Pulp - Charles Bukowski [82]
“He he…got the wrong door…got the wrong door…”
I turned around then and walked out of there, took the elevator down. Then I waited for it to reach the first floor. Then I waited for the door to open. Then I walked down the hall and out onto the street and found my car. I got in. Started up. Waited for it to get warm. Got to a signal. It was red. I waited. I pushed in the cigarette lighter and waited. The light turned green, the lighter jumped out and I lit my smoke while driving along. I felt like I had better get over to the office. I felt like somebody was waiting for me.
26
I was wrong. There was nobody at the office. I went around and sat behind my desk.
I was feeling peculiar. So many things didn’t fit. I mean, in the lawyer’s office, why was that man reading his newspaper upside-down? He belonged in the shrink’s office. Or maybe just the outside pages of the newspaper were upside-down and he was reading the inside straight-side-up? Was there a God? And where was the Red Sparrow? I had too many things to solve. Getting out of bed in the morning was the same as facing the blank wall of the Universe. Maybe I should go to a nude bar and stick a 5 buck bill into a g-string? Try to forget everything. Maybe I should go to a boxing match and watch two guys beat the shit out of each other?
But trouble and pain were what kept a man alive. Or trying to avoid trouble and pain. It was a full time job. And sometimes even in sleep you couldn’t rest. Last dream I had I was laying under this elephant, I couldn’t move and he was releasing one of the biggest turds you ever saw, it was about to drop and then my cat, Hamburger, walked across the top of my head and I awakened. You tell that dream to a shrink and he’ll make something awful out of it. Because you are paying him excessively, he’s going to make sure to make you feel bad. He’ll tell you that the turd is a penis and that you are either frightened of it or that you want it, some kind of crap like that. What he really means is that he is frightened or wants the penis. It’s only a dream about a big elephant turd, nothing more. Sometimes things are just what they seem to be and that’s all there is to it. The best interpreter of the dream is the dreamer. Keep your money in your pocket. Or bet it on a good horse.
I had a hit of sake, cold. My ears jumped and I felt a little better. I could feel my brain beginning to warm up. I wasn’t dead yet, just in a state of rapid decay. Who wasn’t? We were all in the same leaky boat, jollying ourselves up. Like, you take Christmas. Yeah, take it the hell out of here. The man who made it up was the man who never carried extra luggage. The rest of us have got to dump most of our junk just to find out where we are. Well, not where we are but where we aren’t. The more stuff you dumped the more you could see. Everything worked in reverse. Go backwards and Nirvana leaps into your lap. Sure.
I had another hit of sake. I was coming around. Around the bend. Balls away. I was Nick Belane, super dick.
Then the phone rang. I picked it up just like a normal person would pick up a telephone. Well, not quite. Sometimes a phone made me think of an elephant turd. You know, all the shit you hear. A phone is a phone but what comes through it is another matter.
“You’re a lousy philosopher,” said Lady Death.
“For me,” I told her, “I’m perfect.”
“People live on their delusions,” she said.
“Why not?” I suggested. “What else is there?”
“The end of them,” she said.
“Well, hell,” I said.
“Hell yourself,” said Lady Death. “What’s happening with the Celine caper?”
“Baby, I’ve got it all worked out.”
“Clue me, fat boy.”
“I want you to meet me at Musso’s tomorrow afternoon at 2:30.”
“All right. But you better have something. Do you?”
“Babe, I can’t tip my hat.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Sorry. I mean, I can’t tip my hand.”
“You better have something…”
“I’ll bet my life on it,” I told her.
“You just did,” said Lady Death, hanging up.
I put the phone down, stared at it a while. I picked an old cigar out of the ashtray, lit it,