Factotum

by Charles Bukowski

  “Get going, Hugh.”

  Hugh angrily rolled his wagon out of there, almost running down one of the old women.

  “He’s that way,” Jacob said to me, “but he’s the best janitor we’ve got.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, “I like an action place.”

  As I rolled my wagon along, Jacob told me my duties. I was responsible for two floors. The most important part was the restrooms. Restrooms were always first. Clean the sinks, the toilets, empty the baskets, get the mirrors, replace the handtowels, fill the soap containers, use lots and lots of deodorant, and be sure there’s plenty of ass-wipe and paper toilet seat covers. And don’t forget the sanitary napkins in the ladies’ john! After that, get the wastebaskets in the offices and dust the desks. Then you take this machine here and wax the halls, and after you finish that…

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  The women’s restrooms, as usual, were the worst. Many of the women, apparently, simply left their used sanitary napkins on the floor in the stalls, and the sight of them, although familiar, was disturbing, especially with a hangover. The men’s restrooms were somewhat cleaner but then men didn’t use sanitary napkins. At least I was alone when I worked. I wasn’t too good a mopper; often a wad of hair or a crushed cigarette butt would remain conspicuously in one of the corners. I’d leave it there. I was conscientious with the ass-wipe and the paper seat covers, however: I could understand that. Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit, then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible human being on earth deserves to wipe his ass. Sometimes I have reached over and there’s no paper and then when you reach for a toilet seat cover they’re suddenly out of those too. You stand up and look down and yours has just fallen into the water. After that you have few alternatives. The one I find most satisfying is to wipe your ass with your shorts, dump them in there too, flush, and clog the toilet.

  I finished both the ladies’ and the men’s restrooms, emptied the wastebaskets and dusted a few desks. Then I went back to the ladies crapper. They had sofas and chairs in there and an alarm clock. I had four hours left. I set the alarm to ring thirty minutes before quitting time. I stretched out on one of the couches and went to sleep.

  The alarm wakened me. I stretched, splashed cold water on my face, and went down to the storage room with my gear. Old Hugh approached me. “Welcome to the land of the assholes,” he said to me, more calmly this time. I didn’t answer. It was dark in there and we only had ten minutes until punch-out time. We took off our overalls, and in most cases our street clothes were as dismal and as sad as our working clothes. We spoke very little or in whispers. I didn’t mind the quiet. It was restful.

  Then Hugh got right up next to my ear: “Look at the jerks!” he screamed. “just look at the god damned jerks!”

  I walked away from him and stood at the other side of the room.

  “Are you one of them?” he screamed across at me, “are you an asshole too?”

  “Yes, noble sir.”

  “How’d you like a foot up your ass?” he screamed back.

  “There’s only empty space between us,” I said.

  Ancient warrior that he was, Hugh decided to close that space and he came in a hurry, leaping stiffly over a row of buckets. I stepped aside and he went flying past. He turned, came back grabbed me by the throat with both hands. He had long powerful fingers for such an old man; I could feel each one of them, even his thumbs. Hugh smelled like a sinkful of unwashed dishes. I tried to pry him loose but his grip only got stronger. Shots of red, blue and yellow flashed inside my head. I had no choice. I brought a knee up as gently as possible. I missed the first try, got him on the second. His fingers and thumbs loosened. Hugh fell to the floor, grabbing his parts. Jacob came up. “What happened here?”

  “He called me an asshole, sir, and then he attacked me.”

  “Listen, Chinaski, this man is my best janitor. He’s the best janitor I’ve had in fifteen years. Go easy on him, will you?” I walked over, got my time card and punched out. Peppery old Hugh looked up at me from the floor as I walked out: “I’m going to kill you, mister,” he said.

  Well, I thought, at least now he’s polite. But that really didn’t make me happy.

  66

  The next night I did about four hours work then went to the ladies’ room, set the alarm and stretched out. I must have been asleep for about an hour when the door opened. It was Herman Barnes and Jacob Christensen. They looked at me; I raised my head and looked back, then put my head down on the cushion again. I heard them walk through into the crapper. When they came out I didn’t look at them. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  The next day when I awakened about noon, I told Jan about it: “They caught me sleeping and didn’t fire me. I guess I got them scared because of Hugh. It pays to be a tough son of a bitch. The world belongs to the strong.”

  “They’re not going to let you get away with that.”

  “Balls. I’ve always told you I had it. I’ve got the touch. You might as well not have any god damned ears. You never listen to me.”

  “It’s because you keep on saying the same thing over and over again.”

  “All right, let’s have a drink and talk about it. You’ve been walking around with your ass up in the air since we got back together. Shit, I don’t need you and you don’t need me. Let’s face up to the obvious.”

  Before the argument could start there was a knock on the door. “Hold it,” I said and got into some pants. I opened the door and there was a Western Union delivery boy. I gave him a dime and opened the telegram:

  HENRY CHINASKI: YOUR EMPLOYMENT WITH THE TIMES CO. HAS BEEN TERMINATED.

  HERMAN BARNES.

  “What is it?” asked Jan.

  “I’ve been canned.”

  “How about your check?”

  “No mention.”

  “They owe you a check.”

  “I know. Let’s go get it.”

  “O.K.”

  The car was gone. First it had lost its reverse gear, which was a challenge I overcame by continually planning ahead as we drove. Then the battery went dead which meant that the only way I could start it was coasting down a hill. I managed that for some weeks, then one night Jan and I got drunk and I forgot and parked it on a flat street outside a bar. It wouldn’t start, of course, so I called an all-night garage and they came and towed it away. When I went to pick up the car a few days later they’d sunk $55 into repairing it and it still wouldn’t start. I walked home and mailed them the pink slip.

  So we had to walk to the Times Building. Jan knew I liked her in high heels so she put them on and we walked down there. It was a good twenty blocks one way. Jan sat down and rested on a bench outside and I walked up to the Payroll Department.

  “I’m Henry Chinaski. I’ve been terminated and I’m here for my check.”

  “Henry Chinaski,” said the girl, “wait a moment.”

  She looked through a sheaf of papers. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chinaski, but your check isn’t ready yet.”

  “All right, I’ll wait.”

  “We can’t have your check ready until tomorrow, sir.”

  “But I’ve been terminated.”

  “I’m sorry. Tomorrow, sir.”

  I walked out. Jan got up from the bench. She looked hungry. “Let’s hit the Grand Central Market for some stew meat and vegetables, then let’s get a couple of bottles of good French wine.”

  “Jan, they said the check wasn’t ready.”

  “But they have to give it to you. It’s the law.”

  “I guess it is. I don’t know. But they said the check would be ready tomorrow.”

  “Oh Christ, and I’ve walked all this way in high heels.”

  “You look good, baby.”

  “Yeah.”

  We started walking back. Halfway back Jan took off her heels and walked in her stocking feet. A couple of cars honked as we walked along. I gave each one of them the finger. When we
got back there was enough money for tacos and beer. We got that, ate and drank, argued a bit, made love, and slept.

  67

  The next day about noon we started out again, Jan in her high heels. “I want you to make us some of that stew today,” she said. “No man makes stew like you can. It’s your greatest talent.”

  “Thanks a hell of a lot,” I said.

  It was still twenty blocks. Jan sat down on the bench again and took off her shoes while I went to Payroll. It was the same girl.

  “I’m Henry Chinaski,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “I was here yesterday.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said my check would be ready today.”

  “Oh.”

  The girl went through her papers. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chinaski, but your check isn’t here yet.”

  “But you said it would be ready.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, sometimes payroll checks take a little time to process.”

  “I want my check.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You’re not sorry. You don’t know what sorrow is. I do. I want to see your boss’s boss. Now.”

  The girl picked up a phone. “Mr. Handler? A Mr. Chinaski would like to see you about a termination payroll check.”

  There was some more small talk. Finally the girl looked at me. “Room 309.”

  I walked down to 309. The sign said “John Handler.” I opened the door. Handler was alone. An officer and a director of the largest and most powerful newspaper in the West. I sat down in the chair across from him.

  “Well, John,” I said, “they booted my ass, caught me asleep in the ladies’ crapper. Me and my old lady have walked down here two days running only to be told you don’t have the check. Now, you know, that’s pure crap. All I want to do is get that check and get drunk. That may not sound noble but it’s my choice. If I don’t get that check I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

  Then I gave him a look straight out of “Casablanca.” “Got a smoke?”

  John Handler gave me a smoke. He even lit it. Either they’re going to throw a net over me or I’m going to get my check, I thought.

  Handler picked up the phone. “Miss Simms. There’s a check due a Mr. Henry Chinaski. I want it here within five minutes. Thank you.” He hung up.

  “Listen, John,” I said, “I’ve had two years of journalism, L.A. City College. You couldn’t use a reporter, could you?”

  “Sorry, we’re overstaffed now.”

  We chatted and after a few minutes a girl came in and handed John the check. He reached across the desk and handed it to me. A decent guy. I heard later that he died soon after that, but Jan and I got our beef stew and our vegetables and our French wine and we went on living.

  68

  I took the card they gave me at the State Department of Employment and walked over to the job interview. It was a few blocks east of Main Street and a little north of the skid row district. It was a company dealing with automobile brake parts. I showed them the card in the office and I filled out an application form. I lengthened my tenure at the jobs I had previously had, turning days into months and months into years. Most firms never bothered to check references. With those firms required to bond their employees, I didn’t stand much chance. It would quickly appear that I had a police record. The brake supply house made no mention of a bond. Another problem after you had been on the job two or three weeks, most employers tried to get you to join their insurance plan, but by then I was usually gone.

  The man glanced at my application and then turned humorously to the two women in the room: “This guy wants a job. Do you think he’ll be able to stand us?”

  Some jobs were amazingly easy to get. I remember one place I walked in, slouched down in a chair, and yawned. The guy behind the desk asked me: “Yes, what do you want?” “Oh hell,” I answered, “I guess I need a job.” “You’re hired.”

  Some other jobs, however, were impossible for me to get. The Southern California Gas Company had ads in the help wanted section that promised high wages, early retirement, etc. I don’t know how many times I went there and filled out their yellow application forms, how many times I sat on those hard chairs looking at large framed photos of pipes and gas storage tanks. I never came close to being hired and whenever I saw a gas man I would look at him very closely, trying to figure out what he had that I obviously didn’t have.

  The brake parts man took me up a narrow stairway. George Henley was his name. George showed me my workroom, very small, dark, just one lightbulb and one tiny window that looked out over an alley.

  “Now,” he said, “you see these cartons. You put the brake shoes into the cartons. Like this.”

  Mr. Henley showed me.

  “We have three types of cartons, each printed differently. One carton is for our ‘Super Durable Brake Shoe.’ The other is for our ‘Super Brake Shoe.’ And the third is for our ‘Standard Brake Shoe.’ The brake shoes are stacked right here.

  “But they all look alike to me. How can I tell them apart?”

  “You don’t. They’re all the same. Just divide them into thirds. And when you finish packing all these shoes, come on downstairs and we’ll find something else for you to do. O.K.?”

  “O.K. When do I start?”

  “You start now. And, absolutely no smoking. Not up here. If you have to smoke, you come on downstairs, O.K.?”

  “O.K.”

  Mr. Henley closed the door. I heard him go down the stairs. I opened the little window and looked out at the world. Then I sat down, relaxed, and smoked a cigarette.

  69

  I quickly lost that job, just as I lost many others. But I didn’t care—with one exception. It was the easiest job I ever had and I hated to see it go. It was during World War II. I was working for the Red Cross in San Francisco, driving a truck full of nurses and bottles and refrigerators around to various small towns. We collected blood for the war effort. I unloaded the trucks for the nurses when we arrived and then I had the rest of the day to walk around, sleep in the park, whatever. At the end of the day the nurses stuck the full bottles into the freezers and I squeezed blood clots out of the rubber tubes in the nearest crapper. I was usually sober but I pretended the blood clots were tiny fish or pretty little bugs which kept my lunch down.

  The Red Cross job was a good one. I even had a date lined up with one of the nurses. But one morning I took the wrong bridge out of town and got lost in a skid row section somewhere with a truck full of nurses and needles and empty bottles. Those skid row guys were aching to rape the lot of us, and some of the nurses got nervous. It was back over the bridge for us and around some other way. I’d gotten my towns mixed up, and when we finally got to the church where the blood donors were waiting we were over two hours and fifteen minutes late. The front lawn was filled with angry donors and doctors and church officials. Across the Atlantic, Hitler was gaining with every step. I lost that job right then and there, unfortunately.

  70

  The Yellow Cab Company in L.A. is located on the south side of Third Street. Rows and rows of yellow cabs sit in the sun in the yards. It is near the American Cancer Society. I had visited the American Cancer Society earlier, as I had understood it to be free. I had lumps all over my body, dizzy spells, I was spitting blood, and I had gone there only to be given an appointment for three weeks later. Now like every American boy I had always been told: catch cancer early. Then you go down to catch it early and they make you wait three weeks for an appointment. That’s the difference between what we’re told and actuality.

  After three weeks I went back and they told me they could give me certain tests free, but that I could pass these tests and wouldn’t really be sure that I didn’t have cancer. However, if I gave them $25 and passed that test, I could be fairly sure I didn’t have cancer. To be absolutely sure, after I had taken the $25 test, I would have to take the $75 test, and if I passed that one too, I could relax. It would mean my trouble was alcoholism or nerv
es or the clap. They talk real good and clear, those kittens in the white coats at the American Cancer Society, and I said, in other words, $100. Umm hum, they said, and I walked out and went on a three day toot and all the lumps vanished along with the dizzy spells and the blood spitting.

  When I went to the Yellow Cab Company I passed the Cancer Building and I remembered that there were worse things than looking for a job you didn’t want. I went in and it seemed easy enough, the same old forms, questions, etc. The only new thing was fingerprints but I knew how to be fingerprinted and I relaxed the hand and fingers and pressed them in the ink and the girl complimented me on my expertise. Mr. Yellow said to come back the next day to training class, and Jan and I celebrated that night.

  71

  Janeway Smithson was a little, insane, grey-haired bantam rooster of a man. He loaded five or six of us in one cab, and we rolled down to the bed of the L.A. River. Now in those days the L.A. River was a fake—there was no water, just a wide, flat, dry cement runway. The bums lived down there by the hundreds in little cement alcoves under the bridges and overpasses. Some of them even had potted plants in front of their places. All they needed to live like kings was canned heat (Sterno) and what they picked out of the nearby garbage dump. They were tan and relaxed and most of them looked a hell of a lot healthier than the average Los Angeles business man. Those guys down there had no problems with women, income tax, landlords, burial expenses, dentists, time payments, car repairs, or with climbing into a voting booth and pulling the curtain closed.

  Janeway Smithson had been on the job for twenty-five years and was dumb enough to be proud of it. He carried a pistol in his right hip pocket and bragged that he had stopped a yellow cab in less time and fewer feet while taking the Brake Test than any other man in the history of the Yellow Cab Company. Looking at Janeway Smithson it occurred to me that this was either a lie or had been half-assed luck, and that Smithson, like any other twenty-five-year-man, was totally insane.