"Because you are the only one who will print my column."

I drove to the place, let him out, waited until the door opened, then drove off. A good piece of a.s.s might smooth him out. I needed one too-.

Next I heard from Hyans, he had moved out of the house.

"I couldn't stand it anymore. Why, the other night I took a shower, I was getting ready to f.u.c.k her, I wanted to f.u.c.k some life into her bones, but you know what?"

"What?"

"When I walked in on her she ran out of the house. What a b.i.t.c.h!"

"Listen, Hyans, I know the game. I can't talk against Cherry because the next thing you know, you'll be back together again and then you'll remember all the dirty things I said about her."

"I'm never going back."

"Uh huh."

"I've decided not to shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Good."

"I'm going to challenge him to a boxing match. Full ring rules. Referee, ring, glove and all."

"OK," I said.

Two bulls fighting for the cow. And a bony one at that. But in America the loser oftentimes got the cow. Mother instinct? Better wallet? Longer d.i.c.k? G.o.d knows whata"

While Hyans was going crazy he hired a guy with a pipe and a necktie to keep the paper going. But it was obvious that Open p.u.s.s.y was on its last f.u.c.k. And n.o.body cared but the twenty-five and thirty-dollar-a-week people and the free help. They enjoyed the paper. It wasn't all that good but it wasn't all that bad either. You see, there was my column: Notes of a Dirty Old Man.

And pipe and necktie got the paper out. It looked the same. and meanwhile I kept hearing: "Joe and Cherry are together again. Joey and Cherry split again. Joe and Cherry are back together again./ Joe and Cherry- "

Then on chilly blue Wednesday night I went out to a stand to buy a copy of Open p.u.s.s.y. I had written one of my best columns and wanted to see if they had had the guts to run it. The stand contained last week's Open p.u.s.s.y. I smelled it in the deathblue air: the game was over. I bought two tall six-packs of Schlitz and went back to my place and drank down the requiem. Always being ready for the end I was not ready when it happened. I walked over and took the poster off the wall and threw it into the trash: "OPEN p.u.s.s.y. A WEEKLY REVIEW OF THE LOS ANGELES RENAIS-SANCE."

The government wouldn't have to worry anymore. I was a splendid citizen again.

Twenty thousand circulation. If we could have made sixty a" without family troubles, without police rouses a" we could have made it. We didn't make it.

I phoned the office the next day. The girl at the phone was in tears. "We tried to get you last night, Bukowski, but n.o.body knew where you lived. It's terrible. It's finished. It's over. The phone keeps ringing. I'm the only one here. We're going to hold a staff meeting next Tuesday night to try to keep the paper going. But Hyans took everything a" all the copy, the mailing list and the IBM machine which didn't belong to him. We're cleaned out. There's nothing left."

Oh, you've got a sweet voice, baby, such a sad sad sweet voice, I'd like to f.u.c.k you, I thought.

"We are thinking of starting a hippie paper. The underground is dead. Please show at Lonny's house Tuesday night."

"I'll try." I said, knowing that I wouldn't be there. So there it was - a" almost two years. It was over. The cops had won, the city had won, the government had won. Decency was in the streets again. Maybe the cops would stop giving me tickets every tiem they saw my car. and Cleaver wouldn't be sending us little notes from his hiding place anymore. And you could buy the L.A. Times anywhere. Jesus Christ and Mother in Heaven, Life was Sad.

But I gave the girl my address and phone number, thinking we might make it on the springs. (Harriet, you never arrived.) But Barney Palmer, the political writer, did. I let him in and opened up the beers.

"Hyans," he said, " put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger."

"What happened?"

"It jammed. So he sold the gun."

"It takes a lot of guts just to try it once."

"You're right. Forgive me. Terrible hangover."

"You want to hear what happened?"

"Sure, it's my death, too."

"Well, it was Tuesday night, we were trying to get the paper ready. We had your column and thank Christ it was a long one because we were short of copy. It looked like we couldn't make the pages. Hyans showed, gla.s.sy-eyed, drunk on wine. He and Cherry had split again."

"Ugh."

"Yeh. Anyhow, we couldn't make the pages. And Hyans kept getting in the way. Finally he went upstairs and got on the couch and pa.s.sed out. The minute he left, the paper began to get together. We made it and had forty-five minutes to get to the printer's. I said I'd drive it down to the printer's. Then you know what happened?"

"Hyans woke up."

"I'm that way."

"Well, he insisted on driving the copy to the printer's himself. He threw the stuff in the car but he never made the printer's. The next day we came in and found the note he left, and the place was cleaned out a" the IBM machine, the mailing list, everything-"

"I've heard. Well, let's look at it this way: he started the G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing, so he had a right to end it."

"But the IBM machine, he didn't own it. He might get into a jam over it."

"Hyans is used to jams. He thrives on them. He gets his nuts. You ought to hear him scream."

"But it's all the little people, Buk, The twenty-five-buck-a-week guys who gave up everything to keep the thing going. They guys with cardboard in their shoes. The guys who slept on the floor."

"The little guys always get it in the a.s.s, Palmer. That's history."

"You sound like Mongo."

"Mongo is usually right, even though he is a son of a b.i.t.c.h."

We talked a little more, then it was over.

A big black kitty walked up to me at work that night. "Hey, brother, I hear your paper folded."

"Right, brother, but where did you hear?"

"It's in the L.A. Times, first page of the second section. I guess they are rejoicing."

"I guess they are."

"We liked your paper, man. And your column too. Real tough stuff."

"Thank you, brother."

At lunchtime (10:24 p.m.) I went out and bought the L.A. Times. I took it across the street to the bar over there, bouthg a dollar pitcher of beer, lit a cigar and walked over to a table under a light:

OPEN p.u.s.s.y DEEP IN RED.

Open p.u.s.s.y, the second largest underground newspaper in Los Angeles, has ceased publication, its editors said Thursday. The newspaper was 10 weeks short of its second anniversary.

Heavy debts, distribution problems and a $!,000 fine on an obscenity conviction in October contributed to the demise of the weekly newspaper." Said Mike Engel, the managing editor. He placed final circulation of the newspaper at about 20,000.

But Engel and other editorial staff members said they believed That Open p.u.s.s.y could have continued and that its closing was the decision of Joe Hyans, its 35-year-old-chief-editor.

When the staff members arrived at the paper's office at 4369 Melrose Ave. Wednesday morning they found a note from Hyans which declared, in part: "The paper has already fulfilled its artistic purpose. Politically, it was never to effective anyway. What's been taking place in its pages recently is no improvement over what we printed a year ago. "As an artist, I must turn away from a work which does not grow-even though it is a work of my own hand and even though it is bringing in bread (money)."

I finished the pitcher of beer and went into my governmental joba"

A few days later I found a note in my mailbox: 10:45 a.m., Monday Hanka"

I found a note in my mailbox this morning from Cherry Hyans. (I was away all day Sunday and Sunday night.) She says she has the kids and is sick and in bad trouble at - - - - Douglas Street. I can't find Douglas on the f.u.c.king map, but wanted to let you know about the note.

Barney A couple of days later the phone rang. It wasn't a woman with a hot s.n.a.t.c.h. It was Barney.

"Hey, Joe Hyans is in town."

"So are you and I," I said.

"Joe's back with Cherry."

"Yeh?"

"They are going to move to San Francisco."

"They ought to."

"The hippie paper thing fell through."

"Yeh. Sorry I couldn't make it. Drunk."

"That's OK. But listen, I'm on a writing a.s.signment now. But as soon as I finish, I want to contact you."

"What for?"

"I've got a backer with fifty grand."

"Fifty grand?"

"Yeh. Real money. He wants to do it. He wants to start another paper."

"Keep in touch, Barney. I've always liked you. Remember the time you and I started drinking at my place at four in the afternoon, talked all night and didn't finish until eleven a.m. the next morning?"

"Yeh."

"So, when I clean this writing up, I'll let you know."

"Yeh. Keep in touch, Barney."

"I will. Meanwhile, hang in."

"Sure."

I went into the c.r.a.pper and took myself a beautiful beers.h.i.t. Then I went to bed, jacked off, and slept.

-Charles Bukowski-The Most Beautiful Woman in Town ===.

**LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT**

I walked along in the sun wondering what to do. I kept walk ing, walking. I seemed to be on the outer edge of something. I looked up and there were railroad tracks and by the edge of the tracks was a little shack, unpainted. It had a sign out:

HELP WANTED.

I walked in. A little old guy was sitting there in blue-green suspenders and chewing tobacco.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I, ah, I ah, I-"

"Yeh, come on, man, spit it out! Whatcha want?"

"I saw-your sign-help wanted."

"Sign on? What?"

"Well, s.h.i.t, it ain't a spot as a chorus girl!"