Women - Charles Bukowski [21]
I disliked them all immediately, sitting around acting clever and superior. They nullified each other. The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.
“Let’s get a table,” I said. So there I was, a $65 a week writer sitting in a room with other writers, $1000 a week writers. Lydia, I thought, I am getting there. You’ll be sorry. Some day I’ll go into fancy restaurants and I’ll be recognized. They’ll have a special table for me in the back near the kitchen.
We got our drinks and Dee Dee looked at me. “You give good head. You give the best head I ever had.”
“Lydia taught me. Then I added a few touches of my own.”
A dark young boy jumped up and came over to our table. Dee Dee introduced us. The boy was from New York, wrote for the Village Voice and other New York newspapers. He and Dee Dee name-dropped a while and then he asked her, “What’s your husband do?”
“I got a stable,” I said. “Fighters. Four good Mexican boys. Plus one black boy, a real dancer. What do you weigh?”
“158. Were you a fighter? Your face looks like you caught a few.”
“I’ve caught a few. We can put you in at 135. I need a southpaw lightweight.”
“How’d you know I was a southpaw?”
“You’re holding your cigarette in your left hand. Come on down to the Main Street gym. Monday AM. We’ll start your training. Cigarettes are out. Put that son of a bitch out!”
“Listen, man, I’m a writer. I use a typewriter. You never read my stuff?”
“All I read is the metropolitan dailies—murders, rapes, fight results, swindles, jetliner crashes and Ann Landers.”
“Dee Dee,” he said, “I’ve got an interview with Rod Stewart in 30 minutes. I gotta go.” He left.
Dee Dee ordered another round of drinks. “Why can’t you be decent to people?” she asked.
“Fear,” I said.
“Here we are,” she said and drove her car into the Hollywood cemetery.
“Nice,” I said, “real nice. I had forgotten all about death.”
We drove around. Most of the tombs were above ground. They were like little houses, with pillars and front steps. And each had a locked iron door. Dee Dee parked and we got out. She tried one of the doors. I watched her behind wiggle as she worked at the door. I thought about Nietzsche. There we were: a German stallion and a Jewish mare. The Fatherland would adore me.
We got back into the M. Benz and Dee Dee parked outside of one of the bigger units. They were all stuck into the walls in there. Rows and rows of them. Some had flowers, in little vases, but most of the blooms were withered. The majority of the niches didn’t have flowers. Some of them had husband and wife neatly side by side. In some cases one niche was empty and waiting. In all cases the husband was the one already dead.
Dee Dee took my hand and led me around the corner. There he was, down near the bottom, Rudolph Valentino. Dead 1926. Didn’t live long. I decided to live to be 80. Think of being 80 and fucking an 18 year old girl. If there was any way to cheat the game of death, that was it.
Dee Dee lifted one of the flower vases and dropped it into her purse. The standard trip. Rip off whatever wasn’t tied down. Everything belonged to everybody. We went outside and Dee Dee said, “I want to sit on Tyrone Power’s bench. He was my favorite. I loved him!”
We went and sat on Tyrone’s bench next to his grave. Then we got up and walked over to Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s tomb. He had a good one. His own private reflector pool in front of the tomb. The pool was filled with water lillies and pollywogs. We walked up some stairs and there at the back of the tomb was a place to sit. Dee Dee and I sat. I noticed a crack in the wall of the tomb with small red ants running in and out. I watched the small red ants for a while, then put my arms around Dee Dee and kissed her, a good long long kiss. We were going to be good friends.
19
Dee Dee had to pick up her son at the airport. He was coming home from England for his vacation. He was 17,