To One Hell of a Dame, Whom the Night Could Never Hold

                                                
                                                

                                                a poem is this city now,
                                                50 miles from nowhere,
                                                9:09 in the morning,
                                                the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
                                                no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
                                                this poem, this city, closing its doors,
                                                barricaded, almost empty,
                                                mournful without tears, aging without pity,
                                                the hardrock mountains,
                                                the ocean like a lavender flame,
                                                a moon destitute of greatness,
                                                a small music from broken windows...

                                                                   -   A Poem is a City, Charles Bukowski

This is a story about Rose.

           It was 1986 that I met her, bumming my days down Skid Row, spending my afternoons drinking in the cheap dimestore bars. The days bled into the nights, back into the days, seamlessly, as fine as the movements of a surgeon’s hands, as fine as death. Yes, I remember it as if it were yesterday, her small limpid body, her eyes dark like two rusted coins plucked from the gutter, her hair the brilliant red of cheap wine.

            It was evening, and the bar felt like rain, though it was twenty-nine degrees summer outside. I drank several piss-strength beers, tipping them back in the dark hole of this place, which was frequented by various barflies, low-lives and junkies, like a subterranean beast. ‘Barkeep?’ I said.

            He shifted his towel over his shoulder as he stopped polishing the glass, the gesture now an automatic routine, pointless, given the uncirculated air that was thick with dust, like the inside of a tarred lung. ‘Another Miller?’ he said.

            ‘No,’ I said, my head rattling with days of sleepless ache and semi-conscious drunken stupor. I turned my eyes back down to the bar. ‘Just get me a scotch on the rocks.’

            He put it down in front of me. I looked at it, held it up to the toilet water-coloured light, took a sip. It felt like sweet defeat. ‘Barkeep,’ I said, ‘what time is it?’

            ‘7.45,’ he said. ‘PM.’

            I shrugged my shoulders in resignation, in protest, for no reason. ‘Thanks,’ I said, raising my glass without looking at him. My notebook sat bare on the bar. I was dry on ideas. The sun was now dwindling behind the buildings, setting somewhere over Beverley Hills or over the ocean overlooking Venice Beach, somewhere far away from all the dross and hopeless nullity of this city. I heard the door open but remained fixed on my drink, contemplating the way the brief sting of the liquor stirred up a brief pleasure, a little epiphany down there in my gut.

            She approached the bar, I could smell her cheap and oversickly perfume, and in between drags of her cigarette she asked for a glass of red wine, her voice dark and sweet and hoarse, then she sat a few stools down from me. ‘Starting a little early, ain’t you?’ said the barkeep.

            ‘Fuck you,’ she said, the sound of defeat and indifference ringing through her voice, intermixed with the slightest hint of dignity, like an old defeated dog sick with being too often left at the mercy of the merciless, rain-sodden, underfed and kicked down, to where pride was something unknowable, ineffable, a miracle rather than a human given.

            I sat fixed on my drink, and after a few seconds I could tell she was watching me. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You look like a writer. Are you a writer?’

            I didn’t respond. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I asked you a question. Are you a writer?’

            After once again getting no response of me, she said, ‘Jesus, what pickled you, eh? Bad day, is it?’

            ‘What makes you think you can talk to me like that, you skank whore bitch!’ I said, not taking my eyes away from the bar, my voice angry and grizzled.

            She sat there silent for a moment. ‘That’s very hurtful,’ she said.

            ‘Oh yeah?’ I said.

            ‘Yeah.’

           I turned my face away from the old scratched oak to look at her. She was wearing a low-cut red dress, her legs shapely and full, riding up into a big glorious ass, all woman. Her tits were hanging out almost, and in the faint sourmilk light I could barely see her face. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you want a drink?’ 

            She didn’t respond. ‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You want a drink?’

            ‘Sure,’ she said.

            ‘You wanna move down here?’ I said. ‘I won’t bite.’

            She moved down the bar, slowly shuffling in her heels, and sat beside me. ‘What are you having?’ I said.

            ‘I got mine,’ she said.

            ‘No, what are you having?’ I said.

            ‘I got wine!’ she growled, sputtering slightly and clearing her voice. ‘But I was right, wasn’t I? About you being a writer.’

            I laughed to myself and took a sip of the scotch. ‘I guess you were. I’m kind of a novelist.’

            ‘Kind of?’ she parroted.

            ‘Yeah. Well, I’m kind of in the middle of writing a novel.’

            She nodded, seeming either curious or indifferent, or maybe neither, and went to light a cigarette, offering me one. I took it, lit mine, and then she leaned in and waited for me to light hers, her look mysterious. I cupped my hands around the end of the cigarette, flicking the flint and setting off a spark. I looked up above my hands into her eyes. They were green, dark green, like a sickly garden, and her eyes returned my gaze. She took a drag, the cigarette kindled into life, and I unpeeled my hands from the bright glow as the wisps of smoke rose like lost souls into the dead air. ‘A novelist, eh?’ she said. ‘Not some hot shot trying to pull one over my eyes, are ya?’

            ‘No,’ I said. 'I’m a writer.’

            She sat there smiling. ‘So what’s it called, then, this novel?’

            I thought about it briefly. ‘Factotum,’ I said, brushing my chin, as if to reaffirm in my own mind this lie.

            ‘Factotum, eh? Tell me, Mr Writer, what exactly does ‘factotum’ mean?’She leant in towards me, her breasts like two small milky pearls secreted by the night.

            I took a drag. ‘It means, ‘man of many jobs’.’

            ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘so it means ‘a bum’, right? A bum – is that right?’

            ‘Very good,’ I said, laughing gently.

            She sat there biting her lip, then she took down a good mouthful of wine, smiling at me. In the semi-drunken smokehaze of my mind I smiled back, my eyes two tired slits, my lips dry.

            ‘Barkeep,’ I said, ‘two of your finest scotches, please!’

            ‘Oh, Mr Writer!’ she said. ‘You are a hot shot after all! You big shot,’ she said, and I wasn’t sure whether she was teasing me or deriding me, as if she knew some dark secret of mine immediately upon clocking me.

            ‘I guess I am a big shot,’ I said, as the barkeep poured the scotch down over the ice. ‘When I can afford it.’ He was a bit tight-assed with the drinks, so I said, ‘Hey, hey! I ordered some scotch with that fucking ice!’

            He looked down his nose at me and shook his head, so I sneered back at him. He didn’t look like he could duke for shit. Big fat feller, but he didn’t realise I could be quick, and my small hands came in handy for sucker-punching the kidneys. I’d take him out back and lay him one any time.

            ‘Here,’ I said, raising my glass, ‘here’s to – to –

            ‘Happiness?’ she offered.

            ‘And fucking!’ I said.

            ‘And writers!’ she said.

            ‘And tits and ass!’ I said.

            ‘And cock and balls!’ she said.

            ‘And endless nights of liquor and mornings full of warm glorious beer shits!’ I said.

            She almost fell off her stool with laughter, and I laughed fitfully and hoarsely down into the bar. ‘So tell me, Mr Writer,’ she said, ‘you have a name?’

            ‘Henry Cherkovski,’ I said. ‘But I prefer Hank. And you?’

            ‘I’m Rose,’ she said, ‘but you can call me Candy,’ she said, winking. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Hank,’ she said, reaching out a hand. I palmed it, shaking it limply. I went in for a romantic kiss on the hand, fumbling at the end in a spittled confusion of lips, growling like a randy drunkard for comic effect, making her laugh once more.

            When she’d composed herself she said, quite calmly, ‘I like you, Hank.’ And then she leaned into me. ‘Do you wanna fuck me?’ she whispered into my ear. ‘Huh?’ she said, leaning back into her stool.

            I thought about it briefly. ‘I’ll give you $20 if you show me your tits, Candy,’ I said, turning back to the bar for my whiskey. ‘But I ain’t promising much more than that,’ I said, smiling.

***

We made for my place, a little box room on Bunker Hill, late in the evening, picking up two bottles of cheap red wine on the way. We both smoked in the warm evening’s demise as we walked, her huddling at my side, my arm craned around her, propping each other up like two drunken statues.

            We entered into my room around 1 am after much walking and I sat down on the bed and took my shoes and socks off. Candy took off her jacket and brushed her hair in the bathroom, before coming into my room and sitting at my desk in the corner. She turned the chair around to face me, getting my attention. She sat down and started carefully removing her heels, flexing her little feet as she removed one, then removed the other. She stood up and gave me a coquettish look as she hitched her skirt slightly, unbuckling her garter. She lit up a cigarette and slowly removed her tights, flexing one naked leg into the air, then the other, like each was a curious underground animal smelling the many possibilities of the daylight. She sat down in the chair facing me and crossed her legs, expecting me to break the silence.

            I lay back on the bed with my arms resting behind my head. ‘What would fifty dollars get me?’ I said.

            ‘For fifty you can have anything you like,’ she said, swiping her blouse to one side playfully and reaching a hand down towards her cunt.

            ‘Fifty dollars? Hmm... why don’t we talk for a while?’ I said.

            ‘Talk? Don’t you wanna fuck me, Hank?’ she said.

            ‘Well, maybe,’ I said, ‘but I’d just like to talk for a while. Isn’t that a basic service you provide all your valuable customers?’

            ‘What are you, Hank, queer?' she said.

            ‘No, baby. I just wanna talk,' I said.

            ‘Don’t call me baby, Hank. You don’t even know me,’ she said. ‘You ain’t gonna cut me up into little pieces, are ya?

            ‘No! I just want to talk!’ I said, my voice somewhere between amusement and frustration.

            ‘Fine,’ she said, and she came over and sat next to me.

            We talked for hours. I told her about my father, how he used to whip me with the razor strop in the bathroom of our bungalow on Mariposa Street when I cut the grass incorrectly. How my mother never stuck up for me and how my father beat her. About all the women I’d fucked, all my conquests, all my losses. About the time I spent an evening in the slammer for trying and failing to drunkenly assault a police officer. About my stories. About literature. She told me about why she became a whore, opening up to me like a night rose revealing its scent to the stars, like a child uncupping her hands to reveal a small cream-coloured butterfly, or perhaps a little rainbow-spattered newt. She told me about her father, too, and the things he used to do. And she told me about her mother, how she’d never known her – how she’d never been to see her grave. About her younger sister and her abusive relationship. And about heroin, that nihilistic little resin that incites pleasure to riot and will to oblivion. She told me that all she ever thought about was her next fuck, her next fix, and her next drink – and how her next meal was the last thing on her slate.

            It was around 4 am now. We lay there on the sheet, like two soiled angels, two seraphs hit hard times, and I thought about John Fante, Robinson Jeffers, Miller, Celine – all the virtuoso writers of my youth, their words running strong and clear and good like whiskey down into my soul. Virtuoso, I thought, as I lay there, smiling.

            ‘Baby, what you thinkin’?’ said Candy.

            ‘Oh, just about stuff. Nothin’,’ I said.

            ‘Baby, you’re a writer. Tell me, what’s your favourite word?’

            I thought about it for a second, before the word filled my glass like a bottle of rich strong pungent wine, slipping its way down my throat into that place filled with the pleasures of the damned. ‘Virtuoso,’ I said.

            ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What does that mean?’

            ‘It means it’s really good, baby. It’s really good.’

            ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Virtuoso. Hmm.’ She snuggled in closer. ‘Wanna know – wanna know what mine is?’ she said, tickling my stomach, playing with the navel, and giggling with bated breath.

            ‘What is it? What’s your favourite word?’ I said.

            ‘It’s epigram. E-pi-gram,’ she said.

            ‘Know what that means?’ I said.

            ‘No,’ she said. ‘But it sounds very nice.’

            ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘But I thought something like fornicate woulda better suited you.’

            ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Don’t get smart with me, mister, you toilet mouth! I know you think you’re some hotshot writer, but I can take you!’ She straddled me, laughing.

            ‘Oh yeah?’

            ‘Yeah!’ she said. She leant down to kiss my lips, and I did not refuse. They were gentle, puffy from years of bruised kissing. Her hand crept down my thigh.

            ‘Wait,’ I said.

            ‘What?’ she said.

            ‘I don’t wanna fuck,’ I said.

            ‘You don’t wanna fuck?’

            ‘Yeah,’ I said.

            ‘You don’t wanna fuck? Okay,’ she said. ‘Have it your way.’ She rolled back down next to me, once again playing with my chest. ‘You’re a weird one, Hank,’ she said.

            I thought about it. ‘I know,’ I said, and I leant in to kiss her. I turned her on her side and massaged her shoulders and those big legs. ‘Let’s sleep.’

            ‘Okay,’ she said.

            As I lay there, listening to her breathe, for some reason – I wasn’t in my right frame of mind – I reached over a hand and played with her hair. She woke up with a start and I thought she seemed fazed. ‘You okay, baby?’ I said.

            ‘Hey, Hank,’ she said.

            ‘Baby,’ I said, kissing her shoulder. ‘How about it?’

            ‘Oh, so now you wanna fuck me, huh?’ she said.

            ‘How much?’ I said.

            She rolled over fitfully onto her side to look at me, looking restless. ‘Oh, I dunno,’ she said, then she straddled me and said, ‘I guess I could just call this a gift – claim it on my expenses... sound good to you?’ she said, laughing quietly.

            ‘Oh, baby? A gift? You think I need a gift? Well, I never look a gift horse in the mouth!’ I said.

            She laughed hard, and so did I, but within a few seconds she’d stopped and was looking at me searchingly. She leant over, her breath unsteady and stinking sweetly of wine, her heart fluttering like a little caged bluebird, and she kissed me, softly at first and then more deeply. I held her in my arms and flipped her onto her back, my hand inching down towards her cunt. I fucked her and she took it like a blade, like it was killing her. She moaned quietly, then louder, looking up at me and smiling gently, her eyes big and full of passion and fear and something else that I couldn't figure. I went down to kiss her again before finishing in a rapturous white tide of exhaustion. I lay beside her, holding her, and she snuggled into me.

            ‘Baby,’ I whispered quietly, ‘I think I love you.’

            ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

***

When I woke up she’d gone, and I never saw her again. I got up and puked and then took a beer shit, my ass feeling like habanero chillies had been boiling away in there for a few months.

            For two weeks I asked around for Candy on Skid Row, but there were so many girls that nobody could ever pin her down. I bummed around, worked odd jobs in warehouses, drank the nights away and slept the days back into the despair and bleakness of night, the numb jaw-ache of beer, wine and whiskey.

            Several months later I heard she’d died from AIDS after contracting HIV from a soiled needle. It was now 1987, but times never change in LA: the rich get richer; the poor get poorer; the sick die, and their disease, poverty, is said to be of their own making; the mean get meaner, and the wise get – well some of ‘em get wiser, but most piss away their lights in the dark holes of bars.

            I’m sat in Mickey’s Bar and I’ve just headed one of my stories. To One Hell of a Dame, Whom the Night Could Never Hold, I scratch onto the top of the page. I go home and print it on the typer, on my little piano, making music of words and dreams of sentences. Little fragments, broken off the edges of life. I put it in an envelope and send it in to Black Sparrow Press.

            I’ve found Rose’s grave and I’m going to see it tomorrow afternoon. I’ve bought her a single red rose, and I’ve promised her in my heart that I won’t cry, because I must be as brave as she was. It’s an unmarked grave, I’ve heard, and apparently they stuffed her into the cheapest casket they could find. I think about the plunger, the needle – how it both gives and takes. Fights its way into the epidermis, into life, into the heart, retracts, the blood mingled with the chemical.

            It both gives and receives, I think. It leaves an impression, a residue, a scar. And if you look in the right places you see the marks made above one’s veins. They remind you that life always gives something, and death always takes – but what life gives I don’t know. Maybe I am a hot shot writer after all. Maybe I am full of shit.

            But fuck that. I tip the bottle back and drink deeply of it, sucking the sweet beer down into my gut. Here’s to you, baby doll, I think. Here’s to you, Rose.