Charles Bukowski - Ham On Rye

"I'm going to get all you guys!" Wagner said. "Especially you!"

I turned my head and glanced at him, casually, then turned my head away. Wagner stood there looking at me. Then he walked off.

I felt good about that. I liked being picked out as one of the bad guys. I liked to feel bad. Anybody could be a good guy, that didn't take guts. Dillinger had guts. Ma Barker was a great woman teaching those guys how to operate a submachine gun. I didn't want to be like my father. He only pretended to be bad. When you're bad you didn't pretend, it was just there. I liked being bad. Trying to be good made me sick.

The girl next to me said, "You don't have to take that from Wagner. Are you afraid of him?"

I turned and looked at her. I stared at her a long time, motionless.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

I looked away from her, spit on the ground, and walked off. I slowly walked the length of the field, exited through the rear gate and began walking home.

Wagner always wore a grey sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. He had a little pot belly. Something was continually bothering him. His only advantage was his age. He would try to bluff us but that was working less and less. There was always somebody pushing me who had no right to push. Wagner and my father. My father and Wagner. What did they want? Why was I in their way?

One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy attached himself to me. He was small and thin and had almost no hair on top of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real name was Eli LaCrosse. I liked his real name, but I didn't like him. He just glued himself to me. He was so pitiful that I couldn't tell him to get lost. He was like a mongrel dog, starved and kicked. Yet it didn't make me feel good going around with him. But since I knew that mongrel dog feeling, I let him hang around. He used a cuss word in almost every sentence, at least one cuss word, but it was all fake, he wasn't tough, he was scared. I wasn't scared but I was confused so maybe we were a good pair.

I walked him back to his place after school every day. He was living with his mother, his father and his grandfather. They had a little house across from a small park. I liked the area, it had great shade trees, and since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light.

During our walks home Baldy had told me about his father. He had been a doctor, a successful surgeon, but he had lost his license because he was a drunk. One day I met Baldy's father. He was sitting in a chair under a tree, just sitting there.

"Dad," he said, "this is Henry."

"Hello, Henry."

It reminded me of when I had seen my grandfather for the first time, standing on the steps of his house. Only Baldy's father had black hair and a black beard, but his eyes were the same - brilliant and glowing, so strange. And here was Baldy, the son, and he didn't glow at all.

"Come on," Baldy said, "follow me."

We went down into a cellar, under the house. It was dark and damp and we stood awhile until our eyes grew used to the gloom. Then I could see a number of barrels.

"These barrels are full of different kinds of wine," Baldy said.

"Each barrel has a spigot. Want to try some?"

"No."

"Go ahead, just try a god-damned sip."

"What for?"

"You think you're a god-damned man or what?"

"I'm tough," I said.

"Then take a fucking sample."

Here was little Baldy, daring me. No problem. I walked up to a barrel, ducked my head down.

"Turn the god-damned spigot! Open your god-damned mouth!"

"Are there any spiders around here?"

"Go on! Go on, god damn it!"

I put my mouth under the spigot and opened it. A smelly liquid trickled out and into my mouth. I spit it out.

"Don't be chicken! Swallow it, what the shit!"

I opened the spigot and I opened my mouth. The smelly liquid entered and I swallowed it. I turned off the spigot and stood there. I thought I was going to puke.

"Now, you drink some," I said to Baldy.

"Sure," he said, "I ain't fucking afraid!"

He got down under a barrel and took a good swallow. A little punk like that wasn't going to outdo me. I got under another barrel, opened it and took a swallow. I stood up. I was beginning to feel good.

"Hey, Baldy," I said, "I like this stuff."

"Well, shit, try some more."

I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better.

"This stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all."

"He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking."

Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him.

I stood up straight and looked at Baldy.

"Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother!"

"I'll kill you, you bastard, you stay away from my mother!"

"You know I can whip you, Baldy."

"Yes."

"All right, I'll leave your mother alone."

"Let's go then, Henry."

"One more drink…"

I went to a barrel and took a long one. Then we went up the cellar stairway. When we were out, Baldy's father was still sitting in his chair.

"You boys been in the wine cellar, eh?"

"Yes," said Baldy.

"Starting a little early, aren't you?"

We didn't answer. We walked over to the boulevard and Baldy and I went into a store which sold chewing gum. We bought several packs of it and stuck it into our mouths. He was worried about his mother finding out. I wasn't worried about anything. We sat on a park bench and chewed the gum and I thought, well, now I have found something, I have found something that is going to help me, for a long long time to come. The park grass looked greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder. Maybe that stuff wasn't good for surgeons but anybody who wanted to be a surgeon, there was something wrong with them in the first place.

At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our teacher. He was an old guy about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly Fischman was in the class and she was really developed. Her breasts were enormous and she had a marvelous behind which she wiggled while walking in her high-heeled shoes. She was great, she talked to all the guys and rubbed up against them while she talked.

Every day in biology class it was the same. We never learned any biology, Mr. Stanhope would talk for about ten minutes and then Lilly would say, "Oh, Mr. Stanhope, let's have a show!"

"No!"

"Oh, Mr. Stanhope!"

She would walk up to his desk, bend over him sweetly and whisper something.

"Oh, well, all right…" he'd say.

And then Lilly would begin singing and wiggling. She always opened up with "The Lullaby of Broadway" and then she went into her other numbers. She was great, she was hot, she was burning up, and we were too. She was like a grown woman, putting it to Stanhope, putting it to us. It was wonderful. Old Stanhope would sit there blubbering and slobbering. We'd laugh at Stanhope and cheer Lilly on. It lasted until one day the principal, Mr. Lacefield, came running in.

"What's going on here?"

Stanhope just sat there unable to speak.

"This class is dismissed!" Lacefield screamed.

As we filed out, Lacefield said, " And you , Miss Fischman, will report to my office!"

Of course, after that we never studied our homework, and that was all right until the day Mr. Stanhope gave us our first examination.

"Shit," said Peter Mangalore out loud, "what are we going to do?"

Peter was the guy with the 10-incher, soft.

"You'll never have to work for a living," said the guy who looked like Jack Dempsey. "This is our problem."