Absence of the Hero

by Charles Bukowski

  I looked up and the car was slowly moving toward me. Hayward had his head out the window and I saw the gun.

  “Motherfucker!”

  The shots blasted at me. Geysers of dirty sand shot up around me like little atomic mushroom clouds. Then the car spun back. It passed me again in full roar. I forced my eyes open through the whirl of Nevada sand, determined to see the license plate.

  The license plate was covered with a pair of red panties.

  Hayward’s bullets had missed me. I got up, dusted myself off halfheartedly, and began walking toward L.A. again.

  The Ladies Man of East Hollywood

  That’s what he was. Tod Hudson scored continually, with an almost bored regularity. I believe I first met him at a party at my court down on DeLongpre. “Party” isn’t the word. I just had an open door at my place. People just came in every night and sat about drinking. I didn’t know most of them. My reason for all those, I told myself, was that I was gathering material. That was shit, of course, I just wanted an excuse to get drunk as often as possible.

  Tod walked in this night and sat down with his lady friend. I noticed, because they looked different. They were dressed in clean, well-fitted clothing and Tod had his own bottle, a pint of Old Grand-Dad. His lady had on high-heeled shoes and hose. A trim blonde. Most of the other women were in stained slacks, several sizes too large. They had round mad faces with short-cropped hair. Most claimed to be Female Libbers. They blamed their failure on men. They were very depressed, angry, and dull. Each had some de-balled man with them and each of those men claimed to be a poet, a revolutionary of some sort, or a painter or a songwriter or a singer or something of that disorder. They all looked about the same: thin, with diseased goatees and long stringy hair, they seemed all elbows and shiny sweaty foreheads, and they smiled much and pissed continually and listened to their ladies.

  I walked up to Tod.

  “What are you, the fucking heat?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, “how about a drink?”

  I slugged down my mix of port and beer, put my glass down. I hadn’t had any Grand-Dad in a decade. Tod gave me a fill.

  “This is Rissy,” he nodded toward his lady.

  “Hello,” she said crossing her legs with that flash of magic.

  “Look out!” I yelled.

  I sensed something coming. You get that sense when you’re a low-life hanging around other low-lifes. It’s like having a rearview mirror in bad traffic.

  I was right. It was a slime. Stumbling backwards, dumbly, gracelessly, flapping ignorant arms, a mass of dark and grievous zero. I blocked him off with a shoulder in order to save the drinks and he flopped back over the coffee-table and into a dung-like pile of cheap drunkenness.

  I knew him. He ran a poetry workshop and lived with his mother.

  I walked over, picked him up by the ass of his pants and his shirt collar, carried him out to the porch and threw him into the night. I usually did one or two a night like that. They never left when you asked them nicely. “Nicely” to them meant it didn’t work.

  I sat and drank with Tod and Rissy. Now and then I got up and pushed somebody out of the door. It worked. Soon there were just the three of us. At least Tod wasn’t into the Arts. Too many people who fail at everything else turn to the Arts and then they just continue to fail there too. So Tod wasn’t into that. One point for Tod. Two points for Tod: there was Rissy. A point against him: he was a bland mother. If he had any vibes, they were folded under his driver’s license in his wallet. Now, Rissy, well, I hadn’t been that near a woman-woman, well, for a decade. Like the Grand-Dad.

  We drank and talked. The conversation wasn’t particularly brilliant. Sometimes it even got Arty.

  “You know Henry Miller?” Tod asked.

  “Who’s that?” I answered.

  We finished the Grand-Dad and got into my cheap wine and they both started looking a bit sick.

  “We’ve got to go now,” Tod said.

  He handed me a card. He ran a porno bookshop.

  “Come on by some time,” he said.

  “No way,” I said. “Lofty ideals.”

  “I’ll bribe you.”

  “Like how?

  “I’ll drop my wife off tomorrow night.”

  “Rissy?”

  “No, Rissy isn’t my wife.”

  “I want to use the bathroom,” said Rissy.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Rissy walked off.

  “Your wife,” I asked, “is she anything like Rissy?”

  “Really, she’s a better number.”

  “What’s the downer then?”

  “She’s crazy. She’s been in and out. She commits herself.”

  “I don’t need it that bad. I’ve lived with too many crazies.”

  “She’s beautiful. Wild eyes. Long hair. Perfect body.”

  “Like I said. . . .”

  “You won’t know she’s crazy. She’s a clever crazy when she needs to be. She can hide it perfectly. You’ll mistake it for soul. It’s only when she gets to know you well, then she’ll dump on you.”

  “All right, drop her off.”

  “And you’ll come to the bookstore?”

  “Yeah. . . .”

  Rissy was back.

  “My God, that bathroom is a terrible place! It’s caked with all manners of deathly things!”

  “Sorry,” I said, “my maid ran off with the garbage man.”

  With that they left and I poured my nightcap, ale with white wine, as I pondered my future. . . .

  Actually, I didn’t expect anything to materialize. Humanity has many weaknesses, but two of their main ones were: the inability to arrive on time and no sense of follow-up on promises. There was also a wretched lack of loyalty, but here we were concerned with the Promise. Tod’s Promise of the Deliverance of the Flesh.

  Anyhow, I installed the closed-door policy that evening. As the drunks and suckerfish and pretenders and sharks and misshapen and soulless arrived I sent them each on their way. Some needed specialized treatment, which I then applied with gusto. Others, having learned at other moments, left quietly, seeking newer, if lesser, havens.

  Tod arrived on the dot. In the middle of the dot. I saw his headlights dip, then rise, as he drove onto the lawn in front of my court and cut his motor. He exited from his door, cigarette dangling, and out of the machine came sliding the Flesh, high-heel, ankle, glance of knee and the eternal maddening thigh, she stood straight in the moonlight and shook a long glorious mane of hair. She was thin-hipped, neat, lank . . . she came striding toward my front door . . . along with this Tod. . . .

  There was a tiny rap . . . hers . . . I opened. . . . Tod vanished into the night. All I heard was. . . .

  “This is . . . Ingrid. . . .”

  Fuck.

  She walked on in. Shining gold. Flare of eye in wild painting. Centuries of men killing and dying for the like. I mean, you know, I was at last overcome. I attempted to counter with dim realities—strings of intestine, excreta, the tonality of mirage children without arms, broken garbage lids upon the streets of nowhere. It flashed like that. Then broke. She was still there, more than ever.

  “Sorry,” I said, “this is not a nice place.”

  Ingrid laughed.

  “I like it.”

  “Sit down. I’ll get something to drink.”

  I walked off to the kitchen. I even washed a couple of glasses, carefully. I had some vodka. I brought the set-up and put it on the coffeetable.

  I had been drinking since noon, although mostly beer. I peeled the bottle and poured a couple of drinks.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  “No . . .”

  “Let’s drink this. . . . I know a place. . . .”

  I drove her up to Sunset, to Antonio’s. I told the valet fellow, “Be careful. Don’t strip the gears.”

  “Oh, no sir,” he answered glancing at my twelve-year-old car, “I wouldn’t strip anything on this machine. . . .”

  Well,
I thought, there goes your fucking tip, buster. . . .

  Inside we got a table. She ordered a porterhouse. I ordered a porterhouse. Over drinks she started talking. She spoke in a soft voice and I couldn’t quite follow it, nor did I care to. She looked fine, though. She seemed gripped by the edge of some panic. I was fucked-up too. I couldn’t cure her. I couldn’t cure myself.

  Then I made something out: “. . . and while I was pregnant Tod moved this other woman in and we all lived together. . . .”

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry for your troubles. But I’d like to know something. How does Tod get all these beautiful women? What does he have?”

  “He doesn’t have anything.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be true. I mean, how does he do it?”

  “He just does it. He doesn’t have doubts, that’s all. Most men are hindered by what they think they can’t obtain.”

  I ordered a couple more drinks. She lifted her drink and stared at me as she had a hit. The eyes were blue and the blue went way back and in. I was hypnotized. I just dropped out of myself and swam in that blue.

  “I’ve got the baby; she’s cute,” Ingrid spoke. “My divorce is final at the end of the month. I want you to marry me.”

  “I’m honored, you know. But I’ve only known you 30 minutes.”

  “I’ve known you many lifetimes. I was once a swan and you were an eagle and we mated, splashing and thrashing.”

  The steaks came and sat before us. I ordered two more drinks. I wasn’t hungry. I guess Ingrid wasn’t either. She picked up her plate and hurled it into the air.

  “I don’t want to eat this fucking steak! They killed some poor POOOOR ANIMAL to do this! I HATE IT!”

  “Me too, baby. . . .”

  The waiter came out and stared. I gave him a little wink and a wave. When the busboy came out to pick up the mess I slipped him a five. I carried my steak over to another table and sat back down. I nodded the waiter over for the bill. It would take the last of my resources and I was already three days late on the rent.

  It had better be a good fuck because I was really getting fucked. . . .

  Back at my place we got into the vodka and Ingrid seemed reasonably calm. I hoped for the best because the landlord told me one more police raid and that was it.

  Halfway through her drink Ingrid said, “Let’s do it. Where’s the bedroom?”

  “Well,” I said, “sure. . . .”

  The bed slanted to the left and down. Sometimes you had to hold on or you’d roll off.

  Ingrid shook out of her dress and things and there we were. . . . Dear reader, why waste your time? I couldn’t make it. . . .

  “I’m too drunk,” I told her.

  We walked back into the front room and had some more vodka. Then I got mean.

  “Put your dress and high heels back on!” I commanded.

  She marched off and did it. She marched back in.

  “Now sit down!” I commanded.

  Ingrid did.

  “Now cross your legs and pull your skirt back to your ass!”

  Ingrid did.

  “YOU WHORE!” I screamed.

  “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that I am.”

  “NO! NO! NO!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t admit that you’re a whore. That spoils it. Deny that you are a whore!”

  “O.K. I’m no whore.”

  “Yes, you are a whore!”

  “No, I’m not a whore!”

  “You whore, you whore, you WHORE!”

  I got up and pulled her from the couch by her hair. I slapped her across the face. I slapped her again.

  “SUCK MY DICK, YOU WHORE!”

  I had it out and she bent over and got it. She was good. Her madness whirled her tongue like a fantail of a snake burning in fire. I pumped it through her jaws like a male pig.

  I never saw her again.

  But I still kept my promise to Tod. I located the porno bookstore. It wasn’t far from where I lived. I walked in. There was a homosexual sitting in a high booth at the entrance. He seemed very mean and superior. I don’t mind homosexuals as long as they don’t move on me. Being an ugly critter, I seldom had to face that problem.

  This one just said, “A dollar for a token, sir. Then you can stay until closing.”

  “Look, I’m just paying off a debt. I told Tod I’d come on in here.”

  “Tod is busy now, sir.”

  Sure enough, Tod was busy. He had some scrabbly-looking creature dressed in rags by a head of hair and was leading him toward the exit with some force and venom.

  “YOU DEMENTED ASSHOLE!” Tod screamed. “DON’T EVER COME HERE AGAIN! IN FACT, IF I EVEN SEE YOU IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD I’M GOING TO BLOW YOU AWAY!”

  Tod kicked this unblessed individual in the ass, hard, very hard, then reached up into the pulpit where the homosexual stood guard, reached and got out a .45.

  “I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING MOUTH OFF!”

  The guy blew at the door. I never saw him again.

  Tod replaced the .45.

  Then he took me into the back of the bookstore. He showed me the movie machines.

  “These guys watch this shit and then they JACK-OFF right against the viewer! Sometimes I’m busy up front. And I come back here and there’s just this STINK of COME! Nothing stinks worse than come, even shit! Sometimes I come back here and I catch them. Sometimes I don’t. Then, you know what I’ve got? This hardened come! Goddamn, man, it’s too much.”

  All that broke off. I didn’t see Tod, or his wife, for some while. I got the rent up because the checks for the dirty stories started arriving. There were a whole string of publications on Melrose Ave. that went the dirty story route and they had a whole string of sub-publications. I’d get $375 for a suck-fuck story and then they’d write and ask me if they could republish same in some throwaway rag for $75 or $50 and I’d say fine, go ahead. That bit kept me from going back to the factory or trying another run at suicide. Bless all those wonderful bastards.

  Anyhow, Tod came back. I had stopped the party nights and was just seriously drinking alone. There he was at the door, along with another beautiful female.

  “Ooh, Mr. Chinaski!” she said, “I am so thrilled!”

  “Me too, baby, what are you drinking?”

  Tod, the ladies man, had him another number.

  “This is Mercedes,” he told me.

  She voluted on in like a snake from heaven.

  Over libations, Tod broke it to me.

  “There’s a vacancy over at our courtyard but nobody knows it yet. This guy is moving out and it’s really a deal. He’s already moved out but some of his stuff is still in there. I’m in with the landlord and I’ve got the key. Why don’t you come over and look at it?”

  Well, I did. I looked. It was a better place, much. And 50 bucks a month cheaper. Plus a glance at Mercedes now and then.

  “O.K.” I said to Tod. “One condition. You won’t bother me, will you?”

  “No way, man. . . . Your place is yours. You want to see me, I’m there. We damn well won’t bother you.”

  “All right,” I said, thinking that what a man said he meant. Well, not all that, but at least some of that.

  So, there I was in the courtyard of Tod the Ladies Man. . . .

  It was all right for a week. He didn’t bother me. I got the phone put in, found a new liquor store. There was a place for the typer on the breakfastnook table. With the cheaper rent I had a chance to write the poem. I was tired of writing fuck stories even though I wrote them better than anybody else. What I did was to write a realistic story and just insert a bunch of fuck-suck and yet still go on with the story. With the poem you could write the way you wanted to because nobody paid for poetry.

  Then it was a Wednesday night. I had just gotten in from the track, really tired. I drank until 2 or 3 A.M. each day. But I thrived on all that, it created a good tight line.

  I got into the tub and stretched out. I always had the water sizzling ho
t and seldom used any soap. I had a can of cold beer. I let the cold run inside of me while the hot was on the outside. Then the phone rang.

  I was no longer on the steady. I had given my number to maybe 5 that I had fucked once or twice. Dumb fucks. Useless fucks. But one still likes to ring the bell now and then for the sake of some sick glory.

  I clambered out, long balls dangling, wondering which of those low numbers was calling.

  “Yeah, Chinaski,” I answered.

  “Hey, man, this is Tod. What’re you doing?”

  “I just got in, Tod. My ass is on the floor. Really beat.”

  “Come on down. I wanna see ya.”

  “Hey, man, when do you think I write?”

  “Don’t give me that shit about writing, man. You can write any time.”

  “You write when it hits you. It’s hitting me now.”

  “I’ve got a lot of good stuff down here. Take the night off. I want you to meet my roomy, Laura. I had to dump Mercedes for her. This Laura, you’ll cream just glancing at her silhouette. She wants to meet you.”

  “All right, Tod, I guess I can spin the ribbon tomorrow night. Be down in ten. . . .” I hung up, thinking, who cares about that eunuch they call Immortality? . . .

  There she was, there was Laura. Tod had done it again. Each one a bit better than the other. And intelligent. His women all had a bit of humor, albeit a bit worldly, a touch hard, but not too hard, not so hard that your feelings dropped away in spite of the body. Tod chose a nice blend. But where did he find them? All I ever saw were lonely vicious numbers, darkened in spirit because they had not been endowed as well as some others. As one of the creatures dumped upon the earth, I was ugly myself but I rather liked it. But being a woman in America was harder: an ugly woman was looked down upon, where if you looked down upon an ugly man, he was apt to beat the shit out of you and usually did.

  Tod had music feeding through the room from a record player. Laura was mincing across the room, smiling a bit, singing words, looking fine. She seemed a bit high. But she worked away without crass flash. Or flash crass. How would Hemingway say this? Not very well, I think. Come join me.

  Tod spread the coke upon the glass of the coffee table. The snow was encircled by a bevy of dildoes from his porno store.