Charles Bukowski (24 page)

It was still not exactly torrid. Linda Lee likens that side of their relationship to the lifestyle of a monk. ‘There was indeed a great importance about celibacy,’ she says. ‘And that wasn’t because he was starving and not able to get sex – I think it was because he had had, off and on, amazing, obscene, absurd experiences with crazy women.’ The experiences had been distilled into
Women
, and the companion book of poems,
Love Is a Dog from Hell
. With the completion of these two works, he was satiated with his old ways and ready for a new life.

I
n May, 1978, Bukowski caught a Lufthansa flight to Germany to give a reading and visit the town of his birth. Linda Lee was travelling with him along with their photographer friend, Michael Montfort, who was hoping to put together a journal of the trip.

The complimentary drinks trolley came down the aisle and they started on the white wine and then they drank all the rosé before moving on to the red. ‘Michael, you have a deal,’ said Bukowski, when he was pleasantly drunk. ‘I’m going to write the book.’
*

With business concluded, he set about drinking all the complimentary beer as they sped onward over the ocean he had last crossed as a child on the SS
President Fillmore
.

The first Bukowski book published in translation in Germany was
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
, in 1970, with the bogus Henry Miller quote on the cover. Undeterred by its poor sales, Carl Weissner and publisher Benno Käsmyr put together
Poems Written Before
Jumping Out of an 8 Storey Window
, borrowing the title from one of Bukowski’s early chapbooks. It quickly sold fifty thousand copies by word of mouth. Three books of short stories followed, all taken from Erections,
Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales
of Ordinary Madness
, the most outré work collected in
The Fuck
Machine
. Each sold in the region of eighty thousand copies.

After this success, Weissner and a Frankfurt publisher collaborated on the book which really established Bukowski in Germany, a sampler of the novels
Post
Office
and
Factotum
together with short stories. Published as
Stories and Novels
, it was better known as
The Blue Book
and sold almost a hundred thousand.

To Bukowski’s astonishment, he was soon more widely read in Germany than in America where his books were printed in small editions of only four thousand copies or so. Even though Black Sparrow Press reprinted most titles every year, sales did not approach his remarkable success in Europe.

John Martin believes Bukowski’s vulgarity appeals to German readers. ‘You see
Stern
magazine, they love nothing better than bathroom jokes and farting jokes. That’s their national humor, so he caught on right away,’ he says.

Carl Weissner sees his popularity in terms of a reaction to post-war German literature which was politically correct in an extremely self-conscious way. There was even a school of thought that, after the Holocaust, Germans couldn’t write poetry. ‘So everything was politicized on the left and all writers were interested in was interviewing workers and housewives. Since Bukowski didn’t have a political program, and didn’t bother with refined literary highfalutin language, that obviously was an attraction for a lot of people. It was his attitude: not wanting to belong, and largely writing about himself and things he had gone through. He was not considered, except by the right, as a porn writer or anything like that. In fact, a lot of people thought he was a proletarian writer.’

It was also Bukowski’s good fortune to have in Carl Weissner someone who took infinite care translating his unusual style of poetry and prose into readable and entertaining German. It was not always a straight-forward job. ‘He is easy to translate when he is colorful and uses a lot of adjectives,’ explains Weissner. ‘But he is difficult when his language becomes very bare, short sentences and stuff.’

Freelance photographer Michael Montfort, a German living in Hollywood, was hired to take the pictures for magazine articles about Bukowski, and made a good first impression by arriving at Carlton Way with a case of wine on his shoulder. ‘I felt that he
was kind of awkward in posing for a camera,’ he says. ‘He was a pretty tough guy, but he didn’t like it from the beginning.’

Montfort became a fan of Bukowski’s work and began advising John Martin which German magazines it was worth giving interviews to. He also sat in on interviews, ending them when Bukowski got too drunk so he didn’t look like a complete idiot.

Bukowski had mixed feelings about dealing with journalists. ‘Basically I believe that he really rather wanted to be alone,’ says Montfort. ‘On the other hand, I’m sure that he loved the attention, although he never would have admitted it. It was also having something to do apart from the daily routine. At that time, if somebody paid for a case of wine, it made a difference in his life. If it was arranged and OK-ed, and was on his terms, his time, his date, he would more or less reluctantly play the wild man. He would try and live up to his image.’

One German interviewer was so overwhelmed by meeting Bukowski that he was unable to ask any questions. ‘It was like he was frozen, a frozen man!’ recalls Linda Lee. ‘He was catatonic.’ Bukowski was not at all pleased, having interrupted his day, and tried to get the interviewer to relax. ‘Hey man,’ he said. ‘Are you having a little problem? Are you OK?’

He offered him a drink, but still the interviewer couldn’t speak. ‘Hey, what’s your fucking problem?’ asked Bukowski, his patience running thin. ‘You stupid fucking son of a bitch, don’t you even know what the fuck to ask me?’

Apparently not.

‘Fuck it! I’ll ask you. I’ll interview you,’ he said. ‘So how’s it going, my man? What’s going on? So what’s your name?’

The German began crying, and held out his hand for mercy. Bukowski spat in it and pushed it back.

There had been a spate of terrorist bombings in Germany and the customs men at Frankfurt airport demanded to know what was in the parcels Bukowski had brought with him from Los Angeles. They were simply gifts for Carl Weissner and his son, Mikey, but Bukowski was not used to being questioned in this way and was still a little drunk from the flight. ‘It’s none of your fucking business,’ he snarled.

After ten days of drinking and sight-seeing, Bukowski arrived in Hamburg for the reading feeling very nervous, partly because he didn’t know if the crowd would understand enough English to follow what he was saying. The venue was The Marktahalle, a covered market building by the docks, and Bukowski was astonished to see hundreds of fans lining up for tickets when he went over for a sound-check. ‘We had no idea so many people would turn up,’ says Carl Weissner. ‘Because it was at very short notice. There were only a few posters in the town announcing the reading. Nobody was sure he would come, that’s why there was practically nothing in the papers. But it was all word of mouth which explains the fact that people from Sweden and Denmark and Holland and Austria came.’

It was a sell-out with a capacity crowd of twelve hundred, paying ten Deutschmarks a head, and another three hundred turned away at the door, five times the number who had come to see novelist Günter Grass. People were standing in the aisles, reaching out to touch Bukowski as he pushed his way to the stage. They offered bottles of wine and chanted his name like they were at a football match.

‘Hello,’ said Bukowski, adjusting the microphone, ‘it’s good to be back.’

He started with ‘Free’, a poem about airplane passengers drinking complimentary champagne and getting sick. The crowd seemed to enjoy it. The second and third poems were more serious, but the audience stayed with him, not like when he tried to read serious stuff to American crowds. There was laughter when he
read a line he meant to be funny, but the rest of the time they listened quietly, applauding when he came to the end. Apparently they understood English perfectly.

There was a rowdy element in the crowd: some bikers, a group of feminists and a young man who screamed abuse as if he were demented. Bukowski dealt skillfully with the hecklers.

‘Haven’t you gone home to your mother yet?’ he asked the young man. ‘She’s got a little bottle of milk for you, warmed up.’

The crowd applauded his wit and style, and he rewarded them with ‘Looking for a Job’. It was meant to be funny and they laughed in the right places:

Encouraged by the reception, he told stories about his life in Hollywood. ‘Where I live I drink a certain brand of wine, two or three bottles a night, and the liquor stores run out so I have two liquor stores stocking my wine. If one doesn’t have it, I run to the other. The liquor men love me. I’m making those bastards rich and I’m killing myself!’ There was more clapping. ‘You mustn’t applaud when I’m killing myself,’ he laughed.

Afterwards he signed books until his hand was sore and drank
champagne as the promoter counted out his money in crisp one hundred-Deutschmark notes.

Montfort hired a white BMW and drove them to Andernach to see Heinrich Fett, Bukowski’s mother’s brother, whom he had been corresponding with on and off since was a child. Uncle Heinrich was ninety but he came bounding down the stairs with gusto, smartly dressed in jacket and tie, and exclaimed in English: ‘Henry! Henry! My God, I can’t believe it.’ Bukowski was close to tears as the old man embraced him. ‘It’s Henry. After all these years!’

They went to the house of Heinrich’s son, Karl, and his daughter-in-law Josephine. She served wine and cake, like Bukowski remembered his German-born grandmother doing in Pasadena.

Uncle Heinrich needed no translator as he regaled Bukowski with the family history, stopping occasionally to urge more cake on Linda Lee and to replenish his nephew’s glass. ‘Your father was a sergeant and he spoke perfect German,’ he said. ‘“That handsome Sergeant Bukowski,” your mother used to say, “I’ll bet he tries to fool all the girls.” A couple of nights later Sergeant Bukowski came up the stairway and knocked. He had meat, the good meat, cooked, plus the other things … bread, vegetables. We ate it. And after that, late at night, every night he came up with his meat and we ate it. That’s how they met and became married.’ Bukowski nodded and emptied his glass. ‘Your father was a very intelligent man,’ said Uncle Heinrich.

They spoke about what Bukowski was doing in Germany and Uncle Heinrich said he had read some of his books. He liked most of them, but not
The Fuck Machine
. ‘That’s all right, uncle, after I write something I try to forget it,’ Bukowski replied. ‘It doesn’t matter afterwards, even if they say it’s good.’

Bukowski was concerned they might be tiring the old fellow, so he said they ought to be getting along, and they drove back across
town to the Hotel Zum Anker, by the Rhine which had flooded the foreshore as it often did at that time of year. Bukowski and Linda Lee went to take a nap while Montfort settled in the bar to label his film. Shortly after he started work, Uncle Heinrich walked in and rapped smartly on the floor with his stick.

‘I demand to see Charles!’ said the old man. The hotelier pointed to Montfort and suggested he speak to him. Uncle Heinrich banged the floor again. ‘I forgot something and have to talk to him now.’

‘He’s taking a nap.’

Uncle Heinrich would not be dissuaded, so Montfort called the room and apologized, saying he didn’t know what to do but Bukowski’s uncle was there and demanded he see him right away.

The old man took Bukowski to see the house where he had been born and Bukowski was amused to learn that, until recently, it had been the town brothel. Then they went back to Uncle Heinrich’s home where the old man produced a case of letters and photographs Bukowski’s mother had mailed from America. There were black and white pictures of Bukowski and his parents at Santa Monica beach, a Stars and Stripes flag in the sand; posing with their Model-T Ford; and at Grandma Bukowski’s house – yellowing windows into that terrible childhood. Bukowski couldn’t help but cry.

That evening at the hotel he drank like he was possessed, filled with emotion and memories of his parents. ‘I have never ever seen a man drink so much wine,’ said Rolf Degen, a journalism student who had come to Andernach to meet Bukowski. The film maker, Thomas Schmitt, also joined them in the bar where Bukowski drank at least seven bottles of wine.