Women - Charles Bukowski [64]
“Listen,” I told her, “you’re all right, don’t worry….”
As I walked out the door Bobby came pounding up the stairs. “Tammie, Tammie, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”
Bobby evidently had had to get dressed, which explained the time lag.
As he bounced past me I told him quickly, “Jesus Christ, man, you’re always in my life.”
He ran into Tammie’s apartment followed by the guy next door, a used car salesman and a certified nut.
Tammie came down a few days later with an envelope.
“Hank, the manager just served me with an eviction notice.”
She showed it to me.
I read it carefully. “It looks like they mean it,” I said.
“I told her I’d pay the back rent but she said, ‘We want you out of here, Tammie!’”
“You can’t let the rent go too long.”
“Listen, I have the money. I just don’t like to pay.”
Tammie was completely contrary in her ways. Her car wasn’t registered, the license plate tabs had long ago expired, and she drove without a driver’s license. She left her car parked for days in yellow zones, red zones, white zones, reserved parking lots…. When the police stopped her drunk or high or without her i.d., she talked to them, and they always let her go. She tore up the parking tickets whenever she got them.
“I’ll get the owner’s phone number.” (We had an absentee landlord.) “They can’t kick my ass out of here. Do you have his phone number?”
“No.”
Just then Irv, who owned a whorehouse, and who also acted as bouncer at the local massage parlor walked by. Irv was 6 foot 3 and on ATD. He also had a better mind than the first 3,000 people you’d pass on the street.
Tammie ran out: “Irv! Irv!”
He stopped and turned. Tammie swung her breasts at him. “Irv, do you have the owner’s phone number?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Irv, I need the owner’s phone number. Give me his number and I’ll suck you off!”
“I don’t have the number.”
He walked up to his door and put his key into the lock.
“Come on, Irv, I’ll suck you off if you tell me!”
“You really mean it?” he asked hesitating, looking at her.
Then he opened the door, walked in and closed it.
Tammie ran up to another door and beat on it. Richard opened the door cautiously, with the chain on it. He was bald, lived alone, was religious, about 45 and looked at television continually. He was as pink and clean as a woman. He complained continually about the noise from my place—he couldn’t sleep, he said. The management told him to move. He hated me. Now there was one of my women at his door. He kept the chain on.
“What do you want?” he hissed.
“Look, baby, I want the owner’s phone number…. You’ve lived here for years. I know you have his phone number. I need it.”
“Go away,” he said.
“Look, baby, I’ll be nice to you…. A kiss, a nice big kiss for you!”
“Harlot!” he said “Strumpet!”
Richard slammed the door.
Tammie walked on in. “Hank?”
“Yes?”
“What’s a strumpet? I know what a trumpet is, but what’s a strumpet?”
“A strumpet, my dear, is a whore.”
“Why that dirty son-of-a-bitch!”
Tammie walked outside and continued to beat on the doors of the other apartments. Either they were out or they didn’t answer. She came back. “It’s not fair! Why do they want me out of here? What have I done?”
“I don’t know. Think back. Maybe there’s something.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Move in with me.”
“You couldn’t stand the kid.”
“You’re right.”
The days passed. The owner remained invisible, he didn’t like to deal with the tenants. The manager stood behind the eviction notice. Even Bobby became less visible, ate t.v. dinners, smoked his grass and listened to his stereo. “Hey, man,” he told me, “I don’t even like your old lady! She’s busting up our friendship, man!”
“Right on, Bobby….”
I drove to the market and got some empty cardboard cartons. Then Tammie’s sister, Cathy, went crazy in Denver—after losing a lover—and Tammie had to go see her, with Dancy. I drove them down to the train depot. I put them on the train.
69
That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading