politics, art, so forth, and you’ve had it. the only safe guy on KPFK is Eliot Mintz — he’s like a kid’s toy accordion: no matter how you squeeze him you get the same sound.”
“now go ahead,” said the guy with the brush.
“go ahead what?”
“rub your dick until it gets hard.”
I dropped a big one.
“jesus!” said the guy with the brush, but he no longer had the brush. he’d thrown it in the sink.
“jesus what?” said the other guy.
“you got a head on that thing like a mallet!”
“I had an accident once, it caused it.”
“I wish I could have an accident that way.”
I dropped another one.
“now go ahead.”
“go ahead what?”
“bend way back and slip it between your upper legs.”
“like this?”
“yeah.”
“now what?”
“bring your belly down. slide it. back and forth. make your legs tight. that’s it! see! you’ll never need another woman!”
“oh Harry, it just ain’t like pussy! what you giving me? you’re giving me a lot of shit!”
“it just takes PRACTICE! you’ll see! you’ll see!”
I wiped, flushed and got out of there.
I went to the refrigerator and got another can of beer, I got 2 cans of beer, opened them both and began on the first one. I figured that I was someplace in North Hollywood. I sat across from some guy with a red tin helmet on and a two foot beard. he’d been brilliant for a couple of nights but was coming down off the speed and was out of speed. but he hadn’t hit the sleep stage yet, just the sad and vacant stage. just maybe hoping for a joint but nobody was showing anything.
“Big Jack,” I said.
“Bukowski, you owe me 40 dollars,” said Big Jack.
“listen, Jack, I have this idea that I gave you 20 dollars the other night. I really have this idea. I remember this 20.”
“but you don’t remember, do you Bukowski? because you were drunk, Bukowski, that’s why you don’t remember!”
Big Jack had this thing against drunks.
his girl friend Maggy was sitting next to him. “you gave him a 20, all right, but it was because you wanted some more to drink. we went out and got you some stuff and brought you the change.”
“all right. but where are we? North Hollywood?”
“no, Pasadena.”
“Pasadena? I don’t believe it.”
I had been watching these people go behind this big curtain. some of them came out in ten or twenty minutes. some of them never came out. it had been going on for 48 hours. I finished the 2nd beer, got up, pulled the curtain back and went in there. it was very dark in there but I smelled grass. and ass. I stood there and let my eyes adjust. it was mostly guys. licking assholes. reaming. sucking. it was not for me. I was square. it was like the men’s gym after everybody had worked out on the parallel bars. and the sour smell of semen. I gagged. a light colored negro came up to me.
“hey, you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you?”
“yeh,” I said.
“wow! this is the thrill of my life! I read CRUCIFIX IN A DEATHHAND. I consider you the greatest since Verlaine!”
“Verlaine?”
“yeah, Verlaine!”
he reached out and cupped a hand around my balls. I took his hand away.
“what’s the matter?” he asked.
“not just yet, baby, I’m looking for a friend.”
“oh, sorry …”
he walked on off. I kept looking around and was just about ready to leave when I noticed a woman kind of leaning against a far corner. she had her legs open but seemed rather dazed. I walked on over and looked at her. I dropped my pants and shorts. she looked all right. I put the thing in. I put in what I had.
“oooh,” she said, “it’s good! you’re so curved! like a gaff!”
“accident I had when I was a child. something with the tricycle.”
“oooooh …”
I was just going good when something RAMMED into the cheeks of my ass. I saw flashes before my eyes.
“hey, what the HELL!” I reached and pulled the thing out. I was standing there with this guy’s thing in my hand. “what do you think you’re doing, buddy?” I asked him.
“listen, friend,” he said, “this whole game is just one big deck of cards. if you want to get into the game you have to take whatever comes up in the shuffle.”
I pulled up my shorts and pants and got out of there.
Big Jack and Maggy were gone. a couple of people were passed out on the floor. I went and got another beer, drank that and walked outside. the sunlight hit me like a squad car with the red lights on. I found my short pushed into somebody else’s driveway with a parking ticket on it. but there was still room to get out of the driveway. everybody knew just how far to go. it was nice.
I stopped at the Standard Station and the man told me how to get on the Pasadena freeway. I made it home. sweating. biting my lips to stay awake. there was a letter in the mailbox from my x-wife in Arizona.
“… I know you get lonely and depressed. when you do, you ought to go to The Bridge. I think that you would like those people. or some of them, anyhow. or you ought to go to the poetry readings at the Unitarian Church …”
I let the water run into the bathtub, good and hot. I undressed, found a beer, drank half, set the can on the ledge and got into the tub, took the lather and the brush and began dabbing at the string and knobs.
________
I met Kerouac’s boy Neal C. shortly before he went down to lay along those Mexican railroad tracks to die. his eyes were sticking out on ye old toothpicks and he had his head in the speaker, jogging, bouncing, ogling, he was in a white t-shirt and seemed to be singing like a cuckoo bird along with the music, preceding the beat just a shade as if he were leading the parade. I sat down with my beer and watched him. I’d brought in a six pack or two. Bryan was handing out an assignment and some film to two young guys who were going to cover that show that kept getting busted. whatever happened to that show by the Frisco
