THE HANGOVER HALL OF FAME

Charles Bukowski Trouble With a Battery by Charles Bukowski

I bought her a drink and then another drink and then we went up the stairway behind the bar. there were several large rooms there. she had me hot. sticking her tongue out at me. and we played all the way up the stairway. I took the first one, standing up, inside the door. she just slid back her panties and I put it in.
then we went into the bedroom and there was some kid in the other bed, there were two beds, and the kid said, "hello."
"it's my brother," she said.
the kid looked real thin and vicious, but then almost everybody in the world looked vicious when you thought about it.
there were several bottles of wine along the headboard. they opened a bottle and I waited until they both drank from the bottle, then I tried some.
I threw a ten on the dresser.
the kid really drank at the wine.
"his big brother is the great bullfighter, Jaime Bravo."
"I've heard of Jaime Bravo, he fights mostly out of T.," I said, "but you don't have to give me any bullshit."
"o.k.," she said, "no bullshit."
we drank and talked for some time, just small easy talk. and then she turned out the lights and with the brother there in the other bed, we did it again. I had my wallet under her pillow. when we finished, she hit the light and went to the bathroom while her brother and I passed the bottle. while the brother wasn't looking I wiped off on the sheet.
she came out of the bathroom and she still looked good, I mean after two shots at it, she still looked good. her breasts were small but firm; what there was of them really jutted. and her ass was big, big enough.
"why did you come to this place?" she asked, moving toward the bed. she slid in beside me, pulled up the sheet, pulled from the bottle.
"I had to get my battery charged across the street."
"after that one," she said, "you'll need a charge."
we all laughed. even the brother laughed. then he looked at her:
"is he all right?"
"sure he's all right," she said.
"what's all that?" I asked.
"we have to be careful."
"I don't know what you mean."
"one of the girls was almost murdered up here last year. some guy gagged her so she couldn't scream and then took a pen knife and cut these crosses all over her body. she almost bled to death."
the brother dressed very slowly, then left. I gave her a five. she threw it on the dresser with the ten.
she passed the wine. it was good wine, French wine. you didn't gag.
she put her leg up against mine. we were both sitting up in bed. it was very comfortable.
"how old are you?" she asked.
"damn near half a century."
"you can sure go, but you look real beat-up."
I'm sorry. I'm not very pretty."
"oh no, I think you're a beautiful man. didn't anybody ever tell you?"
"I'll bet you say that to all the men you fuck."
"no, I don't."
we sat there a while, passing the bottle. it was very quiet except that you could hear a little music from the bar downstairs. I passed into a kind of dream-trance.
"HEY!" she yelled. she jammed a long fingernail into my bellybutton.
"ow! god damn!"
"LOOK at me!"
I turned and looked at her.
"what do you see?"
"a fine-looking Mexican-Indian girl."
"how can you see?"
"what?"
"how can you see? you don't open your eyes. you keep your eyes in little slits. why?"
it was a fair question. I took a good pull at the French wine.
"I don't know. maybe I'm afraid. afraid of everything. I mean, people, buildings, things, everything. mainly people."
"I'm afraid too," she said.
"but your eyes are open. I like your eyes."
she was hitting the wine. hard. I knew those Mexican-Americans. I was wasiting for her to get nasty.
then there was a rapping on the door that damn near shitted me out. it was flung open, viciously, American-style, and there was the bartender - big red brutal banal bastard.
"ain't you through with that son of a bitch yet?"
"I think he wants some more," she said.
"do you?" asked Mr. Banal.
"I think so," I said. his eyes eagled over to the money on the dresser and he slammed the door. a money society. they thought it was magic.
"that was my husband, sort of," she said.
"I don't think I want to go again," I said.
"why not?"
"first, I'm 48. second, it's kind of like fucking in the waiting room of a bus station."
she laughed. "I'm what you guys call a 'whore.' I must fuck 8 or ten guys a week, at least."
"that sure doesn't help my cause."

"it helps mine." "yeh."
we passed the bottle back and forth.
"you like to fuck women?
"that's why I'm here."
"how about men?"
"I don't fuck men."
she pulled at the bottle. she must have taken a good one-quarter of it.
"maybe you'd like it in the ass? maybe you'd like a man to fuck you in the ass?"
"you're talking crazy now."
she looked straight ahead. there was a little silver Christ on the further wall. she kept looking at the little silver Christ on his cross. he was very pretty.
"maybe you've been hiding it. maybe you want somebody to fuck you in the ass."
"o.k., have it your way - maybe that's what I really want."
I got the corkscrew and pulled out the top of a new French wine, meanwhile getting a bunch of cork and shit into the wine as I always did. only a waiter in the movies could open a French wine without that trouble.
I took the first good gulp. cork and all. I handed her the bottle. her leg had dropped away. she had a fish-like look on her face. she took a good swallow.
I took the wine back from her. the little splints of cork didn't seem to know where to go in the bottle. I got rid of some of them.
"you want me to fuck you in the ass?" she asked.
"WHAT?"
"I can DO it!"
she got out of bed and went to the top drawer of the dresser and strapped this belt around her waist and then faced me - and there, looking at me, was this BIG celluloid cock.
"ten inches!" she laughed, pushing out her belly jutting the thing toward me, "and it never gets soft and it never wears out!"


"I liked you better the other way."
"you don't believe my big brother is Jaime Bravo the great bullfighter?"
there she was standing there with this celluloid cock on, asking me about Jaime Bravo.
"I don't think Bravo could cut it in Spain," I said.
"Could you cut it in Spain?"
"hell, I can't cut it in Los Angeles. now please take that ridiculous artificial cock off..."
she unhooked the thing and put it back in the top dresser drawer.
I got out of bed and sat in a straight-backed chair, drinking the wine. she found
another chair, and there we sat across from eachother, naked, passing the wine.
"this reminds me somehow of an old Leslie Howard movie, although they wouldn't shoot
this part. wasn't Howard in the Somerset Maugham thing? OF HUMAN BONDAGE?"
"I don't know those people."
that's right. you're too young."
"did you like this Howard, this Maugham?"
"they both had style. plenty of style. but, somehow, with both of them, hours or days
or years later, you felt gypped, finally."
"but they had this thing you call 'style'?"
"yes, style is important. many people scream the truth but without style it is helpless."
"Bravo has style, I have style, you have style."
"now you're learning."
then I got back into bed. she came on in. I tried it again. I couldn't make it.
"you suck?" I asked.
"sure."
she took it in her mouth and she got it out of me.
I gave her another five, dressed, took another drink of wine, and made it down the stairway, across the street to the gas station. the battery was fully-charged. I paid the attendant and then backed on out, hit up 8th ave. a cop on a bike trailed me for 2 or 3 miles. there was a pack of CLORETS in the glove compartment and I took them out, put in 3 or 4. the cop on the bike finally gave up and tailed after a Jap who made a sudden left turn without blinkers or hand signal on Wilshire blvd. they deserved each other.

when I got to my place the woman was aleep and the little girl wanted me to read to her from a book called BABY SUSAN'S CHICKEN. it was terrible. Bobby found a cardboard carton for the chicks to sleep in. he set it in a corner behind the kitchen stobe. and Bobby put some of Baby Susan's cereal in a little dish and set it carefully in the carton, so the little chicks could have some dinner. and Baby Susan laughed and clapped her fat little hands. it turns out later that the 2 other chicks are roosters and Baby Susan is a hen, a hen who lays a most wondrous egg. I'll say.

I put the little girl down and went into the bathroom and let the hot water run into the tub. then I got into the tub and thought, the next time I get a dead battery I'll go to a movie. then I stretched out into the hot water and forgot everything. almost.