The Most Beautiful Woman in Town

by Charles Bukowski

  “I’ve tried to make a woman out of you but you’re nothing but a god damned whore!”

  the bar was full. every seat taken. I lifted my hand. I swung. I backhanded her off that god damned stool. she fell to the floor and screamed.

  this was at the back end of the bar. I didn’t even turn to look at her. I walked the length of the bar to the exit. then I turned and faced the crowd. it was very quiet.

  “now,” I said to them, “if there’s anybody here who doesn’t LIKE what I just did, just SAY something .. .”

  it was quieter than quiet.

  I turned around and walked out the doorway. the moment I hit the street I could hear them babbling and buzzing in there, buzzing and babbling.

  the SHITS! not a man in the boatload!

  — but, of course, she came back. and, well, anyhow to get on, this one night lately we are sitting around drinking the wine and the same old arguments started. this time I decided to go.

  “I’M GONNA GET THE FUCK OUTA THIS HOLE!” I yelled at Vicki. “I CAN’T STAND NO MORE OF YOUR GOD DAMNED ABUSE!”

  she jumped in front of the door.

  “over my dead body, that’s the only way you are getting out of here!”

  “o.k., if that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

  I slammed her a good one and she fell down in front of the doorway. I had to move her body to get out.

  I took the elevator down. feeling rather good. a good jaunty 4-floor ride down. the elevator was kind of a cage-like contraption and smelled like old stockings, old gloves, old dustmops, but it gave me a feeling of security and power — somehow — and the wine rode all through me.

  but then I got outside and had a change of mind. I went to the liquor store. bought 4 more bottles of wine and went back to my place and rode the elevator back up. the same feeling of security and power. I walked into my place. Vicki was sitting in a chair crying.

  “I’ve come back to you, you lucky darling,” I told her.

  “you bastard, you hit me. YOU HIT ME!”

  “umm,” I said, opening a new bottle. “and you give me any more shit and I’ll hit you again.”

  “YEAH!” she screamed, “YOU’D HIT ME BUT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE ENOUGH GUTS TO HIT A MAN!”

  “HELL NO!” I screamed back, “I WOULDN’T HIT A MAN! YOU THINK I’M CRAZY? WHAT’S THAT GOT TO DO WITH IT?”

  that settled her for a bit and we sat for a bit and we sat drinking down the waterglassfuls of wine, port.

  then she started in on her abusive stuff again, mostly claiming I jacked off while she was asleep.

  well, even if it were true I figured that was my business and if it wasn’t, then she was REALLY crazy. she claimed I jacked off in the bathtub, in the closet, in the elevator, everywhere.

  everytime I got out of the tub she’d run into the bathroom, like:

  “there! I SEE IT! LOOK AT IT!”

  “you crazy bat, that’s just a dirt-ring.”

  “no, that’s COME! that’s COME!”

  or she’d run in while I was bathing under the arms or between the legs and say, “see, see, SEE! you’re DOING IT!”

  “doing WHAT? can’t a man wash his BALLS? those are MY balls, god damn you! can’t a man wash his own balls?”

  “what’s that thing sticking up there?”

  “my left index finger. now get the HELL OUT OF HERE!!!”

  or in bed, I’d be sound asleep and all of a sudden this hand grabbing my string and nuggets, man, sound asleep in the middle of the night, these FINGERNAILS!

  “AH HA! I CAUGHT YOU! I CAUGHT YOU!”

  “you crazy bat, the next time you do that I SWEAR I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”

  “I CAUGHT YOU, I CAUGHT YOU, I CAUGHT YOU!”

  “for Christ’s sake, go to sleep … .”

  so this night she just sat there screaming her jackoff accusations. I just sat there and drank my wine and didn’t deny anything. this made her angry, angrier.

  and angrier.

  finally she couldn’t stand it, all her talk about jackingoff, I mean ME supposedly jackingoff and me just sitting there smiling at her, and she jumped up and ran out the door.

  I let her go. I sat there and drank my wine. port.

  same old stuff.

  I thought it over. umm, umm, well.

  then very leisurely I got up and took the elevator down. same old feeling of power. I was not angry. I was very calm. it was just the same old war.

  I walked on down the street but I didn’t go to her favorite bar. why repeat the same play? you are a whore; I tried to make a woman out of you. balls. after a while a man could get to sounding pretty silly. so I went to another bar and sat down on a stool near the door. I ordered a drink and took a slug, set the thing down, and then I saw her. Vicki. she was at the other end of the bar. for some reason she looked scared shitless.

  but I didn’t go on down. I just stared at her as if I didn’t know her.

  then I noticed something next to me in one of those old-fashioned fox furs. the dead fox’s head hung down over her breast looking at me. the breast looked at me.

  “your fox looks like it needs a drink, sweetie,” I told her.

  “it’s dead; it don’t need a drink. I need a drink or I’m gonna die.”

  well, a nice guy like me. who am I to spread death? I bought her a drink. her name, she told me, was Margy. I told her that I was Thomas Nightengale, shoesalesman. Margy. all these women with names, drinking, crapping, having monthlies. fucking men. getting folded into walls. it was too much.

  we had a couple more, and already she was in her purse, flashing the photo of her children, an ugly demented boy and a girl without any hair, they were some dull place in Ohio, the father had them, the father was a beast, a money-maker; no sense of humor, no understanding. oh, one of THOSE? and he brought these women in the house and screwed them in front of her with all the lights on.

  “ah, I see, I see,” I said. “yes, of course, most men are beasts, they simply do not understand. and you’re SUCH a sweetie, what the hell, it ain’t right.”

  I suggested we go to another bar. Vicki’s ass was twitching and she was half Indian.

  we left her there. we went around the corner. we had one around the corner.

  then I suggested we go to my place. do a little eating. I mean, get something to cook, bake, fry.

  I didn’t tell her about Vicki, of course. but Vicki always prided herself on her god damned baked chickens. maybe it was because she looked like one. a baked chicken with horse teeth.

  so I suggested we get a chicken, bake it, bathe it in whiskey. she did not demur.

  so. liquor store. 5th of whiskey. 5 or 6 quarts of beer.

  we found an all night market. the place even had a butcher.

  “we wanta bake a chicken,” I said.

  “oh, christ,” he said.

  I dropped one of the quarts of beer. it really exploded.

  “christ,” he said.

  I dropped another to see what he would say.

  “oh, jesus,” he said.

  “I want THREE CHICKENS,” I said.

  “THREE CHICKENS?”

  “jesus christ, yes,” I said.

  the butcher reached in and got three very white-yellow chickens with a few long black unplucked hairs that looked like human hairs on them and he wrapped them all up, a big big bundle, all in pink tough paper with this real gripping tape, and I paid him and we got out of there.

  I dropped 2 more quarts of beer on the way.

  I rode up the elevator, feeling my power rising. when we got inside my door I lifted Margy’s dress to see what was holding her stockings up. then I gave her a big chummy whiskey-goose with long-finger right hand. she screamed and dropped the big pink bundle. it fell on the rug and the 3 chickens came out. those 3 chickens, all white-yellow with their 29 or 30 drooling dropping murdered human hairs sticking to them looked very strange gaping there on that worn rug of yellow and brown flowers and trees and Chinese dragons, under elect
ric light in los angeles at the end of the world near 6th street and Union.

  ‘“oooh, the chickens.”

  “fuck the chickens.”

  her garter belt was dirty. it was perfect. I goosed her again.

  well, shit, so I sat down and peeled the whiskey bottle, poured a couple of tall waterglasses full, took off my shoes stockings pants shirt, took one of her cigarettes. sat in my underwear. I always do that, right away. I like to be comfortable. if the broad don’t like it, fuck her. she can go. but they always stay. I got a manner. some broads say I should have been a king. others say other things. fuck ’em.

  she drank most of her drink and started for her purse. “I have some children in Ohio. they’re lovely children .. .”

  “forget that. we’ve been through that stage. tell me, do you suck dick?”

  “what do you mean?”

  “OH, BALLS!” I smashed my glass against the wall.

  then I got another one, filled it up, and we drank some more.

  I don’t know how long we worked on the whiskey but it must have gotten to me because the next thing I know I was laying on the bed naked. staring up at the electric light and Margy was standing there naked and she was rubbing my penis quite rapidly with her fox fur. and while she was rubbing she was saying over and over, “I am going to fuck you, I am going to fuck you …”

  “listen,” I said. “I don’t know if you can fuck me. I jacked-off in the elevator earlier this evening. I think it was about 8 o’clock.”

  “I will fuck you anyhow.”

  she really speeded up that fox fur. it was all right. maybe I could get one for myself. I once knew a guy who put raw liver in a long drinking glass and screwed that. me, I didn’t like to stick my thing into anything that could break or slice. imagine going to a doctor with a bloody cock and saying it happened while screwing a water glass. once while I was bumming in a small town in Texas I saw this well-built wonderful fuck of a young broad married to this little shriveled up old dwarf with nasty disposition and some kind of malady that made him trembly all over. she supported him and pushed him around in a wheelchair, and I used to think of him pouncing on all that good meat. I’d get a picture of it, you know, and then finally I got the story. when she had been a younger girl she had gotten this coke bottle stuck all the way into her snatch and just couldn’t get the thing out and had to go to a doctor. he got it out, and somehow the story got out. she was ruined in that town after that, and didn’t have sense enough to get out. nobody wanted her except the nasty dwarf with the shakes. he didn’t give a damn — he had the best piece of ass in town.

  where was I? oh, yeah.

  her fox fur went faster and faster and I finally got something going just as I heard a key go into the door. oh, shit, it was probably Vicki!

  well, it’s simple, I thought. I’ll just boot her ass out and go about my business.

  the door opened and there stood Vicki with 2 cops standing behind her.

  “GET THAT WOMAN OUT OF MY HOUSE!” she screamed.

  COPS! I couldn’t believe it. I pulled the sheet over my pulsating and throbbing and giant sexual organ and pretended to be asleep. it looked like I had a cucumber under there.

  Margy was screaming back: “I know you, Vicki, this ain’t your god damned house! this guy EARNS his way by licking your asshole hairs! he gets you babbling to heaven in Morse code with that long sandpaper tongue of his, and you’re nothing but a WHORE, a true blue turdy-gulping 2-dollar whore. and THAT went out with Franky D., and you were 48 THEN!”

  hearing that, my cucumber went down. both of these broads must have been 80 years old. singly, that is, together they might have reached back to suck-off Abe Lincoln. something like that. suck-off General Robert E. Lee, Patrick Henry. Mozart. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Robespierre. Napoleon. Machiavelli? wine preserves. God endures. the whores blow on.

  and Vicki screamed back: “WHO’S A WHORE? WHO’S A WHORE, HUH? YOU’RE A WHORE, THAT’S WHO! YOU’VE BEEN SELLING THAT CLAPPED HOLE OF YOURS UP AND DOWN ALVARADO STREET FOR 30 YEARS! A BLIND RAT WOULD BACK UP 4 TIMES IF HE RAN INTO THERE ONCE! AND YOU HOLLERING TOW! POW!’ WHEN YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET A GUY TO COME! AND THAT WENT OUT WHEN CONFUCIUS FUCKED HIS MOTHER!”

  “WHY YOU CHEAP BITCH. YOU’VE GIVEN OUT MORE BLUE BALLS THAN A SILVER CHRISTMAS TREE IN DISNEYLAND. WHY YOU …”

  “listen, ladies,” said one of the cops. “I will have to ask you to watch your remarks and lower the volume. understanding and kindness are the keynotes of Democratic thought. oh, I just DO love the way Bobby Kennedy wears that tickling blobbing knot of raunchy hair over one side of his darling head don’t you just?”

  “why you fuckin’ queer,” said Margy, “is that why you wear them tight pants, to make your asshole sweeter? god, it DOES look NICE! I’d kinda like to, do you in myself. I see you shits bending over into car windows giving out tickets on the freeways and I always feel like pinching your tight little asses.”

  the cop suddenly got a brilliant flare in his dead eyes, he unhitched his club and tapped Margy along the side of the neck with it. she fell to the floor.

  then he slipped the bracelets on her. I could hear those clicks, and the bastards ALWAYS snapped them too tight. but they felt almost GOOD once you got them on, kind of forceful and heavy and you felt like Christ or something dramatic.

  I kept my eyes closed so I couldn’t see whether they threw a robe or something over her.

  then the cop who snapped the bracelets said to the other cop, “I’ll take her on the elevator. we’ll go on the elevator.”

  and I couldn’t hear very well, but I listened as they went down, and I heard Margy screaming, “oooooh, oooooooh, you bastard. let go of me, let go of me!”

  and he kept saying, “shut up, shut up, shut up! you’re only getting what you deserve! and you haven’t seen ANYTHING yet! this .. . is just the … beginning!”

  then she really screamed.

  then the other cop walked over to me. through one narrowed eye I could see him put his big black shiny shoe up on the mattress, up on the sheet.

  he looked down at me.

  “is this guy a fag? he looks like a fag, sure as hell.”

  “I don’t THINK he is. he might be. he can sure ball a broad, though.”

  “you want me to run him in?” he asked Vicki.

  I had my eyes closed. it was a long wait. god, it was a long wait. that big foot there on my sheets. the electric light shining down.

  then she spoke. finally. “no, he’s … o.k. leave him there.”

  the cop took his foot down. I heard him walk across the room, then wait at the door. he spoke to Vicki:

  “I’m going to have to charge you 5 bucks more for your protection next month. you’re getting a bit harder to watch out for.”

  then he was gone. I mean, out into the hall. I waited for him to get into the elevator. I heard it go down to the first floor. I counted to 64. then, I LEAPED OUT OF BED.

  my nostrils were flaring like Gregory Peck in heat.

  “YOU ROTTEN BITCH. YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN AND I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

  “NO, NO, NO!!!!”

  I raised my hand to give her the old backhand.

  “I TOLD HIM NOT TO TAKE YOU!” she screamed at me.

  “ummm. that’s right. I’ve got to consider that.”

  I lowered my hand.

  then there was some whiskey left and some wine too. I got up and put the chain on the door.

  we turned off the lights and sat there and drank and smoked and talked about things. this, and that. easy and casual. then, like old times, we looked at the same red horse that flew and flew in red neon on the side of a building just downtown to our east. it flew and flew on the side of this building all night. no matter what happened. you know what it was, a kind of red horse with red wings of neon. but I told you that. a winged horse. anyhow. like always, we counted: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. the wings always flapped 7 times. then the horse, everything, stood still.
then, it started again. our whole apartment would be in this red glow. then when the horse stopped flying, somehow things would get white for a flash. I don’t know why. I think that it was caused by an advertisement beneath the red winged horse. it said, some kind of product, buy this or buy that, in this WHITE. anyhow.

  we sat and talked and drank and smoked.

  later we went to bed together. she kissed very nicely, her tongue was kind of an apologetic sadness.

  then we fucked. we fucked as the red horse flew.

  7 times the wings flapped. and in the center of the rug the 3 chickens were still there. watching. the chickens turned red, the chickens turned white, the chickens turned red. 7 times they turned red. then they turned white. 14 times they turned red. then they turned white. 21 times they turned red. then they turned white. 28 times.…

  it had ended a better night than most.

  TEN JACK-OFFS

  old Sanchez is a genius but I am the only one who knows it and it’s always good to go see him. there are very few people I can stay in a room with more than 5 minutes without feeling gutted. Sanchez passes my tests, and I am very test, hehehehe, oh my god, anyhow, I go to see him now and then in his hand-built two story shack. he installed his own plumbing, has a free-feed line from a high-power voltage line, has connected himself up a telephone which feeds underground from a neighbor’s installation, but he explains to me that he cannot call long distance or out of the city without exposing his sycophancy. he even lives with a young woman who says very little, paints, walks about looking sexy and makes love to him and him to her, of course. he bought the ground for very little and although the place is some distance from Los Angeles, you might call this an advantage. he sits among wires, popular mechanics magazines, tape recording sets, shelves and shelves of books on all subjects. he is concise, never rude; he is humourous and magic, he writes very well but is not interested in fame. once in a great while he will out from his cave and read his poetry at some university, and it is said that the walls and the ivy tremble and shake for weeks afterwards along with the co-eds. he has taped 10,000 tapes of conversation, sounds, music … dull and undull, usual and otherwise. the walls are covered with photos, advertisements, drawings, hunks of rock, snake skins, skulls, dried rubbers, soot, silver and spots of golddust.