Read More Notes of a Dirty Old Man Online

Authors: Charles Bukowski,David Stephen Calonne

More Notes of a Dirty Old Man (13 page)

BOOK: More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
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She didn’t let me answer. POW! There went Grand-Dad. Nina’s door was open and she was standing halfway up the stairway and began swinging her purse at Nina, saying over and over, “He’s
my
man! He’s
my
man! He’s
my
man!”
Then she came running out. She found another beer in the sack. “POW!” Then she leaped into her car and drove off.
I walked up the stairway. Nina was at the top of it. “That was Patricia,” I said.
“My god, what’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. Do you have a broom?”
I took the broom outside and began sweeping up the glass. Well, Patricia had been in the madhouse but Nina had been in the madhouse, too. Almost every woman I knew had been in the madhouse. It didn’t prove anything. I seemed to hear a sound near me. I looked around. Patricia had gotten her car up on the sidewalk and it was coming down upon me. I leaped up against the wall and the right fender scraped across my leg. Then she bounced off the sidewalk, into the street, made a left turn against a red light up on Los Feliz Boulevard and was gone.
I began sweeping up more glass. I gathered little piles of glass into my hands and carried them up the stairway to Nina who took them off somewhere. Then I went back down and swept up more glass.
Then as I was sweeping I heard breathing sounds. I looked up and Patricia was standing before me. She grabbed the broom out of my hand and broke it into three pieces. Then she ran inside the door and found two bottles of beer on the bottom step.
“Ha! You saved these to drink them, didn’t you, ha?”
She took both bottles and ran outside. “POW!” There went one. I walked over and closed Nina’s door. Patricia took the other bottle and threw it at the door. It went right through the glass window. It made a neat, round hole. I opened the door, walked in, closed it. I found the bottle one-third of the way up the stairway. It was unbroken. I unscrewed the cap and took a good drain. Nina was at the top of the stairway. “For god’s sake, Bukowski, go
with
her! Go
with
her before she kills us all!”
“Ah, she’s gone. I wanna hear about Virginia Woolf.”
“Don’t worry, she’s out there.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
I finished the beer and walked down the stairway. I opened the door, closed it. Patricia was out there. She was sitting in her orange car. I opened the door and got in. She turned the key and the car started.
“You know,” I said, “she’s really a nice woman. She didn’t deserve all that. She didn’t deserve me and she didn’t deserve you.”
She pressed the pedal to the floor.
“Bukowski . . . ,” she said.
“O.K.,” I said, “let’s die together.”
She had it to the floor and even a Volks will gather speed after a while.
“Bukowski . . . ,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You should never take me to the fights. All those guys fighting . . . it gets me too much in the mood.”
We did, somehow, arrive at her place. We were too drunk for anything. We slept in each other’s arms.
Ralph awakened to the sound of his wife’s voice. It was two a.m. and dark, and quiet except for the sound of Judy’s voice.
“Tommy,” she said, “oh, Tommy, slam that big thing to me! Oh my god, Tommy, slam that thing to me!”
Ralph propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her. She had on a thin pink negligee and had kicked all the covers off.
“Oh! It’s so
big
! And purple! Oh, Tommy!”
Tommy Carstairs was Ralph’s best friend.
“Oh, Tommy! It’s in, it’s in! Move that goddamned thing! Put that snake to me, Tommy!”
Ralph put a hand on his wife’s arm.
“Listen, Judy, for Christ’s sake . . .”
“Oh, Tommy! Oh, my god, I LOVE YOU!”
Her legs were pulled back and up and then she began to have spasms.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh . . .” Then she was still and stretched out her legs. She turned her head toward Ralph and with a little smile on her face she began to snore ever so gently.
“Judy,” he said.
“Hey, listen, Judy . . .”
He reached over and shook his wife. Then he took her by the shoulder and twisted it.
“Ouch,” she said. “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you, you going crazy?”
Judy got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She flushed the toilet, lingered a moment and came out. Her hair was almost as pink as her nightgown and one long strand came down over the left eye, crossed the nose and hung there. She brushed it up and away and it fell back to the same location. She climbed back into bed, put the pillow up against her back and lit a cigarette.
“Judy,” he said, “you were dreaming.”
“So shit,” she said, “that don’t give you no right to break my shoulder.”
“Do you remember your dream?”
“No, no frankly I don’t.”
“You were taking cock.”
“Taking cock?” she laughed.
“From Tommy Carstairs.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I didn’t know he had a big purple cock.”
“Does he? Who told you?”
“You did. In the dream.”
“Look, Ralph, it’s 2:30. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Some sleep, hell. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on, eh? ‘Oh, Tommy! Oh, oh, Tommy, slam that big purple thing to me! It’s in! It’s in! Move it! Move it! Oh my God, I’m coming . . . ooooh, ooooooh, oooooh!’”
“Look, Ralph, I don’t want to hear that shit. Have you been drinking?”
“Have I been drinking? You know I haven’t been.”
“You talk like a sick man.”
“I’m telling you what I heard.”
“All right, I don’t know what you heard. A dream isn’t reality.”
“It can be a tipoff on reality.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to sleep.”
Judy put out her cigarette, rebunched her pillow, turned her back to Ralph. It was a doublebed and the bedlight was still on.
“Listen, Judy . . .”
“Ralph, for Christ’s sake . . .”
“I want to tell you something . . .”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“If you want this Carstairs guy, go ahead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ll get out of the marriage.”
“Listen, I’m not even
fond
of Carstairs . . . in fact, I hate him . . .”
“Hate and love are very close.”
Judy sat up in bed quickly, both arms pressed down at her sides, the palms of her hands flat on the sheets.
“Listen, Ralph, what do you WANT? Are you trying to drive me crazy too? Just what do you WANT? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!”
“Listening to that dream was very ugly to me, Judy, I love you . . . I did love you. I just wonder how you’d feel if I dreamt something like that and
you
heard it.”
“You make too much of everything, you always did. You’re the most jealous man I ever
did
meet! By god, now you’re even jealous of my dreams! Can I help it what I dream?”
“Then you
did
dream it?”
“I said I didn’t remember.”
“How do I know it’s something that didn’t happen? How do I know it’s something that you might want to happen?”
“Oh Ralph, I’m so sick of all of this! I’m your
wife
, I’m living with you!”
“If this Carstairs had anything at all I’d understand. Course, I don’t know about his cock.”
“I don’t know about his cock either.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Goddamn his cock.”
Ralph reached up and turned the light off. He stretched out. Then he heard Judy stretch out. It was summer and one could hear the crickets. Usually the crickets brought a sense of peace. The police helicopter circled above looking for muggers and rapists. Minutes went by. Ten. Fifteen. Ralph was on his back. He felt Judy’s hand. It crawled up over his leg like some small animal, then her fingers closed about his cock. He reached down and took her hand and moved it off. The hand crawled back and grabbed his cock again.
“Ralph,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, “what the hell is it?”
“I love you.”
“Oh shit,” he said.
“I mean it. I love you.”
“Women can really throw that word.”
She began to massage his cock.
“Don’t,” he said. “Christ, I need a drink.”
“There’s a pint in the cupboard.”
“There is?”
“Yes, I’ll get it.”
He heard Judy moving in the dark and reached up and turned on the light. While she was in the kitchen he remembered he had had some dreams too. And it hadn’t always been Judy. Sex feelings were something that didn’t always stay confined. It was fairly normal to like others. Judy came back with the drinks. They sat up in bed and sipped at them.
“Judy,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Forget it. Forget everything I said. I got nervous. That goddamned job is killing me. My eyes hurt, my back hurts, my brain hurts. It’s a drain. I get jumpy.”
“All right,” she said, “forget it. I understand.”
They sat there and finished their drinks. Then Ralph got up and mixed two more. He came back with the drinks and got in bed with her.
“You know,” he said, “I had a horrible dream once. I dreamt I had a sexual relationship with my mother. I kept trying to draw back in the dream but I finally went ahead. It was one of the hottest dreams I ever had.”
“The shrinks probably have something quite unnerving to say about that dream.”
“Yes, but the shrinks are almost always wrong.”
“I know.”
“Give me a cigarette, Judy.”
“Sure.”
She put the ashtray between them and they both smoked.
“Here we are, talking at 3 a.m. in the morning,” he said.
“It’s good,” she answered, “it breaks things up.”
“Sure. Hear the crickets?”
“Yes, I like them.”
“I like them too”
“Ralph, if that job is killing you, give it up. We’ll make it.”
“No, it’s all right. It was just a real rough day today. There aren’t any good jobs. Everybody is fucked.”
They finished their smokes and their drinks and Ralph turned the light out again. This time when Judy’s hand arrived like a small animal he didn’t push it away. His penis began to grow. He turned and kissed her, lifted her nightgown and gently ran a middle finger across the hairs down there. Something opened and he felt the wetness. Jesus, he thought, we are all so mixed up. It’s all so sad and so wonderful.
Then they could still hear the crickets. Then they heard the siren of an ambulance. Then they heard the police helicopter again. Then they heard three dogs barking. Then they heard each other.
BOOK: More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
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