She uttered a high squawk of anger and hurled the spatula at him. On any other day of his life it would have missed. One of the first laws of physics was, to wit, a spatula will not fly a straight trajectory if hurled by an angry oral hygienist. Only this was the exception that proved the rule, flip-flop, up and over, smash, right into Larry's forehead. It didn't hurt much. Then he saw two drops of blood fall on the throw-rug as he bent over to pick the spatula up.
He advanced two steps with the spatula in his hand. "I ought to paddle you with this!" he shouted at her.
"Sure," she said, cringing back and starting to cry. "Why not? Big star. Fuck and run. I thought you were a nice guy. You ain't no nice guy." Several tears ran down her cheeks, dropped from her jaw, and plopped onto her upper chest. Fascinated, he watched one of them roll down the slope of her right breast and perch on the nipple. It had a magnifying effect. He could see pores, and one black hair sprouting from the inner edge of the aureole. Jesus Christ, I'm going crazy, he thought wonderingly.
"I have to go," he said. His white cloth jacket was on the foot of the bed. He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.
"You ain't no nice guy!" she cried at him as he went into the living room. "I only went with you because I thought you were a nice guy!"
The sight of the living room made him feel like groaning. On the couch where he dimly remembered being gobbled were at least two dozen copies of "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" Three more were on the turntable of the dusty portable stereo. On the far wall was a huge poster of Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw. Being gobbled means never having to say you're sorry, ha-ha. Jesus, I am going crazy.
She stood in the bedroom doorway, still crying, pathetic in her half-slip. He could see a nick on one of her shins where she had cut herself shaving.
"Listen, give me a call," she said. "I ain't mad."
He should have said, "Sure," and that would have been the end of it. Instead he heard his mouth utter a crazy laugh and then, "Your kippers are burning."
She screamed at him and started across the room, only to trip over a throw-pillow on the floor and go sprawling. One of her arms knocked over a half-empty bottle of milk and rocked the empty bottle of Scotch standing next to it. Holy God, Larry thought, were we mixing those?
He got out quickly and pounded down the stairs. As he went down the last six steps to the front door, he heard her in the upstairs hall, yelling down: "You ain't no nice guy! You ain't no - "
He slammed the door behind him and misty, humid warmth washed over him, carrying the aroma of spring trees and automobile exhaust. It was perfume after the smell of frying grease and stale cigarette smoke. He still had the crazy cigarette, now burned down to the filter, and he threw it into the gutter and took a deep breath of the fresh air. Wonderful to be out of that craziness. Return with us now to those wonderful days of normalcy as we -
Above and behind him a window went up with a rattling bang and he knew what was coming next.
"I hope you rot! " she screamed down at him. The Compleat Bronx Fishwife. "I hope you fall in front of some f**kin subway train! You ain't no singer! You're shitty in bed! You louse! Pound this up your ass! Take this to ya mother, you louse! "
The milk bottle came zipping down from her second-floor bedroom window. Larry ducked. It went off in the gutter like a bomb, spraying the street with glass fragments. The Scotch bottle came next, twirling end over end, to crash nearly at his feet. Whatever else she was, her aim was terrifying. He broke into a run, holding one arm over his head. This madness was never going to end.
From behind him came a final long braying cry, triumphant with juicy Bronx intonation: "KISS MY ASS, YOU CHEAP BAAASTARD! " Then he was around the corner and on the expressway overpass, leaning over, laughing with a shaky intensity that was nearly hysteria, watching the cars pass below.
"Couldn't you have handled that better?" he said, totally unaware he was speaking out loud. "Oh man, you coulda done better than that. That was a bad scene. Crap on that, man." He realized he was speaking aloud, and another burst of laughter escaped him. He suddenly felt a dizzy, spinning nausea in his stomach and squeezed his eyes tightly closed. A memory circuit in the Department of Masochism clicked open and he heard Wayne Stukey saying, There's something in you that's like biting on tinfoil.
He had treated the girl like an old whore on the morning after the frathouse gangbang.
You ain't no nice guy.
I am. I am.
But when the people at the big party had protested his decision to cut them off, he had threatened to call the police, and he had meant it. Hadn't he? Yes. Yes, he had. Most of them were strangers, true, he could care if they crapped on a landmine, but four or five of the protestors had gone back to the old days. And Wayne Stukey, that bastard, standing in the doorway with his arms folded like a hanging judge on the big day.
Sal Doria going out, saying: If this is what it does to guys like you, Larry, I wish you were still playing sessions.
He opened his eyes and turned away from the overpass, looking for a cab. Oh sure. The outraged friend bit. If Sal was such a big friend, what was he doing there sucking off him in the first place? I was stupid and nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up. That's the real story.