Chapter 27: Call of the Wild

Rhonda confronted Maggie the next morning. She found her in the kitchen. For an instant they stared at each other over a gulf of misery and hatred, but just as quickly the looks gave way to shared remorse. Rhonda stammered apologies and began to cry. Maggie's intended coolness broke down and they sobbed in each other's arms. Rhonda said she would move out as soon as possible. That wasn't necessary, Maggie said, she was going to call her mother today and return to Canada as soon the money arrived. But what about Olney, Rhonda wondered nervously. Maggie was sure he would leave too; he was broke. Maggie, in turn, wondered if Rhonda might split the rent with her sister until Gaston and Subji returned. That was an idea, Rhonda said, and wept some more.

They drank several cups of coffee and Maggie smoked a lot of cigarettes; Rhonda waived the smoking ban gladly. They talked about Olney. What they said about him went mercifully unheard by the ex-charmer, engaged as he then was in nightmare battles on the blistering plains of Karma. Rhonda said that for the time being she would move in with her sister for a few days. And maybe, if it could be worked out, her sister might be able to share the apartment once Maggie and Olney were gone. The girls sobbed anew at the dirty trick life -- or was it Olney Garkle? -- had played on them.

By the time Olney stumbled out of his new sleeping quarters it was mid afternoon. Rhonda was gone. Maggie had made the call. She greeted him with a smile that stretched like a fine mask over a pit of writhing, venomous snakes.

"You'll be happy to know I'm leaving in a few days and my mother and especially Rhonda hate your guts." Olney's lips were still glued shut by the spittle accumulated from hours of snoring. He nodded stiffly; his body felt battered from the struggles in his dreams. He threw water on his face and rinsed his mouth at the kitchen sink. As he made coffee he noticed the sun slipping behind the apartments across the street. No one was waving. A lone wolf howled at the arctic end of his soul.

"Pootie ... " But Pootie had left the room. In a minute she was back, wearing her old duffle coat.

"I'm going for a walk, then I'm going to take in a movie and have dinner at a good restaurant for a change. Have a nice whatever."

"Pootie ... " His voice died of thirst. He poured a glass of water and gulped it down. "Darling, listen -- "

"Nothing doing," she said, looking intently through her handbag. He tried to stop her with his eyes, but they were weakened and watery, like the eyes of an incestuous grandpa.

"Good," she said to herself, finding the keys, not seeing him, not feeling him.

"Pootie ... wait."

"Bon soir," she said to the room, and left.

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That evening Olney took in a sex film in Pigalle. He watched two women -- both on their backs, the one on top of the other -- getting fucked in tandem by a hairy man who kept growling like a jazz pianist. Cripes! Olney thought, as he masturbated, the guy sounds like Bud Powell.

After the film, he took a walk to the Butte, settling on a bench in the park below Sacre Coeur. His mind was suffering an attack of that old black magic; awful urges fought to clamber over the barricades and claim him. He lit a cigarette, trying to think of nothing. But nothing was unthinkable to his chattering mind. Paris lay spread out before him, twinkling as eternally as the stars in the sky. All those lives down there, he thought, and the lives before them, and the lives before them. Sweat and shit, love and come, laughter and tears, and all that dying and all for nothing. So little awareness outside the skin. Something missing in the old human race. Desecration of the white magic in war after war, ignorant disregard of what it is, and what is it? Olney blew out a lung full of grey-blue ignorance. Only the book could save him now ... and he hadn't even started it. Not only unfinished but unbegun ... Could be worse. Could be finished already. Then where'd I be, no hook on the future, masterpiece of jejunity already written. Hell, it's all still before me. What luck. He laughed thinly.

His thoughts swirled like liquid lead: No denying the gloom that's set in tonight. My, oh, my. That pussy the cause of it all ... women. And old Aphrodite the Anima. Is she trying to set it all loose again? Rattling the edges of the cockpit, She is. The thought of Her finally winning caused his stomach to somersault through the gardens of Hieronymous Bosch.

"Ah-yeh-uh," he said aloud, as if he were an old seadog down by the jetty ... anything to fool the demons. He inhaled deeply. Smoke filled his lungs. He inhaled again. More smoke filled his lungs. "Hey, quit shoving," bitched his kidneys.

So, somewhere along the line women had become sex objects for Olney Garkle. He had tried to treat them otherwise, but it was no good. They were sex objects. Their bodies were just too juicy, O Lloyd. On a hand with four fingers shot off he could count every Platonic relationship he'd ever had: the one with his mother. As for the rest of womankind, he wouldn't give them the time of day unless they were in some way desirable. A lost cause was Olney G. He thought bitterly, if not theatrically: Must away from the world with its long legs and soft skin, must hide from it. Not safe in the cities or the towns or hamlets, not safe in any of those places from the desire to possess beauty. O Beauty, it's everywhere, warming the air with sexual heat, each main street and country lane sporting a representative goddess. No escaping the ubiquitous fair sex. Unless bid adieu dear world, and up to the mountains and into the trees, lost and gone forever, shaggy man knows what's good for him. A little goat shed in the Pyrennees. Have a goat or two, make a simple living selling chevre to grizzled sexless paysans. Never go to market, never go to town. Not even write. No thinking, keep a constant buzz in mind, tune the transistor to static when no wind in the trees nor burble a-brook. Yes! Up at dawn, asleep after dark. For recreation, walk all the time, over the hills and through the dales, carefully avoiding all humans but the wizened. Avoid them, too. And flee like the wind from tourists trekking, especially the ones in shorts and sne-ne-neakers ...

Dark forces, the bodyguards of She, pushing at the barricades now. Like unseen terrors in formula films, they speak in his mind, say: Why not? Get up now and stalk. Catch 'em as they walk, lost in thought, soft bosoms suddenly writhing under the hand that grasps, that handcuffs quickly and skilfully to dark things in dark places and then ravishes ... The voices stop. Olney picks up the mad scenario for them: Formula film fiend takes to the backalleys, drinking the tears of the frightened and helpless, then passes on, into other dark nights. Pragmatically, he notes: Have to keep a supply of K-Y on hand to counter the puckering fear. Plenty of Miss Helen, too.

Sweating like Donald Casanova over his sprung hand-maiden, Olney flicked the cigarette a country mile. He looked up from his dastards reverie to see a pack of male animals closing in, stalking him as he sat. He knew each animal carried a tube of K-Y in its pocket. They stepped from behind trees, circling each other, beginning to circle him. The dogs! He got up with a growl and headed for the mêtro.

Dread escorted him back to the apartment; he wanted to get drunk somewhere, watch a floorshow, buy a whore, have a night to remember. But, no. With Maggie leaving soon, he'd have to watch his money. Lucky, that 500 franc note stashed away for a rainy day. Calculating automaton: How long will it last? How many packets of Ajja 17 to smoke and Sup-Air to roll 'em in? How many litres of Plonk Français to ulcerate the lining of an empty stomach under how many bridges? Don't even have a sleeping bag. I'm going to die! his eyes wailed to a French kid with a rooster cut, the only other passenger on the train speeding home.

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Chapter 28: Goin' to the Sex Crime Movies

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