Crackpot, p.36
Crackpot, page 36
“Want some help?” said Hoda. She could see the kid was beginning to relax. But he didn’t want her to help him undress. He was turned away from her, fiddling about with his belt. “Look, put everything on the chair over there,” she said, cheerfully, easing herself down on the mattress. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch your stuff. I make an honest living.”
Pipick was ashamed. “I know,” he said, not looking at her. How did she know what he was thinking? He felt as though he had been caught having a dirty thought. She probably thought he was a cheap little punk who counted his pennies and was always afraid he wasn’t getting his money’s worth. That’s what it must have seemed like to her when he had clung to her before and she had had to tell him when it was time for him to get out and give the others a chance. What did she know about him? She thought he was just like all the other cheap Charleys she knew. Pipick slipped his money belt down and stepped out of it. Hiding his movements with his back he quickly stuffed it deep into a pocket of his pants.
“You’re a well-built kid,” Hoda said affectionately, to his back. Pipick felt her words flow over and define every part of him. He straightened and pulled his shoulders back, tensing his muscles. Yeh, but wait till she saw his navel. He turned, holding his hands across his belly, trying to make the gesture seem natural.
“Peek-a-boo,” said Hoda. “Don’t be shy. It’s too big to hide,” and she laughed.
After an instant Pipick realized she wasn’t talking about his belly button, and he laughed too, with pleasure. He wanted to say something clever, like “You ain’t seen the half of it,” or “It feels better than it looks,” but he couldn’t bring himself to, yet. He hardly knew her, and after what had happened already, he didn’t want to boast too fast. Afterwards he could say all those smart things, when he had made her giggle. He still didn’t uncover his belly button, but continued, as though absently fingering it, to keep it covered with his hand as he eased himself, with great self control, down beside her.
“You see,” said Hoda, stroking his chest gently, “people don’t touch each other enough. They grab or they pull or they shove, but they don’t really touch. That’s no way to make love.” That meant that he could touch her too, freely, not just because he had paid, but because they were making love. Right now. This putting his hand out was making love. A part of him could already hear himself saying, “We made love,” not just “we fucked” or “we screwed,” but “WE MADE LOVE.” And he would add, looking at the other guys, smiling gently, “practically all night. You should try it sometime if you can manage it.” They probably wouldn’t even understand what he meant. But they’d know they were missing something, all right.
At the same time he hoped this making love part wouldn’t be too long-drawn-out before they got to the fucking and screwing, because all this touching and feeling and running around of hands, wow! phew! whow! delicious as it was, was putting his voom voom in jeopardy again. Even while he was feeling her, holy cow! everywhere, all over! he was aware of the enormous effort of control; he mustn’t let himself like it too much, not yet, not yet; there was a certain pleasure in straining against too much joy, too soon. The things you could do! But she had better let him get on her soon! He wanted to say it again, that thing he hoped she hadn’t heard him say last time. And he had to struggle to control that, too, from bursting out of him, “I love you!” Hell, that was no thing to say to a whore! But he had to say it to somebody. Maybe she wouldn’t even hear. She hadn’t made fun before, had she?
Hoda had moved her expertly negligent hands down around from his chest and back, while he buried his own working hands and nuzzling face in her generous immensities. “Hey,” she said suddenly, “what’s this?”
From where he was burrowing he heard her amused voice with a sudden, cold shock. In his mind he had been saying, “I love you I love you I love you,” and she had been wrapping herself helplessly around him, moaning her acquiescent moans, urging him to hurry, before she died of a love no one had ever made her feel before. Into all of this her cool, amused, conversational voice, her finger diddling with his belly button, and unmistakably, an undertone of laughter. Weren’t they making love then, like she said? Shouldn’t she be as hot as he was, not caring about anything, not noticing anything? And there she had to go and find that goddam pipick, and her voice, funfull and ordinary, as if all of that love-making she’d been talking about was just another lie, like the ones people were always making up, all your life, promising and leaving you, talking and talking. Goddam her, she hadn’t even let him shoot his load this time! Suddenly her voice had cut in, and she was making fun with her goddam finger. Making love! Sure! They’ll pretend all right, until they find out you’re a freak. Then they don’t even have to pretend anymore. They just laugh their heads off.
He jerked roughly away from under hand.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Did I hurt you?” Hoda was concerned. “Hey, is it a hernia or something? I didn’t mean to be rough. I never noticed it before I touched it. It’s sensitive, hey?”
Sure, now that she’d fixed him, she could make a fuss, pretend she gave a hoot. Did she think he gave a good goddamn about the concern in her voice? Fat lot she cared, fat slob. If he was a freak she could damn well give him his money back. She said she’d seen all kinds, hadn’t she? Was he that much worse that the touch of it threw her right out of making love? Making love! Making up love, you mean!
“Hey, are you all right?” said Hoda. “Don’t you feel well, kid?” “I’m not a kid,” said David, vehemently.
“All right, you don’t have to yell,” she said. “You’ll wake my father.”
“I don’t care about your goddam father,” he muttered, under his breath.
“What?” said Hoda. “What did you say? Say, what’s got into you all of a sudden? We were doing all right. Just because I touched your pipick, why should you get so upset?”
“I hate it,” said Pipick. “Like I’m a goddam freak.”
“Go on,” said Hoda. “What kind of freak? Just because of that? Well for godsake!” She laughed genially. “If you’re a goddam freak with just that little bit of extra flesh, what am I? I got an extra ton!”
“That’s different,” said Pipick. “That doesn’t matter. Everybody laughs.”
“And you think they don’t laugh at me? They’ve been laughing at me all my life. Do you think I don’t know it? ‘Let’s go see fat crazy Hoda tonight!’ Isn’t that what you kids said?”
“I’m not a kid,” repeated Pipick sullenly, not anxious to have the topic shifted from his grievance to hers, and a little ashamed, because she was right. But she needn’t think he was just like the other boys either. What did she know about him anyway?
“I never called you crazy,” he growled.
“Well, let’s forget it then. You’ll sure call me fat, anyway. How do you like that? We were beginning to have fun and all over a little piece of skin we’re in an argument. I don’t care about your pipick. You can take your hand away. I think it’s kind of cute, but I won’t touch it any more if you don’t want. Look at that, all the time we’re wasting over nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” said Pipick, his resentment finding a grievance to hang on to. The way he felt now he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to have a hard-on again. She could damn well coax him, after what she’d done. She didn’t have to pretend it was nothing that bothered him. She didn’t have to think he was nobody. What was nothing about making a guy swallow his load? “I’ve had it all my life, ever since they found me. For all I know it might be hereditary; they have bleeding sickness in royal families; maybe they have it done that way so their kids shouldn’t bleed to death.”
“Sure,” said Hoda patiently, responding to the tone rather than the sense of his words. “It’s not such an unusual thing, I’m sure.” Funny kid; now what the hell had royal families and bleeding sickness to do with his navel? It was better not go get too involved with them. Some of the kids she met nowadays really were mixed up in their minds. “Come on now,” she lay back invitingly.
She didn’t give a damn, he could tell her by voice. She wasn’t interested in him at all. He could see that now, for all her talk of making love. She thought he was just another kid, with a funny freak of a navel. She had probably even forgotten his name that he’d told her, the way she kept calling him “kid” as though he was just anybody and nobody. Making love! Even a goddam low whore couldn’t touch him without laughing.
“I don’t care even if my father was a prince!” he burst out. “I wish they’d left me out and never found me till I was dead! I wish my goddam belly button had bust open out of all those knots and let me bleed to death! I didn’t want to be alive! I didn’t ask for any goddam life!” Let her know, this damn chippy, who it was who wished he were dead; let her know it wasn’t just any kid who sat beside her clutching his pain, a dying prince maybe but a maybe prince who didn’t give a damn if she felt sorry for him or not, only when you pretend you give enough of a damn to ask a guy his name you should damn well call him by name! He was ashamed and angry even as he uttered his outburst because she’d made him show off with all that silly Prince shit nobody believed anyway. And she didn’t even answer. She didn’t even bother to answer him, and suddenly Pipick in his rage realized he had a bigger hardon than he’d ever had in his life before; he was one big hardon, from top to bottom of him; every single inch of him was one big FUCK YOU! and to hell with the lovemaking! He turned on her, swooping furiously, and swooping, met her as she was rising, with equal suddenness and violence of movement. They collided, and Pipick grabbed, fiercely happy at the resistance, ferociously determined to wrestle her down. But he was not, in spite of her bulk, as quick as she, or perhaps his desperation was not as great. Hoda heaved like an erupting mountain under his assault, struggled one arm loose, and fetched him a wallop that sent him thumping off the mattress and smack up against the wall. At the crashing noise he made against the wall, she paused abstractedly a moment for a sound from the other room. Then, with enormous reluctance, she turned her furious eyes to where he lay sprawled, staring up at her through eyes from which tears had sprung, tears of astonishment and outrage at the unexpected savagery of her rebuff. Hoda struggled against the feeling of dislocation. What? What? What? All her life she had spent bottled up in this room, and she would never escape it, and every now and then someone picked up the bottle and shook it and shook it and she was flung to and fro, drowning and gasping and clutching at her life. Maybe if she reached over and turned out the little lamp that she always joked with her customers about, it would disappear, she would disappear, he would disappear. What was he doing here anyway? As though she hadn’t seen him before she realized that this was a little boy cowering before her, a big, little boy, with tears clinging to his face. Go home to your mother, little boy. She shuddered. Without having forgot a word she had the feeling that her memory had completely left her. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” she said stupidly. He didn’t reply but his eyes filmed over, and he dropped his head with a sudden, stubborn movement.
“You shouldn’t tell lies like that,” she said. “I can’t stand lies,” she continued, lying, because she really didn’t care about lying, if it was necessary, though in a way she wasn’t lying, because she didn’t like it much when lies were necessary. Lies were something she wanted to think about. Really, she had always wanted to think out seriously how she felt about lies, sometime when she had enough time. “You shouldn’t tell lies,” she repeated, with the feeling that she was talking aimlessly, while her mind stumbled back and forth over the fragments of the evening, and tried to comprehend some enormous connection with the rest of her life. “Why should you pretend you’re something when you’re not?” she challenged him fiercely. “Why do you have to be ashamed if your father is a grocer or a peddler, or whatever he is? What kind of talk is that anyway, about princes and dying?” She gave him no chance to reply. “I can’t stand liars,” she repeated doggedly, and concentrated, for an instant, on pulling on her kimono as quickly as she could and wrapping it carefully, tightly, around her, even turning the lapel and collar up. “You’re talking crazy,” she resumed accusingly. “Maybe you should go home to your ma and pa till you feel better.” She watched, with frantic hope, for the effect of her words. Some of these kids had the craziest imaginations, but when you caught them out and didn’t take any crap, when they went too far, that is, they realized something or other, and then they stopped and things got back the way they were.
“I am not any goddam liar,” growled Pipick, “and I haven’t got any goddam ma and pa,” he added, almost spitting the words out. “I’m an orphan. I’m a goddam bastard prince.” He drew back, as he said it; the way she was looking at him, the way she was crouched over him, tigerishly, she seemed like she was getting ready to take another poke at him. What was the matter with her? All right, if she wanted to play rough, he could play rough too. He’d show her what kind of “kid” he was, freak or no. He’d show her he never came to any goddam chippy to get smacked around. Almost he wished she would try it again, just once. He wouldn’t just lie back like any little gentleman. He’d take her all right. Oh then he’d take his money’s worth! She might be big and fat but he was all muscle. She’d said so herself. Maybe she wanted it that way. Some of them liked to get knocked around, didn’t they? Was she waiting for him to take a poke at her? Was she showing him another kind of lovemaking? She said she’d make his time worth it. Maybe this was part of the show. Maybe it wasn’t. It was more like she didn’t like him. She couldn’t stand him, he could see it. Why didn’t she like him? What did he do wrong? Could it be because of his navel? But Mrs. Tize always used to say he was silly to be self-conscious just because they teased him. It showed how much someone had cared about him; they’d knotted it so carefully so many times. And it really wasn’t so much; if he’d been a skinny little guy no one would have really noticed it, because nobody expected skinny little guys to have room to tuck their navels in. Anyway, what right did someone have to hate you on account of your navel? So who cared if she hated him? Why should he care? What did he care how she felt? She was crazy, like the guys always said. Only they said it as though it was some kind of joke. Nobody ever told him she could look at you out of glaring wide grey eyes full of hate for you that way. Why didn’t anybody like him? To Pipick’s horror, he felt his eyes fill with tears again as he blurted once more at her unbelieving face, “I am not a liar.”
“Why should I care if you lie?” said Hoda, suddenly reasonable. “Go on, say what you like. It’s no skin off my…” He was just a little boy. The whole bunch of them were just little boys. Kids. She was twice his age. At least. She was old enough…old enough to feel the clutch of cold panic in her heart. How was she to have known? How should she know who he was? Look how tight shut she was holding her kimono now, with both hands. Where the hell was that cord? She tore her eyes away from where they kept trying to slither down to his navel to tie a memory to, and sent them darting around for the kimono belt. They felt funny in her head, her eyes, as though they had been frozen open wider than she could bear.
“Where the hell?” she muttered.
“I can prove it,” said Pipick, taking advantage of the fact that she had raised herself onto her knees and was looking around for something, to pull himself up quickly, standing towering over her now, with his back against the wall. Crazy old dame, on hands and knees now, crawling around and muttering. Now she was trying to disentangle her kimono cord from the bedsprings.
Pipick cat-footed swiftly to the chair, and felt in his pants pocket, fumbling around. “I can prove it!” He turned to her again.
“What can you prove?” she raged now from her knees, knotting the kimono cord tight, with angry movements, again and again as she spoke. “Who cares what you can prove? Why should I care what you can prove?”
“You called me a liar! Nobody calls me a liar!” snarled Pipick, almost beside himself with fury. “I don’t know why you’re against me, but you’re not going to call me a liar and get away with it! Oh no! Oh no!”
“Why did I call you a liar?” said Hoda distractedly. “I’m sorry. I don’t feel good. When I don’t feel good I say funny things. I don’t even know you. What’s this thing?”
Hoda moved her face from side to side, as though with distaste, before the slips of paper he was shoving in front of her eyes. “What is it?”
“See what they say? FOR THE PRINCE! That’s me, see? They were sent to me! At the Home where they left me! I don’t care if you don’t believe them, but I’m not a liar!”
“I don’t feel good,” said Hoda. “I just don’t feel good.”
“Just because you don’t feel good doesn’t mean you have to call me a liar. You think I feel good, somebody laughs at me, and then for nothing she hands me a chop on the kisser, and keeps yelling at me I’m a liar I’m a liar?”
