Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame

by Bukowski, Charles

deliberately.

  I told them all to

  get out

  and she started hollering down to the guy

  who had beat on the fag

  and he kept calling her name back up

  and then I remembered she had vanished for an hour

  before the reading.

  she did those things.

  maybe not bad things

  but consistently careless things

  and I told her we were through

  and to get out

  and I went to bed

  then hours later she walked in

  and I said, what the hell are you doing here?

  she was all wild, hair down in her face,

  you’re too callous, I said, I don’t want you.

  it was dark and she leaped at me:

  I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!

  I was still too drunk to defend myself

  and she had me down on the kitchen floor

  and she clawed my face and

  bit a hole in my arm.

  then I went back to bed and listened to her heels

  going down the hill.

  my friend, andre

  this kid used to teach at Kansas U.

  then they moved him out

  he went to a bean factory

  then he and his wife moved to the coast

  she got a job and worked while

  he looked for a job as an actor.

  I really want to be an actor, he told me,

  that’s all I want to be.

  he came by with his wife.

  he came by alone.

  the streets around here are full of guys who

  want to be actors.

  I saw him yesterday.

  he was rolling cigarettes.

  I poured him some white wine.

  my wife is getting tired of waiting, he said,

  I’m going to teach karate.

  his hands were swollen from hitting

  bricks and walls and doors.

  he told me about some of the great oriental

  fighters. there was one guy so good

  he could turn his head 180 degrees

  to see who was behind him. that’s very hard to do,

  he said.

  further: it’s more difficult to fight 4 men properly placed

  than to fight many more. when you have many more

  they get in each other’s way, and a good fighter who has

  strength and agility can do well.

  some of the great fighters, he said,

  even suck their balls up into their bodies.

  this can be done—to some extent—because there are

  natural cavities in the body…. if you stand upsidedown

  you will notice this.

  I gave him a little more white wine,

  then he left.

  you know, sometimes making it with a typewriter

  isn’t so painful

  after all.

  i was glad

  I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

  Friday afternoon hungover

  I didn’t have a job

  I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

  I didn’t know how to play a guitar

  Friday afternoon hungover

  Friday afternoon hungover

  across the street from Norm’s

  across the street from The Red Fez

  I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

  split with my girlfriend and blue and demented

  I was glad to have my passbook and stand in line

  I watched the buses run up Vermont

  I was too crazy to get a job as a driver of buses

  and I didn’t even look at the young girls

  I got dizzy standing in line but I

  just kept thinking I have money in this building

  Friday afternoon hungover

  I didn’t know how to play the piano

  or even hustle a damnfool job in a carwash

  I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan

  finally I was at the window

  it was my Japanese girl

  she smiled at me as if I were some amazing god

  back again, eh? she said and laughed

  as I showed her my withdrawal slip and my passbook

  as the buses ran up and down Vermont

  the camels trotted across the Sahara

  she gave me the money and I took the money

  Friday afternoon hungover

  I walked into the market and got a cart

  and I threw sausages and eggs and bacon and bread in there

  I threw beer and salami and relish and pickles and mustard in there

  I looked at the young housewives wiggling casually

  I threw t-bone steaks and porterhouse and cube steaks in my cart

  and tomatoes and cucumbers and oranges in my cart

  Friday afternoon hungover

  split with my girlfriend and blue and demented

  I was glad I had money in the Savings and Loan.

  trouble with spain

  I got in the shower

  and burned my balls

  last Wednesday.

  met this painter called Spain,

  no, he was a cartoonist,

  well, I met him at a party

  and everybody got mad at me

  because I didn’t know who he was

  or what he did.

  he was rather a handsome guy

  and I guess he was jealous because

  I was so ugly.

  they told me his name

  and he was leaning against the wall

  looking handsome, and I said:

  hey, Spain, I like that name: Spain.

  but I don’t like you. why don’t we step out

  in the garden and I’ll kick the shit out of your

  ass?

  this made the hostess angry

  and she walked over and rubbed his pecker

  while I went to the crapper

  and heaved.

  but everybody’s angry at me.

  Bukowski, he can’t write, he’s had it.

  washed-up. look at him drink.

  he never used to come to parties.

  now he comes to parties and drinks everything

  up and insults real talent.

  I used to admire him when he cut his wrists

  and when he tried to kill himself with

  gas. look at him now leering at that 19 year old

  girl, and you know he

  can’t get it up.

  I not only burnt my balls in that shower

  last Wednesday, I spun around to get out of the burning

  water and burnt my bunghole

  too.

  wet night

  the rag.

  she sat there, glooming.

  I couldn’t do anything with her.

  it was raining.

  she got up and left.

  well, hell, here it is again, I thought

  I picked up my drink and turned the radio up,

  took the lampshade off the lamp

  and smoked a cheap black bitter cigar

  imported from Germany.

  there was a knock on the door

  and I opened the door

  a little man stood in the rain

  and he said,

  have you seen a pigeon on your porch?

  I told him I hadn’t seen a pigeon on my porch

  and he said if I saw a pigeon on my porch

  to let him know.

  I closed the door

  sat down

  and then a black cat leaped through the

  window and jumped on my

  lap and purred, it was a beautiful animal

  and I took it into the kitchen and we both ate a

  slice of ham.

  then I turned off all the lights

  and went to bed

  and that black cat went to bed with me

  and
it purred

  and I thought, well, somebody likes me,

  then the cat started pissing,

  it pissed all over me and all over the sheets,

  the piss rolled across my belly and slid down my sides

  and I said: hey, what’s wrong with you?

  I picked up the cat and walked him to the door

  and threw him out into the rain

  and I thought, that’s very strange, that cat

  pissing on me

  his piss was cold as the rain.

  then I phoned her

  and I said, look, what’s wrong with you? have you lost

  your god damned mind?

  I hung up and pulled the sheets off the bed

  and got in and lay there listening to the rain.

  sometimes a man doesn’t know what to do about things

  and sometimes it’s best to lie very still

  and try not to think at all

  about anything.

  that cat belonged to somebody

  it had a flea collar.

  I don’t know about the

  woman.

  we, the artists—

  in San Francisco the landlady, 80, helped me drag the green

  Victrola up the stairway and I played Beethoven’s 5th

  until they beat on the walls.

  there was a large bucket in the center of the room

  filled with beer and winebottles;

  so, it might have been the d.t.’s, one afternoon

  I heard a sound something like a bell

  only the bell was humming instead of ringing,

  and then a golden light appeared in the corner of the room

  up near the ceiling

  and through the sound and light

  shone the face of a woman, worn but beautiful,

  and she looked down at me

  and then a man’s face appeared by hers,

  the light became stronger and the man said:

  we, the artists, are proud of you!

  then the woman said: the poor boy is frightened,

  and I was, and then it went away.

  I got up, dressed, and went to the bar

  wondering who the artists were and why they should be

  proud of me. there were some live ones in the bar

  and I got some free drinks, set my pants on fire with the

  ashes from my corncob pipe, broke a glass deliberately,

  was not rousted, met a man who claimed he was William

  Saroyan, and we drank until a woman came in and

  pulled him out by the ear and I thought, no, that can’t be

  William, and another guy came in and said: man, you talk

  tough, well, listen, I just got out for assault and

  battery, so don’t mess with me! we went outside the

  bar, he was a good boy, he knew how to duke, and it went

  along fairly even, then they stopped it and we went

  back in and drank another couple of hours. I walked

  back up to my place, put on Beethoven’s 5th and

  when they beat on the walls I beat

  back.

  I keep thinking of myself young, then, the way I was,

  and I can hardly believe it but I don’t mind it.

  I hope the artists are still proud of me

  but they never came back

  again.

  the war came running in and next I knew

  I was in New Orleans

  walking into a bar drunk

  after falling down in the mud on a rainy night.

  I saw one man stab another and I walked over and

  put a nickle in the juke box.

  it was a beginning. San

  Francisco and New Orleans were two of my

  favorite towns.

  i can’t stay in the same room with that woman for five minutes

  I went over the other day

  to pick up my daughter.

  her mother came out with workman’s

  overalls on.

  I gave her the child support money

  and she laid a sheaf of poems on me by one

  Manfred Anderson.

  I read them.

  he’s great, she said.

  does he send this shit out? I asked.

  oh no, she said, Manfred wouldn’t do that.

  why?

  well, I don’t know exactly.

  listen, I said, you know all the poets who

  don’t send their shit out.

  the magazines aren’t ready for them, she said,

  they’re too far advanced for publication.

  oh for christ’s sake, I said, do you really

  believe that?

  yes, yes, I really believe that, she

  answered.

  look, I said, you don’t even have the kid ready

  yet. she doesn’t have her shoes on. can’t you

  put her shoes on?

  your daughter is 8 years old, she said,

  she can put her own shoes on.

  listen, I said to my daughter, for christ’s sake

  will you put your shoes on?

  Manfred never screams, said her mother.

  OH HOLY JESUS CHRIST! I yelled

  you see, you see? she said, you haven’t changed.

  what time is it? I asked.

  4:30. Manfred did submit some poems once, she said,

  but they sent them back and he was terribly

  upset.

  you’ve got your shoes on, I said to my daughter,

  let’s go.

  her mother walked to the door with us.

  have a nice day, she said.

  fuck off, I said.

  when she closed the door there was a sign pasted to

  the outside. it said:

  SMILE.

  I didn’t.

  we drove down Pico on the way in.

  I stopped outside the Red Ox.

  I’ll be right back, I told my daughter.

  I walked in, sat down, and ordered a scotch and

  water. over the bar there was a little guy popping in and

  out of a door holding a very red, curved penis

  in his hand.

  can’t

  can’t you make him stop? I asked the barkeep.

  can’t you shut that thing off?

  what’s the matter with you, buddy? he asked.

  I submit my poems to the magazines, I said.

  you submit your poems to the magazines? he asked.

  you are god damned right I do, I said.

  I finished my drink and got back to the car.

  I drove down Pico Boulevard.

  the remainder of the day was bound to be better.

  charisma

  this woman keeps phoning me

  even though I tell her I am living with a woman

  I love.

  I keep hearing noises in the environment,

  she phones,

  I thought it was you.

  me? I haven’t been drunk for several

  days.

  well, maybe it wasn’t you but I felt it was

  somebody who was trying to help

  me.

  maybe it was God. do you think He’s there?

  yes, He’s a hook from the ceiling.

  I thought so.

  I’m growing tomatoes in my basement,

  she says.

  that’s sensible.

  I want to move, where shall I move?

  north is obvious, west is the ocean. the east is the

  past. south is the only way.

  south?

  yes, but not past the border. it’s death to

  gringos.

  what’s Salinas like? she asks.

  if you like lettuce

  go to Salinas.

  suddenly she hangs up. she always does that. and she

  always phones back in a day or a week or a

  month. she’ll be at my funeral with tomatoes and the
<
br />   yellow pages of the phonebook stuck into the pockets of

  her mince-brown overcoat in 97 degree heat,

  I have a way with the ladies.

  the sound of human lives

  strange warmth, hot and cold females,

  I make good love, but love isn’t just

  sex. most females I’ve known are

  ambitious, and I like to lie around

  on large comfortable pillows at 3 o’clock

  in the afternoon, I like to watch the sun

  through the leaves of a bush outside

  while the world out there

  holds away from me, I know it so well, all

  those dirty pages, and I like to lie around

  my belly up to the ceiling after making love

  everything flowing in:

  it’s so easy to be easy—if you let it, that’s all

  that’s necessary.

  but the female is strange, she is very

  ambitious—shit! I can’t sleep away the day!

  all we do is eat! make love! sleep! eat! make love!

  my dear, I say, there are men out there now

  picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,

  there are men and women dying under the sun,

  there are men and women dying in factories

  for nothing, a pittance…

  I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to

  pieces…

  you don’t know how lucky we

  are…

  but you’ve got it made, she says,