Charles Bukowski - Factotum

When I awakened I was sweating. Jan's leg was thrown across my belly. I moved it. Then I got up and went to the bathroom. I had the running shits.

I thought, well, I'm alive and I'm sitting here and nobody's bothering me.

Then I got up and wiped, looked; what a mess, I thought, what a lovely powerful stink. Then I vomited and flushed it all away. I was very pale. A chill convulsed my body, shaking me; then there was a rush of warmth, my neck and ears burned, my face reddened. I felt dizzy and closed my eyes and leaned on both hands over the washbowl. It passed.

I went and sat on the edge of the bed and rolled a cigarette. I hadn't wiped myself very well. When I got up to look for a beer there was a wet brown stain. I went into the bathroom and wiped myself again. Then I sat on the bed with my beer and waited for Jan to awaken.

I had first learned that I was an idiot in the school yard. I was taunted and poked at and jeered, as were the other one or two idiots. My only advantage over the other one or two, who were beaten and chasen, was that I was sullen. When surrounded I was not terrified. They never attacked me but would finally turn on one of the others and beat them as I watched.

Jan moved, then awakened and looked at me.

"You're awake."

"Yes."

"That was some night."

"Night? Hell, it's the _day_ that bothers me."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

Jan got up and went to the bathroom. I mixed her a port wine with icecubes and set it on the nightstand.

She came out, sat down and picked up the drink. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Here I've killed a guy and you ask me how I feel."

"What guy?"

"You remember. You weren't that drunk. We were at Los Alamitos, I dropped the old guy through the grandstand. Your blue-eyed would-be lover with $60,000 a year."

"You're crazy."

"Jan, you get on the booze, you black out. I do too, but you're worse than I am."

"We weren't at Los Alamitos yesterday. You hate quarter horses."

"I even remember the names of the horses I bet on."

"We sat here all day and evening yesterday. You told me about your parents. Your parents hated you. Right?"

"Right."

"So now you're a little crazy. No love. Everybody needs love. It's warped you."

"People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be."

"The Bible says, 'Love thy neighbor.'"

"That could mean to leave him alone. I'm going out to get a paper."

Jan yawned and lifted her breasts. They were an interesting brown-gold color-like tan mixed with dirt. "Get a little bottle of whiskey while you're out."

I dressed and walked down the hill toward Third Street. There was a drugstore at the bottom of the hill and a bar next to that. The sun was tired, and some of the cars went east and some of the cars went west, and it dawned on me that if everybody would only drive in the same direction everything would be solved.

I bought a newspaper. I stood there reading through it. There was no mention of a murdered horseplayer at Los Alamitos. Of course, it had happened in Orange County. Maybe Los Angeles County only reported their own murders.

I bought a half pint of Grand Dad at the liquor store and walked back up the hill. I folded the paper under my arm and opened the door to our place. I threw the half pint to Jan. "Ice, water and a good jolt for both of us. I am crazy."

Jan walked into the kitchen to mix the drinks and I sat down and opened the paper and turned to the race results at Los Alamitos. I read the result of the fifth race: Three-Eyed Pete had gone off at 9/2 and had been beaten by a nose by the second favorite.

When Jan brought the drink I drank it straight down. "You keep the car," I said, "and half the money I have left is yours."

"It's another woman, isn't it?"

"No."

I got all the money together and spread it out on the kitchen table. There was $312 and some change. I gave Jan the car key and $150.

"It's Mitzi, isn't it?"

"No."

"You don't love me anymore."

"Stop the shit, will you?"

"You're tired of fucking me, aren't you?"

"Just drive me down to Greyhound, will you?"

She went into the bathroom and started getting ready. She was sore. "You and I have lost it. It isn't like it was at the beginning."

I mixed myself another drink and didn't answer. Jan stepped out of the bathroom and looked at me. "Hank, stay with me."

"No."

She went back in and didn't say anything more. I got the suitcase out and began putting my few things in there. I took the clock. She wouldn't need it.

Jan left me outside the Greyhound bus depot. She hardly gave me time to lift my suitcase out and then she was gone. I walked in and purchased my ticket. Then I walked over and sat down on the hard-backed benches with the other passengers. We all sat there and looked at each other and didn't look at each other. We chewed gum, drank coffee, went into restrooms, urinated, slept. We sat on the hard benches and smoked cigarettes we didn't want to smoke. We looked at each other and didn't like what we saw. We looked at the things on the counters and display racks: potato chips, magazines, peanuts, best sellers, chewing gum, breath-chasers, licorice drops, toy whistles.

Miami was as far as I could go without leaving the country. I took Henry Miller with me and tried to read him all the way across. He was good when he was good, and vice versa. I had a pint. Then I had another pint, and another. The trip took four days and five nights. Outside of a leg-and-thigh rubbing episode with a young brunette girl whose parents would no longer support her in college, nothing much happened. She got off in the middle of the night in a particularly barren and cold part of the country, and vanished. I had always had insomnia and the only time I could really sleep on a bus was when I was totally drunk. I didn't dare try that. When we arrived I hadn't slept or shit for five days and I could barely walk. It was early evening. It felt good to be in the streets again.

ROOMS FOR RENT. I walked up and rang the doorbell. At such times one always places the old suitcase out of the view of the person who will open the door.

"I'm looking for a room. How much is it?"

"$6.50 a week."

"May I look at it?"

"Surely."

I walked in and followed her up the stairway. She was about forty-five but her behind swayed nicely. I have followed so many women up stairways like that, always thinking, if only some nice lady like this one would offer to take care of me and feed me warm tasty food and lay out clean stockings and shorts for me to wear, I would accept.

She opened the door and I looked in.

"All right," I said, "it looks all right."

"Are you employed?"

"Self-employed."

"May I ask what you do?"

"I'm a writer."

"Oh, have you written books?"

"Oh, I'm hardly ready for a novel. I just do articles, bits for magazines. Not very good really but I'm developing."

"All right. I'll give you your key and make out a receipt."

I followed her down the stairway. The ass didn't sway as nicely going down the stairway as going up. I looked at the back of her neck and imagined kissing her behind the ears.

"I'm Mrs. Adams," she said. "Your name?"

"Henry Chinaski."

As she made out the receipt, I heard sounds like the sawing of wood coming from behind the door to our left-only the rasps were punctuated with gasps for breath. Each breath seemed to be the last yet each breath finally led painfully to another.

"My husband is ill," said Mrs. Adams as she handed me the receipt and my key, she smiled. Her eyes were a lovely hazel color and sparkled. I turned and walked back up the stairs.