"man, I don"t know if I qualify."
"you qualify."
that desk looks twenty feet wide.
"Jim, I been fired from so many places like this. some s.h.i.t sitting in a swivel. like a dream upon a dream upon a dream, all bad. now I sit here drinking beer with a man behind a desk and I don"y know anymore now than I did then."
he laughed. "baby, I want to give you your own office, your own chair, your own desk. I know what you"re getting now. I want to double that."
"I can"t accept it."
"why?"
"I want to know where my value would be to you?"
"I need your brain."
I laughed.
"I"m serious."
then he laid out the plan. told me what he wanted. he had one of those stirring motherf.u.c.king brains that dreamed that sort of thing up. it seemed so good I had to laugh.
"it"ll take 3 months to set it up," I tell him.
"then a contract."
"o.k. with me. but these things sometimes don"t work."
"it"ll work."
"meanwhile I"ve got a friend who"ll let me sleep in his broom closet if the walls fall in."
"fine."
we drink 2 or 3 more hours then he leaves to get enough sleep to meet his friend for a yachting next morning (Sat.u.r.day) and I tool around and drive out of the high rent district and hit the first dirty bar for a closer or two. and son of a b.i.t.c.h if I don"t meet a guy I used to know down at a job we both used to have.
"Luke!" I say, "son of a b.i.t.c.h!"
"Hank, baby!"
another coloured (or black) man, (what do the white guys do at night?) he looks low so I buy him one.
"you still at the place?" he asks.
"yeah."
"man, s.h.i.t," he says.
"what?"
"I couldn"t take it anymore where you"re at, you know, so I quit. ma, I got a job right away. wow, a change, you know. that"s what kills a man: lack of change."
"I know, Luke."
"well, the first morning I walk up to the machine. it"s a fibre gla.s.s place. I"ve got on this open neck shirt with short sleeves and I notice people staring at me. well, h.e.l.l, I sit down and start pressing the levers and it"s all right for a while and next thing you know I start itching all over. I call the foreman over and I say, *hey, what the h.e.l.l"s this? I"m itching all over! my neck, my arms, everywhere!" he tells me, *it"s nothing, you"ll get used to it." but I notice he has on this scarf b.u.t.toned up all the way around his throat and this long-sleeved working shirt. well, I come in the next day all scarfed-up and oiled and b.u.t.toned but it"s still no good - this f.u.c.king gla.s.s is shiving off so fine you can"t see it and it"s all little gla.s.s arrows and it goes right through the clothing and into the skin. then I know why they make me wear the protective gla.s.ses for my eyes. could blind a man in half an hour. I had to quit. went to a foundry, man, do you know that men POUR THIS WHITE HOT s.h.i.t INTO MOLDS? they pour it like bacon-grease or gravy. Unbelievable! and hot! s.h.i.t! I quit. man, how you doing?"
"that b.i.t.c.h there, Luke, she keeps looking at me and grinning and pulling her skirt higher."
"don"t pay any attention. she"s crazy."
"but she has beautiful legs."
"yes, she has."
I buy another drink, pick up, walk over to her.
"h.e.l.lo, baby."
she goes into her purse, comes out, hits the b.u.t.ton and she"s got a beautiful 6 inches swivel. I look at the bartender who looks blank-faced. the b.i.t.c.h says, "one step closer and you got no b.a.l.l.s!"
I knock her drink over and when she looks at that I grab her wrist, twist the swivel out, fold it, put it into my pocket. the bartender still looks neutral. I go back to Luke and we finish our drinks. I notice it"s ten to 2 and get 2 six packs from the barkeep. we go out to my car. Luke"s without wheels. she follows us. "I need a ride." "where?" "around Century." "that"s a long way." "so what, you motherf.u.c.kers got my knife."
by the time I am halfway to Century I see those female legs lifting in the back seat. when the legs come down I pull down a lond dark corner and tell Luke to take a smoke. I hate seconds but when first haven"t been for a long time and you"re supposed to be a great Artist and an understander of Life, seconds just HAVE to do, and like the boys say, with some, seconds are better. it was good. when I dropped her off I gave her the switchblade back wrapped in a ten. stupid, of course. but I like to be stupid. Luke lives around 8th and Irola so it"s not too far in for me.
as I open the door the phone begins ringing. I open a beer and sit in the rocker and listen to it ring. for me, it"s been enough - evening, night and morning.
Bukowski wears brown b.v.d"s. Bukowski is afraid of airplanes. Bukowski hates Santa Klaus. Bukowski makes deformed figures out of typewriter erasers. when water drips, Bukowski cries. when Bukowski cries, water drips. o, sanctums of fountains, o s.c.r.o.t.u.ms, o fountaining s.c.r.o.t.u.ms, o man"s great ugliness everywhere like the fresh dogt.u.r.d that the morning shoe did not see again; o, the mighty police, o the mighty weapons, o the mighty dictators, o the mighty d.a.m.n fools everywhere, o the lonely lonely octopus, o the clock-tick seeping each neat one of us balanced and unbalanced and holy and constipated, o the b.u.ms lying in alleys of misery in a golden world, o the children to become ugly, o the ugly to become uglier, o the sadness and sabres and the closing of the walls - no Santa Claus, no p.u.s.s.y, no Magic Wand, no Cinderella, no Great Minds Ever; kukoo - just s.h.i.t and the whipping of dogs and children, just s.h.i.t and the whiping away of s.h.i.t; just doctors without patients just clouds without rain just days without days, o G.o.d o mighty that you put this upon us.
when we break into your mighty KIKE palace and timecard angels I want to hear Your voice just saying once
MERCY.
MERCY.
MERCY.
FOR YOURSELF and for us and for what we will do to You, I turned off of Irola until I hit Normandie, that"s what I did, and then came in and sat and listened to the telephone ring.
Night streets of madness the kid and I were the last of a drunkman party at my place, and we were sitting there when somebody outside began blowing a car horn, loud LOUD LOUD it was, oh sing loud, but then everything is axed through the head anyway. the world is done, so I just sat there with my drink, smoking a cigar, thinking of nothing - the poets were gone, the poets with their ladies were gone, it was fairly pleasant even with the horn going. a comparison. the poets had each accused other of various treacheries, of bad writing, of having slipped; meanwhile, each of them claiming they deserved better recognition, that they wrote better than so and so and so forth. I told them all that they needed 2 years in the coal mines or the steel mills, but on they chattered, finky, precious, barbaric, and most of them rotten writers. now they were gone. the cigar was good. the kid sat there. I had just written a foreword to his second book of poems. or his first? well.
"listen," said the kid, "let"s go out there and tell them to f.u.c.k-off. tell him to jam that horn up his a.s.s."
the kid wasn"t a bad writer, and he had the ability to laugh at himself, which is sometimes a sign of greatness, or at least a sign that you have a chance to end up being something else besides a stuffed literary t.u.r.d. the world was full of stuffed literary t.u.r.ds talking about the time they met Pound at Spoleto or Edmund Wilson in Boston or Dali in his underwear or Lowell in his garden; sitting there in their tiny bathrobes, letting you have it, and NOW you wew talking to THEM, ah, you see. "a the last time I saw Burroughsa" "Jimmy Baldwin, jesus, he was drunk, we had to trot him out on the stage and lean him on the mikea"
"let"s go out there and tell them to jam that horn up their a.s.s," said the kid, influenced by the Bukowski myth (I am really a coward), and the Hemingway thing and Humphrey B. and Eliot with his panties rolled. well. I puffed on my cigar. the horn went on. LOUDE SING KUKOOO.
"the horn"s all right. never go out on the streets after you"ve benn drinking 5 or 6 or 8 or ten hours. they have cages ready for the like us. I don"t think I could take another cage, not one more G.o.d d.a.m.ned cage of theirs. I build enough of my own."
"I"m going out to tell them to shove it," said the kid.
the kid was under the superman influence, Man and Superman. he liked huge man, tough and murderous, 6-4, 300 pounds, who wrote immortal poetry. the trouble was the big boys were all subnormal and it was the dainty little queers with the fingernail polish on who write the tough-boy poems. the only guy who fit the kid"s hero-mold was big John Thomas and big John Thomas always acted as if the kid weren"t there. the kid was Jewish and big John Thomas had the mainline to Adolph. I liked them both and I don"t like very many people.
"listen," said the kid, "I am going to tell them to jam it."
oh my G.o.d, the kid was big a little on the fat side, he hadn"t missed too many meals, but he was easy inside, scared and worried and a little crazy like the rest of us, none of us made it, finally, and I said, "kid, forget the horn. it doesn"t sound like a man blowing anyway. it sounds like a woman. a man will stop and start with a horn, make musical threats out of it. a woman just leans on it. the total sound, one big female neurosis."
""f.u.c.k it!" said the kid. he ran out the door.
what does this have to do with anything? I thought. what does it matter? people keep making moves that don"t count. when you make a move, everything must be mathematically set. that"s what Hem learned at the bullfights and put to work in his work. that"s what I learn at the track and put to work in my life. good old Hem and Buk.
"h.e.l.lo, Hem? Buk calling."
"oh, Buk, so glad you called."
"thought I"d drop over for a drink."
"oh, I"d love it, kid, but you see, my G.o.d, you might say I"m kinda out of town right now."
"but why"d you do it, Ernie?"
"you"ve read the books. they claim I was crazy, imagining things. in and out of the bughouse. they say I imagined the phone was tapped, that I imagined the C.I.A. was on my a.s.s, that I was being tailed and watched. you know, I wasn"t really political but I always f.u.c.ked with the left. the Spanish war, all that c.r.a.p."
"yeah, most of you literary guys lean left. it seems Romantic, but it can turn into a h.e.l.l of a trap."
"I know. but really, I had this h.e.l.l of a hungover, and I knew I had slipped, and when they believed in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, I knew that the world was rotten."
"I know. you went back to your early style. but it wasn"t real."
"I know it wasn"t real. and I got the PRIZE. and the tail on me. old age on me. sitting around drinking like an old f.u.c.k, telling stale stories to anybody who would listen. I had to blow my brains out."
"o.k., Ernie, see you later."
"all right, I know you will, Buk."
he hung up. and how.
I went outside to check on the kid.
it was an old woman in a new *69 car. she kept leaning on the horn. she didn"t have any legs. any b.r.e.a.s.t.s. any brain. just a *69 car and indignation, great and total indignation. a car was blocking her driveway. she had her own home. I lived in one of the last slum courts on DeLongpre. someday the landlord would sell it for a tremendous sum and I would be bulldozed out. too bad. I threw parties that lasted until the sun came up, ran the typer day and night. a madman lived in the next court. everything was sweet. one block North and ten blocks West I could walk along a sidewalk that had footprints os STARS upon it. I don"t know what the names mean. I don"t hit the movies. don"t have a t.v. when my radio stopped playing I threw it out the window. drunk. me, not the radio. there is a big hole in one of my windows. I forgot the screen was there. I had to open the screen and drop the radio out. later, whilst I was drunken barefoot my foot (left) picked up all the gla.s.s, and the doctor while slitting my foot open without benefit of a shot, probing for b.a.l.l.sy gla.s.s, asked me, "listen, do you ever walk around not quite knowing what you are doing?"
"most of the time, baby."
then he gave me a big cut that wasn"t needed.
I gripped the sides of the table and said, "yes, Doctor."
then he became more kindly. why should doctors be better than I am? I don"t understand it. the old medicine man gimmick.
so there I was out on the street, Charles Bukowski, friend of Hemingway, Ernie, I have never read DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON. where do I get a copy?
the kid said to the crazy woman in the car, who was only demanding respectful and stupid property rights, "we"ll move the car, we"ll push it out of the way."
the kid was talking for me too. now that I had written his foreword, he owned me.
"look, kid, there"s no place to push the car. and I really don"t care. I"m going in for a drink." it was just beginning to rain. I have a most delicate skin, like an alligator, and soul to match. I walked off. s.h.i.t, I"d had enough wars.
I walked off and then just as I about got to my front court hole, I heard screaming voices. I turned.
then we had this. a thin kid, insane, in white t-shirt screaming at the fat Jewisj poet I had just written a foreword to poems for. what had the white t-shirt to do with it? the white t-shirt pushed against my semi-immortal poet. he pushed hard. the crazy old woman kept leaning against the car horn.
Bukowski, should you test your left hook again? you swing like the old barn door and only win one fight out of ten. when was the last fight you won, Bukowski? you should be wearing women"s panties.
well, h.e.l.l, with a record like yours, one more loss won"t be any big shame.
I started to move forward to help the Jewish kid poet but I saw he had white t-shirt backing up. then out of the 20 million dollar highrise next to my slum hole, here came a young woman running. I watched the cheecks of the a.s.s wobble in the fake Hollywood moonlight.
girl, I could show you something you will, would never forget - a solid 3 and one quarter inches of bobbling throbbing c.o.c.k, oh my, but she never gave me a chance, she a.s.shole-wobbling ran to her little 68 Fiaria or however you spell it, and got in, p.u.s.s.y dying for my poetic soul, and she got in, started the thing, got it out of the driveway, almost ran me over, me Bukowski, BUKOWSKI, hummm, and ran the thing into the underground parking of the 20 million buck highrise. why hadn"t she parked there to begin with? well.
the guy in the white t-shirt is still wobbling around and insane, my Jewish poet has moved back to my side there in the Hollywood moonlight, which was like stinking dishwater spilling over us all, suicide is so difficult, maybe our luck will change, there"s PENGUIN coming up, Norse-Bukowski-Lamantiaa what?
now, now, the woman has her clearence for her driveway but she can"t make it in. she doesn"t aven angle her car properly. she keeps backing up and ramming a white delivery truck in front of her. there go the taillights on first shot. she backs up. hits the gas. there goes half a back door. she backs up. hits the gas. there goes all the fender and half the left side, no the right side, that"s it the right side. nothing adds. the driveway is clear.
Bukowski-Norse-Lamantia. Penguin books. it"s a d.a.m.n good thing for those other two guys that I am in there.
again chickens.h.i.t steel mashing against steel. and in between she"s leaning on the horn. white t-shirt dangling in the moonlight, raving.
"what"s going on?" I asked the kid.
"I dunno," he finally admitted.