chinaski speaking

Here comes Hank again, to cool down the system:

"The snoring in the flophouse was very loud, as usual. Tom couldn’t sleep.
There must have been 60 cots in there and each was occupied. The drunks
snored the loudest and most of those assembled were drunk. Tom sat up
and watched the moonlight come in through the windows and fall across
the sleeping men. He rolled a smoke, lit it. He looked at the men again.
What a bunch of ugly useless fuckers. Fuckers? They didn’t fuck. The ladies
didn’t want them. Nobody wanted them. Not worth a fuck, haha. And he
was one of them. He pulled the bottle out from under the pillow and had
a last hit. That last drink was always the sad one. He rolled the empty under
his cot and viewed the snoring men once again. They weren’t even worth
nuking.
Tom looked over at his buddy, Max, on the next cot. Max was stretched
out there with his eyes open. Was he dead?
“Hey, Max!”
“Uhhh?”
“You’re not sleeping.”
“Can’t. You notice? A lot of them are snoring in rhythm. What causes
that?”
“I don’t know, Max. There are a lot of things I don’t know.”
“Me too, Tom. I guess I’m dumb.”
“You gotta guess? If you knew you were dumb, you wouldn’t be.”
Max sat up on the edge of his cot.
“Tom, do you think we’ll ever get off the Row?”
“Just one way…”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah…stiff.”
Max rolled a cigarette, lit it.
Max felt bad, he always felt bad when he thought about things. The thing
to do was not to think, shut it off.
“Listen, Max,” he heard Tom.
“Yeah?”
“I been thinking…”
“Thinking’s no good…”
“But I keep thinking this thing.”

“You got a drink left?”
“No, sorry. But listen…”
“Bullshit, I don’t want to listen!”
Max stretched out on his cot again. Talking didn’t help. It was a waste.
“I’m going to tell you anyhow, Max.”
“O.K., hell, go ahead…”
“You see all these guys? There are plenty of them, right? Bums wherever
you look.”
“Yeah, they clutter my sight…”
“So, Max, I keep thinking about how we might utilize this manpower.
It’s just being wasted.”
“Nobody else wants these bums. What can you do with them?”
Tom felt a little excited.
“The fact that nobody wants these guys, that’s to our advantage.”
“Is that right?”
“Right. You see, they don’t want them in the jails because they’d have
to house and feed them. And these bums have no place to go and nothing
to lose.”
“So?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot at night. Like, if we can get them together, like
cattle, we could run them over things. Take temporary command of certain
situations…”
“You’re nuts,” Max said.
But he sat up on his cot.
“Tell me more…”
Tom laughed. “Well, maybe I’m crazy, but I keep thinking of this wasted
manpower. I’ve laid here awake nights dreaming of things to do with it…”
Now Max laughed. “Like what, for Christ’s sake?”
Nobody was bothered by their conversation. The snoring continued all
about them.
“Well, I’ve kind of been rolling it around in my mind. Yeah, maybe it’s
nuts. Anyhow…”
“Yeah?” Max asked.
“Don’t laugh. Maybe the wine has eaten my brain away.”
“I’ll try not to laugh.”
Tom inhaled on his cigarette, then let it out. “Well, you see, I get this
vision of all the bums we can find, walking down Broadway, right

here in L.A., the whole crowd of them together, walking along…”
“Well, so?…”
“Well, it’s a lot of guys. Kind of like the vengeance of the damned. A
parade of discards. It’s almost like some kind of movie. I can see the cameras,
the lights, the director. The March of the Defeated. The Raising of the
Dead! Man, oh man!”
“I think,” Max responded, “you ought to switch from port back to muscatel.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. O.K. So we got these bums walking along Broadway, say at high
noon, then what?”
“Well, we walk them into the biggest and fanciest store in town…”
“You mean, Bowarms?”
“Yeah, Max. Bowarms stocks everything: the best wines, the finest
clothing, watches, radios, tv’s, you name it, they’ve got it…”
Just then an old guy a few cots down sat up, opened his eyes wide,
screamed, “GOD IS A 400 POUND LESBIAN NIGGER!”
Then he fell back on his cot.
“We take him?” asked Max.
“Sure. He’s one of the best. What jail would want him?”
“O.K., we walk into Bowarms. Then what?”
“Visualize it. It will be just in and out. There will be too many of us for
the security staff to handle. Visualize it: we just take. Anything our hearts
desire. Maybe even grab a salesgirl’s ass. Any part of the dream we no
longer have, just take it, take something, take anything. And then we’re
gone.”
“Tom, there might be a lot of busted heads. It’s not going to be a picnic
in wonderland…”
“No, but neither is this life we have! This allowing ourselves to be buried,
forever, without even a protest…”
“Tom, buddy, I think you’ve got something. Now, how do we go about
setting this thing up?”
“All right, first we set a date and a time. Now, you know a dozen guys
you can line up?”
“I think so.”
“I know about a dozen too.”
“Suppose somebody tips off the cops?”

“Not likely. Anyhow, what we got to lose?”
“Right.”
It was high noon.
Tom and Max walked in front of the gang of them. They were walking
down Broadway in Los Angeles. There were more than 50 bums walking
along behind Tom and Max. 50 or more bums—blinking, staggering, not
exactly sure of what was happening. The ordinary citizens on the street
were astonished. They stopped, they stepped aside and watched. Some
were frightened, some laughed. To others it appeared to be a joke, or some
movie in the making. The makeup was perfect: the actors looked like bums.
But where were the cameras?
Tom and Max led the march.
“Listen, Max, I only told 8. How many did you tell?”
“Maybe 9.”
“I wonder what the hell happened?”
“They must have told each other…”
They walked along. It was like a mad dream that couldn’t be stopped.
At the corner of 7th, the light changed to red. Tom and Max stopped and
the bums bunched up behind them waiting. The smell of unwashed socks
and underwear, booze and bad breath, wafted through the air. The Goodyear
blimp circled aimlessly overhead. The smog settled bluegrey in the
street.
Then the signal changed to green. Tom and Max stepped forward. The
bums followed.
“Even though I visualized this,” said Tom, “I can’t believe it’s really
happening.”
“It’s happening,” said Max.
There were so many bums behind them that some of them were still
crossing the street when the signal changed back to red. But they kept
coming, holding up traffic, some of them clutching bottles of wine or
swigging at them. They marched along but there was no marching song.
Just silence, except for the scuffle of worn shoes on the pavement. Only
now and then somebody spoke.
“Hey, where the fuck we going?”
“Gimme a swig of that stuff!”
“Kiss my ass!”
The sun burned down warmly.
“Should we go through with this thing?” Max asked.

“I’d feel pretty sick if we turned back now,” Tom stated.
Then they were in front of Bowarms.
Tom and Max paused for a moment.
Then together they pushed through the imposing glass doors.
The crowd of bums followed along behind them in a long ragged line.
They walked along the plush aisles. The clerks looked at them, not quite
comprehending.
The Men’s Department was on the first floor.
“Now,” said Tom, “we have to set an example.”
“Yeah,” Max said, uncertainly.
“Let’s do it, Max!”
“Uh huh…”
The bums had stopped and were watching. Tom hesitated a moment,
then walked up to a coat rack, slipped off the first coat, a yellow leather
model with a fur collar. He dropped his old coat to the floor and slipped
into the new one. A store clerk walked up, a trim little fellow with a neat
mustache.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yes, I like this one and I’m taking it. Put it on my account.”
“American Express, sir?”
“No, Chinese Express.”
“And I’m taking this one,” said Max, slipping into an alligator special
with side pockets, plus a fur-lined hood for inclement weather.
Tom took a hat off a rack, a rather ridiculous but rather charming Cossack
headpiece.
“This goes well with my complexion, I’ll take this one.”
With that, the bums got going. Moving forward, they began putting on
coats and hats, scarves, raincoats, boots, sweaters, gloves, various accessories.
“Charge or credit, sir?” a frightened voice asked.
“Charge it to my bunghole, fucker.”
Or, from another counter:
“That seems to fit you, sir.”
“Do you have a 14 day exchange privilege?”
“Of course, sir.”
“But you might be dead in 14 days.”
Then an overhead alarm began ringing. Somebody had realized that the
store was being invaded. The shoppers who had been watching in disbelief
scattered.

Three men in grey ill-fitting suits came running. They were bulky men
but with more fat than muscle. They rushed at the bums as if to remove
them from the premises. But there were just too many bums. They were
swarmed under. But as they struggled, cursing and threatening, one house
guard reached for his gun. There was a shot but it was a stupid and useless
gesture and quickly the man was disarmed.
Suddenly a bum appeared at the top of the escalator. He had the gun.
He was drunk. He’d never had a gun before. But he liked the gun. He aimed
it and pulled the trigger. He hit a mannequin. The bullet went through the
neck. The head fell to the floor: the death of an Aspen skier.
The death of this object seemed to arouse the bums. There was a loud
cheer. They spread up the escalators and throughout the store. They were
yelling incoherently. For a moment, all the frustration and failure was gone.
Their eyes shone and their movements were swift and sure. It was a curious,
weird, ugly scene.
They moved quickly from floor to floor, from area to area.
Tom and Max no longer led, they were swept along.
Counters were now being tipped over, glass was being broken. At the
cosmetic counter a young blond girl screamed, throwing up her arms. This
attracted the attention of one of the younger bums who pulled up her dress
and screamed, “WOW!”
Another bum went over and grabbed the girl. Then another came running.
Soon a gang of them crowded around her, tearing at her clothing. It
was very ugly. Yet it inspired other bums. They began running after the
sales girls.
“Holy Jesus,” said Tom.
Tom found an unbroken counter. He climbed up on it and began yelling.
“NO! NOT THIS! STOP! THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!”
Max stood there near Tom.
“Ah, shit,” he said quietly.
The bums didn’t relent. Drapes were torn down. Tables overturned.
Glass counters continued to be shattered. Also, there were loud screams.
Something crashed quite loudly.
Then there was a burst of flame, but the men continued to pillage.
Tom leaped off the counter. The entire episode had not taken five
minutes. He looked at Max.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

Another dream shot to shit, another dead dog in the road, more bad
dreams of garbage.
Tom began running and Max followed. They took the escalator down.
As they went down the police were running up the adjoining escalator.
Tom and Max still had on their new coats. Except for their red, unshaven
faces they looked almost respectable. On the first floor they mixed with
the crowd. There were police at the doors. They were letting people out
but keeping anyone from entering.
Tom had stolen a handful of cigars. He handed one to Max.
“Here, light up. Try to look respectable.”
Tom lit a cigar of his own.
“Now, let’s see if we can get out of here.”
“Think we can fool them, Tom?”
“I dunno. Try to look like a broker or a doctor…”
“What do they look like?”
“Satisfied and stupid.”
They moved toward the exit. There was no problem. They were guided
out with some others. They heard gunfire inside. They looked up at the
building. Flames were visible at an upper window. Soon they heard the
approaching fire sirens.
They turned south and walked back toward skid row.
That night they were the two best dressed bums in the flophouse. Max
had even stolen a watch. Its hands glowed in the dark. The night was just
beginning. They stretched out on their cots as the snoring began.
It was a full house again in spite of the mass arrests of that afternoon.
There were always enough bums to fill any vacancy.
Tom took out two cigars, passed one to Max. They lit up and smoked
quietly for a while. After a few minutes, Tom spoke.
“Hey, Max…”
“Yeah?”
“That wasn’t the way I meant it to be.”
“I know. It’s all right.”
The snoring was gradually getting louder. Tom pulled a new fifth of
wine from under his pillow. He uncapped it, took a hit.
“Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Drink?”
“Sure.”

Tom passed the bottle. Max took the hit, passed it back.
“Thanks.”
Tom slipped the bottle under his pillow.
It was muscatel."

Povestirea face parte din colectia intitulata "Septuagenarian stew: stories and poems"