Fridays at Enrico's (11 page)

“Sorry, my hand's wet,” he said, and wished he hadn't.

“All of Oregon's wet tonight,” Dick Dubonet said rather loudly, as if he was talking to all the people at the nearby tables. He sat, tilting back in his chair, very much at home. Obviously, the local kingpin.

“We were just talking about love,” Marty said, loudly himself. “Stan's a writer too.”

Dick's eyebrow went up. “Really? What's your name again?”

“I haven't published anything.” Stan grinned down at the tablecloth.

“Ah,” Dick said. “Would-be writer.”

“That's it,” said Stan, hating Dubonet fiercely.

Marty put a hand on Stan's wrist and smiled. “Don't hate him,” he said.

“Huh?” Was it written all over his face? “I don't hate anybody,” he said.

“How often do you write?” Dick asked, in a friendly way.

“What do you mean?”

“Every day? Once a week? Two hours a month?”

“None of your fucking business.” He looked Dick right in the eye. His stomach hurt. He was no fighter, but he didn't have to take this shit. They all sat and listened to the room for a while. Some kind of classical music tinkled in the background.

“Okay,” Marty said. “My fault. Let's start over.”

Stan looked at Dick, waiting for his comment. Dick looked upset, no longer in charge. Maybe he's a pussy inside, just like me, Stan thought, and his heart warmed. He made himself smile. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm too touchy. I'm not a writer, just fooling around. I like pulp stories, you know, mysteries, stuff like that.”

“I've published in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
,” Dick said. He wasn't smiling but he wasn't angry either.

“That's a great magazine,” Stan said.

“I'm sorry.” Dick held out his hand. “I'm an asshole.”

“Me too,” Stan agreed. This time their handshake was warm and firm.

“Then it's agreed,” Marty said, holding up his little espresso cup in salute. “
Tres assholes!
”

18.

He wasn't breaking into houses at this particular time. Instead he made his money boosting clothes for a guy. The guy had a regular list of businessmen customers he stole for. The customer told the guy what he wanted and the guy told Stan and Stan went into the store wearing old stuff from the Salvation Army and walked out wearing the items requested. It was easy but took nerve. It wasn't like house penetration but it was fun, exciting. You had to be careful you didn't get all heady and start boosting everything in sight. “Never grift on the way out,” was good old con advice.

One day he walked into Sichel's, the best men's store in Portland, to pick up a camel's hair coat, size forty-two, when he ran into Marty Greenberg, standing in front of the triple mirrors admiring himself in a new topcoat. Marty smiled slyly and modeled the coat. “How do you like it?”

“Uh, fine,” Stan said. He wondered how Marty could afford a hundred-dollar coat, but didn't ask. He couldn't steal anything now. He felt the energy he'd worked up flushing away, leaving him empty and depressed. He watched Marty trying on stuff, realizing that the guy was just having some fun. Stan pretended he too had come in just to look around.

“Best store in Portland,” Marty said.

“So I've heard.”

They were around the corner from Jolly Joan's. “Let's go say hello to my girlfriend,” Marty said. It was sunny out, a nice spring day except for the cold wind. They walked together, hands in their pockets, heads bent into
the wind. For some reason just seeing Marty made Stan feel like a different man. He could always go back and get the jacket later, although he didn't want to try Sichel's again so soon. Fahey-Brockman across Broadway had good jackets.

“How's the writing going?” Marty asked him. He held open the glass door to Jolly Joan's and Stan moved into the billowing warmth and clatter.

“It's going great,” he said.

Meeting all these new people had made Stan self-conscious about sitting up all night scrawling in his notebooks. Before, he'd just been fucking around. Now he was
writing
. And these other guys had their own women, they were easy around women. In fact, unless he had things wrong, both Marty Greenberg and the famous Dick Dubonet had women who worked, and Marty didn't even have the excuse that he was writing. Marty was a philosopher, and when he did decide to write down his thoughts, it would be a huge work the whole world would have to pay attention to. But meanwhile he let his girlfriend or roommate or whoever she was do the working and pay the rent. Stan knew a couple of pimps from jail. They were funny entertaining guys, like Marty. When they weren't in jail they hung out at the Desert Room and talked about their big plans. Just like Marty, only Marty's big plans were philosophical rather than entrepreneurial, if that was the right word.

Stan didn't stop writing. He made sure he wrote two hours a night, recalling Dick's scornful inquiry. But he got tired of bending his short stubby fingers around a ballpoint and writing with his pad on his knee. If he was serious about this, he'd have to teach himself to type. He thought about stealing a typewriter and immediately backed away from the idea. The stealing was one part of his life. He wanted the writing to be different. All right, pure. Not part of his sickness, which he admitted ruled his life. The sick sexual desire that came over him on stealing days. The thing that was going to put him away. Bizarre, sick, unspeakable. Marty thought he was a hero for robbing houses, although he didn't know any details, only that Stan had “done a little stealing now and then.” Said with a sly grin, as if Stan was Jesse James.

So he went down to the typewriter store across from Gill's, the big bookstore, and bought himself a used Underwood portable. He didn't tell Marty. He went up to Cameron's used bookstore and bought a typing book for a quarter and took it back to his room. Typing wasn't hard, once he got the trick of balancing the little machine on his knees. He picked up a used music stand to hold the exercise book. After he got tired of the exercises he struck on the idea of retyping stories he particularly liked. This would give him practice and teach him a little bit about how other writers, real writers, did it.

Marty's girl worked the counter at Jolly Joan's. She was beautiful, with big wide dark Jewish eyes, olive skin and high cheekbones, a real beauty, a girl who could be a movie star. She grinned across the counter at Marty and wiped the space in front of him with her wet rag.

“Hello, Marty,” she said, then smiled at Stan. He could not recall ever having a woman this good-looking smile at him directly. It was like a shot of morphine. “Is this your friend Stan?” He shook her hand. Thank God his own happened to be dry. “I've heard so much about you,” she said. She took their coffee orders and left. Great figure too, Stan noticed. He turned to Marty, who grinned at him.

“Yeah,” Marty said. “Her name's Alexandra Plotkin.”

“She's beautiful,” Stan said stupidly.

“Shockingly beautiful. It's actually a problem. You know, big stalkers coming up to you and telling you how lucky you are to have such a girl. Of course she's not really my girl, but I don't tell them that.”

Late that night Stan tried to write, but he couldn't get Alexandra's face out of his mind. Smiling at him. He gave up, put his typewriter in its cardboard box under the bed and tried to sleep. Sleep would not come for a long time, and he lay quietly, seeing her face hovering over him. Finally he must have slept, because he found himself in this big dark gloomy but beautifully furnished house, walking through the place in his stocking feet when he sees Alexandra standing in the middle of the floor, her arms at her sides. When he woke up he felt warm and pleasant, remembering how she looked in the dream. She was not Marty's girl. She had smiled at him. Maybe she
could become his girl. Oh, Jesus. What a fool. He had to chuckle to himself, laying there like a jerk daydreaming. He held onto his prick for dear life, why didn't he just jerk off? A mystery. Maybe he respected her too much. Maybe, though, some day, he might really have the chance to—he refused even to use bad language about her in his mind—sleep with her, make love to her.

Even if he was willing, he wouldn't know how. Whores teach you nothing about romance. He had an idea for a story. About a burglar who meets a girl. A silly story, because burglars weren't the heroes of stories, but it was writing itself in his head while he lay there, and so he let it. Four days later he had the story down on paper, typed and everything. Reading it over he decided it was as good as a lot of the stories he had read. All it really needed was some educated person to help him fix up the grammar and spelling. He was a terrible speller, he knew. He'd have to get it typed by a professional. His own typing was too messy. He wondered how much he could get for the story from
Ellery Queen
or some other magazine. At the moment, sitting on the edge of the bed with his eleven pages in his hands, he recognized a great similarity between stealing and writing. Both were intensely private matters.

The thought of showing his story to Marty frightened him. And he knew he had to ask Dick Dubonet to read it. Marty didn't really know anything about this kind of writing. Sneering Dick Dubonet. Stan's stomach tightened at the thought of Dubonet looking up from his pages with that expression of contempt. Stan didn't think he could handle it. He would lose these new friends, and all that their friendship seemed to promise. On the other hand, if he didn't at least try to get them to read his story, he was a pussy.

19.

Marty's girl was quiet, with long straight blonde hair, not terribly good-looking from Dick's point of view, but with a nice little body concealed under layers of clothing. Her name was Mary Bergendaal and she played French horn for the symphony. She sat leaning against Marty as they sat and talked. Dick wasn't sure how he liked being sold somebody else's story.

“I'll read it,” he'd told Marty over the phone, “if you buy me a Jerry's hamburger.”

So here they were, with their hamburgers and fries in a basket, talking about American literature as it related to the pulps. Mary hadn't wanted to eat, and even refused the French fries Marty offered before putting them into his own mouth.

“Thing is, he's not really a writer,” Marty said between bites.

“Then why should I read his story?”

“Out of human kindness,” Marty said. “No, wait. Really. Don't you want to help others?”

Dick laughed. “Sure, if you put it that way.” He felt good. The burgers were excellent, and he decided he enjoyed being the expert. He only wished Mary Bergendaal was better looking or more animated. He liked playing to pretty girls. She wasn't homely, she just didn't have much animation in her face. Maybe she put it all into the French horn.

“You have to understand,” Marty said. “I've been encouraging this guy. He's practically illiterate, working-class kind of guy, and he has this deep urge to write stories. This is the first one he's had the guts to show to anybody.”

Marty pulled the manila envelope from under his topcoat dramatically, fanned himself with it, and said, “It's hot stuff. I like it.” He handed it to Dick, who hefted it in his hand and then put it on the seat beside him.

“I can't promise to get to it right away,” he said. What bullshit. But
he continued. “I'll try to have an answer for you in a week.” Ugh. Arrant showing off. He looked at Mary. She looked at her cigarette.

“The point is to encourage him,” Marty said. “Not put him down.”

“Oh, don't worry, I'll be kind.”

He read the story the minute he got home. Linda wasn't back from work yet, so he had the place to himself. He had expected crapola, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the guy knew how to put together a simple sentence. He found himself sucked right in, but didn't really much like what he found. A cute idea, burglar comes into a house he thinks is empty to find a beautiful girl sleeping in her bed. The burglar tries to talk his way out of it, but the girl sees through him. The twist: she likes him. The irony comes when they find him sleeping in bed with the girl. Cute. But the characters and dialogue were crude and the ending not as surprising as the author hoped. Not very original, either. In fact, a piece of shit. But Dick had promised to be kind to this guy, this insomniac buddy of Marty's from downtown. Marty was always going on and on about the characters you meet “on the street.” Now here was this character who wanted to pull himself up into the middle class by writing. It seemed sad, pathetic. All over America, he imagined, working class people who read only crap aspired to try to write this same crap. The guy needed a typist. And a college education. Dick wondered what Stan did for a living. Marty said he was a professional gambler, but Marty romantically exaggerated everything. Dick figured the guy had some menial job.

Did he have the strength of character to look Stan Winger in the eye and tell him to forget writing? Trouble was, people thought just because they knew how to read and write, they could
write
. He sighed. If he told the guy the story was okay but rough, he might take it back, write like hell, then come back to Dick for another reading, for advice, maybe even for the name of his agent. He wondered what Bob Mills would say about a story like this. Maybe that was the easy way out of this social dilemma. Tell the guy he loves the story and send it to Mills, let him reject it. Then Dick would be off the hook. But he'd also look like a putz. Dick wished Marty had minded his own business.