Women

62

It was hot that night at the reading, which was to be held at St. Mark's Church. Tammie and I sat in what was used as the dressing room. Tammie found a full-length mirror leaning against the wall and began combing her hair. Marshall took me out in back of the church. They had a burial ground back there. Little cement tombstones sat on the earth and carved on the tombstones were inscriptions. Marshall walked me around and showed me the inscriptions. I always got nervous before a reading, very tense and unhappy. I almost always vomited. Then I did. I vomited on one of the graves.

"You just vomited on Peter Stuyvesant," Marshall said.

I walked back into the dressing room. Tammie was still looking at herself in the mirror. She looked at her face and her body, but mostly she was worried about her hair. She piled it on top of her head, looked at it that way and then let it fall back down.

Marshall put his head into the room. "Come on, they're wait-ing!"

"Tammie's not ready," I told him.

Then she piled her hair up on top of her head again and looked at herself. Then she let it fall. Then she stood close to the mirror and looked at her eyes.

Marshall knocked, then came in. "Come on, Chinaski!"

"Come on, Tammie, let's go."

"All right."

I walked out with Tammie at my elbow. They started applauding. The old Chinaski bullshit was working. Tammie went down into the crowd and I started to read. I had many beers in an ice bucket. I had old poems and new poems. I couldn't miss. I had St. Mark's by the cross.