“Hello,” I said. “Could you check the oil, when you have a minute…?”
I was trying to read the headlines upside down, when the newspaper crumpled, and suddenly there was his fat head. His head was much bigger than normal-half again as big, you get the picture. I wondered where he went to buy glasses.
“Jesus Christ… WHY???” he said.
“Well, don’t want to get low…”
“But this is the fifth time you’ve been here in the last few days, and every time we check it it’s full-I’m not joking, you know-it’s not down one drop. Now are you going to come here every day and drive me nuts? I told you, the car does not use any oil, none…”
“Okay, this’ll be the last time. But I want to make sure,” I said. “Listen, understand something: selling cars like this at prices like that is not what’s going to set me up for life. I have more important things to do. You follow?”
I threw him a bone:
“Okay, I’ll come back and get it changed at fifteen hundred,” I said. He sighed, the asshole. What could I do if the world worked like that? You don’t lose a drop for a few days, then one morning the car hemorrhages all over the street. He called over to a bright looking guy with a sprinkling can.
“Hey, you. Drop that and go check the oil in the Mercedes.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Don’t worry, the level’s line, but the customer isn’t. Go look at it carefully. Check it out in full sunlight. Wipe it off and put it in again, and make absolutely sure that the level is up there between the two little marks. Make sure that you both agree before you put the thing back in.”
“Thanks. I’ll feel better,” I said. “Mind if I take a piece of gum?”
I went out to the car with the junior mechanic to open the hood. I showed him where the gauge was.
“This is the car of my dreams,” he said. “The boss doesn’t understand.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Never trust anybody over forty.”
A little way up the road, I stopped for a drink. As I was getting ready to pay, the article about Betty and the paint-bombs fell out of my wallet. I asked the bartender for another drink. Later, I stopped in front of a newsstand. I looked at all the headlines, one by one. I was drunk. I bought some rag that was about cooking, and another one that wasn’t.
In my travels I’d gotten far away from the house. I found myself in a part of town I didn’t know. I drove slowly. I was almost at the edge of town when I realized that the sun was setting. I started home calmly. Night had one foot on the ground by the time I pulled up in front of the pianos. It had fallen suddenly. It was an eerie night-a night I wasn’t going to forget.
It was simple. When I walked in she was there in front of the TV, eating a bowl of cereal, with a cigarette in her hand. It smelled of tobacco. It smelled of sulfur.
There were three obligatory-girls-with-feathers dancing on TV, and a guy braying into a microphone-something exotic and mushy. I noted how it did not at all go with the tension that reigned in the room. I was not, after all, strolling along a deserted beach in the third world, with miles of fine sand on either side of a hotel terrace, and a bartender making me a special cocktail with curaçao in the shade. No, I was merely on the second floor of a house, with a girl who had swallowed fire, and it was night. Things took a turn for the worse right away. All I did was go into the kitchen, lowering the sound on the television on my way. I had barely opened the refrigerator when the thing started booming.
After that it was the usual story-nothing too original this time. I drank my beer and threw the can hard into the wastebasket to set the mood. Who would be crazy enough to think you can live with a girl like that without incident? Who’d want to deny that such things are necessary?
We had already attained an honorable state-a few lingering lightning bolts in our eyes, the kitchen door swinging open and slamming shut-and for my part I would have been happy to stop there. My comebacks were losing their punch, and the temperature was stabilizing. I was ready to settle for a tie game, if it would keep us from having to go into extra innings.
I have never been able to explain certain of the things she did. I have never understood them either, thus making it impossible for me to avoid them. So there I was, panting in the corner, hoping to get saved by the bell, when she looked over at me and made a fist. It startled me. We’d never really hit each other. Since I was at least five yards away from her I didn’t panic. I felt like a native in the jungle, wondering what that thing is that the white hunter is aiming at him. This fist of hers-first she raised it up toward her mouth as if she were going to kiss it, then an instant later she put it through the kitchen window. For a split second I thought I heard the window scream.
The blood came spurting out of her arm, as if she’d just crushed a bunch of strawberries in her hand. I don’t like to say it, but I suddenly lost my nerve. A cold sweat squeezed my head like a tourniquet. I heard a whistling in my ears. Then she started laughing. She made such an odd face that for a moment I didn’t recognize her. She reminded me of an angel of darkness.
I ran to her like an angel of light, grabbing her arm with the same disgust I’d feel grabbing a rattlesnake. Her laughter hurt my ears, and she kept pounding me in the back, but somehow I managed to examine her wounds.
“Jesus Christ. You fucking idiot-you’re lucky, you know…” I said.
I took her into the bathroom and ran water over her arm. Now I was getting hot. I started to feel the punches she was giving me. I could no longer tell if she was laughing or crying. Whatever it was, she was really letting loose on my back. I had to hold her down with all my strength to wash her hand off. Just as I was getting the bandages out, she grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head back. I screamed. I’m not like some people--it hurts like hell when someone pulls my hair, especially when they go at it full throttle. I almost started crying. I sent my elbow backward. I hit something. She let go.
When I turned around, I saw her nose was bleeding.
“Shit, I don’t believe it…” I moaned.
Still, all in all it had calmed her down. I was just about able to put her bandages on in peace, except for the bottle of Mercurochrome she spilled all over in a last spasm. I didn’t have time to get my foot out of the way. The night before, I had put a coat of white polish on my shoes. Now one of them was bright red, which made the other one look stunningly white-it was quite a startling effect. Her hand was still bleeding, but her nose was better. She whimpered. I didn’t feel like comforting her. What I wanted to do was grab her and shake her, and make her apologize for what she’d done to her hand. I was prepared just to let her cry for days on end if it came down to it.
I wrapped the bandage one more time around her hand to finish up and gave her a Kleenex for her nose, without saying a word. Then I went into the kitchen to clean up the broken glass. Or more accurately, I lit a cigarette and stood there looking at the broken glass, twinkling on the tile like a school of flying fish. A cold draft came in through the window. I shivered. I was wondering about the best way to go about it-was it worth the effort to get out the vacuum cleaner or should I just use a broom and dustpan?-when I heard the downstairs door slam. I put everything on hold. One second later a man appeared on the street, foaming at the mouth, with one red shoe on his foot.
She had a good fifty-yard head start. I let out a long howl that propelled me like a jet, and I caught up fast. I could see her little ass dancing in her jeans, her hair flying sideways as she went.
We went across the neighborhood like two shooting stars. I gained ground inch by inch-she took it with ease. Under any other circumstances I’d have taken my hat off to her. We were puffing along like locomotives. The streets were practically deserted-clouds of weed-scented fog coming down here and there-but I wasn’t there to admire the scenery. I was engaged in hot pursuit with fire in my soul, wild race-to-the-finish music on the soundtrack. I called out to her a few times, then decided to save my breath. A few pedestrians turned to watch us. Two girls yelled out some bullshit, cheering Betty on. Their voices carried all the way around the corner. I pitied the next defenseless dude who crossed their path.