What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (3 page)

this dutchman

in a Philly bar put

3 raw eggs in his

beer

before he took a

drink.

71, he was.

I was 23 and sat 3

barstools away

burning

sorrows.

I held my head in all its

tender precious

agony

and we drank

together.

“feelin' bad, kid?” he asked.

“yeh. yeh. yeh.”

“kid,” he said, “I've slept longer than you've

lived.”

a good old man

he was

soothing

gold

and too soon

dead.

not that I minded but I believe that my stint

while bumming drinks from the end barstool in

Philly

was about as low on the social scale as

you could get

until one day this gentleman walked in

and sat down beside me.

now his breath really REEKED.

I had to ask him,

“what the hell have you been drinking?”

“canned heat,” he said.

“canned heat?” I asked.

“yeah, it's cheaper than the crap

you're drinking, I got a whole closet full

of it.”

I was a little afraid of him and he sensed

that.

“don't worry about me,” he said, “I'm all right, let me

buy you a beer.”

“no, no, that's all right…”

“I insist…I'll even drink one myself.”

he ordered two draft beers from Jim the

bartender.

I lifted mine. “cheers!” I said.

“cheers!” he said.

“we're different,” he said, “you bum drinks,

I bum money for canned heat.”

“but we're both bums!”

“right,” he laughed.

we drank our beers.

I had a few coins so then I bought him

one.

we sat there not saying much.

he finished his beer, then

noticed two men sitting at the middle

of the bar.

“pardon me,” he said.

he walked down, stood behind

them, asked something.

“get the hell away from me!” one of the

men said loudly.

“yeah!” yelled the other man.

then Jim the bartender yelled,

“get the hell out of here!”

the man walked to the door and was

gone.

Jim walked over to me.

“I don't want you talking to that son-of-a-

bitch!” he told me.

“Jim, he seemed like a nice guy!”

“he's crazy, he drinks canned heat!”

Jim walked off and began picking up glasses

and washing them.

he seemed very angry.

the other two men looked straight ahead,

not talking.

they also seemed quite angry.

I had no idea what canned heat was,

never heard of anybody in Philly

drinking it.

I sat and waited for happier

times.

One orator proving there was a God

and another proving that there wasn't.

and the crazy lady with the white and yellow

hair with the big dirty blue ribbon,

the white-striped dress, the tennis shoes,

the bare dirty ankles and the big dog

with the matted hardened fur.

and there was the guitar player and

the drum player and the flute player

all about, the winos sleeping on

the lawn

and all the while the war was rushing

toward us

but somehow nobody argued about the

war

or at least I never heard them.

in the late afternoon I would go into

one of the bars on 6th street.

I was 19 but I looked 30.

I ordered scotch-and-water.

I sat in a booth and nobody bothered

me

as the war rushed toward us.

as the afternoon dipped into evening

I refused to pay for my drinks.

and demanded more.

“Give me another drink or I'll

rip this place up!”

“All right,” they told me, “one

more but it's the last and don't

come back, please.”

I liked being young and mean.

the world didn't make any sense

to me.

as the night darkened I'd go back

to Pershing Square

and sit on the benches and watch

and listen to the

people.

the winos on the lawn passed bottles

of muscatel and port about

as the war rushed toward

us.

I wasn't interested in the war.

I didn't have anything, I didn't want

anything.

I had my half pint of whiskey and I

nipped at it, rolled cigarettes

and waited.

I'd read half the books in the library

and had spit them out.

the war rushed toward us.

the guitar player played his guitar.

the drummer beat his drums.

and the flute player played that thing

and it rushed toward us,

the air was clear and cool.

the stars seemed just a thousand feet

away above us

and you could see the red burning tips of

cigarettes

and there were people coughing and

laughing and swearing,

and some babbled and some prayed

and many just sat there doing

nothing,

there was nothing to do,

it was 1939 and it would never be

1939 again

in Los Angeles or any place

else

and I was young and mean and

lean

and I would never be that way

again

as it rushed toward

us.

“I knew you were a bad-ass,” he said.

“you sat in the back of Art class and

you never said anything.

then I saw you in that brutal fight

with the guy with the dirty yellow

hair.

I like guys like you, you're rare, you're

raw, you make your own rules!”

“get your fucking face out of mine!”

I told him.

“you see?” he said. “you see?”

he disgusted me.

I turned and walked off.

he had outwitted me:

praise was the only thing I couldn't

handle.

I was a packer in a factory east of

Alameda street

and I was living with a bad-assed

woman.

she fucked everybody and anybody

even me.

and I didn't have the sense to

leave.

anyhow, I worked all day and we

drank all night

and when I arrived every morning

at Sunbeam Lighting Co.

I always growled the

same thing:

“don't anybody fuck with me

I'm not in the mood for it.”

this one morning

sitting on the floor in the shop

there was a large triangle of steel

with a little hand grip on top of it.

I didn't know what it was.

I'd never seen anything like it before.

it didn't matter.

all the killers and bullies and

musclemen were trying to lift it.

it wouldn't move.

“hey, Hank, baby!” a worker hollered,

“try it!”

“all right,” I said.

I came around my bench, walked up

to the steel triangle, stuck my hand into the

grip and yanked. nothing. it must have

weighed at least 300 pounds.

I walked back to my bench.

“whatsa matter, Hank baby?”

“been beatin' your meat, Hank baby?”

“ah shit,” I said, “for CHRIST'S SAKE!”

I walked back around my bench and swooped
down on the

object, grabbed it, lifted it a good foot,

put it down and went back to my bench

and continued packing a light fixture into a

box.

“jesus! did you see
that
, man?”

“I saw it! he
did
it!”

“let
me
lift that son of a bitch!”

he couldn't do it. they all came and

tried again. the heavy steel object wouldn't

move.

they went back to their various jobs.

at about noon a truck came in

with a crane in the back. the

crane reached down, grabbed the steel triangle

and lifted it, with much grinding, into

the truck.

for about a week after that the

blacks and Mexicans who had

never spoken to me

tried to make friends.

I was looked upon with much new

respect.

then not long after that

everybody seemed to forget

and

I began to get verbally

sliced again

challenged again

mocked again

it was the same old

bullshit.

they knew what I knew:

that I'd never be able to do anything

like that again.

I came in and all the timecards were pulled so I had to go to Spindle in personnel and he said, what happened, Chinaski? and I said, hell, all the timecards are pulled, I couldn't punch in, and he said, you're an hour late, and I said, hell, I have 6 p.m. right here on my watch, and he said, it's Daylight Saving Time today, and I said, oh, and he said, how come you didn't know it was Daylight Saving? and I said, well, I don't have a TV and I don't read the newspapers and I only listen to symphony music on the radio, and Spindle turned to the others in the office and he said, look here, Chinaski says he doesn't have a TV and he doesn't read newspapers and he only listens to symphony music on the radio, should I really believe that? and somebody said, o, yes, you better believe it, that cat's crazy, that cat's crazy as they come, and Spindle got out my timecard and handed it to me and said, all right, punch in, you'll be docked for the missing time, and I took my card out to the clock and hit it and then I walked to the work area, all the workers snickering at me and making sly remarks, and I handed my card to supervisor Wilkins in row 88 and I sat down and went to work.

the feelings I get

driving past the railroad yard

(never on purpose but on my way to somewhere)

are the feelings other men have for other things.

I see the tracks and all the boxcars

the tank cars the flat cars

all of them motionless and so many of them

perfectly lined up and not an engine anywhere

(where are all the engines?).

I drive past looking sideways at it all

a wide, still railroad yard

not a human in sight

then I am past the yard

and it wasn't just the romance of it all

that gives me what I get

but something back there nameless

always making me feel better

as some men feel better looking at the open sea

or the mountains or at wild animals

or at a woman

I like those things too

especially the wild animals and the woman

but when I see those lovely old boxcars

with their faded painted lettering

and those flat cars and those fat round tankers

all lined up and waiting

I get quiet inside

I get what other men get from other things

I just feel better and it's good to feel better

whenever you can

not needing a reason.

the horse stood in the yard and

the women went out to see the horse

and one of the women got on the horse and

rode around and almost had her head knocked off by a

tree limb and

I stood in the kitchen

measuring sunlight and wall slant and

what was willing to be measured

and one of the women was big and white and fat and

aching to be fucked

but it would take a month of talking and a year's worth of

money and I didn't have either

so I put it aside

and soon they all came back inside

and the big fat white one who was aching

sat there talking about the horse

and one of the others leaned toward me and said,

“she
iss
not available, dear!”

iss
not,
iss
not. hell,

I knew that.

the light shined in and we sat there talking about

horses and waiting for her availability

and then the big fat aching one got up and walked out

and I followed and watched her mount her safe

mare

switch it—
thapp!—

and my little switch went

thapp!

  
thapp!

and I walked back inside.

it looked like snow, damn, it looked like snow, so early,

only some of the ladies wanted it

and the others didn't want it. you know the ladies.

I went over and threw a couple of logs in the fire

and the whole thing flupped up red and

warm and we all felt

better, ready and not ready. it was Santa Fe in

October and all the poor had left town except

me.