Women

65

Back in L.A., there was almost a week of peace. Then the phone rang. It was the owner of a Manhattan Beach nightclub, Marty Seavers. I had read there a couple of times before. The club was called Smack-Hi.

"Chinaski, I want you to read a week from Friday. You can pick up about $450."

"All right."

Rock groups played there. It was a different audience than at the colleges. They were as obnoxious as I was and we cursed one another between poems. I preferred it.

"Chinaski," Marty said, "you think you have trouble with women. Let me tell you. The one I've got now has a way with windows and screens. I'll be sleeping and she'll appear in the bedroom at 3 or 4 am. She'll shake me. It scares the shit out of me. She stands there and says, 'I just wanted to make sure you were sleeping alone!'"

"Death and transfiguration."

"The other night, I'm sitting and there's a knock on the door. I know it's her. I open the door and she isn't there. It's 11 pm and I'm in my shorts. I've been drinking and I'm worried. I run outside in my shorts. I had given her $400 worth of dresses for her birthday. I run outside and there are the dresses, on the roof of my new car, and they're on fire, they're burning! I run up to pull them off and she leaps out from behind a bush and starts screaming. The neighbors look out and there I am in my shorts, burning my hands, snatching the dresses off the roof."

"She sounds like one of mine," I said.

"O.K., so I figured we were through. I'm sitting here two nights later, I had to work the club that night, so I'm sitting here at 3 am drunk and in my shorts again. There's a knock on the door. It's her knock. I open it and she isn't there. I go out to my car and she has more dresses soaked in gasoline and burning. She had saved some. Only this time they are burning on the hood. She leaps out from somewhere and starts screaming. The neighbors look out. There I am again in my shorts trying to get these burning dresses off the hood."

"That's great, I wish it had happened to me."

"You should see my new car. It has paint blisters all over the hood and the roof."

"Where is she now?"

"We're back together. She's coming over in 30 minutes. Can I put you down for the reading?"

"Sure."

"You outdraw the rock groups. I never saw anything like it. I'd like to bring you in every Friday and Saturday night."

"It wouldn't work, Marty. You can play the same song over and over, but with poems they want something new."

Marty laughed and hung up.