I walked west for a block, then turned south. On Ninety-Sixth Street I hijacked a cab at the lights — I just yanked open the door and swung my case on to the seat. The cabbie turned: and our eyes met horribly. ‘The Ashbery,’ I told him, for the second time. ‘On Forty-Fifth.’ He took me there. I gave the guy the two bucks I owed him, plus a couple more. The money changed hands very eloquently.
‘Thank you, friend,’ he said.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
——————
I’m sitting on the bed in my hotel room. The room is fine, fine. Absolutely no complaints. It’s terrific value.
The pain in my face has split in two but hurts about the same. There’s a definite swelling in my jaw now, on my upper west side. It’s a fucking abscess or something, maybe a nerve deal or a gum gimmick. Oh Christ, I suppose I’ll have to get it fixed. The mouth-doctor I choose is in for a jolt. These croc teeth of mine, these English teeth — they’re about as good, I reckon, as those of the average American corpse. It will cost me, what’s more. You have to splash out big for everything like that over here, as you know, as I’ve said. You have to tell yourself beforehand that the sky’s the limit. All the people in the street, these extras and bit-part players, they all cost long money to keep on the road. There are taxi-meters, money-clocks, on the ambulances in this city: that’s the sort of place I’m dealing with. I can feel another pain starting business in the slopes of my eyes. Hello there, and welcome.
I’m drinking tax-exempt whisky from a toothmug, and listening to see if, I’m still hearing things. The mornings are the worst. This morning was the worst yet. I heard computer fugues, Japanese jam sessions, didgeridoos. What is my head up to? I wish I had some idea what it’s got in mind for me. I want to telephone Selina right now and give her a piece of it, a piece of my mind. It’s one in the morning over there. But it’s one in the morning over here too, in my head anyway. And Selina would be more than a match for me, with my head in the shape it’s in … Now I’ve got another evening to deal with. I don’t want another evening to deal with. I’ve already had one, in England and on the plane. I don’t need another evening. Alec Llewellyn owes me money. Selina Street owes me money. Barry Self owes me money. Outside I see night has happened quickly. Dah — steady now. The lights don’t seem at all fixed or stable, up there in the banked sky.
Refreshed by a brief blackout, I got to my feet and went next door. The mirror looked on, quite unimpressed, as I completed a series of rethinks in the hired glare of the windowless bathroom. I cleaned my teeth, combed my rug, clipped my nails, bathed my eyes, gargled, showered, shaved, changed — and still looked like shit. Jesus,’I’m so fat these days. I tell you, I appal myself in the tub and on the can. I sit slumped on the ox-collar seat like a clutch of plumbing, the winded boiler of a thrashed old tramp. How did it happen? It can’t just be all the booze and the quick food I put away. No, I must have been pencilled in for this a long time ago. My dad isn’t fat. My mother wasn’t either. What’s the deal? Can money fix it? I need my whole body drilled down and repaired, replaced. I need my body capped is what I need. I’m going to do it, too, the minute I hit the money.
Selina, my Selina, that Selina Street… Today somebody told me one of her terrible secrets. I don’t want to talk about it yet. I’ll tell you later. I want to go out and drink some more and get a lot tireder first.
——————
The sprung doors parted and I staggered out into the lobby’s teak and flicker. Uniformed men stood by impassively like sentries in their trench. I slapped my key on the desk and nodded gravely. I was loaded enough to be unable to tell whether they could tell I was loaded. Would they mind? I was certainly too loaded to care. I moved to the door with boxy, schlep-shouldered strides.