Women (13 page)

“What about her, Hank?”

“Well, she came to see me.”

“You mean she came to your place?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“We talked. She bought two of my paintings.”

“Anything else happen?”

“Yeah.”

Katherine was quiet. Then she said, “Hank, I don’t know if I want to see you now.”

“I understand. Look, why don’t you think it over and call me back? I’m sorry, Katherine. I’m sorry it happened. That’s all I can say.”

She hung up. She won’t phone back, I thought. The best woman I ever met and I blew it. I deserve defeat, I deserve to die alone in a madhouse.

I sat by the telephone. I read the newspaper, the sports section, the financial section, the funny papers. The phone rang. It was Katherine. “
FUCK
Joanna Dover!” she laughed. I’d never heard Katherine swear like that before.

“Then you’re coming?”

“Yes. Do you have the arrival time?”

“I have it all. I’ll be there.”

We said goodbye. Katherine was coming, she was coming for at least a week with that face, that body, that hair, those eyes, that laugh. . . .

35

I came out of the bar and checked the message board. The plane was on time. Katherine was in the air and moving towards me. I sat down and waited. Across from me was a well-groomed woman reading a paperback. Her dress was up around her thighs, showing all that flank, that leg wrapped in nylon. Why did she insist on doing that? I had a newspaper, and I looked over the top, up her dress. She had great thighs. Who was getting those thighs? I felt foolish staring up her dress, but I couldn’t help myself. She was built. Once she had been a little girl, someday she would be dead, but now she was showing me her upper legs. The goddamned strumpet, I’d give her a hundred strokes, I’d give her 7-and-one-half inches of throbbing purple! She crossed her legs and her dress inched higher. She looked up from her paperback. Her eyes looked into mine as I watched over the top of the newspaper. Her expression was indifferent. She reached into her purse and took out a stick of gum, took the wrapper off and put the gum in her mouth. Green gum. She chewed on the green gum and I watched her mouth. She didn’t pull her skirt down. She knew that I was looking. There was nothing I could do. I opened my wallet and took out 2 fifty dollar bills. She looked up, saw the bills, looked back down. Then a fat man plopped down next to me. His face was very red and he had a massive nose. He was dressed in a jumpsuit, a light brown jumpsuit. He farted. The lady pulled her dress down and I put the bills back in my wallet. My cock softened and I got up and went to the drinking fountain.

Out in the landing area Katherine’s plane was taxiing toward the ramp. I stood and waited. Katherine, I adore you.

Katherine walked off the ramp, perfect, with red-brown hair, slim body, a blue dress clinging as she walked, white shoes, slim, neat ankles, youth. She wore a white hat with a wide brim, the brim turned down just right. Her eyes looked out from under the brim, large and brown and laughing. She had class. She’d never show her ass in an airport waiting area.

And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.

Katherine moved toward me. That long clean red-brown hair. Texas women were so relaxed, so natural. I gave her a kiss and asked about her baggage. I suggested a stop at the bar. The waitresses had on short red dresses that showed their ruffled white panties. The necklines of their dresses were cut low to show their breasts. They earned their salaries, they earned their tips, every cent. They lived in the suburbs and they hated men. They lived with their mothers and brothers and were in love with their psychiatrists.

We finished our drinks and went to get Katherine’s baggage. A number of men tried to catch her eye, but she walked close by my side, holding my arm. Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were, and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding love back and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then usually, there was trouble.

At my place Katherine opened her suitcase and took out a pair of rubber gloves. She laughed.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Darlene—my best friend—she saw me packing and she said, 'What the hell are you doing?’ And I said, I’ve never seen Hank’s place, but I know that before I can cook in it and live in it and sleep in it I’ve got to clean it up!’”

Then Katherine gave off that happy Texas laugh. She went into the bathroom and put on a pair of bluejeans and an orange blouse, came out barefooted and went into the kitchen with her rubber gloves.

I went into the bathroom and changed clothes also. I decided that if Lydia came by I’d never let her touch Katherine. Lydia? Where was she? What was she doing?

I sent up a little prayer to the gods who watched over me: please keep Lydia away. Let her suck on the horns of cowboys and dance until 3 am—but please keep her away. . . .

When I came out Katherine was on her knees scrubbing at two years’ worth of grease on my kitchen floor.

“Katherine,” I said, “let’s go out on the town. Let’s go have dinner. This is no way to begin.”

“All right, Hank, but I’ve got to finish this floor first. Then we’ll go.”

I sat and waited. Then she came out and I was sitting in a chair, waiting. She bent over and kissed me, laughing, “You are a dirty old man!” Then she walked into the bedroom. I was in love again, I was in trouble. . . .

36

After dinner we came back and we talked. She was a health food addict and didn’t eat meat except for chicken and fish. It certainly worked for her.

“Hank,” she said, “tomorrow I’m going to clean your bathroom.”

“All right,” I said over my drink.

“And I must do my exercises every day. Will that bother you?”

“No, no.”

“Will you be able to write while I’m fussing around here?”

“No problem.”

“I can go for walks.”

“No, not alone, not in this neighborhood.”

“I don’t want to interfere with your writing.”

“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.”

Katherine came over and sat by me on the couch. She seemed more a girl than a woman. I put down my drink and kissed her, a long, slow kiss. Her lips were cool and soft. I was very conscious of her long red-brown hair. I pulled away and had another drink. She confused me. I was used to vile drunken wenches.

We talked for another hour. “Let’s go to sleep,” I told her, “I’m tired.”

“Fine. I’ll get ready first,” she said.

I sat drinking. I needed more to drink. She simply was too much.

“Hank,” she said, “I’m in bed.”

“All right.”

I went into the bathroom and undressed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and hands. She came all the way from Texas, I thought, she came on a plane just to see me and now she’s in my bed, waiting.

I didn’t have any pyjamas. I walked toward the bed. She was in a nightie. “Hank,” she said, “we have about 6 days when it’s safe, then we’ll have to think of something else.”

I got into bed with her. The little girl-woman was ready. I pulled her towards me. Luck was mine again, the gods were smiling. The kisses became more intense. I placed her hand on my cock and then pulled up her nightie. I began to play with her cunt. Katherine with a cunt? The clit came out and I touched it gently, again and again. Finally, I mounted. My cock entered halfway. It was very tight. I moved it back and forth, then pushed. The remainder of my cock slid in. It was glorious. She gripped me. I moved and her grip held. I tried to control myself. I stopped stroking and waited to cool off. I kissed her, working her lips apart, sucking at the upper lip. I saw her hair spread wide across the pillow. Then I gave up trying to please her and simply fucked her, ripping viciously. It was like murder. I didn’t care; my cock had gone crazy. All that hair, her young and beautiful face. It was like raping the Virgin Mary. I came. I came inside of her, agonizing, feeling my sperm enter her body, she was helpless, and I shot my come deep into her ultimate core—body and soul—again and again. . . .

Later on, we slept. Or Katherine slept. I held her from the back. For the first time I thought of marriage. I knew that there certainly were flaws in her that had not surfaced. The beginning of a relationship was always the easiest. After that the unveiling began, never to stop. Still, I thought of marriage. I thought of a house, a dog and a cat, of shopping in supermarkets. Henry Chinaski was losing his balls. And didn’t care.

At last I slept. When I awakened in the morning Katherine was sitting on the edge of the bed brushing those yards of red-brown hair. Her large dark eyes looked at me as I awakened. “Hello, Katherine,” I said, “will you marry me?”

“Please don’t,” she said, “I don’t like it.”

“I mean it.”

“Oh, shit, Hank!”

“What?”

“I said, 'shit,’ and if you talk that way I’m taking the first plane out.”

“All right.”

“Hank?”

“Yes?”

I looked at Katherine. She kept brushing her long hair. Her large brown eyes looked at me, and she was smiling. She said, “It’s just sex, Hank, it’s just sex!” Then she laughed. It wasn’t a sardonic laugh, it was really joyful. She brushed her hair and I put my arm around her waist and rested my head against her leg. I wasn’t quite sure of anything.

37

I took women either to the boxing matches or to the racetrack. That Thursday night I took Katherine to the boxing matches at the Olympic auditorium. She had never been to a live fight. We got there before the first bout and sat at ringside. I drank beer and smoked and waited.

“It’s strange,” I told her, “that people will sit here and wait for two men to climb up there into that ring and try to punch each other out.”

“It does seem awful.”

“This place was built a long time ago,” I told her as she looked around the ancient arena. “There are only two restrooms, one for men, the other for women, and they are small. So try to go before or after intermission.”

“All right.”

The Olympic was attended mostly by Latinos and lower class working whites, with a few movie stars and celebrities. There were many good Mexican fighters and they fought with their hearts. The only bad fights were when whites or blacks fought, especially the heavyweights.

Being there with Katherine felt strange. Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren’t with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and fucked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.

The first fight was a good one, lots of blood and courage. There was something to be learned about writing from watching boxing matches or going to the racetrack. The message wasn’t clear but it helped me. That was the important part: the message wasn’t clear. It was wordless, like a house burning, or an earthquake or a flood, or a woman getting out of a car, showing her legs. I didn’t know what other writers needed; I didn’t care, I couldn’t read them anyway. I was locked into my own habits, my own prejudices. It wasn’t bad being dumb if the ignorance was all your own. I knew that some day I would write about Katherine and that it would be hard. It was easy to write about whores, but to write about a good woman was much more difficult.

The second fight was good, too. The crowd screamed and roared and swilled beer. They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes— they’d be back in captivity the next day but now they were out—they were wild with freedom. They weren’t thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

All the fights were good. I got up and went to the restroom. When I got back Katherine was very still. She looked more like she should be attending a ballet or a concert. She looked so delicate and yet she was such a marvelous fuck.

I kept drinking and Katherine would grab one of my hands when a fight became exceptionally brutal. The crowd loved knockouts. They screamed when one of the fighters was on the way out. They were landing those punches. Maybe they were punching out their bosses or their wives. Who knew? Who cared? More beer.

I suggested to Katherine that we leave before the final bout. I’d had enough.

“All right,” she said.

We walked up the narrow aisle, the air blue with smoke. There was no whistling, no obscene gestures. My scarred and battered face was sometimes an asset.

We walked back to the small parking lot under the freeway. The ’67 blue Volks was not there. The ’67 model was the last good Volks—and the young men knew it.

“Hepburn, they stole our fucking car.”

“Oh Hank, surely not!”

“It’s gone. It was sitting there.” I pointed. “Now it’s gone.”

“Hank, what will we do?”

“We’ll take a taxi. I really feel bad.”

“Why do people do that?”

“They have to. It’s their way out.”

We went into a coffee shop and I phoned for a cab. We ordered coffee and doughnuts. While we had been watching the fights they had pulled the coathanger and hotwire trick. I had a saying, “Take my woman, but leave my car alone.” I would never kill a man who took my woman; I might kill a man who took my car.

The cab came. At my place, luckily, there was beer and some vodka. I had given up all hope of staying sober enough to make love. Katherine knew it. I paced up and down talking about my ’67 blue Volks. The last good model. I couldn’t even call the police. I was too drunk. I’d have to wait until morning, until noon.

“Hepburn,” I told her, “it’s not your fault, you didn’t steal it!”