e." I picked him up, got the door open and lifted him into the front seat. He was very, very wet. Streams of water ran across the floorboards. Then I went around to the other side and got in. Barney unscrewed the cap off the bottle of muscatel, took a hit, passed the bottle to me. I took a hit. Then I started the car and drove, looking out through the windshield into the rain for a bar that we might possibly enter and not vomit the first time we got the look and smell of the urinal. === I shot a man in Reno Bukowski cried when Judy Garland sang at the N.Y. Philarmonic, Bukowski cried when Shirley Temple sang "I Got Animal Crackers in my Soup"; Bukowski cried in cheap flophouses, Bukowski can't dress, Bukowski can't talk, Bukowski is scared of women, Bukowski had a bad stomach, Bukowski is full of fears, and hates dictionaries, nuns, pennies, busses, churches, parkbenches, spiders, flies, fleas, freaks; Bukowski didn't go to war. Bukowski is old, Bukowski hasn't flown a kite for 45 years; if Bukowski were an ape, they'd run him out of the tribe... my friend is so worried about tearing the meat of my soul from my bones that he hardly seems to think of his own existence. "but Bukowski pukes real neat and I've never seen him piss on the floor." so I do have charm after all, you see. then he throws open a little door and there in a 3 by 6 room stacked with papers and rags is an out. "you can always stay here, Bukowski. you'll never want." no window, no bed, but I'm next to the bathroom. it still looks good to me. "but you may have to wear earplugs because of the music I keep playing." "I can pick up a set, I'm sure." we walk back into his den. "you wanna hear some Lenny Bruce?" "no, thanks." "Ginsberg?" "no, no." he had just to keep that tape machine going, or the record player. they finally hit me with Johnny Cash singing to the boys at Folsom. "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." it seems to me that Johnny is giving them a little shit just like I suspect Bob Hope does to the boys at Viet during Xmas, but I have this kind of mind. the boys holler, they are out of their cells but I feel like it's something like tossing meatless bones instead of biscuits to the hungered and the trapped. I don't feel a damn thing holy or brave about it. there's only one thing to do for man in jail: let 'em out. there's only one thing to do for man at war: stop the war. "turn it off," I asked. "whatsa matta?" "it's a trick. a publicity man's dream." "you can't say that. Johnny's done time." "a lot of people have." "we think it's good music." "I like his voice. but the only man who can sing in jail, really, is a man who is in jail, really." "we still like it." his wife is there and a couple of young black man who play combo in some band. "Bukowski likes Judy Garland. Somewhere over the rainbow." "I liked her that one time in N.Y. her soul was up. you couldn't beat her." "she's overweight and a lush." it was the same old thing - people tearing meat and not getting anywhere. I leave a little early. as I do, I hear them put J.Cash back on. I stop for some beer and just make it in as the phone is ringing. "Bukowski?" "yeah?" "Bill." "oh, hello Billo." "what are you doing?" "nothing." "what are you doing Saturday night?" "I'm tied then." "I wanted you to come over, meet some people." "not this time." "you know, Charley, I am going to get tired of calling." "yeah." "do you still write for that same scurrilous rag?" "what?" "that hippie paper..." " have you ever read it?" "sure. all tha protest stuff. you're wasting your time." "I don't always write to the paper's policy." "I thought you did." "I thought you had read the paper." "by the way, what have you heard from our mutual friend?" "Paul?" "yes, Paul." "I haven't heard from him." "you know, he admires your poetry very much." "that's all right." "personally, I don't like your poetry." "that's all right too." "you can't make it over Saturday." "no." "well, I'm going to get tired of calling. take care." "yeah, good night." another meat tearer. what the hell did they want? well, Bill lived in Malibu and Bill made money writing - philosophical sex shit potboilers full of typos and undergraduate Art work - and Bill couldn't write but Bill couldn't stay off the telephone either. He'd phone again. and again. and fling his little scrubby shit turds at me. I was the old man who hadn't sold his balls to the butcher and it drove them screwy. their final victory over me could only be a physical beating and that could happen to any man at any place. Bukowski thought Mickey Mouse was a nazi; Bukowski made an ass out of himself at Barney's Beanery; Bukowski made an ass out of himself at Shelly's Manne-Hole; Bukowski is jealous of Ginsberg, Bukowski is jealous of the 1969 Cadillac, Bukowski can't understand Rimbaud; Bukowski wipes his ass with brown hard toilet paper, Bukowski will be dead in 5 years, Bukowski hasn't written a decent poem since 1963, Bukowski cried when Judy Garland... shot a man in Reno. I sit down. stick the sheet in the typer. open a beer. light a smoke. I get one or two good lines and the telephone rings. "Buk?" "yeah?" "Marty." "hello, Marty." "listen, I just ran across your last 2 columns. it's good writing. I didn't know you were writing so well. I want to run them in book form. have they come back from GROVE yet?" "yeah." "I want them. your columns are as good as your poems." "a friend of mine in Malibu says my poems stink." "to hell with him. I want the columns." "they're with ---- ----." "hell, he's a pornie-man. if you go with me you'll hit the universities, the best book stores. when those kinds find you out, it's all over; they're tired of that involute shit they've been getting for centiries. you'll see; I can see bringing out all your back and unavailable stuff and selling it for a buck, or a buck and a half a copy and going into the millions." "aren't you afraid that will make a prick out of me?" "I mean, haven't you always been a prick, especially when you've been drinking... by the way, hoh've you been doing?" "they say I grabbed a guy at Shelly's by the lapels and shook him up a bit. but it could have been worse, you know." "how do you mean?" ""I mean, he could have grabbed me by the lapels and shook me up a bit. a matter of pride, you know." "listen, don't die or get killed untill we get you out in those buck and a half editions." "I'll try not to, Marty." "how's the 'Penguin' coming?" "Stanges says January. I just got the page proofs. and a 50 puond advance which I blew on the horses." "can't you stay away from the track?" "you bastards never say anything when I win." "that's right. well, let me know on the columns." "right. good night." "good night." Bukowski, the big-time writer; a statue of Bukowski in the Kremlin, jacking off; Bukowski and Castro, a statue in Havana in the sunlight covered with birdshit, Bukowski and Castro riding a tandem racing bike to victory - Bukowski in the rear seat; Bukowski bathing in a neat of orioles; Bukowski lashing a 19-years-old high-yellow with a tiger whip, a high-yellow with 38 inch busts, a high-yellow who reads Rimbaud; Bukowski kukoo in the walls of the world, wondering who shut off the luck... Bukowski going for Judy Garland when it was too late for everybody. then I remember the time and get back in the car. just off Wilshire Boulevard. there's his name on the big sign. we once worked the same shit job. I am not too crazy about Wilshire blvd. but I am still a learner. I don't block out anything. he's half-coloured, from a white mother, black father combo. we fell together on the shit job, something manual. mostly not wanting to wade in shit forever, and although shit was a good teacher there were only so many lessons and then it could drown you and kill you forever. I parked in back and beat on the back door. he said he'd wait late that night. it was 9:30 p.m. the door opened. TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS. ten years. ten years. ten. ten fucking YEARS. "Hank, you son of a bitch!" "Jim, you lucky mother..." "come on up." I followed him in. jesus, so you don't buy all that. but it's nice especially with the secretaries and staff gone. I block nothing. he has 6 or 8 rooms. we go in to his desk. I rip out the two 6 packs of beers. ten years. he is 43. I am 48. I look at least 15 years older than he. and feel some shame. the sagging belly. the hang-dog air. the world has taken many hours and ten years from me with their very dull and routine tasks; it tells. I feel shame for my defeat. the best revolutionary is a poor man; I am not even a revolutionary, I am only tired. what a bucket of shit was mine! mirror, mirror on the wall... he looked good in a light yellow sweater, relaxed and really happy to see me. "I've been going through hell," he said, "I haven't talked to a real human being in months." "man, I don't know if I qualify." "you qualify." that desk looks twenty feet wide. "Jim, I been fired from so many places like this. some shit sitting in a swivel. like a dream upon a dream upon a dream, all bad. now I sit here drinking beer with a man behind a desk and I don'y know anymore now than I did then." he laughed. "baby, I want to give you your own office, your own chair, your own desk. I know what you're getting now. I want to double that." "I can't accept it." "why?" "I want to know where my value would be to you?" "I need your brain." I laughed. "I'm serious." then he laid out the plan. told me what he wanted. he had one of those stirring motherfucking brains that dreamed that sort of thing up. it seemed so good I had to laugh. "it'll take 3 months to set it up," I tell him. "then a contract." "o.k. with me. but these things sometimes don't work." "it'll work." "meanwhile I've got a friend who'll let me sleep in his broom closet if the walls fall in." "fine." we drink 2 or 3 more hours then he leaves to get enough sleep to meet his friend for a yachting next morning (Saturday) and I tool around and drive out of the high rent district and hit the first dirty bar for a closer or two. and son of a bitch if I don't meet a guy I used to know down at a job we both used to have. "Luke!" I say, "son of a bitch!" "Hank, baby!" another coloured (or black) man, (what do the white guys do at night?) he looks low so I buy him one. "you still at the place?" he asks. "yeah." "man, shit," he says. "what?" "I couldn't take it anymore where you're at, you know, so I quit. ma, I got a job right away. wow, a change, you know. that's what kills a man: lack of change." "I know, Luke." "well, the first morning I walk up to the machine. it's a fibre glass place. I've got on this open neck shirt with short sleeves and I notice people staring at me. well, hell, I sit down and start pressing the levers and it's all right for a while and next thing you know I start itching all over. I call the foreman over and I say, 'hey, what the hell's this? I'm itching all over! my neck, my arms, everywhere!' he tells me, 'it's nothing, you'll get used to it.' but I notice he has on this scarf buttoned up all the way around his throat and this long-sleeved working shirt. well, I come in the next day all scarfed-up and oiled and buttoned but it's still no good - this fucking glass is shiving off so fine you can't see it and it's all little glass arrows and it goes right through the clothing and into the skin. then I know why they make me wear the protective glasses for my eyes. could blind a man in half an hour. I had to quit. went to a foundry, man, do you know that men POUR THIS WHITE HOT SHIT INTO MOLDS? they pour it like bacon-grease or gravy. Unbelievable! and hot! shit! I quit. man, how you doing?" "that bitch there, Luke, she keeps looking at me and grinning and pulling her skirt higher." "don't pay any attention. she's crazy." "but she has beautiful legs." "yes, she has." I buy another drink, pick up, walk over to her. "hello, baby." she goes into her purse, comes out, hits the button and she's got a beautiful 6 inches swivel. I look at the bartender who looks blank-faced. the bitch says, "one step closer and you got no balls!" I knock her drink over and when she looks at that I grab her wrist, twist the swivel out, fold it, put it into my pocket. the bartender still looks neutral. I go back to Luke and we finish our drinks. I notice it's ten to 2 and get 2 six packs from the barkeep. we go out to my car. Luke's without wheels. she follows us. "I need a ride." "where?" "around Century." "that's a long way." "so what, you motherfuckers got my knife." by the time I am halfway to Century I see those female legs lifting in the back seat. when the legs come down I pull down a lond dark corner and tell Luke to take a smoke. I hate seconds but when first haven't been for a long time and you're supposed to be a great Artist and an understander of Life, seconds just HAVE to do, and like the boys say, with some, seconds are better. it was good. when I dropped her off I gave her the switchblade back wrapped in a ten. stupid, of course. but I like to be stupid. Luke lives around 8th and Irola so it's not too far in for me. as I open the door the phone begins ringing. I open a beer and sit in the rocker and listen to it ring. for me, it's been enough - evening, night and morning. Bukowski wears brown b.v.d's. Bukowski is afraid of airplanes. Bukowski hates Santa Klaus. Bukowski makes deformed figures out of typewriter erasers. when water drips, Bukowski cries. when Bukowski cries, water drips. o, sanctums of fountains, o scrotums, o fountaining scrotums, o man's great ugliness everywhere like the fresh dogturd that the morning shoe did not see again; o, the mighty police, o the mighty weapons, o the mighty dictators, o the mighty damn fools everywhere, o the lonely lonely octopus, o the clock- tick seeping each neat one of us balanced and unbalanced and holy and constipated, o the bums lying in alleys of misery in a golden world, o the children to become ugly, o the ugly to become uglier, o the sadness and sabres and the closing of the walls - no Santa Claus, no Pussy, no Magic Wand, no Cinderella, no Great Minds Ever; kukoo - just shit and the whipping of dogs and children, just shit and the whiping away of shit; just doctors without patients just clouds without rain just days without days, o god o mighty that you put this upon us. when we break into your mighty KIKE palace and timecard angels I want to hear Your voice just saying once MERCY MERCY MERCY FOR YOURSELF and for us and for what we will do to You, I turned off of Irola until I hit Normandie, that's what I did, and then came in and sat and listened to the telephone ring. === Night streets of madness the kid and I were the last of a drunkman party at my place, and we were sitting there when somebody outside began blowing a car horn, loud LOUD LOUD it was, oh sing loud, but then everything is axed through the head anyway. the world is done, so I just sat there with my drink, smoking a cigar, thinking of nothing - the poets were gone, the poets with their ladies were gone, it was fairly pleasant even with the horn going. a comparison. the poets had each accused other of various treacheries, of bad writing, of having slipped; meanwhile, each of them claiming they deserved better recognition, that they wrote better than so and so and so forth. I told them all that they needed 2 years in the coal mines or the steel mills, but on they chattered, finky, precious, barbaric, and most of them rotten writers. now they were gone. the cigar was good. the kid sat there. I had just written a foreword to his second book of poems. or his first? well. "listen," said the kid, "let's go out there and tell them to fuck-off. tell him to jam that horn up his ass." the kid wasn't a bad writer, and he had the ability to laugh at himself, which is sometimes a sign of greatness, or at least a sign that you have a chance to end up being something else besides a stuffed literary turd. the world was full of stuffed literary turds talking about the time they met Pound at Spoleto or Edmund Wilson in Boston or Dali in his underwear or Lowell in his garden; sitting there in their tiny bathrobes, letting you have it, and NOW you wew talking to THEM, ah, you see. "... the last time I saw Burroughs..." "Jimmy Baldwin, jesus, he was drunk, we had to trot him out on the stage and lean him on the mike..." "let's go out there and tell them to jam that horn up their ass," said the kid, influenced by the Bukowski myth (I am really a coward), and the Hemingway thing and Humphrey B. and Eliot with his panties rolled. well. I puffed on my cigar. the horn went on. LOUDE SING KUKOOO. "the horn's all right. never go out on the streets after you've benn drinking 5 or 6 or 8 or ten hours. they have cages ready for the like us. I don't think I could take another cage, not one more god damned cage of theirs. I build enough of my own." "I'm going out to tell them to shove it," said the kid. the kid was under the superman influence, Man and Superman. he liked huge man, tough and murderous, 6-4, 300 pounds, who wrote immortal poetry. the trouble was the big boys were all subnormal and it was the dainty little queers with the fingernail polish on who write the tough-boy poems. the only guy who fit the kid's hero-mold was big John Thomas and big John Thomas always acted as if the kid weren't there. the kid was Jewish and big John Thomas had the mainline to Adolph. I liked them both and I don't like very many people. "listen," said the kid, "I am going to tell them to jam it." oh my god, the kid was big a little on the fat side, he hadn't missed too many meals, but he was easy inside, scared and worried and a little crazy like the rest of us, none of us made it, finally, and I said, "kid, forget the horn. it doesn't sound like a man blowing anyway. it sounds like a woman. a man will stop and start with a horn, make musical threats out of it. a woman just leans on it. the total sound, one big female neurosis." ""fuck it!" said the kid. he ran out the door. what does this have to do with anything? I thought. what does it matter? people keep making moves that don't count. when you make a move, everything must be mathematically set. that's what Hem learned at the bullfights and put to work in his work. that's what I learn at the track and put to work in my life. good old Hem and Buk. "hello, Hem? Buk calling." "oh, Buk, so glad you called." "thought I'd drop over for a drink." "oh, I'd love it, kid, but you see, my god, you might say I'm kinda out of town right now." "but why'd you do it, Ernie?" "you've read the books. they claim I was crazy, imagining things. in and out of the bughouse. they say I imagined the phone was tapped, that I imagined the C.I.A. was on my ass, that I was being tailed and watched. you know, I wasn't really political but I always fucked with the left. the Spanish war, all that crap." "yeah, most of you literary guys lean left. it seems Romantic, but it can turn into a hell of a trap." "I know. but really, I had this hell of a hungover, and I knew I had slipped, and when they believed in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, I knew that the world was rotten." "I know. you went back to your early style. but it wasn't real." "I know it wasn't real. and I got the PRIZE. and the tail on me. old age on me. sitting around drinking like an old fuck, telling stale stories to anybody who would listen. I had to blow my brains out." "o.k., Ernie, see you later." "all right, I know you will, Buk." he hung up. and how. I went outside to check on the kid. it was an old woman in a new '69 car. she kept leaning on the horn. she didn't have any legs. any breasts. any brain. just a '69 car and indignation, great and total indignation. a car was blocking her driveway. she had her own home. I lived in one of the last slum courts on DeLongpre. someday the landlord would sell it for a tremendous sum and I would be bulldozed out. too bad. I threw parties that lasted until the sun came up, ran the typer day and night. a madman lived in the next court. everything was sweet. one block North and ten blocks West I could walk along a sidewalk that had footprints os STARS upon it. I don't know what the names mean. I don't hit the movies. don't have a t.v. when my radio stopped playing I threw it out the window. drunk. me, not the radio. there is a big hole in one of my windows. I forgot the screen was there. I had to open the screen and drop the radio out. later, whilst I was drunken barefoot my foot (left) picked up all the glass, and the doctor while slitting my foot open without benefit of a shot, probing for ballsy glass, asked me, "listen, do you ever walk around not quite knowing what you are doing?" "most of the time, baby." then he gave me a big cut that wasn't needed. I gripped the sides of the table and said, "yes, Doctor." then he became more kindly. why should doctors be better than I am? I don't understand it. the old medicine man gimmick. so there I was out on the street, Charles Bukowski, friend of Hemingway, Ernie, I have never read DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON. where do I get a copy? the kid said to the crazy woman in the car, who was only demanding respectful and stupid property rights, "we'll move the car, we'll push it out of the way." the kid was talking for me too. now that I had written his foreword, he owned me. "look, kid, there's no place to push the car. and I really don't care. I'm going in for a drink." it was just beginning to rain. I have a most delicate skin, like an alligator, and soul to match. I walked off. shit, I'd had enough wars. I walked off and then just as I about got to my front court hole, I heard screaming voices. I turned. then we had this. a thin kid, insane, in white t-shirt screaming at the fat Jewisj poet I had just written a foreword to poems for. what had the white t-shirt to do with it? the white t-shirt pushed against my semi- immortal poet. he pushed hard. the crazy old woman kept leaning against the car horn. Bukowski, should you test your left hook again? you swing like the old barn door and only win one fight out of ten. when was the last fight you won, Bukowski? you should be wearing women's panties. well, hell, with a record like yours, one more loss won't be any big shame. I started to move forward to help the Jewish kid poet but I saw he had white t-shirt backing up. then out of the 20 million dollar highrise next to my slum hole, here came a young woman running. I watched the cheecks of the ass wobble in the fake Hollywood moonlight. girl, I could show you something you will, would never forget - a solid 3 and one quarter inches of bobbling throbbing cock, oh my, but she never gave me a chance, she asshole-wobbling ran to her little 68 Fiaria or however you spell it, and got in, pussy dying for my poetic soul, and she got in, started the thing, got it out of the driveway, almost ran me over, me Bukowski, BUKOWSKI, hummm, and ran the thing into the underground parking of the 20 million buck highrise. why hadn't she parked there to begin with? well. the guy in the white t-shirt is still wobbling around and insane, my Jewish poet has moved back to my side there in the Hollywood moonlight, which was like stinking dishwater spilling over us all, suicide is so difficult, maybe our luck will change, there's PENGUIN coming up, Norse- Bukowski-Lamantia... what? now, now, the woman has her clearence for her driveway but she can't make it in. she doesn't aven angle her car properly. she keeps backing up and ramming a white delivery truck in front of her. there go the taillights on first shot. she backs up. hits the gas. there goes half a back door. she backs up. hits the gas. there goes all the fender and half the left side, no the right side, that's it the right side. nothing adds. the driveway is clear. Bukowski-Norse-Lamantia. Penguin books. it's a damn good thing for those other two guys that I am in there. again chickenshit steel mashing against steel. and in between she's leaning on the horn. white t-shirt dangling in the moonlight, raving. "what's going on?" I asked the kid. "I dunno," he finally admitted. "you'll make a good rabbi some day but you should understand all this." the kid is studying to be a rabbi. "I don't understand it," he said. "I need a drink," I said. "if John Thomas were here he'd murder them all. but I ain't John Thomas." I was just about to leave, the woman just kept on ramming the white pickup truck to pieces, I was just about to leave when an old man in a floppy brown overcoat and glasses, a real old guy, he was older than I, and that's old, he came out and confronted the kid in the white t-shirt. confronted? that's the right word ain't it? anyhow, as they say, the old guy with glasses and floppy brown overcoat runs out with this big can of green paint, it must have been at least a gallon or 5 gallons, I don't know what it means, I have completely lost the plot or the meaning, if there ever was any in the first place, and the old man throws the paint on the insane kid in the white t-shirt circling around on DeLongpre ave. in the chickenshit Hollywood moonlight, and most of it misses him and some of it gets him, mostly where his heart used to be, a smash of green along the white, and it happens fast, like things happen fast, almost quicker than eye or the pulse can add up, and that's why you get such diverent accounts of any action, riot or fist fight or anything, the eye and the soul can't keep up with the frustrating animal ACTION, but I saw the old man go down, fall, I think the first was a push, but I know that the second wasn't. the woman in the car stopped ramming and honking and just sat there screaming, screaming, one total pitch of scream that meant the same thing as her leaning on the honker, she was dead and finished forever in a '69 car and she couldn't fathom it, she was hooked and broken, thrown away, and some small touch inside of her still realized this - nobody ever finally loses their soul - they only piss away 99/100ths of it. white t-shirt landed goon on the old man on the second shot. broke his glasses. let him flopping and floundering in his own brown overcoat. the old man got up and the kid gave him another shot, knocked him down, hit him against as he got halfass up, the kid in the white t was having a good time of it. the young poet said to me, "JESUS! LOOK WHAT HE'S DOING TO THE OLD MAN!" "humm, very interesting," I said, whishing I had a drink or a smoke at least. I walked off back toward my place. then I saw the squad car and moved a bit faster. the kid followed me in. "why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened?" "because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high." "but he shouldn't have done that to the old man." "that's what old men are for." "but what about justice?" "but that is justice: the young whipping the old, the living whipping the dead. don't you see?" "but you say these things and you're old." "I know, let's step inside." I brought out some more beer and we sat there. through the walls you could hear the radio of the stupid squad car. 2 twentytwo years old kids with guns and clubs were going to be the immediate decision-makers upon 2,000 years of idiotic, homosexual, sadistic Christianity. no wonder they felt good in their smooth and well-fed stretched black, most policemen being lower-middle class servants given a steak in the frying pan and a wife with halfway decent ass and legs, and a little quiet home in Shitland - they'd kill you to prove Los Angeles was right, we're taking you in, sir, so sorry, sir, but we've got to do this, sir. 2,000 years of Christianity and what do you end up with? squad-car radios trying to hold rotting shit together, and what else? tons of wars, little air raids, muggers in streets, knifings, so many insane that you just forget it, you just let them run the streets in policeman's uniforms or out of them. so we went inside and the kid kept saying, "hey, let's go out there and tell the police what happened." "no, kid, please. if you are drunk you are guilty no matter what happens." "but they are right outside, let's go to tell them." "there's nothing to tell." the kid looked at me as if I were some kind of chickenshit coward. I was. the longest he had ever been in jail was 7 hours under some kind of east L.A. campus protestation. "kid, I think that the night is over." I threw him a blanket for the couch and he went to sleep. I took 2 quarts of beer, opened both, set them on the headboard of my rented bed, took a big swallow, stretched out, waited on my death as Cummings must have done, Jeffers, the garbage man, the newspaper boy, the tout... I finished off the beers. the kid woke up about 9:30 a.m. I can't understand early risers. Micheline was another early riser. running around ringing doorbells, waking everybody up. they were nervous, trying to push down walls. I always figured a man was a damn fool if he got up before noon. Norse had the best idea - sit around in silk robe and pajamas and let the world go its way. I let the kid out the door and off he went into the world. the green paint was dry on the street. Maeterlinck's bluebird was dead. Hirschman sat in a dark room with a bloody right nostril. and I had written another FOREWORD to another book of somebody's poetry. how many more? "hey, Bukowski, I've got this book of poems here. I thought you might read the poems and say something." "say something? but I don't like poetry, man." "that's all right. just say something." the kid was gone. I had to take a shit. the toilet was clogged; the landlord gone for 3 days. I took the shit and put it in a brown paper bag. then I went outside and walked with the paperbag like a man going to work with his lunch. then when I got to the vacant lot I threw the bag. three forewords. 3 bags of shit. nobody would ever understand how Bukowski suffered. I walked back toward my place, dreaming of supine women and everlasting fame. the former would be nicer. and I was running out of brown bags. I mean, paper bags. 10 a.m. there was the mailman. a letter from Beiles in Greece. he said it was raining there too. fine, then, and inside I was alone again, and the madness of the night was the madness of the day. I arranged myself upon the bed, supine, staring upward and listened to the cocksucking rain. === Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip I WALKED AROUND outside and thought about it. It was the longest one I ever got. Usually they only said, "Sorry, this did not quite make the grade" or "Sorry, this did't quite work in." Or more often, the regular printed rejection form. But this was the longest, the longest ever. It was from my story "My Adventures in Half a Hundred Rooming Houses." I walked under a lamppost, took the little slip out of my pocket and reread it - Dear Mr. Bukowski: Again, this is a conglomeration of extremely good stuff and other stuff so full of idolized prostitutes, morning-after vomiting scenes, misanthropy, praise for suicide etc. that it is not quite for a magazine of any circulation at all. This is, however, pretty much a saga of a certain type of person and in it I think you've done an honest job. Possibly we will print you sometime, but I don't know exactly when. That depends on you. Sincerely yours, Whit Burnett Oh, I knew the signature: the long "h" that twisted into the end of the "W," and the beginning of the "B" which dropped halfway down the page. I put the slip back in my pocket and walked on down the street. I felt pretty good. Here I had only been writing two years. Two short years. It took Hemingway ten years. And Sherwood Anderson, he was forty before he was published. I guess I would have to give up drinking and women of ill-fame, though. Whiskey was hard to get anyhow and wine was ruining my stomach. Millie though - Millie, that would be harder, much harder. ...But Millie, Millie, we must remember art. Dostoievsky, Gorki, for Russia, and now America wants an Eastern-European. America is tired of Browns and smiths. The Browns and the Smiths are good writers but there are too many of them and they all write alike. America wants the fuzzy blackness, impractical meditations and repressed desires of an Eastern- European. Millie, Millie, your figure is just right: it all pours down tight to the hips and loving you is as easy as putting on a pair of gloves in zero weather. Your room is always warm and cheerful and you have record albums and cheese sandwiches that I like. And Millie, your cat, remember? Remember when he was a kitten? I tried to teach him to shake hands and to roll over, and you said a cat wasn't a dog and it couldn't be done, Well, I did it, didn't I, Millie? The cat's big now and he's been a mother and had kittens. We've been friends a long time. But it's going to have to go now, Millie: cats and figures and Tschaikowsky's 6th Symphony. America needs an Eastern- European.... I found I was in front of my rooming house by then and I started to go in. Then I saw a light on in my window. I looked in: Carson and Shipkey were at the table with somebody I didn't know. They were playing cards and in the center sat a huge jug of wine. Carson and Shipkey were painters who couldn't make up their minds whether to paint like Salvador Dali or Rockwell Kent, and they worked at the shipyards while trying to decide. Then I saw a man sitting very quietly on the edge of my bed. He had a mustache and a goatee and looked familiar. I seemed to remember his face. I had seen it in a book, a newspaper, a movie, maybe. I wondered. Then I remembered. When I remembered, I didn't know whether to go in or not. After all, what did one say? How did one act? With a man like that it was hard. You had to be careful not to say the wrong words, you had to be careful about everything. I decided to walk around the block once first. I read someplace that that helped when you were nervous. I heard Shipkey swearing as I left and I heard somebody drop a glass. That wouldn't help me any. I decided to make up my speech ahead of time. "Really, I'm not a very good speaker at all. I'm very withdrawn and tense. I save it all and put it in words on paper. I'm sure you'll be disappointed in me, but it's the way I've always been." I thought that would do it and when I finished my block's walk I went right into my room. I could see that Carson and Shipkey were rather drunk, and I knew they wouldn't help me any. The little card player they had brought with them was also bad off, except he had all the money on his side of the table. The man with the goatee got up off the bed. "How do you do, sir?" he asked. "Fine, and you?" I shook hands with him. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long?" I said. "Oh no." "Really," I said, "I'm not a verv good speaker at all -" "Except when he's drunk, then he yells his head off. Sometimes he goes to the square and lectures and if nobody listens to him he talks to the birds," said Shipkey. The man with the goatee grinned. He had a marvelous grin. Evidently a man of understanding. The other two went on playing cards, but Shipkey turned his chair around and watched us. "I'm very withdrawn and tense," I continued, "and -" "Past tense or circus tents?" yelled Shipkey. That was very bad, but the man with the goatee smiled again and I felt better. "I save it all and put it in words on paper and -" "Nine-tenths or pretense?" yelled Shipkey. "- and I'm sure you'll be disappointed in me, but it's the way I've always been." "Listen, mister!" yelled Shipkey wobbling back and forth in his chair. "Listen, you with the goatee!" "Yes?" "Listen, I'm six feet tall with wavy hair, a glass eye and a pair of red dice." The man laughed. "You don't believe me then? You don't believe I have a pair of red dice?" Shipkey, when intoxicated always wanted, for some reason, to make people believe he had a glass eye. He would point to one eye or the other and maintain it was a glass eye. He claimed the glass eye was made for him by his father, the greatest specialist in the world, who had, unfortunately, been killed by a tiger in China. Suddenly Carson began yelling, "I saw you take that card! Where did you get it? Give it here, here! Marked, marked! I thought so! No wonder you've been winning! So! So!" Carson rose up and grabbed the little card player by the tie and pulled up on it. Carson was blue in the face with anger and the little card player began to turn red as Carson pulled up on the tie. "What's up, ha! Ha! What's up! What's going on?" yelled Shipkey. "Lemme see, ha? Gimme tha dope!" Carson was all blue and could hardly speak. He hissed the words out of his lips with a great effort and held up on the tie. The little card player began to flop his arms about like a great octopus brought to the surface. "He crossed us!" hissed Carson. "Crossed us! Pulled one from under his sleeve, sure as the Lord! Crossed us, I tell you!" Shipkey walked behind the little card player and grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back and forth. Carson remained at the tie. "Did vou cross us, huh? Did you! Speak! Speak!" yelled Shipkey pulling at the hair. The little card player didn't speak. He just flopped his arms and began to sweat. "I'll take you someplace where we can get a beer and something to eat" I said to the man with the goatee. "Come on! Talk! Give out! You can't cross us!" "Oh, that won't be necessary," said the man with the goatee. "Rat! Louse! Fish-faced pig!" "I insist", I said. "Rob a man with a glass eye, will you? I'll show you, fish-faced pig!" "That's very kind of you, and I am a little hungry, thanks," said the man with the goatee. "Speak! Speak, fish-faced pig! If you don't speak in two minutes, in just two minutes, I'll cut your heart out for a doorknob!" "Let's leave right away," I said. "All right," said the man with the goatee. ALL the eating places were closed at that time of the night and it was a long ride into town. I couldn't take him back to my room, so I had to take a chance on Millie. She always had plenty of food. At any rate, she always had cheese. I was right. She made us cheese sandwiches with coffee. The cat knew me and leaped into my lap. I put the cat on the floor. "Watch, Mr. Burnett," I said. "Shake hands