Women - Charles Bukowski [159]
I walked up to the mountain spring. I reached in for another beer, opened it and sat there drinking. I was trapped in the mountains and woods with two crazy women. They took all the joy out of fucking by talking about it all the time. I liked to fuck too, but it wasn’t my religion. There were too many ridiculous and tragic things about it. People didn’t seem to know how to handle it. So they made a toy out of it. A toy that destroyed people.
The main thing, I decided, was to find the right woman. But how? I had a red notebook and a pen with me. I scribbled a meditative poem into it. Then I walked up to the lake. Vance Pastures, the place was called. The sisters owned most of it. I had to take a shit. I took off my pants and squatted in the brush with the flies and the mosquitoes. I’d take the conveniences of the city any time. I had to wipe with leaves. I walked over to the lake and stuck one foot in the water. It was ice cold.
Be a man, old man. Enter.
My skin was ivory white. I felt very old, very soft. I moved out into the ice water. I went in up to my waist, then I took a deep breath and leaped forward. I was all the way in! The mud swirled up from the bottom and got into my ears, my mouth, my hair. I stood there in the muddy water, my teeth chattering.
I waited a long time for the water to settle and clear. Then I walked back out. I got dressed and made my way along the edge of the lake. When I got to the end of the lake I heard a sound like that of a waterfall. I went into a forest, moving toward the sound. I had to climb around some rocks across a gully. The sound came closer and closer. The flies and mosquitoes swarmed all over me. The flies were large and angry and hungry, much larger than city flies, and they knew a meal when they saw one.
I pushed my way through some thick brush and there it was: my first real honest-to-Christ waterfall. The water just poured down the mountain and over a rocky ledge. It was beautiful. It kept coming and coming. That water was coming from somewhere. And it was running off somewhere. There were 3 or 4 streams that probably led to the lake.
Finally I got tired of watching it and decided to go back. I also decided to take a different route back, a shortcut. I worked my way down to the opposite side of the lake and cut off toward camp. I knew about where it was. I still had my red notebook. I stopped and wrote another poem, less meditative, then I went on. I kept walking. The camp didn’t appear. I walked some more. I looked around for the lake. I couldn’t find the lake, I didn’t know where it was. Suddenly it hit me: I was LOST. Those horny sex bitches had driven me out of my mind and now I was LOST. I looked around. There was the backdrop of mountains and all around me were trees and brush. There was no center, no starting point, no connection between anything. I felt fear, real fear. Why had I let them take me out of my city, my Los Angeles? A man could call a cab there, he could telephone. There were reasonable solutions to reasonable problems.
Vance Pastures stretched out around me for miles and miles. I threw away my red notebook. What a way for a writer to die! I could see it in the newspaper:
HENRY CHINASKI, MINOR POET, FOUND DEAD IN UTAH WOODS
Henry Chinaski, former post office clerk turned writer, was found in a decomposed state yesterday afternoon by forest ranger W.K. Brooks Jr. Also found near the remains was a small red notebook which evidently contained Mr. Chinaski’s last written work.
I walked on. Soon I was in a soggy area full of water. Every now and then one of my legs would sink to the knee in the bog and I’d have to haul myself out.
I came to a barbed wire fence. I knew immediately that I shouldn’t climb the fence. I knew that it was the wrong thing to do, but there seemed no alternative. I climbed over the fence and stood there, cupped both hands around my mouth and screamed: “LYDIA!”
There was no answer.
I tried it again: “LYDIA!”
My voice sounded very mournful. The voice of a coward.
I moved on. It would be nice, I thought, to