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Authors: Charles Bukowski,Edited with an introduction by David Calonne

Absence of the Hero (22 page)

BOOK: Absence of the Hero
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“Feels good,” said Tommy.

I took the plunger and worked the bowl. Then the suction took effect. I flushed the bowl several times, and it worked. We sat and talked for a while, then Tommy drove me back to Clyde's, where six or seven people were spread out on the floor, smoking, drinking, maybe smacking.

The first reading wasn't bad because I wasn't too drunk, and nobody likes to gyp an audience—entirely. But there was a party afterward at the house of another teacher of retarded children. It was the fat one I had seen at the airport, but she had a very nice sense of gamble about her. Her name was Kali, and she had tremendous thighs. She could take three horses. I wasn't a horse, but I sure as hell bet on them. What's a man to do in his spare time, chew on old burned-out light bulbs? So I began kissing her and running my hand up her dress. There were 35 people in that house, but the sign was in: America's greatest poet wanted to be Kali's horse fuck. It was
accepted
, and Holly sat there pissed, looking at me. But I was angry at her for not having any paper on that roll.

So they left, and it was Kali and me. I climbed into bed and watched her undress.

“That was a great reading,” she said. “You make poetry sound so simple and real and easy.”

“Genius,” I said, “could mean the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”

“Tell me more,” she said.

“Endurance is more important than truth,” I replied.

“But tell me what's really happening.”

“I'm riding a winning streak all to hell, that's all. It's going to vanish, but I'm taking it for whatever ride it can get me. I've got some soul, but basically my luck is better than my psyche.”

Then Kali stood there naked. She had plenty—in places of
plenty. She got into bed. I grabbed and grabbed. But
it was solid. She was built the way Norwegians like
women; the same way Icelanders like them; women, women, women,
the kind of women who built the few real men,
the kind of flesh, the real mold, the kiln, the
vagina to bear the miracle and the big ass and
the tight cunt to cause it and accept it.

Kali kept laughing and saying, “No, no, I can't
do
it until I feel the passion, I can't do it. . . .”

I tried most of my tricks. She liked the kissing
best, which was all right with me. Although I'm not
sure whether eating pussy or kissing sets me off most.
But the kissing was good, and then suddenly my teeth
were clamped around one of her ears, and I held
that ear while almost ripping the hair out of her
head, and she gave way.

I mounted her—on top—and there was trouble at first. I
slipped over or under, and then she took her hand
and guided me in. I was too drunk to be
totally hard, but once I got it in I lucked
it—the steel came along. It was a good ride, but
I fell back once, quit, and then she started playing
with me. She had a way of joggling my balls.
She slid her tongue up and down the backside of
my cock, then she took it all in—suddenly—and I ripped
it out of her mouth, mounted her and came within
15 strokes—which wasn't too kind—but I didn't care—readings wore me
out, and I still loved Holly better.

Kali didn't make it to work, and the phone rang about 8:45
A.M.
Kali brought it to me.

“What?” I asked.

“This is Zana,” she said.

Zana was my girlfriend from Texas. She probably cared for me a lot more than any woman cared for me. She was fine, not a bitch (except on certain off days), and she had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in any living skull. She was good but damned, mostly because she knew me. However, she carried it well, and I thought I loved her. But I wasn't sure.

“Hey, baby, I'm sick, but it's sure good to hear from you.”

“I'm flying out to see you.”

“Good, good,” I said, “that's great. And I've been a good boy.”

Zana gave me her arrival time, which was to be in a couple of days—after the second reading. I still had a chance to build up my sperm count. She had gotten the telephone number from Clyde, that ass. She didn't ask about the woman who had answered the phone. That was style. Zana had style. Also she was capable of killing me. What more could a man ask of life?

I don't remember the second reading because I began drinking too early in the day. I did come out of the blackout in the middle of the last poem. I read it on out and told them that was it. They kept hollering, “
MORE
!
MORE
!
MORE
!” so I must have fooled them again. I walked offstage and went out back to Clyde's place, and there was another party. We smoked Colombian and drank beer.

People kept walking in, but none of them bothered me. Then a guy walked in, and by the look of him I knew he was a suck. His beard was perfectly trimmed and he wore a beret, an orange beret. His face had an essential and unforgiving emptiness. He gave off not only rays but waves of rays—muddied, stinking rays that made you look away from him.

He sat at my feet and introduced himself.

“I'm a poet,” he said. “Just like you.”

“You may be a poet,” I said, “but you're not a poet just like me.”

“Anyhow, I'd like to ask you a question.”

“All right.”

“Well, Mr. Chinaski, I've read about you. You wrote for a long time without success. What did you do during this period when you weren't getting published?”

“I drank and I didn't bother anybody.”

“Well, I'm a printer and also an actor. I feel that I'm ready for publication, so I'm going to publish my own book. Then I'm going to go about reading my poems, and I'll sell my books at the readings. I'm an actor, so I'll read my poems very well.”

“O.K.,” I said.

“The only trouble is that when I give readings nobody shows up,” he said.

“Excuse me,” I said. I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came out, I sat elsewhere. The party went on and on, and gradually the people gave way and vanished. I found myself sitting with a young girl, Alacia, about 18. She rented a bedroom from Clyde, and she lived there with another guy, although
he
probably paid the rent; but I didn't know where the guy was. Anyhow, Alacia and I sat there talking, and I kept rubbing one of my feet along the top of one of hers and said, “Let's make it.”

She said, “No.”

“Shit, let's do something,” I said.

Alacia said, “Like what?”

“Well, give me a hand job.”

“Hell, I don't know.”

“There's no way it can hurt you, Alacia.”

“I don't know. It just seems kind of dumb.”

“So does talking about poetry and life.”

“Well, I don't know,” she said.

I took off my pants and stretched out on the couch. I pulled it out of my shorts. Alacia just sat in her chair, staring at it. She kept looking, and it excited me. It was dumb; the dumbness of it excited me. The thing began to grow and rise. It reflected in her eyes.

“Is this all it comes to?” she asked.

“What comes to?”

“Your novels, your stories, your poems, is this all it comes to?”

“Yes, a hard cock. Touch it, baby, rub it, kiss it. I'm going crazy! Watch it grow and spurt under your eyes! Forget about writing and art. Almost all male writers have cocks, remember that. Whack me off, you blue-eyed witch!”

Alacia reached over and grabbed it.

“Oooh,” she said.

“Spit on your palm. Rub me.”

She put her hand up to her mouth.

“Spit on it good,” I said. My cock was throbbing like a cello in an earthquake, a major earthquake that would rattle the strings and kill 800 people. Her hand came down and closed around my cock. I had drunk a great deal of beer, but I had the faith. For a 55-year-old guy, I was as horny as a Catholic altar boy.

“Oooh,” she said.

“It's getting bigger,” I said. “Look.”

“Yes.”

“It's purple. See all those veins? That's from
strain and trying to stick my dick in my ass.
I've got hemorrhoids. And rub harder. Get it up near
the head, mostly, and now and then give it a
long, hard stroke. See how it's bending back? Shit, that
son of a bitch is
ugly
!

Alacia stopped talking. She just looked and
rubbed. Her eyes were transfixed like a creature looking at
a rattlesnake. Her lips began to open, and I could
see her teeth. I could see Alacia's white, even teeth
as her lips pulled back. I watched her lips and
her eyes, and I began to get very excited. She
beat harder and bent closer. I could feel the climax
rushing up. I took both of my hands and reached
up and got her behind the neck and pulled her
head down over the head of my cock. She fought,
pulled away. It angered me, so I pulled her back
with one hand and opened her mouth with the other
as I jammed my cock toward her mouth. I missed
and came all over her cheeks.

Alacia jumped up. I could see the sperm rolling down the left side of her face. Not much of it, but I could see it. She felt it, and with the back of one of her wrists she brushed it away. Then she ran into the bathroom. I found my pants, pulled them back on, waited, then got up and went to the refrigerator and unscrewed another beer.

It was some time before she came out, so I stretched out and thought, conquest, conquest, conquest.

Alacia came out of the bathroom looking younger and more beautiful than ever. She looked
untouched
, strangely untouched, virginal, and yet it was just as it should be because I had hardly
penetrated
her except in the worst way—spiritually. It's always better for a woman to get simply fucked than played with.

Looking at her, it almost made me hot again, yet I knew I had lucked it as far as my luck would go.

She stood over me and said, “America's greatest poet. You want to know what you are? You want to know what you really are?”

“What?”

“You're a shithead, you're a shithead, a
SHITHEAD
!”

“Now wait a minute, baby. The food goes in the mouth and comes out the ass.”

“Shithead, I gotta tell you something. I'm going to tell Marty what you did to me! Shithead, shithead,
shithead
!”

“Who's Marty?”

“The man who loves me.”

“Really?”

“He'll kill you!”

“O.K.”

“You're a smart fuck, aren't you?”

“Yeah.”

Alacia abruptly walked out of the room. I rolled
from my side to my back, thinking, ah, boy, you
see, you've gotten most of it back. You've fucked and
sucked and reamed and rammed. You've got to be king.

Alacia came in; I could hear her walking slowly. “Here's a memory from me to you.”

“Thanks, baby.”

It fell all over me. A dishpan of cold water. It was a
large
dishpan. It was cold, and there was plenty of it.

Alacia laughed wildly, and I stretched out there, soaked.

“Bitch,” I told her, “if I had any sperm, I'd rape you for that!”

She kept laughing as she walked into her bedroom. She closed the door, still laughing. Now and then she would stop, then begin again. I took off my wet clothes, turned the couch pillows over and was soon asleep.

I met Zana at the airport the next day. She looked good and healthy, the way Texas women looked. Tommy had the car, so he drove us to Holly's place. Holly had agreed to let Zana and me have her place for the weekend. She was going off somewhere. We stopped for beer and smokes. Tommy gave us a bit of Colombian, and we also bought some toilet paper. Tommy had a smoke with us, and then he left. I saw one of Holly's shoes that I had tried to fuck, and I thought, Jesus, how am I going to fuck Zana? I think I'm out of sperm, and I love her more than any of them. She's got soul and class, and she cares for me—maybe even loves me. Goddamn, why couldn't I have waited? Well, there was one thing left, and something I hardly minded doing. We sat around drinking and talking.

“I've been a good boy,” I told her.

“I'm sure as shit glad to hear about that. There are a lot of star fuckers in this world. Just think how much Elvis must get? He must get so much that he's lucky to get it up anymore,” she said.

BOOK: Absence of the Hero
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