“oh no, that’s all right.” he went into his pocket and came up with one of his dirty tens.
“o.k. when this place closes you come with me.”
“sure, sure.”
“now she’s got these silver spurs with indented rubies, she can put them on and spur your thighs just as you’re cracking your nuts. how’d you like that? but that’s five dollars extra.”
“no, I’d rather not have the spurs,” he said.
2 a.m. finally made it around and I walked him out there, down toward the alley. maybe Lou wouldn’t even be there. maybe the wine would get him or he’d just back out. a blow like that could kill a man, or make him addled for the rest of his life. we staggered along in the moonlight, there was nobody around, nobody on the streets.
it was going to be easy.
we crossed into the alley. Lou was there.
but fatso saw him. he threw up an arm and ducked as Lou swung the bat got me right behind the ear.
I fell on down in that rat filled alley (thinking for just a flash: I’ve got the ten, I’ve got the ten.), I fell down in that alley full of used rubbers, shreds of old newspapers, lost washers, nails, match-sticks, matchbooks, dried worms, I fell down in that alley of clammy blow jobs and sadistic wet shadows, of starving cats, prowlers, fags — it came to me then — the luck and the way was mine:
the meek shall inherit the earth.
I could barely hear fatso running off, felt Lou reaching for my wallet. then I was out of it.
________
he was a rich bastard in the steam bath, crying. he had all the recordings of J.S. Bach and it still wasn’t doing him any good. he had stained glass windows in his place plus a photo of a nun pissing. still: no good. he once had a taxi driver murdered at full moon in the Nevada Desert while he watched. that — wore off in 30 minutes. he tied dogs to crosses and burned out their eyes with his dollar cigars. old stuff. he had screwed so many fine young golden-legged girls that it — wasn’t any good anymore.
nothing.
he had exotic ferns burning while he bathed, he threw drinks in the face of his butler.
a rich bastard, insidious paste he was. a real old creep. a spitter into the guts of roses.
he kept crying there on the table as I smoked one of his dollar cigars.
“help me, oh JESUS help me!” he screamed.
it was about time. “wait a minute,” I told him.
I went to the locker and got the belt and then he bent over on the table, and all that white mushmeat, that hairy sickening ass, and I swung and laid the belt buckle across hard again and again:
ZAP! ZAP!
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
he fell off the table like a crab looking for sea. he crawled on the floor and I followed him with the buckle.
ZAP!
ZAP!
ZAP!
while he screamed again two or three times I leaned down and burned him with the cigar.
then he laid flat, smiling.
I walked into the kitchen where his lawyer sat drinking coffee.
“finished?”
“yeah.”
he peeled off five tens, threw them across the table. I poured a coffee and sat down. the cigar was still in my hand. I threw it into the sink.
“jesus,” I said, “Jesus Christ.”
“yeah,” said the lawyer, “the last guy only lasted a month.”
we sat there sipping the coffee. it was a nice kitchen.
“come back next Wednesday,” he said.
“why don’t you do it for me?” I asked.
“ME? I’m too sensitive!”
we both laughed and I dropped 2 cubes of sugar.
________
he came down through the laundry shoot and as he slid out, Maxfield hit him with an ax handle, breaking his neck. we went through his pockets. we had the wrong man. “ah, shit,” Maxfield said. “ah, shit,” I said.
I went upstairs and phoned.
“rabbit ram kay remus. hard,” I said.
“shoot bugger damn lame,” Steinfelt said.
“spooks,” I said, “spooks down tender.”
“fuck you,” said Steinfelt. he hung up.
as I walked in down there, Maxfield was going down on the dead corpse.
“I always suspected you,” I told him.
“bugger bugger reeme,” he lifted his mouth to speak.
“what’s THAT got to do with it?” I asked.
“gluub,” he said.
I sat down on top of a deactivated washing machine. “listen, if we are going to have a better world,” I told him, “we are not only going to have to fight in the streets we are going to have to fight in and with our minds. also, if our women can’t keen their toenails clean it’s a cinch they can’t keep their pussies clean. before you pinch a woman’s ass, ask her to remove her boots.”
“gluub,” he said. he got up, satisfied, and removed the corpse’s eyeballs. with his jackknife. swastika handle. he looked like Celine at his best. he swallowed the eyeballs.
we both sat and waited.
“have you read Resistance, Rebellion and Death?”
“I’m afraid that I have.”
“the maximum danger implies the maximum hope.”
“you got a smoke?” I asked.
“sure,” he said.
as soon as I got the thing good and lit I reached over and pressed the red ash end against his hairy wrist.
“oh, shit,” he said. “oh, DO stop that!”
“you’re lucky I didn’t press the thing into your hairy ass.”
“I should be so lucky.”
“strip.”
he heard me.
“spread your cheeks.”
“I pledge allegiance,” he said, “to the …”
Rimsky Korsakov’s cherrazad came on over the overhead wiring, I jammed, no, I jammed the red tip in.
“jesus,” he said.
I kept it in there. “why did they raid the Hullabaloo?”
“jesus,” he said.
“I asked you a question! why did they?”
“they did,” he said. “they did because they did. I am child to my ignorance!”
“let’s get to the bottom of this thing,” I suggested, placing the burning tip all the way in.
COCKTAILS
“jesus,” he said, “oh, sweet jesus!”
“almost every man knows the exactness of his imbecility but who can live the short sweet sheen of his swooning jewning genius?”
“only YOU, Charles Bukowski!”
“you are a brilliant man, Maxfield.” I removed the cigarette, sniffed it, no sniffed it and threw it away.
“for cat’s asses you take the cake, baby,” I told him, “sit down.”
“really,” he said.
I sat down.
“now, actually,” I told him, “it is easy to understand Camus if you follow me. a brukk, a banko, a sestina-vik, like that, a brilliant writer yes, but he sucked in.”
“what thevik — fuck are you talking about?” he asked.
“I mean letters to COMBAT. I mean speeches given for L’Amitie Francaise. I mean statements made at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg in 1948. I mean the reply to Gabriel Marcel. I mean the speech he gave at the Labor Exchange of Saint-Etienne on 10 May 1958. I mean the speech delivered 7 December 1955 at a banquet in honor of President Eduardo Santos, editor of II Tiempo, driven out of Colombia by the dictatorship. I mean the letter to M. Aziz Kessous. I mean the interview in Demain, issue of 24-30 October 1957.”
“I mean, sucked-in, sucked out of position; I mean jacked-off, taken. he died in a car he was no longer driving. it is very fine to be a good guy and enter the field of human affairs; it is something else to see a little shit like you knocking great dead men of human affairs. the large become large targets for small men — small men with rifles, typewriters, unsigned notes under the door, badges, clubs, dogs, these things of small men work too.”
“why don’t you go fuck
yourself?” I asked him.
“trivial angers like trivial pussies will disappear into October’s sunlight,” he told me.
“sounds good. how about the OTHER kinds?”
“same thing.”
“jesus,” I said. “jesus,” I said.
“sincerely,” he said, putting his head, no his hand, on my knee. “I really can’t tell you why they raided the hullabaloo.”
“could Camus have?” I asked.
“what?”
“raided the Hullabaloo.”
“hell no!”
“would he have had an opinion on it?” I asked.
“hell, yes!”
we both stayed in silence a long time.
“whatta we gonna do with this dead body?” I asked.
“I already done it.” said Maxwell.
“I mean, NOW.”
“your turn now.”
“forget it.”
we both stayed in silence and looked at the dead body.
“whyant you phone Steinfelt?” asked Maxwell.
“ ‘whyant’?”
“yeah. ‘whyant’?”
“you sure get on my nerves.”
I went upstairs and took the phone off the hook. every other phone in America resting in the cradle, all replaced, no more hooks — here was a fucking thing hanging on a hook like a huge resting Negro dong. I picked it up, took it in my hand. It was sweating, of course. and smeared with dry sphagetti, or however you spell it — dried worms who had lost the last race.
“Steinfelt,” I spoke.
“who won the 9th?” he asked.
“harness or Del Mar?”
“harness.”
“Jonboy Star, entered in 5 grand claimer. ran for 6 at Spokane with Asaphr up, post 8, 6 by 2 and one half. got post 2, switched to Jack Williams. morning line 4. opened 7 to 2. last minute action brought it down to 2 to one. won easy.”
“who’d you have?”
“Smoke Concert.”
“so what the hell is it?” he asked.
“rabbit ram kay remus. hard.”
“shoot bugger damn lame,” Steinfelt said.
“spooks,” I said. “spooks down tender. most tender.”
“fuck you twice,” said Steinfelt.
he hung up.
and I, I walked back in there, I, I, I did. if did, banko bunko sestina-vink vik. Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man was on the overhead wire. Maxfield was back on down on the buggy dead corpse.
I watched him. I watched him for a while.
“my friend,” I told him, “our job is not easy and our destinies are incomplete. think of Africa, think of Vietnam, think of Watts, Detroit; think of the Boston Red Sox and the L.A. Country museum, county, I mean. think of anything. think of how bad you look in the mirror of life.”
“blubb,” said Maxfield.
the Decline and Fall of the West was before me. just give me ten years more, ten more years. dear Spengler. Oswald? OSWALD???? Oswald Spengler.
I walked over, sat on the washing machine and waited.
________
sit down, Stirkoff.
thank you, sir.
stretch your legs.
most gracious of you, sir.
Stirkoff, I understand you’ve been writing articles on justice, equality; also the right to joy and survival. Stirkoff?
yes, sir?
do you think that there will ever be an overwhelming and sensible justice in the world?
not really, sir.
then why do you write that shit? aren’t you feeling well?
I’ve been feeling strange lately, sir, almost as if I were going mad.
are you drinking a great deal, Stirkoff?
of course, sir.
and do you play with yourself?
constantly, sir.
how?
I don’t understand, sir.
I mean, how do you go about it?
four or five raw eggs and a pound of hamburger in a thinnecked flower bowl while listening to Vaughn Williams or Darius Milhaud.
glass?
no, ass, sir.
I mean, the vase, it is glass?
of course not, sir.
have you ever been married?
many times, sir.
what went wrong?
everything, sir.
what was the best piece of ass you ever had?
four or five raw eggs and a pound of hamburger in a …
all right, all right!
yes, it is.
do you realize that your yearning for justice and a better world is only a front to hide the decay and shame and failure that reside within you?
yep.
did you have a vicious father?
I don’t know sir.
what do you mean, you don’t know?
I mean, it’s hard to compare. you see, I only had one.
are you getting smart with me, Stirkoff?
oh no, sir; like you say, justice is impossible.
did your father beat you?
they took turns.
I thought you only had one father.
every man has. I mean, my mother got in hers.
did she love you?
only as an extension of herself.
what else can love be?
the common sense to care very much for something very good. it needn’t be related by bloodline. it can be a red beachball or a piece of buttered toast.
you mean to say that you can LOVE a piece of buttered toast?
only some, sir. on certain mornings. in certain rays of sunlight. love arrives and departs without notice.
is it possible to love a human being?
of course, especially if you don’t know them too well. I like to watch them through my window, walking down the street.
Stirkoff, you’re a coward.
of course, sir.
what is your definition of a coward?
a man who would think twice before fighting a lion with his bare hands.
and what is your definition of a brave man?
a man who doesn’t know what a lion is.
every man knows what a lion is.
every man assumes that he does.
and what is your definition of a fool?
a man who doesn’t realize that Time, Structure and Flesh are being mostly wasted.
who then is a wise man?
there aren’t any wise men, sir.
then there can’t be any fools. if there isn’t any night there can’t be any day; if there isn’t any white there can’t be any black.
I’m sorry, sir. I thought that everything was what it was, not depending on something else.
you’ve had your cock in too many flower bowls. don’t you understand that EVERYTHING is correct, that nothing can go wrong?
I understand, sir, that what happens, happens.
what would you say if I were to have you beheaded?
I wouldn’t be able to say anything, sir.
I mean that if I were to have you beheaded I would remain the Will and you would become Nothing.
I would become something else.
at my CHOICE.
at both our choices, sir.
relax! relax! stretch your legs!
most gracious of you, sir.
no, most gracious of both of us.
of course. sir.
you say you often feel this madness. what do you do when it comes upon you?
I write poetry.
is poetry madness?
non-poetry is madness.
what is madness?
madness is ugliness.
what is ugly?
to each man, something different.
does ugliness belong?
it’s there.
does it belong?
I don’t know, sir.
you pretend knowledge. what is knowledge?
knowing as little as possible.
how can that be?
I don’t know, sir.
can you build a bridge?
no, sir.
can you make a gun?
no, sir.
these things are the products of knowledge.
these things are bridges and guns.
I am going to have you beheaded.
thank you, sir.
why?
you are my motivation when I have very little.
I am Justice.
perhaps.
I am the Winner. I will have you tortured, I will make you scream. I will make you wish for Death.
of course, sir.
don’t you realize that I am your master?
you are my manipulator; but there is nothing you can do to me that cannot be done.
you think that you speak cleverly but through your screams you will say nothing clever.
I doubt it, sir.
by the way, how can you listen to Vaughn Williams and Darius Mihaud? haven’t you heard of the Beatles?
oh, sir, everybody has heard of the Beatles.
don’t you like them?
I don’t dislike them.
do you dislike any singer?
singers can’t be disliked.
then, any person who attempts to sing?
Frank Sinatra.
why?
he evokes a sick society upon a sick society.
do you read any newspapers?
only one.
which is?
OPEN CITY.
GUARD! TAKE THIS MAN TO THE TORTURE CHAMBERS IMMEDIATELY AND BEGIN PROCEEDINGS!
sir, a last request?
yes.
may I take my flower bowl with me?
no, I’m going to use it!
sir?
I mean, I am going to confiscate it. now, guard, take this idiot away! and guard come back with, come back with …
yes, sir?
a half dozen raw eggs and a couple of pounds of ground sirloin …
exit guard and prisoner. king leans forward, grins evilly as Vaughn Williams comes on over intercom. outside, the world moves forward as a lice-smitten dog pisses against a beautiful lemon tree vibrating in the sun.
________
Miriam and I had the little shack in the center, not bad, I had grown a run of sweetpeas out front, plus tulips all around. the rent was almost nothing and nobody bothered you on the drunks. you had to find the landlord to pay the rent and if you were a week or two late he’d say, “that’s all right,” he owned some automobile sales and repair outfit and had all the money he needed. “just don’t give the money to my wife, she’s a lush and I’m trying to slow her down.” it seemed an easy time. Miriam was working. she typed for some big furniture company. I was unable to put her on the bus in the morning because I’d have a hangover, but me and the dog would always be waiting for her at the bus stop when she came on in. we had a car but she couldn’t start the thing, and that made it nice for me. I’d wake up around 10:30, put myself together in a very leisurely way, check out the flowers, have a coffee, then a beer, then go out and stand in the sun and rub my belly, then I’d play with the dog, a big monster, bigger than me, and getting tired of that we’d go inside and I’d slowly straighten the place up a bit, make the bed, pick up the bottles, wash the dishes; another beer, check the refrigerator to make sure there was something for her dinner. by then it was time to start the car and make the race track. I could get back just in time to greet her at the bus stop. yes, it was getting good, and never having been much of a lady’s man it felt good to be kept, even granted that it wasn’t exactly Monte Carlo, and besides being the lover I had to do the dishes and other degrading tasks.
Notes of a Dirty Old Man Page 18
