the colored birds
is a highrise apt. next door
and he beats her at night and she screams and nobody stops it
and I see her the next day
standing in the driveway with curlers in her hair
and she has her huge buttocks jammed into black
slacks and she says, standing in the sun,
god damn it, 24 hours a day in this place, I never go anywhere!”
then he comes out, proud, the little matador,
pail of shit, his belly hanging over his bathing trunks—
he might have been a handsome man once, might have,
now they both stand there and he says,
think I’m goin’ for a swim.”
she doesn’t answer and he goes to the pool and
jumps into the fishless, sandless water, the peroxide-codeine water,
and I stand by the kitchen window drinking coffee
trying to unboil the fuzzy, stinking picture—
after all, you can’t live elbow to elbow to people without wanting to
draw a number on them.
every time my toilet flushes they can hear it. every time they
go to bed I can hear them.
soon she goes inside and then comes out with 2 colored birds
in a cage. I don’t know what they are. they don’t talk. they
just move a little, seeming to twitch their tail-feathers and
shit. that’s all they do.
she stands there looking at them.
he comes out: the little tuna, the little matador, out of the pool,
dripping unbeautiful white, the cloth of his wet suit gripping.
get those birds in the house!”
but the birds need sun!”
said, get those birds in the house!”
the birds are gonna die!”
you listen to me, I said, GET THOSE BIRDS IN THE HOUSE!”
she bends and lifts them, her huge buttocks in the black slacks
looking so sad.
he slams the door behind them. then I hear it.
BAM!
she screams
BAM! BAM!
she screams
then: BAM!
and she screams.
pour another coffee and decide that that’s a new
one: he usually only beats her at
night. it takes a man to beat his wife night and
day. although he doesn’t look like much
he’s one of the few real men around
here.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
