Betting on the Muse

by Charles Bukowski

  The knife was still pink from the heat. He held it between the ear and the skull. He held it there. Then he threw the knife into a corner of the kitchen, hard. It clattered and bounced, then was still.

  “Shit! I can’t do it! Come on, let’s get the hell out of here!”

  Marty walked right out of the kitchen and Kell followed him. They walked through the front room and out the front door and to the car. They got in and Marty backed it out of the drive, took a left on the unpaved lane that led down out of the hills. He looked at Kell. “Got a cigarette?” Kell dug out the pack, pulled out two, lit them both and handed one to Marty.

  “Thanks, I’ll let the old man know where the Kid is as soon as we get a few hundred miles away. And don’t say a fucking thing to me. I don’t want to hear a fucking thing out of you!”

  It was 9:30 p.m. It was September. The gas tank read full. Marty turned on the radio. Of all things it was Ray Charles. Marty winced. Kell didn’t say a fucking thing.

  it’s difficult for them

  some university profs

  find me crude, crass, obvious,

  repetitive and pornographic

  and I often am,

  I sometimes deliberately

  am

  but this should not concern

  them,

  they have their friends, their

  compatriots, their peers

  writing the poesy

  which they find

  admirable.

  but why they rage

  against me

  in their critical essays

  is what I find

  strange.

  now, I don’t like their work

  either,

  find it pale,

  contrived, overworked

  and a century behind the

  times

  but

  I don’t attack them

  critically,

  I just stop reading them

  and I don’t hate them,

  I don’t care how many books

  they publish or who does or

  doesn’t read

  them.

  yet, they are very concerned

  about my existence

  and my large readership,

  and almost hysterically

  upset

  that in some places

  I am accepted as an

  original writer of some

  power.

  I tend to ignore this, why

  can’t they?

  if they want their place in

  literary history,

  fine, they can have

  it,

  I don’t give a damn.

  all I want to do is

  my work

  anyway

  I choose to do it,

  all I want is the next line

  and the line after

  that.

  what they do and who they

  are and what they want

  and what they say and what

  they write

  has no interest for me

  and, unfortunately for

  them, no interest to most others

  living, dying or about to be

  born, uh

  huh.

  think of it

  think of it, there were fellows like

  Kierkegaard and Sartre

  who found existence

  absurd,

  who battled against

  anxiety and anguish,

  nothingness,

  nausea,

  and death hanging over them

  like a

  Damocles sword

  while there are other men

  now

  so empty of concern

  that their first thought of the

  day is

  when are they going to have

  lunch?

  granted, it could be more

  comfortable

  to live, say, as a fly, an

  ant, a mugwump,

  but as a human,

  just think,

  as a human

  to live

  thusly,

  as millions do

  again and again.

  of course, hell is other

  people,

  the waste, the waste,

  all flushed away

  like

  it, like

  that.

  the garage mechanic

  walking toward you

  with dead

  eyes.

  chicken giblets

  he’s like you, she said, he locks himself in

  his basement room and he doesn’t want

  to see anybody.

  I want you to meet him.

  I don’t want to meet him, I said.

  we were driving south down Western.

  I want some chicken giblets, she said.

  god damn it, I said.

  what’s the matter? she asked.

  I want a drink, I said.

  well, I want some chicken giblets,

  she said.

  I pulled into an all-night drive-in,

  opened the door, gave her some

  money and she went to the

  counter and ordered.

  it was 3 in the morning.

  she stood there eating her chicken

  giblets.

  two men walked up.

  she started talking to them.

  she was smiling.

  then they all were laughing.

  she had finished eating her

  giblets

  they kept talking and

  laughing.

  5 minutes, I thought.

  then I looked at my watch.

  after 5 minutes I backed my car out of

  there and drove off.

  I was sitting back in my apartment

  having scotch with a beer

  chaser when there was a knock

  on the door.

  I got up and opened it.

  it was her.

  what the hell happened to you?

  she asked.

  nothing, I said.

  well, pay the cabby, she

  said.

  there was a cabby standing

  behind her.

  yeah, he said, pay me.

  hey buddy, I said, step closer.

  he did.

  yeah, he said.

  go fuck yourself, I said.

  hey, man, he said, I gotta get paid!

  I didn’t ride in your cab, buddy.

  but she’s yours, he said.

  she’s not mine, I said.

  whose is she then? he asked.

  you take her.

  I closed the door.

  about ten minutes passed.

  there was a knock on the door.

  I opened it,

  it was her.

  she pushed her way in.

  gimme a drink, she said.

  pour your own, I said.

  she did.

  she sat in a chair with her drink.

  my brother stole my purse,

  she said, he took all my

  money.

  he’s on drugs, I said.

  so am I, she said.

  it was another 3:45 a.m. in

  east Hollywood

  and the black sky came in like a

  knife

  and if you were alive you were

  lucky

  and if you were dead

  you never knew

  it.

  the lover

  at that apartment in east Hollywood

  I was often with the hardest numbers

  in town.

  I don’t speak as a misogynist.

  I had other people ask me,

  “what the hell are you doing, anyhow?”

  they were floozies, killers, blanks.

  they had bodies, hair, eyes, legs,

  parts

  and often it was like

  sitting with a shark dressed in a
<
br />   dress, high heels, smoking, drinking,

  swallowing pills.

  the nights melted into days and the days

  collapsed into nights

  as we babbled on, sometimes

  bedding down, badly.

  because of the drink, the uppers, the

  downers, I often imagined

  things—say, that this one was the

  golden girl of the golden heart and

  the golden way of laughter and love

  and hope.

  in the dim smokey light the long hair

  looked better than it was, the legs

  more shapely, the conversation not as

  bare, not as vicious.

  I fooled myself pretty well, I even

  got myself to thinking that I loved

  one of them, the worst one.

  I mean, why the hell be negative?

  we drank, drugged, stayed

  together through sunset,

  sunrise, played Scrabble for 8

  or ten hours at a

  stretch.

  each time I went to piss she

  stole the money she needed.

  she was a survivor, the

  bitch.

  after one marathon session

  of 52 hours of whatever we

  were doing

  she said, “let’s drive to

  Vegas and get married?”

  “what?” I asked.

  “let’s drive to Vegas and

  get married before we

  change our minds!”

  “suppose we get married,

  then what?”

  “then you can have it any

  time you want it,” she told

  me.

  I went in to take a piss

  to let her steal the money

  she needed.

  and when I came out I opened

  a new bottle of wine

  and spoke no more of the

  subject.

  she didn’t come around as

  much after that

  but there were others.

  about the same.

  sometimes there were

  more than one.

  they’d come in twos.

  the word got out that

  there was an old sucker

  in the back court, free

  booze and he wasn’t

  sexually demanding.

  (although at times something

  would overtake me and I

  would grab a body and throw

  in a sweaty horse copulation,

  mostly, I guess, to see if

  I could still do it.)

  and I confused the mailman.

  there was an old couch on

  the porch and many a morning

  as he came by I’d be sitting

  there with, say, two of them,

  we’d be sitting there,

  smoking and

  laughing.

  one day he found me alone.

  “pardon me,” he said, “but can

  I ask you something?”

  “sure.”

  “well, I don’t think you’re

  rich…”

  “no, I’m broke.”

  “listen,” he said, “I’ve been

  in the army, I’ve been around

  the world.”

  “yeah?”

  “and I’ve never seen a man with

  as many women as you have.

  there’s always a different one,

  or a different pair…”

  “yeah?”

  “how do you do it?

  I mean, pardon me, but you’re kind

  of old and you’re not exactly a

  Casanova, you know?”

  “I could be ugly, even.”

  he shifted his letters from one hand to the

  other.

  “I mean, how do you do it?”

  “availability,” I told him.

  “what do you mean?”

  “I mean, women like a guy who is always

  around.”

  “uh,” he said, then walked off to continue his

  rounds.

  his praise didn’t help me.

  what he saw wasn’t as good as he thought.

  even with them around there were unholy periods

  of

  drab senselessness, despair,

  and worse.

  I walked back into my place.

  the phone was ringing.

  I hoped that it would be a female

  voice.

  no win

  to live in a jungle

  where each face is a face of

  horror,

  where each voice grates,

  where bodies walk

  without grace,

  where the only communion

  is between the dead and

  the dead.

  to live in a place

  where empty faces

  and common bodies

  win

  beauty contests.

  to live in a place

  where being alone

  is always better than being

  with someone.

  to live a lifetime

  with just your

  fingernails

  more real than

  the multitudes,

  to roll a 7 in hell

  with nothing in the

  pot,

  that’s what this life

  is.

  THE STAR

  He sat in the garden chair watching the birds dig into the freshly watered lawn. He was James Stagler, 81, ex-movie star. He was remembered for his major roles in such epic movies as Skies Over Bermuda, The Brooklyn Kid, Son of the Devil, A Big Kill, and The Ten Count. Those were his principal films, although he had appeared in hundreds of others and had also starred in a Broadway musical, Kickin’ High.

  “Lunch!” He heard the woman’s voice, and he rose slowly from his chair, made his way gingerly across the lawn toward the house. James entered from the yard door and walked to the dining room table. He still somewhat resembled the leading man from the 1940s, except his hair was white and his eyes seemed to have disappeared into his face. His eyes stared out as if he was hiding within himself. As he neared the table the woman, Wanda, screamed at him:

  “For Christ’s sake, how many times have I told you to wipe your feet? Now, take your shoes off and put them outside!”

  James did as he was told. Then walked back to the table in his stocking feet, sat down. Wanda had come to his 75th birthday party one evening with some of his friends and she had simply stayed. Now he didn’t see much of his friends anymore. Wanda, who was 34 years younger, now handled his social affairs and his financial affairs. There had been sex between them at first but that had stopped years ago. James sat down to a plate of eggs and fried potatoes. Wanda sat across from him with a glass of sherry and lit a cigarette. She glared at James.

  “Christ, I couldn’t sleep last night! You were snoring again! I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

  The phone rang. It was there on the table next to Wanda. Wanda always answered the phone.

  “Yeh? This is the James Stagler residence. You’re talking to Wanda Bradley, Mr. Stagler’s agent. No, you can’t speak to Mr. Stagler. What do you want? An interview for what magazine? What do you pay? I thought so, we don’t give unpaid interviews.”

  Wanda banged the phone back into the cradle, glared at James again.

  “Don’t put so much butter on your toast! How many times do I have to tell you?”

  James wasn’t hungry. He liked to eat when it was quiet. It was seldom quiet. The phone rang again. Wanda snatched it up as if she were angry at it.

  “Yes? Oh, Mr. Stanhouse. Listen, I told you, 500 grand if you want him in your movie…yes, I know it’s a cameo role! No, you can’t speak to Jimmy! Yes, he’s all right, he’s fine, I see to that! Now, if you agree to the 500 thousand, bring over the papers and we’ll dust hi
m off.”

  Wanda put the phone down again, took a drink of her sherry.

  “Eat your eggs! I didn’t cook them for nothing!”

  “I don’t want to eat, Wanda.”

  “Eat those eggs!”