Tales of Ordinary Madness

by Charles Bukowski

  So here it was, finally. The Zen master began playing with his little black book. It didn’t look too thick. Around 150 pages, I’d say.

  “I ask,” said the Zen, “no drinking or smoking during the ceremony.”

  I drained my drink. I stood to Roy’s right. Drinks were being drained all over the place.

  Then the Zen master gave a little chickenshit smile.

  I knew the Christian wedding ceremonies by the sad rote of experience. And the Zen ceremony actually resembled the Christian, with a small amount of horseshit thrown in. Somewhere along the way, three small sticks were lit. Zen had a whole box of the things – two or three hundred. After the lighting, one stick was placed in the center of a jar of sand. That was the Zen stick. Then Roy was asked to place his burning stick upon one side of the Zen stick, Hollis asked to place hers on the other.

  But the sticks weren’t quite right. The Zen master, smiling a bit, had to reach forward and adjust the sticks to new depths and elevations.

  Then the Zen master dug out a circle of brown beads.

  He handed the circle of beads to Roy.

  “Now?” asked Roy.

  Damn, I thought, Roy always read up on everything else. Why not his own wedding?

  Zen reached forward, placed Hollis’ right hand within Roy’s left. And the beads encircled both hands that way.

  “Do you ...”

  “I do ...”

  (This was Zen? I thought.)

  “And do you, Hollis ...”

  “I do ...”

  Meanwhile, in the candlelight, there was some asshole taking hundreds of photos of the ceremony. It made me nervous. It could have been the F.B.I.

  “Plick! Plick! Plick!”

  Of course, we were all clean. But it was irritating because it was careless.

  Then I noticed the Zen master’s ears in the candlelight. The candlelight shone through them as if they were made of the thinnest of toilet paper.

  The Zen master had the thinnest ears of any man I had ever seen. That was what made him holy! I had to have those ears! For my wallet or my tomcat or my memory. Or for under the pillow.

  Of course, I knew that it was all the scotch and water and all the beer talking to me, and then, in another way, I didn’t know that at all.

  I kept staring at the Zen master’s ears.

  And there were more words.

  “... and you Roy, promise not to take any drugs while in your relationship with Hollis?”

  There seemed to be an embarrassing pause. Then, their hands locked together in the brown beads: “I promise,” said Roy, “not to ...”

  Soon it was over. Or seemed over. The Zen master stood straight up, smiling just a touch of a smile.

  I touched Roy upon a shoulder: “Congratulations.”

  Then I leaned over. Took hold of Hollis’ head, kissed her beautiful lips.

  Still everybody sat there. A nation of subnormals.

  Nobody moved. The candles glowed like subnormal candles.

  I walked over to the Zen master. Shook his hand: “Thank you. You did the ceremony quite well.”

  He seemed really pleased, which made me feel a little better. But the rest of those gangsters – old Tammany Hall and the Mafia: they were too proud and stupid to shake hands with an Oriental.

  Only one other kissed Hollis. Only one other shook the hand of the Zen master. It could have been a shotgun wedding. All that family! Well, I’d be the last to know or the last to be told.

  Now that the wedding was over, it seemed very cold in there. They just sat and stared at each other. I could never comprehend the human race, but somebody had to play clown. I ripped off my green necktie, flipped it into the air:

  “HEY! YOU COCKSUCKERS! ISN’T ANYBODY HUNGRY?”

  I walked over and started grabbing at cheese, pickled-pigs’ feet and chicken cunt. A few stiffly warmed up, walked over and grabbed at the food, not knowing what else to do.

  I got them to nibbling. Then I left and hit for the scotch and water.

  As I was in the kitchen, refilling, I heard the Zen master say, “I must leave now.”

  “Oooh, don’t leave ...” I heard an old, squeaky and female voice from among the greatest gangland gathering in three years. And even she didn’t sound as if she meant it. What was I doing in with these? Or the UCLA prof? No, the UCLA prof belonged there.

  There must be a repentance. Or something. Some action to humanize the proceedings.

  As soon as I heard the Zen master close the front door, I drained my waterglass full of scotch. Then I ran out through the candlelit room of jabbering bastards, found the door (that was a job, for a moment), and I opened the door, closed it, and there I was ... about 15 steps behind Mr. Zen. We still had 45 or 50 steps to go to get down to the parking lot.

  I gained upon him, lurching, two steps to his one.

  I screamed: “Hey, Masta!”

  Zen turned. “Yes, old man?”

  Old man?

  We both stopped and looked at each other on that winding stairway there in the moonlit tropical garden. It seemed like a time for a closer relationship.

  Then I told him: “I either want both your motherfucking ears or your motherfucking outfit – that neon-lighted bathrobe you’re wearing!”

  “Old man, you are crazy!”

  “I thought Zen had more moxie than to make unmitigated and offhand statements. You disappoint me, Masta!”

  Zen placed his palms together and looked upward.

  I told him, “I either want your motherfucking outfit or your motherfucking ears!”

  He kept his palms together, while looking upward.

  I plunged down the steps, missing a few but still flying forward, which kept me from cracking my head open, and as I fell downward toward him, I tried to swing, but I was all momentum, like something cut loose without direction. Zen caught me and straightened me.

  “My son, my son ...”

  We were in close. I swung. Caught a good part of him. I heard him hiss. He stepped one step back. I swung again. Missed. Went way wide left. Fell into some imported plants from hell. I got up. Moved toward him again. And in the moonlight, I saw the front of my own pants – splattered with blood, candle-drippings and puke.

  “You’ve met your master, bastard!” I notified him as I moved toward him. He waited. The years of working as a factotum had not left muscles entirely lax. I gave him one deeply into the gut, all 230 pounds of my body behind it.

  Zen let out a short gasp, once again supplicated the sky, said something in the Oriental, gave me a short karate chop, kindly, and left me wrapped within a series of senseless Mexican cacti and what appeared to be, from my eye, man-eating plants from the inner Brazilian jungles. I relaxed in the moonlight until this purple flower seemed to gather toward my nose and began to delicately pinch out my breathing.

  Shit, it took at least 150 years to break into the Harvard Classics. There wasn’t any choice: I broke loose from the thing and started crawling up the stairway again. Near the top, I mounted to my feet, opened the door and entered. Nobody noticed me. They were still talking shit. I flopped into my corner. The karate shot had opened a cut over my left eyebrow. I found my handkerchief.

  “Shit! I need a drink!” I hollered.

  Harvey came up with one. All scotch. I drained it. Why was it that the buzz of human beings talking could be so senseless? I noticed the woman who had been introduced to me as the bride’s mother was now showing plenty of leg, and it didn’t look bad, all that long nylon with the expensive stiletto heels, plus the little jewel tips down near the toes. It could give an idiot the hots, and I was only half-idiot.

  I got up, walked over to the bride’s mother, ripped her skirt back to her thighs, kissed her quickly upon her pretty knees and began to kiss my way upward.

  The candlelight helped. Everything.

  “Hey!” she awakened suddenly, “whatcha think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to fuck the shit out of you, I am going to fuck yo
u until the shit falls outa your ass! Whatcha thinka that?”

  She pushed and I fell backwards upon the rug. Then I was flat upon my back, thrashing, trying to get up.

  “Damned Amazon!” I screamed at her.

  Finally, three or four minutes later I managed to get to my feet. Somebody laughed. Then, finding my feet flat upon the floor again, I made for the kitchen. Poured a drink, drained it. Then poured a refill and walked out.

  There they were: all the goddamned relatives.

  “Roy or Hollis?” I asked. “Why don’t you open your wedding gift?”

  “Sure,” said Roy, “why not?”

  The gift was wrapped in 45 yards of tinfoil. Roy just kept unrolling the foil. Finally, he got it all undone.

  “Happy marriage!” I shouted.

  They all saw it. The room was very quiet.

  It was a little handcrafted coffin done by the best artisans in Spain. It even had this pinkish-red felt bottom. It was the exact replica of a larger coffin, except perhaps it was done with more love.

  Roy gave me his killer’s look, ripped off the tag of instructions on how to keep the wood polished, threw it inside the coffin and closed the lid.

  It was very quiet. The only gift hadn’t gone over. But they soon gathered themselves and began talking shit again.

  I became silent. I had really been proud of my little casket. I had looked for hours for a gift. I had almost gone crazy. Then I had seen it on the shelf, all alone. Touched the outsides, turned it upside-down, then looked inside. The price was high but I was paying for the perfect craftsmanship. The wood. The little hinges. All. At the same time, I needed some ant-killer spray. I found some Black Flag in the back of the store. The ants had built a nest under my front door. I took the stuff to the counter. There was a young girl there, I set the stuff in front of her. I pointed to the casket.

  “You know what that is?”

  “What?”

  “That’s a casket!”

  I opened it up and showed it to her.

  “These ants are driving me crazy. Ya know what I’m going to do?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to kill all those ants and put them in this casket and bury them!”

  She laughed. “You’ve saved my whole day!”

  You can’t put it past the young ones anymore; they are an entirely superior breed. I paid and got out of there ....

  But now, at the wedding, nobody laughed. A pressure cooker done up with a red ribbon would have left them happy. Or would it have?

  Harvey, the rich one, finally, was kindest of all. Maybe because he could afford to be kind? Then I remembered something out of my readings, something from the ancient Chinese:

  “Would you rather be rich or an artist?”

  “I’d rather be rich, for it seems that the artist is always sitting on the doorsteps of the rich.”

  I sucked at the fifth and didn’t care anymore. Somehow, the next thing I knew, it was over. I was in the back seat of my own car, Hollis driving again, the beard of Roy flowing into my face again. I sucked at my fifth.

  “Look, did you guys throw my little casket away? I love you both, you know that! Why did you throw my little casket away?”

  “Look, Bukowski! Here’s your casket!”

  Roy held it up to me, showed it to me.

  “Ah, fine!”

  “You want it back?”

  “No! No! My gift to you! Your only gift! Keep it! Please!”

  “All right.”

  The remainder of the drive was fairly quiet. I lived in a front court near Hollywood (of course). Parking was mean. Then they found a space about a half a block from where I lived. They parked my car, handed me the keys. Then I saw them walk across the street toward their own car. I watched them, turned to walk toward my place, and while still watching them and holding to the remainder of Harvey’s fifth, I tripped one shoe into a pantscuff and went down. As I fell backwards, my first instinct was to protect the remainder of that good fifth from smashing against the cement (mother with baby), and as I fell backwards I tried to hit with my shoulders, holding both head and bottle up. I saved the bottle but the head flipped back into the sidewalk, BASH!

  They both stood and watched me fall. I was stunned almost into insensibility but managed to scream across the street at them: “Roy! Hollis! Help me to my front door, please I’m hurt!”

  They stood a moment, looking at me. Then they got into their car, started the engine, leaned back and neatly drove off.

  I was being repaid for something. The casket? Whatever it had been – the use of my car, or me as clown and/or best man ... my use had been outworn. The human race had always disgusted me. Essentially, what made them disgusting was the family-relationship illness, which included marriage, exchange of power and aid, which like a sore, a leprosy, became then: your next door neighbor, your neighborhood, your district, your city, your county, your state, your nation ... everybody grabbing each other’s assholes in the honeycomb of survival out of a fear-animalistic stupidity.

  I got it all there, I understood it as they left me there, pleading.

  Five more minutes, I thought. If I can lay here five more minutes without being bothered I’ll get up and make it toward my place, get inside. I was the last of the outlaws. Billy the Kid had nothing on me. Five more minutes. Just let me get to my cave. I’ll mend. Next time I’m asked to one of their functions, I’ll tell them where to put it. Five minutes. That’s all I need.

  Two women walked by. They turned and looked at me.

  “Oh, look at him. What’s wrong?”

  “He’s drunk.”

  “He’s not sick, is he?”

  “No, look how he holds to that bottle. Like a little baby.”

  Oh shit. I screamed up at them:

  “I’LL SUCK BOTH YOUR SNATCHES! I’LL SUCK BOTH YOUR SNATCHES DRY, YOU CUNTS!”

  “Ooooooh!”

  They both ran into the high-rise glass apartment. Through the glass door. And I was outside unable to get up, best man to something. All I had to do was make it to my place – 30 yards away, as close as three million light years. Thirty yards from a rented front door. Two more minutes and I could get up. Each time I tried it, I got stronger. An old drunk would always make it, given enough time. One minute. One minute more. I could have made it.

  Then there they were. Part of the insane family structure of the World. Madmen, really, hardly questioning what made them do what they did. They left their double-red light burning as they parked. Then got out. One had a flashlight.

  “Bukowski,” said the one with the flashlight, “you just can’t seem to keep out of trouble, can you?”

  He knew my name from somewhere, other times.

  “Look,” I said, “I just stumbled. Hit my head. I never lose my sense or my coherence. I’m not dangerous. Why don’t you guys help me to my doorway? It’s 30 yards away. Just let me fall upon my bed and sleep it off. Don’t you think, really, that would be the really decent thing to do?”

  “Sir, two ladies reported you as trying to rape them.”

  “Gentlemen, I would never attempt to rape two ladies at the same time.”

  The one cop kept flashing his stupid flashlight into my face. It gave him a great feeling of superiority.

  “Just 30 yards to Freedom! Can’t you guys understand that?”

  “You’re the funniest show in town, Bukowski. Give us a better alibi than that.”

  “Well, let’s see – this thing you see sprawled here on the pavement is the end-product of a wedding, a Zen wedding.”

  “You mean some woman really tried to marry you?”

  “Not me, you asshole ...”

  The cop with the flashlight brought it down across my nose.

  “We ask respect toward officers of the law.”

  “Sorry. For a moment I forgot.”

  The blood ran down along my throat and then toward and upon my shirt. I was very tired – of everything.

  “Bukowski,” asked the
one who had just used the flashlight, “why can’t you stay out of trouble?”

  “Just forget the horseshit,” I said, “let’s go off to jail.”

  They put on the cuffs and threw me into the back seat. Same sad old scene.

  They drove along slowly, speaking of various possible and insane things – like, about having the front porch widened, or a pool, or an extra room in the back for Granny. And when it came to sports – these were real men – the Dodgers still had a chance, even with the two or three other teams right in there with them. Back to the family – if the Dodgers won, they won. If a man landed on the moon, they landed on the moon. But let a starving man ask them for a dime – no identification, fuck you, shithead. I mean, when they were in civvies. There hasn’t been a starving man yet who ever asked a cop for a dime. Our record is clear.

  Then I was pushed through the gristmill. After being 30 yards from my door. After being the only human in a house full of 59 people.

  There I was, once again, in this type of long line of the somehow guilty. The young guys didn’t know what was coming. They were mixed up with this thing called THE CONSTITUTION and their RIGHTS. The young cops, both in the city tank and the county tank, got their training on the drunks. They had to show they had it. While I was watching they took one guy in an elevator and rode him up and down, up and down, and when he got out, you hardly knew who he was, or what he had been – a black screaming about Human Rights. Then they got a white guy, screaming something about CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS; four or five of them got him, and they rushed him off his feet so fast he couldn’t walk, and when they brought him back they leaned him against a wall, and he just stood there trembling, these red welts all over his body, he stood there trembling and shivering.

  I got my photo taken all over again. Fingerprinted all over again.

  They took me down to the drunk tank, opened that door. After that, it was just a matter of looking for floorspace among the 150 men in the room. One shitpot. Vomit and piss everywhere. I found a spot among my fellow men. I was Charles Bukowski, featured in the literary archives of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Somebody there thought I was a genius. I stretched out on the boards. Heard a young voice. A boy’s voice.