William Vollmann - Whores for Gloria

But the next day Jimmy had his money; Pearl had cashed his check; and Spider was waiting on the corner saying my wife said you be late but I told her you still five minutes early you got my money?

Sure do, said Jimmy.

Spider smiled. Here's what you told me to get for you, he said. I cut it off my wife myself.

Snitches

At the corner of Turk and Jones the pushers were pushing and Jimmy went and leaned up against a building with them and watched the whores go by and a pusher said you want a bag? and Jimmy said no thanks I got a bag right here, a paper bag with treasure in it and the pusher said you ain't no cop I trust 'cause if you are you gonna be dead and Jimmy said no not me and another pusher came up to him and said what you doin' here and Jimmy said what's happening pal and the pusher said coldly pal's not my name and Jimmy said well I'm Jimmy pleased to meet you Charlie and he stretched out his hand and the pusher just looked at it and Jimmy said well if that's the way you want it and the pusher took a quart of beer out of a paper sack and smashed it down on the sidewalk so that it exploded and sprayed beer and broken glass all over the sidewalk and the pusher just kept looking at Jimmy in disgust saying shit and Jimmy said yep Charlie you can sure say that again.

He pulled out the wig he had bought from Spider and put it on and the pushers all said see I told ya he's a cop! and then they giggled and said oh no I guess he's just a fag I guess he's just another one of them Miss Things.

Jimmy said don't snitch on me boys I'm just a he-she and now let me hide this wig away and go get some ACTION.

You be crazy! the pushers laughed and laughed.

Jimmy strolled up to Ellis and Leavenworth and met the ugliest old whore he had ever seen in his life although thanks to Vaseline or whatever it was her lips glistened like the retro-shimmer of rockets. Here we have the Whore of Hell, he thought to himself: Abandon hope all ye who enter her. Listen baby, she told him, Wino Jimmy is an undercover Fed he snitched on the whole Tenderloin you see this steel comb I'm gonna go find him and carve his eyes out. — Good luck, Jimmy grinned.

Gloria

He was in a fine mood. His life was about to change. He had the treasure.

More decisions

So now as in the old days Jimmy also known as James went whore-hunting. And he said to himself I now make my harvest in the garden of black roses and coral sea anenomes and delicate little nightcap flowers like buttercups like a blonde whore's hair; alley by alley I will search and destroy like Code Six and Riley and I did in the old days. — Potato chip bags scuttered down Jones Street like the flittering red-brown places where "declassified" Army films had been censored; and Jimmy remembered Code Six in the days when he was a tanned, smoking, bare-chested soldier beside him unkink-ing a belt of 7.62 machine-gun slugs; he remembered the blue, blue mountains, the swarm of 'copters; and he could not believe that he was actually remembering anything because he had not done that since before he started drinking, and he felt uneasy. — In the marine gardens of the Tenderloin, he went beachcombing for special objects like the perfect pink shells of Peggy's ears. On the hood of Code Six's Lincoln, a whore very elegandy drank a Coke through a straw, a thin straw in which the liquid rose and fell as her tongue played with it, and the can seemed very precious in her fingers. — Pretty good, grinned Jimmy, feeling his old self. He wandered to the edge of Union Square where the department stores began (and Leroy and Laredo drove by him and Laredo said see, there's that old drunk again), and a pretty whore came after dark and sat on a bench looking with great interest at the pedestal and he wandered past the yellow-glowing snailshell dome of City Hall and turned the corner to the place where the blowjobs were; he revisited all the alleys with the wholesome names: Fern, Olive, Myrtle and Cedar which smelled of something other than cedar; and then — why, he had another drink.

A man walked crying down the street. He did not know that he was crying. He thought he was happy. So was he happy if he thought so? He was Jimmy with his wide owl eyes, his forehead wrinkled like a sandbar, his short grey hair like dying grass, his mouth gaping as he listened to someone talking or not talking to him, and his slender arms hung down at his sides.

An old woman stood on the sidewalk staring at him. He had never seen her before. She wore a raincoat much too large for her, and her wrists were so lost in the sleeves that they clutched each other for comfort. Her eyeglasses took up half her face; behind the smoked lenses, hard little seeds blinked and blinked. She seemed to be gathering breath as she fixed on him; she was glaring at him wildly, as if he had tried to murder her. In a moment she would start screaming. He looked around him for an alley to duck in, but there was none.

The woman began to weep. — Clark? she said very weakly. Clark, is it you? You came back?

Jimmy understood. His arm was around her. — Yeah, it's me, he said. And I came all the way to see you. I knew you were waiting for me. I felt it so I came. And you're looking good and looking happy. Now I'll always be here with you because even if you can't always see me I'll be right around the corner watching out for you and you can trust me on that because what I have in this bag gives me special powers. So don't you worry about ghosts and things like that because I'll be keeping my eye on you and I'll be helping you.

She clung to him. Her face was against his shoulder, and she was shaking. Her hand moved tenderly across his face. Supporting her, he led her to a doorway and sat her down. — I've got to go now, he said. But don't you ever worry anymore. Everything's going to be grand. He disengaged himself. When he looked back at her, she was smiling with closed eyes, sitting pale and still like a ruined doll.

Yessir! he shouted as soon as he had gone around the corner. I have the treasure.

No one paid him any attention.

He strode along kicking at sacks of garbage and whisding. He stuck his hand into the treasure-bag and winked. He dragged his knuckles across the bars of ground-floor windows. Then he saw that they were grime-black, and rubbed them on his pants. He sang don't letcher deal go-a down , ooh, whoo-whoo, till that last old DOLLAR is gone ! and George the shoeshine man on Jones Street who was feeling poorly said my Lord Jimmy you sure are cheerful today and Jimmy said morning George and George said morning or afternoon either way sure is a nice day ain't it? and Jimmy said sure is, 'cause I got a SPECIAL THING in this paper bag and you can't even drink it! — George said well Jimmy whatever it is you get me one if it turns you around like that because I got aches and I got pains . Oh Jimmy old man you are a card do you know that? — Knew it all my life, said Jimmy. I'm such a card I shuffle when I walk! — And George stood laughing under his hat in the shade of his stand with all the little tins of Kiwi polish stacked beside bottles of this and that, and rusty shoehorns rattling like wind-chimes in the breeze, and boots hanging from hooks just over his head like the extremities of hanged men; and when Jimmy was gone George began to sweep the sidewalk chuckling. — Shucks, he said to himself. If that poor old coot got reason to be happy, I oughta have reason too. Ain't that right, boots? Happiness ain't against the law?

Cynthia

Cynthia leaned up against the door of a loading dock with her legs crossed. The sunlight glowed upon her right knee, her left flank. Whenever men passed by, she took a deep breath and thrust her chest out. She was smoking a cigarette, and her hands were tight little fists on her hips.