On Drinking

by Charles Bukowski

  brewed and filled by . . .

  everything

  in my beercan hand

  is sad,

  the dirt is even

  sad

  under my fingernails,

  and this hand

  is like the hand of a

  machine

  and yet

  it is not—

  it curves itself completely

  (an effort containing magic)

  around the

  beercan

  in a movement the same as

  roots

  pounding a gladiola

  up into the sun of air,

  and the beer

  goes into me.

  From

  Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts

  I was shacked with another one. We were on the 2nd floor of a court and I was working. That’s what almost killed me, drinking all night and working all day. I kept throwing a bottle through the same window. I used to take that window down to a glass place at the corner and get it fixed, get a pane of glass put in. Once a week I did this. The man looked at me very strangely but he always took my money which looked all right to him. I’d been drinking heavily, steadily for 15 years, and one morning I woke up and there it was: blood streaming out of my mouth and ass. Black turds. Blood, blood, waterfalls of blood. Blood stinks worse than shit. She called a doctor and the ambulance came after me. The attendants said I was too big to carry down the steps and asked me to walk down. “O.k., men,” I said. “Glad to oblige—don’t want you to work too hard.” Outside I got onto the stretcher; they opened it for me and I climbed on like a wilted flower. One hell of a flower. The neighbors had their heads out the windows, they stood on their steps as I went by. They saw me drunk most of the time. “Look, Mabel,” one of them said, “there goes that horrible man!” “God have mercy on his soul!” the answer came. Good old Mabel. I let go a mouthful of red over the edge of the stretcher and somebody went OOOOOhhhhhhooooh.

  Even though I was working I didn’t have any money so it was back to the charity ward. The ambulance was packed. They had shelves in the ambulance and everybody was everywhere. “Full house,” said the driver, “let’s go.” It was a bad ride. We swayed, we tilted. I made every effort to hold the blood in as I didn’t want to get anybody stinking. “Oh,” I heard a Negro woman’s voice, “I can’t believe this is happening to me, I can’t believe it, oh God help me!”

  God gets pretty popular in places like that.

  They put me in a dark basement and somebody gave me something in a glass of water and that was that. Every now and then I would vomit some blood into the bedpan. There were four or five of us down there. One of the men was drunk—and insane—but he seemed strong. He got off his cot and wandered around, stumbled around, falling across the other men, knocking things over, “Wa wa was, I am wawa the joba, I am juba I am jumma jubba wasta, I am juba.” I grabbed the water pitcher to hit him with but he never came near me. He finally fell down in a corner and passed out. I was in the basement all night and until noon the next day. Then they moved me upstairs. The ward was overloaded. They put me in a dark corner. “Ooh, he’s gonna die in that dark corner,” one of the nurses said. “Yeah,” said the other one.

  I got up one night and couldn’t make it to the can. I heaved blood all over the middle of the floor. I fell down and was too weak to get up. I called for a nurse but the doors to the ward were covered with tin and three to six inches thick and they couldn’t hear. A nurse came by about once every two hours to check for corpses. They rolled a lot of dead out at night. I couldn’t sleep and used to watch them. Slip a guy off the bed and pull him onto the roller and pull the sheet over his head. Those rollers were well oiled. I hollered, “Nurse!” not knowing especially why. “Shut up!” one of the old men told me, “we want to sleep.” I passed out.

  When I came to all the lights were on. Two nurses were trying to pick me up. “I told you not to get out of bed,” one of them said. I couldn’t talk. Drums were in my head. I felt hollowed out. It seemed as if I could hear everything, but I couldn’t see, only flares of light, it seemed. But no panic, fear; only a sense of waiting, waiting for anything and not caring.

  “You’re too big,” one of them said, “get in this chair.”

  They put me in the chair and slid me along the floor. I didn’t feel like more than six pounds.

  Then they were around me: people. I remember a doctor in a green gown, an operating gown. He seemed angry. He was talking to the head nurse.

  “Why hasn’t this man had a transfusion? He’s down to . . . c.c.’s.”

  “His papers passed through downstairs while I was upstairs and then they were filed before I saw them. And, besides Doctor, he doesn’t have any blood credit.”

  “I want some blood up here and I want it up here NOW!”

  “Who the hell is this guy,” I thought, “very odd. Very strange for a doctor.”

  They started the transfusions—nine pints of blood and eight of glucose.

  A nurse tried to feed me roast beef with potatoes and peas and carrots for my first meal. She put the tray before me.

  “Hell, I can’t eat this,” I told her, “this would kill me!”

  “Eat it,” she said, “it’s on your list, it’s on your diet.”

  “Bring me some milk,” I said.

  “You eat that,” she said, and walked away.

  I left it there.

  Five minutes later she came running into the ward.

  “Don’t EAT THAT!” she screamed, “you can’t HAVE THAT!! There’s been a mistake on the list!”

  She carried it away and came back with a glass of milk.

  As soon as the first bottle of blood emptied into me they sat me up on a roller and took me down to the x-ray room. The doctor told me to stand up. I kept falling over backwards.

  “GOD DAMN IT,” he screamed, “YOU MADE ME RUIN ANOTHER FILM! NOW STAND THERE AND DON’T FALL DOWN!”

  I tried but I couldn’t stand up. I fell over backwards.

  “Oh shit,” he said to the nurse, “take him away.”

  Easter Sunday the Salvation Army band played right under our window at 5 A.M. They played horrible religious music, played it badly and loudly, and it swamped me, ran through me, almost murdered me. I felt as close to death that morning as I have ever felt. It was an inch away, a hair away. Finally they left for another part of the grounds and I began to climb back toward life. I would say that that morning they probably killed a half dozen captives with their music.

  Then my father showed with my whore. She was drunk and I knew he had given her money for drink and deliberately brought her before me drunk in order to make me unhappy. The old man and I were enemies of long standing—everything I believed in he disbelieved and the other way around. She swayed over my bed, red-faced and drunk.

  “Why did you bring her like that?” I asked. “Why didn’t you wait until another day?”

  “I told you she was no good! I always told you she was no good!”

  “You got her drunk and then brought her here. Why do you keep knifing me?”

  “I told you she was no good, I told you, I told you!”

  “You son of a bitch, one more word out of you and I’m going to take this needle out of my arm and get up and whip the shit out of you!”

  He took her by the arm and they left.

  I guess they had phoned them that I was going to die. I was continuing to hemorrhage. That night the priest came.

  “Father,” I said, “no offense, but please, I’d like to die without any rites, without any words.”

  I was surprised then because he swayed and rocked in disbelief; it was almost as if I had hit him. I say I was surprised because I thought those boys had more cool than that. But then, they wipe their asses too.

  “Father, talk to me,” an old man said, “you can talk to me.”

  The priest went over to the old man and everybody was happy.

  Thirteen days f
rom the night I entered I was driving a truck and lifting packages weighing up to 50 pounds. A week later I had my first drink—the one they said would kill me.

  I guess someday I’ll die in that goddamned charity ward. I just can’t seem to get away.

  [To Douglas Blazek]

  August 25, 1965

  [ . . . ] I wrote Henry Miller the other day to twist 15 bucks from a patron of his who promised same if I mailed Henry 3 more Crux. I undersell Stuart and it buys whiskey and some horsebets. like I’ve got a $70 brake repair bill. the car isn’t worth that. anyhow, I was drunk and inferred that Henry shake his patron out of his money tree. the 15 arrived from one source today and the Miller letter from another: partial quote: “I hope you’re not drinking yourself to death! and, especially not when you’re writing. It’s a sure way to kill the source of inspiration. Drink only when you’re happy if you can. Never to drown your sorrows. And never drink alone!” of course I don’t buy any of this. I don’t worry about inspiration. when the writing dies, it dies; fuck it. I drink to keep going another day. and I’ve found that the best way to drink is to drink ALONE. even with a woman and a kid around, I’m drinking alone. can after can laced with a half pint or pint. and I stretch wall to wall in the light, I feel as if I were filled with meat and oranges and burning suns, and the radio plays and I hit the typer maybe and look down at the torn and ink-stained oilcloth on the kitchen table, a kitchen table in hell; a life, not a season in hell; the stink of everything, myself aging; people turning to warts; everything going, sinking, 2 buttons on shirt missing, belly working out; days of dull clubbing work ahead—hours running around with their heads chopped-off, and I lift the drink, I pour in the drink, the only thing to do, and Miller asks me to worry about the source of INSPIRATION? I can’t look at anything, really look at anything without wanting to tear myself apart. drinking is a temporary form of suicide wherein I am allowed to kill myself and then return to life again. drinking is just a little paste to hold on my arms and my legs and my pecker and my head and the rest. writing is only a sheet of paper; I am something that walks around and looks out of a window. amen.

  * * *

  [To William Wantling]

  1965

  [ . . . ] I keep drinking beer and scotch, pouring it down, like into a great emptiness . . . I admit that there is some rock stupidity in me that cannot be reached. I keep drinking, drinking, am as sullen as an old bulldog. always this way: people falling down, off their stools, testing me, and I drink them down, down, down, but really no voice, nothing, I sit I sit like some stupid elf in a pine tree waiting for lightning. when I was 18 I used to win $15 or 20 a week at drinking contests and this kept me alive. until they got wise to me. there was one shit, though, called Stinky who always gave me a hard go. I’d outpsyche him sometimes by drinking an extra in between. I used to run with these thieves and we were always drinking in a vacant room, a room for rent, with a low light . . . we never had a place to stay, but most of these boys were tough, carried guns, but I didn’t, still was square, still am. I thought Stinky had me one night and I looked up and he wasn’t there and I went in to heave and I didn’t even heave, there he was in the bathtub, out out, and I walked out and picked up the money.

  Buffalo Bill

  whenever the landlord and landlady get

  beer-drunk

  she comes down here and knocks on my door

  and I go down and drink beer with them.

  they sing old-time songs and

  he keeps drinking until

  he falls over backwards in his chair.

  then I get up

  tilt the chair up

  and then he’s back at the table again

  grabbing at a

  beercan.

  the conversation always gets around to

  Buffalo Bill. they think Buffalo Bill is

  very funny. so I always ask,

  what’s new with Buffalo Bill?

  oh, he’s in again. they locked him

  up. they came and got him.

  why?

  same thing. only this time it was a

  woman from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. she

  rang his bell and was standing there

  talking to him and he showed her his

  thing, you know.

  she came down and told me about it

  and I told her, “why did you bother that

  man? why did you ring his bell? he wasn’t

  doing anything to you!” but no, she had to

  go and tell the authorities.

  he phoned me from the jail, “well, I did it

  again!” “why do you keep doing that?” I

  asked him. “I dunno,” he said, “I dunno

  what makes me do that!” “you shouldn’t do

  that,” I told him. “I know I shouldn’t do

  that,” he told me.

  how many times has he done

  that?

  oh, god, I dunno, 8 or 10 times. he’s

  always doin’ it. he’s got a good lawyer, tho,

  he’s got a damn good

  lawyer.

  who’d you rent his place to?

  oh, we don’t rent his place, we always keep his

  place for him. we like him. did I tell you about

  the night he was drunk and out on the lawn

  naked and an airplane went overhead and he

  pointed to the lights, all you could see

  was the taillights and stuff and he pointed to

  the lights and yelled, “I AM GOD,

  I PUT THOSE LIGHTS IN THE SKY!”

  no, you didn’t tell me about

  that.

  have a beer first and I’ll

  tell you about it.

  I had a beer

  first.

  Notes of a Dirty Old Man

  In Philly, I had the end seat and ran errands for sandwiches, so forth. Jim, the early bartender, would let me in at 5:30 A.M. while he was mopping and I’d have free drinks until the crowd came in at 7:00 A.M. I’d close the bar at 2:00 A.M., which didn’t give me much time for sleep. but I wasn’t doing much those days—sleeping, eating or anything else. the bar was so run down, old, smelled of urine and death, that when a whore came in to make a catch we felt particularly honored. how I paid the rent for my room or what I was thinking about I am not sure. about this time a short story of mine appeared in Portfolio III, along with Henry Miller, Lorca, Sartre, many others. the Portfolio sold for $10. a huge thing of separate pages, each printed in different type on colored expensive paper, and drawings mad with exploration. Caresse Crosby the editoress wrote me: “a most unusual and wonderful story. who ARE you?” and I wrote back, “Dear Mrs. Crosby: I don’t know who I am. sincerely yours, Charles Bukowski.” it was right after that that I quit writing for ten years. but first a night in the rain with Portfolio, a very strong wind, the pages flying down the street people running after them, myself standing drunk watching; a big window washer who always ate six eggs for breakfast put a big foot in the center of one of the pages: “here! hey I got one!” “fuck it, let it go, let all the pages go!” I told them, and we went back inside. I had won some sort of bet. that was enough.

  about 11 A.M. every morning Jim would tell me I had enough, I was 86’d, to go take a walk. I would go around to the back of the bar and lay down in the alley there. I liked to do this because trucks ran up and down the alley and I felt that anytime might be mine. but my luck ran bad. and every day little negro children would poke sticks in my back, and then I’d hear the mother’s voice, “all right now, all right, leave that man alone!” after a while I would get up, go back in and continue drinking. the lime in the alley was the problem. somebody always brushed the lime off of me and made too much of it.

  I was sitting there one day when I asked somebody, “how come nobody here ever goes into the bar down the street?” and I was told, “that’s a gangster bar. you go in there, you get killed.” I finished my drink, got up and walked on down. it was muc
h cleaner in that bar. a lot of big young guys sitting around, kind of sullen. it got very quiet. “I’ll take a scotch and water,” I told the barkeep.

  he pretended not to hear me.

  I touched up the volume: “bartender, I said I wanted a scotch and water!”

  he waited a long time, then turned, came over with the bottle and set me up. I drained it down.

  “now I’ll have another one.”

  I noticed a young lady sitting alone. she looked lonely. she looked good, she looked good and lonely. I had some money. I don’t remember where I got the money. I took my drink and went down and sat next to her.

  “whatya wanna hear on the juke?” I asked.

  “anything. anything you like.”

  I loaded the thing. I didn’t know who I was but I could load a juke box. she looked good. how could she look so good and sit alone?

  “bartender! bartender! 2 more drinks! one for the lady and one for myself!”

  I could smell death in the air. and now that I smelled it I wasn’t so sure whether it smelled any good or not.

  “whatch havin’, honey? tell the man!”

  we’d been drinking about a half an hour when one of the two big guys sitting down at the end of the bar got up, slowly walked down to me. he stood behind, leaned over. she’d gone to the crapper. “listen, buddy, I wanna TELL you something.”

  “go ahead. my pleasure.”

  “that’s the boss’s girl. keep messing and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  that’s what he said: “killed.” it was just like a movie. he went back and sat down. she came out of the crapper, sat down next to me.

  “bartender,” I said, “two more drinks.”

  I kept loading the juke and talking. then I had to go to the crapper. I went to where it said MEN and I noticed there was a long stairway down. they had the men’s crapper down below. how odd. I took the first steps down and then I noticed that I was being followed down by the two big boys who had been at the end of the bar. it was not so much the fear of the thing as it was the strangeness. there was nothing I could do but keep walking on down the steps. I walked up to the urinal, unzipped my fly and started to piss. vaguely drunk, I saw the blackjack coming down. I moved my head just a little and instead of taking it over the ear I caught it straight on the back of my head. the lights went in circles and flashes but it was not too bad. I finished pissing, put it back in and zipped my fly. I turned around. they were standing there waiting for me to drop. “pardon me,” I said and then I walked between them and walked up the steps and sat down. I had neglected to wash my hands.