Come on In! - Charles Bukowski [15]
whore.
listen, I said, isn’t there any more
beer?
and where the hell are the cigarettes?
there were 3 on this table a moment ago and
now they’re all
gone!
jealousy
I know this fellow, he is
amazing, so terribly
dull
but get him in a room full of
women
and he will find the easy
one
and they will begin
talking
and eventually they will
vanish
and they will
fuck.
his conversation is quite
banal:
“oh, did your mother
come from Michigan? I had a
brother who went to the
University of Detroit!”
what all this means is
that he will talk and talk
about anything and listen and
listen forever to
everything.
the ladies really
ate
it
up.
most of us are
unable to accomplish
this kind of thing
but this fellow
can talk
dumb crap for hours
and much later
after completing his
coitus
he will walk in
with the smiling lady
like a Lion King
as if the
whole thing
was
an endearing adventure
and somehow
fulfilling
for us
all.
her guy
you had gotten out of
jail earlier that morning.
you got home about 4:30 a.m.
and started drinking with those
two dykes.
when I got there around 9 a.m.
you were lying on the couch with them
in your shorts and
undershirt
smoking an old cigar
and holding a beer can in your
hand,
you were a mess,
you had pennies and beer caps
stuck to your back
and the floor was covered with
bottles.
“hi, kid,” you said,
“I just got out … we’re celebrating.”
you were totally gone.
I’d heard some terrible things about you
and finally
I believed them.
dead poet’s wife
she told me that I was insensitive
that I didn’t revere God or love
animals. even flies have souls,
she told me.
we were in a motel room at Laguna
Beach. she was overweight and
so was I and maybe in the
great all-encompassing nature of things
we both had souls
like flies.
I lifted my drink
and emptied it.
“shit,” she said, “William drank too much
too. don’t you know that life can be
beautiful?”
“yes, that’s why I drink.”
“don’t you love the beauty of nature?” she
asked. “don’t you ever think of the miracle
of birth?”
“I think of the miracle of death.”
“I used to think you were a great poet,”
she said, “but now that I’ve met you and
know you better, I don’t think that anymore.
you can’t fuck
me.”
“I don’t have the desire to fuck
you,” I answered, “and you know it.”
it was 3 a.m. and I walked out of the
motel room with a new drink in my hand.
I was dressed in my shorts and I
finished the drink and dropped myself
into the swimming pool. all the lights
were out. the manager stepped out as
I dog-paddled about in the dark.
“what the hell are you doing?” he
screamed.
“turn on the pool lights,” I screamed back.
the lights came on and I paddled around for
5 minutes more, then climbed out and walked
back into the motel room.
she had her back turned to me in the bed.
I got in with a new drink and looked at
my feet sticking out from under the covers.
I decided that I had the most beautiful feet
of any man on earth.
then the pool lights went out and all I
could see was the glowing end of my cigarette.
I decided that in the great all-encompassing
nature of things it must certainly have
a soul too.
scrambled legs
we were having lunch
at Hal’s Diner.
“you know,” he told me, “after we made love
the last time
she lay in my arms and cried. she said,
‘oh my god, I miss him so!’
she was talking about you, Hank.”
“that’s just the way it is, Jack, with all
my women: while I’m with them they hate
me but after I leave them they love
me.
I’m never tempted to go back to them, however, I don’t even
consider it.”
“you don’t mind that I slept with her,
Hank?”
“did she cook you a good breakfast afterwards,
Jack?”
“I don’t remember.”
“well, I’ll tell you: she didn’t.”
“is that the reason you left her:
because she couldn’t cook
a good breakfast?”
“I never eat breakfast, Jack.”
“then what happened?”
“too often, after we made love, she
began crying in my arms about how she
missed some other guy.”
“well,” he said, “I’ll