Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski [3]
“These are my oranges. Now, listen to me, tell your woman to dump them.”
“There are plenty of god-damned oranges. You’re not going to miss a few god-damned oranges.”
“I’m not going to miss any oranges. Tell your woman to dump them.”
The man pointed his shotgun at my father.
“Dump them,” my father told my mother.
The oranges rolled to the ground.
“Now,” said the man, “get out of my orchard.”
“You don’t need all these oranges.”
“I know what I need. Now get out of here.”
“Guys like you ought to be hung!”
“I’m the law here. Now move!”
The man raised his shotgun again. My father turned and began walking out of the orange grove. We followed him and the man trailed us. Then we got into the car but it was one of those times when it wouldn’t start. My father got out of the car to crank it. He cranked it twice and it wouldn’t start. My father was beginning to sweat. The man stood at the edge of the road.
“Get that god-damned cracker box started!” he said.
My father got ready to twist the crank again. “We’re not on your property! We can stay here as long as we damn well please!”
“Like hell! Get that thing out of here, and fast!”
My father cranked the engine again. It sputtered, then stopped. My mother sat with the empty picnic box on her lap. I was afraid to look at the man. My father whirled the crank again and the engine started. He leaped into the car and began working the levers on the steering wheel.
“Don’t come back,” said the man, “or next time it might not go so easy for you.”
My father drove the Model-T off. The man was still standing near the road. My father was driving very fast. Then he slowed the car and made a U-turn. He drove back to where the man had stood. The man was gone. We speeded back on the way out of the orange groves.
“I’m coming back some day and get that bastard,” said my father.
“Daddy, we’ll have a nice dinner tonight. What would you like?” my mother asked.
“Pork chops,” he answered.
I had never seen him drive the car that fast.
3
My father had two brothers. The younger was named Ben and the older was named John. Both were alcoholics and ne’er-do-wells. My parents often spoke of them.
“Neither of them amount to anything,” said my father.
“You just come from a bad family, Daddy,” said my mother.
“And your brother doesn’t amount to a damn either!”
My mother’s brother was in Germany. My father often spoke badly of him.
I had another uncle, Jack, who was married to my father’s sister, Elinore. I had never seen my Uncle Jack or my Aunt Elinore because there were bad feelings between them and my father.
“See this scar on my hand?” asked my father. “Well, that’s where Elinore stuck me with a sharp pencil when I was very young. That scar has never gone away.”
My father didn’t like people. He didn’t like me. “Children should be seen and not heard,” he told me.
It was an early Sunday afternoon without Grandma Emily.
“We should go see Ben,” said my mother. “He’s dying.”
“He borrowed all that money from Emily. He pissed it away on gambling and women and booze.”
“I know, Daddy.”
“Emily won’t have any money left when she dies.”
“We should still go see Ben. They say he has only two weeks left.”
“All right, all right! We’ll go!”
So we went and got into the Model-T and started driving. It took some time, and my mother had to stop for flowers. It was a long drive toward the mountains. We reached the foothills and took the little winding mountain road upwards. Uncle Ben was in a sanitarium up there, dying of TB.
“It must cost Emily a lot of money to keep Ben up here,” said my father.
“Maybe Leonard is helping.”
“Leonard doesn’t have anything. He drank it up and he gave it away.”
“I like Grandpa Leonard,” I said.
“Children should be seen and not heard,” said my father. Then he continued, “Ah, that Leonard, the only time he was good to us children was when he was drunk. He’d joke with us and give us money. But the next day when he was sober he was the meanest man in the world.”
The Model-T was climbing the mountain road nicely. The air was clear and sunny.
“Here it is,