Charles Bukowski - Factotum

We'd eaten everything there was to eat. At night we took walks and stole cigarettes off dashboards and out of the glove compartments of parked cars.

"Should I make some pancakes?" asked Jan.

"I don't know if I can get another one of them down."

We were out of butter and lard so Jan fried the pancakes dry. And it wasn't pancake batter-it was flour mixed with water. They came out crisp. Real crisp.

"What kind of a man am I?" I wondered aloud. "My father told me I'd end up like this! Surely I can go out and get something? I'm _going_ to go out and get something… But first, a good drink."

I filled a water glass full of port wine. It was vile tasting stuff and you couldn't think about it while you drank it or you'd heave it right up. So I'd always run another film up there in the movie of my mind. I'd think of an old castle in Scotland covered with moss-drawbridges, blue water, trees, blue sky, cumulus clouds. Or, I'd think of a sexy lady pulling on a pair of silk stockings very very slowly. This time I ran the silk stockings film.

I got the wine down. "I'm going. Goodbye Jan."

"Goodbye, Henry."

I walked down the hall, down the four flights of stairs, very quietly past the manager's apartment (we were behind in the rent), and into the street. I walked down the hill. I was at Sixth and Union Streets. I crossed Sixth Street, walked east. There was a small market there. I walked past the market, then I turned and approached it again. The vegetable stand was out front. There were tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, pineapples, and grapefruit out there. I stood looking at them. I looked into the store; one old guy in an apron. He was talking to a woman. I picked up a cucumber and stuck it in my pocket and walked off. I was about fifteen feet away when I heard:

"Hey, mister! MISTER! You come back with that CUCUMBER or I'm going to call the COPS! If you don't wanna go to JAIL you bring that CUCUMBER BACK!"

I turned and made the long walk back. There were three or four people watching. I pulled the cucumber out of my pocket and put it back on top of the stack of cucumbers. Then I walked west. I walked up Union Street, up the west side of the hill, walked back up the four flights of stairs and opened the door. Jan looked up from her drink.

"I'm a failure," I said. "I couldn't even steal a cucumber."

"It's all right."

"Put the pancakes on."

I walked to the jug and poured another drink.

_… I was riding a camel across the Sahara. I had a large nose, somewhat like an eagle's beak, but yet I was very handsome, yes, in white robes with green stripes. And I had courage, I had murdered more than one. I had a large curved sword at my belt. I rode toward the tent where a fourteen year old girl blessed with great wisdom and with an unpunctured hymen was eagerly waiting on a thick oriental carpet…_

The drink went down; the poison shook my body; I could smell the flour and water burning. I poured a drink for Jan, I poured another drink for me.

At some point during one of our hellish nights World War II ended. The war had always been at best a vague reality to me, but now it was over. And the jobs that had always been difficult to get became more so. I got up each morning and went to all the public employment agencies starting with the Farm Labor Market. I struggled up at 4:30 a.m., hungover, and was usually back before noon. I walked back and forth between the agencies, endlessly. Sometimes I did get an occasional day's work unloading a boxcar, but this was only after I started going to a private agency which took one third of my wages. Consequently, there was very little money and we fell further and further behind with the rent. But we kept the wine bottles lined up bravely, made love, fought, and waited.

When there was a little money we walked down to Grand Central Market to get cheap stew meat, carrots, potatoes, onions and celery. We'd put it all in a big pot and sit and talk, knowing we were going to eat, smelling it-the onions, the vegetables, the meat-listening to it bubble. We rolled cigarettes and went to bed together, and got up and sang songs. Sometimes the manager would come up and tell us to keep quiet, and remind us that we _were_ behind with the rent. The tenants never complained about our fights but they didn't like our singing: _I Got Plenty Of Nothing; Old Man River; Buttons And Bows; Tumbling Along With The Tumbling Tumbleweeds; God Bless America; Deutschland uber Alles; Bonaparte's Retreat; I Get The Blues When It Rains; Keep Your Sunny Side Up; No More Money In The Bank; Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf; When The Deep Purple Falls; A Tiskit A Tasket; I Married An Angel; Poor Little Lambs Gone Astray; I Want A Gal Just Like The Gal Who Married Dear Old Dad; How The Hell Ya Gonna Keep Them Down On The Farm; If I'd Known You Were Coming I'd A Baked A Cake…_

I was too sick one morning to get up at 4:30 a.m.-or according to our clock 7:27 and one half. I shut off the alarm and went back to sleep. A couple of hours later there was a loud noise in the hall. "What the hell is it?" asked Jan.

I got out of bed. I slept in my shorts. The shorts were stained-we wiped with newspapers that we crumpled and softened with our hands-and I often didn't get all of it cleaned off. My shorts were also ragged and had cigarette burns in them where the hot ashes had fallen in my lap.

I went to the door and opened it. There was thick smoke in the hall. Firemen in large metal helmets with numbers on them. Firemen dragging long thick hoses. Firemen dressed in asbestos. Firemen with axes. The noise and confusion was incredible. I closed the door.

"What is it?" asked Jan.

"It's the fire department."

"Oh," she said. She pulled the covers up over her head, rolled on her side. I got in beside her and slept.

I was finally hired on at an auto parts warehouse. It was on Flower Street, down around Eleventh Street. They sold retail out the front and also wholesaled to other distributors and shops. I had to demean myself to get that one-I told them that I liked to think of my job as a second home. That pleased them.

I was the receiving clerk. I also walked to a half dozen places in the neighborhood and picked up parts. It did get me out of the building.

During my lunch period one day I noticed an intense and intelligent looking Chicano boy reading that day's entries in the newspaper.

"You play the horses?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Can I see your paper?"

I looked down the entries. I handed the paper back. "My Boy Bobby ought to take the eighth."

"I know it. And they don't even have him on top."

"All the better."

"What do you think he'll pay?"

"Around 9 to 2."

"I wish I could get a bet down."

"Me too."

"When's the last race go off at Hollywood Park?" he asked.

"5:30."

"We get out of here at 5:00."

"We'd never make it."

"We could try. My Boy Bobby's going to win."

"Just our luck."

"Want to come along?"

"Sure."

"Watch the clock. At 5:00 we'll cut out."

At five minutes to 5:00 we were both working as near the rear exit as possible. My friend, Manny, looked at his watch. "We'll steal two minutes. When I start running, follow me."

Manny stood there putting boxes of parts on a rear shelf. Suddenly he bolted. I was right behind him and we were out the rear door in a flash, then down the alley. He was a good runner. I found out afterwards that he had been an all-city quarter-miler in high school. I was four feet behind him all the way down the alley. His car was parked around the corner; he unlocked it and we were in and off.

"Manny, we'll never make it."

"We'll make it. I can tool this thing."

"We must be nine or ten miles away. We've got to get there, park, then get from the parking lot to the betting window."