"I dunno."

"You scared?"

"Sure. No training in this sort of thing," said Tony.

"All right. You pull the sheet back," said Bill, "only fill my gla.s.s first. Fill my gla.s.s, then pull the sheet back."

"Okay," said Tony.

He filled Bill's gla.s.s. Then walked over.

"All right," said Tony, "here GOES!"

Tony pulled the sheet straight back over the body. He kept his eyes closed.

"Good G.o.d!" said Bill, "it's a woman! A young woman!"

Tony opened his eyes. "Yeah. Was young. Christ, look at that long blonde hair, goes way down past her a.s.shole. But she's DEAD! terribly and finally dead, forever. What a shame! I don't understand it."

"How old you figure she was?"

"She doesn't look dead to me," said bill.

"She is."

"But look at those b.r.e.a.s.t.s! Those thighs! That p.u.s.s.y! That p.u.s.s.y: it still looks alive!"

"Yeah," said Tony, "the p.u.s.s.y, they say: it's the first thing to come and the last thing to go."

Tony walked over to the p.u.s.s.y, touched it. then he lifted a breast, kissed the d.a.m.ned dead thing. "It's so sad, everything is so sad a" that we live all our lives like idiots and then finally die."

"You shouldn't touch the body," said Bill.

"She's beautiful," said Tony, "even dead, she's beautiful."

"Yeah, but if she were alive she wouldn't even look at a b.u.m like you twice. You know that, don't you?"

"Sure! And that's just the point! Now she can't say, *NO!'"

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"I mean," said Tony, "that my c.o.c.k is hard. VERY HARD!"

Tony walked over and poured a gla.s.sful from the jug. Drank it down.

Then he walked over to the bed, began kissing the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, running his hands through her long hair, and then finally kissingthat dead mouth in a kiss from the living to the dead. And then he mounted.

It was GOOD. Tony rammed and jammed. Never such a f.u.c.k as this in all his days! He came. Then rolled off, toweled himself with the sheet.

Bill had watched the whole thing, lifting the gallon muscatel jug in the dim lamplight.

"Christ, Bill, it was beautiful, beautiful!"

"You're crazy! You just f.u.c.ked a dead woman!"

"And you've been f.u.c.king dead women all your life a" deadwomen with dead souls and dead p.u.s.s.ies a" only you didn't know it!

I'm sorry, Bill, she was a beautiful buck. I have no shame."

"Was she that good?" asked Bill.

"You'll never believe it."

Tony walked to the bathroom to take a p.i.s.s.

When he got back, Bill had mounted the body. Bill was going good. Moaning and groaning a bit. Then he reached over, kissed that dead mouth, and came.

Bill rolled off, hit the edge of the sheet, wiped off.

"You're right. Best f.u.c.k I ever had!"

Then they both sat in their chairs and looked at her.

"Wonder what her name was?" asked Tony. "I'm in love."

Bill laughed. "Now I know you're drunk! Only a d.a.m.n fool falls in love with a living woman; now you gotta get hooked on a dead one."

"Okay, I'm hooked," said Tony.

"All right, you're hooked," said bill, "whatta we do now?"

"Get her the h.e.l.l outa here!" answered Tony.

"How?"

"Same way we got her in a" down the stairway."

"Then?"

"Then into your car. We drive her down to Venice Beach, throw her into the ocean."

"That's cold."

"She won't feel it any more than she felt your c.o.c.k."

"And how about your c.o.c.k?" asked Bill.

"She didn't feel that either," answered Tony.

There she was, double-f.u.c.ked, dead-laid on the sheets.

"Let's make it, baby!" screamed Tony.

Tony grabbed the feet and waited. Bill grabbed the head. As they rushed out of Tony's room the doorway was still open. Tony kicked it shut with his left foot as they moved toward the top of the stairway, the sheet no longer wound about the body but, more or less, flopped over it. Like a wet dishrag over a kitchen faucet. And again, there was much b.u.mping of her head and her thighs and her big a.s.s against the stariway walls and stairway railings.

They threw her into the back seat of Bill's car.

"Wait, wait, baby!" screamed Tony.

"What for?"

The muscatel jug, a.s.shole!"

"Oh, sure."

Bill sat waiting with the dead c.u.n.t in the back seat.

Tony was a man of his word. He came running out with the jug of muski.

They got on the freeway, pa.s.sing the jug back and forth, drinking good mouthfuls. It was a warm and beautiful night and the Moon was full, of course. But it wasn't exactly night. By then it was 4:15 a.m. A good time anyhow.

They parked. Then had another drink of the good muscatel, got the body out and carried it that long sandy dandy walk toward the sea. Then they got down to that part of the sand where the sea reached now and then, that part of the sand that was wet, soaked, full of little sand crabs and airholes. They put the body down and drank from the jug. Now and then an excessive wave rolled a bit over all of them: Bill, Tony, the dead c.u.n.t.

Bill had to get up to p.i.s.s and having been taught nineteenth century morals he walked a bit up the sh.o.r.e to p.i.s.s. As his friend did so, Tony pulled back the sheet and looked at the dead face in the seaweed twist and swirl, in the salty morning air. Tony looked at the face as Bill was p.i.s.sing offsh.o.r.e. A lovely kind face, nose a little too sharp, but a very good mouth, and then with her body stiffening already, he leaned forward and kissed her very gently upon the mouth and said, "I love you, dead b.i.t.c.h."

Then he covered her with the sheet.

Bill finished p.i.s.sing, came back. "I need another drink."

"Go ahead. I'll take one too."

Tony said, "I'm going to swim her out."

"Can you swim good?"

"Not too well."

"I'm a good swimmer. I'll swim her out."

"NO! NO!" screamed Tony.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, stop yelling!"

"I'm going to swim her out!"

"All right! All right!"

Tony took another drink, pulled the sheet aside, picked her up and carried her step by step toward the breakers. He was drunker than he figured. Several times the big waves knocked them both down, knocked her out of his arms, and he had to get to his feet, run, swim, struggle to find the body. Then he'd see her a" that long long hair. She was just like a mermaid. Maybe she was a mermaid. finally Tony floated her out beyond the breakers. It was quiet. halfway between moon and sunrise. He floated with her some moments. It was very quiet. A time within time and a time beyond time.

Finally, he gave the body a little shove. She floated off, half underwater, the strands of long hair whirling about the body. She was still beautiful, dead or whatever she was. She began to float away from him, caught in some tide. The sea had her.

Then suddenly he turned from her, tried to swim back toward the sh.o.r.e. It seemed very far away. He made it in with the last stroke of his strength, rolling in with the force of the last breaker. He picked himself up, fell, got up, walked forward, sat down beside Bill.

"So, she's gone," said Bill.

"Yeh. Shark meat."

"Do you think we'll ever be caught?"

"No. Give me a drink."

"Go easy. We're getting close to the bottom."

"Yeah."

They got back to the car. Bill drove. They argued over the final drinks on the way home, then Tony thought about the mermaid. He put his head down and began to cry.

"You were always chickens.h.i.t," said Bill, "always chickens.h.i.t."

They made it back to the rooming house.

Bill went to his room. Tony to his. The sun was coming up. The world was awakening. Some were awakening with hangovers. some were awakening with thoughts of church. Most were still asleep. A Sunday morning. And the mermaid, the mermaid with that dead sweet tail, she was well out to sea. While somewhere a pelican dove, came up with a glittering, guitar-shaped fish.

-charles bukowski - from the books: The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Erections, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness ===.

**ALL THE GREAT WRITERS**

Mason had her on the phone. "yeh, well, listen, I was drunk. I don't remember WHAT I said to you! maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't! no, I'm NOT sorry, I'm tired of being sorry-you what? you won't? well, G.o.d d.a.m.n you then!"

Henry Mason hung up. it was raining again. even in the rain there was always trouble with women, there was always trouble with - it was the intercom buzzer. he picked up the phone.

"there's a Mr. Burkett, a James Burkett-"

"will you tell him that his ma.n.u.scripts have been returned? we mailed them back yesterday. so sorry, all that."

"but he insists on seeing you personally."

"you can't get rid of him?"

"no."

"all right, send him in."

a bunch of d.a.m.ned extroverts. they were worse than clothing salesmen, brush salesmen, they were worse thana"

in came James Burkett.

"sit down, Jimmy."