Women

68

It was a Wednesday night, 12:30 am and I was very sick. My stomach was raw, but I managed to hold down a few beers. Tammie was with me and she seemed sympathetic. Dancy was at her grandmother's.

Even though I was ill it seemed, finally, to be a good time-just two people being together.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it. It was Tammie's brother, Jay, with another young man, Filbert, a small Puerto Rican. They sat down and I gave each of them a beer.

"Let's go to a dirty movie," said Jay.

Filbert just sat there. He had a black carefully-trimmed mustache and his face had very little expression. He didn't give off any rays at all. I thought of terms like blank, wooden, dead, and so forth.

"Why don't you say something, Filbert?" Tammie asked.

He didn't speak.

I got up, went to the kitchen sink and vomited. I came back and sat down. I had a new beer. I hated it when the beer wouldn't stay down. I simply had been drunk too many days and nights in a row. I needed a rest. And I needed a drink. Just beer. You'd think I could hold down beer. I took a long pull.

The beer wouldn't stay down. I went to the bathroom. Tammie knocked, "Hank, are you all right?"

I washed out my mouth and opened the door. "I'm sick, that's all."

"Do you want me to get rid of them?"

"Sure."

She went back to them. "Look, fellows, why don't we go up to my place?"

I hadn't expected that.

Tammie had neglected to pay her electric bill, or she didn't want to, and they sat up there by candlelight. She had taken a fifth of mixed margarita cocktails I had purchased earlier in the day up there with her.

I sat and drank alone. The next beer stayed down.

I could hear them up there, talking.

Then Tammie's brother left. I watched him walk in the moonlight towards his car…

Tammie and Filbert were up there alone together, by candlelight.

I sat with the lights out, drinking. An hour passed. I could see the wavering candlelight in the dark. I looked around. Tammie had left her shoes. I picked up her shoes and went up the stairway. Her door was open and I heard her talking to Filbert… "So, anyway, what I meant was…"

She heard me walking up the stairs. "Henry, is that you?"

I threw Tammie's shoes the remainder of the way up the stairway. They landed outside her door.

"You forgot your shoes," I said.

"Oh, God bless you," she said.

About 10:30 the next morning Tammie knocked on the door. I opened it. "You rotten goddamned bitch." "Stop talking that way," she said. "Want a beer?"

"All right."

She sat down. "Well, we drank the bottle of margaritas. Then my brother left. Filbert was very nice. He just sat and didn't talk much. 'How are you going to get home?' I asked him. 'Do you have a car?' And he said he didn't. He just sat there looking at me and I said, 'Well, I have a car, I'll drive you home.' So I drove him home. Anyhow, since I was there I went to bed with him. I was pretty drunk, but he didn't touch me. He said he had to go to work in the morning." Tammie laughed. "Sometime during the night he tried to approach me. I put the pillow over my head and just started giggling. I kept the pillow there and giggled. He gave up. After he left for work I drove over to my mother's and took Dancy to school. And now here I am…"

The next day Tammie was on uppers. She kept running in and out of my place. Finally she told me, "I'll be back tonight. I'll see you tonight!"

"Forget tonight."

"What's wrong with you? Plenty of men would be happy to see me tonight."

Tammie slammed out of the door. There was a pregnant cat sleeping on my porch.

"Get the hell out of here, Red!"

I picked up the pregnant cat and threw it at her. I missed by a foot and the cat dropped into a nearby bush.

The following night Tammie was on speed. I was drunk. Tammie and Dancy screamed at me from the window above.

"Go eat jerk-off, ya jerk!"

"Yeah, go eat jerk-off, you jerk! HAHAHA!"

"Ah, balloons!" I answered, "your mother's big balloons!"

"Go eat rat droppings, ya jerk!"

"You jerk, you jerk, you jerk! HAHAHA!"

"Fruit fly brains," I answered, "suck the cotton out of my navel!"

"You…" began Tammie.

Suddenly there were several pistol shots nearby, either in the street or in the back of the court or behind the apartment next door. Very near. It was a poor neighborhood with lots of prostitution and drugs and occasionally a murder.

Dancy started screaming out the window: "HANK! HANK! COME UP HERE, HANK! HANK, HANK, HANK! HURRY, HANK!"

I ran up. Tammie was stretched out on the bed, all that glorious red hair flared out on the pillow. She saw me.

"I've been shot," she said weakly. "I've been shot."

She pointed to a spot on her bluejeans. She was not joking anymore. She was terrified.

There was a red stain, but it was dry. Tammie liked to use my paints. I reached down and touched the dry stain. She was all right, except for the pills.

"Listen," I told her, "you're all right, don't worry…"

As I walked out the door Bobby came pounding up the stairs. "Tammie, Tammie, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

Bobby evidently had had to get dressed, which explained the time lag.

As he bounced past me I told him quickly, "Jesus Christ, man, you're always in my life."

He ran into Tammie's apartment followed by the guy next door, a used car salesman and a certified nut.

Tammie came down a few days later with an envelope.

"Hank, the manager just served me with an eviction notice."

She showed it to me.

I read it carefully. "It looks like they mean it," I said.

"I told her I'd pay the back rent but she said, 'We want you out of here, Tammie!'"

"You can't let the rent go too long."

"Listen, I have the money. I just don't like to pay."

Tammie was completely contrary in her ways. Her car wasn't registered, the license plate tabs had long ago expired, and she drove without a driver's license. She left her car parked for days in yellow zones, red zones, white zones, reserved parking lots… When the police stopped her drunk or high or without her i. d., she talked to them, and they always let her go. She tore up the parking tickets whenever she got them.

"I'll get the owner's phone number." (We had an absentee landlord.) "They can't kick my ass out of here. Do you have his phone number?"

"No."

Just then Irv, who owned a whorehouse, and who also acted as bouncer at the local massage parlor walked by. Irv was 6 foot 3 and on ATD. He also had a better mind than the first 3,000 people you'd pass on the street.

Tammie ran out: "Irv! Irv!"

He stopped and turned. Tammie swung her breasts at him. "Irv, do you have the owner's phone number?"

"No, I don't."

"Irv, I need the owner's phone number. Give me his number and I'll suck you off!"

"I don't have the number."

He walked up to his door and put his key into the lock.

"Come on, Irv, I'll suck you off if you tell me!"

"You really mean it?" he asked hesitating, looking at her.

Then he opened the door, walked in and closed it.

Tammie ran up to another door and beat on it. Richard opened the door cautiously, with the chain on it. He was bald, lived alone, was religious, about 45 and looked at television continually. He was as pink and clean as a woman. He complained continually about the noise from my place-he couldn't sleep, he said. The management told him to move. He hated me. Now there was one of my women at his door. He kept the chain on.

"What do you want?" he hissed.

"Look, baby, I want the owner's phone number… You've lived here for years. I know you have his phone number. I need it."

"Go away," he said.

"Look, baby, I'll be nice to you… A kiss, a nice big kiss for you!"

"Harlot!" he said "Strumpet!"

Richard slammed the door.

Tammie walked on in. "Hank?"

"Yes?"

"What's a strumpet? I know what a trumpet is, but what's a strumpet?"

"A strumpet, my dear, is a whore."

"Why that dirty son-of-a-bitch!"

Tammie walked outside and continued to beat on the doors of the other apartments. Either they were out or they didn't answer. She came back. "It's not fair! Why do they want me out of here? What have I done?"

"I don't know. Think back. Maybe there's something."

"I can't think of anything."

"Move in with me."

"You couldn't stand the kid."

"You're right."

The days passed. The owner remained invisible, he didn't like to deal with the tenants. The manager stood behind the eviction notice. Even Bobby became less visible, ate t.v. dinners, smoked his grass and listened to his stereo. "Hey, man," he told me, "I don't even like your old lady! She's busting up our friendship, man!"

"Right on, Bobby…"

I drove to the market and got some empty cardboard cartons. Then Tammie's sister, Cathy, went crazy in Denver-after losing a lover-and Tammie had to go see her, with Dancy. I drove them down to the train depot. I put them on the train.