"Bleed! Bleed to death!"
My clothes stuck to me. I hated that kitchen. At the window I watched the stream of traffic down Avalon Boulevard. Never had I heard such noise. Never had I felt such pain as in my thumb. Pain and noise. All the horns in the world were out in that street. The clamor was driving me crazy. I couldn't live in a place like this and write. Downstairs came the zzzzzzzzz of a bath-spigot. Who was taking a bath at this hour? What fiend? Maybe the plumbing was out of order. I ran through the apartment to our bathroom and flushed the water. It worked all right — but it was noisy, so noisy I wondered that I had never noticed it before.
"What's the matter?" my mother said.
"There's too much noise around here. I can't create in this racket. I tell you I'm getting tired of this madhouse."
"I think it's very quiet tonight."
"Don't contradict me — you woman."
I went back to the kitchen. This was an impossible place to write. No wonder. No wonder — what? Well, no wonder it was an impossible place to write. No wonder? What are you talking about? No wonder — what? This kitchen was a detriment. This neighborhood was a detriment. This town was a detriment. I sucked the pounding thumb wound. The pain was tearing me to pieces. I heard my mother speak to Mona.
"What's the matter with him now?"
"He's foolish," Mona said.
I rushed into the room.
"I heard you!" I screamed. "And I warn you to shut up! I'll show you who's silly around here."
"I didn't say you were silly," Mona said. "I said your story was silly. Not you." She smiled. "I said you were foolish. It was your book that I said was silly."
"Be careful! As God is my judge, I warn you."
"What's the matter with you two?" my mother said.
"She knows," I said. "Ask her."
Steeling myself for the ordeal, I gritted my teeth and returned to the book. I held the page before me, and kept my eyes closed. I was afraid to read the lines. No writing could be done in this asylum. No art could come from this chaos of stupidity. Beautiful prose demanded quiet, peaceful surroundings. Perhaps even soft music. No wonder! No wonder!
I opened my eyes and tried to read it. No good. It didn't work. I couldn't read it. I tried it out loud. No good. This book was no good. It was somewhat verbose; there were too many words in it. It was somewhat stodgy. It was a very good book. It missed. It was quite bad. It was worse than that. It was a lousy book. It was a stinking book. It was the goddamnedest book I ever saw. It was ridiculous; it was funny; it was silly; oh it's silly, silly, silly, silly, silly. Shame on you, you silly old thing, for writing a silly thing like this. Mona is right. It's silly.
It's on account of the women. They have poisoned my mind. I can feel it coming — stark madness. The writing of a maniac. Insanity. Ha! Look! He's a madman! Look at him! One of the Jukes! Stark, raving mad. He got that way from too many secret women, sir. I feel awfully sorry for him. A pathetic case, sir. Once he was a good Catholic kid. He went to church and all that sort of thing. Was very devoted, sir. A model boy. Educated by the nuns, a fine young chap once. Now a pathetic case, sir. Very touching. Suddenly he changed.
Yeah. Something happened to the guy. He started off on the wrong foot after his old man died, and look what happened. He got ideas. He had all those phony women. There was always something just a bit screwy about the guy, but it took those phonies to bring it out. I used to see the kid around here, walking around by himself. He lived with his mother and sister in that stucco house across from the school. He used to come into Jim's Place a lot. Ask Jim about him. Jim knew him well. Worked at the cannery. Had a lot of jobs around here. Couldn't keep any though — too erratic. A screw loose, a nut. Nuts, I tell you, plain nuts. Yeah — too many women, the wrong kind. You should have heard the monkey talk. Like a lunatic. Goddamnedest liar in Los Angeles County. Had hallucinations. Delusions of grandeur. Menace to society. Followed women in the streets. Used to get mad at flies and eat them. Women did it. Killed a lot of crabs too. Killed them all afternoon. Just plain screwy. Screwiest guy in Los Angeles County. Glad they locked him up. You say they found him wandering around the docks in a stupor? Well — that's him. Probably looking for more crabs to kill. Dangerous, I tell you. Belongs behind the bars. Ought to look into it very careful. Keep him there the rest of his life. Feel safer with the lunatic in the bug house where he belongs. A sad case though. Awful sorry for his mother and sister. They pray for him every night. Can you imagine that? Yeah! Maybe they're crazy too.
I threw myself across the table and started to cry. I wanted to pray again. Like nothing else in the world I wanted to say prayers.
Ha! The madman wants to pray!
A praying madman! Maybe it's his religious background. Maybe he was too pious when a kid. Funny thing about the guy. Very funny. I bit my knuckles. I clawed the table. My teeth found the flashing thumb cuticle. I gnawed. The tablets lay all about me on the table. What a writer! A book on California fisheries! A book on California puke!
Laughter.
In the next room I heard them, my mother and Mona. They were talking about money. My mother was complaining bitterly. She was saying that we would never catch up on my salary at the fish-cannery. She was saying we would all go to live at Uncle Frank's house. He would take good care of us. I knew the origin of that kind of talk. Uncle Frank's words. He had been speaking to my mother again. I knew. And I knew she wasn't repeating all he had really said: that I was worthless and couldn't be depended on, that she should always expect the worst from me. And my mother was doing all the talking, with Mona not answering. Why didn't Mona answer her? Why did Mona have to be so rude? So callous?
I jumped up and walked in.
"Answer your mother when she addresses you!"
The instant Mona saw me she was terrified. It was the first time I ever saw that look of fright in her eyes. I sprang into action. It was what I had always wanted. I moved in on her.
She said, "Be careful!"
She was holding her breath, pressing herself against the chair.
"Arturo!" my mother said.
Mona stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door. She held her weight against the other side. She called to my mother to keep me away. With a lunge I pushed the door open. Mona backed to the bed, tumbled backwards upon it. She was panting.
"Be careful!"
"You nun!"
"Arturo!" my mother said.
"You nun! So it was silly, was it? So it made you laugh, did it? So it was the worst book you ever read, was it?"
I lifted my fist and let fly. It struck her in the mouth. She held her lips and dropped into the pillows. My mother came screaming. Blood oozed through Mona's fingers.
"So you laughed at it, did you? You sneered! At the work of a genius. You! At Arturo Bandini! Now Bandini strikes back. He strikes in the name of liberty!"
My mother covered her with her arms and body. I tried to pull my mother away. She tore at me like a cat.
"Get out!" she said.
I grabbed my jacket and left. Back there my mother was babbling. Mona was moaning. The feeling was that I would never see them again. And I was glad.
Chapter Twenty-five
IN THE STREET I didn't know where to go. The town had two worthwhile directions: East and West. East lay Los Angeles. West for a half-mile lay the sea. I walked in the direction of the sea. It was bitterly cold that summer night. The fog had begun to blow in. A wind pushed it this way and that, great streaks of crawling white. In the channel I heard foghorns mooing like a carload of steers. I lit a cigarette. There was blood on my knuckles - Mona's. I wiped it on the leg of my pants. It didn't come off. I held up my fist and let the fog wet it with a cold kiss. Then I wiped it again. But it didn't come off. Then I rubbed my knuckles in the dirt at the sidewalk's edge until the blood disappeared, but I tore the skin on my knuckles doing it, and now my blood was flowing.
"Good. Bleed - you. Bleed!"
I crossed the schoolyard and walked down Avalon, walking fast. Where are you going, Arturo? The cigarette was hateful, like a mouthful of hair. I spat it out ahead of me, then crushed it carefully with my heel. Over my shoulder I looked at it. I was amazed. It still burned, faint smoke curling in the fog. I walked a block, thinking about that cigarette. It still lived. It hurt me that it still burned. Why should it still burn? Why hadn't it gone out? An evil omen, perhaps. Why should I deny that cigarette entry into the world of cigarette spirits? Why let it burn and suffer so miserably? Had I come to this? Was I so terrible a monster as to deny that cigarette its rightful demise?
I hurried back.
There it lay.
I crushed it to a brown mass.
"Goodbye, dear cigarette. We shall meet again in paradise."
Then I walked on. The fog licked me with its many cold tongues. I buttoned up my leather jacket, all but the last button.
Why not button the last one too?
This annoyed me. Should I button it, or should I leave it unbuttoned, the laughingstock of the button world, a useless button?
I will leave it unbuttoned.
No, I will button it.
Yes, I will unbutton it.
I did neither. Instead I invoked a master decision. I tore the button off my collar and threw it into the street.
"I'm sorry, button. We have been friends a long time. Often I have touched you with my fingers, and you have kept me warm on cold nights. Forgive me for what I have done. We too shall meet in paradise."
At the bank I stopped and saw the match scratches on the wall. The limbo of match scratches, their punishing ground for being without souls. Only one match scratch here had a soul - only one, the scratch made by the woman in the purple coat. Should I stop and visit it? Or should I go on?
I will stop.
No, I'll go on.
Yes I will.
No I won't.
Yes and no.
Yes and no.
I stopped.
I found the match scratch she had made, the woman in the purple coat. How beautiful it was! What artistry in that scratch!
What expression! I lit a match, a long heavy scratch. Then I forced the burning sulphur tip into the scratch she had made. It clung to the wall, sticking out.
"I am seducing you. I love you, and publicly I am giving you my love. How fortunate you are!"
It clung there, over her artistic mark. Then it fell, the burning sulphur growing cold. I walked on, taking mighty military steps, a conqueror who had ravished the rare soul of a match scratch.
But why had the match grown cold and fallen? It bothered me. I was panic stricken. Why had this happened? What had I done to deserve this? I was Bandini — the writer. Why had the match failed me?
I hurried back in anger. I found the match where it had fallen on the sidewalk, lying there cold and dead for all the world to see. I picked it up.
"Why did you fall? Why do you forsake me in my hour of triumph? I am Arturo Bandini - the mighty writer. What have you done to me?" No answer.
"Speak! I demand an explanation." No answer.
"Very well. I have no other choice. I must destroy you." I snapped it in two and dropped it in the gutter. It landed near another match, one that was unbroken, a very handsome match with a dash of blue sulphur around its neck, a very worldly and sophisticated match. And there lay mine, humiliated, with a broken spine.
"You embarrass me. Now shall you really suffer. I leave you to the laughter of the match kingdom. Now all the matches will see you and make sneering remarks. So be it. Bandini speaks. Bandini, mighty master of the pen."
But a half block away it seemed terribly unfair. That poor match! That pathetic fellow! This was all so unnecessary. He had done his very best. I knew how badly he felt. I went back and got him. I put him to my mouth and chewed him to a pulp.
Now all the other matches would find him unrecognizable. I spat him out in my hand. There he lay, broken and mashed, already in a state of decomposition. Fine! Wonderful! A miracle of decline. Bandini, I congratulate you! You have performed a miracle here. You have sped up the eternal laws and hurried the return to the source. Good for you, Bandini! Wonderful work. Potent. A veritable god, a mighty superman; a master of life and letters.
I passed the Acme Poolhall, nearing the secondhand store. Tonight the store was open. The window was the same as that night three weeks ago, when she had peered into it, the woman with the purple coat. And there it was, the sign: Highest Prices Paid For Old Gold.
All of this from that night of so long ago, when I'd defeated Gooch in the half-mile and won so gloriously for America. And where was Gooch now, Sylvester Gooch, that mighty Dutchman? Dear old Gooch! Not soon would he forget Bandini. A great runner he was, almost equal to Bandini. What tales he would have for his grandchildren! When we met again in some other land we would talk of old times, Gooch and I. But where was he now, that streak of Dutch lightning? Doubtless back in Holland, tinkering with his windmills and tulips and wooden shoes, that mighty man, almost the equal of Bandini, waiting for death among sweet memories, waiting for Bandini.
But where was she - my woman of that bright night? Ah fog, lead me to her. I have much to forget. Make me like unto you, floating water, misty as the soul, and carry me to the arms of the woman with the white face. Highest Prices Paid For Old Gold.
Those words had gone deep into her eyes, deep into her nerves, deep into her brain, far into the blackness of her brain behind that white face. They had made a gash back there, a match streak of memory, a flare she would carry to the grave, an impression. Wonderful, wonderful, Bandini, how profoundly you see! How mysterious is your nearness to godliness. Such words, lovely words, beauty of language, deep in the temple of her mind.
And I see you now, you woman of that night — I see you in the sanctity of some dirty harbor bedroom flop-joint, with the mist outside, and you lying with legs loose and cold from the fog's lethal kisses, and hair smelling of blood, sweet as blood, your frayed and ripped hose hanging from a rickety chair beneath the cold yellow light of a single, spotted bulb, the odor of dust and wet leather spinning about, your tattered blue shoes tumbled sadly at the bedside, your face lined with the tiring misery of Woolworth defloration and exhausting poverty, your lips slutty, yet soft blue lips of beauty calling me to come come come to that miserable room and feast myself upon the decaying rapture of your form, that I might give you a twisting beauty for misery and a twisting beauty for cheapness, my beauty for yours, the light becoming blackness as we scream, our miserable love and farewell to the tortuous flickering of a gray dawn that refused to really begin and would never really have an ending.