Scumbler. William Wharton

Tears start filling her dirty eyes; I look for mud to run down her cheeks; story’s getting expensive. While she’s in Switzerland, her daughter runs away, gets pregnant. So what’s so awful about that? Wish I could get pregnant. Probably we all want what we can’t have; part of being human.

      Now her head is down on the table next to her hand holding the drink. It’s all very Lautrec. She’s crying like a mad Russian; men around the bar turn their heads away.

      I want to get out. This is developing into something too scary for me. She’s asking me to come visit her place, see her work and her father’s drawings. She’s getting lovey; insists on paying for the drinks; pulls a thick folded wad of hundred-franc bills from her purse. I should’ve packed up and driven away in the first place.

      We leave the café; I have no desire to go with her but I don’t want to hurt her feelings either. I lie, tell her I’ll finish the drawing, come over later. She points, gives me directions; one street away. She wobbles off. I hustle back to my box, pack it up, jump on the bike and roll, drifting downhill a ways before kicking over the motor, sneaking away.

      I can’t face a sad sex scene with a drunk. I can be an awful coward; I’m not strong enough to help when things are really bad; my nerves aren’t up to it. I only hope she bombs out and forgets she ever saw me.

      I’m not ready to waste my time either: scarce stuff, coming to the bottom of the barrel. It’s terrible to feel you’re running down like an eight-day clock and you’ve lost the key. I don’t even keep correct time anymore, always slightly behind.

      6

      Notes From the Underground

      Wednesday I finish the painting of Sweik’s room, the one looking in from the door. I also bring over some sunny paintings to take the curse off his walls.

      Thursday I start a new painting, this time looking from his window toward the door. There’s a large French wardrobe with a mirror next to Sweik’s bed. In French hotels, you almost always find a mirror beside the bed. I paint Sweik’s motorcycle bags and helmet hanging against the back wall by the door. On the other side, I paint the sink and bidet, working up all the French plumbing details.

      Sweik’s in bed. He hurt his back carrying a Danish woman up these stairs. He says they were both half looped and he was trying to make it sound like one pair of feet going past the concierge. He tripped on the rug strings, twisted his back and dropped the woman.

      Sweik’s really racked; the Dane stayed overnight but he was useless to her. She left in the early morning: one set of feet going down.

      THE JOY OF SEX,

      OUR FAVORITE TOY.

      THE PLOY OF SEX,

      A SHARP KNIFE IN

      A STEEL TRAP.

      When I finish the drawing, I help Sweik struggle out of bed to wash up. His back’s so bad he can’t sit in a chair; just rolls out onto his knees on the floor. Kneeling there, he really looks like a shot-down old bear. I pull the sheets and blankets from the bed. I put the sheets back on upside down and the other way around; thin, gray, dirty sheets, no sex-juice marks.

      Using his Primus stove, I warm some water. He’s in deep pain. I help him off the floor back to the edge of his bed. He sits there and lathers himself. A bear cat like Sweik suffers deeply when he can’t keep clean. I almost expect him to begin licking his paws and grooming. Beautiful as this room is for painting, it could be depressing as hell if you were sick and forced to stay in all day.

      I try talking Sweik into cutting out for Lotte’s place. I’ll wall off a room, hunt up a flat board, a piece of foam rubber and make a bed. That’s the best thing for a back like his. This ditch he’s sleeping in has a permanent body dent in the center: worst thing possible.

      WE SLEEP CURVED TO THE EARTH

      AND FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH,

      WE DREAM.

      Meanwhile, my painting’s coming along fine. I paint my own paintings in the painting. I paint paintings reflected in the mirror in my painting. I even paint one painting reflected in a mirror reflecting in a mirror in my painting. Now that’s what I call outright, fourth-dimensional lying; good honest lying to tell the truth, whatever that might be. My mind is spinning again about time in paintings. I’m sure foreground is present and background is past. I’m beginning to think middle ground is future; it’s where we take what we know from the past and then, in the present, make guesses about what’s going to happen. Yep, future is probably middle ground.

      After Sweik’s back in bed, we get talking. We start on how hard it is for men to be friends; how it all gets pissed away with ‘camaraderie’, buddy-buddy kinds of shit: softball leagues, bowling clubs and poker parties. I tell how I’m convinced men are afraid of each other, circling with hackles up all the time.

      We both know we’re feeling each other out, trying to let down walls but feeling vulnerable. It’s so hard breaking through. Men’re forced into competing, fighting each other so young it’s almost impossible to make contact. Sweik arches, groans, talks through his teeth.

      ‘You know, a guy’s finally cornered so he’s allowed one close friend in the world; out of four billion, he gets one!’

      I look at him, stop painting. He smiles, grits his teeth.

      ‘You know, I’m actually scared to get married. After a guy’s married, he’s only supposed to be close with that one woman. Since all men are already out, that leaves a total of one.’

      He rolls and winces. He’d be better off sleeping on the floor than in this eggcup of a bed. I change brushes, add some turp to the varnish.

      ‘Same thing for women, though, right? If people are stupid enough to run their lives that way, then that’s what they get.’

      Sweik stares at the ceiling, arches his back again. I think maybe he didn’t hear me. He looks over, almost in a wrestler’s bridge, his teeth clamped together.

      ‘I don’t know; it’s different. Women have each other; they’re closer.’

      I keep my mouth shut but I don’t believe it. Sisterhood and brotherhood are for real sisters and brothers only – and even then, rarely.

      WHEN YOU’RE ALL WET,

      HOW CLOSE CAN YOU GET?

      We gab away that afternoon. It’s good talking at this part of a painting. It’s nice having Sweik there in bed. We bullshit some more about what’s wrong with men’s lives. For a young guy he’s figured out a lot of things.

      I even tell about World War II and me. Sweik had a student deferment from the Vietnam mess.

      Sometimes I can get to feeling guilty, knowing everything we know now. If there ever was anybody worth fighting a war with, I guess it had to be those Nazis. My trouble was I just didn’t want to be a part of any killing – still don’t. Even killing people who are killing other people doesn’t make sense to me. How can it end? I hate being part of anything really stupid. But my own life sure got screwed up; I’ll say that.

      A LINE OF EATERS, EATING

      EACH OTHER TO THE END.

      WHAT BEAUTIFUL FLOWER

      IS THIS WE NOW DEVOUR?

      Then, somehow. I don’t know how we get started, but we begin working on the idea of a fantasy motorcycle club here in Paris. We’re going to mock up a super-macho Warlock or Hell’s Angels Paris pack; only with practically no real bikes, a totally phony affair.

      Sweik gets to laughing so hard tears slide down his cheeks from the back pain. We’ll write to the biggest motorcycle club in America and request a charter for our Paris-American Motorcycle Club. We’ll invent stories of way-out trips and races; send off reports of these hokey events; create a completely ersatz motor scene.

      Sweik