Run With the Hunted by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online Page A

I saw him and all the other times afterward. He stood in front of me.
    â€œListen,” he said, “you think you’re getting away from me because you’re getting out of here, but you’re not! I’m going to follow you the rest of your life. I’m going to follow you to the ends of the earth and I’m going to get you!”
    I just glanced at him without comment and he walked off. Wagner’s little graduation speech only made me that much bigger with the guys. They thought I must have done some big god-damned thing to rile him. But it wasn’t true. Wagner was just simple-crazy.
    We got nearer and nearer to the doorway of the auditorium. Not only could we hear each name being announced, and the applause, but we could see the audience.
    Then it was my turn.
    â€œHenry Chinaski,” the principal said over the microphone. And I walked forward. There was no applause. Then one kindly soul in the audience gave two or three claps.
    There were rows of seats set up on the stage for the graduating class. We sat there and waited. The principal gave his speech about opportunity and success in America. Then it was all over. The band struck up the Mt. Justin school song. The students and their parents and friends rose and mingled together. I walked around, looking. My parents weren’t there. I made sure. I walked around and gave it a good look-see.
    It was just as well. A tough guy didn’t need that. I took off my ancient cap and gown and handed it to the guy at the end of the aisle—the janitor. He folded the pieces up for the next time.
    I walked outside. The first one out. But where could I go? I had 11 cents in my pocket. I walked back to where I lived.
    â€” H AM ON R YE
waiting
    ----
    hot summers in the mid-30’s in Los Angeles
    where every 3rd lot was vacant
    and it was a short ride to the orange
    groves—
    if you had a car and the
    gas.
    hot summers in the mid-30’s in Los Angeles
    too young to be a man and too old to
    be a boy.
    hard times.
    a neighbor tried to rob our
    house, my father caught him
    climbing through the
    window,
    held him there in the dark
    on the floor:
    â€œyou rotten son of a
    bitch!”
    â€œHenry, Henry, let me go,
    let me go!”
    â€œyou son of a bitch, I’ll kill
    you!”
    my mother phoned the police.
    another neighbor set his house on fire
    in an attempt to collect the
    insurance.
    he was investigated and
    jailed.
    hot summers in the mid-30’s in Los Angeles,
    nothing to do, nowhere to go, listening to
    the terrified talk of our parents
    at night:
    â€œwhat will we do? what will we
    do?”
    â€œgod, I don’t know …”
    starving dogs in the alleys, skin taut
    across ribs, hair falling out, tongues
    out, such sad eyes, sadder than any sadness
    on earth.
    hot summers in the mid-30’s in Los Angeles,
    the men of the neighborhood were quiet
    and the women were like pale
    statues.
    the parks full of socialists,
    communists, anarchists, standing on the park
    benches, orating, agitating.
    the sun came down through a clear sky and
    the ocean was clean
    and we were
    neither men nor
    boys.
    we fed the dogs leftover pieces of dry hard
    bread
    which they ate gratefully,
    eyes shining in
    wonder,
    tails waving at such
    luck
    as
    World War II moved toward us,
    even then, during those
    hot summers in the mid-30’s in Los Angeles.
    Â 
    ----
    That summer, July 1934, they gunned down John Dillinger outside the movie house in Chicago. He never had a chance. The Lady in Red had fingered him. More than a year earlier the banks had collapsed. Prohibition was repealed and my father drank Eastside beer again. But the worst thing was Dillinger getting it. A lot of people admired Dillinger and it made everybody feel terrible. Roosevelt was President. He gave Fireside Chats over the radio and everybody listened. He could really talk. And he began to enact programs to put people to work. But things were still very bad. And