Free More Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski, David Stephen Calonne Page B

Jesus!”
    It sounded like an old man. Robert took the latch off the .32 and walked up behind the door.
    “Yeah?”
    “Brother, please! God o’ mighty!”
    Robert opened a small side panel near the door. It was an old white-haired guy, maybe in his late 60’s or early 70’s. He was in rags, flat upon his belly on the porch.
    “Brother! I’m dying! A cup of water! I beg you! Only a cup of water and I’ll go!”
    “Will you go then?”
    “Yes, yes! Believe me!”
    Robert opened the door. The old guy began to crawl forward. The door was only open a notch. The old guy tried to push the door open wide with his arm. Robert looked up in time to see three young guys rush from around a hedge. He fired. The leading guy screamed, grabbed his belly and fell forward. Then Robert kicked the old guy in the mouth, pushed his head out the door and got the latch on just before the other two guys, who had paused a moment, hit the door. Robert’s door had been glass, but he had braced it partially with boards. The shade was down. Robert pulled the shade up, dropped to his belly, saw a piece of one of the guys through the boards and glass, fired. He got him in the chest. The other guy leaped off the porch. Robert couldn’t see the old man. The phone rang. Robert walked over and picked it up.
    “Robert Grissom?” somebody asked.
    “Grissom isn’t here,” Robert said.
    “Come on, Bobby, we’ve got you by the balls.”
    “What?”
    “CIA, Bobby, your game is up.”
    “I don’t understand. I thought the power was off. How can you phone me?”
    “Don’t worry your ass, Bobby. We’ve got you by the balls.”
    “I’ve always been apolitical.”
    “There’s no such thing as ‘apolitical,’ Bobby baby, there’s only such a thing as facing it or not facing it.”
    “You’re wrong,” Robert said. “I don’t think a man has to be a registered Democrat in order to go to hell.”
    “We’ve found some things in your writings, Bobby.”
    “Shit.”
    “Yeah, there’s a lot of that, too. You didn’t think we were watching you, eh Bobby? You thought you could feed us that ‘apolitical’ bullshit, huh? Well, we happen to know who you’re pulling for, kid.”
    “’Kid’? I’m 55. In fact, today is my . . . ”
    “We know, Bobby, we’re coming right over with your birthday cake.”
    Robert hung up.
    He pulled down all the shades except for a small peek-through area at the bottom of each, got down flat on his belly with the .32 and with all his shells around him. Then he got up and got the can of urine out of the bathroom and put several rags next to it. He’d learned an old trick—urinate on a handkerchief, hold it over the nose and you strain out a great deal of poisonous gas.
    “GRISSOM, COME ON OUT! YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS!”
    Robert lifted the .32 and shot out of the side window. He heard a scream. The impossible had happened. He had hit somebody.
    The first canister of gas came lobbing into the room. Robert picked up his shells and the rags and the can of urine, ran into the bedroom, closed the door and climbed under his bed. He dipped the rag into the can of urine and put it over his nose and mouth. The ultraviolet ray glasses were already taped around his skull. It was an attempt to seal the eyes from any possible tear gas.
    And there under the bed he grinned just a bit and watched the bedroom door for whoever wanted to be an immediate part of chapter one in the History of the Second American Revolution.
    Down there under the bed he noticed that he wasn’t a very good housekeeper: several missing stockings, an undershirt, various gatherings of dust. It was one hell of a way to end a literary career: not one pair of panties, a love letter or a box of Tampax about. And the Pulitzer Prize looked more impossible than ever . . .

    We were both in handcuffs. The cops led us down the stairway between them and sat us in back. My hands were bleeding onto the upholstery, but they didn’t seem to care about the