"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I said. "I'm going to the track."
Lydia walked over to me. "Listen, you know what the racetrack does to you."
She meant that I was always too tired to make love after going to the racetrack.
"You were drunk last night," she continued. "You were horrible. You frightened Lisa. I had to run you out."
"I'm going to the racetrack."
"All right, you go ahead and go to the racetrack. But if you do I won't be here when you get back."
I got into my car which was parked on the front lawn. I rolled down the windows and started the motor. Lydia was standing in the driveway. I waved goodbye to her and pulled out into the street. It was a nice summer day. I drove down to Hollywood Park. I had a new system. Each new system brought me closer and closer to wealth. It was simply a matter of time.
I lost $40 and drove home. I parked my car on the lawn and got out. As I walked around the porch to my door Mr. O'Keefe walked up the driveway. "She's gone!"
"What?"
"Your girl. She moved out."
I didn't answer.
"She rented a U-Haul and loaded her stuff in it. She was mad. You know that big washing machine?"
"Yes."
"Well, that thing's heavy. I couldn't lift it. She wouldn't let the boy help her. She just lifted the thing and put it in the U-Haul. Then she got the kids, the dog, and drove off. She had a week's rent left."
"All right, Mr. O'Keefe. Thanks."
"You coming down to drink tonight?"
"I don't know."
"Try to make it."
I unlocked the door and went inside. I had lent her an air-conditioner. It was sitting in a chair outside of the closet. There was a note on it and a pair of blue panties. The note was in a wild scrawclass="underline"
"Bastard, here is your air-conditioner. I am gone. I am gone for good, you son-of-a-bitch! When you get lonely you can use these panties to jack-off into. Lydia."
I went to the refrigerator and got a beer. I drank the beer and then walked over to the air-conditioner. I picked up the panties and stood there wondering if it would work. Then I said, "Shit!" and threw them on the floor.
I went to the phone and dialed Dee Dee Bronson. She was in. "Hello?" she said.
"Dee Dee," I said, "this is Hank…"
I7
Dee Dee had a place in the Hollywood Hills. Dee Dee shared the place with a friend, another lady executive, Bianca. Bianca took the top floor and Dee Dee the bottom. I rang the bell. It was 8:30 pm when Dee Dee opened the door. Dee Dee was about 40, had black, cropped hair, was Jewish, hip, freaky. She was New York City oriented, knew all the names: the right publishers, the best poets, the most talented cartoonists, the right revolutionaries, anybody, everybody. She smoked grass continually and acted like it was the early 1960's and Love-In Time, when she had been mildly famous and much more beautiful.
A long series of bad love affairs had finally done her in. Now I was standing at her door. There was a good deal left of her body. She was small but buxom and many a young girl would have loved to have her figure.
I followed her in. "So Lydia split?" Dee Dee asked.
"I think she went to Utah. The 4th of July dance in Muleshead is coming up. She never misses it."
I sat down in the breakfast nook while Dee Dee uncorked a red wine. "Do you miss her?"
"Christ, yes. I feel like crying. My whole gut is chewed up. I might not make it."
"You'll make it. We'll get you over Lydia. We'll pull you through."
"Then you know how I feel?"
"It has happened to most of us a few times."
"That bitch never cared to begin with."
"Yes, she did. She still does."
I decided it was better to be there in Dee Dee's large home in the Hollywood Hills than to be sitting all alone back in my apartment and brooding.
"It must be that I'm just not good with the ladies," I said.
"You're good enough with the ladies," Dee Dee said. "And you're a helluva writer."
"I'd rather be good with the ladies."
Dee Dee was lighting a cigarette. I waited until she was finished, then I leaned across the table and gave her a kiss. "You make me feel good. Lydia was always on the attack."
"That doesn't mean what you think it means."
"But it can get to be unpleasant."
"It sure as hell can."
"Have you found a boyfriend yet?"
"Not yet."
"I like this place. But how do you keep it so neat and clean?"
"We have a maid."
"Oh?"
"You'll like her. She's big and black and she finishes her work as fast as she can after I leave. Then she goes to bed and eats cookies and watches t.v. I find cookie crumbs in my bed every night. I'll have her fix you breakfast after I leave tomorrow morning."
"All right."
"No, wait. Tomorrow's Sunday. I don't work Sundays. We'll eat out. I know a place. You'll like it."
"All right."
"You know, I think I've always been in love with you."
"What?"
"For years. You know, when I used to come and see you, first with Bernie and later with Jack, I would want you. But you never noticed me. You were always sucking on a can of beer or you were obsessed with something."
"Crazy, I guess, near crazy. Postal Service madness. I'm sorry I didn't notice you."
"You can notice me now."
Dee Dee poured another glass of wine. It was good wine. I liked her. It was good to have a place to go when things went bad. I remembered the early days when things would go bad and there wasn't anywhere to go. Maybe that had been good for me. Then. But now I wasn't interested in what was good for me. I was interested in how I felt and how to stop feeling bad when things went wrong. How to start feeling good again.
"I don't want to fuck you over, Dee Dee," I said. "I'm not always good to women."
"I told you I love you."
"Don't do it. Don't love me."
"All right," she said, "I won't love you, I'll almost love you. Will that be all right?"
"It's much better than the other."
We finished our wine and went to bed…
18
In the morning Dee Dee drove me to the Sunset Strip for breakfast. The Mercedes was black and shone in the sun. We drove past the billboards and the nightclubs and the fancy restaurants. I slouched low in my seat, coughing over my cigarette. I thought, well, things have been worse. A scene or two flashed through my head. One winter in Atlanta I was freezing, it was midnight, I had no money, no place to sleep, and I walked up the steps of a church hoping to get inside and get warm. The church door was locked. Another time in El Paso, sleeping on a park bench, I was awakened in the morning by some cop smacking the soles of my shoes with his club. Still, I kept thinking about Lydia. The good parts of our relationship felt like a rat walking around and gnawing at the inside of my stomach.
Dee Dee parked outside a fancy eating place. There was a sun patio with chairs and tables where people sat eating, talking, and drinking coffee. We passed a black man in boots, jeans, and with a heavy silver chain coiled around his neck. His motorcycle helmet, goggles and gloves were on the table. He was with a thin blond girl in a peppermint jumpsuit who sat sucking on her little ringer. The place was crowded. Everybody looked young, scrubbed, bland. Nobody stared at us. Everybody was talking quietly.