Halfway through the bottle I remembered a lady in town who was reading the life story of Virginia Woolf. Now not everybody in Los Angeles sits around reading the life story of Virginia Woolf, especially an attractive lady with an eight-room apartment, good French wine and $400 a month alimony. I finished the Grand-Dad and decided to find out more about Virginia Woolf.
The lady was in and we sat and talked for 10 minutes and she didn’t bring out any French wine so I suggested that I might go to the liquor store. She said that might be fine, so I went. The small liquor store to the north was closed but the lady lived on a large boulevard so I went on down to the supermarket. The lady’s name was Nina. I mean the one who read the life of Virginia Woolf. Nina had told me that Virginia Woolf had led a very tragic life and she also told me of her suicide. I think that she told me that Virginia Woolf had walked into a river naked and drowned herself.
Anyhow, I came back with two six-packs in the bottle and a pint of Grand-Dad. I walked back up the boulevard and as I got near Nina’s place I noticed Patricia’s car parked outside. I thought, fine, I’ll take Patricia up and introduce her to Nina. Patricia might like to hear about Virginia Woolf. As I got near Patricia’s car, the door opened and she leaped out. She began swinging her purse at me. Her purse was a large furry contraption with very long straps. She whirled it around and around, banging it against my head and shoulders and sides screaming, “You S.O.B.! You S.O.B.! You S.O.B.!”
“So help me now,” I said, “you just keep it up and I’ll have to give you one! Men’s lib, you know.”
Patricia kept it up and I set the bag down. Just as I did she gave me a good one along the side of the head. It spun me off to one side and she made for the bag. She got hold of a beer bottle and crashed it down against the sidewalk. It exploded! A good cold beer. She got another one. POW! Another one. POW! In the bar across the street they were lined up against the blinds, peering out. POW!
I was too drunk to grab her.
“You bitch! I’ll have to put you back in the madhouse!”
I couldn’t catch her. She kept circling back to the bag. POW! POW! The moon was high. There wasn’t a cruise car within two miles and nobody was phoning in. I rushed the paper sack, picked it up, hugged it to my chest and she gave me one against the back of the head. I dropped the bag and Patricia was upon it. She found the Grand-Dad and held it up in the air.
“Ah ha! You were going to drink this with her and then . . .”
She didn’t let me answer. POW! There went Grand-Dad. Nina’s door was open and she was standing halfway up the stairway and began swinging her purse at Nina, saying over and over, “He’s my man! He’s my man! He’s my man!”
Then she came running out. She found another beer in the sack. “POW!” Then she leaped into her car and drove off.
I walked up the stairway. Nina was at the top of it. “That was Patricia,” I said.
“My god, what’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. Do you have a broom?”
I took the broom outside and began sweeping up the glass. Well, Patricia had been in the madhouse but Nina had been in the madhouse, too. Almost every woman I knew had been in the madhouse. It didn’t prove anything. I seemed to hear a sound near me. I looked around. Patricia had gotten her car up on the sidewalk and it was coming down upon me. I leaped up against the wall and the right fender scraped across my leg. Then she bounced off the sidewalk, into the street, made a left turn against a red light up on Los Feliz Boulevard and was gone.
I began sweeping up more glass. I gathered little piles of glass into my hands and carried them up the stairway to Nina who took them off somewhere. Then I went back down and swept up more glass.
Then as I was sweeping I heard breathing sounds. I looked up and Patricia was standing before me. She grabbed the broom out of my hand and broke it into three pieces. Then she ran inside the door and found two bottles of beer on the bottom step.
“Ha! You saved these to drink them, didn’t you, ha?”
She took both bottles and ran outside. “POW!” There went one. I walked over and closed Nina’s door. Patricia took the other bottle and threw it at the door. It went right through the glass window. It made a neat, round hole. I opened the door, walked in, closed it. I found the bottle one-third of the way up the stairway. It was unbroken. I unscrewed the cap and took a good drain. Nina was at the top of the stairway. “For god’s sake, Bukowski, go with her! Go with her before she kills us all!”
“Ah, she’s gone. I wanna hear about Virginia Woolf.”
“Don’t worry, she’s out there.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
I finished the beer and walked down the stairway. I opened the door, closed it. Patricia was out there. She was sitting in her orange car. I opened the door and got in. She turned the key and the car started.
“You know,” I said, “she’s really a nice woman. She didn’t deserve all that. She didn’t deserve me and she didn’t deserve you.”
She pressed the pedal to the floor.
“Bukowski . . . ,” she said.
“O.K.,” I said, “let’s die together.”
She had it to the floor and even a Volks will gather speed after a while.
“Bukowski . . . ,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You should never take me to the fights. All those guys fighting . . . it gets me too much in the mood.”
We did, somehow, arrive at her place. We were too drunk for anything. We slept in each other’s arms.
Ralph awakened to the sound of his wife’s voice. It was two a.m. and dark, and quiet except for the sound of Judy’s voice.
“Tommy,” she said, “oh, Tommy, slam that big thing to me! Oh my god, Tommy, slam that thing to me!”
Ralph propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her. She had on a thin pink negligee and had kicked all the covers off.
“Oh! It’s so big! And purple! Oh, Tommy!”
Tommy Carstairs was Ralph’s best friend.
“Oh, Tommy! It’s in, it’s in! Move that goddamned thing! Put that snake to me, Tommy!”
Ralph put a hand on his wife’s arm.
“Listen, Judy, for Christ’s sake . . .”
“Oh, Tommy! Oh, my god, I LOVE YOU!”
Her legs were pulled back and up and then she began to have spasms.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh . . .” Then she was still and stretched out her legs. She turned her head toward Ralph and with a little smile on her face she began to snore ever so gently.
“Judy,” he said.
“Hey, listen, Judy . . .”
He reached over and shook his wife. Then he took her by the shoulder and twisted it.
“Ouch,” she said. “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you, you going crazy?”
Judy got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She flushed the toilet, lingered a moment and came out. Her hair was almost as pink as her nightgown and one long strand came down over the left eye, crossed the nose and hung there. She brushed it up and away and it fell back to the same location. She climbed back into bed, put the pillow up against her back and lit a cigarette.
“Judy,” he said, “you were dreaming.”
“So shit,” she said, “that don’t give you no right to break my shoulder.”
“Do you remember your dream?”
“No, no frankly I don’t.”
“You were taking cock.”
“Taking cock?” she laughed.
“From Tommy Carstairs.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I didn’t know he had a big purple cock.”
“Does he? Who told you?”
“You did. In the dream.”
“Look, Ralph, it’s 2:30. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Some sleep, hell. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on, eh? ‘Oh, Tommy! Oh, oh, Tommy, slam that big purple
thing to me! It’s in! It’s in! Move it! Move it! Oh my God, I’m coming . . . ooooh, ooooooh, oooooh!’”
“Look, Ralph, I don’t want to hear that shit. Have you been drinking?”
“Have I been drinking? You know I haven’t been.”
“You talk like a sick man.”
“I’m telling you what I heard.”
“All right, I don’t know what you heard. A dream isn’t reality.”
“It can be a tipoff on reality.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to sleep.”
Judy put out her cigarette, rebunched her pillow, turned her back to Ralph. It was a doublebed and the bedlight was still on.
“Listen, Judy . . .”
“Ralph, for Christ’s sake . . .”
“I want to tell you something . . .”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“If you want this Carstairs guy, go ahead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ll get out of the marriage.”
“Listen, I’m not even fond of Carstairs . . . in fact, I hate him . . .”
“Hate and love are very close.”
Judy sat up in bed quickly, both arms pressed down at her sides, the palms of her hands flat on the sheets.
“Listen, Ralph, what do you WANT? Are you trying to drive me crazy too? Just what do you WANT? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!”
“Listening to that dream was very ugly to me, Judy, I love you . . . I did love you. I just wonder how you’d feel if I dreamt something like that and you heard it.”
“You make too much of everything, you always did. You’re the most jealous man I ever did meet! By god, now you’re even jealous of my dreams! Can I help it what I dream?”
“Then you did dream it?”
“I said I didn’t remember.”
“How do I know it’s something that didn’t happen? How do I know it’s something that you might want to happen?”
“Oh Ralph, I’m so sick of all of this! I’m your wife, I’m living with you!”
“If this Carstairs had anything at all I’d understand. Course, I don’t know about his cock.”
“I don’t know about his cock either.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Goddamn his cock.”
Ralph reached up and turned the light off. He stretched out. Then he heard Judy stretch out. It was summer and one could hear the crickets. Usually the crickets brought a sense of peace. The police helicopter circled above looking for muggers and rapists. Minutes went by. Ten. Fifteen. Ralph was on his back. He felt Judy’s hand. It crawled up over his leg like some small animal, then her fingers closed about his cock. He reached down and took her hand and moved it off. The hand crawled back and grabbed his cock again.
“Ralph,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, “what the hell is it?”
“I love you.”
“Oh shit,” he said.
“I mean it. I love you.”
“Women can really throw that word.”
She began to massage his cock.
“Don’t,” he said. “Christ, I need a drink.”
“There’s a pint in the cupboard.”
“There is?”
“Yes, I’ll get it.”
He heard Judy moving in the dark and reached up and turned on the light. While she was in the kitchen he remembered he had had some dreams too. And it hadn’t always been Judy. Sex feelings were something that didn’t always stay confined. It was fairly normal to like others. Judy came back with the drinks. They sat up in bed and sipped at them.
“Judy,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Forget it. Forget everything I said. I got nervous. That goddamned job is killing me. My eyes hurt, my back hurts, my brain hurts. It’s a drain. I get jumpy.”
“All right,” she said, “forget it. I understand.”
They sat there and finished their drinks. Then Ralph got up and mixed two more. He came back with the drinks and got in bed with her.
“You know,” he said, “I had a horrible dream once. I dreamt I had a sexual relationship with my mother. I kept trying to draw back in the dream but I finally went ahead. It was one of the hottest dreams I ever had.”
“The shrinks probably have something quite unnerving to say about that dream.”
“Yes, but the shrinks are almost always wrong.”
“I know.”
“Give me a cigarette, Judy.”
“Sure.”
She put the ashtray between them and they both smoked.
“Here we are, talking at 3 a.m. in the morning,” he said.
“It’s good,” she answered, “it breaks things up.”
“Sure. Hear the crickets?”
“Yes, I like them.”
“I like them too”
“Ralph, if that job is killing you, give it up. We’ll make it.”
“No, it’s all right. It was just a real rough day today. There aren’t any good jobs. Everybody is fucked.”
They finished their smokes and their drinks and Ralph turned the light out again. This time when Judy’s hand arrived like a small animal he didn’t push it away. His penis began to grow. He turned and kissed her, lifted her nightgown and gently ran a middle finger across the hairs down there. Something opened and he felt the wetness. Jesus, he thought, we are all so mixed up. It’s all so sad and so wonderful.
Then they could still hear the crickets. Then they heard the siren of an ambulance. Then they heard the police helicopter again. Then they heard three dogs barking. Then they heard each other.
belles-lettres?
Dear Mr. B: How come they save all the typos for YOUR column?
Hello Martha K: It is done by a bunch of rancorous old drunks in smelly stockings who hit me over the head with empty wine bottles of white California wine at the conclusion of their staff meetings. The reason is pure old American jealousy because I write so well, plus the fact that I ball everything female (or anything that looks female) which wanders within arm’s (?) reach.
Dear Mr. B: I don’t believe that a great poet like you works in a post office.
Hello Tilla A: A great poet works at a typewriter. I have more trouble with supervisors than with editors.
Dear Mr. B: I read your article about horseracing. If you know so much about the horses, why ain’t you rich?
Hello Karl L: I can’t read your handwriting. I had trouble that way once. (I mean a shaky hand.) I was born left-handed and my parents bent my slop spoon so if I put it to my jaw with my left hand all I got was this frustration thing and a slap across the mouth for failing. Besides, riches ain’t everything—especially after you’ve gotten away from parents like that.
Dear Mr. B: How cum they give a column to a prick like you and leave a talented guy like me holding a bag of shit?
Hello Marty E: I keep thinking the same thing. X-factor vs. Y-factor. You take Beethoven. In his time he was not even the most highly-regarded musician. You just can’t tell. So keep holding that bag of shit. I have more fan letters to answer.
Dear Mr. B: I am worried about the Hippy invasion of Los Angeles this summer. I am a widow of 39. Suppose 6 young men arrive at my door, covered with hair and spouting Dylan Thomas?
Dear Mrs. Clark J: If you’re worried about crabs, always keep a little blue ointment on hand.
Dear Mr. B: I read your column on suicide. That photo of the man hanging from the home-made noose in the attic: is he dead or is it you posing? And why are the creases in his pants so neat?
Hello Mary W: The man is dead. I don’t look that good. And he doesn’t know why the creases in his pants are so neat.
End of letters . . .
Getting more serious, it is wondrous how much a man can suffer and endure, and I guess there will never be an end to that Bitch, Pain. The simple problem of staying alive in a society of no sense or heart—the totality of hardness everywhere. Most of us live on the edge of starvation and insecurity all of
our lives. The mind and the spirit should go mad with sorrow—they sometimes do. They’ve built a house filled with half-men and the half-men control us. If the devil ran for mayor of Los Angeles, he’d win by a landslide.
To be casual in the midst of shitfire, that’s cool but unreal. We need something to go by. What do we have? Hardly a damn thing. The waste of days and lives is the automatic atrocity. One thing that is needed is leadership but it simply hasn’t arrived. We live on luck and guts and that can grow tiring.
Perhaps it is this dark day as I write this, a Sunday, and all around me I can hear the babble of their TV sets. It is a kind of sound vibration that intermixes in the air, a jibber-ish. The average man stuffs himself with junk and garbage during his leisure. He doesn’t have a chance to recover from his job. He is slugged with ready-made commercial contrivances until he becomes another faceless and unfeeling creature—just another of those many you pass on the streets continually.
I’ll be glad when the sun comes up, won’t you? What a dark stinking day. Like being locked inside a sardine tin. I wish I could make you laugh. Nothing to go by. The police patrolling the dead street. The dirty old man drops a pale blue tear. They ought to make a button for me to wear: AGONY. Then maybe I could laugh.
1.
I missed last week’s column because I am a lush, and I looked around and bottles were everywhere and the deadline was past. I live in a rather modern apartment on Oxford Avenue, it’s all very quiet, and I sneak my bottles down the stairway, play my radio at low key, and I bathe, modestly, under the arms. The problem with being a drunk is that one usually knows other drunks. One group will arrive one night, another the next. The conversation at these gatherings is hardly noteworthy—it hinges mostly upon gossip, bitching, lying and exaggeration. And when I run these people out on the street after being sickened by their petty musings, they then consider me anti-social (which I am), fat-headed (which I am) and over the hill (which I am not).