My Amputations (Fiction collective ;) (5 page)

Edith Levine had dyed-blond hair and yellow blue (green) eyes. She'd gained weight. Was nervous as she held the closet door opened. The crafty dudes pushed the captive in and Mason locked it. “ . . . some mistake . . . ” McKay was still whining in a voice with the plaintive yelp of a kicked pup. “
Now
what?” Edith wanted to know. “He can't stay
here
long. You gotta do something—” “Don't worry. We'll—” Mason squeezed her thin shoulder. Brad: “We got techniques. He'll come around in no time.” Pretty nice pad ya got here, Edith. Seventy-second and Riverside Drive ain't bad. Mason'd already been told Edith was hanging out (drinking with) a different crowd: Joe Valenti, Gianni D'Amico, others down in Little Italy and some heavies up in the Bronx. Rumor also had it she was doing a sideline Call Girl-act for Guy Flotilla, Porn Boss of Times Square.
Edith?
a college graduate—smart, expert on . . . What'd happened to those mushy marriage plans—the bacon and eggs popping in the skillet at sunrise with the tangy smells floating up to the ranch-house kiddie bedrooms . . . ? Had they gone down the drain in the same splash with the dream of a brilliant career in sociological research on one of the big teams? Edith'd already heard through the gossip-vine about Painted Turtle and was curious. But Mason wasn't talking. His mind was a battleship full of stampeding torpedo experts crazy with war lust. Brad lit a stick, passed the joint to Edith, she hit and passed to Mason. They sat around like Farrell nitwits except in a classier setting. Mason knew Brad and Edith now had a thing going, sort of. Well, nobody had serious relationships: right—but they had serious mutual you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back interests.

Days later the man in the closet still insisted he had no idea what the hell was coming off. The idea was to brainwash—? beat him into submission—? agreement? You tell me. Was
it possible anybody could be
that
good an actor and not be paid for such performance? Still here at Seventy-second. Mason sipped a 7-Up. It was Jesus' move. Checkers were a bore. Brad was watching TV. Edith was downtown making a porno flick with Mighty Mo, a new star. They planned to call it “Happy Valley.” Painted Turtle, here for the first time, was restless. She'd already gone for one walk—was thinking of going for another. Definitely she was against the
idea
of that human being in the closet. All this shit made her nervous and Mason knew it and worried. And that dud McKay was a bomber and tomorrow he was going to Chemical. He had to. No point in waiting. Just walk right up to the window—with a powerful scenario; like, hey, I lost my checkbook, or, uh, I gotta big oil deal going in Saudi Arabia—need a quick loan, know my credit is shipshape here. Tell the prez I'm here.
He
knows my name. One of your biggest stockholders. But Sir, do you have an appointment? No, but got a point. Not funny. Give the clown a pentothal injection. He has no ace in the hole—just playing against—. He was cold footed, all right. His gold colic was out to lunch. He'd reach the bank's entrance at United Nations' Plaza, flannelmouthed with no hold on the jerk line. He needed a hymn, a chance to put the saddle on the right horse. No private apocalypse to foretell him of an end to his checkbook blues. Mason was a quivering nerd. Mister Bogus'd step into the revolving door. It'd stick.

When Mason came out of the bank his color had changed: he saw himself in a showcase window: dark gray-purple—not his usual earth with tree bark and leaf and sky in the pigmentation. He could still hear the clerk's laughter echoing in his unclogged ear. Had she seen him as the wretched of the planet? Surely she instantly took him to be an archfiend, a liar, a nut. He felt lucky to have gotten out without a police escort. It
would take time to establish his “rightful” identity. He walked back to The Other Side. Painted Turtle wasn't in the room. Probably up at Edith's. That damned cretin in the closet: he'll
crack
—imagine coming up with a name like Clarence McKay! What could be phonier? Until the masquerader cooperates the MRF bread won't rise. Hadn't the other winners been announced in the news on TV in the rec room at Attica? Robert Penn Warren, Donald Barthelme, novelist Charles Wright, and another name Mason couldn't remember. Sorta like that old TV show called
The Millionaire
. They seem to give money to people at random for no clear reason. Imagine! Fifty thousand smackaroos a year for life! Mason, feeling the depth of his human impediment, remembered an inmate who'd swindled a bank out of a hundred and fifty thousand by simply calling the president, telling him he was some Arab oil magnate with a son in Attica. The bank sent the inmate the money the next day. Most of it went to an account number the inmate had given the president and about twenty grand came to Attica. Even after the dude got ten years added to his sentence he was still a hero to the guys. So what was Mason's excuse? Not a
real
crook? Oh, I forgot: he was a novelist.
Is
a novelist? A poet, a sensitive man, a man of convictions; a person of “true credibility”? And although, like his father, he'd been framed and lost part of his life rotting away in a prison cell, he was not bitter enough to further destroy himself. He had to now go slowly, reestablish himself with skill, smoothly. The Wolf in Sheep's Skin was the immediate hindrance. Just ahead waited riches and respect: yachts, bank accounts around the world, the good life—where the chance of social pain, sudden death by stupid accident, insults, violence were reduced. And Painted Turtle would
be there
to enjoy it all with him. His stupid mudfrog itched but he refused it the comfort of a scratch. Oh, well. He subwayed to Edith's. Brad was in the closet with The Impostor. Mason looked in. Brad was stuffing Wonder Bread into McKay's mouth. Where was Edith? And Jesus? Search me. Brad giggled as the captive gagged. Don't feed him too much—the brains will never clear: empty stomach opens way to vision.
Water twice a day. Bread every other. Enough. Mason'd lost track of the schedule they'd laid out for reprogramming this guy they held in darkness. What's wrong with his nose—? it's all purple. He fell. Mason felt like an hombre with athlete's feet between his fingers: watching Brad struggle with McKay gave him illicit shivers. Was life itself some kind of virus? Never mind. He and The Turtle had made the best of it. The others weren't going anywhere though they claimed they were. Edith knew what she'd do with her cut. Jesus, too. And Brad. And Rob. The immediate problem was this impersonator: Mason had to deal with this shammer in the only way one deals with a conspirator: to out-do him he had to become a supreme impostor himself. He scratched his mudfrog with gentle schizophrenic devotion, as he watched Brad's savage action . . . What lessons had Mason learned in prison? Public Enemy and Grits had taught him—perhaps—too much. What would Public Enemy advise? He'd say, Listen to me, jack, you gotta give up this bullshit about gettin- yo rep back. What difference do it make, huh? The important thang is:
you
, barnstormer, baby-lifter, bootlegger, boozehound, cake-cutter, garbage-kisser,
is
you! You gotta outsmart that sucker. He outsmarted you, so you got to throw a double-whammy on him and hang him by his balls. Be a quick-change artist! Listen to Public. I know what I'm talkin' ‘bout. And he'd throw his chin out. Smirk. You say the
name
is part of the deal? I hear ya. You can't get the dough without the name being restored. Well, if that rotten egg-sucker ain't around then where's your competition? See my point? Drop the joker in quicksand, send him skating across thin ice, stand him on his head in the bottom of the East River. That's what a snake-in-the-grass deserves. Don't dangle and fart around. You got to
create
yo identity! So you once owned it, so what. Who cares. You don't anymore. You're just a greenhorn, a sucker, a laughing-stock. What you want now is to get a passport, bank account, driver's permit, whatever you need, in the name of . . . you know who. You'll have to
buy
them. Go to my old friends Valenti and D'Amico. They can help. Once you're legal and clean as a chitlin'
nobody'll be able to touch you. Sitting pretty and ready to fly, you won't even need them dingy wings I seen ya with . . . Yup. That's the advice Public'd shoot. And he'd be right. Jesus came in out of breath—shot into the bathroom and started washing under his arms. What happened to you? Nothing. Mason moped in the doorway.

In the porno films—for money—he didn't have to be Ham-bone nor Cotton Mouth Joe but he had to shine. Damn Edith! Jack Pradel, Director Supreme, told Mason his instrument was impressive. After the checkup Mason handed Jack the doctor's report. Green light. He'd get three hundred a flick. They'd shoot for a week. Each morning from ten till noon. Okay? The cameraman was Joe Wembly. Nice guy. Edith herself was stuck in another series. Just as well. Mason didn't want to screw her on screen. Sordid? Too moral? . . . He showed up early—nine-fifteen—for the first. Faye (Undressed-to-Kill) Daltrey was to be his co-star. Brunette. Big hips. After the shower and make-up Mason stepped out under the lights. Faye had an instant eye for the camera. He approached her as she watched the lens. She winked at it as he slid her panties down. Title: Diamond Legs. She had long ones. Shapely. Kept stepping and moving. Twitching. This was a reflexive one: no story-line. She slid back on a leather couch and he went at her till body and spirit closed. Then she made her mouth into the C-shape of a clay pot as she pulled at him with great linear strokes. Next scene: he entered her from the rear. She was energetic. Her wide hips were gyrating, rocking: it was like disco dancing. Faye winked at the camera. Blew a kiss at it. When he came she winked again at the Eye . . . Next morning he got it on with Little Sally Walker—a grown woman dressed to look like a twelve-year-old. Sally wore bobby socks and had a mouth full of bubble gum which she kept
smacking. Her blonde hair was in pigtails. She had a jump-rope with blue handles. Story: Mason was supposed to be a farmhand and she was the daughter of the farmer. First shot: Mason quickly, expertly driving the tip of a blade into the neck of a calf just behind the jaw. Little Sally Walker wanders into the shot. Hello. Good morning Miss Sally. And there you have it. Within minutes she's playing Pony Express with his Messenger. Next he's tonguing her lava in search of a formula for clarity. Then Coca-Cola Max Sanderson, a white guy from down-the-road-a-piece, arrives. Together he and Mason romp with Little Sally Walker making use of all her orifices . . . Then Lilia Pant on the third morning. Mason liked her best. She was a real actress. Dreamy. Dreamy, dreamy. Lilia's hair was some sort of iron ore color: thick fluffy. She too kept up a permanent relationship with the camera. She was supposed to be a call girl working in the back room of a bar called Pink Pussycat Lounge. The bartender sends Mason back to her. As he goes back he thinks: “You are not yet the casting director: save your energy, man. You're one with a future. Don't blow it on fuck films.” Joe Wembly follows Mason's erection to Lilia's face. Her crunch was crowded with charm and dance music and air-conditioned erotic finger-licking-good messages . . . Then Eve Hott, in Chatterley's Lady. Mason's Chatterley: a Black mafia Boss in Harlem. Dressed in tux. The first four scenes show him unfulfilled by his harem of hot mommas. Then Galaxy Creole, a thug from downtown, sends Louisiana Eve Hott up to see him. And, wouldn't you know, the show . . . 

Mason
was
a motion picture: you could run him forward then backwards. He split, resisting the temptation to squat in the Mickey Mouse closet with his “enemy.” He was in reverse at the moment—anxious about Painted Turtle, he went
to Forty-second Street and sat in a dark theatre, watching celluloid clambake, cluck, all the screensation of a quickie: couldn't keep his mind on the bark, the gelatin: something about a prison break. They have no
idea
, baby: one day he was bopping along First toward A when two plainclothesmen jumped out of a squad car before it even stopped. Sluff action. Gave him a one-eyed-fadeaway. Grabbed him. Twisted his arms behind him, banged his head against the building. Roughly rammed hands into all his pockets. He was clean. Slapped handcuffs on his wrists. Threw him in the back seat: barred in. The trial was quick. He couldn't afford a lawyer: at the mercy of city service, he lost and the next morning was driven out early in a huge Black Maria—a battleship floating on quicksand—with fifteen other black dudes smelling of sweat, grass, and rotgut . . . Up there Mason had lots of time to review himself: he'd grown up watching the chitlin' circuit, waiting to see the half moons in Freddie Washington's pretty eyes. When he daydreamed teachers shouted at him. Everybody was a potential enemy. If one wasn't playing with loaded dice one was about to bilk you in another way. He was just a run-by—out of focus. Every day was April Fool's: don't give a sucker an even break. One had to be a magician in such a world. He got a custard pie in the face at every curtain call. But at Attica, Mason was a model prisoner: with a head full of canned music, funnies, giddyappers, still he read books, books, books. Few others did: they were mostly into hick pics, horse stuff or close-up shots of Dirty Rats. (The young ones got raped: fucked in the ass by studs and jocks and heavy queens. The boys surrendered their assholes in exchange [so they were told] for protection from the bellybutton sweat of mass murderers, hit-men, and crazed maniacs. Public Enemy, Mason's old pal, was too old to get it up, although he, too, had, in his day, been one of these protection-granters.) In the joint Mason woke every morning with a bullfrog-headache and smelling like a shrike and unwilling and not ready to face the daily hullabaloo. His mind was a camera mount imitating the motion of a boat: seasick, ugh, vomit: his mother's words echoing just inside his
eardrums: you, like your father, ain't never been no good . . . his side of the family . . . rotten. Before Mason realized it he was grown, his father dead, his mother old: not even a dummyhead focused on the action! Growing up he executed cats, frogs, grasshoppers, snakes: had a definite criminal streak—struck out with redhandedness at the “degenerate” world around: nothing was “innocent”—not even insects. With pals Mason discovered the mysteries of Halloween, New Year's Eve: a feeling of craziness and anarchy were everywhere on such nights. One could do almost anything—
anything!
He was restless, when he wasn't interested in lessons, a future, but maybe in girls, his own “importance.” Interest in girls [as
sex
objects] came the year after sitting on the dunce stool in the fifth grade: stuck his tongue out at teacher when her back was turned: made the other kids laugh: Mason liked the attention: wanted to grow up to be a comedian. He threw chalky erasers at girls, jerked their pigtails to hear them squeak, shriek; tripped fat boys in halls and in the cloakroom, peed in pockets and ate other students' lunches. He stole money, too: it was fun: everybody
noticed
him: he was at the center of the camera-eye: All he needed was a cast of thousands: Cecil. He screwed his first girl in an alley—Chicago type: felt like His Satanic Majesty. Other boys still virgins looked up to him (“How'd it
feel?
”) and followed him around on the playground. Then high school: here a thousand-watt spotlight was not focused on his curls, no sky panning behind him with overhead reflector. He couldn't stand it: he spat at the truant officer and quit before he could be formally suspended. He wanted to knock up a nun like that French boy in that French novel; wanted to run off to Malta or Delfi or . . . do
interesting
things. But that was sort of out of character for a ghetto kid. Damn character. Yet he managed to run no farther than the Air Force draft board. The sergeant promised him Europe and he got Texas—San Antonio. Hot dry dusty. Basic training was a blip: falling in mud holes, dodging blanks, hiding in bushes, jumping in and out of shacks freshly sprayed with deadly gas, drills, bland food, more drills, itchy wool blankets, swimming for non-swimmers once a week.
Phew! Then the boys got their first town pass and went into San Anton'—being boys they got hungry as hogs on the way and the first thing they did was find a lunch counter called Blinkies Hamburgers and Hotdogs. Mason, two other Afro-Americans and three Polish kids from Chicago's West Side. Mason noticed right away the walls contained blowups of electric stars, heavenly bodies and cinema lasses: Shirley Temple, Tex Ritter, Lana Turner, Roy and Trigger. They sat at the counter. The napkin holder had an embossed head of a roaring lion. The toast-thin waitress—blonde, wearing pink rimmed cateyed specs—came. She asked the white boys what they wanted, then said to Mason and the other two, “We don't serve Negroes here.” Mason noticed the salt and pepper shakers were not C-shaped. The fat sloppy owner came over scratching his red neck. “All right, I want you niggers to get. Y'all must be from up North some whah. Well, dis is Texas, by God. You white boys can stay.” No hostility in his voice: only annoyance. “Niggers from ‘round heah'd know better'n t' come in a rest'rant and sit down wid white folks.” Celt CuRoi whispered in his ear: “You are not yet the casting director: save your energy, honey. You got a future. Don't blow it on this fly-speck in the shitpile.” Yet Mason could not resist: “You got catsup on your chin. Mustard on your T-shirt.” The Fat man swung at Mason but missed. They all jumped up and ran out. A couple of blocks left of shooting they stopped. The pink boys sheepishly went off in one direction—toward white-town and the brown boys pointed their noses toward black-town. Mason wondered if the rest of them felt the sour something coming up the throat. Now, he and the other two found Mama Minnie's Chili and Tripe Parlor in the black section next door to The Camelback Shoeshine and Barbershop (that day he started smoking Camels). It was midmorning and sunny. While they ate, three fat prostitutes came in from their gigantic Buick parked out front. And so it went: there was Mason soon in motion again. Texas was no picnic: a couple of days later he had guard duty from late afternoon till midnight. Here his motion was slow. Not even Celt came to keep him company. A kid named Rubinstein
from Chicago relieved Mason at twelve. The full moon was Hollywood Boulevard on opening night for
Gone with the Wind.
Mason was upstairs undressing when he heard the voices. Careful not to wake the bigot who slept above him, Mason looked out the window. The moonlight showed Rubinstein down there on guard duty between the two barracks—but who were these three other guys? Drunken voices.
Ah!
One was, you bet, their Tactical Instructor, Airman Gimbal—a warlock with tangled hair and insanity in his eyes. He was holding Rubinstein by the front of his shirt and repeatedly slamming his back against that barracks over there. Saying,
“You sonofabitching Jew! You kike, you money-hoarder . . . we should stomp your ass into the ground! Hitler was right—”
He went on, as the other two drunk TI's watched and giggled and swayed at the end of their high-hat-shadows while holding beer cans in yellow-lighted paws. Rubinstein was crying. Mason felt helpless—rage—as Airman Gimbal punched Rubinstein in the stomach again and again the way you'd sock a punching bag. The other two drunks now held Rubinstein's arms. The plump kid took one finisher, corker, sleeping potion, slogdollager after another. He
had
to be biffy-batty by now but he hadn't yet reached out for hearts and flowers. Though he whimpered and puffed in a wham-whoozy voice, that victim of the washboard blues, the hammer, refused to be creamed. Losing control of himself, Mason dashed downstairs—a cyclone in the stairway—and ran outside, skipping the steps, hitting the grass, feeling the sting in his spine and knees, his teeth banging together. He saw them over there. The blow-by-blow report kept up a bonebending racket in his ear. Grunt-and-groan response: Rubinstein. The TI's were growling and . . . Celt suddenly tapped Mason on the shoulder. He ignored her. Then it happened: he started gagging, vomiting up his guts, stewed potatoes, boiled chicken, spam, Wheaties, milk, potato chips, ice cream, cobwebbed fears. And now
they
saw him, on his knees, in the moonlight.
Holyshit!
So guilt and shame were following Mason like mad hound dogs tracking an escapee from rock-splitting “justice.” Ah, yes: he was riding the delivery bike back to
the Edward Hopper drugstore. Headlights, like swacks in the dark that made the floaters fly, came at him. A wind machine on stage behind him?
Stage?
Hush yo mouth! Motion on Mason! The dirty slush of a recent snowstorm was good for deep, thin tracks—you could even
write
words with the tires. But now rain. The car came
at
him. Fast. Getting out of the way of this lefthander, he fell between two cars, losing the bicycle—as it flopped, hit by the swooping fender. Mason looked up from the wet, oily gutter. It was night. The car's side window was lined with gray menacing faces; griffins, buzzards, sharptoothed rats. What North Side gang was this? Maybe it wasn't wise working up here near Loyola University. He thought Jewish boys were more human than this. He ate his humiliation and rage, as he lifted himself and his bike, up: they did not taste like strawberries, cornflakes and milk. It was enough to make one realistic. And that time in Cheyenne after basic with the Spanish exchangees. Christ, those guys! sitting around the barracks flipping through their Merriam-Websters pathetically in search of “fuck” and “cunt” and “cock”—how could they have so misread Henry Bosley Woolfs intentions? These hombres, from Madrid, from Barcelona, old enough to remember their fathers' talk about the Spanish Civil War, and still feeling South/North antagonism, knew those words existed in the wallop, smell and cheesecake of America, so why weren't they in your everyday, honest-to-goodness dictionary. Mason nor the others could answer. And why was it so important to find
those
words? Still Life with Dirty Words. Did they really
scratch
the itch? They called the real one Miss Cunt. She was brought in a truck every Friday night. The driver of the pickup said he was her husband. Guy obviously had a deal with the guard at the gate? Miss Cunt was not handsome, nothing to write home about: over forty, bleached hair, lots of veined fat. She and her husband were a couple of rednecks from around Laramie where, they said, they had a few chickens, a hog, and got by. Well, the Spanish guys couldn't find
cunt
in the book but they got her in the cab. Mister Cunt just sat there in the driver's seat, on guard. Only two or three of the American guys—boys
really—had her. The Spanish airmen'd get up there and sit her on their laps. One at a time, with their cocks up in her fat, she'd wiggle around till they found the speed of light through the sounds she made. Sometimes Mason lying way away in his bunk could hear her grunts. She had one kind for grinding and another for derby. As I said, hubby counted the wet loot and kept top eye opened, and this service was provided the Spanish men in search of “fuck” and “cunt” and “cock” for as long as they were in military records training. There was no way to avoid their bragging. Mason was still in motion but the camera wasn't on him. Then he got shipped (
shipped?
) to Valdosta where commanders laughed at him when he requested transfer; said he'd been promised Europe. It wasn't till a doctor treating him for an ulcerated stomach said racism was killing him that the commanders unpacked their sense of humor and gave him a screen test for another location: he won a deeper degree of South: was given a ticket to a base in northern Florida. Here he discovered rocks had souls: discovered ancient Greece. Books were not shot from guns. He lived in himself since there was not space worthy outside. Finally, honorably discharged, Mason made the mistake of returning to Chicago.