Tales of Ordinary Madness

by Charles Bukowski

  “You’ll be staying here tonight. You look like you need some rest.”

  “If I get some rest I might go on with the game.”

  “I think you should. It’s a good game if you angle in on it right.”

  “I don’t think so. And, besides, why should you help me?”

  “I’m like Bilbo,” she said. “I’m crazy. At least they thought I was. I was three months in a madhouse.”

  “No shit,” I said.

  “No shit,” she said. “The first thing I’m going to do is fix you some soup.”

  “The county,” she said later, “is trying to run me out. There’s a suit pending. Luckily, Daddy left me quite a bit of money. I can fight them. They call me Crazy Carol of the Liberated Zoo.”

  “I don’t read the papers. Liberated Zoo?”

  “Yes, I love animals. I have trouble with people. But, Jesus, I really relate to animals. Maybe I am nuts. I don’t know.”

  “I think you’re very nice.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “People seem afraid of me. I’m glad you’re not afraid of me.”

  Her brown eyes opened wider and wider. They were a dark brooding brown, and as we talked, some of the shield seemed to drop away.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Go down the hall, then turn in the first door on the left.”

  “Okay.”

  I walked down the hall, then turned left. The door was open. I stopped. Sitting on the shower rod above the bathtub was a parrot. And on the throw rug, a full-grown tiger stretched out. The parrot ignored me and the tiger gave me a bored and disinterested stare. I moved back to the front room quickly.

  “Carol! My God, there’s a tiger in the bathroom!”

  “Oh, that’s Dopey Joe. Dopey Joe won’t hurt you.”

  “Well, I can’t crap with a tiger looking at me.”

  “Oh, silly. Come on with me!”

  I followed Carol down the hall. She walked into the bathroom and said to the tiger: “Come on, Dopey, you gotta move. The gentleman can’t shit with your eyes on him. He thinks you wanta eat him.”

  The tiger just looked back at Carol with disinterest.

  “Dopey, you bastard, I’m not telling you again! Now I’m giving you until Three! Here we go! Now: One ... two ... three ....”

  The tiger didn’t move.

  “All right now, you asked for it!”

  She took that tiger by the ear, and pulling at that ear, she raised the beast from his reclining position. The cat was snarling, spitting; I could see the fangs and tongue, but Carol seemed to ignore it. She led that tiger out of there by the ear, guided him down the hall. Then she let go of the ear and said, “All right now, Dopey, you go to your room! You go right to your room!”

  The tiger walked down the hall, turned in a half circle and lay down on the floor.

  “Dopey!” she said. “Go to your room!”

  The cat stared back, unmoving.

  “That son of a bitch is getting impossible,” she said. “I may have to take disciplinary action, but I hate to. I love him.”

  “You love him?”

  “I love all my pets, of course. Listen, how about the parrot? Will the parrot bother you?”

  “I guess I can bear up under the parrot,” I said.

  “Go ahead then, have a good crap.”

  She closed the door. The parrot kept looking at me. Then the parrot said, “Go ahead then, have a good crap.” Then he did, right into the tub.

  We talked some more that afternoon and evening and I got a couple of good meals down. I wasn’t quite sure whether the whole thing was just a giant show of D.T.’s or if I had died or if I had gone mad and was having visions.

  I don’t know how many different types of animals Carol had there. And most of them were housebroken. It was a Liberated Zoo.

  Then there was “shit and exercise time,” as Carol called it. And she’d march them all out of there in groups of five or six and lead them to the yard. Fox, wolf, monkey, tiger, panther, snake – well, you’ve been to a zoo. She had almost everything. But the curious fact was that the animals didn’t bother each other. Being well fed helped (her feed bill was tremendous – Pappa must have left plenty), but I got the idea that Carol’s love for them put them into a rather gentle and almost humorous state of passivity – a transfixed state of love. The animals simply felt good.

  “Look at them, Gordon. Really look at them. You can’t help loving them. See how they move. Each one so different, each one so real, each one so much itself. They’re not like humans. They’re contained, they’re unlost, never ugly. They have the gift, they have the same gift that they were born with ...”

  “Yes, I think I see what you mean ...”

  That night I was unable to sleep. I put on my clothing, except for shoes and stockings, and walked down the hall to the front room. I could look in without being seen. I stood there.

  Carol was naked and spread upon the coffee table, her back on the table with just the lower parts of the thighs and the legs dangling over. Her whole body was excitingly white, as if it had never seen the sun, and her breasts were more vigorous than large – they seemed parts of their own, striving into the air, and the nipples were not the darker shade as were most women’s but rather a bright pink-red, fire-like, only pinker, almost neon. Christ, the lady with the neon breasts! And her lips, the same color, were open in a dream state. Her head was hanging lightly back over the other edge of the coffee table, with this long red-brown hair dangling dangling, swinging slightly, curling a bit on the rug. And her whole body had this feeling of being oiled – there seemed no elbows or kneecaps, no points, no edges. Oiled smooth, she was. The only things that jarred out were the sharp-pointed breasts. And curled about her body was this long snake – I don’t know what type. The tongue flicked and the snake’s head moved back and forth to one side of Carol’s head slowly, fluidly. Then raising, its neck bending, the snake looked at Carol’s nose, her lips, her eyes – drinking at her face.

  At moments, the snake’s body would slide ever so slightly about Carol’s body; it seemed a caress, that movement, and after the caress, the snake would contract slightly, squeezing her, coiling there about her body. Carol would gasp, pulsate, shiver; the snake would slide down by her ear, then rise, look at her nose, her lips, her eyes, and then repeat his movements. The snake’s tongue flicked rapidly and Carol’s cunt was open, the hairs begging, red and beautiful, in the lamplight.

  I walked back to my room. A very fortunate snake, I felt; I had never seen such a body upon a woman. I had difficulty sleeping but finally managed.

  The next morning when we had breakfast together I said to Carol, “You’re really in love with your zoo, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, all of them, every last one of them,” she said.

  We finished breakfast, not saying much. Carol looked better than ever. She just radiated more and more. Her hair seemed alive; it seemed to leap about with her movements, and the light from the window shone through it, bringing out the red.

  Her eyes were quite open, simmering, yet without fear, without doubt. Those eyes: she let everything in and everything out. She was animal, and human.

  “Listen,” I said, “If you can get my coat from that monkey, I’ll be on my way.”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she said.

  “Do you want me to be part of your zoo?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m a human, you know.”

  “But you’re untouched. You’re not like them. You’re still floating inside; they’re lost, hardened. You’re lost but you haven’t hardened. All you need to do is to be found.”

  “But I might be too old to be ... loved like the rest of your zoo.”

  “I ... don’t know ... I like you very much. Can’t you stay? We might find you ...”

  Again the next night I couldn’t sleep. I walked down the hall up to the beaded partiti
on and looked in. This time Carol had a table in the center of the room. It was an oak table, almost black, with sturdy legs. Carol was spread upon the table, her buttocks just upon the edge, legs spread, with her toes just touching the floor. One hand covered her cunt, then moved away. As her hand moved away, her entire body seemed to blush a bright pink; the blood washed through, then washed away. The last of the pink hung for a moment just under the chin and about the throat, then it vanished and her cunt opened slightly.

  The tiger walked about the table in slow circles. Then he circled faster and faster, the tail flicking. Carol gave this low moan. When she did this the tiger was directly in front of her legs. He stopped. Rose. He placed one paw on either side of Carol’s head. The penis extended; it was gigantic. The penis poked at her cunt, seeking entrance. Carol put her hand upon the tiger’s penis, attempting to guide it in. They both swiveled upon the edge of unbearable and heated agony. Then a portion of the penis entered. The tiger suddenly jerked his haunches; the remainder entered ... Carol screamed. Then her hands reached up around the tiger’s neck as he began working. I turned and walked to my room.

  The next day we ate lunch in the yard with the animals. A picnic lunch. I ate a mouthful of potato salad as a lynx walked by with a silver fox. I had entered a whole new totality of experience. The county had pressured Carol into erecting these high wire fences but the animals still had a wide area of wild land to roam in. We finished eating and Carol stretched out on the grass, looking up at the sky. My god, to be a young man again!

  Carol looked at me: “Come on down here, old tiger!”

  “Tiger?”

  “ ‘Tyger Tyger, burning bright ...’ When you die, they’ll know you, they’ll see the stripes.”

  I stretched out beside Carol. She turned on her side, resting her head upon my arm. I faced her. The whole sky and earth ran through those eyes.

  “You look like Randolph Scott mixed with Humphrey Bogart,” she said.

  I laughed. “You’re funny,” I said.

  We kept looking at each other. I felt as if I could fall down inside her eyes.

  Then my hand was on her lips, we were kissing, and I pulled her body into mine. My other hand ran through her hair. It was a kiss of love, a long kiss of love, yet I still got an erection; her body moved against mine, moved snake-like. An ostrich walked past. “Jesus,” I said, “Jesus, Jesus ...” We kissed again. Then she started saying, “You son of a bitch! Oh, you son of a bitch, what are you doing to me?” Carol took my hand and placed it inside her blue jeans. I felt the hairs of her cunt. They were slightly wet. I rubbed and fondled her there, then my finger entered. She kissed me wildly. “You son of a bitch! You son of a bitch!” Then she pulled away.

  “Too fast! We must go slowly, slowly ...”

  We sat up and she took my hand and read my palm.

  “Your life line ...” she said. “You haven’t been on earth long. See here. Look at your palm. See that line?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the life line. Now, see mine? I’ve been on earth many times before.”

  Carol was serious, and I believed her. You had to believe Carol. Carol was all there was to believe. The tiger watched us from twenty yards away. A breeze blew some of Carol’s red-brown hair from her back over her shoulder. I couldn’t bear it. I grabbed her and we kissed again. We fell backwards, then she broke off.

  “Tiger, son of a bitch, I told you: go slow!”

  We talked some more. Then she said, “You see – I don’t know how to express it. I have many dreams about it. The world is tired. Some end is coming about. People have deadened into inconsequence – rock people. They are tired of themselves. They are praying for death and their prayers will be answered. I’m – I’m – well – I’m rather preparing a new creature to inhabit what is left of the earth. I feel that somewhere somebody else is preparing the new creature. Perhaps in several other places. These creatures will meet and breed and survive, you see? But they must contain the best of all the creatures, including man, in order to survive within the small particle of life which will remain ... My dreams, my dreams ... Do you think I’m mad?”

  She looked at me and laughed. “Do you think I’m Crazy Carol?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no way of telling.”

  Again that night I couldn’t sleep and I walked down the hall toward the front room. I looked through the beads. Carol was alone spread upon the couch, a small lamp burning nearby. She was naked and appeared to be asleep. I parted the beads and entered the room, sat in a chair across from her. The light from the lamp fell upon the top half of her body; the rest was in shadow.

  I disrobed and moved toward her. I sat upon the edge of the couch and looked at her. She opened her eyes. When Carol saw me she didn’t seem surprised. But the brownness of her eyes, though clear and deep, seemed without intonation, without accent, as if I were not something she knew by name or manner, but something else – a force apart from myself. Yet there was acceptance.

  In the lamplight her hair was as it was in the sunlight – the red showing through the brown. It was like fire inside; she was like fire inside. I bent and kissed her behind the ear. She inhaled and exhaled visibly. I slid down, my legs dropping off the couch, got at and tongued her breasts, went to the stomach, the bellybutton, back to the breasts, then slid down again, down lower where the hairs began and I began kissing there, bit lightly once, then went lower, jumped over, kissed down inside one leg, then the other. She moved, made a small sound: “ah, ah ...” And then I was down upon the opening, the lips, and I very slowly circled my tongue around the edge of the lips, then reversed the circle. I bit, plunged my tongue in twice, deep in, withdrew, circled again. It became wet there, the slight taste of salt. I circled again. The sound: “ah, ah,...” and the flower opened, I saw the little bud and with the tip of my tongue, as gently and easily as possible, I tickled and licked. Her legs kicked and as she tried to lock them about my head I rose upwards, licking upwards, stopping, rising upwards to the throat, biting, and my penis was then poking poking poking as she reached and placed me at the opening. As I slid in, my mouth found hers – and we were locked in two places – the mouth wet and cool, the flower wet and hot, an oven of heat down there, and I held my penis full and still in her body as she wiggled upon it, asking ...

  “You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch ... move! Move it!”

  I remained still as she floundered. I pressed my toes against the end of the couch and pressed further in, still without motion. Then I forced my penis to jump three times by itself while not moving my body. She answered with contractions. We did it again, and when I could bear it no longer, I withdrew it almost out, plunged it in – heat and smoothness – did it again, then held still as she wiggled upon the end of me as if I were a hook and she were the fish. I repeated this many times, and then, wildly lost, I thrust it in and out, feeling it growing, we climbed upward together as one – the perfect language – we climbed past everything, past history, past ourselves, past ego, past mercy and examination, past everything but the occult joy of savoring Being.

  We climaxed together and I remained within her afterwards without my penis softening. As I kissed her, her lips were entirely softened and gave way under mine. Her mouth was loosened, surrendered to everything. We stayed in light and gentle embrace for a half-hour, then Carol rose. She went to the bathroom first. Then I followed. There were no tigers in there that night. Just the old Tyger who had burned bright.

  Our relationship went on, sexual and spiritual, but meanwhile, I’ll have to admit, Carol carried on with the animals too. The months went by in easy happiness. Then I noticed that Carol was pregnant. That was some drink of water I had stopped by for.

  One day we drove to town for supplies. We locked the place as we had always done. There wasn’t too much worry about burglary because of the panther and the tiger and the various other so-called dangerous animals walking about. The supplies for the animals were delivered each
day but we had to go to town for our own. Carol was well known. Crazy Carol, and there were always people staring at her in the stores, and now at me too, her new pet, her new old pet.

  We went to a movie first, which we didn’t enjoy. When we came out, it was raining lightly. Carol bought a few maternity dresses and then we went to the market for the rest of our purchases. We drove back slowly, talking, enjoying each other. We were contented people. We only wanted what we had; we didn’t need them and had long since stopped caring what they thought. But we would sense their hatred. We were outsiders. We lived with animals and the animals were a threat to their society – they thought. And we were a threat to their manner of living. We dressed in old clothing. I had an untrimmed beard; hair all over my head, and although I was fifty my hair was a bright red. Carol’s hair came down to her butt. And we always found things to laugh about. Genuine laughter. They couldn’t understand it. In the market Carol had said, “Hey, Poppa! Here comes the salt! Catch the salt, Poppa, you old bastard!”

  She was standing way down the aisle with three people between us and she threw the salt over the people’s heads. I caught it; both of us laughed. Then I looked at the salt.

  “No, no, daughter, you whore! You tryin’ to harden my arteries? We need iodized! Catch, my sweets, and be careful of the baby! That poor bastard is gonna get enough knocks later!”

  Carol caught it and threw back the iodized. It was the look upon their faces ... We were so undignified.

  We had enjoyed our day. The movie had been bad but we had enjoyed our day. We made our own movies. Even the rain was good. We rolled down the windows and let it come in. As I drove up the driveway, Carol moaned. It was a moan of utter agony. She slumped and turned quite white.

  “Carol! What is it? Are you all right?” I pulled her to me. “What is it? Tell me ...”

  “I’m all right. It’s what they’ve done. I can sense it, I know it, o my God o my God – o my God, those rotten bastards, they’ve done it, they’ve done it, the horrible rotten swine.”

  “Done what?”

  “Murder – the house – murder everywhere ...”