Run With the Hunted (17 page)

I got down on the tracks and began stepping over them. The two old men watched me. The gold rail was there. I stepped very high over that.

Then I half-ran half-fell down the stairway. There was a bar across the street.

—
F
ACTOTUM

An old man asked me for a cigarette

and I carefully dealt out two.

“Been lookin' for job. Gonna stand

in the sun and smoke.”

He was close to rags and rage

and he leaned against death.

It was a cold day, indeed, and trucks

loaded and heavy as old whores

banged and tangled on the streets …

We drop like planks from a rotting floor

as the world strives to unlock the bone

that weights its brain.

(God is a lonely place without steak.)

We are dying birds

we are sinking ships—

the world rocks down against us

and we

throw out our arms

and we

throw out our legs

like the death kiss of the centipede:

but they kindly snap our backs

and call our poison “politics.”

Well, we smoked, he and I—little men

nibbling fish-head thoughts …

All the horses do not come in,

and as you watch the lights of the jails

and hospitals wink on and out,

and men handle flags as carefully as babies,

remember this:

you are a great-gutted instrument of

heart and belly, carefully planned—

so if you take a plane for Savannah,

take the best plane;

or if you eat chicken on a rock,

make it a very special animal.

(You call it a bird; I call birds

flowers.)

And if you decide to kill somebody,

make it anybody and not somebody:

some men are made of more special, precious

parts: do not kill

if you will

a president or a King

or a man

behind a desk—

these have heavenly longitudes

enlightened attitudes.

If you decide,

take us

who stand and smoke and glower;

we are rusty with sadness and

feverish

with climbing broken ladders.

Take us

we were never children

like your children.

We do not understand love songs

like your inamorata.

Our faces are cracked linoleum,

cracked through with the heavy, sure

feet of our masters.

We are shot through with carrot tops

and poppyseed and tilted grammar;

we waste days like mad blackbirds

and pray for alcoholic nights.

Our silk-sick human smiles wrap around

us like somebody else's confetti:

we do not even belong to the Party.

We are a scene chalked-out with the

sick white brush of Age.

We smoke, asleep as a dish of figs.

We smoke, as dead as fog.

Take us.

A bathtub murder

or something quick and bright; our names

in the papers.

Known, at last, for a moment

to millions of careless and grape-dull eyes

that hold themselves private

to only flicker and flame

at the poor cracker-barrel jibes

of their conceited, pampered correct comedians.

Known, at last, for a moment,

as they will be known

and as you will be known

by an all-gray man on an all-gray horse

who sits and fondles a sword

longer than the night

longer than the mountain's aching backbone

longer than all the cries

that have a-bombed up out of throats

and exploded in a newer, less-planned

land.

We smoke and the clouds do not notice us.

A cat walks by and shakes Shakespeare off of his back.

Tallow, tallow, candle like wax: our spines

are limp and our consciousness burns

guilelessly away

the remaining wick life has

doled out to us.

An old man asked me for a cigarette

and told me his troubles

and this

is what he said:

that Age was a crime

and that Pity picked up the marbles

and that Hatred picked up the

cash.

He might have been your father

or mine.

He might have been a sex-fiend

or a saint.

But whatever he was,

he was condemned

and we stood in the sun and

smoked

and looked around

in our leisure

to see who was next in

line.

not much chance,

completely cut loose from

purpose,

he was a young man

riding a bus

through North Carolina

on the way to

somewhere

and it began to snow

and the bus stopped

at a little cafe

in the hills

and the passengers

entered.

he sat at the counter

with the others,

he ordered and the

food arrived.

the meal was

particularly

good

and the

coffee.

the waitress was

unlike the women

he had

known.

she was unaffected,

there was a natural

humor which came

from her.

the fry cook said

crazy things.

the dishwasher,

in back,

laughed, a good

clean

pleasant

laugh.

the young man watched

the snow through the

windows.

he wanted to stay

in that cafe

forever.

the curious feeling

swam through him

that everything

was

beautiful

there,

that it would always

stay beautiful

there.

then the bus driver

told the passengers

that it was time

to board.

the young man

thought, I'll just sit

here, I'll just stay

here.

but then

he rose and followed

the others into the

bus.

he found his seat

and looked at the cafe

through the bus

window.

then the bus moved

off, down a curve,

downward, out of

the hills.

the young man

looked straight

forward.

he heard the other

passengers

speaking

of other things,

or they were

reading

or

attempting to

sleep.

they had not

noticed

the

magic.

the young man

put his head to

one side,

closed his

eyes,

pretended to

sleep.

there was nothing

else to do—

just listen to the

sound of the

engine,

the sound of the

tires

in the

snow.

 

 

After arriving in Philadelphia I found a roominghouse and paid a week's rent in advance. The nearest bar was fifty years old. You could smell the odor of urine, shit and vomit of a half century as it came up through the floor into the bar from the restrooms below.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Two men were fighting in the center of the bar.

The guy to the right of me said his name was Danny. To the left, he said his name was Jim.

Danny had a cigarette in his mouth, end glowing. An empty beerbottle looped through the air. It missed his cigarette and nose, fractionally. He didn't move or look around, tapped the ashes of his cigarette into a tray. “That was pretty close, you son of a bitch! Come that close again, you got a fight on your hands!”

Every seat was taken. There were women in there, a few housewives, fat and a bit stupid, and two or three ladies who had fallen on hard times. As I sat there one girl got up and left with a man. She was back in five minutes.

“Helen! Helen! How do you do it?”

She laughed.

Another jumped up to try her. “That must be good. I gotta have some!”

They left together. Helen was back in five minutes.

“She must have a suction pump for a pussy!”

“I gotta try me some of that,” said an old guy down at the end of the bar. “I haven't had a hard-on since Teddy Roosevelt took his last hill.”

It took Helen ten minutes with that one.

“I want a sandwich,” said a fat guy. “Who's gonna run me an errand for a sandwich?”

I told him I would. “Roast beef on a bun, everything on.”

He gave me some money. “Keep the change.”

I walked down to the sandwich place. An old geezer with a big belly walked up. “Roast beef on a bun to go, everything on. And a bottle of beer while I'm waiting.”

I drank the beer, took the sandwich back to the fat guy in the bar, and found another seat. A shot of whiskey appeared. I drank it down. Another appeared. I drank it down. The juke box played.

A young fellow of about twenty-four came down from the end of the bar. “I need the venetian blinds cleaned,” he said to me.

“You sure do.”

“What do you do?”

“Nothing. Drink. Both.”

“How about the blinds?”

“Five bucks.”

“You're hired.”

They called him Billy-Boy. Billy-Boy had married the owner of the bar. She was forty-five.

He brought me two buckets, some suds, rags and sponges. I took the blinds down, removed the slats, and began.

“Drinks are free,” said Tommy the night bartender, “as long as you're working.”

“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”

It was slow work; the dust had caked, turned into embedded grime. I cut my hands several times on the edges of the metal slats. The soapy water burned.

“Shot of whiskey, Tommy.”

I finished one set of blinds and hung them up. The patrons of the bar turned to look at my work.

“Beautiful!”

“It sure helps the place.”

“They'll probably raise the price of drinks.”

“Shot of whiskey, Tommy,” I said.

I took down another set of blinds, pulled out the slats. I beat Jim at the pinball machine for a quarter, then emptied the buckets in the crapper and got fresh water.

The second set went slower. My hands collected more cuts. I doubt that those blinds had been cleaned in ten years. I won another quarter at the pinball then Billy-Boy hollered at me to go back to work.

Helen walked by on her way to the women's crapper.

“Helen, I'll give you five bucks when I'm finished. Will that cover?”