Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski [51]
Jesus Christ, I thought, can’t I move around in here? I live in this house.
I was crouched in the dark closet. I knew I couldn’t let them find me in there.
I swung the closet door open and leaped out. I saw them both standing in the front room. I ran in there.
“GET OUT OF HERE, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES!”
They looked at me.
“GET OUT OF HERE! YOU’VE GOT NO RIGHT TO BE IN HERE! GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I KILL YOU!”
They started running toward the back porch.
“GO ON! GO ON, OR I’LL KILL YOU!”
I heard them run up the driveway and out onto the sidewalk. I didn’t want to watch them. I went into my bedroom and stretched out on the bed. Why did they want to see me? What could they do? There was nothing to be done. There was nothing to talk about.
A couple of days later my mother didn’t leave to go job hunting, and it wasn’t my day to go to the L. A. County General Hospital. So we were in the house together. I didn’t like it. I liked the place to myself. I heard her moving about the house and I stayed in my bedroom. The boils were worse than ever. I checked my airplane chart. The 1:20 p.m. flight was due. I began listening. He was late. It was 1:20 and he was still approaching. As he passed over I timed him as being three minutes late. Then I heard the doorbell ring. I heard my mother open the door.
“Emily, how are you?”
“Hello, Katy, how are you?”
It was my grandmother, now very old. I heard them talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I was thankful for that. They talked for five or ten minutes and then I heard them walking down the hall to my bedroom.
“I will bury all of you,” I heard my grandmother say. “Where is the boy?”
The door opened and my grandmother and mother stood there.
“Hello, Henry,” my grandmother said.
“Your grandmother is here to help you,” my mother said.
My grandmother had a large purse. She set it down on the dresser and pulled a huge silver crucifix out of it.
“Your grandmother is here to help you, Henry…”
Grandmother had more warts on her than ever before and she was fatter. She looked invincible, she looked as if she would never die. She had gotten so old that it was almost senseless for her to die.
“Henry,” said my mother, “turn over on your stomach.”
I turned over and my grandmother leaned over me. From the corner of my eye I saw her dangling the huge crucifix over me. I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren’t true, the fools were all the more foolish.
But it was my grandmother and my mother. I decided to let them have their way. The crucifix swung back and forth above my back, over my boils, over me.
“God,” prayed my grandmother, “purge the devil from this poor boy’s body! Just look at all those sores! They make me sick, God! Look at them! It’s the devil, God, dwelling in this boy’s body. Purge the devil from his body, Lord!”
“Purge the devil from his body, Lord!” said my mother.
What I need is a good doctor, I thought. What is wrong with these women? Why don’t they leave me alone?
“God,” said my grandmother, “why do you allow the devil to dwell inside this body’s body? Don’t you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at these sores, O Lord, I am about to vomit just looking at them! They are red and big and full!”
“Purge the devil from my boy’s body!” screamed my mother.
“May God save us from this evil!” screamed my grandmother.
She took the crucifix and poked it into the center of my back, dug it in. The blood spurted out, I could feel it, at first warm, then suddenly cold. I turned over and sat up in the bed.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I am making a hole for the devil to be pushed out by God!” said my grandmother.
“All right,” I said, “I want you both to get out of here, and fast! Do you understand me?”
“He is still possessed!” said my grandmother.
“GET THE FUCKING HELL OUT OF HERE!” I screamed.
They left, shocked and disappointed, closing the door behind them.
I went into the bathroom, wadded up some toilet