Charles Bukowski - The Captain Is Out to Lunch

Now, it has simmered away. Seven thousand people at a major racetrack on a sunny afternnon. Nobody at the bar. Just the lonely barkeep holding a towel. Where are the people? There are more people than ever but where are they? Standing on a corner, sitting in a room. Bush might get reelected because he won an easy war. But he didn't do crap for the economy. You never even know if your bank will openin the morning. I don't mean to sing the blues. But you know, in the 1930's at least everybody knew where they were. Now, it's a game of mirrors. And nobody is quite sure what is holding it together. Or who they are really working for. If they are working.

Damn, I've got to get off this. Nobody else seems to be bitching about the state of affairs. Or, if the are, they are in a place where nobody can hear them.

And I sit around writing poems, a novel, I can't help it, I can't do anything else.

I was poor for 60 years. now I am neither rich nor poor.

At the track they are going to start laying off people at the concession stands, the parking lots and in the business office and in maintenance. Purses for races will decline. Smaller fields. Less jocks. A lot less laughter. Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself. Moving toward 2,000 A.D. I'll be dead and out of here. Leaving my little stack of books. Seven thousand at the track. Seven thousand. I can't believe it. The Sierra Madres weep in the smog. When the horses no longer run the sky will fall down, flat, wide, ponderous, crushing everything. Glassware won the 9th, paid $9.00. I had a ten on it.

Computer class was a kick for sore ballls. You pick it up inch by inch and try to get the totality. The problem is that the books say one way and some people say the other. The terminology slowly becomes understandable. The computer only does, it doesn't know. You can confuse it and it can turn on you. It's up to you to get along with it. Still, the computer can go crazy and do odd and strange things. It catches viruses, gets shorts, bombs out, etc. Somehow, tonight, I feel that the less said about the computer, the better.

I wonder whatever happened to that crazy French reporter who interviewed me in Paris so long ago? The one who drank whiskey the way most men drink beer? And he got brighter and more interesting as the bottles emptied. Probably dead. I used to drink 15 hours a day but it was mostly beer and wine. I ought to be dead. I will be dead. Not bad, thinking about that. I've had a weird and wooly existence, much of it awful, total drudgery. But I think it was the way I rammed myself through the shit that made the difference. Looking back now, I think I exhibited a certain amount of cool and class no matter what was happening. I remember how the FBI guys got pissed driving me along in that car. “HEY, THIS GUY'S PRETTY COOL!” one of them yelled angrily. I hadn't asked what I had been picked up for or where we were going. It just didn't matter to me. Just another slice out of the senselessness of life. “NOW WAIT,” I told them. “I'm scared.” That seemed to make them feel better. To me, they were like creatures from outer space. We couldn't relate to each other. But it was strange. I felt nothing. Well, it wasn't exactly strange to me, I mean it was strange in the ordinary sense. I just saw hands and feet and heads. They had their minds made up about something, it was up to them. I wasn't looking for justice and logic. I never have. Maybe that's why I never wrote any social protest stuff. To me, the whole structure would never make sense no matter what they did with it. you really can't make something good out of something that isn't there. Those guys wanted me to show fear, they were used to that. I was just disgusted.

Now here I am going to a computer class. But it's all for the better, to play with words, my only toy. Just musing there tonight. The classical music on the radio is not too good. I think I'll shut down and go sit with the wife and cats for a while. Never push, never force the word. Hell, there's no contest and certainly very little competition. Very little.

Of course, there are some strange types at the racetrack. There's one fellow who's out there almost every day. He never seems to win a race. After each race he screams in dismay about the horse that won. “IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT!” he will scream. And then go on shouting about how the horse never should have won. A good 5 minutes worth. Often the horse will read 5 to 2 and 3 to 1, 7 to 2. Now a horse like that must show something or the odds would be much higher. But to this gentleman it just doesn't make sense. And don't let him lose a photo finish. He really comes on with it then. “FUCK THE GOD IN THE FACE! HE CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!” I have no idea why he isn't barred from the track.

I asked another fellow once, “Listen, how does this guy make it?” I'd seen him talking to him at times.

“He borrows money,” he told me.

“But doesn't he run out of lenders?” “He finds new ones. You know his favorite expression?” “No.” “When does the bank open in the morning?” I guess he just wants to be at the racetrack, somehow, just to be there. It means something to him even if he continues to lose. It's a place to be. A mad dream. But it's boring there. A groggy place. Everybody thinking that they alone know the angle. Dumb lost egos. I'm one of those. Only it's a hobby for me. I think. I hope. But there is something there, if only in a short time frame, very short, a flash, like when my horse is in the run and then it does it. I see it happening. There is a high, a lift. Life becomes almost sensible when the horses do your bidding. But the spaces in between are very flat. People standing about. Most of them losers. They begin to look dry as dust. They are sucked dry. Yet, you know, when I force myself to stay home I begin to feel very listless, sick, useless. It's strange. The nights are always all right, I type at night. But the days have to gotten rid of. I'm sick too in a way. I am not facing reality. But who the hell wants to?

It reminds me of when I stayed in this Philadelhia bar from 5 a.m. until 2 a.m. It seemed the only place I could be. Often I didn't even remember going to my room and coming back. I seemed always on that bar stool. I was evading the realities, I didn't like them.

Maybe for this fellow the racetrack was like the bar was for me?

All right, you tell me something useful. Be a lawyer? A doctor? A congressman? That's crap too. They think it isn't crap but it is. They are locked into a system and they can't get out. And almost everybody is not very good at what hey do. It doesn't matter, they are in the safe cocoon.

It got kind of funny out there one day. I'm speaking of the racetrack again.

The Crazy Screamer was there as usual. But there was another fellow, you could see that there was something wrong with his eyes. They looked angry. He was standing near the Screamer and listening. Then he listened to the Screamer's predictions for the next race. The Screamer was good that way. And evidently Angry Eyes was betting the Screamer's tips.

The day wore on. I was coming out of the men's room and then I saw and heard it. Angry Eyes was yelling at the Screamer, “God-damn you, shut up! I'm going to kill you!” The Screamer turned his back and walked off saying, “Please… Please…” in a very weary and disgusted manner. Angry Eyes followed him: “YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!” Security arrived and intercepted Angry Eyes and led him off. Evidently death at the racetrack was not to be condoned.

Poor Screamer. He was quiet the remainder of the day. But he stayed the full card. Gambling, of course can eat you alive.

I had a girlfriend once who said, “You're really in bad shape, you go to both Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous at the same time.” But she really didn't mind either of those things unless they interfered with bed exercises. Then she hated them.