by Edward Lee
"You gotta be shittin' me!" the old crank wailed. "Does this look like New York City?"
What could I expect? He stooped again to retrieve cash from the pouch.
The register bell dinged as the proprietor rang up the sale. He looked as though he'd sipped straight lemon juice. "You must be the Writer I keep hearin' about."
The Writer stared, disbelieving.
"Word gits around. And I seed you just got into town, but if you got a sliver'a brain in yer head, boy, next thing on yer to-do list should be gittin' out of town."
The Writer was astonished. "You recommend the place that much... "
"Ain't nothin' but white trash'n immer-grints here, son. Meth-heads, drunks, fat cows on welfare, and enough dirty little kids that if ya put 'em all in the same place at once, the stink'd open a crack in the earth bigger'n the Grand Fuckin' Canyon. I got more crackers comin' in and out'a here tryin' to shoplift than to buy anything."
"So business has been better, I presume."
"Fuck. Today I got this one trailer cow named Sadie Fuller givin' me a ration of shit 'cos I won't sell her dog food on her food stamps, then I'se said ‘Sadie, you ain't even got a fuckin' dog,' and she said ‘I know, but I'se got eleven kids, and the money I'se save feedin' 'em dog food leaves me with more to buy steaks, then I'se trade the steaks fer moonshine.' Can ya believe it?"
The Writer struggled for response. "How... tragic."
"Aw, fuck, that ain't what I mean, ya moe-ron! Half the fuckin' population's on welfare! ‘N by the time a little girl's got some hair on her slit, her daddy knocks her up so's they kin git more food stamps! Only folks who buy anything in my store're the fuckin' wetbacks 'cos they'se the only ones who work! I sell more cans'a refried beans'n haller-peener peppers than I sell fuckin' Three Musketeers! What ever happened to America!"
This guy's more racist than the shoemaker, the Writer figured. "Paradise... lost, I'd say. The proverbial American Dream is just an illusion behind a prevarication."
The proprietor cracked! his cane on the floor. "Don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about but at this rate, it'll take me ten fuckin' years ta pay this place off! I'll be fuckin' eighty! What I fight the war for?"
"So... you're a World War Two veteran?" the Writer asked, if only to divert the sour conversation.
"No, Korea. The big one. We'se could always tell when we was in enemy territory anytime we found a pile'a shit."
The Writer looked bewildered. "I... "
"If the shit smelled like cabbage'n fish, we knowed there was commies nearby."
"Sounds very tactical to me... "
"Eisenhower should'a fuckin' nuked the whole kit'n caboodle. Fight my ass off fer my country and this is what I get. Redneck bitches who've been pregnant so many times their bellies look like fuckin' accordions, and enough dirty, snot-eatin' little kids ta fill a goddamn football stadium! Half of 'em got squashed heads 'cos their mommas live on corn liquor!" The proprietor snapped his dentures. "But I'll tell ya, boy, the minute I pay this shit-house off, I'll open me a new one in Agan's Point. Ain't no welfare trash there, and no pepper-bellies. You heard'a Agan's Point, ain't'cha?"
"Uh, no," the Writer admitted.
"Figures!"
The Writer finally got his change. He looked at his purchases on the counter. "Would you mind putting those in a bag for me, please?"
"Jesus ta pete!" He jammed the items in the bag. "Fifty cents!"
"For the bag?" the Writer protested.
"Fifty cents! What I look like, fuckin' Santa Claus?"
The Writer sighed and put two quarters down. This is too much work...
"The fuck you doin' here anyways?" Suddenly the proprietor's glare took on a scrutinizing gleam. "You writin' a book about this dog's dick of a town?"
"No, no," the Writer hurried. "It's a societal abstraction. The place is a symbol for a notion, or an idea that suggests a profundity."
The old crank cracked! his cane again and laughed. "I don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about but you oughta put me in yer blammed ‘dickerlus book. I can be the unfriendly old codger who's lived in town his whole life'n warns the main character ta get out. A stock character's what they call that, ain't it?"
The Writer rose an involuntary brow. "Indeed it is... "
"There's yer fuckin' symbol, boy. Me. I'm the fuckin' notion!"
"Intriguing," the Writer said and almost laughed.
"Now get outa my store, and if ya got a sliver'a brain, get outa town."
The Writer fled the Qwik-Mart as if fleeing killers.
That was something... and I've only been in town a few minutes. On the street, he lit a cigarette and stood for a minute in a studied daze. What a rush—profound yet... indefinable. He figured that first kick of nicotine-drenched smoke had to be as good as the opium Thomas de Quincey smoked when he wrote "Sighs from the Depths." Next, he walked down the vacant road, to the Gilman House Motel.
««—»»
The Writer rented his $10-per-night room—Room Six, the imperfect number, according to the Bible and the Koran—from a stout, fiftyish woman with a face uncomfortably similar to Henry Kissinger's. "Oh, you must be the writer!" she enthused the instant he came through the seedy doorway. This continued to perplex him. The shoemaker with diabetes told people I was here? Impossible. He didn't talk to anyone...
Much to the woman's delight, he paid a month in advance. "Oh my word! I'll give you the best room in the house! We've never had a bestselling author stay with us before."
The Writer smiled modestly. He didn't quite have it in him to point out that of all his dozens of published books, he'd never even come close to hitting a bestseller list, but of course, he wouldn't have wanted to. He despised all that was commercial, like Faulkner. The art of writing could never be about money. It had to be about the struggle for true art.
"Is that one'a them newfangled computers I keep hearin' about?" she asked of his second carry bag. He had associates who had solicited this new, corruptive technology, with things called RAM and kilobytes and five-inch floppies. My God! What would Samuel Coleridge think? "You can make revisions on the screen!" one peer, a frivolous high-fantasy writer, had celebrated. "No more Liquid Paper!" The Writer had calmly informed him that he'd own one of these infernal contraptions over his dead body. "The day I allow technology to come between my Muse and the sheet of paper is the day I hang myself at the foot of T.S. Eliot's grave. Indeed, the New Age of Creativity is becoming... pun intended... a Wasteland... " Liquid Paper and white-out tape were as crucial to the writer as oil paints were to Peter Paul Rubens. If there were no metal type bars striking a piece of paper rolled over a rubber platen, then it wasn't art one created, but something sorely less. Bells needed to ring! and keys needed to snap! The carriage needed to zip! back and forth as the writer's Muse fired from his mind to his fingertips and poured like blood onto the page. Without any of that?
Folly, the Writer knew. A lie...
"No, it's a typewriter," he told her. The woman's name, not surprisingly, was Mrs. Gilman, and it was the "Mrs." part that sent a bolt up the Writer's spine. He knew it wasn't compassionate but he couldn't help it. Some man actually married her—that face, Henry Kissinger. "I keep it well-lubricated so it doesn't make a lot of noise. I hope no one's disturbed."
"By some noise?" The woman huffed a laugh like Aunt Bee on Andy Griffith. "You could probably tell this ain't exactly a flourishin' town, sir. I mostly rent by the hour, if ya know what I mean. A gal's gotta make a livin' just like anyone, hmm?"
The Writer wasn't disheartened. It was just more reality to nourish his Muse. Prostitution was certainly an integral facet of the human condition, and he thought at once of the monumental play by Sartre. My book needs to be REAL... "I understand completely, Mrs. Gilman."
Her voice lowered. "And if ya choose to indulge... ya might wanna wrap it, as they say."
"Oh, I won't be indulging, Mrs. Gilman. As an artist, my perceptions need to be keen. Angst from abstinence is conve
rted to creative enlightenment."
What Mrs. Gilman dubbed The Best Room in the House was easily the worst room the Writer had ever checked into. Cockroach corpses lay scattered like broken brazil nut shells, and when he peeked under the bed, his vision was greeted by a petrified rat belly-up, little legs stiff in the air. The small, iron-railed bed had a great dip in the center, as if previously owned by someone who weighed half a ton. Peeling wallpaper was patterned by smoke-stained tulips and, in places, dirty handprints. Every handprint tells a story, he considered. A genuine Philco radio sat on an exhaust-blue dresser, though the Writer doubted he'd be opening any of the dresser's drawers. There was also a fan festooned by strings of dust, a metal waste can with, of all things, G.I. Joes on it, and a put-it-together-yourself writing desk and chair that had stickers on them reading DART DRUG. More dust-strings rounded the room's corners.
Not exactly a "Clean, Well-Lighted Room," eh? he ribbed himself and had to bite his lip not to laugh.
Get it?
A peek in the bathroom showed a rusted, claw-foot tub, a cracked mirror (was that blood in the cracks?) and—wouldn't he know it?—used condoms floating in the toilet. Mrs. Gilman was fluffing the pillows on his bed when he came back in, and that's when he noticed some irregularities on the wallpaper. Someone had drawn a bull's eye over the waste can. A yard back was what appeared to be a crayon mark on the floor. Closer inspection showed him lines of some dried starchy substance in or near the bull's eye.
My God, the Writer thought. Target practice...
"It ain't a fancy room, sir," the husky woman said, "but it's got... "
The Writer pointed a finger and smiled. "Character. It'll do fine, Mrs. Gilman."
"And if there's anythin' you need, you just come see me."
"Thank you. You're very hospitable."
From a pouch on her frumpy dress, she withdrew a plastic bag of something. "Try some. They're delicious!"
The Writer paled. It was a bag of dried apricots. "No. Thank you."
"Hope you enjoy your stay!" She beamed. "My goodness! We gots a real live writer stayin' with us!"
"Goodnight, Mrs. Gilman."
She left but stuck her head back in. She pointed to the clap-trap writing desk. "Oh, and you kin put'cher typewriter right there," but of course she pronounced typewriter as "tap-ratter." "You got a wonderful view!"
"I'll do that, Mrs. Gilman."
Finally she left. Wonderful view? He looked out the window and winced. It was a junkyard that extended back to a scrawny woodline. Old car hulks lay on their sides, and between two, a mangy dog was defecating. He kept convincing himself that the environment was a creative necessity. Henrik Ibsen would've LOVED this room. He could've written a sequel to "The Wild Duck" here... So if it was good enough for Ibsen, it was good enough for the Writer.
But the "view" would have to go. He pulled down the stained shade, then immediately saw some graffiti. IF THE SUN REFUSED TO SHINE, I WOULD STILL BE LOVING YOU— LED ZEPPLIN, some redneck had scrawled. The Writer winced again. He whipped out his Sharpie and wrote HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE—J.P. SARTRE.
There.
White Trash Gothic, the words ran round and round his head. The daze of his creative bliss returned as he set up his typewriter. It was a Remington Standard Typing-Machine No. 2, from 1874. He'd spent several thousand dollars refurbishing it. Many great writers had used this same model: Samuel Clemens, Joseph Conrad, Henry James. In fact, when Clemens aka Mark Twain had been the first fiction writer to officially submit a typed manuscript to a publisher, that manuscript had been prepared on an identical machine.
Hot water from the sink was sufficient for his instant coffee, and he arranged his ashtray in a nearly religious ceremony. He took one bite of a Saltine, frowned, then put the whole box in the G.I. Joe trash can when he read that the Sell By date was June 1980. The idea of taking it back and asking for a refund simply wasn't serviceable.
Music, he thought. Very light... He turned on the old radio:
"... in Milwaukee on North 25th Street, Building 1055, Unit 213, a gruesome scene unfolded before... "
"... may have evaded police for the last five years... "
"... when the employee of a chocolate factory was arrested by Milwaukee Police after a naked boy in handcuffs reported his abduction and... "
"... confessed today that he lobotomized and even cannibalized many of his unsuspecting victims... "
What a world, he thought. Between the news of this serial killer, he stumbled upon unacceptable country and western and, worse, hard rock. His stomach hitched when he heard, "I'm a freeeeeeeeeeeee biiiiiiiird... " Would he throw up in the G.I. Joe garbage can? Finally he found some layered violin work.
He creaked back in the chair and sighed. Ahhhhhh. Archanglo Corelli, Concerto #8...
Now, the Writer was ready.
He carefully rolled in a sheet of Eagle-brand 25-pound bond paper, and typed:
WHITE TRASH GOTHIC
CHAPTER ONE
He put his finger on the T key. It was unbidden, just as it needed to be. My Muse is flowing. Now... write the first sentence—
There was a knock on the door. Oh, for pity's sake! he whined. His Muse collapsed.
"Yes?" he answered testily. Then he blinked and gulped.
A voluptuous girl with hair the color of corn silk stood hip-cocked and grinning in the doorway. Bare-foot and bare-legged, she wore a faded denim skirt and a painfully tight pink T-shirt that read LICK BUSH IN ‘92!
"Hi!" she said, naturally pronouncing the word hi as "Haa!" "I'se Nancy. My ma tolt me you was here."
"You're... Mrs. Gilman's daughter?"
"That's right."
Staggering, he thought. Not only did some guy MARRY the woman who looks like Henry Kissinger, but he had SEX with her as well... But by the looks of this girl, she didn't get any of her mother's less complimentary genes. "Ah, well, it's very nice to meet you, Nancy, but, wow, I'm very busy... "
"Oh, I'll only be a sec, see—" She cocked her hip to the other side, offering a blushing smile. "I gotta question, but... shucks, you might think it's dumb... "
Oh, for pity's sake! But he felt he had to be a gentleman and a positive role model. "No question is petty or without value, Nancy, except for the question stifled by reluctance."
"Huh?"
He sighed. "What's your question?"
She rose up on her tiptoes for one bounce. "Can I blow you?"
The Writer was waylaid. "What?"
"Oh, and I mean fer free. We'se don't git busy ‘round here till later noways—"
Mrs. Gilman... tricks out her own daughter...
"—and, gosh, I got this hankerin' ta suck yer willy on account of you're a famous writer—"
The Writer rolled his eyes. "Really, I'm not that famous—"
The insides of her knees rubbed as she cocked her hips back and forth, with the Naughty Schoolgirl grin. "See, I don't want ya ta think I'm trashy—"
"Oh, I could never think that!"
"—but, see, I'se'll just be all twisted up if I don't gets a chance to taste yer cum... "
The Writer glared. "Why on earth would you... "
"Just wanna know if a writer's jism tastes like regular."
This is bombast... But still, he considered the proposition for a blazing moment. After all, Stephen Crane's greatest creative influence had been a prostitute, and then he'd gone on to write The Red Badge of Courage and "The Open Boat." The Writer couldn't deny his gentility, a refinement born of erudition. "That's quite an offer, Nancy, but I'll have to turn it down. You must understand—abstinence is crucial to the aesthetically inclined. Like boxers."
She was a redneck Venus alive in his doorway. "You shore?"
God in Heaven, would you PLEASE go away! Your body's KILLING me! "Really, Nancy, I'd love to. You're a very beautiful young woman, but—"
Her grin widened, showing perfect teeth, a rarity in these parts. "And I gots me a beautiful cooter, too. Fellas always say so. Wanna see?"
"Oh, no, really—"
She hitched up the denim skirt. The Writer glanced down.
He wanted to cry. It looked like fresh sourdough with a curl of pink taffy: a flawless sex-tart. My God... "I can say with authority, Nancy, your cooter should be displayed in the Louvre. Nevertheless, I'm terribly busy. Another time, perhaps."
Her cringing pose loosened. "Oh, all right. But you'll at least autograph my tittie, won't'cha?" and then up came the pink T-shirt.
The Writer slumped, and extracted his Sharpie.
