“personally, I don’t like your poetry.”
“that’s all right too.”
“you can’t make it over Saturday.”
“no.”
“well, I’m going to get tired of calling. take care.”
“yeah, good night.”
another meat tearer. what the hell did they want? well, Bill lived in Malibu and Bill made money writing – philosophical sex shit potboilers full of typos and undergraduate Art work – and Bill couldn’t write but Bill couldn’t stay off the telephone either. He’d phone again. and again. and fling his little scrubby shit turds at me. I was the old man who hadn’t sold his balls to the butcher and it drove them screwy. their final victory over me could only be a physical beating and that could happen to any man at any place.
Bukowski thought Mickey Mouse was a nazi; Bukowski made an ass out of himself at Barney’s Beanery; Bukowski made an ass out of himself at Shelly’s Manne-Hole; Bukowski is jealous of Ginsberg, Bukowski is jealous of the 1969 Cadillac, Bukowski can’t understand Rimbaud; Bukowski wipes his ass with brown hard toilet paper, Bukowski will be dead in 5 years, Bukowski hasn’t written a decent poem since 1963, Bukowski cried when Judy Garland ... shot a man in Reno.
I sit down. stick the sheet in the typer. open a beer. light a smoke.
I get one or two good lines and the phone rings.
“Buk?”
“yeah?”
“Marty.”
“hello, Marty.”
“listen, I just ran across your last 2 columns. it’s good writing. I didn’t know you were writing so well. I want to run them in book form. have they come back from GROVE yet?”
“yeah.”
“I want them. your columns are as good as your poems.”
“a friend of mine in Malibu says my poems stink.”
“to hell with him. I want the columns.”
“they’re with – – – – – – – – – – – –.”
“hell, he’s a pornie-man. if you go with me you’ll hit the universities, the best book stores. when those kinds find you out, it’s all over; they’re tired of that involute shit they’ve been getting for centuries. you’ll see; I can see bringing out all your back and unavailable stuff and selling it for a buck, or a buck and a half a copy and going into the millions.”
“aren’t you afraid that will make a prick out of me?”
“I mean, haven’t you always been a prick, especially when you’ve been drinking ... by the way, how’ve you been doing?”
“they say I grabbed a guy at Shelly’s by the lapels and shook him up a bit. but it could have been worse, you know.”
“how do you mean?”
“I mean, he could have grabbed me by the lapels and shook me up a bit. a matter of pride, you know.”
“listen, don’t die or get killed until we get you out in those buck and a half editions.”
“I’ll try not to, Marty.”
“how’s the ‘Penguin’ coming?”
“Stanges says January. I just got the page proofs. and a 50 pound advance which I blew on the horses.”
“can’t you stay away from the track?”
“you bastards never say anything when I win.”
“that’s right. well, let me know on the columns.”
“right. good night.”
“good night.”
Bukowski, the big-time writer; a statue of Bukowski in the Kremlin, jacking off; Bukowski and Castro, a statue in Havana in the sunlight covered with birdshit, Bukowski and Castro riding a tandem racing bike to victory – Bukowski in the rear seat; Bukowski bathing in a nest of orioles; Bukowski lashing a 19-year-old high-yellow with a tiger whip, a high-yellow with 38 inch busts, a high-yellow who reads Rimbaud; Bukowski kukoo in the walls of the world, wondering who shut off the luck ... Bukowski going for Judy Garland when it was too late for everybody.
then I remember the time and get back in the car. just off Wilshire Boulevard. there’s his name on the big sign. we once worked the same shit job. I am not too crazy about Wilshire blvd. but I am still a learner. I don’t block out anything. he’s half-colored, from a white mother, black father combo. we fell together on the shit job, something mutual. mostly not wanting to wade in shit forever, and although shit was a good teacher there were only so many lessons and then it could drown you and kill you forever.
I parked in back and beat on the back door. he said he’d wait late that night. it was 9:30 p.m. the door opened.
TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS. ten years. ten years. ten. ten fucking YEARS.
“Hank, you son of a bitch!”
“Jim, you lucky mother ...”
“come on up.”
I followed him in. jesus, so you don’t buy all that. but it’s nice especially with the secretaries and staff gone. I block nothing. he has 6 or 8 rooms. we go in to his desk. I rip out the two 6 packs of beers.
ten years.
he is 43. I am 48. I look at least 15 years older than he. and feel some shame. the sagging belly. the hang-dog air. the world has taken many hours and years from me with their very dull and routine tasks; it tells. I feel shame for my defeat; not his money, my defeat. the best revolutionary is a poor man; I am not even a revolutionary, I am only tired. what a bucket of shit was mine! mirror, mirror on the wall ...
he looked good in a light yellow sweater, relaxed and really happy to see me.
“I’ve been going through hell,” he said, “I haven’t talked to a real human being in months.”
“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 shit 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’t 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 motherfucking 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 (Saturday) 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 bitch 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 bitch!”
“Hank, baby!”
another colored (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, shit,” he says.
“what?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore where you’re at, you know, so I quit. man, 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 glass place. I’ve got on this open neck shirt with short sleeves and I notice people staring at me. well, hell, 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 hell’s this? I’m itching all over! my neck, my arms, everywhere!’ he tel
ls me, ‘it’s nothing, you’ll get used to it.’ but I notice he has on this scarf buttoned 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 buttoned but it’s still no good – this fucking glass is shiving off so fine you can’t see it and it’s all little glass arrows and it goes right through the clothing and into the skin. then I know why they make me wear the protective glasses 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 SHIT INTO MOLDS? they pour it like bacon-grease or gravy. Unbelievable! and hot! shit! I quit. man, how you doing?”
“that bitch 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.
“hello, baby.”
she goes into her purse, comes out, hits the button and she’s got a beautiful 6 inch swivel. I look at the bartender who looks blank-faced. the bitch says, “one step closer and you got no balls!”
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 motherfuckers 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 long dark corner and tell Luke to take a smoke. I hate seconds but when firsts haven’t been for a time and you are 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 Claus. Bukowski makes deformed figures out of typewriter erasers. when water drips, Bukowski cries. when Bukowski cries, water drips. o, sanctums of fountains, o scrotums, o fountaining scrotums, o man’s great ugliness everywhere like that fresh dogturd that the morning shoe did not see again; o, the mighty police, o the mighty weapons, o the mighty dictators, o the mighty damn 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 bums 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 Pussy, no Magic Wand, no Cinderella, no Great Minds Ever; kukoo – just shit and the whipping of dogs and children, just shit and the wiping away of shit; just doctors without patients just clouds without rain just days without days, o god 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.
A RAIN OF WOMEN
yesterday, which was Friday, was dark and rainy, and I kept saying, stay sober, man, don’t fall to pieces, and I walked out the door and out onto the landlord’s lawn and ducked just in time to avoid a football thrown by a future S.C. quarterback, 1975 – 1975?, and I thought, jesus, we are not too far from 1984 I remember when I read that book, I thought, well, 1984, that’s ten million miles to China, and here it was almost here, and I was almost dead, getting ready, chewing on the pulpy gig, getting ready to spit it out. dark and rainy – a death closet, a dark stinking death closet: Los Angeles, Calif., late afternoon, Friday, China 8 miles away, rice with eyes, vomiting dogs of mourning – dark and rainy, ah shit! – and I remembered when I was a kid, I thought, I’d like to live to see the year 2,000, I thought that would be the magic thing, with my old man beating hell out of me everyday I wanted to live to be 80 and see the year 2,000; now with everything beating hell out of me I no longer have that desire – it’s a day at a time, WAR, dark and rainy – stay sober, man, don’t fall to pieces, and I got into the car, used, me and it, and went up and made the 5th of 12 payments, and then I drove down Hollywood Blvd., west, the most depressive of all the streets, jammed glass nothing of nothing, it was the only street that really made me angry, and then I remembered I wanted Sunset which was just about as bad, and I turned south, everybody with their wipers going going going and behind that glass those FACES! – bah! – and I made Sunset, drove a block further west, found M. C. Slum’s, pulled up beside a red Chevy with a pale blonde in it and the pale blonde and I stared at each other listlessly and hatefully – I’d fuck her, I thought, on a desert with nobody around, and she looked at me and thought, I’d fuck him inside a dead volcano with nobody around, and I said “SHIT!”, started the engine, put it in reverse and drove on out of there, dark and rainy, no service, you could sit there for hours and nobody would ask you what you wanted, you’d just see a mechanic now and then, chewing gum, his head popping up out of the hole, oh what a wonderful person he was! – and if you asked him anything he’d get pissed – you were supposed to see the service manager but the service manager was always hiding somewhere – he was afraid of the mechanic too and didn’t want to put too much work on him. actually, the whole horrible answer was that NOBODY COULD DO ANYTHING – poets couldn’t write poetry, mechanics couldn’t fix cars, dentists couldn’t pull teeth, barbers couldn’t cut hair, surgeons fucked up with the knife, laundries ripped your shirts and sheets and lost your socks; bread and beans had little stones in them that broke the teeth; football players were cowards, telephone repairmen were molesters of children; and mayors, governors, generals, presidents had as much sense as slugs caught in spider webs. and on and on. dark and rainy, stay sober, don’t fall to pieces, I drove into the Bier’s garage lot and a big black bastard with a cigar ran up to me: “HEY! YOU! YOU THERE! YOU CAN’T PARK IN HERE!”
“listen, I know I can’t park in here! I just wanna see the service manager. are you the service manager?”
“NO! NO, MAN! I’M NOT THE SERVICE MANAGER! MAN, YOU CAN’T PARK IN HERE!”
“well, where is the service manager? in the men’s room playing with his pud?”
“YOU’VE GOT TO BACK ON OUT AND PARK IN THAT LOT THERE!”
I backed on out and parked in that lot there. I got out and walked over and stood by the little pulpit that said “Service Manager.” a woman drove in, a bit dizzy, big new car, door half open, car stalling, she looked wild, got out, car bucking, short short skirt, long grey stockings, her dress up around her hips climbing out the door, I stared at those legs, stupid bitch, what legs, umm, and she stood there stupid and dizzy and here CAME the service manager out of the men’s room, “CAN I HELP YOU, MAM? AH, WHAT’S THE TROUBLE? YOUR BATTERY? DEAD BATTERY?” and he ran off to get the jumper and he ran back with the battery on wheels, asked her how to unhook the hood, and I stood there as they played with the hood, me looking at her legs and ass, thinking, the stupid ones are the best lays because you hate them – they have the gift of flesh and the brains of a fly.
they finally got the hood up and he hooked the battery up to his battery and told her to start the car. she got it started on the 3rd or 4th try, then put it in drive and tried to run him over as he was unhooking the cables. she almost made it, but he was a little too good on his feet. “PUT YOUR BRAKE ON! LEAVE IT IN NEUT
RAL!” real stupid wench, I thought, wonder how many men she has killed? big earrings. red mouth like airmail stamps. intestines full of shit.
“O.K., NOW BACK IT UP AROUND THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING! WE’LL CHARGE IT FOR YOU!”
he ran along beside the car, sticking his head in the window and staring at her legs as she backed up. “AT’S RIGHT, AT’S RIGHT, BACK IT UP, BACK IT UP!”, looking, looking. she went around the corner and he stood there.
the service manager and I both had hard dicks. I came off from against the wall where I had been leaning. “HEY!”
“WHATZU?” he said.
“I NEED HELP!” I said walking up with my hard dick. he looked at me strangely.
“WHAT KINDA HELP?”
“rotation, realignment and balance.”
“HEY! HERITITO!”
a little Japanese ran up.
“rotation, realignment and balance,” I told Heritito.
“gimme your keys.”
I gave Heritito the keys. it didn’t bother me. I always carried 2 or 3 sets of keys. I was a neurotic.
“62 Comet,” I told him.
Heritito went toward the 62 Comet as the service manager went to the men’s room. I went back to the wall and watched the traffic go by; it was jammed and frightened and tired in the dark Los Angeles fizzling, drizzling rain, dark, 1984 20 years past already, the whole sick sweet society quite mad as a birthday cake given to the ants and the roaches, dark shit rain, Heritito ran my blue Comet, 5 of 12 payments up on the rack and my dick went down.
I saw him take off the wheels and went for a walk. I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being. I looked in the store windows and there was nothing in the store windows that I wanted at all. yet each thing had a price. a guitar. now what in the hell would I do with a guitar? I could burn it. a record player. a t.v. a radio. useless, useless. gut-junk. stuff to clog the mind-gut with. slug you like a red 6 ounce glove. pop. you had it.
Heritito was pretty good. a half hour later he had it down from the rack. parked.
“hey, that’s good, now where do I pay?”
“oh no, that was just the wheel balance and rotation. we got to put it on the alignment rack yet. there’s just one car ahead of you.”