Pulp - Charles Bukowski [90]
“Do that. Good night.”
He hung up. Nice guy.
I started to relight my cigar. I almost spit it out. Cindy Bass was walking out of the house. She moved to her car. Got in.
Baby, baby, lead me to it.
She started up, turned on her lights, backed out of the drive. She swung around, headed north. I followed a half a block or so back. Then she turned onto the main boulevard, Pacific Coast Highway, to be exact. She headed south. I was about 3 car lengths back. She went across an intersection and the light turned red on me. I had to go through. It was close but no hit. I heard the horns and somebody called me an asshole. People lacked originality.
Then I was 3 car lengths behind her again. She was in the right hand lane. She began to slow down, then she turned into a driveway, a motel driveway. Honeydunes Motel. Sweet. She pulled in and parked at #9. I drove down to #7, parked, cut my lights and waited.
She climbed out, walked up the path, up to the door and knocked. The door opened and a guy stood there.
Ah, Cindy!
The guy stood in the light and I could make him out. He looked good. I don’t mean to me. But to her, he must have. He was young. Blank smooth face with thin eyebrows, lots of hair. In fact, looked like he had a little pigtail. You know the kind. It was braided. A real jackass. They embraced in the doorway. Some kind of kiss. I heard Cindy laugh. Then she walked in and the door was closed.
I grabbed my camcorder and walked down to the office. Walked in. There was nobody there. There was a little desk. A bell. I hit the bell. Nothing. I hit the bell real hard, 6 times.
Somebody came walking out. An old fart. He was barefooted, dressed in a long nightgown and a stocking cap.
“Ah ha,” I said, “you’re ready for a good little old sleep, huh?”
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. What’s it to you?”
“No offense, sir. I need a room. Do you have a vacancy?”
“You a pimp?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“You sell drugs?”
“No, sir.”
“Wish you did. I need some coke.”
“I’m a bible salesman, sir.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“Just trying to spread the word.”
“Well, don’t spread that shit around me.”
“As you wish.”
“Fucking-A!”
“Well, sir, I need a room.”
“We got two. #8 and #3.”
“Did you say #8?”
“I said, #8 and #3. Don’t you hear right?”
“I’ll take #8.”
“35 bucks. Cash.”
I peeled the money off. He grabbed it, slammed down a key.
“Don’t I get a receipt?”
“A what?”
“A receipt.”
“Spell it.”
“I can’t.”
“Then you don’t get it.”
I took the key, got out of there, walked down to #8, unlocked the door. Nice looking place. If you were homeless.
I found a glass in the kitchen. Brought it out and put it up against the wall facing #9. Luck. I could hear them.
“Billy,” I heard Cindy Bass say, “let’s not rush it. I want to talk a little first.”
“We can talk afterwards,” said Billy. “I got this ramrod here and I got to do something with it. I need flesh, not words!”
“I want to shower first, Billy.”
“Shower? What ya been doin’, working in the garden?”
“Ah, Billy, you’re so funny!”
“All right, go shower! I’ll throw some icewater on this cobra!”
“Ah, Billy, hahaha!”
I smiled for the first time in weeks.
I was going to nail her.
35
I kept the drinking glass pressed to the wall and kept listening. I heard the shower water running. Poor Bass, he had been right. But everybody was right, and wrong, and upside-down. But what did it really matter who screwed who? It was finally all so drab. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Well, people got attached. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attached to other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder and Monday morning hangovers.
I put the glass down, reached into my coat, found the half pint of gin, had a little nip. That always cleared the bugs out of the mind.
I began to think about another line of work. Here I was going to bust in and camcord a screw scene and I just didn’t have any taste for it. It was just a job, the rent, the booze, just waiting for the last day or night. Marking time. What crap. I should have been a great philosopher, I would have told them how