Women - Charles Bukowski [14]
I rolled out of bed and stood up. I began putting my shirt on. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m getting out of here.”
“There you go! The minute things don’t go your way you jump up and run out of the door. You never want to talk about things. You go home and get drunk and then you’re so sick the next day you think you’re going to die. Then you phone me!”
“I’m getting the hell out of here!”
“But why?”
“I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted. I don’t want to stay where I’m disliked.”
Lydia waited. Then she said, “All right. Come on, lay down. We’ll turn off the light and just be still together.”
I waited. Then I said, “Well, all right.”
I undressed entirely and got under the blanket and sheet. I pressed my flank against Lydia’s flank. We were both on our backs. I could hear the crickets. It was a nice neighborhood. A few minutes passed. Then Lydia said, “I’m going to be great.”
I didn’t answer. A few more minutes passed. Then Lydia leaped out of bed. She threw both of her hands up in the air toward the ceiling and said in a loud voice: “I’M GOING TO BE GREAT! I’M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT! NOBODY KNOWS HOW GREAT I’M GOING TO BE!”
“All right,” I said.
Then she said in a lower voice, “You don’t understand. I’m going to be great. I have more potential than you have!”
“Potential,” I said, “doesn’t mean a thing. You’ve got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.”
“But I’m GOING to do it! I’M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT!”
“All right,” I said. “But meanwhile come on back to bed.”
Lydia came back to bed. We didn’t kiss each other. We weren’t going to have sex. I felt weary. I listened to the crickets. I don’t know how much time went by. I was almost asleep, not quite, when Lydia suddenly sat straight up in bed. And she screamed. It was a loud scream.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Be quiet.”
I waited. Lydia sat there, without moving, for what seemed to be about ten minutes. Then she fell back on her pillow.
“I saw God,” she said, “I just saw God.”
“Listen, you bitch, you are going to drive me crazy!”
I got up and began dressing. I was mad. I couldn’t find my shorts. The hell with them, I thought. I left them wherever they were. I had all my clothes on and was sitting on the chair pulling my shoes on my bare feet.
“What are you doing?” Lydia asked.
I couldn’t answer. I went into the front room. My coat was flung over a chair and I picked it up, put it on. Lydia ran into the front room. She had put on her blue negligee and a pair of panties. She was barefooted. Lydia had thick ankles. She usually wore boots to hide them.
“YOU’RE NOT GOING!” she screamed at me.
“Shit,” I said, “I’m getting out of here.”
She leaped at me. She usually attacked me while I was drunk. Now I was sober. I sidestepped and she fell to the floor, rolled over and was on her back. I stepped over her on my way to the front door. She was in a spitting rage, snarling, her lips pulled back. She was like a leopardess. I looked down at her. I felt safe with her on the floor. She let out a snarl and as I started to leave she reached up and dug her nails into the sleeve of my coat, pulled and ripped the sleeve off my arm. It was ripped from the coat at the shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” I said, “look what you’ve done to my new coat! I just bought it!”
I opened the door and jumped outside with one bare arm.
I had just unlocked the door to my car when I heard her bare feet on the asphalt behind me. I leaped in and locked the door. I punched the starter.
“I’ll kill this car!” she screamed. “I’ll kill this car!”
Her fists beat on the hood, on the roof, against the windshield. I moved the car ahead very slowly so as not to injure her. My ’62 Mercury Comet had fallen apart, and I’d recently purchased a ’67 Volks. I kept it shined and waxed. I even had a whisk broom in the glove compartment. As I pulled away Lydia kept beating on the car with her fists. When I was clear of her I shoved it into second. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw her standing all alone in the moonlight, motionless