You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [8]
underwear,
you’ve burnt cigarette
holes in all your
shirts!
all you do is suck
on that god damned
beer,
bottle after bottle,
what do you get out of
that?”
“the damage has been
done,” I told
her.
“what’re you talking
about?”
“nothing matters and
we know nothing matters
and that
matters…”
“you’re drunk!”
“come on, baby, let’s get
along, it’s
easy…”
“not for me!” she screamed,
“not for
me!”
she ran into the bathroom to
put on her
makeup.
I got up for another
beer.
I sat back down
just had the new bottle
to my mouth
when she came out of the
bathroom.
“holy shit!” she screamed,
“you’re
disgusting!”
I laughed right into the
bottle, gagged, spit a mouthful of
beer across my
undershirt.
“my god!” she
said.
she slammed the door and
was gone.
I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn’t feel
alone.
my friend, the parking lot attendant
—he’s a dandy
—small black mustache
—usually sucking on a cigar
he tends to lean into the cars as he
transacts business
first time I met him, he said,
“hey! ya gonna make a
killin’?”
“maybe,” I answered.
next meeting it was:
“hey, Ramrod! what’s
happening?”
“very little,” I told
him.
next time I had my girlfriend with me
and he just
grinned.
next time I was
alone.
“hey,” he asked, “where’s the young
chick?”
“I left her at home…”
“Bullshit! I’ll bet she dumped
you!”
and the next time
he really leaned into the car:
“what’s a guy like you doing driving a
BMW? I’ll bet you inherited your
money, you didn’t get this car with your
brains!”
“how’d you guess?” I
answered.
that was some weeks ago.
I haven’t seen him lately.
fellow like that, chances are he just moved on
to better
things.
miracle
I have just listened to this
symphony which Mozart dashed off
in one day
and it had enough wild and crazy
joy to last
forever,
whatever forever
is
Mozart came as close as
possible to
that.
a non-urgent poem
I had this fellow write me that
he felt there wasn’t the
“urgency” in my poems
of the present
as compared to my poems
of the past.
now, if this is true
why did he write me
about it?
have I made his days
more
incomplete?
it’s
possible.
well, I too have felt
let down
by writers
I once thought were
powerful
or
at least
very damned
good
but
I never considered
writing them to
inform them that I
sensed their
demise.
I found the best thing
I could do
was just to type away
at my own work
and let the dying
die
as they always
have.
my first affair with that older woman
when I look back now
at the abuse I took from
her
I feel shame that I was so
innocent,
but I must say
she did match me drink for
drink,
and I realized that her life
her feelings for things
had been ruined
along the way
and that I was no more than a
temporary
companion;
she was ten years older
and mortally hurt by the past
and the present;
she treated me badly:
desertion, other
men;
she brought me immense
pain,
continually;
she lied, stole;
there was desertion,
other men,
yet we had our moments; and
our little soap opera ended
with her in a coma
in the hospital,
and I sat at her bed
for hours
talking to her,
and then she opened her eyes
and saw me:
“I knew it would be you,”
she said.
then she closed her
eyes.
the next day she was
dead.
I drank alone
for two years
after that.
the freeway life
some fool kept blocking me and I finally got around him, and in the
elation of freedom I ran it up to 85 (naturally, first checking the rear
view for our blue suited protectors); then I felt and heard the SMASH of a hard
object upon the bottom of my car, but wanting to make the track I willed
myself to ignore it (as if that would make it vanish) even though I began
to smell gasoline.
I checked the gas gauge and it seemed to be holding…
it had been a terrible week already
but, you know, defeat can strengthen just as victory can weaken, and if
you have the proper luck and the holy endurance the gods just might deliver