Pulp - Charles Bukowski [87]
“What do you really look like?” I asked.
“This,” she said.
There was a flash of purple light. I looked down on my desk. There was this thing. It looked like an above average size snake, only it was covered with coarse hair and at its center was a round, moist glob with a single eye. The head had no eyes, only a thin mouth. It was truly a hideous looking thing. I grabbed the telephone, raised it high and brought it down hard. I missed. The thing had slithered to one side. It crawled down along the rug. I ran after it to crush it with my shoe. There was another flash of purple light and then Jeannie stood there again.
“You fool,” she said, “you tried to kill me. Don’t anger me or I’ll take you out!”
Her eyes were blazing.
“O.k., baby, o.k., I just got kind of confused. Sorry.”
“All right, forget it. Now, we are an advance force sent to scout the earth for our excess population. But we feel it would only be sensible to align some of you humans to our Cause. Like you.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the perfect type, you’re gullible, self-centered and have no character.”
“What’s with Grovers? Why him? Why the dead bodies? How does he fit?”
Jeannie laughed.
“He doesn’t. We just landed there. I became somewhat attached to him, just a mild flirtation, something to do….”
“And me? You got the hots for me, baby?”
“You’re usable for the Cause.”
She moved toward me. I was totally entranced. Her body was against mine, we pressed together. We embraced and our mouths joined. Her tongue darted into my mouth, it was hot and wiggled like a small snake.
I pushed her away.
“No,” I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t!”
She looked at me.
“What is it, Belane? You too old?”
“It’s not that, baby…”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings…”
“Tell me, Belane…”
“Well, you might turn into that ugly thing again with the bump in the middle and that one eye…”
“Why you fat fuck, Zaronians are beautiful!”
“I didn’t think you’d understand…”
I walked back around my desk, sat down, pulled open the drawer, found the pint of vodka, unscrewed the cap, had a hit.
“How’d ya land?” I asked Jeannie.
“Space tube.”
“Space tube, huh? How many of you?”
“6.”
“I don’t know if I can help you, baby…”
“You’ll help me, Belane.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re dead.”
“Christ, first Lady Death. Now you. All you ladies do is threaten me with death. Well, maybe I’ll have something to say about that!”
I reached into the drawer for the luger. I had it in my hand. I pulled off the safety catch and leveled the gat at her.
“I’ll blow you all the way back to Zaros, baby!”
“Go ahead, pull the trigger!”
“What?”
“I said, pull the trigger, Belane!”
“You think I won’t?”
I could already feel some sweat at my temples.
“You think I won’t?” I repeated.
Jeannie just smiled at me.
“Pull the damned trigger, Belane!”
My whole face was a mass of sweat.
“Please go back to Zaros, sweetheart!”
“NO!”
I pulled the trigger. There was a roar of sound and the gun kicked back in my hand. I rubbed the sweat away from my eyes and looked.
Jeannie was standing there smiling at me. I looked closer. She had something in her mouth. It was the bullet. She had caught the bullet with her teeth. She walked toward the desk, stopped. Then she spat the bullet out into my ashtray.
“Baby,” I said, “we can make a lot of money with that trick! We can team up! We can be rich! Think of it!”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Belane. That would be a misuse of my powers.”
I took another hit of my vodka. I had a real problem here with Jeannie.
“Now,” said Jeannie, “I am enlisting you for our Cause, the Cause of the Zaros, whether you like it or not. We are still revising our plan to inhabit the earth. You’ll be contacted and advised at our discretion.”
“Look, Jeannie, can’t you get anybody else for this goddamned thing?”
She smiled.
“Belane, you have been Selected!”
There was a flash of purple light and she was gone.
31
I got Grovers on the phone. He was in.
“How’s business, Grovers?”
“Steady,” he said, “no recession here.”
“Your case with Jeannie Nitro, it’s closed. She won’t be