Question: What brought it to an end?
Bukowski: Nearly dying. I ended up in County General Hospital with blood roaring out of my mouth and my ass. I was supposed to die, and I didn’t. Took lots of glucose and ten or twelve pints of blood. They pumped it straight into me without stop.
When I walked out of that place, I felt very strange. I felt much calmer than before. I felt—to use a trite term—easygoing. I walked along the sidewalk, and I looked at the sunshine and said, ‘Hey, something has happened.’ You know, I’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe there was some brain damage. That was my thought, because I had a really different feeling. I had this calm feeling. I talk so slowly now. I wasn’t always this way. I was kind of hectic before; I was more going, doing, shooting my mouth off. When I came out of that hospital, I was strangely relaxed.
So I got hold of a typewriter, and I got a job driving a truck. I started drinking huge quantities of beer each night after work and typing out all these poems—I told you that I didn’t know what a poem is, but I was writing something in a poem form. I hadn’t written many before, two or three, but I sat down and was writing poems all of a sudden. So I was writing again and had all these poems on my hands. I started mailing them out, and it began all over. I was luckier this time, and I think my work had improved. Maybe the editors were readier, had moved into a different area of thinking. Probably all three things helped make it click. I went on writing. [ . . . ]
Question: Can you write and drink at the same time?
Bukowski: It’s hard to write prose when you’re drinking, because prose is too much work. It doesn’t work for me. It’s too unromantic to write prose when you’re drinking.
Poetry is something else. You have this feeling in mind that you want to lay down the line that startles. You get a bit dramatic when you’re drunk, a bit corny. It feels good. The symphony music is on, and you’re smoking a cigar. You lift the beer, and you’re going to tap out these five or six or fifteen or thirty great lines. You start drinking and write poems all night. You find them on the floor in the morning. You take out all the bad lines, and you have poems. About sixty percent of the lines are bad; but it seems like the remaining lines, when you drop them together, make a poem.
I don’t always write drunk. I write sober, drunk, feeling good, feeling bad. There’s no special way for me to be.
Question: Gore Vidal said once that, with only one or two exceptions, all American writers were drunkards. Was he right?
Bukowski: Several people have said that. James Dickey said that the two things that go along with poetry are alcoholism and suicide. I know a lot of writers, and as far as I know they all drink but one. Most of them with any bit of talent are drunkards, now that I think about it. It’s true.
Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you up against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.
From
Factotum
I awakened much later in an upholstered red booth at the back of the bar. I got up and looked around. Everybody was gone. The clock said 3:15. I tried the door, it was locked. I went behind the bar and got myself a bottle of beer, opened it, came back and sat down. Then I went and got myself a cigar and a bag of chips. I finished my beer, got up and found a bottle of vodka, one of scotch and sat down again. I mixed them with water; I smoked cigars, and ate beef jerky, chips, and hard-boiled eggs.
I drank until 5 A.M. I cleaned the bar then, put everything away, went to the door, let myself out. As I did I saw a police car approach. They drove along slowly behind me as I walked.
After a block they pulled up alongside. An officer stuck his head out. “Hey, buddy!”
Their lights were in my face.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“You live around here?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“2122 Longwood Avenue.”
“What were you doing coming out of that bar?”
“I’m the janitor.”
“Who owns that bar?”
“A lady named Jewel.”
“Get in.”
I did.
“Show us where you live.”
They drove me home.
“Now, get out and ring the bell.”
I walked up the drive. I went up on the porch, rang the bell. There was no answer.
I rang again, several times. Finally the door opened. My mother and father stood there in their pajamas and robes.
“You’re drunk!” my father screamed.
“Yes.”
“Where do you get the money to drink? You don’t have any money!”
“I’ll get a job.”
“You’re drunk! You’re drunk! My Son is a Drunk! My Son is a God Damned No-Good Drunk!”
The hair on my father’s head was standing up in crazy tufts. His eyebrows were wild, his face puffed and flushed with sleep.
“You act as if I had murdered somebody.”
“It’s just as bad!”
“. . . ooh, shit . . .”
Suddenly I vomited on their Persian Tree of Life rug. My mother screamed. My father lunged toward me.
“Do you know what we do to a dog when he shits on the rug?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed the back of my neck. He pressed down, forcing me to bend at the waist. He was trying to force me to my knees.
“I’ll show you.”
“Don’t . . .”
My face was almost into it.
“I’ll show you what we do to dogs!”
I came up from the floor with the punch. It was a perfect shot. He staggered back all the way across the room and sat down on the couch. I followed him over.
“Get up.”
He sat there. I heard my mother. “You Hit Your Father! You Hit Your Father! You Hit Your Father!”
She screamed and ripped open one side of my face with her fingernails.
“Get up,” I told my father.
“You Hit Your Father!”
She scratched my face again. I turned to look at her. She got the other side of my face.
Blood was running down my neck, was soaking my shirt, pants, shoes, the rug. She lowered her hands and stared at me.
“Have you finished?”
She didn’t answer. I walked back to the bedroom thinking, I better find myself a job.
* * *
When I got back to Los Angeles I found a cheap hotel just off Hoover Street and stayed in bed and drank. I drank for some time, three or four days. I couldn’t get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.
ah, shit
drinking German beer
and trying to come up with
the immortal poem at
5 P.M. in the afternoon.
but, ah, I’ve told the
students that the thing
to do is not to try.
but when the women aren’t
around and the horses aren’t
running
what else is there to do?
I’ve had a couple of
sexual fantasies
had lunch out
mailed three letters
been to the grocery store.
nothing on tv.
the telephone is quiet.
I’ve run dental floss through
my teeth.
it won’t
rain and I listen
to the early arrivals from the
8 hour day drive in and park
their cars behind the apartment
house next door.
and I sit drinking German beer
and trying to come up with the
big one.
and I’m not going to make it.
I’m just going to keep drinking
more and more German beer
and rolling smokes
and by 11 P.M. I’ll be spread out
on the unmade bed
face up
asleep under the electric
light
still waiting on the immortal
poem
still waiting.
who in the hell is Tom Jones?
I was shacked
with a 24-year-old
girl from New York
City for two weeks,
along about the time
of the garbage strike
out there, and one night
this 34-year-old
woman
arrived and she said,
“I want to see my rival,”
and she did and then
she said, “o, you’re a
cute little thing!”
next I knew there was a
whirling of wildcats—such
screaming and scratching,
wounded animal moans,
blood and piss . . .
I was drunk and in my
shorts. I tried to
separate them and fell,
wrenched my knee. then
they were through the
door and down the walk
and out in the street.
squadcars full of cops
arrived. a police helicopter
circled overhead.
I stood in the bathroom
and grinned in the mirror.
it’s not often at the
age of 55
that such splendid
action occurs.
it was better than the
Watts riots.
then the 34-year-old
came back in. she had pissed
all over herself and her
clothing was torn and
she was followed by 2 cops
who wanted to know
why.
pulling up my shorts
I tried to explain.
beer
I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have drunk while waiting for things
to get better.
I don’t know how much wine and whiskey
and beer
mostly beer
I have drunk after
splits with women—
waiting
for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
“what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!”
the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than a man, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows it’s bad for the
figure.
while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horny cowboys.
well, there’s beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick them up
the bottles fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sacks
rolling
clanking
spilling grey wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 A.M.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.
beer
rivers and seas of beer
beer beer beer
the radio singing love
songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
the beer is all there is.
shit time
half drunk
I left her place
her warm blankets
and I was hungover
didn’t even know what town
it was.
I walked along and
I couldn’t find my car.
but I knew it was somewhere.
and then I was lost
too.
I walked around. it was a
Wednesday morning and I could
see the ocean to the south.
but all that drinking:
the shit was about to pour
out of me.
I walked towards the
sea.
I saw a brown brick
structure at the edge
of the sea.
I walked in. there was an
old guy groaning on one of
the pots.
“hi, buddy,” he said.
“hi,” I said.
“it’s hell out there,
isn’t it?” the old guy
asked.
“it is,” I answered.
“need a drink?”
“never before noon.”
“what time you got?”
“11:58.”
“we got two minutes.”
I wiped, flushed, pulled up my
pants and walked over.
the old man was still on his pot,
groaning.
he pointed to a bottle of wine
at his feet
it was almost done
and I picked it up and took about
half what remained.
I handed him a very old and wrinkled
dollar
then walked outside on the lawn
and puked it up.
I looked at the ocean and the
ocean looked good, full of blues and
greens and sharks.
I walked back out of there
and down the street
determined to find my automobile.
it took me one hour and 15 minutes
and when I found it
I got in and drove off
pretending that I knew just as much
as the next
man.
From
“Buk: The Pock-Marked Poetry of Charles Bukowski. Notes of a Dirty Old Mankind”
Bukowski: I’ve been drinking beer most of the day, but don’t worry, kid, I’m not gonna stick my fist through the window or bust up any furniture. I’m a pretty benign beer drinker . . . most of the time. It’s the whiskey that gets me in trouble. When I’m drinking it around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems. So when I drink it these days, I try to drink it alone. That’s the sign of a good whiskey drinker anyway—drinking it by yourself shows a proper reverence for it. The stuff even makes the lampshades look different. Norman Mailer has uttered a lot of shit, but he said one thing I thought was great. He said, “Most Americans get their spiritual inspiration when they’re intoxicated, and I’m one of those Americans.” A statement I’ll back up 100%, The Naked and the Dead be damned. Only thing is, a man has to be careful how he mixes his alcohol and his sex. The best thing for a wise man is to have his sex before he gets drunk ’cause alcohol takes away from that old stem down there. I’ve been fairly successful at that so far.
* * *
From
“Charles Bukowski. Dialog with a Dirty Old Man”
Question: Would you characterize yourself as being an alcoholic?
Bukowski: Hell, yes.
Question: Why do you drink so much?
Bukowski: Basic
ally, I’m a very bashful person—I’ve got a lot of self-doubt—but at the same time I have a tremendous ego. Something about alcohol erases the self-doubt and allows the ego to come out. I’ve had a lot of experiences and, I think, one thing about drinking is, it leads you to avenues you would never find if you didn’t drink. You take chances, you take gambles.
One time I was coming from the racetrack. I had had a fight with my girlfriend, and when I fight with a woman I get very upset. I had won about $180 that night, and I was drunker than shit. So I’m driving along, and when I stopped for a moment at a stop sign, four black guys in a car behind me hit my bumper and pushed me a little. When a guy’s had a fight with a woman you don’t want to mess with him, you know. He’s a killer. So I let them go around me. They went up to the next stop sign, and I went up and pushed their bumper—hard. At the next stop sign, I pushed their bumper harder, and all of a sudden they started trying to get away—four black guys, big—and I’m following them. We’re turning corners, we’re screeching. Here’s one white old man chasing four black young cats in a car. “I’ll kill you,” I yelled. We’re skidding, just like a movie, and I feel like I can do it, you know. When you feel like you can do it, who knows? We’re screeching, and suddenly they pull up to a curb and I park behind them. Finally I’m going to get to beat the shit out of all four of these guys. They could have been white; they just happened to be black, you know. I’m antiblack, true. I’m antiyellow, antianything. Anyway, I opened my car door and got out. I’m in a big peacoat that makes me look bigger than I am. I came stalking up, and I’m ready to grab them . . . and the minute I start moving toward their car, vroom, they took off. I jumped back in my car, but I lost them.
Question: Did you say you’re antiblack?
Bukowski: Yeah. I’m antiblack, also antiyellow.
Question: Are you antiwhite?
Bukowski: Yes, I am.
Question: What is it about blacks that you dislike?
Bukowski: They drive four in a car. And they hit my bumper. Anyway, drinking leads you into avenues where courage can’t take you.
Question: Or wisdom refuses to.
Bukowski: Things happen. Drinking makes things happen.
smashed
look, I say, look at that house!
wouldn’t that be a wonderful place to get
smashed in?
you always think that, she says, you think
everyone is sitting around getting
smashed.
On Drinking Page 8
