Ask The Dust by John Fante Read Free Book Online Page B

widened. Her face brightened and that tight feeling caught my throat. All at once I was so happy, sure of myself, clean and conscious of my youth. I sat at that same first table. Tonight there was music in the saloon, a piano and a violin; two fat women with hard masculine faces and short haircuts. Their song was Over the Waves. Ta de da da, and I watched Camilla dancing with her beer tray. Her hair was so black, so deep and clustered, like grapes hiding her neck. This was a sacred 42 JOHN FANTE
    place, this saloon. Everything here was holy, the chairs, the tables, that rag in her hand, that sawdust under her feet. She was a Mayan princess and this was her castle. I watched the tattered huaraches glide across the floor, and I wanted those huaraches. I would like them to hold in my hands against my chest when I fell asleep. I would like to hold them and breathe the odour of them.
    She did not venture near my table, but I was glad. Don't come right away, Camilla; let me sit here a while and accustom myself to this rare excitement; leave me alone while my mind travels the infinite loveliness of your splendid glory; just leave a while to myself, to hunger and dream with eyes awake.
    She came finally, carrying a cup of coffee in her tray. The same coffee, the same chipped, brownish mug. She came with her eyes blacker and wider than ever, walking towards me on soft feet, smiling mysteriously, until I thought I would faint from the pounding of my heart. As she stood beside me, I sensed the slight odour of her perspiration mingled with the tart cleanliness of her starched smock. It overwhelmed me, made me stupid, and I breathed through my lips to avoid it. She smiled to let me know she did not object to the spilled coffee of the other evening; more than that, I seemed to feel she had rather liked the whole thing, she was glad about it, grateful for it.
    'I didn't know you had freckles,' she said.
    'They don't mean anything,' I said.
    'I'm sorry about the coffee,' she said. 'Everybody orders beer. We don't get many calls for coffee.'
    'That's exactly why you don't get many calls for it. Because it's so lousy. I'd drink beer too, if I could afford it.'
    She pointed at my hand with a pencil. 'You bite your fingernails,' she said. 'You shouldn't do that.'
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    I shoved my hands in my pockets.
    'Who are you to tell me what to do?'
    'Do you want some beer?' she said. 'I'll get you some. You don't have to pay for it.'
    'You don't have to get me anything. I'll drink this alleged coffee and get out of here.'
    She walked to the bar and ordered a beer. I watched her pay for it from a handful of coins she dug out of her smock. She carried the beer to me and placed it under my nose. It hurt me.
    'Take it away,' I said. 'Get it out of here. I want coffee, not beer.'
    Someone in the rear called her name and she hurried away. The backs of her knees appeared as she bent over the table and gathered empty beer mugs. I moved in my chair, my feet kicking something under the table. It was a spittoon.
    She was at the bar again, nodding at me, smiling, making a motion indicating I should drink the beer. I felt devilish, vicious. I got her attention and poured the beer into the spittoon. Her white teeth took hold of her lower lip and her face lost blood. Her eyes blazed. A pleasantness pervaded me, a satisfaction. I sat back and smiled to the ceiling.
    She disappeared behind a thin partition which served as a kitchen. She reappeared, smiling. Her hands were behind her back, concealing something.

    Now the old man I had seen that morning stepped from behind the partition. He grinned expectantly. Camilla waved to me. The worst was about to happen: I could feel it coming. From behind her back she revealed the little magazine containing The Little Dog Laughed. She waved it in the air, but she was out of view, and her performance was only for the old man and myself. He watched with big eyes. My mouth went
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    dry as I saw her wet her