Free The Most Beautiful Woman in Town by Charles Bukowski

no soul. it’s all con. there ain’t no heroes. it’s all con. there ain’t no winners — it’s all con and horseshit. there ain’t no saints, there ain’t no genius — that’s all con and fairytale, it makes the game go. each man just tries to hang on and be lucky — if he can. all else is bullshit.”
    â€œaw right, aw right, I dig your losers! but what about Castro? he looked pretty fat, last photo I saw of him.”
    â€œhe subsists because the U.S. and Russia have decided to leave him in the middle. but suppose they really put the pack on the deck? what can he draw to? man, he don’t hold enough chips to get into a decaying Egyptian whorehouse.”
    â€œfuck you two guys! I like who I like!” said Barney Anderson.
    â€œBarney, when a man gets old enough, trapped enough, hungry enough, weary enough — he’ll suck dick, tit, eat shit to stay alive; either that or suicide. the human race ain’t got it, man. it’s a bad crowd.”
    â€œso we’re gonna change it, man. that’s the trick. if we can make it to the moon we can clean the shit out of the shitbowl. we just been concentrating on the wrong things.”
    â€œyou’re sick, kid. and a little fat around the belly. and balding. Dan, shape him up.”
    Danforth took Barney Anderson and rang and wrung and screamed him through the wringer three times, then brought him back.
    â€œBarney?” asked Bagley.
    â€œyes sir!”
    â€œwho are your heroes?”
    â€œGeorge Washington, Bob Hope, Mae West. Richard Nixon, the bones of Clark Gable and all the nice people I’ve seen at Disneyland. Joe Louis, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Babe Ruth, the Green Berets, hell the whole United States Army and Navy and especially the Marine Corps, and even the Treasury Dept., the CIA, the FBI, United Fruit, the highway Patrol, the whole god damned L.A. Police Dept., and the County Cops too. and I don’t mean ‘cops,’ I mean ‘policemen.’ then there’s Marlene Dietrich, with this slit up the side of her dress, she must be near 70 now? — dancing up at Vegas, my dick got big, what a wonderful woman. the good American life and the good American money can keep us young forever, don’t you see?”
    â€œDan?”
    â€œyeah, Bag?”
    â€œthis one’s really ready! I ain’t got much feeling left, but he even makes me sick. make him sign his little contract and send him out. they’ll love him. god, what a man’s gotta do to just stay alive? sometimes I even hate my own job. that’s bad, ain’t it, Dan?”
    â€œsure, Bag. and as soon as I send this asshole on his way, I got just the little thing for you — a touch of the good ol’ tonic.”
    â€œah, fine, fine … what is it?”
    â€œjust a little quarter-turn through the wringer.”
    â€œWHAT?”
    â€œoh, it’s fine for the blues or for extemporaneous thinking. stuff like that.”
    â€œwill it work?”
    â€œit beats aspirin.”
    â€œo.k., get rid of the asshole.”
    Barney Anderson was sent down the stairway. Bagley got up and walked toward the nearest wringer. “these old gals — West and Dietrich, still flashing tits and legs, hell it don’t make sense, they were doing that when I was 6 years old. what makes it work?”
    â€œnuttin’. stretchers, girdles, powder, lights, false flesh coverings, padding, pudding, straw, horseshit. they could make your grandmother look like a 16 year old.”
    â€œmy grandmother’s dead.”
    â€œthey could still do it.”
    â€œyeah, yeah, I guess you’re right.” Bagley walked toward the wringer.
    â€œjust a quarter turn now. can I trust you?”
    â€œyou’re my partner, ain’t you, Bag?”
    â€œsure, Dan.”
    â€œhow long we been in business together?”
    â€œ25 years.”
    â€œso, o.k., when I say a