The Most Beautiful
Woman in Town
& Other Stories
by
Charles Bukowski
Edited by Gail Chiarrello
City Lights Books
San Francisco
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1983 by Charles Bukowski.
All Rights Reserved
Cover photograph by Robb Lee © 1988.
The stories in Tales of Ordinary Madness and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town originally appeared in Open City, Nola Express, Knight, Adam, Adam Reader, Pix, The Berkeley Barb, and Evergreen Review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bukowski, Charles.
The most beautiful woman in town and other stories.
Reprint of part I Erections, ejaculations, exhibitions and general tales of ordinary madness.
(part II titled Tales of ordinary madness)
I. Chiarello, Gail. II. Bukowski, Charles. III. Title.
PS3552.U4M66 1983 813’.54 83-21032
ISBN 0-87286-156-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-156-5
CITY LIGHTS BOOKS are edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters and published at the City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.
CONTENTS
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse
Life in a Texas Whorehouse
Six Inches
The Fuck Machine
The Gut-Wringing Machine
3 Women
3 Chickens
Ten Jack-Offs
Twelve Flying Monkeys Who Won’t Copulate Properly
25 Bums in Rags
Non-Horseshit Horse Advice
Another Horse Story
The Birth, Life and Death of an Underground Newspaper
Life and Death in the Charity Ward
The Day We Talked About James Thurber
All the Great Writers
The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, Calif.
Trouble with a Battery
Politics is like Trying to Screw a Cat in the Ass
My Big-Assed Mother
A Lovely Love Affair
All the Pussy We Want
The Beginner
The Fiend
The Murder of Ramon Vasquez
A Drinking Partner
The White Beard
A White Pussy
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN TOWN
Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. ½ Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and moved and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she simply seemed a sex machine and they didn’t care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men.
Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when people were hurt either in the spirit or the flesh, Cass felt a deep grieving for them. Her mind was simply different; her mind was simply not practical. Her sisters were jealous of her because she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn’t make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called handsome men revolted her — “No guts,” she said, “no zap. They are riding on their perfect little earlobes and their well-shaped nostrils … All surface and no insides…” She had a temper that came close to insanity; she had a temper that some called insanity.
Her father had died of alcohol and her mother had run off leaving the girls alone. The girls went to a relative who placed them in a convent. The convent had been an unhappy place, more for Cass than the sisters. The girls were jealous of Cass and Cass fought most of them. She had razor marks all along her left arm from defending herself in two fights. There was also a permanent scar along the left cheek but the scar rather than lessening her beauty only seemed to highlight it.
I met her at the West End Bar several nights after her release from the convent. Being youngest, she was the last of the sisters to be released. She simply came in and sat next to me. I was probably the ugliest man in town and this might have had something to do with it.
“Drink?” I asked.
“Sure, why not?”
I don’t suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn’t seem quite of age but they served her anyhow. Perhaps she had a forged i.d., I don’t know. Anyhow, each time she came back from the restroom and sat down next to me, I did feel some pride. She was not only the most beautiful woman in town but also one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.
“Yes, of course, but there’s something else … there’s more than your looks …”
“People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I’m pretty?”
“Pretty isn’t the word, it hardly does you fair.”
Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hat pin through her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror.
She looked at me and laughed, “Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?”
I pulled the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the bartender, had seen the act. The bartender came down:
“Look,” he said to Cass, “you act up again and you’re out. We don’t need your dramatics here.”
“Oh, fuck you, man!” she said.
“Better keep her straight,” the bartender said to me.
“She’ll be all right,” I said.
“It’s my nose,” said Cass, “I can do what I want with my nose.”
“No,” I said, “it hurts me.”
“You mean it hurts you when I stick a pin in my nose?”
“Yes, it does. I mean it.”
“All right, I won’t do it again. Cheer up.”
She kissed me, rather grinning through the kiss and holding the handkerchief to her nose. We left for my place at closing time. I had some beer and we sat there talking. It was then that I got the perception of her as a person full of kindness and caring. She gave herself away without knowing it. At the same time she would leap back into areas of wildness and incoherence. Schitzi. A beautiful and spiritual schitzi. Perhaps some man, something, would ruin her forever. I hoped that it wouldn’t be me.
We went to bed and after I turned out the lights Cass asked me, “When do you want it? Now or in the morning?”
“In the morning,” I said and turned my back.
In the morning I got up and made a couple of coffees, brought her one in bed.
She laughed. “You’re the first man I’ve met who has turned it down at night.”
“It’s o.k.,” I said, “we needn’t do it at all.”
“No, wait, I want to now. Let me freshen up a bit.”
Cass went to the bathroom. She came
out shortly, looking quite wonderful, her long black hair glistening, her eyes and lips glistening, her glistening… She displayed her body calmly, as a good thing. She got under the sheet.
“Come on, lover man.”
I got on in.
She kissed with abandon but without haste. I let my hands run over her body, through her hair. I mounted. It was hot, and tight. I began to stroke slowly, wanting to make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“What the hell difference does it make?” she asked.
I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but she was difficult to forget. I wasn’t working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf — an elephant ear.
“I knew you’d be in the bathtub,” she said, “so I brought you something to cover that thing with, nature boy.”
She threw the elephant leaf down on me in the bathtub.
“How did you know I’d be in the tub?”
“I knew.”
Almost everyday Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we’d make love.
One or two nights she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting.
“These sons of bitches,” she said, “just because they buy you a few drinks they think they can get into your pants.”
“Once you accept a drink you create your own trouble.”
“I thought they were interested in me, not just my body.”
“I’m interested in you and your body. I doubt, though, that most men can see beyond your body.”
I left town for 6 months, bummed around, came back. I had never forgotten Cass, but we’d had some type of argument and I felt like moving on anyhow, and when I got back I figured she’d be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when she walked in and sat down next to me.
“Well, bastard, I see you’ve come back.”
I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high-necked dress. I had never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass heads. All you could see were the glass heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into her face.
“God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?”
“No, it’s the fad, you fool.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Is there anybody else?”
“No, there isn’t anybody else. Just you. But I’m hustling. It costs ten bucks. But you get it free.”
“Pull those pins out.”
“No, it’s the fad.”
“It’s making me very unhappy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hell yes, I’m sure.”
Cass slowly pulled the pins out and placed them in her purse.
“Why do you haggle your beauty?” I asked. “Why don’t you just live with it?”
“Because people think it’s all I have. Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you then you know it’s for something else.”
“O.k.,” I said, “I’m lucky.”
“I don’t mean you’re ugly. People just think you’re ugly. You have a fascinating face.”
“Thanks.”
We had another drink.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing. I can’t get on to anything. No interest.”
“Me neither. If you were a woman you could hustle.”
“I don’t think I’d want to make that close a contact with so many strangers. It’s wearing.”
“You’re right, it’s wearing, everything is wearing.”
We left together. People still stared at Cass on the streets. She was still a beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than ever.
We made it to my place and I opened a bottle of wine and we talked. With Cass and I, the talk always came easy. She talked a while and I would listen and then I would talk. Our conversation simply went along without strain. We seemed to discover secrets together. When we discovered a good one Cass would laugh that laugh — only the way she could. It was like joy out of fire. Through the talking we kissed and moved closer together. We became quite heated and decided to go to bed. It was then Cass took off her high-necked dress and I saw it — the ugly jagged scar across her throat. It was large and thick.
“God damn you, woman,” I said from the bed, “god damn you, what have you done?”
“I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don’t you like me anymore? Am I still beautiful?”
I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, “Some men pay me that ten and then I undress and they don’t want to do it. I keep the ten. It’s very funny.”
“Yes,” I said, “I can’t stop laughing … Cass, bitch, I love you … stop destroying yourself; you’re the most alive woman I’ve ever met.”
We kissed again. Cass was crying without sound. I could feel the tears. That long black hair lay behind me like a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and sombre and wonderful love.
In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over and shook me, “Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the feast!”
I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old ladies in their 70’s and 80’s sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all, there was peace in the air and we walked about and stretched on the lawns and didn’t say much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an hour. It was somehow better than love-making. There was a flowing together without tension. When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly said, “No.” I drove her back to the bar, bought her a drink and walked out. I found a job as a packer in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by. After I was fairly drunk the bartender said to me, “I’m sorry about your girl friend.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m sorry. Didn’t you know?”
“No.”
“Suicide. She was buried yesterday.”
“Buried?” I asked. It seemed as if she would walk through the doorway at any moment. How could she be gone?
“Her sisters buried her.”
“A suicide? Mind telling me how?”
“She cut her throat.”
“I see. Give me another drink.”
I drank until closing time. Cass the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that “no.” Everything about her had indicated that she had cared. I had simply been too offhand about it, lazy, too unconcerned. I deserved my death and hers. I was a dog. No, why blame the dogs? I got up and found a bottle of wine and drank from it heavily. Cass the most beautiful girl in town was dead at 20.
Outside somebody honked their automobile horn. They were very loud and persistent. I set the bottle down and screamed out: “GOD DAMN YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH, SHUT UP!”
The night kept coming on in and there was nothing I could do.
KID STARDUST ON THE PORTERHOUSE
/>
my luck was down again and I was too nervous at this time from excessive wine-drinking; wild-eyed, weak; too depressed to find my usual stop-gap, rest-up job as shipping clerk or stock boy, so I went down to the meat packing plant and walked into the office.
haven’t I seen you before? the man asked.
no, I lied.
I’d been there 2 or 3 years before, gone through all the paper work, the medical and so forth, and they had led me down steps, 4 floors down and it had gotten colder and colder and the floors had been covered with a sheen of blood, green floors, green walls. I had been explained my job — which was to push a button and then through this hole in the wall there was a noise like the crushing of fullbacks or elephants falling in lay, and here it came — something dead, a lot of it, bloody, and he showed me, you take it and throw it on the truck and then push the button and another one comes along, then he walked away. when he did I took off my smock, my tin hat, my boots (issued 3 sizes too small) and walked up the stairway and out of there. now I was back, struck down again.
you look a little old for the job.
I want to toughen up. I need hard work, good hard work, I lied.
can you handle it?
I’m nothing but guts. I used to be in the ring. I’ve fought the best.
oh, yes?
yeah.
umm, I can see by your face. you must have been in some fierce ones.
never mind my face. I had fast hands. still have. I had to take some dives, had to make it look good.
I follow boxing. I don’t recall your name.
I fought under another name, Kid Stardust.
Kid Stardust? I don’t recall a Kid Stardust.
I fought in South America, Africa, Europe, the islands. I fought in the tank towns. that’s why there’s all these gaps in my employment records — I don’t like to put down boxer because people think I am kidding or lying. I just leave the blanks and to hell with it.
all right, show up for your med. at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow and we’ll put you to work. you say you want hard work?
well, if you have something else …
no, not right now. you know, you look close to 50 years old. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing? we don’t like you people to waste our time.