charles.txt

--- South of No North  Stories of the Buried Life.pdf ---
 

Charles Bukowski 
South Of No North. Stories of the buried life 
 
  
Table of contents 
Loneliness..................................................... ............................................................... ........... 1 
Bop bop against that curtain................................... ............................................................... .5  
You and your beer and how great you are ........................ ..................................................... 9 
Politics....................................................... ............................................................... ............ 13 
No way to paradise............................................. ............................................................... ... 16 
A couple of winos .............................................. ............................................................... ... 24 
Maja Thurup.................................................... ............................................................... ...... 28 
The killers.................................................... ............................................................... .......... 32 
A man .......................................................... ............................................................... .......... 37 
Class .......................................................... ............................................................... ............ 40 
Stop staring at my tits, Mister ................................ .............................................................. 4 4 
Something about a Viet Cong Flag ............................... ....................................................... 47 
Remember Pearl Harbor? ......................................... ............................................................ 52 
Dr. Nazi ....................................................... ............................................................... .......... 59 
Christ on rollerskates......................................... ............................................................... .... 63 
A shipping clerk with a red nose............................... ........................................................... 67 
The devil was hot .............................................. ............................................................... .... 72 
Guts ........................................................... ............................................................... ............ 83 
Hit man........................................................ ............................................................... .......... 87 
This is what killed Dylan Thomas............................... ......................................................... 90 
No neck and bad as hell........................................ ............................................................... . 93 
The way dead love.............................................. ............................................................... ... 97 
All the assholes in the world and mine ......................... ..................................................... 105 
Confessions of a man insane enough to live with beasts ......... .......................................... 115 
 1  
LONELINESS 
 
   Edna was walking down the street with her bag of groceries w hen she passed the 
automobile. There was a sign in the side window:  
   WOMAN WANTED.  
   She stopped. There was a large piece of cardboard in the win dow with some material 
pasted on it. Most of it was typewritten. Edna couldn't read it  from where she stood on 
the sidewalk. She could only see the large letters:  
   WOMAN WANTED.  
   It was an expensive new car. Edna stepped forward on the gra ss to read the 
typewritten portion:  
   Man age 49. Divorced. Wants to meet woman for marriage. Shou ld be 35 to 44. Like 
television and motion pictures. Good food. I am a cost accounta nt, reliably employed. 
Money in bank. I like women to be on the fat side.  
   Edna was 37 and on the fat side. There was a phone number. T here were also three 
photos of the gentleman in search of a woman. He looked quite s taid in a suit and 
necktie. Also he looked dull and a little cruel. And made of wo od, thought Edna, made 
of wood.  
   Edna walked off, smiling a bit. She also had a feeling of re pulsion. By the time she 
reached her apartment she had forgotten about him. It was some hours later, sitting in 
the bathtub, that she thought about him again and this time she  thought how truly 
lonely he must be to do such a thing:  
   WOMAN WANTED.  
   She thought of him coming home, finding the gas and phone bi lls in the mailbox, 
undressing, taking a bath, the T .V. on. Then the evening paper.  Then into the kitchen 
to cook. Standing there in his shorts, staring down at the fryi ng pan. Taking his food 
and walking to a table, eating it. Drinking his coffee. Then mo re T.V. And maybe a 
lonely can of beer before bed. There were millions of men like that all over America.  
   Edna got out of the tub, towele d, dressed and left her apart ment. The car was still 
there. She took down the man's name, Joe Light-hill, and the ph one number. She read 
the typewritten section again. "Motion pictures." What an odd t erm to use. People said 
"movies" now. Woman Wanted.  The sign was very bold. He was original there.  
   When Edna got home she had three cups of coffee before diali ng the number. The 
phone rang tour times. "Hello?" he answered.  
   "Mr. Lighthill?"     "Yes?"  
   "I saw your ad. Your ad on the car."  
   "Oh, yes."     "My name's Edna."  
   "How you doing, Edna?"  
   "Oh, I'm all right. It's been so hot. This weather's too muc h."  
   "Yes, it makes it difficult to live."  
   "Well, Mr. Lighthill . . ."  
   "Just call me Joe."  
 2    "Well, Joe, hahaha, I feel like a fool. You know what I'm ca lling about?"  
   "You saw my sign?"     "I mean, hahaha, what's wrong with you? Can't you get a woma n?"  
   "I guess not, Edna. Tell me, where are they?"  
   "Women?"     "Yes."  
   "Oh, everywhere, you know."  
   "Where? Tell me. Where?"     "Well, church, you know. There are women in church."  
   "I don't like church."  
   "Oh."     "Listen, why don't you come over, Edna?"  
   "You mean over there?"  
   "Yes. I have a nice place. We can have a drink, talk. No pre ssure."  
   "It's late."  
   "It's not that late. Listen you saw my sign. You must be int erested."  
   "Well . . ."     "You're scared, that's all. You're just scared."     "No, I'm not scared."  
   "Then come on over, Edna."  
   "Well . . ."     "Come on."  
   "All right. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."  
   It was on the top floor of a mode rn apartment complex. Apt. 17. The swimming pool 
below threw back the lights. Edna knocked. The door opened and there was Mr. 
Lighthill. Balding in front;  
   hawknosed with the nostril hairs sticking out; the shirt ope n at the neck.  
   "Come on in, Edna . . ."  
   She walked in and the door closed behind her. She had on her  blue knit dress. She 
was stockingless, in sandals, and smoking a cigarette.  
   "Sit down. I'll get you a drink."     It was a nice place. Everything in blue and green and very clean. She heard Mr. 
Lighthill humming as he mix ed the drinks , hmmmmmmm , hmmmmmmmm,  
hmmmmmmmmm  . . . He seemed relaxed and it helped her.  
   Mr. Lighthill -- Joe -- came out with the drinks. He handed Edna hers and then sat in 
a chair across the room from her.  
   "Yes," he said, "it's been hot, hot as hell. I've got air-co nditioning, though."  
   "I noticed. It's very nice."  
   "Drink your drink."  
   "Oh, yes."  
   Edna had a sip. It was a good drink, a bit strong but it tas ted nice. She watched Joe 
tilt his head as he drank. He appeared to have heavy wrinkles a round his neck. And his 
pants were much too loose. They a ppeared sizes too large. It ga ve his legs a funny 
look.  
   "That's a nice dress, Edna."  
 3    "You like it?"  
   "Oh yes. You're plump too. It fits you snug, real snug."  
   Edna didn't say anything. Neither did Joe. They just sat loo king at each other and 
sipping their drinks.  
   Why doesn't he talk? thought Edna. 'It's up to him to talk. There is something 
wooden about him. She finished her drink.  
   "Let me get you another," said Joe.     "No, I really should be going."     "Oh, come on," he said, "let me get you another drink. We ne ed something to loosen 
us up."  
   "All right, but after this one, I'm going."  
   Joe went into the kitchen with the glasses. He wasn't hummin g anymore. He came 
out, handed Edna her drink and sat back down in his chair acros s the room from her. 
This drink was stronger.  
   "You know," he said, "I do well on the sex quizzes."  
   Edna sipped at her drink and didn't answer.     "How do you do on the sex quizzes?" Joe asked.  
   "I've never taken any."  
   "You should, you know, so you'll find out who you are and wh at you are."  
   "Do you think those things are valid? I've seen them in the newspaper. I haven't 
taken them but I've seen them," said Edna.  
   "Of course they're valid."     "Maybe I'm no good at sex," said Edna, "maybe that's why I'm  alone." She took a 
long drink from her glass.  
   "Each of us is, finally, alone," said Joe.     "What do you mean?"     "I mean, no matter how well it's going sexually or love-wise  or both, the day arrives 
when it's over."  
   "That's sad," said Edna.  
   "Of course. So the day arrives when it's over. Either there is a split or the whole 
thing resolves into a truce: two people living together without  feeling anything. I 
believe that being alone is better."  
   "Did you divorce your wife, Joe?"  
   "No, she divorced me."     "What went wrong?"     "Sexual orgies."  
   "Sexual orgies?"  
   "You know, a sexual orgy is the loneliest place in the world . Those orgies -- I felt a 
sense of desperation -- those cocks sliding in and out -- excus e me ..."  
   "It's all right."     "Those cocks sliding in and out, legs locked, fingers workin g, mouths, everybody 
clutching and sweating and determined to do it -- somehow."  
   "I don't know much about those things, Joe," Edna said.  
   "I believe that without love , sex is nothing. Things can onl y be meaningful when 
some feeling exists between the participants."  
   "You mean people have to like each other?"  
 4    "It helps."  
   "Suppose they get tired of each other? Suppose they have  to stay together? 
Economics? Children? All that?"  
   "Orgies won't do it."  
   "What does it?"  
   "Well, I don't know. Maybe the swap."     "The swap?"     "You know, when two couples know each other quite  well and switch partners. 
Feelings, at least, have a chance. For example, say I've always  liked Mike's wife. I've 
liked her for months. I've watched her walk across the room. I like her movements. 
Her movements have made me curious. I wonder, you know, what go es with those 
movements. I've seen her angry, I've seen her drunk, I've seen her sober. And then, the 
swap. You're in the bedroom with her, at last you're knowing he r. There's a chance for 
something real. Of course, Mike has your wife in the other room . Good luck, Mike, 
you think, and I hope you're as good a lover as I am."  
   "And it works all right?"  
   "Well, I dunno . . . Swaps can cause difficulties . . . afte rwards. It all has to be talked 
out . . . very well talked out ahead of time. And then maybe pe ople don't know 
enough, no matter how much they talk . . ."  
   "Do you know enough, Joe?"     "Well, these swaps ... I think it might be good for some . .  . maybe good for many. I 
guess it wouldn't work for me. I'm toomuch of a prude."  
   Joe finished his drink. Edna set the remainder of hers down and stood up.  
   "Listen Joe, I have to be going ..."     Joe walked across the room toward her. He looked like an ele phant in those pants. 
She saw his big ears. Then he grabbed her and was kissing her. His bad breath came 
through all the drinks. He had a very sour smell. Part of his m outh was not making 
contact. He was strong but his st rength was not pure, it begged . She pulled her head 
away and still he held her.  
   WOMAN WANTED.     "Joe, let me go! You're moving too fast, Joe! Let go!"  
   "Why did you come here, bitch?"  
   He tried to kiss her again and succeeded. It was horrible. E dna brought her knee up. 
She got him good. He grabbed and fell to the rug.  
   ."God, god ... why'd you have to do that? You tried to kill me . . ."  
   He rolled on the floor.  
   His behind, she thought, he had such an ugly behind.  
   She left him rolling on the rug and ran down the stairway. T he air was clean outside. 
She heard people talking, she heard their T.V. sets. It wasn't a long walk to her 
apartment. She felt the need of another bath, got out of her bl ue knit dress and 
scrubbed herself. Then she got out  of the tub, toweled herself dry and set her hair in 
pink curlers. She decided not to see him again.  
 5 BOP BOP AGAINST THAT CURTAIN 
 
   We talked about women, peeked up their legs as they got out of cars, and we looked 
into windows at night hoping to see somebody fucking but we nev er saw anybody. 
One time we did watch a couple in bed and the guy was mauling h is woman and we 
thought now we're going to see it, but she said, "No, I don't w ant to do it tonight!" 
Then she turned her back on him. He lit a cigarette and we went  in search of a new 
window.  
   "Son of a bitch, no woman of mine would turn away from me!"  
   "Me neither. What kind of a man was that?"  
   There were three of us, me, Baldy, and Jimmy. Our big day wa s Sunday. On Sunday 
we met at Baldy's house and took the streetcar down to Main Str eet. Carfare was seven 
cents.  
   There were two burlesque houses in those days, the Follies a nd the Burbank. We 
were in love with the strippers at the Burbank and the jokes we re a little better so we 
went to the Burbank. We had tri ed the dirty movie house but the  pictures weren't 
really dirty and the plots were all the same. A couple of guys would get some little 
innocent girl drunk and before she got over her hangover she'd find herself in a house 
of prostitution with a line of sailors and hunchbacks beating o n her door. Besides in 
those places the bums slept  night and day, pissed on the floor,  drank wine, and rolled 
each other. The stink of piss and wine and murder was unbearabl e. We went to the 
Burbank.  
   "You boys going to a burlesque today?" Baldy's grampa would ask.  
   "Hell no, sir, we've got things to do."  
   We went. We went each Sunday. W e went early in the morning, long before the 
show and we walked up and down Main Street looking into the emp ty bars where the 
B-girls sat in the doorways wit h their skirts up, kicking their  ankles in the sunlight that 
drifted into the dark bar. The  girls looked good. But we knew. We had heard. A guy 
went in for a drink and they cha rged his ass off, both for his drink and the girl's. But 
the girl's drink would be watered. You'd get a feel or two and that was it. If you 
showed any money the barkeep would see it and along would come the mickey and 
you were out over the bar and your money was gone. We knew.  
   After our walk along Main S treet we'd go into the hotdog pla ce and get our eight 
cent hotdog and our big nickel mug of rootbeer. We were lifting  weights and our 
muscles bulged and we wore our sleeves rolled high and we each had a pack of 
cigarettes in our breast pocket. We even had tried a Charles At las course. Dynamic 
Tension, but lifting weights seemed the more rugged and obvious   
   way.  
   While we ate our hotdog and drank our huge mug of rootbeer w e played the pinball 
machine, a penny a game. We got to know that pinball machine ve ry well. When you 
made a perfect score you got a free game. We had to make perfec t scores, we didn't 
have that kind of money.  
   Franky Roosevelt was in, things were getting better but it w as still the depression 
and none of our fathers were working. Where we got our small am ount of pocket 
money was a mystery except that we did have a sharp eye for any thing that was not 
cemented to the ground. We didn't steal, we shared. And we inve nted. Having little or 
 6 no money we invented little games to pass the time -- one of th em being to walk to the 
beach and back.  
   This was usually done on a summer day and our parents never complained when we 
arrived home too late for dinner . Nor did they care about the h igh glistening blisters on 
the bottoms of our feet. It was when they saw how we had worn o ut our heels and the 
soles of our shoes that we began to hear it. We were sent to th e five and dime store 
where heels and soles and glue were at the ready and at a reaso nable price.  
   The situation was the same when we played tackle football in  the streets. There 
weren't any public funds for playgrounds. We were so tough we p layed tackle football 
in the streets all through football season, through basketball and baseball seasons and 
on through the next football season. When you get tackled on as phalt, things happen. 
Skin rips, bones bruise, there's blood, but you get up like not hing was wrong.  
   Our parents never minded the scabs and the blood and the bru ises; the terrible and 
unforgivable sin was to rip a hole in one of the knees of your pants. Because there 
were only two pairs of pants to each boy: his everyday pants an d his Sunday pants, 
and you could never rip a hole in the knee of one of your two p airs of pants because 
that showed that you were poor a nd an asshole and that your par ents were poor and 
assholes too. So you learned to tackle a guy without falling on  either  knee. And the 
guy being tackled learned how to be tackled without falling on either knee.  
   When we had fights we'd fi ght for hours and our parents woul dn't save us. I guess it 
was because we pretended to be so tough and never asked for mer cy, they were 
waiting for us to ask for mercy. B ut we hated our parents so we  couldn't and because 
we hated them they hated us, and they'd walk out on their porch es and glance casually 
over at us in the midst of a te rrible endless fight. They'd jus t yawn and pick up a 
throw-away advertisement and walk back inside.  
   I fought a guy who later ended up ve ry high in the United St ates Navy. I fought him 
one day from 8:30 in the morning until after sundown. Nobody st opped us although 
we were in plain sight of hi s front lawn, under two huge pepper  trees with the 
sparrows shit-ting on us all day.  
   It was a grim fight, it was to the finish. He was bigger, a little older and heavier, but 
I was crazier. We quit by common consent -- I don't know how th is works, you have 
to experience it to understand it, but after two people beat on  each other eight or nine 
hours a strange kind of brotherhood emerges.  
   The next day my body was entirely blue. I couldn't speak out  of my lips or move any 
part of myself without pai n. I was on the bed getting ready to die and my mother came 
in with the shirt I'd worn duri ng the fight. She held it in fro nt of my face over the bed 
and she said, "Look, you got bloodspots on this shirt! Bloodspo ts!"  
   "Sorry!"  
   "I'll never get them out! NEVER!!"     "They're his bloodspots."  
   "It doesn't matter! It's blood! It doesn't come out!"  
   Sundays were our day, our quiet, easy day. We went to the Bu r-bank. There was 
always a bad movie first. A  very old movie, andyou looked and w aited. You were 
thinking of the girls. The thr ee or four guys in the orchestra pit, they played loud, 
maybe they didn't play too good but  they played loud, and those  strippers finally came 
out and grabbed the curtain, the  edge of the curtain, and they grabbed that curtain like 
it was a man and shook their bodies and went bop bop bop agains t that curtain. Then 
they swung out and started to strip. If you had enough money th ere was even a bag of 
popcorn; if you didn't to hell with it.  
 7    Before the next act there was an intermission. A little man got up and said, "Ladies 
and gentlemen, if you will let me have your kind attention . . ." He was selling peep-
rings. In the glass of each ri ng, if you held it to the light t here was a most wonderful 
picture. This was promised you! Each ring was only 50 cents, a lifetime possession for 
just 50 cents, made available only to the patrons of the Burban k and not sold anywhere 
else. "Just hold it up to the light and you will see! And, than k you, ladies and 
gentlemen, for your kind attention. Now the ushers will pass do wn the aisles among 
you."  
   Two ragass bums would proceed down the aisles smelling of mu scatel, each 
carrying a bag of peep-rings. I never saw anybody purchase one of the rings. I 
imagine, though, if you had held one up to the light the pictur e in the glass would have 
been a naked woman.  
   The band began again and the curtains opened and there was t he chorus line, most of 
them former strippers gone old, heavy with mascara and rouge an d lipstick, false 
eyelashes. They did their damndest to stay with the music but t hey were always a little 
behind. But they carried on; I t hought they were very brave.  
   Then came the male singer. It was very difficult to like the  male singer. He sang too 
loud about love gone wrong. He di dn't know how to sing and when  he finished he 
spread his arms, and bowed his head to the tiniest ripple of ap plause.  
   Then came the comedian. Oh, he was good! He came out in an o ld brown overcoat, 
hat pulled down over his eyes, slouching and walking like a bum , a bum with nothing 
to do and no place to go. A girl would walk by on the stage and  his eyes would follow 
her. Then he'd turn to the audi ence and say, out of his toothle ss mouth, "Well, I'll be 
god damned!"  
   Another girl would walk out on t he stage and he'd walk up to  her, put his face close 
to hers and say, "I'm an old man, I'm past 44 but when the bed breaks down I finish on 
the floor." That did it. How we laughed! The young guys and the  old guys, how we 
laughed. And there was the suitcase routine. He's trying to hel p some girl pack her 
suitcase. The clothes keep popping out.  
   "I can't get it in!"  
   "Here let me help you!"  
   "It popped out again!"     "Wait! I'll stand on it!"  
   "What? Oh no, you're not going to stand  on it!"  
   They went on and on with the suitcase routine. Oh, he was fu nny!  
   Finally the first three or four  strippers came out again. We  each had our favorite 
stripper and we each were in love. Baldy had chosen a thin Fren ch girl with asthma 
and dark pouches under her eyes. Jimmy liked the Tiger Woman (p roperly The 
Tigress). I pointed out to Jimmy t he Tiger Woman definitely had  one breast larger 
than the other. Mine was Rosalie.  
   Rosalie had a large ass and she shook it and shook it and sa ng funny little songs, and 
as she walked about stripping s he talked to herself and giggled . She was the only one 
who really enjoyed her work. I was in love with Rosalie. I ofte n thought of writing her 
and telling her how great she was  but somehow I never got aroun d to it.  
   One afternoon we were waiting for  the streetcar after the sh ow and there was the 
Tiger Woman waiting for the streetcar too. She was dressed in a  tight-fitting green 
dress and we stood there looking at her.  
   "It's your girl, Jimmy, it's the Tiger Woman."  
 8    "Boy, she's got it! Look at her!"  
   "I'm going to talk to her," said Baldy.     "It's Jimmy's girl."  
   "I don't want to talk to her," said Jimmy.  
   "I'm going to talk to her," said Baldy. He put a cigarette i n his mouth, lit it, and 
walked up to her.  
   "Hi ya, baby!" he grinned at her.     The Tiger Woman didn't answer. She just stared straight ahea d waiting for the 
streetcar.  
   "I know who you are. I saw you strip today. You've got it, b aby, you've really got 
it!"  
   The Tiger Woman didn't answer.  
   "You really shake it, my god, you really shake it!"  
   The Tiger Woman stared straight ahead. Baldy stood there gri n-ning like an idiot at 
her. "I'd like to put it to you. I'd like to fuck  
   you, baby!"     We walked up and pulled Baldy away. We walked him down the s treet. "You 
asshole, you have no right to talk to her that way!"  
   "Well, she gets up and shakes it, she gets up in front of me n and shakes it!"  
   "She's just trying to make a living."     "She's hot, she's red hot, she wants it!"  
   "You're crazy."  
   We walked him down the street.  
   Not long after that I began to lose interest in those Sunday s on Main Street. I 
suppose the Follies and the Burbank are still there. Of course,  the Tiger Woman and 
the stripper with asthma, and Rosalie, my Rosalie are long gone . Probably dead. 
Rosalie's big shaking ass is probably dead. And when I'm in my neighborliood, I drive 
past the house I used to live in and there are strangers living  there. Those Sundays 
were good, though, most of those Sundays were good, a tiny ligh t in the dark 
depression days when our fathers  walked the front porches, jobl ess and impotent and 
glanced at us beating the shit out of each other, then went ins ide and stared at the 
walls, afraid to play the radio because of the electric bill.  
 9 YOU AND YOUR BEER AND HOW GREAT YOU 
ARE 
 
   Jack came through the door and found the pack of cigarettes on the mantle. Ann was 
on the couch reading a copy of Cosmopolitan. Jack lit up, sat down in a chair. It was 
ten minutes to midnight.  
   "Charley told you not to smoke," said Ann, looking up from t he magazine.  
   "I deserve it. It was a rough one tonight."     "Did you win?"     "Split decision but I got it. Benson was a tough boy, lots o f guts. Charley says 
Parvinelli is next. We get over Parvinelli, we get the champ."  
   Jack got up, went to the kitchen, came back with a bottle of  beer.  
   "Charley told me to keep you off the beer," Ann put the maga zine down.  
   '" 'Charley told me, Charley told me' . . . I'm tired of tha t. I won my fight. I won 16 
straight, I got a right to a beer and a cigarette."  
   "You're supposed to stay in shape."     "It doesn't matter. I can whip any of them."  
   "You're so great, I keep hearing it when you get drunk, you' re so great. I get sick of 
it."  
   "I am great. 16 straight, 15 k.o.'s. Who's better?"  
   Ann didn't answer. Jack took his bottle of beer and his ciga rette into the bathroom.  
   "You didn't even kiss me hello. The first thing you did was go to your bottle of beer. 
You're so great, all right. You're a great beer-drinker."  
   Jack didn't answer. Five minutes later he stood in the bathr oom door, his pants and 
shorts down around his shoes.  
   "Jesus Christ, Ann, can't you even keep a roll of toilet pap er in here?"  
   "Sorry."     She went to the closet and got him the roll. Jack finished h is business and walked 
out. Then he finished his beer and got another one. "Here you a re living with the best 
light-heavy in the world and all you do is complain. Lots of gi rls would love to have 
me but all you do is sit around and bitch."  
   "I know you're good. Jack, maybe the best, but you don't kno w how boring  it is to sit 
around and listen to you say over and over again how great you are."  
   "Oh, you're bored with it, are you?"     "Yes, god damn it, you and your beer and how great you are."   
   "Name a better light-heavy. You don't even come to my fights ."  
   "There are other  things besides fighting. Jack."  
   "What? Like laying around on your ass and reading Cosmopolitan ?"  
   "I like to improve my mind."  
   "You ought to. There's a lot  of work to be done there."  
   "I tell you there are other things besides fighting."  
   "What? Name them."  
   "Well, art, music, painting, things like that."  
 10    "Are you any good at them?"  
   "No, but I appreciate them."     "Shit, I'd rather be best at what I'm doing."  
   "Good, better, best . . . God, can't you appreciate people f or what they are?"  
   "For what they are? What are most of them? Snails, blood- suckers, dandies, finks, 
pimps, servants . . ."  
   "You're always looking down on everybody. None of your frien ds are good enough. 
You're so damned great!"  
   "That's right, baby."  
   Jack walked into the kitchen and came out with another beer.   
   "You and your god damned beer!"  
   "It's my right. They sell it. I buy it."  
   "Charley said . . ."     "Fuck Charley!"  
   "You're so god damned great!"  
   "That's right. At least Pattie knew it. She admitted it. She  was proud of it. She knew 
it took something. All you do is bitch."  
   "Well, why don't you go back to Pattie? What are you doing w ith me?"  
   "That's just what I'm thinking."  
   "Well, we're not married, I can leave any time."  
   "That's one break we've got. Shit, I come in here dead-ass t ired after a tough ten 
rounder and you're not even glad I took it. All you do is compl ain about me."  
   "Listen. Jack, there are other things besides fighting. WTie n I met you, I admired 
you for what you were."  
   "I was a fighter. There aren't  any other things besides fighting.  
   That's what 1 am -- a hghter. That's my tile, and 1m good at  it. The best. I notice you 
always go for those second raters . . . like Toby Jorgenson."  
   "Toby's very funny. He's got a sense of humor, a real sense of humor. I like Toby."  
   "His record is 9, 5, and one. I can take him when I'm dead d runk."  
   "And god knows you're dead drunk often enough. How do you th ink I feel at parties 
when you're laying on the fl oor passed out, or lolling around t he room telling 
everybody, 'I'M GREAT, I'M GREAT, I'M GREAT!' Don't you think t hat makes me 
feel like an ass?"  
   "Maybe you arc an ass. If you like Toby so much, why don't y ou go with him?"  
   "Oh, 1 just said I liked him, I thought he was funny,  that doesn't mean I want to go to 
bed with him."  
   "Well, you go to bed with me and you say I'm boring. I don't  know what the hell you 
want."  
   Ann didn't answer. Jack got up, walked over to the couch, li fted Ann's head and 
kissed her, walked back and sat down again.  
   "Listen, let me tell you about t his fight with Benson. Even you would have been 
proud of me. He decks me in the  first round, a sneak right. I g et up and hold him off 
the rest of the round. He plants me again in the second. I bare ly get up at 8. I hold him 
oft again. The next few rounds I spend getting my legs back. I take the 6th, 7th, 8th, 
deck him once in the 9th and twice in the 10th. I don't call th at a split. They called it a 
 11 split. Well, it's 45 grand, you get that, kid? 45 grand. I'm gr eat, you can't deny I'm 
great, can you?"  
   Ann didn't answer.     "Come on, tell me I'm great."  
   "All right, you're great."  
   "Well, that's more like it." Jack walked over and kissed her  again. "I feel so good. 
Boxing is a work of art, it really is. It takes guts to be a gr eat artist and it takes guts to 
be a great fighter."  
   "All right. Jack."     "'All right, Jack,' is that all you can say? Pattie used to be happy when I won. W^e 
were both happy all night. Can't you share it when I do somethi ng good? Hell, are you 
in love with me or are you in love w ith the losers, the half-as ses? I think you'd be 
happier if I came in here a loser."  
   "I want you to win. Jack, it's only that you put so much emp ha-sis on what you do . . 
."  
   "Hell, it's my living, it's my life. I'm proud of being best . It's like flying, it's like 
flying off into the sky and whipping the sun,"  
   "What are you going to do when you can't fight anymore?"  
   "Hell, we'll have enough money to do whatever we want."     "Except get along, maybe."     "Maybe I can learn to read Cosmopolitan,  improve my mind."  
   "Well, there's room for improvement."  
   "Fuck you."     "What?"  
   "Fuck you."  
   "Well, that's something you haven't done in a while."     "Some guys like to fuck hitching women, I don't."  
   "I suppose Pattie didn't bitch?"  
   "All women bitch, you're the champ."     "Well, why don't you go back to Pattie?"  
   "You're here now. I can only house one whore at a time."  
   "Whore?"     "Whore."     Ann got up and went to the closet, got out her suitcase and began putting her clothes 
in there. Jack went to the kitchen and got another bottle of be er. Ann was crying and 
angry. Jack sat down with his beer and took a good drain. He ne eded a whiskey, he 
needed a bottle of whiskey. And a good cigar.  
   "I can come pick up the rest of my stuff when you're not aro und."  
   "Don't bother. I'll have it sent to you."     She stopped at the doorway.  
   "Well, I guess this is it," she said.  
   "I suppose it is," Jack answered.  
   She closed the door and was gone. Standard procedure. Jack f inished the beer and 
went over to the telephone. He dialed Pattie's number. She answ ered.  
   "Pattie?"  
 12    "Oh, Jack, how are you?"  
   "I won the big one tonight. A split. All I got to do is get over Parvinelli and I got the 
champ."  
   "You'll whip both of them, Jack. I know you can do it."  
   "What are you doing tonight, Pattie?"  
   "It's 1:00 a.m. Jack. Have you been drinking?"     "A few. I'm celebrating."  
   "How about Ann?"  
   "We split. I only play one woman at a time, you know that Pa ttie."  
   "Jack . . ."  
   "What?"  
   "I'm with a guy."     "A guy?"  
   "Toby Jorgenson. He's in the bedroom . . ."  
   "Oh, I'm sorry."     "I'm sorry, too. Jack, I loved you ... maybe I still do."  
   "Oh, shit, you women really throw that word around ..."  
   "I'm sorry. Jack."  
   "It's o.k." He hung up. Then he went to the closet for his c oat. He put it on, finished 
the beer, went down the elevator to his car. He drove straight up Normandie at 65 
m.p.h., pulled into the liquor store on Hollywood Boulevard. He  got out and walked 
in. He got a six-pack of Michelob, a pack of Alka-Seltzers. The n at the counter he 
asked the clerk for a fifth of J ack Daniels. While the clerk wa s tabbing them up a 
drunk walked up with two six-packs of Coors.  
   "Hey, man!" he said to Jack, "ain't you Jack Backenweld, the  fighter?"  
   "I am," answered Jack.  
   "Man, I saw that fight toni ght. Jack, you're all guts. You'r e really great!"  
   "Thanks, man," he told the drunk, and then he took his sack of goods and walked to 
his car. He sat there, took the cap off the Daniels and had a g ood slug. Then he backed 
out, ran west down Hollywood, took a left at Normandie and noti ced a well-built 
teenage girl staggering down the street. He stopped his car, li fted the fifth out of the 
bag and showed it to her.  
   "Want a ride?"  
   Jack was surprised when she got in. "I'll help you drink tha t, mister, but no fringe 
benefits."  
   "Hell, no" said Jack.  
   He drove down Normandie at 35 m.p.h., a self-respecting citi zen and third ranked 
light-heavy in the world. For a moment he felt like telling her  who she was riding with 
but he changed his mind and reached over and squeezed one of he r knees.  
   "You got a cigarette, mister?" she asked.  
   He flicked one out with his hand, pushed in the dash lighter . It jumped out and he lit 
her up.  
 13 POLITICS 
 
   At L.A. City College just before World War II, I posed as a Nazi. I hardly knew 
Hitler from Hercules and cared less. It wa just that sitting in  class and hearing all the 
patriots preach how we should go over and do the beast in, I gr ew bored. I decided to 
become the opposition. I didn't even bother to read up on Adolf , I simply spouted 
anything that I felt was evil or maniacal.  
   However, I really didn't have any political beliefs. It was a way of floating free.  
   You know, sometimes if a man doesn't believe in what he is d oing he can do a much 
more interesting job because he isn't emotionally caught up in his Cause. It wasn't long 
before all the tall blond boys had formed The Abraham Lincoln B rigade -- to hold off 
the hordes of facism in Spain. And then had their asses shot of f by trained troops. 
Some of them did it for advent ure and a trip to Spain but they still got their asses shot 
off. I liked my ass. There really wasn't much I liked about mys elf but I did like my ass 
and my pecker.  
   I leaped up in class and shouted anything that came to my mi nd. Usually it had 
something to do with the Superior  Race, which I thought was rat her humorous. I didn't 
lay it directly onto the Blacks and the Jews because I saw that  they were as poor and 
confused as I was. But I did get off some wild speeches in and out of class, and the 
bottle of wine I kept in my locker helped me along. I was surpr ised that so many 
people listened to me and how few, if any, ever questioned my s tatements. I just ran 
off at the mouth and was delighte d at how entertaining L.A. Cit y College could be.  
   "Are you going to run for student  body president, Chinaski?"   
   "Shit, no."  
   I didn't want to do anything. I didn't even went to go to gy m. In fact, the last thing I 
wanted to do was to go to gym and sweat and wear a jockstrap an d compare pecker-
lengths. I knew I had a medium-sized pecker. I didn't have to t ake gym to establish 
that.  
   We were lucky. The college decided to charge a two dollar en rollment fee. We 
decided -- a few of us decided, anyhow -- that that was unconst itutional, so we 
refused. We struck against it. The college allowed us to attend  classes but took away 
some of our privileges, one of them being gym.  
   When time arrived for gym class, we stood in civilian clothi ng. The coach was given 
orders to march us up and down the field in close formation. Th at was their revenge. 
Beautiful. I didn't have to run a round the track with my ass sw eating or try to throw a 
demented basketball through a demented hoop.  
   We marched around and made up dirty songs, and the good Amer ican boys on the 
football team threatened to whip our asses but somehow never go t around to it. 
Probably because we were bigger and meaner. To me, it was wonde rful, pretending to 
be a Nazi, and then turning around and proclaiming that my cons itutional rights were 
being violated.  
   I did sometimes get emotional. I remember one time in class,  after a little too much 
wine, with a tear in each eye, I  said, "I promise you, this wil l hardly be the last war. As 
soon as one enemy is eliminated somehow another is found. It's endless and 
meaningless. There's no such thing as a good war or a bad war."   
   Another time there was a communist speaking from a platform on a vacant lot south 
of campus. He was a very earnest boy with rimless glasses, pimp les, wearing a black 
 14 sweater with holes in the elbows. I stood listening and had som e of my disciples with 
me. One of them was a White Russian, Zircoff, his father or his  grandfather had been 
killed by the Reds in the Russian revolution. He showed me a sa ck of rotten tomatoes. 
"When you give the word," he told m e, "we'll begin throwing the m."  
   It occurred to me suddenly that my disciples hadn't been lis tening to the speaker, or 
even if they had been, nothing he had said would matter. Their minds were made up. 
Most of the world was like that. Having a medium- sized cock su ddenly didn't seem 
the world's worst sin.  
   "Zircoff," I said, "put the tomatoes away."  
   "Piss," he said, "I wish they were hand grenades."  
   I lost control of my disciples that day, and walked away as they started hurling their 
rotten tomatoes.  
   I was informed that a new Va nguard Party was to be formed. I  was given an address 
in Glendale and I went there that night. We sat in the basement  of a large home with 
our wine bottles and our various-sized cocks.  
   There was a platform and desk with a large American flag spr ead across the back 
wall. A healthy looking Ameri can boy walked out on the platform  and suggested that 
we begin by saluting the flag, pledging allegiance to it.  
   I always disliked pledging allegiance to the flag. It was so  tedious and sillyass. I 
always felt more like pledging allegiance to myself, but there we were and we stood 
up and ran through it. Then, afterwards, the little pause, and everybody sitting down 
feeling as if they had been slightly molested.  
   The healthy American began talking. I recognized him as a fa t boy who sat in the 
front row of the playwriting class . I never trusted those types . Sucks. Strictly sucks. 
He began: "The Communist menace must be stopped. We are gathere d here to take 
steps to do so. We will take lawful steps and, perhaps, unlawfu l steps to do this . . ."  
   I don't remember much of the rest. I didn't care about the C ommunist menace of the 
Nazi menace. I wanted to get drunk, I wanted to fuck, I wanted a good meal, I wanted 
to sing over a glass of beer in a dirty bar and smoke a cigar. I wasn't aware. I was a 
dupe, a tool.  
   Afterwards, Zircoff and myself and one ex-disciple went down  to Westlake Park and 
we rented a boat and tried to catch a duck for dinner. We manag ed to get very drunk 
and didn't catch a duck and found we didn't have enough money b etween us to pay the 
boat rental fee.  
   We floated around the shallow lake and played Russian Roulet te with Zircoff's gun 
and we all lucked through. Then Zircoff stood up in the moonlig ht drunk and shot the 
hell out of the bottom of the boat . The water started coming in  and we ran her for 
shore. A third of the way i n the boat sank and we had to get ou t and get our assholes 
wet wading to shore. So the night ended up well and hadn't been  wasted . . .  
   I played Nazi for some time longer, while caring for neither  the Nazis nor the 
Communists nor the Americans. But  I was losing interest. In fac t, just before Pearl 
Harbor I gave it up. The fun had gone out of it. I felt the war  was going to happen and 
I didn't feel much like going to war and I didn't feel much lik e being a conscientious 
objector either. It was catshit. It was useless. Me and my medi um-sized cock were in 
trouble.  
   I sat in class without speaking, waiting. The students and t he instructors needled me. 
I had lost my drive, my steam, my mox. I felt that the whole th ing was out of my 
hands. It was going to happen. All the cocks were in trouble.  
 15    My English instructor, quite a nice lady with beautiful legs  asked me to stay after 
class one day. "What's the matter, Chinaski?" she asked. "I've given up," I said. "You 
mean politics?" she asked. "I mean politics," I said. "You'd ma ke a good sailor," she 
said. I walked out . . .  
   I was sitting with my best friend, a marine, in a downtown b ar drinking a beer when 
it happened. A radio was playing music, there was a break in th e music. They told us 
that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. It was announced that a ll military personnel 
should return immediately to their  bases. My friend asked that I take the bus with him 
to San Diego, suggesting that it might turn out to be the last time I ever saw him. He 
was right.  
 16 NO WAY TO PARADISE 
 
   I was sitting in a bar on Western Ave. It was around midnigh t and I was in my usual 
confused state. I mean, you know, nothing works right: the wome n, the jobs, the no 
jobs, the weather, the dogs. Finally you just sit in a kind of stricken state and wait like 
you're on the bus stop bench waiting for death.  
   Well, I was sitting there and here comes this one with long dark hair, a good body, 
sad brown eyes. I didn't turn on f or her. I ignored her even th ough she had taken the 
stool next to mine when there were a dozen other empty seats. I n fact, we were the 
only ones in the bar except for the bartender. She ordered a dr y wine. Then she asked 
me what I was drinking.  
   "Scotch and water."     "Give him a scotch and water," she told the barkeep.  
   Well, that was unusual.  
   She opened her purse, removed a small wire cage and took som e little people out 
and sat them on the bar. They were all around three inches tall  and they were alive and 
properly dressed. There were four  of them, two men and two wome n.  
   "They make these now," she said, "they're very expensive. Th ey cost around $2,000 
apiece when I got them. They go for around $2,400 now. I don't know the 
manufacturing process but it's probably against the law."  
   The little people were walking around on the top of the bar.  Suddenly one of the 
little guys slapped one of the little women across the face.  
   "You bitch," he said, "I've had it with you!"  
   "No, George, you can't," she cried, "I love you! I'll kill m yself! I've got to have 
you!"  
   "I don't care," said the little guy, and he took out a tiny cigarette and lit it. "I've got a 
right to live."  
   "If you don't want  her," said the other little guy, "I'll take her. I love her."  
   "But I don't want you, Marty. I'm in love with George."     "But he's a bastard, Anna, a real bastard!"  
   "I know, but I love him anyhow."  
   The little bastard then walked over and kissed the other lit tle woman.  
   "I've got a triangle going,"  said the lady who had bought me  the drink. "That's Marty 
and George and Anna and Ruthie. George goes down, he goes down good. Marty's 
kind of square."  
   "Isn't it sad to watch all that? Er, what's your name?"  
   "Dawn. It's a terrible name. But that's what mothers do to t heir children sometimes."  
   "I'm Hank. But isn't it sad . . ."  
   "No, it isn't sad to watch it. I haven't had much luck with my own loves, terrible luck 
really . . ."  
   "We all have terrible luck."  
   "I suppose. Anyhow, I bought these little people and now I w atch them, and it's like 
having it and not having any of the problems. But I get awfully  hot when they start 
making love. That's when it gets difficult."  
   "Are they sexy?"  
 17    "Very, very sexy. My god, it makes me hot!"  
   "Why don't you make them do it? I mean, right now. We'll wat ch them together."  
   "Oh, you can't make them do it. They've got to do it on thei r own."  
   "How often do they do it?"  
   "Oh, they're pretty good. They go four or five times a week. "  
   They were walking around on the ba r. "Listen," said Marty, " give me a chance. Just 
give me a chance, Anna."  
   "No," said Anna, "my love belongs to George. There's no othe r way it can be."  
   George was kissing Ruthie, feeling her breasts. Ruthie was g etting hot.  
   "Ruthie's getting hot," I told Dawn.  
   "She is. She really is."  
   I was getting hot too. I grabbed Dawn and kissed her.  
   "Listen," she said, "I don't like them to make love in publi c. I'll take them home and 
have them do it."  
   "But then I can't watch."  
   "Well, you'll just have to come with me."     "All right," I said, "let's go."     I finished my drink and we walked out together. She carried the little people in the 
small wire cage. We got into her car and put the people in betw een us on the front 
seat. I looked at Dawn. She was really young and beautiful. She  seemed to have good 
insides too. How could she have gone wrong with her men? There were so many ways 
those things could miss. The four little people had cost her $8 ,000. Just that to get 
away from relationships and not to get away from relationships.  
   Her house was near the hills, a pleasant looking place. We g ot out and walked up to 
the door. I held the little people in the cage while Dawn opene d the door.  
   "I heard Randy Newman last week at The Troubador. Isn't he g reat?" she asked.  
   "Yes, he is."     We walked into the front room and Dawn took the little peopl e out and placed them 
on the coffeetable. Then she walked into the kitchen and opened  the refrigerator and 
got out a bottle of wine. She brought in two glasses.  
   "Pardon me," she said, "but you seem a little bit crazy. Wha t do you do?"  
   "I'm a writer."  
   "Are you going to write about this?"  
   "They'll never believe it, but I'll write it."     "Look," said Dawn, "George has got  Ruthie's panties off. He' s fingering her. Ice?"  
   "Yes, he is. No, no ice. Straight's fine."     "I don't know," said Dawn, "it r eally gets me hot to watch t hem. Maybe it's because 
they're so small. It really heats me up."  
   "I know what you mean."     "Look, George is going down on her now." '  
   "He is, isn't he?"  
   "Look at them!"     "God o mighty!"     I grabbed Dawn. We stood there kissing. As we did her eyes w ent from mine to 
them and then back to mine again.  
 18    Little Marty and little Anna were watching too.  
   "Look," said Marty, "they're going to make it. We might as w ell make it. Even the 
big folks are going to make it. Look at them!"  
   "Did you hear that?" I asked Dawn. "They said we're going to  make it. Is that true?"  
   "I hope it's true," said Dawn.  
   I got her over to the couch a nd worked her dress up around h er hips. I kissed her 
along the throat. "I love you," I said.  
   "Do you? Do you?"  
   "Yes, somehow, yes . . ."  
   "All right," said little Anna to little Marty, "we might as well do it too, even though I 
don't love you."  
   They embraced in the middle of  the coffeetable. I had worked  Dawn's panties off. 
Dawn groaned. Little Ruthie groaned. Marty closed in on Anna. I t was happening 
everywhere. I got the idea that  everybody in the world was doin g it. Then I forgot 
about the rest of the world. W e somehow walked into the bedroom . Then I got into 
Dawn for the long slow ride. . . .  
   When she came out of the bathroom I was reading a dull dull story in Playboy.   
   "It was so good," she said.     "My pleasure," I answered.     She got back into bed with me. I put the magazine down.  
   "Do you think we .can make it together?" she asked.  
   "What do you mean?"     "I mean, do you think we can make it together for any length  of time?"  
   "I don't know. Things happen. The beginning is always easies t."  
   Then there was a scream from the front room. "Oh-oh," said D awn. She leaped up 
and ran out of the room. I follo wed. When I got there she was h olding George in her 
hands.  
   "Oh, my god!"  
   "What happened?"  
   "Anna did it to him!"     "Did what?"  
   "She cut off his balls! George is a eunuch!"  
   "Wow!"     "Get me some toilet paper, quickly! He might bleed to death! "  
   "That son of a bitch," said little Anna from the coffeetable , "ifI can't have George, 
nobody can have him!"  
   "Now both of you belong to me!" said Marty.  
   "No, you've got to choose between us," said Anna.     "Which one of us is it?" asked Ruthie.  
   "I love you both," said Marty.  
   "He's stopped bleeding," said D awn. "He's out cold." She wra pped George in a 
handkerchief and put him on the mantle.  
   "I mean," Dawn said to me, "if you don't think we can make i t, I don't want to go 
into it anymore."  
   "I think I love you. Dawn."  
 19    "Look," she said, "Marty's embracing Ruthie!"  
   "Are they going to make it?"     "I don't know. They seem excited."  
   Dawn picked Anna up and put her in the wire cage.  
   "Let me out of here! I'll kill both of them! Let me out of h ere!"  
   George moaned from inside his handkerchief upon the mantle. Marty had Ruthie's 
panties off. I pulled Dawn to me. She was beautiful and young a nd had insides. I could 
be in love again. It was possibl e. We kissed. I fell down insid e her eyes. Then I got up 
and began running. I knew where I was. A cockroach and an eagle  made love. Time 
was a fool with a banjo. I ke pt running. Her long hair fell acr oss my face.  
   "I'll kill everybody!" screamed little Anna. She rattled abo ut in her wire cage at 3 
a.m. in the morning.  
   LOVE FOR $17.50  
   Robert's first desire -- wh en he began thinking of such thin gs -- was to sneak into the 
Wax Museum some night and make love to the wax ladies. However,  that seemed too 
dangerous. He limited himself to making love to statues and man nequins in his sex 
fantasies and lived in his fantasy world.  
   One day while stopped at a red light he looked into the door way of a shop. It was 
one of those shops that sold everything -- records, sofas, book s, trivia, junk. He saw 
her standing there in a long red dress. She wore rimless glasse s, was well-shaped; 
dignified and sexy the way the y used to be. A real class broad.  Then the signal 
changed and he was forced to drive on.  
   Robert parked a block away and walked back to the shop. He s tood outside at the 
newspaper rack and looked in at he r. Even the eyes looked real,  and the mouth was 
very impulsive, pouting just a bit.  
   Robert went inside and looked at the record rack. He was clo ser to her then and 
sneaked glances. No, they didn't make them like that anymore. S he even had on high 
heels.  
   The girl in the shop walked up. "Can I help you, sir?"  
   "Just browsing, miss."  
   "If there's anything you want, just let me know."     "Surely."     Robert moved over to the mannequin. There wasn't a price tag . He wondered if she 
were for sale. He walked bac k to the record rack, picked up a c heap album and 
purchased it from the girl.  
   The next time he visited the shop the mannequin was still th ere. Robert browsed a 
bit, bought an ashtray that was moulded to imi-tate a coiled sn ake, then walked out.  
   The third time he was there he asked the girl: "Is the manne quin for sale?"  
   "The mannequin?"  
   "Yes, the mannequin."  
   "You want to buy it?"     "Yes, you sell things, don't you? Is the mannequin for sale? "  
   "Just a moment, sir."  
   The girl went to the back of the shop. A curtain parted and an old Jewish man came 
out. The bottom two buttons of his shirt were missing and you c ould see his hairy 
belly. He seemed friendly enough.  
   "You want the mannequin, sir?"  
 20    "Yes, is she for sale?"  
   "Well, not really. You see, it's kind of a display piece, a joke."  
   "I want to buy her."     "Well, let's see . . ." The old Jew went over and began touc hing the mannequin, 
touching the dress, the arms. "Let's see ... I think I can let you have this ... thing... for 
$17.50."  
   "I'll take her." Robert pulled out a twenty. The storekeeper  counted out the change.  
   "I'm going to miss it," he said, "sometimes it seems almost real. Should I wrap it?"  
   "No, I'll take her the way she is."  
   Robert picked up the mannequin and carried her to his car. H e laid her down in the 
back seat. Then he got in and drove off to his place. When he g ot there, luckily, there 
didn't seem to be anybody about and he got her into the doorway  unseen. He stood her 
in the center of the room and looked at her.  
   "Stella," he said, "Stella, bitch!"     He walked up and slapped her across the face. Then he grabbe d the head and kissed 
it. It was a good kiss. His penis began to harden when the phon e rang. "Hello," he 
answered.  
   "Robert?"     "Yeah. Sure."     "This is Harry."  
   "How you doing. Harry?"  
   "O.k., what you doing?"     "Nothing."  
   "I thought I'd come over. Bring a couple of beers."  
   "O.k."  
   Robert hung up, picked up the mannequin and carried her to t he closet. He pushed 
her back in the corner of the closet and closed the door.  
   Harry really didn't have much to say. He sat there with his beer-can. "How's Laura?" 
he asked.  
   "Oh," said Robert, "it's all over between me and Laura."     "What happened?"     "The eternal vamp bit. Always on stage. She was relentless. She'd turn on for guys 
everywhere -- at the grocery store, on the street, in cafes, ev erywhere and to anybody. 
It didn't matter who it was as long as it was a man. She even t urned on for a guy who 
dialed a wrong number. I couldn't go it anymore."  
   "You alone now?"     "No, I've got another one. Brenda. You've met her."     "Oh yeah. Brenda. She's all right."     Harry sat there drinking beer . Harry never had a woman but h e was always talking 
about them. There was somethi ng sickening about Harry. Robert d idn't encourage the 
conversation and Harry soon left. Robert went to the closet and  brought Stella out.  
   "You god damned whore!" he said. "You've been cheating on me , haven't you?"  
   Stella didn't answer. She stood there looking so cool and pr im. He slapped her a 
good one. It'd be a long day in the sun before any woman got aw ay with cheating on 
Bob Wilkenson. He slapped her another good one.  
   "Cunt! You'd fuck a four-year-old boy if he could get his pe cker up, wouldn't you?"  
 21    He slapped her again, then grabbed her and kissed her. He ki ssed her again and 
again. Then he ran his hands up under her dress. She was well- shaped, very well-
shaped. Stella reminded him of an algebra teacher he'd had in h igh school. Stella didn't 
have on panties.  
   "Whore," he said, "who got your panties?"  
   Then his penis was pressed aga inst the front of her. There w as no opening. But 
Robert was in a tremendous passion. He inserted it between the upper thighs. It was 
smooth and tight. He worked away. For just a moment he felt ext remely foolish, then 
his passion took over and he began kissing her along the neck a s he worked.  
   Robert washed Stella with a dishrag, placed her in the close t behind an overcoat, 
closed the door and still managed to get in the last quarter of  the Detroit Lions vs. L.A. 
Rams game on T.V.  
   It was quite nice for Robert as time went on. He made certai n adjustments. He 
bought Stella several pairs of underpants, a garter belt, sheer  long stockings, an ankle 
bracelet.  
   He bought her earrings too, and was quite shocked to learn t hat his love didn't have 
any ears. Under all that hair, the ears were missing. He put th e earrings on anyhow 
with adhesive tape. But there were advantages -- he didn't have  to take her to dinner, 
to parties, to dull movies; all those mundane things that meant  so much to the average 
woman. And there were arguments. There would always be argument s, even with a 
mannequin. She wasn't talkative but he was sure she told him on ce, "You're the 
greatest lover of them all. That old Jew was a dull lover. You love with soul, Robert."  
   Yes, there were advantages. She wasn't like all the other wo men he had known. She 
didn't want to make love at inconvenient moments. He could choo se the time. And she 
didn't have periods. And he went down on her. He cut some of th e hair from her head 
and pasted it between her thighs.  
   The affair was sexual to be gin with but gradually he was fal ling in love with her, he 
could feel it happening. He considered going to a psychiatrist,  then decided not to. 
After all, was it necessary to love a real human being? It neve r lasted long. There were 
too many differences between the species, and what started as l ove too often ended up 
as war.  
   Then too, he didn't have to lie in bed with Stella and liste n to her talk about all her 
past lovers. How Karl had suc h a big thing, but Karl wouldn't g o down. And how 
Louie danced so well, Louie could have made it in ballet instea d of selling insurance. 
And how Marty could really kiss . He had a way of locking tongue s. So on. So forth. 
What shit. Of course, Stella had mentioned the old Jew. But jus t that once.  
   Robert had been with Stella about two weeks when Brenda phon ed.  
   "Yes, Brenda?" he answered.  
   "Robert, you haven't phoned me."  
   "I've been terribly busy, Brenda. I've been promoted to dist rict manager and I've had 
to realign things down at the office."  
   "Is that so?"  
   "Yes."  
   "Robert, something's wrong ..."     "What do you mean?"     "I can tell by your voice. Something's wrong. What the hell' s wrong, Robert? Is there 
another woman?"  
   "Not exactly."  
 22    "What do you mean, not exactly?"  
   "Oh, Christ!"     "What is it? What is it? Robert, something's wrong. I'm comi ng over to see you."  
   "There's nothing wrong, Brenda."  
   "You son of a bitch, you're holding out on me! Something's g oing on. I'm coming to 
see you! Now!"  
   Brenda hung up and Robert walked over and picked up Stella a nd put her in the 
closet, well back in one corner . He took the overcoat off the h anger and hung it over 
Stella. Then he came back, sat down and waited.  
   Brenda opened the door and rushed in. "All right, what the h ell's wrong? What is it?"  
   "Listen, kid," he said, "it's o.k. Calm down."  
   Brenda was nicely built. Her breasts sagged a bit, but she h ad fine legs and a 
beautiful ass. Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He cou ld never cure her eyes of 
that. Sometimes after love-making a temporary calm would fill h er eyes but it never 
lasted.  
   "You haven't even kissed me yet!"  
   Robert got up from his chair and kissed Brenda.     "Christ, that was no kiss! What is it?" she asked. "What's w rong!"  
   "It's nothing, nothing at all . . ."  
   "If you don't tell me, I'm going to scream!"  
   "I tell you, it's nothing."  
   Brenda screamed. She walked to the window and screamed. You could hear her all 
over the neighborhood. Then she stopped.  
   "God, Brenda, don't do that again! Please, please!"  
   "I'll do it again! I'll do it again! Tell me what's wrong, R obert, or I'll do it again!"  
   "All right," he said, "wait."  
   Robert went to the closet, t ook the overcoat off Stella and 'if led her out of the closet.  
   "What's that?" asked Brenda, "what's that?"     "A mannequin."  
   "A mannequin? You mean? . . ."  
   "I mean, I'm in love with her."     "Oh, my god I You mean? That thing? That tiling?"   
   "Yes."  
   "You love that thing  more than me? That hunk of celluloid, or whatever the shit 
she's made of? You mean you love that thing more than me?"  
   "Yes."  
   "I suppose you take it to bed with you? I suppose you do thi ngs to ... with that 
thing?"   
   "Yes."     "Oh . . ."  
   Then Brenda really screamed. She just stood there and scream ed. Robert thought she 
would never stop. Then she leaped at the mannequin and started to claw and beat at it. 
The mannequin toppled and fell against the wall. Brenda ran out  the door, got in her 
car and drove off wildly. She crashed into the side of a parked  car, glanced off, drove 
on.  
 23    Robert walked over to Stella. The head had broken off and ro lled under a chair. 
There were spurts of chalky mat erial on the floor. One arm hung  loosely, broken, two 
wires protruding. Robert sat down i n a chair. He just sat there . Then he got up and 
went into the bathroom, stood the re a minute, and came back out . He stood in the 
hallway and could see the head under the chair. He began to sob . It was terrible. He 
didn't know what to do. He remembered how he had buried his mot her and his father. 
But this was different. This wa s different. He just stood in th e hallway, sobbing and 
waiting. Both of Stella's eyes were open and cool and beautiful . They stared at him.  
 24 A COUPLE OF WINOS 
 
   I was in my 20's and although I was drinking heavily and not  eating, I was still 
strong. I mean, physically, and that's some luck for you when n ot much else is going 
right. My mind was in riot against my lot and life, and the onl y way I could calm it 
was to drink and drink and drink. I  was walking up the road, it  was dusty and dirty and 
hot, and I believe the state was California, but I'm no longer sure. It was desert land. I 
was walking along the road, my stockings hard and rotted and st inking, the nails were 
coming up through the soles of my shoes and into my feet and I had to keep cardboard 
in my shoes -- cardboard, newspaper, anything that I could find . The nails worked 
through that, and you either got some more or you turned the st uff around, or 
upsidedown, or reshaped it.  
   The truck stopped alongside of me. I ignored it and kept wal king. The truck started 
up again and the guy rode along beside me.  
   "Kid," the guy said, " you want a job?"     "Who've I got to kill?' I asked.  
   "Nobody," said the guy, "come on, get in."  
   I went around to the other si de and when I got there the doo r was open. I stepped up 
on the running board, slid in, pulled the door shut and leaned back in the leather seat. I 
was out of the sun.  
   "You wanna suck me," said the guy, "you get five bucks."  
   I put the right hand hard into hi s gut, got the left somewhe re in between the ear and 
the neck, came back with the right to the mouth and the truck r an off the road. I 
grabbed the wheel and steered it  back. Then I cut the motor and  braked. I climbed out 
and continued to walk along the r oad. About five minutes later the truck was running 
along next to me again.  
   "Kid," said the guy, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn' t mean you were a homo. I 
mean, though, you kind of half-look like a homo. Is there anyth ing wrong with being a 
homo?"  
   "I guess if you're a homo there's not."  
   "Come on," said the guy, "get in. I got a real honest job fo r you. You can make some 
money, get on your feet."  
   I climbed in again. We drove off.  
   "I'm sorry," he said, "you got a real tough face, but look a t your hands. You got 
ladies' hands."  
   "Don't worry about my hands," I said.     "Well, it's a tough job. Loadin' ties. You ever loaded ties?   
   "No."  
   "It's hard work."     "I've done hard work all my life."  
   "O.k.," said the guy, "o.k."  
   We drove along not talking, the  truck rocking back and forth . There was nothing but 
dust, dust and desert. The guy didn't have much of a face, he d idn't have much of 
anything. But sometimes small people who stay in the same place  for a long time 
 25 achieve minor prestige and power. He had the truck and he was h iring. Sometimes you 
have to go along with that.  
   We drove along and there was  an old guy walking along the ro ad. He must have 
been in his mid-forites. That's old for the road. This Mr. Burk hart, he'd told me his 
name, slowed his truck and asked the old guy. "Hey, buddy, you want to make a 
couple of bucks?"  
   "Oh, yes sir!" said the old guy.  
   "Move over. Let him in," said Mr. Burkhart.  
   The old guy got in and he really stank -- of booze and sweat  and agony and death. 
We drove on until we came to a small group of buildings. We got  out with Burkhart 
and walked into a store. There was a guy in a green sunshade wi th a bunch of rubber 
bands around his left wrist. He wa s bald but his arms were cove red with sickly long 
blond hair.  
   "Hello, Mr. Burkhart," he said, "I see you found yourself a couple more winos."  
   "Here's the list, Jesse," said Mr. Burkhart, and Jesse walke d about filling orders. It 
took some time. Then he was finished. "Anything else, Mr. Burkh art? A couple cheap 
bottles of wine?"  
   "No wine for me," I said.     "O.k.," said the old guy, "I'll take both bottles."     "It'll come off your pay," Burkhart told the old guy.  
   "It doesn't matter," said the old guy, "take it off my pay."   
   "You sure you don't want a bottle?" Burkhart asked me.     "All right," I said, "I'll take a bottle."     We had a tent and that night w e drank the wine and the old g uy told me his troubles. 
He'd lost his wife. He still loved his wife. He thought about h er all the time. A great 
woman. He used to teach mathematic s. But he'd lost his wife. Ne ver a woman like her. 
Blah blah blah.  
   Christ, when we woke up the old guy was sick and I wasn't fe eling much better and 
the sun was up and out and we went to do our job: stacking rail road ties. You had to 
stack them into ricks. The bottom stacking was easy. But as we got higher we had to 
count. "One, two, three," I' d count and then we'd let her go.  
   The old guy had a bandanna tied around his head and the booz e poured out of his 
head and into the bandanna and the bandanna got soaked and dark . Every now and 
then a sliver from one of the railroad ties would knife through  the rotten glove and into 
my hand. Ordinarily the pain would have been unbearable and I w ould have quit but 
fatigue dulled the senses, really properly dulled them. I just got angry when it 
happened -- like I wanted to kill somebody, but when I looked a round there was only 
sand and cliffs and the overn dry bright yellow sun and no plac e to go.  
   Every now and then the railr oad company would rip up the old  ties and replace them 
with new ones. They left the old ties laying beside the tracks.  There wasn't much 
wrong with the old ties but the ra ilroad left them laying aroun d and Burkhart had guys 
like us stack them into ricks w hich he toted off in his truck a nd sold. I guess they had a 
lot of uses. On some of the ranches you'd see them stuck in the  ground and strung with 
barbed wire and used as fences. I suppose there were other uses  too. I wasn't much 
interested.  
   It was like any other impossible job, you got tired and you wanted to quit and then 
you got more tired and forgot to quit, and the minutes didn't m ove, you lived forever 
 26 inside of one minute, no hope, no out, trapped, too dumb to qui t and nowhere to go if 
you did quit.  
   "Kid, I lost my wife. She was such a wonderful woman. I keep  thinking of her. A 
good woman is the greatest thing on earth."  
   "Yeh."  
   "If we only had a little wine."  
   "We don't have any wine. We gotta wait until tonight."     "I wonder if anybody understands winos?"  
   "Just other winos."  
   "Do you think those slivers in our hands will creep into our  hearts?"  
   "No chance; we've never been lucky."     Two Indians came by and watched us. They watched us a long t ime. When the old 
guy and I sat down on a tie for a smoke one of the Indians walk ed over.  
   "You guys are doing it all wrong," he said.     "What do you mean?" I asked.     "You're working at the hei ght of the desert heat. What you d o is get up early in the 
morning and get your work done while it's cool."  
   "You're right," I said, "thanks."  
   The Indian was right. I deci ded we'd get up early. But we ne ver made it. The old guy 
was always too sick from the  night's drinking and I could never  get him up on time.  
   "Five minutes more," he'd say, "just five minutes more."     Finally, one day, the old man gave out. He couldn't lift ano ther tie. He kept 
apologizing about it.  
   "It's all right, Pops."  
   We got back to the tent and waited for evening. Pops layed t here talking. He kept 
talking about his ex-wife. I heard about his ex-wife all throug h the day and into the 
evening. Then Burkhart arrived.  
   "Jesus Christ, you guys didn't do much today. You figure to live off the fat of the 
land?"  
   "We're through, Burkhart," I said, "we're waiting to get pai d."  
   "I got a good mind not to pay you guys."  
   "If you got a good mind," I said, "you'll pay."  
   "Please, Mr. Burkhart," said the old guy, "please, please, w e worked so god damned 
hard, honest we did!"  
   "Burkhart knows what we've done," I said, "he's got a count of the ricks and so have 
I."  
   "72 ricks," said Burkhart.  
   "90 ricks," I said.  
   "76 ricks," said Burkhart.     "90 ricks," I said.  
   "80 ricks," said Burkhart.  
   "Sold," I said.  
   Burkhart got out his pencil and paper and charged us for win e and food, transport 
and lodging. Pops and I each came up with $18 for five day's wo rk. We took it. And 
got a free ride back to town. Free? Burkhart had fucked us from  every angle. But we 
couldn't holler law because when you didn't have any money the law stopped working.  
 27    "By god," said the old guy, "I'm really going to get drunk. I'm going to get good and 
drunk. Aren't you, kid?"  
   "I don't think so."  
   We went into the only bar i n town and sat down and Pops orde red a wine and I 
ordered a beer. The old guy started in on his ex-wife again and  I moved down to the 
other end of the bar. A Mexican girl came down the stairway and  sat down next to me. 
Why were they always coming down stairways like that, like in t he movies? I even felt 
like I was in a movie. I bought her a beer. She said, "My name is Sherri," and I said, 
"That's isn't Mexican," and she said, "It doesn't have to be," and I said, "You're right."  
   And it was five dollars upstairs and she washed me off first , and then later. She 
washed me off out of a little white bowl that had painted baby chickens chasing each 
other around the bowl. She made the same money in ten minutes t hat I had made in a 
day with some hours thrown in. Monetarily speaking, it seemed s ure as shit you were 
better off having a pussy than a cock.  
   When I came down the stairay the old guy already had his hea d down on the bar; it 
had gotten to him. We hadn't eaten that day and he had no resis tance. There was a 
dollar and some change by his head. For a moment I thought of t aking him with me 
but I couldn't take care of myself. I walked outside. It was co ol and I walked north.  
   I felt bad about leaving Pops there for the small town vultu res. Then I wondered if 
the old guy's wife ever thought about him. I decided that she d idn't, or if she did, it 
was hardly in the same way he  thought about her. The whole eart h crawled with sad 
hurt people like him. I needed a place to sleep. The bed I had been in with the 
Mexican girl had been the first I  had been in for three weeks.  
   Some nights earlier I had found that when it got cold the sl ivers in my hand began to 
throb. I could feel where each one was. It began to get cold. I  can't say that I hated the 
world of men and women, but I felt a certain disgust that separ ated me from the 
craftsmen and tradesmen and liars and lovers, and now decades l ater I feel that same 
disgust. Of course, this is only one man's story or one man's v iew of reality. If you'll 
keep reading maybe the next story will be happier. I hope so.  
 28 MAJA THURUP 
 
   It had gotten extensive press coverage and T.V. coverage and  the lady was to write a 
book about it. The lady's name was Hester Adams, twice divorced , two children. She 
was 35 and one guessed that it was her last fling. The wrinkles  were appearing, the 
breasts had been sagging for some time, the ankles and calves w ere thickening, there 
were signs of a belly. America ha d been taught that beauty only  resided in youth, 
especially in the female. But Hester Adams had the dark beauty of frustration and 
upcoming loss; it crawled all over her, the upcoming loss, and it gave her a sexual 
something, like a desperate and fading woman sitting in a bar f ull of men. Hester had 
looked around, seen few signs of help from the American male, a nd had gotten onto a 
plane for South America. She had entered the jungle with her ca mera, her portable 
typewriter, her thickening ankles and her white skin and had go tten herself a cannibal, 
a black cannibal: Maja Thurup. Maja Thurup had a good look to h is face. His face 
appeared to be written over with one thousand hangovers and one  thousand tragedies. 
And it was true -- he had had one thousand hangovers, but the t ragedies all came from 
the same root: Maja Thurup was overhung, vastly overhung. No gi rl in the village 
would accept him. He had torn tw o girls to death with his instr ument. One had been 
entered from the front, the other from the rear. No matter.  
   Maja was a lonely man and he drank and brooded over his lone liness until Hester 
Adams had come with guide and white skin and camera. After form al introductions 
and a few drinks by the fire, Hes ter had entered Maja's hut and  taken all Maja Thurup 
could muster and had asked for more. It was a miracle for both of them and they were 
married in a three-day tribal ceremony, during which captured e nemy tribesmen were 
roasted and consumed amid dancing, incantation, and drunkenness . It was after the 
ceremony, after the hangovers had cleared away that trouble beg an. The medicine 
man, having noted that Hester did not  partake of the flesh of t he roasted enemy 
tribesmen (garnished with pineapple, olives, and nuts) announce d to one and all that 
this was not a white goddess, but one of the daughters of the e vil god Ritikan. 
(Centuries ago Ritikan had been expelled from the tribal heaven  for his refusal to eat 
anything but vegetables, fruits, and nuts.) This announcement c aused dissension in the 
tribe and two friends of Maja Thurup were promptly murdered for  suggesting that 
Hester's handling of Maja's overhang was a miracle in itself an d the fact that she didn't 
ingest other forms of human meat could be forgiven -- temporari ly, at least.  
   Hester and Maja fled to America, to North Hollywood to be pr ecise, where Hester 
began procedings to have Maja Thurup become an American citizen . A former 
schoolteacher, Hester began instructing Maja in the use of clot hing, the English 
language, California beer and wines, television, and foods purc hased at the nearby 
Safeway market. Maja not only looked at television, he appeared  on it along with 
Hester and they declared their  love publicly. Then they went ba ck to their North 
Hollywood apartment and made love. Afterwards Maja sat in the m iddle of the rug 
with his English grammar books, drinking beer and wine, and sin ging native chants 
and playing the bongo. Hester worked on her book about Maja and  Hester. A major 
publisher was waiting. All Hester had to do was get it down.  
   One morning I was in bed about  8:00 a.m. The day before I ha d lost $40 at Santa 
Anita, my savings account at California Federal was getting dan gerously low, and I 
 29 hadn't written a decent story in a month. The phone rang. I wok e up, gagged, coughed, 
picked it up.  
   "Chinaski?"     "Yeah?"  
   "This is Dan Hudson."  
   Dan ran the magazine Flare  out of Chicago. He paid well. He was the editor and 
publisher.  
   "Hello, Dan, mother."  
   "Look, I've got just the thing for you."  
   "Sure, Dan. What is it?"  
   "I want you to interview this b itch who married the cannibal . Make the sex BIG. 
Mix love with horror, you know?"  
   "I know. I've been doing it all my life."  
   "There's $500 in it for you if you beat the March 27 deadlin e."  
   "Dan, for $500,1 can make Burt Reynolds into a lesbian."     Dan gave me the address and phone number. I got up, threw wa ter on my face, had 
two Alka-Seltzers, opened a bottle of beer and phoned Hester Ad ams. I told her that I 
wanted to publicize her relationship with Maja Thurup as one of  the great love stories 
of the 20th century. For the readers of Flare  magazine. I assured her that it would help 
Maja obtain his American citizensh ip. She agreed to an intervie w at 1:00 p.m.  
   It was a walk-up apartment on t he third floor. She opened th e door. Maja was sitting 
on the floor with his bongo drinking a  fifth of medium priced p ort from the bottle. He 
was barefooted, dressed in tight jeans, and in a white t-shirt with black zebra-stripes. 
Hester was dressed in an iden tical outfit. She brought me a bot tle of beer, I picked up a 
cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and began the inter view.  
   "You first met Maja when?"     Hester gave me a date. She also gave me the exact time and p lace.  
   "When did you first begin to have l ove feelings for Maja? Wh at exactly were the 
circumstances which tripped them off?"  
   "Well," said Hester, "it was . . ."     "She love me when I give her the thing," said Maja from the rug.  
   "He has learned English quite quickly, hasn't he?"  
   "Yes, he's brilliant."     Maja picked up his bottle and drained off a good slug.  
   "I put this thing in her, she say, 'Oh my god oh my god oh m y god!' Ha, ha, ha, ha!"  
   "Maja is marvelously built," she said.     "She eat too," said Maja, "she eat good. Deep throat, ha, ha , ha!"  
   "I loved Maja from the beginning," said Hester, "it was his eyes, his face ... so tragic. 
And the way he walked. He walks, well, he walks something like a tiger."  
   "Fuck," said Maja, "we fuck w e fucky fuck fuck fuck. I am ge tting tired."  
   Maja took another drink. He looked at me.     "You fuck her. I am tired. She big hungry tunnel."     "Maja has a genuine sense of humor," said Hester, "that's an other thing that has 
endeared him to me."  
   "Only thing dear you to me," said Maja, "is my telephone pol e piss- shooter."  
 30    "Maja has been drinking since this morning," said Hester, "y ou'll have to excuse 
him."  
   "Perhaps I'd better come back when he's feeling better."     "I think you should."  
   Hester gave me an appointme nt at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon the next day.  
   It was just as well. I needed photographs. I knew a down-and -out photographer, one 
Sam Jacoby who was good and would do the work cheap. I took him  back there with 
me. It was a sunny afternoon with only a thin layer of smog. We  walked up and I rang. 
There was no answer. I rang a gain. Maja answered the door.  
   "Hester not in," he said, "she gone to grocery store."  
   "We had an appointment for 2:00 o'clock. I'd like to come in  and wait."  
   We walked in and sat down.     "I play drums for you," said Maja.     He played the drums and sang some jungle chants. He was quit e good. He was 
working on another bottle of port wine. He was still in his zeb ra- striped t-shirt and 
jeans.  
   "Fuck fuck fuck," he said, "that's all she want. She make me  mad."  
   "You miss the jungle, Maja?"     "You just ain't just shittin' upstream, daddy."  
   "But she loves you, Maja."  
   "Ha, ha, ha!"     Maja played us another drum solo. Even drunk he was good.     When  Maja finished Sam said to me, "You think she might have a beer  in the 
refrigerator?"  
   "She might."     "My nerves are bad. I need a beer."  
   "Go ahead. Get two. I'll buy her some more. I should have br ought some."  
   Sam got up and walked into the kitchen. I heard the refriger ator door open.  
   "I'm writing an article about you and Hester," I said to Maj a.  
   "Big-hole woman. Never fill. Like volcano."  
   I heard Sam vomiting in the kitchen. He was a heavy drinker.  I knew he was 
hungover. But he was still one of the best photographers around . Then it was quiet. 
Sam came walking out. He sat down. He didn't have a beer with h im.  
   "I play drums again," said Maj a. He played the drums again. He was still good. 
Though not as good as the preceding time. The wine was getting to him.  
   "Let's get out of here," Sam said to me.  
   "I have to wait for Hester," I said.  
   "Man, let's go," said Sam.     "You guys want some wine?" asked Maja.     I got up and walked into the kitchen for a beer. Sam followe d me. I moved toward 
the refrigerator.  
   "Please  don't open that door!" he said.  
   Sam walked over to the sink and vomited again. I looked at t he refrigerator door. I 
didn't open it. When Sam finished, I said, "O.k., let's go."  
   We walked into the front room where Maja still sat by his bo ngo.  
 31    "I play drum once more," he said.  
   "No, thanks, Maja."  
   We walked out and down the stairway and out to the street. W e got into my car. I 
drove off. I didn't know what to say. Sam didn't say anything. We were in the business 
district. I drove into a gas st ation and told the attendant to fill it up with regular. Sam 
got out of the car and walked t o the telephone booth to call th e police. I saw Sam come 
out of the phone booth. I paid for t he gas. I hadn't gotten my interview. I was out $500. 
I waited as Sam walked toward the car.  
 32 THE KILLERS 
 
   Harry had just gotten off the freight and was walking down A lameda toward Pedro's 
for a nickel cup of coffee. It was early morning but he remembe red they used to open 
at 5 a.m. You could sit in Pedro's for a couple of hours for a nickel. You could do 
some thinking. You could remember where you'd gone wrong, or wh ere you'd gone 
right.  
   They were open. The Mexican girl who gave him his coffee loo ked at him as if he 
were a human being. The poor knew life. A good girl. Well, a go od enough girl. They 
all meant trouble. Everything meant trouble. He remembered a st atement he'd heard 
somewhere: the Definition of Life is Trouble.  
   Harry sat down at one of the old tables. The coffee was good . Thirty- eight years old 
and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered whe re he had gone 
wrong -- or right. He'd simply gotten tired -- of the insurance  game, of the small 
offices and high glass partitions, the clients; he'd simply got ten tired of cheating on his 
wife, of squeezing secretaries in the elevator and in the halls ;  
   he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's partie s and birthdays, and 
payments on new cars and furniture payments -- light, gas, wate r -- the whole bleeding 
complex of necessities.  
   He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soo n enough and the drinking 
came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had nothing , and he found out 
that having nothing was difficult t oo. It was another type of b urden. If only there were 
some gentler road in between. It seemed a man only had two choi ces -- get in on the 
hustle or be a bum.  
   As Harry looked up a man sat down across from him, also with  a nickel cup of 
coffee. He appeared to be in his early forties. And was dressed  as poorly as Harry. The 
man rolled a cigarette, then looked at Harry as he lit it.  
   "How's it going?"     "That's some question," said Harry.  
   "Yeah, I guess it is."  
   They sat drinking their coffee.     "A man wonders how he gets down here."  
   "Yeah," said Harry.  
   "By the way, if it matters, my name's William."     "I'm called Harry."     "You can call me Bill."  
   "Thanks."  
   "You got the look on your face like you've reached the end o f something."  
   "I'm just tired of the bum, bone-tired."  
   "You want to get back into society, Harry?"  
   "No, not that. But I'd like to get out of this."     "There's suicide."  
   "I know."  
 33    "Listen," said Bill, "what we need is a little cash the easy  way so we can get a 
breather."  
   "Sure, but how?"     "Well, there's some risk involved."  
   "Like what?"  
   "I used to do some house burglaring. It's not bad. I could u se a good partner."  
   "O.k., I'm just about ready t o try anything. I'm sick of wat ery beans, week-old 
doughnuts, the mission, the God- lectures, the snoring..."  
   "Our problem is how to get where we can operate," said Bill.   
   "I got a couple of bucks."     "All right, meet me about midnight. Got a pencil?" "No." "Wa it. I'll borrow one."  
   Bill came back with a stub of pencil. He took a napkin and w rote on it.  
   "You take the Beverly Hills bus and ask the driver to let yo u off here. Then walk 
two blocks north. I'll be there waiting. You gonna make it?"     "I'll be there."  
   "You got a wife, kids?" asked B ill. "Used to have," Harry an swered.  
   It was cold that night. Ha rry got off the bus and walked the  two blocks north. It was 
dark, very dark. Bill was standing smoking a rolled cigarette. He wasn't standing in the 
open but was back against a large bush.  
   "Hello, Bill."     "Hello, Harry. You ready to start your new lucrative career?"  
   "I am."  
   "All right. I've been casing these places. I think I've got us a good one. Isolated. It 
stinks of money. You scared?"  
   "No. I'm not scared."  
   "Fine. Be cool and follow me."  
   Harry followed Bill along the sidewalk for a block and a hal f, then Bill cut between 
two shrubs and onto a large law n. They walked to .the back of t he house, a large two 
storey affair. Bill stopped at the rear window. He sliced the s creen with a knife, then 
stood still and listened. It was like a graveyard. Bill unhooke d the screen and lifted it 
off. He stood there working at the window. Bill worked at it fo r some time and Harry 
began to think: Jesus. I'm with an amateur. I'm with some kind of nut. Then the 
window opened and Bill climbed in. Harry could see his ass wigg ling in. This is 
ridiculous, he thought. Do men do this?  
   "Come on," Bill said softly from inside.     Harry climbed in. It did stink of money and furniture polish .  
   "Jesus. Bill. I'm scared now. This doesn't make any sense."  
   "Don't talk so loud. You want to get away from those watery beans, don't you?"  
   "Yes."  
   "Well, then be a man."  
   Harry stood while Bill slowly opened drawers and put things in his pockets. They 
appeared to be in a dining room. Bill was stuffing spoons and k nives and forks into his 
pockets.  
   How can we get anything for that? thought Harry.     Bill kept putting the silverware into his coat pockets. Then  he dropped a knife. The 
floor was hard, without a rug, a nd the sound was definite and l oud.  
 34    "Who's there?"  
   Bill and Harry didn't answer.     "I said, who's there?"  
   "What is it, Seymour?" said a girl's voice.  
   "I thought I heard something. Something woke me up."     "Oh go to sleep."  
   "No. I heard something."  
   Harry heard the sound of a bed and then the sound of a man w alking. The man came 
through the door and was in the dini ng room with them. He was i n his pajamas, a 
young man of about 26 or 27 with a goatee and long hair.  
   "All right, you pricks, what are you doing in my house?"     Bill turned toward Harry. "Get into that bedroom. There migh t be a phone there. See 
that she doesn't use it. I'll take care of this one."  
   Harry walked toward the bedr oom, found the entrance, walked in, saw a young 
blonde about 23, long hair, in a fancy nightgown, her breasts l oose. There was a 
telephone by the night stand and she wasn't using it. She flung  the back of her hand to 
her mouth. She was sitting up in bed.  
   "Don't scream," said Harry, "or I'll kill you."  
   He stood there looking down at he r, thinking of his own wife , but never a wife like 
that. Harry began to sweat, he felt dizzy and they stared at ea ch other.  
   Harry sat down on the bed.  
   "Leave my wife alone or I'll kill you!" said the young man. Bill had just walked him 
in. He had an arm lock on him a nd his knife was poking into the  middle of the young 
man's back.  
   "Nobody's going to hurt your wife, man. Just tell us where y our stinking money is 
and we'll leave."  
   "I told you all I've got is what's in my wallet."  
   Bill tightened the arm lock and drove the knife in a bit. Th e young man winced.  
   "The jewelry," said Bill, "take me to the jewelry."  
   "It's upstairs ..."  
   "All right. Take me there!"  
   Harry watched Bill walk him out. Harry kept staring at the g irl and she stared back. 
Blue eyes, and the irises were large with fear.  
   "Don't scream," he told her, "or I'll kill you, so help me I 'll kill you!"  
   Her lips began to tremble. They were the palest pink and the n his mouth was upon 
hers. He was bewhiskered and foul, rancid, and she was white, s oft white, delicate, 
trembling. He held her head in his hands. He pulled his head aw ay and looked into her 
eyes. "You whore," he said, "you god damned whore!" He kissed h er again, harder. 
They fell back on the bed together. He was kicking his shoes of f, holding her down. 
Then he was working his pants, getting them off, and all the ti me holding and kissing 
her. "You whore, you god damned whore . . ."  
   "Oh No! Jesus Christ, No! Not my wife, you bastards!"   
   Harry had not heard them enter. The young man let out a scre am. Then Harry heard 
a gurgle. He pulled out and looked around. The young man was on  the floor with his 
throat cut; the blood spurted rhythmically out on the floor.  
   "You've killed him!" said Harry.  
 35    "He was screaming."  
   "You didn't have to kill him."     "You didn't have to rape his wife."  
   "I haven't raped her and you've killed him."  
   Then she began to scream. Harry put his hand over her mouth.   
   "What are we going to do?" he asked.  
   "We're going to kill her too. She's a witness."  
   "I can't kill her," said Harry.     "I'll kill her," said Bill.  
   "But we shouldn't waste her."  
   "Go ahead then, get her."     "Stick something in her mouth."     "I'll take care of it," said Bill. He got a scarf out of the  drawer, stuck it in her mouth. 
Then he ripped the pillow slip into shreds and bound the scarf in.  
   "Go ahead," said Bill.     The girl didn't resist. She seemed to be in a state of shock .  
   When Harry got off. Bill got on. Harry watched. This was it.  This was the way it 
worked all over the world. When a conquering army came in, they  took the women. 
They were the conquering army.  
   Bill climbed off. "Shit, that sure was good."  
   "Listen, Bill, let's not kill her."     "She'll tell. She's a witness."  
   "If we spare her life, she won' t tell. It'll be worth it to her."  
   "She'll tell. I know human nature. She'll tell later."     "Why shouldn't she tell on people who do what we do?"  
   "That's what I mean," said Bill, "why let her?"  
   "Let's ask her. Let's talk to her. Let's ask her what she th inks."  
   "I know  what she thinks. I'm going to kill her."  
   "Please don't, Bill. Let's show some decency."  
   "Show some decency? Now? It's too late. If you'd only been m an enough to keep 
your stupid pecker out of there ..."  
   "Don't kill her. Bill, I can't. .. stand it.. ."  
   "Turn your back."  
   "Bill, please . . ."     "I said, turn your god damned back!"     Harry turned away. There didn't seem to be a sound. Minutes passed.  
   "Bill, did you do it?"  
   "I did it. Turn around and look."     "I don't want to. Let's go. Let's get out of here."     They went out the same window  they had entered. The night wa s colder than ever. 
They went down the dark side  of the house and out through the h edge.  
   "Bill?"     "Yeah?"  
   "I feel o.k. now, like it never happened."  
   "It happened."  
 36    They walked back toward the bus  stop. The night stops were f ar between, they'd 
probably have to wait an hour. They stood at the bus stop and c hecked each other for 
blood and, strangely, they didn't find any. So they rolled and lit two cigarettes.  
   Then Bill suddenly spit his out.     "God damn it. Oh, god damn it all!"  
   "What's the matter, Bill?"  
   "We forgot to get his wallet!"     "Oh fuck," said Harry.  
 37 A MAN 
 
   George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His 
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he  needed a shave, and 
ash from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Som e of the ash was still 
burning. Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hi t his skin, then he 
cursed, brushing it away. There was a knock on the trailer door . He got slowly to his 
feet and answered the door. It was Constance. She had a fifth o f unopened whiskey in 
a bag.  
   "George, I left that son of a bitch, I couldn't stand that s on of a bitch anymore."  
   "Sit down."  
   George opened the fifth, got two glasses, filled each a thir d with whiskey, two thirds 
with water. He sat down on the bed with Constance. She took a c igarette out of her 
purse and lit it. She was drunk and her hands trembled.  
   "I took his damn money too. I took his damn money and split while he was at work. 
You don't know how I've suffered with that son of a bitch." "  
   Lemme have a smoke," said George. She handed it to him and a s she leaned near, 
George put his arm around her, pulled her over and kissed her.  
   "You son of a bitch," she said, "I missed you."     "I miss those good legs of yours , Connie. I've really misse d those good legs."  
   "You still like 'em?"  
   "I get hot just looking."  
   "I could never make it with a college guy," said Connie. "Th ey're too soft, they're 
milktoast. And he kept his house clean. George , it was like ha ving a maid. He did it 
all. The place was spotless. You could eat beef stew right off the crapper. He was 
antisceptic, that's what he was."  
   "Drink up, you'll feel better."  
   "And he couldn't make love."     "You mean he couldn't get it up?"     "Oh he got it up, he got it up all the time. But he didn't k now how to make a woman 
happy, you know. He didn't know what to do. All that money, all  that education, he 
was useless."  
   "I wish I had a college education."     "You don't need one. You have everything you need, George."  
   "I'm just a flunkey. All the shit jobs."     "I said you have everything you need, George. You know how t o make a woman 
happy."  
   "Yeh?"  
   "Yes. And you know what else? His mother came around! His mo ther! Two or three 
times a week. And she'd sit there looking at me, pretending to like me but all the time 
she was treating me like I was a whore. Like I was a big bad wh ore stealing her son 
away from her! Her precious Wallace! Christ! What a mess!" "He claimed he loved 
me. And I'd say, 'Look at my pussy, Walter!' And he wouldn't lo ok at my pussy. He 
 38 said, 'I don't want to look at that thing.' That thing! That's what he called it! You're not 
afraid of my pussy, are you, George?"  
   "It's never bit me yet." "But you've bit it, you've nibbled it, haven't you George?"  
   "I suppose I have."  
   "And you've licked it , sucked it?"  
   "I suppose so."     "You know damn well, George, what you've done."  
   "How much money did you get?"  
   "Six hundred dollars."     "I don't like people who rob other people, Connie."     "That's why you're a fucking dishwasher. You're honest. But he's such an ass, 
George. And he can afford the money, and I've earned it... him and his mother and his 
love, his mother-love, his clean l;ittle wash bowls and toilets  and disposal bags and 
breath chasers and after shave lotions and his little hard-ons and his precious love-
making. All for himself, you understand, all for himself! You k now what a woman 
wants, George."  
   "Thanks for the whiskey, Connie. Lemme have another cigarett e."  
   George filled them up again. "I missed your legs, Connie. I' ve really missed those 
legs. I like the way you wear those high heels. They drive me c razy. These modern 
women don't know what they're missing. The high heel shapes the  calf, the thigh, the 
ass; it puts rythm into the walk. It really turns me on!"  
   "You talk like a poet, George. Sometimes you talk like that.  You are one hell of a 
dishwasher."  
   "You know what I'd really like to do?"  
   "What?"  
   "I'd like to whip you with my belt on the legs, the ass, the  thighs. I'd like to make 
you quiver and cry and then when you're quivering and crying I' d slam it into you pure 
love."  
   "I don't want that, George. You've never talked like that to  me before. You've always 
done right with me."  
   "Pull your dress up higher."     "What?"  
   "Pull your dress up higher, I want to see more of your legs. "  
   "You like my legs, don't you, George?"     "Let the light shine on them!"     Constance hiked her dress.  
   "God christ shit," said George.  
   "You like my legs?"  
   "I love your legs!" Then george reached across the bed and s lapped Constance hard 
across the face. Her cigarette flipped out of her mouth.  
   "what'd you do that for?"  
   "You fucked Walter! You fucked Walter!"     "So what the hell?"  
   "So pull your dress up higher!"  
   "No!"     "Do what I say!" George slapped again, harder. Constance hik ed her skirt.  
 39    "Just up to the panties!" shouted George. "I don't quite wan t to see the panties!"  
   "Christ, george, what's gone wrong with you?"     "You fucked Walter!"  
   "George, I swear, you've gone crazy. I want to leave. Let me  out of here, George!"  
   "Don't move or I'll kill you!"     "You'd kill me?"     "I swear it!" George got up and poured himself a shot of str aight whiskey, drank it, 
and sat down next to Constance. He took the cigarette and held it against her wrist. 
She screamed. HE held it there, firmly, then pulled it away.  
   "I'm a man , baby, understand that?"     "I know you're a man , George."  
   "Here, look at my muscles!" george sat up and flexed both of  his arms.  
   "Beautiful, eh ,baby? Look at that muscle! Feel it! Feel it! "  
   Constance felt one of the arms, then the other.  
   "Yes, you have a beautiful body, George."  
   "I'm a man. I'm a dishwasher but I'm a man, a real man."     "I know it, George." "I'm not the milkshit you left."  
   "I know it."  
   "And I can sing, too. You ought to hear my voice."  
   Constance sat there. George began to sing. He sang "Old man River." Then he sang 
"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." He sang "The St. Louis Bl ues." He sasng "God 
Bless America," stopping several times and laughing. Then he sa t down next to 
Constance. He said, "Connie, you have beautiful legs." He asked  for another cigarette. 
He smoked it, drank two more  drinks, then put his head down on Connie's legs, 
against the stockings, in her lap, and he said, "Connie, I gues s I'm no good, I guess I'm 
crazy, I'm sorry I hit you, I'm sorry I burned you with that ci garette."  
   Constance sat there. She ran her fingers through George's ha ir, stroking him, 
soothing him. Soon he was asleep. She waited a while longer. Th en she lifted his head 
and placed it on the pillow, lifted his legs and straightened t hem out on the bed. She 
stood up, walked to the fifth, poure d a jolt of good whiskey in  to her glass, added a 
touch of water and drank it sow n. She walked to the trailer doo r, pulled it open, 
stepped out, closed it. She walked through the backyard, opened  the fence gate, 
walked up the alley under the one o'clock moon. The sky was cle ar of clouds. The 
same skyful of clouds was up there. She got out on the boulevar d and walked east and 
reached the entrance of The Blue Mirror. She walked in, and the re was Walter sitting 
alone and drunk at the end of the bar. She walked up and sat do wn next to him. 
"Missed me, baby?" she asked. Walter looked up. He recognized h er. He didn't 
answer. He looked at the bartender and the bartender walked tow ard them They all 
knew eachother.  
 40 CLASS 
 
   I am not sure where the place was. Somewhere north-east of C alifornia. Hemingway 
had just finished a novel, come in from Europe or somewhere, an d he was in the ring 
fighting somebody. There were newspapermen, critics, writers --  that tribe -- and also 
some young ladies sitting in the ringside seats. I sat down in the last row. Most of the 
people weren't watching Hem. They were talking to each other an d laughing.  
   The sun was up. It was some time in the early afternoon. I w as watching Ernie. He 
had his man, was playing with him. He jabbed and crossed at wil l. Then he put the 
other fellow down. The people looked then. Hem's opponent was u p at 8. Hem moved 
towards him, then stopped. Ernie pulled out his mouthpiece, lau ghed, waved his 
opponent off. It was too easy a kill. Ernie walked to his corne r. He put his head back 
and somebody squeezed some water in his mouth.  
   I got up from my seat and walked slowly down the aisle betwe en the seats. I reached 
up and rapped Hemingway on the side.  
   "Mr. Hemingway?"  
   "Yes, what is it?"  
   "I'd like to put on the gloves with you."     "Do you have any boxing experience?"     "No."  
   "Go get some."  
   "I'm here to kick your ass."  
   Ernie laughed. He said to the guy in the comer, "Get the kid  into some trunks and 
gloves."  
   The guy jumped out of the ring a nd I followed him back up th e aisle to the locker 
room.  
   "You crazy, kid?" he asked me.     "I don't know. I don't think so."  
   "Here. Try on these trunks."  
   "O.k."     "Oh, oh ... they're too large."  
   "Fuck it. They're all right."  
   "O.k., let me tape your hands."     "No tape."     "No tape?"  
   "No tape."  
   "How about a mouthpiece?"     "No mouthpiece."  
   "You gonna fight in them shoes?"  
   "I'm gonna fight in them shoes."  
   I lit a cigar and followed him out. I walked down the aisle smoking a cigar. 
Hemingway climbed back into the ring and they put on his gloves . There was nobody 
 41 in my corner. Finally somebody came over and put some gloves on  me. We were 
called into the center of the ring for instructions.  
   "Now when you clinch," said the referee, "I'll. ..     "I don't clinch," I told the referee.  
   Other instructions followed.  
   "O.k., go back to your corners. And at the bell, come out fi ghting. May the better 
man win. And," he said to me, "you better take that cigar out o f your mouth."  
   When the bell rang I came out with the cigar still in my mou th. Sucking in a 
mouthful of smoke, I blew it into Ernest Hemingway's face. The crowd laughed.  
   Hem moved in, jabbed and hooked, and missed both punches. I was fast on my feet. 
I danced a little jig, moved in, tap tap tap tap tap, five swif t left jabs to Papa's nose. I 
glanced down at a girl in the f ront row, a very pretty thing, a nd just then Hem landed a 
right, smashing that cigar in my mouth. I felt it burn my mouth  and cheek, and I 
brushed the hot ash off. I sp it out the cigar stub and hooked o ne to Ernie's belly. He 
uppercut with a right and caught m e on the ear with a left. He ducked under my right 
and caught me with a volley up against the ropes. Just at the b ell he dropped me with a 
solid right to the chin. I got  up and walked back to my corner.   
   A guy came over with a bucket.     "Mr. Hemingway wants to know if you'd care for another round ?" the guy asked me.  
   "You tell Mr. Hemingway tha t he was lucky. Smoke got in my e yes. One more 
round is all I need to do the job."  
   The guy with the bucket went over and I could see Hemingway laughing.  
   The bell rang and I came right out. I began landing, not too  hard but with good 
combinations. Ernie retreated, missing his punches. For the fir st time I saw doubt in 
his eyes.  
   Who is this kid?, he was thinking. I shortened my punches, h it him harder. I landed 
with every blow. Head and body. A mixed variety. I boxed like S ugar Ray and hit like 
Dempsey.  
   I had Hemingway up against the ropes. He couldn't fall. Each  time he started to fall 
forward I straightened him with another punch. It was murder. Death in the Afternoon.   
   I stepped back and Mr. Ernest Hemingway fell forward, out co ld.  
   I unlaced my gloves with my teeth, pulled them off, and leap ed from the ring. I 
walked to my dressing room, I mean Hemingway's dressing room, a nd took a shower. 
I drank a bottle of beer, lit a cigar, and sat on the edge of t he rubbing table. They 
carried Ernie in and put him on another table. He was still out . I sat there naked, 
watching them worry over Ernie. There were women in the room bu t I didn't pay any 
attention. Then a guy came over.  
   "Who are you?" he asked. "What's your name?"  
   "Henry Chinaski."  
   "Haven't heard of you," he said.     "You will," I said.     All the people came over. Ernie was left alone. Poor Ernie. Everybody crowded 
around me. The women too. I was pretty starved-down, except for  one place. A real 
class broad was really looking me up and down. She looked like a society broad, rich, 
educated, and everything -- nice body, nice face, nice clothes,  all that.  
   "What do you do?" somebody asked me.     "Fuck and drink."  
 42    "No, no, I mean what's your occupation?"  
   "Dishwasher."     "Dishwasher?"  
   "Yeah."  
   "Do you have a hobby?"     "Well, I don't know if you could call it a hobby. I write."  
   "You write?"  
   "Yeh."     "What?"  
   "Short stories. They're pretty good."  
   "Have you been published?"     "No."  
   "Why?"  
   "I haven't submitted."     "Where are your stories?"  
   "Over there," I pointed to a torn paper suitcase.  
   "Listen, I'm a critic for The New York Times.  Do you mind if I take your stories 
home and read them? I'll return them."  
   "It's o.k. with me, punk, only I don't know where I'll be."  
   The class society broad stepped forward. "He'll be with me."   
   Then she said, "Come on, Henry, get into your togs. It's a l ong drive in and we have 
things to -- talk about."  
   I got dressed and then Ernie regained consciousness.     "What the hell happened?" he asked.  
   "You met a pretty good man, Mr. Hemingway," somebody told hi m.  
   I finished dressing and went over to his table.  
   "You're a good man. Papa. Nobody wins them all." I shook his  hand. "Don't blow 
your brains out."  
   I left with the society br oad and we got into an open-topped  yellow car half a block 
long. She drove with the throttle  to the floor and took the cur ves sliding and 
screeching and without expression. That was class. If she loved  like she drove it was 
going to be a hell of a night.  
   The place was up in the hills, off by itself. A butler opene d the door.  
   "George," she told him, "ta ke the night oft. On second thoug ht, take the week off."  
   We walked in and there was a big guy sitting in a chair with  a drink in his hand.  
   Tommy," she said, "get lost."     We moved on through the house.     "Who was the big guy?" I asked her.  
   "Thomas Wolfe," she said, "a bore."  
   She stopped in the kitchen f or a fifth of bourbon and two gl asses. Then she said, 
"Come on."  
   I followed her into the bedroom.     The next morning the phone awakened us. It was for me. She h anded me the phone 
and I sat up in bed next to her.  
   "Mr. Chinaski?"  
 43    "Yeh?"  
   "I read your stories. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep  all night. You're surely the 
greatest genius of the decade!"  
   "Only of the decade?"  
   "Well, perhaps of the century."  
   That's better."  
   The editors of Harper's  and Atlantic  are here with me now. You may not believe this 
but each of them has accepted five stories for future publicati on."  
   "I believe it," I said.  
   The critic hung up. I lay down. The society broad and I made  love one more time.  
 44 STOP STARING AT MY TITS, MISTER 
 
   Big Bart was the meanest man in the West. He had the fastest  gun in the West and 
he'd fucked a larger variety of women in the West than anybody else. He wasn't fond 
of bathing or bullshit or coming out second best. He was also b oss of a wagon train 
going West, and there wasn't a man his age who had killed more Indians or fucked 
more women or killed more white men.  
   Big Bart was great and he knew it and everybody knew it. Eve n his farts were 
exceptional, louder than the dinner gong, and he was well-hung.  Big Bart's gig was to 
get the wagons through safely, score on the ladies, kill a few men and then head back 
for another wagon load. He had a black beard, a dirty bunghole,  and radiant yellow 
teeth.  
   He had just hammered hell out of Billy Joe's young wife whil e he made Billy Joe 
watch. He made Billy Joe's wife talk to Billy Joe while he was at it. He made her say, 
"Ah, Billy Joe, all this turkeyneck stuck into me from snatch t o throat, I can hardly 
breathe! Billy Joe, save me! No, Billy Joe, don't save me!"  
   After Big Bart climaxed he made Billy Joe wash his parts and  then they all went out 
to a big dinner of hamhocks and limas with biscuits.  
   The next day they came across this lone wagon running all by  itself through the 
prairie. Some skinny kid of about sixteen with a bad case of ac ne was at the reins. Big 
Bart rode over.  
   "Say, kid," he said.  
   The kid didn't answer.     "I'm talkin' to ya, kid . . ."  
   "Kiss my ass," said the kid.  
   "I'm Big Bart," said Big Bart.     "Kiss my ass, Big Bart," said the kid.  
   "What's your name, son?"  
   "They call me 'The Kid.' "  
   "Look, Kid, there's no way a man can make it through this he re Indian territory with 
a lone wagon."  
   "I intend to," said the Kid.  
   "O.k., it's your balls. Kid," said Big Bart, and he made to ride off when the flaps of 
the wagon opened and out came this little filly with 40- inch b reasts and a fine big ass 
and eyes like the sky after a good rain. She put her eyes upon Big Bart and his 
turkeyneck quivered against the saddle horn.  
   "For your own good. Kid, you're a comin' with us."  
   "Fuck on", old man," said The Kid, "I don't take no mother-f uckin' advice from an 
old man in dirty underwear."  
   "I've killed men for blinkin their eyes," said Big Bart.  
   The Kid just spit on the ground. Then reached up and scratch ed his crotch.  
   "Old man, you bore me. Now lose yourself from my sight or I' ll assist you in 
resembling a hunk of swiss cheese."  
 45    "Kid," said the girl, leani ng over him, one of her breasts f lopping out and giving the 
sunlight a hard-on, "Kid, I thi nk the man's right. We got no ch ance against those 
motherfucking Indians alone. Now don't be an asshole. Tell the man we'll join up."  
   "We'll join up," said The Kid.     "What's your girl's name?" asked Big Bart.  
   "Honeydew," said The Kid.  
   "And stop staring at my tits, mister," said Honeydew, "or I' ll belt the shit out of 
you."  
   Things went well for a while. There was a skirmish with the Indians at Blueball 
Canyon. 37 Indians killed, one captured. No American casualties . Big Bart bungholed 
the captured Indian and then hired him on as cook. There was an other skirmish at Clap 
Canyon, 37 Indians killed, one captured. No American casualties . Big Bart bungholed 
. . .  
   It was obvious that Big Bart had hotrocks for Honeydew. He c ouldn't keep his eyes 
off her. That ass, mostly it was that ass. He fell off his hors e watching one time and 
one of the two Indian cooks la ughed. That left only one Indian cook.  
   One day Big Bart sent The K id out with a hunting party to sc ore on some buffalo. 
Big Bart waited until they rode off and then he made for The Ki d's wagon. He leaped 
up onto the seat and pushed the flaps back and walked in. Honey dew was crouched in 
the center of the wagon masturbating.  
   "Jesus, baby," said Big Bart, "don't waste it!"  
   "Get the hell out of here," said Honeydew, withdrawing her f inger and pointing it at 
Big Bart, "get the hell out of  here and let me do my thing!"  
   "Your man ain't takin' care of you, Honeydew!"  
   "He's takin' care of me, asshole, it's just that I don't get  enough. It's just that after my 
period I get hot."  
   "Listen, baby . . ."  
   "Fuck off!"  
   "Listen, baby, lookee . . ."  
   And he pulled out the jackhammer. It was purple and flipped back and forth like the 
weight in a grandfather's clock. Driblets of spittle fell to th e floor.  
   Honeydew couldn't keep her eyes off that instrument. At last  she said, "You're not 
going to stick that god damned thing into me!"  
   "Say it like you mean it, Honydew."     "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO STICK THAT  GOD DAMNED THING INTO ME!"  
   "But why? Why? Look at it!"  
   "I am looking at it!"  
   "But why don't you want it?"     "Because I'm in love with The Kid."     "Love?" said Big Bart laughing. "Love? That's a fairytale fo r idiots! Look at this god 
damned scythe! That can beat love anytime!"  
   "I love The Kid, Big Bart."     "And there's my tongue," said B ig Bart, "the best tongue in the West!"  
   He stuck it out and made it do gymnastics.  
   "I love The Kid," said Honeydew.  
 46    "Well, fuck you," said Big Bart , and he ran forward and thre w himself upon 
Honeydew. It was dog's work getting that thing in and when he d id, Honeydew 
screamed. He gave it about seven slices and then he felt himsel f being roughly pulled 
off.  
   IT WAS THE KID. BACK FROM THE HUNTING PARTY.  
   "We got your buffalo, motherfuc ker. Now if you'll pull up yo ur pants and step 
outside we'll settle the rest."  
   "I've got the fastest gun in the West," said Big Bart.  
   "I'll blow a hole in you so big your asshole will look like a pore in your skin," said 
The Kid. "Come on, let's get it done. I'm hungry for dinner. Th is hunting buffalo 
works up the appetite . . ."  
   The men sat around the campfire watching. There was a defini te vibration in the air. 
The women stayed in the wagons, praying, masturbating, and drin king gin. Big Bart 
had 34 notches in his gun, and a bad memory. The Kid didn't hav e any notches in his 
gun. But he had confidence such as the others had seldom seen b efore. Big Bart 
seemed the more nervous of the  two. He took a sip of whiskey, d raining half the flask, 
then walked up to The Kid.  
   "Look, Kid . . ."  
   "Yeah, motherfucka . . .?"     "I mean, why you lost your cool?"     "I'm gonna blow your balls off, old man!"  
   "What for?"  
   "You were messin' with my woman, old man!"  
   "Listen Kid, don't you see? The female plays one man against  the other. We're just 
falling for her game."  
   "I don't want to hear your shit, dad! Now back off and draw!  You've had it!"  
   "Kid . . ."     "Back off and draw!"     The men at the campfire stiffened. A slight wind blew from t he West smelling of 
horseshit. Somebody coughed. The women crouched in the wagons, drinking gin, 
praying, and masturbating. Twilight was moving in.  
   Big Bart and The Kid were 30 paces apart.     "Draw, you chickenshit," said The Kid, "draw, you chickenshi t woman molester!"  
   Quietly through the flaps of a  wagon a woman appeared with a  rifle. It was 
Honeydew. She put the rifle t o her shoulder and squinted down t he barrel.  
   "Come on, you tinhorn rapist," said The Kid, "DRAW!"  
   Big Bart's hand flicked towar d his holster. A shot rang thro ugh the twilight. 
Honeydew lowered her smoking rifle and went back into the cover ed wagon. The Kid 
was dead on the ground, a hole in hi s forehead. Big Bart put hi s unused gun back in 
his holster and strode toward the wagon. The moon was up.  
 47 SOMETHING ABOUT A VIET CONG FLAG 
 
   The desert baked under the summer sun. Red jumped off the fr eight as it slowed just 
outside the railroad yard. He took a shit behind some tall rock s to the north, wiped his 
ass with some leaves. Then he walked fifty yards, sat behind an other rock out of the 
sun and rolled a cigarette. He saw the hippies walking toward h im. Two guys and a 
girl. They had jumped off the train in the yard and were walkin g back.  
   One of the guys carried a Viet Cong flag. The guys looked so ft and harmless. The 
girl had a nice wide ass -- it almost split her bluejeans. She was blond and had a bad 
case of acne. Red waited until they almost reached him.  
   "Heil Hitler!" he said.     The hippies laughed.  
   "Where you going?" Red asked.  
   "We're trying to get to Denver. I guess we'll make it."  
   "Well," said Red, "you're going to have to wait a while. I'm  going to have to use 
your girl."  
   "What do you mean?"  
   "You heard me."  
   Red grabbed the girl. With one  hand grabbing her hair and th e other her ass, he 
kissed her. The taller of the guys reached for Red's shoulder. "Now wait a minute . . ."  
   Red turned and put the guy on the  ground with a short left. A stomach punch. They 
guy stayed down, breathing heavily. Red looked at the guy with the Viet Cong flag. "If 
you don't want to get hurt, leave me alone."  
   "Come on," he said to the girl, " get over behind those rocks ."  
   "No, I won't do it," said the girl, "I won't do it."  
   Red pulled his switchblade and hit the button. The blade was  flat across her nose, 
pressed it down.  
   "How do you think you'd look without a nose?"  
   She didn't answer.     "I'll slice it off." He grinned.  
   "Listen," said the guy with the flag, "you can't get away wi th this."  
   "Come on, girly," said Red, pushing her toward the rocks.  
   Red and the girl disappeared behind the rocks. The guy with the flag helped his 
friend up. They stood there. They stood there some minutes.  
   "He's fucking Sally. What can we do? He's fucking her right now."  
   "What can we do? He's a madman."  
   "We should do something."     "Sally must think we're real shits."  
   "We are. There are two of us. We could have handled him."  
   "He has a knife."     "It doesn't matter. We could have taken him."  
   "I feel god damned miserable."  
   "How do you think Sally feels? He's fucking her."  
 48    They stood and waited. The tall one who had taken the punch was called Leo. The 
other was Dale. It was hot in the sun as they waited. "We've go t two cigarettes left," 
said Dale, "should we smoke?"  
   "How the hell can we smoke when that's going on behind the r ocks?"  
   "You're right. My god, what's taking so long."  
   "God, I don't know. You think he's killed her?"  
   "I'm getting worried."     "Maybe I'd better have a look."  
   "O.k. but be careful."  
   Leo walked toward the rocks. There was a small hill with som e brush. He crawled 
up the hill behind the brush a nd looked down. Red was fucking S ally. Leo watched. It 
seemed endless. Red went on and on. Leo crawled down the hill a nd walked over and 
stood next to Dale.  
   "I guess she's all right," he said.  
   They waited.  
   Finally Red and Sally came out from behind the rocks. They w alked toward them.  
   "Thank you brothers," said Red, "she was a very fine piece."   
   "May you rot in hell!" said Leo.  
   Red laughed. "Peace! Peace! ... He flashed the sign with his  fingers. "Well, I think 
I'll be going . . ."  
   Red rolled a quick cigarette, smiling as he wet it. Then he lit up, inhaled, and walked 
off toward the north, keeping in the shade.  
   "Let's hitchhike the rest of t he way," said Dale. "Freights aren't any good."  
   "The highway's to the west," said Leo, "let's go."  
   They began moving toward the west.     "Christ,' said Sally, "I can hardly walk! He's an animal!"  
   Leo and Dale didn't say anything.  
   "I hope I don't get pregnant," said Sally.     "Sally," said Leo, "I'm sorry . . ."  
   "Oh, shut up!"  
   They walked. It was getting a long toward evening and the des ert heat was dropping 
off.  
   "I hate men!" said Sally.  
   A jackrabbit leaped out from behind a bush and Leo and Dale jumped as it ran off.  
   "A rabbit," said Leo, "a rabbit."     "That rabbit scared you guys, didn't it?"     "Well, after what happened, we're jumpy."  
   "You're  jumpy? What about me? Listen let's sit down a minute. I'm tire d."  
   There was a patch of shade and Sally sat between them.     "You know, though ..." she said.  
   "What?"  
   "It wasn't so bad. On a strictly sexual basis, I mean. He re ally put it to me. On a 
strictly sexual basis it was quite something."  
   "What?" said Dale.  
 49    "I mean, morally, I hate him. The son of a bitch should be s hot. He's a dog. A pig. 
But on a strictly sexual basis it was something . . ."  
   They sat there a while not saying anything. Then they got ou t the two cigarettes and 
smoked them, passing them around.  
   "I wish we had some dope," said Leo.     "God, I knew it was coming, said Sally. "You guys almost don 't exist." "Maybe 
you'd feel better if we raped you?" asked Leo. "Don't be stupid ." "You think I can't 
rape you?" "I should have gone with him. You guys are nothing."  "So now you like 
him?" asked Dale. "Forget it!" said Sally. "Let's get down to t he highway and stick our 
thumbs out."  
   "I can slam it to you," said Leo, "I can make you cry."     "Can I watch?" asked Dale, laughing.  
   "There won't be anything to w atch," said Sally. "Come on. Le t's go."  
   They stood up and walked toward the highway. It was a ten mi nute walk. When they 
got there Sally stood in the hi ghway with her thumb out. Leo an d Dale stood back out 
of view. They had forgotten the V iet Cong flag. They had left i t back at the freight 
yard. It was in the dirt near the  railroad tracks. The war went  on. Seven red ants, the 
big kind, crawled across the flag.  
   YOU CAN'T WRITE A LOVE STORY  
   Margie was going to go out wit h this guy but on the way over  this guy met another 
guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat opened th e leather coat and 
showed the other guy his tits and the other guy went over to Ma rgie's and said he 
couldn't keep his date because this guy in the leather coat had  showed him his tits and 
he was going to fuck this guy. So Mar gie went to see Carl. Carl  was in, and she sat 
down and said to Carl, "This guy was going to take me to a cafe  with tables outside 
and we were going to drink wine a nd talk, just drink wine and t alk, that's all, nothing 
else, but on the way over this guy met another guy in a leather  coat and the guy in the 
leather coat showed the other guy his tits and now this guy is going to fuck the guy in 
the leather coat, so I don't get my table and my wine and my ta lk."  
   "I can't write," said Carl. "It's gone."  
   Then he got up and went to the bathroom, closed the door, an d took a shit. Carl took 
four or five shits a day. There was nothing else to do. He took  five or six baths a day. 
There was nothing else to do. He got drunk for the same reason.   
   Margie heard the toilet flush. Then Carl came out.     "A man simply can't write eight hours a day. He can't even w rite every day or every 
week. It's a wicked fix. There's nothing to do but wait."  
   Carl went to the refrigerator and came out with a six-pack o f Michelob. He opened a 
bottle.  
   "I'm the world's greatest writer," he said. "Do you know how  difficult that is?"  
   Margie didn't answer.     "I can feel pain crawling all over me. It's like a second sk in. I wish I could shed that 
skin like a snake."  
   "Well, why don't you get down on the rug and give it a try?"   
   "Listen," he asked, "where did I meet you?"  
   "Barney's Beanery."  
   "Well, that explains some of it. Have a beer."     Carl opened a bottle and passed it over.  
 50    "Yeah," said Margie, "I know. You need your solitude. You ne ed to be alone. Except 
when you want some, or except when we split, then you're on the  phone. You say you 
need me. You say you're dying of a hangover. You get weak fast. "  
   "I get weak fast."  
   "And you're so dull around me, you never turn on. You writers are so ... precious ...  
you can't stand people. Humanity stinks, right?"  
   "Right."  
   "But every time we split you start throwing giant four-day p arties. And suddenly you 
get witty,  you start to TALK! Suddenly you're full of life, talking, danc ing, singing. 
You dance on the coffeetable, you throw bottles through the win dow, you act parts 
from Shakespeare. Suddenly you're alive -- when I'm gone. Oh, I  hear about it!"  
   "I don't like parties. I especially dislike people at partie s."  
   "For a guy who doesn't like parties you certainly throw enou gh of them."  
   "Listen, Margie, you don't understand. I can't write anymore . I'm finished. 
Somewhere I made a wrong turn. S omewhere I died in the night."  
   "The only way you're going to die is from one of your giant hangovers."  
   "Jeffers said that even the strongest men get trapped."  
   "Who was Jeffers?"     "He was the guy who turned Big S ur into a tourist trap."  
   "What were you going to do tonight?"  
   "I was going to listen to the songs of Rachmaninoff."  
   "Who's that?"     "A dead Russian."  
   "Look at you. You just sit there."  
   "I'm waiting. Some guys wait for two years. Sometimes it nev er comes back."  
   "Suppose it never comes back?"  
   "I'll just put on my shoes and walk down to Main Street."  
   "Why don't you get a decent job?"     "There aren't any decent jobs. If a writer doesn't make it t hrough creation, he's dead."  
   "Oh, come on, Carl! There are billions of people in the worl d who don't make it 
through creation. Do you mean to tell me they're dead?"  
   "Yes."     "And you have soul? You are one of the few with a soul?"  
   "It would appear so."  
   "It would appear  so! You and your little typewriter! You and your tiny checks! My 
grandmother makes more money than you do!"  
   Carl opened another bottle of beer.  
   "Beer! Beer! You and your god damned beer! It's in your stor ies too. 'Marty lifted 
his beer. As he looked up, this  big blonde walked into the bar and sat down beside him 
. . .' You're right. You're finished. Your material is limited,  very limited. You can't 
write a love story, you can't write a decent love story."  
   "You're right, Margie."  
   "If a man can't write a love story, he's useless."     "How many have you written?"  
   "I don't claim to be a writer."  
 51    "But," said Carl, "you appear to pose as one hell of a liter ary critic."  
   Margie left soon after that. C arl sat and drank the remainin g beers. It was true, the 
writing had left him. It would make his few underground enemies  happy. They could 
step one notch up. Death pleased them, underground or overgroun d. He remembered 
Endicott, Endicott sitting there saying, "Well, Hemingway's gon e, DOS Passes is 
gone, Patchen is gone. Pound is gone, Berryman jumped off the b ridge . . . things are 
looking better and better and better."  
   The phone rang. Carl picked it up. "Mr. Gantling?"  
   "Yes?" he answered.  
   "We wondered if you'd like to read at Fairmount College?"     "Well, yes, what date?"  
   "The 30th of next month."  
   "I don't think I'm doing anything then."     "Our usual payment is one hundred dollars."  
   "I usually get a hundred and a half. Ginsberg gets a thousan d."  
   "But that's Ginsberg. We can only offer a hundred."     "All right."  
   "Fine, Mr. Gantling. We'll send you the details."  
   "How about travel? That's a hell of a drive."     "O.k., twenty-five dollars for travel."     "O.k."  
   "Would you like to talk to some of  the students in their cla sses?"  
   "No."     "There's a free lunch."  
   "I'll take that."  
   "Fine, Mr. Gantling, we'll  be looking forward to seeing you on campus."  
   "Goodbye."     Carl walked about the room. He looked at the typewriter. He put a sheet of paper in 
there, then watched a girl in an amazingly short mini skirt wal k past the window. Then 
he started to type:  
   "Margie was going to go out with this guy but on the way ove r this guy met another 
guy in a leather coat and the guy in the leather coat opened th e leather coat and 
showed the other guy his tits and the other guy went over to Ma rgie's and said he 
couldn't keep his date because this guy in the leather coat had  showed him his tits . . ."  
   Carl lifted his beer. It felt good to be writing again.  
 52 REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR? 
 
   We got to go to the exercise ya rd twice a day, in the middle  of the morning and in 
mid-afternoon. There wasn't much to do. The men were friends mo stly on the basis of 
what had gotten them into jail. Like my cell-mate Taylor had sa id, the child molestors 
and indecent exposure cases were at the bottom of the social or der while the big-time 
swindlers and the racket heads were at the top.  
   Taylor wouldn't speak to me in the exercise yard. He paced u p and down with a big-
time swindler. I sat alone. Some of the guys rolled a shirt int o a ball and played catch. 
They appeared to enjoy it. The facilities for the entertainment  of the inmates didn't 
amount to much.  
   I sat there. Soon I noticed a huddle of men. It was a crap g ame. I got up and went 
over. I had a little less than a dollar in change. I watched a few rolls. The man with the 
dice picked up three pots in a row . I sensed that his run was f inished and got in against 
him. He crapped out. I made a quarter.  
   Each time a man got hot I laid off until I figured his strin g was ended. Then I got in 
against him. I noticed that the other men bet every pot. I made  six bets and won five of 
them. Then we were marched back up to our cells. I was a dollar  ahead.  
   The next morning I got in ear lier. I made $2.50 in the morni ng and $1.75 in the 
afternoon. As the game ended this kid walked up to me. "You see m to be going all 
right, mister."  
   I gave the kid 15 cents. He walked off ahead. Another guy go t in step with me. "You 
give that son of a bitch anything?"  
   "Yeah. 15 cents."     "He cuts the pot each time. Don't give him nothing."  
   "I hadn't noticed."  
   "Yeah. He cuts the pot. He takes his cut each roll." "I'll w atch him tomorrow."  
   "Besides, he's a fucking indecent exposure case. He shows hi s pecker to little girls."  
   "Yeah," I said, "I hate those cocksuckers."  
   The food was very bad. After di nner one night I mentioned to  Taylor that I was 
winning at craps.  
   "You know," he said, "you can buy food here, good food."  
   "How?"  
   "The cook comes down after lights out. You get the warden's food, the best. Dessert, 
the works. The cook's good. The warden's got him here on accoun t of that."  
   "How much would a couple of dinners cost us?"     "Give him a dime. No more than 15 cents."  
   "Is that all?"  
   "If you give him more he'll think you're a fool."     "All right. 15 cents."     Taylor made the arrangements. The next night after lights ou t we waited and killed 
bedbugs, one by one.  
   "That cook's killed two men. He's a great big son of a bitch , and mean. He killed one 
guy, did ten years, got out of there  and was out two or three d ays and he killed another 
 53 guy. This is only a holding prison but the warden keeps him her e permanent because 
he's such a good cook."  
   We heard somebody walking up. It was the cook. I got up and he passed the food in. 
I walked to the table then wal ked back to the cell door. He was  a big son of a bitch, 
killer of two men. I gave him 15 cents.  
   "Thanks, buddy, you want me to come back tomorrow night?"  
   "Every night."  
   Taylor and I sat down to the food. Everything was on plates.  The coffee was good 
and hot, the meat -- the roast beef -- was tender. Mashed potat oes, sweet peas, biscuits, 
gravy, butter, and apple pie. I hadn't eaten that good in five years.  
   "That cook raped a sailor the other day. He got him so bad t he sailor couldn't walk. 
They had to hospitalize that sailor."  
   I took in a big mouthful of m ashed potatoes and gravy.  
   "You don't have to worry," said Taylor. "You're so damned ug ly, nobody would 
want to rape you."  
   "I was worrying more about getting myself a little."     "Well, I'll point out the punks  to you. Some of them are own ed and some of them 
aren't owned."  
   "This is good food."  
   "Sure as shit. Now there are two kinds of punks in here. The  kind that come in punks 
and the prison-made punks. There are never enough punks to go a round so the boys 
have to make a few extra to fulfill their needs."  
   "That's sensible."     "The prison-manufactured punks are usually a little punchy f rom the head-beatings 
they take. They resist at first."  
   "Yeah?"     "Yeah. Then they decide it's better to be a live punk than a  dead virgin."  
   We finished our dinner, w ent to our bunks, fought the bedbug s and attempted to 
sleep.  
   I continued to win at craps each day. I bet more heavily and  still won. Life in prison 
was getting better and better. One day I was told not to go to the exercise yard. Two 
agents from the F.B.I, came to visit me. They asked a few quest ions, then one of them 
said:  
   "We've investigated you. You don't have to go to court. You' ll be taken to the 
induction center. If the army accepts you, you'll go in. If the y reject you, you're a 
civilian again."  
   "I almost like it here in jail," I said.  
   "Yes, you're looking good."  
   "No tension," I said, "no rent, no utility bills, no argumen ts with girlfriends, no 
taxes, no license plates, no food bills, no hangovers . . ."  
   "Keep talking smart, we'll fix you good."  
   "Oh shit," I said, "I'm just joking. Pretend I'm Bob Hope."  
   "Bob Hope's a good American."     "I'd be too if I had his dough."  
   "Keep mouthing. We can make it rough on you."  
 54    I didn't answer. One guy had a briefcase. He got up first. T he other guy followed 
him out.  
   They gave us all a bag lunch and put us in a truck. There we re twenty or twenty-five 
of us. The guys had just had breakfast an hour and a half earli er but they were all into 
their bag lunches. Not bad: a bologna sandwich, a peanut butter  sandwich and a rotten 
banana. I passed my lunch down to t he guys. They were very quie t. None of them 
joked. They looked straight ahead. Most of them were black or b rown. And all of them 
were big.  
   I passed the physical, then I went in to see the psychiatris t.  
   "Henry Chinaski?"  
   "Yes."     "Sit down."  
   I sat down.  
   "Do you believe in the war?"     "No."  
   "Are you willing to go to war?"  
   "Yes."  
   He looked at me. I stared down at my feet. He seemed to be r eading a sheaf of 
papers in front of him. It took s everal minutes. Four, five, si x, seven minutes. Then he 
spoke.  
   "Listen, I am having a party next Wednesday night at my plac e. There are going to 
be doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, actors, all that sort. I  can see that you're an 
intelligent man. I want you to come to my party. Will you come? "  
   "No."  
   He started writing. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote. I wo ndered how he knew so 
much about me. I didn't know that much about myself.  
   I let him write on. I was indiffe rent. Now that I couldn't b e in the war I almost 
wanted the war. Yet, at the same time, I was glad to be out of it. The Doctor finished 
writing. I felt I had fooled the m. My objection to war was not that I had to kill 
somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I  objected to was to be 
denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink ch eap wine and go crazy in 
my own way and at my own leisure.  
   I didn't want to be awakene d by some man with a bugle. I did n't want to sleep in a 
barracks with a bunch of healthy sex-mad football-loving overfe d wise-cracking 
masturbating lovable frighten ed pink farting mother-struck mode st basketball-playing 
American boys that I would have t o be friendly with, that I wou ld have to get drunk 
with on leave, that I would have to lay on my back with and lis ten to dozens of 
unfunny, obvious, dirty jokes. I didn't want their itchy blanke ts or their itchy uniforms 
or their itchy humanity. I didn't want to shit in the same plac e or piss in the same place 
or share the same whore. I didn't want to see their toenails or  read their letters from 
home. I didn't want to watch t heir assholes bobbing in front of  me in close formation, I 
didn't want to make friends, I didn't want to make enemies, I j ust didn't want them or it 
or the thing. To kill or be killed hardly mattered.  
   After a two-hour wait on a har d bench in a cesspool-brown tu nnel with a cold wind 
blowing they let me go and I w alked out, north. I stopped for a  pack of cigarettes. I 
stopped in at the first bar, sat down, ordered a scotch and wat er, peeled the cellophane 
from the package, took out a s moke, lit up, got that drink in m y hand, drank down 
 55 half, dragged at the smoke, looked at my handsome face in the m irror. It seemed 
strange to be out. It seemed strange to be able to walk in any direction I pleased.  
   Just for fun I got up and walke d to the crapper. I pissed. I t was another horrible bar 
crapper; I almost vomited at the stench. I came out, put a coin  in the juke box, sat 
down and listened to the latest. The latest wasn't any better. They had the beat but not 
the soul. Mozart, Bach and the Bee still made them look bad. I was going to miss 
those crap games and the good food. I ordered another drink. I looked around the bar. 
There were five men in the bar and no women. I was back in the American streets.  
   PITTSBURGH PHIL & CO.     This guy Summerfield was on relief and hitting the wine bott le. He was rather a dull 
sort, I tried to avoid him, but he  was always hanging out the w indow half-drunk. He'd 
see me leaving my place and he always said the same thing, "Hey , Hank, how about 
taking me to the races?" and I always said, "One of these times , Joe, not today." Well, 
he kept at it, hanging out the window half-drunk, so one day I said, "All right, for 
Christ's sake, come on . . ." and away we went.  
   It was January at Santa Anita and if you know that track, it  can get real cold out 
there when you're losing. The wind blows in from the snow on th e mountains and your 
pockets are empty and you shiver and think of death and hard ti mes and no rent and all 
the rest. It's hardly a pleasant place to lose. At least at Hol lywood Park you can come 
back with a sunburn.  
   So we went. He talked all the way out. He'd never been to a racetrack. I had to tell 
him the difference between win, place and show betting. He didn 't even know what a 
starting gate was, or a Racing Form.  When we got out there he used my Form.  I had to 
show him how to read it. I pa id his way in and bought him a pro gram. All he had was 
two dollars. Enough for one bet.  
   We stood around before the first race looking at the women. Joe told me he hadn't 
had a woman in five years. He was a shabby-looking guy, a real loser. We passed the 
Form  back and forth and looked at the women and then Joe said, "How  come the 6 
horse is 14 to one? He looks best to me." I tried to explain to  Joe why the horse was 
reading 14 to one in relation to t he other horses but he wouldn 't listen. "He sure as hell 
looks best to me. I don't understand. I just gotta bet him." "I t's your two dollars, Joe," I 
said, "and I'm not lending you any money when you lose this one ."  
   The horse's name was Red Charley and he was a sad-looking be ast indeed. He came 
out for the post parade in four ba ndages. His price leaped to 1 8 to one when they got a 
look at him. I put ten win on the  logical horse. Bold Latrine, a slight class drop with 
good earnings and with a live jock and the 2nd leading trainer.  I thought that 7 to 2 
was a good price on that one.  
   It was a mile and one sixteenth. Red Charley was reading 20 to one when they came 
out of the gate and he came out first, you couldn't miss him in  all those bandages, and 
the boy opened up four lengths on the  first turn, he must have thought he was in a 
quarter horse race. The jock onl y had two wins out of 40 mounts  and you could see 
why. He had six lengths on the back stretch. The lather was runn ing down Red 
Charley's neck; it damn near looked like shaving cream.  
   At the top of the turn six le ngths had faded to three and th e whole pack was gaining 
on him. At the top of the stretc h Red Charley only had a length  and a half and my 
horse Bold Latrine was moving up outside. It looked like I was in. Half way down the 
stretch I was a neck off. Anothe r lunge and I was in. But they went all the way down 
to the wire that way. Red Charley still had the neck at the fin ish. He paid $42.80.  
   "I thought he looked best," said J oe and he went off to coll ect his money.  
 56    When he came back he asked for the Form  again. He looked them over. "How come 
Big H is 6 to one?" he asked me. "He looks best."  
   "He may look best to you" I said, "but off the knowledge of experienced 
horseplayers and handicappers, real pros, he rates about 6 to o ne."  
   "Don't get pissed. Hank. I  know I don't know anything about this game. I only mean 
that to me he looks like he should be the favorite. I gotta bet  him anyhow. I might as 
well go ten win."  
   "It's your money, Joe. You just lucked it in the first race,  the game isn't that easy."  
   Well Big H won and paid $14.40. Joe started to strut around.  We read the Form  at 
the bar and he bought us each a drink and tipped the barkeep a buck. As we left the bar 
he winked at the bar-keep and said, "Bamey's Mole is all alone in this one." Barney's 
Mole was the 6/5 favorite so I didn't think that was such a fan cy announcement. By 
the time the race went off Barney's Mole was even money. He pai d $4.20 and Joe had 
$20 win on him.  
   "That time," he told me, "they made the proper horse the fav orite."  
   Out of the nine races Joe had ei ght winners. On the ride bac k he kept wondering 
how he had missed in the 7th race. " Blue Truck looked far the b est. I don't understand 
how he only got 3rd."  
   "Joe you had 8 for 9. That's beginner's luck. You don't know  how hard this game is."  
   "It looks easy to me. You just pi ck the winner and collect y our money."  
   I didn't talk to him the rest  of the way in. That night he k nocked on my door and he 
had a fifth of Grandad and the Racing Form. I helped him with the bottle while he 
read the Form  and told me all nine winners the next day, and why. We had our selves a 
real expert here. I know how it can go to a man's head. I had 1 7 straight winners once 
and I was going to buy homes along the coast and start a white slavery business to 
protect my winnings from the income tax man. That's how crazy y ou can get.  
   I could hardly wait to take Jo e to the track the next day. I  wanted to see his face 
when all his predictions ran out. Horses were only animals made  out of flesh. They 
were fallible. It was like the old horse players said, "There a re a dozen ways you can 
lose a race and only one way to win one."  
   All right, it didn't happen that way. Joe had 7 for 9 -- fav orites, longshots, medium 
prices. And he hitched all the way in about his two losers. He couldn't understand it. I 
didn't talk to him. The son of a bitch could do no wrong. But t he percentages would 
get him. He started telling me how I was betting wrong, and the  proper way to bet. 
Two days at the track and he was an expert. I'd been playing th em 20 years and he was 
telling me I didn't know my ass.  
   We went all week and Joe kept winning. He got so unbearable I couldn't stand him 
anymore. He bought a new suit and hat, new shirt and shoes, and  started smoking 50 
cent cigars. He told the relief people that he was self- employ ed and didn't need their 
money anymore. Joe had gone mad. He grew a mustache and purchas ed a wrist watch 
and an expensive ring. The next Tuesday I saw him drive to the track in his own car, a 
'69 black Caddy. He waved to me from his car and flicked out hi s cigar ash. I didn't 
talk to him at the track that  day. He was in the clubhouse. Whe n he knocked on my 
door that night he had the usual fifth of Grandad and a tall bl onde. A young blonde, 
well-dressed, well-groomed, she had a shape and a face. They wa lked in together.  
   "Who's this old bum?" she asked Joe.     "That's my old buddy. Hank," he told her, "I used to know hi m when I was poor. He 
took me to the racetrack one day."  
 57    "Don't he have an old lady?"  
   "Old Hank ain't had a woman since 1965. Listen, how about fi xing him up with Big 
Gertie?"  
   "Oh hell, Joe, Big Gertie wouldn't go him! Look, he's dressed like a rag man."  
   "Have some mercy, baby, he's my buddy. I know he don't look like much but we 
both started out together. I'm sentimental."  
   "Well, Big Gertie ain't sentimental, she likes class."  
   "Look, Joe," I said, "forget the women. Just sit down with t he Form  and let's have a 
few drinks and give me some winners for tomorrow."  
   Joe did that. We drank and he w orked them out. He wrote nine  horses down for me 
on a piece of paper. His woman. Big Thelma -- well. Big Thelma just looked at me 
like I was dog shit on somebody's lawn.  
   Those nine horses were good for eight wins the next day. One  horse paid $62.60. I 
couldn't understand it. That night Joe came by with a new woman . She looked even 
finer. He sat down with the bottle and the Form  and wrote me down nine more horses.  
   Then he told me, "Listen, Hank, I gotta be moving out of my place. I found me a 
nice deluxe apartment right outside the track. The travel time to and from the track is a 
nuisance. Let's go, baby. I'll see you around, kid."  
   I knew that was it. My buddy was giving me the brush-off. Th e next day I laid it 
heavy on those nine horses. They were good for seven winners. I  went over the Form  
again when I got home trying to fi gure why he selected the hors es he did, but there 
seemed to be no understandable reason. Some of his selections w ere truly puzzling to 
me.  
   I didn't see Joe again for the remainder of the meet, except  once. I saw him walk into 
the clubhouse with two women. Joe was fat and laughing. He wore  a two-hundred-
dollar suit and he had a diamond ring on his finger. I lost all  nine races that day.  
   It was two years later. I was at Hollywood Park and it was a  particularly hot day, a 
Thursday, and in the 6th race I happened to land a $26.80 winne r. As I was walking 
away from the payoff window I heard his voice behind me:  
   "Hey, Hank! Hank!"   
   It was Joe.  
   "Jesus Christ, man," he said, "it's sure great to see you!"  
   "Hello Joe ..."     He still had on his two-hundred-dollar suit in all that heat . The rest of us were in 
shirt sleeves. He needed a shave and his shoes were scuffed and  the suit was wrinkled 
and dirty. His diamond was gone, his wrist watch was gone.  
   "Lemme have a smoke. Hank."  
   I gave him a cigarette and when he lit it I noticed his hand s were trembling.  
   "I need a drink, man," he told me.  
   I took him over to the bar and we had a couple of whiskeys. Joe studied the Form.   
   "Listen, man, I've put you on plenty of winners, haven't I?"   
   "Sure, Joe."     We stood there looking at the Form.  "Now check this race," said Joe. "Look at Black 
Monkey. He's going to romp. Hank. He's a lock. And at 8 to one. "  
   "You like his chances, Joe?"     "He's in, man. He'll win by daylight."  
 58    We placed our bets on Black Monkey and went out to watch the  race. He finished a 
deep 7th.  
   "I don't understand it," said Joe. "Look, let me have two mo re bucks, Hank. Siren 
Call is in the next, she can't lose. There's no way."  
   Siren Call did get up for 5th but  that's not much help when you're betting on the 
nose. Joe got me for another  $2 for the 9th race and his horse ran out there too. Joe 
told me he didn't have a car and would I mind driving him home?   
   "You're not going to believe this, " he told me, "but I'm bac k on the dole."  
   "I believe you, Joe."  
   "I'll bounce back, though. You know, Pittsburgh Phil went br oke half a dozen times. 
He always sprung back. His friends had faith in him. They lent him money."  
   When I let him off I found he lived in an old rooming house about four blocks from 
where I lived. I had never moved. When I let Joe out he said, " There's a hell of a good 
card tomorrow. You going?"  
   "I'm not sure, Joe."     "Lemme know if you're going."  
   "Sure, Joe."   
   That night I heard the knock on my door. I knew Joe's knock.  I didn't answer. I had 
the T.V. playing but I didn't answer. I just laid real still on  the bed. He kept knocking.  
   "Hank! Hank! You in there? HEY, HANK!"  
   Then he really beat on the door, the son of a bitch. He seem ed frantic. He knocked 
and he knocked. At last he stopped. I heard him walking down th e hall. Then I heard 
the front door of the apartme nt house close. I got up, turned o ff the T.V., went to the 
refrigerator, made a ham and cheese sandwich, opened a beer. Th en I sat down with 
that, split tomorrow's Form  open and began looking at the first race, a five-thousand-
dollar claimer for colts and geldings three years old and up. I  liked the 8 horse. The 
Form  had him listed at 5 to one. I'd take that anytime.  
 59 DR. NAZI 
 
   Now, I'm a man of many problems and I suppose that most of t hem are self-created. 
I mean with the female, and gambling, and feeling hostile towar d groups of people, 
and the larger the group, the greater the hostility. I'm called  negative and gloomy, 
sullen.  
   I keep remembering the female who screamed at me: "You're so  god damned 
negative! Life can be beautiful!"  
   I suppose it can, and especially with a little less screamin g. But I want to tell you 
about my doctor. I don't go to shrinks. Shrinks are worthless a nd too contented. But a 
good doctor is often disgusted and/or mad, and therefore far mo re entertaining.  
   I went to Dr. Kiepenheuer's office because it was closest. M y hands were breaking 
out with little white blisters -- a sign, I felt, either of my actual anxiety or possible 
cancer. I wore working-man's gloves so people wouldn't stare. A nd I burned through 
the gloves while smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.  
   I walked into the doctor's pl ace. I had the first appointmen t. Being a man of anxiety I 
was thirty minutes early, musing about cancer. I walked across the sitting room and 
looked into the office. Here was the nurse- receptionist squatt ed on the floor in her 
tight white uniform, her dress pulled almost up to her hips, gr oss and thunderous 
thighs showing through tightly-pulled nylon. I forgot all about  the cancer. She hadn't 
heard me and I stared at her unveiled legs and thighs, measured  the delicious rump 
with my eyes. She was wiping water from the floor, the toilet h ad overrun and she was 
cursing, she was passionate, she was pink and brown and living and unveiled and I 
stared.  
   She looked up. "Yes?"  
   "Go ahead," I said, "don't let me disturb you."     "It's the toilet," she said, "it keeps running over."     She kept wiping and I kept looking over the top of Life magazine. She finally stood 
up. I walked to the couch and sat down. She went through her ap pointment book.  
   "Are you Mr. Chinaski?"     "Yes."   
   "Why don't you take your gloves off? It's warm in here."  
   "I'd rather not, if you don't mind."     "Dr. Kiepenheuer will be in soon."     "It's all right. I can wait."  
   "What's your problem?"  
   "Cancer."   
   "Cancer?"   
   "Yes."   
   The nurse vanished and I read Life and then I read another copy of Life and then I 
read Sports Illustrated  and then I sat staring at paintings of seascapes and landscape s 
and piped-in music came from somewhere. Then, suddenly, all the  lights blinked off, 
then on again, and I wondered if there would be any way to rape  the nurse and get 
 60 away with it when the doctor walked in. I ignored him and he ig nored me, so that went 
off even.  
   He called me into his office. He was sitting on a stool and he looked at me. He had a 
yellow face and yellow hair and his eyes were lusterless. He wa s dying. He was about 
42. I eyed him and gave him six months.  
   "What's with the gloves?" he asked.  
   "I'm a sensitive man. Doctor."  
   "You are?"   
   "Yes."   
   "Then I should tell you that I was once a Nazi."  
   "That's all right."     "You don't mind that I was once a Nazi?"  
   "No, I don't mind."   
   "I was captured. They rode us through France in a boxcar wit h the doors open and 
the people stood along the way and threw stink bombs and rocks and all sorts of 
rubbish at us -- fishbones, dead plants, excreta, everything im aginable."  
   Then the doctor sat and told me about his wife. She was tryi ng to skin him. A real 
bitch. Trying to get all his money. The house. The garden. The garden house. The 
gardener too, probably, if she hadn't already. And the car. And  alimony. Plus a large 
chunk of cash. Horrible woman. He'd worked so hard. Fifty patie nts a day at ten 
dollars a head. Almost impossible to survive. And that woman. W omen. Yes, women. 
He broke down the word for me. I forget if it was woman or fema le or what it was, but 
he broke it down into Latin and he broke it down from there to show what the root was 
-- in Latin: women were basically insane.  
   As he talked about the insan ity of women I began to feel ple ased with the doctor. 
My head nodded in agreement.  
   Suddenly he ordered me to the scales, weighed me, then he li stened to my heart and 
to my chest. He roughly removed my gloves, washed my hands in s ome kind of shit 
and opened the blisters with a razor, still talking about the r ancor and vengeance that 
all women carried in their hearts. It was glandular. Women were  directed by their 
glands, men by their hearts. That's why only the men suffered.  
   He told me to bathe my hands  regularly and to throw the god damned gloves away. 
He talked a little more about women and his wife and then I lef t.  
   My next problem was dizzy spells. But I only got them when I  was standing in line. 
I began to get very terrified of  standing in line. It was unbea rable.  
   I realized that in America and probably everyplace else it c ame down to standing in 
line. We did it everywhere. Driver's license:  
   three or four lines. The racetrack: lines. The movies: lines . The market: lines. I hated 
lines. I felt there should be a way to avoid them. Then the ans wer came to me. Have 
more clerks.  Yes, that was the answer. Two clerks for every person. Three  clerks. Let 
the clerks stand in line.  
   I knew that lines were killing me. I couldn't accept them, b ut everybody else did. 
Everybody else was normal. Life was beautiful for them. They co uld stand in line 
without feeling pain. They could stand in line forever. They ev en liked to  stand in line. 
They chatted and grinned and smiled and flirted with each other . They had nothing 
else to do. They could think of  nothing else to do. And I had t o look at their ears and 
mouths and necks and legs and asses and nostrils, all that. I c ould feel death-rays 
oozing from their bodies like smog, and listening to their conv ersations I felt like 
 61 screaming "Jesus Christ, somebody help me! Do I have to suffer like this just to buy a 
pound of hamburger and a loaf of rye bread?"   
   The dizziness would come, and I'd spread my legs to keep fro m falling down; the 
supermarket would whirl, and the faces of the supermarket clerk s with their gold and 
brown mustaches and their clever happy eyes, all of them going to be supermarket 
managers someday, with their white scrubbed contented faces, bu ying homes in 
Arcadia and nightly mounting their pale blond grateful wives.  
   I made an appointment with the doctor again. I was given the  first appointment. I 
arrived half an hour early and the toilet was fixed. The nurse was dusting in the office. 
She bent and straightened and be nt halfway and then bent right and then bent left, and 
she turned her ass toward me and bent over. That white uniform twitched and hiked, 
climbed, lifted; here was dimpled knee, there was thigh, here w as haunch, there was 
the whole body. I sat down and opened a copy of Life.  
   She stopped dusting and stuck her head out at me, smiling. " You got rid of your 
gloves, Mr. Chinaski."  
   "Yes."   
   The doctor came in looking a bit closer to death and he nodd ed and I got up and 
followed him in.  
   He sat down on his stool.  
   "Chinaski: how goes it?"  
   "Well, doctor . . ."     "Trouble with women?"  
   "Well, of course, but . . ."  
   He wouldn't let me finish. He had lost more hair. His finger s twitched. He seemed 
short of breath. Thinner. He was a desperate man.  
   His wife was skinning him. They'd gone to court. She slapped  him in court. He'd 
liked that. It helped the case. They saw through that bitch. An yhow, it hadn't come off 
too badly. She'd left him something. Of course, you know lawyer 's fees. Bastards. You 
ever noticed a lawyer? Almost always fat. Especially around the  face. "Anyhow, shit, 
she nailed me. But I got a little left. You wanna know what a s cissors like this costs? 
Look at it. Tin with a screw. $18.50. My God, and they hated th e Nazis. What is a 
Nazi compared to this?"  
   "I don't know Doctor. I've told you that I'm a confused man. "  
   "You ever tried a shrink?"  
   "It's no use. They're dull, no imagination. I don't need the  shrinks. I hear they end up 
sexually molesting their female patients. I'd like to be a shri nk if I could fuck all the 
women; outside of that, their trade is useless."  
   My doctor hunched up on his stool. He yellowed and greyed a bit more. A giant 
twitch ran through his body. He was almost through. A nice fell ow though.  
   "Well, I got rid of my wife," he said, "that's over."  
   "Fine," I said, "tell me about when you were a Nazi."  
   "Well, we didn't have much c hoice. They just took us in. I w as young. I mean, hell, 
what are you going to do? You can only live in one country at a  time. You go to war, 
and if you don't end up dead you end up in an open boxcar with people throwing shit 
at you . . ."  
 62    I asked him if he'd fucked his nice nurse. He smiled gently.  The smile said yes. Then 
he told me that since the divorce, well, he'd dated one of his patients, and he knew it 
wasn't ethical to get that way with patients . . .  
   "No, I think it's all right. Doctor."     "She's a very intelligent woman. I married her."  
   "All right."  
   "Now I'm happy ... but .. ."     Then he spread his hands apart and opened his palms upward .  . .  
   I told him about my fear of lines. He gave me a standing pre scription for Librium.  
   Then I got a nest of boils on my ass. I was in agony. They t ied me with leather 
straps, these fellows can do anything they want with you, they gave me a local and 
strapped my ass. I turned my head and looked at my Doctor and s aid, "Is there any 
chance of me changing my mind?"  
   There were three faces looking down at me. His and two other s. Him to cut. Her to 
supply cloths. The third to stick needles.  
   "You can't change your mind," said the doctor, and he rubbed  his hands and grinned 
and began . . .  
   The last time I saw him it had something to do with wax in m y ears. I could see his 
lips moving, I tried to understand, but I couldn't hear. I coul d tell by his eyes and his 
face that it was hard times for him all over again, and I nodde d.  
   It was warm. I was a bit dizzy and I thought, well, yes, he' s a fine fellow but why 
doesn't he let me tell him about my problems, this isn't fair, I have problems too, and I 
have to pay him.  
   Eventually my doctor realized I was deaf. He got something t hat looked like a fire 
extinguisher and jammed it into my ears. Later he showed me hug e pieces of wax ... it 
was the wax, he said. And he pointed down into a bucket. It loo ked, really, like retried 
beans.  
   I got up from the table and paid him and I left. I still cou ldn't hear anything. I didn't 
feel particularly bad or good and I wondered what ailment I wou ld bring him next, 
what he would do about it, wha t he would do about his 17 year o ld daughter who was 
in love with another woman and who was going to marry the woman , and it occurred 
to me that everybody  suffered continually, includi ng those who pretended they didn' t. 
It seemed to me that this was quite a discovery. I looked at th e newsboy and I thought, 
hmmmm, hmmmm, and I  looked at the next person to pass and I tho ught h mmmm, 
hmmmm, hmmmmmm, a nd at the traffic signal by the hospital a new  black car turned 
the corner and knocked down a pretty young girl in a blue mini dress, and she was 
blond and had blue ribbons in her  hair, and she sat up in the s treet in the sun and the 
scarlet ran from her nose.  
 63 CHRIST ON ROLLERSKATES 
 
   It was a small office on the  third floor of an old building not too far from skid row. 
Joe Mason, president of Rollerworld, Inc., sat behind the worn desk which he rented 
along with the office. Graffiti were carved on the top and side s: "Born to die." "Some 
men buy what other men are hanged for." "Shit soup." "I hate lo ve more than I love 
hate."  
   The vice president, Cliffo rd Underwood, sat in the only othe r chair. There was one 
telephone. The office smelled of urine, but the restroom was 45  feet down the hall. 
There was a window facing the a lley, a thick yellow window that  let in a dim light. 
Both men were smoking cigarettes and waiting.  
   "When'd you tell 'im?" asked Underwood.     "9:30," said Mason.  
   "It doesn't matter."  
   They waited. Eight more minutes. They each lit another cigar ette. There was a 
knock.  
   "Come in," said Mason. It was Monster Chonjacki, bearded, si x foot six and 392 
pounds. Chonjacki smelled. It started to rain. You could hear a  freightcar going by 
under the window. It was really 24 freightcars going north fill ed with commerce. 
Chonjacki still smelled. He was the star of the Yellowjackets, one of the best roller 
skaters on either side of the Mississippi, 25 yards to either s ide.  
   "Sit down," said Mason.  
   "No chair," said Chonjacki.  
   "Make him a chair. Cliff."  
   The vice president slowly got up, gave every indication of a  man about to fart, didn't 
and walked over and leaned against the rain which beat against the thick yellow 
window. Chonjacki put both cheeks down, reached and lit up a Pa ll Mall. No filter. 
Mason leaned across his desk:  
   "You are an ignorant son of a bitch."  
   "Wait a minute, man!"  
   "You wanna be a hero, don't you sonny? You get excited when little girls without 
any hair on their pussies scream your name? You like the dear o ld red, white and blue? 
Ya like vanilla ice cream? You still beat your tiny little pud,  asshole?"  
   "Listen here, Mason . . ."  
   "Shut up! Three hundred a week! Three hundred a week I been giving you! When I 
found you in that bar you didn't  have enough for your next drin k . . . you had the d.t.'s 
and were livin' on hogshead soup and cabbage! You couldn't lace  on a skate! I made 
you, asshole, from nothing, and I can make you right back into nothing! As far as 
you're concerned, I'm God. And I'm a God who doesn't forgive yo ur mother-floppin' 
sins either!"  
   Mason closed both eyes and leaned back in the swivel. He inh aled his cigarette; a bit 
of hot ash dropped on his lower lip but he was too mad to give a damn. He just let the 
ash burn him. When the ash stopped burning he kept his eyes clo sed and listened to 
the rain. Ordinarily he liked to listen to the rain. Especially  when he was inside 
somewhere and the rent was paid and some woman wasn't driving h im crazy. But 
 64 today the rain didn't help. H e not only smelled Chonjacki but h e felt him there. 
Chonjacki was worse than diarrhea. Chonjacki was worse than the  crabs. Mason 
opened his eyes, sat up and looked at him. Christ, what a man h ad to go through just to 
stay alive.  
   "Baby," he said softly, "you broke two of Sonny Welborn's ri bs last night. You hear 
me?"  
   "Listen . . ." Chonjacki started to say.  
   "Not one rib. No, not just one r ib. Two. Two ribs. Hear me?"   
   "But . . ."   
   "Listen, asshole! Two ribs! You hear me? Do you hear me?"  
   "I hear you."  
   Mason put out his cigarette, got up from the swivel and walk ed around to 
Chonjacki's chair. You might say Chonjacki looked nice. You mig ht say he was a 
handsome kid. You'd never say that about Mason. Mason was old. Forty- nine. Almost 
bald. Round shouldered. Divorced. F our boys. Two of them in jai l. It was still raining. 
It would rain for almost two days and three nights. The Los Ang eles River would get 
excited and pretend to be a river.  
   "Stand up!" said Mason.  
   Chonjacki stood up. When he did. Mason sunk his left into hi s gut and when 
Chonjacki's head came down he put it right back up there with a  right chop. Then he 
felt a little better. It was like a cup of Ovaltine on a coldas s morning in January. He 
walked around and sat down again. This time he didn't light a c igarette. He lit his 15 
cent cigar. He lit his after- lunch cigar before lunch. That's how much better he felt. 
Tension. You couldn't let that shit build. His former brother-i n-law had died of a 
bleeding ulcer. Just because he hadn't known how to let it out.   
   Chonjacki sat back down. Mason looked at him.  
   "This, baby, is a business,  not a sport. We don't believe in hurting  people, do I get 
my point across?"  
   Chonjacki just sat there listening to the rain. He wondered if his car would start. He 
always had trouble getting his car started when it rained. Othe rwise it was a good car.  
   "I asked you, baby, did I get my point across?"  
   "Oh, yeah, yeah . . ."     "Two busted ribs. Two of Sonny Welborn's ribs busted. He's o ur best player."  
   "Wait! He plays for the Vultures. Welborn plays for the Vult ures. How can he be 
your best player?"  
   "Asshole! We own the Vultures!"     "You own the Vultures?"  
   "Yeah, asshole. And the Angels  and the Coyotes and the Canni bals and every other 
damn team in the league, they're all our property, all those bo ys . . ."  
   "Jesus . . ."   
   "No, not Jesus. Jesus doesn't have anything to do with it! B ut, wait, you give me an 
idea, asshole."  
   Mason swiveled toward Underwood who was still leaning agains t the rain. "It's 
something to think about," he said.  
   "Uh," said Underwood.  
   "Take your head off your pud, Cliff. Think about it."     "About what?"  
 65    "Christ on rollerskates. Countless possibilities."  
   "Yeah. Yeah. We could work in the devil."     "That's good. Yes, the devil."  
   "We might even work in the cross."  
   "The cross? No, that's too corny."  
   Mason swiveled back toward Chonjacki. Chonjacki was still th ere. He wasn't 
surprised. If a monkey had been sitting there he wouldn't have been surprised either. 
Mason had been around too long. But it wasn't a monkey, it was Chonjacki. He had to 
talk to Chonjacki. Duty, duty ... all for the rent, an occasion al piece of ass and a burial 
in the country. Dogs had fleas, men had troubles.  
   "Chonjacki," he said, "please let me explain something to yo u. Are you listening? 
Are you capable of listening?"  
   "I'm listening."  
   "We're a business. We work five night a week. We're on telev ision. We support 
families. We pay taxes. We vote. We get tickets from the fuckin g cops like anybody 
else. We get toothaches, insomnia, v.d. We've got to live throu gh Christmas and New 
Year's just like anybody else, you understand?"  
   "Yes."   
   "We even, some of us, get depressed sometimes. We're human. I even get depressed. 
I sometimes feel like crying at night. I sure as hell felt like  crying last night when you 
broke two of Welborn's ribs . . ."  
   "He was ganging me, Mr. Mason!"  
   "Chonjacki, Welborn wouldn't pull a hair from your grandmoth er's left armpit. He 
reads Socrates, Robert Duncan, and W. H. Auden. He's been in th e league five years 
and he hasn't done enough physical damage to bruise a church-go ing moth . . ."  
   "He was coming at me, he was swinging, he was screaming . . ."  
   "Oh, Christ," said Mason softly. He put his cigar in the ash tray. "Son, I told you. 
We're a family, a big family. We don't hurt each other. We've g ot ourselves the finest 
subnormal audience in sports. We've drawn the biggest breed of idiots alive and they 
put that money right into our pockets, get it? We've drawn the top-brand idiot right 
away from professional wrestling, / Love Lucy,  and George Putnam. We're in, and we 
don't believe in either malice or violence. Right, Cliff?"  
   "Right," said Underwood.  
   "Let's do him a spot," said Mason.  
   "O.k.," said Underwood.  
   Mason got up from his desk and moved toward Underwood. "You son of a bitch," he 
said. "I'll kill you. Your mother swallows her own farts and ha s a syphilitic urinary 
tract."  
   "Your  mother eats marinated catshit," said Underwood.  
   He moved away from the window and toward Mason. Mason swung first. 
Underwood rocked back against the desk.  
   Mason got a stranglehold around his neck with his left arm a nd beat Underwood 
over the head with his right fist and forearm.  
   "Your sister's tits hang from the bottom of her butt and dan gle in the water when she 
shits," Mason told Underwood. Underwood reached back with one a rm and nipped 
Mason over his head. Mason rolled up against the wall with a cr ash. Then he got up, 
 66 walked over to his desk, sat dow n in the swivel, picked up his cigar and inhaled. It 
continued to rain. Underwood went back and leaned against the w indow.  
   "When a man works five nights a week he can't afford to get injured, understand, 
Chonjacki?"  
   "Yes, sir."  
   "Now look, kid, we got a general rule here -- which is ... A re you listening?"  
   "Yes."   
   ". . . which is -- when anybody in t he league injures anothe r player, he's out of a job, 
he's out of the league, in fact, t he word goes out -- he's blac klisted at every roller derby 
in America. Maybe Russia a nd China and Poland, too. You got tha t in your head?"  
   "Yes."   
   "Now we're letting you get by with this one because we've sp ent a lot of time and 
money giving you this buildup. You're the Mark Spitz of our lea gue, but we can bust 
you just like they can bust him, if you don't do exactly what w e tell you."  
   "Yes, sir."   
   "But that doesn't mean lay back. You gotta act violent witho ut being violent, get it? 
The mirror trick, the rabbit out of the hat, the full ton of bo logna. They love to be 
fooled. They don't know the truth, hell they don't even want th e truth, it makes them 
unhappy. We make them happy. We drive new cars and send our kid s to college, 
right?"  
   "Right."  
   "O.k., get the hell out of here."     Chonjacki rose to leave.  
   "And kid . . ."  
   "Yes?"   
   "Take a bath once in awhile."  
   "What?"   
   "Well, maybe that isn't it. Do you use enough toilet paper w hen you wipe your ass?"  
   "I don't know. How much is enough?"  
   "Didn't your mother tell you?"  
   "What?"     "You keep wiping until you can't see it anymore."  
   Chonjacki just stood there looking at him.  
   "All right, you can go now. And please remember everything I 've told you."  
   Chonjacki left. Underwood walked over and sat down in the va cant chair. He took 
out his after-lunch 15 cent cigar and lit it. The two men sat t here for five minutes 
without saying anything. Then the phone rang. Mason picked it u p. He listened, then 
said, "Oh, Boy Scout Troop 763? How many? Sure, sure, we'll let  'em in for half price. 
Sunday night. We'll rope off a section. Sure, sure. Oh, it's al l right . . ." He hung up.  
   "Assholes," he said.     Underwood didn't answer. They sat listening to the rain. The  smoke from their cigars 
made interesting designs in the air. They sat and smoked and li stened to the rain and 
watched the designs in the air. The phone rang again and Mason made a face. 
Underwood got up from his chair, walked over and answered it. I t was his turn.  
 67 A SHIPPING CLERK WITH A RED NOSE 
 
   When I first met Randall Harris he was 42 and lived with a g rey haired woman, one 
Margie Thompson. Margie was 45 and not too handsome. I was edit ing the little 
magazine Mad Fly  at the time and I had come over in an attempt to get some mate rial 
from Randall.  
   Randall was known as an isolationist, a drunk, a crude and b itter man but his poems 
were raw, raw and honest, simple and savage. He was writing unl ike anybody else at 
the time. He worked as a shipping clerk in an auto parts wareho use.  
   I sat across from both Randall and Margie. It was 7:15 p.m. and Harris was already 
drunk on beer. He set a bottle in front of me. I'd heard of Mar gie Thompson. She was 
an old-time communist, a world-saver, a do-gooder. One wondered  what she was 
doing with Randall who cared for nothing and admitted it. "I li ke to photograph shit," 
he told me, "that's my art."  
   Randall had begun writing at the age of 38. At 42, after thr ee small chapbooks 
(Death Is a Dirtier Dog Than My Country, My Mother Fucked an An gel, and The Piss-
Wild Horses of Madness), he was getting what might be called critical acclaim. But he 
made nothing on his writing and he said, "I'm nothing but a shi pping clerk with the 
deep blue blues." He lived in an old front court in Hollywood w ith Margie, and he was 
weird, truly. "I just don't like people," he said. "You know, W ill Rogers once said, 'I 
never met a man I didn't like.' Me, I never met a man I liked."   
   But Randall had humor, an ab ility to laugh at pain and at hi mself. You liked him. He 
was an ugly man with a large head and a smashed-up face -- only  the nose seemed to 
have escaped the general smashup. "I don't have enough bone in my nose, it's like rub- 
her," he explained. His nose was long and very red.  
   I had heard stories about Randall. He was given to smashing windows and breaking 
bottles against the wall. He was one nasty drunk. He also had p eriods where he 
wouldn't answer the door or the t elephone. He didn't own a T.V. , only a small radio 
and he only listened to symphony music -- strange for a guy as crude as he was.  
   Randall also had periods when he took the bottom off the tel ephone and stuffed 
toilet paper around the bell so it wouldn't ring. It stayed tha t way for months. One 
wondered why he had a phone. His education was sparse but he'd evidently read most 
of the best writers.  
   "Well, fucker," he said to me, "I guess you wonder what I'm doing with her?" he 
pointed to Margie. I didn't answer.  
   "She's a good lay," he said, "and she gives me some of the b est sex west of St. 
Louis."  
   This was the same guy who had written four or five great lov e poems to a woman 
called Annie. You wondered how it worked.  
   Margie just sat there and grinned. She wrote poetry too but it wasn't very good. She 
attended two workshops a week which hardly helped.  
   "So you want some poems?" he asked me. "Yes, I'd like to loo k some over."  
   Harris walked over to the closet, opened the door and picked  some torn and crushed 
papers off the floor. He handed them to me. "I wrote these last  night." Then he walked 
into the kitchen and came out with two more beers. Margie didn' t drink.  
 68    I began to read the poems. They w ere all powerful. He typed with a very heavy hand 
and the words seemed chiseled i n the paper. The force of his wr iting always astounded 
me. He seemed to be saying all the things we should have said b ut had never thought 
of saying.  
   "I'll take these poems," I said. "O.k.," he said. "Drink up. "  
   When you came to see Harris, drinking was a must. He smoked one cigarette after 
another. He dressed in loose br own chino pants two sizes too la rge and old shirts that 
were always ripped. He was around six feet and 220 pounds, much  of it beerfat. He 
was round-shouldered, and peered out at you from behind slitted  eyelids. We drank a 
good two hours and a half, the room heavy with smoke.  
   Suddenly Harris stood up and said, "Get the hell out of here , fucker, you disgust 
me!"  
   "Easy now, Harris . . ."     "I said NOW!, fucker!"  
   I got up and left with the poems.  
   I returned to that front cour t two months later to deliver a  couple of copies of Mad. 
Fly to Harris. I had run all ten of his poems. Margie let me in. R andall wasn't there.  
   "He's in New Orleans," said Margie, "I think he's getting a break. Jack Teller wants 
to publish his next book but he wants to meet Randall first. Te ller says he can't print 
anybody he doesn't like. He's paid the air fare both ways."  
   "Randall isn't exactly endearing," I said.     "We'll see," said Margie. "Teller's a drunk and an ex-con. T hey might make a lovely 
pair."  
   Teller put out the magazine Rifraff  and had his own press. He did very fine work. 
The last issue of Rifraff  had had Harris' ugly face on the cover sucking at a beer-bottl e 
and had featured a number of his poems.  
   Rifraff  was generally recognized as the number one lit mag of the time . Harris was 
beginning to get more and more notice. This would be a good cha nce for him if he 
didn't botch it with his mean tongue and his drunken manners. B efore I left Margie 
told me she was pregnant -- by Harris. As I said, she was 45.  
   "What'd he say when you told him?"  
   "He seemed indifferent."     I left.     The book did come out in an edition of 2,000, finely printed . The cover was made of 
cork imported from Ireland. The pages were vari-colored, of ext remely good paper, set 
in rare type and interspersed wit h some of Harris' India ink sk etches. The book 
received acclaim, both for itself and its contents. But Teller couldn't pay royalties. He 
and his wife lived on a very narrow margin. In ten years the bo ok would go for $75 on 
the rare book market. Meanwhile Harris went back to his shippin g clerk job at the auto 
parts warehouse.  
   When I called again four or five months later Margie was gon e. "She's been gone a 
long time," said Harris. "Have a beer."  
   "What happened?"  
   "Well, after I got back from Ne w Orleans, I wrote a few shor t stories. While I was at 
work she got to poking around in my dr awers. She read a couple of my stories and 
took exception to them."  
   "What were they about?"  
 69    "Oh, she read something about my climbing in and out of bed with some women in 
New Orleans."  
   "Were the stories true?" I asked.     "How's Mad Fly  doing?" he asked.  
   The baby was born, a girl, Naomi Louise Harris. She and her mother lived in Santa 
Monica and Harris drove out once a week to see them. He paid ch ild support and 
continued to drink his beer. Next I knew he had a weekly column  in the underground 
newspaper L.A. Lifeline.  He called his colums Sketches of a First Class Maniac.  His 
prose was like his poetry -- undisciplined, antisocial, and laz y.  
   Harris grew a goatee and grew his hair longer. The next time  I saw him he was 
living with a 35-year-old girl, a pretty redhead called Susan. Susan worked in an art 
supply store, painted, and played fair guitar. She also drank a n occasional beer with 
Randall which was more than Margie had done. The court seemed c leaner. When 
Harris finished a bottle he threw it into a paper bag instead o f throwing it on the floor. 
He was still a nasty drunk, though.  
   "I'm writing a novel," he told me, "and I'm getting a poetry  reading now and then at 
nearby universities. I also have one coming up in Michigan and one in New Mexico. 
The offers are pretty good. I don't like to read, but I'm a goo d reader. I give them a 
show and I give them some good poetry."  
   Harris was also beginning to pain t. He didn't paint very wel l. He painted like a five-
year-old drunk on vodka but he managed to sell one or two for $ 40 or $50. He told me 
that he was considering quitting his job. Three weeks later he did quit in order to make 
the Michigan reading. He'd already used his vacation for the Ne w Orleans trip.  
   I remember once he had vowed to me, "I'll never read in fron t of those bloodsuckers, 
Chinaski. I'll go to my grave without ever giving a poetry read ing. It's vanity, it's a 
sell-out." I didn't remind him of his statement.  
   His novel Death in the Life of All the Eyes On Earth  was brought out by a small but 
prestige press which paid standard royalties. The reviews were good, including one in 
The New York Review of Books.  But he was still a nasty drunk and had many fights 
with Susan over his drinking.  
   Finally, after one horrible drunk, when he had raved and cur sed and screamed all 
night, Susan left him. I saw Ra ndall several days after her dep arture. Harris was 
strangely quiet, hardly nasty at all.  
   "I loved her, Chinaski," he told me. "I'm not going to make it,  
   baby."  
   "You'll make it, Randall. You'll see. You'll make it. The hu man being is much more 
durable than you think."  
   "Shit," he said. "I hope you're right. I've got this damned hole in my gut. Women 
have put many a good man under the bridge. They don't feel it l ike we do."  
   "They feel it. She just c ouldn't handle your drinking."  
   "Fuck, man, I write most of my stuff when I'm drunk."     "Is that the secret?"  
   "Shit, yes. Sober, I'm just a shipping clerk and not a very good one at that . . ."  
   I left him there hanging over his beer.  
   I made the rounds again three months later. Harris was still  in his front court. He 
introduced me to Sandra, a nice-looking blonde of 27. Her fathe r was a superior court 
judge and she was a graduate of U.S.C. Besides being well-shape d she had a cool 
 70 sophistication that had been lacking in Randall's other women. They were drinking a 
bottle of good Italian wine.  
   Randall's goatee had turned into a beard and his hair was mu ch longer. His clothes 
were new and in the latest st yle. He had on $40 shoes, a new wr istwatch and his face 
seemed thinner, his fingernails clean . . . but his nose still reddened as he drank the 
wine.  
   "Randall and I are moving to West L.A. this weekend," she to ld me. "This place is 
filthy."  
   "I've done a lot of good writing here," he said.  
   "Randall, dear," she said, "it isn't the place  that does the writing, it's you. I think we 
might get Randall a job teaching three days a week."  
   "I can't teach."  
   "Darling, you can teach them everything."   
   "Shit," he said.  
   "They're thinking of doing a movie of Randall's book. We've seen the script. It's a 
very fine script."  
   "A movie?" I asked.  
   "There's not much chance," said Harris.     "Darling, it's in the works. Have a little faith."     I had another glass of wine wit h them, then left. Sandra was  a beautiful girl.  
   I wasn't given Randall's West L.A. address and didn't make a ny attempt to find him. 
It was over a year later when I read the review of the movie Flower Up the Tail of 
Hell.  It had been taken from his novel. It was a fine review and Har ris even had an 
acting bit in the film.  
   I went to see it. They'd done a good job on the book. Harris  looked a little more 
austere than when I had last seen him. I decided to find him. A fter a bit of detective 
work I knocked on the door of his cabin in Malibu one night abo ut 9:00 p.m. Randall 
answered the door.  
   "Chinaski, you old dog," he said. "Come on in."     A beautiful girl sat on the couch. She appeared to be about 19, she simply radiated 
natural beauty. "This is Karilla," he said. They were drinking a bottle of expensive 
French wine. I sat down with them and had a glass. I had severa l glasses. Another 
bottle came out and we talked quietly. Harris didn't get drunk and nasty and didn't 
appear to smoke as much.  
   "I'm working on a play for Broadway," he told me. "They say the theatre is dying 
but I have something for them. O ne of the leading producers is interested. I'm getting 
the last act in shape now. It's a good medium. I was always spl endid on conversation, 
you know."  
   "Yes," I said.  
   I left about 11:30 that night . The conversation had been ple asant ... Harris had begun 
to show a distinguished grey a bout the temples and he didn't sa y "shit" more than four 
or five times.  
   The play Shoot Your Father, Shoot Your God, Shoot Away the Disentangleme nt was 
a success. It had one of the longe st runs in Broadway history. It had everything: 
something for the revolutionari es, something for the reactionar ies, something for 
lovers of comedy, something for lovers of drama, even something  for the in- 
tellectuals, and it still made sense. Randall Harris moved from  Malibu to a large place 
 71 high in the Hollywood Hills. You read about him now in the synd icated gossip 
columns.  
   I went to work and found the location of his Hollywood Hills  place, a three-story 
mansion which overlooked the lights of Los Angeles and Hollywoo d.  
   I parked, got out of the car, a nd walked up the path to the front door. It was around 
8:30 p.m., cool, almost cold; there was a full moon and the air  was fresh and clear.  
   I rang the bell. It seemed a very long wait. Finally the doo r opened. It was the butler. 
"Yes, sir?" he asked me.  
   "Henry Chinaski to see Randall Harris," I said.  
   "Just a moment, sir." He closed the door quietly and I waite d. Again a long time. 
Then the butler was back. "I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Harris can't  be disturbed at this 
time."  
   "Oh, all right."  
   "Would you care to leave a message, sir?"     "A message?"  
   "Yes, a message."  
   "Yes, tell him 'congratulations.' "     " 'Congratulations?' Is that all?"     "Yes, that's all."  
   "Goodnight, sir."  
   "Goodnight."  
   I went back to my car, got in. It started and I began the lo ng drive down out of the 
hills. I had that early copy of Mad Fly  with me that I had wanted him to sign. It was 
the copy with ten of Randall Harris' poems in it. He probably w as busy. Maybe, I 
thought, if I mail the magazine to him with a stamped return en velope, he'll sign.  
   It was only about 9:00 p.m. There was time for me to go some where else.  
 72 THE DEVIL WAS HOT 
 
   Well, it was after an argument with Flo and I didn't feel li ke getting drunk or going 
to a massage parlor. So I got in my car and drove west toward t he beach. It was along 
toward evening and I drove slo wly. I got to the pier, parked, a nd walked on up the 
pier. I stopped in the penny arcad e, played a few games, but th e place stank of piss so I 
walked out. I was too old to ride the merry-go-round so I passe d that. The usual types 
walked the pier -- a sleepy indifferent crowd.  
   It was then I noticed a roaring sound coming from a nearby b uilding. A tape or 
record, no doubt. There was a barker out front: "Yes, ladies an d gentlemen, Inside, 
Inside here . . . we actually have captured the devil! He is on  display to see with your 
own eyes! Think, just for a quarter, twenty- five cents, you ca n actually see the devil . 
. . the biggest loser of all time!  The loser of the only revolu tion ever attempted in 
Heaven!"  
   Well, I was ready for a little comedy to offset what Flo was  putting me through. I 
paid my quarter and stepped inside with six or seven other asso rted suckers. They had 
this guy in a cage. They'd sprayed him red and he had something  in his mouth that 
made him puff out little rolls of smoke and spurts of flame. He  wasn't putting on a 
very good show. He was just walking around in circles, saying o ver and over again, 
"God damn it, I've got to get out of here! How'd I ever get in this friggin' fix?" Well, 
I'll tell you he did look dangerous. Suddenly he did six rapid back flips. On his last flip 
he landed on his feet, looked around and said, "Oh shit, I feel  awful!"  
   Then he saw me. He walked right over to where I was standing  next to the wire. He 
was warm like a heater. I don't know how they worked that.  
   "My son," he said, "you've come at last! I've been waiting. Thirty-two days I've been 
in this fucking cage!"  
   "I don't know what you're talking about."  
   "My son," he said, "don't joke with me. Come back late tonig ht with the wire-cutters 
and free me."  
   "Don't lay any shit on me, man," I said  
   "Thirty-two days I've been in here, my son! At last I have m y freedom!"  
   "You mean you claim you're really the devil?"     "I'll screw a cat's ass if I'm not," he answered.  
   "If you're the devil then you can use your supernatural powe rs to get out of here."  
   "My powers have temporarily vanished. This guy, the barker, he was in the drunk 
tank with me. I told him I was the devil and he bailed me out. I'd lost my powers in 
that jail or I wouldn't have n eeded him. He got me drunk again and when I woke up I 
was in this cage. The cheap bastard, he feeds me dogfood and pe anut butter 
sandwiches. My son, help me, I beg you!"  
   "You're crazy," I said, "you're some kind of nut."     "Just come back tonight, my s on, with the wire-clippers."  
   The barker walked in an announced that the session with the devil was over and if 
we wanted to see him anymore it'd be another twenty-five cents.  I'd seen enough. I 
walked out with the six or seven other assorted suckers.  
 73    "Hey, he talked to you," said a little old guy walking next to me, "I've seen him 
every night and you're the first person he has ever talked to."   
   "Balls," I said.  
   The barker stopped me. "What'd he tell you? I saw him talkin g to you. What'd he tell 
you?"  
   "He told me everything," I said.  
   "Well, hands off, buddy, he's mine! I ain't made so much mon ey since I had the 
bearded three-legged lady."  
   "What happened to her?"  
   "She ran away with the octopus man. They're running a farm i n Kansas."  
   "I think you people are all crazy."     "I'm just telling you, I found this guy. Keep off!"     I walked to my car, got in and drove back to Flo. When I got  there she was sitting in 
the kitchen drinking whiskey. She sat there and told me a few h undred times what a 
useless hunk of man I was. I drank with her a while not saying much myself. Then I 
got up, went to the garage, got the wire-cutters, put them in m y pocket, got in the car 
and drove back to the pier.  
   I broke in the back way, the l atch was rusty and snapped rig ht off. He was asleep on 
the floor of the cage. I began t rying to cut the wire but I cou ldn't cut through it. The 
wire was very thick. Then he woke up.  
   "My son," he said, "you came back! I knew you would!"     "Look, man, I can't cut the wire with these clippers. The wi re's too thick."  
   He stood up. "Hand 'em here."  
   "God," I said, "your hands are hot! You must have some kind of fever."  
   "Don't call me God," he said.     He snipped the wire with the clippers like it was thread and  stepped out. "And now, 
my son, to your place. I've got to get my strength back. A few porterhouse steaks and 
I'll be straight. I've eaten so much dogfood I'm afraid I'm goi ng to bark any minute."  
   We walked back to my car and I drove him to my place. When w e walked in Flo 
was still sitting in the kitchen drinking whiskey. I fried him a bacon and egg sandwich 
for starters and we sat down with Flo.  
   "Your friend is a handsome looking devil," she told me.  
   "He claims to be the devil," I said.  
   "Been a long time," he said, "since I had me a hunk of good woman."  
   He leaned over and gave Flo a long kiss. When he let go she seemed to be in a state 
of shock. "That was the hottest kiss I ever had," she said, "an d I've had plenty."  
   "Really?" he asked.     "If you make love anything like the way you kiss it, it woul d simply be too much, 
just simply too much!"  
   "Where's your bedroom?" he asked me.     "Just follow the lady," I said.  
   He followed Flo to the bedroom and I poured a deep whiskey.  
   I never heard such screams and moans and it went on for a go od fourty- five 
minutes. Then he walked out alone and sat down and poured himse lf a drink.  
   "My son," he said, "you got yourself a good woman there."  
 74    He walked to the couch in the  front room, stretched out and fell asleep. I walked into 
the bedroom, undressed, and climbed in with Flo.  
   "My god," she said, "my god, I don't believe it. He put me t hrough heaven and hell."  
   "I just hope he doesn't set the couch on fire," I said.  
   "You mean he smokes cigarettes and falls asleep?"  
   "Forget it," I said.  
   Well, he began taking over. I had to sleep on the couch. I h ad to listen to Flo 
screaming and moaning in there every night. One day while Flo w as at the market and 
we were having a beer in the  breakfast nook I had a talk with h im. "Listen," I said, "I 
don't mind helping somebody out, but now I've lost my bed and m y wife. I'm going to 
have to ask you to leave."  
   "I believe I'll stay a while, my son, your old lady is one o f the best pieces I've ever 
had."  
   "Listen, man," I said, "I might have to take extreme means t o remove you."  
   "Tough boy, eh? Well look tough boy, I got a little news for  you. My supernatural 
powers have returned. If you tr y to fuck with me you might get burned. Watch!"  
   We've got a dog. Old Bones; he's not worth much but he barks  at night, he's a fair 
watchdog. Well, he pointed his finge r at Old Bones, the finger kind of made a 
sneezing sound, then it sizzled and a thin line of flame ran up  and touched Old Bones. 
Old Bones frizzled-up and vanished. He just wasn't there anymor e. No bone, no fur, 
not even any stink. Just space.  
   "O.k., man," I told him. "You can stay a couple of days but after that you gotta 
leave."  
   "Fry me up a porterhouse," he said, "I'm hungry, and I'm afr aid my sperm-count is 
dropping off."  
   I got up and threw a steak in the pan.     "Cook me up some french fries to go with that," he said, "an d some sliced tomato. I 
don't need any coffee. Been having insomnia. I'll just have a c ouple more beers."  
   By the time I got the food in front of him, Flo was back.     "Hello, my love," she said, "how you doing?"  
   "Just fine," he said, "don't you have any catsup?"  
   I walked out, got in my car and drove to the beach.  
   Well, the barker had another devil in there. I paid my quart er and went in. This devil 
really wasn't much. The red paint sprayed on him was killing hi m and he was drinking 
to keep from going crazy. He was a big guy but he didn't have a ny qualities at all. I 
was one of the few customers in there. There were more flies in  there than there were 
people.  
   The barker walked up to me. "I'm starving to death since you  stole the real thing 
from me. I suppose you got a show of your own going?"  
   "Listen," I said, "I'd give  anything to give him back to you . I was just trying to be a 
good guy."  
   "You know what happens to good guys in this world, don't you ?"  
   "Yeah, they end up standing down at 7th and Broadway selling  copies of the 
Watchtower."  
   "My name's Ernie Jamestown," he said, "tell me all about it.  We got a room in the 
back."  
 75    I walked to the room in the back with Ernie. His wife was si tting at the table 
drinking whiskey. She looked up.  
   "Listen, Ernie, if this bastard is gonna be our new devil, f orget it. We might just as 
well stage a triple suicide."  
   "Take it easy," said Ernie, "and pass the bottle."     I told Ernie everything that had happened. He listened caref ully and then said, "I can 
take him off your hands. He has two weaknesses -- drink and wom en. And there's one 
other thing. I don't know why it happens but when he's confined , like he was in the 
drunk tank or in that cage out there, he loses his supernatural  powers. All right, we 
take it from there."  
   Ernie went to the closet and dragged out a mass of chains an d padlocks. Then he 
went to the phone and asked for an Edna Hemlock. Edna Hemlock w as to meet us in 
twenty minutes at the corner outside Woody's Bar. Ernie and I g ot in my car, stopped 
for two fifths at the liquor store, met Edna, picked her up, an d drove to me place.  
   They were still in the kitchen. They were necking like mad. But as soon as he saw 
Edna the devil forgot all about my old lady. He dropped her lik e a pair of stained 
panties. Edna had it all. They'd made no mistakes when they put  her together.  
   "Why don't you two drink up and get acquainted?" said Ernie.  Ernie put a large glass 
of whiskey in front of each of them.  
   The devil looked at Ernie. "Hey, mother, you're the guy who put me in that cage, 
ain't ya?"  
   "Forget it," said Ernie, "let's let bygones be bygones."  
   "Like hell!" He pointed a finge r and the line of flame ran u p to Ernie and he was no 
longer there.  
   Edna smiled and lifted her whiskey. The devil grinned, lifte d his and gulped it down.  
   "Fine stuff!" he said. "Who bought it?"     "That man who just left the room a moment ago," I said.  
   "Oh."  
   He and Edna had another drink and began eyeballing each othe r. Then my old lady 
spoke to him:  
   "Take your eyes off that tramp!"  
   "What tramp?"  
   "Her!"     "Just drink your drink and shut up!"     He pointed his finger at my old lady, there was a small crac kling sound and she was 
gone. Then he looked at me:  
   "And what have you got to say?"  
   "Oh, I'm the guy who brought the wire-cutters, remember? I'm  here to run little 
errands, bring in towels, so forth . . ."  
   "It sure feels good to have my supernatural powers again."  
   "They do come in handy," I s aid, "we got an overpopulation p roblem anyhow."  
   He was eyeballing Edna. Their eyes were so locked that I was  able to lift one of the 
fifths of whiskey. I took the f ifth and got in my car with it a nd drove back to the beach 
again.  
   Ernie's wife was still sitting in the back room. She was gla d to see the new fifth and I 
poured two drinks.  
 76    "Who's the kid you got locked in the cage?" I asked.  
   "Oh, he's a third-string quarterback from one of the local c olleges. He's trying to 
pick up a little spare change."  
   "You sure have nice breasts," I said.  
   "You think so? Ernie never says anything about my breasts."  
   "Drink up. This is good stuff."     I slid over next to her. She had nice fat thighs. When I kis sed her, she didn't resist.  
   "I get so tired of this life," she said, "Ernie's always bee n a cheap hustler. You got a 
good job?"  
   "Oh yeah. I'm head shipping clerk at Drombo-Western."     "Kiss me again," she said.  
   I rolled off and wiped myself with the sheet.  
   "If Ernie finds out he'll kill us both," she said.     "Ernie isn't going to find out. Don't worry about it."  
   "You make great love," she said, "but why me?"  
   "I don't understand."     "I mean, really, what made you do it?"  
   "Oh, I said, "the devil made me do it."  
   Then I lit a cigarette, laid back, inhaled, and blew a perfe ct smoke ring. She got up 
and went to the bathroom. In a minute I heard the toilet flush.   
   Break-In  
   It was one of the outer rooms of  the first floor. I stumbled  on something - I think it 
was a footstool - and I almost went down. I banged into a table  to hold myself up.  
   "That's right," said Harr y, "wake up the whole fucking house hold."  
   "Look," I said, "what are we going to get here?"     "Keep your fucking voice down!"  
   "Harry, do you have to keep saying fucking?"  
   "What are you, a fucking linguist? We're here for cash and j ewels."  
   I didn't like it. It seemed like total insanity. Harry was c razy; he'd been in and out of 
madhouses. Between that and doing time he'd spent three- quarte rs of his adult life in 
lockup. He'd talked me into the thing. I didn't have much resis tance.  
   "This damn country," he said. "there are too many rich prick s having it too easy." 
Then Harry banged into something. "Shit!" he said.  
   "Hello? What is it?" We heard a man's voice coming from upst airs.  
   "We're in trouble," I said. I  could feel the sweat dripping down from my armpits.  
   "No," said Harry, "he's in trouble."  
   "Hello," said the man upstairs.  
   "Who's down there?"     "Come on," Harry told me.     He began walking up the stairway. I followed him. There was a hallway, and there 
was a light coming from one of the rooms. Harry moved quickly a nd silently. Then he 
ran into the room. I was behind him . It was a bedroom. A man an d a woman were in 
separate beds.  
   Harry pointed his .38 Magnum at the man. "All right, buddy, if you don't want your 
balls blown off, you'll keep it quiet. I don't play."  
 77    The man was about 45, with a strong and imperial face. You c ould see he had had it 
his own way for a long time. His wife was about 25, blond, long  hair, truly beautiful. 
She looked like an ad for something or other.  
   "Get the hell out of my house!" the man said.     "Hey," Harry said to me, "you know who this is?"  
   "No."  
   "It's Tom Maxson, the famous news broadcaster, Channel 7. He llo Tom."  
   "Get out of here! NOW!" Maxson barked.  
   He reached out and picked up the phone. "Operator-"  
   Harry ran up and slammed him across the temple with the butt  of his .38. Maxson 
fell across the bed. Harry put the phone back on the hook.  
   "You bastards, you hurt him!" cried the blond. "You cheap, c owardly bastards!"  
   She was dressed in a light-green negligee. Harry walked arou nd and broke one of the 
shoulder straps. He grabbed one of the woman's breasts and pull ed it out. "Nice, ain't 
it?" he said to me. Then he slapped her across the face, hard.  
   "You address me with respect, whore!" Harry said. Then he wa lked around and sat 
Tom Maxson back up. "And you: I told you I don't play."  
   Maxson revived. "You've got the gun; that's all you've got."   
   "You fool. That's all I need. Now I'm gonna get some coopera tion from you and 
your whore or it's going to get worse."  
   "You cheap punk!" Maxson said.  
   "Just keep it up, keep it up. You'll see," said Harry.     "You think I'm afraid of it couple of cheap hoods?"  
   "If you're not, you ought to be."  
   "Who's your friend? What does he do?"     "He does what I tell him."  
   "Like what?"  
   "Like, Eddie, go kiss that blond!"     "Listen, you leave my wife out of this!"     "And if she screams, I put a bullet in your gut. I don't pla y. Go on, Eddie, kiss the 
blond-"  
   The blond was trying to hold up the broken shoulder strap wi th one hand.  
   "No," she said, "please-"  
   "I'm sorry, lady, I gotta do what Harry tells me."  
   I grabbed her by the hair and got my lips on hers. She pushe d against me, but she 
wasn't very strong. I'd never kissed a woman that beautiful bef ore.  
   "All right, Eddie, that's enough."  
   I pulled away. I walked around and stood next to Harry. "Why , Eddie," he said, 
"what's that thing sticking out in font of you?"  
   I didn't answer.  
   "Look, Maxson," said Harry, "your wife gave my man a hard-on ! How the hell are 
we supposed to get any work done around here? We came for cash and jewelry."  
   "You wise-ass punks make me sick. You're no better than magg ots."  
   "And what have you got? The six o'clock news. What's so big about that? Political 
pull and an asshole public. Anybody can read the news. I make t he news."  
 78    "You make the news? Like what? What can you do?"  
   "Any amount of numbers. Ah, let me think. How about, TV news caster drinks 
burglar's piss? How's that sound to you?"  
   "I'd die first."     "You won't. Eddie, go get me a glass. There's one there on t he nightstand. Bring me 
that."  
   "Look," said the blond, "please take our money. Take our jew els. just go away. 
What's the need for all this?"  
   "It's your loudmouthed, spoiled husband, lady. He's getting on my fucking nerves."  
   I brought Harry the glass, a nd he unzipped his pants and beg an to piss into it. It was 
a tall glass, but he filled it to the brim. Then he zipped up a nd moved toward Maxson.  
   "Now you're gonna drink my piss, Mr. Maxson."     "No way, bastard. I'd die first."  
   "You won't die. You'll drink my piss, all of it!"  
   "Never, punk!"     "Eddie," Harry nodded to me, "see that cigar on the dresser mantle?"  
   "Yeah."  
   "Get it. Light it. There's a lighter there."  
   I got the lighter and lit the cigar. It was a good one. I pu ffed on it. My best cigar. 
Never had anything like it.  
   "You like the cigar, Eddie?" Harry asked me.  
   "It's great, Harry."  
   "OK. Now you walk over to the whore and get that breast out from under the broken 
shoulder strap. Pull it out. I'm gonna hand this jerk-off this glass full of my piss. You 
hold that cigar next to the nippl e of the lady's breast. And if  this jerk-off doesn't drink 
all of this piss down to the ve ry last drop, I want you to burn  that nipple off with that 
cigar. Understand?"  
   I got it. I walked around and pulled out Mrs. Maxson's breas t. I felt dizzy looking at 
it- never had I seen anything like that.  
   Harry handed Tom Maxson the glass of piss. Maxson looked ove r at his wife and 
tilted the glass and began to drink.  
   The blond was trembling all over. It felt so good to hold he r breast.  
   The yellow piss was going down the newscaster's throat. He s topped a moment at 
the Halfway mark. He looked sick.  
   "All of it," said Harry. "Go ahead; it's good to the last dr op."  
   Maxson put the glass to his lips and drained the remainder. The glass fell from his 
hand.  
   "I still think you're a couple of cheap punks," gasped Maxso n.  
   I was still standing there holding the blond's breast. She y anked it away.  
   "Tom," said the blond, "will you stop antagonizing these men ? You're doing the 
most foolish thing possible!"  
   "Oh, playing the winners, eh? Is that why you married me? Be cause I was a 
winner?"  
   "Of course that's why she married you, asshole," said Harry.  "Look at that fat gut on 
you. Did you think it was for your body?"  
 79    "I've got something," said Maxson. "That's why I'm Number On e in newscasting. 
You don't do that on luck."  
   "But if she hadn't married Number One," said Harry, "she wou ld have married 
Number Two."  
   "Don't listen to him, Tom," said the blond.  
   "It's all right," said Maxson, "I know you love me."  
   "Thank you, Daddy," said the blond.     "It's all right, Nana,"     "'Nana,'" said Harry, "I like that name, 'Nana.' That's clas s, Class an ass. That's what 
the rich get while we get the scrubwomen."  
   "Why don't you join the Communist Party?" asked Maxson.  
   "Man, I don't care to Wait Centuries for something that migh t not finally work. I 
want it now."  
   "Look, Harry," I said, "all we're doing is standing around a nd holding conversations 
with these people. That doesn't get us anything. I don't care w hat they think. Let's get 
the loot and split. The longer we stay, the sooner we draw the heat."  
   "Now, Eddie," he answered, "that's the first good bit of sen se I've heard you speak in 
five or six years."  
   "I don't care," said Maxson. "You're just the weak feeding o ff of the strong. If I 
weren't here, you'd hardly exist. You remind me of people who g o around 
assassinating political and spiritual leaders. It's the worst k ind of cowardice; it's the 
easiest thing to do with the least talent available. It comes f rom hatred and envy; it 
comes from rancor and bitterness and ultimate stupidity; it com es from the lowest 
scale of the human ladder; it stinks and it reeks and it makes me ashamed to belong to 
the same tribe."  
   "Boy," said Harry, "that was some speech. Even piss can't st op your flow of bullshit. 
You're one spoiled turd. You realize how many people there are on this earth without a 
chance? Because of where and how they were born? Because they h ad no education? 
Because they never had anything and never will have and nobody gives a fuck, and 
you marry the best body you can find, your age be damned?"  
   "Take your loot and go," said Maxson. "All you bastards who never make it have 
some alibi."  
   "Oh, wait," said Harry, "everything counts. We're making now . You don't quite 
understand."  
   "Tom," said the blond, "just give them the money, the jewelr y ... let them go ... 
please get off Channel 7."  
   "It's not Channel 7, Nana. It's letting them know. I've got to let them know."  
   "Eddie," said Harry, "check the bathroom. Bring back some ad hesive tape."  
   I walked down the hall and found the bathroom. In the medici ne cabinet was a wide 
roll of adhesive. Harry made me nervous. I never knew what he w as going to do. I 
brought the tape back into the  bedroom. Harry was yanking the p hone cord out of the 
wall. "OK," he told me, " shut off Channel 7."  
   I got it. I taped his mouth good.  
   "Now the hands, the hands in back," said Harry.  
   He walked over to Nana, pulled out both of her breasts and l ooked at them.  
   Then he spit in her face. She wiped it off with the bedsheet .  
 80    "OK," he said, "now this one. G et the mouth, but leave the h ands loose. I like a little 
fight."  
   I fixed her up.  
   Harry got Tom Maxson turned on his side in his bed; he had h im facing Nana. He 
walked over and got one of Maxson's cigars and lit it. "I guess  Maxson's right," said 
Harry. "We are the suckerfish. We are the maggots. We are the s lime, and maybe the 
cowards."  
   He took a good pull on the cigar.  
   "It's yours, Eddie."     "Harry, I can't."     "You can. You don't know how. You've never been taught how. No education. I'm 
your teacher. She's yours. It's simple."  
   "You do it, Harry."     "No. She'll mean more to you."  
   "Why?"  
   "Because you're such a simple asshole."  
   I walked over to her bed. She was so beautiful and I was so ugly I fell as if my 
whole body was smeared with a layer of shit.  
   "Go on," said Harry, "get it on, asshole."  
   "Harry, I'm scared. It's not right; she's not mine."  
   "She's yours."     "Why?"     "Look at it like a war. We won this war. We've killed all th eir machos, all their big-
timers, all their heroes. There's nothing left but women and ch ildren. We kill the 
children and send the old women up the road. We are the conquer ing army. All that's 
left is their women. And the most beautiful woman of all is our s . . . is yours. She's 
helpless. Take her."  
   I walked up and pulled back the covers. It was as if I had d ied and was suddenly in 
heaven, and there was this magical  creature in front of me. I t ook her negligee and 
ripped it completely off.  
   "Fuck her, Eddie!"     All the curves were absolutely where they were supposed to b e. They were there and 
beyond. It was like beautiful skies; it was like beautiful rive rs flowing. I just wanted to 
look. I was afraid. I stood there , this horn of a thing in fron t of me. I had no rights.  
   "Go ahead," said Harry. "Fuck her! She's the same as any oth er woman. She plays 
games, tells lies. She'll be an old woman someday, and other yo ung girls will replace 
her. She'll even die. Fuck her while she's still there!"  
   I pulled at her shoulders, trying to gather her to me. She h ad gotten strength from 
somewhere. She pushed against me, pulling her head back. She wa s completely 
repulsed.  
   "Listen, Nana, I reall y don't want to do this ... but I do. I'm sorry. I don't know what 
to do. I want you and I'm ashamed."  
   She made a sound through the adhesive on her mouth and pushe d against me. She 
was so beautiful. I didn't deserve that. Her eyes looked into m ine. They said what I 
was thinking: I had no human right.  
   "Go ahead," said Harry, "slam it to her! She'll love it."     "I can't do it, Harry."  
 81    "All right," he said, "you watch Channel 7 then."  
   I walked over and sat next to Tom Maxson. We sat side-by-sid e on his bed. He was 
making small sounds through the adhesive. Harry walked over to the other bed. "All 
right, whore, I guess I'll have to impregnate you."  
   Nana leaped out of bed and ran toward the door. Harry caught  her by the hair, spun 
her and slapped her hard across the face. She fell against the wall and slid down. Harry 
pulled her up by the hair and hit her again. Maxson made a loud er sound through his 
adhesive and leaped up. He ran over and butted Harry with his h ead. Harry gave him a 
chop along the back of the neck, and Maxson dropped.  
   "Tape the hero's ankles," he told me.  
   I bound Maxson's feet and shoved him onto his bed.     "Sit him up," said Harry. "I want him to watch."  
   "Look, Harry," I said, "let's get out of here. The longer we  stay-"  
   "Shut up!"  
   Harry dragged the blond back to the bed. She still had on a pair of panties. He ripped 
them off and threw them at Maxson. The panties fell at his feet . Maxson moaned and 
began to struggle. I punched him a hard one, deep into the bell y.  
   Harry took off his pants and undershorts.  
   "Whore," he said to the blond, "I'm gonna sink this thing de ep into you and you're 
going to feel it and there's nothing you can do. You'll take al l of it! And I'm going to 
cream deep inside of you!"  
   He had her on her back; she was still struggling. He hit her  again, hard. Her head fell 
back. He spread her legs. He tried to work his cock in. He was having trouble.  
   "Loosen up, bitch; I know you want it! Lift your legs!"  
   He hit her hard, twice. The legs rose.  
   "That's better, whore!"     Harry poked and poked. Finally, he penetrated. He moved it i n and out, slowly.  
   Maxson began moaning and moving again. I sank another one in to his belly.  
   Harry began to get up a rhythm . The blond groaned as if in p ain.  
   "You like it, don't you, whore? It's better turkeyneck than your old man ever gave 
you, ain't it? Feel it growing?"  
   I couldn't stand it. I stood up, took out my cock and began masturbating. Harry was 
ramming the blond so hard that her head was bouncing. Then he s lapped her and 
pulled out.  
   "Not yet, whore. I'm taking my time."     He walked over to where Tom Maxson was sitting.  
   "Look at the SIZE of that thing! And I'm going to put it bac k into her now and come 
right inside her, Tommy boy! You'll never be able to make love to your Nana without 
thinking of me! Without thinking of THIS!"  
   Harry put his cock right into M axson's face, "And I may have  her suck me off after 
I'm finished!"  
   Then he turned, went back to t he other bed and mounted the b lond. He slapped her 
again and began pumping wildly.  
   "You cheap, stinking whore, I'm going to come!"  
   Then: "Oh, shit! OH, MY GOD! Oh, oh, oh!"  
 82    He fell down against Nana and lay there. After a moment he p ulled out. Then he 
looked over at me. "Sure you don't want some?"  
   "No thanks, Harry."  
   Harry began to laugh. "Look at you, fool, you've whacked off !" Harry got back into 
his pants, laughing. "All right," he said, "tape up her hands a nd ankles. We're gettin' 
out of here."  
   I walked over and taped her up.  
   "But, Harry, how about the money and jewels?"     "We'll take his wallet. I want to get out of here. I'm nervo us."  
   "But, Harry, let's take it all."  
   "No," he said, "just the wallet. Check his trousers. just ta ke the money."  
   I found the wallet.  
   "There's only $83 here, Harry."  
   "We take it and we leave. I'm nervous. I feel something in t he air. We have to go."  
   "Shit, Harry, that's no haul! We can really clean them out!"   
   "I told you: I'm nervous. I feel trouble coming. You can sta y. I'm leaving."  
   I followed him down the stairway.     "That son of a bitch will think twice before he insults anyb ody again," said Harry.  
   We found the window we had jimmied open and left the same wa y. We walked 
through the garden and out the iron gate.  
   "All right," said Harry, "we walk at a casual gait. Light a cigarette. Try to look 
normal."  
   "Why are you so nervous, Harry?"     "Shut up!"     We walked four blocks. The car was still there. Harry took t he wheel and we drove 
off.  
   "Where we going?" I asked.     "The Guild Theater."  
   "What's playing?"  
   "Black Silk Stockings, with Annette Haven."     The place was down on Lankershim.  
   We parked and got out. Harry bought the tickets. We walked i n.  
   "Popcorn?" I asked Harry.     "No."  
   "I want some."  
   "Get it."  
   Harry waited until I got the popcorn, large. We found some s eats near the back. We 
were in luck. The feature was just beginning.  
   originally appeared in Hustler magazine, March 1979  
 83 GUTS 
 
   Like anybody can tell you, I am not a very nice man. I don't  know the word. I have 
always admired the villain, the outlaw, the son of a bitch. I d on't like the clean-shaven 
boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, me n with broken teeth 
and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are fu ll of surprises and 
explosions. I also like vile women, drunk cursing bitches with loose stockings and 
sloppy mascara faces. I'm more interested in perverts than sain ts. I can relax with 
bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be 
shaped by society.  
   I was drinking with Marty, t he ex-con, up in my room one nig ht. I didn't have a job. 
I didn't want a job. I just wanted to sit around with my shoes off and drink wine and 
talk, and laugh if possible. Marty was a little dull, but he ha d workingman's hands, a 
broken nose, mole's eyes, nothing much to him but he'd been thr ough it.  
   "I like you, Hank," said Marty, "you're a real man, you're o ne of the few real men 
I've known."  
   "Yeh," I said.     "You got guts."  
   "Yeh."  
   "I was a hard-rock miner once . . ."     "Yeh?"   
   "I got in a fight with this  guy. We used ax handles. He brok e my left arm with his 
first swing. I went on to fight  him. I beat his goddamned head in. When he came 
around from that beating, he was out of his head. I'd mashed hi s brains in. They put 
him in a madhouse."  
   "That's all right," I said.     "Listen," said Mart y, "I want to fight you."  
   "You get first punch. Go ahead, hit me."  
   Marty was sitting in a straight-backed green chair. I was wa lking to the sink to pour 
another glass of wine from t he bottle. I turned around and smas hed him a right to the 
face. He flipped over backwards in the chair, got up and came t oward me. I wasn't 
looking for the left. It got  me high on the forehead and knocke d me down. I reached 
into a paper sack full of vomit and empties, came out with a bo ttle, rose to my knees 
and hurled it. Marty ducked and I came up with the chair behind  me. I had it over my 
head when the door opened. It wa s our landlady, a good-looking young blonde in her 
twenties. What she was doing running a place like that I could never figure out. I put 
the chair down.  
   "Go to your room, Marty."  
   Marty looked ashamed, like a little boy. He walked down the hall to his room, 
walked in and closed the door.  
   "Mr. Chinaski," she said, "I want you to know ..."  
   "I want you to know," I said, "that it's no use."     "What's no use?"   
   "You're not my type. I don't want to fuck you."  
 84    "Listen," she said, "I want  to tell you something. I saw you  pissing in the lot next 
door last night and if you do tha t again I'm going to throw you  out of here. 
Somebody's been pissing in the elevator too. Has that been you? "  
   "I don't piss in elevators."     "Well, I saw you in the lot las t night. I was watching. It w as you."  
   "The hell it was me."  
   "You were too drunk to know. Don't do it again."     She closed the door and was gone.     I was sitting there quietly drinking wine a few minutes late r and trying to remember 
if I had pissed in the lot, when there was a knock on the door.  
   "Come in," I said.     It was Marty. "I gotta tell you something."  
   "Sure. Sit down."  
   I poured Marty a glass of port and he sat down.     "I'm in love," he said.  
   I didn't answer. I rolled a cigarette.  
   "You believe in love?" he asked.     "I have to. It happened to me once."     "Where is she?"  
   "She's gone. Dead."  
   "Dead? How?"     "Drink."  
   "This one drinks too. It worries me. She's always drunk. She  can't stop."  
   "None of us can."  
   "I go to A.A. meetings with her. She's drunk when she goes. Half of them down 
there at the A.A. are drunk. You can smell the fumes."  
   I didn't answer.  
   "God, she's young. And what a body! I love her, man, really love her!"  
   "Oh hell, Marty, that's just sex."  
   "No, I love her. Hank, I really feel it."  
   "I guess it's possible."     "Christ, they've got her down in a cellar room. She can't pa y her rent."  
   "The cellar?"  
   "Yeah, they got a room down there with all the boilers and s hit."  
   "Hard to believe."  
   "Yeah, she's down there. And I love her, man, and I don't ha ve any money to help 
her with."  
   "That's sad. I been in the same situation. It hurts."  
   "If I can get straight, if I can get on the wagon for ten da ys and get my health back -- 
I can get a job somewhere, I can help her."  
   "Well," I said, "you're drinking now. If you love her, you'l l stop drinking. Right 
now."  
   "By god," he said, "I will! I'll  pour this drink into the si nk!"  
   "Don't be melodramatic. Just pass that glass over here."  
 85    I took the elevator down to the f irst floor with the fifth o f cheap whiskey I had stolen 
at Sam's liquor store a week earlier. Then I took the stairway to the cellar. There was a 
small light burning down there. I  walked along looking for a do or. I finally found one. 
It must have been 1:00 or 2:00 i n the morning. I knocked. The d oor opened a notch 
and here stood a really fine-looking woman in a negligee. I had n't expected that. 
Young, and a strawberry blonde.  
   I stuck my foot in the door, t hen I pushed my way in, closed  the door and looked 
around. Not a bad place at all.  
   "Who are you?" she asked. "Get out of here."  
   "This is a nice place you got here. I like it better than my  own."  
   "Get out of here! Get out! Get out!"     I pulled the fifth of whiske y out of the paper bag. She look ed at it.  
   "What's your name?" I asked.  
   "Jeanie."     "Look, Jeanie, where do you keep your drinking glasses?"     She pointed to a wall shelf and I walked over and got two ta ll water glasses. There 
was a sink. I put a little water in each, then walked over, set  them down, opened the 
whiskey and mixed it in. We sat on the edge of her bed and dran k. She was young, 
attractive. I couldn't believe it. I waited for a neurotic expl osion, for something 
psychotic. Jeanie looked normal, even healthy. But she did like  her whiskey. She 
drank right along with me. Havi ng come down there in a rush of eagerness, I no longer 
felt that eagerness. I mean, if she had had a little pig in her  or something indecent or 
foul (a harelip, anything), I would have felt more like moving in. I remembered a story 
I had read in the Racing Form  once about a high- bred stallion they couldn't get to 
mate with the mares. They got the most beautiful mares they cou ld find, but the 
stallion only shied away. Then somebody, who knew something, go t an idea. He 
smeared mud all over a beautiful mare and the stallion immediat ely mounted her. The 
theory was that the stallion felt inferior to all the beauty an d when it was muddied-up, 
fouled, he at least felt equal or maybe even superior. Horses' minds and men's minds 
could be a great deal alike.  
   Anyhow, Jeanie poured the next drink and asked me my name an d where I roomed. I 
told her that I was upstairs somewhere and I just wanted to dri nk with somebody.  
   "I saw you at the Clamber-In one night about a week ago," sh e said, "you were very 
funny, you had everybody laughing, you bought everybody drinks. "  
   "I don't remember."     "I remember. You like my negligee?"  
   "Yes."   
   "Why don't you take off your pants and get more comfortable? "  
   I did and sat back on the bed with her. It moved very slowly . I remember telling her 
that she had nice breasts and then I was sucking on one of them . Next I knew we were 
at it. I was on top. But somethi ng didn't work. I rolled off. " I'm sorry," I said.  
   "It's all right," she said, "I still like you." We sat there  talking vaguely and finishing 
the whiskey.  
   Then she got up and turned off the lights. I felt very sad a nd climbed into bed and 
lay against her back. Jeanie was warm, full, and I could feel h er breathing, and I could 
feel her hair against my face. My penis begain to rise and I po ked it against her. I felt 
her reach down and guide it in.  
 86    "Now," she said, "now, that's it. . ."  
   It was good that way, long and good, and then we were finish ed and then we slept.  
   When I woke up she was still asleep and I got up to get dres sed. I was fully clothed 
when she turned and looked at me: "One more time before you go. "  
   "All right."  
   I undressed again and got in wit h her. She turned her back t o me and we did it again, 
the same way. After I climaxed she lay with her back to me.  
   "Will you come see me again?" she asked.  
   "Of course."  
   "You live upstairs?"     "Yes. 309.1 can come see you or you can come see me."  
   "I'd rather you came to see me," she said.  
   "All right," I said. I got dressed, opened the door, closed the door, walked up the 
stairway, got in the elevator, and hit the 3 button.  
   It was about a week later, one  night, I was drinking wine wi th Marty. We talked 
about various things of no importance and then he said, "Christ , I feel awful."  
   "What again?"  
   "Yeah. My girl, Jeanie. I told you about her."     "Yes. The one who lives in the cellar. You're in love with h er."  
   "Yeh. They kicked her out of the cellar. She couldn't even m ake the cellar rent."  
   "Where'd she go?"  
   "I don't know. She's gone. I heard they kicked her out. Nobo dy knows what she did, 
where she went. I went to the A.A. meeting. She wasn't there. I 'm sick. Hank, I'm 
really sick. I loved her. I'm about out of my head."  
   I didn't answer.  
   "What can I do, man? I'm really torn apart.. ."  
   "Let's drink to her luck, Marty, to her good luck."     We had a good long one to her.  
   "She was all right. Hank, you gotta believe me, she was all right."  
   "I believe you Marty."  
   A week later Marty got kicke d out for not paying his rent an d I got a job in a meat 
packing plant and there were a couple of Mexican bars across th e street. I liked those 
Mexican bars. After work, I smelled of blood, but nobody seemed  to mind. It wasn't 
until I got on the bus to go back to my room that those noses s tarted raising and I got 
the dirty looks, and I began feeling mean again. That helped.  
 87 HIT MAN 
 
   Ronnie was to meet the two men at the German bar in the Silv er-lake district. It was 
7:15 p.m. He sat there drinking the dark beer at the table by h imself. The barmaid was 
blond, fine ass, and her breasts looked as if they were going t o fall out of her blouse.  
   Ronnie liked blondes. It was like iceskating and rollerskati ng. The blondes were 
iceskating, the rest were rollerskating. The blondes even smell ed different. But women 
meant trouble, and for him the trouble often outweighed the joy . In other words, the 
price was too high.  
   Yet a man needed a woman now and then, if for no other reaso n than to prove he 
could get one. The sex was secondary. It wasn't a lover's world , it never would be.  
   7:20. He waved her over for another beer. She came smiling, carrying the beer out in 
front of her breasts. You couldn't help liking her like that.  
   "You like working here?" he asked her.  
   "Oh yes, I meet a lot of men."     "Nice men?"  
   "Nice men and the other kind."  
   "How can you tell them apart?"     "I can tell by looking."     "What kind of man am I?"  
   "Oh," she laughed, "nice, of course."  
   "You've earned your tip," said Ronnie.  
   7:25. They'd said 7. Then he looked up. It was Curt. Curt ha d the guy with him. 
They came over and sat down. Curt waved for a pitcher.  
   "The Rams ain't worth shit," said Curt, "I've lost an even $ 500 on them this season."  
   "You think Prothro's finished?"     "Yeah, it's over for him," said Curt. "Oh, this is Bill. Bil l, this is Ronnie."  
   They shook hands. The barmaid arrived with the pitcher.  
   "Gentlemen," said Ronnie, "this is Kathy."     "Oh," said Bill.  
   "Oh, yes," said Curt.  
   The barmaid laughed and wiggled on.     "It's good beer," said Ronnie. "I've been here since 7:00, w aiting. I ought to know."  
   "You don't want to get drunk," said Curt.  
   "Is he reliable?" asked Bill.     "He's got the best references," said Curt.     "Look," said Bill, "I don't want comedy. It's my money."  
   "How do I know you're not a pig?" asked Ronnie.  
   "How do I know you won't cut with the $2500?"     "Three grand."   
   "Curt said two and one half."  
   "I just upped it. I don't like you."     "I don't care too much for your ass either. I've got a good mind to call it off."  
 88    "You won't. You guys never do."  
   "Do you do this regular?"     "Yes. Do you?"     "All right, gentlemen," said Curt, "I don't care what you se ttle for. I get my grand for 
the contract."  
   "You're the lucky one, Curt," said Bill.     "Yeah," said Ronnie.  
   "Each man is an expert in his own line," said Curt, lighting  a cigarette.  
   "Curt, how do I know this guy won't cut with the three grand ?"  
   "He won't or he's out of business. It's the only kind of wor k he can do."  
   "That's horrible," said Bill.  
   "What's horrible about it? You need him don't you?"     "Well, yes."     "Other people need him too. They say each man is good at som ething. He's good at 
that."  
   Somebody put some money in the juke and they sat listening t o the music and 
drinking the beer.  
   "I'd really like to give it to that blonde," said Ronnie. "I 'd like to give her about six 
hours of turkeyneck."  
   "I would too," said Curt, "if I had it."  
   "Let's get another pitcher," said Bill. "I'm nervous.  
   "There's nothing to worry about,"  said Curt. He waved for an other pitcher of beer. 
"That $500 I dropped on the Rams, I'll get it back at Anita. Th ey open December 26th. 
I'll be there."  
   "Is the Shoe going to ride in the meet?" asked Bill.  
   "I haven't read the papers. I'd imagine he will. He can't qu it. It's in his blood."  
   "Longden quit," said Ronnie.     "Well, he had to; they had to str ap the old man in the saddl e."  
   "He won his last race."  
   "Campus pulled the other horse."     "I don't think you can beat the horses," said Bill.     "A smart man can beat anything he puts his mind to," said Cu rt. "I've never worked 
in my life."  
   "Yeah," said Ronnie, "but I gotta work tonight."     "Be sure you do a good job, baby," said Curt.     "I always do a good job."     They were quiet and sat drinki ng their beer. Then Ronnie sai d, "All right, where's 
the god damned money?"  
   "You'll get it, you'll get it," said Bill. "It's lucky I bro ught an extra $500."  
   "I want it now. All of it."  
   "Give him the money. Bill. And while you're at it, give me m ine."  
   It was all in hundreds. Bill counted it under the table. Ron nie got his first, then Curt 
got his. They checked it. O.k.  
   "Where's it at?" asked Ronnie.  
   "Here," said Bill, handing him an envelope. "The address and  key are inside."  
 89    "How far away is it?"  
   "Thirty minutes. You take the Ventura freeway."     "Can I ask you one thing?"  
   "Sure."   
   "Why?"   
   "Why?"  
   "Yes, why?"  
   "Do you care?"     "No."  
   "Then why ask?"  
   "Too much beer, I guess."     "Maybe you better get going," said Curt.  
   "Just one more pitcher of beer," said Ronnie.  
   "No," said Curt, "get going."     "Well, shit, all right."     Ronnie moved around the table, got out, walked to the exit. Curt and Bill sat there 
looking at him. He'walked outsi de. Night. Stars. Moon. Traffic.  His car. He unlocked 
it, got in, drove off.  
   Ronnie checked the street carefully and the address more car efully. He parked a 
block and a half away and walked back. The key fit the door. He  opened it and walked 
in. There was a T.V. set going in the front room. He walked acr oss the rug.  
   "Bill?" somebody asked. He listened for the voice. She was i n the bathroom. "Bill?" 
she said again. He pushed the door open and there she sat in th e tub, very blond, very 
white, young. She screamed.  
   He got his hands around her throat and pushed her under the water. His sleeves were 
soaked. She kicked and struggled violently. It got so bad that he had to get in the tub 
with her, clothes and all. He had to hold her down. Finally she  was still and he let her 
go.  
   Bill's clothes didn't quite fit him but at least they were d ry. The wallet was wet but 
he kept the wallet. Then he got  out of there, walked the block and one half to his car 
and drove off.  
 90 THIS IS WHAT KILLED DYLAN THOMAS 
 
   This is what killed Dylan Thomas.  
   I board the plane with my girlfriend, the sound man, the cam era man and the 
producer. The camera is working. The sound man has attached lit tle microphones to 
my girlfriend and myself. I am on my way to San Francisco to gi ve a poetry reading. I 
am Henry Chinaski, poet. I am profound, I am magnificent. Balls . Well, yes, I do have 
magnificent balls.  
   Channel 15 is thinking of doing a documentary on me. I have on a clean new shirt, 
and my girlfriend is vibrant, ma gnificent, in her early thirtie s. She sculpts, writes, and 
makes marvelous love. The camera pokes into my face. I pretend it isn't there. The 
passengers watch, the stewardesses beam, the land is stolen fro m the Indians, Tom 
Mix is dead, and I've had a fine breakfast.  
   But I can't help thinking of the  years in lonely rooms when the only people who 
knocked were the landladies asking for the back rent, or the F. B.I. I lived with rats and 
mice and wine and my blood crawled the walls in a world I could n't understand and 
still can't. Rather than live their life, I starved; I ran insi de my own mind and hid. I 
pulled down all the shades and stared at the ceiling. When I we nt out it was to a bar 
where I begged drinks, ran errands, was beaten in alleys by wel l-fed and secure men, 
by dull and comfortable men. Well, I won a few fights but only because I was crazy. I 
went for years without women, I lived on peanut butter and stal e bread and boiled 
potatoes. I was the fool, the do lt, the idiot. I wanted to writ e but the typer was always 
in hock. I gave it up and drank...  
   The plane rose and the camera went on. The girlfriend and I talked. The drinks 
arrived. I had poetry, and a fine woman. Life was picking up. B ut the traps, Chinaski, 
watch the traps. You fought a l ong fight to put the word down t he way you wanted. 
Don't let a little adulation and a movie camera pull you out of  position. Remember 
what Jeffers said -- even the strongest men can be trapped, lik e God when he once 
walked on earth.  
   Well, you ain't God, Chinaski, r elax and have another drink.  Maybe you ought to say 
something profound for the sound man? No, let him sweat. Let th em all sweat. It's 
their film burning. Check the clouds for size. You're riding wi th executives from 
I.B.M., from Texaco, from . . .  
   You're riding with the enemy.  
   On the escalator out of the airport a man asks me, "What's a ll the cameras? What's 
going on?"  
   "I'm a poet," I tell him.  
   "A poet?" he asks, "what's your name?"  
   "Garcia Lorca," I say. . . .  
   Well, North Beach is diffe rent. They're young and they wear jeans and they wait 
around. I'm old. Where's the young ones of 20 years ago? Where' s Joltin' Joe? All that. 
Well, I was in S.F. 30 years ago and I avoided North Beach. Now  I'm walking through 
it. I see my face on posters all about. Be careful, old man, th e suck is on. They want 
your blood.  
 91    My girlfriend and I walk along with Marionetti. Well, here w e are walking along 
with Marionetti. It's nice being with Marionetti, he has very g entle eyes and the young 
girls stop him on the street a nd talk to him. Now, I think, I c ould stay in San Francisco 
. . . but I know better; it's back to L.A. for me with that mac hinegun mounted in the 
front court window. They might ha ve caught God, but Chinaski ge ts advice from the 
devil.  
   Marionetti leaves and there's a beatnick coffeeshop. I have never been in a beatnick 
coffeeshop. I am in a beatnick coffeeshop. My girl and I get th e best -- 60 cents a cup. 
Big time. It isn't worth it. The kids sit about sipping at thei r coffees and waiting for it 
to happen. It isn't going to happen.  
   We walk across the street to an Italian cafe. Marionetti is back with the guy from the 
S. F. Chronicle  who wrote in his column that I was the best short story writer  to come 
along since Hemingway. I tell hi m he is wrong; I don't know who  is the best since 
Heming- way but it isn't H.C. I'm too careless. I don't put out  enough effort. I'm tired.  
   The wine comes on. Bad wine. The lady brings in soup, salad,  a bowl of raviolis. 
Another bottle of bad wine. We are too full to eat the main cou rse. The talk is loose. 
We don't strain to be brilliant. Maybe we can't be. We get out.   
   I walk behind them up the hill. I walk with my beautiful gir lfriend. I begin to vomit. 
Bad red wine. Salad. Soup. Raviolis. I always vomit before a re ading. It's a good sign. 
The edge is on. The knife is in my gut while I walk up the hill .  
   They put us in a room, leave us a few bottles of beer. I gla nce over my poems. I am 
terrified. I heave in the sink, I heave in the toilet, I heave on the floor. I am ready.  
   The biggest crowd since Yevtushenko ... I walk on stage. Hot  shit. Hot shit 
Chinaski. There is a refrigerator full of beer behind me. I rea ch in and take one. I sit 
down and begin to read. They've paid $2 a head. Fine people, th ose. Some are quite 
hostile from the outset. 1/3 of them hate me, 1/3 of them love me, the other 3rd don't 
know what the hell. I have some poems that I know will increase  the hate. It's good to 
have hostility, it keeps the head loose.  
   "Will Laura Day please stand up? Will my love please stand u p?"  
   She does, waving her arms.  
   I begin to get more interested in the beer than the poetry. I talk between the poems, 
dry and banal stuff, drab. I am H . Bogart. I am Hemingway. I am  hot shit.  
   "Read the poems, Chinaski!" they scream.  
   They are right, you know. I try t o stay with the poems. But I'm at the refrigerator 
door much of the time too. It makes the work easier, and they'v e already paid. I'm told 
once John Cage came out on stage, ate an apple, walked off, got  one thousand dollars. 
I figured I had a few beers coming.  
   Well, it was over. They came around. Autographs. They'd come  from Oregon, L.A., 
Washington. Nice pretty little girls too. This is what killed D ylan Thomas.  
   Back upstairs at the place, drinking beer and talking to Lau ra and Joe Krysiak. They 
are beating on the door downstairs. "Chinaski! Chinaski!" Joe g oes down to hold them 
off. I'm a rock star. Finally I go down and let some of them in . I know some of them. 
Starving poets. Editors of little magazines. Some get through t hat I don't know. All 
right, all right -- lock the door!  
   We drink. We drink. We drink. Al Masantic falls down in the bathroom and crashes 
the top of his head open. A very fine poet, that Al.  
   Well, everybody is talking. It's just another sloppy beerdru nk. Then the editor of a 
little magazine starts beating on a fag. I don't like it. I try  to separate them. A window 
 92 is broken. I push them down the steps. I push everybody down th e steps, except Laura. 
The party is over. Well, not quite. Laura and I are into it. My  love and I are into it. 
She's got a temper, I've got one to match. It's over nothing, a s usual. I tell her to get the 
hell out. She does.  
   I wake up hours later and she's standing in the center of th e room. I leap out of bed 
and cuss her. She's on me.  
   "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!"     I'm drunk. She's on top of me on the kitchen floor. My face is bleeding. She bites a 
hole in my arm. I don't want to die. I don't want to die! Passi on be damned! I run into 
the kitchen and pour half a bottle of iodine over my arm. She's  throwing my shorts and 
shirts out of her suitcase, taking her airplane ticket. She's o n her way again. We're 
finished forever again. I go back to bed and listen to her heel s going down the hill.  
   On the plane back the camera is going. Those guys from Chann el 15 are going to 
find out about life. The camera zooms in on the hole in my arm.  There is a double shot 
in my hand.  
   "Gentlemen," I say, "there is no way to make it with the fem ale. There is absolutely 
no way."  
   They all nod in agreement. The sound man nods, the camera ma n nods, the producer 
nods. Some of the passengers nod. I drink heavily all the way i n, savoring my sorrow, 
as they say. What can a poet do without pain? He needs it as mu ch as his typewriter.  
   Of course, I make the airport bar. I would have made it anyh ow. The camera follows 
me into the bar. The guys in the bar look around, lift their dr inks and talk about how 
impossible it is to make it with the female.  
   My take for the reading is $400.     "What's the camera for?" asks the guy next to me.  
   "I'm a poet," I tell him.  
   "A poet?" he asks. "What's your name?"     "Dylan Thomas," I say.  
   I lift my drink, empty it with one gulp, stare straight ahea d. I'm on my way.  
 93 NO NECK AND BAD AS HELL 
 
   I had a jumpy stomach and she took pictures of me sweating a nd dying in the 
waiting area as I watched a plump girl in a short purple dress and high heels shoot 
down a row of plastic ducks wit h a gun. I told Vicki I'd be bac k and I asked the girl at 
the counter for a paper cup and some water and I dropped my Alk a Seltzers in. I sat 
back down and sweated.  
   Vicki was happy. We were getting out of town. I liked Vicki to be happy. She 
deserved her happiness. I got up and went to the men's room and  had a good crap. 
When I got out they were calling the passengers. It wasn't a ve ry large seaplane. Two 
propellers. We were on last. It only held six or seven.  
   Vicki sat in the co-pilot's seat and they made me a seat out  of the thing that folded 
over the door. There we went! FREEDOM. My seatbelt didn't work.   
   There was a Japanese guy looking at me. "My seatbelt doesn't  work," I told him. He 
grinned back at me, happily. "Suck shit, baby," I told him. Vic ki kept looking back 
and smiling. She was happy, a kid with candy -- a 35 year old s eaplane.  
   It took twelve minutes and we hit the water. I hadn't heaved . I got out. Vicki told me 
all about it. "The plane was built in 1940. It had holes in the  floor. He worked the 
rudder with a handle from the roof. 'I'm scared,' I told him, a nd he said, 'I'm scared 
too.' "  
   I depended on Vicki for all my information. I wasn't much go od at talking to people. 
Well, then we packed onto a bus, sweating and giggling and look ing at each other. 
From the end of the bus line to t he hotel was about two blocks and Vicki kept me 
informed:  
   "There's a place to eat, and there's a liquor store for you,  there's a bar, and there's a 
place to eat, and there's another liquor store ..."  
   The room was all right, in front, right over the water. The T.V. worked in a vague 
and hesitant way and I flopped on the bed and watched while Vic ki unpacked. "Oh, I 
just love this place!" she said, "don't you?"  
   "Yes."   
   I got up and went downstairs and across the street and got b eer and ice. I packed the 
ice in the sink and sunk the beer in. I drank 12 bottles of bee r, had a minor argument 
of some sort with Vicki after t he tenth beer, drank the other t wo and went to sleep.  
   When I woke up, Vicki had bought an ice chest and was drawin g on the cover. Vicki 
was a child, a Romantic, but I loved her for it. I liad so many  gloomy devils in me that 
I welcomed it.  
   "July 1972. Avalon Catalena" she printed on the chest. She d idn't know how to spell. 
Well, none of us did.  
   Then she drew me, and underneath: "No neck and bad as hell."   
   Then she drew a lady, and underneath: "Henry knows a good as s when he sees one."  
   And in a circle: "Only God knows what he does with his nose. "  
   And: "Chinaski has gorgeous legs."  
   She also drew a variety of birds and suns and stars and palm  trees and the ocean.  
   "Are you able to eat breakfast?" she asked. I'd never been s poiled by any of my past 
women. I liked being spoiled; I felt that I deserved to be spoi led. We went and found a 
 94 fairly reasonable place where you could eat at a table outside.  Over breakfast she 
asked me, "Did you really win the Pulitzer Prize?"  
   "What Pulitzer Prize?"  
   "You told me last night you'd won the Pulitzer Prize. $500,0 00. You said you got a 
purple telegram about it."  
   "A purple telegram?"  
   "Yes, you said you'd beat out Norman Mailer, Kenneth Koch, D iane Wakoski, and 
Robert Creeley."  
   We finished breakfast and wal ked around. The whole place did n't add up to more 
than five or six blocks. Everybody was seventeen years old. The y sat listlessly 
waiting. Not everybody. There were a few tourists, old, determi ned to have a good 
time. They peered angrily into shop windows and walked, stampin g the pavements, 
giving off their rays: I have money, we have money, we have mor e money than you 
have, we are better than you are, nothing worries us; everythin g is shit but we are not 
shit and we know everything, look at us.  
   With their pink shirts and green shirts and blue shirts, and  square white rotting 
bodies, and striped shorts, eyeless eyes and mouthless mouths, they walked along, 
very colorful, as if color m ight wake up death and turn it into  life. They were a 
carnival of American decay on parade and they had no idea of th e atrocity that they 
had inflicted upon themselves.  
   I left Vicki, went upstairs, crouched over the typewriter, a nd looked out the window. 
It was hopeless. All my life I had wanted to be a writer and no w I had my chance and 
it wouldn't come. There were no bullrings and boxing matches or  young senoritas. 
There weren't even any insights. I was fucked. I couldn't get t he word down and they'd 
backed me into a corner. Well, all you had to do was die. But I 'd always imagined it 
differently. I mean, the writing. Maybe it was the Leslie Howar d movie. Or reading 
about the life of Hemingway or  D. H. Lawrence. Or Jeffers. You could get started 
writing in all sorts of different ways. And then you wrote a wh ile. And met some of 
the writers. The good ones and the bad ones. And they all had t inkertoy souls. You 
knew it when you got into a room with them. There was only one great writer every 
500 years, and you weren't the one, and they most certainly wer en't the ones. We were 
fucked.  
   I turned on the T.V. and watched a bag of doctors and nurses  spew their love-
troubles. They never touched. No wonder they were in trouble. A ll they did was talk, 
argue, bitch, search. I went to sleep.  
   Vicki woke me up. "Oh," she said, "I had the most wonderful time!"  
   "Yes?"   
   "I saw this man in a boat and I said 'Where are you going?' and he said, 'I'm a boat 
taxi, I take people in and out to their boats,' and I said, 'o. k.' and it was just fifty cents 
and I rode around with him for  hours while he took people to th eir boats. It was 
wonderful."  
   "I watched some doctors and nurses," I said, "and I got depr essed."  
   "We boated for hours," said Vicki, "I gave him my hat to wea r and he waited while I 
got an abalone sandwich. He skinned his leg when he fell off hi s motorcycle last 
night."  
   "The bells ring here every fifteen minutes. It's obnoxious."   
   "I got to look in all the boats. All the old drunks were on board. Some of them had 
young women dressed in boots. Others had young men. Real old dr unken lechers."  
 95    If I only had Vicki's abilit y to gather information, I thoug ht, I could really write 
something. Me: I've got to sit around and wait for it to come t o me. I can manipulate it 
and squeeze it once it arrives but I can't go find it. All I ca n write about is drinking 
beer, going to the racetrack, and listening to symphony music. That isn't a crippled 
life, but it's hardly all of it either. How did I get so limite d? I used to have guts. What 
happened to my guts? Do men really get old?  
   "After I got off the boat I sa w a bird. I talked to it. Do y ou mind if I buy the bird?"  
   "No, I don't mind. Where is it?"  
   "Just a block away. Can we go see him?"  
   "Why not?"   
   I got into some clothes and we walked down. Here was this sh ot of green with a little 
red ink spilled over him. He wasn't very much, even for a bird.  But he didn't shit every 
three minutes like the rest of them, so that was pleasant.  
   "He doesn't have any neck. He's just like you. That's why I want him. He's a peach-
faced love-bird."  
   We came back with the peach-faced love-bird in a cage. We pu t him on the table and 
she called him "Avalon." Vicki sat and talked to him.  
   "Avalon, hello Avalon . . . Ava lon, Avalon, hello Avalon . .  . Avalon, o, Avalon . . ."  
   I turned on the T.V.     The bar was all right. I sat with Vicki and told her I was g oing to break the place up. 
I used to break up bars in my early days, now I just talked abo ut breaking them up.  
   There was a band. I got up and danced. It was easy to dance modern. You just 
kicked your arms and legs in any direction, either held your ne ck stiff or whipped it 
like a son of a bitch and they thought you were great. You coul d fool people. I danced 
and worried about my typewriter.  
   I sat down with Vicki and ordered some more drinks. I grabbe d Vicki's head and 
pointed her toward the bartender. "Look, she's beautiful, man! Isn't she beautiful?"  
   Then Ernie Hemingway walked up with his white rat beard.  
   "Ernie," I said, "I thought you did it with a shotgun?"     Hemingway laughed.  
   "What are you drinking?" I asked.  
   "I'm buying," he said.     Ernie bought us our drinks and sat down. He looked a little thinner.  
   "I reviewed your last book," I t old him. "I gave it a bad re view. Sorry."  
   "It's all right," said Ernie. "How do you like the island?"  
   "It's for them," I said.     "Meaning?"     "The public is fortunate. Everything pleases them: icecream cones, rock concerts, 
singing, swinging, love, hate, masturbation, hot dogs, country dances, Jesus Christ, 
roller skating, spiritualism, capitalism, communism, circumcisi on, comic strips, Bob 
Hope, skiing, fishing murder bowling debating, anything. They d on't expect much and 
they don't get much. They are one grand gang."  
   "That's quite a speech."     "That's quite a public."  
   "You talk like a character out of early Huxley."  
   "I think you're wrong. I'm desperate."  
 96    "But," said Hemingway, "men become intellectuals in order no t to be desperate."  
   "Men become intellectuals because they are afraid, not despe rate."  
   "And the difference between afraid and desperate is ..."  
   "Bingo!" I answered, "an intellectual! . . . my drink . . ."   
   A little later I told Hemingway about my purple telegram and  then Vicki and I left 
and went back to our bird and our bed.  
   "It's no use," I said, "my stomach is raw and contains nine tenths of my soul."  
   "Try this," said Vicki and hande d me the glass of water and Alka Seltzer.  
   "You go and toddle around," I said, "I can't make it today."   
   Vicki went out and toddled and came back two or three times to see if I was all right. 
I was all right. I went out and ate and came back with two six- packs and found an old 
movie with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, and Randolph Scott. 1939.  They were all so 
young. It was incredible. I was seventeen years old then. But, of course, I'd come 
through better than them. I was still alive.  
   Jesse  James.  The acting was bad, very bad. Vicki came back and told me all sorts of 
amazing things and then she got on the bed with me and watched Jesse James.  When 
Bob Ford was about to shoot Jesse (Ty Power) in the back, Vicki  let out a moan and 
ran in the bathroom and hid. Ford did his thing.  
   "It's all over," I said, "you can come out now."  
   That was the highlight of the trip to Catalina. Not much els e happened. Before we 
left Vicki went to the Chamber  of Commerce and thanked them for  giving her such a 
good time. She also thanked the woman in Davey Jones' Locker an d bought presents 
for her friends Lita and Walter and Ava and her son Mike and so mething for me and 
something for Annie and something for a Mr. and Mrs. Croty, and  there were some 
others I have forgotten.  
   We got on the boat with our bird cage and our bird and our i ce chest and our suitcase 
and our electric typewriter. I f ound a spot at the back of the boat and we sat there and 
Vicki was sad because it was over. I had met Hemingway in the s treet and he had 
given me the hippie handshake and he asked me if I was Jewish a nd if I was coming 
back, and I said no on the Jewish and I didn't know if I was co ming back, it was up to 
the lady, and he said, I don't want to inquire into your person al business, and I said, 
Hemingway you sure talk funny, and the whole boat leaned to the  left and rocked and 
leaped and a young man who looked as if he had recently had ele ctro-therapy 
treatment walked around passing out  paper bags for the purpose of vomiting. I 
thought, maybe the seaplane's best, it's only twelve minutes an d far less people, and 
San Pedro slowly worked toward us, civilization, civilization, smog and murder, so 
much nicer so much nicer, the madmen and the drunks are the las t saints left on earth. 
I have never ridden a horse or bowled, nor have I seen the Swis s Alps, and Vicki 
looked over at me with this very childish smile, and I thought,  she really is an amazing 
woman, well, it's time I had a little luck, and I stretched my legs and looked straight 
ahead. I needed to take another shit and decided to cut down on  my drinking.  
 97 THE WAY THE DEAD LOVE 
 
   1.  
   It was a hotel near the top of a hill, just enough tilt in t hat hill to help you run down 
to the liquor store, and coming back with the bottle, just enou gh climb to make the 
effort worthwhile. The hotel had once been painted a peacock gr een, lots of hot flare, 
but now after the rains, the peculiar Los Angeles rains that cl ean and fade everything, 
the hot green was just hanging on by its teeth -- like the peop le who lived inside.  
   How I moved in there, or why I'd left the previous place, I hardly remember. It was 
probably my drinking and not wor king very much, and the loud mi d-morning 
arguments with the ladies of the street. And by midmorning argu ments I do not mean 
10:30 a.m., I mean 3:30 a.m. Usually if the police weren't call ed it ended up with a 
little note under the door, always in pencil on torn lined pape r: "dear Sir, we are going 
to have to ask you to move quick as poscible."  One time it happened in mid-afternoon. 
The argument was over. We swept up the broken glass, put all th e bottles into paper 
sacks, emptied the ashtrays, slept, woke up, and I was working away on top when I 
heard a key in the door. I was so surprised that I just kept fa nning it in. And there he 
stood, the little manager, about 45, no hair except maybe aroun d his ears or balls, and 
he looked at her on the bottom, walked up and pointed, "You -- you are OUT OF 
HERE!" I stopped stroking and lai d flat, looking at him sideway s. Then he pointed at 
me. "And YOU'RE outa here too!" He turned around, went to the d oor, closed it 
quietly and walked down the hall. I started the machine again a nd we gave it a 
farewell good one.  
   Anyway, there I was, the gree n hotel, the faded green hotel,  and I was there with my 
suitcase full of rags, alone at the time, but I had the rent mo ney, was sober, and I got a 
room in the front facing the  street, 3rd floor, phone outside m y door in the hall, 
hotplate in the window, large s ink, small wall refrigerator, a couple of chairs, a table, 
bed, and the bathroom down the hall. And although the building was very old, they 
even had an elevator -- it had once been a class joint. Now I w as there. The first thing I 
did was get a bottle and after a drink and killing two roaches I felt like I belonged. 
Then I went to the phone and tried to call a lady who I felt mi ght help me but she was 
evidently out helping somebody else.  
   2.     About 3 a.m. somebody knocked. I put on my torn bathrobe and  opened the door. 
There stood a woman in her bathrobe. "Yeah?" I said. "Yeah?"  
   "I'm your neighbor. I'm Mitzi. I live down the hall. I saw y ou at the telephone 
today."  
   "Yeah?" I said.  
   Then she came around from behind her back and showed it to m e. It was a pint of 
good whiskey.  
   "Come on in," I said.  
   I cleaned out two glasses, ope ned the pint. "Straight or mix ed?"  
   "About two thirds water."     There was a litle mirror over the sink and she stood there r olling her hair into 
curlers. I handed her a glass of stuff and sat down on the bed.   
 98    "I saw you in the hall. I c ould tell by looking at you that you were nice. I can tell 
them. Some of them here are not so nice."  
   "They tell me I am a bastard."     "I don't believe it."  
   "Neither do I."  
   I finished my drink. She just sipped on hers so I mixed myse lf another. We talked 
easy talk. I had a third dri nk. Then I got up and stood behind her.  
   "OOOOOOh! Silly boy!"   
   I jabbed her.  
   "Ooouch!! You ARE a bastard!"  
   She had a curler in one hand. I pulled her up and kissed tha t thin little old lady's 
mouth. It was soft and open. She  was ready. I put her drink in her hand, took her to the 
bed, sat her down. "Drink up." She did. I walked over and fixed  her another. I didn't 
have anything on under my robe. The  robe fell open and the thin g stuck out. God, I'm 
filthy, I thought. I'm a ham. I'm in the movies. The family mov ies of the future. 2490 
A.D. I had difficulty not laughi ng at myself, walking around hu ng to that stupid prong. 
It was really the whiskey I wanted. A castle in the hills I wan ted. A steam bath. 
Anything but this. We both sat  with our drinks. I kissed her ag ain, ramming my 
cigarette-sick tongue down her throat. I came up for air. I ope ned her robe and there 
were her breasts. Not much, poor thing. I reached down with my mouth and got one. It 
stretched and sagged like a balloon half- filled with stale air . I braved on and sucked at 
the nipple as she took the prong in her hand and arched her bac k. We fell backwards 
like that on the cheap bed, and with our robes on, I took her t here.  
   3.     His name was Lou, he was an ex-con and ex-hard rock miner. H e lived downstairs in 
the hotel. His last job had been scrubbing out pots in a place that made candy. He had 
lost that one -- like all the others -- drinking. The unemploym ent insurance runs out 
and there we are like rats -- rats with no place to hide, rats with rent to pay, with 
bellies that get hungry, cocks that get hard, spirits that get tired, and no education, no 
trade. Tough shit, like they say, this is America. We didn't wa nt much and we couldn't 
get that. Tough shit.  
   I met Lou while drinking, people walking in and out. My room  was the party room. 
Everybody came. There was an Indian, Dick, who shoplifted halfp ints and stored them 
in his dresser. Said it gave him a feeling of security. When we  couldn't get a drink 
anywhere we always used the Indian as our last resort.  
   I wasn't very good at shoplifting but I did learn a trick fr om Alabam, a thin 
mustached thief who had once worked for the hospital as an orde rly. You throw your 
meats and valuables into a large sack and then cover them with potatoes. The grocer 
weighs the lot and charges you for  potatoes. But I was best at getting Dick for credit. 
There were a lot of Dicks i n that neighborhood and the liquor s tore man was a Dick 
too. We'd be sitting around and the last drink would be gone. M y first move would be 
to send somebody out. "My name's Hank," I'd tell the guy. "Tell  Dick, Hank sent you 
down for a pint on the cuff, and i f there's any questions to ph one me." "O.k., o.k.," and 
the guy would go. We'd wait, already tasting the drink, smoking  pacing going crazy. 
Then the guy would come back. "Di ck said 'no!' Dick said your c redit's no good 
anymore!"  
   "SHIT!" I would scream.  
 99    And I would rise in full red-eyed unshaven indignation. "GOD  DAMN, SHIT, 
THAT MOTHER!"  
   I would really be angry, it was an honest anger, I don't kno w where it came from. I'd 
slam the door, take the elevator down and down that hill I'd go  ... dirty mother, that 
dirty mother! . . . and I'd turn into the liquor store.  
   "All right, Dick."  
   "Hello, Hank."  
   "I want TWO FIFTHS!" (and I'd name a very good brand.) "Two packs of smokes, a 
couple of those cigars, and let's see . . . a can of those pean uts, yeah."  
   Dick would line the stuff up in front of me and then he'd st and there.  
   "Well, ya gonna pay me?"  
   "Dick, I want this on the bill."  
   "You already owe me $23.50. You used to pay me, you used to pay a little every 
week, I remember it was every Friday night. You ain't paid me a nything in three 
weeks. You aren't like those other bums. You got class. I trust  you. Can't you just pay 
me a dollar now and then?"  
   "Look, Dick, I don't feel like arguing. You gonna put this s tuff in a bag or do you 
want it BACK?"  
   Then I'd shove the bottles and stuff toward him and wait, pu ffing on a cigarette like I 
owned the world. I didn't have a ny more class than a grasshoppe r. I felt nothing but 
fear that he'd do the sensible thing and put the bottles back o n the shelf and tell me to 
go to hell. But his face would always sag and he'd put the stuf f in the bag, and then I'd 
wait until he totalled the new bill. He'd give me the count; I' d nod and walk out. The 
drinks always tasted much better under those circumstances. And  when I'd walk in 
with the stuff for the boys and girls, I was really king.  
   I was sitting with Lou one night in his room. He was a week be- hind in his rent and 
mine was due. We were drinking port wine. We were even rolling our cigarettes. Lou 
had a machine for that and they came out pretty good. The thing  was to keep four 
walls around you. If you had four walls you had a chance. Once you were out on the 
street you had no chance, they had you, they really had you. Wh y steal something if 
you can't cook it? How are you going to screw something if you live in an alley? How 
are you going to sleep when everybody in the Union Rescue Missi on snores? And 
steals your shoes? And stinks? And is insane? You can't even ja ck-off. You need four 
walls. Give a man four walls long enough and it is possible for  him to own the world. 
So we were a little worried. Every step sounded like the landla dy's. And she was a 
very mysterious landlady. A young blonde nobody could screw. I played her very cold 
thinking she would come to me. She came and knocked all right, but only for the rent. 
She had a husband somewhere but we never saw him. They lived th ere and they didn't. 
We were on the plank. We figured i f we could fuck the landlady our troubles would be 
over. It was one of those buildings where you screwed every wom an as a matter of 
course, almost as a matter of obligation. But I couldn't get th is one and it made me feel 
insecure. So we sat there smoking our rolled cigarettes, drinki ng our port wine and the 
four walls were dissolving, falling away. Talk is best at times  like that. You talk wild, 
drink your wine. We were cowards because we wanted to live. We did not want to live 
too badly but we still wanted to live.  
   "Well," said Lou, "I think I got it."     "Yeah?"  
   "Yeah."  
 100    I poured another wine.  
   "We work together."     "Sure."   
   "Now you're a good talker, you tell a lot of interesting sto ries, it doesn't matter if 
they're true or not -- "  
   "They're true."   
   "I mean, that doesn't matter. You got a good mouth. Now here 's what we do. There's 
a class bar down the street, you know it, Molino's. You go in t here. All you need is 
money for the first drink. We' ll pool for that. You sit down, n urse your drink and look 
around for a guy flashing a roll. They get some fat ones in the re. You spot the guy and 
go over to him. You sit down next to him and turn it on, you tu rn on the bullshit. He'll 
like it. You've even got a vocabulary. O.k. so he'll buy you dr inks all night, he'll drink 
all night. Keep him drinking. When closing time comes, you lead  him toward 
Alvarado Street, lead him west past the alley. Tell him you are  going to get him some 
nice young pussy, tell him anythi ng but lead him west. And I'll  be waiting in the alley 
with this."  
   Lou reached around behind the door and came out with a baseb all bat, it was a very 
large baseball bat, I think at least 42 oz.  
   "Jesus Christ, Lou, you'll kill him!"  
   "No, no, you can't kill a drunk, you know that. Maybe if he was sober it'd kill him, 
but drunk it'll only knock him out. We take the wallet, split i t two ways."  
   "Listen, Lou, I'm a nice guy, I'm not like that."     "You're no nice guy; you're the meanest son of a bitch I eve r met. That's why I like 
you."  
   4.  
   I found one. A big fat one. I had b een fired by fat stupidit ies like him all my life. 
From worthless, underpaid, dull hard jobs. It was going to be n ice. I got to talking. I 
didn't know what I was talking about. He was listening and laug hing and nodding his 
head and buying drinks. He had a wri st watch, a handful of ring s, a full stupid wallet. 
It was hard work. I told him stories about prisons, about railr oad track gangs, about 
whorehouses. He liked the whorehouse stuff.  
   I told him about the guy who came in every two weeks and pai d well. All he wanted 
was a whore in a room with him. They both took off their clothe s and played cards and 
talked. Just sat there. Then after about two hours he'd get up,  get dressed, say goodbye 
and walk out. Never touch the whore.  
   "God damn," he said.     "Yeah."  
   I decided that I wouldn't mind Lou's slugger bat hitting a h omer on that fat skull. 
What a whammy. What a useless hunk of shit.  
   "You like young girls?" I asked him.  
   "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."     "Around fourteen and a half?"  
   "Oh jesus, yes."  
   "There's one coming in on the 1:30 a.m. train from Chicago. She'll be at my place 
around 2:10 a.m. She's clean, hot, intelligent. Now I'm takin' a big chance, so I'm 
asking ten bucks. That too high?"  
   "No, that's all right."  
 101    "O.k., when this place closes up you come with me."  
   2 a.m. finally made it, and I walked him out of there, towar d the alley. Maybe Lou 
wouldn't be there. Maybe the win e would get to him or he'd just  back out. A blow like 
that could kill a man. Or make him addled for life. We staggere d along in the 
moonlight. There was nobody else around, nobody in the streets.  It was going to be 
easy.  
   We crossed into the alley. Lou was there. But Fatso saw him.  He threw up an arm 
and ducked as Lou swung. The bat got me right behind the ear.  
   5.  
   Lou got his old job back, the one  he had lost drinking, and he swore he was only 
going to drink on weekends.  
   "O.k., friend," I told him, "st ay away from me, I am drunk a nd drinking all the time."  
   "I know. Hank, and I like you, I like you better than any ma n I ever met, only I gotta 
hold the drinking down to weekends , just Friday and Saturday ni ghts and nothing on 
Sunday. I kept missing Monday mornings in the old days and it c ost me my job. I'll 
stay away but I want you to know  that it has nothing to do with  you."  
   "Only that I'm a wino."     "Yeah, well, there's that."  
   "O.k., Lou, just don't come knocking on my door until Friday  and Saturday night. 
You may hear singing and the laughter of beautiful seventeen ye ar old girls but don't 
come knocking on my door."  
   "Man, you screw nothing but bags."  
   "They look seventeen through the eye of the grape."  
   He went on to explain the natu re of his job, something to do  with cleaning out the 
inside of candy machines. It was a sticky dirty job. The boss o nly hired ex-cons and 
worked their asses to death. He cussed the ex- cons brutally al l day long and there was 
nothing they could do about it. He shorted them on their checks  and there was nothing 
they could do about it. If they h itched they were fired. A lot of them were on parole. 
The boss had them by the balls. "Sounds like a guy who needs to  be killed," I told 
Lou. "Well, he likes me, he says I am the best worker he ever h ad, but I hadda get off 
the booze, he needed somebody he could depend on. He even had m e over to his place 
one time to do some painting for him, I painted his bathroom, d id a good job too. He's 
got a place in the hills, a big place, and you oughta see his w ife. I never knew they 
made women that way, so beautiful -- her eyes, her legs, her bo dy, the way she 
walked, talked, jesus."  
   6.     Well, Lou was true to his word. I didn't see him for some ti me, not even on 
weekends, and meanwhile I was going through a kind of personal hell. I was very 
jumpy, nerves gone -- a little noise and I'd jump out of my ski n. I was afraid to go to 
sleep: nightmare after nightmare, each more terrible than the o ne which preceded it. 
You were all right if you went t o sleep totally drunk, that was  all right, but if you went 
to sleep half-drunk or, worse, sober, then the dreams began, on ly you were never sure 
whether you were sleeping or wheth er the action was taking plac e in the room, for 
when you slept you dreamed the entire room, the dirty dishes, t he mice, the folding 
walls, the pair of shit-in pants some whore had left on the flo or, the dripping faucet, 
the moon like a bullet out there, cars full of the sober and we ll-fed, shining headlights 
through your window, everything, everything, you were in some s ort of dark corner, 
dark dark, no help, no reason, no no reason at all, dark sweati ng corner, darkness and 
 102 filth, the stench of reality, the stink of everything: spiders,  eyes, landladies, sidewalks, 
bars, buildings, grass, no grass, light, no light, nothing belo nging to you. The pink 
elephants never showed up but plenty of little men with savage tricks or a looming big 
man to strangle you or sink his teeth into the back of your nec k, lay on your back and 
you sweating, unable to move, thi s black stinking hairy thing l aying there on you on 
you on you.  
   If it wasn't that it was sitting during the days, hours of u nspeakable fear, fear 
opening in the center of you like a giant blossom, you couldn't  analyze it, figure why it 
was there, and that made it worse. Hours of sitting in a chair in the middle of a room, 
run through and stricken. Shifti ng or pissing a major effort, n onsense, and combing 
your hair or brushing your teeth -- ridiculous and insane acts.  Walking through a sea 
of fire. Or pouring water int o a drinking glass -- it seemed yo u had no right to pour 
water into a drinking glass. I  decided I was crazy, unfit, and this made me feel dirty. I 
went to the library and tried to find books about what made peo ple feel the way I was 
feeling, but the books weren't there or if they were I couldn't  understand them. Going 
into the library was hardly easy -- everybody seemed so comfort able, the librarians, 
the readers, everybody but me. I even had trouble using the lib rary crapper -- the bums 
in there, the queers watching me piss, they all seemed stronger  than I -- unworried and 
sure. I kept going out and walking across the street, up a wind ing stairway in a cement 
building where they stored thousands of crates of oranges. A si gn on the roof of 
another building said JESUS SAVES but neither Jesus or oranges were worth a damn 
to me walking up that winding stairway and into that cement bui lding. I always 
thought, this is where I belong, inside of this cement tomb.  
   The thought of suicide was always there, strong, like ants r unning along the 
underside of the wrists. Suicide was the only positive thing. E verything else was 
negative. And there was Lou, glad t o clean out the inside of ca ndy machines to stay 
alive. He was wiser than I.  
   7.     At this time I met a lady in a bar, a little older than me, very sensible. Her legs were 
still good, she had an odd sense of humor, and had very expensi ve clothes. She had 
come down the ladder from some rich man. We went to my place an d lived together. 
She was a very good piece of ass but had to drink all the time.  Her name was Vicki. 
We screwed and drank wine, drank wine and screwed. I had a libr ary card and went to 
the library every day. I hadn't told her about the suicide thin g. It was always a big 
joke, my coming home from the library. I would open the door an d she would look at 
me.  
   "What no books?"  
   "Vicki, they don't have any books in the library."     I'd come in and take the wine bottle (or bottles) out of the  bag and we'd begin.  
   One time after a week's drinking I decided to kill myself. I  didn't tell her. I figured 
I'd do it when she was in a bar looking for a "live one." I did n't like those fat clowns 
screwing her but she brought me money and whiskey and cigars. S he gave me the bit 
about me being the only one she loved. She called me "Mr. Van B ilderass" for some 
reason I couldn't figure. She'd get drunk and keep saying, "You  think you're hot stuff, 
you think you're Mr. Van Bilderass!" All the time I was working  on the idea of how to 
kill myself. One day I was sure I would do it. It was after a w eek's drinking, port wine, 
we had bought huge jugs and lined them up on the floor and behi nd the huge jugs we 
had lined up ordinary-sized winebottles, 8 or 9 of them, and be hind the ordinary-size 
bottles we had lined up 4 or 5 little bottles. Night and day go t lost. It was just screwing 
 103 and talking and drinking, talki ng and drinking and screwing. Vi olent arguments that 
ended in love-making. She was a sweet little pig of a screw, ti ght and squirming. One 
woman in 200. With most of the rest it is kind of an act, a jok e. Anyhow, maybe 
because of it all, the drinki ng and the fact of the fat dull bu lls screwing Vicki, I got 
very sick and depressed, and yet what the hell could I do? run a turret-lathe?  
   When the wine ran out the depression, the fear, the uselessn ess of going on became 
too much and I knew I was going to do it. The first time she le ft the room it was over 
for me. How, I was not quite sure but there were hundreds of wa ys. We had a little gas 
jet stove. Gas is charming. Gas is a kind of a kiss. It leaves the body whole. The wine 
was gone. I could hardly walk. Armies of fear and sweat ran up and down my body. It 
becomes quite simple. The greatest relief is never to have to p ass another human being 
on the sidewalk, see them walking in their fat, see their littl e rat eyes, their cruel 2-bit 
faces, their animal flowering. What a sweet dream: to never hav e to look into another 
human face.  
   "I'm going out to look at a newspaper, to see what day it is , o.k.?"  
   "Sure," she said, "sure."  
   I walked out the door. Nobody in the hall. No humans. It was  about 10 p.m. I went 
down in the urine-smelling elevator. It took a lot of strength to be swallowed by that 
elevator. I walked down the hill . When I got back she would be gone. She moved 
quickly when the drinks ran out . Then I could do it. But first I wanted to know what 
day it was. I walked down the hill and there by the drugstore w as the newspaper rack. 
I looked at the date on the newspaper. It was a Friday. Very we ll, Friday. As good a 
day as any. That meant something. Then I read the headline:  
   MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK     I didn't quite get it. I leaned closer and read it again. It  was the same:  
   MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK  
   This was in black type, large  type, the banner headline. Of all the important things 
that had happened in the world, this was their headline.  
   MILTON BERLE'S COUSIN HIT ON HEAD BY FALLING ROCK     I crossed the street, feeling much better, and walked into t he liquor store. I got two 
bottles of port and a pack of cigarettes on credit. When I got back to the place Vicki 
was still there.  
   "What day is it?" she asked.     "Friday."  
   "O.k.," she said.  
   I poured two glasses full of wine. There was a little ice le ft in the small wall 
refrigerator. The cubes of ice floated smoothly.  
   "I don't want to make you unhappy," Vicki said.     "I know you don't."  
   "Have a sip first."  
   "Sure."   
   "A note came under the door while you were gone."  
   "Yeah."  
   I took a sip, gagged, lit a cigarette, took another sip, the n she handed me the note. It 
was a warm Los Angeles night. A Friday. I read the note:  
   Dear Mr. Chinaski: You have until next Wednesday to get up t he rent. If you don't, 
you are out. I know about those women in your room. And you mak e too much noise. 
 104 And you broke your window. You are paying for your privileges. Or supposed to be. I 
have been very kind with you. I now say next Wednesday or you a re out. The tenants 
are tired of all the noise and cussing and singing night and da y, day and night, and so 
am I. You can't live here without rent. Don't say I didn't warn  you.  
   I drank the rest of the wine down, almost lost it. It was a warm night in Los Angeles.  
   "I'm tired of fucking those fools," she said.  
   "I'll get the money," I told her.  
   "How? You don't know how to do anything."     "I know that."  
   "Then how are we going to make it?"  
   "Somehow."     'That last guy fucked me three times. My pussy was raw."  
   "Don't worry, baby, I'm a genius. The only trouble is, nobod y knows it."  
   "A genius at what?"   
   "I don't know."  
   "Mr. Van Bilderass!"  
   "That's me. By the way, do you know that Milton Berle's cous in was hit on the head 
by a falling rock?"  
   "When?"   
   "Today or yesterday."  
   "What kind of rock?"  
   "I don't know. I imagine some kind of big buttery yellow sto ne."  
   "Who gives a damn?"  
   "Not I. Certainly not I. Except -- "  
   "Except what?"     "Except I guess that rock kept me alive."  
   "You talk like an asshole."  
   "I am an asshole."     I grinned and poured wine all around.  
 105 ALL THE ASSHOLES IN THE WORLD AND MINE 
 
   "no man's suffering is ever larger than nature intended." --  
conversation overheard at a crapgame  
   1.  
   It was the ninth race and the horse's name was Green Cheese.  He won by 6 and I got 
back 52 for 5 and since I was far ahead anyhow, it called for a nother drink. "Gimme a 
shota green cheese," I told the barkeep. It didn't confuse him.  He knew what I was 
drinking. I had been leaning there all afternoon. I had been dr unk all the night before 
and when I got home, of course, I had to have some more. I was set. I had scotch, 
vodka, wine and beer. A mortician or somebody called about 8 p. m. and said he'd like 
to see me. "Fine," I said, "br ing drinks." "Do you mind if I br ing friends?" "I don't 
have any friends." "I mean my f riends." "I do not give a damn,"  I told him. I went into 
the kitchen and poured a water glass %'s full of scotch. I dran k it down straight just 
like the old days. I used to drink a fifth in an hour and a hal f, two hours. "Green 
cheese," I said to the kitchen walls. I opened a tall can of fr ozen beer.  
   2.  
   The mortician arrived and got on the phone and pretty soon m any strange people 
were walking in, all of them bri nging drinks with them. There w ere a lot of women 
and I felt like raping all of them. I sat on the rug, feeling t he electric light, feeling the 
drinks going through me like a parade, like an attack on the bl ues, like an attack on 
madness.  
   "I will never have to work aga in!" I told them. "The horses will take care of me like 
no whore EVER did!"  
   "Oh, we know  that Mr. Chinaski! We know that you are a GREAT man!"  
   It was a little greyhaired fucker on the couch, rubbing his hands, leering at me with 
wet lips. He meant it. He made me sick. I finished the drink in  my hand and found 
another somewhere and drank tha t too. I began talking to the wo men. I promised them 
all the endearments of my mighty cock. They laughed. I meant it . Right then. There. I 
moved toward the women. The men pulled me off. For a worldly ma n I was very 
much the highschool boy. If I hadn' t been the great Mr. Chinask i, somebody would 
have killed me. As it was, I ripped off my shirt and offered to  go out on the lawn with 
anybody. I was lucky. Nobody felt like pushing me over my shoel aces.  
   When my mind cleared it was 4 a.m. All the lights were on an d everybody was gone. 
I was still sitting there. I found a warm beer and drank it. Th en I went to bed with the 
feeling that all drunks know: that I had been a fool but to hel l with it.  
   3.  
   I had been bothered with hemorrhoids for 15 or 20 years; als o perforated ulcers, bad 
liver, boils, anxiety-neurosis, various types of insanity, but you go on with things and 
just hope that everything doesn't fall apart at once.  
   It seemed that drunk almost did it. I felt dizzy and weak, b ut that was ordinary. It 
was the hemorrhoids. They w ould not respond to anything -- hot baths, salves, nothing 
helped. My intestines hung almost out of my ass like a dog's ta il. I went to a doctor. 
He simply glanced. "Operation," he said. "All right," I said, " only thing is that I am a 
coward."  
 106    "Vel, ya, dot vill make it more difficult."  
   You lousy Nazi bastard, I thought.  
   "I vant you to take dis laxative der Tuesday night, den at 7  a.m. you get up, ya? and 
you gif yourself de enema, you keep gifiing dis enema until der  wasser is clear, ya? 
den I take unudder look into you at 10 a.m. Vensday morning."  
   "Ya whol, mine herring," I said.  
   4.  
   The enema tube kept slipping out  and the whole bathroom got wet and it was cold 
and my belly hurt and I was drowning in slime and shit. This is  the way the world 
ended, not with an atom bomb, but with shit shit shit. With the  set I had bought there 
was nothing to pinch the flow of  water and my fingers would not  work so the water 
ran in full blast and out full blast. It took me an hour and a half and by then my 
hemorrhoids were in command of the world. Several times I thoug ht of just quitting 
and dying. I found a can of pure spirits of gum turpentine in m y closet. It was a 
beautiful red and green can. "DANGER!" it said, "harmful or fat al if swallowed." I 
was a coward: I put the can back.  
   5.  
   The doctor put me up on a table. "Now, chust relox der bock,  ya? relox, relox . . ."  
   Suddenly he jammed a wedge-shaped box into my ass and began unwinding his 
snake which began to crawl up into my intestine looking for blo ckage, looking for 
cancer.  
   "Ha! Now if it hurts a bit, nien? den pant like a dog, go, h ahaha- hahaaaa!"  
   "You dirty motherfucker!"  
   "Vot?"   
   "Shit, shit, shit! You dog-burner! You swine, sadist . . . Y ou burned Joan at the 
stake, you put nails in the hands of  Christ, you voted for war,  you voted for 
Goldwater, you voted for "Nixon ... Mother-ass! What are you DO ING to me?"  
   "It vill soon be over. You take it veil. You will be good pa tient."  
   He rolled the snake back in and then I saw him peering into something that looked 
like a periscope. He slammed some gauze up my bloody ass and I got up and put on 
my clothes. "And the operation will be for what?"  
   He knew what I meant. "Chust der hemorrhoids."  
   I peeked up his nurse's legs as I walked out. She smiled swe etly.  
   6.  
   In the waiting room of the hospital a little girl looked at our grey faces, our white 
faces, our yellow faces . . . "Everybody is dying!" she proclai med. Nobody answered 
her. I turned the page of an old Time  magazine.  
   After routine filling out of papers . . . urine specimens . . . blood, I was taken to a 
four bed ward on the eighth floor . When the question of religio n came up I said 
"Catholic," largely to save myself from the stares and question s that usually followed 
a proclamation of no religion. I was tired of all the arguments  and red tape. It was a 
Catholic hospital -- maybe I'd get better service or blessings from the Pope.  
   Well, I was locked in with t hree others. Me, the monk, the l oner, gambler, playboy, 
idiot. It was all over. The beloved solitude, the refrigerator full of beer, the cigars on 
the dresser, the phone numbers of the big-legged, big-assed wom en.  
   There was one with a yellow face. He looked somehow like a b ig fat bird dipped in 
urine and sun-dried. He kept hitting his button. He had a whini ng, crying, mewing 
 107 voice. "Nurse, nurse, where's Dr. Thomas? Dr. Thomas gave me so me codeine 
yesterday. Where's Dr. Thomas?"  
   "I don't know where Dr. Thomas is."     "Can I have a coughdrop?"  
   "They are right on your table."  
   "They ain't stoppin' my cough, and that cough medicine ain't  any good either."  
   "Nurse!" a whitehaired guy yelled from the northeast bed, "c an I have some more 
coffee? I'd like some more coffee."  
   "I'll see," she said and left.  
   My window showed hills, a slope of hills rising. I looked at  the slopes of hills. It was 
getting dark. Nothing but houses on the hills. Old houses. I ha d the strange feeling that 
they were unoccupied that everybody had died, that everybody ha d given up. I listened 
to the three men complain about  the food, about the price of th e ward, about the 
doctors and nurses. When one spoke the other two did not seem t o be listening, they 
did not answer. Then another w ould begin. They took turns. Ther e was nothing else to 
do. They spoke vaguely, switching subjects. I was in with an Oa kie, a movie 
cameraman, and the yellow piss-bird. Outside of my window a cro ss turned in the sky 
-- first it was blue, then it was red. It was night and they pu lled our curtains around our 
beds a bit and I felt better, but realized, oddly, that pain or  possible death did not bring 
me closer to humanity. Visitors began arriving. I didn't have a ny visitors. I felt like a 
saint. I looked out of my window a nd saw a sign near the turnin g red and blue cross in 
the sky. MOTEL, it said. Bodies in there in more gentle attunem ent. Fucking.  
   7.  
   A poor devil dressed in green came in and shaved my ass. Suc h terrible jobs in the 
world! There was one job I had missed.  
   They slipped a showercap over my head and pushed me onto a r oller. This was it. 
Surgery. The coward gliding down the halls past the dying. Ther e was a man and a 
woman. They pushed me and smiled, they seemed very relaxed. The y rolled me onto 
an elevator. There were four women on the elevator.  
   "I'm going to surgery. Any of you ladies care to change plac es with me?"  
   They drew up against the wall and refused to answer.     In the operating room we awaite d for the arrival of God. God  finally entered: "Veil, 
veil, veil, dere isss mine friend!"  
   I didn't even bother to answer such a lie.     "Turn on der stomach, please."     "Well," I said, "I guess it's too late to change my mind now ."  
   "Ya," said God, "you are now in our power!"  
   I felt the strap go across my back. They spread my legs. The  first spinal went in. It 
felt like he was spreading towels all around my asshole and acr oss my back. Another 
spinal. A third. I kept giving t hem lip. The coward, the showma n, whistling in the 
dark.  
   "Put him to sleep, ya," he sai d. I felt a shot in the elbow,  a stinger. No good. Too 
many drunks behind me.  
   "Anybody got a cigar?" I asked.  
   Somebody laughed. I was getting corny. Bad form. I decided t o be quiet.  
   I could feel the knife tugging at my ass. There wasn't any p ain.  
   "Now dis," I heard him say, "dis iss the main obstruction, s ee? und here . . ."  
 108    8.  
   The recovery room was dull. There were some fine-looking wom en walking around 
but they ignored me. I got up on m y elbow and looked around. Bo dies everywhere. 
Very very white and still. Real operations. Lungers. Heart case s. Everything. I felt 
somewhat the amateur and somewhat ashamed. I was glad when they  wheeled me out 
of there. My three roomies really stared when they rolled me in . Bad form. I rolled off 
the thing onto the bed. I found that my legs were still numb an d that I had no control 
over them. I decided to go to sleep. The whole place was depres sing. When I woke up 
my ass was really hurting. But legs still dull. I reached down for my cock and it felt as 
if it wasn't there. I mean, there wasn't any feeling. Except I wanted to piss and I 
couldn't piss. It was horribl e and I tried to forget it.  
   One of my ex-loves came by and sat there looking at me. I ha d told her I was going 
in. Quite what for, I don't know.  
   "Hi! How you doin'?"  
   "Fine, only I can't piss."     She smiled.  
   We talked a little about something and then she left.  
   9.  
   It was like in the movies: all the male nurses seemed to be homosexual. One seemed 
more manly than the others.  
   "Hey, buddy!"  
   He came over. "I can't piss. I want to piss but I can't."  
   "I'll be right back. I'll fix you up."  
   I waited quite a while. Then he came back, pulled the curtai n around my bed and sat 
down.  
   Jesus, I thought, what's he gonna do? Gimme a head-job?  
   But I looked and he seemed to have some kind of machine with  him. I watched as he 
took a hollow needle and ran it down the piss-hole of my cock. The feeling that I 
thought was gone from my cock was suddenly back.  
   "Shit o baby!" I hissed.  
   "Not the most pleasant thing in the world, is it?"  
   "Indeed, indeed. I tend to agree. Weeowee!  Shit and jesus!"  
   "Soon be over."     He pressed against my bladder. I could see the little square  fish-bowl filling with 
piss. This was one of the parts they left out of the movies.  
   "God o mighty, pal, mercy! Let's call it a good night's work ."  
   "Just a moment. Now."  
   He drew the needle out. Out the  window my blue and red cross  turned, turned. Christ 
hung on the wall with a piece of dried palm stuck at his feet. No wonder men turned to 
gods. It was pretty hard to take it straight.  
   "Thanks," I told the nurse.  
   "Any time, any time." He pulled the curtain back and left wi th his machine.  
   My yellow piss-bird punched his button.  
   "Where's that nurse? 0 why o why doesn't that nurse come?"  
   He pushed it again.     "Is my button working? Is something wrong with my button?"  
 109    The nurse came in.  
   "My back hurts! 0, my back hurts terrible ! Nobody has come to visit me! I guess 
you fellows noticed that! Nobody has come to see me! Not even m y wife! Where's my 
wife? Nurse, raise my bed, my back hurts!  THERE! Higher! No, no, my god, you've 
got it too high! Lower, lower! There. Stop! Where's my dinner? I haven't had dinner! 
Look . . ."  
   The nurse walked out.     I keep wondering about the little pissmachine. I'll probably  have to buy one, carry it 
around all my life. Duck into alleys, behind trees, in the back  seat of my car.  
   The Oakie in bed one hadn't said much. "It's my foot," he su ddenly said to the walls, 
"I can't understand it, my foot just got all swelled-up overnig ht and it won't go down. 
It hurts, it hurts."  
   The whitehaired guy in the corner pushed his button.  
   "Nurse," he said, "nurse, how about hustling me up a pot of coffee?"  
   Really, I though, my main problem is to keep from going insa ne.  
   10.     The next day old whitehair (the movie cameraman) brought his  coffee down and sat 
in a chair by my bed. "I can't stand that son of a bitch." He w as speaking of the yellow 
piss-bird. Well, there was not hing to do with whitehair but tal k to him. I told him that 
drink had brought me pretty much to my present station in life.  For kicks I told him 
some of my wilder drunks and some of  the crazy things that had happened. He had 
some good ones himself.  
   "In the old days," he told me , "they used to have the big re d cars that ran between 
Glendale and Long Beach, I believe it was. They ran all day and  most of the night 
except for an interval of an hour and a half, I think between 3 :30 and 5:30 a.m.. Well, I 
went drinking one night and met a  buddy at the bar and after th e bar closed we went to 
his place and finished something he had left there. I left his place and kinda got lost. I 
turned up a deadend street but I didn't know it was deadend. I kept driving and I was 
driving pretty fast. I kept going until I hit the railroad trac ks. When I hit the tracks my 
steering wheel came up and hit me on the chin and knocked me ou t. There I was 
across those tracks in my car K.O.'d. Only I was lucky because it was in the hour and a 
half that no trains were r unning. I don't know how long I sat t here. But the train horn 
woke me up. I woke up and saw this train coming down the tracks  at me. I just had 
time to start the car and back off. The train tore on by. I dro ve the car home, the front 
wheels all bent under and wobbling."  
   "That's tight."  
   "Another time I am sitting in the bar. Right across the way is a place where the 
railroadmen ate. The train stopped and the men got out to eat. I am sitting next to some 
guy in this bar. He turns to me and he says, 'I used to drive o ne of those things and I 
can drive one again. Come on and watch me start it.' I walked o ut with him and we 
climbed into the engine. Sure enough, he started the thing. We got up good speed. 
Then I started thinking, what the hell am I doing? I told the g uy, 'I don't know about 
you but I'm getting off!' I knew enough about trains to know where the brake was. I 
yanked the brake and before the t rain even stopped I went out t he side. He went out 
the other side and I never saw him again. Pretty soon there is a big crowd around the 
train, policemen, train investigators, yard dicks, reporters, o nlookers. I am standing off 
to one side with the rest of the crowd, watching. 'Come on, let 's go up and find out 
what's going on!" somebody next to me said. 'Nah, hell,' I said , 'it's just a train.' I was 
scared that maybe somebody had seen me. The next day there was a story in the 
 110 papers. The headline said, TRAIN GOES TO PACOIMA BY ITSELF. I c ut out the 
story and saved it. I saved that clipping for ten years. My wif e used to see it. 'What the 
hell you saving this story for? -- TRAIN GOES TO PACOIMA BY ITS ELF.' I never 
told her. I was still scared. You're the first one I ever told the story to."  
   "Don't worry," I told him, "not a single soul will ever hear  that story again."  
   Then my ass really began to kick up and whitehair suggested I ask for a shot. I did. 
The nurse gave me one in the hip. She left the curtain pulled w hen she left but 
whitehair continued to sit there. In fact, he had a visitor. A visitor with a voice that 
carried clear down through my fucked-up bowels. He really sent it out.  
   "I'm going to move all the ships around the neck of the bay.  We'll shoot it right 
there. We're paying a captain of one of those boats $890 a mont h and he has two boys 
under him. We've got this fleet r ight there. Let's put it to us e, I think. The public's 
ready for a good sea story. They haven't had a good sea story s ince Errol Flynn."  
   "Yeah," said whitehair, "those things run in cycles. The pub lic's ready now. They 
need a good sea story."  
   "Sure, there are lots of kids who have never seen a sea stor y. And speaking of kids, 
that's all I'm gonna use. I'll run 'em all over the boats. The only old people we'll use 
will be for the leads. We just move these ships around the bay and shoot right there. 
Two of the ships need masts, that's all that's wrong with them.  We hand them masts 
and then we begin."  
   "The public is sure ready for a sea story. It's a cycle and the cycle is due."  
   "They are worried about the budget. Hell, it won't cost a th ing. Why -- "  
   I pulled the curtain back and spoke to whitehair. "Look, you  might think me a 
bastard, but you guys are right against my bed. Can't you take your friend over to your 
bed?"  
   "Sure, sure!"  
   The producer stood up. "Hell, I'm sorry. I didn't know . . . "  
   He was fat and sordid; content, happy, sickening.     "O.k.," I said.     They moved up to whitehair's bed and continued to talk about  the sea story. All the 
dying on the eighth floor of the Qu een of Angels Hospital could  hear the sea story. 
The producer finally left.  
   Whitehair looked over at me. "That's the world's greatest pr oducer. He's produced 
more great pictures than any man alive. That was John F."  
   "John F.," said the piss-bird, "yeah, he's made some great p ictures, great pictures!"  
   I tried to go to sleep. It was  hard to sleep at night becaus e they all snored. At once. 
Whitehair was the loudest. In the morning he always woke me up to complain that he 
hadn't slept. That night the yellow piss-bird hollered all nigh t. First because he 
couldn't shit. Unplug me, my god, I gotta crap! Or he hurt. Or where was his doctor? 
He kept having different doctors. One couldn't stand him and an other would take over. 
They couldn't find anything wrong with him. There wasn't: he wa nted his mother but 
his mother was dead.  
   11.  
   I finally got them to move me to a semi-private ward. But it  was a worse move. His 
name was Herb and like the male nurse told me, "He's not sick. There isn't anything 
wrong with him at all." He had on a silk robe, shaved twice a d ay, had a T.V. set 
which he never turned off, and visitors all the time. He was he ad of a fairly large 
 111 business and had gone the formula of having his grey hair short -cropped to indicate 
youth, efficiency, intelligence, and brutality.  
   The T.V. turned out to be far w orse than I could have imagin ed. I had never owned a 
T.V. and so was unaccustomed to its fare. The auto races were a ll right, I could stand 
the auto races, although they were very dull. But there was som e type of Marathon on 
for some Cause or another and they were collecting money. They started early in the 
morning and went right on through. Little numbers were posted i ndicating how much 
money had been collected. There was somebody in a cook's hat. I  don't know what the 
hell he meant. And there was a terrible old woman with a face l ike a frog. She was 
terribly ugly. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe these people didn't know how ugly 
and naked and meaty and disgusting their faces looked -- like r apes of everything 
decent. And yet they just walked up and calmly put their faces on the screen and spoke 
to each other and laughed about something. The jokes were very hard to laugh at but 
they didn't seem to have any trouble. Those faces, those faces!  Herb didn't say 
anything about it. He just kept looking as if he were intereste d. I didn't know the 
names of the people but they were all stars of some sort. They' d announce a name and 
then everybody would get excited -- except me. I couldn't under stand it. I got a little 
sick. I wished I were back in the other room. Meanwhile, I was trying to have my first 
bowel movement. Nothing happened. A swath of blood. It was Satu rday night. The 
priest came by. "Would you care for Communion tomorrow?" he ask ed. "No, thank 
you, Father, I'm not a very good Catholic. I haven't been to ch urch in 20 years." "Were 
you baptized a Catholic?" "Yes." "Then you're still a Catholic.  You're just a bum 
Catholic." Just like in the movies -- he talks turkey, just lik e Cagney, or was it Pat 
O'Brien who sported the white collar? All my movies were dated:  the last movie I had 
seen was The Lost Weekend.  He gave me a little booklet. "Read this." He left.  
   PRAYER BOOK,  it said. Compiled for use in hospitals and institutions.  
   I read.     O Eternal and ever-blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Gh ost, with all the angels 
and saints, I adore you.  
   My Queen and my Mother, I give myself entirely to you; and t o show my devotion 
to you, I consecrate to you this day my eyes, my ears, my mouth , my heart, my whole 
being without reserve.  
   Agonizing Heart of Jesus, have mercy on the dying. O my Cod,  prostrate on my 
knees, I adore you...  
   Join me, you blessed Spirits, i n thanking the God of Mercies , who is so bountiful to 
so unworthy a creature.  
   It was my sins, dear Jesus, that caused your bitter anguish . . . my sins that scourged 
you, and crowned you with thorns, and nailed you to the cross. I confess that I deserve 
only punishment.  
   I got up and tried to shit. It  had been three days. Nothing.  Only a swath of blood 
again and the cuts in my rect um ripping open. Herb had on a com edy show.  
   "The Batman is coming onto the program tonight. I wanna see the Batman!"  
   "Yeah?" I crawled back into bed.  
   I am especially sorry for my sins of impatience and anger, m y sins of 
discouragement and rebellion.  
   The Batman showed up. Everybody on the program seemed excite d. "It's the 
Batman!" said Herb.  
   "Good," I said, "the Batman." Sweet Heart of Mary, be my savior.   
 112    "He can sing! Look, he can sing!"  
   The Batman had removed his Batsuit and was dressed in a stre et-suit. He was a very 
ordinary looking young man with a somewhat blank face. He sang.  The song lasted 
and lasted and the Batman seemed very proud of his singing, for  some reason.  
   "He can sing!" said Herb.  
   My good Cod, what am I and who are you, that I should dare a pproach you?  
   I am only a poor, wretched, sinful creature, totally unworth y to appear before you.  
   I turned my back on the T.V. s et and tried to sleep. Herb ha d it on very loud. I had 
some cotton which I stuck into my ears but it helped very littl e. I'll never shit, I 
thought, I'll never shit again, not with that thing on. It's go t my guts tightened, 
tightened . . . I'm gonna go nuts for sure this time!  
   O Lord, my Cod, from this day I accept from your hand willin gly and with 
submission, the kind of death that it may please you to send me , with all its sorrows, 
pains, and anguish. (Plenary indulgence once daily, under the u sual conditions.)  
   Finally, at 1:30 a.m. I could submit no longer. I had been l istening since 7 a.m. My 
shit was blocked for Eternity. I felt that I had paid for the C ross in those eighteen and 
one-half hours. I managed to turn around.  
   "Herb! For Christ's sake, man! I'm about to have it! I'm abo ut to go off my screw! 
Herb! MERCY! I CAN'T STAND T.V.! I CAN'T STAND THE HUMAN RACE! 
Herb! Herb!"  
   He was asleep, sitting up.  
   "You dirty cunt-lapper," I said.  
   "Whatza? whatz??"     "WHY DON'T YOU TURN THAT THING OFF?"  
   "Turn .. . off? ah, sure, sure ... whyn't ya say so, kid?"  
   12.  
   Herb snored too. He also talked in his sleep. I went to slee p about 3:30 a.m. At 4:15 
a.m. I was awakened by something that sounded like a table bein g dragged down the 
hall. Suddenly the lights went  on and a big colored woman was s tanding over me with 
a clipboard. Christ, she was  an ugly and stupid looking wench, Martin Luther King 
and racial equality be damned! She could have easily beat the s hit out of me. Maybe 
that would be a good idea? Maybe it was Last Rites? Maybe I was  finished?  
   "Look baby," I said, "ya mind telling me what's going on? Is  this the fucking end?"  
   "Are you Henry Chinaski?"     "I'm afraid so."     "You're down for Communion."  
   "No, wait! He got his signals crossed. I told him. No Communion."   
   "Oh," she said. She pulled the curtains back and turned off the lights. I could hear 
the table or whatever it was going further down the hall. The P ope was going to be 
very unhappy with me. The table made a hell of a racket. I coul d hear the sick and the 
dying waking up, coughing, asking ques tions to the air, ringing  for the nurses.  
   "What was that, kid?" Herb asked.  
   "What was what?"  
   "All that noise and lights?"     "That was the Dark Tough Angel  of the Batman making ready Th e Body of Christ."  
   "What?"  
 113    "Go to sleep."  
   13.  
   My doctor came the next morning and peered up my ass and tol d me I could go 
home. "But, my boy, you do not go horseback riding, ya?"  
   "Ya. But how about some hot pussy?"  
   "Vot?"   
   "Sexual intercourse."     "Oh, nein, nein ! It vill be six to eight weeks before you vill be able to resu me 
anything  normal."  
   He moved on out and I began to dress. The T.V. didn't bother  me. Somebody on the 
screen said, "I wonder if my spaghetti is done?" He stuck his f ace into the pot and 
when he looked up, all the spaghetti was stuck to his face. Her b laughed. I shook 
hands with him. "So long baby," I said. "It's been nice," he sa id. "Yeah," I said. I was 
ready to leave when it happened. I ran to the can. Blood and sh it. Shit and blood. It 
was painful enough to make me talk to the walls. "Ooo, mama, yo u dirty fuck 
bastards, oh shit shit, o you come-crazy freaks, o you shit-mau ling cocksucker 
heavens, lay off! Shit, shit shit, YOW!"  
   Finally it stopped. I cleaned myself, put on a gauze bandage , pulled up my pants and 
walked over to my bed, picked up my traveling bag.  
   "So long. Herb, baby."  
   "So long, kid."  
   You guessed it. I ran in there again.     "You dirty mother-humpin' cat-fuckers' Oooooo, shitshitshit- SHIT!"  
   I came out and sat awhile. There was a smaller movement and then I felt that I was 
ready. I went downstairs and signed a fortune in bills. I could n't read anything. They 
called me a taxi and I stood outside the ambulance entrance wai ting. I had my little 
sitz bath with me. A dishpan you shit in after you filled it wi th hot water. There were 
three Oakies standing outside, two men and a woman. Their voice s were loud and 
Southern and they had the look a nd feel that nothing had ever h appened to them -- not 
even a toothache. My ass bega n to leap and twinge. I tried to s it down but that was a 
mistake. They had a little boy with them. He ran up and tried t o grab my dishpan. He 
tugged. "No, you bastard, no," I hisse d at him. He almost got i t. He was stronger than I 
was but I kept hold- ing on.  
   O Jesus, I commend to you my parents, relatives, benefactors, t eachers, and friends. 
Reward them in a very special way for all the care and sorrow I  have caused them.   
   "You little jerkoff! Unhand my shitpot!" I told him.  
   "Donny! You leave that man alone!" the woman hollered at him .  
   Donny ran on. One of the men looked at me. "Hi!" he said. "H i," I answered.  
   That cab looked good. "Chinaski?"  
   "Yeah. Let's go." I got in fr ont with my shitpot. I kind of sat on one cheek. I gave 
him directions. Then, "Listen, i f I holler pull behind a signbo ard, a gas station, 
anywhere. But stop driving. I might have to shit."  
   "O.k."  
   We drove along. The streets looked good. It was noontime. I was still alive. 
"Listen," I asked him, "where's a good whorehouse? Where can I pick up a good clean 
cheap piece of ass?"  
   "I don't know anything about that stuff."  
 114    "COME ON! COME ON!" I hollered at him. "Do I look like the f uzz? Do I look like 
a fink? You can level with me. Ace!"  
   "No, I'm not kidding. I don't know a bout that stuff. I drive  daylight. Maybe a night 
cabbie might line you up."  
   "O.k., I believe you. Turn here."     The old shack looked good sitting down there between all the  highrise apartments. 
My '57 Plymouth was covered with birdshit and the tires were ha lf-flat. All I wanted 
was a hot bath. A hot bath. Hot w ater against my poor asshole. Quiet. The old Racing 
Forms. The gas and light bills. The letters from lonely women t oo far away to fuck. 
Water. Hot water. Quiet. And mys elf spreading through the walls , returning to the 
manhole of my goddamned soul. I gave him a good tip and walked slowly up the 
driveway. The door was open. Wide. Somebody was hammering on so mething. The 
sheets were off the bed. My god, I had been raided! I had been evicted!  
   I walked in. "HEY!" I hollered.  
   The landlord walked into the f ront room. "Geez, we didn't ex pect you back so soon! 
The hot water tank was leaking a nd we had to rip it out. We're gonna put in a new 
one."  
   "You mean, no hot water?"  
   "No, no hot water."     O good Jesus, I accept willingly this trial which it has ple ased you to lay upon me.  
   His wife walked in.  
   "Oh, I was just gonna make your bed."  
   "All right. Fine."  
   "He should get the watertank hooked up today. We might be sh ort of parts. It's hard 
to get parts on Sunday."  
   "O.k., I'll make the bed," I said.  
   "I'll get it for you."     "No, please, I'll get it."     I went into the bedroom and began making the bed. Then it ca me. I ran to the can. I 
could hear him hammering on the water-tank as I sat down. I was  glad he was 
hammering. I gave a quiet speech. Then I went to bed. I heard t he couple in the next 
court. He was drunk. They were arguing. "The trouble with you i s that you have no 
conceptions at all! You don't know nothing! You're stupid! And on top of that, you're 
a whore!"  
   I was home again. It was great. I rolled over on my belly. I n Vietnam the armies 
were at it. In the alleys the bums sucked on wine bottles. The sun was still up. The sun 
came through the curtains. I saw a spider crawling along the wi ndowledge. I saw an 
old newspaper on the floor. T here was a photo of three young gi rls jumping a fence 
showing plenty of leg. The whole place looked like me and smell ed like me. The 
wallpaper knew me. It was perfect. I "was conscious of my feet and my elbows and 
my hair. I did not feel 45 years old. I felt like a goddamned m onk who had just had a 
revelation. I felt as if I were in love with something that was  very good but I was not 
sure what it was except that it was there. I listened to all th e sounds, the sounds of 
motorcycles and cars. I heard dogs barking. People and laughing . Then I slept. I slept 
and I slept and I slept. While a plant looked through my window , while a plant looked 
at me. The sun went on working and the spider crawled around.  
 115 CONFESSIONS OF A MAN INSANE ENOUGH TO 
LIVE WITH BEASTS 
 
   1.  
   I remember jacking-off in the closet after putting on my mot her's high- heels and 
looking at my legs in the mirror, slowly drawing a cloth up ove r my legs, higher and 
higher as if peeking up the legs of a woman, and being interrup ted by two friends 
coming into the house -- "I know he's in here somewhere." My se lf putting on clothes 
and then one of them opening the c loset door and finding me. "Y ou son of a bitch!" I 
screamed and chased them both out of the house and heard them t alking as they 
walked away: "What's wrong with him? What the hell's wrong with  him?"  
   2.  
   K. was an ex-showgirl and she used to show me the clippings and photos. She'd 
almost won a Miss America contest. I met her in an Alvarado St.  bar, which is about 
as close to getting to skid row as you can get. She had put on weight and age but there 
was still some sign of a figure, some class, but just a hint an d little more. We'd both 
had it. Neither of us worked and how we made it I'll never know . Cigarettes, wine and 
a landlady who believed our stories about money coming up but n one right now. 
Mostly we had to have wine.  
   We slept most of the day but when it began to get dark we ha d to get up, we felt like 
getting up:  
   K: "Shit, I c'd stand a drink."  
   I'd still be on the bed smoking the last cigarette.     Me: "Well, hell, go down to Tony's and get us a couple of po rts."  
   K: "Fifths?"  
   Me: "Sure, fifths. And no Ga llo. And none of that other, tha t stuff gave me a 
headache for two weeks. And get two packs of smokes. Any kind."   
   K: "But there's only 50 cents here!"  
   Me: "7 know that! Cuff him for the rest; whatsamata, ya stupid?"   
   K: "He says no more -- "  
   Me: He says, he says -- who is this guy? God? Fast-talk  him. Smile! Wiggle your 
can at him! Make his pecker ris e! Take him in the back room if necessary, only get 
that WINE!"  
   K: "All right, all right."  
   Me: "And don't come back without it."  
   K. said she loved me. She used to tie ribbons around my cock  and then make a little 
paper hat for the head.  
   If she came back without the wine or with only one bottle, t hen I'd go down like a 
madman and snarl and bitch and threaten the old man until he ga ve me what I wanted, 
and more. Sometimes I'd come back with sardines, bread, chips. It was a particularly 
good period and when Tony sold the business we started on the n ew owner who was 
harder to beard but who could be  had. It brought out the best i n us.  
   3.  
 116    It was like a wood drill, it might have been a wood drill, I  could smell the oil 
burning, and they'd stick that thing into my head into my flesh  and it would drill and 
bring up blood and puss, and I'd sit there the monkey of my sou l-string dangling over 
the edge of a cliff. I was covered with boils the size of small  apples. It was ridiculous 
and unbelievable. Worst case I ever saw, said one of the docs, and he was old. They'd 
gather around me like some freak. I was a freak. I'm still a fr eak. I rode the streetcar 
back and forth to the charity ward. Children on streetcars woul d stare and ask their 
mothers, "What's wrong with that man? Mother, what's wrong with  that man's face?" 
And the mother would SHUUSSSHHH!!! That shuussshhh was the wors t 
condemnation, and then they'd continue to let the little bastar ds and bastardesses stare 
from over the backs of their seats and I'd look out the window and watch the buildings 
go by, and I'd be drowning, sl ugged and drowning, nothing to do . The doctors for lack 
of anything else called it Acne Vulgaris. I'd sit for hours on a wooden bench while 
waiting for my wood drill. What a pity story, eh? I remember th e old brick buildings, 
the easy and rested nurses, the doctors laughing, having it mad e. It was there that I 
learned of the fallacy of hospitals -- that the doctors were ki ngs and the patients were 
shit and the hospitals were there so the doctors could make it in their starched white 
superiority, they could make it with the nurses too: -- Dr. Dr.  Dr. pinch my ass in the 
elevator, forget the stink of cancer, forget the stink of life.  We are not the poor fools, 
we will never die; we drink our carrot juice, and when we feel bad we can take a pop, 
a needle, all the dope we need. Cheep, cheep, cheep, life will sing for us, Big-Time us. 
I'd go in and sit down and they'd put the drill into me. ZIRRRR  ZIRRRR ZIRRRR, 
ZIR, the sun meanwhile raising dahlias and oranges and shining through nurses' 
dresses driving the poor freaks mad. Zirrrrrrr, zirrr, zirr.  
   "Never saw anybody  go under the needle like that!"  
   "Look at him, cold as steel!"  
   Again a gathering of nurse-fuckers, a gathering of men who o wned big homes and 
had time to laugh and to read and go to plays and buy paintings  and forget how to 
think, forget how to feel anything. White starch and my defeat.  The gathering.  
   "How do you feel?"  
   "Wonderful."     "Don't you find the needle painful?"  
   "Fuck you."  
   "What?"     "I said -- fuck you."     "He's just a boy. He's bitter. Can't blame him. How old are you?"  
   "Fourteen."  
   "I was only praising you for your  courage, the way you took the needle. You're 
tough."  
   "Fuck you."  
   "You can't talk to me that way."  
   "Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you."     "You ought to bear up better. Supposing you were blind?"  
   "Then I wouldn't have to look at your goddamned face."  
   "The kid's crazy."     "Sure he is, leave him alone."  
 117    That was some hospital and I never realized that 20 years la ter I'd be back, again in 
the charity ward. Hospitals and jails and whores: these are the  universities of life. I've 
got several degrees. Call me Mr.  
   4.  
   I was shacked with another one. We were on the 2nd floor of a court and I was 
working. That's what almost killed me, drinking all night and w orking all day. I kept 
throwing a bottle through the same window. I used to take that window down to a 
glass place at the corner and get it fixed, get a pane of glass  put in. Once a week I did 
this. The man looked at me very strangely but he always took my  money which looked 
all right to him. I'd been drinking heavily, steadily for 15 ye ars, and one morning I 
woke up and there it was:  
   blood streaming out of my mouth and ass. Black turds. Blood,  blood, waterfalls of 
blood. Blood stinks worse than shit. She called a doctor and th e ambulance came after 
me. The attendants said I was too big to carry down the steps a nd asked me to walk 
down. "O.k., men," I said. "Glad to oblige -- don't want you to  work too hard." Outside 
I got onto the stretcher; they opened it for me and I climbed o n like a wilted flower. 
One hell of a flower. The neighbors had their heads out the win dows, they stood on 
their steps as I went by. They saw me drunk most of the time. " Look, Mabel," one of 
them said, "there goes that horrible man!" "God have mercy on h is soul!" the answer 
came. Good old Mabel. I let go a mouthful of red over the edge of the stretcher and 
somebody went OOOOOhhh-hhhooooh.  
   Even though I was working I didn't have any money so it was back to the charity 
ward. The ambulance was packed. They had shelves in the ambulan ce and everybody 
was everywhere. "Full house," said the driver, "let's go." It w as a bad ride. We 
swayed, we tilted. I made every effort to hold the blood in as I didn't want to get 
anybody stinking. "Oh," I heard a Negro woman's voice, "I can't  believe this is 
happening to me, I can't believe it, oh God help me!"  
   God gets pretty popular in places like that.  
   They put me in a dark basement and somebody gave me somethin g in a glass of 
water and that was that. Every now and then I would vomit some blood into the 
bedpan. There were four or five  of us down there. One of the me n was drunk -- and 
insane -- but he seemed strong. He got off his cot and wandered  around, stumbled 
around, falling across the other men, knocking things over, "Wa  wa was, I am wawa 
the joba, I am juba I am jumma jubba wasta, I am juba." I grabb ed the water pitcher to 
hit him with but he never came near me. He finally fell down in  a corner and passed 
out. I was in the basement a ll night and until noon the next da y. Then they moved me 
upstairs. The ward was overloaded. They put me in a dark corner . "Ooh, he's gonna 
die in that dark corner," one of  the nurses said. "Yeah," said the other one.  
   I got up one night and couldn't make it to the can. I heaved  blood all over the middle 
of the floor. I fell down and w as too weak to get up. I called for a nurse but the doors 
to the ward were covered with tin and three to six inches thick  and they couldn't hear. 
A nurse came by about once every two hours to check for corpses . They rolled a lot of 
dead out at night. I couldn't sl eep and used to watch them. Sli p a guy off the bed and 
pull him onto the roller and pull the sheet over his head. Thos e rollers were well- 
oiled. I hollered, "Nurse!" not knowing especially why. "Shut u p!" one of the old men 
told me, "we want to sleep." I passed out.  
   When I came to all the lights were on. Two nurses were tryin g to pick me up. "I told 
you not to get out of bed," one of the m said. I couldn't talk. Drums were in my head. I 
felt hollowed out. It seemed as if I could hear everything, but  I couldn't see, only flares 
 118 of light, it seemed. But no panic, fear; only a sense of waitin g, waiting for anything 
and not caring.  
   "You're too big," one of them said, "get in this chair."  
   They put me in the chair and s lid me along the floor. I didn 't feel like more than six 
pounds.  
   Then they were around me: people. I remember a doctor in a g reen gown, an 
operating gown. He seemed angry. He was talking to the head nur se.  
   "Why hasn't this man had a transfusion? He's down to ... c.c .'s."  
   "His papers passed through downstairs while I was upstairs a nd then they were filed 
before I saw them. And, besides Doctor, he doesn't have any blo od credit."  
   "I want some blood up here and I want it up here NOW!"  
   "Who the hell is this guy," I thought, "very odd. Very stran ge for a doctor."  
   They started the transfusions -- nine pints of blood and eig ht of glucose.  
   A nurse tried to feed me roast beef with potatoes and peas a nd carrots for my first 
meal. She put the tray before me.  
   "Hell, I can't eat this," I told her, "this would kill me!"  
   "Eat it," she said, "it's on your list, it's on your diet."  
   "Bring me some milk," I said.  
   "You eat that," she said, and walked away.     I left it there.     Five minutes later she came running into the ward.     "Don't EAT THAT!" she screamed, "you can't HAVE THAT!! There 's been a 
mistake on the list!"  
   She carried it away and came back with a glass of milk.  
   As soon as the first bottle of blood emptied into me they sa t me up on a roller and 
took me down to the x-ray room. The doctor told me to stand up.  I kept falling over 
backwards.  
   "GOD DAMN IT," he screamed, "YOU MADE ME RUIN ANOTHER FILM! 
NOW STAND THERE AND DON'T FALL DOWN!"  
   I tried but I couldn't stand up. I fell over backwards.     "Oh shit," he said to the nurse, "take him away."     Easter Sunday the Salvation Army band played right under our  window at 5 a.m. 
They played horrible religious music, played it badly and loudl y, and it swamped me, 
ran through me, almost murdered me. I felt as close to death th at morning as I have 
ever felt. It was an inch away, a hair away. Finally they left for another part of the 
grounds and I began to climb back toward life. I would say that  that morning they 
probably killed a half dozen captives with their music.  
   Then my father showed with my whore. She was drunk and I kne w he had given her 
money for drink and deliberatel y brought her before me drunk in  order to make me 
unhappy. The old man and I were enemies of long standing -- eve rything I believed in 
he disbelieved and the other way around. She swayed over my bed , red-faced and 
drunk.  
   "Why did you bring her like that?" I asked. "Why didn't you wait until another day?"  
   "I told you she was no good! I always told you she was no go od!"  
   "You got her drunk and then brought her here. Why do you kee p knifing me?"  
   "I told you she was no good, I told you, I told you!"  
 119    "You son of a bitch, one more word out of you and I'm going to take this needle out 
of my arm and get up and whip the shit out of you!"  
   He took her by the arm and they left.  
   I guess they had phoned them that I was going to die. I was continuing to 
hemorrhage. That night the priest came.  
   "Father," I said, "no offense, but please, I'd like to die w ithout any rites, without any 
words."  
   I was surprised then because he swayed and rocked in disbeli ef; it was almost as if I 
had hit him. I say I was surprised because I thought those boys  had more cool than 
that. But then, they wipe their asses too.  
   "Father, talk to me," an old man said, "you can talk to me."   
   The priest went over to the old man and everybody was happy.   
   Thirteen days from the night I entered I was driving a truck  and lifting packages 
weighing up to 50 pounds. A week later  I had my first drink -- the one they said would 
kill me.  
   I guess someday I'll die in that goddamned charity ward. I j ust can't seem to get 
away.  
   5.  
   My luck was down again and I was too nervous at this time fr om excessive wine-
drinking; wild-eyed, weak; too depressed to find my usual stop- gap, rest-up job as 
shipping clerk or stock boy, so I went down to the meat packing  plant and walked into 
the office.  
   "Haven't I seen you before?" the man asked.     "No," I lied.     I'd been there two or three years before, gone through all t he paper work, the 
medical and so forth, and they le d me down steps four floors do wn and it had gotten 
colder and colder and the floors had been covered with a sheen of blood, green floors, 
green walls. He had explained the job to me -- which was to pus h a button and then 
from this hole in the wall there came a noise like the crushing  of fullbacks or elephants 
falling, and here it came -- something dead, a lot of it, blood y, and he showed me, you 
take it and throw it on the truck and push the button and anoth er one comes along. 
Then he walked away. When he did I took off my smock, my tin ha t, my boots (issued 
three sizes too small) and walked up the stairway and out of th ere. Now I was back.  
   "You look a little old for the job."     "I want to toughen up. I need ha rd work, good hard work," I lied.  
   "Can you handle it?"  
   "I'm nothing but guts. I used t o be in the ring, I've fought  the best."  
   "Oh, yes?"     "Yeah."   
   "Umm, I can see by your face. You must have been in some fie rce ones."  
   "Never mind my face. I had fast hands. Still have. I had to take some dives, had to 
make it look good."  
   "I follow boxing. I don't recall your name."  
   "I fought under another name. Kid Stardust,"  
   "Kid Stardust? I don't recall a Kid Stardust."  
   "I fought in South America, Afr ica, Europe, the islands, I f ought in the tank towns. 
That's why there're all these gaps in my employment record - - I don't like to put down 
 120 boxer because people think I am kidding or lying. I just leave the blanks and to hell 
with it."  
   "All right, show up for your med. at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow and we'll put you to work. 
You say you want hard work?"  
   "Well, if you have something else . . ."     "No, not right now. You know, you look close to 50 years old . I wonder if I'm doing 
the right thing? We don't like you people to waste our time."  
   "I'm not people -- I'm Kid Stardust."     "O.k., kid," he laughed, "we'll put you to WORK!"  
   I didn't like the way he said it.  
   Two days later I walked thr ough the passgate into the wooden  shack where I showed 
an old man my slip with my name on it:  
   Henry Chinaski and he sent me on to the loading dock -- I wa s to see Thurman. I 
walked on over. There were a row of men sitting on a wooden ben ch and they looked 
at me as if I were a homosexual or a basket case.  
   I looked at them with what I imagined to be easy disdain and  drawled in my best 
backalley fashion:  
   "Where's Thurman. I'm supposed to see th' guy."     Somebody pointed.     "Thurman?"   
   "Yeah?"  
   "I'm workin' for ya."     "Yeah?"  
   "Yeah."   
   He looked at me.     "Where's yor boots?"  
   "Boots? Got none," I said.  
   He reached under the bench and handed me a pair, an old hard ened stiff pair. I put 
them on. Same old story: three sizes too small. My toes were cr ushed and bent under.  
   Then he gave me a bloody smock and a tin helmet. I put them on. I stood there while 
he lit a cigarette, or as the English might say: while he light ed his cigarette. He threw 
away the match with a calm and manly flourish.  
   "Come on."  
   They were all Negroes and when I walked up they looked at me  as if they were 
Black Muslims. I was over six feet but they were all taller, an d if not taller then two or 
three times as wide.  
   "Hank!" Thurman hollered.     Hank, I thought. Hank, just like me. That's nice.  
   I was already sweating under the tin helmet.  
   "Put 'im to WORK!!"  
   Jesus christ o jesus christ. What ever happened to the sweet  and easy nights? Why 
doesn't this happen to Walter Winchell who believes in the Amer ican Way? Wasn't I 
one of the most brilliant student s in Anthropology? What happen ed?  
   Hank took me over and stood me in front of an empty truck a half block long that 
stood in the dock.  
   "Wait here."  
 121    Then several of the Black Muslims came running up with the w heel- barrows 
painted a scabby and lumpy white like whitewash mixed in with h enshit. And each 
wheelbarrow was loaded with mounds of hams that floated in thin , watery blood. No, 
they didn't float in the blood, they sat in it, like lead, like  cannonballs, like death.  
   One of the boys jumped into the  truck behind me and the othe r began throwing the 
hams at me and I caught them and threw them to the guy behind m e who turned and 
threw the ham into the back of the truck. The hams came fast FA ST and they were 
heavy and they got heavier. As soon as I threw one ham and turn ed, another was 
already on the way to me through t he air. I knew that they were  trying to break me. I 
was soon sweating sweating as if faucets had been turned on, an d my back ached, my 
wrists ached, my arms hurt, everything hurt and I was down to t he last impossible 
ounce of limp energy. I could barely see, barely summon myself to catch one more 
ham and throw it, one more ham a nd throw it. I was splashed in blood and kept getting 
the soft dead heavy flump  in my hands, the ham giving a little like a woman's butt, and 
I'm too weak to talk and say, "he y, what the HELL'S the matter with you guys?" The 
hams are coming and I am spinning, nailed like a man on a cross  under a tin helmet, 
and they keep running up barrows full of hams hams hams and at last they are all 
empty, and I stand there swaying and breathing the yellow elect ric light. It was night 
in hell. Well, I always liked night work.  
   "Come on!"   
   They took me into another room . Up in the air through a larg e entrance high in the 
far wall one half a steer, or it might have been a whole one, y es, they were whole 
steers, come to think of it, all four legs, and one of them cam e out of the hole on a 
hook, having just been murdered, a nd the steer stopped right ov er me, it hung right 
over me there on that hook.  
   "They've just killed it," I thought, "they've killed the dam n thing. How can they tell a 
man from a steer? How do they know that I am not a steer?"  
   "ALL RIGHT -- SWING IT!"     "Swing it?"  
   "That's right -- DANCE WITH IT!"  
   "What?"     "O for christ's sake! George  come here!"  
   George got under the dead steer. He grabbed it. ONE. He ran forward. TWO. He ran 
backwards. THREE. He ran far forward. The steer was almost para llel to the ground. 
Somebody hit a button and he had it. He had it for the meat mar kets of the world. He 
had it for the gossiping cranky well- rested stupid housewives of the world at 2 o'clock 
in the afternoon in their housecoat s, dragging at red-stained c igarettes and feeling 
almost nothing.  
   They put me under the next steer.  
   ONE. TWO. THREE.  
   I had it. Its dead bones against my living bones, its dead f lesh against my living 
flesh, and the bone and the weight  cut in, I thought of a sexy cunt sitting across from 
me on a couch with her legs crossed high and me with a drink in  my hand, slowly and 
surely talking my way toward a nd into the blank mind of her bod y, and Hank hollered, 
"HANG HER IN THE TRUCK!"  
   I ran toward the truck. The s hame of defeat taught me in Ame rican schoolyards as a 
boy told me that I must not drop the steer to the ground becaus e this would prove that 
I was a coward and not a man and that I didn't therefore deserv e much, just sneers and 
 122 laughs, you had to be a winner in America, there wasn't any way  out, you had to learn 
to fight for nothing, don't ques tion, and besides if I dropped the steer I might have to 
pick it up, and I knew I could never pick it up. Besides it wou ld get dirty. I didn't want 
it to get dirty, or rather -- they didn't want it to get dirty.   
   I ran it into the truck.     "HANG IT!"     The hook which hung from the roof was dull as a man's thumb without a fingernail. 
You let the bottom of the steer slide back and went for the top , you poked the top part 
against the hook again and a gain but the hook would not go thro ugh. Mother ass !! It 
was all gristle and fat, tough, tough.  
   "COME ON! COME ON!"  
   I gave it my last reserve and the hook came through, it was a beautiful sight, a 
miracle, that hook coming thr ough, that steer hanging there by itself completely off 
my shoulder, hanging for the housecoats and butchershop gossip.   
   "MOVE ON!"  
   A 285 pound Negro, insolent, sharp, cool, murderous, walked in, hung his meat with 
a snap, looked down at me.  
   "We stays in line here!"     "O.k., ace."   
   I walked out in front of him. A nother steer was waiting for me. Each time I loaded 
one I was sure that was the l ast one I could handle but I kept saying  
   one more     just one more  
   then I quit. Fuck it.  
   They were waiting for me to quit, I could see the eyes, the smiles when they thought 
I wasn't looking. I didn't want t o give them victory. I went fo r another steer. The 
player. One last lunge of the big-time washed-up player. I went  for the meat.  
   Two hours I went on then somebody hollered, "BREAK."     I had made it. A ten minute rest, some coffee, and they'd ne ver make me quit. I 
walked out behind them toward a lunch wagon. I could see the st eam rising in the 
night from the coffee; I could see the doughnuts and cigarettes  and coffeecakes and 
sandwiches under the electric lights.  
   "HEY, YOU!"     It was Hank. Hank like me.  
   "Yeah, Hank?"  
   "Before you take your break, get in that truck and move it o ut and over to stall 18."  
   It was the truck we had just loaded, the one a half block lo ng. Stall 18 was across the 
yard.  
   I managed to open the door and get up inside the cab. It had  a soft leather seat and 
the seat felt so good that I knew if I didn't fight it I would soon be asleep. I wasn't a 
truck driver. I looked down and saw a half- dozen gear shifts, breaks, pedals and so 
forth. I turned the key and manag ed to start the engine. I play ed with pedals and gear 
shifts until the truck started to roll and then I drove it acro ss the yard to stall 18, 
thinking all the while -- by the time I get back the lunch wago n will be gone. This was 
tragedy to me, real tragedy. I parked the truck, cut the engine  and sat there a minute 
feeling the soft goodness of that leather seat. Then I opened t he door and got out. I 
missed the step or whatever was supposed to be there and I fell  to the ground in my 
 123 bloody smock and christ tin helmet like a man shot. It didn't h urt, I didn't feel it. I got 
up just in time to see the lunch wagon driving off through the gate and down the street. 
I saw them walking back in toward the dock laughing and lightin g cigarettes.  
   I took off my boots, I took off my smock, I took off my tin helmet and walked to the 
shack at the yard entrance. I threw the smock, helmet and boots  across the counter. 
The old man looked at me:  
   "What? You quittin' this GOOD job?"   
   "Tell 'em to mail me my check for two hours or tell 'em to s tick it up their ass, I don't 
give a damn!"  
   I walked out. I walked across the street to a Mexican bar an d drank a beer and then 
got a bus to my place. The American school-yard had beat me aga in.  
   6.     The next night I was sitting in a bar between a woman with a  rag on her head and a 
woman without a rag on her head, and it was just another bar --  dull, imperfect, 
desperate, cruel, shitty, poor, and the small men's room reeked  to make you heave, and 
you couldn't crap there, only piss, vomiting, turning your head  away, looking for light, 
praying for the stomach to hold just one more night.  
   I had been in there about t hree hours drinking and buying dr inks for the one without 
the rag on her head. She didn't look bad: expensive shoes, good  legs and tail; just on 
the edge of falling apart, but then that's when they look the s exiest -- to me.  
   I bought another drink, two more drinks.     "That's it," I told her, "I'm broke."  
   "You're kidding."   
   "No."     "You got a place to stay?"  
   "Two more days on the rent."  
   "You working?"   
   "No."  
   "What do you do?"  
   "Nothing."     "I mean, how have you made it?"     "I was a jockey's agent for a while. Had a good boy but they  caught him carrying a 
battery into the starting gate twice. They barred him. Did a li ttle boxing, gambling, 
even tried chicken farming -- used to sit up all night guarding  them from the wild dogs 
in the hills, it was tough, and then one day I left a cigar bur ning in the pen and I 
burned up half of them plus all my good roosters. I tried panni ng gold in Northern 
California, I was a barker at the beach, I tried the market, I tried selling short -- 
nothing worked, I'm a failure."  
   "Drink up, she said, and come with me."  
   That "come with me" sounded good. I drank up and followed he r out. We walked up 
the street and stopped in front of a liquor store.  
   "Now you keep quiet," she said, "let me do the talking."     We went in. She got some salami, eggs, bread, bacon, beer, h ot mustard, pickles, 
two fifths of good whiskey, some Alka Seltzer and some mix. Cig arettes and cigars.  
   "Charge it to Willie Hansen," she told the clerk.  
   We walked outside with the stuff and she called a cab from t he box at the corner. 
The cab showed and we climbed in back.  
 124    "Who's Willie Hansen?" I asked.  
   "Never mind," she said.  
   Up at my place she helped me put the perishables in the refr igerator. Then she sat 
down on the couch and crossed those good legs and sat there kic king and twisting an 
ankle, looking down at her shoe, that spiked and beautiful shoe . I peeled the top off a 
fifth and stood there mixing tw o strong drinks. I was king agai n.  
   That night in bed I stopped in t he middle of it and looked d own at her.  
   "What's your name?" I asked.     "What the hell difference does it make?"  
   I laughed and went on ahead.  
   The rent ran out and I put everything, which wasn't much, in to my paper suitcase, 
and 30 minutes later we walked back around a wholesale fur shop , down a broken 
walk, and there was an old two story house.  
   Pepper (that was her name, she finally gave me her name) ran g the bell and told me -
-  
   "You stand back, just let him see me, and when the buzzer so unds I'll push the door 
open and you follow me in."  
   Willie Hansen always peeked down the stairway to the halfway  point where he had a 
mirror that showed him who was at the door and then he made up his mind whether to 
be home or not.  
   He decided to be home. The buzzer rang and I followed Pepper  on in, leaving my 
suitcase at the bottom of the steps.  
   "Baby!" he met her at the top of the steps, "so good  to see you!"  
   He was pretty old and only had one arm. He put the arm aroun d her and kissed her.  
   Then he saw me.     "Who's this guy?"  
   "O, Willie, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is The  Kid."  
   "Hi!" I said.     He didn't answer me.  
   "The Kid? He don't look like a kid."  
   "Kid Lanny, he used to fight under the name Kid Lanny."     "Kid Lancelot," I said.     We went on up into the kitchen and Willie took out a bottle and poured some drinks. 
We sat at the table.  
   "How do you like the curtains?" he asked me. "The girls made  these curtains for me. 
The girls have a lot of talent."  
   "I like the curtains," I told him.  
   "My arm's getting stiff, I can hardly move my fingers, I thi nk I'm going to die, the 
doctors can't figure what's wrong. The girls think I'm kidding,  the girls laugh at me."  
   "I believe you," I told him.  
   We had a couple of more drinks.  
   "I like you," said Willie, "you look like you been around, y ou look like you've got 
class. Most people don't have class. You've got class."  
   "I don't know anything about class," I said, "but I've been around."  
 125    We had some more drinks and went into the front room. Willie  put on a sailing cap 
and sat down at an organ and he began playing the organ with hi s one arm. It was a 
very loud organ.  
   There were quarters and dimes and halves and nickles and pen nies all over the floor. 
I didn't ask questions. We sat there drinking and listening to the organ. I applauded 
lightly when he finished.  
   "All the girls were up here the  other night," he told me, "a nd then somebody 
hollered, RAID! and you should have seen them running, some of them naked and 
some of them in panties and bras, they all ran out and hid in t he garage. It was funny 
as hell! I sat up here and they came drifting back one by one f rom the garage. It was 
sure funny !"  
   "Who was the one who hollered RAID?" I asked.  
   "I was," he said.  
   Then he walked into his bedroom  and took off his clothes and  got into his bed. 
Pepper walked in and kissed him and talked to him as I walked a round picking the 
coins up off the floor.  
   When she came out she motioned to the bottom of the stairway . I went down for the 
suitcase and brought it up.  
   7.  
   Everytime he put on that sailor's cap, that captain's cap, i n the morning we knew we 
were going out on the yacht. He'd stand in front of the mirror adjusting it for proper 
angle and one of the girls woul d come running in to tell us:  
   "We're going out on the yacht -- Willie's putting on his cap !"  
   Like the first time. He came out with the cap on and we foll owed him down to the 
garage, not a word spoken.  
   He had an old car, so old it had a rumble seat.  
   The two or three girls got in front with Willie, sitting on laps, however they made it, 
they made it, and Pepper and I got in the nimble seat, and she said -- "He only goes 
out when he doesn't have a hangover, and when he's not drinking . The bastard doesn't 
want anybody else to drink either, so watch it!"  
   "Hell, I need a drink."  
   "We all need a drink," she said. She took a pint from her pu rse and unscrewed the 
cap. She handed the bottle to me.  
   "Now wait until he checks us in the rearview mirror. Then th e minute his eyes go 
back on the road take a slug."  
   I tried it. It worked. Then it was Pepper's turn. By the tim e we reached San Pedro the 
bottle was empty. Pepper took out some gum and I lit a cigar an d we climbed out.  
   It was a fine looking yacht. It had two engines and Willie s tood there showing me 
how to start the auxiliary motor in case anything went wrong. I  stood there not 
listening, nodding. Some kind of crap about pulling a rope in o rder to start the thing.  
   He showed me how to pull anchor, unmoor from dock, but I was  only thinking about 
another drink, and then we pu lled out, and he stood there in th e cabin with his 
captain's cap on steering the thing, and all the girls got arou nd him.  
   "O, Willie, let me steer!"  
   "Willie, let me steer!"  
   I didn't want to steer. He name d the boat after himself: THE  WILLHAN. Terrible 
name. He should have called it THE FLOATING PUSSY.  
 126    I followed Pepper down to the cabin and we found more to dri nk, plenty to drink. 
We stayed down there drinking. I heard him cut the engine and h e came down the 
steps.  
   "We're going back in," he said.     "What for?"   
   "Connie's gone into one of her moods. I'm afraid she'll jump  overboard. She won't 
speak to me. She just sits there staring. She can't swim. I'm a fraid she'll jump over."  
   (Connie was the one with the rag around her head.)  
   "Let her jump. I'll go get her out. I'll knock her out, I've  still got my punch and then 
I'll pull her in. Don't worry about her."  
   "No, we're going in. Besides, you people have been drinking !"  
   He went upstairs. I poured some more drinks and lit a cigar.   
   8.     When we hit dock Willie came down and said he'd be right bac k. He wasn't right 
back. He wasn't back for three  days and three nights. He left a ll the girls there. He just 
drove off in his car.  
   "He's mad," said one of the girls.     "Yeah," said another.  
   There was plenty of food and liquor there though, so we stay ed and waited for 
Willie. There were four girls there including Pepper. It was co ld down there no matter 
how much you drank, no matter how many blankets you got under. There was only 
one way to get warm. The girls made a joke of it --  
   "I'm NEXT!" one of them would holler.  
   "I think I'm outa come," another would say.     "You think YOU'RE outa come," I said, "how about ME?"  
   They laughed. Finally I just couldn't make it anymore.  
   I found I had my green dice on me and we got down on the flo or and started a crap 
game. Everybody was drunk and the girls had all the money, I di dn't have any money, 
but soon I had quite a bit of money. They didn't quite understa nd the game and I 
explained it to them as we went along and I changed the game as  we went along to suit 
the circumstances.  
   That's how Willie found us when he got back -- shooting crap s and drunk, "I DON'T 
ALLOW GAMBLING ON THIS SHIP!" he  screamed from the top of the s teps.  
   Connie climbed up the steps, put her arms around him and stu ck her long tongue into 
his mouth, then grabbed his parts. He came down the steps smili ng, poured a drink, 
poured drinks for us all and we sat there talking and laughing,  and he talked about an 
opera he was writing for the organ. The Emperor of San Francisco.  I promised him I'd 
write the words to the music a nd that night we drove back into town everybody 
drinking and feeling good. That first trip was almost a carbon of every trip. One night 
he died and we were all out in the  street again, the girls and myself. Some sister back 
east got every dime and I went to work in a dog biscuit factory .  
   9.  
   I'm living in someplace on Kingsley Street and working as a shipping clerk for a 
place that sold overhead light fixtures.  
   It was a fairly calm time. I drank a lot of beer each night,  often forgetting to eat. I 
bought a typewriter, an old second-hand Underwood with keys tha t stuck. I hadn't 
written anything for ten years. I got drunk on beer and began w riting poetry. Pretty 
 127 soon I had quite a backlog and didn't know what to do with it. I put the whole works 
into one envelope and mailed it to some new magazine in a small  town in Texas. I 
figured that nobody would take the stuff but at least somebody might get mad, so it 
wouldn't be wasted entirely.  
   I got a letter back, I got two letters back, long letters. T hey said I was a genius, they 
said I was startling, they said I was God. I read the letters o ver and over and got drunk 
and wrote a long letter back. I sent more poems. I wrote poems and letters every night, 
I was full of bullshit.  
   The editoress, who was also a writer of sorts, began sending  back photos of herself 
and she didn't look bad, not bad at all. The letters began gett ing personal. She said 
nobody would marry her. Her assistant editor, a young male, sai d he would marry her 
for half her inheritance but she said she didn't have any money , people only thought 
she had money. The assistant editor later did a stretch in a me ntal ward. "Nobody will 
marry me," she kept writing, "your poems will be featured in ou r next edition, an all- 
Chinaski edition, and nobody will ever marry me, nobody, you se e I have a deform- 
ity, it's my neck, I was born this way. I'll never be married."   
   I was very drunk one night. "Forget it," I wrote, "I will ma rry you. Forget about the 
neck. I am not so hot either. You with your neck and me with my  lion-clawed face -- I 
can see us walking down the street together!"  
   I mailed the thing and forgot all about it, drank another ca n of beer and went to 
sleep.  
   The return mail brought a letter: "Oh, I'm so happy! Everybo dy looks at me and they 
say, 'Niki, what happened to you? You're RADIANT, bursting!!! W hat is it?' I won't 
tell them! Oh, Henry, I'M SO HAPPY!"  
   She enclosed some photos, particularly ugly photos. I got sc ared. I went out and got 
a fifth of whiskey. I looked at the photos, I drank the whiskey . I got down on the rug:  
   "O Lord or Jesus what have I done? What have I done? Well, I 'll tell you what, 
Boys, I'm going to devote the rest of my life to making this po or woman happy! It will 
be hell but I am tough, and what's a better way to go than maki ng somebody else 
happy?"  
   I got up from the rug, not too sure about the last part. . .  .  
   A week later I was waiti ng in the bus station, I was drunk a nd waiting for the arrival 
of a bus from Texas.  
   They called the bus over the loudspeaker and I got ready to die. I watched them 
coming through the doorway trying t o match them up with the pho tographs. And then 
I saw a young blonde, 23, good legs, live walk, and an innocent  and rather snobbish 
face, pert I'd guess you'd call her, and the neck was not bad a t all. I was 35 then.  
   I walked up to her.  
   "Are you Niki?"     "Yes."   
   "I'm Chinaski. Let me have your suitcase."  
   We walked out to the parking lot.  
   "I've been waiting for three hours, nervous, jumpy, going th rough hell waiting. All I 
could do was to have some drinks in the bar."  
   She put her hand on the hood of the car.  
   "This engine's still hot. You bastard you just got here!"     I laughed.  
 128    "You're right."  
   We got into the old car and made it on in. Soon we were mar-  ried in Vegas, and it 
took what money I had for that and the bus fare back to Texas.  
   I got on the bus with her and I had t hirty-five cents left i n my pocket.  
   "I don't know if Poppa's gonna like what I did," she said.  
   "0 Jesus o God," I prayed, "help me be strong, help me be br ave!"  
   She necked and squirmed and twisted all the way to that smal l Texas town. We 
arrived at 2:30 a.m. and as we got off the bus I thought I hear d the bus driver say -- 
"Who's that bum you got there with you, Niki?"  
   We stood in the street and I said, "What did that busdriver say? What'd he say to 
you?" I asked, rattling my thirty-five cents in my pocket.  
   "He didn't say anything. Come on with me."     She walked up the steps of a downtown building.  
   "Hey, where the hell you going?"  
   She put a key in the door a nd the door opened. I looked abov e the door and carved in 
the stone were the words: CITY HALL.  
   We went on in.  
   "I want to see if I received any mail."  
   She went into her office and looked through a desk.     "Damn it, no mail!! I'll bet that bitch  stole my mail!"  
   "What bitch? What bitch, baby?"  
   "I have an enemy. Look, follow me."  
   We went down the hall and she  stopped in front of a doorway.  She gave me a 
hairpin.  
   "Here, see if you can pick this lock."  
   I stood there trying. I saw the headlines:  
   FAMED WRITER AND REFORMED PROSTITUTE FOUND BREAKING INTO 
MAYOR'S OFFICE!  
   I couldn't pick the lock.     We walked on down to her place, leaped into bed and went at what we had been 
working toward on the bus.  
   I'd been there a couple of days when the doorbell rang about  9 a.m. one morning. 
We were in bed.  
   "What the hell?" I asked.  
   "Go get the bell," she said.  
   I climbed into some clothes and went to the door. A midget w as standing there, and 
every once in a while he shook all over, he had some type of ma lady. He had on a little 
chauffeur's cap.  
   "Mr. Chinaski?"     "Yeah?"  
   "Mr. Dyer asked me to show you the lands."  
   "Wait a minute."  
   I went back on in. "Baby, there's a midget out there and he says a Mr. Dyer wants to 
show me the lands. He's a midget and he shakes all over.  
   "Well, go with him. That's my father."  
 129    "Who, the midget?"  
   "No, Mr. Dyer."     I put on my shoes and stockings and went out on the porch.  
   "O.k., buddy," I said, "let's go."  
   We drove all over town and out of town.  
   "Mr. Dyer owns that," the midget would point, and I'd look, "and Mr. Dyer owns 
that," and I'd look.  
   I didn't say anything.  
   "All those farms," he said, "Mr. Dyer owns all those farms a nd he lets them work the 
land and they split it down the middle."  
   The midget drove to a green forest. He pointed.  
   "See the lake?"  
   "Yeah."     "There's seven lakes in there full of fish. See the turkey w alking around?"  
   "Yeah."   
   "That's wild turkey. Mr. Dyer rents all that out to a fish a nd game club which runs it. 
Of course, Mr. Dyer and any of his friends can go anytime they want. Do you fish or 
shoot?"  
   "I've done a lot of shooting in my time," I told him.     We drove on.  
   "Mr. Dyer went to school there."  
   "Oh, yeah?"  
   "Yup, right in that brick building. Now he's bought it and r estored it as a kind of 
monument."  
   "Amazing."  
   We drove back in.     "Thanks," I told him.  
   "Do you want me to come back tomorrow morning? There's more to see."  
   "No, thanks, it's all right." I walked back in. I was king a gain. . .  
   And it's good to end it right there instead of telling you h ow I lost it, although it's 
something about a Turk who wore a purple stickpin in his tie an d had fine manners 
and culture. I didn't have a chan ce. But the Turk wore off too and the last I heard she 
was in Alaska married to an Eskimo. She sent me a picture of he r baby, and she said 
she was still writing and truly happy. I told her, "Hang tight,  baby, it's a crazy world."  
   And that, as they say, was that.  


--- Ham on rye.pdf ---
CHARLES
BUKOWSKI
HAM  ON  RYE
2
1
The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the
legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked
being under there. It must have been in Germany. I must have been between one and two years old.
It was 1922. I felt good under the table. Nobody seemed to know that I was there. There was
sunlight upon the rug and on the legs of the people. I liked the sunlight. The legs of the people were
not interesting, not like the tablecloth which hung down, not like the table leg, not like the sunlight.
Then there is nothing . . . then a Christmas tree. Candles. Bird ornaments: birds with small berry
branches in their beaks. A star. Two large people fighting, screaming. People eating, always people
eating. I ate too. My spoon was bent so that if I wanted to eat I had to pick the spoon up with my
right hand. If I picked it up with my left hand, the spoon bent away from my mouth. I wanted to pick
the spoon up with my left hand.
Two people: one larger with curly hair, a big nose, a big mouth, much eyebrow; the larger person
always seeming to be angry, often screaming; the smaller person quiet, round of face, paler, with
large eyes. I was afraid of both of them. Sometimes there was a third, a fat one who wore dresses
with lace at the throat. She wore a large brooch, and had many warts on her face with little hairs
growing out of them. "Emily," they called her. These people didn't seem happy together. Emily was
the grandmother, my father's mother. My father's name was "Henry." My mother's name was
"Katherine." I never spoke to them by name. I was "Henry, Jr." These people spoke German most
of the time and in the beginning I did too.
The first thing I remember my grandmother saying was, "I will bury all of you!" She said this the
first time just before we began eating a meal, and she was to say it many times after that, just before
we began to eat. Eating seemed very important. We ate mashed potatoes and gravy, especially on
Sundays. We also ate roast beef, knockwurst and sauerkraut, green peas, rhubarb, carrots, spinach,
string beans, chicken, meatballs and spaghetti, sometimes mixed with ravioli; there were boiled
onions, asparagus, and every Sunday there was strawberry shortcake with vanilla ice cream. For
breakfasts we had French toast and sausages, or there were hotcakes or waffles with bacon and
scrambled eggs on the side. And there was always coffee. But what I remember best is all the
mashed potatoes and gravy and my grandmother, Emily, saying, "I will bury all of you!"
She visited us often after we came to America, taking the red trolley in from Pasadena to Los
Angeles. We only went to see her occasionally, driving out in the Model-T Ford.
I liked my grandmother's house. It was a small house under an overhanging mass of pepper trees.
Emily had all her canaries in different cages. I remember one visit best. That evening she went about
covering the cages with white hoods so that the birds could sleep. The people sat in chairs and
talked. There was a piano and I sat at the piano and hit the keys and listened to the sounds as the
people talked. I liked the sound of the keys best up at one end of the piano where there was hardly
any sound at all -- the sound the keys made was like chips of ice striking against one another.
"Will you stop that?" my father said loudly. "Let the boy play the piano," said my grandmother.
My mother smiled. "That boy," said my grandmother, "when I tried to pick him up out of the cradle
to kiss him, he reached up and hit me in the nose!" They talked some more and I went on playing the
piano. "Why don't you get that thing tuned?" asked my father. Then I was told that we were going to
see my grandfather. My grandfather and grandmother were not living together. I was told that my
grandfather was a bad man, that his breath stank.
"Why does his breath stink?"
They didn't answer.
3
"Why does his breath stink?"
"He drinks."
We got into the Model-T and drove over to see my Grandfather Leonard. As we drove up and
stopped he was standing on the porch of his house. He was old but he stood very straight. He had
been an army officer in Germany and had come to America when he heard that the streets were
paved with gold. They weren't, so he became the head of a construction firm.
The other people didn't get out of the car. Grandfather wiggled a finger at me. Somebody opened
a door and I climbed out and walked toward him. His hair was pure white and long and his beard
was pure white and long, and as I got closer I saw that his eyes were brilliant, like blue lights
watching me. I stopped a little distance away from him. "Henry," he said, "you and I, we know each
other. Come into the house." He held out his hand. As I got closer I could smell the stink of his
breath. It was very strong but he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen and I wasn't afraid. I
went into his house with him. He led me to a chair. "Sit down, please. I'm very happy to sec you."
He went into another room. Then he came out with a little tin box. "It's for you. Open it."
I had trouble with the lid, I couldn't open the box. "Here," he said, "let me have it."
He loosened the lid and handed the tin box back to me. I lifted the lid and here was this cross, a
German cross with a ribbon. "Oh no," I said, "you keep it."
"It's yours," he said, "it's just a gummy badge." "Thank you."
"You better go now. They will be worried." "All right. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Henry. No, wait . . ."
I stopped. He reached into a small front pocket of his pants with a couple of fingers, and tugged
at a long gold chain with his other hand. Then he handed me his gold pocket watch, with the chain.
"Thank you. Grandfather . . ."
They were waiting outside and I got into the Model-T and we drove off. They all talked about
many things as we drove along. They were always talking, and they talked all the way back to my
grandmother's house. They spoke of many things but never, once, of my grandfather.
4
2
I remember the Model-T. Sitting high, the running boards seemed friendly, and on cold days, in
the mornings, and often at other times, my father had to fit the hand-crank into the front of the engine
and crank it many times in order to start the car.
"A man can get a broken arm doing this. It kicks back like a horse." We went for Sunday rides in
the Model-T when grandmother didn't visit. My parents liked the orange groves, miles and miles of
orange trees always either in blossom or full of oranges. My parents had a picnic basket and a metal
chest. In the metal chest were frozen cans of fruit on dry ice, and in the picnic basket were weenie
and liverwurst and salami sandwiches, potato chips, bananas and soda-pop. The soda-pop was
shifted continually back and forth between the metal box and the picnic basket. It froze quickly, and
then had to be thawed.
My father smoked Camel cigarettes and he knew many tricks and games which he showed us
with the packages of Camel cigarettes. How many pyramids were there? Count them. We would
count them and then he would show us more of them.
There were also tricks about the humps on the camels and about the written words on the
package. Camel cigarettes were magic cigarettes.
There was a particular Sunday I can recall. The picnic basket was empty. Yet we still drove along
through the orange groves, further and further away from where we lived.
"Daddy," my mother asked, "aren't we going to run out of gas?" "No, there's plenty of god-
damned gas."
"Where are we going?" "I'm going to get me some god-damned oranges!" My mother sat very still
as we drove along. My father pulled up alongside the road, parked near a wire fence and we sat
there, listening. Then my father kicked the door open and got out.
"Bring the basket." We all climbed through the strands of the fence. "Follow me," said my father.
Then we were between two rows of orange trees, shaded from the sun by the branches and the
leaves. My father stopped and reaching up began yanking oranges from the lower branches of the
nearest tree. He seemed angry, yanking the oranges from the tree, and the branches seemed angry,
leaping up and down. He threw the oranges into the picnic basket which my mother held. Sometimes
he missed and I chased the oranges and put them into the basket. My father went  from tree to tree,
yanking at the lower branches, throwing the oranges into the picnic basket.
"Daddy, we have enough," said my mother. "Like hell."
He kept yanking.
Then a man stepped forward, a very tall man. He held a shotgun. "All right, buddy, what do you
think you're doing?" "I'm picking oranges. There are plenty of oranges." "These are my oranges.
Now, listen to me, tell your woman to dump them."
"There are plenty of god-damned oranges. You're not going to miss a few god-damned oranges."
"I'm not going to miss any oranges. Tell your woman to dump them."
The man pointed his shotgun at my father. "Dump them," my father told my mother. The oranges
rolled to the ground.
"Now," said the man, "get out of my orchard." "You don't need all these oranges." "I know what I
need. Now get out of here."
"Guys like you ought to be hung!" "I'm the law here. Now move!"
The man raised his shotgun again. My father turned and began walking out of the orange grove.
We followed him and the man trailed us. Then we got into the car but it was one of those times when
5
it wouldn't start. My father got out of the car to crank it. He cranked it twice and it wouldn't start.
My father was beginning to sweat. The man stood at the edge of the road.
"Get that god-damned cracker box started!" he said. My father got ready to twist the crank
again. "We're not on your property! We can stay here as long as we damn well please!"
"Like hell! Get that thing out of here, and fast!" My father cranked the engine again. It sputtered,
then stopped. My mother sat with the empty picnic box on her lap. I was afraid to look at the man.
My father whirled the crank again and the engine started. He leaped into the car and began working
the levers on the steering wheel.
"Don't come back," said the man, "or next time it might not go so easy for you."
My father drove the Model-T off. The man was still standing near the road. My father was driving
very fast. Then he slowed the car and made a U-turn. He drove back to where the man had stood.
The man was gone. We speeded back on the way out of the orange groves.
"I'm coming back some day and get that bastard," said my father. "Daddy, we'll have a nice
dinner tonight. What would you like?" my mother asked.
"Pork chops," he answered. I had never seen him drive the car that fast.
6
3
My father had two brothers. The younger was named Ben and the older was named John. Both
were alcoholics and ne'er-do-wells. My parents often spoke of them.
"Neither of them amount to anything," said my father. "You just come from a bad family, Daddy,"
said my mother. "And your brother doesn't amount to a damn either!" My mother's brother was in
Germany. My father often spoke badly of him. I had another uncle, Jack, who was married to my
father's sister, Elinore. I had never seen my Uncle Jack or my Aunt Elinore because there were bad
feelings between them and my father.
"See this scar on my hand?" asked my father. "Well, that's where Elinore stuck me with a sharp
pencil when I was very young. That scar has never gone away."
My father didn't like people. He didn't like me. "Children should be seen and not heard," he told
me.
It was an early Sunday afternoon without Grandma Emily. "We should go see Ben," said my
mother. "He's dying." "He borrowed all that money from Emily. He'd pissed it away on gambling and
women and booze."
"I know, Daddy." "Emily won't have any money left when she dies." "We should still go see Ben.
They say he has only two weeks left."
"All right, all right! We'll go!" So we went and got into the Model-T and started driving. It took
some time, and my mother had to stop for flowers. It was a long drive toward the mountains. We
reached the foothills and took the little winding mountain road upwards. Uncle Ben was in a
sanitarium up there, dying of TB.
"It must cost Emily a lot of money to keep Ben up here," said my father.
"Maybe Leonard is helping." "Leonard doesn't have anything. He drank it up and he gave it away.
"I like grandpa Leonard," I said.
"Children should be seen and not heard," .said my father. Then he continued, " Ah, that Leonard,
the only time he was good to us children was when he was drunk. He'd joke with us and give us
money. But the next day when he was sober he was the meanest man in the world."
The Model-T was climbing the mountain road nicely. The air was clear and sunny.
"Here it is," said my father. He guided the car into the parking lot of the sanitarium and we got
out. I followed my mother and father into the building. As we entered his room, my Uncle Ben was
sitting upright in bed, staring out the window. He turned and looked at us as we entered. He was a
very handsome man, thin, with black hair, and he had dark eyes which glittered, were brilliant with
glittering light.
"Hello, Ben," said my mother. "Hello, Katy." Then he looked at me. "Is this Henry?" Yes.
"Sit down." My father and I sat down.
My mother stood there. "These flowers, Ben. I don't see a vase." "They're nice flowers, thanks,
Katy. No, there isn't a vase." "I'll go get a vase," said my mother. She left the room, holding the
flowers.
"Where are all your girlfriends now, Ben?" asked my father. "They come around."
"I'll bet."
"They come around."
"We're here because Katherine wanted to see you." "I know."
"I wanted to see you too, Uncle Ben. I think you're a real pretty man." "Pretty like my ass," said
my father. My mother entered the room with the flowers in a vase.
7
"Here, I'll put them on this table by the window." "They're nice flowers, Katy."
My mother sat down. "We can't stay too long," said my father. Uncle Ben reached under the
mattress and his hand came out holding a pack of cigarettes. He took one out, struck a match and lit
it. He took a long drag and exhaled.
"You know you're not allowed cigarettes," said my father. "I know how you get them. Those
prostitutes bring them to you. Well, I'm going to tell the doctors about it and I'm going to get them to
stop letting those prostitutes in here!"
"You're not going to do shit," said my uncle. "I got a good mind to rip that cigarette out of your
mouth!" said my father.
"You never had a good mind," said my uncle. "Ben," my mother said, "you shouldn't smoke, it will
kill you." "I've had a good life," said my uncle.
"You never had a good life," said my father. "Lying, boozing, borrowing, whoring, drinking. You
never worked a day in your life! And now you're dying at the age of 24!"
"It's been all right," said my uncle. He took another heavy drag on the Camel, then exhaled.
"Let's get out of here," said my father. "This man is insane!" My father stood up. Then my mother
stood up. Then I stood up. "Goodbye, Katy," said my uncle, "and goodbye, Henry." He looked at
me to indicate which Henry.
We followed my father through the sanitarium halls and out into the parking lot to the Model-T.
We got in, it started, and we began down the winding road out of the mountains.
"We should have stayed longer," said my mother. "Don't you know that TB is catching?" asked
my father.
"I think he was a very pretty man," I said. "It's the disease," said my father. "It makes them look
like that. And besides the TB, he's caught many other things too." "What kind of things?" I asked.
"I can't tell you," my father answered. He steered the Model-T down the winding mountain road
as I wondered about that.
8
4
It was another Sunday that we got into the Model-T in search of my Uncle John.
"He has no ambition," said my father. "I don't see how he can hold his god-damned head up and
look people in the eye."
"I wish he wouldn't chew tobacco," said my mother. "He spits the stuff everywhere."
"If this country was full of men like him the Chinks would take over and we'd he running the
laundries . . ." "John never had a chance," said my mother. "He ran away from home early. At least
you got a high school education." "College," said my father.
"Where?" asked my mother. "The University of Indiana."
"Jack said you only went to high school." " Jack only went to high school. That's why he gardens
for the rich."
"Am I ever going to see my Uncle Jack?" I asked. "First let's see if we can find your Uncle John,"
said my father. "Do the Chinks really want to take over this country?" I asked. "Those yellow devils
have been waiting for centuries to do it. What's stopped them is that they have been kept busy
fighting the Japs."
"Who are the best fighters, the Chinks or the Japs?" "'The Japs. The trouble is that there are too
many Chinks. When you kill a Chink he splits in half and becomes two Chinks." "How come their
skin is yellow?"
"Because instead of drinking water they drink their own pee-pee." "Daddy, don't  tell the boy
that!"
"Then tell him to stop asking questions." We drove along through another warm Los Angeles day.
My mother had on one of her pretty dresses and fancy hats. When my mother was dressed up she
always sat straight and held her neck very stiff.
"I wish we had enough money so we could help John and his family," said my mother.
"It's not my fault if they don't have a pot to piss in," answered my father.
"Daddy, John was in the war just like you were. Don't you think he deserves something?"
"He never rose in the ranks. I became a master sergeant." "Henry, all your brothers can't be like
you." "They don't have any god-damned drive!  They think they can live off the land!"
We drove along a bit further. Uncle John and his family lived in a small court. We went up the
cracked sidewalk to a sagging porch and my father pushed the bell. The bell didn't ring. He
knocked, loudly. "Open up! It's the cops!" my father yelled.
"Daddy, stop it!" said my mother. After what seemed a long time, the door opened a crack. Then
it opened further. And we could see my Aunt Anna. She was very thin, her cheeks were hollow and
her eyes had pouches, dark pouches. Her voice was thin, too. "Oh, Henry . . . Katherine . . . come
in, please . . ." We followed her in. I here was very little furniture. I here was a breakfast nook with a
table and four chairs and there were two beds. My mother and father sat in the chairs. Two girls,
Katherine and Betsy (I learned their names later) were at the sink taking turns trying to scrape peanut
butter out of a nearly empty peanut butter jar.
"We were just having lunch," said my Aunt Anna. The girls came over with tiny smears of peanut
butter which they spread on dry pieces of bread. They kept looking into the jar and scraping with the
knife. "Where's John?" asked my father.
My aunt sat down wearily. She looked very weak, very pale. Her dress was dirty, her hair
uncombed, tired, sad.
"We've been waiting for him. We haven't seen him for quite some time." "Where did he go?"
9
"I don't know. He just left on his motorcycle." "All he does," said my father, "is think about his
motorcycle." "Is this Henry, Jr.?"
"Yes." "He just stares. He's so quiet."
"That's the way we want him."
"Still water runs deep."
"Not with this one. The only thing that runs deep with him are the holes in his ears."
The two girls took their slices of bread and walked outside and sat on the stoop to eat them.
They hadn't spoken to us. I thought they were quite nice. They were thin like their mother but they
were still quite pretty. "How are you, Anna?" asked my mother.
"I'm all right." "Anna, you don't look well. I think you need food." "Why doesn't your boy sit
down? Sit down, Henry." "He likes to stand," said my father. "It makes him strong. He's getting
ready to fight the Chinks."
"Don't you like the Chinese?" my aunt asked me. "No," I answered.
"Well, Anna," my father asked, "how are things going?" "Awful, really. . . The landlord keeps
asking for the rent. He gets very nasty. He frightens me. I don't know what to do." "I hear the cops
are after John," said my father. "He didn't do very much."
"What did he do?" "He made some counterfeit dimes." " Dimes?  Jesus Christ, what kind of
ambition is that?"  "John really doesn't want to be bad."
"Seems to me he doesn't want to be anything ." "He would if he could."
"Yeah. And if a frog had wings he wouldn't wear his ass out a- hoppin'!" There was silence then
and they sat there. I turned and looked outside. The girls were gone from the porch, they had gone
off somewhere.
"Come, sit down, Henry," said my Aunt Anna. I stood there. "Thank you, it's all right."
"Anna," my mother asked, "are you sure that John will come hack?" "He'll come back when he
gets tired of the hens," said my father. "John loves his children . . ." said Anna.
"I hear the cops are after him for something else." "What?"
"Rape."
"Rape?"
"Yes, Anna, I heard about it. He was riding his motorcycle one day. This young girl was hitch-
hiking. She got onto the back of his motorcycle and as they rode along all of a sudden John saw an
empty garage. He drove in there, closed the door and raped the girl"
"How did you find out?" "Find out? The cops came and told me, they asked me where he was."
"Did you tell them?"
"What for? To have him go to jail and evade his responsibilities? That's just what he'd want."
"I never thought of it that way." "Not that I'm for rape . . ."
"Sometimes a man can't help what he does." "What?"
"I mean, after having the children, and with this type of life, the worry and all . . . I don't look so
good anymore. He saw a young girl, she looked good to him . . . she got on his bike, you know, she
put her arms around him . . ."
"What?" asked my father. "How would you like to be raped?" "I guess I wouldn't like it."
"Well, I'm sure the young girl didn't like it either."
A fly appeared and whirled around and around the table. We watched it. "There's nothing to eat
here," said my father. "The fly has come to the wrong place."
The fly became more and more bold. It circled closer and made buzzing sounds. The closer it
circled the louder the buzzing became. "You're not going to tell the cops that John might come
home?" my aunt asked my father.
10
"I am not going to let him off the hook so easily," said my father. My mother's hand leaped
quickly. It closed and she brought her hand back down to the table.
"I got him," she said. "Clot what?" asked my father. 'The fly," she smiled. "I don't believe you . . ."
"You see the fly anywhere? The fly is gone." "It flew off."
"No, I have it in my hand."
"Nobody is that quick."
"I have it in my hand."
"Bullshit."
"You don't believe me?"
"No."
"Open your mouth."
"All right."
My father opened his mouth and my mother cupped her hand over it. My father leaped up,
grabbing at his throat.
"JESUS CHRIST!" The fly came out of his mouth and began circling the table again. "That's
enough," said my father, "we're going home!" He got up and walked out the door and down the walk
and got into the Model-T and just sat there very stiffly, looking dangerous.
"We brought you a few cans of food," my mother said to my aunt. "I'm sorry it can't be money
but Henry is afraid John will use it for gin, or for gasoline for his motorcycle. It isn't much: soup, hash,
peas . . ."
"Oh, Katherine, thank you! I thank you, both . . ." My mother got up and I followed her. There
were two boxes of canned food in the car. I saw my father sitting there rigidly. He was still angry.
My mother handed me the smaller box of cans and she took the large box and I followed her
back into the court. We set the boxes down in the breakfast nook. Aunt Anna came over and
picked up a can. It was a can of peas, the label on it covered with little round green peas. "This is
lovely," said my aunt.
"Anna, we have to go. Henry's dignity is upset." My aunt threw her arms around my mother.
"Everything has been so awful. But this is like a dream. Wait until the girls come home. Wait until the
girls see all these cans of food!"
My mother hugged my aunt back. Then they separated. "John is not a bad man," my aunt said.
"I know," my mother answered. "Goodbye, Anna." "Goodbye, Katherine. Goodbye, Henry."
My mother turned and walked out the door. I followed her. We walked to the car and got in. My
father started the car.
As we were driving off I saw my aunt at the door waving. My mother waved back. My father
didn't wave back. I didn't either.
11
5
I had begun to dislike my father. He was always angry about something. Wherever we went he
got into arguments with people. But he didn't appear to frighten most people; they often just stared at
him, calmly, and he became more furious. If we ate out, which was seldom, he always found
something wrong with the food and sometimes refused to pay. "There's flyshit in this whipped cream!
What the hell kind of a place is this?" "I'm sorry, sir, you needn't pay. Just leave." "I'll leave, all right!
But I'll be back! I'll burn this god-damned place down!"
Once we were in a drug store and my mother and I were standing to one side while my father
yelled at a clerk. Another clerk asked my mother, " Who is  that horrible man? Every time he comes in
here there's an argument."
"That's my husband," my mother told the clerk. Yet, I remember another time. He was working
as a milkman and made early morning deliveries. One morning he awakened me. "Come on, I want
to show you something." I walked outside with him. I was wearing my pajamas and slippers. It was
still dark, the moon was still up. We walked to the milk wagon which was horse-drawn. The horse
stood very still. "Watch," said my father. He took a sugar cube, put it in his hand and held it out to
the horse. The horse ate it out of his palm. "Now you try it . . ."
He put a sugar cube in my hand. It was a very large horse. "Get closer! Hold out your hand!" I
was afraid the horse would bite my hand off. The head came down; I saw the nostrils; the lips pulled
back, I saw the tongue and the teeth, and then the sugar cube was gone. "Here. Try it again . . ." I
tried it again. The horse took the sugar cube and waggled his head. "Now," said my father, "I'll take
you back inside before the horse shits on you."
I was not allowed to play with other children. "They are bad children," said my father, "their
parents are poor." "Yes," agreed my mother. My parents wanted to be rich so they imagined
themselves rich.
The first children of my age that I knew were in kindergarten. They seemed very strange, they
laughed and talked and seemed happy. I didn't like them. I always felt as if I was going to be sick, to
vomit, and the air seemed strangely still and white. We painted with watercolors. We planted radish
seeds in a garden and some weeks later we ate them with salt. I liked the lady who taught
kindergarten, I liked her better than my parents. One problem I had was going to the bathroom. I
always needed to go to the bathroom, but I was ashamed to let the others know that I had to go, so
I held it. It was really terrible to hold it. And the air was white, I felt like vomiting, I felt like shitting
and pissing, but I didn't say anything. And when some of the others came back from the bathroom
I'd think, you're dirty, you did something in there...
The little girls were nice in their short dresses, with their long hair and their beautiful eyes, hut I
thought, they do things in there too, even though they pretend they don't. Kindergarten was mostly
white air . . .
Grammar school was different, first grade to sixth grade, some of the kids were twelve years old,
and we all came from poor neighborhoods. I began to go to the bathroom, but only to piss. Coming
out once I saw a small boy drinking at a water fountain. A larger boy walked up behind him and
jammed his face down into the water jet. When the small boy raised his head, some of his teeth were
broken and blood came out of his mouth, there was blood in the fountain. "You tell anyone about
this," the older boy told him, "and I'll really get you." The boy took out a handkerchief and held it to
his mouth. I walked back to class where the teacher was telling us about George Washington and
Valley Forge. She wore an elaborate white wig. She often slapped the palms of our hands with a
12
ruler when she thought we were being disobedient. I don't think she ever went to the bathroom. I
hated her.
Each afternoon after school there would be a fight between two of the older boys. It was always
out by the back fence where there was never a teacher about. And the fights were never even; it was
always a larger boy against a smaller boy and the larger boy would beat the smaller boy with his fists,
backing him into the fence. The smaller boy would attempt to fight back but it was useless. Soon his
face was bloody, the blood running down into his shirt. The smaller boys took their beatings
wordlessly, never begging, never asking mercy. Finally, the larger boy would back off and it would
be over and all the other boys would walk home with the winner. I'd walk home quickly, alone, after
holding my shit all through school and all through the fight. Usually by the time I got home I would
have lost the urge to relieve myself. I used to worry about that.
13
6
I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and
watched the others play and they looked foolish to me. During lunch one day I was approached by a
new boy. He wore knickers, was cross-eyed and pigeon-toed. I didn't like him, he didn't look good.
He sat on the bench next to me.
"Hello, my name's David." I didn't answer.
He opened his lunch bag. "I've got peanut butter sandwiches," he said. "What do you have?"
"Peanut butter sandwiches."
"I've got a banana, too. And some potato chips. Want some potato chips?"
I took some. He had plenty, they were crisp and salty, the sun shone right through them. They
were good.
"Can I have some more?" "All right."
I took some more. He even had jelly on his peanut butter sandwiches. It dripped out and ran over
his fingers. David didn't seem to notice, "Where do you live?" he asked.
"Virginia Road." "I live on Pickford. We can walk home together after school. Take some more
potato chips. Who's your teacher?"
"Mrs. Columbine." "I have Mrs. Reed. I'll see you after class, we'll walk home together."
Why did he wear those knickers? What did he want? I really didn't like him. I took some more of
his potato chips.
That afternoon, after school, he found me and began walking along beside me. "You never told
me your name," he said. "Henry," I answered.
As we walked along I noticed a whole gang of boys, first graders, following us. At first they were
half a block behind us, then they closed the gap to several yards behind us.
"What do they want?" I asked David. He didn't answer, just kept walking.
"Hey, knicker-shitter!" one of them yelled. "Your mother make you shit in your knickers?"
"Pigeon-toe, ho-ho, pigeon-toe!" "Cross-eye! Get ready to die!"
Then they circled us.
"Who's your friend? Does he kiss your rear end?" One of them had David by the collar. He threw
him onto a lawn. David stood up. A boy got down behind him on his hands and knees. The other
boy shoved him and David fell over backwards. Another boy rolled him over and rubbed his face in
the grass. Then they stepped back. David got up again. He didn't make a sound but the tears were
rolling down his face. The largest boy walked up to him. "We don't want you in our school, sissy.
Get out of our school!" He punched David in the stomach. David bent over and as he did, the boy
brought his knee up into David's face. David fell. He had a bloody nose.
Then the boys circled me. "Your turn now!" They kept circling and as they did I kept turning.
There were always some of them behind me. Here I was loaded with shit and I had to fight. I was
terrified and calm at the same time. I didn't understand their motive. They kept circling and I kept
turning. It went on and on. They screamed things at me but I didn't hear what they said. Finally they
backed off and went away down the street. David was waiting for me. We walked down the
sidewalk toward his place on Pickford Street.
Then we were in front of his house. "I've got to go in now. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, David."
He went in and then I heard his mother's voice. " David!  Look at your knickers and shirt! They're
torn and full of grass stains! You do this almost every day! Tell me, why do you do it?"
14
David didn't answer. "I asked you a question! Why do you do this to your clothes?" "I can't help
it, Mom . . ."
"You can't help  it? You stupid boy!" I heard her beating him. David began to cry and she beat
him harder. I stood on the front lawn and listened. After a while the beating stopped. I could hear
David sobbing. Then he stopped.
His mother said, "Now, I want you to practice your violin lesson." I sat down on the lawn and
waited. Then I heard the violin. It was a very sad violin. I didn't like the way David played. I sat and
listened for some time but the music didn't get any better. The shit had hardened inside of me. I no
longer felt like shifting. The afternoon light hurt my eyes. I felt like vomiting. I got up and walked
home.
15
7
There were continual fights. The teachers didn't seem to know anything about them. And there
was always trouble when it rained. Any boy who brought an umbrella to school or wore a raincoat
was singled out. Most of our parents were too poor to buy us such things. And when they did, we
hid them in the bushes. Anybody seen carrying an umbrella or wearing a raincoat was considered a
sissy. They were beaten after school. David's mother had him carry an umbrella whenever it was the
least bit cloudy.
There were two recess periods. The first graders gathered at their own baseball diamond and the
teams were chosen. David and I stood together. It was always the same. I was chosen next to last
and David was chosen last, so we always played on different teams. David was worse than I was.
With his crossed eyes, he couldn't even see the ball. I needed lots of practice. I had never played
with the kids in the neighborhood. I didn't know how to catch a ball or how to hit one. But I wanted
to, I liked it. David was afraid of the ball, I wasn't. I swung hard, I swung harder than anybody but I
could never hit the ball. I always struck out. Once I fouled a ball off. That felt good. Another time I
drew a walk. When I got to first, the first baseman said, "That's the only way you'll ever get here." I
stood and looked at him. He was chewing gum and he had long black hairs coming out of his
nostrils. His hair was thick with Vaseline. He wore a perpetual sneer.
"What arc you looking at?" he asked me. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't used to
conversation.
"The guys say you're crazy," he told me, "but you don't scare me. I'll be waiting for you after
school some day."
I kept looking at him. He had a terrible face. Then the pitcher wound up and I broke for second.
I ran like crazy and slid into second. The ball arrived late. I he tag was late.
"You're out!" screamed the boy whose turn it was to umpire. I got up, not believing it.
"I said, YOU'RE OUT!"' the umpire screamed. Then I knew that I was not accepted. David and
I were not accepted. I he others wanted me "out" because I was supposed  to be "out." They knew
David and I were friends. It was because of David that I wasn't wanted. As I walked off the
diamond I saw David playing third base in his knickers. His blue and yellow stockings had fallen
down around his feet. Why had he chosen me? I was a marked man. That afternoon after school I
quickly left class and walked home alone, without David. I didn't want to watch him beaten again by
our classmates or by his mother. I didn't want to listen to his sad violin. But the next day at lunch
time, when he sat down next to me I ate his potato chips.
My day came. I was tall and I felt very powerful at the plate. I couldn't believe that I was as bad
as they wished me to be. I swung wildly but with force. I knew I was strong, and maybe like they
said, "crazy." But I had this feeling inside of me that something real was there. Just hardened shit,
maybe, hut that was more than they had. I was up at bat. "Hey, it's the STRIKEOUT KING! MR.
WINDMILL!" The ball arrived. I swung and I felt the bat connect like I had wanted it to do for so
long. The ball went up, up and HIGH, into left held, 'way OVER the left holder's head. His name
was Don Brubaker and he stood and watched it fly over his head. It looked like it was never going
to come down. Then Brubaker started running after the ball. He wanted to throw me out. He would
never do it. The ball landed and rolled onto a diamond where some 5th graders were playing. I ran
slowly to first, hit the bag, looked at the guy on first, ran slowly to second, touched it, ran to third
where David stood, ignored him, tagged third and walked to home plate. Never such a day. Never
such a home run by a first grader! As I stepped on home plate I heard one of the players, Irving
16
Bone, say to the team captain, Stanley Greenberg, "Let's put him on the regular team." (The regular
team played teams from other schools.)
"No," said Stanley Greenberg. Stanley was right. I never hit another home run. I struck out most
of the time. But they always remembered that home run and while they still hated me, it was a better
kind of hatred, like they weren't quite sure why.
Football season was worse. We played touch football. I couldn't catch the football or throw it but
I got into one game. When the runner came through I grabbed him by the shirt collar and threw him
on the ground. When he started to get up, I kicked him. I didn't like him. It was the first baseman
with vaseline in his hair and the hair in his nostrils. Stanley Greenberg came over. He was larger than
any of us. He could have killed me if he'd wanted to. He was our leader. Whatever he said, that was
it. He told me,
"You don't understand the rules. No more football for you." I was moved into volleyball. I played
volleyball with David and the others. It wasn't any good. They yelled and screamed and got excited,
but the others  were playing football. I wanted to play football. All I needed was a little practice.
Volleyball was shameful. Girls played volleyball. After a while I wouldn't play. I just stood in the
center of the field where nobody was playing. I was the only one who would not play anything. I
stood there each day and waited through the two recess sessions, until they were over.
One day while I was standing there, more trouble came. A football sailed from high behind me
and hit me on the head. It knocked me to the ground. I was very dizzy. They stood around
snickering and laughing. "Oh, look, Henry fainted! Henry fainted like a lady! Oh, look at Henry!"
I got up while the sun spun around. Then it stood still. The sky moved closer and flattened out. It
was like being in a cage. They stood around me, faces, noses, mouths and eyes. Because they were
taunting me I thought they had deliberately hit me with the football. It was unfair. "Who kicked that
ball?" I asked.
"You wanna know who kicked the ball?" "Yes."
"What are you going to do when you find out?"
I didn't answer.
"It was Billy Sherril," somebody said. Billy was a round fat boy, really nicer than most, but he was
one of them. I began walking toward Billy. He stood there. When I got close he swung. I almost
didn't feel it. I hit him behind his left ear and when he grabbed his ear I hit him in the stomach. He fell
to the ground. He stayed down. "Get up and fight him, Billy," said Stanley Greenberg. Stanley lifted
Billy up and pushed him toward me. I punched Billy in the mouth and he grabbed his mouth with
both hands. "O.K.," said Stanley, "I'll take his place!"
The boys cheered. I decided to run, I didn't want to die. But then a teacher came up. "What's
going on here?" It was Mr. Hall. "Henry picked on Billy," said Stanley Greenberg. "Is that right,
boys?" asked Mr. Hall.
"Yes," they said. Mr. Hall took me by the ear all the way to the principal's office. He pushed me
into a chair in front of an empty desk and then knocked on the principal's door. He was in there for
some time and when he came out he left without looking at me. I sat there five or ten minutes before
the principal came out and sat behind the desk. He was a very dignified man with a mass of white
hair and a blue bow tie. He looked like a real gentleman. His name was Mr. Knox. Mr. Knox folded
his hands and looked at me without speaking. When he did that I was not so sure that he was a
gentleman. He seemed to want to humble me, treat me like the others.
"Well," he said at last, "tell me what happened." "Nothing happened."
"You hurt that boy, Billy Sherril. His parents are going to want to know why."
17
I didn't answer. "Do you think you can take matters into your own hands when something
happens you don't like?"
"No." "Then why did you do it?"
I didn't answer.
"Do you think you're better than other people?" "No."
Mr. Knox sat there. He had a long letter opener and he slid it back and forth on the green felt
padding of the desk. He had a large bottle of green ink on his desk and a pen holder with four pens.
I wondered if he would beat me.
"Then why did you do what you did?" I didn't answer. Mr. Knox slid the letter opener back and
forth. The phone rang. He picked it up.
"Hello? Oh, Mrs. Kirby? He what? What? Listen, can't you administer the discipline? I'm busy
now. All right, I'll phone you when I'm done with this one . . ."
He hung up. He brushed his fine white hair back out of his eyes with one hand and looked at me.
"Why do you cause me all this trouble?" I didn't answer him.
"You think you're tough, huh?"
I kept silent.
"Tough kid, huh?"
There was a fly circling Mr. Knox's desk. It hovered over his green ink bottle. Then it landed on
the black cap of the ink bottle and sat there rubbing its wings.
"O.K., kid, you're tough and I'm tough. Let's shake hands on that." I didn't think I was tough so I
didn't give him my hand. "Come on, give me your hand."
I stretched my hand out and he took it and began shaking it. Then he stopped shaking it and
looked at me. He had blue clear eyes lighter than the blue of his bow tie. His eyes were almost
beautiful. He kept looking at me and holding my hand. His grip began to tighten.
"I want to congratulate you for being a tough guy."
His grip tightened some more.
"Do you think I'm a tough guy?"
I didn't answer.
He crushed the bones of my fingers together. I could feel the bone of each finger cutting like a
blade into the flesh of the finger next to it. Shots of red flashed before my eyes.
"Do you think I'm a tough guy?" he asked. "I'll kill you," I said.
"You'll what?"
Mr. Knox tightened his grip. He had a hand like a vise. I could see every pore in his face.
"Tough guys don't scream, do they?" I couldn't look at his face anymore. I put my face down on
the desk. "Am I a tough guy?" asked Mr. Knox.
He squeezed harder. I had to scream, but I kept it as quiet as possible so no one in the classes
could hear me.
"Now, am I a tough guy?"
I waited. I hated to say it. Then I said, "Yes." Mr. Knox let go of my hand. I was afraid to look at
it. I let it hang by my side. I noticed that the fly was gone and I thought, it's not so bad to be a fly.
Mr. Knox was writing on a piece of paper.
"Now, Henry, I'm writing a little note to your parents and I want you to deliver it to them. And
you will deliver it to them, won't you?" "Yes."
He folded the note into an envelope and handed it to me. The envelope was sealed and I had no
desire to open it.
18
8
I took the envelope home to my mother and handed it to her and walked into the bedroom. My
bedroom. The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even
during the day with the covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in
there, no people, nothing. My mother often found me in bed in the daytime.
"Henry, get up! It's not good for a young boy to lay in bed all day! Now, get up! Do something!"
But there was nothing to do. I didn't go to bed that day. My mother was reading the note. Soon I
heard her crying. Then she was wailing. "Oh, my god! You've disgraced your father and myself! It's
a disgrace! Suppose the neighbors find out? What will the neighbors think?"
They never spoke to their neighbors. Then the door opened and my mother came running into the
room: "How could you have done this to your mother?"
The tears were running down her face. I felt guilty. " Wait until your father gets home!'"
She slammed the bedroom door and I sat in the chair and waited. Somehow I felt guilty . . .
I heard my father come in. He always slammed the door, walked heavily, and talked loudly. He
was home. After a few moments the bedroom door opened. He was six feet two, a large man.
Everything vanished, the chair I was sitting in, the wallpaper, the walls, all of my thoughts. He was the
dark covering the sun, the violence of him made everything else utterly disappear. He was all ears,
nose, mouth, I couldn't look at his eyes, there was only his red angry face.
"All right, Henry. Into the bathroom." I walked in and he closed the door behind us. The walls
were white. There was a bathroom mirror and a small window, the screen black and broken. There
was the bathtub and the toilet and the tiles. He reached and took down the razor strop which hung
from a hook. It was going to be the first of many such bearings, which would recur more and more
often. Always, I felt, without real reason.
"All right, take down your pants." I took my pants down.
"Pull down your shorts."
I pulled them down.
Then he laid on the strop. The first blow inflicted more shock than pain. The second hurt more.
Each blow which followed increased the pain. At first I was aware of the walls, the toilet, the tub.
Finally I couldn't see anything. As he beat me, he berated me, but I couldn't understand the words. I
thought about his roses, how he grew roses in the yard. I thought about his automobile in the garage.
I tried not to scream. I knew that if I did scream he might stop, but knowing this, and knowing his
desire for me to scream, prevented me. The tears ran from my eyes as I remained silent. After a
while it all became just a whirlpool, a jumble, and there was only the deadly possibility of being there
forever. Finally, like something jerked into action, I began to sob, swallowing and choking on the salt
slime that ran down my throat. He stopped.
He was no longer there. I became aware of the little window again and the mirror. There was the
razor strop hanging from the hook, long and brown and twisted. I couldn't bend over to pull up my
pants or my shorts and I walked to the door, awkwardly, my clothes around my feet. I opened the
bathroom door and there was my mother standing in the hall. "It wasn't right," I told her. "Why didn't
you help me?" "The father," she said, "is always right."
Then my mother walked away. I went to my bedroom, dragging my clothing around my feet and
sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress hurt me. Outside, through the rear screen I could see my
father's roses growing. They were red and white and yellow, large and full. The sun was very low but
not yet set and the last of it slanted through the rear window. I felt that even the sun belonged to my
19
father, that I had no right to it because it was shining upon my father's house. I was like his roses,
something that belonged to him and not to me . . .
20
9
By the time they called me to dinner I was able to pull up my clothing and walk to the breakfast
nook where we ate all our meals except on Sunday. There were two pillows on my chair. I sat on
them but my legs and ass still burned. My father was talking about his job, as always.
"I told Sullivan to combine three routes into two and let one man go from each shift. Nobody is
really pulling their weight around there . . ." "They ought to listen to you, Daddy," said my mother.
"Please," I said, "please excuse me but I don't feel like eating . . . "You'll eat your FOOD!" said my
father. "Your mother prepared this food!"
"Yes," said my mother, "carrots and peas and roast beef." "And the mashed potatoes and gravy,"
said my father. "I'm not hungry."
"You will eat every carrot, and pee on your plate!" said my father. He was trying to be funny.
That was one of his favorite remarks. "DADDY!" said my mother in shocked disbelief. I began
eating. It was terrible. I felt as if I were eating them , what they believed in, what they were. I didn't
chew any of it, I just swallowed it to get rid of it. Meanwhile my father was talking about how good it
all tasted, how lucky we were to be eating good food when most of the people in the world, and
many even in America, were starving and poor.
"What's for dessert. Mama?" my father asked. His face was horrible, the lips pushed out, greasy
and wet with pleasure. He acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't beaten me. When I was
back in my bedroom I thought, these people are not my parents, they must have adopted me and
now they are unhappy with what I have become.
21
10
Lila Jane was a girl my age who lived next door. I still wasn't allowed to play with the children in
the neighborhood, but sitting in the bedroom often got dull. I would go out and walk around in the
backyard, looking at things, bugs mostly. Or I would sit on the grass and imagine things. One thing I
imagined was that I was a great baseball player, so great that I could get a hit every time at bat, or a
home run anytime I wanted to. But I would deliberately make outs just to trick the other team. I got
my hits when I felt like it. One season, going into July, I was hitting only .139 with one home run.
HENRY CHINASKI IS FINISHED, the newspapers said. Then I began to hit. And how I hit! At
one time I allowed myself 16 home runs in a row. Another time I batted in 24 runs in one game. By
the end of the season I was hitting .523.
Lila Jane was one of the pretty girls I'd seen at school. She was one of the nicest, and she was
living right next door. One day when I was in the yard she came up to the fence and stood there
looking at me. "You don't play with the other boys, do you?" I looked at her. She had long red-
brown hair and dark brown eyes. "No," I said, "no, I don't."
"Why not?" "I see them enough at school."
"I'm Lila Jane," she said.
"I'm Henry."
She kept looking at me and I sat there on the grass and looked at her. Then she said, "Do you
want to see my panties?"
"Sure," I said. She lifted her dress. The panties were pink and clean. They looked good. She kept
holding her dress up and then turned around so that I could see her behind. Her behind looked nice.
Then she pulled her dress down. "Goodbye," she said and walked off.
"Goodbye," I said.
It happened each afternoon. "Do you want to see my panties?" "Sure."
The panties were nearly always a different color and each time they looked better.
One afternoon after Lila Jane showed me her panties I said, "Let's go for a walk."
"All right," she said. I met her in front and we walked down the street together. She was really
pretty. We walked along without saying anything until we came to a vacant lot. The weeds were tall
and green.
"Let's go into the vacant lot," I said. "All right," said Lila Jane. We walked out into the tall weeds.
"Show me your panties again."
She lifted her dress. Blue panties. "Let's stretch out here," I said. We got down in the weeds and I
grabbed her by the hair and kissed her. Then I pulled up her dress and looked at her panties. I put
my hand on her behind and kissed her again. I kept kissing her and grabbing at her behind. I did this
for quite a long time. Then I said, "Let's do it." I wasn't sure what there was to do but I felt there was
more.
"No, I can't," she said. "Why not?"
"Those men will see."
"What men?"
"There!" she pointed. I looked between the weeds. Maybe half a block away some men were
working repairing the street.
"They can't see us!" "Yes, they can!"
I got up. "God damn it!" I said and I walked out of the lot and went back home.
22
I didn't see Lila Jane again for a while in the afternoons. It didn't matter. It was football season
and I was -- in my imagination -- a great quarterback. I could throw the ball 90 yards and kick it 80.
But we seldom had to kick, not when I carried the ball. I was best running into grown men. I crushed
them. It took five or six men to tackle me. Sometimes, like in baseball, I felt sorry for everybody and
I allowed myself to be tackled after only gaining 8 or 10 yards. Then I usually got injured, badly, and
they had to carry me off the field. My team would fall behind, say 40 to 17, and with 3 or 4 minutes
left to play I'd return, angry that I had been injured. Every time I got the ball I ran all the way to a
touchdown. How the crowd screamed! And on defense I made every tackle, intercepted every
pass. I was everywhere. Chinaski, the Fury! With the gun ready to go off I took the kickoff deep in
my own end zone. I ran forward, sideways, backwards. I broke tackle after tackle, I leaped over
fallen tacklers. I wasn't getting any blocking. My team was a bunch of sissies. Finally, with five men
hanging on to me I refused to fall and dragged them over the goal line for the winning touchdown.
I looked up one afternoon as a big guy entered our yard through the back gate. He walked in and
just stood there looking at me. He was a year or so older than I was and he wasn't from my
grammar school. "I'm from Marmount Grammar School," he said.
"You better get out of here," I told him. "My father will be coming home soon,"
"Is that right?" he asked. I stood up. "What are you doing here?" "I hear you guys from Delsey
Grammar think you're tough." "We win all the inter-school games."
"That's because you cheat. We don't like cheaters at Marmount."
He had on an old blue shirt, half unbuttoned in front. He had a leather thong on his left wrist.
"You think you're tough?" he asked me. "No."
"What do you have in your garage? I think I'll take something from your garage."
"Stay out of there." The garage doors were open and he walked past me. There wasn't much in
there. He found an old deflated beach ball and picked it up. "I think I'll take this."
"Put it down." "Down your throat!" he said and then he threw it at my head. I ducked. He came
out of the garage toward me. I backed up.
He followed me into the yard. "Cheaters never prosper!" he said. He swung at me. I ducked. I
could feel the wind from his swing. I closed my eyes, rushed him and started punching. I was hitting
something, sometimes. I could feel myself getting hit but it didn't hurt. Mostly I was scared. There-
was nothing to do but to keep punching. Then I heard a voice: "Stop it!" It was Lila Jane. She was in
my backyard. We both stopped fighting. She took an old tin can and threw it. It hit the boy from
Marmount in the middle of the forehead and bounced off. He stood there a moment and then ran off,
crying and howling. He ran out the rear gate and down the alley and was gone. A little tin can. I was
surprised, a big guy like him crying like that. At Delsey we had a code. We never made a sound.
Even the sissies took their beatings silently. Those guys from Marmount weren't much. "You didn't
have to help me," I told Lila Jane. "He was hitting you!"
"He wasn't hurting me." Lila Jane ran off through the yard, out the rear gate, then into her yard
and into her house. Lila Jane still likes me, I thought.
23
11
During the second and third grades I still didn't get a chance to play baseball but I knew that
somehow I was developing into a player. If I ever got a bat in my hands again I knew I would hit it
over the school building. One day I was standing around and a teacher came up to me. "What are
you doing?"
"Nothing." "This is Physical Education. You should be participating. Are you disabled?"
"What?" "Is there anything wrong with you?" "I don't know."
"Come with me."
He walked me over to a group. They were playing kickball. Kickball was like baseball except
they used a soccer ball. The pitcher rolled it to the plate and you kicked it. If it went on a fly and was
caught you were out. If it rolled on through the infield or you kicked it high between the fielders you
took as many bases as you could.
"What's your name?" the teacher asked me. "Henry."
He walked up to the group. "Now," he said, "Henry is going to play shortstop."
They were from my grade. They all knew me. Shortstop was the toughest position. I went out
there. I knew they were going to gang up on me. The pitcher rolled the ball real slow and the first guy
kicked it right at me. It came hard, chest high, but it was no problem. The ball was big and I stuck
out my hands and caught it. I threw the ball to the pitcher. The next guy did the same thing. It came a
little higher this time. And a little faster. No problem. Then Stanley Greenberg walked up to the plate.
That was it. I was out of luck. The pitcher rolled the ball and Stanley kicked it. It came at me like a
cannonball, head high. I wanted to duck but didn't. The ball smashed into my hands and I held it. I
took the ball and rolled it to the pitcher's mound. Three outs. I trotted to the sideline. As I did, some
guy passed me and said, " Chinaski, the great shitstop!"
It was the boy with the vaseline in his hair and the long black nostril hairs. I spun around. "Hey!" I
said. He stopped. I looked at him. "Don't ever say anything to me again." I saw the fear in his eyes.
He walked out to his position and I went and leaned against the fence while our team came to the
plate. Nobody stood near me but I didn't care. I was gaining ground.
It was difficult to understand. We were the children in the poorest school, we had the poorest,
least educated parents, most of us lived on terrible food, and yet boy for boy we were much bigger
than the boys from other grammar schools around the city. Our school was famous. We were
feared.
Our 6th grade team beat the other 6th grade teams in the city very badly. Especially in baseball.
Scores like 14 to I, 24 to 3, 19 to 2. We just could hit the ball.
One day the City Champion Junior High School team, Miranda Bell, challenged us. Somehow
money was raised and each of our players was given a new blue cap with a white "D" in front. Our
team looked good in those caps. When the Miranda Bell guys showed up, the 7th grade champs,
our 6th grade guys just looked at them and laughed. We were bigger, we looked tougher, we
walked differently, we knew something that they didn't know. We younger guys laughed too. We
knew we had them where we wanted them.
The Miranda guys looked too polite. They were very quiet. Their pitcher was their biggest player.
He struck out our first three batters, some of our best hitters. But we had Lowball Johnson. Lowball
did the same to them. It went on like that, both sides striking out, or hitting little grounders and an
occasional single, but nothing else. Then we were at bat in the bottom of the 7th. Beefcake
Cappalletti nailed one. God, you could hear the shot! The ball looked like it was going to hit the
24
school building and break a window. Never had I seen a ball take off like that! It hit the flagpole near
the top and bounced back in. Easy home run. Cappalletti rounded the bases and our guys looked
good  in their new blue caps with the white "13."
The Miranda guys just quit after that. They didn't know how to come back. They came from a
wealthy district, they didn't know what it meant to fight back. Our next guy doubled. How we
screamed! It was over. There was nothing they could do. The next batter tripled. They changed
pitchers. He walked the next guy. The next batter singled. Before the inning was over we had scored
nine runs.
Miranda never got a chance to bat in the 8th. Our 5th graders went over and challenged them to
fight. Even one of the 4th graders ran over and picked a fight with one of them. The Miranda guys
took their equipment and left. We ran them off, up the street. There was nothing left to do so a
couple of our guys got into a fight. It was a good one. They both had bloody noses but were
swinging good when one of the teachers who had stayed to watch the game broke it up. He didn't
know how close he came to getting jumped himself.
25
12
One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any horse-drawn wagons.
The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the milk company we drove off on his route. I
liked being out in the very early morning. The moon was up and I could see the stars. It was cold but
it was exciting. I wondered why my father had asked me to come along since he had taken to
beating me with the razor strop once or twice a week and we weren't getting along.
At each stop he would jump out and deliver a bottle or two of milk. Sometimes it was cottage
cheese or buttermilk or butter and now and then a bottle of orange juice. Most of the people left
notes in the empty bottles explaining what they wanted.
My father drove along, stopping and starting, making deliveries. "O.K., kid, which direction are
we driving in now?" "North."
"You're right. We're going north." We went up and down streets, stopping and starting. "O.K.,
which way are we going now?"
"West." "No, we're going south."
We drove along in silence some more. "Suppose I pushed you out of the truck now and left you
on the sidewalk, what would you do?"
"I don't know." "I mean, how would you live?"
"Well, I guess I'd go back and drink the milk and orange juice you just left on the porch steps."
"Then what would you do?" "I'd find a policeman and tell him what you did." "You would, hub?
And what would you tell him?" "I'd tell him that you told me that 'west' was 'south' because you
wanted me to get lost."
It began to get light. Soon all the deliveries were made and we stopped at a cafe to have
breakfast. The waitress walked over.
"Hello, Henry," she said to my father. "Hello, Betty." "Who's the kid?" asked Betty. "That's little
Henry." "He looks just like you." "He doesn't have my brains, though." "I hope not." We ordered.
We had bacon and eggs. As we ate my father said, "Now comes the hard part."
"What is that?" "I have to collect the money people owe me. Some of them don't want to pay."
"They ought to pay." "That's what I tell them."
We finished eating and started driving again. My father got out and knocked on doors. I could
hear him complaining loudly,
"HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M GOING TO EAT? YOU'VE SUCKED UP THE
MILK, NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO SHIT OUT THE MONEY!"
He used a different line each time. Sometimes he came back with the money, sometimes he didn't.
Then I saw him enter a court of bungalows. A door opened and a woman stood there dressed in
a loose silken kimono. She was smoking a cigarette. "Listen, baby, I've got to have the money.
You're into me deeper than anybody!"
She laughed at him. "Look, baby, just give me half, give me a payment, something to show." She
blew a smoke ring, reached out and broke it with her finger. "Listen, you've got to pay me," my
father said. "This is a desperate situation."
"Come on in. We'll talk about it," said the woman. My father went in and the door closed. He
was in there for a long time. The sun was really up. When my father came out his hair was hanging
down around his face and he was pushing his shirt tail into his pants. He climbed into the truck. "Did
that woman give you the money?" I asked. "That was the last stop," said my father. "I can't take it
any more. We'll return the truck and go home . . ."
26
I was to see that woman again. One day I came home after school and she was sitting on a chair
in the front room of our house. My mother and father were sitting there too and my mother was
crying. When my mother saw me she stood up and ran toward me, grabbed me. She took me into
the bedroom and sat me on the bed. "Henry, do you love your mother?" I really didn't but she
looked so sad that I said, "Yes." She took me back into the other room. "Your father says he loves
this woman," she said to me. "I love both of you! Now get that kid out of here!" I felt that my father
was making my mother very unhappy. "I'll kill you," I told my father.
"Get that kid out of here!" "How can you love that woman?" I asked my father. "Look at her
nose. She has a nose like an elephant!"
"Christ!" said the woman, "I don't have to take this!" She looked at my father: " Choose , Henry!
One or the other! Now!" "But I can't! I love you both!"
"I'll kill you!" I told my father. He walked over and slapped me on the ear, knocking me to the
floor. The woman got up and ran out of the house and my father went after her. The woman leaped
into my father's car, started it and drove off down the street. It happened very quickly. My father ran
down the street after her and the car. "EDNA! EDNA, COME BACK!" My father actually caught
up with the car, reached into the front seat and grabbed Edna's purse. Then the car speeded up and
my father was left with the purse.
"I knew something was going on," my mother told me. "So I hid in the car trunk and I caught them
together. Your father drove me back here with that horrible woman. Now she's got his car."
My father walked back with Edna's purse. "Everybody into the house!" We went inside and my
father locked me in the bedroom and my mother and father began arguing. It was loud and very ugly.
Then my father began beating my mother. She screamed and he kept beating her. I climbed out a
window and tried to get in the front door. It was locked. I tried the rear door, the windows.
Everything was locked. I stood in the backyard and listened to the screaming and the beating.
Then the beating and the screaming stopped and all I could hear was my mother sobbing. She
sobbed a long time. It gradually grew less and less and then she stopped.
27
13
I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of the last to know, because
I still didn't talk to anybody. A boy walked up to me while I was standing around at recess.
"Don't you know how it happens?" he asked. "What?"
"Fucking."
"What's that?"
"Your mother has a hole . . ." -- he took the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and made a
circle -- "and your father has a dong . . ." -- he took his left forefinger and ran it back and forth
through the hole. "Then your father's dong shoots juice and sometimes your mother has a baby and
sometimes she doesn't."
"God makes babies," I said. "Like shit," the kid said and walked off. It was hard for me to
believe. When recess was over I sat in class and thought about it. My mother had a hole and my
father had a dong that shot juice. How could they have things like that and walk around as if
everything was normal, and talk about things, and then do it and not tell anybody? I really felt like
puking when I thought that I had started off as my father's juice.
That night after the lights were out I stayed awake in bed and listened. Sure enough, I began to
hear sounds. Their bed began creaking. I could hear the springs. I got out of bed and tiptoed down
to their door and listened. The bed kept making sounds.
Then it stopped. I hurried back down the hall and into my bedroom. I heard my mother go into
the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush and then she walked out.
What a terrible thing! No wonder they did it in secret! And to think, everybody did it! The
teachers, the principal, everybody! It was pretty stupid. Then I thought about doing it with Lila Jane
and it didn't seem so dumb.
The next day in class I thought about it all day. I looked at the little girls and imagined myself
doing it with them. I would do it with all of them and make babies. I'd fill the world with guys like me,
great baseball players, home run hitters. That day just before class ended the teacher, Mrs.
Westphal, said: "Henry, will you stay after class?"
The bell rang and the other children left. I sat at my desk and waited. Mrs. Westphal was
correcting papers. I thought, maybe she wants to do it with me. I imagined pulling her dress up and
looking at her hole. "All right, Mrs. Westphal, I'm ready."
She looked up from her papers. "All right, Henry, first erase all the blackboards. Then take the
erasers outside and dust them."
I did as I was told, then sat back down at my desk. Mrs. Westphal just sat there correcting
papers. She had on a tight blue dress, she wore large golden earrings, had a tiny nose and wore
rimless glasses. I waited and waited. Then I said, "Mrs. Westphal, why did you keep me after
school?" She looked up and stared at me. Her eyes were green and deep. "I kept you after school
because sometimes you're bad." "Oh, yeah?" I smiled.
Mrs. Westphal looked at me. She took her glasses off and kept staring. Her legs were behind the
desk. I couldn't look up her dress. "You were very inattentive today, Henry." "Yeah?"
"'Yes' is the word. You're addressing a lady!" "Oh, I know..."
"Don't get sassy with me!" "Whatever you say."
Mrs. Westphal stood up and came out from behind her desk.
28
She walked down the aisle and sat on the top of the desk across from me. She had nice long legs
in silk stockings. She smiled at me, reached out a hand and touched one of my wrists.
"Your parents don't give you much love, do they?" "I don't need that stuff," I told her.
"Henry, everybody needs love." "I don't need anything."
"You poor boy."
She stood up, came to my desk and slowly took my head in her hands. She bent over and
pressed it against her breasts. I reached around and grabbed her legs.
"Henry, you must stop fighting everybody! We want to help you." I grabbed Mrs. Westphal's legs
harder. "All right," I said, "let's fuck!"
Mrs. Westphal pushed me away and stood back. " What did you say? "
"I said, let's fuck!"
She looked at me a long time. Then she said, "Henry, I am never  going to tell anybody what you
said, not the principal or your parents or anybody. But I never, never  want you to say that to me
again, do you understand?"
"I understand." "All right. You can go home now." I got up and walked toward the door. When I
opened it, Mrs. Westphal said, "Good afternoon, Henry."
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Westphal."
I walked down the street wondering about it. I felt she wanted to fuck but was afraid because I
was too young for her and that my parents or the principal might find out. It had been exciting being
in the room with her alone. This thing about. fucking was nice. It gave people extra things to think
about.
There was one large boulevard to cross on the way home. I entered the crosswalk. Suddenly
there was a car coming right at me. It didn't slow down. It was weaving wildly. I tried to run out of
its path but it appeared to follow me. I saw headlights, wheels, a bumper. The car hit me and then
there was blackness. . , .
29
14
 Later in the hospital they were dabbing at my knees with pieces of cotton that had been soaked
in something. It burned. My elbows burned too.
The doctor was bending over me with a nurse. I was in bed and the sun came through the
window. It seemed very pleasant. The doctor smiled at me. The nurse straightened up and smiled at
me. It was nice there. "Do you have a name?" the doctor asked.
"Henry." "Henry what?"
"Chinaski."
"Polish, eh?"
"German."
"How come nobody wants to be Polish?" "I was born in Germany."
"Where do you live?" asked the nurse. "With my parents."
"Really?" asked the doctor. "And where is that?" "What happened to my elbows and knees?"
"A car ran you over. Luckily, the wheels missed you. Witnesses said he appeared to be drunk.
Hit and run. But they got his license. They'll get him."
"You have a pretty nurse . . ." I said. "Well, thank you," she said.
"Do you want a date with her?" asked the doctor. "What's that?"
"Do you want to go out with her?" the doctor asked. "I don't know if I could do it with her. I'm
too young." "Do what?"
"You know." "Well," the nurse smiled, "come see me after your knees heal up and we'll see what
we can do."
"Pardon me," said the doctor, "but I have to see another accident case." He left the room.
"Now," said the nurse, "what street do you live on?" "Virginia Road."
"Give me the number, sweetie." I told her the house number. She asked if there was a telephone.
I told her that I didn't know the number.
"That's all right," she said, "we'll get it. And don't worry. You were lucky. You just got a bump on
the head and skinned up a little."
She was nice but I knew that after my knees healed, she wouldn't want to see me again.
"I want to stay here," I told her. "What? You mean, you don't want to go home to your parents?"
"No. Let me stay here."
"We can't do that, sweetie. We need these beds for people who are really sick and injured."
She smiled and walked out of the room.
When my father came he walked straight into the room and without a word scooped me out of
bed. He carried me out of the room and down the hallway.
"You little bastard! Didn't I teach you to look BOTH ways before you cross the street?"
He rushed me down the hall. We passed the nurse. "Goodbye, Henry," she said.
"Goodbye." We got into an elevator with an old man in a wheelchair. A nurse was standing
behind him. The elevator began to descend. "I think I'm going to die," the old man said. "I don't want
to die. I'm afraid to die . . ."
"You've lived long enough, you old fart!" muttered my father. The old man looked startled. The
elevator stopped. The door remained closed. Then I noticed the elevator operator. He sat on a small
stool. He was a dwarf dressed in a bright red uniform with a red cap.
The dwarf looked at my father. "Sir," he said, "you are a repugnant fool!"
"Shortcake," replied my father, "open the fucking door or it's your ass."
30
The door opened. We went out the entrance. My father carried me across the hospital lawn. I still
had on a hospital gown. My father carried my clothes in a bag in one hand. The wind blew back my
gown and I saw my skinned knees which were not bandaged and were  painted with iodine. My
father was almost running across the lawn.
"When they catch that son-of-a-bitch," he said, "I'll sue him! I'll sue him for his last penny! He'll
support me the rest of his life! I'm sick of that god-damned milk truck! Golden State Creamery .'
Golden State, my hairy ass! We'll move to the South Seas. We'll live on coconuts and pineapples!"
My father reached the car and put me in the front seat. Then he got in on his side. He started the
car.
"I hate drunks! My father was a drunk. My brothers are drunks. Drunks are weak.  Drunks are
cowards.  And hit-and-run drunks should be jailed for the rest of their lives!"
As we drove toward home he continued to talk to me. "Do you know that in the South Seas the
natives live in grass shacks? They get up in the morning and the food falls from the trees to the
ground. They just pick it up and eat it, coconuts and pineapple. And the natives think that white men
are gods! They catch fish and roast boar, and their girls dance and wear grass skirts and rub their
men behind the ears. Golden State Creamery, my hairy ass."
But my father's dream was not to be. They caught the man who hit me and put him in jail. He had
a wife and three children and didn't have a job. He was a penniless drunkard. The man sat in jail for
some time but my father didn't press charges. As he said, "You can't get blood out of a fucking
turnip!"
31
15
My father always ran the neighborhood kids away from our house. I was told not to play with
them but I walked down the street and watched them anyhow.
"Hey, Heinie!" they yelled, "Why don't you go back to Germany?" Somehow they had found out
about my birthplace. The worst thing was that they were all about my age and they not only hung
together because they lived in the same neighborhood but because they went to the same Catholic
school. They were tough kids, they played tackle football for hours and almost every day a couple of
them got into a fist fight. The four main guys were Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank.
"Hey, Heinie, go back to Krautland!" There was no getting in with them . . .
Then a red-headed kid moved in next door to Chuck. He went to some kind of special school. I
was sitting on the curb one day when he came out of his house. He sat on the curb next to me. "Hi,
my name's Red." "1m Henry."
We sat there and watched the guys play football. I looked at Red. "How come you got a glove
on your left hand?" I asked. "I've only got one arm," he said.
"That hand looks real." "It's fake. It's a fake arm. Touch it." "What?"
"Touch it. It's fake."
I felt it. It was hard, rock hard. "How'd that happen?"
"I was born that way. The arm's fake all the way up to the elbow. I've got to strap it on. I've got
little fingers at the end of my elbow, fingernails and all, but the fingers aren't any good." "You got any
friends?" I asked.
"No." "Me neither."
"Those guys won't play with you?" "No."
"I got a football."
"Can you catch it?"
"Straight shit," said Red.
"Go get it."
"O.K.. .."
Red went back to his father's garage and came out with a football. He tossed it to me. Then he
backed across his front lawn. "Go on, throw it . . ."
I let it go. His good arm came around and his bad arm came around and he caught it. The arm
made a slight squeaking sound as he caught the football.
"Nice catch," I said. "Now wing me one!" He cocked his arm and let it fly; it came like a bullet
and I managed to hold onto it as it dug into my stomach.
"You're standing too close," I told him. "Step back some more." At last, I thought, some practice
catching and throwing. It felt real good.
Then I was the quarterback. I rolled back, straight-armed an invisible tackier, and let go a spiral
fly. It fell short. Red ran forward, leaped, caught the ball, rolled over three or four times and still held
onto it. "You're good, Red. How'd you get so good?"
"My father taught me. We practice a lot." Then Red walked back and let one sail. It looked to be
over my head as I ran back for it. There was a hedge between Red's house and Chuck's house and I
fell into the hedge going for the ball. The ball hit the top of the hedge and bounced over. I went
around to Chuck's yard to get the ball. Chuck passed the ball to me. "So you got yourself a freak
friend, hey, Heinie?"
32
It was a couple of days later and Red and I were on his front lawn passing and kicking the
football. Chuck and his friends weren't around. Red and I were getting better and better. Practice,
that's all it took. All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a
chance and who didn't.
I caught one over the shoulder, whirled and winged it back to Red who leaped high and came
down with it. Maybe some day we'd play for U.S.C. Then I saw five boys walking down the
sidewalk toward us. They weren't guys from my grammar school. They were our age and looked
like trouble. Red and I kept throwing the ball and they stood watching us. Then one of the guys
stepped onto the lawn. The biggest.
"Throw me the ball," he said to Red. "Why?"
"I wanna see if I can catch it."
"I don't care if you can catch it or not." "Throw me the ball!"
"He's got one arm," I said. "Leave him alone." "Stay out of this, monkey-face!" Then he looked at
Red. "Throw me the ball."
"Go to hell!" said Red. "Get the ball!" the big guy said to the others. They ran at us. Red turned
and threw the ball on the roof of his house. The roof was slanted and the ball rolled back down but
managed to stick behind a drain pipe. Then they were on us. Five to two, I thought, there's no
chance. I caught a fist on the temple, swung and missed. Somebody kicked me in the ass. It was a
good one and burned all the way up the spine. Then I heard a cracking sound, it was almost like a
rifle shot and one of them was down on the ground holding his forehead.
"Oh shit," he said, "my skull is crushed!" I saw Red and he was standing in the center of the lawn.
He was holding the hand of his fake arm with the hand of his good arm. It was like a club. Then he
swung again. There was another loud crack and another of them was down on the lawn. I began to
feel brave and I landed a punch right on a guy's mouth. I saw the lip split and the blood began to
dribble down his chin. The other two ran off. Then the big guy who had gone down first got up and
the other one got up. They held their heads. The guy with the bloody mouth stood there. Then they
retreated down the street together. When they got quite a way down the big guy turned around and
said, "We'll be back!"
Red began running toward them and I ran behind Red. They started running and Red and I
stopped chasing them after they turned the corner. We walked back, found a ladder in the garage.
We got the football down and began throwing it back and forth . . .
One Saturday Red and I decided to go swimming at the public pool down on Bimini Street. Red
was a strange guy. He didn't talk much but I didn't talk much either and we got along. There was
nothing to say anyhow. The only thing I ever really asked him about was his school but he just said it
was a special school and that it cost his father some money.
We arrived at the pool in the early afternoon, got our lockers, and took our clothes off. We had
our swimming trunks on underneath. Then I saw Red unhitch his arm and put it in his locker. It was
the first time since the fight I had seen him without his fake arm. I tried not to look at his arm which
ended at the elbow. We walked to the place where you had to soak your feet in a chlorine solution.
It stank but it stopped the spread of athlete's foot or something. Then we walked to the pool and got
in. The water stank too and after I was in I pissed in it. There were people of all ages in the pool,
men and women, boys and girls. Red really liked the water. He leaped up and down in it. Then he
ducked under and came up. He spit water out of his mouth. I tried to swim. I couldn't help noticing
Red's half-arm, couldn't help looking at it. I always made sure to look at it when I thought he was
occupied with something else. It ended at the elbow, sort of rounded off, and I saw the little fingers. I
33
didn't want to stare real hard, but it seemed as if there were only three or four of them, very tiny,
curled up there. They were very red and each of the tiny fingers had a little fingernail. Nothing was
going to grow anymore; it had all stopped. I didn't want to think about it. I dove under. I was going
to scare Red. I was going to grab his legs from behind. I came up against something soft. My face
went right into it. It was a fat woman's ass. I felt her grab me by the hair and she pulled me up out of
the water. She had on a blue bathing cap and the strap was tight around her chin, digging into her
flesh. Her front teeth were capped with silver and her breath smelled of garlic. "You dirty little
pervert! Trying for free grabs, are you?" I pushed away from her and backed off. As I moved
backwards she followed me through the water, her sagging breasts pushing a tidal wave in front of
her.
"You dirty little prick. You wanna suck my titties? You got a dirty mind, huh? You wanna eat my
shit? How about some of my shit, little prick?"
I backed up further into the deeper water. I was now standing on my toes, moving backwards. I
swallowed some water. She kept coming, a steamship of a woman. I couldn't retreat any further.
She moved right up to me. Her eyes were pale and blank, there wasn't any color in them. I felt her
body touching mine.
'Touch my cunt," she said. "I know you want to touch it, so go ahead, touch my cunt. Touch it,
touch it!"
She waited. "If you don't, I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me and you'll be put in jail!
Now, touch it!"
I couldn't do it. Suddenly she reached under and grabbed my parts and yanked. She almost tore
my dong off. I fell backwards into the deep water, sank, struggled, and came to the top. I was six
feet away from her and began swimming toward shallow water.
"I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me!" she screamed. Then a man swam between us.
"That little son-of-a-bitch!" she pointed at me and screamed at the man. "He grabbed my cunt!"
"Lady," said the man, "the boy probably thought it was the grate over the drain."
I swam over to Red. "Listen," I said, "we've got to get out of here! That fat lady is going to tell the
lifeguard that I touched her cunt!"
"What'd you do that for?" Red asked. "I wanted to see what it felt like." "What'd it feel like?"
We got out of the pool, showered. Red put his arm back on and we dressed. "Did you really do
it?" he asked.
"A guy's got to get started sometime." It was a month or so later that Red's family moved. One
day they were gone. Just like that. Red never said anything in advance to me. He was gone, the
football was gone, and those tiny red fingers with fingernails, they were gone. He was a good guy.
34
16
I didn't know exactly why but Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank let me join them in some of their
games. I think it started when another guy showed up and they needed three on a side. I still required
more practice to get really good but I was getting better. Saturday was the best day. That's when we
had our big games, other guys joined in, and we played football in the street. We played tackle on
the lawns but when we played in the street we played touch. There was more passing then because
you couldn't get far with a run in touch.
There was trouble at the house, much fighting between my mother and my father, and as a
consequence, they kind of forgot about me. I got to play football each Saturday. During one game I
broke into the open behind the last pass defender and I saw Chuck wing the ball. It was a long high
spiral and I kept running. I looked back over my shoulder, I saw it coming, it fell right into my hands
and I held it and was in for the touchdown.
Then I heard my father's voice yell "HENRY!" He was standing in front of his house. I lobbed the
ball to one of the guys on my team so they could kick off and I walked down to where my father
stood. He looked angry. I could almost feel his anger. He always stood with one foot a little bit
forward, his face flushed, and I could see his pot belly going up and down with his breathing. He was
six feet two and like I said, he looked to be all ears, mouth and nose when angry. I couldn't look at
his eyes.
"All right," he said, "you're old enough to mow the lawn now. You're big enough to mow it, edge
it, water it, and water the flowers. It's time you did something around here. It's time you got off your
dead ass!"
"But I'm playing football with the guys. Saturday is the only real chance I have."
"Are you talking back to me?" "No."
I could see my mother watching from behind a curtain. Every Saturday they cleaned the whole
house. They vacuumed the rugs and polished the furniture. They took up the rugs and waxed the
hardwood floors and then covered the floors with the rugs again. You couldn't even see where they
had been waxed.
The lawn mower and edger were in the driveway. He showed them to me. "Now, you take this
mower and go up and down the lawn and don't miss any places. Dump the grass catcher here
whenever it gets full. Now, when you've mowed the lawn in one direction and finished, take the
mower and mow the lawn in the other direction, get it? First, you mow it north and south, then you
mow it east and west. Do you understand?"
"Yes." "And don't look so god-damned unhappy or I'll really give you something to be unhappy
about! After you've finished mowing, then you take the edger. You trim the edges of the lawn with
the little mower on the edger. Get under  the hedge, get every  blade of grass! Then . . . you take this
circular blade on the edger and you cut along the edge of the lawn. It must be absolutely straight
along the edge of the lawn! Understand?"
"Yes." "Now when you're done with that, you take these . . ." My father showed me some shears.
". . . and you get down on your knees and you go around cutting off any hairs  that are still
sticking up. Then you take the hose and you water the hedges and the flower beds. Then you turn on
the sprinkler and you let it run fifteen minutes on each part of the lawn. You do all this on the front
lawn and in the flower garden, and then you repeat it on the rear lawn and in the flower garden there.
Are there any questions?" "No."
35
"All right, now I want to tell you this. I am going to come out and check everything when you're
finished, and when you're done I DON'T WANT TO SEE ONE HAIR STICKING UP IN
EITHER THE FRONT OR BACK LAWN! NOT ONE HAIR! IF THERE IS . . . !"
He turned, walked up the driveway, across his porch, opened the door, slammed it, and he was
gone inside of his house. I took the mower, rolled it up the drive and began pushing it on its first run,
north and south. I could hear the guys down the street playing football . . .
I finished mowing, edging and clipping the front lawn. I watered the flower beds, set the sprinkler
going and began working my way toward the backyard. There was a stretch of lawn in the center of
the driveway leading to the back. I got that too. I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too miserable
to be unhappy. It was like everything in the world had turned to lawn and I was just pushing my way
through it all. I kept pushing and working but then suddenly I gave up. It would take hours, all day,
and the game would be over. The guys would go in to eat dinner, Saturday would be finished, and
I'd still be mowing.
As I began mowing the back lawn I noticed my mother and my father standing on the back porch
watching me. They just stood there silently, not moving. Once as I pushed the mower past I heard
my mother say to my father, "Look, he doesn't sweat like you do when you mow the lawn. Look
how calm  he looks."
"CALM? HE'S NOT CALM, HE'S DEAD!" When I came by again, I heard him: "PUSH THAT
THING FASTER! YOU MOVE LIKE A SNAIL!" I pushed it faster. It was hard to do but it felt
good. I pushed it faster and faster. I was almost running with the mower. The grass flew back so
hard that much of it flew over the grass catcher. I knew that would anger him.
"YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!" he screamed. I saw him run off the back porch and into the
garage. He came out with a two-by-four about a foot long. From the corner of my eye I saw him
throw it. I saw it coming but made no attempt to avoid it. It hit me on the back of my right leg. The
pain was terrible. The leg knotted up and I had to force myself to walk. I kept pushing the mower,
trying not to limp. When I swung around to cut another section of the lawn the two-by-four was in
the way. I picked it up, moved it aside and kept mowing. The pain was getting worse. Then my
father was standing beside me. "STOP!"
I stopped. "I want you to go back and mow the lawn over again where you didn't catch the grass
in the catcher! Do you understand  me?" "Yes."
My father walked back into the house. I saw him and my mother standing on the back porch
watching me.
The end of the job was to sweep up all the grass that had fallen on the sidewalk, and then wash
the sidewalk down. I was finally finished except for sprinkling each section of the lawn in the back
yard for fifteen minutes. I dragged the hose back to set up the sprinkler when my father stepped out
of the house.
"Before you start sprinkling I want to check this lawn for hairs." My father walked to the center of
the lawn, got down on his hands and knees and placed the side of his head low against the lawn
looking for any blade of grass that might be sticking up. He kept looking, twisting his neck, peering
around. I waited.
"AH HAH!" He leaped up and ran toward the house. "MAMA! MAMA!"
He ran into the house.
"What is it?"
"I found a hair!"
36
"You did?"
"Come, I'll show you!"
He came out of the house quickly with my mother following. "Here! Here! I'll show you!"
He got down on his hands and knees. "I can see it! I can see two of them!" My mother got down
with him. I wondered if they were crazy. "See them?" he asked her. " Two hairs. See them?" "Yes,
Daddy, I see them . . ."
They both got up. My mother walked into the house. My father looked at me.
"Inside. . ."
I walked to the porch and inside the house. My father followed me. "Into the bathroom."
My father closed the door. "Take your pants down."
I heard him get down the razor strop. My right leg still ached. It didn't help, having felt the strop
many times before. The whole world was out there indifferent to it all, but that didn't help. Millions of
people were out there, dogs and cats and gophers, buildings, streets, but it didn't matter. There was
only father and the razor strop and the bathroom and me. He used that strop to sharpen his razor,
and early in the mornings I used to hate him with his face white  with lather, standing before the
mirror shaving himself. Then the first blow of the strop hit me. The sound of the strop was flat and
loud, the sound itself was almost as bad as the pain. The strop landed again. It was as if my father
was a machine, swinging that strop. There was the feeling of being in a tomb. The strop landed again
and I thought, that is surely the last one. But it wasn't. It landed again. I didn't hate him. He was just
unbelievable, I just wanted to get away from him. I couldn't cry. I was too sick to cry, too confused.
The strop landed once again. Then he stopped. I stood and waited. I heard him hanging up the strop.
"Next time," he said, "I don't want to find any hairs." I heard him walk out of the bathroom. He
closed the bathroom door. The walls were beautiful, the bathtub was beautiful, the wash basin and
the shower curtain were beautiful, and even the toilet was beautiful. My father was gone.
37
17
Of all the guys left in the neighborhood, Frank was the nicest. We got to be friends, we got to
going around together, we didn't need the other guys much. They had more or less kicked Frank out
of the group, anyway, so he became friends with me. He wasn't like David, who had walked home
from school with me. Frank had a lot more going for him than David had. I even joined the Catholic
church because Frank went there. My parents liked me going to church. The Sunday masses were
very boring. And we had to go to Catechism classes. We had to study the Catechism book. It was
just boring questions and answers.
One afternoon we were sitting on my front porch and I was reading the Catechism out loud to
Frank. I read the line, "God has bodily eyes and sees all things."
"Bodily eyes?" Frank asked. "Yes."
"You mean like this?" he asked.
He clenched his hands into fists and placed them over his eyes. "He has milk bottles for eyes,"
Frank said, pushing his fists against his eyes and turning toward me. Then he began laughing. I began
laughing too. We laughed a long time. Then Frank stopped.
"You think He heard us?" "I guess so. If He can see everything He can probably hear everything
too."
"I'm scared," said Frank. "He might kill us. Do you think He'll kill us?"
"I don't know."
"We better sit here and wait. Don't move. Sit still." We sat on the steps and waited. We waited a
long time. "Maybe He isn't going to do it now," I said.
"He's going to take His time," said Frank. We waited another hour, then we walked down to
Frank's place. He was building a model airplane and I wanted to take a look at it . . .
The afternoon came when we decided to go to our first confession. We walked to the church.
We knew one of the priests, the main man. We had met him in an ice cream parlor and he had
spoken to us. We had even gone to his house once. He lived in a place next to the church with an
old woman. We stayed quite a while and asked all sorts of questions about God. Like, how tall was
He? And did He just sit in a chair all day? And did He go to the bathroom like everybody else? The
priest never did answer our questions directly but still he seemed like a nice guy, he had a nice smile.
We walked to the church thinking about confession, thinking about what it would be like. As we
got near the church a stray dog began walking along with us. He looked very thin and hungry. We
stopped and petted him, scratched his back.
"It's too bad dogs can't go to heaven," said Frank. "Why can't they?"
"You gotta be baptized to go to heaven." "We ought to baptize him."
"Think we should?"
"He deserves a chance to go to heaven." I picked him up and we walked into the church. We
took him to the bowl of holy water and I held him there as Frank sprinkled the water on his
forehead.
"I hereby baptize you," said Frank. We took him outside and put him back on the sidewalk again.
"He even looks different," I said.
The dog lost interest and walked off down the sidewalk. We went back into the church, stopping
first at the holy water, dipping our fingers into it and making the sign of the cross. We both kneeled at
a pew near the confessional booth and waited. A fat woman came out from behind the curtain. She
had body odor. I could smell her strong odor as she walked past. Her smell was mixed with the
38
smell of the church, which smelled like piss. Every Sunday people came to mass and smelled that
piss-smell and nobody said anything. I was going to tell the priest about it but I couldn't. Maybe it
was the candles.
"I'm going in," said Frank. Then he got up, walked behind the curtain and was gone. He was in
there a long time. When he came out he was grinning.
"It was great, just great! You go in there now!" I got up, pulled the curtain back and walked in. It
was dark. I kneeled down. All I could see in front of me was a screen. Frank said God was back in
there. I kneeled and tried to think of something bad that I had done, but I couldn't think of anything. I
just knelt there and tried and tried to think of something but I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. "Go
ahead ," said a voice. " Say something!"  The voice sounded angry. I didn't think there would be any
voice. I thought God had plenty of time. I was frightened. I decided to lie.
"All right," I said. "I . . . kicked my father. I . . . cursed my mother . . . I stole money from my
mother's purse. I spent it on candy bars. I let the air out of Chuck's football. I looked up a little girl's
dress. I kicked my mother. I ate some of my snot. That's about all. Except today I baptized a dog."
"You baptized a dog?"  I was finished. A Mortal Sin. No use going on. I got up to leave. I didn't
know if the voice recommended my saying some Hail Marys or if the voice didn't say anything at all.
I pulled the curtain back and there was Frank waiting. We walked out of the church and were back
on the street. "I feel cleansed," said Frank, "don't you?"
"No." I never went to confession again. It was worse than ten o'clock mass.
39
18
Frank liked airplanes. He lent me all his pulp magazines about World War 1. The best was
Flying Aces.  The dog-fights were great, the Spads and the Fokkers mixing it. I read all the stories. I
didn't like the way the Germans always lost but outside of that it was great.
I liked going over to Frank's place to borrow and return the magazines. His mother wore high
heels and had great legs. She sat in a chair with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. And
Frank's father sat in another chair. His mother and father were always drinking. His father had been a
flyer in World War I and had crashed. He had a wire running down inside one of his arms instead of
a bone. He got a pension. But he was all right. When we came in he always talked to us.
"How are you doing, boys? How's it going?" Then we found out about the air show. It was going
to be a big one. Frank got hold of a map and we decided to get there by hitch-hiking. I thought we'd
probably never make it to the air show but Frank said we would. His father gave us the money.
We went down to the boulevard with our map and we got a ride right away. It was an old guy
and his lips were very wet, he kept licking his lips with his tongue and he had on an old checkered
shirt which he had buttoned to the throat. He wasn't wearing a necktie. He had strange eyebrows
which curled down into his eyes.
"My name's Daniel," he said. Frank said, "This is Henry. And I'm Frank."
Daniel drove along. Then he took out a Lucky Strike and lit it. "You boys live at home?"
"Yes," said Frank. "Yes," I said.
Daniel's cigarette was already wet from his mouth. He stopped the car at a signal.
"I was at the beach yesterday and they caught a couple of guys under the pier. The cops caught
them and threw them in jail. One guy was sucking the other guy off. Now what business is that of the
cops? It made me mad." The signal changed and Daniel pulled away.
"Don't you guys think that was stupid? The cops stopping those guys from sucking-off?"
We didn't answer. "Well," said Daniel, "don't you think a couple of guys have a right to a good
blow job?"
"I guess so," said Frank. "Yeah," I said.
"Where are you boys going?" asked Daniel, "The air show," said Frank.
"Ah, the air show! I like air shows! I'll tell you what, you boys let me go with you and I'll drive
you all the way there." We didn't answer.
"Well, how about it?" "All right," said Frank.
Frank's father had given us admission and transportation money, but we had decided to save the
transportation money by hitch-hiking. "Maybe you boys would rather go swimming," said Daniel.
"No," said Frank, "we want to see the air show." " Swimming's more fun. We can race each other. I
know a place where we can be alone. I'd never go under the pier."
"We want to go to the air show," said Frank. "All right," said Daniel, "we'll go to the air show."
When we got to the air show parking lot we got out of the car and while Daniel was locking it
Frank said, "RUN!"
We ran toward the admission gate and Daniel saw us running away. "HEY, YOU LITTLE
PERVERTS! COME BACK HERE! COME BACK!" We kept running.
"Christ," said Frank, "that son-of-a-bitch is crazy!" We were almost at the admission gate.
"I'LL GET YOU BOYS!" We paid and ran inside. The show hadn't started yet but a large crowd
was already there.
40
"Let's hide under the grandstand so he can't find us," said Frank. The grandstand was built of
temporary planks for the people to sit on. We went underneath. We saw two guys standing under
the center of the grandstand and looking up. They were about 13 or 14 years old, about two or
three years older than we were.
"What are they looking at?" I asked. "Let's go see," said Frank.
We walked over. One of the guys saw us coming. "Hey, you punks, get out of here!"
"What are you guys looking at?" Frank asked. "I told you punks to get out of here!" " Ah, hell,
Marty, let 'em have a look!" We walked over to where they were standing. We looked up. "What is
it?" I asked.
"Hell, can't you see it?" one of the big guys asked. "See what?"
"It's a cunt." "A cunt? Where?"
"Look, right there! See it?"
He pointed.
There was a woman sitting with her skirt bunched back underneath her. She didn't have any
panties on, and looking up between the planks you could see her cunt.
"See it?" "Yeah, I see it. It's a cunt," said Frank. "All right, now you guys get out of here and keep
your mouths shut." "But we want to look at it a little longer," said Frank. "Just let us look a little
longer."
"All right, but not too long." We stood there looking up at it.
"I can see it," I said.
"It's a cunt," said Frank.
"It's really a cunt," I said.
"Yeah," said one of the big guys, "that's what it is." "I'll always remember this," I said.
"All right, you guys, it's time to go." "What for?" asked Frank. "Why can't we keep looking?"
"Because," said one of the big guys, "I'm going to do something. Now get out of here!"
We walked off. "I wonder what he's going to do?" I asked. "I don't know," said Frank, "maybe
he's going to throw a rock at it."
We got out from under the grandstand and looked around for Daniel. We didn't see him
anywhere.
"Maybe he left," I said. "A guy like that doesn't like airplanes," said Frank. We climbed up into
the grandstand and waited for the show to begin. I looked around at all the women.
"I wonder which one she was?" I asked. "I guess you can't tell from the top," said Frank. Then
the air show began. There was a guy in a Fokker doing stunts. He was good, he looped and circled,
stalled, pulled out of it, skimmed the ground, and did an Immelman. His best trick consisted of a
hook on each wing. Two red handkerchiefs were fastened to poles about six feet above the ground.
The Fokker flew down, dipped a wing, and picked a handkerchief off the pole with the hook on its
wing. Then it came around, dipped the other wing, and got the other handkerchief.
Then there were some sky-writing acts which were dull and some balloon races which were silly,
and then they had something good -- a race around four pylons, close to the ground. The airplanes
had to circle the pylons twelve times and the one that finished first got the prize. The pilot was
automatically disqualified if he circled above the pylons. The racing planes sat on the ground warming
up. They were all built differently. One had a long slim body with hardly any wings. Another was fat
and round, it looked like a football. Another was almost all wings and no body. Each was different
and each was grandly painted. The prize for the winner was $100. They sat there warming up, and
you knew you were really going to see something exciting. The motors roared like they wanted to
41
tear away from the airplanes and then the starter dropped the flag and they were off. There were six
planes and there was hardly room for them as they went around the pylons. Some of the flyers took
them low, others high, some in the middle. Some went faster and lost ground rounding the pylons;
others went slower and made sharper turns. It was wonderful and it was terrible. Then one of them
lost a wing. The plane bounced along the ground, the engine shooting flame and smoke. It flipped
over on its back and the ambulance and the fire truck came running up. The other planes kept going.
Then the engine just exploded in another plane, came loose, and the remainder of the plane dropped
down like something lost. It hit the ground and everything came apart. But a strange thing happened.
The pilot just slid back the cockpit cowling and climbed out and waited for the ambulance. He
waved to the crowd and they applauded like mad. It was miraculous.
Suddenly the worst happened. Two planes tangled wings while circling the pylons. They both
spun down and crashed and both caught on fire. The ambulance and fire engine ran up again. We
saw them pull the two guys out and put them on stretchers. It was sad, those two brave good guys,
both probably crippled for life or dead.
That left only two planes, number 5 and number 2, going for the grand prize. Number 5 was the
slim plane almost without wings and it was much faster than number 2. Number 2 was the football,
he didn't have much speed, but he made up a lot of ground on the turns. It didn't help much. The 5
kept lapping the 2.
"Plane number 5," said the announcer, "is now two laps ahead with two laps to go."
It looked like number 5 was going to get the grand prize. Then he ran into a pylon. Instead of
making the turn he just ran into the pylon and knocked the whole thing down. He kept going, straight
down the field, lower and lower, the engine at full throttle, and then he hit the ground. The wheels hit
and the plane bounced high into the air, flipped over, skidded along the ground. The ambulance and
fire engine had a long way to go.
Number 2 just kept circling the three pylons that were left and the one fallen pylon and then he
landed. He had won the grand prize. He climbed out. He was a fat guy, just like his airplane. I had
expected a handsome tough guy. He had been lucky. Hardly anybody applauded.
To close the show they had a parachute contest. There was a circle painted on the ground, a big
bulls’eye, and the one who landed the closest won. It seemed dull to me. There wasn't much noise or
action. The jumpers just bailed out and aimed for the circle.
"This isn't very good," I told Frank. " Naw," he said.
They kept coming down near the circle. More jumpers bailed out of the planes overhead. Then
the crowd started oohing and ahhhing. "Look!" said Frank.
One chute had only partially opened. There wasn't much air in it. He was falling faster than the
others. You could see him kicking his legs and working his arms trying to untangle the parachute.
"Jesus Christ," said Frank.
The guy kept dropping, lower and lower, you could see him better and better. He kept yanking at
the cords trying to untangle the chute but nothing worked. He hit the ground, bounced just a bit, then
fell back and was still. The half-filled chute came down over him.
They canceled the remainder of the jumps. We walked out with the people, still watching out for
Daniel.
"Let's not hitch-hike back," I said to Frank. "All right," he said.
Walking out with the people, I didn't know which was more exciting, the air race, the parachute
jump that failed, or the cunt.
42
19
The 5th grade was a little better. The other students seemed less hostile and I was growing larger
physically. I still wasn't chosen for the homeroom teams but I was threatened less. David and his
violin had gone away. The family had moved. I walked home alone. I was often trailed by one or
two guys, of whom Juan was the worst, but they didn't start anything. Juan smoked cigarettes. He'd
walk behind me smoking a cigarette and he always had a different buddy with him. He never
followed me alone. It scared me. I wished they'd go away. Yet, in another way, I didn't care. I didn't
like Juan. I didn't like anybody in that school. I think they knew that. I think that's why they disliked
me. I didn't like the way they walked or looked or talked, but I didn't like my father or mother either.
I still had the feeling of being surrounded by white empty space. There was always a slight nausea in
my stomach. Juan was dark-skinned and he wore a brass chain instead of a belt. The girls were
afraid of him, and the boys too. He and one of his buddies followed me home almost every day. I'd
walk into the house and they'd stand outside. Juan would smoke his cigarette, looking tough, and his
buddy would stand there. I'd watch them through the curtain. Finally, they would walk off.
Mrs. Fretag was our English teacher. The first day in class she asked us each our names.
"I want to get to know all of you," she said. She smiled. "Now, each of you has a father, I'm sure.
I think it would be interesting if we found out what each of your fathers does for a living. We'll start
with seat number one and we will go around the class. Now, Marie, what does your father do for a
living?"
"He's a gardener." " Ah, that's nice! Seat number two . . . Andrew, what does your father do?"
It was terrible. All the fathers in my immediate neighborhood had lost their jobs. My father had
lost his job. Gene's father sat on his front porch all day. All the fathers were without jobs except
Chuck's who worked in a meat plant. He drove a red car with the meat company's name on the side.
"My father is a fireman," said seat number two. " Ah, that's interesting," said Mrs. Fretag. "Seat
number three." "My father is a lawyer."
"Seat number four." "My father is a . . . policeman . . ." What was I going to say? Maybe only the
fathers in my neighborhood were without jobs. I'd heard of the stock market crash. It meant
something bad. Maybe the stock market had only crashed in our neighborhood. "Seat number
eighteen."
"My father is a movie actor . . ." "Nineteen..."
"My father is a concert violinist . . ." "Twenty . . ."
"My father works in the circus . . ." "Twenty-one.. ."
"My father is a bus driver . . ." "Twenty-two..."
"My father sings in the opera . . ." "Twenty-three.. ."
Twenty-three. That was me.
"My father is a dentist," I said. Mrs. Fretag went right on through the class until she reached
number thirty-three.
"My father doesn't have a job," said number thirty-three. Shit, I thought, I wish I had thought of
that.
One day Mrs. Fretag gave us an assignment. "Our distinguished President, President Herbert
Hoover, is going to visit Los Angeles this Saturday to speak. I want all of you to go hear our
President. And I want you to write an essay about the experience and about what you think of
President Hoover's speech."
Saturday? There was no way I could go. I had to mow the lawn. I had to get the hairs. (I could
never get all the hairs.) Almost every Saturday I got a beating with the razor strop because my father
43
found a hair. (I also got stropped during the week, once or twice, for other things I failed to do or
didn't do right.) There was no way I could tell my father that I had to go see President Hoover.
So, I didn't go. That Sunday I took some paper and sat down to write about how I had seen the
President. His open car, trailing flowing streamers, had entered the football stadium. One car, full of
secret service agents went ahead and two cars followed close behind. The agents were brave men
with guns to protect our President. The crowd rose as the President's car entered the arena. There
had never been anything like it before. It was the President. It was him. He waved. We cheered. A
band played. Seagulls circled overhead as if they too knew it was the President. And there were
skywriting airplanes too. They wrote words in the sky like "Prosperity is just around the corner." The
President stood up in his car, and just as he did the clouds parted and the light from the sun fell
across his face. It was almost as if God knew too. Then the cars stopped and our great President,
surrounded by secret service agents, walked to the speaker's platform. As he stood behind the
microphone a bird flew down from the sky and landed on the speaker's platform near him. The
President waved to the bird and laughed and we all laughed with him. Then he began to speak and
the people listened. I couldn't quite hear the speech because I was sitting too near a popcorn
machine which made a lot of noise popping the kernels, but I think I heard him say that the problems
in Manchuria were not serious, and that at home everything was going to be all right, we shouldn't
worry, all we had to do was to believe in America. There would be enough jobs for everybody.
There would be enough dentists with enough teeth to pull, enough fires and enough firemen to put
them out. Mills and factories would open again. Our friends in South America would pay their debts.
Soon we would all sleep peacefully, our stomachs and our hearts full. God and our great country
would surround us with love and protect us from evil, from the socialists, awaken us from our
national nightmare, forever . . .
The President listened to the applause, waved, then went back to his car, got in, and was driven
off followed by carloads of secret service agents as the sun began to sink, the afternoon turning into
evening, red and gold and wonderful. We had seen and heard President Herbert Hoover.
I turned in my essay on Monday. On Tuesday Mrs. Fretag faced the class. "I've read all your
essays about our distinguished President's visit to Los Angeles. I was there. Some of you, I noticed,
could not attend for one reason or another. For those of you who could not attend, I would like to
read this essay by Henry Chinaski."
The class was terribly silent. I was the most unpopular member of the class by far. It was like a
knife slicing through all their hearts.
"This is very creative," said Mrs. Fretag, and she began to read my essay. The words sounded
good to me. Everybody was listening. My words filled the room, from blackboard to blackboard,
they hit the ceiling and bounced off, they covered Mrs. Fretag's shoes and piled up on the floor.
Some of the prettiest girls in the class began to sneak glances at me. All the tough guys were pissed.
Their essays hadn't been worth shit. I drank in my words like a thirsty man. I even began to believe
them. I saw Juan sitting there like I'd punched him in the face. I stretched out my legs and leaned
back. All too soon it was over.
"Upon this grand note," said Mrs. Fretag, "I hereby dismiss the class . . . ." They got up and
began packing out. "Not you, Henry," said Mrs. Fretag. I sat in my chair and Mrs. Fretag stood
there looking at me. Then she said, "Henry, were you there?"
I sat there trying to think of an answer. I couldn't. I said, "No, I wasn't there."
She smiled. "That makes it all the more remarkable." "Yes, ma'am . . ."
44
"You can leave, Henry." I got up and walked out. I began my walk home. So, that's what they
wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That's what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for
me. I looked around. Juan and his buddy were not following me. Things were looking up.
45
20
There were times when Frank and I were friendly with Chuck, Eddie and Gene. But something
would always happen (usually I caused it) and then I would be out, and Frank would be partly out
because he was my friend. It was good hanging out with Frank. We hitch-hiked everywhere. One of
our favorite places was this movie studio. We crawled under a fence surrounded by tall weeds to get
in. We saw the huge wall and steps they used in the King Kong movie. We saw the fake streets and
the fake buildings. The buildings were just fronts with nothing behind them. We walked all over that
movie lot many times until the guard would chase us out. We hitch-hiked down to the beach to the
Fun House. We would stay in the Fun House three or four hours. We memorized that place. It really
wasn't that good. People shit and pissed in there and the place was littered with empty bottles. And
there were rubbers in the crapper, hardened and wrinkled. Bums slept in the Fun House after it
closed. There really wasn't anything funny about the Fun House. The House of Mirrors was good at
first. We stayed in there until we had memorized how to walk through the maze of mirrors and then it
wasn't any good any more. Frank and I never got into fights. We were curious about things. There
was a movie featuring a Caesarean operation on the pier and we went in and saw it. It was bloody.
Each time they cut into the woman blood squirted out, gushers of it, and then they pulled out the
baby. We went fishing off the pier and when we caught something we would sell it to the old Jewish
ladies who sat . on the benches. I got some beatings from my father for running off with Frank but I
figured I was going to get the beatings anyhow so I might as well have the fun.
But I continued to have trouble with the other kids in the neighborhood. My father didn't help.
For example he bought me an Indian suit and a bow and arrow when all the other kids had cowboy
outfits. It was the same then as in the schoolyard -- I was ganged-up on. They'd circle me with their
cowboy outfits and their guns, but when it got bad I'd just put an arrow into the bow, pull it back and
wait. That always moved them off. I never wore that Indian suit unless my father made me put it on.
I kept falling out with Chuck, Eddie and Gene and then we'd get back together and then we'd fall
out all over again.
One afternoon I was just standing around. I wasn't exactly in good or in bad with the gang, I was
just waiting around for them to forget the last thing I had done that had made them angry. There
wasn't anything else to do. Just white air and waiting. I got tired of standing around and decided to
walk up the hill to Washington Boulevard, east to the movie house and then back down to West
Adams Boulevard. Maybe I'd walk past the church. I started walking. Then I heard Eddie:
"Hey, Henry, come here!" The guys were standing in a driveway between two houses. Eddie,
Frank, Chuck and Gene. They were watching something. They were bent over a large bush watching
something.
"Come here, Henry!" "What is it?"
I walked up to where they were bending over. "It's a spider getting ready to eat a fly!" said Eddie.
I looked. The spider had spun a web between the branches of a bush and a fly had gotten caught in
there. The spider was very excited. The fly shook the whole web as it tried to pull free. It was
buzzing wildly and helplessly as the spider wound the fly's wings and body in more and more spider
web. The spider went around and around, webbing the fly completely as it buzzed. The spider was
very big and ugly.
"It's going to close in now!" yelled Chuck. "It's going to sink its fangs!"
I pushed in between the guys, kicked out and knocked the spider and the fly out of the web with
my foot.
46
"What the hell have you done?" asked Chuck. "You son-of-a-bitch!" yelled Eddie. "You've
spoiled  it!" I backed off. Even Frank stared at me strangely. "Let's get his ass!" yelled Gene.
They were between me and the street. I ran down the driveway into the backyard of a strange
house. They were after me. I ran through the backyard and behind the garage. There was a six-foot
lattice fence covered with vines. I went straight up the fence and over the top. I ran through the next
backyard and up the driveway and as I ran up the driveway I looked back and saw Chuck just
reaching the top of the fence. Then he slipped and fell into the yard landing on his back. "Shit!" he
said. I took a right and kept running. I ran for seven or eight blocks and then sat down on
somebody's lawn and rested. There was nobody around. I wondered if Frank would forgive me. I
wondered if the others would forgive me. I decided to stay out of sight for a week or so . . .
And so they forgot. Not much happened for a while. There were many days of nothing. Then
Frank's father committed suicide. Nobody knew why. Frank told me he and his mother would have
to move to a smaller place in another neighborhood. He said he would write. And he did. Only we
didn't write. We drew cartoons. About cannibals. His cartoons were about troubles with cannibals
and then I'd continue the cartoon story where his left off, about the troubles with the cannibals. My
mother found one of Frank's cartoons and showed it to my father and our letter writing was over.
5th grade became 6th grade and I began to think about running away from home but I decided
that if most of our fathers couldn't get jobs how in the hell could a guy under five feet tall get one?
John Dillinger was everybody's hero, adults and kids alike. He took the money from the banks. And
there was Pretty Boy Floyd and Ma Barker and Machine Gun Kelly.
People began going to vacant lots where weeds grew. They had learned that some of the weeds
could be cooked and eaten. There were fist fights between men in the vacant lots and on street
corners. Everybody was angry. The men smoked Bull Durham and didn't take any shit from
anybody. They let the little round Bull Durham tags hang out of their front shirt pockets and they
could all roll a cigarette with one hand. When you saw a man with a Bull Durham tag dangling, that
meant look out. People went around talking about 2nd and 3rd mortgages. My father came home
one night with a broken arm and two black eyes. My mother had a low paying job somewhere. And
each boy in the neighborhood had one pair of Sunday pants and one pair of daily pants. When shoes
wore out there weren't any new ones. The department stores had soles and heels they sold for 15 or
20 cents along with the glue, and these were glued to the bottoms of the worn out shoes. Gene's
parents had one rooster and some chickens in their backyard, and if some chicken didn't lay enough
eggs they ate it.
As for me, it was the same -- at school, and with Chuck, Gene and Eddie. Not only did the
grownups get mean, the kids got mean, and even the animals got mean. It was like they took their
cue from the people.
One day I was standing around, waiting as usual, not friendly with the gang, no longer really
wanting to be, when Gene rushed up to me, "Hey, Henry, come on!"
"What is it?" "COME ON!"
Gene started running and I ran after him. We ran down the driveway and into the Gibsons'
backyard. The Gibsons had a large brick wall all around their backyard.
"LOOK! HE'S GOT THE CAT CORNERED! HE'S GOING TO KILL IT!" There was a small
white cat backed into a corner of the wall. It couldn't go up and it couldn't go in one direction or the
other. Its back was arched and it was spitting, its claws ready. But it was very small and Chuck's
bulldog, Barney, was growling and moving closer and closer. I got the feeling that the cat had been
47
put there by the guys and then the bulldog had been brought in. I felt it strongly because of the way
Chuck and Eddie and Gene were watching: they had a guilty look.
"You guys did this," I said. "No," said Chuck, "it's the cat's fault. It came in here. Let it fight its
way out."
"I hate you bastards," I said. " Barney's going to kill that cat," said Gene. "Barney will rip it to
pieces," said Eddie. "He's afraid of the claws but when he moves in it will be all over."
Barney was a large brown bulldog with slobbering jaws. He was dumb and fat with senseless
brown eyes. His growl was steady and he kept inching forward, the hairs standing up on his neck
and along his back. I felt like kicking him in his stupid ass but I figured he would rip my leg off. He
was entirely intent upon the kill. The white cat wasn't even fully grown. It hissed and waited, pressed
against the wall, a beautiful creature, so clean.
The dog moved slowly forward. Why did the guys need this? This wasn't a matter of courage, it
was just dirty play. Where were the grownups? Where were the authorities? They were always
around accusing me. Now where were they?
I thought of rushing in, grabbing the cat and running, but I didn't have the nerve. I was afraid that
the bulldog would attack me. The knowledge that I didn't have the courage to do what was
necessary made me feel terrible. I began to feel physically sick. I was weak. I didn't want it to
happen yet I couldn't think of any way to stop it. "Chuck," I said, "let the cat go, please. Call your
dog off." Chuck didn't answer. He just kept watching. Then he said, "Barney, go get him! Get that
cat!"
Barney moved forward and suddenly the cat leaped. It was a furious blur of white and hissing,
claws and teeth. Barney backed off and the cat retreated to the wall again.
"Go get him, Barney," Chuck said again. "God damn you, shut up!" I told him. "Don't talk to me
that way," Chuck said. Barney began to move in again. "You guys set this up," I said.
I heard a slight sound behind us and looked around. I saw old Mr. Gibson watching from behind
his bedroom window. He wanted the cat to get killed too, just like the guys. Why?
Old Mr. Gibson was our mailman with the false teeth. He had a wife who stayed in the house all
the time. She only came out to empty the garbage. Mrs. Gibson always wore a net over her hair and
she was always dressed in a nightgown, bathrobe and slippers. Then as I watched, Mrs. Gibson,
dressed as always came and stood next to her husband, waiting for the kill. Old Mr. Gibson was one
of the few men in the neighborhood with a job but he still needed to see the cat killed. Gibson was
just like Chuck, Eddie and Gene. There were too many of them.
The bulldog moved closer. I couldn't watch the kill. I felt a great shame at leaving the cat like that.
There was always the chance that the cat might try to escape, but I knew that they would prevent it.
That cat wasn't only facing the bulldog, it was facing Humanity.
I turned and walked away, out of the yard, up the driveway and to the sidewalk. I walked along
the sidewalk toward where I lived and there in the front yard of his home, my father stood waiting.
"Where have you been?" he asked. I didn't answer. "Get inside," he said, "and stop looking so
unhappy or I'll give you something that will really  make you unhappy!"
48
21
Then I started attending Mt. Justin Jr. High. About half the guys from Delsey Grammar School
went there, the biggest and toughest half. Another gang of giants came from other schools. Our 7th
grade class was bigger than the 9th grade class. When we lined up for gym it was funny, most of us
were bigger than the gym teachers. We would stand there for roll call, slouched, our guts hanging
out, heads down, shoulders slumped.
"Jesus Christ," said Wagner, the gym teacher, "pull your shoulders back, stand straight!"
Nobody would change position. We were the way we were, and we didn't want to be anything
else. We all came from Depression families and most of us were ill-fed, yet we had grown up to be
huge and strong. Most of us, I think, got little love from our families, and we didn't ask for love or
kindness from anybody. We were a joke but people were careful not to laugh in front of us. It was
as if we had grown up too soon and we were bored with being children. We had no respect for our
elders. We were like tigers with the mange. One of the Jewish fellows, Sam Feidman, had a black
beard and had to shave every morning. By noon his chin was almost black. And he had a mass of
black hair all over his chest and he smelled terrible under the arms. Another guy looked like Jack
Dempsey. Another guy, Peter Mangalore, had a cock 10 inches long, soft. And when we got in the
shower, I found out I had the biggest balls of anybody.
"Hey! Look at that guy's balls, will ya?" "Holy shit! Not much cock but look at those balls! "
"Holy shit!"
I don't know what it was about us but we had something, and we felt it. You could see it in the
way we walked and talked. We didn't talk much, we just inferred , and that's what got everybody
mad, the way we took things for granted.
The 7th grade team would play touch football after school against the 8th and 9th graders. It was
no match. We beat them easy, we knocked them down, we did it with style, almost without effort. In
touch football most teams passed on every play, but our team worked in lots of runs. Then we could
set up the blocking and our guys would go for the other guys and knock them down. It was just an
excuse to be violent, we didn't give a damn about the runner. The other side was always glad when
we called a pass play.
The girls stayed after school and watched us. Some of them were already going out with high
school guys, they didn't want to mess with jr. high school punks, but they stayed to watch the 7th
graders. We were known. The girls stayed after class and watched us and marveled. I wasn't on the
team but I stood on the sidelines and sneaked smokes, feeling like a coach or something. We're all
going to get fucked, we thought, watching the girls. But most of us only masturbated.
Masturbation. I remember how I learned about it. One morning Eddie scratched on my bedroom
window.
"What is it?" I asked Eddie. He held up a test tube and it had something white in the bottom of it.
"What's that?"
"Come," said Eddie, "it's my come." "Yeah?"
"Yeah, all you do is spit on your hand and begin rubbing your cock, it feels good and pretty soon
this white juice shoots out of the end of your cock. That stuff is called 'come."'
"Yeah?" "Yeah."
Eddie walked off with his test tube. I thought about it awhile and then I decided to try it. My cock
got hard and it felt real good, it felt better and better, and I kept going and it felt like nothing I had
ever felt before. Then juice spurted out of the head of my cock. After that I did it every now and
then. It got better if you imagined you were doing it with a girl while you whacked-off.
49
One day I was standing on the sidelines watching our team kick the shit out of some other team. I
was sneaking a smoke and watching. There was a girl on either side of me. As our guys broke out of
a huddle I saw the gym coach, Curly Wagner, walking toward me. I ditched the smoke and clapped
my hands.
"Let's dump 'em on their butts, gang!" Wagner walked up to me. He just stood there staring at
me. I had developed an evil look on my face.
"I'm going to get all you guys!" Wagner said. "Especially you!" I turned my head and glanced at
him, casually, then turned my head away. Wagner stood there looking at me. Then he walked off.
I felt good about that. I liked being picked out as one of the bad guys. I liked to feel bad.
Anybody could be a good guy, that didn't take guts. Dillinger had guts. Ma Barker was a great
woman teaching those guys how to operate a submachine gun. I didn't want to be like my father. He
only pretended to be bad. When you're bad you didn't pretend, it was just there. I liked being bad.
Trying to be good made me sick.
The girl next to me said, "You don't have to take that from Wagner. Are you afraid of him?"
I turned and looked at her. I stared at her a long time, motionless. "What's wrong with you?" she
asked.
I looked away from her, spit on the ground, and walked off. I slowly walked the length of the
field, exited through the rear gate and began walking home.
Wagner always wore a grey sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. He had a little pot belly. Something
was continually bothering him. His only advantage was his age. He would try to bluff us but that was
working less and less. There was always somebody pushing me who had no right to push. Wagner
and my father. My father and Wagner. What did they want? Why was I in their way?
50
22
One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy attached himself to me. He was small
and thin and had almost no hair on top of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real name was Eli
LaCrosse. I liked his real name, but I didn't like him. He just glued himself to me. He was so pitiful
that I couldn't tell him to get lost. He was like a mongrel dog, starved and kicked. Yet it didn't make
me feel good going around with him. But since I knew that mongrel dog feeling, I let him hang
around. He used a cuss word in almost every sentence, at least one cuss word, but it was all fake, he
wasn't tough, he was scared. I wasn't scared but I was confused so maybe we were a good pair.
I walked him back to his place after school every day. He was living with his mother, his father
and his grandfather. They had a little house across from a small park. I liked the area, it had great
shade trees, and since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun,
darkness to light.
During our walks home Baldy had told me about his father. He had been a doctor, a successful
surgeon, but he had lost his license because he was a drunk. One day I met Baldy's father. He was
sitting in a chair under a tree, just sitting there.
"Dad," he said, "this is Henry." "Hello, Henry."
It reminded me of when I had seen my grandfather for the first time, standing on the steps of his
house. Only Baldy's father had black hair and a black beard, but his eyes were the same -- brilliant
and glowing, so strange. And here was Baldy, the son, and he didn't glow at all. "Come on," Baldy
said, "follow me."
We went down into a cellar, under the house. It was dark and damp and we stood awhile until
our eyes grew used to the gloom. Then I could see a number of barrels.
"These barrels are full of different kinds of wine," Baldy said. "Each barrel has a spigot. Want to
try some?" "No."
"Go ahead, just try a god-damned sip." "What for?"
"You think you're a god-damned man or what?" "I'm tough," I said.
"Then take a fucking sample."
Here was little Baldy, daring me. No problem. I walked up to a barrel, ducked my head down.
"Turn the god-damned spigot! Open your god-damned mouth!" "Are there any spiders around
here?"
"Go on! Go on, god damn it!" I put my mouth under the spigot and opened it. A smelly liquid
trickled out and into my mouth. I spit it out.
"Don't be chicken! Swallow it, what the shit!" I opened the spigot and I opened my mouth. The
smelly liquid entered and I swallowed it. I turned off the spigot and stood there. I thought I was going
to puke.
"Now, you drink some," I said to Baldy. "Sure," he said, "I ain't fucking afraid!" He got down
under a barrel and took a good swallow. A little punk like that wasn't going to outdo me. I got under
another barrel, opened it and took a swallow. I stood up. I was beginning to feel good. "Hey,
Baldy," I said, "I like this stuff."
"Well, shit, try some more." I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better. "This
stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all." "He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking."
Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from barrel to barrel. It was
magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could
touch him. I stood up straight and looked at Baldy.
51
"Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother!" "I'll kill you, you bastard, you stay away
from my mother!" "You know I can whip you, Baldy."
"Yes." "All right, I'll leave your mother alone." "Let's go then, Henry."
"One more drink . . ."
I went to a barrel and took a long one. Then we went up the cellar stairway. When we were out,
Baldy's father was still sitting in his chair. "You boys been in the wine cellar, eh?"
"Yes," said Baldy. "Starting a little early, aren't you?" We didn't answer. We walked over to the
boulevard and Baldy and I went into a store which sold chewing gum. We bought several packs of it
and stuck it into our mouths. He was worried about his mother finding out. I wasn't worried about
anything. We sat on a park bench and chewed the gum and I thought, well, now I have found
something, I have found something that is going to help me, for a long long time to come. The park
grass looked greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder. Maybe
that stuff wasn't good for surgeons but anybody who wanted to be a surgeon, there was something
wrong with them in the first place.
52
23
At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our teacher. He was an old guy
about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly Fischman was in the class and she was really
developed. Her breasts were enormous and she had a marvelous behind which she wiggled while
walking in her high-heeled shoes. She was great, she talked to all the guys and rubbed up against
them while she talked.
Every day in biology class it was the same. We never learned any biology, Mr. Stanhope would
talk for about ten minutes and then Lilly would say, "Oh, Mr. Stanhope,  let's have a show!"  "No!"
"Oh, Mr. Stanhope!"  She would walk up to his desk, bend over him sweetly and whisper
something.
"Oh, well, all right . . ." he'd say. And then Lilly would begin singing and wiggling. She always
opened up with "The Lullaby of Broadway" and then she went into her other numbers. She was
great, she was hot, she was burning up, and we were too. She was like a grown woman, putting it to
Stanhope, putting it to us. It was wonderful. Old Stanhope would sit there blubbering and slobbering.
We'd laugh at Stanhope and cheer Lilly on. It lasted until one day the principal, Mr. Lacefield, came
running in.
"What's going on here?" Stanhope just sat there unable to speak. "This class is dismissed!"
Lacefield screamed.
As we filed out, Lacefield said, " And you, Miss Fischman, will report to my office!"
Of course, after that we never studied our homework, and that was all right until the day Mr.
Stanhope gave us our first examination. "Shit," said Peter Mangalore out loud, "what are we going to
do?" Peter was the guy with the 10-incher, soft.
"You'll never have to work for a living," said the guy who looked like Jack Dempsey. "This is our
problem."
"Maybe we ought to burn the school down," said Red Kirkpatrick. "Shit," said a guy from the
back of the room, "every time I get an 'F' my father pulls out one of my fingernails."
We all looked at our examination sheets. I thought about my father. Then I thought about Lilly
Fischman. Lilly Fischman, I thought, you are a whore, an evil woman, wiggling your body in front of
us and singing like that, you will send us all to hell. Stanhope was watching us.
"Why isn't anybody writing? Why isn't anybody answering the questions? Does everybody have a
pencil?"
"Yeah, yeah, we all got pencils," one of the guys said. Lilly sat up in front, right by Mr. Stanhope's
desk. We saw her open her biology textbook and look up the answer to the first question. That was
it. We all opened up our textbooks. Stanhope just sat there and watched us. He didn't know what to
do. He began to sputter. He sat there a good five minutes, then he jumped up. He ran back and forth
up and down the center aisle of the room.
"What are you people doing? Close those textbooks! Close those textbooks!"
As he ran by, the students would close their books only to open them again when he had run
past.
Baldy was in the seat next to mine, laughing. "He's an asshole!  Oh, what an old asshole!"
I felt a little sorry for Stanhope but it was either him or me. Stanhope stood behind his desk and
screamed, "All textbooks must be closed or I will flunk the entire class!"
Then Lilly Fischman stood up. She pulled her skirt up and yanked at one of her silk stockings.
She adjusted the garter, we saw white flesh. Then she pulled at and adjusted the other stocking.
53
Such a sight we had never seen, nor had Stanhope ever seen anything like it. Lilly sat down and we
all finished the exam with our textbooks open. Stanhope sat behind his desk, utterly defeated.
Another guy we jerked around was Pop Farnsworth. It began the first day in Machine Shop. He
said, "Here we learn by doing. We will begin right now. You will each take an engine apart and put it
back together, until it is in working order, during the semester. There are charts on the wall and I will
answer your questions. You will also be shown movies about how an engine works. But right now
please begin to dismantle your engines. The tools are on your workshelf."
"Hey, Pop, how about the movies first?" some guy asked. "I said, 'Begin your project!"'
I don't know where they got all those engines. They were greasy and black and rusted. They
looked really dismal.
"Fuck," said some guy, "this one is a hunk of clogged shit." We stood over our engines. Most of
the guys reached for monkey wrenches. Red Kirkpatrick took a screwdriver and scraped it slowly
along the top of his engine carefully creating a black ribbon of grease two feet long.
"Come on, Pop, how about a movie? We just got out of gym, our asses are dragging! Wagner
had us doing the hop, skip and jump like a bunch of frogs!" "Begin your assignment as requested!"
We started in. It was senseless. It was worse than Music Appreciation. Some clanking of tools
could be heard and some heavy breathing.
"FUCK!" hollered Harry Henderson, "I'VE JUST SKINNED MY WHOLE GOD- DAMNED
KNUCKLE! THIS IS NOTHING BUT FUCKING WHITE SLAVERY!"
He wrapped a handkerchief tenderly around his right hand and watched the blood soak through.
"Shit,"  he said.
The rest of us kept trying. "I'd rather stick my head up an elephant's cunt," said Red Kirkpatrick.
Jack Dempsey threw his wrench to the floor. "I quit," he said, "do anything you want to me, I quit.
Kill me. Cut my balls off. I quit."
He walked over and leaned against a wall. He folded his arms and looked down at his shoes.
The situation seemed truly terrible. There weren't any girls. When you looked out the back door
of the shop you could see the open schoolyard, all that sunlight and empty space out there where
there was nothing to do. And here we were bent over stupid engines that weren't even attached to
cars, they were useless. Just stupid steel. It was dumb and it was hard. We needed mercy. Our lives
were dumb enough. Something had to save us. We'd heard Pop was a soft touch but it didn't seem
true. He was a giant son-of-a-bitch with a beer gut, dressed in his greasy outfit, and with hair hanging
down in his eyes and grease on his chin.
Arnie Whitechapel threw down his wrench and walked up to Mr. Farnsworth. Arnie had a big
grin on his face. "Hey, Pop, what the fuck?" "Get back to your engine, Whitechapel!"
"Ah, come on. Pop, what the shit!" Arnie was a couple of years older than the rest of us. He had
spent a few years in some boys' correctional school. But even though he was older than we were, he
was smaller. He had very black hair slicked back with vaseline. He would stand in front of the mirror
in the men's crapper squeezing his pimples. He talked dirty to the girls and carried Sheik rubbers in
his pockets.
"I got a good one for you. Pop!" "Yeah? Get back to your engine, Whitechapel." "It's a good
one, Pop."
We stood there and watched as Arnie began to tell Pop a dirty joke. Their heads were close
together. Then the joke was over, Pop began laughing. That big body was doubled over, he was
holding his gut. "Holy shit! Oh my god, holy shit!" he laughed. Then he stopped. "O.K., Arnie, back
to your machine!"
54
"No, wait, Pop, I got another one!" "Yeah?"
"Yeah, listen . . ."
We all left our machines and walked over. We circled them, listening as Arnie told the next joke.
When it was over Pop doubled up. "Holy shit, oh lord, holy shit!"
"Then there's another one, Pop. This guy is driving his car in the desert. He notices this guy
jumping along the road. He's naked and his hands and feet arc tied with rope. The guy stops his car
and asks the guy, 'Hey, buddy, what's the matter?' And the guy tells him, 'Well, I was driving along
and I saw this bastard hitch-hiking so I stopped and the son-of-a-bitch pulls a gun on me, takes my
clothes away and then ties me up. Then the dirty son-of-a-bitch reams me in the ass!' 'Oh yeah?'
says the guy getting out of his car. 'Yeah, that's what that dirty son-of-a-bitch did!' says the man.
'Well,' says the guy unzipping his fly, 1 guess this just isn't your lucky day!"'
Pop began laughing, he doubled over. "Oh, no! Oh, NO! OH . . . HOLY . . . SHIT, CHRIST . .
. HOLY SHIT . . . !" He finally stopped. "God damn," he said quietly, "oh my lord . . ." "How about
a movie, Pop?" "Oh well, all right." Somebody closed the back door and Pop pulled out a dirty
white screen.
He started the projector. It was a lousy movie but it beat working on those engines. The gas was
ignited by the spark plugs and the explosion hit the cylinder head and the head was thrust down and
that turned the crankshaft and the valves opened and closed and the cylinder heads kept going up
and down and the crankshaft turned some more. Not very interesting, but it was cool in there and
you could lean back in your chair and think about what you wanted to think about. You didn't have
to bust your knuckles on dumb steel.
We never did get those engines taken apart let alone put back together again and I don't know
how many times we saw that same movie. Whitechapel's jokes kept coming and we all laughed our
heads off even though most of the jokes were pretty terrible, except to Pop Farnsworth who kept
doubling over and laughing,
"Holy shit! Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!" He was an O.K. guy. We all liked him.
55
24
Our English teacher, Miss Gredis, was the absolute best. She was a blonde with a long sharp
nose. Her nose wasn't much good but you didn't notice it when you looked at the rest of her. She
wore tight dresses and low v-necks, black high-heeled shoes and silk stockings. She was snake-like
with long beautiful legs. She only sat behind her desk when she took roll call. She kept one desk
vacant at the front of the room and after roll call she would come down and sit on that desk top,
facing us. Miss Gredis sat perched there with her legs crossed and her skirt pulled high. Never had
we seen such ankles, such legs, such thighs. Well, there was Lilly Fischman, but Lilly was a girl-
woman while Miss Gredis was in full bloom. And we got to gaze upon her for a full hour each day.
There wasn't a boy in that class who wasn't sad when the bell rang ending the English period. We'd
talk about her.
"Do you think she wants to be fucked?" "No, I think she's just teasing us. She knows she's driving
us crazy, that's all she needs, that's all she wants."
"I know where she lives. I'm going over there some night." "You wouldn't have the balls!"
"Yeah? Yeah? I'll fuck the shit out of her! She's asking for it!" "A guy I know in the 8th grade said
he went over there one night." "Yeah? What happened?"
"She came to the door in a nightgown, her tits were practically hanging out. The guy said he had
forgotten the next day's homework and wondered what it was. She asked him in."
"No shit?" "Yeah. Nothing happened. She made him some tea, told him about the homework and
he left."
"If I had of gotten in, that would have been it!" "Yeah? What would you have done?"
"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy, then I would fuck her
between the tits and then I would force her to give me a blow job."
"No kidding, dreamer boy. You ever been laid?" "Fuck yes, I've been laid. Several times."
"How was it?" "Lousy."
"Couldn't come, hub?"
"I came all over the place, I thought I'd never stop." "Came all over the palm of your hand, hub?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" " Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!"
"All over your hand, hub?"
"Fuck you guys!"
"I don't think any of us has been laid," said one of the guys. There was silence.
"That's shit. I was laid when I was seven years old." "That's nothing. I was laid when I was four."
"Sure, Red. Lay it on good!"
"I got this little girl under the house." "You got a hard?"
"Sure."
"You came?"
"I think so. Something squirted out." "Sure. You pissed in her cunt, Red." "Balls!"
"What was her name?"
"Betty Ann."
"Fuck," said the guy who claimed to have gotten laid when he was seven. "Mine was named Betty
Ann too."
"That whore," said Red.
One tine Spring day we were sitting in English class and Miss Gredis was sitting on the front desk
facing us. She had her skirt pulled especially high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty.
56
Such legs, such thighs, we were very close to the magic. It was unbelievable. Baldy sat in the seat
across the aisle from me. He reached over and began poking me on the leg with his finger:
"She's breaking all the records!"  he whispered. "Look! Look!"
"My God," I said, "shut up or she'll pull her skirt down!" Baldy pulled his hand back and I waited.
We hadn't spooked Miss Gredis. Her skirt remained as high as ever. It was truly a day to remember.
There wasn't a boy in class without a hard-on and Miss Gredis went on talking. I'm sure that none of
the boys heard a word she was saying. The girls, though, turned and glanced at each other as if to
say, this bitch is going too far. Miss Gredis couldn't go too far. It was almost as if there weren't even
a cunt up there but something much better. Those legs. The sun came through the window and
poured in on those legs and thighs, the sun played on that warm silk pulled so tightly. The skirt was
so high pulled hack, we all prayed for a glimpse of panty, a glimpse of something,  Jesus Christ, it
was like the world ending and beginning and ending again, it was everything real and unreal, the sun,
the thighs, and the silk, so smooth, so warm, so alluring. The whole room throbbed. Eyesight blurred
and returned and Miss Gredis went on sitting there as if nothing was happening and she kept talking
as if everything was normal. That's what made it so good and so terrible: the fact that she pretended
that it wasn't happening. I looked down at my desk top for a moment and saw the grain in the wood
heightened as if each pattern was a pool of whirling liquid. Then I quickly looked back at the legs
and thighs, angered with myself that I had looked away for a moment, and perhaps missed
something.
Then the sound began: Thump, thump, thump, thump . .  ." Richard Waite. He sat in a seat in
the back. He had huge ears and thick lips, the lips were swollen and monstrous and he had a very
large head. His eyes were almost without color, they didn't reflect interest or intelligence. He had
large feet and his mouth always hung open. When he spoke the words came out one by one, halting,
with long pauses in between. He wasn't even a sissy. Nobody ever spoke to him. Nobody knew
what he was doing there in our school. He gave the impression that something important was missing
from his makeup. He wore clean clothing, but his shirt was always out in the back, one or two
buttons were gone on his shirt or on his pants. Richard Waite. He lived somewhere and he came to
school every day.
"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump . . ."
Richard Waite was jerking-off, a salute to Miss Gredis' thighs and legs. He had finally weakened.
Perhaps he didn't understand society's ways. Now we all heard him. Miss Gredis heard him. The
girls heard him. We all knew what he was doing. He was so fucking dumb he didn't even have sense
enough to keep it quiet. And he was becoming more and more excited. The thumps grew louder. His
closed fist was hitting the underside of his desk top.
"THUMP, THUMP THUMP . . ."
We looked at Miss Gredis. What would she do? She hesitated. She glanced about the class. She
smiled, as composed as ever, and then she continued speaking:
"I believe that the English language is the most expressive and contagious form of communication.
To begin with, we should be thankful that we have this unique gift of a great language. And if we
abuse it we are only abusing ourselves. So let us listen, heed, acknowledge our heritage, and yet
explore and take risks with language . . ."
57
"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP . . ."
"We must forget England and their use of our common tongue. Even though English usage is fine,
our own American language contains many deep wells of unexplored resources. These resources, as
yet, remain untapped. Given the proper moment and the proper writers, there will one day be a
literary explosion . . ."
"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP . . ."
Yes, Richard Waite was one of the few we never talked to. Actually, we were afraid of him. He
wasn't somebody you could beat the shit out of, that would never make anybody feel better. You
just wanted to get as far away from him as possible, you didn't want to look at him, you didn't want
to look at those big lips, that big unfolding mouth like the mouth of a bruised frog. You shunned him
because you couldn't defeat Richard Waite.
We waited and waited while Miss Gredis talked on about English versus American culture. We
waited, while Richard Waite went on and on. Richard's fist banged against the underside of his desk
top and the little girls glanced at each other and the guys were thinking, why is this asshole in this
class with us? He's going to spoil everything. One asshole and Miss Gredis will pull her skirt down
forever.
"THUMP, THUMP, THUMP . . ."
And then it stopped. Richard sat there. He was finished. We sneaked glances at him. He looked
the same. Was his sperm laying in his lap or was it in his hand? The bell rang. English class was over.
After that, there was more of the same. Richard Waite thumped it often while we listened to Miss
Gredis sitting on that front desk with her legs crossed high. We boys accepted the situation. After a
while we even were amused. The girls accepted it but they didn't like it, especially Lilly Fischman
who was almost forgotten.
Besides Richard Waite, there was another problem for me in that class: Harry Walden. Harry
Walden was pretty, the girls thought, and he had long golden curls and wore strange, delicate
clothing. He looked like an 18th century fop, lots of strange colors, dark green, dark blue, I don't
know where the hell his parents found his clothes. And he always sat very still and listened
attentively. Like he understood everything. The girls said, "He's a genius." He didn't look like
anything to me. What I couldn't understand was that the tough guys didn't mess with him. It bothered
me. How could he get off so easy? I found him one day in the hall. I stopped him.
"You don't look like shit to me," I said. "How come everybody thinks you're hot shit?"
Walden glanced over to his right and when I turned my head to look in that direction, he slid
around me as if I were something from the sewer and then a moment later he was in his seat in the
class.
Almost every day it was Miss Gredis showing it all and Richard thumping away and this guy
Walden sitting there saying nothing and acting like he believed he was a genius. I got sick of it.
I asked some of the other guys, "Listen, do you really think Harry Walden is a genius? He just sits
around in his pretty clothes and doesn't say anything. What does that prove? We could all do that."
58
They didn't answer me. I couldn't understand their feelings about this fucking guy. And it got
worse. Word got out that Harry Walden was going to see Miss Gredis every night, that he was her
favorite pupil, and that they were making love. It made me sick. I could just imagine him getting out
of his delicate green and blue outfit, folding it across a chair, then climbing out of his orange satin
shorts and sliding under the sheets where Miss Gredis cuddled his curly golden head on her shoulder
and fondled it and other things as well.
It was whispered about by the girls who always seemed to know everything. And even though the
girls didn't particularly like Miss Gredis, they thought the situation was all right, that it was reasonable
because Harry Walden was such a delicate genius and needed all the sympathy he could get. I
caught Harry Walden in the hall one more time. "I'll kick your ass, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't fool
me!" Harry Walden looked at me. Then he looked over my shoulder and pointed and said, "What's
that over there?"
I looked around. When I looked back he was gone. He was sitting in the class safely surrounded
by all the girls who thought he was a genius and who loved him.
There was more and more whispering about Harry Walden going over to Miss Gredis' house at
night and some days Harry wouldn't even be in class. Those were the best days for me because I
only had to deal with the thumping and not the golden curls and the adoration for that kind of stuff by
all the little girls with their skirts and sweaters and starched gingham dresses. When Harry wasn't
there the little girls would whisper, "He's just too sensitive ... "
And Red Kirkpatrick would say, "She's fucking him to death."
One afternoon I walked into class and Harry Walden's seat was empty. I figured he was just
fucking-off as usual. Then the word drifted from desk to desk. I was always the last to know
anything. It finally got to me: Harry Walden had committed suicide. The night before. Miss Gredis
didn't know yet. I looked over at his seat. He'd never sit there again. All those colorful clothes shot
to hell. Miss Gredis finished roll call. She came and sat on the front desk, crossed her legs high. She
had on a lighter shade of silk hose than ever before. Her skirt was hiked way back to her thighs.
"Our American culture," she said, "is destined for greatness. The English language, now so limited
and structured, will be reinvented and improved upon. Our writers will use what I like to think of, in
my mind, as Americanese . . . "
Miss Gredis' stockings were almost skin-colored. It was as if she were not wearing stockings at
all, it was as if she were naked there in front of us, but since she wasn't and only appeared to be, that
made it better than ever.
"More and more we will discover our own truths and our own way of speaking, and this new
voice will be uncluttered by old histories, old mores, old dead and useless dreams . . ."
"Thump, thump, thump . . ."
59
25
Curly Wagner picked out Morris Moscowitz. It was after school and eight or ten of us guys had
heard about it and we walked out behind the gym to watch. Wagner laid down the rules, "We fight
until somebody hollers quit."
"0. K. with me," said Morris. Morris was a tall thin guy, he was a little bit dumb and he never said
much or bothered anybody.
Wagner looked over at me. "And after I finish with this guy, I'm taking you on!"
"Me, coach?" "Yeah, you, Chinaski."
I sneered at him.
"I'm going to get some god-damned respect from you guys if I have to whip all of you one by
one!"
Wagner was cocky. He was always working out on the parallel bars or tumbling on the mat or
taking laps around the track. He swaggered when he walked but he still had his pot belly. He liked to
stand and stare at a guy for a long time like he was shit. I didn't know what was bothering him. We
worried him. I believe he thought we were fucking all the girls like crazy and he didn't like to think
about that.
They squared off. Wagner had some good moves. He bobbed, he weaved, he shuffled his feet,
he moved in and out, and he made little hissing sounds. He was impressive. He caught Moscowitz
with three straight left jabs. Moscowitz just stood there with his hands at his sides. He didn't know
anything about boxing. Then Wagner cracked Moscowitz with a right to the jaw. "Shit!" said Morris
and he threw a roundhouse right which Wagner ducked. Wagner countered with a right and left to
Moscowitz' face. Morris had a bloody nose. "Shit!" he said and then he started swinging. And
landing. You could hear the shots, they cracked against Wagner's head. Wagner tried to counter but
his punches just didn't have the force and the fury of Moscowitz'.
"Holy shit! Get him, Morrie!" Moscowitz was a puncher. He dug a left to that pot belly. Wagner
gasped and dropped. He fell to both knees. His face was cut and bleeding. His chin was on his chest
and he looked sick.
"I quit," Wagner said. We left him there behind the building and we followed Morris Moscowitz
out of there. He was our new hero.
"Shit, Morrie, you ought to turn pro!" " Naw, I'm only thirteen years old." We walked over behind
the machine shop and stood around the steps. Somebody lit up some cigarettes and we passed them
around. "What has that man got against us?" asked Morrie. "Hell, Morrie, don't you know? He's
jealous. He thinks we're fucking all the chicks!"
"Why, I've never even kissed a girl." "No shit, Morrie?"
"No shit."
"You ought to try dry-fucking, Morrie, it's great!" Then we saw Wagner walking past. He was
working on his face with his handkerchief.
"Hey, coach," yelled one of the guys, "how about a rematch?" He stood and looked at us. "You
boys put out those cigarettes!" " Ah, no, coach, we like to smoke!"
"Come on over here, coach, and make us put out our cigarettes!" "Yeah, come on, coach!"
Wagner stood looking at us. "I'm not done with you yet! I'll get every one of you, one way or the
other!"
"How ya gonna do that, coach? Your talents seem limited." "Yeah, coach, how ya gonna do it?"
He walked off the field to his car. I felt a little sorry for him. When a guy was that nasty he should
be able to back it up.
60
"I guess he doesn't think there'll be a virgin on the grounds by the time we graduate," said one of
the guys.
"I think," said another guy, "that somebody jacked-off into his ear and he has come for brains."
We left after that. It had been a fairly good day.
61
26
My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who didn't have a job, left
each morning too. Although most of the neighbors were unemployed he didn't want them to think he
was jobless. So he got into his car each morning at the same time and drove off as if he were going
to work. Then in the evening he would return at exactly the same time. It was good for me because I
had the place to myself. They locked the house but I knew how to get in. I would unhook the screen
door with a piece of cardboard. They locked the porch door with a key from the inside. I slid a
newspaper under the door and poked the key out. Then I pulled the newspaper from under the door
and the key came with it. I would unlock the door and go in. When I left I would hook the screen
door, lock the back porch door from the inside, leaving the key in. Then I would leave through the
front door, putting the latch on lock.
I liked being alone. One day I was playing one of my games. There was a clock on the mantle
with a second hand and I held contests to see how long I could hold my breath. Each time I did it I
exceeded my own record. I went through much agony but I was proud each time I added some
seconds to my record. This day I added a full five seconds and I was standing getting my breath
back when I walked to the front window. It was a large window covered by red drapes. There was
a crack between the drapes and I looked out. Jesus Christ! Our window was directly across from
the front porch of the Andersons' house. Mrs. Anderson was sitting on the steps, and I could look
right up her dress. She was about 23 and had marvelously shaped legs. I could see almost all the
way up her dress. Then I remember my father's army binoculars. They were on the top shelf of his
closet. I ran and got them, ran back, crouched down and adjusted them to Mrs. Anderson's legs. It
took me right up there! And it was different from looking at Miss Gredis' legs: you didn't have to
pretend you weren't looking. You could concentrate. And I did. I was right there. I was red hot.
Jesus Christ, what legs, what flanks! And each time she moved, it was unbearable and unbelievable.
I got down on my knees and I held the binoculars with one hand and pulled my cock out with the
other. I spit in my palm and began. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of panties. I was about to
come. I stopped. I kept looking with the binocs and then I started rubbing again. When I was about
to come I stopped again. Then I waited and began rubbing again. This time I knew I wouldn't be
able to stop. She was right there. I was looking right up her! It was like fucking. I came. I spurted all
over the hardwood floor in front of the window. It was white and thick. I got up and went to the
bathroom and got some toilet paper, came back and wiped it up. I took it back to the toilet and
flushed it away.
Mrs. Anderson came and sat on those steps almost every day and each time she did I got the
binocs and whacked-off.
If Mr. Anderson ever finds out about this, I thought, he'll kill me . . .
My parents went to the movies every Wednesday night. The theatre had drawings for money and
they wanted to win some money. It was on a Wednesday night that I discovered something. The
Pirozzis lived in the house south of ours. Our driveway ran along the north side of their house and
there was a window which looked into their front room. The window was veiled by a thin curtain.
There was a wall which became an arch over the front of our driveway and there were bushes all
about. When I got between that wall and the window, in among all those bushes, nobody could see
me from the street, especially at night.
I crawled in there. It was great, better than I expected. Mrs. Pirozzi was sitting on the couch
reading a newspaper. Her legs were crossed, and in an easy chair across the room, Mr. Pirozzi was
62
reading a newspaper. Mrs. Pirozzi was not as young as Miss Gredis or Mrs. Anderson, but she had
good legs and she had on high heels and almost every time she turned a page of her newspaper,
she'd cross her legs and her skirt would climb higher and I would see more.
If my parents come home from the movie and catch me here, I thought, then my life is over. But
it's worth it. It's worth the risk.
I stayed very quiet behind the window and stared at Mrs. Pirozzi's legs. They had a large collie,
Jeff, who was asleep in front of the door. I had looked at Miss Gredis' legs that day in English class,
then I had whacked-off to Mrs. Anderson's legs, and now - there was more.  Why didn't Mr. Pirozzi
look at Mrs. Pirozzi's legs? He just kept reading his newspaper. It was obvious that Mrs. Pirozzi was
trying to tease him because her skirt kept climbing higher and higher. Then she turned a page and
crossed her legs very fast and her skirt flipped  back exposing her pure white thighs. She was just
like buttermilk! Unbelievable!  She was best of all!
Then from the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Pirozzi's legs move.  He stood up very quickly and
moved toward the front door. I started running, crashing through the bushes. I heard him open his
front door. I was down the driveway and into our backyard and behind the garage. I stood a
moment, listening. Then I climbed the back fence, over the vines and on over into the next backyard.
I ran through that yard and up the driveway and I began dog-trotting south down the street like a guy
practicing for track. There was nobody behind me but I kept trotting. If he knows it was me, if he
tells my father, I'm dead. But maybe he just let the dog out to take a shit? I trotted down to West
Adams Boulevard and sat on a streetcar bench. I sat there five minutes or so, then I walked back
home. When I got there, my parents weren't back yet. I went inside, undressed, turned out the lights
and waited for morning . . .
Another Wednesday night Baldy and I were taking our usual short cut between two apartment
houses. We were on our way to his father's wine cellar when Baldy stopped at a window. The shade
was almost down but not quite. Baldy stopped, bent, and peeked inside. He waved me over.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Look!"
There was a man and a woman in bed, naked. There was just a bed sheet partly over them. The
man was trying to kiss the woman and she was pushing him away.
"God damn it, let me have it, Marie!" "No!"
"But I'm hot, please ."
"Take your god-damned hands off me!" "But, Marie, I love you!"
"You and your fucking love . . ." "Marie, please.  "
"Will you shut up?"
The man turned toward the wall. The woman picked up a magazine, bunched a pillow behind her
head, and began reading it.
Baldy and I walked away from the window, "Jesus," said Baldy, "that made me sick!" "I thought
we were going to see something," I said. When we got to the wine cellar Baldy's old man had put a
big padlock on the cellar door.
We tried that window again and again but we never actually saw anything happen. It was always
the same.
"Marie, it's been a long time. We're living  together, you know. We're married!"
"Big fucking deal"
63
"Just this once, Marie, and I won't bother you again, I won't bother you for a long time, I
promise!"
"Shut up! You make me sick!" Baldy and I walked away.
"Shit," I said.
"Shit," he said.
"I don't think he's got a cock," I said. "He might as well not have," said Baldy. We stopped going
back there.
64
27
Wagner wasn't done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class when he walked up to
me.
"What are you doing, Chinaski?" "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
I didn't answer.
"How come you're not in any of the games?" "Shit. That's kid stuff."
"I'm putting you on garbage detail until further notice." "What for? What's the charge?"
"Loitering. 50 demerits." The kids had to work off their demerits on garbage detail. If you had
more than ten demerits and didn't work them off, you couldn't graduate. I didn't care whether I
graduated or not. That was their problem. I could just stay around getting older and older and bigger
and bigger. I'd get all the girls.
"50 demerits?" I asked. "Is that all you're going to give me? How about a hundred?"
"O.K., one hundred. You got 'em." Wagner swaggered off. Peter Mangalore had 500 demerits.
Now I was in second place, and gaining . . .
The first garbage detail was during the last thirty minutes of lunch. The next day I was carrying a
garbage can with Peter Mangalore. It was simple. We each had a stick with a sharp nail on the end
of it. We picked up papers with the stick and stuck them into the can. The girls watched us as we
walked by. They knew we were bad. Peter looked bored and I looked like I didn't give a damn.
The girls knew we were bad. "You know Lilly Fischman?" Pete asked as we walked along. "Oh,
yes, yes."
"Well, she's not a virgin." "How do you know?"
"She told me."
"Who got her?"
"Her father."
"Hmmm . . . Well you can't blame him." "Lilly's heard I've got a big cock." "Yeah, it's all over
school."
"Well, Lilly wants it. She claims she can handle it." "You'll rip her to pieces."
"Yeah, I will. Anyhow, she wants it." We put the garbage can down and stared at some girls who
were sitting on a bench. Pete walked toward the bench. I stood there. He walked up to one of the
girls and whispered something in her ear. She started giggling. Pete walked back to the garbage can.
We picked it up and walked away.
"So," said Pete, "this afternoon at 4 p.m. I'm going to rip Lilly to pieces."
"Yeah?" "You know that broken-down car at the back of the school that Pop Farnsworth took
the engine out of?"
"Yeah." "Well, before they haul that son-of-a-bitch away, that's going to be my bedroom. I'm
going to take her in the back seat."
"Some guys really live." "I'm getting a hard just thinking about it," said Pete. "I am too and I'm not
even the guy who's going to do it." "There's one problem though," said Pete.
"You can't come?" "No, it's not that. I need a look-out. I need somebody to tell me the coast is
clear."
"Yeah? Well, look, I can do that." "Would you?" asked Pete.
"Sure. But we should have one more guy so we can watch in both directions."
"All right. Who you got in mind?" " Baldy."
"Baldy? Shit, he's not much."
65
"No, but he's trustworthy."
"All right. So I'll see you guys at four." "We'll be there."
At four p.m. we met Pete and Lilly at the car. "Hi!" said Lilly. She looked hot. Pete was smoking
a cigarette. He looked bored.
"Hello, Lilly," I said. "Hi, Lilly baby," said Baldy.
There were some guys playing a game of touch football in the other field but that only made it
better, a kind of camouflage. Lilly was wiggling around, breathing heavily, her breasts were moving
up and down.
"Well," said Pete, throwing his cigarette away, "let's make friends, Lilly."
He opened the back door, bowed, and Lilly climbed in. Pete got in after her and took his shoes
off, then his pants and his shorts. Lilly looked down and saw Pete's meat hanging.
"Oh my," she said, "I don't know . . ." "Come on, baby," said Pete, "nobody lives forever." "Well,
all right, I guess . . ."
Pete looked out the window. "Hey, are you guys watching to see if the coast is clear?"
"Yeah, Pete," I said, "we're watching." "We're looking," said Baldy.
Pete pulled Lilly's skirt all the way up. There was white flesh above her knee socks and you could
see her panties. Glorious. Pete grabbed Lilly and kissed her. Then he pulled away.
"You whore!" he said. "Talk to me nice, Pete!"
"You bitch-whore!" he said and slapped her across the face, hard. She began sobbing. "Don't,
Pete, don't . . ."
"Shut up, cunt!"
Pete began pulling at Lilly's panties. He was having a terrible time. Her panties were tight around
her big ass. Pete gave a violent tug, they ripped and he pulled the panties down around her legs and
off over her shoes. He threw them on the floorboard. Then he began playing with her cunt. He
played with her cunt and played with her cunt and kissed her again and again. Then he leaned back
against the car seat. He only had half a hard. Lilly looked down at him.
"What are you, a queer?" "No, it's not that, Lilly. It's just that I don't think these guys are watching
to see if the coast is clear. They're watching us. I don't want to get caught in here."
"The coast is clear, Pete," I said. "We're watching!" "We're watching!" said Baldy.
"I don't believe them," said Pete. "All they're watching is your cunt, Lilly."
"You're chicken!  All that meat and it's only at half-mast!" "I'm scared of getting caught, Lilly."
"I know what to do," she said. Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete's cock. She lapped
her tongue around the monstrous head. Then she had it in her mouth. "Lilly . . . Christ," said Pete, "I
love you . . ." "Lilly, Lilly, Lilly . . . oh, oh, oooh ooooh . . ." " Henry!"  Baldy screamed. " LOOK!"
I looked. It was Wagner running toward us from across the field and also coming behind him
were the guys who had been playing touch football, plus some of the people who had been watching
the football game, boys and girls both.
"Pete!"  I yelled, "It's Wagner coming with 50 people!" " Shit!"  moaned Pete.
"Oh, shit," said Lilly. Baldy and I took off. We ran out the gate and halfway up the block. We
looked back through the fence. Pete and Lilly never had a chance. Wagner ran up and ripped open
the car door hoping for a good look. Then the car was surrounded and we couldn't see any more . .
.
After that, we never saw Pete or Lilly again. We had no idea what happened to them. Baldy and
I each got 1,000 demerits which put me in the lead over Mangalore with 1,100. There was no way I
could work them off. I was in Mt. Justin for life. Of course, they informed our parents.
66
"Let's go," said my father, and I walked into the bathroom. He got the strop down.
"Take down your pants and shorts," he said. I didn't do it. He reached in front of me, yanked my
belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down. He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed.
It was the same, the same explosive sound, the same pain.
"You're going to kill your mother!" he screamed. He hit me again. But the tears weren't coming. -
My eyes were strangely dry. I thought about killing him. That there must be a way to kill him. In a
couple of years I could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. He wasn't much of anything. I must
have been adopted. He hit me again. The pain was still there but the fear of it was gone. The strop
landed again. The room no longer blurred. I could see everything clearly. My father seemed to sense
the difference in me and he began to lash me harder, again and again, but the more he beat me the
less I felt. It was almost as if he was the one who was helpless. Something had occurred, something
had changed. My father stopped, puffing, and I heard him hanging up the strop. He walked to the
door. I turned. "Hey," I said.
My father turned and looked at me. "Give me a couple more," I told him, "if it makes you feel any
better." "Don't you dare talk to me that way!" he said. I looked at him. I saw folds of flesh under his
chin and around his neck. I saw sad wrinkles and crevices. His face was tired pink putty. He was in
his undershirt, and his belly sagged, wrinkling his undershirt. The eyes were no longer fierce. His eyes
looked away and couldn't meet mine. Something had happened. The bath towels knew it, the
shower curtain knew it, the mirror knew it, the bathtub and the toilet knew it. My father turned and
walked out the door. He knew it. It was my last beating. From him.
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28
Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the 9th, I broke out with acne.
Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine was really terrible. I was the worst case in town. I
had pimples and boils all over my face, back, neck, and some on my chest. It happened just as I was
beginning to be accepted as a tough guy and a leader. I was still tough but it wasn't the same. I had
to withdraw. I watched people from afar, it was like a stage play. Only they were on stage and I was
an audience of one. I'd always had trouble with the girls but with acne it was impossible. The girls
were further away than ever. Some of them were truly beautiful -- their dresses, their hair, their eyes,
the way they stood around. Just to walk down the street during an afternoon with one, you know,
talking about everything and anything, I think that would have made me feel very good.
Also, there was still something about me that continually got me into trouble. Most teachers didn't
trust or like me, especially the lady teachers. I never said anything out of the way but they claimed it
was my "attitude." It was something about the way I sat slouched in my seat and my "voice tone." I
was usually accused of "sneering" although I wasn't conscious of it. I was often made to stand
outside in the hall during class or I was sent to the principal's office. The principal always did the
same thing. He had a phone booth in his office. He made me stand in the phone booth with the door
closed. I spent many hours in that phone booth. The only reading material in there was the Ladies
Home Journal . It was deliberate torture. I read the Ladies Home Journal  anyhow. I got to read
each new issue. I hoped that maybe I could learn something about women.
I must have had 5,000 demerits by graduation time but it didn't seem to matter. They wanted to
get rid of me. I was standing outside in the line that was filing into the auditorium one by one. We
each had on our cheap little cap and gown that had been passed down again and again to the next
graduating group. We could hear each person's name as they walked across the stage. They were
making one big god-damned deal out of graduating from Jr. high. The band played our school song:
Oh, Mt. Justin,
Oh, Mt. Justin
We will be true,
Our hearts are singing wildly
All our skies are blue  . . .
We stood in line, each of us waiting to march across the stage. In the audience were our parents
and friends.
"I'm about to puke," said one of the guys. "We only go from crap to more crap," said another,
The girls seemed to be more serious about it. That's why I didn't really trust them. They seemed to
be part of the wrong things. They and the school seemed to have the same song.
"This stuff brings me down," said one of the guys. "I wish I had a smoke."
"Here you are . . ." Another of the guys handed him a cigarette. We passed it around between
four or five of us. I took a hit and exhaled through my nostrils. Then I saw Curly Wagner walking in.
"Ditch it!" I said. "Here comes vomit-head!" Wagner walked right up to me. He was dressed in
his grey gym suit, including sweatshirt, just as he had been the first time I saw him and all the other
times afterward. He stood in front of me.
"Listen," he said, "you think you're getting away from me because you're getting out of here, but
you're not! I'm going to follow you the rest of your life. I'm going to follow you to the ends of the
earth and I'm going to get you!"
68
I just glanced at him without comment and he walked off. Wagner's little graduation speech only
made me that much bigger with the guys. They thought I must have done some big goddamned thing
to rile him. But it wasn't true. Wagner was just simple-crazy.
We got nearer and nearer to the doorway of the auditorium. Not only could we hear each name
being announced, and the applause, but we could see the audience. Then it was my turn.
"Henry Chinaski," the principal said over the microphone. And I walked forward. There was no
applause. Then one kindly soul in the audience gave two or three claps.
There were rows of seats set up on the stage for the graduating class. We sat there and waited.
The principal gave his speech about opportunity and success in America. Then it was all over. The
band struck up the Mt. Justin school song. The students and their parents and friends rose and
mingled together. I walked around, looking. My parents weren't there. I made sure. I walked around
and gave it a good look-see.
It was just as well. A tough guy didn't need that. I took off my ancient cap and gown and handed
it to the guy at the end of the aisle -- the janitor. He folded the pieces up for the next time.
I walked outside. The first one out. But where could I go? I had eleven cents in my pocket. I
walked back to where I lived.
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29
That summer, July 1934, they gunned down John Dillinger outside the movie house in Chicago.
He never had a chance. The Lady in Red had fingered him. More than a year earlier the banks had
collapsed. Prohibition was repealed and my father drank Eastside beer again. But the worst thing
was Dillinger getting it. A lot of people admired Dillinger and it made everybody feel terrible.
Roosevelt was President. He gave Fireside Chats over the radio and everybody listened. He could
really talk. And he began to enact programs to put people to work. But things were still very bad.
And my boils got worse, they were unbelievably large.
That September I was scheduled to go to Woodhaven High but my father insisted I go to Chelsey
High.
"Look," I told him, " Chelsey is out of this district. It's too far away."
"You'll do as I tell you. You'll register at Chelsey High." I knew why he wanted me to go to
Chelsey. The rich kids went there. My father was crazy. He still thought about being rich. When
Baldy found out I was going to Chelsey he decided to go there too. I couldn't get rid of him or my
boils.
The first day we rode our bikes to Chelsey and parked them. It was a terrible feeling. Most of
those kids, at least all the older ones, had their own automobiles, many of them new convertibles,
and they weren't black or dark blue like most cars, they were bright yellow, green, orange and red.
The guys sat in them outside of the school and the girls gathered around and went for rides.
Everybody was nicely dressed, the guys and the girls, they had pullover sweaters, wrist watches and
the latest in shoes, They seemed very adult and poised and superior. And there I was in my
homemade shirt, my one ragged pair of pants, my rundown shoes, and I was covered with boils. The
guys with the cars didn't worry about acne. They were very handsome, they were tall and clean with
bright teeth and they didn't wash their hair with hand soap. They seemed to know something I didn't
know. I was at the bottom again.
Since all the guys had cars Baldy and I were ashamed of our bicycles. We left them home and
walked to school and back, two-and-one-half miles each way. We carried brown bag lunches. But
most of the other students didn't even eat in the school cafeteria. They drove to malt shops with the
girls, played the juke boxes and laughed. They were on their way to U.S.C.
I was ashamed of my boils. At Chelsey you had a choice between gym and R.O.T.C. I took
R.O.T.C. because then I didn't have to wear a gym suit and nobody could see the boils on my body.
But I hated the uniform. The shirt was made of wool and it irritated my boils. The uniform was worn
from Monday to Thursday. On Friday we were allowed to wear regular clothes.
We studied the Manual of Arms. It was about warfare and shit like that. We had to pass exams.
We marched around the field. We practiced the Manual of Arms. Handling the rifle during various
drills was bad for me. I had boils on my shoulders. Sometimes when I slammed the rifle against my
shoulder a boil would break and leak through my shirt. The blood would come through but because
the shirt was thick and made of wool the spot wasn't obvious and didn't look like blood.
I told my mother what was happening. She lined the shoulders of my shirts with white patches of
cloth, but it only helped a little.
Once an officer came through on inspection. He grabbed the rifle out of my hands and held it up,
peering through the barrel, for dust in the bore. He slammed the rifle back at me, then looked at a
blood spot on my right shoulder.
"Chinaski!" he snapped, "your rifle is leaking oil!" "Yes, sir."
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I got through the term but the boils got worse and worse. They were as large as walnuts and
covered my face. I was very ashamed. Sometimes at home I would stand before the bathroom
mirror and break one of the boils. Yellow pus would spurt and splatter on the mirror. And little white
hard pits. In a horrible way it was fascinating that all that stuff was in there. But I knew how hard it
was for other people to look at me.
The school must have advised my father. At the end of that term I was withdrawn from school. I
went to bed and my parents covered me with ointments. There was a brown salve that stank. My
father preferred that one for me. It burned. He insisted that I keep it on longer, much longer than the
instructions advised. One night he insisted that I leave it on for hours. I began screaming. I ran to the
tub, filled it with water and washed the salve off, with difficulty. I was burned, on my face, my back
and chest. That night I sat on the edge of the bed. I couldn't lay down. My father came into the
room.
"I thought I told you to leave that stuff on!" "Look what happened," I told him. My mother came
into the room. "The son-of-a-bitch doesn't want  to get well," my father told her. "Why did I have to
have a son like this?"
My mother lost her job. My father kept leaving in his car every morning as if he were going to
work. "I'm an engineer," he told people. He had always wanted to be an engineer.
It was arranged for me to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. I was given a long white card.
I took the white card and got on the #7 streetcar. The fare was seven cents for four tokens for a
quarter). I dropped in my token and walked to the back of the streetcar. I had an 8:30 a.m.
appointment.
A few blocks later a young boy and a woman got on the streetcar. The woman was fat and the
boy was about four years old. They sat in the seat behind me. I looked out the window. We rolled
along. I liked that #7 streetcar. It went really fast and rocked back and forth as the sun shone
outside.
"Mommy," I heard the young boy say, "What's wrong  with that man's face?"
The woman didn't answer. The boy asked her the same question again. She didn't answer.
Then the boy screamed it out, " Mommy! What's wrong with that man's face?  "
"Shut up! I don't know what's wrong with his face!"
I went to Admissions at the hospital and they instructed me to report to the fourth floor. There the
nurse at the desk took my name and told me to be seated. We sat in two long rows of green metal
chairs facing one another. Mexicans, whites and blacks. There were no Orientals. There was nothing
to read. Some of the patients had day-old newspapers. The people were of all ages, thin and fat,
short and tall, old and young. Nobody talked. Everybody seemed very tired. Orderlies walked back
and forth, sometimes you saw a nurse, but never a doctor. An hour went by, two hours. Nobody's
name was called. I got up to look for a water fountain. I looked in the little rooms where people
were to be examined. There wasn't anybody in any of the rooms, neither doctors or patients.
I went to the desk. The nurse was staring down into a big fat book with names written in it. The
phone rang. She answered it. "Dr. Menen isn't here yet." She hung up.
"Pardon me," I said. "Yes?" the nurse asked.
"The doctors aren't here yet. Can I come back later?" "No."
"But there's nobody here." "The doctors are on call."
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"But I have an 8:30 appointment." "Everybody here has an 8:30 appointment." There were 45 or
50 people waiting. "Since I'm on the waiting list, suppose I come back in a couple of hours, maybe
there will be some doctors here then."
"If you leave now, you will automatically lose your appointment. You will have to return
tomorrow if you still wish treatment." I walked back and sat in a chair. The others didn't protest.
There was very little movement. Sometimes two or three nurses would walk by laughing. Once they
pushed a man past in a wheelchair. Both of his legs were heavily bandaged and his ear on the side of
his head toward me had been sliced off. There was a black hole divided into little sections, and it
looked like a spider had gone in there and made a spider web. Hours passed. Noon came and went.
Another hour. Two hours. We sat and waited. Then somebody said, "There's a doctor!"
The doctor walked into one of the examination rooms and closed the door. We all watched.
Nothing. A nurse went in. We heard her laughing. Then she walked out. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
The doctor walked out with a clipboard in his hand.
"Martinez?" the doctor asked. "Jose Martinez?" An old thin Mexican man stood up and began
walking toward the doctor. "Martinez? Martinez, old boy, how are you?"
"Sick, doctor . . . I think I die . . ." "Well, now . . . Step in here . . ." Martinez was in there a long
time. I picked up a discarded newspaper and tried to read it. But we were all thinking about
Martinez. If Martinez ever got out of there, someone would be next.
Then Martinez screamed. "AHHHHH! AHHHHH! STOP! STOP! AHHHH! MERCY! GOD!
PLEASE, STOP!"
"Now, now, that doesn't hurt . . ." said the doctor. Martinez screamed again. A nurse ran into the
examination room. There was silence. All we could see was the black shadow of the half-open
doorway. Then an orderly ran into the examination room. Martinez made a gurgling sound. He was
taken out of there on a rolling stretcher. The nurse and the orderly pushed him down the hall and
through some swinging doors. Martinez was under a sheet but he wasn't dead because the sheet
wasn't pulled over his face.
The doctor stayed in the examination room for another ten minutes. Then he came out with the
clipboard.
"Jefferson Williams?" he asked. There was no answer. "Is Jefferson Williams here?"
There was no response.
"Mary Blackthorne?"
There was no answer.
"Harry Lewis?"
"Yes, doctor?"
"Step forward, please . . ."
It was very slow. The doctor saw five more patients. Then he left the examination room, stopped
at the desk, lit a cigarette and talked to the nurse for fifteen minutes. He looked like a very intelligent
man. He had a twitch on the right side of his face, which kept jumping, and he had red hair with
streaks of grey. He wore glasses and kept taking them off and putting them back on. Another nurse
came in and gave him a cup of coffee. He took a sip, then holding the coffee in one hand he pushed
the swinging doors open with the other and was gone.
The office nurse came out from behind the desk with our long white cards and she called our
names. As we answered, she handed each of us our card back. "This ward is closed for the day.
Please return tomorrow if you wish. Your appointment time is stamped on your card."
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I looked down at my card. It was stamped 8:30 a.m.
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30
I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different doctor. I stripped down. He
turned a hot white light on me and looked me over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.
"Hmmm, hmmmm," he said, " uh huh . . ."
I sat there. "How long have you had this?"
"A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse." " Ah hah."
He kept looking. "Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I'll be right back." Some
moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room. They were all doctors. At least
they looked and talked like doctors. Where had they come from? I had thought there were hardly
any doctors at L.A. County General Hospital.
"Acne vulgaris. The worst case I've seen in all my years of practice!" "Fantastic!"
"Incredible!" "Look at the face!"
"The neck!"
"I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back was covered. She cried. She
told me, 'How will I ever get a man? My back will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!' And
now look at this fellow! If she could see him, she'd know that she really had nothing to complain
about!"
You dumb fuck, I thought, don't you realize that I can hear what you're saying? How did a man
get to be a doctor? Did they take anybody?
"Is he asleep?" "Why?"
"He seems very calm."
"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?" "Yes."
They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of my body.
"Turn over." I turned over.
"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!" "Well, how will we treat it?"
"The electric needle, I think . . . "Yes, of course, the electric needle." "Yes, the needle."
It was decided.
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31
The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man
who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it
was growing upon itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had
irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the nose and then tried not to
look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I knew how he felt. But the man seemed very
comfortable. He was fat and sat there almost asleep.
They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?" He moved forward a bit in his chair. " Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"
"Uh? Yes, I'm here . . ."
He stood up and moved toward the doctor. "How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"
"Fine . . . I'm all right . . ."
He followed the doctor into the examination room.
I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some swinging doors and into another
room. It was larger than the examination room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The
doctor looked at me. "You really have a case there, haven't you?"
"Yeah." He poked at a boil on my back.
"That hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage." I heard him turn on the machinery. It
made a whirring sound. I could smell oil getting hot.
"Ready?" he asked. "Yeah."
He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The pain was immense. It filled
the room. I felt the blood run down my back. Then he pulled the needle out.
"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the needle into me. Then he
pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two other men had walked in and were standing there
watching. They were probably doctors. The needle went into me again.
"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the men.
"He gives no sign at all," said the other man. "Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's
ass?" I asked them. "Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"
The needle dug into me. I didn't answer. "The boy is evidently very bitter . . ." "Yes, of course,
that's it."
The men walked out.
"Those are fine professional men," said my doctor. "It's not good of you to abuse them."
"Just go ahead and drill," I told him. He did. The needle got very hot but he went on and on. He
drilled my entire back, then he got my chest. Then I stretched out and he drilled my neck and my
face.
A nurse came in and she got her instructions. "Now, Miss Ackerman, I want these . . . pustules . .
. thoroughly drained. And when you get to the blood, keep squeezing. I want thorough drainage."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy." "And afterwards, the ultra-violet ray machine. Two minutes on each side to
begin with . . ."
"Yes, Dr. Grundy." I followed Miss Ackerman into another room. She told me to lay down on
the table. She got a tissue and started on the first boil. "Does this hurt?"
"It's all right." "You poor boy . . ."
"Don't worry. I'm just sorry you have to do this." "You poor boy . . ."
75
Miss Ackerman was the first person to give me any sympathy. It felt strange. She was a chubby
little nurse in her early thirties. "Are you going to school?" she asked.
"No, they had to take me out." Miss Ackerman kept squeezing as she talked. "What do you do
all day?"
"I just stay in bed."
"That's awful."
"No, it's nice. I like it."
"Does this hurt?"
"Go ahead. It's all right."
"What's so nice about laying in bed all day?"
"I don't have to see anybody."
"You like that?"
"Oh, yes."
"What do you do all day?"
"Some of the day I listen to the radio."
"What do you listen to?"
"Music. And people talking."
"Do you think of girls?"
"Sure. But that's out."
"You don't want to think that way." "I make charts of airplanes going overhead. They come over
at the same time each day. I have them timed. Say that I know that one of them is going to pass over
at 11:15 a.m. Around 11:10, I start listening for the sound of the motor. I try to hear the first sound.
Sometimes I imagine I hear it and sometimes I'm not sure and then I begin to hear it, 'way off, for
sure. And the sound gets stronger. Then at 11:15 a.m. it passes overhead and the sound is as loud as
it's going to get."
"You do that every day?"
"Not when I'm here."
"Turn over," said Miss Ackerman.
I did. Then in the ward next to us a man started screaming. We were next to the disturbed ward.
He was really loud.
"What are they doing to him?" I asked Miss Ackerman. "He's in the shower."
"And it makes him scream like that?" "Yes."
"I'm worse off than he is."
"No, you're not."
I liked Miss Ackerman. I sneaked a look at her. Her face was round, she wasn't very pretty but
she wore her nurse's cap in a perky manner and she had large dark brown eyes. It was the eyes. As
she balled up some tissue to throw into the dispenser I watched her walk. Well, she was no Miss
Gredis, and I had seen many other women with better figures, but there was something warm about
her. She wasn't constantly thinking about being a woman.
"As soon as I finish your face," she said, "I will put you under the ultra-violet ray machine. Your
next appointment will be the day after tomorrow at 8:30 a.m."
We didn't talk any more after that. Then she was finished. I put on goggles and Miss Ackerman
turned on the ultra-violet ray machine.
There was a ticking sound. It was peaceful. It might have been the automatic timer, or the metal
reflector on the lamp heating up. It was comforting and relaxing, but when I began to think about it, I
decided that everything that they were doing for me was useless. I figured that at best the needle
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would leave scars on me for the remainder of my life. That was bad enough but it wasn't what I really
minded. What I minded was that they didn't know how to deal with me. I sensed this in their
discussions and in their manner. They were hesitant, uneasy, yet also somehow disinterested and
bored. Finally it didn't matter what they did. They just had to do something -- anything -- because to
do nothing would be unprofessional.
They experimented on the poor and if that worked they used the treatment on the rich. And if it
didn't work, there would still be more poor left over to experiment upon.
The machine signaled its warning that two minutes were up. Miss Ackerman came in, told me to
turn over, re-set the machine, then left. She was the kindest person I had met in eight years.
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32
The drilling and squeezing continued for weeks but there was little result. When one boil vanished
another would appear. I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could
get. I would look at my face in disbelief, then turn to examine all the boils on my back. I was
horrified. No wonder people stared, no wonder they said unkind things. It was not simply a case of
teen-age acne. These were inflamed, relentless, large, swollen boils filled with pus. I felt singled out,
as if I had been selected  to be this way. My parents never spoke to me about my condition. They
were still on relief. My mother left each morning to look for work and my. father drove off as if he
were working. On Saturdays people on relief got free foodstuffs from the markets, mostly canned
goods, almost always cans of hash for some reason. We ate a great deal of hash. And bologna
sandwiches. And potatoes. My mother learned to make potato pancakes. Each Saturday when my
parents went for their free food they didn't go to the nearest market because they were afraid some
of the neighbors might see them and then know that they were on the dole. So they walked two miles
down Washington Boulevard, to a store a couple of blocks past Crenshaw. It was a long walk. They
walked the two miles back, sweating, carrying their shopping bags full of canned hash and potatoes
and bologna and carrots. My father didn't drive because he wanted to save gas. He needed the gas
to drive to and from his invisible job. The other fathers weren't like that. They just sat quietly on their
front porches or played horseshoes in the vacant lot.
The doctor gave me a white substance to apply to my face. It hardened and caked on the boils,
giving me a plaster-like look. The substance didn't seem to help. I was home alone one afternoon,
applying this substance to my face and body. I was standing in my shorts trying to reach the infected
areas of my back with my hand when I heard voices. It was Baldy and his friend Jimmy Hatcher.
Jimmy Hatcher was a good looking fellow and he was a wise-ass.
"Henry!" I heard Baldy calling. I heard him talking to Jimmy, Then he walked up on the porch and
beat on the door. "Hey, Hank, it's Baldy! Open up!"
You damn fool, I thought, don't you understand that I don't want to see anybody?
"Hank! Hank! It's Baldy and Jim!" He beat on the front door.
I heard him talking to Jim. "Listen, I saw him! I saw him walking around in there!"
"He doesn't answer." "We better go in. He might be in trouble." You fool, I thought, I befriended
you. I befriended you when nobody else could stand you. Now, look at this!
I couldn't believe it. I ran into the hall and hid in a closet, leaving the door slightly open. I was sure
they wouldn't come into the house. But they did. I had left the back door open. I heard them walking
around in the house.
"He's got to be here," said Baldy. "I saw something moving in here..." Jesus Christ, I thought,
can't I move around in here? I live in this house.
I was crouched in the dark closet. I knew I couldn't let them find me in there.
I swung the closet door open and leaped out. I saw them both standing in the front room. I ran in
there.
"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES!" They looked at me.
"GET OUT OF HERE! YOU'VE GOT NO RIGHT TO BE IN HERE! GET OUT OF HERE
BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
They started running toward the back porch. "GO ON! GO ON, OR I'LL KILL YOU!" I heard
them run up the driveway and out onto the sidewalk. I didn't want to watch them. I went into my
bedroom and stretched out on the bed. Why did they want to see me? What could they do? There
was nothing to be done. There was nothing to talk about.
78
A couple of days later my mother didn't leave to go job hunting, and it wasn't my day to go to the
L.A. County General Hospital. So we were in the house together. I didn't like it. I liked the place to
myself. I heard her moving about the house and I stayed in my bedroom. The boils were worse than
ever. I checked my airplane chart. The 1:20 p.m. flight was due. I began listening. He was late. It
was 1:20 and he was still approaching. As he passed over I timed him as being three minutes late.
Then I heard the doorbell ring. I heard my mother open the door.
"Emily, how are you?" "Hello, Katy, how are you?"
It was my grandmother, now very old. I heard them talking but I couldn't make out what they
were saying. I was thankful for that. They talked for five or ten minutes and then I heard them
walking down the hall to my bedroom.
"I will bury all of you," I heard my grandmother say. "Where is the boy?"
The door opened and my grandmother and mother stood there. "Hello, Henry," my grandmother
said.
"Your grandmother is here to help you," my mother said. My grandmother had a large purse. She
set it down on the dresser and pulled a huge silver crucifix out of it.
"Your grandmother is here to help you, Henry . . ." Grandmother had more warts on her than
ever before and she was fatter. She looked invincible, she looked as if she would never die. She had
gotten so old that it was almost senseless for her to die. "Henry," said my mother, "turn over on your
stomach." I turned over and my grandmother leaned over me. From the corner of my eye I saw her
dangling the huge crucifix over me. I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were
true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more
foolish.
But it was my grandmother and my mother. I decided to let them have their way. The crucifix
swung back and forth above my back, over my boils, over me.
"God," prayed my grandmother, "purge the devil from this poor boy's body! Just look at all those
sores! They make me sick, God! Look  at them! It's the devil, God, dwelling in this boy's body.
Purge the devil from his body, Lord!"
"Purge the devil from his body, Lord!" said my mother. What I need is a good doctor, I thought.
What is wrong with these women? Why don't they leave me alone?
"God," said my grandmother, "why do you allow the devil to dwell inside this body's body? Don't
you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at these sores, 0 Lord, I am about to vomit just looking
at them! They are red and big and full!"
"Purge the devil from my boy's body!" screamed my mother. "May God save us from this evil!"
screamed my grandmother. She took the crucifix and poked it into the center of my back, dug it in.
The blood spurted out, I could feel it, at first warm, then suddenly cold. I turned over and sat up in
the bed.
"What the fuck are you doing?" "I am making a hole for the devil to be pushed out by God!" said
my grandmother.
"All right," I said, "I want you both to get out of here, and fast! Do you understand me?"
"He is still possessed!" said my grandmother. "GET THE FUCKING HELL OUT OF HERE!" I
screamed. They left, shocked and disappointed, closing the door behind them.
I went into the bathroom, wadded up some toilet paper and tried to stop the bleeding. I pulled the
toilet paper away and looked at it. It was soaked. I got a new batch of toilet paper and held it to my
back awhile. Then I got the iodine. I made passes at my back, trying to reach the wound with the
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iodine. It was difficult. I finally gave up. Who ever heard of an infected back, anyhow? You either
lived or died. The back was something the assholes had never figured out how to amputate.
I walked back into the bedroom and got into bed and pulled the covers to my throat. I looked up
at the ceiling as I talked to myself.
All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me.
Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not there? You've given me a supreme test with my
parents and with these boils. I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You will
come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face. And do You shit? The
priest never answered that question. He told us not to doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have
been picking on me too much so l am asking You to come down here so I can put You to the test!
I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. I believe I slept.
I never slept on my back. But when I awakened I was on my back and it surprised me. My legs
were bent at the knees in front of me, making a mountain-like effect with the blankets. And as I
looked at the blanket- mountain before me I saw two eyes staring at me. Only the eyes were dark,
black, blank . . . looking at me from underneath a hood, a black hood with a sharp tall peak, like a
ku-klux-klansman. They kept staring at me, dark blank eyes, and there was nothing I could do about
it. I was truly terrified. I thought, it's God but God isn't supposed to look like that.
I couldn't stare it down. I couldn't move. It just stayed there looking at me over the mound of my
knees and the blanket. I wanted to get away. I wanted it to leave. It was powerful and black and
threatening.
It seemed to remain there for hours, just staring at me. Then it was gone . . . I stayed in bed
thinking about it.
I couldn't believe that it had been God. Dressed like that. That would be a cheap trick. It had
been an illusion, of course.
I thought about it for ten or fifteen minutes, then I got up and went to get the little brown box my
grandmother had given me many years ago. Inside of it were tiny rolls of paper with quotations from
the Bible. Each tiny roll was held in a cubicle of its own. One was supposed to ask a question and
the little roll of paper one pulled out was supposed to answer that question. I had tried it before and
found it useless. Now I tried it again. I asked the brown box, "What did that mean? What did those
eyes mean?"
I pulled out a paper and unrolled it. It was a tiny stiff white piece of paper. I unrolled and read it.
GOD HAS FORSAKEN YOU.
I rolled the paper up and stuck it back into its cubicle in the brown box. I didn't believe it. I went
back to bed and thought about it. It was too simple, too direct. I didn't believe it. I considered
masturbating to bring me back to reality. I still didn't believe it. I got back up and started unrolling all
the little papers inside the brown box. I was looking for the one that said, GOD HAS FORSAKEN
YOU. I unrolled them all. None of them said that. I read them all and none of them said that. I rolled
them up and put them carefully back into their cubicles in the little brown box.
Meanwhile, the boils got worse. I kept getting onto streetcar #7 and going to L. A. County
General Hospital and I began to fall in love with Miss Ackerman, my nurse of the squeezings. She
would never know how each stab of pain caused courage to well up in me. Despite the horror of the
blood and the pus, she was always humane and kind. My love-feeling for her wasn't sexual. I just
wished that she would enfold me in her starched whiteness and that together we could vanish forever
from the world. But she never did that. She was too practical. She would only remind me of my next
appointment.
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33
The ultra-violet ray machine clicked off. I had been treated on both sides. I took off the goggles
and began to dress. Miss Ackerman walked in. "Not yet," she said, "keep your clothes off." What is
she going to do to me, I thought? "Sit up on the edge of the table." I sat there and she began rubbing
salve over my face. It was a thick buttery substance.
"The doctors have decided on a new approach. We're going to bandage your face to effect
drainage."
"Miss Ackerman, what ever happened to that man with the big nose? The nose that kept
growing?"
"Mr. Sleeth?" "The man with the big nose."
"That was Mr. Sleeth."
"I don't see him anymore.""Did he get cured?" "He's dead."
"You mean he died from that big nose?" "Suicide." Miss Ackerman continued to apply the salve.
Then I heard a man scream from the next ward, "Joe, where are you? Joe, you said you'd come
back! Joe, where are you?"
The voice was loud and so sad, so agonized. "He's done that every afternoon this week," said
Miss Ackerman, "and Joe's not going to come get him."
"Can't they help him?" "I don't know. They all quiet down, finally. Now take your finger and hold
this pad while I bandage you. There. Yes. That's it. Now let go. Fine." "Joe! Joe, you said you'd
come back! Where are you, Joe?"  "Now, hold your finger on this pad. There. Hold it there. I'm
going to wrap you up good! There. Now I'll secure the dressings." Then she was finished.
"O.K., put on your clothes. See you the day after tomorrow. Goodbye, Henry."
"Goodbye, Miss Ackerman." I got dressed, left the room and walked down the hall. There was a
mirror on a cigarette machine in the lobby. I looked into the mirror. It was great. My whole head
was bandaged. I was all white. Nothing could be seen but my eyes, my mouth and my ears, and
some tufts of hair sticking up at the top of my head. I was hidden . It was wonderful. I stood and lit a
cigarette and glanced about the lobby. Some in-patients were sitting about reading magazines and
newspapers. I felt very exceptional and a bit evil, Nobody had any idea of what had happened to
me. Car crash. A fight to the death. A murder. Fire. Nobody knew.
I walked out of the lobby and out of the building and I stood on the sidewalk. I could still hear
him. "Joe! Joe! Where are you ,Joe!"
Joe wasn't coming. It didn't pay to trust another human being. Humans didn't have it, whatever it
took.
On the streetcar ride back I sat in the back smoking cigarettes out of my bandaged head. People
stared but I didn't care. There was more fear than horror in their eyes now. I hoped I could stay this
way forever.
I rode to the end of the line and got off. The afternoon was going into evening and I stood on the
corner of Washington Boulevard and Westview Avenue watching the people. Those few who had
jobs were coming home from work. My father would soon be driving home from his fake job. I
didn't have a job, I didn't go to school. I didn't do anything. I was bandaged, I was standing on the
corner smoking a cigarette. I was a tough man, I was a dangerous man. I knew things. Sleeth had
suicided. I wasn't going to suicide. I'd rather kill some of them. I'd take four or five of them with me.
I'd show them what it meant to play around with me.
A woman walked down the street toward me. She had fine legs. First I stared right into her eyes
and then I looked down at her  legs, and as she passed I watched her ass, I drank her ass in. I
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memorized her ass and the seams of her silk stockings. I never could have done that without my
bandages.
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34
The next day in bed I got tired of waiting for the airplanes and I found a large yellow notebook
that had been meant for high school work. It was empty. I found a pen. I went to bed with the
notebook and the pen. I made some drawings. I drew women in high-heeled shoes with their legs
crossed and their skirts pulled back.
Then I began writing. It was about a German aviator in World War 1. Baron Von Himmlen. He
flew a red Fokker. And he was not popular with his fellow fliers. He didn't talk to them. He drank
alone and he flew alone. He didn't bother with women, although they all loved him. He was above
that. He was too busy. He was busy shooting Allied planes out of the sky. Already he had shot
down 110 and the war wasn't over. His red Fokker, which he referred to as the "October Bird of
Death," was known everywhere. Even the enemy ground troops knew him as he often flew low over
them, taking their gunfire and laughing, dropping bottles of champagne to them suspended from little
parachutes. Baron Von Himmlen was never attacked by less than five Allied planes at a time. He
was an ugly man with scars on his face, but he was beautiful if you looked long enough -- it was in
the eyes, his style, his courage, his fierce aloneness.
I wrote pages and pages about the Baron's dog fights, how he would knock down three or four
planes, fly back, almost nothing left of his red Fokker. He'd bounce down, leap out of the plane
while it was still rolling and head for the bar where he'd grab a bottle and sit at a table alone, pouring
shots and slamming them down. Nobody drank like the Baron. The others just stood at the bar and
watched him. One time one of the other fliers said, "What is it, Himmlen? You think you're too good
for us?" It was Willie Schmidt, the biggest, strongest guy in the outfit. The Baron downed his drink,
set down his glass, stood up and slowly started walking toward Willie who was standing at the bar.
The other fliers backed off.
"Jesus, what are you going to do?" asked Willie as the Baron advanced.
The Baron kept moving slowly toward Willie, not answering. "Jesus, Baron, I was just kidding!
Mother's honor! Listen to me, Baron . . . Baron . . . the enemy is elsewhere!  Baron!"
The Baron let go with his right. You couldn't see it. It smashed into Willie's face propelling him
over the top of the bar, flipping him over completely! He crashed into the bar mirror like a
cannonball and the bottles tumbled down. The Baron pulled a cigar out and lit it, then walked back
to his table, sat down and poured another drink. They didn't bother the Baron after that. Behind the
bar they picked Willie up. His face was a mass of blood.
The Baron shot plane after plane out of the sky. Nobody seemed to understand him and nobody
knew how he had become so skillful with the red Fokker and in his other strange ways. Like fighting.
Or the graceful way he walked. He went on and on. His luck was sometimes bad. One day flying
back after downing three Allied planes, limping in low over enemy lines, he was hit by shrapnel. It
blew off his right hand at the wrist. He managed to bring the red Fokker in. From that time on he
flew with an iron  hand in place of his original right hand. It didn't affect his flying. And the fellows at
the bar were more careful than ever when they talked to him.
Many more things happened to the Baron after that. Twice he crashed in no-man's-land and each
time he crawled back to his squadron, half-dead, through barbed wire and flares and enemy fire.
Many times he was given up for dead by his comrades. Once he was gone for eight days and the
other flyers were sitting in the bar, talking about what an exceptional man he had been. When they
looked up, there was the Baron standing in the doorway, eight- day beard, uniform torn and muddy,
eyes red and bleary, iron hand glinting in the bar light. He stood there and he said, "There  better be
some god-damned whiskey in this place or I'm tearing it apart!"
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The Baron went on doing magic things. Half the notebook was filled with Baron Von Himmlen. It
made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody
around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should  be. It wasn't
make- believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a
man like him around.
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35
The bandages were helpful. L.A. County Hospital had finally come up with something. The boils
drained. They didn't vanish but they flattened a bit. Yet some new ones would appear and rise up
again. They drilled me and wrapped me again.
My sessions with the drill were endless. Thirty-two, thirty-six, thirty- eight times. There was no
fear of the drill anymore. There never had been. Only an anger. But the anger was gone. There
wasn't even resignation on my part, only disgust, a disgust that this had happened to me, and a
disgust with the doctors who couldn't do anything about it. They were helpless and I was helpless,
the only difference being that I was the victim. They could go home to their lives and forget while I
was stuck with the same face.
But there were changes in my life. My father found a job. He passed an examination at the L.A.
County Museum and got a job as a guard. My father was good at exams. He loved math and
history. He passed the exam and finally had a place to go each morning. There had been three
vacancies for guards and he had gotten one of them.
L.A. County General Hospital somehow found out and Miss Ackerman told me one day, "Henry,
this is your last treatment. I'm going to miss you."
"Aw come on," I said, "stop your kidding. You're going to miss me like I'm going to miss that
electric needle!"
But she was very strange that day. Those big eyes were watery. I heard her blow her nose.
I heard one of the nurses ask her, "Why, Janice, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing. I'm all right." Poor Miss Ackerman. I was 15 years old and in love with her and I was
covered with boils and there was nothing that either of us could do.
"All right," she said, "this is going to be your last ultra-violet ray treatment. Lay on your stomach."
"I know  your first name now," I told her. "Janice. That's a pretty name. It's just like you."
"Oh, shut up," she said. I saw her once again when the first buzzer sounded. I turned over, Janice
re-set the machine and left the room. I never saw her again.
My father didn't believe in doctors who were not free. "They make you piss in a tube, take your
money, and drive home to their wives in Beverly Hills," he said.
But once he did send me to one. To a doctor with bad breath and a head as round as a
basketball, only with two little eyes where a basketball had none. I didn't like my father and the
doctor wasn't any better. He said, no fried foods, and to drink carrot juice. That was it. I would re-
enter high school the next term, said my father. "I'm busting my ass to keep people from stealing.
Some nigger broke the glass on a case and stole some rare coins yesterday. I caught the bastard.
We rolled down the stairway together. I held him until the others came. I risk my life every day. Why
should you sit around on your ass, moping? I want you to be an engineer. How the hell you gonna be
an engineer when I find notebooks full of women with their skirts pulled up to their ass? Is that all
you can draw? Why don't you draw flowers or mountains or the ocean? You're going back to
school!"
I drank carrot juice and waited to re-enroll. I had only missed one term. The boils weren't cured
but they weren't as bad as they had been.
"You know what carrot juice costs me? I have to work the first hour every day just for your god-
damned carrot juice!"
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I discovered the La Cienega Public Library. I got a library card. The library was near the old
church down on West Adams. It was a very small library and there was just one librarian in it. She
was class. About 38 but with pure white hair pulled tightly into a bun behind her neck. Her nose was
sharp and she had deep green eyes behind rimless glasses. I felt that she knew everything.
I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the shelves, one by one. But they
were all tricks. They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything.
Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were
too tired to have it matter at all. I tried book after book. Surely, out of all those books, there was
one.
Each day I walked down to the library at Adams and La Brea and there was my librarian, stern
and infallible and silent. I kept pulling the books off the shelves. The first real book I found was by a
fellow named Upton Sinclair. His sentences were simple and he spoke with anger. He wrote with
anger. He wrote about the hog pens of Chicago. He came right out and said things plainly. Then I
found another author. His name was Sinclair Lewis. And the book was called Main Street . He
peeled back the layers of hypocrisy that covered people. Only he seemed to lack passion. I went
back for more. I read each book in a single evening. I was walking around one day sneaking glances
at my librarian when I came upon a book with the title Bow Down To Wood and Stone . Now, that
was good, because that was what we were all doing. At last, some fire .' I opened the book. It was
by Josephine Lawrence. A woman. That was all right. Anybody could find knowledge. I opened the
pages. But they were like many of the other books: milky, obscure, tiresome. I replaced the book.
And while my hand was there I reached for a book nearby. It was by another Lawrence. I opened
the book at random and began reading. It was about a man at a piano. How false it seemed at first.
But I kept reading. The man at the piano was troubled. His mind was saying things. Dark and curious
things. The lines on the page were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not "Joe, where are you?"
More like Joe, where is anything?  This Lawrence of the tight and bloody line. I had never been
told about him. Why the secret? Why wasn't he advertised?
I read a book a day. I read all the D. H. Lawrence in the library. My librarian began to look at
me strangely as I checked out the books.
"How are you today?" she would ask. That always sounded so good. I felt as if I had already
gone to bed with her. I read all the books by D. H. And they led to others. To H.D., the poetess.
And Huxley, the youngest of the Huxleys, Lawrence's friend. It all came rushing at me. One book led
to the next. Dos Passos came along. Not too good, really, but good enough. His trilogy, about the
U.S.A., took longer than a day to read. Dreiser didn't work for me. Sherwood Anderson did. And
then along came Hemingway. What a thrill! He knew how to lay down a line. It was a joy. Words
weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself
feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.
But back at home . . .
"LIGHTS OUT!" my father would scream. I was reading the Russians now, reading Turgenev
and Gorky. My father's rule was that all lights were to be out by 8 p.m. He wanted to sleep so that
he could be fresh and effective on the job the next day. His conversation at home was always about
"the job." He talked to my mother about his "job" from the moment he entered the door in the
evenings until they slept. He was determined to rise in the ranks.
"All right, that's enough of those god-damned books! Lights out!"'  To me, these men who
had come into my life from nowhere were my only chance. They were the only voices that spoke to
me. "All right," I would say.
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Then I took the reading lamp, crawled under the blanket, pulled the pillow under there, and read
each new book, propping it against the pillow, under the quilt. It got very hot, the lamp got hot, and I
had trouble breathing. I would lift the quilt for air.
"What's that? Do I see a light? Henry, are your lights out?" I would quickly lower the quilt
again and wait until I heard my father snoring.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered
can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it
just for you, that's great.
I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all
those good lines while suffocating. It was magic.
And my father had found a job, and that was magic for him . . .
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36
Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had graduated but they were
replaced by another group of seniors with sports cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronted
by them. They left me alone, they ignored me. They were busy with the girls. They never spoke to
the poor guys in or out of class.
About a week into my second semester I talked to my father over dinner. "Look," I said, "it's
hard at school. You're giving me 50 cents a week allowance. Can't you make it a dollar?"
"A dollar?" "Yes."
He put a forkful of sliced pickled beets into his mouth and chewed. Then he looked at me from
under his curled-up eyebrows,
"If I gave you a dollar a week that would mean 52 dollars a year, that would mean I would have
to work over a week  on my job just so you could have an allowance."
I didn't answer. But I thought, my god, if you think like that, item by item, then you can't buy
anything: bread, watermelon, newspapers, flour, milk or shaving cream. I didn't say any more
because when you hate, you don't beg . . .
Those rich guys like to dart their cars in and out, swiftly, sliding up, burning rubber, their cars
glistening in the sunlight as the girls gathered around. Classes were a joke, they were all going
somewhere to college, classes were just a routine laugh, they got good grades, you seldom saw them
with books, you just saw them burning more rubber, gunning from the curb with their cars full of
squealing and laughing girls. I watched them with my 50 cents in my pocket. I didn't even know how
to drive a car.
Meanwhile the poor and the lost and the idiots continued to flock around me. I had a place I liked
to eat under the football grandstand. I had my brown bag lunch with my two bologna sandwiches.
They came around, "Hey, Hank, can I eat with you?"
"Get the fuck out of here! I'm not going to tell you twice!" Enough of this kind had attached
themselves to me already. I didn't much care for any of them: Baldy, Jimmy Hatcher, and a thin
gangling Jewish kid, Abe Mortenson. Mortenson was a straight-A student but one of the biggest
idiots in school. He had something radically wrong with him. Saliva kept forming in his mouth but
instead of spitting on the ground to get rid of it he spit into his hands. I don't know why he did it and I
didn't ask. I didn't like to ask. I just watched him and I was disgusted. I went home with him once
and I found out how he got straight A's. His mother made him stick his nose into a book right away
and she made him keep it there. She made him read all of his school books over and over, page after
page. "He must pass his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the hooks were
wrong. Or that maybe it didn't matter. I didn't ask her.
It was like grammar school all over again. Gathered around me were the weak instead of the
strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers instead of the winners. It looked like it was my
destiny to travel in their company through life. That didn't bother me so much as the fact that I
seemed irresistible to these dull idiot fellows. I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower
that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone, I felt best being alone, cleaner, yet I was not
clever enough to rid myself of them. Maybe they were my masters: fathers in another form. In any
event, it was hard to have them hanging around while I was eating my bologna sandwiches.
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37
But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the neighborhood, Gene, who
was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson, who had had one professional fight (he'd lost). I
was over at Gene's one afternoon smoking cigarettes with him when Harry Gibson showed up with
two pairs of boxing gloves. Gene and I were smoking with his two older brothers, Larry and Dan.
Harry Gibson was cocky. "Anybody want to try me?" he asked. Nobody said anything. Gene's
oldest brother, Larry, was about 22. He was the biggest, but he was kind of timid and subnormal.
He had a huge  head, he was short and stocky, really well-built, but everything frightened him. So we
all looked at Dan who was the next oldest, since Larry said, "No, no I don't want to fight." Dan was
a musical genius, he had almost won a scholarship but not quite. Anyhow, since Larry had passed up
Harry's challenge, Dan put the gloves on with Harry Gibson.
Harry Gibson was a son-of-a-bitch on shining wheels. Even the sun glinted off his gloves in a
certain way. He moved with precision, aplomb and grace. He pranced and danced around Dan. Dan
held up his gloves and waited. Gibson's first punch streaked in. It cracked like a rifle shot. There
were some chickens in a pen in the yard and two of them jumped into the air at the sound. Dan
spilled backwards. He was stretched out on the grass, both of his arms spread out like some cheap
Christ.
Larry looked at him and said, "I'm going into the house." He walked quickly to the screen door,
opened it and was gone.
We walked over to Dan. Gibson stood over him with a little grin on his face. Gene bent down,
lifted Dan's head up a bit. "Dan? You all right?" Dan shook his head and slowly sat up.
"Jesus Christ, the guy's carrying a lethal weapon. Get these gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced one glove and I got the other. Dan stood up and walked toward the back door like
an old man. "I'm gonna lay down . . ." He went inside.
Harry Gibson picked up the gloves and looked at Gene. "How about it, Gene?"
Gene spit in the grass. "What the hell you trying to do, knock off the whole family?"
"I know you're the best fighter, Gene, but I'll go easy on you anyhow." Gene nodded and I laced
on his gloves for him. I was a good glove man.
They squared off. Gibson circled around Gene, getting ready. He circled to the right, then he
circled to the left. He bobbed and he weaved. Then he stepped in, gave Gene a hard left jab. It
landed right between Gene's eyes. Gene backpedaled and Gibson followed. When he got Gene up
against the chicken pen he steadied him with a soft left to the forehead and then cracked a hard right
to Gene's left temple. Gene slid along the chicken wire until he hit the fence, .then he slid along the
fence, covering up. He wasn't attempting to fight back. Dan came out of the house with a piece of ice
wrapped in a rag. He sat on the porch steps and held the rag to his forehead. Gene retreated along
the fence. Harry got him in the corner between the fence and the garage. He looped a left to Gene's
gut and when Gene bent over he straightened him with a right uppercut. I didn't like it. Gibson wasn't
going easy on Gene like he'd promised. I got excited. "Hit that fucker back, Gene! He's yellow! Hit
him!" Gibson lowered his gloves, looked at me and walked over. "What did you say, punk?"
"I was rooting my man on," I said. Dan was over getting the gloves off Gene.
"Did I hear something about being 'yellow'?" "You said you were going to go easy on him. You
didn't. You're hitting him with every shot you've got."
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"You callin' me a liar?" "I'm saying you don't keep your word." "Come on over and put the gloves
on this punk!" Gene and Dan came over and began putting the gloves on me. "Take it easy on this
guy, Hank," Gene said. "Remember he's all tired out from fighting us."
Gene and I had fought bare-fisted one memorable day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Gene had done
pretty good. I had small hands and if you have small hands you've either got to be able to hit hard as
hell or else be some kind of a boxer. I was only a little of each. The next day my entire upper body
was purple with bruises and I had two fat lips and a couple of loose front teeth. Now I had to fight
the guy who had just whipped the guy who had whipped me.
Gibson circled to the left, then the right, then he moved in on me. I didn't see the left jab at all. I
don't know where it caught me hut I went down from the left jab. It hadn't hurt but I was down. I got
up. If the left could do that what would the right do? I had to figure something out.
Harry Gibson began to circle to the left, my left. Instead of circling to my right like he expected, I
circled to my left. He looked surprised and as we came together I looped a wild left which caught
him high and hard on the head. It felt great. If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.
Then we were facing each other and he came straight at me. Gibson got me with the jab hut as it
hit me I ducked my head down and to one side as quickly as I could. His right swung around over
the top, missing. I moved into him and clinched, giving him a rabbit punch. We broke and I felt like a
pro.
"You can take him, Hank!" yelled Gene. "Go get him, Hank!" yelled Dan.
I rushed Gibson and tried a right lead. I missed and his left cross flashed on my jaw. I saw green
and yellow and red lights, then he dug a right to my belly. It felt like it went through to my backbone.
I grabbed him and clinched. But I wasn't frightened, for a change, and that felt good. "I'll kill you, you
fucker!" I told him.
Then it was just head-to-head, no more boxing. His punches came fast and hard. He was more
accurate, had more power, yet I was landing some hard shots too and it made me feel good. The
more he hit me the less I felt it. I had my gut sucked in, I liked the action. Then Gene and Dan were
between us. They pulled us apart.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Don't stop this thing! I can take his ass!" "Cut the shit, Hank," said
Gene. "Look at yourself." I looked down. The front of my shirt was dark with blood and there were
splotches of pus. The punches had broken open three or four boils. That hadn't happened in my fight
with Gene.
"That's nothing," I said. "That's just bad luck. He hasn't hurt me. Give me a chance and I'll cut him
down."
"No, Hank, you'll get an infection or something," said Gene. "All right, shit," I said, "cut the gloves
off me!" Gene unlaced me. When he got the gloves off I noticed that my hands were trembling, and
also my arms to a lesser extent. I put my hands in my pockets. Dan took Harry's gloves off. Harry
looked at me. "You're pretty good, kid."
"Thanks. Well, I'll see you guys . . ." I walked off. As I walked away I took my hands out of my
pockets. Then up the-driveway, just at the sidewalk, I stopped, pulled out a cigarette and stuck it
into my mouth. When I tried to strike a match my hands were trembling so much I couldn't do it. I
gave them a wave, a real nonchalant wave, and walked away.
Back at the house I looked at myself in the mirror. Pretty damn good. I was coming along.
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I took off my shirt and threw it under the bed. I'd have to find a way to clean the blood off. I
didn't have many shirts and they'd notice a missing one right away. But for me, it had finally been a
successful day, and I hadn't had too many of those.
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38
Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You can forgive a fool
because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you
feel had. Jimmy Hatcher had straight black hair, fair skin, he wasn't as big as I was but he kept his
shoulders back, dressed better than most of us, and he had a way of getting along with anybody he
felt like getting along with. His mother was a bar maid and his father had committed suicide. Jimmy
had a nice smile, perfect teeth, and the girls liked him even though he didn't have the money the rich
guys had. I would always see him talking to some girl. I don't know what he said to them. I didn't
know what any of the guys said to any of them. The girls were impossibly out of reach for me and so
I pretended that they didn't exist.
But Hatcher was another matter. I knew he wasn't a fairy but he kept hanging around.
"Listen, Jimmy, why do you follow me around? I don't like anything about you."
"Ah, come on. Hank, we're friends." "Yeah?"
"Yes."
He even got up once in English class and read an essay called "The Value of Friendship," and
while he was reading it he kept glancing at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class
applauded when he finished, and I thought, well, that's what people think and what can you do about
it? I wrote a counter-essay called, "The Value of No Friendship At All." The teacher didn't let me
read it to the class. She gave me a "D."
Jimmy and Baldy and I walked home together from high school each day. ( Abe Mortenson lived
in the other direction so that saved us from having to walk with him.) One day we were walking
along and Jimmy said, "Hey, let's go to my girlfriend's house. I want you to meet her." " Ah, balls,
fuck that," I said.
"No, no," said Jimmy, "she's a nice girl. I want you to meet her. I've finger-fucked her."
I'd seen his girl, Ann Weatherton, she was really beautiful, long brown hair and large brown eyes,
quiet, and with a good figure. I'd never spoken to her but I knew she was Jimmy's girl. The rich guys
had tried to hit on her but she ignored them. She looked like she was first-rate.
"I've got the key to her house," said Jimmy. "We'll go there and wait for her. She's got a late
class."
"Sounds dull to me," I said. " Ah, come on, Hank," said Baldy. "you're just going to go home and
whack-off anyhow."
"That's not always without its own merits," I said.
Jimmy opened the front door with his key and we walked in. A nice clean little house. A small
black and white bulldog ran up to Jimmy, wagging its stub tail.
"This is Bones," said Jimmy. "Bones loves me. Watch this!" Jimmy spit in the palm of his right
hand and grabbed Bones' penis and began rubbing it.
"Hey, what the fuck you doing?" asked Baldy. "They keep Bones on a leash in the yard. He never
gets any. He needs release !" Jimmy worked away.
Bones' penis got disgustingly red, a thin, long string of dripping inanity. Bones began making
whimpering sounds. Jimmy looked up as he worked away. "Hey, you wanna know what our song
is? I mean, Ann's song and my song? It's 'When the Deep Purple Falls Over Sleepy Garden Walls."'
Then Bones was making it. The sperm spurted out and on the carpet. Jimmy stood up and with
the sole of his shoe rubbed the come down into the nap of the carpet.
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"I'm gonna fuck Ann one of these days. It's getting close. She says she loves me. And I love her
too, I love her god-damned cunt." "You prick," I told Jimmy, "you make me sick." "I know you don't
mean that, Hank," he said. Jimmy walked into the kitchen. "She's got a nice family. She lives here
with her father, mother and brother. Her brother knows I am going to fuck her. He's right. But
there's nothing he can do about it because I can beat the shit out of him. He's nothing. Hey, watch
this!"
Jimmy opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of milk. At our place we still had an
icebox. The Weathertons were obviously a well-off family. Jimmy pulled out his cock and then
peeled the cardboard cap off the bottle and put his cock in there.
"Just a little, you know. They'll never taste it but they'll be drinking my piss . . ."
He pulled his cock out, capped the bottle, shook it, and then placed it back in the refrigerator.
"Now," he said, "here's some jello. They are going to eat jello for dessert tonight. They are also
going to eat . . ." He took the bowl of jello out and held it and then we heard a key in the front door
and the front door opening. Jimmy quickly put the jello back into the refrigerator and closed the
door. Then Ann walked in. Into the kitchen.
"Ann," said Jimmy, "I want you to meet my good friends, Hank and Baldy."
"Hi!" "Hi!"
"Hi!"
"This one's Baldy. The other guy is Hank." "Hi."
"Hi." "Hi."
"I've seen you guys around campus." "Oh yeah," I said, "we're around there. And we've seen you
too." "Yeah," said Baldy.
Jimmy looked at Ann. "You all right, baby?" "Yes, Jimmy, I've been thinking about you." She
moved toward him and they embraced, then they were kissing. They were standing right in front of
us as they were kissing. Jimmy was facing us. We could see his right eye. It winked.
"Well," I said, "we've got to get going." "Yeah," said Baldy.
We walked out of the kitchen, through the front room and out of there. We walked down the
sidewalk toward Baldy's place.
"That guy's really got it made," said Baldy. "Yeah," I said.
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39
One Sunday Jimmy talked me into going to the beach with him. He wanted to go swimming. I
didn't want to he seen wearing swimming trunks because my back was covered with boils and scars.
Outside of that, I had a good body. But nobody would notice that. I had a good chest and great
legs but nobody would see that.
I here was nothing to do and I didn't have any money and the guys didn't play in the streets on
Sunday. I decided that the beach belonged to everybody. I had a right, my scars and boils weren't
against the law.
So we got on our bikes and started out. It was fifteen miles. That didn't bother me. I had the legs.
I breezed with Jimmy all the way to Culver City. Then I gradually began to pedal faster. Jimmy
pumped, trying to keep up. I could see him getting winded. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, held out
the pack to him. "Want one, Jim?"
"No . . . thanks . . ." "This beats shooting birds with a beebee gun," I told him. "We ought to do
this more often!"
I began pumping harder. I still had plenty of reserve strength. "This really gets it," I told him. "This
beats whacking-off!" "Hey, slow up a little!"
I looked back at him. "There's nothing like a good friend to go biking with. Come on, friend!"
Then I gave it all I had and pulled away. The wind was blowing in my face. It felt good.
"Hey, wait! WAIT, GOD DAMN IT!" yelled Jimmy. I started laughing and really opened up.
Soon Jim was half-a- block back, a block, two blocks. Nobody knew how good I was, nobody
knew what I could do. I was some kind of miracle. The sun tossed yellow everywhere and I cut
through-it, a crazy knife on wheels. My father was a beggar in the streets of India but all the women
in the world loved me . . .
I was traveling at full speed as I reached the signal. I shot through inside the row of waiting cars.
Now even the cars were back there behind me. But not for long. A guy and his girl in a green coupe
pulled up and drove alongside me.
"Hey, kid!" "Yeah?" I looked at him. He was a big guy in his twenties with hairy arms and a
tattoo.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he asked me. He was trying to show off in front of
his girl. She was a looker, her long blond hair blowing in the wind.
"Up yours , buddy!" I told him. " What? "
"I said, 'Up yours! "
I gave him the finger. He kept driving along beside me. "You gonna take shit off that kid, Nick?" I
heard his girl ask him. He kept driving along beside me.
"Hey, kid," he said, "I didn't quite hear what you said. Would you mind saying that again?"
"Yeah, say that again," said the looker, her long blond hair blowing in the wind. That pissed me.
She pissed me.
I looked at him. "All right, you want trouble? Park it.  I'm trouble."
He zoomed ahead of me about half a block, parked, and swung the door open. As he got out I
swung wide around him almost into the path of a Chevy who gave me the horn. As I swung around
into a side street I could hear the big guy laughing.
After the guy was gone I wheeled back onto Washington Boulevard, went a few blocks, got off
the bike and waited for Jim on a bus stop bench. I could see him coming along. When he pulled up I
pretended that I was asleep. "Come on, Hank! Don't give me that shit!"
"Oh, hello, Jim. You here?"
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I tried to get Jim to pick a spot on the beach where there weren't too many people. I felt normal
standing there in my shirt but when I undressed I was exposed. I hated the other bathers for their
unmarred bodies. I hated all the god-damned people who were sunbathing or in the water or eating
or sleeping or talking or throwing beachballs. I hated their behinds and their faces and their elbows
and their hair and their eyes and their bellybuttons and their bathing suits.
I stretched out on the sand thinking, I should have punched that fat son-of-a-bitch. What the hell
did he know? Jim stretched out beside me. "What the hell," he said, "let's go swimming." "Not yet," I
said.
The water was full of people. What was the fascination of the beach? Why did people like the
beach? Didn't they have anything better to do? What chicken-brained fuckers they were.
"Just think," said Jim, "women go into the water and they piss in there."
"Yeah, and you swallow it." '
There would never be a way for me to live comfortably with people. Maybe I'd become a monk.
I'd pretend to believe in God and live in a cubicle, play an organ and stay drunk on wine. Nobody
would fuck with me. I could go into a cell for months of meditation where I wouldn't have to look at
anybody and they could just send in the wine. The trouble was, the black robes were pure wool.
They were worse than R.O.T.C. uniforms. I couldn't wear them. I'd have to think of something else.
"Oh, oh," said Jim. "What is it?"
"There are some girls down there looking at us." "So what?"
"They're talking and laughing. They might come down here." "Yeah?"
"Yeah. And if they start coming over I'll warn you. When I do, turn on your back."
My chest had only a few boils and scars. "Don't forget," said Jim, "when I warn you, turn over on
your back." "I heard you."
I had my head down in my arms. I knew that Jim was looking at the girls and smiling. He had a
way with them.
"Simple cunts," he said, "they're really stupid." Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always
only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse? "Oh, oh, Hank, here they
come!"
I looked up. There were five of them. I rolled over on my back. They walked up giggling and
stood there. One of them said, "Hey, these guys are cute!"
"You girls live around here?" Jim asked. "Oh yeah," one of them said, "we nest with the seagulls!"
They giggled.
"Well," said Jim, "we're eagles. I'm not sure we'd know what to do with five seagulls."
"How do birds do it anyhow?" one of them asked. "Damned if I know," Jim said, "maybe we can
find out." "Why don't you guys come over to our blanket?" one of them asked. "Sure," Jim said.
Three of the girls had spoken. The other two had just stood there pulling their bathing suits down
over what they didn't want seen. "Count me out," I said.
"What's wrong with your friend?" asked one of the girls who had been covering her ass. Jim said,
"He's strange."
"What's wrong with him?" asked the last girl. "He's just strange," said Jim.
He got up and walked off with the girls. I closed my eyes and listened to the waves. Thousands of
fish out there, eating each other. Endless mouths and assholes swallowing and shifting. The whole
earth was nothing but mouths and assholes swallowing and shifting, and fucking.
I rolled over and watched Jim with the five girls. He was standing up, sticking his chest out and
showing off his balls. He didn't have my barrel chest and big legs. He was slim and neat, with that
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black hair and that little nasty mouth with perfect teeth, and his little round ears and his long neck. I
didn't have a neck. Not much of one, anyway. My head seemed to sit on my shoulders. But I was
strong, and mean. Not good enough, the ladies liked dandies. If it wasn't for the boils and scars,
though. I'd be down there now showing them a thing or two. I'd flash my balls for them, bringing their
dead air-headed minds to attention. Me, with my 50-cents-a-week life.
Then I saw the girls leap up and follow Jim into the water. I heard them giggling and screaming
like mindless . . . what? No, they were nice. They weren't like grown-ups and parents. They laughed.
Things were funny. They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of things.
D, H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and
were used up by. Old D, H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget,
but what a marvelous one. Better than G. B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping
bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling
anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read
them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless.
Jim was splashing water on the girls. He was the Water God and they loved him. He was the
possibility and the promise. He was great. He knew how to do it. I had read many books but he had
read a book that I had never read. He was an artist with his little pair of bathing trunks and his balls
and his wicked little look and his round ears. He was the best. I couldn't challenge him any more than
I could have challenged that big son-of-a-bitch in the green coupe with the looker whose hair flowed
in the wind. They both had got what they deserved. I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the
green ocean of life.
I watched them come out of the water, glistening, smooth- skinned and young, undefeated. I
wanted them to want me. But never out of pity. Yet, despite their smooth untouched bodies and
minds they still were missing something because they were as yet basically untested. When adversity
finally arrived in their lives it might come too late or too hard. I was ready. Maybe.
I watched Jim toweling off, using one of their towels. As I watched, somebody's child, a boy of
about four came along, picked up a handful of sand and threw it in my face. Then he just stood there,
glowering, his sandy stupid little mouth puckered in some kind of victory. He was a daring darling
little shit. I wiggled my finger for him to come closer, come, come. He stood there.
"Little boy," I said, "come here. I have a bag of candy-covered shit for you to eat."
The fucker looked, turned and ran off. He had a stupid ass. Two little pear-shaped buttocks
wobbling, almost disjointed. But, another enemy gone.
Then Jim, the lady killer, was back. He stood there over me. Glowering also.
"They're gone," he said. I looked down to where the five girls had been and sure enough they
were  gone.
"Where did they go?" I asked. "Who gives a fuck? I've got the phone numbers of the two best
ones." "Best ones for what?"
"For fucking , you jerk!" I stood up.
"I think I'll deck you, jerk!"
His face looked good in the sea wind. I could already see him, knocked down, squirming on the
sand, kicking up his white- bottomed feet. Jim backed off.
"Take it easy. Hank. Look, you can have their phone numbers!" "Keep them. I don't have your
god-damned dumb ears!" "O.K., O.K., we're friends, remember?"
We walked up the beach to the strand where we had our bicycles locked behind someone's
beach house. And as we walked along we both knew whose day it had been, and knocking
somebody on their ass could not have changed that, although it might have helped, but not enough.
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All the way home, on our bikes, I didn't try to show him up as I had earlier. I needed something
more. Maybe I needed that blonde in the green coupe with her long hair blowing in the wind.
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40
R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was for the misfits. Like I said, it was either that or
gym. I would have taken gym but I didn't want people to sec the boils on my back. There was
something wrong with everybody enrolled in R.O.T.C. It almost entirely consisted of guys who didn't
like sports or guys whose parents forced them to take R.O.T.C. because they thought it was
patriotic. The parents of rich kids tended to be more patriotic because they had more to lose if the
country went under. The poor parents were far less patriotic, and then often professed their
patriotism only because it was expected or because it was the way they had been raised.
Subconsciously they knew it wouldn't be any better or worse for them  if the Russians or the
Germans or the Chinese or the Japanese ran the country, especially if they had dark skin. Things
might even improve. Anyhow, since many of the parents of Chelsey High were rich, we had one of
the biggest R.O.T.C.'s in the city.
So we marched around in the sun and learned to dig latrines, cure snake- bite, tend the wounded,
tie tourniquets, bayonet the enemy; we learned about hand grenades, infiltration, deployment of
troops, maneuvers, retreats, advances, mental and physical discipline; we got on the firing range,
bang bang, and we got our marksmen's medals. We had actual field maneuvers, we went out into the
woods and waged a mock war. We crawled on our bellies toward each other with our rifles. We
were very serious. Even I was serious. There was something about it that got your blood going. It
was stupid and we all knew it was stupid, most of us, but something clicked in our brains and we
really wanted to get involved in it. We had an old retired Army man, Col. Sussex. He was getting
senile and drooled, little trickles of saliva running out of the corners of his mouth and down, around
and under his chin. He never said anything. He just stood around in his uniform covered with medals
and drew his pay from the high school. During our mock maneuvers he carried around a clipboard
and kept score. He stood on a high hill and made marks on the clipboard -- probably. But he never
told us who won. Each side claimed victory. It made for bad feelings.
Lt. Herman Beechcroft was best. His father owned a bakery and a hotel catering service,
whatever that was. Anyhow, he was best. He always gave the same speech before a maneuver.
"Remember, you must hate  the enemy! They want to rape your mother and sisters! Do you want
those monsters to rape your mother and sisters?"
Lt. Beechcroft had almost no chin at all. His face dropped away suddenly and where the jaw
bone should have been there was only a little button. We weren't sure if it was a deformity or not.
But his eyes were magnificent in their fury, large blue blazing symbols of war and victory.
"Whitlinger!  "
"Yes, sir!" "Would you want those guys raping your mother?" "My mother's dead, sir."
"Oh, sorry . . . Drake." " Yes, sir! "
"Would you want those guys raping your mother?" " No, sir ."
"Good. Remember, this is war. We accept mercy but we do not give mercy. You must hate the
enemy. Kill him!  A dead man can't defeat you. Defeat is a disease! Victory writes history! NOW
LET'S GO GET THOSE COCKSUCKERS!"
We deployed our line, sent out the advance scouts and began crawling through the brush. I could
see Col. Sussex on his hill with his clipboard. It was the Blues vs. the Greens. We each had a piece
of colored rag tied around our upper right arm. We were the Blues. Crawling through those bushes
was pure hell. It was hot. There were bugs, dust, rocks, thorns. I didn't know where I was.
Our squad leader, Kozak, had vanished somewhere. There was no communication. We were
fucked. Our mothers were going to get raped. I kept crawling forward, bruising and scratching
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myself, feeling lost and scared, but really feeling more the fool. All this vacant land and empty sky,
hills, streams, acres and acres. Who owned it all? Probably the father of one of the rich guys. We
weren't going to capture anything. The whole place was on loan to the high school. NO SMOKING.
I crawled forward. We had no air cover, no tanks, nothing. We were just a bunch of fairies out on a
half-assed maneuver without food, without women, without reason. I stood up, walked over and sat
down with my back against a tree, put my rifle down and waited.
Everybody was lost and it didn't matter. I pulled my arm band off and waited for a Red Cross
Ambulance or something. War was probably hell but the in-between parts were boring.
Then the bushes cracked open and a guy leaped out and saw me. He had on a Green arm band.
A rapist. He pointed his rifle at me. I had no arm band on, it was down in the grass. He wanted to
take a prisoner. I knew him. He was Harry Missions. His father owned a lumber company. I sat
there against the tree.
"Blue or Green?" he hollered at me. "I'm Mata Hari."
"A spy! I take spies!"
"Come on, cut the shit, Harry. This is a game for children. Don't bother me with your fetid
melodrama."
The bushes cracked open again and there was Lt. Beechcroft. Missions and Beechcroft faced
each other.
"I hereby take you prisoner!" screamed Beechcroft at Missions. "I hereby take you prisoner!"
screamed Missions at Beechcroft. They both were really nervous and angry, I could feel it.
Beechcroft drew his sabre. "Surrender or I'll run you through!"
Missions grabbed his gun by the barrel. "Come over here and I'll knock your god-damned head
off!"
Then the bushes cracked open everywhere. The screaming had attracted both the Blues and the
Greens. I sat against the tree while they mixed it up. There was dust and scuffling and now and then
the evil sound of rifle stock against skull. "Oh, Jesus! Oh, my God!" Some bodies were down. Rifles
were lost. There were fist fights and headlocks. I saw two guys with Green arm bands locked in a
death-grip. Then Col. Sussex appeared. He blew frantically on his whistle. Spit sprayed everywhere.
Then he ran over with his swagger stick and began beating the troops with it. He was good. It cut
like a whip and sliced like a razor.
"Oh shit! I QUIT!" "No, stop!  Jesus! Mercy!"
"Mother!"
The troops separated and stood looking at each other. Col. Sussex picked up his clipboard. His
uniform was unwrinkled. His medals were still in place. His cap sat at the correct angle. He flipped
his swagger stick, caught it, and walked off. We followed.
We climbed into the old army trucks with their ripped canvas sides and tops that had brought us.
The engines started and we drove off. We faced each other on the long wooden benches. We had
come out, all the Blues in one of the trucks, all the Greens in the other. Now we were mixed
together, sitting there, most of us looking down at our scuffed and dusty shoes, being jiggled this way
and that, to the left, to the right, up and down, as the truck tires hit the ruts in the old roads. We were
tired and we were defeated and we were frustrated. The war was over.
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41
R.O.T.C. kept me away from sports while the other guys practiced every day. They made the
school teams, won their letters and got the girls. My days were spent mostly marching around in the
sun. All you ever saw were the backs of some guy's ears and his buttocks. I quickly became
disenchanted with military proceedings. The others shined their shoes brightly and seemed to go
through maneuvers with relish. I couldn't see any sense in it. They were just getting shaped up in
order to get their balls blown off later. On the other hand, I couldn't see myself crouched down in a
football helmet, shoulder pads laced on, decked out in Blue and White, #69, trying to block some
mean son-of-a-bitch from across town, trying to move out some brute with tacos on his breath so
that the son of the district attorney could slant off left tackle for six yards. The problem was you had
to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit
more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-
damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst
way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.
I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least
the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand.
Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But
there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but
they wouldn't let me.
So there I was, at Chelsey High, still in the R.O.T.C., still with my boils. That always reminded
me of how fucked up I was.
It was a grand day. One man from each squad who had won the Manual of Arms competition
within his squad stepped into a long line where the final competition was to be held. Somehow I had
won the competition in my squad. I had no idea how. I was no hot shot.
It was Saturday. Many mothers and fathers were in the stands. Somebody blew a bugle. A
sword flashed. Commands rang out. Right shoulder arms! Left shoulder arms! Rifles hit shoulders,
rifle butts hit the ground, rifle stocks slammed into shoulders again. Little girls sat in the stands in their
blue and green and yellow and orange and pink and white dresses. It was hot, it was boring, it was
insanity.
"Chinaski, you are competing for the honor of our squadron!" "Yes, Corporal Monty."
All those little girls in the stands each waiting for her lover, for her winner, for her corporate
executive. It was sad. A flock of pigeons, frightened by a piece of paper blown in the wind, flapped
noisily away. I yearned to be drunk on beer. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
As each man made an error he dropped out of line. Soon there were six, then five, then three. I
was still there. I had no desire to win. I knew that I wouldn't win. I'd soon be out of it. I wanted to
be out of there. I was tired and bored. And covered with boils. I didn't give cream-shit for what they
were chasing. But I couldn't make an obvious error. Corporal Monty would be hurt.
Then there were just two of us. Me and Andrew Post. Post was a darling. His father was a great
criminal lawyer. He was in the stands with his wife, Andrew's mother. Post was sweating but
determined. We both knew that he would win. I could feel the energy and all the energy was his.
It's all right, I thought, he needs it, they need it. It's the way it works. It's the way it's meant to
work.
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We went on and on, repeating various Manual of Arms maneuvers. From the corner of my eye I
saw the goal posts on the field and I thought, maybe if I had tried harder I could have become a
great football player.
"ORDER!" shouted the Commander and I ripped my bolt home. There had been only one click.
There had been no click to my left. Andrew Post had frozen. A little moan rose from the
grandstands.
"ARMS!" the Commander finished and I completed the maneuver. Post did too but his bolt was
open . . .
The actual ceremony for the winner came some days later. Luckily for me there were other
awards to be given. I stood and waited with the others as Col. Sussex came down the line. My boils
were worse than ever and as always when I was wearing that itchy brown wool uniform the sun was
up and hot and making me conscious of every wool fiber in that son-of-a-bitching shirt. I wasn't
much of a soldier and everybody knew it. I had won on a fluke because I hadn't cared enough to be
nervous. I felt badly for Col. Sussex because I knew what he was thinking and maybe he knew what
I was thinking: that his peculiar type of devotion and courage didn't seem exceptional to me.
Then he was standing right in front of me. I stood at attention but managed to sneak a peek at
him. He had his saliva in good order. Maybe when he was pissed-off it dried up. In spite of the heat
there was a good west wind blowing. Col. Sussex pinned the medal on me. Then he reached out and
shook my hand.
"Congratulations," he said. Then he smiled at me. And moved on. Why the old fuck. Maybe he
wasn't so bad after all . . .
Walking home I had the medal in my pocket. Who was Col. Sussex? Just some guy who had to
shit like the rest of us. Everybody had to conform, find a mold to fit into. Doctor, lawyer, soldier -- it
didn't matter what it was. Once in the mold you had to push forward. Sussex was as helpless as the
next man. Either you managed to do something or you starved in the streets.
I was alone, walking. On my side of the street just before reaching the first boulevard on the long
walk home there was a small neglected store. I stopped and looked in the window. Various objects
were on display with their soiled price tags. I saw some candle holders. There was an electric
toaster. A table lamp. The glass of the window was dirty inside and out. Through the rather dusty
brown smear I saw two toy dogs grinning. A miniature piano. These things were for sale. They didn't
look very appealing. There weren't any customers in the store and I couldn't see a clerk either. It
was a place I had passed many times before but had never stopped to examine.
I looked in and I liked it. There was nothing happening there. It was a place to rest, to sleep.
Everything in there was dead. I could see myself happily employed as a clerk there so long as no
customers entered the door.
I turned away from the window and walked along some more. Just before reaching the boulevard
I stepped into the street and saw an enormous storm drain almost at my feet. It was like a great
black mouth leading down to the bowels of the earth. I reached into my pocket and took the medal
and tossed it toward the black opening. It went right in. It disappeared into the darkness.
Then I stepped onto the sidewalk and walked back home. When I got there my parents were
busy with various cleaning chores. It was a Saturday. Now I had to mow and clip the lawn, water it
and the flowers.
I changed into my working clothes, went out, and with my father watching me from beneath his
dark and evil eyebrows, I opened the garage doors and carefully pulled the mower out backwards,
the mower blades not turning then, but waiting.
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"You ought to try to be like Abe Mortenson," said my mother, "he gets straight A's. Why can't
you ever get any A's?" "Henry is dead on his ass," said my father. "Sometimes I can't believe he's my
son."
"Don't you want  to be happy, Henry?" asked my mother. "You never smile. Smile and be
happy."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," said my father. "Be a man!" "Smile, Henry!"
"What's going to become of you? How the hell you going to make it? You don't have any get up
and go!"
"Why don't you go see Abe? Talk to him, learn to be like him," said my mother . . .
I knocked on the door of the Mortensons' apartment. The door opened. It was Abe's mother.
"You can't see Abe. He's busy studying." "I know, Mrs. Mortenson. I just want to see him a
minute." "All right. His room is right down there."
I walked on down. He had his own desk. He was sitting with a book open on top of two other
books. I knew the book by the color of the cover: Civics. Civics, for Christ sake, on a Sunday.
Abe looked up and saw me. He spit on his hands and then turned back to the book. "Hi," he
said, looking down at the page. "I bet you've read that same page ten times over, sucker." "I've got
to memorize everything."
"It's just crap." "I've got to pass my tests."
"You ever thought of fucking a girl?" "What?" he spit on his hands.
"You ever looked up a girl's dress and wanted to see more? Ever thought about her snatch?"
"That's not important." "It's important to her."
"I've got to study."
"We're having a pick-up game of baseball. Some of the guys from school."
"On Sunday?" "What's wrong with Sunday? People do a lot of things on Sunday."
"But baseball?" "The pros play on Sunday."
"But they get paid."
"Are you getting paid for reading that same page over and over? Come on, get some air in your
lungs, it might clear your head." "All right. But just for a little while."
He got up and I followed him up the hall and into the front room. We walked toward the door.
"Abe, where are you going?" "I'll just be gone a little while." "All right. But hurry back. You've got
to study." "I know . . ."
"All right, Henry, you make sure he gets back." "I'll take care of him, Mrs. Mortenson."
There was Baldy and Jimmy Hatcher and some other guys from school and a few guys from the
neighborhood. We only had seven guys on each side which left a couple of defensive holes, but I
liked that. I played center field. I had gotten good, I was catching up. I covered most of the outfield.
I was fast. I liked to play in close to grab the short ones. But what I liked best was running back to
grab those high hard ones hit over my head. That's what Jigger Statz did with the Los Angeles
Angels. He only hit about .280 but the hits he took away from the other team made him as valuable
as a .500 bitter.
Every Sunday a dozen or more girls from the neighborhood would come and watch us. I ignored
them. They really screamed when something exciting happened. We played hardball and we each
had our own glove, even Mortenson. He had the best one. It had hardly been used.
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I trotted out to center and the game began. We had Abe at second base. I slammed my fist into
my mitt and hollered in at Mortenson, "Hey, Abe, you ever packed-off into a raw egg? You don't
have to die to go to heaven!" I heard the girls laughing.
The first guy struck out. He wasn't much. I struck out a lot too but I was the hardest hitter of them
all. I could really put the wood to it: out of the lot and into the street. I always crouched low over the
plate. I looked like a wound-up spring standing there.
Each moment of the game was exciting to me. All the games I had missed mowing that lawn, all
those early school days of being chosen next-to-last were over. I had blossomed. I had something
and I knew I had it and it felt good.
"Hey, Abe!" I yelled in. "With all that spit you don't need a raw egg!" The next guy connected
hard with one but it was high, very high and I ran back to make an over-the-shoulder catch. I
sprinted back, feeling great, knowing that I would create the miracle once again.
Shit. The ball sailed into a tall tree at the back of the lot. Then I saw the ball bouncing down
through the branches. I stationed myself and waited. No good, it was going left. I ran left. Then it
bounced back to the right. I ran right. It hit a branch, lingered there, then slithered through some
leaves and dropped into my glove. The girls screamed.
I fired the ball into our pitcher on one bounce then trotted back into shallow center. The next guy
struck out. Our pitcher, Harvey Nixon, had a good fireball.
We changed sides and I was first up. I had never seen the guy on the mound. He wasn't from
Chelsey. I wondered where he was from. He was big all over, big head, big mouth, big ears, big
body. His hair fell down over his eyes and he looked like a fool. His hair was brown and his eyes
were green and those green eyes stared at me through that hair as if he hated me. It looked like his
left arm was longer than his right. His left arm was his pitching arm. I'd never faced a lefty, not in
hardball. But they could all be had. Turn them upside down and they were all alike. "Kitten" Floss,
they called him. Some kitten. 190 pounds. "Come on, Butch, hit one out!" one of the girls pleaded.
They called me " Butch" because I played a good game and ignored them.
The Kitten looked at me from between his big ears. I spit on the plate, dug in and waved my bat.
The Kitten nodded like he was getting a signal from the catcher. He was just showboating. Then
he looked around the infield. More showboating. It was for the benefit of the girls. He couldn't keep
his pecker-mind off of snatch-thoughts.
He took his wind-up. I watched that ball in his left hand. My eyes never left that ball. I had
learned the secret. You concentrated on the ball and followed it all the way in until it reached the
plate and then you murdered it with the wood.
I watched the ball leave his fingers through a blaze of sun. It was a murderous humming blur, but it
could be had. It was below my knees and far out of the strike zone. His catcher had to dive to get it.
"Ball one," mumbled the old neighborhood fart who umpired our games. He was a night
watchman in a department store and he liked to talk to the girls. "I got two daughters at home just
like you girls. Real cute. They wear tight dresses too." He liked to crouch over the plate and show
them his big buttocks, that's all he had, that and one gold tooth. The catcher threw the ball back to
Kitten Floss. "Hey, Pussy!" I yelled out to him.
"You talkin' to me?" "I'm talking to you, short-arm. You gotta come closer than that or I'll have to
call a cab."
"The next one is all yours," he told me. "Good," I said. I dug in.
He went through his routine again, nodding like he was getting a sign, checking the infield. Those
green eyes stared at me through that dirty brown hair. I watched him wind-up. I saw the ball leave
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his fingers, a dark fleck against the sky in the sun and then suddenly it was zooming toward my skull.
I dropped in my tracks, feeling it brush the hair of my head. "Strike one," mumbled the old fart.
"What?" I yelled. The catcher was still holding the ball. He was as surprised at the call as I was. I
took the ball from him and showed it to the umpire.
"What's this?" I asked him. "It's a baseball."
"Fine. Remember what it looks like." I took the ball and walked out to the mound. The green
eyes didn't flinch under the dirty hair. But the mouth opened up just a bit, like a frog sucking air. I
walked up to Kitten.
"I don't swing with my head. The next time you do that I am going to jam this thing right up
through your shorts and past where you forget to wipe."
I handed him the ball and walked back to the plate. I dug in and waved my bat.
"One and one," said the old fart. Floss kicked dirt around on the mound. He stared off into left
field. There was nothing out there except a starving dog scratching his ear. Floss looked in for a sign.
He was thinking of the girls, trying to look good. The old fart crouched low, spreading his dumb
buttocks, also trying to look good. I was probably one of the few with his mind on the business at
hand.
The time came, Kitten Floss went into his wind-up. That left hand windmill could panic you if you
let it. You had to be patient and wait for the ball. Finally they had to let it go. Then it was yours to
destroy and the harder they threw it in the harder you could hit it out of there.
I saw the ball leave his fingers as one of the girls screamed. Floss hadn't lost his zip. The ball
looked like a bee-bee, only it got larger and it was headed right for my skull again. All I knew was
that I was trying to find the dirt as fast as I could. I got a mouthful.
"SEERIKE TWO!" I heard the old fart yell. He couldn't even pronounce the word. Get a man
who works for nothing and you get a man who just likes to hang around.
I got up and brushed the dirt off. It was even down in my shorts. My mother was going to ask
me, "Henry, how did you ever get your shorts so dirty? Now don't make that face. Smile, and be
happy!"
I walked to the mound. I stood right there. Nobody said anything. I just looked at Kitten. I had
the bat in my hand. I took the bat by the end and pressed it against his nose. He slapped it away. I
turned and walked back toward the plate. Halfway there I stopped. I turned and stared at him again.
Then I walked to the plate.
I dug in and waved my bat. This one was going to be mine. The Kitten peered in for the non-
existent sign. He looked a long time, then shook his head, no. He kept staring through that dirty hair
with those green eyes. I waved my bat more powerfully.
"Hit it out, Butch!"  screamed one of the girls. " Batch! Batch! Batch !" screamed another girl.
Then the Kitten turned his back on us and just stared out into center field.
"Time," I said and stepped out of the box. There was a very cute girl in an orange dress. Her hair
was blond and it hung straight down, like a yellow waterfall, beautiful, and I caught her eye for a
moment and she said, " Butch, please do it."
"Shut up," I said and stepped back into the box. The pitch came. I saw it all the way. It was my
pitch. Unfortunately, I was looking for the duster. I wanted the duster so I could go out to the mound
and kill or be killed. The ball sailed right over the center of the plate. By the time I adjusted the best I
could do was swing weakly over the top of it as it went by. The bastard had suckered me all the
way.
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He got me on three straight strikes next time. I swear he must have been at least 23 years old.
Probably a semi-pro.
One of our guys finally did get a single off him. But I was good in the field. I made some catches.
I moved out there. I knew that the more I saw of the Kitten's fireball the more I was apt to solve it.
He wasn't trying to knock out my brains anymore. He didn't have to. He was just smoking them
down the middle. I hoped it was only a matter of time before I golfed one out of there.
But things got worse and worse. I didn't like it. The girls didn't either. Not only was green eyes
great on the mound, he was great at the plate. The first two times up he hit a homer and a double.
The third time up he swung under a pitch and looped a high blooper between Abe at second base
and me in center field. I came charging in, the girls screaming, but Abe kept looking up and back
over his shoulder, his mouth drooping down, looking up, looking like a fool really, that wet mouth
open. I came charging in screaming, "It's mine!" It was really his but somehow I couldn't bear to let
him make the catch. The guy was nothing but an idiot book- reader and I didn't really like him so I
came charging in very hard as the ball dropped. We crashed into one another, the ball popped out of
his glove and into the air as he fell to the ground, and I caught the ball off his glove. I stood there
over him as he lay on the ground.
"Get up, you dumb bastard," I told him. Abe stayed on the ground. He was crying. He was
holding his left arm.
"I think my arm is broken," he said. "Get up, chickenshit."
Abe finally got up and walked off the held, crying and holding his arm. I looked around. "All
right," I said, "let's play ball!" But everybody was walking away, even the girls. The game was
evidently over. I hung around awhile and then I started walking home. ..
Just before dinner the phone rang. My mother answered it. Her voice became very excited. She
hung up and I heard her talking to my father. Then she came into my bedroom.
"Please come to the front room," she said. I walked in and sat on the couch. They each had a
chair. It was always that way. Chairs meant you belonged. The couch was for visitors.
"Mrs. Mortenson just phoned. They've taken x-rays. You broke her son's arm."
"It was an accident," I said. "She says she is going to sue us. She'll get a Jewish lawyer. They'll
take everything we have."
"We don't have very much." My mother was one of those silent criers. As she cried the tears
came faster and faster. Her cheeks were starting to glisten in the evening twilight.
She wiped her eyes. They were a dull light brown. "Why did you break that boy's arm?"
"It was a pop-up. We both went for it." "What is this 'pop-up'?"
"Whoever gets it, gets it."
"So you got the 'pop-up'?"
"Yes."
"But how can this 'pop-up' help us? The Jewish lawyer will still have the broken arm on his side."
I got up and walked back to my bedroom to wait for dinner. My father hadn't said anything. He
was confused. He was worried about losing what little he had but at the same time he was very
proud of a son who could break somebody's arm.
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43
Jimmy Hatcher worked part time in a grocery store. While none of us could get jobs he could
always get one. He had his little movie star face and his mother had a great body. With his face and
her body he didn't have trouble finding employment.
"Why don't you come up to the apartment after dinner tonight?" he asked me one day.
"What for?" "I steal all the beer I want. I take it out the back. We can drink the beer."
"Where you got it?" "In the refrigerator."
"Show me."
We were about a block away from his place. We walked over. In the hallway Jimmy said, "Wait
a minute, I've got to check the mail." He took out his key and opened the lock box. It was empty.
He locked it again. "My key opens this woman's box. Watch."
Jimmy opened the box and pulled out a letter and opened it. He read the letter to me. "Dear
Betty: I know that this check is late and that you've been waiting for it. I lost my job. I have found
another one, but it put me behind. Here's the check, finally. I hope that everything is all right with
you. Love, Don."
Jimmy took the check and looked at it. He tore it up and he tore the letter up and he put the
pieces in his coat pocket. Then he locked the mailbox.
"Come on." We went into his apartment and into the kitchen and he opened the refrigerator. It
was packed with cans of beer.
"Does your mother know?" "Sure. She drinks it."
He closed the refrigerator.
"Jim, did your father really blow his brains out because of your mother?"
"Yeah. He was on the telephone. He told her he had a gun. He said. If you don't come back to
me I'm going to kill myself. Will you come back to me?' And my mother said, 'No.' There was a shot
and that was that." "What did your mother do?"
"She hung up." "All right, I'll see you tonight."
I told my parents that I was going over to Jimmy's to do some homework with him. My kind of
homework, I thought to myself.
"Jimmy's a nice boy," my mother said. My father didn't say anything.
Jimmy got the beer out and we began. I really liked it. Jimmy's mother worked at a bar until 2
a.m. We had the place to ourselves. "Your mother really has a body, Jim. How come some women
have great bodies and most of the others look like they're deformed? Why can't all women have
great bodies?"
"God, I don't know. Maybe if women were all the same we'd get bored with them."
"Drink some more. You drink too slow." "O.K."
"Maybe after a few beers I'll beat the shit out of you." "We're friends, Hank."
"I don't have any friends. Drink up!" "All right. What's the hurry?"
"You've got to slam them down to get the effect." We opened some more cans of beer.
"If I was a woman I'd go around with my skirt hiked up giving all the men hard- ons," Jimmy said.
"You make me sick."
"My mother knew a guy who drank her piss." "What?"
"Yeah. They'd drink all night and then he'd lay down in the bathtub and she'd piss in his mouth.
Then he'd give her twenty- five dollars." "She told you that?"
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"Since my father died she confides in me. It's like I've taken his place."
"You mean . . . ?" "Oh, no. She just confides."
"Like the guy in the tub?"
"Yeah, like him."
"Tell me some more stuff."
"No."
"Come on, drink up. Does anybody eat your mother's shit?" "Don't talk that way."
I finished the can of beer in my hand and threw it across the room. "I like this joint. I might move
in here."
I walked to the refrigerator and brought back a new six-pack. "I'm one tough son-of-a-bitch," I
said. "You're lucky I let you hang around me."
"We're friends, Hank." I jammed a can of beer under his nose. "Here, drink this!"
I went to the bathroom to piss. It was a very ladylike bathroom, brightly colored towels, deep
pink floormats. Even the toilet seat was pink. She sat her big white ass on there and her name was
Clare. I looked at my virgin cock.
"I'm a man," I said. "I can whip anybody's ass." "I need the bathroom, Hank . . ." Jim was at the
door. He went into the bathroom. I heard him puking.
"Ah, shit . . ." I said and opened a new can of beer. After a few minutes, Jim came out and sat in
a chair. He looked very pale. I stuck a can of beer under his nose.
"Drink up! Be a man! You were man enough to steal it, now be man enough to drink it!"
"Just let me rest a while." "Drink it!"
I sat down on the couch. Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting
drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough,
you wouldn't become obvious yourself. I looked over at Jimmy.
"Drink up, punk." I threw my empty beer can across the room. "Tell me some more about your
mother, Jimmy boy. What did she say about the man who drank her piss in the bathtub?"
"She said, 'There's a sucker born every minute.'" "Jim."
"Uh?" "Drink up. Be a man!"
He lifted his beer can. Then he ran to the bathroom and I heard him puking again. He came out
after a while and sat in his chair. He didn't look well. "I've got to lay down," he said.
"Jimmy," I said, "I'm going to wait around until your mother comes home."
Jimmy got up from his chair and started walking toward the bedroom. "When she comes home
I'm going to fuck her, Jimmy." He didn't hear me. He just walked into the bedroom. I went into the
kitchen and came back with more beer.
I sat and drank the beer and waited for Clare. Where was that whore? I couldn't allow this kind
of thing. I ran a tight ship.
I got up and walked into the bedroom. Jim was face down on the bed, all his clothes on, his
shoes on. I walked back out.
Well, it was obvious that boy had no belly for booze. Clare needed a man. I sat down and
opened another can of beer. I took a good hit. I found a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and lit
one.
I don't know how many more beers I drank waiting for Clare but finally I heard the key in the
door and it opened. There was Clare of the body and the bright blond hair. That body stood on
those high heels and it swayed just a little. No artist could have imagined it better. Even the walls
stared at her, the lampshades, the chairs, the rug. Magic. Standing there . . .
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."Who the hell are you? What is this?" " Clare, we've met. I'm Hank. Jimmy's friend." "Get out of
here!" I laughed. "I'm movin' in, baby, it's you and me!" "Where's Jimmy?" She ran into the bedroom,
then came back out. "You little prick! What's going on here?" I picked up a cigarette, lit it. I grinned.
"You're beautiful when you're angry . . ." "You're nothing but a god-damned little kid drunk on beer.
Go home." "Sit down, baby. Have a beer." Clare sat down. I was very surprised when she did that.
"You go to Chelsey, don't you?" she asked. "Yeah. Jim and I are buddies." "You're Hank." "Yes."
"He's told me about you." I handed Clare a can of beer. My hand shook. "Here, have a drink,
baby."
She opened the beer and took a sip. I looked at Clare, lifted my beer and had a hit. She was
plenty of woman, a Mae West type, wore the same kind of tight-fitting gown -- big hips, big legs.
And breasts. Startling breasts.
Clare crossed her wondrous legs, a bit of skirt falling back. Her legs were full and golden and the
stockings fit like skin. "I've met your mother," she said.
I drained my can of beer and put it down by my feet. I opened a new one, took a sip, then
looked at her, not knowing whether to look at her breasts or at her legs or into her tired face.
"I'm sorry that I got your son drunk. But I've got to tell you something."
She turned her head, lighting a cigarette as she did so, then faced me again.
"Yes?" " Clare, I love you."
She didn't laugh. She just gave me a little smile, the corners of her mouth turning up a little.
"Poor boy. You're nothing but a little chicken just out of the egg." It was true hut it angered me.
Maybe because it was true. The dream and the beer wanted it to be something else. I took another
drink and looked at her and said, "Cut the shit. Lift your skirt. Show me some leg. Show me some
flank."
"You're just a boy." Then I said it. I don't know where the words came from, but I said it, "I
could tear you in half, baby, if you gave me the chance." "Yeah?"
"Yeah." "All right. Let's see."
Then she did it. Just like that. She uncrossed her legs and pulled her skirt back. She didn't have
on panties.
I saw her huge white upper flanks, rivers of flesh. There was a large protruding wart on the inside
of her left thigh. And there was a jungle of tangled hair between her legs, but it was not bright yellow
like the hair on her head, it was brown and shot with grey, old like some sick bush dying, lifeless and
sad. I stood up.
"I've got to go, Mrs. Hatcher." "Christ, I thought you wanted to party! " "Not with your son in the
other room, Mrs. Hatcher." "Don't worry about him, Hank. He's passed out." "No, Mrs. Hatcher,
I've really  got to go." "All right, get out of here you god-damned little piss-ant!" I closed the door
behind me and walked down the hall of the apartment building and out into the street. To think,
somebody had suicided for that. The night suddenly looked good. I walked along toward my
parents' house.
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I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't
particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out,
someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall
me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that,
seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To
go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be
part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . was a man born just
to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and
drink myself to sleep.
My father had a master plan. He told me, "My son, each man during his lifetime should buy a
house. Finally he dies and leaves that house to his son. Then his son gets his own house and dies,
leaves both houses to his  son. That's two houses. That son gets his own house, that's three houses . .
."
The family structure. Victory over adversity through the family. He believed in it. Take the family,
mix with God and Country, add the ten-hour day and you had what was needed.
I looked at my father, at his hands, his face, his eyebrows, and I knew that this man had nothing
to do with me. He was a stranger. My mother was non-existent. I was cursed. Looking at my father
I saw nothing but indecent dullness. Worse, he was even more afraid to fail than most others.
Centuries of peasant blood and peasant training. The Chinaski bloodline had been thinned by a series
of peasant-servants who had surrendered their real lives for fractional and illusionary gains. Not a
man in the line who said, "I don't want a house, I want a thousand  houses, now!"
He had sent me to that rich high school hoping that the ruler's attitude would rub off on me as I
watched the rich boys screech up in their cream-colored coupes and pick up the girls in bright
dresses. Instead I learned that the poor usually stay poor. That the young rich smell the stink of the
poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying. They'd
learned that, through the centuries. I would never forgive the girls for getting into those cream-
colored coupes with the laughing boys. They couldn't help it, of course, yet you always think, maybe
. . . But no, there weren't any maybes. Wealth meant victory and victory was the only reality. What
woman chooses to live with a dishwasher?
Throughout high school I tried not to think too much about how things might eventually turn out
for me. It seemed better to delay thinking . . .
Finally it was the day of the Senior Prom. It was held in the girls' gym with live music, a real band.
I don't know why but I walked over that night, the two-and-one-half miles from my parents' place. I
stood outside in the dark and I looked in there, through the wire-covered window, and I was
astonished. All the girls looked very grown-up, stately, lovely, they were in long dresses, and they all
looked beautiful. I almost didn't recognize them. And the boys in their tuxes, they looked great, they
danced so straight, each of them holding a girl in his arms, their faces pressed against the girl's hair.
They all danced beautifully and the music was loud and clear and good, powerful.
Then I caught a glimpse of my reflection staring in at them -- boils and scars on my face, my
ragged shirt. I was like some jungle animal drawn to the light and looking in. Why had I come? I felt
sick. But I kept watching. The dance ended. There was a pause. Couples spoke easily to each
other. It was natural and civilized.
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Where had they learned to converse and to dance? I couldn't converse or dance. Everybody
knew something I didn't know. The girls looked so good, the boys so handsome. I would be too
terrified to even look at one of those girls, let alone be close to one. To look into her eyes or dance
with her would be beyond me.
And yet I knew that what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to
be paid for it all, a general falsity, that could he easily believed, and could be the first step down a
dead-end street. The band began to play again and the boys and girls began to dance again and the
lights revolved overhead throwing shades of gold, then red, then blue, then green, then gold again on
the couples. As I watched them I said to myself, someday my dance will begin. When that day
comes I will have something that they don't have.
But then it got to be too much for me. I hated them. I hated their beauty, their untroubled youth,
and as I watched them dance through the magic colored pools of light, holding each other, feeling so
good, little unscathed children, temporarily in luck, I hated them because they had something I had
not yet had, and I said to myself, I said to myself again, someday I will be as happy as any of you,
you will see.
They kept dancing, and I repeated it to them. Then there was a sound behind me.
"Hey! What are you doing?" It was an old man with a flashlight. He had a head like a frog's head.
"I'm watching the dance."
He held the flashlight right up under his nose. His eyes were round and large, they gleamed like a
cat's eyes in the moonlight, But his mouth was shriveled, collapsed, and his head was round. It had a
peculiar senseless roundness that reminded me of a pumpkin trying to play pundit. "Get your ass out
of here!"
He ran the flashlight up and down all over me. "Who are you?" I asked.
"I'm the night custodian. Get your ass out of here before I call the cops!"
"What for? This is the Senior From and I'm a senior." He flashed his light into my face. The hand
was playing "Deep Purple." "Bullshit!" he said. "You're at least 22 years old!" "I'm in the yearbook,
Class of 1939, graduating class, Henry Chinaski." "Why aren't you in there dancing?"
"Forget it. I'm going home." "Do that."
I walked off. I kept walking. His flashlight leaped on the path, the light following me. I walked off
campus. It was a nice warm night, almost hot. I thought I saw some fireflies but I wasn't sure.
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45
Graduation Day. We filed in with our caps and gowns to "Pomp and Circumstance." I suppose
that in our three years we must have learned something. Our ability to spell had probably improved
and we had grown in size. I was still a virgin. "Hey, Henry, you busted your cherry yet?" "No way,"
I'd say.
Jimmy Hatcher sat next to me. The principal was giving his address and really scraping the bottom
of the old shit barrel.
"America is the great land of Opportunity and any man or woman with a desire to do so will
succeed . . ."
"Dishwasher," I said. "Dog catcher," said Jimmy.
"Burglar," I said.
"Garbage collector," said Jimmy.
"Madhouse attendant," I said.
"America is brave, America was built by the brave . . . Ours is a just society."
"Just so much for the few," said Jimmy. ". . . a fair society and all those who search for that dream
at the end of the rainbow will and . . ."
"A hairy crawling turd," I suggested. ". . . and I can say, without hesitation, that this particular
Class of Summer 1939, less than a decade removed from the beginning of our terrible national
Depression, this class of Summer '39 is more ripe with courage, talent and love than any class it has
been my pleasure to witness!"
The mothers, fathers, relatives applauded wildly; a few of the students joined in.
"Class of Summer 1939, I am proud of your future, I am sure of your future. I send you out now
to your great adventure!"
Most of them were headed over to U.S.C. to live the non- working life for at least four more
years.
"And I send my prayers and blessings with you! " The honor students received their diplomas
first. Out they came. Abe Mortenson was called. He got his. I applauded. "Where's he gonna end
up?" Jimmy asked. "Cost accountant in an auto parts manufacturing concern. Somewhere near
Gardena, California."
"A lifetime job . . ." said Jimmy. "A lifetime wife," I added.
"Abe will never be miserable . . ." "Or happy."
"An obedient man . . ."
"A broom."
"A stiff . . ."
"A wimp."
When the honor students had been taken care of they began on us. I felt uncomfortable sitting
there. I felt like walking out. "Henry Chinaski!" I was called.
"Public servant," I told Jimmy. I walked up to and across the stage, took the diploma, shook the
principal's hand. It felt slimy like the inside of a dirty fish bowl. (Two years later he would be
exposed as an embezzler of school funds; he was to be tried, convicted and jailed.)
I passed Mortenson and the honor group as I went back to my seat. He looked over and gave
me the finger, so only I could see it. That got me. It was so unexpected. I walked back and sat down
next to Jimmy. " Mortenson gave me the finger! "
"No, I don't believe  it!" 'Son-of-a-bitch! He's spoiled my day! Not that it was worth a fuck
anyhow but he's really greased it over now!"
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I can't believe he had the guts to finger  you." "It's not like him. You think he's getting some
coaching?" "I don't know what to think."
"He knows that I can bust him in half without even inhaling!" "Bust him!"
"But don't you see, he's won? It's the way he surprised me!" "All you gotta do is kick his ass all
up and down." "Do you think that son-of-a-bitch learned something reading all those books? I know
there's nothing in them because I read every fourth page." "Jimmy Hatcher!" His name was called.
"Priest," he said. "Poultry farmer," I said.
Jimmy went up and got his. I applauded loudly. Anybody who could live with a mother like his
deserved some accolade. He came back and we sat watching all the golden boys and girls go up and
get theirs. "You can't blame them for being rich," Jimmy said. "No, I blame their fucking parents."
"And their grandparents," said Jimmy. "Yes, I'd be happy to take their new cars and their pretty
girlfriends and I wouldn't give a fuck about anything like social justice."
"Yeah," said Jimmy. "I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to
them."
The golden boys and girls went on parading across the stage. I sat there wondering whether to
punch Abe out or not. I could see him flopping on the sidewalk still in his cap and gown, the victim of
my right cross, all the pretty girls screaming, thinking, my god, this Chinaski guy must be a bull on the
springs!
On the other hand, Abe wasn't much. He was hardly there. It wouldn't take anything to punch him
out. I decided not to do it. I had already broken his arm and his parents hadn't sued mine, finally. If I
busted his head they would surely go ahead and sue. They would take my old man's last copper.
Not that I would mind. It was my mother: she would suffer in a fool's way: senselessly and without
reason.
Then, the ceremony was over. The students left their seats and filed out. Students met with
parents, relatives on the front lawn. There was much bugging, embracing. I saw my parents waiting. I
walked up to them, stood about four feet away.
"Let's get out of here," I said. My mother was looking at me.
"Henry, I'm so proud of you!"
Then my mother's head turned. "Oh, there goes Abe and his parents! They're such nice people!
Oh, Mrs. Mortenson !"
They stopped. My mother ran over and threw her arms about Mrs. Mortenson. It was Mrs.
Mortenson who had decided not to sue after many, many hours of conversation upon the telephone
with my mother. It had been decided that I was a confused individual and that my mother had
suffered enough that way.
My father shook hands with Mr. Mortenson and I walked over to Abe. "O.K., cocksucker,
what's the idea of giving me the finger?" "What?"
"The finger ." "I don't know what you're talking about!" " The finger .'"
"Henry, I really don't know what you're talking about!" "All right, Abraham, it's time to go!" said
his mother. The Mortenson family walked off together. I stood there watching them. Then we started
walking to our old car. We walked west to the corner and turned south. "Now that Mortenson boy
really knows how to apply  himself!" said my father. "How are you ever going to make it? I've never
even seen you look at a schoolbook, let alone inside  of one!" "Some books arc dull," I said.
"Oh, they're dull , are they? So you don't want to  study? What can you do? What good  are
you? What can you do? It has cost me thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you!
Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies."
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My mother began to cry. My father pulled her away and down the block to where their ten-year-
old car was parked. As I stood there, the other families roared past in their new cars, going
somewhere. Then Jimmy Hatcher and his mother walked by. She stopped. "Hey, wait a minute," she
told Timmy, "I want to congratulate Henry." Jimmy waited and Clare walked over. She put her face
close to mine. She spoke softly so Jimmy wouldn't hear. "Listen, Honey, any time you really  want to
graduate, I can arrange to give you your diploma."
"Thanks, Clare, I might be seeing you." "I'll rip your balls off, Henry!" "I don't doubt it, Clare."
She went back to Jimmy and they walked away down the street. A very old car rolled up,
stopped, the engine died. I could see my mother weeping, big tears were running down her cheeks.
"Henry, get in! Please  get in! Your father is right but I love you!"
"Forget it. I've got a place to go." "No, Henry, get in!" she wailed. "Get in or I'll die!"  I walked
over, opened the rear door, climbed into the rear seat. The engine started and we were off again.
There I sat, Henry Chinaski, Class of Summer '39, driving into the bright future. No, being driven. At
the first red light the car stalled. As the signal turned green my father was still trying to start the
engine. Somebody behind us hooked. My father got the car started and we were in motion again.
My mother had stopped crying. We drove along like that, each of us silent.
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46
Times were still hard. Nobody was any more surprised than I when Mears-Starbuck phoned and
asked me to report to work the next Monday. I had gone all around town putting in dozens of
applications. There was nothing else to do. I didn't want a job but I didn't want to live with my
parents either. Mears-Starbuck must have had thousands of applications on hand. I couldn't believe
they had chosen me. It was a department store with branches in many cities.
The next Monday, there I was walking to work with my lunch in a brown paper bag. The
department store was only a few blocks away from my former high school.
I still didn't understand why I had been selected. After filling out the application, the interview had
lasted only a few minutes. I must have given all the right answers.
First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public
Library.
As I walked along I didn't feel so alone and I wasn't. I noticed a starving mongrel dog following
me. The poor creature was terribly thin; I could see his ribs poking through his skin. Most of his fur
had fallen off. What remained clung in dry, twisted patches. The dog was beaten, cowed, deserted,
frightened, a victim of Homo sapiens.
I stopped and knelt, put out my hand. He backed off. "Come here, fellow, I'm your friend . . .
Come on, come on . . ."
He came closer. He had such sad eyes. "What have they done to you, boy?" He came still closer,
creeping along the sidewalk, trembling, wagging his tail quite rapidly. Then he leaped at me. He was
large, what was left of him. His forelegs pushed me backwards and I was flat on the sidewalk and he
was licking my face, mouth, ears, forehead, everywhere. I pushed him off, got up and wiped my
face.
"Easy now! You need something to eat!  FOOD!" I reached into my bag and took out a
sandwich. I unwrapped it and broke off a portion.
"Some for you and some for me, old boy!" I put his part of the sandwich on the sidewalk. He
came up, sniffed at it, then walked off, slinking, staring back at me over his shoulder as he walked
down the street away from me.
"Hey, wait, buddy! That was peanut butter!  Come here, have some bologna!  Hey, boy, come
here! Come back!"
The dog approached again, cautiously. I found the bologna sandwich, ripped off a chunk, wiped
the cheap watery mustard off, then placed it on the sidewalk.
I he dog walked up to the bit of sandwich, put his nose to it, sniffed, then turned and walked off.
This time he didn't look back. He accelerated down the street.
No wonder I had been depressed all my life. I wasn't getting proper nourishment.
I walked on toward the department store. It was the same street I had walked along to go to high
school.
I arrived. I found the employees' entrance, pushed the door open and walked in. I went from
bright sunlight into semi- darkness. As my eyes adjusted I could make out a man standing several
feet away in front of me. Half of his left ear had been sliced off at some point in the past. He was a
tall, very thin man with needlepoint grey pupils centered in otherwise colorless eyes. A very tall thin
man, yet right above his belt, sticking out over his belt -- suddenly -- was a sad and hideous and
strange pot belly. All his fat had settled there while the remainder of him had wasted away.
"I'm Superintendent Ferris," he said. "I presume that you're Mr. Chinaski?"
"Yes, sir." "You're five minutes late."
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"I was delayed by . . . Well, I stopped to try to feed a starving dog," I grinned.
"That's one of the lousiest excuses I've ever heard and I've been here thirty-five years. Couldn't
you come up with a better one than that?"
"I'm just starting, Mr. Ferris." "And you're almost finished. Now," he pointed, "the time- clock is
over there and the card rack is over there. Find your card and punch in."
I found my card. Henry Chinaski, employee #68754. Then I walked up to the timeclock but I
didn't know what to do. Ferris walked over and stood behind me, staring at the time- clock. "You're
now six minutes late. When you are ten minutes late we dock you an hour."
"I guess it's better to be an hour late." "Don't be funny. If I want a comedian I listen to Jack
Benny. If you're an hour late you're docked your whole god-damned job." "I'm sorry, but I don't
know how to use a timeclock. I mean, how do I punch in?"
Ferris grabbed the card out of my hand. He pointed at it. "See this slot?"
"Yeah." "What?"
"I mean, 'yes.'"
"O.K., that slot is for the first day of the week. Today." " Ah."
"You slip the timecard into here like this . . ." He slipped it in, then pulled it out.
"Then when your timecard is in there you hit this lever." Ferris hit the lever but the timecard wasn't
in there. "I understand. Let's begin."
"No, wait." He held the timecard in front of me. "Now, when you punch out for lunch, you hit this
slot." "Yes, I understand."
"Then when you punch back in, you hit the next slot. Lunch is thirty minutes."
"Thirty minutes, I've got it."
"Now, when you punch out, you hit the last slot. That's four punches a day. Then you go home,
or to your room or wherever, sleep, come back and hit it four more times each working day until you
get fired, quit, die or retire."
"I've got it." "And I want you to know that you've delayed my indoctrination speech to our new
employees, of which you, at the moment, are one. I am in charge here. My word is law and your
wishes mean nothing. If I dislike anything about you -- the way you tie your shoes, comb your hair or
fart, you're back on the streets, get it?"
"Yes, sir!" A young girl came flouncing in, running on her high heels, long brown hair flowing
behind her. She was dressed in a tight red dress. Her lips were large and expressive with excessive
lipstick. She theatrically pulled her. card out of the rack, punched in, and breathing with minor
excitement, she put her card back in the rack.
She glanced over at Ferris. "Hi, Eddie!"
"Hi, Diana!"
Diana was obviously a salesgirl. Ferris walked over to her. They stood talking. I couldn't hear the
conversation but I could hear them laughing. Then they broke off. Diana walked over and waited for
the elevator to take her to her work. Ferris walked back toward me holding my timecard. "I'll punch
in now, Mr. Ferris," I told him.
"I'll do it for you. I want to start you out right." Ferris inserted my timecard into the clock and
stood there. He waited. I heard the clock tick, then he hit it. He put my card in the rack. "How late
was I, Mr. Ferris?"
"Ten minutes. Now follow me." I followed along behind him. I saw the group waiting. Four men
and three women. They were all old. They seemed to have salivary problems. Little clumps of spittle
had formed at the corners of their mouths; the spittle had dried and turned white and then been
coated by new wet spittle. Some of them were too thin, others too fat. Some were near- sighted;
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others trembled. One old fellow in a brightly colored shirt had a hump on his back. They all smiled
and coughed, puffing at cigarettes. Then I got it. The message.
Mears-Starbuck was looking for stayers . The company didn't care for employee turnover
(although these new recruits obviously weren't going anywhere but to the grave -- until then they'd
remain grateful and loyal employees). And I had been chosen to work alongside of them. The lady in
the employment office had evaluated me as belonging with this pathetic group of losers.
What would the guys in high school think if they saw me? Me, one of the toughest guys in the
graduating class.
I walked over and stood with my group. Ferris sat on a table facing us. A shaft of light fell upon
him from an overhead transom. He inhaled his cigarette and smiled at us.
"Welcome to Mears-Starbuck . . ." Then he seemed to fall into a reverie. Perhaps he was thinking
about when he had first joined the department store thirty-five years ago. He blew a few smoke rings
and watched them rise into the air. His half-sliced ear looked impressive in the light from above.
The guy next to me, a little pretzel of a man, knifed his sharp little elbow into my side. He was one
of those individuals whose glasses always seem ready to fall off. He was uglier than I was.
"Hi!" he whispered. "I'm Mewks. Odell Mewks." "Hello, Mewks."
"Listen, kid, after work let's you and me make the bars. Maybe we can pick up some girls."
"I can't, Mewks." "Afraid of girls?"
"It's my brother, he's sick. I've got to watch over him." "Sick?"
"Worse. Cancer. He has to piss through a tube into a bottle strapped to his leg."
Then Ferris began again. "Your starting salary is forty-four- and-a- half cents an hour. We are
non-union here. Management believes that what is fair for the company is fair for you. We are like a
family, dedicated to serve and to profit. You will each receive a ten-percent discount on all
merchandise you purchase from Mears-Starbuck . . ." "OH, BOY!" Mewks said in a loud voice.
"Yes, Mr. Mewks, it's a good deal. You take care of us, we'll take care of you."
I could stay with Mears-Starbuck for forty-seven years, I thought. I could live with a crazy
girlfriend, get my left ear sliced off and maybe inherit Ferris' job when he retired.
Ferris talked about which holidays we could look forward to and then the speech was over. We
were issued our smocks and our lockers and then we were directed to the underground storage
facilities.
Ferris worked down there too. He manned the phones. Whenever he answered the phone he
would hold it to his sliced left ear with his left hand and clamp his right hand under his left armpit.
"Yes? Yes? Yes. Coming right up!"
"Chinaski!" "Yes, sir."
"Lingerie department . . ."
Then he would pick up the order pad, list the items needed and how many of each. He never did
this while on the phone, always afterwards.
"Locate these items, deliver them to the lingerie department, obtain a signature and return."
His speech never varied.
My first delivery was to lingerie. I located the items, placed them in my little green cart with its
four rubber wheels and pushed it toward the elevator. The elevator was at an upper floor and I
pressed the button and waited. After some time I could see the bottom of the elevator as it came
down. It was very slow. Then it was at basement level. The doors opened and an albino with one
eye stood at the controls. Jesus. He looked at me.
"New guy, huh?" he asked. "Yeah."
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"What do you think of Ferris?"
"I think he's a great guy."
They probably lived together in the same room and took turns manning the hotplate.
"I can't take you up." "Why not?"
"I gotta take a shit."
He left the elevator and walked off. There I stood in my smock. This was the way things usually
worked. You were a governor or a garbageman, you were a tight-rope walker or a bank robber,
you were a dentist or a fruit picker, you were this or you were that. You wanted to do a good job.
You manned your station and then you stood and waited for some asshole. I stood there in my
smock next to my green cart while the elevator man took a shit.
It came to me then, clearly, why the rich, golden boys and girls were always laughing. They knew.
The albino returned.
"It was great. I feel thirty pounds lighter." "Good. Can we go now?"
He closed the doors and we rose to the sales floor. He opened the doors.
"Good luck," said the albino. I pushed my green cart down through the aisles looking for the
lingerie department, a Miss Meadows.
Miss Meadows was waiting. She was slender and classy- looking. She looked like a model. Her
arms were folded. As I approached her I noticed her eyes. They were an emerald green, there was
depth, a knowledge there. I should know somebody like that. Such eyes, such class. I stopped my
cart in front of her counter.
"Hello, Miss Meadows," I smiled. "Where the hell have you been?" she asked. "It just took this
long."
"Do you realize I have customers waiting? Do you realize that I'm attempting to run an efficient
department here?"
The salesclerks got ten cents an hour more than we did, plus commissions. I was to discover that
they never spoke to us in a friendly way. Male or female, the clerks were the same. They took any
familiarity as an affront.
"I've got a good mind to phone Mr. Ferris."
"I'll do better next time. Miss Meadows." I placed the goods on her counter and then handed her
the form to sign. She scratched her signature furiously on the paper, then instead of handing it back
to me she threw it into my green cart.
"Christ, I don't know where they find people like you!" I pushed my cart over to the elevator, hit
the button and waited. The doors opened and I rolled on in.
"How'd it go?" the albino asked me. "I feel thirty pounds heavier," I told him. He grinned, the
doors closed and we descended.
Over dinner that night my mother said, "Henry, I'm so proud of you that you have a job!"
I didn't answer. My father said, "Well, aren't you glad to have a job?" "Yeah."
"Yeah? Is that all you can say? Do you realize how many men are unemployed in this nation
now?"
"Plenty, I guess." "Then you should be grateful."
"Look, can't we just eat our food?" "You should be grateful for your food, too. Do you know
how much this meal cost?"
I shoved my plate away. "Shit! I can't eat this stuff!" I got up and walked to my bedroom.
"I've got a good mind to come back there and teach you what is what!" I stopped. "I'll be waiting,
old man."
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Then I walked away. I went in and waited. But I knew he wasn't coming. I set the alarm to get
ready for Mears-Starbuck. It was only 7:30 p.m. but I undressed and went to bed. I switched off
the light and was in the dark. There was nothing else to do, nowhere to go. My parents would soon
be in bed with the lights out.
My father liked the slogan, "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise."
But it hadn't done any of that for him. I decided that I might try to reverse the process.
I couldn't sleep. Maybe if I masturbated to Miss Meadows? Too cheap. I wallowed there in the
dark, waiting for something,
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47
The first three or four days at Mears-Starbuck were identical. In fact, similarity was a very
dependable thing at Mears-Starbuck. The caste system was an accepted fact. There wasn't a single
salesclerk who spoke to a stock- clerk outside of a perfunctory word or two. And it affected me. I
thought about it as I pushed my cart about. Was it possible that the salesclerks were more intelligent
than the stockclerks? They certainly dressed better. It bothered me that they assumed that their
station meant so much. Perhaps if I had been a salesclerk I would have felt the same way. I didn't
much care for the other stockclerks. Or the salesclerks.
Now, I thought, pushing my cart along, I have this job. Is this to be it? No wonder men robbed
banks. There were too many demeaning jobs. Why the hell wasn't I a superior court judge or a
concert pianist? Because it took training and training cost money. But I didn't want to be anything
anyhow. And I was certainly succeeding.
I pushed my cart to the elevator and hit the button. Women wanted men who made money,
women wanted men of mark. I low many classy women were living with skid row bums? Well, I
didn't want a woman anyhow. Not to live with. How could men live with women? What did it mean?
What I wanted was a cave in Colorado with three-years' worth of foodstuffs and drink. I'd wipe my
ass with sand. Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.
The elevator came up. The albino was still at the controls. "Hey, I hear you and Mewks made the
bars last night!" "He bought me a few beers. I'm broke."
"You guys get laid?" "I didn't."
"Why don't you guys take me along next time? I'll show you how to get some snatch."
"What do you know?" "I've been around. Just last week I had a Chinese girl. And you know, it's
just like they say."
"What's that?" We hit the basement and the doors opened. "Their snatch doesn't run up and
down, it runs from side to side."
Ferris was waiting for me.
"Where the hell you been?"
"Home gardening."
"What did you do, fertilize the fuchsias?" "Yeah, I drop one turd in each pot." "Listen, Chinaski . .
."
"Yes?"
"The punchlines around here belong to me. Got it?" "Got it."
"Well, get this. I've got an order here for Men's Wear." He handed me the order slip.
"Locate these items, deliver them, obtain a signature and return." Men's Wear was run by Mr.
Justin Phillips, Jr. He was well- bred, he was polite, around twenty-two. He stood very straight, had
dark hair, dark eyes, breeding lips. There was an unfortunate absence of cheekbones but it was
hardly noticeable. He was pale and wore dark clothing with beautifully starched shirts. The salesgirls
loved him. He was sensitive, intelligent, clever. He was also just a bit nasty as if some forebear had
passed down that right to him. He had only broken with tradition once to speak to me. "It's a shame,
isn't it, those rather ugly scars on your face?" As I rolled my cart up to Men's Wear, Justin Phillips
was standing very straight, head tilted a bit, staring, as he did most of the time, looking off and up as
if he was seeing things we were not. He saw things out there. Maybe I just didn't recognize breeding
when I saw it. He certainly appeared to be above his surroundings. It was a good trick if you could
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do it and get paid at the same time. Maybe that's what management and the salesgirls liked. Here
was a man truly too good for what he was doing, but he was doing it anyhow.
I rolled up. "Here's your order, Mr. Phillips." He appeared not to notice me, which hurt in a
sense, and was a good thing in another. I stacked the goods on the counter as he stared off into
space, just above the elevator door.
Then I heard golden laughter and I looked. It was a gang of guys who had graduated with me
from Chelsey High. They were trying on sweaters, hiking shorts, various items. I knew them by sight
only, as we had never spoken during our four years of high school. The leader was Jimmy New hall.
He had been the halfback on our football team, undefeated for three years. His hair was a beautiful
yellow, the sun always seemed to be highlighting parts of it, the sun or the lights in the schoolroom.
He had a thick, powerful neck and above it sat the face of a perfect boy sculpted by some master
sculptor. Everything was exactly as it should be: nose, forehead, chin, the works. And the body
likewise, perfectly formed. The others with Newhall were not exactly as perfect as he was, but they
were close. They stood around and tried on sweaters and laughed, waiting to go to U.S.C. or
Stanford.
Justin Phillips signed my receipt. I was on my way back to the elevator when I heard a voice:
"HEY, Ski! Ski, YOU LOOK GREAT IN YOUR LITTLE OUTFIT!" I stopped, turned, gave
them a casual wave of the left hand. "Look at him! Toughest guy in town since Tommy Dorsey!"
"Makes Gable look like a toilet plunger."
I left my wagon and walked back. I didn't know what I was going to do. I stood there and
looked at them. I didn't like them, never had. They might look glorious to others but not to me. There
was something about their bodies that was like a woman's body. They were soft, they had never
faced any fire. They were beautiful nothings. They made me sick. I hated them. They were part of
the nightmare that always haunted me in one form or another.
Jimmy Newhall smiled at me. "Hey, stockboy, how come you never tried out for the team?"
"It wasn't what I wanted." "No guts, eh?"
"You know where the parking lot on the roof is?" "Sure."
"See you there . . ." They strolled out toward the parking lot as I took my smock off and threw it
into the cart. Justin Phillips, Jr. smiled at me, "My dear boy, you are going to get your ass whipped."
Jimmy Newhall was waiting, surrounded by his buddies. "Hey, look, the stockboy!"
"You think he's wearing ladies' underwear?" Newhall was standing in the sun. He had his shirt off
and his undershirt too. He had his gut sucked in and his chest pushed out. He looked good. What the
hell had I gotten into? I felt my underlip trembling. Up there on the roof, I felt fear. I looked at
Newhall, the golden sun highlighting his golden hair. I had watched him many times on the football
field. I had seen him break off many 50 and 60 yard runs while I rooted for the other team,
Now we stood looking at each other. I left my shirt on. We kept standing. I kept standing.
Newhall finally said, "O.K., I'm going to take you now." He started to move forward. Just then a
little old lady dressed in black came by with many packages. She had on a tiny green felt hat.
"Hello, boys!" she said. "Hello, ma'am."
"Lovely day . . ."
The little old lady opened her car door and loaded in the packages. Then she turned to Jimmy
Newhall.
"Oh, what a fine body you have, my boy! I'll bet you could be Tarzan of the Apes!"
"No, ma'am," I said. "Pardon me, but he's the ape and those with him are his tribe."
"Oh," she said. She got into her car, started it and we waited as she backed out and drove off.
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"O.K., Chinaski," said Newhall, "all through school you were famous for your sneer and your big
god-damned mouth. And now I'm going to put the cure on you!"
Newhall bounded forward. He was ready. I wasn't quite ready. All I saw was a backdrop of blue
sky and a flash of body and fists. He was quicker than an ape, and bigger. I couldn't seem to throw a
punch, I only felt his fists and they were rock hard. Squinting through punched eyes I could see his
fists, swinging, landing, my god, he had power, it seemed endless and there was no place to go. I
began to think, maybe you are a sissy, maybe you should be, maybe you should quit.
But as he continued to punch, my fear vanished. I felt only astonishment at his strength and
energy. Where did he get it? A swine like him? He was loaded. I couldn't see anymore -- my eyes
were blinded by flashes of yellow and green light, purple light -- then a terrific shot of RED . . . I felt
myself going down. Is this the way it happens?
I fell to one knee. I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it. I felt something run
over my mouth and chin . . . it was warm blood running from my nose.
"Let him go, Jimmy, he's finished . . ." I looked at Newhall. "Your mother sucks cock," I told him.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
Newhall rushed me before I could quite get up. He had me by the throat and we rolled over and
over, under a Dodge. I heard his head hit something. I didn't know what it hit but I heard the sound.
It happened quite quickly and the others were not as aware of it as I was.
I got up and then Newhall got up. "I'm going to kill you," he said. Newhall windmilled in. This time
it wasn't nearly so bad. He punched with the same fury, but something was missing. He was weaker.
When he hit me I didn't see flashes of color, I could see the sky, the parked cars, the faces of his
friends, and him. I had always been a slow starter. Newhall was still trying but he was definitely
weaker. And I had my small hands, I was blessed with small hands, lousy weapons.
What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.
I dug a hard right to his belly and I heard him gasp so I grabbed him behind the neck with my left
and dug another right to his belly. Then I pushed him off and cracked him with a one-two, right into
that sculpted face. I saw his eyes and it was great. I was bringing something to him that he had never
felt before. He was terrified. Terrified because he didn't know how to handle defeat. I decided to
finish him slowly.
Then someone slugged me on the back of the head. It was a good hard shot. I turned and
looked. It was his red-headed friend, Cal Evans. I yelled, pointing at him. "Stay the fuck away from
me! I'll take all of you one at a time! As soon as I'm done with this guy, you're next!"
It didn't take much to finish Jimmy. I even tried some fancy footwork. I jabbed a bit, played
around and then I moved in and started punching. He took it pretty good and for a while I thought I
couldn't finish it but all of a sudden he gave me this strange look which said, hey, look, maybe we
ought to be buddies and go have a couple of beers together. Then he dropped.
His friends moved in and picked him up, they held him up, talked to him, "Hey, Jim, you O.K.?"
"What'd the son-of-a-bitch do to you, Jim? We'll clean his drawers, Jim. Just give us the word."
"Take me home," Jim said. I watched them go down the stairway, all of them trying to hold him
up, one guy carrying his shirt and undershirt . . .
I went downstairs to get my cart. Justin Phillips was waiting. "I didn't think you'd be back," he
smiled disdainfully. "Don't fraternize with the unskilled help," I told him. I pushed off. My face, my
clothes -- 1 was pretty badly messed up. I walked to the elevator and hit the button. The albino
came in due time. The doors opened.
"The word's out," he said. "I hear you're the new heavyweight champion of the world."
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News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.
Ferns of the sliced ear was waiting. "You just don't go around beating the shit out of our
customers." "It was only one."
"We have no way of knowing when you might start in on the others." "This guy baited me."
"We don't give a damn about that. That's what happens. All we know is that you were out of
line."
"How about my check?" "It'll be mailed."
"O.K., see you . . ."
"Wait, I'll need your locker key." I got out my key chain which only had one other key on it,
pulled off the locker key and handed it to Ferris.
Then I walked to the employees' door, pulled it open. It was a heavy steel door which worked
awkwardly. As it opened, letting in the daylight, I turned and gave Ferris a small wave. He didn't
respond. He just looked straight at me. Then the door closed on him. I liked him, somehow.
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48
"So you couldn't hold a job for a week?" We were eating meatballs and spaghetti. My problems
were always discussed at dinner time. Dinner time was almost always an unhappy time. I didn't
answer my father's question.
"What happened? Why did they can your ass?" I didn't answer.
"Henry, answer your father when he speaks to you!" my mother said. "He couldn't back it, that's
all!"
"Look at his face," said my mother, "it's all bruised and cut. Did your boss beat you up, Henry?"
"No, Mother . . ." "Why don't you eat, Henry? You never seem to be hungry." "He can't eat,"
said my father, "he can't work, he can't do anything, he's not worth a fuck!"
"You shouldn't talk that way at the dinner table, Daddy," my mother told him.
"Well, it's true!" My father had an immense ball of spaghetti rolled on his fork. He jammed it into
his mouth and started chewing and while chewing he speared a large meatball and plunged it into his
mouth, then worked in a piece of French bread.
I remembered what Ivan had said in The Brothers Karamazov , "Who doesn't want to kill the
father?"
As my father chewed at the mass of food, one long string of spaghetti dangled from a corner of
his mouth. He finally noticed it and sucked it in noisily. Then he reached, put two large teaspoons of
white sugar into his coffee, lifted the cup and took a giant mouthful, which he immediately spit out
across his plate and onto the tablecloth.
"That shit's too hot!" "You should be more careful, Daddy," said my mother.
I combed the job market, as they used to say, but it was a dreary and useless routine. You had to
know somebody to get a job even as a lowly bus boy. Thus everybody was a dishwasher, the whole
town was full of unemployed dishwashers. I sat with them in Pershing Square in the afternoons. The
evangelists were there too. Some had drums, some had guitars, and the bushes and restrooms
crawled with homosexuals.
"Some of them have money," a young bum told me. "This guy took me to his apartment for two
weeks. I had all I could eat and drink and he bought me 'some clothes but he sucked me dry, I
couldn't stand up after a while. One night when he was asleep I crawled out of there. It was horrible.
He kissed me once and I knocked him across the room. 'You ever do that again,' I told him, 'and I'll
kill you!'"
Clifton's Cafeteria was nice. If you didn't have much money, they let you pay what you could.
And if you didn't have any money, you didn't have to pay. Some of the bums went in there and ate
well. It was owned by some very nice rich old man, a very unusual person. I could never make
myself go in there and load up. I'd go in for a coffee and an apple pie and give them a nickel.
Sometimes I'd get a couple of weenies. It was quiet and cool in there and clean. There was a large
waterfall and you could sit next to it and imagine that everything was quite all right. Philippe's was
nice too. You could get a cup of coffee for three cents with all the refills you wanted. You could sit in
there all day drinking coffee and they never asked you to leave no matter how bad you looked. They
just asked the bums not to bring in their wine and drink it there. Places like that gave you hope when
there wasn't much hope.
The men in Pershing Square argued all day about whether there was a God or not. Most of them
didn't argue very well but now and then you got a Religionist and an Atheist who were well-versed
and it was a good show.
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When I had a few coins I'd go to the underground bar beneath the big movie house. I was 18 but
they served me. I looked like I could be almost any age. Sometimes I looked 25, sometimes I felt
like 30. The bar was run by Chinese who never spoke to anyone. All I needed was the first beer and
then the homosexuals would start buying. I'd switch to whiskey sours. I'd bleed them for whiskey
sours and when they started closing in on me. I'd get nasty, push off and leave. After a while they
caught on and the place wasn't any good anymore.
The library was the most depressing place I went. I had run out of books to read. After a while I
would just grab a thick book and look for a young girl somewhere. There were always one or two
about. I'd sit three or four chairs away, pretending to read the book, trying to look intelligent, hoping
some girl would pick me up. I knew that I was ugly but I thought if I looked intelligent enough I might
have some chance. It never worked. The girls just made notes on their pads and then they got up
and left as I watched their bodies moving rhythmically and magically under their clean dresses. What
would Maxim Gorky have done under such circumstances?
At home it was always the same. The question was never asked until after the first few bites of
dinner were partaken. Then my father would ask, "Did you find a job today?"
"No." "Did you try anywhere?"
"Many places. I've gone back to some of the same places for the second or third time."
"I don't believe it." But it was true. It was also true that some companies put ads in the papers
every day when there were no jobs available. It gave the employment department in those
companies something to do. It also wasted the time and screwed up the hopes of many desperate
people.
"You'll find a job tomorrow, Henry," my mother would always say . . .
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49
I looked for a job all summer and couldn't find one. Jimmy Hatcher caught on at an aircraft plant.
Hitler was acting up in Europe and creating jobs for the unemployed. I had been with Jimmy that day
when we had turned in our applications. We filled them out in similar fashion, the only difference
being where it said Place of Birth , I put down Germany and he put down Reading, Pa.
"Jimmy got a job. He came from the same school and he's your age," said my mother. "Why
couldn't you get a job at the aircraft plant?"
"They can tell a man who doesn't have a taste for work," said my father. "All he wants to do is to
sit in the bedroom on his dead ass and listen to his symphony music!"
"Well, the boy likes music, that's something." "But he doesn't do anything with it! He doesn't make
it USEFUL!" "What should he do?"
"He should go to a radio station and tell them he likes that kind of music and get a job
broadcasting."
"Christ, it's not done like that, it's not that easy." "What do you know? Have you tried it?"
"I tell you, it can't be done." My father put a large piece of pork chop into his mouth. A greasy
portion hung out from between his lips as he chewed. It was as if he had three lips. Then he sucked it
in and looked at my mother. "You see, mama, the boy doesn't want to work."
My mother looked at me. "Henry, why don't you eat your food?"
It was finally decided that I would enroll at L.A. City College. There was no tuition fee and
second-hand books could be purchased at the Go-op Book Store. My father was simply ashamed
that I was unemployed and by going to school I would at least earn some respectability. Eli
LaCrosse ( Baldy) had already been there a term. He counseled me.
"What's the easiest fucking thing to take?" I asked him. "Journalism. Those journalism majors
don't do anything." "O.K., I'll be a journalist."
I looked through the school booklet. "What's this Orientation Day they speak of here?" "Oh, you
just skip that, that's bullshit."
"Thanks for telling me, buddy. We'll go instead to that bar across from campus and have a couple
of beers."
"Damn right!" "Yeah."
The day after Orientation Day was the day you signed up for classes. People were running about
frantically with papers and booklets. I had come over on the streetcar. I took the "W" to Vermont
and then took the "V" north to Monroe. I didn't know where everybody was going, or what I should
do. I felt sick.
"Pardon me . . ." I asked a girl. She turned her head and kept walking briskly. A guy came
running by and I grabbed him by the back of his belt and stopped him. "Hey, what the hell are you
doing?" he asked. "Shut up. I want to know what's going on! I want to know what to do!" "They
explained everything to you in Orientation." "Oh . . ."
I let him go and he ran off. I didn't know what to do. I had imagined that you just went
somewhere and told them you wanted to take Journalism, Beginning Journalism, and they'd give you
a card with a schedule of your classes. It was nothing like that. These people knew what to do and
they wouldn't talk. I felt as if I was in grammar school again, being mutilated by the crowd who knew
more than I did. I sat down on a bench and watched them running back and forth. Maybe I'd fake it.
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I'd just tell my parents I was going to L.A. City College and I'd come every day and lay on the lawn.
Then I saw this guy running along. It was Baldy. I got him from behind by the collar.
"Hey, hey. Hank! What's happening?" "I ought to cream you right now, you little asshole!"
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"How do I get a fucking class? What do I do?" "I thought you knew!"
"How? How would I know? Was I born with this knowledge inside of me, fully indexed, ready to
consult when needed?"
I walked him over to a bench, still holding him by his shirt collar. "Now, lay it out, nice and clear,
everything that needs to be done and how to do it. Do a good job and I might not cream you at this
moment!"
So Baldy explained it all. I had my own Orientation Day right there. I still held him by the collar.
"I'm going to let you go now. But some day I'm going to even this thing out. You're going to pay for
fucking me over. You won't know when, but it's going to happen."
I let him go. He went running off with the rest of them. There was no need for me to worry or
hurry. I was going to get the worst classes, the worst teachers and the worst hours. I strolled about
leisurely signing up for classes. I appeared to be the only unconcerned student on campus. I began to
feel superior.
Until my first 7 a.m. English class. It was 7:30 a.m. and I was hungover as I stood there outside
the door, listening. My parents had paid for my books and I had sold them for drinking money. I had
slid out of the bedroom window the night before and had closed the neighborhood bar. I had a
throbbing beer hangover. I still felt drunk. I opened the door and walked in. I stood there. Mr.
Hamilton, the English instructor, was standing before the class, singing, A record player was on,
loud, and the class was singing along with Mr. Hamilton. It was Gilbert and Sullivan.
Now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navy . . .
I copied all the letters in a big round hand . . .
Now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navy . . .
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea . . .
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navy . . .
I walked to the rear of the class and found an empty seat. Hamilton walked over and shut off the
record player. He was dressed in a black-and- white pepper suit with a shirt-front of bright orange.
He looked like Nelson Eddy. Then he faced the class, glanced at his wrist watch and addressed me:
"You must be Mr. Chinaski?"
I nodded. "You are thirty minutes late."
"Yes."
"Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?" "No."
"Why not, pray tell?" "Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was
mine it would be my funeral." I was always quick with the mouth. I would never learn.
"My dear sir," said Mr. Hamilton, "we have been listening to Gilbert and Sullivan in order to learn
proper enunciation. Please stand up." I stood up.
"Now, please sing, Stick close to your desks and never go to sea and you'll always be the
ruler of the Queens Navy ."
I stood there. "Well, go ahead, please!"
I went through it and sat down.
"Mr. Chinaski, I could barely hear you. Couldn't you sing with just a bit more verve?"
I stood up again. I sucked in a giant sea of air and let go. "IF YA WANNA BE DA RULLER
OF DEY QUEEN'S NABY STICK CLOSE TA YUR DESKS AN NEVA GO TA SEA!"
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I had gotten it backwards. "Mr. Chinaski," said Mr. Hamilton, "please sit down." I sat down. It
was Baldy's fault.
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50
Everybody had gym period at the same time. Baldy's locker was about four or five down from
mine in the same row. I went to my locker early. Baldy and I had a similar problem. We hated wool
pants because the wool itched our legs but our parents just loved for us to wear wool. I had solved
the problem, for Baldy and myself, by letting him in on a secret. All you had to do was to wear your
pajamas underneath the wool pants.
I opened my locker and undressed. I got my pants and pajamas off and then I took the pajamas
and hid them on top of the locker. I got into my gym suit. The other guys were starting to walk in.
Baldy and I had some great pajama stories but Baldy's was the best. He had been out with his
girlfriend one night, they had gone to some dance. In between dances his girlfriend had said, "What's
that?" "What's what?"
"There's something sticking out of your pant cuff." "What?"
"My goodness! You're wearing your pajamas  underneath your pants!"
"Oh? Oh, that . . . I must have forgotten . . ." "I'm leaving right now!"
She never dated him again.
All the guys were changing into their gym clothes. Then Baldy walked in and opened his locker.
"How ya doing, pal?" I asked him. "Oh, hello. Hank . . ."
"I've got a 7 a.m. English class. It really starts the day outright. Only they ought to call it Music
Appreciation  /." "Oh yeah. Hamilton. I've heard of him. Hee hee hee . . ." I walked over to him.
Baldy had unbuckled his pants. I reached over and yanked his pants down. Underneath were
green striped pajamas. He tried to yank his pants back up but I was too strong for him.
"HEY, FELLOWS, LOOK! JESUS CHRIST, HERE'S A GUY WHO WEARS HIS
PAJAMAS TO SCHOOL!"
Baldy was struggling. His face was florid. A couple of guys walked over and looked. Then I did
the worst. I yanked his pajamas down.
"AND LOOK HERE! THE POOR FUCKER IS NOT ONLY BALD BUT HE DOESN'T
HARDLY HAVE A COCK! WHAT IS THIS POOR EUCKER GOING TO DO WHEN HE
CONFRONTS A WOMAN?"
Some big guy standing nearby said, " Chinaski, you're really a piece of shit!"
"Yeah," said a couple of other guys. "Yeah . . . yeah . . ." I heard other voices.
Baldy pulled his pants up. He was actually crying. He looked at the guys. "Well, Chinaski wears
pajamas too! He was the guy who started me doing it! Look in his locker, just look in his locker!"
Baldy ran down to my locker and ripped the door open. He pulled all my clothing out. The
pajamas weren't in there.
"He's hidden them! He's hidden them somewhere!" I left my clothes on the floor and walked out
on the field for roll call. I stood in the second row. I did a couple of deep knee bends. I noticed
another big guy behind me. I'd heard his name around, Sholom Stodolsky.
"Chinaski," he said, "you're a piece of shit." "Don't mess with me, man, I've got an edgy nature."
"Well, I'm messing with you."
"Don't push me too far, fat boy." "You know the place between the Biology Building and the
tennis courts?"
"I've seen it." "I'll meet you there after gym."
"O.K.," I said.
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I didn't show up. After gym I cut the rest of my classes and took the streetcars down to Pershing
Square. I sat on a bench and waited for some action. It seemed a long time coming. Finally a
Religionist and an Atheist got into it. They weren't much good. I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn't
have much to argue about. I left the park and walked down to 7th and Broadway. That was the
center of town. There didn't seem to be much doing there, just people waiting for the signals to
change so they could cross the street. Then I noticed my legs were starting to itch. I had left my
pajamas on top of the locker. What a fucking lousy day it had been from beginning to end. I hopped
a "W" streetcar and sat in the back as it rolled along carrying me back toward home.
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51
I only met one student at City College that I liked, Robert Becker. He wanted to be a writer. "I'm
going to learn everything there is to learn about writing. It will be like taking a car apart and putting it
back together again."
"Sounds like work," I said. "I'm going to do it."
Becker was an inch or so shorter than I was but he was stocky, he was powerfully built, with big
shoulders and arms.
"I had a childhood disease," he told me. "I had to lay in bed one time for a year squeezing two
tennis balls, one in each hand. Just from doing that, I got to be like this."
He had a job as a messenger boy at night and was putting himself through college.
"How'd you get your job?" "I knew a guy who knew a guy."
"I'll bet I can kick your ass."
"Maybe, maybe not. I'm only interested in writing." We were sitting in an alcove overlooking the
lawn. Two guys were staring at me.
Then one of them spoke. "Hey," he asked me, "do you mind if I ask you something?"
"Go ahead." "Well, you used to be a sissy in grammar school, I remember you. And now you're a
tough guy. What happened?"
"I don't know." "Are you a cynic?"
"Probably."
"Are you happy being a cynic?"
"Yes."
"Then you're not a cynic because cynics aren't happy!" The two guys did a little vaudeville
handshake act and ran off, laughing.
"They made you look bad," said Becker. "No, they were trying too hard."
"Are you a cynic?"
"I'm unhappy. If I was a cynic it would probably make me feel better."
We hopped down from the alcove. Classes were over. Becker wanted to put his books in his
locker. We walked there and he dumped them in. He handed me five or six sheets of paper. "Here
read this. It's a short story."
We walked down to my locker. I opened it and handed him a paper bag.
"Take a hit..." It was a bottle of port. Becker took a hit, then I took one. "You always keep one
of these in your locker?" he asked. "I try to."
"Listen, tonight's my night off. Why don't you come meet some of my friends?"
"People don't do me much good." "These are different people."
"Yeah? Where at? Your place?"
"No. Here, I'll write down the address . . ." He began writing on a piece of paper.
"Listen, Becker, what do these people do?" "Drink," said Becker. I put the slip into my pocket . .
. That night after dinner I read Becker's short story. It was good and I was jealous. It was about
riding his bike at night and then delivering a telegram to a beautiful woman. The writing was objective
and clear, there was a gentle decency about it. Becker claimed Thomas Wolfe as an influence but he
didn't wail and ham it up like Wolfe did. The emotion was there but it wasn't spelled out in neon.
Becker could write, he could write better than I could.
My parents had gotten me a typewriter and I had tried some short stories but they had come out
very bitter and ragged. Not that that was so bad but the stories seemed to beg, they didn't have their
own vitality. My stories were darker than Becker's, stranger, but they didn't work. Well, one or two
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of them had worked -- for me -- but it was more or less as if they had fallen into place instead of
being guided there. Becker was clearly better. Maybe I'd try painting,
I waited until my parents were asleep. My father always snored loudly. When I heard him I
opened the bedroom screen and slid out over the berry bush. That put me into the neighbor's
driveway and I walked slowly in the dark. Then I walked up Longwood to 21st Street, took a right,
then went up the hill along Westview to where the "W" car ended its route. I dropped my token in
and walked to the rear of the car, sat down and lit a cigarette. If Becker's friends were anywhere as
good as Becker's short story it was going to be one hell of a night.
Becker was already there by the time I found the Beacon Street address. His friends were in the
breakfast nook. I was introduced. There was Harry, there was Lana, there was Gobbles, there was
Stinky, there was Marshbird, there was Ellis, there was Dogface and finally there was The Ripper.
They all sat around a large breakfast table. Harry had a legitimate job somewhere, he and Becker
were the only ones employed. Lana was Harry's wife, Gobbles their baby was sitting in a highchair.
Lana was the only woman there. When we were introduced she had looked right at me and smiled.
They were all young, thin, and puffed at rolled cigarettes. " Becker told us about you," said Harry.
"He says you're a writer." "I've got a typewriter."
"You gonna write about us?" asked Stinky. "I'd rather drink."
"Fine. We're going to have a drinking contest. Got any money?" Stinky asked.
"Two dollars . . ." "O.K., the ante is two dollars. Everybody up!" Harry said. That made eighteen
dollars. The money looked good laying there. A bottle appeared and then shot glasses.
"Becker told us you think you're a tough guy. Are you a tough guy?" "Yeah."
"Well, we're gonna see . . ." The kitchen light was very bright. It was straight whiskey. A dark
yellow whiskey. Harry poured the drinks. Such beauty. My mouth, my throat, couldn't wait. The
radio was on. Oh, Johnny, oh Johnny, how you can love!  somebody sang.
"Down the hatch!" said Harry. There was no way I could lose. I could drink for days. I had never
had enough to drink.
Gobbles had a tiny shot glass of his own. As we raised ours and drank them, he raised his and
drank. Everybody thought it was funny. I didn't think it was so funny for a baby to drink but I didn't
say anything. Harry poured another round.
"You read my short story, Hank?" Becker asked. "Yeah."
"How'd you like it?" "It was good. You're ready now. All you need is some luck." "Down the
hatch!" said Harry.
The second round was no problem, we all got it down, including Lana. Harry looked at me. "You
like to duke it, Hank?" "No."
"Well, in case you do, we got Dogface here." Dogface was twice my size. It was so wearisome
being in the world. Every time you looked around there was some guy ready to take you on without
even inhaling. I looked at Dogface.
"Hi, buddy!" "Buddy, my ass," he said. "Just get your next drink down." Harry poured them all
around. He skipped Gobbles in the highchair, though, which I appreciated. All right, we raised them,
we all got that round down. Then Lana dropped out.
"Somebody's got to clean up this mess and get Harry ready for work in the morning," she said.
The next round was poured. Just as it was the door banged open and a large good-looking kid of
around 22 came running into the room. "Shit, Harry"  he said, "hide me! I just held up a fucking
gas station!"
"My car's in the garage," Harry said. "Get down on the floor in the back seat and stay there!"
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We drank up. The next round was poured. A new bottle appeared. The eighteen dollars was still
in the center of the table. We were still all hanging in there except Lana. It was going to take plenty
of whiskey to do us in.
"Hey," I asked Harry, "aren't we going to run out of drinks?" "Show him, Lana , , ."
Lana pulled open some upper cupboard doors. I could see bottles and bottles of whiskey lined
up, all the same brand. It looked like the loot from a truck hi jack and it probably was. And these
were the gang members: Harry, Lana, Stinky, Marshbird, Ellis, Dogface and The Ripper, maybe
Becker, and most likely the young guy now on the floor in the back seat of Harry's car. I felt
honored to be drinking with such an active part of the population of Los Angeles. Becker not only
knew how to write, Becker knew his people. I would dedicate my first novel to Robert Becker. And
it would be a better novel than Of Time and the River .
Harry kept pouring the rounds and we kept drinking them down. The kitchen was blue with
cigarette smoke.
Marshbird dropped out first. He had a very large nose, he just shook his head, no more, no
more, and all you could see was this long nose waving "no" in the blue smoke.
Ellis was the next to drop out. He had a lot of hair on his chest but evidently not much on his balls.
Dogface was next. He just jumped up and ran to the crapper and puked. Listening to him Harry
got the same idea and leaped up and puked in the sink.
That left me, Becker, Stinky and The Ripper. Becker quit next. He just folded his arms on the
table, put his head down in his arms and that was it.
"The night's so young," I said. "I usually drink until the sun comes up."
"Yeah," said The Ripper, "you shit in a basket too!" "Yeah, and it's shaped like your head."
The Ripper stood up. "You son-of-a-bitch, I'll bust your ass!" He swung at me from across the
table, missed and knocked over the bottle. Lana got a rag and mopped it up. Harry opened a bottle.
"Sit down, Rip, or you forfeit your bet," Harry said. Harry poured a new round. We drank them
down. The Ripper stood up, walked to the rear door, opened it and looked out into the night.
"Hey, Rip, what the hell you doing?" Stinky asked. "I'm checking to see if there's a full moon."
"Well, is there?"
There was no answer. We heard him fall through the door, down the steps and into the bushes.
We left him there. That left me and Stinky.
"I've never seen anybody take Stinky yet," said Harry. Lana had just put Gobbles to bed. She
walked back into the kitchen. "Jesus, there are dead bodies all over the place."
"Pour 'em, Harry," I said. Harry filled Stinky's glass, then mine. I knew there was no way I could
get that drink down. I did the only thing I could do. I pretended it was easy. I grabbed the shot glass
and belted it down. Stinky just stared at me. "I'll be right back. I gotta go to the crapper."
We sat and waited. " Stinky's a nice guy," I said. "You shouldn't call him Stinky. How'd he get that
name?"
"I dunno," said Harry, "somebody just laid it on him." "That guy in the back of your car. He ever
going to come out?" "Not till morning."
We sat and waited. "I think," said Harry, "we better take a look." We opened the bathroom
door. Stinky didn't appear to be in there. Then we saw him. He had fallen into the bathtub. His feet
stuck up over the edge. His eyes were closed, he was down in there, and out. We walked back to
the table. "The money's yours," said Harry.
"How about letting me pay for some of those bottles of whiskey?"
"Forget it."
"You mean it?"
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"Yes, of course."
I picked up the money and put it in my right front pocket. Then I looked at Stinky's drink.
"No use wasting this," I said. "You mean you're going to drink that?" asked Lana. "Why not? One
for the road . . ."
I gulped it down. "O.K., see you guys, it's been great!" "Goodnight, Hank . . ."
I walked out the back door, stepping over The Ripper's body. I found a back alley and took a
left. I walked along and I saw a green Chevy sedan. I staggered a bit as I approached it. I grabbed
the rear door handle to steady myself. The god-damned door was unlocked and it swung open,
knocking me sideways. I fell hard, skinning my left elbow on the pavement. There was a full moon.
The whiskey had hit me all at once. I felt as if I couldn't get up. I had to get up. I was supposed to be
a tough guy. I rose, fell against the half-open door, grabbed at it, held it. Then I had the inside handle
and was steadying myself. I got myself into the back seat and then I just sat there. I sat there for
some time. Then I started to puke. It really came. It came and it came, it covered the rear
floorboard. Then I sat for a while. Then I managed to get out of the car. I didn't feel as dizzy. I took
out my handkerchief and wiped the vomit off my pant legs and off of my shoes as best I could. I
closed the car door and walked on down the alley. I had to find the "W" streetcar. I would find it.
I did. I rode it in. I made it down Westview Street, walked down 21st Street, turned south down
Longwood Avenue to 2122. I walked up the neighbor's driveway, found the berry bush, crawled
over it, through the open screen and into my bedroom. I undressed and went to bed. I must have
consumed over a quart of whiskey. My father was still snoring, just as he had been when I had left,
only at the moment it was louder and uglier. I slept anyhow.
As usual I approached Mr. Hamilton's English class thirty minutes late. It was 7:30 a.m. I stood
outside the door and listened. They were at Gilbert and Sullivan again. And it was still all about going
to the sea and the Queen's Navy. Hamilton couldn't get enough of that. In high school I'd had an
English teacher and it had been Poe, Poe, Edgar Allan Poe.
I opened the door. Hamilton went over and lifted the needle from the record. Then he announced
to the class, "When Mr. Chinaski arrives we always know that it is 7:30 a.m. Mr. Chinaski is always
on time. The only problem being that it is the wrong  time."
He paused, glancing at the faces in his class. He was very, very dignified. Then he looked at me.
"Mr. Chinaski, whether you arrive at 7:30 a.m. or whether you arrive at all will not matter. I am
assigning you a 'D' for English  1 " "A 'D,' Mr. Hamilton?" I asked, flashing my famous sneer. "Why
not an 'F'?"
"Because 'F,' at times, equates with 'Fuck.' And I don't think you're worth a 'Fuck."'
The class cheered and roared and stomped and stamped. I turned around, walked out, closed the
door behind me. I walked down the hallway, still hearing them going at it in there.
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52
The war was going very well in Europe, for Hitler. Most of the students weren't very vocal on the
matter. But the instructors were, they were almost all left-wing and anti-German. There seemed to be
no right-wing faction among the instructors except for Mr. Glasgow, in Economics, and he was very
discreet about it.
It was intellectually popular and proper to be for going to war with Germany, to stop the spread
of fascism. As for me, I had no desire to go to war to protect the life I had or what future I might
have. I had no Freedom. I had nothing. With Hitler around, maybe I'd even get a piece of ass now
and then and more than a dollar a week allowance. As far as I could rationalize, I had nothing to
protect. Also, having been born in Germany, there was a natural loyalty and I didn't like to see the
whole German nation, the people, depicted everywhere as monsters and idiots. In the movie theatres
they speeded up the newsreels to make Hitler and Mussolini look like frenetic madmen. Also, with
all the instructors being anti-German I found it personally impossible to simply agree with them. Out
of sheer alienation and a natural contrariness I decided to align myself against their point of view. I
had never read Mein Kampf  and had no desire to do so. Hitler was just another dictator to me, only
instead of lecturing me at the dinner table he'd probably blow my brains out or my balls off if I went
to war to stop him.
Sometimes as the instructors talked on and on about the evils of nazism (we were told always to
spell "nazi" with a small "n" even at the beginning of a sentence) and fascism I would leap to my feet
and make something up: "The survival of the human race depends upon selective accountability!"
Which meant, watch out who you go to bed with, but only I knew that. It really pissed everybody
off. I don't know where I got my stuff:
"One of the failures of Democracy is that the common vote guarantees a common leader who
then leads us to a common apathetic predictability!"
I avoided any direct reference to Jews and Blacks, who had never given me any trouble. All my
troubles had come from white gentiles. Thus, I wasn't a nazi by temperament or choice; the teachers
more or less forced it on me by being so much alike and thinking so much alike and with their anti-
German prejudice. I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what
he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job, which gave me a considerable
advantage over the teachers.
"Breed a plow horse to a race horse and you get an offspring that is neither swift nor strong. A
new Master Race will evolve from purposeful breeding!"
"There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is to lose it. All wars have
been fought for a so-called good Cause on both sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's
Noble Cause. It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best
generals and the better army!"
I loved it. I could make up anything I liked. Of course, I was talking myself further and further
away from any chance with the girls. But I had never been that close anyhow. I figured because of
my wild speeches I was alone on campus but it wasn't so. Some others had been listening. One day,
walking to my Current Affairs class, I heard somebody walking up behind me. I never liked anybody
walking behind me, not close. So I turned as I walked. It was the student body president, Boyd
Taylor. He was very popular with the students, the only man in the history of the college to have
been elected president twice.
"Hey, Chinaski, I want to talk to you." I'd never cared too much for Boyd, he was the typical
good- looking American youth with a guaranteed future, always properly dressed, casual, smooth,
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every hair of his black mustache trimmed. What his appeal was to the student body, I had no idea.
He walked along beside me.
"Don't you think it looks bad for you, Boyd, to be seen walking with me?"
"I'll worry about that." "All right. What is it?"
"Chinaski, this is just between you and me, got it?" "Sure."
"Listen, I don't believe in what guys like you stand for or what you're trying to do."
"So?" "But I want you to know that if you win here and in Europe I'm willing to join your side."
I could only look at him and laugh. He stood there as I walked on. Never trust a man with a
perfectly- trimmed mustache . . .
Other people had been listening as well. Coming out of Current Affairs I ran into Baldy standing
there with a guy five feet tall and three feet wide. The guy's head was sunk down into his shoulders,
he had a very round head, small ears, cropped hair, pea eyes, tiny wet round mouth. A nut, I
thought, a killer.
"HEY, HANK!" Baldy hollered. I walked over. "I thought we were finished, LaCrosse." "Oh no!
There are great  things still to do!" Shit! Baldy was one too!
Why did the Master Race movement draw nothing but mental and physical cripples?
"I want you to meet Igor Stirnov." I reached out and we shook hands. He squeezed mine with all
his strength. It really hurt.
"Let go," I said, "or I'll bust your fucking missing neck!" Igor let go. "I don't trust men with limp
handshakes. Why do you have a limp handshake?"
"I'm weak today. They burned my toast for breakfast and at lunch I spilled my chocolate milk."
Igor turned to Baldy. "What's with this guy?" "Don't worry about him. He's got his own ways."
Igor looked at me again.
"My grandfather was a White Russian. During the Revolution the Reds killed him. I must get even
with those bastards!"
"I see." Then another student came walking toward us. "Hey, Fenster!" Baldy hollered.
Fenster walked up. We shook hands. I gave him a limp one. I didn't like to shake hands.
Fenster's first name was Bob. There was to be a meeting at a house in Glendale, the Americans for
America Party. Fenster was the campus representative. He walked off. Baldy leaned over and
whispered into my ear, "They're Nazis!"
Igor had a car and a gallon of rum. We met in front of Baldy's house, Igor passed the bottle.
Good stuff, it really burned the membranes of the throat, Igor drove his car like a tank, right through
stop signals. People blew their horns and slammed on their brakes and he waved a fake black pistol
at them.
"Hey, Igor," said Baldy, "show Hank your pistol." Igor was driving. Baldy and I were in the back.
Igor passed me his pistol. I looked at it.
"It's great!" Baldy said. "He carved it out of wood and stained it with black shoe polish. Looks
real, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "He's even drilled a hole in the barrel." I handed the gun back to Igor. "Very nice,"
I said. He handed back the jug of rum. I took a hit and handed the bottle to Baldy. He looked at me
and said, " Heil Hitler!"
We were the last to arrive. It was a large handsome house. We were met at the door by a fat
smiling boy who looked like he had spent a lifetime eating chestnuts by the fire. His parents didn't
seem to be about. His name was Larry Kearny. We followed him through the big house and down a
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long dark stairway. All I could see was Kearny's shoulders and head. He was certainly a well-fed
fellow and looked to be far saner than Baldy, Igor or myself. Maybe there would be something to
learn here.
Then we were in the cellar. We found some chairs. Fenster nodded to us. There were seven
others there whom I didn't know. There was a desk on a raised platform. Larry walked up and
stood behind the desk. Behind him on the wall was a large American flag. Larry stood very straight.
"We will now pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America!"
My god, I thought, I am in the wrong place! We stood and took the pledge, but I stopped after "I
pledge allegiance . . ." I didn't say to what.
We sat down. Larry started talking from behind the desk. He explained that since this was the
first meeting, he would preside. After two or three meetings, after we got to know one another, a
president could be elected if we wished. But meanwhile . . .
"We face here, in America, two threats to our liberty. We face the communist scourge .and the
black takeover. Most often they work hand in hand. We true Americans will gather here in an
attempt to counter this scourge, this menace. It has gotten so that no decent white girl can walk the
streets anymore without being accosted by a black male!" Igor leaped up. "We'll kill them!"
"The communists want to divide the wealth for which we have worked so long, which our fathers
labored for, and their fathers before them worked for. The communists want to give our money to
every black man, homo, bum, murderer and child molester who walks our streets!" "We'll kill them!"
"They must be stopped." "We'll arm!"
"Yes, we'll arm! And we'll meet here and formulate a master plan to save America!"
The fellows cheered. Two or three of them yelled, " Heil Hitler!" Then the get-to-know-each-
other time arrived.
Larry passed out cold beers and we stood around in little groups talking, not much being said,
except we reached a general agreement that we needed target practice so that we would be expert
with our guns when the time came.
When we got back to Igor's house his parents didn't seem to be about, either, Igor got out a
frying pan, put in four cubes of butter, and began to melt them. He took the rum, put it in a large pot
and warmed it up. "This is what men drink," he said. Then he looked at Baldy. "Are you a man,
Baldy?"
Baldy was already drunk. He stood very straight, hands down at his sides. "YES, I'M A MAN!"
He started to weep. The tears came rolling down. "I'M A MAN!" He stood very straight and yelled,
"HEIL HITLER!" the tears rolling. Igor looked at me. "Are you a man?"
"I don't know. Is that rum ready?" "I'm not sure I trust you. I'm not so sure that you are one of us.
Are you a counter-spy? Are you an enemy agent?"
"No." "Are you one of us?"
"I don't know. Only one thing I'm sure of." "What's that?"
"I don't like you. Is the rum ready?" " You see?"  said Baldy. "I told you he was mean!" "We'll see
who is the meanest before the night is ended," said Igor. Igor poured the melted butter into the
boiling rum, then shut off the flame and stirred. I didn't like him but he certainly was different and I
liked that. Then he found three drinking cups, large, blue, with Russian writing on them. He poured
the buttered rum into the cups. "O.K." he said, "drink up!"
"Shit, it's about time," I said and I let it slide down. It was a little too hot and it stank.
I watched Igor drink his. I saw his little pea eyes over the rim of his cup. He managed to get it
down, driblets of golden buttered rum leaking out of the corners of his stupid mouth. He was looking
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at Baldy. Baldy was standing, staring down into his cup. I knew from the old days that Baldy just
didn't have a natural love of drinking.
Igor stared at Baldy. "Drink up!" "Yes, Igor, yes . . ."
Baldy lifted the blue cup. He was having a difficult time. It was too hot for him and he didn't like
the taste. Half of it ran out of his mouth and over his chin and onto his shirt. His empty cup fell to the
kitchen floor.
Igor squared himself in front of Baldy. "You're not a man!"
"I AM A MAN, IGOR! I AM A MAN!"
"YOU LIE!"
Igor backhanded him across the face and as Baldy's head jumped to one side, he straightened
him up with a slap to the other side of his face. Baldy stood at attention with his hands rigidly at his
sides. "I'm . . . a man . . ,"
Igor continued to stand in front of him. "I'll make  a man out of you!" "O.K.," I said to Igor, "leave
him alone." Igor left the kitchen. I poured myself another rum. It was dreadful stuff but it was all there
was.
Igor walked back in. He was holding a gun, a real one, an old six- shooter.
"We will now play Russian roulette," he announced. "Your mother's ass," I said.
"I'll play, Igor," said Baldy, "I'll play! I'm a man! " "All right," said Igor, "there is one bullet in the
gun. I will spin the chamber and hand the gun to you."
Igor spun the chamber and handed the gun to Baldy. Baldy took it and pointed it at his head. "I'm
a man . . . I'm a man . . . I'll do it!" He began crying again. "I'll do it . . . I'm a man . . ." Baldy let the
muzzle of the gun slip away from his temple. He pointed it away from his skull and pulled the trigger.
There was a click.
Igor took the gun, spun the chamber and handed it to me. I handed it back.
"You go first." Igor spun the chamber, held the gun up to the light and looked through the
chamber. Then he put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. There was a click.
"Big deal," I said. "You checked the chamber to see where the bullet was."
Igor spun the chamber and handed the gun to me. "Your turn..." I handed the gun back. "Stuff it,"
I told him. I walked over to pour myself another rum. As I did there was a shot. I looked down.
Near my foot, in the kitchen floor, there was a bullet hole. I turned around. "You ever point that thing
at me again and I'll kill you, Igor." "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He stood there smiling. He slowly began to raise the gun. I waited. Then he lowered the
gun. That was about it for the night. We went out to the car and Igor drove us home. But we
stopped first at Westlake Park and rented a boat and went out on the lake to finish off the rum. With
the last drink, Igor loaded up the gun and shot holes in the bottom of the boat. We were forty yards
from shore and had to swim in . . .
It was late when I got home. I crawled over the old berry bush and through the bedroom
window. I undressed and went to bed while in the next room my father snored.
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53
I was coming home from classes down Westview hill. I never had any books to carry. I passed
my exams by listening to the class lectures and by guessing at the answers. I never had to cram for
exams. I could get my "C's." And as I was coming down the hill I ran into a giant spider web. I was
always doing that. I stood there pulling the sticky web from myself and looking for the spider. Then I
saw him: a big fat black son-of-a-bitch. I crushed him. I had learned to hate spiders. When I went to
hell I would be eaten by a spider.
All my life, in that neighborhood, I had been walking into spider webs, I had been attacked by
blackbirds, I had lived with my father. Everything was eternally dreary, dismal, damned. Even the
weather was insolent and bitchy. It was either unbearably hot for weeks on end, or it rained, and
when it rained it rained for five or six days. The water came up over the lawns and poured into the
houses. Who'd ever planned the drainage system had probably been well paid for his ignorance
about such matters.
And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was
that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a
man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking
away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And
I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and
sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as
horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair.
But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a
hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I
could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher.
Maybe I'd be a bank robber. Some god-damned thing. Something with flare, fire. You only had
one shot. Why be a window washer?
I lit a cigarette and walked further down the hill. Was I the only person who was distracted by
this future without a chance?
I saw another one of those big black spiders. He was about face-high, in his web, right in my
path. I took my cigarette and placed it against him. The tremendous web shook and leaped as he
jumped, the branches of the bush trembled. He leaped out of the web and fell to the sidewalk.
Cowardly killers, the whole bunch of .them. I crushed him with my shoe. A worthwhile day, I had
killed two spiders, I had upset the balance of nature -- now we would all be eaten up by the bugs
and the flies.
I walked further down the hill, I was near the bottom when a large bush began to shake. The
King Spider was after me. I strode forward to meet it.
My mother leaped out from behind the bush. " Henry, Henry , don't go home, don't go home, your
father will kill you!" "How's he going to do that? I can whip his ass." "No, he's furious , Henry! Don't
go home, he'll kill you! I've been waiting here for hours!"
My mother's eyes were wide with fear and quite beautiful, large and brown.
"What's he doing home this early?" "He had a headache, he got the afternoon off!" "I thought you
were working, that you'd found a new job?" She'd gotten a job as a housekeeper.
"He came and got me! He's furious.  He'll kill you." "Don't worry, Mom, if he messes with me I'll
kick his goddamned ass, I promise you."
"Henry, he found your short stories and he read them !"  "I never asked him to read them."
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"He found them in a drawer! He read them, he read all of them!"  I had written ten or twelve
short stories. Give a man a typewriter and he becomes a writer. I had hidden the stories under the
paper lining of my shorts-and-stockings drawer.
"Well," I said, "the old man poked around and he got his fingers burned."
"He said that he was going to kill you! He said that no son of his could write stories like
that and live under the same roof with him!"
I took her by the arm. "Let's go home. Morn, and see what he does ..."
"Henry, he's thrown all your clothes out on the front lawn, all your dirty laundry, your
typewriter, your suitcase and your stories!"  "My stories?"
"Yes, those too . . ." "I'll kill him!"
I pulled away from her and walked across 21st Street and toward Longwood Avenue. She went
after me.
"Henry, Henry, don't go in there." The poor woman was yanking at the back of my shirt.
"Henry, listen, get yourself a room somewhere! Henry, I have ten dollars! Take this ten dollars and
get yourself a room somewhere!" I turned. She was holding out the ten.
"Forget it," I said. "I'll just go." "Henry, take the money! Do it for me! Do it for your mother!"
"Well, all right . . ."
I took the ten, put it in my pocket. "Thanks, that's a lot of money."
"It's all right, Henry. I love you, Henry, but you must go." She ran ahead of me as I walked
toward the house. Then I saw it: everything was strewn across the lawn, all my dirty and clean
clothes, the suitcase flung there open, socks, shirts, pajamas, an old robe, everything flung
everywhere, on the lawn and into the street. And I saw my manuscripts being blown in the wind, they
were in the gutter, everywhere.
My mother ran up the driveway to the house and I screamed after her so he could hear me,
"TELL HIM TO COME OUT HERE AND I'LL KNOCK HIS GOD-DAMNED HEAD OFF!"
I went after my manuscripts first. That was the lowest of the blows, doing that to me. They were
the one thing he had no right to touch. As I picked up each page from the gutter, from the lawn and
from the street, I began to feel better. I found every page I could, placed them in the suitcase under
the weight of a shoe, then rescued the typewriter. It had broken out of its case but it looked all right.
I looked at my rags scattered about. I left the dirty laundry, I left the pajamas, which were only a
handed-down pair of his discards. There wasn't much else to pack. I closed the suitcase, picked it
up with the typewriter and started to walk away. I could see two faces peering after me from behind
the drapes. But I quickly forgot that, walked up Longwood, across 21st and up old Westview hill. I
didn't feel much different than I had always felt. I was neither elated nor dejected; it all seemed to be
just a continuation. I was going to take the "W" streetcar, get a transfer, and go somewhere
downtown.
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54
I found a room on Temple Street in the Filipino district. It was $3.50 a week, upstairs on the
second floor. I paid the landlady -- a middle-aged blond -- a week's rent. The toilet and tub were
down the hall but there was a wash basin to piss in.
My first night there I discovered a bar downstairs just to the right of the entrance. I liked that. All
I had to do was climb the stairway and I was home. The bar was full of little dark men but they didn't
bother me. I'd heard all the stories about Filipinos -- that they liked white girls, blonds in particular,
that they carried stilettoes, that since they were all the same size, seven of them would chip in and
buy one expensive suit, with all the accessories, and they would take turns wearing the suit one night
a week. George Raft had said somewhere that Filipinos set the style trends. They stood on street
corners and swung golden chains around and around, thin golden chains, seven or eight inches long,
each man's chain-length indicating the length of his penis.
The bartender was Filipino.
"You're new, hub?" he asked.
"I live upstairs. I'm a student." "No credit."
I put some coins down.
"Give me an Eastside."
He came back with the bottle.
"Where can a fellow get a girl?" I asked. He picked up some of the coins.
"I don't know anything," he said and walked to the register.
That first night I closed the bar. Nobody bothered me. A few blond women left with the Filipinos.
The men were quiet drinkers. They sat in little groups with their heads close together, talking, now
and then laughing in a very quiet manner. I liked them. When the bar closed and I got up to leave the
bartender said, "Thank you." That was never done in American bars, not to me anyhow. I liked my
new situation. All I needed was money.
I decided to keep going to college. It would give me some place to be during the daytime. My
friend Becker had dropped out. There wasn't anybody that I much cared for there except maybe the
instructor in Anthropology, a known Communist. He didn't teach much Anthropology. He was a
large man, casual and likeable.
"Now the way you fry a porterhouse steak," he told the class, "you get the pan red hot, you drink
a shot of whiskey and then you pour a thin layer of salt in the pan. You drop the steak in and sear it
but not for too long. Then you flip it, sear the other side, drink another shot of whiskey, take the
steak out and eat it immediately."
Once when I was stretched out on the campus lawn he had come walking by and had stopped
and stretched out beside me.
"Chinaski, you don't believe all that Nazi hokum you're spreading around, do you?"
"I'm not saying. Do you believe your crap?" "Of course I do."
"Good luck."
"Chinaski, you're nothing but a wienerschnitzel." He got up, brushed off the grass and leaves and
walked away . . .
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I had been at the Temple Street place only for a couple of days when Jimmy Hatcher found me.
He knocked on the door one night and I opened it and there he was with two other guys, fellow
aircraft workers, one called Delmore, the other, Fastshoes.
"How come he's called ' Fastshoes'?" "You ever lend him money, you'll know." "Come on in . . .
How in Christ's name did you find me?" "Your folks had you traced by a private dick." "Damn, they
know how to take the boy out of a man's life." "Maybe they're worried?"
"If they're worried all they have to do is send money." "They claim you'll drink it up."
"Then let them worry . . ." The three of them came in and sat around on the bed and the floor.
They had a fifth of whiskey and some paper cups. Jimmy poured all around. "Nice place you've got.
here."
"It's great. I can see the City Hall every time I stick my head out the window."
Fastshoes pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. He was sitting on the rug. He looked up at me.
"You gamble?" "Every day. You got a marked deck?" "Hey, you son-of-a-bitch!"
"Don't curse me or I'll hang your wig on my mantlepiece." "Honest, man, these cards are straight!"
"All I play is poker and 21. What's the limit?" "Two bucks."
"We'll split for the deal." I got the deal and called for draw poker, regular. I didn't like wild cards,
too much luck was needed that way. Two bits for the kitty. As I dealt, Jimmy poured another round.
"How are you making it. Hank?" "I'm writing term papers for the other people." "Brilliant."
"Yeah .. ." "Hey, you guys," said Jimmy, "I told you this guy was a genius." "Yeah," said Delmore.
He was to my right. He opened. "Two bits," he said. We followed him in.
"Three cards," said Delmore. "One," said Jimmy.
"Three," said Fastshoes.
"I'll stand," I said.
"Two bits," said Delmore.
We all stayed in and then I said, "I'll see your two bits and raise you two bucks."
Delmore dropped out, Jimmy dropped out. Fastshoes looked at me. "What else do you see
besides City Hall when you stick your head out the window?"
"Just play your hand. I'm not here to chat about gymnastics or the scenery."
"All right," he said, "I'm out." I scooped up the pot and gathered in their cards, leaving mine face
down.
"What did ya have?" asked Fastshoes. "Pay to see or weep forever," I said sweeping my cards
into the deck and mixing them together, shuffling them, feeling like Gable before he got weakened by
God at the time of the San Francisco earthquake.
The deck changed hands but my luck held, most of the time. It had been payday at the aircraft
plant. Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On
the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you
must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another.
Somehow I felt that the night was to be mine. Delmore soon tapped out and left.
"Fellows," I said, "I've got an idea. Cards are too slow. Let's just match coins, ten bucks a toss,
odd man wins."
"O.K.," said Jimmy. "O.K.," said Fastshoes.
The whiskey was gone. We were into a bottle of my cheap wine. "All right," I said, "flip the coins
high! Catch them on your palms. And when I say lift,' we'll check the result."
We flipped them high. Caught them. "Lift!" I said.
I was odd man. Shit. Twenty bucks, just like that. I jammed the tens into my pocket.
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"Flip!" I said. We did. "Lift!" I said. I won again.
"Flip!" I said.
"Lift!" I said. Fastshoes won. I got the next. Then Jimmy won. I got the next two.
"Wait," I said, "I've got to piss!" I walked over to the sink and pissed. We had finished the bottle
of wine. I opened the closet door. "I got another bottle of wine in here," I told them.
I took most of the bills out of my pocket and threw them into the closet. I came out, opened the
bottle, poured drinks all around. "Shit," said Fastshoes looking into his wallet, "I'm almost broke."
"Me too," said Jimmy.
"I wonder who's got the money?" I asked. They weren't very good drinkers. Mixing the wine and
the whiskey was bad for them. They were weaving a bit.
Fastshoes fell back against the dresser knocking an ashtray to the floor. It broke in half.
"Pick it up," I said. "I won't pick up shit," he said.
"I said, 'pick it up'!"
"I won't pick up shit."
Jimmy reached and picked up the broken ashtray. "You guys get out of here," I said.
"You can't make me go," said Fastshoes. "All right," I said, "just open your mouth owe more time,
say owe word and you won't be able to separate your head from your asshole!" "Let's go,
Fastshoes," said Jimmy.
I opened the door and they filed past unsteadily. I followed them down the hall to the head of the
stairway. We stood there. "Hank," said Jimmy, "I'll see you again. Take it easy." "All right, Jim ..."
"Listen," Fastshoes said to me, "You . . ." I shot a straight right into his mouth. He fell backward
down the stairway, twisting and bouncing. He was about my size, six feet and one- eighty, and you
could hear the sound of him for a block. Two Filipinos and the blond landlady were in the lobby.
They looked at Fastshoes laying there but they didn't move toward him.
"You killed him!" said Jimmy. He ran down the stairway and turned Fastshoes over. Fastshoes
had a bloody nose and mouth. Jimmy held his head. Jimmy looked up at me. "That wasn't right,
Hank . . ."
"Yeah, what ya gonna do?" "I think," said Jimmy, "that we're going to come back and get you . .
."
"Wait a minute," I said. I walked back to my room and poured myself a wine. I hadn't liked
Jimmy's paper cups and I had been drinking out of a used jelly glass. The paper label was still on the
side, stained with dirt and wine. I walked back out.
Fastshoes was reviving. Jimmy was helping him to his feet. Then he put Fastshoes' arm around his
neck. They were standing there. "Now what did you say?" I asked.
"You're an ugly man, Hank. You need to be taught a lesson." "You mean I'm not pretty?"
"I mean, you act ugly . . ." "Take your friend out of here before I come down there and finish him
off!"
Fastshoes raised his bloody head. He had on a flowered Hawaiian shirt, only now many of the
colors were stained with red.
He looked at me. Then he spoke. I could barely hear him. But I heard it. He said, "I'm going to
kill you . . ."
"Yeah," said Jimmy, "we'll get you."
"YEAH, FUCKERS?" I screamed. "I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE! ANYTIME YOU
WANT TO FIND ME I'LL BE IN ROOM 5! I'LL BE WAITING! ROOM 5, GOT IT? AND
THE DOOR WILL BE OPEN!"
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I lifted the jelly glass full of wine and drained it. Then I hurled that jelly glass at them. I threw the
son-of-a-bitch, hard. But my aim was bad. It hit the side of the stairway wall, glanced off and shot
into the lobby between the landlady and her two Filipino friends.
Jimmy turned Fastshoes toward the exit door and began slowly walking him out. It was a tedious,
agonizing journey. I heard Fastshoes again, half moaning, half weeping, "I'll kill him . . . I'll kill him . .
."
Then Jimmy had him out the doorway. They were gone. The blond landlady and the two Filipinos
were still standing in the lobby, looking up at me. I was barefooted, and had gone five or six days
without a shave. I needed a haircut. I only combed my hair once, in the morning, then didn't bother
again. My gym teachers were always after me about my posture: "Pull your shoulders  back! Why
are you looking at the ground?  What's down there ?"
I would never set any trends or styles. My white t-shirt was stained with wine, burned, with many
cigarettes and cigar holes, spotted with blood and vomit. It was too small, it rode up exposing my gut
and belly button. And my pants were too small. They gripped me tightly and rose well above my
ankles.
The three of them stood and looked at me. I looked down at them. "Hey, you guys, come on up
for a little drink!"
The two little men looked up at me and grinned. The landlady, a faded Carole Lombard type,
looked on impassively. Mrs. Kansas, they called her. Could she be in love with me? She was
wearing pink shoes with high heels and a black sparkling sequinned dress. Little chips of light flashed
at me. Her breasts were something that no mere mortal would ever see -- they were only for kings,
dictators, rulers, Filipinos.
"Anybody got a smoke?" I asked. "I'm out of smokes." The little dark fellow standing to one side
of Mrs. Kansas made a slight motion with one hand toward his jacket pocket and a pack of Camels
jumped in the lobby air. Deftly he caught the pack in his other hand. With the invisible tap of a finger
on the bottom of the pack a smoke leaped up, tall, true, singular and exposed, ready to be taken.
"Hey, shit, thanks," I said.
I started down the stairway, made a mis-step, lunged, almost fell, grabbed the bannister, righted
myself, readjusted my perceptions, and walked on down. Was I drunk? I walked up to the little guy
holding the pack. I bowed slightly.
I lifted out the Camel. Then I flipped it in the air, caught it, stuck it into my mouth. My dark friend
remained expressionless, the grin having vanished when I had begun down the stairway. My little
friend bent forward, cupped his hands around the flame and lit my smoke.
I inhaled, exhaled. "Listen, why don't you all come up to my place and we'll have a couple of
drinks?"
"No," said the little guy who had lit my cigarette. "Maybe we can catch the Bee or some Bach on
my radio! I'm educated , you know. I'm a student . . ."
"No," said the other little guy. I took a big drag on my smoke, then looked at Carole Lombard --
Mrs. Kansas. Then I looked at my two friends.
"She's yours . I don't want her. She's yours. Just come on up. We'll drink a little wine. In good old
room 5."
There was no answer. I rocked on my heels a bit as the whiskey and the wine fought for
possession. I let my cigarette dangle a bit from the right side of my mouth as I sent up a plume of
smoke. I continued letting the cigarette dangle like that.
I knew about stilettoes. In the little time I had been there I had seen two enactments of the stiletto.
From my window one night, looking out at the sound of sirens, I saw a body there just below my
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window on the Temple Street sidewalk, in the moonlight, under the streetlight. Another time, another
body. Nights of the stiletto. Once a white man, the other time one of them. Each time, blood running
on the pavement, real blood, just like that, moving across the pavement and into the gutter, you could
see it going along in the gutter, meaningless, dumb . . . that so much  blood could come from just one
man.
"All right, my friends," I said to them, "no hard feelings. I'll drink alone . . ."
I turned and started to walk toward the stairway. "Mr. Chinaski," I heard Mrs. Kansas' voice. I
turned and looked at her flanked by my two little friends.
"Just go to your room and sleep. If you cause any more disturbance I will phone the Los Angeles
Police Department."
I turned and walked back up the stairway. No life anywhere, no life in this town or this place
or in this weary existence..  .
My door was open. I walked in. There was one-third of a cheap bottle of wine left.
Maybe there was another bottle in the closet? I opened the closet door. No bottle. But there
were tens and twenties everywhere. There was a rolled twenty lying between a pair of dirty socks
with holes in the toes; and there from a shirt collar, a ten dangling; and here from an old jacket,
another ten caught in a side pocket. Most of the money was on the floor.
I picked up a bill, slipped it into the side pocket of my pants, went to the door, closed and locked
it, then went down the stairway to the bar.
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55
A couple of nights later Becker walked in. I guess my parents gave him my address or he located
me through the college. I had my name and address listed with the employment division at the
college, under "unskilled labor." "I will do anything honest or otherwise," I had written on my card.
No calls.
Becker sat in a chair as I poured the wine. He had on a Marine uniform. "I see they sucked you
in," I said.
"I lost my Western Union job. It was all that was left." I handed him his drink. "You're not a
patriot then?" "Hell no."
"Why the Marines?" "I heard about boot camp. I wanted to see if I could get through it." "And
you did."
"I did. There are some crazy guys there. There's a fight almost every night. Nobody stops it. They
almost kill each other." "I like that."
"Why don't you join?" "I don't like to get up early in the morning and I don't like to take orders."
"How are you going to make it?" "I don't know. When I get down to my last dime I'll just walk
over to skid row."
"There are some real weirdoes down there." "They're everywhere."
I poured Becker another wine.
"The problem is," he said, "that there's not much time to write." "You still want to be a writer?"
"Sure. How about you?" "Yeah," I said, "but it's pretty hopeless." "You mean you're not good
enough?" "No, they're not good enough."
"What do you mean?"
"You read the magazines? The 'Best Short Stories of the Year' books? There are at least a dozen
of them."
"Yeah, I read them . . ." "You read The New Yorker" Harper's? The Atlantic?" "Yeah ..."
"This is 1940. They're still publishing 19th Century stuff, heavy, labored, pretentious. You either
get a headache reading the stuff or you fall asleep.".
"What's wrong?" "It's a trick, it's a con, a little inside game." "Sounds like you've been rejected."
"I knew I would  be. Why waste the stamps? I need wine." "I'm going to break through," said
Becker. "You'll see my books on the library shelves one day."
"Let's not talk about writing." "I've read your stuff," said Becker. "You're too bitter and you hate
everything."
"Let's not talk about writing." "Now you take Thomas Wolfe . . ." "God damn Thomas Wolfe! He
sounds like an old woman on the telephone!" "O.K., who's your boy?"
"James Thurber." "All that upper-middle-class folderol . . ." "He knows  that everyone is crazy."
"Thomas Wolfe is of the earth . . ." "Only assholes talk about writing . . ." "You calling me an
asshole?"
"Yes ..."
I poured him another wine and myself another wine. "You're a fool for getting into that uniform."
"You call me an asshole and you call me a fool. I thought we were friends."
"We are. I just don't think you're protecting yourself." "Every time I see you you have a drink in
your hand. You call that protecting yourself?"
"It's the best way I know. Without drink I would have long ago cut my god-damned throat."
"That's bullshit." "Nothing's bullshit that works. The Pershing Square preachers have their God. I
have the blood of my god!"
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I raised my glass and drained it. "You're just hiding from reality," Becker said. "Why not?"
"You'll never be a writer if you hide from reality." "What are you talking about? That's what
writers do.'" Becker stood up. "When you talk to me, don't raise your voice." "What do you want to
do, raise my dick?"
"You don't have a dick!" I caught him unexpectedly with a right that landed behind his ear. The
glass flew out of his hand and he staggered across the room. Becker was a powerful man, much
stronger than I was. He hit the edge of the dresser, turned, and I landed another straight right to the
side of his face. He staggered over near the window which was open and I was afraid to hit him then
because he might fall into the street.
Becker gathered himself together and shook his head to clear it. "All right now," I said, "let's have
a little drink. Violence nauseates me."
"O.K.," said Becker. He walked over and picked up his glass. The cheap wine I drank didn't
have corks, the tops just unscrewed. I unscrewed a new bottle. Becker held out his glass and I
poured him one. I poured myself one, set the bottle down. Becker emptied his. I emptied mine.
"No hard feelings," I said. "Hell, no, buddy," said Becker, putting down his glass. Then he dug a
right into my gut. I doubled over and as I did he pushed down on the back of my head and brought
his knee up into my face. I dropped to my knees, blood running from my nose all over my shirt.
"Pour me a drink, buddy," I said, "let's think this thing over." "Get up," said Becker, "that was just
chapter one." I got up and moved toward Becker. I blocked his jab, caught his right on my elbow,
and punched a short straight right to his nose. Becker stepped back. We both had bloody noses.
I rushed him. We were both swinging blindly. I caught some good shots. He hit me with another
good right to the belly. I doubled over but came up with an uppercut. It landed. It was a beautiful
shot, a lucky shot. Becker lurched backwards and fell against the dresser. The back of his head hit
the mirror. The mirror shattered. He was stunned. I had him. I grabbed him by the shirt front and hit
him with a hard right behind his left ear. He dropped on the rug, and knelt there on all fours. I walked
over and unsteadily poured myself a drink.
"Becker," I told him, "I kick ass around here about twice a week. You just showed up on the
wrong day."
I emptied my glass. Becker got up. He stood a while looking at me. Then he came forward.
"Becker," I said, "listen . . ." He started a right lead, pulled it back and slammed a left to my
mouth. We started in again. There wasn't much defense. It was just punch, punch, punch. He pushed
me over a chair and the chair flattened. I got up, caught him coming in. He stumbled backwards and
I landed another right. He crashed backwards into the wall and the whole room shook. He bounced
off and landed a right high on my forehead and I saw lights: green, yellow, red . . . Then he landed a
left to the ribs and a right to the face. I swung and missed.
God damn, I thought, doesn't anybody hear all this noise? Why don't they come and stop it?
Why don't they call the police?
Becker rushed me again. I missed a roundhouse right and then that was it for me . . .
When I regained consciousness it was dark, it was night. I was under the bed, just my head was
sticking out. I must have crawled under there. I was a coward. I had puked all over myself. I
crawled out from under the bed.
I looked at the smashed dresser mirror and the chair. The table was upside down. I walked over
and tried to set it upright. It fell over. Two of the legs wouldn't hold. I tried to fix them as best I
could. I set the table up. It stood a moment, then fell over again. The rug was wet with wine and
puke. I found a wine bottle lying on its side. There was a bit left. I drank that down and then looked
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around for more. There was nothing. There was nothing to drink. I put the chain on the door. I found
a cigarette, lit it and stood in the window, staring down at Temple Street. It was a nice night out.
Then there was a knock on the door. "Mr. Chinaski?" It was Mrs. Kansas. She wasn't alone. I
heard other voices whispering. She was with her little dark friends.
"Mr. Chinaski?" "Yes?"
"I want to come into your room."
"What for?"
"I want to change the sheets."
"I'm sick now. I can't let you in." "I just want to change the sheets. I'll be just a few minutes." "No,
I can't let you in. Come in the morning." I heard them whispering. Then I heard them walking down
the hall. I went over and sat on the bed. I needed a drink, bad. It was a Saturday night, the whole
town was drunk. Maybe I could sneak out?
I walked to the door and opened it a crack, leaving the chain on, and I peeked out. At the top of
the stairway there was a Filipino, one of Mrs. Kansas' friends. He had a hammer in his hand. He was
down on his knees. He looked up at me, grinned, and then pounded a nail into the rug. He was
pretending to fix the rug. I closed the door.
I really needed a drink. I paced the floor. Why could everybody in the world have a drink but
me? How long was I going to have to stay in that god- damned room? I opened the door again. It
was the same. He looked up at me, grinned, then hammered another nail into the floor. I closed the
door.
I got out my suitcase and began throwing my few clothes in there. I still had quite a bit of money I
had won gambling but I knew that I could never pay for the damages to that room. Nor did I want
to. It really hadn't been my fault. They should have stopped the fight. And Becker had broken the
mirror . . .
I was packed. I had the suitcase in one hand and my portable typewriter in its case in the other. I
stood in front of the door for some time. I looked out again. He was still there. I slipped the chain off
the door. Then I pulled the door open and burst out. I ran toward the stairway.
"HEY! Where you go?"  the little guy asked. He was still down on one knee. He started to raise
his hammer. I swung the portable typewriter hard against the side of his head. It made a horrible
sound. I was down the steps and through the lobby and out the door.
Maybe I had killed the guy. I started running down Temple Street. Then I saw a cab. He was
empty. I leaped in.
"Bunker Hill," I said, "fast!"
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56
I saw a vacancy sign in the window in front of a rooming-house, had the cabby pull up. I paid him
and walked up on the front porch, rang the bell. I had one black eye from the fight, another cut eye,
a swollen nose, and my lips were puffed. My left ear was bright red and every time I touched it, an
electric shock ran through my body.
An old man came to the door. He was in his undershirt and it looked like he had spilled chili and
beans across the front of it. His hair was grey and uncombed, he needed a shave and he was puffing
on a wet cigarette that stank.
"You the landlord?" I asked. " Yep."
"I need a room."
"You workin'?"
"I'm a writer."
"You don't look like a writer."
"What do they look like?"
He didn't answer. Then he said, "$2.50 a week." "Can I see it?"
He belched, then said, " Foller me . . ." We walked down a long hall. There was no hall rug. The
boards creaked and sank as we walked on them. I heard a man's voice from one of the rooms.
"Suck me, you piece of shit!"
"Three dollars," I heard a woman's voice. "Three dollars? I'll give you a bloody asshole!"
He slapped her hard, she screamed. We walked on. "The place is in back," the guy said, "but you
are allowed to use the house bathroom."
There was a shack in back with four doors. He walked up to #3 and opened it. We walked in.
There was a cot, a blanket, a small dresser and a little stand. On the stand was a hotplate.
"You got a hotplate here," he said. "That's nice."
"$2.50 in advance."
I paid him.
"I'll give you your receipt in the morning." "Fine."
"What's your name?"
"Chinaski."
"I'm Connors."
He slipped a key off his key ring and gave it to me. "We run a nice quiet place here. I want to
keep it that way." "Sure."
I closed the door behind him. There was a single light overhead, unshaded. Actually the place
was fairly clean. Not bad. I got up, went outside and locked the door behind me, walked through the
back yard to an alley.
I shouldn't have given that guy my real name, I thought. I might have killed my little dark friend
over on Temple Street.
There was a long wooden stairway which went down the side of a cliff and led to the street
below. Quite romantic. I walked along until I saw a liquor store. I was going to get my drink. I
bought two bottles of wine and I felt hungry too so I purchased a large bag of potato chips.
Back at my place, I undressed, climbed onto my cot, leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette and
poured a wine. I felt good. It was quiet back there. I couldn't hear anybody in any of the other
rooms in my shack. I had to take a piss, so I put on my shorts, went around the back of the shack
and let go. From up there I could see the lights of the city. Los Angeles was a good place, there
were many poor people, it would be easy to get lost among them. I went back inside, climbed back
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on the cot. As long as a man had wine and cigarettes he could make it. I finished off my glass and
poured another.
Maybe I could live by my wits. The eight-hour day was impossible, yet almost everybody
submitted to it. And the war, everybody was talking about the war in Europe. I wasn't interested in
world history, only my own. What crap. Your parents controlled your growing-up period, they
pissed all over you. Then when you got ready to go out on your own, the others wanted to stick you
into a uniform so you could get your ass shot off. The wine tasted great. I had another.
The war. Here I was a virgin. Could you imagine getting your ass blown off for the sake of history
before you even knew what a woman was? Or owned an automobile? What would I be protecting?
Somebody else. Somebody else who didn't give a shit about me. Dying in a war never stopped wars
from happening.
I could make it. I could win drinking contests, I could gamble. Maybe I could pull a few holdups.
I didn't ask much, just to be left alone.
I finished the first bottle of wine and started in on the second. Halfway through the second bottle,
I stopped, stretched out. My first night in my new place. It was all right. I slept.
I was awakened by the sound of a key in the door. Then the door pushed open. I sat up on the
cot. A man started to step in.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" I screamed. He left fast. I heard him running off. I got up
and slammed the door.
People did that. They rented a place, stopped paying rent and kept the key, sneaking back to
sleep there if it was vacant or robbing the place if the occupant was out. Well, he wouldn't be back.
He knew if he tried it again that I'd bust his sack. I went back to my cot and had another drink. I
was a little nervous. I was going to have to pick up a knife. I finished my drink, poured another,
drank that and went back to sleep.
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57
After English class one day Mrs. Curtis asked me to stay. She had great legs and a lisp and there
was something about the legs and the lisp together that heated me up. She was about 32, had culture
and style, but like everybody else, she was a goddamned liberal and that didn't take much originality
or fight, it was just more Franky Roosevelt worship. I liked Franky because of his programs for the
poor during the Depression. He had style too. I didn't think he really gave a damn about the poor but
he was a great actor, great voice, and he had a great speech writer. But he wanted us in the war. It
would put him into the history books. War presidents got more power and, later, more pages. Mrs.
Curtis was just a chip off old Franky only she had much better legs. Poor Franky didn't have any
legs but he had a wonderful brain. In some other country he would have made a powerful dictator.
When the last student left I walked up to Mrs. Curtis' desk. She smiled up at me. I had watched
her legs for many hours and she knew it. She knew what I wanted, that she had nothing to teach me.
She had only said one thing which I remembered. It wasn't her own idea, obviously, but I liked it:
"You can't overestimate the stupidity of the general public." "Mr. Chinaski," she looked up at me,
"we have certain students in this class who think they are very smart."
"Yeh?" "Mr. Felton is our smartest student." "O.K."
"What is it that troubles you?"
"What?"
"There's something . . . troubling you." "Maybe."
"This is your last semester, isn't it?" "How did you know?"
I'd been giving those legs a goodbye look. I'd decided the campus was just a place to hide. There
were some campus freaks who stayed on forever. The whole college scene was soft. They never
told you what to expect out there in the real world. They just crammed you with theory and never
told you how hard the pavements were. A college education could destroy an individual for life.
Books could make you soft. When you put them down, and really went out there, then you needed
to know what they never told you. I had decided to quit after that semester, hang around Stinky and
the gang, maybe meet somebody who had guts enough to hold up a liquor store or better yet, a
bank.
"I knew you were going to quit," she said softly. '"Begin' is a better word."
"There's going to be a war. Did you read 'Sailor Off The Bremen'?" "That New Yorker  stuff
doesn't work for me." "You've got to read things like that if you want to understand what is
happening today."
"I don't think so." "You just rebel against everything.  How are you going to survive?"
"I don't know. I'm already tired." Mrs. Curtis looked down at her desk for a long time. Then she
looked up at me.
"We're going to get drawn into the war, one way or the other. Are you going to go?"
"That doesn't matter. I might, I might not." "You'd make a good sailor."
I smiled, thought about being a sailor, then discarded that idea. "If you stay another term," she
said, "you can have anything you want." She looked up at me and I knew exactly what she meant
and she knew that I knew exactly what she meant.
"No," I said, "I'm leaving."
I walked toward the door. I stopped there, turned, gave her a little nod goodbye, a slight and
quick goodbye. Outside I walked along under the campus trees. Everywhere, it seemed, there was a
boy and a girl together. Mrs. Curtis was sitting alone at her desk as I walked alone. What a great
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triumph it would have been. Kissing that lisp, working those fine legs open, as Hitler swallowed up
Europe and peered toward London.
After a while I walked over toward the gym. I was going to clean out my locker. No more
exercising for me. People always talked about the good clean smell of fresh sweat. They had to
make excuses for it. They never talked about the good clean smell of fresh shit. There was nothing
really as glorious as a good beer shit -- 1 mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night
before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It
made you realize that you were really alive.
I found the locker, opened it and dumped my gym suit and shoes into the trash. Also two empty
wine bottles. Good luck to the next one who got my locker. Maybe he'd end up mayor of Boise,
Idaho. I threw the combo lock into the trash too. I'd never liked that combination: 1,2, 1, 1,2. Not
very mental. The address of my parents' house had been 2122. Everything was minimal. In the
R.O.T.C. it had been 1, 2, 3,4; 1, 2, 3, 4. Maybe some day I'd move up to 5.
I walked out of the gym and took a shortcut through the playing field. There was a game of touch
football going on, a pick-up game. I cut to one side to avoid it. Then I heard Baldy: "Hey, Hank!"
I looked up and he was sitting in the stands with Monty Ballard. There wasn't much to Ballard.
The nice thing about him was that he never talked unless you asked him a question. I never asked
him any questions. He just looked at life out from underneath his dirty yellow hair and yearned to be
a biologist. I waved to them and kept walking.
"Come on up here. Hank!" Baldy yelled. "It's important." I walked over. "What is it?"
"Sit down and watch that stocky guy in the gym suit." I sat down. There was only one guy in a
gym suit. He had on track shoes with spikes. He was short but wide, very wide. He had amazing
biceps, shoulders, a thick neck, heavy short legs. His hair was black; the front of his face almost flat;
small mouth, not much nose, and the eyes, the eyes were there somewhere.
"Hey, I heard about this guy," I said. "Watch him," said Baldy.
There were four guys on each team. The ball was snapped. The quarterback faded to pass. King
Kong, Jr. was on defense. He played about halfway back. One of the guys on the offensive team ran
deep, the other ran short. The center blocked. King Kong, Jr. lowered his shoulders and sped
toward the guy playing short. He smashed into him, burying a shoulder into his side and gut and
dumped him hard. Then he turned and trotted away. The pass was completed to the deep man for a
TD.
"You see?" said Baldy. "King Kong . . ."
"King Kong isn't playing football at all. He just hits some guy as hard as he can, play after play."
"You can't hit a pass receiver before he catches the ball," I said. "It's against the rules."
"Who's going to tell him?" Baldy asked. "You going to tell him?" I asked Ballard. "No," said
Ballard.
King Kong's team took the kickoff. Now he could block legally. He came down and savaged the
littlest guy on the field. He knocked the guy completely over, his head went between his legs as he
flipped. The little guy was slow getting up.
"That King Kong is a subnormal," I said. "How did he ever pass his entrance exam?"
"They don't have them here." King Kong's team lined up. Joe Stapen was the best guy on the
other team. He wanted to be a shrink. He was tall, six foot two, lean, and he had guts. Joe Stapen
and King Kong charged each other. Stapen did pretty good. He didn't get dumped. The next play
they charged each other again. This time Joe bounced off and gave a little ground.
"Shit," said Baldy, "Joe's giving up."
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The next time Kong hit Joe even harder, spinning him around, then running him 5 or 6 yards back
up the field, his shoulder buried in Joe's back.
"This is really disgusting! That guy's nothing but a fucking sadist!"  I said.
"Is he a sadist?" Baldy asked Ballard. "He's a fucking sadist," said Ballard. The next play Kong
shifted back to the smallest guy. He just ran over him and piled on top of him, dropping him hard.
The little guy didn't move for a while. Then he sat up and held his head. It looked like he was
finished. I stood up.
"Well, here I go," I said. " Get that son-of-a-bitch!" said Baldy. "Sure," I said. I walked down to
the field. "Hey, fellas. Need a player?"
The little guy stood up, started to walk off the field. He stopped as he reached me.
"Don't go in there. All that guy wants is to kill somebody." "It's just touch football," I said.
It was our ball. I got into the huddle with Joe Stapen and the other two survivors.
"What's the game plan?" I asked. "Just to stay the fuck alive," said Joe Stapen. "What's the
score?"
"I think they're winning," said Lenny Hill, the center. We broke out of the huddle. Joe Stapen
stood back and waited for the ball. I stood looking at Kong. I'd never seen him around campus. He
probably hung around the men's crapper in the gym. He looked like a shit- sniffer. He also looked
like a fetus-eater.
"Time!" I called. Lenny Hill straightened up over the ball. I looked at Kong. "My name's Hank.
Hank Chinaski. Journalism."
Kong didn't answer. He just stared at me. He had dead white skin. There was no glitter or life in
his eyes.
"What's your name?" I asked him. He just kept staring. "What's the matter? Got some placenta
caught in your teeth?" Kong slowly raised his right arm. Then he straightened it out and pointed a
finger at me. Then he lowered his arm.
"Well, suck my weenie," I said, "what's that mean?" "Come on, let's play ball," one of Kong's
mates said. Lenny bent over the ball and snapped it. Kong came at me. I couldn't seem to focus on
him. I saw the grandstand and some trees and part of the Chemistry Building shake as he crashed
into me. He knocked me over backwards and then circled around me, flapping his arms like wings. I
got up, feeling dizzy. First Becker K.O.'s me, then this sadistic ape. He smelled; he stank; a real evil
son-of- a-bitch.
Stapen had thrown an incomplete pass. We huddled. "I got an idea," I said.
"What's that?" asked Joe. "I'll throw the ball. You block." "Let's leave it the way it is," said Joe.
We broke out of the huddle. Lenny bent over the ball, snapped it back to Stapen. Kong came at me.
I lowered a shoulder and rushed at him. He had too much strength. I bounced off him, straightened
up, and as I did Kong came again, knifing his shoulder into my belly. I fell. I leaped up right away but
I didn't feel like getting up. I was having breathing problems.
Stapen had thrown a short complete pass. Third down. No huddle. When the ball snapped Kong
and I ran at each other. At the last moment I left my feet and hurled myself at him. The weight of my
body hit his neck and his head, knocking him off balance. As he fell I kicked him as hard as I could
and caught him right on the chin. We were both on the ground. I got up first. As Kong rose there
was a red blotch on the side of his face and blood at the corner of his mouth. We trotted back to our
positions.
Stapen had thrown an incomplete pass. Fourth down. Stapen dropped back to punt. Kong
dropped back to protect his safety man. The safety man caught the punt and they came pounding up
the field, Kong leading the way for his runner. I ran at them. Kong was expecting another high
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hurdle. This time I dove and clipped him at the ankles. He went down hard, his face hitting the
ground. He was stunned, he stayed there, his arms spread out. I ran up and kneeled down. I
grabbed him by the back of the neck, hard. I squeezed his neck and rammed my knee into his
backbone and dug it in. "Hey, Kong, buddy, are you all right?"
The others came running up. "I think he's hurt," I said. "Come on, somebody help me get him off
the field."
Stapen got him on one side and I got Kong on the other and we walked him to the sideline. Near
the sideline I pretended to stumble and ground my left shoe into his ankle.
"Oh," said Kong, "please leave me alone . . ." "I'm just helpin' ya, buddy."
When we got him to the sideline we dropped him. Kong sat and rubbed the blood from his
mouth. Then he reached down and felt his ankle. It was skinned and would soon begin to swell. I
bent over him. "Hey, Kong, let's finish the game. We're behind 42-7 and need a chance to catch up."
"Naw, I gotta make my next class."
"I didn't know they taught dog-catching here." "It's English Lit 1 . "
"That figures. Well, look, I'll help you over to the gym and I'll put you under a hot shower, what
you say?"
"No, you stay away from me." Kong got up. He was pretty busted. The great shoulders sagged,
there was dirt and blood on his face. He limped a few-steps. "Hey, Quinn," he said to one of his
buddies, " gimme a hand . . ."
Quinn took one of Kong's arms and they walked slowly across the field toward the gym.
"Hey, Kong!" I yelled, "I hope you make your class! Tell Bill Saroyan I said 'hello'!"
The other fellows were standing around, including Baldy and Ballard who had come down from
the stands. Here I had done my best ever god-damned act and not a pretty girl around for miles.
"Anybody got a smoke?" I asked. "I got some Chesterfields," Baldy said. "You still smoking
pussy cigarettes?" I asked. "I'll take one," said Joe Stapen.
"All right," I said, "since that's all there is." We stood around, smoking,
"We still have enough guys around to play a game," somebody said. "Fuck it," I said. "I hate
sports."
"Well," said Stapen, "you sure took care of Kong." "Yeah," said Baldy, "I watched the whole
thing. There's only one thing that confuses me."
"What's that?" asked Stapen. "I wonder which guy is the sadist?" "Well," I said, "I gotta go.
There's a Cagney movie showing tonight and I'm taking my cunt."
I began to walk across the field. "You mean you're taking your right hand to the movie?" one of
the guys yelled after me.
"Both hands," I said over my shoulder. I walked off the field, down past the Chemistry Building
and then out on the front lawn. There they were, boys and girls with their books, sitting on benches,
under the trees, or on the lawn. Green books, blue books, brown books. They were talking to each
other, smiling, laughing at times. I cut over to the side of the campus where the "V" car line ended. I
boarded the "V," got my transfer, went to the back of the car, took the last seat in back, as always,
and waited.
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58
I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future. I didn't like what I saw down
there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everybody else
wanted. There were also some obvious mental cases down there who were allowed to walk the
streets undisturbed. I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the
mad were often allowed to mingle freely. I knew that I wasn't entirely sane. I still knew, as I had as a
child, that there was something strange about myself. I felt as if I were destined to be a murderer, a
bank robber, a saint, a rapist, a monk, a hermit. I needed an isolated place to hide. Skid row was
disgusting. The life of the sane, average man was dull, worse than death. There seemed to be no
possible alternative. Education also seemed to be a trap. The little education I had allowed myself
had made me more suspicious. What were doctors, lawyers, scientists? They were just men who
allowed themselves to be deprived of their freedom to think and act as individuals. I went back to
my shack and drank . . .
Sitting there drinking, I considered suicide, but I felt a strange fondness for my body, my life.
Scarred as they were, they were mine. I would look into the dresser mirror and grin: if you're going
to go, you might as well take eight, or ten or twenty of them with you . . .
It was a Saturday night in December. I was in my room and I drank much more than usual,
lighting cigarette after cigarette, thinking of girls and the city and jobs, and of the years ahead.
Looking ahead I liked very little of what I saw. I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I
liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been
good company for myself.
Then I heard the radio in the next room. The guy had it on too loud. It was a sickening love song.
"Hey, buddy!" I hollered, "turn that thing down!" There was no response. I walked to the wall and
pounded on it. "I SAID, 'TURN THAT FUCKING THING DOWN!'"
The volume remained the same. I walked outside to his door. I was in my shorts. I raised my leg
and jammed my foot into the door. It burst open. There were two people on the cot, an old fat guy
and an old fat woman. They were fucking. There was a small candle burning. The old guy was on
top. He stopped and turned his head and looked. She looked up from underneath him. The place
was very nicely fixed-up with curtains and a little rug.
"Oh, I'm sorry . . ." I closed their door and went back to my place. I felt terrible. The poor had a
right to fuck their way through their bad dreams. Sex and drink, and maybe love, was all they had.
I sat back down and poured a glass of wine. I left my door open. The moonlight came in with the
sounds of the city: juke boxes, automobiles, curses, dogs barking, radios . . . We were all in it
together. We were all in one big shit pot together. There was no escape. We were all going to be
flushed away.
A small cat walked by, stopped at my door and looked in. The eyes were lit by the moon: pure
red like fire. Such wonderful eyes.
"Come on, kitty . . ." I held my hand out as if there were food in it. "Kitty, kitty . . ."
The cat walked on by. I heard the radio in the next room shut off. I finished my wine and went
outside. I was in my shorts as before. I pulled them up and tucked in my parts. I stood before the
other door. I had broken the lock. I could see the light from the candle inside. They had the door
wedged closed with something, probably a chair. I knocked quietly. There was no answer. I
knocked again.
154
I heard something. Then the door opened. The old fat guy stood there. His face was hung with
great folds of sorrow. He was all eyebrows and mustache and two sad eyes.
"Listen," I said, "I'm very sorry for what I did. Won't you and your girl come over to my place for
a drink?"
"No." "Or maybe I can bring you both something to drink?" "No," he said, "please leave us
alone."
He closed the door.
I awakened with one of my worst hangovers. I usually slept until noon. This day I couldn't. I
dressed and went to the bath- room in the main house and made my toilet. I came back out, went up
the alley and then down the stairway, down the cliff and into the street below.
Sunday, the worst god-damned day of them all. I walked over to Main Street, past the bars. The
B-girls sat near the doorways, their skirts pulled high, swinging their legs, wearing high heels. "Hey,
honey, come on in!"
Main Street, East 5th, Bunker Hill. Shitholes of America. There was no place to go. I walked into
a Penny Arcade. I walked around looking at the games but had no desire to play any of them. Then I
saw a Marine at a pinball machine. Both his hands gripped the sides of the machine, as he tried to
guide the ball with body-English. I walked up and grabbed him by the back of his collar and his belt.
"Becker, I demand a god-damned rematch!" I let go of him and he turned.
"No, nothing doing," he said.
"Two out of three."
"Balls," he said, "I'll buy you a drink." We walked out of the Penny Arcade and down Main
Street. A B-girl hollered out from one of the bars, "Hey, Marine, come on in!" Becker stopped. "I'm
going in," he said.
"Don't," I said, "they are human roaches." "I just got paid."
"The girls drink tea and they water your drinks. The prices are double and you never see the girl
afterwards."
"I'm going in." Becker walked in. One of the best unpublished writers in America, dressed to kill
and to die. I followed him. He walked up to one of the girls and spoke to her. She pulled her skirt
up, swung her high heels and laughed. They walked over to a booth in a corner. The bartender came
around the bar to take their order. The other girl at the bar looked at me. "Hey, honey, don't you
wanna play?"
"Yeah, but only when it's my game." "You scared or queer?"
"Both," I said, sitting at the far end of the bar. There was a guy between us, his head on the bar.
His wallet was gone. When he awakened and complained, he'd either be thrown out by the
bartender or handed over to the police.
After serving Becker and the B-girl the bartender came back behind the bar and walked over to
me.
"Yeh?" "Nothing."
"Yeh? What ya want in here?"
"I'm waiting for my friend," I nodded at the corner booth. "You sit here, you gotta drink."
"O.K. Water." The bartender went off, came hack, set down a glass of water. "Two bits."
I paid him. The girl at the bar said to the bartender, "He's queer or scared." The bartender didn't
say anything. Then Becker waved to him and he went to take their order.
The girl looked at me. "How come you ain't in uniform?" "I don't like to dress like everybody
else."
155
"Are there any other reasons?" "The other reasons are my own business." "Fuck you," she said.
The bartender came back. "You need another drink." "O.K.," I said, slipping another quarter
toward him.
Outside, Becker and I walked down Main Street. "How'd it go?" I asked.
"There was a table charge, plus the two drinks. It came to $32." "Christ, I could stay drunk for
two weeks on that." "She grabbed my dick under the table, she rubbed it." "What did she say?"
"Nothing. She just kept rubbing my dick." "I'd rather rub my own dick and keep the thirty-two
bucks." "But she was so beautiful."
"God damn, man, I'm walking along in step with a perfect idiot."
"Someday I'm going to write all this down. I'll be on the library shelves: BECKER. The 'B's' are
very weak, they need help." "You talk too much about writing," I said.
We found another bar near the bus depot. It wasn't a hustle joint. There was just a barkeep and
five or six travelers, all men. Becker and I sat down.
"It's on me," said Becker. "Eastside in the bottle."
Becker ordered two. He looked at me. "Come on, be a man, join up. Be a Marine." "I don't get
any thrill trying to be a man." "Seems to me you're always beating up on somebody." "That's just for
entertainment."
"Join up. It'll give you something to write about." " Becker, there's always something to write
about." "What are you gonna do, then?"
I pointed at my bottle, picked it up. "How are ya gonna make it?" Becker asked. "Seems like I've
heard that question all my life." "Well, I don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War,
women, travel, marriage, children, the works. The first car I own I'm going to take it completely
apart! Then I'm going to put it back together again! I want to know about things, what makes them
work! I'd like to be a correspondent in Washington, D.C. I'd like to be where big things are
happening."
"Washington's crap, Becker." "And women? Marriage? Children?"
"Crap."
"Yeah? Well, what do you want?"
"To hide."
"You poor fuck. You need another beer." "All right."
The beer arrived.
We sat quietly. I could sense that Becker was off on his own, thinking about being a Marine,
about being a writer, about getting laid. He'd probably make a good writer. He was bursting with
enthusiasms. He probably loved many things: the hawk in flight, the god-damned ocean, full moon,
Balzac, bridges, stage plays, the Pulitzer Prize, the piano, the god-damned Bible.
There was a small radio in the bar. There was a popular song playing. Then in the middle of the
song there was an interruption. The announcer said, "A bulletin has just come in. The Japanese have
bombed Pearl Harbor. I repeat: The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. All military personnel
are requested to return immediately to their bases!"
We looked at each other, hardly able to understand what we'd just heard.
"Well," said Becker quietly, "that's it." "Finish your beer," I told him. Becker took a hit. "Jesus,
suppose some stupid son-of-a-bitch points a machine gun at me and pulls the trigger?"
"That could well happen." "Hank . . ."
"What?"
156
"Will you ride back to the base with me on the bus?" "I can't do that."
The bartender, a man about 45 with a watermelon gut and fuzzy eyes walked over to us. He
looked at Becker. "Well, Marine, it looks like you gotta go back to your base, hub?"
That pissed me. "Hey, fat boy, let him finish his drink, O.K.?" "Sure, sure . . . Want a drink on the
house. Marine? How about a shot of good whiskey?"
"No," said Becker, "it's all right." "Go ahead," I told Becker, "take the drink. He figures you're
going to die to save his bar."
"All right," said Becker, "I'll take the drink." The barkeep looked at Becker.
"You got a nasty friend . . ." "Just give him his drink," I said. The other few customers were
babbling wildly about Pearl Harbor. Before, they wouldn't speak to each other. Now they were
mobilized. The Tribe was in danger.
Becker got his drink. It was a double shot of whiskey. He drank it down.
"I never told you this," he said, "but I'm an orphan." "God damn," I said.
"Will you at least come to the bus depot with me?" "Sure."
We got up and walked toward the door, The barkeep was rubbing his hands all over his apron.
He had his apron all bunched up and was excitedly rubbing his hands on it. "Good luck, Marine!" he
hollered.
Becker walked out. I paused inside the door and looked back at the barkeep.
"World War I, eh?" " Yeh, yeh . . ." he said happily. I caught up with Becker. We half-ran to the
bus depot together. Servicemen in uniform were already beginning to arrive. The whole place had an
air of excitement. A sailor ran past.
"I'M GOING TO KILL ME A JAP!" he screamed. Becker stood in the ticket line. One of the
servicemen had his girlfriend with him. The girl was talking, crying, holding onto him, kissing him.
Poor Becker only had me. I stood to one side, waiting. It was a long wait. The same sailor who had
screamed earlier came up to me. "Hey, fellow, aren't you going to help us? What're you standing
there for? Why don't you go down and sign ^^ up?
There was whiskey on his breath. He had freckles and a very large nose. "You're going to miss
your bus," I told him. He went off toward the bus departure point.
"Fuck the god-damned fucking Japs!"  he said.
Becker finally had his ticket. I walked him to his bus. He stood in another line.
"Any advice?" he asked. "No."
The line was filing slowly into the bus. The girl was weeping and talking rapidly and quietly to her
soldier. Becker was at the door. I punched him on the shoulder. "You're the best I've known."
"Thanks, Hank . . ."
"Goodbye . . ."
I walked out of there. Suddenly there was traffic on the street. People were driving badly, running
stoplights, screaming at each other. I walked back over to Main Street. America was at war. I
looked into my wallet: I had a dollar. I counted my change: 61.
I walked along Main Street. There wouldn't be much for the B-girls today. I walked along. Then I
came to the Penny Arcade. There wasn't anybody in there. Just the owner standing in his high-
perched booth. It was dark in that place and it stank of piss.
I walked along in the dark aisles among the broken machines. They called it a Penny Arcade but
most of the games cost a nickel and some a dime. I stopped at the boxing machine, my favorite. Two
little steel men stood in a glass cage with buttons on their chins. There were two hand grips, like
157
pistol grips, with triggers, and when you squeezed the triggers the arms of your fighter would
uppercut wildly. You could move your fighter back and forth and from side to side. When you hit the
button on the chin of the other fighter he would go down hard on his back, K.O.'d. When I was a
kid and Max Schmeling K.O.'d Joe Louis, I had run out into the street looking for my buddies,
yelling "Hey, Max Schmeling K.O.'d Joe Louis!"  And nobody answered me, nobody said
anything, they had just walked away with their heads down.
It took two to play the boxing game and I wasn't going to play with the pervert who owned the
place. Then I saw a little Mexican boy, eight or nine years old. He came walking down the aisle. A
nice-looking, intelligent Mexican boy.
"Hey, kid?" "Yes, Mister?"
"Wanna play this boxing game with me?" "Free?"
"Sure. I'm paying. Pick your fighter." He circled around, peering through the glass. He looked
very serious. Then he said, "O.K., I'll take the guy in the red trunks. He looks best." "All right."
The kid got on his side of the game and stared through the glass. He looked at his fighter, then he
looked up at me.
"Mister, don't you know that there's a war on?" "Yes."
We stood there. "You gotta put the coin in," said the kid. "What are you doing in this place?" I
asked him. "How come you're not in school?"
"It's Sunday." I put the dime in. The kid started squeezing his triggers and I started squeezing
mine. The kid had made a bad choice. The left arm of his fighter was broken and only reached up
halfway. It could never hit the button on my fighters chin. All the kid had was a right hand. I decided
to take my time. My guy had blue trunks. I moved him in and out, making sudden flurries. The
Mexican kid was great, he kept trying. He gave up on the left arm and just squeezed the trigger for
the right arm. I rushed blue trunks in for the kill, squeezing both triggers. The kid kept pumping the
right arm of red trunks. Suddenly blue trunks dropped. He went down hard, making a clanking
sound.
"I got ya. Mister," said the kid. "You won," I said. The kid was excited. He kept looking at blue
trunks flat on his ass.
"You wanna fight again, Mister?" I paused, I don't know why.
"You out of money, Mister?"
"Oh, no."
"O.K., then, we'll fight."
I put in another dime and blue trunks sprang to his feet. The kid started squeezing his one trigger
and the right arm of red trunks pumped and pumped. I let blue trunks stand back for a while and
contemplate. Then I nodded at the kid. I moved blue trunks in, both arms flailing. I felt I had to win.
It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this
is so important?
And another part of me answered, just because it is. Then blue trunks dropped again, hard,
making the same iron clanking sound. I looked at him laying on his back down there on his little
green velvet mat. Then I turned around and walked out.


--- Screams_from_the_balcony-C.Bukowski.pdf ---


CHARLES BUKOWSKI
SCREAMS
FROM THE
BALCONY
SELECTED LETTERS 1960-1970
EDITED BY
SEAMUS COONEY


Contents
5 Editor’s Note
9 1958
11 1959
13 1960
27 1961
29 1962
53 1963
99 1964
123 1965
235 1966
283 1967
321 1968
341 1969
355 Afterword
363
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Other Books by Charles Bukowski
Cover
Copyright
About the PublisherIndex to the Letters

EDITOR’S  NOTE
The last thing this book needs is an academic introduction—so the few
comments I have to offer will be the last thing, relegated to an Afterword.
All that’s required here is an explanation of how the letters have been
edited. Working from photocopies of letters in private and public collections
available to me, I have transcribed and selected roughly 50% of their con-
tents. My only criterion was vividness and interest of the contents, while
trying to minimize repetition. Except for three or four word changes, there
has been no censorship or expurgation. Letters from the seventies and later
will appear in a subsequent volume, where earlier letters found too late
for printing here may also be included. Headnote comments about his
correspondents are quoted from notes Charles Bukowski made at my re-
quest.
A few reproductions of letters (not all of them transcribed for inclusion)
will let readers glimpse what this book cannot render: the total visual effect
of many Bukowski letters, often decorated with drawings, painting, or
collages. Not only are such visual components regrettably sacrificed, but
making a readable text has also meant imposing some regularity on
Bukowski’s spacing, spelling, and the like. There is no way these things
could be fully preserved in setting type, in any case. And after a few in-
stances (some of which I’ve preserved), typos grow distracting. But to give
the flavor, I have presented a couple of representative letters verbatim and
uncorrected.
Other editorial changes are regularizing of dates and the omission of
most salutations and signoffs. For emphasis and for titles in his letters,
Bukowski often typed in ALL CAPS. In a book these are hard on the eye.
Here, when they are for emphasis, we print them as SMALL CAPS ; when
they name titles, we print them in regular title format: italics for books,
quotes for separate poems or stories. I have indicated editorial omissions
by asterisks in square brackets. A few editorial additions are similarly
bracketed. A minimum of
5
explanatory material has been included preceding some letters. References
to Hank  are to the biography of Bukowski by Neeli Cherkovski. “Dorbin”
refers to Sanford Dorbin’s A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski  (Black Sparrow,
1969).
The title for this volume was supplied by Charles Bukowski.
6


• 1958 •
In mid-1958, the time of the earliest letters available,
Bukowski had recently begun working in the post office
in a permanent position as a mail sorter, after an earlier
spell of three years as a mail carrier. Not long before, he
had resumed writing after a ten-year interval, and by now
had a handful of little magazine publications. E. V. Grif-
fith, editor of  Hearse magazine, had agreed to do a chap-
book. But the delay in publication was to test Bukowski’s
patience to the limit. He finally received his author’s copies
in October, 1960 .
Until May 1, 1964, Bukowski’s letters are dated from
1623 N. Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles 27, California .
(The following letter is printed in full.)
[To E. V. Griffith]
June 6, 1958
Dear E. V. Griffith:
Here are some more. Thanks for returning others. No title ideas yet. Post
office pen no damn good. Trying to say—no title ideas yet.
Fire, Fist and Bestial Wail ? No. Thought about using title of one of my
short stories—“Confessions of a Coward and Man Hater.” No.
“The Mourning, Morning Sunrise.” No.
I don’t know, E. V.
I don’t know.
Anyhow, I’m thinking about it.
Sincerely,
Charles Bukowski
9
Gil Orlovitz (1918-1973) frequently published pamphlets
of verse .
[To E. V. Griffith]
July 9, 1958
I still think Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail  just about covers the nature of my
work. If you object to this title I’ll send along some others.
I’m quite pleased with your selections. “The Birds,” which I had just
written, I like personally but I found others would not like this type of
thing because of its philosophical oddity. Poem, by the way, is factual and
not fictional. All of my stuff you have is, except “59 and drinks” & “[Some
Notes of Dr.] Klarstein.”
Thanks for sending Arrows of Longing .
As to Orlovitz, I find him at his best, very good. Certainly his delivery
seems original.
Do you have my short stories about anywhere?
I suppose I mentioned I unloaded one at Coastlines  and a couple at Views
(Univ. of Louisville), but I think what you picked is pretty much my best
stuff, and I have been honored to have been singled out by you and gathered
up this way.
10
• 1959 •
Griffith published Carl Larsen’s  Arrows of Longing as
Hearse Chapbook no. 1 in 1958. He was also the editor of
Gallows, in the first issue of which Bukowski had two
poems printed .
[To E. V. Griffith]
August 10, 1959
Verification of existence substantiated.
I am alive and drinking beer. As to the literary aspect, I have appeared
recently in Nomad  #1, Coastlines  (spring ’59), Quicksilver  (summer ’59) and
Epos  (summer ’59). I haven’t submitted further to you because I have sensed
that you are overstocked.
There are 10 or 12 other magazines that have accepted my stuff but as
you know there is an immense lag in some cases between acceptance and
publication. Much of this type of thing makes one feel as if he were writing
into a void. But that’s the literary life, and we’re stuck with it.
I am looking forward, of course, to the eventual chapbook, and I hope
it moves better for you than the Larsen thing. Of course, I don’t consider
Carl Larsen a very good writer and am always surprised when anyone
does. But to hell with Larsen, now where was I? Oh yes, I have never re-
ceived a copy of Gallows  and since you say I have a couple in it, I would
like a copy. Could you send one down?
Well, there really isn’t much more to say…the horses are running poorly,
the women are f/ruffing me up, the rent’s due, but as
11
I said, I’m still alive and drinking beer. Glad to get your card. Don’t forget
to send me to the Gallows . Thanx.
[To E. V. Griffith]
October 3, 1959
Dashing this off before going to the track with a couple of grifters. I hate
these Saturdays—all the amateurs are out there with the greed glittering
in their eyes, half-drunk on beer, pinching the women, stealing seats,
screaming over nothing. [* * *]
Thanks for card and news of Hearse  fame in Nation  and Poetry  (Ch.). Can’t
seem to find the correct issue of Nation  for this but am still trying. Success
is wonderful if we can achieve it without whoring our concepts. Keep
publishing the good live poets as in the past.
[To E. V. Griffith]
early December, 59
Are you still alive?
Everything that’s happening to me is banal or venal, and perhaps later
a more flowery and poesy versification—right now drab and bare as the
old-lady-in-the-shoe’s panties.
I don’t know, there’s one hell of a lot of frustration and fakery in this
poetry business, the forming of groups, soul-handshaking, I’ll print you if
you print me, and wouldn’t you care to read before a small select group
of homosexuals?
I pick up a poetry magazine, flip the pages, count the stars, moon, and
frustrations, yawn, piss out my beer and pick up the want-ads.
I am sitting in a cheap Hollywood apartment pretending to be a poet but
sick and dull and the clouds are coming over the fake paper mountains
and I peck away at these stupid keys, it’s 12 degrees in Moscow and it’s
snowing; a boil is forming between my eyes and somewhere between Pedro
and Palo Alto I lost the will to fight: the liquor store man knows me like a
cousin: he cracks the paper bag and looks like a photograph of Francis
Thompson.
12
• 1960 •
Jory Sherman, described by Bukowski as “an early talent,”
was a poet then living in San Francisco and publishing
alongside Bukowski in little magazines like  Epos, whose
editor, Evelyn Thorne, suggested the two men should
correspond  (Hank, p. 116).
[To Jory Sherman]
[April 1, 1960]
Tell the staunch Felicia to hang on in: you are, to my knowledge, the best
young poet working in America today. And rejections are no hazard; they
are better than gold. Just think what type of miserable cancer you would
be today if all your works had been accepted. The beef-eaters, the half-
percepted wags who give you the pages and the print have forced you
deeper in to show them the sight of light and color. [* * *]
Hell, if you want to read some of my poems, go ahead. I embrace you
with luck. But I am tired of them, I am tired of my stuff, and I try very hard
not to write anymore. I suppose I might sound like Patchen although I have
not read much of him. Jeffers, I suppose, is my god—the only man since
Shakey to write the long narrative poem that does not put one to sleep.
And Pound, of course. And then Conrad Aiken is so truly a poet, but Jeffers
is stronger, darker, more exploratatively modern and mad. Of course, Eliot’s
gone down, Auden’s gone down, and William C. Williams has completely
fallen apart. Do you think it’s age? And E. E. Cummings blanking out.
Sherman’s coming on, though, taking them in the stretch,
13
stride by stride, clomp, clomp, clomp, Sherman’s coming on toward the
wire and the ugly crowd screams. Bukowski drinks a cheap beer.[* * *]
Sheri Martinelli, mentioned in this next and several sub-
sequent letters, was an American artist for whose book
Ezra Pound wrote an introduction:  La Martinelli (Milan,
1956). Bukowski notes, “She wrote heavy letters, down-
grading me. Everything was, ‘Ezra said…,’ ‘Ezra did…’
She was said to be a looker. I never met her. Lived in San
Francisco .”
[To Jory Sherman]
[ca. April, 1960]
[* * *] Rather like Sheri M. altho when she sent back my poems she tried
to relegate me with some rather standard formula and I had to take the
kinks out of her wiring. [* * *] The Cantos make fine reading, the sweep
and command of the langwidge (my spell) carries it even o’r the thin spots,
although I have never been able to read the whole damn thing or remember
what I’ve read, but it’s going to last, I guess, just for that reason: a well of
Pounding unrecognized.
[* * *] Thanks again for Beat’d . Anonymous poem not good because guy
thinks he can compromise life. There is no compromise: if you are going
to write tv rifleman crap, tv rifleman crap will show in your poems, and if
he thinks he’s an old timer at 34, he’d better towel behind the ears and
elsewhere too, because Bukowski, who nobody’s heard of will be 40 on
August 16th., and Pound who everybody’s heard of will be almost twice
that old and has never compromised with anybody, nations or gods or
gawkers and has signed his name to everything he has written, not for
fame but for establishment of point and stance. Let the baker compromise,
the cop and the mailman, some of us must hold the hallowed ground…[*
* *]
14
“S & amp; S” is  Scimitar and Song, whose March 1960
issue prints a Bukowski poem, with a typographical error .
[To Jory Sherman]
[ca. April, 1960]
[* * *] Do you double space your poems? I know that one is supposed to
double space stories, articles, etc. for clarity and easy reading but thot poem
due to its construction (usually much space), read easy enough singled.
And I think a double-spaced poem loses its backbone, it flops in the air. I
don’t know: the world is always sniping sniping so hard at the petty rules
petty mistakes, I don’t get it, what doesn’t it mean? bitch, bitch, bitch.
meanwhile the point going by: is the poem good or bad in your opinion?
Rules are for old maids crossing the street.
Saw your poem in S & S . [* * *] She messed up my poem-eve instead of
eye, but it was a rotter anyway. She’s a very old woman and prints the
same type of poesy. Wrote me a letter about how the birds were chirping
outside her window, all was peace, men like me who liked to drink and
gamble, oh talented but lost. I saw a bird when I was driving home from
the track the other day. It was in the mouth of a cat crouched down in the
asphalt street, the clouds overhead, the sunset, love and God overhead,
and it saw my car and rose, cat-rose insane, stiff back like mad love deprav-
ity, and it walked toward the curbing, and I saw the bird, a large grey, flip
broken winged, wings large and out, dipped, feathers spread, still alive,
cat-fanged; nobody saying anything, signals changing, my motor running,
and the wings the wings in my mind and the teeth, grey bird, a large grey.
Scimitar and Song , yes indeed. Shit. [* * *]
The poem “Death Wants More Death” was published in
Harlequin in 1957. Sherman must have proposed reading
it aloud to an audience .
15
[To Jory Sherman]
[Spring 1960]
[* * *] On “D. Wants More D.,” I am afraid it would disturb an audience
a bit too much. My father’s garage had windows in it full of webs, flies and
spiders churning blood-death in my brain, and tho I’m told nature has its
meaning, I’m still infested with horror, and all the charts and graphs of the
chemists and biologists and anthropologists and naturalists and sound-
thinking men are nothing to the buzzing of this death.
“Crews” is Judson Crews, since 1949 a prolific author of
books and pamphlets from the little presses .
[To E. V. Griffith]
April 25, 1960
No, I haven’t seen any of the Crews clip-out type production, and know
very little of the mechanics of this sort of thing. But does this mean that a
poem must have been published elsewhere in some magazine before it can
be included in the chapbook? On much of my published work I only have
one magazine and I would not care to tear them up for the chapbook. And
you also hold much work of mine that has never been published. I don’t
quite know; it is all rather puzzling. And I know that if we had to go after
the missing magazines to get the clips it would take long long months, and
perhaps many of them could never be acquired.
I wish you could write me a bit more on how this works, for as you can
see I am mixed up. What would it cost some other way? Or do they have
to be published pieces?
The prices seem fair enough and I could go up to the 32 pages if you
have enough material to fill them. Perhaps we might add the 2 poems out
of San Francisco Review  #1, and I have some stuff coming out in the Coastlines
and Nomad , due off the press any day now, I’m told. I don’t know if you’ll
like it or not. And you’ve probably seen some of my other crap around. I
think “Regard Me” in Nomad  #1 was pretty good, but it’s hard for me to
judge my own work and I’d rather leave that task up to you.
16
Right now I don’t know how many pages you can fill or just whether or
not this clip-out method restricts the filling. So I guess we’ll have some
more delay while you are kind enough to write me and fill in my ignorance.
Hoping to hear from you soon,
[To E. V. Griffith]
June 2, 1960
Good of you to write or even think chapbook while auto-torn. Like your
lineup of poems ok, and should they run into more pages, please do let me
know and I will money order you the difference. I would rather send you
more than have you cut out a poem you want in there but are restricted
on pages. I guess it’s pretty hard to tell how many pages the thing will run
at a loose glance like that and you will probably find out from your printer.
Let me know how things work out this way on the pages. [* * *]
I just hope you can move a few copies so you won’t get stung too badly
on your end of the deal. I have visions of chapbooks stacked in a closet
gathering dust and nobody knowing Bukowski and Griffith are alive and
I begin to have horrible qualms. Maybe not. Maybe if this works out ok,
sometime in the future we can go in on another half and half deal. It seems
very reasonable since you do all the work and are promoting another  person’s
work and not your own. The money end, from my side of it, seems less
than nothing, but I realize that from your end with so many things going,
different mags, chapbooks, it can get very very big, mountain-like. Well,
hope all is ok, and you needn’t write for a while, I realize you are in tough
shape—unless you have some suggestions or et al. I feel pretty good that
this thing is going thru, although it’s hard to finally realize. [* * *]
Norman Winski was editor of the little magazine  Break-
thru.
17
[To Jory Sherman]
June 28, [1960]
[* * *] Winski, he’s been phoning and I’ve been ducking. Jesus, I can’t see
any sense in it but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He pinned me down
and I told him I’d be over to his place last night, but at last minute I phoned
his wife and told her something had come up, I couldn’t make it. She
sounded pretty hurt and in about 10 minutes the phone started ringing,
Winski I suppose and I just laid there slugging down the beer. I guess I’m
insane, a mess-up. He told me to bring over some of my poems, wanted
me to read something. Jesus, I can’t do that sort of thing, Jory!
[* * *] Do, if you see Sheri, tell her I said hello. She wrote me a wonderful
3 page letter bout Pound and things, almost a poem, the whole thing. De-
serves answer but I can’t get untracked. [* * *]
[To Jory Sherman]
[July 9, 1960]
u in bed weigh & I am answering right off altho I do not know if I have
anything to say but will let the keys roll and see what comes off. not me, I
hope. No women around. One lugcow just left, sitting on couch all old out
of shape red in face fat, jesus I told her I’m really going to heave a big one,
one old big shitsigh when u drag it outa here. I’ll have a brew and fall on
the springs and begin to dream sweet dreams, only I did not say it in exactly
this manner and she laughed. old women everywhere, lord. [* * *]
Spicer stupid to ask if you have read Lorca. Everybody has read Lorca.
Everybody has read anything, everything. Why ask. I hate these meetings.
Have u read. oh yeah. he’s good. how about. o yeah. he’s good too. [* * *]
Stan phoned yesterday. told him I was going to races. phone me, see me
that night. I didn’t hear. guess he pissed. well, what is there to see…me…old
man on couch or edge of chair trying to think of something to say, and all
the time everybody thinking, is this the guy who wrote those poems? No,
it can’t be!
WHAT PEOPLE FORGET IS THAT YOU WRITE  THE POEM, YOU DON’T TALK  IT.
18
to hell with everybody but Jory Sherman, S. Martinelli, Pound, Jeffers,
T. Williams and the racing form. you are not a bastard and I do not like to
hear yourself call urself one, and I am not a saint. let’s go with the poem,
straight down the stretch to the wire, first. sure.
Hearse Chapbook no. 4 was Mason Jordan Mason’s  A
Legionere (1960). Bukowski’s book would be no. 5 in the
series .
[To E. V. Griffith]
August 1, 1960
Again the long silence from Eureka, although I see in Trace  38 you are
coming on with more Mason Jordan Mason as fast as Crews can write it,
also a couple of more editors. Well, that’s all right. What you do is yours.
I hate to bitch, but is anything happening with the Flower and the Fist etc . I
have told a couple of more magazines, and few people and I am beginning
to feel foolish because as you know, this is the second time around with
the same act. Let me hear something or other. Stamped self-addressed en-
closed.
Marvin Bell and a couple of others seem to think my “Death of a Roach”
in Epos , Winter 1959, is a pretty good poem? Too late to work it in? More
loot? You don’t care for poem? Anyway, I’ll be glad when it’s all over. The
thing has become more than a few pages of my poems. It has been going
on so long that it has become like a disease, an obsession, purgatory, Alca-
traz…. how long has it been? 2 years? 3? Please, E.V., be reasonable. Let’s
get this thing out of the way. Let Mason screw his lambs for a while. I am
beginning to talk to myself in the mirror.
ps—I see where Witt crossed you up on “Lowdermilk,” having appeared
with it in Decade  1953. How they want their fame! over and over again! in-
stead of writing something new. Frankly, E.V., I’m getting pretty sick of
the literary world but I don’t know where else to go. Yeah. I know. I can
go to hell. I dropped a hundred and fifty on the ponies Saturday. Riding
back on the train drunk, all the women looking at somebody else. Bukowski
old and grey and shrunk. all the rivers dry. all the pockets empty. best
anyhow, damn it, they haven’t dropped the bomb yet.
19
The broadside referred to in the next letter was the first
separate Bukowski publication, a poem called “His Wife
the Painter,” published by E. V. Griffith and included as
an insert in the magazine  Coffin, no. 1 (1960) .
[To E. V. Griffith]
August 6, 1960
Thank you for the quick response on inquiry. Hope I have not piqued
you.
Yes, this little mag game discouraging and that is why I try to keep quiet
and not scratch at editors, just write the poem. When I bitch occasionally
it’s just the nerves reaching the throat, mine really, and I’m eating at myself
rather than anybody else.
Thank you for broadsides: they are beautiful type jobs. I have at least a
half dozen friends, places in mind that I’d like to see these. Tonight I am
mailing out the ones you send. They are wonderfully presented, can’t quite
get over that. Do you have a few more sets? [* * *]
No, I don’t have any particular mags in mind for review copies. I don’t
have any particular feuds going nor, on the other hand, any strong support-
ers who would swing for me. [* * *]
Nice to hear from you Griff and I promise not to cry anymore.
A little outa the way, but I rec. a note from Ann Reynolds of the Sixties
this morn. little photo a duff and bly. I roasted Duffy and he ducked out
and joined the French Foreign Legion. Who says I’m not a tough baby? [*
* *]
P.S.—If this works out ok, perhaps sometime in the future—the far fu-
ture—we can work out another half-and-half deal. I think right now we
have both suffered too much with it…. [* * *]
The next letter records the first contact with  Outsider
magazine and its editors and publishers, Jon and Louise
Webb, a connection which was to prove so beneficial to
Bukowski. It also, like the preceding letter, notes his incom-
patibility with the kind of poetry being furthered by Robert
Bly’s magazine  The Sixties
20
(formerly  The Fifties). Bukowski had eleven poems in
Outsider No. 1 (Fall 1961), under the collective title “A
Charles Bukowski Album .”
[To Jory Sherman]
August 17, 1960
[* * *] Martinelli called me down something…called me a “prick,” said
I built “asshole palaces,” called me “bug-job,” I can’t remember all. [* * *]
I can’t be bothered with gash trying to realign my outlook. And Pound
may have been “lonely” and “fell in love with a great s SSPLLLANG ggg”
“like a rain in a dry dusty summer,” but I am not Pound and I am not
lonely. The last thing I wanna see is more gash and more people.
No, regarding Griff, broadsides not of book, but insert style thing to be
slipped into pages of Coffin  and Hearse  loosely, later to be assembled into
collection of some sort. I am broadside #1, Hearse . Tibbs freelance pen ink
sketcher who fulfills frus[trations] by playing little mag pages with scratchy
pen. Rather ordinary talent, I think, but not too much compo[sition]. Think
I could do better but I am supposed to be a poet.
No, I’m not in Sixties . One reject they sent me, trying to place me in
Evergreen Review  class, had hangover and straightened them. Hence this
bit of corres., photo etc., which I am not going to answer, my point already
have b. made, and I don’t care too much to leave the poem and jaw unless
it is crit. article. Ann Reynolds sounds like somebody to fill Duffy-gap. [*
* *]
Thanks for word on Outsider  Finally got card from them through Coast-
lines . Asking me for contributions. Ah, well.
Bukowski’s birthday is August 16th .
21
[To Jory Sherman]
August 17, 1960
it’s all over, I’m 40, over the hill, down the other side…made the rounds
Sunday nite…alone…sat in strip joint, watched them shake and wiggle
like something going on…bored…$1.25 for beer, but drank em like water.
water hell. I don’t drink much water. Place after place…faces sitting there
empty as jugs. shit. shit. oh, I got a lovely buncha coconuts! nothing. woke
up with cracked toe, blood, couldn’t walk. oh I got a lovely buncha, a lovely
buncha coconuts!
old girlfriend sent over huge buncha flowers, all kinds, quite nicea her.
like a funeral, like a beautiful funeral, buried at 40…
sick today. [* * *]
Do you mind if I sign myself Charles? it is old habit. when I write or
when somebody writes me I am Charles. When they talk to me in a room
I am Hank. This, my solidification. A chunk of 40 stone.
[To Jory Sherman]
[August 22, 1960]
black day, they have kicked my horse-ass good. 3 rejects, San Fran. Review,
White Dove , and Oak Leaves . [* * *]
Girlfriend said I was as drunk the other night as she’d ever seen me. I
used vile lang. and yanked the mattress off her bed and then leaned back
in chair and gave 2 hours lecture (while drinking) on the arts and what
they meant or didn’t mean, and who was what and why.
Kid, I am definitely cracking. These last 3 or 4 months have ended me.
I think I’m written out. I’ve said it all. What the hell else? I don’t care. I’ve
still got the horses and the whores and Schlitz. Let these 19 year old editors
gobble the gugga of rooster.
I’m going to try to buy a shack somewhere and give everything up. Just
be dirty old man waiting to die. I’m sick of all the 8 hour faces and laughter
and babble, Dodger talk and pussy-talk and zero-talk. A roof, no rent.
That’s my aim. Pick up enough washing dishes 3 times a week or pimping.
Lord, I’m sick of it all. And poetry too.
22
No wonder Van Gogh blasted his head off. Crows and sunlight. Idle zero.
Zero eating your guts like an animal inside, letting you shit and fuck and
blink your eyes, but nothing, a nothing. I couldn’t die stretched in a blizzard
because I’m already dead. So let Pound have it. And Keats. and Shelley.
and belly. piss. the mailman with his smirking white rejectee envelopes,
and all the grass growing and the cars going by as if it all doesn’t matter.
Christ, I’m watching a guy water his lawn now. His mind is as empty as a
department store flowerbowl. Water. water. water. make the grass grow
green. GREAT. G R E A T.[* * *]
[To E. V. Griffith]
[September 19, 1960]
Got you plug in Quagga  vol. I, no. 2, just off the press: “Charles
Bukowski’s new book will be off the press early next month, Flower, Fist
and Bestial Wail . It is being published by Hearse Chapbooks in California.”
So you see, I’m working at it. Pretty lively poem in Quagga  about a riot that
occurred while I was in Moyamensing Prison. Might instigate the sale of
a couple of chapbooks. I feel that you have been somehow reluctant to put
out the Wail, perhaps feeling it would not move, since I am an isolationist
socially speaking and have only enemies, but life is sometimes odd Griff,
and it might be that this thing will put some dough in your pockets. I feel
I am a more lively writer than Crews, Creeley, Mason, etc., Eckman, but
we’ll see.
[To E. V. Griffith]
Mid September, [1960]
Got your note on chapbook progress the other day. It appears to me that
you are doing too much at once, getting out too many chapbooks at once,
and although mine was started long ago others seem to be coming out
ahead of me. I don’t know what the hell to make of it all and often wonder
how another writer would have taken
23
it. From my experiences as an editor I found they wail and bitch pretty
much, and can be quite damned nasty. This thing is even beginning to get
me. Now the pages have come out wrong sequenced…what kind of a
printer is that?
Well, I hope this thing does get done…sometime…somehow. The strain
is getting unbearable.
[To E. V. Griffith]
October 7, 1960
My dear E. V. Griffith:
Since you have failed to contact me since about last August—“and I
should have something in your hands by the end of the month”—and then
the note about wrong sequenced pages—“and I should have something in
your hands in just a few more days,” I haven’t heard and we are now sailing
well into October.
It seem to me that all mistakes could have been rectified by now! My
famed patience, has at last, after a 2 years wait, had it.
And in case you have forgotten, I finally sent you some money—between
30 and 40 bucks—to help you get this thing rolling.
You have put me out on the limb by again asking me to make announce-
ments to the magazines that Hearse  is to issue Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail .
This is getting to be the joke of the literary world, but I am no longer
laughing.
I am going to wait a short period longer and if no results are achieved I
am going to write Trace , the San Francisco newspapers and the editors of
other literary magazines of the whole history of this notorious and im-
possible chapbook nightmare. I can not see it that sloppy and amateur ed-
itorialism, a downright horror of coldness and cruelty and ineptness go
unchallenged.
If you feel that I am being unfair, hasty or unreasonable, I would be most
glad to get any statements from you. However, further silence or delay,
would be construed to mean that you intend to continue your slipshod
policies and the writer be damned.
We of the literary world, we like to feel that we are not here to wrangle
or to claw, but to create. Protest is more a political and worldly thing, but
even as a poet, I feel I have a right and a duty, in this case, to make public
protest.
24
[To E. V. Griffith]
October 14, 1960
I went down to the post office this morning with card left in my box
yesterday—and yowl! —there it was, set of Hearse  chapbooks by one Charles
Bukowski. I opened the package right in the street, sunlight coming down,
and there it was: Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail , never a baby born in more
pain, but finally brought through by the good Doctor Griffith—a beautiful
baby, beautiful! The first collected poems of a man of 40, who began writing
late.
Griff, this was an event! Right in the middle of the street between the
post office and a new car agency.
But then the qualms came on and the fear and the shame. I remembered
my last letter to you when I had finally cracked, scratching and blaming
and cursing, and the sickness came.
I DON’T KNOW HOW IN THE HELL TO APOLOGIZE, E. V., BUT JESUS I ASK
FORGIVENESS . That’s all I can say.
It’s a beautiful job, clean and pure, poem arrangement perfect. I’m
mailing out copies to some people who think I am alive, but first off with
this letter to you.
I hope I can live down any disgust I have caused you.
25

• 1961 •
[To Jory Sherman]
[1961?]
[* * *] The fact that the poets of the world are drunk is a damn good in-
dication of its shape. Cresspoolcrews says something about the essence of
poetry being in the shape of a woman’s body. It must be wonderful to be
so beautifully simple and uninvolved. Sex is the final trap, the closing of
the steel-kissed door. Lawrence was closer in seeking muliebrity from flesh
to soul, and to perstringe [ sic] the awkward-working and the ugly. Crews
simply swallows sex in great drunken drafts because he doesn’t know what
else to do, which, of course, is common Americana: thinking about it,
simpering about it, carrying dirty pictures in the back pocket, and yet this
country, for it all, is the most puritanical you can find. Women here have
put the price too high and the boys go behind the barn with the cow. Which
makes it tough on boys, cows, and women.
I have just read the immortal poems of the ages and come away dull. I
don’t know who’s at fault; maybe it’s the weather, but I sense a lot of pre-
tense and poesy footwork: I am writing a poem, they seem to say, look at
me! Poetry must be forgotten; we must get down to raw paint, splatter. I
think a man should be forced to write in a roomful of skulls, bits of raw
meat hanging, nibbled by fat slothy rats, the sockets musicless staring into
the wet ether-sogged, love-sogged, hate-sogged brain, and forevermore
the rockets and flares and chains of history winging like bats, bat-flap and
smoke and skulls ringing in the beer. Yes. [* * *]
27
Ben Tibbs, a printer, a poet and artist who published
alongside Bukowski in many little magazines, lived in
Kalamazoo, Michigan. He did the cover art for  Flower,
Fist and Bestial Wail.
[To Ben Tibbs]
June 8, 1961
Sorry I can only ship one copy but I am down to the end of mine. Other
people have written me that Griffith does not respond either to money or
written request. I have attempted to send copies to all those who asked for
them but Griffith only sent me a limited number. What has gone wrong
up in Eureka I really don’t know.
Thank you for doing the Art work on Flower, Fist . I think you caught the
spirit of the poems and the title quite well.
28
• 1962 •
Carl Larsen published Bukowski’s third book , Longshot
Poems for Broke Players, at his 7 Poets Press in New
York early in 1962 .
[To Ben Tibbs]
[early 1962]
I had meant to ask you not to send dollar; certainly this is one hell of a
price to pay to see the fine cover you did for Griffith. But instead of sending
the dollar back, I am going to suffer you with a copy of Longshot Poems for
Broke Players . Am sending the buck on to Larsen for this purpose, but am
having the beers anyhow. Many thanks for your graciousness and under-
standing.
Neeli Cherkovsky, then known as Neeli Cherry, recounts
an incident of Bukowski’s reacting to Cherry’s writing a
poem about him by throwing the MS in the fire. Cherry
retrieved it, Bukowski praised it, but added “I hope you
don’t devote a career to writing about me ” (Hank). Cherry
published the poem in his magazine , Black Cat Review,
no. 1, June 1962 .
29
[To Neeli Cherry]
Sunday [early 1962]
without too much reverence
Thank you for the poem. Are you going to devote a career writing about
me? Better chose yr subjects more carefully.
Your poetic style is good. I mean that it is loose enough to allow truth
to enter or anything you want to say enter
without worry about preconceptions
or the poetic line
which thoughts
choke up most of them
before they begin
I mean, before they begin
they have ended.
they are done.
a good style is important. style is what makes you different from the run.
it lets yr voice be heard. Some good men have learned this.
to wit: Shakespeare, Hem, Sherwood Anderson, D. H. Lawrence, Gertie
Stein, Faulkner, Picasso, Van Gogh, Stravinsky.
Stein had more style than genius. Her style was her genius. Faulk was
next. He put very little fire into a forge of style that fooled almost everybody.
Hem had style and genius that went with it, for a little while, then he
tottered, rotted, but was man enough, finally, and had style enough, finally.
Lawrence was a cock-freak who never had nerve enough to face the world
as a man and so faced the world behind a nerve-soothing soul-soothing
whirl of sex proteins, but who ever and nevertheless wrote some penetrating
lines. Sherwood A. was just a good old fuck who suffered without too
much pretense but who was aware of style, of cutting words into paper so
you could see them, like blood or paint. This is important. It is a painting.
Writing is painting and the sooner people realize this the less dull crap will
dull the market and I will have to get drunk that much less. Picasso does
with paint what I would like to do with words, only some day may try to
do with paint, only not, fuck of course like P. but like B., and style only
means opening into light simply and cleanly. Van Gogh, of course, was
never insane. He simply realized the world was elsewhere. And his style,
the purest of styles.
A good style comes primarily from a lack of pretentiousness, and
30
what is pretentious changes from year to year from day to day from minute
to minute. We must be ever more careful. A man does not get old because
he nears death; a man gets old because he can no longer see the false from
the good.
Enough of speech-making. [* * *]
Ann Bauman was and is a poet living in Sacramento,
publishing in some of the same little magazines Bukowski
appeared in. (On her marriage, she became Ann Me-
nebroker.) Evidently their correspondence began with her
note of appreciation for a poem of his which appears in
Signet, May 1962. Bukowski notes: “Fair poet. I believe
we bucked each other up for a while, perhaps she helped
me more than I helped her. There was an off-hand, rather
ho hum attitude from her, more toward life than toward
me.”
[To Ann Bauman]
May 10, 1962
got yr note on “Dead Stay Alive Too Long” and etc., and it filled a hole
in the mailbox where a rejected poem usually sits. Am sitting here having
a beer and staring out the same window, 3 floors up, miles out into the
nowhere of Hollywood. If you saw something in the poem (or poems)
good. Yet a little praise is a bad thing, and a lot of it is worse. We cannot
be too careful. It is better for the artist to work out of a vacuum, going from
creation to creation, each a new beginning, until it is all over, until he is
dead in the sense that he can no longer create or he can no longer create
because he is dead (physically). The latter, of course, is preferable.
Jory is another case entirely, and it would do little good to discuss him
here.
Joyce Odam wrote a poem for me about the death of a lady, for which I
wrote her my thanks.
I recall seeing a large group of your work somewhere ( Signet ?). Well,
keep going. But we have to, don’t we?
31
[To Ann Bauman]
[May 19, 1962]
rec. yr letter but I am a bastard and usually do not bother with these
correspondii? or haven’t you heard? this has nothing to do with fathead
or fat in the frying pan or limping dogs.
all my elements are hung up like a shirt on a hanger and there is not
much I can do with them.
Yes, everything I do is “breathlessly new”—for this same reason people
continue to make love. I am not interested in history or theory—or argu-
ment. The best argument is a new poem.
It is may the 19th somebody has just told me. Fine.
what does one do at poetry festivals? surely, dear, there must be a better
way.
I sent yr Friedman at SIGNET  a poem but have not heard and she is pretty
quick usually. I told her it was a bad poem and this might have her con-
fused. It’s called “Keats and Marlowe.” I told her it was bad and then I re-
wrote it. It might still be prob. bad.
God, I am running out of beer! this is madness…
ah, hahah ahha ha ha ha ha!
[To Ann Bauman]
May 21, 1962
Getting this off while drinking a beer and listening to a little Sibelius
before going to work. I am sorry you do not believe I do not like to argue.
I believe you are bothered with too many concepts.
You should avoid these poetry festivals etc. as they are nothing but a
melting pot of watered-down talents, high-class lonely heart club for those
with typewriters. [* * *]
Study yr keeds. Kids. There are a lot of poems there. But don’t write
about yr kids. Write about the human, what’s left of him, where he’s going,
what he dropped on the floor.
Don’t tell me about insanity. I wrote a short story about a man who
murdered a blanket that fell in love with him and appeared to look at him
and follow him around. “Very believable,” wrote back the first mag, “but
this man appears too bizarre.” Or this is the
32
condensation of it. I do not believe in writing a short story unless it crawls
out of the walls. I watch the walls daily but very little happens.
The review mentioned in the next letter was among the
very earliest published recognitions of Bukowski’s work.
R. R. Cuscaden’s “Charles Bukowski: Poet In a Ruined
Landscape” appeared in  Satis, no. 5. Cuscaden, editor and
publisher of  Midwest magazine, brought out Bukowski’s
Run With the Hunted ( 1962 ).
[To Ann Bauman]
June [20?], 1962
Yes, Sibelius later went into hiding and shaved his head; I’m told he was
a handsome and vain man, and age bothered him, but for it all
he wrote the long-striding line
stepped around the mountains
and died.
It is 26 minutes before 9 a.m. and I am out of beer. [* * *]
I include herein Satis  an English magazine that has printed a couple of
poems that fall into the non-uplifting category. You can get the other kind
anywhere. Also, a review of my 3 books by Cuscaden. It is a good damned
thing I do not wear a hat or I could not get it around my head after reading
these reviews.
Darling, this is the trap: BELIEVE YOU ARE GOOD WHEN THEY TELL YOU
YOU ARE GOOD AND YOU ARE THEREBY DEAD, DEAD, DEAD . dead forever.
Art is a day by day game of living and dying and if you live a little more
than you die you are going to continue to create some pretty fair stuff, but
if you die a little more than you live, you know the answer.
Creation, the carving of the thing, the good creation is a sign that the
god that runs you there inside still has his eyes open. Creation is not the
end-all but it is a pretty big part. End of lecture #3784. [* * *]
33
Corrington, a poet then teaching at Louisiana State Uni-
versity, was to write the introduction to Bukowski’s first
Loujon Press book , It Catches My Heart in Its Hands,
which would finally appear in the fall of 1963. Bukowski
notes, “An early booster of my work.” He adds that their
long correspondence “stopped after he wrote his novel and
went to Hollywood .”
[To John William Corrington]
June 24, 1962
IN KIND OF A NUMB STATE LATELY? I mean, me. THE END OF THE SOUL . mebee.
Anyhow, just crawling out of the sack and looking around, that’s about
where I am at. They’ve machine gunned me down to this nub. good. ciga-
rettes, cigars, candy?
Jon’s hard at the book, I know. How about yours? I heard that your San
Francisco Review has folded or will change hands. Weren’t they going to
bring out a new collection of your poems? Check your tires for air.
Just off a four day drunk. Bloody ass. Glass on floor. Broke. Coffeepot
now going in front of me: GLUGGLE, GLUGGLE, GLUKE GLUKE !! I think a new
piece of ass would fix me fine. This old stuff gets so hard to handle. That
their eyes spray me with love is not enough. It is the sagging of the tit, the
worn-flesh? If I could only once have a drink of clear spring water.
Everything has mud in it and sticks and discarded socks. Well, I am not so
much myself. Crows don’t sleep with peacocks. I’ve got to realize this. [*
* *]
Wormwood Review published the following letter as
Bukowski’s response to the editor’s explanation that the
payment for publication was four copies “which we will
mail to anywhere, anybody or anything….” (M.S. is pre-
sumably a slightly disguised reference to Sheri Martinelli
and C. W. to John William Corrington .)
34
[To Marvin Malone]
[August 1962]
well, ya better mail one to M.S. or she’ll prob. put her pisser in the oven,
she thinks she is a goddess, and maybe she is, I sure as hell wd’t know
like some of the boys tell me,
then there is C. W. who does not answer his mail but is very busy
teaching young boys how to write and I know he is going places, and since
he is, ya better mail ’m one…
then there’s my old aunt in Palm Springs nothing but money and I have
everything but money…talent, a good singing voice, a left hook deep to
the gut…send her a copy, she hung up on me, last time I phoned her drunk,
giving evidence of need, she hung up on me…
then there’s this girl in Sacramento who writes me these little let-
ters…very depressed bitch, mixed like quite some waffle flower, making
gentle intellectual overtures which I ignore, but send her a magazine
in lieu of a hot poker.
that makes 4?
I hope to send you some more poems anytime because I got to figure
that people who run my poems are a little mad, but that’s all right. I am
also that way. anyhow,—
I hope meanwhile you do not fold up before I do.
A note by the recipient identifies this as accompanied by
the gift of a bobby pin. The “her” in question is presum-
ably Jane Cooney Baker, who had died early in 1962. For
Bukowski’s relationship with her, see  Hank, chapters 4
and 5 .
[To Ann Bauman]
[September 1962]
Death does not take everything, god damn it.
I hope you can use this in your hair to keep alive a something that I
should have died in front of. o my god my god yes I am drinking.
35
and who cares? I love her. simple swine words. use it, in your hair. Thank
you, Sacramento fog, fountains, odd voice, grief of wretched breathing,
phantom love, oh child, wear it in your hair, honor me, her, the mountains,
the hot great tongue and flash of God.
Thank you.
[To Ann Bauman]
September 4, 1962
Disregard my last letter. Strings became undone. A little sawdust spilled
out. Beer. Wine. German gloom. These things can fetch anyone. A waterglass
looks like a skull. Horses run into the rail. Insomnia. Job trouble. Toothache.
The body bleeds. Retching. Flat tire. Traffic ticket. Lack of love. Sleep, then
nightmare. Paper everywhere. Trivial bits of paper. Nothing ever done.
Flooded sink. People in the hall with cardboard faces. Sure, sure, sure.
Today I will walk in the sun. I will simply walk in the sun. [* * *]
[To Jon Webb]
September 4, 1962
Regarding the death of my woman last Jan. 22, there is not much to say
except I will never be the same again. I might attempt to write it sometimes
but it is still too close, may always be too close. But that time in the charity
ward years ago a little Mexican girl who changed the sheets told me that
she was going to shack up with me as soon as I got well, and I began feeling
better right away. I had one visitor: a drunken woman, red and puffy-faced,
a bedmate of the past who reeled against the bed a few times, said nothing
and walked out. Six days later I was driving a truck, lifting 50-lb packages
and wondering if the blood would come again. A couple of days later I
had the first drink, the one they said would kill me. A week or so later I
got a typewriter, and after a ten-year blank, after selling to Story  & others,
I found my fingers making the poem. Or rather the bar-talk. The non-lyrical,
non-singing thing. The rejects came
36
quickly enough. But they made no indentation, for I felt in each line as if I
were talking the thing out. Not for them, but for myself. Now I can read
very little other poetry or very little other anything. Anyway, the drunk
lady who reeled against my bed, I buried her last Jan. 22. And I never did
see my little Mexican girl. I saw others, but somehow she would have been
right. Today, I am alone, almost outside all of them: the buttocks, the breasts,
the clean live dresses like unused and new dishtowels on the rack. But
don’t get me wrong—I’m still 6 feet tall with 200 lbs. of ableness, but I was
able best with the one that’s gone.
Bukowski’s “WW 2” appeared in  Mica 7 (November
1962). Previously, three poems were published in  Mica 5
(Winter 1962). The magazine was edited by Helmut
Bonheim and Raymond Federman from Santa Barbara .
[To Helmut Bonheim]
September 28, [1962]
Thanks the stamps, and good you like “WW 2” which is more factual
than inventive, but what the fuck, you’ve got to give me credit for putting
it down anyhow because it’s what to know what to leave out that makes
me different from the garage mechanic, if we are too much different. There
is another story I have written—about a man who murders a blanket. Sent
it to Evergreen , 6 months now, no response. Wrote stamped, self-add. thing.
No response. I don’t keep carbons. I suppose I’ll see it in print some day
under the name of Francios Marcios or Francis Francis or F. Villon. I keep
getting reamed this way. But it is good for me. It reminds me that the world
is pretty shitty. and this keeps me deftly abdulah and stasher of cannons.
Anyhow, on “WW 2,” change and shift lines at your will…to fit page or to
help readability;—although I personally garbled it a little, voices and ideas
running together—to throw nails.
I’ll send you more poems since you ask for them, but haven’t written
any, and they don’t come back. I don’t mean they are accepted; I mean the
swine simply do not return them; they sit on them like pillows, friend. aye.
37
This is garbage talk.
I have come through a green and red war these last 2 month. My side
lost but I am still more alive than ever, in a sense. We have to pass through
these things, again, again—arguing with a knife blade, a bottle, weeping
like a frigging cunt in menopause, afraid to step out a door…afraid of birds,
fleas, mice…encircled by a clock, a typewriter, a half-open closet door full
of ghouls, killers, horrors like sea-bottoms. And then it ends. You are calm
again. As calm as…a garage mechanic. I think of a D. H. Lawrence title:
Look We Have Come Through .
Anyhow, I’ll try you with some poems, although I don’t know if they
can be like the Mica  things. They will just have to be what they are…If you
read somewhere that I cursed editors and other critters, you prob. read
correctly. I deal pretty much alone and don’t care for ties. Tits, yes. Ties,
no. I never wear ties. Creation and flow are the factors. Survival is not too
important to me, either in any sense of immortality or in any sense of
today—paying the rent, eating a sandwich, dreaming of a good fuck etc.
etc. Although I get pretty scared sometimes when the world tries to kill
me. Not the death-part, for as Socrates explained, this cannot be too bad.
It is the getting there. The eyes. The flies. the ties. rubber tires. dead fish.
fat landladies. buttons falling off shirt. dirty laundry. garage mechanics….
savannah and eggplant
The Webbs were preparing the third issue of their
magazine , The Outsider, which would be devoted mainly
to Bukowski, whom Webb proclaimed recipient of a special
award as “Outsider of the Year.” The issue would include
tributes to Bukowski as well as photographs of him and
poems and letters by him. It was to be followed by the
publication of a “Loujon Press Award Book” collecting
Bukowski’s poetry .
[To Jon Webb]
September 28, [1962]
[* * *] I have been doing some thinking. I would like to write you another
letter of acceptance re the OUTSIDER OF YEAR  62 thing,
38
and I will anyhow, and it should be arriving in a day or 2 [* * *]
As per writing more letters, as you know, this can’t be done just like that
any more than a poem can; in fact, a letter is tougher because the letter
mood seems to fall less upon me than the poem thing. Yet I think the letter
is an important form. You can touch about everything as you run around.
It lets you out of the straightjacket of pure Art, and you’ve got to get out
once in a while. Of course, I don’t restrict myself as much in the poem as
most do, but I have made this my business, this freedom with the word
and idea, because…to be perfectly corny…I know I’ll only be around once
and I want to make it easy on myself. [* * *]
[To Jon Webb]
[ca. October 1, 1962]
[* * *] Sherman was up yesterday to borrow 5 bucks. Said it was raining
and his windshield wiper wasn’t working. I hate to be a bitch but this kid
is getting to be real pain in the ass. He’s got a $150 a week job and he keeps
borrowing from me, and then he’s got guts enough to claim he’s paid me
back. [* * *] I’m going to have to cut off relations with Sherman. You are
the editor, but if he sends in anything on me on congrat. for 1962 OUTSIDER ,
I wish you wouldn’t run it because congrats from this person are not con-
grats at all. Enough of this type of bitching which is a little bit swinish…if
it were only the borrowing it would not be so bad, but there are other facets
of personality here in Sherman that you wouldn’t find in a low-grade
polecat. Enough. [* * *]
[To Jon Webb]
[ca. October 1, 1962]
I am enclosing another letter of acceptance which I much prefer to the
other one I sent you. Of course, I do not know exactly what you want, and
even if I did, I couldn’t do it. This one might be a little too long for you, or
the ending rather sudden. I don’t know.
39
I am over my menopause or whatever the hell it was. It only lasted a
month; maybe it was something else. I don’t mind going mad so long as it
is clean. I don’t like the sloppy thing. Yet, you surely know that any of us
who work with the word are open to anything, I mean any day we might
test the cliff’s edge. This is the nature of remaining as alive as possible:
while other men die slowly, we are more apt to blow out the fire with one
quick fucking blast-see Van Gogh, see Hemingway, see Chatterton, see the
whole thing back down and through. Or if we don’t kill ourselves, the State
kills us: see Aristotle, see Lorca. And Villon, they ran him out of Paris just
because he did a little thievery between poems. We are in for hard times,
Jon, any way you look at it. Even those of us who are not giants. But it is
harder for the giants. Their bones are the same as ours but they have
strained and made the leap. Then there’s a lot of pap and shit: people who
write drivelly little poems while maintaining a time-clock, children, new-
car, new-home decency. They’ll make with the poem as long as nothing
else is lost. It won’t work. Man can’t divide  his impulses and expect to have
power down every corridor. Now, the original Beats, as much as they were
knocked, had the Idea. But they were flanked and overwhelmed by fakes,
guys with nicely clipped beards, lonely-hearts looking for free ass, lime-
lighters, rhyming poets, homosexuals, bums, sightseers—the same thing
that killed the Village. Art can’t operate in Crowds. Art does not belong at
parties, nor does it belong at Inauguration Speeches. It belongs sitting across
from Khrushchev but only if it drinks a beer with the man and talks any-
thing but politics…. and there are so many good beginnings. A strong
young talent makes it. Then can’t stand light. This is nothing but the plain
old-fashioned fathead and shows that the Artist was not ready  in the first
place. The days speak; the years tell; the centuries throw out the garbage.
God oh mighty, another lecture. Is this a sign of old age? Let me tell you
that by saying these things to myself, and to you, I protect myself from rot.
I’ve seen so much rot. And I may be rotting myself and may not know it.
It’s just like when someone else is sleeping with your wife: you are the last
to find out, or you never find out. Such is the soul. We are tested when we
lace our shoes, or in the manner in which we scratch our back. [* * *]
40
The following is from the letter accepting the “Outsider
of the Year” Award that Bukowski sent for publication .
[To Jon Webb]
[ca. October 1, 1962]
[* * *] I have always been pretty much outside  it all, and I don’t mean just
the art I try to send down through my typewriter, although there it appears
I stand outside the gate also. It appears from many rejections that I do not
write poetry  at all. Or as a dear friend told me the other day: “You do not
understand the true meaning of poetry. You are not lyrical. You do not
sing!  You write bar talk. The type of thing you write you can hear in any
bar on any day.”
I have always been one of those people who do everything wrong. This
is essentially because I am not involved in the march.
Nothing is quite real to me. Streetcars. bombs. bugs. women. lightglobes.
areas of grass. All unreal. I am outside. Death which is true enough, even
this appears unreal. Not so long ago I was in the charity ward of a hospital
in one of our greater cities. This is wording it badly: the whole god damned
hospital was a charity ward, a place to crawl around in, a kind of purgatory
on earth where the dying are allowed to lay in the stink of their sheets for
days and the appearance of a nurse is redemption and the appearance of
a doctor is like God Himself. All this is pretty much outside . They do keep
the men and the women in separate wards. This is about all the individu-
ality, all the identity we were allowed to retain: what’s left of the gender.
[* * *]
[To Ann Bauman]
October 8, 1962
[* * *] I have taken a 30 day leave of absence (without pay) from my post
office job. The job was driving me mad (if you’ll allow a platitude), but I
find this time to drink and gamble—think—also leads to madness.
I was 42 on August 16th. That I have lived this long is a true miracle. I
cannot hope for many more days. They will catch me.
41
They will get me in their bloody net and I will have done.
I wish Sacramento were around the corner. I am usually—in spite of all
doubt and razors and grief—fairly strong, but tonight I would have liked
to talk to you. This letter then will have to do—and perhaps tomorrow—t
& t & tomorrow—I will be more the hard steel German-Polack who bats
out the sounds of living from the top of a beercan.
Photographs were needed for the  Outsider feature .
[To Jon Webb]
[?October 15, 1962]
Well, I have been shot. It’s all over.
J. phoned and I told him I needed to be shot and J. is a great contact man
and he came up with a brother-in-law, one John Stevens who works in a
factory and shoots on the side, so over they came from Pasadena, J. and
Stevens and J.’s wife and some other young man (I never did quite get
where he fit), and they dragged the stuff in, and somebody said, “This guy
doesn’t even look like a writer,” which is something I have heard before
and before and before. Such as, “You wouldn’t think he was the guy who
wrote those poems…” Or, “I don’t know, I expected, I expected well, more
fire out of you.” People have these ideas of what a writer should  be, and
this is set up both by the movies and by the writers themselves. We can’t
deny that such people as D. H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas and
so forth had a scabbard of personality that cut down into people. I say or
do nothing brilliant. The most brilliant thing I do is to get drunk—which
any fool can do. If there is any dramatics in me, it must wait on the Art
Form. If there is any ham in me it must wait on the Art Form. If there is
any D. H. Lawrence in me it must wait on the A.F. I am pretty much tired
and when it comes to playing writer, somebody else will have to do it.
Anyhow, they set the thing up and I got out the beer and J. and his wife
talked to me, trying to make me forget the camera, but I’d be a fool to forget
the camera, my mind is not that bad. If there were a snake in the room I
would not forget the snake in the room. And flick, flick, you could hear
the thing going. It is not essentially a happy
42
mood and I kept thinking, this has nothing to do with the poem, this is
how men die. Kennedy might phone me any day now and ask me to do a
foreword to a campaign speech or something, and I will have to tell him
what Frost did not. So flick, flick, more beer, another chair, another shirt,
another cigarette, J.’s wife laughing, enjoying it all, like watching a bear
poked with a cigarette. Then they stuck me behind the typer and asked me
to type and I wrote: “It is only when I read of suicides that I feel happy at
all. To know that there are other votes in that direction.” Flick, flick, there
was plenty of beer and plenty of cigarettes and evidently plenty of film.
The thing finally ended and I went into the can to piss and then I found
we had probably messed up everything. In the beginning, I had scratched
the top of my head and here was this floater of hair sticking up on top of
my head like a coxcomb or whatever. Everything ruined. Why didn’t they
tell me? I came out and told them I had a flag on my head but they intended
to ignore it. The camera won’t.
I got some more beer and we stopped off at J.’s, and here more trouble.
I went into J.’s can and when I flushed the thing it ran over and out into
the hall. He’s been having trouble with the thing and his landlady can’t
seem to get it fixed and this set J. off. He has the true writer’s temperament
and he ran down the stairs to fix his teeth in the landlady. I guess he was
embarrassed about the toilet (I was too), and maybe the only way sensitive
people can override embarrassment is to howl. I do not. When something
bad happens I say nothing. What’s wrong with me there, I do not know.
Anyhow, J. got his teeth in the landlady and a scene spouted up. She came
up the stairs crying and had this mop and mopped the floor, and it was
funny in a tragic way: here she was with the mop, weeping, poet J. standing
over her saying, “Now, Mrs. M., I think you get simply too emotional  over
these things!” Anyhow, she went weeping down the steps, and J. came in
and paced up and down cursing the toilet. He said he liked the view. You
can see the whole horrible city of Los Angeles. J. likes to look at it. But he’s
new in town. I’ve seen the welts of L.A. too long. I never go to the window.
Not to look out at the city. To look at a bird maybe, all right. Anyhow, I
guess you can’t blame him on the can: when a man wants to piss (or worse)
you can’t piss in a view. Anyhow, we had another beer and left. I drove
Stevens and his friend back to Pasadena, a city I am not too familiar with.
My night was not over. When I left them out they said, “You see that blue
light down there?” I told them I saw that blue light down there. They said,
friend, when you get there, turn
43
right. You’ll hit the freeway in about 2 or 3 miles. Well, I never did find the
freeway. Maybe it was because I was too busy looking for a liquor store.
It was about one thirty a.m. and they close at 2. But in Pasadena they close
about 10 p.m. My old man said 30 years ago, “Pasadena is a one-horse
town.” It was one of the few times he was on beam. And it still goes today.
To make it worse I got lost. I drove and drove and drove. And everything
was closed. Gas stations, everything. Cafes, everything. On the largest
boulevards there was not a single person on the streets. Just signal lights,
street corners, and no direction signs and if there were direction signs they
only said Arcadia and I had no idea where Arcadia was. I kept driving al-
most under a sense of panic. I get into these things time and time again. I
got to thinking of Kafka, how he wrote about going into these buildings,
one room after another, being shuffled and buffoned [ sic] about, nothing
making any sense. I am sure if Kafka had been driving with me this night
he would have had another novel. Panic, sure, all you want is a bed and a
cool beer and here you are driving in a peopleless world of smooth and
efficient streets that only lead you further and further away and you can’t
stop because this would then be real panic, you understand? I kept driving,
and then it became really nightmare. I ended up in the hills! A small road
going up into the hills and over one of the hills I saw a thing that looked
like a Chinese temple. Jesus Christ, Jon, I was in Tibet! And sure enough,
halfway through the hills here was this kind of Chinese village-inn type of
thing, but no people, just these Chinese signs, and I began to feel as if I
were going mad and I swung around the village driveway and shot back
down out of the hills the way I came.
I must have driven an hour more, seeing no one, getting nowhere,
backtracking, turning, going North, South, East, West. Then I saw a human
being. He had one of these gas trucks and was running gas into a gas station.
I asked him, “How do I get to L.A.?” “Whereabouts you want to get in
L.A.?” he asked. “I don’t care where ,” I told him, “just show me the city
hall.” “Well, buddy,” he said, “you are going in the wrong direction. Just
turn around and follow this street straight on in.” That simple.
But going back, I got found, I recognized some of the streets leading to
Santa Anita racetrack and I was on my own route back home. I can get you
to any racetrack from California to Mexico but don’t ask me where anything
else is at.
I got to my sweet room, full of empty beer-cans and bottles and
44
I went to the refrigerator. Luck. There sat one chilled and lovely glass bottle
of Miller’s. I drank that and went to bed.
And that was the night of the photos. I hope something comes out of it
because I don’t think I can go through with it again. Not this year, anyhow.
I mean, other people can do these things easily. Me, I’m a frog on a dissec-
tion table. I guess that’s why I write. They keep cutting me open. It’s
nothing profound, but so odd. And all these photos with this hunk of hair
standing up on my head. I can’t even walk across a room with success.
This morning I stepped on a can opener that was on the floor. No shoes
on, of course. Another minor tragedy. Yet the spirit is not suicidal. I tend
to linger just to see how many more odd turns the gods can throw on me.
I suppose somebody will tell me I need the couch. Well, we all need the
couch. Don’t tell me that with our Berlin walls and our stockpiles that our
part of the universe is healthy and makes sense. If I need the couch they
had better start building a lot of couches. I won’t deny that I might be
somewhat off, don’t get me wrong But if you are going to try to show me
a leader or a way out, I am going to ask a lot of questions.
Anyhow Stevens is supposed to phone me about the pictures. He has
them in Pasadena and is going to put them into the soup. And I guess I am
supposed to—ha, ah ha, ha, ha!!!—drive over and pick them up!
I will airmail them if I ever get to Pasadena and back again, and if you
use any of them, I do wish you would give him a line: Photo or photos by
John Stevens. Something like that.
Well, Jon, that’s how it went. I tried. Only wish my hair had been combed.
Do you figure this ever happened to Hem or Willie the Faulk? I guess not.
Going out to mail this now, get some beer and some sleep. To hell with the
world’s series. I couldn’t sleep last night—steaming about the cockscomb.
[To Jon Webb]
Wednesday [?October 17, 1962]
[* * *] Tired today, from horses and other things, but hope to have a prof.
photog up here tomorrow or Friday, and chances are he’ll have a better
camera and know-how. That is, if I don’t go mad,
45
or just don’t fall through the floorboards. This picture-taking has some
semblance of horror in it to me. I go through the same thing whenever I
get a haircut. And sometimes the bastards will spin you in the chair and
show you yourself in the mirror. God. [* * *]
…I have all these letters Corrington has sent me, and I began to worry
a while back when I was not feeling so good mentally and physically. I
might have to get them off my hands and may ship them back through
you and have Bill pick them up when he sees you. There is kind of an ivory-
carved quality to most of these letters and they are much better than his
poems. In the poem he still sometimes has this E.E. thing mixed with Auden
plus a kind of hysterical abstract and fancy glibness. When the letters catch
up to the poems (and I think they will)—I mean when the letters become
the poems—they can’t catch them, being past them, Corrington will be a
poet to listen to. He’s getting better now, which is much better than laying
still. His politics and outlook a little too far right of center but this is the
Southern Aristocrat somewhat, and doesn’t mean he lacks heart. Anyhow,
if some day you get a pack of Corrington letters, I know you are busy, but
flip through a few and hold the pack for Willie. They make the Miller letters
look like burnt apple pie. [* * *]
[To Ann Bauman]
[November 22, 1962]
[* * *] No, I am not feeling better. I need an operation for one of my
maladies but don’t know if I have either the guts or the time for it. I never
get splendid clean diseases that you can talk about over a cup of tea, like
heart attack, stroke, amnesia, etc., but instead, ulcers and hemorrhages,
madness, boils, ingrown toenails, rotten teeth, and now hemorrhoids,
which, my dear, is a malady of the ass. [* * *]
It is more than difficult for me to survive. My present job has me by the
throat and I don’t know how much more I can take. I have no special trade
and am getting old. It will all end somewhere down the line: an old dirty
demolished German pig, sitting on a doorstep looking in the sand for a
razor.
Life is for achievement? Even Hegel’s achievements are paling. See how
we waste? Life is avoidance of pain until death. Life is finding
46
that love between 2 people only goes one way. One is always the master,
the other the slave. Life is Tuesday afternoon in a cage. I do not like to talk
about life. It gets silly. It sounds silly. Death is the master. [* * *]
[To Jon Webb]
November 25, 1962
[* * *] Very little new out here. Just difficult to believe you are working
on this Outsider of Year thing about me. I keep thinking of a certain paper
shack I ended up once in in Atlanta without light, heat, food, typewriter
or drink. A most cold, most dark end. Yow. I have slept on park benches
in the warm parts of the country and there seemed air and light and easi-
ness, but somehow this was so closed and finished. My ass was really in
the trap, the first gilded shape of hell reaching out. I did have a pencil and
I sat there in the dark daytime ice writing things on the edges, the margins
of old newspapers that I found on the floor. How I got out of there I don’t
remember, but I did and I left the writing there. It was quite mad, most of
it, I guess. Now I have 3 collections of poetry, have been photographed by
imbeciles, and you are giving me the honor and light of the O. of Y. award,
almost as if much of my misery had been recorded right along as it
happened. So many of our writers now have teaching positions, they teach
the thing they do, and it’s no wonder the writing has no lumps, no rawness.
But in spite of this, I am sure that right now there is some poor bastard
freezing-starving somewhere, writing sonnets on toilet paper. Not all of
us can go through the college degree teaching bit. We cannot jump through
the hoops; no wiseness in practical sense of survival. If an English teacher
can write, good enough for me. You don’t have to be thrown into half a
hundred drunk tanks to be shaken into or out of life. But there is something
about their lives that is too safe, too pat. Their intrigues of the day are
political, bitchy and petty, feminine. Very few of them come to class drunk.
They know what they are doing, even when they sit down to a typewriter.
Corrington seems to have escaped much of this but I keep thinking they
will get him. [* * *]
47
[To Ann Bauman]
Late November, 1962
[* * *] Kafka, unlike your Henry James, was not ordinarily intelligent and
discerning. Kafka was a god damned petty clerk who lived a good damned
[sic] petty life and wrote about it, the dream of it, the madness of it. There
is one novel where a man enters this house, this establishment, and it ap-
pears that from the viewpoint of others that he is guilty of something but
he does not know what. He is shuffled from room to room, endlessly, to
the rattle of papers and bureaucracy, a silent simmering horrible living
dream of ordinary mad and pressing, senseless everyday life. Most of his
books are on this order: the shadow, the dream, the stupidity. Then there
are other things—where a man turns into a bridge and lets people walk
across him. Then there is another where a man gradually turns into a giant
cockroach (“The Metamorphosis”) and his sister feeds him as he hides
under the bed. Others, others. Kafka is everything.
Forget Henry James. James is a light mist of silk. Kafka is what we all
know. [* * *]
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
November 30, 1962
[* * *] Yes, disgusting the rent they charge of a dive in the business dis-
tricts of anywhere, and the landlord doesn’t have to do anything but sit
back and take it in while you hope to make it—somehow. Hang on, you’re
getting an award  too, somewhere, somehow; this is lit. history like Poetry
when Ez was European editor and full of beans, or even like Mencken’s
Mercury ; or Dial; but you are essentially the new center and the part of this
age, only people never realize the blood sweat weariness disgust breakdown
& trial of soul that goes into it; and the puking little criticisms of milk-white
jackasses. [* * *]
48
Federman was coeditor of  Mica, the last issue of which
appeared in November 1962. Bukowski’s story, “Murder,”
was published not in  Mica but in  Notes from Under-
ground, no. 1 (1964). Dorbin records no earlier story in
Mica, although one was published in Canto (Los Angeles),
winter 1961 .
[To Raymond Federman]
December 6, 1962
Rec. your O.K. on “The Murder.” I write very few short stories—you’ve
taken the only 2 I have written in years. Both of them were very close to a
type of personal experience and feeling that just did not seem to fit into
the shorter poem-form.
You might call “The Murder” a prose-poem as I have worked with the
poem so long that when I do try the story-form I still feel as if I were laying
down the poem-line.
It might interest you to know that over drinks and in conversational lulls
with the few odd people that get in here I have told the story of “The
Murder,” first telling them what made me write it, what was happening
to me at the time, and how I took this and made it into a story—or whatever
it is.
Their comment at the finish was usually, “Jesus Christ!,” which I took
more as a criticism than a vindication.
[To Ann Bauman]
[Tuesday] December 18, 1962
Terrible happenings. Got drunk Sunday night and thrown in jail. Must
see judge on Wednesday. Fell and twisted ankle—swollen now, might be
broken. Missed 2 days work. Judge might give me 120 days. This is not
first offense. Will mean loss of job, of course.
Have been laying here in horrible fit of depression. My drinking days
are over. This is too much. Jail is a horrible place. I almost go mad there.
I don’t know what is going to become of me. I have no trade, no future.
Sick, depressed, blackly, heavily depressed.
Write me something. Maybe a word from you will save me.
49
[To Jon Webb]
[December 19, 1962]
I lucked it. Easy judge. Nobody got a day all the time I was in court, but
all fined. A good 40 or 50 appeared ahead of me. Jail might be full. Christ-
mas. Whatever. [* * *]
Don’t be angry, Jon, but there are very few editors holding my recent
stuff, so I can’t write them. And the other stuff, the older stuff has disappeared
and I don’t keep records and/or carbons so it’s pretty much lost. I’ve
dropped 200-to-300 poems this way since 1955, and I used to try to get
some of these poems back, the larger batches of 20 or 40 that I remembered
anyhow, but I have found that the elongated keepers of poems or destroyers
of poems WITHOUT EXCEPTION  do not respond to polite and reasonable
inquiry with proper stamped self-addressed envelope enclosed. There is
a mucky dismal breed out there…unmoral, immoral unscrupulous…homos,
hounds, sadists; curious, blank children; blood-drinkers…
And then some people wonder why I write an occasional anti-editor
poem. You and Gypsy are a pair of the few editors I know who operate in
a professional and straight manner, and the gods have been more than
good to me in that you have seen some light in some of my work and are
handing me this OUTSIDER OF YEAR  shining tray of honor, plus the book.
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
[December 21, 1962?]
Got to thinking about the telephone call the other night, and how you
weren’t going to mention this or that, and well, I think pretty slowly, but
I hope now, thinking it over, that you aren’t going to make a white rabbit
outa me. I’ve got nothing to hide. Feel free. It’s a person’s eccentricities that
give him whatever he has. Don’t be too cautious with excerpts from letters,
except I agree with you that mentioning a name directly (false initials will
do) might be bad taste, especially if that person has very little literary
standing. If he has literary standing, use the name and the hell with it. I
hope this does not get to you too late. That I drink or play the ponies or
have been in jail is of no shame to me.
As you can see, I have recovered from my depression [* * *]
50
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
December 27, 1962
Got your six page letter which I read through a couple of times while
drinking a Miller’s, and the sun’s out good, but it’s cold & I have a heater
on and the stove on, and somehow there’s a feeling of peace today—I feel
like a fat man who ate a lot of turkey, and since this feeling does not arrive
too often, I take it, I take of the good of it without examining it, without
feeling selfish. That’s what’s good about being 42: you know when to go
with what’s left of the soul. I spent Xmas in bed asleep. I hate to go out on
the streets on Xmas day. The fuckers act like they are out of their minds.
They strain at the thing; round-eyed and hacked-out they drive through
red lights, they look at each other and say things but they don’t know what
they’re saying: their mouths have long ago been cut out and thrown away.
Christmas, to most of them, is like owning a new car. They’ve got to do it.
They don’t have the guts—or the sense—to pass it up. Enough. Did I say
I was feeling at peace? [* * *]
[To Jon Webb]
[December 28, 1962]
No, as to title, I don’t care for Naked in th e Womb or the Alcatraz  one.
When I said you think up title, I was only thinking in terms of a summary
title such as Selected Poems or etc. As to the other  type of title, I don’t think
it would be fair for you to submit titles any more than it would be fair for
you to put one of your poems in there under my name. Surely, you under-
stand this? I have been trying to think up a summary  title, but if you want
a straight title, I will send you a half dozen or so in a day or two. I’m glad
this came up. Please do not use one of your titles that is not a summary title
(such as Collected Poems, Selected Poems ) as this would take the heart out of
me. I will be strictly dreaming titles from here on in, say like Beer and Frogs
Legs or I Can’t Stand the Sunshine When People Walk Around in It  or For Jocks,
Chambermaids, Thieves and Bassoon Players . I almost like the last one. It carries
summation plus the rest. Yes. [* * *] or Tonic for the Mole . Meaning these
type of poems for those who duck
51
out to the world, ya know. or Minstrels Would Go Crazy Singing This .[* * *]
Know it cost you money to have your man work on photos but glad he
perked up a couple. I cannot get over the nightmare of those photos, and
maybe some day I can write about it, but it’s still too close. [* * *]
52
• 1963 •
The title settled on is a phrase taken from a poem by
Robinson Jeffers. Permission to use it had to be obtained
from Random House .
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
January 2, 1963
christ, I’m glad you liked the title ( It Catches My Heart in Its Hands ), and
yes I’m sending book (this piece “Such Counsel You Gave to Me”) to you
[* * *], and no, I’m not going to change my mind, THAT’S IT , and so if you
are going to or have set up an ad using title, fine. Also glad you and Louise
have accepted dedication. I have been worried about both ends of this: title
and dedication, and now all’s well. [* * *]
No, I don’t know how many copies of each of the 3 earlier books there
were. Although I believe Cuscaden ( Run With ) mentioned 200, and I believe
Longshots  around 200 too. On Griffith ( Flower, Fist ), I don’t know, and also,
he doesn’t answer his mail. [* * *]
Must say again, very glad you went for title and dedication. Yes, the title
is in my head too. It says so god damned much. Jeffers, when he got good,
he got very good. There were these long periods when he flattened out and
had a tendency to preach his ideals of rock & hawk, but when he did get
the word down…he got it down in a way, that to me, made our other
contemporaries or newly deads seem not so much. [* * *]
53
p.s.—my photo on cover only another miracle on miracle that has been
occurring. It does not seem too long ago that I was considering the blade.
If I never write another decent poem it’s your fault, Jon. I’ve got my alibi
ready.
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
January 6, 1963
[* * *] I am glad on Corrington for intro. He knows me—and my
work—better than anyone, and he possesses the style and manner to do a
patrical job. (I wanted to say “pat” but it looked like “pot,” so I changed it
to patrical, whatever that means.) Anyhow, Corrington’s the only one, and
his own writing is improving. His lines seem clearer and harder—he sent
me a poem called Communion . It has a holy edge and fervor, quite good.
Quite. [* * *]
Photo of Sandburg in This Week  holding little girl on his knee and under-
neath poem about death. Death is hush, says the old boy. Well, I guess so.
Only I wish he’d crop or comb that sickly flange of white hair that looks
like a wig. If I EVER  get that old, they’ll find me under the bed drunk
with the Racing Form AND
a big OLD girl. [* * *]
Roman Books, run by Jim Roman in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, published in 1963 a ground-breaking catalogue
called  “‘The Outsiders’: a collection of first editions
by avant-garde and ‘beat’ generation authors of prose
and poetry since World War Two.” Bukowski is giving
his approval to Jon Webb’s sale of manuscripts to the
dealer .
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
January 7, 1963
[* * *] On ROMAN BOOKS , I understand. In your position, why not?
Someday when you are gone they will talk about the force and
54
vitality of the Outsider in mid-20th century literature, and how you stood
in front of that press feeding it your blood and your hours and your life.
It will very very romantic then. But now? Shit, nobody ever cares about
NOW . They are always looking back. They moon for the pain of Mozart or
Lorca bulleted in the road. But there are always new Mozarts and Lorcas,
new Poetry  Chicagos, new Blasts , new Brooms , etc. If you can swing a buck
from ROMAN  for a few wilted manus in order to go on, hell, do it. YOU ARE
LIVING NOW . If you have any manus you want me to sign, ship them here,
I will sign and return. Ink is cheap. [* * *]
[To John William Corrington]
January 14, 1963
[* * *] my cock average size but mostly out of action lately, desire there
still, but price too high, trouble too much, I do not search like a highschool
boy, and some night finally it is there, or at a motel outside Del Mar track
in August it is there, and then it is gone, the color of the dress I remember,
some words spoken, but the act is really secondary, they have hung the
cock on me, I have dipped, but really, the walls are large.
Born Andernach, Germany August 16th, 1920. German mother, father
with American Army (Pasadena born but of German parentage) of Occu-
pation. There is some evidence that I was born, or at least conceived out
of wedlock, but I am not sure. American at age of 2. Some year or so in
Washington, D.C., but then on to Los Angeles. The Indian suit thing true.
All grotesques true. Between the imbecile savagery of my father, the disin-
terestedness of my mother, and the sweet hatred of my playmates: “Heinie!
Heinie! Heinie!” things were pretty hot all around. They got hotter when
I was in my 13th years on, I broke out not with acne, but with these HUGE
boils, in my eyes, neck, back, face, and I’d ride the streetcar to the hospital,
the charity ward, the old man was not working, and there they’d drill me
with the electric needle, which is kind of a wood drill that they stick into
people. Stayed out of school a year. Went to L.A. City College a couple of
years, journalism. Tuition fee was two dollars but the old man said he
couldn’t afford to send me anymore. I went to work in the railroad yards,
scrubbing the sides of trains with
55
OAKITE . I drank and gambled at night. Had a small room above a bar on
Temple Street in the Filipino district, and I gambled at night with the aircraft
workers and pimps and etc. My place got to be known and every night it
was packed. It was hell getting my sleep. One night I hit big. Big for me. 2
or 3 hundred. I knew they’d be back. Got in a fight, broke a mirror and a
couple of chairs but held onto the money and early in the morning caught
a bus for New Orleans. Some young gal on there made a play for me, and
I let her off at Fort Worth but got as far as Dallas and swung back. Wasted
some time there and made N.O. Roomed across from THE GANGPLANK
CAFE  and began writing. Short stories. Drank the money up, went to work
in a comic book house, and soon moved on. Miami Beach. Atlanta. New
York. St. Louis. Philly. Frisco. L.A. again. New Orleans again. Then Philly
again. Then Frisco again. L.A. again. Around and around. A couple of
nights in East Kansas City. Chicago. I stopped writing. I concentrated on
drinking. My longest stays were in Philly. I would get up early in the
morning and go to a bar there and I would close that bar at night. How I
made it, I don’t know. Then finally back to L.A. and a wild shack job of
seven years drinking. Ended up in same charity hospital. This time not
with boils but with my stomach torn open finally with rot gut and agony.
8 pints of blood and 7 pints of glucose transfused in without a stop. My
whore came to see me and she was drunk. My old man was with her. The
old man gave me a lot of lip and the whore was nasty too, and I told the
old man, “Just one more word out of you and I’m going to yank this needle
outa my arm, climb off this deathbed and whip your ass!” They left. I came
out of there, white and old, in love with sunlight, told never to drink again
or death would be mine. I found among changes in myself, that my memory
which was once pretty good was now bad. Some brain damage, no doubt,
they let me lay there a couple of days in the charity ward when my papers
got lost and the papers called for immediate transfusions, and I was out of
blood, listening to hammers against my brain. Anyhow, I got on a mail
truck and drove it around and delivered letters and drank lightly, experi-
mentally, and then one night I sat down and began writing poetry. What
a hell of a thing. Where to send this stuff. Well, I took a shot. There was a
magazine called Harlequin  and I was a fucking clown and it was out in
some small town in Texas and maybe they wouldn’t know bad stuff when
they saw it, so—. There was a gal editor there, and the poor dear went wild.
Special edition. Letters followed. The letters got warm. The letters got hot.
Next thing I knew the gal editor
56
was in Los Angeles. Next thing I knew we were in Las Vegas for marriage.
Next thing I knew I was walking in a small Texas town with the local hicks
glaring at me. The gal had money. I didn’t know she had money. Or her
folks had money. We went back to L.A. and I went back to work, some-
where.
The marriage didn’t work. It took 3 years for her to find out that I was
not what she had thought I was supposed to be. I was anti-social, coarse,
a drunkard, didn’t go to church, played horses, cursed when intoxicated,
didn’t like to go anywhere, shaved carelessly, didn’t care for her paintings
or her relatives, sometimes stayed in bed 2 or 3 days running etc. etc.
Very little more. I went back to my whore who had once been such a
cruel and beautiful woman, and who was no longer beautiful (as such) but
who had, magically, become a warm and real person, but she could not
stop drinking, she drank more than I, and she died.
There is not much left now. I drink mostly alone and discourage com-
pany. People seem to be talking about things that don’t count. They are
too eager or too vicious or too obvious.
I hope this clears up some things and that I have not Ferlinghettied you.
I can tell you things that happened like this and it takes nothing away be-
cause it is only a LISTING  in a sense, and what happened, the living of it, it
is still there. I have played some bad lutestrings and taken some knocks in
the head, but it was the only way, there was only one path.
As to the other, I like the EARLY  Hemingway, and like the rest of us, was
affected somewhat by T.S. and Auden, but not so much in a sense of content ,
but in a clean and easy way of saying. I like Wagner and Beethoven, Klee
and Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and rabbits. This is all pretty common, I
realize. So is breathing. Then too, there’s Darius Milhaud, Verdi, Mus-
sorgsky, Smetana, Shostakovich, Schumann, Bach, Massenet, Ernst von
Dohnanyi, Menotti, Gluck, Mahler, Bruckner, Franck, Gounod, Handel and
Zoltan Kodaly. Brahms and Tchaikovsky somehow become less and less
to me. In Jeffers, I like the longer works, where the style is almost prose,
but where everything is hard brick and breaking, where everything is up
against the knife and very real. Jeffers almost admires his nonthinking
man-brutes as opposed to etc…. that gives his work the touch of truth. He
writes believably and the pages are in your hands like warm things, difficult
to believe that type and machine also put them together. As to contempor-
aries, they do not do much for me. I do not mean the poets still living who
have stopped writing,
57
I mean those living now and writing now. I cannot see much. A great
alikeness. A carefulness. What a stinking age! What a set of ass-lickers.
Enough of that. [* * *]
Got a letter from Germany today from some Heinie telling me that he
has translated “Candidate Middle” and “The Life of Borodin” and that
they will be used in a radio feature. This calls for cold chills all around. I,
who can no longer speak or understand the language of my birthplace,
will be going back into my own tongue from the place I left. This is some
kind of magic, like black horses turned loose and running on a hill. [* * *]
Weekend shot. Sherman haggling with Norman Mosher who studies
under T. Roethke. Real bitter stuff. I have long ago said that I do not care
for the poets. I would like to see one once in a while with a little self-doubt
instead of this cockiness and the unsheathing of the nails. I am just about
now getting over it. People climb into my mind, kick around, piss around,
and it takes some time for them to leave.
…a part of the ankle will not go down. I will be the club-ankle poet. Lord
Byron, make way!
I told Jon to let you have your head in the intro. If you want to go long,
go long; if you want to go short, go short. It is a tough job at best. But you
must know that I am honored to have you for my barker: “And now, ladies
and gentlemen, we give you—,” and Bukowski steps out from behind the
tent flap with 3 red hairs on his chest, and can of beer in one hand and a
German shepherd pup in the other.
Keep your bones in good motion, kid, and quietly consume and digest
what is necessary. I think it is not so much important to build a literary
thing as it is not to hurt things. I think it is important to be quiet and in
love with park benches; solve whole areas of pain by walking across a rug.
you got it.
dip the brush in turpentine,
p.s.—I asked Webb not to send proofs of the section. I’d rather see it all at
once, quietly with a cold beer audience. And maybe think of other days &
bad days to come, like all this is well, but the wall will be coming down.
[* * *]
58
Arnold Kaye’s interview appeared in  Literary Times for
March 1963, under the title, “Charles Bukowski Speaks
Out.”
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
[?February 1963]
Enclosed copy of Literary Times . I might suggest when book comes out
you send them a review copy. Arnold Kaye over last night to interview
me, I suppose a la Ben Hecht. He gave me the old bullshit about me being
a legend, and he had a list of questions. I was fairly drunk and don’t remem-
ber what I told him. Some of the questions rather vapid like: “What effect
does Mickey Mouse have on the American public and culture?” I don’t
know if they are going to run the interview; I might have been fairly bitter
and vulgar. The guy had just come from Zahn’s where Curtis had babbled
on and on, I am told. At least I kept it short and hot. Anyhow, what with
the horses and interviews and the bottle and being a LEGEND …I have not
written any poetry lately, and this is how we go down the drain: doing
everything but creating. There are enough traps in this world to kill a man
before he becomes five years old.
At any rate I had sense enough to turn down an invite to be on a panel
thing on the radio with Zahn and Kay and some editors. J. B. May etc. I
still believe in more privacy and less talk. Badly hung over today but I see
no broken furniture and my knuckles are not bruised so there was no fight.
Good. May told this guy, “Bukowski’s kind of unfriendly.” These people
don’t understand that the living takes time and that the talking about it is
unnecessary. You do. I think that when they knock on your door you feel
the same way I do. That’s why we pretty much get along.
Anyhow, going now.
I think the bastard took my pen.
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
Early March, 1963
[* * *] As to dedication of book to you, Lou, it is all pretty simple. When
I heard you over the phone and you did not give me a
59
bunch of literary doubletalk, accent, etc. etc.—your complete sense of
unfalsity, this led me to suggest the dedication to you. This, plus the fact
that it being the first book in your series (you and Jon: Loujon ), it seemed
in a sense of history—and literary history is the only one that seems to have
some sense—the only dedication. As to being on cover with you, great, but
it does not seem real, it is a conjecture sort of thing and I will not know it,
really, until the magazine is in my hand and I stand here in this room with
it and something in my head says, it happened. I will have a drink on it, a
good scotch and water, and I will think of myself down in the alleys again
or in all the rooming houses in hell, and the jails, freezing, madness etc.,
and it will come through to me good. You know, for all this, I still feel pretty
much outside of everything yet. It is as if, any moment, somebody is going
to knock on my door and a couple of guys are going to enter some day,
“All right, friend, we’ve come to cut off your arms.” Psychologically
speaking, there might be a reason or a term for this, but we do not live with
reason or terms, unfortunately. [* * *]
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
March 17, 1963
starting to thunder…like a dark closet in here, but I’ve still got #3 to my
right here, and I hope you people understand why I did not phone upon
rec. copy, but rather wrote. The phone calls have been mostly when I was
pretty high, and a sense of madness there, and yet not. Anyway, what I
am trying to say is that on the phone the voice does not say as much what
the mind is thinking as the typewriter does. Somewhere the thought in
coming down from the mind and out into the voice, the thought becomes
dispelled, distorted, petty and so forth. So, upon rec. #3, I thought it best
to WRITE  about it rather than TALK  about it. Anyway, as I said, my section
was done with a good, sure hand, a beautiful hand, and better and gentler
and cleaner than I might have dreamed…. but this, mainly to say I’ve gone
on reading more of #3, after getting Bukowski out of the way, and GOD !!!
ya really laid the whip on Creeley!!! What you say I agree with, find true,
but I’m afraid that as many teeth as you put into him I’d havta add another:
CREELEY CAN’T WRITE ,
60
nor can the rest of them. They affect to write, and out of this affectation, of
course, they need powers, groups, blather, underground lines, handshakes,
imputations, delegations and barkers to make the thing go. However, I’m
glad you took a swing at them: they need a spanking, these little pricks in
their walking shorts and mountain cabins and goats and money and
teaching positions. They are fondled enough by society without the rest of
us having to put their spittle in cups before the shrine.
Your story an odd one, Jon, but has the taste of air and being, kind of
like Sherwood would do, Sherwood Anderson, and this is not a knock…I
do not believe that the short story has gone forward beyond Anderson.
He’s been dead a long time now, but the way he put down the word is not.
I suppose Anderson has influenced me as much as Jeffers, but in a different
way—the cleanliness he had of getting a line down, it is hard to beat.
And it was quite a thing, of course, to read that Genet liked “Old Man
Dead in a Room” best of all the poems in your #1. There were a lot of poems
in #1. And I always get the unholy chills when I think of the language
switch. Think of this Frenchman sitting in a room reading “Old Man” in
French to Genet, the walls there, the chairs, while I am asleep at the time
or betting on a horse. Life is oddly wild, full of miracles as well as horrors.
[* * *]
More thunder. Burroughs, of course, is important because he keeps the
air-holes open. We need a Joyce or Burroughs or Gertrude S. every age to
keep us loose and let us know that everything needn’t be so, the way it
seems or the way the herd-writers want it to seem. These people are valu-
able, in a way, beyond their work—icebreakers, knockers down of police-
men…. Yes, the Millerboy finally got around to working Walter over and
he did put him straight enough on politics and Art, and it still stands today.
I am not saying ART is going to save us…it might save me, for a little
while…but politics isn’t going to either; politics got us this far, and see
what we’re doing now: tossing the bomb back and forth, back and forth,
and the first one to drop it: o, bla AAHHHHHHH ! [* * *]
61
[To Ann Bauman]
Mid-March [1963]
Know I have not written, and am bastard slob this way, drink, madness
et al., but I always figure that I am no good for a woman anyhow, and any
way I can save her from myself is all to her good. Meanwhile, as you might
have guessed, I write for selfish reasons: I have a book on the press now,
Selected Poems 1955-1963, It Catches My Heart in Its Hands …Loujon Press,
618 Ursuline st., New Orleans, 16, Louisiana. 2 bucks, baby, and an auto-
graph, even. Christ, y’ve got 2 bucks somewhere, haven’t you? What I mean
is, I don’t get any money out of the book at all—as if it mattered—but I am
pumping for these people because 2 bucks to them might mean such a
simple thing as eating on this day or not. They eat one meal a day and
forward such bastards as I, and I figure if they can do this (and sometimes
they don’t make the one meal), I figure I can forget immortality and care-
fulness and isolation and maybe even myself and go out and ask people
to buy the g.d. book. If you think this is slick sales talk, it is not. I have
thrown money into the fire. I have thrown my guts into the fire. I know
more than this. But these people are the oddest set of living gods ya ever
saw. She sells picture postcards on the sidewalks for meek coin and he
stands 14 years hours a day poking paper into a cheap press he has hustled
somewhere. I can’t tell you more than this, only that these people are giants
in a world of ants. If you can get hold of The Outsider  #3 (same address) (as
book) perhaps you will understand more of what I mean.
Meanwhile, glad your car running good. Mine lets up this cul de sac
cloud of gaseous nauseous burning oil continually, until people stare as I
go by…like a forest fire.
I lost your photo. How could I do this? Ya don’t have another around,
do you? Perhaps some day we will meet over a beer. It’s a long way to
Sacramento, but perhaps a good horse…a little luck? And then we’d only
be bored and disgusted with each other. Keep working with the poem; if
you treat it right, it is the most faithful and truest of all.
62
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
March 26, 1963
[* * *] If you think the interview with Kaye ( Lit. Times ) was rough for me
in the sense of the poppyseed question, you should have heard after-
wards…when we’d both had a bit more to drink:
K: “Look, if the world were going to end in 15 minutes what would you
do, what would you the tell the people?”
B: “I wouldn’t tell ’em anything.”
K: “Now LOOK , man, you’re not cooperating! If the world were going to
end in 15 minutes, I wanna know what you would do!”
B: “I’d lay down and rest, just like I’m doing now.”
K: “But what would you tell the people, man, the PEOPLE !”
B: “Don’t forget your streetcar transfer.”
And the odd thing is, you tell these people the truth and they think you
are not cooperating. [* * *]
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
March 28, 1963
[* * *] I have already caught hell, in person, for #3, and I was going to
spare you some of this, but it may prepare you for what’s to come. I bought
him a bottle of wine and he arrived an hour later than he said he
would—which is bad form; when I tell someone I will be there at a certain
minute, I arrive on the minute . However, it gave his wine a chance to chill,
and he fingered his drink and began, mostly telling me that there was an-
other  type of poverty that nobody knew about and he was going to write
about it. What he means is that he has a $200 a week job and he somehow
can’t MAKE IT ! I told him that I had little sympathy with this type of poverty,
that one hundred and sixty million out of 180,000,000 in this country lived
that way. I think it an entirely different thing to want something to eat and
not being able to eat, and a place to sleep and rest the tired body, and only
having the benches, the streets, the ice, the rain. Because a man needs 2
cars, a tv set, 12 pairs of shoes for his wife, this signifies to me only an un-
handsome sort of greed that is needed to fill a hole where something else
should be. I did not tell him all this but let him talk. Then he got on his job,
writing blurbs for the
63
pictures in nudie magazines, and then he said, “Oh, I know you were
offered the job first and you turned it down, X. told me about it and I am
tired of hearing about it, and you were offered the job again, there was
another opening and you turned it down again…but you could not have
gone up the ladder the way I have!” What he means is that he has been
promoted from writing the nudie blurbs for the magazines that lay around
in barbershops chairs and that he has been elevated to writing books about
legitimate nudism…nudist camps, etc. He is right: I would not have gone
up the ladder. I wouldn’t have lasted one day writing blurbs. I would rather
wash dishes and go at night to the glory of a small box-like room with
swinging electric light and the other torn people walking up and down the
halls, half out of their minds, miserable, waiting to die, wanting to get
drunk. I let him talk on. I am not much of a talker. I think very slowly, very.
I have some bad teeth and I lisp once in a while. But mainly, when you’re
talking, you’re going OUT, burning away, and although I don’t mind much
burning, I don’t care for haggle, argument, point and counter point. I am
not a lawyer. I am not a movie star. I don’t know what I am. But as I go on,
the feeling is toward a gentle center somewhere. Anyhow7, he went on
and I listened, and he said, “I could have had my picture on the cover of
The Outsider  myself…. and then, there’s Corrington…you and Corrington.
You dedicated a book to him and then he writes this stuff about you. Look
at my face. Why don’t you look at my face? Are you afraid of me?”
“That is not why I do not look at your face,” I told him.
“I love you,” he said, “I guess I still do, but you are not the person you
used to be. I mean, dedicating a book to an editoress . That’s cheap. And, in
#3, The Editor’s Bit, it was too long and it cheapened everything.”
“Don’t you think,” I asked, “that the way he tore up Creeley was a
courageous thing?”
“I threw Outsider 3 in the toilet,” he said, “I flushed it down the toilet.”
(Cavelski [ Kabalevsky?—ed. ] on now. Something Brilliant Suite , so clean,
so sharp. There have been men in the world, thank the gods, thank the
tulips, thanks the dead horses, thank the Winters and the midgets and the
grass growing.)
“I told my wife I would only be gone 10 minutes,” he said. “I have wasted
a half hour. Well, these people think you’re GREAT , there’s a lot of space
separating you from them, they don’t know you
64
like I know you, so they’ll keep thinking you are great. You are safe.”
Then he got up and moved toward the door. “Just keep on living your
small, little insignificant life the way you are doing.”
“Slam the door when you leave,” I asked him.
He got in the last punch. “I’ll leave it for you to close,” he said and walked
out leaving the door open.
He won. I had to get up and close the door.
Now, I can’t pretend that all this did not bother me. I am very full of self-
doubt, self-doubt twists me in the vise forever, and I know that I often do
badly and write badly and I don’t live exactly like a saint, but it does appear
to me that I ought to be allowed to think along my own lines and live in
my own way. The trouble with this writer is that he has built an image of
me, probably from my poems, that I do not seem to stand up to in the flesh.
Well, maybe I lie in my poems. I try not to. But if I do not present a flaming
torch while sitting in a chair drinking a beer, I can’t help it. I don’t believe
much in extra talk. I can talk for hours on paper because there is only the
click of the keys and this brown torn shade pulled down in front of my
face. It is a clean white thunder. That is why I do not like opera. Somebody
I know pretty good and who knows I like the classical symphonies [* * *]
asked me, “How come you do not like opera?” and I answered, “Because
it contains the human voice.” “What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “I
don’t know. I just don’t like the human voice. I think it’s fake. Almost
anything that comes out in voice is fake. I don’t care if it is singing or the
Gettysburg Ad., I don’t like it. Here you have some bitch singing ultra-
soprano who beats her kids and squats over a bowl and drops turds like
the rest of us, and she is through the Art-form trying to become purified
and trying to purify the rest of us. I just don’t like the human voice: it drags
down, it wears, it will simply not let things alone.”
But she was fairly sharp. “You like the violin, or some of the horns, don’t
you?”
“Yes, at times,” I said.
“But don’t you realize that these instruments are played by human beings
and that the human voice is just another instrument?”
Which is a pretty damning argument, but I still say the voice is more
direct , and that something is gained (not lost) by letting it come down
through the fingers (violin or piano). Which is essentially why I am ashamed
of the one or 2 drunken phone calls g.d. put through to you: because I had
only the voice and the voice could not say, never damn can. [* * *]
65
And what my bottle bloody knife fireblast friend said was right: I am
glad there is space between us, so that if I am a phoney or a coward or a
rotten human being you will jes. christ never know it
because all you see is a sheet of ape ass paper
and you don’t see me
or what I really am—
which is not much,
but which is me and which is working toward some saliva and red end
of everywhere, and which is repeat the rift of the wind and I am tired, shit,
and you are tired, listening…
Only the boy who came in and spewed his venom on me, I have, for a
long time, been trying to get rid of but did not want to hurt his feelings. I
hope this does it. But I sense that he will be back. It is too good this way.
But life does not always hold the Brutus within its sleeve. I was walking
out toward the parking lot after the 9th race and somebody shoved 50 cents
at me and said, “Can you give me a ride, my friend pulled out without
me.” I asked where he was going and since it was a couple of blocks away,
I told him to forget the 50 cents and get in. Turns out I had driven him in
earlier in the year only I was drunker and didn’t remember, only that time
I was a big winner and flashing broken teeth and mug. And so we talked,
quietly, weary, smashed, as I tangoed in and out of traffic, slipping through
with my sometime smoking car, and we talked the gambler’s talk, the rough
days, the good days, but essentially nothing important. I let him off at
Hollywood and Western. “Goodby, Hank,” he said. “So long, Nick,” I said,
and I took a right, circled round and came back into the liquor store where
I billed an I-owe-you for $11.50.
Now, this is not bad, It adds up into living. No great words. Nothing.
But somehow good. How can you explain it? [* * *]
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
April 1, 1963
[* * *] I agree with you on the Creeley, but am not too amazed that a lot
of people don’t. They believe you have pot-shotted him, but they seem to
forget that you have published him and his, plus their theories. You are
going to hear a lot of stuff about how there
66
were always “schools,” and you are going to hear some big names of the
past mentioned as proof of those who have created and created damned
well in spite of (or, they would like to say, because of) schools. What these
good people forget is that the past does not prove the present. The past
may have called for schools, whether they were created for self-survival
of IDEA , or whether created by critics. The present, I feel, does not call for
schools; with our speed-up of transportation and communication, it MIGHT
become apparent to some sensible & feeling people that we touch too much ,
we are now slowly becoming ground down to the same thing. The only
hope of survival is to escape as much as possible from the mass-hypnosis,
of which the “school,” be it Black Mountain, Kenyon and/or etc., is still
part of the grouping-thing and too many men in a closet (or make it bed for
some of them). The only defense of a bad work is to create a better work,
not to have some disciple of a school come to bat for you. In some places
it helps them to teach English; in other places they gather as homos or
smokers of pot. They need the trunk and then they feel pretty good as
branches. Politics is often, it seems, involved with Art; and as Politics often
stinks, their creations do too. If I want to join a Lonely Hearts Club I will
go to a genuine place where I might make some old woman happy. Other-
wise, all I need is a typewriter, some ribbon, paper, envelopes, stamps and
soul. School—is out.
…anyhow, I have an idea that this Creeley-blast might be good for The
Outsider’s  circulation, you’ll see. You took a swing but don’t back down;
if you back down, you’re dead. Give them space, but don’t forget there’s
creative  work to be published, new people, new Buks, new Creeleys…
“Kaja” is Kaye Johnson, of whom Bukowski notes, “She
wrote very literary letters a bit on the pretentious side .”
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
April 9, 1963
[* * *] If you do write Kaja, please tell her that her “White Room” has a
lot of the female race laughing because it’s true and
67
sobbing because it’s so. Women, g.d. them, tho, must learn that there are
other things besides LOVE , I mean, concentrating, centering on it; the man
is not actually callous but more divided—he plants his seed and moves on,
not nec. toward another woman but away from the concentration .
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
April 22, 1963
[* * *] Heard from Kaja today and also Harold Norse—so not being much
of a reader I had to open #3 and read the Norse poem, and luckily it was
pretty damned good, although a little too poetic for me, I like my cake
plain, but he seems filled with the fire, so, o.k. I should read more, but
reading bothers me. [* * *]
oh yes, heard from Malanga today. He sent me some of his poems, which
he self-praises but which do not get to me. He thinks you’ve got something
against him because he rubs elbows with Auden and the New York Crowd.
Me, I don’t think you care where a man comes from as long as he lays the
line down. By the way, the boys didn’t like the photos you sent, said they
were too “domestic.” Wants a head portrait, or something. So to hell with
it. I told him to write in space where my photo supposed to be: “Charles
Bukowski wishes these poems to be his photo.” [* * *]
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
April 26, 1963
[* * *] The book is beginning to well into my mind as a possibility. It’s
like, you know, you meet a beautiful woman, have some talk with her, but
really think nothing of it because everything seems pretty much out of
reach and you turn to leave and find that she’s walking beside you, and
she walks up the steps with you and stands there while you open the door
to your room and then she walks in with you. The book’s like that. A little
too much to behold. I’ve had so
68
many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make
out what it is. It takes time. [* * *]
[To Neeli Cherry]
April 29, 1963
enclosed bad photo from leftover stash I had taken for some artist who
thinks he might do a drawing for Cold Dogs in the Courtyard , Cyfoeth, Chi.
Lit. Times, out in May, I’m told. Anyhow, Jory over for small drunk, saw
reject photo and said I should send it to you. O.k., I said, o.k. But I didn’t
and J. has kept hounding, so here it is, whatever it is. Which explains
nothing.
Picked up a couple of Borestones the other day. One for “The House”
and one for “The Singular Self.” They will come out later in the year, Best
Poems of 1963 . I’ve never seen one of their collections. Might be pure crap.
Most poetry is. Almost everything is.
Tell Sam to keep working out. I think I can find room for a good 4 round
man down at Santa Monica. I hear all you havta do is keep the gloves laced.
More and more black cats everywhere, but there’s a white  cat here, that
means luck, brother. He has an angular scar down the left side of his head.
Proud; a real shit-head. [* * *]
[To John William Corrington]
May 1, 1963
god damned quarter horses worse than money stealing sluts, hot enough
out there to take the bark off an oak tree, and everything in kind of a yellow-
sandish grit, like a cheap dream, and you peel the money off—your last
poor bloodsmeared 5 or ten, and here they come, damp, fear-peeling, and
the number goes by and it is the wrong number. you are fucked again but
the most noticeable part is that you are getting used to it. some day in an
alley I’ll wish I had back g.d. once more, the green, and the milk from ma’s
tit, but it will be old newspapers and hacked-out minds and blue wind and
young
69
cops. What I am trying to tell you here is that I lost at Los Alamitos, and
they all lose, they stand there stunned and greyfaced, the dream all gone.
And I hit down the freeway in a borrowed blue 1954 Buick that drove like
an ice truck. Tomorrow night she’ll be over and I’ll have to hear all about
the horrors of the Right (as opposed to Left) and how soon we’ll have a
sort of Gestapo dragging people screaming down the streets. She’ll have
2 tickets to a lecture by James Baldwin and I will refuse to go. As to
Gestapos, Gestapos have always been—and hooeva is in powa has his own
kinda Ges., only they call it something nice the The Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation or Vets of For. Whores, or the A.M.A. or the Y.W.C.A.; when
these shits gona realize the Gestap. has always been here? that Life is Blood?
Control? Fences? only a guy like Gandhi did without and they got him.
What I am trying to say, I lost at Lost Alamitos. [* * *]
[To Ben Tibbs]
[May 1, 1963]
Thanks for the drawing. It is the best one I have seen of yours. Don’t be
pissed, but I think it so good I’d almost use the dirty word “genius.” I want
Webb to see it. Going to write to him about it. But I want it back because
you sent it to me.
I will stoke up something for you—eventually—perhaps a series of small
ones, if I don’t get run over or pressed out.
Meanwhile your work lights up this dump on this grey day like one
thousand searchlights. Thank you, Ben.
Yes, the death of a good woman, it is a bad thing.
I heard about the death of your wife, but take hold, man, your work is
getting stronger, so put down the ink the way you do, go on, maybe she’s
watching, and if she isn’t, go on anyway—she’d tell you to.
Thanks again (a small thing to say) for the fine drawing.
do continue.
70
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
May 1, 1963
[* * *] Ben Tibbs shipped me a drawing which he says [he] has not sub-
mitted anywhere and he wants me to have it, only it seems so quite warmly
funny and good…I would like you to see it for possible Outsider  use, but
I would like the original back. I guess he just drew it for me, but hell hell,
it’s something…called “Idyll” and it has one of Ben’s little old men with
life-filled child eyes, hat on, reading a book in a rocking chair, and it’s out
on the grass, and there’s a bed and the woman is putting a sheet on this
bed and you can see part of the body through the sheet and just where the
THING  is, there is a patch on the sheet—oh, it is not vile ugly dirty but warm
laugh clean and love—and then on the sidelights: there is some kind of
bird sitting on the head of the bed, and he’s looking at the patch, and there’s
a tree back there. Ben wants me to send him something in ink, but hell hell
I can’t match, it’s trying to draw to an inside straight with a short deck.
And yet I know that Ben is not trying me in contest. He has liked some
of my drawings. Well, this is good, but drawing hardly interests me
now—little does—and I draw like Thurber
which is o.k. only if
you are
Thurber
and T.’s dead so he’s ahead of me on 2 counts, only o you should see the
Tibbs, this is the best I’ve seen of his. Did you know he’s an old man? Not
that this should prejudice judgement of a work. I see whatever I can see
that is there. But when you get an old man who still has velvet in his dreams
you get something coo, dad, and mama. [* * *]
[To Ann Bauman]
[May 2, 1963]
I am writing this right after you have phoned, and you have so little
money and you should not have, and yet this makes it better, and for it all,
it was a sound out of the darkness, and I love you for it, and there’s some-
thing good in you, you may not know it, but there
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is, and forgive all the comas and loose talk…it is so odd to hear a sound
out of all this madness. I am not so good at talking on the phone, or talking
at all and though I say small things, hesitant dull things, it is only shame
and lack of heart and lack of ability and all the lacks that keep me from
expressing what should be, and when the phone is put down I always feel
as if I have failed—not only in ordinary failure but in a failure that affects
everything: myself and you and tomorrow morning and any way the smoke
blows. [* * *]
Ann, I think you should know this—I am not primarily a poet, I hate
god gooey damned people poets messing the smears of their lives against
the sniveling world, and poets are bad and the world is bad and we are
here, ya. What I am trying to say is that poetry, what I write, is only one
tenth of myself—the other 9/to hell tenths are looking over the edge of a
cliff down into the sea of rock and wringing swirl and cheap damnation.
I wish that I only could suffer in the classic style and carve out of great
marble that would last centuries beyond this dog’s bark I now hear outside
of my 1963 window, but I am damned and slapped and chippied and
wasted down to the nothingness of my arms and eyes and fingers and this
letter tonight, May first or second, 1963, after hearing your voice upon the
phone.
I deserve to die. I wait upon death like a plumed falcon with beak and
song and talon for my caged blood. This may sound pretty god damned
pretty but it is not. The poetry part of me, the seeming actuality, what I
write, is dung and dross and saliva and old battleships sinking. I know
that when the world—which is fairly cheap and stylish and what?
what?—forgets a little of the poetry that I have written, it will not be entirely
the fault of the world—mainly because I do not think  of writing, and only
the edge of the knife…where I spread the butter or cut the onion keeps
practice in the verse of my mind.
You do not know how much your call meant although I was seemingly
dull and drab and stupid, but I do wish you would not do it again because
I know how things are going for you and yours (not so good) and I don’t
want the few good people of the world hurt because of buk the puke.
(Someone once wrote me that Buk rhymed with puke and she was correct,
not only in manner, which is bad, but also in the way the chandeliers work
their still lightning in an empty room) and I say, everything is pretty good
now but I of course don’t know when or if or what the next o my god stroke
of everything will bring, which is a coward’s viewpoint, and all drowning
men are cowards, hear them scream, and life is what? what? going down
into
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the water, and it is not the cutting off of air and light and lung and eye and
love that counts—it’s the itch they put into us making us wonder why the
hell we are here. For these few things. Like a phone call from Sacramento
at 7:30 p.m. I don’t know, I don’t know, and it is so sad. If I could give tears
to make it right we would all drown in my sick tears. I hardly know what
to do. I drink too much. Or not enough. I gamble. I make love to women
who only exist within their bodies and I look against the flakes of their eyes
and I know that I am lying to myself and to them because I am no less than
a dog, and love or the act should contain more than a couple of steaks in
a frying pan or else all is lost like weeds in a garden or snails stepped upon
and crushed and left in some sort of slime which contains life, smashed
life forever and foreboding.
This poetry-thing is the worst sort of crutch. It weakens a man. And if a
man is weak before he writes poetry he becomes, finally, through the
strumming of shadows and wailing, he becomes finally what he is—just
another fine pink juicy boy doing his god damned job in the frailest and
most vomiting way.
You’ve got to understand that there are other ways of facing the horn
except through the typewriter. Those who are known to us may just be a
bad choice of chance. Never take the Arts as a holy mirror. Very little is
just, and that includes all the centuries. The most honorable countries do
not survive through courage nor do the ages survive us the best artists.
Everything is chance and shit and the strumming of the winds. Please for-
give the center word. If I hate anything it is a vile word said vilely or a
dirty joke or the making of sex and life and woman and man into the thing
they seem to want it to be.
I am probably fairly insane and you should know this (a more somber
note with golden screeching undertones) and I do not mean to knock your
verse plays…some have been done well…Racine, etc., only it is too much
and ever so easy to mock and cajole when you do not give or try, and I say
go ahead: verse, or phone calls or cards or death or love or vast areas of
bathing in arenas of sound and stroke and midnight moments, I thank you
for going on and I, too, go on a little while more.
p.s.—don’t hate me for feeling more