On Drinking

by Charles Bukowski

  hum a little tune,

  suddenly become as lovable as a

  pink

  overfed whale.

  some people never go crazy.

  what truly horrible lives

  they must live.

  Notes of a Dirty Old Man

  We were both in handcuffs. The cops led us down the stairway between them and sat us in back. My hands were bleeding onto the upholstery, but they didn’t seem to care about the upholstery.

  The kid’s name was Albert and Albert sat there and said, “Jesus, you guys mean you’re going to take me and lock me up where I can’t get candy and cigarettes and beer, where I can’t listen to my record player?”

  “Stop your sniveling, will you?” I asked the kid.

  I hadn’t made the drunk tank for six or eight years. I was due, I was overdue. It was just like driving that long without a traffic ticket—they were just going to get you finally if you drove and they were going to get you finally if you drank. On drunk tank trips vs. traffic tickets the drunk tank led by 18 to seven. Which shows I’m a better driver than I am a drinker.

  It was the city jail and Albert and I got separated in the booking. The routine hadn’t changed except the doctor asked how my hands got cut.

  “A lady locked me out,” I said, “so I smashed the door in, a glass door.”

  The doctor put one band-aid on the worst cut and I was led to the tank.

  It was the same. No bunks. Thirty-five men laying on the floor. There were a couple of urinals and a couple of toilets. Ta, ta, ta.

  Most of the men were Mexican and most of the Mexicans were between 40 and 68. There were two blacks. No Chinese. I have never seen a Chinese in a drunk tank. Albert was over in the corner talking but nobody was listening, or maybe they were because once in a while somebody would say, “Jesus Christ, shut up, man!”

  I was the only one standing up. I walked over to one of the urinals. A guy was asleep with his head against the urinal. The guys were all around the urinals and crappers, not using them but sitting crowded around them. I didn’t want to step over them so I awakened the guy by the urinal.

  “Listen, man, I want to piss and your head is right up against the urinal.”

  You can never tell when that will mean a fight so I watched him closely. He slid over and I pissed. Then I walked to within three feet of Albert.

  “Got a cigarette, kid?”

  The kid had a cigarette. He took it out of the pack and threw it at me. It rolled along the floor and I picked it up.

  “Anybody got a match?” I asked.

  “Here.” It was a skid row white. I took the matchbook, struck up a smoke and handed it back.

  “What’s the matter with your friend?” he asked.

  “He’s just a kid. Everything’s new to him.”

  “You better keep him quiet or I’m going to punch him out, so help me, I can’t stand his babble.”

  I walked over to the kid and kneeled down beside him.

  “Albert, give it a rest. I don’t know what kind of shit you were on before you met me tonight but all your sentences are fragmented, you’re making bad sense. Give it a rest.”

  I walked back to the center of the tank and looked around. A big guy in grey pants was laying on his side. His pants were ripped up the crotch and the shorts were showing through. They’d taken our belts so we couldn’t hang ourselves.

  The cell door of the tank opened and a Mexican in his mid-forties staggered in. He was, as the saying goes, built like a bull. And gored like one. He walked into the tank and did some shadow boxing. He threw some good ones.

  Both of his cheeks, up high, near the bone had raw red gashes. His mouth was just a blot of blood. When he opened it all you could see was red. It was a mouth to remember.

  He threw a couple more, seemed to miss a hard one, lost balance and fell over backwards. As he fell he arched his back so when he hit the cement the ball of his back took the blow, but he couldn’t hold his head back up, it snapped back from the neck, the neck almost acted as a lever and the rear of his head was hurled against the cement. There was the sound, then the head bounced back up, then fell down again. He was still.

  I walked over to the tank door. The cops were walking around with papers, doing things. They were all very nice-looking fellows, young, their uniforms very clean.

  “Hey, you guys!” I yelled. “There’s a guy in here needs medical attention, bad!”

  They just kept walking around doing their duties.

  “Listen, do you guys hear me? There’s a man in here needs medical attention, bad, real bad!”

  They just kept walking around and sitting, writing on pieces of paper or talking to each other. I walked back into the cell. A guy called to me from the floor.

  “Hey, man!”

  I walked over. He handed me his property slip. It was pink. They were all pink.

  “How much I got in property?”

  “I hate to tell you this friend, but it says ‘nothing.’”

  I handed his slip back.

  “Hey, man, how much I got?” another guy asked me.

  I read his and handed it back.

  “You’re the same; you’ve got nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? They took my belt. Isn’t my belt something?”

  “Not unless you can get a drink for it.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Doesn’t anybody have a cigarette?” I asked.

  “Can you roll one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I got the makings.”

  I walked over and he handed me the papers and some Bugler. His papers were all stuck together.

  “Friend, you’ve spilled wine all over your papers.”

  “Good, roll us a couple. Maybe we can get drunk.”

  I rolled two, we lit up and then I walked over and stood against the tank door and smoked. I looked at them all lying there motionless upon the cement floor.

  “Listen, gentlemen, let’s talk,” I said. “There’s no use just laying there. Anybody can lay there. Tell me about it. Let’s find something out. Let me hear from you.”

  There wasn’t a sound. I began to walk around.

  “Look, we’re all waiting for the next drink. We can taste the first one now. To hell with the wine. We want a cold beer, one cold beer to start it out with, to wash the dust out of the throat.”

  “Yeah,” said somebody.

  I kept walking around.

  “Everybody’s talking about liberation now, that’s the thing, you know. Do you know that?”

  No response. They didn’t know that.

  “All right, I say let’s liberate the roaches and the alcoholics. What’s wrong with a roach? Can anybody tell me what’s wrong with a roach?”

  “Well, they stink and they’re ugly,” said some guy.

  “So’s an alcoholic. They sell us the stuff to drink, don’t they? Then we drink it and they throw us in jail. I don’t understand. Does anybody understand this?”

  No response. They didn’t understand.

  The tank door opened up and a cop stepped in.

  “Everybody up. We’re moving to another cell.”

  They got to their feet and walked toward the door. All except the bull. Me and another guy walked over and picked the bull up. We walked him out the door and down the aisle. The cops just watched us. When we got to the next tank we laid the bull down in the center of the floor. The cell door shut.

  “As I was saying . . . well, what was I saying? O.k., those of us who have money, we bail out, we get fined. The money we pay is used to pay those who arrested us and kept us confined, and the money is used to enable them to arrest us again. Now, I mean, if you want to call that justice you can call it justice. I call it shit down the throat.”

  “Alcoholism is a disease,” said some guy from flat on his back.

  “That’s a cliché,” I said.

  “What’s a cliché?”

  “Almost everything. O.K., it’s a disease
but we know they don’t know it. They don’t throw people with cancer in jail and make them lay on the floor. They don’t fine them and beat them. We’re the roaches. We need liberation. We should go on parades: ‘FREE THE ALCOHOLIC.’”

  “Alcoholism is a disease,” said the same guy from flat on his back.

  “Everything’s a disease,” I said. “Eating’s a disease, sleeping’s a disease, fucking’s a disease, scratching your ass is a disease, don’t you get it?”

  “You don’t know what a disease is,” said somebody.

  “A disease is something that’s usually infectious, something that’s hard to get rid of, something that can kill you. Money is a disease. Bathing is a disease, catching fish is a disease, calendars are a disease, the city of Santa Monica is a disease, bubblegum is a disease.”

  “How about thumbtacks?”

  “Yeah, thumbtacks too.”

  “What isn’t a disease?”

  “Now,” I said, “now we got something to think about. Now we got something to help us pass the night.”

  The cell door opened and three cops came in. Two of them walked over and picked up the bull. They walked him out. That broke our conversation somehow. The guys just laid there.

  “Come on, come on,” I said, “let’s keep it going. We’ll all have that drink in our hand soon. Some sooner than others. Can’t you taste it now? This isn’t the end. Think of that first drink.”

  Some of them laid there thinking about that first drink and some of them laid there thinking about nothing. They were resigned to whatever happened. In about five minutes they brought the bull back in. If he had gotten medical attention it wasn’t noticeable. He fell again but this time on his side. Then he was quiet.

  “Look, gentlemen, cheer up, for Christ’s sake, or for my sake. I know they treat a murderer better than a drunk. A murderer gets a nice cell, a bunk, he gets attention. He’s treated like a first-class citizen. He’s really done something. All we’ve done is empty a few bottles. But cheer up, we’ll empty some more . . .”

  Somebody cheered. I laughed.

  “That’s better. Look up, look up! God’s up there with a couple of six packs of Tuborg. Cold and chilled they are with tiny icy bubbles glistening on the side . . . think of it . . .”

  “You’re killing me, man . . .”

  “You’ll be out, we’ll be out, some sooner than others. And we won’t rush out to an AA meeting and take the 12 great steps back to infancy! Your mother will get you out! Somebody loves you! Now which mother’s boy of us will get out of here first? That’s something to think about . . .”

  “Hey, man . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Come here.”

  I walked over.

  “How much I got?” he asked. He handed me his property slip. I handed it back.

  “Brother,” I said, “I hate to tell you . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “It says ‘nothing,’ a very neatly typed ‘nothing.’”

  I walked back to the center of the tank.

  “Now look, fellows, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Everybody take out your property slips and throw them in a pile in the center of the floor. I’ll pay a quarter for each pink slip . . . I’ll own your souls . . .”

  The door opened. It was a cop.

  “Bukowski,” he announced, “Henry C. Bukowski.”

  “Be seeing you fellows. It’s my mother.”

  I followed the cop on out. The checkout was fairly efficient. They simply extracted $50 for bail (I’d had a good day at the track) and gave me the rest, plus my belt. I thanked the doctor for his band-aid and followed the cop into the waiting room. I’d made two calls out while being booked. I was told I had a ride. I sat for ten minutes and then a door opened and I was told I could go. My mother was sitting on a bench outside. It was Karen, the 32-year-old woman I lived with. She was trying her damnedest not to be angry but she was. I followed her on out. We got to the car and got in and started off. I looked in the glove compartment for a cigarette.

  Even the city hall looks good when you get out of the tank. Everything looks good. The billboards, the stoplights, the parking lots, the bus stop benches.

  “Well,” said Karen, “now I suppose you’ll have something to write about.”

  “Oh, yeah. And I gave the fellows a good show. The fellows are going to miss me. I’ll bet it’s like a tomb in there . . .”

  Karen didn’t appear to be impressed. The sun was about to come up and the lady on the billboard, one strap down on her bathing suit, smiled at me as she advertised a sun tan lotion.

  From

  “Confessions of a Badass Poet”

  Question: I figured you’d kick ass, rather than do dishes . . .

  Bukowski: No, man, I’ve had my last fight. I’ve taken my last beating. I used to get into a fight almost every night. I’d fight bartenders . . . That stuff gets old, gets stale—you get your eyes all cut, and your lips all puffed up, a tooth is loose . . . There’s no glory in it. Usually, you’re too drunk to fight well, you’re starving, you know . . .

  This one bartender used to beat me up every night. Tough little fighter. So one day I got mad. I went out, bought a loaf of bread, and a salami. I drank a bottle of port wine. I ate that whole load of bread and the salami—it was the first nourishment I’d had in about a week. And I drank that port wine. I was powerful then! I had food in me!

  So we went out to fight this night and I was very strong, and I just thrashed him all over the place. The wine made me crazy in the head. I got him up against the bricks, I hit him half the time and the other half the time I hit the bricks with my hands. They finally pulled me off.

  He’d been whipping me every night. So when I walked in, he’s down at the end of the bar, he’s got his head in his hands, he’s saying, “Oh, my head hurts!” and he’s got women all around him: “Poor Tommy, here, let me put a wet towel on it!” Hell, when I took my beatings it was, “Hey, Hank, kid!” He got special treatment. So I sat down at the bar and the other bartender said, “I can’t serve you, man, after what you did to Tommy.”

  So I said, “What the hell, he’s been whipping me!” And he said, “Well, that doesn’t matter.”

  some picnic

  which reminds me

  I shacked with Jane for 7 years

  she was a drunk

  I loved her

  my parents hated her

  I hated my parents

  it made a nice

  foursome

  one day we went on a picnic

  together

  up in the hills

  and we played cards and drank beer and

  ate potato salad and weenies

  they talked to her as if she were a living person

  at last

  everybody laughed

  I didn’t laugh.

  later at my place

  over the whiskey

  I said to her,

  I don’t like them

  but it’s good they treated you

  nice.

  you damn fool, she said,

  don’t you see?

  see what?

  they kept looking at my beer-belly,

  they think I’m

  pregnant.

  oh, I said, well here’s to our beautiful

  child.

  here’s to our beautiful child,

  she said.

  we drank them down.

  18,000 to one

  it was during a reading at the University of Utah.

  the poets had run out of drinks

  and while one was reading

  5 or 6 of the others of us

  got into the car

  and drove toward a liquor store

  but we were blocked on the road out

  by all these cars coming into the football stadium.

  we were the only car that wanted to go the other way,

  they had us: 18,000 to one.

  we blocked one lane and honked.

  40 cars
honked back.

  the cop came up.

  “look, officer,” I said. “we’re poets and we need a drink,”

  “turn your car around and go into the stadium,” said

  the officer.

  “look man, we need a drink. we don’t want to see the

  football game. we don’t care who wins. we’re poets, we’re

  reading at The Underwater Poetry Festival

  at the University of Utah.”

  “this traffic can only move one way,” said the cop.

  “turn your car around and go into the stadium.”

  “look man, I’m reading in 15 minutes. I’m Charles Bukowski.

  you’ve heard of me, haven’t you?”

  “turn your car around and go into the stadium.”

  “shit,” said Kamstra who was at the wheel,

  and he ran the car up over the curbing

  and we drove across the campus lawns

  leaving tire marks an inch deep.

  I was drunk and I don’t know how long we drove

  or how we got there

  but suddenly we were all standing in a liquor store

  and we ordered wine, vodka, beer, scotch, got it and left.

  we drove back, sampling our liquids.

  we got up there and read the asses right off the audience.

  then we picked up their asses and left.

  and UCLA won the football game

  something to something.

  From

  “Paying for Horses: An Interview with Charles Bukowski”

  Question: At one point in your life, you stopped writing for ten years. Why was that?

  Bukowski: It started around 1945. I simply gave up. It wasn’t because I thought I was a bad writer. I just thought there was no way of crashing through. I put writing down with a sense of disgust. Drinking and shacking with women became my art form. I didn’t crash through there with any feeling of glory, but I got a lot of experience which later I could use—especially in short stories. But I wasn’t gathering that experience to write it, because I had put the typewriter down.

  I don’t know. You start drinking; you meet a woman; she wants another bottle; you get into the drinking thing. Everything else vanishes.