The Bell Tolls for No One (15 page)

H
e was sitting up at his place one night. He hadn't had a woman in three or four years. He engaged in masturbation, drinking, and a grim yet comfortable isolation. He had often thought of being a writer and had bought a second-hand typewriter, but no writing had come of it. He was drinking wine and looking at the typewriter. He got up, walked over to it, sat down and typed:

I wish I had a woman. I wish a woman would knock on my door.

Then he got up, turned on the radio and poured another glass of wine. It was an early evening in July. Both of his parents had died within the last five years, plus his last girlfriend. He was in middle-age, tired, without hope, even without anger or resentment. He felt that the world was mostly for other people; what remained for him were merely matters of eating, sleeping, working, and waiting for death. He sat down on the sofa and waited.

There was a knock on the door. He got up and opened it. It was a woman in her mid-30s. Her eyes were very blue, almost frighteningly so. Her hair was a light red, a bit straggly; she was in a short black dress with red stripes revolving about the dress in barberpole fashion. She seemed neat, but casual. “Come in,” he said, “and sit down.”

He motioned her to the couch, went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of wine.

“Thank you. My name is Ms. Evans.”

“Thank you. My name is Fantoconni. Samuel Fantoconni.”

“Yes, we know, Mr. Fantoconni. We received your application and we're here to ask you some questions.”

Ms. Evans crossed her legs and he could see flashes of upper thighs. He quickly memorized the upper thighs so that he could use them in his masturbation fantasies. Ms. Evans examined the piece of paper she held in front of her.

“Now, Mr. Fantoconni, how long have you been on your present job, the one with
Carploa and Sons?”

“Twenty-two years.”

“How long were you married?” Ms. Evans crossed her legs again.

“Thirteen years.”

“Did you like your marriage?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“Yes, I don't know.”

“You
do
know that you were divorced?”

“Do you need the bathroom?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you need the bathroom you go right through that door there.”

“I don't need the bathroom, Mr. Fantoconni. Who divorced who?”

“She divorced me.”

“I see.”

He took her glass into the kitchen and refilled and refilled his own and brought them both out.

“Thank you,” she said taking her drink. “Now why didn't your marriage work, Mr. Fantoconni?”

“Just call me Sam.”

“Mr. Fantoconni, why didn't your marriage work?”

“Don't be an asshole.”

“
Please!
But what do you mean?”

“I mean that the structural relationship of marriage within our society is impossible.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I don't have the time.”

“You don't have the time? Why?”

“You've just answered my question.”

Ms. Evans lifted her drink and looked at him over her drink with her too-extremely blue eyes. “I don't understand you.”

“I'm sorry. But you ask these questions.”

“We must query our prospective clients, Mr. Fantoconni.”

“Query, then.”

“Are you bashful?”

“Oh, Christ . . . ”

“Answer, please.”

“Yes.”

“Have you been hurt by women?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think women are hurt by men?”

“Yes.”

“What's to be done?”

“Nothing.”

Ms. Evans finished her drink. “May I have another?”

“Of course.” He walked into the kitchen and poured two drinks. When he walked out again her skirt was hiked very high; the form of her haunches was unbelievably beautiful, much like magic. He felt frightened, yet pleased. She drank her drink immediately. “How old is your car?”

“Eleven years.”

“Eleven years?”

“Yes.”

“Why don't you get another one?”

“I don't know. Inertia, I suppose.”

“Inertia. I believe you.” She laughed: it was a lovely lilting laugh. “How long has it been since you've had a woman?”

“Four years.”

“Four years? Why?”

“I'm afraid of what will follow.”

“Why don't you get a whore?”

“Because I don't know what a whore is.”

“Get a
Webster
.”

“You're right. That's a whore.”

“College?”

“No.”

“Where do you get your edge?”

“Despair.”

“What?”

“Deluge.”

He finished his drink, took her empty glass and walked back into the kitchen. He opened another bottle of wine, poured two drinks, brought them back and sat on the couch next to her. He handed her a glass, kept the other.

“I fascinate you,” he said, “because I'm not on the make.”

“You're on the make but in a totally different way.”

“Being able to care but ready to give it up without a qualm.”

“Ultimate cynicism.”

“Ultimate training.”

“Both,” she said.

“We sound like a cheap Noel Coward bit.”

“You liked him?”

“There's no way to like him or dislike him. He was just a semidelightful inefficiency. A tossed salad: Oscar Wilde mixed with a Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy duet with George Gershwin at the piano.”

“You're starting to talk too much, you're getting pompous and snide. The wine is getting to you,” said Ms. Evans.

“I was born,” he said, “in West Kansas City in 1922 . . . ”

“I don't want to hear it.” She switched her legs again, this time a bit nervously.

“You remember Alf Landon?”

“No.”

He walked into the kitchen, refilled the drinks, came back. “I don't have any cigarettes. Do you have any cigarettes?”

“Yes.” She opened her purse and brought out a package, a light green package of cigarettes. It was a fresh pack. She undid the cellophane, tapped out two. He lit them. “What went wrong with your marriage?”

“Oh,” she said, inhaling, “the usual shit.”

“Like?”

“He played around, I played around. I forgot who started it. His dirty shorts next to my dirty panties. It's impossible to carry on a high-pitched day-by-day relationship.”

“I know.”

“You know what?”

“It's this country: we're the spoiled children of the universe—love out front, dangling in searchlights—Liz and Burton.”

“You're drunk.”

“I liked Burton's face. Liz reminds me of a specimen in a lab, only perfect for what it is. Then, plop.”

“Plop.”

He reached over and kissed her. She pushed away from him a moment, then gave. When they broke she said, “I'm here to check your credentials.”

“I'm sure.”

She pushed him away. Her fingers were long and narrow, he noticed them as she pushed him away.

“You suck,” he said.

She had her cigarette in her right hand and he got the palm of her left hand across his face, it caught part of his nose. His cigarette shot out of his mouth—sparks, fireworks—it broke, his hand catching part of it—there were these tiny sparks and spilling, and dark ash, and then white paper and unburnt brown tobacco.

“Care for another drink?” he asked.

Ms. Evans had both a briefcase and a purse and she gathered them about herself as she got up. As she stood up the dress dropped back over her flanks. She made a motion to straighten out some wrinkles in her dress, then gave off. “You're nothing but a goddamned cowboy like the rest.”

“Right. The world may not exactly radiate over its continuous fucks but it certainly carries on.”

“That's supposed to be clever?”

“Supposed to be accurate.”

She walked toward the door and the walk was magic; he let his eyes fall into each fold of her wrinkled dress, and each fold was an intimacy, a warmness and a sadness, and then his mind quickly laughed at his softness, and then he focused upon her behind, the twin circles, watching what the circles did. He wanted to say, come back, come back, we've been hasty.

The door closed. He had one more drink. Then he went to bed. He didn't masturbate. He slept.

Within two weeks he got a letter in the mail informing him that he was not acceptable for automobile insurance from the main company but that there was a subsidiary branch out of St. Louis which would most possibly accept his application at nominal but slightly higher rates if he would fill out and mail the enclosed forms, postage-free. It seemed quite simple. There were just little squares to check after the questions.

He checked the questions, made the appropriate markings within the squares and dropped the prepaid envelope into a corner mailbox two or three days later.

H
er name was Minnie Budweisser, yes, just like the beer, and Minnie might drag you back to 1932, but she was hardly that, sitting in my office that hot July afternoon, just in slacks, not trying to show too much, not much of it was even tight-fitting, but you could see all that woman in there, the almighty woman that one woman in a million possessed. There she was: Minnie Budweisser, but she'd had sense enough to change her name to Nina Contralto for box office purposes. I looked at her, she was it, the tits weren't silicone and the ass was real, and the movements and the flow and the eyes and the gestures. She was there. She had the damnedest eyes I'd ever seen—they kept shading: first they were blue, then green, then brown, they kept shading, changing, she was a witch, and yet I knew she probably ate peanut butter sandwiches and snored a little in her sleep and even farted and belched once in a while.

“Yes? I asked.

“I'm down from Vegas.”

“Trouble?”

“No trouble. Just sick of it.”

“Come down to learn Spanish at Berlitz? Become an ambassador?”

“Fuck you.”

“Anytime. We pay 5 bucks an hour. You'll get tips from the sicks. If you really want to make it, you'll trick on the side. Ninety-three percent do. If you give head you can bank 23 thousand a year, only 6 grand tax-deductible.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you. You've only got five good working years. After that you're down at
Norm's
with a sweaty ass. You score now or you'll never score again. The body's all you got, and it just won't last.”

“When do I start?”

“Six p.m., tomorrow night.”

Nina was ready at 6 but Helen was still on. I sat at a table and brought Nina a double Scotch. Helen was on but Helen was just dumb. She'd gotten a silicone job but one of the tits had come out about one-half size larger than the other and she couldn't dance, she just moved one leg and then moved the other. She was just like a sleepwalker. The boys played pool and turned their backs to her at the bar.

Then Nina got up there. “No music, please,” she said. And then she began making these movements: it was more a prayer than a dance; it was as if she were looking into the sky for salvation, but it was
hot
, don't worry—she had on these tall silver spikes and she had on these pink lace panties and her buttocks whirled in heat to some unsolvable god. Actually—with
another
woman—you might think it corny—she had on these long black gloves that ran halfway up between the elbows and the shoulders, and all these rings were on the fingers of the gloves; her long stockings had the word “LOVE” embroidered into them near the tops. She had the mascara, the long false eyelashes, even pearls about the neck, but it was the movement, the movements—and in silence—that did it. Her body was the magnificent gift but it wasn't that—there was something searching inside of her and she couldn't find it, the man, the way, the city, the country, the out. She was totally alone, without help, although many thought they could help her. As the final act in her dance she took the small red rose that was in her hair and she bit into the stem with her teeth and voluted up at the ceiling, whirling, moving, almost beyond meaning. Then she stopped, stiffened, and walked off coming down the steps at the side.

I raised her to $10 an hour right then. I told her about it. “Thanks, daddy,” she said, “but I need some coke now or at least I want to sniff some h. Let's go someplace and score.”

“All right,” I said. So I took her down to Vanilla Jack's in the Canyon and we sat over his coffee table and he spread it on the mirror and we tried some. I didn't get any results but Nina said it was straight stuff. I gave it the two-on-one (double-nostril suck). Nothing happened. “I'm crazy,” I said, “but I don't think it's there—it's spread, no backbone.”

Nina tried it again and said it was there. Jack weighed it all in a little silver scale made in Munich, and I paid him, thinking there's no chance for any of us: we just
think
we're circling the vultures.

I got to my place, got her to my place, we got out the mirror and spread it. I had gotten a good bottle of French wine, vintage way back and I put some Shostakovich on the Frisbee. She was as beautiful as ever. With some women their beauty can vanish in one half-hour, or even sooner—as soon as they begin to speak, then their tricks and cons, having vanished, there are no cards left and no light left—well, one card, let's fuck for the sake of fuck and hope for the best. Nina held, she remained total.

I suppose Jack's stuff was good. I began to feel it, even though I mistrusted that Munich scale. “I'll marry you,” I told Nina, “I'll give you half of my money.”

“You don't understand,” she said.

“Understand what?”

“You don't know what love is.”

“I love you.”

“You just love the
idea
of me. It's all shadow and light and form.”

“But I love that. Christ, give me a chance.”

“Suppose I were 66 years old? With one eye missing and my shit running out of a sack taped to my side?”

“I don't know.”

“You know. Spread some more of that shit on the mirror.”

We got higher and higher and then finally went to bed together. I didn't try. I didn't want to try. The world ran through the top of my head and down my back and out the window.

I didn't try with Nina again. She kept coming to work and making it with her silent dance and she had 75 guys in love with her. I found out from a pretty good source that she wasn't making it with anybody after her show. All that body, untouched. There were crimes against mankind and that was certainly one of them.

She worked the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. That Wednesday afternoon somebody stole all the clothes out of her locker: the silver spikes, the long black sleeves, the long stockings embroidered “LOVE” near the tops. All the other gear. She came down and began banging lockers and screaming. She was in an old white T-shirt and bluejeans and she looked more beautiful than the sun, raving and wobbling and insane. I told her fuck, forget it, I'd pay her night's wages, all she had to do was to go around and serve an occasional drink to the boys. It wasn't a bad night: Nina was better serving drinks than the other girls were on the wood. I drove her to her apartment that night and she was laughing.

It was strange the next day. She was on at 6 and she came on down the street toward my place at 4:30 in the afternoon moving toward my place. She was all over the sidewalk with that great body and everybody looking, and she was in this mini-skirt, runners all over her stockings, she was rocking back and forth, the newsboys and the ordinaries watching—they'd beat off for a month to the memory of it and then she hit up against the frontglass of
Billy's Half-Hard Club
hard, hit that hard, and it didn't break, and she had on this red wig, this big red wig and it fell off of her head and she didn't know it and just kept moving toward my place—out of it—and somebody picked up her wig and followed her. It was more than snow. She stepped in and started really doing a dead-ass dance in mockery of the girl on the wood then. It irritated me.

“Listen,” I said, “you're an hour and a half early.”

“So what?” she asked.

“So,” I said, “fuck you, you're fired.”

“Fuck you,” she said, and walked out.

I think of her sometimes now but I get the idea that somehow she's not in this town or in any town near here. Now here I am calling L.A. a town. It's a city, isn't it? But I finally found out who stole her gear. It was the one with the silicone who got one breast bigger than the other. She wears it now, the tall/silver spikes, the pearls, the long black gloves with all the rings, 17 rings, and the “LOVE” stockings, all of it. She's even learned to dance a bit, but it just doesn't work.