More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

by Charles Bukowski

  “Jeez, that’s rough . . . Steve’s been staying with me. He lost the key to your place.”

  “Hell, they didn’t need a key! Has Steve been working on his life story?”

  “Mostly, I guess, he’s been living it.”

  “Could you put him on the phone?”

  They spoke in rapid French. Cosmos waved his free arm. His pink face became red. They yelled at each other for five or six minutes. Then Steve hung up.

  “He’s like a father! He wants me to write! I’m no writer! He’s going to stand behind me! Can you write with somebody standing behind you?”

  “Not unless it’s death.”

  “It’s terrible with him! Each day he asks me, ‘How many pages did you write?’”

  “Writing’s like fucking,” I told him, “you have to want to do it and then sometimes you fail.”

  “I don’t even want to fuck. Afterwards you have a woman around. What do you do with her? I jack-off! I jack-off to the walls!”

  “Well, anyhow, Steve, father wants you back.”

  “You got any more beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Cosmos drank four bottles of beer, got into his Mexican Special, backed out the drive and was gone. A lucky day for me: two writers in one house were one too many.

  Now I could get something done. I took out a coin. Heads I jacked-off, tails I wrote.

  I flipped the coin. I landed tails.

  I walked in toward the typewriter.

  Well, you couldn’t have all your luck in one day.

  Somehow Jean got Steve to writing. I didn’t see him at the track anymore. Jean came over with the cameras and the sound equipment one day and we wrapped up the documentary. We drank beer and wine and sat outside and I said things. Responded mainly to questions. My 12 years in the post office, jive-assing with the blacks had taught me how to bullshit my way through. The neighborhood children tossed rocks at us. Some of their parents had informed them that I was an evil man. I drank and wrote dirty stories and lived with women half my age. Why should that bother them?

  Afterwards, as the rocks got larger, we went inside. Sasoon showed me some of the pages Cosmos had written. They were quite good. Not the writing but the content. Lively and full of madness. And it was written in English. I had no idea why and didn’t ask.

  “You’ve got some good crap here,” I told Cosmos.

  He really liked that. He showed it.

  “Thank you, my friend.”

  “Good writers watch other people live,” I told him. “Great writers live and watch other people live.”

  “What do bad writers do?”

  “Make money.”

  We drank a bit more and then everybody left. Well, not everybody. I was still there. I was a good writer, a great writer and a bad writer. And pretty fair with the horses.

  Let’s get rolling: some months went by. Sometimes I saw Cosmos at the track. Sometimes not. He was going through a series of girlfriends. I met some of them. Seemed nice. They all had good jobs, it seemed. But he borrowed money from them, lost it at the track, couldn’t pay it back. The girls dropped away. Cosmos put an ad in the paper stating that he wanted to marry a woman with at least five children. He got many reponses and interviewed a great many women. He couldn’t find the right one.

  “They were all too fat,” he told me.

  “Why do you want a woman with so many children?”

  “It’s when you lose after gambling. You’ve got something to come home to.”

  “When I lose, all I want to see is a bottle, I don’t want anybody around,” I told him.

  “No, it’s nice to have somebody to come home to who doesn’t treat you like a loser.”

  “They will after canned beans and peanut-butter sandwiches.”

  Cosmos finished his life story. They brought it over to me. I read it. It was very interesting. But a total maze. It needed work. They asked me if I might. I told them I couldn’t. I was in my own maze.

  It was all right. They got some guy. A scriptwriter, temporarily down. Leland LaCrosse. LaCrosse came over and we got totally drunk. LaCrosse claimed Copalla had fucked him over. Copalla owed him money. He was going to sue Copalla. LaCrosse was a very depressed person. He talked about Schopenhauer, he loved Schopenhauer. LaCrosse talked about suicide. He discussed suicide at some length. He talked sense, he was intelligent, but he was bogged down in self-pity. Depressed men seldom crashed through. Sometimes disgusted men did because when you’re disgusted it elevates the frame of battle to some logical confrontation. Anyhow, LaCrosse agreed to straighten out the Cosmos script. I liked that: reworking Steve’s script would have depressed me.

  LaCrosse phoned me one night.

  “I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to cut my wrists.”

  “That’s very painful,” I said. “As the blood runs out there will be spasms and contractions. To avoid this get into a tub of very warm water first and after you slice your wrists, hold them under water and stay that way with your body immersed. You’ll find it almost painless.”

  LaCrosse hung up on me.

  Evidently he didn’t do it. The script got reworked.

  Sasoon phoned.

  “I’m going to Paris. I’m going to set this thing up. We’re going to shoot on a very limited budget. As soon as I’m ready I’m going to send Steve an airline ticket. Meanwhile, he’s on his allowance. Keep an eye on him.”

  “Sure, Jean . . .”

  Things got lined up and Sasoon sent Cosmos the money for an airline ticket. Cosmos took the money and went down and purchased the ticket. He was to get a bit part in his own movie. It was to be shot in a famous casino where Steve was not yet in trouble. And best, it wasn’t in France. Just near France.

  Steve phoned. “You know,” he said, “you always said I could stay for a week or two—”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking, but you already have.

  “I’ve got to close this place down and then wait to fly over. I don’t want to go now. Jean will put me to work doing some asshole thing. I don’t want to go until they’re ready to shoot. So—”

  “All right,” I sighed, “it’s all right, Steve.”

  So again I had a companion with me at the track everyday.

  “I have my allowance,” he told me.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Whoever wins,” he said, “buys the dinner.”

  “Right.”

  First time out, he finally won. I got a dinner.

  The next time, it wasn’t so. Or the time after that. Or the time after that. Or the time . . .

  “I don’t care if I win or lose,” he told me, “I just want to gamble.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I can only talk to a gambler,” he told me. “Nobody else knows anything.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Seven or eight days went by.

  “If Jean calls tell him I’m not here. Tell him you think I took the plane.”

  “Aren’t you going to?”

  “The other day when I told you I was going to visit LaCrosse, I didn’t. I went to the airport and cashed in the plane ticket.”

  “I wondered where you got the new money.”

  “Tomorrow I will hit it big,” he said.

  Then he told me that some day he was going to live in a castle with a woman with many children. He would grow his own food. He would have hunting dogs and stock fine wines.

  “Do you have any of the plane-ticket money left?”

  “Very little. But I feel I’m due for a big hit tomorrow.

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Each tomorrow was the same. Finally, he tapped out. He was standing next to me and he said, “My horse got left at the gate. That’s it. I’m broke.”

  We walked over to the bar and I bought him a drink. You hated to lend a sum of money to a bad gambler; horses just weren’t his horsemeat. It was the last race and I handed him a 20 and suggested he consider Night Fire, who was reading five to one. After I spoke,
I knew I had said the wrong thing: I had talked him off of a possible winner. He went for a $20 exacta, Slim Bim to Night Fire. Of course they came in in reverse.

  As we drove toward his favorite eating place, I thought, son of a bitch, this fellow may be living with me for the rest of my life. He’s a fine sort. Inventive. Original in his way. Quite aware of death. Well-lived. He got a little loud and stupid when drunk but we all did. But to live a lifetime? With this buddy? I was used to solitude. Even when I had been a bum I had avoided the missions, preferred the park bench, the alley, anywhere but being with the mob. Being alone was all I had going for me when things got very ugly, it was the only thing which healed me.

  Frankly, I was terrified.

  “Life is for nothing,” he said as we drove along . . .

  We had our two opening rounds of drinks at the table and Steve loosened his charm upon the waitress. I was downcast and ordered as if I were the loser. Then I ordered another round of drinks.

  Steve looked at me.

  “Gamblers understand,” he said.

  “What do they understand?”

  “Everything . . .”

  That night at the place, I poured the wine heavily. Steve took out an expensive cigar and lit up.

  “I’m all right,” he said, “as long as I don’t run out of these I’m all right. As long as I have my cigar I will make it.”

  “How they holding out?”

  “Ho! I have many yet!”

  Steve Cosmos was a class act.

  The next day, after breakfast, he asked, “You going to the track today?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Listen, Steve, how’d you like to earn some money?”

  “Earn?”

  I took him out to the parkway in front of the house.

  “Look at those weeds.”

  “I see them, ugly things.”

  “Yes, you’re a landscape artist. Do you have some method of getting them of there?”

  “Well—”

  “Fifteen dollars an hour—”

  “Eighteen—”

  “You’re on . . .”

  I really felt terrible as I pulled out the drive that morning about Steve. I felt like a hunk of shit. I felt like a man acting in bad style. I probably was.

  I waved to him and drove off to the track.

  As I looked in the rearview mirror he was leaning upon the hoe, contemplating . . .

  I had gotten a cable from Sasoon:

  “Where’s Steve? Phoned the place, no answer. Phoned your place, you do not answer. Ready to begin shooting film. Sent money for air ticket to Steve. Urgent he get here. Reply.

  Jean”

  It looked like a good card out there. Small fields. I liked small fields. But it wasn’t any good: I lost.

  When I got back in, Cosmos was well into a beer-drunk. I had a closet full of Budweiser.

  He looked up from his cigar.

  “I got the weeds. Come, I show you.”

  We walked out front. He had done quite well.

  “There will be no weeds for a year now. You will see.”

  But he had left one little square of weeds, neatly blocked off, a square of about two feet by four.

  “This still needs to be done.”

  Steve knew as I did, that if we didn’t get those out of there all the other work was wasted.

  I gave him $140.

  Then we went out to dinner.

  Need I tell you? We lost it out there the next day. We stopped for a new case of wine on the way in and popped it open upon arrival at the place. We shared a bottle, went out to eat. We tried a new place. The waiter went off for our drinks. The place had piped-in music. When the waiter came back with our libations, Cosmos spoke to him.

  “I insist you either get better music in here or shut it off!”

  Steve had upbringing. I had come from a lower-middle-class family.

  “Steve, do you want to get that plot of weeds tomorrow?”

  “If you insist.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “It might take some time. The roots are deeply imbedded.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “Eighteen an hour?”

  “Raise you two,” I said.

  “I’ll call . . .”

  As the days went on Steve switched to the inner garden. I played the horses in the day and he played them at night. We had some drinks when he came in. Our new pattern was established. When he finished the garden I’d have him paint the house.

  I cabled Sasoon to go ahead and shoot the parts without Cosmos.

  Then one night Cosmos didn’t return from the harness races. I drank a couple of bottles of wine, wrote four bad poems and two good ones. It was just like old times. I figured Steve was laying up with some new girl. I was glad for him.

  About 10 A.M. I came down the stairway for something for my hangover and noticed that the guest bedroom door was open. Cosmos had neatly made the bed and upon it was a note:

  “Ank,

  I hit a big exacta last night. Know a guy who wants to buy my car. Am flying over to movie location. I have money for the ticket. I will now be a great movie star. Thanks for letting me stay at your place and for all the good wine.

  Steve.”

  The note made me feel ashamed. I had been so cheap. Steve had pulled it out. I was not very much. I had some way to go. Growing was difficult, I did it so slowly and the years were running out.

  How do you say it? Some weeks went by. Then there was a letter from Sasoon:

  “Dear Hank:

  Steve arrived. His part in the movie is to be the director of the casino. We shoot in the daytime. Then at night when the casino opens Steve still thinks he’s the director at the casino. He cheats openly at the tables and demands his money. Since we use the casino employees in the movie during the day there is some confusion. Also, since he is not a writer and an actor he has met some of the people and borrowed money from them. You know what that means. He gave one man a very large check in exchange for funds. The check bounced, came back. The man showed it to Steve and Steve insisted that there must be some mistake, he’s going to check with his bank, it’s impossible that the check is no good . . .

  Everything else is a mess, too. We are running out of funds. At first we hired the regular people who played the casino at night to act in our movie during the day. Now we must pick up the bums from the street and dress them in proper clothing, which we rent, but it’s cheaper that way—and they look just the same as the regular people.

  Also, the wife of the biggest producer backing this movie has fallen in love with Steve. She threatens to leave the producer for Steve, and since the producer doesn’t want to lose her, they all rather live together, eat together, all that. She is a beautiful and intelligent woman. They go to the gaming tables together and Steve is totally insane, grabbing chips, spilling drinks over himself, shouting passages from Schopenhauer, vomiting upon ladies’ dresses, exclaiming that Death is Everywhere, that it is crawling through his intestines like shit, that everything is shit. He is now the brilliant writer-actor. He has been interviewed for several journals but insists that they don’t take his photograph, says a camera would destroy his soul, most likely means his ass . . .

  Will let you know as more unfolds.

  Best,

  Jean”

  All right, skip two months. Like that. Did you do it? Fine.

  There’s another letter from Sasoon. He’s in Paris.

  “Dear Hank:

  We finished the movie. Much trouble with shooting Steve. I’d tell him to talk there, say this, then he’d do something else. It kept on and on. It was terrible. But we finished. And since Barbette played the female lead we were all right there. Now editing the film. Steve stayed to be with the producer’s wife.

  Good luck with your documentary. A major TV station bought it. They are going to show it on prime time. Every night. But they want it broken up into segments of six minutes or less. Much work to be done there but we have fourtee
n hours of you and ought to get some good segments out of it.

  With Steve things are not going as well with the producer’s wife as before. She stays with the producer at night in the villa and meets Steve secretly during the day. Steve has borrowed too much money from her which he can’t repay. And he has been barred from the casino. I send him bits of money when I can.

  He writes me, ‘Since I have become a writer and an actor I am more broke than I have ever been. I have holes in the bottoms of my shoes and I sleep with the bums at night on the park benches. I know each of them by name. When it rains we try to hang out in the train station but the police run us off. I am at the absolute bottom, completely dissolute and destitute, and as full of despair, I guess, as a man can get. I am too spiritually weak and inept to even kill myself. If I killed myself where would they put me? Just on another park bench in hell . . . There is no escape from anything. I don’t even have the ability to go mad.’”

  Poor Steve. I had never gotten the story quite straight because I had heard it from both Steve and Jean, and both times during heavy drinking, but it translates something like this:

  As a young man Steve Cosmos had entered a casino with a small sum of money and he had no idea how the game worked. He had walked up to the wheel and placed a wager. He won. He just left the money there. And won again and again. I mean, he left the chips there, you know. He still left them there when he went to the men’s room, and when he came back he had won an enormous sum: $19,000. Does this seem possible? Or maybe I don’t have it quite right. I remember the sum, though: $19,000. Cosmos went to the cage to collect and they asked him if he wanted a check or cash. He took the cash.

  There was a very handsome woman about that night and Steve mentioned to somebody that he wanted that woman. That somebody told him that that was impossible, that that simply was not that kind of woman. He told this somebody that he would give this woman $2,000 for her favors. They went up to a room in the casino and that was that. Steve was hooked. He hung around casinos. He met some con artists. They went from casino to casino doing their tricks. Cosmos told me many of them which I don’t have the freedom to divulge here. Except one. They had an electronically controlled roulette ball which they could make drop into any number. The button was operated from a fake package of cigarettes. All they had to do was switch balls, which was easy enough to do with a screen of distraction and fast hands. The ball was very delicate, however, and one night during a good run it exploded. They left their winnings there for a quick exit.