Factotum

by Charles Bukowski

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  61

  Feldman was trying to collect his insurance and go bankrupt at the same time. The next morning a dignified looking man came down from the Bank of America. He told us not to build any more racks. “Just stack that shit on the floor,” was the way he put it. His name was Jennings, Curtis Jennings. Feldman owed the Bank of America a lot of money and the Bank of America wanted its money back before the business went under. Jennings took over management of the company. He walked around watching everybody. He went through Feldman’s books; he checked the locks and the windows and the security fence around the parking lot. He came up to me: “Don’t use Sieberling Truck Lines any more. They had four thefts while running one of your shipments through Arizona and New Mexico. Any particular reason you been using those boys?” “No, no reason.” The agent from Sieberling had been slipping me ten cents for each five hundred pounds of freight shipped out.

  Within three days Jennings fired a man who worked in the front office and replaced three men on the assembly line with three young Mexican girls willing to work for half the pay. He fired the janitor and, along with doing the shipping, had me driving the company truck on local deliveries.

  I got my first paycheck and moved out of Jan’s place and into an apartment of my own. When I came home one night, she had moved in with me. What the fuck, I told her, my land is your land. Shortly thereafter, we had our worst fight. She left and I got drunk for three days and three nights. When I sobered up I knew my job was gone. I never went back. I decided to clean up the apartment. I vacuumed the floors, scrubbed the window ledges, scoured the bathtub and sink, waxed the kitchen floor, killed all the spiders and roaches, emptied and washed the ashtrays, washed the dishes, scrubbed the kitchen sink, hung up clean towels and installed a new roll of toilet paper. I must be turning fag, I thought.

  When Jan finally came home—a week later—she accused me of having had a woman here, because everything looked so clean. She acted very angry, but it was just a cover for her own guilt. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get rid of her. She was compulsively unfaithful—she’d go off with anyone she met in a bar, and the lower and the dirtier he was the better she liked it. She was continually using our arguments to justify herself. I kept telling myself that all the women in the world weren’t whores, just mine.

  62

  I walked into the Times Building. I had taken two years of Journalism at Los Angeles City College. I was stopped at the desk by a young lady. “You need a reporter here?” I asked. She handed me a printed sheet of paper. “Please fill this out.” It was the same at most newspapers in most cities. You were hired because you were famous or because you knew somebody. But I filled out the form. I made it look good. Then I left and walked down Spring Street.

  It was a hot summer day. I began to sweat and itch. My crotch itched. I began to scratch. The itching became unbearable. I walked along scratching. I couldn’t be a reporter, I couldn’t be a writer, I couldn’t find a good woman, all I could do was walk along and scratch like a monkey. I hurried to my car which I had parked on Bunker Hill. I drove back to the apartment in a hurry. Jan wasn’t there. I went into the bathroom and stripped down.

  I dug into my crotch with my fingers and I found something. I pulled it out. I dropped it into the palm of one hand and looked at it. It was white and had many tiny legs. It moved. It fascinated me. Then suddenly it leaped to the tile of the bathroom floor. I stared at it. With one quick leap it was gone. Probably back into my pubic hair! I felt sickened and angered. I stood there searching for it. I couldn’t find it. My stomach quivered. I gagged into the toilet and dressed again.

  The corner drugstore wasn’t far. There was an old woman and an old man standing behind the counter. The woman came over. “No,” I said, “I want to talk to him.” “Oh,” she said.

  The old man walked over. He was the pharmacist. He looked very clean. “I’m the victim of an inequity,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Now look, do you have anything for…”

  “For what?”

  “Spiders, fleas…gnats, nits…”

  “For what?”

  “Do you have anything for crabs?”

  The old man gave me a disgusted look. “Wait here,” he said. He got something out from under the end of the counter. He came back and standing as far away from me as possible he handed me a little green and black cardboard box. I accepted it humbly. I handed him a $5 bill. I received my change at arm’s length. The old woman had backed away into a corner of the drugstore. I felt like a holdup man.

  “Wait,” I said to the old man.

  “What is it now?”

  “I want some rubbers.”

  “How many?”

  “Oh, a pack, a handful.”

  “Wet or dry?”

  “What?”

  “Wet or dry?”

  “Give me the wet.”

  The old man gingerly handed me the rubbers. I handed him the money. Once again he handed me the change at arm’s length. I walked out. As I walked down the street I took the rubbers out and looked at them. Then I threw them into the gutter.

  Back at the apartment I stripped down and read the instructions. It said to apply the ointment to the invaded parts and wait thirty minutes. I turned the radio on, found a symphony, and squeezed the ointment out of the tube. It was green. I applied it thoroughly. Then I lay down on the bed and looked at the clock. Thirty minutes. Hell, I hated those crabs, I’d take an hour’s worth. After forty-five minutes it started to burn. I’ll kill every one of those fuckers, I thought. The burning increased. I rolled over on the bed and clenched my fists. I listened to Beethoven. I listened to Brahms, I hung on. I barely made the hour. I filled the tub and jumped in and washed the ointment off. When I got out of the tub I couldn’t walk. The insides of my thighs were burned, my balls were burned, my belly was burned, I was a bright flaming red, I looked like an orangutang. I moved very slowly toward the bed. But I had killed the crabs, I had watched them go down the bathtub drain.

  When Jan got home I was squirming on the bed. She stood looking at me. “What is it?” I rolled and cursed.

  “You fucking whore! Look what you’ve done to me!”

  I leaped up. I showed Jan the insides of my thighs, my belly, my balls. My balls dangled in red agony. My pecker was flaming.

  “God! What is it?”

  “Don’t you know? Don’t you know? I haven’t fucked anybody else! I got it from YOU! You’re a carrier, a disease ridden slut!”

  “What?”

  “The crabs, the crabs, you gave me the CRABS!”

  “No, I don’t have the crabs. Geraldine must have them.”

  “What?”

  “I stayed with Geraldine, I must have gotten them sitting on Geraldine’s toilet.”

  I threw myself down on the bed. “Oh, don’t give me any of that shit! Go get us something to drink! There’s not a fucking thing to drink around here!”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Take it out of my wallet. You know how to do that. And hurry! Something to drink! I’m dying!”

  Jan left. I could hear her running down the stairs. The radio now played Mahler.

  63

  I awakened sick the next morning. It had been nearly impossible to sleep with the sheet over me. The burns seemed a little better, however. I got up and vomited and looked at my face in the mirror. They had me. I didn’t have a chance.

  I lay back on the bed. Jan was snoring. She didn’t snore loudly but her snoring was persistent. It was something like I’d imagine a small hog would snore. Almost snorts. I looked at her wondering who I had been living with. She had a small pug nose and her blonde hair was turning “mousey” as she described it, as it went gray. Her face was sagging, she was getting jowls, she was ten years older than I. It was only when she was made up and was dressed in a tight skirt and wearing high heels that she looked good. Her ass was still shapely as were her leg
s and she had a seductive wiggle when she walked. Now as I looked at her she didn’t look so wonderful. She was sleeping partly on one side and her pot belly was hanging out. She was a marvelous fuck, though. I had never had a better fuck. It was the way she took it. She really digested a fuck. Her hands would grip me and her pussy clutched just as hard. Most fucks are really nothing, they are mostly labor, like trying to climb a very steep, muddy hill. But not Jan.

  The phone rang. It rang several times before I could struggle out of bed and answer it.

  “Mr. Chinaski?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is the Times Building.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve reviewed your application and would like to employ you.”

  “Reporter?”

  “No, maintenance man and janitor.”

  “All right.”

  “Report to Superintendent Barnes at the south door at 9 p.m.”

  “O.K.”

  I hung up. The phone had awakened Jan.

  “Who was that?”

  “I’ve got a job and I can’t even walk. I report tonight. I don’t know what the hell.”

  I moved back toward the bed like a sore-assed turtle and fell on it.

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I can’t wear clothes. I don’t know what to do.”

  We stretched out, staring at the ceiling. Jan got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back she said, “I’ve got it!”

  “Yeah!”

  “I’ll wrap you in gauze.”

  “Think it will work?”

  “Sure.”

  Jan got dressed and went to the store. She came back with gauze, adhesive tape, and a bottle of muscatel. She got some ice cubes, made us each a drink and found some scissors. “O.K., let’s do you up.”

  “Now wait, I don’t have to be down there until 9 p.m. It’s a night job.”

  “But I want to practice. Come on.”

  “All right. Shit.”

  “Put one knee up.”

  “All right. Easy.”

  “There, around and around we go. The old merry-go-round.”

  “Did anybody ever tell you how funny you are?”

  “No.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “There. A little adhesive tape. A little bit more adhesive tape. There. Now lift the other knee, lover.”

  “Never mind the romance.”

  “Around and around and around. Your big fat legs.”

  “Your big fat ass.”

  “Now, now, now, be nice, lover. Some more adhesive tape. And a little bit more. You’re good as new!”

  “Like hell.”

  “Now for the balls, your big red balls. You are just in time for Christmas!”

  “Wait! What are you going to do to my balls?”

  “I’m going to wrap them.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? It might affect my tap dancing.”

  “It won’t hurt anything.”

  “They’ll slip out.”

  “I’ll put them into a nice cocoon.”

  “Before you do, get me another drink.”

  I sat up with the drink and she began to wrap me.

  “Around and around and around. Poor little balls. Poor big balls. What have they done to you? Around and around and around we go. Now for a little adhesive. And some more. And some more.”

  “Don’t tape my balls to my asshole.”

  “Silly! I wouldn’t do that! I love you!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now get up and walk around. Try walking around.”

  I got up and walked around the room slowly. “Hey, this feels all right! I feel like a eunuch but I feel all right.”

  “Maybe the eunuchs have it made.”

  “I do believe they have.”

  “How about a couple of soft boiled eggs?”

  “Sure. I think I’m going to live.”

  Jan put a pot of water on the stove, dropped in four eggs, and we waited.

  64

  I was there at 9 p.m. The Superintendent showed me where the timeclock was. I punched in. He handed me three or four rags and a large jar. “There’s a brass railing runs around this building. I want you to shine that brass railing.” I walked outside and looked for the brass railing. It was there. It ran around the building. It was a large building. I put some polish on the railing and then rubbed it off with one of the rags. It didn’t seem to do much good. People walked by and looked curiously at me. I’d had dull stupid jobs but this appeared to be the dullest and most stupid one of them all.

  The idea, I decided, is not to think. But how do you stop thinking? Why was I chosen to polish this rail? Why couldn’t I be inside writing editorials about municipal corruption? Well, it could be worse. I could be in China working a rice paddy.

  I polished about twenty-five feet of the railing, turned the corner, and saw a bar across the street. I took my rags and jar across the street and went into the bar. There was nobody in there, just the bartender. “How ya doing?” he asked.

  “Great. Give me a bottle of Schlitz.”

  He got one, opened it, took my money and rang it up.

  “Where are the girls?” I asked.

  “What girls?”

  “You know. The girls.”

  “This is a nice place.”

  The door opened. It was Superintendent Barnes. “Can I buy you a beer?” I asked. He came over and stood beside me.

  “Drink up, Chinaski, I’m giving you one last chance.”

  I drank the beer down and followed him out. We crossed the street together. “Evidently,” he said, “you’re not much good at polishing brass. Follow me.” We went into the Times Building and up in an elevator together. We got out on one of the upper floors. “Now,” he said, pointing to a long cardboard box on a desk, “that box contains fluorescent light tubes, new ones. You are to replace all burnt out light tubes. Take them out of the fixtures and put in the new ones. There’s your ladder.”

  “O.K.,” I said.

  The Superintendent walked off and I was alone again. I was in some kind of storage loft. That room had the highest ceiling I had ever seen. The ladder stood thirty-six feet high. I had always had a fear of heights. I took a new light tube and slowly mounted the ladder. I had to remind myself again, try not to think. I climbed upwards. The fluorescent tubes were about five feet long. They broke easily and were hard to handle. When I reached the top of the ladder I peered down. That was a big mistake. A dizzy spell swept over me. I was a coward. I was up against a big window on one of the upper floors. I imagined myself falling off the ladder and out through the window, down through space until I hit the street. I watched the tiny automobiles cross back and forth down in the street below me, their headlights bright in the night. Then, very slowly, I reached up and removed a burnt out fluorescent light. I replaced it with a new light. Then I climbed down, feeling more relief with each step downward. When I reached the ground I promised myself that I’d never get on that ladder again.

  I walked around reading things left on desks and tables. I walked into a glassed-off office. There was a note to somebody: “All right, we’ll try this new cartoonist but he’d better be good. He’d better start good and stay good, we’re not carrying anybody.”

  A door opened and there was Superintendent Barnes. “Chinaski, what are you doing in there?”

  I came out of the office. “I’m a former student of journalism and I’m curious, sir.”

  “Is that all you’ve done? Replaced one light fixture?”

  “Sir, I can’t do it. I have a fear of heights.”

  “All right, Chinaski. I’m going to clock you out for tonight. You don’t deserve another chance, but I want you to come back at 9 p.m. tomorrow night ready to do some work. And then we’ll see.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I walked with him toward the elevator. “Tell me,” he asked, “how come you walk so funny?”

  “I was frying some chicken in the pan and the g
rease exploded, it burned my legs.”

  “I thought maybe you had war wounds.”

  “No, the chicken did it.”

  We went down in the elevator together.

  65

  The Superintendent’s full name was Herman Barnes. Herman met me at the timeclock the next night and I punched in. “Follow me,” he said. He took me into a very dimly lit room and introduced me to Jacob Christensen, who was to be my immediate supervisor. Barnes walked off.

  Most of the people working at night in the Times Building were old, bent, defeated. They all walked around hunched over as if there was something wrong with their feet. We had all been assigned work overalls. “All right,” said Jacob, “get your equipment.” My equipment was a metal wagon, divided into two bins. In one half stood two mops, some rags and a large box of soap. The other half contained a variety of colored bottles and cans and boxes of supplies and more rags. It was evident that I was to be a janitor. Well, I had been a night janitor once before in San Francisco. You smuggled a bottle of wine in with you, worked like hell, and then when everybody else had gone, you sat looking out the windows, drinking wine and waiting for the dawn.

  One of the old janitors came very close to me and screamed in my ear: “These people are assholes, assholes! They have no intelligence! They don’t know how to think! They’re afraid of the mind! They’re sick! They’re cowards! They aren’t thinking men like you and me!”

  His screams could be heard all over the room. He looked to be in his mid-sixties. The others were older, most of them looked seventy or more; about one third were women. They seemed used to the old fellow’s antics. Nobody acted offended.

  “They make me sick!” he screamed. “No guts! look at them! Hunks of shit!”

  “All right, Hugh,” said Jacob, “take your stuff upstairs and get to work.”

  “I’ll deck you, you bastard!” he screamed at the supervisor, “I’ll deck you right in your tracks!”