More Notes of a Dirty Old Man (18 page)

Read More Notes of a Dirty Old Man Online

Authors: Charles Bukowski,David Stephen Calonne

BOOK: More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
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“Yeah, yeah, I’ve made up my mind. Keep crawling toward him.”
“I’ve pissed my pants, Billy.”
“It doesn’t matter. Keep moving up.”
“I pissed my pants, Billy, I’m so scared I pissed my pants.”
“I could hit him with a rock now. Red. He’s just looking off into space. Soon we’ll be able to reach out and touch him.”
They crawled closer. Soon they were out of the brush and they crawled along the lawn, closer and closer. They were 12 feet away, then six. Then they stopped. They just remained quiet, breathing.
Finally Billy said, “Hey!”
The man in the chair was jolted upright, dropping his cane. “
Christ!
. . . what is it?”
“We came to talk to you,” said Billy, standing up. Red stood up too, looking down at the spot on the front of his pants.
“Red pissed his pants, we’re sorry about that.”
The man picked up his cane and pointed it at the boys.
“You goddamned kids get out of here!”
“We want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Now get your asses out of here!”
“My father didn’t vote for you,” said Billy. “He tells people that.”
“Well, the way it worked out, somebody must have.”
“Why did you do it?” asked Billy.
“Do what?”
“Do what you did.”
“You kids live around here?”
“Sure. What do you think?” asked Billy. “You think we flew down from Mars?”
“It wouldn’t surprise my ass in the least.”
“Why do you use dirty language?”
“Sorry.”
“All your men were sentenced to jail. Aren’t you sorry for your men?”
“All men are guilty of something.”
“Do you mean all men should be in jail?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Does your wife still go to bed with you after what you did?”
The man lifted his cane and pointed it at Billy. “You stay out of my sex life!”
“I’ll bet she doesn’t anymore.”
“What do you know about sex?”
“Plenty.”
“O.K., what is it?”
“It’s something to do to make yourself feel good so you can go on and do all the things that don’t make you feel so good.”
“That’s not Webster but it’s not bad.”
Then there was silence. The man turned and looked off into space again. Some minutes passed. Then Red said, “I kind of like you, anyhow.”
Billy turned to Red: “What the hell’s wrong with you? He’s no good. He ought to be in jail with the rest of those guys!”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I guess, Red,” said the man, “the least you can do for me is vote Republican when you grow up.”
“Herbert Hoover was a Republican and he let the people starve to death!” said Billy.
“How do you know that?” asked the man.
“My uncle told me.”
“O.K., that’s good enough.”
“Both those Kennedys were good guys and look what happened to them.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Somebody ought to kill you!”
“So my wife can go to bed with another man?”
“No. Just because you STINK!”
“Boys, I think this interview is over.”
Billy and Red stood there looking at him. A solitary bird flew past between them, quickly, looping up and down like a fantasy and then it was gone. The man leaned upward in his chair. Then he screamed out: “HARRY! DOUG! OVER HERE!” quickly but heavily. They were young and well dressed and had revolvers drawn. They were each adorned with the latest hairdo and the latest clothing style.
“WHERE THE HELL’S MY SECURITY? WHAT YOU GUYS BEEN DOING, PLAYING SCRABBLE IN THE ROSE BOWER OR WORSE?”
“How’d these fucking kids get in here?” asked the taller of the security guards.
“Ask them,” said the man.
“How’d you kids get in here?”
“A hole in the fence.”
“But everything’s wired!”
“What’s wired?”
“Oh, shit, we got to check the wiring,” said the taller of the security men to the shorter, “get your ass on Mr. Bell now and get Del Monico over here, and FAST!”
“Listen,” said Billy, “I think we’ll be going home now.”
“Hold it now!” said the remaining security man, “don’t move!”
“Let them go.”
“Don’t you want me to process them?”
“What the hell you going to find? You’ll find that one of the kids has pissed his pants and the other has a father who is a plumber and gets drunk every Saturday night.”
“All right, kids,” said the security guard, “you can go now.”
Billy turned and began to run and then Red ran after him. Red was a better runner than Billy and he passed him and got through the hole in the fence first.
“Anything I can do for you?” the security guard asked the man.
“Yeah. Get the hell out of my sight, Now!”
It was done and the man in the chair leaned back again. You could hear the ocean if you really listened. He really listened. He still held the cane in his right hand. The veins of that hand were not relaxed.
Harry walked into the bar and sat down. “Scotch and water,” he told the bar-keep. Harry had some thoughts on bars. They were infested with the second-lowest breed of humanity. The race-track’s got the first lowest breed of humanity. Having just gotten in from the track he was completing a meaningless day. At least the jukebox wasn’t on and nobody was shooting pool. He remembered the days you used to be able to come into a bar and stare into the mirror until you got drunk. Or you beat the shit out of somebody or got the shit beat out of you. And you used to be able to win at the racetrack and occasionally meet a woman of high quality. But why cry? Everyone lived in the same world as you did. Or so they said. He got the first drink down and ordered another.
When he looked up there was a lady in her mid-40s, large purple blouse, sagging breasts, overtight skirt showing pot belly, two heart-shaped blue earrings on long silver chains, and in the center of her face—a blaze of orange lipstick, glistening wet. The earrings fascinated Harry. The lady managed to move her head just enough to keep the earrings bouncing inanely—the blue hearts leaped and jumped and whirled on either side of her head. “Hi! I’m Janice!”
“Harry.”
“You new in town?”
“In the world.”
“
Ta
! Ain’t that somethin’? Can I ask you somethin’?”
“Shoot.”
“Shoot”?
“Speak.”
“Are you a slave or a master?”
“I remain humble among the multitudes: I’m a slave.”
“What’s a slave?”
“A man who can’t reach his own asshole with his dick.”
“You’re bitter.”
“No, I just can’t reach.”
“Do you believe in love?”
“Yes, but only for other people.”
Janice got up and brought her drink down, blue heart earrings jumping like jazz discovering Bach. She had on false eyelashes two and one-half inches long. “I wanna buy you a drink.”
“O.K.”
“You like money?”
“Better than youth, fame or virgins.”
Janice ordered the drinks and said, “You come home with me and you’ve made yourself 50 bucks.”
“Fine. I’ll do anything but drink buttermilk.”
“Oh, good, then we’ll make it 75 bucks.”
They drank up and he followed her out. It was a pink Mercedes. She angled off from the curbing, breaking traffic in half, horns going, the blue hearts jumped . . . She swirled up a half-moon driveway and pulled in front of a large three-story house. The garage door opened like a large, terrifying and mindless mouth but she jumped out of the car, opened Harry’s door and pulled him out.
“Come, my darling, I just can’t wait!”
“I wonder,” he said, “what the third-lowest breed of humanity does?”
He followed her up the stairway and into the house.
Nice, he thought, a guy like Sugar Ray Robinson could use something like this.
He found himself in a large leather chair overhung with a lamp on one side and a parrot on the other. Janice ran into the other room. Then the parrot looked at him and said, “Now eat your
spinach
, darling.”
“Oh,” said Harry to the parrot, “why don’t you go flog yourself off?”
“After you eat your
spinach
, darling!”
“What?”
“Now eat your
spinach
, darling . . . ”
Janice came in with two large drinks, gave him one, then sat on the couch across from him. Harry drained half his drink; his temples damn near gagged and a photograph of
Man of War
coerced before his eyes, then vanished. He drained the other half.
“Keep them coming,” he said.
Janice walked into the other room. Harry stared at the parrot. The parrot stared back. Then the parrot looked away, bored.
She handed him the drink. “What I want you to do, you may not like.”
“For $75 I believe that any man could stand a minor diminishment.”
“Maybe. Drink your second drink first.”
Harry did that. Janice got up and walked out. He waited. Janice walked back in.
She threw the material on his lap. “You put that stuff on.”
Harry picked it up and looked at it. “Great Grandmother of Christ, don’t you know I’m half-crazy already? This could carry me into the shit-stained land of absentia.”
“Seventy-five bucks. Put it on.”
“Yes.”
“The bedroom,” she said, “is one sharp corner to the left.”
Harry carried the stuff into the bedroom: a little boy’s short pants—black—and a blouse, ruffled, silky and white; underwear with designs of rockinghorses, moons and candy canes upon it; two ankle-length stockings, white.
He worked his way into the stuff and walked out. Janice put another drink into his hand as he sat down. He drank it halfway down—no vision of
Man of War
this time.
No vision at all.
“You’re a nice boy,” she said.
“Now,” said the parrot, “eat your
spinach
, darling!”
“What have I got myself into?” asked Harry.
“Seventy-five bucks.”
“Did Job have to suffer like this to stay on the payroll?”
“You keep saying clever things! You
are my bright
little boy!”
“Look, why don’t we just fuck and get it over with?”
“If you keep saying things like that, Harold, I’m going to have to wash your mouth out with
soap
!”
Janice got up and walked to the telephone, dialed, waited.
“Harriet? Harriet, my boy is back home! Won’t you come over and see my boy? You
will
? I’m so happy! We’ll be waiting!”
Janice hung up.
“Another drink,” said Harry. Janice went to the kitchen and stoked up another, brought it out, handed it to him. “Now Harold, I got a note from your teacher today and she said that you had been
bad
in school, that you had pulled a little girl’s pigtail and stuck it in the inkwell! Why did you
do
that, Harold, bad boy!”
“Because she’d been finger-fucking her sister while the other girls were playing volleyball!”
“Harold! I
told
you about dirty words! One more time and you get the soap!”
“Now,” said the parrot, “eat your
spinach
, darling!”

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