(Excerpted from A Personal History of Moral Decay)

The Last of the Romans

Worthington has agreed to let me sleep in his room for awhile, along with he and Marlow. I walked over here a couple days ago with my typewriter and a paper bag with my clothes in it. The room is off Highland Avenue a couple blocks from Hollywood Boulevard with an alley entrance, in the basement of an apartment building.

We've taken the mattress off the single bed and put it on the floor and that's where Worthington sleeps. Marlow sleeps on the springs until five-thirty in the morning, then it's my turn. There's no heat so I sleep with my clothes on. At night the face bowl runs over and pops the linoleum tiles off the bathroom floor. The water seeps out into the room and soaks the rug, which is glued to the cement slab. A damp, mildewed odor pervades the air.

Marlow smokes incessantly but never empties an ashtray. He seldom even sets one down. I watch him frying eggs on the hot plate with one hand while he fondly holds his ashtray in the other. A burning cigarette hangs from his lips. Marlow likes to completely fill an ashtray, then remove the butts by spiking them with a Victorian hat pin and stores the filled trays of pure ash in the cupboard. Once I absentmindedly dropped a prune pit onto one of his mounds of pure ash and he looked at me like I'd peed in his coffee.

At night I sit in the arm chair and read until I get drowsy, then I walk around the neighborhood or drink coffee someplace until it's time for Marlow to get up. Last night I did four pages of notes for the journal and finished reading a one-volume edition of the Goncourt Journals. The Goncourt book pleased me immensely. At one place it was reported to the Emperor, Napoleon the Third, how it was rumored that his faculties were declining. The Emperor replied: "That is consistent with all the reports I have received."

When Worthington comes in about one in the morning Marlow is usually fast asleep on the springs. He's got a growling, strangulation type snore that prevents Worthington from sleeping. Worthington used to get up and turn Marlow over when the snoring started, or reach up with one foot and kick him on top of the head. When he came in tonight, however, he put a Squibbs multi-vitamin capsule in each ear before he laid down on the mattress and that seemed to do the trick.

I feel perfectly content doing nothing. I sleep, I read a little, I do a page or two in the journal. When I think about how I lost my business, how Pamela is divorcing me, I feel as if my life has been cut in half. I walk to the library and flip absentmindedly through the magazines. I walk to Maurice Sobelman's place and we play chess. I secretly hope that when he asks me to stay to dinner I won't be too embarrassed to accept.

This evening after chess Maurice asked me what I'm going to do about money.

"I don't know," I said. "Nothing at all, I hope."

"Yeah?" he said. He gave me a baleful look. "Are you serious?"

"I've made a pact with myself," I said. "I'm going to write. I'm not going to do anything else. And I'm never going to do another man's work again. I'm going to do my own."

"Yeah?" He started taking things out of the refrigerator. "You're getting pretty idealistic, don't you think?"

"Is that what it is?"

"Help me out with this crap. I don't mind feeding you once in a while. I don't want to have to wait on you too."

I put the stuff he gave me on the little table.

"Well, Kiddo, I understand how you feel about work. Who wants to work, for Christ sake? No man in his right mind, that's who. There's something so dreadful about work that the sociologists won't even study it. Not from the point of view of how much damage it does."

Maurice is in his 60s now so he calls me Kiddo. We cooked pork chops and peas and drank Cokes. I told a funny story about Marlow.

Maurice said: "How can you live that way?"

"It's all right."

"It's not all right. You're living with neurotics. And I use that word only because I can't think of a worse one right now. It's all right if a man lives with a neurotic because he has no choice. But it's another story when he does it because he likes it. You'd better decide if you want to take your life seriously or if you're going to piss it away."

"I have decided. I'm going to do both."

"Eat the pork chop. What the hell are you laughing at?"

When people ask me how I can live the way I do I say I don't know and I laugh, but I know. It's because Worthington and Marlow don't ask anything of me. Nothing. If they ever do I'll look for another place to stay. People see me laughing, I'm a big laugher, and they think I'm on top of things. I'm not on top of anything. I just like to laugh.

This evening I was sitting on the springs with my back to the wall making notes for the journal. Worthington was sitting in the armchair reading The Sexually Adequate Male. It was his night off. With one hand he shaded his eyes from the naked light bulb while with the other he held a long, pale green cigarette. Worthington has the angular face and body of the rich society blade who loses his fiancée to the Sicilian truck driver.

"God," he said, looking at me from the corner of his eye and grinning sheepishly. "I wonder if they're reading this book in Elmira ? I wonder if my sister has read it? If she's even heard of it."

"Your sister?"

Worthington returned to the book but something was agitating him. "You know," he said, "I came to Hollywood to be an actor. I had a good job working for a publisher in New York , I didn't have to come here, but I couldn't get acting out of my mind. Then I discovered one of my aunts, the one who never married, knew a producer out here. I got her to write me a letter of introduction and I quit my job and caught a bus to Hollywood .

"I called the producer as soon as I got here. On the telephone he was very friendly. He invited me to the studio the next morning to see a private showing of a new film. I can't tell you how fortunate I felt. The film was a stag movie showing Greek whores being screwed by goats. There was some other stuff too but that's what I remember most. I practically went into shock. I'd seen stag films before, but I couldn't understand why I was seeing this one. I mean, why had I been invited? Did my acting career depend on how I reacted to what I was watching? I felt so confused I wished I could just go blind.

"Then I saw that the producer, my aunty's friend, was masturbating. We were in this private little screening room, you know how they have them, and he saw me staring at him. It was the most degrading thing I had ever seen. Here was this big burly man smoking a stogie and masturbating and saying: 'Hey, this is the life, eh, Kid? Wha'cha say?' And it was ten o'clock in the morning."

Worthington laughed and ran his fingers through his lank hair. "I think I'm going to write aunty. I'll thank her for the letter of introduction, then I'll tell her everything that happened. I won't leave out any of the details either."

"That's a good idea," I said.

"It isn't that masturbation is offensive. I've masturbated since I was twelve, a boy scout taught me how, but it isn't something I like to do in company for heaven's sake."

When Worthington went to sleep I went out walking in the dark. It was about three in the morning. I thought about how grateful I am to have Worthington and Marlow for friends. I thought about how I walk mostly at night because I don't want anybody to see me who used to know me. I thought about Pamela. I thought about Mother.

This morning I bought some cheese and bread and walked to my lawyer's office where I read part of the transcript of the trial. The transcript is twelve hundred pages and that's the condensed version. I had no idea there was so much of it. Fleishman's office is well appointed. It was pleasant sitting at the oak table. It was pleasant seeing the book shelves from floor to ceiling packed with clean heavy law books. I read some of my testimony. I read some by the other witnesses. The others read better, more sincere, even those for the prosecution. It was like they knew what was expected of them.

Thought said: "You have to disown yourself." I didn't know what it meant.

Then I understood it was a reference to my shame, as if that were my self.

When I grew too sleepy to hold my head up I walked over to Maurices'. He wasn't home so I sat on his step and waited. When he came back I beat him three out of four games at chess and that made me laugh so hard I almost fainted. I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling over.

"It's not natural to laugh like that," Maurice said. "You ought to look into your reasons for doing it pretty carefully."

Life isn't going well for Maurice. He hasn't sold a television script in twelve months. He has a little income from residuals but he's using up his savings.

"I'm too old to live like this," he said. "I'm almost sixty, for Christ sake. I deserve a steady income and a regular lay. Any man my age deserves that much at least, and any decent society would see that he got it. What the hell are those people in Washington thinking about? It's not like the old days when a man could go out and find a whore when he needed one. Girls don't whore anymore. They can't be bothered with that. Nowadays they just screw. That's fine for young bucks who still have all their hair, but where does it leave an old middle-aged guy like me? Out in the cold, that's where."

He puttered around the apartment emptying ash trays, squinting through his eye glasses, clicking his false teeth.

"Well," he said, "have you decided yet what you're going to do about money?"

"I'm going to live on my government pension," I said for the hundredth time.

"You can't live on twenty dollars a month. I don't care what you say. How many times do I have to explain that to you? You're too old for that nonsense. You either have to get a job that'll leave you with enough energy to write in the evenings, or you'll have to move back in with Pamela. If you had any sense, which even on the face of it you don't, you'd go back to Pamela and live like a human being. And you'd stay away from those creeps you live with now. Pamela's a good, steady girl, much better than you deserve. You know she wants you back, so there's no reason to be afraid to ask her."

I walked back to Worthington 's and read Boswell until Marlow came in. He took off all his clothes, except for the tennis shoes and turned on the sun lamp. He appeared to be preoccupied with some important matter. He found the sun lamp the other day in somebody's trash. It doesn't have a stand so he's tied it to a nail in the wall with a shoelace. I watched him lay down naked on the springs under the lamp and begin reading an old copy of Yachting Magazine.

"Marlow," I said, "why do you sleep naked but leave your sneakers on?"

He looked up from the magazine and studied my face for a moment. "I'm not sleeping, Mr. Smith. I'm reading Yachting Magazine."

"I see."

"You don't just go out and buy a yacht, Mr. Smith. You need to be well informed. A yacht is a major investment."

I wasn't in the mood for that so I got up and left. It was around midnight . I walked to the news stand on Las Palmas , then to the one on Cahuenga. I thought about the transcript of the trial and everything that had happened and how I could make a book out of it. The more I thought about it the more excited I got. The book was already written. The book was the transcript itself. All I had to do was edit the transcript and tell my side of the story from a personal perspective. I thought about how good it would be to have something to work on every day that was real.

This afternoon I was wakened by Marlow who was in the shower singing "Days of Wine and Roses" in a strained tenor voice. Clouds of steam blew out through the open bathroom door. The plastic curtains that hang over the window and the glassed door to the alley were flapping in the breeze. I could smell the sacks of garbage piled up in the alcove where the hot plate is. Worthington refuses on principle to take out a sack of garbage until Marlow takes one out. I sat up on the mattress and as I looked around I felt a sudden desire to go to Mexico .

Marlow came out of the shower with water pouring off his body and paced around the room, wetting books and clothes and rubbish alike. He pushed his fingers through his hair and flicked the water around.

"Jesus, Marlow," I said. "Use the towel."

"It's too dirty," he said. "I don't even want to touch it. I'll just walk around a while.

Mike Katz came down from his room upstairs. He's small and dark and homely, just the opposite from Marlow.

"Marlow," Katz said, "what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm drying my body. What's the matter, Mr. Katz? Does it make you uncomfortable to see what a god looks like?"

"God, hell. Put you goddamn clothes on, Marlow. Act like an adult for once in your life."

"The gods are ageless," Marlow said seriously.

Katz turned to me. "Did I ever tell you where I found Marlow? At the YMCA. He was sleeping on a couch there because he didn't have any place to go."

"That isn't the whole truth, Mr. Katz," Marlow said.

"When I saw him, curled up there like a big baby, I said to myself, 'There's six and a half feet of child, child, child."

"What you saw," Marlow said, "was a Roman god in repose."

"What I saw was a big blond dago. I could tell by the way you were curled up like a fetus that you couldn't take care of your self. And I was right. I felt sorry for you. That's why I found you a place to live."

"A Jew feeling sorry for a Roman? You must be losing your senses. You did what was right. You saw a Roman in distress and went to his aid. You fulfilled your proper role."

"You blond babies are all the same," Katz said. "You're all either anti-Semites or you bend over for strangers."

"Oh, too much. Too much. In the old days, when the Romans ruled the world, you'd have held your tongue, Mr. Katz."

"You're no Roman, Marlow. You're a dago. Why don't you stop talking that crap? You talk like a dago and you think like a dago. Why don't you get serious about your life?"

I feel like I understand Marlow but I don't understand Katz. There's something real to his anger. He says everything went to hell for him during the war. He was in the navy and spent two years in the South Pacific without seeing a woman.

"That's where I lost my way," Katz says, "in the South Pacific. I read too many books, and that isn't good for you. When you're young like that, inexperienced, too many books can ruin your life. You start thinking it's good to be alive, that there's something to it. You see everything through rose colored glasses. You get so you believe in God, all that crap. When I think back on it I want to cut the balls off the man who brought all those books aboard ship. It was the captain. He thought he was a gentleman. What he really was, he was the devil."

Today is Saturday and here at Worthington 's Saturday night is steak night. During the week we cook noodles and boil potatoes on the hot plate but on Saturday night Katz and Marlow walk over to Hughes Market and steal four or five pounds of steak.

"Come on, Smith," Katz says to me. "Want to go for a walk?"

"Not me. This might be the night you guys get nailed."

"Courage, Mr. Smith," Marlow says. "The little Jew is willing to steal for you. The least you can do is observe his technique."

"I've told you before, Marlow," Katz says, "don't call me that."

"What's the matter, Mr. Katz? Are you ashamed of your people?"

"Come on," Katz said. "Let's go before I lose my temper."

Marlow went to the mirror and combed his hair for the third or fourth time. "The Prince wants to look his best when he goes out on Saturday night."

Katz said they ought to walk to Hollywood Ranch Market and steal some steaks there. "We've been stealing at Hughes two months now. It's not fair to the market."

"I prefer to do business with my local merchant, Mr. Katz," Marlow says. "Don't you have any sense of loyalty? Besides, I'm used to stealing at Hughes. I don't feel guilty about it anymore."

"That night manager's got his eye on you," Katz said. "I think he's suspicious."

"I've done everything I can to get him to arrest me but he won't do it. I put things inside my shirt when he's watching. I stuff my pockets with bananas and jars of olives. Before I go out the door I get rid of everything on the Q.T He pretends he doesn't see me. If he'd follow me outside one time and accuse me of stealing I'd sue him for everything the market's got. I'd get my yacht then, and there would always be a place on it for little Mike Katz to sleep."

"I don't need a place to sleep," Katz says. "You're the one who needs help. I have my own room that I pay for with my own money. I have a job, Marlow."

"I'm beginning to hate that night manager," Marlow says. "I wish he would either accuse me of something or stop watching me. The tension's getting to be too much. It's making me itch. How does he know I'm not walking out with something every time I go in there? I think he's being irresponsible. Maybe I ought to report him to the stockholders."

At the last minute I decided to go along and look through the magazines. We walked down Highland in the dark. The street was full of traffic going in the opposite direction to the Hollywood Bowl. Marlow started reminiscing about his father again, the one who went to Germany during World War Two and became a Nazi and joined the SS

"Marlow," Katz said, "get your mind on what we're doing, will you? Try not to ball up this caper tonight."

"My father was one of the ones who got away," Marlow says. "He's been in Argentina since 1946. Working on the Nazi revival, you know."

"Oh, horseshit," Katz says.

"My father doesn't hate Jews," Marlow says sincerely. He puts his hand inside his shirt and scratches. "He just wants to do what's right."

"Oh, horseshit, Marlow," Katz says. "You talk like a man with a paper asshole."

As we approach the market Katz reminds Marlow to act natural, to not do anything to get the night manager's attention.

"Easy for you to say," Marlow says, "but you forget, when I step through the doors of the market it's like the entrance of a God. Every eye turns toward me. Nobody notices you, Mr. Katz. You have to take that into consideration."

Inside the market the night manager is standing at the liquor counter. Marlow walks up to him and puts his face into the manager's face and demands threateningly: "Do you have any matches?"

"Sure," the manager says. He hands Marlow a book of matches and turns back to what he was doing.

Katz says: "What the hell did you do that for?"

"I don't know," Marlow says.

"What the hell are you using for a brain?"

"My cock," Marlow says.

The magazines are full of news about Negroes and civil rights. I think about how the strategy for gaining civil rights is usually fine and how the tactics are almost always wrong. I think about how people from New York like to go down South to work for civil rights but can't find their way into Harlem . Thinking about it makes me angry.

When Marlow and Katz go through the cashier's line I follow them outside and we walk up the hill toward Worthington 's room. Katz has a two-pound New York cut under his jacket, along with some gravy cubes and two cans of mushroom caps. Marlow looks disconcerted and intense. Katz asks him what he has stolen.

"I made a mistake," Marlow says.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"At the last minute, I got confused." Marlow is scratching the top of his head. As it turns out, he's stolen a package of cow brains.

Katz throws up his hands. "You disgust me," he yells. "You got no sense. Nobody but a goddamned goy would steal a package of brains. This is the last time I pull this caper with you, Marlow. Do you know we could get arrested for this? Do you want to go to jail for stealing a cow's brain? Now that you stole it, you eat the goddamn thing. It takes a dumb goddamn wop to steal an item like that."

"Don't call me a wop," Marlow says. "I'm the last of the Romans. I don't have any connection with the wops."

End

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