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Close Encounters of the Bukowski Kind

Kirk Alex

    (excerpted from ?Last Tango in the Old Pueblo and Pushin’ da Pushbroom –– 2 Long-Shorts by the author)

    We were in one of the aisles, shoving the pink compound, pushing it along with the pushbooms. I looked around. Topaz was still missing in action. I didn’t see my friend and wondered where he was. Rufo, the former expeditor, was ahead of our group of guys with the shovel, sprinkling the compound onto the Polyurea flooring, or whatever it was. Rafiq was returning from the john. I asked if he happened to run into Topaz.
    “Probably hiding out, taking hits on his crack pipe,” said Rafiq.
    “Hey, Cash, why do you always worry about other people?” said Rufo to me.
    “I’m not worried. Don’t want to see the guy get fired. You heard what Ponce said.”
    “Fuck Ponce,” said Rufo. The guys laughed.
    Truth was, I didn’t give a damn, not really. I might kid around by saying: Hey, where’s so and so? Merely to help pass the time, that’s all. But grumpy doesn’t get it. I let it go.

    Ponce walks up. Inquires how things are going; if we need anything.
    “We’re good,” says Shandy. “Thanks for asking.”
    “I try to take care of you guys,” says Ponce, then looks in my direction. “Where’s your friend Topaz?”
    “You’re asking me?”
    “Hiding out in the shitter again?”
    Someone, Shandy or his friend Griggs, someone, spots Topaz to the left of where we were, down there by the forklift station, leisurely walking this way.
    “Lookit that slow stroll,” said Ponce, shaking his head, and walked to the Zamboni. I figured Topaz’s days were numbered.

    It was afternoon. I was the one doing the shovel bit this time. Rufo noticed that I wasn’t moving as fast as I should’ve been. He was right: arms were getting tired. Driving that shovel into the barrel full of compound, and then taking the loaded shovel and the constant flicking required to spread the compound evenly across the floor of the wide aisle took its toll. I wasn’t arguing.
    “Want me to do that?” he asked.
    “You sure?”
    “Look like you could use a break.”
    I let him take over. Guy was being kind. He was also twenty years younger. Seemed Topaz was absent and off somewhere once again. Rufo says to me:
    “Where’s your friend?”
    I suppose they assumed Topaz and I were bosom buddies, which we weren’t. I got along with the guy and treated him like a human being, but that was about it. The group acting like we were related was starting to bother me.
    “I don’t worry about other people,” I said. Damned right. Only Shandy, Newlin and Rafiq booed that.
    “What?” said I.
    “That’s not like you, Cash,” said Rafiq. “If you’re going to be one way be that way––don’t go changing on us.”
    “So I’m not allowed to be like you guys now and then?”
    “No.”
    I guess they were used to me being positive, and that last comment had been less-than. Even Rufo had rejoined with: “Ain’t that a bitch.” Shook his head.

    We were bored out of our skulls. That’s what it was, pushing those pushbrooms down one long aisle and up the next; from one end of the warehouse to the other––and back again. And then you’ve got 22-year old Shandy stating constantly that he doesn’t like people; neither does Rafiq.
    Hell. Gets old. To keep hearing the same tune all the time. You hate people? Fine. Who––frankly––gives a damn?––I came real close to blurting out. In fact, this was that phony (and tiresome) Bukowski’s constant bitch: Didn’t care for people. Liked being by himself. People weren’t much.
    Hey, drunken jerk-off, what else is new? Furthermore, why did he spend so much time around unhinged females and barflies, then? The hell was he doing living in smelly dive bars all those effing years? What a chump. This continues to be my beef with this walking contradiction––even though he’s been dead for quite some time. Still, man, still . . . what a counterfeit pose.

    Want more? I’d had two run-ins with the wino and neither were pleasant. First encounter was at the premier of Tales of Ordinary Madness at a rundown movie house in a seedy hood at Melrose and Van Ness in the early 1980s. I had the nowhere cab gig at the time. (Stuck in it for years in order to buy time to write during the day.) Had paid to see the flick out of respect for the writer. I was there to support the scribe. Flick didn’t have to be anywhere near exemplary, far as I was concerned, so long as it helped spread the man’s ability as a unique wordsmith and raw and real free verse poet.
    In fact, until I discovered Bukowski in 1979 (at 28), I never felt a need to go anywhere near poetry. Most poets were pretentious gasbags (in my not-so-humble opinion) and I had no use for them or their drivel. But Buk? Buk’s stuff was different. Man had suffered as a child; been through a lot, as well as (unintentionally) helped others deal with life with his writing (the same way it helped me get through some trying times).

    Theatre was packed. Movie was running. Not half-bad, I thought (with a decent actor like Ben Gazzara in the lead). Problem was there was a drunken fool in the back cursing at the screen, muttering gems like: “No, that’s not right. Not the sunglasses. That’s bullshit.”
    I guess he didn’t like seeing Gazzara wearing dark shades while reading his poetry at an indoor poetry venue. Minor beef, was my observation. Not worth getting worked up about.
    Yes, I knew Bukowski didn’t care for the Beats and this (quite possibly) hinted at it: the fakery with the shades bit. But, man, I had paid money to see the movie and wanted to be allowed to judge for myself and did not need some unhappy imbibing loser to criticize it for me. That was Roger Ebert’s job (not that I always agreed with him and what he had to say).

    Anyway, never having expected the flick to be notable to begin with, I didn’t give a damn that the actor was wearing sunglasses in the scene. I just wanted to go along with the ride, enjoy the flick (if possible). But the noisy mother went on. Caused me to drop my effing bag of M&Ms on top, which made it worse.
    “Damn,” I cursed under my breath. The audience laughed. Thought it was funny that my M&Ms were scattered on the effing floor and that I had to kiss ‘em good-bye now. And the jerk in the back row kept grumbling with a running commentary, talking back to the screen, and I kept telling him to shut up––only he wouldn’t. Until finally, at last, I screamed at the cocksucker (at the top of my lungs) to close his fucking mouth.
    Frustrating? Understatement. I was there to see the picture. Paid to see the goddamn movie. Paid. With money I made driving the cab, fighting LA traffic, dealing with hookers and their mean pimps. I did not walk in free. And this son of a bitch boozer in the last row was ?ruining it for me.
    If he didn’t like it, why was he present? Why not get up and walk? I’ve done it in the past, plenty of times. Who was it that had twisted his arm and forced him to stay put and continue to bitch and moan and ruin it for the rest of us? Who was it? Why not walk the fuck out?

    I’ll tell you why: Because the jerk was Bukowski. Enjoyed being a prick. It was in his blood. The way he was. And I had no idea at the time that the grousing/under-the-influence fool had been the former Factotum himself (until I read his account of the incident in one of his stories in the Septuagenerian Stew collection a few years later). No shit. The obnoxious wino with the relentless mouth had been nasty Chinaski himself. Knowing this didn’t help; made no difference really, because he’d spoiled the experience for me.

    The other time had been at Fairfax High, where I used to go to run and workout on the monkey bars (as a way to keep from going over the edge). It was still the early 80s. I remained in a bad way as a result of splitting with a woman I’d given my heart to. I was effing suicidal; living in a furnished room, barely holding on (although I didn’t look it on the surface).
    I was in my early-30s, young, fit, appeared healthy––facade-wise (even though a serious mess inside my noggin). Not only caused by the breakup, but the result of a brutal childhood. Yep, thirteen-years of having been cuffed and beaten by a bully of a father. There was rage, lots of it, years of it, only the dipstick––Bukowski––had no idea. Far as he was concerned: he was the only mother-effer whoever suffered at the hands of a violent parent. No one, but no one else came from a messed-up upbringing, but Bukowski. No one else was yelled at and smacked around but Chinaski.
    Hey, I have news for you: Not everyone was raised by easy-going, educated and aware adults. Nope. Get it? Ask around. You’ll find out shit that will make your head spin and your eyes well with heavy tears. Then again, skip it. Forget it. What’s the point anyway?

    Difference was, even though so many of us came from a turbulent background, we didn’t hate all people, like this jackass. In fact, speaking for myself, there were plenty of peeps I did like, even loved and respected. Plenty. Many. Lots. Not all humans were useless sacks-of-waste––like Chinaski would have you believe.

    And so: What was the incident at Fairfax? I was on my bicycle, having left the outdoor high school track, heading east on Rosewood. I’d reached Genesee, and made my right turn at the corner, just as Chinaski had stepped off the curb across the way (west-bound, visiting one of his female admirers in the area, no doubt), and had been about to cross. He was in the street, although nowhere near me. But because I hadn’t stopped, not having been able to or needed to (that I surmised), he says to me:
    “There’s no hope for you.”
    Dipstick Henry Karl. Couldn’t keep from running his mouth and saying something like that to someone he knew nothing about.
    See? Over-the-hill old dude was a brain-damaged alkie. Know what else? His praise of Fante’s Ask the Dust means squat to me. It’s overrated. Period. Dan, the son, was the stronger writer. Loved his Point Doom, Chump Change, Spitting off Tall Buildings, some other things.
    Chinaski also liked Catcher in the Rye, which is another pile of sheep-dip. I hate Catcher in the Rye. Another book I have a low opinion of is Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. (Read it cover-to-cover years before when I was a shipping clerk at the smut warehouse in the late 90s.) I liked the Russian’s Notes from Underground, but found Crime and Punishment one thoroughly depressing ordeal to struggle through.

    So what does that tell you about the drunk from San Pedro? That he was as full of dook as the Hollywood losers he claimed to loathe. Didn’t care for celluloid? What a crock. Why then was he having all those tinseltown clowns over to his place to visit all the time? Huh? Three-dollar-bill, beedi-smoking buffoon.

    Damn, that took a lot out of me. It wasn’t supposed to. Didn’t expect it to. But did. And the irony remains: I still think about a third of his output is pure gold, perhaps even genius, a third is fair; and the last third––I have said this before––is worthless drool.

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