Чарльз Буковски. Бутерброд с дерьмом (engl)
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OCR: Shoorah.
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Charles Bukowski. Ham On Rye (engl)
1
The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I
saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the
tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked being under there.
It must have been in Germany. I must have been between one and two years
old. It was 1922. I felt good under the table. Nobody seemed to know that I
was there. There was sunlight upon the rug and on the legs of the people. I
liked the sunlight. The legs of the people were not interesting, not like
the tablecloth which hung down, not like the table leg, not like the
sunlight.
Then there is nothing . . . then a Christmas tree. Candles. Bird
ornaments: birds with small berry branches in their beaks. A star. Two large
people fighting, screaming. People eating, always people eating. I ate too.
My spoon was bent so that if I wanted to eat I had to pick the spoon up with
my right hand. If I picked it up with my left hand, the spoon bent away from
my mouth. I wanted to pick the spoon up with my left hand.
Two people: one larger with curly hair, a big nose, a big mouth, much
eyebrow; the larger person always seeming to be angry, often screaming; the
smaller person quiet, round of face, paler, with large eyes. I was afraid of
both of them. Sometimes there was a third, a fat one who wore dresses with
lace at the throat. She wore a large brooch, and had many warts on her face
with little hairs growing out of them. "Emily," they called her. These
people didn't seem happy together. Emily was the grandmother, my father's
mother. My father's name was "Henry." My mother's name was "Katherine." I
never spoke to them by name. I was
"Henry, Jr." These people spoke German most of the time and in the
beginning I did too.
The first thing I remember my grandmother saying was, "I will bury
all of you!" She said this the first time just before we began eating
a meal, and she was to say it many times after that, just before we began to
eat. Eating seemed very important. We ate mashed potatoes and gravy,
especially on Sundays. We also ate roast beef, knockwurst and sauerkraut,
green peas, rhubarb, carrots, spinach, string beans, chicken, meatballs and
spaghetti, sometimes mixed with ravioli; there were boiled onions,
asparagus, and every Sunday there was strawberry shortcake with vanilla ice
cream. For breakfasts we had french toast and sausages, or there were
hotcakes or waffles with bacon and scrambled eggs on the side. And there was
always coffee. But what I remember best is all the mashed potatoes and gravy
and my grandmother, Emily, saying, "I will bury all of you!"
She visited us often after we came to America, taking the red trolley
in from Pasadena to Los Angeles. We only went to see her occasionally,
driving out in the Model-T Ford.
I liked my grandmother's house. It was a small house under an
overhanging mass of pepper trees. Emily had all her canaries in different
cages. I remember one visit best. That evening she went about covering the
cages with white hoods so that the birds could sleep. The people sat in
chairs and talked. There was a piano and I sat at the piano and hit the keys
and listened to the sounds as the people talked. I liked the sound of the
keys best up at one end of the piano where there was hardly any sound at all
-- the sound the keys made was like chips of ice striking against one
another.
"Will you stop that?" my father said loudly.
"Let the boy play the piano," said my grandmother. My mother smiled.
"That boy," said my grandmother, "when I tried to pick him up out of
the cradle to kiss him, he reached up and hit me in the nose!"
They talked some more and I went on playing the piano.
"Why don't you get that thing tuned?" asked my father. Then I was told
that we were going to see my grandfather. My grandfather and grandmother
were not living together. I was told that my grandfather was a bad man, that
his breath stank.
"Why does his breath stink?"
They didn't answer.
"Why does his breath stink?"
"He drinks."
We got into the Model-T and drove over to see my Grandfather Leonard.
As we drove up and stopped he was standing on the porch of his house. He was
old but he stood very straight. He had been an army officer in Germany and
had come to America when he heard that the streets were paved with gold.
They weren't, so he became the head of a construction firm.
The other people didn't get out of the car. Grandfather wiggled a
finger at me. Somebody opened a door and I climbed out and walked toward
him. His hair was pure white and long and his beard was pure white and long,
and as I got closer I saw that his eyes were brilliant, like blue lights
watching me. I stopped a little distance away from him.
"Henry," he said, "you and I, we know each other. Come into the house."
He held out his hand. As I got closer I could smell the stink of his
breath. It was very strong but he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen
and I wasn't afraid. I went into his house with him. He led me to a chair.
"Sit down, please. I'm very happy to sec you."
He went into another room. Then he came out with a little tin box.
"It's for you. Open it."
I had trouble with the lid, I couldn't open the box.
"Here," he said, "let me have it."
He loosened the lid and handed the tin box back to me. I lifted the lid
and here was this cross, a German cross with a ribbon.
"Oh no," I said, "you keep it."
"It's yours," he said, "it's just a gummy badge."
"Thank you."
"You better go now. They will be worried."
"All right. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Henry. No, wait . . ."
I stopped. He reached into a small front pocket of his pants with a
couple of fingers, and tugged at a long gold chain with his other hand. Then
he handed me his gold pocket watch, with the chain.
"Thank you. Grandfather . . ."
They were waiting outside and I got into the Model-T and we drove off.
They all talked about many things as we drove along. They were always
talking, and they talked all the way back to my grandmother's house. They
spoke of many things but never, once, of my grandfather.
2
I remember the Model-T. Sitting high, the running boards seemed
friendly, and on cold days, in the mornings, and often at other times, my
father had to fit the hand-crank into the front of the engine and crank it
many times in order to start the car.
"A man can get a broken arm doing this. It kicks back like a horse."
We went for Sunday rides in the Model-T when grandmother didn't visit.
My parents liked the orange groves, miles and miles of orange trees always
either in blossom or full of oranges. My parents had a picnic basket and a
metal chest. In the metal chest were frozen cans of fruit on dry ice, and in
the picnic basket were weenie and liverwurst and salami sandwiches, potato
chips, bananas and soda-pop. The soda-pop was shifted continually back and
forth between the metal box and the picnic basket. It froze quickly, and
then had to be thawed.
My father smoked Camel cigarettes and he knew many tricks and games
which he showed us with the packages of Camel cigarettes. How many pyramids
were there? Count them. We would count them and then he would show us more
of them.
There were also tricks about the humps on the camels and about the
written words on the package. Camel cigarettes were magic cigarettes.
There was a particular Sunday I can recall. The picnic basket was
empty. Yet we still drove along through the orange groves, further and
further away from where we lived.
"Daddy," my mother asked, "aren't we going to run out of gas?"
"No, there's plenty of god-damned gas."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to get me some god-damned oranges!"
My mother sat very still as we drove along. My father pulled up
alongside the road, parked near a wire fence and we sat there, listening.
Then my father kicked the door open and got out.
"Bring the basket."
We all climbed through the strands of the fence.
"Follow me," said my father.
Then we were between two rows of orange trees, shaded from the sun by
the branches and the leaves. My father stopped and reaching up began yanking
oranges from the lower branches of the nearest tree. He seemed angry,
yanking the oranges from the tree, and the branches seemed angry, leaping up
and down. He threw the oranges into the picnic basket which my mother held.
Sometimes he missed and I chased the oranges and put them into the basket.
My father went from tree to tree, yanking at the lower branches,
throwing the oranges into the picnic basket.
"Daddy, we have enough," said my mother.
"Like hell."
He kept yanking.
Then a man stepped forward, a very tall man. He held a shotgun.
"All right, buddy, what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm picking oranges. There are plenty of oranges."
"These are my oranges. Now, listen to me, tell your woman to dump
them."
"There are plenty of god-damned oranges. You're not going to miss a few
god-damned oranges."
"I'm not going to miss any oranges. Tell your woman to dump
them."
The man pointed his shotgun at my father.
"Dump them," my father told my mother. The oranges rolled to the
ground.
"Now," said the man, "get out of my orchard."
"You don't need all these oranges."
"I know what I need. Now get out of here."
"Guys like you ought to be hung!"
"I'm the law here. Now move!"
The man raised his shotgun again. My father turned and began walking
out of the orange grove. We followed him and the man trailed us. Then we got
into the car but it was one of those times when it wouldn't start. My father
got out of the car to crank it. He cranked it twice and it wouldn't start.
My father was beginning to sweat. The man stood at the edge of the road.
"Get that god-damned cracker box started!" he said. My father got ready
to twist the crank again. "We're not on your property! We can stay here as
long as we damn well please!"
"Like hell! Get that thing out of here, and fast!"
My father cranked the engine again. It sputtered, then stopped. My
mother sat with the empty picnic box on her lap. I was afraid to look at the
man. My father whirled the crank again and the engine started. He leaped
into the car and began working the levers on the steering wheel.
"Don't come back," said the man, "or next time it might not go so easy
for you."
My father drove the Model-T off. The man was still standing near the
road. My father was driving very fast. Then he slowed the car and made a U-
turn. He drove back to where the man had stood. The man was gone. We speeded
back on the way out of the orange groves.
"I'm coming back some day and get that bastard," said my father.
"Daddy, we'll have a nice dinner tonight. What would you like?" my
mother asked.
"Pork chops," he answered.
I had never seen him drive the car that fast.
3
My father had two brothers. The younger was named Ben and the older was
named John. Both were alcoholics and ne'er-do-wells. My parents often spoke
of them.
"Neither of them amount to anything," said my father.
"You just come from a bad family, Daddy," said my mother.
"And your brother doesn't amount to a damn either!"
My mother's brother was in Germany. My father often spoke badly of him.
I had another uncle, Jack, who was married to my father's sister,
Elinore. I had never seen my Uncle Jack or my Aunt Elinore because there
were bad feelings between them and my father.
"See this scar on my hand?" asked my father. "Well, that's where
Elinore stuck me with a sharp pencil when I was very young. That scar has
never gone away."
My father didn't like people. He didn't like me. "Children should be
seen and not heard," he told me.
It was an early Sunday afternoon without Grandma Emily.
"We should go see Ben," said my mother. "He's dying."
"He borrowed all that money from Emily. He'd pissed it away on gambling
and women and booze."
"I know, Daddy."
"Emily won't have any money left when she dies."
"We should still go see Ben. They say he has only two weeks left."
"All right, all right! We'll go!"
So we went and got into the Model-T and started driving. It took some
time, and my mother had to stop for flowers. It was a long drive toward the
mountains. We reached the foothills and took the little winding mountain
road upwards. Uncle Ben was in a sanitarium up there, dying of TB.
"It must cost Emily a lot of money to keep Ben up here," said my
father.
"Maybe Leonard is helping."
"Leonard doesn't have anything. He drank it up and he gave it away.
"I like grandpa Leonard," I said.
"Children should be seen and not heard," .said my father. Then he
continued, "Ah, that Leonard, the only time he was good to us children was
when he was drunk. He'd joke with us and give us money. But the next day
when he was sober he was the meanest man in the world."
The Model-T was climbing the mountain road nicely. The air was clear
and sunny.
"Here it is," said my father. He guided the car into the parking lot of
the sanitarium and we got out. I followed my mother and father into the
building. As we entered his room, my Uncle Ben was sitting upright in bed,
staring out the window. He turned and looked at us as we entered. He was a
very handsome man, thin, with black hair, and he had dark eyes which
glittered, were brilliant with glittering light.
"Hello, Ben," said my mother.
"Hello, Katy." Then he looked at me. "Is this Henry?"
Yes.
"Sit down."
My father and I sat down.
My mother stood there. "These flowers, Ben. I don't see a vase."
"They're nice flowers, thanks, Katy. No, there isn't a vase."
"I'll go get a vase," said my mother. She left the room, holding the
flowers.
"Where are all your girlfriends now, Ben?" asked my father.
"They come around."
"I'll bet."
"They come around."
"We're here because Katherine wanted to see you."
"I know."
"I wanted to see you too, Uncle Ben. I think you're a real pretty man."
"Pretty like my ass," said my father. My mother entered the room with
the flowers in a vase.
"Here, I'll put them on this table by the window."
"They're nice flowers, Katy."
My mother sat down.
"We can't stay too long," said my father. Uncle Ben reached under the
mattress and his hand came out holding a pack of cigarettes. He took one
out, struck a match and lit it. He took a long drag and exhaled.
"You know you're not allowed cigarettes," said my father. "I know how
you get them. Those prostitutes bring them to you. Well, I'm going to tell
the doctors about it and I'm going to get them to stop letting those
prostitutes in here!"
"You're not going to do shit," said my uncle.
"I got a good mind to rip that cigarette out of your mouth!" said my
father.
"You never had a good mind," said my uncle.
"Ben,"my mother said, "you shouldn't smoke, it will kill you."
"I've had a good life," said my uncle.
"You never had a good life," said my father. "Lying, boozing,
borrowing, whoring, drinking. You never worked a day in your life! And now
you're dying at the age of 24!"
"It's been all right," said my uncle. He took another heavy drag on the
Camel, then exhaled.
"Let's get out of here," said my father. "This man is insane!"
My father stood up. Then my mother stood up. Then I stood up.
"Goodbye, Katy," said my uncle, "and goodbye, Henry." He looked at me
to indicate which Henry.
We followed my father through the sanitarium halls and out into the
parking lot to the Model- T. We got in, it started, and we began down the
winding road out of the mountains.
"We should have stayed longer," said my mother.
"Don't you know that TB is catching?" asked my father.
"I think he was a very pretty man," I said.
"It's the disease," said my father. "It makes them look like that.
And besides the TB, he's caught many other things too."
"What kind of things?" I asked.
"I can't tell you," my father answered. He steered the Model-T down the
winding mountain road as I wondered about that.
4
It was another Sunday that we got into the Model-T in search of my
Uncle John.
"He has no ambition," said my father. "I don't see how he can hold his
god-damned head up and look people in the eye."
"I wish he wouldn't chew tobacco," said my mother. "He spits the stuff
everywhere."
"If this country was full of men like him the Chinks would take
over and we'd he running the laundries . . ."
"John never had a chance," said my mother. "He ran away from
home early. At least you got a high school education."
"College," said my father.
"Where?" asked my mother.
"The University of Indiana."
"Jack said you only went to high school."
"Jack only went to high school. That's why he gardens for the
rich."
"Am I ever going to see my Uncle Jack?" I asked.
"First let's see if we can find your Uncle John," said my father.
"Do the Chinks really want to take over this country?" I asked.
"Those yellow devils have been waiting for centuries to do it.
What's stopped them is that they have been kept busy fighting the
Japs."
"Who are the best fighters, the Chinks or the Japs?"
'The Japs. The trouble is that there are too many Chinks.
When you kill a Chink he splits in half and becomes two Chinks."
"How come their skin is yellow?"
"Because instead of drinking water they drink their own pee- pee."
"Daddy, don't tell the boy that!"
"Then tell him to stop asking questions."
We drove along through another warm Los Angeles day. My mother
had on one of her pretty dresses and fancy hats. When my mother was dressed
up she always sat straight and held her neck very stiff.
"I wish we had enough money so we could help John and his family," said
my mother.
"It's not my fault if they don't have a pot to piss in," answered my
father.
"Daddy, John was in the war just like you were. Don't you think he
deserves something?"
"He never rose in the ranks. I became a master sergeant."
"Henry, all your brothers can't be like you."
"They don't have any god-damned drive! They think they can live
off the land!"
We drove along a bit further. Uncle John and his family lived in a
small court. We went up the cracked sidewalk to a sagging porch and my
father pushed the bell. The bell didn't ring. He knocked, loudly.
"Open up! It's the cops!" my father yelled.
"Daddy, stop it!" said my mother.
After what seemed a long time, the door opened a crack. Then it opened
further. And we could see my Aunt Anna. She was very thin, her cheeks were
hollow and her eyes had pouches, dark pouches. Her voice was thin, too.
"Oh, Henry . . . Katherine . . . come in, please . . ."
We followed her in. I here was very little furniture. I here was a
breakfast nook with a table and four chairs and there were two beds. My
mother and father sat in the chairs. Two girls, Katherine and Betsy (I
learned their names later) were at the sink taking turns trying to scrape
peanut butter out of a nearly empty peanut butter jar.
"We were just having lunch," said my Aunt Anna. The girls came over
with tiny smears of peanut butter which they spread on dry pieces of bread.
They kept looking into the jar and scraping with the knife.
"Where's John?" asked my father.
My aunt sat down wearily. She looked very weak, very pale. Her dress
was dirty, her hair uncombed, tired, sad.
"We've been waiting for him. We haven't seen him for quite some time."
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know. He just left on his motorcycle."
"All he does," said my father, "is think about his motorcycle."
"Is this Henry, Jr.?"
"Yes."
"He just stares. He's so quiet."
"That's the way we want him."
"Still water runs deep."
"Not with this one. The only thing that runs deep with him are the
holes in his ears."
The two girls took their slices of bread and walked outside and sat on
the stoop to eat them. They hadn't spoken to us. I thought they were quite
nice. They were thin like their mother but they were still quite pretty.
"How are you, Anna?" asked my mother.
"I'm all right."
"Anna, you don't look well. I think you need food."
"Why doesn't your boy sit down? Sit down, Henry."
"He likes to stand," said my father. "It makes him strong. He's getting
ready to fight the Chinks."
"Don't you like the Chinese?" my aunt asked me.
"No," I answered.
"Well, Anna," my father asked, "how are things going?"
"Awful, really. . . The landlord keeps asking for the rent. He gets
very nasty. He frightens me. I don't know what to do."
"I hear the cops are after John," said my father.
"He didn't do very much."
"What did he do?"
"He made some counterfeit dimes."
"Dimes? Jesus Christ, what kind of ambition is that?"
"John really doesn't want to be bad."
"Seems to me he doesn't want to be anything."
"He would if he could."
"Yeah. And if a frog had wings he wouldn't wear his ass out a-hoppin'!"
There was silence then and they sat there. I turned and looked outside.
The girls were gone from the porch, they had gone off somewhere.
"Come, sit down, Henry," said my Aunt Anna. I stood there. "Thank you,
it's all right."
"Anna," my mother asked, "are you sure that John will come hack?"
"He'll come back when he gets tired of the hens," said my father.
"John loves his children . . ." said Anna.
"I hear the cops are after him for something else."
"What?"
"Rape."
"Rape?"
"Yes, Anna, I heard about it. He was riding his motorcycle one day.
This young girl was hitch-hiking. She got onto the back of his motorcycle
and as they rode along all of a sudden John saw an empty garage. He drove in
there, closed the door and raped the girl"
"How did you find out?"
"Find out? The cops came and told me, they asked me where he was."
"Did you tell them?"
"What for? To have him go to jail and evade his responsibilities?
That's just what he'd want."
"I never thought of it that way."
"Not that I'm for rape . . ."
"Sometimes a man can't help what he does."
"What?"
"I mean, after having the children, and with this type of life, the
worry and all . . . I don't look so good anymore. He saw a young girl, she
looked good to him . . . she got on his bike, you know, she put her arms
around him . . ."
"What?" asked my father. "How would you like to be raped?"
"I guess I wouldn't like it."
"Well, I'm sure the young girl didn't like it either."
A fly appeared and whirled around and around the table. We watched it.
"There's nothing to eat here," said my father. "The fly has come to the
wrong place."
The fly became more and more bold. It circled closer and made buzzing
sounds. The closer it circled the louder the buzzing became.
"You're not going to tell the cops that John might come home?"
my aunt asked my father.
"I am not going to let him off the hook so easily," said my father. My
mother's hand leaped quickly. It closed and she brought her hand back down
to the table.
"I got him," she said.
"Clot what?" asked my father. 'The fly," she smiled.
"I don't believe you . . ."
"You see the fly anywhere? The fly is gone."
"It flew off."
"No, I have it in my hand."
"Nobody is that quick."
"I have it in my hand."
"Bullshit."
"You don't believe me?"
"No."
"Open your mouth."
"All right."
My father opened his mouth and my mother cupped her hand over it. My
father leaped up, grabbing at his throat.
"JESUS CHRIST!"
I he fly came out of his mouth and began circling the table again.
"That's enough," said my father, "we're going home!"
He got up and walked out the door and down the walk and got into the
Model-T and just sat there very stiffly, looking dangerous.
"We brought you a few cans of food," my mother said to my aunt. "I'm
sorry it can't be money but Henry is afraid John will use it for gin, or for
gasoline for his motorcycle. It isn't much: soup, hash, peas . . ."
"Oh, Katherine, thank you! I hank you, both . . ."
My mother got up and I followed her. There were two boxes of canned
food in the car. I saw my father sitting there rigidly. He was still angry.
My mother handed me the smaller box of cans and she took the large box
and I followed her back into the court. We set the boxes down in the
breakfast nook. Aunt Anna came over and picked up a can. It was a can of
peas, the label on it covered with little round green peas.
"This is lovely," said my aunt.
"Anna, we have to go. Henry's dignity is upset."
My aunt threw her arms around my mother. "Everything has been so awful.
But this is like a dream. Wait until the girls come home. Wait until the
girls see all these cans of food!"
My mother hugged my aunt back. Then they separated.
"John is not a bad man," my aunt said.
"I know," my mother answered. "Goodbye, Anna."
"Goodbye, Katherine. Goodbye, Henry."
My mother turned and walked out the door. I followed her. We walked to
the car and got in. My father started the car.
As we were driving off I saw my aunt at the door waving. My mother
waved back. My father didn't wave back. I didn't either.
5
I had begun to dislike my father. He was always angry about something.
Wherever we went he got into arguments with people. But he didn't appear to
frighten most people; they often just stared at him, calmly, and he became
more furious. If we ate out, which was seldom, he always found something
wrong with the food and sometimes refused to pay. "There's flyshit in this
whipped cream! What the hell kind of a place is this?"
"I'm sorry, sir, you needn't pay. Just leave."
"I'll leave, all right! But I'll be back! I'll burn this god-damned
place down!"
Once we were in a drug store and my mother and I were standing to one
side while my father yelled at a clerk. Another clerk asked my mother,
"Who is that horrible man? Everytime he comes in here there's an
argument."
"That's my husband," my mother told the clerk. Yet, I remember another
time. He was working as a milkman and made early morning deliveries. One
morning he awakened me. "Come on, I want to show you something." I walked
outside with him. I was wearing my pajamas and slippers. It was still dark,
the moon was still up. We walked to the milk wagon which was horsedrawn. The
horse stood very still. "Watch," said my father. He took a sugar cube, put
it in his hand and held it out to the horse. The horse ate it out of his
palm. "Now you try it . . ."
He put a sugar cube in my hand. It was a very large horse. "Get closer!
Hold out your hand!" I was afraid the horse would bite my hand off. The head
came down; I saw the nostrils; the lips pulled back, I saw the tongue and
the teeth, and then the sugar cube was gone. "Here. Try it again . . ." I
tried it again. The horse took the sugar cube and waggled his head. "Now,"
said my father, "I'll take you back inside before the horse shits on you."
I was not allowed to play with other children. "They are bad children,"
said my father, "their parents are poor." "Yes," agreed my mother. My
parents wanted to be rich so they imagined themselves rich.
The first children of my age that I knew were in kindergarten. They
seemed very strange, they laughed and talked and seemed happy. I didn't like
them. I always felt as if I was going to be sick, to vomit, and the air
seemed strangely still and white. We painted with watercolors. We planted
radish seeds in a garden and some weeks later we ate them with salt. I liked
the lady who taught kindergarten, I liked her better than my parents. One
problem I had was going to the bathroom. I always needed to go to the
bathroom, but I was ashamed to let the others know that I had to go, so I
held it. It was really terrible to hold it. And the air was white, I felt
like vomiting, I felt like shitting and pissing, but I didn't say anything.
And when some of the others came back from the bathroom I'd think, you're
dirty, you did something in there...
The little girls were nice in their short dresses, with their long hair
and their beautiful eyes, hut I thought, they do things in there too, even
though they pretend they don't. Kindergarten was mostly white air . . .
Grammar school was different, first grade to sixth grade, some of the
kids were twelve years old, and we all came from poor neighborhoods. I began
to go to the bathroom, but only to piss. Coming out once I saw a small boy
drinking at a water fountain. A larger boy walked up behind him and jammed
his face down into the water jet. When the small boy raised his head, some
of his teeth were broken and blood came out of his mouth, there was blood in
the fountain. "You tell anyone about this," the older boy told him, "and
I'll really get you." The boy took out a handkerchief and held it to his
mouth. I walked back to class where the teacher was telling us about George
Washington and Valley Forge. She wore an elaborate white wig. She often
slapped the palms of our hands with a ruler when she thought we were being
disobedient. I don't think she ever went to the bathroom. I hated her.
Each afternoon after school there would be a fight between two of the
older boys. It was always out by the back fence where there was never a
teacher about. And the fights were never even; it was always a larger boy
against a smaller boy and the larger boy would beat the smaller boy with his
fists, backing him into the fence. The smaller boy would attempt to fight
hack but it was useless. Soon his face was bloody, the blood running down
into his shirt. The smaller boys took their beatings wordlessly, never
begging, never asking mercy. Finally, the larger boy would hack off and it
would be over and all the other boys would walk home with the winner. I'd
walk home quickly, alone, after holding my shit all through school and all
through the fight. Usually by the time I got home I would have lost the urge
to relieve myself. I used to worry about that.
6
I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better
being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked
foolish to me. During lunch one day I was approached by a new boy. He wore
knickers, was cross-eyed and pigeon-toed. I didn't like him, he didn't look
good. He sat on the bench next to me.
"Hello, my name's David."
I didn't answer.
He opened his lunch bag. "I've got peanut butter sandwiches,"
he said. "What do you have?"
"Peanut butter sandwiches."
"I've got a banana, too. And some potato chips. Want some potato
chips?"
I took some. He had plenty, they were crisp and salty, the sun shone
right through them. They were good.
"Can I have some more?"
"All right."
I took some more. He even had jelly on his peanut butter sandwiches. It
dripped out and ran over his fingers. David didn't seem to notice,
"Where do you live?" he asked.
"Virginia Road."
"I live on Pickford. We can walk home together after school. Take some
more potato chips. Who's your teacher?"
"Mrs. Columbine."
"I have Mrs. Reed. I'll see you after class, we'll walk home together."
Why did he wear those knickers? What did he want? I really didn't like
him. I took some more of his potato chips.
That afternoon, after school, he found me and began walking along
beside me. "You never told me your name," he said.
"Henry," I answered.
As we walked along I noticed a whole gang of boys, first graders,
following us. At first they were half a block behind us, then they closed
the gap to several yards behind us.
"What do they want?" I asked David. He didn't answer, just kept
walking.
"Hey, knicker-shitter!" one of them yelled. "Your mother make you shit
in your knickers?"
"Pigeon-toe, ho-ho, pigeon-toe!"
"Cross-eye! Get ready to die!"
Then they circled us.
"Who's your friend? Does he kiss your rear end?"
One of them had David by the collar. He threw him onto a lawn. David
stood up. A hoy got down behind him on his hands and knees. The other boy
shoved him and David fell over backwards. Another boy rolled him over and
rubbed his face in the grass. Then they stepped back. David got up again. He
didn't make a sound but the tears were rolling down his face. The largest
boy walked up to him. "We don't want you in our school, sissy. Get out of
our school!" He punched David in the stomach. David bent over and as he did,
the boy brought his knee up into David's face. David fell. He had a bloody
nose.
Then the boys circled me. "Your turn now!" They kept circling and as
they did I kept turning. There were always some of them behind me. Here I
was loaded with shit and I had to fight. I was terrified and calm at the
same time. I didn't understand their motive. They kept circling and I kept
turning. It went on and on. They screamed things at me but I didn't hear
what they said. Finally they backed off and went away down the street. David
was waiting for me. We walked down the sidewalk toward his place on Pickford
Street.
Then we were in front of his house.
"I've got to go in now. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, David."
He went in and then I heard his mother's voice. "David! Look at
your knickers and shirt! They're torn and full of grass stains! You do this
almost every day! Tell me, why do you do it?"
David didn't answer.
"I asked you a question! Why do you do this to your clothes?"
"I can't help it, Mom . . ."
"You can't help it? You stupid boy!"
I heard her heating him. David began to cry and she beat him harder. I
stood on the front lawn and listened. After a while the beating stopped. I
could hear David sobbing. Then he stopped.
His mother said, "Now, I want you to practice your violin lesson."
I sat down on the lawn and waited. Then I heard the violin. It was a
very sad violin. I didn't like the way David played. I sat and listened for
some time but the music didn't get any better. The shit had hardened inside
of me. I no longer felt like shifting. The afternoon light hurt my eyes. I
felt like vomiting. I got up and walked home.
7
There were continual fights. The teachers didn't seem to know anything
about them. And there was always trouble when it rained. Any boy who brought
an umbrella to school or wore a raincoat was singled out. Most of our
parents were too poor to buy us such things. And when they did, we hid them
in the bushes. Anybody seen carrying an umbrella or wearing a raincoat was
considered a sissy. They were beaten after school. David's mother had him
carry an umbrella whenever it was the least bit cloudy.
There were two recess periods. The first graders gathered at their own
baseball diamond and the teams were chosen. David and I stood together. It
was always the same. I was chosen next to last and David was chosen last, so
we always played on different teams. David was worse than I was. With his
crossed eyes, he couldn't even see the hall. I needed lots of practice. I
had never played with the kids in the neighborhood. I didn't know how to
catch a hall or how to hit one. But I wanted to, I liked it. David was
afraid of the ball, I wasn't. I swung hard, I swung harder than anybody but
I could never hit the ball. I always struck out. Once I fouled a hall off.
That felt good. Another time I drew a walk. When I got to first, the first
baseman said, "That's the only way you'll ever get here." I stood and looked
at him. He was chewing gum and he had long black hairs coming out of his
nostrils. His hair was thick with vaseline. He wore a perpetual sneer.
"What arc you looking at?" he asked me. I didn't know what to say. I
wasn't used to conversation.
"The guys say you're crazy," he told me, "but you don't scare me. I'll
be waiting for you after school some day."
I kept looking at him. He had a terrible face. Then the pitcher wound
up and I broke for second. I ran like crazy and slid into second. The ball
arrived late. I he tag was late.
"You're out!" screamed the boy whose turn it was to umpire. I
got up, not believing it.
"I said, YOU'RE OUT!"' the umpire screamed. Then I knew that I was not
accepted. David and I were not accepted. I he others wanted me "out" because
I was supposed to be "out." They knew David and I were friends. It
was because of David that I wasn't wanted. As I walked off the diamond I saw
David playing third base in his knickers. His blue and yellow stockings had
fallen down around his feet. Why had he chosen me? I was a marked man. That
afternoon after school I quickly left class and walked home alone, without
David. I didn't want to watch him beaten again by our classmates or by his
mother. I didn't want to listen to his sad violin. But the next day at lunch
time, when he sat down next to me I ate his potato chips.
My day came. I was tall and I felt very powerful at the plate. I
couldn't believe that I was as bad as they wished me to be. I swung wildly
but with force. I knew I was strong, and maybe like they said, "crazy." But
I had this feeling inside of me that something real was there. Just hardened
shit, maybe, hut that was more than they had. I was up at bat. "Hey, it's
the STRIKEOUT KING! MR. WINDMILL!" The ball arrived. I swung and I felt the
bat connect like I had wanted it to do for so long. The hall went up, up and
HIGH, into left held, 'way OVER the left holder's head. His name was Don
Brubaker and he stood and watched it fly over his head. It looked like it
was never going to come down. Then Brubaker started running after the ball.
He wanted to throw me out. He would never do it. The ball landed and rolled
onto a diamond where some 5th graders were playing. I ran slowly to first,
hit the bag, looked at the guy on first, ran slowly to second, touched it,
ran to third where David stood, ignored him, tagged third and walked to home
plate. Never such a day. Never such a home run by a first grader! As I
stepped on home plate I heard one of the players, Irving Bone, say to the
team captain, Stanley Greenberg, "Let's put him on the regular team." (The
regular team played teams from other schools.)
"No," said Stanley Greenberg.
Stanley was right. I never hit another home run. I struck out most of
the time. But they always remembered that home run and while they still
hated me, it was a better kind of hatred, like they weren't quite sure
why.
Football season was worse. We played touch football. I couldn't catch
the football or throw it but I got into one game. When the runner came
through I grabbed him by the shirt collar and threw him on the ground. When
he started to get up, I kicked him. I didn't like him. It was the first
baseman with vaseline in his hair and the hair in his nostrils. Stanley
Greenberg came over. He was larger than any of us. He could have killed me
if he'd wanted to. He was our leader. Whatever he said, that was it. He told
me,
"You don't understand the rules. No more football for you."
I was moved into volleyball. I played volleyball with David and the
others. It wasn't any good. They yelled and screamed and got excited, but
the others were playing football. I wanted to play football. All I
needed was a little practice. Volleyball was shameful. Girls played
volleyball. After a while I wouldn't play. I just stood in the center of the
field where nobody was playing. I was the only one who would not play
anything. I stood there each day and waited through the two recess sessions,
until they were over.
One day while I was standing there, more trouble came. A football
sailed from high behind me and hit me on the head. It knocked me to the
ground. I was very dizzy. They stood around snickering and laughing. "Oh,
look, Henry fainted! Henry fainted like a lady! Oh, look at Henry!"
I got up while the sun spun around. Then it stood still. The sky moved
closer and flattened out. It was like being in a cage. They stood around me,
faces, noses, mouths and eyes. Because they were taunting me I thought they
had deliberately hit me with the football. It was unfair.
"Who kicked that ball?" I asked.
"You wanna know who kicked the ball?"
"Yes."
"What are you going to do when you find out?"
I didn't answer.
"It was Billy Sherril," somebody said.
Billy was a round fat boy, really nicer than most, but he was one of
them. I began walking toward Billy. He stood there. When I got close he
swung. I almost didn't feel it. I hit him behind his left ear and when he
grabbed his ear I hit him in the stomach. He fell to the ground. He stayed
down. "Get up and fight him, Billy,"
said Stanley Greenberg. Stanley lifted Billy up and pushed him toward
me. I punched Billy in the mouth and he grabbed his mouth with both hands.
"O.K.," said Stanley, "I'll take his place!"
The boys cheered. I decided to run, I didn't want to die. But then a
teacher came up. "What's going on here?" It was Mr. Hall.
"Henry picked on Billy," said Stanley Greenberg.
"Is that right, boys?" asked Mr. Hall.
"Yes," they said.
Mr. Hall took me by the ear all the way to the principal's office. He
pushed me into a chair in front of an empty desk and then knocked on the
principal's door. He was in there for some time and when he came out he left
without looking at me. I sat there five or ten minutes before the principal
came out and sat behind the desk. He was a very dignified man with a mass of
white hair and a blue bow tie. He looked like a real gentleman. His name was
Mr. Knox. Mr. Knox folded his hands and looked at me without speaking. When
he did that I was not so sure that he was a gentleman. He seemed to want to
humble me, treat me like the others.
"Well," he said at last, "tell me what happened."
"Nothing happened."
"You hurt that boy, Billy Sherril. His parents are going to want to
know why."
I didn't answer.
"Do you think you can take matters into your own hands when something
happens you don't like?"
"No."
"Then why did you do it?"
I didn't answer.
"Do you think you're better than other people?"
"No."
Mr. Knox sat there. He had a long letter opener and he slid it hack and
forth on the green felt padding of the desk. He had a large bottle of green
ink on his desk and a pen holder with four pens. I wondered if he would beat
me.
"Then why did you do what you did?"
I didn't answer. Mr. Knox slid the letter opener back and forth. The
phone rang. He picked it up.
"Hello? Oh, Mrs. Kirby? He what? What? Listen, can't you
administer the discipline? I'm busy now. All right, I'll phone you when
I'm done with this one . . ."
He hung up. He brushed his fine white hair back out of his eyes with
one hand and looked at me.
"Why do you cause me all this trouble?"
I didn't answer him.
"You think you're tough, huh?"
I kept silent.
"Tough kid, huh?"
There was a fly circling Mr. Knox's desk. It hovered over his green ink
bottle. Then it landed on the black cap of the ink bottle and sat there
rubbing its wings.
"O.K., kid, you're tough and I'm tough. Let's shake hands on that."
I didn't think I was tough so I didn't give him my hand.
"Come on, give me your hand."
I stretched my hand out and he took it and began shaking it. Then he
stopped shaking it and looked at me. He had blue clear eyes lighter than the
blue of his bow tie. His eyes were almost beautiful. He kept looking at me
and holding my hand. His grip began to tighten.
"I want to congratulate you for being a tough guy."
His grip tightened some more.
"Do you think I'm a tough guy?"
I didn't answer.
He crushed the bones of my fingers together. I could feel the bone of
each finger cutting like a blade into the flesh of the finger next to it.
Shots of red flashed before my eyes.
"Do you think I'm a tough guy?" he asked.
"I'll kill you," I said.
"You'll what?"
Mr. Knox tightened his grip. He had a hand like a vise. I could see
every pore in his face.
"Tough guys don't scream, do they?"
I couldn't look at his face anymore. I put my face down on the desk.
"Am I a tough guy?" asked Mr. Knox.
He squeezed harder. I had to scream, but I kept it as quiet as possible
so no one in the classes could hear me.
"Now, am I a tough guy?"
I waited. I hated to say it. Then I said, "Yes."
Mr. Knox let go of my hand. I was afraid to look at it. I let it hang
by my side. I noticed that the fly was gone and I thought, it's not so bad
to be a fly. Mr. Knox was writing on a piece of paper.
"Now, Henry, I'm writing a little note to your parents and I want you
to deliver it to them. And you will deliver it to them, won't you?"
"Yes."
He folded the note into an envelope and handed it to me. The envelope
was sealed and I had no desire to open it.
8
I took the envelope home to my mother and handed it to her and walked
into the bedroom. My bedroom. The best thing about the bedroom was the bed.
I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with the covers pulled
up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no
people, nothing. My mother often found me in bed in the daytime.
"Henry, get up! It's not good for a young boy to lay in bed all day!
Now, get up! Do something!"
But there was nothing to do.
I didn't go to bed that day. My mother was reading the note. Soon I
heard her crying. Then she was wailing. "Oh, my god! You've disgraced your
father and myself! It's a disgrace! Suppose the neighbors find out? What
will the neighbors think?"
They never spoke to their neighbors.
Then the door opened and my mother came running into the room: "How
could you have done this to your mother?"
The tears were running down her face. I felt guilty.
"Wait until your father gets home!'"
She slammed the bedroom door and I sat in the chair and waited.
Somehow I felt guilty . . .
I heard my father come in. He always slammed the door, walked heavily,
and talked loudly. He was home. After a few moments the bedroom door opened.
He was six feet two, a large man. Everything vanished, the chair I was
sitting in, the wallpaper, the walls, all of my thoughts. He was the dark
covering the sun, the violence of him made everything else utterly
disappear. He was all ears, nose, mouth, I couldn't look at his eyes, there
was only his red angry face.
"All right, Henry. Into the bathroom."
I walked in and he closed the door behind us. The walls were white.
There was a bathroom mirror and a small window, the screen black and broken.
There was the bathtub and the toilet and the tiles. He reached and took down
the razor strop which hung from a hook. It was going to be the first of many
such bearings, which would recur more and more often. Always, I felt,
without real reason.
"All right, take down your pants."
I took my pants down.
"Pull down your shorts."
I pulled them down.
Then he laid on the strop. The first blow inflicted more shock than
pain. The second hurt more. Each blow which followed increased the pain. At
first I was aware of the walls, the toilet, the tub. Finally I couldn't see
anything. As he beat me, he berated me, but I couldn't understand the words.
I thought about his roses, how he grew roses in the yard. I thought about
his automobile in the garage. I tried not to scream. I knew that if I did
scream he might stop, but knowing this, and knowing his desire for me to
scream, prevented me. The tears ran from my eyes as I remained silent. After
a while it all became just a whirlpool, a jumble, and there was only the
deadly possibility of being there forever. Finally, like something jerked
into action, I began to sob, swallowing and choking on the salt slime that
ran down my throat. He stopped.
He was no longer there. I became aware of the little window again and
the mirror. There was the razor strop hanging from the hook, long and brown
and twisted. I couldn't bend over to pull up my pants or my shorts and I
walked to the door, awkwardly, my clothes around my feet. I opened the
bathroom door and there was my mother standing in the hall.
"It wasn't right," I told her. "Why didn't you help me?"
"The father," she said, "is always right."
Then my mother walked away. I went to my bedroom, dragging my clothing
around my feet and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress hurt me.
Outside, through the rear screen I could see my father's roses growing. They
were red and white and yellow, large and full. The sun was very low but not
yet set and the last of it slanted through the rear window. I felt that even
the sun belonged to my father, that I had no right to it because it was
shining upon my father's house. I was like his roses, something that
belonged to him and not to me . . .
9
By the time they called me to dinner I was able to pull up my clothing
and walk to the breakfast nook where we ate all our meals except on Sunday.
There were two pillows on my chair. I sat on them but my legs and ass still
burned. My father was talking about his job, as always.
"I told Sullivan to combine three routes into two and let one man go
from each shift. Nobody is really pulling their weight around there . . ."
"They ought to listen to you, Daddy," said my mother.
"Please," I said, "please excuse me but I don't feel like eating . . .
"You'll eat your FOOD!" said my father. "Your mother prepared this
food!"
"Yes," said my mother, "carrots and peas and roast beef."
"And the mashed potatoes and gravy," said my father.
"I'm not hungry."
"You will eat every carrot, and pee on your plate!" said my father.
He was trying to be funny. That was one of his favorite remarks.
"DADDY!" said my mother in shocked disbelief. I began eating. It was
terrible. I felt as if I were eating them, what they believed in,
what they were. I didn't chew any of it, I just swallowed it to get rid of
it. Meanwhile my father was talking about how good it all tasted, how lucky
we were to be eating good food when most of the people in the world, and
many even in America, were starving and poor.
"What's for dessert. Mama?" my father asked. His face was horrible, the
lips pushed out, greasy and wet with pleasure. He acted as if nothing had
happened, as if he hadn't beaten me. When I was back in my bedroom I
thought, these people are not my parents, they must have adopted me and now
they are unhappy with what I have become.
10
Lila Jane was a girl my age who lived next door. I still wasn't allowed
to play with the children in the neighborhood, but sitting in the bedroom
often got dull. I would go out and walk around in the backyard, looking at
things, bugs mostly. Or I would sit on the grass and imagine things. One
thing I imagined was that I was a great baseball player, so great that I
could get a hit every time at bat, or a home run anytime I wanted to. But I
would deliberately make outs just to trick the other team. I got my hits
when I felt like it. One season, going into July, I was hitting only . 139
with one home run. HENRY CHINASKI IS FINISHED, the newspapers said. Then I
began to hit. And how I hit! At one time I allowed myself 16 home runs in a
row. Another time I batted in 24 runs in one game. By the end of the season
I was hitting .523.
Lila Jane was one of the pretty girls I'd seen at school. She was one
of the nicest, and she was living right next door. One day when I was in the
yard she came up to the fence and stood there looking at me.
"You don't play with the other boys, do you?"
I looked at her. She had long red-brown hair and dark brown eyes.
"No," I said, "no, I don't."
"Why not?"
"I see them enough at school."
"I'm Lila Jane," she said.
"I'm Henry."
She kept looking at me and I sat there on the grass and looked at her.
Then she said, "Do you want to see my panties?"
"Sure," I said.
She lifted her dress. The panties were pink and clean. They looked
good. She kept holding her dress up and then turned around so that I could
see her behind. Her behind looked nice. Then she pulled her dress down.
"Goodbye," she said and walked off.
"Goodbye," I said.
It happened each afternoon. "Do you want to see my panties?"
"Sure."
The panties were nearly always a different color and each time they
looked better.
One afternoon after Lila Jane showed me her panties I said,
"Let's go for a walk."
"All right," she said.
I met her in front and we walked down the street together. She was
really pretty. We walked along without saying anything until we came to a
vacant lot. The weeds were tall and green.
"Let's go into the vacant lot," I said.
"All right," said Lila Jane. We walked out into the tall weeds.
"Show me your panties again."
She lifted her dress. Blue panties.
"Let's stretch out here," I said.
We got down in the weeds and I grabbed her by the hair and kissed her.
Then I pulled up her dress and looked at her panties. I put my hand on her
behind and kissed her again. I kept kissing her and grabbing at her behind.
I did this for quite a long time. Then I said, "Let's do it." I wasn't sure
what there was to do but I felt there was more.
"No, I can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"Those men will see."
"What men?"
"There!" she pointed. I looked between the weeds. Maybe half a block
away some men were working repairing the street.
"They can't see us!"
"Yes, they can!"
I got up. "God damn it!" I said and I walked out of the lot and
went back home.
I didn't see Lila Jane again for a while in the afternoons. It didn't
matter. It was football season and I was -- in my imagination -- a great
quarterback. I could throw the ball 90 yards and kick it 80. But we seldom
had to kick, not when I carried the ball. I was best running into grown men.
I crushed them. It took five or six men to tackle me. Sometimes, like in
baseball, I felt sorry for everybody and I allowed myself to be tackled
after only gaining 8 or 10 yards. Then I usually got injured, badly, and
they had to carry me off the field. My team would fall behind, say 40 to 17,
and with 3 or 4 minutes left to play I'd return, angry that I had been
injured. Every time I got the ball I ran all the way to a touchdown. How the
crowd screamed! And on defense I made every tackle, intercepted every pass.
I was everywhere. Chinaski, the Fury! With the gun ready to go off I took
the kickoff deep in my own end zone. I ran forward, sideways, backwards. I
broke tackle after tackle, I leaped over fallen tacklers. I wasn't getting
any blocking. My team was a bunch of sissies. Finally, with five men hanging
on to me I refused to fall and dragged them over the goal line for the
winning touchdown.
I looked up one afternoon as a big guy entered our yard through the
back gate. He walked in and just stood there looking at me. He was a year or
so older than I was and he wasn't from my grammar school. "I'm from Marmount
Grammar School," he said.
"You better get out of here," I told him. "My father will be coming
home soon,"
"Is that right?" he asked. I stood up. "What are you doing here?"
"I hear you guys from Delsey Grammar think you're tough."
"We win all the inter-school games."
"That's because you cheat. We don't like cheaters at Marmount."
He had on an old blue shirt, half unbuttoned in front. He had a leather
thong on his left wrist.
"You think you're tough?" he asked me.
"No."
"What do you have in your garage? I think I'll take something from your
garage."
"Stay out of there."
The garage doors were open and he walked past me. There wasn't much in
there. He found an old deflated beach ball and picked it up.
"I think I'll take this."
"Put it down."
"Down your throat!" he said and then he threw it at my head. I ducked.
He came out of the garage toward me. I backed up.
He followed me into the yard. "Cheaters never prosper!" he said. He
swung at me. I ducked. I could feel the wind from his swing. I closed my
eyes, rushed him and started punching. I was hitting something, sometimes. I
could feel myself getting hit but it didn't hurt. Mostly I was scared. There-
was nothing to do but to keep punching. Then I heard a voice: "Stop it!" It
was Lila Jane. She was in my backyard. We both stopped fighting. She took an
old tin can and threw it. It hit the boy from Marmount in the middle of the
forehead and bounced off. He stood there a moment and then ran off, crying
and howling. He ran out the rear gate and down the alley and was gone. A
little tin can. I was surprised, a big guy like him crying like that. At
Delsey we had a code. We never made a sound. Even the sissies took their
beatings silently. Those guys from Marmount weren't much.
"You didn't have to help me," I told Lila Jane.
"He was hitting you!"
"He wasn't hurting me."
Lila Jane ran off through the yard, out the rear gate, then into her
yard and into her house. Lila Jane still likes me, I thought.
11
During the second and third grades I still didn't get a chance to play
baseball but I knew that somehow I was developing into a player. If I ever
got a bat in my hands again I knew I would hit it over the school building.
One day I was standing around and a teacher came up to me.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"This is Physical Education. You should be participating. Are you
disabled?"
"What?"
"Is there anything wrong with you?"
"I don't know."
"Come with me."
He walked me over to a group. They were playing kickball. Kickball was
like baseball except they used a soccer ball. The pitcher rolled it to the
plate and you kicked it. If it went on a fly and was caught you were out. If
it rolled on through the infield or you kicked it high between the fielders
you took as many bases as you could.
"What's your name?" the teacher asked me.
"Henry."
He walked up to the group. "Now," he said, "Henry is going to play
shortstop."
They were from my grade. They all knew me. Shortstop was the toughest
position. I went out there. I knew they were going to gang up on me. The
pitcher rolled the ball real slow and the first guy kicked it right at me.
It came hard, chest high, but it was no problem. The ball was big and I
stuck out my hands and caught it. I threw the ball to the pitcher. The next
guy did the same thing. It came a little higher this time. And a little
faster. No problem. Then Stanley Greenberg walked up to the plate. That was
it. I was out of luck. The pitcher rolled the ball and Stanley kicked it. It
came at me like a cannonball, head high. I wanted to duck but didn't. The
ball smashed into my hands and I held it. I took the ball and rolled it to
the pitcher's mound. Three outs. I trotted to the sideline. As I did, some
guy passed me and said, "Chinaski, the great shitstop!"
It was the boy with the vaseline in his hair and the long black nostril
hairs. I spun around. "Hey!" I said. He stopped. I looked at him. "Don't
ever say anything to me again." I saw the fear in his eyes. He walked out to
his position and I went and leaned against the fence while our team came to
the plate. Nobody stood near me but I didn't care. I was gaining ground.
It was difficult to understand. We were the children in the poorest
school, we had the poorest, least educated parents, most of us lived on
terrible food, and yet boy for boy we were much bigger than the boys from
other grammar schools around the city. Our school was famous. We were
feared.
Our 6th grade team beat the other 6th grade teams in the city very
badly. Especially in baseball. Scores like 14 to I, 24 to 3, 19 to 2. We
just could hit the ball.
One day the City Champion Junior High School team, Miranda Bell,
challenged us. Somehow money was raised and each of our players was given a
new blue cap with a white "D" in front. Our team looked good in those caps.
When the Miranda Bell guys showed up, the 7th grade champs, our 6th grade
guys just looked at them and laughed. We were bigger, we looked tougher, we
walked differently, we knew something that they didn't know. We younger guys
laughed too. We knew we had them where we wanted them.
The Miranda guys looked too polite. They were very quiet. Their pitcher
was their biggest player. He struck out our first three batters, some of our
best hitters. But we had Lowball Johnson. Lowball did the same to them. It
went on like that, both sides striking out, or hitting little grounders and
an occasional single, but nothing else. Then we were at bat in the bottom of
the 7th. Beefcake Cappalletti nailed one. God, you could hear the shot! The
ball looked like it was going to hit the school building and break a window.
Never had I seen a ball take off like that! It hit the flagpole near the top
and bounced back in. Easy home run. Cappalletti rounded the bases and our
guys looked good in their new blue caps with the white "13."
The Miranda guys just quit after that. They didn't know how to come
back. They came from a wealthy district, they didn't know what it meant to
fight back. Our next guy doubled. How we screamed! It was over. There was
nothing they could do. The next batter tripled. They changed pitchers. He
walked the next guy. The next batter singled. Before the inning was over we
had scored nine runs.
Miranda never got a chance to bat in the 8th. Our 5th graders went over
and challenged them to fight. Even one of the 4th graders ran over and
picked a fight with one of them. The Miranda guys took their equipment and
left. We ran them off, up the street. There was nothing left to do so a
couple of our guys got into a fight. It was a good one. They both had bloody
noses but were swinging good when one of the teachers who had stayed to
watch the game broke it up. He didn't know how close he came to getting
jumped himself.
12
One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any
horsedrawn wagons. The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the
milk company we drove off on his route. I liked being out in the very early
morning. The moon was up and I could see the stars. It was cold but it was
exciting. I wondered why my father had asked me to come along since he had
taken to beating me with the razor strop once or twice a week and we weren't
getting along.
At each stop he would jump out and deliver a bottle or two of milk.
Sometimes it was cottage cheese or buttermilk or butter and now and then a
bottle of orange juice. Most of the people left notes in the empty bottles
explaining what they wanted.
My father drove along, stopping and starting, making deliveries.
"O.K., kid, which direction are we driving in now?"
"North."
"You're right. We're going north."
We went up and down streets, stopping and starting.
"O.K., which way are we going now?"
"West."
"No, we're going south."
We drove along in silence some more.
"Suppose I pushed you out of the truck now and left you on the
sidewalk, what would you do?"
"I don't know."
"I mean, how would you live?"
"Well, I guess I'd go back and drink the milk and orange juice you just
left on the porch steps."
"Then what would you do?"
"I'd find a policeman and tell him what you did."
"You would, hub? And what would you tell him?"
"I'd tell him that you told me that 'west' was 'south' because you
wanted me to get lost."
It began to get light. Soon all the deliveries were made and we stopped
at a cafe to have breakfast. The waitress walked over.
"Hello, Henry," she said to my father. "Hello, Betty." "Who's the kid?"
asked Betty. "That's little Henry." "He looks just like you."
"He doesn't have my brains, though." "I hope not."
We ordered. We had bacon and eggs. As we ate my father said,
"Now comes the hard part."
"What is that?"
"I have to collect the money people owe me. Some of them don't want to
pay."
"They ought to pay."
"That's what I tell them."
We finished eating and started driving again. My father got out and
knocked on doors. I could hear him complaining loudly,
"HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M GOING TO EAT? YOU'VE SUCKED UP
THE MILK, NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO SHIT OUT THE MONEY!"
He used a different line each time. Sometimes he came back with the
money, sometimes he didn't.
Then I saw him enter a court of bungalows. A door opened and a woman
stood there dressed in a loose silken kimono. She was smoking a cigarette.
"Listen, baby, I've got to have the money. You're into me deeper than
anybody!"
She laughed at him.
"Look, baby, just give me half, give me a payment, something to show."
She blew a smoke ring, reached out and broke it with her finger.
"Listen, you've got to pay me," my father said. "This is a desperate
situation."
"Come on in. We'll talk about it," said the woman. My father went in
and the door closed. He was in there for a long time. The sun was really up.
When my father came out his hair was hanging down around his face and he was
pushing his shirt tail into his pants. He climbed into the truck.
"Did that woman give you the money?" I asked.
"That was the last stop," said my father. "I can't take it any more.
We'll return the truck and go home . . ."
I was to see that woman again. One day I came home after school and she
was sitting on a chair in the front room of our house. My mother and father
were sitting there too and my mother was crying. When my mother saw me she
stood up and ran toward me, grabbed me. She took me into the bedroom and sat
me on the bed. "Henry, do you love your mother?" I really didn't but she
looked so sad that I said, "Yes." She took me back into the other room.
"Your father says he loves this woman," she said to me.
"I love both of you! Now get that kid out of here!"
I felt that my father was making my mother very unhappy.
"I'll kill you," I told my father.
"Get that kid out of here!"
"How can you love that woman?" I asked my father. "Look at her nose.
She has a nose like an elephant!"
"Christ!" said the woman, "I don't have to take this!" She looked at my
father: "Choose, Henry! One or the other! Now!"
"But I can't! I love you both!"
"I'll kill you!" I told my father.
He walked over and slapped me on the ear, knocking me to the floor. The
woman got up and ran out of the house and my father went after her. The
woman leaped into my father's car, started it and drove off down the street.
It happened very quickly. My father ran down the street after her and the
car. "EDNA! EDNA, COME BACK!" My father actually caught up with the car,
reached into the front seat and grabbed Edna's purse. Then the car speeded
up and my father was left with the purse.
"I knew something was going on," my mother told me. "So I hid in the
car trunk and I caught them together. Your father drove me back here with
that horrible woman. Now she's got his car."
My father walked back with Edna's purse. "Everybody into the house!" We
went inside and my father locked me in the bedroom
and my mother and father began arguing. It was loud and very ugly. Then
my father began beating my mother. She screamed and he kept beating her. I
climbed out a window and tried to get in the front door. It was locked. I
tried the rear door, the windows. Everything was locked. I stood in the
backyard and listened to the screaming and the beating.
Then the beating and the screaming stopped and all I could hear was my
mother sobbing. She sobbed a long time. It gradually grew less and less and
then she stopped.
13
I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of
the last to know, because I still didn't talk to anybody. A boy walked up to
me while I was standing around at recess.
"Don't you know how it happens?" he asked.
"What?"
"Fucking."
"What's that?"
"Your mother has a hole . . ." -- he took the thumb and forefinger of
his right hand and made a circle -- "and your father has a dong . . ." -- he
took his left forefinger and ran it back and forth through the hole. "Then
your father's dong shoots juice and sometimes your mother has a baby and
sometimes she doesn't."
"God makes babies," I said.
"Like shit," the kid said and walked off. It was hard for me to
believe. When recess was over I sat in class and thought about it. My mother
had a hole and my father had a dong that shot juice. How could they have
things like that and walk around as if everything was normal, and talk about
things, and then do it and not tell anybody? I really felt like puking when
I thought that I had started off as my father's juice.
That night after the lights were out I stayed awake in bed and
listened. Sure enough, I began to hear sounds. Their bed began creaking. I
could hear the springs. I got out of bed and tiptoed down to their door and
listened. The bed kept making sounds.
Then it stopped. I hurried back down the hall and into my bedroom. I
heard my mother go into the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush and then she
walked out.
What a terrible thing! No wonder they did it in secret! And to think,
everybody did it! The teachers, the principal, everybody! It was pretty
stupid. Then I thought about doing it with Lila Jane and it didn't seem so
dumb.
The next day in class I thought about it all day. I looked at the
little girls and imagined myself doing it with them. I would do it with all
of them and make babies. I'd fill the world with guys like me, great
baseball players, home run hitters. That day just before class ended the
teacher, Mrs. Westphal, said: "Henry, will you stay after class?"
The bell rang and the other children left. I sat at my desk and waited.
Mrs. Westphal was correcting papers. I thought, maybe she wants to do it
with me. I imagined pulling her dress up and looking at her hole. "All
right, Mrs. Westphal, I'm ready."
She looked up from her papers. "All right, Henry, first erase all the
blackboards. Then take the erasers outside and dust them."
I did as I was told, then sat back down at my desk. Mrs. Westphal just
sat there correcting papers. She had on a tight blue dress, she wore large
golden earrings, had a tiny nose and wore rimless glasses. I waited and
waited. Then I said, "Mrs. Westphal, why did you keep me after school?"
She looked up and stared at me. Her eyes were green and deep.
"I kept you after school because sometimes you're bad."
"Oh, yeah?" I smiled.
Mrs. Westphal looked at me. She took her glasses off and kept staring.
Her legs were behind the desk. I couldn't look up her dress.
"You were very inattentive today, Henry."
"Yeah?"
"'Yes' is the word. You're addressing a lady!"
"Oh, I know . . ."
"Don't get sassy with me!"
"Whatever you say."
Mrs. Westphal stood up and came out from behind her desk.
She walked down the aisle and sat on the top of the desk across from
me. She had nice long legs in silk stockings. She smiled at me, reached out
a hand and touched one of my wrists.
"Your parents don't give you much love, do they?"
"I don't need that stuff," I told her.
"Henry, everybody needs love."
"I don't need anything."
"You poor boy."
She stood up, came to my desk and slowly took my head in her hands. She
bent over and pressed it against her breasts. I reached around and grabbed
her legs.
"Henry, you must stop fighting everybody! We want to help you."
I grabbed Mrs. Westphal's legs harder. "All right," I said, "let's
fuck!"
Mrs. Westphal pushed me away and stood back.
"What did you say?"
"I said, let's fuck!"
She looked at me a long time. Then she said, "Henry, I am never
going to tell anybody what you said, not the principal or your parents
or anybody. But I never, never want you to say that to me again, do
you understand?"
"I understand."
"All right. You can go home now."
I got up and walked toward the door. When I opened it, Mrs. Westphal
said, "Good afternoon, Henry."
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Westphal."
I walked down the street wondering about it. I felt she wanted to fuck
but was afraid because I was too young for her and that my parents or the
principal might find out. It had been exciting being in the room with her
alone. This thing about.fucking was nice. It gave people extra things to
think about.
There was one large boulevard to' cross on the way home. I entered the
crosswalk. Suddenly there was a car coming right at me. It didn't slow down.
It was weaving wildly. I tried to run out of its path but it appeared to
follow me. I saw headlights, wheels, a bumper. The car hit me and then there
was blackness . , .
14
Later in the hospital they were dabbing at my knees with pieces of
cotton that had been soaked in something. It burned. My elbows burned too.
The doctor was bending over me with a nurse. I was in bed and the sun
came through the window. It seemed very pleasant. The doctor smiled at me.
The nurse straightened up and smiled at me. It was nice there.
"Do you have a name?" the doctor asked.
"Henry."
"Henry what?"
"Chinaski."
"Polish, eh?"
"German."
"How come nobody wants to be Polish?"
"I was born in Germany."
"Where do you live?" asked the nurse.
"With my parents."
"Really?" asked the doctor. "And where is that?"
"What happened to my elbows and knees?"
"A car ran you over. Luckily, the wheels missed you. Witnesses said he
appeared to be drunk. Hit and run. But they got his license. They'll get
him."
"You have a pretty nurse . . ." I said.
"Well, thank you," she said.
"Do you want a date with her?" asked the doctor.
"What's that?"
"Do you want to go out with her?" the doctor asked.
"I don't know if I could do it with her. I'm too young."
"Do what?"
"You know."
"Well," the nurse smiled, "come see me after your knees heal up and
we'll see what we can do."
"Pardon me," said the doctor, "but I have to see another accident
case." He left the room.
"Now," said the nurse, "what street do you live on?"
"Virginia Road."
"Give me the number, sweetie."
I told her the house number. She asked if there was a telephone.
I told her that I didn't know the number.
"That's all right," she said, "we'll get it. And don't worry. You
were lucky. You just got a bump on the head and skinned up a
little."
She was nice but I knew that after my knees healed, she
wouldn't want to see me again.
"I want to stay here," I told her.
"What? You mean, you don't want to go home to your parents?"
"No. Let me stay here."
"We can't do that, sweetie. We need these beds for people who
are really sick and injured."
She smiled and walked out of the room.
When my father came he walked straight into the room and
without a word scooped me out of bed. He carried me out of the
room and down the hallway.
"You little bastard! Didn't I teach you to look BOTH ways
before you cross the street?"
He rushed me down the hall. We passed the nurse.
"Goodbye, Henry," she said.
"Goodbye."
We got into an elevator with an old man in a wheelchair. A
nurse was standing behind him. The elevator began to descend.
"I think I'm going to die," the old man said. "I don't want to die.
I'm afraid to die . . ."
"You've lived long enough, you old fart!" muttered my father. The old
man looked startled. The elevator stopped. The door remained closed. Then I
noticed the elevator operator. He sat on a small stool. He was a dwarf
dressed in a bright red uniform with a red cap.
The dwarf looked at my father. "Sir," he said, "you are a repugnant
fool!"
"Shortcake," replied my father, "open the fucking door or it's your
ass."
The door opened. We went out the entrance. My father carried me across
the hospital lawn. I still had on a hospital gown. My father carried my
clothes in a bag in one hand. The wind blew back my gown and I saw my
skinned knees which were not bandaged and were painted with iodine.
My father was almost running across the lawn.
"When they catch that son-of-a-bitch," he said, "I'll sue him! I'll sue
him for his last penny! He'll support me the rest of his life! I'm sick of
that god-damned milk truck! Golden State Creamery.' Golden State, my
hairy ass! We'll move to the South Seas. We'll live on coconuts and
pineapples!"
My father reached the car and put me in the front seat. Then he got in
on his side. He started the car.
"I hate drunks! My father was a drunk. My brothers are drunks. Drunks
are weak. Drunks are cowards. And hit-and-run drunks should be
jailed for the rest of their lives!"
As we drove toward home he continued to talk to me.
"Do you know that in the South Seas the natives live in grass shacks?
They get up in the morning and the food falls from the trees to the ground.
They just pick it up and eat it, coconuts and pineapple. And the natives
think that white men are gods! They catch fish and roast boar, and their
girls dance and wear grass skirts and rub their men behind the ears. Golden
State Creamery, my hairy ass."
But my father's dream was not to be. They caught the man who hit me and
put him in jail. He had a wife and three children and didn't have a job. He
was a penniless drunkard. The man sat in jail for some time but my father
didn't press charges. As he said, "You can't get blood out of a fucking
turnip!"
15
My father always ran the neighborhood kids away from our house. I was
told not to play with them but I walked down the street and watched them
anyhow.
"Hey, Heinie!" they yelled, "Why don't you go back to Germany?"
Somehow they had found out about my birthplace. The worst thing was
that they were all about my age and they not only hung together because they
lived in the same neighborhood but because they went to the same Catholic
school. They were tough kids, they played tackle football for hours and
almost every day a couple of them got into a fist fight. The four main guys
were Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank.
"Hey, Heinie, go back to Krautland!"
There was no getting in with them . . .
Then a red-headed kid moved in next door to Chuck. He went to some kind
of special school. I was sitting on the curb one day when he came out of his
house. He sat on the curb next to me. "Hi, my name's Red."
"1m Henry."
We sat there and watched the guys play football. I looked at Red.
"How come you got a glove on your left hand?" I asked.
"I've only got one arm," he said.
"That hand looks real."
"It's fake. It's a fake arm. Touch it."
"What?"
"Touch it. It's fake."
I felt it. It was hard, rock hard.
"How'd that happen?"
"I was born that way. The arm's fake all the way up to the elbow. I've
got to strap it on. I've got little fingers at the end of my elbow,
fingernails and all, but the fingers aren't any good."
"You got any friends?" I asked.
"No."
"Me neither."
"Those guys won't play with you?"
"No."
"I got a football."
"Can you catch it?"
"Straight shit," said Red.
"Go get it."
"O.K.. .."
Red went back to his father's garage and came out with a football. He
tossed it to me. Then he backed across his front lawn.
"Go on, throw it . . ."
I let it go. His good arm came around and his bad arm came around and
he caught it. The arm made a slight squeaking sound as he caught the
football.
"Nice catch," I said. "Now wing me one!"
He cocked his arm and let it fly; it came like a bullet and I managed
to hold onto it as it dug into my stomach.
"You're standing too close," I told him. "Step back some more."
At last, I thought, some practice catching and throwing. It felt real
good.
Then I was the quarterback. I rolled back, straight-armed an invisible
tackier, and let go a spiral fly. It fell short. Red ran forward, leaped,
caught the ball, rolled over three or four times and still held onto it.
"You're good, Red. How'd you get so good?"
"My father taught me. We practice a lot."
Then Red walked back and let one sail. It looked to be over my head as
I ran back for it. There was a hedge between Red's house and Chuck's house
and I fell into the hedge going for the ball. The ball hit the top of the
hedge and bounced over. I went around to Chuck's yard to get the ball. Chuck
passed the ball to me. "So you got yourself a freak friend, hey, Heinie?"
It was a couple of days later and Red and I were on his front lawn
passing and kicking the football. Chuck and his friends weren't around. Red
and I were getting better and better. Practice, that's all it took. All a
guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance
and who didn't.
I caught one over the shoulder, whirled and winged it back to Red who
leaped high and came down with it. Maybe some day we'd play for U.S.C. Then
I saw five boys walking down the sidewalk toward us. They weren't guys from
my grammar school. They were our age and looked like trouble. Red and I kept
throwing the ball and they stood watching us. Then one of the guys stepped
onto the lawn. The biggest.
"Throw me the ball," he said to Red.
"Why?"
"I wanna see if I can catch it."
"I don't care if you can catch it or not."
"Throw me the ball!"
"He's got one arm," I said. "Leave him alone."
"Stay out of this, monkey-face!" Then he looked at Red.
"Throw me the ball."
"Go to hell!" said Red.
"Get the ball!" the big guy said to the others. They ran at us. Red
turned and threw the ball on the roof of his house. The roof was slanted and
the ball rolled back down but managed to stick behind a drain pipe. Then
they were on us. Five to two, I thought, there's no chance. I caught a fist
on the temple, swung and missed. Somebody kicked me in the ass. It was a
good one and burned all the way up the spine. Then I heard a cracking sound,
it was almost like a rifle shot and one of them was down on the ground
holding his forehead.
"Oh shit," he said, "my skull is crushed!"
I saw Red and he was standing in the center of the lawn. He was holding
the hand of his fake arm with the hand of his good arm. It was like a club.
Then he swung again. There was another loud crack and another of them was
down on the lawn. I began to feel brave and I landed a punch right on a
guy's mouth. I saw the lip split and the blood began to dribble down his
chin. The other two ran off. Then the big guy who had gone down first got up
and the other one got up. They held their heads. The guy with the bloody
mouth stood there. Then they retreated down the street together. When they
got quite a way down the big guy turned around and said, "We'll be back!"
Red began running toward them and I ran behind Red. They started
running and Red and I stopped chasing them after they turned the corner. We
walked back, found a ladder in the garage. We got the football down and
began throwing it back and forth . . .
One Saturday Red and I decided to go swimming at the public pool down
on Bimini Street. Red was a strange guy. He didn't talk much but I didn't
talk much either and we got along. There was nothing to say anyhow. The only
thing I ever really asked him about was his school but he just said it was a
special school and that it cost his father some money.
We arrived at the pool in the early afternoon, got our lockers, and
took our clothes off. We had our swimming trunks on underneath. Then I saw
Red unhitch his arm and put it in his locker. It was the first time since
the fight I had seen him without his fake arm. I tried not to look at his
arm which ended at the elbow. We walked to the place where you had to soak
your feet in a chlorine solution. It stank but it stopped the spread of
athlete's foot or something. Then we walked to the pool and got in. The
water stank too and after I was in I pissed in it. There were people of all
ages in the pool, men and women, boys and girls. Red really liked the water.
He leaped up and down in it. Then he ducked under and came up. He spit water
out of his mouth. I tried to swim. I couldn't help noticing Red's half-arm,
couldn't help looking at it. I always made sure to look at it when I thought
he was occupied with something else. It ended at the elbow, sort of rounded
off, and I saw the little fingers. I didn't want to stare real hard, but it
seemed as if there were only three or four of them, very tiny, curled up
there. They were very red and each of the tiny fingers had a little
fingernail. Nothing was going to grow anymore; it had all stopped. I didn't
want to think about it. I dove under. I was going to scare Red. I was going
to grab his legs from behind. I came up against something soft. My face went
right into it. It was a fat woman's ass. I felt her grab me by the hair and
she pulled me up out of the water. She had on a blue bathing cap and the
strap was tight around her chin, digging into her flesh. Her front teeth
were capped with silver and her breath smelled of garlic.
"You dirty little pervert! Trying for free grabs, are you?"
I pushed away from her and backed off. As I moved backwards she
followed me through the water, her sagging breasts pushing a tidal wave in
front of her.
"You dirty little prick. You wanna suck my titties? You got a dirty
mind, huh? You wanna eat my shit? How about some of my shit, little prick?"
I backed up further into the deeper water. I was now standing on my
toes, moving backwards. I swallowed some water. She kept coming, a steamship
of a woman. I couldn't retreat any further. She moved right up to me. Her
eyes were pale and blank, there wasn't any color in them. I felt her body
touching mine.
'Touch my cunt," she said. "I know you want to touch it, so go ahead,
touch my cunt. Touch it, touch it!"
She waited.
"If you don't, I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me and
you'll be put in jail! Now, touch it!"
I couldn't do it. Suddenly she reached under and grabbed my parts and
yanked. She almost tore my dong off. I fell backwards into the deep water,
sank, struggled, and came to the top. I was six feet away from her and began
swimming toward shallow water.
"I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me!" she screamed. Then a
man swam between us. "That little son-of-a-bitch!" she pointed at me and
screamed at the man. "He grabbed my cunt!"
"Lady," said the man, "the boy probably thought it was the grate
over the drain."
I swam over to Red.
"Listen," I said, "we've got to get out of here! That fat lady is going
to tell the lifeguard that I touched her cunt!"
"What'd you do that for?" Red asked.
"I wanted to see what it felt like."
"What'd it feel like?"
We got out of the pool, showered. Red put his arm back on and we
dressed. "Did you really do it?" he asked.
"A guy's got to get started sometime."
It was a month or so later that Red's family moved. One day they were
gone. Just like that. Red never said anything in advance to me. He was gone,
the football was gone, and those tiny red fingers with fingernails, they
were gone. He was a good guy.
16
I didn't know exactly why but Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank let me join
them in some of their games. I think it started when another guy showed up
and they needed three on a side. I still required more practice to get
really good but I was getting better. Saturday was the best day. That's when
we had our big games, other guys joined in, and we played football in the
street. We played tackle on the lawns but when we played in the street we
played touch. There was more passing then because you couldn't get far with
a run in touch.
There was trouble at the house, much fighting between my mother and my
father, and as a consequence, they kind of forgot about me. I got to play
football each Saturday. During one game I broke into the open behind the
last pass defender and I saw Chuck wing the ball. It was a long high spiral
and I kept running. I looked back over my shoulder, I saw it coming, it fell
right into my hands and I held it and was in for the touchdown.
Then I heard my father's voice yell "HENRY!" He was standing in front
of his house. I lobbed the ball to one of the guys on my team so they could
kick off and I walked down to where my father stood. He looked angry. I
could almost feel his anger. He always stood with one foot a little bit
forward, his face flushed, and I could see his pot belly going up and down
with his breathing. He was six feet two and like I said, he looked to be all
ears, mouth and nose when angry. I couldn't look at his eyes.
"All right," he said, "you're old enough to mow the lawn now. You're
big enough to mow it, edge it, water it, and water the flowers. It's time
you did something around here. It's time you got off your dead ass!"
"But I'm playing football with the guys. Saturday is the only real
chance I have."
"Are you talking back to me?"
"No."
I could see my mother watching from behind a curtain. Every Saturday
they cleaned the whole house. They vacuumed the rugs and polished the
furniture. They took up the rugs and waxed the hardwood floors and then
covered the floors with the rugs again. You couldn't even see where they had
been waxed.
The lawn mower and edger were in the driveway. He showed them to me.
"Now, you take this mower and go up and down the lawn and don't miss any
places. Dump the grass catcher here whenever it gets full. Now, when you've
mowed the lawn in one direction and finished, take the mower and mow the
lawn in the other direction, get it? First, you mow it north and south, then
you mow it east and west. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"And don't look so god-damned unhappy or I'll really give you something
to be unhappy about! After you've finished mowing, then you take the
edger. You trim the edges of the lawn with the little mower on the edger.
Get under the hedge, get every blade of grass! Then . . . you
take this circular blade on the edger and you cut along the edge of
the lawn. It must be absolutely straight along the edge of the lawn!
Understand?"
"Yes."
"Now when you're done with that, you take these . . ."
My father showed me some shears.
". . . and you get down on your knees and you go around cutting off any
hairs that are still sticking up. Then you take the hose and you
water the hedges and the flower beds. Then you turn on the sprinkler and you
let it run fifteen minutes on each part of the lawn. You do all this on the
front lawn and in the flower garden, and then you repeat it on the rear lawn
and in the flower garden there. Are there any questions?"
"No."
"All right, now I want to tell you this. I am going to come out and
check everything when you're finished, and when you're done I
DON'T WANT TO SEE ONE HAIR STICKING UP IN EITHER THE FRONT OR BACK
LAWN! NOT ONE HAIR! IF THERE IS . . . !"
He turned, walked up the driveway, across his porch, opened the door,
slammed it, and he was gone inside of his house. I took the mower, rolled it
up the drive and began pushing it on its first run, north and south. I could
hear the guys down the street playing football . . .
I finished mowing, edging and clipping the front lawn. I watered the
flower beds, set the sprinkler going and began working my way toward the
backyard. There was a stretch of lawn in the center of the driveway leading
to the back. I got that too. I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too
miserable to be unhappy. It was like everything in the world had turned to
lawn and I was just pushing my way through it all. I kept pushing and
working but then suddenly I gave up. It would take hours, all day, and the
game would be over. The guys would go in to eat dinner, Saturday would be
finished, and I'd still be mowing.
As I began mowing the back lawn I noticed my mother and my father
standing on the back porch watching me. They just stood there silently, not
moving. Once as I pushed the mower past I heard my mother say to my father,
"Look, he doesn't sweat like you do when you mow the lawn. Look how
calm he looks."
"CALM? HE'S NOT CALM, HE'S DEAD!"
When I came by again, I heard him:
"PUSH THAT THING FASTER! YOU MOVE LIKE A SNAIL!"
I pushed it faster. It was hard to do but it felt good. I pushed it
faster and faster. I was almost running with the mower. The grass flew back
so hard that much of it flew over the grass catcher. I knew that would anger
him.
"YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!" he screamed. I saw him run off the back porch and
into the garage. He came out with a two-by-four about a foot long. From the
corner of my eye I saw him throw it. I saw it coming but made no attempt to
avoid it. It hit me on the back of my right leg. The pain was terrible. The
leg knotted up and I had to force myself to walk. I kept pushing the mower,
trying not to limp. When I swung around to cut another section of the lawn
the two-by-four was in the way. I picked it up, moved it aside and kept
mowing. The pain was getting worse. Then my father was standing beside me.
"STOP!"
I stopped.
"I want you to go back and mow the lawn over again where you didn't
catch the grass in the catcher! Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
My father walked back into the house. I saw him and my mother standing
on the back porch watching me.
The end of the job was to sweep up all the grass that had fallen on the
sidewalk, and then wash the sidewalk down. I was finally finished except for
sprinkling each section of the lawn in the back yard for fifteen minutes. I
dragged the hose back to set up the sprinkler when my father stepped out of
the house.
"Before you start sprinkling I want to check this lawn for hairs."
My father walked to the center of the lawn, got down on his hands and
knees and placed the side of his head low against the lawn looking for any
blade of grass that might be sticking up. He kept looking, twisting his
neck, peering around. I waited.
"AH HAH!"
He leaped up and ran toward the house.
"MAMA! MAMA!"
He ran into the house.
"What is it?"
"I found a hair!"
"You did?"
"Come, I'll show you!"
He came out of the house quickly with my mother following.
"Here! Here! I'll show you!"
He got down on his hands and knees.
"I can see it! I can see two of them!"
My mother got down with him. I wondered if they were crazy.
"See them?" he asked her. "Two hairs. See them?"
"Yes, Daddy, I see them . . ."
They both got up. My mother walked into the house. My father looked at
me.
"Inside. . ."
I walked to the porch and inside the house. My father followed me.
"Into the bathroom."
My father closed the door.
"Take your pants down."
I heard him get down the razor strop. My right leg still ached. It
didn't help, having felt the strop many times before. The whole world was
out there indifferent to it all, but that didn't help. Millions of people
were out there, dogs and cats and gophers, buildings, streets, but it didn't
matter. There was only father and the razor strop and the bathroom and me.
He used that strop to sharpen his razor, and early in the mornings I used to
hate him with his face white with lather, standing before the mirror
shaving himself. Then the first blow of the strop hit me. The sound of the
strop was flat and loud, the sound itself was almost as bad as the pain. The
strop landed again. It was as if my father was a machine, swinging that
strop. There was the feeling of being in a tomb. The strop landed again and
I thought, that is surely the last one. But it wasn't. It landed again. I
didn't hate him. He was just unbelievable, I just wanted to get away from
him. I couldn't cry. I was too sick to cry, too confused. The strop landed
once again. Then he stopped. I stood and waited. I heard him hanging up the
strop.
"Next time," he said, "I don't want to find any hairs."
I heard him walk out of the bathroom. He closed the bathroom door. The
walls were beautiful, the bathtub was beautiful, the wash basin and the
shower curtain were beautiful, and even the toilet was beautiful. My father
was gone.
17
Of all the guys left in the neighborhood, Frank was the nicest. We
got to be friends, we got to going around together, we didn't need the
other guys much. They had more or less kicked Frank out of the group,
anyway, so he became friends with me. He wasn't like David, who had walked
home from school with me. Frank had a lot more going for him than David had.
I even joined the Catholic church because Frank went there. My parents liked
me going to church. The Sunday masses were very boring. And we had to go to
Catechism classes. We had to study the Catechism book. It was just boring
questions and answers.
One afternoon we were sitting on my front porch and I was reading the
Catechism out loud to Frank. I read the line, "God has bodily eyes and sees
all things."
"Bodily eyes?" Frank asked.
"Yes."
"You mean like this?" he asked.
He clenched his hands into fists and placed them over his eyes.
"He has milk bottles for eyes," Frank said, pushing his fists against
his eyes and turning toward me. Then he began laughing. I began laughing
too. We laughed a long time. Then Frank stopped.
"You think He heard us?"
"I guess so. If He can see everything He can probably hear everything
too."
"I'm scared," said Frank. "He might kill us. Do you think He'll kill
us?"
"I don't know."
"We better sit here and wait. Don't move. Sit still."
We sat on the steps and waited. We waited a long time.
"Maybe He isn't going to do it now," I said.
"He's going to take His time," said Frank. We waited another hour, then
we walked down to Frank's place. He was building a