Lotte, the fourteen-year-old Puerto Rican whore, stared at him across her cards. She laid the hand of gin rummy face-down on the kitchen-smelling oilcloth, and did not know what he was raving about. “Y’wanna can owf beer, hanh?”
In it, was all the gentleness, all the caring, all the concern AndyPunky had ever known. All the sweetness, all the warmth of someone who gave a damn. He started to cry. From far down inside him, it started up, building, great gasps of air, wrenching sobs. He lowered his head onto hands that were still bloody from the wounds dripping across his middle. His sobs were muffled, and the girl shrugged. She didn’t, actually, give a fuck. She turned on the radio, and a Latin band was wailing:
¡Vaya!
There were streets and he was alone now. Punky had lost his two Yale men. They had showed him the seamy side of Life. Streets he walked on. At six o’clock in the New York morning. And he saw things. He saw ten things.
He saw a cabdriver sleeping in his front seat.
He saw a candy-maker opening his shop to work.
He saw a dog lifting its leg against a standpipe.
He saw a child in an alley.
He saw a sun that would not come up behind snow.
He saw an old, tired Negro man collecting cardboard flats behind a grocery store, and he told the old man I’m sorry.
He saw a toy store and smiled.
He saw pinwheels of violent color that cascaded and spun behind his eyes till he fell in the street.
He saw his own feet moving under him, leftrightleft.
He saw pain, red and raw and ugly in his stomach.
But then, somehow, he was in the Village, in front of Olaf Burger’s apartment house, so he whistled a little tune, and thought he might go up to say hello. It was six-thirty.
So he went up and looked at the door for a while.
He whistled. It was nice.
Punky pressed the door buzzer. There was no answer. He waited an extremely long time, half-asleep, leaning there against the jamb. Then he pressed the buzzer again, and held it in. Somewhere deep in the apartment he could hear the distant, muffled locust hum of the buzzer. Then a shout. And then footsteps coming toward the door. The door was unlocked, slammed back on the police chain. Olaf’s face, blurred by sleep, peering out of snooze-funk, furious, glared back at him.
“What the hell do you want at this—” and stopped. The eyes widened at sight of all that blood. The door slammed shut, the chain was slipped, and the door opened again. Olaf stared at him, a little sick.
“Jesus Christ, Andy, what happened to you!”
“I fou—I found what I w-was looking for…”
They stared at each other, helpless.
Punky smiled once, gently, and murmured, “I’m hurt, Olaf, help me…” and fell sidewise, in through the doorway.
Was lost, and is found. The prodigal returned. Night and awakening. After a night of such length, opening of eyes, and a new awakening. The weavers, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos. Atropos. She is the inflexible, who with her shears cuts off the thread of human life spun by Clotho, measured off by Lachesis.
Spun by Punky and his Yale men. Measured off by a fourteen-year-old Puerto Rican whore named Lotte in a four-bed pad in Harlem. Cut off by a Negro homosexual in The Dog House Bar in the Bowery.
Hospital white, hospital bright, and blood, instantblood, now downdropping from a bottle, and before the end, just before the end, Punky woke long enough to say, very distinctly, “Escape, please…escape…” and went away from there.
The doctor on Punky’s right turned to the nurse on his right, and said, “He had enough.”
Circle-Insult.
—New York City, 1964 and Los Angeles, 1965
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1968, 1976 by Harlan Ellison. Copyright © 1983 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. Renewed, 1986, 2004 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-0459-9
Harlan Ellison and Edgeworks Abbey are registered trademarks of The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
This edition is copyright © 2008 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.
Front Cover Photo by Stathis Orphanos. Copyright © Stathis Orphanos.
Harlan Ellison website: www.harlanellison.com
Introduction: "Having an Affair with a Troll," copyright © 1976 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 2004 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie," copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1996 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"The Universe of Robert Blake," copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1990 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"G.B.K.—A Many Flavored Bird," copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Neither Your Jenny nor Mine," copyright © 1964 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1992 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Riding the Dark Train Out," copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Moonlighting" (adapted from the Author's short story "Ormond Always Pays His Bills"), copyright © 1997 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"What I Did on My Vacation This Summer, by Little Bobby Hirschhorn, Age 27," copyright © 1964 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1992 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Mona at Her Windows," copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Blind Bird, Blind Bird, Go Away from Me!," copyright © 1963 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1991 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Passport" (under the title "The Music Man"), copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"I Curse the Lesson and Bless the Knowledge," copyright © 1976 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 2004 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Battle Without Banners," copyright © 1964 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1992 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"A Path Through the Darkness," copyright © 1962 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"A Prayer for No One's Enemy," copyright © 1966 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1994 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Punky & the Yale Men," copyright © 1965 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1993 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation.
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Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled Page 38
