Whores for Gloria

by William T. Vollmann

  Thanks Pearl said Jimmy, taking in all the honest ugliness of her, the bad breath and good nature and loving kindness of her, and then he paid his rent and went out.

  Gloria

  Well, I didn't do too bad that time did I? he laughed, leaning against a wall on Turk Street. I did pretty good considering I don't even believe in you.

  He took a stroll down to Sixth Street, walking cocky, and heard Code Six puking in his alley and politely waited until the sounds stopped before he ambled in and said hey Code Six! How's life, buddy? You pulling through?

  Damned straight I am, said Code Six. That's why Walgreen's sells Vaseline.

  Gloria

  Stories and hair he said to himself again on the bed that's the ticket, stories and hair. Just keep pretending, step by step, and then you're back around the block.

  Fine.

  What next?

  22

  Spider

  Pleased to know ya, Jimmy said. He stuck out his hand.

  Spider's handshake was cold and limp. Spider's wrist dangled down against Jimmy's fingers. Spider did not bother to look at Jimmy when he shook his hand.

  Jumper and Boz told me to come to you, Jimmy said.

  What do you want? said Spider. I assume you want something.

  I hear you have all different kinds of girls, Jimmy said. Now see this hair in this matchbox this is my wife Gloria's hair do you have any girls with hair like that?

  That's just reg'lar nigger hair, said Spider. Any one of my girls got hair like that.

  Well I want more of it, Jimmy said. I've been in difficulties lately and I'm kind of floundering around, but I think if I get enough of it I may be able to start all over again. I want one of your girls to cut all her hair off to match this so I can make a wig out of it and then any whore I go with can wear it, you see what I'm saying?

  You want one of my girls to be bald? said Spider. You trying to insult me? Listen you I grew up on the West Side of Chicago you know what that means?

  It means a hundred bucks to you, Jimmy said.

  Spider spat on the sidewalk, carefully, right between Jimmy's feet. Two hundred is what it means, he said.

  Hey Spider I don't have that kind of money, said Jimmy, what do you think I am, Joe Million?

  Everybody be Joe Million for two days when his check come in. Now I be considerin' your proposal; I be cool and you be cool. You gimme some kinda value for my time.

  Hundred twenty-five, said Jimmy.

  Pay me now.

  All right, I owe you, Jimmy said, swallowing. My check comes in this afternoon.

  You mean you been wasting my time for nothing? said Spider. Is that what you're trying to say to me? I don't like that. I could pawn you. I could take you down to Turk Street and sell your ass. You want that?

  I'll be coming down here tomorrow morning, said Jimmy. You have that bag of hair.

  You tell me when, said Spider, and you tell me where, and you better be there or we're gonna have a real talk. You know I could easily take somethin' and just start hittin' you upside the head.

  Yeah, Spider, we all have ways of defending ourselves, said Jimmy.

  But when Spider heard this, he walked off as Jimmy was speaking and strode up the block to show his displeasure. Jimmy figured that he would be back, and here he came, just like a mosquito.—Now where it gonna be? he said.

  The Black Rose, at twelve o'clock, said Jimmy. His throat was dry, and he knew that Spider knew that he was nervous. Spider liked to make people nervous.

  That night Jimmy reclined on his bed, which was very sturdy and had withstood thirty years forty years of screwings beatings rapes and thrown dead weight; he rested the back of his neck against the headboard and stared down at his wriggling toes; he looked around him, looked into the closet where his spare shirt lay crumpled, look at the scratched-up desk beside him that served for bureau and night table with a wavering row of empty beer cans that he had not yet crushed, looked at the wastebasket with its moldy apple core and the mummy of an old tampon, stared up at the ceiling where the light bulb hurt his eyes, smelled the insecticide smell that grew simultaneously staler and more concentrated week by week when the exterminator came because Jimmy never opened the window to air the place out; and then there was nothing more to notice so Jimmy began to play with his keys. He felt very safe and happy to think that his door was double-locked, that downstairs in the lobby whose pillars and wide easy wall-curves proclaimed that it had once been plush Pearl sat in her little glass box keeping an eye on everything, and if anyone wanted to get in, he had to talk Pearl into buzzing him in. Outside, beneath the sign that said TRANSIENTS WELCOME, Spider leaned, hawking on the sidewalk, pulling the brim of his cap lower and lower over his eyes because he thought now I be lookin' MEAN! and wide pipes clambered up the wall of the hotel like vines and light glowed white and dim through the little window in the door up the steps behind the great steel grating that Spider might have clawed over inch by inch without finding a way in; and behind Spider stretched a flank of stucco wall studded with reflectors and then the Vietnamese vegetable market which was now closed and then parking meters and parked cars all the way to Code Six's Lincoln on the hood of which Luna lay sprawled barefoot in new white sneakers and she wore black jeans and a dazzling white California T-shirt and she smiled and waved at every passing car. A ratdy old Dodge pulled up, and two men got out with baseball bats. Luna sat up abrupdy.—You the fag that tried to pick my pocket? said one of the men.

  But the next day Jimmy had his money; Pearl had cashed his check; and Spider was waiting on the corner saying my wife said you be late but I told her you still five minutes early you got my money?

  Sure do, said Jimmy.

  Spider smiled. Here's what you told me to get for you, he said. I cut it off my wife myself.

  Snitches

  At the corner of Turk and Jones the pushers were pushing and Jimmy went and leaned up against a building with them and watched the whores go by and a pusher said you want a bag? and Jimmy said no thanks I got a bag right here, a paper bag with treasure in it and the pusher said you ain't no cop I trust 'cause if you are you gonna be dead and Jimmy said no not me and another pusher came up to him and said what you doin' here and Jimmy said what's happening pal and the pusher said coldly pal's not my name and Jimmy said well I'm Jimmy pleased to meet you Charlie and he stretched out his hand and the pusher just looked at it and Jimmy said well if that's the way you want it and the pusher took a quart of beer out of a paper sack and smashed it down on the sidewalk so that it exploded and sprayed beer and broken glass all over the sidewalk and the pusher just kept looking at Jimmy in disgust saying shit and Jimmy said yep Charlie you can sure say that again.

  He pulled out the wig he had bought from Spider and put it on and the pushers all said see I told ya he's a cop! and then they giggled and said oh no I guess he's just a fag I guess he's just another one of them Miss Things.

  Jimmy said don't snitch on me boys I'm just a he-she and now let me hide this wig away and go get some ACTION.

  You be crazy! the pushers laughed and laughed.

  Jimmy strolled up to Ellis and Leavenworth and met the ugliest old whore he had ever seen in his life although thanks to Vaseline or whatever it was her lips glistened like the retro-shimmer of rockets. Here we have the Whore of Hell, he thought to himself: Abandon hope all ye who enter her. Listen baby, she told him, Wino Jimmy is an undercover Fed he snitched on the whole Tenderloin you see this steel comb I'm gonna go find him and carve his eyes out.—Good luck, Jimmy grinned.

  Gloria

  He was in a fine mood. His life was about to change. He had the treasure.

  More decisions

  So now as in the old days Jimmy also known as James went whore-hunting. And he said to himself I now make my harvest in the garden of black roses and coral sea anenomes and delicate little nightcap flowers like buttercups like a blonde whore's hair; alley by alley I will search and destroy like Code Six and Riley and I did in the
old days.—Potato chip bags scuttered down Jones Street like the flittering red-brown places where "declassified" Army films had been censored; and Jimmy remembered Code Six in the days when he was a tanned, smoking, bare-chested soldier beside him unkink-ing a belt of 7.62 machine-gun slugs; he remembered the blue, blue mountains, the swarm of 'copters; and he could not believe that he was actually remembering anything because he had not done that since before he started drinking, and he felt uneasy. —In the marine gardens of the Tenderloin, he went beachcombing for special objects like the perfect pink shells of Peggy's ears. On the hood of Code Six's Lincoln, a whore very elegandy drank a Coke through a straw, a thin straw in which the liquid rose and fell as her tongue played with it, and the can seemed very precious in her fingers.—Pretty good, grinned Jimmy, feeling his old self. He wandered to the edge of Union Square where the department stores began (and Leroy and Laredo drove by him and Laredo said see, there's that old drunk again), and a pretty whore came after dark and sat on a bench looking with great interest at the pedestal and he wandered past the yellow-glowing snailshell dome of City Hall and turned the corner to the place where the blowjobs were; he revisited all the alleys with the wholesome names: Fern, Olive, Myrtle and Cedar which smelled of something other than cedar; and then—why, he had another drink.

  A man walked crying down the street. He did not know that he was crying. He thought he was happy. So was he happy if he thought so? He was Jimmy with his wide owl eyes, his forehead wrinkled like a sandbar, his short grey hair like dying grass, his mouth gaping as he listened to someone talking or not talking to him, and his slender arms hung down at his sides.

  An old woman stood on the sidewalk staring at him. He had never seen her before. She wore a raincoat much too large for her, and her wrists were so lost in the sleeves that they clutched each other for comfort. Her eyeglasses took up half her face; behind the smoked lenses, hard little seeds blinked and blinked. She seemed to be gathering breath as she fixed on him; she was glaring at him wildly, as if he had tried to murder her. In a moment she would start screaming. He looked around him for an alley to duck in, but there was none.

  The woman began to weep. —Clark? she said very weakly. Clark, is it you? You came back?

  Jimmy understood. His arm was around her.—Yeah, it's me, he said. And I came all the way to see you. I knew you were waiting for me. I felt it so I came. And you're looking good and looking happy. Now I'll always be here with you because even if you can't always see me I'll be right around the corner watching out for you and you can trust me on that because what I have in this bag gives me special powers. So don't you worry about ghosts and things like that because I'll be keeping my eye on you and I'll be helping you.

  She clung to him. Her face was against his shoulder, and she was shaking. Her hand moved tenderly across his face. Supporting her, he led her to a doorway and sat her down. — I've got to go now, he said. But don't you ever worry anymore. Everything's going to be grand. He disengaged himself. When he looked back at her, she was smiling with closed eyes, sitting pale and still like a ruined doll.

  Yessir! he shouted as soon as he had gone around the corner. I have the treasure.

  No one paid him any attention.

  He strode along kicking at sacks of garbage and whisding. He stuck his hand into the treasure-bag and winked. He dragged his knuckles across the bars of ground-floor windows. Then he saw that they were grime-black, and rubbed them on his pants. He sang don't letcher deal go-a down, ooh, whoo-whoo, till that last old DOLLAR is gone! and George the shoeshine man on Jones Street who was feeling poorly said my Lord Jimmy you sure are cheerful today and Jimmy said morning George and George said morning or afternoon either way sure is a nice day ain't it? and Jimmy said sure is, 'cause I got a SPECIAL THING in this paper bag and you can't even drink it!—George said well Jimmy whatever it is you get me one if it turns you around like that because I got aches and I got pains. Oh Jimmy old man you are a card do you know that?—Knew it all my life, said Jimmy. I'm such a card I shuffle when I walk!—And George stood laughing under his hat in the shade of his stand with all the little tins of Kiwi polish stacked beside bottles of this and that, and rusty shoehorns rattling like wind-chimes in the breeze, and boots hanging from hooks just over his head like the extremities of hanged men; and when Jimmy was gone George began to sweep the sidewalk chuckling.—Shucks, he said to himself. If that poor old coot got reason to be happy, I oughta have reason too. Ain't that right, boots? Happiness ain't against the law?

  Cynthia

  Cynthia leaned up against the door of a loading dock with her legs crossed. The sunlight glowed upon her right knee, her left flank. Whenever men passed by, she took a deep breath and thrust her chest out. She was smoking a cigarette, and her hands were tight little fists on her hips.

  You want some company? Cynthia said.

  His eyes went up the long sweep of Cynthia's legs, Cynthia so cool with a never to be lit cigarette in her hand, Cynthia tapping her shoes on the concrete, one fist on hip, the other firm against her shoulder as she leaned staring into his eyes with a fierceness that might have been predatory were the message not feed on me . . . eat me . . . and her gaze was not even fierce, really, but simply very serious because Cynthia was working and that was how she showed it. Then he thought to himself this is the one.

  Yes said Jimmy I want you to fuck me with this wig on and hair all around your face like the rays of the sun and keep calling me your husband.

  Whatever you say, laughed Cynthia. But you gotta pay me sixty right now.

  Sixty bucks is too much, Jimmy said. I'm not asking to fuck you up the ass or anything.

  All right, fifty then. I'm really good, said Cynthia. I run circles round them all. And you don't have to use a rubber or nothing. Now let's have the money. I be tired of playing around.

  OK, Jimmy said.

  Gimme gimme. Oh you husband.

  Jimmy got it out of the lining of his coat, counting out the tens by feel, and passed it to her.

  Now gimme the wig, Cynthia ordered.

  When she had Gloria's crown of office in her hand, she started laughing and laughing cruelly. — Is this what she looks like? she screamed, puffing her lips out and smushing her mouth up against her nose, so that her nose and cheeks got fatter and her black eyeballs sparkled. Thunderstruck, Jimmy gaped at her; then he tried to snatch at the wig, but Cynthia leaped back and began to run down the street. Just before she vanished from his life for ever, he saw her throw the wig down into a sewer.

  Budweiser

  When Jimmy understood what had happened, the world seemed filled with sickness like liquid, churning him around in its acid waves, stinking in his nose and mouth, and he had to lie down on the sidewalk to stop it and felt better for a minute, but then he began to feel a hard remorseless oval in his belly, weighing down his guts as if he had swallowed a big lead sinker; this commenced to get burning hot so that he cried out and doubled his body tight, trying to squeeze that red-hot ball back into something soft and harmless, but he could not, and presently began to vomit very painfully on the sidewalk.

  Home again

  My god Jimmy cried Pearl what happened to you should I take you to a doctor?

  Jimmy said hello Pearl here's my rent.

  23

  Cynthia

  Cynthia started whoring when a friend said hey you're getting on your back for free you might as well make some MONEY at it!—The best thing that ever happened to her was when she got picked up by an army guy who had something wrong in the head. He gave her a bunch of fifty-dollar bills and said how much does it add up to? and Cynthia counted it and found that it came to a thousand dollars. The army guy said baby you just do whatever you feel like doing. She only had to stay with him a couple of hours. She spent it all on drugs.

  Cynthia's man was in the pen. He'd be out in 1992. Until then, she wouldn't be kissing nobody. Whatever she did she had to do, but she was saving her kisses for him.

  24

&
nbsp; Jimmy

  Pal you look very emancipated, said Code Six, meaning emaciated, and Jimmy said yes I am emancipated from my fatty flesh and Code Six shouted stop talking like a fucking fag! now get off your Gloria kick and eat right and Jimmy said look who's talking and Code Six said so I don't practice what I preach but that's no reason for you to cave in like me Jimmy boy you been the smart one you save your SSI checks so you always got a hotel room to stay in now don't end up like me stinking and puking in the alley I feel bad I ever encouraged you in this Gloria business because look what it's doing to you and Jimmy said Code Six we go back a long way but if you want to keep me as a friend don't try to break me up with Gloria ever again do you hear what I'm saying? and Code Sue said that's how it is huh and Jimmy said yes and Code Six said hell James you know I didn't mean nothing.