Dreams From Bunker Hill

by John Fante

  “You like spaghett’?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I fix.”

  Next day he heard my typewriter and came inside again. He sat there watching me rattle the keys.

  “What you write now?”

  “Letter.”

  “You write poetry?”

  “Any time.”

  “How much for one poetry?”

  I looked at him. I really didn’t like him very much. He had handled me badly the day before. And there was this insolent smile, and his preposterous title. He was stupid and I would use it against him.

  “Ten dollars,” I said. “Ten dollars for ten lines. What do you want me to write about?”

  “I have woman in Lompoc. She like poetry.”

  “Love?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I turned to the typewriter, wrenched myself into a poetic mood, and began to peck away:

  O paramour of New Hebrides

  Beseech me not to deride thy trust.

  Love’s a strophe amid the bloom of lost heavens.

  Bring me the weal and woe of scattered dreams.

  My heart lusts for fin de siècle,

  That vision of beleaguered days.

  Want not, oh love! Look to the bastions!

  Flee the scoundrel, grant mercy only to love,

  And when the bounty is sated in reparation

  Believe what is in my heart.

  I cleared my throat and read it to the Duke.

  “She’sa beautiful,” he said. “I take. Give me pencil.”

  I handed him a pencil. He spread out the page of poetry and signed it below the bottom line. It read: “Mario, Duke of Sardinia.”

  “You have envelope?” he asked.

  I took one from the desk and rolled it into the typewriter. “Send to Jenny Palladino, 121 Celery Avenue, Lompoc.”

  I typed it out and he went away.

  At supper time he returned with a tureen of cooked white spaghetti. I rolled a forkful of the pasta and put it in my mouth. It was terrifying—a sauce of garlic, onions, and hot peppers. It simply would not go down. I leaped for a bottle of wine. The Duke laughed.

  “Make you strong,” he said, “be a man.”

  But I couldn’t eat it. He took the plate from me and ate methodically, down to the last white strand. I poured us glasses of wine, and lit a cigarette.

  “How about some more poetry?”

  He shrugged. “One more—maybe.”

  I turned to my typewriter and wrote effortlessly, ten lines. The Duke watched with folded arms.

  “Want to hear it?” I asked.

  “Sure—I listen.”

  I read:

  O tumbrels in the night past the lugubrious sea,

  Mute birds ride thy salt-soaked wheels.

  Heaviness brings the clouds down to earth,

  Seeking the tracks of the wheels.

  Gulls cry, fish leap, the moon appears.

  Where are the children?

  What happened to the children?

  My love is away, and the children are gone.

  A dark boat passes on the horizon.

  What has happened here?

  The Duke lifted the poem from my hand and curled his lip dubiously.

  “You don’t like it?” I asked.

  “I give you seven dollars.”

  I snatched the poem from his hand. “No deal. It’s a good poem. One of my best. Don’t chisel me. If you don’t like it, say so.”

  He sighed. “Putum in the mailbox.” He meant the envelope.

  He dug a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a ten spot. I thanked him for it and put it away. Turning to the typewriter I said:

  “Now I’m going to give you a little bonus, Duke. Something you’ll really appreciate.” I began to type out my favorite sonnet from Rupert Brooke, The Hill:

  Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,

  Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

  You said, “Through glory and ecstasy we pass;

  Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,

  When we are old, are old….” “And when we die

  All’s over that is ours; and life burns on

  Through other lovers, other lips,” said I,

  “Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!”

  “We are Earth’s best, that learnt her lesson here.

  Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!” we said;

  “We shall go down with unreluctant tread

  Rose-crowned into the darkness!…” Proud we were,

  And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.

  And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

  As I finished reading it, his mouth was curled in annoyance, and he snatched the paper from my hand, studying it, glaring at it, half crumpled in his fist.

  “Steenk!” he exclaimed, crushing the page into a ball, and throwing it on the floor. He was a very short man, but as he got to his feet he took on the enormity of a great turtle. Suddenly his hands were under my armpits and I was lifted toward the ceiling, and shaken violently. His livid face and smoldering dark eyes looked up at me.

  “Nobody cheat Duke of Sardinia. Capeesh?” His fingers opened and I dropped heavily into my chair. As he left, the crushed ball of paper lay in his way. He gave it a violent kick and walked out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Every day the Duke pulled his wagon of sand a mile up the beach to the cannery and back. One afternoon I timed him. It took two hours. He always returned in the same state of exhaustion, falling flat on his face in the sand. I wanted to be friends. I smiled, said “Hi,” but he was still offended, until one afternoon, sweat pouring from him, he said:

  “Tomorrow I fight. Olympic Auditorium. You come.” I was startled, about to say something, but he grabbed my jaw. “Tomorrow! Understand?”

  I shook my head. “Who you fighting, Duke?”

  “Animal,” he said. “Name of Richard Lionheart.”

  “Is he good?”

  “He’sa good. I kill him anyway.”

  He trudged toward the water and dove in, happy as a porpoise. I had no desire to go to his wrestling match. The more I thought of it the more I resented him, but there was a simple way out of the matter. I would get into my car and drive into Wilmington and go to a movie. He came dripping out of the water and towelled himself on the porch.

  “We take my car tomorrow,” he said. “Leave six o’clock. Be ready.” He went into his house.

  I didn’t want any part of his goddamned fight, and I resolved not to go. All that day I sat about nurturing my resolve not to go with him, and by bedtime I had worked myself into such a frenzied protest that sleep was impossible. All night I rolled and tossed. At two in the morning I could stand it no more, and I got up and dressed quietly. On tiptoe I walked to the door and went outside, careful not to produce a loud squeal in the screendoor. Quietly I crossed to my car and slipped behind the wheel. As I turned the starter key a hand clutched me by the throat. There stood the Duke.

  “Where you go?” he asked.

  “To get a candy bar,” I improvised.

  “Too late for candy bar,” he said. “Go to bed.”

  I got out of the car and walked back to the house. He followed me like a tireless cop. I slammed the front door and locked it. I was so mad I wanted to kill him. I threw open the front door and yelled at him:

  “Fuck you, you no good peasant wop! I hate your guts! I’m not coming to your fight tomorrow—not even to see your head knocked off! You’re scum! You’re a fake and a farce and a scum! You know how dumb you are? You’re so dumb you didn’t even like a Rupert Brooke poem. I fooled you, you ignoramus. Pure Brooke, and you didn’t like it!”

  I slammed the door, locked it, and went to bed.

  Next morning I found him sitting on my front porch. He stared at me with contrite eyes.

  “You mad?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You ar
e my friend. I like you.”

  “I like you too.”

  “I go alone to fight.”

  “Is it so important?”

  “The fans don’t like me. I need someone in my corner.”

  I sighed. “Okay, Duke. I’ll go with you.”

  He crossed to me and put his hand over the back of my neck and shook me gently. “Grazie,” he smiled.

  The papers said the wrestling matches that Thursday night attracted five thousand people. The Duke of Sardinia was right—everyone in the place with the exception of myself hated him. From the moment we got out of his car in the parking lot and walked toward the Olympic Auditorium, he gathered an increaingly hostile crowd. They were Mexicans, blacks, and gringos, heckling him, throwing things at him, calling him obscene names. I walked beside him and felt the breaking waves of hate.

  As we entered a side door reserved for fighters, a huge black man loomed before us and flung a lemon pie in the Duke’s face. It did not shame the Duke at all. Instead he charged like a terrier, throwing a scissors hold around the black man’s legs, and toppling him. Then the Duke sat on him and smeared the lemon pie from his own face to that of the black man. Instantly a crowd boiled up, tearing the two men apart. The police arrived, and whisked the Duke down the hall to the dressing room. The Duke was invigorated now, full of fight, ready for Richard Lionheart.

  At fight time I followed my gladiator into the arena and down the aisle to the ring. The hatred he generated entered my bones. I could not understand why the crowd disliked him so. Still, he need not have sneered so blatantly, or gestured back so obscenely. A woman leaped from her seat and slapped him in the face. The Duke sneered and spat at her. Several ushers gathered below ringside and protected him as he climbed into the ring. He walked about, shaking his fist, the crowd shrieked in rage, and again the onslaught of debris flung at him. The referee entered the ring and asked him to sit down. The Duke did so, and the scene quieted.

  After a moment or two a roar of approval rose from the throats of the crowd. There were whistles and cheers as Richard Lionheart appeared. He was garbed in a white silk robe. His shoes were a soft blue, and his lovely blond hair, carefully coiffured, hung down to his shoulders. He was beautiful, and the crowd adored him. He removed his white robe and revealed powder blue trunks. He bowed grandly to one and all. Then, quite ostentatiously, he knelt in the center of the ring, made the sign of the cross, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and prayed. Suddenly the Duke leaped from his corner and kicked out with both feet, knocking Richard flat on the canvas. The crowd was like a pack of lions. Things were hurled—things like chairs and bottles, fruit and tomatoes, and now I knew why everybody hated this man. He was the enemy.

  The drama was clear. The Duke could not win in this ring. He would dish out a lot of punishment, for he was the devil, but Richard Lionheart, blessed with purity, would conquer him in the end. It was what the crowd came to see and paid its money for.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The fight began with the two wrestlers facing one another in the center of the ring. The Duke was five feet two and weighed 235. Richard Lionheart was six feet eight and weighed 235. They moved about, sparring for a grip. Quickly, the Duke slipped between Lionheart’s legs and grasped the big man’s flowing coiffure. He went down like a ton of coal. The Duke leaped upon him, and managed a scissor hold around his neck. Lionheart kicked helplessly, his face turning blue. The crowd was on its feet, shrieking in rage. A woman climbed through the ropes and smacked the Duke in the face several times with her purse. The crowd cheered. Two other women scrambled into the ring, removed their shoes, and delivered a terrible pasting to the rugged Italiano, forcing him to break his scissor hold on Lionheart’s neck.

  The referee cleared the ring and the two wrestlers confronted one another again. This time Lionheart got the advantage, hoisting the Duke above his head and whirling him round and round, then hurling him violently to the canvas. The crowd shrieked with joy. The Duke lay still, seemingly unconscious. Lionheart picked him up, carried him to the edge of the ring and dropped him over the ropes and into the laps of three women. He seemed senseless, motionless. The women dumped him on the floor and stomped him. He rolled away from them, staggered to his feet, and climbed painfully back into the ring, his face covered with blood.

  The referee blew his whistle and helped the Duke into his corner. A doctor was called. He wiped the blood away, pronounced the Duke in good shape, and ordered the fight to continue. The Duke lumbered to his feet, but so stunned was he that he wandered about the ring in a daze. From across the ring Lionheart took dead aim and butted the Duke in the stomach. Down went the Duke again. Lionheart hurled himself on the prone body, seized the Duke’s foot and bent it backward in a frightening toehold. The crowd, fascinated, seemed to croon with pleasure. The referee bent down to determine if the Duke’s shoulders had touched the canvas. The triumphant Lionheart, still bending the Duke’s foot deep into the small of his back, waved at the crowd, and the crowd waved back. I was not worried about the Duke’s defeat so much as his death, for he was motionless, eyes closed, panting heavily.

  Suddenly he made his move, and his short thick arms thrust out toward Lionheart’s flowing locks. Horror transfixed the crowd. A roar of agony filled the auditorium, as the Duke’s hands formed two fistfuls of golden hair, and flung Lionheart aside. Grotesquely, like a crab righting himself, the Duke clung to the hair as he struggled to his feet. Women shrieked. Some wept as he pulled Lionheart about the ring by the hair.

  He varied his attack. Now he kicked Lionheart in the jaw. Now he sat on his face and bounced his body mercilessly, laughing at the crowd, jeering at their protests. Then he had Lionheart on his back, his shoulders perilously close to the canvas. Suddenly the beautiful man collapsed, his shoulders touching. The Duke sat on him and tweaked his nose. It was an unbearable insult. The referee pronounced the Duke winner of the first fall.

  The crowd could not bear it. All five thousand crowded the ring and a dozen fans descended on the Duke of Sardinia. They would have rent his body to shreds had not the police intervened. He was escorted from the ring and down the aisle to his dressing room.

  Lionheart’s handlers lifted him to his stool in the corner. His right leg stood out stiffly. A doctor entered the ring and examined him. Lionheart was in tears. The doctor and the referee spoke together quietly. A judge at ringside rang the bell. In the quiet that followed the referee declared the fight a draw, and since Lionheart could not continue, the match was terminated. Bedlam followed. Lionheart’s followers poured into the ring and attacked the referee, tearing off his shirt and beating him to the canvas. Police leaped to his rescue as I scurried down the aisle to the rear of the auditorium.

  The Duke lay on a rubbing table in his dressing room, a trainer massaging his muscles. He smiled as I walked over.

  “Purty good, no?” he asked.

  “It was a draw, Duke.”

  “Draw?” He leaped off the rubbing table. “Who say so?”

  “The referee.”

  The Duke shot out of the dressing room and down the hall. I watched him fight his way through a crowd thronging the aisle. The police were on him instantly, carrying him struggling and screaming back to the dressing room, and shutting the door behind him. I stood in the hall for ten minutes, wondering what to do. Inside the dressing room the Duke screamed and threw furniture.

  I walked back to the arena and watched two wrestlers grappling in the ring. It bored me. I walked out to the car and lit a cigarette. For an hour I awaited the Duke’s appearance. The final match ended and the crowd poured out to the parking lot. One by one the cars drove away until only the Duke’s Marmon remained.

  It was an hour later, at midnight, when he strode to the car. He got in beside me and I saw that his face was badly cut, his nose bleeding, his knuckles and his trousers splattered with blood. He reached into the glove compartment and took out a packet of paper towels. He dabbed his broken and bleeding face. I saw a water hydrant
at the corner of the building, and told him. He stepped from the car and walked to the hydrant and turned it on. He rubbed his hands into the flowing water, then cupping them he flushed his face. I felt sorrow for him. Someone had beaten him up, and he was angry and stoical and brooding. We went back to the car and got in. I held the roll of paper towels. Every now and then he held out his hand and I gave him a fresh batch of towels. We drove to Avalon and turned right toward the harbor. He drove in silence except that now and then he sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty

  All the next day the Duke lay in bed, his face to the wall. Whenever I knocked on the door and entered he did not move.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Thank you. Go away.”

  The next day it was the same. I could not detect any movement in his body at all.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “No. Go away.”

  “You have to eat something, Duke.”

  “Please. Leave me alone.”

  The morning of the third day I was asleep when I heard his Marmon revving up outside. I went to the door and watched him back the car out. He saw me and pressed the brakes. I went down to the car. He looked refreshed and smiling.

  “Feeling okay?”

  “Feeling good. I go to Los Angeles for a fight.”

  “Who you fighting?”

  “I fight Lionheart again. I go for rematch. This time I kill him.” He shifted gears, waved, and drove off. He was gone all day and far into the night. Around midnight I heard him drive in.

  In the morning I heard the big cart being moved, the wheels clucking in the sand. The Duke was back in business. I watched him harness his body to the wagon and push off in the soft white sand. I went out on the porch and called out: