Ask the Dust by John Fante Page A

Street dive, and your name is Evelyn, poor Evelyn, and the folks are out here too, and you have the cutest sister, not like the tramps you meet down here, a swell girl, and you ask me if I want to meet your sister. Why not? She got her sister. Innocent little Evelyn went across the room and dragged poor little sister Vivian away from those lousy sailors and brought her to our table. Hello Vivian, this is Arturo. Hello Arturo, this is Vivian. But what happened to your mouth, Vivian, who dug it out with a knife? And what happened to your bloodshot eyes, and your sweet breath smelling like a sewer, poor kids, all the way from glorious Minnesota. Oh no, they’re not Swedish, where did I get that idea? Their last name was Mortensen, but it wasn’t Swedish, why their family had been Americans for generations. To be sure. Just a couple of home girls.
    Do you know something?—Evelyn talking—Poor little Vivian had worked down here for almost six months and not once had any of these bastards ever ordered her a bottle of champagne, and I there, Bandini, I looked like such a swell guy, and wasn’t Vivian cute, and wasn’t it a shame, she so innocent, and would I buy her a bottle of champagne? Dear little Vivian, all the way from the clean fields of Minnesota, and not a Swede either, and almost a virgintoo, just a few men short of being a virgin. Who could resist this tribute? So bring on the champagne, cheap champagne, just a pint size, we can all drink it, only eight dollars a bottle, and gee wasn’t wine cheap out here? Why back in Duluth the champagne was twelve bucks a bottle.
    Ah, Evelyn and Vivian, I love you both, I love you for your sad lives, the empty misery of your coming home at dawn. You too are alone, but you are not like Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl nor good red herring. So have your champagne, because I love you both, and you, too Vivian, even if your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw fingernails and your old child’s eyes swim in blood written like mad sonnets.

Chapter Eleven
    But this was expensive. Take it easy, Arturo; have you forgotten those oranges? I counted what was left. It was twenty dollars and some cents. I was scared. I racked my brains over figures, added everything I had spent. Twenty dollars left—impossible! I had been robbed, I had misplaced the money, there was a mistake somewhere. I looked all over the room, burrowed into pockets and drawers, but that was all, and I was scared and worried and determined to go to work, write another one quick, something written so fast it had to be good. I sat before my typewriter and the great awful void descended, and I beat my head with my fists, put a pillow under my aching buttocks and made little noises of agony. It was useless. I had to see her, and I didn’t care how I did it.
    I waited for her in the parking lot. At eleven she came around the corner, and Sammy the bartender was with her. They both saw me from the distance and she lowered her voice, and when she got to the car Sammy said, “Hi there,” but she said, “What do you want?”
    â€œI want to see you,” I said.
    â€œI can’t see you tonight,” she said.
    â€œMake it later on tonight.”
    â€œI can’t. I’m busy.”
    â€œYou’re not that busy. You can see me.”
    She opened the car door for me to get out, but I did not move, and she said, “Please get out.”
    â€œNothing doing,” I said.
    Sammy smiled. Her face flared.
    â€œGet out, goddamnit!”
    â€œI’m staying,” I said.
    â€œCome on, Camilla,” Sammy said.
    She tried to pull me out of the car, seized my sweater and jerked and tugged. “Why do you act like this?” she said. “Why can’t you see I don’t want to have anything to do with you?”
    â€œI’m staying,” I said.
    â€œYou fool!” she said.
    Sammy had walked toward the street. She caught up with