The foreman of the aisle walked by and they all gave him the proper obeisance but me, but I, but Bukowski, I lit a cigar with an easy flourish, threw the match on the floor and stared at the ceiling as if I were having great and wonderful thoughts. It was con; my mind was blank; I only wanted a halfpint of Grandad and six or seven tall cool beers-The f.u.c.king paper grew, or seemed to, and moved to a place on Melrose. I always hated to go there with copy, though, because everybody was so s.h.i.tty, so truly s.h.i.tty and sn.o.bby and not quite right, you know. Nothing changed. The history of the Man-beast was very slow. They were like the shifts I'd faced when I first walked into the copy room of the L.A. City College newspaper in 1939 or 1940 a"all these little hoity-toity dummies with little newspaper hats over their heads while writing stale, stupid copy. So very important a" not even human enough to acknowledge your presence. Newspaper people were always the lowest of the breed; janitors who picked up women's c.u.n.trags in the c.r.a.ppers had more soul a" naturally.

I looked at those college freaks, walked out, never went back.

Now. Open p.u.s.s.y. Twenty-eight years later.

Copy in my hand. There was Cherry at a desk. Cherry was on the telephone. Very important. Couldn't speak. Or Cherry not at the telephone. Writing something on a piece of paper. Couldn't speak. the same old con of always. Thirty years hadn't broken the dish. and Joe Hyans running around, doing big things, running up and down the stairs. He had a little place on top. Rather exclusive, of course. And some poor s.h.i.t in a back room with him there where Joe could watch him getting copy ready for the printer on the IBM. He gave the poor s.h.i.t thirty-five a week for a sixty-hour week and the poor s.h.i.t was glad, grew a beard and lovely soulful eyes and the poor s.h.i.t hacked out the third-rate piteous copy. With the Beatles playing full volume over the intercom and the phone ringing continually, Joe Hyans, editor, was always RUNNING OFF TO SOMEPLACE IMPORTANT SOMEWHEREA. But when you read the paper the next week you'd wonder where he'd run. It wasn't in there.

Open p.u.s.s.y went on, for a while. My columns continued to be good, but the paper itself was halfa.s.s. I could smell the death-c.u.n.t of ita"

There was a staff meeting every other Friday night. I busted up a few of them. And after hearing the results, I just didn't go anymore. If the paper wanted to live, let it live. I stayed away and just slid my stuff under the door in an envelope.

Then Hyans got me on the phone: "I've got an idea. I want you to get me together the best poets and prose writers that you know and we are going to put out a literary supplement."

I got it together for him. He printed it. And the cops busted him for "obscenity."

But I was a nice guy. I got him on the phone. "Hyans?"

"Yeh?"

"Since you done got busted for the thing, I'm a gonna let you have my column for free. That ten bucks you been paying me, it goes for the Open p.u.s.s.y defense fund."

"Thanks very much," he said.

So there he was, getting the best writing in America for nothinga"

Then Cherry phoned me on night.

"Why don't you come to our staff meetings anymore? We all miss you, terribly."

"What? What the h.e.l.l you saying, Cherry? You on the stuff?"

"No, Hank, we all love you, really. Do come to our next staff meeting."

"I'll think about it."

"It's dead without you."

"And death with me."

"We want you, old man."

"I'll think about it, Cherry."

So, I showed. I had been given the idea by Hyans, himself, that since it was the first anniversary of Open p.u.s.s.y the wine and the p.u.s.s.y and the life and the love would be flowing.

But coming in very high and expecting to see f.u.c.king on the floor and love galore, I only saw all these little love-creatures busily at work. They reminded me very much, so humped and dismal, of the little old ladies working on piecework I used to deliver cloth to, working my way up through rope hand-pulled elevators full of rats and stink, one hundred years old, piecework ladies, proud and dead and neurotic as all h.e.l.l, working, working to make a millionaire out of somebody-in New York, in Philadelphia, in St. Louis.

And these, for Open p.u.s.s.y, were working without wages, and there was Joe Hyans, looking a bit brutal and fat, walking up and down behind them, hands folded behind his back, seeing thateach volunteer did his (her) duty properly and exactly.

"Hyans! Hyans, you filthy c.o.c.ksucker!" I screamed as I walked in. "You are running a slave-market, you are a lousy pewking Simon Legree! You cry for justice from the police and from Washington, D.C. and you are the biggest lousiest swine of them all! You are Hitler multiplied by a hundred, you slave-labor b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You write of atrocities and then triple them yourself! Who the f.u.c.k you think you're fooling, mother? Who the f.u.c.k you think you are?"

Luckily for Hyans, the rest of the staff was quite used to me and they thought that whatever I said was foolishness and that Hyans Himself stood for Truth.

Hyans Himself walked up and put a stapler in my hand.

"Sit down, he said, "we are trying to increase the circulation. just sit down and clip one of these green ads to each of newspapers. We are sending out leftover copies to potential subscribers-"

Dear old Freedom Loveboy Hyans, using big business methods to put over his c.r.a.p. Brainwashed beyond himself.

He finally came up and took the stapler out of my hand.

"You're not stapling fast enough."

"f.u.c.k you, mother. There was supposed to be champagne all over this place. Now I'm eating staples-"

"Hey, Eddie!"

He called over another slave-labor member a" thin-cheeked, wire-armed, pnurious. Poor Eddie was starving. Everybody was starving for the Cause. Except Hyans and his wife, and they lived in a two-story house and sent one of their children to a private school, and there was old Poppa back in Cleveland, one of the head stiffs of the Plain Dealer, with more money than anything else.

So Hyans ran me out and also a guy with a little propeller on the top of a beanie cap, Lovable Doc Stanley I believe he was called, and also Lovable Doc's woman, and as the three of us left out the back door quite calmly, sharing a bottle of cheap wine, there came the voice of Joe Hyans: "And get out of here, and don't any of you ever come back, but I don't mean you Bukowski!"

Poor f.u.c.k, he knew what kept the paper goinga"

Then there was another bust by the police. This time for print-ing the photo of a woman's c.u.n.t. Hyan's at this time, as always, was mixed up. He wanted to hype the circulation, by any means, or kill the paper and get out. It was a vise he couldn't seem to work properly and it drew tighter and tighter. Only the people working for nothing or for thirty-five dollars a week seemed to have any interest in the paper. But Hyans did manage to lay a couple of the younger female volunteers so he wasn't wasting his time.

"Why don't you quit your lousy job and come work for us?"

"How much?"

"Forty-five dollars a week. That includes your column. You will also distribute to the boxes on Wednesday night, your car, I'll pay the gas, and you write up special a.s.signments. Eleven a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Sat.u.r.day s off."

"I'll think about it."

Hyans' old man came in from Cleveland. We got drunk together over at Hyans' house. Hyans and Cherry seemed very unhappy with Pops. And Pops could put away the whiskey. No gra.s.s for him. I could put away the whiskey too. We drank all night.

"Now the way to get rid of the Free Press is to bust up their stands, run the peddlers off the streets, bust a few heads. That's what we used to do in the old days. I've got money. I can hire some hoods, some mean sons of b.i.t.c.hes. We can hire Bukowski.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" screamed young Hyans, "I don't want to hear your s.h.i.t, you understand?"

Pops asked me, "What do you think of my idea, Bukowski?"

"I think it's a good idea. Pa.s.s the bottle over here."

"Bukowski is insane!" screamed Joe Hyans.

"You print his column," said Pops.

"He's the best writer in California," said young Hyans.

"The best insane writer in California," I corrected him.

"Son," Pops went on, "I have all this money. I want to put your paper over. All we gotta do is bust a few-"

"No. No. No!" Joe Hyans screamed. "I won't have it!" Then he ran out of the house. What a wonderful man Joe Hyans was. He ran out of the house. I reached for another drink and told Cherry that I was going to f.u.c.k her up against the bookcase. Pops said he'd take seconds. Cherry cussed us while Joe Hyans ran off down the street with his soul-The paper went on, coming out once a week somehow. Then the trial about the photo of the female c.u.n.t came up.

The prosecuting attorney asked Hyans: "Would you object to oral copulation on the steps of the City Hall?"

"No," said Joe, "but it would probably block traffic."

Oh, Joe, I thought, you blew that one! You shudda said, "I'd prefer for oral copulation to go on inside the City Hall where it usually does."

When the judge asked Hyans' lawyer what the meaning of the photo of the female s.e.x organ was, Hyans' lawyer answered, "Well, that's just the way it is. That's the way it is, daddy."

They lost the trial, of course, and appealed for a new one. "A roust," said Joe Hyans to the few and scattered news media about, "nothing but a police roust."

What a brilliant man Joe Hyans wasa"

Next I heard from Joe Hyans was over the phone: "Bukowski, I just bought a gun. One hundred and twelve dollars. A beautiful weapon. I'm going to kill a man!"

"Where are you now?"

"In the bar, down by the paper."

"I'll be right there."

When I got there he was walking up and down outside the bar.

"Come on," he said, "I'll buy you a beer."

We sat down. The place was full, Hyans was talking in a very loud voice. You could hear him all the way to Santa Monica.

I'm going to splatter his brains out against the wall a" I'm going to kill the son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

"What guy, kid? Why do you want to kill this guy, kid?"

He kept staring straight ahead.

"Groovy, baby. Why ya wanna kill this sunab.i.t.c.h,huh?"

"He's f.u.c.king my wife, that's why!"

"Oh."

He stared some more. It was like a movie. It wasn't even as good as a movie.

"It's a beautiful weapon," said Joe. "You put in this little clip. It fires ten shots. Rapid-fire. There'll be nothing left of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Joe Hyans.

That wonderful man with the big red beard.

Groovy, baby.

Anyhow I asked him, "How about all these anti-war articles you've printed? How about the love bit? What happened?"

"Oh come on now Bukowski, you've never believed in all that pacifism s.h.i.t?"

"Well, I don't know-Well, I guess not exactly."

"I've warned this guy that I am going to kill him if he doesn't stay away, and I walk in and there he is sitting on the couch in my own house. Now what would you do?"

"You're making this a personal property thing, don't you understand? Just f.u.c.k it. Forget it. Walk away. Leave them there together."

"Is that what you've done?"

"After the age of thirty - always. And after the age of forty, it gets easier. But in my twenties I used to go insane. The first burns are the hardest."

"Well, I am going to kill the son of a b.i.t.c.h! I'm going to blow his G.o.dd.a.m.ned brains out!"

The whole bar was listening. Love, baby, love.

I told him, "Let's get out of here."

Outside the bar Hyans dropped to his knees and screamed, a long milk-curdling four-minute scream. You could hear him all the way to Detroit. Then I got him up and walked him to my car. As he got to the car door on his side, he grabbed the handle, dropped to his knees and let go another hog-caller to Detroit. He was hooked on Cherry, poor fellow. I got him up, put him in the seat, got in the other side, drove north to Sunset and then east along Sunset and at the signal, red, at Sunset and Vermont, he let go another one. I lit up a cigar. The other drivers stared at the red beard screaming.

I thought, he isn't going to stop. I'll have to knock him out.

But then as the signal turned green he ended it and I shifted it out of there. He sat there sobbing. I didn't know what to say. There wasn't anything to say.

I thought, I'll take him to see Mongo the Giant of the Eternal High. Mongo's full of s.h.i.t. Maybe he can dump some s.h.i.t on Hyans. me, I hadn't lived with a woman for four years. I was too far out of it to see it anymore.

Next time he screams, I thought, I've got to knock him out. I Can't stand another one of those.

"Hey! Where we going?"

"Mongo's."

"Oh, no! Not Mongo's! I hate that guy! He'll only make fun of me! He's a cruel son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

It was true. Mongo had a good mind but a cruel one. It wasn't any good going over there. And I couldn't handle it either. We drove along.

"Listen," said Hyans, "I've got a girlfriend around here. Couple blocks north. Drop me off. She understands me."

I turned it north.

"Listen," I said. "don't shoot the guy."

"Why?"