Storm for the Living and the Dead Read online

then my doctor was gone and my biographer was gone too

  and I was $97 ahead.

  down at Del Mar they have that short stretch and they

  come wailing off that last curve, and the water from the

  fountains tastes like piss.

  if my liver was gone it was gone; something always went

  first and then the remainder followed. some parade.

  it wasn’t true, though, it depended upon the part.

  I knew some people without minds who were blossoms of

  health.

  I lost the last race and drove on in lucky enough to

  get some Shostakovich on the radio

  and when you figure 6:20 P.M. on an AM radio

  that’s drawing a king to ace, queen, jack, ten . . .

  and the trivial lives of royalty never excited me either . . .

  I never minded getting wet, often I would come into

  places during a rain and somebody would say: “You’re

  WET!” as if I had no understanding of the circumstances.

  but it seems that I am almost always in trouble with

  most minds: “do you know that you haven’t combed your

  hair in the back?”

  “your left shoe is untied . . .”

  “I think your watch is five minutes slow . . .”

  “your car needs a wash . . .”

  when they drop that first bomb around here they’ll

  know why I’ve ignored everything to begin with.

  the raindrops of myself finally gone wandering

  nowhere

  say like the Boston Strangler.

  or like all the little girls with their little

  curls

  sitting and waiting.

  letter to a friend with a domestic problem:

  Hello Carl:

  don’t worry about your wife running away from you

  she just didn’t understand you.

  I got a flat tire on the freeway today

  and had to change the wheel with these coke-

  heads breezing their Maseratis past my

  ass.

  the main thing is to just go about your business

  and keep doing what you have to do, or better—

  what you want to do.

  I was in the dentist’s office the other day

  and I read this medical journal

  and it said

  all you got to do

  is to live until the year 2020 A.D. and then

  if you have enough money

  when your body dies they can transplant your

  brain into a fleshless body that gives you

  eyesight and movement—like you can ride a

  bicycle or anything like that and also you

  don’t have to bother with urinating or defe-

  cating or eating—you just get this little

  tank of blood in the top of your head filled

  about once a month—it’s kind of like oil

  to the brain.

  and don’t worry, there’s even sex, they say,

  only it’s a little different (haha) you can

  ride her until she begs you to get off!

  (she’ll only leave you because of too much

  instead of too little.)

  that’s the fleshless transplant bit.

  but there’s another alternative: they can

  transplant your brain into a living body

  whose brain has been removed so that there

  will be space for yours.

  only the cost for this will be more

  prohibitive

  as they will have to locate a body

  a living body somewhere

  say like in a madhouse or a prison or

  off the street somewhere—maybe a kidnap—

  and although these bodies will be better,

  more realistic, they won’t last as long as

  the fleshless body which can go on about

  500 years before need of replacement.

  so it’s all a matter of choice, what you

  care for, or what you can afford.

  when you get into the living body it isn’t going

  to last as long—they say about 110 years by

  2020 A.D.—and then you’re going to have to find

  a living body replacement (again) or go for one

  of the fleshless jobs.

  generally, it is inferred in this article I read

  in my dentist’s office, if you’re not so rich

  you go for the fleshless job but

  if you’re still heavy into funds you

  go for the living-body type all over again.

  (the living-body types have some advantages

  as you’ll be able to fool most of the street

  people and also

  the sex life is more realistic although

  shorter.)

  Carl, I am not giving this thing exactly as

  it was written but I am transferring all that

  medical mumbo-jumbo down into something that we

  can understand,

  but do you think dentists ought to have crap like

  this

  lying around on their tables?

  anyhow, probably by the time you get this letter

  your old lady will be back with you.

  anyhow, Carl, I kept reading on

  and this guy went on to say that

  in both the brain transplants into the

  living body and into the fleshless body

  something else would happen to these people who

  had enough money to do these transfer tricks:

  the computerized knowledge of the centuries would be

  fed into the brain—and any way you wanted to go

  you could go: you’d be able to paint like

  Rembrandt or Picasso,

  conquer like Caesar. you could do all the things

  those and others like them had done

  only better.

  you’d be more brilliant than Einstein—

  there would be very little that you could not do

  and maybe the next body around you

  could do that.

  it gets rather dizzifying about there—

  the guy goes on

  he’s kind of like those guys in their

  Maseratis on coke; he goes on to say

  in his rather technical and hidden language that

  this is not Science Fiction

  this is the opening of a door of horror and wonder

  never wondered of before and he says that the

  Last War of Man will be between the transplanted

  computer-fed rich and of the non-rich who are

  the Many

  who will finally resent being screwed out of

  immortality

  and the rich will want to protect it

  forever

  and

  that

  in the end

  the computer-fed rich will win the last

  War of Man (and

  Woman).

  then he goes on to say that the next New

  War will take shape as the

  Immortal fights the Immortal

  and what will follow will be an

  exemplary

  occurrence

  so that Time as we know it

  gives up.

  now, that’s some shit, isn’t it,

  Carl?

  I would like to say

  that in the light of all this

  that your wife running away doesn’t mean

  much

  but I know it does

  I only thought I’d let you know

  that other things could happen.

  meanwhile, things aren’t good here

  either.

  your buddy,

  Hank

  agnostic

  read the other day

  where a man wanted to exorcise the devil

 
out of his two children

  so he tied them to a floor furnace and

  roasted them to death.

  I suppose that to believe in the devil

  you have to believe in God

  first.

  I was taught to capitalize “God”

  and some would say

  that since I do that

  is proof enough.

  meanwhile, I use my Furnace to keep

  warm

  and I stay out of

  Arguments.

  clones

  he told me, I had loaned this guy

  200.

  then he vanished.

  I heard he went to Europe.

  I figured not to worry about

  it: the money was

  gone.

  no use losing your god damned

  sleep, I said.

  anyhow, he continued, I was in

  the clubhouse the other night

  at the harness meet.

  I was in a betting line and I

  saw this guy two lines

  over.

  and he looked like the guy you

  loaned the 2 centuries to? I

  asked.

  right, he answered, Mike, he

  looked like Mike.

  only Mike was always well-

  dressed and polished,

  this guy was in old clothes,

  he had a dirty beard and was

  red-eyed like some

  cheap wino.

  I gotta cut down on my

  drinking, I said.

  anyhow, it so happened we

  both finished our bets at

  about the same time.

  I walked off.

  no use losing your sleep,

  I said.

  then, he continued, I felt

  a pull at my elbow.

  “Marty,” he said and handed

  me the 200.

  a most stunning occurrence, I said.

  yeah, said Marty, I thanked him

  then went out to watch the

  race.

  sure, I said.

  well, he continued, I won that

  race.

  and as the night went on I won

  a few more.

  it was a good night for

  me.

  when you’re hot, I said, you’re

  hot.

  anyhow, he went on, just before

  the last race this guy came up

  to me and he said, “hey, Marty,

  I’ve hit the wall, lend me a

  fifty.”

  yeah? I asked.

  yeah, he said, now listen to

  this good. first we had this

  guy who looked like Mike only

  he looked more like a cheap

  wino, right?

  right, I said.

  o.k., he said, now this guy

  looked like the guy who looked

  like Mike only he didn’t quite

  look like the guy who looked like

  Mike, it was more like he was

  pretending to look like the guy

  who looked like Mike.

  everybody seems to get to look

  alike after 8 or 9 races, I

  said.

  right, said Marty, so I told

  him, “I don’t know you.”

  I placed a 50 buck win bet on

  the 4 horse, then

  took the escalator down

  to the parking lot.

  no use losing your god damned

  sleep, I said.

  I didn’t, he said, I went home,

  drank a pint of Cutty Sark

  and slept ’til noon.

  gnawed by dull crisis

  it’s not easy

  sending out these rockets to

  nowhere.

  I keep burning my fingers,

  get spots of light before my

  eyes.

  the cats stare at me.

  the calendar falls from the wall.

  I need an easy midnight in the

  Bahamas.

  I need to watch

  waterfalls of glory.

  I need a maiden’s fingers to

  tie my shoes.

  I need the dream

  the sweet blue dream

  the sweet green dream

  the tall lavender dream.

  I need the easy walk to Paradise.

  I need to laugh the way I used to laugh.

  I need to watch a good movie in a dark room.

  I need to be a good movie in a dark room.

  I want to borrow some of the natural courage

  of the tiger.

  I want to walk down alleys of China while

  drunk.

  I want to machinegun the swallow.

  I want to drink wine with the assassins.

  I wonder where Clark Gable’s false teeth are

  tonight?

  I want John Fante to have legs and eyes again.

  I know that the dogs will come to

  tear the meat from the bones.

  how can we sit about and watch baseball games?

  as I think about seizing the heavens

  a fly whirls around and around in this

  room.

  I been working on the railroad . . .

  the Great Editor said he wanted to meet me

  in person before he published my book.

  he said most writers were sons of bitches

  and that he just didn’t want to print anybody

  who was

  so since he paid the train fare

  I went on down there to

  New Orleans

  where I lived around the corner from him

  in a small room.

  the Great Editor lived in a cellar with a

  printing press, his wife and two

  dogs.

  the Great Editor also published a famous

  literary magazine

  but my projected book

  would be his first try at

  that.

  he survived on the magazine, on luck, on

  handouts.

  each night I ate dinner with the Great

  Editor and his wife (my only meal and

  probably theirs too).

  then we’d drink beer until midnight

  when I’d go to my small room

  open a bottle of wine and begin

  typing.

  he said he didn’t have enough

  poems.

  “I need more poems,” he said.

  he had caught up on my back poems

  and as I wrote the new poems he

  printed them.

  I was writing directly into the

  press.

  around noon each day I’d go around

  the corner

  knock on the window

  and see the Great Editor

  feeding pages of my poems

  into the press.

  the Great Editor was also the Great

  Publisher, the Great Printer and a

  many Great Number of Other Things,

  and I was practically the unknown

  poet so it was all quite

  strange.

  anyhow, I would wave the pages at

  him and he would stop the press

  and let me in.

  he’d sit and read the poems:

  “hmmm . . . good . . . why don’t you

  come to dinner tonight?”

  then I’d leave.

  some noons I’d knock on the

  window

  without any poems

  and the Great Editor would stare

  at me as if I were a

  giant roach.

  he wouldn’t open the door.

  “GO AWAY!” I could hear him scream

  through the window, “GO AWAY AND

  DON’T COME BACK UNTIL YOU HAVE

  SOME POEMS!”

  he would be genuinely angry

  and it puz
zled me: he expected

  4 or 5 poems from me

  each day.

  I’d stop somewhere for a couple of

  six-packs

  go back to my room

  and begin to type.

  the afternoon beer always tasted

  good and I’d come up with

  some poems . . .

  take them back

  knock on the window

  wave the pages.

  the Great Editor would smile

  pleasantly

  open the door

  take the pages

  sit down and read them:

  “umm . . . ummm . . . these are

  good . . . why don’t you drop by

  for dinner tonight?”

  and in between the afternoon

  and the evening

  I’d go back to my room

  and sign more and more

  colophons.

  the pages were thick, heavily

  grained, expensive,

  designed to last

  2,000 years.

  the signings were slow and

  laborious

  written out with a special

  pen . . .

  thousands of colophons

  and as I got drunker

  to keep from going

  altogether crazy

  I began making drawings

  and

  statements . . .

  when I finished signing the

  colos

  the stack of pages stood

  six feet tall

  in the center of the

  room.

  as I said,

  it was a very strange time

  for an unknown writer.

  he said it to me one

  night:

  “Chinaski, you’ve ruined

  poetry for me . . . since I’ve

  read you I just can’t read

  anything else . . .”

  high praise, indeed, but I

  knew what he meant.

  each day his wife stood

  on the street corners

  trying to sell paintings,

  her paintings and the paintings

  of other painters.

  she was a beautiful and

  fiery woman.

  finally, the book was done.

  that is, except for the binding;

  the Great Editor couldn’t do

  the binding, he had to pay for

  the binding part and that

  pissed him.

  but our job was done,

  his and mine,

  and the Great Editor and

  his wife put me on the train