K. looking at riots on television: "I'm watching Melissa's boy friends shopping in Los Angeles."
Went to Joe's last night, but didn't stay. Had a pain in chest. Model wasn't that great. Went to Mog and had supper. Melissa came later. Showed me tit photos of her boss and bras. (The word "brassiere" comes >from the name of the man who stole the i dea from the man who invented them -- who was named Titsler. One sometimes wonders about history.)
So it is the first of May. May Day. The rent is due. The phone and electric are a month overdue. The peasants and workers are not revolting. They are revolting, but not revolting. The bosses have nothing to fear. Soon it will be the Cinco de Mayo. All will get drunk in the streets. We will celebrate the glorious revolution. Then we will be shot down. Like dogs. Like pigs. Like cattle. Like human beings.
We will die in the mud like human beings. As human beings have always died. A pig dies with dignity, strung up by the hind legs like a fat Italian dictator, and a cow may be beaten over the head until its brains fall out. But a human being dies... wel l, like a person. An individual. Depending upon the occasion's circumstances. Some die in a car, some in a jeep. Some wake up and find they've been murdered by their wife's lover. Or a hand grenade may be dropped casually at one's feet and the pin fa ll out, and then it's all over but the universe. But the real fun is when the government troops come out with their guns and spray the street in the warm morning sunlight in front of the police station. Ole!
Oh, it is a desperate time. Benny Hill is dead. His picture hangs on my wall, peering out of his obituary at the Times. They're rioting in Los Angeles, la laa la la laa la. LAH!
Burning it down. Bad black men burning down the land of the sun. Just shows. Can't take a joke. My my my. Burn it down. Burn it all down. April fool. May Day. Clunk. Thud. Bang. Bang. Dying in the mud of a warm Los Angeles morning, police bu llets tearing up your stomach, ruining your hairdo, making you feel sick all over. Shit. And I just got me a new television set.
So here I am, a stranger in paradise. Take me to your bar lounge. Fuck me on a rug. Let me be your won and only. Love for sale.
She comes in the night, bearing tit pictures; comes to watch my hot hard television. She seeks pictures, colors, wild flowing images. She holds my clicker in her small delicate hands and pushes the buttons. I go insane inside. Something moves me. My mind snaps. I can no longer control myself. I watch, too. Together we sink into the delirium of safe TV. Later, we smoke. Or go out for a drink. We sit across the table from one another, not talking. Neither wants to break the spell. I ask, "How was it?" "Okay," she says. "Just okay?" "It was wonderful. What do you want me to say?" I feel hurt, let down. I thought it was better than that. I know she's had better. But I only got a 13 inch screen. I can't afford projection. "Fuck you," I say. Defensively. I know it's the wrong thing to do. But I can't help myself. The mood is spoiled. She asks when I'm going to take out the garbage. I say, I already have. I look at her. She knows what I mean. In that moment, I know it's over between us.
Life is shit. It is shit, shit, shit.
I miss the parades. I remember forty years ago when there were parades on May 1st, and Comrade Stalin and all the gang used to stand up on the balcony and watch the tanks go by. The tanks were for the memory of the glorious revolution, and so were the half tracks. Forty years. It's been a long time, Joe.
Oh, she'll come back. She'll come back to watch TV. We'll sit next to each other in the dark room and she'll hold my clicker in her small, pretty hands, and lights and colors will blaze before my eyes. But it will never be the same. The tanks are gon e, and so is Joe. Joe's been dead nearly forty years. Next year it will be forty. We miss him. At least I do. I don't know about her. We only look at what she wants to see. She's funny that way. Only she gets to hold the clicker. I guess she'd let me hold it if I asked. But I don't. It's sort of a sensitivity thing. I don't want her to think I'm a macho. So I never ask to hold the clicker while she's there. Sometimes when she's gone, I hold it. I push the buttons. I make the colors change. I'm pretty good at it. But not like her. She's a real pro. She can zip through forty channels like there's nothing on. It makes you feel funny, a woman being able to do that. You wonder what she needs you for.
So I go down to the barber shop and hang around with some of the boys. We don't do much. Just hang around. Occasionally someone tells a joke. Or tries to. And she just sits there in the dark with the clicker, all by herself, watching TV. Makes your skin crawl, the way she can do that and not get tired. How do women do it? That's what I'd like to know. Just how do they do it? But I never ask. It's bad enough only having thirteen inches. I don't want to give her an excuse to really despise me.
Fuck! No. Fuuuuuuuaaaaaaacccckk!!!!!
Why did I do it?
Why did I hook the stick of dynamite to Channel 13?
Why did I fix it so when she got to Channel 13, the whole apartment would go up? Was it just a whim? A dare? A stupid macho thing to do?
I had to get out of the house, get some fresh air. We heard the explosion down at the barber shop. I knew I could not go home. Could not face her. Thirteen inches. She'd made her last joke about my thirteen inches. Part of her landed in the park. The rest was in the basement. Three floors below. And up on the roof. And the roof was two blocks in the other direction. Okay. So I used more than one stick of dynamite. I overreacted. The boys down at the barber shop said they thought I over reacted. It was too much. The whole apartment house was gone. Why did I want to use so much dynamite? It was ego. Too much ego. It always fucks you up. Fuck you.
Anyway, she was gone when I got home. So was the apartment. So were all my things. She'd taken everything with her. There was just a big hole in the sidewalk. I knew I'd have to find another place to stay. As I turned to walk away, my foot kicked something. I looked down. It was a hand. Her's. It was holding something. The clicker.
How ironic I thought. I was about to pick it up, but I thought, no. Leave it. It wouldn't be right. Just leave it. Walk away and forget about it. So I did. I left it there. And I never looked back. But I still miss the parades.