Bernard
is right; the pathogen is nothing, the terrain is everything.
Pasteur,
on his death bed
Everything
seemed to be going badly:
Van
hadn’t called since the dinner and I hadn’t called him. Mike threw a party on The Basil Hall but
hardly anyone came. Vida moved out of
the I House and didn’t leave a telephone number. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Tilly for it. I
didn’t even get the chance to call anyway because her car was gone during the
entire time that
I
sat in a miasma of tiredness. I was
sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee with Chris and Billy. It was late-morning. We hadn’t sat at the kitchen table together
for months.
Chris
said, “Twenty per cent of the population
shifts its household every year.” He was
quoting from the
His
face was hidden behind the paper.
Suddenly, he stretched the paper out at arm’s length, and then folded
it, in mid air, so that he could hold it with one hand and drink coffee with
the other. “More than HALF of all families in the
I
said, “I’ve got a copy of Domhoff’s Who Rules
Billy
said, “He’s going to the Hacienda
Chris
stared, wide-eyed, at the paper. He
quoted the article again, this time in a high pitched voice, as if his
credulity were finally strained to the breaking point, “The official poverty level income, get this,
POVERTY LEVEL income for a FAMILY OF FOUR,
FOUR... is under $3000 per year and THIRTY PERCENT of all
families earn less than that.”
He
threw the paper on the floor.
Billy
said, “That’s why you should go to law
school with me and be a lawyer so you can earn some bucks.”
“So
I can be a Corporation Lawyer like my father and be an errand boy for the
rich?”
Kidd
said, “It beats parking cars.”
“If
you could have seen how my father sucked up to those Ivy League prep school
bastards...” He got up and walked
towards his room.
Billy
said, “Yeah and he made a hundred
thousand dollars a year doing it.”
Chris
answered without turning around, “And
ended up a fucking alcoholic crying in his beer.”
“You’re
smart enough not to do that and...”
Chris
wheeled around, “I’ve told you Kidd, I
had to go to school with them. That was
enough.”
Clearly,
it was a conversation they’d had before.
Pinson disappeared into his room.
Billy
looked at me. I put my hands up,
defensively, “You’ll never convince me
to be a lawyer.”
His
voice was shrill, challenging, “Why
not?” I was silent. “You could do a great thing for yourself
Jack.” He paused theatrically, “We could go into practice together.”
We
looked into each other’s eyes. I noticed
little red streaks in his eyes and looked away.
He
said, “Look, you’ll never make any money
as a writer.”
“Well,
I know that already. I’m even writing an
article about it.”
He
was standing up, looking down at me.
“O.K., it’s settled, you’re going to be a lawyer.” He grinned at me with satisfaction.
“Tell
him to get fucked,” Pinson yelled from the other room.
Billy
waved his hand in good-natured disgust and went to his room. Muffy followed him,
with his tail between his legs and doleful eyes.
I
went to the sink, put a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee into a cup,
poured hot tap water over it, and called Florence on the telephone. Her voice was husky. I said,
“I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
There was a tense silence. “Look, I’m worried about you. Your voice sounds terrible.”
She
croaked a response, and I could barely hear her, “I feel pretty bad, actually.”
“Can
I come over?”
“If
you promise not to make me feel worse.”
I
didn’t know what to say. I said, “I’m worried about you.”
“Can
you come over now?”
“Yeah.”
I
put the thermometer in my pocket and ran next door. She was propped up against a couple of
pillows. I hadn’t seen her for four
days, since the argument. Her face was
flushed. She managed a smile. Her temples were wet with perspiration.
“Your
voice sounded terrible over the phone.”
“I’ve
been feeling worse.” Her voice was a
raspy, low squeak. We stared into each
other’s eyes.
She
said, “I’ve called Maya. She said she’d come out to
“I
don’t see why you don’t trust me to take care of you.”
“I
just talked to her on the phone. She’s
already left for La Guardia.” Her voice
was almost gone. It was obviously a strain
for her to talk.
I
asked, “Are you paying for her ticket?”
She
whispered, “Yes. She’s going to stay here with me. She’s going to sleep here in the room with
me.”
I
was furious because I knew Maya was a lesbian.
I walked over to the bed and knelt down and stroked her forehead. “You’re burning up Flor. You should see a doctor.”
She
squeaked again, “Maya works in a health
food store. She’s into herbs and
non-traditional medicine...”
I
imagined for a moment that she was delirious:
I hadn’t even been able to get
her to think about taking vitamins. I
asked, “Did you see her again when you
visited your mother?”
She
was silent. Then she whispered, “Yes.”
“Did
you do anything?”
There
was a long silence.
She
asked, “Do you really want to know?”
“Of
course.”
“What
do you want to know?”
She
seemed more curious about what I wanted to know than I was about what she did.
I
asked, “Well. I don’t know... What did you do?”
“Do
you want all the gory details?”
“Of
course.”
I
prepared myself for the worst but naturally I already knew what two women can
do to each other, and I suspected that I was only indulging my voyeurism.
She
said, in a rasping whisper, “We did
it.” I was silent. She looked at me sympathetically. “It really isn’t such a big thing. We did it once before. I already told you.”
I
was angry. I snapped, “What did you do? I mean what?”
She
looked at me with curious eyes. Then she
said, looking away. “She did me. And then afterwards I did her. That was all.”
I
was stunned and silent. Then I was
angry. “What do you mean, “did you?”
She didn’t answer or look at me. I asked,
“Cunnilingus?”
She
looked embarrassed but answered in a matter of fact whisper, as if she were
talking to her gynecologist, “Yes.”
“What
about me?” I asked aggressively. She gave a helpless little grin, as if she
thought that I wanted her to do me too.
I didn’t acknowledge it. I could
see that she was very sick. I said, very
gently, “I brought my thermometer.” I took it out of my pocket and she looked at
it defensively. “Let’s take your
temperature.”
It
was a question and it contained the possibility that she might say “no.”
“All
right.”
I
put the thermometer into her mouth and she closed her eyes and lay back. Judy Chicago stared down from the wall. We were in Tilly’s
old room, and an 8x10 inch color photograph of Tilly,
standing next to an old boyfriend, stood on the chest of drawers. Her stump was
hidden behind her body.
“It’s
105. That’s bad Flor. You’ve got to go to the hospital.” I looked at my watch. It was
“I’m
not going to the hospital. I don’t even
have medical insurance anyway. Where
would I go?”
“You could go anywhere. Kaiser.
The
She
was silent and then the angry, assessing look came into her eyes. I knew that anything I said would make it
worse but I said, “Look, I know you
think I’m making you feel bad, but I’m trying to help. I know about these things. My mother was a medical secretary.”
She
was silent. Then she said, “Just leave me alone.” She stared at me and her eyes were sunken and
serious. I stared back, not believing
what I had heard. She said, “You promised that you wouldn’t make me feel
worse.” Her voice croaked
pathetically.
I
said, “Calm down. I don’t want you to get upset.”
She
was silent.
I
said, “I just think you should know that
you could die if your temperature gets over 106.”
She
started to cry. I looked up at the wall
into Judy’s eyes. Her arms were crossed
and her back was up against the wall. I
remembered that Maya was coming.
I
said, “I’m sorry. Stop crying.
I didn’t mean to scare you.” I
went over to the side of the bed and put my arm around her. It was difficult and awkward, with her
propped up against the pillows the way she was.
I knew she wouldn’t listen to me and that she wanted me out of the
way. I asked, “When will Maya get here?”
She
stopped crying and the expression on her face became serious. She stared at me
for a moment. “At about six. Tonight.”
“Around
dinner time?” I wanted to be sure.
“Yes.”
“Will
you promise to call me if anything happens?
I mean if you get worse?”
“Yes.”
I
kissed her on the cheek. We held hands
for a few seconds. Judy was staring at
me. I got up too abruptly, turned and
left.
I
had a horrendous night driving cab.
It
was the night that Turnbull got locked in the trunk of his cab. I heard the dispatcher screaming “May Day,”
on the radio at about 7:30 and I knew it was him because I remembered his cab
number: it was 239 again, the worst cab in the lot.
I
deadheaded to East Oakland, all the way from Berkeley, and by the time I got
there, he was standing next to the trunk of the cab talking to the police. He had been locked in the trunk for two hours
before someone heard him screaming and called the Company.
Three
drivers had already been killed the first year we’d been working for Yellow,
and I was scared. I was glad to see him
standing there on Edes Street, across from the white,
wood-framed Pentecostal Church, gesticulating to the cops and the RoadMan and probably making up some ridiculous story to
explain how he got locked in the trunk.
At
first I suspected that he had fabricated the whole incident just to get a
little attention. But after the
succession of whores, pimps, drunks and general all-around assholes that I had
picked up that night, I knew that my judgment was worthless and I decided to
believe his story, whatever it was.
Also,
I had decided to call it quits for the night.
As I walked over to his cab, I realized that I had been so harassed that
night that I hadn’t thought about Florence for hours.
Naturally,
against my will, as it were, while I was standing there listening to Turnbull’s
story, I imagined her eating pussy in some dingy little New York
apartment. Maya was sitting on a stool
with her legs spread, and her middle-aged landlady was looking through the
keyhole, panties down to her ankles, a summer dress with a flower pattern,
pulled up over her thighs, finger-fucking herself furiously, and moaning.
Just
as they all started to come together, I heard Turnbull saying, “They pointed
the gun to my balls and told me to get in or they would shoot my balls into my
asshole.” He paused and cleared his
throat. “I got in.” He allowed a pregnant silence to develop and
added, “without further ado.” He cleared
his throat again, and waited for the younger cop to finish writing it
down.
When
we got to Jack London’s Last Chance Bar, Turnbull declared that he wanted to
get drunk, so we ordered two pitchers of beer instead of one.
After
about five glasses, he confessed, “they
were really only a couple of teenage punks and one of them had a knife, not a
gun.” He said he was so ashamed of
himself for being such a pussy, as he put it, that he wanted to put a bullet in
his head.
He
said he was reading Van Wyck Brooks’ book, The Ordeal
of Mark Twain, and he said that it was clear that Twain was nothing but a big
pussy also, and that he, Turnbull was no better.
Then
he vowed to get even with all the Cunts who had destroyed American
literature. In the middle of his seventh
beer, he stood up and yelled, “For all
to hear, I’M NOTHING BUT A BIG FUCKING PUSSY.
I’M DRUNK, YES. BUT IT’S
I
pulled him back into his seat but he yelled from the chair, “BUT I’M IN GOOD FUCKING GODDAMNED COMPANY I
AM. THAT’S RIGHT. MARK TWAIN WAS A MONEY GRUBBING PUSSY
He
paused and his butt slid forward slightly in his chair. His hands stretched out towards the beer mug,
as if its reason for existing was to keep him from sliding off the chair. Holding onto his mug, he stared at the
half-full pitcher, and seemed to be forming his thoughts. Finally, he finished his sentence, “and a man too...” He looked up at me, “I’m sorry Jack, I’m drunk again.”
“That
is the reason we’re here M. Findley Turnbull.
Remember?”
I
drove him home and when I dropped him off he mumbled something under his breath
about someone sharing his bed to keep him warm but I pretended that I didn’t
hear anything.
As
I drove towards 60th street, I saw her in my mind’s eye, in bed, hot and sweating,
and I couldn’t imagine them doing anything while she was in that
condition. It wasn’t much past 1 A.M.
but when I got there, the lights were out and it looked like no one was home.
Pinson
and Kidd were in bed, and I went straight into my room and fell onto the bed
without even taking off my shoes. I woke
up at about 9:30 the next morning and the first thing I thought about was her
and Maya.
But
I had a terrible hangover and my right sinus was blocked and there was a
tremendous pain over my right eye. All I
could think about was black coffee. I
drank four cups and turned on the Mets game.
From
the window, I could see Tilly’s Volkswagen parked in
front of the house. I knew that I had to
go over there. It was just a question of when.
I opened one of my library books, a thin paperback book with a glossy
red and blue cover. It was called, A
World without Jews and it was written by Karl Marx. I reread the first lines of the introduction,
It is with some reluctance that I have
agreed to write these introductory lines to Karl Marx’s embittered review of
the Jewish problem.
Jack
hadn’t found the book in the least embittered.
A little boring perhaps, but embittered?
Marx thought that all religions were ridiculous and oppressive
illusions: that was obvious, Jack thought.
He said to himself, “How could
the Jews expect to become liberated until they were liberated from their own
superstitions? Why shouldn’t Christians
persecute them? What was more eminently
reasonable than two irrational and infantile belief systems attacking each
other?” He opened the book to the middle
and read a few lines that were in heavy bold print,
Let us look at the real Jew of our
time; not the Jew of the Sabbath, whom Bauer considers, but the Jew of everyday
life. What is the Jew’s foundation in
our world? Material necessity, private
advantage.
What is the subject of the Jew’s
worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money
Very well then; emancipation from
usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the
emancipation of our time.
Jack
thought: “Now that is a little more
radical sounding. But, in Marx’s time
they probably were more money grubbing than the Gentiles. But certainly not in America. Who could be more money grubbing than
Americans? And what could be a more
congenial home to Jews than America? Why
on earth do they need Israel?”
Obviously, Jack new little about Jews.
I
picked up C.L.R. James’ book, The Future in the Present. I read a passage that I had underlined a few
days before.
According to Melville,
many a gifted writer can create dozens of interesting, sprightly, clever,
intriguing characters. But original
characters? No. A writer is very lucky if in his lifetime he
creates one.
Where
does a writer find such characters? And
here Melville is categorical. He finds
them in the world around him, in the world outside. They do not originate in his head... if
something new in personality has really come into the world, if the writer observes
closely enough and his creative power is great enough, then future generations
will be able actually to see and recognize the type in a manner the author
himself was not able to do.
Jack
thought, “I didn’t think I was a
gambling man but I really want to write a novel...Why? Like Stendhal, I will gamble with posterity.
And condemn myself to a life of poverty and obscurity, and place all of the
small joys of security and a little success beyond me, ... And I’ll probably be like Melville, staring
at a chimney while his wife grouses about the house, or like Stendhal,
scratching out the initials of the few women he’s loved, in the sand in front
of his park bench. But my number won’t
come up. Not even after I’m dead. So what?”
He
put the book down and picked up Mumford’s The Golden
Day.
“If we do not get our sleepers and
forge rails and devote long days and nights to work,” he observed ironically,
“but go tinkering with our lives to improve them, who will build the
railroads?” Thoreau was not a penurious
fanatic, who sought to practice bare living merely as a moral exercise: he
wanted to obey Emerson’s dictum to save on the low levels and spend on the high
ones. It is this that distinguishes him
from the tedious people whose whole existence is absorbed in the practice of
living on beans, or breathing deeply, or wearing clothes of a vegetable origin:
simplification did not lead in Thoreau to the cult of simplicity: it led to a
higher civilization.
But
Jack was in a sour mood and feared the loss of that little success on the low
level, and like Peter before the cock crowed, denied his destiny a third and
last time by thinking again of the 8 units he needed for his Master’s Degree
which he considered, at that time, to be a little success.
He
put the book down and eyed Herstein’s Topics in
Algebra.
Then
he looked at the cover of Somerset Maugham’s book, The Summing Up. Maugham’s stern, proper British face, staring
at him from the cover, convinced him that he wouldn’t be able to stomach the pious
platitudes inside. Jack couldn’t stand
the writings of homosexuals anyway. Oh
yes, in person they were usually charming people, but he thought that all their
books were full of bitterness and absurd maxims and they always pretended to
have impeccable taste and to be right about everything that mattered. Especially if they were English. (He hadn’t read Oscar Wilde’s De Profundus yet, or even heard of it.)
He
turned the television set off. The Mets
were winning by a lopsided score, and the game wasn’t interesting. He was in a black mood.
When
I got over there, Vida was there and two women I’d never seen before. Tilly and Mary were
there too. They were sitting in the
living room. They looked at me ominously
without saying anything, as if something terrible had happened.
I
asked, “Where’s Florence?”
“She’s
upstairs,” Mary answered. Vida stared at me with her Middle Eastern
eyes.
Jack
felt love but couldn’t admit it, and so he had no patience with her. His eyebrows knit themselves into an angry
line and he wheeled around and ran upstairs.
He
thought that he hated them all, and felt pleasure in the thought that they knew
it. He imagined that, for the briefest of moments, they felt like shooting
themselves, before they recovered their correct political attitudes, at which
time, they felt like shooting him. Jack
was full of the craziest illusions.
I
went through the open door and saw her there in bed, in the same position as I
left her, looking like a ghost. She was
pale and her skin was pasty looking. She
managed a smile. She said, “I feel
better.”
“Where’s
Maya?”
She
looked past me towards the door. She said,
“Maya, this is Jack.”
Maya
was sitting on the floor, behind me, leaning against the wall and
meditating. She stared ahead and her
face was frozen into a smile and she didn’t say anything.
I
became aware of the smell of incense, and, instinctively, I looked around until
I found the little billowing cloud of smoke.
I looked back at Maya’s face, a face that was frozen into a grotesque
smile. I looked at her for a few seconds
to see if she would acknowledge me in some way or change her expression. She didn’t.
I said, finally, “Glad to meet
you.”
She
nodded her body slightly, almost imperceptibly, but didn’t meet my eyes or
change her expression. I looked back at
Florence. She whispered, “She’s leaving tonight. There’s an important meeting in New
York. Everybody’s going.”
“What
about you?”
“I
guess I’m too sick.” She sounded disappointed
and looked at Maya whose body swayed slightly forwards and backwards as if she
were using it to nod “yes.” She didn’t
look at either of us.
“How’s
your temperature?”
“A
little lower.”
“Good. What is it?”
“I
don’t know. I...” She spoke with a
horrible croak. Her voice stopped in mid
sentence, and she looked at Maya.
Maya
said, in a hollow, otherworldly voice, almost chanting, “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
She rocked back and forth again and I
guessed by the smile and inward gaze that she was on LSD.
I
said, almost pleading, “Remember what I said about your temperature. It could be dangerous.”
She
stared past me, at Maya. Her eyes
brightened, slightly, but she looked weak, and seemed almost delirious.
I
asked, “Do you remember what I said
about the hospital?”
She
dropped her eyes. After a few seconds of
silence, she looked up at me. “I
remember.”
“Can
I see you tomorrow morning?”
She
looked into my eyes without answering.
She looked terribly sick. I
noticed the sweat in her hair again.
She
looked at Maya and a terrified looked came into her eyes. She looked back at me. She whispered, “Of course you can come over. Did I ever say you couldn’t come over?”
Her
face was tense and the cords of her neck stood out, but there was no force in
her voice. She stared at me like a wild
woman. I went over to her, knelt down
and put my arms around her. She seemed
even hotter than before. Suddenly, I
became aware of Maya, and I stood up.
I
said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I stood at the door. We looked into each other’s eyes. We were both scared. I raised my hand and waved good-bye. She did the same. I turned to go and looked down at Maya. Her expression hadn’t changed. She continued to stare straight ahead.
When
I got to the front door, none of the women came to meet me. There was an unnatural silence in the
house. I couldn’t be certain that they
were there but I hadn’t heard them leave and their cars were still parked
outside so I thought they must be there, hiding somewhere in the still darkness
of the living room.
Coming
out of the Barn, I picked up Juanita. I
saw her out of the corner of my eye, waving to me as I was driving down West
Grand. I pretended that I didn’t see her
and I drove a block or so before deciding to go back and get her. Then I stopped and backed the cab up until I
saw her again in the rear view mirror.
She looked more pathetic than usual.
And she had a black and blue mark over her right eye.
She
opened up the door and peered in. She
said, “I thought you didn’t see me.”
“I
wasn’t sure it was you.”
She
got in, and I pulled the cab over to the curb and turned off the engine.
I
asked, “What happened to your eye?”
“A
trick got mad.”
“It
wasn’t your pimp?”
“I
already told you. I ain’t
got no pimp.”
I
pressed her bruise with my finger. She
lurched back. “Hey, that hurts!”
She
was wearing a low cut, sleeveless blouse and no bra. It was made from a thin, synthetic material,
and through the pattern I could see her large, beautiful breasts. They jiggled when she pulled back, in pain,
from my probing finger.
“It
looks terrible.”
“It
ain’t so bad.
Anyways, not like the other one.”
I
thought she looked like a wounded animal.
I said, half to myself, “Man, you
need some protection.”
Her
eyes brightened and she looked at me lovingly.
She wasn’t wearing stockings, and her mini skirt was as high on her
thighs as it could be, without exposing her cunt.
I
suddenly realized that she was almost naked and that she had an extraordinarily
healthy body, and that I wanted to fuck her.
She knew it immediately. I
allowed myself to feast on the beauty of her milk white arms and her long,
aristocratic hands with their long and sensitive fingers. I wanted to ask her
again why she was a prostitute but I knew better.
I
snapped, “Why do you walk around town
almost naked? I mean it’s dangerous.”
The
little, pleased smile dropped from her face, and she seemed hurt. I thought of Florence, lying in what could be
her death bed. I put my hand on her head
and then, when she offered no resistance, I put my hands on her bare shoulders,
pulled her gently towards me and looking into her eyes, I said, “I would like to make love to you Juanita...
but I have a girlfriend. I’ve told
you...”
Her
eyes dropped, “I won’t tell no one.”
I
kissed her cheek. When I looked into her
face again, her eyes were closed. I
thought, “I love you,” and then I laughed.
“What’s
so funny?”
“Nothing.”
She
smiled and exposed her rotten teeth but I wanted to kiss her anyway. I imagined that her teeth were proof that no
one loved her, that no one cared enough to make her fix them, that she really
needed me. I stroked her hair again,
carefully avoiding her wound and said, smiling,
“I’ve got to go to work baby.”
She
turned her head away from me, looking out of the window to her right. “I know.”
I
looked down at her breasts. I said, “Will you do me a favor?”
She
remained still and didn’t say anything.
Then she turned back, slowly, and looked at me. “Sure, what is it?”
“Stay
out of the way of their fists.”
Her
eyebrows arched in surprise and her mouth dropped open. She snapped,
“Don’t you think I try?”
She
glided across the seat, towards the door, opened it and jumped out onto the
sidewalk. She stuck her head through the
window, blew me a kiss and waived good-bye.
From the rear view mirror, I saw her walking down the street, in high
spirits and swinging her purse.
Jack picked up his battered copy of Herstein’s Topics in Algebra. The cover was faded black, with a coffee cup
ring on the cover, almost dead center.
He opened it to the table of contents, turning the pages until he
reached section 6 in chapter 5, entitled The Elements of Galois Theory. One hundred and ninety five pages. The theorems were dense and the proofs even
denser.
As long as they followed this wonderful
book, he thought, he would have no problem. He had already cut through the first chapter
like a piece of cake and had solved almost all of the problems. Two quarters, Eight units. Four hours of studying per night for six months.
What else could they possibly want?
He put the book down, wheeled his cab back onto West Grand and headed
for stand 105.