Women by Charles Bukowski Read Free Book Online Page A

the pavement. The bottle smashed and broke on the cement. She got up and ran off. I heard her car start. I lay there and looked at the broken bottle. It was a foot away. Lydia drove off. The moon was still up. In the bottom of what was left of the bottle I could see a swallow of scotch. Stretched out there on the pavement I reached for it and lifted it to my mouth. A long shard of glass almost poked into one of my eyes as I drank what remained. Then I got up and went inside. The thirst in me was terrible. I walked around picking up beer bottles and drinking the bit that remained in each one. Once I got a mouthful of ashes as I often used beer bottles for ashtrays. It was 4:14 am. I sat and watched the clock. It was like working in the post office again. Time was motionless while existence was a throbbing unbearable thing. I waited. I waited. I waited. I waited. Finally it was 6 am. I walked to the corner to the liquor store. A clerk was opening up. He let me in. I purchased another pint of Cutty Sark. I walked back home, locked the door and phoned Lydia.
    “I have here one pint of Cutty Sark from which I am peeling the cellophane. I am going to have a drink. And the liquor store will now be open for 20 hours.”
    She hung up. I had one drink and then walked into the bedroom, stretched out on the bed, and went to sleep without taking off my clothes.
    13
    A week later I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Lydia. A weekly entertainment newspaper published in California at that time had asked me to write an article on the life of the writer in Los Angeles. I had written it and was driving over to the editorial offices to submit it. We parked in the lot at Mosley Square. Mosley Square was a section of expensive bungalows used as offices by music publishers, agents, promoters and the like. The rents were very high.
    We went into one of the bungalows. There was a handsome girl behind the desk, educated and cool.
    “I’m Chinaski,” I said, “and here’s my copy.”
    I threw it on the desk.
    “Oh, Mr. Chinaski, I’ve always admired your work very much!”
    “Do you have anything to drink around here?”
    “Just a moment. . . .”
    She went up to a carpeted stairway and came back down with a bottle of expensive red wine. She opened it and pulled some glasses from a hidden bar. How I’d like to get in bed with her, I thought. But there was no way. Yet, somebody was going to bed with her regularly.
    We sat and sipped our wine.
    “We’ll let you know very soon about the article. I’m sure we’ll take it. . . . But you’re not at all the way I expected you to be. . . .”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Your voice is so soft. You seem so nice.”
    Lydia laughed. We finished our wine and left. As we were walking toward my car I heard a voice. “Hank!”
    I looked around and there sitting in a new Mercedes was Dee Dee Bronson. I walked over.
    “How’s it going, Dee Dee?”
    “Pretty good. I quit Capitol Records. Now I’m running that place over there.” She pointed. It was another music company, quite famous, with its home office in London. Dee Dee used to drop by my place with her boyfriend when he and I both had columns in a Los Angeles underground newspaper.
    “Jesus, you’re doing good,” I said.
    “Yes, except …”
    “Except what?”
    “Except I need a man. A good man.”
    “Well, give me your phone number and I’ll see if I can find one for you.”
    “All right.”
    Dee Dee wrote her phone number on a slip of paper and I put it in my wallet. Lydia and I walked over to my old Volks and got in. “You’re going to phone her,” Lydia said. “You’re going to use that number.”
    I started the car and got back on Hollywood Boulevard.
    “You’re going to use that number,” she said. “I just know you’re going to use that number!”
    “Cut the shit!” I said.
    It looked like another bad night.
    14
    We had another fight. Later I was back at my place but I didn’t feel like sitting there alone