Charles Bukowski - Factotum

"Are you 4-F?"

"Yes."

"Let me see your draft card."

I showed him my draft card. He handed it back.

"You're hired."

We were down in a cellar. The walls were painted yellow. We packed our ladies' dresses into oblong cardboard boxes about three feet long and a foot or a foot and a half wide. A certain skill was needed in folding each dress so that it did not become creased in the carton. To prevent this we used cardboard fillers and tissue, and were given careful instructions. The U.S. Mail was used for out of town deliveries. We each had our own scale and our own postage meter machine. No smoking.

Larabee was the head shipping clerk. Klein was the assistant head shipping clerk. Larabee was the boss. Klein was trying to move Larabee out of his job. Klein was Jewish and the owners of the store were Jewish and Larabee was nervous. Klein and Larabee argued and fought all day long and on into the evenings. Yes, evenings. The problem, as it was in those days during the war, was overtime. Those in control always preferred to overwork a few men continually, instead of hiring more people so everyone might work less. You gave the boss eight hours, and he always asked for more. He never sent you home after six hours, for example. You might have time to think.

Whenever I went out into the hall of the rooming house Gertrude seemed to be standing there. She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed you to suffer for it. It made her happy. I didn't feel too bad either. She could easily have shut me out and not even have allowed me to be warmed by a glimpse of it. Like most men in that situation I realized that I wouldn't get anything out of her-intimate talks, exciting roller-coaster rides, long Sunday afternoon walks-until after I had made some odd promises.

"You're a strange guy. You stay alone a lot, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What's wrong?"

"I was sick long before that morning you met me."

"Are you sick now?"

"No."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I don't like people."

"Do you think that's right?"

"Probably not."

"Will you take me to a movie some night?"

"I'll try."

Gertrude swayed in front of me; she swayed on her high heels. She moved forward. Bits of her were touching me. I simply couldn't respond. There was a space between us. The distance was too great. I felt as if she was talking to a person who had vanished, a person who was no longer there, no longer alive. Her eyes seemed to look right through me. I couldn't make a connection with her. I didn't feel shame for that, only rather embarrassed, and helpless.

"Come with me."

"What?"

"I want to show you my bedroom."

I followed Gertrude down the hall. She opened her bedroom door and I followed her in. It was a very feminine room. The large bed was covered with stuffed animals. All of the animals looked surprised and stared at me: giraffes, bears, lions, dogs. The air was perfumed. Everything was neat and clean and looked soft and comfortable. Gertrude moved close to me.

"You like my bedroom?"

"It's nice. Oh yes, I like it."

"Don't ever tell Mrs. Downing that I asked you in here, she'd be scandalized."

"I won't tell."

Gertrude stood there, silently.

"I have to go," I told her finally. Then I went to the door, opened it, closed it behind me, and walked back to my room.

After losing several typewriters to pawnbrokers I simply gave up the idea of owning one. I printed out my stories by hand and sent them out that way. I hand-printed them with a pen. I got to be a very fast hand-printer. It got so that I could hand-print faster than I could write. I wrote three or four short stories a week. I kept things in the mail. I imagined the editors of _The Atlantic Monthly_ and _Harper's_ saying: "Hey, here's another one of those things by that nut…"

One night I took Gertrude to a bar. We sat at a table to one side and drank beer. It was snowing outside. I felt a little better than usual. We drank and talked. An hour or so passed. I began gazing into Gertrude's eyes and she looked right back. "_A good man, nowadays, is hard to find!_" said the juke box. Gertrude moved her body to the music, moved her head to the music, and looked into my eyes.

"You have a very strange face," she said. "You're not really ugly."

"Number four shipping clerk, working his way up."

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Love is for real people."

"You sound real."

"I dislike real people."

"You dislike them?"

"I hate them."

We drank some more, not saying much. It continued to snow. Gertrude turned her head and stared into the crowd of people. Then she looked at me.

"Isn't he _handsome_?"

"Who?"

"That soldier over there. He's sitting alone. He sits so _straight_. And he's got all his medals on."

"Come on, let's get out of here."

"But it's not late."

"You can stay."

"No, I want to go with _you_."

"I don't care what you do."

"Is it the soldier? Are you mad because of the soldier?"

"Oh, shit!"

"It was the soldier!"

"I'm going."

I stood up at the table, left a tip and walked toward the door. I heard Gertrude behind me. I walked down the street in the snow. Soon she was walking at my side.

"You didn't even get a taxi. These high heels in the snow!"

I didn't answer. We walked the four or five blocks to the rooming house. I went up the steps with her beside me. Then I walked down to my room, opened the door, closed it, got out of my clothes and went to bed. I heard her throw something against the wall of her room.

I kept hand-printing my short stories. I sent most of them to Clay Gladmore, whose New York mag _Frontfire_ I admired. They only paid $25 a story but Gladmore had discovered William Saroyan and many others, had been Sherwood Anderson's buddy. Gladmore returned many of my things with personal rejections. True, most of them weren't very long but they did seem kind and they were encouraging. The larger magazines used printed rejection slips. Even Gladmore's printed slips seemed to have some warmth to them: "We regret, alas, that this is a rejection slip but…"

So I kept Gladmore busy with four or five stories a week. Meanwhile I was in ladies's dresswear, down in the cellar. Klein still hadn't ousted Larabee; Cox, the other shipping clerk, didn't care who was ousted as long as he could sneak his smoke on the stairway every twenty-five minutes.

Overtime became automatic. I drank more and more in my off hours. The eight hour day was gone forever. In the morning when you walked in you might as well settle for at least eleven hours. This included Saturdays, which used to be half-days, but which had turned into full days. The war was on but the ladies were buying the hell out of dresses…

It was after one twelve hour day. I had gotten into my coat, had come up out of the cellar, had lighted a cigarette and was walking along the hallway toward the exit when I heard the boss's voice: "Chinaski!"

"Yes?"

"Step in here."

My boss was smoking a long expensive cigar. He looked well-rested.

"This is my friend, Carson Gentry."

Carson Gentry was also smoking a long expensive cigar.

"Mr. Gentry is a writer too. He is very interested in writing. I told him that you were a writer and he wanted to meet you. You don't mind, do you?"

"No I don't mind."

They both sat there looking at me and smoking their cigars. Several minutes passed. They inhaled, exhaled, looked at me.

"Do you mind if I leave?" I asked.

"It's all right," said my boss.

I always walked to my room, it was six or seven blocks away. The trees along the streets were all alike: small, twisted, half-frozen, leafless. I liked them. I walked along under the cold moon.