The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way

by Charles Bukowski

  That night my phone rang about midnight: “You son of a bitch, that poem made me so hot! Goddamn you! Talk to me! Talk to me! Oh, you son of a bitch!”

  I kept talking and she began making these sounds over the phone. The sounds got wilder, louder and louder. Then they reached a climax. . . .

  “All right, I’m finished! I don’t need you anymore!”

  She hung up.

  I phoned back: “Charlotte, are you all right?”

  “Oh, I’m so ashamed! I’ll never be able to face you again! I couldn’t help it. That’s the hottest poem I ever read. . . .”

  “Come on now, you really didn’t do it over the telephone, did you?”

  She hung up again and I went back to bed. . . .

  My head finally got finished and it was a sad day when that happened, and yet it wasn’t so sad because I continued to see Charlotte and our relationship deepened further. Yet we fought continually. Every time we split, I’d run that head back to her place, usually along with a vile and impassioned note declaring that it was over forever. Then I’d get the head back when we got together. I lost my head again and again. I don’t know how many trips that poor head has made. It’s a fine work of Art and certainly a well-traveled one. After our last split she beat me to it. While I was out she broke in and stole the head back. Now I’ve decided to simply leave the head at her place. And when I go over there, which is often, the head sits by the back window, grinning and knowledgeable, a real crud, a beat-up old guy, but there is love coming from the eyes, love that hadn’t been there for years; she caught the look of it in the clay & before it was finished, the taste of almonds. That head is two years old now, and tonight Charlotte sits across the room from me typing. She stops, turns and asks me: “How do you spell ‘schizophrenia’?” Now I wonder what the hell she’s writing about?

  Nola Express, December 8–21, 1972

  Guggenheim Application:

  Narrative Account of Career

  I began writing in my early twenties and was first published in Whit Burnett’s Story magazine at the age of 24 and also in Caresse Crosby’s Portfolio at about the same time. Both acceptances were short stories. At the age of 25 I had practically stopped writing and submitting except for a couple of desultory appearances around 1948 in a little magazine, Matrix. I began an exploration of skid row life and drifter’s jobs, alcoholism and ladies of the streets which finally led me to the charity ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital with massive hemorrhages. I was given 12 pints of blood and 12 of glucose. The priest offered me last rites which I refused, not so much because I didn’t think I was going to die but I was no longer quite that type of Catholic. I came out of the hospital and got a job driving a truck, bought a typewriter and began writing again—this time almost all poetry, dozens of poems, hundreds of poems. The material was there and I seemed to be there too. Something had congealed besides my stomach. I was 35 and the work seemed to be accepted everywhere by the little magazines. As time went on editors asked if they might do books of my poetry. In one of these books, It Catches My Heart in Its Hands: New and Selected Poems, 1955– 1963, Dr. John William Corrington, Louisiana State University, states in the introduction: “What Wordsworth claimed to have in mind, what William Carlos Williams claimed to have done, what Rimbaud actually did do in the French, Bukowski has accomplished for the American language.” More poems followed, more stories, more books of poems . . . a novel. At 53 (with a typewriter that skips) and with a backlog of work behind me, I am still writing. My poems have appeared in over 200 magazines here and in Europe. I won the New York Quarterly’s first Lucille Medwick award for a poem “which is the best expression of the concern of our ethnic minorities—their special heritage, their unique mythology, and their desperate appeal for social justice.” Awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, June 1, 1973 to May 31, 1974.

  [signed] Charles Bukowski

  Notes of a Dirty Old Man

  “Harry,” said Doug, “you sure you want to go $500 for this?”

  They turned north into Hollywood Hills. Doug was driving. Harry had been drinking. “Sure, $500 is all right. You know, certain drunks in Van Nuys, Highland Park, and Compton have phoned and have been threatening me with death.”

  “Oh, well I’ve written some good things lately, too. You got the $500?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got it. You know, if you’re going to be a good artist at all, you’re going to insult some people because the artist is always at least 600–700 years ahead of the masses. The people are the enemy, they are the residue of stale and common thoughts and conceptions.”

  It was going into evening and the road was long and winding.

  “That’s where Marlon Brando lives,” said Doug.

  “Think how difficult it is to be a writer nowadays,” said Harry, “all these groups have gathered into protective camps. If you write about a woman, a black, a Chicano, a homosexual, a lesbian as not being a very good person, you are attacked right off as a pig. Yet there are women, Chicanos, blacks, and lesbians who are not very good persons. This is the Great Age of Fear.”

  “Harry, every time you start drinking you start talking about writing. There’s not a more disgusting subject. I’m taking you up here to show you something special.”

  Harry didn’t seem to hear. He took another nip at the pint.

  “About the only person the artist can put up as evil and disgraceful is the male white. Nobody seems to care about the male white. You have to be very careful about the homosexual white.”

  “They don’t bother me, Harry.”

  “Talk about prejudice. Look at Hogan’s Heroes. The Germans are continually pictured as bungling, loud, stupid, egotistical jerks. And the Americans are so clever and humorous and nice, with such inventiveness and brainpower. One wonders how fellows like that ever managed to get into a prison camp?”

  “It won’t be long, we’ll be there. You’re really going to see something.”

  Doug turned left up the road and then went up a driveway. He got out and waited for Harry, locked the doors. They walked up a pathway toward a dimly lit house. “It’s the U.S. intellectual that runs the U.S. brain: a war against the Left is a useless war, a war against the Right is holy.”

  Doug rang the bell and they waited. “They accused Céline of being anti-Semite,” Harry went on. “There was a particular passage in one of his books about ‘the Jew’s heavy footsteps.’ And when they asked him, ‘Céline, don’t you like Jews?’ he answered, ‘I don’t like people.’ Then they really hated him.”

  The door opened. A dark-haired woman, heavily rouged, in a white gown trimmed with white fur, was at the door. A great lace of long beads dangled from her neck. The fingers of both of her hands were filled with rings with large stones. The house smelled of many scents and had excessively thick rugs; drapes with tassels hung upon the walls and billowed from the ceilings. The woman was about 30. “Hello, Sybil,” said Doug, “this is my friend, Harry.”

  They followed Sybil through several rooms. They entered the final room. On a couch covered with the sheerest of green satin sat a girl, about nine. Sybil turned to Harry. “This, Harry, is my daughter, Pelna. Pelna, this is Harry.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Harry.

  “Hello,” said Plena.

  Plena had on a large hat of flowers with a pink ribbon that wound under her chin holding the whole affair to her. She had on the faintest tinge of lipstick and mascara. She had on a white dress that flounced outward, green short stockings, ordinary children’s shoes. She was a child but something within her kept insinuating womanhood. She stuck a finger against one of her cheeks and looked up at Harry, opening her eyes quite wide.

  “She’s most beautiful,” said Harry. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Nonsense,” said Sybil. “Do you have the $500?”

  “Oh yes,” said Harry. He pulled out his wallet and gave Sybil five $100 bills. “Thank you,” said Sybil. “I’ve read your books, Mr. Tallam
an, and I’ve really adored them. Pelna has read some of your books, too. Would you gentlemen care for a drink?” The gentlemen told her yes and Sybil left the room. She soon returned with three drinks in purple glasses. “My own concoction. Good for the pecker, the heart, and the soul,” she said.

  “Ah, yes, quite good,” said Harry, sipping at his.

  “You must understand, Harry, that I must remain in the room to be sure you don’t hurt Pelna. I’m her mother, after all. You must promise to be gentle. Doug was quite gentle.”

  “I really don’t know if I can.”

  “She really doesn’t mind,” said Doug. “I think she rather enjoys it.”

  “She does enjoy it,” said Sybil.

  “But it’s not proper,” said Harry, “she’s just a child.”

  “Christian morals, Harry,” said Doug. “It’s done all the time in India, in Mexico, in China, even in the U.S.”

  “You’re supposed to be a writer,” said Sybil, “you seek experience, don’t you?”

  “I can’t do it,” said Harry.

  “I have your $500.”

  “Keep it. I can’t do it.”

  “Let me have her then,” said Doug.

  “Come on, Harry, let’s go out on the balcony. There’s a lovely view.”

  Harry followed Sybil through two rooms and then there was a balcony. They stood there looking over the city of Los Angeles. Harry sipped at his drink. Then he finished it off.

  “What do you think they’re doing? Do you think he’s kissing her now?”

  “Isn’t that an old song? It goes, ‘I wonder who’s kissing her now?’ Feel like you’re missing something, Harry?”

  “Christ, what kind of mother are you?”

  “Don’t give me that lame shit, Harry. We all make it the best way we can. I can’t write. Survival is more important than truth.”

  “Don’t you worry about her?”

  “It’s your 500. Doug is very gentle, I trust him.”

  “But what about the future? What’s it going to do to your child’s mind, her insides, her feelings?”

  “She’ll probably be a hell of a lot more ready for the world than the girl who comes out of a convent.”

  Harry pulled out his pint and had a good one. “How long will it take? How long is it going to take him?”

  “Doug likes to take his time. Sam Goldwyn Studios caught on fire yesterday. It made me very sad.”

  “We just stand here and wait, is that it?”

  “For what?”

  “Until he’s done.”

  “Doug will let us know.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I wasn’t meaning to be funny.”

  “What would you know about ‘funny’ anyhow?”

  “I know what’s funny out of Hollywood. To make them laugh you must state the most obvious thing and multiply by 15. Most people have a great fear of being different, so if they can laugh at a seeming truth that almost everybody recognizes, it makes them safe—it indicates that they understand the mechanism, that they understand each other, and that they are all together, laughing.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that laughter, the laughter of the crowd together, and it’s a most piteous, mewling, begging and cowardly sound.”

  “Let me have a bit of your drink, Harry,” said Sybil. Harry passed the bottle. Sybil had a drink and passed it back. “Thurber,” she said, “Thurber was a real humorist because he knew the difference between actual-subtle and unactual-obvious.”

  “Yeah,” said Harry, “you’re dragged to these parties and they tell you something about so and so, say Joe Landers, oh Joe Landers is such a funny guy! So you go. And there he is. He has yellow teeth and lines like spaghetti burned at the bottom of the pot. He’ll point to some guy—usually me—and say something like, ‘Hey, old man, I see you’ve been swimming today!’ ‘O.K.,’ you answer, ‘how did you know that I’ve been swimming?’ ‘You must have been! I see you left your lifebelt on under your shirt!’ Then the crowd laughs.”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Sybil. “I’ll get us another drink.”

  Harry waited, looking down over the city. Well, here he was making it as a writer. It seemed very strange. And what was more strange was how your friends attacked you, some with the oldest, rustiest saw of them all: He’s too negative, he ought to be more objective. But it works that way. I dislike things too: Mailer, Capote, though I suppose it’s more their affluence than their writing which disturbs me. I dislike Tolstoy, Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. I dislike most Russian authors who become famous and win prizes and places of exile for saying that Russia is rotten. And there’s a new one every five years as soon as the preceding one has evaporated.

  Harry heard the footsteps. Doug and Sybil were coming out on the balcony. Doug had one drink, Sybil two. Sybil handed one to Harry. “Harry and I have had a nice talk out here,” Sybil said to Doug. “Harry likes to talk,” said Doug, “I save it for the typewriter.”

  “Sam Goldwyn Studios caught on fire yesterday,” Sybil said to Doug.

  “That so? I didn’t catch the papers or the news.”

  “I used to work there, you know,” said Sybil.

  “Really?”

  “As Gloria Marlowe.”

  “Oh yes. I think I’ve seen you. Well, look, Sybil. . . .”

  “Aren’t you going to finish your drink?”

  “I’ll say. You make a most marvelous drink. What’s in it?”

  “Ta, ta. My witchy secret.”

  “Sure.”

  They finished their drinks and Sybil walked them to the door. Then the door was closed and they walked back toward the car.

  “Gloria Marlowe,” said Doug. “Yes, I remember her now. She wasn’t too bad an actress.”

  “But she’s only in her 30s.”

  “In Hollywood, the 30s most often means too late.”

  They got back into the car. Doug started it up, backed around, “Well, should I drive you home or should we stop at a bar?”

  “Let’s hit a bar somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”

  They rolled to the right and started down out of the hills.

  L.A. Free Press, May 17, 1974

  Notes of a Dirty Old Man

  I was too early at the airport, then the flight was set back twice. It was still before noon, and I was too sick to drink. I kept walking all about the airport, waiting. I am disgusted with most things, but I really hate airports. I finally went in and defecated. It was a strange toilet I had gotten into, with a row of bars on each side like a cage. I couldn’t understand it, but I finished and got out. I walked some more, and then the flight was in and I stood with the others waiting for the passengers. There she was, smiling. I walked up to her. “Hello, Helen.” “Charles,” she said. She only had a flight bag, and we took the escalator down.

  “Oh, I just love airports,” she said, “the people are so well-dressed and handsome.”

  “I’m sick,” I said.

  “Oh, what is it?”

  “Drinking. Last night.”

  We got out of the airport to the parking lot and into my car. “Listen,” I said, “the racetrack’s right on the way in. We might as well stop there.”

  The toteboard action was bad, and by the fourth race I was $40 out. “It is exciting,” said Helen. “I won the last race.”

  “Good. How much did you have on it?”

  “Oh, I just bet it in my head.”

  I won the fifth race and felt a little better. “I just love to stand in the center of the people and listen to them screaming during a race,” she said.

  The day wore on and by the ninth race I was $80 out. It was hot and brutal and we got caught in the jam coming out. By the time we got to my place I really needed a drink. I took a shower and came out. “Your skin is so white,” she said.

  “Want a drink?” I asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  I got myself a beer and sat on the couch next
to her.

  “It was so great you came out just before Jim died. Robert Bly didn’t look like anything reading after you did.”

  “Thanks.”

  “People are going to think Jim O.D.’ed. He didn’t; he died of a heart attack.”

  “Yes, you wrote me.”

  “He wanted to live, he didn’t want to die. We were getting divorced because I didn’t want to take his trip anymore, the vomit, the shit, the hospitals. But he showed me things, he taught me many things in life. But we had to separate. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “I liked his room on skid row, it had style.”

  “You guys were always talking about style, you were obsessed with it.”

  “I still am.”

  “Your letters to us always meant a great deal. Jim even had a novel published using your letters as dialogue.”

  “Yes, it was a bad novel.”

  “I know, he only got $1200 for it. But your letters used to make me laugh too—you were always weeping, you were always in agony, always at the edge of death. But there was humor in your letters too. I liked the humor.”

  “Don’t you want to take a bath?”

  “Oh, no. I had a bath just before I left Phoenix.”

  “Listen, I need more beer. Want to come along? Need some whisky, Scotch, cigarettes?”

  “No, nothing. I’ll come along.”

  I got dressed and we walked down the cement path between the courts. Helen paused at a poinsettia plant in front of the courts. She got a flower in her hand and smelled it. “Oh, aren’t they beautiful?”

  “Christ, no,” I said, “they’re half-dead and blackened with the smog and the heat. Come along. . . .”

  When we got back I turned on the air cooler and drank more beer. We talked about Jim. “Jim and I had a lot of understanding,” she said. “I remember once there was a wasp in the house and we killed it, and after we killed it we realized what we had done. We both sat down on the rug and cried.”

  I told her that I thought Jim was a damned fine writer and that I was going to do the foreword to one of his last books. I said I liked Jim’s hard lines but that he usually ruined a poem with the last line—going into borrowed poetics or over poetics to rather clean up or compensate for what he had said. Take away his last lines, I said, and he’d almost be as good as Bukowski.