Tales of Ordinary Madness (9 page)

in two hours a tall six pack was gone and a half pint of whiskey and he was in bed, asleep, the next day's card completely worked out, and a small smile of surety on his face. there were dozens of ways a man could go mad.

GOODBYE WATSON

it's after a bad day at the track that you realize that you will never make it, coming in stinking at the socks, a few wrinkled dollars in your wallet, you know that the miracle will never arrive, and worse, thinking about the really bad bet you made on the last race on the eleven horse, knowing it couldn't win, the biggest sucker bet on the board at 9/2, all the knowledge of your years ignored, you going lip to the ten buck window and saying, “eleven twice!” and the old grey-haired boy at the window, asking again: “eleven?” he always asks again when I pick a real bad one. he may not know the actual winner but he knows the sucker bets, and he gives me the saddest of looks and takes the twenty. then to go out and watch that dog run last all the way, not even working at it, just loafing as your brain starts saying, “what the fuck, I gotta be crazy.”

I've discussed this thing with a friend of mine who has many years at the track. he's often done the same thing and he calls it the “death-wish,” which is old stuff. we yawn at the term now, but strangely, there's still some basis in it yet. a man does get tired as the races progress and there IS this tendency to throw the whole game overboard. the feeling can come upon one whether he is winning or losing and then the bad bets begin. But, I feel, a more real problem is that you ACTUALLY want to be somewhere else – sitting in a chair reading Faulkner or making drawings with your child's crayons. the racetrack is just another JOB, finally, and a hard one too. when I sense this and I am at my best, I simply leave the track; when I sense this and I am not at my best I go on making bad bets. another thing that one should realize is that it is HARD to win at anything; losing is easy. it's grand to be The Great American Loser – anybody can do it; almost everybody does.

a man who can beat the horses can do almost anything he makes up his mind to do. he doesn't belong at the racetrack. he should be on the Left Bank with his mother easel or in the East Village writing an avant-garde symphony. or making some woman happy. or living in a cave in the hills.

but to go the racetrack helps you realize yourself and the mob too. there's a lot of murky downgrading of Hemingway now by critics who can't write, and old ratbeard wrote some bad things from the middle to the end, but his head was becoming unscrewed, and even then he made the others look like schoolboys raising their hands for permission to make a little literary peepee. I know why Ernie went to the bull-fights – it was simple: it helped his writing. Ernie was a mechanic: he liked to fix things on paper. the bullfights were a drawingboard of everything: Hannibal slapping elephant ass over mountain or some wino slugging his woman in a cheap hotel room. and when Hem got in to the typer he wrote standing up. he used it like a gun. a weapon. the bullfights were everything attached to anything. it was all in his head like a fat butter sun: he wrote it down.

with me, the racetrack tells me quickly where I am weak and where I am strong, and it tells me how I feel that day and it tells me how much we keep changing, changing ALL the time, and how little we know of this.

and the stripping of the mob is the horror movie of the century. ALL of them lose. look at them. if you are able. one day at a racetrack can teach you more than four years at any university. if I ever taught a class in creative writing, one of my prerequisites would be that each student must attend a racetrack once a week and place at least a 2 dollar win wager on each race. no show betting. people who bet to show REALLY want to stay home but don't know how.

my students would automatically become better writers, although most of them would begin to dress badly and might have to walk to school.

I can see myself teaching Creative Writing now.

“well, how did you do Miss Thompson?”

“Host $18.”

“who did you bet in the feature race?”

“One-Eyed Jack.”

“sucker bet. the horse was dropping 5 pounds which draws the crowd in but also means a step-up in class within allowance conditions. the only time a class-jump wins is when he looks bad on paper. One-Eyed Jack showed the highest speed-rating, another crowd draw, but the speed rating was for 6 furlongs and 6 furlong speed ratings are always higher, on a comparative basis, than speed ratings for route races. furthermore, the horse closed at 6 so the crowd figured he would be there at a mile and a sixteenth. One-Eyed Jack has now shown a race around in 2 curves in 2 years. this is no accident. the horse is a sprinter and only a sprinter. that he came in last at 3 to one should not have been a surprise.”

“how did you do?”

“I lost one hundred and forty dollars.”

“who did you bet in the feature race?”

“One-Eyed Jack. class dismissed.” –

before the racetrack and before the sterilized unreal existence of the t.v. brain-suck, I was working as a packer in a huge factory that turned out thousands of overhead lighting fixtures to blind the world, and knowing the libraries useless and the poets carefully complaining fakes, I did my studying at the bars and boxing matches.

those were the nights, the old days at the Olympic. they had a bald little Irishman making the announcements (was his name Dan Tobey?), and he had
style,
he'd seen things happen, maybe even on the riverboats when he was a kid, and if he wasn't
that
old, maybe Dempsey-Firpo anyhow. I can still see him reaching up for that cord and pulling the mike down slowly, and most of us were drunk before the first fight, but we were easy drunk, smoking cigars, feeling the light of life, waiting for them to put 2 boys in there, cruel but that was the way it worked, that is what they did to us and we were still alive, and, yes, most of with a dyed redhead or blonde. even me. her name was Jane and we had many a good ten-rounder between us, one of them ending in a k.o. of me. and I was proud when she'd come back from the lady's room and the whole gallery would begin to pound and whistle and howl as she wiggled that big magic marvelous ass in that tight skirt – and it
was
a magic ass: she could lay a man stone cold and gasping, screaming love-words to a cement sky. then she'd come down and sit beside me and I'd lift that pint like a coronet, pass it to her, she'd take her nip, hand it back, and I'd say about the boys in the galley: “those screaming jackoff bastards, I'll kill them.”

and she'd look at her program and say, “who do you want in the first?”

I picked them good – about 90 percent – but I had to see them first. I always chose the guy who moved around the least, who looked like he didn't want to fight, and if one guy gave the Sign of the Cross before the bell and the other guy didn't you had a winner – you took the guy who didn't. but it usually worked together. the guy who did all the shadow boxing and dancing around usually was the one who gave the Sign of the Cross and got his ass whipped.

there weren't many bad fights in those days and if there were it was the same as now – mostly between the heavyweights. but we let them know about it in those days – we tore the ring down or set the place on fire, busted up the seats. they just couldn't afford to give us too many bad ones. the Hollywood Legion ran the bad ones and we stayed away from the Legion. even the Hollywood boys knew the action was at the Olympic. Raft came, and the others, and all the starlets, hugging those front row seats. the gallery boys went ape and the fighters fought like fighters and the place was blue with cigar smoke, and how we screamed, baby baby, and threw money and drank our whiskey, and when it was over, there was the drive in, the old lovebed with our dyed and vicious women. you slammed it home, then slept like a drunk angel. who needed the public library? who needed Ezra? T.S.? E.E.? D.H.? H.D.? any of the Eliots? any of the Sitwells?

I'll never forget the first night I saw young Enrique Balanos. at the time. I had me a good colored boy. he used to bring a little white lamb into the ring with him before the fight and hug it, and that's corny but he was tough and good and a tough and good man is allowed certain leeways, right?

anyway, he was my hero, and his name might have been something like Watson Jones. Watson had good class and the flair – swift, quick quick quick, and the PUNCH, and he
enjoyed
his work. but then, one night, unannounced, somebody slipped this young Balanos in against him, and Balanos had it, took his time, slowly worked Watson down and took him over, busted him up good near the end. my hero. I couldn't believe it. if I remember, Watson was kayoed which made it a very bitter night, indeed. me with my pint screaming for mercy, screaming for a victory that simply would
not
happen. Balanos certainly had it – the fucker had a couple of snakes for arms, and he didn't
move –
he slid, slipped, jerked like some type of evil spider, always getting there, doing the thing. I knew that night that it would take a very excellent man to beat him and that Watson might as well take his little lamb and go home.

it wasn't until much later that night, the whiskey pouring into me like the sea, fighting with my woman, cursing her sitting there showing me all that fine leg, that I admitted that the better man had won.

“Balanos. good legs. he doesn't think. just reacts. better not to think. tonight the body beat the soul. it usually does. goodbye Watson, goodbye Central Avenue, it's all over.”

I smashed the glass against the wall and went over and grabbed me some woman. I was wounded. she was beautiful. we went to bed. I remember a light rain came through the window. we let it rain on us. it was good. it was so good we made love twice and when we went to sleep we slept with our faces toward the window and it rained all over us and in the morning the sheets were all wet and we both got up sneezing and laughing, “jesus christ! jesus christ!” it was funny and poor Watson laying somewhere, his face slugged and pulpy, facing the Eternal Truth, facing the 6 rounders, the 4 rounders, then back to the factory with me, murdering 8 or ten hours a day for pennies, getting nowhere, waiting on Papa Death, getting your mind kicked to hell and your spirit kicked to hell, we sneezed, “jesus christ!” it was funny and she said, “you're blue all over, you've turned all BLUE! jesus, look at yourself in the mirror!” and I was freezing and dying and I stood in front of the mirror and I was all BLUE! ridiculous! a skull and shit of bones! I began to laugh, I laughed so hard I fell down on the rug and she fell down on top of me and we both laughed laughed laughed, jesus christ we laughed until I thought we were crazy, and then I had to get up, get dressed, comb my hair, brush my teeth, too sick to eat, heaved when I brushed my teeth, I went outside and walked toward the overhead lighting factory, just the sun feeling good but you had to take what you could get.

GREAT POETS DIE IN STEAMING POTS OF SHIT

let me tell you about him. with sick hangover I crawled out from under the sheets the other day to try to get to the store, buy some food, place food inside of me and make the job I hate. all right. I was in this grocery store, and this little shit of a man (he must have been as old as I) but perhaps more comfortable and stupid and idiotic, a chipmunk full of beatlenuts and BOW WOW and no regard for anything except the way
he
felt or thought or expressed ... he was a hyena-chipmunk, a piece of sloth. a slug. he kept staring at me. then he said:

HEY!!!

he walked on up and stood there staring. HEY! he said HEY! he had very round eyes and he stood there staring up at me from out of those very round eyes. the eyes had bottoms like the dirty bottoms of swimmingpools – no reflection. I didn't have but a few minutes, had to rush. I had missed the job the day before and had already been counciled – god knows how many times – for excessive absenteeism. I really wanted to walk away from him but I was too sick to gather myself. he looked like the manager of an apartment house I had once lived in a few years back. one of those who was always standing in the hall at 3 a.m. when you entered with a strange woman.

he kept staring so I said, I CAN'T REMEMBER YOU. I'M SORRY, I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER YOU. I'M JUST NOT VERY GOOD AT THAT SORT OF THING. meanwhile, thinking, why don't you go away? why do you have to
be
here? I don't
like
you.

I WAS AT YOUR PLACE, he said. OVER THERE, he pointed. he turned around and pointed south and east, where I had never lived. worked, but never lived. good, I thought, he's a nut. I don't know him. never knew him. I'm free. I can shove him off.

SORRY, I said, BUT YOU'RE MISTAKEN – I DON'T KNOW YOU. NEVER LIVED OVER THERE. SORRY, MAN.

I started to push my basket off.

WELL, MAYBE NOT THERE. BUT I KNOW YOU. IT WAS A PLACE IN THE BACK, YOU LIVED IN A PLACE IN THE BACK, ON THE SECOND FLOOR. IT WAS ABOUT A YEAR AGO.

SORRY, I told him, BUT I DRINK TOO MUCH. I FORGET PEOPLE. I DID LIVE IN A PLACE IN BACK, SECOND FLOOR, BUT THAT WAS 5 YEARS AGO.

LISTEN, I'M AFRAID YOU'RE MIXED UP. I'M IN A HURRY, REALLY. I HAVE TO GO, I'M REALLY DOWN TO THE MINUTE NOW.

I rolled on off toward the meat dept.

He ran along beside me.

YOU'RE BUKOWSKI, AREN'T YOU?

YES, I AM.

I WAS THERE. YOU JUST DON'T REMEMBER. YOU WERE DRINKING.

WHO THE HELL BROUGHT YOU OVER?

NOBODY. I CAME ON MY OWN. I WROTE A POEM ABOUT YOU. YOU DON'T REMEMBER. BUT YOU DIDN'T LIKE IT.

UMM, I said.

I ONCE WROTE A POEM TO THAT GUY WHO WROTE THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM.' WHAT'S HIS NAME?

ALGREN. NELSON ALGREN, I said.

YEAH, he said. I WROTE A POEM ABOUT HIM. SENT IT TO THIS MAGAZINE. THE EDITOR SUGGESTED THAT I SEND THE POEM TO HIM. ALGREN WROTE BACK, HE WROTE ME BACK A NOTE ON A RACING FORM. THIS IS MY LIFE,' HE WROTE ME.

FINE, I said, SO WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

IT DOESN'T MATTER. MY NAME IS ‘LEGION.'

VERY FUNNY, I smiled. we trotted along, then stopped. I reached over and got a package of hamburger. then I decided to give him the brushoff. I took the hamburger and stuck it in his hand and shook his hand with it, saying, WELL, OK, GOOD TO SEE YOU, BUT MAN, REALLY, I'VE GOT TO GO.

then I shifted into high and pushed my basket out of there. toward the bread dept. he wouldn't shake.

ARE YOU STILL IN THE POST OFFICE? he asked, trotting along.

I'M AFRAID SO.

YOU OUGHT TO GET OUT OF THERE. IT'S A HORRIBLE PLACE. IT'S THE WORST PLACE YOU CAN BE.

I THINK IT IS. BUT YOU SEE, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING, I DON'T HAVE ANY SPECIAL TRAINING.

YOU'RE A GREAT POET, MAN.

GREAT POETS DIE IN STEAMING POTS OF SHIT.

BUT YOU'VE GOT ALL THAT RECOGNITION FROM THE LEFT-WING PEOPLE. CAN'T ANYBODY DO ANYTHING FOR YOU?

left-wing people? this guy
was
crazy. we trotted along.

I HAVE RECOGNITION. FROM MY BUDDIES AT THE POST OFFICE. I'M RECOGNIZED AS A LUSH AND A HORSE-PLAYER.

CAN'T YOU GET A GRANT OR SOMETHING?

I TRIED LAST YEAR. THE HUMANITIES. ALL I GOT BACK WAS A FORM-LETTER OF REJECTION.

BUT EVERY ASS IN THE COUNTRY IS LIVING ON A GRANT.

YOU FINALLY SAID SOMETHING.

DON'T YOU READ AT THE UNIVERSITIES?

I'D RATHER NOT. I CONSIDER IT PROSTITUTION. ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS ...

he didn't let me finish. GINSBERG, he said, GINSBERG READS AT THE UNIVERSITIES. AND CREELEY AND OLSON AND DUNCAN AND ...

I KNOW.

I reached over and got my bread.

THERE ARE ALL FORMS OF PROSTITUTION, he said.

now he was getting profound. jesus. I ran toward the vegetable dept.

LISTEN, COULD I SEE YOU AGAIN, SOMETIME?

MY TIME'S SHORT. REALLY TIGHT.

he found a matchbook. HERE, PUT YOUR ADDRESS DOWN IN HERE.

oh christ, I thought, how do you get out without hurting a man's feelings? I wrote the address down.

HOW ABOUT A PHONE NUMBER? he asked. SO YOU'LL KNOW WHEN I'M COMING OVER.

NO, NO PHONE NUMBER. I handed the book back.

WHEN'S THE BEST TIME?

IF YOU'VE GOT TO COME, MAKE IT SOME FRIDAY NIGHT AFTER 10.

I'LL BRING A SIX-PACK. AND I'LL HAVE TO BRING MY WIFE. I'VE BEEN MARRIED 27 YEARS.

TOO BAD, I said.

OH NO. IT'S THE ONLY WAY.

HOW DO YOU KNOW? YOU DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER WAY.

IT ELIMINATES JEALOUSY AND STRIFE. YOU OUGHT TO TRY IT.

IT DOESN'T ELIMINATE, IT ADDS. AND I'VE TRIED IT.

OH YEAH, I REMEMBER READING IT IN ONE OF YOUR POEMS. A RICH WOMAN.

we hit the vegetables. the frozen ones.

I WAS IN THE VILLAGE IN THE 30's. I KNEW BODENHEIM. TERRIBLE. HE GOT MURDERED. LAYING AROUND IN ALLEYS LIKE THAT. MURDERED OVER SOME TRASHY WOMAN. I WAS IN THE VILLAGE THEN. I WAS A BOHEMIAN. I'M NO BEAT. AND I'M NO HIPPY. DO YOU READ THE ‘FREE PRESS'?

SOMETIMES.

TERRIBLE.

he meant that he thought the hippies were terrible. he was being profoundly sloppy.

I PAINT TOO. I SOLD A PAINTING TO MY PSYCHIATRIST. $320. ALL PSYCHIATRISTS ARE SICK, VERY SICK PEOPLE.

more 1933 profundity.

YOU REMEMBER THAT POEM YOU WROTE ABOUT GOING DOWN TO THE BEACH AND CLIMBING DOWN THE CLIFF TO THE SAND AND SEEING ALL THOSE LOVERS DOWN THERE AND YOU WERE ALONE AND WANTED TO GET OUT FAST, YOU GOT OUT SO FAST YOU LEFT YOUR SHOES DOWN THERE WITH THEM. IT WAS A GREAT POEM ABOUT LONELINESS.

it was a poem about how HARD it was to EVER GET alone, but I didn't tell him that.

I picked up a package of frozen potatoes and made for the check stand. he trotted along beside me.

I WORK AS A DISPLAYMAN. IN THE MARKETS. $154 A WEEK. I ONLY HIT THE OFFICE ONCE A WEEK. I WORK FROM ELEVEN A.M. TO FOUR P.M.

ARE YOU WORKING NOW?

OH YEAH, I'M WORKING ON DISPLAYS IN HERE NOW. WISH I HAD SOME INFLUENCE. I'D GET YOU ON.

the boy at the checkstand began tabbing the groceries.

HEY! my friend yelled, DON'T MAKE HIM PAY FOR THOSE GROCERIES! HE'S A POET!

the boy at the checkstand was all right. he didn't say anything. just went on tabbing it up.

my friend screamed again: HEY! HE'S A GREAT POET! DON'T MAKE HIM PAY FOR HIS GROCERIES.

HE LIKES TO TALK, I said to the checkstand boy.

the checkstand boy was all right. I paid and took my bag.

LISTEN, I'VE GOT TO GO, I said to my friend.

somehow, he could not leave the store. some fear. he wanted to keep his good job. wonderful. it felt very good to see him standing in there by the checkstand. not trotting along beside me.

I'LL BE SEEING YOU, he said.

I waved him away from under the bag.

outside were the parked cars, and the people walking around. none of them read poetry, talked poetry, wrote poetry. for once the masses looked very reasonable to me. I got to my car, threw the stuff in and sat there a moment. a woman got out of the car next to me and I watched as her skirt fell back and showed me flashes of white leg above the stockings. one of the world's greatest works of Art: a woman with fine legs climbing out of her car. she stood up and the skirt fell back down. for a moment she smiled at me, then she turned and moved it all, wobbling, balancing, shivering toward the grocery store. I started the car and backed out. I had almost forgotten my friend. but he wouldn't forget me. tonight he would say:

DEAR, GUESS WHO I SAW IN THE GROCERY TODAY? HE LOOKED ABOUT THE SAME, MAYBE NOT AS BLOATED. AND HE HAS THIS LITTLE THING ON HIS CHIN.

WHO WAS IT?

CHARLES BUKOWSKI.

WHO'S THAT?

A POET. HE'S SLIPPED. HE CAN'T WRITE AS WELL AS HE USED TO. BUT HE USED TO WRITE SOME GREAT STUFF. POEMS OF LONELINESS. HE'S REALLY A VERY LONELY FELLOW BUT HE DOESN'T KNOW IT. WE'RE GOING TO SEE HIM THIS FRIDAY NIGHT.

BUT I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR.

HE WON'T CARE. HE DOESN'T LIKE WOMEN.

HE DOESN'T LIKE WOMEN?

YEAH. HE TOLD ME.

LISTEN, GUSTAV, THE LAST POET WE WENT TO SEE WAS A TERRIBLE PERSON. WE HADN'T BEEN THERE MUCH MORE THAN AN HOUR AND HE GOT DRUNK AND STARTED THROWING BOTTLES ACROSS THE ROOM AND CUSSING.

THAT WAS BUKOWSKI. ONLY HE DOESN'T REMEMBER US.

NO WONDER.

BUT HE'S VERY LONELY. WE SHOULD GO SEE HIM.

ALL RIGHT, IF YOU SAY SO, GUSTAV.

THANK YOU, SWEETIE.

don't you wish you were Charles Bukowski? I can paint too. lift weights. and my little girl thinks that I am God.

then other times, it's not so good.