Love is a Dog from Hell (5 page)

 

these women are supposed to come

and see me

but they never

do.

there’s the one with the long scar along her

belly.

there’s the other who writes poems

and phones at 3 a.m., saying,

“I love you.”

there’s the one who dances with a

boa constrictor

and writes every four

weeks, she’ll

come, she says.

and the 4th who claims she sleeps

always

with my latest book

under her

pillow.

 

I whack-off in the heat

and listen to Brahms and eat

blue cheese with chili

peppers.

 

these are women of good mind and

body, excellent in or out of bed,

dangerous and deadly, of

course—

but why do they all have to live

up north?

 

I know that someday they’ll

arrive, but two or three

on the same day, and

we’ll sit around and talk

and then they’ll all leave

together.

 

somebody else will have them

and I will walk about

in my floppy shorts

smoking too many cigarettes

and trying to make drama

out of

no damned progress

at all.

 

I had worked my charms on her

for a couple of nights in a bar—

not that we were new lovers,

I had loved her for 16 months

but she didn’t want to come to my place

“because that other woman has been there,”

and I said, “all right, all right, what will we do?”

 

she had come in from the north and was looking for a

place to stay

meanwhile rooming with her girlfriend,

and she went to her rent-a-trailer

and got out some blankets and said,

“let’s go to the park.”

I told her she was crazy

the cops would get us

but she said, “no, it’s nice and foggy,”

so we went to the park

spread out the equipment and began

working and here came headlights—

a squad car—

she said, “hurry, get your pants on! I’ve got mine

on!”

I said, “I can’t. they’re all twisted-up.”

and they came with flashlights

and asked what we were doing and she said,

“kissing!” one of the cops looked at me and

said, “I don’t blame you,” and after some small

talk they left us alone.

but she still didn’t want the bed where that woman

had been,

so we ended up in a dark hot motel room

sweating and kissing and working

but we made it all right; but I mean,

after all that suffering…

we were at my place finally

that next afternoon

doing the same thing.

 

those weren’t bad cops though

that night in the park—

and it’s the first time I ever said that

about cops,

and,

I hope,

the last time I ever have

to.

 

she lived in Galveston and was into

T.M.

and I went down to visit her and we made love

continually even though it was very warm

weather

and we took mescalin

and we took the ferry to the island

and drove 200 miles to the nearest

racetrack.

we both won and sat in a redneck bar—

disliked and distrusted by the natives—

and then we went to a redneck motel

and came back a day or two later

and I stayed another week

painted her a couple of good paintings—

one of a man being hanged

and another of a woman being fucked by a wolf.

I awakened one night and she wasn’t in bed

and I got up and walked around saying,

“Gloria, Gloria, where are you?”

it was a large place and I walked around

opening door after door,

and then I opened what looked like a closet door

and there she was on her knees

surrounded by photographs of

7 or 8 men

heads shaved

most of them wearing rimless spectacles.

there was a small candle burning

and I said, “oh, I’m sorry.”

Gloria was dressed in a kimono with flying

eagles on the back of it.

I closed the door and went back to bed.

she came out in 15 minutes.

we began kissing,

her large tongue sliding in and out of my

mouth.

she was a large healthy Texas girl.

“listen, Gloria,” I finally managed to say,

“I need a night off.”

 

the next day she drove me to the airport.

I promised to write. she promised to write.

neither of us has written.

 

I heard it first while screwing a blonde

who had the biggest box in

Scranton.

 

I listened to it again as I wrote a letter

to my mother

asking for 5,000 dollars

and she mailed back

3 bottletops and

the stems of grandpop’s

forefingers.

 

The 5th will kill you

in the grass or at the track,

the kitten said,

walking across the popinjay

rug.

 

if the 5th don’t kill you

the tenth will,

said the Caliente hooker.

as they ran up the

beautiful catsup red flag

93 thieves wept in the

purple dust.

 

the 5th is like an

ant in a breakfastnook full of

swaggersticks and

june bugs

sucking

dawn’s orange juice coming.

 

and I took the 3 bottletops from my

mother and

ate them

wrapped in pages from

Cosmopolitan

magazine.

 

but I
am
tired of the

5th

and I told this to a woman in

Ohio once. I

had just packed coal up 3 flights

of stairs

I was drunk and

dizzy, and she said:

 

      how can you say you don’t care

      for something greater than you’ll

      ever be?

 

and I said:

 

      that’s easy.

 

and she sat in a green chair and

I sat in a red chair

and after that

we never made love

again.

 

she cut my toenails the night before,

and in the morning she said, “I think I’ll

just lay here all day.”

which meant she wasn’t going to work.

she was at my apartment—which meant another

day and another night.

she was a good person

but she had just told me that she wanted to

have a child, wanted marriage, and

it was 103 degrees outside.

when I thought of
another
child and

another
marriage

I really began to feel bad.

I had resigned myself to dying alone

in a small room—

now she was trying to reshape my master plan.

besides she always slammed my car door too loud

and ate with her head too close to the table.

this day we had gone to the post office, a department

store and then to a sandwich place for lunch.

I already felt married. driving back in I almost

ran into a Cadillac.

“let’s get drunk,” I said.

“no, no,” she answered, “it’s too early.”

and then she slammed the car door.

it was still 103 degrees.

when I opened my mail I found my auto insurance

company wanted $76 more.

suddenly she ran into the room and screamed, “LOOK, I’M

TURNING RED! ALL BLOTCHY! WHAT’LL I DO!”

“take a bath,” I told her.

I dialed the insurance company long distance and

demanded to know why.

she began screaming and moaning from the

bathtub and I couldn’t hear and I said, “just a

moment, please!”

I covered the phone and screamed at her in the bathtub:

“LOOK! I’M ON LONG DISTANCE! HOLD IT DOWN, FOR CHRIST’S

SAKE!”

the insurance people still maintained that I owed them

$76 and would send me a letter explaining why.

I hung up and stretched out on the bed.

I was already married, I felt married.

she came out of the bathroom and said, “can I stretch out

beside you?”

and I said, “o.k.”

in ten minutes her color was normal.

It was because she had taken a niacin tablet.

she remembered that it happened every time.

we stretched out there sweating:

nerves. nobody has soul enough to overcome nerves.

but I couldn’t tell her that.

she wanted her baby.

what the fuck.

 

you go for these wenches, she said,

you go for these whores,

I’ll bore you.

 

I don’t want to be shit on anymore,

I said,

relax.

 

when I drink, she said, it hurts my

bladder, it burns.

 

I’ll do the drinking, I said.

 

you’re waiting for the phone to ring,

she said,

you keep looking at the phone.

if one of those wenches phones you’ll

run right out of here.

 

I can’t promise you anything, I said.

 

then—just like that—the phone rang.

 

this is Madge, said the phone. I’ve

got to see you right away.

 

oh, I said.

 

I’m in a jam, she continued, I need ten

bucks—fast.

 

I’ll be right over, I said, and

hung up.

 

she looked at me. it was a wench,

she said, your whole face lit up.

what the hell’s the matter with

you?

 

listen, I said, I’ve got to leave.

you stay here. I’ll be right back.

 

I’m going, she said. I love you but you’re

crazy, you’re doomed.

 

she got her purse and slammed the door.

 

it’s probably some deeply-rooted childhood fuckup

that makes me vulnerable, I thought.

 

then I left my place and got into my volks.

I drove north up Western with the radio on.

there were whores walking up and down

both sides of the street and Madge looked

more vicious than any of them.