Run With the Hunted (34 page)

“But I'm the father.”

“We know. But your wife must rest.”

I squeezed Fay's hand, kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep then. She was not a young woman. Maybe she hadn't saved the world but she had made a major improvement. Ring one up for Fay.

—
P
OST
O
FFICE

majestic, magic

infinite

my little girl is

sun

on the carpet—

out the door

picking a

flower, ha!,

an old man,

battle-wrecked,

emerges from his

chair

and she looks at me

but only sees

love,

ha!, and I become

quick with the world

and love right back

just like I was meant

to do.

 

 

The baby was crawling, discovering the world. Marina slept in bed with us at night. There was Marina, Fay, the cat and myself. The cat slept on the bed too. Look here, I thought, I have three mouths depending on me. How very strange. I sat there and watched them sleeping.

Then two nights in a row when I came home in the mornings, the early mornings, Fay was sitting up reading the classified sections.

“All these rooms are so damned expensive,” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

The next night I asked her as she read the paper:

“Are you moving out?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I'll help you find a place tomorrow. I'll drive you around.”

I agreed to pay her a sum each month. She said, “All right.”

Fay got the girl. I got the cat.

We found a place eight or ten blocks away. I helped her move in, said goodbye to the girl and drove on back.

I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right.

Fay was still wearing black to protest the war. She attended local peace demonstrations, love-ins, went to poetry readings, workshops, communist party meetings, and sat in a hippie coffee house. She took the child with her. If she wasn't out she was sitting in a chair smoking cigarette after cigarette and reading. She wore protest buttons on her black blouse. But she was usually off somewhere with the girl when I drove over to visit.

I finally found them in one day. Fay was eating sunflower seeds with yogurt. She baked her own bread but it wasn't very good.

“I met Andy, this truckdriver,” she told me. “He paints on the side. That's one of his paintings.” Fay pointed to the wall.

I was playing with the girl. I looked at the painting. I didn't say anything.

“He has a big cock,” said Fay. “He was over the other night and he asked me, ‘How would you like to be fucked with a big cock?' and I told him, ‘I would rather be fucked with love!'”

“He sounds like a man of the world,” I told her.

I played with the girl a little more, then left. I had a scheme test coming up.

Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me.

—
P
OST
O
FFICE

a John F. Kennedy flower knocks upon my door and is shot through the

neck;

the gladiolas gather by the dozens around the tip of

India

dripping into Ceylon;

dozens of oysters read Germaine Greer.

meanwhile, I itch from the slush of the Philippines

to the eye of the minnow

the minnow being eaten by the cumulative dreams of

Simon Bolivar. O,

freedom from the limitation of angular distance would be

delicious.

war is perfect,

the solid way drips and leaks,

Schopenhauer laughed for 72 years,

and I was told by a very small man in a New York City

pawnshop

one afternoon:

“Christ got more attention than I did

but I went further on less …”

well, the distance between 5 points is the same as the

distance between 3 points is the same as the distance

between one point:

it is all as cordial as a bonbon:

all this that we are wrapped

in:

eunuchs are more exact than sleep

the postage stamp is mad, Indiana is ridiculous

the chameleon is the last walking flower.

I was sitting in a bar on Western Ave. It was around midnight and I was in my usual confused state. I mean, you know, nothing works right: the women, the jobs, the no jobs, the weather, the dogs. Finally you just sit in a kind of stricken state and wait like you're on the bus stop bench waiting for death.

Well, I was sitting there and here comes this one with long dark hair, a good body, sad brown eyes. I didn't turn on for her. I ignored her even though she had taken the stool next to mine when there were a dozen other empty seats. In fact, we were the only ones in the bar except for the bartender. She ordered a dry wine. Then she asked me what I was drinking.

“Scotch and water.”

“Give him a scotch and water,” she told the barkeep.

Well, that was unusual.

She opened her purse, removed a small wire cage and took some little people out and sat them on the bar. They were all around three inches tall and they were alive and properly dressed. There were four of them, two men and two women.

“They make these now,” she said, “they're very expensive. They cost around $2,000 apiece when I got them. They go for around $2,400 now. I don't know the manufacturing process but it's probably against the law.”

The little people were walking around on the top of the bar. Suddenly one of the little guys slapped one of the little women across the face.

“You bitch,” he said, “I've had it with you!”

“No, George, you can't,” she cried, “I love you! I'll kill myself! I've got to have you!”

“I don't care,” said the little guy, and he took out a tiny cigarette and lit it. “I've got a right to live.”

“If you don't want her,” said the other little guy, “I'll take her. I love her.”

“But I don't want you, Marty. I'm in love with George.”

“But he's a bastard, Anna, a real bastard!”

“I know, but I love him anyhow.”

The little bastard then walked over and kissed the other little woman.

“I've got a triangle going,” said the lady who had bought me the drink. “That's Marty and George and Anna and Ruthie. George goes down, he goes down good. Marty's kind of square.”

“Isn't it sad to watch all that? Er, what's your name?”

“Dawn. It's a terrible name. But that's what mothers do to their children sometimes.”

“I'm Hank. But isn't it sad …”

“No, it isn't sad to watch it. I haven't had much luck with my own loves, terrible luck really …”

“We all have terrible luck.”

“I suppose. Anyhow, I bought these little people and now I watch them, and it's like having it and not having any of the problems. But I get awfully hot when they start making love. That's when it gets difficult.”

“Are they sexy?”

“Very, very sexy. My god, it makes me hot!”

“Why don't you make them do it? I mean, right now. We'll watch them together.”

“Oh, you can't make them do it. They've got to do it on their own.”

“How often do they do it?”

“Oh, they're pretty good. They go four or five times a week.”

They were walking around on the bar. “Listen,” said Marty, “give me a chance. Just give me a chance, Anna.”

“No,” said Anna, “my love belongs to George. There's no other way it can be.”

George was kissing Ruthie, feeling her breasts. Ruthie was getting hot.

“Ruthie's getting hot,” I told Dawn.

“She is. She really is.”

I was getting hot too. I grabbed Dawn and kissed her.

“Listen,” she said, “I don't like them to make love in public. I'll take them home and have them do it.”

“But then I can't watch.”

“Well, you'll just have to come with me.”

“All right,” I said, “let's go.”

I finished my drink and we walked out together. She carried the little people in the small wire cage. We got into her car and put the people in between us on the front seat. I looked at Dawn. She was really young and beautiful. She seemed to have good insides too. How could she have gone wrong with her men? There were so many ways those things could miss. The four little people had cost her $8,000. Just
that
to get away from relationships and
not
to get away from relationships.

Her house was near the hills, a pleasant looking place. We got out and walked up to the door. I held the little people in the cage while Dawn opened the door.

“I heard Randy Newman last week at The Troubador. Isn't he great?” she asked.

“Yes, he is.”

We walked into the front room and Dawn took the little people out and placed them on the coffeetable. Then she walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and got out a bottle of wine. She brought in two glasses.

“Pardon me,” she said, “but you seem a little bit crazy. What do you do?”

“I'm a writer.”

“Are you going to write about this?”

“They'll never believe it, but I'll write it.”

“Look,” said Dawn, “George has got Ruthie's panties off. He's fingering her. Ice?”

“Yes, he is. No, no ice. Straight's fine.”

“I don't know,” said Dawn, “it really gets me hot to watch them. Maybe it's because they're so small. It really heats me up.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Look, George is going down on her now.”

“He is, isn't he?”

“Look at them!”

“God o mighty!”

I grabbed Dawn. We stood there kissing. As we did her eyes went from mine to them and then back to mine again.

Little Marty and little Anna were watching too.

“Look,” said Marty, “they're going to make it. We might as well make it. Even the big folks are going to make it. Look at them!”

“Did you hear that?” I asked Dawn. “They said we're going to make it. Is that true?”

“I hope it's true,” said Dawn.

I got her over to the couch and worked her dress up around her hips. I kissed her along the throat. “I love you,” I said.

“Do you? Do you?”

“Yes, somehow, yes …”

“All right,” said little Anna to little Marty, “we might as well do it too, even though I don't love you.”

They embraced in the middle of the coffeetable. I had worked Dawn's panties off. Dawn groaned. Little Ruthie groaned. Marty closed in on Anna. It was happening everywhere. I got the idea that everybody in the world was doing it. Then I forgot about the rest of the world. We somehow walked into the bedroom. Then I got into Dawn for the long slow ride....

When she came out of the bathroom I was reading a dull dull story in
Playboy
.

“It was so good,” she said.

“My pleasure,” I answered.

She got back into bed with me. I put the magazine down.

“Do you think we can make it together?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you think we can make it together for any length of time?”

“I don't know. Things happen. The beginning is always easiest.”

Then there was a scream from the front room. “Oh-oh,” said Dawn. She leaped up and ran out of the room. I followed. When I got there she was holding George in her hands.

“Oh, my god!”

“What happened?”

“Anna did it to him!”

“Did what?”

“She cut off his balls! George is a eunuch!”