Hot Water Music (15 page)

The phone rang. It was the writer, Paul. Paul was depressed. Paul was in Northridge.

“Harry?”

“Yeh?”

“Nancy and I broke up.”

“Yeh?”

“Listen, I want to get back with her. Can you help me? Unless
you
want to get back with her?”

Harry smiled into the telephone. “I don’t want to get back with her, Paul.”

“I don’t know what went wrong. She started on the money thing. She started hollering about money. She waved phone bills in my face. Listen, I been hustling. I got this act. Barney and I, we’re both dressed in penguin suits…he says one line of a poem, I say the other…four microphones…we got this jazz group playing in back of us…”

“Phone bills, Paul, can be distracting,” said Harry. “You ought to stay off her line when you’re juiced. You know too many people in Maine, Boston and New Hampshire. Nancy is an anxiety-neurosis case. She can’t start her car without having a fit. She straps herself in, starts trembling and honking her horn. Mad as a hatter. And it extends into other areas. She can’t go into a Thrifty Drugstore without getting offended by a stockboy chewing on a Mars candy bar.”

“She says she supported
you
for three months.”

“She supported my cock. Mostly with credit cards.”

“Are you as good as they say you are?”

Harry laughed. “I give them soul. That can’t be measured in inches.”

“I want to get back with her. Tell me what to do?”

“Either suck pussy like a man or find a job.”

“But
you
don’t work.”

“Don’t measure yourself by me. That’s the mistake most people make.”

“But where can I get some coin? I’ve really hustled. What am I going to do?”

“Suck air.”

“Don’t you know anything about mercy?”

“The only people who know about mercy are the ones who need it.”

“You’ll need mercy some day.”

“I need it now—it’s just that I need it in a form different than you do.”

“I need coin, Harry, how am I going to make it?”

“Shoot the 30-foot basket. A three-pointer. If you make it you’re in the clear. If you miss, you got yourself a jail cell—no light bills, no phone bills, no gas bills, no bitching females. You can learn a trade and you earn four cents an hour.”

“You can really lay the shit on a man.”

“O.K., get the candy out of your ass and I’ll tell you something.”

“It’s out.”

“I’d say the reason Nancy dropped you is another guy. Black, white, red or yellow. Note this rule and you’ll always be covered: a female seldom moves away from one victim without having another near at hand.”

“Man,” said Paul, “I need help, not theory.”

“Unless you understand the theory you’ll always need help…”

Harry picked up the phone, dialed Nancy’s number.

“Hello?” she answered.

“It’s Harry.”

“Oh.”

“I hear through the vine you got taken in Mexico. Did he get it all?”

“Oh, that…”

“A washed-up Spanish bullfighter, wasn’t it?”

“With the most
beautiful
eyes. Not like yours. Nobody can
see
your eyes.”

“I don’t want anybody to see my eyes.”

“Why not?”

“If they saw what I was thinking, I couldn’t fool them.”

“So, you’ve phoned to tell me you’re running with blinkers on?”

“You know that. What I called for is to tell you that Paul wants to come back. Does that help you in any way?”

“No.”

“I thought so.”

“Did he really phone you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’ve got a new man now. He’s marvelous!”

“I told Paul you were probably interested in somebody else.”

“How did you know?”

“I knew.”

“Harry?”

“Yeh, doll?”

“Go fuck yourself…”

Nancy hung up.

Now there, he thought, I
try
to be the peacemaker and both of them get pissed. Harry walked into the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. My god, he had a kind face. Couldn’t they see that? Understanding. Nobility. He spotted a blackhead in near his nose. He squeezed. Out it came, black and lovely, dragging a yellow tail of pus. The breakthrough, he thought, is in understanding women and love. He rolled the blackhead and the pus between his fingers. Or maybe the breakthrough was the ability to kill without caring. He sat down to take a shit while he thought it over.

I don’t know how many years ago it was, 15 or 20. I was sitting in my place. It was a hot summer night and I felt dull.

I walked out the door and down the street. It was past dinner time for most families and they sat about watching their tv sets. I walked up to the boulevard. Across the street was a neighborhood bar, an old-fashioned building and bar constructed of wood, painted green and white. I walked in.

After nearly a lifetime spent in bars I had entirely lost my feeling for them. When I wanted something to drink I usually got it at a liquor store, took it home and drank alone.

I walked in and found a stool away from the crowd. I wasn’t ill at ease, I simply felt out of place. But if I wanted to go out there was nowhere else for me to go. In our society most of the interesting places to go are either against the law or very expensive.

I ordered a bottle of beer and lit a cigarette. It was just another neighborhood bar. They all knew each other. They told dirty jokes and watched tv. There was only one woman in there, old, in a black dress, red wig. She had on a dozen necklaces and kept lighting her cigarette over and over again. I began to wish I was back in my room and decided to go there after I finished my beer.

A man came in and took the barstool next to mine. I didn’t look up, I wasn’t interested, but from his voice I imagined him to be about my age. They knew him in the bar. The bartender called him by name and a couple of the regulars said hello. He sat next to me with his beer for three or four minutes; then he said, “Hi, how ya doin’?”

“I’m doing O.K.”

“You new in the neighborhood?”

“No.”

“I haven’t seen you in here before.”

I didn’t answer.

“You from Los Angeles?” he asked.

“Mostly.”

“You think the Dodgers will make it this year?”

“No.”

“You don’t like the Dodgers?”

“No.”

“Who do you like?”

“Nobody. I don’t like baseball.”

“What do you like?”

“Boxing. Bullfighting.”

“Bullfighting’s cruel.”

“Yes, anything is cruel when you lose.”

“But the bull doesn’t stand a chance.”

“None of us do.”

“You’re pretty goddamned negative. Do you believe in God?”

“Not your kind of god.”

“What kind?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’ve been going to church ever since I can remember.”

I didn’t answer.

“Can I buy you a beer?” he asked.

“Sure.”

The beers arrived.

“Did you read the papers today?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you read about those 50 little girls who were burned to death in that Boston orphanage?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t that horrible?”

“I suppose it was.”

“You
suppose
it was?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you
know
?”

“If I had been there I suppose I would have had nightmares about it for the rest of my life. But it’s different when you just read about it in the newspapers.”

“Don’t you feel sorrow for those 50 little girls who burned to death? They were hanging out of the windows screaming.”

“I suppose it was horrible. But you see it was just a newspaper headline, a newspaper story. I really didn’t think much about it. I turned the page.”

“You mean you didn’t feel anything?”

“Not really.”

He sat a moment and had a drink of his beer. Then he screamed, “
Hey, here’s a guy who says he didn’t feel a fucking thing when he read about those 50 little orphan girls burning to death in Boston
!”

Everyone looked at me. I looked down at my cigarette. There was a minute of silence. Then the woman in the red wig said, “If I was a man I’d kick his ass all up and down the street.”

“
He don’t believe in God either
!” said the guy next to me. “
He hates baseball. He loves bullfights, and he likes to see little orphan girls burned to death
!”

I ordered another beer from the bartender, for myself. He pushed the bottle at me with repugnance. Two young guys were playing pool. The youngest, a big kid in a white t-shirt, laid his stick down and walked over to me. He stood behind me sucking air into his lungs, trying to make his chest bigger.

“This is a nice bar. We don’t tolerate assholes in here. We kick their butts good, we beat the shit out of them, we beat the living shit out of them!”

I could feel him standing there behind me. I lifted my beer bottle and poured beer into my glass, drank it, lit a cigarette. My hand was perfectly steady. He stood there for some time, then finally walked back to the pool table. The man who had been sitting next to me got off his stool and moved away. “The son of a bitch is negative,” I heard him say. “He hates people.”

“If I was a man,” said the woman in the red wig, “I’d make him beg for mercy. I can’t stand bastards like him.”

“That’s how guys like Hitler talk,” said somebody.

“Real hateful jerks.”

I drank that beer, ordered another. The two young guys continued to shoot pool. Some people left and the remarks about me began to die down except in the case of the woman in the red wig. She got drunker.

“Prick, prick…you’re a real prick! You stink like a cesspool! Betcha hate your country, too, don’t you? Your country and your mother and everybody else. Aw, I know you guys! Pricks, cheap cowardly pricks!”

She finally left about 1:30 a.m. One of the kids shooting pool left. The kid in the white t-shirt sat down at the end of the bar and talked to the guy who had bought me the beer. At five minutes to two, I got up slowly and walked out.

Nobody followed me. I walked up the boulevard, found my street. The lights in the houses and the apartments were out. I found my front court. I opened my door and walked in. There was one beer in the refrigerator. I opened it and drank it.

Then I undressed, went to the bathroom, pissed, brushed my teeth, turned out the light, walked to the bed, went to bed and slept.

We were going to interview the well-known poetess, Janice Altrice. The editor of
America in Poetry
was paying me $175 to write her up. Tony accompanied me with his camera. He was to get $50 for the photographs. I had borrowed a tape recorder. The place was back in the hills up a long road. I pulled the car over, took a pull of vodka and passed the bottle to Tony.

“Does she drink?” asked Tony.

“Probably not,” I said.

I started the car and we went on. We turned right up a narrow dirt road. Janice was standing in front waiting for us. She was dressed in slacks and wore a white blouse with a high lace collar. We climbed out of the car and walked toward where she stood on the slope of lawn. We introduced ourselves and I started the battery-operated tape recorder.

“Tony’s going to take some shots of you,” I told her, “be natural.”

“Of course,” she said.

We walked up the slope and she pointed to the house. “We bought it when prices were very low. We couldn’t afford it now.” Then she pointed to a smaller house on the side of the hill. “That’s my study, we built it ourselves. It even has a bathroom. Come and see it.”

We followed her. She pointed again. “Those flowerbeds. We put them in ourselves. We’re really good with flowers.”

“Beautiful,” said Tony.

She opened the door to her study and we went in. It was large and cool with fine Indian blankets and artifacts on the walls. There was a fireplace, the bookcase, a large desk with an electric
typewriter, an unabridged dictionary, typing paper, notebooks. She was small with a very short haircut. Her eyebrows were thick. She smiled often. At the corner of one eye was a deep scar that looked as if it had been etched with a penknife.

“Let’s see,” I said, “you’re five-feet-one and you weigh…?”

“One hundred fifteen.”

“Age?”

Janice laughed as Tony took her photo. “It’s a woman’s prerogative not to answer that question.” She laughed again. “Just say that I’m ageless.”

She was a grand-looking woman. I could see her behind the podium at some college, reading her poems, answering questions, preparing a new generation of poets, pointing them toward life. She probably had good legs, too. I tried to imagine her in bed but I couldn’t.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked me.

“Are you intuitive?”

“Of course. I’ll put on some coffee. You both need something to drink.”

“You’re right.”

Janice prepared the coffee and we stepped outside. We went out a side door. There was a miniature playground, swings and trapezes, sandpiles, things of that sort. A young lad of about ten came running down the slope. “That’s Jason, my youngest, my baby,” said Janice from the doorway.

Jason was a tousled-haired young god, blonde, in short pants and a loose purple blouse. His shoes were gold and blue. He appeared to be healthy and lively.

“Mama, Mama! Push me in the swing! Push, push!” Jason ran to the swing, got in and waited.

“Not now, Jason, we’re busy.”

“Pushy, pushy, Mama!”

“Not now, Jason…”

“MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA,” screamed Jason.

Janice walked over and began to push Jason. Back and forth he went, up and down. We waited. After quite a while they finished and Jason slid off. A thick green stream of snot ran from one nostril. He walked up to me. “I like to play with myself,” he said, then he ran off.

“We don’t inhibit him,” said Janice. She stared out over the hills, dreamily. “We used to ride horses here. We fought the land developers. Now the outside world is creeping closer and closer. It’s still lovely, though. It was after I fell off a horse and broke my leg that I wrote my book,
The Upward Bird, A Chorus of Magic
.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Tony.

“I planted that redwood 25 years ago,” she pointed. “We were the only house here in those days, but things change, don’t they? Especially poetry. There’s much that’s new and exciting. And then there’s so much awful stuff.”

We walked back inside and she poured the coffee. We sat and drank the coffee. I asked her who her favorite poets were. Janice quickly mentioned some of the younger ones: Sandra Merrill, Cynthia Westfall, Roberta Lowell, Sister Sarah Norbert and Adrian Poor.

“I wrote my first poem in grammar school, a Mother’s Day poem. The teacher liked it so much that she asked me to read it in front of the class.”

“Your first poetry reading, eh?”

Janice laughed, “Yes, you might say so. I miss both of my parents very much. They’ve been dead over 20 years.”

“That’s unusual.”

“There’s nothing unusual about love,” she said.

She had been born in Huntington Beach and had lived all her life on the west coast. Her father had been a policeman. Janice began writing sonnets in high school where she was fortunate enough to be in a class taught by Inez Claire Dickey. “She introduced me to the discipline of poetic form.”

Janice poured more coffee. “I was always serious about being a poet. I studied under Ivor Summers at Stanford. My first publication was in
An Anthology of Western Poets
edited by Summers.” Summers was a profound influence on her—at first. The Summers group was a good one: Ashberry Charleton, Webdon Wilbur, and Mary Cather Henderson.

But then Janice broke away and joined the poets of “the long line.”

Janice was in law school and also studying poetry. After graduating she became a legal secretary. She married her high school sweetheart during the early forties, “those dark and tragic
war years.” Her husband was a fireman. “I evolved into a housewife-poetess.”

“Is there a bathroom?” I asked.

“The door to your left.”

I walked into the bathroom as Tony circled her taking photos. I urinated and took a good belt of the vodka. I zipped up and stepped out of the bathroom and sat down again.

In the late forties Janice Altrice’s poems began to flower in a number of periodicals. Her first book,
I Command Everything To Be Green
, was published by Alan Swillout. It was followed by
Bird, Bird, Bird, Never Die
also brought out by Swillout.

“I went back to school,” she said. “UCLA. I took an M.A. in journalism and an M.A. in English. I received my Ph.D. in English the following year, and since the early sixties I’ve taught English and Creative Writing at the State University here.”

Many awards adorned Janice’s walls: a silver medal from The Los Angeles Aphids Club for her poem “Tintella”; a first place certificate from the Lodestone Mountain Poetry Group for her poem “The Wise Drummer.” There were many other prizes and awards. Janice went to her desk and took out some of her work in progress. She read us several long poems. They showed impressive growth. I asked her what she thought of the contemporary poetry scene.

“There are so
many
,” she said, “who go by the name of
poet
. But they have no training, no feeling for their craft. The savages have taken over the castle. There’s no workmanship, no care, simply a demand to be accepted. And these new poets all seem to admire one another. It worries me and I’ve talked about it to a lot of my poet friends. All a young poet seems to think he needs is a typewriter and a few pieces of paper. They aren’t prepared, they have had no preparation at all.”

“I suppose not,” I said. “Tony, do you have enough photos?”

“Yeah,” said Tony.

“Another thing which disturbs me,” said Janice, “is that the eastern Establishment poets receive too many of the awards and fellowships. Western poets are ignored.”

“Is it possible that the eastern poets are better?” I asked.

“I certainly don’t think so.”

“Well,” I said, “I suppose it’s time for us to go. One last question. How do you approach the writing of a poem?”

She paused. Her long fingers delicately stroked the heavy fabric that covered her chair. The setting sun slanted through the window and cast shadows in the room. She spoke slowly, as if in a dream. “I begin to feel a poem a long way off. It approaches me, like a cat, across the rug. Softly but not with contempt. It takes seven or eight days. I become delightfully agitated, excited, it’s such a special feeling. I know it’s there, and then it comes with a
rush
, and it’s easy, so easy. The glory of creating a poem, it’s so regal, so sublime!”

I switched off the tape recorder. “Thank you, Janice, I’ll send you copies of the interview when it’s published.”

“I hope it went all right.”

“It went quite well, I’m sure.”

She walked us to the door. Tony and I walked down the slope to our car. I turned once. She was standing there. I waved. Janice smiled and waved back. We got in, drove around the bend, then I stopped the car and unscrewed the cap off the vodka bottle. “Save me a hit,” said Tony. I took a hit and saved him a hit.

Tony threw the bottle out the window. We drove away, coming quickly down out of the hills. Well, it beat working in a car wash. All I had to do was type it up off the tape and select two or three photos. We came out of the hills just in time to hit the rush hour traffic. It was strictly the shits. We could have timed it much better than that.