The Most Beautiful Woman in Town

by Charles Bukowski

  THE BEGINNER

  Well, I got off the deathbed and came out of the county hospital and got a job as a shipping clerk. I had Saturdays and Sundays off and I talked it over with Madge one Saturday:

  “Look, baby, I’m not in a hurry to go back to that Charity ward. I ought to find something that can get in the way of the drinking. Like today. There’s nothing to do but get drunk. And I don’t like the movies. Zoos are stupid. We can’t screw all day. It’s a problem.”

  “Have you ever been to a race track?”

  “What’s that?”

  “They run horses. You bet on them.”

  “Is there a track open today?”

  “Hollywood Park.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Madge showed me how to get there. It was an hour before the first race and the parking lot was almost full. We had to park about a half mile from the track entrance.

  “Seems a lot of people come here,” I said.

  “Yes, they do.”

  “What do we do when we get there?”

  “You bet on a horse.”

  “Which one?”

  “Anyone you want.”

  “Can you win money?”

  “Sometimes.”

  We paid our way in and here were all these newsboys waving papers at us: “Get your winners here! You like money? Get your longshot plays here!”

  There was a booth with 4 people in it. 3 of them sold you their selections for 50 cents, the other went for a dollar. Madge told me to buy 2 programs and a Racing Form. The Racing Form gave you a record, she said, of what the horses had been doing. Then she explained win, place and show betting to me, and across the board betting.

  “Do they serve beer here?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. And they have bars too.”

  When we walked in we found all the seats were taken. We found a bench in back where they had a kind of park-like area, got 2 beers and opened the Racing Form. It was just a bunch of numbers.

  “I just bet the horses’ names,” she said.

  “Pull your skirt down. Everybody’s looking at your ass.”

  “Woops! Sorry, daddy.”

  “Here’s 6 dollars. That’s your bets for the day.”

  “You’re all heart, Harry,” she said.

  Well, we studied and studied, I mean I did, and we had another beer and then we walked underneath the grandstand to the front of the track. The horses were coming out for the first race. They had these little guys on them dressed in these very flashy silk shirts. Some of the fans screamed things at the jocks but the jocks were quite at ease. They ignored the fans and even seemed a little bored.

  “That’s Willie Shoemaker,” she pointed at one of them. Willie Shoemaker looked as if he were about to yawn. I was bored too. There were too many people around and there was something about the people that was depressing.

  “Now you bet,” she said.

  I told Madge where I’d meet her and then I stepped into one of the 2 dollar win lines. All the lines were very long, and I had a feeling that the people didn’t want to bet. They seemed listless. I just got my ticket when the announcer said, “They’re at the gate!”

  I found Madge. It was a mile race and we were at the finish line.

  “I’ve got GREEN FANG,” I told her.

  “I have him too,” she told me.

  I felt as if we were going to win. With a name like that and the last race he had run, it looked like we were in. And at 7 to one.

  They jumped out of the gate and the announcer began making the calls. When he called GREEN FANG quite late, Madge screamed.

  “GREEN FANG!” she screamed.

  I couldn’t see anything. There were people everywhere. There were more calls and then Madge started jumping up and down screaming, “GREEN FANG! GREEN FANG!”

  Everybody else was screaming and leaping. I didn’t say anything. Then the horses came by.

  “Who won?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Madge. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  “Yeah.”

  Then they put the nunbers up. The 7/5 favorite had won, a 9/2 shot was second and a 3 to one third.

  We tore up our tickets and walked back to our bench.

  We looked at the Form for the next race.

  “Let’s get away from the finish line so we can see something next time.”

  “O.k.,” said Madge.

  We got a couple of beers.

  “This whole game is stupid,” I said. “All those fools leaping and screaming, each calling on a different horse. What happened to GREEN FANG?”

  “I don’t know. He had such a nice name.”

  “But do horses know their names? Does it make them run any differently?”

  “You’re just mad because you lost a race. There are plenty more races.”

  She was right. There were.

  We kept losing. As the card wore on the people began looking very unhappy, even desperate. They looked stunned, ugly. They walked into you, bumped into you, walked over your feet and never said, “Pardon me.” Or, “Sorry.”

  I bet almost out of rote, just because I was there. Madge’s 6 bucks were gone after the first 3 races and I didn’t give her any more. I could see that it was very hard to win. Whichever horse you picked, some other horse won. I no longer took notice of the odds.

  In the feature race I bet a horse called CLAREMOUNT III. He’d won his last easily and was getting ten pounds off for the handicap race. I had Madge down by the final curve by that time and I didn’t have much hope of winning. I looked at the board and CLAREMOUNT III was 25 to one. I drained my beercup and threw it away. They came around the curve and then the announcer said, “Here comes CLAREMOUNT III!”

  And I said, “Oh, no!”

  And Madge said, “You got him?”

  And I said, “Yeah.”

  CLAREMOUNT passed the 3 horses in front of him and drew out by what looked like 6 lengths. He was all alone.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, “I’ve got him.”

  “Oh, Harry! Harry!”

  “Let’s go get a drink,” I said.

  We found a bar and ordered. No beer this time. Whiskey.

  “He had CLAREMOUNT III,” Madge told the barkeep.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Yup,” I said, trying to act like an old-timer. Whatever they looked like.

  I turned around to look at the board. CLAREMOUNT had paid 52.40.

  “I think this game can be beat,” I told Madge. “You see, if you bet win, it is not necessary to win every race. One good hit or two can put you over.”

  “That’s right, that’s right,” said Madge.

  I gave her two dollars and then we opened the Form. I felt confident. I ran over the horses, looked at the board.

  “Here it is,” I said, “LUCKY MAX. He’s 9 to one right now. If you don’t bet LUCKY MAX, you’re crazy. He’s obviously the best and he’s 9 to one. These people are stupid.”

  We walked over while I collected my 52.40.

  Then I went to bet LUCKY MAX. Just for fun I got 2 two dollar win tickets on him.

  It was a mile and one-sixteenth. And a cavalry charge ending. There must have been 5 horses at the wire. We waited on the photo. LUCKY MAX was number 6. They flashed the top horse:

  6.

  Good god o mighty. LUCKY MAX.

  Madge went crazy, hugging and kissing me, jumping around. She’d bought the horse too. It had risen to ten to one. It paid $22.80. I showed Madge the extra win ticket. She screamed. We went back to the bar. They were still serving. We just managed to get 2 drinks before they closed down.

  “Let’s let the lines simmer down,” I said, “then we’ll cash in.”

  “Do you like horses, Harry?”

  “They can,” I said, “they can definitely be beat.”

  We stood there with our cool drinks in our hands and watched the mob gang up down in the tunnel going to the parking lot.

  “For Christ’s sake,” I said to Madge, “pul
l your stockings up. You look like a washerwoman.”

  “Woops! Sorry, daddy!”

  As she bent over I looked at her and thought, soon I’ll be able to afford something just a little bit better than that.

  uh huh.

  THE FIEND

  Martin Blanchard had married twice, divorced twice, shacked up many times. Now he was forty-five, lived alone on the fourth floor of an apartment house and had just lost his twenty-seventh job through absenteeism and disinterest.

  He was living on his unemployment checks. His desires were simple — he liked to get drunk as much as possible, alone, and he liked to sleep long hours and stay in his apartment, alone. Another odd thing about Martin Blanchard was that he was never lonely. The longer he could remain separated from the human race, the better he felt. The marriages, the shackjobs, the one-night stands had made him feel that the sex act was not worth what the female demanded in return. Now he lived without the female and masturbated frequently. His education ended in the first year of high school, and yet when he listened to his radio — his closest contact with the world — he listened to symphony only, Mahler preferred.

  One morning he awakened rather early for him — about 10:30 a.m. — after a night of heavy drinking. He had slept in his undershirt, shorts, socks; he got out of a rather dirty bed, walked into the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator. He was in luck. There were two bottles of port wine there, and it was not cheap wine.

  Martin went to the bathroom, shit, pissed, then walked back to the kitchen and opened the first bottle of port, poured a good fat glassful. Then he sat at the kitchen table, which gave him a good view of the street, looking north. It was summertime, hot and lazy. Down below, there was a small house in which two old people lived. They were on vacation. Though the house was small, it was preceded by this very long and large green lawn, well kept, all that green. It gave Martin Blanchard this strange feeling of peace.

  Since it was summertime the children were not in school, and as Martin looked down at the long green lawn while drinking the good chilled port, he noticed this little girl and two boys playing some type of game. They seemed to be shooting at each other. Pow! Pow! Martin recognized the little girl. She lived in the court across the way with her mother and older sister. The male of the family had either left or died. The little girl, Martin had noted, was a very saucy type — always sticking her tongue out at people and saying nasty things. He had no idea what her age was. Somewhere between six and nine. Vaguely, he had been watching her throughout the early summer. When Martin passed her on the sidewalk now and then, she always seemed frightened of him. He could never understand this.

  As he watched, he noticed that she was dressed in a kind of sailor’s jacket, white, and over the jacket, hung in straps was this very short red skirt. As she crawled along the grass, it pulled back what there was of the very short red skirt, and she had on the most interesting panties — red, a bit paler than the skirt. And the panties had these little series of red ruffles.

  Martin stood up and had a drink, kept staring at those little panties as the girl crawled along. His cock got hard very fast. He didn’t know what to do. He circled out of the kitchen, back into the front room, then found himself in the kitchen again, looking. Those panties. Those ruffles.

  Jesus Christ under the naked sun, he couldn’t stand it!

  Martin poured another full glass of wine, drank it down at once, then looked again. Those panties showed more than ever! Jesus!

  He took his cock out of his shorts, spit into the palm of his right hand and began rubbing his cock. God, it was beautiful! No grown woman had ever heightened him like that! His cock was harder than it had ever been, purple and ugly. Martin felt as if he were inside the very secret of life. He leaned against the screen, beating and moaning, looking down at that little ruffled ass.

  Then he came.

  All over the kitchen floor.

  Martin walked to the bathroom, got some toilet paper, cleaned up the floor, got the wad of greasy stuff and flushed the come away. Then he sat down. Poured another wine.

  Thank God, he thought, that’s over. It’s out of my mind. I’m free again.

  Still looking north, he could see the Griffith Park Observatory up there in the blue-purple Hollywood Hills. It was nice. He lived in a nice place. Nobody ever came to his door. His first wife had said he was simply neurotic but not insane. Well, to hell with his first wife. With all wives. Now he paid the rent and people left him alone. He sipped gently at the wine.

  He watched as the little girl and the two boys kept playing their game. He rolled a cigarette. Then he thought, well, I should at least eat a couple of boiled eggs. But he wasn’t interested in food. Seldom was.

  Martin Blanchard watched out the window. They were still at it. The little girl crawled along the ground. Pow! Pow!

  What a dull game.

  Then his cock began to get hard again.

  Martin noticed that he had drunk one complete bottle of wine and had begun on another. The cock curved up like something beyond him.

  Little saucy. Her tongue out. Little saucy, crawling on the grass.

  Martin was always worried when he got down to one bottle of wine. And he needed cigars. He liked to roll his cigarettes. But there was nothing like a good cigar. A good 2-for-27-cent cigar.

  He began to dress. Looked at his face in the mirror — four-day beard. It didn’t matter. The only time he shaved was when he went down to get his unemployment check. So he put on some dirty clothing, opened the door and went down the elevator. Once on the sidewalk, he began to walk toward the liquor store. As he did, he noticed that the children had gotten the garage doors open and were inside, her and the two boys: Pow! Pow!

  Martin found himself walking down the driveway toward the garage. They were in there. He walked into the garage and swung the doors shut.

  It was dark in there. He was in there with them. The little girl screamed.

  Martin said, “Now shut up and nobody will get hurt! You make any noise and you’ll get hurt, I promise you!”

  “Whatcha gonna do, mister?” Martin heard a boy’s voice.

  “Shut up! Goddamnit, I told you to shut up!”

  He lit a match. There it was — a single electric light bulb with a long string attached. Martin pulled the string. Just enough light. And, like in a dream, there was this small hook inside the garage doors. He hooked the doors shut.

  He looked around.

  “All right! You boys go stand over in the corner and you won’t get hurt! Now go on! Hurry up!”

  Martin Blanchard pointed to the corner.

  The boys went over there.

  “Whatcha gonna do, mister?”

  ‘“I told you to shut up!”

  Little saucy with her sailor’s blouse and her short red skirt and ruffled panties was in another corner.

  Martin moved toward her. She ran left, then right. Each time he moved toward her, he got her further into the corner.

  “Leeme alone! You leeme alone! You ugly old fart-thing, you leeme alone!”

  “Shut up! If you scream, I’ll kill you!”

  “Leeme alone! Leeme alone! Leeme alone!”

  Martin finally caught her. She had straight ugly uncombed hair and an almost vicious face for a little girl. He held her legs between his, like a vise, then leaned down and put his big face against her small one, kissing and sucking at her mouth again and again as her fists beat against his face. His cock felt as large as his body. He kept kissing, kissing, seeing her skirt fall away, seeing those ruffled panties.

  “He’s kissing her! Look, he’s kissing her!” Martin heard one of the boys in the corner say.

  “Yeah,” said the other one.

  Martin’s eyes looked into her eyes and it was a communication between two hells — one her’s, the other his. He kissed, wildly out of mind, a hunger beyond the seas, a spider kissing the fly. With his hands he began to feel those ruffled panties.

  Ah Jesus, save me, he thoug
ht, nothing so beautiful, that red-pink, and more than that — the ugliness — a rosebud held tight against his total rot. He couldn’t stop himself.

  Martin Blanchard got her panties off, but at the same time he couldn’t seem to stop kissing that small mouth, and she was in a faint, had stopped hitting his face, but the different lengths of their bodies made it difficult, awkward, very, and being in passion, he couldn’t think. But his cock was out — large, purple, ugly, like some stinking insanity run away with itself, and no place to go.

  And all the time — under this small light bulb — Martin heard the boys’ voices saying, “Look! Look! He’s got that big thing and he’s trying to stick that big thing into her slit!”

  “I hear that’s how people have babies.”

  “Are they going to have a baby right here?”

  “I guess so.”

  The boys moved in close, watching them. Martin kept kissing that face while trying to get the head of it in. It just didn’t work. He couldn’t think. He was just hot hot hot. Then he saw an old straight-backed chair, one rung missing in the back. He carried her over the chair, still kissing, kissing, thinking all the time of the ugly strands of her hair, that mouth up against his.

  This was it.

  Martin got to the chair, sat down, still kissing that small mouth and small head again and again, and then he worked her legs apart. How old was she? Would it work?

  The boys were very close now, watching.

  “He’s got the front part in.”

  “Yeah. Look. Are they gonna have a baby?”

  “I donno.”

  “Now look! He’s got it almost halfway in!”

  “A snake!”

  “Yeah! A snake!”

  “Look! Look! He’s moving it back and forth!”

  “Yeah. It’s going deeper in!”

  “It’s all the way in!”

  It’s in her body now, Martin thought. Jesus, my cock must be half the length of her body!

  Bent over her in the chair, at the same time kissing and ripping, he didn’t care, he would have just as soon ripped her head off.

  Then he came.

  They hung together on that chair under the electric lightbulb. They hung.

  Then Martin placed her body upon that garage floor. Unhooked the doors. Walked out. Went back to his place. Pushed the elevator button. Got off at his floor, got to the refrigerator, got a bottle, poured a glass of port, sat down and waited, watched.