Women - Charles Bukowski [129]
People arrived. I knew very few of them. I walked to my landlady’s in the back court. She came to the door.
“I’m having a big party, Mrs. O’Keefe. I want you and your husband to come. Plenty of beer, pretzels and chips.”
“Oh, my God, no!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve seen the people going in there! Those beards and all that hair and those raggedy-ass clothes! Bracelets and beads…they look like a bunch of communists! How can you stand people like that?”
“I can’t stand those people either, Mrs. O’Keefe. We just drink beer and talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You watch them. That kind will steal the plumbing.”
She closed the door.
Lydia arrived late. She came through the door like an actress. The first thing I noticed was her large cowboy hat with a lavender feather pinned to the side. She didn’t speak to me but immediately sat down next to a young bookstore clerk and began an intense conversation with him. I began drinking more heavily and some of the drive and humor left my conversation. The bookstore clerk was a good enough sort, trying to be a writer. His name was Randy Evans but he was too far into Kafka to accomplish any kind of literary clarity. We had published him in The Laxative Approach rather than hurt his feelings and also to get distribution for the magazine through his bookstore.
I drank my beer and wandered around. I walked out on the back porch, sat on the stoop in the alley and watched a large black cat trying to get into a garbage can. I walked down towards him. He leaped off the garbage can as I approached. He stood 3 or 4 feet away watching me. I took the lid off the garbage can. The stench was horrible. I puked into the can. I dropped the lid on the pavement. The cat leaped up, stood, all four feet together upon the rim of the can. He hesitated, then brilliant under a half-moon, he leaped into it all.
Lydia was still talking to Randy, and I noticed that under the table one of her feet was touching one of Randy’s. I opened another beer.
Sammy had the crowd laughing. I was a little better at it than he was when I wanted to get the crowd laughing but I wasn’t very good that night. There were 15 or 16 men and two women—Lydia and April. April was on ATD and fat. She was stretched out on the floor. After an hour or so she got up and left with Carl, a burned-out speed freak. That left 15 or 16 men and Lydia. I found a pint of scotch in the kitchen, took it out on the back porch, and had a bite now and then.
The men began leaving gradually as the night went on. Even Randy Evans left. Finally there was only Sammy, Lydia and myself. Lydia was talking to Sammy. Sammy said some funny things. I was able to laugh. Then he said he had to go.
“Please don’t go, Sammy,” said Lydia.
“Let the kid go,” I said.
“Yeah, I gotta go,” said Sammy.
After Sammy left Lydia said, “You didn’t have to drive him away. Sammy’s funny, Sammy’s really funny. You hurt his feelings.”
“But I want to talk to you alone, Lydia.”
“I enjoy your friends. I don’t get to meet all kinds of people the way you do. I like people!”
“I don’t.”
“I know you don’t. But I do. People come to see you. Maybe if they didn’t come to see you you’d like them better.”
“No, the less I see them the better I like them.”
“You hurt Sammy’s feelings.”
“Oh shit, he’s gone home to his mother.”
“You’re jealous, you’re insecure. You think I want to go to bed with every man I talk to.”
“No I don’t. Listen, how about a little drink?”
I got up and mixed her one. Lydia lit a long cigarette and sipped at her drink. “You sure look good in that hat,” I said. “That purple feather is something.”
“It’s my father’s hat.”
“Won’t he miss it?”
“He’s dead.”
I pulled Lydia over to the couch and gave her a long kiss. She told me about her father. He had died and left all 4 sisters a bit of money. That had enabled them to be independent and had enabled Lydia