“What’ll it be?” said the barman to me.
“Pig oil with a cherry,” I said, cordially hoping to live up to my reputation. But the barman scowled and turning to George spoke through a sigh.
“What’ll it be?”
It was exhilarating, at least at first, to live in a city of narcissists. On my second or third day I followed George’s directions and walked to the beach. It was noon. A million stark, primitive figurines lay scattered on the fine, pale, yellow sand till they were swallowed up, north and south, in a haze of heat and pollution. Nothing moved but the sluggish giant waves in the distance, and the silence was awesome. Near where I stood on the very edge of the beach were different kinds of parallel bars, empty and stark, their crude geometry marked by silence. Not even the sound of the waves reached me, no voices, the whole city lay dreaming. As I began walking towards the ocean there were soft murmurs nearby, and it was as if I overheard a sleep-talker. I saw a man move his hand, spreading his fingers more firmly against the sand to catch the sun. An ice chest without its lid stood like a gravestone at the head of a prostrate woman. I peeped inside as I passed and saw empty beercans, and a packet of orange cheese floating in water. Now that I was moving among them I noticed how far apart the solitary sun-bathers were. It seemed to take minutes to walk from one to another. A trick of perspective had made me think they were jammed together. I noticed too how beautiful the women were, their brown limbs spread like starfish; and how many healthy old men there were with gnarled muscular bodies. The spectacle of this common intent exhilarated me and for the first time in my life I too urgently wished to be brown-skinned, brown-faced, so that when I smiled my teeth would flash white. I took off my trousers and shirt, spread my towel and lay down on my back thinking, I shall be free, I shall change beyond all recognition. But within minutes I was hot and restless, I longed to open my eyes. I ran into the ocean and swam out to where a few people were treading water and waiting for an especially huge wave to dash them to the shore.
Returning from the beach one day I found pinned to my door a note from my friend Terence Latterly. “Waiting for you,” it said, “in the Doggie Diner across the street.” I had met Latterly years ago in England when he was researching a still uncompleted thesis on George Orwell, and it was not till I came to America that I realized how rare an American he was. Slender, extraordinarily pallid, fine black hair that curled, doe eyes like those of a Renaissance princess, long straight nose with narrow black slits for nostrils, Terence was unwholesomely beautiful. He was frequently approached by gays, and once, in Polk Street, San Francisco, literally mobbed. He had a stammer, slight enough to be endearing to those endeared by such things, and he was intense in his friendships to the point of occasionally lapsing into impenetrable sulks about them. It took me some time to admit to myself I actually disliked Terence and by that time he was in my life and I accepted the fact. Like all compulsive monologuists he lacked curiosity about other people’s minds, but his stories were good and he never told the same one twice. He regularly became infatuated with women whom he drove away with his labyrinthine awkwardness and consumptive zeal, and who provided fresh material for his monologues. Two or three times now quiet, lonely, protective girls had fallen hopelessly for Terence and his ways, but, tellingly, he was not interested. Terence cared for long-legged, tough-minded, independent women who were rapidly bored by Terence. He once told me he masturbated every day.
He was the Doggie Diner’s only customer, bent morosely over an empty coffee cup, his chin propped in his palms.
“In England,” I told him, “a dog’s dinner means some kind of unpalatable mess.”
“Sit down then,” said Terence. “We’re in the right place. I’ve been so humiliated.”
“Sylvie?” I asked obligingly.
“Yes, yes. Grotesquely humiliated.” This was nothing new. Terence dined out frequently on morbid accounts of blows dealt him by indifferent women. He had been in love with Sylvie for months now and had followed her here from San Francisco, which was where he first told me about her. She made a living setting up health food restaurants and then selling them, and as far as I knew, she was hardly aware of the existence of Terence.
“I should never’ve come to Los Angeles,” Terence was saying as the Doggie Diner waitress refilled his cup. “It’s OK for the British. You see everything here as a bizarre comedy of extremes, but that’s because you’re out of it The truth is it’s psychotic, totally psychotic.” Terence ran his fingers through his hair which looked lacquered and stiff and stared out into the street. Wrapped in a constant, faint blue cloud, cars drifted by at twenty miles an hour, their drivers tanned forearms propped on the window ledges, their car radios and stereos were on, they were all going home or to bars for happy hour.
After a suitable silence, I said, “Well…?”
From the day he arrives in Los Angeles Terence pleads with Sylvie over the phone to have a meal with him in a restaurant, and finally, wearily, she consents. Terence buys a new shirt, visits a hairdresser and spends an hour in the late afternoon in front of the mirror, staring at his face. He meets Sylvie in a bar, they drink bourbon. She is relaxed and friendly, and they talk easily of California politics, of which Terence knows next to nothing. Since Sylvie knows Los Angeles she chooses the restaurant. As they are leaving the bar she says, “Shall we go in your car or mine?”
Terence, who has no car and cannot drive, says, “Why not yours?”
By the end of the hors d’oeuvres they are starting in on their second bottle of wine and talking of books, and then of money, and then of books again. Lovely Sylvie leads Terence by the hand through half a dozen topics; she smiles and Terence flushes with love and love’s wildest ambitions. He loves so hard he knows he will not be able to resist declaring himself. He can feel it coming on, a mad confession. The words tumble out, a declaration of love worthy of the pages of Walter Scott, its main burden being that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the world Terence would not do for Sylvie. In fact, drunk, he challenges her now to test his devotion. Touched by the bourbon and wine, intrigued by this wan, fin de siècle lunatic, Sylvie gazes warmly across the table and returns his little squeeze to the hand. In the rarefied air between them runs a charge of goodwill and daredevilry. Propelled by mere silence Terence repeats himself. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the etc. Sylvie’s gaze shifts momentarily from Terence’s face to the door of the restaurant through which a well-to-do middle-aged couple are now entering. She frowns, then smiles.
“Anything?” she says.
“Yes yes, anything.” Terence is solemn now, sensing the real challenge in her question. Sylvie leans forward and grips his forearm.
“You won’t back out?”
“No, if it’s humanly possible I’ll do it.” Again Sylvie is looking over at the couple who wait by the door to be seated by the hostess, an energetic lady in a red soldier-like uniform. Terence watches too. Sylvie tightens her grip on his arm.
“I want you to urinate in your pants, now. Go on now! Quick! Do it now before you have time to think about it.”
Terence is about to protest, but his own promises still hang in the air, an accusing cloud. With drunken sway, and with the sound of an electric bell ringing in his ears, he urinates copiously, soaking his thighs, legs and backside and sending a small, steady trickle to the floor.
“Have you done it?” says Sylvie.
“Yes,” says Terence, “But why…?” Sylvie half-rises from her seat and waves prettily across the restaurant at the couple standing by the door.