Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader Read online

  “Henry picked on Billy,” said Stanley Greenberg.

  “Is that right, boys?” asked Mr. Hall.

  “Yes,” they said.

  Mr. Hall took me by the ear all the way to the principal’s office. He pushed me into a chair in front of an empty desk and then knocked on the principal’s door. He was in there for some time and when he came out he left without looking at me. I sat there five or ten minutes before the principal came out and sat behind the desk. He was a very dignified man with a mass of white hair and a blue bow tie. He looked like a real gentleman. His name was Mr. Knox. Mr. Knox folded his hands and looked at me without speaking. When he did that I was not so sure that he was a gentleman. He seemed to want to humble me, treat me like the others.

  “Well,” he said at last, “tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “You hurt that boy, Billy Sherril. His parents are going to want to know why.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you think you can take matters into your own hands when something happens you don’t like?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you think you’re better than other people?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Knox sat there. He had a long letter opener and he slid it back and forth on the green felt padding of the desk. He had a large bottle of green ink on his desk and a pen holder with four pens. I wondered if he would beat me.

  “Then why did you do what you did?”

  I didn’t answer. Mr. Knox slid the letter opener back and forth. The phone rang. He picked it up.

  “Hello? Oh, Mrs. Kirby? He what? What? Listen, can’t you administer the discipline? I’m busy now. All right, I’ll phone you when I’m done with this one …”

  He hung up. He brushed his fine white hair back out of his eyes with one hand and looked at me.

  “Why do you cause me all this trouble?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You think you’re tough, huh?”

  I kept silent.

  “Tough kid, huh?”

  There was a fly circling Mr. Knox’s desk. It hovered over his green ink bottle. Then it landed on the black cap of the ink bottle and sat there rubbing its wings.

  “O.K., kid, you’re tough and I’m tough. Let’s shake hands on that.”

  I didn’t think I was tough so I didn’t give him my hand.

  “Come on, give me your hand.”

  I stretched my hand out and he took it and began shaking it. Then he stopped shaking it and looked at me. He had blue clear eyes lighter than the blue of his bow tie. His eyes were almost beautiful. He kept looking at me and holding my hand. His grip began to tighten.

  “I want to congratulate you for being a tough guy.”

  His grip tightened some more.

  “Do you think I’m a tough guy?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He crushed the bones of my fingers together. I could feel the bone of each finger cutting like a blade into the flesh of the finger next to it. Shots of red flashed before my eyes.

  “Do you think I’m a tough guy?” he asked.

  “I’ll kill you,” I said.

  “You’ll what?”

  Mr. Knox tightened his grip. He had a hand like a vise. I could see every pore in his face.

  “Tough guys don’t scream, do they?”

  I couldn’t look at his face anymore. I put my face down on the desk.

  “Am I a tough guy?” asked Mr. Knox.

  He squeezed harder. I had to scream, but I kept it as quiet as possible so no one in the classes could hear me.

  “Now, am I a tough guy?”

  I waited. I hated to say it. Then I said, “Yes.”

  Mr. Knox let go of my hand. I was afraid to look at it. I let it hang by my side. I noticed that the fly was gone and I thought, it’s not so bad to be a fly. Mr. Knox was writing on a piece of paper.

  “Now, Henry, I’m writing a little note to your parents and I want you to deliver it to them. And you will deliver it to them, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  He folded the note into an envelope and handed it to me. The envelope was sealed and I had no desire to open it.

  —HAM ON RYE

  we ain’t got no money, honey, but we got rain

  call it the greenhouse effect or whatever

  but it just doesn’t rain like it

  used to.

  I particularly remember the rains of the

  depression era.

  there wasn’t any money but there was

  plenty of rain.

  it wouldn’t rain for just a night or

  a day,

  it would RAIN for 7 days and 7

  nights

  and in Los Angeles the storm drains

  weren’t built to carry off that much

  water

  and the rain came down THICK and

  MEAN and

  STEADY

  and you HEARD it banging against

  the roofs and into the ground

  waterfalls of it came down

  from the roofs

  and often there was HAIL

  big ROCKS OF ICE

  bombing

  exploding

  smashing into things

  and the rain

  just wouldn’t

  STOP

  and all the roofs leaked—

  dishpans,

  cooking pots

  were placed all about;

  they dripped loudly

  and had to be emptied

  again and

  again.

  the rain came up over the street curbings,

  across the lawns, climbed the steps and

  entered the houses.

  there were mops and bathroom towels,

  and the rain often came up through the

  toilets: bubbling, brown, crazy, whirling,

  and the old cars stood in the streets,

  cars that had problems starting on a

  sunny day,

  and the jobless men stood

  looking out the windows

  at the old machines dying

  like living things

  out there.

  the jobless men,

  failures in a failing time

  were imprisoned in their houses with their

  wives and children

  and their

  pets.

  the pets refused to go out

  and left their waste in

  strange places.

  the jobless men went mad

  confined with

  their once beautiful wives.

  there were terrible arguments

  as notices of foreclosure

  fell into the mailbox.

  rain and hail, cans of beans,

  bread without butter; fried

  eggs, boiled eggs, poached

  eggs; peanut butter

  sandwiches, and an invisible

  chicken

  in every pot.

  my father, never a good man

  at best, beat my mother

  when it rained

  as I threw myself

  between them,

  the legs, the knees, the

  screams

  until they

  separated.

  “I’ll kill you,” I screamed

  at him. “You hit her again

  and I’ll kill you!”

  “Get that son-of-a-bitching

  kid out of here!”

  “no, Henry, you stay with

  your mother!”

  all the households were under

  siege but I believe that ours

  held more terror than the

  average.

  and at night

  as we attempted to sleep

  the rains still came down

  and it was in bed

  in the dark

  watching the moon against


  the scarred window

  so bravely

  holding out

  most of the rain,

  I thought of Noah and the

  Ark

  and I thought, it has come

  again.

  we all thought

  that.

  and then, at once, it would

  stop.

  and it always seemed to

  stop

  around 5 or 6 a.m.,

  peaceful then,

  but not an exact silence

  because things continued to

  drip

  drip

  drip

  and there was no smog then

  and by 8 a.m.

  there was a

  blazing yellow sunlight,

  Van Gogh yellow—

  crazy, blinding!

  and then

  the roof drains

  relieved of the rush of

  water

  began to expand in

  the warmth:

  PANG! PANG! PANG!

  and everybody got up

  and looked outside

  and there were all the lawns

  still soaked

  greener than green will ever

  be

  and there were the birds

  on the lawn

  CHIRPING like mad,

  they hadn’t eaten decently

  for 7 days and 7 nights

  and they were weary of

  berries

  and

  they waited as the worms

  rose to the top,

  half-drowned worms.

  the birds plucked them

  up

  and gobbled them

  down; there were

  blackbirds and sparrows.

  the blackbirds tried to

  drive the sparrows off

  but the sparrows,

  maddened with hunger,

  smaller and quicker,

  got their

  due.

  the men stood on their porches

  smoking cigarettes,

  now knowing

  they’d have to go out

  there

  to look for that job

  that probably wasn’t

  there, to start that car

  that probably wouldn’t

  start.

  and the once beautiful

  wives

  stood in their bathrooms

  combing their hair,

  applying makeup,

  trying to put their world back

  together again,

  trying to forget that

  awful sadness that

  gripped them,

  wondering what they could

  fix for

  breakfast.

  and on the radio

  we were told that

  school was now

  open.

  and

  soon

  there I was

  on the way to school,

  massive puddles in the

  street,

  the sun like a new

  world,

  my parents back in that

  house,

  I arrived at my classroom

  on time.

  Mrs. Sorenson greeted us

  with, “we won’t have our

  usual recess, the grounds

  are too wet.”

  “AW!” most of the boys

  went.

  “but we are going to do

  something special at

  recess,” she went on,

  “and it will be

  fun!”

  well, we all wondered

  what that would

  be

  and the two hour wait

  seemed a long time

  as Mrs. Sorenson

  went about

  teaching her

  lessons.

  I looked at the little

  girls, they all looked so

  pretty and clean and

  alert,

  they sat still and

  straight

  and their hair was

  beautiful

  in the California

  sunshine.

  then the recess bell rang

  and we all waited for the

  fun.

  then Mrs. Sorenson told

  us:

  “now, what we are going to

  do is we are going to tell

  each other what we did

  during the rainstorm!

  we’ll begin in the front

  row and go right around!

  now, Michael, you’re

  first! …”

  well, we all began to tell

  our stories, Michael began

  and it went on and on,

  and soon we realized that

  we were all lying, not

  exactly lying but mostly

  lying and some of the boys

  began to snicker and some

  of the girls began to give

  them dirty looks and

  Mrs. Sorenson said,

  “all right, I demand a

  modicum of silence

  here!

  I am interested in what

  you did

  during the rainstorm

  even if you

  aren’t!”

  so we had to tell our

  stories and they were

  stories.

  one girl said that

  when the rainbow first

  came

  she saw God’s face

  at the end of it.

  only she didn’t say

  which end.

  one boy said he stuck

  his fishing pole

  out the window

  and caught a little

  fish

  and fed it to his

  cat.

  almost everybody told

  a lie.

  the truth was just

  too awful and

  embarrassing to

  tell.

  then the bell rang

  and recess was

  over.

  “thank you,” said Mrs.

  Sorenson, “that was very

  nice.

  and tomorrow the grounds

  will be dry

  and we will put them

  to use

  again.”

  most of the boys

  cheered

  and the little girls

  sat very straight and

  still,

  looking so pretty and

  clean and

  alert,

  their hair beautiful

  in a sunshine that

  the world might

  never see

  again.

  One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any horsedrawn wagons. The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the milk company we drove off on his route. I liked being out in the very early morning. The moon was up and I could see the stars. It was cold but it was exciting. I wondered why my father had asked me to come along since he had taken to beating me with the razor strop once or twice a week and we weren’t getting along.

  At each stop he would jump out and deliver a bottle or two of milk. Sometimes it was cottage cheese or buttermilk or butter and now and then a bottle of orange juice. Most of the people left notes in the empty bottles explaining what they wanted.

  My father drove along, stopping and starting, making deliveries.

  “O.K., kid, which direction are we driving in now?”

  “North.”

  “You’re right. We’re going north.”

  We went up and down streets, stopping and starting.

  “O.K., which way are we going now?”

  “West.”

  “No, we’re going south.”

  We drove along in silence some more.

  “Suppose I pushed you out of the truck now and left you on the sidewal
k, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, how would you live?”

  “Well, I guess I’d go back and drink the milk and orange juice you just left on the porch steps.”

  “Then what would you do?”

  “I’d find a policeman and tell him what you did.”

  “You would, huh? And what would you tell him?”

  “I’d tell him that you told me that ‘west’ was ‘south’ because you wanted me to get lost.”

  It began to get light. Soon all the deliveries were made and we stopped at a cafe to have breakfast. The waitress walked over. “Hello, Henry,” she said to my father. “Hello, Betty.” “Who’s the kid?” asked Betty. “That’s little Henry.” “He looks just like you.” “He doesn’t have my brains, though.” “I hope not.”

  We ordered. We had bacon and eggs. As we ate my father said, “Now comes the hard part.”

  “What is that?”

  “I have to collect the money people owe me. Some of them don’t want to pay.”

  “They ought to pay.”

  “That’s what I tell them.”

  We finished eating and started driving again. My father got out and knocked on doors. I could hear him complaining loudly, “HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK I’M GOING TO EAT? YOU’VE SUCKED UP THE MILK, NOW IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO SHIT OUT THE MONEY!”

  He used a different line each time. Sometimes he came back with the money, sometimes he didnt.

  Then I saw him enter a court of bungalows. A door opened and a woman stood there dressed in a loose silken kimono. She was smoking a cigarette. “Listen, baby, I’ve got to have the money. You’re into me deeper than anybody!”

  She laughed at him.

  “Look, baby, just give me half, give me a payment, something to show.”

  She blew a smoke ring, reached out and broke it with her finger.

  “Listen, you’ve got to pay me,” my father said. “This is a desperate situation.”

  “Come on in. We’ll talk about it,” said the woman.

  My father went in and the door closed. He was in there for a long time. The sun was really up. When my father came out his hair was hanging down around his face and he was pushing his shirt tail into his pants. He climbed into the truck.

  “Did that woman give you the money?” I asked.

  “That was the last stop,” said my father. “I can’t take it any more. We’ll return the truck and go home …”

  I was to see that woman again. One day I came home after school and she was sitting on a chair in the front room of our house. My mother and father were sitting there too and my mother was crying. When my mother saw me she stood up and ran toward me, grabbed me. She took me into the bedroom and sat me on the bed. “Henry, do you love your mother?” I really didn’t but she looked so sad that I said, “Yes.” She took me back into the other room.