I don’t beat the walls with my fists
I just sit
but it rushes in
a tide of it.
the woman in the court behind me howls,
weeps every night.
sometimes the county comes
and takes her away for a day or two.
I believed she was suffering the loss
of a great love
until one day she came over and told me about
it—
she had lost 8 apartment houses
to a gigolo who had swindled her out
of them.
she was howling and weeping over loss of property.
she began weeping as she told me
then with a mouth lined with stale lipstick
and smelling of garlic and onions
she kissed me and told me:
“Hank, nobody loves you if you don’t have money.”
she’s old, almost as old as I am.
she left, still weeping...
the other morning at 7:30 a.m. two black
attendants came with their stretcher,
only they knocked on my door.
“come on, man,” said the tallest
one.
“wait,” I said, “there’s a mistake.”
I was terribly hungover
standing in my torn bathrobe
hair hanging down over my eyes.
“this is the address they gave us, man,
this is 5437 and 2/5’s isn’t it?”
“yes.”
“come on, man, don’t give us no shit.”
“the lady you want is in the back there.”
they both walked around back.
“this door here?”
“no, no, that’s my back door. look go up those steps behind
you there. it’s the door to the east, the one with the mailbox
hanging loose.”
they went up and banged on the door. I watched them take her
away. they didn’t use the stretcher. she walked between them.
and the thought occurred to me that they were taking the wrong
one but I wasn’t sure.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
