What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

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What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Page 2

by Charles Bukowski


  I suppose the historians will have a name and a meaning for it,

  but the young wised-up first

  and now the old are getting wise,

  almost everybody’s anti-war,

  no use having a war you can’t win,

  right or wrong.

  hell, I remember when I was a kid it

  was ten or 15 years after World War One was over,

  we built model planes of Spads and Fokkers,

  we bought Flying Aces magazine at the newsstand

  we knew about Baron Manfred von Richtofen

  and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker

  and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles

  and had dream

  bayonet fights with the dirty

  Hun…

  and those movies, full of drama and excitement,

  about good old World War One, where

  we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him

  once,

  and in the end

  we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards

  forever.

  the young kids now, they don’t build model warplanes

  nor do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,

  they know it’s all useless, ordinary,

  just a job like

  sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage,

  they’d rather go watch a Western or hang out at the

  mall or go to the zoo or a football game, they’re

  already thinking of college and automobiles and wives

  and homes and barbecues, they’re already trapped

  in another kind of dream, another kind of war,

  and I guess it won’t kill them as fast, at least not

  physically.

  it was wrong but World War One was fun for us

  it gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney

  and “Mademoiselle from Armentières, Parley-Voo?”

  it gave us

  long afternoons and evenings of play

  (we didn’t realize that many of us were soon to die in another war)

  yes, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it—

  the lies of our elders—

  and see how it has changed—

  they can’t bullshit

  even a kid anymore,

  not about all that.

  my father’s big-time fling

  I came home from grammar school

  one day

  and my mother was sitting,

  crying

  there was a woman there with a large nose

  and my father was there.

  my mother said, “come here.”

  I walked over and she said,

  “do you love me?”

  I wasn’t quite sure but I told her,

  “yes.”

  then my father said to me,

  “get the hell out of here.” and my mother

  said, “no, Henry, stay.”

  “I’ll kill you,” I told my father.

  “oh, christ,” said the woman with the big nose,

  “I’m getting out of here!”

  “who do you love?” my mother asked my father.

  my father began crying,

  “I love you both,”

  he said.

  “I’ll kill you,”

  I told him again.

  the woman with the big nose grabbed her

  purse and ran from the house.

  “Edna! wait!” screamed my father.

  he ran out of the house after her.

  I ran out too.

  Edna got into my father’s car and

  began to drive it down the

  street. she had the

  keys. my father ran after the

  car. he managed to reach in and

  grab Edna’s purse. but Edna

  drove off

  anyhow.

  back in the house

  my mother said to me:

  “he says he loves her. did you see her

  nose, Henry?”

  “yes, I saw it.”

  “christ,” said my father, “get that kid out of

  here!”

  “I’ll kill you!” I told him.

  he rushed toward me.

  I didn’t see the blow.

  my ear and face burned, I was on the

  floor—

  and inside my head

  a flash of red

  and a ringing sound.

  it cleared. I got up and rushed at him,

  swinging. I couldn’t

  kill him.

  a month later

  somebody broke his arm in a fight

  and it made me

  very happy.

  the bakers of 1935

  my mother, father and I

  walked to the market

  once a week

  for our government relief food:

  cans of beans, cans of

  weenies, cans of hash,

  some potatoes, some

  eggs.

  we carried the supplies

  in large shopping

  bags.

  and as we left the market

  we always stopped

  outside

  where there was a large

  window

  where we could see the

  bakers

  kneading

  the flour into the

  dough.

  there were 5 bakers,

  large young men

  and they stood at

  5 large wooden tables

  working very hard,

  not looking up.

  they flipped the dough in

  the air

  and all the sizes and

  designs were

  different.

  we were always hungry

  and the sight of the men

  working the dough,

  flipping it in the

  air was a wondrous

  sight, indeed.

  but then, it would come time

  to leave

  and we would walk away

  carrying our heavy

  shopping bags.

  “those men have jobs,”

  my father would say.

  he said it each time.

  every time we watched

  the bakers he would say

  that.

  “I think I’ve found a new way

  to make the hash,”

  my mother would say

  each time.

  or sometimes it was

  the weenies.

  we ate the eggs all

  different ways:

  fried, poached, boiled.

  one of our favorites was

  poached eggs on hash.

  but that favorite finally

  became almost impossible

  to eat.

  and the potatoes, we fried

  them, baked them, boiled

  them.

  but the potatoes had a way

  of not becoming as tiresome

  as the hash, the eggs, the

  beans.

  one day, arriving home,

  we placed all our foodstuffs

  on the kitchen counter and

  stared at them.

  then we turned away.

  “I’m going to hold up a

  bank!” my father suddenly

  said.

  “oh no, Henry, please!”

  said my mother,

  “please don’t!”

  “we’re going to eat some

  steak, we’re going to eat

  steaks until they come out

  of our ears!”

  “but Henry, you don’t have

  a gun!”

  “I’ll hold something in my

  coat, I’ll pretend it’s a gun!”

  “I’ve got a water pistol,”

  I said, “you can use that.”

  my father looked at me.

  “you,” he said, “SHUT UP!�


  I walked outside.

  I sat on the back steps.

  I could hear them in there

  talking but I couldn’t quite make it

  out.

  then I could hear them again, it was

  louder.

  “I’ll find a new way to cook every-

  thing!” my mother said.

  “I’m going to rob a god-damned

  bank!” my father said.

  “Henry, please, please don’t!”

  I heard my mother.

  I got up from the steps.

  walked away into the

  afternoon.

  the people

  all people start to

  come apart finally

  and there it is:

  just empty ashtrays in a room

  or wisps of hair on a comb

  in the dissolving moonlight.

  it is all ash

  and dry leaves

  and grief gone

  like an ocean liner.

  when the shoes fill with blood

  you know

  that the shoes are dead.

  true revolution

  comes from true revulsion;

  when things get bad enough

  the kitten will kill the lion.

  the statues in the church of my childhood

  and the candles that burn at their feet

  if I could only take these

  and open their eyes

  and feel their legs

  and hear their clay mouths

  say the true

  clay

  words.

  the pretty girl who rented rooms

  down in New Orleans

  this young pretty girl

  showed me a room for rent and

  it was dark in there and we stood

  very close

  and as we stood there

  she said,

  “the room is $4.50 a week.”

  and I said,

  “I usually pay $3.50.”

  as we stood there in the dark

  I decided to pay her $4.50 because

  maybe I’d see her in the hall once in a

  while

  and I could not understand then why

  women had to be like she was

  they always waited for you

  to give a sign

  to make the first move

  or not to make the first move

  and I said,

  “I’ll take the room,” and I gave her

  the money

  although I could see that

  the sheets were dirty and the bed

  wasn’t made

  but I was young and a virgin,

  frightened and

  confused

  and I gave her the money

  and she closed the door behind her

  and there was no toilet and no sink

  and no window.

  the room was damp with suicide and death

  and I undressed and lay down on the bed

  and I lived there a week

  and I saw many other people in the hall

  old drunks

  people on relief

  crazy people

  good young people

  dull old people

  but I never saw her again.

  finally

  I moved around the corner

  to a new place

  for $3.50 a week

  run by another female

  a 75-year-old religious maniac

  with bad eyes and a limp

  and we didn’t have any trouble

  at all

  and there was a sink

  and a window

  in the room.

  too soon

  this dutchman

  in a Philly bar put

  3 raw eggs in his

  beer

  before he took a

  drink.

  71, he was.

  I was 23 and sat 3

  barstools away

  burning

  sorrows.

  I held my head in all its

  tender precious

  agony

  and we drank

  together.

  “feelin’ bad, kid?” he asked.

  “yeh. yeh. yeh.”

  “kid,” he said, “I’ve slept longer than you’ve

  lived.”

  a good old man

  he was

  soothing

  gold

  and too soon

  dead.

  canned heat?

  not that I minded but I believe that my stint

  while bumming drinks from the end barstool in

  Philly

  was about as low on the social scale as

  you could get

  until one day this gentleman walked in

  and sat down beside me.

  now his breath really REEKED.

  I had to ask him,

  “what the hell have you been drinking?”

  “canned heat,” he said.

  “canned heat?” I asked.

  “yeah, it’s cheaper than the crap

  you’re drinking, I got a whole closet full

  of it.”

  I was a little afraid of him and he sensed

  that.

  “don’t worry about me,” he said, “I’m all right, let me

  buy you a beer.”

  “no, no, that’s all right…”

  “I insist…I’ll even drink one myself.”

  he ordered two draft beers from Jim the

  bartender.

  I lifted mine. “cheers!” I said.

  “cheers!” he said.

  “we’re different,” he said, “you bum drinks,

  I bum money for canned heat.”

  “but we’re both bums!”

  “right,” he laughed.

  we drank our beers.

  I had a few coins so then I bought him

  one.

  we sat there not saying much.

  he finished his beer, then

  noticed two men sitting at the middle

  of the bar.

  “pardon me,” he said.

  he walked down, stood behind

  them, asked something.

  “get the hell away from me!” one of the

  men said loudly.

  “yeah!” yelled the other man.

  then Jim the bartender yelled,

  “get the hell out of here!”

  the man walked to the door and was

  gone.

  Jim walked over to me.

  “I don’t want you talking to that son-of-a-

  bitch!” he told me.

  “Jim, he seemed like a nice guy!”

  “he’s crazy, he drinks canned heat!”

  Jim walked off and began picking up glasses

  and washing them.

  he seemed very angry.

  the other two men looked straight ahead,

  not talking.

  they also seemed quite angry.

  I had no idea what canned heat was,

  never heard of anybody in Philly

  drinking it.

  I sat and waited for happier

  times.

  Pershing Square, Los Angeles, 1939

  One orator proving there was a God

  and another proving that there wasn’t.

  and the crazy lady with the white and yellow

  hair with the big dirty blue ribbon,

  the white-striped dress, the tennis shoes,

  the bare dirty ankles and the big dog

  with the matted hardened fur.

  and there was the guitar player and

  the drum player and the flute player

  all about, the winos sleeping on

  the lawn

  and all the while the war was rushing

  toward us

  but somehow nobody argued about the

  war

  or at least I never heard them.
>
  in the late afternoon I would go into

  one of the bars on 6th street.

  I was 19 but I looked 30.

  I ordered scotch-and-water.

  I sat in a booth and nobody bothered

  me

  as the war rushed toward us.

  as the afternoon dipped into evening

  I refused to pay for my drinks.

  and demanded more.

  “Give me another drink or I’ll

  rip this place up!”

  “All right,” they told me, “one

  more but it’s the last and don’t

  come back, please.”

  I liked being young and mean.

  the world didn’t make any sense

  to me.

  as the night darkened I’d go back

  to Pershing Square

  and sit on the benches and watch

  and listen to the

  people.

  the winos on the lawn passed bottles

  of muscatel and port about

  as the war rushed toward

  us.

  I wasn’t interested in the war.

  I didn’t have anything, I didn’t want

  anything.

  I had my half pint of whiskey and I

  nipped at it, rolled cigarettes

  and waited.

  I’d read half the books in the library

  and had spit them out.

  the war rushed toward us.

  the guitar player played his guitar.

  the drummer beat his drums.

  and the flute player played that thing

  and it rushed toward us,

  the air was clear and cool.

  the stars seemed just a thousand feet

  away above us

  and you could see the red burning tips of

  cigarettes

  and there were people coughing and

  laughing and swearing,

  and some babbled and some prayed

  and many just sat there doing

  nothing,

  there was nothing to do,

  it was 1939 and it would never be

  1939 again

  in Los Angeles or any place

 

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