Absence of the Hero (12 page)

“But you just locked the window. Look in that closet. It sounds like it's coming from that closet.”

Dutch walked over, pulled a bench from the front of the closet and their cat walked out, just a bit pissed and indignant.

“Now, just who would put a cat in there?”

“The same guy who fed it,” I said.

“Robert said this was a swinging place,” said the kid.

The cat walked around with its tail straight up in the air.

Then two people walked in the back door. The girl was about 19, very hard, bulky. The guy was about 15, one of those tall thin ones.

“Come on,” he said to the girl, “let's crash.”

He started to walk up the stairway leading to the sleeping quarters upstairs.

“Hey, man,” screamed Dutch, “if I let you go up there we'll have every teeny-bopper in town crashing here and we just won't last. I can't let you go up there. Where'd you hear of this place?”

“Robert.”

“You can't stay here.”

“O.K., where's Sunset and Normandy?”

“Hey, hold it,” I said, “that's my place.”

“Look,” said Barbie to the 19-year-old girl, “I think you've got a place to stay. Why don't you take him there?”

“Because I've got a guy staying with me.”

“O.K.,” said Dutch, “you guys have got to go.”

They walked out, both of them very angry.

“Look, Dutch,” I said, “I've got to go.”

“O.K.,” said Dutch.

“Look,” said the kid, “you going near Santa Monica
and Western?”

“We'll drive you there,” said Dutch.

Dutch locked the place up again and we walked out to the car, Barbie and the kid in back, Dutch and I in front.

“Bukowski, if I bar that back window it will keep them out, won't it?”

“No,” I said.

I got out in front of my place. I took the beers, kissed Barbie goodnight, and waved them off. I got to the front door, managed to get it open, checked into the sack—3 beers left—went to the phone book, found the underlined number, dialed it:

“Hello. Bukowski. Yeah. You remember? O.K. Two six-packs tall, yes. A pint of scotch, you know the kind I drink. And you know I tip well. So get your boy out here and get him here fast!”

I put two beers in the refrigerator and opened the other. I turned on the radio. Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique
. Not bad. I was back in my kingdom. I sat back and waited for the delivery boy.

CANDID PRESS
, DECEMBER 6, 1970

Sexual conquests generally happen, they are not chased down. I lived in the Suicide Hotel across from MacArthur Park in L.A. It was an old rotting place full of losers. I was sitting by the window one day holding my glass of wine when something dropped by in front of me, soundlessly. We were on the fourth floor, and this body came on by in the air, fully clothed, head down, legs following. The courtyard was cement and I heard him hit but I didn't look. That's when I named it the “Suicide Hotel.” But let's get on to sexual conquests, a more pleasant subject.

I was living with a
girl named May who was very good on the bed
but who, like me, didn't quite fit into society. Neither
of us could hold a job or wanted a job but we were continually
worried about money. We lived on our luck. Money seemed
to come along one way or the other. May was
good at rolling drunks, and once when it was just about
over for us, I found a wallet with $197 laying
in the bathroom. May had been using our john that
day so I walked on down to the communal john
and there was the wallet. We had to be lucky
or we were dead.

I was sitting in the park this day thinking about it. We were down to our last 63 cents and I was watching the ducks swim about, thinking they had it made. No rent, no food problems, no job problems. The poor dumb things had all the luck. No wonder men killed themselves and went mad. I sat there thinking about how nice it would be to be a duck. I rather dozed in the sun. Hours went by. It was almost evening when I roused myself and went back to the Suicide Hotel.

I got in the old elevator, and it rocked me up to the 4th floor. As I neared my door, I heard all the noise and laughter. What was going on? I opened the door and here was May and two of her girlfriends, Jerri and Deedee. They were well on the way.

“Hank!” May said, “Jerri just got her first unemployment check and we're celebrating. Have a drink.”

I had a drink. I had a number of drinks. I had to hurry to catch up with them. Here I had 63 cents and was drinking with 3 very well-built women. Their faces could use a little help but there wasn't much more you could add to those bodies. And they dressed to advantage. They showed what they had.

A little later Jerri went
out and bought 2 pounds of ground sirloin, coleslaw, and
a large pack of fries and May cooked it up
and we ate and drank several bottles of wine. Everybody
was feeling all right. It was one night at a
time for folks like us. Tomorrow would have to wait.

After dinner the girls sat around and talked about their funny experiences with men. I heard plenty. For instance, they all knew that bellboy at the Biltmore who had a thing like a horse, and he would get all excited when parties were going on and after everybody was gone he would swing the door open and with the horse-thing extended, run into the room.

“Oh no! You're not going to stick that thing in me!”

The poor guy simply had too much. He'd put 3 women in the hospital.

They went on talking and laughing about men, and I had to go to the john. I took a good one and when I came out it was over. May had passed out on the couch and Jerri was in one bed and Deedee was in the other. The lights were out.

I took off my clothes and sat in a chair. Now isn't this a shame? I thought. Three women with bodies like that, all passed out. What a hell of a party. Well, they'd been drinking all day.

I just sat there and kept drinking. I was mixing beer and wine. I smoked several cigarettes, and then I thought, what the hell?

I checked my woman May first to be sure she was out, then I walked over to Jerri's bed and got in. She was a tall woman, almost 6 feet, and with very fine breasts. I picked up one of her breasts and put the nipple in my mouth.

“Hey, Hank, what are you doing?”

I couldn't answer. I got to the other breast. Then I said, “I'm going to make love to you.”

“Oh no, Hank, if May finds out she'll kill me!”

“May will never know, my darling!”

I was the greatest lover from Kiev to Pomona. I mounted. I knew that bed; the springs squeaked. May had a terrible temper and was perfectly capable of murder. I had never had such a strange copulation. In order to keep the springs from making a sound, I moved in the slowest slowest of all motions. Nature had never meant it to be that way. Nature didn't know what it was doing. I will never forget that bit of lovemaking. Moving so slowly, slowly, in order to keep the springs from tattling, I heated up beyond all comprehension. It was working on Jerri too.

“Oh, my god, I love you!” she said.

“Shhhhhhh, shhhhhhh,” I whispered, “she'll kill us!”

Then I was doing it. “O, o, o, my god. . . .”

“Shhhhhh,” whispered Jerri.

Then I made it, we made it.

I used the sheet and then got out of bed. I sat in the chair as Jerri went to the bathroom and came back. I sat in the chair for some time, drinking beer and wine and smoking. I was the 63-cent lover of the Suicide Hotel. Maybe it was better not being a duck. I thought again about that poor guy floating down past my window, then I had a drink to him and walked over to Deedee's bed. The springs on Deedee's bed were soundless. Deedee was short, but juicy, you might say. She was energetic, always walking about, laughing, cussing; she wasn't too brainy but she was honest and funny, and like I said, juicy. That's what you thought when you looked at Deedee: juicy, ripe, ripe, overripe. I simply got into bed with Deedee and plunged straight in. She didn't protest at all. She lifted her legs and reached up and kissed me, her tongue working in and out. She didn't let go. Her tongue worked in rhythm with my penis. It was a good one. I rolled off, used the sheet, then sat in the chair as Deedee went to the bathroom.

The 63-cent lover of the Suicide Hotel. Deedee walked on by going back to bed. I decided that it had been a fair night. I drank a half a bottle of wine, 3 cans of beer, and walked over to the couch and climbed in with May. I was ready to sleep it off.

May reached out and grabbed me. She had a good hold of me, and I mean me.

“Unhand me, woman,” I said.

“I'm burning up,” she said,” “I've just got to have it.”

“Not tonight.”

“Why? Why?”

“I'm tired. I don't know, I'm just very tired.”

“But it's getting bigger.”

“Believe me, it doesn't mean a thing.”

“But it must. Why does it do that?”

“No brains, I guess.”

“I've got to have it! I'm burning up, I tell you!”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Damn it, I'm not a machine! Don't you understand?”

“No!”

May bent down and put her mouth upon me. I couldn't resist. It must have lasted 20 minutes, then she smoked it out of me. I was really finished.

I awakened the next morning, alone on the couch. The girls were in the kitchen, talking and laughing. I listened.

“Oh, Jerri, I just love that new hat! Doesn't she look sweet in that new hat? Put it on again, Jerri! Don't you like it, Deedee?”

“Yes, it brings everything out
in her. It's darling, a darling little hat!”

I got into some clothes and walked into the kitchen.

“There he is!”

“Hi, Hank!”

“Hello, girls.”

“How do you feel?”

“Oh, I don't know. A bit weary, I guess.”

“Care for some coffee?”

“O.K.”

“Breakfast?”

“Hell, no.”

“How do you like Jerri's new hat? Put it on again, Jerri.”

“It really makes her look sexy,” I said.

“Oh, you men! I think it brings out the features of her face.”

“I think it brings out the features of her ass.”

“Hank, do you have to be nasty?”

“Sorry. Bad head. Yes, she looks nice in the hat. Green's her
color
. Her eyes are green, and with all that red hair, it works. O.K.?”

“That's more like my nice daddy,” said May.

I got down a can of beer and then May made breakfast for us all. The girls just chatted back and forth. They each had on different dresses than the night before, and they looked scrubbed and untouched; they glowed.

“Why don't you girls stay another night?” I asked.

“What do you think, May?” asked Jerri.

“I'd love it. Why don't you?”

“O.K., then, we will.”

I smiled and lit a cigarette. Then I leaned back and blew out a large and perfect smoke ring. It floated toward the ceiling.

The girls applauded and the world was good.

When you're starving, or drinking and starving, there's hardly anything to do but make love, if you have anybody to make love to. I had Claudia and Claudia never said no and we didn't have anything else to do. Besides, she was one of the best lays I'd ever had. We were on the wine, heavy. Up in a fourth floor apartment. My unemployment insurance had run out some time back and the rent was up; everything was ended. We took long walks at night, and stole cigarettes from cars with open windows. We read old newspapers we found in the trash (we were always particularly delighted to find the Sunday funnies) and also picked up empty bottles for deposit money. Every­thing had been hocked but somehow sometimes money showed. But we knew it would finally end and it was sad because our love was good and our sex was good.

Of course, somebody would take care of Claudia. I knew that. I was the one who was finished.

“Why don't you get the hell out now?” I asked her. “I'm a bum. I can't face life. I don't fit. Life scares me. I'm a coward, a misfit. Jesus Christ,
look
at me. Who would ever hire a guy who looks like me?”

“I can't leave you, Hank. I've been closer to you than any man I've ever known. You'll make it as a writer someday, you'll see.”

“A writer? What'll I write on? Toilet paper? And we're almost out of that.”

The hock ticket on the typewriter had long expired. We'd hocked it while I was on unemployment and couldn't even get it out then.

“Look, Hank, those people out there are just a bunch of damn fools, subnormals, and madmen. Don't get so down on yourself.”

“But, baby, those damn fools and madmen control us.”

“Yeah, I know. How about some more hotcakes?”

“Well, since that's all there is on the menu.”

We were down to that. Flour and water. We didn't have any grease. And no grass. The flour and water burned a bit and it was like a tasteless cracker, but when you get hungry enough, even that filled some kind of hole. It made you think that you weren't right up against the wall, even if you were.

We ate and then had a couple of stolen cigarettes and started in on the wine. We heard footsteps and we were very still. We were afraid it was Mrs. Dennis, the manager. I'd told her that I was expecting my income tax refund any day. But the days had gone on and on, and of course I'd already gotten my check some time back.

I was getting good at stealing wine. I stole it from the bargain basket near the register when Dick turned his back. I just stood around in there conversing with him and waiting, until a customer came in.

“Somebody's stealing my wine,” he'd tell me the next time he saw me.

“How?” I asked.

“That basket there.”

“Why don't you wire the bottles in?”

“That's a good idea.”

Dick wired the bottles in. When he turned his back I unwired the bottles and stole them anyhow.

So, that day, we started on the wine. We had nothing but time. Claudia had fine legs and a great ass; a bit of flab on the belly—in spite of our starvation diet—but when we got to working on the bed, it was hardly noticeable.

I got up and walked over to her chair, kissed her hard. She had to hold one hand out, the one with the wine glass in it, holding it out there so the wine wouldn't spill. It felt like rape. I worked her over good, mauling her breasts. Then I backed off, with something in front.

“You bastard, you almost made me spill my wine!”

“What?” I laughed.

“That's not funny,” she said.

I got up and pulled her out of the chair, felt up her legs, pulled her skirt up around her waist, spun her so her back was facing the mirror, then I pawed her butt as I bent her backwards, kissing her.

I watched it in the mirror.

“Stop it!” she said.

“Why?”

“You're watching me in the mirror, that's why!”

“What's wrong with that?”

“I just don't think it's right.”

“How you going to think? We're not married; is that supposed to be right? Right's no good. Right means doing dull things.”

“I just don't like that mirror!”

I threw her on the bed, crawled on top of her.

“Damn bitch! I'll show you a salami like you never saw before!”

Then Claudia laughed. “I know all about your salami.”

“Damn bitch!” I pulled her dress up, ripped her pants off. Her tongue entered my mouth and I sucked at it as I entered.

Each time was a new time; that's the
way it was with a good woman. While we were
eating and as much as we were drinking and as
much as we were making love, we usually lasted quite
some time. And when we made it, together, there was
never anything quite like it.

We made it again. All the walls in that cheap apartment house shook with sound and passion. There had been some complaints from the other tenants. A guy I knew pretty good, down the hall, Lou, asked me one day, “What the hell's going on down there three or four times a day and night?”

“We're making love.”

“Love? It sounds more like somebody getting murdered.”

“I know. There have been complaints from the tenants. All the way down to the first floor.”

(We were on the fourth, as I told you.)

“You guys must really get some positions.”

“No, not really. Seven or eight different ways which we worked out, mostly by accident and luck.”

“All right. It still sounds like two or three people getting murdered.”

Those damned tenants were jealous, that's all.

It's difficult to explain, and love's a bad word but I do suppose that in the sense of the word, we were in love. There's little doubt in my mind that you can never really know a woman until you have sex with her, or she with you. And the more you have, the better you know each other. And if it keeps working, that's love. And if it stops working, then it's what most other people have. I'm not saying sex is love; it can possibly be hate. But when the sex is good, other things enter—the color of a dress, the freckle on an arm, various attachments and detachments; memories, the laughter of it, and the pain.

One can get fond of many things besides the sex but it's best if the sex is there somehow, and with Claudia and me, it damn well was.

And we knew damned well it would end and it did.

Mrs. Dennis knocked. I opened the door.

“Mr. Bukowski?”

“Yes.”

“The owners have asked me to tell you and your—wife to move. I'm sorry.”

“I'm sure the check will arrive any day now.”

“The owners say they'd rather not wait for the check. They'd rather you move.”

“When?”

“Six o'clock. Tonight.”

“Six o'clock?”

“Yes.”

I closed the door.

“You heard?”

“Yes,” said Claudia.

It was 4:30.

“It's over,” I said. “We're finished.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Damn it, why can't I be a tractor operator or a typesetter or an insurance salesman or a bus driver like other men? What's wrong with me? I'm crazy. Now it's over; the fools, the fools will own you, sticking their stupid cocks in you. I hate it! O, Jesus Jesus Jesus. . . .”

I threw myself on the bed.

“Hank?” I heard her.

“Yes?”

“I don't want to sound corny or cold, but I guess we won't be seeing each other for a while, and—”

“Yes?”

“We don't have much time.” She laughed. “Well, I mean, how about one more time?”

I laughed too, and she got down on the bed with me. It was
really
funny—we were both crying like babies as we went at it. Call it love. Who knows?

When we made that last one, everybody in the apartment knew it and maybe some of the people in some of the other apartments too.

Claudia had a suitcase and I sat and watched her pack. I gave her my alarm clock. That's all I had left. I suppose I was in shock. Her body, her body and her mind and all of her were going someplace else, to somebody else. She wasn't crying but her face told it all. She was on the cross. I looked away.

Then we had
to walk all the way because we didn't have bus fare.

“He's not too bad,” Claudia said. “I don't like him but he's not too bad.”

“At least he'll be able to feed you and buy you some clothes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to get straight. If I can just get a dishwasher's job, I'll be happy.”

“I'm going to be worried about you, plenty,” she said.

“And I'm going to be worried about you,” I said.

“We'd make a great comedy team.”

“Yeah,” I said, “the laughs are killing me.”

“He's a salesman,” she said, “a big fat guy but not much up in front, thank god.”

“How do you know he'll let you in? Maybe he has a woman.”

“He'll let me in. He can't get a woman.”

“And I can't keep one.”

“Hank?”

“Yes?”

“When you get straight, let me know. I'll come running.”

“Sure. Thank you.”

“You won't forget me, will you Hank?”

I dropped the suitcase and grabbed her by both arms. “Goddamn you, you talk that way once more and I'll kill you right here on the street, you understand?”

“I understand, Hank.”

We were on Hoover right at the corner of Olympic as we kissed. Two hundred people on their way to work saw us.

We found the apartment house.

“He's on the first floor front. Been there for years.”

“I'll wait to see if he lets you in.”

“He'll let me in.”

“I'll wait.”

I opened the apartment house door and put the suitcase in her hand. She sat it down outside the apartment door. I couldn't take another farewell kiss. I stood back by the edge of the closed entrance door.

She looked at me. “Hank,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I can't take any more. Ring the bell, please ring the bell.”

She was going to say I love you, but I saw her tremble all over and then reach toward the bell. I was glad she didn't say I love you. Then she looked at me and gave me one of those little female smiles. She was crying.

“Get straight,” she said. “Hurry, hurry, get straight!”

Then she turned and punched the bell. He opened the door.

“Claudia! Great to see you!”

His arms were around her and he was kissing her along the throat. I opened the door, walked out, heard it close. I walked up Hoover and the east along Olympic Boulevard. Skid row was a long walk. Everything was a long walk. I saw the people going by in their cars, headlights on, owning each other, owning what they owned. On that walk east, I don't think I ever hated the world so much. And I don't think I'll ever hate the world that much again, though it's possible.