The John Fante Reader

by John Fante

  In ten minutes I had rented one of the cottages and moved in. It was the center cottage, combination bedroom, living room, and a kitchen and bath. Twenty-five dollars a month. I did some quick calculations and realized that I had enough money to live there for ten years. I had it made.

  The place was paradise, the South Pacific, Bora Bora. I could hear the sea. It came whispering, saying shshsh, for it was always low tide, the island protected by a breakwater. The nights were wondrous. I lay on my small cot and felt the memory of Velda van der Zee slipping from me. In a few days it had vanished. I listened to the sea and felt my heart restored. Sometimes I heard the bark of seals. I stood in the door and watched them in the shallow water, three or four big fellows playing in the soft tide, barking as if to laugh. The city was far away. I had no thought of writing. My mind was barren as the long shore. I was Robinson Crusoe, lost in a distant world, at peace, breathing good air, salty, satisfying.

  When day broke I walked barefoot in the water, in the moist sand, a mile to the cannery settlement, teeming with workers, men and women, emptying the fishing boats, dressing and canning the fish in big corrugated buildings. They were mostly Japanese and Mexican folk from San Pedro. There were two restaurants. The food was good and cheap. Sometimes I walked to the end of the pier, to the ferryboat landing, where the boats took off across the channel to San Pedro. It was twenty-five cents round trip. I felt like a millionaire whenever I plunked down my quarter and sailed for Pedro. I rented a bike and toured the Palos Verdes hills. I found the public library and loaded up on books. Back at my shack I built a fire in the woodstove and sat in the warmth and read Dostoevsky and Flaubert and Dickens and all those famous people. I lacked for nothing. My life was a prayer, a thanksgiving. My loneliness was an enrichment. I found myself bearable, tolerable, even good. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to the writer who had come there. Had I written something and left the place? I touched my typewriter and mused at the action of the keys. It was another life. I had never been here before. I would never leave it.

  My landlady was a Japanese woman. She was pregnant. She had a noble kind of walk, small steps, very quiet, her black hair in braids. I learned from her how to bow. We were always bowing. Sometimes we walked on the beach too. We stopped, folded our hands and bowed. Then she went her way and I went mine. One day I found a rowboat flopping along the shore. I got in and rowed away, doing poorly, for I could not manage the oars. But I learned how, and pulled the skiff all the way across the channel to the rocks on the San Pedro side. I bought fishing equipment and bait, and rowed out a hundred yards beyond my house and caught corbina and mackerel, and once a halibut. I brought them home and cooked them and they were ghastly, and I threw them out upon the sand, and watchful seagulls swooped down and carried them away. One day I said, I must write something. I wrote a letter to my mother, but I could not date the letter. I had no memory of time. I went to see the Japanese lady and asked her the date of the month.

  “January fourth,” she said.

  I smiled. I had been there two months, and thought it no more than two weeks.

  —Dreams from Bunker Hill

  I FOUND A ROOM ON TEMPLE STREET, above a Filipino restaurant. It was two dollars a week without towels, sheets, or pillow cases. I took it, sat on the bed and brooded about my life on the earth. Why was I here? What now? Who did I know? Not even myself. I looked at my hands. They were soft writer’s hands, the hands of a writer peasant, not suited for hard work, not equal to making phrases. What could I do? I looked around the room, the wine-stained walls, the carpetless floor, the little window looking out on Figueroa Street. I smelled the cooking from the Filipino restaurant below. Was this the end of Arturo Bandini? Would this be the place where I was to die, on this gray mattress? I could lie here for weeks before anyone discovered me. I got to my knees and prayed:

  “What have I done to you, Lord? Why do you punish me? All I ask is the chance to write, to have a friend or two, to cease my running. Bring me peace, oh Lord. Shape me into something worthwhile. Make the typewriter sing. Find the song within me. Be good to me, for I am lonely.”

  It seemed to hearten me. I went to the typewriter and sat before it. A gray wall loomed up. I pushed back my chair and walked down into the street. I got into my car and drove around.

  I had trouble sleeping in the little room, even though I bought sheets and blankets. The trouble was, the misery of the day, the fruitlessness of working remained in the room during the night. In the morning it was still there, and I went to the street again. Then I remembered one of Edgington’s axioms: “When stuck, hit the road.” At sunset I wheeled my car out of the parking lot and hit the streets. Hour after hour I drove around. The city was like a tremendous park, from the foothills to the sea, beautiful in the night, the lamps glowing like white balloons, the streets wide and plentiful and moving off in all directions. It did not matter which way you went, the road always stretched ahead and you found yourself in strange little towns and neighborhoods, and it was soothing and refreshing, but it did not bring story ideas. Moving with the traffic, I wondered how many like myself took to the road merely to escape the city. Day and night the city teemed with traffic and it was impossible to believe that all those people had any rhyme or reason for driving.

  In February Liberty Films released Velda van der Zee’s picture, Sin City. I caught it at the Wiltern, on Wilshire, the early evening show. I went prepared to loathe it, and I was pleased to find the theater less than half full. I bought a sack of popcorn and found a seat in the loges. I sat there pleased that my name had been scrubbed from the film, and as the lights darkened, I felt very pleased and relieved that my name would not be among the credits. I laughed loudly when Velda’s name appeared, and as the picture unreeled and the stagecoach bounded over the terrain, I laughed again loudly. A hand touched my shoulder. I turned to see a woman frowning.

  “You’re disturbing me,” she said.

  “I can’t help it,” I answered. “It’s a very funny picture.”

  Now the hostile band of Indians appeared, and I guffawed. Several people in the vicinity got up and scattered to different seats.

  And so it went. All of my work, all of my thinking, was so remote from the picture, that it was stunning, unbelievable. In only two places did I come upon lines that I might possibly have written, that the director did not delete. The first was in an early scene when the sheriff rode into Sin City at full gallop and brought his horse to a halt at the saloon, shouting “Whoa!” Now I remembered that line: “Whoa!” My line. A little further on the sheriff stalked out of the saloon, mounted his horse, and shouted “Giddyup!” That was my line too: “Giddyup.” Whoa and giddyup—my fulfillment as a screenwriter.

  It was not a good picture, or an exciting picture, or a mature picture, and as it came to an end and the house lights went on, I saw the weary patrons half asleep in their seats, showing no pleasure at all. I was glad. It proved my integrity. I was a better man for having refused the credit, a better writer. Time would prove it. When Velda van der Zee was a forgotten name in tinsel town, the world would still reckon with Arturo Bandini. I walked out into the night, and God, I felt good and refreshed and restored! Whoa and giddyup! Here we go again. I got into my car and took off in the traffic along Wilshire Boulevard, hell bent for my hotel.

  I went up to my room and fell on the bed exhausted. I had been deluding myself. There was no pleasure in seeing Sin City. I was really not pleased at Velda’s failure. In truth I felt sorry for her, for all writers, for the misery of the craft. I lay in that tiny room and it engulfed me like a tomb.

  I got up and went down into the street. Half a block away was a Filipino saloon. I sat at the bar and ordered a glass of Filipino wine. The Filipinos around me laughed and played the dart game. I drank more wine. It was sweet and tinged with peppermint, warm in the stomach, tingling. I drank five more glasses, and stood up to leave. I felt nausea, and my stomach seemed to float into my chest. I got out on the sidewalk, lea
ned against the lamppost and felt the strength ooze from my knees.

  Then everything vanished, and I was in a bed somewhere. It was a white room with big windows and it was daylight. There were tubes in my nose and down my throat and I felt the pain of vomiting. A nurse stood at the bedside and watched me gag and writhe until there was no more of it, only the terrible pain in my stomach and throat. The nurse removed the tubes.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “Georgia Street Hospital,” she said.

  “What’s the matter with me?”

  “Poison,” she said. “Your friend is here.”

  I looked toward the door. There stood Helen Brownell. She came quietly to the bedside and sat down. I took her hand and began to sob.

  “There now,” she soothed. “Everything’s all right.”

  “What’s the matter with me?” I choked. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “I drank some wine—that’s all.”

  “You drank too much,” she said. “You passed out, and the wine made you very ill.”

  “Who brought me here?”

  “The police ambulance.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “My address was in your wallet.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since midnight,” she said.

  “Can I leave now?”

  The nurse stepped up. “Not for a while,” she said. “The doctor has to look at you first.”

  Mrs. Brownell stood up and squeezed my hand. “I must go now.”

  “I’ll see you at the hotel.”

  She bit her lip. “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

  “Why not? I love you.”

  “Don’t say that,” she answered.

  “It’s true,” I insisted. “I love you more than anybody in the world. I always have. I always will.”

  Without answering, she turned with a wisp of a smile, and walked out of the room. I felt my stomach heaving, and the nurse held my head as I vomited into a basin.

  It was late afternoon when the doctor checked me out and permitted me to leave. When I asked about the charges for my stay he answered that they had been paid.

  “By whom?” I said.

  “Mrs. Brownell.”

  I got dressed and walked down the hall to the front door, where I took a trolley to Hill Street. At Third I got off and rode the cable car to the top of Bunker Hill.

  —Dreams from Bunker Hill

  SO I WAS BACK AGAIN, back to LA, with two suitcases and seventeen dollars. I liked it, the sweep of blue skies, the sun in my face, the endearing streets, tempting, beckoning, the concrete and cobblestones, soft and comforting as old shoes. I picked up my grips and walked along Fifth Street. Purposefully I walked, wondering why I could almost never bring myself to call her Helen. I had to break the habit. I would walk to the top of Bunker Hill and open my arms to her and say, “Helen, I love you.”

  We would start over again. Maybe we’d buy a little house in Woodland Hills, the Kansas type, with a chickenyard and a dog. Oh, Helen, I’ve missed you so, and now I know what I want. Maybe she wouldn’t like Woodland Hills. Maybe she preferred the hotel. It had aged so well, like an aristocrat, like Helen herself. I would choose a room for writing and we would complete our days together. Oh, Helen. Forgive me for ever leaving you. It will never happen again.

  I rode on the trolley to the crest of Bunker Hill, and looked at the hotel in the distance. It was magic, like a castle in a book of fairy tales. I knew she would have me this time. I felt the strength of my years, and I knew I was stronger than she, and that she would melt in my arms. I entered the hotel and lowered my suitcases against the wall. She was not behind the desk. I had to smile as I crossed to the desk and rang the bell. When there was no answer I struck the bell again, harder. The door opened slightly. There stood the man I had seen before, the man who said he was her brother. He did not come forward, and spoke in a whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m looking for Helen.”

  “She’s not here,” he said, and closed the door. I walked around the desk and knocked. He opened the door and stood there crying.

  “She’s gone. She’s dead.”

  “How?” I said. “When?”

  “A week ago. She died of a stroke.”

  I felt myself weakening, as I staggered toward an armchair at the window. I didn’t want to cry. Something deep and abiding had caved in, swallowing me up. I felt my chest heaving. The brother came over and stood beside me, crying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I got up, hefted my suitcase, and walked out. At the little depot on Angel’s Flight I saw on a park bench and let my grief have its way. For two hours I was there, grief-stricken and bewildered. I had thought of many things since knowing her, but never her death. For all her years, she nourished a love in me. Now it was gone. Now that she was dead I could think of her no longer. I had sobbed and whimpered and wept until it was all gone, all of it, and as always I found myself alone in the world.

  The manager of the Filipino hotel was glad to see me. It was no surprise when he said that my room was unoccupied. It was my kind of room. I deserved it-the smallest, most uninviting room in Los Angeles. I started up the stairs and pushed open the door to the dreadful hole.

  “You forgot something,” the manager said. He stood in the doorway holding my portable typewriter. It startled me, not because it was there, but because I had completely forgotten it. He placed it on the table and I thanked him. Closing the door, I opened a suitcase and took out a copy of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. It was a treasured piece, constantly with me since the day I stole it from the Boulder library. I had read it so many times that I could recite it. But it did not matter now. Nothing mattered.

  I stretched out on the bed and slept. It was twilight when I awakened and turned on the light. I felt better, no longer tired. I went to the typewriter and sat before it. My thought was to write a sentence, a single perfect sentence. If I could write one good sentence I could write two and if I could write two I could write three, and if I could write three I could write forever. But suppose I failed? Suppose I had lost all of my beautiful talent? Suppose it had burned up in the fire of Biff Newhouse smashing my nose or Helen Brownell dead forever? What would happen to me? Would I go to Abe Marx and become a busboy again? I had seventeen dollars in my wallet. Seventeen dollars and the fear of writing. I sat erect before the typewriter and blew on my fingers. Please God, please Knut Hamsun, don’t desert me now. I started to write and I wrote:

  “The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  “To talk of many things:

  Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax-

  Of cabbages-and kings-”

  I looked at it and wet my lips. It wasn’t mine, but what the hell, a man had to start someplace.

  —Dreams from Bunker Hill

  IT WAS A LARGE HOUSE because we were people with big plans. The first was already there, a mound at her waist, a thing of lambent movement, slithering and squirming like a ball of serpents. In the quiet hours before midnight I lay with my ear to the place and heard the trickling as, from a spring, the gurgles and sucks and splashings.

  I said, “It certainly behaves like the male of the species.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “No female kicks that much.”

  But she did not argue, my Joyce. She had the thing within her, and she was remote and disdainful and quite beatified.

  Still, I didn’t care for the bulge.

  “It’s unaesthetic,” and I suggested she wear something to pack it in.

  “And kill it?”

  “They make special things. I saw them.”

  She looked at me with coldness-the ignorant one, the fool who had passed by in the night, a person no more, malefic, absurd.

  The house had four bedrooms. It was a pretty house. There was a picket fence around it. There was a tall peaked roof. There was a corridor of rose bushes from the
street to the front door. There was a wide terra cotta arch over the front door. There was a solid brass knocker on the door. There was a 37 in the house number, and that was my lucky number. I used to cross the street and look at the whole thing with my mouth open.

  My house! Four bedrooms. Space. Two of us lived there now, and one was coming. Eventually there would be seven. It was my dream. At thirty there was still time for a man to raise seven. Joyce was twenty-four. One every other year. One coming, six to go. How beautiful the world! How vast the sky! How rich the dreamer! Naturally we would have to add a room or two.

  “Do you have whims? Peculiar tastes? I understand it happens. I been reading up on it.”

  “Of course not.”

  She was reading too: Gesell, Arnold: Infant and Child in the Culture of Today.

  “How is it?”

  “Very informative.”

  She looked through the French windows to the street. It was a busy street, just off Wilshire, where the busses roared, where the traffic sounded like the lowing of cattle, a steady roar sometimes zippered down the middle by the shriek of sirens, yet detached, far away, two hundred feet away.

  “Can’t we have some new drapes? Do we have to have yellow drapes and green valances?”

  “Valance? What’s a valance, Mother?”

  “For God’s sake don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry.”