Читать книгу The Pleasures of the Damned - Charles Bukowski - Страница 10

the last days of the suicide kid

I can see myself now

after all these suicide days and nights,

being wheeled out of one of those sterile rest homes

(of course, this is only if I get famous and lucky)

by a subnormal and bored nurse …

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair …

almost blind, eyes rolling backward into the dark part of my skull looking

for the mercy of death …

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah …”

the children walk past and I don’t even exist

and lovely women walk by

with big hot hips

and warm buttocks and tight hot everything

praying to be loved

and I don’t

even exist …

“It’s the first sunlight we’ve had in 3 days,

Mr. Bukowski.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

there I am sitting upright in my wheelchair,

myself whiter than this sheet of paper,

bloodless,

brain gone, gamble gone, me, Bukowski,

gone …

“Isn’t it a lovely day, Mr. Bukowski?”

“O, yeah, yeah …” pissing in my pajamas, slop drooling out of my mouth.

2 young schoolboys run by—

“Hey, did you see that old guy?”

“Christ, yes, he made me sick!”

after all the threats to do so

somebody else has committed suicide for me at last.

the nurse stops the wheelchair, breaks a rose from a nearby bush, puts it in my hand.

I don’t even know

what it is. it might as well be my pecker

for all the good

it does.