by
Charles Bukowski
It all started as a mistake.
Jim Richards was supposed to go out with a girl named Ehdna. Ehdna never showed so Jim got drunk and ended up fucking some dame named Marian. Fucking blackouts. Lying bitch said she couldn't have kids because of the clap. Two months later she turned up at Jim's boardinghouse with her dad and his shotgun in tow.
Marian wanted an unusual name for the baby. She asked Jim what he thought and Jim said he thought Drunk Mistake sounded good. Marian called her Eleanor but Jim always thought of her as Drunk Mistake anyway.
Twenty seven years later Jim and Drunk Mistake went walking on the lake shore. Drunk Mistake was as good a mother as Marian was, letting her kids run wild. Christ, that doughy looking one, the boy, was about to fall in the water and drown and Jim was pretty sure the little girl wasn't any smarter.
"When the fuck are you going back to Toronto?" he said to Drunk Mistake. "Don't you have your own fucking house? You're not a kid any more. God damn it, get this kid off me before she breaks my ass you crazy bitch."
Drunk Mistake hauled the baby off Jim's back, sat her down and proceeded to ignore the kid. Jim watched with disgust as the baby picked up a handful of sand and ate it.
"You still think of me as your little girl, don't you Dad?" Drunk Mistake said, hugging him.
"Christ no!" Jim said, pushing her away. "Stop that mushy shit. I ain't even sure I'm your father."
LC
ps. New Windjammer! is up.
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