Pulp - Charles Bukowski [72]
In my dream I was sitting in this cheap bar. I was having a double whiskey and soda. I was the only one in the bar except the barkeep who seemed rather indistinct. He just stood at the other end of the bar reading The National Enquirer. Then a really crappy and dissolute sort walked in. He needed a shave, he needed a haircut, he needed a bath. He was dressed in a dirty yellow raincoat which came down to his shoetops. Under the raincoat you could see a white t-shirt and a faded orange tie. He moved toward me like a stinking wind. He took the stool next to mine. I had a hit of my drink. The bartender looked over. He caught my eye.
“I’m hungry,” the barkeep said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
“I wish you’d eat some of those I’ve bet on,” I told him.
No wonder he looked indistinct. There wasn’t much to him. He was as thin as a rail. His cheeks sagged, paper thin. I looked away.
The other guy was still on the stool next to me.
“Psst…” he went.
I ignored him. I looked back at the bartender.
“Listen,” I said to him, “I’ll finish my drink and you can lock up, go some place and get something to eat.”
“Thanks,” he said, “I got to keep this place open. I’ll be all right. I’ll think of something.”
“Psst…” the guy next to me went again.
“Get off my ear, buddy,” I told him.
“I got some info…”
“Don’t need it. I read the papers.”
“It’s info that ain’t in the papers.”
“Like what?”
“The Red Sparrow.”
“Hey, barkeep!” I yelled, “a drink for this gentleman! Give him a rum and coke!”
The barkeep worked at it.
“You live in Redondo Beach?” the guy asked me.
“East Hollywood.”
“Know a guy, looks just like you, he lives in Redondo Beach.”
“That so?”
“Yep.”
The guy’s drink arrived. He drained it right off.
“I had a brother,” he said, “lived in Glendale. Killed himself.”
“He look like you?” I asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Then it figures.”
“I got a sister, lives in Burbank.”
“Cut the crap.”
“It ain’t crap.”
“I want to hear about the Red Sparrow.”
“Sure. I’ll put you right on it.”
“Well?”
“I’m thirsty…”
“Barkeep!” I yelled. “Another rum and coke for this gentleman!”
The guy waited for his drink. It arrived. He slammed it down. Then he turned and looked at me with his beady, bleary, vacant eyes.
“I got the Sparrow right on me,” he said.
“What?”
“I mean, I got it in my pocket.”
“Great! Let’s see it!”
He fumbled around in a pocket. He kept fumbling.
“Hmmm…can’t seem to find it…”
“You prick! You took me! I’m going to bust your sack!”
“I know I had it somewhere…”
“I’m going to uncoil your springs, jerko!”
“Wait…wait…something here…yes. In my other pocket…I was looking in the wrong pocket…”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, look…here…here it is…the Red Sparrow!”
He pulled it out of his pocket and placed it on the bar. I looked. It was a dead pigeon.
“That’s a dead pigeon!” I said.
“No,” he said, “that’s the Red Sparrow.”
I put some bills on the bar for the drinks, then I stood up and gathered the guy up by the collar of his filthy raincoat. I hustled him toward the door, opened it and threw him out into the street. Then I turned back to close the door. And I saw the bartender. He had the pigeon in his hands and was eating it, gnawing at it. His mouth was full of feathers and blood. He winked at me.
Then my desk phone rang and I awakened.
18
I picked up the phone.
“Belane Detective Agency….”
“My name is Grovers, Hal Grovers, I need your help. The police laugh at me.”
“What is it, Mr. Grovers?”
“A space alien is after me.”
“Ha, ha, ha, Mr. Grovers, come on now…”
“You see, everybody laughs at me!”
“Sorry Grovers. But before you talk to me any more I gotta tell you my fee.”
“What is it?”
“6 dollars an hour.”
“That doesn’t seem to be a problem.”
“No rubber checks or you’ll be carrying your walnuts in a sack, got it?”
“Money is not my problem,” he said, “it’s this woman.”
“What woman, Grovers?”
“Hell, the one we’re talking about, this space alien.”
“The space alien is a woman?”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“How do you know this?”
“She told me.”
“You believe her?”
“Sure, I’ve seen her do