"Bukowski, Charles - Short Stories Collection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bukowski Charles)

and empties garbage
and makes little hats
and goes to Mass at 8 AM
I too am a poet and an artist, some discerning critics
say, but my husband wrote about me:
she reads the funnies...
He heard the toilet flush, and a moment later, out she came.
"I'd like to be a clown in a circus," he greeted her.
She got back on the bed with her book.
"Wouldn't you like to be a tragicomic clown stumbling about with a
painted face?" he asked her.
She didn't answer. He picked up the Racing Form:
POWER 114 B.g.4, by Cosmic Bomb-
Pomayya, by Pompey
Breeder, Brookmeade Stable.
1956 12 2 4 1 $12,950
July 18-Jam I I/16 1:45 1/5ft. 3 122 2
1/2 3 2h GuerinE'Alw 86
"I'm going to Caliente next Sunday," he said.
"Good. I'll have Charlotte over. Allen can bring her in the car."
"Do you believe she really got propositioned by the preacher in that
movie like she claimed?"
She turned the page of her book.
"God damn you, answer me!" he screamed, angry at last.
"What about?"
"Do you think she's a whore and making it all up? Do you think we're
all whores? What are we trying to do, reading all these books? Writing all
the poems they -send back, and working in some dungeon for nothing because
we're not really interested in money?"
She put the book down and looked back over her shoulder at him. "Well,"
she said in a low voice, "do you want to give it all up?"
"Give WHAT all up? We don't have anything! Or, do you mean Beethoven's
Fifth or Handel's Water Music? Or do you mean the SOUL?"
"Let's not argue. Please. I don't want to argue.
"Well, I want to know what we are trying to do!"
The doorbell rang like all the bells of doom sweeping across the room.
"Shhh," he said, "shhh! Be quiet!"
The doorbell rang again, seeming to say, I know you are in there, I
know you are in there.
"They know we're in here." she whispered.
"I feel that this is it, " he said.
"What?"
"Never mind. Just be quiet. Maybe it will go away."
"Isn't it wonderful to have all these friends?" she took up the joke-
cudgel.
"No. We have no friends. I tell you, this is something else!"
It rang again, very short, flat and spiritless. "I once tried to make
the Olympic swimming team," he said, getting completely off the point.
"You make more ridiculous statements by the minute, Henry."
"Will you get off my back? Just for that!," he said, raising his voice,