and look at that place, I say, it has windows
like a church. I bet they are sitting in there
smashed right now!
it isn’t like that, she says.
I want to buy a place, I say, that I can get
smashed in. just a little place with the front porch
falling in . . . 2 hungry German shepherds . . . paint peeling
from the boards.
get it then, she says, get it.
it’s somewhere, I say, I know it’s somewhere.
we drive on into my court after stopping at the
liquor store. we have 4 bottles of white
German wine. we will get
smashed.
there’s nothing like getting smashed,
especially under the right circumstances.
I mean, while you’re not feeling too
bad.
they are always calling the police on
me around here.
I want to get smashed in a place like William Randy
Hearst’s old castle.
I want to go from great room to great room
crashing full bottles against walls,
free within my own doom.
here among the poor there is no understanding
of the need for my sounds and my ways.
they must sleep their nights
to have strength for their factory days
so they are very quick to phone the law
even though it would seem to me
that they need to get smashed more than
anybody.
and when we get in she says,
well, are we going to have a quiet night?
and I say, I don’t know.
I’m going to get smashed.
the image
he sits in the chair across from me,
“you look healthy,” he says in a voice that is
almost discouraged.
“3 bottles of white German wine each night,”
I tell him.
“are you going to let people know?” he
asks. he walks to the refrigerator and opens
the door: “all these vitamins . . .”
“thiamine-hcl,” I say, “b-2, choline, b-6, folic
acid, zinc, e, b-12, niacin, calcium magnesium,
a-e complex, paba . . . and 3 bottles of white
German wine each night . . .”
“what’s this stuff in the jars on the sink?” he
asks.
“herbs,” I tell him, “goldenseal, sweet basil,
alfalfa mint, mu, lemongrass, rose hips, papaya,
gotu kola, clover, comfrey, fenugreek, sassafras
and chamomile . . . and I drink spring water, mineral
water and 3 bottles of German white wine . . .”
“are you going to let people know?”
he asks.
“know what?” I ask. “I eat nothing that walks on
4 legs and I’m not a cannibal and kangaroos and
monkeys are out . . .”
“I mean,” he says, “people thought you were a
tough guy . . .”
“oh,” I say, “I am . . .”
“but how about your image?” he asks. “people don’t expect
you to be like this . . .”
“I know,” I say, “I’ve lost my beer-gut. I’ve come down
from size 44 to 38, I’ve lost 21 pounds . . .”
“I mean,” he goes on, “that you represented a man walking
carelessly and bravely into death, foolishly but with
style like Don Quixote, the windmills . . .”
“don’t tell anybody,” I answer, “and maybe we can save the
image or at least prolong it . . .”
“you’ll be going to God next,” he says.
“my god,” I say, “is 3 bottles of . . .”
“all right,” he interrupts, “I suppose it’s all right.”
“I still fuck,” I say, “and I play the horses and I like
to go to the boxing matches and I still love my daughter
and I almost love my present girlfriend, maybe I even
do . . .”
“all right,” he says, “can you give me a ride back to my
car?”
“all right,” I say, “I still drive cars.”
I lock the door and we go down the walk toward my car.
* * *
[To Uncle Heinrich]
March 5, 1978
[ . . . ] I suppose I drink too much white wine but it is good stuff—Bereich Bernkastel Riesling—put out by Havemeyer—Produce of Germany—a white Moselle. I like to drink it while I’m writing and listening to symphony music on the radio. Linda has me on vitamins and herbs, fresh vegetables, no meats except fish and fowl, very little salt, sugar and sugar products, no beer or whiskey. I have come down from 223 pounds to 194. I should exercise more, but I don’t want to make a job of anything. I am lazy except when it comes to writing—have written 330 poems in 3 months, wrote a novel in 5 months, a long one. There’s nothing else to do, you know—play the horses, drink white wine and write, be true to Linda Lee and try to feel good, and I see my daughter down at Santa Monica now and then, she seems calm and thriving.
From
Women
One afternoon I was coming from the liquor store and had just reached Nicole’s. I was carrying two 6-packs of bottled beer and a pint of whiskey. Lydia and I had recently had another fight and I had decided to stay the night with Nicole. I was walking along, already a bit intoxicated, when I heard someone run up behind me. I turned. It was Lydia. “Ha!” she said. “Ha!”
She grabbed the bag of liquor out of my hand and began pulling out the beer bottles. She smashed them on the pavement one by one. They made large explosions. Santa Monica Boulevard is very busy. The afternoon traffic was just beginning to build up. All this action was taking place just outside Nicole’s door. Then Lydia reached the pint of whiskey. She held it up and screamed up at me, “Ha! You were going to drink this and then you were going to FUCK her!” She smashed the pint on the cement.
Nicole’s door was open and Lydia ran up the stairway. Nicole was standing at the top of the stairs. Lydia began hitting Nicole with her large purse. It had long straps and she swung it as hard as she could.
“He’s my man! He’s my man! You stay away from my man!”
Then Lydia ran down past me, out the door and into the street.
“Good god,” said Nicole, “who was that?”
“That was Lydia. Let me have a broom and a large paper bag.”
I went down into the street and began sweeping up the broken glass and placing it in the brown paper bag. That bitch has gone too far this time, I thought. I’ll go and buy more liquor. I’ll stay the night with Nicole, maybe a couple of nights.
I was bent over picking up the glass when I heard a strange sound behind me. I looked around. It was Lydia in the Thing. She had it up on the sidewalk and was driving straight towards me at about 30 M.P.H. I leaped aside as the car went by, missing me by an inch. The car ran down to the end of the block, bumped down off the curb, continued up the street, then took a right at the next corner and was gone.
I went back to sweeping up the glass. I got it all swept up and put away. Then I reached down into the original paper bag and found one undamaged bottle of beer. It looked very good. I really needed it. I was about to unscrew the cap when someone grabbed it out of my hand. It was Lydia again. She ran up to Nicole’s door with the bottle and hurled it at the glass. She hurled it with such velocity that it went straight through like a large bullet, not smashing the entire window but leaving just a round hole.
Lydia ran off and I walked up the stairway. Nicole was still standing there. “For god’s sake, Chinaski, leave with her before she kills everybody!” I turned and walked back down the stairway. Lydia was sitting in her car at the curbing with the engine running. I opened the door and got in. She drove
off. Neither of us spoke a word.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, Henry Chinaski!”
I walked on. They jeered. I hadn’t done anything yet. I took the mike. “Hello, this is Henry Chinaski . . . .”
The place trembled with sound. I didn’t need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn’t give it to them they’d run you right into the ocean.
There was a refrigerator on stage. I opened it. There must have been 40 bottles of beer in there. I reached in and got one, twisted the cap off, took a hit. I needed that drink.
Then a man down front hollered, “Hey, Chinaski, we’re paying for drinks!”
It was a fat guy in the front row in a mailman’s outfit.
I went into the refrigerator and took out a beer. I walked over and handed him the beer. Then I walked back, reached in, and got some more beers. I handed them to the people in the first row.
“Hey, how about us?” A voice from near the back.
I took a bottle and looped it through the air. I threw a few more back there. They were good. They caught them all. Then one slipped out of my hand and went high into the air. I heard it smash. I decided to quit. I could see a lawsuit: skull fracture.
There were 20 bottles left.
“Now, the rest of these are mine!”
“You gonna read all night?”
“I’m gonna drink all night . . . .”
Applause, jeers, belches . . . .
“YOU FUCKING HUNK OF SHIT!” some guy screamed.
“Thank you, Aunt Tilly,” I answered.
I sat down, adjusted the mike, and started on the first poem. It became quiet. I was in the ring alone with the bull now. I felt some terror. But I had written the poems. I read them out. It was best to open up light, a poem of mockery. I finished it and the walls rocked. Four or five people were fighting during the applause. I was going to luck out. All I had to do was hang in there.
You couldn’t underestimate them and you couldn’t kiss their ass. There was a certain middle ground to be achieved.
I read more poems, drank the beer. I got drunker. The words were harder to read. I missed lines, dropped poems on the floor. Then I stopped and just sat there drinking.
“This is good,” I told them, “you pay to watch me drink.”
I made an effort and read them some more poems. Finally I read them a few dirty ones and wound it up.
“That’s it,” I said.
They yelled for more.
The boys at the slaughterhouse, the boys at Sears Roebuck, all the boys at all the warehouses where I worked as a kid and as a man never would have believed it.
* * *
That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.
* * *
I took my bottle and went to my bedroom. I undressed down to my shorts and went to bed. Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.
I took my choice. I raised the fifth of vodka and drank it straight. The Russians knew something.
* * *
My experience with Iris had been delightful and fulfilling, yet I wasn’t in love with her nor she with me. It was easy to care and hard not to care. I cared. We sat in the Volks on the upper parking ramp. We had some time. I had the radio on. Brahms.
“Will I see you again?” I asked her.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you want a drink in the bar?”
“You’ve made an alcoholic out of me, Hank. I’m so weak I can hardly walk.”
“Was it just the booze?”
“No.”
“Then let’s get a drink.”
“Drink, drink, drink! Is that all you can think of?”
“No, but it’s a good way to get through spaces, like this one.”
“Can’t you face things straight?”
“I can but I’d rather not.”
“That’s escapism.”
“Everything is: playing golf, sleeping, eating, walking, arguing, jogging, breathing, fucking . . . .”
“Fucking?”
“Look, we’re talking like high school children. Let’s get you on the plane.”
It wasn’t going well. I wanted to kiss her but I sensed her reserve. A wall. Iris wasn’t feeling good, I guess, and I wasn’t feeling good.
“All right,” she said, “we’ll check in and then go get a drink. Then I’ll fly away forever: real smooth, real easy, no pain.”
“All right!” I said.
And that was just the way it was.
fat head poem
I look up now and I am drunk in a roomful
of Germans. now the French are beginning to come
around,
and I’ve got to tell you
the French are hard drinkers too.
the Germans drink automatically
and they drink more than the French
but the French get more emotional:
they start to bitch about everything:
the old double-cross,
this bastard and that bastard,
they are more like American drinkers.
but I drank all the Americans out of
here long ago
and ran them out too.
the Germans and Frenchies are like space
creatures, they often speak in their own tongue
and this saves me from finding them
dull.
but I am getting tired of them
too.
the other day I ran off three
Germans. the French are next.
I await the Spaniards, the Japanese, and the
Italians, then the Swedes . . .
the Americans with their 6-packs of Coors
and their Marlboro cigarettes,
I don’t need them anymore.
all I’ll need is for this Olympia
to keep charging down the stretch
picking off the front runners
one by one
charging past the Pulitzer Prize thoroughbreds
busting the wire
all the way past Moscow into
India . . .
east Hollywood was never a place for a
white tornado like
Chinaski.
From
Shakespeare Never Did This
On Friday night I was to appear on a well-known show, nationally televised. It was a talk show that lasted 90 minutes and it was literary. I demanded to be furnished 2 bottles of good white wine while on the tube. Between 50 and 60 million Frenchmen watched the program.
I started drinking late in the afternoon. The next I knew Rodin, Linda Lee and I were walking through security. Then they sat me down before the make-up man. He applied various powders which were immediately defeated by the grease on my face and the holes. He sighed and waved me off. Then we were sitting in a group waiting for the show to begin. I uncorked a bottle and had a hit. Not bad. There were 3 or 4 writers and the moderator. Also the shrink who had given Artaud his shock treatments. The moderator was supposed to be famous all through France but he didn’t look like much to me. I sat next to him and he tapped
his foot. “What’s the matter?” I asked him. “You nervous?” He didn’t answer. I poured a glass of wine and put it in front of his face. “Here, take a drink of this . . . it’ll settle your gizzard . . .” He waved me off with some disdain.
Then we were on. I had an attachment to my ear into which the French was translated into the English. And I was to be translated into the French. I was the honored guest so the moderator started with me. My first statement was: “I know a great many American writers who would like to be on this program now. It doesn’t mean so much to me . . .” With that, the moderator quickly switched to another writer, an old time liberal who had been betrayed again and again but who had still kept the faith. I had no politics but I told the old boy that he had a good mug. He talked on and on. They always do.
Then a lady writer started talking. I was fairly into the wine and wasn’t so sure what she wrote about but I think it was animals, the lady wrote animal stories. I told her that if she would show me more of her legs I might be able to tell if she were a good writer or not. She didn’t do it. The shrink who had given the shock treatments to Artaud kept staring at me. Somebody else began talking. Some French writer with a handlebar mustache. He didn’t say anything but he kept talking. The lights were getting brighter, a rather viscous yellow. I was getting hot under the lights. The next thing I remember I am in the streets of Paris and there is this startling and continuous roar and light everywhere. There are ten thousand motorcyclists in the streets. I demand to see some cancan girls but am taken back to the hotel upon the promise of more wine.
The next morning I am awakened by the ringing of the phone. It was the critic from Le Monde. “You were great, bastard,” he said, “those others couldn’t even masturbate . . .” “What did I do?” I asked. “You don’t remember?” “No.” “Well, let me tell you, there isn’t one newspaper that wrote against you. It’s about time French television saw something honest.”
After the critic hung up I turned to Linda Lee. “What happened baby? What did I do?” “Well, you grabbed the lady’s leg. Then you started drinking out of the bottle. You said some things. They were pretty good, especially at the beginning. Then the guy who ran the program wouldn’t let you speak. He put his hand over your mouth and said, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’”
On Drinking Page 9
