Hot Water Music (4 page)

Monk walked in. It seemed very dusty in there and dimmer than in the usual places. He walked toward the far end of the bar and sat down next to a big blonde who was smoking a cigarillo and drinking a Hamm’s. She farted as Monk sat down. “Good evening,” he said, “my name’s Monk.” “My name’s Mud,” she said, which immediately dated her.

As Monk sat there a skeleton rose from behind the bar where it had been sitting on a stool. The skeleton walked over to Monk. Monk ordered a scotch on the rocks and the skeleton reached out with its hands and began to make the drink. It spilled a goodly bit of scotch on the bar but it did manage the drink and it did pick up Monk’s money, put it in the register and bring back the correct change.

“What’s the matter?” Monk asked the lady, “can’t they afford union help around here?”

“Ah fuck,” said the lady, “that’s Billy’s trick. Can’t you see the fucking wires? He operates that thing with wires. He thinks it’s very funny.”

“This place is strange,” said Monk. “It stinks of death.”

“Death doesn’t stink,” said the lady, “only the living stink, only the dying stink, only the decaying stink. Death doesn’t stink.”

A spider dropped down on an invisible thread between them and slowly spun around. It was golden in the dim light. Then it ran back up its thread and was gone.

“First spider I ever saw in a bar,” said Monk.

“It lives on bar flies,” said the lady.

“Christ, this place is full of bad jokes.”

The lady farted. “A kiss for you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Monk.

A drunk at the other end of the bar put some money in the jukebox and the skeleton came out from behind the bar and walked up to the lady and bowed. The lady got up and danced with the skeleton. They danced around and around. The only people that could be seen in the bar were the lady, the skeleton, the drunk and Monk. It was a slow night. Monk lit a Pall Mall and worked on his drink. The piece ended and the skeleton went back behind the bar and the lady came back and sat down beside Monk.

“I remember,” said the lady, “when all the celebrities came in here. Bing Crosby, Amos and Andy, the Three Stooges. This place really used to swing.”

“I like it better this way,” said Monk.

The jukebox started again. “Care to dance?” asked the lady.

“Why not?” said Monk.

They got up and began dancing. The lady wore lavender and smelled of lilacs. But she was quite fat and her skin was orange in color and her false teeth seemed to chew quietly on a dead mouse.

“This place reminds me of Herbert Hoover,” said Monk.

“Hoover was a great man,” said the lady.

“Like hell,” said Monk. “If Franky D. hadn’t come along we all would have starved to death.

“Franky D. got us into the war,” said the lady.

“Well,” said Monk, “he had to protect us from the fascist hordes.”

“Don’t tell me about the fascist hordes,” said the lady. “My brother died fighting Franco in Spain.”

“Abraham Lincoln Brigade?” asked Monk.

“Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” said the lady.

They were dancing very close and the lady suddenly stuck her tongue into Monk’s mouth. He pushed it back out with his tongue. She tasted like old postage stamps and the dead mouse. The song ended. They walked over and sat down.

The skeleton walked over to them. It had a vodka and orange in one hand. It stood in front of Monk and threw the vodka and orange into his face, then walked off.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Monk.

“It’s very jealous,” said the lady. “It saw me kiss you.”

“You call that a kiss?”

“I’ve kissed some of the greatest men of all time.”

“I imagine you have—like Napoleon, Henry VIII and Caesar.”

The lady farted. “A kiss for you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Monk.

“I guess I am getting old,” said the lady. “You know we talk about prejudices but we never talk about the prejudice everyone has against the old.”

“Yeah,” said Monk.

“I’m not
really
old, though,” said the lady.

“No,” said Monk.

“I still get monthlies,” said the lady.

Monk waved the skeleton over for two more drinks. The lady switched to scotch on the rocks. They both had scotch on rocks. The skeleton walked back and sat down.

“You know,” said the lady, “I was there when the Babe had two strikes on him and he pointed to the wall and on the next pitch he hit the ball right over the wall.”

“I thought that was a myth,” said Monk.

“Myth, shit,” said the lady, “I was there. I saw it happen.”

“You know,” said Monk, “that’s wonderful. You know it’s exceptional people who make the world go round. They kind of work the miracles for us, while we sit around on our fannies.”

“Yeah,” said the lady.

They sat and nipped at their drinks. Outside you could hear the traffic going up and down Hollywood Boulevard. The sound was persistent, like the tide, like waves, almost like an ocean, and it was an ocean: there were sharks out there and barracuda and jellyfish and octopi and suckerfish and whales and mollusks and sponges and grunion and the like. Inside, it was more like a separate fishtank.

“I was there,” said the lady, “when Dempsey almost murdered Willard. Jack was just off the boxcars and mean as a starved tiger. You never saw anything like it before or since.”

“You say you still have monthlies?”

“That’s right,” said the lady.

“They say Dempsey had cement or plaster in his gloves, they say he soaked them in water and let them harden, that’s why he
busted up Willard like he did,” said Monk.

“That’s a fucking untruth,” said the lady. “I was there, I saw those gloves.”

“I think you’re crazy,” said Monk.

“They thought Joan of Arc was crazy too,” said the lady.

“I suppose you saw Joan of Arc get burned,” said Monk.

“I was there,” said the lady. “I saw it.”

“Bullshit.”

“She burned. I saw her burn. It was so horrible and beautiful.”

“What was beautiful about it?”

“The way she burned. It started at her feet. It was like a nest of red snakes and they crawled up her legs and then it was like a blazing red curtain and she had her face turned up and you could smell the flesh burning and she was still alive but she never screamed. Her lips were moving and she was praying but she never screamed.”

“Bullshit,” said Monk, “anybody would scream.”

“No,” said the lady, “not anybody would scream. People are different.”

“Flesh is flesh, and pain is pain,” said Monk.

“You underestimate the human spirit,” said the lady.

“Yeah,” said Monk.

The lady opened her purse. “Here, I wanna show you something.” She took out a matchbook, struck a match and held the palm of her left hand out. She held the match underneath her palm and let it burn until the match went out. There was the sweet smell of burnt flesh.

“That’s pretty good,” said Monk, “but it’s not the entire body.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the lady. “The principle’s the same.”

“No,” said Monk, “it’s not the same thing.”

“Balls,” said the lady. She stood up and put a match to the hem of her lavender dress. The material was thin and gauze-like and the flames began to lick around her legs and then began to crawl up toward her waist.

“Jesus Christ,” said Monk. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Proving a principle,” said the lady.

The flames rose higher. Monk leaped off his stool and tackled the lady. He rolled her over and over on the floor and beat at her dress with his hands. Then the fire was out. The lady got back on her barstool and sat there. Monk sat down beside her, shaking. The
bartender walked up. He was dressed in a clean white shirt, black vest, bow tie, striped blue and white pants.

“I’m sorry, Maude,” he said to the lady, “but you gotta go. You’ve had enough for tonight.”

“O.K., Billy,” said the lady, and she finished her drink, got up and walked out the door. Before she did she said goodnight to the drunk at the other end of the bar.

“My god,” said Monk, “she’s too god damned much.”

“Did she pull her Joan of Arc act again?” asked the bartender.

“Hell, you saw it, didn’t you?”

“No, I was talking to Louie,” he pointed to the drunk at the end of the bar.

“I thought you were upstairs working those wires.”

“What wires?”

“The wires on the skeleton.”

“What skeleton?” asked the bartender.

“Now come on,” said Monk, “don’t give me any shit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a skeleton in here serving drinks. He even danced with Maude.”

“I’ve been here all night, stranger,” said the bartender.

“I said, ‘
Don’t give me any shit
!’”

“I’m not giving you any shit,” said the bartender. He turned to the drunk at the end of the bar. “Hey, Louie, you seen a skeleton in here?”

“A skeleton?” asked Louie. “What are you talking about?”

“You tell this man that I’ve been right here behind the bar all night,” said the bartender.

“Billy’s been here all night, stranger. And neither of us has seen a skeleton.”

“Give me another scotch on the rocks,” said Monk. “Then I’ve got to get out of here.”

The bartender brought the scotch on rocks. Monk drank it and then he got out of there.

I drove along Sunset, late one evening, stopped for a signal, and at a bus stop saw this dyed redhead with a brutal and ravaged face, powdered, painted, that said “this is what life does to us.” I could imagine her drunk, screaming across the room at some man and I was glad the man wasn’t me. She saw me looking at her and waved, “Hey, how about a ride?” “O.K.,” I said, and she ran across two lanes of traffic to get in. We drove along and she showed me a bit of leg. Not too bad. I drove not saying anything. “I want to go to Alvarado Street,” she said. I figured as much. That’s where they hung out. From Eighth and Alvarado on up, the bars across the park and around the corners, all the way up to where the hill began. I’d sat in those bars for quite a few years and knew the action. Most of the girls just wanted a drink and a place to stay. In those dark bars they didn’t look too bad. We approached Alvarado. “Can I have 50 cents?” she asked. I reached in and got two quarters. “I ought to be able to cop a feel for that.” She laughed. “Go ahead.” I pulled her dress back and pinched her gently right where the stocking ended. I almost said, “Shit, let’s get a fifth and go to my place.” I could see myself stabbing that thin body, I could almost hear the springs. Then I could see her later sitting in a chair, cursing and talking and laughing. I passed. She got out at Alvarado and I watched her walking across the street, trying to shake it like she had something. I drove on. I owed the state $606 income tax. I’d have to skip a piece of ass now and then.

I parked outside the Chinaman’s and went in and got a bowl of chicken won ton. The guy sitting to my right had his left ear missing. There was just a hole in his head, a dirty hole with a lot of
hair around it. No ear at all. I looked into the hole and then went back to the chicken won ton. It didn’t taste as good. Then another guy came in and sat on my left. He was a bum. He ordered a cup of coffee. He looked at me, “Hello, Wino,” he said.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Everybody calls
me
‘Wino,’ so I thought I’d call you one.”

“That’s all right. I used to be one.”

He stirred his coffee. “Those little bubbles on top of the coffee. There. Mother used to say that meant money was coming my way. It didn’t work out that way.”

Mother? This man once had a mother?

I finished my bowl and left them there, the guy without an ear and the bum looking at the bubbles in his coffee.

This is turning out to be a hell of a night, I thought. Guess not much more can happen. I was wrong.

I decided to walk across Alameda to buy some stamps. The traffic was heavy and they had a young cop directing traffic. There was some action going on. A young man in front of me kept hollering at the cop. “Come on, let us across, what the hell! We’ve been standing here long enough!” The cop kept waving the traffic through. “Come on, what the hell’s wrong with you?” the kid yelled. This kid’s gotta be nuts, I thought. He was nice looking, young, big, around six-three, two hundred pounds. White t-shirt. Nose a little too big. He might have had a few beers but he wasn’t drunk. Then the cop blew his whistle and motioned for the crowd to cross. The kid stepped into the street. “All right, come on everybody, it’s
safe
now, it’s
safe
to cross!” That’s what you think, kid, was my thought. The kid was waving his arms. “Come on, everybody!” I was walking right behind him. I saw the cop’s face. It got very white. I saw the eyes narrow to slits. He was a short, heavyset, young cop. He moved toward the kid. Oh jesus, here it comes. The kid saw the cop moving toward him. “Don’t you TOUCH me! Don’t you dare TOUCH me!” The cop grabbed him by the right arm, said something to him, tried to guide the kid back to the curbing. The kid broke the grip and walked off. The cop ran up behind him, got a hammer-lock on the kid. The kid broke out of that and then they were scuffling, whirling around. You could hear their feet in the street. People stood and watched from a distance. I was right on top of them. Several times I had to step back as they scuffled. I didn’t have any
god damned sense either. Then they were up on the sidewalk. The cop’s hat flew off. That’s when I got a bit jumpy. The cop didn’t look much like a cop without his cap, but he still had his club and his gun. The kid broke away again and started to run off. The cop leaped on him from behind, got an arm around his neck and tried to pull him over backwards, but the kid just stood there. And then he broke free. Finally the cop had him pinned against an iron guardrail outside a Standard Station parking lot. A white kid and a white cop. I looked across the street and saw five young blacks grinning and watching. They were lined up against a wall. The cop had his cap back on and was leading the kid down the street to a call box.

I went in and got my stamps out of the machine. It was a screwy night. I almost expected a snake to drop out of there. But I just got stamps. I looked up and saw my friend Benny. “Did you catch the action, Benny?”

“Yeah, when they get him to the station they’ll put on leather gloves and beat hell out of him.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. The city’s just like the county. They beat hell out of them. I just got out of the new county jail. They let the new cops work out on the prisoners there to get experience. You could hear them screaming as the cops beat them. They brag about it. While I was in, one cop walked past and said, ‘I just beat hell out of a wino!’”

“I’ve heard about it.”

“They allow you one phone call and this guy was on the phone too long and they kept telling him to get off. He kept saying, ‘just a minute, just a minute!’ and finally one cop got pissed and hung the phone up and the guy screamed, ‘I’ve got my rights, you can’t do that!’”

“What happened?”

“About four cops grabbed the guy. They took him so fast that his feet didn’t even touch the ground. They took him in the next room. You could hear him, they worked him over good. You know, they had us there, bending over, looking up our asses, looking in our shoes for dope, and they brought the kid out naked and he was bent over and trembling, shivering. You could see red welts all over his body. They just left him there, trembling against that wall. He had really had it.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I was driving past the Union Rescue Mission one
night and two cops in a squad car were picking up a drunk. A cop got in the back seat with the drunk and I heard the drunk say ‘you dirty motherfucking cop!’ and I saw the cop take his club and jam the end of it, hard, right into the guy’s stomach. It was a hell of a blow and made me a little sick. It could have broken the stomach open or caused internal bleeding.”

“Yeah, it’s a dirty world.”

“You said it, Benny. See you around. Watch yourself.”

“Sure. You too.”

I found the car and drove on back up Sunset. When I got to Alvarado I turned south and drove down nearly to Eighth Street. I parked, got out, found a liquor store and bought a fifth of whiskey. Then I walked into the nearest bar. There she was. My redhead with the brutal face. I walked up, patted the fifth. “Let’s go.” She finished the drink and walked out behind me. “Nice evening,” she said. “Oh, yeah,” I answered.

When we got to my place she went to the bathroom and I rinsed out two glasses. There’s no way out, I thought, there’s no way out of anything.

She came into the kitchen, put herself up against me. She had put on fresh lipstick. She kissed me, working her tongue around in my mouth. I lifted her dress and got a handful of panty. We stood under the electric light, locked. Well, the state would have to wait a little longer for their income tax. Maybe Governor Deukmejian would understand. We broke, I poured two drinks and we walked into the other room.