Women - Charles Bukowski [141]
We went into one of the bungalows. There was a handsome girl behind the desk, educated and cool.
“I’m Chinaski,” I said, “and here’s my copy.”
I threw it on the desk.
“Oh, Mr. Chinaski, I’ve always admired your work very much!”
“Do you have anything to drink around here?”
“Just a moment….”
She went up to a carpeted stairway and came back down with a bottle of expensive red wine. She opened it and pulled some glasses from a hidden bar. How I’d like to get in bed with her, I thought. But there was no way. Yet, somebody was going to bed with her regularly.
We sat and sipped our wine.
“We’ll let you know very soon about the article. I’m sure we’ll take it…. But you’re not at all the way I expected you to be….”
“What do you mean?”
“Your voice is so soft. You seem so nice.”
Lydia laughed. We finished our wine and left. As we were walking toward my car I heard a voice. “Hank!”
I looked around and there sitting in a new Mercedes was Dee Dee Bronson. I walked over.
“How’s it going, Dee Dee?”
“Pretty good. I quit Capitol Records. Now I’m running that place over there.” She pointed. It was another music company, quite famous, with its home office in London. Dee Dee used to drop by my place with her boyfriend when he and I both had columns in a Los Angeles underground newspaper.
“Jesus, you’re doing good,” I said.
“Yes, except…”
“Except what?”
“Except I need a man. A good man.”
“Well, give me your phone number and I’ll see if I can find one for you.”
“All right.”
Dee Dee wrote her phone number on a slip of paper and I put it in my wallet. Lydia and I walked over to my old Volks and got in. “You’re going to phone her,” Lydia said. “You’re going to use that number.”
I started the car and got back on Hollywood Boulevard.
“You’re going to use that number,” she said. “I just know you’re going to use that number!”
“Cut the shit!” I said.
It looked like another bad night.
14
We had another fight. Later I was back at my place but I didn’t feel like sitting there alone and drinking. The night harness racing meet was on. I took a pint and went out to the track. I arrived early and got all my figures together. By the time the first race was over the pint was surprisingly more than half gone. I was mixing it with hot coffee and it went down easily.
I won three of the first four races. Later I won an exacta and was nearly $200 ahead by the end of the 5th race. I went to the bar and played off the toteboard. That night they gave me what I called “a good toteboard.” Lydia would have shit if she could have seen me pulling in all that cash. She hated it when I won at the track, especially when she was losing.
I kept drinking and hitting. By the time the 9th race was over I was $950 ahead and very drunk. I put my wallet in one of my side pockets and walked slowly to my car.
I sat in my car and watched the losers leave the parking lot. I sat there until the traffic thinned out then I started the engine. Just outside the track was a supermarket. I saw a lighted phone booth at one end of the parking lot, drove in and got out. I walked to the phone and dialed Lydia’s number.
“Listen,” I said, “listen, you bitch. I went to the harness races tonight and won $950. I’m a winner! I’ll always be a winner! You don’t deserve me, bitch! You’ve been playing with me! Well, it’s over! I want out! This is it! I don’t need you and your goddamned games! Do you understand me? Do you get the message? Or is your head thicker than your ankles?”
“Hank…”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t Lydia. This is Bonnie. I’m baby sitting for Lydia. She went out tonight.”
I hung up and walked back to my car.
15
Lydia phoned