Further Adventures (5 page)

I sat on my bed I saw my cleaning lady Mrs. Orban put on clean sheets. The odor of fresh laundry is a perfume to me. Also the cool temperature in bed. I felt the pillowcase cool on my cheek & I dragged my gaze around my bedroom looking for my flannel pajamas with the St. Bernard dogs on them with the elastic not the string so I could take a nap in peace & comfort. I got the feeling I was going to encounter exciting Times ahead and not many more chances for afternoon naps. I saw my St. Bernard p.j.’s on top of the clean clothes in the basket. I willed my pajamas they should rise up out of the basket & wrap themselves around me since I was too tired to move too tired to go over there & put them on. But that big Act of Will took all of my Power and I blacked out.

It was my telephone ringing that woke me up again. I felt like I was out for 5 Minutes but it was Friday. The party on the phone was from my doctor Dr. Godfrey who ordered me to my appointment to give me the
results of my Tests. No I was not afraid to hear those Results my fears I left behind me in the desert.

Mystery substances in my Blood or in my Urine! Even I could not believe that my pee could become my mortal enemy & betray some secret about my heart. It is all connected Dr. Godfrey told me. My heart can not be doing something that my Kidneys do not know of etc. it is all Connected & it comes out in your pee. I wonder if there is a Lesson in such a fact. My old body changed from under me. After my Adventure in the desert I wondered if my body had changes in it which Dr. Godfrey did not know any test for. Maybe my heart was on the other side of my chest now or where my kidneys used to be maybe I got turned inside out & back again like a rubber glove I felt so different. I knew one thing for a Fact: if Dr. Godfrey was going to tell me to lay off after I found my Purpose in Life after 40 Years of wandering then I was not even going to ASK for a “second opinion.” My Life was in my own hands the way my Death is
where it belongs
.

Pardon my mention of blood & pee etc. i.e. the intimate details of my Life now but I do not wish to be a withholder. If I am going to reveal all of the ugly Reality of my Predicament i.e. murders mutilations betrayals & so on then I will not withhold the Details that describe my Life at this time. I want to tell you everything that happened step by step so it is the true story so when I am finished at the end of it you do not have any Confusion in concernment of What and Why.

“You’ll live to be a hundred.” Dr. Godfrey slapped me a good one on my back. “You’ve got a heart like a horse. How’s your pissing?”

“Good. Fine. Nine times yesterday.”

“What about the flow?”

I did not remember to bring in my Pee Charts so I distracted him by a Joke. “So I said to my constipated wife—Flo…”

“You forgot to bring me your charts.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“Forgot to make them.”

“My memory’s fine.”

“So it’s open rebellion. All right it’s not important. You say you’re peeing all right, then all right.”

I asked him my main concern, “Did you find out why I got those chest pains?”

He flapped his hands. “Haven’t got the faintest idea.”

“You did tests.”

“Your tests came back fine. Everything negative.”

“Negative is fine? I get pains in my chest.”

“Gas,” diagnosed Dr. Godfrey.

“All the men in my family die from heart attacks. All the women too.”

“You’ve got a heart like a horse.”

“What if there’s something wrong with it those tests didn’t find?”

Dr. Godfrey lit a cigarette. “We’ll have to let it go wrong. Then we’ll know what it was. Main thing is Ray don’t worry.”

He was all compliments about my general physical Condition nor not just for a man of my elderly years but he told me many of his patients ½ of my age wear out their Body by playing squash & jogging & gym class etc. he said if there was a slick way to do it he could make a Killing if he could cut me open & sell my big healthy heart to some diseased Texas millionaire. He put a Bandage on the cut on my forehead. “What did you do—walk into a door?”

“Smack into it.”

“Oh really?”

“O’Reilly.”

“Get outta town! People do that?” Dr. Godfrey said. “Walk into a door like in a cartoon?”

“I did.”

“No kidding.”

“Smack into it.”

“Promise you won’t try to walk through any more doors. You aren’t the Swamp Thing.”

“But listen. It didn’t hurt when I did it. It didn’t hurt till after,” I reported like a soldier. “Is that normal?”

He pressed his thumb hard on the bandage right against my cut. “Does that hurt?”

It hurt like a leap of fire & from the other side of the room I told him so.

“Good. Normal.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you what else you can do for me. Get outside more.”

“I went for that colonic. Drove over to Tillman for it.”

“You treat constipation with diet and exercise not enemas. What did I tell you?”

I quoted him. “Enemas are the Enemy of the Poop Hole.”

“Get some sunshine. Get some exercise. Age is a mental thing Ray. Live it up. Eat a bowl of prunes and play some shuffleboard.”

Why do I need Webster’s Dictionary to define me what HOPELESS means? I know all the measurements of it when I shut my eyes—it is blank space with no edges. I know the feeling of it—time & no Future or the feeling of standing still on a planet going in slow circles out of control falling into the Sun & when I burn to ashes to Atoms to nothing my absence will be invisible less than nothing.

What kind of a cockamamie Life is this for me? Now I want some Answers! Where am I supposed to go? Who am I supposed to ask about this? Dr. Godfrey? I want to know a few Answers before I die!

I ponder over which Episodes of my Past led me direct into this Predicament. Over & over I read true accounts of how when a person is dying from a Disease or drowning in the ocean he sees his whole Life flash before him (how then?
after
? ha ha).

Since I have my finger on the trigger of this Snubnose .38 & I have a Sound Mind I am in control of things for a short time my whole Life is flashing very slow so I can see all of the details. But in this case I will not waste any time & unravel my whole Life Story only the highlights & lowlights of it i.e. the Episodes which stick out those are the important ones which remain in my Mind.

Something I did not get around to doing I regret is I never changed the wallpaper in this room (kitchen). Even if I only rent so what? I am the Sad Sack who has to look at it every day the beige & burnt orange lace doily pattern crawling up my walls the identical stupid curly-Q’s over & over the same everywhere you look. I look at it & I think maybe that is how my Life is i.e. like this wallpaper. I regret it furthermore because I have to look at it now in the Final Moment it is the last sight I am going to see.

Also my belongings—my T.V. set my Radio my paperbacks & magazines etc. which so far I arranged the stacks in order of date. My collection of
National Geographics
together the same with my
Scientific Americans
also my
Saturday Evening Posts
from long ago even before 1963 when President JFK got shot in Dallas Texas. I saved all of the Memorial Issues & just kept going from there including
Playboy
. While I am telling the Truth I will not leave out any detail which ashames me so I will write it in ink I DID NOT BUY
PLAYBOY
MAGAZINE FOR THE INTERVIEWS I GOT IT STRICTLY TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES OF NAKED WOMEN ESPECIALLY THE FOLD-OUTS!

All the rest of my furniture is piled up against my front door I made a barricade out of it. The tactic gives me a little more precious time also a warning (noise) when that evildoer gets here. Any minute from the
other side of my door my Past is going to catch up on my future & there is the original meaning of the word Doom.

LET HIM COME IN! I WILL WAIT HERE VERY PATIENT! LET HIM FIGHT HIS WAY IN!

“Gimme the mustard will ya bub?” David Arcash tapped the counter in front of a scrawny bookworm who was eating pie & coffee so he did not need mustard. He slid the jar over to David’s hand & he did not look up. This is the kind of thing David enjoyed about eating lunch in a automat the manly atmosphere.

“When I was 6 years old,” I said, “I had a dream about flying to Jupiter.”

“I had dreams about 6 year old girls.”

“Is that normal?”

“I’m not Sigmund Freud. How should I know? Tell me you grew out of it.”

I gave him a sigh. “It was 13 years ago.”

“Then how come it’s still on your mind? Answer me that. How come you don’t have girls on your mind?”

“I do. I don’t talk about it is all.”

“Who?”

I did not say. I passed the Mustard back to the bookworm.

“So you don’t chase girls and you dream about outer space and you don’t want to talk about Annie. You’re not normal Ray.”

“You’re not Sigmund Freud which you just
admitted
to me. What do you know what’s normal?”

David wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Trial & error. How else?”

I know I felt a few Sincere reasons why I could trust David Arcash with my inner thoughts. He took me in to live with him for a month when the strain of my Family on me got too much to bear keeping my Vocation secret from all. Also he revealed his own feelings very Honest which males are not so free about with other males except Bernhardt Grym in the Green Room once but those are not feelings exactly I think what he did touching my fly comes under the title of Exposing Urges Damn the Torpedoes. Also I wanted to benefit by David’s opinion since he was a man of male experience so to say. Talk about a woman changes the balance between equal men and I wanted to enjoy some manly atmosphere with him that did not depend on the Automat.

“I dream about Annie,” I said.

If my secret handed him a surprise he did not show it. “Nothing special about her. Broadway baby that’s all she is. Dime a dozen. Dime a dance too.”

“I know she isn’t Eleanor Roosevelt.” My Voice cracked. “I don’t want her to be Eleanor Roosevelt.”

“Calm down. Let me tell you something about Annie LaSalle. She’s looking for Daddy Warbucks and between you and me I figure she’s got one on the line. Some stiff keeps sending her dozens of roses two three times a week since she started the show. Get into the ring with a guy that big and you’ll get squashed like a bug. I mean under Annie’s high heel.”

“You think getting flowers has that kind of effect on her?”

“Gimme this gimme that. Gimme gimme like Polly Parrot that’s Annie all over.”

“Good.”

“Piss up a flagpole you’ll get more satisfaction.” David sipped at his coffee.

“I send her those flowers,” I said.

This time I handed David a surprise & this time he showed it and how. A shred of pastrami dangled off his lower lip. “How—” He swallowed & then he started again. “All the time? How long for?”

“From the beginning. Since August.”

A big smile I got from David I believe he was some kind of proud of me. “Putz! So putz—tell her! My God 6
months?
What do
you
get out of it?”

“I don’t need any reward.”

“Oh. Right.” He whistled Do-Re-Me I guess he wanted to change the subject matter. “You ever been to a gym?” He squeezed my muscle. “Let me guess.”

David led another Life in Brooklyn where he owned a stake in a Gymnasium where local boxing talent came in to train plus he fixed up Bouts for them which was his sideline that kept the spare simoleons rolling in. The name of it was The Golden Glove Gym painted up in red & gold on the bricks over the front door. Smack in the kisser the smell of the place hit me first sweat cigar smoke & rope. I heard the Sound of scuffling feet & grunts of Exertion maybe the same Sounds people heard in Roman times what with all the gladiators they had packing them in those times. Snorting like bulls plus smelling like them too.

But they were not bulls in there these Boxers were wiry ones with skin as tight as cellophane over a sirloin steak. “Lightweights,” David schooled me. “You’re a lightweight.” Then he takes me on a stroll around the gym to the ring which was only wrestling mats up on risers with Ropes strung around them. “Sparky! Over here!”

Sparky was a tiny brown-skinned man with a towel around his neck & a bucket of water in his hand. “How’s it goin’ Mr. Arcash?” He did not own any teeth or hair either he looked like a unwrapped Egyptian mummy. “New talent?” He jerked his chin at me.

Before David had a chance to crack wise he got a slap on his back that practically knocked him into the ropes. “Pigmeat,” he cursed.

A boom of a laugh met him when he looked up into the Man-In-The-Moon face of the chubby Negro man planted like a tree behind him. “One of yer pro-tee-jays Dave?”

“That’s what I axed him already,” Sparky put in.

“Say hello to Ray Green. Ray meet Pigmeat and Sparky.”

Pigmeat pulled my hands out straight to examine them. “Sof hans. Ain’t no fighter this one.”

“Who said he was? Ray’s a doctor.” David flashed me a wink.

“Thas good. Worl need mo doctors. Worl never run outta cuts.” Pigmeat clapped his hands like a Potentate. “Les have some fresh meat in the ring! Coogan & Tangledweeny!”

The carrot-topped kid Coogan stopped punishing the punching bag & the other one dark & lanky skipped his jump rope over to the ring. He said to Pigmeat, “It’s Tangherlini. Got it?”

“Tangherlini. Got it,” Pigmeat said plus a wicked grin. “Ain’t it jus Atalian fo tangled up weeny?” He boomed out a laugh it rolled back into a soft chuckle. “Makes that boy so
mad
!”

The boxers squared up and Pigmeat hit the bell then Coogan & Tangherlini came out circling each other & jabbing. Pigmeat did not hold still either he went circling the Ring in big sideways steps ducking so he could see the shape of every Punch.

“My flea circus,” David whispered to me.

Pigmeat happened to be right next to me when I was smiling from David’s remark so he looked at me & did not grin. “Smartass sheeny.”

David kept his eyes on his fighters. “I’m a smartass sheeny too.”