Screams From the Balcony (7 page)

Terrible happenings. Got drunk Sunday night and thrown in jail. Must see judge on Wednesday. Fell and twisted ankle—swollen now, might be broken. Missed 2 days work. Judge might give me 120 days. This is not first offense. Will mean loss of job, of course.

Have been laying here in horrible fit of depression. My drinking days are over. This is too much. Jail is a horrible place. I almost go mad there.

I don’t know what is going to become of me. I have no trade, no future. Sick, depressed, blackly, heavily depressed.

Write me something. Maybe a word from you will save me.

[To Jon Webb]

[December 19, 1962]

I lucked it. Easy judge. Nobody got a day all the time I was in court, but all fined. A good 40 or 50 appeared ahead of me. Jail might be full. Christmas. Whatever. [* * *]

Don’t be angry, Jon, but there are very few editors holding my recent stuff, so I can’t write them. And the other stuff, the older stuff has
disappeared
and I don’t keep records and/or carbons so it’s pretty much lost. I’ve dropped 200-to-300 poems this way since 1955, and I used to try to get some of these poems back, the larger batches of 20 or 40 that I remembered anyhow, but I have found that the elongated keepers of poems or destroyers of poems
WITHOUT EXCEPTION
do not respond to polite and reasonable inquiry with proper stamped self-addressed envelope enclosed. There is a mucky dismal breed out there…unmoral, immoral unscrupulous…homos, hounds, sadists; curious, blank children; blood-drinkers…

And then some people wonder why I write an occasional anti-editor poem. You and Gypsy are a pair of the few editors I know who operate in a professional and straight manner, and the gods have been more than good to me in that you have seen some light in some of my work and are handing me this
OUTSIDER OF YEAR
shining tray of honor, plus the book.

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

[December 21, 1962?]

Got to thinking about the telephone call the other night, and how you weren’t going to mention this or that, and well, I think pretty slowly, but I hope now, thinking it over, that you aren’t going to make a white rabbit outa me. I’ve got nothing to hide. Feel free. It’s a person’s eccentricities that give him whatever he has. Don’t be too cautious with excerpts from letters, except I agree with you that mentioning a name directly (false initials will do) might be bad taste, especially if that person has very little literary standing. If he has literary standing, use the name and the hell with it. I hope this does not get to you too late. That I drink or play the ponies or have been in jail is of no shame to me.

As you can see, I have recovered from my depression [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

December 27, 1962

Got your six page letter which I read through a couple of times while drinking a Miller’s, and the sun’s out good, but it’s cold & I have a heater on and the stove on, and somehow there’s a feeling of peace today—I feel like a fat man who ate a lot of turkey, and since this feeling does not arrive too often, I take it, I take of the good of it without examining it, without feeling selfish. That’s what’s good about being 42: you know when to go with what’s left of the soul. I spent Xmas in bed asleep. I hate to go out on the streets on Xmas day. The fuckers act like they are out of their minds. They strain at the thing; round-eyed and hacked-out they drive through red lights, they look at each other and say things but they don’t know what they’re saying: their mouths have long ago been cut out and thrown away. Christmas, to most of them, is like owning a new car. They’ve got to do it. They don’t have the guts—or the sense—to pass it up. Enough. Did I say I was feeling at peace? [* * *]

[To Jon Webb]

[December 28, 1962]

No, as to title, I don’t care for
Naked in the Womb
or the
Alcatraz
one. When I said you think up title, I was only thinking in terms of a
summary
title such as
Selected Poems
or etc. As to the
other
type of title, I don’t think it would be fair for you to submit titles any more than it would be fair for you to put one of your poems in there under my name. Surely, you understand this? I have been trying to think up a
summary
title, but if you want a straight title, I will send you a half dozen or so in a day or two. I’m glad this came up. Please do not use one of your titles that is
not
a summary title (such as
Collected Poems, Selected Poems
) as this would take the heart out of me. I will be strictly dreaming titles from here on in, say like
Beer and Frogs Legs
or
I Can’t Stand the Sunshine When People Walk Around in It or For Jocks, Chambermaids, Thieves and Bassoon Players
. I almost like the last one. It carries summation plus the rest. Yes. [* * *] or
Tonic for the Mole
. Meaning these type of poems for those who duck out to the world, ya know. or
Minstrels Would Go Crazy Singing This
.[* * *]

Know it cost you money to have your man work on photos but glad he perked up a couple. I cannot get over the nightmare of those photos, and maybe some day I can write about it, but it’s still too close. [* * *]

 

The title settled on is a phrase taken from a poem by Robinson Jeffers. Permission to use it had to be obtained from Random House
.

 

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

January 2, 1963

christ, I’m glad you liked the title (
It Catches My Heart in Its Hands
), and yes I’m sending book (this piece “Such Counsel You Gave to Me”) to you [* * *], and no, I’m
not
going to change my mind,
THAT’S IT
, and so if you are going to or have set up an ad using title, fine. Also glad you and Louise have accepted dedication. I have been worried about both ends of this: title and dedication, and now all’s well. [* * *]

No, I don’t know how many copies of each of the 3 earlier books there were. Although I believe Cuscaden (
Run With
) mentioned 200, and I believe
Longshots
around 200 too. On Griffith (
Flower, Fist
), I don’t know, and also, he doesn’t answer his mail. [* * *]

Must say again, very glad you went for title and dedication. Yes, the title is in my head too. It says so god damned much. Jeffers, when he got good, he got very good. There were these long periods when he flattened out and had a tendency to preach his ideals of rock & hawk, but when he did get the word down…he got it down in a way, that to me, made our other contemporaries or newly deads seem not so much. [* * *]

p.s.—my photo on cover only another miracle on miracle that has been occurring. It does not seem too long ago that I was considering the blade. If I never write another decent poem it’s your fault, Jon. I’ve got my alibi ready.

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

January 6, 1963

[* * *] I am glad on Corrington for intro. He knows me—and my work—better than anyone, and he possesses the style and manner to do a patrical job. (I wanted to say “pat” but it looked like “pot,” so I changed it to patrical, whatever that means.) Anyhow, Corrington’s the only one, and his own writing is improving. His lines seem clearer and harder—he sent me a poem called
Communion
. It has a holy edge and fervor, quite good. Quite. [* * *]

Photo of Sandburg in
This Week
holding little girl on his knee and underneath poem about death. Death is hush, says the old boy. Well, I guess so. Only I wish he’d crop or comb that sickly flange of white hair that looks like a wig. If I
EVER
get that old, they’ll find me under the bed drunk

with the Racing Form
AND

a big
OLD
girl. [* * *]

 

Roman Books, run by Jim Roman in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, published in 1963 a ground-breaking catalogue called
“‘The Outsiders’: a collection of first editions by avant-garde and ‘beat’ generation authors of prose and poetry since World War Two.”
Bukowski is giving his approval to Jon Webb’s sale of manuscripts to the dealer
.

 

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

January 7, 1963

[* * *] On
ROMAN BOOKS
, I understand. In your position, why not? Someday when you are gone they will talk about the force and vitality of the
Outsider in
mid-20th century literature, and how you stood in front of that press feeding it your blood and your hours and your life. It will very
very
romantic
then
. But now? Shit, nobody ever cares about
NOW
. They are always looking
back
. They moon for the pain of Mozart or Lorca bulleted in the road. But there are always new Mozarts and Lorcas, new
Poetry
Chicagos, new
Blasts
, new
Brooms
, etc. If you can swing a buck from
ROMAN
for a few wilted manus in order to go on, hell, do it.
YOU ARE LIVING NOW
. If you have any manus you want me to sign, ship them here, I will sign and return. Ink is cheap. [* * *]

[To John William Corrington]

January 14, 1963

[* * *] my cock average size but mostly out of action lately, desire there still, but price too high, trouble too much, I do not search like a highschool boy, and some night finally it is there, or at a motel outside Del Mar track in August it is there, and then it is gone, the color of the dress I remember, some words spoken, but the act is really secondary, they have hung the cock on me, I have dipped, but really, the walls are large.

Born Andernach, Germany August 16th, 1920. German mother, father with American Army (Pasadena born but of German parentage) of Occupation. There is some evidence that I was born, or at least conceived out of wedlock, but I am not sure. American at age of 2. Some year or so in Washington, D.C., but then on to Los Angeles. The Indian suit thing true. All grotesques true. Between the imbecile savagery of my father, the disinterestedness of my mother, and the sweet hatred of my playmates: “Heinie! Heinie! Heinie!” things were pretty hot all around. They got hotter when I was in my 13th years on, I broke out not with acne, but with these
HUGE
boils, in my eyes, neck, back, face, and I’d ride the streetcar to the hospital, the charity ward, the old man was not working, and there they’d drill me with the electric needle, which is kind of a wood drill that they stick into people. Stayed out of school a year. Went to L.A. City College a couple of years, journalism. Tuition fee was two dollars but the old man said he couldn’t afford to send me anymore. I went to work in the railroad yards, scrubbing the sides of trains with
OAKITE
. I drank and gambled at night. Had a small room above a bar on Temple Street in the Filipino district, and I gambled at night with the aircraft workers and pimps and etc. My place got to be known and every night it was packed. It was hell getting my sleep. One night I hit big. Big for me. 2 or 3 hundred. I knew they’d be back. Got in a fight, broke a mirror and a couple of chairs but held onto the money and early in the morning caught a bus for New Orleans. Some young gal on there made a play for me, and I let her off at Fort Worth but got as far as Dallas and swung back. Wasted some time there and made N.O. Roomed across from
THE GANGPLANK CAFE
and began writing. Short stories. Drank the money up, went to work in a comic book house, and soon moved on. Miami Beach. Atlanta. New York. St. Louis. Philly. Frisco. L.A. again. New Orleans again. Then Philly again. Then Frisco again. L.A. again. Around and around. A couple of nights in East Kansas City. Chicago. I stopped writing. I concentrated on drinking. My longest stays were in Philly. I would get up early in the morning and go to a bar there and I would close that bar at night. How I made it, I don’t know. Then finally back to L.A. and a wild shack job of seven years drinking. Ended up in same charity hospital. This time not with boils but with my stomach torn open finally with rot gut and agony. 8 pints of blood and 7 pints of glucose transfused in without a stop. My whore came to see me and she was drunk. My old man was with her. The old man gave me a lot of lip and the whore was nasty too, and I told the old man, “Just one more word out of you and I’m going to yank this needle outa my arm, climb off this deathbed and whip your ass!” They left. I came out of there, white and old, in love with sunlight, told never to drink again or death would be mine. I found among changes in myself, that my memory which was once pretty good was now bad. Some brain damage, no doubt, they let me lay there a couple of days in the charity ward when my papers got lost and the papers called for immediate transfusions, and I was out of blood, listening to hammers against my brain. Anyhow, I got on a mail truck and drove it around and delivered letters and drank lightly, experimentally, and then one night I sat down and began writing poetry. What a hell of a thing. Where to send this stuff. Well, I took a shot. There was a magazine called
Harlequin
and I was a fucking clown and it was out in some small town in Texas and maybe they wouldn’t know bad stuff when they saw it, so—. There was a gal editor there, and the poor dear went wild. Special edition. Letters followed. The letters got warm. The letters got hot. Next thing I knew the gal editor was in Los Angeles. Next thing I knew we were in Las Vegas for marriage. Next thing I knew I was walking in a small Texas town with the local hicks glaring at me. The gal had money. I didn’t know she had money. Or her folks had money. We went back to L.A. and I went back to work, somewhere.

The marriage didn’t work. It took 3 years for her to find out that I was not what she had thought I was supposed to be. I was anti-social, coarse, a drunkard, didn’t go to church, played horses, cursed when intoxicated, didn’t like to go anywhere, shaved carelessly, didn’t care for her paintings or her relatives, sometimes stayed in bed 2 or 3 days running etc. etc.

Very little more. I went back to my whore who had once been such a cruel and beautiful woman, and who was no longer beautiful (as such) but who had, magically, become a warm and real person, but she could not stop drinking, she drank more than I, and she died.

There is not much left now. I drink mostly alone and discourage company. People seem to be talking about things that don’t count. They are too eager or too vicious or too obvious.

I hope this clears up some things and that I have not Ferlinghettied you. I can tell you things that happened like this and it takes nothing away because it is only a
LISTING
in a sense, and what happened, the living of it, it is still there. I have played some bad lutestrings and taken some knocks in the head, but it was the only way, there was only one path.

As to the other, I like the
EARLY
Hemingway, and like the rest of us, was affected somewhat by T.S. and Auden, but not so much in a sense of
content
, but in a clean and easy way of saying. I like Wagner and Beethoven, Klee and Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and rabbits. This is all pretty common, I realize. So is breathing. Then too, there’s Darius Milhaud, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Smetana, Shostakovich, Schumann, Bach, Massenet, Ernst von Dohnanyi, Menotti, Gluck, Mahler, Bruckner, Franck, Gounod, Handel and Zoltan Kodaly. Brahms and Tchaikovsky somehow become less and less to me. In Jeffers, I like the longer works, where the style is almost prose, but where everything is hard brick and breaking, where everything is up against the knife and very real. Jeffers almost admires his nonthinking man-brutes as opposed to etc…. that gives his work the touch of truth. He writes believably and the pages are in your hands like warm things, difficult to believe that type and machine also put them together. As to contemporaries, they do not do much for me. I do not mean the poets still living who have stopped writing, I mean those living now and writing now. I cannot see much. A great alikeness. A carefulness. What a stinking age! What a set of ass-lickers.

Enough of that. [* * *]

Got a letter from Germany today from some Heinie telling me that he has translated “Candidate Middle” and “The Life of Borodin” and that they will be used in a radio feature. This calls for cold chills all around. I, who can no longer speak or understand the language of my birthplace, will be going back into my own tongue from the place I left. This is some kind of magic, like black horses turned loose and running on a hill. [* * *]

Weekend shot. Sherman haggling with Norman Mosher who studies under T. Roethke. Real bitter stuff. I have long ago said that I do not care for the poets. I would like to see one once in a while with a little self-doubt instead of this cockiness and the unsheathing of the nails. I am just about now getting over it. People climb into my mind, kick around, piss around, and it takes some time for them to leave.

…a part of the ankle will not go down. I will be the club-ankle poet. Lord Byron, make way!

I told Jon to let you have your head in the intro. If you want to go long, go long; if you want to go short, go short. It is a tough job at best. But you must know that I am honored to have you for my barker: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we give you—,” and Bukowski steps out from behind the tent flap with 3 red hairs on his chest, and can of beer in one hand and a German shepherd pup in the other.

Keep your bones in good motion, kid, and quietly consume and digest what is necessary. I think it is not so much important to build a literary thing as it is not to hurt things. I think it is important to be quiet and in love with park benches; solve whole areas of pain by walking across a rug.

you got it.

dip the brush in turpentine,

p.s.—I asked Webb not to send proofs of the section. I’d rather see it all at once, quietly with a cold beer audience. And maybe think of other days & bad days to come, like all this is well, but the wall will be coming down. [* * *]

 

Arnold Kaye’s interview appeared in
Literary Times
for March 1963, under the title, “Charles Bukowski Speaks Out
.”

 

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

[?February 1963]

Enclosed copy of
Literary Times
. I might suggest when book comes out you send them a review copy. Arnold Kaye over last night to interview me, I suppose a la Ben Hecht. He gave me the old bullshit about me being a legend, and he had a list of questions. I was fairly drunk and don’t remember what I told him. Some of the questions rather vapid like: “What effect does Mickey Mouse have on the American public and culture?” I don’t know if they are going to run the interview; I might have been fairly bitter and vulgar. The guy had just come from Zahn’s where Curtis had babbled on and on, I am told. At least I kept it short and hot. Anyhow, what with the horses and interviews and the bottle and being a
LEGEND
…I have not written any poetry lately, and this is how we go down the drain: doing everything but creating. There are enough traps in this world to kill a man before he becomes five years old.