The Captain Is Out to Lunch (11 page)

This was Hollywood Park, located in the black district, in the district of Central Americans and other minorities.

I went back upstairs to the clubhouse, to the shorter lines. I got into line, bet 20 win on the second favorite.

"When ya gonna do it?“ the clerk asked me.

"Do what?“ I asked.

"Cash some tickets.“

"Any day now,“ I told him.

I turned and walked away. I could hear him say something else. Old bent white haired guy. He was having a bad day. Many of the mutuel clerks bet. I tried to go to a different clerk each time I bet, I didn't want to fraternize. The fucker was out of line. It was none of his business if I ever cashed a bet. The clerks rode with you when you were running hot. They would ask each other, "What'd he bet?“ But go cold on them, they got pissed. They should do their own thinking. Just because I was there every day didn't mean I was a professional gambler. I was a professional writer. Sometimes.

I was walking along and I saw this kid rushing toward me. I knew what it was. He blocked my path.

"Pardon me,“ he said, "are you Charles Bukowski?“

"Charles Darwin,“ I said, then spepped around him.

I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say.

I watched the race and my horse came in second, beaten out by another favorite. On off or muddy tracks too many favorites win. I don't know the reason but it occurs. I got the hell out of the racetrack and drove on in.

Got to the place, greeten Linda. Checked the mail.

Rejection letter from the Oxford American. I checked my poems. Not bad, good but not exceptional. Just a losing day. But I was still alive. It was almost the year 2,000 and I was still alive, whatever it meant.

We went out to eat at a Mexican place. Much talk about the fight that night. Chavez and Haugin before 130,000 in Mexico City. I didn't give Haugin a chance. He had guts but no punch, no movement and he was about 3 years past his prie. Chavez could name the round.

That night it was the way it was. Chavez didn't even sit down between rounds. He was hardly breathing heavily. The whole thing was a clean, sheer, brutal event. The body shots Chavez landed made me wince. It was like hitting a man in the ribs with a sledgehammer. Chavez finally got bored with carrying his man and took him out.

"Well, hell,“ I said to my wife, "we paid to see exactly what we thought we would see.“

The tv was off.

Tomorrow the Japanese were coming by to interview me. One of my books was now in Japanese and another was on the way. What would I tell them? About the horses? Maybe they would just ask questions. They should. I was a writer, huh? How strange it was but everybody had to be something didn't they? Homeless, famous, gay, mad, whatever. If they ever again run in 7 more favorites on a 9 race card, I'm going to start doing something else. Jogging. Or the museums. Or finger painting. Or chess. I mean, hell, that's just as stupid.

The captain is out and the sailors have taken over the ship.

Why are there so few interesting people? Out of the millions, why aren't there a few? Must we continue to live with this drab and ponderous species? Seems their only act is Violence. They are so good at that. They truly blossom. Shit flowers, stinking up our chance. Problem is, if I want the lights to go on,  if I want this computer repaired, if I want to flush the toilet, buy a new tire, get a tooth pulled or my gut cut open, I must continue to interact. I need the fuckers for the minute necessities, even if they, themselves appall me. And appall is a kind word.

But they pound on my consciousness with their failure in vital areas. For instance, every day as I drive to the track I keep punching the radio to different stations looking for music, decent music. It's all bad, flat lifeless, tuneless, listless. Yet some of these compositions sell in millions and their creators consider themselves true Artists. It's horrible, horrible drivel entering the minds of you heads. They like it. Christ, hand them shit, they eat it up. Can't they discern? Can't they hear? Can't they feel the dilution, the staleness?

I can't believe that there is nothing. I keep punching in new statios. I've had my car less than a year yet the button I push has the black paint completely worn off. It is white, ivory-like, staring at me.

Well, yes, there is classical music. I finally have to settle for that. But I know that is always there for me. I listen to that 3 or 4 hours a night. But I still keep searching for other music. It's just not there. It should be there. It disturbs me. We've been cheated out of a whole other area. Think of all the people alive who have never heard decent music. No wonder their faces are falling off, no wonder they kill thoughtlessly, no wonder the heat is missing.

Well, what can I do? Nothing.

The movies are just as bad. I will listen to or read the critics. A great movie, they will say. And I will go see said movie. And sit there feeling like a fucking fool, feeling robbed, tricked. I can guess each scene before it arrives. And the obvious motives of the characters, what drives them, what they yearn for, what is of importance to them is so juvenile and pathetic, so boringly gross. The love bits are galling, old hat, precious drivel.

I believe that most people see too many movies. And certainly the critics. When they say that a movie is great, they mean it's great in relation to other movies they have seen. They've lost their overview. They are clubbed by more and more new movies. They just don't know, they are lost in it all. They have forgotten what really stinks, which is almost everything they view.

And let's not even talk about television.

And as a writer... am I one? Oh well. As a writer I have trouble reading other writing. It just isn't there for me. To begin with, they don't know how to lay down a line, a paragraph. Just looking at the print from distance, it looks boring. And when you really get down there, it's worse than boring. There's no pace. There's nothing startling or fresh. There's no gamble, no fire, no juice. What are they doing? It looks like hard work. No wonder mostwriters say writing is painful to them. I can understand that.

Sometimes with my writing, when it hasn't roared, I have attempted other things. I have pouren wine on the pages, I have held the pages to a match and burned holes in them. "What are you DOING in there? I smell smoke!“

"No, it's all right, baby, it'all right...“

Once my wastebasket caught fire and I rushed it out of my little balcony, poured beer over it.

For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only pages left, you might as well make them smoke.

Classical music, cigars, the computer make the writing dance, holler, laugh. The nightmare life helps too.

Each day as I walk into that racetrack am blasting my hours to shit. But I still have the night. What do other writers do? Stand before the mirror and examine their ear lobes? And then write about them. Or their mothers. Or how to Save the World. Well, they can save it for me by not writing that dull stuff. That slack and withered drivel. Stop! Stop! Stop! I need something to read. Isn't there anything to read? I don't think so. If you find it, let me know. No don't. I know: you wrote it. Forget it. Go take a dump.

I remember a long raging letter I got one day from a man who told me I had no right to say that I didn't like Shakespeare. Too many youth believe me and just not bother to read Shakespeare. I had no right to take this stance. On and on about that. I didn't answer him. But I will here.

Screw you, buddy. And I don't like Tolstoy either!