You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 7

whiskers

  talking about

  war

  talking about the

  wars

  talking about the brave

  fish

  the bullfights

  even about his wives.

  the people

  come into the

  bar

  night after night

  for the same old

  show

  which he will one day

  end

  alone

  blowing his brains to

  the walls.

  the price of creation

  is never

  too high.

  the price of living

  with other people

  always

  is.

  friends within the darkness

  I can remember starving in a

  small room in a strange city

  shades pulled down, listening to

  classical music

  I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife

  inside

  because there was no alternative except to hide as long

  as possible—

  not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:

  trying to connect.

  the old composers—Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,

  Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and

  they were dead.

  finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into

  the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and

  monotonous

  jobs

  by strange men behind desks

  men without eyes men without faces

  who would take my hours

  break them

  piss on them.

  now I work for the editors the readers the

  critics

  but still hang around and drink with

  Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the

  Bee

  some buddies

  some men

  sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone

  are the dead

  rattling the walls

  that close us in.

  death sat on my knee and cracked with laughter

  I was writing three short stories a week

  and sending them to the Atlantic Monthly

  they would all come back.

  my money went for stamps and envelopes

  and paper and wine

  and I got so thin I used to

  suck my cheeks

  together

  and they’d meet over the top of my

  tongue (that’s when I thought about

  Hamsun’s Hunger—where he ate his own

  flesh; I once took a bite of my wrist

  but it was very salty).

  anyhow, one night in Miami Beach (I

  have no idea what I was doing in that

  city) I had not eaten in 60 hours

  and I took the last of my starving

  pennies

  went down to the corner grocery and

  bought a loaf of bread.

  I planned to chew each slice slowly—

  as if each were a slice of turkey

  or a luscious

  steak

  and I got back to my room and

  opened the wrapper and the

  slices of bread were green

  and mouldy.

  my party was not to be.

  I just dumped the bread upon the

  floor

  and I sat on that bed wondering about

  the green mould, the

  decay.

  my rent money was used up and

  I listened to all the sounds

  of all the people in that

  roominghouse

  and down on the floor were

  the dozens of stories with the

  dozens of Atlantic Monthly

  rejection slips.

  it was early evening and I

  turned out the light and

  went to bed and

  it wasn’t long before I

  heard the mice coming out,

  I heard them creeping over my

  immortal stories and

  eating the

  green mouldy bread.

  and in the morning

  when I awakened

  I saw that

  all that was left of the

  bread

  was the green

  mould.

  they had eaten right to the

  edge of the mould

  leaving chunks of

  it

  among the stories and

  rejection slips

  as I heard the sound of

  my landlady’s vacuum

  cleaner

  bumping down the

  hall

  slowly approaching my

  door.

  oh yes

  I’ve been so

  down in the mouth

  lately

  that sometimes when I

  bend over to

  lace my shoes

  there are

  three

  tongues.

  O tempora! O mores!

  I get these girly magazines in the mail because

  I’m writing short stories for them again

  and here in these pages are these ladies

  exposing their jewel boxes—

  it looks more like a gynecologist’s

  journal—

  everything boldly and clinically

  exposed

  beneath bland and bored physiognomies.

  it’s a turn-off of gigantic

  proportions:

  the secret is in the

  imagination—

  take that away and you have dead

  meat.

  a century back

  a man could be driven mad

  by a well-turned

  ankle, and

  why not?

  one could imagine

  that the rest

  would be

  magical

  indeed!

  now they shove it at us like a

  McDonald’s hamburger

  on a platter.

  there is hardly anything as beautiful as

  a woman in a long dress

  not even the sunrise

  not even the geese flying south

  in the long V formation

  in the bright freshness

  of early morning.

  the passing of a great one

  he was the only living writer I ever met who I truly

  admired and he was dying when I met

  him.

  (we in this game are shy on praise even toward

  those who do it very well, but I never had this

  problem with J.F.)

  I visited him several times at the

  hospital (there was never anybody else

  about) and upon entering his room

  I was never sure if he was asleep

  or?

  “John?”

  he was stretched there on that bed, blind

  and amputated:

  advanced

  diabetes.

  “John it’s

  Hank…”

  he would answer and then we would talk for

  a short bit (mostly he would talk and I would

  listen; after all, he was our mentor, our

  god):

  Ask the Dust

  Wait Until Spring, Bandini

  Dago Red

  all the others.

  to end up in Hollywood writing

  movie scripts

  that’s what killed

  him.

  “the worst thing,” he told me,

  “is bitterness, people end up so

  bitter.”

  he wasn’t bitter, although he had

  every right to

  be…

  at the funeral I

  met several of his script-writing

  buddies.

  “l
et’s write something about

  John,” one of them

  suggested.

  “I don’t think I can,” I

  told them.

  and, of course, they never

  did.

  the wine of forever

  re-reading some of Fante’s

  The Wine of Youth

  in bed

  this mid-afternoon

  my big cat

  BEAKER

  asleep beside

  me.

  the writing of some

  men

  is like a vast bridge

  that carries you

  over

  the many things

  that claw and tear.

  Fante’s pure and magic

  emotions

  hang on the simple

  clean

  line.

  that this man died

  one of the slowest and

  most horrible deaths

  that I ever witnessed or

  heard

  about…

  the gods play no

  favorites.

  I put the book down

  beside me.

  book on one side,

  cat on the

  other…

  John, meeting you,

  even the way it

  was was the event of my

  life. I can’t say

  I would have died for

  you, I couldn’t have handled

  it that well.

  but it was good to see you

  again

  this

  afternoon.

  true

  one of Lorca’s best lines

  is,

  “agony, always

  agony…”

  think of this when you

  kill a

  cockroach or

  pick up a razor to

  shave

  or awaken in the morning

  to

  face the

  sun.

  Glenn Miller

  long ago

  across from the campus

  in the malt shop

  the juke box going

  the young girls perfectly in tune

  dancing with the football players

  and the college bright boys

  Glenn Miller was the big thing then

  and everybody stepped

  almost everybody

  I sat with a couple of disciples

  we were supposed to be outlaws

  the explorers of Truth

  but I liked the music

  and the laziness of waiting

  as the world rushed toward war

  as Hitler speechified

  the girls whirled

  graceful

  showing leg

  that last bright sunshine

  we warmed ourselves in it

  shutting away everything else

  while the universe opened its mouth

  in an attempt to

  swallow us all.

  Emily Bukowski

  my grandmother always attended the sunrise

  Easter service

  and the Rose Bowl

  parade.

  she also liked to go to the

  beach, sit on those benches

  facing the sea.

  she thought movies were

  sinful.

  she ate enormous platefuls of

  food.

  she prayed for me

  constantly.

  “poor boy: the devil is inside

  of you.”

  she said the devil was

  inside her husband

  too.

  though not divorced

  they lived

  separately

  and had not seen each

  other

  for 15 years.

  she said that hospitals were

  nonsense

  she never used them

  or

  the doctors.

  at 87

  she died one evening

  while feeding her

  canary.

  she liked to

  drop the seed

  into the cage

  while making these

  little

  bird sounds.

  she wasn’t very

  interesting

  but few people

  are.

  some suggestions

  in addition to the envy and the rancor of some of

  my peers

  there is the other thing, it comes by telephone and

  letter: “you are the world’s greatest living

  writer.”

  this doesn’t please me either because somehow

  I believe that to be the world’s greatest living

  writer

  there must be something

  terribly wrong with you.

  I don’t even want to be the world’s greatest

  dead writer.

  just being dead would be fair

  enough.

  also, the word “writer” is a very tiresome

  word.

  just think how much more pleasing it would be

  to hear:

  you are the world’s greatest pool

  player

  or

  you are the world’s greatest

  fucker

  or

  you are the world’s greatest

  horseplayer.

  now

  that

  would really make

  a man feel

  good.

  invasion

  I didn’t know that

  there was anything

  in the closet

  although some nights

  my sleep would be

  interrupted by strange

  rumblings

  but

  I always thought

  these to be

  minor

  quakes.

  the closet was

  the one

  down the hall

  and

  was seldom

  used.

  the curious thing

  for me

  was that

  the cats

  (I had 4 of

  them)

  appeared to be

  leaving

  large

  droppings

  about

  (and

  they were

  house-broken).

  then

  the cats

  vanished

  one by

  one

  but the fresh

  droppings

  kept

  appearing.

  it was one night

  while I was

  reading the

  stock market

  quotations

  that I

  looked up

  and

  there stood

  the

  lion

  in the bedroom

  doorway.

  I was

  in bed

  propped up

  with a

  couple of

  pillows

  and drinking a

  hot

  chocolate.

  now

  nobody

  can believe

  a lion

  in a

  bedroom—

  at least

  not

  in a city

  of any

  size.

  so

  I just kept

  looking at the

  lion

  and not

  quite

  believing.

  then

  it turned and

  walked down the

  stairway.

  I

  followed it—

  a good

  18 feet

  behind—

  clutching my

  baseball bat

  in one

  hand

&
nbsp; and my

  4-inch knife

  in the

  other.

  I watched the

  lion

  go down the

  stairway

  then walk

  across the front

  room

  it paused

  before the large

  plate glass

  sliding

  doors

  which faced the

  yard and the

  street.

  they were

  closed.

  the lion

  emitted an

  impatient

  growl

  and

  leaped through the

  glass

  crashing through

  into the

  night.

  I sat

  on the couch

  in the

  dark

  still unable

  to believe

  what

  I had

  seen.

  then

  I heard

  a scream

  of such utter

  agony and

  terror

  that

  for a

  moment

  I could

  neither

  see

  breathe nor

  comprehend.

  I rose,

  turned to

  barricade myself

  in the

  bedroom

  only to see

  3 small

  lion cubs

  trundling

  down

  the stairway—

  cute

  devilish

  felines

  as the

  mother

  returned

  through the

  night and the

  shattered glass

  door

  half dragging

  half carrying

  a bloodied

  man

  across the

  rug

  leaving a

  red

  trail

  the cubs

  rushed

  forward

  and the