Absence of the Hero

by Charles Bukowski

  Then it was two weeks later. I came in one day. The lady was all packed. We hadn’t had an argument. It appeared to be the end. Well, I thought (being a male ch.p.), that’s women. But what it was, I didn’t find out until three or four years later when the lady happened by for her child support.

  “I read all those stories you wrote after you came back from New Orleans that time.”

  “Which time? I’ve been there three four or five times.”

  “That time you stayed four weeks, that time you went to see the Webbs.”

  “Oh, that time. . . .”

  “Yes, that time.”

  “You read my stories? Did you like my stories?”

  “It was about you climbing in and out of bed with those women.”

  “I write fiction, woman.”

  “They sounded real.”

  “That’s my talent.”

  “Your talent is climbing into bed with women. How about that story about the fat woman who burned the pot of strawberry jam?”

  “That was a good story. She burned that jam. Boy, what a stink that was!”

  “I mean, you went to bed with her, didn’t you?”

  “Listen, my bed was right by the doorway where she went in and out. She had to go right past me when she went to bed. She cooked for me, she gave me a beer, we watched TV together. It was all free. She was a good woman.”

  “So you went to bed with her?”

  “It’s always best for a writer to really experience his material.”

  “You sonofabitch, and here I was sitting with a three-month-old baby of yours.”

  “Sure; I went to bed with you.”

  “That one with the harelip. The one where you both sat in the bathtub drunk and urinating together, laughing . . . I suppose that was fiction?”

  “Is that why you left me all those years back? Reading those stories?”

  “You’ll never keep a woman, Bukowski.”

  All right, the moral is you’ve got to have morals. And write dull stories about the Betterment of Man. I’m for the Betterment of Man but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around writing stories to aid the situation. When Man gets better there will still be sex around, humorous and the other kind. Besides, there’s a certain freedom in being hated for your work. They’ll never have me sitting in the May Company basement autographing my books for old ladies. In fact, I’ll be lucky to be rid of this story. Because I don’t always treat sex with its proper reverence.

  Sherman said war was hell, but sex can be hell too. I suppose it’s all the way you work with it or don’t work with it. I’ve gotten into many beds and lived many years in order to do research for you people. Don’t expect me to retreat now, lie down, and be quiet about it. There’s such a thing as love, too. I love to write these dirty stories and you love to read them and hate me for it. Regard the ultimate, go fishing, attend party meetings, and don’t burn the strawberry jam.

  A Foreword To These Poems

  from ANTHOLOGY OF L.A. POETS (1972)

  ed. by Charles Bukowski, Neeli Cherry, and Paul Vangelisti

  I was born in 1920 and brought to this city (Los Angeles) at the age of 2 and have lived most of my life here. I feel that I am qualified enough to speak of this city and, perhaps, its poets, and, perhaps, upon poetry.

  There have certainly been enough anthologies and there are too many poets and few enough readers—the fault, I believe, of the poets. Poetry has long been an in-game, a snob game, a game of puzzles and incantations. It still is, and most of its practitioners operate comfortably as professors in our safe and stale universities. We have a professor or 2 or 3 in this book—exceptions, believe us.

  That poets can only live and produce in certain cities—New York, San Francisco, Paris, or that these cities have more ability to sustain, accent, and enliven poetry—is just another order of garbage to be fed to the hogs. It is time we brought poetry down to the ground and that the best of it might be given credit for existing wherever it exists—for instance, here in Los Angeles.

  You know, I can’t think of another city that takes more mockery than Los Angeles. It is the unloved city, it is the target. We contain Hollywood—and in a sense, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm. . . . We are corn. We are mistakes. We are tourists. We are the lonely drunks of a Saturday night sitting for hours over warming beer, watching nudie dancers we can never possess.

  Los Angeles is also Main Street and E. 5th and East L.A. and Watts. Los Angeles has its poor and Los Angeles has its real, and Los Angeles has its poets, some of them pretty damned good. We’d like to think that we have gathered most of the pretty damned good ones here in this book. Of course, somebody is going to holler. That’s one of the reasons we put this book together: to hear some hollering. Los Angeles is also Pasadena, Long Beach, Irvine—anyplace you get to within an hour drive or two. Technically, no; spiritually, yes. We have included 2 or 3 “spiritual yeses.”

  I think it’s important to know that a writer can live and die anywhere. I think it’s important to know that a writer can live in Los Angeles for a lifetime without ever having visited Grauman’s Chinese or The Wax Museum or Barney’s Beanery or Disneyland, or without ever having attended a Tournament of Roses Parade. I think that it is important to know that man or woman, writer or not, can find more isolation in Los Angeles than in Boise, Idaho. Or, all things being fair, he can with a telephone (if he has a telephone) have 19 people over drinking and talking with him within an hour and a half. I have bummed the cities and I know this—the great facility of Los Angeles is that one can be alone if he wishes or he can be in a crowd if he wishes. No other city seems to allow this easy double choice as well. This is a fairly wonderful miracle, especially if one is a writer.

  Cities are no more than dwellings, places of business, streets, cars, people—people set down somewhere into all the agony and trouble and love and frustration and death and dullness and treachery and hope that they can get into. I must admit that I have gained a love for Los Angeles that forces me again and again to return to it once I have left. Someday there will even be songs about Los Angeles if the smog doesn’t get us first.

  The true Angelo also has a certain sophistication—he minds his own damned business. This is often mistaken for coldness but if you have ever lived in New York City or Chicago, you know what coldness is.

  It’s hard to find good poets anywhere. Our search here hasn’t been easy. Very little good poetry is being written anywhere. Yet there are people, old and young, male and female, who have been doing it quietly—if a bit desperately—here in L.A. We’d like to think that we have chosen the best. But mistakes are made; omissions are easy. This isn’t a bible, it’s a tentative gathering. It’s a city of poets and here are some of them. I think you’ll find power here, and clarity and humor, and feeling enough.

  Now let the hollerers holler.

  See you at ZODY’S.

  The Outsider

  As I sit here to write this, I have these things in front of me: The Outsider magazine 1, 2, 3, issue 4-5, and two books: It Catches My Heart in Its Hands and Crucifix in a Deathhand. It is a cold Los Angeles afternoon; I sit among these high-rise apts., wondering when they will raze this last skidrow court on DeLongpre Ave. The books and magazines sit to my right and I have just washed my shorts and stockings and they sit on a rope over the gas heater. So? I would have to say, that in the short time that it existed, The Outsider made more of a landing upon our literature than any other magazine. Perhaps because Jon and Louise selected and then printed their own selections; perhaps it did add a dimension. Of course, selectivity had much to do with it, and their poverty had something to do with it, and their hard luck and their eccentricity, their genius. . . . I, perhaps, knew them better than anybody, and I would like to tell you a bit about them, how they lived, how I lived with them, how I saw it work.

  Let’s look at The Outsider #1. Gypsy Lou is on the cover. There are names here—Sinclair Beiles, Corso, Di Prima, Snyder, Charles Olson, Ginsberg
, Langston Hughes, Sorrentino, Lowenfels, Ferlinghetti, Creeley, McClure, Henry Miller, LeRoi Jones, Burroughs, Kay Boyle, Paul Blackburn, so forth. . . . Jon told me later that the known writers had tried to place rejected and stale work upon him and that he had to keep insisting to get a vigorous and fresh work. Too many magazines simply print names without content. In The Outsider the work is good, plenty, and there are photos of the writers, and in the back, advertisements for the now defunct littles: statements, Chicago Choice, Between Worlds, Kulchur, Nomad, Agenda, outburst, Yugen, Two Cities, Satis, Big Table. . . .

  Outsider #2 has Gypsy Lou again on the cover. There are also a couple of jazz men working out. As with the first issue, this issue again came out in New Orleans. Both of these numbers were run off by a small hand-operated press at the expense of much labor and agony. There is less emphasis on names in this issue, although there is Genet, Burroughs, Nemerov, Corso, Kerouac, Henry Miller. Some of this issue is taken up by a jazz documentary with photos and comments. Also there are some black and write reprints of Patchen drawings. Since much of Patchen’s warmth is in his child’s use of color, it does seem a shame, but even in black and white the drawings are warm and Patchen. On the first page is a reproduction of a New Orleans building. And there just aren’t any buildings like those old French Quarter rusty iron railing, swaying, rat- and roach-infested buildings. Underneath is this interesting note: “In the building on the left above the renowned Double Dealer, which helped introduce Hemingway, Faulkner & Sherwood Anderson to a world unlike today’s, was first published in 1921. In building on r . . . in a room Whitman wrote in, The Outsider was born in 1961.” There are some Henry Miller, W. Lowenfels letters perhaps not as interesting as they should be. The Outsider made some mistakes. The jazz section, too, seemed more milk than gold. But in the selection of prose and poetry the genius of editorship was evident. If you think there are few good writers around, then, my friend, try to find yourself a good editor. Good editors are rarer than good writers, and when you consider that the editors are responsible for what we read, then you must realize the type of literary hell we are forced to live in.

  The Outsider #3 has a photo of the mad poet Charles Bukowski on the cover, and in the upper right-hand corner, Gypsy framed in a painting. Bukowski is not very pretty. One well-known literary figure in England wrote Jon a long letter of outrage, one of the lines being: “How dare you run a face like that on your cover?” Well, Jon liked dares. He dared attack the untouchable Robert Creeley in one of those early issues.

  There are some personal notes from Jon and Louise in this issue I have, and an ad for Bukowski’s It Catches My Heart in Its Hands. But there’s more than a Bukowski section of poetry in issue #3. Oh yes, I see, they have reprinted a NOTICE TO QUIT that slid under my door one night . . . in part, and in handwriting: “. . . Aragon Apts., 334 S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, California. Apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Buckowski. Said apt. to be Vacated, for Reasons: Excessive Drinking, Fighting, and Foul Language. Disturbing other tenants.” I thought this was the funniest thing in the mag but there was also Patchen, Snyder, Creeley, McClure, Burroughs, Irving Layton, Genet, Diane Wakoski, Norse, Miller, Anselm Hollo. . . . The selection of printed works again is forceful and evident of balls and flame. Good writing immediately catches the eye. But the thousands of manuscripts to be read in order to achieve this, and the way you must blister “names” in order to make them roar the eternal and immortal roar, it just ain’t easy. The Webbs achieved it.

  The Outsider 4-5 was a double issue. On his deathbed, Jon was saying something about a “triple issue. . . .” Which showed that old Jon was always one jump ahead of the literary gang. Anyhow, 4-5 is in book form with a photo of Patchen on the cover, dark shades, in cast, that famous back in cast, and he’s smoking what appears to be a Lucky Strike, with medicine bottle and lamp in the background. This photo catches the dissolute agony of the situation. This issue left New Orleans for the graces of Tucson. Lou’s emphysema was getting worse. This is an homage to K. Patchen section from the boys who knew him then. . . . There are many non-names in this huge issue and they stay right in there with the names, slugging and interesting. Some of the names that remain: Elizabeth Bartlett, Di Prima, Levertov, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Kelly, Thomas Merton, Lenore Kandel, Jackson MacLow, Jean Cocteau . . . also, Edson, William Wantling, Eigner, Howard McCord, David Meltzer, Margaret Randall, Brown Miller, Gene Fowler, d.a. levy, Robert Bly, Norse, Dick Higgins, David Antin, Anselm Hollo, T.L. Kryss, George Dowden, Simon Perchik, Emmet Williams, Kay Johnson (kaja). . . . Jon didn’t mind mixing schools. And if you are a student of snob literary America, you know how little this is done. All Jon demanded was the best from each and I believe he got it. On the homage to Patchen, which I found more lively and interesting and earthy than expected were some of the following: Norman Thomas, Bro. Antoninus, Ginsberg, J.B. May, Norse, Millen Brand, K. Rexroth, Bern Porter, David Meltzer, Ferlinghetti, Jack Conroy, Fred Eckman, and Henry Miller.

  If this seems like a name-dropping contest, it isn’t. It was simply that the flame bent toward The Outsider. It was the gathering place, the tavern, the cave of the gods and the cave of the devils . . . it was the place, it was in . . . it was literature jumping and screaming, it was a record of voices and it was a record of the time, it was The Outsider, it was Jon and Louise Webb, and now Jon Webb . . . has vanished.

  Two books. It Catches My Heart in Its Hands. Charles Bukowski. “Small birds who go the way of cats sing on inside my head.” New and selected poems 1955–1963. It is not a bad book, but it is not immortal except for one or two poems. Cork cover, almost violently-colored pages, a photo of Bukowski, a half of a Bukowski, long cigarette, Bogartish, worn, simple. O.K. It is a work of love, a work of love that the poet may not have returned.

  Crucifix in a Deathhand, new poems 1963–1965, with the exception of one poem, was written right into the face of a waiting press and does not represent Bukowski’s best work, but it is a work of heat and it is lyrical (for a change) and it flows and sings sad songs & it is printed on paper that is supposed to last 2,000 years, and you know that anything that lasts 2,000 years—like Christ—can become tiresome. The book is decorated by Noel Rockmore, and it is rumored that 1,800 copies of this book lie boxed and rotting in a damp Lyle Stuart cellar in New York City. . . .

  All right, that’s the record of the works on hand. I had the Henry Miller book about, the one about his letters to a French painter, but I sent it up to Elizabeth Bartlett, who auctioned it off with other items, not so long ago, in an effort to get the Webbs out of the red or to keep them alive. The recent Henry Miller book was being issued (I believe) about the time of Jon’s death and I never received a copy.

  So, now, if you’ll allow (and you must since I am writing this), I’ll go into more personal things about these strange people behind the Work. . . .

  After coming out of the L.A. County General Hospital around 1955, still alive, having been told it would be my sure death if I did so, I began to drink again. I am still drinking. In fact, the phone just rang and Jon’s son, Jon Webb Jr. just phoned. “What you doing?” “I’m writing about your old man and his wife.” “Well,” he said, “It might be a good time for a few beers. Should I come over?” “All right,” I said.

  So there’ll be a slight interruption here, but I’m going to write this thing yet. . . .

  All right, I came out of the hospital around 1955 and got a job—shipping clerk for a light-fixture plant in east L.A.—got an apartment, a typewriter, opened the beer, and began writing after a 10-year layoff. Only now I was writing poetry instead of prose. I mailed the first 40 or 50 poems to a mag in Texas, then somehow I heard of The Outsider at the beginning of it. I smelled good action. I sat in that kitchen on Kingsley Drive and later in that kitchen on Mariposa Street, symphony music on, smoking, alone, the sound of the typer, the words banging and wailing . . . those 10 years and the near-death and my bad health all helped make it go. The next batch went to The Outsid
er. I got an immediate response. It seemed that no sooner were the poems in the mailbox, I got the answer. Jon had a way of saying it that urged one on. It was Romantic, if you’ll forgive me; it was also important enough and real enough. I wrote letters with the poems. I believe I was about half-mad, which is as good a state as a man could ask to get into. I missed most of The Outsider #1 but by #2 things were really working between us all. The poems began to build and then, suddenly, Jon said, how about a book? Here he was in contact with the greatest writers of our time and he wanted to do a book by an unknown. I mean, fuck, man, I said, why not?

  Jon and Lou asked me to come down and see them in New Orleans. All right, I thought. Let them see the flesh of the words and then if they don’t like the flesh, they can tear the book.

  The place dipped down below the sidewalk in that rotting French Quarter building. Jon seemed to accept me as if he had known me a lifetime. “Buke,” he said. “Hello Buke . . . want a beer?” We talked a while and then he said, “Why don’t you walk down and see Lou? She’s down a couple of corners selling paintings.” “How’ll she know me?” “She’ll know you,” he said. “You’ll know her.”

  It was true. We knew each other. It was cold that day. The paintings were not moving. A buck apiece, two bucks apiece . . . they weren’t moving. Gypsy was wrapped in an old shawl. The paintings were hardly immortal, but the people were less so. We walked across the street and got a coffee in the tourist place. It was a deathly place full of deathly people.

  “So you’re the poet, eh?” she asked.

  “This place makes me sick,” I said.

  “Well, we might as well drink our coffee,” she said.