Women

94

Wednesday night found me at the airport waiting for Iris. I sat around and looked at the women. None of them-except for one or two-looked as good as Iris. There was something wrong with me: I did think of sex a great deal. Each woman I looked at I imagined being in bed with. It was an interesting way to pass airport waiting time. Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding-whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane.

I had bought Iris and myself a turkey, an 18-pounder. It was on my sink, thawing out. Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived.

another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: there sat the 18 pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disembowled. Iris would roast it for me.

I had received a letter in the mail that afternoon. I took it out of my pocket and re-read it. It had been mailed from Berkeley:

Dear Mr. Chinaski:

You don't know me but I'm a cute bitch. I've been going with sailors and one truck driver but they don't satisfy me. I mean, we fuck and then there's nothing more. There's no substance to those sons of bitches. I'm 22 and I have a 5 year old daughter, Aster. I live with a guy but there's no sex, we just live together. His name is Rex. I'd like to come see you. My mom could watch Aster. Enclosed is a photo of me. Write me if you feel like it. I've read some of your books. They are hard to find in bookstores. What I like about your writing is that you are so easy to understand. And you're funny too.

yours,

Tanya

Then Iris' plane landed. I stood at the window and watched her get off. She still looked good. She had come all the way from Canada to see me. She had one suitcase. I waved to her as she filed through the entranceway with the others. She had to pass through customs, then she was pressed up against me. We kissed and I got half a hard-on. She was in a dress, a practical tight-fitting blue dress, high heels and she wore a small hat cocked on her head. It was rare to see a woman in a dress. All the women in Los Angeles wore pants continually…

Since we didn't have to wait for her baggage we drove right to my place. I parked out front and we walked through the court together. She sat on the couch while I poured her a drink. Iris looked over at my homemade bookcase.

"Did you write all those books?"

"Yes."

"I had no idea you had written so many."

"I wrote them."

"How many?"

"I don't know. Twenty, twenty-five…"

I kissed her, putting one arm around her waist, pulling her to me. The other hand I put on her knee.

The phone rang. I got up and answered it. "Hank?" It was Valerie.

"Yes?"

"Who was that?"

"Who was who?"

"That girl…"

"Oh, that's a friend from Canada."

"Hank, you and your god-damned women!"

"Yes."

"Bobby wants to know if you and…"

"Iris."

"He wants to know if you and Iris want to come down for a drink."

"Not tonight. I'll take a rain check."

"She's really got a body!"

"I know."

"All right, maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe…"

I hung up thinking that Valerie probably liked women too. Well, that was all right. I poured two more drinks.

"How many women have you met at airports?" Iris asked. "It's not as bad as you think." "Have you lost count? Like your books?" "Math is one of my weaker points." "Do you enjoy meeting women at airports?" "Yes." I had not remembered that Iris was so talkative. "You pig!" She laughed. "Our first fight. Did you have a nice flight?" "I sat next to a bore. I made a mistake and let him buy me a drink. He talked my god-damned ear off."

"He was only excited. You're a sexy woman."

"Is that all you see in me?"

"I see lots of that. Maybe I'll see other things as we go along."

"Why do you want so many women?"

"It was my childhood, you see. No love, no affection. And in my twenties and thirties there also was very little. I'm playing catch-up…"

"Will you know when you've caught up?"

"The feeling I have is that I'll need at least one more lifetime."

"You're so full of shit!"

I laughed. "That's why I write."

"I'm going to take a shower and change."

"Sure."

I went to the kitchen and felt-up the turkey. It showed me its legs, its pubic hair, its bunghole, its thighs; it sat there. I was glad it didn't have eyes. Well, we'd do something with the thing. That was the next step. I heard the toilet flush. If Iris didn't want to roast it, I'd roast it.

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity. The more rivers you crossed, the more you knew about rivers-that is, if you survived the white water and the hidden rocks. It could be a rough cob, sometimes.

Iris came out. She had on a blueblack one piece dress that appeared to be silk and it clung. She wasn't your average American girl, which kept her from appearing obvious. She was a total woman but she didn't throw it in your face. American women drove hard bargains and they ended up looking the worse for it. The few natural American women left were mostly in Texas and Louisiana.

Iris smiled at me. She had something in each hand. She held both hands above her head and began making clicking noises. She began to dance. Or rather, she vibrated. It was as if she were shot through with electric current and the center of her soul was her belly. It was lovely and pure, with just the faintest hint of humor. The whole dance, as she never took her eyes off me, had its own meaning, a good endearing sense of its own worth.

Iris finished and I applauded, poured her a drink.

"I didn't do it justice," she said. "You need a costume and music."

"I liked it very much."

"I was going to bring a tape of the music but I knew you wouldn't have a machine."

"You're right. It was great anyhow."

I gave Iris a gentle kiss.

"Why don't you come live in Los Angeles?" I asked her.

"All my roots are up in the northwest. I like it there. My parents. My friends. Everything is up there, don't you see?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you move to Vancouver? You could write in Vancouver."

"I guess I could. I could write on top of an iceberg."

"You might try it."

"What?"

"Vancouver."

"What would your father think?"

"About what?"

"Us."