Men Who Cheat, Or Do They?

What She Knows, She Knows
www.hardboiledmen.com

It was not such a big surprise to hear her complain so bluntly about how she thought that New York City was totally overrated and that she did not see what the big deal was all about. Anyone who follows the typical tourist routine, sleeps at a Theater District hotel, eats a $14 pastrami sandwich down at the Carnegie Deli and goes shopping in those mega stores that stole the city's very soul away might very likely confuse New York for something it is not, tourist hell on crack.

The last time Antonia and I met, things were very different. She was a young college student at the University of Sienna, and I, a traveling journalist who was working on a new book that dealt with the historical sexual curiosities of the Tuscan people. The city of Sienna is nothing like New York City. The city of Sienna is like no other city in the world. With its small roads, car free street, Renaissance architecture and old stone buildings, it was hardly similar to where we found ourselves so many years later.

By now, Antonia was a relatively successful art saleswoman who worked in a fashionable gallery situated along Porta Volta Avenue in Milan. By now, I have published one more book, this one, an academic account of the basic conflict within the American psyche in regards to sexuality and Puritanism.

Antonia was a bit heavier than I remembered her to be. She of course must have thought the same.

But that was not the main area of contention on this unexpected reunion. The main issue was Jenny, my girlfriend of two years.

When I first heard her voice on the phone, I froze if only for a moment. Nothing that I could Jenny could reassure her in regards to my old Italian flame. Antonia was the stuff of legend. Her sexuality well documented as well as inspiration to my works and writings (using pseudo-names of course).

Things would not be nearly as bad if it wasn't for all the difficulties Jenny and I are having these days. To be perfectly honest, things are not going that well between the two of us these days. In the sack we are strangers, in the living room just as bad.

And now Antonia came back into my life even if only for a short visit. She is no longer a woman in my eyes. She has no faults nor bad memories attached. She was and will always be the highlight, the one I left behind, the one that got away and now she came back into my sphere and things are about to get messy in my life.

I agreed to meet her down by Pennsylvania Station. She took the train from Philadelphia and would arrive on time. We checked her carry on into the Pennsylvania Hotel across the street. Her room would not be ready until around 3pm.

Jenny would not be back from work until 6pm. I had some time to steal.

We walked around and looked around the buildings. Antonia immediately disliked the city. She did not like the large quantity of people, the bums who asked for change, the noise of traffic and ambulance sirens that rang across the ears.

In Sienna, I remembered, we used to walk around the tiny streets every evening around 7:30pm. We were not the only ones. Everyone took a walk around this magical town when the sun began to yield. The great square beneath the church was filled with friends and neighbors who strolled along the Old Italian tradition.

This sucks she said, NYC is nothing but a huge shopping mall for fat American tourists. I held her by the hand and walked her down the subway station. Heading down towards the lower east side, I would show her the real New York, the Old New York, my New York.

Like the monthly cycles of a woman, this city had many faces and not all were easy for us men to digest.

A bottle of red wine down on Grand Street was not the true catalyst for the tension that was about us.

Antonia knew that I was no longer her man. She herself was not entirely available as Marco was waiting for her back in Milano.

But time cannot fix what time cannot mend. Once there, it is never gone. Once felt, it is always there.

Two people who were once in love sat across the table. One glows with wonder and youth, the other beaten by the years. Neither one is the cheating type, not the man nor the woman.

They talk about it out load, think of it internally.

When I saw Jenny that night, I held her hand and kissed her fingers. What she knows is what she knows and what I know is mine.


www.hardboiledmen.com

Life is Life

It has been more than four months since I last smoked a joint. Four months but who is counting? I am.

Marijuana is not addictive, at least, physically it is not.

But life, life always gets in the way of sanity. With nothing to smoke and a general lack of tolerance for alcohol, there is not much to do besides go insane.

The worst part of it all is that the majority of people that I hang out with in this city do not smoke. How they manage life is beyond me. Most of them live on a supplementary diet of Lexapro, Effexor, Cymbalta, Zoloft or Prozac. Most of them mix a bunch. But not me, I was never one for pharmaceuticals.

The most annoying thing is that these people see no irony in their condescending ways.

Take Josh for instance, he may just be the perfect example.

We met up in the coffee shop like we always do. He and his bullshit stories about the movie business, his auditions and all of the women he is screwing on a regular. I could easily sniff through people’s lies, and this guy was not exception. Josh was more likely to take one up the ass than he is to eat a piece of pussy pie.

“So what’s new Mr. Hollywood?” I asked.
“Oh my God, you would never believe the week I had. I am so close to getting an agent I tell you. I can just feel it. Last Tuesday, I had a second call for an audition. It is for an off Broadway but this is something big I tell you. This could be the break I was looking for.”

He went on and on but I was not really listening. By now, I just learned how to shut people off. I was too old for their bullshit. So why did I keep people around? Well, it beat the hell out of staring at the walls of my apartment.

After he told me about the blond with the huge tits that begged him for more. After he further went into details about the casting agent and the producers that he met at the grand opening of the Itch Gallery down in Soho. After he went on and on. I could stand it no more.

“You know Josh, if I don’t score some Marijuana soon, I may just go insane. Can’t you score me a dime bag from one of your homo friends down in Chelsea? Can’t you hook a brother up?”

“Oh grow up already, will you? What kind of a forty year old still smokes pot anyways? Gosh, don’t you think it is kind of pathetic to smoke weed at your age? And you, a university professor and all, what will become of you? What if somebody found out?”

What will become of me? What will become of any of us? I do not know.

Life is life and life is hard enough. Somehow, someway, we all find a way to get by.

Read More From Guy Jacobs

Hollywood by Charles Bukowski

I am not quit sure why it took me so long to pick up Hollywood by Charles Bukowski. The book was just sitting around the shelf for years. Like most others, I read Ham on Rye, Women and Post Office on several occasions. Any of us Bukowski fans recognize Hank for the genius that he was.

No, this old drunk is nothing like the great authors of the 20th Century. His writing style is flat compared to the great ones that they make you read in your Introduction to the American Classic course at collgate university, Dartmouth or Amherst College. But New England universities never hired the kind of professors who had the balls (or tenure) to teach old Hank Bukowski to their students.

By I digress.

So let’s go back to Hollywood. The novel not the city.

As always Hank provides us readers with thoughts about the breakdown of society, the colorful characters that he encountered and just how lame he thinks the world can be.

And he may be correct at times.

As always he is drinking. Beer, wine, vodka. As long as it is cheap. As long as it is free. As long as it is there. Henry Chinaski never asked twice.

Hank never tries to be anything that he is not. And that is exactly why his fiction works. Honesty above style.

The entire book tells the tale of the screenplay that he had to write for Hollywood producers. For what may have been the movie Barfly staring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.

Of course, he did not use their names.

Hollywood works. Bukowski’s work usually did ever when he did not.

For the early Bukowski readers, do not start here.

Women or Post Office is the place to begin.

For those of you who read all that Hank could write (which I doubt), pick up Ask The Dust or Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Arturo Bandini was Hank’s influnence. That is, John Fante.

I am too tired to run spell check. If I messed up, please don’t call the cops.

As long as you are reading you are living. What you read does not matter just as much.

Guy

*Guy Jacobs is the Author of Hard Boiled Men