Run With the Hunted (35 page)

“Wow!”

“Get me some toilet paper, quickly! He might bleed to death!”

“That son of a bitch,” said little Anna from the coffeetable, “if I can't have George, nobody can have him!”

“Now both of you belong to me!” said Marty.

“No, you've got to choose between us,” said Anna.

“Which one of us is it?” asked Ruthie.

“I love you both,” said Marty.

“He's stopped bleeding,” said Dawn. “He's out cold.” She wrapped George in a handkerchief and put him on die mantel.

“I mean,” Dawn said to me, “if you don't think we can make it, I don't want to go into it anymore.”

“I think I love you, Dawn.”

“Look,” she said, “Marty's embracing Ruthie!”

“Are they going to make it?”

“I don't know. They seem excited.”

Dawn picked Anna up and put her in the wire cage.

“Let me out of here! I'll kill both of them! Let me out of here!”

George moaned from inside his handkerchief upon the mantel. Marty had Ruthie's panties off. I pulled Dawn to me. She was beautiful and young and had insides. I could be in love again. It was possible. We kissed. I fell down inside her eyes. Then I got up and began running. I knew where I was. A cockroach and an eagle made love. Time was a fool with a banjo. I kept running. Her long hair fell across my face.

“I'll kill everybody!” screamed little Anna. She rattled about in her wire cage at 3 a.m. in the morning.

—
S
OUTH OF
N
O
N
ORTH

how can we endure?

how can we talk about roses

or Verlaine?

this is a hungry band

that likes to work and count

and knows the special laws,

that likes to sit in parks

thinking of nothing valuable.

this is where the stricken bagpipes blow

upon the chalky cliffs

where faces go mad as sunburned violets

where brooms and ropes and torches fail,

squeezing shadows …

where walls come down en masse.

tomorrow the bankers set the time

to close the gates against our flood

and prevaricate the waters;

bang, bang the time,

remember now

the flowers are opening in the wind

and it doesn't matter finally

except as a twitch in the back of the head

when back in our broad land

dead again

we walk among the dead.

he used to sell papers in front:

“Get your winners! Get rich on a dime!”

and about the 3rd or 4th race

you'd see him rolling in on his rotten board

with roller skates underneath.

he'd propel himself along on his hands;

he just had small stumps for legs

and the rims of the skate wheels were worn off.

you could see inside the wheels and they would wobble

something awful

shooting and flashing

imperialistic sparks!

he moved faster than anybody, rolled cigarette dangling,

you could hear him coming

“god o mighty, what was that?” the new ones asked.

he was the world's greatest loser

but he never gave up

wheeling toward the 2 dollar window screaming:

“IT'S THE 4 HORSE, YOU FOOLS! HOW THE HELL YA GONNA BEAT THE

4?”

up on the board the 4 would be reading

60 to one.

I never heard him pick a winner.

they say he slept in the bushes. I guess that's where he

died, he's not around any

more.

there was the big fat blond whore

who kept touching him for luck, and

laughing.

nobody had any luck, the whore is gone

too.

I guess nothing ever works for us. we're fools, of course—

bucking the inside plus a 15 percent take,

but how are you going to tell a dreamer

there's a 15 percent take on the

dream? he'll just laugh and say,

is that all?

I miss those

sparks.

I should not have blamed only my father, but,

he was the first to introduce me to

raw and stupid hatred.

he was really best at it: anything and everything made him

mad—things of the slightest consequence brought his hatred quickly

to the surface

and I seemed to be the main source of his

irritation.

I did not fear him

but his rages made me ill at heart

for he was most of my world then

and it was a world of horror but I should not have blamed only

my father

for when I left that … home … I found his counterparts

everywhere: my father was only a small part of the

whole, though he was the best at hatred

I was ever to meet.

but others were very good at it too: some of the

foremen, some of the street bums, some of the women

I was to live with,

most of the women, were gifted at

hating—blaming my voice, my actions, my presence

blaming me

for what
they
, in retrospect, had failed

at.

I was simply the target of their discontent

and in some real sense

they blamed me

for not being able to rouse them

out of a failed past; what they didn't consider was

that I had my troubles too—most of them caused by

simply living with them.

I am a dolt of a man, easily made happy or even

stupidly happy almost without cause

and left alone I am mostly content.

but I've lived so often and so long with this hatred

that

my only freedom, my only peace is when I am away from

them, when I am anywhere else, no matter where—

some fat old waitress bringing me a cup of coffee

is in comparison

like a fresh wild wind blowing.

Joe Mayer was a freelance writer. He had a hangover and the telephone awakened him at 9 a.m. He got up and answered it. “Hello?”

“Hi, Joe. How's it going?”

“Oh, beautiful.”

“Beautiful, eh?”

“Yes?”

“Vicki and I just moved into our new house. We don't have a phone yet. But I can give you the address. You got a pen there?”

“Just a minute.”

Joe took down the address.

“I didn't like that last story of yours I saw in
Hot Angel.
”

“O.K.” said Joe.

“I don't mean I didn't like it, I mean I don't like it compared to most of your stuff. By the way, do you know where Buddy Edwards is? Griff Martin who used to edit
Hot Tales
is looking for him. I thought you might know.”

“I don't know where he is.”

“I think he might be in Mexico.”

“He might be.”

“Well, listen, we'll be around to see you soon.”

“Sure.” Joe hung up. He put a couple of eggs in a pan of water, set some coffee water on and took an Alka Seltzer. Then he went back to bed.

The phone rang again. He got up and answered it.

“Joe?”

“Yes?”

“This is Eddie Greer.”

“Oh yes.”

“We want you to read for a benefit …”

“What is it?”

“For the I.R.A.”

“Listen, Eddie, I don't go for politics or religion or whatever. I really don't know what's going on over there. I don't have a tv, read the papers … any of that. I don't know who's right or who's wrong, if there is such a thing.”

“England's wrong, man.”

“I can't read for the I.R.A., Eddie.”

“All right, then …”

The eggs were done. He sat down, peeled them, put on some toast and mixed the Sanka in with the hot water. He got down the eggs and toast and had two coffees. Then he went back to bed.

He was just about asleep when the phone rang again. He got up and answered it.

“Mr. Mayer?”

“Yes?”

“I'm Mike Haven, I'm a friend of Stuart Irving's. We once appeared in
Stone Mule
together when
Stone Mule
was edited in Salt Lake City.”

“Yes?”

“I'm down from Montana for a week. I'm staying at the Hotel Sheraton here in town. I'd like to come see you and talk to you.”

“Today's a bad day, Mike.”

“Well, maybe I can come over later in the week?”

“Yes, why don't you call me later on?”

“You know, Joe, I write just like you do, both in poetry and prose. I want to bring some of my stuff over and read it to you. You'll be surprised. My stuff is really powerful.”

“Oh yes?”

“You'll see.”

The mailman was next. One letter. Joe opened it:

Dear Mr. Mayer:

I got your address from Sylvia who you used to write to in Paris many years ago. Sylvia is still alive in San Francisco today and still writing her wild and prophetic and angelic and mad poems. I'm living in Los Angeles now and would just love to come and visit you! Please tell me when it would be all right with you.

love, Diane

Joe got out of his robe and got dressed. The phone rang again. He walked over to it, looked at it and didn't answer it. He walked out, got into his car and drove it toward Santa Anita. He drove slowly. He turned the radio on and got some symphony music. It wasn't too smoggy. He drove down Sunset, took his favorite cutoff, drove over the hill toward Chinatown, past the Annex, up past Little Joe's, past Chinatown and took the slow easy ride past the railroad yards, looking down at the old brown boxcars. If he were any damned good at painting he'd like to get that one down. Maybe he'd paint them anyhow. He drove in up Broadway and over Huntington Drive to the track. He got a corned beef sandwich and a coffee, split the Form and sat down. It looked like a fair card.

He caught Rosalena in the first at $10.80, Wife's Objection in the second at $9.20 and hooked them in the daily double for $48.40. He'd had $2 win on Rosalena and $5 win on Wife's Objection, so he was $73.20 up. He ran out on Sweetott, was second with Harbor Point, second with Pitch Out, second with Brannan, all win bets, and he was sitting $48.20 ahead when he hit $20 win on Southern Cream, which brought him back to $73.20 again.

It wasn't bad at the track. He only met three people he knew. Factory workers. Black. From the old days.

The eighth race was the problem. Cougar who was packing 128 was in against Unconscious packing 123. Joe didn't consider the others in the race. He couldn't make up his mind. Cougar was 3-to-5 and Unconscious was 7-to-2. Being $73.20 ahead he felt he could afford the luxury of betting the 3-to-5 shot. He laid $30 win. Cougar broke sluggishly, acting as if he were running in a ditch. By the time he was halfway around the first turn he was 17 lengths back of the lead horse. Joe knew he had a loser. At the finish his 3-to-5 was five lengths back and the race was over.

He went $10 and $10 on Barbizon, Jr. and Lost at Sea in the ninth, failed, and walked out with $23.20. It was easier picking tomatoes. He got into his old car and drove slowly back …

Just as he got into the tub the doorbell rang. He toweled and got into his shirt and pants. It was Max Billinghouse. Max was in his early twenties, toothless, red-haired. He worked as a janitor and always wore bluejeans and a dirty white t-shirt. He sat down in a chair and crossed his legs.

“Well, Mayer, what's happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you surviving on your writing?”

“At the moment.”