Ham On Rye

54

I found a room on Temple Street in the Filipino district. It was $3.50 a week, upstairs on the second floor. I paid the landlady - a middle-aged blond - a week's rent. The toilet and tub were down the hall but there was a wash basin to piss in.

My first night there I discovered a bar downstairs just to the right of the entrance. I liked that. All I had to do was climb the stairway and I was home. The bar was full of little dark men but they didn't bother me. I'd heard all the stories about Filipinos - that they liked white girls, blonds in particular, that they carried stilettoes, that since they were all the same size, seven of them would chip in and buy one expensive suit, with all the accessories, and they would take turns wearing the suit one night a week. George Raft had said somewhere that Filipinos set the style trends. They stood on street corners and swung golden chains around and around, thin golden chains, seven or eight inches long, each man's chain-length indicating the length of his penis.

The bartender was Filipino.

"You're new, hub?" he asked.

"I live upstairs. I'm a student."

"No credit."

I put some coins down.

"Give me an Eastside."

He came back with the bottle.

"Where can a fellow get a girl?" I asked. He picked up some of the coins.

"I don't know anything," he said and walked to the register.

That first night I closed the bar. Nobody bothered me. A few blond women left with the Filipinos. The men were quiet drinkers. They sat in little groups with their heads close together, talking, now and then laughing in a very quiet manner. I liked them. When the bar closed and I got up to leave the bartender said, "Thank you." That was never done in American bars, not to me anyhow. I liked my new situation. All I needed was money.

I decided to keep going to college. It would give me some place to be during the daytime. My friend Becker had dropped out. There wasn't anybody that I much cared for there except maybe the instructor in Anthropology, a known Communist. He didn't teach much Anthropology. He was a large man, casual and likeable.

"Now the way you fry a porterhouse steak," he told the class,

"you get the pan red hot, you drink a shot of whiskey and then you pour a thin layer of salt in the pan. You drop the steak in and sear it but not for too long. Then you flip it, sear the other side, drink another shot of whiskey, take the steak out and eat it immediately."

Once when I was stretched out on the campus lawn he had come walking by and had stopped and stretched out beside me.

"Chinaski, you don't believe all that Nazi hokum you're spreading around, do you?"

"I'm not saying. Do you believe your crap?"

"Of course I do."

"Good luck."

"Chinaski, you're nothing but a wienerschnitzel."

He got up, brushed off the grass and leaves and walked away…

I had been at the Temple Street place only for a couple of days when Jimmy Hatcher found me. He knocked on the door one night and I opened it and there he was with two other guys, fellow aircraft workers, one called Delmore, the other, Fastshoes.

"How come he's called 'Fastshoes'?"

"You ever lend him money, you'll know."

"Come on in… How in Christ's name did you find me?"

"Your folks had you traced by a private dick."

"Damn, they know how to take the boy out of a man's life."

"Maybe they're worried?"

"If they're worried all they have to do is send money."

"They claim you'll drink it up."

"Then let them worry…"

The three of them came in and sat around on the bed and the floor. They had a fifth of whiskey and some paper cups. Jimmy poured all around.

"Nice place you've got. here."

"It's great. I can see the City Hall every time I stick my head out the window."

Fastshoes pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. He was sitting on the rug. He looked up at me.

"You gamble?"

"Every day. You got a marked deck?"

"Hey, you son-of-a-bitch!"

"Don't curse me or I'll hang your wig on my mantlepiece."

"Honest, man, these cards are straight!"

"All I play is poker and 21. What's the limit?"

"Two bucks."

"We'll split for the deal."

I got the deal and called for draw poker, regular. I didn't like wild cards, too much luck was needed that way. Two bits for the kitty. As I dealt, Jimmy poured another round.

"How are you making it. Hank?"

"I'm writing term papers for the other people."

"Brilliant."

"Yeah…"

"Hey, you guys," said Jimmy, "I told you this guy was a genius."

"Yeah," said Delmore. He was to my right. He opened.

"Two bits," he said. We followed him in.

"Three cards," said Delmore.

"One," said Jimmy.

"Three," said Fastshoes.

"I'll stand," I said.

"Two bits," said Delmore.

We all stayed in and then I said, "I'll see your two bits and raise you two bucks."

Delmore dropped out, Jimmy dropped out. Fastshoes looked at me. "What else do you see besides City Hall when you stick your head out the window?"

"Just play your hand. I'm not here to chat about gymnastics or the scenery."

"All right," he said, "I'm out."

I scooped up the pot and gathered in their cards, leaving mine face down.

"What did ya have?" asked Fastshoes.

"Pay to see or weep forever," I said sweeping my cards into the deck and mixing them together, shuffling them, feeling like Gable before he got weakened by God at the time of the San Francisco earthquake.

The deck changed hands but my luck held, most of the time. It had been payday at the aircraft plant. Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another.

Somehow I felt that the night was to be mine. Delmore soon tapped out and left.

"Fellows," I said, "I've got an idea. Cards are too slow. Let's just match coins, ten bucks a toss, odd man wins."

"O.K.," said Jimmy.

"O.K.," said Fastshoes.

The whiskey was gone. We were into a bottle of my cheap wine.

"All right," I said, "flip the coins high! Catch them on your palms. And when I say lift,' we'll check the result."

We flipped them high. Caught them.

"Lift!" I said.

I was odd man. Shit. Twenty bucks, just like that. I jammed the tens into my pocket.

"Flip!" I said. We did.

"Lift!" I said. I won again.

"Flip!" I said.

"Lift!" I said. Fastshoes won. I got the next. Then Jimmy won. I got the next two.

"Wait," I said, "I've got to piss!"

I walked over to the sink and pissed. We had finished the bottle of wine. I opened the closet door. "I got another bottle of wine in here," I told them.

I took most of the bills out of my pocket and threw them into the closet. I came out, opened the bottle, poured drinks all around.

"Shit," said Fastshoes looking into his wallet, "I'm almost broke."

"Me too," said Jimmy.

"I wonder who's got the money?" I asked. They weren't very good drinkers. Mixing the wine and the whiskey was bad for them. They were weaving a bit.

Fastshoes fell back against the dresser knocking an ashtray to the floor. It broke in half.

"Pick it up," I said.

"I won't pick up shit," he said.

"I said, 'pick it up'!"

"I won't pick up shit."

Jimmy reached and picked up the broken ashtray.

"You guys get out of here," I said.

"You can't make me go," said Fastshoes.

"All right," I said, "just open your mouth owe more time, say owe word and you won't be able to separate your head from your asshole!"

"Let's go, Fastshoes," said Jimmy.

I opened the door and they filed past unsteadily. I followed them down the hall to the head of the stairway. We stood there.

"Hank," said Jimmy, "I'll see you again. Take it easy."

"All right, Jim…"

"Listen," Fastshoes said to me, "You…"

I shot a straight right into his mouth. He fell backward down the stairway, twisting and bouncing. He was about my size, six feet and oneeighty, and you could hear the sound of him for a block. Two Filipinos and the blond landlady were in the lobby. They looked at Fastshoes laying there but they didn't move toward him.

"You killed him!" said Jimmy.

He ran down the stairway and turned Fastshoes over. Fastshoes had a bloody nose and mouth. Jimmy held his head. Jimmy looked up at me.

"That wasn't right, Hank…"

"Yeah, what ya gonna do?"

"I think," said Jimmy, "that we're going to come back and get you.. ."

"Wait a minute," I said.

I walked back to my room and poured myself a wine. I hadn't liked Jimmy's paper cups and I had been drinking out of a used jelly glass. The paper label was still on the side, stained with dirt and wine. I walked back out.

Fastshoes was reviving. Jimmy was helping him to his feet. Then he put Fastshoes' arm around his neck. They were standing there.

"Now what did you say?" I asked.

"You're an ugly man, Hank. You need to be taught a lesson."

"You mean I'm not pretty?"

"I mean, you act ugly…"

"Take your friend out of here before I come down there and finish him off!"

Fastshoes raised his bloody head. He had on a flowered Hawaiian shirt, only now many of the colors were stained with red.

He looked at me. Then he spoke. I could barely hear him. But I heard it. He said, "I'm going to kill you…"

"Yeah," said Jimmy, "we'll get you."

"YEAH, FUCKERS?" I screamed. "I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE! ANYTIME YOU WANT TO FIND ME I'LL BE IN ROOM 5! I'LL BE WAITING! ROOM 5, GOT IT? AND THE DOOR WILL BE OPEN!"

I lifted the jelly glass full of wine and drained it. Then I hurled that jelly glass at them. I threw the son-of-a-bitch, hard. But my aim was bad. It hit the side of the stairway wall, glanced off and shot into the lobby between the landlady and her two Filipino friends.

Jimmy turned Fastshoes toward the exit door and began slowly walking him out. It was a tedious, agonizing journey. I heard Fastshoes again, half moaning, half weeping, "I'll kill him… I'll kill him…"

Then Jimmy had him out the doorway. They were gone. The blond landlady and the two Filipinos were still standing in the lobby, looking up at me. I was barefooted, and had gone five or six days without a shave. I needed a haircut. I only combed my hair once, in the morning, then didn't bother again. My gym teachers were always after me about my posture: "Pull your shoulders back! Why are you looking at the ground? What's down there?"

I would never set any trends or styles. My white t-shirt was stained with wine, burned, with many cigarettes and cigar holes, spotted with blood and vomit. It was too small, it rode up exposing my gut and belly button. And my pants were too small. They gripped me tightly and rose well above my ankles.

The three of them stood and looked at me. I looked down at them. "Hey, you guys, come on up for a little drink!"

The two little men looked up at me and grinned. The landlady, a faded Carole Lombard type, looked on impassively. Mrs. Kansas, they called her. Could she be in love with me? She was wearing pink shoes with high heels and a black sparkling sequinned dress. Little chips of light flashed at me. Her breasts were something that no mere mortal would ever see - they were only for kings, dictators, rulers, Filipinos.

"Anybody got a smoke?" I asked. "I'm out of smokes."

The little dark fellow standing to one side of Mrs. Kansas made a slight motion with one hand toward his jacket pocket and a pack of Camels jumped in the lobby air. Deftly he caught the pack in his other hand. With the invisible tap of a finger on the bottom of the pack a smoke leaped up, tall, true, singular and exposed, ready to be taken.

"Hey, shit, thanks," I said.

I started down the stairway, made a mis-step, lunged, almost fell, grabbed the bannister, righted myself, readjusted my perceptions, and walked on down. Was I drunk? I walked up to the little guy holding the pack. I bowed slightly.

I lifted out the Camel. Then I flipped it in the air, caught it, stuck it into my mouth. My dark friend remained expressionless, the grin having vanished when I had begun down the stairway. My little friend bent forward, cupped his hands around the flame and lit my smoke.

I inhaled, exhaled. "Listen, why don't you all come up to my place and we'll have a couple of drinks?"

"No," said the little guy who had lit my cigarette.

"Maybe we can catch the Bee or some Bach on my radio! I'm educated, you know. I'm a student…"

"No," said the other little guy.

I took a big drag on my smoke, then looked at Carole Lombard - Mrs. Kansas. Then I looked at my two friends.

"She's yours. I don't want her. She's yours. Just come on up. We'll drink a little wine. In good old room 5."

There was no answer. I rocked on my heels a bit as the whiskey and the wine fought for possession. I let my cigarette dangle a bit from the right side of my mouth as I sent up a plume of smoke. I continued letting the cigarette dangle like that.

I knew about stilettoes. In the little time I had been there I had seen two enactments of the stiletto. From my window one night, looking out at the sound of sirens, I saw a body there just below my window on the Temple Street sidewalk, in the moonlight, under the streetlight. Another time, another body. Nights of the stiletto. Once a white man, the other time one of them. Each time, blood running on the pavement, real blood, just like that, moving across the pavement and into the gutter, you could see it going along in the gutter, meaningless, dumb… that so much blood could come from just one man.

"All right, my friends," I said to them, "no hard feelings. I'll drink alone…"

I turned and started to walk toward the stairway.

"Mr. Chinaski," I heard Mrs. Kansas' voice. I turned and looked at her flanked by my two little friends.

"Just go to your room and sleep. If you cause any more disturbance I will phone the Los Angeles Police Department."

I turned and walked back up the stairway. No life anywhere, no life in this town or this place or in this weary existence…

My door was open. I walked in. There was one-third of a cheap bottle of wine left.

Maybe there was another bottle in the closet? I opened the closet door. No bottle. But there were tens and twenties everywhere. There was a rolled twenty lying between a pair of dirty socks with holes in the toes; and there from a shirt collar, a ten dangling; and here from an old jacket, another ten caught in a side pocket. Most of the money was on the floor.

I picked up a bill, slipped it into the side pocket of my pants, went to the door, closed and locked it, then went down the stairway to the bar.