Run With the Hunted (15 page)

“
How'd you like a piece of ass, poor white trash?
”

She laughed at me. She had her legs crossed high and she kicked her feet; she had nice legs, high heels, and she kicked her legs and laughed. I picked up my suitcase and began to approach her up the walk. As I did I noticed a side curtain on a window to my left move just a bit. I saw a black man's face. He looked like Jersey Joe Wolcott. I backed down the pathway to the sidewalk. Her laughter followed me down the street.

I was in a room on the second floor across from a bar. The bar was called The Gangplank Cafe. From my room I could see through the open bar doors and into the bar. There were some rough faces in that bar, some interesting faces. I stayed in my room at night and drank wine and looked at the faces in the bar while my money ran out. In the daytime I took long slow walks. I sat for hours staring at pigeons. I only ate one meal a day so my money would last longer. I found a dirty cafe with a dirty proprietor, but you got a big breakfast—hotcakes, grits, sausage—for very little.

I went out on the street, as usual, one day and strolled along. I felt happy and relaxed. The sun was just right. Mellow. There was peace in the air. As I approached the center of the block there was a man standing outside the doorway of a shop. I walked past.

“Hey, BUDDY!”

I stopped and turned.

“You want a job?”

I walked back to where he stood. Over his shoulder I could see a large dark room. There was a long table with men and women standing on both sides of it. They had hammers with which they pounded objects in front of them. In the gloom the objects appeared to be clams. They smelled like clams. I turned and continued walking down the street.

I remembered how my father used to come home each night and talk about his job to my mother. The job talk began when he entered the door, continued over the dinner table, and ended in the bedroom where my father would scream “
Lights Out!
” at 8 p.m., so he could get his rest and his full strength for the job the next day. There was no other subject except the job.

Down by the corner I was stopped by another man.

“Listen, my friend …” he began.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Listen, I'm a veteran of World War I. I put my life on the line for this country but nobody will hire me, nobody will give me a job. They don't appreciate what I did. I'm hungry, give me some help …”

“I'm not working.”

“You're not working?”

“That's right.”

I walked away. I crossed the street to the other side.

“
You're lying!
” he screamed. “
You're working. You've got a job!
”

A few days later I was looking for one.

He was a man behind the desk with a hearing aid and the wire ran down along the side of his face and into his shirt where he hid the battery. The office was dark and comfortable. He was dressed in a worn brown suit with a wrinkled white shirt and a necktie frayed at the edges. His name was Heathercliff.

I had seen the ad in the local paper and the place was near my room.

N
EED AMBITIOUS YOUNG MAN

WITH AN EYE TO THE FUTURE.

E
XPER. NOT NECESSARY
.

B
EGIN IN DELIVERY ROOM AND WORK UP.

I waited outside with five or six young men, all of them trying to look ambitious. We had filled out our employment applications and now we waited. I was the last to be called.

“Mr. Chinaski, what made you leave the railroad yards?”

“Well, I don't see any future in the railroads.”

“They have good unions, medical care, retirement.”

“At my age, retirement might almost be considered superfluous.”

“Why did you come to New Orleans?”

“I had too many friends in Los Angeles, friends I felt were hindering my career. I wanted to go where I could concentrate unmolested.”

“How do we know that you'll remain with
us
any length of time?”

“I might not.”

“Why?”

“Your ad stated that there was a future for an ambitious man. If there isn't any future here then I must leave.”

“Why haven't you shaved your face? Did you lose a bet?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“No; I bet my landlord that I could land a job in one day even with this beard.”

“All right, we'll let you know.”

“I don't have a phone.”

“That's all right, Mr. Chinaski.”

I left and went back to my room. I went down the dirty hall and took a hot bath. Then I put my clothes back on and went out and got a bottle of wine. I came back to the room and sat by the window drinking and watching the people in the bar, watching the people walk by. I drank slowly and began to think again of getting a gun and doing it quickly—without all the thought and talk. A matter of guts. I wondered about my guts. I finished the bottle and went to bed and slept. About 4 p.m. I was awakened by a knock on the door. It was a Western Union boy. I opened the telegram:

It was a magazine publishers distributing house and we stood at the packing table checking the orders to see that the quantities coincided with the invoices. Then we signed the invoice and either packed the order for out of town shipment or set the magazines aside for local truck delivery. The work was easy and dull but the clerks were in a constant state of turmoil. They were worried about their jobs. There was a mixture of young men and women and there didn't seem to be a foreman. After several hours an argument began between two of the women. It was something about the magazines. We were packing comic books and something had gone wrong across the table. The two women became violent as the argument went on.

“Look,” I said, “these books aren't worth reading let alone arguing about.”

“All right,” one of the women said, “we know you think you're too good for this job.”

“Too good?”

“Yes, your attitude. You think we didn't notice it?”

That's when I first learned that it wasn't enough to just
do
your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.

I worked there three or four days, then on Friday we were paid right up to the hour. We were given yellow envelopes with green bills and the exact change. Real money, no checks.

Toward quitting time the truck driver came back a little early. He sat on a pile of magazines and smoked a cigarette.

“Yeah, Harry,” he said to one of the clerks, “I got a raise today. I got a two dollar raise.”

At quitting time I stopped for a bottle of wine, went up to my room, had a drink then went downstairs and phoned my company. The phone rang a long time. Finally Mr. Heathercliff answered. He was still there.

“Mr. Heathercliff?”

“Yes?”

“This is Chinaski.”

“Yes, Mr. Chinaski?”

“I want a two dollar raise.”

“What?”

“That's right. The truck driver got a raise.”

“But he's been with us two years.”

“I need a raise.”

“We're giving you seventeen dollars a week now and you're asking for nineteen?”

“That's right. Do I get it or not?”

“We just can't do it.”

“Then I quit.” I hung up.

—
F
ACTOTUM

starving there, sitting around the bars,

and at night walking the streets for

hours,

the moonlight always seemed fake

to me, maybe it was,

and in the French Quarter I watched

the horses and buggies going by,

everybody sitting high in the open

carriages, the black driver, and in

back the man and the woman,

usually young and always white.

and I was always white.

and hardly charmed by the

world.

New Orleans was a place to

hide.

I could piss away my life,

unmolested.

except for the rats.

the rats in my dark small room

very much resented sharing it

with me.

they were large and fearless

and stared at me with eyes

that spoke

an unblinking

death.

women were beyond me.

they saw something

depraved.

there was one waitress

a little older than

I, she rather smiled,

lingered when she

brought my

coffee.

that was plenty for

me, that was

enough.

there was something about

that city, though:

it didn't let me feel guilty

that I had no feeling for the

things so many others

needed.

it let me alone.

sitting up in my bed

the lights out,

hearing the outside

sounds,

lifting my cheap

bottle of wine,

letting the warmth of

the grape

enter

me

as I heard the rats

moving about the

room,

I preferred them

to

humans.

being lost,

being crazy maybe

is not so bad

if you can be

that way:

undisturbed.

New Orleans gave me

that.

nobody ever called

my name.

no telephone,

no car,

no job,

no

anything.

me and the

rats

and my youth,

one time,

that time

I knew

even through the

nothingness,

it was a

celebration

of something not to

do

but only

know.

I even hear the mountains

the way they laugh

up and down their blue sides

and down in the water

the fish cry

and all the water

is their tears.

I listen to the water

on nights I drink away

and the sadness becomes so great

I hear it in my clock

it becomes knobs upon my dresser

it becomes paper on the floor

it becomes a shoehorn

a laundry ticket

it becomes

cigarette smoke

climbing a chapel of dark vines …

it matters little

very little love is not so bad

or very little life

what counts

is waiting on walls

I was born for this

I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

 

 

My mother screamed when she opened the door. “
Son! Is that you, son?
”

“I need some sleep.”

“Your bedroom is always waiting.”

I went to the bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed. I was awakened about 6 p.m. by my mother. “Your father is home.”

I got up and began to dress. Dinner was on the table when I walked in.

My father was a big man, taller than I was with brown eyes; mine were green. His nose was too large and you couldn't help noticing his ears. His ears wanted to leap away from his head.

“Listen,” he said, “if you stay here I am going to charge you room and board plus laundry. When you get a job, what you owe us will be subtracted from your salary until you are paid up.”

We ate in silence.

My bill for room, board, laundry, etc., was so high by this time that it took several paychecks to get even. I stayed until then and moved out right afterwards. I couldn't afford the rates at home.