Iron Mike
we talk about this film:
Cagney fed this broad
grapefruit
faster than she could
eat it and
then she
loved him.
“that won’t always
work,” I told Iron
Mike.
he grinned and said,
“yeh.”
then he reached down
and touched his belt.
32 female scalps
dangled there.
“me and my big Jewish
cock,” he said.
then he raised his hands
to indicate the
size.
“o, yeh, well,”
I said.
“they come around,” he
said, “I fuck ’em, they
hang around, I tell ’em,
‘it’s time to leave.’”
“you’ve got guts,
Mike.”
“this one wouldn’t leave
so I just got up and
slapped her... she
left.”
“I don’t have your nerve,
Mike. they hang around
washing dishes, rubbing
the shit-stains out of the
crapper, throwing out the
old Racing Forms...”
“they’ll never get me,”
he said,
“I’m invincible.”
look, Mike, no man is
invincible.
some day
you’ll be sent mad by
eyes like a child’s crayon
drawing. you won’t be
able to drink a glass of
water or walk across a
room. there will be the
walls and the sound of
the streets outside, and
you’ll hear machineguns
and mortar shells. that’ll
be when you want it and
can’t have it.
the teeth
are never finally the
teeth of love.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
