Then he heard Monk speaking to the barber, “By the way, Paul, this is Harry. Harry, this is Paul.”
Paul and Harry and Monk.
Monk and Harry and Paul.
Harry, Monk, Paul.
“Look, Monk,” said Harry, “maybe I’ll go down and get another beer while you’re getting your hair cut?”
Monk’s eyes fixed on Harry, “No, we’ll get a beer after I’m finished here.”
Then his eyes fixed on the mirror. “Not too much off around the ears, Paul.”
As the world turned, Paul snipped away.
“Been getting much, Monk?”
“Nothin’, Paul.”
“I don’t believe that …”
“You better believe it, Paul.”
“Not from what I hear.”
“Like what?”
“Like when Betsy Ross made that flag, 13 stars wouldn’t have wrapped around your pole!”
“Ah, shit, Paul, you’re too much!”
Monk laughed. His laugh was like linoleum being sliced by a dull knife. Or maybe it was a death-cry.
Then he stopped laughing. “Not too much off the top.”
Harry put the magazine down and looked at the floor. The linoleum laugh had transferred into a linoleum floor. Green and blue, with purple diamonds. An old floor. Patches of it had begun to peel, showing the dark brown flooring beneath. Harry liked the dark brown.
He began counting: 3 barber chairs, 5 waiting chairs. 13 or 14 magazines. One barber. One customer. One … what?
Paul and Harry and Monk and the dark brown.
The cars went by outside. Harry started counting, stopped. Don’t play with madness, madness doesn’t play.
Easier to count the drinks on hand: none.
Time rang like a blank bell.
Harry was conscious of his feet, of his feet in his shoes, then of his toes … on the feet … in his shoes.
He wiggled his toes. His all-consuming life going nowhere like a snail crawling toward the fire.
Leaves were growing upon stems. Antelopes raised their heads from grazing. A butcher in Birmingham raised his cleaver. And Harry sat waiting in a barbershop, hoping for a beer.
He was without honor, a dog without a day.
It went on, it went by, it went on and on, and then it was over. The end of the barber chair play. Paul spun Monk so he could view himself in the mirrors behind the chair.
Harry hated barbershops. That final spin in the chair, those mirrors, they were a moment of horror for him.
Monk didn’t mind.
He looked at himself. He studied his reflection, face, hair, all. He seemed to admire what he saw. Then, he spoke: “O.K., now, Paul, will you take a little off the left side? And you see that little piece sticking out there? That should be cleaned up.”
“Oh, yeah, Monk … I’ll get it …”
The barber spun Monk back and concentrated upon the little piece that stuck out.
Harry watched the scissors. There was much clicking but not much cutting.
Then Paul spun Monk toward the mirrors again.
Monk looked at himself.
A slight smile curled up the right side of his mouth. Then the left side of his face gave a little twitch. Self-love with only a twinge of doubt.
“That’s good,” he said, “now you’ve got it right.”
Paul whisked Monk off with the little broom. Falling dead hair drifted in a dead world.
Monk dug in his pocket for the price and the tip.
The money transaction tinkled in the dead afternoon.
Then Harry and Monk were walking down the street together back toward the bar.
“Nothing like a haircut,” said Monk, “makes you feel like a new man.”
Monk always wore pale blue work shirts, sleeves rolled up to show off his biceps. Some guy. All he needed now was some female to fold his shorts and undershirts, roll his stockings for him and put them in the dresser drawer.
“Thanks for keeping me company, Harry.”
“Sure, Monk …”
“Next time I get a haircut I’d like you to come along with me.”
“Maybe, Monk …”
Monk was walking next to the curb and it was like a dream. A yellow dream. It just happened. And Harry didn’t know where the compulsion came from. But he allowed the compulsion. He pretended to trip and lunged into Monk. And Monk, like a top-heavy circus of flesh, fell in front of the bus. As the driver hit the brakes there was a thud, not too loud, but a thud. And there was Monk sitting in the gutter, haircut, mole, and all. And Harry looked down. The strangest thing: there was Monk’s wallet in the gutter. It had leaped out of Monk’s back pocket on impact and there it was in the gutter. Only it wasn’t flat on the ground, it stood like a little pyramid.
Harry reached down, picked it up, put it in his front pocket. It felt warm and full of grace. Hail Mary.
Then Harry bent over Monk. “Monk? Monk … you all right?”
Monk didn’t answer. But Harry noticed him breathing and there was no blood. And, all of a sudden, Monk’s face looked handsome and gallant.
He’s fucked, thought Harry, and I’m fucked. We’re all just fucked in different ways. There’s no truth, there’s nothing real, there’s nothing.
But there was something. There was a crowd.
“Back off!” somebody said. “Give him air!”
Harry backed off. He backed off right into the crowd. Nobody stopped him.
He was walking south. He heard the ambulance siren. It wailed along with his guilt.
Then, quickly, the guilt vanished. Like an old war finished. You had to go on. Things continued. Like fleas and pancake syrup.
Harry ducked into a bar he had never noticed before. There was a barkeep. There were bottles. It was dark in there. He ordered a double whiskey, drank it right down. Monk’s wallet was fat and fulsome. Friday must have been payday. Harry slipped out a bill, ordered another double whiskey. He drained half, waited in homage, then took the rest, and for the first time in a long time he felt very good.
Late that afternoon Harry walked down to the Groton Steak House. He went in and sat at the counter. He’d never been in there before. A tall, thin, nondescript man in a chef’s hat and a soiled apron walked up and leaned over the counter. He needed a shave and smelled of roach spray. He leered at Harry.
“You come in for the JOB?” he asked.
Why the hell is everybody trying to put me to work? thought Harry.
“No,” Harry answered.
“We have an opening for a dishwasher. Fifty cents an hour and you get to grab Rita’s ass every once in a while.”
The waitress walked by. Harry looked at her ass.
“No, thanks. Right now, I’ll take a beer. In the bottle. Any kind.”
The chef leaned closer. He had long nostril hairs, powerfully intimidating, like an unscheduled nightmare.
“Listen, fucker, you got any money?”
“I got it,” said Harry.
The chef hesitated for some time, then walked off, opened the refrigerator and yanked a bottle out. He snapped the cap off, walked back to Harry, banged the brew down.
Harry took a long drink, set the bottle down gently.
The chef was still examining him. The chef couldn’t quite make it out.
“Now,” said Harry, “I want a porterhouse steak, medium-well done, with french fries, and go easy on the grease. And bring me another beer, now.”
The chef loomed before him like an angry cloud, then he cleared off, went back to the refrigerator, repeated his act, which included bringing the bottle and slamming it down.
Then the chef went over to the grill, threw on a steak.
A glorious pall of smoke arose. The chef stared at Harry through it.
Why he dislikes me, thought Harry, I have no idea. Well, maybe I do need a haircut (plenty off everywhere, please) and a shave, and my face is a bit beat-up, but my clothes are fairly clean. Worn but clean. I am probably cleaner than the mayo
r of this fucking city.
The waitress walked up. She didn’t look bad. Nothing extra but not bad. She had her hair piled up on top of her head, kind of wild, and she had ringlets hanging down the sides. Nice.
She leaned forward over the counter.
“You didn’t take the dishwasher’s job?”
“I like the pay but it isn’t my line of work.”
“What’s your line of work?”
“I’m an architect.”
“You’re full of shit,” she said and walked off.
Harry knew he wasn’t much good at small talk. He found that the less he talked the better everyone felt.
Harry finished both beers. Then the steak and fries arrived. The chef slammed them down. The chef was a great slammer.
It looked like a miracle to Harry. He went to it, cutting and chewing. He hadn’t had a steak in a couple of years. As he ate he felt new strength entering his body. When you didn’t eat often it was a real event.
Even his brain smiled. And his body seemed to be saying, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Then Harry was finished.
The chef was still staring at him.
“O.K.,” said Harry, “I’ll have the same thing all over again.”
“You’ll have the same thing all over again?”
“Yeah.”
The stare turned into a glare. The chef walked over and threw another steak on the grill.
“And I’ll have another beer, please. Now.”
“RITA!” the chef yelled, “GIVE HIM ANOTHER BEER!”
Rita came up with the beer.
“For an architect,” she said, “you suck a lot of suds.”
“I’m planning on erecting something.”
“Ha! Like you could!”
Harry worked on the beer. Then he got up and walked to the men’s room. When he got back he finished the beer off.
The chef came out and slammed the new plate of steak and fries in front of Harry.
“The job’s still open if you want it.”
Harry didn’t answer. He began on the new plate.
The chef walked over to the grill where he continued to glare at Harry.
“You get two meals,” the chef said, “and the grab.”
Harry was too occupied with the steak and fries to answer. He was still hungry. When you were on the bum, and especially when you were drinking, you could go for days without eating, oftentimes not even wanting to, and then—it struck you: an unbearable hunger. You began to think of eating everything and anything: mice, butterflies, leaves, pawn tickets, newspaper, corks, whatever.
Now, working on the second steak, Harry’s hunger was still there. The french fries were beautiful and greasy and yellow and hot, something like sunlight, a nourishing and glorious sunlight one could bite into. And the steak was not just a slice of some poor murdered thing, it was something dramatic that fed the body and the soul and the heart, that made the eyes smile, made the world not quite so hard to bear. Or be in. At that moment, death didn’t matter.
Then he was finished with the plate. All that was left was the bone of the porterhouse and that had been stripped clean. The chef was still staring at him.
“I’ll have it once more,” Harry told the chef. “Another porterhouse and fries and another beer, please.”
“YOU WILL NOT!” the chef screamed. “YOU WILL PAY UP AND GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”
He came around the grill and stood in front of Harry. He had an order pad. He scribbled angrily on the order pad. Then he tossed the check into the center of the dirty plate. Harry picked it up off the plate.
There was one other customer in the restaurant, a very round pink man with a large head of uncombed hair dyed a rather discouraging brown. The man had consumed numerous cups of coffee while reading the evening paper.
Harry stood up, dug out some bills, peeled off two and placed them down next to the plate.
Then he walked out of there.
Early evening traffic was beginning to clog the avenue with cars. The sun slanted down behind him. Harry glanced at the drivers of the cars. They seemed unhappy. The world was unhappy. People were in the dark. People were terrified and disappointed. People were caught in traps. People were defensive and frantic. They felt as if their lives were being wasted. And they were right.
Harry walked along. He stopped for a traffic signal. And, in that moment, he had a very strange feeling. He felt as if he was the only person alive in the world.
As the light turned green, he forgot all about that. He crossed the street to the other side and continued on.
—SEPTUAGENARIAN STEW
Breakout
The landlord walks up and down the hall
coughing
letting me know he is there,
and I’ve got to sneak
in the bottles,
I can’t walk to the crapper
the lights don’t work,
there are holes in the walls from
broken water pipes
and the toilet won’t flush,
and the little jackoff
walks up and down
out there
coughing, coughing,
up and down his faded rug
he goes,
and I can’t stand it anymore,
I break out,
I GET him
just as he walks by,
“What the hell’s wrong?”
he screams,
but it’s too late,
my fist is working against the bone;
it’s over fast and he falls,
withered and wet;
I get my suitcase and then
I am going down the steps,
and there’s his wife in the doorway,
she’s ALWAYS IN THE DOORWAY,
they don’t have anything to do but
stand in doorways and walk up and down the halls,
“Good morning, Mr. Bukowski,” her face is a mole’s face
praying for my death, “what—”
and I shove her aside,
she falls down the porch steps and
into a hedge,
I hear the branches breaking
and I see her half-stuck in there
like a blind cow,
and then I am going down the street
with my suitcase,
the sun is fine,
and I begin to think about
the next place where I’m
going to set up, and I hope
I can find some decent humans,
somebody who can treat me
better.
poem for lost dogs
that good rare feeling comes at the oddest times: once, after sleeping
on a park bench in some strange town I awakened, my clothing
damp from a light mist and I rose and started walking east right into
the face of the rising sun and inside me was a gentle joy that was simply
there.
another time after picking up a streetwalker we strolled along in
the 2 a.m. moonlight side by side
toward my cheap room but I had no desire to bed her down.
the gentle joy came from simply walking along beside her in this confusing
universe—we were companions, strange companions walking together,
saying nothing.
her purple and white scarf hung from her purse—floating in the dark
as we walked
and the music could have come from the light from the moon.
then there was the time
I was evicted for non-payment of rent and carried my
woman’s suitcase to a stranger’s door and saw her vanish
inside, stood there a while, heard first her laugh, then his, then I
left.
I was walking along, it was a hot 10 a.m., the
sun blinded me and all I was conscious of was the sound of
my shoes on the pavement. then
&nbs
p; I heard a voice, “hey, buddy, you got anything to spare?”
I looked, and sitting against a wall were 3 middle-aged bums, red-faced,
ridiculously lost and beaten. “how much are you
short for a bottle?” I asked. “24 cents,” one of them
said. I reached into my
pocket, got all the change and handed it to him. “god damn, man,
thank
you!” he said.
I walked on, then felt the need for a cigarette, fumbled through
my
pockets, felt some paper, pulled it
out: a 5 dollar bill.
another time came while fighting the bartender, Tommy (again), in
the
back alley for the entertainment of the patrons, I was taking my
usual
beating, all the girls in their hot panties rooting for their muscular
Irish man’s man (“oh, Tommy, kick his ass, kick his ass good!”)
when something clicked in my brain, my brain simply said,
“it’s time for something else,” and I cracked Tommy
hard along the side of the head and he gave me a look: wait, this
isn’t in the script, and then I landed another and I could see the fear
rise in him like a torrent, and I
finished him quick and then the patrons helped him up and inside
while
cursing me. What gave me that joy
that silent laughter within the self was that I had done it because
there is a limit to any man’s endurance.
I walked to a strange bar a block away, sat down and ordered a
beer.
“we don’t serve bums here,” the barkeep told me. “I’m no bum,” I
said, “bring me that beer.” the beer
arrived, I took a heady gulp and I was there.
good rare feelings come at the oddest times, like now as I tell
you all of this.
we, the artists—
in San Francisco the landlady, 80, helped me drag the green
Victrola up the stairway and I played Beethoven’s 5th
until they beat on the walls.
there was a large bucket in the center of the room
filled with beer and winebottles;
so, it might have been the d.t.’s, one afternoon
I heard a sound something like a bell