Tales of Ordinary Madness Read online

  TALES OF

  ORDINARY MADNESS

  by

  Charles Bukowski

  Edited by Gail Chiarrello

  CITY LIGHTS BOOKS

  San Francisco

  TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS

  Copyright ©1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1983 by Charles Bukowski

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover photograph of Charles Bukowski by Michael Montfort

  Reproduced by courtesy of Michael Montfort

  Some of these stories originally appeared in the following magazines: Open City, Nola Express, Knight, Adam, Fix, The Berkeley Barb, and Evergreen Review.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bukowski, Charles

  Tales of ordinary madness

  Reprint of part 2 of Erections, ejaculations, exhibitions and general tales of ordinary madness.

  I. Chiarrello, Gail. II. Bukowski, Charles. Erections, ejaculations, exhibitions and general tales of ordinary madness. III. Title.

  PS3552.U4T3 1983 813’.54 83-21031

  ISBN: 0-87286-155-4

  ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-155-8

  Visit our website: www.citylights.com

  CITY LIGHTS BOOKS are edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters and published at the City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.

  CONTENTS

  A .45 to Pay the Rent

  Doing Time with Public Enemy No. 1

  Scenes from the Big Time

  Nut Ward Just East of Hollywood

  Would You Suggest Writing as a Career?

  The Great Zen Wedding

  Reunion

  Cunt and Kant and a Happy Home

  Goodbye Watson

  Great Poets Die in Steaming Pots of Shit

  My Stay in the Poet’s Cottage

  The Stupid Christs

  Too Sensitive

  Rape! Rape!

  An Evil Town

  Love It or Leave It

  A Dollar and Twenty Cents

  No Stockings

  A Quiet Conversation Piece

  Beer and Poets and Talk

  I Shot a Man in Reno

  A Rain of Women

  Night Streets of Madness

  Purple as an Iris

  Eyes Like the Sky

  One for Walter Lowenfels

  Notes of a Potential Suicide

  Notes on the Pest

  A Bad Trip

  Animal Crackers in My Soup

  A Popular Man

  Flower Horse

  The Big Pot Game

  The Blanket

  A .45 TO PAY THE RENT

  Duke had this daughter, Lala, they named her, she was 4. it was his first child and he had always been careful not to have children, fearing that they would murder him somehow, but now he was insane and she delighted him, she knew everything that Duke was thinking, there was that line that ran from her to him, from him to her.

  Duke was in the supermarket with Lala and they talked back and forth, saying things. they talked about everything and she told him everything she knew and she knew very much, instinctively, and Duke didn’t know very much but he told her what he could, and it worked. they were happy together.

  “what’s that?” she asked.

  “that’s a coconut.”

  “what’s inside?”

  “milk and chewy stuff.”

  “why’s it in there?”

  “because it feels good in there, all that milk and chewy stuff, it feels good inside of that shell. it says to itself, ‘oh my, I feel so good in here!’ ”

  “why does it feel good in there?”

  “because anything would. I would.”

  “no you wouldn’t. you wouldn’t be able to drive your car from inside of there, you wouldn’t be able to see me from inside of there. you wouldn’t be able to eat bacon and eggs from inside of there.”

  “bacon and eggs aren’t everything.”

  “what is everything?”

  “I dunno. maybe the inside of the sun, frozen solid.”

  “the INSIDE of the SUN ...? FROZEN SOLID?”

  “yep.”

  “what would the inside of the sun be like if it were frozen solid?”

  “well, the sun’s supposed to be this ball of fire. and I don’t think the scientists would agree with me, but I think it would be like this.”

  Duke picked up an avocado.

  “wow!”

  “yeah, that’s what an avocado is: frozen sun. we eat the sun and then we walk around feeling warm.”

  “is the sun in all that beer you drink?”

  “yes, it is.”

  “is the sun inside of me?”

  “more than anybody I have ever known.”

  “and I think you got a great BIG SUN inside of you!”

  “thank you, my love.”

  they walked around and finished their shopping. Duke didn’t select anything. Lala filled the basket with whatever she wished. some of it you couldn’t eat: balloons, crayons, a toy gun. a spaceman with a parachute that flipped out of his back when you shot him into the sky. hell of a spaceman.

  Lala didn’t like the woman cashier. she gave a most serious frown to the cashier. poor woman: her face had been scooped out and emptied – she was a horror show and didn’t even know it.

  “hello little sweetie!” the cashier said. Lala didn’t answer. Duke didn’t prompt her to. they paid their money and walked to the car.

  “they take our money,” said Lala.

  “yes.”

  “and then you have to go to work at night and make more money. I don’t like you going away at night. I want to play mama. I want to be mama and you be the baby.”

  “o.k., I’ll be the baby right now. how’s that, mama?”

  “o.k., baby, can you drive the car?”

  “I can try.”

  then they were in the car, driving. some son of a bitch hit his throttle and tried to ram them as they made a left turn.

  “baby, why do people try to hit us with their cars?”

  “well, mama, it’s because they are unhappy and unhappy people like to hurt things.”

  “aren’t there any happy people?”

  “there are many people who pretend that they are happy.”

  “why?”

  “because they are ashamed and frightened and don’t have the guts to admit it.”

  “are you frightened?”

  “I only have the guts to admit it to you – I’m so god damned scared, mama, that I think I’m going to die any minute.”

  “baby, do you want your bottle?”

  “yes, mama, but let’s wait until we get home.”

  they drove along, turned right on Normandie. it was harder for them to hit you when you were turning right.

  “you are going to work tonight, baby?”

  “yes.”

  “why do you work nights?”

  “it’s darker. people can’t see me.”

  “why don’t you want people to see you?”

  “because if they do I might get caught and put in jail.”

  “what’s jail?”

  “everything’s jail.”

  “I’M not jail!”

  they parked and took the groceries inside.

  “mama!” Lala said, “we got groceries! frozen suns, spacemen, everything!”

  mama (they called her “Mag”), mama said, “that’s fine.”

  then to Duke: “damn it, I wish you didn’t have to go out tonight. I’ve got that feeling. don’t do it, Duke.”

  “you’ve got that feeling? honey, I get that feeling everytime. it’s part of the thing. I’ve got to do it. we’re tapped out. the kid threw everything into that bask
et from canned ham to caviar.”

  “well, Christ, can’t you control the kid?”

  “I want her to be happy.”

  “she won’t be happy with you in stir.”

  “look, Mag, in my profession you’ve just got to figure on doing a certain amount of time. you don’t sweat it. that’s all there is to it. I’ve done a bit of time. I’ve been luckier than most.”

  “how about some kind of honest job?”

  “babe, it beats working a punch-press. and there aren’t any honest jobs. you die one way or the other. And I’m already along my little road – I’m some kind of dentist, say, pulling teeth out of society. it’s all I know how to do. it’s too late. and you know how they treat ex-cons. you know what they do to you, I’ve told you, I’ve ...”

  “I know what you’ve told me, but ...”

  “but but butt butttt!” said Duke, “god damn you, let me finish!”

  “finish then.”

  “these industrial cocksuckers of slaves who live in Beverly Hills and Malibu. these guys specialize in ‘rehabilitating’ cons, ex-cons. it makes that shit parole smell like roses. it’s a hype. slave labor. the parole boards know it, they know it, we know it. save money for the state, make money for somebody else. shit. all shit. everything. make you work triple the average man while they rob everybody within the law – sell them crap for ten or twenty times its actual value. but it’s within the law, their law ...”

  “god damn, I’ve heard this so many times ...”

  “and god damn if you’re not going to hear it AGAIN! you think I can’t see or feel anything? you think I should keep quiet? even to my own wife? you are my wife, aren’t you? don’t we fuck? don’t we live together, don’t we?”

  “you’re the one who fucked up. now you’re crying.”

  “fuck YOU! I made a mistake, a technical error! I was young; I didn’t understand their chickenshit rules ...”

  “and now you’re trying to justify your idiocy!”

  “hey, that’s good! I LIKE that. little wifey. you cunt. you cunt. you’re nothing but a cunt on the whitehouse steps, wide open, and mentally siffed ...”

  “the kid’s listening, Duke.”

  “good. and I’ll finish. you cunt. REHABILITATE. that’s the word, those Beverly Hills soul-cocksuckers. they’re so god damned decent and HUMANE. their wives listen to Mahler at the Music Center and donate to charity, tax-free. and are elected the ten best women of the year by the L.A. Times. and you know what their HUSBANDS do to you? cuss you like a dog down at their crooked plant. cut your paycheck, pocket the difference, and no questions answered. everything’s such shit, can’t anybody see it? can’t anybody SEE it?”

  “I ...”

  “SHUT UP! Mahler, Beethoven, STRAVINSKY! make you work overtime for nothing. kick your whipped ass all hell’s time. and ONE word out of you, they’re on the phone to the parole officer: ‘Sorry, Jensen, but I’ve got to tell you, your man stole 25 dollars from the till. we’d just gotten to like him too.’ ”

  “so what kind of justice do you want? Jesus, Duke, I don’t know what to do. you rant and you rant. you get drunk and tell me that Dillinger was the greatest man who ever lived. you rock back in your rocker, all drunk, and scream Dillinger. I’m alive too. listen to me ...”

  “fuck Dillinger! he’s dead. justice? there ain’t no justice in America. there’s only one justice. ask the Kennedies, ask the dead, ask anybody!”

  Duke got up out of the rocker, walked to the closet, dipped under the box of Christmas tree ornaments and got the heat. a .45.

  “this, this. this is the only justice in America. this is the only thing anybody understands.”

  he waved the damn thing around.

  Lala was playing with the spaceman. the parachute didn’t open right. it figured: a con. another con. like the dead-eyed seagull. like the ballpoint pen. like Christ hollering for Papa with the lines cut.

  “listen,” said Mag, “put that crazy cannon away. I’ll get a job. let me get a job.”

  “YOU’LL get a job! how long I been hearing that? only thing you’re good for is fucking, for nothing, and laying around reading magazines and popping chocolates into your mouth.”

  “oh god, it’s not for nothing – I LOVE you, Duke, I really do.”

  then he was tired. “all right, fine. then at least put the groceries away. and cook me something before I hit the streets.”

  Duke put the heat back in the closet. sat down and lit a cigarette.

  “Duke,” asked Lala, “you want me to call you Duke or call you Daddy?”

  “either way, sweetie. just what you want.”

  “why is there hair on a coconut?”

  “oh Christ, I dunno. why is there hair on my balls?”

  Mag came out of the kitchen holding a can of peas in her hand. “I won’t have you talking to my kid that way.”

  “your kid? see that money mouth on her? just like mine. see those eyes? see those insides? just like mine. your kid – just because she slid out of your crack and sucked your tits. she’s nobody’s kid. she’s her own kid.”

  “I insist,” said Mag, “that you don’t talk around the child like that!”

  “you insist ... you insist ...”

  “yes, I do!” she held the can of peas in the air, balanced in the palm of her left hand. “I insist.”

  “I swear, if you don’t get that can of peas out of my sight, so help me, God or no God, I’M GOING TO JAM THEM UP YOUR ASS ALL THE WAY FROM DENVER TO ALBUQUERQUE!”

  Mag walked into the kitchen with the peas. she stayed in the kitchen.

  Duke went to the closet for his coat and the heat. he kissed his little girl goodbye. she was sweeter than a December suntan and 6 white horses running over a low green hill. he thought of it like that; it began to hit him. he ducked out fast. but closed the door quietly.

  Mag came out of the kitchen.

  “Duke’s gone,” said the kid.

  “yes, I know.”

  “I’m getting sleepy, mama. read to me from a book.”

  they both sat on the couch together.

  “is Duke coming back, mama?”

  “yeah, the son of a bitch, he’ll be back.”

  “what’s a son of a bitch?”

  “Duke is. I love him.”

  “you love a son of a bitch?”

  “yeah,” laughed Mag. “yeah. come ’ere, lovely. on my lap.”

  she hugged the kid, “aw, you’re so warm, like warm bacon, warm doughnuts!”

  “I’m NOT bacon and DOUGHNUTS! YOU’RE bacon and doughnuts!”

  “it’s a full moon tonight. too light, too light. I’m scared, I’m scared. jesus, I love the man, oh jesus ...”

  Mag reached over into a cardboard carton and picked up a children’s book.

  “mama, why is there hair on a coconut?”

  “hair on a coconut?”

  “yes.”

  “listen, I put on some coffee. I hear the coffee boiling over. let me turn off the coffee.”

  “all right.”

  Mag Went into the kitchen and Lala sat waiting on the couch.

  while Duke stood outside a liquor store at Hollywood and Normandie, wondering: what the hell what the hell what the hell.

  it didn’t look right, didn’t smell right. might be a prick in the back with a luger, staring through a hole. that’s how they got Louie. blew him apart like a clay duck at the amusement park. legal murder. the whole fucking world swam in the shit of legal murder.

  the place didn’t look right. maybe a small bar tonight. a queer joint. something easy. enough money for a month’s rent.

  I’m losing my guts, thought Duke. next thing you know I’ll be sitting around listening to Shostakovitch.

  he got back into the black ’61 Ford.

  and began driving North. 3 blocks. 4 blocks. 6 blocks. 12 blocks into the freezing world. as Mag sat with the kid in her lap and began to read from a book, LIFE IN THE FOREST ...

  “the weasel a
nd his cousins, the mink, the fisher, and the marten, are lithe, fast, savage creatures. They are meat eaters, and are in continuous, bloodthirsty competition for the ...”

  then the beautiful child was asleep and the moon was full.

  DOING TIME WITH PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1

  I was listening to Brahms in Philadelphia, in 1942. I had a small record player. it was Brahms’ 2nd movement. I was living alone at the time. I was slowly drinking a bottle of port and smoking a cheap cigar. it was a small clean room. as they say, – there was a knock on the door. I thought it was somebody come to give me the Nobel Prize or the Pulitzer. 2 big dumb peasant-looking men.

  Bukowski?

  yeah.

  they showed me a badge: F.B.I.

  come with us. better put on a coat. you’ll be gone awhile.

  I didn’t know what I had done. I didn’t ask. I figured everything was loss anyhow. one of them shut off Brahms. we went downstairs and out into the street. heads were out the windows as if everybody knew.

  then the eternal woman’s voice: oh, there goes that horrible man! they’ve got him!

  I just don’t make it with the ladies.

  I kept trying to think of what I had done and the only thing I could think of was that I had murdered somebody while I was drunk. but I couldn’t understand how the F.B.I. could get involved.

  keep one hand on each knee and don’t move your hands!

  there were 2 men in the front seat and 2 in the back so I figured that I must have murdered somebody, somebody important.

  we drove along and then I forgot and reached up to scratch my nose.

  WATCH THAT HAND!!

  when we got to the office one of the agents pointed to a row of photos around the 4 walls.

  see those pictures? he asked sternly.

  I looked around at the photos, they were nicely framed but none of the faces came through to me.

  yes, I see the pictures, I told him.

  those are men who have been killed in the service of the F.B.I.

  I didn’t know what he expected me to say so I didn’t say anything.

  they took me into another room. there was a man behind the desk.

  WHERE’S YOUR UNCLE JOHN? he screamed at me.

  what? I asked.

  WHERE’S YOUR UNCLE JOHN?

  I didn’t know what he meant. for a minute I thought he meant I was carrying some kind of secret tool which I killed people with while I was drunk. I was nervous and nothing made any sense.