Appears (in an edited form, as "the lover") in Betting on the Muse

Charles Bukowski

the great lover

I mean, at that place in east Hollywood

I was so often with the hardest numbers

in town

I don't speak as a misogynist

I had other people ask me,

"what the hell are you doing, anyhow?"

these were floozies, killers, blanks

they had bodies, hair, eyes, legs

parts

but, say, take one of them, it was like

sitting there with a shark dressed in a

dress, high heels, smoking, drinking,

pilling

the nights went into days and the days

went into nights

and we babbled on through, sometimes

bedding down, badly.

through the drink, the uppers, the

downers, I got myself to imagine

things--say, that this one was the

golden girl of the golden heart and

the golden way of laughter and love

and hope

in the dim smokey light the long hair

looked better than it was, the legs

more shapely, the conversation not as

bare, not as vicious

I fooled myself pretty well. I even

got myself to thinking that I loved

one of them, the worst one

I mean, why the hell be negative?

accept

we drank, drugged, stayed in the

center of the rug, through sunset,

sunrise, played Scrabble for 8

or ten hours

each time I went in to piss she

stole the letters she needed

she was a survivor, the

bitch

after one marathon session

of 52 hours of whatever we

were doing

she said, "let's drive to

Vegas and get married?"

"what?" I asked.

"let's drive to Vegas and

get married before we

change our minds!"

"but suppose we get married,

then what?"

"then you can have it any

time you want it." she told

me

I went in to take a piss

to let her steal the letters

she needed

but when I came out I opened

a new bottle of wine

and spoke no more of the

subject

she didn't come around as

much after that

but there were others,

about the same

sometimes there were

more than one

they'd come in two's

the word got out that

there was an old sucker

in the back court, free

booze and he wasn't overly

sexually demanding,

although at times something

would overtake me and I

would grab a body and throw

in a sweaty horse copulation,

mostly, I guess, to see if

I could still do it

and I confused the mailman

there was an old couch on

the porch and many a morning

as he came by I'd be sitting

there with, say, two of them

we'd be sitting there with our

beer cans, smoking and

laughing

one day he found me alone

"pardon me," he said, "but can

I ask you something?"

"sure"

"well, I don't think you're

rich..."

"no, I'm broke."

"Listen, he said, "I've been around

the world."

"yeah?"

"and I've never seen a man with

as many women as you.

there's always a different one.

or a different pair..."

"yeah?"

"how do you do it?

I mean, pardon me, but you're kind

of old and you're not exactly a

Cassanova, you know?"

"I could be ugly, even."

he shifted his letters from one hand to the

other.

"I mean, how do you do it?"

"availability," I told him.

"what do you mean?"

"I mean, women like a guy who is always

around."

"uh," he said, then walked off to continue his

rounds

his praise didn't help me

what he saw wasn't as good as he thought

even with them there were unholy periods of

drab senselessness,

and worse

I walked back into my place

the phone was ringing

I knew that it would be a female

voice

©Linda Lee Bukowski - used with permission