Charles Bukowski - Short Stories Collection Part 14

"All right."

He leaps up, runs out and gets his wine bottle which he has hidden under the cus.h.i.+on on the porch chair. He comes back, takes off the lid, takes a suck.

"I was down at Venice with this chick and one hundred rainbows. I thought I spotted the heat and I ran up to Borst's place with this chick and the hundred rainbows. I knocked on the door and told him, "Quick, let me in! I've got one hundred rainbows and the heat is right behind me!" Borst closed the door, I kicked it in and ran in with the chick. Borst was on the floor, jacking off some guy. I ran into the bathroom with the chick and locked the door. Borst knocked. I said, "Don't you dare come in here!" I stayed in there with the chick for about an hour. We knocked off two pieces of a.s.s to amuse ourselves. Then we came out."

"Did you dump the rainbows?"

"h.e.l.l no, it was a false alarm. But Borst was very angry."

"s.h.i.+t," I say, "Borst hasn't written a decent poem since 1955.

His mother supports him. Pardon me. But I mean, all he does is look at TV, eat these delicate little celeries and greens and jog along the beach in his dirty underwear. He used to be a fine poet when he was living with those young boys in Arabia. But I can't sympathize. A winner goes wire to wire. It's like Huxley said, Aldous, that is, *Any man can be a-'"

"How you doing?" Jack asks.

"Nothing but rejects," I say.

The one guy begins playing the flute. The leech just sits there Jack lifts his wine bottle. It is a beautiful night in Hollywood, California. Then the guy who lives in the court behind me falls out of bed, drunk. It makes quite a sound. I'm used to it. I'm used to the whole court. All of them sit in their places, shades drawn. They get up at noon. Their cars sit out front dust-covered, tires going down, batteries weakening. They mix drink with dope and have no visible means of support. I like them. They don't bother me.

The guy gets into bed again, falls out.

"You silly d.a.m.n fool," you hear him say, "get back into that bed."

"What's all that noise?" Jack asks.

"Guy behind me. He's very lonely. Drinks a beer now and then. His mother died last year and left him twenty grand. He sits around and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es and looks at baseball games and cowboy shootums on TV. Used to be a gas station attendant.

"We've got to split." says Jack, "want to come with us?"

"No," I say.

They explain that it is something to do with the House of Seven Gables. They are going to see somebody who had something to do with the House of Seven Gables. It isn't the writer, the produca"

er, the actors, it is somebody else.

"Well, no," I say, and they all run out. It is a beautiful sight.

Then I sit down to the monkeys again. Maybe I can juggle those monkeys up. If I can get all twelve of them f.u.c.king at once!

That's it! But how? And why? Check the Royal Ballet of London.

But why? I'm going crazy. Okay, the Royal Ballet of London has this idea. Twelve monkeys flying while they ballet. Only before the performance somebody gives them all the Spanish Fly. Not the ballet. The monkeys. But the Spanish Fly is a myth, isn't it? Okay, enter another mad scientist with a real Spanish Fly! No, no, oh my G.o.d, I just can't get it right!

The phone rings. I pick it up. It's Borst: "h.e.l.lo, Hank?"

"Yeah?"

"I have to keep it short. I'm broke."

"Yes, Jerry."

"Well, I lost my two sponsors. The stock market and the tight dollar."

"Uh huh."

"Well, I always knew it was going to happen. So I'm getting out of Venice. I can't make it here. I'm going to New York City."

"What?"

"I thought that's what you said."

"Well, I'm broke you see, and I think I can really make it there."

"Sure, Jerry."

"Losing my sponsors is the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Really?"

"Now I feel like fighting again. You've heard about people rotting along the beach. Well, that's what I've been doing down here: rotting. I've got to get out of here. And I'm not worried. Except for the trunks."

"I can't seem to get them packed. So my mother's coming back here."

"All right, Jerry."

"But before I go to New York I'm going to stop off at Switzera"

land and perhaps Greece. Then I'm coming back to New York."

"All right, Jerry, keep in touch. Always good to hear."

Then I am back to the monkeys again. Twelve monkeys who can fly, f.u.c.king. How can it be done? Twelve bottles of beer are gone. I find my reserve halfpint of scotch in the refrigerator. I mix one-third gla.s.s scotch with two-thirds water. I should have stayed in the G.o.dd.a.m.ned post office. But even here, like this, you have a minor chance. Just get those twelve monkey's f.u.c.king. If you'd been born a camel boy in Arabia you wouldn't even have this chance. So get your back up and get those monkeys at it. You've been blessed with a minor talent and you're not in India where probably two dozen boys could write you under if they knew how to write. Well, maybe not two dozen, maybe just a round dozen.

I finish the halfpint, drink half bottle of wine, go to bed, forget it.

The next morning at nine a.m. the doorbell rings. There is a young black girl standing there with a stupid-looking white guy in rimless gla.s.ses. They tell me that I have made a promise to go boata"

ing with them at a party three nights ago. I get dressed, get into the car with them. They drive to an apartment and a black-haired kid met him at a party. He pa.s.ses out little orange life-belts. Next I know we're down at the pier. I can't tell the pier from the water.

They help me down a swinging wooden contraption that leads to a floating dock. The bottom of the contraption and the dock are about three feet apart. They help me down.

"What the f.u.c.k is this?" I ask. "Does anybody have a drink?"

I am with the wrong people. n.o.body has a drink. Then I am in a small rowboat, rented, and somebody has attached a half-horsea"

power motor. The bottom of the boat is filled with water and two dead fish. I don't know who the people are. They know me. Fine, fine. We head out to sea. I vomit. We pa.s.s a suckerfish wrapped around a flying monkey. No, that's terrible. I vomit again.

"How's the great writer?" asks the stupid-looking guy in the prow of the boat, the guy with the rimless galsses.

"What a great writer?" asks the stupid-looking guy in the prow of the boat, the guy with the rimless gla.s.ses.

"What great writer?" I ask, thinking he is talking about Rimbaud, although I never thought Rimbaud a great writer.

"You," he says.

"Me?" I say, "Oh, fine. Think I'm going to Greece next year."

"Grease?" he says. "You mean up your a.s.s?"

"No," I answer, "up yours."

We head out to sea where Conrad made it. To h.e.l.l with Conrad. I'll take c.o.ke with bourbon in a dark bedroom in Hollywood in 1970, or whatever year you read this. The year of the monkey-orgy that never happened. The motor flits and gnashes at the sea; we plunge on toward Ireland. No, it's the Pacific. We plunge on toward j.a.pan. To h.e.l.l with it.

10 j.a.c.k.o.f.fs old Sanchez is a genius but I am the only one who knows it and it's always good to go see him. there are very few people I can stay in a room with more than 5 minutes without feeling gutted.

Sanchez pa.s.ses my tests, and I am very test, hehehehe, oh my G.o.d, anyhow, I go to see him now and then in his hand-built two story shack. he installed his own plumbing, has a free-feed line from a high-power voltage line, has connected himself up a telephone which feeds underground from a neighbor's installation, but he explains to me that he cannot call long distance or out of the city without exposing his sycophancy. he even lives with a young woman who says very little, paints, walks about looking s.e.xy and makes love to him and him to her, of course. he bought the ground for very little and although the place is some distance from Los Angeles, you might call this an advantage. he sits among wires, popular mechanics magazines, tape recording sets, shelves and shelves of books on all subjects. he is concise, never rude; he is humorous and magic, he writes very well but is not interested in fame, once in a great while he will come out from his cave and read his poetry at some university, and it is said that the walls and the ivy tremble and shake for weeks afterwards along with the co-eds, he has taped 10,000 tapes of conversation, sounds, music-dull and undull, usual and otherwise.

the walls are covered with photos, advertis.e.m.e.nts, drawings, hunks of rock, snake skins, skulls, dried rubbers, soot, silver and spots of golddust.

"I'm afraid I'm cracking," I tell him, "eleven years on the same job, the hours dragging over me like wet s.h.i.+t, wow, and all the faces melted down to zeros, yapping, laughing at nothing. I'm no sn.o.b, Sanchez, but sometimes it gets to be a real horror show and the only end is death or madness."

"sanity is an imperfection," he says, dropping a couple of pills into his mouth. "jesus, I mean, I'm taught at several universities, some prof is writing a book on me-I've been translated into several languages-"

"we all have. you're getting old, Bukowski, you're weakening.

keep your moxie. Victory or Death."

"Adolph."

"Adolph."

"large gamble, large loss."

"right, or invert it for the common man."

"well, f.u.c.k."

"yeah."

"it gets quiet for a while, then he says, "you can come live with us."

"thanks, sure, man. but I think I'll try a little more moxie first."

"your game."

"Over his head is a black sign upon which he has pasted in white type: "A BOY HAS NEVER WEPT, NOR DASHED A THOUSAND KIM."

-Dutch Schultz, on his deathbed.

WITH ME, GRAND OPERA IS THE BERRIES."

-Al Capone "NE CRAIGNEZ POINT, MONSIEUR, LE TORTURE."

-Leibnetz.

"THERE IS NO MORE."

-Motto of Sitting Bull "THE POLICEMAN'S CLIENT IS THE ELECTRIC CHAIR."

-George Jessel.

"FAST AND LOOSE IN ONE THING, FAST AND LOOSE IN EVERYTHING.

I NEVER KNEW IT FAIR. NO MORE.

WILL YOU, NOR NO ONE.

-Detective Bucket.

"AMEN IS THE INFLUENCE OF NUMBERS."

-Pico Della Mirandola, in his kabbalistic conclusions "SUCCESS AS THE RESULT OF INDUSTRY IS A PEASa"

ANT IDEAL."

-Wallace Stevens "TO ME, MY s.h.i.+T STINKS BETTER EXCEPT THAN A DOG'S."

-Charles Bukowski.

"NOW THE p.o.r.nOGRAPHERS WERE a.s.sEMBLED WITH IN THE CREMATORIUM."

-Anthony Bloomfield.

"ADAGE OF SPONTANEITY - THE BACHELOR GRINDS HIS CHOCOLATE HIMSELF."

-Marcel Duchamp.

"KISS THE HAND YOU CANNOT SEVER."

-Taureg saying.

"WE ALL, IN OUR DAY, WERE SMART FELLOWS."

-Admiral St. Vincent.

"MY DREAM IS TO SAVE THEM FROM NATURE."