It was a fine cold winter Sunday; so I decided to go to the flea market just for the hell of it. I wasn't going to buy anything, because, like as usual, I didn't have any bread.

Besides, what did I need? I didn't need anything.

No, for me, the trip had a nostalgic angle. I used to rent a stall there--the Alameda Flea Market--where for over a year I sold junk and other things to the week?end junk crawlers. And I did a pretty good business too.
I had a pick?up, a good place to sleep and always some ready cash in my pocket.

It was a damn good racket; until I ran into Irene.
Irene was something else. "You buy too high," she always used to tell me, "and you sell too low."

And, to tell the truth, she was right. But that didn't mean I had to like hearing her say it. Right?

Anyway, Irene didn't know beans about the flea market racket. Everything she learned, she learned from me. When I ran into her, she was fresh out of the New Jersey suburbs ? like right off the Turnpike minus her survival kit.

I found her one day on Telegraph Ave. She was wandering around in a daze.

I had stopped in front of one of those street artists. He was peddling some real crazy looking leather.

Not that I needed any of it.

No, I had gotten sucked in because of the ugliness of his work. I mean real ugly stuff. He made these bags you carry over your shoulder?

Misshapen lumps really, put together from pieces of leather, stones and hunks of wood, all sewn up with bailing wire and butcher's string, or anything else he could find.

Those bags fascinated me. I mean the way he did it. Out of stuff other people throw away. They were wild. This guy had taken the idea of ugliness and driven it to a far?out place.

Well, I was squatting there for some time, exploring his stuff with my soul eye, so to speak, when suddenly a shadow fell over me and, looking up the way you do when you get that strange feeling in your back, I caught sight of her.

That is, I saw her face poking out of the crowd.

Her face was nothing to rave about. A plumpish, little girl's face with watery eyes, like a lost puppy's eyes, that stared at nothing even though they were looking at me. And when I saw the rest of her, there was no doubt about it.

She was fat all over.

But those eyes. Those lost looking eyes. They got to me. I don't know why, but I dig women who look like that.
So I went over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders and made her little girl's eyes look into mine and said, "What's wrong?"

"I'm hungry," she whimpered.

"Hungry?"

"I haven't eaten in two days."

"Is that all?"

I might have known. What an ass I was. But what could I do? I was stuck with her. So I took her down the street to the Mediterranean Cafe and bought her a meal.

I had a cappuccino while I watched her eat. She must have chewed each bit twenty times, glancing up at the ceiling, closing her eyes and taking deep sighs as though she was in heaven or something.

When she finished eating, she told me her name was Irene.

"I'm Jimmie," I said. "Where you from?"

She gave the name of some town in Jersey I never heard of.

Then she told me she was eighteen and that while she was growing up she had always had it in her mind to make a career as an airline hostess but that her body had failed to cooperate and so, disqualified from this wonderful life style she had chosen, she had left home, ran away--like what else could she have done?--and hitch?hiked to Berkeley to find a new life.

Wow! Was this chick straight.

I asked her where she had been sleeping since she got here.

She said, "Nowhere."

"What do you mean, nowhere? You gotta sleep somewhere."

"I slept in the park," she said.

"People's Park?"

"And it was very cold," she nodded.

"Well, never mind," I said. "You're still among the living, so I guess you made out all right. You can crash with me, if you like."

Man, was that a mistake. But what could I do? I was sort of responsible for her, right?

So I took her to my place that night and let her sleep on the floor. Luckily I had an extra blanket some guy had left with me to keep for him while he was away on a meditation trip or something, but had never come back for it.

When I handed her the blanket, Irene's eyes went from the
floor to the blanket, to me and back again to the floor. Then the blanket, then me.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"There ain't even a rug on the floor," she whined.

I hate women who whine.

"Well where else can you sleep?" I said.

"What about the bed? Can't I sleep there?"

"Well where am I gonna sleep then?"

"Can't we share the bed? It looks big enough to me."

I didn't like the idea. I wasn't gonna sleep with no virgin. And as straight as Irene was, I was sure she had to be virgin on top of it. But can you beat it? Her voice was so pitiful that, against my better judgment, I relented. What else could I do?

So, as the days and nights went by, little by little, as things usually go, Irene became my old lady.

Naturally, I had to take her around with me wherever I went, because she acted like a helpless tree minus a piece of ground. I mean, she was always falling all over me. And by now, the time had come to load up my truck for the week?end business.

Saturday morning, four A. M. I rolled out of bed.
The flea market racket ain't an easy one. You have to get to the drive?in movie where the market takes place before six if you want to be sure of getting a stall. I got dressed and woke up Irene.

"Get up and throw your clothes on. We gotta hurry."

"Where we going?"

"You'll see. Now hurry up."

Irene was still half asleep sitting next to me as I drove the pickup over to where I had my merchandise stashed. A tiny garage behind an old apartment house behind a small grocery store.

I rented the space for fifteen dollars a month and always had it full of junk. I pulled the truck up and climbed out. By now Irene was beginning to get herself together. And when I opened the garage door, her little eyes just about popped out of her head.

"What's all that stuff?" she yelled out the truck.

"That's my crap," I said nonchalantly.

"All that furniture?" She got out of the truck and came inside the garage, walked around, running her pudgy fingers over the pile of mattresses and rugs, the old, beat?up tables and chairs.

"Why don't you put some of this stuff in your room, Jimmie? Ain't you got no idea of comfort?"

"Are you kidding?" I laughed. "This is my inventory. I don't mix business with pleasure."

"What do you do with it then?"

"I sell it, dummy."

"Here?"

"Quit asking stupid questions and come help me load up. We gotta get to the drive?in movie before six."

"Drive?in movie? They show movies in the morning out here?"

"Irene, you gotta be the dumbest broad on two feet ever."

She started pouting and sniveling. "Why can't you talk nice to me, Jimmie?"

If it's one thing I can't stand, it's a crying woman. "I'm sorry, Irene. Look, help me get this junk loaded, and while we're driving, I'll give you the whole run-down. Okay?"

That made her feel better. She nodded and started drying her eyes.

"Let's get moving then."

We heaved-to and finished a lot quicker than I ordinarily get it done by myself, so I took her around the corner for a coffee and donut, and found myself answering questions like on one of those fast-moving TV quiz games, until I was about ready to give her a smack.

"Will you shut up already? I gave you the picture. When we get to the drive-in, you can fill it in for yourself. Okay?"

I had to pat her on the head so she wouldn't start crying again.

"Let's get moving or we'll be late."

I headed the truck for the freeway. As we drove along the bay, the sun came up over the Oakland hills. Across the water, San Francisco shone above the mist like a floating city. A pink tinge spread across the choppy water. It looked like it would be a fine day, all right.
I anticipated a good crowd at the flea market.
The freeway curved around Oakland through a maze of viaducts, on and off ramps, that went this way and that like a bunch of cries?crossing snakes--like the kind you see in those mystical books--pulling all the roads together so you can go to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge, or east to Walnut Creek, or just about anywhere.
It's a real thrill to drive through all that.
I glanced over at Irene to see what she thought of it all. She looked bored. But when we pulled into the drive?in and she saw all the dealers unloading their crap, she got real excited. She couldn't believe such things happened. Truckloads of all kinds of things--furniture, bric-a-brac, clothes, vegetables, tires, automobile parts, old record albums, comic books, hippy funk, you name it. If it was ever made, anywhere in the world, sooner or later it would end up here at the flea market.
Flowers, pots and pans, dishes, bottle tops, glassware, peanuts, cloth, yarn, old shoes, new shoes, knives, guns, potatoes.The list don't stop.

She took it all in with a single breath, saying the same thing over and over. "Wow! Oh wow!"

You might think I'm a son-of-a-bitch, but it pleased me to see that she dug it. Well, we set up the stand; and pretty soon Walter, who sold comics in the next stall, came over for a rap.

"Whatcha got good today?" he shouted. Walter always shouted.

"More of the same," I said, slightly pissed, because he was eyeing Irene with that gossipy kind of curiosity that boils me up.

"I see something new's been added to your act, James."

He was about ready to laugh.

"Yeah," I said, and spat on the ground in front of his shoe. "Don't call me James, Walter."

Well that cooled him, and off he went. If it was one thing I didn't need, it was a prying-mantis.

Meanwhile, Irene had gotten it into her head to straighten all my junk out according to kind and size.
Now, one of the secrets of my success was to pile everything up helter?skelter. I just hauled it all out of the truck and dumped it onto the blacktop and wherever it landed that's where it stayed until it got sold.

And I always sold it all.

I've seen some guys haul the same junk out to the market week after week, carefully unpack it and set it all up as pretty as you please with price tags and all that "merchandising" bullshit, and then sit there all day long like apples rotting on the ground that nobody wants to bite, and then pack it all back up and haul it away.
Everything they bring out to sell they think is some precious article worth a fortune, like their crummy little stall was some Saks Fifth Avenue or something.
Not me, baby. I don't haul anything back. When I bring it out, I bring it out to get rid of it.

So I grabbed a doll out of Irene's hand--a doll she was about to clean up with one of my rags--and threw it back on the pile.

"Leave that stuff alone," I yelled.

"How much is it?" she asked, picking it back up.

"A quarter," I said.

"That's cheap." She started twisting its head straight.

"Yeah," I said, and spat on the ground again.

Something should have told me right then and there that a bad sign had crossed my orbit. I should have tossed her onto the junk pile; but instead I tossed the doll.

"Here," I said, handing her a buck, "go get a hot dog or something and have a look around."

I showed her where the snack bar was and gave her a shove.

"Take a good, long look at everything," I yelled to her as she wandered down the row of stalls.

It was a relief to get rid of her for a while. Eight o'clock came and the crowd started pouring in. It was gonna be a good day, all right. I could see that.
Little by little, my stock shrunk. It always amazes me how much people like to collect junk. Whatever you got, there's always some idiot who's got to have it. Even if he doesn't need it. They come at you from all sides. "How much is this?" and "What'll you take for that?" They grab at it, whatever it is, like it's the most important thing they ever needed. It used to make me wonder, all right. But why quarrel with the world? The world's divided into two kinds. Those who have to have, and those who have to get rid of. Me, I never needed anything. So I guess I was in the right place. Selling junk.

From time to time, Irene showed up, her chubby body quivering with excitement.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"It's going okay," I said. "Look, half my stuff's gone already. Ya havin' a good look around?"

"For sure," she said. Then, "Say, Jimmie, how much you selling this for?"

She had a brass table lamp in her hand, one of those old fashioned kinds that have stained glass on top instead of a real shade.

Immediately I got suspicious. "What's it to you? You don't have any money."

"I'm window shopping," she said real snotty like, "and when I shop, I like to compare."

"I have been, Jimmie, and you know what?"

"No, Irene, I don't want to know. Now get lost. I'm busy."
I gave her another dollar and told her to go have some lunch.

The next day I cleaned out the rest of my junk in the garage and sold the whole shebang, right down to the last pair of wooden shoes. Irene had tried them on, and they fitted her big feet like a slipper. But I wouldn't let her have them.

"You don't need them," I said. "You already got a good pair of shoes on your feet."

"But I like them," she said. "Why can't I have an extra pair, like for around the house?"

Irene was straight all right, pouting all over like all the other got-to-havers.

"Okay," I gave in. "You can have them for a dime."

So she forked over a dime, out of the money I had given her mind you, and we made a deal. It didn't bother me that it was my money, because it really wasn't my money when you come down to analyzing the thing. It was somebody else's money who just had to have something that day, and somebody else's money the day before, and God knows whose money the day after tomorrow. When you look at it that way, you can see right off that money belongs to nobody.

Well, there I was without a stick of merchandise.
The next two days Irene got introduced to the art of buying junk. Now each man has his own way of lining up sources. Some guys hunt all over creation just to acquire their treasures. They make a big project out of it.
Well, that's their thing. They love to buy. For me, this part of the job is a real drag; so I make it as short and as sweet as possible. What I do is quite simple. In fact so simple, I'm almost ashamed to mention it. But what the hell, I'm not in the business anymore anyway.

What I used to do, was to go around on Mondays to all the places where people had garage sales over the week?end and haul off whatever they didn't sell. These people with their garage sales mostly don't like to haggle after two whole days of sitting around in front of their garages. At first, they think it's going to be a trip. But then, after seeing what people are really like, they're full of disgust and just want to see their garages empty. And that's when I come along, like a savior, and take all that crap off their hands.

Clean and simple. One price. No hassle.

Now all the time, during those two days, Irene's little mind was busy calculating. I could see she was absorbed in the ins and outs of the flea market racket. And for the next four week?ends, she was out there doing market research, competitor analysis, inventory accounting, the whole schmeer, like a fat little budding tycoon, all the while stuffing her mouth with hot dogs from the dollar bills I kept giving her just to keep her out of my hair.
And then one night she started in on me.

We were in the middle of having sex. Even that I had to teach her. Everything she learned, she got from me.
Well, there we were right in the middle of our sex, when she stopped and turned around to face me.

"You buy too high," she said, "and you sell too low."

I was fit to be tied.

But first things first. I nudged her back over and finished my act, and then I gave her a smart smack on the ass with my bare hand.

"Ouch!" she said. "That hurt. Whatcha do that for?"

"That's for meddling in my business, Irene."

"But it's true!" she screamed. "You're selling too cheaply and you pay too much."

"Shut up."

"I won't shut up. You're making only half as much money as you could be."

"I do all right."

"But you could do better. Look at this crummy room we have to live in."

"What do you mean, we?" I growled. "I live here. And I let you stay here out of the goodness of my heart. And if you don't shut up I'll kick you out. Now go to sleep."

Well that shut her up. But just for the night. From there on out, she couldn't keep her fat yap shut. The weekends seemed to come up faster and faster. Irene kept bugging me more and more. I told her I wasn't interested in making big money. All I wanted was to get by. I had other things to think about.

But she just couldn't get it through her fat head. To her, this high and low crap was the end all and be-all.
So there we were, out there doing our thing, as they say, rain or shine, hassling over the prices.

"You don't have to get rid of it all every day," she said over and over until I was about out of my mind. "Look how Walter holds on to his comics until he gets his price."

"Look, Irene," I said, "Walter does his thing. I do mine."

But she kept hammering away.

Then one Sunday--it was early in the afternoon--I had to use the toilet real bad. I had to ask Irene to watch the stall for me.

What a mistake that was.

When I came back, I found her in the middle of a sale. Her eyes glinted and her tongue hung out, clamped between her teeth. The buyer, a middle?aged guy with a pipe and a red nose, held an old electric heater.

"How much for this?" he asked.

How many times have I heard that?

Well Irene, that nervy bitch--what right had she to alter my prices? Right out she came and said: "Five dollars." Just like that, right in front of my face. And without a peep, red-nose pulled a five out of his pocket and walked off with that piece of garbage.

I was furious.

"Irene, damn you, that heater's priced at two-fifty!"

She didn't hear me. She was gloating.

"See what I mean, Jimmie? You sell too low."

I was so enraged, I was about to smash her one, when up stepped another customer. He had a what-not shelf in his arms and that eternal look in his eyes.

"How much?"

I gave him a cold smile.

"You can have it for two dollars."

"Three!" she shouted.

"Two!" I gave her a dirty look.

"Now which is it?" he asked. "Two or three?"

"It's two," I said.

"But Jimmie," she said, "two is what you paid for it. You gotta have some profit."

The gall! The murderous gall!

I swung around snarling.

"What do you know how much I paid for it!"

"Look," the guy interrupted, "I don't want to get in the middle of a family spat. Suppose I give you two-fifty?"

At this, Irene stepped up and gave him a gracious smile.

"That's fine with me," she said.

"No it ain't!" I said. "Everybody is meddling in my business. First her, then you!" I snarled at him.

"But I want it," he said plaintively, "and two-fifty isn't a bad price for it."

"There, you see, Jimmie?"

Irene grabbed my arm. And maybe it was that. Or maybe it was the whole scene. I don't know. But I boiled over. I didn't need all that shoving around. I grabbed the what-not out of his hands, threw it on the ground and jumped on it, crushing it flat.

And then I gave the guy two dollars and told him to go find another one.

Then I turned around and gave Irene the business.

"Take it!" I screamed. "It's yours! I don't need it!"

I gave her everything, the junk, the stall, the old garage.

That bitch! Already she was busy rearranging.

I threw the truck keys smack in the middle of her pudgy stomach. And hitched a ride back to Berkeley.

Written 1972, Berkeley, CA

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