Free Absence of the Hero by Charles Bukowski, Edited with an introduction by David Calonne Page A

old chickencoops. He ran out and hit me in the face. As he tried to run out the doorway I got a hammerlock on his left arm, bent the damn thing almost up to his neck. He began to cry and he still stank terribly. “Franky Roosevelt is dead,” he wept. “Listen, ass, who gives a motherfuck?” I asked. “I do, oh, I do!” “You STINK !” I screamed at him, “ TAKE A BATH !” I booted him in the ass and pushed him out the door. I heard him run down the street. I looked into the closet and there was this little pile of turds, fresh turds. I looked at them and vomited. Then I took yesterday’s newspaper, some dull shit about men landing on the moon, and I gathered the whole mess together and threw it into the garbage can.
    Then I went to the refrigerator, made a bologna sandwich, drank two beers, then began on the wine. Then I went to my blackboard, a large one which hung from the center of the room by ropes and was weighted with brick anchors, and I found some chalk and wrote:
    THIS ONE HAS A CLUBFOOT
    THIS ONE WANTS TO SUCK MY DICK
    THE THIRD HAS A HEAD-TICK
    THE FOURTH WEARS A WIG
    THE FIFTH IS A COMMUNIST
    THE SIXTH IS THE GRANDSON OF HITLER
    THE SEVENTH READS DICK TRACY
    THE EIGHTH CLAIMS I OWE HIM TWO PACKS OF CIGARETTES
    THE NINTH IS A WOMAN WHO ONCE DANCED WITH A 9-FOOT COBRA BUT SHE WON’ T FUCK ME. NO, IT WAS A BOA CONSTRICTOR ! ANYWAY, SHE WON’T FUCK ME.
    The doorbell rang. 4 A.M. DeJohns.
    Sit down, DeJohns.
    Milk-red eyes, tits enough for both of us, but, of course, no cunt.
    We need the hero, DeJohns. There’s nothing. Everything has dried up. What can we hang to?
    Hehehehehehehehe hehehe.
    He was looking at the rope that held up the blackboard.
    Hehehehehehehehe hehe, tough, nothing but shit. Little boys playing games now. Hehe. Pretense. And no humans anywhere , hehehe. Birds, cats, ants, all right. Sure. We remain drunk. Jam pills. Hehe. I remember you, Bukowski, hehehe, when you were a man instead of that bag o’ sick shit you are now, hehe.
    Go suck a water faucet, DeJohns.
    He, hehe, the time you ran round the block one morning, twice , 7 A.M. , completely naked —your balls, cock, ass bouncing in the clear air. No sound. Just your feet, bare feet: pat pat pat! We clothed, 3 of us, trying to catch you. Hehehe, the time you hung by your ankles out the window of that fourth floor of that hotel. The whores in that room weeping, begging you to come back inside. Promising to suck your cock, lick the hairs of your asshole, anything. Hehe, that was good.
    Go suck a hot spoon, DeJohns.
    That was funny. But funnier was when you tried to lift yourself in and your legs wouldn’t pull you up. You had your ankles wrapped around the wooden separator that made two windows out of one. Then you got real funny.
    Yeah?
    Yeah. Hehehehe. You said, o o, if I don’t pull up on the next one, that’s it. I’m getting weak. Whores ran up and you screamed, DON ’ T TOUCH ME ! And how you ever pulled your whole body up by the ankles, I’ll never know. You became a snail, a centipede, something inhuman. Hehehe, when you got in the whores ripped your pants down, licked your asshole, balls, cock . . . hehehhe. Then the knock at the door and you opening the door with that hard cock, YEAH ? and the landlord saying, WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING HANGING OUT THE WINDOWS BY YOUR FEET ? Hehehe. And you saying, JUST TRYING TO PUT SOME LIFE INTO THIS GODDAMNED PARTY ! Hehehehe. And the landlord saying, ALL RIGHT. YOU DO THAT ONE MORE TIME AND I ’ M GOING TO CALL THE POLICE ! Hehehe.
    DeJohns looked at me: “What has happened to you, Bukowski?”
    I don’t know, man. Tired.
    I was going to do a book on your life. Now you no longer interest me.
    The things I did were things I had to do. I don’t need those things anymore.
    FUCK YOU, MAN ! YOU ’ RE FINISHED !
    DeJohns got up and left.
    My last chance for immortality.
    Maybe he was right. I