The Bell Tolls for No One (17 page)

L
ucille was not a bad sort, I mean compared to most who had lived with me. Like the others she drank, lied, cheated, stole and exaggerated, but as a man goes on he stops looking for the whole cloth, he'll settle for a piece of rag. And then he'll pass that on to the next while scratching his ear.

But, generally, while things are working just a little, a wise man will tend to accept the moment because if you don't you just get a bag with you in it and when you shake it you only hear one sound. Boy, you've got to poop up some guts now and then to find out where the sun lays it down.

Lucille would tell little stories about the south. Well, not the real south but the south of Arizona and New Mexico, Midwest south. We'd sit up in bed drinking our wine and she'd talk: “My god, it was terrible. That convent. Those bitches. We were all little girls and they'd starve us. The richest church in the world, the Catholic Church, and they'd starve us.”

“I like the Catholic Church, they give a good show, all those robes, that Latin, drinking the blood of Christ . . . ”

“We were so hungry, so very very hungry. We'd climb out the windows at night and go into the garden and dig up these radishes, they'd be surrounded with dirt and mud, and we'd eat it all, the dirt, the mud, the radishes . . . we were so hungry. And when we got caught we were punished terribly . . . Those bitches in their black hoods and dresses . . . ”

“Don't spill the wine on the sheets, it's harder to get off than beet juice.”

Lucille, like the rest of them, had come out of a long and unhappy marriage. They all told me stories of their long and unhappy marriages and I'd lay there next to them thinking, “Now what am I supposed to do?”

It was never quite clear to me so I drank very much with them and fucked them often and listened to their speeches but I don't think I did much for them. I gave them an ear and a cock, I
did
listen and I did fuck, whereas most men only
pretended
to listen. I guess I had an ace but I had to listen to an awful lot of shit and then weigh and measure it, and when I got through with that, the substance I had left could be blown away with one nostril pinched off. But I was a kind man. They all admitted that: I was a very kind man.

“Those radishes tasted
so
good, mud, sand and all . . . ”

“Put your hand on my cock. Rub my balls.”

“Are you still Catholic?”

“No way. You got a hair caught in your ring. You're killing me. I hate women who wear rings, especially turquoise. It proves they're in with the devil, that they're witches . . . Touch the head of my cock.”

“You've got the biggest balls of any man I've ever met.”

“I could say something about you, too, but I don't think I will . . . ”

Outside of that, Lucille had a minor weakness. She'd get drunk on the wine and spread herself across the bed while I was sitting on a chair and she'd start in: “You're a fag, a shoetree, a pimpernel . . . you murdered the Frogs at Verdun, you shaved the hairs off of Joan of Arc's pussy and stuck them into your ears like flowers . . . You eat your own shit like your American heritage . . . you think Beethoven is a wart out of lower Seville . . . your mother made you smear her panties with beeswax while she had her hysterectomy . . . ”

She kept it on and on, this certain night I'm talking about. I dropped to my knees: “Lucille, my love, you know that I'm a kind man, you've admitted as much. I'm begging you upon my knees to please shut up. Please, I
beg
you! There are certain truths in your wallfly buzzings; there are also certain minor exaggerations. I beg you to cease, little buttercup!”

“You sucked off Henry VIII and smeared buttermilk up his ass. You drew the loop around the Louisiana French. You hate Henry Fonda!”

“Don't say that about Fonda or I'll smash your teeth in!”

“You murdered the golden-haired children of the Valencia of my dreams!”

“No, no, that was your husband!”

“It was
both
of you! Bring me more wine!”

“Yes, my love.”

This particular night Lucille went on and on. I am a kind man but you must understand voice
intonation
to understand anything. There is this particular poisonous sound that can be vent loose, it is a sound that itches and scratches and bullies and pukes and mewks. It continues in this same relentless and never-ending tonality, and no matter what one says to it or how one attempts to appease it, it goes on and on and on. Sometimes babies can do this to you, or women, or sometimes men.

The hours went on and Lucille went on. I don't know how many times I asked mercy or how many warnings I gave. But it does happen, finally. I walked toward the bed and I told her as I approached: “All right, buttercup, this is it.”

But Lucille continued to wail away, on her back, belly distended with cheap wine, a one-inch ash on her cigarette, the neon signs of central L.A. turning her white, then pink, then yellow, then blue . . . I picked up the end of the bed and closed her into the wall and sat back down. I poured a drink, lit a fresh cigarette and crossed my legs.

Lucille was gone. There was nothing in front of me but brown paneled woodwork. Cliché or not, I had to admit to a definite sense of peace. I remembered Lucille when I had first met her legs, her eyes, her lips, her very round ears, and her slurred tongue. Not knowing a person at all was much better, always, than knowing all of them. One might at least endow them with magics that could never exist, and then, after living with them, blame them for the magics that had never arrived.

I drank my drink and began to hear sounds behind the woodwork: “God o mighty, please help me! Help me!”

“You'll be all right, baby. Relax. I can see the Goodyear blimp from here. It's flashing lights. Let me read you the message . . . ”

“Let me out, I BEG YOU! I'M DYING!”

“Oh, fuck,” I said and walked over and pulled the bed down. There she was. My flower.

“Oh, shit, I think my arm's broken!”

“Now don't give me a goddamned bunch of trouble. Let me pour you a wine. Care for a cigar?”

“I tell you my arm's broken. It's broken!”

“For Christ's sake, be a man! Here's a drink! Drink up.”

“It hurts, it hurts, o my god how it hurts!”

“Stop your goddamned yollering or I'll put you right back into that wall next to your asshole!”

Nothing seemed to frighten her. It was disgusting. I took another big hit of Tokay and took the elevator down. I walked down the street a bit and found the back of a super-market. There were some wooden crates stacked up against the side of the building. I took a piss in the moonlight then walked over to the wooden crates. I began ripping boards off, slats. A curved nail came up and caught the inside of my wrist as I was ripping a board off. A little trickle of blood ran down my arm. I cursed. Shit, what a man wouldn't do for a whore.

I got back upstairs with my bundle of shit. First we had some Tokay and cigarettes. Then I got up and took off the top bedsheet and like some large lion of anger, cheap cigar rolling in the center of my mouth, I ripped that bedsheet up, and then cracking boards across my knee for correct size. I got that arm all wrapped up like Dr. Keene. Then I sat down and turned on the radio. Shostakovich's 5th. Great. I had always been a lover of the masses. I drank down one-third a bottle of Tokay and looked for the Goodyear blimp.

“O, my god,” said Lucille.

“Shut up. I told you to shut up. I'm not going to tell you to shut up much longer.”

I just don't know. She just kept yallering and yallering about her arm being broken. I finally said all right and I took her down to the elevator and we got in the car and the car started and I drove her toward the General Hospital . . . .

I drove the old hack right into
Emergency
instead of
Admissions
, knowing that the difference was at least 72 hours. We lucked it. Knowing that Lucille had a broken arm they rushed her into x-ray and had her chest x-rayed. Then they sat her on a little cart with a white sheet over it and there was a lineup; people from car crashes with blood running out of them like good Arabian oil and coming down the floorway where healthy young black interns skipped over it all, talking about their luck at the racetrack that day or how Lucille Ball ought to give it up before her fanny dropped below her kneecaps.

I got bored and started bumming cigarettes all over from blood death cases, bloodsuckers, and underwater octopi. Lucille was rolled in one door and walked out another. She was neatly bound. A broken arm bit. She looked cute. Like she'd been kissing the doctor.

I got her down to the car and we got in. We had time, just before closing, to get some port and muscatel from a store, four bottles in all. The moon was high that night and we drove on slowly, nipping . . .

It was in all the bars afterwards, hearing about it weeks afterward: “I'm the only woman in the world who has ever been folded into the wall on a folding bed and had her arm broken,” she kept telling everybody. I guess it was unique. Of course, it was mathematically possible that the same thing had happened to another woman.

The strangest thing was that she loved me more after I broke her arm than before it was broken. Anyhow, we got thrown out of the place of the folding bed because of one reason or another, and we got a place right across the street, the rent was cheaper, they weren't as nosey or as sensitive to noise and unemployed people, and the bed was right down there on the floor, just no place else to go just like beds should be.

H
arry called from his place three or four times after getting in from the track. Two hours went by, he had a New York steak at the
Sizzler
, then drove on over. Lilly was kneeling on the floor wrapping Christmas presents. Her children were over at her ex-husband's. “Well,” she said, “how'd you do? You lost, didn't you?”

“No, I lucked it. I won $94. I've been phoning you. I told you I'd come over after the track.”

“You said it'd take a long time.”

“It does. But they don't run them in the dark. This was the shortest day of the year.”

Lilly didn't answer.

“Look, I guess I'll get Nadia her present.”

“Sure. And, O.K., get me some wrapping paper, gift-paper, and some cat food. And listen, you got a hammer in your car?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring the hammer, too.”

Harry walked out, got in his car and drove down to the store. A toy for a 6-year-old girl. He walked around the store. It was all cellophane and plastic and cheap paint and unfair. He gave up and got 6 or 8 small things: a compass, a toy wrist watch, a makeup set, a fingernail set, balloons, a puzzle, trick soap bubbles, a purse and a set of ornaments. Variety in shit was better than just solid shit. Harry got the other things, plus a 6-pack of Diet Rite and a large jar of mixed nuts. When he parked he lifted the hood of the Volks and got the hammer out. Then he found that the hood wouldn't shut again. He stood out there banging the hood trying to make it shut. He stood out there 10 minutes banging the hood.

Lilly stepped out on the porch. “What the hell's going on out there?”

“I took the hammer out of the hood and now it won't shut. It's the addition this guy put on the bumper. It gets in the way. I didn't notice it when I bought the car.”

Lilly went back in without saying anything. Harry kept banging the hood. It was foggy and the steel was wet and his hands slipped and he ripped some skin off of one knuckle. Lilly came back out on the porch. “Did you get the hammer?”

“Yes. I took it out of the hood. That's how all this happened.”

Lilly walked down the steps. “I need the hammer.” She walked up to the car and lifted the hood.

“Look,” said Harry, “I told you I took it
out
of the hood.”

“Oh.”

He took the hammer off the top of the car and handed it to her. She took it and walked up the steps and into the house. Harry slammed the hood a few more times, then quit. $1299 for a '67 Volks and the hood won't shut.

When he got in with the stuff she was watching
Geronimo
on TV, played by Chuck Connors. Chuck Connors was the worst actor in a Hollywood full of bad actors. He showed her the presents he had gotten Nadia. Lilly didn't comment.

“Want a Diet Rite?”

“No, I've got some tea on.”

“How about some nuts? Good for the soul.” He screwed the cap off the jar.

“No, I don't want any.”

They sat and watched
Geronimo.
It was hard for Harry to believe that Indians never smiled. They had to, especially when things went bad.

Lilly reached over and got some nuts. They watched the TV together. Then the news came on. The fog had jammed up the airport and all the Christmas people wanting to fly out to meet relatives were going liquid-paper-silly.

“People overemphasize bloodlines. Just because you're related to somebody doesn't make them any more important than anybody else.”

“Oh, yes it does.”

“Why?”

Lilly didn't answer. Harry threw in a mouthful of nuts as President Ford's economic advisers walked up to the Capitol building with their briefcases.

The news ended and they walked into the bedroom. She went to the bathroom first and Harry climbed into bed and looked over the day's racing program. He'd really lucked it that day. Next trip they'd probably have him on the cross. If one could only find a pattern? But what happened was that everything kept alternating. They'd show you one kind of play in one race and then in the next you'd get the opposite. If a man were brilliant enough he could figure on the movement of the tides . . . Everybody needed some kind of poison to keep them clean. Horse-poison was his cleanser. Some had art or crossword puzzles or stealing ashtrays out of bars and cafés.

Lilly came in and climbed into bed, turned her back on him and began reading a book about a man who specialized on leaving his body and floating into space. Harry got up, went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. Then he came back and climbed on in. He read
London Magazine
awhile, found his name and where a critic called him an “immensely successful writer.” Ta, ta. He put the book back on the headboard, turned and closed his eyes.

“I went into this shop,” he heard her voice, “and I met this girl who runs this shop and she said we might go into business together. She does these things with metal and I can do my heads.”

“There's a depression,” said Harry, “you've got to be careful. Do you think the stuff will sell?”

“I don't know. But you've got to try.”

“I suppose so. But be careful; some of these places have leases. You've got to lease for 6 months or a year and if things don't move you're still stuck with the rent.”

“She does some awfully good stuff. I like it.”

“Good stuff and what people buy are often different things.”

“I might try it, though. I'm sick of waiting on those drunks in the bar. They all want me to save them.”

“That's just a line. They're already saved when they lift that drink.”

“You ought to know.”

“Well, if you open that shop you could give poetry readings.”

“There you go! Every time I talk about opening a place you say I can give poetry readings! That's a putdown! You're relegating me to the status of a Vangelisti! Admit it's a putdown!”

Harry thought a while. “All right, maybe it is a put-down. But you ought to make your shop known. Put on a fucking puppet show, anything.”

Lilly turned out the light. Then he heard her: “You know, I have a greater potential than you have. I really have. I tell it like it is. My sisters tell it like it is. We'll become known. You can't get away with your lies.”

“Please be kind. Let's call it fiction.”

“They're getting on to you.”

“O.K., they're getting on to me.”

“You always have this
superior
attitude!” Lilly sat straight up in bed and screamed: “Jesus Christ. We All Know You're Harry Dubinski The Great Writer!”

Then she fell back on the pillow. “My sister, Sarah, she hasn't been published yet but she has
drive
, she's 47 and when I go up there that typewriter is
going all the time,
she's got drive and spunk. Those novels keep coming back and yet she drives out another one. She's got it. I don't know when
you
write. You're either asleep or drunk or at the racetrack.”

“Wallace Stevens had a saying: ‘Success as a result of industry is a peasant's ideal.' ”

“I can
talk
to my sister! We Get To The Source, We Get Down To Where Things Are Really Happening! We Discuss Things! We Get To The Root!”

“O.K., fine then. Tell me something that you've found out.”

Lilly rolled in the bed. “Oh, shit, you disgust me! You just don't understand anything—love, feelings, any of it! My sisters have more life in their little fingers than you have in your fat whale body!”

“Some of the girls don't seem to mind my whale body.”

“Your whores, the readers of your poems!”

“I play you fair when we're not split.”

“But we manage to split, don't we?”

“Yes, keep it in the plural.”

“My sisters have ambition,
real
ambition, you don't realize that, you just don't!”

“Ambition without talent is useless unless you have a damned good publicity agent.”

“You keep mouthing these things, you won't
talk
to me. You just mouth off slogans like some damned John Thomas.”

Harry moaned.

“Talk to me!” she said. “Talk to me!”

“A horse usually wins when he comes down from his last odds.”

“I need to sculpture new heads, that's my problem. I need new heads to sculpture! I think I'm going to do naked men, eight feet tall! You wouldn't like it if I had naked men in here modeling for me, would you? You wouldn't like it, would you?”

“I don't know.”

“I need rope, lots of rope!”

Harry didn't answer.

“I need a boot in the ass,” she said, “I need people to
drive
me. I need new things, different things! All we do is sleep! Sleep! Sleep
depresses
me! I used to sleep for three weeks at a time when I was a little girl! I hate it! You just loll around! You're YEARS OLDER THAN I am! We need different things! We ought to try something different!”

“Look, Lilly, you just need a different type of guy . . . ”

“Oh, you men
always
say that! You never ADJUST! You never sit down and say, well, look, maybe we ought to try this or try that or try
something!
You always just say, ‘Well, if you don't like me the way I am I'll just LEAVE, I'll just LEAVE!' Every time we get into this you leave! And we've been together four years! We used to have these
violent
arguments when we first met and then we'd make up and have a marvelous reunion! Now you just come back. You used to accuse me of things, you used to protest! Now you just come back and take off your shoes and read a newspaper! You've got no bounce!”

“Things change. I used to think you were somebody else but it was just the somebody else I had put up there in my mind. The error was mine. Now I don't expect what I expected. Hell, we're growing, don't you see? There's not all this constant need for a bunch of fucking fuss. The sights are on target, we can relax.”

“You're not even jealous anymore of what I do with other men!”

“You told me that you hated my jealousy, that true love meant trusting another person.”

“O.K., what
is
true love?”

“Two cats fucking in the courtyard at 2 a.m.”

Lilly became silent for 3 or 4 minutes, then she spoke again: “I believe in that psychic I went to see. He told me that you would never become a truly great writer. And I believe him. You have all these large
dead
spots in all your stories, large large large
dead
spots! You'll never make it!”

“I'm not particularly interested in making it. Ambition makes me vomit.”

Two or three minutes passed. Then Lilly leaped out of bed and raised both arms over her head and screamed: “I'm Going To Do Great Things! Nobody Can Realize How Great I'm Going To Be!”

“O.K.,” said Harry, “you be great. I'm leaving.”

“You're
leaving
! You're
leaving
! . . . You don't
realize
how much you've held me back! You've STOPPED MY SCULPTING, YOU'VE STOPPED EVERYTHING IN ME! LEAVE, LEAVE, LEAVE!”

Lilly began running through her house screaming. “LEAVE, LEAVE, LEAVE! That's all you
know
: LEAVE!”

She screamed a long scream, then pulled the Christmas tree down, smashing the ornaments and the lights. There were other sounds as she ran about the house. The earthquake of the Thirties lost by at least half a length. Harry had seen it before at his place, hers. Glass doors smashed, mirrors, everything.

She ran into the room charging him and he remembered the other times, all the other times. “Don't,” he said, “or I'll really belt you. I
mean
it!”

Lilly backed off. Then she ran into the other room and he heard the sounds and the screams: “Leaving. Always Leaving! Well, Leave Then; Leave, Leave Leave!”

Harry grabbed his glasses, the latest issue of
London Magazine
, the last two chapters of his novel-in-progress, and evacuated in coat and pants and shoes without shorts or shirt or stockings or the day's racing program. He got out the door and made it down to the car in the driveway while she screamed: “I Hate Christmas. I Hate This House. I Hate You . . . I . . . ”

I hate Christmas, too, he thought, trying to work the key into the door and he had the wrong key but he found the right one and got the door open and got in and pressed down the button just as she got there as he was trying to start the car and tried to open the door.

“I'll kill this beautiful car, I'll murder this car, I'll kill
you!
” And she started beating against the front window.

He put it in reverse and got it on out as she ripped the mailbox from the front of her house, a huge iron contraption that almost did in the windshield glass, and then she found a rock, and it hit, too, but only against the useless hood, and then Harry was driving down the little neighborhood streets, and the fog was in, immensely, and he flipped the wipers of his newly bought '67 Volks and the wipers didn't work and he rolled down the left window and tried to see into the night.

It got worse until he got to the main boulevard and then he opened it up all the way to the liquor store on Western just above Hollywood Boulevard, and he parked it, Harry did, and walked in, and he had on the old coat and no shirt and he tried to button the coat across his chest and gut, but he'd gained weight, whale-boy Harry, and he gave it up, went to the rack and pulled out one six-pack of Heineken (light) and two of Michelob in the bottle and walked back to the counter.

The guy at the counter took his money and made change and while making change asked, “Smokes?”

“No smokes,” said Harry.

Harry walked out and found his blue Volks, got his keys mixed up again, had to sit the beer on the roof while he found the door key and there were 3 girls sitting in a car across from him and the car had all the doors open, there weren't any men in it and they were just sitting there and one of the girls said, “Hey, hey, look at that!”