Charles Bukowski - Factotum

"No hanky-panky now," said Laura.

"No, I'm just warming her up."

"I wonder when Wilbur's coming back?" said Jerry.

"I don't give a damn if he never comes back," I said, getting it into Grace. She moaned. It was good. I went very slow, measuring my strokes. I didn't slip out like with Jerry. "You rotten son of a bitch," said Grace, "you bastard, Laura's my friend." "I'm fucking you," I said, "feel that thing going in and out of your body, in and out, in and out, in and out, flup flup flup." "Don't talk like that, you're making me hot." "I'm fucking you," I said, "fuck fuck fucky fuck, we're fucking, we're fucking, we're fucking. Oh, it's so _dirty_, oh it's so filthy, this fucking fucking fucking…" "God damn you, stop it." "It's getting bigger and bigger, feel it?" "Yes, yes…" "I'm going to come. Jesus Christ, I'm going to come…" I came and pulled out. "You raped me, you bastard, you raped me," she whispered. "I ought to tell Laura." "Go ahead, tell her. Think she'll believe you?" Grace climbed out of the bunk and went to the bathroom. I wiped off on the sheet, pulled up my pants and leaped out of the bunk.

"You girls know how to play dice?"

"What do you need?" asked Laura.

"I've got the dice. You girls got any money? It takes dice and money. I'll show you how. Get your money out and put it in front of you. Don't be embarrassed if you don't have much money. I don't have much money. We're all friends, aren't we?"

"Yes," said Jerry, "we're all friends."

"Yes," said Laura, "we're all friends."

Grace came out of the bathroom. "What's that bastard doing now?"

"He's going to show us how to play dice," said Jerry.

"_Shoot dice_ is the term. I'm going to show you girls how to _shoot dice_."

"You are, eh?" asked Grace.

"Yeah, Grace, get your tall ass down here and I'll show you how it works…"

An hour later I had most of the money when Wilbur Oxnard suddenly came down the steps. That's how Willie found us when he came back-shooting craps and drunk.

"_I don't allow gambling on this ship!_" he screamed from the bottom of the steps. Grace got off her knees, walked across the room, put her arms around him and stuck her long tongue into his mouth, then grabbed his private parts: "Where's my Willie been, leavin' his Gracie all alone and lonely on this big boat? I sure missed my Willie."

Willie came into the room smiling. He sat down at the table and Grace got a new fifth of whiskey and opened it. Wilbur poured the drinks. He looked at me:

"I had to go back and straighten out a few notes in the opera. You're still going to do the libretto?"

"The libretto?"

"The words."

"To be truthful, Wilbur, I haven't been thinking much about it, but if you're really serious I'll go to work on it."

"I'm really serious," he said.

"I'll start tomorrow," I said.

Just then Grace reached under the table and unzipped Wilbur's fly. It was going to be a good night for all of us.

Grace, Laura and I were sitting at the bar in The Green Smear a few days later when Jerry walked in. "Whiskey sour," she told the barkeep. When the drink came Jerry just stared down at it. "Listen, Grace, you weren't there last night. I was there with Wilbur."

"That's all right, honey, I had a little business to take care of. I like to keep the old boy guessing."

"Grace, he got down low, real low. Henry wasn't there, Laura wasn't there. He had nobody to talk to. I tried to help him."

Laura and I had slept over at an all-night party at the bartender's house. We'd come right from there back to the bar. I hadn't started work on the libretto and Wilbur had been after me. He wanted me to read all the damned books. I'd long ago given up reading anything.

"He was really drinking. He got onto vodka. He started drinking straight vodka. He kept asking where you were Grace."

"That could be love," said Grace.

Jerry finished her whiskey sour and ordered another. "I didn't want him to drink too much," she said, "so when he passed out I took the bottle of vodka, poured out part of it, and filled the rest with water. But he'd already drunk a lot of that hundred proof shit. I kept telling him to come to bed…"

"Oh yeah?" said Grace.

"I kept telling him to come to bed but he wouldn't. He was so freaked out that I had to drink too. Anyhow, I got sleepy, it got to me and I left him in that chair with his vodka."

"You didn't get him to bed?" asked Grace.

"No. In the morning I walked in and he was still sitting in that chair, the vodka at his side. 'Good morning, Willie,' I said. I never saw such beautiful eyes. The window was open and the sunlight was in them, all the soul."

"I know," said Grace, "Willie has beautiful eyes."

"He didn't answer me. I couldn't get him to talk. I went to the phone and called his brother, you know, the doctor who takes dope. His brother came up and looked at him and got on the phone and we sat there until two guys came up and they closed Willie's eyes and stuck a needle into him. Then we sat around and talked for a while until one of the guys looked at his watch and said, 'O.K.' and they got up and took Willie off the chair and laid him out on a stretcher. Then they carried him out of there and that was it."

"Shit," said Grace. "I'm fucked."

"You're fucked," said Jerry, "I still got my fifty a month."

"And your round, fat ass," said Grace.

"And my round, fat ass," said Jerry.

Laura and I knew we were fucked. There was no need to say it.

We all sat there at the bar attempting to think of a next move.

"I wonder," said Jerry, "if I killed him?"

"Killed him how?" I asked.

"By mixing water with his vodka. He always drank it straight. It might have been the water that killed him."

"It might have," I said.

Then I motioned to the barkeep. "Tony," I said, "will you please serve the plump little lady a vodka and water?" Grace didn't think that was very humorous.

I didn't see it happen, but the way I heard it afterwards, Grace left and went to Wilbur's house and started beating on the door, beating and screaming and beating, and the brother, the doctor, came to the door but he wouldn't let her in, he was bereaved and drugged and he wouldn't let her in but Grace wouldn't quit. The doctor didn't know Grace very well (maybe he should have for she was a fine fuck) and he went to the phone and the police came but she was wild and crazed and it took two of them to put the bracelets on her. They made a mistake and had her hands in front and she came up and then down with the handcuffs and raked open one of the cop's cheeks, opened him up, so that you could look into the side of his head and see his teeth. More cops came and they took Grace away, screaming and kicking, and after that none of us ever saw her or each other again.

Rows and rows of silent bicycles. Bins filled with bicycle parts. Rows and rows of bicycles hanging from the ceiling: green bikes, red bikes, yellow bikes, purple bikes, blue bikes, girls' bikes, boys' bikes, all hanging up there; the glistening spokes, the wheels, the rubber tires, the paint, the leather seats, tailights, headlights, handbrakes; hundreds of bicycles, row after row.

We got an hour for lunch. I'd eat quickly, having been up most of the night and early morning, I'd be tired, aching all over, and I found this secluded spot under the bicycles. I'd crawl down there, under three deep tiers of bicycles immaculately arranged. I'd lay there on my back, and suspended over me, precisely lined up, hung rows of gleaming silver spokes, wheel rims, black rubber tires, shiny new paint, everything in perfect order. It was grand, correct, orderly-500 or 800 bicycles stretching out over me, covering me, all in place. Somehow it was meaningful. I'd look up at them and know I had forty-five minutes of rest under the bicycle tree.