he packaged it up neatly in different sections
sending the legs to an aunt in St. Louis
the head to a scoutmaster in Brooklyn
the belly to a cross-eyed butcher in Des Moines,
the female organs were sent to a young priest in Los Angeles;
the arms he threw to his dog
and he kept the hands to use as nut-crackers, and all the
leftover and assorted parts
like breasts and buttocks he boiled into a soup
which strangely
tasted better than she ever had.
he spent the money in her purse
he bought good French wine, frijoles, a pound of grass
and two parakeets; he bought the collected works of
Keats, a 5 foot square red bandana, a scissors with
ivory handles, and a box of candy for his
landlady.
then he drank and ate and slept for three days and nights
12and when the police came
he seemed very friendly and calm
and all the way to the station house
he talked of the weather, the color of the mountains,
various things like that, he didn’t seem like that kind of killer at all.
it was very strange.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
