The Bell Tolls for No One. Charles Bukowski

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      The student nurses wore these very short uniforms and you could see through them. So you could hardly blame the fellows. It was an interesting place, this hospital. Then the doctor would come in. His name was Dr. McLain, a very fine fellow. He’d walk around, look at us and say, “Yes, 140 cc’s for this one, and, ah, give this one . . . ah, 100 cc’s of . . . ” And then he’d look at me and snap his fingers, “Ha, ha! Drugs! Drugs! Let’s have a big party! Where’s the big party, Bukowski?” he’d ask.

      I was in . . . well, they ‘d caught me with an overdose and I was trying to stay in a while because I’d passed a few bad checks and was waiting for the heat to die down.

      “The big party’s right under my balls, doctor. I can hear it down there!”

      “Under your balls, hey, my man?”

      “Yes, directly under. I can even hear it down there.”

      It usually went on and on like that.

      In the evening they’d bring us our juice. We always made a big thing about the juice.

      “I think they’re coming with the juice,” somebody would say.

      “Yes, the man is coming with the juice!”

      Then I’d leap out of bed. “Who’s got the juice?” I’d ask.

      “The juice! The juice! We’ve got the juice!” Anderson would shout.

      I’d spin on Anderson. “What’d you say? Did you say you had the juice?”

      “What?”

      I’d point to Anderson. “Look, fellows, here’s the man with the juice! He said he had the juice! Give us our juice, man!”

      “What juice?”

      “I heard you say you had the juice! What’d you do with our juice?”

      “Yes, give us our juice!”

      “Give us our juice!”

      “Hey, man, give us our juice!”

      Anderson would back off.

      “I don’t have the juice!”

      I would follow him. “Listen, I heard you say you had the juice! I distinctly heard you say you had the juice! What did you do with our juice, man? Give us our juice!”

      “Yeah, yeah! Give us our juice!”

      Then Anderson would scream at me, “God damn you, Bukowski—I don’t have the juice!”

      Then I’d turn to the fellows: “Look, men, now he’s lying! He claims he doesn’t have the juice!”

      “Stop that lying!”

      “Give us our juice!”

      Anderson and I went through that every night. As I say, it was a very pleasant place.

      One day I found a broken hoe in the yard. The hoe itself was all right but somebody had broken the handle almost all the way down. I brought the hoe back into the ward and hid it under my bed. I also found a trash can where they used to throw the empty medicine bottles. I’d keep dipping in there and hiding the stuff under my gown and carrying it back to my cabinet. I hid it all in my cabinet. They were careless. Some of those bottles were 1/5 full. You could still get some good highs off them.

      Then they found the hoe under my bed. I was called in Dr. McLain’s office.

      “Sit down, Bukowski.”

      He pulled out the hoe and sat it on the desk. I looked at the hoe.

      “What were you doing with this under your bed?” he asked.

      “It’s mine,” I said. “I found it out in the yard.”

      “What were you going to do with this hoe?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Why did you bring it from the yard?”

      “I found it there. I put it under my bed.”

      “You know we can’t let you have things like that, Bukowski.”

      “It’s just a hoe.”

      “We realize that it is a hoe.”

      “What do you want with it, doctor?”

      “I don’t want it.”

      “Then give it back. It’s mine. I found it in the yard.”

      “You can’t have it. Come with me.”

      The doctor had a male nurse with him. They walked up to my bed. The male nurse opened the doors of my bedstand.

      “Well, look at this!” said the doctor. “Bukowski’s got a regular pharmacy here! Do you have a prescription for this stuff, Bukowski?”

      “No, but I’m saving it. It’s mine. I found it.”

      “Dump it out, Mickey,” the doctor said.

      The male nurse pulled up a trash can and threw it all in there.

      I was denied my juice for the next three nights. Sometimes they were quite unfair, I thought.

      It wasn’t very hard to get out. I just climbed a wall and dropped to the other side. I was barefooted and in my gown. I walked down to the bus stop, waited, and when the bus stopped I got on. The driver said, “Where’s your money?”

      “I don’t have any,” I answered.

      “He’s a looney,” somebody said.

      The bus was moving. “Who’s a looney?” I asked. “Who said I was a looney?”

      Nobody answered.

      “They took my juice because of a hoe. I’m not staying there.”

      I walked down and sat next to a woman.

      “Let’s make it, baby!” I said.

      She turned away. I reached out and pulled her breast. She screamed.

      “Hey, look, fellow!”

      “Somebody call me?”

      “I did.”

      I looked around. It was a big guy.

      “You leave that woman alone,” he told me.

      I got up and hit him in the mouth. When he rolled from his seat I kicked his head two or three times, and although I didn’t have shoes on, I never cut my toenails.

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