hundred, total. What crooks!”
Jack smiled. He was glad he had run into Denny after so many years. “So you’re a big thief now,” he said.
“Well, I ain’t done anything for a while. We really got fucked up. Let’s get out of here.” They got up and left the poolhall where they had accidentally met, walked up Turk Street a few doors, and went into a bar. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there were only a few people in the half-darkened place. They took a table in the back, and Denny said, “We was gonna knock over Playland, out at the beach, you know? We really had a big one planned, this caser guy I was tellin you about, he worked on it for weeks, goin out there, wanderin around, lookin for the money and getaway routes and stuff, and then we got together a bunch of guns, too; man, we must of had ten or twelve guns, rifles, automatics, revolvers, tear-gas guns, everything; and so one night we go out there, Tommy, the guy that drove for us, had just bought himself a brand-new personal car, and we had all the guns in the car, like, and we went out there, and Tommy parks the short and we get out and look around, ride some of the goddam rides, play the machines, really have a pretty good time, and then we go back to get the car, and man you wouldn’t believe it—Tommy’d parked the fucker in a
towaway zone!
It was gone. The cops had took it to one of their garages. Guns and all. So we were out of business, like. Tommy took off for Mexico. It was his car, registered in his name and everything. You ever go to Mexico?”
“Once or twice,” Jack said. “Down through Laredo and that’s about all.”
“What have you been doin with yourself all this time?”
“Well, you know.”
Denny waited a few moments, but Jack did not say anything more, so he laughed. “Well, yeah.”
“I been boxing,” Jack admitted. “Southwest circuit, Los Angeles. I just quit.”
“Hey, no kidding? A fighter?”
Jack nodded and drank some of his beer. He did not add that he had also bucked logs, worked in a cannery and a furniture factory, robbed gas stations, rolled drunks, and lived in half a hundred arid furnished rooms, pretended the vacuum was freedom, wakened almost daily to the fear that time was a dry wind brushing away his youth and his strength, and slept through as many nightmares as there were nights to dream. He just sat and smiled at Denny and saw what time had done to him and wondered, now comfortably, why he was so bothered by time. It happens to everybody this way, he thought, we sit here and get older and die and nothing happens.
“Listen,” Denny said. “This is great. I got a couple of chicks on my back; picked up one of them and the other come along, and we’re all stuck together. You can take the other chick, okay? What’d be greater?”
“Too much,” Jack admitted. He felt something coming loose inside him, and he decided that he was glad it was going away. This would be much easier. There would be time to think.
Denny’s hotel room had one double bed and a very small single bed over in the corner. Sitting on this Jack could look down at the crowds of people on Turk Street, eddying around the entrances to theaters, clubs, hot-dog palaces, magazine stands, barbershops. He had a barrel-shaped thick hotel glass half full of whiskey in his hands, and Denny was spread-eagled on the double bed, thumbing through a comic book. There were comic books all over the room, and girls’ clothes piled on both chairs, dripping off onto the thin carpet. Packages, empty sacks, wadded string, yellow-orange cheeseburger wrappers were on the floor and under the beds, and in the corner beyond the small bed Jack was on were the torn halves of the room’s stock Bible among the dust motes.
How do you wake up? It was one thing to know that you had been asleep all your life, but something else to wake up from it, to find out you were really alive and it wasn’t anybody’s fault but your own. Of course that was
Jack smiled. He was glad he had run into Denny after so many years. “So you’re a big thief now,” he said.
“Well, I ain’t done anything for a while. We really got fucked up. Let’s get out of here.” They got up and left the poolhall where they had accidentally met, walked up Turk Street a few doors, and went into a bar. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there were only a few people in the half-darkened place. They took a table in the back, and Denny said, “We was gonna knock over Playland, out at the beach, you know? We really had a big one planned, this caser guy I was tellin you about, he worked on it for weeks, goin out there, wanderin around, lookin for the money and getaway routes and stuff, and then we got together a bunch of guns, too; man, we must of had ten or twelve guns, rifles, automatics, revolvers, tear-gas guns, everything; and so one night we go out there, Tommy, the guy that drove for us, had just bought himself a brand-new personal car, and we had all the guns in the car, like, and we went out there, and Tommy parks the short and we get out and look around, ride some of the goddam rides, play the machines, really have a pretty good time, and then we go back to get the car, and man you wouldn’t believe it—Tommy’d parked the fucker in a
towaway zone!
It was gone. The cops had took it to one of their garages. Guns and all. So we were out of business, like. Tommy took off for Mexico. It was his car, registered in his name and everything. You ever go to Mexico?”
“Once or twice,” Jack said. “Down through Laredo and that’s about all.”
“What have you been doin with yourself all this time?”
“Well, you know.”
Denny waited a few moments, but Jack did not say anything more, so he laughed. “Well, yeah.”
“I been boxing,” Jack admitted. “Southwest circuit, Los Angeles. I just quit.”
“Hey, no kidding? A fighter?”
Jack nodded and drank some of his beer. He did not add that he had also bucked logs, worked in a cannery and a furniture factory, robbed gas stations, rolled drunks, and lived in half a hundred arid furnished rooms, pretended the vacuum was freedom, wakened almost daily to the fear that time was a dry wind brushing away his youth and his strength, and slept through as many nightmares as there were nights to dream. He just sat and smiled at Denny and saw what time had done to him and wondered, now comfortably, why he was so bothered by time. It happens to everybody this way, he thought, we sit here and get older and die and nothing happens.
“Listen,” Denny said. “This is great. I got a couple of chicks on my back; picked up one of them and the other come along, and we’re all stuck together. You can take the other chick, okay? What’d be greater?”
“Too much,” Jack admitted. He felt something coming loose inside him, and he decided that he was glad it was going away. This would be much easier. There would be time to think.
Denny’s hotel room had one double bed and a very small single bed over in the corner. Sitting on this Jack could look down at the crowds of people on Turk Street, eddying around the entrances to theaters, clubs, hot-dog palaces, magazine stands, barbershops. He had a barrel-shaped thick hotel glass half full of whiskey in his hands, and Denny was spread-eagled on the double bed, thumbing through a comic book. There were comic books all over the room, and girls’ clothes piled on both chairs, dripping off onto the thin carpet. Packages, empty sacks, wadded string, yellow-orange cheeseburger wrappers were on the floor and under the beds, and in the corner beyond the small bed Jack was on were the torn halves of the room’s stock Bible among the dust motes.
How do you wake up? It was one thing to know that you had been asleep all your life, but something else to wake up from it, to find out you were really alive and it wasn’t anybody’s fault but your own. Of course that was
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