Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  THE HOTEL HE'S IN

  MY ADVICE TO YOU IS watch out for those foreign places. No question you have to go to them. No question but that it will come up in your experience that you will have to sometimes go to them. But don't go acting like there's a story in them just because they're foreign. There's no story in them. Why should there be a story in them? They didn't get to come into being, any of those places like that, just for you to come along and take a story out of them. You want a good story? Stick close to home. People go away, they get crazy. Look at Melville. It would have been ten times better for the man if he had stayed in New York. Myself, where I went, I didn't come back with anything written about it, no, but I am sitting here with about ten tons of notes to look at. What a joke. They're on these little cards I have written them down on—on business cards, hah!—from when I used to work as an editor. It's a crying shame. I go off somewhere, the first thing I do is go stack up my wallet with them, go pack the little pockets in it with them. But never again! Because not once does it ever turn out to give me anything but a lot of scribbled shit that doesn't to anybody, starting with me, make any fucking sense. Not that that wasn't just exactly the opposite of what it seemed like at the time. I mean, would you please look at this, for instance?

  Drunk down across street.

  Watching him whole stay I stayed.

  Cigarette, how he handles it, bums them.

  Off to side of Champion, the man's haunt?

  Drunker sidekick. Cut-off hair, floppy shoes.

  Kissing, hugging, them falling on pavement.

  Blows out cheeks, whips fingers, sleeps, raves.

  How he gets bottles open—man oh man!

  The plenary self—you can say that again.

  My contempt for him. Fear of. Mad desire.

  Him hair-straightening himself in window.

  Manliness to spare. Origin of it, the very case.

  Wheedling faces when begs. Nauseating, cute.

  Saves sidekick—rescue!—from Champion guard.

  Sticks it inside his inside pocket—coins, cigs.

  Hugging, falling, kissing on sidewalk.

  Petting hair, patting it—"Now, now." Sidekick's.

  Trick to get open—the muscle it must, the power.

  Cuddling in rain. Cold out there? Cold!

  Thought he'd bash him. He kissed!

  These boys homos?

  All drunks like that, like this?

  Black pants, red turtleneck. Denim jacket.

  Sees me watching? Thumb-twiddles back at me.

  He's mocking me!

  Rose Pelure d'Oignon.

  Red blanket in doorway. Red! Neatly folded.

  Champion bag. Bag says "Champion."

  Fire! Fire trucks, he's directing them, go there!

  Did it again. The strength it must.

  I don't know what to tell you about all of this, or of that. I was thinking, "Okay, fine, tell them a story about this fellow who goes to this fancy foreign city and who never goes out of his hotel except for once but who is otherwise stuck in there, helpless to do other than to keep staring down into the street at this drunk that's got himself stationed down there just off to the side of the entrance to this big food market that's down there and that the one time the fellow goes out is the time when he goes out to sit in a park and in the park he sees lots, a lot, of people sitting gazing and can't stop himself from sitting gazing at this woman who is sitting looking about his age to him and who looks to him to be the answer to all of his prayers to him and who he keeps thinking he should get up and go over to and say something to or else take the chance—the risk, the risk!—of losing her forever, but what can he say to her, he can't say to her you are the answer to my prayers to her, the way you keep lifting your jacket to get it to keep itself from falling from off of your—oh, Christ!—your shoulders, the way you keep drifting your fingers through your hair, the way your foot bobs, the way you bob your foot—the shoe!—jump your foot up, jump it, jump it, the one of the leg, the one belonging to the leg you've got laid over over so wonderfully over the other leg, don't you see you're my age and you're all alone and you're getting to be older and there is no one with you and there will never ever be anyone else ever anywhere with you and you are going to be always, if you do not go with me, if you do not come away right away this very minute with me, alone, all alone, alone?"

  OH, THERE'S ANOTHER TIME WHEN he goes out—sorry, I'm really, I forgot.

  It's when he goes out at night and he is coming back to his hotel at night and he didn't get anybody to come back with him to the hotel with him for her to be with him for the night, not for that night or for any night all those strange foreign nights, and it's about a block away, he's about a block away, from the big food market, which makes it, which makes him, also about a block away from the hotel he's in, from his hotel, when he sees, in a doorway, in the doorway of a shop, a red blanket all folded up nicely and neatly on the step or the stoop of the doorway for the shop and there is a bag there on the step or the stoop with the big food market's name on it there—and the bottle, a bottle!—and he goes over to the stoop and he sees the name on it, sees the label on it, touches the nasty thing with the tip of his shoe to get it moved around so he can bend down and read the label on it and then takes out a little bit of a business card and then takes out a pencil and then notes it down, scribbles it down, jots it down, writes it down, the name, the wine, the kind of wine, the wine all gone, nothing inside, all empty inside, whatever there ever was of it all gone from the inside of it, except for, yes—look!—in the bottle, thumbed, smacked inward, compressed, the cork.

  THIS CRAZY THING CALLED LOVVVV

  I EVER TELL YOU about Bobby Cholly in the bughouse? I don't think I ever told you about Bobby Cholly in the bughouse. Or actually not about him so much as about the fellow that was even loonier than Bobby Cholly was and that was always mainly busy trying to keep coming up to Bobby Cholly whenever Bobby Cholly tried to get to the piano and play.

  Boy, could that Bobby Cholly play!

  You name it, that Bobby Cholly could play it—and not even have to have the music on him for him to go by but just have, you know, his craziness and his fingers. Except, hey, don't you dare name anything as far as Bobby Cholly playing.

  I'm promising you, it would be the worst idea for anybody to come up to the piano and for them to try naming anything when Bobby Cholly went on over to the piano and played.

  Man, did it make me scared, the idea of Bobby Cholly going crazy from somebody trying to come up to him to name for him what tune Bobby Cholly should sit there and play it for them.

  Talk about being scared of seeing a crazy fellow sit somewhere going crazy! No sir, my idea of it was that it was a lot better idea for you just to let Bobby Cholly pick out the tune for himself and for him to go ahead and be let alone to play it just in accordance with the dictates of his head.

  Hey, it wasn't a good idea for you to take any chance on any trouble—not on Six and not with Bobby Cholly and not anywhere else anywhere in this place of theirs they had—no sir, not with that Bobby Cholly nor with anybody else.

  Because this was the bughouse, you remember—and Six was a pretty big thing in it, considering the numbers you could otherwise still be doing in it if you hadn't been pretty lucky at it for yourself being a pretty good bullshitter for yourself and getting yourself bullshitted down out of those other upper numbers and all of the way down to Six.

  Hey, this was Six for all of us, you remember—and like if there was ever a rumpus about anything on it, don't worry, they could come grab you for it, dress you up with a camisole on you, hoist you off your feet from right from where you thought you stood, and carry you two to a man back up the stairs to Eight.

  WE WERE ALL OF US FELLOWS FROM EIGHT.

  Everybody on Six, I think we probably were all of us former fellows from Eight.

  And don't think they had anything anything like a piano up there on Eight—because they didn't.

 
Nor not on Seven, either.

  They didn't have anything for you on Seven and they had even less of it for you on Eight, except for maybe in the closet one extra big-sized camisole for you for when you gave them the idea you wanted to try it out with two of them on you, like with one camisole yanked on and laced up plus another one done up on you on top of that.

  No sir, music wasn't anywhere close to getting anywhere into the picture for anybody, lest you got them to let you try out your head out down there on Six.

  That's where the piano was—down on Six—good old gateway halfway back out to the outside again, good old musically inclined, musically involved Six.

  Boy, you should have heard them when they thought out loud about Six.

  You want to take a minute and hear the fellows thinking out loud about Six?

  "Crikies, when I get to Six."

  "Don't you know it's something on Six."

  "You name it, that's Six."

  "Hear they got them a pool table on Six."

  "Pool, hell—they get tail in for everybody on Six!"

  But I don't think any of the fellows was ever all that amazed for themselves if they ever got down there to it and saw it turning out different.

  Well, there was only just a piano on Six.

  It was just this beat-to-shit piano on Six.

  Must have been about a million people who had come along and who had sat themselves down at it beating the shit out of it, and every one of them just as geniusly loony as the next.

  Probably among them were some pretty fair players of it, don't you believe. Probably, when you think about crazy people, you could probably among them count some pretty fair players of things you can't even think of, don't you believe.

  But I'll bet there wasn't all that many of them who could have come along and have sat themselves down at that piano of theirs and given it anywhere near the run for the money your old Bobby Cholly by God did.

  BUT, HEY, WHAT THIS IS ABOUT is not just about your old Bobby Cholly, you remember—but about that other crazy psycho too.

  God, was it scary!

  The loon, the loon, the poor crazy bastard—he'd go catch himself sight of Bobby Cholly getting himself ready to go get himself situated there at that piano, here he comes hustling himself right on over, hangs that hand of his out there onto the wood, hollering, "Come on, boy, goddamn it, boy—you play that tune there of yours—that, you know, that ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?' you hear?"

  Oh, land, there's Bobby Cholly sitting there—you could see it, you could see it!—fixing to have kittens.

  But would the crazy psycho quit?

  Not Bobby Cholly, I don't mean that crazy psycho Bobby Cholly, but the other crazy psycho—him, I mean him!—the singer.

  Him always with this sad ratty robe of his on—and, you know, these awful beat-to-shit slippers—never actually in his rightful shoes but just these awful beat-to-shit slippers of his.

  I tell you the poor sad psycho is hollering?

  Because the poor sad psycho is hollering!

  With this hand of his hung out there onto that piano like he's come to have the recent knowledge it's like family for him or something.

  Hollers, "Come on, boy, you go be a pal for us, boy! You go play us that, you know, that ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?'!"

  You wanted to run.

  You wanted to get all of the way out of there away from there quick.

  Because the thoughts that came to you no matter how batty you were, they were look out! here comes carnage! here comes mayhem! here comes death!

  Plus, isn't the whole floor going to get itself packed right up off its feet and packed right off back up in camisoles back up to Eight?

  Whereas it never happened, did it?

  Whereas, no sir, sorry to break your stride for you, that old Bobby Cholly of ours, I never saw him go ape-shit over this nor anything else, neither.

  Not that there is any factual information that he ever played that tune which that loon kept calling for him to play nor even if Bobby Cholly even knew it.

  No sir, as far as Bobby Cholly, buggy son of a bitch—buggy!—he's just sitting there with his two ragged hands laid there in this dilapidated lap of his doing this, you know, this slow burn.

  Except oh no, oh no, this never comes close to slowing down this other old psycho boy, now does it?

  Who's keeping this hand of his hung out there like he's back outside hugging the whole family with it again, ratty old robe dropped open on him, rocking up there on his toes in those sad silly slippers of his, other arm flung out all of the way out to all of the fans way out in the back in the back seats, sad little pizzle screwed back into him like it's been handled too hard and broke, all the while meanwhile belting it right on out there to them to the paying customers up there in the box seats—like really fucking, you know, fucking screaming the thing, you know—but never, I notice, never not once more—never, I notice, ever not once other than just this little one bit of it, don't you know—which what it was, which I think it was, was, you know, was this crazy thing called lovvvv.

  MRS. ORTESE

  SHE SAID TO ME, "Don't cry."

  But I had not been crying.