Charles Bukowski

I went over the other day to pick up my daughter. her mother came out with workman’s overalls on. I gave her the child support money and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one Manfred Anderson. I read them. he’s great, she said. does he send this shit out? I asked. oh no, she said, Manfred wouldn’t do that. why? well, I don’t know exactly. listen, I said, you know all the poets who don’t send their shit out. the magazines aren’t ready for them, she said, they’re too far advanced for publication. oh for christ’s sake, I said, do you really believe that? yes, yes, I really believe that, she answered. look, I said, you don’t even have the kid ready yet. she doesn’t have her shoes on. can’t you put her shoes on? your daughter is 8 years old, she said, she can put her own shoes on. listen, I said to my daughter, for christ’s sake will you put your shoes on? Manfred never screams, said her mother. OH HOLY JESUS CHRIST! I yelled you see, you see? she said, you haven’t changed. what time is it? I asked. 4:30. Manfred did submit some poems once, she said, but they sent them back and he was terribly upset. you’ve got your shoes on, I said to my daughter, let’s go. her mother walked to the door with us. have a nice day, she said. fuck off, I said. when she closed the door there was a sign pasted to the outside. it said: SMILE. I didn’t. we drove down Pico on the way in. I stopped outside the Red Ox. I’ll be right back, I told my daughter. I walked in, sat down, and ordered a scotch and water. over the bar there was a little guy popping in and out of a door holding a very red, curved penis in his hand. can’t can’t you make him stop? I asked the barkeep. can’t you shut that thing off? what’s the matter with you, buddy? he asked. I submit my poems to the magazines, I said. you submit your poems to the magazines? he asked. you are god damned right I do, I said. I finished my drink and got back to the car. I drove down Pico Boulevard. the remainder of the day was bound to be better.

I had just won $115 from the headshakers and was naked upon my bed listening to an opera by one of the Italians and had just gotten rid of a very loose lady when there was a knock upon the wood, and since the cops had just raided a month or so ago, I screamed out rather on edge— who the hell is it? what you want, man? I’m your publisher! somebody screamed back, and I hollered, I don’t have a publisher, try the place next door, and he screamed back, you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you? and I got up and peeked through the iron grill to make sure it wasn’t a cop, and I placed a robe upon my nakedness, kicked a beercan out of the way and bade them enter, an editor and a poet. only one would drink a beer (the editor) so I drank two for the poet and one for myself and they sat there sweating and watching me and I sat there trying to explain that I wasn’t really a poet in the ordinary sense, I told them about the stockyards and the slaughterhouse and the racetracks and the conditions of some of our jails, and the editor suddenly pulled five magazines out of a portfolio and tossed them in between the beercans and we talked about Flowers of Evil, Rimbaud, Villon, and what some of the modern poets looked like: J.B. May and Wolf the Hedley are very immaculate, clean fingernails, etc.; I apologized for the beercans, my beard, and everything on the floor and pretty soon everybody was yawning and the editor suddenly stood up and I said, are you leaving? and then the editor and the poet were walking out the door, and then I thought well hell they might not have liked what they saw but I’m not selling beercans and Italian opera and torn stockings under the bed and dirty fingernails, I’m selling rhyme and life and line, and I walked over and cracked a new can of beer and I looked at the five magazines with my name on the cover and wondered what it meant, wondered if we are writing poetry or all huddling in one big tent clasping assholes.

the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat) and there was an ant circling the coffee cup; I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer, and outside I gave an old bum who looked about the way I felt, I gave him a quarter, and then I went up to see the old man strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes, up the green rotten steps that housed rats and past the secretaries showing leg and doing nothing and the old man sat there looking at me through two pairs of glasses and a vacation in Paris, and he said, Kid, I hear you been takin’ Marylou out, and I said, just to dinner, boss, and he said, just to dinner, eh? you couldn’t hold that broad’s pants on with all the rivets on 5th street, and please remember you are a shipping clerk, I am the boss here and I pay these broads and I pay you. yes, sir, I said, and I felt he was going to skip it but he slid my last check across the desk and I took it and walked out past all the lovely legs, the skirts pulled up to the ass, Marylou’s ass, Ann’s ass, Vicki’s ass, all of them, and I went down to the bar and George said whatya gonna do now, and I said go to Russia or Hollywood Park, and I looked up in time to see Marylou come in, the long thin nose, the delicate face, the lips, the legs, the breasts, the music, the talk the love the laughing and she said I quit when I found out and the bastard got down on his knees and cried and kissed the hem of my skirt and offered me money and I walked out and he blubbered like a baby. George, I said, another drink, and I put a quarter in the juke and the sun came out and I looked outside in time to see the old bum with my quarter and a little more luck that had turned into a happy wine-bottle, and a bird even flew by cheep cheep, right there on Eastside downtown, no kidding, and the Chinaman came in for a quickie claiming somebody had stolen a spoon and a coffee cup and I leaned over and bit Marylou on the ear and the whole joint rocked with music and freedom and I decided that Russia was too far away and Hollywood Park just close enough.

I suppose so. I was living in an attic in Philadelphia It became very hot in the summer and so I stayed in the bars. I didn’t have any money and so with what was almost left I put a small ad in the paper and said I was a writer looking for work . . . which was a god damned lie; I was a writer looking for a little time and a little food and some attic rent. a couple days later when I finally came home from somewhere the landlady said, there was somebody looking for you. and I said, there must be some mistake. she said, no, it was a writer and he said he wanted you to help him write a history book. oh, fine, I said, and I knew with that I had another week’s rent—I mean, on the cuff— so I sat around drinking wine on credit and watching the hot pigeons suffer and fuck on my hot roof. I turned the radio on real loud drank the wine and wondered how I could make a history book interesting but true. but the bastard never came back, and I had to finally sign on with a railroad track gang going West and they gave us cans of food but no openers and we broke the cans against the seats and sides of railroad cars a hundred years old with dust the food wasn’t cooked and the water tasted like candlewick and I leaped off into a clump of brush somewhere in Texas all green with nice-looking houses in the distance I found a park slept all night and then they found me and put me in a cell and they asked me about murders and robberies. they wanted to get a lot of stuff off the books to prove their efficiency but I wasn’t that tired and they drove me to the next big town fifty-seven miles away the big one kicked me in the ass and they drove off. but I lucked it: two weeks later I was sitting in the office of the city hall half-asleep in the sun like the big fly on my elbow and now and then she took me down to a meeting of the council and I listened very gravely as if I knew what was happening as if I knew how the funds of a halfass town were being dismantled. later I went to bed and woke up with teethmarks all over me, and I said, Christ, watch it, baby! you might give me cancer! and I’m rewriting the history of the Crimean War! and they all came to her house— all the cowboys, all the cowboys: fat, dull and covered with dust. and we all shook hands. I had on a pair of old bluejeans, and they said oh, you’re a writer, eh? and I said: well, some think so. and some still think so . . . others, of course, haven’t quite wised up yet. two weeks later they ran me out of town.

he lives in a house with a swimming pool and says the job is killing him. he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to get rid of him. his novels keep coming back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams “go to New York and pump the hands of the publishers?” “no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a small room and do the thing.” “but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to go by, some word, some sign!” “some men did not think that way: Van Gogh, Wagner—” “oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him paints whenever he needed them!” “look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and this guy walks in. a salesman. you know how they talk. drove up in this new car. talked about his vacation. said he went to Frisco—saw Fidelio up there but forgot who wrote it. now this guy is 54 years old. so I told him: ‘Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera.’ and then I told him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and you don’t know anything!’” “what happened then?” “I walked out.” “you mean you left him there with her?” “yes.” “I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and they think right away, ah ha! he’s too intelligent for this job, he won’t stay so there’s really no sense in hiring him. now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble: you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a job and they look at you and they think: ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire him he’ll stay a long time and work HARD!” “do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a writer, that you write poetry?” “no.” “you never talk about it. not even to me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d have never known.” “that’s right.” “still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a writer.” “I’d still like to tell them.” “why?” “well, they talk about you. they think you are just a horseplayer and a drunk.” “I am both of those.” “well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel alone. I’m the only friend you have.” “yes.” “they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell them you write poetry.” “leave it alone. I work here like they do. we’re all the same.” “well, I’d like to do it for myself then. I want them to know why I travel with you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—” “forget it.” “all right, I’ll respect your wishes. but there’s something else—” “what?” “I’ve been thinking about getting a piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a violin too but I can’t make up my mind!” “buy a piano.” “you think so?” “yes.” he walks away thinking about it. I was thinking about it too: I figure he can always come over with his violin and more sad music.

from my bed I watch 3 birds on a telephone wire. one flies off. then another. one is left, then it too is gone. my typewriter is tombstone still. and I am reduced to bird watching. just thought I'd let you know, fucker.

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me at the racetrack any day half drunk betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs, but let me tell you, there are some women there who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke dealing out so much breast and ass and the way it’s all hung together, you look and you look and you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women and then there is something else that wants to make you tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven across the back of the john; anyhow, the season was dragging and the big boys were getting busted, all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman, the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day: a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close; he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him. the driver broke him wide took him out by the fence where he’d be alone even if he had to travel four times as far, and that’s the way he went it all the way by the outer fence traveling two miles in one and he won like he was mad as hell and he wasn’t even tired, and the biggest blonde of all all ass and breast, hardly anything else went to the payoff window with me. that night I couldn’t destroy her although the springs shot sparks and they pounded on the walls. later she sat there in her slip drinking Old Grandad and she said what’s a guy like you doing living in a dump like this? and I said I’m a poet and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed. you? you . . . a poet? I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right. but still she looked good to me, she still looked good, and all thanks to an ugly horse who wrote this poem.