Чарльз Буковски. Рассказы из разных сборников (engl) Charles Bukowski. Short stories collection Confession of a Coward God, she thought lying in bed naked and re-reading Aldington's Portrait of a Genius, But... he's an impostor! Not D.H. Lawrence, but her husband- Henry-with his bauble of a belly and all the hair he never combed and the way he stood around in his shorts, and the way he stood naked before the window like an Arabian and howled; and he told her that he was turning into a toad and that he wanted to buy a Buddha and that he wanted to be old and drown in the sea, and that he was going to grow a beard and that he felt as if he was turning into a woman. And Henry was poor, poor and worthless and miserable and sick. And he wanted to join the Mahler Society. His breath was bad, his father was insane and his mother was dying of cancer. And besides all this, the weather was hot, hot as hell. "I've got a new system," he said. "All I need is four or five grand. It's a matter of investment. We could travel from track to track in a trailer." She felt like saying something blas+ like, "We don't have four or five grand," but it didn't come out. Nothing came out: all the doors were closed and all the windows were down, and it was in the middle of the desert-not even vultures-and they were about to drop the Bomb. She should have stayed in Texas, she should have stayed with Papa-this man is a goon, a gunnysack, a gutless no-nothing in a world of doers. He hides behind symphonies and poetic fancies; a weak and listless soul. "Are you going to take me to the museum?" she asked. "Why?" "They're having an Art Exhibit." "I know." "Well, don't you want to see Van Gogh?" "To hell with Van Gogh! What's Van Gogh to me?" The doors closed again and she couldn't think of an answer. "I don't like museums," he continued. "I don't like museum-people." The fan was going but it was a small apartment and the heat held as if enclosed in a kettle. "In fact," he said, peeling off his T-shirt and standing in just his shorts, "I don't like any kind of people." Amazingly, he had hair on his chest. "In fact," he continued, pulling his shorts down and over the end of one foot, "I'm going to write a book some day and call it Confession of a Coward." The doorbell rang like a rape, or the tearing of ripe flesh. "Jesus Christ!" he said like something trapped. She jumped off the bed, looking very white and unpeeled. Like a candy banana. Aldington and D.H. Lawrence and Taos fell to the floor. She ran to the closet and began stuffing herself inside the flying cloth of female necessaries. "Never mind the clothes," he said. "Aren't you going to answer?" "No! Why should I?" It rang again. The sound of the bell entered the room and searched them out, scaled and scalded their skins, pummeled them with crawling eyes. Then it was silent. And the feet turned with their sound, turning and guiding some monster, taking it back down the stairwell, one two three, 1, 2, 3; and then gone. "I wonder," he said, still not moving, "what that was?" "I don't know," she said, bending double at the waist and pulling her petticoat back over her head. "Here!" she yelled. "Here!" holding her arms out like feelers. He finished yanking the petticoat off over her head with some distaste. "Why do you women wear this crap?" he asked in a loud voice. She didn't feel an answer was necessary and went over and pulled Lawrence out from under the bed. Then she got into bed with Lorenzo and her husband sat on the couch. "They built a little shrine for him," he said. "Who?" she asked irritably. "Lawrence." "Oh." "They have a picture of it in that book." "Yes, I've seen it." "Have you ever seen a dog-graveyard?" "What?" "A dog-graveyard." "Well, what about it?" "They always have flowers. Every dog always has flowers, fresh, all in neat little clusters on each grave. It's enough to make you cry." She found her place in the book again, like a person searching for solitude in the middle of a lake: So the bitter months dragged by miserably, accompanied by Lorenzo's tragic feeling of loss, his- "I wish I had studied ballet," he said. "I go about all slumped over but that's because my spirit is wilted. I'm really lithe, ready to tumble on spring mattresses of some sort. I should have been a frog, at least. You'll see. Someday I'm going to turn into a frog." Her lake rippled with the irritating breeze: "Well, for heaven's sake, study ballet! Go at night! Get rid of your belly! Leap around! Be a frog!" "You mean after WORK?" he asked woefully. "God," she said, "you want everything for nothing." She got up and went to the bathroom and closed the door. She doesn't understand, he thought, sitting on the couch naked, she doesn't understand that I'm joking. She's so god-damned serious. Everything I say is supposed to carry truth or tragic import, or insight or something. I've been through all that! He noticed a pencil-scrawled piece of paper, in her handwriting, on the side table. He picked it up: My husband is a poet published alongside Sartre and Lorca; he writes about insanity and Nietzsche and Lawrence, but what has he written about me? she reads the funnies and empties garbage and makes little hats and goes to Mass at 8 AM I too am a poet and an artist, some discerning critics say, but my husband wrote about me: she reads the funnies... He heard the toilet flush, and a moment later, out she came. "I'd like to be a clown in a circus," he greeted her. She got back on the bed with her book. "Wouldn't you like to be a tragicomic clown stumbling about with a painted face?" he asked her. She didn't answer. He picked up the Racing Form: POWER 114 B.g.4, by Cosmic Bomb- Pomayya, by Pompey Breeder, Brookmeade Stable. 1956 12 2 4 1 $12,950 July 18-Jam I I/16 1:45 1/5ft. 3 122 2 1/2 3 2h GuerinE'Alw 86 "I'm going to Caliente next Sunday," he said. "Good. I'll have Charlotte over. Allen can bring her in the car." "Do you believe she really got propositioned by the preacher in that movie like she claimed?" She turned the page of her book. "God damn you, answer me!" he screamed, angry at last. "What about?" "Do you think she's a whore and making it all up? Do you think we're all whores? What are we trying to do, reading all these books? Writing all the poems they -send back, and working in some dungeon for nothing because we're not really interested in money?" She put the book down and looked back over her shoulder at him. "Well," she said in a low voice, "do you want to give it all up?" "Give WHAT all up? We don't have anything! Or, do you mean Beethoven's Fifth or Handel's Water Music? Or do you mean the SOUL?" "Let's not argue. Please. I don't want to argue. "Well, I want to know what we are trying to do!" The doorbell rang like all the bells of doom sweeping across the room. "Shhh," he said, "shhh! Be quiet!" The doorbell rang again, seeming to say, I know you are in there, I know you are in there. "They know we're in here." she whispered. "I feel that this is it, " he said. "What?" "Never mind. Just be quiet. Maybe it will go away." "Isn't it wonderful to have all these friends?" she took up the joke- cudgel. "No. We have no friends. I tell you, this is something else!" It rang again, very short, flat and spiritless. "I once tried to make the Olympic swimming team," he said, getting completely off the point. "You make more ridiculous statements by the minute, Henry." "Will you get off my back? Just for that!," he said, raising his voice, "WHO IS IT?" There was no answer. Henry rose wide-eyed, as if in a trance, and flung the door open, forgetting his nakedness. He stood there transfixed in thought for some time, but it was obvious to her that nobody was therein his state of undress there would have been quite a commotion or, at the very least, some sophisticated comment. Then he closed the door. He had a strange look on his face, a round- eyed almost dull look and he swallowed once as he faced her. His pride, perhaps? "I've decided," he announced, "that I'm not going to turn into a woman after all." "Well, that will help matters between us considerably, Henry." "And I'll even take you to see Van Gogh. No wait, I'll let you take me." "Either way, dear. It doesn't matter." "No," he said, "you'll have to take me!" He marched into the bathroom and closed the door. "Don't you wonder," she said through the door, "who that was?" "Who what was?" "Who that was at the door? Twice?" "Hell," he said, "I know who it was." "Who was it, then?" "Ha!" "What?" "I said, 'Ha!' I'm not telling!" "Henry, you simply don't know who it was, anymore than I do. You're simply being silly again." "If you promise to take me to see Van Gogh, I'll tell you who was at the door." "All right," she humored him along, "I promise." "O.K., it was me at the door!" "You at the door?" "Yes," he laughed a silly little laugh, "me looking for me! Both times." "Still playing the clown aren't you, Henry?" She heard the water running in the basin and knew he was going to shave. "Are you going to shave, Henry?" "I've decided against the beard," he answered. He was boring her again and she simply opened her book at a random page and began reading: You don't want any more of me? I want us to break off-you be free of me, I free of you. And what about these last months? I don't know. I've not told you anything but what I thought was true. Then why are you different now? I'm not-I'm the same-only I know it's no good going on. She closed the book and thought about Henry. Men were children. You had to humor them. They could take no hurt. It was a thing every woman knew. Henry tried-he was just so-all this playing the clown. All the poor jokes. She rose from the bed as if in a dream, walked across the floor, opened the door and stared. Against the basin stood a partly soaped shaving brush and his still wet shaving mug. But the water in the basin was cold and at the bottom, against the plug, green and beyond her reach at last and the size of a crumpled glove, stared back the fat, living frog. Black Sparrow "New Year's Greeting" 1995 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN TOWN Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men. Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when people were hurt either in the spirit or the flesh, Cass felt a deep grieving for them. Her mind was simply different; her mind was simply not practical. Her sisters were jealous of her because she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn't make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called handsome men revolted her- "No guts," she said, "no zap. They are riding on their perfect little earlobes and well- shaped nostrils...all surface and no insides..." She had a temper that came close to insanity, she had a temper that some call insanity. Her father had died of alchohol and her mother had run off leaving the girls alone. The girls went to a relative who placed them in a convent. The convent had been an unhappy place, more for Cass than the sisters. The girls were jealous of Cass and Cass fought most of them. She had razor marks all along her left arm from defending herself in two fights. There was also a permanent scar along the left cheek but the scar rather than lessening her beauty only seemed to highlight it. I met her at the West End Bar several nights after her release from the convent. Being youngest, she was the last of the sisters to be released. She simply came in and sat next to me. I was probably the ugliest man in town and this might have had something to do with it. "Drink?" I asked. "Sure, why not?" I don't suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn't seem quite of age but they served he anyhow. Perhaps she had forged i.d., I don't know. Anyhow, each time she came back from the restroom and sat down next to me, I did feel some pride. She was not only the most beautiful woman in town but also one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once. "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked. "Yes, of course, but there's something else... there's more than your looks..." "People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I'm pretty?" "Pretty isn't the word, it hardly does you fair." Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hatpin through her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror. She looked at me and laughed, "Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?" I pulled the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the bartender, had seen the act. The bartender came down: "Look," he said to Cass, "you act up again and you're out. We don't need your dramatics here." "Oh, fuck you, man!" she said. "Better keep her straight," the bartender said to me. "She'll be all right," I said. "It's my nose, I can do what I want with my nose." "No," I said, "it hurts me." "You mean it hurts you when I stick a pin in my nose?" "Yes, it does, I mean it." "All right, I won't do it again. Cheer up." She kissed me, rather grinning through the kiss and holding the handkerchief to her nose. We left for my place at closing time. I had some beer and we sat there talking. It was then that I got the perception of her as a person full of kindness and caring. She gave herself away without knowing it. At the same time she would leap back into areas of wildness and incoherence. Schitzi. A beautiful and spiritual schitzi. Perhaps some man, something, would ruin her forever. I hoped that it wouldn't be me. We went to bed and after I turned out the lights Cass asked me, "When do you want it? Now or in the morning?" "In the morning," I said and turned my back. In the morning I got up and made a couple of coffees, brought her one in bed. She laughed. "You're the first man who has turned it down at night." "It's o.k.," I said, "we needn't do it at all." "No, wait, I want to now. Let me freshen up a bit." Cass went into the bathroom. She came out shortly, looking quite wonderful, her long black hair glistening, her eyes and lips glistening, her glistening... She displayed her body calmly, as a good thing. She got under the sheet. "Come on, lover man." I got in. She kissed with abandon but without haste. I let my hands run over her body, through her hair. I mounted. It was hot, and tight. I began to stroke slowly, wanting to make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine. "What's your name?" I asked. "What the hell difference does it make?" she asked. I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but she was difficult to forget. I wasn't working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf- an elephant ear. "I knew you'd be in the bathtub," she said, "so I brought you something to cover that thing with, nature boy." She threw the elepahant leaf down on me in the bathtub. "How did you know I'd be in the tub?" "I knew." Almost every day Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we'd make love. One or two nights she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting. "These sons of bitches," she said, "just because they buy you a few drinks they think they can get into your pants." "Once you accept a drink you create your own trouble." "I thought they were interested in me, not just my body." "I'm interested in you and your body. I doubt, though, that most men can see beyond your body." I left town for 6 months, bummed around, came back. I had never forgotten Cass, but we'd had some type of arguement and I felt like moving anyhow, and when I got back i figured she'd be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when she walked in and sat down next to me. "Well, bastard, I see you've come back." I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the oins were driven down into her face. "God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?" "No, it's the fad, you fool." "You're crazy." "I've missed you," she said. "Is there anybody else?" "No there isn't anybody else. Just you. But I'm hustling. It costs ten bucks. But you get it free." "Pull those pins out." "No, it's the fad." "It's making me very unhappy." "Are you sure?" "Hell yes, I'm sure." Cass slowly pulled the pins out and put them back in her purse. "Why do you haggle your beauty?" I asked. "Why don't you just live with it?" "Because people think it's all I have. Beauty is nothing, beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you you know it's for something else." "O.k.," I said, "I'm lucky." "I don't mean you're ugly. People just think you're ugly. You have a fascinating face." "Thanks." We had another drink. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Nothing. I can't get on to anything. No interest." "Me neither. If you were a woman you could hustle." "I don't think I could ever make contact with that many strangers, it's wearing." "You're right, it's wearing, everything is wearing." We left together. People still stared at Cass on the streets. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than ever. We made it to my place and I opened a bottle of wine and we talked. With Cass and I, it always came easy. She talked a while and I would listen and then i would talk. Our conversation simply went along without strain. We seemed to discover secrets together. When we discovered a good one Cass would laugh that laugh- only the way she could. It was like joy out of fire. Through the talking we kissed and moved closer together. We became quite heated and decided to go to bed. It was then that Cass took off her high -necked dress and I saw it- the ugly jagged scar across her throat. It was large and thick. "God damn you, woman," I said from the bed, "god damn you, what have you done? "I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don't you like me any more? Am I still beautiful?" I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, "Some men pay me ten and I undress and they don't want to do it. I keep the ten. It's very funny." "Yes," I said, "I can't stop laughing... Cass, bitch, I love you...stop destroying yourself; you're the most alive woman I've ever met." We kissed again. Cass was crying without sound. I could feel the tears. The long black hair lay beside me like a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and sombre and wonderful love. In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over and shook me, "Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the feast!" I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all, there was peace in the air and we walked about and stratched on the lawns and didn't say much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an hour. It was somehow better than lovemaking. There was flowing together without tension. When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly said, "No." I drove her back to the bar, bought her a drink and walked out. I found a job as a parker in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by . After I was fairly drunk the bartender said to me, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend." "What is it?" I asked. "I'm sorry, didn't you know?" "No." "Suicide. She was buried yesterday." "Buried?" I asked. It seemed as though she would walk through the doorway at any moment. How could she be gone? "Her sisters buried her." "A suicide? Mind telling me how?" "She cut her throat." "I see. Give me another drink." I drank until closing time. Cass was the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that "no."Everything about her had indicated that she had cared. I simply had been too offhand about it, lazy, too unconcerned. I deserved my death and hers. I was a dog. No, why blame the dogs? I got up and found a bottle of wine and drank from it heavily. Cass the most beautiful girl in town was dead at 20. Outside somebody honked their automobile horn. They were very loud and persistent. I sat the bottle down and screamed out: "GOD DAMN YOU,YOU SON OF A BITCH ,SHUT UP!" The night kept coming and there was nothing I could do. === **A Lovely Love Affair** I went broke --- again --- but this time in the French Quarter, New Orleans, and Joe Blanchard, editor of the underground paper OVERTHROW took me down to this place around the corner, one of those dirty white buildings with green storm windows, steps that ran almost straight up. It was Sunday and I was expecting a royalty, no, and advance from a dirty book I had written for the Germans, but the Germans kept writing me this bullshit about the owner, the father, being a drunk, they were deep in the red because the old man had withdrawn their funds from the bank, no, overdrawn them for his drinking and fucking bouts and therefore, they were broke but they were kicking the old man out and as soon as- Blanchard rang the bell. This old fat girl came to the door, and she weighed about between 250 and 300 pounds. She kind of wore this vast sheet as a dress and her eyes were very small. I guess that was the only small thing about her. She was Marie Glaviano, owner of a caf+ in the French Quarter, a very small caf+. That was another thing that was not very big about her --- her caf+. But it was a nice caf+, red and white tablecloths, expensive menus and no people about. One of those old-time black mammy dolls standing near the entrance. The old black mammy doll signified good times, old times, good old times, but the good old times were gone. The tourists were walkers now. They just liked to walk around and look at things. They didn't go into the cafes. They didn't even get drunk. Nothing paid anymore. The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it. It was a new age and not a very interesting one. Everybody kind of watched the revolutionaries and the pigs rip at each other. That was good entertainment and it was free and they kept their money in their pockets, if they had any money. Blanchard said, "Hello, Marie. Marie, this is Charley Serkin. Charley, this is Marie." "Hi," I said. "Hello," said Marie Glaviano. "Let us come in a minute, Marie," said Blanchard. (There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little. And there I was down at the "too little" stage again.) We climbed the steep steps and followed her down one fo those long long sideways-built places ---I mean all length and no width, and then we were in the kitchen, sitting at a table. There was a bowl of flowers. Marie broke open 3 bottles of beer. Sat down. "Well, Marie," said Blanchard, "Charley's a genius. He's up against the knife. I'm sure he'll pull out, but meanwhile- meanwhile, he's got no place to stay." Marie looked at me. "Are you a genius?" I took a long drag at the beer. "Well, frankly, it's hard to tell. More often, I feel like some type of subnormal. Rather like all these great big white blocks of air in my head." "He can stay," said Marie. It was Monday, Marie's only day off and Blanchard got up and left us there in the kitchen. Then the front door slammed and he was out of there. "What do you do?" asked Marie. "Live on my luck," I said. "You remind me of Marty," she said. "Marty?" I asked, thinking, my god, here it comes. And it came. "Well, you're ugly, you know. Well, I don't mean ugly, I mean beat-up, you know. And you're really beat-up, you're even more beat-up than Marty was. And he was a fighter. Were you a fighter?" "That's one of my problems: I could never fight worth a damn." "Anyhow, you got that same look as Marty. You been beat but you're kind. I know your type. I know a man when I see a man. I like your face. You got a good face." Not being able to say anything about her face, I asked, "You got any cigarettes, Marie?" "Why sure, honey," she reached down into that great sheet of a dress and pulled a full pack out from between her tits. She could have carried a week's worth of groceries in there. It was kind of funny. She opened me another beer. I took a good drain, then told her, "I could probably fuck you until I made you cry." "Now look here, Charley," she said, "I won't have you talking that way. I'm a nice girl. My mother brought me up right. You keep talking that way and you can't stay." "Sorry, Marie, I was just kidding." "Well, I don't like that kind of kidding." "Sure, I understand. You got any whiskey?" "Scotch." "Scotch is fine." She brought out an almost full fifth. 2 waterglasses. We had ourselves some scotch and water. That woman had been around. That was obvious. She's probably been around ten years longer than I. Well, age wasn't any crime. It was only that most people aged badly. "You're just like Marty," she said again. "And you're not like anybody I've ever seen," I said. "Do you like me?" she asked. "I've got to," I said, and she didn't give me any snot over that one. We drank another hour or two,. Mostly beer but with a bit of scotch here and there, and then she took me down to my bed. And on the way down we passed a place and she was sure to say, "That's my bed." It was quite wide. My bed was next to another one. Very strange. But it didn't mean anything. "You can sleep in either bed," said Marie, "or both of them." There was something about that that felt like a putdown- Well, sure, I had a head in the morning and I heard her rattling in the kitchen but I ignored it as any wise man would, and I heard her turn on the tv for the morning news, she had the tv on the breakfast nook table, and I heard the coffee perking, it smelled rather good but the smell of bacon and eggs and potatoes I didn't like, and the sound of the morning news I didn't like, and I felt like pissing and I was thirsty, but I didn't want Marie to know that I was awake, so I waited, mildly pissed (haha, yes), but wanting to be alone, wanting to own the place alone and she kept fucking around fucking around and finally I heard her running past my bed- "Gotta go, " she said, "I'm late." "Bye, Marie," I said. When the door slammed I got up and walked to the crapper and I sat there and I pissed and I crapped and I sat there in New Orleans, far from home, wherever my home was, and then I saw a spider sitting in a web in the corner, looking at me. Now that spider had been there a long time, I knew that. Much longer than I had. First, I thought of killing him. But he was so fat and happy and ugly, he owned the joint. I'd have to wait some time, until it was proper. I got up and wiped my ass and flushed. As I left the crapper, the spider winked at me. I didn't want to play with what was left of the 5th, so I sat in the kitchen, naked, wondering, how can people trust me so? Who was I? People were crazy, people were simple. That gave me and edge. Hell ys, it did. I'd lived for ten years without a trade. People gave me money, food, places to stay. Whether they thought I was an idiot or a genius, that didn't matter. I knew what I was. I was neither. What made people give me gifts didn't concern me. I took the gifts and I took them without a feeling of victory or/and coercion. My only premise was that I couldn't ask for anything. On top of it all, I rather had this little phonograph record spinning around on top of my brain and it kept playing the same tune: don't try don't try. It seemed like and all right idea. Anyhow, after Marie left I sat in the kitchen and drank 3 cans of beer I found in the refrigerator. I never cared much for food. I'd heard of people's love for food. But food only bored me. Liquid was o.k. but bulk was a dragdown. I liked shit, I liked to shit, I liked turds but it was such terrible work creating them. After the 3 cans of beer I noticed this purse on the seat next to me. Of course, Marie had taken another purse to work. Would she be foolish enough or kind enough to leave money? I opened the purse. There at the bottom was a ten dollar bill. Well, Marie was testing me and I'd prove worthy of her test. I took the ten, walked back to my bedroom and dressed. I felt good. After all, what did a man need to survive? Nothing. It was true. And I even had the key to the place. So I stepped outside and locked the door to keep out the thieves, hahaha, and there I was out on the streets, the French Quarter, and what a stupid place that was, but I had to make it do. Everything had to serve me, that's the way it went. So-oh yes, I was walking down the street, and the trouble with the French Quarter was that there just weren't any liquor stores around like in other decent parts of the world. Maybe it was deliberate. One had to guess that it helped those horrible shit holes on every corner that were called bars. The first thing I ever thought of when walking into one of those "quaint" French Quarter bars was vomiting. And I usually did, running back to some urine-stinking pisspot and letting go -- tons and tons of fried eggs and half-cooked greasy potatoes. And walking back in, after heaving, and looking upon them: the only thing more lonely and inane than the patrons was the bartender, especially if he also owned the place. O.k., so I walked around, knowing that the bars were the lie, and you know where I found my 3 six packs? A little grocery with stale bread and all about it, even peeling into the paint, this half-sex smile of loneliness- help me, help me, help me-terrible, yes, and they can't even light the place up, electricity costs money, and here I was, the first guy to buy three six packs in 18 years, and my god, she almost came across the top of the cash register-It was too much. I grabbed my change and 18 tall cans of beer and ran out into the stupid French Quarter sunlight- I placed the remainder of the change back in the purse in the breakfastnook and then left the purse open so Marie could see it. Then I sat down and opened a beer. It was good being alone. Yet, I wasn't alone. Each time I had to piss I'd see that spider and I thought, well, spider, you've got to go, soon. I just don't like your looks in that dark corner, catching bugs and slies and sucking the blood out of them. You see, you're bad, Mr. Spider. And I'm o.k. At least, that's the way I like to see it. You're nothing but a frigging dark brainless wart of death, that's what you are. Suck shit. You've had it. I found a broom in the backporch and came back in there and I crashed him out of his web and brought him his own death. All right, that was all right, he was out there ahead of me, somewhere, I couldn't help that. But how could Marie put her big ass down on the rims of that lid and shit and look at that thing? Did she even see it? Perhaps not. I went back in the kitchen and had some more beer. Then I turned on the tv. Paper people. Glass people. I felt as if I were going insane and turned the thing off. I drank some more beer. Then I boiled 2 eggs and fried two strips of bacon. I managed to eat. You forgot about food sometimes. The sun came through the curtains. I drank all day. I threw the empties in the trash. Time went. Then the door opened. It flew open. It was Marie. "Jesus Christ!" she screamed, "you know what happened?" "No, no, I don't." "Oh, god damn it!" "Whatssa matta, honey?" "I burned the strawberries!" "Oh, yes?" She ran around the kitchen in little circles, that big ass bobbing. She was crazy. She was out of it. Poor old fat cunt. "I had this pot of strawberries going in the kitchen and one of these tourists came in, rich bitch, first customer of the day, and she likes the little hats I make, you know-Well, she's kinda cute and all the hats look good on her and so she's got a problem, and then we get to talking about Detroit, she knew somebody in Detroit that I knew, you know, and we're talking and then all of a sudden I SMELL IT!!! THE STRAWBERRIES ARE BURNING! I ran into the kitchen, but it's too late-.what a mess! The strawberries have boiled over and they are everywhere and it stinks, it's burned, it's sad, and nothing can be saved, nothing! What hell!" "I'm sorry. But did you sell her a hat?" "I sold her two hats. She couldn't make up her mind." "I'm sorry about the strawberries. And I killed the spider." "What spider?" "I didn't think you'd know." "Know what? What's this spiders? They're just bugs." "They tell me a spider isn't a bug. Something to do with the number of legs- I really don't know or care." "A spider ain't a bug? What kinda shit is that?" "Not an insect. So they say. Anyhow, I killed the damn thing." "Sure. You left it there. I had to have beer." "You have to have beer all the time?" "Yes." "You're going to be a problem. You had anything to eat?" "2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon." "You hungry?" "Yes. But you're tired. Relax. Have a drink." "Cooking relaxes me. But first I gotta have a hot bath." "Go ahead." "O.k.," she reached over and turned on the tv and then went to the bathroom. I had to listen to tv. A news broadcast. Perfectly ugly bastard. 3 nostrils. Perfectly hateful bastard dressed like a little inane doll, sweating, and looking at me, saying words I hardly understood or cared about. I knew that Marie would be looking at tv for hours, so I had to adjust to it. When Marie came back I was looking directly into the glass, which made her feel better. I looked as harmless as a man with a checkerboard and the sports page. Marie had come out, dolled in another outfit. She might have even looked cute, but she was so god damned fat. Well, anyhow, I wasn't sleeping on a park bench. "You want me to cook, Marie?" "No, it's all right. I'm not so tired now." She began preparing the food. When I got up for the next beer, I kissed her behind the ear. "You're a good sport, Marie." "You got enough drink for the rest of the night?" she asked. "Sure, kid. And there's still that 5thy. Everything's fine. I just want to sit here and look at the set and listen to you talk. O.k?" "Sure, Charley." I sat down. She had something going. It smelled good. She was evidently a fine cook. The whole walls crawled with this warm smell of cooking. No wonder she was so fat: good cook, good eater. Marie was making a pot of stew. Every now and then she'd get up and add something to the pot. An onion. A piece of cabbage. A few carrots. She knew. And I drank and looked at that big sloppy old gal and she sat there making these most magic hats, her hands working into a basket, picking up first the color, then that, this length of ribbon, then that, and then twisting it so, sewing it so, placing it against the hat, and that 2 bit straw was just more magic. Marie created masterpieces that would never be discovered --- walking down the street on top of bitches' heads. As she worked and tended stew, she talked. "It's not like it used to be. People don't have any money. Everything's Traveler's checks and checkbooks and credit cards. People just don't have money. They don't carry it. Credit's everything. A guy gets a paycheck and it's already taken. They mortgage their whole lives away to buy one house. And then they've got to fill that house with shit and have a car. They're hooked on house and the legislators know this and tax them to death with property taxes. Nobody has any money. Small businesses just can't last." We sat down to the stew and it was perfect. After dinner we brought out the whiskey and she brought me two cigars and we looked at tv and didn't talk much. I felt as if I had been there for years. She kept working on the hats, talking now and then, and I'd say, yeh, that's right, or, is that so? And the hats kept flying off of her hands, masterpieces. "Marie," I told her, "I'm tired. Got to go to bed." She told me to take the whiskey with me, so I did. But instead of going down to my bed, I threw back the cover of Marie's bed and crawled in. After undressing, of course. It was a fine mattress. It was a fine bed. It was one of those old-fashioned highpost jobs with a wooden roof, or whatever they call them. I guess if you fucked until the roof came down, you made it. I'd never bring that roof down without help from the gods. Marie kept looking at tv