You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [7]
lay the whip on as hard as the
others
so
he rocked and rocked
in the sulky
and the horse felt the lightning
of his excitement
that rhythmic crazy rocking was
transferred from man to
beast…
the whole thing had the feel of a
crapshooter calling to the
gods, and the gods
so often answered…
I saw Joe O’Brien win
endless photo finishes
many by a
nose.
he’d take a horse
another driver couldn’t get a
run out of
and Joe would put his touch
to it
and the animal would
most often respond with
a flurry of wild energy.
Joe O’Brien was the finest harness driver
I had ever seen
and I’d seen many over the
decades.
nobody could nurse and cajole
a trotter or a pacer
like little Joe
nobody could make the magic work
like Joe.
they go one by one
presidents
garbage men
killers
actors
pickpockets
boxers
hit men
ballet dancers
fishermen
doctors
fry cooks
like
that
but Joe O’Brien
it’s going to be hard
hard
to find a replacement for
little Joe
and
at the ceremony
held for him
at the track tonight
(Los Alamitos 10-1-84)
as the drivers gathered in a
circle
in their silks
at the finish line
I had to turn my back
to the crowd
and climb the upper grandstand
steps
to the wall
so the people wouldn’t
see me
cry.
well, that’s just the way it is…
sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted—
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Bukowski.
the chemistry of things
I always thought Mary Lou was skinny and
not much to look at
while almost all the other guys
thought she was a
hot number.
maybe that’s why she hung around me
in Jr. High.
my indifference must have attracted
her.
I was cool and mean in those days
and when the guys asked me,
“you banged Mary Lou yet?”
I answered them with the
truth: “she
bores me.”
there was this guy
he taught chemistry.
Mr. Humm. Humm wore a little bow
tie and a black coat, a
cheap wrinkled job, he was
supposed to have
brains
and one day Mary Lou came to
me
and said Humm kept her
after class
and had taken her into the
closet and
kissed her and
fondled her
panties.
she was crying, “what will I
do?”
“forget it,” I told her,
“those chemicals have scrambled
his brain. we have an English teacher
who hikes her skirt up around her
hips every day and wants to go to bed with
every guy in class. we enjoy her but
ignore her.”
“why don’t you beat Mr. Humm up?”
she asked me.
“I could but they’d transfer me to
Stuart Hall.”
in Stuart Hall they beat the shit
out of you
and they ignored math, English,
music, they just stuck you into auto
shop
where you fixed up old cars
which they resold at big
profits.
“I thought you cared for me,” said Mary
Lou, “don’t you realize he
kissed me, stuck his tongue down my
throat and had his hand up my
behind?”
“well,” I said, “we saw Mrs. Lattimore’s
pussy the other day, in English.”
Mary Lou walked off
crying…
well, she told her
mother and Humm got his, he
had to
resign, poor son of a
bitch.
after that the guys asked me,
“hey, what do you think of Humm
sticking his hand up your girl’s
ass?”
“just another guy with no
taste,” I answered.
I was cool and mean
in those days and I went on to
high school, the same one
Mary Lou attended
where she secretly got
married
during her senior year
to a guy
I knew, a guy I
outdrank and beat the shit out of
a couple of
times.
the guy thought he had
something.
he wanted me to be
best man.
I told him, no thanks and lots of
luck.
I never could see what
they saw in
Mary Lou.
and poor Humm: what a
lonely sick old
fart.
anyhow, then I went on to
city college
where the only molesting I
could see going on
was what they did to your
mind.
rift
“I can’t live with you anymore,”
she said,
“look at you!”
“uuh?” I
asked.
“look at you!
sitting in that god
damned
chair!
your belly is sticking out
of