Pulp (16 page)

“I’m in hock, Penny. Some guy’s going to bust my sack if I don’t pay the interest on a loan.”

I walked out and poured two more drinks, came back.

“Just a little money, Pooper.”

“I don’t have it, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ll give you some head. Remember, I used to give good head?”

“Look, all I’ve got is $20. Here…”

I dug it out and handed it to her.

“Thanks…”

Penny stuck it into her purse. We sat there, sipping at the drinks.

“We had some good times together,” she said.

“Early,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I started getting depressed.”

“Listen, we divorced because we couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You don’t fuck that thing, do you?”

“No, somebody left it here.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Somebody’s playing games with me.”

“You want some head?”

“No.”

“Can I stay here and drink a while?”

“How long?”

“A couple of hours.”

“All right.”

“Thanks, Pooper.”

When she left she was pretty drunk. I gave her another $20 for a cab.

She said it wasn’t far.

After she left I just sat there. Then I picked up the inflatable doll and sat it on the couch next to me. I had a vodka and tonic. It was a quiet evening. A quiet evening in hell. As the earth burned like a rotten log full of termites.

You have no idea how fast 25 days can go when you don’t want them to go.

I was sitting in my office when the door pushed open. It was Johnny Temple. He had two new apes with him.

“Acme Executioners,” he said, “we’ve come to collect.”

“I don’t have it, Johnny.”

“You don’t have the 600 bucks?”

“I don’t have 60 bucks.”

Johnny sighed. “We’re gonna have to make an example of you.”

“Like what? You gonna rough me up for a lousy 600 bucks?”

“Not rough you up, Belane, but take you out. All the way.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t matter what you believe,” said one of the apes.

“Yeah, don’t matter,” said the other ape.

“Now wait a minute, Johnny. You say you’re gonna take me out for 600 bucks on a 4 grand loan? A loan I was suckered into and never saw? And you never delivered the Red Sparrow. How about the guys who owe you
big money
? Why don’t you take them out?

Why me?”

“Well, Belane, it’s like this. We take you out for owing a pittance.

The word gets out around town. And it really puts the
fear
into those who owe us big! Because they figure if we can do this to you over almost nothing, then they are going to know what the hell is going to happen to them. Get it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I get it. But we’re talking about my life here, you know. It’s like it doesn’t matter, you know.”

“It doesn’t,” said Johnny. “We’re running a business. Business has never been concerned with anything but profit.”

“I can’t believe that this is happening,” I said, sliding the desk drawer open.

“Hold it!” said one of the apes, stepping forward and poking a luger in my ear. “I’ll take that piece!”

He slid my .32 out of there.

“You move fast for a fat fuck,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he smiled.

“All right, Belane,” said Johnny Temple, “we’re all going for a little ride.”

“But it’s broad daylight!”

“All the better to see you with. Come on, get up!”

I got up from behind the desk and the two apes squeezed me between them. Temple walked behind us. We left the office and walked down to the elevator. I reached out and pressed the button myself.

“Thanks, punk,” said Johnny.

It came up. The doors opened. Empty. They shoved me on. Down we went. Empty feeling. First floor. Lobby. We walked out on the street. It was crowded. People walking everywhere. I thought, I’ll scream out, hey, these guys are going to kill me! But I was afraid if I did that, they’d do it then. I walked along with them. It was a beautiful day. Then we were at their car. The two apes got in the back with me in the middle. Johnny Temple took the wheel up front.

He pulled out into traffic.

“This whole thing is a bad senseless dream,” I said.

“It ain’t no dream, Belane,” said Johnny Temple.

“Where you takin’ me?”

“Griffith Park, Belane, we’re going to have a little picnic. A little picnic on one of those isolated trails. Secluded. Private.”

“How can you fucking guys be so cold?” I asked.

“It’s easy,” said Johnny, “we were born that way.”

“Yeah,” laughed one of the apes.

We drove along. I still couldn’t believe it was happening. Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe at the last moment they’d tell me it was all a joke. Just trying to teach me a lesson. Something like that.

Then we were there. Johnny parked the car.

“All right. Get him out boys. We’re going for a little walk.”

One of the apes yanked me out of the side of the car. Then each ape had me by an arm. Johnny walked along behind us. Then we were on a discarded horse path. It was covered with brush and tree branches and the sun was blocked off.

“Listen you guys,” I said. “This is enough. Tell me this whole thing is a joke and we’ll all go have a drink somewhere.”

“It’s no joke, Belane, we’re taking you out. All the way,” said Johnny.

“600 dollars. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the world works this way.”

“It does. We gave you our reasoning. Keep walking,” said Johnny.

We kept walking. Then Johnny said, “This looks like a good spot.

Turn around, Belane.”

I did. I saw the gun. Johnny fired. Four shots. Right in the gut. I fell on my face but managed to roll on my back.

“Thanks a bunch, Temple,” I managed to say.

They walked off.

I don’t know. I must have passed out. Then I was back. I knew I didn’t have long. I was losing blood, lots of it.

Then I seemed to be hearing music, music like I’d never heard before. And then it happened. Something was taking shape, appear-ing before me. It was red, red, and like the music, a red I had never seen before. And there it was:

THE RED SPARROW.

Gigantic, glowing, beautiful. Never a sparrow so large, so real, never one so magnificent.

It stood before me. And then—there was Lady Death. Standing beside the Sparrow. And never had
she
looked so beautiful.

“Belane,” she said, “you really got suckered into a bad play.”

“I can’t talk much, Lady…Fill me in on the whole matter.”

“Your John Barton is a very perceptive man. He sensed that the Red Sparrow existed, was real, somehow, somewhere. And that you would find it. Now you have. Most of the others—Deja Fountain, Sanderson, Johnny Temple—were con artists, trying to trick and bleed you. Since you and Musso’s are the last remnants of the old Hollywood, the real Hollywood, they got the idea you had big money.”

I smiled.

“Lady, how about that inflated doll in my room?”

“That? That was the mailman. He’d heard you were on the Red Sparrow caper and he wanted to pay you back one more time for the beating. He jimmied your door and left the thing there.”

“Now what, Lady?”

“I’m leaving you with the Red Sparrow. You’re in good hands.

Goodbye, Belane, it’s been fun.”

“Yeah…”

And there I was with that gigantic glowing bird. It stood there.

This can’t be true, I thought. This isn’t the way it is supposed to happen. No, this isn’t the way it is supposed to happen.

Then, as I watched, the Sparrow slowly opened its beak. A huge void appeared. And within the beak was a vast yellow vortex, more dynamic than the sun, unbelievable.

This isn’t the way it happens, I thought again.

The beak opened wide, the Sparrow’s head moved closer and the blaze and the blare of yellow swept over and enveloped me.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contempor-ary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel,
Pulp
(1994).

During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels
Post Office
(1971),
Factotum
(1975),
Women
(1978),
Ham on Rye
(1982), and
Hollywood
(1989).

Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of
What
Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
(1999),
Open All
Night: New Poems
(2000),
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli, 1960-1967
(2001), and
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems
(2001).

All of his books have now been published in translation in over a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains un-diminished. In the years to come, Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
(1969)
Post Office
(1971)

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
(1972)

South of No North
(1973)

Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973
(1974)
Factotum
(1975)

Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977
(1977)
Women
(1978)

Play the Piano Drunk/Like a Percussion Instrument/

Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit
(1979)
Shakespeare Never Did This
(1979)
Dangling in the Tournefortia
(1981)
Ham on Rye
(1982)

Bring Me Your Love
(1983)

Hot Water Music
(1983)

There’s No Business
(1984)

War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984
(1984)
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense
(1986)
The Movie: “Barfly”
(1987)

The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966
(1988)
Hollywood
(1989)

Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems
(1990)
The Last Night of the Earth Poems
(1992)
Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970
(1993)
Pulp
(1994)

Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s (Volume 2)
(1995)
Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories
(1996)
Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems
(1997)
The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
(1998)
Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994 (Volume 3)
(1999)
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems
(1999)
Open All Night: New Poems
(2000)
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems
(2001)
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri
Martinelli 1960-1967
(2001)

Copyright

Pulp. Copyright © 1994 by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader August 2007

ISBN 978-0-06-149262-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz