“I’m sure you have a nice daughter.”
“Yes, she is nice, really.” Vi put the photo back and went into the kitchen. The eternal photo! Women with their photos. It was the same over and over and over again. Vi stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Don’t drink too much now! You know what we have to do!”
“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll have something for you. Meanwhile, bring me a drink! I’ve had a hard day. Half scotch, half water.”
“Get your own drink, bigshot.” I turned my chair around, flicked on the t.v. “You want another good day at the track, woman, you better
bring Mr. Bigshot a drink. And I mean now!”
Vi had finally bet my horse in the last race. It was a 5/1 shot who hadn’t shown a decent race in 2 years. I bet it merely because it was 5/1 when it should have been 20. The horse had won by 6 lengths, eased up. They had that baby fixed from ass-hole to nostril. I looked up and here was a hand with a drink reaching over my shoulder.
“Thanks, baby.”
“Yes, master,” she laughed.
13
In bed I had something in front of me but I couldn’t do anything with it. I whaled and I whaled and I whaled. Vi was very patient. I kept striving and banging but I’d had too much to drink.
“Sorry, baby,” I said. Then I rolled off. And went to sleep.
Then something awakened me. It was Vi. She had stoked me up and was riding topside. “Go, baby, go!” I told her. I arched my back now and then. She looked down at me with
little greedy eyes. I was being raped by a high yellow enchantress! For a moment, it excited me. Then I told her. “Shit. Get down, baby. It’s been a long hard day. There will be a better time.” She climbed off. The thing went down like an express elevator.
14
In the morning I heard her walking around. She walked and she walked and she walked. It was about 10:30 a.m. I was sick. I didn’t want to face her. 15 more minutes. Then I’d get out. She shook me. “Listen, I want you to get out of here before my girlfriend shows!”
“So what? I’ll screw her too.”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “yeah.”
I got up. Coughed, gagged. Slowly got into my clothes.
“You make me feel like a wash-out,” I told her. “I
I finally got dressed. I went to the bathroom and threw some water on my face, combed my hair. If I could only comb that face, I thought, but I can’t.
I came out.
“Vi.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be too pissed. It wasn’t you. It was the booze. It has happened before.”
“All right, then, you shouldn’t drink so much. No woman likes to come in second to a bottle.”
“Why don’t you bet me to place then?”
“Oh, stop it!”
“Listen, you need any money, babe?”
I reached into my wallet and took out a twenty. I handed it to her.
“My, you
Her hand touched my cheek, she kissed me gently along the side of the mouth.
“Drive carefully now.”
“Sure, babe.”
I drove carefully all the way to the racetrack.
15
They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor.
“Let me see how you look, Chinaski.”
He looked at me.
“Ow! You look bad. I better take a pill.”
Sure enough, he opened a bottle and took one.
“All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know where you’ve been the last two days?”
“Mourning.”
“Mourning? Mourning about what?”
“Funeral. Old friend. One day to pack in the stiff. One day to mourn.”
“But you didn’t phone in, Mr. Chinaski.”
“Yeh.”
“And I want to tell you something, Chinaski, off the record.”
“All right.”
“When you don’t phone in, you know what you are saying?”
“No.”
“Mr. Chinaski, you are saying, ‘Fuck the post office!’ ”
“I am?”
“And, Mr. Chinaski, you know what that means?”
“No, what does it mean?”
“That means, Mr. Chinaski, that the post office is going to fuck
“Don’t get fresh, Henry. I can make it tough on you.”
“Please address me by my full name, sir. I ask for a simple bit of respect from you.”
“You ask respect for me but…”
“That’s right. We know where you park, Mr. Feathers.”
“What? Is that a threat?”
“The blacks love me here, Feathers. I have fooled them.”
“The blacks love you?”
“They give me water. I even fuck their women. Or try to.”
“All right. This is getting out of hand. Please report back to your assignment.”
He handed me my travel slip. He was worried, poor fellow. I hadn’t fooled the blacks. I hadn’t fooled anybody but Feathers. But you couldn’t blame him for worrying. One supervisor had been pushed down the stairway. Another slashed across the ass. Another knifed in the belly as he was waiting in the crosswalk for the signal to change at 3 a.m. Right in front of the central post office. We never saw him again.
Feathers, soon after I spoke to him, bid out of the central office. I don’t know exactly where he went. But it was out of the central office.
