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give me the brush. Right off. When I went into the bank to get change for a twenty-dollar bill. I aint no Errol Flynn but I had my share and so when she gave me the brush naturally I wanted her so bad I hurt. So I stayed on her, every day, sometimes twice a day, while the ship was in drydock, and I plain wore her down. I married her, I guess, just to prove to her I was serious, not some horny damned swabbie. Why not? Hell, she didn’t have no sheriff, she didn’t have the clap. So I tried one las’ time to live the life of a married man .
    Right off I seen she was a nut about neatness. She had a million rules for everything, all that shit about a place for everything and everything in its place. At first this didn’t bother me. Hell, I was Navy. I’d lived a long time in little tight spaces and I obeyed the rules cause sometimes the rules saved your life. So at first I thought it was terrific. She was kinda military, you know? But then I found out she was a Christian too. A Godfearin Bible-readin black-hearted Christian. And that type of a Christian is all rules, boy. She wouldnt let me smoke cigarettes in the house cause it stunk up the wallpaper. She wouldn’t drink whiskey with me. She got mad if I didden go to church with her and if I was late for dinner. If I got stuck at the ship or stuck in traffic or stopped for a few whiskeys with a couple of sailors, she’d go nuts. In the closets in the house in Mission Street, she put everything in little cellophane bags and gave them all labels, like panties or slips or bras. The inside of the refrigerator looked like something in a supermarket with everything in rows. And if I put a milk bottle on the vegetable shelf, she’d scream at me. She wouldn’t have sex during her period, of course, and for four or five days before her period she was nutty and pissed off and I wasn’t interested. Naturally, she thought a blow job was a sin. Naturally, using a rubber was a sin too. She would only fuck me in the bedroom, with the light out, between nine and eleven at night. She wouldn’t fuck any later than that cause she needed her rest to get up on time for the bank. I said to her, You don’t work at the bank on Saturday or Sunday, baby! But on Friday night she was too tired from the whole week of workin and on Saturday night she was restin to get up for church on Sunday .
    Well, after a while I started coming home late. And some nights I didn’t come home at all. Then I was there one Friday night and after dinner I was sittin in this big chair beside the fireplace, just like I always saw men do in pictures in magazines, and the fire was burnin cause it gets cold there in San Francisco. And she started screaming at me for leavin the newspaper on the floor. You always make a mess, she yelled. You can’t do anything without makin a mess. Yellin at me, the top of her lungs .
    So after a bit, I stood up. I lit me a cigarette and blew the smoke on the wallpaper and she yelled What are you doin and I put the butt out on the rug, mashin it in real good. Then I lit another and walked past her smokin and opened the refrigerator and messed everything up and then I pissed in it. Right into the goddamned fridge. I remember the butter meltin in the butter dish. Then I got a pint of whiskey from my coat and chug-a-lugged it and got sick and puked on the doormat. Never said a word all the time. Well, little Susan ran right outta there .
    She didden come home that night, or the next one either. So I wandered around the house with the radio blastin, smokin and drinkin and takin shits with the bathroom door open. On Sunday morning she still wasn’t back. I got drunk twice that day without leavin the house and even to me the place was beginnin to stink. On Monday morning, I took a long cold shower and got all dressed real neat in civvies and went down to the bank. She wasn’t there. Called in sick, her boss said. Lookin at me funny. Sick of me, I reckon. So I hit the bars, feelin lower than