South of No North Read online

  The next day my body was entirely blue. I couldn’t speak out of my lips or move any part of myself without pain. I was on the bed getting ready to die and my mother came in with the shirt I’d worn during the fight. She held it in front of my face over the bed and she said, “Look, you got bloodspots on this shirt! Bloodspots!”

  “Sorry!”

  “I’ll never get them out! NEVER!!”

  “They’re his bloodspots.”

  “It doesn’t matter! It’s blood! It doesn’t come out!”

  Sundays were our day, our quiet, easy day. We went to the Burbank. There was always a bad movie first. A very old movie, and you looked and waited. You were thinking of the girls. The three or four guys in the orchestra pit, they played loud, maybe they didn’t play too good but they played loud, and those strippers finally came out and grabbed the curtain, the edge of the curtain, and they grabbed that curtain like it was a man and shook their bodies and went bop bop bop against that curtain. Then they swung out and started to strip. If you had enough money there was even a bag of popcorn; if you didn’t to hell with it.

  Before the next act there was an intermission. A little man got up and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will let me have your kind attention…” He was selling peep-rings. In the glass of each ring, if you held it to the light there was a most wonderful picture. This was promised you! Each ring was only 50 cents, a lifetime possession for just 50 cents, made available only to the patrons of the Burbank and not sold anywhere else. “Just hold it up to the light and you will see! And, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention. Now the ushers will pass down the aisles among you.”

  Two ragass bums would proceed down the aisles smelling of muscatel, each carrying a bag of peep-rings. I never saw anybody purchase one of the rings. I imagine, though, if you had held one up to the light the picture in the glass would have been a naked woman.

  The band began again and the curtains opened and there was the chorus line, most of them former strippers gone old, heavy with mascara and rouge and lipstick, false eyelashes. They did their damndest to stay with the music but they were always a little behind. But they carried on; I thought they were very brave.

  Then came the male singer. It was very difficult to like the male singer. He sang too loud about love gone wrong. He didn’t know how to sing and when he finished he spread his arms, and bowed his head to the tiniest ripple of applause.

  Then came the comedian. Oh, he was good! He came out in an old brown overcoat, hat pulled down over his eyes, slouching and walking like a bum, a bum with nothing to do and no place to go. A girl would walk by on the stage and his eyes would follow her. Then he’d turn to the audience and say, out of his toothless mouth, “Well, I’ll be god damned!”

  Another girl would walk out on the stage and he’d walk up to her, put his face close to hers and say, “I’m an old man, I’m past 44 but when the bed breaks down I finish on the floor.” That did it. How we laughed! The young guys and the old guys, how we laughed. And there was the suitcase routine. He’s trying to help some girl pack her suitcase. The clothes keep popping out.

  “I can’t get it in!”

  “Here let me help you!”

  “It popped out again!”

  “Wait! I’ll stand on it!”

  “What? Oh no, you’re not going to stand on it!”

  They went on and on with the suitcase routine. Oh, he was funny!

  Finally the first three or four strippers came out again. We each had our favorite stripper and we each were in love. Baldy had chosen a thin French girl with asthma and dark pouches under her eyes. Jimmy liked the Tiger Woman (properly The Tigress). I pointed out to Jimmy the Tiger Woman definitely had one breast larger than the other. Mine was Rosalie.

  Rosalie had a large ass and she shook it and shook it and sang funny little songs, and as she walked about stripping she talked to herself and giggled. She was the only one who really enjoyed her work. I was in love with Rosalie. I often thought of writing her and telling her how great she was but somehow I never got around to it.

  One afternoon we were waiting for the streetcar after the show and there was the Tiger Woman waiting for the streetcar too. She was dressed in a tight-fitting green dress and we stood there looking at her.

  “It’s your girl, Jimmy, it’s the Tiger Woman.”

  “Boy, she’s got it! Look at her!”

  “I’m going to talk to her,” said Baldy.

  “It’s Jimmy’s girl.”

  “I don’t want to talk to her,” said Jimmy.

  “I’m going to talk to her,” said Baldy. He put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and walked up to her.

  “Hi ya, baby!” he grinned at her.

  The Tiger Woman didn’t answer. She just stared straight ahead waiting for the streetcar.

  “I know who you are. I saw you strip today. You’ve got it, baby, you’ve really got it!”

  The Tiger Woman didn’t answer.

  “You really shake it, my god, you really shake it!”

  The Tiger Woman stared straight ahead. Baldy stood there grinning like an idiot at her. “I’d like to put it to you. I’d like to fuck you, baby!”

  We walked up and pulled Baldy away. We walked him down the street. “You asshole, you have no right to talk to her that way!”

  “Well, she gets up and shakes it, she gets up in front of men and shakes it!”

  “She’s just trying to make a living.”

  “She’s hot, she’s red hot, she wants it!”

  “You’re crazy.”

  We walked him down the street.

  Not long after that I began to lose interest in those Sundays on Main Street. I suppose the Follies and the Burbank are still there. Of course, the Tiger Woman and the stripper with asthma, and Rosalie, my Rosalie are long gone. Probably dead. Rosalie’s big shaking ass is probably dead. And when I’m in my neighborhood, I drive past the house I used to live in and there are strangers living there. Those Sundays were good, though, most of those Sundays were good, a tiny light in the dark depression days when our fathers walked the front porches, jobless and impotent and glanced at us beating the shit out of each other, then went inside and stared at the walls, afraid to play the radio because of the electric bill.

  YOU AND YOUR BEER AND HOW GREAT YOU ARE

  Jack came through the door and found the pack of cigarettes on the mantle. Ann was on the couch reading a copy of Cosmopolitan. Jack lit up, sat down in a chair. It was ten minutes to midnight.

  “Charley told you not to smoke,” said Ann, looking up from the magazine.

  “I deserve it. It was a rough one tonight.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Split decision but I got it. Benson was a tough boy, lots of guts. Charley says Parvinelli is next. We get over Parvinelli, we get the champ.”

  Jack got up, went to the kitchen, came back with a bottle of beer.

  “Charley told me to keep you off the beer,” Ann put the magazine down.

  “‘Charley told me, Charley told me’…I’m tired of that. I won my fight. I won 16 straight, I got a right to a beer and a cigarette.”

  “You’re supposed to stay in shape.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can whip any of them.”

  “You’re so great, I keep hearing it when you get drunk, you’re so great. I get sick of it.”

  “I am great. 16 straight, 15 k.o.’s. Who’s better?”

  Ann didn’t answer. Jack took his bottle of beer and his cigarette into the bathroom.

  “You didn’t even kiss me hello. The first thing you did was go to your bottle of beer. You’re so great, all right. You’re a great beer-drinker.”

  Jack didn’t answer. Five minutes later he stood in the bathroom door, his pants and shorts down around his shoes.

  “Jesus Christ, Ann, can’t you even keep a roll of toilet paper in here?”

  “Sorry.”

  She went to the closet and got him the roll. Jack finished his busin
ess and walked out. Then he finished his beer and got another one. “Here you are living with the best light-heavy in the world and all you do is complain. Lots of girls would love to have me but all you do is sit around and bitch.”

  “I know you’re good, Jack, maybe the best, but you don’t know how boring it is to sit around and listen to you say over and over again how great you are.”

  “Oh, you’re bored with it, are you?”

  “Yes, god damn it, you and your beer and how great you are.”

  “Name a better light-heavy. You don’t even come to my fights.”

  “There are other things besides fighting, Jack.”

  “What? Like laying around on your ass and reading Cosmopolitan?”

  “I like to improve my mind.”

  “You ought to. There’s a lot of work to be done there.”

  “I tell you there are other things besides fighting.”

  “What? Name them.”

  “Well, art, music, painting, things like that.”

  “Are you any good at them?”

  “No, but I appreciate them.”

  “Shit, I’d rather be best at what I’m doing.”

  “Good, better, best…God, can’t you appreciate people for what they are?”

  “For what they are? What are most of them? Snails, bloodsuckers, dandies, finks, pimps, servants…”

  “You’re always looking down on everybody. None of your friends are good enough. You’re so damned great!”

  “That’s right, baby.”

  Jack walked into the kitchen and came out with another beer.

  “You and your god damned beer!”

  “It’s my right. They sell it. I buy it.”

  “Charley said…”

  “Fuck Charley!”

  “You’re so god damned great!”

  “That’s right. At least Pattie knew it. She admitted it. She was proud of it. She knew it took something. All you do is bitch.”

  “Well, why don’t you go back to Pattie? What are you doing with me?”

  “That’s just what I’m thinking.”

  “Well, we’re not married, I can leave any time.”

  “That’s one break we’ve got. Shit, I come in here dead-ass tired after a tough ten rounder and you’re not even glad I took it. All you do is complain about me.”

  “Listen, Jack, there are other things besides fighting. When I met you, I admired you for what you were.”

  “I was a fighter. There aren’t any other things besides fighting. That’s what I am—a fighter. That’s my life, and I’m good at it. The best. I notice you always go for those second raters…like Toby Jorgenson.”

  “Toby’s very funny. He’s got a sense of humor, a real sense of humor. I like Toby.”

  “His record is 9, 5, and one. I can take him when I’m dead drunk.”

  “And god knows you’re dead drunk often enough. How do you think I feel at parties when you’re laying on the floor passed out, or lolling around the room telling everybody, ‘I’M GREAT, I’M GREAT, I’M GREAT!’ Don’t you think that makes me feel like an ass?”

  “Maybe you are an ass. If you like Toby so much, why don’t you go with him?”

  “Oh, I just said I liked him, I thought he was funny, that doesn’t mean I want to go to bed with him.”

  “Well, you go to bed with me and you say I’m boring. I don’t know what the hell you want.”

  Ann didn’t answer. Jack got up, walked over to the couch, lifted Ann’s head and kissed her, walked back and sat down again.

  “Listen, let me tell you about this fight with Benson. Even you would have been proud of me. He decks me in the first round, a sneak right. I get up and hold him off the rest of the round. He plants me again in the second. I barely get up at 8. I hold him off again. The next few rounds I spend getting my legs back. I take the 6th, 7th, 8th, deck him once in the 9th and twice in the 10th. I don’t call that a split. They called it a split. Well, it’s 45 grand, you get that, kid? 45 grand. I’m great, you can’t deny I’m great, can you?”

  Ann didn’t answer.

  “Come on, tell me I’m great.”

  “All right, you’re great.”

  “Well, that’s more like it.” Jack walked over and kissed her again. “I feel so good. Boxing is a work of art, it really is. It takes guts to be a great artist and it takes guts to be a great fighter.”

  “All right, Jack.”

  “‘All right, Jack,’ is that all you can say? Pattie used to be happy when I won. We were both happy all night. Can’t you share it when I do something good? Hell, are you in love with me or are you in love with the losers, the half-asses? I think you’d be happier if I came in here a loser.”

  “I want you to win, Jack, it’s only that you put so much emphasis on what you do…”

  “Hell, it’s my living, it’s my life. I’m proud of being best. It’s like flying, it’s like flying off into the sky and whipping the sun.”

  “What are you going to do when you can’t fight anymore?”

  “Hell, we’ll have enough money to do whatever we want.”

  “Except get along, maybe.”

  “Maybe I can learn to read Cosmopolitan, improve my mind.”

  “Well, there’s room for improvement.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Well, that’s something you haven’t done in a while.”

  “Some guys like to fuck bitching women, I don’t.”

  “I suppose Pattie didn’t bitch?”

  “All women bitch, you’re the champ.”

  “Well, why don’t you go back to Pattie?”

  “You’re here now. I can only house one whore at a time.”

  “Whore?”

  “Whore.”

  Ann got up and went to the closet, got out her suitcase and began putting her clothes in there. Jack went to the kitchen and got another bottle of beer. Ann was crying and angry. Jack sat down with his beer and took a good drain. He needed a whiskey, he needed a bottle of whiskey. And a good cigar.

  “I can come pick up the rest of my stuff when you’re not around.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll have it sent to you.”

  She stopped at the doorway.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” she said.

  “I suppose it is,” Jack answered.

  She closed the door and was gone. Standard procedure. Jack finished the beer and went over to the telephone. He dialed Pattie’s number. She answered.

  “Pattie?”

  “Oh, Jack, how are you?”

  “I won the big one tonight. A split. All I got to do is get over Parvinelli and I got the champ.”

  “You’ll whip both of them, Jack. I know you can do it.”

  “What are you doing tonight, Pattie?”

  “It’s 1:00 a.m. Jack. Have you been drinking?”

  “A few. I’m celebrating.”

  “How about Ann?”

  “We split. I only play one woman at a time, you know that Pattie.”

  “Jack…”

  “What?”

  “I’m with a guy.”

  “A guy?”

  “Toby Jorgenson. He’s in the bedroom…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Jack, I loved you…maybe I still do.”

  “Oh, shit, you women really throw that word around…”

  “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  “It’s o.k.” He hung up. Then he went to the closet for his coat. He put it on, finished the beer, went down the elevator to his car. He drove straight up Normandie at 65 m.p.h., pulled into the liquor store on Hollywood Boulevard. He got out and walked in. He got a six-pack of Michelob, a pack of Alka-Seltzers. Then at the counter he asked the clerk for a fifth of Jack Daniels. While the clerk was tabbing them up a drunk walked up with two six-packs of Coors.

  “Hey, man!” he said to Jack, “ain’t you Jack Backenweld, the fighter?”

  “
I am,” answered Jack.

  “Man, I saw that fight tonight, Jack, you’re all guts. You’re really great!”

  “Thanks, man,” he told the drunk, and then he took his sack of goods and walked to his car. He sat there, took the cap off the Daniels and had a good slug. Then he backed out, ran west down Hollywood, took a left at Normandie and noticed a well-built teenage girl staggering down the street. He stopped his car, lifted the fifth out of the bag and showed it to her.

  “Want a ride?”

  Jack was surprised when she got in. “I’ll help you drink that, mister, but no fringe benefits.”

  “Hell, no” said Jack.

  He drove down Normandie at 35 m.p.h., a self-respecting citizen and third ranked light-heavy in the world. For a moment he felt like telling her who she was riding with but he changed his mind and reached over and squeezed one of her knees.

  “You got a cigarette, mister?” she asked.

  He flicked one out with his hand, pushed in the dash lighter. It jumped out and he lit her up.

  NO WAY TO PARADISE

  I was sitting in a bar on Western Ave. It was around midnight and I was in my usual confused state. I mean, you know, nothing works right: the women, the jobs, the no jobs, the weather, the dogs. Finally you just sit in a kind of stricken state and wait like you’re on the bus stop bench waiting for death.

  Well, I was sitting there and here comes this one with long dark hair, a good body, sad brown eyes. I didn’t turn on for her. I ignored her even though she had taken the stool next to mine when there were a dozen other empty seats. In fact, we were the only ones in the bar except for the bartender. She ordered a dry wine. Then she asked me what I was drinking.

  “Scotch and water.”

  “Give him a scotch and water,” she told the barkeep.

  Well, that was unusual.

  She opened her purse, removed a small wire cage and took some little people out and sat them on the bar. They were all around three inches tall and they were alive and properly dressed. There were four of them, two men and two women.