As Far as You Can Go (17 page)

“But say you wanted real power, not just money,” said Chet. “Say you wanted to be a boss, a real boss. What do you do then?”

“If you want that, you’re not free,” said Eddie. “If you want life, then you need money. But being a boss, you don’t
get any life. Real power, that’s a full-time job. I don’t believe in jobs.”

“You gotta live,” said Chet again.

“Sure you gotta live. You’ve got brains, haven’t you? That’s what brains are for. You’ve got brains, Chet, you’ve got a fine body, you don’t need a job.”

“That’s right,” said one of the others. They were all intent on Eddie, on what he was saying. Harold thought that he had never heard anything so immoral in his life. But Eddie’s ideas were, really, rather attractive. No one, after all,
wanted
to work.

“You like another beer, Eddie?” said one of his admirers.

“No, thanks. You about ready to go, Harold? This place is kinda quiet tonight.”

“All right,” said Harold. If this was a quiet night, what could it be like on a noisy one?

Eddie slid from his stool and surveyed the bar. He nodded at various men who nodded to him, but his eyes stayed on no one in particular till they reached the one young man in the middle of the older ones.

“Hey, Chet,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s the kid?”

“I guess he’s new,” said Chet. “I never saw him before.”

“Bring him along later, will you? He looks interesting.”

Eddie surveyed the young man for a moment or two longer. The older men looked warily into their glasses. The young man caught Eddie’s eye and smiled. Eddie nodded a couple of times, and Chet moved down the bar to speak to the young man.

“O.K.,” said Eddie. “Let’s go, huh?”

Harold followed him out. As he shut the door behind them he noticed a surge of despair among the older men, angry faces, Chet insolently laughing.

“Jesus,” said Eddie, “those kids take time to learn.”

“You certainly don’t seem to like anyone over forty,” said Harold. “I think there are some nice people over forty.”

“There aren’t,” said Eddie. “And the age is thirty-five.”

They were walking slowly along the street with Eddie glancing at all the cars, scrutinizing the more lavish ones as though he was a prospective buyer at a motor show.

“Do you have a car?” Harold asked.

“I have a car when I want one,” said Eddie. “Like now.”

“Which one?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“But——” said Harold.

“Here we are,” said Eddie. It was a cream Oldsmobile convertible with the roof down. He stood by it for a moment, searching his trouser pockets, then examining a bunch of keys in the dim street-light. “O.K. Let’s go.”

Harold got in, and Eddie started the car. He roared the engine a couple of times, then moved off. Harold was very frightened, not sure whether Eddie had actually stolen the car or was just joking.

“Is this yours?” he said.

“Jesus, no. I don’t own a car.”

“You mean we’re in stolen property?”

“Listen, man, there’s a car stolen every two seconds in these United States. You think anyone’s going to notice this one?”

“But, good heavens,” said Harold. “I mean, I’ve never been in a stolen car before.”

“This isn’t stealing,” said Eddie. “This is borrowing. The police’ll give it back to the owner tomorrow. You never want to hold on to a car that isn’t yours for more than a couple of hours, Harold. It gets hot after that.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to my place.” Eddie trod hard on the accelerator, and Harold had to admit that there was a distinct thrill to be got from racing a stolen car through the streets.
He didn’t, though, enjoy the thrill. He wished he’d asked Eddie to take him back to his hotel. He hardly knew the man, and already he was an accessory after the fact, or
compounding
a felony, or doing something which could get him into severe trouble. Mr Dangerfield wouldn’t like it at all. And, anyway, he certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening with a lot of queers in sweat-shirts and jeans. That wasn’t his idea of a party at all.

They swerved up on to the San Diego Freeway, and in the rush of wind as Eddie tried out his car, Harold let his
conscience
be swept away. After all, he told himself, gripping on the steel bar in front of his seat, this sort of thing never
happened
to him in England. Nothing like it at all.

They swerved off the Freeway again and seemed to be on something called Venice Boulevard, as far as Harold could make out. Eddie’s driving was at once alarming and yet safe. The wild things he did were done with such panache and skill that though one’s life depended on hairbreadth timing, one trusted him. And he was going so fast that there wasn’t, fortunately, time for the other road-users to be frightened into doing something rash, like braking.

After a sudden unexpected turn off the boulevard, which was very wide and good for speeding, they dodged up and down the side of a hill.

“Where are we?” said Harold.

“Venice, I guess,” said Eddie. “Mar Vista, maybe. They get kinda confused around here.”

He stopped the car by the road, switched out the headlights and said, “Gee, I must borrow one of these again, some time.”

“Is this where you live?”

“You think I’m so dumb I’d park a stolen car outside my own front door?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Then you suppose damn right. It’s a couple of blocks from here.”

They walked along in silence, under a bright starlit sky, with the lights of the coast twinkling not too far away.

“It’s marvellous the way the evenings are cool after the heat of the days,” said Harold.

“It’s O.K.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Where? In L.A.? I’ve been here on and off for quite a while.”

“No, I meant the house, really.”

“I don’t own a house. This is what they call a pad around here. A place to lay my little head when I have another little head to lay beside it. It belongs to a girl called Martine, and she loaned it to a guy called Robin, and he’s kind of soft, so we use it when we feel like it. He’s all right, Robin, kind of wet, though. You’ll like him. Now what are you doing around L.A.? I thought you worked in a bank or some such, right?”

“I did. I got fed up. I came here.”

“That’s good. You want to move around these days, before they blow the whole place up. Here we are.”

It was a small frame house, with an unfenced lawn in front of it, and no flowers. Flowers didn’t seem to grow much in California, they took too much time and effort. There was a light on, and Eddie walked straight in pushing aside the screen door. There was a hall full of various kinds of junk, as far as Harold could see. There was an aqualung outfit which he wouldn’t have risked in a bathtub, a baseball bat, a punctured American football, two tennis-rackets, a pile of old socks and shirts, an easel.

“Robin’s a beatnik type,” said Eddie. “Likes to paint. Buys a whole heap of paint, then shits in it, I guess. I don’t see how else he makes the things he does. He has a health kick, too. When they closed Muscle Beach he cried for a week.”

He led the way into a large room, uncarpeted, with what could only be Robin’s paintings on the walls, several
broken-backed
chairs, a sofa with the stuffing oozing out, and several armchairs that looked absolutely new. Sitting on one of these were a couple, deeply interlocked. When they had
unentwined
themselves the man, who had a moustache but, to Harold’s disappointment, no beard, said, “Eddie, I thought I told you I didn’t want you around here any more.”

“Sure,” said Eddie. “Robin, this is Harold. Who’s the new chick?”

The new chick had very long blonde hair that reached almost to her waist. Falling in front of her face it obscured everything but one eye, which seemed buried beneath
mascara
, and a short turned-up nose. She was wearing black pants, out of which her buttocks were unsuccessfully trying to break, and a violet shirt.

“Damn you,” said Robin. “Here, Teresa, this is Little Daddy, the scourge of Venice. And don’t you touch her, Eddie, she’s mine.” He turned to Harold and said, “I suppose you’re queer.”

“I most certainly am not,” said Harold.

“Well, don’t you touch her, either.”

“You can’t be too sure,” said Eddie to Harold. “I don’t like to hear a guy of your age talking as though his mind was closed. You gotta keep an open mind and an open house, huh, Robin?”

Robin said that as far as he was concerned Eddie could keep everything, including various parts of his body, open wherever he liked as long as he didn’t do it there.

“That’s what I mean about Robin,” Eddie said. “Kinda soft. Loud mouth, soft heart. Hey, Teresa, you look cute.”

“Oh, God,” said Robin. “Leave her alone, I told you.”

“Jesus, I only wanted to see if it was real.”

“I’m real O.K.,” said Teresa, demonstrating the fact with a gesture that Harold had previously seen only in a striptease show in Paris, France. Her buttocks made an important breakthrough. “Jesus,” she said, “I’m coming apart.”

“Fine,” said Eddie. “I like you that way. Where’s the drink, Robin?”

“There isn’t any drink,” he said. “You drank it all last night, you and your friends.”

“Ah, come on,” said Eddie. “Where’d he put it, Teresa?”

She giggled, and Eddie made a sudden lunge at her. After a short tussle, during which Teresa screamed once very loudly, he produced a bottle of wine from underneath her.

“Christ,” he said. “Don’t you know better than to heat the liquor, Robin?”

Teresa was feeling her behind. “Now I’m indecent,” she said, sulkily.

“That’s the way we like you,” said Eddie. “Jesus, Robin, I told you not to buy this cheap stuff. It’s poison.”

“If you ever paid me anything for liquor, I might have some money,” said Robin. He went over to Teresa and put his hand tenderly over the hole in her pants. “That feels good, honey,” he said.

“It ought to be,” she said, “if it isn’t drunk from sitting on that goddam bottle.”

Eddie disappeared into another room and Robin said, “What are you, Harold? Some new side-kick of Little Daddy?”

“No,” said Harold. He wished he was back in his
luxury-loving
hotel. “I’m a visiting Englishman.”

“You hear that?” said Robin, patting Teresa with some vigour. “He says he’s a visiting Englishman. Well, why doesn’t he go ahead and visit some other place?”

“I guess he’s a tourist,” said Teresa. “He’s probably paying Eddie a hundred bucks to be shown a real beatnik pad.”

“Well, I guess he’s seen it now,” said Robin. “Isn’t it about time he moved on? We’re Americans here, we don’t believe in England. England’s all washed up. It has to be. It’s an island. Islands all get washed up in time.”

Eddie came back into the room carrying the now opened bottle, and said, “You’re a fine host, Robin. Here’s this guy come six thousand miles and you can’t even offer him your girl. That’s kind of dirty, not offering him your girl.”

“I’m not an Eskimo,” said Robin.

“You don’t like queers, Harold, is that right?”

“I don’t not like them, I’m just not one myself.”

“Jesus, England, cradle of liberty, doesn’t like queers,” said Robin. He lost interest in Teresa’s bottom and sat down on the floor. “What
do
you like, stranger?”

“Girls,” said Harold firmly. He took the glass of wine that Eddie offered him and sat in one of the new chairs. Teresa came and sat on his lap, and curled her arms about his neck.

“I like men that like girls,” she said.

“You know you’re frigid,” said Robin. “Don’t fool the guy, he’s a visitor. You gotta be nice to visitors, Eddie says.”

“I am being nice,” said Teresa. She was, too, Harold thought. Really embarrassingly nice. He restrained her gently.

“Listen here, Eddie,” said Robin, “I told you I was through with you, and I meant it.”

“Sure you meant it. Sure. I just happened to drop by. I thought you’d like to meet my friend from England.”

“Hi, England,” said Robin. “Jesus, I hate you, Eddie. I used to think you were my friend.”

“A friend is someone with whom you never feel safe,” said Eddie. “A friend is someone you can’t trust. Bores are people you trust. Who wants a bore for a friend?”

“That certainly makes me your friend, then. I wouldn’t trust you any more than I’d trust a rattlesnake.”

“Swell,” said Eddie. “So we’re friends. That means I want to find something better than this cheap wine next time I just happen to drop in. Right?”

“You can’t trust a friend,” said Robin. “A friend is a guy who buys cheap wine when you want whisky.”

Harold laughed, and Robin gave him a grateful look that turned sour when he saw what Teresa was doing with her hands. Harold didn’t dare look, himself.

“That’s a nice nymphomaniac you’ve got there,” said Eddie.

“I’m not a nympho,” said Teresa. “I like men, is all. Does every girl that likes men have to be a nympho?”

“She doesn’t have to be,” said Eddie, “but she usually is. I like a girl that likes girls, too. I hate this one-track approach. It’s like having the same meal every day at the same time. You might as well be old.”

“Christ,” said Robin. “Don’t let’s have that again.
Anyone
would think you were a sadistic gerontologist.”

“That’s me,” said Eddie. “People don’t understand. They think you get wiser as you get older. You don’t, you just get older. That’s the hell of it. I’m practically washed up
already
. You know, Robin, this morning I woke up and looked at Chuck, and for a moment I thought I would like to do that every morning of my life from here on out. That’s sick. Chuck’s a nice kid, sure, but that’d be as bad as marriage.” He looked very serious, and frowned as he spoke. “I guess a man has till he’s thirty-five. Then he’s through. They get you every way, the bastards, they get you every way. First they have you, they fuck each other and out you come, then they stop you doing what you want. Then they sit back and laugh because you’re going to end the way they are, old and miserable and smug. Jesus, I’ll kill myself when that starts happening.”