1
I was 50 years old and hadnāt been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a womanāeven on non-sexual termsāwas beyond my imagination. I had a 6 year old daughter born out of wedlock. She lived with her mother and I paid child support. I had been married years before at the age of 35. That marriage lasted two and one half years. My wife divorced me. I had been in love only once. She had died of acute alcoholism. She died at 48 when I was 38. My wife had been 12 years younger than I. I believe that she too is dead now, although Iām not sure. She wrote me a long letter each Christmas for 6 years after the divorce. I never respondedā¦.
The owners of the court where I then lived, who lived in the back, thought I was crazy. Each morning when I awakened there would be a large brown paper bag on the porch. The contents varied but mostly the bags contained tomatoes, radishes, oranges, green onions, cans of soup, red onions. I drank beer with them every other night until 4 or 5 AM. The old man would pass out and the old lady and I would hold hands and Iād kiss her now and then. I always gave her a big one at the door. She was terribly wrinkled but she couldnāt help that. She was Catholic and looked cute when she put on her pink hat and went to church on Sunday morning.
I read 30 minutes then called a break. I was still sober and I could feel the eyes staring at me from out of the dark. A few people came up and talked to me. Then during a lull Lydia Vance walked up. I was sitting at a table drinking beer. She put both hands on the edge of the table, bent over and looked at me. She had long brown hair, quite long, a prominent nose, and one eye didnāt quite match the other. But she projected vitalityāyou knew that she was there. I could feel vibrations running between us. Some of the vibrations were confused and were not good but they were there. She looked at me and I looked back. Lydia Vance had on a suede cowgirl jacket with a fringe around the neck. Her breasts were good. I told her, āIād like to rip that fringe off your jacketāwe could begin there!ā Lydia walked off. It hadnāt worked. I never knew what to say to the ladies. But she had a behind. I watched that beautiful behind as she walked away. The seat of her bluejeans cradled it and I watched it as she walked away.
I finished the second half of the reading and forgot about Lydia just as I forgot about the women I passed on the sidewalks. I took my money, signed some napkins, some pieces of paper, then left, and drove back home.
Lydia jumped up on the coffee table. Her bluejeans fit tighter than ever. She flung her long brown hair from side to side. She was insane; she was miraculous. For the first time I considered the possibility of actually making love to her. She began reciting poetry. Her own. It was very bad. Peter tried to stop her, āNo! No! No rhyming poetry in Henry Chinaskiās house!ā
āLet her go, Peter!ā
I wanted to watch her buttocks. She strode up and down that old coffee table. Then she danced. She waved her arms. The poetry was terrible, the body and the madness werenāt.
Lydia jumped down.
āHowād you like it, Henry?ā
āWhat?ā
āThe poetry.ā
āHardly.ā
Lydia stood there with her sheets of poetry in her hand. Peter grabbed her. āLetās fuck!ā he said to her. āCome on, letās fuck!ā She pushed him off.
āAll right,ā Peter said. āThen Iām leaving!ā
āSo leave. Iāve got my car,ā Lydia said. āI can get back to my place.ā
Peter ran to the door. He stopped and turned. āAll right, Chinaski! Donāt forget what I brought you!ā
He slammed the door and was gone. Lydia sat down on the couch, near the door. I sat about a foot away from her. I looked at her. She looked marvelous. I was afraid. I reached out and touched her long hair. The hair was magic. I pulled my hand away. āIs all that hair really yours?ā I asked. I knew it was. āYes,ā she said, āit is.ā I put my hand under her chin and very awkwardly I tried to turn her head toward mine. I was not confident in these situations. I kissed her lightly.
Lydia jumped up. āIāve got to go. Iām paying a baby sitter.ā
āLook,ā I said, āstay. Iāll pay. Just stay a while.ā
āNo, I canāt,ā she said, āIāve got to go.ā
She walked to the door. I followed her. She opened the door. Then she turned. I reached for her one last time. She lifted up her face and gave me the tiniest kiss. Then she pulled away and put some typed papers in my hand. The door closed. I sat on the couch with the papers in my hand and listened to her car start.
2
A day or so later I got a poem in the mail from Lydia. It was a long poem and it began:
Come out, old troll,
Come out of your dark hole, old troll,
Come out into the sunlight with us and
Let us put daisies in your hair ā¦
The poem went on to tell me how good it would feel to dance in the fields with female fawn creatures who would bring me joy and true knowledge. I put the letter in a dresser drawer.
āGo away,ā I said.
āItās Lydia.ā
āAll right. Wait a minute.ā
I put on a shirt and some pants and opened the door. Then I ran to the bathroom and vomited. I tried to brush my teeth but only vomited againāthe sweetness of the toothpaste turned my stomach. I came out.
āYouāre sick,ā Lydia said. āDo you want me to leave?ā
āOh no, Iām all right. I always wake up like this.ā
Lydia looked good. The light came through the curtains and shone on her. She had an orange in her hand and was tossing it into the air. The orange spun through the sunlit morning.
āI canāt stay,ā she said, ābut I want to ask you something.ā
āSure.ā
āIām a sculptress. I want to sculpt your head.ā
āAll right.ā
āYouāll have to come to my place. I donāt have a studio. Weāll have to do it at my place. That wonāt make you nervous, will it?ā
āNo.ā
I wrote down her address, and instructions how to get there.
āTry to show up by eleven in the morning. The kids come home from school in mid-afternoon and itās distracting.ā
āIāll be there at eleven,ā I told her.
āAre your parents still alive?ā
āNo.ā
āYou like L.A.?ā
āItās my favorite city.ā
āWhy do you write about women the way you do?ā
āLike what?ā
āYou know.ā
āNo, I donāt.ā
āWell, I think itās a damned shame that a man who writes as well as you do just doesnāt know anything about women.ā
I didnāt answer.
āDamn it! What did Lisa do with ā¦?ā She began searching the room. āOh, little girls who run off with their motherās tools!ā
Lydia found another one. āIāll make this one do. Hold still now, relax but hold still.ā
I was facing her. She worked at the mound of clay with a wooden tool tipped with a loop of wire. She waved the tool at me over the mound of clay. I watched her. Her eyes looked at me.
They were large, dark brown. Even her bad eye, the one that didnāt quite match the other, looked good. I looked back. Lydia worked. Time passed. I was in a trance. Then she said, āHow about a break? Care for a beer?ā
āFine. Yes.ā
When she got up to go to the refrigerator I followed her. She got the bottle out and closed the door. As she turned I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to me. I put my mouth and body against hers. She held the beer bottle out at armās length with one hand. I kissed her. I kissed her again. Lydia pushed me away.
āAll right,ā she said, āenough. We have work to do.ā
āThis is my sister, Glendoline.ā
āHi.ā
Glendoline pulled up a chair and started talking. She could talk. If she was a sphinx she could have talked, if she was a stone she could have talked. I wondered when sheād get tired and leave. Even after I stopped listening it was like being battered with tiny pingpong balls. Glendoline had no concept of time or any idea that she might be intruding. She talked on and on.
āListen,ā I said finally, āwhen are you going to leave?ā
Then a sister act began. They began talking to each other. They were both standing up, waving their arms at each other. The voices pitched higher. They threatened each other with physical harm. At lastānear the worldās endāGlendoline did a gigantic twist of torso and flung herself out of the doorway through the l...