Authors: Charles Bukowski
if death was staring you in the face,
he was asked, what would you say to your readers?
nothing, he told the interviewer, would you please
order another bottle of wine?
he was an old, tired writer from Los Angeles, hungover,
and his French publisher had pushed one more
interview on him.
the free dinners and drinks usually
were great
but now he was fed up.
the many recent interviews had become
frustrating and boring.
he figured either his books would sell on their own
or fail the same way.
he hadn’t written them for money anyhow but to keep
himself out of the madhouse.
he tried to tell the interviewers this but they just went on with
their usual
banal questions:
have you met Norman Mailer?
what do you think of Camus, Sartre, Céline?
do your books sell better here than in America?
did you really work in a slaughterhouse?
do you think Hemingway was homosexual?
do you take drugs?
do you drink when you write?
are you a misanthrope?
who is your favorite writer?
the interviewer ordered another bottle of wine.
it was 11:15 p.m. on the patio of a hotel.
there were little white tables and chairs scattered about.
theirs was the only one occupied.
there was the interviewer, a photographer,
the writer and his wife.
have you had sex with children? the interviewer
asked.
no, answered the writer.
in one of your stories a man has sex with a
child and you describe it very
graphically.
well? asked the writer.
it was as if you enjoyed it, the interviewer said.
I sometimes enjoy writing, the writer said.
you seemed to have experienced what you were describing,
said the interviewer.
I only photograph life, said the writer. I might write
about a murderer but this doesn’t mean that I am
one or would enjoy being one.
ah, here’s the wine, said the interviewer.
the waiter took out the cork, poured a bit for
him.
the interviewer took a taste, nodded to the
waiter
and the waiter poured all
around.
the wine goes fast when there’s four of us, said the
writer.
do you drink because you are afraid of life?
the interviewer asked.
disgusted with life is more like it, said the writer,
and with
you.
we were up very early, said the writer’s wife.
he’s given at least a dozen interviews over the past
3 days and he’s tired.
I am from one of the city’s most important newspapers,
said the interviewer.
fuck
you
, said the writer.
what? said the interviewer. you can’t talk to me
like that!
I am, said the writer.
all you American writers think you’re God, said the
interviewer.
God is dead, said the writer, remember?
this interview is over! said the interviewer.
the photographer quickly drank his wine,
then he and the interviewer stood up
and walked out.
you better get yourself together, said the wife
to the writer, you’re on television tomorrow
night.
I’ll tell them to kiss my ass, said the writer.
you can’t do that, said his wife.
baby, said the writer, lifting his
wineglass, watch me!
you’re just a drunk who writes, said his wife.
that’s better than a drunk who just drinks,
said the writer.
his wife sighed.
well, do you want to go back to the room or to another
café?
to another café, said the writer.
they rose and walked slowly out of the
restaurant, he looking through his pocket for
cigarettes, she looking back over her shoulder
as if something was following
them.
hell, hell, in hell,
trapped like a fish to bake
here and burn.
hell, hell, inside my brain
inside my gut,
hell hanging
twisting
screaming
churning
then crouching still
both inside
and outside of
me.
hell,
hell in the trees,
on the ground,
crawling on the rug.
hell,
bouncing off
the
walls and
ceiling as
I sit in this chair here
as outside
through the window
I watch
6 or 7 telephone wires
taut against the
sky
as fresh hell slides
toward me
along the wires.
hell is where I
am.
and I am
here.
there isn’t any
place
else.
see me now
reaching for a
cigarette,
my hand pushing
through boiling space.
there is nothing more
I can do.
I light the
cigarette,
lean back here
alone
in
this
chair.
“correctly so,” I told him,
“I would much rather they all
robbed banks or sold
drugs and if you please may
I have a vodka-7?”
“I agree,” said the
barkeep mixing the
drink, “I’d rather they
collected garbage
or ran for Congress
or taught
biology.”
“or,” I said, reaching
for the drink, “sold
flowers on the corner
or gave back rubs or
tried blowing glass.”
“absolutely right,” said
the barkeep
pouring himself a
drink, “I’d rather they
plowed the good
earth or
delivered the mail.”
“or,” I said, “mugged
old ladies or
pulled teeth.”
“or directed traffic or
worked the factories,”
said the barkeep, “or
caught the bus to
the nearest harvest.”
“that will be a great day,” I said,
“when it arrives.”
“beautiful,” said the
barkeep, “but isn’t it the
mediocrity of the masses
which diminishes the
wealth of its entertainers
and artists?”
“absolutely not,” I said, “and may I
have another vodka- 7?”
“if I was the policeman
of the world,” the barkeep
continued, moving the drink
toward me, “many a darling
poet would either be allowed to
starve or forced to get a
real job.”
“and correctly so,” I
said, raising my
drink.
“that will be a beautiful day,”
said the barkeep,
“when it arrives.”
“a hell of a beautiful
day,” I agreed.
you know what Li Po said when asked if he’d rather be an
Artist or Rich?
“I’d rather be Rich,” he replied, “for Artists can usually be found
sitting on the doorsteps of the
Rich.”
I’ve sat on the doorsteps of some expensive and
unbelievable homes
myself
but somehow I always managed to disgrace myself and / or insult
my Rich hosts
(mostly after drinking large quantities of their fine
liquor).
perhaps I was afraid of the Rich?
all I knew then was poverty and the very poor,
and I felt instinctively that the Rich shouldn’t be so
Rich,
that it was some kind of clever
twist of fate
based on something rotten and
unfair.
of course, one could say the same thing
about being poor,
only there were so many poor, it all seemed completely
out of proportion.
and so when I, as an Artist, visited the
homes of the Rich, I felt ashamed to be
there, and I drank too much of their fine wines,
broke their expensive glassware and antique dishes,
burned cigarette holes in their Persian rugs and
mauled their wives,
reacting badly to the whole damned
situation.
yet I had no political or social solution.
I was just a lousy houseguest,
I guess,
and after a while
I protected both myself and the Rich
by rejecting their
invitations
and everybody felt much better after
that.
I went back to
drinking alone,
breaking my own cheap glassware,
filling the room with cigar
smoke and feeling
wonderful
instead of feeling trapped,
used,
pissed on,
fucked.
the phone doesn’t ring.
the hours hang limp and empty.
everybody else is having it
all.
it seems to never end.
one night it got very bad.
I needed just a voice.
I dialed the time on the
telephone and listened to her
voice as she said:
“it’s eleven ten and ten seconds.
it’s eleven ten and twenty seconds.
it’s eleven ten and thirty seconds …”
then she told me that it
was:
“eleven ten and forty seconds.”
she might have saved my life
although I’m not sure.
it reads:
Mr. Chinaski, we stopped by to see if
you’re interested in a free lunch.
we’ll stop by again later this
afternoon.
we’ll bring some beer.
it is now 2 p.m.
call meanwhile if you’re interested.
397- 8211
Steve and Frank
I think that all the decades of teaching English
Lit has gotten to him.
his own writing has become more and more
comfortable.
he has survived, he has held on to his job, he has
changed wives (often).
but it was all just too easy, really, teaching those Lit
classes
and coasting along and by
doing that he has missed out on something important,
reality perhaps,
and it’s beginning to show.
each new book of poetry gets more and more
comfortable (as I said earlier).
I think good poetry should startle, shatter and,
yes, entertain while getting as close to the truth as
possible.
I can get all the
comfort
I need from a good
cigar.
if this gentleman expects his own poetry to be taught
by others
in future English
Lit classes
he’d better get his ass out of the warm sand
and start splashing in the bloody waters of real
life.
or maybe he’d just rather be a good old guy
forever,
adored and comforted by the eager young
coeds.
that’s not so bad, really,
considering that you get paid very well for
that.
it was 4 years ago, she told me,
and we were on a private beach,
on the Mediterranean
my sister and I—
my sister is 18 and she has
long and lovely
legs,
and these 3 beautiful young men
bronzed and slim
put their blankets near ours;
one was an Englishman, one was a Scotsman
and the other might have been
Greek or Italian.
my sister and I started spreading oil on our
bodies, you
know, and it was all going well, you could
feel the vibes—
then this boy of 12 walked up,
he was bowlegged, had acne,
a very
scruffy
boy,
and he started speaking to the men
and the men talked to him
and one of the men gave him a cigarette
and the boy stood there
smoking the cigarette
not inhaling
and then one of the men got up
and went into the water with the boy
behind some rocks
where the water was shallow
and the man and the boy
stayed there quite a while.
then they came back.
then
the men got up, folded their blankets
and walked off.
the boy stood there
smoking another cigarette, not
inhaling.
I asked him:
“how did you get in here? it’s a
private beach.”
the boy pointed to a fence behind us.
“it was easy,” he said, “there’a hole in
the fence.”
his English was terrible.
and then he walked away along the shore with his bowlegs,
such a
scruffy
boy.