More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

by Charles Bukowski

  Any person into living and creativity must discourage a certain number of visitors, if not most of them. It can be done as Jeffers did by building a fortress of rocks and sending an old aunt to the door to gather messages. I simply tell people why. For instance, yesterday I got a phone call: “Are you Charles Bukowski?” “Yes?” “Charles Bukowski, the poet?” “I am sometimes Charles Bukowski, the poet.” “Well, I’m a young man from New York just got into town, and I’ve always loved your work. I’d like to come by and talk to you.” “Kid, just what does talk have to do with poetry?”

  “I don’t understand.” “I’m not your corner priest. We have nothing to talk about, don’t you understand?” I said good-bye and hung up. He’ll find another poet, the phone book is full of them.

  2.

  I’ve been informed by the Department of Water and Power that I’ve been allowed 184 units per billing. That’s not very much. I have a friend who is allowed 1600 units and we both think alike and eat about alike and live about alike. I don’t know why the DWP didn’t shut me off entirely. What am I going to do with 184 units? I’ll have to boil my weenies and then take them out and used the soiled water for my coffee. Maybe this is the way to do it. If they want a 10 percent reduction, just cut off one person in 10 and let the others go on living. Greece and Rome knew how to do this. There are really only two types of people in this world: the noble and the fucked.

  I notice the DWP reasoning upon allotments is that they are based upon a percentage reduction of past usage at the same residence over a given period. So a blind woman with a parrot lived here before me and her hobby was braille. Now I’m supposed to wear her pantaloons.

  Actually, the way it works is that people who have been wasting energy are given larger allotments to waste than those who have not. They are rewarding the wasters with more waste.

  I think a more stable measurement should be used, to wit so many units for one person living in a one-bedroom apartment, so many units for so and so many people living in a house of a certain size. In a sense, this would still be giving some tolerance to the wealthy, but it would actually come closer to a general fairness.

  Let’s break it down more rationally. The way they have it now it’s like two men each owning a horse and one is allowed to feed his horse five bales of hay a month while the other is allowed 10. If Mayor Bradley wants to come and live at my place under 184 units to test the validity of things, fine, and I’ll come to his place and test the validity of his allotment. And he needn’t throw in his wife . . . I’ve got enough troubles already.

  I suppose that when they get into gas rationing it will be another distortion of actuality. Americans have cheated and lied for so long, have become so decayed under this great moral Bob Hope front that I wonder why justice hasn’t arrived and all our streets and boulevards do not have Chinese names. We, babies you and I, have been saved by our atomic stockpiles, not our ingeniousness, our guts, our souls, or our courage.

  Gas rationing people will make exorbitant claims upon entirely unnecessary travel needs. Some people will become two people with two cars, some people will become three people with three cars. Some people will find need (seemingly) to travel from San Diego to Washington, D.C. three times a week. Everything will happen. More fucking fuel will become consumed, joggled and wasted and resold than if they just left the damn thing alone. The black market for gas and oil will be there for those who can afford it.

  Who could have believed that the Arabs and their near-monopoly on oil could have caused massive layoffs here: 55 m.p.h. speed limits, perpetual daylight saving time, grins upon the faces of rapists, muggers and murderers, fear of running the TV too long . . . and over a 50 percent profit-rise for American oil companies . . . while in the long hot summer ahead a man or a woman will have to think five or six times whether to turn on the air conditioner or whether to sweat and stink.

  It seems as if there are no shortages of certain commodities: cigarettes, alcohol, speed, cops, smog, bars, McDonald’s hamburger stands, bums on skid row, cancer, hydrogen bombs, Lucille Ball, football games, basketball games, poets, politicians, dishes in the sink, infidelity, clap, sparrows, shit, vomit, bad breath, urine, stopped sinks, traffic lights, lines, garbage, roaches, rats, unreason, opera, hangnails, screaming women, rapists, lost laundry tickets and Bukowski.

  It was Saturday, July 20, 1974, hot. I’d put ice cubes into the air cooler. I was on the bed sweating out the beer. It got to be 1 p.m., 1:30. I got up, scratched my hemorrhoids, took a bath and got dressed. It was no use. I was trying to stay away, but it was the last Saturday of the Hollypark meet and weekdays were bad enough but Saturdays at the track were nightmares to the vision and the feelings. I decided to go anyhow.

  The sixth race was a match race between the two greatest 3-year-old fillies in America, Miss Musket from the west and Chris Evert from the east. It was billed as The Match Race of the Century, $350,000, winner take all. Each stable was putting up $150,000. Match races are very rare. I had only seen one other: Convenience vs. Typecast in 1972. I drove down to Carl Jr’s and had a hamburger, fries and a large coke.

  There was another reason for going out there. She was there each Saturday, showing leg. She wore very high-heeled shoes, and when she sat down she pulled her dress back and showed all this leg. She wore long hose, no pantyhose for her, and although she didn’t go the garter belt route, she wore garters and was continually standing up, lifting her dress and pulling the hose tight. 1937 all over again and I was hardly the only man affected. Still, it was mainly the match race. I had no column in mind and I could report the affair for the L.A. Free Press. It would feel good to be a journalist; one didn’t need a mind to be a journalist.

  I drove out slowly. After you’ve seen as many races as I have you can miss a few. Match races come about as often as minor and major wars: Man O’ War vs. Sir Barton, 1920. Zev vs. Papyrus, 1923. Seabiscuit vs. Ligaroti, 1938. Aisab vs. Whirlaway, 1942. Armed vs. Assault, 1947. Swaps vs. Nashua, 1955. Convenience vs. Typecast, 1972.

  I arrived in time for the fourth race. The crowd was large, hot, and by that time—surly and depressed, walking into each other blindly, pushing dazed and dulled. When you see humanity like that, you know there’s not much chance. If you want to find what a person is like inside, take them to a racetrack and watch how they react to defeat.

  I walked over to the bench where she always sat, my lady with the long glorious legs. There she was—she had on thick, flat, low-heeled shoes. I turned away in disgust. Well, I still had the Match Race of the Century.

  I went the No. 3 horse, Grape Juice, in the fourth, and lost in a three-horse photo. The photos weren’t coming my way this meet. Some meets they give you all the photos; others they take them all away. It’s usually decided for you in the opening days of any meet. Take your cue from there. Also, when you’re going hot you bet heavy and go more often; when you’re cold you go less and bet less. Never fight the tide.

  In the fifth my preference was Afirmado with Tom Landry a close second. The last-minute action on the tote swung to Tom Landry and I got down on him at 8/5 but Afirmado breezed by him in the stretch at 7/2. It wasn’t my meet.

  The sixth race was the match race. I really wanted Chris Evert to win because Miss Musket was the western horse and I am a rebel by nature. I like to see the crowd murdered, they deserve it. But I also wanted to bet on the winner. I would have to watch the toteboard and do some thinking. All the boys in the local newspapers were picking Miss Musket—inside post, the great Laffit Pincay as jock, and the higher speed ratings. They each carried 121 pounds. Miss Musket was 3/5 on the morning line and Chris Evert 4/5. The betting began. They both opened at 3/5. Then Miss Musket hit 1/2, then 2/5. At 1/2 or 2/5 I knew Musket had it wrapped but I did want to bet Evert. Musket was Florida-bred and Evert was Kentucky-bred, and the Kentucky-breds are usually horses of greater heart.

  The betting windows were empty. The crowd didn’t know what to do. A guy leaning up against a girder looked at m
e and gave me a silly grin: “I wouldn’t bet this kind of race, it’s stupid.” “You’re not forced to bet,” I answered him. An old woman walked up to me: “How can you bet a race like this?” she asked me. “Lady,” I said, “this race is the same as any other race. The track extracts 16 per cent and gives the remainder of the money back to the winning ticket holders. This way it’s more obvious to you. In a 12-horse field you don’t notice the bite, but it’s still there.”

  With two minutes to go, Musket rose from 1/2 to 3/5. As they were putting them in the gate, Evert dropped from 4/5 to 3/5. Underlays win 75 per cent of the races at any track. I only had one bet: Evert, 20 win. Before the race some children had come by carrying a long banner on poles: “MISS MUSKET CAN’T MISS!” Although Miss Musket was the favorite in money bet to win, Evert had gotten the late action and was the underlay.

  Musket on the inside broke out of the gate with a slight lead, but Evert with a lunge quickly had a length and a half. That move right there showed the power. Musket was supposed to have the lick but Evert had outbroken her clearly. Right there, the race was over. Pincay knew that Jorge Velasquez had a hell of a lot of horse under him. Evert took the rail and had two lengths around the first turn, and right there you noticed that Evert’s legs were longer, her stride longer, easier. Miss Musket seemed to diminish in size, her strides seemed sloppy and confused.

  On the backstretch, halfway down, Miss Musket made her last effort, she pulled out and came almost alongside Evert, only you noticed that Velasquez had the hold and that Pincay was praying, his horse was laboring, giving away its stretch run on the backstretch. Then Velasquez let go his hold and Evert began to draw clear: one and one-half lengths, two lengths, four lengths, eight lengths on the turn

  . . . it was pure murder. At the top of the stretch Chris Evert had 30 lengths. One-half way down the stretch Evert had 40 lengths and had never seen the whip.

  I had never seen such a defeating defeat. No war, no assassination, no treachery of love could match it. Pincay eased his horse. Evert breezed across the finish line 50 lengths in front and had so much run left in her Jorge had trouble keeping her from going down to the curve and going the distance once more. The Californians booed their Miss Musket and their Laffit Pincay as they finally crossed the finish line in a gentle canter. Shit, Pincay wanted to win, he’d just been on the wrong horse. The rider’s share of the purse was 10 per cent, or $35,000. Pincay felt much worse than the $2 bettors.

  Evert paid $3.50, which means $34 for $20, or $14 profit. As I came from the collection window, she was waiting. I had seen her at the track for several meets but we had never spoken. She looked frightened, her eyes were a pale blue, a very pale blue. She put her body right in front of me. I had to stop. “You won, didn’t you?” she asked. “Yeh,” I said and then stepped around her. Her and her flat white shoes. With high heels I might have taken her over to the bar for a drink, and then all things flowing, I would have taken her home and eaten her pussy. Her and her flat heels.

  I didn’t watch the other races. I had to go home and write about the match race for the Free Press. There was never anything about horse racing in the Free Press. I found my car in the parking lot and drove slowly back. I knew that that race would go down in history, something to be talked about for a long time—like the Tunney-Dempsey fights, the Dempsey-Firpo fight, the Zale-Graziano fights, the Dempsey-Willard, the battle of Stalingrad, Burton vs. Taylor, but I was glad I had seen it with my own eyes because things have a way of getting turned sometimes, they are not gotten down like they should be gotten down, something enters afterwards that destroys or distorts.

  I got home, sat down to the typer and began my journalistic account of the two 3-year-old fillies. The phone rang.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Hello,” she said. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Oh, yes, how you doing?” I asked.

  Women have this trick of not saying who they are and they disguise their voices. I got trapped the other night. This one voice sounded like the other and I said, “Oh, did you get your car out of the garage?” And she answered, “Yes, but my oil pan is still dripping all over my pussy.” Then I recognized the voice and I said “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were . . .” “Who?” she asked. “Oh . . . a friend.” So this time I was careful. “I’m doing fine,” she said. “I was thinking of you too,” I said. The conversation went on and then I said something and she laughed and I recognized the laugh. “Say, that was one hell of an afternoon,” I said, “you’ve got a great piano.” “And I didn’t know you could play the drums,” she said. “Yeh,” I said. “And you dance, you dance like you’re wearing a hoola-hoop.” “Yeh,” I said. “Well, I’m just sitting here,” she said, “and I’m alone and I just wrote a poem and I look out the window and I see all the lovers walking arm in arm and I thought of you and I thought, well, he’s probably alone and writing a poem too.” “No, I’m writing about a match race.” “What’s that?” “Two matches race.” “Oh?” “Marion, phone me when you’re in town. I’ve got to get this thing down.” “All right,” she said and hung up. She’ll phone again.

  Now, you see, this is the way you write about a match race, future students of journalism take note. And when you answer a telephone, feel your way along. Don’t just presume that the last female you were with is the one who is phoning you now. Learn to eat pussy, take your vitamins, especially E, and when in doubt go for the long-legged filly, Kentucky-bred, wearing the tallest cleats possible.

  If you think being a matchmaker is easy you’re wrong. I average 14 hours a day in that office on a straight salary. It’s mostly telephone calls and checking all the fight results, trying to get a couple of good boys in together at the lowest cost possible.

  And the heavyweights are the biggest ache of them all. And they make the worst fights. They can’t move and they don’t have any guts. Just give them a fair tag and they quit.

  Heavyweight fights are almost always dull and most of them leave a pretty good stink after it’s over, but the fans still demand them. And that’s what makes it hard. There aren’t eight good heavies in the U.S. In fact, there aren’t 30 heavies fighting in the U.S. And those that are only get a fight every year or two.

  Here I was trying to find an opponent for Young Sharkey. 12-1-1, 12 k.o.’s. I finally go to Manilla and get Big Baby Herodima. Herodima is 4-6-2 but he weighs 276 pounds and I figure it will be a lot of fun to hear him fall. I phone the papers and tell them it’s a match, write it up. Sharkey and Herodima, coming up in two weeks. I’m finally caught up on my matches. I lean back and feel peaceful for the first time in some days. The phone rings. It’s Gerda. She’s drunk.

  “Listen, Gerda, I’ve asked you not to call me at work.”

  “Listen, Shithead, you owe me something.”

  “I don’t owe you a damned thing. I’ve told you it’s over between you and me. I’ve had it.”

  “Who is it? Suzy? Are you back with Suzy?”

  “No, I’ve dumped her too.”

  “Listen, Doug, you just can’t go around dumping women like that at your age. Pretty soon there won’t be any left.”

  “When that happens it will be the happiest day of my life.” I hung up. The phone rang again.

  “Listen, Shithead, I’m not through talking to you. You’re the biggest fraud of the ages. It’s Suzy, isn’t it? You’re back with her again, you always go back to her.”

  “Not this time. She’s been screwing everything that walks. It’s like sticking your cock in a garbage disposal unit.”

  “Listen, Shithead, I want to tell you about my goldfish . . .” I hung up. The phone started to ring. I put on my coat, locked the door and got out of there . . .

  When I got home I had a beer and a sandwich, showered and went to bed. I was just about asleep when the phone rang.

  “Listen, Shithead—”

  “Gerda, please. I’ve told you it’s over, don’t you understand? For Christ’s sake, leave me al
one!”

  “I can hear her breathing!”

  “What?”

  “I can hear her breathing! You’ve got some woman in bed with you eating cheese crackers and olives! She’s got her hand around your balls! I can hear her breathing!”

  “You’re crazy, that’s what’s wrong with you, you’re completely crazy.”

  “Put her on the phone. I want to talk to her.”

  I hung up. The phone rang again. I picked it up, hung up, then lifted the receiver and let it hang from the wire. I went to sleep . . .

  At the office the next day I got a call from the Commission saying that Herodima wouldn’t be allowed to fight Young Sharkey, because he couldn’t see out of one eye. I suggested that maybe a guy who weighed 276 pounds only deserved one eye, but they still said no. So there I was. I had to make the top card over again. I got on the phone. I tried to get Hymie Stringer out of Philly but his manager told me Hymie broke his leg when he fell out of a tree trying to untangle a kite for some neighborhood kid. I tried Mexicali. I tried Canada. Nothing. The phone rang.

  “Listen, Shithead, I want to tell you about my goldfish. I got up early this morning and went out to the garden. It was about 6:30 and there was this light fog. And there they were floating near the top, mystified by this shroud of leaves that had fallen over them. I thought you’d like to hear.”

  “Yes, that’s a nice story. Thanks.”

  “Listen, Shithead, was it good, was it good last night?”

  “Gerda, I’m trying to line up a card. Herodima can only see out of one eye. Stringer fell out of a tree and broke his leg.”

  “Did you eat her box? Did you give her the treatment? Did she like it?”