Absence of the Hero

by Charles Bukowski

  I flushed again. More of the same—turds, tissue, water, defeat. I took away the floor mat and started wiping up the business. I got most of it. I took newspapers and picked up turd parts and carried them to a paper bag I found on the sink in the kitchen, and I put them into the paper bag. When I came back, I saw that the floor mat had shit stains on it. I turned it over. It looked better. Like an Indian weaving.

  I had Clyde’s phone number. He was home. “Listen, Clyde, I’ve fucked up Holly’s plumbing. I’ve got beer turds floating about like the ultimate defeat of everything. Oh, my God, these brown sycophants.”

  “Doesn’t she have a plunger?”

  “Neither green nor black nor blue nor red.”

  “I’ll send help.”

  Clyde didn’t show. Tommy did. Tommy said that Clyde sent him. He had a red plunger. We sat down and smoked some more of his Colombian.

  “I’m honored, Tommy. This, I think, is the first poetry reading sponsored by the dope dealers of America.”

  “Feels good,” said Tommy.

  I took the plunger and worked the bowl. Then the suction took effect. I flushed the bowl several times, and it worked. We sat and talked for a while, then Tommy drove me back to Clyde’s, where six or seven people were spread out on the floor, smoking, drinking, maybe smacking.

  The first reading wasn’t bad because I wasn’t too drunk, and nobody likes to gyp an audience—entirely. But there was a party afterward at the house of another teacher of retarded children. It was the fat one I had seen at the airport, but she had a very nice sense of gamble about her. Her name was Kali, and she had tremendous thighs. She could take three horses. I wasn’t a horse, but I sure as hell bet on them. What’s a man to do in his spare time, chew on old burned-out light bulbs? So I began kissing her and running my hand up her dress. There were 35 people in that house, but the sign was in: America’s greatest poet wanted to be Kali’s horse fuck. It was accepted, and Holly sat there pissed, looking at me. But I was angry at her for not having any paper on that roll.

  So they left, and it was Kali and me. I climbed into bed and watched her undress.

  “That was a great reading,” she said. “You make poetry sound so simple and real and easy.”

  “Genius,” I said, “could mean the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”

  “Tell me more,” she said.

  “Endurance is more important than truth,” I replied.

  “But tell me what’s really happening.”

  “I’m riding a winning streak all to hell, that’s all. It’s going to vanish, but I’m taking it for whatever ride it can get me. I’ve got some soul, but basically my luck is better than my psyche.”

  Then Kali stood there naked. She had plenty—in places of plenty. She got into bed. I grabbed and grabbed. But it was solid. She was built the way Norwegians like women; the same way Icelanders like them; women, women, women, the kind of women who built the few real men, the kind of flesh, the real mold, the kiln, the vagina to bear the miracle and the big ass and the tight cunt to cause it and accept it.

  Kali kept laughing and saying, “No, no, I can’t do it until I feel the passion, I can’t do it. . . .”

  I tried most of my tricks. She liked the kissing best, which was all right with me. Although I’m not sure whether eating pussy or kissing sets me off most. But the kissing was good, and then suddenly my teeth were clamped around one of her ears, and I held that ear while almost ripping the hair out of her head, and she gave way.

  I mounted her—on top—and there was trouble at first. I slipped over or under, and then she took her hand and guided me in. I was too drunk to be totally hard, but once I got it in I lucked it—the steel came along. It was a good ride, but I fell back once, quit, and then she started playing with me. She had a way of joggling my balls. She slid her tongue up and down the backside of my cock, then she took it all in—suddenly—and I ripped it out of her mouth, mounted her and came within 15 strokes—which wasn’t too kind—but I didn’t care—readings wore me out, and I still loved Holly better.

  Kali didn’t make it to work, and the phone rang about 8:45 A.M. Kali brought it to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This is Zana,” she said.

  Zana was my girlfriend from Texas. She probably cared for me a lot more than any woman cared for me. She was fine, not a bitch (except on certain off days), and she had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in any living skull. She was good but damned, mostly because she knew me. However, she carried it well, and I thought I loved her. But I wasn’t sure.

  “Hey, baby, I’m sick, but it’s sure good to hear from you.”

  “I’m flying out to see you.”

  “Good, good,” I said, “that’s great. And I’ve been a good boy.”

  Zana gave me her arrival time, which was to be in a couple of days—after the second reading. I still had a chance to build up my sperm count. She had gotten the telephone number from Clyde, that ass. She didn’t ask about the woman who had answered the phone. That was style. Zana had style. Also she was capable of killing me. What more could a man ask of life?

  I don’t remember the second reading because I began drinking too early in the day. I did come out of the blackout in the middle of the last poem. I read it on out and told them that was it. They kept hollering, “MORE! MORE! MORE!” so I must have fooled them again. I walked offstage and went out back to Clyde’s place, and there was another party. We smoked Colombian and drank beer.

  People kept walking in, but none of them bothered me. Then a guy walked in, and by the look of him I knew he was a suck. His beard was perfectly trimmed and he wore a beret, an orange beret. His face had an essential and unforgiving emptiness. He gave off not only rays but waves of rays—muddied, stinking rays that made you look away from him.

  He sat at my feet and introduced himself.

  “I’m a poet,” he said. “Just like you.”

  “You may be a poet,” I said, “but you’re not a poet just like me.”

  “Anyhow, I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “All right.”

  “Well, Mr. Chinaski, I’ve read about you. You wrote for a long time without success. What did you do during this period when you weren’t getting published?”

  “I drank and I didn’t bother anybody.”

  “Well, I’m a printer and also an actor. I feel that I’m ready for publication, so I’m going to publish my own book. Then I’m going to go about reading my poems, and I’ll sell my books at the readings. I’m an actor, so I’ll read my poems very well.”

  “O.K.,” I said.

  “The only trouble is that when I give readings nobody shows up,” he said.

  “Excuse me,” I said. I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came out, I sat elsewhere. The party went on and on, and gradually the people gave way and vanished. I found myself sitting with a young girl, Alacia, about 18. She rented a bedroom from Clyde, and she lived there with another guy, although he probably paid the rent; but I didn’t know where the guy was. Anyhow, Alacia and I sat there talking, and I kept rubbing one of my feet along the top of one of hers and said, “Let’s make it.”

  She said, “No.”

  “Shit, let’s do something,” I said.

  Alacia said, “Like what?”

  “Well, give me a hand job.”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  “There’s no way it can hurt you, Alacia.”

  “I don’t know. It just seems kind of dumb.”

  “So does talking about poetry and life.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said.

  I took off my pants and stretched out on the couch. I pulled it out of my shorts. Alacia just sat in her chair, staring at it. She kept looking, and it excited me. It was dumb; the dumbness of it excited me. The thing began to grow and rise. It reflected in her eyes.

  “Is this all it comes to?” she asked.

  “What comes to?”

  “Your n
ovels, your stories, your poems, is this all it comes to?”

  “Yes, a hard cock. Touch it, baby, rub it, kiss it. I’m going crazy! Watch it grow and spurt under your eyes! Forget about writing and art. Almost all male writers have cocks, remember that. Whack me off, you blue-eyed witch!”

  Alacia reached over and grabbed it.

  “Oooh,” she said.

  “Spit on your palm. Rub me.”

  She put her hand up to her mouth.

  “Spit on it good,” I said. My cock was throbbing like a cello in an earthquake, a major earthquake that would rattle the strings and kill 800 people. Her hand came down and closed around my cock. I had drunk a great deal of beer, but I had the faith. For a 55-year-old guy, I was as horny as a Catholic altar boy.

  “Oooh,” she said.

  “It’s getting bigger,” I said. “Look.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s purple. See all those veins? That’s from strain and trying to stick my dick in my ass. I’ve got hemorrhoids. And rub harder. Get it up near the head, mostly, and now and then give it a long, hard stroke. See how it’s bending back? Shit, that son of a bitch is ugly!

  Alacia stopped talking. She just looked and rubbed. Her eyes were transfixed like a creature looking at a rattlesnake. Her lips began to open, and I could see her teeth. I could see Alacia’s white, even teeth as her lips pulled back. I watched her lips and her eyes, and I began to get very excited. She beat harder and bent closer. I could feel the climax rushing up. I took both of my hands and reached up and got her behind the neck and pulled her head down over the head of my cock. She fought, pulled away. It angered me, so I pulled her back with one hand and opened her mouth with the other as I jammed my cock toward her mouth. I missed and came all over her cheeks.

  Alacia jumped up. I could see the sperm rolling down the left side of her face. Not much of it, but I could see it. She felt it, and with the back of one of her wrists she brushed it away. Then she ran into the bathroom. I found my pants, pulled them back on, waited, then got up and went to the refrigerator and unscrewed another beer.

  It was some time before she came out, so I stretched out and thought, conquest, conquest, conquest.

  Alacia came out of the bathroom looking younger and more beautiful than ever. She looked untouched, strangely untouched, virginal, and yet it was just as it should be because I had hardly penetrated her except in the worst way—spiritually. It’s always better for a woman to get simply fucked than played with.

  Looking at her, it almost made me hot again, yet I knew I had lucked it as far as my luck would go.

  She stood over me and said, “America’s greatest poet. You want to know what you are? You want to know what you really are?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a shithead, you’re a shithead, a SHITHEAD!”

  “Now wait a minute, baby. The food goes in the mouth and comes out the ass.”

  “Shithead, I gotta tell you something. I’m going to tell Marty what you did to me! Shithead, shithead, shithead!”

  “Who’s Marty?”

  “The man who loves me.”

  “Really?”

  “He’ll kill you!”

  “O.K.”

  “You’re a smart fuck, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Alacia abruptly walked out of the room. I rolled from my side to my back, thinking, ah, boy, you see, you’ve gotten most of it back. You’ve fucked and sucked and reamed and rammed. You’ve got to be king.

  Alacia came in; I could hear her walking slowly. “Here’s a memory from me to you.”

  “Thanks, baby.”

  It fell all over me. A dishpan of cold water. It was a large dishpan. It was cold, and there was plenty of it.

  Alacia laughed wildly, and I stretched out there, soaked.

  “Bitch,” I told her, “if I had any sperm, I’d rape you for that!”

  She kept laughing as she walked into her bedroom. She closed the door, still laughing. Now and then she would stop, then begin again. I took off my wet clothes, turned the couch pillows over and was soon asleep.

  I met Zana at the airport the next day. She looked good and healthy, the way Texas women looked. Tommy had the car, so he drove us to Holly’s place. Holly had agreed to let Zana and me have her place for the weekend. She was going off somewhere. We stopped for beer and smokes. Tommy gave us a bit of Colombian, and we also bought some toilet paper. Tommy had a smoke with us, and then he left. I saw one of Holly’s shoes that I had tried to fuck, and I thought, Jesus, how am I going to fuck Zana? I think I’m out of sperm, and I love her more than any of them. She’s got soul and class, and she cares for me—maybe even loves me. Goddamn, why couldn’t I have waited? Well, there was one thing left, and something I hardly minded doing. We sat around drinking and talking.

  “I’ve been a good boy,” I told her.

  “I’m sure as shit glad to hear about that. There are a lot of star fuckers in this world. Just think how much Elvis must get? He must get so much that he’s lucky to get it up anymore,” she said.

  “Is that all it comes to?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “My novels, my stories, my poems—is that all they come to: a hard cock?”

  “Baby,” she said, “I don’t know which I like better, your writing or your cock. And when either of them stops working, I’ll be the first to let you know.”

  We went to bed three or four hours later. She had flown thousands of miles to see me. That was flattering, and frightening. I held her close and began playing with her hair. Strangely, my cock hardened, but I still felt spermless. I gave her my one-tenth kisses, just brushing or leaping at the mouth quickly, then pulling away. I yanked at her hair, sucked her ears, bit her on the neck.

  Then I moved to her breasts, then her bellybutton, then I was down there where the hairs started over the cunt. I pulled at a few strands of them with my teeth. Then suddenly I gave it the nose run, starting down at the ass and running it up and through. She groaned, and I gave her yet another nose run. Then I let loose the tongue, but quite subtly. I began far away, circling the whole area and approaching closer and closer. Then I ran it up and down, ever so lightly, and I could feel the tip of my tongue brush her clit. I shoved my tongue, once, into the cunt proper, then I worked it on the clit, lightly and continuously. I imagined her to be a strange woman in the back seat of my car who was powerless to resist me; she wanted to but didn’t know how. I increased the pressure and began rhythms against the clit with my tongue—one, two, three, quick, then stop, then one, two, three, quick, then stop. “YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!” she said. Then she farted. “I’m sorry,” she said. I hit it again. She farted again. Then I sucked the clit into my mouth, and she really began to roll and react. I worked it up and down, now and then getting the flick of the tongue behind it, and I almost let it go out of my mouth several times, then sucked it back in. Her legs closed about my head, and we bounced about. I still tried to work the magic, but it was more difficult. She unwrapped me, and I fell back.

  “Listen, baby,” I said, “I don’t think I can fuck tonight. The readings, all that drinking. I’m burned out.”

  “Hey, daddy,” said Zana, “it’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

  We fell asleep after that, and when we awakened we decided to leave that day, Saturday, instead of Sunday. We lucked it with the airport reservations, and we left a note for Holly: “Thanks for letting us use your tub, basin, springs, garbage disposal, and potty. We leave you a touch of Colombian, one mescaline capsule, and our love. Zana and Chinaski.” We also left behind a couple of steaks and four rolls of toilet paper.

  Clyde drove us to the airport, gave me the $500 in cash, mostly 20s and 50s, and I knew what Whitman meant when he said, “To have great poets we must have great audiences.” Although I think it worked better the other way around. I bought a couple of rounds at the airport bar, and then we got on the jet. It stopped off at Houston, and they discovered motor trouble. All the passenge
rs waggled around the counter clerk as if he were some inside God of information. It was flight number 72.

  Zana and I walked down to the bar, which was eons away. We sat at a corner table, alone, and started on the vodka: vodka and 7-Up for me, vodka tonic for her. I remembered being locked in at O’Hare during a tornado warning. All of us were in the airport six and one-half hours. You’ve never seen so many drunks, except on a New Year’s Eve night. One poor fellow stepped out of the bar and started rocking back and forth, teetering. All eyes were watching him. When he fell, he hit in the worst way possible—backward, his head hitting the cement, bobbing up and down a few times, then settling. I was one of the first to run toward him, but others were swifter. The first to get to him was a kindly old man with a long white beard, which was stained with some yellow substance, and he wore a Chicago White Sox baseball cap. He said, “Hey, buddy, you all right? I’m gonna get you some help!” He found the guy’s wallet in his jacket pocket, slipped it down the front of his own shirt and ran off hollering, “Help, help, there’s a man hurt back there!” Then he was around a corner and gone.

  Zana and I sat there drinking and waiting for them to fix the engine. We got into some kind of argument, although what it was about I wasn’t sure. Zana was more sure of what it was about, and finally I just got quiet. She kept talking and we both kept drinking. I’m not sure just how much time went by, but these two people, a man and a woman, came into the bar and walked right up to our table and said, “Are you the two people missing from flight 72?”