Women - Charles Bukowski [62]
I took a bottle and looped it through the air. I threw a few more back there. They were good. They caught them all. Then one slipped out of my hand and went high into the air. I heard it smash. I decided to quit. I could see a lawsuit: skull fracture.
There were 20 bottles left.
“Now, the rest of these are mine!”
“You gonna read all night?”
“I’m gonna drink all night….”
Applause, jeers, belches….
“YOU FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!” some guy screamed.
“Thank you, Aunt Tilly,” I answered.
I sat down, adjusted the mike, and started on the first poem. It became quiet. I was in the ring alone with the bull now. I felt some terror. But I had written the poems. I read them out. It was best to open up light, a poem of mockery. I finished it and the walls rocked. Four or five people were fighting during the applause. I was going to luck out. All I had to do was hang in there.
You couldn’t underestimate them and you couldn’t kiss their ass. There was a certain middle ground to be achieved.
I read more poems, drank the beer. I got drunker. The words were harder to read. I missed lines, dropped poems on the floor. Then I stopped and just sat there drinking.
“This is good,” I told them, “you pay to watch me drink.”
I made an effort and read them some more poems. Finally I read them a few dirty ones and wound it up.
“That’s it,” I said.
They yelled for more.
The boys at the slaughterhouse, the boys at Sears Roebuck, all the boys at all the warehouses where I worked as a kid and as a man never would have believed it.
In the office there were more drinks and several fat joints, bombers. Marty got on the intercom to find out about the gate.
Tammie stared at Marty. “I don’t like you,” she said. “I don’t like your eyes at all.”
“Don’t worry about his eyes,” I told her. “Let’s just get the money and go.”
Marty made the check out and handed it to me. “Here it is,” he said, “$200….”
“$200!” Tammie screamed at him. “You rotten son-of-a-bitch!”
I read the check. “He’s kidding,” I told her, “calm down.”
She ignored me. “$200,” she said to Marty, “you rotten…”
“Tammie,” I said, “it’s $400….”
“Sign the check,” said Marty, “and I’ll give you cash.”
“I got pretty drunk out there,” Tammie told me. “I asked this guy, ‘Can I lean my body against your body?’ He said, ‘O.K.’”
I signed and Marty gave me a stack of bills. I put them in my pocket.
“Look, Marty, I guess we better be leaving.”
“I hate your eyes,” Tammie said to Marty.
“Why don’t you stay and talk awhile?” Marty asked me.
“No, we’ve got to go.
Tammie stood up. “I have to go to the ladies’ restroom.”
She left.
Marty and I sat there. Ten minutes went by. Marty stood up and said, “Wait, I’ll be right back.”
I sat and waited, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. I walked out of the office and out the back door. I walked to the parking lot and sat in my Volks. Fifteen minutes went by, 20, 25.
I’ll give her 5 more minutes and then I’m leaving, I thought.
Just then Marty and Tammie walked out the back door and into the alley.
Marty pointed. “There he is.” Tammie walked over. Her clothes were all messed up and twisted. She climbed into the back seat and curled up.
I got lost 2 or 3 times on the freeway. Finally I pulled up in front of the court. I awakened Tammie. She got out, ran up the stairs to her place, and slammed the door.
68
It was a Wednesday night, 12:30 AM and I was very sick. My stomach was raw, but I managed to hold down a few beers. Tammie was with me and she seemed sympathetic. Dancy was at her grandmother’s.
Even though I was ill it seemed, finally, to be a good time—just two people being together.
There was a knock on the door. I opened it. It was Tammie’s brother, Jay, with another young man, Filbert, a small Puerto Rican. They sat down and I gave each of them a beer.
“Let’s go to a dirty movie,” said Jay.
Filbert just sat there. He had a black carefully-trimmed mustache and his face had very little expression. He didn’t give off any rays at all. I thought of terms like blank, wooden, dead, and so forth.
“Why don’t you say something,