Entry Six

Present

I started reading Bukowski again. I haven’t read him in over a year, right before I stopped drinking. I think I’ve avoided his books for a while because of the intense urge to get drunk while reading them, and that’s something I don’t want to get into again.

I was actually looking for Max Brooke’s Zombie Survival Guide at the bookstore (which they didn’t have) when my eyes caught the Bukowski section on the next bookshelf. I was immediately drawn to Hot Water Music. I knew I was missing a couple of his books of short stories; this was definitely one of them. It feels good to read him again, calms my soul a bit. I have two more books of his on my self that I haven’t read yet, Factotum and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (another book of short stories, read a few of them but not all). I’ll have to get started on those when I’m done with this one.

Past

During the ages of 4 through 6, my father was stationed overseas in Italy. During that time we lived with my paternal grandparents in Camp Hill, PA, while my mother lived across the river in an apartment in Harrisburg. We usually only saw her on the weekends and most of that time was spent hanging out at the bar she worked. My mother worked as a barmaid and bookkeeper for crazy fucking Greek named Frank. Frank was definitely a character. He spent most of his days cursing at my mother in Greek (I still know a few of the words to this day) and throwing insults at her…usually about her weight. I can’t tell you how many times I heard my mother threaten to quit, only to have Frank apologize and beg her to stay. They usually ended their arguments with a shot of Ouzo. My mother met quite a few interesting people while working at the bar: drug dealers, addicts, trannies, hookers, barflies, etc. She even knew a man who became a famous mass murderer, but I’ll get into that story at a later time.

One particular acquaintance was a black drug addict and thief by the name of Teddy (another “Uncle”). My mother met Teddy after he saved her life from an attempted robbery. A man came into the bar one night and told my mother to give him all the money in her register. She told him to fuck off and he made a jab at her with a knife. Teddy blocked the knife, allowing the blade to go right through his hand. The robber took off and Teddy told my mother he couldn’t wait around for the cops because he was on parole. Getting caught drinking in a bar was definitely a parole violation and he didn’t want to go back to jail. Instead of calling the cops, she closed the bar early and drove him to the hospital. That was the beginning of a very long friendship.

At one point Teddy got arrested for snatching purses and was sent to a minimum security prison somewhere North of Harrisburg. My mother always took my brothers and me with her during visits with him. The rules at the prison were fairly relaxed and we were allowed to bring in food and other personal items during the visits. However, we were still required to go through a security check point. The visiting area was a huge open room filled with several couches, chairs and tables. My mother always brought along tons of food like fried chicken, macaroni salad and biscuits. She also brought a blanket for her and Teddy to warm up under. Of course, “getting warm” just meant she was giving him a hand job under the blanket while us kids hung out in the playground outside (yes, the prison even had a playground). She would always give us a quarter to buy an ice cream sandwich at the prisoner run store and told us to eat it outside while her and Uncle Teddy spent some time together. I’d watch them from the window outside. Even at the age of six, I knew what they were doing.

In addition to the hand jobs, my mother was also nice enough to sneak in drugs for Teddy. The drugs were usually heroin or pot, whatever she could get a hold of. My mother would carefully wrap the stuff up in saran wrap, then tuck it into small red balloons tied at the end. She even showed me the process once, as if it were some kind of skill I could benefit from later in life. My mother would hide the drug filled balloons in her bra before getting to the prison. After jerking him off, she would pull the blanket up high over her cleavage, dig the balloons out and discreetly hand them off to Teddy. Afterwards, he would head off to the visitor center bathroom to swallow them for later retrieval. Before leaving, my mother would always pay the prison photographer a buck for a Polaroid to commemorate the event.