Run With the Hunted (49 page)

“You met Manny,” she said to me, “down at Bobby's?”

“Yeh.”

“I had to kick his ass out. He was too fucking jealous. He even hired a private dick to follow me! Imagine that! That simple sack of shit!”

“Yeh.”

“I hate men who are beggars! I hate little toadies!”

“‘A good man nowadays is hard to find,'” I said. “That's a song. Out of World War Two. They also had, ‘Don't sit under the apple tree with anybody else but me.'”

“Hank, you're babbling....” said Sara.

“Have another drink, Edie,” I said and I poured her one.

“Men are such
shits!
” she continued. “I walked into a bar the other day. I was with four guys, close friends. We sat around chugalugging pitchers of beer, we're
laughing
, you know, just having a
good time
, we weren't bothering anybody. Then I got the idea that I would like to shoot a game of pool. I like to shoot pool. I think that when a lady shoots pool it shows her class.”

“I can't shoot pool,” I said. “I always rip up the green. And I'm not even a lady.”

“Anyway, I go up to the table and there's this guy shooting pool all by himself. I go up to him and I say, ‘Look, you've had this table a long time. My friends and myself want to shoot a little pool. Do you mind letting us have the table for a while?' He turned and looked at me. He waited. Then he
sneered
, and he said, ‘All right.'”

Edie became animated and bounced around as she spoke and I peeked at her things.

“I went back and told my friends, ‘We got the table.' Finally this guy shooting is down to his last ball when a buddy of his walks up and says, ‘Hey, Ernie, I hear you're giving up the table.' And you know what he
tells
this guy? He says, ‘Yeah, I'm giving it up to that bitch!' I heard it and I saw RED! This guy is bent over the table to cue in on his last ball. I grabbed a pool stick and while he was bent over I hit him over the head as hard as I could. The guy dropped on the table like he was dead. He was known in the bar and so a bunch of his friends rush over but meanwhile my four buddies rush over too. Boy,
what a brawl!
Bottles smashing, broken mirrors.... I don't know how we got out of there but we did. You got some shit?”

“Yeah but I don't roll too good.”

“I'll take care of it.”

Edie rolled a tight thin joint, just like a pro. She sucked it up, hissing, then passed it to me.

“So I went back the next night, alone. The owner who is the bartender, he recognizes me. His name is Claude. ‘Claude,' I told him, ‘I'm sorry about yesterday but that guy at the table was a real bastard. He called me a bitch.'”

I poured more drinks all around. In another minute her breasts would be out.

“The owner said, ‘It's O.K., forget it.' He seemed like a nice guy. ‘What do you drink?' he asked me. I hung around the bar and had two or three free drinks and he said, ‘You know, I can use another waitress.'”

Edie took a hit on the joint and continued. “He told me about the other waitress. ‘She pulled the men in but she made a lot of trouble. She played one guy against the other. She was always on stage. Then I found out she was tricking on the side. She was using MY place to peddle her pussy!'”

“Really?” Sara asked.

“That's what he said. Anyhow, he offered me a position as a waitress. And he said, ‘No tricking on the job!' I told him to cut the shit, I wasn't one of those. I through maybe now I'll be able to save some money and go to U.C.L.A., to become a chemist and to study French, that's what I've always wanted to do. Then he said, ‘Come on back here, I want to show you where we store our excess stock and also I've got an outfit I'd like you to try on. It's never been worn and I think it's your size.' So I went into this dark little room with him and he tried to grab me. I pushed him off. Then he said, ‘Just give me a little kiss.' ‘Fuck off!' I told him. He was bald and fat and very short and had false teeth and black warts with hairs growing out of them on his cheeks. He rushed me and grabbed a hunk of my ass with one hand and some titty with the other and he tried to kiss me. I pushed him off again. ‘I got a wife,' he said, ‘I love my wife, don't worry!' He rushed me again and I gave him a knee
you-know-where
. I guess he didn't have anything there, he didn't even flinch. ‘I'll give you
money,
' he said, ‘I'll be
nice
to you!' I told him to eat shit and die. And so I lost another job.”

“That is a sad story,” I said.

“Listen,” said Edie, “I gotta go. Merry Christmas. Thanks for the drinks.”

She got up and I walked her to the door, opened it. She walked off through the court. I came back and sat down.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” said Sara.

“What is it?”

“If I hadn't been here you would have fucked her.”

“I hardly know the lady.”

“All that tit! You were terrified! You were afraid to even
look
at her!”

“What's she doing wandering around on Christmas Eve?”

“Why didn't you ask her?”

“She said she was looking for Bobby.”

“
If I hadn't been here you would have fucked her.
”

“I don't know. I have no way of knowing....”

Then Sara stood up and screamed. She began to sob and then she ran into the other room. I poured a drink. The colored lights on the walls blinked off and on.

Sara was preparing the turkey dressing and I sat in the kitchen talking to her. We were both sipping white wine.

The phone rang. I went and got it. It was Debra. “I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas, wet noodle.”

“Thank you, Debra. And a happy Santa Claus to you.”

We talked awhile, then I went back and sat down.

“Who was that?”

“Debra.”

“How is she?”

“All right, I guess.”

“What did she want?”

“She sent Christmas greetings.”

“You'll like this organic turkey, and the stuffing is good too. People eat poison, pure poison. America is one of the few countries where cancer of the colon is prevalent.”

“Yeah, my ass itches a lot, but it's just my hemorrhoids. I had them cut out once. Before they operate they run this snake up your intestine with a little light attached and they peek into you looking for cancer. That snake is pretty long. They just run it up you!”

The phone rang again. I went and got it. It was Cassie. “How are you doing?”

“Sara and I are preparing a turkey.”

“I miss you.”

“Merry Christmas to you too. How's the job going?”

“All right. I'm off until January second.”

“Happy New Year, Cassie!”

“What the hell's the matter with you?”

“I'm a little airy. I'm not used to white wine so early in the day.”

“Give me a call some time.”

“Sure.”

I walked back into the kitchen. “It was Cassie. People phone on Christmas. Maybe Drayer Baba will call.”

“He won't.”

“Why?”

“He never spoke aloud. He never spoke and he never touched money.”

“That's pretty good. Let me eat some of that raw dressing.”

“O.K.”

“Say—not bad!”

Then the phone rang again. It worked like that. Once it started ringing it kept ringing. I walked into the bedroom and answered it.

“Hello,” I said. “Who's this?”

“You son-of-a-bitch. Don't you know?”

“No, not really.” It was a drunken female.

“Guess.”

“Wait. I know! It's
Iris!
”

“Yes,
Iris
. And I'm pregnant!”

“Do you know who the father is?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I guess you're right. How are things in Vancouver?”

“All right. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

I walked back into the kitchen again.

“It was the Canadian belly dancer,” I told Sara.

“How's she doing?”

“She's just full of Christmas cheer.”

Sara put the turkey in the oven and we went into the front room. We talked small talk for some time. Then the phone rang again. “Hello,” I said.

“Are you Henry Chinaski?” It was a young male voice.

“Yes.”

“Are you Henry Chinaski, the writer?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we're a gang of guys from Bel Air and we really dig your stuff, man! We dig it so much that we're going to
reward
you, man!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we're coming over with some six packs of beer.”

“Stick that beer up your ass.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Stick it up your ass!'”

I hung up.

“Who was that?” asked Sara.

“I just lost three or four readers from Bel Air. But it was worth it.”

The turkey was done and I pulled it out of the oven, put it on a platter, moved the typer and all my papers off the kitchen table, and placed the turkey there. I began carving as Sara came in with the vegetables. We sat down. I filled my plate, Sara filled hers. It looked good.

“I hope that one with the tits doesn't come by again,” said Sara. She looked very upset at the thought.

“If she does I'll give her a piece.”

“
What?
”

I pointed to the turkey. “I said, ‘I'll give her a piece.' You can watch.”

Sara screamed. She stood up. She was trembling. Then she ran into the bedroom. I looked at my turkey. I couldn't eat it. I had pushed the wrong button again. I walked into the front room with my drink and sat down. I waited 15 minutes and then I put the turkey and the vegetables in the refrigerator.

Sara went back to her place the next day and I had a cold turkey sandwich about 3
PM
. About 5
PM
there was a terrific pounding on the door. I opened it up. It was Tammie and Arlene. They were cruising on speed. They walked in and jumped around, both of them talking at once.

“Got anything to
drink?
”

“Shit, Hank, ya got
anything
to drink?”

“How was your
fucking
Christmas?”

“Yeah. How was your fucking
Christmas
, man?”

“There's some beer and wine in the icebox,” I told them.

(You can always tell an old-timer: he calls a refrigerator an icebox.)

They danced into the kitchen and opened the icebox.

“Hey, here's a
turkey!
”

“We're hungry, Hank! Can we have some turkey?”

“Sure.”

Tammie came out with a leg and bit into it. “Hey, this is an awful turkey! It needs spices!”

Arlene came out with slices of meat in her hands. “Yeah, this needs spices. It's too mellow! You got any spices?”

“In the cupboard,” I said.

They jumped back into the kitchen and began sprinkling on the spices.

“There! That's better!”

“Yeah, it
tastes
like something now!”

“Organic turkey, shit!”

“Yeah, it's shit!”

“I want some
more!
”

“Me too. But it needs
spices
.”

Tammie came out and sat down. She had just about finished the leg. Then she took the leg bone, bit and broke it in half, and started chewing the bone. I was astonished. She was eating the leg bone, spitting splinters out on the rug.

“Hey, you're eating the bone!”

“Yeah, it's
good!
”

Tammie ran back into the kitchen for some more.

Soon they both came out, each of them with a bottle of beer.

“Thanks, Hank.”

“Yeah, thanks, man.”

They sat there sucking at the beers.

“Well,” said Tammie, “we gotta get going.”

“Yeah, we're going out to rape some junior high school boys!”

“Yeah!”

The both jumped up and they were gone out the door. I walked into the kitchen and looked into the refrig. That turkey looked like it had been mauled by a tiger—the carcass had simply been ripped apart. It looked obscene.