Ask The Dust by John Fante Read Free Book Online

the bar again, waiting for more beer, and her eyes were fastened on me, brilliant with her strange wish, and I was uncomfortable but still laughing, Now she was dancing again, gliding from table to table with her tray, and every time I looked at her she smiled her wish, until it had a mysterious effect on me, and I became conscious of my inner organism, of the beat of my heart and the flutter of my stomach. I felt that she would not come back to my table again, and I remember that I was glad of it, and that a strange restlessness came over me, so that I was anxious to get away from that place, and away from the range of her persistent smile. Before I left I did something that pleased me very much. I took the five cents from my pocket and placed it on the table. Then I spilled half the coffee over it. She would have to mop up the mess with her towel. The brown ugliness spread everywhere over the table, and as I got up to leave it was trickling to the floor. At the door I paused to look at her once more. She smiled the same smile. I nodded at the spilled coffee. Then I tossed my fingers in a salute farewell and walked into the street. Once more I had a good feeling.
    Once more it was as before, the world was full of amusing things.
    I don't remember what I did after I left her. Maybe I went up to Benny Cohen's room over the Grand Central Market. He had a wooden leg with a little door in it.
    Inside the door were marijuana cigarettes. He sold them for fifteen cents apiece.
    He also sold newspapers, the Examiner and the Times. He had a room piled high with copies of The New Masses. Maybe he saddened me as always with his grim horrible vision of the world tomorrow. Maybe he poked his stained fingers under my nose and cursed me for betraying ASK THE DUST 37
    the proletariat from which I came. Maybe, as always, he sent me trembling out of his room and down the dusty stairs to the fog-dimmed street, my fingers itching for the throat of an imperialist. Maybe, and maybe not; I don't remember.

    But I remember that night in my room, the lights of the St Paul Hotel throwing red and green blobs across my bed as I lay and shuddered and dreamed of the anger of that girl, of the way she danced from table to table, and the black glance of her eyes. That! remember, even to forgetting I was poor and without an idea for a story.
    I looked for her early the next morning. Eight o'clock, and I was down on Spring Street. I had a copy of The Little Dog Laughed in my pocket. She would think differently about me if she read that story. I had it autographed, right there in my back pocket, ready to present at the slightest notice. But the place was dosed at that early hour. It was called the Columbia Buffet. I pushed my nose against the window and looked inside. The chairs were piled upon the tables, and an old man in rubber boots was swabbing the floor. I walked down the street a block or two, the wet air already-bluish from monoxide gas. A fine idea came into my head. I took out the magazine and erased the autograph. In its place I wrote, 'To a Mayan Princess, from a worthless Gringo.' This seemed right, exactly the correct spirit. I walked back to the Columbia Buffet and pounded the front window. The old man opened the door with wet hands, sweat seeping from his hair.
    I said, 'What's the name of that girl who works here?'
    'You mean Camilla?'
    'The one who worked here last night.'
    'That's her,' he said. 'Camilla Lopez.'
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    JOHN FANTE
    'Will you give this to her?' I said. :Just give it to her. Tell her a fellow came by and said for yon to give it to her.'
    He wiped his dripping hards on his apron and look the magazine. 'Take good care of it,' 1 said. 'It's valuable."
    The old man closed the door. Through the glass I saw him limp back to his mop and bucket He placed the magazine on the bar and resumed his work. A little breeze flipped the pages of the magazine. As I walked away I was afraid he would forget all about it When I reached the Civic Centre