The Pleasures of the Damned - Charles Bukowski [39]
bends again, rises, in all that red,
that red like snake skin
clinging moving flashing
hot damn
I keep looking, and
she sees me
pauses bent over basket
clothespin in mouth
she rises with a pair of pink
pan ties
smiles around the
clothespin
waves to me.
what’s next? rape in the streets?
I wave back,
go in,
sit down at the machine
by the window, and now it’s someone’s
violin concerto in D,
and a pretty black girl in very tight pants
walking a hound,
they stop outside my window,
look in;
she has on dark shades
and her mouth opens a little, then she and the dog
move on.
someone might have bombed cities for this or
sold apples in the
rain.
but whoever is responsible, today I wish to
thank him
all the
way.
my failure
I think of de vils in hell
and stare at a
beautiful vase of
flowers
as the woman in my bedroom
angrily switches the light
on and off.
we have had a very bad
argument
and I sit in here smoking
cigarettes from
India
as on the radio an
opera singer’s prayers are
not in my
language.
outside, the window to
my left reveals the night
lights of the
city and I only wish
I had the courage to
break through this simple horror
and make things well
again
but my petty anger
prevents
me.
I realize hell is only what we
create,
smoking these cigarettes,
waiting here,
wondering here,
while in the other room
she continues to
sit and
switch the light
on and off,
on and
off.
a boy and his dog
there’s Barry in his ripped walking shorts
he’s on Thorazine
is 24
looks 38
lives with his mother in the same
apartment building
and they fight like married folk.
he wears dirty white t-shirts
and every time he gets a new dog
he names him “Brownie.”
he’s like an old woman really.
he’ll see me getting into my Volks.
“hey, ya goin’ ta work?”
“oh, no Barry, I don’t work. I’m going to
the racetrack.”
“yeah?”
he walks over to the car window.
“ya heard them last night?”
“who?”
“them! they were playin’ that shit all night!
I couldn’t sleep! they played until one-thirty!
didn’t cha hear ’em?”
“no, but I’m in the back, Barry, you’re up
front.”
we live in east Hollywood among the massage parlors,
adult bookstores and the sex film theatres.
“yeah,” says Barry. “I don’t know what this neighborhood
is comin’ to! ya know those other people in
the front
unit?”
“yes.”
“well, I saw through their curtains! and ya know what
they were doin’?”
“no, Barry.”
“this!” he says and then takes his right forefinger and
pokes it against a vein in his left arm.
“really?”
“yeah! and if it ain’t that, now we got all these
drunks in the neighborhood!”
“look, Barry, I’ve got to get to the racetrack.”
“aw’ right. but ya know what happened?”
“no, Barry.”
“a cop stopped me on my Moped. and guess why?”
“speeding?”
“no! he claimed I had to have a license to drive a Moped!
that’s stupid! he gave me a ticket! I almost smashed him
in the face!”
“oh yeah?”
“yeah! I almost smashed him!”
“Barry, I’ve got to make the first race.”
“how much does it cost you to get in?”
“four dollars and twenty-five cents.”
“I got into the Pomona County Fair for a dollar.”
“all right, Barry.”
the motor has been running. I put it into first and pull
out. in the rearview mirror I see him walk
back across the lawn.
Brownie is waiting for him,
wagging his tail.
his mother is inside waiting.
maybe Barry will slam her against the refrigerator
thinking about that cop.
or maybe they’ll play checkers.
I find the Hollywood freeway
then the Pasadena freeway.
life has been tough on Barry:
he’s 24
looks 38
but it all evens out finally:
he’s aged a good many other people
too.
liberated woman and liberated man
look there.
the one you considered killing yourself
for.
you saw her the other day
getting out of her car
in the Safeway parking lot.
she was wearing a torn green
dress and old dirty
boots
her face raw with living.
she saw you
so you walked over
and spoke and then
listened.
her hair did not glisten
her eyes