Women - Charles Bukowski [161]
HENRY CHINASKI, MINOR POET, FLOODS UTAH COUNTRYSIDE IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS SOFT LOS ANGELES ASS.
I decided against it. I threw all the switches back to normal, closed the metal box, and hung the broken lock back on it.
I left the reservoir, found another road up the way, and began following it. This road seemed more used than the other. I walked along. I had never been so tired. I could hardly see. Suddenly there was a little girl about 5 years old walking towards me. She wore a little blue dress and white shoes. She looked frightened when she saw me. I tried to look pleasant and friendly as I edged towards her.
“Little girl, don’t go away. I won’t hurt you. I’M LOST! Where are your parents? Little girl, take me to your parents!”
The little girl pointed. I saw a trailer and a car parked up ahead. “HEY, I’m LOST!” I shouted. “CHRIST, AM I GLAD TO SEE YOU.”
Lydia stepped around the side of the trailer. Her hair was done up in red curlers. “Come on, city boy,” she said. “Follow me home.”
“I’m so glad to see you, baby, kiss me!”
“No. Follow me.”
Lydia took off running about 20 feet in front of me. It was hard keeping up.
“I asked those people if they had seen a city boy around,” she called back over her shoulder. “They said, No.”
“Lydia, I love you!”
“Come on! You’re slow!”
“Wait, Lydia, wait!”
She vaulted over a barbed wire fence. I couldn’t make it. I got tangled in the wire. I couldn’t move. I was like a trapped cow. “LYDIA!”
She came back with her red curlers and started helping me get loose from the barbs. “I tracked you. I found your red notebook. You got lost deliberately because you were pissed.”
“No, I got lost out of ignorance and fear. I am not a complete person—I’m a stunted city person. I am more or less a failed drizzling shit with absolutely nothing to offer.”
“Christ,” she said, “don’t you think I know that?”
She freed me from the last barb. I lurched after her. I was back with Lydia again.
31
It was 3 or 4 days before I had to fly to Houston to give a reading. I went to the track, drank at the track, and afterwards I went to a bar on Hollywood Boulevard. I went home at 9 or 10 PM. As I moved through the bedroom towards the bathroom I tripped over the telephone cord. I fell against the corner of the bed frame—an edge of steel like a knife blade. When I got up I found I had a deep gash just above the ankle. The blood ran into the rug and I left a bloody trail as I went to the bathroom. The blood ran over the tiles and I left red footprints as I walked about.
There was a knock on the door and I let Bobby in. “Jesus Christ, man, what happened?”
“It’s DEATH,” I said. “I’m bleeding to death….”
“Man,” he said, “you better do something about that leg.”
Valerie knocked. I let her in too. She screamed. I poured Bobby and Valerie and myself drinks. The phone rang. It was Lydia.
“Lydia, baby, I’m bleeding to death!”
“Is this one of your dramatic trips again?”
“No, I’m bleeding to death. Ask Valerie.”
Valerie took the phone. “It’s true, his ankle is cut open. There’s blood everywhere and he won’t do anything about it. You better come over….”
When Lydia arrived I was sitting on the couch. “Look, Lydia: DEATH!” Tiny veins were hanging out of the wound like strings of spaghetti. I yanked at some of them. I took my cigarette and tapped ashes into the wound. “I’m a MAN! Hell, I’m a MAN!”
Lydia went and got some hydrogen peroxide and poured it into the wound. It was nice. White foam gushed out of the wound. It sizzled and bubbled. Lydia poured some more in.
“You better go to a hospital,” Bobby said.
“I don’t need a fucking hospital,” I said. “It will cure itself….”
The next morning the wound looked horrible. It was still open and seemed to be forming a nice crust. I went to the drugstore for some more hydrogen peroxide, some bandages, and some epsom salts. I filled the tub full of hot water and epsom salts and got in. I began thinking about myself with only