The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way

  Each time I moved to a new city I had dozens and dozens of rejected stories which I boosted into roominghouse trash cans. I only had one suitcase and when you fit in the radio, the extra pair of work shoes, shirts, underwear, shorts, stockings, bathroom stuff, towels, and the like, there wasn’t much room for unwanted pages.

  There were new cities and new hand-printed stories. And Whit Burnett was no snob. He read them. And often there was a personally typed note: “This one almost made it. Please send us more. . . .”

  Any typed reject was an immense miracle for me. I think I continued writing just for typed rejects. . . .

  It was a night in St. Louis. I had been working overtime as a packer in the cellar of a ladies’ dress shop. As I was leaving, the boss called me into his office. He sat behind his desk smoking a cigar and a friend sat in an overstuffed chair near him. They both looked very fat and healthy, rather imperial, almost intelligent.

  “I want you to meet a friend of mine,” my boss said, “he’s a writer too.”

  “Hello,” I said.

  We didn’t shake hands. He just sat in his overstuffed chair. Both of them sat smoking expensive cigars. They were totally relaxed. My whole day and evening had been eaten away uselessly for a pittance, for the barest of a survival, never enough money to escape, let alone endure. Slavery had not been abolished, it had been extended and enhanced to include the black and the white and any other usable color.

  My boss exhaled a wondrous plume of rich smoke, leaned back a bit in his leather chair, and said, “My friend has had many books published, he makes much money writing . . .”

  I ha.d put down on my application form: Writer. Mainly as an excuse to cover my long gaps of unemployment.

  I stood there. There was nothing I could say. I finally asked my boss if I might leave. He told me that it would be all right. . . .

  I always walked home to my room and it was Autumn and the trees had no leaves, just dozens of bare branches sticking out, and it was dark already. My feet hurt, my back hurt, my eyes felt sucked dry. My clothing was cheap and rumpled, there was a button missing from my shirt down near the waist, the front pulled open revealing a dirty undershirt. I was 24 years old and already three-quarters murdered but still dedicated to the short story.

  As I walked along, my mind changed. It was easy, it just went the other way:

  I thought, I’m going to go out and get it. I may not have a dime now but somehow I’ll get money. I’ll hire and fire men just for my own entertainment, I’ll buy furs and autos for women and toss them aside when the first wrinkle appears. I’ll re-invent the word “ruthless.” I’ll become colder than the coldest cold and I’ll love it! And if I can’t rule factories, I’ll hold up banks, I’ll set fire to half the universe! I’m tired, I’m tired, let all this writing be damned!

  I walked along, found my roominghouse, went up the stairway, opened the door to my room and there on the rug, via the courtesy of my landlady, was the same old manila envelope. It was fat, a returned story.

  I opened the window, took the bottle of chilled wine from the sill, opened that, poured one. The cold St. Louis Autumn air chilled my wine perfectly. I took a hit, sat down, lit a smoke. I sat on the edge of my bed and undid the clasp, as per custom, slid the pages out.

  At least it was a typed reject.

  “Dear Mr. Bukowski:

  “We are sorry but this one didn’t quite do. But we very much liked ‘Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip’ and we will run it in our March–April issue. We have been much interested in your work and we are happy to. . . .”

  Signed, “Whit Burnett.”

  I walked over and put the note on the dresser top. Then I had a good drink. I sat on the bed looking at the walls. I took my shoes off and threw them across the room. I looked at my shoes. I looked at the dresser. I noticed each knob on the dresser drawers. I poured another drink. I drank that. Then I got up, walked to the dresser, picked up the note and read it again. Then I put the note in a dresser drawer and went back to bed and drank some more. Then I got up, opened the drawer, and read the note again.

  Whit Burnett, he had class.

  I finished the bottle of wine, found my spare in the closet, open that, drank that . . . listening to my one Mozart album on my record player a couple of times. . . .

  In the morning I awakened without a hangover, found the note, and read it all over again.

  Charles Bukowski, Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip

  N.P.: Blackrose Editions, 1983

  Preface: The Bukowski/Purdy Letters 1964–1974

  Getting a letter from Purdy always got my day up off the floor. I found my life more than unappealing and his letters lent a steadiness, some hope, and some hard-rock wisdom.

  I wrote letters to many in those days, it was rather my way of screaming from my cage. It helped, that and the gambling, the drinking, the paintings, the poems and the short stories. When I did all this, I’m not sure. The night job was truly killing me—eleven and one-half hour nights as a routine for eleven and one-half years. And receiving a Purdy letter was like hearing from another world, indeed. I think he sensed he had a rather mad creature at this end and he kindly nursed me along. And his poems read bright in my darkness.

  And here I am, still not cured, and I never thought I would ever be 63 years old. There are some differences now: I buy my wine by the case and play the horses a little bit better than I used to. And I recently received an inscribed book by Purdy: Birdwatching at the Equator. And he hasn’t lost a step. It’s still all there, fame has not blemished him. The most human endure in this way because it’s the most natural thing to do, and he is naturally one of the most human.

  Thank you, Al. Much.

  yrs,

  Buk

  Charles Bukowski and Al Purdy, The Bukowski/

  Purdy Letters 1964-–74: A Decade of Dialogue

  Sutton West, ON: Paget Press, 1983

  Introduction to Horsemeat

  Well now, why do I need the racetrack? Hemingway liked the bullfights, right? He saw the life-death factors out there. He saw men reacting to these factors with style—or the other way. Dostoevsky needed the roulette wheel even though it always took his meager royalties and he ended up subsisting on milk.

  I need the racetrack. If I stay away from the track for a while, I can’t type. Something about betting the horses makes this machine jump for me. That, and a couple of bottles of wine.

  So, you might say the horses have written my stuff for me and my critics will agree. “Sure, that’s where all the horseshit comes from.” My critics don’t know an exacta from a mud-mark. They also don’t know about the trick which touches and churns the gut, so I’ll forgive them.

  The racetrack is far from nirvana. There are some things which I resent about the racetrack. One of my main resentments is being made to wait 30 minutes between races. This is a sacrilege against life. One doesn’t need all that time to make a selection. But the track needs that time to wait for the last sucker to come in over the hill, needs that time to sell food and drink.

  So they lay that 30 minutes upon one. I’ve taken a small notebook out there and attempted to write. No go. I’ve attempted to think of plots for dirty stories for the girly magazines. No go. Creativity doesn’t occur at the track. I buy the daily paper and read almost every page. I read Ann Landers, the financial section, sports; the murders, the wars, the rapes; show biz; and even the comic section. I am up to date on all the crap in the world.

  Lately I’ve taken to strolling about looking at the people. This is odd for me because long I ago I decided what the people were and that looking at them was meaningless. But then, with 30 minutes to kill. . . .

  Sometimes it’s rewarding to look at the women. I look at this one and think, I’m glad I don’t have to live with her. And then I look at another and I think, I’m glad I don’t have to live with that one. I keep looking and thinking the same thing over and over again.

  Please don’t misunderstand me
; I’m not a misogynist, just a realist.

  Anyhow, I come back to the action feeling pretty lucky. The horses are coming out on the track and I’m about ready to bet. . . .

  Another thing I dislike about the track is their “giveaways.” About every two or three weeks, to reel the suckers back in, the track gives away some item. Each time, it’s different. Sometimes they give away tote bags; other times, caps with the track’s name inscribed upon them; or T-shirts, likewise inscribed with advertising; or a horseshoe pin; or half-price on beer and hot dogs; or a free meal—which at least is something most of the players need. The mob pours in on “giveaway day”; the poor working people and the unemployed come and they get their trinket and/or their bite to eat and then lose their few dollars.

  There is nothing generous about the racetrack. It is not a place to go to jump up and down and holler and drink beer and take your girlfriend. It is a life-death game and unless you apply yourself with some expertise, you are going to get killed.

  Can you imagine people going to the stock exchange for a day of fun?

  Yet let me admit that for all the negative factors the track did give me hope when I was working in the factories and at the post office. Hope is damned important when you’re on the cross. Hope, you know, even if there isn’t much, can keep you going. Just that small maybe. It made me feel as if my slavery might not be a forever thing. Throw in the bottle and a few bad women and you had something else to consume you besides the impossible job. . . .

  But I wouldn’t advise the racetrack for everybody. When I quit my last job eleven years ago at the age of 50, some cracker asked me as I walked off, “What ya gonna do, Hank, play the horses?”

  “Any damn fool can go to the track and most of them do,” I told him. . . .

  I have many sayings about the racetrack. One I have often repeated while looking around: “Those who bet the horses are the lowest of the breed.”

  Often when I was unfortunate enough to have one of my ladies with me she would ask, “What are we doing here?”

  Another of my sayings is: “Show me a man who can beat the horses and I’ll show you a man who can do anything he makes up his mind to do.”

  This is true. The concentration, the dedication, the necessary insight would create a winner in any other nonphysical endeavor.

  But let me warn you: the track does not create great lovers. The track is a mighty destroyer of energy. And many an evening I have come home to one of my ladies and heard the same thing, as if they were all of one voice:

  “For Christ’s sake, look at you! Your ass is dragging from that goddamned racetrack! What good are you going to be in bed?”

  “Now, baby, I’ll just have a few drinks and I’ll be as good as new. . . .”

  “Yeah, I know! You’ll just end up playing with your typewriter! That typewriter is your woman!”

  . . . I had a buddy once, he has since vanished somewhere, but I met him at the track this particular day and he told me, “Well, Hank, my wife laid it down for me. She said, ‘Listen, this is it: you’re going to have to choose between the horses and me!’ Well, baby, I told her. . . .”

  So? Another of my sayings is: “Time is made to be wasted.” I might even alter that to: “Time must be wasted.”

  People are just not constructed to function at 100 percent all the time. I consider it better if I choose how to waste my time rather than somebody else choosing for me. So, we have the racetrack.

  Now, for the uninitiated, let me give you a few basic facts. Out of each dollar wagered the track takes between 15 and 16 cents. This “take” is divided almost equally between the track and the state (in this case California). The track doesn’t care which horse wins. The track and the state share the “take” no matter whether a 50-to-one shot wins or if a one-to-two shot wins. The larger the mutual (money bet) the more the track and the state “win.” Roughly speaking, you give the track a dollar and they give you back 84 cents, to bet with. (In exacta wagering, the most popular public form of wagering, the track takes 20 cents and gives you back 80.)

  Yet most people lose much more than 16 percent of their money. They lose all of it. I’d say that only the few professional bettors (about 1.8 percent of the crowd) regularly take their cut along with the track and the state.

  Some mathematicians claim that the “take” is more than 16 percent. Their view is that a 16 percent “take” on 9 races adds up to a 144% “take” on the money wagered. Which proves why almost everybody loses. I’m no math freak but I still feel all you have to beat is 16 percent. I mean, you give them a dollar, right? They give you back 84 cents on the next race and they take 16 percent of that. And so on down the line. Yes, much money is lost to the “take” but much is also lost because of stupid betting.

  There are many sad and depressed faces each day at the track—jobs, homes, lives down the old drain. I’ve seen people with their heads buried in their laps, not moving, sitting on benches and in corners. I’ve seen tears of agony and disbelief.

  I’ve seen and felt the anger and madness of the people driving out of the parking lot after the last race. They drive viciously and in ugly fashion as if the bad bets they made were the fault of some cruel universe. It hurts when the dream is gone.

  And it’s a long drive back in to what’s left.

  I often wonder if on my deathbed (if I’m lucky enough to die in one) I’ll be wishing for one of those 30-minute delays, those waits between races?

  Meanwhile, after decades of horseplaying I’m only about $10,000 in the hole, which ain’t bad. I mean, I’m getting better. Maybe by deathbed time I’ll get even.

  The track has given me many sad and magic moments, tragic moments. I’ve seen many unhappy racing accidents for both man and horse. I’ve witnessed the death of a jockey.

  I once caught a horse that paid $225 and change. And during one very strange period I won 23 races in a row and none of the horses were favorites. I remember that time. I walked around feeling very much like god. My voice became rich and beautiful, my eyes brilliant. Everything was clear. I was sure of everything. I walked up to the most beautiful lady at the track, took her by the arm, walked her to my car, drove to my motel, and made love to her.

  After that I plunged into a losing streak and quickly became humble again. Sometimes I think there are forces that lift us up for a while in order to see how vain and foolish we can become in victory.

  “To consume and be consumed,” I wrote long ago in an old poem.

  That is what has happened to me at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Los Alamitos, Del Mar, Turf Paradise, Caliente and at the dog races at some track whose name I have forgotten just outside Phoenix. The dogs are great, I have never lost at the dogs but since this book is about horses, forget it.

  Many of my hours, days, weeks, years have been swallowed by the racetrack. Think of all the time I could have spent weeding the garden, mastering chess, karate, the dance; maybe I could have become a great chef, a pool player, a pianist or an acceptable mystic. I might even have been a policeman in a patrol car.

  But it’s like my buddy said to his wife, “Baby, I’ll take the horses.”

  He vanished, poor fellow, but I have a new buddy who says to me, “I can’t talk to anybody but a gambler.”

  This limited edition book is for them—the gamblers—even though it will fall mostly into the hands of collectors who won’t care what I’m talking about. Michael takes great photos and when we sit down with our copies of this book we’ll probably get good and drunk together, and that is how this particular introduction will finally end.

  5/7/82

  (after another winning day at

  the track, drinking 1978

  Mirassou Gamay Beaujolais)

  Charles Bukowski and Michael Montfort, Horsemeat

  Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1982

  Foreword: Douglas Goodwin, Half Memory of a Distant Life

  There is a curious thing about good and original and fresh poetry: it make
s you laugh a little bit inside, it connects the edges, it eases off the meanness of some of the living, it helps you to continue flushing toilets, opening doors, sleeping, eating, breathing, looking, walking, it helps you continue all the sundry acts on your way through your life and towards your death.

  Brothers and sisters, good and original and fresh poetry helps much; the trouble being, there is so little of it.

  When I first read the poetry of Douglas Goodwin, I was immediately taken. The stuff boiled with the agony of life, and the daring to go on with it anyhow. Courage is infective. So is wild, raging humor. Goodwin has these things. And he lays the lines down clear and clean; there is no posing, no posturing, no poetic gimmickry.

  That’s all. And that’s enough. Plenty enough.

  Welcome to a new voice. The ranks have been thin for some long time.

  It’s better now. We can laugh, again, a little bit, inside.

  7-2-87

  Douglas Goodwin, Half Memory of a Distant Life

  Storrs, CT: Clock Radio Press, 1987

  Foreword: Macdonald Carey, Beyond That Further Hill

  I first came across the work of Macdonald Carey in the pages of the New York Quarterly. I was taken at once by the ease and humor and warmth of the writing. Here was feeling that was not afraid of feeling, here was feeling that was not afraid to laugh at itself.

  Yet these were but a few poems. Most poets can be good once or twice or maybe once more but not too many held up over the long course.

  Upon reading these, I am happy to report that Macdonald Carey has. And you will soon realize this too.

  That Mac has spent almost an entire lifetime as a Hollywood actor and yet is still able to write these delicious poems, well, that’s quite some miracle. Hollywood is the killer of souls. How this man ever retained his sensibilities and probably even enhanced them is beyond me.