Searching for My Bukowski

I want to make love to his purple onion and throw things at him when he kicks me out of the house. I want him to be my Bukowski. He is him when he downs a pint, scootches his face and says through the slits of his eyes, “I look better that way.” He’s my Bukowski on the sofa throwing tissues on the floor, as I do the dishes at 2 am. He is mine at the racetrack, driving home with a cracked windshield, paying the mortgage with his “winnings.” My Bukowski wears flannel, writes stories at an old typewriter mightier than the pen, mightier than the Apple, and mightier than me.

The rhythms of the keys will clack into the night, a tap dancing of his soul. He swears at the mistakes he makes, stomping his feet under the desk. I think it is an earthquake and run downstairs barely clothed, but he waves me off. “Go back upstairs, there is nothing to see down here.” I need my Bukowski to be abusive. He needs to make me feel important.

My husband is not my Bukowski because the letters are actually to his parents. Not him when he drinks Harpoon, talks about retirement from a long held job. Even when he runs his errands, he drives a Volkswagen Touareg, not a bug and Ozzie rather than Ludwig filters through his sub-woofer system. If he could be my Bukowski, he would be more like the elder, the one that didn’t try, the one that spent money on U2 and Lakers tickets. Who could blame him? Bono didn’t, nor can I. Sometimes when his horse runs home a winner, my Bukowski heads to our bar, slaps down a thousand dollars, and we have a party for everyone there. More likely we win a two dollar bet from a pen dropped at the height of five feet, four inches that buys us a hamburger and hot dog at the track from a woman named (Hello, My Name Is) Marge wearing a stained yellow apron to match her teeth.

We tried, but I cannot have children. We have a lot of time and we make home movies. It is our legacy to anyone in our family that might care and we film every part of our life. There is no hitting, yelling or kicking me on the sofa. He films me petting the cat while I read. We even film our lovemaking but it’s under a sheet, tasteful and dull. It lasts only thirty seconds and I never watch the movies because, in them, he is only Mark.

My Bukowski would say that kids are flies buzzing around the shit peaking over the water like the Loch Ness Monster. He would say that children are weeds that are just as green as the grass. I don’t know what that means, but in reality Mark doesn’t seem angry and Mark never blames me. I am deflated. He is just not him.