Ask The Dust. John Fante

old man dropped the mop handle, smeared the sweat from his wrinkled face, and pointed at the front door. ‘You get out of here!’ he said.

      I laid the magazine on the bar again and strolled away leisurely. At the door I turned and waved.

       Chapter Five

      I wasn’t starving. I still had some old oranges under the bed. That night I ate three or four and with the darkness I walked down Bunker Hill to the downtown district. Across the street from the Columbia Buffet I stood in a shadowed doorway and watched Camilla Lopez. She was the same, dressed in the same white smock. I trembled when I saw her and a strange hot feeling was in my throat. But after a few minutes the strangeness was gone and I stood in the darkness until my feet ached.

      When I saw a policeman strolling towards me I walked away. It was a hot night. Sand from the Mojave had blown across the city. Tiny brown grains of sand clung to my fingertips whenever I touched anything, and when I got back to my room I found the mechanism of my new typewriter glutted with sand. It was in my ears and in my hair. When I took off my clothes it fell like powder to the floor. It was even between the sheets of my bed. Lying in the darkness, the red light from the St Paul Hotel flashing on and off across my bed was bluish now, a ghastly colour jumping into the room and out again.

      I couldn’t eat any oranges the next morning. The thought of them made me wince. By noon, after an aimless walk downtown, I was sick with self-pity, unable to control my grief. When I got back to my room I threw myself on the bed and wept from deep inside my chest. I let it flow from every part of me, and after I could not cry anymore I felt fine again. I felt truthful and clean. I sat down and wrote my mother an honest letter. I told her I had been lying to her for weeks; and please send some money, because I wanted to come home.

      As I wrote Hellfrick entered. He was wearing pants and no bathrobe, and at first I didn’t recognize him. Without a word he put fifteen cents on the table. ‘I’m an honest man, kid,’ he said, ‘I’m as honest as the day is long.’ And he walked out.

      I brushed the coins into my hand, jumped out the window and ran down the street to the grocery store. The little Japanese had his sack ready at the orange bin. He was amazed to see me pass him by and enter the staples department. I bought two dozen cookies. Sitting on the bed I swallowed them as fast as I could, washing them down with gulps of water. I felt fine again. My stomach was full, and I still had a nickel left. I tore up the letter to my mother and lay down to wait for the night. That nickel meant I could go back to the Columbia Buffet. I waited, heavy with food, heavy with desire.

      She saw me as I entered. She was glad to see me; I knew she was, because I could tell by the way her eyes widened. Her face brightened and that tight feeling caught my throat. All at once I was so happy, sure of myself, clean and conscious of my youth. I sat at that same first table. Tonight there was music in the saloon, a piano and a violin; two fat women with hard masculine faces and short haircuts. Their song was Over the Waves. Ta de da da, and I watched Camilla dancing with her beer tray. Her hair was so black, so deep and clustered, like grapes hiding her neck. This was a sacred place, this saloon. Everything here was holy, the chairs, the tables, that rag in her hand, that sawdust under her feet. She was a Mayan princess and this was her castle. I watched the tattered huaraches glide across the floor, and I wanted those huaraches. I would like them to hold in my hands against my chest when I fell asleep. I would like to hold them and breathe the odour of them.

      She did not venture near my table, but I was glad. Don’t come right away, Camilla; let me sit here a while and accustom myself to this rare excitement; leave me alone while my mind travels the infinite loveliness of your splendid glory; just leave a while to myself, to hunger and dream with eyes awake.

      She came finally, carrying a cup of coffee in her tray. The same coffee, the same chipped, brownish mug. She came with her eyes blacker and wider than ever, walking towards me on soft feet, smiling mysteriously, until I thought I would faint from the pounding of my heart. As she stood beside me, I sensed the slight odour of her perspiration mingled with the tart cleanliness of her starched smock. It overwhelmed me, made me stupid, and I breathed through my lips to avoid it. She smiled to let me know she did not object to the spilled coffee of the other evening; more than that, I seemed to feel she had rather liked the whole thing, she was glad about it, grateful for it.

      ‘I didn’t know you had freckles,’ she said.

      ‘They don’t mean anything,’ I said.

      ‘I’m sorry about the coffee,’ she said. ‘Everybody orders beer. We don’t get many calls for coffee.’

      ‘That’s exactly why you don’t get many calls for it. Because it’s so lousy. I’d drink beer too, if I could afford it.’

      She pointed at my hand with a pencil. ‘You bite your fingernails,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t do that.’

      I shoved my hands in my pockets.

      ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

      ‘Do you want some beer?’ she said. ‘I’ll get you some. You don’t have to pay for it.’

      ‘You don’t have to get me anything. I’ll drink this alleged coffee and get out of here.’