Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Charles Bukowski

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СКАЧАТЬ they couldn’t hit anything out of our infield and anything in the outfield was a sure out.

      and the games that followed. how the crowds came in. it was enough to drive them mad to see a man flying in the sky but the fact that we were 25 games out and with such little time left was also what kept them coming. the crowd loves to see a man get off the deck. the Blues were driving. it was the miracle of the times.

      LIFE came to interview Jimmy. TIME. LIFE. LOOK. he told them nothing. “I just want to see the Blues win the pennant,” he said.

      but it was still tough, mathematically, and like a storybook ending it came down to the last game of the season, tied with the Bengals for first place and playing the Bengals, and winner take all. we hadn’t lost a game since Jimmy joined the team. and I was pretty close to $250,000.00. what a manager I was!

      we were in the office just before that last night game, old man Henderson and I. and we heard the noise on the stairway, and then a guy fell through the door, drunk. J.C. his wings were gone. just stumps.

      “they sawed off my motherfucking wings, the rats! they put this woman on me in the hotel room. what a woman! what a broad! man, they loaded my drinks! I got on top of this cunt and they began SAWING MY WINGS OFF. I couldn’t move! I couldn’t even get my nuts! what a FARCE! and all the time, this guy smoking a cigar, laughing and cackling in the background … — oh god, what a beautiful woman, and I couldn’t get it … — oh, shit …”

      “well, baby, you aren’t the first guy a woman has fucked-up. is there any bleeding?” asked Henderson.

      “no, it’s just bone, a bone-thing, but I’m so sad, I’ve let you fellows down, I’ve let the Blues down, I feel terrible, terrible, terrible.”

      they felt terrible? I was out 250 grand.

      I finished the pint on the desk. J.C. was too drunk to play, wings or no wings. Henderson just put his head down on the desk and began crying. I found his luger in the bottom drawer. I put it into my coat and went out of the tower and down into the reserve section. I took the box right behind Bugsy Malone and some beautiful woman he was sitting with. it was Henderson’s box and Henderson was drinking himself to death with a dead angel. he wouldn’t need that box. and the team wouldn’t need me. I’d phoned down to the dugout and told them to turn the thing over to the batboy or somebody.

      “hello, Bugsy,” I said.

      it was our field so they had first at bats.

      “where’s your center fielder? I don’t see him,” said Bugsy, lighting up a five buck cigar.

      “our center fielder has gone back to heaven due to one of your $3.50 Sears-Roebuck hacksaws.”

      Bugsy laughed. “a guy like me can piss in a mule’s eye and come up with a mint julep. that’s why I am where I am.”

      “who’s the beautiful lady?” I asked.

      “oh, this is Helena. Helena, this is Tim Bailey, the worst manager in baseball.”

      Helena crossed those nylon things called legs and I forgave Crispin for everything.

      “nice to meetcha, Mr. Bailey.”

      “yeah.”

      the game began. it was old times. by the 7th inning we were behind 10 to 0. Bugsy was feeling damn good by then, feeling this broad’s legs, rubbing up against her, having the whole world in his pocket. he turned to me and handed me a five buck cigar. I lit up.

      “was this guy really an angel?” he asked me, kind of smiling.

      “he said to call him J.C. for short, but damned if I know.”

      “looks like Man has beat God nearly everytime they have tangled,” he said.

      “I don’t know,” I said, “but the way I figure it, cutting a man’s wings off is kind of like cutting his cock off.”

      “maybe so. but the way I see it, the strong make things go.”

      “or death makes things stop. which one is it?”

      I pulled the luger out and put it at the back of his head.

      “for Christ’s sake, Bailey! get hold of yourself! I’ll give you half of everything I’ve got! no, I’ll give you everything I’ve got — this broad, everything, the works — just take that gun away from my head!”

      “if you think killing is strong, then TASTE some strong!”

      I pulled the trigger. it was awful. a luger. parts of eggshell head, and brain and blood everywhere: over me, over her nylon legs, her dress …

      the game was held up an hour while they got us out of there — the dead Bugsy, his crazy hysterical woman, and me. then they finished out the innings.

      God over Man; Man over God. mother preserved strawberries while everything was so very sick.

      it was the next day in my cell when the screw handed me the paper:

      “BLUES PULL IT OUT IN 14th INNING, WIN 12-11 GAME AND PENNANT.”

      I walked to the cell window, 8 floors up. I balled the paper up and jammed it through the bars, I jammed and jolted the paper up and shoved it through the bars and as it fell through the air I watched it, it spread, it seemed to have wings, well, horseshit on that, it floated down like any piece of unfolding paper does, toward the sea, those white and blue waves down there and I couldn’t touch them, God beat Man always and continually, God being Whatever It Was — a cocksucker machinegun or the painting of Klee, well, and now, those nylon legs folding around another damn fool. Malone owed me 250 grand and couldn’t pay off. J.C. with wings, J.C. without wings, J.C. on a cross, I was still a little alive and I walked back across the floor, sat upon that prison pot without a lid and began to shit, x-major league manager, x-man, and a slight wind came through the bars and a slight way to go.

      ________

      it was hot in there. I went to the piano and played the piano. I didn’t know how to play the piano. I just hit the keys. some people danced on the couch. then I looked under the piano and saw a girl stretched out under there, her dress up around her hips. I played with one hand, reached under and copped a feel with the other. either the bad music or copping that feel woke up the girl. she climbed out from under the piano. the people stopped dancing on the couch. I made it to the couch and slept for fifteen minutes. I hadn’t slept for two nights and two days. it was hot in there, hot. when I awakened I vomited in a coffee cup. then that was full and I had to let go on the couch. somebody brought a large pot. just in time. I let it go. sour. everything was sour.

      I got up and walked into the bathroom. two guys were in there naked. one of them had some shaving cream and a brush and was lathering up the other guy’s cock and balls.

      “listen, I got to take a shit,” I told them.

      “go ahead,” said the guy being lathered, “we ain’t bothering you.”

      I went ahead and sat down.

      the guy with the brush said to the guy being lathered, “I hear Simpson got fired from Club 86.”

      “KPFK,” СКАЧАТЬ