bably as good now as those bastards back then were. And some of the young are thinking of me as I thought of them. I know, I get letters. I read them and throw them away. These are the towering Nineties. There's the next line. And the line after that. Until there are no more. Yeah. One more cigarete. Then I think I'll take a bath and go to sleep. 4/16/92 12:39 AM Bad day at the track. On the drive in, I always mull over which system I am going to use. I must have 6 or 7. And I certainly picked the wrong one. Still, I will never lose my ass and my mind at the track. I just don't bet that much. Years of poverty have made me wary. Even my winning days are hardly stupendous. Yet, I'd rather be right than wrong, especially when you give up hours of your life. One can feel time actually being murdered out there. Today, they were approaching the gate for the 2nd race. There were still 3 minutes to go and the horses and riders were slowly approaching. For some reason, ti seemed an agonizingly long time for me. When you're in your 70's it hurts more to have somebody pissing on your time. Of course, I know, I had put myself into a position to be pissed upon. I used to go to the night greyhound races in Arizona. Now, they knew what they were doing there. Just turn your back to get a drink and there was another race going off. No 30 minute waiting periods. Zip, zip, they ran them one after the other. It was refreshing. The night air was cold and the action was continuous. You didn't believe that somebody was trying to saw off your balls between races. And after it was all over, you weren't worn down. You could drink the remainder of the night and fight with your girlfriend. But at the horse races it's hell. I stay isolated. I don't talk to anybody. That helps. Well, the mutuel clerks know me. I've got to go to the windows, use my voice. Over the years, they get to know you. And most of them are fairly decent people. I think that their years of dealing with humanity has given them certain insights. For instance, they know that most of the human race is one large piece of crap. Still, I also keep my distance from the mutuel clerks. By keeping counsel with myself, I get an edge. I could stay home and do this. I could lock the door and fiddle with paints or something. But somehow, I've got to get out, and make sure that almost all humanity is still a large piece of crap. As if they would change! Hey, baby, I've got to be crazy. Yet there is something out there, I mean, I don't think about dying out there, for example, you feel too stupid being out there to be able to think. I've taken a notebook, thought, well, I'll write a few things between races. Impossible. The air is flat and heavy, we are all voluntary members of a concentration camp. When I get home, then I can muse about dying. Just a little. Not too much. I don't worry about dying or feel sorry about dying. It just seems like a lousy job. When? Next Wednesday night? Or when I'm asleep? Or because of the next horrible hangover? Traffic accident? It's a load, it's something that's got to be done. And I'm going out without the God-belief. That'll be good, I can face it head on. It's something you have to do like putting your shoes on in the morning. I think I'm going to miss writing. Writing is better than drinking. And writing while you're drinking, that's always made the walls dance. Maybe there's a hell, what? All the poets will be there reading their works and I will have to listen. I will be drowned in their peening vanity, their overflowing self- esteem. If there is a hell, that will be my hell: poet after poet reading on and on... Anyway, a particularly bad day. This system that usually worked didn't work. The gods shuffle the deck. Time is mutilated and you are a fool. But time is made to be wasted. What are you going to do about it? You can't always be roaring full steam. You stop and you go. You hit a high and then you fall into a black pit. do you have a cat? Or cats? They sleep, baby. They can sleep 2% hours a day and they look beautiful They know that there's nothing to get excited about. The next meal. And a little something to kill now and then. When I'm being torn by the forces, I just look at one or more of my cats. There are 9 of them. I just look at one of them sleeping or half- sleeping and I relax. Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it. It chills me out. For a while anyhow. Then my wires get crossed and I have to do it all over again. I can't understand writers who decide to stop writing. How do they chill out? Well, the track was dull and deathly out there today but here I am back home and I'll be there tomorrow, most probably. How do I manage it? Some of it is the power of routine, a power that holds most of us. A place to go, a thing to do. We are trained from th beginning. Move out, get into it. Maybe there's something interesting out there? What an ignorant dream. It's like when I used to pick up women in bars. I'd think, maybe this is the one. Another routine. Yet, even during the sex act, I'd think, this is another routine. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I felt ridiculous but I went ahead anyhow. What else could I do? Well, I should have crawled off and said, "Look, baby, we are being very foolish here. We are just tools of nature." "What do you mean?" "I mean, baby, you ever watched two flies fucking or something like that?" "YOU'RE CRAZY! I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE!" We can't examine ourselves too closely or we'll stop living, stop doing everything. Like the wise men who just sit on a rock and don't move. I don't know if that's so wise either. They discard the obvious but something makes them discard it. In a sense, they are one-fly-fucking. There's no escape, action or inaction. We just have to write ourselves off as a loss: any move on the on the board leads to checkmate. So, it was a bad day at the track today, I got a bad taste in the mouth of my soul. But I'll go tomorrow. I'm afraid not to. Because when I get back the words crawling across this computer screen really fascinate my weary ass. I leave it so that I can come back to it. Of course, of course. That's it. Isn't it? 6/26/92 12:34 AM I have probably written more and better in the past 2 years than at any time in my life. It's as if from over 5 decades of doing it, I might have gotten close to really doing it. Yet, in the past 2 months I have begun to feel a weariness. The weariness is mostly physical, yet it's also a touch spiritual. It could be that I am ready to go into decline. It's a horrible thought, of course, The ideal was to continue until the moment of my death, not to fade away. In 1989 I overcame TB. This year it has been an eye operation that has not as yet worked out. And a painful right let, ankle, foot. Small things. Bits of skin cancer. Death nipping at my heels, letting me know. I'm and old fart, that's all. Well, I couldn't drink myself to death. I came close but I didn't. Now I deserve to live with what is left. So, I haven't written for 3 nights. Should I go mad? Even at my lowest times I can feel the words bubbling inside of me, getting ready. I am not in a contest. I never wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the word down the way I wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the words down or be overcome by something worse than death. Words not as precious things but as necessary things. Yet when I begin to doubt my ability to work the word I simply read another writer and then I know that I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself: to do it right, with power and force and delight and gamble. Otherwise, forget it. I have been wise enough to remain isolated. Visitors to this house are rare. My 9 cats run like mad when a human arrives. And my wife, too, is getting to be more and more like me. I don't want this for her. It's natural for me. But for Linda, no. I'm glad when she takes the car and goes off to some gathering. After all, I have my go-damned racetrack. I can always write about the racetrack, that great empty hole of nowhere. I go there to sacrifice myself, to mutilate the hours, to murder them. The hours must be killed. While you are waiting. The perfect hours must be killed. While you are waiting. The perfect hours are the ones at this machine. But you must have impefect hours to get perfect hours. You must kill ten hours to make two hours live. What you must be careful of is not to kill ALL the hours, ALL the years. You fix yourself up to be a writer by doing the instinctive things which feed you and the word, which protect you against death in life. For each, it changes. Once for me it meant very heavy drinking, drinking to the point of madness. It sharpened the word for me, brought it out. And I needed danger. I needed to put myself into dangerous situations. With men. With women. With automobiles. With gambling. With starvation. With anything. It fed the word. I had decades of that. Now it has changed. What I need now is more subtle, more invisible. It's a feeling in the air. Words spoken, words heard. Things seen. I still need a few drinks. But I am now into nuances and shadows. I am fed words by things that I am hardly aware of. This is good. I write a different kind of crap now. Some have noticed. "You have broken through," is mainly what they tell me. I am aware of what they sense. I feel it too. The words have gotten simpler yet warmer, darker. I am being fed from new sources. Being near death is energizing. I have all the advantages. I can see and feel things that are hidden from the young. I have gone from the power of youth to the power of age. There will be no decline. Uh uh. Now, pardon me, I must got to be, it's 12:55 a.m. Talking the night off. Have your laugh while you can... 8/24/92 12:28 AM Well, I've been 72 years old for 8 days and nights now and I'll never be able to say that again. It's been a bad couple of months. Weary. Physically and spiritually. Death means nothing. It's walking around with your ass dragging, it's when the words don't come flying form the machine, there's the gyp. Now in my lower lip and under the lower lip, there is a large puffiness. And I have no energy. I didn't go to the track today. I just stayed in bed. Tired, tired. The Sunday crowds at the track are the worst. I have problems with the human face. I find it very difficult to look at. I find the sum total of each person's life written there and it is a horrible sight. When one sees thousands of faces in one day, it's tiring from the top of the head to the toes. And all through the gut. Sundays are so crowded. It's amateur day. They scream and curse. They rage. Then they go limp and leave, broke. What did they expect? I had a cataract operation on my right eye a few months ago. The operation was not nearly as simple as the misinformation I gathered from people who claimed to have had eye operations. I heard my wife talking to ther mother on the telephone: "You say it was over in a few minutes? And that you drove your car home afterwards?" Another old guy told me, "Oh it's nothing, it's over in a flash and you just go about your business as normal." Others spoke about the operation in an off-hand manner. It was a walk in the park. Now, I didn't ask for any of these people for information about the operation, they just came out with it. And after a while, I began to believe it. Although I still wonder how a thing as delicate as the eye could be treated more or less like cutting a toenail. On my first visit to the doctor, he examined the eye and said that I needed an operation. "O.k.," I said, "let's do it." "What?" he asked. "Let's do it now. Let's rock and roll!" "Wait," he said, "first we must make an appointment with a hospital. Then there are other preparations. First, we want to show you a movie about the operation. It's only about 15 minutes long." "The operation?" "No, the movies." What happens is that they take out the complete lens of the eye and replace it with an artifical lens. The lens is stitched in and the eye must adjust and recover. After about 3 weeks the stitches are removed. It's no walk in the park and the operation takes much longer than "a couple of minutes." Anyhow, after it was all over, my wife's mother said it was probably an after-operational procedure she was thinking of. And the old guy? I asked him, "How long did it take for your sight to really get better after your eye operation?" "I'm not so sure I had an operation," he said. Maybe I got this fat lip from drinking from the cat's water bowl? I feel a little better tonight. Six days a week at the racetrack can burn anybody out. Try is some time. Then come in and work on your novel. Or maybe death is giving me some signs? The other day I was thinking about the world without me. There is the world going on doing what it does. And I'm not there. Very odd. Think of the garbage truck coming by and picking up the garbage and I'm not there. Or the newspaper sits in the drive and I'm not there to pick it up. Impossible. And worse, some time after I'm dead, I'm going to be truly discovered. All those who were afraid of me or hated me when I was alive will suddenly embrace me. My words will be everywhere. Clubs and societies will be formed. It will be sickening. A movie will be made of my life. I will be made a much more courageous and talented man tahn I am. Much more. It will be enough to make the gods puke. The human race exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. The fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better. The night is cooling off. Maybe I'll pay the gas bill. I remember in south central L.A. they shot a lady named Love for not paying her gas bill. The co. wanted to shut it off. Forget what with. Maybe a shovel. Cops came. Don't remember how it worked. Think she reached for something in her apron. They shot and killed her. All right, all right, I'll pay the gas bill. I worry about my novel. It's about a detective. But I keep getting him into these almost impossible situations and then I have to work him out. I sometimes think about how to get him out while I'm at the racetrack. And I know that my editor- publisher is curious. Maybe he thinks the work isn't literary. I say that anything I do is literary even if I try not to make it literary. He should trust me by now. Well, if he doesn't want it, I'll unload it elsewhere. It will sell as well as anything I've written, not because it's better but because it's just as good and my crazy readers are ready for it. Look, maybe a good night's sleep tonight and I'll wake up in the morning without this fat lip. Can you imagine me leaning toward the teller with this big lip and saying, "20 win on the 6 horse?" Sure. I know. He wouldn't have even noticed. My wife asked me, "Didn't you always have that?" Jesus Christ. Do you know that cats sleep 20 hours out of 24? No wonder they look better than I. 8/28/92 12:40 AM There are thousands of traps in life and most of us fall into many of them. The idea though, is to stay out of as many of them as possible. Doing so helps you remain as alive as you might until you die... The letter arrived from the offices of one of the network television stations. It was quite simple, stating that this fellow, let's call him Joe Singer, wants to come by. To talk about certain possibilities. On page 1 of the letter were stuck 2 one hundred dollar bills. On page 2 there was another hundred. I was on the way to the racetrack. I found that the hundred dollar bills peeled off of the pages nicely without damage. There was a phone number. I decided to call Joe Singer that night after the races. Which I did. Joe was casual, easy. The idea, he said, was to create a series for tv based on a writer like myself. An old guy who was still writing, drinking, playing the horses. "Why don't we get together and talk about it?" he asked. "You'll have to come here," I said, "at night." "O.k.," he said, "when?" "Night after next." "Fine. You know who I want to get to play you?" "Who?" He mentioned an actor, let's call him Harry Dane. I always liked Harry Dane. "Great," I said, "and thanks for the 300." "We wanted to get your attention." "You did." Well, the night came around and there was Joe Singer. He seemed likeable enough, intelligent, easy. We drank and talked, about horses and various things. Not much about the television series. Linda, my wife, was with us. "But tell us more about the series," she said. "It's all right, Linda," I said, "we're just relaxing..." I felt Joe Singer had more or less come by to see if I was crazy or not. "All right," he said reaching into his briefcase, "here's a rough idea..." He handed me 4 or 5 sheets of paper. It was mostly a description of the main character and I thought they had gotten me down fairly well. The old writer lived with this young girl just out of college, she did all his dirty work, lined up his readings and stuff like that. "The station wanted this young girl in there, you know," said Joe. "Yeah," I said. Linda didn't say anything. "Well," said Joe, "you look this over again. There are also some ideas, plot ideas, each episode will have a diferent slant, you know, but it will all be based on your character." "Yeah," I said. But I was beginning to get a bit apprehensive. We drank another couple of hours. I don't remember much abou the conversation. Small talk. And the night ended... The next day after the track I turned to the page about the episode ideas. 1. Hank's craving for a lobster dinner is thwarted by animal rights activists. 2. Secretary ruins Hank's chances with a poetry groupie. 3. To honor Hemingway, Hank bangs a broad named Millie whose husband, a jockey, wants to pay Hank to keep banging. There must be a catch. 4. Hank allows a young male artist to paint his portrait and is painted into a corner into revealing his own homosexual experience. 5. A friend of Hank's wants him to invest in his latest scheme. An industrial use for recycled vomit. I got Joe on the phone. "Jesus, man, what's about a homosexual experience? I haven't had any." "Well, we don't have to use that one." "Let's not. Listen, I'll talk to you later, Joe." I hung up. Things were getting strange. I phoned Harry Dane, the actor. He'd been over to the place two or three times. He had this great weatherbeaten face and he talked straight. He had few affectations. I liked him. "Harry," I said, "there's this tv outfit, channel -- they want to do a series based on me and they want you to play me. You heard from them?" "No." "I thought I might get you and this guy together and see what happens." "Channel what?" I told him the channel. "But that's commercial tv, censorship, commercials, laugh tracks." "This guy Joe Singer claims they have a lot of freedom with what they can do." "It's censorship, you can't offend the advertisers." "What I like most is that he wanted you for the lead. Why don't you come to my place and meet him?" "I like your writing, Hank, if we could get, say, HBO maybe we could do it right." "Well, yeah. But why don't you come over, see what he has to say? I haven't seen you for a while." "That's right. Well, I'll come but it will mainly to see you and Linda." "Fine. How about the night after next? I'll set it up." "O.k.," he said. I phoned Joe Singer. "Joe. Night after next, 9 p.m. I've got Harry Dane coming over." "O.k., great. We can send a limo for him." "Would he be alone in the limo?" "Maybe. Or maybe some of our people would be in it." "Well, I don't know. Let me call you back..." "Harry, they are trying to suck you in, they want to send a limo for you." "Would it be just for me?" "He wasn't sure." "Can I have his phone number?" "Sure." And that was it. When I came in after the track the next day Linda said, "Harry Dane phoned. We talked about the tv thing. He asked if we needed money. I told him we didn't." "Is he still coming by?" "Yes." I came in a little early from the track the following day. I decided to hit the Jacuzzi. Linda was out, probably buying libations for the meeting. I, myself, was getting a little scared about the tv series. They could really fuck me over. Old writer does this. Old writer does that. Laugh track. Old writer gets drunk, misses poetry meeting. Well, that wouldn't be so bad. But I wouldn't want to write he crap, so writing wouldn't be that good. Here I had written for decades in small rooms, sleeping on park benches, sitting in bars, working all the stupid jobs, meanwhile writing exactly as I wanted to and felt I had to. My work was finally getting recognized. And I was still writing the way I wanted to and felt that I had to. I was still writing to keep from going crazy, I was still writing, trying to explain this god-damned life to myself. And here I was being talked into a tv series on commecial tv. All I had fought so hard for could be laughed off the boards by some sitcom series with a laugh track. Jesus, Jesus. I got undressed and stepped outside to the Jacuzzi. I was thinking about the tv series, my past life, now and everything else. I wasn't too aware. I stepped into the Jacuzzi at the wrong end. I realized it the moment I stepped in. There weren't any steps at that end. It happened quickly. There was a small platform further in built to sit on. My right foot caught that, slipped off, and I was thrown off balance. You're going to hit your head against the edge of the Jacuzzi, went through my mind. I concetrated on pushing my head forward as I fell, letting all the rest go to hell. My right leg took the brunt of the fall, I twisted it but managed to keep my head from hitting the edge. Then I just floated in the bubbling water feeling the shots of pain in my right leg. I'd ben having leg pains there anyhow, now it was really torn up. I felt foolish about it all. I could have knocked myself out. I could have drowned. Linda would have come back to find me floating and dead. FAMOUS WRITER, FORMER SKID ROW POET AND DRUNK FOUND DEAD IN HIS JACUZZI. HE HAD JUST SIGNED CONTRACT FOR A SITCOM BASED UPON HIS LIFE. That's not even a ignoble ending. That is just being shit on entirely by the gods. I managed to get out of Jacuzzi and make my way into the house. I could barely walk. Each step on the right leg brought a mighty pain up the let from the ankle to the knee. I hobbled toward the refrigerator and pulled out a beer... Harry Dane arrived first. He had come in his own car. We brought out the wine and I began pouring them. By the time Joe Singer arrived, we'd had a few. I made the introductions. Joe laid out the general format for the proposed series for Harry. Harry was smoking, and drinking his wine pretty fast. "Yeah, yeah," he said, "but a sound track? And Hank and I would have to have total control over the material. Then, I don't know. There's censorship..." "Censorship? What censorship?" asked Joe. "Sponsors, you have to please the sponsors. There's a limit on how far you can go with material." "We'll have total freedom," said Joe. "You can't have," said Harry. "Laugh tracs are awful," said Linda. "Yeah," I said. "Then too," said Harry, "I've been in a tv series. It's a drag, it takes hours and hours a day, it's worse that shooting a movie. It's a hard work." Joe didn't answer. We all went on drinking. A couple of hours passed. The same thing seemed to be said over and over again. Harry saying maybe we should go to HBO. And that laugh tracks were awful. And Joe saying that everything would be all right, that there was plenty of freedom on commercial tv, that times had changed. It was really boring, really awful. Harry was really pouring down the wine. Then he got into what was wrong with the world and the main causes of it. He had a certain line he repeated quite often. It was a good line. Unfortunately, it was so good that I have forgotten it. But Harry went on. All of a sudden Joe singer leaped up. "Well, damn it, you guys have made a lot of lousy movies! Tv has done some good things! Everything we do isn't rotten! You guys keep on turning out crappy movies!" Then he into the bathroom. Harry looked at me and grinned. "Hey, he got mad, didn't he?" "Yeah, Harry." I poured some more wine. We sat and waited. Joe Singer stayed in the bathroom a long time. When he came out, Harry stood there talking to him. I couldn't hear what was being said. I think Harry felt sorry for him. It wasn't long after that, Singer started gathering his stuff into his briefcase. He walked to the door, then looked back at me, "I'll phone you," he said. "O.k., Joe" Then he was gone. Linda, I and Harry kept on drinking. Harry went on with what was wrong with the world, repeating his good line which I can't remember. We didn't talk too much about the proposed tv series. When Harry left we worried about his driving. We said he could stay. He declined. He said he could make it. Luckily, he did. Joe Singer phoned the next evening. "Listen, we don't need that guy. He doesn't want to work. We can get somebody else." "But, Joe, one of the main reasons I was interested at first was because of the possibility of Harry Dane." "We can get somebody else. I'll write you, I'll send you a list, I'm going to work on it." "I don't know, Joe..." "I'll write you. And listen, I talked to the people and they said, o.k., no laugh track. And they even said it would be o.k. to go to HBO. That surprised me because I work for them, I don't work for HBO. Anyhow, I'll send you a list of actors... "All right, Joe..." I was stuck in the web. Now I wanted out but I didn't quite know how to tell him. It surprised me, I was usually very good at getting rid of people. I felt guilty because he had probably put in a lot of work on the thing. And, originally, in the first flush of things, the idea of a series based mostly upon myself had probably appealed to my vanity. But now it didn't seem like a good thing. I felt crappy about the whole thing. A couple of days later the photos of the actors arrived, a mass of them, and the preferred ones were circled. The agent's phone number was by each actor's photo. I was sickened by looking at those faces, most of them smiling. The faces were bland, empty, very Hollywood, quite quite horrifying. Along with the photos was a short note: "... going on a 3 week vacation. When I get back I am really going to kick this thing into gear..." The faces did it to me. I couldn't handle it any longer. I sat down and let go at the computers. "...I've really been thinking about your project(s) and, frankly, I can't do it. It would mean the end of my life as I have lived it and have wanted to live it. It's just too big an intrusion into my existence. It would make me very unhappy, depressed. This feeling has been gradually coming over me but I just didn't quite know how to explain it to you. When you and harry Dane had a falling out the other night, I felt great, I felt, now, it's over. But you bounce right back with a new list of actors. I want out, that sense grew stronger and stronger as things went along. Nothing against you, you are an intellingetn young man who wants to pump some fresh blood into the tv scene -- but let it not be mine. You may not undestand my concern but, believe me, it's real, damned real. I should be honored that you want to display my life to the masses but, really, I am more than terrorized by the thought, I feel as if my very life were being threatened. I have to get out. I haven't been able to sleep nights, I haven't been able to think, I haven't been able to do anything. Please, no phone calls, no letters. Nothing can change this. The next day on the way to the racetrack I dropped the letter into the mailbox. I felt reborn. I might still have to fight some more to get free. But I'd go to court. Anything. Somehow, I felt sorry for Joe Singer. But, damn it all, I was free again. On the freeway I turned on the radion and lucked onto some Mozart. Life could be good at times but sometimes some of that was up to us. 8/30/92 1:30 AM Was going down the scalator at the track after the 6th race when the waiter saw me. "You going home now?" he asked? "I wouldn't do that to you, amigo," I told him. The poor fellow had to bring the food from the track kitchen to the upper floors, carrying huge amounts of trays. When their clients ran out on them they had to pay the tab. Some of the players sat four to a table. The waiters could work all day and still owe the track money. And the crowded days were the worst, the waiters couldn't watch everybody. And when they did get paid the horseplayers tipped badly. I went down to the first floor and stepped outside, stood in the sun. It was great out there. Maybe I'd just come to the track and stand in the sun. I seldom thought about writing out there but I did then. I thought about something that I had recently read, that I was probably the best selling poet in America and the most influential, the most copied. How strange. Well, to hell with that. All that counted was the next time I sat down to the computer. If I could still do it, I was alive, if I coulnd't, everything that preceded meant little to me. But what was I doing, thinking about writing? I was cracking. I didn't even think about writing when I was writing. Then I heard the call to post, turned around, walked in and got back on the escalator. Going up, I passed a man who owed me money. He ducked his head down. I pretended not to see him. It didn't do any good after he'd paid me, he only borrowed it back. And old guy had come up to me earlier that day: "Gimme 60 cents!" That gave him enough for a two buck bet, one more chance to dream. It was a sad god-damned place but almost every place was. There was no place to go. Well, there was, you could go to your room and close the door but then your wife got depressed. Or more depressed. America was the Land of Depressed Wives. And it was the fault of the men. Sure. Who else was around? You couldn't blame the birds, the dogs, the cats, the worms, the mice, the spiders, the fish, the etc. It was the men. And the men couldn't allow themselves to get depressed or else the whole ship would go down. Well, hell. I was back at my table. Three men had the next table and they had a little boy with them. Each table had a small tv set, only theirs was turned on LOUD. The kid had it on some sitcom and that was nice of the men to the kid look a his program. But he wasn't paying any attention to it, he wasn't listening, he was sitting there pushing around a rolled-up piece of paper. He bounced it against some cups, then he took it and tossed it into this cup and that. Some of the cups were filled with coffee. But the men just went on talking about the horses. My god, that tv was LOUD. I thought of saying something to the men, asking them to lower the tv a bit. But the men were black and they'd think I was racist. I left my table and walked out to the betting windows. I was unlucky, I got in a slow line. There was an old guy up front having trouble making his bets. He had his Form spread out across the window, along with his programm and he was very hesitant about what he wanted to do. He probably lived in an old folks home or and institution of some sort but he was out or a day at the races. Well, no law against that and no law against him being in a fog. But somehow it hurt. Jesus, I don't have to suffer this, I thought. I had memorized the back of his head, his ears, his clothing, the bent back. The horses were nearing the gate. Everybody was screaming at him. He didn't notice them. Then, painfully, we watched as he slowly reached for his wallet. Slow, slow motion. He opened it and peered into it. Then he poked his fingers in there. I don't even want to go on. He finally paid and the clerk slowly handed him back his money. Then he stood there looking at his money and his tickets, then he turned back to the clerk and said, "No, I wanted the 6-4 exacta, not this..." Somebody yelled out an obscenity. I walked off. The horses leaped out of the gate and I walked to the men's room to piss. When I came back the waiter had my bill ready. I paid, tipped 20% and thanked him. "See you tomorrow, amigo," he said. "Maybe," I said. "You'll be here," he said. The other races ground on. I bet early on the 9th and left. I left ten minutes before post. I got to my car and moved out. At the end of parking on Century Boulevard by the signal there was an ambulance, a fire engine and two police cars. Two cars had hit head-on. There was glass everywhere, the cars were really mangled. Somebody had been in a hurry to get in and somebody had been in a hurry to get out. Horseplayers. I moved around the crash and took a left on Century. Just another day shot through the head and buried. It was Saturday afternoon in hell. I drove along with the others. 9/15/92 1:06 AM Talk about a writer's block. I believe I was bitten by a spider. Three times. Noticed these 3 large red welts on my left arm the night of 9-08-92. Around 9 p.m. There was a slight pain to the touch. I decided to ignore it. But after 15 minutes I showed the marks to Linda. She had been to an emergency room earlier in the day. Something had left a stinger in her back. Now it was after 9 p.m., everything was closed except the Emergency Ward of the local hospital. I had been there before: I had fallen into a hot fireplace while drunk. I had not fallen into the fire directly but had fallen upon the hot surface while only wearing my shorts. Now, it was this. These welts. "I think I'd feel like a fool going in there with just these welts. There are people in there bloodied from car crashes, knifings, shootings, attempted suicides, and all I have are 3 red welts. "I don't want to wake up with a dead husband in the morning," Lidna said. I thought about it for 15 minutes, then said, "All right, let's go in." It was quiet in there. The lady at the desk was on the telephone. She was on the telephone for some time. Then she was finished. "Yes?" she asked. "I think I've been bitten by something," I said. "Maybe I should be looked at." I gave her my name. I was in the computer. Last visit: TB time. I was walked into a room. The nurse did the usual. Blood pressure. Temperature. The the doctor. He examined the welts. "Looks like a spider," he said, "they usually bite 3 times." I was given a tetanus shot, a prescription for some antibiotics and some Benadryl. We drove off to an all-night Sav-on to get the stuff. The 500 mg Duricef was to be taken one capsule every 12 hours. The Benadryl one every 4 to 6 hours. I began. And this is the point. After a day or so I felt similar as I had to the time I had been taking antibiotics for TB. Only then, due to my weakened state, I was barely able to walk up and down the stairway, having to pull myself along by the banister. Now it was just the nauseous feeling, the dullness of mind. About the 3rd day I sat down in front of this computer to see if anything would come out of it. I only sat there. This must be, I thought, the way it feels when it finally leaves you. And there is nothing you can do. At the age of 72 it was always possible that it would leave me. The ability to write. It was a fear. And it was not about fame. Or about money. It was about me. I release of writing. The safety of writing. All that mattered was the next line. And if the next line wouldn't come, I was dead, even though, technically, I was living. I have been off the antibiotics now for 24 hours but I still feel dull, a bit ill. The writing here lacks spark and gamble. Too bad, kid. Now, tomorrow, I must see my regular doctor to find out if I need more antibiotics or what. The welts are still there, though smaller. Who knows what the hell? Oh yes, the nice lady at the receptionist's desk, just as I was leaving, began talking about spider bites. "Yes, there was this fellow in his twenties. He got bit by a spider, now he's paralyzed from the waist up." "Is that so?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "and there was another case. This fellow..." "Never mind," I told her, "we have to leave." "Well," she said, "have a nice night." "You too," I said. 11/6/82 12:08 AM I feel poisoned tonight, pissed-on, used, worn to the nub. It's not entirely old age but it might have something to do with it. I think that the crowd, that crowd. Humanity which has always been difficult for me, that all repeat performance for them. There's no freshness in them. Not even the tiniest miracle. They just grind on and over me. If, one day, I could just see ONE person doing or saying something unusual it would help me get on with it. But the are stale, grimy. There's no lift. Eyes, ears, legs, voices but... nothing. They congeal within themselves, kid themselves along, pretending to be alive. It was better when I was young. I was still looking. I prowled the streets of night looking, looking... mixing, fighting, searching... I found nothing. I never really found a friend. With women, there was hope with each new one but that was in the beginning. Even early on, I got it, I stopped looking for the Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare. With people, all I found were the living who were now dead -- in books, in classical music. But that helped, for a while. But there were only so many lively and magical book, then in stopped. Classial musics was my stronghold. I heard most of it on the radio, still do. And I am ever surprised, even now, when I hear something strong and new and unheard before and it happens quite often. As I write this I am listening to something on the radio that I have never heard before. I feast on each note like a man starving for a new rush of blood and meaning and it's there. I am totally astonished by the mass of great music, centuries and centuries of it. It must be that many great souls once lived. I can't explain it but it is my great luck in life to have this, to sense this, to feed upon and celebrate it. I never write anything without the radio on to classical music, it has always been a part of my work, to hear this music as I write. Perhaps, some day, somebody will explain to me why so much of the energy of the Miracle is contained in classical music? I doubt that this will ever be told to me. I will only be left to wonder. Why, why, why aren't there more books with this power? What's wrong with the writers? Why are there so few good one? Rock music does not do it for me. I went to rock concert, mainly for the sake of my wife, Linda. Sure, I'm a good guy, huh? Huh? Anyhow, the tickets were free, courtesy of the rock musician who reads my books. We were to be in a special section with the big shots. A director, former actor, made a trip to pick us up in his sport wagon. Another actor was with him. These are talented people, in their way, and not bad human beings. We drove to the director's place, there was his lady friend, we saw their baby and then off we all went in a limo. Drinks, talk. The concert was to be at Dodger Stadium. We arrived late. The rock group was on, blasting, enormous sound. 25,000 people. There was a vibrancy there but it was short-lived. It was fairly simplistic. I suppose the lyrics were all right if you could understand them. They were probably speaking of Causes, Decencies, Love found and lost, etc. People need that -- anti-establisment, anti-parent, anti- something. But a successful millionaire groupe like that, no matter what they said, THEY WERE NOW ESTABLISHMENT. Then, after a while, the leader said, "This concert is dedicated to Linda and Charles Bukuwski!" 25,000 people cheered as if they knew who we were. It is to laugh. The big shot movie starts milled about. I had met them before. I worriend about that. I worried about directors and actors coming to our place. I disliked Hollywood, the movies seldom ever worked for me. What was I doing with these people? Was I being sucked in? 72 years of fighting the good fight, then to be sucked away? The concert was almost over and we followed the director to the VIP bar. We were among the select. Wow! There were tables tables in there, a bar. And the famous. I made for the bark. Drinks were free. There was a huge black bartender. I ordered my drink and told him, "After I drink this one, we'll go out back and duke it out." The bartender smiled. "Bukowski!" "You know me?" "I used to read your "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" in the L.A. Free Press and Open City." "Well, I'll be god-damned..." We shook hands. The fight was off. Linda and I talked to various people, about what I don't know. I kept going back to the bar again and again for my vodka 7's. The bartender poured me tall ones. I'd also loaded up in the limo on the way in. The night got easier for me, it was only a matter of drinking them down big, fast and often. When rock star came in I was fairly far gone but still there. He sat down and we talked but I don't know about what. Then came black-out time. Evidently we left. I only know what I heard later. The limo got us back but as I reached the steps of the house I fell and cracked my head on the bricks. We had just had the bricks put in. The right side of my head was bloody and I had hurt my right hand and my back. I found most of this in the morning when I rose to take a piss. There was the mirror. I looked like the old days after the barroom fights. Christ. I washed some of the blood away, fed our 9 cats and went back to bed. Linda wasn't feeling too well either. But she had seen her rock show. I knew I wouldn't be able to write for 3 or 4 days and that it would a couple of days before I got back to the racetrack. It was back to classical music for me. I was honored and all that. It's great that the rocks start read my work but I've heard from men in jails and madhouses who do too. I can't help it who reads my work. Forget it. It's good sitting here tonight in this little room on the second floor listening on the radio, the old body, the old mind mending. I belong here, like this. Like this. Like this. 2/21/93 12:33 AM Went to the track today in the rain and watched 7 consensus favorites out of 9 win. There is no way I can make it when this occurs. I watched the hours get slugged in the head and looked at the people studying their tout sheets, newspapers and Racing Forms. Many of them left early, taking the escalators down and out. (Gunshot outside now as I write this, life back to normal.) After about 4 or 5 races I left the clubhouse and went own to the grandstand area. There was a difference. Fewer whites, of course, more poor, of course. Down there, I was a minority. I walked about and I could feel the desperation in the air. These were 2 dollar bettors. They didn't bet favorites. They bet the shots, the exactas, the daily doubles. They were looking for a lot of money of a little money and they were drowning. Drowning in the rain. It was grim there. I needed a new hobby. The track had changed. Forty years ago there had been some joy out there, even among the losers. The bars had been packed. This was a different world. There was no money to blow to the sky, no to-hell-with-it money, no we'll-be-back- tomorrow money. This was the end of the world. Old clothing. Twisted and bitter faces. The rent money. The 5 dollars an hour money. The money of the unemployed, of the illegal immigrants. The money of the petty thieves, the burglars, the money of the disinherited. The air was dark. And the lines were long. They made the poor wait in long lines. The poor were used to long lines. And they stood in them to have their small dreams smashed. This was Hollywood Park, located in the black district, in the district of Central Americans and other minorities. I went back upstairs to the clubhouse, to the shorter lines. I got into line, bet 20 win on the second favorite. "When ya gonna do it?" the clerk asked me. "Do what?" I asked. "Cash some tickets." "Any day now," I told him. I turned and walked away. I could hear him say something else. Old bent white haired guy. He was having a bad day. Many of the mutuel clerks bet. I tried to go to a different clerk each time I bet, I didn't want to fraternize. The fucker was out of line. It was none of his business if I ever cashed a bet. The clerks rode with you when you were running hot. They would ask each other, "What'd he bet?" But go cold on them, they got pissed. They should do their own thinking. Just because I was there every day didn't mean I was a professional gambler. I was a professional writer. Sometimes. I was walking along and I saw this kid rushing toward me. I knew what it was. He blocked my path. "Pardon me," he said, "are you Charles Bukowski?" "Charles Darwin," I said, then spepped around him. I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say. I watched the race and my horse came in second, beaten out by another favorite. On off or muddy tracks too many favorites win. I don't know the reason but it occurs. I got the hell out of the racetrack and drove on in. Got to the place, greeten Linda. Checked the mail. Rejection letter from the Oxford American. I checked my poems. Not bad, good but not exceptional. Just a losing day. But I was still alive. It was almost the year 2,000 and I was still alive, whatever it meant. We went out to eat at a Mexican place. Much talk about the fight that night. Chavez and Haugin before 130,000 in Mexico City. I didn't give Haugin a chance. He had guts but no punch, no movement and he was about 3 years past his prie. Chavez could name the round. That night it was the way it was. Chavez didn't even sit down between rounds. He was hardly breathing heavily. The whole thing was a clean, sheer, brutal event. The body shots Chavez landed made me wince. It was like hitting a man in the ribs with a sledgehammer. Chavez finally got bored with carrying his man and took him out. "Well, hell," I said to my wife, "we paid to see exactly what we thought we would see." The tv was off. Tomorrow the Japanese were coming by to interview me. One of my books was now in Japanese and another was on the way. What would I tell them? About the horses? Maybe they would just ask questions. They should. I was a writer, huh? How strange it was but everybody had to be something didn't they? Homeless, famous, gay, mad, whatever. If they ever again run in 7 more favorites on a 9 race card, I'm going to start doing something else. Jogging. Or the museums. Or finger painting. Or chess. I mean, hell, that's just as stupid. 2/27/93 12:56 AM The captain is out and the sailors have taken over the ship. Why are there so few interesting people? Out of the millions, why aren't there a few? Must we continue to live with this drab and ponderous species? Seems their only act is Violence. They are so good at that. They truly blossom. Shit flowers, stinking up our chance. Problem is, if I want the lights to go on, if I want this computer repaired, if I want to flush the toilet, buy a new tire, get a tooth pulled or my gut cut open, I must continue to interact. I need the fuckers for the minute necessities, even if they, themselves appall me. And appall is a kind word. But they pound on my consciousness with their failure in vital areas. For instance, every day as I drive to the track I keep punching the radio to different stations looking for music, decent music. It's all bad, flat lifeless, tuneless, listless. Yet some of these compositions sell in millions and their creators consider themselves true Artists. It's horrible, horrible drivel entering the minds of you heads. They like it. Christ, hand them shit, they eat it up. Can't they discern? Can't they hear? Can't they feel the dilution, the staleness? I can't believe that there is nothing. I keep punching in new statios. I've had my car less than a year yet the button I push has the black paint completely worn off. It is white, ivory-like, staring at me. Well, yes, there is classical music. I finally have to settle for that. But I know that is always there for me. I listen to that 3 or 4 hours a night. But I still keep searching for other music. It's just not there. It should be there. It disturbs me. We've been cheated out of a whole other area. Think of all the people alive who have never heard decent music. No wonder their faces are falling off, no wonder they kill thoughtlessly, no wonder the heat is missing. Well, what can I do? Nothing. The movies are just as bad. I will listen to or read the critics. A great movie, they will say. And I will go see said movie. And sit there feeling like a fucking fool, feeling robbed, tricked. I can guess each scene before it arrives. And the obvious motives of the characters, what drives them, what they yearn for, what is of importance to them is so juvenile and pathetic, so boringly gross. The love bits are galling, old hat, precious drivel. I believe that most people see too many movies. And certainly the critics. When they say that a movie is great, they mean it's great in relation to other movies they have seen. They've lost their overview. They are clubbed by more and more new movies. They just don't know, they are lost in it all. They have forgotten what really stinks, which is almost everything they view. And let's not even talk about television. And as a writer... am I one? Oh well. As a writer I have trouble reading other writing. It just isn't there for me. To begin with, they don't know how to lay down a line, a paragraph. Just looking at the print from distance, it looks boring. And when you really get down there, it's worse than boring. There's no pace. There's nothing startling or fresh. There's no gamble, no fire, no juice. What are they doing? It looks like hard work. No wonder mostwriters say writing is painful to them. I can understand that. Sometimes with my writing, when it hasn't roared, I have attempted other things. I have pouren wine on the pages, I have held the pages to a match and burned holes in them. "What are you DOING in there? I smell smoke!" "No, it's all right, baby, it'all right..." Once my wastebasket caught fire and I rushed it out of my little balcony, poured beer over it. For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only pages left, you might as well make them smoke. Classical music, cigars, the computer make the writing dance, holler, laugh. The nightmare life helps too. Each day as I walk into that racetrack am blasting my hours to shit. But I still have the night. What do other writers do? Stand before the mirror and examine their ear lobes? And then write about them. Or their mothers. Or how to Save the World. Well, they can save it for me by not writing that dull stuff. That slack and withered drivel. Stop! Stop! Stop! I need something to read. Isn't there anything to read? I don't think so. If you find it, let me know. No don't. I know: you wrote it. Forget it. Go take a dump. I remember a long raging letter I got one day from a man who told me I had no right to say that I didn't like Shakespeare. Too many youth believe me and just not bother to read Shakespeare. I had no right to take this stance. On and on about that. I didn't answer him. But I will here. Screw you, buddy. And I don't like Tolstoy either! 18