What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

by Charles Bukowski

  else

  and I was young and mean and

  lean

  and I would never be that way

  again

  as it rushed toward

  us.

  scene from 1940:

  “I knew you were a bad-ass,” he said.

  “you sat in the back of Art class and

  you never said anything.

  then I saw you in that brutal fight

  with the guy with the dirty yellow

  hair.

  I like guys like you, you’re rare, you’re

  raw, you make your own rules!”

  “get your fucking face out of mine!”

  I told him.

  “you see?” he said. “you see?”

  he disgusted me.

  I turned and walked off.

  he had outwitted me:

  praise was the only thing I couldn’t

  handle.

  my big moment

  I was a packer in a factory east of

  Alameda street

  and I was living with a bad-assed

  woman.

  she fucked everybody and anybody

  even me.

  and I didn’t have the sense to

  leave.

  anyhow, I worked all day and we

  drank all night

  and when I arrived every morning

  at Sunbeam Lighting Co.

  I always growled the

  same thing:

  “don’t anybody fuck with me

  I’m not in the mood for it.”

  this one morning

  sitting on the floor in the shop

  there was a large triangle of steel

  with a little hand grip on top of it.

  I didn’t know what it was.

  I’d never seen anything like it before.

  it didn’t matter.

  all the killers and bullies and

  musclemen were trying to lift it.

  it wouldn’t move.

  “hey, Hank, baby!” a worker hollered,

  “try it!”

  “all right,” I said.

  I came around my bench, walked up

  to the steel triangle, stuck my hand into the

  grip and yanked. nothing. it must have

  weighed at least 300 pounds.

  I walked back to my bench.

  “whatsa matter, Hank baby?”

  “been beatin’ your meat, Hank baby?”

  “ah shit,” I said, “for CHRIST’S SAKE!”

  I walked back around my bench and swooped

  down on the

  object, grabbed it, lifted it a good foot,

  put it down and went back to my bench

  and continued packing a light fixture into a

  box.

  “jesus! did you see that, man?”

  “I saw it! he did it!”

  “let me lift that son of a bitch!”

  he couldn’t do it. they all came and

  tried again. the heavy steel object wouldn’t

  move.

  they went back to their various jobs.

  at about noon a truck came in

  with a crane in the back. the

  crane reached down, grabbed the steel triangle

  and lifted it, with much grinding, into

  the truck.

  for about a week after that the

  blacks and Mexicans who had

  never spoken to me

  tried to make friends.

  I was looked upon with much new

  respect.

  then not long after that

  everybody seemed to forget

  and

  I began to get verbally

  sliced again

  challenged again

  mocked again

  it was the same old

  bullshit.

  they knew what I knew:

  that I’d never be able to do anything

  like that again.

  daylight saving time

  I came in and all the timecards were pulled so I had to go to Spindle in personnel and he said, what happened, Chinaski? and I said, hell, all the timecards are pulled, I couldn’t punch in, and he said, you’re an hour late, and I said, hell, I have 6 p.m. right here on my watch, and he said, it’s Daylight Saving Time today, and I said, oh, and he said, how come you didn’t know it was Daylight Saving? and I said, well, I don’t have a TV and I don’t read the newspapers and I only listen to symphony music on the radio, and Spindle turned to the others in the office and he said, look here, Chinaski says he doesn’t have a TV and he doesn’t read newspapers and he only listens to symphony music on the radio, should I really believe that? and somebody said, o, yes, you better believe it, that cat’s crazy, that cat’s crazy as they come, and Spindle got out my timecard and handed it to me and said, all right, punch in, you’ll be docked for the missing time, and I took my card out to the clock and hit it and then I walked to the work area, all the workers snickering at me and making sly remarks, and I handed my card to supervisor Wilkins in row 88 and I sat down and went to work.

  the railroad yard

  the feelings I get

  driving past the railroad yard

  (never on purpose but on my way to somewhere)

  are the feelings other men have for other things.

  I see the tracks and all the boxcars

  the tank cars the flat cars

  all of them motionless and so many of them

  perfectly lined up and not an engine anywhere

  (where are all the engines?).

  I drive past looking sideways at it all

  a wide, still railroad yard

  not a human in sight

  then I am past the yard

  and it wasn’t just the romance of it all

  that gives me what I get

  but something back there nameless

  always making me feel better

  as some men feel better looking at the open sea

  or the mountains or at wild animals

  or at a woman

  I like those things too

  especially the wild animals and the woman

  but when I see those lovely old boxcars

  with their faded painted lettering

  and those flat cars and those fat round tankers

  all lined up and waiting

  I get quiet inside

  I get what other men get from other things

  I just feel better and it’s good to feel better

  whenever you can

  not needing a reason.

  horseshit

  the horse stood in the yard and

  the women went out to see the horse

  and one of the women got on the horse and

  rode around and almost had her head knocked off by a

  tree limb and

  I stood in the kitchen

  measuring sunlight and wall slant and

  what was willing to be measured

  and one of the women was big and white and fat and

  aching to be fucked

  but it would take a month of talking and a year’s worth of

  money and I didn’t have either

  so I put it aside

  and soon they all came back inside

  and the big fat white one who was aching

  sat there talking about the horse

  and one of the others leaned toward me and said,

  “she iss not available, dear!”

  iss not, iss not. hell,

  I knew that.

  the light shined in and we sat there talking about

  horses and waiting for her availability

  and then the big fat aching one got up and walked out

  and I followed and watched her mount her safe

  mare

  switch it—thapp!—

  and my little switch went

  thapp!

  thapp!

  and I walked back inside.

  it looked like
snow, damn, it looked like snow, so early,

  only some of the ladies wanted it

  and the others didn’t want it. you know the ladies.

  I went over and threw a couple of logs in the fire

  and the whole thing flupped up red and

  warm and we all felt

  better, ready and not ready. it was Santa Fe in

  October and all the poor had left town except

  me.

  man’s best friend

  I told the guy—he was watering his lawn—

  you ever squirt my dog

  again and you’ll have to deal with me.

  he just kept on watering, looking straight ahead,

  and he said, I ain’t worried, you punks talk about

  doing it but you never do it.

  he was an old white-haired guy, kind of dumb. I could

  feel the dullness radiating off him.

  I yanked the hose from his hand, turned him around and

  sank a hard right to his gut.

  he dropped like a stone and just lay on his

  back on the lawn, holding his stomach and breathing

  hard.

  he looked pitiful.

  I picked up the hose and watered him down good,

  soaked his clothes, then gave him a good dose

  in the face and walked off.

  I went down to the store and got a fifth of scotch

  and a six-pack.

  when I came back he was gone.

  I went up to my apartment and told Marie that I

  had taken care of the matter with the guy who

  squirted our dog.

  she asked me, what did you do, kill him?

  and I told her, no, I just explained things to him.

  and she wanted to know, what did I mean, I

  explained things to him?

  and I told her, never mind, where are some clean

  glasses?

  and then the dog came walking in.

  Koko.

  you gotta know I liked him

  plenty.

  the sensitive, young poet

  I never realized then what a good time I was

  having

  smoking cheap cigars,

  in my shorts and undershirt.

  proud of my barrel chest

  and my biceps

  and my youth, my legs,

  “baby, look at my legs! ever seen legs like

  that?”

  prancing up and down in that hotel

  room.

  I was giving her a show and she just sat

  there smoking

  cigarettes.

  she was nasty, a looker but a nasty

  looker.

  I knew that she would say something

  vicious

  but I would laugh at her.

  she had seen me make a whole barfull

  of men back down one

  night.

  each night was about the same, I’d put on

  my show for her,

  I’d tell her what a great brain I had.

  “you’re so fucking smart, what’re you

  doing living in a hole like this?”

  “I’m just resting up, baby, I haven’t

  made my move yet…”

  “bullshit! you’re an asshole!”

  “what?”

  “you’re an asshole!”

  “why, you wasted whore, I’ll rip you in half!”

  then we’d go at it, swearing loudly, throwing

  things, breaking things,

  the phone ringing from the desk downstairs,

  the other roomers banging on the walls

  and me laughing, loving it,

  picking up the phone, “all right, all right,

  I’ll keep her quiet…”

  putting the phone down, looking at

  her, “all right, baby, come on over here!”

  “go to hell! you’re disgusting!”

  and I was, red-faced, cigarette

  holes burnt in my undershirt,

  4-day beard, yellow teeth, broken toenails,

  grinning madly I’d move toward

  her, glancing at the pull-down bed, I’d move

  toward her saying, “hike your skirt up!

  I want to see more leg!”

  I was one bad dude.

  she stayed 3 years then I moved on to the

  next

  one.

  the first one never lived with another

  man again.

  I cured her of

  that.

  hunger

  I have been hungry many times

  but the particular time that I

  think of now

  was in New York City,

  the night was beginning

  and I was standing before the

  plate glass window of a

  restaurant.

  and in that window

  was a roasted pig,

  eyeless,

  with an apple in its mouth.

  poor damned pig.

  poor damned me.

  beyond the pig

  inside there

  were people

  sitting at tables

  talking, eating, drinking.

  I was not one of those people.

  I felt a kinship with the pig.

  we had been caught in the wrong

  place

  at the wrong

  time.

  I imagined myself in the window,

  eyeless, roasted, the apple in my

  mouth.

  that would bring a crowd.

  “hey, not much rump on him!”

  “his arms are too thin!”

  “I can see his ribs!”

  I walked away from the window.

  I walked to my room.

  I still had a room.

  as I walked to my room

  I began to conjecture:

  could I eat some paper?

  some newspaper?

  roaches?

  maybe I could catch a rat?

  a raw rat.

  peel off the fur,

  remove the intestines.

  remove the eyes.

  forego the head, the tail.

  no, I’d die of

  some horrible rat disease!

  I walked along.

  I was so hungry that everything

  looked eatable:

  people, fireplugs, asphalt,

  wristwatches…

  my belt, my shirt.

  I entered the building and

  walked up the stairway to my

  room.

  I sat in a chair.

  I didn’t turn on the light.

  I sat there and wondered if I

  was crazy

  because I wasn’t doing anything

  to help myself.

  the hunger stopped then

  and I just sat there.

  then I heard it:

  two people in the next room,

  copulating.

  I could hear the bedsprings

  and the moans.

  I got up, walked out of the

  room and back into the

  street.

  but I walked in a different

  direction this time,

  I walked away from the pig

  in the window.

  but I thought about the pig

  and I decided that I’d die first

  rather than eat that

  pig.

  it began to rain.

  I looked up.

  I opened my mouth and let in the rain

  drops…soup from the sky…

  “hey, look at that guy!”

  I heard someone say.

  stupid sons-of-bitches, I thought,

  stupid sons-of-

  bitches!

  I closed my mouth and kept

  walking.

  the first one

  after she died

  I met her son in her room
/>
  a very small room without sink or toilet

  in a flophouse at Beverly and Vermont.

  he was thinking what kind of boyfriend are you

  to let her die in a place like this?

  and I was thinking, what kind of a son are you?

  he asked me, do you want any of her things?

  no, I said.

  well, he said, we’ll give them to Goodwill.

  he left.

  there was a large bloodstain on the bottom

  sheet.

  the owner of the hotel walked in. she said,

  I’ll have to change that sheet before I can rent this

  room to

  somebody else.

  o.k., I said.

  I left.

  I walked down to the florist

  and ordered a heart-shaped arrangement, large,

  for the funeral.

  just say on the card, I told the lady,

  from your lover. no name.

  no name?

  no name.

  cash or credit card?

  cash.

  I paid and walked out on the

  boulevard and

  never looked

  back.

  the night I saw George Raft in Vegas

  I bet on #6, I try red, I stare at the women’s legs and breasts,

  I wonder what Chekov would do, and over in the corner three men with

  blue plates sit eating the carnage of my youth, they have beards

  and look very much like Russians and I pat an imaginary pistol

  over

  my left tit and try to smile like George Raft sizing up a French tart. I play

  the field, I pull out dollars like turnips from the good earth, the lights

  blaze and nobody says stop.

  Hank, says my whore, for Christ’s sake you’re losing everything except me,