What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (15 page)

jesus christ

the horses again

I mean I said I'd never bet the horses

again

what am I doing standing out here

betting the horses?

anybody can go to the racetrack but

not everybody can

write a sonnet…

the racetrack crowd is the lowest of the breed

thinking their brains can outfox the

15 percent take.

what am I doing here?

if my publisher knew I was blowing my royalties,

if those guys in San Diego

and the one in Detroit who send me money

(a couple of fives and a ten)

or the collector in Jerome, Arizona

who paid me for some paintings,

if they knew

what would

they think?

jesus christ, I'm playing the starving poet who is

creating great Art.

I walk up to the bar with my girlfriend,

she's a handsome creature in hotpants

with long dark hair,

I order a scotch and water,

she orders a screwdriver

jesus christ

I don't have a chance

did Vallejo, Lorca and

Shelley have to go through

this?

I drink some of the scotch and

water and think,

the proper mix of the woman and the poem

is infinite Art.

then I sit down with my

Racing Form

and get back

to work.

I used to look across the room

and think,

this female will surely do me

in

and it's not worth

it.

but I'd do nothing about it

and I wasn't

lonely.

it was more like a space to

fill in with something;

like on a canvas,

you can keep painting something on it

even if it isn't very

good.

“what are you thinking

about, you bastard?” she would

say.

“painting.”

“painting? you nuts?

pour me a drink!”

and I would, and then I'd brush her

in, drink in hand, sitting

in a chair, legs crossed, kicking

her high-heeled shoes.

I'd brush her in, bad tempered,

spoiled, loud.

a painting nobody would ever

see

except me.

today at the track

2 or 3 days after

the death of the

jock

came this voice

over the speaker

asking us all to stand

and observe

a few moments

of silence. well,

that's a tired

formula and

I don't like it

but I do like

silence. so we

all stood: the

hookers and the

madmen and the

doomed. I was

set to be displeased

but then

I looked up at the

TV screen

and there

standing silently

in the paddock

waiting to mount

up

stood the other jocks

along with

the officials and

the trainers:

quiet and thinking

of death and the

one gone,

they stood

in a semi-circle

the brave little

men in boots and

silks,

the legions of death

appeared and

vanished, the sun

blinked once

I thought of love

with its head ripped

off

still trying to

sing and

then the announcer

said, thank you

and we all went on about

our business.

he used to sit in his bedroom slippers

and a silken robe

his jaw hanging open

pouches under the eyes.

they kept coming to see him

bringing wine and pills and

conversation.

the old and the young came to

see him.

he had been a very good poet

in the 30's and 40's

and maybe in the 50's.

for some reason

in the 70's he settled on

(and in)

New York

City.

it was rather like coming to see God

when you came to see

him.

and his conversation was good

especially after the wine and

pills.

he had style and grace, was

hardly

addled.

he smoked too much and the cigarettes

made him sicker than

anything. he used to spit in the paper

bag at his

feet.

he had many visitors and held his

drink well.

at the end of an evening he would select one

young female admirer to stay.

then she would

suck him off.

he's gone now.

those young admirers

never developed into the fine writer

he was. of course,

there's still time.

it was during a reading at the University of Utah.

the poets ran out of drinks

and while one was reading

2 or 3 of the others

got into a car

to drive to a liquor store

but we were blocked on the road

by the cars coming to the football stadium.

we were the only car that wanted to go the other way,

they had us: 38,000-to-one.

we sat in our lane and honked.

400 cars honked back.

the cop came over.

“look, officer,” I said, “we're poets and we need a drink.”

“turn around and to to the stadium,” said

the officer.

“look, we need a drink. we don't want to see the

football game. we don't care who wins. we're poets, we're

reading at the Underwater Poetry Festival

at the University of Utah!”

“traffic can only move one way,” said the cop,

“turn your car around and go to the stadium.”

“look, I'm reading in 15 minutes. I'm Henry Chinaski!

you've heard of me, haven't you?”

“turn your car around and go to the stadium!” said the cop.

“shit,” said Betsy who was at the wheel,

and she ran the car up over the curb

and we drove across the campus lawn

leaving tire marks an inch deep.

I was a bit tipsy and I don't know how long we drove

or how we got there

but suddenly we were all standing in a liquor store

and we bought wine, vodka, beer, scotch, got it and left.

we drove back,

got back there, read the ass right off that audience,

picked up our checks and left to applause.

UCLA won the football game

something to something.

we had the nicest old guy

living in the back—

tall, thin, stately

with an open direct stare

and an easy smile.

his wife was squat

bow-legged,

wore black

looked down at the sidewalk

and mumbled.

she didn't comb her hair and

was usually drunk.

they'd walk past us as we sat on

the porch.

“he's a real nice old guy,”

my girlfriend would say.

“sure,” I'd agree.

they had a daughter with aluminum

crutches who wore a white

nightgown and blue bathrobe

when she watered the

small brown patch

of lawn out front.

one day the daughter came out

on her crutches and started

screaming.

someone went inside and the man

had knifed his wife.

the police arrived and handcuffed

him and walked him

out to the street and

then the ambulance came and

they rolled her out

on a stretcher with wheels.

the daughter went back inside

swinging on her crutches

and closed the door.

—which proves what I've

always said:

never trust a man with

an open direct stare

and an easy smile

especially

if he smokes a pipe.

(I never saw

the nice old guy in back

smoke a pipe

but the way I see it

he must have.)

the dog jumps up on the bed

crawls over me.

“are you the Word?” I ask him.

he doesn't answer.

“are you the Word? I'm looking for the Word.”

he has brown and solemn eyes.

“I'm waiting for the Word,” I tell him,

“I'm walking around like a man

in a large hot

frying pan.”

he wags his tail and tries to

lick my face.

“listen,” she says from the bathroom,

“why don't you get out of bed

and stop talking to that dog?”

my parents didn't understand me

either.