"I planted tomato seeds down in the basement of the apartment house I live in," she said.
"I'll take some when they come up," I said.
"I've never had a driver's license," April said. "My mother lives in New Jersey."
"My mother's dead," I said. I walked over and sat next to her on the couch. I grabbed her and kissed her. While I was kissing her she looked right into my eyes. I broke off. "Let's fuck," I said.
"I have an infection," said April.
"What?"
"It's sort of a fungus. Nothing serious."
"Could I catch it?"
"It's kind of a milky discharge."
"Could I catch it?"
"I don't think so."
"Let's fuck."
"I don't know if I want to fuck."
"It'll feel good. Let's go into the bedroom."
April walked into the bedroom and started taking off her clothes. I took mine off. We got under the sheets. I began playing with her parts and kissing her. I mounted her. It was very strange. As if her cunt ran from side to side. I knew I was in there, it felt like I was in there, but I kept slipping sideways, to the left. I kept humping. It was exciting like that. I finished and rolled off.
Later I drove her to her apartment and we went up. We talked for a long while and I left only after making note of the apartment number and the address. As I walked through the lobby I recognized the apartment house lock boxes. I had delivered mail there many times as a mailman. I went out to my car and drove off.
11
Lydia had two children; Tonto, a boy of 8, and Lisa, the little girl of 5 who had interrupted our first fuck. We were together at the table one night eating dinner. Things were going well between Lydia and me and I stayed for dinner almost every night, then slept with Lydia and left about 11 am the next morning to go back to my place to check the mail and write. The children slept in the next room on a waterbed. It was an old, small house which Lydia rented from an ex-Japanese wrestler now into real estate. He was obviously interested in Lydia. That was all right. It was a nice old house.
"Tonto," I said as we were eating, "you know that when your mother screams at night I'm not beating her. You know who's really in trouble."
"Yes, I know."
"Then why don't you come in and help me?"
"Uh-uh. I know her."
"Listen, Hank," said Lydia, "don't turn my kids against me."
"He's the ugliest man in the world," said Lisa.
I liked Lisa. She was going to be a sexpot some day, a sexpot with personality.
After dinner Lydia and I went to our bedroom and stretched out. Lydia was into blackheads and pimples. I had a bad complexion. She moved the lamp down near my face and began. I liked it.
It made me tingle and sometimes I got a hard-on. Very intimate. Sometimes between squeezes Lydia would give me a kiss. She always worked on my face first and then moved on to my back and chest.
"You love me?"
"Yeh."
"Oooh, look at this one!"
It was a blackhead with a long yellow tail.
"It's nice," I said.
She was laying flat on top of me. She stopped squeezing and looked at me. "I'll put you in your grave, you fat fuck!"
I laughed. Then Lydia kissed me.
"I'll put you back in the madhouse," I told her.
"Turn over. Let me get your back."
I turned over. She squeezed at the back of my neck. "Oooh, there's a good one! It shot out! It hit me in the eye!"
"You ought to wear goggles."
"Let's have a little Henry!" "Think of it, a little Henry Chinaski!"
"Let's wait a while."
"I want a baby now!"
"Let's wait."
"All we do is sleep and eat and lay around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it."
"I like it."
"You used to write over here. You were busy. You'd bring ink and make your drawings. Now you go home and do all the interesting things there. You just eat and sleep here and then leave first thing in the morning. It's dull."
"I like it."
"We haven't been to a party in months! I like to see people! I'm bored! I'm so bored I'm about to go crazy! I want to do things! I want to DANCE! I want to, live!"
"Oh, shit."
"You're too old. You just want to sit around and criticize everything and everybody. You don't want to do anything. Nothing's good enough for you!"
I rolled out of bed and stood up. I began putting my shirt on.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm getting out of here."
"There you go! The minute things don't go your way you jump up and run out of the door. You never want to talk about things. You go home and get drunk and then you're so sick the next day you think you're going to die. Then you phone me!"
"I'm getting the hell out of here!"
"But why?"
"I don't want to stay where I'm not wanted. I don't want to stay where I'm disliked."
Lydia waited. Then she said, "All right. Come on, lay down. We'll turn off the light and just be still together."
I waited. Then I said, "Well, all right."
I undressed entirely and got under the blanket and sheet. I pressed my flank against Lydia's flank. We were both on our backs. I could hear the crickets. It was a nice neighborhood. A few minutes passed. Then Lydia said, "I'm going to be great."
I didn't answer. A few more minutes passed. Then Lydia leaped out of bed. She threw both of her hands up in the air toward the ceiling and said in a loud voice: "I'M GOING TO BE GREAT! I'M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT! NOBODY KNOWS HOW GREAT I'M GOING TO BE!"
"All right," I said.
Then she said in a lower voice, "You don't understand. I'm going to be great. I have more potential than you have!"
"Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have."
"But I'm GOING to do it! I'M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT!"
"All right," I said. "But meanwhile come on back to bed."
Lydia came back to bed. We didn't kiss each other. We weren't going to have sex. I felt weary. I listened to the crickets. I don't know how much time went by. I was almost asleep, not quite, when Lydia suddenly sat straight up in bed. And she screamed. It was a loud scream.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Be quiet."
I waited. Lydia sat there, without moving, for what seemed to be about ten minutes. Then she fell back on her pillow.
"I saw God," she said, "I just saw God."
"Listen, you bitch, you are going to drive me crazy!"
I got up and began dressing. I was mad. I couldn't find my shorts. The hell with them, I thought. I left them wherever they were. I had all my clothes on and was sitting on the chair pulling my shoes on my bare feet.
"What are you doing?" Lydia asked.
I couldn't answer. I went into the front room. My coat was flung over a chair and I picked it up, put it on. Lydia ran into the front room. She had put on her blue negligee and a pair of panties. She was barefooted. Lydia had thick ankles. She usually wore boots to hide them.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING!" she screamed at me.
"Shit," I said, "I'm getting out of here."
She leaped at me. She usually attacked me while I was drunk. Now I was sober. I sidestepped and she fell to the floor, rolled over and was on her back. I stepped over her on my way to the front door. She was in a spitting rage, snarling, her lips pulled back. She was like a leopardess. I looked down at her. I felt safe with her on the floor. She let out a snarl and as I started to leave she reached up and dug her nails into the sleeve of my coat, pulled and ripped the sleeve off my arm. It was ripped from the coat at the shoulder.