My father’s funeral was a chilly hamburger. I sat throughout from the funeral parlor in Alhambra and had a espresso. It could be a brief drive to the racetrack after it was over. A person with a horrible peeling face, very spherical glasses with thick lenses, walked in. “Henry,” he mentioned to me, then sat down and ordered a espresso.
“Hiya, Bert.”
“Your father and I grew to become excellent mates. We talked about you numerous.”
“I didn’t like my outdated man,” I mentioned. “Your father beloved you, Henry. He hoped you’d marry Rita.”
Rita was Bert’s daughter. “She’s going with the nicest man now however he doesn’t excite her. She appears to go for phonies. I don’t perceive. However she should like him a little bit,” he mentioned, brightening up, “as a result of she hides her child within the closet when he comes by.”
“Come on, Bert, let’s go.”
We walked throughout the road and into the funeral parlor. Anyone was saying what an excellent man my father had been. I felt like telling them the opposite half. Then anyone sang. We stood and filed previous the coffin. I used to be final. Possibly I’ll spit on him, I believed.
My mom was useless. I had buried her the yr earlier than, gone to the racetrack and obtained laid afterwards. The road moved. Then a girl screamed, “No, no, no! He can’t be useless!” She reached down into the casket, lifted his head and kissed him. No one stopped her. Her lips had been on his. I took my father by the neck and the girl by the neck and pulled them aside. My father fell again into the casket and the girl was led out, trembling.
“That was your father’s girlfriend,” mentioned Bert.
“Not a foul looker,” I mentioned.
Once I walked down the steps after the service the girl was ready. She ran as much as me.
“You look similar to him! You might be him!”
“No,” I mentioned, “he’s useless, and I’m youthful and nicer.”
She put her arms round me and kissed me. I pushed my tongue between her lips. Then I pulled away. “Right here, right here,” I mentioned in a loud voice, “get ahold of your self!” She kissed me once more and this time I labored my tongue deeper into her mouth. My penis was starting to get laborious. Some males and a girl got here as much as take her away.
“No,” she mentioned, “I need to go along with him. I need to discuss to his son!”
“Now, Maria, please, include us!”
“No, no, I need to discuss to his son!”
“Do you thoughts?” a person requested me.
“It’s all proper,” I mentioned.
Maria obtained into my automotive and we drove to my father’s home. I opened the door and we walked in. “Go searching,” I mentioned. “You’ll be able to have any of his stuff you need. I’m going to take a shower. Funerals make me sweat.”
Once I got here out Maria was sitting on the sting of my father’s mattress.
“Oh, you’re carrying his gown!”
“It’s mine now.”
“He simply beloved that gown. I gave it to him for Christmas. He was so happy with it. He mentioned he was going to put on it and stroll across the block for all of the neighbors to see.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“It’s a good gown. It’s mine now.”
I took a pack of cigarettes from the nightstand.
“Oh, these are his cigarettes!”
“Need one?”
“No.”
I lit up. “How lengthy do you know him?”
“A few yr.”
“And also you didn’t discover out?”
“Discover out what?”
“That he was an ignorant man. Merciless. Patriotic. Cash hungry. A liar. A coward. A cheat.”
“No.”
“I’m stunned. You appear to be an clever girl.”
“I beloved your father, Henry.”
“How outdated are you?”
“Forty-three.”
“You’re nicely preserved. You’ve beautiful legs.”
“Thanks.”
“Horny legs.”
I went into the kitchen and obtained a bottle of wine out of the cabinet, pulied the cork, discovered two wine glasses and walked again in. I poured her a drink and handed her the glass.
“Your father spoke of you typically.”
“Sure?”
“He mentioned you lacked ambition.”
“He was proper.”
“Actually?”
“My solely ambition is to not be something in any respect; it appears essentially the most smart factor.”
“You’re unusual.” “No, my father was unusual. Let me pour you one other drink. That is good wine.”
“He mentioned you had been a drunkard.”
“You see, I’ve achieved one thing.”
“You look a lot like him.”
“That’s simply on the floor. He favored soft-boiled eggs, I like laborious. He favored firm, I like solitude. He favored to sleep nights, I wish to sleep days. He favored canines, I used to yank their ears and stick matches up their ass. He favored his job, I like to put round.”
I reached over and grabbed Maria. I labored her lips open, obtained my mouth inside hers and started to suck the air out of her lungs. I spit down her throat and ran my finger up the crack of her ass. We broke aside.
“He kissed me gently,” mentioned Maria. “He beloved me.”
“Shit,” I mentioned, “my mom was underground solely a month earlier than he was sucking your nipples and sharing your rest room paper.”
“He beloved me.”
“Balls. His worry of being alone led him to your vagina.”
“He mentioned you had been a bitter younger man.”
“Hell, sure. Look what I had for a father.”
I pulled up her gown and started kissing her legs. I started on the knees. I obtained to the inside thigh and she or he opened up for me. I bit her, laborious, and she or he jumped and farted. “Oh, I’m sorry.” “It’s all proper,” I mentioned.
I mounted her one other drink, lit considered one of my useless father’s cigarettes and went into the kitchen for a second bottle of wine. We drank one other hour or two. The afternoon was simply turning into night however I used to be weary. Demise was so boring. That was the worst factor about dying. It was boring. As soon as it occurred there wasn’t something you possibly can do. You couldn’t play tennis with it or flip it right into a field of bonbons. It was there like a flat tire was there. Demise was silly. I climbed into mattress. I heard Maria taking off her sneakers, her garments, then I felt her in mattress beside me. Her head was on my chest and I felt my fingers rubbing her behind the ears. Then my penis started to rise. I lifted her head and put my mouth on hers. I put it there gently. Then I took her hand and positioned it on my cock.
I had drunk an excessive amount of wine. I mounted her. I stroked and stroked. I used to be at all times on the verge however I couldn’t arrive. I used to be giving her an extended, sweaty unending horsefuck. The mattress jerked and bounced, jiggled and moaned. Maria moaned. I kissed her and kissed her. Her mouth gasped for air. “My God,” she mentioned, “you’re actually fucking me!”
I solely wished to complete however the wine had dulled the mechanism. Lastly I rolled off.
“God,” she mentioned. “God.”
We started kissing and it began another time. I mounted as soon as extra. This time I felt the climax slowly arriving. “Oh,” I mentioned, “oh, Christ!” I lastly made it, obtained up, went to the lavatory, got here out smoking a cigarette and went again to the mattress. She was virtually asleep. “My God,” she mentioned, “you actually fucked me!” We slept.
Within the morning I obtained up, vomited, brushed my tooth, gargled and cracked a bottle of beer. Maria woke up and checked out me.
“Did we fuck?” she requested.
“Are you critical?”
“No, I need to know. Did we fuck?”
“No,” I mentioned, “nothing occurred.”
Maria went into the lavatory and showered. She sang. Then she toweled and got here out. She checked out me. “I really feel like a girl who’s been fucked.”
“Nothing occurred, Maria.”
We obtained dressed and I took her to a café across the comer. She had sausage and scrambled eggs, wheat toast, espresso. I had a glass of tomato juice and a bran muffin.
“I can’t recover from it. You look similar to him.”
“Not this morning, Maria, please.”
Whereas I used to be watching Maria put scrambled eggs and sausage and wheat toast (unfold with raspberry jam) into her mouth I spotted that we had missed the burial. We had forgotten to drive to the cemetery to look at the outdated man dropped into the outlet. I had wished to see that. That was the one good a part of the factor. We hadn’t joined the funeral procession, as an alternative we had gone to my father’s home and smoked his cigarettes and drunk his wine.
Maria put a very giant mouthful of vivid yellow scrambled egg into her mouth and mentioned, “You need to have fucked me. I can really feel your semen working down my leg.”
“Oh, that’s simply sweat. It’s extremely popular this morning.”
I noticed her attain down beneath the desk and beneath her gown. A finger got here again up. She sniffed it. “That’s not sweat, that’s semen.”
Maria completed consuming and we left. She gave me her tackle and I drove her there. I parked on the curbing. “Care to come back in?”
“Not simply now. I’ve obtained to maintain issues. The Property.”
Maria leaned over and kissed me. Her eyes had been giant, stricken, stale. “I do know you’re a lot youthful however I might love you,” she mentioned. “I’m certain I might.”
When she obtained to her doorway she turned. We each waved. I drove to the closest liquor retailer, obtained a half pint and the day’s racing type. I appeared ahead to an excellent day on the observe. I at all times did higher after a break day.
Learn the complete problem right here.
Excerpted from Sizzling Water Music by Charles Bukowski.
© Copyright 1983 by Charles Bukowski. Reprinted with permission.