Charles Bukowski - The Captain Is Out to Lunch

Well, I've been 72 years old for 8 days and nights now and I'll never be able to say that again.

It's been a bad couple of months. Weary. Physically and spiritually. Death means nothing. It's walking around with your ass dragging, it's when the words don't come flying form the machine, there's the gyp.

Now in my lower lip and under the lower lip, there is a large puffiness. And I have no energy. I didn't go to the track today. I just stayed in bed. Tired, tired. The Sunday crowds at the track are the worst. I have problems with the human face. I find it very difficult to look at. I find the sum total of each person's life written there and it is a horrible sight. When one sees thousands of faces in one day, it's tiring from the top of the head to the toes. And all through the gut. Sundays are so crowded. It's amateur day. They scream and curse. They rage. Then they go limp and leave, broke. What did they expect?

I had a cataract operation on my right eye a few months ago. The operation was not nearly as simple as the misinformation I gathered from people who claimed to have had eye operations. I heard my wife talking to ther mother on the telephone: „You say it was over in a few minutes? And that you drove your car home afterwards?“ Another old guy told me, „Oh it's nothing, it's over in a flash and you just go about your business as normal.“ Others spoke about the operation in an off-hand manner. It was a walk in the park. Now, I didn't ask for any of these people for information about the operation, they just came out with it. And after a while, I began to believe it. Although I still wonder how a thing as delicate as the eye could be treated more or less like cutting a toenail. On my first visit to the doctor, he examined the eye and said that I needed an operation. „O.k.,“ I said, „let's do it.“ „What?“ he asked. „Let's do it now. Let's rock and roll!“ „Wait,“ he said, „first we must make an appointment with a hospital. Then there are other preparations. First, we want to show you a movie about the operation. It's only about 15 minutes long.“ „The operation?“ „No, the movies.“ What happens is that they take out the complete lens of the eye and replace it with an artifical lens. The lens is stitched in and the eye must adjust and recover. After about 3 weeks the stitches are removed. It's no walk in the park and the operation takes much longer than „a couple of minutes.“ Anyhow, after it was all over, my wife's mother said it was probably an after-operational procedure she was thinking of. And the old guy? I asked him, „How long did it take for your sight to really get better after your eye operation?“ „I'm not so sure I had an operation,“ he said. Maybe I got this fat lip from drinking from the cat's water bowl? I feel a little better tonight. Six days a week at the racetrack can burn anybody out. Try is some time. Then come in and work on your novel. Or maybe death is giving me some signs? The other day I was thinking about the world without me. There is the world going on doing what it does. And I'm not there. Very odd. Think of the garbage truck coming by and picking up the garbage and I'm not there. Or the newspaper sits in the drive and I'm not there to pick it up. Impossible. And worse, some time after I'm dead, I'm going to be truly discovered. All those who were afraid of me or hated me when I was alive will suddenly embrace me. My words will be everywhere. Clubs and societies will be formed. It will be sickening. A movie will be made of my life. I will be made a much more courageous and talented man tahn I am. Much more. It will be enough to make the gods puke. The human race exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. The fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better. The night is cooling off. Maybe I'll pay the gas bill. I remember in south central L.A. they shot a lady named Love for not paying her gas bill. The co. wanted to shut it off. Forget what with. Maybe a shovel. Cops came. Don't remember how it worked. Think she reached for something in her apron. They shot and killed her. All right, all right, I'll pay the gas bill. I worry about my novel. It's about a detective. But I keep getting him into these almost impossible situations and then I have to work him out. I sometimes think about how to get him out while I'm at the racetrack. And I know that my editor– publisher is curious. Maybe he thinks the work isn't literary. I say that anything I do is literary even if I try not to make it literary. He should trust me by now. Well, if he doesn't want it, I'll unload it elsewhere. It will sell as well as anything I've written, not because it's better but because it's just as good and my crazy readers are ready for it. Look, maybe a good night's sleep tonight and I'll wake up in the morning without this fat lip. Can you imagine me leaning toward the teller with this big lip and saying, „20 win on the 6 horse?“ Sure. I know. He wouldn't have even noticed. My wife asked me, „Didn't you always have that?“ Jesus Christ. Do you know that cats sleep 20 hours out of 24? No wonder they look better than I.

There are thousands of traps in life and most of us fall into many of them. The idea though, is to stay out of as many of them as possible. Doing so helps you remain as alive as you might until you die…

The letter arrived from the offices of one of the network television stations. It was quite simple, stating that this fellow, let's call him Joe Singer, wants to come by. To talk about certain possibilities. On page 1 of the letter were stuck 2 one hundred dollar bills. On page 2 there was another hundred. I was on the way to the racetrack. I found that the hundred dollar bills peeled off of the pages nicely without damage. There was a phone number. I decided to call Joe Singer that night after the races.

Which I did. Joe was casual, easy. The idea, he said, was to create a series for tv based on a writer like myself. An old guy who was still writing, drinking, playing the horses.

„Why don't we get together and talk about it?“ he asked.

„You'll have to come here,“ I said, „at night.“ „O.k.,“ he said, „when?“ „Night after next.“ „Fine. You know who I want to get to play you?“ „Who?“ He mentioned an actor, let's call him Harry Dane. I always liked Harry Dane.

„Great,“ I said, „and thanks for the 300.“ „We wanted to get your attention.“ „You did.“

Well, the night came around and there was Joe Singer. He seemed likeable enough, intelligent, easy. We drank and talked, about horses and various things. Not much about the television series. Linda, my wife, was with us.

„But tell us more about the series,“ she said.

„It's all right, Linda,“ I said, „we're just relaxing…“ I felt Joe Singer had more or less come by to see if I was crazy or not.

„All right,“ he said reaching into his briefcase, „here's a rough idea…“ He handed me 4 or 5 sheets of paper. It was mostly a description of the main character and I thought they had gotten me down fairly well. The old writer lived with this young girl just out of college, she did all his dirty work, lined up his readings and stuff like that.

„The station wanted this young girl in there, you know,“ said Joe.

„Yeah,“ I said.

Linda didn't say anything.

„Well,“ said Joe, „you look this over again. There are also some ideas, plot ideas, each episode will have a diferent slant, you know, but it will all be based on your character.“ „Yeah,“ I said. But I was beginning to get a bit apprehensive. We drank another couple of hours. I don't remember much abou the conversation. Small talk. And the night ended…

The next day after the track I turned to the page about the episode ideas.