"Get dressed!" she said to me.
I got dressed as quickly as I could. Lydia went to the door and there was her five year old daughter: "MOMMY! MOMMY! I cut my finger!"
I wandered into the front room. Lydia had Lisa on her lap. "Oooo, let Mommy see. Oooo, let Mommy kiss your finger. Mommy will make it better!"
"MOMMY, it hurts!"
I looked at the cut. It was almost invisible.
"Look," I told Lydia finally, "I'll see you tomorrow."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I know."
Lisa looked up at me, the tears were coming and coming.
"Lisa won't let anything bad happen to her Momma," Lydia said.
I opened the door, closed the door and walked to my 1962 Mercury Comet.
4
I was editing a little magazine at the time, The Laxative Approach. I had two co-editors and we felt that we were printing the best poets of our time. Also some of the other kind. One of the editors was a 6-foot-2 subnormal high school drop-out, Kenneth Mulloch (black), who was supported partly by his mother and partly by his sister. The other editor was Sammy Levinson (Jewish), 27, who lived with his parents and was supported by them.
The sheets were printed. Now we had to collate them and staple them into the covers.
"What you do," said Sammy, "is throw a collating party. You serve drinks and a little bullshit and let them do the work."
"I hate parties," I said.
"I'll do the inviting," said Sammy.
"All right," I said, and I invited Lydia.
The night of the party Sammy arrived with the sheets already collated. He was a nervous sort with a head-tic and he hadn't been able to wait to see his own poems in print. He had collated The Laxative Approach all by himself, and then stapled the covers on. Kenneth Mulloch was not to be found-he probably was either in jail or had been committed.
People arrived. I knew very few of them. I walked to my landlady's in the back court. She came to the door.
"I'm having a big party, Mrs. O'Keefe. I want you and your husband to come. Plenty of beer, pretzels and chips."
"Oh, my God, no!"
"What's the matter?"
"I've seen the people going in there! Those beards and all that hair and those raggedy-ass clothes! Bracelets and beads… they look like a bunch of communists! How can you stand people like that?"
"I can't stand those people either, Mrs. O'Keefe. We just drink beer and talk. It doesn't mean anything."
"You watch them. That kind will steal the plumbing."
She closed the door.
Lydia arrived late. She came through the door like an actress. The first thing I noticed was her large cowboy hat with a lavender feather pinned to the side. She didn't speak to me but immediately sat down next to a young bookstore clerk and began an intense conversation with him. I began drinking more heavily and some of the drive and humor left my conversation. The bookstore clerk was a good enough sort, trying to be a writer. His name was Randy Evans but he was too far into Kafka to accomplish any kind of literary clarity. We had published him in The Laxative Approach rather than hurt his feelings and also to get distribution for the magazine through his bookstore.
I drank my beer and wandered around. I walked out on the back porch, sat on the stoop in the alley and watched a large black cat trying to get into a garbage can. I walked down towards him. He leaped off the garbage can as I approached. He stood 3 or 4 feet away watching me. I took the lid off the garbage can. The stench was horrible. I puked into the can. I dropped the lid on the pavement. The cat leaped up, stood, all four feet together upon the rim of the can. He hesitated, then brilliant under a half-moon, he leaped into it all.
Lydia was still talking to Randy, and I noticed that under the table one of her feet was touching one of Randy's. I opened another beer.
Sammy had the crowd laughing. I was a little better at it than he was when I wanted to get the crowd laughing but I wasn't very good that night. There were 15 or 16 men and two women-Lydia and April. April was on ATD and fat. She was stretched out on the floor. After an hour or so she got up and left with Carl, a burned-out speed freak. That left 15 or 16 men and Lydia. I found a pint of scotch in the kitchen, took it out on the back porch, and had a bite now and then.
The men began leaving gradually as the night went on. Even Randy Evans left. Finally there was only Sammy, Lydia and myself. Lydia was talking to Sammy. Sammy said some funny things. I was able to laugh. Then he said he had to go.
"Please don't go, Sammy," said Lydia.
"Let the kid go," I said.
"Yeah, I gotta go," said Sammy.
After Sammy left Lydia said, "You didn't have to drive him away. Sammy's funny, Sammy's really funny. You hurt his feelings."
"But I want to talk to you alone, Lydia."
"I enjoy your friends. I don't get to meet all kinds of people the way you do. I like people!"
"I don't."
"I know you don't. But I do. People come to see you. Maybe if they didn't come to see you you'd like them better."
"No, the less I see them the better I like them."
"You hurt Sammy's feelings."
"Oh shit, he's gone home to his mother."
"You're jealous, you're insecure. You think I want to go to bed with every man I talk to."
"No I don't. Listen, how about a little drink?"
I got up and mixed her one. Lydia lit a long cigarette and sipped at her drink. "You sure look good in that hat," I said. "That purple feather is something."
"It's my father's hat."
"Won't he miss it?"
"He's dead."
I pulled Lydia over to the couch and gave her a long kiss. She told me about her father. He had died and left all 4 sisters a bit of money. That had enabled them to be independent and had enabled Lydia to divorce her husband. She also told me she'd had some kind of breakdown and spent time in a madhouse. I kissed her again. "Look," I said, "let's lay down on the bed. I'm tired."
To my surprise she followed me into the bedroom. I stretched out on the bed and felt her sit down. I closed my eyes and could tell she was pulling her boots off. I heard one boot hit the floor, then the other. I began to undress on the bed. I reached up and shut off the overhead light. I continued undressing. We kissed some more.
"How long has it been since you've had a woman?"
"Four years."
"Four years?"
"Yes."
"I think you deserve some love," she said. "I had a dream about you. I opened your chest like a cabinet, it had doors, and when I opened the doors I saw all kinds of soft things inside you-teddy bears, tiny fuzzy animals, all these soft, cuddly things. Then I had a dream about this other man. He walked up to me and handed me some pieces of paper. He was a writer. I took the pieces of paper and looked at them. And the pieces of paper had cancer. His writing had cancer. I go by my dreams. You deserve some love."
We kissed again.
"Listen," she said, "after you stick that thing inside me, pull it out just before you come. O.K.?"
"I understand."
I climbed on top of her. It was good. It was something happening, something real, and with a girl 20 years younger than I was and really, after all, beautiful. I did about 10 strokes-and came inside of her.
She leaped up.
"You son-of-a-bitch! You came inside of me!"
"Lydia, it's been so long… it felt so good… I couldn't help it. It sneaked up on me! Honest to Christ, I couldn't help it."
She ran into the bathroom and let the water run into the tub. She stood in front of the mirror running a comb through her long brown hair. She was truly beautiful.
"You son-of-a-bitch! God, what a dumb high school trick. That's high school shit! And it couldn't have happened at a worse time! Well, we're shackjobs now! We're shackjobs now!"