Absence of the Hero

by Charles Bukowski

  “That guy. Yeah. He put out a bad mag. Just Lines. A real atrocity. I wonder what ever happened to him?”

  “He’s in the English department at UNM.”

  “Well, that figures.”

  “What I mean is, I took some of his poems, kind of trying to be nice because he’s in the same town, and the poems didn’t look too bad at first, but now I know they’re very bad and it bothers me.”

  “There, you see—never be kind. Always be a bastard and you’ll stay out of such things. Kindness is a bad motive, especially when considering marriage or literature.”

  I was getting expansive. The beer was opening me up and I was beginning to feel like a depraved G.B. Shaw.

  I played with the dogs. There were two of them—full of hair and friskiness. But they were all right: they didn’t blame me for being white.

  The phone rang. Jon got it. He handed it to me. It was Prof. Steve Rodefer, the guy who had arranged the reading.

  “Bukowski?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The university has decided not to sponsor your reading.”

  “O.K., Steve, I know how it is. I’ll lay around another day and take the train back in.”

  “No, wait! The reading’s still on, same time, same place, but it’s being student-sponsored.”

  “O.K., I’ll be there.”

  “Give me Jon.”

  I handed the phone to Jon and they talked quite a while.

  Jon hung up.

  “Steve’s a hell of a guy but it’s probably going to cost him his job. He’s responsible for you and Kandel being here. This town’s red hot. The lid’s off.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Lou Webb was already asleep. She was always up early and ran around doing things—hocking brooches and trinkets, calming the landlord, trying to fix meals out of nothing. By 10 P.M. she was done. I missed her company: she was one of the last truly honest and passionate people I knew. . . .

  The phone rang again. Jon picked it up.

  “Yeah? Yeah? Is that so? You really think so, eh? Well, well, well. Is that right? Oh, yeah? Well what the FUCK was wrong with it? So you say. What? All right. . . .”

  He turned to me. “It’s Rumpkin. He wants to talk with you.”

  I took the phone. “Hello, Gene.”

  “Bukowski, you remember me?”

  “Yes, you helped edit that horrible magazine Just Lines.”

  “We published you.”

  “You weren’t wrong all the time, just most of the time.”

  “I didn’t think we were that bad.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “Did you see that poster Jon put out on you? Most of the people in the department felt it distorted your image. Did you see the poster?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “I didn’t pay it much attention.”

  “Put Jon back on.”

  I handed the phone back to Jon. They talked quite a while. I could hear Rumpkin’s voice. Gene boy was quite upset. It finally ended. Jon put the phone down.

  “He demands his poems back. He says he doesn’t want to be in Outsider 6.”

  “Fine. That solves your problem.”

  “He says he’s driving right over to get his poems. I wanted to tell him I’d mail them back but he hung up first.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “it’s a hell of a town. The bayonetings, Kandel, all that shit.”

  “They claim I’m trying to keep you from reading here. Rumpkin said, ‘Now that wasn’t very smart, mailing those posters to the mayor and the governor.’”

  “Why don’t they let me worry about that?”

  Jon didn’t answer. We were sitting there waiting for Mr. Rumpkin. Chicano teenagers walked by and drummed on the windows. The dogs ran up and barked.

  “I think the kids rather like us,” I said. “They just want us to know we’re in their part of town.”

  “It’s the only place we could afford to rent,” said Jon.

  “They should sense that.”

  “They do.”

  We sat up very late waiting for Mr. Rumpkin to come get his poems back. Jon gave up and went to the bedroom and slept. I stayed up another hour, drinking beer and waiting for Mr. Rumpkin. I finally gave up and went to sleep. . . .

  It was sometime the next day when a very angry man knocked on the door. I couldn’t make out the words. Lou Webb ran and got the poems. Impassionata, Italiano, innocent wonderful Lou.

  “Here, here, here’s your poems! Listen, Bukowski is in here! Don’t you want to say hello to Bukowski?”

  He took the poems and leaped into his car and drove swiftly off, away from the poison of us all. I laughed. It was kind of Charlie Chaplin madness without the grace of it.

  “Jesus,” said Lou, turning toward me, “he wouldn’t even say hello to you!”

  “Lou,” I said, “Mr. Rumpkin and Mr. Bukowski have a perfect understanding of each other.”

  “To hell with it!” She threw out her arms, beautiful fingers tapering from hell to hell. “I’m going to the POST OFFICE!”

  I thought that was an immense statement and applauded accordingly.

  We walked across campus where some of the students waited outside The Kiva. We walked on in and they followed us in. The place was built like a bullring with the seats rising up around the speaker.

  There were no troops. Just young quiet people. I found the crapper and went in and had a pull of scotch. Steve walked in and I gave him the bottle for a pull.

  “We about ready?” I asked.

  “We might as well start,” he said.

  We walked out and Steve stood in a thing that looked like a preacher’s pulpit. He explained that the university had withdrawn support of the reading and that it was being sponsored by a student fund. He gave some initials which I couldn’t make out.

  Then a shrink took the pulpit and introduced me. That figures, I thought. I’d once stayed at a shrink’s place in Santa Fe. It had been a bad stay. But the shrink spoke as if we were friends. The only thing the shrink had was money. And I mean that was all he had. The shrink talked on and on, trying to steal the show. But the young people were harder to fool than his patients. He was simply dull. Then, he finally stepped down.

  “Well, after that,” I said, “there’s nothing to do but begin reading. And I don’t like that thing,” I pointed to the pulpit, “I’m going to read right here.”

  I took out the pint, had a pull, and began:

  “I think of the little men

  coming out of the north

  with rags around their bodies

  and wanting to kill

  you.

  you dead bastards,

  you have death coming to you. . . .”

  It was, what the pros call, “a responsive audience.”

  “I’ve known some crazy women

  but the craziest was

  Annette. . . .”

  I kept the pint out, threw away the bag, set the bottle down, and just drank from the table.

  “the fire engines swing out

  and the clouds listen to

  Shostakovich

  as a woman dumps a bucket of piss

  into a row of geranium pots. . . .”

  I gave them about 30 minutes, then called for a 5-minute break. I walked out and sat in the audience. There was a guy next to me with a cassette.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Fine, you’re coming through fine.”

  “Have a drink.”

  “Sure.”

  I bummed a cigarette, smoked most of it, and went back. The shrink had left and was not to return.

  “All right, let’s get it over with,” I told the crowd.

  “the pig is fighting for the

  size of the sun

  as a thousand zeroes like bees

  land on my skin and

  the nomenclature of my screams

  in a small room. . . .”

  I got
away with each poem. The bottle was getting light. I needed more to drink. I cut several poems I had planned on reading and gave them “Something for the Touts,” “The Nuns,” “The Grocery Clerks and You,” then ended up with “Fire Station.”

  The applause was good, quite.

  Look, I thought, we have come through. On student funds.

  Steve went to the board and wrote down the address of the Webbs’ place.

  “There will be a party here,” he said.

  The crowd worked their way out. A few of them came down and I signed a thing or two. “It’s over,” I said. “Let’s get drunk. Steve, let’s get out of here.”

  We packed into the car and made it back. There was a crowd there when we arrived. We went in. I had stopped off for replenishments but the crowd had brought stuff—there was tequila, wine, bourbon, scotch, beer, and vodka. I drank from all of them. We sat on the rug and drank and talked. I was fairly far out of it by then, but I noticed a well-developed girl sitting next to me. I put my hand around her hip and kissed her. She had this easy smile and one tooth missing, it was very endearing. I couldn’t keep away from her. She had long black hair, very long, and was splendidly put together.

  “I just write poetry so I can go to bed with girls,” I told her. “I’m 50 but I just love young pussy!”

  She gave me that tooth-missing smile and I kissed her again. . . .

  I don’t remember much else. I always blackout after I drink quite a bit.

  When I awakened I was pressed against some rump and my cock was still in the vagina. (Portrait of the Artist as a Dog.) It was warm in there; it was hot in there. I pulled out.

  She had long black hair and was splendidly put together.

  I got out of bed and walked around. It was a fairly large house. I looked in one bedroom and there was a kid running around in a crib. Then a boy of about 3 ran up, dressed in pajamas. I patted his head, looked at the clock: 10:30. It was late morning. I walked over and saw a letter. It was addressed to a “Mrs. Kathy W.” I walked into the bedroom.

  “Hey, Kathy,” I said, “do you know there are kids running around all over this place?”

  “Oh, Hank, I want to sleep. Make yourself some coffee until I pull around.”

  I walked out, put on some coffee. Then I sterilized a bottle and put some milk in it and gave it to the kid in the crib. He went right to it. Then I got the other kid out of his pajamas, dressed him in an orange t-shirt with black stripes, light blue pants, and orange tennis shoes. He looked like a Van Gogh ready to chase ravens. But he liked me. He stood there smiling at me. I twisted his nose, pulled his ears, and drank the coffee. Went to the bedroom. Van Gogh followed me.

  “Let me use your phone, Kathy.”

  “Sure.”

  I phoned a Yellow Cab, went back in, and held her hand, squeezed it. She squeezed back.

  “Listen, I’ve got to leave. I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure, Hank.”

  I took the cab back across town. . . .

  I had to stay in town until Monday to get my check. For $225, it was worth the wait. I drank beer all day, then that night the phone rang. It was Steve. He was coming over with Gregory Corso.

  Webb looked at me. “Man, he’s a wild guy. Wait’ll you see him.”

  “O.K.,” I said.

  “Ginsberg came by earlier this year, but you ought to meet Corso. Only thing is, he’s stopped writing. You haven’t.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  We sat around waiting for Steve and Corso. I was a little nervous about meeting Corso. Although I was an older man, I had not begun writing until I was 35, and Corso’s name had been household for some time—like Burroughs, Ginsberg, all that gang. Not that their writing overimpressed me; nobody’s does. It was only that you got used to names and accepted them as part of something.

  Corso and Steve showed. Corso was dressed in tight-fitting white pants with little rivulets running down the sides. He had an opaque hair-do, rather fluffy; a strange-looking nose jutted out, all this mixed with a fighting chin and eyes that looked, looked, looked and a mouth that was busy. His accent was English crossed with Brooklyn and he had a bottle of wine in his hand. He was high.

  We shook hands.

  “I am your peer,” he said.

  “I know, Greg.”

  “I am your peer, I want you to remember that.”

  “Yes, Gregory.”

  There was something likeable about him, something quite likeable about him, and I was glad it was there. We sat and Gregory talked and we listened. He was not as wild as advertised. High, of course, but in definite control . . . that night, anyway. He liked rings and trinkets and asked why I didn’t wear any. He had something dangling from a thong about his throat, which he explained to us.

  “Why don’t you wear anything?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t think about it.”

  Then he got onto astrology, drawing things on pieces of paper. Then here came the tarot cards. He read Lou. Then he tried me. I pulled out the cards. As he turned them over, they all seemed to state power. Then, he said, before turning up the last card, “You see, it all leads up to this, which is the final force. . . .”

  He turned up the card. It said: THE EMPEROR. Greg was a very likeable guy.

  “But remember this, I am still your peer.”

  “O.K.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t make your reading.”

  “It’s O.K.”

  Not much happened the rest of the night. When they left, Jon said to me: “I never saw him so subdued.”

  “I liked him.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.” . . . . .

  I left town 2 days later. Jon and Lou, Steve and Greg sat in a skid row bar with me across from the Albuquerque train station. It was really a low-life place. I had sat in a bar like that in Philly for 5 years. Memories: I went into the crapper and heaved. Corso was wandering around looking at people. I bought the first round. Five drinks. A tequila, a scotch, a coke for Lou, a beer, and a mixed drink of some sort. The charge was a dollar thirty-five. You could drink in there for a week for ten dollars. If you didn’t get killed first. Two women who had been around awhile waited on bar. They were big and expressionless. Put together they must have weighed 600 pounds. Steve got the next round. It was getting close to train time.

  “I don’t care for the fond farewell scene,” I said. “Why don’t you people just let me go across the street and into the train station? Let’s say goodbye here.”

  I shook hands with Steve. Corso came up and kissed me on the cheek. That took some guts. Then he walked out.

  Jon and Lou walked into the train station with me. I paid a couple of bucks extra to get on the Chief. The El Capitan was just too damned slow. The Chief was too slow. Next haul anywhere, I was flying, like anybody else. We found the train car. Lou kissed me goodbye. I told Jon good luck with Henry Miller. Then I climbed on in. After the conductor hung my ticket up over the seat I got up and asked the porter where the bar car was.

  The train was moving. The train was moving toward Los Angeles. I found the bar car, sat down, and had a scotch and water. The windows were nice and there weren’t people climbing around in front of you.

  Then I noticed a young lady in a tight yellow dress staring at me from the next table. I wonder what she wants? I thought. I looked down into my drink. When I looked up she was still staring. She smiled.

  “I was at your reading,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “I liked it very much. It’s a long trip to Los Angeles. You mind if I come over?”

  “I’d hardly mind at all.”

  She brought her drink over. I didn’t know what it was. I’d find out when I ordered the next one. She was a juicy young thing. I imagined myself mounting her, legs up in the air.

  “My name’s Susie,” she said.

  “My name’s. . . .”

  “I know your name.”

  “Oh, yeah . . . sorry. . . .�
�

  I reached out and patted her hand. I felt one of her knees against mine.

  “I liked the poem about the beautiful actress who was decapitated in the car crash.”

  “Thank you, Susie.”

  “Life can end so suddenly. We never make the most of our moments. It’s so sad.”

  I pressed harder against her knee.

  “What’re you drinking?” I asked her.

  “I’ll drink what you are.”

  “I’m drinking Life,” I said, and then laughed: “That was corny, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” she said.

  We leaned close together. Her lips were a quarter inch from mine.

  The University of New Mexico, I thought, has been honored by an old wolf.

  I had 15 hours to score. There was no way I coud miss. We kissed and I ordered two more drinks.

  The House of Horrors

  Talking about writing is like talking about love or love-making or love-living: too much talk about it can kill it off. Without seeking them out, I have, unfortunately, met many writers, both successful and unsuccessful—I mean at their craft. As human beings they are a bad lot, a distasteful lot, bitchy, self-centered, vicious. One thing they almost all have in common: they each believe their work great, perhaps the greatest. If they become successful they accept it as their normal due. If they fail, they feel that the editors and the publishers and the gods are against them. And, it’s true that many bad writers are pushed and manipulated to the top, whatever the reason may be. It’s also true that many great writers have starved to death, or almost starved to death, or killed themselves or gone mad, and so forth, and were later discovered as fine (though dead) talents. This historical fact gives heart to the writer who is truly bad. He likes to imagine that his (her) failure is caused by any number of things besides simply being a poor talent. Well, so we have all that.

  Also, when I think of the writers that I know, mostly poets, I notice that they are supported by others—wives, mostly mothers carry the economic load of those that I know. And they are quite comfortable with TV sets, loaded refrigerators, and apartments or houses by the sea—mostly at Venice and Santa Monica, and they sun themselves in the day, feeling tragic, these male friends (?) of mine and then at night, perhaps a bottle of wine and a watercress sandwich, followed by a wailing letter of their penury and greatness to somebody somewhere. Anything but writing, working, getting it done, getting the word down. Well, I guess it beats working a punch press. The wives and the mothers will work the punch press, don’t worry about that. And the poets, having not lived in the outside world in reality, they will then really have nothing to write about, which they do with great ego and much dullness.