On Drinking

by Charles Bukowski

  “You’ve met your master, bastard!” I notified him as I moved toward him. He waited. The years of working as a factotum had not left my muscles entirely lax. I gave him one deeply into the gut, all 230 pounds of my body behind it.

  Zen let out a short gasp, once again supplicated the sky, said something in the Oriental, gave me a short karate chop, kindly, and left me wrapped within a series of senseless Mexican cacti and what appeared to be, from my eye, man-eating plants from the inner Brazilian jungles. I relaxed in the moonlight until this purple flower seemed to gather toward my nose and began to delicately pinch out my breathing.

  Shit, it took at least 150 years to break into the Harvard Classics. There wasn’t any choice: I broke loose from the thing and started crawling up the stairway again. Near the top, I mounted to my feet, opened the door and entered. Nobody noticed me. They were still talking shit. I flopped into my corner. The karate shot had opened a cut over my left eyebrow. I found my handkerchief.

  “Shit! I need a drink!” I hollered.

  Harvey came up with one. All scotch. I drained it. Why was it that the buzz of human beings talking could be so senseless? I noticed the woman who had been introduced to me as the bride’s mother was now showing plenty of leg, and it didn’t look bad, all that long nylon with the expensive stiletto heels, plus the little jewel tips down near the toes. It could give an idiot the hots, and I was only half-idiot.

  I got up, walked over to the bride’s mother, ripped her skirt back to her thighs, kissed her quickly upon her pretty knees and began to kiss my way upward.

  The candlelight helped. Everything.

  “Hey!” she awakened suddenly, “whatcha think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to fuck the shit out of you, I am going to fuck you until the shit falls outa your ass! Whatcha thinka that?”

  She pushed and I fell backwards upon the rug. Then I was flat upon my back, thrashing, trying to get up.

  “Damned Amazon!” I screamed at her.

  Finally, three or four minutes later I managed to get to my feet. Somebody laughed. Then, finding my feet flat upon the floor again, I made for the kitchen. Poured a drink, drained it. Then poured a refill and walked out.

  There they were: all the goddamned relatives.

  “Roy or Hollis?” I asked. “Why don’t you open your wedding gift?”

  “Sure,” said Roy, “why not?”

  The gift was wrapped in 45 yards of tinfoil. Roy just kept unrolling the foil. Finally, he got it all undone.

  “Happy marriage!” I shouted.

  They all saw it. The room was very quiet.

  It was a little handcrafted coffin done by the best artisans in Spain. It even had this pinkish-red felt bottom. It was the exact replica of a larger coffin, except perhaps it was done with more love.

  Roy gave me his killer’s look, ripped off the tag of instructions on how to keep the wood polished, threw it inside the coffin and closed the lid.

  It was very quiet. The only gift hadn’t gone over. But they soon gathered themselves and began talking shit again.

  I became silent. I had really been proud of my little casket. I had looked for hours for a gift. I had almost gone crazy. Then I had seen it on the shelf, all alone. Touched the outsides, turned it upside-down, then looked inside. The price was high but I was paying for the perfect craftsmanship. The wood. The little hinges. All. At the same time, I needed some ant-killer spray. I found some Black Flag in the back of the store. The ants had built a nest under my front door. I took the stuff to the counter. There was a young girl there, I set the stuff in front of her. I pointed to the casket.

  “You know what that is?”

  “What?”

  “That’s a casket!”

  I opened it up and showed it to her.

  “These ants are driving me crazy. Ya know what I’m going to do?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to kill all those ants and put them in this casket and bury them!”

  She laughed. “You’ve saved my whole day!”

  You can’t put it past the young ones anymore; they are an entirely superior breed. I paid and got out of there . . .

  But now, at the wedding, nobody laughed. A pressure cooker done up with a red ribbon would have left them happy. Or would it have?

  Harvey, the rich one, finally, was kindest of all. Maybe because he could afford to be kind? Then I remembered something out of my readings, something from the ancient Chinese:

  “Would you rather be rich or an artist?”

  “I’d rather be rich, for it seems that the artist is always sitting on the doorsteps of the rich.”

  I sucked at the fifth and didn’t care anymore. Somehow, the next thing I knew, it was over. I was in the back seat of my own car, Hollis driving again, the beard of Roy flowing into my face again. I sucked at my fifth.

  “Look, did you guys throw my little casket away? I love you both, you know that! Why did you throw my little casket away?”

  “Look, Bukowski! Here’s your casket!”

  Roy held it up to me, showed it to me.

  “Ah, fine!”

  “You want it back?”

  “No! No! My gift to you! Your only gift! Keep it! Please!”

  “All right.”

  The remainder of the drive was fairly quiet. I lived in a front court near Hollywood (of course). Parking was mean. Then they found a space about a half a block from where I lived. They parked my car, handed me the keys. Then I saw them walk across the street toward their own car. I watched them, turned to walk toward my place, and while still watching them and holding to the remainder of Harvey’s fifth, I tripped one shoe into a pantscuff and went down. As I fell backwards, my first instinct was to protect the remainder of that good fifth from smashing against the cement (mother with baby), and as I fell backwards I tried to hit with my shoulders, holding both head and bottle up. I saved the bottle but the head flipped back into the sidewalk, BASH!

  They both stood and watched me fall. I was stunned almost into insensibility but managed to scream across the street at them: “Roy! Hollis! Help me to my front door, please I’m hurt!”

  They stood a moment, looking at me. Then they got into their car, started the engine, leaned back and neatly drove off.

  I was being repaid for something. The casket? Whatever it had been—the use of my car, or me as clown and/or best man . . . my use had been outworn. The human race had always disgusted me. Essentially, what made them disgusting was the family-relationship illness, which included marriage, exchange of power and aid, which like a sore, a leprosy, became then: your next door neighbor, your neighborhood, your district, your city, your county, your state, your nation . . . everybody grabbing each other’s assholes in the honeycomb of survival out of a fear-animalistic stupidity.

  I got it all there, I understood it as they left me there, pleading.

  Five more minutes, I thought. If I can lie here five more minutes without being bothered I’ll get up and make it toward my place, get inside. I was the last of the outlaws. Billy the Kid had nothing on me. Five more minutes. Just let me get to my cave. I’ll mend. Next time I’m asked to one of their functions, I’ll tell them where to put it. Five minutes. That’s all I need.

  Two women walked by. They turned and looked at me.

  “Oh, look at him. What’s wrong?”

  “He’s drunk.”

  “He’s not sick, is he?”

  “No, look how he holds to that bottle. Like a little baby.”

  Oh shit. I screamed up at them:

  “I’LL SUCK BOTH YOUR SNATCHES! I’LL SUCK BOTH YOUR SNATCHES DRY, YOU CUNTS!”

  “Ooooooh!”

  They both ran into the high-rise glass apartment. Through the glass door. And I was outside unable to get up, best man to something. All I had to do was make it to my place—30 yards away, as close as three million light years. Thirty yards from a rented front door. Two more minutes and I could get up. Each time I tried it, I got stronger.
An old drunk would always make it, given enough time. One minute. One minute more. I could have made it.

  Then there they were. Part of the insane family structure of the World. Madmen, really, hardly questioning what made them do what they did. They left their double–red light burning as they parked. Then got out. One had a flashlight.

  “Bukowski,” said the one with the flashlight, “you just can’t seem to keep out of trouble, can you?”

  He knew my name from somewhere, other times.

  “Look,” I said, “I just stumbled. Hit my head. I never lose my sense or my coherence. I’m not dangerous. Why don’t you guys help me to my doorway? It’s 30 yards away. Just let me fall upon my bed and sleep it off. Don’t you think, really, that would be the really decent thing to do?”

  “Sir, two ladies reported you as trying to rape them.”

  “Gentlemen, I would never attempt to rape two ladies at the same time.”

  The one cop kept flashing his stupid flashlight into my face. It gave him a great feeling of superiority.

  “Just 30 yards to Freedom! Can’t you guys understand that?”

  “You’re the funniest show in town, Bukowski. Give us a better alibi than that.”

  “Well, let’s see—this thing you see sprawled here on the pavement is the end-product of a wedding, a Zen wedding.”

  “You mean some woman really tried to marry you?”

  “Not me, you asshole . . .”

  The cop with the flashlight brought it down across my nose.

  “We ask respect toward officers of the law.”

  “Sorry. For a moment I forgot.”

  The blood ran down along my throat and then toward and upon my shirt. I was very tired—of everything.

  “Bukowski,” asked the one who had just used the flashlight, “why can’t you stay out of trouble?”

  “Just forget the horseshit,” I said, “let’s go off to jail.”

  They put on the cuffs and threw me into the back seat. Same sad old scene.

  They drove along slowly, speaking of various possible and insane things—like, about having the front porch widened, or a pool, or an extra room in the back for Granny. And when it came to sports—these were real men—the Dodgers still had a chance, even with the two or three other teams right in there with them. Back to the family—if the Dodgers won, they won. If a man landed on the moon, they landed on the moon. But let a starving man ask them for a dime—no identification, fuck you, shithead. I mean, when they were in civvies. There hasn’t been a starving man yet who ever asked a cop for a dime. Our record is clear.

  Then I was pushed through the gristmill. After being 30 yards from my door. After being the only human in a house full of 59 people.

  There I was, once again, in this type of long line of the somehow guilty. The young guys didn’t know what was coming. They were mixed up with this thing called THE CONSTITUTION and their RIGHTS. The young cops, both in the city tank and the county tank, got their training on the drunks. They had to show they had it. While I was watching they took one guy in an elevator and rode him up and down, up and down, and when he got out, you hardly knew who he was, or what he had been—a black screaming about Human Rights. Then they got a white guy, screaming something about CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS; four or five of them got him, and they rushed him off his feet so fast he couldn’t walk, and when they brought him back they leaned him against a wall, and he just stood there trembling, these red welts all over his body, he stood there trembling and shivering.

  I got my photo taken all over again. Fingerprinted all over again.

  They took me down to the drunk tank, opened that door. After that, it was just a matter of looking for floorspace among the 150 men in the room. One shitpot. Vomit and piss everywhere. I found a spot among my fellow men. I was Charles Bukowski, featured in the literary archives of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Somebody there thought I was a genius. I stretched out on the boards. Heard a young voice. A boy’s voice.

  “Mista, I’ll suck your dick for a quarter!”

  They were supposed to take all your change, bills, ident, keys, knives, so forth, plus cigarettes, and then you had the property slip. Which you either lost or sold or had stolen from you. But there was always still money and cigarettes about.

  “Sorry, lad,” I told him, “they took my last penny.”

  Four hours later I managed to sleep.

  There.

  Best man at a Zen wedding, and I’d bet they, the bride and groom, hadn’t even fucked that night. But somebody had been.

  From

  Post Office

  In bed I had something in front of me but I couldn’t do anything with it. I whaled and I whaled and I whaled. Vi was very patient. I kept striving and banging but I’d had too much to drink.

  “Sorry, baby,” I said. Then I rolled off. And went to sleep.

  Then something awakened me. It was Vi. She had stoked me up and was riding topside.

  “Go, baby, go!” I told her.

  I arched my back now and then. She looked down at me with little greedy eyes. I was being raped by a high yellow enchantress! For a moment, it excited me.

  Then I told her. “Shit. Get down, baby. It’s been a long hard day. There will be a better time.”

  She climbed off. The thing went down like an express elevator.

  In the morning I heard her walking around. She walked and she walked and she walked.

  It was about 10:30 A.M. I was sick. I didn’t want to face her. Fifteen more minutes. Then I’d get out.

  She shook me. “Listen, I want you to get out of here before my girlfriend shows!”

  “So what? I’ll screw her too.”

  “Yeah,” she laughed, “yeah.”

  I got up. Coughed, gagged. Slowly got into my clothes.

  “You make me feel like a wash-out,” I told her. “I can’t be that bad! There must be some good in me.”

  I finally got dressed. I went to the bathroom and threw some water on my face, combed my hair. If I could only comb that face, I thought, but I can’t.

  I came out.

  “Vi.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be too pissed. It wasn’t you. It was the booze. It has happened before.”

  “All right, then, you shouldn’t drink so much. No woman likes to come in second to a bottle.”

  “Why don’t you bet me to place then?”

  “Oh, stop it!”

  “Listen, you need any money, babe?”

  I reached into my wallet and took out a twenty. I handed it to her.

  “My, you are sweet!”

  Her hand touched my cheek, she kissed me gently along the side of the mouth.

  “Drive carefully now.”

  “Sure, babe.”

  I drove carefully all the way to the racetrack.

  short non-moon shots to nowhere

  you

  no faces

  no faces

  at all

  laughing at nothing—

  let me tell you

  I have drank in skidrow rooms with

  imbecile winos

  whose cause was better

  whose eyes still held some light

  whose voices retained some sensibility,

  and when the morning came

  we were sick but not ill,

  poor but not deluded,

  and we stretched in our beds and rose

  in the late afternoons

  like millionaires.

  [Lafayette Young]

  December 1, 1970

  [ . . . ] nobody understands an alcoholic . . . I started drinking young . . . at 16 and 17, and the next morning I’d always get it—those looks, that hatred. of course, my parents hated me anyhow. But I remember saying to them one morning: “Christ, so I got drunk . . . You people treat me like a murderer . . .” “That’s it! That’s it!” they said, “what you’ve done is worse than murder!” they meant it. well, what they meant was that I was socially disgra
cing them in front of the neighbors, and there might be an excuse for murder, but for drinking . . . never, by god, no! They must have meant it, because when the war came on, they urged me to join the murder . . . it was socially acceptable.

  * * *

  [To Steve Richmond]

  March 1, 1971

  [ . . . ] drinking’s good for a guy your age, if he needs to stretch out and get the sounds from toe to head. you’ve got a good place there to do that. it may not be so good in the summer with all the bathers trotting by with their ugly asses but in the winter, it’s there. best with drinking, though, to wait until about just before sunset and then start in, slowly, with a bit of classical music going. it’s a good writing time—after about an hour of drinking. the cigar. the feeling of peace, even though you know it’s temporary, so even in feelings of peace you can say war-like things, let it go. allow yourself to enjoy yourself.

  * * *

  [To John Bennett]

  March 22, 1971

  [ . . . ] I’m on the wagon—maybe for a long time—drinking wears and tears me—I’m 50—been drinking 33 years plus—going to take a bit of a rest. too many beatings. I really got down near death, not that that’s bad, it’s being sick that’s bad, unable to bear up in all the shit of this two-bit existence. I don’t know how long I can stay straight but I’m going to give it a bit of a run.

  on the wagon

  Stevens broke almost as many bottles

  as he drank.

  he’d crash them into the sink,

  wash the whiskey away

  pick up the glass and

  tell me,

  “That’s it. I’m through. I’m on

  the wagon!”

  we’d talk an hour or so

  and then he’d say,

  “Let’s go up to the corner and

  get the paper.”

  we’d get up there and he’d say,

  “Wait a minute, I need some