the Last Buffoon Read online

  “Are you going to faint?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are your eyes closed?”

  I open them. “Never mind.”

  “I hope you don’t go crazy before we get married.”

  “Don’t worry about it. By the way, I don’t know if Warmflash told you or not, but you’re supposed to pay all the bills that have to do with marriage. You owe me four dollars for the marriage license.”

  She looks at me scornfully, opens her pocketbook, and gives me a five dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

  “We’ll need two witnesses for the ceremony. Do you have them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then all we have to do is get the blood tests.”

  “I had mine this morning, and I have an appointment for you with my doctor. I will drive you there, and then I have some shopping to do, if you don’t mind.”

  “Your boyfriend will take my blood?”

  “My boyfriend is on duty at New York University Hospital. You will see my gynecologist.”

  Here I am seated in her gynecologist’s waiting room, surrounded by ladies from twenty to eighty suffering cunt ailments. In my imagination I see leaky cunts, swollen cunts, misshapen cunts, overdeveloped cunts, underdeveloped cunts, worn out cunts, inside-out cunts and upside-down cunts. It’s embarrassing for me to be here, and embarrassing for the ladies because they know I know they suffer from female complaints. The doctor’s two crabby nurses have been treating me like I just crawled in from the sewer.

  “The doctor will see you now,” says one of them.

  I enter the doctor’s examination room and he shakes my hand buddy-buddy fashion as if he’s pleased to have one of his own in there. He has red curly hair and tortoise-shell glasses, a typical overweight uptight Jewish doctor who’s playing God, thinks he’s a genius, and is doing everything possible to earn a hundred thousand dollars a year. “Sit over here,” he says, pointing to a strange contraption where women sit so that their malfunctioning cunts can be examined. I sit and put my feet in the stirrups. Wait’ll I tell the boys at Lucky’s about this. On second thought, maybe I’d better not.

  “So you’re marrying Mabra, eh?” the doctor asks, fucking around with a needle.

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful girl.” He jabs me in the forearm, and my precious ruby-red blood spills into his syringe.

  “What makes you think so?”

  The doctor blinks. “Well…she’s a good-looking girl, and she’s very bright.”

  “I’m surprised you let her slip through your fingers.”

  He laughs falsely. “I’m married already, and I have two daughters. What do you do for a living, Mr. Frapkin?”

  “I wrote novels.”

  “Anything I might have read?”

  “Not unless you read dirty books.”

  “Ha ha ha,” says the doctor.

  “Ha ha ha,” I reply, on the verge of saying something nasty, but my life’s blood is being sucked away and I pass out cold in the chair.

  Chapter Five

  Ripelli was halfway through the alley when he saw ten of them coming from the other end, moonlight glinting in their eyes and on the baseball bats they carried. He turned but another bunch also armed with baseball bats was behind him. Placing his back against a filthy brick wall, he waited for them, his heart beating wildly, his mouth dry with the taste of Death. They grinned as they crowded around and raised their bats in the air.

  The nearest hoodlum stepped forward and swung his bat down at Ripelli’s head, but Ripelli dodged, caught the bat in his strong hands, and twisted it loose. In movements so fast they were a blur, Ripelli gripped the handle tightly and slugged sideways at the hoodlum’s face. There was a sickening thud, the hoodlum’s eyes bulged hideously, and blood squirted out his ears, nose and mouth.

  Riiinnngggg.

  “Hiya, Alex. This is Roger. Are you working?”

  “I can take a break for a few minutes. What’s going on?”

  “I have a Buddhist monk from Ceylon staying with me this week, and I thought you might be interested in attending the lectures he’ll be giving.”

  “What time.”

  “Seven o’clock tonight and every night until Sunday.”

  “Any broads be there?”

  “I imagine there will be, but I wouldn’t want you to come just for that.”

  “Of course not. Is he any good?”

  “Yes, and his English is near-perfect.”

  “Marvelous. That last guy you had — the Chinaman — I didn’t know what he was talking about most of the time.”

  “But the atmosphere, Alex — surely you felt his great spirituality.”

  “That’s why I wished I knew what he was saying. How’d you meet this Ceylon guy?”

  “I wrote to the Buddhist Vijara in Washington, and they sent him up.”

  “This is quite a coup for you — having him in your apartment for a week. You’re liable to attain Buddhahood by Thursday.”

  There’s silence on the other end, and I realize I shouldn’t have said that. Roger takes his Buddhism seriously.

  “You always try to make a joke of everything,” he says nasally. “You should direct your energies to higher considerations.”

  “If life isn’t a joke, then what is it?”

  “It is pure unbounded awareness. Are you meditating regularly?”

  “I’ve been very busy.”

  “They say if you’re too busy to meditate, you’re too busy.”

  “If I don’t stay busy I’m liable to wind up on the pure unbounded Bowery.”

  “You’ve got to get over your materialism, if you want to make any real spiritual progress.”

  “That’s like telling a man dying of malnutrition that he’s got to stop thinking about food. There are certain material things that people need.”

  “What a delusion that is. I hope you’re in a better frame of mind tonight.”

  “I’ll try to be.”

  “The point is that you’re not supposed to try, but just surrender to the pure white light of the Buddha.”

  “Okay — I won’t try.”

  “I’ve got a few more calls to make. I’ll see you this evening, and please be on time. It’s disruptive when you walk in late.”

  “I’ll make every effort not to make every effort to be on time.”

  “Goodbye, Alex.”

  “So long, Roger.”

  Frowning, I hang up the phone. Roger always treats me like a shithouse rat, while presenting himself as the epitome of wisdom and enlightenment, but I’m tolerant of megalomaniacs, being one myself, and besides, his little Buddhist meetings are good for my soul, particularly since they’re often attended by beautiful, sensitive young women who sometimes turn to me for clarification of this or that fine point of the Dharma. Of course I always oblige with a trenchant explanation — and what I don’t know I make up.

  The one thing that really pisses me off about Roger is that his very first novel, Moonlight, has been sold into hardcover for eight thousand dollars, and into paperback for thirty thousand, and it’s an unreadable piece of sentimental crap.

  I’m getting frustrated and angry, and before I bust a gut I’d better pick up my handy desk Bible and turn to Ecclesiastes, where I read: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

  Yes, indeed, riches don’t necessarily go to men of understanding, for if they did, I wouldn’t be living in squalor suffering humiliations at every turn, while Roger, who can’t get across town unless his wife holds his hand, already has made almost forty grand from a pretentious piece of bullshit that doesn’t have even one real human being in it. Goddamn sonofabitch.

  What the fuck is that! Unless my eyes are deceiving me, that little Japanese broad across the way is walking around her apartment clad only in her white underpants! It’s true — it’s her — and right now she
’s bending in front of her TV set, adjusting the dials, her sinuous ass thrust my way. My schlong twitches to life in my drawers. I fondle it lovingly and wish I could sneak up and backstraddle her the good old American way. Now she’s moving to the left of her TV set and I notice the rag in her hand. She’s dusting her knickknack shelves, affording me the side view of her small pointy breasts, each of which would fit nicely in my salivating mouth. Oh-oh she’s walking away. Now she’s gone.

  Damn, and she’s just my type; I love little broads. I think there’s something particularly erotic about a tiny woman getting fucked. I guess it’s the lewdness of the positions combined with the cameo-like delicacy of their bodies, and when you stick your cock into them you don’t fall in and find a guy looking for his motorcycle. Hold on she’s back! She’s taking something down from the shelf and, my God, I think she’s going to polish it before my very eyes.

  Stealthily, so as not to attract her attention, I creep behind my bookcase where she can’t see me, whip out Harry, and start jerking off. Whap whap whap. Her body is exquisite and another advantage of little women is they’re light and easily maneuverable, so you can twist them into all sorts of disgusting poses. Whap whap whap. Oh boy would I like to get my hands on her shapely ass. Whap whap whap. She’s scratching her tit. Oh Lord, if only I could do that for her. Whap whap whap. She’s an Oriental princess and I can just see her blowing me. Whap whap whap. Now she’s raised her leg, resting her foot on something. Whap whap whap. I’d like to pick her up and let her down slowly, impaling her right on my oh my oh oh oh oh yaaaaaahhhhhh!

  Quick, out with the handkerchief to sop up the goo. Sop, sop, sop — what a mess. Sperm expended this way unites with whatever it touches and produces golems, according to the holy Kabbalah. All I need now is a fucking golem hanging around here. Already I’m feeling tired. Jerking off is such a downer when it’s over, but, like the man said, at least you don’t have to look your best. When I wrote Patti’s Honeymoon I jerked off seven times a day and was close to death by the time I finished.

  I’ve just remembered that I’m supposed to have ten copies of Patti’s Honeymoon delivered to Geoffrey Ames, who’s going to make the movie that’ll bring untold riches into both our lives. How can my supposedly brilliant mind blank out important things like this? Stuff my softening, dripping scepter of love back into my shorts, I zip up and dive on the telephone.

  “Bacchus Press.”

  “Lou Cohen, please?”

  Clickity clackity.

  “Lou Cohen speaking.” The businesslike voice of a man who reads about five pornographic manuscripts, most of them horrendous, every day.

  “Alex Frapkin here. I want to buy ten of my books, Lou, and according to my contract I get them at half price, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You got a pencil handy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Send them to Geoffrey Ames, 298 West 12th Street, and send the bill to me.”

  “You still in the same place?”

  “I’m not a floating crap game.”

  “When’re you going to write another one for us?”

  “Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I get paid more for crime books.”

  “But you have more fun writing dirty books — admit it.”

  “I don’t have more fun writing dirty books.”

  “You’d rather fight than fuck?”

  “I’d rather get paid more. However I might consider doing something for you if you’d pay me the royalties you owe me for Patti’s Honeymoon.”

  “What royalties?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t sell enough to pay royalties?”

  “If you haven’t received any, that means we didn’t.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. I bet you owe me ten thousand dollars at least.”

  “We wouldn’t be in business for as long as we have if we cheated our authors out of royalties.”

  “I suspect that’s precisely the reason why you’ve been in business so long. Let me put it this way — if you want another best-seller like Patti’s Honeymoon, you’ve to pay me the royalties you owe me.”

  He’s silent for a few seconds. I got him with that one. “Let me look into it,” he says at last.

  “You do that.”

  “I’ll give you a call in a few days.”

  I’m in shock as I hang up the phone, because it sounds like I actually might have conned him into paying me some royalties. If so I’ll pack a bag and fly to Tokyo for a week and fuck little Japanese whores. But I’ll have to handle it so Bacchus’ll pay me the royalties before I write the new porno book, and then of course I won’t write it because if I did I’d have to go through this whole number all over again. Why is it that I’m continually dealing with the dregs of the publishing industry? Where is my Maxwell Perkins?

  I look out the window; my little Tokyo Rose is gone. Ah, my dear, how I’d love to discuss haiku with you over hot cups of sake, and then you could sit on my face. Enough of this romantic reverie; I must go out and get some fresh air.

  Near Grand Central Station, I kneel down and pretend to adjust the straps of my jodhpur boots, but surreptitiously pick a skinny joint from the top of my socks. Standing, I light it casually with my Zippo, as if it’s an ordinary tobacco cigarette that’ll give me lung cancer. Advertising executives carrying attaché cases are rushing about, too absorbed in capitalist deception to notice the dangerous drug fiend in their midst. On 43rd Street a flock of stalled yellow cabs blow horns at a traffic jam ahead on Fifth Avenue, but as the drug takes hold they sound like Gabriel’s trumpets. And look at all these pretty office girls, so neat and prim. How nice it would be to have the power of invisibility and be able to look up their dresses, or perhaps hang out in ladies’ rooms and watch them pee.

  Look up there, Frapkin — the sun is shining! See how it glints on store windows and on the chrome of automobiles. How beautiful the city is today, how exciting, how interesting. I’ll bet that guy over there is a U.N. diplomat who’s just betrayed his country. I’ll bet that fashionable lady is on her way to a tryst with a junkie. New York City is the world’s greatest novel, if only I could write it.

  Abercrombie and Fitch is only a few blocks away — why not stop in and see all the wonderful things I can’t buy? As Secret Agent Frapkin once again, I stub out the joint with a dab of spit, tuck it into my sock with the three other whole ones there, and slouch toward the greatest store in New York.

  At the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 43rd Street the lights are against me, but as a native New Yorker, that’s a challenge to my courage and ingenuity. While others wait docile as cattle for the lights to change, the fearless Frapkin charges into the midst of onrushing traffic.

  I’m travelling on the balls of my feet, my knees are loose, hips ready to swivel into the tiniest opening. A hornblowing yellow cab bears down on me, but like the great Manolete I dance out of the way and let it pass, while standing gracefully and precariously between its gleaming flanks and those of a black Cadillac limousine. When the coast is clear I dive past the grill of a green Mustang right into the path of another yellow cab, whose driver hits horn and brakes simultaneously while screaming, “Stupid Bastard!” But if I were stupid I’d be underneath his front wheel right now. The air is full of bitter exhaust fumes and my heart is racing as I stand nonchalantly between a scarlet Lincoln Continental pimpmobile and the Riverdale Express bus. As soon as the bus is gone I run fleet as Hermes past a blue Buick Skylark and a beautiful metallic gray Chevrolet Camaro, dodge a brown Dodge Coronet, stiffarm a GM in British Racing Green, snarl at a guy on a Honda motorcycle, and my winged foot hits the curb on the other side of the street. Ladies and gentlemen, the Fearless Frapkin has done it again.

  Madison Avenue automatons couldn’t possibly understand a man with a sense of adventure, so I won’t bother explaining my death-defying feat. Adjusting the tilt of my Borsalino so that it slants even more rakishly acros
s my face and sunglasses, I walk two blocks through a sea of ad execs and secretaries, manage to rub against a few cuties. At Abercrombie and Fitch I step into the odor of leather, tweed, gunmetal, and money. Straight ahead on an old-fashioned wood and glass counter is a display of lamps made from converted moose heads, diving helmets, elephants’ feet, and model ships. In the corner is luggage, and I’d like to take that steerhide two-suiter on a jet flight to Tokyo, where I’m sure it would impress the little whores.

  Up I go on the elevator to the fourth floor, for an inspection of the very latest in fine Burberry clothing. Racks and racks of tweed, cheviot, hopsacking, twill, plaid, and herringbone. Removing my sunglasses, I’m drawn to a topcoat with a classic bal collar and raglan shoulders, in gray with a subdued pattern of red, green, and brown stripes. Could wear it with anything. Only two hundred and ten dollars. I’ll have to get one as soon as I get paid for my last Triggerman, if I ever get paid for my last Triggerman. And look at those wool suits on the rack against the wall. Just the thing for your successful author while entertaining lady friends in his penthouse on fashionable Beekman Place. I could even wear one when I make my first appearance on the Johnny Carson Show. Yes, Johnny, I may be earning a million dollars a month in royalties now, but would you believe I used to walk around in Abercrombie and Fitch in New York completely broke and dreaming about things I’d like to buy?

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I’m just looking around.”

  Fifth floor: the gun collection. Your writer of crime fiction must keep abreast of the latest advances in weaponry. “I’d like to look at a Weatherby .458.” Lethal beauty. Smooth and perfectly balanced in my hands, it has a flawlessly performing bolt action and is chambered for the incredible .458 round. It is powerful enough to split a charging elephant in half and is fitted with a Bausch and Lomb scope so you can’t miss anything up to five hundred yards away. Johnny Ripelli used this very rifle to knock off Tough Tony Terelli in New Orleans Bustout, and he might use it to kill somebody in Miami Massacre, I don’t know yet.