Women - Charles Bukowski [209]
“Shoot.”
“Who was your favorite author?”
“Fante.”
“Who?”
“John F—a—n—t—e. Ask the Dust. Wait Until Spring, Bandini.”
“Where can we find his books?”
“I found them in the main library, downtown. Fifth and Olive, isn’t it?”
“Why did you like him?”
“Total emotion. A very brave man.”
“Who else?”
“Celine.”
“Why?”
“They ripped out his guts and he laughed, and he made them laugh too. A very brave man.”
“Do you believe in bravery?”
“I like to see it anywhere, in animals, birds, reptiles, humans.”
“Why?”
“Why? It makes me feel good. It’s a matter of style in the face of no chance at all.”
“Hemingway?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Too grim, too serious. A good writer, fine sentences. But for him, life was always total war. He never let go, he never danced.”
They folded up their notebooks and vanished. Too bad. I had meant to tell them that my real influences were Gable, Cagney, Bogart and Errol Flynn.
Next thing I knew I was sitting with three handsome women, Sara, Cassie, and Debra. Sara was 32, a classy wench, good style and a heart. She had red-blond hair that fell straight down, and she had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. Debra was Jewish with large brown eyes and a generous mouth, heavily smeared with blood-red lipstick. Her mouth glistened and beckoned to me. I guessed she was somewhere between 30 and 35, and she reminded me of how my mother looked in 1935 (although my mother had been much more beautiful). Cassie was tall with long blond hair, very young, expensively dressed, modish, hip, “in,” nervous, beautiful. She sat closest to me, squeezing my hand, rubbing her thigh against mine. As she squeezed my hand I became aware that her hand was much larger than mine. (Although I am a large man I am embarrassed by my small hands. In my barroom brawls as a young man in Philadelphia I had quickly found out the importance of hand size. How I had managed to win 30 percent of my fights was amazing.) Anyway, Cassie felt she had an edge on the other two, and I wasn’t sure but that I agreed.
Then I had to read, and I had a luckier night. It was the same crowd, but my mind was on my work. The crowd got warmer and warmer, wilder and enthusiastic. Sometimes it was them who made it happen, sometimes it was you. Usually the latter. It was like climbing into the prize ring: you should feel you owed them something or you shouldn’t be in there. I jabbbed and crossed and shuffled, and in the last round I really opened up and knocked out the referee. Performance is performance. Because I had bombed the night before my success must have seemed very strange to them. It certainly seemed strange to me.
Cassie was waiting in the bar. Sara slipped me a love note with her phone number. Debra was not as inventive—she just wrote down her phone number. For a moment—strangely—I thought about Katherine, then I bought Cassie a drink. I’d never see Katherine again. My little Texas girl, my beauty of beauties. Goodbye, Katherine.
“Look, Cassie, can you drive me home? I’m too drunk to drive. One more drunk driving rap and I’ve had it.”
“All right, I’ll drive you home. How about your car?”
“Fuck it. I’ll leave it.”
We left together in her M.G. It was like a movie. At any moment I expected her to drop me off at the next corner. She was in her mid-twenties. She talked as we drove. She worked for a music company, loved it, didn’t have to be at work until 10:30 AM and she left at 3 PM. “Not bad,” she said, “and I like it. I can hire and fire, I’ve moved up, but I haven’t had to fire anybody yet. They’re good folks and we’ve put out some great records….”
We arrived at my place. I broke out the vodka. Cassie’s hair came