The Captain Is Out to Lunch (2 page)

Anyway, back into the shop with this and when these two editors see my work typewritten again they'll think, ah, Bukowski has his soul back. This stuff reads much better.

Ah, well, what would we do without our editors. Or better yet, what would they do without us?

The track is closed. There is no inter-track wagering with Pomona, damned if I'm going to make that damned hot drive. I'll probably end up with night racing at Los Alamitos. The computer is out of the shop once more but it no longer corrects my spelling. I've hacked at this machine trying to dig it out. Will probably have to phone the shop will ask the fellow, "What do I do now?“ And he will say something like, "You have to transfer it from your main disk to your hard disk.“ I'll probably end up erasing everything. The typewriter sits behind me and says, "Look, I'm still here.“

There are night when this room is the only place want to be. Yet I get up here and I'm an empty husk. I know I could raise hell and dance words on this screen if I got drunk but I have to pick up Linda's sister at the airport tomorrow afternoon. She's coming for a visit. She's changed her name from Robin to Jharra. As women get older, they change their names. Many do, I mean. Suppose a man did that? Can you see me phoning somebody:

"Hey, Mike, this is Tulip.“

"Who?“

"Tulip. Formerly Charles, but now Tulip. I will no longer answer to Charles.“

"Fuck you, Tulip.“

Mike hangs up...

Getting old is very odd. The main thing is that you have to keep telling yourself, I'm old, I'm old. You see yourself in the mirror as you descend the escalator but you don't look directly at the mirror, you give a little side glance, a wary smile. You don't look that bad, you look something like a rusty candle. Too bad, screw the gods, screw the game. You should have been dead 35 years ago. This is a little extra scenery, more peeks at the horror show. The older a writer is the better he should write, he's seen more, endured more, he's closer to death. The page, that white page, 8 and 1/2 by 11. The gamble remains. Then you always remember a thing or two one of the other boys have said. Jeffers: "Be angry at the sun.“ All too wonderful. Or Sartre: "Hell is other people.“ Right on and through the target. I'm never alone. The best thing is to be alone but not quite alone.

To my right, the radio works hard bringing me more great classical music. I listen to 3 or 4 hours of this a night as I am doing other things, or nothing. It's my drug, it washes the crap of the day right out of me. The classical composers can do this for me. The poets, the novelists, the short story writes can't. A gang of fakes. What is it? Writers are the most difficult to take, on the page or in person. And they are worse in person than on the page and that's pretty bad. Why do we say "pretty bad“? Why not "ugly bad“? Well, writers are pretty bad and ugly bad. And we love to bitch about one another. Look at me.

About writing, I write basically the same way now as I did 50 years ago, maybe a little better but not much. Why did I have to reach the age of 51 I could pay the rent with my writing? I mean, if I'm right and my writing is no different, what took so long? Did I have to wait for the world to catch up with me? And now, if it has, where am I now? In bad shape, that's what. But I don't think I've gotten the fat head from any luck that I've had. Does a fathead ever realize that he's one? But I'm far from contented. Something is in me that I can't control. I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide. I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide. I mean, I won't linger on it all. But it will flash on me: SUICIDE. Like a light going on. In the darkness. That there is an out helps you stay in. Get it? Otherwise, it could only be madness. And that's no fun, buddy. And whenever I get off a good poem, that's another crutch to keep me going. I don't know about other people, but when I bend over to put on my shoes in the morning, I think, Christ-oh-mighty, now what? I'm screwed by life, we don't get along. I have to také little bites out of it, not the whole thing. It's like swallowing buckets of shit. I am never surprised that the madhouses and jails are full and that the streets are full. I like to look at my cats, they chill me out. They make me feel all right. Don't put me in a roomful of humans, though. Don't ever do that. Especially on a holiday. Don't do it.

I heard they found my first wife dead in India and nobody in her family wanted the body. poor girl. She had a crippled neck that couldn't turn. Other than that she was perfectly beautiful. She divorced me and she should have. I wasn't kind enough or big enough to save her.

Went to a movie premiere last night. Red carpet. Flash bulbs.  Party afterwards. Didn't hear much said. Too crowded. Too hot. First party I got cornered at the bar by a young guy with very round eyes who never blinked. I don't know what he was on. Or off. Quite a few people like that about. The young guy had 3 rather nice looking ladies with him and he kept telling me how they liked to suck cock. The ladies just smiled and said, "Oh, yes!“ And the whole conversation went on like that. On and on like that. I kept trying to figure out whether it was true or whether I was being put on. But after a while I just got weary of it. But the young guy just kept pressing me, talking on about how the girls liked to suck cock. His face kept getting closer and he kept on and on. Finally, I reached out and grabbed him by his shirt front, hard, and held like that and I said, "Listen, it wouldn't look good if a 71-year-old guy beat the shit out of you in front of all these people, would it?“ Then I let go of him. He walked around the other end of bar, followed by his ladies. Damned if I could make any sense out of it.

I guess I'm too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets, gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can't be helped. But I feel like kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are free. It never works for me. I've got enough clay to play with. People empty me. I have to get away to refill. I'm what's best for me, sitting here slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this screen flash the words. Seldom do you meet a rare or interesting person. It's more than galling, it's a fucking constant shock. It's making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!

I just need a good night's sleep. But first, never a damned thing to read. After you've read a certain amount of decent literature, there just isn't any more. We have to write it ourselves. There's no juice in the air. But I expect to wake up in the morning. And the morning I don't, fine. I won't need any more window screeens, razor blades, Racing Forms or message-taking machines. The phone rings mostly for my wife, anyhow. The Bells do not Toll for Me.

Sleep, sleep. I sleep on my stomach. Old habit. I've lived with too many crazy women. Got to protect the privates. Too bad that young guy didn't challenge me. I was in a mood to kick ass. Would have cheered me up immensely. Good night.

Hot stupid night, the cats are miserable, caught in all that fur, they look at me and I can't do anything. Linda off to a couple of places. She needs things to do, people to talk to. It's all right with me but she tends to drink and must drive home. I'm not good company, talking is not my idea of anything at all. I don't want to exchange ideas – or souls. I'm just a block of stone unto myself. I want to stay within that block, unmolested. It was that way from the beginning. I resisted my parents, then I resisted school, then I resisted becoming a decent citizen. It's like whatever I was, was there from the beginning. I didn't want anybody tinkering with that. I still don't.

I think that people who keep notebooks and jot down their thougts are jerk-offs. I am only doing this because somebody suggested I do it, so you see, I'm not even an original jerk-off. But this somehow makes it easier. I just let it roll. Like a hot turd down a hill.

I don't know what to do about the racetrack. I think it's burning out for me. I was standing around at Hollywood Park today, inter-track betting, 13 races from Fairplex Park. After the 7th race I am $72 ahead. So? Will it take some of those white hairs out of my eyebrows? Will it make and opera singer out of me? What do I want? I am beating a difficult game, I am beating an 18 take. I do that quite a bit. So, it mustn't be too difficult. What do I want? I really don't care if there is God or not. It doesn't interest me. So, what the hell is it about 18 percent?

I look over and see the same guy talking. He stands in the same spot every day talking to this person or that or to a couple of people. He holds the Form and talks about the horses. How dreary! What am I doing here?

I leave. I walk down to parking, get in my car and drive off. It's only 4 p.m. How nice. I drive along. Others drive along. We are snails crawling on a leaf.Then I get into the driveway, park, get out. There's a message from Linda taped to the phone. I check the mail. Gas bill. And a large envelope full of poems. All printed on separate pieces of paper. Women talking about their periods, about their tits and breasts and about getting fucked. Utterly dull. I dump it in the trash.

The I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool, the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water. It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The horses are stil running. I plunge of my age hanging onto me like a leech. Still, it's o.k. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top, swim to the far edge, get out.

That was a long time ago. I'm up here now with the Macintosh IIsi. And this is about all there is for now. I think I'll sleep. Rest up for the track tomorrow.

Got the proofs the new book today. Poetry. Martin says it will run to about 350 pages. I think the poems hold up. Uphold. I am an old train steaming down the track.

Took me a couple of hours to read. I've had some practice at doing this thing. The lines roll free and say about what I want them to say. Now the main influence on myself is myself.

As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished. I believe that I have recognized most of my traps and I have written about them. Of course, all of writing doesn't consist of writing about traps. There are other things. Yet, some might say that life is a trap. Writing can trap. Some writers tend to write what has pleased their readers in the past. Then they are finished. Most writers' creative span is short. They hear the accolades and believe them. There is only one final judge of writing and that is the writer. When he is swayed by the critics, the editors, the publishers, the readers, then he's finished. And, of course, when he's swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds.

Each new line is  a beginning and has nothing to do with any lines which preceeded it. We all start new each time. And, of course, it isn't all that holy either. The world can live much easier without writing than without plumbing. And some places in the world have very little of either. Of course, I'd rather live without plumbing but I'm sick.

There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man stops himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will. Rejection and ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer he is held back the stronger he will become, like a mass of rising water against a dam. There is no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh as you sleep, it will make you stride like a tiger, it will fire the eye and put you face to face with Death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of the word. Go with it, send it. Be the Clown in the Darkness. It's funny. It's funny. One more new line...

A tittle for the new book. Sat out at the track trying to think of one. That's one place where one can't think. It sucks the brains and spirit out of you. A draining blow job, that's what that place is. And I haven't been sleeping nights. Something is sapping the energy out of me.

Saw the lonely one at the track today. "How ya doin' Charles?“ "O.k.,“ I told him, then drifted off. He wants camaraderie. He wants to talk about things. Horses. You don't talk about horses. That's the LAST thing you talk about. A few races went by and then I caught him looking at me over an automatic betting machine. Poor guy. I went outside and sat down and a cop started talking to me. Well, they call them security men. "They're moving the toteboard,“ he said. "Yes,“ I said. They had dug the thing out of the ground and were moving it further west. Well, it put men to work. I liked to see men working. I hand an idea that the security man was talking to me to find out if I was crazy or not. He probably wasn't. But I got the idea. I let ideas jump me like that. I scratched my belly and pretended that I was a good old guy. "They're going to put the lakes back in,“ I said. "Yeah,“ he said. "This place used to be called the Track of the Lakes and Flowers.“ "Is that so?“ he said. "Yeah,“ I told him, "they used to have a Goose Girl contest. They'd choose a goose girl and she went out in a boat and rowed around among the geese. Real boring job.“ "Yeah,“ said the cop. He just stood there. I stood up. "Well,“ I said, "I'm going to get a coffee. Take it easy.“ "Sure,“ he said, "pick some winners.“ "You too, man,“ I said. Then I walked away.

A title. My mind was blank. It was getting chilly. Being on old fart, I thought it might be best to get my jacket. I took the escalator down from the 4th floor. Who invented the escalator? Moving steps. Now, talk about crazy. People going up and down escalators, elevators, driving cars, having garage door that open at the touch of a button. Then they go to health clubs to work the fat off. In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along like tumbleweeds. Each species destroys itself. What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate everything around and the had to eat each other and that brought it down to one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.