Ham on Rye: A Novel

by Charles Bukowski

  “If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!”

  “Yeah? What would you have done?”

  “First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy, then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me a blow job.”

  “No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?”

  “Fuck yes, I’ve been laid. Several times.”

  “How was it?”

  “Lousy.”

  “Couldn’t come, huh?”

  “I came all over the place, I thought I’d never stop.”

  “Came all over the palm of your hand, huh?”

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  “Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  “Ha, ha!”

  “All over your hand, huh?”

  “Fuck you guys!”

  “I don’t think any of us has been laid,” said one of the guys.

  There was silence.

  “That’s shit. I was laid when I was seven years old.”

  “That’s nothing. I was laid when I was four.”

  “Sure, Red. Lay it on good!”

  “I got this little girl under the house.”

  “You got a hard?”

  “Sure.”

  “You came?”

  “I think so. Something squirted out.”

  “Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red.”

  “Balls!”

  “What was her name?”

  “Betty Ann.”

  “Fuck,” said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven. “Mine was named Betty Ann too.”

  “That whore,” said Red.

  One fine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis was sitting on the front desk facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in the seat across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on the leg with his finger:

  “She’s breaking all the records!” he whispered. “Look! Look!”

  “My God,” I said, “shut up or she’ll pull her skirt down!”

  Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited. We hadn’t spooked Miss Gredis. Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember. There wasn’t a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I’m sure that none of the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though, turned and glanced at each other as if to say, this bitch is going too far. Miss Gredis couldn’t go too far. It was almost as if there weren’t even a cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through the window and poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was so high, pulled back, we all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something, Jesus Christ, it was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was everything real and unreal, the sun, the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred and returned and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she kept talking as if everything was normal. That’s what made it so good and so terrible: the fact that she pretended that it wasn’t happening. I looked down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood heightened as if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at the legs and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a moment, and perhaps missed something.

  Then the sound began: “Thump, thump, thump, thump…”

  Richard Waite. He sat in a seat in the back. He had huge ears and thick lips, the lips were swollen and monstrous and he had a very large head. His eyes were almost without color, they didn’t reflect interest or intelligence. He had large feet and his mouth always hung open. When he spoke the words came out one by one, halting, with long pauses in between. He wasn’t even a sissy. Nobody ever spoke to him. Nobody knew what he was doing there in our school. He gave the impression that something important was missing from his makeup. He wore clean clothing, but his shirt was always out in the back, one or two buttons were gone on his shirt or on his pants. Richard Waite. He lived somewhere and he came to school every day.

  “Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…”

  Richard Waite was jerking-off, a salute to Miss Gredis’ thighs and legs. He had finally weakened. Perhaps he didn’t understand society’s ways. Now we all heard him. Miss Gredis heard him. The girls heard him. We all knew what he was doing. He was so fucking dumb he didn’t even have sense enough to keep it quiet. And he was becoming more and more excited. The thumps grew louder. His closed fist was hitting the underside of his desk top.

  “THUMP, THUMP THUMP…”

  We looked at Miss Gredis. What would she do? She hesitated. She glanced about the class. She smiled, as composed as ever, and then she continued speaking:

  “I believe that the English language is the most expressive and contagious form of communication. To begin with, we should be thankful that we have this unique gift of a great language. And if we abuse it we are only abusing ourselves. So let us listen, heed, acknowledge our heritage, and yet explore and take risks with language…”

  “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…”

  “We must forget England and their use of our common tongue. Even though English usage is fine, our own American language contains many deep wells of unexplored resources. These resources, as yet, remain untapped. Given the proper moment and the proper writers, there will one day be a literary explosion…”

  “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…”

  Yes, Richard Waite was one of the few we never talked to. Actually, we were afraid of him. He wasn’t somebody you could beat the shit out of, that would never make anybody feel better. You just wanted to get as far away from him as possible, you didn’t want to look at him, you didn’t want to look at those big lips, that big unfolding mouth like the mouth of a bruised frog. You shunned him because you couldn’t defeat Richard Waite.

  We waited and waited while Miss Gredis talked on about English versus American culture. We waited, while Richard Waite went on and on. Richard’s fist banged against the underside of his desk top and the little girls glanced at each other and the guys were thinking, why is this asshole in this class with us? He’s going to spoil everything. One asshole and Miss Gredis will pull her skirt down forever.

  “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…”

  And then it stopped. Richard sat there. He was finished. We sneaked glances at him. He looked the same. Was his sperm laying in his lap or was it in his hand?

  The bell rang. English class was over.

  After that, there was more of the same. Richard Waite thumped it often while we listened to Miss Gredis sitting on that front desk with her legs crossed high. We boys accepted the situation. After a while we even were amused. The girls accepted it but they didn’t like it, especially Lilly Fischman who was almost forgotten.

  Besides Richard Waite, there was another problem for me in that class: Harry Walden. Harry Walden was pretty, the girls thought, and he had long golden curls and wore strange, delicate clothing. He looked like an 18th century fop, lots of strange colors, dark green, dark blue, I don’t know where the hell his parents found his clothes. And he always sat very still and listened attentively. Like he understood everything. The girls said, “He’s a genius.” He didn’t look like anything to me. What I couldn’t understand was that the tough guys didn’t mess with him. It bothered me. How could he get off so easy?

  I found him one day in the hall. I stopped him.

  “You don’t look like shit to me,” I said. “How come everybody thinks you’re hot shit?”

  Walden glanced over to his right and when I turned my head to look in that direction, he slid around me as if I were something from the sewer and then a moment later he was in his seat in the class.

  Almost every day it was Miss Gredis showing it all and Richard thumping away and this guy Walden sitting there saying nothing and acting like he be
lieved he was a genius. I got sick of it.

  I asked some of the other guys, “Listen, do you really think Harry Walden is a genius? He just sits around in his pretty clothes and doesn’t say anything. What does that prove? We could all do that.”

  They didn’t answer me. I couldn’t understand their feelings about this fucking guy. And it got worse. Word got out that Harry Walden was going to see Miss Gredis every night, that he was her favorite pupil, and that they were making love. It made me sick. I could just imagine him getting out of his delicate green and blue outfit, folding it across a chair, then climbing out of his orange satin shorts and sliding under the sheets where Miss Gredis cuddled his curly golden head on her shoulder and fondled it and other things as well.

  It was whispered about by the girls who always seemed to know everything. And even though the girls didn’t particularly like Miss Gredis, they thought the situation was all right, that it was reasonable because Harry Walden was such a delicate genius and needed all the sympathy he could get.

  I caught Harry Walden in the hall one more time.

  “I’ll kick your ass, you son-of-a-bitch, you don’t fool me!”

  Harry Walden looked at me. Then he looked over my shoulder and pointed and said, “What’s that over there?”

  I looked around. When I looked back he was gone. He was sitting in the class safely surrounded by all the girls who thought he was a genius and who loved him.

  There was more and more whispering about Harry Walden going over to Miss Gredis’ house at night and some days Harry wouldn’t even be in class. Those were the best days for me because I only had to deal with the thumping and not the golden curls and the adoration for that kind of stuff by all the little girls with their skirts and sweaters and starched gingham dresses. When Harry wasn’t there the little girls would whisper, “He’s just too sensitive…”

  And Red Kirkpatrick would say, “She’s fucking him to death.”

  One afternoon I walked into class and Harry Walden’s seat was empty. I figured he was just fucking-off as usual. Then the word drifted from desk to desk. I was always the last to know anything. It finally got to me: Harry Walden had committed suicide. The night before. Miss Gredis didn’t know yet. I looked over at his seat. He’d never sit there again. All those colorful clothes shot to hell. Miss Gredis finished roll call. She came and sat on the front desk, crossed her legs high. She had on a lighter shade of silk hose than ever before. Her skirt was hiked way back to her thighs.

  “Our American culture,” she said, “is destined for greatness. The English language, now so limited and structured, will be reinvented and improved upon. Our writers will use what I like to think of, in my mind, as Americanese…”

  Miss Gredis’ stockings were almost skin-colored. It was as if she were not wearing stockings at all, it was as if she were naked there in front of us, but since she wasn’t and only appeared to be, that made it better than ever.

  “More and more we will discover our own truths and our own way of speaking, and this new voice will be uncluttered by old histories, old mores, old dead and useless dreams…”

  “Thump, thump, thump…”

  25

  Curly Wagner picked out Morris Moscowitz. It was after school and eight or ten of us guys had heard about it and we walked out behind the gym to watch. Wagner laid down the rules, “We fight until somebody hollers quit.”

  “O.K. with me,” said Morris. Morris was a tall thin guy, he was a little bit dumb and he never said much or bothered anybody.

  Wagner looked over at me. “And after I finish with this guy, I’m taking you on!”

  “Me, coach?”

  “Yeah, you, Chinaski.”

  I sneered at him.

  “I’m going to get some god-damned respect from you guys if I have to whip all of you one by one!”

  Wagner was cocky. He was always working out on the parallel bars or tumbling on the mat or taking laps around the track. He swaggered when he walked but he still had his pot belly. He liked to stand and stare at a guy for a long time like he was shit. I didn’t know what was bothering him. We worried him. I believe he thought we were fucking all the girls like crazy and he didn’t like to think about that.

  They squared off. Wagner had some good moves. He bobbed, he weaved, he shuffled his feet, he moved in and out, and he made little hissing sounds. He was impressive. He caught Moscowitz with three straight left jabs. Moscowitz just stood there with his hands at his sides. He didn’t know anything about boxing. Then Wagner cracked Moscowitz with a right to the jaw. “Shit!” said Morris and he threw a roundhouse right which Wagner ducked. Wagner countered with a right and left to Moscowitz’ face. Morris had a bloody nose. “Shit!” he said and then he started swinging. And landing. You could hear the shots, they cracked against Wagner’s head. Wagner tried to counter but his punches just didn’t have the force and the fury of Moscowitz’.

  “Holy shit! Get him, Morrie!”

  Moscowitz was a puncher. He dug a left to that pot belly. Wagner gasped and dropped. He fell to both knees. His face was cut and bleeding. His chin was on his chest and he looked sick.

  “I quit,” Wagner said.

  We left him there behind the building and we followed Morris Moscowitz out of there. He was our new hero.

  “Shit, Morrie, you ought to turn pro!”

  “Naw, I’m only thirteen years old.”

  We walked over behind the machine shop and stood around the steps. Somebody lit up some cigarettes and we passed them around.

  “What has that man got against us?” asked Morrie.

  “Hell, Morrie, don’t you know? He’s jealous. He thinks we’re fucking all the chicks!”

  “Why, I’ve never even kissed a girl.”

  “No shit, Morrie?”

  “No shit.”

  “You ought to try dry-fucking, Morrie, it’s great!”

  Then we saw Wagner walking past. He was working on his face with his handkerchief.

  “Hey, coach,” yelled one of the guys, “how about a rematch?”

  He stood and looked at us. “You boys put out those cigarettes!”

  “Ah, no, coach, we like to smoke!”

  “Come on over here, coach, and make us put out our cigarettes!”

  “Yeah, come on, coach!”

  Wagner stood looking at us. “I’m not done with you yet! I’ll get every one of you, one way or the other!”

  “How ya gonna do that, coach? Your talents seem limited.”

  “Yeah, coach, how ya gonna do it?”

  He walked off the field to his car. I felt a little sorry for him. When a guy was that nasty he should be able to back it up.

  “I guess he doesn’t think there’ll be a virgin on the grounds by the time we graduate,” said one of the guys.

  “I think,” said another guy, “that somebody jacked-off into his ear and he has come for brains.”

  We left after that. It had been a fairly good day.

  26

  My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who didn’t have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors were unemployed he didn’t want them to think he was jobless. So he got into his car each morning at the same time and drove off as if he were going to work. Then in the evening he would return at exactly the same time. It was good for me because I had the place to myself. They locked the house but I knew how to get in. I would unhook the screen door with a piece of cardboard. They locked the porch door with a key from the inside. I slid a newspaper under the door and poked the key out. Then I pulled the newspaper from under the door and the key came with it. I would unlock the door and go in. When I left I would hook the screen door, lock the back porch door from the inside, leaving the key in. Then I would leave through the front door, putting the latch on lock.

  I liked being alone. One day I was playing one of my games. There was a clock on the mantle with a second hand and I held contests to see how long I could hold my breath. Each time I di
d it I exceeded my own record. I went through much agony but I was proud each time I added some seconds to my record. This day I added a full five seonds and I was standing getting my breath back when I walked to the front window. It was a large window covered by red drapes. There was a crack between the drapes and I looked out. Jesus Christ! Our window was directly across from the front porch of the Andersons’ house. Mrs. Anderson was sitting on the steps, and I could look right up her dress. She was about 23 and had marvelously shaped legs. I could see almost all the way up her dress. Then I remember my father’s army binoculars. They were on the top shelf of his closet. I ran and got them, ran back, crouched down and adjusted them to Mrs. Anderson’s legs. It took me right up there! And it was different from looking at Miss Gredis’ legs: you didn’t have to pretend you weren’t looking. You could concentrate. And I did. I was right there. I was red hot. Jesus Christ, what legs, what flanks! And each time she moved, it was unbearable and unbelievable.

  I got down on my knees and I held the binoculars with one hand and pulled my cock out with the other. I spit in my palm and began. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of panties. I was about to come. I stopped. I kept looking with the binocs and then I started rubbing again. When I was about to come I stopped again. Then I waited and began rubbing again. This time I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. She was right there. I was looking right up her! It was like fucking. I came. I spurted all over the hardwood floor in front of the window. It was white and thick. I got up and went to the bathroom and got some toilet paper, came back and wiped it up. I took it back to the toilet and flushed it away.

  Mrs. Anderson came and sat on those steps almost every day and each time she did I got the binocs and whacked-off.

  If Mr. Anderson ever finds out about this, I thought, he’ll kill me…