Tales of Ordinary Madness (14 page)

NO STOCKINGS

Barney got her in the ass while she sucked me off; Barney finished first, put his toe in her ass, wiggled it, asked, “how ya like that?” she couldn't answer right then. she finished me off. then we drank an hour or so. then I switched to the bunghole. Barney took the mouth. after that, he went to his place. I went to mine. I drank myself to sleep.

it must have been 4:30 in the afternoon, the doorbell rang. it was Dan. it was always Dan when I was sick or needed sleep. Dan was kind of a commie intellectual who ran a poetry workshop, had a knowledge of classical music; he had a snip of a beard and always came up with these drab little quips throughout his conversation, and worse than that – he wrote rhyming poetry.

I looked at him. “oh shit,” I said.

“sick again, Buk? oh, Buke, he will puke!”

how right. I ran into the bathroom and let go.

when I came back he was sitting on my couch looking quite pert.

“yeah?” I asked.

“well, we need some of your poems for the Spring reading.”

I never showed at his readings nor did I have interest in them but he had been coming around for years and I didn't know how to decently shut him off.

“Dan, I don't have any poems.”

“you used to have closetsful.”

“I know.”

“mind if I look in the closet?”

“go ahead.”

I went into the refrigerator and came out with a beer. Dan was sitting with some wrinkled papers.

“say, this one's not bad. humm. oh, this one's shit! and this one's shit. and this one is too. heheeheee! what's happened to you, Bukowski?”

“I dunno.”

“hmmmmmm. this one's not
too
bad. oooh, this one's shit! and this one!”

I don't know how many beers I drank while he commented on the poems. but I began to feel a little better.

“this one's ...”

“Dan?”

“yes, yes?”

“do you know any pussy?”

“what?”

“do you know any women laying around panting for 4 or 5 inches only?”

“these poems ...”

“fuck the poems! pussy, man, pussy!”

“well, there's Vera ...”

“let's go!”

“I'd like some of these poems ...”

“take them. care for a beer while I dress?”

“well, one wouldn't hurt.”

I gave him one while I got out of my torn robe and into my worn clothes. a rhymer. one pair of shoes, ripped shorts, zipper in pants that only pulled 3/4's up. we went out the door, got into the car. I stopped for a fifth of scotch.

“I have never seen you eat,” said Dan, “don't you ever eat?”

“only certain items.”

he directed the way to Vera's. we got out, fifth, me, Dan. rang a doorbell of a fairly expensive apartment.

Vera opened the door. “ooh, hello, Dan.”

“Vera, this ... Charles Bukowski.”

“oooh, I always wondered what Charles Bukowski looked like.”

“yeh. me too.” I pushed in past her. “got any glasses?”

“oooh, yes.”

Vera came out with the glasses. there was some guy sitting on the couch. I filled 2 glasses with scotch, gave one to Vera, one to myself, then sat myself on the couch in between Vera and the guy who was sitting there. Dan sat across the way.

“Mr. Bukowski,” said Vera, “I've read your poetry and ...”

“fuck poetry,” I said.

“oooh,” said Vera.

I drank the scotch down, reached over, flipped the dress higher over Vera's knees. “you have beautiful legs,” I told her.

“I think I'm a little fat,” she said.

“oh, no! just right!”

I poured myself another scotch, leaned over and kissed one of her knees. I had a little sip more, then kissed a little higher up the leg.

“oh hell, I'm going!” said the guy who was at the other end of the couch. he got up and walked out.

I interspersed my kissing movements with bits of dull conversation. filled her glass again. soon I had her dress up around her ass. I saw the panties. they were wonderful panties. they were not made out of that usual pantystuff, but they looked more like an old-fashioned bed quilt – high, raised and separate squares of this silky soft stuff; just like a miniature bed quilt shaped into panties – and delicious colors: green and blue and gold and lavender. truly, she must have had hot pants.

I pulled my head from between her legs and there sat Dan across from us, glistening. “Dan, my boy,” I said, “I think it's time for you to go.”

Dan, my boy, left with much seeming reluctance, a peepshow improved a handjob later on. but it was hard for him to leave anyhow. it was hard for me too. nice and.

I straightened up and had another drink. she waited. I drank slowly.

“Charles,” she said.

“look,” I said, “I like my booze. don't worry now, I'll get around to you.”

Vera sat there with her dress up around her ass waiting. “I'm too fat,” she said, “really, don't you think so?”

“oh no, perfect. I could rape you for 3 hours. you're just kind of buttery. I could melt into you forever.”

I drained my scotch, poured another.

“Charles,” she said.

“Vera,” I said.

“what?” she asked.

“I am the world's greatest poet,” I told her.

“living or dead?” she asked.

“dead,” I said. I reached over and grabbed a breast. “I'd like to jam a live codfish up your ass, Vera!”

“why?”

“hell, I dunno.”

she pulled her dress down. I finished off the scotch glass.

“you piss outa your pussy, don't you?”

“I guess so.”

“well, that's what's wrong with alla you women.”

“Charles, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to go. I have to go to work early tomorrow morning.”

“work. smerk. the Turk lurked and jerked.”

“Charles,” she said, “please leave.”

“please don't worry. I'm going to fuck you! I just want a little more to drink. I am a man who loves his drink.”

I saw her get up, and forgot it, poured another drink. then I looked up and there was Vera and another woman. the other woman looked all right too.

“sir,” said the other woman, “I am a friend of Vera's. you've frightened her and she must get up early in the morning. I'll have to ask you to leave!”

“LISTEN, YOU LOUSY CUNTS, I'LL FUCK THE BOTH OF YOU, I PROMISE! JUST LEMME HAVE A FEW MORE DRINKS, THAT'S ALL I ASK! YOU BOTH GOT 8 GOOD INCHES WAITING ON YOU!”

I was sitting there fairly close to the bottom of the fifth when the two cops came in. I was sitting in my shorts on the couch with my shoes and stockings off. I liked it there. quite a nice apartment.

“gentlemen?” I asked, “are you from the Nobel Prize Committee? or is it the Pulitzer?”

“get your shoes and pants on,” said one of them. “NOW!”

“gentlemen, do you realize you are addressing Charles Bukowski?” I asked.

“we'll get your I.D. down at the station. now get your shoes and pants on.”

they handcuffed me behind my back, hard as usual, the little notches on the bracelets biting into the veins. then they hustled me fast, outside, down a slanting drive, moving me a little faster than the legs could go. I felt as if the whole world were watching, and I felt also, strangely, ashamed of something. guilty, crappy, incomplete, like a pissant, like a wasted machinegun bullet.

“you're a great lover, eh?” one of them asked me.

I thought that this was a strangely friendly and human remark. “it was a nice apartment,” I said, “and you should have seen the panties.”

“shut up!” the other one said.

they threw me in the back without too much care. I stretched out and listened to their comfortable and superior and godly radio. I always got the idea, at such times, that the cops were better than I was. and there was some truth in it ...

down at the station – the usual photographs, confiscation of pocket materials. things kept changing. modernizing. then a guy in civvies. after the difficult fingerprinting where I always had trouble with the left thumb: “RELAX! NOW, RELAX!” always this guilt with the rolling thumb. but how could you RELAX in jail?

the guy in civvies. asking various questions for a lined-green paper. he kept smiling.

“these men are beasts,” he said in a low voice. “I like you. give me a call when you get out.” he gave me a slip of paper. “beasts,” he said, “they are. be careful.”

“I'll phone you,” I lied, thinking it might help. when you get in there, any sympathetic voice seems wonderful ...

“you've got one phone call,” said the screw, “make it now.”

they let me out of the drunktank where they all slept on boards and seemed quite comfortable, bumming cigarettes, snoring, laughing, pissing. the Mexicans seemed most relaxed as if they were in their own bedroom. I was jealous of their easiness.

I went out and looked through the phonebook. it was then that I realized that I didn't have any friends. I kept turning pages.

“listen,” said a screw, “how long's it gonna take you? you been out here 15 minutes.”

I made a hasty surmise and called a number. all I got was a lot of shit from somebody's mother, who answered the phone, she said I'd once forced him (her son) to go to jail by my insistence that I thought it would be funny to go to sleep on some mortuary steps on the main boulevard of Inglewood, Calif. while we were drunk. the old bitch had no sense of humor. the screw put me back in.

it was then I noticed that I was the
only
guy in jail without stockings on. there must have been 150 of them in that tank and 149 wore stockings. many of them just off of boxcars. I was the only one without. you could hit bottom and then find another bottom. balls.

each time I found a new screw I asked if I might be allowed to make my one phone call. I don't know how many people I phoned. finally I gave up and decided just to rot there. Then the cell door opened and my name was called.

“you made bail,” the screw said.

“jesus christ,” I said.

all during the bailing-out process, which takes about an hour, I wondered who the angel was. I thought of everybody. I thought of who might be my friend. when I got out I found it was a guy and his wife who I had thought had hated me. they were waiting on the sidewalk.

they drove me to my place where I paid them off the bail money. I walked them back down to their car and just as I got in the door, the phone rang. it was a woman's voice. it sounded good. “Buk?”

“yeah, baby. who are you? I just got out of jail.”

it was a long distance call from some cunt in Sacramento. but I couldn't reach her with my cock and I still didn't have any stockings on.

“sometimes I read your books of poetry all over again, Buke, and all the poems stand up. Buke, I think of you all the time.”

“thanks, Ann, thanks for calling, you're a sweet kid but I've got to go out and get a touch to drink.”

“love you, Buke.”

“me too, Ann ...”

I went out and got a tall 6 pack and a pint of scotch. I was pouring the first scotch when the phone rang again. I took half a glass straight down, then answered.

“Buke?”

“yeah. Buk. I just got out of jail.” Buk.

“yes, I know. this is Vera.”

“you lousy cunt. you called the cops.”

“you were horrible. horrible. they asked me if I wanted to prefer rape charges. I told them I didn't.”

she had the chain on the door but I could see on in through there. the pint of scotch and the tall 6-pack rode on inside of me. she had on a robe and the robe was open and I could see one very fulsome breast trying very hard to work out toward my mouth.

“Vera, baby,” I said, “I think that we could be nice friends, very nice friends. I forgive you for phoning the cops. let me in.”

“no, no, Buke, we can never be friends! you are a horrible person!”

the breast kept pleading to me.

“Vera! ...”

“no, Buke, take your stuff and go, please, please!”

I snatched the wallet and stockings. “o.k., fatty, jam it up your jello ass!”

“ooooh!” she said, and then slammed the door.

as I examined the wallet for the 35, I heard her put on Aaron Copeland. what a phony.

I walked on down the drive this time without police escort. I found the car a little further down. got in. it started. I let it warm. good old baby. I took off my shoes, put on my socks, put my shoes back on again, and then being a decent citizen once more, I put it in reverse, backed out between the two cars, swung it clear, moved up the dark street North North north ...

toward myself toward my place toward something, the old car had it, then I had it, and the way, and at a signal I found a half an old cigar in the tray, lit it, burned my nose a little, signal changed, I inhaled, blew out blue smoke, nothing was ever dead that didn't take a chance, lose, come back to the same place.

odd: sometimes no-fuck beats some fuck.

though I might be wrong. they say that I usually am.

A QUIET CONVERSATION PIECE

people who come by my place are a bit odd, but then almost everybody's a bit odd; the world is shaking and trembling more than ever and its effects are obvious.

there's this one who is a bit fat, has now grown a tyke of a beard, and he looks fairly well. he wants to read one of my poems at a reading. I tell him o.k. and then I tell him HOW to read it and he gets a bit nervous.

“where's the beer? jesus christ, don't you have anything to drink?”

he picks up 14 sunflower seeds, puts them in his mouth, chews like a machine. I go get the beer. this kid, Maxie, has never worked. he keeps going to college in order to stay out of Vietnam. now he is studying to be a rabbi. he'll make a hell of a rabbi. he's lusty enough and full of shit. he'll make a good one. but he's really not anti-war. he, like most people, divides wars into good wars and bad wars. he wanted to get into the Israeli-Arab war but before he could get packed the damn thing was over. so it's obvious that men will still shoot at each other; all you have to do is give them this little thing that will click in their reasoning process. not good to shoot a North Vietnamese: o.k. to shoot an Arab. he'll make a hell of a rabbi.

he snatches the beer from my hand, gives those sunflower seeds a little water.

“jesus,” he says.

“you killed jesus,” I say.

“oh don't start all that!”

“I won't. I'm not that way.”

“I mean, jesus, I hear you got good royalties from TERROR STREET.”

“yeah, I'm his best seller. I outsell his Duncan, Creeley and Levertov series all put together. but it might not mean anything – they sell a lot of copies of the
L.A. Times
each night too but there's nothing in the
L.A. Times.”

“yeah.”

we work at the beer.

“how's Harry?” I ask. Harry's a kid, Harry WAS a kid out the madhouse. I wrote the foreword to Harry's first book of poems. they were quite good. they almost screamed. then Harry fell into a job I refused to take – writing for the girlie mags. I told the editor “no” and sent Harry over. Harry was a mess; he was taking jobs as a babysitter. now he doesn't write poems anymore.

“oh, Harry. he has FOUR motorcycles. on the 4th of July he took the crowd out into the backyard and shot off $500 worth of firecrackers. in 15 minutes the $500 was gone into the sky.”

“Harry's come quite a way.”

“he sure has. fat as a pig. drinking that good whiskey. eating all the time. he married this gal who got 40,000 dollars when her husband died. he had an accident while skin diving. I mean, he drowned. now Harry's got a skin diving outfit.”

“beautiful.”

“he's jealous of you, though.”

“why?”

“I don't know. just mention your name and he starts raving.”

“I'm just hanging by a string. it's about up with me.”

“they each have sweaters with each other's names on them. she thinks Harry's a great writer. she hasn't been around much. they're busting out one of the walls to make a writing studio for Harry. soundproof like Proust. or was it Proust?”

“who had the cork-lined room?”

“yeah, I think so. anyhow, it's going to cost them 2 grand. I can see the great writer in his cork-lined room now writing, ‘Lilly lithely leaped farmer John's fence ...' ”

“let's get off that guy. he's so funny he's drowning in money.”

“yeah. well, how's the little girl? what's her name? Marina?”

“Marina Louise Bukowski. yeah. she saw me getting out of the bathtub the other day. she's 3 and one half. know what she said?”

“no.”

“she said, ‘Hank, look at your silly self. you got all that hanging out the front and you've got nothing hanging out the back!' ”

“too much.”

“yeah, she expected dick at both ends.”

“might not be a bad idea.”

“not for me. I can't get work enough for one.”

“you got any more beer?”

“sure. sorry.”

I bring them out.

“Larry was by,” I tell him.

“yeah?”

“yeah. he thinks the revolution is tomorrow morning. it might be, it might not be. nobody knows. I tell him that the problem with revolutions is that they must begin from the INSIDE-out, not from the outside-IN. the first thing these people do in a riot is run and grab a color tv set. they want the same poison that made the enemy a half-wit. but he won't listen. he's packing his rifle around. went to Mexico to join the revolutionaries. the revolutionaries were drinking tequila and yawning. then, there's the language barrier. now it's Canada. they have a hideout of food and guns in one of the northern states. but they don't have the atom-bomb. they're fucked. and no air-power.”

“neither have the Vietnamese. they're doing all right.”

“that's because we can't use the a-bomb on account of Russia and China. but suppose we decided to bomb a hideout in Oregon full of Castros? that would be our business, wouldn't it?”

“you talk like a good American.”

“I don't have any politics. I'm an observer.”

“it's a good thing everybody isn't an observer or we would never get anywhere.”

“have we gotten somewhere?”

“I don't know.”

“neither do I. but I do know that a lot of revolutionaries are real pricks, and DULL, very dull to top it all off. man, I'm not saying that the poor man should not get help, that the uneducated should not get educated, that the sick should not have hospitalization, so forth. what I'm saying is that we are putting a lot of priests' robes on some of these revolutionaries, and some of them are very sick fellows bothered with acne, deserted from by their wives and wearing these bloody little Peace Symbols from strings around their necks. a lot of them are merely opportunists of the moment and they'd do just as well working for the Ford Co. if they could get their foot in the door. I don't want to go from one bad leadership to another bad leadership – we've been doing that every election.”

“I still think a revolution would get rid of a lot of shit.”

“win or lose, it will. it'll get rid of a lot of good things and bad. human history moves very slowly. me, I'll settle for a bird-bath.”

“the better to observe from.”

“the better to observe from. have another beer.”

“you still sound like a reactionary.”

“listen, Rabbi, I'm trying to see the thing from all sides, not just my side. the Establishment is very cool. you've got to give them that. I'll talk with the Establishment any time. I know that I'm dealing with a tough boy. look at what they did to Spock. both Kennedys. King. Malcolm X. you make your list. it's a long one. you can't move too fast on the big boys or you'll find yourself whistling Dixie through a cardboard toiletpaper holder at Forest Lawn. but things are changing. the young are thinking better than the old used to think and the old are dying. there's still a way to do it without everybody getting murdered.”

“they've got you backtracking. with me, ‘Give me Victory or Death.' ”

“that's what Hitler said. he got death.”

“what's wrong with death?”

“the question before us tonight is what's wrong with life.”

“you write a book like TERROR STREET and then you want to sit around and shake hands with killers.”

“have we shaken hands, Rabbi?”

“you talk out of the side of your mouth while cruelties are happening at this very moment.”

“you mean the spider with the fly or the cat with the mouse?”

“I mean Man against Man when Man has the facility to know better.”

“there's something in what you say.”

“Hell yes. you're not the only one with a mouth.”

“then what do you say we do? burn the town?”

“no, burn the nation.”

“like I say, you'll be a hell of a Rabbi.”

“thank you.”

“and after we burn the nation, we replace it with what?”

“would you say that the American Revolution failed, that the French Revolution failed, that the Russian Revolution failed?”

“not entirely. but they sure fell short.”

“it was a try.”

“how many men must we kill in order to move forward one inch?”

“how many men are killed by not moving at all?”

“sometimes I feel like I'm talking with Plato.”

“you are: Plato with a Jewish beard.”

it gets quiet then and the problem hangs between us. meanwhile, the skidrows are filled with the disenchanted and the discarded; the poor die in charity wards among a scarcity of doctors; the jails are so filled with the disorded and the lost that there are not enough bunks and the prisoners must sleep on the floor. to get on relief is an act of mercy that may not last and the madhouses are stuffed wall to wall because of a society that uses people like chess pawns ...

it's damned pleasant to be an intellectual or a writer and to observe these niceties as long as your OWN ass is not in the wringer. that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers – they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.

“and congress,” says my friend, “believes they can solve something with a gun-control bill.”

“yeah. actually we know who has been shooting most of the guns. but we are not so sure who has been shooting some of the others. is it the army, the police, the state, or some other madmen? I'm afraid to guess for I may be next and I have a few more sonnets I'd like to finish.”

“I don't think that you are important enough.”

“thank god for that, Rabbi.”

“I think, though, that you have a bit of the coward in you.”

“yes, I do. a coward is a man who can foresee the future. a brave man is almost always without imagination.”

“sometimes I think YOU would make a good Rabbi.”

“not so. Plato had no Jewish beard.”

“grow one.”

“have a beer.”

“thank you.”

and so, we become quiet. it is another strange evening. the people come to me, they talk, they fill me: the future Rabbis, the revolutionaries with their rifles, the FBI, the whores, the poetesses, the young poets from Cal State, a professor from Loyola going to Michigan, a prof from the University of Cal at Berkeley, another who lives in Riverside, 3 or 4 boys on the road, plain bums with Bukowski books stashed in their brains ... and for a while I thought that this gang would intrude upon and murder my fair and precious moments, but I've been lucky lucky for each man and each woman has brought me something and left me something, and I no longer must feel like Jeffers behind a stone wall, and I've been lucky in another way for what fame I have is largely hidden and quiet and I'll hardly ever be a Henry Miller with people camping on my front lawn, the gods have been very good to me, they've kept me alive and even, still kicking, taking notes, observing, feeling the goodness of good people, feeling the miracle run up my arm like a crazy mouse. such a life, given to me at the age of 48, even though tomorrow does not know is the sweetest of the sweet dreams.

the kid gets up a bit full of beer, tomorrow's Rabbi thundering across Sunday morning breakfasts.

“got to make it. class tomorrow.”

“sure, kid, are you all right?”

“yeah. I'm all right. my dad says to say hello to you.”

“you tell Sam I said to hang it in. we've all got to make it.”

“you got my phone number?”

“yeah. right over my left tit.”

I watch him leave. down the steps. a little fat. but good that way. power. excess power. he is glowing and rumbling. he will make a fine Rabbi. I like him very much. then he is gone, out of vision, and I sit down to write you this. cigarette ashes all across the typewriter. to let you know how it goes and what's next. next to my typewriter are 2 small white doll's shoes about half an inch long. my daughter, Marina, left them there. she's in Arizona, somewhere, about now, with a revolutionary mother. it's July 1968 and I hit the machine as I wait for the door to break down and see the two green-faced men with eyes the shade of stale jelly, air-cooled hand m.g.'s. I hope they don't show. it's been a lovely evening. and only a few lone partridges will remember the roll of the dice and the way the walls smiled. good night.