I work for a
lawyer and
if you’re ever in
town
please call me.”
“I met you
after your reading
at the Troubadour
we had a night
together
do you remember?
I married
that man
you told me had a
mean voice
when you phoned and
he answered
we’re divorced now
I have a little
girl
age 2
I am no longer in
the music
business but
miss it
would like to
see you
again…”
“I’ve read
all your books
I’m 23
not much
breast
but have great
legs
and
just a few
words
from you
would mean
so much
to me…”
girls
please give your
bodies and your
lives
to
the young men
who
deserve them
besides
there is
no way
I would welcome
the
intolerable
dull
senseless hell
you would bring
me
and
I wish you
luck
in bed
and
out
but not
in
mine
thank
you.
the lady in the castle
she lived in this house
that looked like a
castle
and when you got inside
the ceilings were so very
high
and I was poor
and it all rather
fascinated
me.
she
was no longer
young
but she had
masses
of hair
that damn near
went down to her
ankles
and
I thought about
how strange
it would be
doing it
with all that
hair.
I drove up there
several times
in my old
car
and she had fine
liquors to
drink
and we sat
but I could
never quite get
near her
and though I didn’t
push at
it
something about
not
connecting
did offend my
ego
for ugly as I was
I had always been
lucky with the
ladies.
it confused me
and I suppose
I needed
that.
she liked to
talk about
the arts and
about
film making
and listening
to all that
only made me
drink
more.
I
finally
just
gave her
up
and a good year
or so
went by
when
one night
the phone
rang: it was the
lady.
“I want to come see
you,” she said.
“I’m writing now, I’m
hot…I can’t see
anybody…”
“I just want to come
by, I won’t bother you,
I’ll just sit on the couch,
I’ll sleep on the couch, I
won’t bother you…”
“NO! JESUS CHRIST, I
CAN’T SEE ANYBODY!”
I hung up.
the lady who was actually
on the couch
said, “oh, you’re all
SOFT now!”
“yeah.”
“come here…”
she took my penis
in her hand
flicked out her
tongue
then
stopped.
“what are you writing?”
“nothing…I’ve got writer’s
block…”
“sure you have…your pipes are
clogged…you need to get
cleaned out…”
then she had me in her
mouth
and then the phone rang
again…
in a fury
I ran over to the
phone
picked it
up.
it was the lady in the
castle:
“listen, I won’t bother you,
you won’t even know I’m
there…”
“YOU WHORE, I’M GETTING A
BLOW JOB!”
I hung up and
turned back.
the other lady was walking
toward the
door.
“what’sa matter?” I
asked.
“I can’t STAND that
term!”
“what term?”
“BLOW JOB!” she
screamed.
she slammed the door and
was gone…
I walked to where the
typewriter sat
put a new piece of paper
in there.
it was one
a.m.
I sat there and
drank scotch and
beer chasers
smoked cheap
cigars.
3:15 a.m.
I was still sitting
there
re-lighting old
cigar stubs and
drinking ale.
the new
piece of paper was still
unused.
I switched out the
lights
worked my way toward
the bedroom
got myself on the
bed
clothes still
on
I could hear the toilet
running
but couldn’t get up
to tap the handle
to end that
sound
my god damned pipes were
clogged.
relentless as the tarantula
they’re not going to let you
sit at a front table
at some cafe in Europe
in the mid-afternoon sun.
if you do, somebody’s going to
drive by and
spray your guts with a
submachine gun.
they’re not going to let you
feel good
for very long
anywhere.
the forces aren’t going to
let you sit around
fucking-off and
relaxing.
you’ve got to do it
their way.
the unhappy, the bitter and
the vengeful
need their
fix—which is
you or somebody
anybody
in agony, or
better yet
dead, dropped into some
hole.
as long as there are
human beings about
there is never going to be
any peace
for any individual
upon this earth (or
anywhere else
they might
escape to).
all you can do
is maybe grab
ten lucky minutes
here
or maybe an hour
there.
something
is working toward you
right now, and
I mean you
and nobody but
you.
their night
never could read Tender Is the
Night
but they’ve made a
tv adaptation of the
book
and it’s been running
for several
nights
and I have spent
ten minutes
here and there
watching the troubles of
the rich
while they are leaning
against their beach chairs
in Nice
or walking about their
large rooms
drink in hand while
making
philosophical
statements
or
fucking up
at the
dinner party
or the
dinner dance
they really have no
idea
of what to do with
themselves:
swim?
tennis?
drive up the
coast?
down the
coast?
find
new beds?
lose old
ones?
or
fuck with the
arts and the
artists?
having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for.
the rich are different
all right
so is the ring-
tailed
maki and the
sand
flea.
huh?
in
Germany France Italy
I can walk down the streets and be
followed by
young men laughing
young ladies
giggling and
old
ladies turning their noses
up…
while
in America
I am just another
tired
old man
doing whatever
tired old men
do.
oh, this has its
compensations:
I can take my pants
to the cleaners or
stand in a
supermarket line
without any
hubbub at
all:
the gods have allowed me
a gentle
anonymity.
yet
at times
I do consider my
overseas fame
and
the only thing
I can come up with is
that
I must have some
great motherfucking
translators.
I must
owe them
the hair on my
balls
or
possibly
my balls
themselves.
it’s funny, isn’t it? #1
we were standing around
at this birthday party
at this fancy
restaurant
and
many
special people were
about
preening their
fame.
I wanted to run
out
when a man
standing near by
said something
exactly appropriate
to the
occasion.
“hey,” I said to
my wife, “this
guy’s got
something. when we are
seated
let’s try to
sit next to
him.”
we did and as
the drinks were
poured
the man began
talking
he began on a
long story
which was
building toward a
punch
line.
my problem was that
I could guess
what the
punch line
was
going to
be.
and
he talked
on and
on
then
dropped the
line.
“shit,” I
told him, “that
was
awful, you’ve
really
disappointed
me…”
he
only began
on another
story.
I walked over to
another table
and stood behind
the now
great
movie star.
“listen,
when I first met
you
you were just a nice
German boy.
now
you’ve turned into
a
conceited
prick. you’ve
really
disappointed
me.”
the great movie
star (who was a
man
mighty of
muscle) growled
and
shook his
shoulders.
then I walked over to
the table
where the birthday lady
sat
surrounded by
all these
media
folk.
“looking at you
people,” I said, “makes
me feel like
vomiting
all over
your
inept
plausibilities!”
“oh,” said the lady
to her
guests, “he
always talks
that
way!”
and she gave a
laugh, poor
dear.
so
I said, “Happy
birthday,
but
I warned you
never to
invite me to these
things.”
then
I walked back to
my table
motioned the waiter
for
another
drink.
the man
was telling
another
story
but
it was not
nearly
as good
as
this
one.
it’s funny, isn’t it? #2
when we were kids
laying around the lawn
on our
bellies
we often talked
about
how
we’d like to
die
and
we all
agreed on the
same
thing:
we’d all
like to die
fucking
(although
none of us
had
done any
fucking)
that
we are hardly
kids
any longer
we think more
about
how
not to
die
and
although
we’re
ready
most of
us
would
prefer to
do it
alone
under the
sheets
now
that
most of
us
have fucked
our lives
away.
the beautiful lady editor
she was a beautiful woman, I used to see photographs of
her in the literary magazines of that
day.
I was young but always alone—I felt that I needed the
time to get something done and the only way I could buy time
was with
poverty.
I worked not so much with craft but more with getting down
what was edging me toward madness—and I had
flashes of luck, but it was hardly a pleasurable
existence.
I think I showed a fine endurance but slowly then
health and courage began to leak away.
and the night arrived when everything fell apart—and
fear, doubt, humiliation entered…
and I wrote a number of letters using my last stamps
telling a few select people that I had made a
mistake, that I was starving and trapped in a small
freezing shack of darkness in a strange city in
a strange
state.
I mailed the letters and then I waited long wild days and
nights, hoping, yearning at last for a decent
response.
only two letters ever arrived—on the same day—
and I opened the pages and shook the pages looking for
money but there was
none.
one letter was from my father, a six-pager telling me that
I deserved what was happening, that I should have become
an engineer like he told me, and that nobody would ever read
the kind of stuff I wrote, and on and on, like
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 9