Tales of Ordinary Madness

by Charles Bukowski

  And how vulgar I am! I reach in my anus and scratch. I have hemorrhoids, piles. It is better than sexual intercourse. I scratch until I bleed, until pain forces me to stop. Monkeys, apes, do this. Have you seen them in the zoos with their red bleeding asses?

  But let me get on. Although if you would care for a bit of an oddity I tell you of the murder. These Dreams of the Room, let me call them, began some years ago. One of the first was in Philadelphia. I seldom worked then either and perhaps it was worrying about the rent. I was not drinking any more than a little wine and some beer, and sex and gambling had not yet come upon me with full force. Although I was living with a lady of the streets at that time, and it seemed odd to me that she wanted more sex or “love” as she called it when I did it, after indulging with 2 or 3 or more men that day and night, and although I was as well-traveled and well-jailed as any Knight of the Road, there was something about sticking it in there after all THAT ... it turned against me and I had a rough time. “Sweetie,” she’d say, “ya got to understand I LOVE you. With them it’s nothing. You just don’t KNOW a woman. A woman can let you in and you think you’re there but you’re not even in there. You, I let in.” All the talk didn’t help much. It only made the walls closer.

  And one night, say I was dreaming, say I wasn’t, I awakened and she was in bed with me (or I dreamt I awakened), and I looked around and here were all these little tiny men, 30 or 40 of them wiring us both down in the bed, a kind of silver wire, and around and around us they went, under the bed, over the bed, with the wire. My lady must have sensed my nervousness. I saw her eyes open and she looked at me. “Be quiet!” I said. “Don’t move! They are trying to electrocute us!” “WHO’S TRYING TO ELECTROCUTE US?” “God damn it, I told you to be QUIET! Be still now!” I let them work a while longer, pretending to be asleep. Then with all my strength I surged upward, breaking the wire, surprising them. I swung on one and missed. I don’t know where they went but I got rid of them. “I just saved us from death,” I told my lady. “Kiss me, daddy,” she said.

  Anyway, getting back to now. I have been getting up in the morning with these welts on my body. Blue marks. There is a particular blanket I have been watching. I think this blanket is closing in on me while I sleep. I awaken and sometimes it is up around my throat and I can hardly breathe. It is always the same blanket. But I have been ignoring it. I open a beer, split the Racing Form with my thumb, look out the window for rain and try to forget everything. I just want to live comfortably without trouble. I am tired. I do not want to imagine things or make up things.

  And yet again that night the blanket bothers me. It moves like a snake. It takes various forms. It will not stay flat and wide across the bed. And the night after that. I kick it to the floor by the couch. Then I see it move. Ever so quickly I see this blanket move when my head seems turned away. I get up and turn on all the lights and get the newspaper and read, I read anything, the stock market, the latest styles in fashion, how to cook a squab, how to get rid of crab grass; letters to the editor, political columns, help wanted, the obituaries, etc. During this time the blanket does not move and I drink 3 or 4 bottles of beer, maybe more, and then it is daylight sometimes, and then it is easy to sleep.

  The other night it happened. Or it began in the afternoon. Having had very little sleep I went to bed about 4 p.m. in the afternoon and when I awakened or dreamed of my room again it was dark and the blanket was up around my throat and it had decided that this was THE time! All pretense was over! It was after me, and it was strong, or rather I seemed rather weak, as if in a dream, and it took all I had to keep it from finally closing off my air, but it hung about me still, this blanket, making quick strong lunges, trying to find me off guard. I could feel the sweat coming down my forehead. Who would ever believe such a thing? Who would ever believe such a damn thing? A blanket coming to life and trying to murder one? Nothing is believed until it happens the FIRST time – like the atom bomb or the Russians sending a man into space or God coming down to earth and then being nailed to a cross by that which He created. Who is to believe all the things that are coming? The last snuff of fire? The 8 or 10 men and women in some space ship, the New Ark, to another planet to plant the weary seed of man all over again? And who was the man or woman to believe that this blanket was trying to strangle me? No one, not by a damn sight! And this made it worse, somehow. Although I had little sensitivity toward what the masses thought of me, I did, somehow want them to realize the blanket. Odd? Why was that? And odd, I had often thought of suicide, but now that a blanket wanted to help me, I fought against it.

  I finally wrung the thing off and threw it to the floor and turned on the lights. That would end it! LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT!

  But no, I saw it still twitch or move an inch or 2 there under the light. I sat down and watched it carefully. It moved again. A good foot this time. I got up and began to get dressed, walking wide around the blanket to find shoes, stockings, etc. Then dressed, I didn’t know what to do. The blanket was still now. Perhaps a walk in the night air. Yes. I would talk to the newsboys on the corner. Although that was bad too. All the newsboys in the neighborhood were intellectuals: they read G. B. Shaw and O. Spengler and Hegel. And they weren’t newsboys: they were 60 or 80 or 1000 years old. Shit. I slammed the door and walked out.

  Then when I got to the top of the stairway something made me turn and look down the hall. You are right: the blanket was following me, moving in snake-movements, folds and shadows at the front of it making head, mouth, eyes. Let me say that as soon as you begin to believe that a horror is a horror, then it finally becomes LESS horror. For a moment I thought of my blanket like an old dog that didn’t want to be alone without me, it had to follow. But then I got the thought that this dog, this blanket, was out to kill, and then I quickly moved down the steps.

  Yes, yes, it came after me! It moved as quickly as it wanted over and down the stairs. Soundless. Determined.

  I lived on the third floor. Down it followed. To the second. To the first. My first thought was to run outside but it was very dark outside, a quiet and empty neighborhood far from the large avenues. The best idea was to get next to some people to test the reality of the situation. It took at LEAST 2 votes to make reality real. Artists who have worked years ahead of their time have found that out, and people of dementia and so-called hallucination have found it out too. If you are the only one to see a vision they either call you a Saint or a madman.

  I knocked on the door of apartment 102. Mick’s wife came to the door. “Hello, Hank,” she said, “come on in.”

  Mick was in bed. He was all puffed up, his ankles twice their size, his belly larger than a pregnant woman. He had been a heavy drinker and his liver had given out. He was full of water. He was waiting on an empty bed in the Veteran’s hospital.

  “Hi, Hank,” he said, “did you bring some beer?”

  “Now, Mick,” said his old lady, “you know what the doctor said: no more, not even beer.”

  “What’s the blanket for, kid?” he asked me.

  I looked down. The blanket had leaped up over my arm to gain an unnoticed entrance.

  “Well,” I said, “I have too many. Thought you could use one.”

  I tossed the thing over on the couch.

  “You didn’t bring a beer?”

  “No, Mick.”

  “I sure could use a beer.”

  “Mick,” said his old lady.

  “Well, it’s hard to cut it cold after all these years.”

  “Well, maybe one,” said his old lady. “I’ll run down to the store.”

  “That’s o.k.,” I said, “I’ll get some out of my refrigerator.”

  I got up and walked toward the door, watching the blanket. It did not move. It sat there looking at me from the couch.

  “Be right back,” I said, and closed the door.

  I guess, I thought, it’s my mind. I carried the blanket with me and imagined it was following me. I should mix more with people. My world is too narrow.r />
  I went upstairs and put 3 or 4 bottles of beer in a paper sack and then started down. I was about at the 2nd floor when I heard some screaming, a curse, and then a gunshot. I ran down the remaining steps and into 102. Mick was standing there all puffed up holding a .32 magnum with just a little smoke trailing up from it. The blanket was on the couch where I had left it.

  “Mick, you’re crazy!” his old lady was saying.

  “That’s right,” he said, “the minute you went into the kitchen that blanket, so help me, that blanket leaped for the door. It was trying to turn the knob, trying to get out but it couldn’t get a grip. After I recovered from the first shock I got out of bed and moved toward it and when I got close it leaped from the knob, it leaped for my throat and tried to strangle me!”

  “Mick’s been sick,” said his old lady, “been taking shots. He sees things. He used to see things when he was drinking. He’ll be all right once they get him to the hospital.”

  “God damn it!” he screamed standing there all puffed up in his nightshirt, “I tell you the thing tried to kill me and lucky the old magnum was loaded and I ran to the closet and got it and when it came at me again I shot it. It crawled away. It crawled back to the couch and there it is now. You can see the hole where I put the bullet through it. That’s no imagination!”

  There was a knock on the door. It was the manager. “Too much noise in here,” he said. “No television or radio or loud noise after 10 p.m.,” he said.

  Then he went away.

  I walked over to the blanket. Sure there was a hole in it. The blanket seemed very still. Where is the vital place in a living blanket?

  “Jesus, let’s have a beer,” said Mick, “I don’t care if I die or not.”

  His old lady opened 3 bottles and Mick and I lit up a couple of Pall Malls.

  “Hey, kid,” he said, “take that blanket with you when you leave.”

  “I don’t need it, Mick,” I said, “you keep it.”

  He took a big drink of beer. “Take that God damned thing out of here!”

  “Well, it’s DEAD, isn’t it?” I asked him.

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “Do you mean to say you believe this nonsense about the blanket, Hank?”

  “Yes, mam.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Boy, a couple of crazy bastards, if I ever saw any.” Then, she added, “You drink too, don’t you, Hank?”

  “Yes, mam.”

  “Heavy?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “All I say is take that god damned blanket OUT of HERE!”

  I took a big drink of beer and wished it were vodka. “O.k., pal,” I said, “if you don’t want the blanket, I’ll take it.”

  I folded it into squares and put it over my arm.

  “Good night, folks.”

  “Good night, Hank, and thanks for the beer.”

  I moved up the stairway and the blanket was very still. Maybe the bullet had done it. I walked into my place and threw it in a chair. Then I sat a while looking at it. Then I got an idea.

  I got the dishpan and put some newspaper in it. Then I got a paring knife. I put the dishpan on the floor. Then I sat in the chair. I put the blanket on my lap. And I held the knife. But it was hard to cut into the blanket. I kept sitting there in the chair, the night wind of the rotten city of Los Angeles coming in on the back of my neck, and it was hard to cut. How did I know? Maybe that blanket was some woman who had once loved me, finding a way to get back to me through that blanket. I thought of 2 women. Then I thought of one woman. Then I got up and walked into the kitchen and I opened the vodka bottle. The doctor said any more hard stuff and I was dead. But I had been practicing on him. A thimbleful one night. 2 the next, etc. This time I poured a glassful. It was not the dying that mattered, it was the sadness, the wonder. The few good people crying in the night. The few good people. Maybe the blanket had been this woman either trying to kill me to get me into death with her, or trying to love as a blanket and not knowing how ... or trying to kill Mick because he had disturbed her when she tried to follow me at the door? Madness? Sure. What isn’t madness? Isn’t Life madness? We are all wound-up like toys ... a few winds of the spring, it runs down, and that’s it ... and we walk around and presume things, make plans, elect governors, mow lawns ... Madness, surely, what ISN’T madness?

  I drank the glass of vodka straight down and lit a cigarette. Then I picked up the blanket for the last-time and THEN I CUT! I cut and cut and cut, I cut the thing into all the little pieces that were left of anything ... and put the pieces into the dishpan and then I put the dishpan near the window and turned on the fan to blow the smoke out, and while the flame was starting I went into the kitchen and poured another vodka. When I came out it was going red and good, like any old Boston witch, like any Hiroshima, like any love, like any love at all, and I did not feel well, I did not feel well at all. I drank the second glass of vodka down and felt almost nothing. I walked into the kitchen for another one, carrying the paring knife with me. I threw the knife on the sink and unscrewed the cap from the bottle. I looked again at the paring knife on the sink. Upon its side was a distinct smear of blood.

  I looked at my hands. I searched my hands for cuts. The hands of Christ were beautiful hands. I looked at my hands. There was not a scratch. There was not a nick. There was not even a scar.

  I felt the tears coming down my cheeks, crawling like heavy senseless things without legs. I was mad. I must truly be mad.