Pete Hamill - Loving Women

This time I knew what I had to do, knew I couldn’t pass on more of James Robinson’s evil blood. My sister found me a doctor in Atlanta. And before Christmas, I went up there and had an abortion and made the doctor tie my tubes. It was terrible. But when it was over, the truth be told, I was happy. I knew that I’d never have to worry, ever again, about life risin in my womb. That’s when I saw you, child. Comin back from Atlanta, on New Year’s Eve. Or more accurate, comin away from Atlanta. Because I wasn’t going home. Not with James Robinson roaming around free. My sister found a place in a Catholic boarding school for my daughters. She sees them every Saturday and I tried to explain to them that this was only for a while, that James Robinson was still out there, with his big gun and evil ways. The police were lookin for him. My sister’s husband had some people lookin for him too. And I came here, to Pensacola, to hide, to start to live .

I wasn’t even sure what that meant, child. To live. But I knew that I was tired of not feelin anything but fear. I was tired of not bein a woman. Of bein sealed up. Of bein alone. I have missed so many things in my life. And then I met you and you were sweet and you were like the boy I should have had, the boy that might have come down that block the next afternoon, instead of that man in the white suit that I thought looked like a god. You are so good to me. I want to be good to you. I want you to know what I know and for you to know it for the rest of your life .

So when I had to leave so sudden, I hoped you would understand. It wasn’t planned. I had called my sister to ask after the children and she said she’d been tryin to find me for two days because Nola hurt herself at the school, fell off a horse, fractured her skull. My heart just fell into my stomach. I went there as quick as I could, thinking: She could’ve been dead and buried and I never would’ve known. So I had to go. There just wunt any choice. The blood called me. Nola was so happy to see me and the doctors said she had a close call but would be all right and I explained and explained to the girl about where I was and what I was doin and how it would only be for a while (which is the truth) and explained again (tryin to find the words and not scare her too much about the blood of James Robinson that was coursin through her own sweet veins) and she understood, she’s smart, she said she would pray for me and have the nuns pray for me too. I stayed until she was up from the bed and all right, and spent the rest of the time with little Jesse. She doesn’t understand in the same way. She was hurt the most. But I think in the end that she understood too. I hope so. I hope you do too. Somewhere out there, James Robinson is movin in the dark. But I’m with you, child. So please be good to me .

S he’s back. I’m happy again .

Actors I like: Brando, Bogart, Cagney, Astaire. But I don’t get it about James Dean. Maybe the girls just like his red jacket. I see him in a movie and I ask myself: What kind of actor would this guy be if Marlon Brando never existed? He steals all of Marlon’s moves, and mumbles like Marlon sometimes does, but because he looks different they think he’s something new. I bet if he went up against Brando in a movie, Marlon would destroy him. (On the other hand, what would happen if Brando went up against Bogart or Cagney, or any of those guys that came out of the Depression? Maybe they would eat Marlon alive). Edward G. Robinson is the best of all. He looked scary as shit in Key Largo, sitting in the bathtub in the heat, waiting for the hurricane .

Just what does a movie director do? And what is a producer? Ask somebody .

I’m happy, yes. But also confused. She has so much more of a life to think about than I have. If I told her my story, it would be a couple of sentences long. She has everything: New Orleans, kids, guns, beatings. And I don’t think she’s even begun to tell me all of it. I want to teach her something, tell her stories, change her with the things I know. But what do I know? Not enough, maybe never enough. She will always have a head start on me. And there’s nothing I can ever do about that .

One thing I can do is learn more about the world out there. She never reads newspapers and I always do. So I can tell her about what is going on, if she is interested. Maybe that will keep her from thinking too much about her kids or James Robinson or New Orleans. Maybe she won’t think about leaving Pensacola either. Or leaving me .

Why did I feel sorry for Red Cannon the other night? I should hate his guts but … It’s got something to do with the way he belched as he was going out the door .

The second time he raped her, she got wet. She said so herself. So she liked it. She must have. Last night, I kept picturing her face as he did it to her, hating it and loving it at the same time. I couldn’t sleep .

They say that King Farouk is about to be kicked out of Egypt. There’s a picture of him in a bathing suit, walking along the beach somewhere with slippers on, so he won’t get sand on his royal feet. He looks disgusting. And I wonder again: How do these fucking shitheads end up running countries? Who would follow that fat turd into battle?

And I wonder too, reading the papers, just what Porfirio Rubirosa and Baby Pignatari do for a living. They are always described as “playboys,” but the papers never tell you where these playboys get the money to play with. One thing is for sure: It’s not from work .

E finally explained the difference between Kotex and Tampax .

Something hurt Red Cannon . Real bad. I’m sure of it. (But he’s still a prick.)

No wonder E never answers me when I talk about the future. She has this whole thing, over in N.O., kids, a sister, a brother, a house, a past, and this crazy husband roaming around someplace. How could she ever go off with me into the unknown? But then, how could I go off without her?

I don’t really get Marilyn Monroe, but I’d like to fuck her. If she’d promise to talk in a normal voice .

The night beach is empty now, and the terrace doors shudder with the wind rising off the sea. I look at the telephone on its table beside the bed. With this steel and plastic instrument, I can choose to hear a hundred voices of the present. But I don’t want to hear them, for the same reason that I do not switch on the television set or go down and stand at the hotel bar.

I am hearing the voice of Eden Santana.

I am a boy trying to make sense of the world and of women and of love. I am feeling again the sense of shame and forgiveness, separation and reconciliation. I am learning to walk.

And I am once more in the warm Gulf spring, during the time when Eden and I were playing The Games. I work every day at Ellyson Field. I draw pictures for money. I see Sal and Max and Miles Rayfield and Bobby Bolden and the others, but I cannot say what we did or talked about together in that wet season. The reason is simple: I was too deep into The Games. Every evening in the months after she returned from New Orleans, I would go with Eden to the trailer. Sometimes we simply ate dinner and then made love and slept together a while before I returned to the base.

Sometimes.

Most times we played.

One evening she pulled up before the locker club and looked out through the car window at me in a funny way. Her eyes seemed to be boring a hole in me. I started to get into the car on the passenger side but she slid over. You drive, she said. She was wearing a raincoat and dark stockings and new red high-heeled shoes.