15
I was half asleep in a chair, waiting for a meal.
I got up for a glass of water and as I walked into the kitchen I saw Picasso walk up to Joyce and lick her ankle. I was barefooted and she didn’t hear me. She had on high heels. She looked at him and her face was pure smalltown hatred, white hot. She kicked him hard in the side with the point of her shoe. The poor fellow just ran in little circles, whimpering. Piss dripped from his bladder. I walked in for my glass of water. I held the glass in my hand and then before I could get the water into it I threw the glass at the cupboard to the left of the sink. Glass went everywhere. Joyce had time to cover her face. I didn’t bother. I picked up the dog and walked out. I sat in the chair with him and petted the little shitsnot. He looked up at me and his tongue came out and licked my wrist. His tail wagged and flapped like a fish dying in a sack.
I saw Joyce on her knees with a paper sack, gathering glass. Then she began to sob. She tried to hide it. She turned her back to me but I could see the jolts of it, shaking her, tearing her.
I put Picasso down and walked into the kitchen.
“Baby. Baby,
I picked her up from behind. She was limp.
“Baby, I’m sorry… I’m
I held her up against me, my hand flat on her belly. I rubbed her belly easily and gently, trying to stop the convulsions.
“Easy, baby, easy now. Easy…”
She quieted a little. I pulled her hair back and kissed her behind the ear. It was warm back there. She jerked her head away. The next time I kissed her there she didn’t jerk her head away. I could feel her inhale, then she let out a little moan. I picked her up and carried her to the other room, sat down in a chair with her in my lap. She wouldn’t look at me. I kissed her throat and ears. One hand around her shoulders and the other above the hip. I moved the hand above her hip up and down with her breathing, trying to work the bad electricity out.
Finally, with the faintest of smiles, she looked at me. I reached out and bit the point of her chin.
“Crazy bitch!” I said.
She laughed and then we kissed, our heads moving back and forth. She began to sob again. I pulled back and said, “DON’T!” We kissed again. Then I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, placed her on the bed, got my pants and shorts and shoes off
She didn’t come back. She went into the kitchen and began washing dishes and singing.
For Christ’s sake, Steve McQueen couldn’t have done better.
I had two Picassos on my hands.
16
After dinner or lunch or whatever it was—with my crazy 12 hour night I was no longer sure what was what —I said, “Look, baby, I’m sorry, but don’t you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let’s give it up. Let’s just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let’s go to the zoo. Let’s look at animals. Let’s drive down and look at the ocean. It’s only 45 minutes. Let’s play games in the arcades. Let’s go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let’s have friends. Let’s laugh. This kind of life is like everybody else’s kind of life: it’s killing us.”
“No, Hank, we’ve got to show them, we’ve got to show them…”
It was the little smalltown Texas girl speaking.
I gave it up.
17
Each night as I got ready to go on in, Joyce had my clothing laid out on the bed. Everything was the most expensive money could buy. I never wore the same pair of pants, the same shirt, the same shoes two nights in a row. There were dozens of different outfits. I put on whatever she laid out for me. Just like mama used to do.
I haven’t come very far, I thought, and then I’d put the stuff on.
18
They had this thing called Training Class, and so for 30 minutes each night, anyhow, we didn’t have to stick mail. A big Italiano got up on the lecture platform to tell us where it was. “…now there’s nothing like the smell of good clean sweat but there’s nothing worse than the smell of stale sweat…”
Good god, I thought, am I hearing right? This thing is government sanctioned, surely. This big oaf is telling me to wash under the armpits. They wouldn’t do this to an engineer or a concert-master. He’s downgrading us.
“…so take a bath everyday. You will be graded upon appearance as well as production.” I think he wanted to use the word “hygienics” somewhere but it simply wasn’t in him.
Then he went to the back of the lecture platform and pulled down a big map. And I mean big. It covered half the stage. A light was shone upon the map. And the big Italiano took a pointer with the little rubber nipple on the end of it like they used in grammar school and he pointed to the map:
“Now, you see all this GREEN? Well, there’s a hell of a lot of it. Look!” He took the pointer and rubbed it back and forth along the green.
There was quite a bit more anti-Russian feeling then than there is now. China had not yet begun to flex her muscles. Vietnam was just a little firecracker party. But I still thought, I must be crazy! I can’t be hearing right? But nobody in the audience protested. They needed jobs. And according to Joyce, I needed a job.
Then he said, “Look here. That’s
“Yeah,” said some brainwash job in the front row.
The Italiano flipped the map. It leaped crisply up into itself, crackling in war fury.
Then he walked to the front of the stage, pointed his rubber-titted pointer at us.
“I want you to understand that we’ve got to hold down the budget! I want you to understand that EACH LETTER YOU STICK—EACH SECOND, EACH MINUTE, EACH HOUR, EACH DAY, EACH WEEK—EACH EXTRA LETTER YOU STICK BEYOND DUTY HELPS DEFEAT THE RUSSIANS! Now, that’s all for today. Before you leave, each of you will receive your scheme assignment.”
Scheme assignment. What was that?
Somebody came along handing out these sheets.
“Chinaski?” he said.
“Yeh?”
“You have zone 9.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I didn’t realize what I was saying. Zone 9 was the largest station in the city. Some guys got tiny zones. It was the same as the two foot tray in 23 minutes—they just rammed it into you.
