next booth was another chow; he had a pink ribbon around his neck. It was a toss-up which of us would win the prize.
Two women whom I seemed to recognize were bickering about our respective merits and demerits. Finally the judge came over and placed his baud on my neck. The big woman strode away angrily, spitting in disgust. But the woman whose pet I was bent over and, holding me by the ears, raised my head and kissed me on the snout. «I knew you would win the prize for me,» she whispered. «You're such a lovely, lovely creature,» and she began stroking my fur. «Wait a moment, my darling, and I'll bring you something nice. Just a moment...»
When she returned she had a little package in her hand; it was wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a beautiful ribbon. She held it up before me and I stood on my hind legs and barked. «Woof woof! Woof woof!»
«Take it easy, dear,» she said, undoing the package slowly. «Mother's brought you a beautiful little present.»
«Woof woof! Woof woof!»
«That's a darling... that's it... easy now... easy.»
I was furiously impatient to receive my gift. I couldn't understand why she was taking so long. It must be something terribly precious, I thought to myself.
The package was almost unwrapped now. She was holding the little gift behind her back.
«Up, up! That's it... up!»
I got to my hind legs and began prancing and pirouetting.
«Now beg! Beg for it!»
«Woof woof! Woof woof!» I was ready to jump out of my skin with joy.
Suddenly she dangled it before my eyes. It was a magnificent knuckle bone, full of marrow, encircled by a gold wedding ring. I was furiously eager to seize it but she held it high above her head, tantalizing me mercilessly. Finally, to my astonishment, she stuck her tongue out and began to suck the marrow into her mouth. She turned it around and sucked from the other end. When she had made a clean hole through and though she caught hold of me and began to stroke me. She did it so masterfully that in a few seconds I stood out like a raw turnip. Then she took the bone (with the wedding ring still around it) and she slipped it over the raw turnip. «Now you little darling, I'm going to take you home and put you to bed.» And with that she picked me up and walked off, everybody laughing and clapping hands. Just as we got to the door the bone slid off and fell to the ground. I tried to scramble out of her arms, but she held me tight to her bosom. I began to whimper.
«Hush, hush!» she said, and sticking her tongue out, she licked my face. «You dear, lovely, little creature!»
«Woof woof! Woof woof!» I barked. «Woof! Woof, woof, woof!»
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