The Twilight of the Bums Read online

  DESERT STORM

  The old guys are bored silly. Let’s go live in the hills! So they rent huts in a favela high above the city. Not too close to each other. Not too far from that great outstretched artifact of Xtian imperialism which dominates the landscape. A well between them. One day they both spot a young woman at the well, they rush thitherward with their buckets. Historically, both men are on record as being against all things Xtian and so they know the enemy better than the enemy knows itself, and thus know the text of the parable of the woman at the well quite well. Nonetheless, they scramble down the hill with their buckets. When they are almost at the well, the woman turns around and says to the two puffing sweating old guys: Don’t rush, slow down, you’ll get a heart attack, and besides, as the old saying goes, when one pail goes down to be filled the other comes up to be emptied. Then she places her bucket on her head and walks away from the two old guys, her hips swaying on the horizon, her hips swaying on the horizon.

  SQUALL

  A sudden unannounced rush of water from the heavens has driven the occupants of this section of the city park into the shelter, a roof fixed over a few picnic tables. The torrential water is delighting everyone of all ages and all social mix, a veritable babble of folk. Including our two friends, who happen to be in the park tossing a frisbee (underemployment being a serious feature of life among the elderly).

  So here is the whole city packed tight by a ferocious rain, a rain from God Itself, and, therefore, as everyone surely knows, to be short-lived.

  The rain is so intense, of such ferocity, of such impersonal magnitude (like the idea of God for many of us), that even the most pained or sorrowed members of this sudden group feel free and uninhibited, even playful.

  One of the bums is entertaining a bunch of wet kids. He has drawn faces on the knuckles of both hands, and he is playing a little cloak-and-dagger drama with them, which the kids are enjoying immensely, screeching with delight as they watch the knuckle-faces jump up and down confronting each other in a duel to the death, one being the face of the villain, the other that of the hero.

  Added to this is the pleasure of the narration, which the bum is uttering in French, in the pure classic French of the Comédie Française, with just the right amount of eloquence and pomposity. Taking on a baritone voice the narrator declaims: Attention, attention, les enfants, regardez bien, le gentil Petit Poucet va maintenant faire disparaître le méchant Diable. And suddenly the bum’s fingers collapse and make the face of the villain disappear. Et voila, muscade, disparu, proclaims the bum. Then changing his voice into that of a soprano, while the Petit Poucet dances proudly before the children, he recites those famous lines spoken by Rodrigue in LE CID of Corneille: Je suis jeune, il est vrai, mais aux âmes bien nées, la valeur n’attend pas le nombre des années.

  No one seems to know this language, but it doesn’t matter. In fact, it seems to add to the pleasure as more and more of the fold of the sudden city refocuses toward the bum’s knuckles which have made the face of the villain reappear for the second act of this tragedy. (No one knows God too well either, which satisfies all parties, it seems).

  The other bum (obviously the one who is not performing) has audienced (what an ugly word) himself to the show, feeling only a slight twinge of envy that it isn’t his fingers entertaining the whole city under the big flat umbrella.

  Now the knuckles are fighting again, the action is approaching its denouement, the kids are shouting, some mimicking the glorious French language, and then there is one more blast from the water barrel of heaven and just as suddenly a hot sun reappears in the sky, and the whole sudden gathering takes flight, rising as on wings, and flying, flying, away and away, the story left there perfectly unfinished, the way God Itself leaves things, sometimes …

  DARK SHADOWS

  No reason why news of the end of the body should be received with anything but acceptance, but for the two bums the news hit hard, especially since they were just at the beginning of their new life in the desert.

  The dark hair lovely complexion lady physician in the white coat snapped the x-rays onto the display, and in a gesture that both bums read with private alarm, took off her white coat (although this alarm was confused by the consequent revelation of her body, her generous breasts in a soft semi-transparent brassière, her unspeakable hips). But her act was clearly related to the news, which was not good. She picked up the pointer with the soft rubberish tip, moving from one area of complication to another.

  The upshot was the two bums were granted the usual final six months. They looked at each other, then at the lady doctor. They were both thinking the same thought: the two-men-one-girl-thought. The triangle thought. What the hell! Six months is a lifetime if one knows how to take advantage of the unexpected.

  AND ONE MORE DOZEN OF OUR BUMS’ REFLECTIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

  1. A friend will never tell you that your fly is unzipped.

  2. Anything divisible is the enemy of friendship.

  3. When a friend tells you what you would rather not hear, don’t blame him or her, just tell him or her to shut up.

  4. Friendship is not a category.

  5. If you fuck your friend your friendship is fucked.

  6. He-friend? She-friend? Empty categories.

  7. The wine in the broken jug that has been glued back together always tastes better; likewise with friendship.

  8. A friend lets you crack open his or her fortune cookie.

  9. Friends are nuts.

  10. One of the good things about friends is that they come when called. The other good thing is that they leave.

  11. One of the pleasures of friendship is to be in the state of missing that person.

  12. Making lists of the qualities of friendship is like eating salted peanuts.

  OLD POLISH PROVERB

  The two old friends are living proof of the old Polish proverb that a good friend will wipe his shoes on you.

  One time the Mick fobbed off a lovely looking chick on the Frog telling him what a great lay she was when in reality her cunt was cement.

  Another time the Frog told the Mick he had met this lovely and ready virgin who was asking for immediate defloration and that he wanted him to do it to her, but when the Mick’s anxious cock approached the virgin’s sweet cunt it discovered that it was not, as announced by the Frog, an unexplored path in a virgin jungle but rather a well traveled superhighway where many good cocks had already crashed.

  THE BIG SHOOT-OUT

  One day the two old shoeless bums came into town with a plan for making a few bucks, getting some shoes, a meal, and maybe a 2-for-1 lay at the local brothel if there was one. It was cold & snowy, lucky they each had greatcoats in pretty good condition. So at the town gate they split up, one going north & the other south. At the north bar Old Bum One slammed down his fist on the table & said he was in town to kill his enemy at noon on Main Street. At the south bar Old Bum Two shouted the same threat, looking down at his coat as if to suggest he carried a weapon. As you can imagine, this news traveled about town at the speed of excitement. When was the last time, if ever, that the town had witnessed a shoot-out? And so as noon approached the entire population of the town assembled on Main Street. Everybody was there, the old, the young, the crippled, the rich, the poor, the unemployed, the bosses, as well as the town politicians, and even the blacks from the ghetto.

  When it was past noon, and the old shoeless bums had not yet arrived for the big shoot-out, the people started getting restless. One could hear rumbling in the crowd. The town sheriff dispatched one of his deputies to find out where the two bums were, that’s what he called them, bums! Soon the deputy came back. He looked horrified. He had located the two shoeless bums at the local brothel, both fucking the same girl at the same time, one frontward the other backward, yes that’s what the deputy reported, one into the front the other into the rear at the same time. They had her sandwiched. Then the deputy added, from the look of them two bums, there’ll be no big shoot-out today, and probably not for the rest of the week.

  THE WOMAN OF GREAT RESISTANCE

  There was on that gloomy day only one woman left in the world with sufficient inner resistance to stiffen male power to a structure sufficient for her use to ensure the continuity of the species.

  There were also on that day only two nameless bums left, two good-for-nothing thieving trash-hackers fucking worthless drunks suspended on their crosses.

  And so on that gloomy day the woman of great resistance drove her donkey cart up to Golgotha, the place of skulls and olive trees, to inspect the men slowly crucifying in the heat of mid-day.

  Noticing the dust on the trail Bum One said from his high perch: I see something coming. Bum Two lifted his head, and through the dust cloud he saw the outline of the donkey cart. It’s a little early isn’t it? he said, thinking it was the cart from the mortuary on its way to collect their corpses.

  History does not record what happened that day on Golgotha when the woman of great resistance climbed up the cross, but perhaps one can get a clue from the words Saint Augustine scribbled in his Confessions:

  Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved.

  Do not presume, one of the thieves was fucked.

  THE PRINCESS & THE FROG

  Once upon a time, and what a scary time it was, the two friends got lost in the woods and were just about starved when a fairy princess leapt out of a pond and offered herself to the men, who were still quite young, little more than boys really. Necessity offering no other option, they ate the princess on the spot, as bid, and were restored enough to make their way out of the woods to a human settlement. Many years passed and the boymen all but forgot the princess who had saved their lives until one day the two friends, now old men, were fishing in a pond when a frog leapt out of the water. Oh what a big fat frog, one of the friends cried out. Hey, why don’t we have frog legs for lunch, said the other friend. So they caught the frog, proceeded to dismember it, cooked the legs on their portable camping stove, and soon delighted in the savory flesh, not realizing that only a kiss from them would have transformed the frog into a beautiful fairy princess.

  A LITTLE REQUEST

  In the long run in the scheme of things what kinds of things do you want a woman to do for you? He asked his friend.

  And the friend replied, as things stand now with the old bones weeping and the muscles creaking I would like a woman to kneel before me and tie my shoe laces.

  EXCHANGING VIEWS

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to serve me a meal

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to cook me noodles

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to watch tv with me

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to play games with me

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to be home for me

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to respect my private mail

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to hear what I’m saying

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to understand my poetry

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to replace the cap on bottles

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to stop using talcum powder

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to go sleep in another bed

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to stop snoring at night

  Um:

  I would like my spouse to end her childhood

  Laut:

  I would like my spouse to stop cultivating senilities

  THE SOCIOLOGY OF WIFEHOOD

  The wife is the woman you end up with who is neither your mother nor your mistress. She’s the one who visits your sickroom every day, and when you complain to her that you don’t want to be there she replies that she doesn’t either. The mistress and the mother cannot be lived with, they can only be visited. But the wife is the woman you live with, as she lives with you, and not with her father or her young lover with the thick hair and the slick mustache. She is the one who brings you clean socks and fresh underwear, who double-checks your checkbook figures, and has just a few weeks ago completed the plans for the removal of your body. Then, as she leaves, she bends to kiss you, and you look up to receive her smooch, knowing that her dear face is the one you’ll see first tomorrow, if you make it, and even if you don’t.

  The above material Bum One has just read to Bum Two, implicitly seeking his opinion. Two shakes his head soberly, affirming both the justice and the insight of the prepared remarks. Awesome, he says, snapping the paper with his fingernail, but don’t show it to Sophie.

  A DELICATE SITUATION

  Our situation is truly delicate, Bum Two told Bum One as they set out one morning for the day’s occupations. What I mean is this: What fine things, what momentous things, are we going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old errors, fear of not finishing in time, fear of reveling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence, and senility.

  To which Bum One replied calmly: Don’t worry like this. The forms are many in which Bums like us can seek relief from laziness.

  THE AGING PROCESS

  As one ages one tends not to become richer or wiser or kinder, etc., no. There tends, rather, simply to be more of what one is. We mean the character thing. This, for example, Bum A is showing forth as a frustrated infant in perpetual rage, whereas Bum B is developing into a destructive fourteen year old. This is as far as both of them got in the character development department.

  So we find them on this day flying along coastal highway 101 north of Los Angeles in a snappy rental convertible, its top down, the boombox blasting Shostakovitch piano preludes, when suddenly Bum A says, I gotta go pipi! Bum B doesn’t react and continues to speed up the highway. If you don’t stop, whines Bum A, I’ll pee in my pants. Bum B rather than slowing down presses harder on the accelerator and cries out into the wind, You’re a real baby, you know! Okay, I’ll stop as soon as I see the proper tree, meanwhile cross your legs and shut the fuck up so I can listen to the music.

  PENNIES IN HEAVEN

  Um & Laut are flying somewhere. On U.S. Air. It’s a long flight, but we cannot tell you where they are going because the bums themselves don’t even know why they are on this plane. They are bored. They have already seen the dumb movie that is being shown (HOME ALONE), they have read all the magazines, and they don’t even feel like flirting with the flight attendants. Air hostesses used to be sexy and pleasant, but nowadays they all seem well past their prime and indifferent to the needs of the passengers. Anyway, Um & Laut are bored. Sleep is also out of the question because they have already slept for a couple of hours (old men never sleep more than a few hours at a time).

  Let’s play a game, says Um.

  What kind of game? inquires Laut.

  Let’s see how far we can count numbers, suggests Um.

  Hey, that’s not a bad idea, agrees Laut, but let’s do it this way. We take turns counting, but each time we double the numbers.

  What do you mean?

  Well, you say 1, I say 2, then you say 4, and I say 8, and you say 16, so on.

  Okay. You begin.

  U:

  1

  L:

  2

  U:

  4

  L:

  8

  U:

  16

  L:

  32

  U:

  64

  L:

  128

  U:

  256

  L:

  512

  U:

  1024

  L:

  2048

  U:

  4096

  L:

  8192

  U:

  Are you sure, it’s 8192?

  L:

  Yes, I am. My dear Um, you know I never make mistakes with numbers. Go on. This is fun.

  U:

  16384

  L:

  32798. No. I think I made a mistake. It’s 32768. Yes, 32768

  U:

  65536

  L:

  131072

  U:

  262144

  L:

  524288

  U:

  1048576. Wow, I never had so much fun in an airplane. Don’t stop. Keep going.

  L:

  I am, dammit. 2097152

  U:

  4194304

  L:

  8388608

  U:

  16777216

  L:

  33554432

  U:

  67108864

  L:

  U:

  Well, what are you waiting for?

  L:

  I have to rest a moment. I’m out of breath.

  U:

  That’s the problem with you. You’re out of shape. You don’t exercise enough. I keep telling you, you’ve got to exercise, or you’re gonna become a decrepit old fart.

  L:

  Okay okay. I’m fine. What was the last one?