I went down to the corner mailbox and dropped the letter in.
The phone rang several times. It was Lydia. She screamed things at me.
"I'm going out DANCING! I'm not going to sit around alone while you drink!"
I told her, "You act like drinking is like my going with another woman."
"It's worse!"
She hung up.
I kept drinking. I didn't feel like sleeping. Soon it was midnight, then 1 am, 2 am. The Coleman lantern burned on…
At 3:30 am the phone rang. Lydia again. "Are you still drink-ing?"
"Sure!"
"You rotten son of a bitch!"
"In fact just as you called I was peeling the cellophane off this pint of Cutty Sark. It's beautiful. You ought to see it!"
She slammed down the phone. I mixed another drink. There was good music on the radio. I leaned back. I felt very good.
The door banged open and Lydia ran into the room. She stood there panting. The pint was on the coffee table. She saw it and grabbed it. I jumped up and grabbed her. When I was drunk and Lydia was insane we were nearly an equal match. She held the bottle high in the air, away from me, and tried to get out of the door with it. I grabbed the arm that held the bottle, and tried to get it away from her.
"YOU WHORE! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! GIVE ME THAT FUCKING BOTTLE!"
Then we were out on the porch, wrestling. We tripped on the stairs and fell to the pavement. The bottle smashed and broke on the cement. She got up and ran off. I heard her car start. I lay there and looked at the broken bottle. It was a foot away. Lydia drove off. The moon was still up. In the bottom of what was left of the bottle I could see a swallow of scotch. Stretched out there on the pavement I reached for it and lifted it to my mouth. A long shard of glass almost poked into one of my eyes as I drank what remained. Then I got up and went inside. The thirst in me was terrible. I walked around picking up beer bottles and drinking the bit that remained in each one. Once I got a mouthful of ashes as I often used beer bottles for ashtrays. It was 4:14 am. I sat and watched the clock. It was like working in the post office again. Time was motionless while existence was a throbbing unbearable thing. I waited. I waited. I waited. I waited. Finally it was 6 am. I walked to the corner to the liquor store. A clerk was opening up. He let me in. I purchased another pint of Cutty Sark. I walked back home, locked the door and phoned Lydia.
"I have here one pint of Cutty Sark from which I am peeling the cellophane. I am going to have a drink. And the liquor store will now be open for 20 hours."
She hung up. I had one drink and then walked into the bedroom, stretched out on the bed, and went to sleep without taking off my clothes.
13
A week later I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Lydia. A weekly entertainment newspaper published in California at that time had asked me to write an article on the life of the writer in Los Angeles. I had written it and was driving over to the editorial offices to submit it. We parked in the lot at Mosley Square. Mosley Square was a section of expensive bungalows used as offices by music publishers, agents, promoters and the like. The rents were very high.
We went into one of the bungalows. There was a handsome girl behind the desk, educated and cool.
"I'm Chinaski," I said, "and here's my copy."
I threw it on the desk.
"Oh, Mr. Chinaski, I've always admired your work very much!"
"Do you have anything to drink around here?"
"Just a moment…"
She went up to a carpeted stairway and came back down with a bottle of expensive red wine. She opened it and pulled some glasses from a hidden bar. How I'd like to get in bed with her, I thought. But there was no way. Yet, somebody was going to bed with her regularly.
We sat and sipped our wine.
"We'll let you know very soon about the article. I'm sure we'll take it… But you're not at all the way I expected you to be…"
"What do you mean?"
"Your voice is so soft. You seem so nice."
Lydia laughed. We finished our wine and left. As we were walking toward my car I heard a voice. "Hank!"
I looked around and there sitting in a new Mercedes was Dee Dee Bronson. I walked over.
"How's it going, Dee Dee?"
"Pretty good. I quit Capitol Records. Now I'm running that place over there." She pointed. It was another music company, quite famous, with its home office in London. Dee Dee used to drop by my place with her boyfriend when he and I both had columns in a Los Angeles underground newspaper.
"Jesus, you're doing good," I said.
"Yes, except…"
"Except what?"
"Except I need a man. A good man."
"Well, give me your phone number and I'll see if I can find one for you."
"All right."
Dee Dee wrote her phone number on a slip of paper and I put it in my wallet. Lydia and I walked over to my old Volks and got in. "You're going to phone her," Lydia said. "You're going to use that number."
I started the car and got back on Hollywood Boulevard.
"You're going to use that number," she said. "I just know you're going to use that number!"
"Cut the shit!" I said.
It looked like another bad night.
14
We had another fight. Later I was back at my place but I didn't feel like sitting there alone and drinking. The night harness racing meet was on. I took a pint and went out to the track. I arrived early and got all my figures together. By the time the first race was over the pint was surprisingly more than half gone. I was mixing it with hot coffee and it went down easily.
I won three of the first four races. Later I won an exacta and was nearly $200 ahead by the end of the 5th race. I went to the bar and played off the toteboard. That night they gave me what I called "a good toteboard." Lydia would have shit if she could have seen me pulling in all that cash. She hated it when I won at the track, especially when she was losing.
I kept drinking and hitting. By the time the 9th race was over I was $950 ahead and very drunk. I put my wallet in one of my side pockets and walked slowly to my car.
I sat in my car and watched the losers leave the parking lot. I sat there until the traffic thinned out then I started the engine. Just outside the track was a supermarket. I saw a lighted phone booth at one end of the parking lot, drove in and got out. I walked to the phone and dialed Lydia 's number.
"Listen," I said, "listen, you bitch, I went to the harness races tonight and won $950. I'm a winner! I'll always be a winner! You don't deserve me, bitch! You've been playing with me! Well, it's over! I want out! This is it! I don't need you and your goddamned games! Do you understand me? Do you get the message? Or is your head thicker than your ankles?"
"Hank…"
"Yes?"
"This isn't Lydia. This is Bonnie. I'm baby sitting for Lydia. She went out tonight."
I hung up and walked back to my car.
15
Lydia phoned me in the morning. "Whenever you get drunk," she said, "I'm going out dancing. I went to the Red Umbrella last night and I asked men to dance with me. A woman has a right to do that."
"You're a whore."
"Yeah? Well, if there's anything worse than a whore it's a bore."
"If there's anything worse than a bore it's a boring whore."
"If you don't want my pussy," she said, "I'll give it to somebody else."
"That's your privilege."
"After I finished dancing, I went to see Marvin. I wanted to get his girlfriend's address and go see her. Francine. You went to see his girl Francine one night yourself," Lydia said.
"Look, I never fucked her. I was just too drunk to drive home after a party. We didn't even kiss. She let me sleep on her couch and I went home in the morning."