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The People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems

Page 10

by Charles Bukowski


  I think, where do these bastards come from and

  what has happened to everybody? truly, I

  am losing it.

  the light is out

  and then a burglar alarm

  somewhere nearby

  sifts through his

  snoring. very apt, I think,

  most apt

  for a very wasted night

  in December

  1965 or

  any other time at

  all.

  another poem about a drunk and then I’ll let you go

  “man,” he said, sitting on the steps.

  “your car sure needs a wash and wax.

  I can do it for 5 bucks.

  I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything

  I need.”

  I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.

  when I came down 4 hours later

  he was sitting on the steps, drunk.

  he offered me a can of beer.

  he said he was going to do the car

  the next day.

  the next day he was drunk again and

  I loaned him a dollar for a bottle of

  wine. his name was Mike.

  a World War II veteran.

  his wife worked as a nurse.

  the following day I came down and he was sitting

  on the steps. he said,

  “you know, I been sitting here looking at your car

  wondering how to do it best.

  I wanna do it real good.”

  the next day Mike said it looked like rain

  and it sure as hell wouldn’t make any sense

  to wash and wax a car when it was gonna rain.

  the next day it looked like rain again.

  and the next.

  then I didn’t see him anymore.

  I saw his wife and she said,

  “they took Mike to the hospital,

  he’s all swelled up, they say it’s from

  drinking.”

  “listen,” I told her, “he said he was going to wax my

  car. I gave him 5 dollars to wax my

  car.”

  I was sitting in their kitchen

  drinking with his wife

  when the phone rang.

  she handed the phone to me.

  it was Mike. “listen,” he said, “come on down and

  get me. I can’t stand this

  place.”

  when I got there

  they wouldn’t give him his clothes

  so Mike walked to the elevator in his hospital

  gown.

  we got on and there was a kid in the

  elevator eating a Popsicle.

  “nobody’s allowed to leave here in a gown,”

  he said.

  “you drive this thing, kid,” I said,

  “we’ll worry about the gown.”

  I stopped at the liquor store for 2 six-packs

  then drove home. I drank with Mike and his wife until

  11 p.m.

  then went upstairs.

  “where’s Mike?” I asked his wife 3 days

  later.

  “Mike died,” she said, “he’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

  it rained for a week after that and I

  figured the only way I’d get that 5 back

  was to go to bed with his wife

  but you know

  she moved out a couple of days

  later

  and an old guy with white hair

  moved in there.

  he was blind in one eye and

  played the French horn.

  there was no way I wanted to make it

  with him.

  so I had to wash and wax my own car.

  dead dog

  Bartkowski completes a 58-yard touchdown pass

  to beat the Packers in the final minute.

  I hear it on the radio

  it’s Sunday and I’m on the way to the track

  I should make the third race.

  the Falcons hold on to win and that’s good.

  I switch off the radio.

  then where the Harbor Freeway branches onto

  the Pasadena

  I see a dog up on the ramp

  he’s a big one and he’s limp

  but he’s still breathing.

  his head is crushed.

  people who have dogs in their cars

  and let them hang out the window

  when those dogs fall out on the freeway

  often they just keep driving.

  I know how to enter the tunnel.

  you take the far right lane while

  the other lanes back up on the left.

  I glide on through.

  when I come out of the tunnel

  I slide back into the fast lane.

  those sons-of-bitches and their dead

  dogs.

  I get to the track at 1:20 p.m.

  take preferred parking

  find a vacant spot at F-5

  lock it up

  and as I’m walking between cars

  I see two men who

  have broken into a car.

  they are taking out the radio,

  the stereo and the speakers.

  they see me and I see them.

  “don’t say nothin’, man!

  if you do, remember we’ll see you

  again some day!”

  I go inside the track

  it’s four minutes to post

  third race coming up

  the crowd has bet Shameen

  with Delahousseye riding

  down from 4 to 2 to 1.

  Song for Two has a line of 2

  and reads 3.

  I rate the horses even

  bet 10-win on Song for Two.

  Song for Two wins the photo

  the Shoe can still ride

  and I’m $31 ahead.

  those sons-of-bitches and their dead

  dogs.

  I lose the 4th, 5th and 6th races.

  in the 7th they bet Back’n Time down

  to 3-to-5 off a 99 speed rating

  6 furlongs down at Del Mar

  but the colt is 3 years old

  going against older horses

  and has never gone a mile.

  I can see it turning into the stretch

  with a four-length lead and getting beat

  at the wire

  by something.

  but who will do it?

  there are 6 other horses.

  I put $50 place on Back’n Time

  and watch the race.

  the colt has four lengths coming into

  the stretch

  then Don F.

  the longest shot on the board

  begins to close

  and it’s tight at the wire.

  they hang the photo

  we wait

  then they put up Don F.

  at 19-to-1.

  I get $2.80 place

  so I make $20

  lose the 8th

  then I’m up only $18.

  in the 9th

  I bet 10-win on Fleet Ruler

  and 2-win on Forecast

  then leave the track

  stand out in the parking lot

  listen to the announcer

  who is hollering

  Forecast is in f
ront

  and here comes Fleet Ruler

  it’s Fleet Ruler and Forecast

  at the wire.

  it’s evidently a photo.

  I walk to my car to get out of there

  before the crowd.

  I have the radio

  on the race result station.

  I’m still on the Pasadena Freeway

  when I hear the result:

  it’s Forecast

  and Forecast paid $90.70

  so

  the day wasn’t quite wasted.

  but later

  when I pull into the driveway

  there’s the Manx cat

  with his rudimentary tail and

  with his tongue hanging out.

  he refuses to move for the car.

  I get out

  pick him up and

  throw him in the front seat.

  we drive into the garage

  together.

  we get out

  the other two cats are waiting

  (lovers of fishheads, dreamers of

  birds)

  I open the door

  and all the cats enter along

  with me.

  they run into the kitchen

  I notice that Dallas and San Diego are now

  playing. Danny White is at quarterback for

  Dallas.

  I always liked Danny White,

  he’s a gambler.

  I might watch a few quarters.

  Sunday’s a day of rest.

  all important things should be forgotten.

  I decide to not even feed the cats

  for a while.

  and Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll start working

  on my childhood novel

  again.

  I live in a neighborhood of murder

  the roaches spit out rusted

  paper clips

  and the helicopter circles and circles

  smelling for blood

  searchlights leering down into our

  bathrooms

  searching for our two-lid cache under the

  mattress.

  5 guys in this court have pistols

  another a

  machete

  we are all murderers and

  alcoholics

  but there are worse in the hotel

  across the street;

  they sit in the green and white doorway

  banal and depraved

  waiting to be

  institutionalized.

  here we each have a dying green plant

  on our porch

  and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

  we do so

  in hushed tones

  as outside on each porch

  stands a small dish of food

  that is always eaten by morning

  we presume

  by the

  cats.

  the bombing of Berlin

  the Americans and English would come over, he told me,

  there was nothing to stop them,

  they had red and blue lights on their planes

  and they took their time,

  and it was funny, you know,

  a bomb would take out an entire block

  and leave the block next to it standing,

  untouched.

  once, after a raid, we heard a piano playing

  under the rubble

  and there was an old woman under there playing the piano,

  the building had collapsed all around her,

  buried her there and she was still playing the

  piano.

  after a while, when the planes came again and again

  we wouldn’t bother to go underground anymore,

  we just stayed wherever we were

  on first and second floors and looked up

  and watched

  the red and blue lights and thought,

  goddamn them!

  well, he said, picking up his beer with a sigh,

  we lost the war, and that’s all there is to

  that.

  all right, Camus

  met this guy, somewhere, hell his eyes looked like a madman’s

  or maybe it was only my reflection there.

  well, anyway, he said to me, you read Camus?

  we’re both in this womanless bar looking

  for a piece of ass or some way out through the top of the sky and

  it wasn’t working—there was just the bartender wondering why he’d

  ever gone into the business

  and myself, very discouraged with the fact that I had now been trans-

  lated only

  into 6 or 7 languages.

  the guy kept talking—

  The Stranger, you know, the book that depicts our modern society—

  about the deadened man who

  couldn’t cry at his mother’s funeral, who

  killed an Arab or two without even knowing why—

  he kept on and on

  and on and on

  telling me what a son-of-a-bitch The Stranger

  was, and I kept thinking maybe he’s right—

  you know, those awful speeches before the French Academy—

  you couldn’t tell whether Camus was talking out of the

  side of his mouth or

  whether he was

  serious. he certainly sounded no better then than

  the guy next to me at the bar

  and we were only looking for

  pussy.

  it was very sad—

  all along The Stranger had been my hero

  because I thought he’d seen beyond trying

  or caring

  because it was all such a bore

  so senseless—

  life a big hole in the ground looking up—

  and I was wrong again:

  hell, I was The Stranger and the book simply hadn’t come out the way

  it was meant to

  be.

  quits

  they made their first mistake when they

  laid the champ

  facedown

  on the dressing room table—

  it was a cancer

  scream—

  and then he cursed them in poor man’s

  Italian and said

  turn me over turn me over turn me over you assholes

  turn me over,

  and they did

  and he said,

  he broke every rib on my left side

  he’s a murderer, he’s not a fighter,

  and then he

  said,

  look, get me a gun, I’m going to kill that son-of-a-

  bitch.

  take it easy, champ, said his manager, it wasn’t for the title, you

  still got the title. you can beat him

  in the rematch. we ain’t signed the contract to

  fight Sondelle yet. we’ll hold off on

  Sondelle and get this guy in the

  rematch.

  I’m not fighting that killer again, said the

  champ,

  they ought to bar that dirty cocksucker from the

  ring.

  look, champ, said his manager, don’t be

  stupid, we’ll get a real big

  gate for the next

  one, they’ll want to see if he can

  do it again.

  the champ cursed them
in Italian and then said,

  you’ll never get me in the ring with that killer again.

  look, champ, he’s a bum I tell you, a bum, he’s never beat

  anyboby before. next time you

  dance away, lay off the

  drinking and fucking for a

  week, he can’t

  touch you when you’re right. he can’t beat

  shit, champ.

  he beat

  me. I’ll never take another beating like that for

  anyone.

  you gonna quit, champ? you gonna quit?

  I’ll fight anyone but that

  guy.

  all right

  so, o.k., how about an X-ray of my

  ribs? I can’t breathe, really, I

  feel them poking into my

  lung.

  they took him out of there and drove him in a low

  long black

  limousine

  to the private hospital where the

  X-rays showed

  no breaks.

  they’re lying, screamed the champ, the fucking

  idiots are lying! don’t you think I

  can feel my own bones when they are

  broken?

  nobody said anything.

  Adolf

  I have a friend who has a

  scrapbook devoted to Hitler

  and his Nazi buddies

  and the walls are

  covered with old

  snapshots of Al Capone

  Fatty Arbuckle

  Roy Rogers and

  many many others.

  the walls are limp with rotting glue

  and memories, and there are

  hidden switches that set off

  a frenzy of colored

  lights—

  each pattern different,

  never

  the same—

  and down in his cellar there are

  tons of rain-fattened and rat-

  eaten

  papers; it’s very

  dark down there

  and there are many

  half-finished paintings with

  one eye staring up at you

 

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