What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

by Charles Bukowski

  leg

  at 3:42 in the

  afternoon.

  born to lose another

  woman—

  clothes gone from

  closet,

  hairpins

  lotions

  lipstick

  rings

  left

  behind.

  born to dance on

  one leg.

  born to sit around

  and watch flies

  frogs

  and roaches.

  born to sever fingers

  on the edge of

  tuna cans.

  born to walk about

  with guts

  shot out

  from front to

  back.

  born again

  and

  again and

  again.

  guess who?

  she passed from one important man

  to another,

  from bed to bed

  from man to man

  all of them

  society’s important men:

  politicians, athletes, artists,

  lawyers, doctors, entertainers,

  producers, financiers,

  and they all gave her one thing

  or another:

  gifts, money, publication,

  publicity and/or

  the good life.

  but when she suddenly died

  at 32

  the only ones at her funeral

  were

  an aunt from Virginia

  her bookie

  her dope dealer

  a bartender

  an alcoholic neighbor

  and several hired hands at the

  graveyard.

  but she held

  2 final aces

  and had the last laugh:

  she’d never worked an

  8 hour day

  and they buried her

  with all the gold

  in her teeth.

  I want a mermaid

  speaking about going crazy

  I have been thinking about

  mermaids lately.

  but I can’t place them

  properly in my

  mind.

  one problem that bothers

  me

  is where are their sexual

  organs located?

  do they use toilet paper?

  and can they stand

  on their flipper

  while frying bacon and

  eggs?

  I think

  I’d like a mermaid

  to love.

  sometimes in the supermarket

  I see crabs and baby

  octopi

  and I think, well,

  I could feed her that.

  but how would I pack her

  around at the racetrack?

  I get my things and then

  push my cart to the

  checkout stand.

  “how are you today?” she

  asks.

  “o.k.,” I say.

  she has on a

  market uniform

  flat shoes

  earrings

  a little cap

  pantyhose.

  she rings up my

  purchases. I know

  where her sexual organs

  are located as

  I look out the

  plate glass window

  and wait.

  an unusual place

  just thinking about

  writing this poem has

  already almost made me

  sick

  but I’ll try it one more

  time.

  it was in Salt Lake

  City

  and I had the

  flu

  and it was cold

  and I was in my

  shirtsleeves.

  I had given my

  reading and was

  ready to fly

  back to L.A.

  but I was with

  2 girls who wanted

  to make the bars

  and we went into

  this one place

  and the girls wanted

  to sit near the

  front.

  there was a

  boy on the stage

  a Japanese cowboy

  and he could

  holler.

  I had to

  make the men’s room

  and I ran in

  there

  and the urinal was

  like a large shallow

  bathtub

  and it was

  clogged and

  full of urine

  gently spilling across

  the floor.

  the entire floor

  was wet

  and I almost puked

  into that flowing

  tide of piss.

  I came out and

  got the girls

  out of there.

  that time

  I didn’t tip for

  table service.

  I’m still not

  sure

  which was worse—

  the men’s room

  or that Japanese

  cowboy.

  that’s Mormon

  territory and clearly

  there’s work to be

  done.

  in this city now—

  wives’ heads are

  battered

  against kitchen

  walls

  by unemployed

  butchers.

  pimps

  send out their

  dreary and doped

  battalions

  of tired

  girls.

  upstairs a man

  pukes

  his entire stomach

  into a

  wastebasket.

  we all drink

  too much

  cheap wine

  search for

  cigarettes

  look at our

  mates

  across

  tabletops

  and wonder why

  they became

  ugly

  so soon.

  we turn our

  TV’s on

  searching for

  baseball games

  soaps

  and

  cop

  shows

  but it’s only

  the sound

  we want

  some minor

  distraction.

  nobody cares

  about

  endings

  we know the

  end.

  some of us

  weaken

  some of us

  become

  sniffers of

  Christ.

  some don’t.

  to know anything is

  to score

  and to score

  is

  necessary

  that’s

  baseball

  and that’s all

  the rest

  of it

  too.

  Captain Goodwine

  one goes from being a poet

  to being an entertainer.

  I read my stuff in Florida once

  and the professor there

  told me, “you realize you’re

  an entertainer now, don’t

  you?”

  I began to

  feel bad about that remark

  because when the crowd

  comes to be entertained by

  you

  then you become somehow

  suspect.

  and so, another time,

  starting from Los Angeles

  we took to the air and

  the flight captain introduced

  himself as

  “Captain Goodwine,”

  and thousands of miles

  later I found myself transferred

  to a small 2-engine
/>   plane and we took off and

  the stewardess put a drink

  in my hand

  took my money and then

  hollered, “drink up,

  we’re landing!”

  we landed

  took off again and she put

  another drink in my hand,

  took my money and then

  hollered, “drink up,

  we’re landing!”

  the 3rd time I ordered

  2 drinks

  although we only landed

  once more.

  I read twice that night in Arkansas

  and ended up in a home with

  clean rugs, a serving bar, a fireplace

  and professors who spoke about budgets

  and Fulbright scholarships, and where

  the wives of the professors

  sat very quietly without speaking.

  they were all waiting for me

  the entertainer

  who had flown in with Captain

  Goodwine to

  entertain them to make a move on

  someone’s wife to break the windows

  to piss on the rug to play the

  fool to make them feel superior

  to make them feel hip and liberated.

  if I would only stick a cigarette

  up the cat’s ass!

  if I would only take the

  willing co-ed

  who was doing a term paper on

  Chinaski!

  but I got up and went to my

  poet’s bedroom

  closed the door

  took off my clothes

  went to bed and

  went to sleep

  thereby

  entertaining myself

  the best way

  I knew

  how.

  morning love

  I awakened about 10:30 a.m.

  Sunday morning

  and I sat straight up in bed

  and I said,

  “o, Jesus Christ!”

  and she said,

  “what’s the matter, Hank?”

  and I said, “it’s my car. do you

  remember where we parked last night?”

  and she said,

  “no, I don’t.”

  and I said,

  “well, I think there’s something strange going on.”

  and I got dressed and went out on the street.

  I was worried.

  I had no idea where the car was

  and I walked up my street and down the next

  street and I didn’t see it.

  I have love affairs with my cars

  and the older they are and/or the longer I have them

  the more I care.

  this one was an ancient love.

  —then three blocks to the west I saw it:

  parked dead center in the middle of a very narrow

  street. nobody could enter the street or leave it.

  my car sat there calmly like a forgotten drunk.

  I walked over, got in, put the key in, and it

  started.

  there was no ticket.

  I felt good.

  I drove it to my street and parked it

  carefully.

  I walked back up the stairway and opened the

  door.

  “well, is your car all right?” she asked.

  “yeah, I found it,” I said, “guess where it…”

  “you worry too much about that god-damned car!”

  she snapped. “did you bring back any 7-Up, any beer?

  I need something now!”

  I undressed and got back into bed and

  pushed my fat ass up against her fat

  belly and never said another

  word.

  an old jockey

  when you no longer see their name on the program

  at Hollywood Park or Santa Anita

  you figure they have retired

  but it’s not always the case.

  sometimes women or bad investments

  or drink or drugs

  don’t let them quit.

  then you see them down at Caliente

  on bad mounts

  vying against the flashy Mexican boys

  or you see them at the county fair

  dashing for that first hairpin

  turn.

  it’s like once-famous fighters

  being fed to the rising small-town hero.

  I was in Phoenix one afternoon

  and the people were talking and chattering and talking

  so I borrowed my lady’s car

  and got out of there

  and drove to the track.

  I had a fair day.

  then in the last race

  the jock brought in a longshot:

  $48.40 and I looked at the program:

  R.Y.

  so that’s what happened to him?

  and when he pulled his mount up inside the winner’s

  circle he shook his whip in the air

  just like he used to do at Hollywood Park.

  it was like seeing the dead

  newly risen:

  good old R.Y.

  5 pounds overweight

  a bit older

  and still able to

  create the magic.

  I hadn’t noticed his name

  on that $3,500 claiming race

  or I would have put a small

  sentimental bet on him

  on his only mount of the day.

  you can have your New Year’s parties

  your birthdays

  your Christmas

  your 4th of July

  I’ll take my kind of magic.

  driving back in

  I felt very good for R.Y.

  when I got back they were still

  chatting and talking and chatting

  and my lady looked up and said,

  “well, how did you do?”

  and I said, “I had a lucky day.”

  and she said, “it’s about time.”

  and she was right.

  hard times on Carlton Way

  somebody else was killed last night

  as I sit looking at 12 red dying roses.

  I do believe that this neighborhood must

  be tougher than Spanish Harlem in N.Y.

  I must get out.

  I’ve lived here 4 years without a scratch

  and in a sense my neighbors accept me.

  I’m just the old guy in a white t-shirt.

  but that won’t help me one day.

  I’m no longer broke.

  I could get out of here.

  I could better my living conditions.

  but I have an idea

  I’ll never get out of here.

  I like the nearby taco stand too much.

  I like the cheap bars and pawn shops and

  the roving insane

  who sleep on our bus stop benches

  or in the bushes

  and raid the Goodwill container

  for clothing.

  I feel a bond with these

  people.

  I was once like them even though I

  now am a published writer with some

  minor success.

  somebody else was killed last night

  in this neighborhood

  almost under my window.

  I’m sentimental:

  even though the roses are

  almost dead

  somebody brought them to me

  and must I finally throw them

  away?

  another death last night

  another death

  the poor kill the poor.

  I’ve got to get out of this

  neighborhood

  not for the good of my poetry

  but for a reasonable chance at

  old age.

  as I write this

  the giant who lives in the back

  who wea
rs a striped black-and-yellow

  t-shirt as big as a tent

  (he looks like a huge bumblebee at

  six-foot-four and 290 pounds)

  walks past my window and claws

  the screen.

  “mercy, my friend,” I ask.

  “there’ll be no mercy,” he says, turning back

  to his tiny flat.

  the 12 dead roses look at me.

  we needed him

  so big, with a cigar sticking out of his mouth

  he listened patiently to the people

  to the old women in the neighborhood who told him

  about their arthritis and their constipation

  or about the peeping toms who looked in at their

  wrinkled bodies at night

  breathing heavily outside the blinds.

  he had patience with people

  he knew something as he sat at the taco stand and

  listened to the cokeheads and the meth-heads

  and the ugly whores

  who then listened carefully to him

  he was the neighborhood

  he was Hollywood and Western

  even the pimps with their switchblades stood aside

  when he walked by.

  then it happened without warning: he began to get

  thin. he came to my door and asked if I had some

  oranges. he sat in my chair looking weak and sad,

  he seemed about to cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong.

  I can’t eat. I puke it all up.” I told him to go

  to the doctors. he went to the Vet’s Hospital, he went

  to Queen of Angels, he went to Hollywood

  Presbyterian. he went to other stranger places.

  I went to see him the other day. he had moved out of

  the neighborhood. he sat in a chair. discarded

  milk cartons were on the floor, empty beef stew

  cans, empty Kentucky Colonel boxes, bags of

  uneaten french fries and the stale stink.

  “you need a good diagnostician,” I said.”

  “it’s no use,” he said.

  “keep trying…”

  “I’ve found,” he said, “that I can drink buttermilk