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cigarette and glanced about the lobby. Some in-patients were sitting about
reading magazines and newspapers. I felt very exceptional and a bit evil,
Nobody had any idea of what had happened to me. Car crash. A fight to the
death. A murder. Fire. Nobody knew.
I walked out of the lobby and out of the building and I stood on the
sidewalk. I could still hear him. "Joe! Joe! Where are you,Joe!"
Joe wasn't coming. It didn't pay to trust another human being.
Humans didn't have it, whatever it took.
On the streetcar ride back I sat in the back smoking cigarettes out of
my bandaged head. People stared but I didn't care. There was more fear than
horror in their eyes now. I hoped I could stay this way forever.
I rode to the end of the line and got off. The afternoon was going into
evening and I stood on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Westview
Avenue watching the people. Those few who had jobs were coming home from
work. My father would soon be driving home from his fake job. I didn't have
a job, I didn't go to school. I didn't do anything. I was bandaged, I was
standing on the corner smoking a cigarette. I was a tough man, I was a
dangerous man. I knew things. Sleeth had suicided. I wasn't going to
suicide. I'd rather kill some of them. I'd take four or five of them with
me. I'd show them what it meant to play around with me.
A woman walked down the street toward me. She had fine legs. First I
stared right into her eyes and then I looked down at her
legs, and as she passed I watched her ass, I drank her ass in. I
memorized her ass and the seams of her silk stockings. I never could have
done that without my bandages.
The next day in bed I got tired of waiting for the airplanes and I
found a large yellow notebook that had been meant for high school work. It
was empty. I found a pen. I went to bed with the notebook and the pen. I
made some drawings. I drew women in high-heeled shoes with their legs
crossed and their skirts pulled back.
Then I began writing. It was about a German aviator in World War 1.
Baron Von Himmlen. He flew a red Fokker. And he was not popular with his
fellow fliers. He didn't talk to them. He drank alone and he flew alone. He
didn't bother with women, although they all loved him. He was above that. He
was too busy. He was busy shooting Allied planes out of the sky. Already he
had shot down 110 and the war wasn't over. His red Fokker, which he referred
to as the "October Bird of Death," was known everywhere. Even the enemy
ground troops knew him as he often flew low over them, taking their gunfire
and laughing, dropping bottles of champagne to them suspended from little
parachutes. Baron Von Himmlen was never attacked by less than five Allied
planes at a time. He was an ugly man with scars on his face, but he was
beautiful if you looked long enough -- it was in the eyes, his style, his
courage, his fierce aloneness.
I wrote pages and pages about the Baron's dog fights, how he would
knock down three or four planes, fly back, almost nothing left of his red
Fokker. He'd bounce down, leap out of the plane while it was still rolling
and head for the bar where he'd grab a bottle and sit at a table alone,
pouring shots and slamming them down. Nobody drank like the Baron. The
others just stood at the bar and watched him. One time one of the other
fliers said, "What is it, Himmlen? You think you're too good for us?" It was
Willie Schmidt, the biggest, strongest guy in the outfit. The Baron downed
his drink, set down his glass, stood up and slowly started walking toward
Willie who was standing at the bar. The other fliers backed off.
"Jesus, what are you going to do?" asked Willie as the Baron
advanced.
The Baron kept moving slowly toward Willie, not answering.
"Jesus, Baron, I was just kidding! Mother's honor! Listen to me,
Baron . . . Baron . . . the enemy is elsewhere! Baron!"
The Baron let go with his right. You couldn't see it. It smashed into
Willie's face propelling him over the top of the bar, flipping him over
completely! He crashed into the bar mirror like a cannonball and the bottles
tumbled down. The Baron pulled a cigar out and lit it, then walked back to
his table, sat down and poured another drink. They didn't bother the Baron
after that. Behind the bar they picked Willie up. His face was a mass of
blood.
The Baron shot plane after plane out of the sky. Nobody seemed to
understand him and nobody knew how he had become so skillful with the red
Fokker and in his other strange ways. Like fighting. Or the graceful way he
walked. He went on and on. His luck was sometimes bad. One day flying back
after downing three Allied planes, limping in low over enemy lines, he was
hit by shrapnel. It blew off his right hand at the wrist. He managed to
bring the red Fokker in. From that time on he flew with an iron
hand in place of his original right hand. It didn't affect his flying.
And the fellows at the bar were more careful than ever when they talked to
him.
Many more things happened to the Baron after that. Twice he crashed in
no-man's-land and each time he crawled back to his squadron, half-dead,
through barbed wire and flares and enemy fire. Many times he was given up
for dead by his comrades. Once he was gone for eight days and the other
flyers were sitting in the bar, talking about what an exceptional man he had
been. When they looked up, there was the Baron standing in the doorway,
eight- day beard, uniform torn and muddy, eyes red and bleary, iron hand
glinting in the bar light. He stood there and he said, "There
better be some god-damned whiskey in this place or I'm tearing it
apart!"
The Baron went on doing magic things. Half the notebook was filled with
Baron Von Himmlen. It made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man
needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up
somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-
believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living
your life without a man like him around.
The bandages were helpful. L.A. County Hospital had finally come up
with something. The boils drained. They didn't vanish but they flattened a
bit. Yet some new ones would appear and rise up again. They drilled me and
wrapped me again.
My sessions with the drill were endless. Thirty-two, thirty-six, thirty-
eight times. There was no fear of the drill anymore. There never had been.
Only an anger. But the anger was gone. There wasn't even resignation on my
part, only disgust, a disgust that this had happened to me, and a disgust
with the doctors who couldn't do anything about it. They were helpless and I
was helpless, the only difference being that I was the victim. They could go
home to their lives and forget while I was stuck with the same face.
But there were changes in my life. My father found a job. He passed an
examination at the L.A. County Museum and got a job as a guard. My father
was good at exams. He loved math and history. He passed the exam and finally
had a place to go each morning. There had been three vacancies for guards
and he had gotten one of them.
L.A. County General Hospital somehow found out and Miss Ackerman told
me one day, "Henry, this is your last treatment. I'm going to miss you."
"Aw come on," I said, "stop your kidding. You're going to miss me like
I'm going to miss that electric needle!"
But she was very strange that day. Those big eyes were watery. I heard
her blow her nose.
I heard one of the nurses ask her, "Why, Janice, what's wrong
with you?"
"Nothing. I'm all right."
Poor Miss Ackerman. I was 15 years old and in love with her
and I was covered with boils and there was nothing that either of
us could do.
"All right," she said, "this is going to be your last ultra-violet ray
treatment. Lay on your stomach."
"I know your first name now," I told her. "Janice. That's a
pretty name. It's just like you."
"Oh, shut up," she said.
I saw her once again when the first buzzer sounded. I turned over,
Janice re-set the machine and left the room. I never saw her again.
My father didn't believe in doctors who were not free. "They make you
piss in a tube, take your money, and drive home to their wives in Beverly
Hills," he said.
But once he did send me to one. To a doctor with bad breath and a head
as round as a basketball, only with two little eyes where a basketball had
none. I didn't like my father and the doctor wasn't any better. He said, no
fried foods, and to drink carrot juice. That
was it.
I would re-enter high school the next term, said my father.
"I'm busting my ass to keep people from stealing. Some nigger broke the
glass on a case and stole some rare coins yesterday. I caught the bastard.
We rolled down the stairway together. I held him until the others came. I
risk my life every day. Why should you sit around on your ass, moping? I
want you to be an engineer. How the hell you gonna be an engineer when I
find notebooks full of women with their skirts pulled up to their ass? Is
that all you can draw? Why don't you draw flowers or mountains or the
ocean? You're going back to school!"
I drank carrot juice and waited to re-enroll. I had only missed one
term. The boils weren't cured but they weren't as bad as they had been.
"You know what carrot juice costs me? I have to work the first hour
every day just for your god-damned carrot juice!"
I discovered the La Cienega Public Library. I got a library card. The
library was near the old church down on West Adams. It was a very small
library and there was just one librarian in it. She was class. About 38 but
with pure white hair pulled tightly into a bun behind her neck. Her nose was
sharp and she had deep green eyes behind rimless glasses. I felt that she
knew everything.
I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the
shelves, one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There
were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything. Or if they did say
something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you
already were too tired to have it matter at all. I tried book after book.
Surely, out of all those books, there was one.
Each day I walked down to the library at Adams and La Brea and
there was my librarian, stern and infallible and silent. I kept pulling the
books off the shelves. The first real book I found was by a fellow named
Upton Sinclair. His sentences were simple and he spoke with anger. He wrote
with anger. He wrote about the hog pens of Chicago. He came right out and
said things plainly. Then I found another author. His name was Sinclair
Lewis. And the book was called Main Street. He peeled back the layers
of hypocrisy that covered people. Only he seemed to lack passion. I went
back for more. I read each book in a single evening. I was walking around
one day sneaking glances at my librarian when I came upon a book with the
title Bow Down To Wood and Stone. Now, that was good, because that
was what we were all doing. At last, some fire.' I opened the book.
It was by Josephine Lawrence. A woman. That was all right. Anybody could
find knowledge. I opened the pages. But they were like many of the other
books: milky, obscure, tiresome. I replaced the book. And while my hand was
there I reached for a book nearby. It was by another Lawrence. I opened the
book at random and began reading. It was about a man at a piano. How false
it seemed at first. But I kept reading. The man at the piano was troubled.
His mind was saying things. Dark and curious things. The lines on the page
were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not "Joe, where are you?" More
like Joe, where is anything? This Lawrence of the tight and bloody
line. I had never been told about him. Why the secret? Why wasn't he
advertised?
I read a book a day. I read all the D. H. Lawrence in the library. My
librarian began to look at me strangely as I checked out the books.
"How are you today?" she would ask. That always sounded so good. I felt
as if I had already gone to bed with her. I read all the books by D.
H. And they led to others. To H.D., the poetess. And Huxley, the youngest of
the Huxleys, Lawrence's friend. It all came rushing at me. One book led to
the next. DOS Passes came along. Not too good, really, but good enough. His
trilogy, about the U.S.A., took longer than a day to read. Dreiser didn't
work for me. Sherwood Anderson did. And then along came Hemingway. What a
thrill! He knew how to lay down a line. It was a joy. Words weren't dull,
words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let
yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter
what happened to you.
But back at home . . .
"LIGHTS OUT!" my father would scream. I was reading the Russians now,
reading Turgenev and Gorky. My father's rule was that all lights were to be
out by 8 p.m. He wanted to sleep so that he could be fresh and effective on
the job the next day. His conversation at home was always about "the job."
He talked to my mother about his "job" from the moment he entered the door
in the evenings until they slept. He was determined to rise in the ranks.
"All right, that's enough of those god-damned books! Lights out!"'
To me, these men who had come into my life from nowhere were my only
chance. They were the only voices that spoke to me.
"All right," I would say.
Then I took the reading lamp, crawled under the blanket, pulled the
pillow under there, and read each new book, propping it against the pillow,
under the quilt. It got very hot, the lamp got hot, and I had trouble
breathing. I would lift the quilt for air.
"What's that? Do I see a light? Henry, are your lights out?"
I would quickly lower the quilt again and wait until I heard my
father snoring.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a
truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the
same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the
overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It
was magic.
And my father had found a job, and that was magic for him . . .
Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had
graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports
cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronted by them. They left me
alone, they ignored me. They were busy with the girls. They never spoke to
the poor guys in or out of class.
About a week into my second semester I talked to my father over dinner.
"Look," I said, "it's hard at school. You're giving me 50 cents a week
allowance. Can't you make it a dollar?"
"A dollar?"
"Yes."
He put a forkful of sliced pickled beets into his mouth and chewed.
Then he looked at me from under his curled-up eyebrows,
"If I gave you a dollar a week that would mean 52 dollars a year, that
would mean I would have to work over a week on my job just so you
could have an allowance."
I didn't answer. But I thought, my god, if you think like that, item by
item, then you can't buy anything: bread, watermelon, newspapers, flour,
milk or shaving cream. I didn't say any more because when you hate, you
don't beg . . .
Those rich guys like to dart their cars in and out, swiftly, sliding
up, burning rubber, their cars glistening in the sunlight as the girls
gathered around. Classes were a joke, they were all going somewhere to
college, classes were just a routine laugh, they got good grades, you seldom
saw them with books, you just saw them burning more rubber, gunning from the
curb with their cars full of squealing and laughing girls. I watched them
with my 50 cents in my pocket. I didn't even know how to drive a car.
Meanwhile the poor and the lost and the idiots continued to flock
around me. I had a place I liked to eat under the football grandstand. I had
my brown bag lunch with my two bologna sandwiches. They came around, "Hey,
Hank, can I eat with you?"
"Get the fuck out of here! I'm not going to tell you twice!"
Enough of this kind had attached themselves to me already. I didn't
much care for any of them: Baldy, Jimmy Hatcher, and a thin gangling Jewish
kid, Abe Mortenson. Mortenson was a straight-A student but one of the
biggest idiots in school. He had something radically wrong with him. Saliva
kept forming in his mouth but instead of spitting on the ground to get rid
of it he spit into his hands. I don't know why he did it and I didn't ask. I
didn't like to ask. I just watched him and I was disgusted. I went home with
him once and I found out how he got straight A's. His mother made him stick
his nose into a book right away and she made him keep it there. She made him
read all of his school books over and over, page after page. "He must pass
his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the hooks were
wrong. Or that maybe it didn't matter. I didn't ask her.
It was like grammar school all over again. Gathered around me were the
weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers
instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their
company through life. That didn't bother me so much as the fact that I
seemed irresistible to these dull idiot fellows. I was like a turd that drew
flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted
to live alone, I felt best being alone, cleaner, yet I was not clever enough
to rid myself of them. Maybe they were my masters: fathers in another
form. In any event, it was hard to have them hanging around while I was
eating my bologna sandwiches.
But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the
neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson,
who had had one professional fight (he'd lost). I was over at Gene's one
afternoon smoking cigarettes with him when Harry Gibson showed up with two
pairs of boxing gloves. Gene and I were smoking with his two older brothers,
Larry and Dan.
Harry Gibson was cocky. "Anybody want to try me?" he asked. Nobody said
anything. Gene's oldest brother, Larry, was about 22. He was the biggest,
but he was kind of timid and subnormal. He had a huge head, he was
short and stocky, really well-built, but everything frightened him. So we
all looked at Dan who was the next oldest, since Larry said, "No, no I don't
want to fight." Dan was a musical genius, he had almost won a scholarship
but not quite. Anyhow, since Larry had passed up Harry's challenge, Dan put
the gloves on with Harry Gibson.
Harry Gibson was a son-of-a-bitch on shining wheels. Even the sun
glinted off his gloves in a certain way. He moved with precision, aplomb and
grace. He pranced and danced around Dan. Dan held up his gloves and waited.
Gibson's first punch streaked in. It cracked like a rifle shot. There were
some chickens in a pen in the yard and two of them jumped into the air at
the sound. Dan spilled backwards. He was stretched out on the grass, both of
his arms spread out like some cheap Christ.
Larry looked at him and said, "I'm going into the house." He walked
quickly to the screen door, opened it and was gone.
We walked over to Dan. Gibson stood over him with a little grin on his
face. Gene bent down, lifted Dan's head up a bit. "Dan? You all right?"
Dan shook his head and slowly sat up.
"Jesus Christ, the guy's carrying a lethal weapon. Get these
gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced one glove and I got the other. Dan stood up and walked
toward the back door like an old man. "I'm gonna lay down . . ." He went
inside.
Harry Gibson picked up the gloves and looked at Gene. "How about it,
Gene?"
Gene spit in the grass. "What the hell you trying to do, knock off the
whole family?"
"I know you're the best fighter, Gene, but I'll go easy on you anyhow."
Gene nodded and I laced on his gloves for him. I was a good glove man.
They squared off. Gibson circled around Gene, getting ready. He circled
to the right, then he circled to the left. He bobbed and he weaved. Then he
stepped in, gave Gene a hard left jab. It landed right between Gene's eyes.
Gene backpedaled and Gibson followed. When he got Gene up against the
chicken pen he steadied him with a soft left to the forehead and then
cracked a hard right to Gene's left temple. Gene slid along the chicken wire
until he hit the fence, .then he slid along the fence, covering up. He
wasn't attempting to fight back. Dan came out of the house with a piece of
ice wrapped in a rag. He sat on the porch steps and held the rag to his
forehead. Gene retreated along the fence. Harry got him in the corner
between the fence and the garage. He looped a left to Gene's gut and when
Gene bent over he straightened him with a right uppercut. I didn't like it.
Gibson wasn't going easy on Gene like he'd promised. I got excited.
"Hit that fucker back, Gene! He's yellow! Hit him!"
Gibson lowered his gloves, looked at me and walked over.
"What did you say, punk?"
"I was rooting my man on," I said. Dan was over getting the gloves off
Gene.
"Did I hear something about being 'yellow'?"
"You said you were going to go easy on him. You didn't. You're hitting
him with every shot you've got."
"You callin' me a liar?"
"I'm saying you don't keep your word."
"Come on over and put the gloves on this punk!"
Gene and Dan came over and began putting the gloves on me.
"Take it easy on this guy, Hank," Gene said. "Remember he's all tired
out from fighting us."
Gene and I had fought barefisted one memorable day from 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. Gene had done pretty good. I had small hands and if you have small
hands you've cither got to be able to hit hard as hell or else be some kind
of a boxer. I was only a little of each. The next day my entire upper body
was purple with bruises and I had two fat lips and a couple of loose front
teeth. Now I had to fight the guy who had just whipped the guy who had
whipped me.
Gibson circled to the left, then the right, then he moved in on me. I
didn't see the left jab at all. I don't know where it caught me hut I went
down from the left jab. It hadn't hurt but I was down. I got up. If the left
could do that what would the right do? I had to figure something out.
Harry Gibson began to circle to the left, my left. Instead of circling
to my right like he expected, I circled to my left. He looked surprised and
as we came together I looped a wild left which caught him high and hard on
the head. It felt great. If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.
Then we were facing each other and he came straight at me. Gibson got
me with the jab hut as it hit me I ducked my head down and to one side as
quickly as I could. His right swung around over the top, missing. I moved
into him and clinched, giving him a rabbit punch. We broke and I felt like a
pro.
"You can take him, Hank!" yelled Gene.
"Go get him, Hank!" yelled Dan.
I rushed Gibson and tried a right lead. I missed and his left cross
flashed on my jaw. I saw green and yellow and red lights, then he dug a
right to my belly. It felt like it went through to my backbone. I grabbed
him and clinched. But I wasn't frightened, for a change, and that felt good.
"I'll kill you, you fucker!" I told him.
Then it was just head-to-head, no more boxing. His punches came fast
and hard. He was more accurate, had more power, yet I was landing some hard
shots too and it made me feel good. The more he hit me the less I felt it. I
had my gut sucked in, I liked the action. Then Gene and Dan were between us.
They pulled us apart.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Don't stop this thing! I can take his ass!"
"Cut the shit, Hank," said Gene. "Look at yourself."
I looked down. The front of my shirt was dark with blood and there were
splotches of pus. The punches had broken open three or four boils. That
hadn't happened in my fight with Gene.
"That's nothing," I said. "That's just bad luck. He hasn't hurt me.
Give me a chance and I'll cut him down."
"No, Hank, you'll get an infection or something," said Gene.
"All right, shit," I said, "cut the gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced me. When he got the gloves off I noticed that my hands
were trembling, and also my arms to a lesser extent. I put my hands in my
pockets. Dan took Harry's gloves off. Harry looked at me. "You're pretty
good, kid."
"Thanks. Well, I'll see you guys . . ."
I walked off. As I walked away I took my hands out of my pockets. Then
up the-driveway, just at the sidewalk, I stopped, pulled out a cigarette and
stuck it into my mouth. When I tried to strike a match my hands were
trembling so much I couldn't do it. I gave them a wave, a real nonchalant
wave, and walked away.
Back at the house I looked at myself in the mirror. Pretty damn good. I
was coming along.
I took off my shirt and threw it under the bed. I'd have to find a way
to clean the blood off. I didn't have many shirts and they'd notice a
missing one right away. But for me, it had finally been a successful day,
and I hadn't had too many of those.
Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You
can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive
anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel had. Jimmy Hatcher had
straight black hair, fair skin, he wasn't as big as I was but he kept his
shoulders back, dressed better than most of us, and he had a way of getting
along with anybody he felt like getting along with. His mother was a bar
maid and his father had committed suicide. Jimmy had a nice smile, perfect
teeth, and the girls liked him even though he didn't have the money the rich
guys had. I would always see him talking to some girl. I don't know what he
said to them. I didn't know what any of the guys said to any of them. The
girls were impossibly out of reach for me and so I pretended that they
didn't exist.
But Hatcher was another matter. I knew he wasn't a fairy but he kept
hanging around.
"Listen, Jimmy, why do you follow me around? I don't like anything
about you."
"Ah, come on. Hank, we're friends."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
He even got up once in English class and read an essay called
"The Value of Friendship," and while he was reading it he kept glancing
at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded
when he finished, and I thought, well, that's what people think and what can
you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, "The Value of No Friendship
At All." The teacher didn't let me read it to the class. She gave me a "D."
Jimmy and Baldy and I walked home together from high school each day.
(Abe Mortenson lived in the other direction so that saved us from having to
walk with him.) One day we were walking along and Jimmy said, "Hey, let's go
to my girlfriend's house. I want you to meet her."
"Ah, balls, fuck that," I said.
"No, no," said Jimmy, "she's a nice girl. I want you to meet her. I've
finger-fucked her."
I'd seen his girl, Ann Weatherton, she was really beautiful, long brown
hair and large brown eyes, quiet, and with a good figure. I'd never spoken
to her but I knew she was Jimmy's girl. The rich guys had tried to hit on
her but she ignored them. She looked like she was first-rate.
"I've got the key to her house," said Jimmy. "We'll go there and wait
for her. She's got a late class."
"Sounds dull to me," I said.
"Ah, come on, Hank," said Baldy. "you're just going to go home and
whack-off anyhow."
"That's not always without its own merits," I said.
Jimmy opened the front door with his key and we walked in. A nice clean
little house. A small black and white bulldog ran up to Jimmy, wagging its
stub tail.
"This is Bones," said Jimmy. "Bones loves me. Watch this!"
Jimmy spit in the palm of his right hand and grabbed Bones' penis and
began rubbing it.
"Hey, what the fuck you doing?" asked Baldy.
"They keep Bones on a leash in the yard. He never gets any. He needs
release!" Jimmy worked away.
Bones' penis got disgustingly red, a thin, long string of dripping
inanity. Bones began making whimpering sounds. Jimmy looked up as he worked
away. "Hey, you wanna know what our song is? I mean, Ann's song and my song?
It's 'When the Deep Purple Falls Over Sleepy Garden Walls."'
Then Bones was making it. The sperm spurted out and on the carpet.
Jimmy stood up and with the sole of his shoe rubbed the come down into the
nap of the carpet.
"I'm gonna fuck Ann one of these days. It's getting close. She says she
loves me. And I love her too, I love her god-damned cunt."
"You prick," I told Jimmy, "you make me sick."
"I know you don't mean that, Hank," he said. Jimmy walked into the
kitchen. "She's got a nice family. She lives here with her father, mother
and brother. Her brother knows I am going to fuck her. He's right. But
there's nothing he can do about it because I can beat the shit out of him.
He's nothing. Hey, watch this!"
Jimmy opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of milk. At
our place we still had an icebox. The Weathertons were obviously a well-off
family. Jimmy pulled out his cock and then peeled the cardboard cap off the
bottle and put his cock in there.
"Just a little, you know. They'll never taste it but they'll be
drinking my piss . . ."
He pulled his cock out, capped the bottle, shook it, and then placed it
hack in the refrigerator.
"Now," he said, "here's some jello. They are going to eat jello for
dessert tonight. They are also going to eat . . ." He took the bowl of jello
out and held it and then we heard a key in the front door and the front door
opening. Jimmy quickly put the jello back into the refrigerator and closed
the door. Then Ann walked in. Into the kitchen.
"Ann," said Jimmy, "I want you to meet my good friends, Hank and
Baldy."
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"This one's Baldy. The other guy is Hank."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I've seen you guys around campus."
"Oh yeah," I said, "we're around there. And we've seen you too."
"Yeah," said Baldy.
Jimmy looked at Ann. "You all right, baby?"
"Yes, Jimmy, I've been thinking about you."
She moved toward him and they embraced, then they were kissing. They
were standing right in front of us as they were kissing. Jimmy was facing
us. We could see his right eye. It winked.
"Well," I said, "we've got to get going."
"Yeah," said Baldy.
We walked out of the kitchen, through the front room and out of there.
We walked down the sidewalk toward Baldy's place.
"That guy's really got it made," said Baldy.
"Yeah," I said.
One Sunday Jimmy talked me into going to the beach with him. He wanted
to go swimming. I didn't want to he seen wearing swimming trunks because my
hack was covered with boils and scars. Outside of that, I had a good
body. But nobody would notice that. I had a good chest and great legs
but nobody would see that.
I here was nothing to do and I didn't have any money and the guys
didn't play in the streets on Sunday. I decided that the beach belonged to
everybody. I had a right, my scars and boils weren't against the law.
So we got on our bikes and started out. It was fifteen miles. That
didn't bother me. I had the legs.
I breezed with Jimmy all the way to Culver City. Then I gradually began
to pedal faster. Jimmy pumped, trying to keep up. I could see him getting
winded. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, held out the pack to him. "Want
one, Jim?"
"No . . . thanks . . ."
"This beats shooting birds with a beebee gun," I told him. "We ought to
do this more often!"
I began pumping harder. I still had plenty of reserve strength.
"This really gets it," I told him. "This beats whacking-off!"
"Hey, slow up a little!"
I looked back at him. "There's nothing like a good friend to go biking
with. Come on, friend!"
Then I gave it all I had and pulled away. The wind was blowing in my
face. It felt good.
"Hey, wait! WAIT, GOD DAMN IT!" yelled Jimmy. I started laughing and
really opened up. Soon Jim was half-a- block back, a block, two blocks.
Nobody knew how good I was, nobody knew what I could do. I was some kind of
miracle. The sun tossed yellow everywhere and I cut through-it, a crazy
knife on wheels. My father was a beggar in the streets of India but all the
women in the world loved me . . .
I was traveling at full speed as I reached the signal. I shot through
inside the row of waiting cars. Now even the cars were back there behind me.
But not for long. A guy and his girl in a green coupe pulled up and drove
alongside me.
"Hey, kid!"
"Yeah?" I looked at him. He was a big guy in his twenties with hairy
arms and a tattoo.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he asked me. He was trying
to show off in front of his girl. She was a looker, her long blond hair
blowing in the wind.
"Up yours, buddy!" I told him.
"What?"
"I said, 'Up yours!"
I gave him the finger. He kept driving along beside me.
"You gonna take shit off that kid, Nick?" I heard his girl ask him.
He kept driving along beside me.
"Hey, kid," he said, "I didn't quite hear what you said. Would you mind
saying that again?"
"Yeah, say that again," said the looker, her long blond hair blowing in
the wind. That pissed me. She pissed me.
I looked at him. "All right, you want trouble? Park it. I'm
trouble."
He zoomed ahead of me about half a block, parked, and swung the door
open. As he got out I swung wide around him almost into the path of a Chevy
who gave me the horn. As I swung around into a side street I could hear the
big guy laughing.
After the guy was gone I wheeled back onto Washington Boulevard, went a
few blocks, got off the bike and waited for Jim on a bus stop bench. I could
see him coming along. When he pulled up I pretended that I was asleep.
"Come on, Hank! Don't give me that shit!"
"Oh, hello, Jim. You here?"
I tried to get Jim to pick a spot on the beach where there weren't too
many people. I felt normal standing there in my shirt but when I undressed I
was exposed. I hated the other bathers for their unmarred bodies. I hated
all the god-damned people who were sunbathing or in the water or eating or
sleeping or talking or throwing beachballs. I hated their behinds and their
faces and their elbows and their hair and their eyes and their bellybuttons
and their bathing suits.
I stretched out on the sand thinking, I should have punched that fat
son-of-a-bitch. What the hell did he know? Jim stretched out beside me.
"What the hell," he said, "let's go swimming."
"Not yet," I said.
The water was full of people. What was the fascination of the beach?
Why did people like the beach? Didn't they have anything better to do? What
chicken-brained fuckers they were.
"Just think," said Jim, "women go into the water and they piss in
there."
"Yeah, and you swallow it."
'
There would never be a way for me to live comfortably with people.
Maybe I'd become a monk. I'd pretend to believe in God and live in a
cubicle, play an organ and stay drunk on wine. Nobody would fuck with me. I
could go into a cell for months of meditation where I wouldn't have to look
at anybody and they could just send in the wine. The trouble was, the black
robes were pure wool. They were worse than R.O.T.C. uniforms. I couldn't
wear them. I'd have to think of something else.
"Oh, oh," said Jim.
"What is it?"
"There are some girls down there looking at us."
"So what?"
"They're talking and laughing. They might come down here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And if they start coming over I'll warn you. When I do, turn on
your back."
My chest had only a few boils and scars.
"Don't forget," said Jim, "when I warn you, turn over on your back."
"I heard you."
I had my head down in my arms. I knew that Jim was looking at the girls
and smiling. He had a way with them.
"Simple cunts," he said, "they're really stupid."
Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of
choosing between something bad and something worse?
"Oh, oh, Hank, here they come!"
I looked up. There were five of them. I rolled over on my back. They
walked up giggling and stood there. One of them said,
"Hey, these guys are cute!"
"You girls live around here?" Jim asked.
"Oh yeah," one of them said, "we nest with the seagulls!"
They giggled.
"Well," said Jim, "we're eagles. I'm not sure we'd know what to do with
five seagulls."
"How do birds do it anyhow?" one of them asked.
"Damned if I know," Jim said, "maybe we can find out."
"Why don't you guys come over to our blanket?" one of them asked.
"Sure," Jim said.
Three of the girls had spoken. The other two had just stood there
pulling their bathing suits down over what they didn't want seen.
"Count me out," I said.
"What's wrong with your friend?" asked one of the girls who had been
covering her ass. Jim said, "He's strange."
"What's wrong with him?" asked the last girl.
"He's just strange," said Jim.
He got up and walked off with the girls. I closed my eyes and listened
to the waves. Thousands of fish out there, eating each other. Endless mouths
and assholes swallowing and shifting. The whole earth was nothing but mouths
and assholes swallowing and shifting, and fucking.
I rolled over and watched Jim with the five girls. He was standing up,
sticking his chest out and showing off his balls. He didn't have my barrel
chest and big legs. He was slim and neat, with that black hair and that
little nasty mouth with perfect teeth, and his little round ears and his
long neck. I didn't have a neck. Not much of one, anyway. My head seemed to
sit on my shoulders. But I was strong, and mean. Not good enough, the ladies
liked dandies. If it wasn't for the boils and scars, though. I'd be down
there now showing them a thing or two. I'd flash my balls for them, bringing
their dead air-headed minds to attention. Me, with my 50-cents-a-week life.
Then I saw the girls leap up and follow Jim into the water. I heard
them giggling and screaming like mindless . . . what? No, they were nice.
They weren't like grown-ups and parents. They laughed. Things were funny.
They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of
things. D, H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of
love most people used and were used up by. Old D, H. had known something.
His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one.
Better than G. B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom,
his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him
from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping
the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made
you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally
useless.
Jim was splashing water on the girls. He was the Water God and they
loved him. He was the possibility and the promise. He was great. He knew how
to do it. I had read many books but he had read a book that I had never
read. He was an artist with his little pair of bathing trunks and his balls
and his wicked little look and his round ears. He was the best. I couldn't
challenge him any more than I could have challenged that big son-of-a-bitch
in the green coupe with the looker whose hair flowed in the wind. They both
had got what they deserved. I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the
green ocean of life.
I watched them come out of the water, glistening, smooth- skinned and
young, undefeated. I wanted them to want me. But never out of pity. Yet,
despite their smooth untouched bodies and minds they still were missing
something because they were as yet basically untested. When adversity
finally arrived in their lives it might come too late or too hard. I was
ready. Maybe.
I watched Jim toweling off, using one of their towels. As I watched,
somebody's child, a boy of about four came along, picked up a handful of
sand and threw it in my face. Then he just stood there, glowering, his sandy
stupid little mouth puckered in some kind of victory. He was a daring
darling little shit. I wiggled my finger for him to come closer, come, come.
He stood there.
"Little boy," I said, "come here. I have a bag of candy-covered shit
for you to eat."
The fucker looked, turned and ran off. He had a stupid ass. Two little
pear-shaped buttocks wobbling, almost disjointed. But, another enemy gone.
Then Jim, the lady killer, was back. He stood there over me. Glowering
also.
"They're gone," he said.
I looked down to where the five girls had been and sure enough they
were gone.
"Where did they go?" I asked.
"Who gives a fuck? I've got the phone numbers of the two best ones."
"Best ones for what?"
"For fucking, you jerk!"
I stood up.
"I think I'll deck you, jerk!"
His face looked good in the sea wind. I could already see him, knocked
down, squirming on the sand, kicking up his white- bottomed feet. Jim backed
off.
"Take it easy. Hank. Look, you can have their phone numbers!"
"Keep them. I don't have your god-damned dumb ears!"
"O.K., O.K., we're friends, remember?"
We walked up the beach to the strand where we had our bicycles locked
behind someone's beach house. And as we walked along we both knew whose day
it had been, and knocking somebody on their ass could not have changed that,
although it might have helped, but not enough. All the way home, on our
bikes, I didn't try to show him up as I had earlier. I needed something
more. Maybe I needed that blonde in the green coupe with her long hair
blowing in the wind.
R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was for the misfits. Like I
said, it was either that or gym. I would have taken gym but I didn't want
people to sec the boils on my back. There was something wrong with everybody
enrolled in R.O.T.C. It almost entirely consisted of guys who didn't like
sports or guys whose parents forced them to take R.O.T.C. because they
thought it was patriotic. The parents of rich kids tended to be more
patriotic because they had more to lose if the country went under. The poor
parents were far less patriotic, and then often professed their patriotism
only because it was expected or because it was the way they had been raised.
Subconsciously they knew it wouldn't be any better or worse for them
if the Russians or the Germans or the Chinese or the Japanese ran the
country, especially if they had dark skin. Things might even improve.
Anyhow, since many of the parents of Chelsey High were rich, we had one of
the biggest R.O.T.C.'s in the city.
So we marched around in the sun and learned to dig latrines, cure snake-
bite, tend the wounded, tie tourniquets, bayonet the enemy; we learned about
hand grenades, infiltration, deployment of troops, maneuvers, retreats,
advances, mental and physical discipline; we got on the firing range, bang
bang, and we got our marksmen's medals. We had actual field maneuvers, we
went out into the woods and waged a mock war. We crawled on our bellies
toward each other with our rifles. We were very serious. Even I was serious.
There was something about it that got your blood going. It was stupid and we
all knew it was stupid, most of us, but something clicked in our brains and
we really wanted to get involved in it. We had an old retired Army man, Col.
Sussex. He was getting senile and drooled, little trickles of saliva running
out of the corners of his mouth and down, around and under his chin. He
never said anything. He just stood around in his uniform covered with medals
and drew his pay from the high school. During our mock maneuvers he carried
reading magazines and newspapers. I felt very exceptional and a bit evil,
Nobody had any idea of what had happened to me. Car crash. A fight to the
death. A murder. Fire. Nobody knew.
I walked out of the lobby and out of the building and I stood on the
sidewalk. I could still hear him. "Joe! Joe! Where are you,Joe!"
Joe wasn't coming. It didn't pay to trust another human being.
Humans didn't have it, whatever it took.
On the streetcar ride back I sat in the back smoking cigarettes out of
my bandaged head. People stared but I didn't care. There was more fear than
horror in their eyes now. I hoped I could stay this way forever.
I rode to the end of the line and got off. The afternoon was going into
evening and I stood on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Westview
Avenue watching the people. Those few who had jobs were coming home from
work. My father would soon be driving home from his fake job. I didn't have
a job, I didn't go to school. I didn't do anything. I was bandaged, I was
standing on the corner smoking a cigarette. I was a tough man, I was a
dangerous man. I knew things. Sleeth had suicided. I wasn't going to
suicide. I'd rather kill some of them. I'd take four or five of them with
me. I'd show them what it meant to play around with me.
A woman walked down the street toward me. She had fine legs. First I
stared right into her eyes and then I looked down at her
legs, and as she passed I watched her ass, I drank her ass in. I
memorized her ass and the seams of her silk stockings. I never could have
done that without my bandages.
The next day in bed I got tired of waiting for the airplanes and I
found a large yellow notebook that had been meant for high school work. It
was empty. I found a pen. I went to bed with the notebook and the pen. I
made some drawings. I drew women in high-heeled shoes with their legs
crossed and their skirts pulled back.
Then I began writing. It was about a German aviator in World War 1.
Baron Von Himmlen. He flew a red Fokker. And he was not popular with his
fellow fliers. He didn't talk to them. He drank alone and he flew alone. He
didn't bother with women, although they all loved him. He was above that. He
was too busy. He was busy shooting Allied planes out of the sky. Already he
had shot down 110 and the war wasn't over. His red Fokker, which he referred
to as the "October Bird of Death," was known everywhere. Even the enemy
ground troops knew him as he often flew low over them, taking their gunfire
and laughing, dropping bottles of champagne to them suspended from little
parachutes. Baron Von Himmlen was never attacked by less than five Allied
planes at a time. He was an ugly man with scars on his face, but he was
beautiful if you looked long enough -- it was in the eyes, his style, his
courage, his fierce aloneness.
I wrote pages and pages about the Baron's dog fights, how he would
knock down three or four planes, fly back, almost nothing left of his red
Fokker. He'd bounce down, leap out of the plane while it was still rolling
and head for the bar where he'd grab a bottle and sit at a table alone,
pouring shots and slamming them down. Nobody drank like the Baron. The
others just stood at the bar and watched him. One time one of the other
fliers said, "What is it, Himmlen? You think you're too good for us?" It was
Willie Schmidt, the biggest, strongest guy in the outfit. The Baron downed
his drink, set down his glass, stood up and slowly started walking toward
Willie who was standing at the bar. The other fliers backed off.
"Jesus, what are you going to do?" asked Willie as the Baron
advanced.
The Baron kept moving slowly toward Willie, not answering.
"Jesus, Baron, I was just kidding! Mother's honor! Listen to me,
Baron . . . Baron . . . the enemy is elsewhere! Baron!"
The Baron let go with his right. You couldn't see it. It smashed into
Willie's face propelling him over the top of the bar, flipping him over
completely! He crashed into the bar mirror like a cannonball and the bottles
tumbled down. The Baron pulled a cigar out and lit it, then walked back to
his table, sat down and poured another drink. They didn't bother the Baron
after that. Behind the bar they picked Willie up. His face was a mass of
blood.
The Baron shot plane after plane out of the sky. Nobody seemed to
understand him and nobody knew how he had become so skillful with the red
Fokker and in his other strange ways. Like fighting. Or the graceful way he
walked. He went on and on. His luck was sometimes bad. One day flying back
after downing three Allied planes, limping in low over enemy lines, he was
hit by shrapnel. It blew off his right hand at the wrist. He managed to
bring the red Fokker in. From that time on he flew with an iron
hand in place of his original right hand. It didn't affect his flying.
And the fellows at the bar were more careful than ever when they talked to
him.
Many more things happened to the Baron after that. Twice he crashed in
no-man's-land and each time he crawled back to his squadron, half-dead,
through barbed wire and flares and enemy fire. Many times he was given up
for dead by his comrades. Once he was gone for eight days and the other
flyers were sitting in the bar, talking about what an exceptional man he had
been. When they looked up, there was the Baron standing in the doorway,
eight- day beard, uniform torn and muddy, eyes red and bleary, iron hand
glinting in the bar light. He stood there and he said, "There
better be some god-damned whiskey in this place or I'm tearing it
apart!"
The Baron went on doing magic things. Half the notebook was filled with
Baron Von Himmlen. It made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man
needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up
somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-
believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living
your life without a man like him around.
The bandages were helpful. L.A. County Hospital had finally come up
with something. The boils drained. They didn't vanish but they flattened a
bit. Yet some new ones would appear and rise up again. They drilled me and
wrapped me again.
My sessions with the drill were endless. Thirty-two, thirty-six, thirty-
eight times. There was no fear of the drill anymore. There never had been.
Only an anger. But the anger was gone. There wasn't even resignation on my
part, only disgust, a disgust that this had happened to me, and a disgust
with the doctors who couldn't do anything about it. They were helpless and I
was helpless, the only difference being that I was the victim. They could go
home to their lives and forget while I was stuck with the same face.
But there were changes in my life. My father found a job. He passed an
examination at the L.A. County Museum and got a job as a guard. My father
was good at exams. He loved math and history. He passed the exam and finally
had a place to go each morning. There had been three vacancies for guards
and he had gotten one of them.
L.A. County General Hospital somehow found out and Miss Ackerman told
me one day, "Henry, this is your last treatment. I'm going to miss you."
"Aw come on," I said, "stop your kidding. You're going to miss me like
I'm going to miss that electric needle!"
But she was very strange that day. Those big eyes were watery. I heard
her blow her nose.
I heard one of the nurses ask her, "Why, Janice, what's wrong
with you?"
"Nothing. I'm all right."
Poor Miss Ackerman. I was 15 years old and in love with her
and I was covered with boils and there was nothing that either of
us could do.
"All right," she said, "this is going to be your last ultra-violet ray
treatment. Lay on your stomach."
"I know your first name now," I told her. "Janice. That's a
pretty name. It's just like you."
"Oh, shut up," she said.
I saw her once again when the first buzzer sounded. I turned over,
Janice re-set the machine and left the room. I never saw her again.
My father didn't believe in doctors who were not free. "They make you
piss in a tube, take your money, and drive home to their wives in Beverly
Hills," he said.
But once he did send me to one. To a doctor with bad breath and a head
as round as a basketball, only with two little eyes where a basketball had
none. I didn't like my father and the doctor wasn't any better. He said, no
fried foods, and to drink carrot juice. That
was it.
I would re-enter high school the next term, said my father.
"I'm busting my ass to keep people from stealing. Some nigger broke the
glass on a case and stole some rare coins yesterday. I caught the bastard.
We rolled down the stairway together. I held him until the others came. I
risk my life every day. Why should you sit around on your ass, moping? I
want you to be an engineer. How the hell you gonna be an engineer when I
find notebooks full of women with their skirts pulled up to their ass? Is
that all you can draw? Why don't you draw flowers or mountains or the
ocean? You're going back to school!"
I drank carrot juice and waited to re-enroll. I had only missed one
term. The boils weren't cured but they weren't as bad as they had been.
"You know what carrot juice costs me? I have to work the first hour
every day just for your god-damned carrot juice!"
I discovered the La Cienega Public Library. I got a library card. The
library was near the old church down on West Adams. It was a very small
library and there was just one librarian in it. She was class. About 38 but
with pure white hair pulled tightly into a bun behind her neck. Her nose was
sharp and she had deep green eyes behind rimless glasses. I felt that she
knew everything.
I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the
shelves, one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There
were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything. Or if they did say
something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you
already were too tired to have it matter at all. I tried book after book.
Surely, out of all those books, there was one.
Each day I walked down to the library at Adams and La Brea and
there was my librarian, stern and infallible and silent. I kept pulling the
books off the shelves. The first real book I found was by a fellow named
Upton Sinclair. His sentences were simple and he spoke with anger. He wrote
with anger. He wrote about the hog pens of Chicago. He came right out and
said things plainly. Then I found another author. His name was Sinclair
Lewis. And the book was called Main Street. He peeled back the layers
of hypocrisy that covered people. Only he seemed to lack passion. I went
back for more. I read each book in a single evening. I was walking around
one day sneaking glances at my librarian when I came upon a book with the
title Bow Down To Wood and Stone. Now, that was good, because that
was what we were all doing. At last, some fire.' I opened the book.
It was by Josephine Lawrence. A woman. That was all right. Anybody could
find knowledge. I opened the pages. But they were like many of the other
books: milky, obscure, tiresome. I replaced the book. And while my hand was
there I reached for a book nearby. It was by another Lawrence. I opened the
book at random and began reading. It was about a man at a piano. How false
it seemed at first. But I kept reading. The man at the piano was troubled.
His mind was saying things. Dark and curious things. The lines on the page
were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not "Joe, where are you?" More
like Joe, where is anything? This Lawrence of the tight and bloody
line. I had never been told about him. Why the secret? Why wasn't he
advertised?
I read a book a day. I read all the D. H. Lawrence in the library. My
librarian began to look at me strangely as I checked out the books.
"How are you today?" she would ask. That always sounded so good. I felt
as if I had already gone to bed with her. I read all the books by D.
H. And they led to others. To H.D., the poetess. And Huxley, the youngest of
the Huxleys, Lawrence's friend. It all came rushing at me. One book led to
the next. DOS Passes came along. Not too good, really, but good enough. His
trilogy, about the U.S.A., took longer than a day to read. Dreiser didn't
work for me. Sherwood Anderson did. And then along came Hemingway. What a
thrill! He knew how to lay down a line. It was a joy. Words weren't dull,
words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let
yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter
what happened to you.
But back at home . . .
"LIGHTS OUT!" my father would scream. I was reading the Russians now,
reading Turgenev and Gorky. My father's rule was that all lights were to be
out by 8 p.m. He wanted to sleep so that he could be fresh and effective on
the job the next day. His conversation at home was always about "the job."
He talked to my mother about his "job" from the moment he entered the door
in the evenings until they slept. He was determined to rise in the ranks.
"All right, that's enough of those god-damned books! Lights out!"'
To me, these men who had come into my life from nowhere were my only
chance. They were the only voices that spoke to me.
"All right," I would say.
Then I took the reading lamp, crawled under the blanket, pulled the
pillow under there, and read each new book, propping it against the pillow,
under the quilt. It got very hot, the lamp got hot, and I had trouble
breathing. I would lift the quilt for air.
"What's that? Do I see a light? Henry, are your lights out?"
I would quickly lower the quilt again and wait until I heard my
father snoring.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a
truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the
same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the
overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It
was magic.
And my father had found a job, and that was magic for him . . .
Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had
graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports
cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronted by them. They left me
alone, they ignored me. They were busy with the girls. They never spoke to
the poor guys in or out of class.
About a week into my second semester I talked to my father over dinner.
"Look," I said, "it's hard at school. You're giving me 50 cents a week
allowance. Can't you make it a dollar?"
"A dollar?"
"Yes."
He put a forkful of sliced pickled beets into his mouth and chewed.
Then he looked at me from under his curled-up eyebrows,
"If I gave you a dollar a week that would mean 52 dollars a year, that
would mean I would have to work over a week on my job just so you
could have an allowance."
I didn't answer. But I thought, my god, if you think like that, item by
item, then you can't buy anything: bread, watermelon, newspapers, flour,
milk or shaving cream. I didn't say any more because when you hate, you
don't beg . . .
Those rich guys like to dart their cars in and out, swiftly, sliding
up, burning rubber, their cars glistening in the sunlight as the girls
gathered around. Classes were a joke, they were all going somewhere to
college, classes were just a routine laugh, they got good grades, you seldom
saw them with books, you just saw them burning more rubber, gunning from the
curb with their cars full of squealing and laughing girls. I watched them
with my 50 cents in my pocket. I didn't even know how to drive a car.
Meanwhile the poor and the lost and the idiots continued to flock
around me. I had a place I liked to eat under the football grandstand. I had
my brown bag lunch with my two bologna sandwiches. They came around, "Hey,
Hank, can I eat with you?"
"Get the fuck out of here! I'm not going to tell you twice!"
Enough of this kind had attached themselves to me already. I didn't
much care for any of them: Baldy, Jimmy Hatcher, and a thin gangling Jewish
kid, Abe Mortenson. Mortenson was a straight-A student but one of the
biggest idiots in school. He had something radically wrong with him. Saliva
kept forming in his mouth but instead of spitting on the ground to get rid
of it he spit into his hands. I don't know why he did it and I didn't ask. I
didn't like to ask. I just watched him and I was disgusted. I went home with
him once and I found out how he got straight A's. His mother made him stick
his nose into a book right away and she made him keep it there. She made him
read all of his school books over and over, page after page. "He must pass
his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the hooks were
wrong. Or that maybe it didn't matter. I didn't ask her.
It was like grammar school all over again. Gathered around me were the
weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers
instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their
company through life. That didn't bother me so much as the fact that I
seemed irresistible to these dull idiot fellows. I was like a turd that drew
flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted
to live alone, I felt best being alone, cleaner, yet I was not clever enough
to rid myself of them. Maybe they were my masters: fathers in another
form. In any event, it was hard to have them hanging around while I was
eating my bologna sandwiches.
But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the
neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson,
who had had one professional fight (he'd lost). I was over at Gene's one
afternoon smoking cigarettes with him when Harry Gibson showed up with two
pairs of boxing gloves. Gene and I were smoking with his two older brothers,
Larry and Dan.
Harry Gibson was cocky. "Anybody want to try me?" he asked. Nobody said
anything. Gene's oldest brother, Larry, was about 22. He was the biggest,
but he was kind of timid and subnormal. He had a huge head, he was
short and stocky, really well-built, but everything frightened him. So we
all looked at Dan who was the next oldest, since Larry said, "No, no I don't
want to fight." Dan was a musical genius, he had almost won a scholarship
but not quite. Anyhow, since Larry had passed up Harry's challenge, Dan put
the gloves on with Harry Gibson.
Harry Gibson was a son-of-a-bitch on shining wheels. Even the sun
glinted off his gloves in a certain way. He moved with precision, aplomb and
grace. He pranced and danced around Dan. Dan held up his gloves and waited.
Gibson's first punch streaked in. It cracked like a rifle shot. There were
some chickens in a pen in the yard and two of them jumped into the air at
the sound. Dan spilled backwards. He was stretched out on the grass, both of
his arms spread out like some cheap Christ.
Larry looked at him and said, "I'm going into the house." He walked
quickly to the screen door, opened it and was gone.
We walked over to Dan. Gibson stood over him with a little grin on his
face. Gene bent down, lifted Dan's head up a bit. "Dan? You all right?"
Dan shook his head and slowly sat up.
"Jesus Christ, the guy's carrying a lethal weapon. Get these
gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced one glove and I got the other. Dan stood up and walked
toward the back door like an old man. "I'm gonna lay down . . ." He went
inside.
Harry Gibson picked up the gloves and looked at Gene. "How about it,
Gene?"
Gene spit in the grass. "What the hell you trying to do, knock off the
whole family?"
"I know you're the best fighter, Gene, but I'll go easy on you anyhow."
Gene nodded and I laced on his gloves for him. I was a good glove man.
They squared off. Gibson circled around Gene, getting ready. He circled
to the right, then he circled to the left. He bobbed and he weaved. Then he
stepped in, gave Gene a hard left jab. It landed right between Gene's eyes.
Gene backpedaled and Gibson followed. When he got Gene up against the
chicken pen he steadied him with a soft left to the forehead and then
cracked a hard right to Gene's left temple. Gene slid along the chicken wire
until he hit the fence, .then he slid along the fence, covering up. He
wasn't attempting to fight back. Dan came out of the house with a piece of
ice wrapped in a rag. He sat on the porch steps and held the rag to his
forehead. Gene retreated along the fence. Harry got him in the corner
between the fence and the garage. He looped a left to Gene's gut and when
Gene bent over he straightened him with a right uppercut. I didn't like it.
Gibson wasn't going easy on Gene like he'd promised. I got excited.
"Hit that fucker back, Gene! He's yellow! Hit him!"
Gibson lowered his gloves, looked at me and walked over.
"What did you say, punk?"
"I was rooting my man on," I said. Dan was over getting the gloves off
Gene.
"Did I hear something about being 'yellow'?"
"You said you were going to go easy on him. You didn't. You're hitting
him with every shot you've got."
"You callin' me a liar?"
"I'm saying you don't keep your word."
"Come on over and put the gloves on this punk!"
Gene and Dan came over and began putting the gloves on me.
"Take it easy on this guy, Hank," Gene said. "Remember he's all tired
out from fighting us."
Gene and I had fought barefisted one memorable day from 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. Gene had done pretty good. I had small hands and if you have small
hands you've cither got to be able to hit hard as hell or else be some kind
of a boxer. I was only a little of each. The next day my entire upper body
was purple with bruises and I had two fat lips and a couple of loose front
teeth. Now I had to fight the guy who had just whipped the guy who had
whipped me.
Gibson circled to the left, then the right, then he moved in on me. I
didn't see the left jab at all. I don't know where it caught me hut I went
down from the left jab. It hadn't hurt but I was down. I got up. If the left
could do that what would the right do? I had to figure something out.
Harry Gibson began to circle to the left, my left. Instead of circling
to my right like he expected, I circled to my left. He looked surprised and
as we came together I looped a wild left which caught him high and hard on
the head. It felt great. If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.
Then we were facing each other and he came straight at me. Gibson got
me with the jab hut as it hit me I ducked my head down and to one side as
quickly as I could. His right swung around over the top, missing. I moved
into him and clinched, giving him a rabbit punch. We broke and I felt like a
pro.
"You can take him, Hank!" yelled Gene.
"Go get him, Hank!" yelled Dan.
I rushed Gibson and tried a right lead. I missed and his left cross
flashed on my jaw. I saw green and yellow and red lights, then he dug a
right to my belly. It felt like it went through to my backbone. I grabbed
him and clinched. But I wasn't frightened, for a change, and that felt good.
"I'll kill you, you fucker!" I told him.
Then it was just head-to-head, no more boxing. His punches came fast
and hard. He was more accurate, had more power, yet I was landing some hard
shots too and it made me feel good. The more he hit me the less I felt it. I
had my gut sucked in, I liked the action. Then Gene and Dan were between us.
They pulled us apart.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Don't stop this thing! I can take his ass!"
"Cut the shit, Hank," said Gene. "Look at yourself."
I looked down. The front of my shirt was dark with blood and there were
splotches of pus. The punches had broken open three or four boils. That
hadn't happened in my fight with Gene.
"That's nothing," I said. "That's just bad luck. He hasn't hurt me.
Give me a chance and I'll cut him down."
"No, Hank, you'll get an infection or something," said Gene.
"All right, shit," I said, "cut the gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced me. When he got the gloves off I noticed that my hands
were trembling, and also my arms to a lesser extent. I put my hands in my
pockets. Dan took Harry's gloves off. Harry looked at me. "You're pretty
good, kid."
"Thanks. Well, I'll see you guys . . ."
I walked off. As I walked away I took my hands out of my pockets. Then
up the-driveway, just at the sidewalk, I stopped, pulled out a cigarette and
stuck it into my mouth. When I tried to strike a match my hands were
trembling so much I couldn't do it. I gave them a wave, a real nonchalant
wave, and walked away.
Back at the house I looked at myself in the mirror. Pretty damn good. I
was coming along.
I took off my shirt and threw it under the bed. I'd have to find a way
to clean the blood off. I didn't have many shirts and they'd notice a
missing one right away. But for me, it had finally been a successful day,
and I hadn't had too many of those.
Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You
can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive
anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel had. Jimmy Hatcher had
straight black hair, fair skin, he wasn't as big as I was but he kept his
shoulders back, dressed better than most of us, and he had a way of getting
along with anybody he felt like getting along with. His mother was a bar
maid and his father had committed suicide. Jimmy had a nice smile, perfect
teeth, and the girls liked him even though he didn't have the money the rich
guys had. I would always see him talking to some girl. I don't know what he
said to them. I didn't know what any of the guys said to any of them. The
girls were impossibly out of reach for me and so I pretended that they
didn't exist.
But Hatcher was another matter. I knew he wasn't a fairy but he kept
hanging around.
"Listen, Jimmy, why do you follow me around? I don't like anything
about you."
"Ah, come on. Hank, we're friends."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
He even got up once in English class and read an essay called
"The Value of Friendship," and while he was reading it he kept glancing
at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded
when he finished, and I thought, well, that's what people think and what can
you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, "The Value of No Friendship
At All." The teacher didn't let me read it to the class. She gave me a "D."
Jimmy and Baldy and I walked home together from high school each day.
(Abe Mortenson lived in the other direction so that saved us from having to
walk with him.) One day we were walking along and Jimmy said, "Hey, let's go
to my girlfriend's house. I want you to meet her."
"Ah, balls, fuck that," I said.
"No, no," said Jimmy, "she's a nice girl. I want you to meet her. I've
finger-fucked her."
I'd seen his girl, Ann Weatherton, she was really beautiful, long brown
hair and large brown eyes, quiet, and with a good figure. I'd never spoken
to her but I knew she was Jimmy's girl. The rich guys had tried to hit on
her but she ignored them. She looked like she was first-rate.
"I've got the key to her house," said Jimmy. "We'll go there and wait
for her. She's got a late class."
"Sounds dull to me," I said.
"Ah, come on, Hank," said Baldy. "you're just going to go home and
whack-off anyhow."
"That's not always without its own merits," I said.
Jimmy opened the front door with his key and we walked in. A nice clean
little house. A small black and white bulldog ran up to Jimmy, wagging its
stub tail.
"This is Bones," said Jimmy. "Bones loves me. Watch this!"
Jimmy spit in the palm of his right hand and grabbed Bones' penis and
began rubbing it.
"Hey, what the fuck you doing?" asked Baldy.
"They keep Bones on a leash in the yard. He never gets any. He needs
release!" Jimmy worked away.
Bones' penis got disgustingly red, a thin, long string of dripping
inanity. Bones began making whimpering sounds. Jimmy looked up as he worked
away. "Hey, you wanna know what our song is? I mean, Ann's song and my song?
It's 'When the Deep Purple Falls Over Sleepy Garden Walls."'
Then Bones was making it. The sperm spurted out and on the carpet.
Jimmy stood up and with the sole of his shoe rubbed the come down into the
nap of the carpet.
"I'm gonna fuck Ann one of these days. It's getting close. She says she
loves me. And I love her too, I love her god-damned cunt."
"You prick," I told Jimmy, "you make me sick."
"I know you don't mean that, Hank," he said. Jimmy walked into the
kitchen. "She's got a nice family. She lives here with her father, mother
and brother. Her brother knows I am going to fuck her. He's right. But
there's nothing he can do about it because I can beat the shit out of him.
He's nothing. Hey, watch this!"
Jimmy opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of milk. At
our place we still had an icebox. The Weathertons were obviously a well-off
family. Jimmy pulled out his cock and then peeled the cardboard cap off the
bottle and put his cock in there.
"Just a little, you know. They'll never taste it but they'll be
drinking my piss . . ."
He pulled his cock out, capped the bottle, shook it, and then placed it
hack in the refrigerator.
"Now," he said, "here's some jello. They are going to eat jello for
dessert tonight. They are also going to eat . . ." He took the bowl of jello
out and held it and then we heard a key in the front door and the front door
opening. Jimmy quickly put the jello back into the refrigerator and closed
the door. Then Ann walked in. Into the kitchen.
"Ann," said Jimmy, "I want you to meet my good friends, Hank and
Baldy."
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"This one's Baldy. The other guy is Hank."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I've seen you guys around campus."
"Oh yeah," I said, "we're around there. And we've seen you too."
"Yeah," said Baldy.
Jimmy looked at Ann. "You all right, baby?"
"Yes, Jimmy, I've been thinking about you."
She moved toward him and they embraced, then they were kissing. They
were standing right in front of us as they were kissing. Jimmy was facing
us. We could see his right eye. It winked.
"Well," I said, "we've got to get going."
"Yeah," said Baldy.
We walked out of the kitchen, through the front room and out of there.
We walked down the sidewalk toward Baldy's place.
"That guy's really got it made," said Baldy.
"Yeah," I said.
One Sunday Jimmy talked me into going to the beach with him. He wanted
to go swimming. I didn't want to he seen wearing swimming trunks because my
hack was covered with boils and scars. Outside of that, I had a good
body. But nobody would notice that. I had a good chest and great legs
but nobody would see that.
I here was nothing to do and I didn't have any money and the guys
didn't play in the streets on Sunday. I decided that the beach belonged to
everybody. I had a right, my scars and boils weren't against the law.
So we got on our bikes and started out. It was fifteen miles. That
didn't bother me. I had the legs.
I breezed with Jimmy all the way to Culver City. Then I gradually began
to pedal faster. Jimmy pumped, trying to keep up. I could see him getting
winded. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, held out the pack to him. "Want
one, Jim?"
"No . . . thanks . . ."
"This beats shooting birds with a beebee gun," I told him. "We ought to
do this more often!"
I began pumping harder. I still had plenty of reserve strength.
"This really gets it," I told him. "This beats whacking-off!"
"Hey, slow up a little!"
I looked back at him. "There's nothing like a good friend to go biking
with. Come on, friend!"
Then I gave it all I had and pulled away. The wind was blowing in my
face. It felt good.
"Hey, wait! WAIT, GOD DAMN IT!" yelled Jimmy. I started laughing and
really opened up. Soon Jim was half-a- block back, a block, two blocks.
Nobody knew how good I was, nobody knew what I could do. I was some kind of
miracle. The sun tossed yellow everywhere and I cut through-it, a crazy
knife on wheels. My father was a beggar in the streets of India but all the
women in the world loved me . . .
I was traveling at full speed as I reached the signal. I shot through
inside the row of waiting cars. Now even the cars were back there behind me.
But not for long. A guy and his girl in a green coupe pulled up and drove
alongside me.
"Hey, kid!"
"Yeah?" I looked at him. He was a big guy in his twenties with hairy
arms and a tattoo.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he asked me. He was trying
to show off in front of his girl. She was a looker, her long blond hair
blowing in the wind.
"Up yours, buddy!" I told him.
"What?"
"I said, 'Up yours!"
I gave him the finger. He kept driving along beside me.
"You gonna take shit off that kid, Nick?" I heard his girl ask him.
He kept driving along beside me.
"Hey, kid," he said, "I didn't quite hear what you said. Would you mind
saying that again?"
"Yeah, say that again," said the looker, her long blond hair blowing in
the wind. That pissed me. She pissed me.
I looked at him. "All right, you want trouble? Park it. I'm
trouble."
He zoomed ahead of me about half a block, parked, and swung the door
open. As he got out I swung wide around him almost into the path of a Chevy
who gave me the horn. As I swung around into a side street I could hear the
big guy laughing.
After the guy was gone I wheeled back onto Washington Boulevard, went a
few blocks, got off the bike and waited for Jim on a bus stop bench. I could
see him coming along. When he pulled up I pretended that I was asleep.
"Come on, Hank! Don't give me that shit!"
"Oh, hello, Jim. You here?"
I tried to get Jim to pick a spot on the beach where there weren't too
many people. I felt normal standing there in my shirt but when I undressed I
was exposed. I hated the other bathers for their unmarred bodies. I hated
all the god-damned people who were sunbathing or in the water or eating or
sleeping or talking or throwing beachballs. I hated their behinds and their
faces and their elbows and their hair and their eyes and their bellybuttons
and their bathing suits.
I stretched out on the sand thinking, I should have punched that fat
son-of-a-bitch. What the hell did he know? Jim stretched out beside me.
"What the hell," he said, "let's go swimming."
"Not yet," I said.
The water was full of people. What was the fascination of the beach?
Why did people like the beach? Didn't they have anything better to do? What
chicken-brained fuckers they were.
"Just think," said Jim, "women go into the water and they piss in
there."
"Yeah, and you swallow it."
'
There would never be a way for me to live comfortably with people.
Maybe I'd become a monk. I'd pretend to believe in God and live in a
cubicle, play an organ and stay drunk on wine. Nobody would fuck with me. I
could go into a cell for months of meditation where I wouldn't have to look
at anybody and they could just send in the wine. The trouble was, the black
robes were pure wool. They were worse than R.O.T.C. uniforms. I couldn't
wear them. I'd have to think of something else.
"Oh, oh," said Jim.
"What is it?"
"There are some girls down there looking at us."
"So what?"
"They're talking and laughing. They might come down here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And if they start coming over I'll warn you. When I do, turn on
your back."
My chest had only a few boils and scars.
"Don't forget," said Jim, "when I warn you, turn over on your back."
"I heard you."
I had my head down in my arms. I knew that Jim was looking at the girls
and smiling. He had a way with them.
"Simple cunts," he said, "they're really stupid."
Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of
choosing between something bad and something worse?
"Oh, oh, Hank, here they come!"
I looked up. There were five of them. I rolled over on my back. They
walked up giggling and stood there. One of them said,
"Hey, these guys are cute!"
"You girls live around here?" Jim asked.
"Oh yeah," one of them said, "we nest with the seagulls!"
They giggled.
"Well," said Jim, "we're eagles. I'm not sure we'd know what to do with
five seagulls."
"How do birds do it anyhow?" one of them asked.
"Damned if I know," Jim said, "maybe we can find out."
"Why don't you guys come over to our blanket?" one of them asked.
"Sure," Jim said.
Three of the girls had spoken. The other two had just stood there
pulling their bathing suits down over what they didn't want seen.
"Count me out," I said.
"What's wrong with your friend?" asked one of the girls who had been
covering her ass. Jim said, "He's strange."
"What's wrong with him?" asked the last girl.
"He's just strange," said Jim.
He got up and walked off with the girls. I closed my eyes and listened
to the waves. Thousands of fish out there, eating each other. Endless mouths
and assholes swallowing and shifting. The whole earth was nothing but mouths
and assholes swallowing and shifting, and fucking.
I rolled over and watched Jim with the five girls. He was standing up,
sticking his chest out and showing off his balls. He didn't have my barrel
chest and big legs. He was slim and neat, with that black hair and that
little nasty mouth with perfect teeth, and his little round ears and his
long neck. I didn't have a neck. Not much of one, anyway. My head seemed to
sit on my shoulders. But I was strong, and mean. Not good enough, the ladies
liked dandies. If it wasn't for the boils and scars, though. I'd be down
there now showing them a thing or two. I'd flash my balls for them, bringing
their dead air-headed minds to attention. Me, with my 50-cents-a-week life.
Then I saw the girls leap up and follow Jim into the water. I heard
them giggling and screaming like mindless . . . what? No, they were nice.
They weren't like grown-ups and parents. They laughed. Things were funny.
They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of
things. D, H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of
love most people used and were used up by. Old D, H. had known something.
His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one.
Better than G. B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom,
his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him
from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping
the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made
you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally
useless.
Jim was splashing water on the girls. He was the Water God and they
loved him. He was the possibility and the promise. He was great. He knew how
to do it. I had read many books but he had read a book that I had never
read. He was an artist with his little pair of bathing trunks and his balls
and his wicked little look and his round ears. He was the best. I couldn't
challenge him any more than I could have challenged that big son-of-a-bitch
in the green coupe with the looker whose hair flowed in the wind. They both
had got what they deserved. I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the
green ocean of life.
I watched them come out of the water, glistening, smooth- skinned and
young, undefeated. I wanted them to want me. But never out of pity. Yet,
despite their smooth untouched bodies and minds they still were missing
something because they were as yet basically untested. When adversity
finally arrived in their lives it might come too late or too hard. I was
ready. Maybe.
I watched Jim toweling off, using one of their towels. As I watched,
somebody's child, a boy of about four came along, picked up a handful of
sand and threw it in my face. Then he just stood there, glowering, his sandy
stupid little mouth puckered in some kind of victory. He was a daring
darling little shit. I wiggled my finger for him to come closer, come, come.
He stood there.
"Little boy," I said, "come here. I have a bag of candy-covered shit
for you to eat."
The fucker looked, turned and ran off. He had a stupid ass. Two little
pear-shaped buttocks wobbling, almost disjointed. But, another enemy gone.
Then Jim, the lady killer, was back. He stood there over me. Glowering
also.
"They're gone," he said.
I looked down to where the five girls had been and sure enough they
were gone.
"Where did they go?" I asked.
"Who gives a fuck? I've got the phone numbers of the two best ones."
"Best ones for what?"
"For fucking, you jerk!"
I stood up.
"I think I'll deck you, jerk!"
His face looked good in the sea wind. I could already see him, knocked
down, squirming on the sand, kicking up his white- bottomed feet. Jim backed
off.
"Take it easy. Hank. Look, you can have their phone numbers!"
"Keep them. I don't have your god-damned dumb ears!"
"O.K., O.K., we're friends, remember?"
We walked up the beach to the strand where we had our bicycles locked
behind someone's beach house. And as we walked along we both knew whose day
it had been, and knocking somebody on their ass could not have changed that,
although it might have helped, but not enough. All the way home, on our
bikes, I didn't try to show him up as I had earlier. I needed something
more. Maybe I needed that blonde in the green coupe with her long hair
blowing in the wind.
R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was for the misfits. Like I
said, it was either that or gym. I would have taken gym but I didn't want
people to sec the boils on my back. There was something wrong with everybody
enrolled in R.O.T.C. It almost entirely consisted of guys who didn't like
sports or guys whose parents forced them to take R.O.T.C. because they
thought it was patriotic. The parents of rich kids tended to be more
patriotic because they had more to lose if the country went under. The poor
parents were far less patriotic, and then often professed their patriotism
only because it was expected or because it was the way they had been raised.
Subconsciously they knew it wouldn't be any better or worse for them
if the Russians or the Germans or the Chinese or the Japanese ran the
country, especially if they had dark skin. Things might even improve.
Anyhow, since many of the parents of Chelsey High were rich, we had one of
the biggest R.O.T.C.'s in the city.
So we marched around in the sun and learned to dig latrines, cure snake-
bite, tend the wounded, tie tourniquets, bayonet the enemy; we learned about
hand grenades, infiltration, deployment of troops, maneuvers, retreats,
advances, mental and physical discipline; we got on the firing range, bang
bang, and we got our marksmen's medals. We had actual field maneuvers, we
went out into the woods and waged a mock war. We crawled on our bellies
toward each other with our rifles. We were very serious. Even I was serious.
There was something about it that got your blood going. It was stupid and we
all knew it was stupid, most of us, but something clicked in our brains and
we really wanted to get involved in it. We had an old retired Army man, Col.
Sussex. He was getting senile and drooled, little trickles of saliva running
out of the corners of his mouth and down, around and under his chin. He
never said anything. He just stood around in his uniform covered with medals
and drew his pay from the high school. During our mock maneuvers he carried