More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

by Charles Bukowski

  “Cranston kept giving me dirty looks all day. You know, they robbed his area two weeks ago, got right under a glass case while he was there and lifted out all the coins. They dated way back, must have been worth three or four thousand dollars. Why they dug those coins out of there while his ass was turned. He’s asleep on his feet.

  “Also I put a suggestion in the suggestion box—that those World War I planes be taken out of the cellar and put on a higher floor. There’s a dampness down there and the dampness causes a mildew that is beginning to eat into the fabric of the planes. They need a drier area . . .”

  His father talked for hours about the job, he only talked about his job. He went to bed at 8 p.m. every night so that he would be “fresh and ready for the job.” That meant lights out for everybody else and bed. But his father always talked on about the job and his mother would answer, “Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I think you’re right. Oh, I’m glad you told him! He said that? And what did you say?”

  The only thing that interrupted them was their once-a-week fuck and Pete would have to listen to the bed squeaking, the walls being thin. Pete would envision his father mounted, going through the motions, and it would sicken him, that he belonged to these people, that there wasn’t any escape . . . wouldn’t be, for years.

  It was after this particular night, after a stropping for missing a “hair,” and after listening to their automatic lovemaking that he had a dream. His mother and his father were sitting in the breakfast nook eating their dinner when a huge spider, blackish-brown, with most powerful fangs and two large yellow-green eyes walked into the breakfast nook. The spider was a good three feet in circumference, very hairy and gave off the odor of distant blood. While his father was talking about the job the spider got up on the ceiling, then dropped down on a single thread of its web and began to spin a net about his mother. His father failed to notice. When the spider had his mother completely in his web he moved down and sunk his fangs into her breasts, then lifted her high into his web and left her dangling above the table. Then the spider simply leaped from his web, grabbed his father with his spider legs and sunk his fangs home. The spider then lifted his father from the chair to the table and sat there above him, sucking the blood from his body.

  Pete awakened then. He walked down the hall and looked into his parents’ bedroom. They were each asleep in their twin beds. He went back to bed and slept and had no further dreams that he could remember.

  The next day was Monday and a day, finally, of no duties. Pete stayed after school and got into a baseball game. He didn’t get much practice but he was a good athlete. He got a homer and a triple and made three great catches in the outfield. Then he went home. When he got there his mother was angry. “Go to your bedroom. Your father will talk to you when he gets home.”

  An hour later he heard his mother talking to his father. Then his father entered the bedroom and closed the door.

  His father had a different look on his face than he had ever seen before, more furious, more brutal, less understanding. Pete sat on the bed and waited. His father sat on a chair, facing him.

  “Peter.”

  “Yes?”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Playing baseball.”

  “What have you really been doing, Peter?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You understand.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You son of a bitch, I’ll kill you! You ever do that again and I’ll kill you!”

  “What? Do what?”

  “Here! Your mother showed me these! Look! Look!”

  His father showed him a pair of pajama pants, the ones Pete had slept in last night. Pete still didn’t understand.

  “Look! Look!” His father pointed to a place on the pajamas on the upper front. There was a small and faded spot of blood.

  “What have you been doing, Peter?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you ever do that again, I’ll kill you!”

  His father got up from his chair, walked to the door, slammed it violently and then Pete was alone. He looked down at the blood spot on the pajamas. Then he realized that the pajama pants were an old pair of his father’s. And that the blood spot was an old one that had failed to wash out properly. He sat there slightly amazed. They had conceived the blood spot to be something evil when actually it had been put there by his father or his mother. But what had they thought it had meant? Did they think that one bled during masturbation? It must have been their thought. For the first time he began to believe that his parents were crazy, or if not crazy, then ignorant beyond belief.

  He was made to go without dinner that night and the next morning over breakfast they neither spoke to him or looked at him. After his father had gone to work his mother did mention that God might forgive him if he were good and repented for the rest of his life . . .

  That night, after dinner, Pete was made to go immediately to his room and to bed. He turned out the lights and listened to his father talking about the job. God. His mother and God. His father and God. They believed in God. Is that what happened to people who believed in God? His mind flattened and turned, drifted. He slept and awakened. He still heard the voices of his parents.

  Then Pete spoke: “God, you have given me such parents! How can You give me such parents? What type of God are you? God, I hate you! If You come down here in this room, God, I’ll punch you right in the nose!”

  It seemed to Pete that he slept again then. When he awakened there appeared to be a figure looking at him over his knees. Pete’s legs were bent, the knees and blankets forming a small hill over which the figure peered back at him. The figure appeared dressed in black, all black, hooded, with a peaked cap similar to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan.

  Pete was frightened, he looked back in disbelief. Could that be God? That hooded figure? Was God evil? The figure remained and remained and remained, looking at him. It must have stayed ten minutes, fifteen minutes, then it vanished.

  Pete gathered himself and turned on the light. He kept wondering about the figure. He walked over to his dresser, opened the top drawer and took out the small box his grandmother had given him. She called it The Answer Box. Whenever you wanted to know anything you asked a question to God and He answered through The Answer Box. The box contained little scrolls of paper rolled up and set next to each other. There were many tiny rolls.

  Pete asked the question. What happened then... ? He reached in and pulled out one of the rolls, unrolled it and read: “God has forsaken you.” He rolled up the paper, placed in back in the box, put the box back in the drawer and then went to bed.

  He could still hear his parents talking in the breakfast nook. Then Pete got up and opened the dresser drawer again. He took The Answer Box out again and unrolled the little slips one by one. He couldn’t find the slip that had said “God has forsaken you.” He put all the slips back, closed the box and returned it to the drawer. He could no longer hear his parents talking. It was unusual.

  Pete slowly opened his bedroom door and listened. The light was on in the breakfast nook but there was no sound. He walked down the hall in his pajamas and his bare feet. He walked into the kitchen. Still there was no sound. Then he walked into the breakfast nook.

  The spider was there, that huge blackish-brown spider, huge fangs and two large yellow-green eyes . . . the blood sack was hairy and pulsating and full with blood and the spider was upon his father on the tabletop. His mother was in a large web above the table, dead.

  Pete walked back to his bedroom, closed the door and got dressed in his day clothes. Then he climbed through the back bedroom window and dropped into the yard. The grass was neatly-mowed and well-kept. He walked into the garage and found a gallon can of turpentine. His father used it to clean his paint brushes in. Pete took the can in through the back porch. Then he opened it and let the liquid run in under the door and into the kitchen. He emptied a remainder of the can about the back porch. The
n he took a loose piece of newspaper, slightly rolled, and lit it with a match. He threw it into the center of the back porch. He saw the flames rise up, he saw the flames run under the door and light up the kitchen.

  Then he walked up the driveway and out onto the street. He walked north along the street and up the long hill to the boulevard. Then he turned and looked back. He could see the flames, the flames were very high down there. Then he walked east. He walked three blocks east until he got to the movie. He looked in his pockets. He had enough for a movie. It was a Western. A real good shoot-’em-up. Pete loved Westerns. He paid the girl and walked in. He had enough for a bag of popcorn. He bought a bag of popcorn and walked down the dark aisle. He found a seat about three-fourths of the way in the back, near the center, sat down and began to eat the popcorn. Two guys were about to shoot it out, right in front of a saloon. They were good actors. Pete liked popcorn, popcorn with plenty of salt. At last, he was happy.

  Robert had 29 cans of food in the closet and a five gallon jug of Sparkletts. Also, candles and a .32 with plenty of shells. The water had been cut off the second day but the power was still on.

  What had started as a series of spontaneous riots had evolved into something that nobody quite understood. All stores, gas stations—supplies of every sort had been looted in the first days.

  In a sense, it was a nationwide revolution but exactly who was revolting and who wasn’t—the matter wasn’t clear. The fire department, after numerous casualties, had ceased to put out fires. Half of Los Angeles was on fire—people were homeless—men, women, children—hiding where they could. They were not roaming, but hiding, trying to hide, trying to exist.

  The police, the National Guard and the U.S. Army attempted to control the streets—and control meant killing all others who were upon them. Basically it had become a war between the uniformed and the non-uniformed; and worse, through fear, had evolved into a war between black and white and a war between white and white and black and black and all the colors in between. Each man seemed a unit divided until something happened. The revolution had no central leadership, and so its demands and ambitions were hazy. There seemed no way it could surrender; there also seemed no way it could win.

  Robert could understand neither the revolutionaries or the government; both left him with more than a bad taste. But he had always been an odd guy, not fitting anywhere. Now it had broken down into Man against Man, which it had always been, but now it was clear—they were back to the caves, and every man, beast, every weather was the enemy. The centuries had burned back down.

  Luckily, Robert had three fifths of Scotch and three-fourths of a lid of grass and ten packs of Bull Durham and plenty of Zig Zag, all of which helped the spirit. Also, he was a natural loner and, all in all, the situation which existed was not far from the one he had existed in before the revolution. His greatest joy had always been solitude, albeit cut with an occasional piece of ass, a bit of Mahler or Stravinsky, a joint or two and a good night’s drunk.

  The gas and water were shut off and he had all the windows nailed closed and kept the night latch on the door. Late at night he would open the door and throw out his excretia and urine, all the garbage. It was more dangerous to go out and attempt to bury it.

  Constant firing was heard in the streets. Bodies were left where they fell. Rats, dogs, cats prowled the streets, ripping pieces of flesh off dead bodies. Maggots and flies were everywhere.

  Robert knew it wouldn’t be long before the electricity went. He turned on the radio. (He had never purchased a t.v. set.) Some of the radio stations were replaying the President’s message over and over. For all he knew the President was dead, but he still heard the message over and over:

  “My fellow Americans: Never has this great nation been in such agony and fear and chaos, but we will come through, and after this is over we will cleanse our ranks of the cowards and back-stabbers who have weakened us. We will be a greater nation than ever before.

  “Growth is oftentimes accompanied by pain. At this moment we are feeling this pain, we are feeling it very much. But, listen, we will grow to an even greater Manhood. We will rid our land of this pestilence and of these pests. We will rid our land of the insects that have sucked our blood.

  “Have faith: God and Country will prevail. Have faith, I beg of you, and this hour will not be our death but our rebirth into greater freedom, a greater freedom than any ever known to Man in the history of the world.

  “Meanwhile, it is my duty to inform you that two nations, Russian and China, have banded together and given us an ultimatum. This ultimatum being that we will have until Oct. 25 to surrender all our governmental powers over to them. The United States of America has never surrendered and we do not intend to do so now. Should Russia or China, either or both, attempt any invasion or any move at all which we shall consider hostile we will release immediately upon them our nuclear force, which at this time is four times greater than all the combined nuclear power of all the nations on earth.

  “The United States of America, troubled from within and without, will persevere. Don’t doubt Her unless you doubt your very own soul. God, Might and Freedom will shine throughout the World tonight, tomorrow and forever.”

  Robert turned the dial.

  “. . . and this station is still in control of the rebels! Brothers, this hour is ours! This is Truth, at last, come face to face with the imprisonment of Man, with the materialistic and spiritual degradation of Man. This Revolution, this effort of ours, cannot be compared to any revolution in the history of the world. For, at last, Man has awakened to what he wants, and what he really wants is the freedom to form and live his life in any damned way he pleases—to wear the clothes he wishes to, to fuck in the streets, to smoke pot, to paint, to do nothing or something or everything. We demand materialistic needs if we need them and we demand spiritualistic needs, which are forever needed. The eight-hour job be damned! Our job, and it isn’t a job at all—is to enjoy life as we wish it. But some of us must die first, many of us must, so those of us who are left will be able to live as humans instead of as driven beasts. The spirit of Man has risen at last to swallow his subnormal keeper! Damn the President of the United States, and damn and break this torture chamber which has enslaved us all too long! Right on!”

  Robert turned off the radio. He walked into the bedroom, stretched out on the bed and jacked-off. He wiped off on the sheet, got up, decided that he was hungry, but he was strictly rationing himself. He decided upon a can of cold beans. He walked to the refrigerator and opened the door. The inside light didn’t go on. He walked over to a lightswitch and flipped it to on. No overhead light. Back in the front room the radio didn’t work. The power was off. He had four boxes containing 12 candles each. But darkness was better and it was night. He forgot the beans and sat down, rolled a smoke. He listened to the shooting. He sat there perhaps an hour when he heard a knock on the door.

  “Brother,” Robert heard a voice, “brother, help me!”

  He sat still.

  “Brother, brother help me! Mercy! God o’ mighty, isn’t there any mercy in your soul? Oh, Jesus!”

  It sounded like an old man. Robert took the latch off the .32 and walked up behind the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Brother, please! God o’ mighty!”

  Robert opened a small side panel near the door. It was an old white-haired guy, maybe in his late 60’s or early 70’s. He was in rags, flat upon his belly on the porch.

  “Brother! I’m dying! A cup of water! I beg you! Only a cup of water and I’ll go!”

  “Will you go then?”

  “Yes, yes! Believe me!”

  Robert opened the door. The old guy began to crawl forward. The door was only open a notch. The old guy tried to push the door open wide with his arm. Robert looked up in time to see three young guys rush from around a hedge. He fired. The leading guy screamed, grabbed his belly and fell forward. Then Robert kicked the old guy in the mouth, pushed his head out the door and got
the latch on just before the other two guys, who had paused a moment, hit the door. Robert’s door had been glass, but he had braced it partially with boards. The shade was down. Robert pulled the shade up, dropped to his belly, saw a piece of one of the guys through the boards and glass, fired. He got him in the chest. The other guy leaped off the porch. Robert couldn’t see the old man. The phone rang. Robert walked over and picked it up.

  “Robert Grissom?” somebody asked.

  “Grissom isn’t here,” Robert said.

  “Come on, Bobby, we’ve got you by the balls.”

  “What?”

  “CIA, Bobby, your game is up.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought the power was off. How can you phone me?”

  “Don’t worry your ass, Bobby. We’ve got you by the balls.”

  “I’ve always been apolitical.”

  “There’s no such thing as ‘apolitical,’ Bobby baby, there’s only such a thing as facing it or not facing it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Robert said. “I don’t think a man has to be a registered Democrat in order to go to hell.”

  “We’ve found some things in your writings, Bobby.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of that, too. You didn’t think we were watching you, eh Bobby? You thought you could feed us that ‘apolitical’ bullshit, huh? Well, we happen to know who you’re pulling for, kid.”

  “’Kid’? I’m 55. In fact, today is my . . . ”

  “We know, Bobby, we’re coming right over with your birthday cake.”

  Robert hung up.

  He pulled down all the shades except for a small peek-through area at the bottom of each, got down flat on his belly with the .32 and with all his shells around him. Then he got up and got the can of urine out of the bathroom and put several rags next to it. He’d learned an old trick—urinate on a handkerchief, hold it over the nose and you strain out a great deal of poisonous gas.