Tales of Ordinary Madness (10 page)

MY STAY IN THE POET'S COTTAGE

for those of you interested in madness, yours or mine, I can tell you a little about mine. I stayed at the poet's cottage at the University of Arizona, not because I am established but because nobody but a damn fool or a poor man ever visits or stays in Tucson in the summer months. it averaged around 106 degrees during my whole stay. nothing to do but drink beer. I am a poet who has made it known that I do not give readings. I am also a person who becomes quite a jackass when drunk. and when sober I don't have anything to say, so there weren't many knocks at the poet's cottage. and I didn't mind. except I had heard that there was a young colored maid, vury vury nicely built who came around once in a while, so I quietly laid plans to rape her, but she had evidently heard of me too and stayed away. so I scrubbed out my own bathtub; dumped out my own bottles into a large trashcan with painting on the top in black: UNIV. OF ARIZ. I usually heaved right into the top of the can after dumping my bottles around 11 a.m. each morning. then it was mostly a matter of going back to bed after my morning beer and trying to cool off and get well. poet-in-residence, indeed, drunk-in-residence would have been better. I drank around 4 or 5 six-packs a day and night.

well, the cooling system was not bad and with my balls just beginning to unlimber and my stomach getting straight, and my stick still thinking of the colored maid, and my soul still retching from the Creeley's etc. who had shit in the same shitter, slept in the same bed – about this time the phone would ring. it would be the great editor –

Bukowski?

yeh. yeh. I think so.

would you like some breakfast?

some
what?

breakfast.

yeh. that's what I thought ya said.

my wife and I are kind of around the corner. how about meeting us at the campus cafeteria?

the campus cafeteria?

yes, we'll be there. all you have to do is to keep walking the opposite way of Speedway and just keep asking everybody you meet, WHERE IS THE CAMPUS CAFETERIA? just keep asking everybody you meet, WHERE IS THE CAMPUS CAFETERIA?

oooooooh, jesus ...

what's wrong? all you have to do is to keep asking everybody you meet, WHERE IS THE CAMPUS CAFETERIA? we'll have breakfast together.

listen, let's put it off. not this morning.

well, o.k., buk, I only thought since we were out this way –

sure, thanks.

around after 3 or 4 beers and a bath and trying to read some of the books of poesy around there, and naturally finding them not well-written, they put me to sleep: Pound, Olson, Creeley, Shapiro. there were hundreds of books, old magazines. none of my books were there, not in that cottage, so it was a very dead place. when I awakened, it was another beer and a walk in the 100 plus heat 8 or 10 blocks to the great editor's place. I'd usually stop somewhere and pick up a couple of six-packs. they weren't drinking. they were getting old and having all sorts of physical troubles. it was sad. for them and for me. but her 81-year-old father almost matched me beer for beer. we liked each other.

I was out there to cut a record but when the Ariz. prof in charge of that sort of thing heard I was coming to town he ended up at St. Mary's hospital with an ulcer. on the day he was due to be discharged I phoned him personally while I was half drunk and they kept him in there 2 more days. so nothing to do but drink with an 81-year-old man and wait for something to happen: maids, fire, the end of the world. I got into an argument with the great editor and went to the back bedroom and sat there with Pops and watched some kind of T.V. program where all the women danced and wore miniskirts. I sat there with a big hard-on. anyway, with a hard-on. I don't know about Pops.

but one night I found myself on the other side of town. big tall guy with beard all over his face. Archer, or Archnip, or something, he was called. we drank and drank and drank and smoked – Chesterfields. we kept talking out of the skulltops of our underwear. and then the big guy with the hairyface, Archnip, he folded across the top of the table and I began feeling his wife's legs. she let me. she let me. she had the finest white hairs on these legs – wait! she was around 25! – I only mean they looked kind of white under the electric light on those g.d. big legs. and she kept saying, I really don't want you but if you can get something ready you can have me. well, that's more than most of them say. and I kept feeling her legs and trying to get something ready but the Chesterfields and the beer had got me beyond it, so all I could ask her was to run away to Los Angeles with me and that she could get a job as a waitress and support me. she didn't seem interested, for some reason. and after all that talk with her husband, wherein I had dissected Law, History, Sex, Poetry, the Novel, Medicine ... I had even set the husband up by taking him to a bar and having 3 quick scotch and waters after and on top of the other. all she told me was that she
was
interested in Los Angeles. I told her to go take a piss and forget it. I should have stayed in the bar. some girl had come out of the wall and danced on the bar; she had kept shaking these red satin panties in my face. but probably only a communist conspiracy, so what the hell.

the next day I got a ride back with a shorter guy with a shorter beard. he gave me a Chesterfield. whatch do, swaddler, I asked him, you got all that hair on your face, whatcha do?

I paint, he said.

so when we got back to the cottage I broke out the beers and straightened him out on painting. I paint too. I told him my secret formula on how to tell whether a new painting was any good or not. I also told him the difference between painting and writing, and what painting could do for you that writing could not. he didn't say much. after a few beers he decided to leave.

thanks for the ride, I told him.

it's all right.

when the great editor phoned to ask me to breakfast I had to tell him no once more but I told him about the guy who drove me home.

nice guy, I said, nice kid.

what did you say his name was?

I stated the name.

oh, he said, that was professor – –, he teaches painting at

Arizona U.

oh, I said.

there weren't any symphony programs on the little A.M. radio so I listened to the other music, crashed the beer down and listened to the other music, crazy: if you come to San Francisco, wear a flower in your hair; hey hey, live for today; and so forth and so on. on one station they had a contest or some damn thing – they asked you to name the month of your birth. August, I told them. were you born in November? the lady sang back. I'm sorry, sir, you just missed, the announcer told me. yeh? I said. yeh? the announcer hung up. you had to first match the month of your birth with the record they spun. then if you hit that, you tried for the day of your birth, that is the 7th., 19th., so on. then if you tied them together you won A FREE TRIP TO LOS ANGELES WHERE YOU GOT TO STAY IN SOME MOTEL, EXPENSES PAID. phony sons of bitches. the whole thing's rigged, I said to myself. I went to the refrigerator. it is now 109 degrees, the announcer said.

my last day in town the colored maid still hadn't shown so I began packing. the great editor told me the bus schedule. all I had to do was walk 3 blocks north, then catch the bus going east on Park ave. to Elm.

if you get to the bus stop too early don't just stand there. go into the drugstore and wait. get a coke or something.

well, I got packed and walked up to the bus stop in the 105 degree heat. the damn bus was nowhere in sight. shit, I said. I began walking east, fast. the booze came out of me like the Niagara falls. I switched hands on the suitcase. I could have taken a taxi from my place to the train depot but the great editor had wanted to give me some books, something called CRUCIFIX IN A DEATHHAND, that I had to pack into the suitcase. nobody had a car. I just got to the place and broke out a beer when here came the prof out of the hospital, driving up in his car, making sure, I guess, that I left town. he came in.

I was just over at the cottage, he said.

you just missed buk, said the editor. buk always builds his own cage. he won't eat breakfast in the campus cafeteria. then I told him to WAIT IN THE DRUGSTORE IF THE BUS WAS LATE. you know what he did? he walked all the way over here in this heat with that suitcase.

god damn it, can't you see? I told the editor, I don't like drugstores! I don't like to be in drug stores, waiting. they have this marble fountain. you sit there and stare at this marble fountain, this soda fountain circle thing. an ant shakes by or some kind of bug lays dying in front of you, one wing whirling and the other still. you are a stranger. 2 or 3 dull and cool people stare at you. then the waitress finally comes up. she wouldn't let you smell the stink of a pair of her dirty panties, yet she's ugly as hell and doesn't even know it. with great reluctance she takes your order. a coke. it comes to you in a warm, bent paper cup. you don't want it. you drink it. the bug is still not dead. the bus is still not there. the marble in the fountain is covered in slimy dust. everything's a farce, can't you see? if you go to the counter and try to buy a pack of smokes it will be 5 minutes before somebody arrives. you feel raped-over 9 times before you get out of there.

there's nothing wrong with drugstores, buk, the editor says.

and I know another guy who says ‘there's nothing wrong with war.' but jesus christ, I've got to go with my neuroses and prejudices because that's all I've got to go by. I don't like drugstores, I don't like campus cafeterias, I don't like Shetland ponies and I don't like Disneyland and I don't like motorcycle policemen and I don't like yogurt and I don't like the Beatles and Charley Chaplin and I don't like windowshades and that big blob of manic-depressive hair that falls over Bobby Kennedy's forehead.... jesus, jesus, I turned to the prof. – this guy's been printing me for ten years, hundreds of poems, and HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM!

the prof laughed, which was something.

the train was 2 hours late, so the prof drove us up to his place in the hills. it began to rain. a big glass window looked over the lousy town. just like in the movies. I got revenge on the great editor. the prof's wife sat down at the piano and wailed out a bit of Verdi. I knew, at last, that the editor was suffering. I HAD HIM IN MY DRUGSTORE. I applauded and egged her on into another one. she wasn't bad really, plenty of power but she disengaged it carelessly – too much power continually without the tonality of variation. I tried to send her into another one but since I was the only one who insisted, she, like a lady, desisted.

they got me down to the train station in the rain with little bottles in all my pockets – peach brandy, all that kind of stuff. I checked my suitcase in and let them all stand there bunched waiting for the train. I walked down to the end of the baggage platform and sat on a truck in the rain and began working on the peach brandy. it was a hot rain that dried as soon as it hit you; it was almost like sweat. I sat and waited for my train to Los Angeles, the only city in the world. I mean, yes it was more full of shits than any other city and that's what made it funny. it was my town. it was my peach brandy. I almost loved it. here it came toward me, at last. I finished the peach brandy and walked on in toward it, looking for the coach number, number 110. but there wasn't any 110. turned out one-ten was 42. I got on with the Indians, Mexicans, madmen and hustlers. there was a girl in a blue dress whose ass looked like the bottom of heaven. she was crazy. she talked to a little doll like it was her baby. she sat across from me talking to the little doll. you could have her, old man, if you tried, I told myself. but you'd only make her unhappy. to hell with it. better to be a peep-freak. so I turned on my side and looked at those delicious legs through the moonlit train windows. L.A. came toward me. the Mexicans and Indians snored. I stared at the moonlit legs and listened to her talk to her doll. what would the great editor expect of me now? what would Hem have done? Dos Passos? Tom Wolfe? Creeley? Ezra? the moonlit legs began to lose meaning. I turned on my other side and faced the purple mountains. maybe a cunt in there too. and Los Angeles moving toward me, full of cunts. and in that poet's cottage now, with Bukowski gone, I could see her now, that colored maid, bending, lifting, bending, sweating, listening to the radio – if you go to San Francisco be sure to wear a flower in your hair – that colored maid popping with love and nobody around, and I reached into my pocket and opened another little bottle. something something, and I sucked at it sucked at it, and here came L.A., to hell with it.

THE STUPID CHRISTS

three men had to lift the mass of rubber and place it into the machine and the machine chopped it up into the various things it was meant to be; heated it and chopped it and shitted it out: bicycle pedals, bathing caps, hot water bottles ... you had to be careful how you put the thing into the machine or you'd get an arm sheared off, and when you had a hangover you were always particularly worried about getting an arm sheared off. it had happened to two men in the last three years: Durbin and Peterson. they put Durbin in Payroll – you could see him sitting in there with one sleeve hanging. they gave Peterson a broom and a mop and he cleaned out the crappers, emptied the wastebaskets, hung the toiletpaper, so forth. everybody said it was amazing how well Peterson did all these things with one arm.

now the eight hours were about up. Dan Skorski helped lift in the last mass of rubber. he'd worked the eight hours with one of the worst hangovers of his career. as he worked, the minutes had been hours, the seconds had been minutes. and whenever you looked up there were these 5 guys sitting on the rotunda. whenever you looked up there were these ten EYES looking at you.

Dan turned to go to the timecard rack when a thin thin man built like a cigar walked in. when the cigar walked his feet didn't even touch the floor. the cigar's name was Mr. Blackstone.

“where the hell do you think you're going?” he asked Dan.

“out of here, that's where I'm going.”

“OVERTIME,” said Mr. Blackstone.

“what?”

“I said: OVERTIME. look around. we've got to get this stuff out of here.”

Dan looked around. as far as you could see there were these stacks and stacks of rubber for the machines. and the worst thing with overtime was that you could never tell when it would end. it could be from 2 to 5 hours. you never knew. just time to get back to bed, lay down, then get up again and begin feeding that rubber into the machines. and it never ended. there was always
more
rubber,
more
backorders,
more
machines. the whole building was exploding,
coming,
pewking with rubber, mounds of rubber rubber rubber and the 5 guys on the rotunda got richer and richer and richer.

“get back to WORK!” said the cigar.

“no, I can't do it,” said Dan. “I can't lift one more piece of rubber.”

“how are we going to get this stuff out?” asked the cigar. “we've got to make floor space for the incoming shipment tomorrow.”

“get another building, hire more people. you're working the same people to death, you're beating their brains out. they don't even know where they are, LOOK at them! look at those poor jerks!”

and it was true. the workers were hardly human. their eyes were glazed, stricken, insane. they laughed at anything and mocked each other continually. their insides were stamped out. they had been murdered.

“those are good men,” said the cigar.

“sure they are. half their salaries go to state and federal taxes; the other half goes to new cars, color t.v., stupid wives and 4 or 5 different types of insurance.”

“either you work the overtime as the others do or you're out of a job, Skorski.”

“then I'm out of a job, Blackstone.”

“I've got a good mind not to pay you.”

“State Labor Board.”

“we'll mail you your check.”

“fine. and do it promptly.

leaving that building he had the same free and wonderful feeling he got every time he was fired or when he quit a job. leaving that building, leaving them in there – “you've found a home, Skorski. you never had it so good!” no matter how shitty the job was, the workers always told him that.

Skorski stopped at the liquor store, got a pint of Grandad and drove on in. it was an easy evening and he finished the pint and went to bed and slept in an easy grace he hadn't felt in years. no 6:30 a.m. alarm clock to startle him into a false and beastly humanity.

he slept until noon, got up, took 2 alka seltzers and went out to the mailbox. there was one letter.

Dear Mr. Skorski:

We have long been an admirer of your short stories and poems, and also appreciated your recent exhibit of paintings at the University of N. We have an opening in the editorial department here at WorldWay Books, Inc. I'm sure that you have heard of us. Our publications are distributed in Europe, Africa, Australia, and yes, even the Orient. We have been watching your work for some years and noted that you were once editor of the little magazine LAME-BIRD, years 1962-63 and very much liked your choice of poetry and prose. We believe that you are the man for us, here, in our editorial department. I feel we could work something out. The position begins at $200 a week and we would be much honored to have you with us. Should you feel so inclined, please phone us collect at
– – – – –,
and we will telegraph you plane fare and, we feel, a generous sum for incidental expenses.

yours must humbly,
D. R. Signo,
editor-in-chief
WorldWay Books, Inc.”

Dan had a beer, put a couple of eggs on to boil, and phoned Signo. Signo sounded as if he were talking through a piece of rolled-up steel. But Signo had printed some of the world's greatest writers. and Signo seemed very off-hand, not at all like his letter.

“do you really want me out there?” Dan asked him.

“surely,” said Signo, “just as we have indicated.”

“all right, telegraph me the funds and I'll be on the way.”

“the money is on the way,” said Signo. “we look forward.”

he hung up. Signo did, that is. Dan turned off the eggs. went to bed and slept two more hours ...

on the plane toward New York, it could have been better. whether it was because he had never flown before or the strange sound of Signo speaking through rolled-up steel, Dan didn't know. from rubber to steel. well, maybe Signo was very busy. that could be it. some men were very busy. always. anyhow, when Skorski boarded the plane he was quite well along the way, and also had a bit of Grandad with him. however that ran out about half way across and he began getting on the stewardess for drinks. he had no idea what the stewardess was serving him – it was purplish sweet and didn't seem to sit too well upon the Grandad. soon he was talking to all the passengers and telling them that he was Rocky Graziano, ex-fighter. they laughed at first, then became quiet as he kept insisting upon his point:

“I'm the Rock, yes, I'm the Rock and how I could belt them out! guts and a punch! how I had the mob
howling!”

then he got sick and just made it to the crapper. when he heaved some of it somehow got into his shoes and stockings and he took off his shoes and stockings and washed his stockings and then came out barefooted. he put his stockings somewhere to dry and then he put his shoes somewhere and then he forgot where he put either of them.

he walked up and down the aisle. barefooted.

“Mr. Skorski,” the stewardess told him, “please stay in your seat.”

“Graziano. the Rock. and who the hell stole my shoes and socks? I'll bust ‘em in half.”

he vomited there in the aisle and an old woman actually hissed at him like a snake.

“Mr. Skorski,” the stewardess said, “I insist that you go to your seat!”

Dan grabbed her by the wrist.

“I like you. I think I'll rape you right here in the aisle. think of it! rape in the sky! you'll LOVE it! ex-boxer, Rocky Graziano rapes stewardess while passing over Illinois! come ‘ere!”

Dan grabbed her about the waist. her face was atrociously blank and stupid; young, egotistical and ugly. she had the IQ of a tit-mouse and no tits. but she was strong. she broke away and ran to the pilot's compartment. Dan vomited just a bit, went over and sat down.

the co-pilot came out. a man with huge buttocks and a large jaw and a 3 story house with 4 children and an insane wife.

“hey, buddy,” said the co-pilot.

“yeah, mother?”

“shape up. I hear you been raising a ruckus.”

“a ruckus? what's that? are you some kind of queer, flyboy?”

“I'm tellin' you to shape up!”

“jam it, mother! I'm a paying passenger!”

Huge buttocks took the safety belt and fastened him to his seat with an easy disdain and a great show and threat of strength like an elephant pulling a mango tree out of the ground with his trunk.

“now STAY there!”

“I'm Rocky Graziano,” he told the co-pilot. the co-pilot was already up in his front compartment. when the stewardess came by and saw Skorski all strapped in his seat, she tittered.

“I'll show you TWELVE INCHES!” he screamed at her.

the old woman hissed at him again like a snake ...

at the airport, barefooted, he caught a taxi to the new Village. he found a room without any trouble, and also, a bar around the corner. he drank in the bar until early morning and nobody even said anything about his bare feet. nobody even noticed him or spoke to him. he was in New York all right.

even when he bought shoes and socks the next morning, walking into the store barefooted, nobody said anything. the city was centuries old and sophisticated beyond meaning and/or feeling.

a couple of days later he phoned Signo.

“did you have a nice trip, Mr. Skorski?”

“oh yeah.”

“well, I'm having lunch at Griffo's. it's just around the corner from WorldWay. suppose you meet me there in 30 minutes?”

“where's Griffo's? I mean, what's the address?”

“just tell the cabby – Griffo's.”

he hung up. Signo did, that is.

he told the cabby Griffo's. and there they were. he went inside. stood inside the doorway. there were 45 people in the place. which one was Signo?

“Skorski,” he heard a voice. “over here!”

it was at a table. Signo. one other. they were having cocktails. when he sat down the waiter came up and placed a cocktail in front of him.

jesus, that was more like it.

“how did you know who I was?” he asked Signo.

“oh, I know,” said Signo.

Signo never looked at a man, always over the top of the man's head as if he were waiting for a message or a bird to fly in or a poison dart from a Ubangi.

“this is Strange,” said Signo.

“yes, it is,” said Dan.

“I mean, this is Mr. Strange, one of our senior editors.”

“hello,” said Strange, “I've always admired your work.”

Strange had it the other way: he was always looking down at the floor as if awaiting something to crawl up between the floorboards – oil seepage or a boxed-in bobcat or an invasion of beer-maddened roaches. nobody said anything. Dan finished his cocktail and waited on them. they drank very slowly, as if it didn't matter, as if it were chalkwater. they had another round and went to the office ...

they showed him his desk. each desk was partitioned off from the other by these high whiteglass wall-like cliffs. you couldn't see through the glass. and behind your desk was a whiteglass door, closed. and by pressing a button, a shot of glass closed in right in front of your desk and you were all alone. you could lay a secretary in there and nobody would know a damn thing. one of the secretaries had smiled at him. god, what a body! all that flesh, wobbling and trussed-in and just aching to be fucked, and then the smile ... what a medieval torture.

he played with a sliding ruler on his desk. it was something for measuring picas or micas or something. he didn't know anything about the ruler. he just sat there playing with it. 45 minutes went by. he began to get thirsty. he opened the back door to his desk and then walked between all the rows of desks that had these white glass walls around them. in between each glass wall was a man. some were on telephones. others played with papers. they all seemed to know what they were doing. he found Griffo's. sat at the bar and had two drinks. then went back up. sat down and played with the ruler again. 30 minutes went by. then he got up and went back down to Griffo's. 3 drinks. then back to the ruler. it was down to Griffo's and back. he lost track. but later in the day, as he walked along in front of the desks, each editor pushed his button and the glass front would flip closed in front of him. flip, flip, flip, they went all the way until he got to his desk. only one editor did not close his glass front. Dan stood there and looked at him – he was a huge dying man, with a somehow fat but flabby throat, the tissues sinking in, and the face puffed round, bloated round like a child's beachball with the features dimly scrawled in. the man would not look at him. he stared at the ceiling above Dan's head, and the man was furious – first red, then white, decaying, decaying. Dan walked to his desk, hit the button and locked himself in. there was a knock at his door. he opened the door. it was Signo. Signo looked over his head.

“we've decided we can't use you.”

“how about expenses back.”

“how much do you need?”

“a hundred and 75 ought to cover.”

Signo wrote out a check for 175, dropped it on his desk and walked out ...

Skorski, instead of planing for L.A., decided on San Deigo. it had been a long time since he'd been to Caliente racetrack. and he had this thing worked out on the 5-10. he felt he could pick 5 for 6 without buying too many combos. he'd rather figure out a weight-distance-speed ratio play that seemed fairly sound. he remained fairly sober on the flight back, stayed one night in San Diego, then took a taxi to Tijuana. he switched taxis at the border and the Mexican cabby found him a good hotel in the center of town. he put his bag of rags in a closet in his room and then went out to check the town. it was about 6 p.m. and the pink sun seemed to soothe the poverty and anger of the town. poor shits, close enough to the U.S. to speak the language and know its corruption, but only able to drain away a little of the wealth, like a suckerfish attached to the belly of a shark.