Original subtitles

When, uh...

I started reading short stories in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Bazaar

By the way, I think the Atlantic just died recently, and they should...

I'd read all these clean, tightly written stories of

gentle agony and I'd say:

"This isn't shit, they aren't writing about anything. These are just..."

"influential, tiny little people with tiny educations, writing about delicate things

but they're not writing about anything." I knew it.

So...I kept trying to write. I finally hit with

Story Magazine. Then I knew I still wasn't ready.

I knew I hadn't live enough then, even though I'd been fucked over, beat up.

So...

I met this woman agent, she wrote me the letters, she said...

I was living in Greenwich Village, at the time...

not to live in Greenwich Village. I'd just landed in New York,

put my finger on a map and say... Unluckily it landed on New York City.

She sent me this kindly little note. Kindly...

snobbishly little note, from some agency.

"Dear Charles Bukowski, loved your story in Story Magazine"

"I want to be your agent. Won't you have a free dinner and drinks with me at so and so"

Well Barbet, you've heard this all before, I've told you when I've been drinking

but it's true, the same thing's true.

So I wrote her back: "Dear Madam, I'm not ready yet."

So, that was it. I knew...

if she had been my agent, I'd met her to have drinks

I could've pumped out some kind of shit, but she would have driven me into uh...

some kind of dismal drivel, bullshit type of writing that I wasn't ready for.

So, I just left town, took off somewhere.

On the road.

I like Kerouac. He went on the road as a fulfilling uh...

I went on the road because there was no place else to go.

I just moved on because everything was ugly.

So it was, it was always for me no place to go, no place to land, no chance, ever.

I didn't expect a chance,

I didn't even want a chance. All I wanted to do

was find a small room somewhere, find a bottle of wine and start drinking.

Maybe find a job for a week, get enough to drink

3 or 4 days and nights to feel free, away from jobs and things.

then return and try to do what I had to do.

There wasn't much to do.

So I'd get a new job. I'd be with all these

people who were interested in their jobs, you know.

"Oh yes! Oh!" You know. I never had that, you know.

I used to pick where I was going, I would open a map

I would close my eyes and let the finger fall.

It would say: St. Louis, New Orleans, Savannah.

So, I'd get a bus ticket and go there and I'd always arrive in a town

with very little in my pocket. The first thing you do

is find a boarding house or something that says: "Room For Rent".

Then you get past the landlady, you have to act dignified.

And you come in, you kinda act like, you know

"Yes I'm looking for a room..." You act like a jerk, you know, so

"Oh, it'll be $4.50 a week."

"What are you doing, ah..."

"Well, uh..."

"I'm a journalist and a freelance writer and uh..."

"I have some checks coming in..."

"I haven't quite caught up with the address and uh..."

"Yes, I'm a writer." "Oh, you're writing, yeah." I say: "Yes."

So, you go up the stairway, you follow her ass.

One had a beautiful ass, I followed her up and I said:

If I could only make her fall in love with me.

Pretend to be a writer and just fuck her and have her cook for me.

I would never have to write, I'd just pretend.

Things like that.

Everything through the eye of Thurber looks good to me whether it's painting,

I think Thurber is one of the least recognized geniuses of our time.

I hate the word that...One of the least recognized powers of,

one of the least recognized...

You know what? You always want to use that word but you are ashamed to use it.

James Thurber

was so far ahead of his time,

they've forgotten him and they're gonna recognize him in about...75 years again.

That guy really knew the man-woman situation.

He must've lived with a woman and just, got it down and still lived with her.

So excellent.

"When did you read Thurber? When you were in a Texas and that park bench?"

No, no. I was reading the Kenyon Review...and all that.

I read Thurber somewhere or other. I don't know

some cheap room, some cheap place some cheap town.

Are there such things as cheap towns?

But, when you're starving you really like to read the snobs, you know.

Kenyon Review, Goss, and all that. Those were the park bench boys.

I'd come off the park bench in El Paso and I would, you know, covered with dust

I would rub it off my body, and the library, they'd kinda look at you.

It's a very tiny library. It was then.

In El Paso.

It's very shady, you walk in about 10 in the morning,

the li-you dust yourself off and the librarian

kinda looks at you, but you sit at a table,

you pick out a book so you're almost like she is, you know.

And that was the first place I wrote...

I read

Dosty...how do you pronounce that? Dostoevsky? -Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky, his 'Notes from the Underground'.

Which is a powerful god damn book.

When I read that I said: "If I can ever write close to that..."

"If I can ever write close to that man, I would be near something." You know.

That's all

So you were a writer from the beginning. I mean you wanted to be.

Yeah, but...

you know, I would open up the Atlantic Monthly, which

has died, what a...about 2 or 3 months ago, they folded

and I would open, I would read short stories

they were just milk and honey. They would show a sudden flash somewhere.

A decent line or two and that would be it. It was a trick.

I said there's no chance for me, man. I might as well get...

a job here and there and just drink, and wait to die.

I'd say, I didn't't wanna live with a woman, have a family.

Said I'll just drift from town to town, get a job, drink and die.

But you were bringing the books to the...

I would bring them to my rooms and...

One room a landlady would say: "You know you're waking everybody up downstairs."

I'd say: "How's that?"

Because I was drinking, she'd say: "You must read a lot of books."

So I say: "Why's that?" She says: "Because every night,"

"you must go to sleep and all during your sleep we hear this..."

"Pop! Pop! Pop!"

"You're books keep falling to the floor, one by one, you're keeping everybody awake."

I said: "Oh, I'm sorry."

But I drank and I read books too at the same time.

And, you were writing short stories that were refused by magazines. -Hand printed.

Because I used to have a typewriter

but I never had one very long because I'd hock to have enough to drink on mainly.

Not for the rent, you know, I want to go to the bar or get a bottle.

So, I hand printed all my short stories and I...

wrote, you know, my jokes that I wrote

5 or 6 letters a week, well in those days I'd write 5 or 6 short stories a week.

I would...they would be short,

hand printed and I would find enough stamps

put them in an envelope with return and they'd come back.

The Atlantic Monthly and all that.

So John Martin, I told him about this.

He said: "Whatever happened to those short stories?" I said: "I threw them away."

He said: "Ach!"

Why? Why did you throw them away? -He probably thought that they were good

I knew there was no chance...

When you open a magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and the first line says:

"It was a warm day in spring. Mrs Gilli- McGillicuty's daughter was walking down..."

"Central Avenue and the rain was beginning to..."

...was trying to write my kind of stuff when they're printing that kind of stuff.

Right? So, I gave up and started drinking.

I thought it was because they were in a suitcase, too heavy to carry and

Shit no. I just, you know after you write something you lose interest in it anyhow.

Like, even Barfly, forgive me.

Anything you write you immediately lose interest in it a go on to the next thing.

If it isn't published, well you dump it that much easier.

You're always looking to the next, the next thing, the next thing.

Some of those stories you wrote on pieces of newspaper, or pieces of wax paper,

Something. I just had newspaper, in a tin shack in Atlanta.

Well, that was just an automatic writers thing. He didn't have anything else to do,

so I found a pencil or a pen, I wrote on the edge of the newspapers.

Because, I'm like a spider that spins its web, doesn't know what else to do.

Pretty pitiful.

Was living in this tiny shack in Atlanta for what was it, a buck and a half a week.

I'm writing with a pencil on the edges of newspaper found on the floor.

Talk about a natural writer. What the hell!

I'm just there.

So, it's pretty pitiful but it's pretty automatic.

That's kinda nice too, you know. It's the thing you got to do so you do it, anyhow.

Didn't happen too long.

And...

I make it like it's six months or something. Actually, it was...

Probably two or three nights.

Uh, in fact it happened in sporatic moments. We'd go out in the yacht

you know, two or three nights then he'd come back. Then a week later

go out in the yacht again. And...

these were cheap whores.

The guy had a lot of money and had no way of evaluating a good woman.

He's picking up these cheap Alvarado Street whores and taking them out on his yacht.

And one of the cheap whores was my girlfriend who I was living with.

She was the least cheap. She didn't get laid, or she claimed she didn't.

Just claimed she got laid to get drunk but I don't know.

I guess she did because she never had any fucking money.

But anyhow, I had a low class whore who didn't know how to hustle

and he had the...now and then we'd wake up

trying to go to Catalina and he had one arm

I won't mention his name...but his boat was called The Wilcam.

It was nice out there. There was plenty of booze and...

there were three women, I fucked all three of his women including my own.

And, it was kind of strange for a poor guy to be on this nice yacht, you know...

My kind of mind always accepts anything that happens, you know.

I accept, and so it wasn't strange to me it was just...

something was supposed to occur.

Just like marrying a millionairess later on, which occurred. I accept it.

So, it's just uh...nothing

the yacht was there, you know. It happened.

It was kinda nice, it just got cold out there at night.

He would drop anchor and get drunk. He couldn't steer.

I'd have three women

And...they'd say: "Oh, I'm cold, Hank."

It's like one would come and huddle with me, and I'd fuck her.

The other would come up and huddle and I'd fuck her

and the third would come up and huddle and I'd try to fuck her and I couldn't.

They all wanted to, you know, get in the bunk with me. "I'm cold."

I guess lesbianism wasn't so rampant or open in those days

or they would've gotten a bunk with each other and just left me alone. You know...

Which would've been just as welll, so...

Yeah, that happened. It was strange.

Anything to stay out of the factories helps, you know.

Yeah, you mention...

Henry Miller every now and then. How did you feel about him?

Not too much, uh...

Actually, i've been very unlucky

in reading Henry Miller. I guess I read the worst parts of him

One time travelling across Texas...

I jumped off somewhere and got one of his books. I started reading and I fell asleep

So many people have told me, you know:

"You and Henry Miller, you must've engendered from him or liked him." But...

To me...

that sounds like a knock. I just couldn't...injest him.

I guess he was, he went, too much now and then into the stars or into philosophy.

I liked his straight stuff, the little bit I read. You know, when he said:

"Well, Joe had a big dick. Joe stuck his dick into Mary."

"And they fucked. Joe had a big dick." I liked that, see I could understand it.

When he went into Aries and Pisces and uh..

all these ultra-mind trips. I'm not, I don't have any mind.

So, I left him there.

Celine, Hemingway,

Dos Passos.

Good tough boys. I stayed close to the earth.

The secret is in writing down one simple line after another.

Gertrude Stein found that out.

She said,

you know: "A rose is a rose is a rose." We know that old cornball.

But Gerties problem was...

she could only write down two or three lines.

Then Hemingway came along

and he could only write down two or three thousand lines, or 230,000 lines.

Then he got boring.

But the secret is still in the line.

The secret is also...

in the containment and the enjoyment and the energy in the line.

So, what I've tried to do

is remain within the simple line and also

bring in a sense of humor, like a...

chorus girl dance, kicking up their legs

and showing a bit of their cunts but not too much, you know.

Up and down, you know. And...

they jump off the stage and here comes a new crew.

What I'm trying to do is use a simple line

and also inject

a laughter through art.

Laughter through creation. Creation is not all that serious.

Creation cannot be all that serious

excpet, or we're going to fall asleep.

I'm falling asleep now talking about what it should be.

The only thing, the only thing about this film is that

tragic, knowing, demented face.

If I saw that anywhere I'd say: "What's that guy got to say? I wanna hear him."

"He must know something."

Well, unfortunately it does.

No one's 18, 19...

Everybody's gettin a job. They're getting into the 8 hour a day...grind.

Everybody's doing it. You know, you're either a chemist, you're a doctor.

You're a lawyer, you're a shipping clerk.

You're a filmmaker...

You're a...

cameraman.

You're doing some dumb thing, over and over and over again.

You get caught into the stricture of what you're supposed to be,

and you have no other choice.

You're finally molded and melted into what you're supposed to be.

I didn't like this.

And I didn't like the 8 hour job.

I didn't even like the 4 hour job, even though I couldn't get one.

So, I decided...

I'd rather starve and live on the edges of nowhere

then do anything at all. Then become anything

labelled.

So, for fifty years I...

was a scarecrow unlabelled, and now...

I'm supposed to be a writer.

Cause in the last ten years

what I wrote for a while has become translated into what...

12 languages? 13, I don't know.

So the cancer's spreading all over Europe and now I'm supposed to be famous

everywhere but here, in America.

Why is that?

Because the gods...

have decided to protect me from getting the ultra-fat head.

They have decided to keep me clean and good

so I can keep on working

in all of their areas.

That's all.

Besides that, Europe is always

and will be, at least 100 years ahead of America in culture, feeling,

and knowledge

You know, they-they all sang that...

fame is the greatest bitch of all, or something like that, you know.

But fame is a good test too

because if you really have the power and the courage, and then they give you fame

if you can ride past that baby, you've got the final touch.

And...it's a damn good test.

I'm not too famous...yet.

But I'm working on it and uh...

I think I'll fail.

But, it's all right.

Mink!

Minksy

come here.

Aw....baby. What is it?

But your first story was published by Story Magazine.

It was something called 'A Story About a Story' or...

It was called 'Lengthy Aftermath of a Rejection Slip'

So I hit the big time.

That was a big magazine at the time.

Well, it was intellectually and spiritually and...

Once you got printed in Story Magazine you were supposed to bea literary genius.

So, if you made those pages you were supposed to be there.

And they runed down the next story?

No, I didn't send another.

I sent one more to Portfolio, that's Caresse Crosby at Portfolio. She took it.

I was in there with Henry Miller and...all the boys.

So, you actually stopped the minute you were published? -Yeah.

Twice, very 'in the big' things, I quit.

So what do you say to Barbet's question about choosing the life of the outsider?

Well...

In this case it seems like you just might have done that.

I hate to be guilty of that

but I guess I was seeking more facts

as dumb as that word may sound I just,

I didn't want to become a 'known' writer at that time.

Were you afraid it was too soon? -I was just afraid.

So, I ducked and started drinking and doing whatever I did, which was nothing.

What happened when after that, after Portfolio was published and you

bought a copy of it? What did you, what was your...where did you go with it?

You know the story, Joe.

You've studied me, so...

Well...

one night in this bar, you know, where we did Barfly, what the book's all about

well, they're asking me, they finally got to me. "What do you do?"

"Well, I just sit at the bars." "No, I mean what..." "Well, I write."

"You write?"

I said: "Yeah." "You mean you got something in a magazine?" I said: "Yeah."

"Hey, man! Can you show me the magazine you're in?"

"I'll buy you a drink. I'll buy you three drinks." I said: "Oh, good enough."

So I was drunk. I went down and got this big portfolio thing, you know, with all these

It was a huge thing with drawings and...

So, I came down...it was stupid, I shouldn't have done it.

Went over and I got my drinks and they said: "Jesus!"

They uh...the waitress said:

"Oh, listen to these words. Oh..."

And everybody said :"What?" And they all gathered around, so the drinks came.

Then it started raining outside. I don't know, somehow we got outside

Hell, I was leaving...something. I was the hero then.

I was drunk so I dropped the thing and all the pages fell out.

And the wind was, you know Philadelphia, and it was raining.

I remember one guy, a big window washer. He'd come along, he'd say:

"Hey, I got this page!"

And he had this big foot and it goes right in the center of this big thing

right in the middle of the painting. Finally, he gathered them all up, he said:

"Here you go, Hank."

So, I went back to my place and here was this final great

you know, where it's supposed to be an immortal genius,

open it up there were all these big footprints over my poems, over all the paintings.

So, I always get it up the ass, you know. Somehow or the other.

The Shoelace

a woman,

a tire that’s flat, a disease, a desire:

fears in front of you,

fears that hold so still you can study them

like pieces on a chessboard

it’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse.

death he’s ready for,

or murder,

incest, robbery,

fire, flood

no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies

that send a man to the madhouse

not the death of his love

but a shoelace that snaps

with no time left

The dread of life is that swarm of trivialities

that can kill quicker than cancer

and which is always there -

licence plates or taxes

or expired driver’s license,

or hiring or firing,

doing it or having it done to you,

or constipation,

speeding ticket, rickets or crickets or mice

or termites or roaches

or flies

or a broken hook on a screen, or out of gas

or too much gas,

the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,

the president doesn’t care and the governor’s crazy.

lightswitch

speech broken, factor of mouth

lightswitch broken, mattress like a porcupine;

$305 for a tune-up, carburetor

and fuel pump at sears roebuck;

and the phone bill’s up and the, market’s down

and the toilet chain is broken,

and the light has burned out -

the hall light, the front light, the back light, the inner light;

it’s darker than hell and twice as expensive.

then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails and people who insist

they’re your friends;

there’s always that and worse;

leaky faucet,

christ and christmas;

blue salami,

9 day rains,

90 cent avocados

and purple liverwurst.

or making it as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,

or as an emptier of bedpans,

or as a carwash or a busboy

or a stealer of old lady’s purses

leaving them screaming on the sidewalks

with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly 2 red lights in your rear view mirror

and blood in your underwear;

toothache,

and $1979 for a bridge

$900 for a gold tooth

and china and russia and america,

and long hair and short hair and no hair,

and beards and no

faces,

and plenty of zigzag but no pot

except maybe one to piss in

and the other one around your gut.

with each broken shoelace

out of one hundred broken shoelaces,

one man,

one woman,

one thing

enters a madhouse.

so be careful when you bend over.

It's true.

Some psychiatrist or somebody like that wrote me.

Somebody who was in the great study said:

"Your Shoelace poem, that's a very true thing."

That people go to madhouses not out of great

causes, you know you see your daughter murdered

by a dragon who comes in at 6am in the morning and gobbles her up.

It's a , it's a ton of tiny little...nothingness. Pardon me.

But that's it.

So, luckily I've had a bunch of...big tragedies instead of tiny ones.

So I've...almost kept out.

These are the bathroom windows.

I took all my beatings in the bathroom.

And as I took my beatings I used to look out...of these windows.

For mercy or light, until after a while you can't see anymore.

A very bad room for me there.

This was my bedroom.

Bed went this way, there was a dresser here.

When I got to be about 15 I started going out at night.

My parents would go to sleep at 8 o'clock at night.

And I let them sleep for about an hour and then I would get dressed and get out of bed.

And go out and drink, with older guys.

In fact, I kinda became the, the leader of these older guys.

I was very mean at the time. I'm not, not like I am now, gentle and kind.

And uh...

This is the window...I would sneak out of.

And this, I think is the same bush here

but it was smaller at the time. I'd go out the top of it and I wore

by each night going out, I would wear the leaves off of the top part.

So the bush...always looked like somebody had been sliding out of that window.

But they never knew till uh...years later, that I was going out drinking with the boys.

One night, you know, going out during the nights

I showed at the dorr, I couldn't get in, and they looked through the little thing

and uh...

they wouldn't let me in, you know my mother screamed: "You're not my son!"

My father cursed me and I said:

"I need someplace to sleep, I'm coming in."

So, I lunged at the door two or three times, it broke open and I came in.

And uh...

I don't know, I guess this exertion and being full of drink upset me.

So, right about here I...puked.

And my father was a great big guy, I guess

I was around sixteen and a half.

And he came up behind me when I was puking and he says:

"You know what we do with the dog, when it shits on the rug?" I said: "No."

He said: "We put its nose in it."

Well, I never struck back against my father until this moment and I said: "Don't do it"

"Father. Don't do it." So,

he got me right down about here,

of course,

I just spun around and I caught him with a beautiful uppercut.

The couch was somewhere around-he fell back on it,

and he couldn't understand, you know.

It's okay to beat the kid but the kid must not...respond.

Of course my mother, she stood and just raked me. She said:

"You hit your father! You hit your father!" You know, a woman's nails.

My shirt was bloody,

and I just stood there

until she finished. I said: "You satisfied?"

And I started walking away and my father said:

"I'll see you in the morning!" I said: "Why not right now?"

He didn't bother me in the morning. I guess that's called growing up, quickly.

That's about all of that.

Fireplace is still there.

You didn't go very much with people, but you went there a few times.

And I think you had some imagination about what it was and it wasn't what you expected.

Oh, yeah. Well...

I think what bothered me,

I think one time when I was a kid I saw this

skid row film...

I don't know if it was Gary Cooper or somebody

but it was, it was some young bum on skid row and he was

hopping off and on a freight, freight cars.

But he always looked very beautiful. You know his hair was a little bit messed, but

And I remember one time he got off the boxcar

and all the little girls in the audience applauded.

They loved his look and I said: "Hey, this isn't right."

But still I was a little bit on the romantic side of the

the drifter who didn't want to fit into life.

And he was too strong to fit into life.

Well, I felt the same way too. I didn't like what I saw, the streets, the drugstores.

The movie houses. I thought: "Well, hell. Maybe I'm too strong too, huh."

But...

the little shots I saw of skid row, usually I slept on park benches.

Even liked the flophouses.

But the guys I saw down there, and the guys I saw in the

they have employment places, you know.

You sit on benches and you wait

for a call, they need four guys to unload a boxcar or something.

Just sitting, and, well you sit in these places.

There are people there man, they don't even know where the hell they're at.

There's a guy going...

There's another guy going:

"Well, fuck! (mad gibberish)!"

Another guy going

You know they're all uh...

These aren't the beautiful people down on skid row.

Like this film we saw, what the-

I won't name it.

But you know they're pushing in and they're all singing a little

and they're playing with guitars.

And they're all...talking about their problems.

They have a little bonfire, there's none of that.

They're completely mad and they're

they're almost like cockroach people.

They're ugly and you don't, you just want to get away from them.

It's terrible down there. There's nothing like that movie we saw.

There's nothing even near that, I've never seen a skid row like that.

And you could go down there and search for years, you won't find it.

Those people down there...

I went there because I wanted to escape.

They go down there because they were thrown down there.

See?

And you want to escape and your down with people who were thrown down there

that doesn't feel good either. So then, where else do you go?

Back to the bottle and a tiny room somewhere.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

That's all.

I'm loner, that's all. Hell.

Unless you're a loner, I only met one guy like me.

But he couldn't have been much of a loner cause he kept knocking at my door,

telling me how much he was a loner.

It was Red Strange, whatever.

But he was as close as I could find to a guy like me.

So he's telling me about himself, or else he'd read my stuff and he recognized it.

But he wasn't as much of a loner as I was. So I said: "Hey, Red. Go away."

What was he doing in life?

He just hung around. He'd get little jobs in rooming houses

and he was always ducking. He never wanted to be seen, and...

One time I was driving down the street and he was walking down

and I think it was a...and I said:

"Hey Red!" He was looking at a...walking down the street, he

pretended to look at a theater marquee, you know, an advertisement for a theater.

He was trying to hide from the voice who said "Hey Red".

So, I tested it. I knew he was a real loner, he's trying to hide. I said: "Hey Red."

"It's Hank." He said: "Oh, Hank!" and he jumped in the car. I said:

"Okay, kid. Tell me about it." So, he'd start talking you know

about being a true loner. But he talked too much.

Hours.

But I got a lot of short stories out of him.

He kept coming around.

He fed a lot of good stories and then he kept repeating his stories and I said:

"Hey, Red."

"Go out, get me some new stuff, and then come back. You're boring me."

So, I moved and meanwhile we didn't connect.

I could still use him, you know. One of those erection stories. The one uh...

I don't know if you remeber. There's a dog

that keeps bothering people and they cut his throat.

That was a Red Strange story.

There are a couple others. The guy fed me some stories you know, I used them

He was the main character, the mean one,

in that scene where it was just a story that he heard?

Oh yeah, he was the guy that cut the dog's throat. -Ah, he was the mean one.

Oh yeah, he was mean. We would walk down the street, you know, and he would say:

"Hey, watch this guy. He's got boots on, Hank."

I'd say: "Yeah." He'd say:

"Never wear boots, a guy could come up right behind you and cut your throat."

This guy'd be walking about a block behind, he'd say: "Watch!"

He'd go right up and start walking behind the guy and he'd go back to me like this:

"See! See! See! See! See."

I say: "Hey Red! Come on. Come on."

He was completely mad. Of course I liked him very much.

So, he was very strange.

He was strange.

So, okay. Good.

Goodnight.

To me, once a person enters the door the first thing I think of is getting rid of them.

The Vampires

I am hungover and in bed and the doorbell rings

It is 11 am

What the shit? I ask

She goes to the door and I hear her talking

She enters the bedroom and tells me

"It's a Mr. Sanderson" she says

"He says you know him and he wants to talk to you"

"Sanderson?" I ask

"What's his first name?"

She comes back with the answer

"He says his first name is Frank."

"Never heard of the son of a bitch. Tell him to get out of here."

I hear them talking back and forth and I consider all that very unnecessary.

I begin to get up and get dressed to run him off.

When I get there he is gone.

"What did he want?" I ask.

"He wanted to talk to you," she says. "Well, now isn't that the cat's tit?"

"He looked like a very nice boy. He looked very sad when you sent him off."

"I don't want to talk to any son of a bitch," I tell her.

"Well, I would of talked to him." She says.

I walk into the crapper, pull down my pants and my shorts and let it go.

That night I'm on my fourth or fifth beer

when there is a brutal knocking upon the door.

I figure murder, emergency, anything.

Somebody needs help.

I open the door.

It is a fat son of a bitch and behind him

there are five or six other people. Male and female.

"Hey!" Screams the fat man.

"I am Bo Severus and we've come to say hello!"

I swing the door shut but he sticks a big shoe in there

holding it open.

"Hold it," he says, "we're a lot alike".

"You'll really dig me. Many people mistake me for you"

"Get your god damn foot out of the jam," I say.

"I've read all your books," he says.

I take the heel of my shoe and crush it down along his toe.

The foot withdraws and I slam the door.

After a moment, empty beer cans and bottles hit against the door.

Then a rock or two.

I hear some curses and then I hear them walking off.

I sit down and open a new beer.

"Ever since I was about 16," I tell her.

"People have been after me and its never stopped."

"44 years worth of that."

"I don't know what they want with me be- cause you see I most certainly dislike them"

"Maybe if you just give them a chance," she says.

"You'll find that everybody's an individual, if you just search them out"

I drain my beer on that one then look at her.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

I walk into the kitchen and find the scotch.

Unpeal and pour a hit as the phones rings.

I hear her answer.

'Who?"

"I'll ask him."

I hear her walking toward me in the kitchen

and I wonder why she doesn't already know the answer

as I stand there holding the drink.

Watching the faucet leak.

The way they always do.

When you people leave tonight I'll feel much better.

No, I will. Truly.

I mean I like you to an extent, but I mean, I like you better when you're not here.

Yes, I've been in jail...

I don't know my record probably

Thirteen common drunks.

Two drunk drivings.

One...

attempted rape, which was dismissed.

This may not be in Los Angeles, it's all over the country, but most are in Los Angeles.

But...actually I'm an innocent man.

I get drunk and I pretend violence but I'm not violent.

It's just self-entertainment.

You know, you can't go to movies, those things.

I think most of the things I say when I'm drunk are very true

even though, later in the morning people say:

"Those things you said are very raw and untrue". I think

I come, finally come out of my...

What I'm hiding behind I really say, but I feel against things. I might be wrong.

But I'm only wrong...

against what's happening to me.

I'm dumb.

I'm impetuous and I'm dumb. I'm silly

and I'm unrehearsed and I don't have very much experience.

Or, I've picked it up lately you know, very much.

But I still react the same way.

I am a dumb person. I react dumbly with violence.

I don't like to be wronged and I react

directly toward that.

I have no excuses for my stupidity.

Nothing else?

I will have to say one more thing.

A lot of reasons for my so-called stupidity with women later

relate with what happened to me from the time I was born till I was

17, 18, 19 years old. In otherwords

that area filled in-I'm not apologizing, I'm just saying

I was brought up tough and hard by the toughest troops in the world.

So, I think they were wrong but they taught me

to believe

and not to forgive.

I never forgive.

I'm a dog.

You're either on time, you do it right, or you do it wrong.

And once you've made an error, forget it.

I don't make errors.

I just get drunk, slap people all to shit,

drive my car over dead bodies, park in the garage and have another drink.

Okay?

Leaning on Wood

there are 4 or 5 guys at the racetrack bar.

there is a mirror behind the bar.

the reflections are not kind

of the 4 or 5 guys at the racetrack bar.

there are many bottles

at the racetrack bar.

we order different drinks.

there is a mirror behind the bar.

the reflections are not kind.

“it don’t take brains to beat the horses, it just takes money and guts.”

our reflections are not kind.

the clouds are outside.

the sun is outside.

the horses are warming up outside.

we stand at the racetrack bar.

“I’ve been playing the races for 40 years and I still can’t beat them.”

“you can play the races for another 40 years and you still won’t beat them.”

the bartender doesn’t like us.

the 5 minute warning buzzer sounds.

we finish our drinks and turn away to make our bets.

our reflections look better as we walk away:

you can’t see our faces.

4 or 5 guys from the racetrack bar.

what shit.

nobody wins.

ask Caesar.

You said that the racetracks were the universities of life

What, what do you learn at the racetrack? Why do you go at the racetrack every day?

Like Hemingway

needed bullfights, you know,

to see what was happening. It taught him something.

Actually, he was studying death.

I'm more or less studying...life.

I think what it is it tells you something very quickly

that you should know from the beginning.

But it doesn't quite give you the answer, it almost gives you the answer.

And that's important, to almost have the answer.

And that's all. It teaches you

something unnameable.

When I don't go to the track for

two or three days I just wilt, like a...

like a flower without water.

So, it's...

I can't name it. It's just...

It's just there. The thing is there, I have to go see it.

The monster, the god, the rat,

the snail. Whatever is out there I have to go see it, and look at it.

And endure it and...maybe not endure it. But...

It's needed.

That's all. I really can't explain it.

If I could, I wouldn't go.

What is it...(inaudible)

Where women have failed with a lot of men

I believe where this one

thought

that artistic men

one who wrote of

unusual things or unusual feelings had more

than common men of the streets, business men...

etc.

But you see that's not true.

Artists only

heighten

what is true. But they themselves may not be

as real as the guy next door.

They only realize a sense of reality and heighten it

to a sharpened point.

And that's called art.

But they themselves may not be

worthwhile creatures.

But with some women

they think that men in the arts or

great poets, great writers, or

semi-great writers might have something extra.

But it's not true, they don't have anything extra.

They just do different things in a different way.

Perhaps in a more unkind way

to...

reach...

what they're trying to explain of themselves.

It doesn't make a better man.

So, uh...

she thought in me

she could find something

more gentle, more kind.

Actually, she found the reverse.

So, it doesn't matter.

But, they don't want to live with it.

All of them have come to see me

and they try to change me.

They want to show me the happy life. They want to...

But you see, I didn't ask them to come by.

They're trying to save me.

They're interested in the evilness in my writing, if I can use that term,

or the difference. And that's what attracts them.

The minute, the moment they meet me they try to change me into them.

Which is not evil, interesting, or anything at all.

So, I resent that

and I revolt to it and then we get an unhappiness.

But, I don't come to them, they come to me.

So then we have problems.

I used to hang around this park a little

and...

over there is the hotel.

Where the guy dropped out of the window while I was sitting, you know.

That's it.

We drank heavily

and one morning I woke up with the worst hangover I ever had.

Like a steel band around my head.

I really felt terrible and she was in the bathroom puking.

We drank this very cheap wine, you know, the cheapest you could get.

Many bottles, so...

I'm sitting there almost dying. I'm sitting at the window trying to get some air.

Just sitting there

and all of a sudden

a body comes down. A man fully dressed, he's got a necktie on neatly knotted,

he seems to be going in slow motion.

You know, a body doesn't fall very fast.

Evidently he got up on the roof

and just jumped off.

This building is not very tall.

I mean, he probably crippled himself for life. I don't know.

So...

I saw him go by

and I said: "Well,"

"I don't think I'm going crazy. I think that was really a body that went by."

"I know it was a body that went by."

So, I hollered to the bathroom, I said: "Hey, Jane! Guess what?"

She says: "Ya, what is it?"

I said: "The strangest thing just happened."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, a human body just dropped by my window."

"His head was on top and his feet were, he was all lined up"

"and he was dropping through the air. He dropped right passed the window."

She said: "Ah, bullshit." I said: "No, no, it really happened."

"I'm not making it up."

She said: "Ahhh come one, you're trying to be funny. You're not funny." I said:

"I know I'm not funny." I said: "Look, I'll tell ya what."

"Just come on out here,"

"come to the window and stick your head out the window and look down."

She said: "All right, here I come." She came,

she stuck her head out the window and all I heard was

"Oh God Almighty!"

She ran in the bathroom

and puked and puked and puked. And I laid there, I sat there and I said:

"I told you so, baby."

"I told you so."

And I went to the refrigerator, got a beer. I felt better, you know.

I don't know why I felt better. Maybe cause I was right, you know.

So I opened my beer and I sat there and I drank it.

I still didn't look out the window, you know.

Because I was feeling bad.

This is where it happened, and that's all there is.

We were no longer living together, and uh...

I came over to see her once

and I knocked on the door.

There was nobody in the room and I opened the door

and the bed covers had been pulled back, and there was a spot of blood...

on the bed sheet

about

a little bit below the head.

And I sensed something very bad you know, just the feel of the bed and the

shadows in the room and everything was there...

So, I went downstairs to the...

landlady and I said: "Where's Jane?"

She said: "Well, the ambulance came and took her."

So...

then I went to see her. She was in the County General where I'd spent a lot of my time.

And, so she was in a coma,

and I kept sitting there,

and I wiped her face with a rag.

She came out of the coma, she recognized me. She opened her eyes

and she said:

"I knew it would be you."

Then she closed her eyes and she never came out of it again.

So yeah, that's how it happened.

She died maybe two days later.

For Jane

225 days under grass

and you know more than I.

they have long taken your blood,

you are a dry stick in a basket.

is this how it works?

in this room

the hours of love

still make shadows.

when you left

you took almost everything.

I kneel in the nights

before tigers

that will not let me be.

what you were

will not happen again.

the tigers have found me

and I do not care.

She was a beautiful woman.

Okay, forget it.

Probably the second woman I went to be with.

The other was -Just a...

250lb whore or the 300lb whore.

That was at 24, 25?

I was...

24, 25. She was around 35.

And she just accepted me.

Got me all this booze and...

I don't understand it, but she was a real

fine looking woman, with body and good sense.

A little bit mad.

To me it was like a miracle.

Of course I didn't act like it was very exciting because you just don't do that, you know.

So, I thought I really had something.

I did. I had lots of trouble.

That's all.

She hgad beautiful legs, wore high heels.

Knew how to cross her legs with the

skirt just so. Kicking the heel like this and talking all kinds of shit, you know.

Nothing like beautiful legs.

Because with beautiful legs you always figure

even though you've only been there once or twice

there be something else there besides a cunt.

You know, there might be something really marvelous this time.

It could be a cunt, but it could be...

There's something about looking at the legs that makes you dream.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the cunt. But I'm saying you always imagine

some extra magic when you're looking at the outside portion of the female.

But you really were in love with her? I mean, it lasted some time.

I was in love because it was the first person who paid any attention to me

in my life.

So I was flattered.

You know, she used to say:

"You have the most beautiful eyes of any man I've ever met." You know.

All this kind of bullshit, so...

One is taken easily the first time.

And each time one is taken again, one is taken less easily.

Till finally you're taken again and again, then you're not quite taken.

You accept but you're not quite taken.

Anything else?

Wanda was a good looker but men couldn't...

stand her because she would attack them, physically. With bottles or all of a sudden

be sitting next to them in a bar, throw a glass in their face,

or you know, act erratically.

But she never did that with me except one time, and then I cured that.

She did it twice, and I cured it twice and she never did it again.

I won't go into details.

Nothing torturous, just counterbalance of a...

psychology.

She was a looker.

And, she had a strange

mad kind of sensibilty that knew something

which was this:

That most human beings are just aren't worth a shit.

And I felt that, and she felt it.

So, we had a working ground to work upon.

That's all.

Anything else?

How's it going? -All right.

You said the feminists who attacked you, have not read Women.

What would they find if the read it well?

They would find

in a relationship between men and women

that I cared more for the women than they cared for me.

They was more interesting

and more alive and more humorous

and...

more joyful about our relationships.

The very fact that I'd written the book in such a manner is one of the proofs.

I was alive enough to write it and live through them.

And, I am not the hero in the book.

I am not the victor, you see.

What...

the feminists, as you call them, are looking for is

"he said this! He did that!"

But they never see when she did this, she did that.

So I would say, basically

they are sick and I am well.

Pardon me.

Okay.

Quiet Clean Girls in Gingham Dresses

all I've ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.

I see men with quiet, gentle women

I see them in... I see them in the supermarkets,

I see them walking down the streets together,

I see them in their apartments:

people at peace, living together.

I know that their peace is only partial,

but there is peace,

often hours and days of peace.

all I've ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,

whores, ex-prostitutes,

madwomen.

when one leaves another arrives worse than her predecessor.

I see so many men with quiet clean girls in gingham dresses

girls with faces that are not wolverine

or predatory.

"don't ever bring a whore around," I tell my friends,

"I'll fall in love with her."

"you couldn't stand a good woman, Bukowski."

I need a good woman.

I need a good woman more than I need this typewriter

more than I need my automobile,

more than I need Mozart;

I need a good woman so badly that I can taste her in the air,

I can feel her at my fingertips,

I can see sidewalks built

for her feet to walk upon,

I can see pillows for her head,

I can feel my waiting laughter,

I can see her petting a cat,

I can see her sleeping,

I can see her slippers on the floor.

I know that she exists

but where is she upon this earth

as the whores keep finding me?

Yeah, where is she?

Nowhere at all.

What are the places where you lived except

apart the Carlton Way and the Longpre which were the 2 last ones before this one?

They were pretty similar; the Longpre and Carlton Way? -Yeah.

Well, I think of all the places Jane and I lived together, which were

sometimes one week, sometimes two weeks, sometimes two nights cause we would fight.

We got a fancy, real place and

we'd be all sober you know, and the landlord would come in and say:

"We're gonna give you a nice, new, red rug here. This rug is filthy."

And we'd act like ladies and gentleman, oh yes, and Jane would say:

"Oh, thank you." We'd act all dignified, you know.

This one place,

they ripped up the green rug, all torn, they bought us a beautiful red rug.

And they just admired us. They thought, they thought we had something, you know.

Then we had a fight one night, you know.

It goes on five or six hours. Broken glass and screaming. Oh shit.

So I woke up in the morning, I said to Jane: "You know, we're finished here, baby."

All of a sudden the door popped open. The guy had tears in his eyes.

"You're ruining my career! I thought you were decent people!"

"You gotta leave! You gotta leave your room!"

I said: "Okay buddy, we'll leave. Just give us what you got us."

So, we used to do that all the time. We'd go from place to place.

We'd pay a weeks rent but we'd never last a week. We'd get refunds.

There'd be broken mirrors.

And we'd go around and around. It got so tiresome, you know.

We used to knock on doors and some of them they already knew us,

they wouldn't rent to us.

So we'd just go around and around.

And, I don't know where the money came from. I had part-time jobs.

And one morning it was about 3:30 in the-no...

It was about 11 in the morning, it was Sunday morning. I said: "Hey, Jane."

She says: "What is it you son of a bitch? Give me a drink."

I said: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute."

"There's something wrong."

"I have parked my car in the middle of a street."

"I'm blocking all traffic."

"They've hauled my poor car away."

"Oh bullshit, you son..." "No, I remember being drunk"

"but couldn't find a parking space"

"so I said I'll just park it in the middle of the street."

"Oh bullshit! Bullshit!"

Well you know, women will always think they don't know what you're thinking.

So, I put on my clothes and I looked up the first street and I couldn't find...

Here I was up the third street, I blocked the whole street.

Here was the car parked there

but luckily it was 11 o'clock in the morning

and nobody on that street went to church. They were all, you know.

So I got in, got in, turned the key and it started and I just drove right off.

Parksa (???) I blocked the whole

avenue.

That was the Plymouth? -Street.

I don't remember what car it was but you know it would barely start.

When I got in to start it I'd be...

Those days were so wild, man. We were always drunk, getting kicked out.

I had two cars. One would break down, I have another...

It was a continuous going into bars, getting into trouble,

getting kicked out of rooms.

It was a tension that just-

But there was a liveliness there because we both didn't care for shit, you know.

Were you able to write during this time?

What? Oh no, hell no. There wasn't any time. -You were able to write while this was...

And then she'd be in jail, I'd get her out. I'd be in jail, she couldn't get me out.

So, it was awful.

But there was this constant-it was like being in a war, it never relented.

This speaks for itself.

I wouldn't go in there, you see.

Only a fool would walk-well, I might go in. Yeah.

Time Motel, you can go in there, you pay 15 minutes to get a bed.

And here we have the broken down cars of everything.

This is Carlton Way? -Yeah, watch the guy here.

This is where I used to live, but now...

I somehow escaped.

Which I'm very pleased about.

Not that the poor aren't all right, there's just so god damn many of them.

Lots of action here. This is an action place. Was an action place.

Still seems to be.

So...

Who were you neighbors? It was Sam the Whorehouse Man?

Yeah, Sam the Whorehouse Man and...

a couple of lesbians,

a couple homosexuals upstairs.

a couple drug dealers...

It's kind of become family now. It's become much nicer, I guess.

But, I'm glad I'm not living here now. It's not quite my...

atmosphere.

So I really don't know...

This is where I wrote 'Women', yes.

This is where I did my research.

And, one of them used to sit on the couch.

One morning I had three of them sitting on this couch.

The Mailman came by.

He asked me the next day: "Hank, how do you do it? How do you get 'em?"

I said: "The problem is not how you get 'em, it's how you get rid of 'em."

So ah...

Sometimes people think you have a got thing, you got a bad thing you know.

So uh...

It worked. It turned into writing.

All these sounds you hear are sounds of my children.

No. No.

But before that you were living in a similar place, a court.

I've always lived in courts. I like courts.

You can come in drunk, leave drunk. It's not like an apartment.

where everybody knows what the hell you're doing.

In a Neighborhood of Murder

the roaches spit out paperclips

and the helicopter circles and circles smelling for blood

searchlights leering down into our bedroom

5 guys in this court have pistols

another a machete

we are all murderers and alcoholics

but there are worse in the hotel across the street

they sit in the green and white doorway

banal and depraved

waiting to be institutionalized

here we each have a small green plant in the window

and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

we speak softly

and on each porch is a small dish of food

always eaten by morning

we presume

by the cats.

...zoot suits...

Oh...zoot suit. Well...

That was World War II.

And uh...

of course

I was one of the few guys who was not interested in World War II.

It was a very patriotic time.

You know now, you know the...

the Jane Fonda, anti-war things didn't take much courage

you know, cause everybody was against them. She's up there screaming.

Wiggling her ass against the war.

That doesn't take any courage, you know.

But during World War II, if you were against the war

man, you were a cockroach you know.

But like I always said

there aren't any good wars or any bad wars.

Guys get killed or get their balls blown off.

And somebody wins and somebody loses.

And when it's all over and the smoke clears

just re-corruption, re-corrupt.

But, getting back to the zoot suiters.

They were about my only allies because I wasn't interested in the war

and...

The Mexicans weren't either because they were starving on the east side of L.A.

So they were quite neat, these Mexicans.

They wore these things called zoot suits and they ca...they

carried little knives, razors.

They'd go around attacking the U.S. troops.

Cutting sailors throats.

Murdering them, beating the shit out of them in gangs.

And...

You know, that was quite beautiful because it was so much against the tide

of American feelings and patriotism.

I thought...

shit! These guys are just like I am. They're not interested in the war,

in fact they even don't like it.

Well, I didn't dislike it. It didn't matter. It didn't matter to me, you know.

I didn't want to cut a sailor's throat.

He wants to go to the war, let him go. "Hey baby. Save the world."

But these guys were actually a...

quite magic and...

I felt a great affinity towards them but I didn't want to join their gangs because

what's a whitey gonna come in:

"Hey, man."

"I'll help you cut a sailor up." You know.

Hey! Here's this...white face guy.

But anyhow

anything against the normal tide, when the tide is going all this way

and any group stands up and goes a little bit that way

they interest me very much.

It's so easy just to go, you know.

The zoot suiters were very interesting.

And now, I guess in our times they've become

kind of magic heroes. They make little plays about them and...

But at that time it was very difficult for them. Finally, the Navy got very

angry against the Mexicans and they would just...

Sailors would go into East L.A. and just

grab a Mexican and just beat the shit of him.

You know, they'd run through the whole town.

They'd just start beating up Mexicans you know, because

all Mexicans were zoot suiters.

So, you know that's how that went. That ended up badly.

Because there are more guys in the Navy than there are zoot suiters.

So, there you go.

It was a very glamorous gang. I liked

the minor swelling against authority at that time.

That's all.

When I start drinking now I drink, you know,

two or three bottles of wine a night but I type.

I always do my work while I'm drinking so

it's okay.

Before you do a reading though,

you do an incredible amount of drinking. More than you usually do.

Fear.

Go ahead.

Yet, when you get on the stage you don't look the least bit afraid. Is that an act?

Or...is that becasue you're

Joe...I'm lucky.

Once I get out

I look at them

You know what I do? I take one tiny sweep

of the second or third row and I see these faces.

All of a sudden I feel completely superior.

I don't know what happens but...

Because the addition of the faces: men and women,

there's no challenge.

So, once I get there I smooth out...

I think it's before I see them while I'm waiting

I imagine I'm gonna see an audience of a strange type of

group, you know. But once I take the glance, it's all over.

So it's great. So, I read it on through. There's no fear, I'm on my game.

Technically.

Beautifully.

Of course then I drink to much and I'm...I'm just gone.

But there's no fear, finally when I hit the boards.

There can't be fear, because I look at them.

What am I looking at?

That.

What's there to fear?

So I read, get my money, and go.

So, do you think you're...what you do on the stage is a little bit

affected by their expectation?

I believe you're right. I believe, in a sense, before I begin reading

I know they expect the drunken...

idiot clown thype of creature. So, I give them that.

You don't think that's any danger to your integrity as a...

Of course there's a danger to my integrity.

But, if I have enough integrity left over, I'll be all right.

Right? Depends upon how much you're loaded.

That's why I don't read that much and if I were doing

or giving away my integrity once a week

I would be in danger.

But once every two years, it's like a mosquito bite.

I don't like it, Joe.

But I love the money.

I have nothing against money. Give me all the money you want.

I will not refuse it.

Because I've been dead broke so many times.

I've been so dead broke. Starved so long.

I realize the value of money.

It's tremendous. Money is magic!

I'll take all I can get.

I hope I never miss a meal again.

But won't you have too much at a certain point?

Not yet. Give me some more and test me.

Try me.

But there's nothing that you

that you want that you don't have right now, is there, really?

I mean, you don't think about things like that, do you?

You don't want a sailboat? -The only thing I'm missing now...

is more privacy than I'd like. I would like to be alone more than I am.

Like the phone rings too often.

There's too many cameras and all that and I kind of accept it, but it's not me.

When these things are gone I go back to the room and I become myself again.

Often times, I'll pull down all the shades like I used to

and just lay down in the room for five or six hours, just alone.

Just lay in that bed, and get something back.

Some kind of juice.

Just being away from people is one of the most marvelous fulfillments

a man like me can have.

Just the absence of humanity

is a fulfillment so graceful

that even God would understand if he invented them.

Nobody... -Which he probably didn't.

Can do.

Say when.

Whenever you like.

Okay...

Jesus. Where are all the pretty little girls in the audience?

Where are all the little

groupies? They aren't...

They don't want to come see me after the reading. They don't wanna...

suck my middle finger.

"Hey kid! Yeah, you can have my autograph baby."

That's what destroys...I'll tell you.

Okay.

The Crunch

too much

too little

too fat

too thin or nobody.

laughter or tears

haters lovers

strangers with faces like the backs of

thumb tacks

armies running through streets of blood

waving winebottles

bayoneting

and fucking virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room

with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great

that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock

people so tired

mutilated

either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich

the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us that we can all be

big-ass winners

it hasn't told us about the gutters

or the suicides.

or the terror of one person

aching in one place alone

untouched

unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.

I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about it.

the beads will swing the clouds will cloud

and the killer will behead the child

like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much

too little

too fat

too thin or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.

perhaps if they were our deaths

would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls

stems flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet though of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries it demands

it says there is a chance.

it will not say

"no."

Yeah, I walked in the employment office and the guy looked at me, says:

"Well, what do you want?"

I said:

"I need a job. Hell, I need a job. That's all."

He says: "You're hired." He laughed.

"Have you ever lifted any heavy weights?" I said:

"I used to fight in the ring."

He said: "What?" I said: "Yeah,"

"I fought a couple, you know six round or three rounders down in Arizona."

"What's your name?" I said: "I fought under the name I don't know,"

"my promoter called me Kid-something."

Said...

He said: "How'd you do?" I said: "I lost all the fights." But I said: "I'm strong."

I was starving to death.

Hadn't had a meal in about...

You know, I was trying to be a writer or something.

I was all fucked up.

So, he hired me. He says: "I like your spirit."

"I'm gonna put you in with a bunch of Canadian ex-fliers from World War 2."

I said: "Great."

"They just work with little tuna tin cans. They're high class boys."

"I can tell you're high class." I said: "Okay, thank you."

So, finally I showed up with my little card. I punched in.

There weren't any Canadian ex-force fliers.

Put me with a big bunch of 8 foot blacks with

3 foot shoulders and full of white hatred.

Guy said: "You Bukowski?' I said: "Yeah." He said:

"Hey, where are you're boots?" I said: "I don't have anything."

"Put these on! Them your boots." I put them on, they were three sizes too small.

"This is your hat."

This tin hat on my head rang of death.

I was starving.

And then, he said: "This is what you do, man."

And these big hunks of beef, slaughtered things were

running on hooks. They keep running. They come one after another.

And he says: "Watch that man what he do."

And shit. You know I've been starving for three weeks. I had to pick up this

big thing on my shoulder.

"When that hook drops, you catch it."

So I caught it.

This is what I got for trying to be a writer. Starving when I got this

hunk of dead steer on my shoulder.

And the bones cut into my shoulder

like knives.

And I caught and I'm weak, but all the blacks are watching and they're thinking

"Whitey can't do it. Whitey..."

"is a pansy ass because he's white."

I knew what they were thinking so I had to take it...

But, I wasn't only white, I was starving to death but they didn't understand that part.

Had to take it and you take it in a truck

then you gotta lift it off your shoulder like this

and there's a hook on a truck that carries these things.

Only instead of the hook being very sharp, so you can

hook this thing on it, you know like a, like a tiny razor blade.

It's like the end of your thumb.

So you're very tired

and you reach this thing up and you try to go like that.

It won't poke through cause all your strength

is for lifting this off your shoulder, trying to poke it through

and you can see it's just trying to work through the skin.

There's big, black guy behind you. Well fed,

strong and young. He ain't worried about writing poems.

He's had a T-bone steak. He's fucked his woman. He's full of eggs and beer.

He syas: "Come on, man! What the fuck you doin' there?"

So you go...

And you never beg for mercy. That's the worst thing you could ever do.

Finally, you poke it through.

And you go again, and the circle goes again.

Here comes another one.

It hits you, cuts again. You say: "Aw...shit."

I can't fail because I'm white.

They think it's only white and black. They don't realize I'm starving.

I want to write a poem. I want to write a short story. I want to write a novel.

I don't want to carry this dead hunk of meat on my shoulder.

But they think it's just: black-white, black-white, white's weak.

I was weak because I was starving.

But still, I had some kind of guts. I went on for four hours.

Hooking and working.

And...finally.

Guys...no, two hours. I only went two hours. I'm sorry.

And finally, somebody said: "Coffee break."

And then the little coffee truck came up.

You know I just-I could see the lights, I could see...donuts.

Little sugary pastries.

Hot steam rising up.

It looked like God himself had arrived on wheels.

With the juice of goodness and glory.

I said: "If I can get a cup of coffee I could beat this night."

"Oh shit. I'll beat these guys, even if they think it's only white against black."

"Even though I'm starving to death I'll beat their asses in out of my guts."

I started moving toward the coffee thing. You know, all the blacks are...

I'm sorry this is a black and white story, but it is.

All the black workers are going toward the thing.

And there might have been one white in there. I didn't see him.

Now here comes this big hand on my shoulder. He said:

"Bukowski."

"Yeah, what is it?"

He said:

"before you take your coffee break, man..."

"I want you to move..."

"That truck from stall C-6 to stall C-9."

I go what the fuck is this? I'm no truck driver. I've never driven a truck

the size of three houses.

I said: "This guy, once again, is testing my guts."

I said: "What am I gonna do now?"

If I had any sense you know, you're so dizzy from starving. I would've said:

"I demand my coffee break. I'm getting my coffee."

"Then I'll move your truck."

But you know, you're so weakened and so terrified and so fucked up...

I said: "All right."

So, I went toward this big huge truck. I was starving, i'm weak. Everything...

I clamber up into the-I've never driven-I can't even drive a fucking car, this thing is

huge!

So, I clamber up into the god damn and I got my tin hat on. I'm sweating, sick.

I look for the ignition key.

I start it. I kind...find neutral.

Then I look down. You know what's in those big trucks?

There's not only one set...of things, you know, like a...reverse.

You have about six sets of pedals sitting there.

It's amazing. It's like a piano.

I said: "Well, now what the fuck am I gonna do? Which one of these do I hit?"

So I just got pissed off and I hit one. I put it in a seeming reverse.

And I let it out and the whole big-this huge thing started backing up.

I said: "Fuck, well I'm doing it. That's what I was supposed to do."

So I'm...drove this huge, big truck. I circled it

around.

Here was stall six. I circled it all around,

further back, like a real trucker.

Then...I pulled it up.

I circle it back.

Then I back the whole fucking thing back,

perfectly into stall 6-C.

Then...

I was complete-I lost the last of my energy.

And I said: "Well, I gotta get out and get that cup of coffee."

So, I open the door...

You know, there's a little step you're supposed to take on the way down?

I saw it but you know,

you're body gets so tired,

your eyes sees the step, your foot sees it,

but somehow you miss. There's kind of a haze.

So I dropped all the way from the cab to the ground and I landed flat on my back.

It took all the wind out of me.

I got up, I said: "Shit!"

So I stood up and I walked around the back of the truck.

And, just as I was leaving...

You know, just as I was walking around the back of the truck.

Here came the little coffee truck, just drocking-dropping away.

Driving off to go to the next plant.

So, I walked out. I walked toward where I was working.

Guy says: "Okay Bukowski. Ready to go back to work?"

I didn't say anything. I just walked away.

I walked up. There's a little place you go where you enter

to get in.

And I had my hat, my tin hat on.

And the guy at the, at the guard's place.

I put my tin hat down. He says: "What are you doing?"

I said: "I quit."

He said:

"Where are we gonna send your pay?" I said: "Forget it."

"Keep it."

That was it, I walked out.

I did all that fucking work. I parked...

I didn't get any, I didn't...

I'm an asshole.

What they were doing, they were testing my courage.

But what they were didn't realize, my body was so weak. I could've...

met all his challenges.

Since I was starving to death it pissed me off that they challenged me

only to be white.

Not undertsanding that even whites starve to death or go crazy.

So, this is an anti-black statement. They didn't treat me very well.

Though, later on in factories, I met some good fellas.

That was a bad experience.

That's all. Now I gotta piss.