Home	Learning to Read Bukowski By T. B. Meek (2006)
	In that tenuous space between sleep and consciousness Jason Kimble licked his lips to no avail. His mouth only offered up gummy strands of mucus. And what had begun as a faint drumming at the base of his skull now threatened to become an all-out locomotive of misery. He kept his eyes shut and sucked down a deep, stilling breath. It was there, in that ephemeral moment of clarity, that Jason realized his toes were exposed and cold, and that the room he was in stank of stale bong water and spilt beer. From the compression on his left side and the ache in his shoulder, he could tell he was wedged into the fold of a couch—but it wasn’t his couch. The neatly woven ridges that delineated each of the three cushion panels under his back and the coarse poly-wool fabric were telltales. His was a Danish engineered futon, singular and smooth, and cool to the touch. Struggling more than expected, Jason shimmied an inch or two out from the confining wall and was rewarded by a liberating sense of openness. Nearby, he could make out breathing, irregular and fast. He hung on it as it quickened to a near apex and the stalled, interrupted by a muffled groan and what seemed to be the shift of weight struggling to free itself from the tacky surface of a fake leather chair. He drifted out again and imagined himself Henry Chinanski, the alcoholic alter ego of alcoholic writer Charles Bukowski, as he came to in a flophouse or some seedy back alleyway. Incapacitation led to disorientation, which melted into an odd sense of enthrallment as the prospect of what bravado might have been performed the night before took form; the contemptuous asshole punched out or the curvaceous ass, a dangle of desire barely hidden by a high-riding mini-skirt, wooed and conquered. Where was Darby? Was she with him last night? Darby wasn't her real name. Susan was what her mother and her manager at Starbucks called her, but to friends, fellow coffee slingers or anyone who met her at a club, or read her entries at MyUnderground.com or HowBigisYourHarpoon.net, she was Darby, or Darby Rip. The latter being the penname she would use when she landed a job at one of the city's hip alternative weeklies, Spin magazine and later, published that string of great rock-n-roll novelas that were inside her. To him though, she was his punk rock princess, boundless in energy and marked by a weave of Pokémon tats up her left side. He was forever a child in her presence, stumbling, awkward and full of wonderment. It took months of ordering soy venti caramel macchiatos to get up the nerve to ask her out. He was more of a straight-up coffee drinker, but ordered the beverage that, as he had calculated, had the longest preparation time—precious minutes used to observe and plot. If he could, he'd steal away from the office in the afternoon for a quick doppio, timing it so he might catch her as she came off shift. Her hair changed from shoe polish black, to blue to frosty blonde and black again. And when she said yes, his world changed. She indoctrinated him into the club scene, turned him onto Bukowski and picked out his maiden tattoo—a sexed-up version of the Pokémon villainess from Team Rocket. Around her everything bristled with excitement. Her sass-itude, as he called it, kept him on his toes. Such was the catalyst for his first bar fight. Bloodied lip and black eye, he got the worst of it, yet in his racing heart he claimed victory. Normally he shied from violence, but the yuppie jock spewing lewd innuendos about Darby’s tattoos, ran him through with a righteous energy that could not be held back. She had handled worse on her own. Still, it afforded him the opportunity to prove his worth, even be chivalrous. He was intoxicated in the aftermath, high on adrenaline and disorientation. They shared a hearty laugh over the matter and later, dropped ecstasy and fucked against the Green Monster at Fenway Park. She knew everything about him, even things he didn’t know about himself. In his twenty-seven years, no other woman had sucked his cock with such total mastery and confidence. She could hold him on edge, and when he went over, that ever too brief moment lasted forever. But the thing that amazed him most was her limitless enthusiasm. She gave herself so completely to his pleasure, yet writhed and relished it as if she were the blessed recipient. Her craft was fluid. There was never any awkward cessation for adjustment, no teeth, not even a gag, just endless perfection. Over time though, he couldn't keep up and his job suffered. He wished he had the balls of Chinanski in Factotum and could tell his boss to piss off, but unlike Chinanski, Jason feared uncertainty and lacked a driving passion other than Darby. She had always been clear about her need for independence. And while he tried to accept it, he found it cruel when she would disappear on weekends and then return, full of excitement and unabashed as she carried on about rockers and recreational drugs. The more it went on, the more he felt like the last belt of booze in a once prized bottle of twenty-year-old scotch. The pillow that cradled his head was spongy, filled with cheap foam, and he could now register the weight of the blanket or heavy coat that covered his body. Swimming in the back of his mind he could hear his mother telling him that he partied too much and ran with the wrong crowd. Then he remembered the Buzz Kills. Darby had described them as “a kick-in-the-ass, rock-n-roll roller coaster ride.” He also knew from her blogs that she thought lead singer Bobby Saw, “a wet between your legs hybrid of Bowie and Sid Vicious.'' He could see Saw up on stage wielding his guitar like an axe. It all came back to him. They were at a dive called the Abbey. His jokes about Trappist beer and monks fell dead on the bartender who largely ignored Jason but fed Darby pint after pint on the house. Later they were out back with the band, slugging tequila and smoking a joint. He remembered Darby and Saw laughing hysterically about a movie that starred Emilio Estevez as a car repossessor, then nothing. His head hurt. It had taken sometime to come to fruition, but his brow throbbed with angry resentment. He didn’t know if he was late for work or not. He lay there anticipating panic, but none came. Another stifled groan tickled his ears. Fearful of the potential onslaught of agony, he opened his eyes slowly and was greeted by the soft grey veil of morning. The world was still and then movement beckoned. On the opposite couch, across a beat up coffee table crested with beer bottles and an enormous bong in the form of a Chinese dragon, he could see Darby rocking ever so slowly over a prone form clad in black. The studded belt was undone and the jeans peeled away enough to reveal the pale white flesh of hipbones. His heart ceased. As Darby rose and clenched Bobby between her thighs, he could see the yellow Pikachu on the left cheek of her ass and the glistening trail of where she had been and where she would return. She bit her lip and craned her neck. She did not to see him so much as she looked through him and beyond. He suddenly felt like an intruder and wished to be somewhere else where he could be alone with his shame. Then there was a sparkle, a smirk, the near smile she used to flash him from behind the coffee bar. He grabbed onto it and floated. Her lips quivered as if to speak and then, in a shudder, it was gone. Agony seemed to consume her face as she forced her way back down. Under the navy pea coat that wasn’t his, he could feel himself beginning to stir. He no longer cared if he was late to work, or work at all. The piston hammering behind his eyes muted. She was free and he couldn't take his eyes off her.
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