Posted: Jun 12, 08 3:22pm
APB
Last sighted in the aching blown-out heart of Bukowskiville, peddling used Kudos for malt liquor, our hostess seemed a bit frantic, frazzled, and fretful—although lovely and shiny and quick of phrase as ever. She swung through the slippery alleys lithe and fearless as a baby orangutan.
"Yo' Bukowski, watchoo doin' down in the swamp? You partyin'? Looking for some action?" Indian Fred, a full-blood summabitch called after her, his sweet low Cherokee growl winging through her red ringlets and off into the greasy atmosphere. No—no Indian Fred tonight. This was a “thinking walk” toward the shaky sinking San Francisco sun—readying itself, poised for a plunge into the bone-chill bay.
Bukowski moved fast through the dull-eyed conventioneers in the plush hotel district, elbowing the herd aside in her hurry to meet the magical blending of day and night.
She broke through the Market Street mob and sprinted across to the Ferry Building, charging the red light, dodging steel, sending love with her left middle finger to enraged astonished drivers,
and pirouetted smack into the middle of the prettified farmers market, the last of the money-glossed perfect people packing up their purchases—straw satchels of organic albino baby beets and Mongolian purple strawberries and silky daffodils so precious and intelligent they write poetry,
down the long skinny pier, clocking the raggedy Chinese fishermen casting over the edge for a few scraggly whitefish to take home to their belly-tight babies,
to the end, where the rough-edged water meets land, where it is still possible to imagine the power of waterborne commerce, massive muscular ships sluicing through the oily water,
and stopped, leaned her tattooed forearms on the green iron railing, spat into the water, once, twice, for luck—and flew her prayer off to catch a ride on the orangey-red blister settling toward the flat line of the horizon,
“With the setting sun and wheeling gulls as my witnesses I vow to keep the miscreants, madmen and mashers in line. I promise there will be no violations of the Mann Act (at least not before midnight), no concealed weapons, no sexual acts between two-legged and four-legged guests, and no freakin’ tattletales or whiners. Oh, and no Jello molds. I hate Jello molds. Amen.”
Bukowski sighed, flipped open her phone and scrolled to his number. It was time for her daily check in with her parole officer, Marty Budzinski, a chubby, red-faced man with a two-pack a day rasp and kind weary eyes.
…to be continued…
