"Jesus Christ," I said, "look what you've done to my new coat! I just bought it!"
I opened the door and jumped outside with one bare arm.
I had just unlocked the door to my car when I heard her bare feet on the asphalt behind me. I leaped in and locked the door. I punched the starter.
"I'll kill this car!" she screamed. "I'll kill this car!"
Her fists beat on the hood, on the roof, against the windshield. I moved the car ahead very slowly so as not to injure her. My '62 Mercury Comet had fallen apart, and I'd recently purchased a '67 Volks. I kept it shined and waxed. I even had a whisk broom in the glove compartment. As I pulled away Lydia kept beating on the car with her fists. When I was clear of her I shoved it into second. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw her standing all alone in the moonlight, motionless in her blue negligee and panties. My gut began to twitch and roll. I felt ill, useless, sad. I was in love with her.
12
I went to my place, started drinking. I snapped on the radio and found some classical music. I got my Coleman lantern out of the closet. I turned out the lights and sat playing with the Coleman lantern. There were tricks you could play with a Coleman lantern. Like turning it off and then on again and watching the heat of the wick relight it. I also liked to pump the lantern and bring up the pressure. And then there was simply the pleasure of looking at it. I drank and watched the lantern and listened to the music and smoked a cigar.
The phone rang. It was Lydia. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Just sitting around."
"You're sitting around and drinking and listening to symphony music and playing with that goddamned Coleman lantern!"
"Yes."
"Are you coming back?"
"No."
"All right, drink! Drink and get sick! You know that stuff almost killed you once. Do you remember the hospital?"
"I'll never forget it."
"All right, drink, DRINK! KILL YOURSELF! SEE IF I GIVE A SHIT!"
Lydia hung up and so did I. Something told me she wasn't as worried about my possible death as she was about her next fuck. But I needed a vacation. I needed a rest. Lydia liked to fuck at least nve times a week. I preferred three. I got up and went into the breakfast nook where my typewriter stood on the table. I turned on the light, sat down and typed Lydia a 4-page letter. Then I went into the bathroom, got a razorblade, came out, sat down and had a good drink. I took the razorblade and sliced the middle finger of my right hand. The blood ran. I signed my name to the letter in blood.
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."