Chapter 3
The next morning, during breakfast, their sleeping bags were still on the floor, as they would be for almost a week. Raney continued to flirt with Brad, shamelessly, and he despised Leonard for it.
Brad wanted soul in a woman and not just pussy as he put it. For him, pussy was an expression of soul or it was nothing. He wanted a good woman who would stay by him so that he could accomplish his mission as he was beginning to call it. He was reading Nietzsche, Ezra Pound’s translation of Confucius’ analects, Laotzu, the Nichomachean Ethics, Kierkegaard, Freud, Santayana and for ballast, Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller. It was Brad’s growing belief that he could accomplish something great in literature but he despised technique.
Brad had not studied literature deeply and had only begun reading novels when he was 18. But the belief in his mission had deepened and had even taken on atheistic-religious overtones. He thought some kind of nature God would watch over him. At times it was the Zen “nothing-God” or the Chinese Tao or the Greek logos. Some days he was a Henry Miller “Happy Rock” and other days he was a Jack Kerouac Dharma Bum. Often, Nietzsche’s amor fati and Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith battled to gain control of his soul.
However, these avatars of the grace-god had often proved themselves to be nothing more than a bitch who snatched his happiness with her ravenous cunt. But the bitch goddess, whom he usually saw as only a minor distraction, would prove to be one of the few tutelary gods who would remain in his pantheon when the others were silent or had left him in the lurch.
They nursed a beer in Larry Blake’s, in Berkeley. Brad asked, incredulously, “10,000 dollars for 6 months?”
Raney said, “New York is expensive.” She wrinkled her nose. “I like living in San Francisco anyway. I can’t leave my apartment; the rent is too low. It’s 200 dollars and it is just a few blocks below Coit Tower.”
“Fuck Coit Tower. What about Visions of Cody. Let’s get on the road together. Destination Manhatoes.”
She countered, “Kerouac wrote The Subterraneans in San Francisco. Everything is happening here. Everyone is moving to the Bay Area.”
He remembered his urge to distance himself from this “fat little Jewish cunt.” He said, “You’ve got to swear yourself to secrecy.”
She smiled coyly. She thought, “I like Brad but he doesn’t have any money. He must be completely broke. I don’t mind spending a few afternoons making love with him but he’s got no future. He’s obviously the kind of guy who you don’t have to worry about getting rid of. And I can tell he’s had a lot of experience with women.”
He said, “Don’t tell Derrin, above all else. I don’t want our lugubrious, messianic power-obsessed leader pestering me for more money. And if you tell any of them, he’ll find out.”
“My lips are sealed.” Her eyes were big. She thought, “Maybe he has money after all.”
Brad flattered himself that he was, at heart, an actor and somewhat of a con man. He said, “Derrin thinks I’ve only got 1,000 dollars.”
She said, “Money is no big deal to me. I’ve had a rich guy after me for about a year. His father gives him an allowance of about 5,000 dollars a month.” She thought, “I need it all, money and looks both. Philip Levy is a short, dark, ugly Jew. I don’t care how much money he’s got, I can’t look at him.”
Brad had almost 250,000 dollars from his grandfather’s estate and a small amount from the Fields Medal, a mathematics prize that he had won more than five years earlier. He had decided to tell her that he had saved 25,000 dollars. He asked, “Are you talking about Philip Levy?”
“You know him?”
He nodded and took a long drink from his fourth bottle of beer. Brad had met him once at a party. “Do you know that Derrin actually grabbed my checkbook out of my hand once, when I was writing a check for the rent. Can you believe that? It’s the kind of guy he is! I’ve got 1,000 dollars in my checking account and for him, that’s a fortune. He wanted me to loan it to him to restore an Aston Martin.” Brad didn’t know anything about Aston Martins. He certainly didn’t know that Derrin was restoring an Aston Martin DB 2/4 Mark III, which was the ancestor of the Aston Martin DB5 that James Bond made famous in the movie Goldfinger.
“You’d better think again. He’s a master mechanic. The rumor is, his father’s rich. Derrin has already restored a couple of cars and got a lot of money for them.”
He thought that if he wanted to go to bed with her again he would have to tell her that he had money. He wondered if 25,000 dollars was enough but he also knew that he couldn’t say it directly. She wasn’t that kind of woman. He had to find a subtle way to do it. He changed the subject to freedom. He asked, “Do you know what those guys call their chicks in Visions of Cody?”
She said, “I forgot. It’s been a few years since I read Visions of Cody.”
Brad said, “It’s his best book. Well, I’m not sure. But at least Alain Ginsberg thinks it is. On The Road is pretty good too.”
Raney said, “Yeah. Moriarty is great. I met him once. Moriarty-Cody. His real name is Neil Cassidy you know. He made a pass at me.” She looked wistful, as if she regretted not giving in, Brad thought.
He said, “I know. I’ve seen him. I met Kerouac once myself. He must be a great writer because he is a complete lush. I mean, the man was dead drunk; he could hardly talk.” He paused and then said, “So you forgot what they called their chicks! You! An American Literature major at Columbia. You forgot!”
“That’s right, I forgot!”
He said, “Hey man. They call the chicks ‘slashes’ and the chicks call their old men ‘hammers.’
She smiled her dimpled, Semitic smile and took another long drink of beer.
He said, “Why don’t you just jump in bed with me and forget all this compatibility nonsense so we can get on with our lives?”
She said, “I told you. I’ve got to think.”
He said, “I love you for your mind.”
She looked at her beer glass as though it were a font of foamy wisdom. He decided to speak his mind. He said, “I think you love me and I’d like to fuck you for the rest of my life.” He paused. “Which seems, right now, like about three months.”
“I’ve been with Leonard since high school. We’ve been getting ready to break off for six months. I might not want to settle down right away.”
He thought, “Oh. So that’s it. She wants to get some ‘experience’ before ‘settling down.’ Shit.” She put her hand on Brad’s cheek. He said, “It’s because I’m not Jewish, isn’t it? Your mother couldn’t stand it.” He was stalling for time. He knew that she didn’t really care if he was Jewish or not.
She threw her head back and laughed her wild laugh. She brushed her golden-brown curls back and he marveled at her conventional good looks. He said, “And what about your atheist father? You never talk about that bastard.”
“I’ve already told you, I’ve been in a synagogue about five times in my entire life. My father is an atheist and my mother is a closet Jew. That’s all. What more do you want to know?”
“How did they produce such a beautiful chick who knows so much about American Literature?”
She laughed. “The degree from Columbia produced the chick who knows so much about American Literature and your imagination produced the beautiful chick.”
“Where did the dimples come from?”
She waved her hand and smiled. “You’re drunk.”
Brad had said nothing about his mathematics prize but had already demonstrated his quirky, occasionally photographic memory.
She said, “Let’s go back to San Francisco.”
“Close your eyes and dream of Manhattan.”
She laughed. “You’re funny.”
“I’m serious. Close your eyes.”
Sure.” She closed her eyes. He said, “Tell me what great work of contemporary American Literature this quote is from:
And the bums have that same grave careful adventurous sorry look as they stand stiffly before an alley or looking straight ahead with their eyes and their drink wet mouths glistening in the moonlight in a lunar Bowery spitting or saying ‘hey sport give me a dime for a goddam cup of coffee’ and in it there is a statement ‘I’ve come a long way to be standing against this wall stranger and you ought a appreciate the trouble I’ve had and the miles I done because after all, I’m from Houston and you’re a goddammed New Yorker that ain’t never been to God’s country. Texassss.’”
He hissed the word ‘Texas.’ She opened her eyes. He winked. She winked back and smiled and he said it was the most rakish smile he’d ever seen. She said, “Visions of Cody.”
He asked, “Who is Leonard? I mean. What kind of a guy is he?”
“He’s a great guy.”
“What kind of job does he have?”
“Why do you care?”
“Just curiosity.”
Raney said, “He manages a shoe store.”
Brad thought, “So that’s it. I knew it had to be something like that. He’s got money.” He said, with a cynical shrug of his broad shoulders, “His father’s rich.”
She said, “No. He owns a couple of shoe stores in Manhattan, that’s all.”
“And he’s starting one in San Francisco and his son is the manager.”
“He’s not rich Brad, believe me. Philip Levy is rich, not Leonard Silverstein.”
“But his father is a millionaire.” He smiled encouragingly, indulgently. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re really pushy aren’t you? I don’t think he’s worth a million dollars. Maybe half that. I told you, it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in money. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He decided that his perceived indigence was the best defense against his own libidinous weakness and so he was silent about money. After they finished their beers, he drove her back to her apartment on Grant Avenue near the Coit Tower.
Brad needed allies who lived in separate worlds and were closed off from one another. It was the way he protected himself from the evil genies that often erupted from the difficult situations that he allowed himself to get into. Dr. Orenstein was such an ally. He was his grandfather’s closest friend and a Jungian analyst who had an office at the Jung Institute in San Francisco. His atheist grandfather had been his ally against his evangelist mother, and when his grandfather died, Dr. Orenstein stepped in to fill the void.
Another great ruling principle of Brad’s life grew out of his observation that people were almost indifferent to his mathematical ability but were overly impressed by his athletic ability. For example, they were far more impressed with the fact that he could run the hundred-yard dash in less than ten seconds than that he had won the Fields Medal. He had rarely met anyone who had even heard of the Fields Medal, apart from mathematicians. Once they understood what it was, they looked at him warily, as if he might be an oddball or someone who studied all the time. So he never talked about it.
Brad had told 19-year-old Beatrice that he been a football player but he had said nothing about the Fields Medal or the fact that he had inherited money from his grandfather. Beatrice surprised him when she had decided to move into the commune. Naturally she told Derrin that he had been a quarterback and eventually, everyone knew.