William Vollmann - Whores for Gloria

I can't do that anymore, said Jimmy. All I want's sad stories.

They started walking down to Turk Street, and Candy swung by an alley and looked in a paper bag behind a parking meter to see if her emergency stash was still there and it wasn't and Candy said shit and then Jimmy said shit because he saw the black-and-white rolling up. The cop talked to Candy for a while and Candy was loud and earnest, and then the cop motioned Jimmy over.

Jimmy pretended not to see.

C'mon, c'mon, Candy said. He wants to talk to you.

Well I'll be , said Jimmy. He ambled up to the black-and-white with mild surprise in his eyes.

Who are you, partner? the cop said, leaning on his hand and grinning.

Jimmy.

Where are you from?

Around here.

The cop looked at him in the eye for a long time. Get back on the sidewalk, he said in disgust.

Candy laughed and laughed. You know what he said to me he said well I've heard the expression robbing the cradle but now seeing your date Candy I'm gonna coin a new one robbing the grave!

I'm so grave said Jimmy (keeping up the spirits of the world to the last) that sometimes I'm even serious.

You sure you can still get it up? said Candy anxiously. You look like you been through some rough times.

Candy and Jimmy went down to the Hotel Tony and stood outside the grating until a pimply-faced blonde came out and then Jimmy rattled the bars a little and she opened the door and said say do either of you have a dime for the phone why hello Candy! and then Candy pressed the buzzer on the inner door and there was a click and she pushed the door open and they were in the lobby of the world-famous Hotel Tony where Lonnie and Mason sat with arms folded behind the table and other men stood watching on the shabby stairs and Lonnie said three dollars to get in and Jimmy said with pleasure Lonnie and peeled three ones out of his wallet and Lonnie said thank you brother and Jimmy said how much to stay here for a week? and Lonnie laughed and said we only rent by the hour and Jimmy said aw come on and Lonnie said well since you're with Candy you must be all right you can stay for sixty-five a week and Jimmy said how many rooms can I rent at once and Lonnie said as many as you want and Jimmy said OK Lonnie I'll take a thousand rooms with maid service now where's the swimming pool how many goldfish swim in it? and Lonnie laughed heh heh heh and all the men on the stairs laughed and Candy said come on Jimmy we have work to do and Lonnie showed off his silver Liberty dime and his Indian head penny and Jimmy gave Lonnie a Canadian two-dollar bill and they both talked about rare coins laughing and laughing and trying to see who could say the stupidest things about old money and Mason and Lonnie passed a jug of Night Train back and forth and offered some to Jimmy but he said winking thanks anyhow fellas the lady says we have work to do and went upstairs with Candy to a room where Candy knocked and a woman said we're busy so Jimmy and Candy walked up and down the corridor three times and Candy knocked again and there was no answer and she said now when we come out there's gonna be someone waiting and you gotta give him five for the room and Jimmy didn't like that much but what could he do about it so Candy turned the knob and in they went. Candy bolted the door.

It was the usual kind of room with a double bed and stacks of Playboy and old record albums and the smell of incense, a punching bag over the bed, a pin-up of Farrah Fawcett, a refrigerator, and dozens of leather jackets hanging on the walls for quick conversion into cash for still other alchemical conversions whose results could at that very moment be heard out the window in the smash of a bottle against the sidewalk.

If anyone knocks on the door do not answer it, said Candy, going into the bathroom. She closed the door and was very quiet in there for a very long time and the TV said the Pope was careful when he praised Bolivia's efforts to curb the thriving drug trade and a bus went loudly by outside and Candy was quiet in the bathroom, shitting corncobs or shooting up probably as Jimmy had half-suspected she would be when he first saw her because she was dressed in a sweater and long pants as if she did not want to show any needle tracks (although later that night he saw her working in a black miniskirt) and children were laughing in the hall outside.

When at last she came out Jimmy said well now Candy tell me some stories. Sad stories. I need 'em sad so I can make 'em happy.

You meet a lot of different kinds people in this work, said Candy, staggering and wandering. Automatically, she started to strip. Her breasts were long and brown and covered with black sores. She stripped down to her panties and then remembered that Jimmy was not flatbacking her and stood confused for a second and then said well I wanna try on this skirt my sister gave me this is the kind of shit I wear, and she began to model herself for him, wiggling her fat paunch and shaking her tits from side to side and saying yeah lots of strange people out here.

That's for sure, yeah, said Jimmy noncommittally. He had already unzipped his pants.

You meet them psychos, you meet them people that like to be tied up, chained up, handcuffed from one end of the bed to the other and good god I'm talkin' about torture and you meet men that bring like them backpacks that have different equipment in 'em that they can hang shit from the ceilings. And they like to be hung up by their ankles and they like to be whipped.

That's right, said Jimmy with his dick in his hand, that's right.

Now me I'm a nice person and I lose a lot of money that way, because a person can look at me that way and tell that I'm not one of 'em. Some broads they can pull it off; I can't.

Is that a fact, said Jimmy, breathing hard.

The first time this guy wanted me to handcuff his arms to each side and his ankles were down here in some kinda thick rope but the rope was real soft, too. I'm talkin' 'bout the rope thing he wanted it so tight that you know when you take one of them ace bandages and wrap it around to cut off the circulation well it was too tight I said man your feet are gonna fall off but well he's into pain, you know. And I was scared at first. I ended up doin' it. He likes you to spit on him and when I spit on him he wanted me to take a safety pin and you seen them long safety pins, real thick, and he had one of them and it was unfolded out straight and what he wanted me to do is pull the skin back on his dick and the hole that's on it and he wants you to stick that safety pin down into the hole that's in his dickhead.

Is that right? laughed Jimmy, staring at Candy and choking as he jerked himself off.

Me I'm not no pain freak. I started out slow, and he gets mad 'cause I'm not doin' it hard enough and he's into blood . He got to arguin', and he got to callin' me names and shit an' I don't like to be called a bitch I don't care who you are if you call me a bitch you'll make me mad an' I will cuss you out an' I have come up and slapped people, so I guess he knew where most women's weak spot's at, and that's all it took, so then when I got it in there I twisted it around, and you know I was doing it to be an asshole but he liked it, laughed Candy. He got different sizes of safety pins, so after you do that he likes you to take a safety pin and stick it through his nipple from one side to the other and then once it's on there he like for you to pull it back and forth like this and he locks it up, and when it's locked he likes for you to stick your fingers in and pull as hard as you can. Now, if that don't work, if you can't draw blood out with that one, he wants you to take your mouth and he wants you to bite it. That man, he's into blood real bad. And words kept goin' back and forth between us, 'cause I was too gende. It seems like the more blood he'd see and the more madder he'd make me, the happier he was.