The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way. Charles Bukowski

There were dozens of them—wild scrawlings, neat printing, pencil, ink—and he’d forgotten most of them, and reading them again, there was something hellishly funny in them—one grows, you know, gets over extravagances. The drawers were always full because he was afraid to throw the stuff into the wastebaskets, and when he did, he tore the papers into very small sections and then swirled them all around with his hands:

      . . . there’s no telling when something will break. You can’t believe the voices, or the faces of the voices . . .

      . . . I said, automatic profusion

      . . . I lit a cigarette but found it was an ember bud and threw it away.

      . . . I cower before the look of eyes . . . this fat whore says, I’ve had nine glasses of port since this morning . . . the whore turns away, a little frozen . . . I shake my beer and look down into the glass . . . I phone my father from the Culver City Courthouse. I understand I am in the judge’s chambers. The operator gives me the wrong number. A well-dressed woman stares at me. My hands tremble. I have a three-day beard and a hole in my pants . . .

      . . . sickened, in a rage . . . rattle of glass . . . water pouring . . . her cough . . . footsteps . . . winding clock . . . washing dishes . . . eating . . . frying things . . . opening, closing drawers . . . vacuuming . . . strange sound, like a spray . . . night . . . snoring . . . her goddamned room, her pot lids, her spoons . . . that doesn’t matter. She’ll be dead by the time they get there. I don’t want to wait till she’s asleep . . . this is a thing to be done now . . . Rain. It rains. You’ll see them hurrying in the rain . . .

      . . . too often a brilliant mind makes a brilliant face, alas, alas. (These lines were underlined.)

      . . . the guitar has been played too violently . . . lost another job drinking . . . 55 cents left . . . it’s snowing and the want ads look terrible . . . Christ!—to be a fat, rich bastard with bullfrog eyes! . . . end product of American industry: the dead end: fear. 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937 . . . fear, fear, fear! . . . everything (march, boys!) to the job: the body, the voice, the soul . . . this type and nothing else . . . a suggestion of weariness . . . Hell yes, the hydrogen bomb! Break the tables, as N. said . . .

      . . . Saroyan . . . didn’t speak the truth . . . reason he didn’t burn his 500 books in a tub when he was freezing in San Francisco was not because he saw value in the cheapest, most false book, but because he was afraid the fire would make the room too damned smoky and the landlady would raise hell . . . if he had 500 books and did think of burning them . . .

      . . . Christ, what time is it? My feet are asleep!

      . . . Iron Curtain, politics in Art . . . I, and them, and all, at last with pinch-bud faces, lost count, seeking electric altogether . . . brain suspends spirit like a hoyden insect . . . when waitress drops a plate I cry . . .

      . . . he’d evidently had an education of some sort, and when I saw him there eating, I walked over and sat down across from him, “What are you doing in a dump like this?” . . . frightened, wild, unsteady eyes . . .

      . . . Say words. Volcano. Interim. Daze.

      . . . Battle plans

      Sat. Sun.—$1.33 peanut butter 4.50 rent

      bread

      knife

      newspaper leave—3

      Thurs.—Dishwashing, anything. Gloves—75 cents.

      Suit $8.00—Food—carfare—if money comes, keep suit.

      Nxt. Wk. Fri.—1.00 (save 12 cents)

      Sat.—Try Harry’s credit

      Sun.—Skip rent

      Mon.—(Social sec.) get $20.00?

      If not—finis

      . . . drink goes well in novels . . . or in magazine advertisements . . . wrote home and asked his mother for money . . . stood before the mirror . . . posing wise and profligate— not quite bringing it off.

      . . . too much electric altogether . . . hoyden insect . . . politics in Art . . . politics in Science . . . politics in breast-plate . . . asphalt, people, tracks . . . Eve’s infinite copulation . . . say that Birdie told you so.

      . . . easy does it, Charles. I am bored, a little dull and rather dissatisfied altogether.

      what the hell’s that noise?

      a pipe

      She always dreamed of lilies and loved Strauss (Blue Danube Strauss) quite so much

      door slamming

      feet, feet

      how horrible, how mockingly

      purposely horrible

      I think

      they enjoy it.

      . . . Dear J—

      I hate to be ridiculous—but could you loan me five bucks? I know this stuns you beyond measure—this encroachment, or what—but I’ve lost my job through drink, it’s the night before Thanksgiving, everything’s hocked and my landlady a pragmatic bitch.

      I swear, sincerely, I’ll repay you when I get over the hump. Take a chance—the odds are good—and I’m really quite alone . . .

      . . . he heard the voices downstairs, he heard the downstairs voices, he heard voices . . .

      . . . Bar scene: a series of comments on . . . unfortunately . . . writers are mostly people with upper-strata jobs . . . English teachers . . . newspaper reporters . . . book reviewers . . . these people . . . attached to rather arched little physiognomies . . . brimstone eyes . . . or something . . . have a certain thing about them . . . sometimes claim they have washed dishes or boxed in the ring . . . generally it is a goddamned lie . . . and when they write their bar scenes . . . oh Jesus Christ! . . . few real men write . . . the living kills that . . .

      . . . could try to escape by jumping from Russian trains . . . cold blood, areas of cold blood—rivers of dead, rivers . . . Karel Capek, Benedicite coeli Domino . . . today is a holiday of some sort. The people are singing and eating huge dinners.

      . . . I got drunked-up and noticed a man next to me reading a sheet of music.

      “Are you a music writer?” I asked him.

      “Yes,” he said . . .

      . . . I’m done . . . through . . . botched it all up . . . Oh, if you could only know how terrible I feel . . . there are all these good people I hurt . . . good chances I’ve missed . . . chances, chances . . . little things, like Don putting the packages on my wrapping table—“Happy Birthday!”—and a little cake in there . . . and three cigars . . . Oh, I know this is wild, but it’s the way I feel inside . . . let me speak a while, Father, there is nobody outside, there is no line . . .

      . . . I could hear my mother in the kitchen, but the bedroom door was closed and I got up on the chair and peeked through the hole in the shade. The excitement flushed through me fiercely. What a break, what a lucky break! Miss Philippe-Cret, the new roomer, was in the garden swing. Her dress was high over her knees and as she rocked back and forth in the swing, the crossed legs changed their pose and I could see flashes of upper leg, where the stocking ended and the flesh began. I stood peering, my body tense, aching with excitement . . .

      . . . You tell me to go out and get a job . . . why goddamn you man . . . where have you been living . . . don’t you know when you’ve been drinking as long as I have you are just too goddamned nervous and frightened . . .

      . . . he saw the sailors coming, five or six of them, wandering across the sidewalk, shouting, laughing over some ever-perpetual joke, mob-happy. He crossed to the other side of the street, but it was too late: there were whistles, shouts, as if to a passing girl, only with mocking intonations . . .

      . . . Dear J—

      Glad I’m not in L.A. now. Don’t think I could swallow