Absence of the Hero by Charles Bukowski, Edited with an introduction by David Calonne Page A

it was just about over for us, I found a wallet with $197 laying in the bathroom. May had been using our john that day so I walked on down to the communal john and there was the wallet. We had to be lucky or we were dead.
    I was sitting in the park this day thinking about it. We were down to our last 63 cents and I was watching the ducks swim about, thinking they had it made. No rent, no food problems, no job problems. The poor dumb things had all the luck. No wonder men killed themselves and went mad. I sat there thinking about how nice it would be to be a duck. I rather dozed in the sun. Hours went by. It was almost evening when I roused myself and went back to the Suicide Hotel.
    I got in the old elevator, and it rocked me up to the 4th floor. As I neared my door, I heard all the noise and laughter. What was going on? I opened the door and here was May and two of her girlfriends, Jerri and Deedee. They were well on the way.
    â€œHank!” May said, “Jerri just got her first unemployment check and we’re celebrating. Have a drink.”
    I had a drink. I had a number of drinks. I had to hurry to catch up with them. Here I had 63 cents and was drinking with 3 very well-built women. Their faces could use a little help but there wasn’t much more you could add to those bodies. And they dressed to advantage. They showed what they had.
    A little later Jerri went out and bought 2 pounds of ground sirloin, coleslaw, and a large pack of fries and May cooked it up and we ate and drank several bottles of wine. Everybody was feeling all right. It was one night at a time for folks like us. Tomorrow would have to wait.
    After dinner the girls sat around and talked about their funny experiences with men. I heard plenty. For instance, they all knew that bellboy at the Biltmore who had a thing like a horse, and he would get all excited when parties were going on and after everybody was gone he would swing the door open and with the horse-thing extended, run into the room.
    â€œOh no! You’re not going to stick that thing in me!”
    The poor guy simply had too much. He’d put 3 women in the hospital.
    They went on talking and laughing about men, and I had to go to the john. I took a good one and when I came out it was over. May had passed out on the couch and Jerri was in one bed and Deedee was in the other. The lights were out.
    I took off my clothes and sat in a chair. Now isn’t this a shame? I thought. Three women with bodies like that, all passed out. What a hell of a party. Well, they’d been drinking all day.
    I just sat there and kept drinking. I was mixing beer and wine. I smoked several cigarettes, and then I thought, what the hell?
    I checked my woman May first to be sure she was out, then I walked over to Jerri’s bed and got in. She was a tall woman, almost 6 feet, and with very fine breasts. I picked up one of her breasts and put the nipple in my mouth.
    â€œHey, Hank, what are you doing?”
    I couldn’t answer. I got to the other breast. Then I said, “I’m going to make love to you.”
    â€œOh no, Hank, if May finds out she’ll kill me!”
    â€œMay will never know, my darling!”
    I was the greatest lover from Kiev to Pomona. I mounted. I knew that bed; the springs squeaked. May had a terrible temper and was perfectly capable of murder. I had never had such a strange copulation. In order to keep the springs from making a sound, I moved in the slowest slowest of all motions. Nature had never meant it to be that way. Nature didn’t know what it was doing. I will never forget that bit of lovemaking. Moving so slowly, slowly, in order to keep the springs from tattling, I heated up beyond all comprehension. It was working on Jerri too.
    â€œOh, my god, I love you!” she said.
    â€œShhhhhhh, shhhhhhh,” I whispered, “she’ll kill us!”
    Then I was doing it. “O, o, o, my god. . . .”
    â€œShhhhhh,”