Notes of a Dirty Old Man

by Charles Bukowski

  “we thought ya got killed!”

  “did ya hit that gang bar?”

  “yeah.”

  “tell us about it.”

  “I’ll need a drink first.”

  “sure, sure.”

  the scotch and water arrived. I sat down at the end stool. the dirty sunshine around 16th and Fairmount worked its way in. my day had begun.

  “the rumors,” I began, “about it being a very tough joint are definitely true …” then I told them roughly about what I have told you.

  the rest of the story is that I couldn’t comb my hair for two months, went back to the gang bar once or twice more, was nicely treated and left Philly not much later looking for more trouble or whatever I was looking for. I found trouble, but the rest of what I was looking for, I haven’t found that yet. maybe we find it when we die. maybe we don’t. you’ve got your books of philosophy, your priest, your preacher, your scientist, so don’t ask me. and stay out of bars with MEN’s crapper downstairs.

  ________

  when Henry’s mother died it wasn’t bad. nice Catholic funeral. the priest waved some smoking sticks and it was all over. the coffin remained closed. Henry went right from that funeral to the racetrack. had a good day. found a light yellow girl there and they went to her apartment. she cooked steaks and they made it. when his father died it was more complicated. they left the coffin open and he had the last look. before that, the old man’s girl friend, somebody he’d never met, a Shirley, this Shirley reached into the coffin, moaning and crying and grabbed that dead head and kissed it. they had to pull her off. then when Henry came down the steps this Shirley grabbed him and started kissing him. “oh, you look just like your father!” he got hot as she kissed him and when he shoved her off something was showing through his pants. he hoped the people didn’t notice. he made a note to check Shirley out. she wasn’t much older than he. he went from the funeral to the track, but no high yellow this time. and he also lost some money. the old man had left his stigma on him.

  the lawyer said no will had been left. there was no money but there was a house and a car. Henry wasn’t working so he moved right in. and drank. drank with his old girl friend Maggy. he got up about noon and watered the damn lawn. and the flowers. the old man liked flowers. he watered the flowers. he stood there hung over, remembering how the old man hated him because Henry didn’t like to work. just drink and lay up with women. now he had the damn house and the car and the old man was down in the dirt. he got to know the neighbors especially the guy on the north. some guy who was manager of a laundry. Harry. this Harry had a yard full of birds. 5,000 dollars full of birds. all kinds. from everywhere. they were strangely colored and strangely shaped and some of them talked one of them kept saying over and over again, “go to hell go to hell” Henry squirted water on the thing but it was no use, the bird said “got a match?” and then it would say “go to hell” five or six times, real fast. the whole yard was full of these wire cages. Harry lived for the birds. Henry lived for the booze, and the gash. maybe he’d try one of those birds. how do you screw a bird?

  Maggy was good on the springs but she was Irish-Indian and had one hell of a temper when she drank. once in a while he had to hit her. he got Shirley’s phone number and asked to come over. she started to kiss him again, saying he looked just like her father. he let her and kissed back. he didn’t make it that night, choosing to wait and make sure. he didn’t want to scare her.

  Harry came over almost every night with his wife and they drank. Harry talked about the laundry and the birds. the birds hated Harry’s wife. Harry’s wife crossed her legs real high while talking about how she hated the birds and Henry got something working under his pants. god damned women kept teasing him. then Shirley started coming over and they all drank together. Maggy didn’t like Shirley there and Henry kept looking from Shirley to Harry’s wife and wondering which one was best. so it all happened the same night. Harry’s wife got drunk and let all the birds out. 5,000 dollars worth of birds, and Harry sat in shock, drunk, and then he started screaming and hitting his wife. every time he hit his wife she fell down and Henry peeked up her dress. he saw her panties several times. he started to get hot as hell. Maggy ran outside trying to catch the birds and put them in their cages, but she couldn’t seem to catch them. they were running all up and down the street, sitting in trees, standing on roof tops, 5,000 dollars worth of crazy birds, all different shapes and colors, tasting the confusion of freedom. Henry couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed Shirley and took her into the bedroom. he stripped her down and got on top. he was almost too drunk to operate. each time Harry hit his wife, his wife screamed and he gave an extra little thrust. then Maggy came in with a bird, a bird with an orange tuft on its head and an orange tuft on its chest and two orange tufts at the top of the feet. the rest of the bird was gray skin and stupid. he’d cost Harry $300. Maggy hollered, “I caught a bird!” and when she didn’t see Henry she went into the bedroom and when she saw what was happening she just sat in a chair with the bird in her lap, watching and screaming, and Harry kept knocking his wife down and she kept screaming, and when the police came in that’s the way it was. two young cops. the cops pulled Henry off, made everybody put on their clothes and took them down to the station. another patrol car came with two other young cops. Maggy got vicious and hit one of the cops and they took her along in one of the patrol cars. the cop drove the car into the hills and they each screwed Maggy in the back seat. they had to handcuff her. the other cop took Henry, Harry, Shirley, Harry’s wife down to the station, booked them and jailed them, and the birds ran all up and down the street.

  that Sunday the preacher spoke of the “lecherous alcoholics who bring sin and shame to our community.” Maggy was the only one who was out of jail, she was very religious. she sat in the front row with her legs crossed high. from the pulpit the preacher could look right up her legs. he could almost see her panties. he started to get something under his pants, the pulpit, luckily, hid this section of him from view. he had to look out the window and keep talking until the thing under his pants went away.

  Harry lost his job. Henry sold the house. the preacher made it with Maggy. Shirley married a tv repairman. Harry sat around looking at the empty cages and the birds starved and died in the streets. every time he saw another dead bird in the streets he beat his wife again. Henry gambled and drank away the money in six months.

  my name is Henry. Charles is my middle name. when my mother died it wasn’t bad. nice catholic funeral. smocking sticks. closed coffin. when my father died it was complicated. they left the coffin open and the old man’s girl friend reached into the coffin … kissed that dead head, and that started the whole thing.

  P.S. — you can’t screw a bird if you can’t catch one.

  ________

  the best thing about a modern gas dryer, of course, is the way it treats clothes, and the King kicked me in the ass five times, one two three four five, and there I was in Atlanta, worse off than in New York, broker, crazier, sicker, thinner; no more chance than a 53-year-old whore or a spider in a forest fire, anyway, I walked down the street, it was night and cold, and God didn’t care, and the women didn’t care, and the dizzy editor didn’t care. the spiders didn’t care, couldn’t sing, didn’t know my name, but the cold did and the streets licked my belly cool and empty, haha, the streets knew plenty, and I walked along in a calif. white shirt (old and it was freezing and I knocked on a door, it was around 9 p.m., nearly two thousand years after Christ gave it up, and the door opened and a man without a face stood in the doorway. I said, I need a room, I see you have a sign Room For Rent. and he said, you don’t dig me. so I don’t want to be bothered.

  all I want is a room, I said. it’s very cold. I’ll pay you. I may not have enough for a week but I just want to get out of the cold. it’s not dying that’s bad, it’s being lost that’s bad.

  fuck off, he said. The door closed.

  I walked along the streets I didn’t know the name
of. didn’t know which way to walk. the sadness was that something was wrong. and I could not formulate it. it hung in my head like a bible. what shit nonsense. what a way to be strung out. no map. no people. no sound, just wasps. stones. walls. wind. my pecker and balls dangling without feeling. I could scream out anything in the street and nobody would hear, nobody would care a tit. not that they should. I wasn’t asking for love. but something was very odd. the books never spoke about it. the parents never spoke about it. but the spiders knew. fuck off.

  I noticed for the first time that everything OWNED BY ANYBODY had a LOCK on it. everything was locked. a lesson for thieves and bums and madmen, America the beautiful.

  then I saw a church. I didn’t particularly like churches, especially when they were filled with people. but I didn’t figure it to be that way at 9 p.m. I walked up the steps.

  hey hey, woman, come see what’s left of your man.

  I could sit there a while and breathe in the stink, maybe make something out of God, maybe give him a chance. I pulled at the door.

  the motherfucker was locked.

  I walked on back down the steps.

  I kept on walking down the streets, turning corners without reason, kept walking. now it was upon me. the wall. this is what men were afraid of. not only being shut out forever. but also not having a friend. so, no wonder, I thought, this CAN scare the shit out of you. can KILL you. their cheap trick is to get in and hang in. have all kinds of cards in your wallet. money. insurance. automobile. bed. window. toilet. cat. dog. plant. musical instrument. birth certificate. things to get angry about. enemies. backers. flour sacks. toothpicks. undiseased ass. bathtub. camera. mouthwash. o my god, oooo. locks (sink in it, swim in it, rub its back) (everything you have — jam it into you like a couple of fins, rubber wings, spare dick in medicine cabinet.)

  I walked over a little bridge and then I saw another sign: ROOM FOR RENT. I walked up to the house. knocked. of course I knocked. what do you think I’d do? tap dance in that calif. white shirt with my kool cold ass??

  yes, the door opened. old woman, it was too cold to notice if she had a face or not. I guess she did not. I worked on percentages. hell of a mathematician with a cold ass. I rubbed my lips for a while and then spoke.

  I see ya gotta room for rent.

  at’s right. so?

  I have reason to believe that I might need a room.

  you’ll need a buck and a quarter.

  for the night?

  for the week.

  for the week?

  at’s right.

  jesus.

  I got up the buck and a quarter. that left me two or three dollars. I looked into the house. jesus. they had a big fire going. five feet wide, three feet tall. I don’t mean the house was on fire, I mean they had it going where it counted. a magic fireplace. you could get your life back just staring into that fire. you could gain two pounds without eating, just looking at that fire. there was an old man sitting by the fire. I could see him bathed in the red glory of fire shadow. mother. his mouth hung open. he didn’t seem to know where he was. he shook all over. he couldn’t stop shaking. the poor devil. the poor old devil. I moved forward a step inside.

  fuck off, said the old woman.

  whatcha mean? I paid my rent. a whole WEEK’S worth.

  at’s right. your room’s outside. foller me.

  the old woman closed the door on that poor devil in there and I followed her down the pathway toward the front. pathway, hell. the whole front yard was dirt. hard cold dirt. I hadn’t noticed but there was a cardboard shack in the front yard. my power of observation was always shitty. she pushed open the cardboard door that was hanging on one hinge.

  ain’t no lock. but nobody’s gonna bother ya in there.

  I do believe you’re right.

  she left. I had been right. I had seen her face, she didn’t have a face. just flesh hung on bone like crumpled meat on a chicken back.

  there wasn’t any light. just a cord hanging there from the ceiling. the floor was dirt. but there was newspaper on the floor, kind of ruglike, a bed, no sheets, thin blanket. one. thin blanket. then I found a kerosene lamp! grace! luck! charm!! I had a match and lit the thing. A FLAME APPEARED!

  it was a beauty fire, it contained soul, the sides of sunshine mountains, hot streams of smiling fish, warm stockings smelling a bit like toast. I held my hand over the little flame. I had beautiful hands. that one thing I had. I had beautiful hands.

  the little flame went out.

  I played with the kerosene lamp but being born in the 20th century I didn’t know too much about it. but it didn’t take me a lifetime to figure that I needed more liquid, fuel, kerosene, whatever you call it.

  I pushed open my cardboard door and went out into God’s starlit night. I knocked on the door of the house with my beautiful hands.

  yeah. the door opened. the old woman stood there. who else? Mickey Rooney? I sneaked an other peek at that poor devil of an old man shaking by the glorious fire. goddamned idiot.

  whatzit? the old woman asked from her chickenback head.

  well I don’t like to bother you, but you know that little kerosene lamp?

  yeh.

  well, it went out.

  yeh?

  yeh. I wondered if I could borrow some fuel?

  you crazy, boy, thet shit costs MONEY!

  she didn’t slam the door. she had the ancient Kool. she closed it with a kind of slob unthinking gentility. the training of centuries. nice ancestors. all with chickenback faces. the chickenback faces shall inherit the earth.

  I went back to my room (?) and sat on the bed. then a very embarrassing thing happened: even tho I hadn’t eaten for a long time, suddenly I had to shit. I had to get up and walk into god’s world again and knock on that door again. It wasn’t Mickey Rooney this time either.

  yeh.

  sorry to bother you again. but there’s no toilet in my room. is there a toilet anywhere?

  right thar! she pointed.

  there??

  THAR! and lissen …

  yeh?

  fuck off, boy. you all come here poundin’ with your crazy head. yo let all the COL’ AIR frum out THERE in HEEYAH!

  sorry.

  she slammed the thing this time. I could feel the warm air along my ears, between the balls a moment. it was sweet. then I moved toward the structure that served as a crapper.

  the toilet didn’t have a lid.

  I looked down into the toilet. it seemed to go miles into the earth. and it stank like no toilet ever stank, and that’s some statement. in the moonlight I could see a spider sitting in the middle of its web. a black, fat spider. very knowing. the web was spun across the mouth of the bowl. suddenly all desire to shit left me.

  I walked back to my room. I sat on the bed and swung my beautiful hand as close as I could come to that hanging electric wire. I could come closer. I sat there half nutty, full of dried shit, swinging at that wire. then I got up and walked outside. I walked down about a block and stood under a frozen tree. a great frozen tree. with all that dried shit in me. I stood outside a grocery store. there was a fat woman standing in there talking to the grocer. they just stood there under that yellow light, talking. and all that FOOD in there. they didn’t give a damn about the arts, or the short story, or Plato, or even Captain Kidd. they cared for Mickey Rooney. they were dead but in a way they had more sense than me. the insensitive sense of bugs and wild dogs. I wasn’t shit. I couldn’t.

  I went back to my room. in the morning I wrote a long letter to my father on the edges of newspapers. I bought an envelope and a stamp and mailed the thing. I told him I was starving and would like bus fare to L.A., and as far as I was concerned the short story could go to hell. look at DeMass, I wrote, he caught the syph and went crazy rowing a rowboat. send money.

  I don’t remember if I ever crapped while waiting. but the answer came. I ripped the envelope open. I shook the pages. there were ten or twelve pages of writing, both sides, but no money. t
he first words were: THE PINCH IS OFF!

  … you still owe me TEN DOLLARS which you haven’t PAID BACK TO ME! I work hard for my money. I can’t afford to support you while you write your silly short stories. if you had EVER sold a story or had some TRAINING it would be different, but I read your stories, they’re UGLY. people don’t want to read UGLY things. you ought to write like Mark Twain. he was a great man. he could make people laugh. in all your stories your people kill themselves or go insane or murder somebody. most of life isn’t the way you imagine it. get a good job, MAKE something of yourself …

  the letter went on and on. I couldn’t finish it. all I wanted was money. I shook the pages again. I was too sick to feel the cold. later that day as I was walking along I saw a sign — Help wanted. and sure enough, they needed a man for a track gang somewhere west of Sacramento. I signed on in. I had some trouble there and with the track gang. I was not popular with the boys, the train was one hundred years old with dust. one of the guys got under my seat while I was trying to sleep and blew dust into my face while the others giggled. SHITS! well it was better than Atlanta. finally I got angry and sat up. the guy walked up front and stood with his gang.

  that guys nuts, he said. if he comes up here I want you guys to help me.

  I didn’t go up there. Mark Twain probably could have squeezed some laughs out of the thing, he’d probably be up there drinking out of a bottle with the shits and singing songs. a real man. Sam Clem. I wasn’t much, but I was out of Atlanta, not quite dead yet, had beautiful hands and a way to go.

  the train ran on.

  ________

  I don’t know if it was those Chinese snails with the little round assholes or if it was the Turk with the purple stickpin or if it was simply that I had to go to bed with her seven or eight or nine or eleven times a week, or something else and something else, and something, but I was once married to a woman, a girl, who was coming into a million dollars, all somebody had to do was die, but there isn’t any smog in that part of Texas and they eat well, drink the finest booze and go to the doctor for a scratch or a sneeze. she was a nympho, there was something wrong with her neck, and to get it down close and fast, it was my poems, she thought my poems were the greatest thing since Black, no I mean Blake — Blake. and some of them are. or something else. she kept writing. I didn’t know she had a million. I’m just sitting in a room on N. Kingsley Dr., out of the hospital with hemorrhages, stomach and ass, my blood all over the county general hospital, and they telling me after nine pints of blood and nine pints of glucose, “one more drink and you’re dead.” this is no way to talk to a suicide head. I sat in that room every night surrounded by full and empty beer cans, writing poems, smoking cheap cigars, very white and weak, waiting for the final wall to fall.