zlobnici bi rekli da ne postoje boemi, već samo alkoholičari koji misle da su bolji od ostalih alkoholičara
The ambulance was full but they found me a place on top and away we went. I had been vomiting blood from the mouth in large quantities and I was worried that I might vomit upon the people below me. We rode along listening to the siren. It sounded far off, it sounded as if the sound weren't coming from our ambulance. We were on the way to the county hospital, all of us. The poor. The chariy cases. There was something different wrong with all of us and many7 of us would not be coming back. The one thing we had in common was that we were all poor and didn't have much of a chance. We were packed in there. I never realized that an ambulance could hold so many people. "Good Lord, oh good Lord," I heard the voice of a black woman below me, "I never thought this would happen to ME! I never thought nothing like this would Lord-" I didn't feel that way about it. I had been playing with death for some time. I can't say we were the best of friends but we were well acquainted. He had moved a little close a little fast on me that night. There had been warnings: pains like swords stuck in my stom- ach but I had ignored them. I had thought I was a tough guy and pain to me was just like bad luck: I ignored it. I just poured whiskey on top of the pain and went about my business. My business was getting drunk. The whiskey had done it; I should have stayed on the wine. Blood that comes from the inside is not the bright red color that comes, say, from a cut on the finger. The blood from inside is dark, a purple, almost black, and it stinks, it stinks worse than shit. all that life giving fluid, it smelled worse than a beer shit. I felt another vomiting spasm coming on. It was the same feeling as throwing up food and when the blood came out, one felt better. But it was only an illusion-each mouthful out brought one closer to Pappa Death. "O good Lord God, I never thought-" The blood came up and I held it in my mouth. I didn't know what to do. Up there on the upper tier I would have wetted my friends down quite good. I held the blood in my mouth trying to think about what to do. The ambulance turned a corner and the blood began to dribble out the corners of my mouth. Well, a man had to maintain decencies even while he was dying. I got myself together, closed my eyes and swallowed my blood back down. I was sickened. But I had solved the problem. I only hoped we got some- place soon where I could let the next one go. Really, there wasn't any thought of dying; the only thoughts I had were (was) one: this is a terrible convenience, I am no longer in control of what is happening. They narrowed down your choices and pushed you around. The ambulance got there and then I was on a table and they were asking me questions: what was my religion? Where was I born? did I owe the country any $$$ from earlier trips to the hospital? when was I born? Parents alive? Married? all that, you know. They talk to a man as if he had all his faculties; they don't even pretend that you are dying. And they are hardly in a hurry. It does have a calming effect but that's not their reason: they are simply bored and they don't care whether you die, fly or fart. No, they rather you didn't fart. Then I was on an elevator and the door opened into what appeared to be a dark cellar. I was rolled out. They placed me on a bed and left. An orderly appeared out of nowhere and gave me a small white pill. "Take this," he said. I swallowed the pill and he handed me a glass of water and then vanished. It was the kindest thing that had happened to me in some time. I leaned back and noticed my sur- roundings. There were 8 or ten beds, all occupied by male Ameri- cans. We each had a tin bucket of water and a glass on the night stand. The sheets seemed clean. It was very dark in there and cold, much the feeling of an apartment house cellar. There was one small light bulb, unshaded. Next to me was a huge man, he was old, in his mid fifties, but he was huge; although much of the hugeness was fat, he did give off the feeling of much strength. He was strapped down in his bed. He stared straight up and spoke to the ceiling. "-and he was such a nice boy, such a clean nice boy, he needed the job, he said he needed the job, and I said, 'I like your looks, boy, we need a good fry cook, a good honest fry cook, and I can tell an honest face, boy, I can tell character, you work with me and my wife and you got a job here for life, boy-' and he said, 'All right, sir,' just like that he said it and he looked happy about getting' that job and I said, 'Martha, we got us a good boy here, a nice clean cut boy, he ain't gonna tap the till like the rest of those dirty sons of bitches.' Well, I went out and got a good buy on chickens, a real good buy on chickens. Martha can do more things with a chick- en, she's got that magic touch with chicken. Col. Sanders can't touch her with a 90 foot pole. I went out and bought 20 chickens for that weekend. We are going to have a good weekend, a chicken special. 20 chickens I went out and got. We were going to put Col. Sanders out of business. A good weekend like that, you can pull 200 bucks clear profit. That boy even helped us pluck and cut those chickens, he did it on his own time. Martha and I didn't have no children. I was really taking a liking to that boy. Well, Martha fixed the chicken in the back, she got all that chicken ready-we had chicken 19 different ways, we had chicken coming out of our assholes. All the boy had to do was cook up the other stuff like burgers and steak and so forth. The chicken was set. And by god, we had a big weekend. Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. That boy was a good worker, and pleasant too. He was nice to be around. He made these funny jokes. He called me Col. Sanders and I called him son. Col. Sanders and Son, that's what we were. When we closed Saturday night we were all tired but happy. Every damned bit of chicken was gone. The place had been packed, people waitin' on seats, you never saw any- thing like it. I locked the door and got out a 5th of good whiskey and we sat there, tired and happy, having a few drinks. The boy washed all the dishes and swept the floor. He said, 'All right, Col. Sanders, when do I report tomorrow?' He smiled. I told him 6:30 a.m. and he got his cap and left. 'That's a hell of a nice boy, Martha,' I said and then I walked over to the till to count the profits. The till was EMPTY! That's right, I said, 'The til was EMPTY!' And the cigar box with the other 2 days profit, he found that too. Such a clean cut boy-I don't understand it-I said he could have a job for life, that's what I told him. 20 chickens-Martha really knows her chickens-And that boy, that dirty chickenshit, he ran off with all that damned money, that boy-" Then he screamed. I've heard a great many people scream but I've never heard anybody scram like that. He rose up against his straps and screamed. It looked as if those straps were going to break. The whole bed rattled, the wall roared the scream back at us. The man was in total agony. It wasn't a short scream. It was a long one and it went on and on. Then he stopped. We 8 or ten male Ameri- cans, ill, stretched in our beds and enjoyed the silence. Then he began talking again. "He was such a nice boy, I liked his looks. I told him he could have the job for life. He made these funny jokes, he was nice to be around. I went out and got those 20 chickens. 20 chickens. On a good weekend you can clear 200. We had 20 chickens. The boy called me Col. Sanders-" I leaned out of bed and vomited out a mouthful of blood- The next day a nurse came out and got me and helped me on a rolling platform. I was still vomiting up blood and was quite weak. She rolled me on the elevator. The technician got behind his machine. They poked a point into my belly and told me to stand there. I felt very weak. "I'm too weak to stand up," I said. "Just stand there," said the technician. "I don't think I can," I said. "Hold still." I felt myself slowly beginning to fall over backwards. "I'm falling." I said. "Don't fall." He said. "Hold still," said the nurse. I fell over backwards. I felt as if I were made of rubber. There was no feeling when I hit the floor. I felt very light. I probably was. "Oh god damn it!" said the technician. The nurse helped me up and stood me up against the machine with this point jamming into my stomach. "I can't stand it," I said, "I think I'm dying. I can't stand up. I'm sorry but I can't stand up." "Stand still," said the technician, "just stand there." "Stand still," said the nurse. I could feel myself falling. I fell over backwards. "I'm sorry," I said. "God damn you!" the technician screamed, "you made me waste two films! Those god damned films cost money!" "I'm sorry," I said. "Take him out of here," said the technician. The nurse helped my up and put me back on the roller. The humming nurse rolled me back to the elevator, humming. They did take me out of that cellar and put me into a large room, a very large room. There were about 40 people dying in there. The wires to the buttons had been cut and large wooden doors, thick wooden doors coated with slabs of tin on both sides closed up away from the nurses and the doctors. They had put the sides up around my bed and I was asked to use the bedpan but I didn't like the bedpan, especially to vomit blood into and far less to shit into. If a man ever invents a comfortable and usable bedpan he will be hated by doctors and nurses for eternity and beyond. I kept having a desire to shit but not much luck. Of course, all I was getting was milk and the stomach was ripped open so it had offered me some tough roast beef with half-cooked carrots and half-mashed potatoes. I refused. I knew they just wanted another empty bed. Anyhow, there was still this desire to shit. Strange. It was my second or third night in there. I was very weak. I managed to unattach one side and get out of bed. I made it to the crapper and sat there. I strained and sat there and strained. Then I got up. Noth- ing. Just a little whirlpool of blood. Then a merry-go-round started in my head and I leaned against the wall with one hand and vomited up a mouthful of blood. I flushed the toilet and walked out. I got halfway to my bed and another mouthful came up. I fell. Then on the floor I vomited up another mouthful of blood. I didn't know that there was so much blood inside of people. I let go another mouthful. "You son of a bitch," an old man hollered at me from his bed, "shut up so we can get some sleep." "Sorry, comrade," I said, and then I was unconscious- The nurse was angry. "You bastard," she said, "I told you not to take down the sides of your bed. You fuckin' creeps sure make my night a drag!" "your pussy stinks," I told her, "you belong in a Tijuana whore house." She lifted my head by the hair and slapped me hard across the left side of my face and then backhanded me across the right. "Take that back!" she said. "Take that back!" "Florence Nightingale," I said, "I love you." She put my head back down and walked out of the room. She was a lady of true spirit and fire; I liked that. I rolled over into my own blood, getting my smock wet. That'd teach her. Florence Nightingale came back with another female sadist and they put me in a chair and slid the chair across the room toward my bed. "Too much god damned noise!" said the old man. He was right. They got me back into bed and Florence put the bed side back up. "Son of a bitch," she said. "stay in there now or next time I'm gonna lay on you." "Suck me off," I said, "suck me off before you leave." She leaned over the railing and looked into my face. I have a very tragic face. It attracts some women. Her eyes were wide and passionate and looked into mine. I pulled the sheet down and pulled up my smock. She spit into my face, then walked out- Then the head nurse was there. "Mr. Bukowski," she said, "we can't let you have any blood. You don't have any blood credit." She smiled. She was letting me know that they were going to let me die. "All right," I said. "Do you want to see the priest?" "What for?" "We have on your admissions card that you are a Catholic." "I just put that down." "Why?" "I used to be. You put down 'no religion', people always ask a lot of questions." "We have you down as Catholic, Mr. Bukowski." "Listen, it's hard for me to talk. I'm dying. All right, all right, I'm a Catholic, have it your way." "We can't let you have any blood, Mr. Bukowski." "Listen, my father works for the county. I think they have a blood program. L.A. County Museum. A Mr. Henry Bukowski. He hates me." "We'll check it out." There was something about my papers going down while I was upstairs. I didn't see a doctor until the fourth day and by then they found that my father who hated me was a good guy who had a job and who had a drunken dying son without a job and the good guy had given blood to the blood program and so they hooked up a bottle and poured it to me. 13 pints of blood and 13 pints of glucose without stop. The nurse ran out of places to stick the needle- I awakened once and the priest was standing over me. "Father," I said, "please go away. I can die without this." "You want me to leave, my son?" "Yes, Father." "Have you lost the faith?" "Once a Catholic always a Catholic, my son." "Bullshit, Father." An old man in the next bed said, "Father, Father, I'll talk to you. You talk to me, Father." The priest went over there. I waited to die. You know god damned well I didn't die then or I wouldn't be telling you this now- They moved me into a room with a black guy and a white guy. The white guy kept getting fresh roses every day. He raised roses which he sold to florists. He wasn't raising any roses right then. The black guy had busted open like me. The white guy had a bad heart, a very bad heart. We lay around and the white guy talked about breed- ing roses and raising roses and how he could sure use a cigarette, my god, how he needed a cigarette. I had stopped vomiting blood. Now I was just shitting blood. I felt like I had it made. I had just emptied a pint of blood and they had taken the needle out. "I'll get you some smokes, Harry." "God, thanks, Hank." I got out of bed. "Give me some money." Harry gave me some change. "If he smokes he'll die," said Charley. Charley was the black guy. "Bullshit, Charley, a couple of little smokes never hurt any- body." I walked out of the room and down the hall. There was a cigarette machine in the waiting lobby. I got a pack and walked back. Then Charley and Harry and I lay there smoking cigarettes. That was morning. About noon the doctor came by and put a ma- chine on Harry. The machine spit and farted and roared. "You've been smoking, haven't you?" the doctor asked Harry. "No doctor, honest, I haven't been smoking." "Which one of you guys bought him these smokes?" Charley looked at the ceiling. I looked at the ceiling. "You smoke another cigarette and you're dead," said the doc- tor. Then he took his machine and walked out. As soon as he left I took the pack out from under the pillow. "Lemme have one," said Harry. "You heard what the doctor said," said Charley. "Yeah," I said, exhaling a sheath of beautiful blue smoke, "you heard what the doctor said: 'You smoke another cigarette and you're dead.'" "I'd rather die happy than live in misery," said Harry. "I can't be responsible for your death, Harry," I said, "I'm going to pass these cigarettes to Charley and if he wants to give you one he can." I passed them over to Charley who had the center bed. "All right, Charley," said Harry, "let's have 'em." "I can't do it, Harry, I can't kill you Harry." Charley passed the cigarettes back to me. "Come on, Hank, lemme have a smoke." "No, Harry." "Please, I beg you, man, just one smoke just one!" "Oh, for Christ's sake!" I threw him the whole pack. His had trembled as he took one out. "I don't have any matches. Who's got matches?" "Oh, for Christ's sake," I said. I threw him the matches- They came in and hooked me to another bottle. About ten minutes my father arrived. Vicky was with him, so drunk she could hardly stand up. "Lover!" she said, "Lover boy!" She staggered up against the edge of the bed. I looked at the old man. "You son of a bitch," I said, "you didn't have to bring her up here drunk." "I warned you not to get involved with a woman like that." "She's broke. You bastard, you bought her whiskey, got her drunk and brought her up here." "I told you she was no good, Henry. I told you she was a bad woman." "Don't you love me anymore, lover boy?" "Get her out of here- NOW!" I told the old man. "No, no, I want you to see what kind of a woman you have." "I know what kind of woman I have. Now get her out of here now, or so help me Christ I'm going to pull this needle out of my arm and whip your ass!" The old man moved her out. I fell back on my pillow. "She's a looker," said Harry. "I know," I said, "I know." I stopped shitting blood and I was given a list of what to eat and I was told that the first drink would kill me. They had also told me that I would die without an operation. I had had a terrible argument with a female Japanese doctor about operation and death. I had said "No operation" and she had walked out, shaking her ass at me in anger. Harry was still alive when I left, nursing his cigarettes. I walked along in the sunlight to see how it felt. It felt all right. The traffic went by. The sidewalk was as sidewalks had always been. I was wondering whether to take a bus in or try to phone somebody to come and get me. I walked into this place to phone. I sat down first and had a smoke. The bartender walked up and I ordered a bottle of beer. "What's new?" he asked. "Nothing much," I said. He walked off. I poured the beer into a glass, then I looked at the glass a while and then I emptied half of it. Somebody put a coin in the juke box and we had some music. life looked a little better. I finished that glass, poured another and wondered if my pecker would ever stand up again. I looked around the bar: no women. I did the next best thing: I picked up the glass and drained it -charles bukowski