asadena Freeway and then after that more driving along surface streets to get the track. It's a long hot drive, coming and going. I always came in from that drive totaly exhausted. A small-time trainer phoned me. "There was nobody out there. It's the end. I need a new trade. Think I'll get a word processor and become a writer. I'll write about you..." His voice was on the message machine. I phoned him back and congratulated him for coming in 2nd on a 6-to-1 shot. But he was down. "The small trainer is finished. This is the end," he said. Well, we'll see what they draw tomorrow. Friday. Probably a thousand more. It's only inter-track wagering, it's the economy. Things are worse than the government or the press will admit. Those who are still alive in the economy are keeping quiet about it. I'd have to guess that the biggest business going is the sale of drugs. Hell, take that away and almost all the young would be unemployed. Me, I'm still making it as a writer but that could be shot through the head overnight. Well, I still have my old age pension: $943.00 a month. They gave me that when I turned 70. But that can die too. Imagine all the old wandering the streets without their pensions. Don't discount it. The national debt can pull us under like a giant octopus. People will be sleeping in the graveyards. At the same time, there is a crust of living rich on top of the rot. Isn't it astonishing? Some people have so damn much money they don't even know how much they have. And I'm talking millions. And look at Hollywood, turning out 60 million dollar movies, as idiotic as the poor fools who go to see them. The rich are still there, they've always found a way to milk the system. I remember when the racetracks were jammed wtih people, shoulder to shoulder, ass to ass, sweating, screaming, pushing toward the full bars. It was a good time. Have a big day, you'd both be drinking and laughing. We thought those days (and night) would never end. And why should they? Crap games in the parking lots. Fist fights. Bravcado and glory. Electricity. Hell, life was good, life was funny. All us guys were men, we'd take no shit from anybody. And, frankly, it felt good. Booze and a roll in the hay. And plenty of bars, full bars. No tv sets. You talked and got into trouble. If you got picked up for being drunk in the streets they only locked you up overnight to dry out. You lost jobs and found other jobs. No use hanging around the same place. What a time. What a life. Crazy things always happening, followed by more crazy things. Now, it has simmered away. Seven thousand people at a major racetrack on a sunny afternnon. Nobody at the bar. Just the lonely barkeep holding a towel. Where are the people? There are more people than ever but where are they? Standing on a corner, sitting in a room. Bush might get reelected because he won an easy war. But he didn't do crap for the economy. You never even know if your bank will openin the morning. I don't mean to sing the blues. But you know, in the 1930's at least everybody knew where they were. Now, it's a game of mirrors. And nobody is quite sure what is holding it together. Or who they are really working for. If they are working. Damn, I've got to get off this. Nobody else seems to be bitching about the state of affairs. Or, if the are, they are in a place where nobody can hear them. And I sit around writing poems, a novel, I can't help it, I can't do anything else. I was poor for 60 years. now I am neither rich nor poor. At the track they are going to start laying off people at the concession stands, the parking lots and in the business office and in maintenance. Purses for races will decline. Smaller fields. Less jocks. A lot less laughter. Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself. Moving toward 2,000 A.D. I'll be dead and out of here. Leaving my little stack of books. Seven thousand at the track. Seven thousand. I can't believe it. The Sierra Madres weep in the smog. When the horses no longer run the sky will fall down, flat, wide, ponderous, crushing everything. Glassware won the 9th, paid $9.00. I had a ten on it. 10/9/91 12:07 PM Computer class was a kick for sore ballls. You pick it up inch by inch and try to get the totality. The problem is that the books say one way and some people say the other. The terminology slowly becomes understandable. The computer only does, it doesn't know. You can confuse it and it can turn on you. It's up to you to get along with it. Still, the computer can go crazy and do odd and strange things. It catches viruses, gets shorts, bombs out, etc. Somehow, tonight, I feel that the less said about the computer, the better. I wonder whatever happened to that crazy French reporter who interviewed me in Paris so long ago? The one who drank whiskey the way most men drink beer? And he got brighter and more interesting as the bottles emptied. Probably dead. I used to drink 15 hours a day but it was mostly beer and wine. I ought to be dead. I will be dead. Not bad, thinking about that. I've had a weird and wooly existence, much of it awful, total drudgery. But I think it was the way I rammed myself through the shit that made the difference. Looking back now, I think I exhibited a certain amount of cool and class no matter what was happening. I remember how the FBI guys got pissed driving me along in that car. "HEY, THIS GUY'S PRETTY COOL!" one of them yelled angrily. I hadn't asked what I had been picked up for or where we were going. It just didn't matter to me. Just another slice out of the senselessness of life. "NOW WAIT," I told them. "I'm scared." That seemed to make them feel better. To me, they were like creatures from outer space. We couldn't relate to each other. But it was strange. I felt nothing. Well, it wasn't exactly strange to me, I mean it was strange in the ordinary sense. I just saw hands and feet and heads. They had their minds made up about something, it was up to them. I wasn't looking for justice and logic. I never have. Maybe that's why I never wrote any social protest stuff. To me, the whole structure would never make sense no matter what they did with it. you really can't make something good out of something that isn't there. Those guys wanted me to show fear, they were used to that. I was just disgusted. Now here I am going to a computer class. But it's all for the better, to play with words, my only toy. Just musing there tonight. The classical music on the radio is not too good. I think I'll shut down and go sit with the wife and cats for a while. Never push, never force the word. Hell, there's no contest and certainly very little competition. Very little. 10/14/91 12:47 PM Of course, there are some strange types at the racetrack. There's one fellow who's out there almost every day. He never seems to win a race. After each race he screams in dismay about the horse that won. "IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT!" he will scream. And then go on shouting about how the horse never should have won. A good 5 minutes worth. Often the horse will read 5 to 2 and 3 to 1, 7 to 2. Now a horse like that must show something or the odds would be much higher. But to this gentleman it just doesn't make sense. And don't let him lose a photo finish. He really comes on with it then. "FUCK THE GOD IN THE FACE! HE CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" I have no idea why he isn't barred from the track. I asked another fellow once, "Listen, how does this guy make it?" I'd seen him talking to him at times. "He borrows money," he told me. "But doesn't he run out of lenders?" "He finds new ones. You know his favorite expression?" "No." "When does the bank open in the morning?" I guess he just wants to be at the racetrack, somehow, just to be there. It means something to him even if he continues to lose. It's a place to be. A mad dream. But it's boring there. A groggy place. Everybody thinking that they alone know the angle. Dumb lost egos. I'm one of those. Only it's a hobby for me. I think. I hope. But there is something there, if only in a short time frame, very short, a flash, like when my horse is in the run and then it does it. I see it happening. There is a high, a lift. Life becomes almost sensible when the horses do your bidding. But the spaces in between are very flat. People standing about. Most of them losers. They begin to look dry as dust. They are sucked dry. Yet, you know, when I force myself to stay home I begin to feel very listless, sick, useless. It's strange. The nights are always all right, I type at night. But the days have to gotten rid of. I'm sick too in a way. I am not facing reality. But who the hell wants to? It reminds me of when I stayed in this Philadelhia bar from 5 a.m. until 2 a.m. It seemed the only place I could be. Often I didn't even remember going to my room and coming back. I seemed always on that bar stool. I was evading the realities, I didn't like them. Maybe for this fellow the racetrack was like the bar was for me? All right, you tell me something useful. Be a lawyer? A doctor? A congressman? That's crap too. They think it isn't crap but it is. They are locked into a system and they can't get out. And almost everybody is not very good at what hey do. It doesn't matter, they are in the safe cocoon. It got kind of funny out there one day. I'm speaking of the racetrack again. The Crazy Screamer was there as usual. But there was another fellow, you could see that there was something wrong with his eyes. They looked angry. He was standing near the Screamer and listening. Then he listened to the Screamer's predictions for the next race. The Screamer was good that way. And evidently Angry Eyes was betting the Screamer's tips. The day wore on. I was coming out of the men's room and then I saw and heard it. Angry Eyes was yelling at the Screamer, "God-damn you, shut up! I'm going to kill you!" The Screamer turned his back and walked off saying, "Please... Please..." in a very weary and disgusted manner. Angry Eyes followed him: "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Security arrived and intercepted Angry Eyes and led him off. Evidently death at the racetrack was not to be condoned. Poor Screamer. He was quiet the remainder of the day. But he stayed the full card. Gambling, of course can eat you alive. I had a girlfriend once who said, "You're really in bad shape, you go to both Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous at the same time." But she really didn't mind either of those things unless they interfered with bed exercises. Then she hated them. I remember a friend of mine who was a total gambler. He told me once, "I don't care if I win or lose, I just want to gamble." I'm not that way, I've been on Starvation Row too many times. Not having any money at all has the slightest tinge of Romanticism when you are very young. Anyway, the Screamer was out there again the next day. Same thing: he railed against the results of each race. Think of this. It's a very hard thing to do. I mean, even if you know nothing, you can just take a number, any number, say 3. You can bet 3 for 2 or 3 days and you are bound to finally get a winner. But not this fellow. He is a marvel. He knows all about horses, fractional times, track variants, pace, class, etc. but he still manages only to pick losers. Think of it. Then forget it or it will drive you crazy. I picked up $275 today. I started playing the horses late, when I was 35. I've been at them for 36 years and I figure they still owe me $5,000. Should the gods allow me 8 or 9 more ears I die even. Now that's a goal worth shooting for, don't you think? Huh? 10/15/91 12:55 AM Burned out. A couple night of drinking this week. Got to admit I don't recover as fast as I used to. Best thing about being tired is that you don't come out (in the writing) with any wild and dizzy proclamations. Not that that is bad unless it becomes habitual. The first thing writing should do is save your own ass. If it does this, then it will be automatically juicy, entertaining. Writer I know is phoning people telling them that he types 5 hours a night. I imagine that we are supposed to marvel at this. Of course, do I have to tell you? What matters is what he is typing. I wonder if he counts his telephone time as part of this 5 hours of typing? I can type from one to 4 hours but the 4th hour, somehow, tapers away into almost nothing. Knew a guy once who told me, "We fucked all night." It's not the same fellow who types 5 hours a night. But they've meet each other. Maybe they ought to take turns, switch off. The guy who typed 5 hours get to fuck all night and the guy who fucked all night gets to type 5 hours. Or maybe they can fuck each other while somebody else types. Not me, please. Have the woman do it. If there is one... Hmmm.. you know, I am feeling somewhat goofy tonight. I keep thinking of Maxim Gorky. Why? I don't know. Somehow it seems as if Gorky never really existed. Some writers you can believe were there. Like Turgenev or D.H. Lawrence. Hemingway appears to me to half-and-half. He was really there but he wasn't. But Gorky? He did write some strong thigs. Before the Revolution. Then after the Revolution his writing began to pale. He didn't have much to bitch about. It's like the anti- war protesters, they need a war in order to thrive. There are some who make good living protesting against war. And when there isn't a was they don't know what to do. Like during the Gulf War there was group of writers, poets, they had planned a huge anti-war protest, they were ready with thei poems and speeches. Suddenly the war was over. And the protest was scheduled for a week later. But they didn't call it off. They went ahead with it anyway. Because they wanted to be on stage. They needed it. It was something like an Indian doing a Rain Dance. I myself am anti- war. I was anti-war long ago when it wasn't even a popular, decent and intellectual thing. But I am suspect of the courage and motivations of many of the professional anti-war protesters. From Gorky to this, what? Let the mind roll, who cares? Another good day at the track. Don't worry, I'm not winning all the money. I usually bet $10 or $20 to win or when it really looks good to me, I'll go $40. The racetracks further confuse the people. They have 2 fellows on tv before each race and they talk about who they think will win. They show a net loss on each meet. As do all the public handicapppers, tout sheets and race betting services. Even computers can't figure the nags matter how much info is fed into them. Any time you pay somebody to tell you what to do you are going to be a loser. And this includes your psychiatrist, your psychologist, your broker, your workshop teacher and your etc. There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken with fear. They fear failure so much that they fail. They are too conditioned, too used to being told what to do. It begins with the family, runs through school and goes into the business world. You see here, I have a couple of good days at the track and suddenly I know everything. There is a door open into the night and I am sitting here freezing but I won't get up and close the door because these words are running away with me and I like that too much to stop. But damn it, I will. I'll get up and close the door and take a piss. There, I did it. Both of those things. I even put on a sweater. Old writer pust on sweater, sits down, leers into computer screen and writes about life. How holy can we get? And Christ, did you ever wonder how much piss a man pisses in a lifetime? How much he eats, shits? Tons. Horrible. It's best we die and get out of here, we are poisoning everything with what we expel. Damn the dancing girls, they do it too. No horses tomorrow. Tuesday is an off day. I think I'll go downstairs and sit with my wife, look at some dumb tv. I'm either at the track or at this machine. Maybe she's glad of it. Hope so. Well, here I go. I'm a good guy, you know? Down the stairs. It must be strange living with me. It's strange to me. Good night. 10/20/91 12:18 AM This is one of those nights where there is nothing. Imagine being always like this. Scooped-out. Listless. No light. No dance. Not even any disgust. This way, one doesn't even have the good sense to commit suicide. The thought doesn't occur. Get up. Scratch yourself. Drink some water. I feel like a mongrel dog in July, only it's October. Still, I've had a good year. Masses of pages sit it the bookcase behind me. Written since Jan. 18. It's like a madman was turned loose. No sane man would write that many pages. It's a sickness. This year has also been good because I've held back on visitors, more than ever before. I was tricked once though. Some man wrote me from London, said he had taught in Soweto. And when he had read his students some Bukowski many of them had shown a real interest. Black African kids. I liked that. I always like happening from a distance. Later on this man wrote me that he worked for the Guardian and that he'd like to come by and interview me. He asked for my phone number, via mail, and I gave it to him. He phoned me. Sounded all right. We set a date and time and he was on his way. The night and time arrived and there he was. Linda and I set him up with wine and he began. The interview seemed all right, only a little off- hand, odd. He would ask a question, I would answer it and he would begin talking about some experience he had had, relating more or less to the question and the answer I had given. The wine kept pouring and the interview was over. We drank on and he talked about Africa, etc. His accent began changing, alterning, getting, I think, grosser. And he seemed to be getting more and more stupid. He was metamorphosing right in front of us. He got onto sex and stayed there. He liked black girls. I said that we didn't know many, but that Linda had a friend who was a Mexican girl. That did it. He had to meet this Mexican girl. It was a must. We said, well, we didn't know. He kept on and on. We were drinking good wine but his mind acted as if it had been blasted by whiskey. Soon it just got down to "Mexican... Mexican... where is this Mexican girl?" he had dissolved completely. He was just a sloppy senseless barroom drunk. I told that the night was over. I had to make the track the next day. We moved him toward the door. "Mexican, Mexican...," he said. "You will send us a copy of the interview, yes?" I asked. "Of course, of course," he said. "Mexican..." We closed the door and he was gone. Then we had to drink to rid him from our minds. That was months ago. No article ever arrived. He had nothing to do with the Guardian. I don't know if he really phoned from London. He was probably phoning from Long Beach. People use the ruse of interview to get in the door. And since there is usually no payment for an interview, anybody can up and knock on the door with a tape recorder and a list of questions. A fellow with a German accent came by one night with his recorder. He made claim to belonging to some German publication that had circulation of millions. He stayed for hours. His questions seemed dumb but I opened up, tried to make it lively and good. He must have gotten 3 hours worth of tape. We drank and drank and drank. Soon his head was falling forward. We drank him under the table and were ready to go further. Really have a ball. His head bent forward on his chest. Little driblets ran out of the corners of his mouth. I shook him. "Hey! Hey! Wake up!" He came around and looked at me. "I have got to tell you something," he said, "I am no interviewer, I just wanted to come and see you." There have been times when I was a sucker for photographers too. They claim connections, send samples of their work. They come by with their screens and their backgrounds and their flashes and their assistants. You never hear from them again either. I mean, they never send back any photographs. Not any. They are the greatest liars. "I'll send you a complete set." On man said, "I am going to send you one that will be full size." "What do you mean?" I asked. "I'm going to send you a 6 by 4 foot photo." That was a couple of years ago. I've always said, a writer's job is to write. If I get burned by these fakes and sons-of-bitches, it's my fault. I'm done with them all. Let them toady up to Elizabeth Taylor. 10/22/91 4:46 PM The dangerous life. Had to get up at 8 a.m. to feed the cats because the Westec Security man was coming by at 8:30 a.m. to begin the installation of a more sophisticated warning system. (Am I the one who used to sleep on top of garbage cans?) Westec Security arrived at exactly 8:30 a.m. A good sign. I took him around the house pointing out windows, doors, etc. Good, good. We would wire them, we would install glass- breaking detectors, low beams, cross beams, fire sprinklers, etc. Linda came down and asked some questions. She is better at that than I. I had one thought: "How long will this take?" "Three days," he said. "Jesus Christ," I said. (Two of those days the racetrack would be closed.) So we fumbled around and left him in there, told him we'd be back soon. We had a $100 gift certificate at I. Magnin's somebody had given us for our wedding anniversary. Also, I had a royalty check to deposit. So, off to the bank. I signed the check. "I really like your signature," the girl said. Another girl walked over and looked at the signature. "His signature keeps changing," said Linda. "I have to keep signing my name in books," I said. "He's a writer," Linda said. "Really? What do you write?" one of the girls asked. "Tell her," I said to Linda. "He writes poems, short stories and novels," she said. "And a screenplay," I said. "Barfly." "Oh," smiled one of the girls, "I saw it." "Did you like it?" "Yes," she smiled. "Thank you," I said. Then we turned and walked off. "I heard one of the girls say as we walked in, "I know who that is," said Linda. See? We were famous. We got into the car and drove over to the shopping center to get something to eat near I. Magnin's. We got a table, had turkey sandwiches, apple juice and cappuccinos. From the table we could see a goodly portion of the mall. The place was virtually empty. Business was bad. Well, we had a hundred dollar coupon to blow. We'd help the economy. I was the only man there. Just women sat at the tables, alone, or in twos. The men were elsewhere. I didn't mind. I felt safe with the ladies. I was resting. My wounds were healing. I could stand a little shade. Damned if I could leap off of cliffs forever. Maybe after a respite I could dive over the edge again. Maybe. We finished eating and went over to I. Magnin's. I needed shirts. I looked at thirts. Couldn't find a damned one. They looked like they had been designed by half- wit. I passed. Linda needed a purse. She found one, marked down 50%. It was $395. It just didn't look like $395. More like $49.50. She passed. There were 2 chairs with elephant heads on the backs. Nice. But they were thousands. There was a glass bird, nice, $75 but Linda said we had no plae to put it. Same with the fish with blue stripes. I was getting tired. Looking at things made me tired. Department stores wore me down and stamped on me. There was nothing in them. Tons and tons of crap. If it were free, I wouldn't take it. Don't they ever sell anything likeable? We decided maybe another day. We went to a bookstore. I needed a book on my computer. I needed to know more. Found a book. Went to the clerk. He tabbed it up. I paid with a card. "Thank you," he said, "would you be good enough to sign this?" He handed me my lastest book. There, I was famous. Noticed twice in the same day. Twice was enough. Three times or more and you were in trouble. The gods were making it just right for me. I asked his name, wrote it in, scribbled something, my name and a drawing. We stopped at the computer store on the way in. I needed paper for the laser printer. They didn't have any. I showed my fist to the clerk. Made me think of the old days. He recommended a place. We found it on the way in. We found everything there, cut-rate. I got enough laser pape to last two years and likewise mailing envelopes, pens, paper clips. Now, all I had to do was write. We drove on in. The security man had left. The tile man had come and gone. He left a note, "I will be back by 4 p.m." We knew the tile man wouldn't be bak at 4 p.m. He was crazy. Bad childhood. Very confused. But good with tiles. I packed the stuff upstairs. I was ready. I was famous. I was a writer. I sat down and opened the computer. I opened it to STUPID GAMES. Then I started playing Tao. I was getting better and better at it. I seldom lost to the computer. It was easier than beating the horses but somehow not as fulfilling. Well, I'd be back Wednesday. Playing the horses tightened up my screws. It was part of the scheme. It worked. And I had 5,000 sheets of laser paper to fill. 10/31/91 12:27 AM Terrible day at the racetrack, not so much in money lost, I may even have won a bob, but the feeling out there was horrible. Nothing was stirring. It was as if I was doing time and you know, I don't have much time left. The same faces, the same 18 percent take. Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. I know each of the mutuel clerks all too well. We sometimes have small conversation as I bet. It's my wish to find a noncommital clerk, one who will simply puch out my tickets and say nothing. But, they all get social, finally. They are bored. And they are on guard too: many of the horseplayers are somewhat deranged. There are often confrontations with the clerks, loud buzzers sound and security comes running. By talking to us, the clerks can feel us out. They feel safer that way. They prefer the friendly bettor. The horseplayers are easier for me. The regulars know that I am some kind of nut and don't wish to speak to them. I am always working on a new system, often changing the systems in midstream. I am always trying to fit numbers around actuality, trying to code the madness into a simple number or a group of numbers. I want to understand life, happenings in life, I read an article wherein it was stated that for some long period of time now, in chess, a king, a bishop and a rook were believed to be equal to a king and two knight. A Los Alamos machine with 65,536 processors was put to work on the program. The computer solved the problem in 5 hours after considering 100 billion moves by working backwards from the winning position. It was found that the king, the rook and the bishop could defeat the king and two knights in 224 moves. This is utterly fascinating to me. It certainly beats the ponderous, tiddlywinks game of betting the horses. I believe that I worked too long in my life as a common laborer. I worked as such until I was 50 years old. Those bastards got me used to going somewhere every day and staying somewhere for many hours and then returning. I feel guilty just lolling about. So, I find myself at the track, bored and, at the same time, going crazy. I reserve the nights for the computer or for drinking or for both. Some of my readers think I love horses, that the action excites me, that I am a gung-ho gambler, a real macho big time boy. I get books in the mail about horses and horse racing and stories about the track and etc. I don't give a damn about that stuff. I go to the track almost reluctantly. I am too idiotic to figure out any other place to go. Where, where during the day? The Hanging Gardens? A motion picture? Hell, help me, I can't sit around with the ladies and most men my age are dead and if they aren't dead they should be because they surely seem to be. I've tried staying away from the track but thein I get very nervous and depressed and that night there are absolutely no juices to lend the computer. I guess getting my ass out of here forces me to look at Humanity and when you look at Humanity you've GOT to react. It's all too much, a continuous horror show. Yeah, I'm bored out there, I'm terrorized out there but I'm also, so far, some kind of student. A student of hell. Who knows? Some day soon I might be bedridden. I'll lay there and paint on sheets of paper tacked to the wall. I'll paint them with a long brush and probably even like it. But right now, it's the faces of the horseplayers, cardboard faces, horrible, evil, blank, greedy, dying faces, day papers, watching the changes on the toteboard as they are being ground away to lett and less, as I stand there with them, as I am one with them. We are sick, the suckerfish of hope. Our poor clothing, our old cars. We move toward the mirage, our lives wasted like everyboy else's. 11/3/91 12:48 AM Stayed home from the track today, have had a sore throat and a pain at the top of my head, a tittle toward the right side of it. When you get to be 71 you can never tell when your head is going to explode through the windshield. I still go after a good drunk now and then and smoke far too many cigarettes. The body get pissed off at me for doing this, but the mind must be fed too. And the spirit. Drinking feeds my mind and my spirit. Anyhow, I stayed in from the track, slept until 12:20 p.m. Easy day. Got in the spa like a big timer. The sun was out and the water bubbled and whirled, hot. I soothed out. Why not? Get an edge. Try to feel better. The whole world is a sack of shit ripping open. I can't save it. But I've gotten many letters from people who claim that my writing has saved their asses. But I didn't write it for that, I wrote it to save my own ass. I was always outside, never fit. I found that out in the schoolyards. And another thing I learned was that I learned very slowly. The other guys knew everything, I didn't know a fucking thing. Everything was bathed in a white and dizzying light. I was a fool. And yet, even when I was a fool I knew that I wasn't a complete fool. I had some little corner of me that I was protecting , there was something there. No matter. Here I was in a spa and my life was closing down. I didn't mind, I had seen the circus. Still, there are always more things to write until they throw me into the darkness or into whatever it is. That's the good thing about the word, it just keeps trotting on, looking for things, forming sentences, having a ball. I was full of words and they still came out in a good form. I was lucky. In the spa. Bad throat, pain in head, I was luck. Old writer in spa, musing. Nice, nice. But hell is always there, waiting to unfurl. My old yellow cat came up and looked at me in the water. We looked at each other. We each knew everything and nothing. Then he walked off. The day went on. Linda and I had lunch somewhere, don't remember where. Food not so good, packed with Saturday people. They were alive but they weren't alive. Sitting at the tables and booths, eating and talking. Wait, Jesus, that reminds me. Had lunch the other day before going to the track. Sat at the counter, it was completely empty. I had gotten my order and was eating. Man walked in and took the seat RIGHT NEXT TO MINE. Threre were 20 or 25 other seats. He took the one next to me. I'm just not that fond of people. The further I am from them the better I feel. And he put in his order and started talking into the waitress. About professional football. I watch it sometimes myself, but to talk about it in a cafe? They went on and on, dribbles about this and that. On and on. Favorite player. Who should win, etc. Then somebody at a booth joined in. I suppose I wouldn't have minded it all so much if I hadn't been rubbing elbows with that bastard next to me. A good sort, sure. He liked football. Safe. American. Sitting next to me. Forget it. So yes, we had lunch, Linda and I, got back and it went restfully toward the night, then just after dark Linda noticed something. She was good at that sort of thing. I saw her coming back through the yard and she said, "Old Charley fell, the fire department is there." Old Charley is the 96-year-old guy who lives in the big house next door to us. His wife died last week. They were married 46 years. I walked out front and there was the fire truck. There was a fellow standing there. "I'm Charley's neighbor. Is the alive?" "Yes," he said. It was evident that they were waiting for the ambulance. The fire truck had gotten there first. Linda and I waited. The ambulance came. It was odd. Two little guys got out, they seemed quite small. They stood side by side. Three fire engine guys surrounded them. One of them started talking to the little guys. They stood there and nodded. Then that was over. They walked around and got the stretcher. They carried it up the long stairway to the house. They were in there a very long time. Then out they came. Old Charley was strapped onto the stretcher. As they got ready to load him into the amulance we stepped forward. "Hold on, Charley," I said. "We'll be waiting for you to come back," Linda said. "Who are you?" Charley asked. "We're your neighbors," Linda answered. Then he was loaded in and gone. A red car followed with 2 relatives in it. My neighbor walked over from across the street. We shook hands. We'd been a couple of drunks together. We told him about Charley. And we were all miffed that the relatives left alone so much. But there wasn't much we could do. "You oughta see my waterfall," said my neighbor. "All right," I said, "let's see it." We walked over there, through his wife, past his kind and out the back door and into the backyard past his pool and sure enough there in the back was a HUGE waterfall. It went all the way up a cliff in the back and some of the water seemed to be coming out of a tree trunk. It was massive. And built of huge and beautiful stones of different color. The water roared down flooded by lights. It was had to believe. There was a worker back there still working on the waterfall. There was more to be done on it. I shook hands with the worker. "He's read all your books," my neighbor said. "No shit," I said. The worker smiled at me. The we walked back into the house. My neighbor asked me, "How about a glass of wine?" I told him, "No, thanks." Then explained the sore throat and the pain at the top of my head. Linda and I walked back across the street and back to our place. And, basically, that was about the day and the night. 11/22/91 12:26 AM Well, my 71st year has been a hell of a productive year. I have probably written more words this year than in any year of my life. And though a writer is a poor judge of his own work, I still tend to believe that the writing is about as good as ever -- I mean, as good as I have done in my peak times. This computer that I started using on Jan. 18 has had much to do with it. It's simply easier to get the word down, it transfers more quickly from the brain (or wherever this comes from) to the fingers and from the fingers to the screen where it is immediately visible -- crisp and clear. It's not a matter of speed per se, it's a matter of flow, a river of words and if the words are good then let them run with ease. No more carbons, no more retyping. I used to neeed one night to do the work and then the next night to correct the errors and sloppines of the night before. Misspellings, screw-ups in tenses, etc. can now all be corrected on the orginal copy without a complete retype or write-ins or cross-outs. Nobody likes to read haphazard copy, not even the writer. I know all this must sound prissy and over-careful but it isn't, all it does is allow whatever force or luck you might have engendered to come out clearly. It's all for the best, really, and if this is how you lose your soul, I am all for it. There have been some bad moments. I remember one night after typing a good 4 hours or so, I felt I had had some astonishing luck when -- I hit something or other -- there was a flash of blue light and the many pages of writing vanished. I tried everything to get them back. They were simply gone. Yes, I had it set on "Save-all," it still didn't matter. This had happened at other times but not with so many pages. Let me tell you, it is one hell of a hell of a horrible feeling when the pages vanish. Come think of it now, I have lost 3 or 4 pages at other times on my novel. A whole chapter. What I did then was simply rewrite the whole damn thing. When you do this, you lose something, little highlights that don't return but you gain something too because as you rewrite you skip some parts that didn't quite please you and you add some parts that are better. So? Well, it's a long night then. The birds are up. The wife and the cats think you've gone mad. I consulted some computer experts about the "blue flash" but none of them could tell me anything. I've found out that most computer experts aren't very expert. Confounding things happen that just aren't in the book. Now that I know more about computers I think I know one thing that might have brought the work back from the "blue flash"... The worst night was when I sat down to the computer and it went completely crazy, sending out bombs, weird loud sounds, moments of darkness, deathly blackness, I worked and worked and worked but could do nothing. Then I noticed what looked like liquid that had hardened on the screen and around the slot near the "brain," the slot where you inserted the disks. One of my cats had sprayed the machine. I had to take it down to the computer shop. The mechanic was out and a salesman removed a portion of the "brain," a yellow liquid splashed on his white shirt and he screamed "cat spray!" Poor guy. Poor guy. Anyhow, I left the computer. Nothing in the warranty covered cat spray. They had to take practically all the guts out of the "brain." It ook them 8 days to fix it. During that time I went back to my typewriter. It was like trying to break rock with my hands. I had to learn to type all over again. I had to get good and drunk to get the flow. And again, it was one night to write it and another night to straighten it out. But I was glad the typer was there. We had been toghether over 5 decades and had some great times. When I got the computer back it was with some sadness that I returned the old typer to its place in the corner. But I went back to the computer and the words flew like crazy birds. And there were no longer any blue flashes and pages that vanished. Things were even better. That cat spraying the machine fixed everything up. Only now, when I leave the computer I cover it with a large each towel and close the door. Yes, it's been my most productive year. Wine gets better if it's properly aged. I'm not in contest with anybody, have no thoughts about immortality, don't give a damn about it. It's the ACTION while you're alive. The gate springing open in the sunlight, the horses plunging through the light, all the jocks, brave little devils in their bright