Living on Luck

by Charles Bukowski

  And you’re strange. Why do you want to meet a 52 year old man? (I’ll be 52 this August 16th. Wish me a happy birthday.) Is your father dead? Or didn’t you have much of a father? If we like each other somewhat I can be your father, but on the other hand, I’m very horny. Was your father very horny?

  My guess is that you’ve gotten too much attention and found it wanting—jackrabbits, fly-by-nights, so forth. Young men are too stricken with themselves to be human. I can stand by you while you wait for the arrival of the proper one. My god, we’re getting serious here, aren’t we? Uggg. Well, it’s hot, the weather’s hot and I went to the boxing matches last night and spilled beer on myself. Then over to Liza’s. I must be careful not to hurt Liza. She’s a kind and a good woman but I don’t love her. Anyhow, the boxing matches were good. Everybody screamed. Even the fighters enjoyed it. And there you go flying to Richmond, Virginia. I think we should meet but I don’t want you to meet a stranger—hence the letters, a bit of talking. I find myself thinking about you at odd moments during the day and I don’t even know who you are—flying out there over Richmond—all those oilmen dandies and insurance dandies, all with that satisfied look, twisting the rocks in their scotch as the satisfied pilot gargles some inanity over the intercom, yes, yes, perhaps we can meet and perhaps we can hate each other right off, get it done with, clean the deck and look for the next pink cloud, what? But your letters have been warm, and I have the feeling that you’ve been through some things and come out better for them. Keep in touch, Pattie, you make the mailbox look good.

  [To Patricia Connell]

  August 16, 1972 [52nd birthday]

  ’tis very stimulating to get a letter from a woman, and a very young one at that. I got in about ten thirty and there was your letter, very fat, warm like a glove, the bit on the back, this girl looking inside this man’s head and kind of playing with him spiritually. ah. there was some other mail and I read it first, then got a beer and opened yours. there had been a postcard from England, “have just finished your city lights book and have found it the best writing of short stories since Cervantes and Dickens and Walter Scott…”now, uh huh, that’s high praise, as they call it. for dirty stories, that’s o.k. anyhow, I went through your letter to try to find out who you were, and if you’re a little sarcastic, that’s o.k. I like being insulted, it charms me. that’s what got me going with the sculptress. she was sitting there doing my head and she looked at me and said, “My husband said when I divorced him that he hoped I would meet a real crud, and now I have.” I laughed. it was too delightful. I’ve got to have this woman, I thought, even if she’s only 30, I’ve got to have her. well, we lasted 16 months, but looking back now I see it was mostly sex and battle. we went 4 or 5 times a week, right on through periods and all and fought and split forever twice a week. it was total flame and madness and it finally broke wide open. I phoned her last night and finally ended up hanging up on her. there’s no getting together. all our ideas seem opposite. she said before she moves back to town she’s going to fuck some guy for a week so she won’t need me. And, to me, that was the tipoff—I am just a sex machine for her servicing. to hell with that. I’ve got nothing against sex, I’m all for it; there’s nothing I like better than to really satisfy a woman. It’s an art and I like to be a good artist. But I also like to feel some warmth outside the sexual relationship.

  I think we should meet. I am not a pushy person. And I’m very EASY to get rid of. Liza calls me a bashful madman. Maybe I am. We should get a few drinks between us when we meet…easing of tension, you know. it’s really a very difficult thing. you are a stranger to me. you know something about me because you’ve read some of my shit. Can we meet during a day sometime? Frankly, I’m over at Liza’s each night, and I don’t want to hurt her. She’s in love with me, for one reason or another she’s in love with me, and she knows I don’t love her, yet still I don’t want to hurt her. We had one or two split scenes where she almost cracked—the suicide bit, you know and I’ve been on the love-end and I’ve been hurt by the other, and the pain is intolerable, unbelievable, so I want to be careful with Liza, yet since I don’t love her I still feel I have a right to see some other women. does this sound like bullshit? well, it’s not.

  I’ll be in Frisco Sept. 14 giving a reading and at the Univ. of Arizona Sept. 28, reading, and outside of that my time is my own. But that’s Sept. this is August and I’m 52 years old writing a half a love letter to a 27 year old airline stewardess, o, the world is mad, isn’t it? but great too. can you tell me when a good day would be? Sat and Sunday, I think, would be bad days. can you draw me a map, how to get there? my car’s running but best to stay off freeways. no auto insurance. do you believe in sex, or do you just want a talking relationship, or what? or do you want to see what happens? let it flow? tell me things. I’m selfish, you know. I think a sex-love relationship with you would produce a great many poems, love poems. the whole last third of my last poem book, Mockingbird, are love poems to Linda. you see all I want you for? just for my typewriter, Pattie Connell, just for the ticking of the keys….

  I think it’s good for a woman to meet a great many men, in bed and out of bed, so that when the good man comes along she’ll know why.

  I enjoyed your long letter, even though you seem a little evasive. Is the man you’re going with very jealous? Do you love him? Does he go down on you? Does he do it right? I mean, are you getting anything out of it? or are you just going through some rote thing for lack of anything else to do? you know, many men are satisfied with their women because they satisfy themselves upon them, but few men really satisfy their women. they’re simply too selfish. that’s why I didn’t mind Linda being 30, because I took proper care of her.

  I celebrated my birthday a bit early yesterday. A lawyer dropped by, and then Liza, and we had a few drinks. A few too many. “Look,” I said, “here I’m sitting with a corporate lawyer and a record executive, and I’m a starving poet. What the hell are you people doing here?”

  I haven’t been to the racetrack in some weeks. Del Mar is such a long haul…Linda is going with a homosexual now. I told her it was a cop-out. that she should get a real man and face the fire and the glory.

  All right, Pattie, I think we should have a meeting. nothing oppressive or up-tight, maybe a little nervous, but with nobody owing anybody anything. loose, you know. you might hate me on sight. I’m hardly pretty and hardly a normal type human being. In fact, I’m pretty badly fucked up. Crazed, Liza calls it. but I’m hardly dangerous or maniacal or any of that shit. I suppose you’d call me a kind person. well, my god. some out of work actor just called up and wished me a happy birthday. he’s stuck in some factory, working the swing shift. we’re all trying to make it, this way or that, trying to find love, trying to find sex, trying to find peace and meaning before we hang it up. I look at these 52 years gone by and I know now that I don’t know any more than I did at 18. That’s not much growth, is it? ah, let me hear from you on all matters. I’m sentimental and I get attached to women but I wouldn’t force anything on you. I have an idea I couldn’t. you must be fairly sophisticated, running up and down those aisles, jostling and chatting with the passengers, getting pinched by the pilots. I’m more raw and clumsy. maybe you can teach me some polish. when I get up to read my poems I sound like one of those old fashioned victrolas, running down. but you wouldn’t know about them. there are no bluebirds in my skies, Patricia, and the sun blinks on and off. looks like rain, last night I had all these rain dreams. it kept raining and raining and raining. do you think I’m out of my craw? christ, well, write me, little one. I think all this is quite wonderful.

  some kind of love, Buk.

  [To Carl Weissner]

  August 16, 1972

  [***] I just got rid of a bad one, and once again I seem to be making moves toward 2 young girls. one is 27, the other I think is 20. I shouldn’t. I must be going crazy. the one I’m with, she’s 43, treats me gently. gave me $70 for my birthday the other day. Needed tire
s for my car, various parts. a good woman. but I’m so used to bad women, whores, flirts, vamps, sluts, liars, madwomen. when I grow up I am going to break off from all of them. that’s the system, that’s the out. [***]

  [To Patricia Connell]

  August 18, 1972

  Thanks for the birthday card, ’twas touching. You’re still on Post Office, I suppose. You should read Erections…via City Lights, a better work. Either/Or [bookshop] should have had it. I haven’t read Kosinski but he was put on me. A gal came by one time, she used to dance with a ten foot boa constrictor on the Sunset strip—she’s in Berkeley now—and she put the book onto me but I passed it on without reading. The boa constrictor lady was ready for consummation at the moment, and still is, but I wasn’t ready.

  I’m supposed to go to Del Mar this Weds. or Thursday. With Liza and a couple of guys from a tv station. they want to put me on an education television thing. They seem serious but last time I saw them we all just got drunk. It’s supposed to go on 65 tv stations across the nation but so far there hasn’t been a click of video tape or whatever. such non-going shit can last into eternity.

  So you’re a sadist, eh? God, the sculptress was a cruel woman too. It seems quite standard, doesn’t it? I suppose men beg too much and this gives the ladies this feeling of power. You’ve got all these little men on your shelf. O.k. When you gonna put me on your shelf?

  I really should do some work with this typer today, but wanted to thank you for the card. Write when you feel free to do so.

  [To Patricia Connell]

  August 21, 1972

  It’s noon, slight hangover, coffee on, going to Santa Monica soon to see my daughter—she’s 7.

  Yes, I suppose we should meet. I lay claim to being the world’s ugliest man. Perhaps we can meet, hate each other right off and get it done with.

  A relationship without love is comfortable because you are always in control if the other person loves you. But the one who is in love really has the benefits because (he) (she) is thriving, throbbing, vibrating. I would certainly rather be in love if I had a choice but one doesn’t always have this choice. I’ve only been in love twice in 52 years.

  For a person who is supposedly afraid of people you are very open with me. And it would take guts to meet me. It would not be an easy thing. I don’t think you have too much fear of people.

  I’ve been going with Liza since May 2nd when Linda and I split. I jumped right out of one bed and into another. I suppose that makes me a bastard. I don’t like to sleep alone.

  We could have a friendship. Or let it start that way if it wanted to. Sex is damned nice but not necessary. A Thursday evening might be nice. But I won’t want to drink too much because I have to drive back and already have one drunk driving rap. Liza goes out and has drinks and dinner with these 2 guys every Thursday night. Yes, I have a nightly vigil by Liza’s side as you say. But there aren’t any chains on me. I just don’t want to mess her up. If you and I ever got anything going she would have to fall by the way. But it seems senseless to hurt her without that. She’s a record company exec. and plenty of men are after her. I’m rather honored that she preferred me to all the young handsome men but she’ll hardly be alone if we ever split.

  A little luck in the mail today. A German publisher wants to translate Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness into the Hun. But we’re waiting on Rowolt—the largest German publisher—and if they go it I won’t be driving that 62 Comet much longer.

  I enjoy your letters very much. Get relaxing with that Bloody Mary soon and tell me some more things.

  [To Carl Weissner]

  August [?30], 1972

  [***] The sculptress is back. Saw her yesterday. “Listen,” she said, “you’re in a triangle now. You’re trying to hold 2 women at once. It can’t be done.”

  “They do it in the movies sometimes,” I said.

  Anyhow, we got into an argument and I cut out of there. her face looked strangely hard after that 4 month’s separation, and her eyes too. I’m afraid something has gone out of it for me. I don’t love the other one either. Krist, I’m not in a triangle at all. I’m nowhere. the female is a monumental puzzle to me. I must be strong enough to do without them, without her and her and her. A lot of dirty laundry and haggling. [***]

  [To Patricia Connell]

  September 13, 1972

  I’ve been into a lot of shit and so I’m late in getting this off to you. Up to Frisco tomorrow—PSA—Hollywood—Burbank to give a reading. They claim it’s the largest SF crowd since Yevtushenko the Russian poet. The auditorium holds 750 and they claim to be sold out. I hope they are. I get half the god damned take and at 2 bucks a head maybe I can afford a cold beer when I get back. 750 for Billy Graham ain’t cat’s turds but for poetry it’s something. o, yeh, I write poems too, kitten.

  A fine photo thanks. Youze is a lovely lovely thing. I gotta meet ya some day if only to look at ya. I mean, look, I wrote you all these letters. That’s work.

  I broke off with Liza and went back to the sculptress (Linda). Liza took it hard. She read me off good. I talked to her for 7 hours about it, during which time she beat the shit out of me 5 times. I let her beat on me because I felt bad about what I was doing to her. But she’ll make it. She has a good job and plenty of men are after her, or her money. She’s really a fine person and should never have put her trust in a slob like me, but the sculptress has this immense pull on me, I am helpless. She just walks in and I’m finished. I don’t have any excuses except that I might love the sculpt. and I didn’t love Liza.

  All that sounds like vomit in the beef stew, doesn’t it? A mess. Well. Anyhow, I’m not much good at triangles so I had to pull out from one or the other.

  You sound like you’re getting love-security from a man you want and don’t want. I’d rather imagine you’re shopping around for the spark, that’s why you’re dating other men. If your man doesn’t walk out on you it may be more from weakness than strength. Or maybe I’m wrong.

  I’ve got to line up the poems for the reading, so this will be fairly short. —I enjoyed your telling of the Tom Jones bit. Those jackasses get so spoiled.

  We ought to meet some day when the climate is right for both of us. Easy does it, you know.

  You exclaimed that my letters were too short when I phoned you. Listen, kitten, if I wrote mine in longhand like yours they’d look pretty long, you know. Ah, our FIRST ARGUMENT!!! Isn’t it great?

  [To Patricia Connell]

  September 18, 1972

  ah, I am back with Liza. Went north with Linda for the reading, came back all scratched up. I broke it off with Linda on grounds I’d rather not go into. anyhow, she threatened to kill me. Liza has also threatened to kill me. interesting life, what? Linda’s schitzy and when she’s up or right I love her very much but when she shows the other side, it’s too much. Liza is really a fine woman, though I don’t love her. channel 28 is doing a documentary on me and we had cameras and sound men on the plane up and during the reading and on the plane back, so forth so forth. I felt like your Tom Jones although I didn’t get anybody in the crapper.

  actually, tho, ART is the matter, the crux, and with all the shit going on I keep this in my head, the real ACT, the form, the holiness. I love women but they are hardly the center of the universe.

  I’ve suggested to Liza that she play it looser this time, keep some backups. She’s going to the movies tonight with some guy. it’s o.k. with me. I don’t want to ever leave her totally ALONE again. they tell me she had a rough go when I was with Linda. also if I can get her to go out with men, then when I want to see somebody—say for a night or a couple of hours—I will be able to do so. say somebody like you.

  Linda broke in while I was at Liza’s last night and stole her sculpture of me back. That’s all right, I trotted one of her paintings over and put it on her front porch. As long as I don’t get murdered here, everything will be fine.

  I read at Univ. of Ariz. on the 28th. Li
za will prob. fly out with me. I don’t know if the cameras will be along on this wing. It’s a little different situation. U. of A. is rather uptight and I won’t be able to drink very much. will prob. make a dull reading. I also have a tentative date at Cal State Long Beach Nov. 29, once at noon and again at night. If I’m still alive.

  Yes, yes, I’m “hot to trot” to meet you. Your photo fine, fine! I might say I’m in love but how can you fall in love with a photo? and when I’m 52 and the photo’s 27? You’ll probably be disgusted when you meet me. I’m not a very good talker; in fact, a rather dull fellow.

  Luck with your new love, but remember that few people hold up over the long run. Weaknesses begin to appear all over shit. It depends upon how much weakness you can love along with the good parts. It’s good you keep shopping. The only way you can know what you have is by comparison.

  Should we get together a bit it might be better if you come out here. (You almost found the way once.) We could go to a bar for a few, then maybe come to my place and have some drinks and talk. I live in a very beat-up front court. I am lazy and a shitty housekeeper. But there is great freedom here. The landlord and landlady are my friends and overlook a great many of my inconsistencies. Somehow your letters get me horny. Is it the pink paper? Not that we need make it. I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want to do.

  You make my mailbox warm. Lemmee hear words from you….

  [To Patricia Connell]

  September 22, 1972

  a short one until later—very hectic here—you won’t believe it—I’m back with Linda. it’s my last move. if I break with her it has to be somebody new. this going back and forth doesn’t get it, it’s cowardice. for a few days I was with one in the daytime, the other at night. now it’s Linda. very stormy with Linda, but the love is high high high there, both physically and spiritually…