“I’d better make the next one,” I said, “this can go on for years.”
Well, I made it. We were in the air, and I was waiting on that first drink. They were quite slow about it. I looked in my flight bag. There were three or four warm bottles of beer in there. I opened one. The stewardess saw me.
“Sir,” she said, “that’s not allowed. We can put you off, you know.”
The pilot had just announced that we were at 35,000 feet.
“You better give me that bottle,” she said.
I gave her my bottle. I was a bad boy. Everybody stared at me. I felt like a killer or a child rapist.
Then they brought their bar around. THAT was okay. I had my scotch on rocks and looked out the window. Nothing out there. It was over: I was no longer the poet conning the crowd, I was just another lousy passenger going somewhere.
The cabby didn’t know the town. Very few of them did. They couldn’t even drive. The worst drivers in the world are the L.A. cab drivers. He made it on in without killing us so I gave him a good tip and there I was standing outside my beaten court, a couple more poetry readings behind me. Ski bum. One-nighter. Strictly vaudeville.
Candid Press, December 20, 1970
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
(Note: There is no intent to hurt or malign living persons with this story. I am sincere when I say this. There is enough hurt now. I doubt that anything happened as happened in this story. The author was only caught in the inventiveness of his own mind. If this is a sin, then all creators of all times have sinned. . . . c.b.)
Tony Kinnard was a great poet of the ’50s. Well, maybe he wasn’t great but he was interesting. He carried this halo of action with him; things seemed to be always going on around Tony. He was one of the first to read poetry with jazz. And he was strong, he was a man. Some of his poetry was soft but Tony was a man. One of the strongest men in America. I mean, physically. He assumed a kind of immortality while still alive, rather the type that is attached to Allen Ginsberg. Well, Tony was going along all right until one day he made the big mistake, as all strong men make that big mistake.
It was a pretty girl. She had jacked her car up and managed to change the flat tire all by herself but the jack was stuck and wouldn’t go down. Bumper jacks have this habit of sticking. All you do is take off the brake and drive your car off the jack. It’s simple. But Tony Kinnard was the strong man. And the girl was pretty. Tony told her he’d lift the car off the jack and all she had to do was pull the jack out.
“Really?” she asked, thinking, my god, what wouldn’t it be to get fucked by a man that strong?
Tony backed to the bumper and lifted. The car rose. The girl took the jack out. Tony put the car back down. But he was frozen. He couldn’t straighten his back up. The girl called an ambulance. They took Tony off. He hadn’t even gotten the girl’s phone number.
The troubles began at the hospital. The food wasn’t right. The service was indecent. The doctors were hammerhead sharks. Well, anybody knows that doctors are hammerhead sharks. But Tony thought he had found out something new. Tony began fighting with the doctors and the nurses. After all, Tony was a poet and poets know things by instinct. He kept demanding new doctors. He changed hospitals. He was going to expose the whole medical profession. Somehow on the way to the x-ray room, being carried by two male nurses from the roller to the machine, they managed to drop Tony on his . . . back. You could hear him from Monterey to New Orleans. Tony entered a lawsuit for damages. They put him back in his bedroom. The medics wouldn’t touch him. He lay there smoking pack after pack of Lucky Strikes and feeling bad.
At first Tony saw visitors and talked about his case. He had a nice wife, Clara, and they and his friends planned strategies. Benefits were set up and the money went to Tony. People would ring the doorbell and slip envelopes under the door. Envelopes full of money. Then, slowly, it seemed that Tony wasn’t always in, or he was asleep or under sedative. Clara would answer the door . . . “I’m sorry, Tony can’t be disturbed right now. . . .” The benefits kept coming but nobody saw Tony any more. Clara answered all the mail . . . “Tony and I are very grateful for your help. . . .” Tony stopped writing poems.
The shades went down and nobody answered the door or the phone. Clara responded to the mail.
It was some weeks later that Clara came in with the soup. Tony was dead. He was propped up against the pillows, and dead. Clara couldn’t believe it. She refused to believe it. She had just spoken to him a moment ago. She opened his mouth and fed him the soup. Much of the soup wouldn’t go in but she did the best she could.
“Now, Tony, stop it. Eat your soup.”
There was roast beef for dinner. The roast beef was worse. Tony had seemed to have lost his appetite.
The days went on. Tony began to stink. Clara sprayed the air and bathed Tony. The process heightened. Chunks of flesh began to fall off. Clara flushed them down the toilet. Soon just the skeleton remained. Tony Kinnard had stopped writing poetry. Clara fed him soup, kissed him, and sang to him at night. Tony was silent.
The benefits went on. Money still arrived under the door. But the shades stayed down, the phone was not answered. The situation remained as was until one day Clara went to sleep on the couch while smoking a cigarette. The flames and smoke rose and somebody called the fire dept. The firemen broke down the door and put the couch out. Then one of the dudes had to use the bathroom to take a piss and as he walked by the bedroom the door was open. He never pissed. He saw Tony sitting up in bed there. The fireman walked out to the chief who was flirting with a 16-year-old girl outside.
“Chief,” he said.
“Later, Henderson. . . .”
“Chief, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Listen, Henderson. . . .”
“There’s a skeleton sitting up in bed in that house.”
“What?”
“Yes. Just what I said.”
The chief walked in. He went to the bedroom. There it was.
“Mrs. Kinnard.”
“Yes?”
“What’s this?”
“That’s my husband.”
“I see. . . .”
The chief dialed the police department. . . .
When Tony Kinnard was good he was very good. Much of his stuff was just a bit on the sweet side but when he hit it right he was on it. Like any other sensible man he seemed to ask for a better world. He didn’t get it. We didn’t either. I think it’s time a large publisher put together a definitive collection of his work. After all, I sent some money up there myself. Mrs. Kinnard can be reached by THE FUND TO RELEASE MRS. KINNARD AND POETRY, box 2352 . . . Tony was given a burial by his friends. Almost all the great poets of the land were there. I couldn’t make it. Somehow I kept wondering about the girl Tony lifted the car for. Think of the influence this girl had on world literature. And she’s probably screwing some dumb-ass dude as I write this now. Well, the world has never been too happy a place, has it? My sympathies are with Tony Kinnard and Clara Kinnard, and with poetry. . . . Which of us will be next?
Nola Express 96, 1971
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
They’d been married 32 years, June and Clyde, and I guess of all the marriages I saw, they made it best. Close, that’s what they were. Close, and I guess June cared more than Clyde, but they both cared and it lasted.
June was the extrovert. Clyde was the introvert, nobody much liked Clyde except June. In fact, they said, Clyde doesn’t deserve June. I thought they deserved each other.
They battled, but in 32 years they only had one bad split . . . for a week. That’s rather damned good. I think I fought with Clyde more than June did.
Clyde was the editor of the little magazine Dustbird, and he printed books, he printed a couple of mine, poetry; he had his own press and he did fine work, and lay around drinking beer and keeping them awake all night. They seemed to keep inviting me to whatever place and whatever city they were in, though, and I’d land and drink beer and flop arou
nd and start trouble . . . New Orleans, Tucson, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, there I’d be in their place, laying around and drinking their beer and arguing with them, and bringing dirty women in from the streets.
Listen, I got to know them. But this is not a story about me, it’s a story about them, so let’s go.
Close. He worked the press and she set the type and did the unglamorous work. They printed my poems on paper that was supposed to last 2,000 years. I told them that the paper was much better than the poetry but since they didn’t pay me royalties I was going to eat all their food and stay drunk on beer and live in their goddamned place. “All right, all right,” said Clyde, “only don’t forget to sign those 3,000 pages in silver ink and make your nice little drawings . . .”
“Goddamn you, Clyde,” I said, “you’re living off my life blood. I’m outta beer. Gimme more money for beer . . .”
“All right, but only one more six-pack tonight . . .”
“Two six-packs or I don’t sign any pages tonight . . .”
“You’re a real rat, Bukowski. I don’t understand how you can act like you do and still write like you do . . .”
“Come on, bloodsucker, I need two six-packs . . .”
Close. That’s what they were.
“All right,” Clyde said, “all right! Here’s your goddamned beer money!”
Thirty-two years. And then Clyde got sick. We were in a southern town but they had a large hospital and I took some Alka-Seltzers and followed with a warm beer and drove Clyde in. June was worried. It was something about the neck. I don’t know exactly what. One thing on one side of the neck was gone and now they had to operate on the other side, try to fix it.
It was to be a minor operation. June insisted on staying at the hospital. She was like a mad woman. She lay on the floor by Clyde’s bed and they finally gave her a little mat to sleep on. I went on back to the place and looked for money for beer. I found some and drank up. I decided to help Clyde get rid of some of his piled up manuscripts. I drank beer and read and rejected them all and signed Clyde’s name.
“You son of a bitch, you write poetry like riding a horse backwards. Give it up . . .”
“Dear sir: You’d make a better beet-picker in a hail storm. As a writer you succinctly stink of goat-shit. Give it up . . .”
“Madam: You might be a good lay (thanks for the nude photo) but I ain’t gonna print this 9th-rate crap in order to get into your goddamned panties. I have some advice for you: give it up, and I don’t mean copulating . . .”
I didn’t sign any pages with my silver pen that night.
The next day I went to the hospital. I found they were going to operate on the following day. June was disturbed. About everything. “The potatoes had lumps in them . . . The ice water was warm . . . There weren’t enough restrooms and there weren’t enough doctors or nurses, and they didn’t know what was wrong with Clyde, they didn’t know what the hell they were doing, and here was some more money for beer, yeah, shut up, you signin’ them pages? . . . They jam those tubes up Clyde’s nostrils, how the hell’s a man supposed to eat with those tubes up his nose. It’s like trying to screw with a hose jammed up your ass . . .”
“I don’t know,” I said, “that might feel pretty good, especially if you turn the water on a bit.”
“Look, I got a sick husband. I don’t want no wise talk out of no half-ass poet . . .”
“Gimme the beer money and I’ll lay off . . .”
“My god, and Clyde thinks you’re better than Rimbaud.”
“I am. Rimbaud sucked shit through his ears . . .”
“Here’s the money . . . now go away . . . my husband’s sick . . .”
“Give me a quarter for cigars . . .”
“All right! Here’s your cigars! My god, you’re as bad as these doctors!”
“Nobody can be as bad as these doctors . . .”
Well, something went wrong with the operation. The doctor told me that everything was all right, and then BINGO! Something seemed to go wrong. That’s the way he described it.
Clyde went into a coma. One day, two days, three days . . . June stayed there, she slept on the mat, she prayed, she talked to Clyde.
“Clyde, honey, speak to me . . . Clyde, honey, I love you. Talk to me. Open your eyes, open those baby blue eyes . . .”
“June . . . June, “ I said, “listen . . .”
“What do you want, you bastard?”
“Beer.”
“My husband’s dying and you want beer?”
“Yes, June.”
“All right . . . Here! Beer money for you! Now go away, bastard vulture!”
“June, I’m washing the dishes, signing the pages in silver ink, I took out the garbage, I . . .”
“Just go away, please . . .”
The coma went into the 4th day, then the 5th. June stayed there, slept on the mat. “I’m praying for a miracle,” she said.
“I am too,” said the doctor. “I’m praying for a miracle. I’m praying that he dies . . .”
“You son of a bitch! You mean you’re praying that he is going to die? What the hell kind of a doctor are you?”
“My dear, it he lives, he’ll only have a part of his brain and he’ll be partly paralyzed, he’ll be like a baby . . .”
“So what the hell, I’ll take care of him! You stop praying that he will die!”
I managed to get June out of that room and we took a walk around the grounds, sat on a bench in the shade. There was grass and quietness and you couldn’t see the sick and the dying. Dying was such a struggle, such an inconvenience and it was expensive. The poor couldn’t afford to die, that’s why the poor lived longer.
When we got back the doctor was at the door to the room.
“He’s gone,” he told June, “he just passed this moment . . .”
“Lemme see!”
“Please now!”
June ran in. We followed.
“You pulled all the tubes outta him, no wonder he died! What’d you pull all the tubes out of him for?”
“Madam . . .”
“You let him die . . .”
“Please . . . .”
“What do I care if he was gonna be a baby? I like babies, he was my baby for 32 years, you let him die, you scum shit . . .”
“Please, madam . . .”
“I want his teeth . . .”
“Yes, what good are his teeth gonna do you? I can’t let you have his teeth . . .”
“He was my husband . . . Listen, he’s willed his body to the university for research . . . what the hell good are his teeth gonna do them? It’s just his uppers . . . I want his uppers . . . see they’re in that glass there . . .”
“I can’t let you have them . . .”
“Like hell!”
June reached into the glass and then dropped the teeth into her purse.
“You just try to get my husband’s teeth away from me, I’ll kill you!”
“All right, madam, the teeth are yours . . .”
I sat drinking beer and June went over it.
“They let him die. They pulled those tubes out . . . those scum . . .”
“June, the dead are dead, there’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s go to bed . . .”
“Go to bed?”
“Yes, let’s hit the sack, let’s make it . . .”
“Make what?”
“I mean, let’s forget, what the hell . . .”
“Listen, I knew Clyde for 32 years . . .”
“Clyde can’t help you now . . .”
“His body’s still warm, you bastard . . .”
“Mine’s hot . . .”
“Stop it . . . .”
“Listen, June, you’ve still got it . . . after 32 years . . . and I’ve always been fond of you . . .”
“Let go of me . . . you’re so disrespectful . . . let go!”
“Just a little kiss, baby . . .”
“I love Clyde . . .”
“You loved Clyde . . . He can’t
get it up now, baby . . .”
“Oh, you fiend . . . you stink . . . words can’t describe you . . .”
“Try . . .”
“No, no, just stay away . . .”
A couple of days later June got to worrying about the body, what were they doing with the body? Exactly where was the body? Could we trust them? She wanted to see the body . . . she wanted to see it . . .
“Sometimes I get to thinking he ain’t even dead.”
I got on the phone. I phoned here and there. I located the body. We set up an appointment with the body. Then I hung up.
“They said you wouldn’t be interested. They said it’s just something in a plastic bag.”
“Can I see it?”
“I’ve set up an appointment. Bring identification . . .”
Well, we got past the man at the desk and we went in to see Clyde. He was in a little round vault with a black plaque engraved with white letters over the opening. It hung from a gold chain that was screwed into the vault. June got out her fingernail file and tried to turn the screw.
“What are you doing? You can’t get in that way . . . .”
“I know. I want this plaque . . .”
“You’re crazy . . .”
“It’s my husband . . .”
“It was . . . now he belongs to the university . . . they’re going to chop him up like a frog . . . students will put his penis under their beds, they’ll gouge his eyes out . . . chop off his balls . . . cut out his heart . . . slice his lungs . . . he’ll be a eunuch, he’ll be beefstew, garbage . . .”
“All for the good of Humanity . . .”
“Humanity? That gang? Piss on them . . .”
“Anyway, I want this plaque . . .”
I didn’t think she could do it with the end of her nailfile but she did, she worked the screw out and dropped the nameplate in her purse. Then she tried to open the vault.
“Goddamn! Look at the size of that lock on there!”
They had a huge padlock on a chain that held the vault door closed. However, when you pulled at the door it did open about an inch and a half. June pulled at the door.
“Pew! It stinks!”
The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way Page 7