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
Storm for the Living and the Dead Page 9