Страница:
"Oh, yes, yes."
"Well, she's not a virgin."
"How do you know?"
"She told me."
"Who got her?"
"Her father."
"Hmmm . . . Well you can't blame him."
"Lilly's heard I've got a big cock."
"Yeah, it's all over school."
"Well, Lilly wants it. She claims she can handle it."
"You'll rip her to pieces."
"Yeah, I will. Anyhow, she wants it."
We put the garbage can down and stared at some girls who were sitting
on a bench. Pete walked toward the bench. I stood there. He walked up to one
of the girls and whispered something in her ear. She started giggling. Pete
walked back to the garbage can. We picked it up and walked away.
"So," said Pete, "this afternoon at 4 p.m. I'm going to rip Lilly to
pieces."
"Yeah?"
"You know that broken-down car at the back of the school that Pop
Farnsworth took the engine out of?"
"Yeah."
"Well, before they haul that son-of-a-bitch away, that's going to be my
bedroom. I'm going to take her in the back seat."
"Some guys really live."
"I'm getting a hard just thinking about it," said Pete.
"I am too and I'm not even the guy who's going to do it."
"There's one problem though," said Pete.
"You can't come?"
"No, it's not that. I need a look-out. I need somebody to tell me the
coast is clear."
"Yeah? Well, look, I can do that."
"Would you?" asked Pete.
"Sure. But we should have one more guy so we can watch in both
directions."
"All right. Who you got in mind?"
"Baldy."
"Baldy? Shit, he's not much."
"No, but he's trustworthy."
"All right. So I'll see you guys at four."
"We'll be there."
At four p.m. we met Pete and Lilly at the car.
"Hi!" said Lilly. She looked hot. Pete was smoking a cigarette. He
looked bored.
"Hello, Lilly," I said.
"Hi, Lilly baby," said Baldy.
There were some guys playing a game of touch football in the other
field but that only made it better, a kind of camouflage. Lilly was wiggling
around, breathing heavily, her breasts were moving up and down.
"Well," said Pete, throwing his cigarette away, "let's make friends,
Lilly."
He opened the back door, bowed, and Lilly climbed in. Pete got in after
her and took his shoes off, then his pants and his shorts. Lilly looked down
and saw Pete's meat hanging.
"Oh my," she said, "I don't know . . ."
"Come on, baby," said Pete, "nobody lives forever."
"Well, all right, I guess . . ."
Pete looked out the window. "Hey, are you guys watching to see if the
coast is clear?"
"Yeah, Pete," I said, "we're watching."
"We're looking," said Baldy.
Pete pulled Lilly's skirt all the way up. There was white flesh above
her knee socks and you could see her panties. Glorious. Pete grabbed Lilly
and kissed her. Then he pulled away.
"You whore!" he said.
"Talk to me nice, Pete!"
"You bitch-whore!" he said and slapped her across the face, hard. She
began sobbing. "Don't, Pete, don't . . ."
"Shut up, cunt!"
Pete began pulling at Lilly's panties. He was having a terrible time.
Her panties were tight around her big ass. Pete gave a violent tug, they
ripped and he pulled the panties down around her legs and off over her
shoes. He threw them on the floorboard. Then he began playing with her cunt.
He played with her cunt and played with her cunt and kissed her again and
again. Then he leaned back against the car seat. He only had half a hard.
Lilly looked down at him.
"What are you, a queer?"
"No, it's not that, Lilly. It's just that I don't think these guys are
watching to see if the coast is clear. They're watching us. I don't
want to get caught in here."
"The coast is clear, Pete," I said. "We're watching!"
"We're watching!" said Baldy.
"I don't believe them," said Pete. "All they're watching is your cunt,
Lilly."
"You're chicken! All that meat and it's only at half-mast!"
"I'm scared of getting caught, Lilly."
"I know what to do," she said.
Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete's cock. She lapped her
tongue around the monstrous head. Then she had it in her mouth.
"Lilly . . . Christ," said Pete, "I love you . . ."
"Lilly, Lilly, Lilly . . . oh, oh, oooh ooooh . . ."
"Henry!" Baldy screamed. "LOOK!"
I looked. It was Wagner running toward us from across the field and
also coming behind him were the guys who had been playing touch football,
plus some of the people who had been watching the football game, boys and
girls both.
"Pete!" I yelled, "It's Wagner coming with 50 people!"
"Shit!" moaned Pete.
"Oh, shit," said Lilly.
Baldy and I took off. We ran out the gate and halfway up the block. We
looked back through the fence. Pete and Lilly never had a chance. Wagner ran
up and ripped open the car door hoping for a good look. Then the car was
surrounded and we couldn't see any more . . .
After that, we never saw Pete or Lilly again. We had no idea what
happened to them. Baldy and I each got 1,000 demerits which put me in the
lead over Mangalore with 1,100. There was no way I could work them off. I
was in Mt. Justin for life. Of course, they informed our parents.
"Let's go," said my father, and I walked into the bathroom. He got the
strop down.
"Take down your pants and shorts," he said. I didn't do it. He reached
in front of me, yanked my belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down.
He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed. It was the same, the same
explosive sound, the same pain.
"You're going to kill your mother!" he screamed. He hit me again. But
the tears weren't coming. -My eyes were strangely dry. I thought about
killing him. That there must be a way to kill him. In a couple of years I
could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. He wasn't much of anything. I
must have been adopted. He hit me again. The pain was still there but the
fear of it was gone. The strop landed again. The room no longer blurred. I
could see everything clearly. My father seemed to sense the difference in me
and he began to lash me harder, again and again, but the more he beat me the
less I felt. It was almost as if he was the one who was helpless. Something
had occurred, something had changed. My father stopped, puffing, and I heard
him hanging up the strop. He walked to the door. I turned.
"Hey," I said.
My father turned and looked at me.
"Give me a couple more," I told him, "if it makes you feel any better."
"Don't you dare talk to me that way!" he said. I looked at him.
I saw folds of flesh under his chin and around his neck. I saw sad wrinkles
and crevices. His face was tired pink putty. He was in his undershirt, and
his belly sagged, wrinkling his undershirt. The eyes were no longer fierce.
His eyes looked away and couldn't meet mine. Something had happened. The
bath towels knew it, the shower curtain knew it, the mirror knew it, the
bathtub and the toilet knew it. My father turned and walked out the door. He
knew it. It was my last beating. From him.
Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the
9th, I broke out with acne. Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine
was really terrible. I was the worst case in town. I had pimples and boils
all over my face, back, neck, and some on my chest. It happened just as I
was beginning to be accepted as a tough guy and a leader. I was still tough
but it wasn't the same. I had to withdraw. I watched people from afar, it
was like a stage play. Only they were on stage and I was an audience of one.
I'd always had trouble with the girls but with acne it was impossible. The
girls were further away than ever. Some of them were truly beautiful --
their dresses, their hair, their eyes, the way they stood around. Just to
walk down the street during an afternoon with one, you know, talking about
everything and anything, I think that would have made me feel very good.
Also, there was still something about me that continually got me into
trouble. Most teachers didn't trust or like me, especially the lady
teachers. I never said anything out of the way but they claimed it was my
"attitude." It was something about the way I sat slouched in my seat and my
"voice tone." I was usually accused of
"sneering" although I wasn't conscious of it. I was often made to stand
outside in the hall during class or I was sent to the principal's office.
The principal always did the same thing. He had a phone booth in his office.
He made me stand in the phone booth with the door closed. I spent many hours
in that phone booth. The only reading material in there was the Ladies
Home Journal. It was deliberate torture. I read the Ladies Home
Journal anyhow. I got to read each new issue. I hoped that maybe I could
learn something about women.
I must have had 5,000 demerits by graduation time but it didn't seem to
matter. They wanted to get rid of me. I was standing outside in the line
that was filing into the auditorium one by one. We each had on our cheap
little cap and gown that had been passed down again and again to the next
graduating group. We could hear each person's name as they walked across the
stage. They were making one big god-damned deal out of graduating from Jr.
high. The band played our school song:
Oh, Mt. Justin,
Oh, Mt. Justin
We will be true,
Our hearts are singing wildly
All our skies are blue . . .
We stood in line, each of us waiting to march across the stage. In the
audience were our parents and friends.
"I'm about to puke," said one of the guys.
"We only go from crap to more crap," said another, The girls seemed to
be more serious about it. That's why I didn't really trust them. They seemed
to be part of the wrong things. They and the school seemed to have the same
song.
"This stuff brings me down," said one of the guys. "I wish I had a
smoke."
"Here you are . . ."
Another of the guys handed him a cigarette. We passed it around between
four or five of us. I took a hit and exhaled through my nostrils. Then I saw
Curly Wagner walking in.
"Ditch it!" I said. "Here comes vomit-head!"
Wagner walked right up to me. He was dressed in his grey gym suit,
including sweatshirt, just as he had been the first time I saw him and all
the other times afterward. He stood in front of me.
"Listen," he said, "you think you're getting away from me because
you're getting out of here, but you're not! I'm going to follow you the rest
of your life. I'm going to follow you to the ends of the earth and I'm going
to get you!"
I just glanced at him without comment and he walked off. Wagner's
little graduation speech only made me that much bigger with the guys. They
thought I must have done some big goddamned thing to rile him. But it wasn't
true. Wagner was just simple-crazy.
We got nearer and nearer to the doorway of the auditorium. Not only
could we hear each name being announced, and the applause, but we could see
the audience. Then it was my turn.
"Henry Chinaski," the principal said over the microphone. And I walked
forward. There was no applause. Then one kindly soul in the audience gave
two or three claps.
There were rows of seats set up on the stage for the graduating class.
We sat there and waited. The principal gave his speech about opportunity and
success in America. Then it was all over. The band struck up the Mt. Justin
school song. The students and their parents and friends rose and mingled
together. I walked around, looking. My parents weren't there. I made sure. I
walked around and gave it a good look-see.
It was just as well. A tough guy didn't need that. I took off my
ancient cap and gown and handed it to the guy at the end of the aisle -- the
janitor. He folded the pieces up for the next time.
I walked outside. The first one out. But where could I go? I had eleven
cents in my pocket. I walked back to where I lived.
That summer, July 1934, they gunned down John Dillinger outside the
movie house in Chicago. He never had a chance. The Lady in Red had fingered
him. More than a year earlier the banks had collapsed. Prohibition was
repealed and my father drank Eastside beer again. But the worst thing was
Dillinger getting it. A lot of people admired Dillinger and it made
everybody feel terrible. Roosevelt was President. He gave Fireside Chats
over the radio and everybody listened. He could really talk. And he began to
enact programs to put people to work. But things were still very bad. And my
boils got worse, they were unbelievably large.
That September I was scheduled to go to Woodhaven High but my father
insisted I go to Chelsey High.
"Look," I told him, "Chelsey is out of this district. It's too far
away."
"You'll do as I tell you. You'll register at Chelsey High."
I knew why he wanted me to go to Chelsey. The rich kids went there. My
father was crazy. He still thought about being rich. When Baldy found out I
was going to Chelsey he decided to go there too. I couldn't get rid of him
or my boils.
The first day we rode our bikes to Chelsey and parked them. It was a
terrible feeling. Most of those kids, at least all the older ones, had their
own automobiles, many of them new convertibles, and they weren't black or
dark blue like most cars, they were bright yellow, green, orange and red.
The guys sat in them outside of the school and the girls gathered around and
went for rides. Everybody was nicely dressed, the guys and the girls, they
had pullover sweaters, wrist watches and the latest in shoes, They seemed
very adult and poised and superior. And there I was in my homemade shirt, my
one ragged pair of pants, my rundown shoes, and I was covered with boils.
The guys with the cars didn't worry about acne. They were very handsome,
they were tall and clean with bright teeth and they didn't wash their hair
with hand soap. They seemed to know something I didn't know. I was at the
bottom again.
Since all the guys had cars Baldy and I were ashamed of our bicycles.
We left them home and walked to school and back, two-and-one-half miles each
way. We carried brown bag lunches. But most of the other students didn't
even eat in the school cafeteria. They drove to malt shops with the girls,
played the juke boxes and laughed. They were on their way to U.S.C.
I was ashamed of my boils. At Chelsey you had a choice between gym and
R.O.T.C. I took R.O.T.C. because then I didn't have to wear a gym suit and
nobody could see the boils on my body. But I hated the uniform. The shirt
was made of wool and it irritated my boils. The uniform was worn from Monday
to Thursday. On Friday we were allowed to wear regular clothes.
We studied the Manual of Arms. It was about warfare and shit like that.
We had to pass exams. We marched around the field. We practiced the Manual
of Arms. Handling the rifle during various drills was bad for me. I had
boils on my shoulders. Sometimes when I slammed the rifle against my
shoulder a boil would break and leak through my shirt. The blood would come
through but because the shirt was thick and made of wool the spot wasn't
obvious and didn't look like blood.
I told my mother what was happening. She lined the shoulders of my
shirts with white patches of cloth, but it only helped a little.
Once an officer came through on inspection. He grabbed the rifle out of
my hands and held it up, peering through the barrel, for dust in the bore.
He slammed the rifle back at me, then looked at a blood spot on my right
shoulder.
"Chinaski!" he snapped, "your rifle is leaking oil!"
"Yes, sir."
I got through the term but the boils got worse and worse. They were as
large as walnuts and covered my face. I was very ashamed. Sometimes at home
I would stand before the bathroom mirror and break one of the boils. Yellow
pus would spurt and splatter on the mirror. And little white hard pits. In a
horrible way it was fascinating that all that stuff was in there. But I knew
how hard it was for other people to look at me.
The school must have advised my father. At the end of that term I was
withdrawn from school. I went to bed and my parents covered me with
ointments. There was a brown salve that stank. My father preferred that one
for me. It burned. He insisted that I keep it on longer, much longer than
the instructions advised. One night he insisted that I leave it on for
hours. I began screaming. I ran to the tub, filled it with water and washed
the salve off, with difficulty. I was burned, on my face, my back and chest.
That night I sat on the edge of the bed. I couldn't lay down. My father came
into the room.
"I thought I told you to leave that stuff on!"
"Look what happened," I told him. My mother came into the room.
"The son-of-a-bitch doesn't want to get well," my father told
her. "Why did I have to have a son like this?"
My mother lost her job. My father kept leaving in his car every morning
as if he were going to work. "I'm an engineer," he told people. He had
always wanted to be an engineer.
It was arranged for me to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. I was
given a long white card. I took the white card and got on the #7 streetcar.
The fare was seven cents for four tokens for a quarter). I dropped in my
token and walked to the back of the streetcar. I had an 8:30 a.m.
appointment.
A few blocks later a young boy and a woman got on the streetcar. The
woman was fat and the boy was about four years old. They sat in the seat
behind me. I looked out the window. We rolled along. I liked that #7
streetcar. It went really fast and rocked back and forth as the sun shone
outside.
"Mommy," I heard the young boy say, "What's wrong with that
man's face?"
The woman didn't answer. The hoy asked her the same question again. She
didn't answer.
Then the boy screamed it out, "Mommy! What's wrong with that man's
face?"
"Shut up! I don't know what's wrong with his face!"
I went to Admissions at the hospital and they instructed me to report
to the fourth floor. There the nurse at the desk took my name and told me to
be seated. We sat in two long rows of green metal chairs facing one another.
Mexicans, whites and blacks. There were no Orientals. There was nothing to
read. Some of the patients had day-old newspapers. The people were of all
ages, thin and fat, short and tall, old and young. Nobody talked. Everybody
seemed very tired. Orderlies walked back and forth, sometimes you saw a
nurse, but never a doctor. An hour went by, two hours. Nobody's name was
called. I got up to look for a water fountain. I looked in the little rooms
where people were to be examined. There wasn't anybody in any of the rooms,
neither doctors or patients.
I went to the desk. The nurse was staring down into a big fat book with
names written in it. The phone rang. She answered it.
"Dr. Menen isn't here yet." She hung up.
"Pardon me," I said.
"Yes?" the nurse asked.
"The doctors aren't here yet. Can I come back later?"
"No."
"But there's nobody here."
"The doctors are on call."
"But I have an 8:30 appointment."
"Everybody here has an 8:30 appointment."
There were 45 or 50 people waiting.
"Since I'm on the waiting list, suppose I come back in a couple of
hours, maybe there will be some doctors here then."
"If you leave now, you will automatically lose your appointment. You
will have to return tomorrow if you still wish treatment."
I walked back and sat in a chair. The others didn't protest.
There was very little movement. Sometimes two or three nurses would
walk by laughing. Once they pushed a man past in a wheelchair. Both of his
legs were heavily bandaged and his ear on the side of his head toward me had
been sliced off. There was a black hole divided into little sections, and it
looked like a spider had gone in there and made a spider web. Hours passed.
Noon came and went. Another hour. Two hours. We sat and waited. Then
somebody said, "There's a doctor!"
The doctor walked into one of the examination rooms and closed the
door. We all watched. Nothing. A nurse went in. We heard her laughing. Then
she walked out. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The doctor walked out with a
clipboard in his hand.
"Martinez?" the doctor asked. "Jose Martinez?"
An old thin Mexican man stood up and began walking toward the doctor.
"Martinez? Martinez, old boy, how are you?"
"Sick, doctor . . . I think I die . . ."
"Well, now . . . Step in here . . ."
Martinez was in there a long time. I picked up a discarded newspaper
and tried to read it. But we were all thinking about Martinez. If Martinez
ever got out of there, someone would be next.
Then Martinez screamed. "AHHHHH! AHHHHH! STOP! STOP! AHHHH! MERCY! GOD!
PLEASE, STOP!"
"Now, now, that doesn't hurt . . ." said the doctor. Martinez screamed
again. A nurse ran into the examination room. There was silence. All we
could see was the black shadow of the half-open doorway. Then an orderly ran
into the examination room. Martinez made a gurgling sound. He was taken out
of there on a rolling stretcher. The nurse and the orderly pushed him down
the hall and through some swinging doors. Martinez was under a sheet but he
wasn't dead because the sheet wasn't pulled over his face.
The doctor stayed in the examination room for another ten minutes. Then
he came out with the clipboard.
"Jefferson Williams?" he asked. There was no answer.
"Is Jefferson Williams here?"
There was no response.
"Mary Blackthorne?"
There was no answer.
"Harry Lewis?"
"Yes, doctor?"
"Step forward, please . . ."
It was very slow. The doctor saw five more patients. Then he left the
examination room, stopped at the desk, lit a cigarette and talked to the
nurse for fifteen minutes. He looked like a very intelligent man. He had a
twitch on the right side of his face, which kept jumping, and he had red
hair with streaks of grey. He wore glasses and kept taking them off and
putting them back on. Another nurse came in and gave him a cup of coffee. He
took a sip, then holding the coffee in one hand he pushed the swinging doors
open with the other and was gone.
The office nurse came out from behind the desk with our long white
cards and she called our names. As we answered, she handed each of us our
card back. "This ward is closed for the day. Please return tomorrow if you
wish. Your appointment time is stamped on your card."
I looked down at my card. It was stamped 8:30 a.m.
I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different
doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me
over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.
"Hmmm, hmmmm," he said, "uh huh . . ."
I sat there.
"How long have you had this?"
"A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse."
"Ah hah."
He kept looking.
"Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I'll be right back."
Some moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room.
They were all doctors. At least they looked and talked like doctors. Where
had they come from? I had thought there were hardly any doctors at L.A.
County General Hospital.
"Acne vulgaris. The worst case I've seen in all my years of practice!"
"Fantastic!"
"Incredible!"
"Look at the face!"
"The neck!"
"I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back
was covered. She cried. She told me, 'How will I ever get a man? My back
will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!' And now look at this
fellow! If she could see him, she'd know that she really had nothing to
complain about!"
You dumb fuck, I thought, don't you realize that I can hear
what you're saying? How did a man get to be a doctor? Did they take
anybody?
"Is he asleep?"
"Why?"
"He seems very calm."
"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?"
"Yes."
They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of
my body.
"Turn over."
I turned over.
"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!"
"Well, how will we treat it?"
"The electric needle, I think . . .
"Yes, of course, the electric needle."
"Yes, the needle."
It was decided.
The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be
called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It
was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it was growing upon
itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had
irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the
nose and then tried not to look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I
knew how he felt. But the man seemed very comfortable. He was fat and sat
there almost asleep.
They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?"
He moved forward a bit in his chair.
"Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"
"Uh? Yes, I'm here . . ."
He stood up and moved toward the doctor.
"How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"
"Fine . . . I'm all right . . ."
He followed the doctor into the examination room.
I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some
swinging doors and into another room. It was larger than the examination
room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The doctor looked at me.
"You really have a case there, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
He poked at a boil on my back.
"That hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage."
I heard him turn on the machinery. It made a whirring sound. I could
smell oil getting hot.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The
pain was immense. It filled the room. I felt the blood run down my back.
Then he pulled the needle out.
"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the
needle into me. Then he pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two
other men had walked in and were standing there watching. They were probably
doctors. The needle went into me again.
"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the
men.
"He gives no sign at all," said the other man.
"Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's ass?" I asked them.
"Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"
The needle dug into me. I didn't answer.
"The boy is evidently very bitter . . ."
"Yes, of course, that's it."
The men walked out.
"Those are fine professional men," said my doctor. "It's not good of
you to abuse them."
"Just go ahead and drill," I told him.
He did. The needle got very hot but he went on and on. He drilled my
entire back, then he got my chest. Then I stretched out and he drilled my
neck and my face.
A nurse came in and she got her instructions. "Now, Miss Ackerman, I
want these . . . pustules . . . thoroughly drained. And when you get to the
blood, keep squeezing. I want thorough drainage."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy."
"And afterwards, the ultra-violet ray machine. Two minutes on each side
to begin with . . ."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy."
I followed Miss Ackerman into another room. She told me to lay down on
the table. She got a tissue and started on the first boil.
"Does this hurt?"
"It's all right."
"You poor boy . . ."
"Don't worry. I'm just sorry you have to do this."
"You poor boy . . ."
Miss Ackerman was the first person to give me any sympathy. It felt
strange. She was a chubby little nurse in her early thirties.
"Are you going to school?" she asked.
"No, they had to take me out."
Miss Ackerman kept squeezing as she talked.
"What do you do all day?"
"I just stay in bed."
"That's awful."
"No, it's nice. I like it."
"Does this hurt?"
"Go ahead. It's all right."
"What's so nice about laying in bed all day?"
"I don't have to see anybody."
"You like that?"
"Oh, yes."
"What do you do all day?"
"Some of the day I listen to the radio."
"What do you listen to?"
"Music. And people talking."
"Do you think of girls?"
"Sure. But that's out."
"You don't want to think that way."
"I make charts of airplanes going overhead. They come over at the same
time each day. I have them timed. Say that I know that one of them is going
to pass over at 11:15 a.m. Around 11:10, I start listening for the sound of
the motor. I try to hear the first sound. Sometimes I imagine I hear it and
sometimes I'm not sure and then I begin to hear it, 'way off, for sure. And
the sound gets stronger. Then at 11:15 a.m. it passes overhead and the sound
is as loud as it's going to get."
"You do that every day?"
"Not when I'm here."
"Turn over," said Miss Ackerman.
I did. Then in the ward next to us a man started screaming. We were
next to the disturbed ward. He was really loud.
"What are they doing to him?" I asked Miss Ackerman.
"He's in the shower."
"And it makes him scream like that?"
"Yes."
"I'm worse off than he is."
"No, you're not."
I liked Miss Ackerman. I sneaked a look at her. Her face was round, she
wasn't very pretty but she wore her nurse's cap in a perky manner and she
had large dark brown eyes. It was the eyes. As she balled up some tissue to
throw into the dispenser I watched her walk. Well, she was no Miss Gredis,
and I had seen many other women with better figures, but there was something
warm about her. She wasn't constantly thinking about being a woman.
"As soon as I finish your face," she said, "I will put you under the
ultra-violet ray machine. Your next appointment will be the day after
tomorrow at 8:30 a.m."
We didn't talk any more after that.
Then she was finished. I put on goggles and Miss Ackerman turned on the
ultra-violet ray machine.
There was a ticking sound. It was peaceful. It might have been the
automatic timer, or the metal reflector on the lamp heating up. It was
comforting and relaxing, but when I began to think about it, I decided that
everything that they were doing for me was useless. I figured that at best
the needle would leave scars on me for the remainder of my life. That was
bad enough but it wasn't what I really minded. What I minded was that they
didn't know how to deal with me. I sensed this in their discussions and in
their manner. They were hesitant, uneasy, yet also somehow disinterested and
bored. Finally it didn't matter what they did. They just had to do something
-- anything -- because to do nothing would be unprofessional.
They experimented on the poor and if that worked they used the
treatment on the rich. And if it didn't work, there would still be more poor
left over to experiment upon.
The machine signaled its warning that two minutes were up. Miss
Ackerman came in, told me to turn over, re-set the machine, then left. She
was the kindest person I had met in eight years.
The drilling and squeezing continued for weeks but there was little
result. When one boil vanished another would appear. I often stood in front
of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get. I would look at
my face in disbelief, then turn to examine all the boils on my back. I was
horrified. No wonder people stared, no wonder they said unkind things. It
was not simply a case of teen-age acne. These were inflamed, relentless,
large, swollen boils filled with pus. I felt singled out, as if I had
been selected to be this way. My parents never spoke to me about my
condition. They were still on relief. My mother left each morning to look
for work and my. father drove off as if he were working. On Saturdays people
on relief got free foodstuffs from the markets, mostly canned goods, almost
always cans of hash for some reason. We ate a great deal of hash. And
bologna sandwiches. And potatoes. My mother learned to make potato pancakes.
Each Saturday when my parents went for their free food they didn't go to the
nearest market because they were afraid some of the neighbors might see them
and then know that they were on the dole. So they walked two miles down
Washington Boulevard, to a store a couple of blocks past Crenshaw. It was a
long walk. They walked the two miles back, sweating, carrying their shopping
bags full of canned hash and potatoes and bologna and carrots. My father
didn't drive because he wanted to save gas. He needed the gas to drive to
and from his invisible job. The other fathers weren't like that. They just
sat quietly on their front porches or played horseshoes in the vacant lot.
The doctor gave me a white substance to apply to my face. It hardened
and caked on the boils, giving me a plaster-like look. The substance didn't
seem to help. I was home alone one afternoon, applying this substance to my
face and body. I was standing in my shorts trying to reach the infected
areas of my back with my hand when I heard voices. It was Baldy and his
friend Jimmy Hatcher. Jimmy Hatcher was a good looking fellow and he was a
wise-ass.
"Henry!" I heard Baldy calling. I heard him talking to Jimmy, Then he
walked up on the porch and beat on the door. "Hey, Hank, it's Baldy! Open
up!"
You damn fool, I thought, don't you understand that I don't want to see
anybody?
"Hank! Hank! It's Baldy and Jim!"
He beat on the front door.
I heard him talking to Jim. "Listen, I saw him! I saw him walking
around in there!"
"He doesn't answer."
"We better go in. He might be in trouble."
You fool, I thought, I befriended you. I befriended you when nobody
else could stand you. Now, look at this!
I couldn't believe it. I ran into the hall and hid in a closet, leaving
the door slightly open. I was sure they wouldn't come into the house. But
they did. I had left the back door open. I heard them walking around in the
house.
"He's got to be here," said Baldy. "I saw something moving in here..."
Jesus Christ, I thought, can't I move around in here? I live in this
house.
I was crouched in the dark closet. I knew I couldn't let them find me
in there.
I swung the closet door open and leaped out. I saw them both standing
in the front room. I ran in there.
"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES!"
They looked at me.
"GET OUT OF HERE! YOU'VE GOT NO RIGHT TO BE IN HERE! GET OUT OF HERE
BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
They started running toward the back porch.
"GO ON! GO ON, OR I'LL KILL YOU!"
I heard them run up the driveway and out onto the sidewalk. I didn't
want to watch them. I went into my bedroom and stretched out on the bed. Why
did they want to see me? What could they do? There was nothing to be done.
There was nothing to talk about.
A couple of days later my mother didn't leave to go job hunting, and it
wasn't my day to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. So we were in the
house together. I didn't like it. I liked the place to myself. I heard her
moving about the house and I stayed in my bedroom. The boils were worse than
ever. I checked my airplane chart. The 1:20 p.m. flight was due. I began
listening. He was late. It was 1:20 and he was still approaching. As he
passed over I timed him as being three minutes late. Then I heard the
doorbell ring. I heard my mother open the door.
"Emily, how are you?"
"Hello, Katy, how are you?"
It was my grandmother, now very old. I heard them talking but I
couldn't make out what they were saying. I was thankful for that. They
talked for five or ten minutes and then I heard them walking down the hall
to my bedroom.
"I will bury all of you," I heard my grandmother say. "Where is the
boy?"
The door opened and my grandmother and mother stood there.
"Hello, Henry," my grandmother said.
"Your grandmother is here to help you," my mother said. My grandmother
had a large purse. She set it down on the dresser and pulled a huge silver
crucifix out of it.
"Your grandmother is here to help you, Henry . . ."
Grandmother had more warts on her than ever before and she was fatter.
She looked invincible, she looked as if she would never die. She had gotten
so old that it was almost senseless for her to die.
"Henry," said my mother, "turn over on your stomach."
I turned over and my grandmother leaned over me. From the corner of my
eye I saw her dangling the huge crucifix over me. I had decided against
religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of
people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the
more foolish.
But it was my grandmother and my mother. I decided to let them have
their way. The crucifix swung back and forth above my back, over my boils,
over me.
"God," prayed my grandmother, "purge the devil from this poor boy's
body! Just look at all those sores! They make me sick, God! Look at
them! It's the devil, God, dwelling in this boy's body. Purge the devil from
his body, Lord!"
"Purge the devil from his body, Lord!" said my mother. What I need is a
good doctor, I thought. What is wrong with these women? Why don't they leave
me alone?
"God," said my grandmother, "why do you allow the devil to dwell inside
this body's body? Don't you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at
these sores, 0 Lord, I am about to vomit just looking at them! They are red
and big and full!"
"Purge the devil from my boy's body!" screamed my mother.
"May God save us from this evil!" screamed my grandmother. She took the
crucifix and poked it into the center of my back, dug it in. The blood
spurted out, I could feel it, at first warm, then suddenly cold. I turned
over and sat up in the bed.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"I am making a hole for the devil to be pushed out by God!" said my
grandmother.
"All right," I said, "I want you both to get out of here, and fast! Do
you understand me?"
"He is still possessed!" said my grandmother.
"GET THE FUCKING HELL OUT OF HERE!" I screamed.
They left, shocked and disappointed, closing the door behind them.
I went into the bathroom, wadded up some toilet paper and tried to stop
the bleeding. I pulled the toilet paper away and looked at it. It was
soaked. I got a new batch of toilet paper and held it to my back awhile.
Then I got the iodine. I made passes at my back, trying to reach the wound
with the iodine. It was difficult. I finally gave up. Who ever heard of an
infected back, anyhow? You either lived or died. The back was something the
assholes had never figured out how to amputate.
I walked back into the bedroom and got into bed and pulled the covers
to my throat. I looked up at the ceiling as I talked to myself.
All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this
fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not
there? You've given me a supreme test with my parents and with these boils.
I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You will
come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face.
And do You shit? The priest never answered that question. He told us not to
doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have been picking on me too much sol am
asking You to come down here so I can put You to the test!
I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. I believe I
slept.
I never slept on my back. But when I awakened I was on my back and it
surprised me. My legs were bent at the knees in front of me, making a
mountain-like effect with the blankets. And as I looked at the blanket-
mountain before me I saw two eyes staring at me. Only the eyes were dark,
black, blank . . . looking at me from underneath a hood, a black hood with a
sharp tall peak, like a ku-klux-klansman. They kept staring at me, dark
blank eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was truly
terrified. I thought, it's God but God isn't supposed to look like that.
I couldn't stare it down. I couldn't move. It just stayed there looking
at me over the mound of my knees and the blanket. I wanted to get away. I
wanted it to leave. It was powerful and black and threatening.
It seemed to remain there for hours, just staring at me. Then it was
gone . . . I stayed in bed thinking about it.
I couldn't believe that it had been God. Dressed like that. That would
be a cheap trick. It had been an illusion, of course.
I thought about it for ten or fifteen minutes, then I got up and went
to get the little brown box my grandmother had given me many years ago.
Inside of it were tiny rolls of paper with quotations from the Bible. Each
tiny roll was held in a cubicle of its own. One was supposed to ask a
question and the little roll of paper one pulled out was supposed to answer
that question. I had tried it before and found it useless. Now I tried it
again. I asked the brown box, "What did that mean? What did those eyes
mean?"
I pulled out a paper and unrolled it. It was a tiny stiff white piece
of paper. I unrolled and read it. GOD HAS FORSAKEN YOU.
I rolled the paper up and stuck it back into its cubicle in the brown
box. I didn't believe it. I went back to bed and thought about it. It was
too simple, too direct. I didn't believe it. I considered masturbating to
bring me back to reality. I still didn't believe it. I got back up and
started unrolling all the little papers inside the brown box. I was looking
for the one that said, GOD HAS FORSAKEN YOU. I unrolled them all. None of
them said that. I read them all and none of them said that. I rolled them up
and put them carefully back into their cubicles in the little brown box.
Meanwhile, the boils got worse. I kept getting onto streetcar #7 and
going to L. A. County General Hospital and I began to fall in love with Miss
Ackerman, my nurse of the squeezings. She would never know how each stab of
pain caused courage to well up in me. Despite the horror of the blood and
the pus, she was always humane and kind. My love-feeling for her wasn't
sexual. I just wished that she would enfold me in her starched whiteness and
that together we could vanish forever from the world. But she never did
that. She was too practical. She would only remind me of my next
appointment.
The ultra-violet ray machine clicked off. I had been treated on both
sides. I took off the goggles and began to dress. Miss Ackerman walked in.
"Not yet," she said, "keep your clothes off."
What is she going to do to me, I thought?
"Sit up on the edge of the table."
I sat there and she began rubbing salve over my face. It was a thick
buttery substance.
"The doctors have decided on a new approach. We're going to bandage
your face to effect drainage."
"Miss Ackerman, what ever happened to that man with the big nose? The
nose that kept growing?"
"Mr. Sleeth?"
"The man with the big nose."
"That was Mr. Sleeth."
"I don't see him anymore. Did he get cured?"
"He's dead."
"You mean he died from that big nose?"
"Suicide." Miss Ackerman continued to apply the salve. Then I heard a
man scream from the next ward, "Joe, where are you? Joe, you said you'd
come back! Joe, where are you?"
The voice was loud and so sad, so agonized.
"He's done that every afternoon this week," said Miss Ackerman, "and
Joe's not going to come get him."
"Can't they help him?"
"I don't know. They all quiet down, finally. Now take your finger and
hold this pad while I bandage you. There. Yes. That's it. Now let go. Fine."
"Joe! Joe, you said you'd come back! Where are you, Joe?"
"Now, hold your finger on this pad. There. Hold it there. I'm going to
wrap you up good! There. Now I'll secure the dressings."
Then she was finished.
"O.K., put on your clothes. See you the day after tomorrow. Goodbye,
Henry."
"Goodbye, Miss Ackerman."
I got dressed, left the room and walked down the hall. There was a
mirror on a cigarette machine in the lobby. I looked into the mirror. It was
great. My whole head was bandaged. I was all white. Nothing could be seen
but my eyes, my mouth and my ears, and some tufts of hair sticking up at the
top of my head. I was hidden. It was wonderful. I stood and lit a
"Well, she's not a virgin."
"How do you know?"
"She told me."
"Who got her?"
"Her father."
"Hmmm . . . Well you can't blame him."
"Lilly's heard I've got a big cock."
"Yeah, it's all over school."
"Well, Lilly wants it. She claims she can handle it."
"You'll rip her to pieces."
"Yeah, I will. Anyhow, she wants it."
We put the garbage can down and stared at some girls who were sitting
on a bench. Pete walked toward the bench. I stood there. He walked up to one
of the girls and whispered something in her ear. She started giggling. Pete
walked back to the garbage can. We picked it up and walked away.
"So," said Pete, "this afternoon at 4 p.m. I'm going to rip Lilly to
pieces."
"Yeah?"
"You know that broken-down car at the back of the school that Pop
Farnsworth took the engine out of?"
"Yeah."
"Well, before they haul that son-of-a-bitch away, that's going to be my
bedroom. I'm going to take her in the back seat."
"Some guys really live."
"I'm getting a hard just thinking about it," said Pete.
"I am too and I'm not even the guy who's going to do it."
"There's one problem though," said Pete.
"You can't come?"
"No, it's not that. I need a look-out. I need somebody to tell me the
coast is clear."
"Yeah? Well, look, I can do that."
"Would you?" asked Pete.
"Sure. But we should have one more guy so we can watch in both
directions."
"All right. Who you got in mind?"
"Baldy."
"Baldy? Shit, he's not much."
"No, but he's trustworthy."
"All right. So I'll see you guys at four."
"We'll be there."
At four p.m. we met Pete and Lilly at the car.
"Hi!" said Lilly. She looked hot. Pete was smoking a cigarette. He
looked bored.
"Hello, Lilly," I said.
"Hi, Lilly baby," said Baldy.
There were some guys playing a game of touch football in the other
field but that only made it better, a kind of camouflage. Lilly was wiggling
around, breathing heavily, her breasts were moving up and down.
"Well," said Pete, throwing his cigarette away, "let's make friends,
Lilly."
He opened the back door, bowed, and Lilly climbed in. Pete got in after
her and took his shoes off, then his pants and his shorts. Lilly looked down
and saw Pete's meat hanging.
"Oh my," she said, "I don't know . . ."
"Come on, baby," said Pete, "nobody lives forever."
"Well, all right, I guess . . ."
Pete looked out the window. "Hey, are you guys watching to see if the
coast is clear?"
"Yeah, Pete," I said, "we're watching."
"We're looking," said Baldy.
Pete pulled Lilly's skirt all the way up. There was white flesh above
her knee socks and you could see her panties. Glorious. Pete grabbed Lilly
and kissed her. Then he pulled away.
"You whore!" he said.
"Talk to me nice, Pete!"
"You bitch-whore!" he said and slapped her across the face, hard. She
began sobbing. "Don't, Pete, don't . . ."
"Shut up, cunt!"
Pete began pulling at Lilly's panties. He was having a terrible time.
Her panties were tight around her big ass. Pete gave a violent tug, they
ripped and he pulled the panties down around her legs and off over her
shoes. He threw them on the floorboard. Then he began playing with her cunt.
He played with her cunt and played with her cunt and kissed her again and
again. Then he leaned back against the car seat. He only had half a hard.
Lilly looked down at him.
"What are you, a queer?"
"No, it's not that, Lilly. It's just that I don't think these guys are
watching to see if the coast is clear. They're watching us. I don't
want to get caught in here."
"The coast is clear, Pete," I said. "We're watching!"
"We're watching!" said Baldy.
"I don't believe them," said Pete. "All they're watching is your cunt,
Lilly."
"You're chicken! All that meat and it's only at half-mast!"
"I'm scared of getting caught, Lilly."
"I know what to do," she said.
Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete's cock. She lapped her
tongue around the monstrous head. Then she had it in her mouth.
"Lilly . . . Christ," said Pete, "I love you . . ."
"Lilly, Lilly, Lilly . . . oh, oh, oooh ooooh . . ."
"Henry!" Baldy screamed. "LOOK!"
I looked. It was Wagner running toward us from across the field and
also coming behind him were the guys who had been playing touch football,
plus some of the people who had been watching the football game, boys and
girls both.
"Pete!" I yelled, "It's Wagner coming with 50 people!"
"Shit!" moaned Pete.
"Oh, shit," said Lilly.
Baldy and I took off. We ran out the gate and halfway up the block. We
looked back through the fence. Pete and Lilly never had a chance. Wagner ran
up and ripped open the car door hoping for a good look. Then the car was
surrounded and we couldn't see any more . . .
After that, we never saw Pete or Lilly again. We had no idea what
happened to them. Baldy and I each got 1,000 demerits which put me in the
lead over Mangalore with 1,100. There was no way I could work them off. I
was in Mt. Justin for life. Of course, they informed our parents.
"Let's go," said my father, and I walked into the bathroom. He got the
strop down.
"Take down your pants and shorts," he said. I didn't do it. He reached
in front of me, yanked my belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down.
He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed. It was the same, the same
explosive sound, the same pain.
"You're going to kill your mother!" he screamed. He hit me again. But
the tears weren't coming. -My eyes were strangely dry. I thought about
killing him. That there must be a way to kill him. In a couple of years I
could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. He wasn't much of anything. I
must have been adopted. He hit me again. The pain was still there but the
fear of it was gone. The strop landed again. The room no longer blurred. I
could see everything clearly. My father seemed to sense the difference in me
and he began to lash me harder, again and again, but the more he beat me the
less I felt. It was almost as if he was the one who was helpless. Something
had occurred, something had changed. My father stopped, puffing, and I heard
him hanging up the strop. He walked to the door. I turned.
"Hey," I said.
My father turned and looked at me.
"Give me a couple more," I told him, "if it makes you feel any better."
"Don't you dare talk to me that way!" he said. I looked at him.
I saw folds of flesh under his chin and around his neck. I saw sad wrinkles
and crevices. His face was tired pink putty. He was in his undershirt, and
his belly sagged, wrinkling his undershirt. The eyes were no longer fierce.
His eyes looked away and couldn't meet mine. Something had happened. The
bath towels knew it, the shower curtain knew it, the mirror knew it, the
bathtub and the toilet knew it. My father turned and walked out the door. He
knew it. It was my last beating. From him.
Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the
9th, I broke out with acne. Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine
was really terrible. I was the worst case in town. I had pimples and boils
all over my face, back, neck, and some on my chest. It happened just as I
was beginning to be accepted as a tough guy and a leader. I was still tough
but it wasn't the same. I had to withdraw. I watched people from afar, it
was like a stage play. Only they were on stage and I was an audience of one.
I'd always had trouble with the girls but with acne it was impossible. The
girls were further away than ever. Some of them were truly beautiful --
their dresses, their hair, their eyes, the way they stood around. Just to
walk down the street during an afternoon with one, you know, talking about
everything and anything, I think that would have made me feel very good.
Also, there was still something about me that continually got me into
trouble. Most teachers didn't trust or like me, especially the lady
teachers. I never said anything out of the way but they claimed it was my
"attitude." It was something about the way I sat slouched in my seat and my
"voice tone." I was usually accused of
"sneering" although I wasn't conscious of it. I was often made to stand
outside in the hall during class or I was sent to the principal's office.
The principal always did the same thing. He had a phone booth in his office.
He made me stand in the phone booth with the door closed. I spent many hours
in that phone booth. The only reading material in there was the Ladies
Home Journal. It was deliberate torture. I read the Ladies Home
Journal anyhow. I got to read each new issue. I hoped that maybe I could
learn something about women.
I must have had 5,000 demerits by graduation time but it didn't seem to
matter. They wanted to get rid of me. I was standing outside in the line
that was filing into the auditorium one by one. We each had on our cheap
little cap and gown that had been passed down again and again to the next
graduating group. We could hear each person's name as they walked across the
stage. They were making one big god-damned deal out of graduating from Jr.
high. The band played our school song:
Oh, Mt. Justin,
Oh, Mt. Justin
We will be true,
Our hearts are singing wildly
All our skies are blue . . .
We stood in line, each of us waiting to march across the stage. In the
audience were our parents and friends.
"I'm about to puke," said one of the guys.
"We only go from crap to more crap," said another, The girls seemed to
be more serious about it. That's why I didn't really trust them. They seemed
to be part of the wrong things. They and the school seemed to have the same
song.
"This stuff brings me down," said one of the guys. "I wish I had a
smoke."
"Here you are . . ."
Another of the guys handed him a cigarette. We passed it around between
four or five of us. I took a hit and exhaled through my nostrils. Then I saw
Curly Wagner walking in.
"Ditch it!" I said. "Here comes vomit-head!"
Wagner walked right up to me. He was dressed in his grey gym suit,
including sweatshirt, just as he had been the first time I saw him and all
the other times afterward. He stood in front of me.
"Listen," he said, "you think you're getting away from me because
you're getting out of here, but you're not! I'm going to follow you the rest
of your life. I'm going to follow you to the ends of the earth and I'm going
to get you!"
I just glanced at him without comment and he walked off. Wagner's
little graduation speech only made me that much bigger with the guys. They
thought I must have done some big goddamned thing to rile him. But it wasn't
true. Wagner was just simple-crazy.
We got nearer and nearer to the doorway of the auditorium. Not only
could we hear each name being announced, and the applause, but we could see
the audience. Then it was my turn.
"Henry Chinaski," the principal said over the microphone. And I walked
forward. There was no applause. Then one kindly soul in the audience gave
two or three claps.
There were rows of seats set up on the stage for the graduating class.
We sat there and waited. The principal gave his speech about opportunity and
success in America. Then it was all over. The band struck up the Mt. Justin
school song. The students and their parents and friends rose and mingled
together. I walked around, looking. My parents weren't there. I made sure. I
walked around and gave it a good look-see.
It was just as well. A tough guy didn't need that. I took off my
ancient cap and gown and handed it to the guy at the end of the aisle -- the
janitor. He folded the pieces up for the next time.
I walked outside. The first one out. But where could I go? I had eleven
cents in my pocket. I walked back to where I lived.
That summer, July 1934, they gunned down John Dillinger outside the
movie house in Chicago. He never had a chance. The Lady in Red had fingered
him. More than a year earlier the banks had collapsed. Prohibition was
repealed and my father drank Eastside beer again. But the worst thing was
Dillinger getting it. A lot of people admired Dillinger and it made
everybody feel terrible. Roosevelt was President. He gave Fireside Chats
over the radio and everybody listened. He could really talk. And he began to
enact programs to put people to work. But things were still very bad. And my
boils got worse, they were unbelievably large.
That September I was scheduled to go to Woodhaven High but my father
insisted I go to Chelsey High.
"Look," I told him, "Chelsey is out of this district. It's too far
away."
"You'll do as I tell you. You'll register at Chelsey High."
I knew why he wanted me to go to Chelsey. The rich kids went there. My
father was crazy. He still thought about being rich. When Baldy found out I
was going to Chelsey he decided to go there too. I couldn't get rid of him
or my boils.
The first day we rode our bikes to Chelsey and parked them. It was a
terrible feeling. Most of those kids, at least all the older ones, had their
own automobiles, many of them new convertibles, and they weren't black or
dark blue like most cars, they were bright yellow, green, orange and red.
The guys sat in them outside of the school and the girls gathered around and
went for rides. Everybody was nicely dressed, the guys and the girls, they
had pullover sweaters, wrist watches and the latest in shoes, They seemed
very adult and poised and superior. And there I was in my homemade shirt, my
one ragged pair of pants, my rundown shoes, and I was covered with boils.
The guys with the cars didn't worry about acne. They were very handsome,
they were tall and clean with bright teeth and they didn't wash their hair
with hand soap. They seemed to know something I didn't know. I was at the
bottom again.
Since all the guys had cars Baldy and I were ashamed of our bicycles.
We left them home and walked to school and back, two-and-one-half miles each
way. We carried brown bag lunches. But most of the other students didn't
even eat in the school cafeteria. They drove to malt shops with the girls,
played the juke boxes and laughed. They were on their way to U.S.C.
I was ashamed of my boils. At Chelsey you had a choice between gym and
R.O.T.C. I took R.O.T.C. because then I didn't have to wear a gym suit and
nobody could see the boils on my body. But I hated the uniform. The shirt
was made of wool and it irritated my boils. The uniform was worn from Monday
to Thursday. On Friday we were allowed to wear regular clothes.
We studied the Manual of Arms. It was about warfare and shit like that.
We had to pass exams. We marched around the field. We practiced the Manual
of Arms. Handling the rifle during various drills was bad for me. I had
boils on my shoulders. Sometimes when I slammed the rifle against my
shoulder a boil would break and leak through my shirt. The blood would come
through but because the shirt was thick and made of wool the spot wasn't
obvious and didn't look like blood.
I told my mother what was happening. She lined the shoulders of my
shirts with white patches of cloth, but it only helped a little.
Once an officer came through on inspection. He grabbed the rifle out of
my hands and held it up, peering through the barrel, for dust in the bore.
He slammed the rifle back at me, then looked at a blood spot on my right
shoulder.
"Chinaski!" he snapped, "your rifle is leaking oil!"
"Yes, sir."
I got through the term but the boils got worse and worse. They were as
large as walnuts and covered my face. I was very ashamed. Sometimes at home
I would stand before the bathroom mirror and break one of the boils. Yellow
pus would spurt and splatter on the mirror. And little white hard pits. In a
horrible way it was fascinating that all that stuff was in there. But I knew
how hard it was for other people to look at me.
The school must have advised my father. At the end of that term I was
withdrawn from school. I went to bed and my parents covered me with
ointments. There was a brown salve that stank. My father preferred that one
for me. It burned. He insisted that I keep it on longer, much longer than
the instructions advised. One night he insisted that I leave it on for
hours. I began screaming. I ran to the tub, filled it with water and washed
the salve off, with difficulty. I was burned, on my face, my back and chest.
That night I sat on the edge of the bed. I couldn't lay down. My father came
into the room.
"I thought I told you to leave that stuff on!"
"Look what happened," I told him. My mother came into the room.
"The son-of-a-bitch doesn't want to get well," my father told
her. "Why did I have to have a son like this?"
My mother lost her job. My father kept leaving in his car every morning
as if he were going to work. "I'm an engineer," he told people. He had
always wanted to be an engineer.
It was arranged for me to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. I was
given a long white card. I took the white card and got on the #7 streetcar.
The fare was seven cents for four tokens for a quarter). I dropped in my
token and walked to the back of the streetcar. I had an 8:30 a.m.
appointment.
A few blocks later a young boy and a woman got on the streetcar. The
woman was fat and the boy was about four years old. They sat in the seat
behind me. I looked out the window. We rolled along. I liked that #7
streetcar. It went really fast and rocked back and forth as the sun shone
outside.
"Mommy," I heard the young boy say, "What's wrong with that
man's face?"
The woman didn't answer. The hoy asked her the same question again. She
didn't answer.
Then the boy screamed it out, "Mommy! What's wrong with that man's
face?"
"Shut up! I don't know what's wrong with his face!"
I went to Admissions at the hospital and they instructed me to report
to the fourth floor. There the nurse at the desk took my name and told me to
be seated. We sat in two long rows of green metal chairs facing one another.
Mexicans, whites and blacks. There were no Orientals. There was nothing to
read. Some of the patients had day-old newspapers. The people were of all
ages, thin and fat, short and tall, old and young. Nobody talked. Everybody
seemed very tired. Orderlies walked back and forth, sometimes you saw a
nurse, but never a doctor. An hour went by, two hours. Nobody's name was
called. I got up to look for a water fountain. I looked in the little rooms
where people were to be examined. There wasn't anybody in any of the rooms,
neither doctors or patients.
I went to the desk. The nurse was staring down into a big fat book with
names written in it. The phone rang. She answered it.
"Dr. Menen isn't here yet." She hung up.
"Pardon me," I said.
"Yes?" the nurse asked.
"The doctors aren't here yet. Can I come back later?"
"No."
"But there's nobody here."
"The doctors are on call."
"But I have an 8:30 appointment."
"Everybody here has an 8:30 appointment."
There were 45 or 50 people waiting.
"Since I'm on the waiting list, suppose I come back in a couple of
hours, maybe there will be some doctors here then."
"If you leave now, you will automatically lose your appointment. You
will have to return tomorrow if you still wish treatment."
I walked back and sat in a chair. The others didn't protest.
There was very little movement. Sometimes two or three nurses would
walk by laughing. Once they pushed a man past in a wheelchair. Both of his
legs were heavily bandaged and his ear on the side of his head toward me had
been sliced off. There was a black hole divided into little sections, and it
looked like a spider had gone in there and made a spider web. Hours passed.
Noon came and went. Another hour. Two hours. We sat and waited. Then
somebody said, "There's a doctor!"
The doctor walked into one of the examination rooms and closed the
door. We all watched. Nothing. A nurse went in. We heard her laughing. Then
she walked out. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The doctor walked out with a
clipboard in his hand.
"Martinez?" the doctor asked. "Jose Martinez?"
An old thin Mexican man stood up and began walking toward the doctor.
"Martinez? Martinez, old boy, how are you?"
"Sick, doctor . . . I think I die . . ."
"Well, now . . . Step in here . . ."
Martinez was in there a long time. I picked up a discarded newspaper
and tried to read it. But we were all thinking about Martinez. If Martinez
ever got out of there, someone would be next.
Then Martinez screamed. "AHHHHH! AHHHHH! STOP! STOP! AHHHH! MERCY! GOD!
PLEASE, STOP!"
"Now, now, that doesn't hurt . . ." said the doctor. Martinez screamed
again. A nurse ran into the examination room. There was silence. All we
could see was the black shadow of the half-open doorway. Then an orderly ran
into the examination room. Martinez made a gurgling sound. He was taken out
of there on a rolling stretcher. The nurse and the orderly pushed him down
the hall and through some swinging doors. Martinez was under a sheet but he
wasn't dead because the sheet wasn't pulled over his face.
The doctor stayed in the examination room for another ten minutes. Then
he came out with the clipboard.
"Jefferson Williams?" he asked. There was no answer.
"Is Jefferson Williams here?"
There was no response.
"Mary Blackthorne?"
There was no answer.
"Harry Lewis?"
"Yes, doctor?"
"Step forward, please . . ."
It was very slow. The doctor saw five more patients. Then he left the
examination room, stopped at the desk, lit a cigarette and talked to the
nurse for fifteen minutes. He looked like a very intelligent man. He had a
twitch on the right side of his face, which kept jumping, and he had red
hair with streaks of grey. He wore glasses and kept taking them off and
putting them back on. Another nurse came in and gave him a cup of coffee. He
took a sip, then holding the coffee in one hand he pushed the swinging doors
open with the other and was gone.
The office nurse came out from behind the desk with our long white
cards and she called our names. As we answered, she handed each of us our
card back. "This ward is closed for the day. Please return tomorrow if you
wish. Your appointment time is stamped on your card."
I looked down at my card. It was stamped 8:30 a.m.
I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different
doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me
over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.
"Hmmm, hmmmm," he said, "uh huh . . ."
I sat there.
"How long have you had this?"
"A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse."
"Ah hah."
He kept looking.
"Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I'll be right back."
Some moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room.
They were all doctors. At least they looked and talked like doctors. Where
had they come from? I had thought there were hardly any doctors at L.A.
County General Hospital.
"Acne vulgaris. The worst case I've seen in all my years of practice!"
"Fantastic!"
"Incredible!"
"Look at the face!"
"The neck!"
"I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back
was covered. She cried. She told me, 'How will I ever get a man? My back
will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!' And now look at this
fellow! If she could see him, she'd know that she really had nothing to
complain about!"
You dumb fuck, I thought, don't you realize that I can hear
what you're saying? How did a man get to be a doctor? Did they take
anybody?
"Is he asleep?"
"Why?"
"He seems very calm."
"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?"
"Yes."
They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of
my body.
"Turn over."
I turned over.
"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!"
"Well, how will we treat it?"
"The electric needle, I think . . .
"Yes, of course, the electric needle."
"Yes, the needle."
It was decided.
The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be
called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It
was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it was growing upon
itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had
irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the
nose and then tried not to look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I
knew how he felt. But the man seemed very comfortable. He was fat and sat
there almost asleep.
They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?"
He moved forward a bit in his chair.
"Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"
"Uh? Yes, I'm here . . ."
He stood up and moved toward the doctor.
"How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"
"Fine . . . I'm all right . . ."
He followed the doctor into the examination room.
I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some
swinging doors and into another room. It was larger than the examination
room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The doctor looked at me.
"You really have a case there, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
He poked at a boil on my back.
"That hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage."
I heard him turn on the machinery. It made a whirring sound. I could
smell oil getting hot.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The
pain was immense. It filled the room. I felt the blood run down my back.
Then he pulled the needle out.
"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the
needle into me. Then he pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two
other men had walked in and were standing there watching. They were probably
doctors. The needle went into me again.
"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the
men.
"He gives no sign at all," said the other man.
"Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's ass?" I asked them.
"Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"
The needle dug into me. I didn't answer.
"The boy is evidently very bitter . . ."
"Yes, of course, that's it."
The men walked out.
"Those are fine professional men," said my doctor. "It's not good of
you to abuse them."
"Just go ahead and drill," I told him.
He did. The needle got very hot but he went on and on. He drilled my
entire back, then he got my chest. Then I stretched out and he drilled my
neck and my face.
A nurse came in and she got her instructions. "Now, Miss Ackerman, I
want these . . . pustules . . . thoroughly drained. And when you get to the
blood, keep squeezing. I want thorough drainage."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy."
"And afterwards, the ultra-violet ray machine. Two minutes on each side
to begin with . . ."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy."
I followed Miss Ackerman into another room. She told me to lay down on
the table. She got a tissue and started on the first boil.
"Does this hurt?"
"It's all right."
"You poor boy . . ."
"Don't worry. I'm just sorry you have to do this."
"You poor boy . . ."
Miss Ackerman was the first person to give me any sympathy. It felt
strange. She was a chubby little nurse in her early thirties.
"Are you going to school?" she asked.
"No, they had to take me out."
Miss Ackerman kept squeezing as she talked.
"What do you do all day?"
"I just stay in bed."
"That's awful."
"No, it's nice. I like it."
"Does this hurt?"
"Go ahead. It's all right."
"What's so nice about laying in bed all day?"
"I don't have to see anybody."
"You like that?"
"Oh, yes."
"What do you do all day?"
"Some of the day I listen to the radio."
"What do you listen to?"
"Music. And people talking."
"Do you think of girls?"
"Sure. But that's out."
"You don't want to think that way."
"I make charts of airplanes going overhead. They come over at the same
time each day. I have them timed. Say that I know that one of them is going
to pass over at 11:15 a.m. Around 11:10, I start listening for the sound of
the motor. I try to hear the first sound. Sometimes I imagine I hear it and
sometimes I'm not sure and then I begin to hear it, 'way off, for sure. And
the sound gets stronger. Then at 11:15 a.m. it passes overhead and the sound
is as loud as it's going to get."
"You do that every day?"
"Not when I'm here."
"Turn over," said Miss Ackerman.
I did. Then in the ward next to us a man started screaming. We were
next to the disturbed ward. He was really loud.
"What are they doing to him?" I asked Miss Ackerman.
"He's in the shower."
"And it makes him scream like that?"
"Yes."
"I'm worse off than he is."
"No, you're not."
I liked Miss Ackerman. I sneaked a look at her. Her face was round, she
wasn't very pretty but she wore her nurse's cap in a perky manner and she
had large dark brown eyes. It was the eyes. As she balled up some tissue to
throw into the dispenser I watched her walk. Well, she was no Miss Gredis,
and I had seen many other women with better figures, but there was something
warm about her. She wasn't constantly thinking about being a woman.
"As soon as I finish your face," she said, "I will put you under the
ultra-violet ray machine. Your next appointment will be the day after
tomorrow at 8:30 a.m."
We didn't talk any more after that.
Then she was finished. I put on goggles and Miss Ackerman turned on the
ultra-violet ray machine.
There was a ticking sound. It was peaceful. It might have been the
automatic timer, or the metal reflector on the lamp heating up. It was
comforting and relaxing, but when I began to think about it, I decided that
everything that they were doing for me was useless. I figured that at best
the needle would leave scars on me for the remainder of my life. That was
bad enough but it wasn't what I really minded. What I minded was that they
didn't know how to deal with me. I sensed this in their discussions and in
their manner. They were hesitant, uneasy, yet also somehow disinterested and
bored. Finally it didn't matter what they did. They just had to do something
-- anything -- because to do nothing would be unprofessional.
They experimented on the poor and if that worked they used the
treatment on the rich. And if it didn't work, there would still be more poor
left over to experiment upon.
The machine signaled its warning that two minutes were up. Miss
Ackerman came in, told me to turn over, re-set the machine, then left. She
was the kindest person I had met in eight years.
The drilling and squeezing continued for weeks but there was little
result. When one boil vanished another would appear. I often stood in front
of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get. I would look at
my face in disbelief, then turn to examine all the boils on my back. I was
horrified. No wonder people stared, no wonder they said unkind things. It
was not simply a case of teen-age acne. These were inflamed, relentless,
large, swollen boils filled with pus. I felt singled out, as if I had
been selected to be this way. My parents never spoke to me about my
condition. They were still on relief. My mother left each morning to look
for work and my. father drove off as if he were working. On Saturdays people
on relief got free foodstuffs from the markets, mostly canned goods, almost
always cans of hash for some reason. We ate a great deal of hash. And
bologna sandwiches. And potatoes. My mother learned to make potato pancakes.
Each Saturday when my parents went for their free food they didn't go to the
nearest market because they were afraid some of the neighbors might see them
and then know that they were on the dole. So they walked two miles down
Washington Boulevard, to a store a couple of blocks past Crenshaw. It was a
long walk. They walked the two miles back, sweating, carrying their shopping
bags full of canned hash and potatoes and bologna and carrots. My father
didn't drive because he wanted to save gas. He needed the gas to drive to
and from his invisible job. The other fathers weren't like that. They just
sat quietly on their front porches or played horseshoes in the vacant lot.
The doctor gave me a white substance to apply to my face. It hardened
and caked on the boils, giving me a plaster-like look. The substance didn't
seem to help. I was home alone one afternoon, applying this substance to my
face and body. I was standing in my shorts trying to reach the infected
areas of my back with my hand when I heard voices. It was Baldy and his
friend Jimmy Hatcher. Jimmy Hatcher was a good looking fellow and he was a
wise-ass.
"Henry!" I heard Baldy calling. I heard him talking to Jimmy, Then he
walked up on the porch and beat on the door. "Hey, Hank, it's Baldy! Open
up!"
You damn fool, I thought, don't you understand that I don't want to see
anybody?
"Hank! Hank! It's Baldy and Jim!"
He beat on the front door.
I heard him talking to Jim. "Listen, I saw him! I saw him walking
around in there!"
"He doesn't answer."
"We better go in. He might be in trouble."
You fool, I thought, I befriended you. I befriended you when nobody
else could stand you. Now, look at this!
I couldn't believe it. I ran into the hall and hid in a closet, leaving
the door slightly open. I was sure they wouldn't come into the house. But
they did. I had left the back door open. I heard them walking around in the
house.
"He's got to be here," said Baldy. "I saw something moving in here..."
Jesus Christ, I thought, can't I move around in here? I live in this
house.
I was crouched in the dark closet. I knew I couldn't let them find me
in there.
I swung the closet door open and leaped out. I saw them both standing
in the front room. I ran in there.
"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES!"
They looked at me.
"GET OUT OF HERE! YOU'VE GOT NO RIGHT TO BE IN HERE! GET OUT OF HERE
BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
They started running toward the back porch.
"GO ON! GO ON, OR I'LL KILL YOU!"
I heard them run up the driveway and out onto the sidewalk. I didn't
want to watch them. I went into my bedroom and stretched out on the bed. Why
did they want to see me? What could they do? There was nothing to be done.
There was nothing to talk about.
A couple of days later my mother didn't leave to go job hunting, and it
wasn't my day to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. So we were in the
house together. I didn't like it. I liked the place to myself. I heard her
moving about the house and I stayed in my bedroom. The boils were worse than
ever. I checked my airplane chart. The 1:20 p.m. flight was due. I began
listening. He was late. It was 1:20 and he was still approaching. As he
passed over I timed him as being three minutes late. Then I heard the
doorbell ring. I heard my mother open the door.
"Emily, how are you?"
"Hello, Katy, how are you?"
It was my grandmother, now very old. I heard them talking but I
couldn't make out what they were saying. I was thankful for that. They
talked for five or ten minutes and then I heard them walking down the hall
to my bedroom.
"I will bury all of you," I heard my grandmother say. "Where is the
boy?"
The door opened and my grandmother and mother stood there.
"Hello, Henry," my grandmother said.
"Your grandmother is here to help you," my mother said. My grandmother
had a large purse. She set it down on the dresser and pulled a huge silver
crucifix out of it.
"Your grandmother is here to help you, Henry . . ."
Grandmother had more warts on her than ever before and she was fatter.
She looked invincible, she looked as if she would never die. She had gotten
so old that it was almost senseless for her to die.
"Henry," said my mother, "turn over on your stomach."
I turned over and my grandmother leaned over me. From the corner of my
eye I saw her dangling the huge crucifix over me. I had decided against
religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of
people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the
more foolish.
But it was my grandmother and my mother. I decided to let them have
their way. The crucifix swung back and forth above my back, over my boils,
over me.
"God," prayed my grandmother, "purge the devil from this poor boy's
body! Just look at all those sores! They make me sick, God! Look at
them! It's the devil, God, dwelling in this boy's body. Purge the devil from
his body, Lord!"
"Purge the devil from his body, Lord!" said my mother. What I need is a
good doctor, I thought. What is wrong with these women? Why don't they leave
me alone?
"God," said my grandmother, "why do you allow the devil to dwell inside
this body's body? Don't you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at
these sores, 0 Lord, I am about to vomit just looking at them! They are red
and big and full!"
"Purge the devil from my boy's body!" screamed my mother.
"May God save us from this evil!" screamed my grandmother. She took the
crucifix and poked it into the center of my back, dug it in. The blood
spurted out, I could feel it, at first warm, then suddenly cold. I turned
over and sat up in the bed.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"I am making a hole for the devil to be pushed out by God!" said my
grandmother.
"All right," I said, "I want you both to get out of here, and fast! Do
you understand me?"
"He is still possessed!" said my grandmother.
"GET THE FUCKING HELL OUT OF HERE!" I screamed.
They left, shocked and disappointed, closing the door behind them.
I went into the bathroom, wadded up some toilet paper and tried to stop
the bleeding. I pulled the toilet paper away and looked at it. It was
soaked. I got a new batch of toilet paper and held it to my back awhile.
Then I got the iodine. I made passes at my back, trying to reach the wound
with the iodine. It was difficult. I finally gave up. Who ever heard of an
infected back, anyhow? You either lived or died. The back was something the
assholes had never figured out how to amputate.
I walked back into the bedroom and got into bed and pulled the covers
to my throat. I looked up at the ceiling as I talked to myself.
All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this
fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not
there? You've given me a supreme test with my parents and with these boils.
I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You will
come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face.
And do You shit? The priest never answered that question. He told us not to
doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have been picking on me too much sol am
asking You to come down here so I can put You to the test!
I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. I believe I
slept.
I never slept on my back. But when I awakened I was on my back and it
surprised me. My legs were bent at the knees in front of me, making a
mountain-like effect with the blankets. And as I looked at the blanket-
mountain before me I saw two eyes staring at me. Only the eyes were dark,
black, blank . . . looking at me from underneath a hood, a black hood with a
sharp tall peak, like a ku-klux-klansman. They kept staring at me, dark
blank eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was truly
terrified. I thought, it's God but God isn't supposed to look like that.
I couldn't stare it down. I couldn't move. It just stayed there looking
at me over the mound of my knees and the blanket. I wanted to get away. I
wanted it to leave. It was powerful and black and threatening.
It seemed to remain there for hours, just staring at me. Then it was
gone . . . I stayed in bed thinking about it.
I couldn't believe that it had been God. Dressed like that. That would
be a cheap trick. It had been an illusion, of course.
I thought about it for ten or fifteen minutes, then I got up and went
to get the little brown box my grandmother had given me many years ago.
Inside of it were tiny rolls of paper with quotations from the Bible. Each
tiny roll was held in a cubicle of its own. One was supposed to ask a
question and the little roll of paper one pulled out was supposed to answer
that question. I had tried it before and found it useless. Now I tried it
again. I asked the brown box, "What did that mean? What did those eyes
mean?"
I pulled out a paper and unrolled it. It was a tiny stiff white piece
of paper. I unrolled and read it. GOD HAS FORSAKEN YOU.
I rolled the paper up and stuck it back into its cubicle in the brown
box. I didn't believe it. I went back to bed and thought about it. It was
too simple, too direct. I didn't believe it. I considered masturbating to
bring me back to reality. I still didn't believe it. I got back up and
started unrolling all the little papers inside the brown box. I was looking
for the one that said, GOD HAS FORSAKEN YOU. I unrolled them all. None of
them said that. I read them all and none of them said that. I rolled them up
and put them carefully back into their cubicles in the little brown box.
Meanwhile, the boils got worse. I kept getting onto streetcar #7 and
going to L. A. County General Hospital and I began to fall in love with Miss
Ackerman, my nurse of the squeezings. She would never know how each stab of
pain caused courage to well up in me. Despite the horror of the blood and
the pus, she was always humane and kind. My love-feeling for her wasn't
sexual. I just wished that she would enfold me in her starched whiteness and
that together we could vanish forever from the world. But she never did
that. She was too practical. She would only remind me of my next
appointment.
The ultra-violet ray machine clicked off. I had been treated on both
sides. I took off the goggles and began to dress. Miss Ackerman walked in.
"Not yet," she said, "keep your clothes off."
What is she going to do to me, I thought?
"Sit up on the edge of the table."
I sat there and she began rubbing salve over my face. It was a thick
buttery substance.
"The doctors have decided on a new approach. We're going to bandage
your face to effect drainage."
"Miss Ackerman, what ever happened to that man with the big nose? The
nose that kept growing?"
"Mr. Sleeth?"
"The man with the big nose."
"That was Mr. Sleeth."
"I don't see him anymore. Did he get cured?"
"He's dead."
"You mean he died from that big nose?"
"Suicide." Miss Ackerman continued to apply the salve. Then I heard a
man scream from the next ward, "Joe, where are you? Joe, you said you'd
come back! Joe, where are you?"
The voice was loud and so sad, so agonized.
"He's done that every afternoon this week," said Miss Ackerman, "and
Joe's not going to come get him."
"Can't they help him?"
"I don't know. They all quiet down, finally. Now take your finger and
hold this pad while I bandage you. There. Yes. That's it. Now let go. Fine."
"Joe! Joe, you said you'd come back! Where are you, Joe?"
"Now, hold your finger on this pad. There. Hold it there. I'm going to
wrap you up good! There. Now I'll secure the dressings."
Then she was finished.
"O.K., put on your clothes. See you the day after tomorrow. Goodbye,
Henry."
"Goodbye, Miss Ackerman."
I got dressed, left the room and walked down the hall. There was a
mirror on a cigarette machine in the lobby. I looked into the mirror. It was
great. My whole head was bandaged. I was all white. Nothing could be seen
but my eyes, my mouth and my ears, and some tufts of hair sticking up at the
top of my head. I was hidden. It was wonderful. I stood and lit a