The John Fante Reader

by John Fante

  The place was full of nurses, doctors and interns. I sat at the counter and studied the menu. But I didn’t want anything. In spite of everything, I was deeply worried. I walked out the side door to the street.

  It was a dismal morning, the fog heavy and warm. I lit a cigarette and followed the sidewalk around the hospital grounds. The path was lined with tall eugenia hedges, immaculately clipped, a corridor of green that led to a garden where a fountain sprayed water among big red stones. I walked around the fountain, and the spray kissed my face with cool lips. Through the mist I saw the outline of a Gothic door. It was the hospital chapel. Suddenly, inexplicably, I began to cry, for here was the Thing I sought, the end of the desert, my house upon the earth. Eagerly I ran to the chapel.

  Pax vobiscum! It was a small place, with only a crucifix at the main altar. I knelt as a tide of contrition engulfed me, a thundering cataract that roared in my ears. There was no need to pray, to beg forgiveness. My whole being lost itself in the deep drift, like waves returning to the shore. I was there for nearly an hour, and full of laughter as I rose to go. For it was a time for laughter, a time for great joy.

  —Full of Life

  Part Four

  “I MUST REMEMBER TO FACE IT.”

  IT WAS JANUARY, cold and dark and raining, and I was tired and wretched, and my windshield wipers weren’t working, and I was hung over from a long evening of drinking and talking with a millionaire director who wanted me to write a film about the Tate Murders “in the manner of Bonnie and Clyde, with wit and style.” There was no money involved. “We’ll be partners, fifty-fifty.” It was the third offer of that kind I’d had in six months, a very discouraging sign of the times.

  Crawling along the Coast Highway at fifteen miles an hour, my head out the window, my face dripping rain, my eyes straining to follow the white line, the vinyl top of my 1967 Porsche (four payments overdue, the finance company hollering) was almost ripped off by the driving torrent as I finally made the turn off the highway toward the ocean.

  We lived on Point Dume, a thrust of land jutting into the sea like a tit in a porno movie, the northern tip of the crescent that forms Santa Monica Bay. Point Dume is a community without street lights, a chaotic suburban sprawl so intricately bisected by winding streets and dead end roads that after twenty years of living out there I still got lost in fog or rain, often wandering aimlessly over streets not two blocks from my house.

  And as I knew I must that stormy night, I turned off on Bonsall instead of Fernhill and began the slow, hopeless business of trying to find my house, knowing that eventually, provided I didn’t run out of gas, I would circle back to the Coast Highway and the bleak light of the telephone booth at the bus stop, where I could phone Harriet to come and show me the way home. In ten minutes she appeared over the hill, the headlights of the station wagon spearing holes in the storm and zooming in on me parked beside the phone booth. She gave the horn a blast, leaped from the car and ran toward me in a white raincoat. Her eyes were wide with concern.

  “You’re going to need this.”

  She whipped my .22 pistol from under her coat and thrust it through the window. “There’s something terrible in the yard.”

  “What?”

  “God knows.”

  I didn’t want the damned gun. I wouldn’t take it. She stomped her foot.

  “Take it, Henry! It may save your life.”

  She shoved it right under my nose.

  “What the hell is it?”

  “I think it’s a bear.”

  “Where?”

  “On the lawn. Under the kitchen window.”

  “Maybe it’s one of the kids.”

  “With fur?”

  “What kind of fur?”

  “Bear fur.”

  “Maybe it’s dead.”

  “It’s breathing.”

  I tried to press the gun back to her. “Listen, I sure as hell don’t intend to shoot a sleeping bear with a .22! It’ll just wake him up. I’ll call the sheriff.”

  I opened the door but she pushed it closed.

  “No. Look at it first. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just a burro.”

  “Oh, shit. Now it’s a burro. Does it have big ears?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  I sighed and started the car. She ran back to the station wagon and wheeled it onto the road. There was no white center line, so I stayed close to her tail lights as the car rolled slowly through cascades of rain.

  Our house was on an acre of ground a hundred yards from the cliff and the roaring ocean below. It was a Y-shaped so-called rancho inside a concrete wall that completely circled the acre. A hundred and fifty tall pines grew along the walls so that it was like living in a forest, and the entire layout looked exactly like what it was not-the domicile of a successful writer.

  But it was paid for, right down to the last sprinkler head, and I had an overwhelming passion to dump it and get out of the country. Over my dead body, Harriet always challenged, and I often amused myself with wistful reveries of her lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor as I dug a grave out by the corral, then grabbing an Al Italia for Rome with seventy thousand bucks in my jeans and a new life on the Piazza Navonne, with a brunette for a change.

  But she was very good, my Harriet, she had stuck it out with me for twenty-five years and given me three sons and a daughter, any one of whom, or indeed all four, I would have gladly exchanged for a new Porsche, or even an MG GT ‘70.

  —West of Rome (My Dog Stupid)

  AND SO MY DAY BEGAN, a thrill a minute in the romantic, exciting, creatively fulfilling life of a writer. First, the grocery list. Varoom! and I roar down the coast highway in my Porsche, seven miles to the May-fair Market. Scree! I brake to a stop in the parking lot, leap from the car, give my white scarf a couple of twirls and zap! I enter the automatic doors. Pow! The lettuce, potatoes, chard, carrots. Swoosh! The roast, chops, bacon, cheese! Wham! The cake, the cereal, the bread. Zonk! The detergent, the floor wax, the paper towels.

  Back to the car again varoom varoom up the highway, roaring past a surf creamy as enzyme detergent, the wild carefree author, filling his days with exquisite sensuality. But the wind in my face brought back the only reality and I choked over an ever-returning memory of Rome, a cup of cappuccino at a little table on the Piazza Navonne, a raven-haired girl at my side, eating watermelon and laughing as she spat the seeds to the pigeons.

  Jamie was having breakfast as I carried in the groceries. The dog lay at his feet. By now he was so familiar it seemed he had come with the house.

  “I see you two have met,” I said.

  “Yeah, he’s okay.”

  “Has he tried to screw you yet? Last night he almost scored with Rick.”

  “He tried, but he’s kinda stupid. That’s why I like him. I’m sick of smart dogs.”

  “Jamie wants to keep him,” Harriet said.

  “No chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve had it with dogs, and because he belongs to somebody else, and because I don’t want him around here.” I decided to carry it a step further. “In God’s name give a thought to your father. I can’t work in this madhouse. I need peace and quiet. If you only knew what a writer goes through to …”

  He threw up his arms.

  “Okay, okay! I’ve heard that before!”

  He pushed back his chair and stormed out the back door, shouting to the dog, “Come on, Stupid!”

  The dog rose promptly and followed him out. Stupid. The name suited him perfectly. I picked up the phone and began dialing the County Animal Shelter.

  From the yard came the thump of a basketball. That was Jamie, draining off his anger by shooting baskets through the hoop on the garage wall. He was the best kid I had. He didn’t smoke pot, he didn’t drink booze, he didn’t sleep with black women, and he didn’t want to become an actor. What more could a father ask? There was something wholesome and refreshing about a son like that.

  From chi
ldhood he had had an abiding love for animals, had raised chickens, ducks, rabbits, hamsters and guinea pigs. I had seen him kiss guinea pigs on the mouth in gushes of affection at their cuddly warmth, and all of one summer he had slept with two king snakes coiled lovingly at his bosom. Now he was nineteen, with a student deferment from the draft, a math whiz with a bright future. He had an after-school job at the supermarket, saved every cent he earned, and planned for a degree in business administration. Most important, he was my best hope for a happy old age. The others, including Tina, would throw me out the way I was banishing the dog, but my Writers’ Guild pension, plus social security and a monthly stipend from Jamie promised serenity in my sunset years. So why muck up my own future? Let him keep the dog. How would he feel ten years from now if he remembered his old man as the heartless bastard who had consigned Stupid to the county gas chamber? No, I didn’t want that. I hung up and went out to discuss the matter with him.

  “You can keep him if you’ll promise to take care of him,” I said.

  “I don’t want him, Dad. You’re right. They’re too much trouble.”

  “What’ll we do with him?”

  “Let’s take him down to the beach,” Jamie said. “He’ll wander off on his own and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Good idea.”

  The dog lay half-buried in an ivy bed.

  “Come on, Stupid,” I said.

  He ignored it, but when Jamie called he rose immediately. So far, so good. I walked into the house and told Harriet our plan. She was so relieved that she kissed me. I swore she had seen the last of the dog.

  “Now be strong,” she said. “Don’t chicken out.”

  “You know me. Iron man. Besides, it’s the only humane way of getting rid of him. He’ll mosey on down the coast and that’ll be the end of it.”

  I joined Jamie and the dog at the front gate and we started down the road. It was a quarter of a mile to the gate that led to the beach, one-acre tracts on either side of the road, a house on each tract, at least one dog, and usually two at every house. Point Dume was dog country, a canine paradise of Dobermans, German shepherds, Labradors, boxers, Weimaraners, Great Danes and Dalmatians.

  All hell broke loose as we moved down the road. The Epsteins’ prize boxers, Elwood and Gracie, came roaring out of their driveway and smashed into Stupid before he knew what was happening, sweeping him off his feet. Howls, yawps, and yelps filled the air as fur exploded in a swirl of dust at the side of the road. It looked at if they were tearing Stupid to shreds, but he recovered quickly, his bearish jaws wide as a shovel as he fought back. There was a shriek of pain from Gracie and she ran limping away.

  On his back, Elwood’s teeth were in the thickness of Stupid’s neck, pulling out mouthfuls of fur. Stupid stomped him with his paws and his cavernous mouth sank into the boxer’s throat. But he didn’t hurt Elwood. He only held him down firmly, pressing his heavy body upon the boxer. Then the carrot flashed, emerging like an orange dagger just as Mrs. Epstein in curlers opened the front door and watched in consternation the intended assault upon her pride and joy. Seizing a dust mop, she rushed to the fight.

  “Oh, Elwood!” she wailed. “Poor Elwood!”

  She beat the mop against Stupid’s back as he tried to ram the dagger home. But it slid off harmlessly to one side and then the other, and sometimes poking the ground, gradually diminishing and finally disappearing. Only then did he disengage himself, his face clouded with bewilderment, the dust mop flailing him. Unhurt but embarrassed, Elwood sprang to his feet and lunged for a parting snap at Stupid’s thick hide. Then he ran off to join Gracie at the side of the house.

  Jamie and I faced Mrs. Epstein. She was panting, furious, glaring at Stupid.

  “What is that filthy thing?”

  “An Akita,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A Japanese dog.”

  “Bull terriers, and now this. Can’t you own a civilized dog?”

  “He didn’t start it, Mrs. Epstein,” Jamie said. “Your dogs attacked him.”

  “Can you blame them? Look at that horrible beast! He doesn’t belong in a nice neighborhood. Did you see what he did to Elwood?”

  Tongue out, panting and covered with dust, Stupid sat there staring at Mrs. Epstein.

  “I’m going to report him,” she said, striding back to the house. Pausing in the doorway, she called her dogs. “Elwood! Gracie! You get in here, this minute!” They raced into the house. She lobbed a vile look in my direction and closed the door.

  We bent over Stupid as he licked his paws and cleaned himself after the brawl. A fistful of fur was missing from under his chest, but there were no wounds. I slapped his belly admiringly.

  “This guy can fight,” I said.

  “Think he could take Rocco?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “Still, he routed two boxers. He’s got great promise.”

  “He’s a fag, Dad.”

  “So was Caesar. And Michelangelo.”

  “Wish we could keep him.”

  “Your mother would blow a fuse.”

  We moved on down the road, the canine alarm system preceding us and in full operation: the collie at the Hamer place, the hysterical beagles at the Frawleys, the Borchart Doberman, a score of dogs big and small on both sides of the road protesting the alien in their midst.

  They saw him between Jamie and me, each of us gripping his collar, they got a whiff of a beast from foreign parts and they went wild with fear and outrage at his presence, some racing up and down behind chain link fences others retreating to garages and porches where they cracked their throats with howls that brought women and children to the windows to peer anxiously from behind curtains, wondering what monster rambled over Point Dume.

  Tongue out and head high Stupid enjoyed the attention, straining at the collar like a horse impatient to break from the starting gate. As we passed the Bigelow house their fawn-colored Great Dane loped to the fence and cut loose with a few asthmatic bellows. Stupid sneered and flashed a wicked white fang.

  Beyond the Bigelows a final challenge awaited us before we reached the iron gates to the beach-a savage antagonist too formidable to think about or whisper his name. And yet we knew he lay in wait just around the bend in the road.

  His name was Rommel, and his owner’s name was Kunz, an executive with the Rand think-tank in Santa Monica. Rommel. Flown in from Berlin, he was the reigning monarch of Point Dume’s canine empire. He was a black and silver German shepherd who lived in the last house on that road, and who took it upon himself to guard the gates leading to the beach below. An awesome dog, a gauleiter with an uncanny instinct for screening out strangers and dropouts (and wagging his tail at anyone in uniform), handsome as Cary Grant and ferocious as Joe Louis, a mighty king among dogs, but in my mind inferior to Rocco, my bull terrier, cut down by an assassin’s bullet a year before Rommel made the scene.

  Even as we approached the cul de sac Rommel presented himself, the warning system from his minions having already alerted him for whatever intruder, man or beast, came down Cliffside Road.

  My heart began to rev up and all at once I knew that my only reason for leading Stupid to the beach was this encounter. I looked at Jamie. His face was flushed, his eyes sparkling. The only one among us, man or beast, who was unaware of the impending menace was Stupid. Apparently his sense of smell was as imperfect as his eyesight, for he swaggered into view without seeing Rommel, his big tongue flapping and a grin on his bearish face.

  Slinking toward him with menacing tread, one paw stealthily following another, his tail thrust straight out, his hackles rising, Rommel loosed a blood-chilling growl that silenced the yips and yowls along the road. The king had spoken and an awful silence prevailed. Stupid’s ears peaked as his eyes found Rommel thirty yards away. He lunged to break the grip on his collar, dragging us along until we released him. He did not crouch like his Teutonic rival. Instead, he walked into the battle with his head high, the loop of his plumed tai
l swirling like a flag over his rump.

  The thing unfolded like Main Street, Dodge City. Jamie licked his chops. My heart roared. We stopped to watch.

  Rommel hit first, driving his teeth deeply into the fur at Stupid’s throat. It was like biting into a mattress. Stupid tore himself free, high on his hind legs, the move of a bear, his forepaws keeping the Teuton at bay. They snapped at one another, face to face, as Rommel too rose to his hind legs. My Rocco, a street-fighter, would have disemboweled them both had the tactic been used against him. But Rommel was a stand-up fighter, a stickler for the rules, no biting at the under-belly, no attack except at the throat.

  He hit several times, but he could not hang on. Stupid, to my surprise, wasn’t biting at all. He snarled, his jaws snapped, he roared to match Rommel’s roars, but it was obvious that he wanted to wrestle and not kill. He was the same size as Rommel but his chest was more powerful and his paws slugged like clubs.

  After half a dozen charges the combat was a draw and there was a momentary pause as the dogs measured each other. The alert Rommel stood still as a statue as Stupid moved closer and began circling him. Rommel watched this maneuver suspiciously, ears up. By all the rules of a classic dog fight the battle should have ended a draw then and there, both animals retiring with honors unchallenged.

  Not Stupid. Circling a second time, he suddenly raised his paws to Rommel’s back. Touch$eA! It was a fantastic ploy, unprecedented, daring, defiant and so unorthodox that Rommel froze in disbelief. It was as if Stupid would rather frolic than fight and it confused Rommel, a noble dog who believed in fair play.

  Then Stupid revealed his uncanny purpose, unsheathing his orange sword and leaping upon Rommel’s back, truly a bear now, squeezing Rommel with four powerful legs and endeavoring to sink home the sword. What finesse! What brilliance! My blood sang. God, what a dog!

  Snarling in disgust, Rommel thrashed to free himself from the obscene assault, his neck twisting to reach Stupid’s throat, his bottom dragged protectingly along the ground. Now he knew that his adversary was a fiendish monster with depraved intent and it put him in a panic of energy to disengage. Finally free, he skulked away, tail down and shielding his privates. Stupid romped after him as Rommel retreated to the lawn and planted himself with lips exposing a mouthful of dripping teeth. There was nausea and disgust in the sound that came from his throat, a shrinking away from this revolting adversary too loathsome to attack.