- i don't really wanna know what's good for me -

bewitched in New York
Charles Bukowski


the lady was the most unfaithful and terrible I had
ever encountered and I knew it and she knew it and she was
both ugly and beautiful at the same time and the
two of her just sat there on the window
ledge of that open hotel window
in New York City on
one of the hottest days of all time, no
air conditioning, no fan, we sweated and
suffered and waited for something
to happen.


I was drunk, she was on drugs, we had just
concluded a slippery bit of
copulation and afterward she said, "you son-of-a-
bitch, we're stuck here in hell!"


"good," I said.


then I saw her fall out of the window, we
were four floors up, I heard the scream,
her body was gone.


then it was back, she was sitting on the
window ledge again. "did you see that?" she
asked. "I fell out of the window!"


"good," I said.


"but somehow I pulled myself back in!" she
said.


"good," I said.


"is that all you can say?" she asked.
"good?"


"I can say that I think you're a witch or a devil
and that your window act just now proves
it."


I felt that by falling out she had lifted my
spirits and then she had deliberately dashed
them by climbing back
in.


"so I'm a witch or a devil, huh? well, no more
ass for you!"


"good," I said.


sometimes you live and stay with a woman and have no
real idea why.


with her I knew: it was the simple, fascinating,
unrelenting mystery and terror of
her self.