Charles Bukowski - Short Stories Collection Part 26

another day I am sweating, battling, scratching, praying, jacking to stay 10 or 12 bucks ahead, and it is a very difficult harness race, I don't even think the drivers know who is going to win, and this big fat woman, ponderous whale of healthy stinking blubber, walked up to me, put that stinking fat against my body front, and squeezed 2 little eyes, a mouth and the rest into my face and said, "what are the hands on the first horse?"

"the hands on the first horse?"

"yes, what are the hands on the first horse?"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you lady, get away from me, and don't bother me. get away! get away!"

she did. the whole track is full of crazy people. some of them come there when the gates open. they stretch out on the seats or on a bench and sleep all through the races. they never see a race. then they get up and go home. others wall around just vaguely aware that a race of some kind is going on. they buy coffee or just stand around looking as if life has been stunned and burned out of them. or sometimes you see one standing in a dark corner, jamming a whole hot dog down the throat, gagging, choking, delighted with the mess of themselves. and at the end of each day you see one or 2 with their heads down between their legs. sometimes they are crying. where do losers go? who wants a loser?

essentially, in one way or another, everybody thinks that he has the key to beating the thing, even if it is only such an unjustified a.s.sumptions that their luck must change, some play stars, some play numbers, some play strictly time, others play drivers, or closers or speed r names or G.o.d knows what. almost all of them lose, continually. almost all their income goes directly into the mutuel machines. most of these people have unbearably fixed egos - the are tenaciously stupid.

I won a few dollars Sept. 1. let's go over the card. Andy's Dream won the first at 9/2 from a morning line of 10. good play. unwarranted action on beaten horse running from outside post. 2nd race - Jerry Perkins, 14 year old gelding n.o.body wants to claim because of age, drops into $15 claimer. a good horse, consistent within his cla.s.s, but you had to take 8/5 under a morning line of four. won easy. third race won by Special Product, a horse that broke in his last four races at long odds. he broke stride again this time, pulled up, righted himself and still came on to beat the 3/5 favorite Golden Bill. a possible bet if you are in touch with G.o.d and G.o.d is interested. ten to one. in the fourth race, Hal Richard a consistent 4 year old gelding won at three to one, beating out two shorter choices that showed better times but no winning ability. a good bet. In the fifth, Eileen Colby wins after Tiny Star and Marsand break and the crowd sends off April Fool at 3/5. April Fool has only been able to win four races out of 32, and one local handicapper tabs him "better than these by five lengths." all this on time effort of last race in better cla.s.s when April Fool finishes seven lengths out. the crowd is taken again.

then in the sixth race, Mister Honey is given a morning line of 10 but is sent off as second choice of 5/2 and wins easy, having won three out of nine in tougher cla.s.s at short odds. Newport Buell, a cheaper horse is sent off at even money because he closed ground in last at nine to one. a bad bet. the crowd doesn't understand. in the seventh, Bills Snook.u.ms, a winner of seven out of nine in cla.s.s and with the leading rider Farrington up is made the new 8/5 favorite and justifiably so.

the crowd bets Princess Sampson down to 7/2. this horse has won only 6 races out of 67. naturally, the crowd gets burned again.

Princess Sampson shows the best time in a tougher race but just does not want to win. the crowd is time-happy. they do not realize that time is caused by pace and pace is caused by the discre-tion - or lack of it - of the lead drivers. in the eighth, Abbemite win gets up in a four or five horse scramble. it was an open race and one I should have stayed out of. In the ninth, they let the public Have one. Luella Primrose. the horse had failed consistently at short odds and today got on its own pace without a challenger. 5/2. one for the ladies, and how they screamed. a pretty name. they'd been losing their drawers on the thing all through the meet.

most of the cards are as reasonable as this, and it would seem possible to make a living at the track against the 15 percent take. but the outside factors beat you. the heat. tiredness. people spilling beer on your s.h.i.+rt. screaming. stepping on your feet. women showing their legs. pickpockets. touts. madmen. I was $24 ahead going into the ninth race and there wasn't a play in the ninth.

being tired, I didn't have the resistance to stay out. before the race went off I had dropped in $16, shopping, feeling for a winner that didn't show. then they sent in the public play on me. I was not satisfied with a $24 day. I once worked for $16 a week at New Orleans. I was not strong enough to take a gentle profit, so I walked out $8 winner. Not worth the struggle: I could have stayed home and written an immortal poem.

a man who can beat the races can do about any thing he makes up his mind to do. he must have the character, the knowledge, the detachment. even with these qualities, the races are tough, especially with the rent waiting and your wh.o.r.e's tongue hanging our for beer. there are traps beyond traps beyond traps. there are days when everything impossible happens. the other day they ran in a 50 to one shot in the first race, a 100 to one in the second, and c.r.a.pped off the day with an 18 to one in the last race. when you are trying to sc.r.a.pe up pesos for the landlord and potato and egg money, this kind of day can very much make you feel like an imbecile.

but if you come back the next day they will give you six or seven reasonable winners at fair prices. it's there but most of them don't go back. It takes patience and it's hard work: you have to think. It's a battlefield and you can become sh.e.l.l-shocked. I saw a friend of mine out there the other day, glaze-eyed, punched-out. It was late in the day and it had been a reasonable card, but somehow they had gotten past him and I could tell that he had bet too much trying to get out.he walked past me, not knowing where he was. I watched him. he walked right into the women's c.r.a.pper. they screamed and he came running out. it was what he needed. it pulled him out and he caught the winner of the next race. but I would not advise this system to all losers.

there are laughs and there is sadness. there is an old boy who walked up to me one time. "Bukowski," he said very seriously, "I want to beat the horses before I die."

his hair is white, totally white, teeth gone, and I could see myself there in 15 or 20 years, if I make it.

"I like the six horse," he told me.

"luck," I told him.

he'd picked a stiff, as usual. an odds-on favorite that had only won one race in 15 starts that year. the public handicappers had the horse on top too. the horse had won $88,000 LAST year. best time. I bet ten win on Miss l.u.s.tytown, a winner of nine races this year. Miss l.u.s.tytown paid 4/1. the odds-on finished last.

the old man came by, raging. "how the h.e.l.l! Glad Rags ran 2:01 and 1/5 last time and gets beat by a 2:02 and 1/5 mare! they oughta close this place up!"

he raps his program, snarling at me. his face is so red that he appears to have a sunburn. I walk away from him, go over to the cas.h.i.+er's window and cash in.

when I get home, there is one magazine in the mail, THE SMITH, parodying my prose style, and another magazine, THE SIXTIES, parodying my poetic style.

writing?what the h.e.l.l's that? somebody is worried or p.i.s.sed about m y writing. I look over ans sure enough there's a typewriter in the room. I am a writer of some kind, there's another world there of maneuvering and gouging and groups and methods.

I let the warm water run, get into the tub, open a beer, open the racing formt phone rings. I let it ring. for me, maybe not for you, it's too hot to f.u.c.k or listen to some minor poet. Hemingway had his pulls. give me a horse's a.s.s - that gets there first.

THE BIRTH, LIFE, AND DEATH OF.

AN UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPER.

There were quite a few meetings at Joe Hyans' house at first and I usually showed drunk, so I don't remember much about the inception of Open p.u.s.s.y, the underground newspaper, and I was only told later what had happened. Or rather, what I had done.

Hyans: "You said you were going to clean out the whole place and that you were going to start with the guy in the wheelchair. Then he started to cry and people started leaving. You hit a guy over the head with a bottle."

Cherry (Hyans' wife): "You refused to leave and you drank a whole fifth of whiskey and kept telling me that you were going to f.u.c.k me up against the bookcase."

"Did I?"

"No."

"Ah, then next time."

Hyans: "Listen, Bukowski, we're trying to get organized and all you do is come around and bust things up. You're the nastiest d.a.m.n drunk I'veeve seen!"

"OK, I quit, f.u.c.k it. Who cares about newspapers?"

"No, we want you to do a column. We think you're the best writer in Los Angeles."

I lifted my drink. "That's a motherf.u.c.king insult! I didn't come here to be insulted!"

"OK, maybe you're the best writer in California."

"There you go! Still insulting me!"

"Anyhow, we want you to do a column."

"I'm a poet."

"What's the difference between poetry and prose?"

"Poetry says too much in too short a time; prose says too little and takes too long."

"We want a column for Open p.u.s.s.y."

"Pour me a drink and you're on."

Hyans did. I was on. I finished the drink and walked over to my skidrow court thinking about what a mistake I was making. I was almost fifty years old and f.u.c.king with these long-haired, bearded kids. Oh G.o.d, groovy, daddy, oh groovy! War is s.h.i.+t. War is h.e.l.l. f.u.c.k, don't fight. I'd known all that for fifty years. It wasn't quite as exciting to me. Oh, and don't forget the pot. the stash. Groove, baby!

I found a pint in my place, drank it, four cans of beer and wrote the first column. It was about a three-hundred-pound wh.o.r.e I had once f.u.c.ked in Philadelphia. It was a good column. I corrected the typing errors, jacked off and went to sleep-It started on the bottom floor of Hyans' two-story rented house. There were some halfa.s.sed volunteers and the thing was new and everybody was excited but me. I kept searching out the women for a.s.s but they all looked and acted the same a" they were all nineteen years old, dirty-blonde, small a.s.s, small breasted, busy dizzy, and, in a sense, conceited without quite knowing why. When-ever I'd lay my drunken hands upon them they were always quite cool. Quite.

"Look, Gramps, the only thing we want to seeyou raise is a North Vietnamese flag!"

"Ah, your p.u.s.s.y probably stinks anyhow!"

"Oh, you are a filthy old man! You really are-so disgusting!"

And then they'd walk off shaking those little delicious apple b.u.t.tocks at me, only carrying in their hand a" instead of my lovely purple head a" some juvenile copy about the cops shaking down the kids and taking away their Baby Ruth bars on Sunset Strip. Here I was, the greatest living poet since Auden and I couldn't even f.u.c.k a dog in the a.s.s-The paper got too big. Or Cherry got worried about my loung-ing about on the couch drunk and leering at her five-year-old daughter. When it really got bad was when the daughter started sitting on my lap and looking up into my face while squirming, saying, "I like you, Bukowski. Talk to me. Let me get you another Beer, Bukowski."

"Hurry back, sweetie!"

Cherry: "Listen, Bukowski, you old letch-"

"Cherry, children love me. I can't help it."

The little girl, Zaza, ran back with the beer, got back into my lap. I opened the beer.

"I like you, Bukowski, tell me a story."

"OK, honey. Well, once upon a time there was this old man and this lovely little girl lost in the woods together-"

"Cherry: "Listen, you old letch-"

"Ta, ta, Cherry, I do believe you have a dirty mind!" Cherry ran upstairs looking for Hyans who was taking a c.r.a.p. "Joe, Joe, we've just got to move this paper out of here! I mean it!"- They found a vacant building up front, two floors, and one midnight while drinking portw wine, I held the flashlight for Joe while he broke open the phone box on the side of the house and rear-ranged the wires so he could have extension phones without charge. about this time the only other underground newspaper in L.A. accused Joe of stealing a duplicate copy of their mailing list. Of course, I knew Joe had morals and scruples and ideals a" that's why he quit working for the large metro daily. That's why he quit working for the other underground newspaper. Joe was some kind of Christ. Sure.

"Hold that flashlight steady," he saida"

In the morning, at my place, the phone rang. It was my friend Mongo the Giant of the Eternal High.

"Hank?"

"Yeh?"

"Cherry was over last night."

"Yea?"

"She had this mailing list. Was very nervous. She wanted me to hide it. Said Jensen was on the prowl. I hid it in the cellar under a pile of India ink sketches Jimmy the Dwarf did before he died."

"Did you screw her?"

"What for? She's all bones. Those ribs would slice me to pieces while I f.u.c.ked."

"You screwed Jimmy the Dwarf and he only weighed eighty-three pounds."

"He had soul."

"Yeh?"

"Yeh."

I hung up- For the next four or five issues, Open p.u.s.s.y came out with sayings like, "WE LOVE THE L.A. FREE PRESS," "OH, WE LOVE THE L.A. FREE PRESS," "LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THE L.A. FREE PRESS."

They should have. They had their mailing list.

One night Jensen and Joe had dinner together. Joe told me later that everything was now "all right." I don't know who screwed who or what went on under the table. And I didn't carea"

And I soon found that I had other readers besides the beaded and the beardeda"

In Los Angeles the new Federal Building rises gla.s.s-high, insane and modern, with the Kafka-series of rooms each indulged with their own personal frog-jacking-off bit; everything feeding off of everything else and thriving with a kind of worm-in-the apple warmth and ther I was given a time ticket for that amount and I walked into the Federal Building, which had downstairs murals like Diego Rivera would have done if nine tenths of his sensibilities had been cut away a"American sailors and Indians and soldiers smiling away, trying to look n.o.ble in cheap yellows and retching rotting greens and p.i.s.sy blues.

I was being called into personnel. I knew that it wasn't for a promotion. They took the letter and cooled me on the hard seat for forty-five minutes. It was part of the old you-got-s.h.i.+t-in-your-intestines. And we-don't-have routine. Luckily, from past experience, I read the warty sign, and I cooled it myself, thinking about how Each of the girls who walked by would go on a bed, legs high, or Taking it in the mouth. Soon I had something huge between my legs a"well, huge for me a" and had to stare at the floor.

I was finally called in by a very black and slinky and well-dressed and pleasant Negress, very much cla.s.s and even a spot of soul, whose smile said she knew that I was going to be f.u.c.ked but who also hinted that she wouldn't mind throwing me a little pee-hole herself. It eased matters. Not that it mattered.

And I walked in.

"Have a seat."

Man behind desk. Same old s.h.i.+t. I sat.

"Mr. Bukowski?"

"Yeh."

He gave me his name. I wasn't interested.

He leaned back, stared at me from his swivel.

I'm sure he expected somebody younger and better-looking, more flamboyant, more intelligent-looking, more treacherous-look- ing-I was just old, tired, disinterested, hungover. He was a bit gray and distinguished, if you know the type of distinguished I mean. Never pulled beets out of the ground with a bunch of wetbacks or been in the drunktank fifteen or twenty times. Or picked lemons at six a.m. without a s.h.i.+rt on because you knew that at noon it would be 110 degrees. Only the poor knew the meaning of life; the rich and the safe had to guess. Strangely then, I began thinking of the Chinese. Russia had softened; it could be that only the Chinese knew, digging up from the bottom, tired of soft s.h.i.+t. But then, I had no politics, that was more con: history screwed us all, finally. I was done ahead of time a" baked, f.u.c.ked, screwed-out, nothing left.

"Mr. Bukowski?"

"Yeh?"

"Well, ah-we've had an informant-"

"Yeh. Go ahead."

"-who wrote us that you are not married to the mother of your child."

I imagined him, then, decorating a Christmas tree with a drink in his hand.

"That's true. I am not married to the mother of my child, aged four."

"Do you pay child support?"

"Yes."