Run With the Hunted (51 page)

His wife was skinning him. They'd gone to court. She slapped him in court. He'd liked that. It helped the case. They saw through that bitch. Anyhow, it hadn't come off too badly. She'd left him something. Of course, you know lawyer's fees. Bastards. You ever noticed a lawyer? Almost always fat. Especially around the face. “Anyhow, shit, she nailed me. But I got a little left. You wanna know what a scissors like this costs? Look at it. Tin with a screw. $18.50. My God, and they hated the Nazis. What is a Nazi compared to this?”

“I don't know, Doctor. I've told you that I'm a confused man.”

“You ever tried a shrink?”

“It's no use. They're dull, no imagination. I don't need the shrinks. I hear they end up sexually molesting their female patients. I'd like to be a shrink if I could fuck all the women; outside of that, their trade is useless.”

My doctor hunched up on his stool. He yellowed and greyed a bit more. A giant twitch ran through his body. He was almost through. A nice fellow though.

“Well, I got rid of my wife,” he said, “that's over.”

“Fine,” I said, “tell me about when you were a Nazi.”

“Well, we didn't have much choice. They just took us in. I was young. I mean, hell, what are you going to do? You can only live in one country at a time. You go to war, and if you don't end up dead you end up in an open boxcar with people throwing shit at you …”

I asked him if he'd fucked his nice nurse. He smiled gently. The smile said yes. Then he told me that since the divorce, well, he'd dated one of his patients, and he knew it wasn't ethical to get that way with patients …

“No, I think it's all right, Doctor.”

“She's a very intelligent woman. I married her.”

“All right.”

“Now I'm happy … but …”

Then he spread his hands apart and opened his palms upward …

I told him about my fear of lines. He gave me a standing prescription for Librium.

Then I got a nest of boils on my ass. I was in agony. They tied me with leather straps, these fellows can do anything they want with you, they gave me a local and strapped my ass. I turned my head and looked at my Doctor and said, “Is there any chance of me changing my mind?”

There were three faces looking down at me. His and two others. Him to cut. Her to supply cloths. The third to stick needles.

“You can't change your mind,” said the doctor, and he rubbed his hands and grinned and began …

The last time I saw him it had something to do with wax in my ears. I could see his lips moving, I tried to understand, but I couldn't hear. I could tell by his eyes and his face that it was hard times for him all over again, and I nodded.

It was warm. I was a bit dizzy and I thought, well, yes, he's a fine fellow but why doesn't he let me tell him about my problems, this isn't fair, I have problems too, and I have to pay him.

Eventually my doctor realized I was deaf. He got something that looked like a fire extinguisher and jammed it into my ears. Later he showed me huge pieces of wax … it was the wax, he said. And he pointed down into a bucket. It looked, really, like refried beans.

I got up from the table and paid him and I left. I still couldn't hear anything. I didn't feel particularly bad or good and I wondered what ailment I would bring him next, what he would do about it, what he would do about his 17-year-old daughter who was in love with another woman and who was going to marry the woman, and it occurred to me that
everybody
suffered continually, including those who pretended they didn't. It seemed to me that this was quite a discovery. I looked at the newsboy and I thought, hmmmm, hmmmm, and I looked at the next person to pass and I thought hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmm, and at the traffic signal by the hospital a new black car turned the corner and knocked down a pretty young girl in a blue mini dress, and she was blond and had blue ribbons in her hair, and she sat up in the street in the sun and the scarlet ran from her nose.

—
S
OUTH OF
N
O
N
ORTH

the balance is preserved by the snails climbing the

Santa Monica cliffs;

the luck is in walking down Western Avenue

and having the girls in a massage

parlor holler at you, “Hello, Sweetie!”

the miracle is having 5 women in love

with you at the age of 55,

and the goodness is that you are only able

to love one of them.

the gift is having a daughter more gentle

than you are, whose laughter is finer

than yours.

the peace comes from driving a

blue 67 Volks through the streets like a

teenager, radio tuned to The Host Who Loves You

Most, feeling the sun, feeling the solid hum

of the rebuilt motor

as you needle through traffic.

the grace is being able to like rock music,

symphony music, jazz …

anything that contains the original energy of

joy.

and the probability that returns

is the deep blue low

yourself flat upon yourself

within the guillotine walls

angry at the sound of the phone

or anybody's footsteps passing;

but the other probability—

the lilting high that always follows—

makes the girl at the checkstand in the

supermarket look like

Marilyn

like Jackie before they got her Harvard lover

like the girl in high school that we

all followed home.

there is that which helps you believe

in something else besides death:

somebody in a car approaching

on a street too narrow,

and he or she pulls aside to let you

by, or the old fighter Beau Jack

shining shoes

after blowing the entire bankroll

on parties

on women

on parasites,

humming, breathing on the leather,

working the rag

looking up and saying:

“what the hell, I had it for a

while, that beats the

other.”

I am bitter sometimes

but the taste has often been

sweet. it's only that I've

feared to say it. it's like

when your woman says,

“tell me you love me,” and

you can't.

if you see me grinning from

my blue Volks

running a yellow light

driving straight into the sun

I will be locked in the

arms of a

crazy life

thinking of trapeze artists

of midgets with big cigars

of a Russian winter in the early 40's

of Chopin with his bag of Polish soil

of an old waitress bringing me an extra

cup of coffee and laughing

as she does so.

the best of you

I like more than you think.

the others don't count

except that they have fingers and heads

and some of them eyes

and most of them legs

and all of them

good and bad dreams

and a way to go.

justice is everywhere and it's working

and the machine guns and the frogs

and the hedges will tell you

so.

the mockingbird had been following the cat

all summer

mocking mocking mocking

teasing and cocksure;

the cat crawled under rockers on porches

tail flashing

and said something angry to the mockingbird

which I didn't understand.

yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway

with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,

wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,

feathers parted like a woman's legs,

and the bird was no longer mocking,

it was asking, it was praying

but the cat

striding down through centuries

would not listen.

I saw it crawl under a yellow car

with the bird

to bargain it to another place.

summer was over.

“Balls,” he said, “I'm tired of painting. Let's go out. I'm tired of the stink of oils, I'm tired of being great. I'm tired of waiting to the. Let's go out.”

“Go out where?” she asked.

“Anywhere. Eat, drink, see.”

“Jorg,” she said, “what will I do when you the?”

“You will eat, sleep, fuck, piss, shit, clothe yourself, walk around and bitch.”

“I need security.”

“We all do.”

“I mean, we're not married. I won't even be able to collect your insurance.”

“That's all right, don't worry about it. Besides, you don't believe in marriage, Arlene.”

Arlene was sitting in the pink chair reading the afternoon newspaper. “You say five thousand women want to sleep with you. Where does that leave me?”

“Five thousand and one.”

“You think I can't get another man?”

“No, there's no problem for you. You can get another man in three minutes.”

“You think I need a great painter?”

“No, you don't. A good plumber would do.”

“Yes, as long as he loved me.”

“Of course. Put on your coat. Let's go out.”

They came down the stairway from the top loft. All around were cheap, roach-filled rooms, but nobody seemed to be starving: they always seemed to be cooking things in large pots and sitting around, smoking, cleaning their fingernails, drinking cans of beer or sharing a tall blue bottle of white wine, screaming at each other or laughing, or farting, belching, scratching or asleep in front of the tv. Not many people in the world had very much money but the less money they had the better they seemed to live. Sleep, clean sheets, food, drink and hemorrhoid ointment were their only needs. And they always left their doors a bit open.

“Fools,” said Jorg as they walked down the stairway, “they twaddle away their lives and clutter up mine.”

“Oh, Jorg,” Arlene sighed. “You just don't
like
people, do you?”

Jorg arched an eyebrow at her, didn't answer. Arlene's response to his feelings for the masses was always the same—as if not loving the people revealed an unforgivable shortcoming of soul. But she was an excellent fuck and pleasant to have around—most of the time.

They reached the boulevard and walked along, Jorg with his red and white beard and broken yellow teeth and bad breath, purple ears, frightened eyes, stinking torn overcoat and white ivory cane. When he felt worst he felt best. “Shit,” he said, “everything shits until it dies.”

Arlene bobbled her ass, making no secret of it, and Jorg pounded the pavement with his cane, and even the sun looked down and said, Ho ho. Finally they reached the old dingy building where Serge lived. Jorg and Serge had both been painting for many years but it was not until recently that their work sold for more than pig farts. They had starved together, now they were getting famous separately. Jorg and Arlene entered the hotel and began climbing the stairway. The smell of iodine and frying chicken was in the halls. In one room somebody was getting fucked and making no secret of it. They climbed to the top loft and Arlene knocked. The door popped open and there was Serge. “Peek-a-boo!” he said. Then he blushed. “Oh, sorry … come in.”

“What the hell's the matter with you?” asked Jorg.

“Sit down. I thought it was Lila …”

“You play peek-a-boo with Lila?”

“It's nothing.”

“Serge, you've got to get rid of that girl, she's destroying your mind.”

“She sharpens my pencils.”

“Serge, she's too young for you.”

“She's 30.”

“And you're 60. That's 30 years.”