Women - Charles Bukowski [63]
He didn’t speak.
I got up, went to the kitchen sink and vomited. I came back and sat down. I had a new beer. I hated it when the beer wouldn’t stay down. I simply had been drunk too many days and nights in a row. I needed a rest. And I needed a drink. Just beer. You’d think I could hold down beer. I took a long pull.
The beer wouldn’t stay down. I went to the bathroom. Tammie knocked, “Hank, are you all right?”
I washed out my mouth and opened the door. “I’m sick, that’s all.”
“Do you want me to get rid of them?”
“Sure.”
She went back to them. “Look, fellows, why don’t we go up to my place?”
I hadn’t expected that.
Tammie had neglected to pay her electric bill, or she didn’t want to, and they sat up there by candlelight. She had taken a fifth of mixed margarita cocktails I had purchased earlier in the day up there with her.
I sat and drank alone. The next beer stayed down.
I could hear them up there, talking.
Then Tammie’s brother left. I watched him walk in the moonlight towards his car….
Tammie and Filbert were up there alone together, by candlelight.
I sat with the lights out, drinking. An hour passed. I could see the wavering candlelight in the dark. I looked around. Tammie had left her shoes. I picked up her shoes and went up the stairway. Her door was open and I heard her talking to Filbert…. “So, anyway, what I meant was…”
She heard me walking up the stairs. “Henry, is that you?”
I threw Tammie’s shoes the remainder of the way up the stairway. They landed outside her door.
“You forgot your shoes,” I said.
“Oh, God bless you,” she said.
About 10:30 the next morning Tammie knocked on the door. I opened it. “You rotten goddamned bitch.”
“Stop talking that way,” she said.
“Want a beer?”
“All right.”
She sat down. “Well, we drank the bottle of margaritas. Then my brother left. Filbert was very nice. He just sat and didn’t talk much. ‘How are you going to get home?’ I asked him. ‘Do you have a car?’ And he said he didn’t. He just sat there looking at me and I said, ‘Well, I have a car, I’ll drive you home.’ So I drove him home. Anyhow, since I was there I went to bed with him. I was pretty drunk, but he didn’t touch me. He said he had to go to work in the morning.” Tammie laughed. “Sometime during the night he tried to approach me. I put the pillow over my head and just started giggling. I kept the pillow there and giggled. He gave up. After he left for work I drove over to my mother’s and took Dancy to school. And now here I am….”
The next day Tammie was on uppers. She kept running in and out of my place. Finally she told me, “I’ll be back tonight. I’ll see you tonight!”
“Forget tonight.”
“What’s wrong with you? Plenty of men would be happy to see me tonight.”
Tammie slammed out of the door. There was a pregnant cat sleeping on my porch.
“Get the hell out of here, Red!”
I picked up the pregnant cat and threw it at her. I missed by a foot and the cat dropped into a nearby bush.
The following night Tammie was on speed. I was drunk. Tammie and Dancy screamed at me from the window above.
“Go eat jerk-off, ya jerk!”
“Yeah, go eat jerk-off, you jerk! HAHAHA!”
“Ah, balloons!” I answered, “your mother’s big balloons!”
“Go eat rat droppings, ya jerk!”
“You jerk, you jerk, you jerk! HAHAHA!”
“Fruit fly brains,” I answered, “suck the cotton out of my navel!”
“You…” began Tammie.
Suddenly there were several pistol shots nearby, either in the street or in the back of the court or behind the apartment next door. Very near. It was a poor neighborhood with lots of prostitution and drugs and occasionally a murder.
Dancy started screaming out the window: “HANK! HANK! COME UP HERE, HANK! HANK, HANK, HANK! HURRY, HANK!”
I ran up. Tammie was stretched out on the bed, all that glorious red hair flared out on the pillow. She saw me.
“I’ve been shot,” she said weakly. “I’ve been shot.”
She pointed to a spot on her bluejeans. She was not joking anymore. She was terrified.
There was a red stain, but it was dry. Tammie liked to use my paints. I reached down and touched