O.K. Herb, O.K. Flo

All day, they carry their unwritten novels and unpainted pictures around in their heads. At night, they end up at the Shrine, on the corner of Sherbrooke and Victoria, and talk the ideas away. The jazz is poor but it’s dark and maybe you’ll be great tomorrow, and Christ! what crap the magazines are turning out. Later in the night, the city brings their failures back to them. The buildings, grey, solid, and religious, the buildings talk it into them with stone logic. Montreal is like a promise, an old Victorian promise that nobody dares to break. Or wants to break. The blackened limestone, the leering gargoyles, the iron gates seem to say, “You got a problem? Isn’t that rough? Men suffer, buddy, and they suffer alone or else it isn’t suffering. Go home alone. Walk on your own street and work it out.” Of course, hardly anyone hears this. But I know a few spirits who hear it and they wander into the Shrine trying to forget it, or they stay home in their basements spilling their guts over poems or paint or eighty-eight keys until they learn to live with it. That’s where I should have been. In my basement. Breaking my gonads over a sonnet. Cursing a hard sound into rhyme. Beating our clumsy language into a bird shape that could fly away. But I wasn’t in my basement. I couldn’t last an hour at my desk. The language was fighting back with phony knuckles and dirty punches. “No bird shape for me,” it screeched. I got sick of the brawl. I hit Sherbrooke Street. Screw the language. Maybe it would tire itself while I was out and when I came back later, it would be cuddling beside my typewriter and I’d stick feathers in it and shove it out my window with a Pax vobiscum. Sherbrooke Street. Elegant residential gone elegant commercial. Churches strangled gracefully with tributaries of bare wines. Art galleries for the churchgoers. All the stone you could want to fool yourself that life is substantial. Steeples, spires, domes, pillars. Everything touched by autumn, beautiful in the night and very human. Wordsworth knew it when he finally got around to looking at his own city: Earth has not anything to show more fair. . . . And he knew about the slums too. The sound of wind and leaves breaking their arched spines in the gutter. Now I was at the corner of Victoria. I could hear them blowing on the top floor of the Shrine. Drums too loud. Trumpet too loud. I figured it was Herb. Very flashy showman who waves his horn around like a sex symbol. Going over big with the Girls from Better Families who were starting to trickle down to the Shrine for a thrill and some safe dirt. Herb was pure grandstand and usually drunk. A noise in the lane. Cross between a loud pop and a huge old hinge. Somebody puking. A college kid grabbing at the side of the Shrine. Trying to get his face against the stone for the coolness.

“Stay away from me,” he wept, wiping a wet mouth with his sleeve. “I don’t have any money.”

“Even if you did, it would be no bargain stinking of puke. Here, take my arm. And keep your face turned the other way, will you? You might not think much of this jacket, but it’s seen me through some very treacherous quatrains.”

“What are you talking about? Quatrains. What are you doing? Let go my arm.”

“Just keep walking, Bacchus. To leeward of me.”

Halfway round the block, we stopped for some retching action. It was probably his first drunk. He was a little proud. We exchanged names and occupations.

“You know what?” he said, with deep honesty, “I’m Secretary of the Debating Society.”

“Want to buy a cheap speech?”

“No kidding, sir—” He started to call me sir. “No kidding, mister, I was just elected today. It’s quite an honor for a freshman.”

“For anybody.”

“My father thought it was pretty good. He gave me fifteen dollars and told me to go downtown and celebrate.”

“And you went downtown and celebrated. You’re having a ball.”

He was embarrassed and laughed. We were in front of the Shrine again.

“Going to make another assault or will you grab a taxi around the corner?”

He was fumbling in his pocket and trying to make a secret of it. He extended his hand to me like he wanted me to shake it. He had managed to fold a bill in his palm.

“I guess I better go home. I feel okay now, thanks to you. I want to thank you very much.”

I shook his hand. He engineered the bill into mine. Then he was embarrassed again and beat it. Thank God, we still have our upper classes in Canada. They know how to treat their poor. Even though they need a little polish. I looked at the bill. It was a ten.

“Wait a second, Mr. Secretary,” I shouted.

He froze on the corner till I got to him. I’m sure he didn’t know whether I’d smash him or embrace him.

“I think you over changed me. Look.”

“Oh, I meant—” He pulled a bill out of his pocket in a panic. “I, I thought the two was on top—”

At that moment his suffering was monumental. Then he recovered himself. Breeding came through. Noblesse oblige. He took a deep breath and gurgled a bit to find a voice.

“That’s quite all right. I want you to have it.”

“Now listen, friend, just because you made a mistake—”

He started to panic again. “No, no, it’s yours. I tell you, it’s yours. I’ve got to get home now.” Another minor recovery: “And if ever I can help you out again—”

But he couldn’t finish. He pushed my hand with the ten in it, and away he fled.

“Thanks,” I called after him, “and save me a place on your Cabinet.”

Poor kid. Pride, you murdering bastard. Up in the Shrine, Herb was grinding out the ending he uses for every bit. Applause. Mostly female, I figured, as I climbed the stairs. Place was dark as usual. Deep red lights gave everyone an unhealthy tan. Few couples taking advantage and making out. The musicians were quitting for their break. Being very casual with the ringsiders. Like they were just regular fellows and the audience was every bit as good as they were. But with smirks that betrayed. I flipped the kid’s bill on the table.

“Why don’t you birds spend a buck and turn on some real lights. That’s a ten.”

“Hey sport,” said the moneychanger, “what happened to you? Finally made the Nobel Prize?”

“Very clever, Mister Hurok. Eight, nine, ten. Thank you.”

“Herb wants to see you. He’s up front, with a chick.”

“Who’s Herb?”

And I headed for a table in the far corner. But I met him ten minutes later in the men’s room. There’s no escaping Herb. What he wanted was for me to write some publicity copy for his group.

“You know I don’t do that kind of stuff.”

“Sorry, poet man, I thought that jazz was one of the few things you approved of.”

He was drunk and buzzing with something more than alcohol.

“That’s right, Herb. Jazz, I approve of. Not the sexy hoax, you guys are blowing with your lower torsos and eyebrows.”

“You’re the one to talk, poet man, with your slim obscure volumes, thick as a forest, with breasts and thighs. Yessir, Mister Moral, preach me a little bit.”

“I would if I thought you ever listened to anything anybody ever said. The difference between my stuff and yours is that my breasts and thighs run through with blood and muscle and are attached to warm human frames, which think and love and hate. Yours are disembodied aphrodisiacs, aimed at tickling the naughty bones of bored chicks who are too lazy even to use a candle.”

I caught my face in the mirror. Portrait of the Poet Wasting His Time. What the hell was I doing in a green lavatory arguing a stupid point with someone I didn’t like and who wasn’t listening? That’s what I can’t stand about Herb. Somehow, he always gets me to talk Art. Herb leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. I knew I was in for a barrage.

“Before you start, Herb—”

“The trouble with you, poet man, is that too many years of being left unread, too many years of literary neglect, too many years of scratching in quicksand—”

“O.K. Herb, cut the rhetoric, spit it out.”

“Too many years of scratching in quicksand, etching in water, scribbling on wind—”

“For Christ’s sake!”

“Scribbling on wind, chalking on whitewash, carving in waterfalls—”

There’s no stopping Herb when he gets like this. He doesn’t hear you anyway. His own words work with the booze and goofballs and he’s moving on a very far out level. I flicked some water in his face. He came out of it.

“What’s the use,” he said.

“I agree, Herb. What’s the use?”

For the first time, I saw something that looked like pain on Herb’s face. Usually, he has a vicious, drugged, handsome air about him. I figured he must have been talking about himself. There’s no neglect like the neglect awarded to a local performer. No matter how loud the chicks squeal. He flung his arm over my shoulder. Something I can’t stand from anybody.

“Listen, poet man, this is a big night for me.”

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You were elected President of the Debating Society.”

Of course, he didn’t hear me.

“I got Mac’s wife with me.”

“She used to go with you before she married Mac, didn’t she?”

“Mac is crippled now.”

“Yeah, I heard. Streetcar, wasn’t it?”

“There are only two things a girl can give you,” Herb went on. “The first is her virginity. That, I got from her a long time ago. The second is her fidelity, her husband’s trust. That, I get from her tonight. Her very first episode in adultery.”

“Take your arm off me, will you, Herb? You know I can’t stand it.”

“She’s going to have to get it somewhere, with Mac like he is. It might as well be me. There are a hundred guys hanging around already.”

“Who’re you trying to convince, Herb?”

“If you promise not to do any preaching, I’ll invite you over to our table. Oh, c’mon poet man, Montreal’s Frail Child, your stomach can take it.”

“No thanks, Herb.”

“Please,” he said in a voice a little too desperate for the situation.

We got to the table. He half-led me, half-leaned on me. She looked uncomfortable. As if she didn’t want to meet anyone she knew.

“Hi, Flo,” I said, “how’s Mac?”

Herb glared at me.

“You trying to be funny?” said Flo.

“Let’s everybody sit down,” said Herb. “The next set will be on in a minute.”

“Make it another Pernod for me, Herb.”

“That’ll make it five. Are you sure, Flo?”

Flo turned to me, “Isn’t he the soul of concern. I guess he’s afraid I won’t be able to perform. Don’t worry, Herb, you got it made.”

Flo got her drink. I had some Bristol Cream. To remind me of better days. Herb paid and then left us to go to the stand. Before he left, he dug a fist between her thighs. She caught her breath and flushed. The music began. Piano first. Dull. He was playing for himself. Didn’t give a damn. Neither did the drums. Hi-hat clicking automatically. Herb pretended to listen to the other men. Bell of the horn flat on his stomach and grinding his hips.

“I suppose he told you,” said Flo. “Can’t keep his bloody mouth shut. Never could.”

“Here’s to Herb.”

Herb was blowing aloud and uneasy, as if he were signalling the piano to help him out.

“Christ, I hate him,” said Flo. “I could only do this with someone I hate. Seems fairer to Mac.”

“How is Mac, anyway?”

She made her lips thin and white.

“You know bloody well how Mac is. What are you trying to prove? Mac’s a cripple from his bellybutton down. That’s how Mac is.”

Then I heard the bass. He was great. Travelling up and down the scale with big easy leaps. Like he was trying to herd the group together.

“Listen to that bass,” I told her.

Under his high tilted horn, Herb swayed dizzily. The musicians didn’t get any better. The bass tried like crazy to the very end. Herb came back to the table. Before he sat down, he gobbled a goofball and washed it down with what was left of Flo’s Pernod. He pinched her rump and sat down.

“I’d go easy on those,” said Flo.

“You’re right,” said Herb thickly. “Encourages the appetite, deadens the instrument.”

He lowered his face to the table and licked her arm with his tongue, from the inside elbow to the wrist. His chin slid off her hand onto the table. She was breathing heavily. In heat. He was asleep. I shook him, but it was no use. We watched him for a minute or two. His nostrils breathing halfmoons of mist on the shiny table. With a clenched fist, Flo was kneading her belly.

“And he was worried about me,” she said bitterly. “I guess it serves me right. I guess—” But she didn’t finish. There were tears running down her cheeks and her shoulders were trembling. “What the hell am I doing here, whoring around the Shrine with a drunk trumpet, what am I doing here?” She leaned into my arms in despair and I took pleasure in her woman’s weight. “I’ve got to get home,” she pleaded. “Mac must be worrying about me.” She hung on to my arm. Frail and forlorn. Wiping her nose as we made our way out.

“Better take a look at Herb,” I told the moneychanger.

“Don’t worry about Herb, sport. Never missed a set in his life.”

“Well, this time he’s out for good.”

We went down the stairs very slowly. I helped her with each one. I was tender because of her misery. At every descent, our bodies became closer. Beside the door, we embraced. For a long time. People went by us. I noticed them, but she didn’t. And I wasn’t thinking of her misery anymore. I was thinking that she was going to have to get it somewhere, that there were a hundred guys hanging around already.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she wept. “And he tries so hard, Mac tries so hard.”

“I know, I know,” I told her automatically.

I was thinking what a mess my room was and how long ago it was that I changed my sheets. We went outside. Our nostrils opened to the cold. You couldn’t see the buildings right away. The streetlamps were too bright. She had my arm in both her hands. Her face against my sleeve. Then we heard the horn. Herb’s horn. Coming through the night like a silver stab. I never heard him blow like that before. He was saying, yes, yes, yes. It was strong and humble and confident. I thought, “He must’ve played like that a long time ago.” He called the piano and it came like a steady rickshaw under his sound. He summoned the drums and they were a buzz saw cutting the brush, so Herb could travel, striking stumps of cut crystal on the way. And the bass moved around everything like a throbbing guarding sky. “That’s what making a decision will do for you,” I said to myself. She didn’t change the position of her hands on my arm, but I felt something change. In the fingers. It was desire leaking away.

“The bastard must have been faking,” she said, astonished. “Wonder why he wanted to do a thing like that.”

“Maybe to give you a chance of getting out of the situation.”

She dropped her hands to her sides. The two of us stood for a long while listening to the music and the fragile scrape of the leaves in their last season.

“It’s funny,” she said. “Now that I come to think of it, Herb pulled something like this the very first night we spent together. We were getting undressed when he remembered he’d left the keys in the car. I heard the motor start and he didn’t come back for five hours. Now I see why. To give me a chance to get out.”

“Do you want to go back in?” I asked, as softly as possible.

She answered too quickly and there was a trace of panic in her voice. “No, no, we’re together now. I left the place with you. I’m with you now.” But what she really said, what she said with her hurt eyes and her trembling was, “Oh, God, I’m sick of this mess. Please let’s go over to your place and get this thing over with. I’ve wounded you up like a cheap whore, and you deserve to have me. I’m an adulteress and I haven’t the right to choose my men. At least let me do one decent thing.”

And I suppose I would have taken her, desire or not, because at that moment she was very beautiful in her panic, in her autumn, a child of the darkness and the music around us. But she made me remember a puking kid and a ten-dollar bill. I took both her hands and I said, “Look, Flo, don’t be afraid of asking for something back. Especially something you let go by mistake.”

She was about to protest. To let her pride flourish. But she stopped and thought about what I had said. She understood what I meant.

“You’re not committed to me,” I said, to reinforce the meaning. “It takes more than a few kisses and heavy breathing.”

I hoped she’d laugh, and she did. She kissed my cheek and I walked her back to the door of the Shrine. Herb was still blowing strong and fine.

“Isn’t he great?”

“I suppose he is,” I said.

“I like him very much.”

“I hope you do.”

“I feel like I’ve never been with a man before.”

“Good.”

“Sorry to have got you into this for nothing, I mean, to have let you—”

“Don’t worry about it, Flo. Good luck.”

Back to Sherbrooke Street. The blackened limestone, the leering gargoyles, the iron gates were saying what they always said. To me. To no one else. The leaves were swirling into crisp nests in the gutter. O.K. Herb, O.K. Flo, go to it. O.K. Mac, work it out, somehow. I have my own instructions. The churches and stores were dark and old but stood with dignity. I stopped and took in the scene around me. Looking for a poem to put me to sleep.