Excerpt: Chinatown Milk Box

I'm having some trouble focusing today on the writing. I guess I've reached a turning point in the book and I haven't decided whether I should cover Mexico or save that for the next one. If this book gets out there and people dig it, the publishing house is going to want me to do another one, and I don't want to use up all my material in the first ejaculation, you know? Heh-heh. A book is like a woman, sometimes, you want to tear right through her, but she'll last longer and treat you better if you handle her with care, go slow, caress every limb, and tell her how lovely she is.

The thing is, too, and I don't like saying it but it's true, and that's important, is that all of Mexico is a story about Carol, and I don't think I'm ready to start writing about her. Some days I see her like the spoiled, painted, anguished whore she is, bleeding from the mouth and the cunt and covered with a sore for every man she fucked while she was supposed to be my woman. Most of the time, though, I miss her, usually when I get turned on and have to jack myself off, hers is the face I see staring up out of the Olympia. I think if I tried to write about Mexico now, I'd get so much come in the keys that they wouldn't be able to type anymore. It already happened once, when I was writing about that girl Laura back at camp, the first time I had a girl out in the open air, and then I had to clean the keys with a towel soaked in boiling water.

Oh, but the good thing that happened this morning is that I heard that cat yeowling again outside my door, and since I've figured by now she's a 'fraidy cat, I thought I'd lure her in. I'm calling her Lao, for Lao Tse Tung, because she a wise little Chinatown cat. I'd bought a can of tuna fish downstairs, hoping she'd come by again, and before I opened the door, I popped it open, knowing that if she smelled it first thing when I did open the door, she'd have more reason to stick around. Problem was, the movement of the door scared her anyway, and she ran down the hallway to over by the bathroom, where I'd seen her last time. She sat and watched me. I held up the can to show her, put a bite in my mouth with my fingers so she'd know, and put it down on the floor right outside my door, leaving it open and walking back into the room. Nothing happened, so I closed the door and went back to the Olympia, thought I'd just make the typing sounds so she'd know I wasn't waiting to jump out and scare her again. I wrote a few more pages (medium quality—I was really excited about the cat), and then went and opened the door—slow, in case she was still there. She wasn't, but the can was—empty. I think she'll come back for more.