Charles Bukowski - Ham On Rye

"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?"

"Yes."

They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of my body.

"Turn over."

I turned over.

"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!"

"Well, how will we treat it?"

"The electric needle, I think…

"Yes, of course, the electric needle."

"Yes, the needle."

It was decided.

The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it was growing upon itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the nose and then tried not to look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I knew how he felt. But the man seemed very comfortable. He was fat and sat there almost asleep.

They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?"

He moved forward a bit in his chair.

"Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"

"Uh? Yes, I'm here…"

He stood up and moved toward the doctor.

"How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"

"Fine… I'm all right…"

He followed the doctor into the examination room.

I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some swinging doors and into another room. It was larger than the examination room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The doctor looked at me.

"You really have a case there, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

He poked at a boil on my back.

"That hurt?"

"Yeah."

"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage."

I heard him turn on the machinery. It made a whirring sound. I could smell oil getting hot.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The pain was immense. It filled the room. I felt the blood run down my back. Then he pulled the needle out.

"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the needle into me. Then he pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two other men had walked in and were standing there watching. They were probably doctors. The needle went into me again.

"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the men.

"He gives no sign at all," said the other man.

"Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's ass?" I asked them.

"Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"

The needle dug into me. I didn't answer.

"The boy is evidently very bitter…"

"Yes, of course, that's it."

The men walked out.

"Those are fine professional men," said my doctor. "It's not good of you to abuse them."

"Just go ahead and drill," I told him.

He did. The needle got very hot but he went on and on. He drilled my entire back, then he got my chest. Then I stretched out and he drilled my neck and my face.

A nurse came in and she got her instructions. "Now, Miss Ackerman, I want these… pustules… thoroughly drained. And when you get to the blood, keep squeezing. I want thorough drainage."

"Yes, Dr. Grundy."

"And afterwards, the ultra-violet ray machine. Two minutes on each side to begin with…"

"Yes, Dr. Grundy."

I followed Miss Ackerman into another room. She told me to lay down on the table. She got a tissue and started on the first boil.

"Does this hurt?"

"It's all right."

"You poor boy…"

"Don't worry. I'm just sorry you have to do this."

"You poor boy…"

Miss Ackerman was the first person to give me any sympathy. It felt strange. She was a chubby little nurse in her early thirties.

"Are you going to school?" she asked.

"No, they had to take me out."

Miss Ackerman kept squeezing as she talked.

"What do you do all day?"

"I just stay in bed."

"That's awful."

"No, it's nice. I like it."

"Does this hurt?"

"Go ahead. It's all right."

"What's so nice about laying in bed all day?"

"I don't have to see anybody."

"You like that?"

"Oh, yes."

"What do you do all day?"

"Some of the day I listen to the radio."

"What do you listen to?"

"Music. And people talking."

"Do you think of girls?"

"Sure. But that's out."

"You don't want to think that way."

"I make charts of airplanes going overhead. They come over at the same time each day. I have them timed. Say that I know that one of them is going to pass over at 11:15 a.m. Around 11:10, I start listening for the sound of the motor. I try to hear the first sound. Sometimes I imagine I hear it and sometimes I'm not sure and then I begin to hear it, 'way off, for sure. And the sound gets stronger. Then at 11:15 a.m. it passes overhead and the sound is as loud as it's going to get."

"You do that every day?"

"Not when I'm here."

"Turn over," said Miss Ackerman.

I did. Then in the ward next to us a man started screaming. We were next to the disturbed ward. He was really loud.

"What are they doing to him?" I asked Miss Ackerman.

"He's in the shower."

"And it makes him scream like that?"

"Yes."

"I'm worse off than he is."

"No, you're not."

I liked Miss Ackerman. I sneaked a look at her. Her face was round, she wasn't very pretty but she wore her nurse's cap in a perky manner and she had large dark brown eyes. It was the eyes. As she balled up some tissue to throw into the dispenser I watched her walk. Well, she was no Miss Gredis, and I had seen many other women with better figures, but there was something warm about her. She wasn't constantly thinking about being a woman.

"As soon as I finish your face," she said, "I will put you under the ultra-violet ray machine. Your next appointment will be the day after tomorrow at 8:30 a.m."

We didn't talk any more after that.

Then she was finished. I put on goggles and Miss Ackerman turned on the ultra-violet ray machine.

There was a ticking sound. It was peaceful. It might have been the automatic timer, or the metal reflector on the lamp heating up. It was comforting and relaxing, but when I began to think about it, I decided that everything that they were doing for me was useless. I figured that at best the needle would leave scars on me for the remainder of my life. That was bad enough but it wasn't what I really minded. What I minded was that they didn't know how to deal with me. I sensed this in their discussions and in their manner. They were hesitant, uneasy, yet also somehow disinterested and bored. Finally it didn't matter what they did. They just had to do something - anything - because to do nothing would be unprofessional.

They experimented on the poor and if that worked they used the treatment on the rich. And if it didn't work, there would still be more poor left over to experiment upon.

The machine signaled its warning that two minutes were up. Miss Ackerman came in, told me to turn over, re-set the machine, then left. She was the kindest person I had met in eight years.

The drilling and squeezing continued for weeks but there was little result. When one boil vanished another would appear. I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get. I would look at my face in disbelief, then turn to examine all the boils on my back. I was horrified. No wonder people stared, no wonder they said unkind things. It was not simply a case of teen-age acne. These were inflamed, relentless, large, swollen boils filled with pus. I felt singled out, as if I had been selected to be this way. My parents never spoke to me about my condition. They were still on relief. My mother left each morning to look for work and my. father drove off as if he were working. On Saturdays people on relief got free foodstuffs from the markets, mostly canned goods, almost always cans of hash for some reason. We ate a great deal of hash. And bologna sandwiches. And potatoes. My mother learned to make potato pancakes. Each Saturday when my parents went for their free food they didn't go to the nearest market because they were afraid some of the neighbors might see them and then know that they were on the dole. So they walked two miles down Washington Boulevard, to a store a couple of blocks past Crenshaw. It was a long walk. They walked the two miles back, sweating, carrying their shopping bags full of canned hash and potatoes and bologna and carrots. My father didn't drive because he wanted to save gas. He needed the gas to drive to and from his invisible job. The other fathers weren't like that. They just sat quietly on their front porches or played horseshoes in the vacant lot.