Come On In!. Charles Bukowski

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      and like forsaken children

      we go back to our

      Racing Forms.

       cut-rate drugstore: 4:30 p.m.

      this woman at the counter ahead of me

      was buying four pairs of panties:

      yellow, pink, blue and orange.

      the lady at the register kept picking up

      the panties and

      counting them:

      one, two, three, four.

      then she counted them again:

      one, two, three, four.

      will there be anything else?

      she asked the lady who was buying the

      panties.

      no, that’s it, she answered.

      no cigarettes or anything?

      no, that’s it.

      the woman at the register

      rang up the sale

      collected the money

      gave change

      looked off into the distance

      for a bit

      and then she bent under the counter

      and got a bag

      and put the panties in this bag

      one at a time—

      first the blue pair, then the yellow,

      then the orange, then the pink.

      she looked at me next:

      how are you doing today?

      fair, I said.

      is there anything else?

      cigarettes?

      all I want is what you see in front of

      you.

      I had hemorrhoid ointment

      laxatives

      and a box of paper clips.

      she rang it up, took my money, made

      change, bagged my things, handed them

      to me.

      have a nice day, she did not say.

      and you too,

      I said.

       you can’t tell a turkey by its feathers

      son, my father said, if you only had some

      ambition! you have no

      get up and go! no

      drive!

      it’s hard for me to believe that you are really

      my son.

      yeah, I

      said.

      I mean, he went on, how are you going to

      make it?

      your mother is worried sick and the neighbors

      think you’re some kind of

      imbecile.

      what are you going to

      do?

      we can’t take care of you all your

      life!

      I’m 15 now, I told him, I won’t be around

      much longer.

      but look at you, you just sit around in your room

      all day! other

      boys have jobs, paper routes, Jim Stover works

      as an usher at the

      Bayou!

      HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO

      SURVIVE IN THIS

      WORLD?

      I don’t

      know …

      you make me SICK! sometimes, having a son like

      you, I wish I was

      dead.

      well, he did die, he died more than 30 years

      ago.

      and last year I paid

      $59,000 income

      tax.

       too early!

      there are some people who will

      phone a man at 7 a.m.

      when he is desperately sick and

      hungover.

      I always greet

      these idiots

      with a few violent

      words

      and the slamming

      down of the

      receiver

      knowing that their

      morning eagerness

      means that

      they retired early

      and thus wasted the

      preceding

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