Read Online Drunken Angel (9781936740062) by Alan Kaufman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alan Kaufman
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crazy could endure
life with me. Also, she was rich. This would liberate me from the necessity to support myself, or her. My unwillingness to deal with money matters did not concern me overly. I was, I felt, engaged in a lifetime experiment to see the extent to which I could manage to evade money matters altogether.
All I required was cigarettes, whiskey, paper, pen, and boots. Foodwise, could live on whatever crap happened to be around, didnât really mind. Now and then, for lack of bucks, had even spooned dog food into my cakehole. As to clothes, skid-row thrift shops served me fine.
My reasoning went that given that she had dogs already, what mattered one more head to board, another mouth to feed? I thought myself no better than a feral hound, an opportunistic dog. To live comfortably I required little more than was needed to keep, say, a Great Dane. Surely one more mutt would not be too much.
Also, I liked her mother, Elia, who, it was evident, had once been, unlike her daughter, a very real beauty. She was fat but still hot: a former kibbutz potter of repute, with ceramic sculptures in such prestigious places as the Hebrew U and Hadassah Hospital.
Elia had jet-black hair, fierce, barbaric turquoise-blue eyes, perfect features, and a vivacious, keen intelligence that enfolded you in camaraderie and enthusiastic curiosity. She had big breasts that you wanted to rub your face in. Had she not allowed her once no doubt spectacular figure to go so completely and horribly to potâwith a huge belly and a behind that might need a wheelbarrow to transport aroundâI would have made my play for her instead, blown off the acrid daughter.
Elia and I were instant soul mates, two against the world. Tsofnat, who had that eerie, almost telepathic, insight typical of borderline schizos, grasped her exclusion. I had nothing to say to her. It was Elia I wanted to hang with.
When Tsofnat took me to see her penthouse in a building that she owned nearby, I couldnât wait to return to Eliaâs place, where the three of us sat all day in her lavish garden, eating grapes plucked from the overhead vines, as Elia regaled me with tales of her heroics as a fighter in the famed coed brigade known as âthe Palmach.â
She had fired weapons in battle, seen comrades fall, thrown Molotovs and hand grenades, gone on hair-raising raids. Here was a woman I could relate to. She had known heroes, she said, such as I could not even imagine, fearless kibbutzniks, moshavniks, Jewish farmer-soldiers who went about in shorts and sandals with a revolver and a knife on their belts and performed secret military feats of derring-do, ones that youâd never find in any history book.
Israel, she said, voice dropping, kept secret its most important resource. Israelâs most important weapon was not those hidden-away atomic bombsâthere âjust in caseââbut the people. Israelis were Israelâs truest secret weapon. And the menâshe fluttered her heavily mascaraed eyes and nibbled hungrily on a cookieâsuch men were both fatally irresistible and hopelessly unreliable.
âYou men are butterflies,â she said. âYou live only for today. No yesterday. No tomorrow. A woman with her body, her need to breed and raise children, cannot afford to be so. But you men?â She shrugged and smiled. âYou are a little like the men I knew. Though your life in America has made you soft, you have about you the splendid élan that they had in the early days, during the War of Independence. Iâm sure that in the right circumstances you would make a brave soldier. I can already tell that you are a real heart-breaker with the ladies. Undependable. Irresistible. Come here.â
I moved my chair closer. Elia kissed me on the cheek. Then reached up with her long, warm fingers and wiped the lipstick off. Tsofnat absorbed all this in silence, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Now Elia took my hand,
life with me. Also, she was rich. This would liberate me from the necessity to support myself, or her. My unwillingness to deal with money matters did not concern me overly. I was, I felt, engaged in a lifetime experiment to see the extent to which I could manage to evade money matters altogether.
All I required was cigarettes, whiskey, paper, pen, and boots. Foodwise, could live on whatever crap happened to be around, didnât really mind. Now and then, for lack of bucks, had even spooned dog food into my cakehole. As to clothes, skid-row thrift shops served me fine.
My reasoning went that given that she had dogs already, what mattered one more head to board, another mouth to feed? I thought myself no better than a feral hound, an opportunistic dog. To live comfortably I required little more than was needed to keep, say, a Great Dane. Surely one more mutt would not be too much.
Also, I liked her mother, Elia, who, it was evident, had once been, unlike her daughter, a very real beauty. She was fat but still hot: a former kibbutz potter of repute, with ceramic sculptures in such prestigious places as the Hebrew U and Hadassah Hospital.
Elia had jet-black hair, fierce, barbaric turquoise-blue eyes, perfect features, and a vivacious, keen intelligence that enfolded you in camaraderie and enthusiastic curiosity. She had big breasts that you wanted to rub your face in. Had she not allowed her once no doubt spectacular figure to go so completely and horribly to potâwith a huge belly and a behind that might need a wheelbarrow to transport aroundâI would have made my play for her instead, blown off the acrid daughter.
Elia and I were instant soul mates, two against the world. Tsofnat, who had that eerie, almost telepathic, insight typical of borderline schizos, grasped her exclusion. I had nothing to say to her. It was Elia I wanted to hang with.
When Tsofnat took me to see her penthouse in a building that she owned nearby, I couldnât wait to return to Eliaâs place, where the three of us sat all day in her lavish garden, eating grapes plucked from the overhead vines, as Elia regaled me with tales of her heroics as a fighter in the famed coed brigade known as âthe Palmach.â
She had fired weapons in battle, seen comrades fall, thrown Molotovs and hand grenades, gone on hair-raising raids. Here was a woman I could relate to. She had known heroes, she said, such as I could not even imagine, fearless kibbutzniks, moshavniks, Jewish farmer-soldiers who went about in shorts and sandals with a revolver and a knife on their belts and performed secret military feats of derring-do, ones that youâd never find in any history book.
Israel, she said, voice dropping, kept secret its most important resource. Israelâs most important weapon was not those hidden-away atomic bombsâthere âjust in caseââbut the people. Israelis were Israelâs truest secret weapon. And the menâshe fluttered her heavily mascaraed eyes and nibbled hungrily on a cookieâsuch men were both fatally irresistible and hopelessly unreliable.
âYou men are butterflies,â she said. âYou live only for today. No yesterday. No tomorrow. A woman with her body, her need to breed and raise children, cannot afford to be so. But you men?â She shrugged and smiled. âYou are a little like the men I knew. Though your life in America has made you soft, you have about you the splendid élan that they had in the early days, during the War of Independence. Iâm sure that in the right circumstances you would make a brave soldier. I can already tell that you are a real heart-breaker with the ladies. Undependable. Irresistible. Come here.â
I moved my chair closer. Elia kissed me on the cheek. Then reached up with her long, warm fingers and wiped the lipstick off. Tsofnat absorbed all this in silence, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Now Elia took my hand,
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