The Most Beautiful Woman in Town by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online Page A

cock!”
    â€œlook,” said Tony. “how do you know I’m nuts? how do we get away with it?”
    â€œwell, since we are all insane there are only a few to control us, far too few, so they just let us run around insane. that’s all they can do at this moment. for a while I thought they might find some place to live in outer space while they destroyed us. but now I know that the insane control space also.”
    â€œhow do you know?”
    â€œbecause they planted an American flag on the moon.”
    â€œsuppose the Russians had planted a Russian flag on the moon?”
    â€œsame thing,” I said.
    â€œthen you’re impartial?” Tony asked.
    â€œI am impartial to all degrees of madness.”
    we became quiet. kept drinking. and Tony too, began pouring himself scotch and waters. he could . he owned the place.
    â€œjesus, it’s hot,” said Tony.
    â€œshit, yeh,” said Indian Mike.
    then Tony began talking. “insanity,” said Tony, “ya know, there’s something very insane going on at this very minute!”
    â€œsure,” I said.
    â€œno, no, no … I mean right HERE at my place!”
    â€œyeh?”
    â€œyeh. it’s so crazy, sometimes I get scared.”
    â€œtell me all about it, Tony,” I said, always ready for somebody else’s bullshit.
    Tony leaned real close. “I know a guy’s got a fuck-machine. no crazy sex magazine shit. like you see in the ads. hot water bottles with replaceable cornbeef pussies, all that nonsense. this guy has really put it together. a German scientist, we got to him, I mean our govt. did before the Russians could grab him. now keep it quiet.”
    â€œsure, Tony, sure …”
    â€œVon Brashlitz. our govt. tried to get him interested in SPACE. no go. a brilliant old guy, but he just has this FUCK MACHINE in mind. at the same time he thinks he’s some kind of an artist, calls himself Michelangelo at times … they pensioned him off at $500.00 a month to kind of keep him alive enough to stay outa the nuthouses. they watched him a while, then got a little bored or forgot, but they kept the checks coming, and now and then an agent would talk to him ten or twenty minutes a month, write a report that he was still crazy, then leave. so he just drifted around from town to town, dragging this big red trunk behind him. finally one night he come in here and begins drinking. tells me that he is just a tired old man, needs a real quiet place to do his research. I kept putting him off. lotta nuts come in here, ya know.”
    â€œyeh,” I said.
    â€œthen, man, he kept getting drunker and drunker, and he laid it down to me. he had designed a mechanical woman who could give a man a better fuck than any woman created throughout the centuries! plus no kotex, no shit, no arguments!”
    â€œI been looking,” I said, “for a woman like that all my life.”
    Tony laughed. “every man has. I thought he was crazy, of course, until one night after closing I went down to his rooming house with him and he took the FUCK MACHINE out of the red trunk.”
    â€œand?”
    â€œit was like going to heaven before you died.”
    â€œlet me guess the rest,” I asked Tony.
    â€œguess.”
    â€œVon Brashlitz and his FUCK MACHINE are upstairs at your place right now.”
    â€œuh huh,” said Tony.
    â€œhow much?”
    â€œtwenty bucks a piece.”
    â€œ20 bucks to fuck a machine?”
    â€œhe’s outdone whatever Created us. you’ll see.”
    â€œPetey the Owl will blow me for a buck.”
    â€œPetey the Owl is o.k. but he ain’t no invention that beats the gods.”
    I shoved over my 20.
    â€œso help me, Tony, if this is some crazy kind of hot-weather gag, you’ve lost your best customer!”
    â€œlike you said earlier, we’re all crazy anyhow. it’s up to you.”
    â€œright,” I