Trouble With a Battery - part 3
Back to part 2
"I liked you better the other way."
"you don't believe my big brother is Jaime Bravo the great bullfighter?"
there she was standing there with this celluloid cock on, asking me about Jaime Bravo.
"I don't think Bravo could cut it in Spain," I said.
"Could you cut it in Spain?"
"hell, I can't cut it in Los Angeles. now please take that ridiculous artificial cock off..."
she unhooked the thing and put it back in the top dresser drawer.
I got out of bed and sat in a straight-backed chair, drinking the wine. she found
another chair, and there we sat across from eachother, naked, passing the wine.
"this reminds me somehow of an old Leslie Howard movie, although they wouldn't shoot
this part. wasn't Howard in the Somerset Maugham thing? OF HUMAN BONDAGE?"
"I don't know those people."
that's right. you're too young."
"did you like this Howard, this Maugham?"
"they both had style. plenty of style. but, somehow, with both of them, hours or days
or years later, you felt gypped, finally."
"but they had this thing you call 'style'?"
"yes, style is important. many people scream the truth but without style it is helpless."
"Bravo has style, I have style, you have style."
"now you're learning."
then I got back into bed. she came on in. I tried it again. I couldn't make it.
"you suck?" I asked.
"sure."
she took it in her mouth and she got it out of me.
I gave her another five, dressed, took another drink of wine, and made it down the stairway, across the street to the gas station. the battery was fully-charged. I paid the attendant and then backed on out, hit up 8th ave. a cop on a bike trailed me for 2 or 3 miles. there was a pack of CLORETS in the glove compartment and I took them out, put in 3 or 4. the cop on the bike finally gave up and tailed after a Jap who made a sudden left turn without blinkers or hand signal on Wilshire blvd. they deserved each other.
when I got to my place the woman was aleep and the little girl wanted me to read to her from a book called BABY SUSAN'S CHICKEN. it was terrible. Bobby found a cardboard carton for the chicks to sleep in. he set it in a corner behind the kitchen stobe. and Bobby put some of Baby Susan's cereal in a little dish and set it carefully in the carton, so the little chicks could have some dinner. and Baby Susan laughed and clapped her fat little hands.
it turns out later that the 2 other chicks are roosters and Baby Susan is a hen, a hen who lays a most wondrous egg. I'll say.
I put the little girl down and went into the bathroom and let the hot water run into the tub. then I got into the tub and thought, the next time I get a dead battery I'll go to a movie. then I stretched out into the hot water and forgot everything. almost.
read more stories from Charles Bukowski
in: Erections, Ejaculations,Exhibtions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness
ISBN:0-87286-06-2
edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Petres at the City Light Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, san Francisco, California 94133
|
