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I took the elevator down and out. And wrote that one off.
There was another one. His mother bought him his food, his car, his
insurance, his rent and even wrote some of his stuff. Unbelievable. And it
had gone on for decades.
There was another fellow, he always seemed very calm, well-fed. He
taught a poetry workshop at a church every Sunday afternoon. He had a nice
apartment. He was a member of the communist party. Let's call him Fred. I
asked an older lady who attended his workshop and admired him greatly,
"Listen, how does Fred make it?" "Oh," she said, "Fred doesn't want anybody
to know because he's very private that way but he makes his money by
scrubbing food trucks."
"Food trucks?"
"Yes, you know those wagons that go about dispensing coffee and
sandwiches at break time and lunch time at work places, well, Fred scrubs
those food trucks."
A couple of years went by and then it was discovered that Fred also
owned a couple of apartment houses and that he lived mainly off the rents.
When I found this out I got drunk one night and drove over to Fred's
apartment. It was located over a little theater. Very arty stuff. I jumped
out of my car and rang the bell. He wouldn't answer. I knew he was up there.
I had seen his shadow moving behind the curtains. I went back to my car and
started honking the horn and yelling, "Hey, Fred, come on out!" I threw a
beer bottle at one of his windows. It bounced off. That got him. He came out
on his little balcony and peered down at me. "Bukowski, go away!".
"Fred, come on down here and I'll kick your ass, you communist land
owner!"
He ran back inside. I stood there and waited for him. Nothing. Then I
got the idea that he was calling the police. I had seen enough of them. I
got into my car and drove back to my place.
Another poet lived in this house down by the waterfront. Nice house. He
never had a job. I kept after him, "How do you make it? How do you make it?"
Finally, he gave in. "My parents own property and I collect the rents for
them. They pay me a salary." He got a damned good salary, I imagine. Anyhow,
at least he told me.
Some never do. There was this other guy. He wrote fair poetry but very
little of it. He always had his nice apartment. Or he was going off to
Hawaii or somewhere. He was one of the most relaxed of them all. Always in
new and freshly pressed clothing, new shoes. Neved needed a shave, a
haircut, had bright flashing teeth. "Come on, baby, how do you make it?" he
never let on. He didn't even smile. He just stood there silently.
Then there's another type that lives on handouts. I wrote a poem about
one of them but never sent it out because I finally felt sorry for him. Here
is some of it jammed together:
Jack with the hair hanging, Jack demanding money, Jack of the big gut,
Jack of the loud, loud voice, Jack of the trade, Jack who prances before the
ladies, Jack who thinks he's a genius, Jack who pukes, Jack who badmounts
the lucky, Jack getting older and older, Jack still demanding money, Jack
sliding down the beanstalk, Jack who talks about it but doesn't do it, Jack
who gets away with murder, Jack who jacks, Jack who talks of the old days,
Jack who talks and talks, Jack with the hand out, Jack who terrorizes the
weak, Jack the embittered, Jack of the coffee shops, Jack screaming for
recognition, Jack who never has a job, Jack who totally overrates his
potential, Jack who keeps screaming about his unrecognized talent, Jack who
blames everbody else.
You know who Jack is, you saw him yesterday, you'll see him tomorrow,
you'll see him next week.
Wanting it without doing it, wanting it free.
Wanting fame, wanting women, wanting everything.
A world full of Jacks sliding down the beanstalk.
Now I'm tired of writing about poets. But I will add that they are
hurting themselves by living as poets instead of as something else. I worked
as a common laborer until I was 50. I was jammed in with the people. I never
claimed to be a poet. Now I am not saying that working for a living is a
grand thing. In most cases it is a horrible thing. And often you must fight
to keep a horrible job because there are 25 guys standing behind you ready
to take the same job. Of course, it's senseless, of course it flattens you
out. But being in that mess, I think, taught me to lay off the bullshit when
I did write. I think you have get your face in the mud now and then, I think
you have to know what a jail is, a hospital is. I think you have to know
what it feels like to go without food for 4 or 5 days. I think that living
with insane women is good for the backbone. I think you can write with joy
and release after you've been in he vise. I only say this because all the
poets I have met have been soft jellyfish, sycophants. They have nothing to
write about except their selfigh nonendurance.
Yes, I stay away from the POETS. Do you blame me?
3/16/92 12:53 AM
I have no idea what causes it. It's just there: a certain feeling for
writers of the past. And my feelings aren't even accurate, they are just
mine, almost entirely invented. I think of Sherwood Anderson, for instance,
as a little fellow, slightly slump-shouldered. he was probably straight and
tall. No matter. I see him my way. (I've never seen a photo of him.)
Dostoevsky I see as a bearded fellow on the heavy side with dark green
smoldering eyes. First he was too heavy, then too thin, the too heavy.
Nonsense, surely, but I like my nonsense. I even see Dostoevsky as a fellow
who lusted for little girls. Faulkner, I see in a rather dim light as a
crank and fellow with bad breath. Gorky, I see as a sneak drunk. Tolstoy as
a man who went into rages over nothing at all. I see Hemingway as a fellow
who practiced ballet behind closed doors. I see Celine as a fellow who had
problems sleeping. I see e.e. cumming as a great pool player. I couldn't go
on and on.
Mainly I had these visions when I was a starving writer, half-mad, and
unable to fit into society. I had very little food but had much time.
Whoever the writers were, they were magic to me. They opened door
differently. They needed a stiff drink upon awakening. Life was too god-
damned much for them. Each day was like walking in wet concrete. I made them
my heroes. I fed upon them. My ideas of them supported me in my nowhere.
Thinking about them was much better than reading them. Like D. H. Lawrence.
What a wicked little guy. He knew so much that it just kept him pissed-off
all the time. Lovely, lovely. And Aldous Huxley... brain power to spare. He
knew so much it gave him headaches.
I would stretch out on my starvation bed and think about these fellows.
Literature was so... Romantic. Yeah.
But the composers and painters were good too, alway going mad,
suiciding, doing strange and obnoxious things. Suicide seemed such a good
idea. I even tried it a few times myself, failed but came close, gave it
some good tries. Now here I am almost 72 years old. My heroes are long past
gone and I've had to live with others. Some of the new creators, some of the
newly famous. They aren't the same to me. I look at them, listen to them and
I think, is this all there is? I mean, they look comfortable... they
bitch... but they look COMFORTABLE. There's no wildness. The only ones who
seem wild are those who have failed as artists and believe that the failure
is the fault of outside forces. And they create badly, horribly.
I have nobody to focus on anymore. I can't even focus on myself. I used
to be in and out of jails, I used to break down doors, smash windows, drink
29 day a month. Now I sit in front of this computer with the radio on,
listening to classical music. I'm not even drinking tonight. I am pacing
myself. For what? Do I want to live to be 80, 90? I don't mind dying... but
not this year, all right?
I don't know, it just was different back then. He writers seemed more
like... writers. Things were done. The Black Sun Press. The Crosbys. And
damned if once I didn't cross back into that age. Caresse Crosby published
one of my stories in her Portfolio magazine along with Sartre, I think, and
Henry Miller and I think, maybe, Camus. I don't have the mag now. People
steal from me. They take my stuff when they drink with me. That's why more
and more I am alone. Anyhow, somebody else must also miss the Roaring 20's
and Gertrude Stein and Picasso... James Joyce, Lawrence and the gang.
To me it seems that we're not getting through like we used to. It's
like we've used up the options, it's like we can't do it anymore.
I sit here, light a cigarette, listen to the music. My health is good
and I hope that I am writing as well or better than ever. But everything
else I read seems so... practiced... it's like a well-learned style. Maybe
I've read too much, maybe I've read too long. Also, after decades and
decades of writing (and I've written a boat load) when I read another writer
I believe I can tell exactly when he's faking, the lies jump out, the slick
polish grates... I can guess what he next line will be, the next
paragraph... There's no flash, no dash, no change-taking. It's a job they've
learned, like fixing a leaky faucet.
It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if
it wasn't always there.
In my mind I saw Gorky in a Russian flophouse asking for tobacco from
the fellow next to him. I saw Robinson Jeffers talking to a horse. I saw
Faulkner starting at the last drink in the bottle. Of course, of course, it
was foolish. Young is foolish and old is the fool.
I've had to adjust. But for all of us, even now, the next line is
always there and it may be the line that finally breaks through, finally
says it. We can sleep on that during the slow nights and hope for the best.
We're probably as good now as those bastards back then were. And some
of the young are thinking of me as I thought of them. I know, I get letters.
I read them and throw them away. These are the towering Nineties. There's
the next line. And the line after that. Until there are no more.
Yeah. One more cigarete. Then I think I'll take a bath and go to sleep.
4/16/92 12:39 AM
Bad day at the track. On the drive in, I always mull over which system
I am going to use. I must have 6 or 7. And I certainly picked the wrong one.
Still, I will never lose my ass and my mind at the track. I just don't bet
that much. Years of poverty have made me wary. Even my winning days are
hardly stupendous. Yet, I'd rather be right than wrong, especially when you
give up hours of your life. One can feel time actually being murdered out
there. Today, they were approaching the gate for the 2nd race. There were
still 3 minutes to go and the horses and riders were slowly approaching. For
some reason, ti seemed an agonizingly long time for me. When you're in your
70's it hurts more to have somebody pissing on your time. Of course, I know,
I had put myself into a position to be pissed upon.
I used to go to the night greyhound races in Arizona. Now, they knew
what they were doing there. Just turn your back to get a drink and there was
another race going off. No 30 minute waiting periods. Zip, zip, they ran
them one after the other. It was refreshing. The night air was cold and the
action was continuous. You didn't believe that somebody was trying to saw
off your balls between races. And after it was all over, you weren't worn
down. You could drink the remainder of the night and fight with your
girlfriend.
But at the horse races it's hell. I stay isolated. I don't talk to
anybody. That helps. Well, the mutuel clerks know me. I've got to go to the
windows, use my voice. Over the years, they get to know you. And most of
them are fairly decent people. I think that their years of dealing with
humanity has given them certain insights. For instance, they know that most
of the human race is one large piece of crap. Still, I also keep my distance
from the mutuel clerks. By keeping counsel with myself, I get an edge. I
could stay home and do this. I could lock the door and fiddle with paints or
something. But somehow, I've got to get out, and make sure that almost all
humanity is still a large piece of crap. As if they would change! Hey, baby,
I've got to be crazy. Yet there is something out there, I mean, I don't
think about dying out there, for example, you feel too stupid being out
there to be able to think. I've taken a notebook, thought, well, I'll write
a few things between races. Impossible. The air is flat and heavy, we are
all voluntary members of a concentration camp. When I get home, then I can
muse about dying. Just a little. Not too much. I don't worry about dying or
feel sorry about dying. It just seems like a lousy job. When? Next Wednesday
night? Or when I'm asleep? Or because of the next horrible hangover? Traffic
accident? It's a load, it's something that's got to be done. And I'm going
out without the God-belief. That'll be good, I can face it head on. It's
something you have to do like putting your shoes on in the morning. I think
I'm going to miss writing. Writing is better than drinking. And writing
while you're drinking, that's always made the walls dance. Maybe there's a
hell, what? All the poets will be there reading their works and I will have
to listen. I will be drowned in their peening vanity, their overflowing self-
esteem. If there is a hell, that will be my hell: poet after poet reading on
and on...
Anyway, a particularly bad day. This system that usually worked didn't
work. The gods shuffle the deck. Time is mutilated and you are a fool. But
time is made to be wasted. What are you going to do about it? You can't
always be roaring full steam. You stop and you go. You hit a high and then
you fall into a black pit. do you have a cat? Or cats? They sleep, baby.
They can sleep 2% hours a day and they look beautiful They know that there's
nothing to get excited about. The next meal. And a little something to kill
now and then. When I'm being torn by the forces, I just look at one or more
of my cats. There are 9 of them. I just look at one of them sleeping or half-
sleeping and I relax. Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it. It
chills me out. For a while anyhow. Then my wires get crossed and I have to
do it all over again. I can't understand writers who decide to stop writing.
How do they chill out?
Well, the track was dull and deathly out there today but here I am back
home and I'll be there tomorrow, most probably. How do I manage it?
Some of it is the power of routine, a power that holds most of us. A
place to go, a thing to do. We are trained from th beginning. Move out, get
into it. Maybe there's something interesting out there? What an ignorant
dream. It's like when I used to pick up women in bars. I'd think, maybe this
is the one. Another routine. Yet, even during the sex act, I'd think, this
is another routine. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I felt ridiculous but
I went ahead anyhow. What else could I do? Well, I should have crawled off
and said, "Look, baby, we are being very foolish here. We are just tools of
nature."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, baby, you ever watched two flies fucking or something like
that?"
"YOU'RE CRAZY! I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE!"
We can't examine ourselves too closely or we'll stop living, stop doing
everything. Like the wise men who just sit on a rock and don't move. I don't
know if that's so wise either. They discard the obvious but something makes
them discard it. In a sense, they are one-fly-fucking. There's no escape,
action or inaction. We just have to write ourselves off as a loss: any move
on the on the board leads to checkmate.
So, it was a bad day at the track today, I got a bad taste in the mouth
of my soul. But I'll go tomorrow. I'm afraid not to. Because when I get back
the words crawling across this computer screen really fascinate my weary
ass. I leave it so that I can come back to it. Of course, of course. That's
it. Isn't it?
6/26/92 12:34 AM
I have probably written more and better in the past 2 years than at any
time in my life. It's as if from over 5 decades of doing it, I might have
gotten close to really doing it. Yet, in the past 2 months I have begun to
feel a weariness. The weariness is mostly physical, yet it's also a touch
spiritual. It could be that I am ready to go into decline. It's a horrible
thought, of course, The ideal was to continue until the moment of my death,
not to fade away. In 1989 I overcame TB. This year it has been an eye
operation that has not as yet worked out. And a painful right let, ankle,
foot. Small things. Bits of skin cancer. Death nipping at my heels, letting
me know. I'm and old fart, that's all. Well, I couldn't drink myself to
death. I came close but I didn't. Now I deserve to live with what is left.
So, I haven't written for 3 nights. Should I go mad? Even at my lowest
times I can feel the words bubbling inside of me, getting ready. I am not in
a contest. I never wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the word down the
way I wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the words down or be overcome
by something worse than death. Words not as precious things but as necessary
things.
Yet when I begin to doubt my ability to work the word I simply read
another writer and then I know that I have nothing to worry about. My
contest is only with myself: to do it right, with power and force and
delight and gamble. Otherwise, forget it.
I have been wise enough to remain isolated. Visitors to this house are
rare. My 9 cats run like mad when a human arrives. And my wife, too, is
getting to be more and more like me. I don't want this for her. It's natural
for me. But for Linda, no. I'm glad when she takes the car and goes off to
some gathering. After all, I have my go-damned racetrack. I can always write
about the racetrack, that great empty hole of nowhere. I go there to
sacrifice myself, to mutilate the hours, to murder them. The hours must be
killed. While you are waiting. The perfect hours must be killed. While you
are waiting. The perfect hours are the ones at this machine. But you must
have impefect hours to get perfect hours. You must kill ten hours to make
two hours live. What you must be careful of is not to kill ALL the hours,
ALL the years.
You fix yourself up to be a writer by doing the instinctive things
which feed you and the word, which protect you against death in life. For
each, it changes. Once for me it meant very heavy drinking, drinking to the
point of madness. It sharpened the word for me, brought it out. And I needed
danger. I needed to put myself into dangerous situations. With men. With
women. With automobiles. With gambling. With starvation. With anything. It
fed the word. I had decades of that. Now it has changed. What I need now is
more subtle, more invisible. It's a feeling in the air. Words spoken, words
heard. Things seen. I still need a few drinks. But I am now into nuances and
shadows. I am fed words by things that I am hardly aware of. This is good. I
write a different kind of crap now. Some have noticed.
"You have broken through," is mainly what they tell me.
I am aware of what they sense. I feel it too. The words have gotten
simpler yet warmer, darker. I am being fed from new sources. Being near
death is energizing. I have all the advantages. I can see and feel things
that are hidden from the young. I have gone from the power of youth to the
power of age. There will be no decline. Uh uh. Now, pardon me, I must got to
be, it's 12:55 a.m. Talking the night off. Have your laugh while you can...
8/24/92 12:28 AM
Well, I've been 72 years old for 8 days and nights now and I'll never
be able to say that again.
It's been a bad couple of months. Weary. Physically and spiritually.
Death means nothing. It's walking around with your ass dragging, it's when
the words don't come flying form the machine, there's the gyp.
Now in my lower lip and under the lower lip, there is a large
puffiness. And I have no energy. I didn't go to the track today. I just
stayed in bed. Tired, tired. The Sunday crowds at the track are the worst. I
have problems with the human face. I find it very difficult to look at. I
find the sum total of each person's life written there and it is a horrible
sight. When one sees thousands of faces in one day, it's tiring from the top
of the head to the toes. And all through the gut. Sundays are so crowded.
It's amateur day. They scream and curse. They rage. Then they go limp and
leave, broke. What did they expect?
I had a cataract operation on my right eye a few months ago. The
operation was not nearly as simple as the misinformation I gathered from
people who claimed to have had eye operations. I heard my wife talking to
ther mother on the telephone: "You say it was over in a few minutes? And
that you drove your car home afterwards?" Another old guy told me, "Oh it's
nothing, it's over in a flash and you just go about your business as
normal." Others spoke about the operation in an off-hand manner. It was a
walk in the park. Now, I didn't ask for any of these people for information
about the operation, they just came out with it. And after a while, I began
to believe it. Although I still wonder how a thing as delicate as the eye
could be treated more or less like cutting a toenail. On my first visit to
the doctor, he examined the eye and said that I needed an operation. "O.k.,"
I said, "let's do it." "What?" he asked. "Let's do it now. Let's rock and
roll!" "Wait," he said, "first we must make an appointment with a hospital.
Then there are other preparations. First, we want to show you a movie about
the operation. It's only about 15 minutes long." "The operation?" "No, the
movies." What happens is that they take out the complete lens of the eye and
replace it with an artifical lens. The lens is stitched in and the eye must
adjust and recover. After about 3 weeks the stitches are removed. It's no
walk in the park and the operation takes much longer than "a couple of
minutes." Anyhow, after it was all over, my wife's mother said it was
probably an after-operational procedure she was thinking of. And the old
guy? I asked him, "How long did it take for your sight to really get better
after your eye operation?" "I'm not so sure I had an operation," he said.
Maybe I got this fat lip from drinking from the cat's water bowl? I feel a
little better tonight. Six days a week at the racetrack can burn anybody
out. Try is some time. Then come in and work on your novel. Or maybe death
is giving me some signs? The other day I was thinking about the world
without me. There is the world going on doing what it does. And I'm not
there. Very odd. Think of the garbage truck coming by and picking up the
garbage and I'm not there. Or the newspaper sits in the drive and I'm not
there to pick it up. Impossible. And worse, some time after I'm dead, I'm
going to be truly discovered. All those who were afraid of me or hated me
when I was alive will suddenly embrace me. My words will be everywhere.
Clubs and societies will be formed. It will be sickening. A movie will be
made of my life. I will be made a much more courageous and talented man tahn
I am. Much more. It will be enough to make the gods puke. The human race
exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. The
fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better.
The night is cooling off. Maybe I'll pay the gas bill. I remember in south
central L.A. they shot a lady named Love for not paying her gas bill. The
co. wanted to shut it off. Forget what with. Maybe a shovel. Cops came.
Don't remember how it worked. Think she reached for something in her apron.
They shot and killed her. All right, all right, I'll pay the gas bill. I
worry about my novel. It's about a detective. But I keep getting him into
these almost impossible situations and then I have to work him out. I
sometimes think about how to get him out while I'm at the racetrack. And I
know that my editor- publisher is curious. Maybe he thinks the work isn't
literary. I say that anything I do is literary even if I try not to make it
literary. He should trust me by now. Well, if he doesn't want it, I'll
unload it elsewhere. It will sell as well as anything I've written, not
because it's better but because it's just as good and my crazy readers are
ready for it. Look, maybe a good night's sleep tonight and I'll wake up in
the morning without this fat lip. Can you imagine me leaning toward the
teller with this big lip and saying, "20 win on the 6 horse?" Sure. I know.
He wouldn't have even noticed. My wife asked me, "Didn't you always have
that?" Jesus Christ. Do you know that cats sleep 20 hours out of 24? No
wonder they look better than I.
8/28/92 12:40 AM
There are thousands of traps in life and most of us fall into many of
them. The idea though, is to stay out of as many of them as possible. Doing
so helps you remain as alive as you might until you die...
The letter arrived from the offices of one of the network television
stations. It was quite simple, stating that this fellow, let's call him Joe
Singer, wants to come by. To talk about certain possibilities. On page 1 of
the letter were stuck 2 one hundred dollar bills. On page 2 there was
another hundred. I was on the way to the racetrack. I found that the hundred
dollar bills peeled off of the pages nicely without damage. There was a
phone number. I decided to call Joe Singer that night after the races.
Which I did. Joe was casual, easy. The idea, he said, was to create a
series for tv based on a writer like myself. An old guy who was still
writing, drinking, playing the horses.
"Why don't we get together and talk about it?" he asked.
"You'll have to come here," I said, "at night."
"O.k.," he said, "when?"
"Night after next."
"Fine. You know who I want to get to play you?"
"Who?"
He mentioned an actor, let's call him Harry Dane. I always liked Harry
Dane.
"Great," I said, "and thanks for the 300."
"We wanted to get your attention."
"You did."
Well, the night came around and there was Joe Singer. He seemed
likeable enough, intelligent, easy. We drank and talked, about horses and
various things. Not much about the television series. Linda, my wife, was
with us.
"But tell us more about the series," she said.
"It's all right, Linda," I said, "we're just relaxing..."
I felt Joe Singer had more or less come by to see if I was crazy or
not.
"All right," he said reaching into his briefcase, "here's a rough
idea..."
He handed me 4 or 5 sheets of paper. It was mostly a description of the
main character and I thought they had gotten me down fairly well. The old
writer lived with this young girl just out of college, she did all his dirty
work, lined up his readings and stuff like that.
"The station wanted this young girl in there, you know," said Joe.
"Yeah," I said.
Linda didn't say anything.
"Well," said Joe, "you look this over again. There are also some ideas,
plot ideas, each episode will have a diferent slant, you know, but it will
all be based on your character."
"Yeah," I said. But I was beginning to get a bit apprehensive.
We drank another couple of hours. I don't remember much abou the
conversation. Small talk. And the night ended...
The next day after the track I turned to the page about the episode
ideas. 1. Hank's craving for a lobster dinner is thwarted by animal rights
activists. 2. Secretary ruins Hank's chances with a poetry groupie. 3. To
honor Hemingway, Hank bangs a broad named Millie whose husband, a jockey,
wants to pay Hank to keep banging. There must be a catch. 4. Hank allows a
young male artist to paint his portrait and is painted into a corner into
revealing his own homosexual experience. 5. A friend of Hank's wants him to
invest in his latest scheme. An industrial use for recycled vomit. I got Joe
on the phone.
"Jesus, man, what's about a homosexual experience? I haven't had any."
"Well, we don't have to use that one." "Let's not. Listen, I'll talk to you
later, Joe." I hung up. Things were getting strange. I phoned Harry Dane,
the actor. He'd been over to the place two or three times. He had this great
weatherbeaten face and he talked straight. He had few affectations. I liked
him. "Harry," I said, "there's this tv outfit, channel -- they want to do a
series based on me and they want you to play me. You heard from them?" "No."
"I thought I might get you and this guy together and see what happens."
"Channel what?" I told him the channel. "But that's commercial tv,
censorship, commercials, laugh tracks." "This guy Joe Singer claims they
have a lot of freedom with what they can do." "It's censorship, you can't
offend the advertisers." "What I like most is that he wanted you for the
lead. Why don't you come to my place and meet him?" "I like your writing,
Hank, if we could get, say, HBO maybe we could do it right." "Well, yeah.
But why don't you come over, see what he has to say? I haven't seen you for
a while." "That's right. Well, I'll come but it will mainly to see you and
Linda."
"Fine. How about the night after next? I'll set it up." "O.k.," he
said. I phoned Joe Singer. "Joe. Night after next, 9 p.m. I've got Harry
Dane coming over."
"O.k., great. We can send a limo for him."
"Would he be alone in the limo?"
"Maybe. Or maybe some of our people would be in it."
"Well, I don't know. Let me call you back..."
"Harry, they are trying to suck you in, they want to send a limo for
you."
"Would it be just for me?"
"He wasn't sure."
"Can I have his phone number?"
"Sure."
And that was it.
When I came in after the track the next day Linda said, "Harry Dane
phoned. We talked about the tv thing. He asked if we needed money. I told
him we didn't."
"Is he still coming by?"
"Yes."
I came in a little early from the track the following day. I decided to
hit the Jacuzzi. Linda was out, probably buying libations for the meeting.
I, myself, was getting a little scared about the tv series. They could
really fuck me over. Old writer does this. Old writer does that. Laugh
track. Old writer gets drunk, misses poetry meeting. Well, that wouldn't be
so bad. But I wouldn't want to write he crap, so writing wouldn't be that
good. Here I had written for decades in small rooms, sleeping on park
benches, sitting in bars, working all the stupid jobs, meanwhile writing
exactly as I wanted to and felt I had to. My work was finally getting
recognized. And I was still writing the way I wanted to and felt that I had
to. I was still writing to keep from going crazy, I was still writing,
trying to explain this god-damned life to myself. And here I was being
talked into a tv series on commecial tv. All I had fought so hard for could
be laughed off the boards by some sitcom series with a laugh track. Jesus,
Jesus.
I got undressed and stepped outside to the Jacuzzi. I was thinking
about the tv series, my past life, now and everything else. I wasn't too
aware. I stepped into the Jacuzzi at the wrong end.
I realized it the moment I stepped in. There weren't any steps at that
end. It happened quickly. There was a small platform further in built to sit
on. My right foot caught that, slipped off, and I was thrown off balance.
You're going to hit your head against the edge of the Jacuzzi, went
through my mind.
I concetrated on pushing my head forward as I fell, letting all the
rest go to hell. My right leg took the brunt of the fall, I twisted it but
managed to keep my head from hitting the edge. Then I just floated in the
bubbling water feeling the shots of pain in my right leg. I'd ben having leg
pains there anyhow, now it was really torn up. I felt foolish about it all.
I could have knocked myself out. I could have drowned. Linda would have come
back to find me floating and dead.
FAMOUS WRITER, FORMER SKID ROW POET AND DRUNK
FOUND DEAD IN HIS JACUZZI. HE HAD JUST SIGNED
CONTRACT FOR A SITCOM BASED UPON HIS LIFE.
That's not even a ignoble ending. That is just being shit on entirely
by the gods.
I managed to get out of Jacuzzi and make my way into the house. I could
barely walk. Each step on the right leg brought a mighty pain up the let
from the ankle to the knee. I hobbled toward the refrigerator and pulled out
a beer...
Harry Dane arrived first. He had come in his own car. We brought out
the wine and I began pouring them. By the time Joe Singer arrived, we'd had
a few. I made the introductions. Joe laid out the general format for the
proposed series for Harry. Harry was smoking, and drinking his wine pretty
fast.
"Yeah, yeah," he said, "but a sound track? And Hank and I would have to
have total control over the material. Then, I don't know. There's
censorship..."
"Censorship? What censorship?" asked Joe.
"Sponsors, you have to please the sponsors. There's a limit on how far
you can go with material."
"We'll have total freedom," said Joe.
"You can't have," said Harry.
"Laugh tracs are awful," said Linda.
"Yeah," I said.
"Then too," said Harry, "I've been in a tv series. It's a drag, it
takes hours and hours a day, it's worse that shooting a movie. It's a hard
work."
Joe didn't answer.
We all went on drinking. A couple of hours passed. The same thing
seemed to be said over and over again. Harry saying maybe we should go to
HBO. And that laugh tracks were awful. And Joe saying that everything would
be all right, that there was plenty of freedom on commercial tv, that times
had changed. It was really boring, really awful. Harry was really pouring
down the wine. Then he got into what was wrong with the world and the main
causes of it. He had a certain line he repeated quite often. It was a good
line. Unfortunately, it was so good that I have forgotten it. But Harry went
on.
All of a sudden Joe singer leaped up. "Well, damn it, you guys have
made a lot of lousy movies! Tv has done some good things! Everything we do
isn't rotten! You guys keep on turning out crappy movies!"
Then he into the bathroom.
Harry looked at me and grinned. "Hey, he got mad, didn't he?"
"Yeah, Harry."
I poured some more wine. We sat and waited. Joe Singer stayed in the
bathroom a long time. When he came out, Harry stood there talking to him. I
couldn't hear what was being said. I think Harry felt sorry for him. It
wasn't long after that, Singer started gathering his stuff into his
briefcase. He walked to the door, then looked back at me, "I'll phone you,"
he said.
"O.k., Joe"
Then he was gone.
Linda, I and Harry kept on drinking. Harry went on with what was wrong
with the world, repeating his good line which I can't remember. We didn't
talk too much about the proposed tv series. When Harry left we worried about
his driving. We said he could stay. He declined. He said he could make it.
Luckily, he did.
Joe Singer phoned the next evening.
"Listen, we don't need that guy. He doesn't want to work. We can get
somebody else."
"But, Joe, one of the main reasons I was interested at first was
because of the possibility of Harry Dane."
"We can get somebody else. I'll write you, I'll send you a list, I'm
going to work on it."
"I don't know, Joe..."
"I'll write you. And listen, I talked to the people and they said,
o.k., no laugh track. And they even said it would be o.k. to go to HBO. That
surprised me because I work for them, I don't work for HBO. Anyhow, I'll
send you a list of actors...
"All right, Joe..."
I was stuck in the web. Now I wanted out but I didn't quite know how to
tell him. It surprised me, I was usually very good at getting rid of people.
I felt guilty because he had probably put in a lot of work on the thing.
And, originally, in the first flush of things, the idea of a series based
mostly upon myself had probably appealed to my vanity. But now it didn't
seem like a good thing. I felt crappy about the whole thing.
A couple of days later the photos of the actors arrived, a mass of
them, and the preferred ones were circled. The agent's phone number was by
each actor's photo. I was sickened by looking at those faces, most of them
smiling. The faces were bland, empty, very Hollywood, quite quite
horrifying.
Along with the photos was a short note:
"... going on a 3 week vacation. When I get back I am really going to
kick this thing into gear..."
The faces did it to me. I couldn't handle it any longer. I sat down and
let go at the computers.
"...I've really been thinking about your project(s) and, frankly, I
can't do it. It would mean the end of my life as I have lived it and have
wanted to live it. It's just too big an intrusion into my existence. It
would make me very unhappy, depressed. This feeling has been gradually
coming over me but I just didn't quite know how to explain it to you. When
you and harry Dane had a falling out the other night, I felt great, I felt,
now, it's over. But you bounce right back with a new list of actors. I want
out, that sense grew stronger and stronger as things went along. Nothing
against you, you are an intellingetn young man who wants to pump some fresh
blood into the tv scene -- but let it not be mine. You may not undestand my
concern but, believe me, it's real, damned real. I should be honored that
you want to display my life to the masses but, really, I am more than
terrorized by the thought, I feel as if my very life were being threatened.
I have to get out. I haven't been able to sleep nights, I haven't been able
to think, I haven't been able to do anything.
Please, no phone calls, no letters. Nothing can change this.
The next day on the way to the racetrack I dropped the letter into the
mailbox. I felt reborn. I might still have to fight some more to get free.
But I'd go to court. Anything. Somehow, I felt sorry for Joe Singer. But,
damn it all, I was free again.
On the freeway I turned on the radion and lucked onto some Mozart. Life
could be good at times but sometimes some of that was up to us.
8/30/92 1:30 AM
Was going down the scalator at the track after the 6th race when the
waiter saw me. "You going home now?" he asked?
"I wouldn't do that to you, amigo," I told him.
The poor fellow had to bring the food from the track kitchen to the
upper floors, carrying huge amounts of trays. When their clients ran out on
them they had to pay the tab. Some of the players sat four to a table. The
waiters could work all day and still owe the track money. And the crowded
days were the worst, the waiters couldn't watch everybody. And when they did
get paid the horseplayers tipped badly.
I went down to the first floor and stepped outside, stood in the sun.
It was great out there. Maybe I'd just come to the track and stand in the
sun. I seldom thought about writing out there but I did then. I thought
about something that I had recently read, that I was probably the best
selling poet in America and the most influential, the most copied. How
strange. Well, to hell with that. All that counted was the next time I sat
down to the computer. If I could still do it, I was alive, if I coulnd't,
everything that preceded meant little to me. But what was I doing, thinking
about writing? I was cracking. I didn't even think about writing when I was
writing. Then I heard the call to post, turned around, walked in and got
back on the escalator. Going up, I passed a man who owed me money. He ducked
his head down. I pretended not to see him. It didn't do any good after he'd
paid me, he only borrowed it back. And old guy had come up to me earlier
that day: "Gimme 60 cents!" That gave him enough for a two buck bet, one
more chance to dream. It was a sad god-damned place but almost every place
was. There was no place to go. Well, there was, you could go to your room
and close the door but then your wife got depressed. Or more depressed.
America was the Land of Depressed Wives. And it was the fault of the men.
Sure. Who else was around? You couldn't blame the birds, the dogs, the cats,
the worms, the mice, the spiders, the fish, the etc. It was the men. And the
men couldn't allow themselves to get depressed or else the whole ship would
go down. Well, hell.
I was back at my table. Three men had the next table and they had a
little boy with them. Each table had a small tv set, only theirs was turned
on LOUD. The kid had it on some sitcom and that was nice of the men to the
kid look a his program. But he wasn't paying any attention to it, he wasn't
listening, he was sitting there pushing around a rolled-up piece of paper.
He bounced it against some cups, then he took it and tossed it into this cup
and that. Some of the cups were filled with coffee. But the men just went on
talking about the horses. My god, that tv was LOUD. I thought of saying
something to the men, asking them to lower the tv a bit. But the men were
black and they'd think I was racist. I left my table and walked out to the
betting windows. I was unlucky, I got in a slow line. There was an old guy
up front having trouble making his bets. He had his Form spread out across
the window, along with his programm and he was very hesitant about what he
wanted to do. He probably lived in an old folks home or and institution of
some sort but he was out or a day at the races. Well, no law against that
and no law against him being in a fog. But somehow it hurt. Jesus, I don't
have to suffer this, I thought. I had memorized the back of his head, his
ears, his clothing, the bent back. The horses were nearing the gate.
Everybody was screaming at him. He didn't notice them. Then, painfully, we
watched as he slowly reached for his wallet. Slow, slow motion. He opened it
and peered into it. Then he poked his fingers in there. I don't even want to
go on. He finally paid and the clerk slowly handed him back his money. Then
he stood there looking at his money and his tickets, then he turned back to
the clerk and said, "No, I wanted the 6-4 exacta, not this..." Somebody
yelled out an obscenity. I walked off. The horses leaped out of the gate and
I walked to the men's room to piss.
When I came back the waiter had my bill ready. I paid, tipped 20% and
thanked him.
"See you tomorrow, amigo," he said.
"Maybe," I said.
"You'll be here," he said.
The other races ground on. I bet early on the 9th and left. I left ten
minutes before post. I got to my car and moved out. At the end of parking on
Century Boulevard by the signal there was an ambulance, a fire engine and
two police cars. Two cars had hit head-on. There was glass everywhere, the
cars were really mangled. Somebody had been in a hurry to get in and
somebody had been in a hurry to get out. Horseplayers.
I moved around the crash and took a left on Century.
Just another day shot through the head and buried. It was Saturday
afternoon in hell. I drove along with the others.
9/15/92 1:06 AM
Talk about a writer's block. I believe I was bitten by a spider. Three
times. Noticed these 3 large red welts on my left arm the night of 9-08-92.
Around 9 p.m. There was a slight pain to the touch. I decided to ignore it.
But after 15 minutes I showed the marks to Linda. She had been to an
emergency room earlier in the day. Something had left a stinger in her back.
Now it was after 9 p.m., everything was closed except the Emergency Ward of
the local hospital. I had been there before: I had fallen into a hot
fireplace while drunk. I had not fallen into the fire directly but had
fallen upon the hot surface while only wearing my shorts. Now, it was this.
These welts.
"I think I'd feel like a fool going in there with just these welts.
There are people in there bloodied from car crashes, knifings, shootings,
attempted suicides, and all I have are 3 red welts.
"I don't want to wake up with a dead husband in the morning," Lidna
said.
I thought about it for 15 minutes, then said, "All right, let's go in."
It was quiet in there. The lady at the desk was on the telephone. She
was on the telephone for some time. Then she was finished.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I think I've been bitten by something," I said. "Maybe I should be
looked at."
I gave her my name. I was in the computer. Last visit: TB time.
There was another one. His mother bought him his food, his car, his
insurance, his rent and even wrote some of his stuff. Unbelievable. And it
had gone on for decades.
There was another fellow, he always seemed very calm, well-fed. He
taught a poetry workshop at a church every Sunday afternoon. He had a nice
apartment. He was a member of the communist party. Let's call him Fred. I
asked an older lady who attended his workshop and admired him greatly,
"Listen, how does Fred make it?" "Oh," she said, "Fred doesn't want anybody
to know because he's very private that way but he makes his money by
scrubbing food trucks."
"Food trucks?"
"Yes, you know those wagons that go about dispensing coffee and
sandwiches at break time and lunch time at work places, well, Fred scrubs
those food trucks."
A couple of years went by and then it was discovered that Fred also
owned a couple of apartment houses and that he lived mainly off the rents.
When I found this out I got drunk one night and drove over to Fred's
apartment. It was located over a little theater. Very arty stuff. I jumped
out of my car and rang the bell. He wouldn't answer. I knew he was up there.
I had seen his shadow moving behind the curtains. I went back to my car and
started honking the horn and yelling, "Hey, Fred, come on out!" I threw a
beer bottle at one of his windows. It bounced off. That got him. He came out
on his little balcony and peered down at me. "Bukowski, go away!".
"Fred, come on down here and I'll kick your ass, you communist land
owner!"
He ran back inside. I stood there and waited for him. Nothing. Then I
got the idea that he was calling the police. I had seen enough of them. I
got into my car and drove back to my place.
Another poet lived in this house down by the waterfront. Nice house. He
never had a job. I kept after him, "How do you make it? How do you make it?"
Finally, he gave in. "My parents own property and I collect the rents for
them. They pay me a salary." He got a damned good salary, I imagine. Anyhow,
at least he told me.
Some never do. There was this other guy. He wrote fair poetry but very
little of it. He always had his nice apartment. Or he was going off to
Hawaii or somewhere. He was one of the most relaxed of them all. Always in
new and freshly pressed clothing, new shoes. Neved needed a shave, a
haircut, had bright flashing teeth. "Come on, baby, how do you make it?" he
never let on. He didn't even smile. He just stood there silently.
Then there's another type that lives on handouts. I wrote a poem about
one of them but never sent it out because I finally felt sorry for him. Here
is some of it jammed together:
Jack with the hair hanging, Jack demanding money, Jack of the big gut,
Jack of the loud, loud voice, Jack of the trade, Jack who prances before the
ladies, Jack who thinks he's a genius, Jack who pukes, Jack who badmounts
the lucky, Jack getting older and older, Jack still demanding money, Jack
sliding down the beanstalk, Jack who talks about it but doesn't do it, Jack
who gets away with murder, Jack who jacks, Jack who talks of the old days,
Jack who talks and talks, Jack with the hand out, Jack who terrorizes the
weak, Jack the embittered, Jack of the coffee shops, Jack screaming for
recognition, Jack who never has a job, Jack who totally overrates his
potential, Jack who keeps screaming about his unrecognized talent, Jack who
blames everbody else.
You know who Jack is, you saw him yesterday, you'll see him tomorrow,
you'll see him next week.
Wanting it without doing it, wanting it free.
Wanting fame, wanting women, wanting everything.
A world full of Jacks sliding down the beanstalk.
Now I'm tired of writing about poets. But I will add that they are
hurting themselves by living as poets instead of as something else. I worked
as a common laborer until I was 50. I was jammed in with the people. I never
claimed to be a poet. Now I am not saying that working for a living is a
grand thing. In most cases it is a horrible thing. And often you must fight
to keep a horrible job because there are 25 guys standing behind you ready
to take the same job. Of course, it's senseless, of course it flattens you
out. But being in that mess, I think, taught me to lay off the bullshit when
I did write. I think you have get your face in the mud now and then, I think
you have to know what a jail is, a hospital is. I think you have to know
what it feels like to go without food for 4 or 5 days. I think that living
with insane women is good for the backbone. I think you can write with joy
and release after you've been in he vise. I only say this because all the
poets I have met have been soft jellyfish, sycophants. They have nothing to
write about except their selfigh nonendurance.
Yes, I stay away from the POETS. Do you blame me?
3/16/92 12:53 AM
I have no idea what causes it. It's just there: a certain feeling for
writers of the past. And my feelings aren't even accurate, they are just
mine, almost entirely invented. I think of Sherwood Anderson, for instance,
as a little fellow, slightly slump-shouldered. he was probably straight and
tall. No matter. I see him my way. (I've never seen a photo of him.)
Dostoevsky I see as a bearded fellow on the heavy side with dark green
smoldering eyes. First he was too heavy, then too thin, the too heavy.
Nonsense, surely, but I like my nonsense. I even see Dostoevsky as a fellow
who lusted for little girls. Faulkner, I see in a rather dim light as a
crank and fellow with bad breath. Gorky, I see as a sneak drunk. Tolstoy as
a man who went into rages over nothing at all. I see Hemingway as a fellow
who practiced ballet behind closed doors. I see Celine as a fellow who had
problems sleeping. I see e.e. cumming as a great pool player. I couldn't go
on and on.
Mainly I had these visions when I was a starving writer, half-mad, and
unable to fit into society. I had very little food but had much time.
Whoever the writers were, they were magic to me. They opened door
differently. They needed a stiff drink upon awakening. Life was too god-
damned much for them. Each day was like walking in wet concrete. I made them
my heroes. I fed upon them. My ideas of them supported me in my nowhere.
Thinking about them was much better than reading them. Like D. H. Lawrence.
What a wicked little guy. He knew so much that it just kept him pissed-off
all the time. Lovely, lovely. And Aldous Huxley... brain power to spare. He
knew so much it gave him headaches.
I would stretch out on my starvation bed and think about these fellows.
Literature was so... Romantic. Yeah.
But the composers and painters were good too, alway going mad,
suiciding, doing strange and obnoxious things. Suicide seemed such a good
idea. I even tried it a few times myself, failed but came close, gave it
some good tries. Now here I am almost 72 years old. My heroes are long past
gone and I've had to live with others. Some of the new creators, some of the
newly famous. They aren't the same to me. I look at them, listen to them and
I think, is this all there is? I mean, they look comfortable... they
bitch... but they look COMFORTABLE. There's no wildness. The only ones who
seem wild are those who have failed as artists and believe that the failure
is the fault of outside forces. And they create badly, horribly.
I have nobody to focus on anymore. I can't even focus on myself. I used
to be in and out of jails, I used to break down doors, smash windows, drink
29 day a month. Now I sit in front of this computer with the radio on,
listening to classical music. I'm not even drinking tonight. I am pacing
myself. For what? Do I want to live to be 80, 90? I don't mind dying... but
not this year, all right?
I don't know, it just was different back then. He writers seemed more
like... writers. Things were done. The Black Sun Press. The Crosbys. And
damned if once I didn't cross back into that age. Caresse Crosby published
one of my stories in her Portfolio magazine along with Sartre, I think, and
Henry Miller and I think, maybe, Camus. I don't have the mag now. People
steal from me. They take my stuff when they drink with me. That's why more
and more I am alone. Anyhow, somebody else must also miss the Roaring 20's
and Gertrude Stein and Picasso... James Joyce, Lawrence and the gang.
To me it seems that we're not getting through like we used to. It's
like we've used up the options, it's like we can't do it anymore.
I sit here, light a cigarette, listen to the music. My health is good
and I hope that I am writing as well or better than ever. But everything
else I read seems so... practiced... it's like a well-learned style. Maybe
I've read too much, maybe I've read too long. Also, after decades and
decades of writing (and I've written a boat load) when I read another writer
I believe I can tell exactly when he's faking, the lies jump out, the slick
polish grates... I can guess what he next line will be, the next
paragraph... There's no flash, no dash, no change-taking. It's a job they've
learned, like fixing a leaky faucet.
It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if
it wasn't always there.
In my mind I saw Gorky in a Russian flophouse asking for tobacco from
the fellow next to him. I saw Robinson Jeffers talking to a horse. I saw
Faulkner starting at the last drink in the bottle. Of course, of course, it
was foolish. Young is foolish and old is the fool.
I've had to adjust. But for all of us, even now, the next line is
always there and it may be the line that finally breaks through, finally
says it. We can sleep on that during the slow nights and hope for the best.
We're probably as good now as those bastards back then were. And some
of the young are thinking of me as I thought of them. I know, I get letters.
I read them and throw them away. These are the towering Nineties. There's
the next line. And the line after that. Until there are no more.
Yeah. One more cigarete. Then I think I'll take a bath and go to sleep.
4/16/92 12:39 AM
Bad day at the track. On the drive in, I always mull over which system
I am going to use. I must have 6 or 7. And I certainly picked the wrong one.
Still, I will never lose my ass and my mind at the track. I just don't bet
that much. Years of poverty have made me wary. Even my winning days are
hardly stupendous. Yet, I'd rather be right than wrong, especially when you
give up hours of your life. One can feel time actually being murdered out
there. Today, they were approaching the gate for the 2nd race. There were
still 3 minutes to go and the horses and riders were slowly approaching. For
some reason, ti seemed an agonizingly long time for me. When you're in your
70's it hurts more to have somebody pissing on your time. Of course, I know,
I had put myself into a position to be pissed upon.
I used to go to the night greyhound races in Arizona. Now, they knew
what they were doing there. Just turn your back to get a drink and there was
another race going off. No 30 minute waiting periods. Zip, zip, they ran
them one after the other. It was refreshing. The night air was cold and the
action was continuous. You didn't believe that somebody was trying to saw
off your balls between races. And after it was all over, you weren't worn
down. You could drink the remainder of the night and fight with your
girlfriend.
But at the horse races it's hell. I stay isolated. I don't talk to
anybody. That helps. Well, the mutuel clerks know me. I've got to go to the
windows, use my voice. Over the years, they get to know you. And most of
them are fairly decent people. I think that their years of dealing with
humanity has given them certain insights. For instance, they know that most
of the human race is one large piece of crap. Still, I also keep my distance
from the mutuel clerks. By keeping counsel with myself, I get an edge. I
could stay home and do this. I could lock the door and fiddle with paints or
something. But somehow, I've got to get out, and make sure that almost all
humanity is still a large piece of crap. As if they would change! Hey, baby,
I've got to be crazy. Yet there is something out there, I mean, I don't
think about dying out there, for example, you feel too stupid being out
there to be able to think. I've taken a notebook, thought, well, I'll write
a few things between races. Impossible. The air is flat and heavy, we are
all voluntary members of a concentration camp. When I get home, then I can
muse about dying. Just a little. Not too much. I don't worry about dying or
feel sorry about dying. It just seems like a lousy job. When? Next Wednesday
night? Or when I'm asleep? Or because of the next horrible hangover? Traffic
accident? It's a load, it's something that's got to be done. And I'm going
out without the God-belief. That'll be good, I can face it head on. It's
something you have to do like putting your shoes on in the morning. I think
I'm going to miss writing. Writing is better than drinking. And writing
while you're drinking, that's always made the walls dance. Maybe there's a
hell, what? All the poets will be there reading their works and I will have
to listen. I will be drowned in their peening vanity, their overflowing self-
esteem. If there is a hell, that will be my hell: poet after poet reading on
and on...
Anyway, a particularly bad day. This system that usually worked didn't
work. The gods shuffle the deck. Time is mutilated and you are a fool. But
time is made to be wasted. What are you going to do about it? You can't
always be roaring full steam. You stop and you go. You hit a high and then
you fall into a black pit. do you have a cat? Or cats? They sleep, baby.
They can sleep 2% hours a day and they look beautiful They know that there's
nothing to get excited about. The next meal. And a little something to kill
now and then. When I'm being torn by the forces, I just look at one or more
of my cats. There are 9 of them. I just look at one of them sleeping or half-
sleeping and I relax. Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it. It
chills me out. For a while anyhow. Then my wires get crossed and I have to
do it all over again. I can't understand writers who decide to stop writing.
How do they chill out?
Well, the track was dull and deathly out there today but here I am back
home and I'll be there tomorrow, most probably. How do I manage it?
Some of it is the power of routine, a power that holds most of us. A
place to go, a thing to do. We are trained from th beginning. Move out, get
into it. Maybe there's something interesting out there? What an ignorant
dream. It's like when I used to pick up women in bars. I'd think, maybe this
is the one. Another routine. Yet, even during the sex act, I'd think, this
is another routine. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I felt ridiculous but
I went ahead anyhow. What else could I do? Well, I should have crawled off
and said, "Look, baby, we are being very foolish here. We are just tools of
nature."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, baby, you ever watched two flies fucking or something like
that?"
"YOU'RE CRAZY! I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE!"
We can't examine ourselves too closely or we'll stop living, stop doing
everything. Like the wise men who just sit on a rock and don't move. I don't
know if that's so wise either. They discard the obvious but something makes
them discard it. In a sense, they are one-fly-fucking. There's no escape,
action or inaction. We just have to write ourselves off as a loss: any move
on the on the board leads to checkmate.
So, it was a bad day at the track today, I got a bad taste in the mouth
of my soul. But I'll go tomorrow. I'm afraid not to. Because when I get back
the words crawling across this computer screen really fascinate my weary
ass. I leave it so that I can come back to it. Of course, of course. That's
it. Isn't it?
6/26/92 12:34 AM
I have probably written more and better in the past 2 years than at any
time in my life. It's as if from over 5 decades of doing it, I might have
gotten close to really doing it. Yet, in the past 2 months I have begun to
feel a weariness. The weariness is mostly physical, yet it's also a touch
spiritual. It could be that I am ready to go into decline. It's a horrible
thought, of course, The ideal was to continue until the moment of my death,
not to fade away. In 1989 I overcame TB. This year it has been an eye
operation that has not as yet worked out. And a painful right let, ankle,
foot. Small things. Bits of skin cancer. Death nipping at my heels, letting
me know. I'm and old fart, that's all. Well, I couldn't drink myself to
death. I came close but I didn't. Now I deserve to live with what is left.
So, I haven't written for 3 nights. Should I go mad? Even at my lowest
times I can feel the words bubbling inside of me, getting ready. I am not in
a contest. I never wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the word down the
way I wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the words down or be overcome
by something worse than death. Words not as precious things but as necessary
things.
Yet when I begin to doubt my ability to work the word I simply read
another writer and then I know that I have nothing to worry about. My
contest is only with myself: to do it right, with power and force and
delight and gamble. Otherwise, forget it.
I have been wise enough to remain isolated. Visitors to this house are
rare. My 9 cats run like mad when a human arrives. And my wife, too, is
getting to be more and more like me. I don't want this for her. It's natural
for me. But for Linda, no. I'm glad when she takes the car and goes off to
some gathering. After all, I have my go-damned racetrack. I can always write
about the racetrack, that great empty hole of nowhere. I go there to
sacrifice myself, to mutilate the hours, to murder them. The hours must be
killed. While you are waiting. The perfect hours must be killed. While you
are waiting. The perfect hours are the ones at this machine. But you must
have impefect hours to get perfect hours. You must kill ten hours to make
two hours live. What you must be careful of is not to kill ALL the hours,
ALL the years.
You fix yourself up to be a writer by doing the instinctive things
which feed you and the word, which protect you against death in life. For
each, it changes. Once for me it meant very heavy drinking, drinking to the
point of madness. It sharpened the word for me, brought it out. And I needed
danger. I needed to put myself into dangerous situations. With men. With
women. With automobiles. With gambling. With starvation. With anything. It
fed the word. I had decades of that. Now it has changed. What I need now is
more subtle, more invisible. It's a feeling in the air. Words spoken, words
heard. Things seen. I still need a few drinks. But I am now into nuances and
shadows. I am fed words by things that I am hardly aware of. This is good. I
write a different kind of crap now. Some have noticed.
"You have broken through," is mainly what they tell me.
I am aware of what they sense. I feel it too. The words have gotten
simpler yet warmer, darker. I am being fed from new sources. Being near
death is energizing. I have all the advantages. I can see and feel things
that are hidden from the young. I have gone from the power of youth to the
power of age. There will be no decline. Uh uh. Now, pardon me, I must got to
be, it's 12:55 a.m. Talking the night off. Have your laugh while you can...
8/24/92 12:28 AM
Well, I've been 72 years old for 8 days and nights now and I'll never
be able to say that again.
It's been a bad couple of months. Weary. Physically and spiritually.
Death means nothing. It's walking around with your ass dragging, it's when
the words don't come flying form the machine, there's the gyp.
Now in my lower lip and under the lower lip, there is a large
puffiness. And I have no energy. I didn't go to the track today. I just
stayed in bed. Tired, tired. The Sunday crowds at the track are the worst. I
have problems with the human face. I find it very difficult to look at. I
find the sum total of each person's life written there and it is a horrible
sight. When one sees thousands of faces in one day, it's tiring from the top
of the head to the toes. And all through the gut. Sundays are so crowded.
It's amateur day. They scream and curse. They rage. Then they go limp and
leave, broke. What did they expect?
I had a cataract operation on my right eye a few months ago. The
operation was not nearly as simple as the misinformation I gathered from
people who claimed to have had eye operations. I heard my wife talking to
ther mother on the telephone: "You say it was over in a few minutes? And
that you drove your car home afterwards?" Another old guy told me, "Oh it's
nothing, it's over in a flash and you just go about your business as
normal." Others spoke about the operation in an off-hand manner. It was a
walk in the park. Now, I didn't ask for any of these people for information
about the operation, they just came out with it. And after a while, I began
to believe it. Although I still wonder how a thing as delicate as the eye
could be treated more or less like cutting a toenail. On my first visit to
the doctor, he examined the eye and said that I needed an operation. "O.k.,"
I said, "let's do it." "What?" he asked. "Let's do it now. Let's rock and
roll!" "Wait," he said, "first we must make an appointment with a hospital.
Then there are other preparations. First, we want to show you a movie about
the operation. It's only about 15 minutes long." "The operation?" "No, the
movies." What happens is that they take out the complete lens of the eye and
replace it with an artifical lens. The lens is stitched in and the eye must
adjust and recover. After about 3 weeks the stitches are removed. It's no
walk in the park and the operation takes much longer than "a couple of
minutes." Anyhow, after it was all over, my wife's mother said it was
probably an after-operational procedure she was thinking of. And the old
guy? I asked him, "How long did it take for your sight to really get better
after your eye operation?" "I'm not so sure I had an operation," he said.
Maybe I got this fat lip from drinking from the cat's water bowl? I feel a
little better tonight. Six days a week at the racetrack can burn anybody
out. Try is some time. Then come in and work on your novel. Or maybe death
is giving me some signs? The other day I was thinking about the world
without me. There is the world going on doing what it does. And I'm not
there. Very odd. Think of the garbage truck coming by and picking up the
garbage and I'm not there. Or the newspaper sits in the drive and I'm not
there to pick it up. Impossible. And worse, some time after I'm dead, I'm
going to be truly discovered. All those who were afraid of me or hated me
when I was alive will suddenly embrace me. My words will be everywhere.
Clubs and societies will be formed. It will be sickening. A movie will be
made of my life. I will be made a much more courageous and talented man tahn
I am. Much more. It will be enough to make the gods puke. The human race
exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. The
fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better.
The night is cooling off. Maybe I'll pay the gas bill. I remember in south
central L.A. they shot a lady named Love for not paying her gas bill. The
co. wanted to shut it off. Forget what with. Maybe a shovel. Cops came.
Don't remember how it worked. Think she reached for something in her apron.
They shot and killed her. All right, all right, I'll pay the gas bill. I
worry about my novel. It's about a detective. But I keep getting him into
these almost impossible situations and then I have to work him out. I
sometimes think about how to get him out while I'm at the racetrack. And I
know that my editor- publisher is curious. Maybe he thinks the work isn't
literary. I say that anything I do is literary even if I try not to make it
literary. He should trust me by now. Well, if he doesn't want it, I'll
unload it elsewhere. It will sell as well as anything I've written, not
because it's better but because it's just as good and my crazy readers are
ready for it. Look, maybe a good night's sleep tonight and I'll wake up in
the morning without this fat lip. Can you imagine me leaning toward the
teller with this big lip and saying, "20 win on the 6 horse?" Sure. I know.
He wouldn't have even noticed. My wife asked me, "Didn't you always have
that?" Jesus Christ. Do you know that cats sleep 20 hours out of 24? No
wonder they look better than I.
8/28/92 12:40 AM
There are thousands of traps in life and most of us fall into many of
them. The idea though, is to stay out of as many of them as possible. Doing
so helps you remain as alive as you might until you die...
The letter arrived from the offices of one of the network television
stations. It was quite simple, stating that this fellow, let's call him Joe
Singer, wants to come by. To talk about certain possibilities. On page 1 of
the letter were stuck 2 one hundred dollar bills. On page 2 there was
another hundred. I was on the way to the racetrack. I found that the hundred
dollar bills peeled off of the pages nicely without damage. There was a
phone number. I decided to call Joe Singer that night after the races.
Which I did. Joe was casual, easy. The idea, he said, was to create a
series for tv based on a writer like myself. An old guy who was still
writing, drinking, playing the horses.
"Why don't we get together and talk about it?" he asked.
"You'll have to come here," I said, "at night."
"O.k.," he said, "when?"
"Night after next."
"Fine. You know who I want to get to play you?"
"Who?"
He mentioned an actor, let's call him Harry Dane. I always liked Harry
Dane.
"Great," I said, "and thanks for the 300."
"We wanted to get your attention."
"You did."
Well, the night came around and there was Joe Singer. He seemed
likeable enough, intelligent, easy. We drank and talked, about horses and
various things. Not much about the television series. Linda, my wife, was
with us.
"But tell us more about the series," she said.
"It's all right, Linda," I said, "we're just relaxing..."
I felt Joe Singer had more or less come by to see if I was crazy or
not.
"All right," he said reaching into his briefcase, "here's a rough
idea..."
He handed me 4 or 5 sheets of paper. It was mostly a description of the
main character and I thought they had gotten me down fairly well. The old
writer lived with this young girl just out of college, she did all his dirty
work, lined up his readings and stuff like that.
"The station wanted this young girl in there, you know," said Joe.
"Yeah," I said.
Linda didn't say anything.
"Well," said Joe, "you look this over again. There are also some ideas,
plot ideas, each episode will have a diferent slant, you know, but it will
all be based on your character."
"Yeah," I said. But I was beginning to get a bit apprehensive.
We drank another couple of hours. I don't remember much abou the
conversation. Small talk. And the night ended...
The next day after the track I turned to the page about the episode
ideas. 1. Hank's craving for a lobster dinner is thwarted by animal rights
activists. 2. Secretary ruins Hank's chances with a poetry groupie. 3. To
honor Hemingway, Hank bangs a broad named Millie whose husband, a jockey,
wants to pay Hank to keep banging. There must be a catch. 4. Hank allows a
young male artist to paint his portrait and is painted into a corner into
revealing his own homosexual experience. 5. A friend of Hank's wants him to
invest in his latest scheme. An industrial use for recycled vomit. I got Joe
on the phone.
"Jesus, man, what's about a homosexual experience? I haven't had any."
"Well, we don't have to use that one." "Let's not. Listen, I'll talk to you
later, Joe." I hung up. Things were getting strange. I phoned Harry Dane,
the actor. He'd been over to the place two or three times. He had this great
weatherbeaten face and he talked straight. He had few affectations. I liked
him. "Harry," I said, "there's this tv outfit, channel -- they want to do a
series based on me and they want you to play me. You heard from them?" "No."
"I thought I might get you and this guy together and see what happens."
"Channel what?" I told him the channel. "But that's commercial tv,
censorship, commercials, laugh tracks." "This guy Joe Singer claims they
have a lot of freedom with what they can do." "It's censorship, you can't
offend the advertisers." "What I like most is that he wanted you for the
lead. Why don't you come to my place and meet him?" "I like your writing,
Hank, if we could get, say, HBO maybe we could do it right." "Well, yeah.
But why don't you come over, see what he has to say? I haven't seen you for
a while." "That's right. Well, I'll come but it will mainly to see you and
Linda."
"Fine. How about the night after next? I'll set it up." "O.k.," he
said. I phoned Joe Singer. "Joe. Night after next, 9 p.m. I've got Harry
Dane coming over."
"O.k., great. We can send a limo for him."
"Would he be alone in the limo?"
"Maybe. Or maybe some of our people would be in it."
"Well, I don't know. Let me call you back..."
"Harry, they are trying to suck you in, they want to send a limo for
you."
"Would it be just for me?"
"He wasn't sure."
"Can I have his phone number?"
"Sure."
And that was it.
When I came in after the track the next day Linda said, "Harry Dane
phoned. We talked about the tv thing. He asked if we needed money. I told
him we didn't."
"Is he still coming by?"
"Yes."
I came in a little early from the track the following day. I decided to
hit the Jacuzzi. Linda was out, probably buying libations for the meeting.
I, myself, was getting a little scared about the tv series. They could
really fuck me over. Old writer does this. Old writer does that. Laugh
track. Old writer gets drunk, misses poetry meeting. Well, that wouldn't be
so bad. But I wouldn't want to write he crap, so writing wouldn't be that
good. Here I had written for decades in small rooms, sleeping on park
benches, sitting in bars, working all the stupid jobs, meanwhile writing
exactly as I wanted to and felt I had to. My work was finally getting
recognized. And I was still writing the way I wanted to and felt that I had
to. I was still writing to keep from going crazy, I was still writing,
trying to explain this god-damned life to myself. And here I was being
talked into a tv series on commecial tv. All I had fought so hard for could
be laughed off the boards by some sitcom series with a laugh track. Jesus,
Jesus.
I got undressed and stepped outside to the Jacuzzi. I was thinking
about the tv series, my past life, now and everything else. I wasn't too
aware. I stepped into the Jacuzzi at the wrong end.
I realized it the moment I stepped in. There weren't any steps at that
end. It happened quickly. There was a small platform further in built to sit
on. My right foot caught that, slipped off, and I was thrown off balance.
You're going to hit your head against the edge of the Jacuzzi, went
through my mind.
I concetrated on pushing my head forward as I fell, letting all the
rest go to hell. My right leg took the brunt of the fall, I twisted it but
managed to keep my head from hitting the edge. Then I just floated in the
bubbling water feeling the shots of pain in my right leg. I'd ben having leg
pains there anyhow, now it was really torn up. I felt foolish about it all.
I could have knocked myself out. I could have drowned. Linda would have come
back to find me floating and dead.
FAMOUS WRITER, FORMER SKID ROW POET AND DRUNK
FOUND DEAD IN HIS JACUZZI. HE HAD JUST SIGNED
CONTRACT FOR A SITCOM BASED UPON HIS LIFE.
That's not even a ignoble ending. That is just being shit on entirely
by the gods.
I managed to get out of Jacuzzi and make my way into the house. I could
barely walk. Each step on the right leg brought a mighty pain up the let
from the ankle to the knee. I hobbled toward the refrigerator and pulled out
a beer...
Harry Dane arrived first. He had come in his own car. We brought out
the wine and I began pouring them. By the time Joe Singer arrived, we'd had
a few. I made the introductions. Joe laid out the general format for the
proposed series for Harry. Harry was smoking, and drinking his wine pretty
fast.
"Yeah, yeah," he said, "but a sound track? And Hank and I would have to
have total control over the material. Then, I don't know. There's
censorship..."
"Censorship? What censorship?" asked Joe.
"Sponsors, you have to please the sponsors. There's a limit on how far
you can go with material."
"We'll have total freedom," said Joe.
"You can't have," said Harry.
"Laugh tracs are awful," said Linda.
"Yeah," I said.
"Then too," said Harry, "I've been in a tv series. It's a drag, it
takes hours and hours a day, it's worse that shooting a movie. It's a hard
work."
Joe didn't answer.
We all went on drinking. A couple of hours passed. The same thing
seemed to be said over and over again. Harry saying maybe we should go to
HBO. And that laugh tracks were awful. And Joe saying that everything would
be all right, that there was plenty of freedom on commercial tv, that times
had changed. It was really boring, really awful. Harry was really pouring
down the wine. Then he got into what was wrong with the world and the main
causes of it. He had a certain line he repeated quite often. It was a good
line. Unfortunately, it was so good that I have forgotten it. But Harry went
on.
All of a sudden Joe singer leaped up. "Well, damn it, you guys have
made a lot of lousy movies! Tv has done some good things! Everything we do
isn't rotten! You guys keep on turning out crappy movies!"
Then he into the bathroom.
Harry looked at me and grinned. "Hey, he got mad, didn't he?"
"Yeah, Harry."
I poured some more wine. We sat and waited. Joe Singer stayed in the
bathroom a long time. When he came out, Harry stood there talking to him. I
couldn't hear what was being said. I think Harry felt sorry for him. It
wasn't long after that, Singer started gathering his stuff into his
briefcase. He walked to the door, then looked back at me, "I'll phone you,"
he said.
"O.k., Joe"
Then he was gone.
Linda, I and Harry kept on drinking. Harry went on with what was wrong
with the world, repeating his good line which I can't remember. We didn't
talk too much about the proposed tv series. When Harry left we worried about
his driving. We said he could stay. He declined. He said he could make it.
Luckily, he did.
Joe Singer phoned the next evening.
"Listen, we don't need that guy. He doesn't want to work. We can get
somebody else."
"But, Joe, one of the main reasons I was interested at first was
because of the possibility of Harry Dane."
"We can get somebody else. I'll write you, I'll send you a list, I'm
going to work on it."
"I don't know, Joe..."
"I'll write you. And listen, I talked to the people and they said,
o.k., no laugh track. And they even said it would be o.k. to go to HBO. That
surprised me because I work for them, I don't work for HBO. Anyhow, I'll
send you a list of actors...
"All right, Joe..."
I was stuck in the web. Now I wanted out but I didn't quite know how to
tell him. It surprised me, I was usually very good at getting rid of people.
I felt guilty because he had probably put in a lot of work on the thing.
And, originally, in the first flush of things, the idea of a series based
mostly upon myself had probably appealed to my vanity. But now it didn't
seem like a good thing. I felt crappy about the whole thing.
A couple of days later the photos of the actors arrived, a mass of
them, and the preferred ones were circled. The agent's phone number was by
each actor's photo. I was sickened by looking at those faces, most of them
smiling. The faces were bland, empty, very Hollywood, quite quite
horrifying.
Along with the photos was a short note:
"... going on a 3 week vacation. When I get back I am really going to
kick this thing into gear..."
The faces did it to me. I couldn't handle it any longer. I sat down and
let go at the computers.
"...I've really been thinking about your project(s) and, frankly, I
can't do it. It would mean the end of my life as I have lived it and have
wanted to live it. It's just too big an intrusion into my existence. It
would make me very unhappy, depressed. This feeling has been gradually
coming over me but I just didn't quite know how to explain it to you. When
you and harry Dane had a falling out the other night, I felt great, I felt,
now, it's over. But you bounce right back with a new list of actors. I want
out, that sense grew stronger and stronger as things went along. Nothing
against you, you are an intellingetn young man who wants to pump some fresh
blood into the tv scene -- but let it not be mine. You may not undestand my
concern but, believe me, it's real, damned real. I should be honored that
you want to display my life to the masses but, really, I am more than
terrorized by the thought, I feel as if my very life were being threatened.
I have to get out. I haven't been able to sleep nights, I haven't been able
to think, I haven't been able to do anything.
Please, no phone calls, no letters. Nothing can change this.
The next day on the way to the racetrack I dropped the letter into the
mailbox. I felt reborn. I might still have to fight some more to get free.
But I'd go to court. Anything. Somehow, I felt sorry for Joe Singer. But,
damn it all, I was free again.
On the freeway I turned on the radion and lucked onto some Mozart. Life
could be good at times but sometimes some of that was up to us.
8/30/92 1:30 AM
Was going down the scalator at the track after the 6th race when the
waiter saw me. "You going home now?" he asked?
"I wouldn't do that to you, amigo," I told him.
The poor fellow had to bring the food from the track kitchen to the
upper floors, carrying huge amounts of trays. When their clients ran out on
them they had to pay the tab. Some of the players sat four to a table. The
waiters could work all day and still owe the track money. And the crowded
days were the worst, the waiters couldn't watch everybody. And when they did
get paid the horseplayers tipped badly.
I went down to the first floor and stepped outside, stood in the sun.
It was great out there. Maybe I'd just come to the track and stand in the
sun. I seldom thought about writing out there but I did then. I thought
about something that I had recently read, that I was probably the best
selling poet in America and the most influential, the most copied. How
strange. Well, to hell with that. All that counted was the next time I sat
down to the computer. If I could still do it, I was alive, if I coulnd't,
everything that preceded meant little to me. But what was I doing, thinking
about writing? I was cracking. I didn't even think about writing when I was
writing. Then I heard the call to post, turned around, walked in and got
back on the escalator. Going up, I passed a man who owed me money. He ducked
his head down. I pretended not to see him. It didn't do any good after he'd
paid me, he only borrowed it back. And old guy had come up to me earlier
that day: "Gimme 60 cents!" That gave him enough for a two buck bet, one
more chance to dream. It was a sad god-damned place but almost every place
was. There was no place to go. Well, there was, you could go to your room
and close the door but then your wife got depressed. Or more depressed.
America was the Land of Depressed Wives. And it was the fault of the men.
Sure. Who else was around? You couldn't blame the birds, the dogs, the cats,
the worms, the mice, the spiders, the fish, the etc. It was the men. And the
men couldn't allow themselves to get depressed or else the whole ship would
go down. Well, hell.
I was back at my table. Three men had the next table and they had a
little boy with them. Each table had a small tv set, only theirs was turned
on LOUD. The kid had it on some sitcom and that was nice of the men to the
kid look a his program. But he wasn't paying any attention to it, he wasn't
listening, he was sitting there pushing around a rolled-up piece of paper.
He bounced it against some cups, then he took it and tossed it into this cup
and that. Some of the cups were filled with coffee. But the men just went on
talking about the horses. My god, that tv was LOUD. I thought of saying
something to the men, asking them to lower the tv a bit. But the men were
black and they'd think I was racist. I left my table and walked out to the
betting windows. I was unlucky, I got in a slow line. There was an old guy
up front having trouble making his bets. He had his Form spread out across
the window, along with his programm and he was very hesitant about what he
wanted to do. He probably lived in an old folks home or and institution of
some sort but he was out or a day at the races. Well, no law against that
and no law against him being in a fog. But somehow it hurt. Jesus, I don't
have to suffer this, I thought. I had memorized the back of his head, his
ears, his clothing, the bent back. The horses were nearing the gate.
Everybody was screaming at him. He didn't notice them. Then, painfully, we
watched as he slowly reached for his wallet. Slow, slow motion. He opened it
and peered into it. Then he poked his fingers in there. I don't even want to
go on. He finally paid and the clerk slowly handed him back his money. Then
he stood there looking at his money and his tickets, then he turned back to
the clerk and said, "No, I wanted the 6-4 exacta, not this..." Somebody
yelled out an obscenity. I walked off. The horses leaped out of the gate and
I walked to the men's room to piss.
When I came back the waiter had my bill ready. I paid, tipped 20% and
thanked him.
"See you tomorrow, amigo," he said.
"Maybe," I said.
"You'll be here," he said.
The other races ground on. I bet early on the 9th and left. I left ten
minutes before post. I got to my car and moved out. At the end of parking on
Century Boulevard by the signal there was an ambulance, a fire engine and
two police cars. Two cars had hit head-on. There was glass everywhere, the
cars were really mangled. Somebody had been in a hurry to get in and
somebody had been in a hurry to get out. Horseplayers.
I moved around the crash and took a left on Century.
Just another day shot through the head and buried. It was Saturday
afternoon in hell. I drove along with the others.
9/15/92 1:06 AM
Talk about a writer's block. I believe I was bitten by a spider. Three
times. Noticed these 3 large red welts on my left arm the night of 9-08-92.
Around 9 p.m. There was a slight pain to the touch. I decided to ignore it.
But after 15 minutes I showed the marks to Linda. She had been to an
emergency room earlier in the day. Something had left a stinger in her back.
Now it was after 9 p.m., everything was closed except the Emergency Ward of
the local hospital. I had been there before: I had fallen into a hot
fireplace while drunk. I had not fallen into the fire directly but had
fallen upon the hot surface while only wearing my shorts. Now, it was this.
These welts.
"I think I'd feel like a fool going in there with just these welts.
There are people in there bloodied from car crashes, knifings, shootings,
attempted suicides, and all I have are 3 red welts.
"I don't want to wake up with a dead husband in the morning," Lidna
said.
I thought about it for 15 minutes, then said, "All right, let's go in."
It was quiet in there. The lady at the desk was on the telephone. She
was on the telephone for some time. Then she was finished.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I think I've been bitten by something," I said. "Maybe I should be
looked at."
I gave her my name. I was in the computer. Last visit: TB time.