Ham on Rye: A Novel

by Charles Bukowski

  My parents went to the movies every Wednesday night. The theatre had drawings for money and they wanted to win some money. It was on a Wednesday night that I discovered something. The Pirozzis lived in the house south of ours. Our driveway ran along the north side of their house and there was a window which looked into their front room. The window was veiled by a thin curtain. There was a wall which became an arch over the front of our driveway and there were bushes all about. When I got between that wall and the window, in among all those bushes, nobody could see me from the street, especially at night.

  I crawled in there. It was great, better than I expected. Mrs. Pirozzi was sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. Her legs were crossed, and in an easy chair across the room, Mr. Pirozzi was reading a newspaper. Mrs. Pirozzi was not as young as Miss Gredis or Mrs. Anderson, but she had good legs and she had on high heels and almost every time she turned a page of her newspaper, she’d cross her legs and her skirt would climb higher and I would see more.

  If my parents come home from the movie and catch me here, I thought, then my life is over. But it’s worth it. It’s worth the risk.

  I stayed very quiet behind the window and stared at Mrs. Pirozzi’s legs. They had a large collie, Jeff, who was asleep in front of the door. I had looked at Miss Gredis’ legs that day in English class, then I had whacked-off to Mrs. Anderson’s legs, and now there was more. Why didn’t Mr. Pirozzi look at Mrs. Pirozzi’s legs? He just kept reading his newspaper. It was obvious that Mrs. Pirozzi was trying to tease him because her skirt kept climbing higher and higher. Then she turned a page and crossed her legs very fast and her skirt flipped back exposing her pure white thighs. She was just like buttermilk! Unbelievable! She was best of all!

  Then from the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Pirozzi’s legs move. He stood up very quickly and moved toward the front door. I started running, crashing through the bushes. I heard him open his front door. I was down the driveway and into our backyard and behind the garage. I stood a moment, listening. Then I climbed the back fence, over the vines and on over into the next backyard. I ran through that yard and up the driveway and I began dog-trotting south down the street like a guy practicing for track. There was nobody behind me but I kept trotting.

  If he knows it was me, if he tells my father, I’m dead.

  But maybe he just let the dog out to take a shit?

  I trotted down to West Adams Boulevard and sat on a streetcar bench. I sat there five minutes or so, then I walked back home. When I got there, my parents weren’t back yet. I went inside, undressed, turned out the lights and waited for morning…

  Another Wednesday night Baldy and I were taking our usual short cut between two apartment houses. We were on our way to his father’s wine cellar when Baldy stopped at a window. The shade was almost down but not quite. Baldy stopped, bent, and peeked inside. He waved me over.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “Look!”

  There was a man and a woman in bed, naked. There was just a bedsheet partly over them. The man was trying to kiss the woman and she was pushing him away.

  “God damn it, let me have it, Marie!”

  “No!”

  “But I’m hot, please!”

  “Take your god-damned hands off me!”

  “But, Marie, I love you!”

  “You and your fucking love…”

  “Marie, please.”

  “Will you shut up?”

  The man turned toward the wall. The woman picked up a magazine, bunched a pillow behind her head, and began reading it.

  Baldy and I walked away from the window.

  “Jesus,” said Baldy, “that made me sick!”

  “I thought we were going to see something,” I said.

  When we got to the wine cellar Baldy’s old man had put a big padlock on the cellar door.

  We tried that window again and again but we never actually saw anything happen. It was always the same.

  “Marie, it’s been a long time. We’re living together, you know. We’re married!”

  “Big fucking deal!”

  “Just this once, Marie, and I won’t bother you again, I won’t bother you for a long time, I promise!”

  “Shut up! You make me sick!”

  Baldy and I walked away.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “I don’t think he’s got a cock,” I said.

  “He might as well not have,” said Baldy.

  We stopped going back there.

  27

  Wagner wasn’t done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class when he walked up to me.

  “What are you doing, Chinaski?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “How come you’re not in any of the games?”

  “Shit. That’s kid stuff.”

  “I’m putting you on garbage detail until further notice.”

  “What for? What’s the charge?”

  “Loitering. 50 demerits.”

  The kids had to work off their demerits on garbage detail. If you had more than ten demerits and didn’t work them off, you couldn’t graduate. I didn’t care whether I graduated or not. That was their problem. I could just stay around getting older and older and bigger and bigger. I’d get all the girls.

  “50 demerits?” I asked. “Is that all you’re going to give me? How about a hundred?”

  “O.K., one hundred. You got ’em.”

  Wagner swaggered off. Peter Mangalore had 500 demerits. Now I was in second place, and gaining…

  The first garbage detail was during the last thirty minutes of lunch. The next day I was carrying a garbage can with Peter Mangalore. It was simple. We each had a stick with a sharp nail on the end of it. We picked up papers with the stick and stuck them into the can. The girls watched us as we walked by. They knew we were bad. Peter looked bored and I looked like I didn’t give a damn. The girls knew we were bad.

  “You know Lilly Fischman?” Pete asked as we walked along.

  “Oh, yes, yes.”

  “Well, she’s not a virgin.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  “Who got her?”

  “Her father.”

  “Hmmm…Well you can’t blame him.”

  “Lilly’s heard I’ve got a big cock.”

  “Yeah, it’s all over school.”

  “Well, Lilly wants it. She claims she can handle it.”

  “You’ll rip her to pieces.”

  “Yeah, I will. Anyhow, she wants it.”

  We put the garbage can down and stared at some girls who were sitting on a bench. Pete walked toward the bench. I stood there. He walked up to one of the girls and whispered something in her ear. She started giggling. Pete walked back to the garbage can. We picked it up and walked away.

  “So,” said Pete, “this afternoon at 4 p.m. I’m going to rip Lilly to pieces.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know that broken-down car at the back of the school that Pop Farnsworth took the engine out of?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, before they haul that son-of-a-bitch away, that’s going to be my bedroom. I’m going to take her in the back seat.”

  “Some guys really live.”

  “I’m getting a hard just thinking about it,” said Pete.

  “I am too and I’m not even the guy who’s going to do it.”

  “There’s one problem though,” said Pete.

  “You can’t come?”

  “No, it’s not that. I need a look-out. I need somebody to tell me the coast is clear.”

  “Yeah? Well, look, I can do that.”

  “Would you?” asked Pete.

  “Sure. But we should have one more guy so we can watch in both directions.”

  “All right. Who you got in mind?”

  “Baldy.”

  “Baldy? Shit, he’s not much.”

  “No
, but he’s trustworthy.”

  “All right. So I’ll see you guys at four.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  At four p.m. we met Pete and Lilly at the car.

  “Hi!” said Lilly. She looked hot. Pete was smoking a cigarette. He looked bored.

  “Hello, Lilly,” I said.

  “Hi, Lilly baby,” said Baldy.

  There were some guys playing a game of touch football in the other field but that only made it better, a kind of camouflage. Lilly was wiggling around, breathing heavily, her breasts were moving up and down.

  “Well,” said Pete, throwing his cigarette away, “let’s make friends, Lilly.”

  He opened the back door, bowed, and Lilly climbed in. Pete got in after her and took his shoes off, then his pants and his shorts. Lilly looked down and saw Pete’s meat hanging.

  “Oh my,” she said, “I don’t know…”

  “Come on, baby,” said Pete, “nobody lives forever.”

  “Well, all right, I guess…”

  Pete looked out the window. “Hey, are you guys watching to see if the coast is clear?”

  “Yeah, Pete,” I said, “we’re watching.”

  “We’re looking,” said Baldy.

  Pete pulled Lilly’s skirt all the way up. There was white flesh above her knee socks and you could see her panties. Glorious.

  Pete grabbed Lilly and kissed her. Then he pulled away.

  “You whore!” he said.

  “Talk to me nice, Pete!”

  “You bitch-whore!” he said and slapped her across the face, hard.

  She began sobbing. “Don’t, Pete, don’t…”

  “Shut up, cunt!”

  Pete began pulling at Lilly’s panties. He was having a terrible time. Her panties were tight around her big ass. Pete gave a violent tug, they ripped and he pulled the panties down around her legs and off over her shoes. He threw them on the floorboard. Then he began playing with her cunt. He played with her cunt and played with her cunt and kissed her again and again. Then he leaned back against the car seat. He only had half a hard.

  Lilly looked down at him.

  “What are you, a queer?”

  “No, it’s not that, Lilly. It’s just that I don’t think these guys are watching to see if the coast is clear. They’re watching us. I don’t want to get caught in here.”

  “The coast is clear, Pete,” I said. “We’re watching!”

  “We’re watching!” said Baldy.

  “I don’t believe them,” said Pete. “All they’re watching is your cunt, Lilly.”

  “You’re chicken! All that meat and it’s only at half-mast!”

  “I’m scared of getting caught, Lilly.”

  “I know what to do,” she said.

  Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete’s cock. She lapped her tongue around the monstrous head. Then she had it in her mouth.

  “Lilly…Christ,” said Pete, “I love you…”

  “Lilly, Lilly, Lilly…oh, oh, oooh ooooh…”

  “Henry!” Baldy screamed. “LOOK!”

  I looked. It was Wagner running toward us from across the field and also coming behind him were the guys who had been playing touch football, plus some of the people who had been watching the football game, boys and girls both.

  “Pete!” I yelled, “It’s Wagner coming with 50 people!”

  “Shit!” moaned Pete.

  “Oh, shit,” said Lilly.

  Baldy and I took off. We ran out the gate and halfway up the block. We looked back through the fence. Pete and Lilly never had a chance. Wagner ran up and ripped open the car door hoping for a good look. Then the car was surrounded and we couldn’t see any more…

  After that, we never saw Pete or Lilly again. We had no idea what happened to them. Baldy and I each got 1,000 demerits which put me in the lead over Magalore with 1,100. There was no way I could work them off. I was in Mt. Justin for life. Of course, they informed our parents.

  “Let’s go,” said my father, and I walked into the bathroom.

  He got the strop down.

  “Take down your pants and shorts,” he said.

  I didn’t do it. He reached in front of me, yanked my belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down. He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed. It was the same, the same explosive sound, the same pain.

  “You’re going to kill your mother!” he screamed.

  He hit me again. But the tears weren’t coming. My eyes were strangely dry. I thought about killing him. That there must be a way to kill him. In a couple of years I could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. He wasn’t much of anything. I must have been adopted. He hit me again. The pain was still there but the fear of it was gone. The strop landed again. The room no longer blurred. I could see everything clearly. My father seemed to sense the difference in me and he began to lash me harder, again and again, but the more he beat me the less I felt. It was almost as if he was the one who was helpless. Something had occurred, something had changed. My father stopped, puffing, and I heard him hanging up the strop. He walked to the door. I turned.

  “Hey,” I said.

  My father turned and looked at me.

  “Give me a couple more,” I told him, “if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me that way!” he said.

  I looked at him. I saw folds of flesh under his chin and around his neck. I saw sad wrinkles and crevices. His face was tired pink putty. He was in his undershirt, and his belly sagged, wrinkling his undershirt. The eyes were no longer fierce. His eyes looked away and couldn’t meet mine. Something had happened. The bath towels knew it, the shower curtain knew it, the mirror knew it, the bathtub and the toilet knew it. My father turned and walked out the door. He knew it. It was my last beating. From him.

  28

  Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the 9th, I broke out with acne. Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine was really terrible. I was the worst case in town. I had pimples and boils all over my face, back, neck, and some on my chest. It happened just as I was beginning to be accepted as a tough guy and a leader. I was still tough but it wasn’t the same. I had to withdraw. I watched people from afar, it was like a stage play. Only they were on stage and I was an audience of one. I’d always had trouble with the girls but with acne it was impossible. The girls were further away than ever. Some of them were truly beautiful—their dresses, their hair, their eyes, the way they stood around. Just to walk down the street during an afternoon with one, you know, talking about everything and anything, I think that would have made me feel very good.

  Also, there was still something about me that continually got me into trouble. Most teachers didn’t trust or like me, especially the lady teachers. I never said anything out of the way but they claimed it was my “attitude.” It was something about the way I sat slouched in my seat and my “voice tone.” I was usually accused of “sneering” although I wasn’t conscious of it. I was often made to stand outside in the hall during class or I was sent to the principal’s office. The principal always did the same thing. He had a phone booth in his office. He made me stand in the phone booth with the door closed. I spent many hours in that phone booth. The only reading material in there was the Ladies Home Journal. It was deliberate torture. I read the Ladies Home Journal anyhow. I got to read each new issue. I hoped that maybe I could learn something about women.

  I must have had 5,000 demerits by graduation time but it didn’t seem to matter. They wanted to get rid of me. I was standing outside in the line that was filing into the auditorium one by one. We each had on our cheap little cap and gown that had been passed down again and again to the next graduating group. We could hear each person’s name as they walked across the stage. They were making one big god-damned deal out of graduating from jr. high. The band played our school song:

  Oh, Mt. Justin, Oh, Mt. Justin

  We will be true,

  Our hearts are singing wildlyr />
  All our skies are blue…

  We stood in line, each of us waiting to march across the stage. In the audience were our parents and friends.

  “I’m about to puke,” said one of the guys.

  “We only go from crap to more crap,” said another.

  The girls seemed to be more serious about it. That’s why I didn’t really trust them. They seemed to be part of the wrong things. They and the school seemed to have the same song.

  “This stuff brings me down,” said one of the guys. “I wish I had a smoke.”

  “Here you are…”

  Another of the guys handed him a cigarette. We passed it around between four or five of us. I took a hit and exhaled through my nostrils. Then I saw Curly Wagner walking in.

  “Ditch it!” I said. “Here comes vomit-head!”

  Wagner walked right up to me. He was dressed in his grey gym suit, including sweatshirt, just as he had been the first time I saw him and all the other times afterward. He stood in front of me.

  “Listen,” he said, “you think you’re getting away from me because you’re getting out of here, but you’re not! I’m going to follow you the rest of your life. I’m going to follow you to the ends of the earth and I’m going to get you!”

  I just glanced at him without comment and he walked off. Wagner’s little graduation speech only made me that much bigger with the guys. They thought I must have done some big god-damned thing to rile him. But it wasn’t true. Wagner was just simple-crazy.

  We got nearer and nearer to the doorway of the auditorium. Not only could we hear each name being announced, and the applause, but we could see the audience.

  Then it was my turn.

  “Henry Chinaski,” the principal said over the microphone. And I walked forward. There was no applause. Then one kindly soul in the audience gave two or three claps.

  There were rows of seats set up on the stage for the graduating class. We sat there and waited. The principal gave his speech about opportunity and success in America. Then it was all over. The band struck up the Mt. Justin school song. The students and their parents and friends rose and mingled together. I walked around, looking. My parents weren’t there. I made sure. I walked around and gave it a good look-see.