I think, where do these bastards come from and
what has happened to everybody? truly, I
am losing it.
the light is out
and then a burglar alarm
somewhere nearby
sifts through his
snoring. very apt, I think,
most apt
for a very wasted night
in December
1965 or
any other time at
all.
another poem about a drunk and then I’ll let you go
“man,” he said, sitting on the steps.
“your car sure needs a wash and wax.
I can do it for 5 bucks.
I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything
I need.”
I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.
when I came down 4 hours later
he was sitting on the steps, drunk.
he offered me a can of beer.
he said he was going to do the car
the next day.
the next day he was drunk again and
I loaned him a dollar for a bottle of
wine. his name was Mike.
a World War II veteran.
his wife worked as a nurse.
the following day I came down and he was sitting
on the steps. he said,
“you know, I been sitting here looking at your car
wondering how to do it best.
I wanna do it real good.”
the next day Mike said it looked like rain
and it sure as hell wouldn’t make any sense
to wash and wax a car when it was gonna rain.
the next day it looked like rain again.
and the next.
then I didn’t see him anymore.
I saw his wife and she said,
“they took Mike to the hospital,
he’s all swelled up, they say it’s from
drinking.”
“listen,” I told her, “he said he was going to wax my
car. I gave him 5 dollars to wax my
car.”
I was sitting in their kitchen
drinking with his wife
when the phone rang.
she handed the phone to me.
it was Mike. “listen,” he said, “come on down and
get me. I can’t stand this
place.”
when I got there
they wouldn’t give him his clothes
so Mike walked to the elevator in his hospital
gown.
we got on and there was a kid in the
elevator eating a Popsicle.
“nobody’s allowed to leave here in a gown,”
he said.
“you drive this thing, kid,” I said,
“we’ll worry about the gown.”
I stopped at the liquor store for 2 six-packs
then drove home. I drank with Mike and his wife until
11 p.m.
then went upstairs.
“where’s Mike?” I asked his wife 3 days
later.
“Mike died,” she said, “he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”
it rained for a week after that and I
figured the only way I’d get that 5 back
was to go to bed with his wife
but you know
she moved out a couple of days
later
and an old guy with white hair
moved in there.
he was blind in one eye and
played the French horn.
there was no way I wanted to make it
with him.
so I had to wash and wax my own car.
dead dog
Bartkowski completes a 58-yard touchdown pass
to beat the Packers in the final minute.
I hear it on the radio
it’s Sunday and I’m on the way to the track
I should make the third race.
the Falcons hold on to win and that’s good.
I switch off the radio.
then where the Harbor Freeway branches onto
the Pasadena
I see a dog up on the ramp
he’s a big one and he’s limp
but he’s still breathing.
his head is crushed.
people who have dogs in their cars
and let them hang out the window
often they just keep driving.
I know how to enter the tunnel.
you take the far right lane while
the other lanes back up on the left.
I glide on through.
when I come out of the tunnel
I slide back into the fast lane.
those sons-of-bitches and their dead
dogs.
I get to the track at 1:20 p.m.
take preferred parking
find a vacant spot at F-5
lock it up
and as I’m walking between cars
I see two men who
have broken into a car.
they are taking out the radio,
the stereo and the speakers.
they see me and I see them.
“don’t say nothin’, man!
if you do, remember we’ll see you
again some day!”
I go inside the track
it’s four minutes to post
third race coming up
the crowd has bet Shameen
with Delahousseye riding
down from 4 to 2 to 1.
Song for Two has a line of 2
and reads 3.
I rate the horses even
bet 10-win on Song for Two.
Song for Two wins the photo
the Shoe can still ride
and I’m $31 ahead.
those sons-of-bitches and their dead
dogs.
I lose the 4th, 5th and 6th races.
in the 7th they bet Back’n Time down
to 3-to-5 off a 99 speed rating
6 furlongs down at Del Mar
but the colt is 3 years old
going against older horses
and has never gone a mile.
I can see it turning into the stretch
with a four-length lead and getting beat
at the wire
by something.
but who will do it?
there are 6 other horses.
I put $50 place on Back’n Time
and watch the race.
the colt has four lengths coming into
the stretch
then Don F.
the longest shot on the board
begins to close
and it’s tight at the wire.
they hang the photo
we wait
then they put up Don F.
at 19-to-1.
I get $2.80 place
so I make $20
lose the 8th
then I’m up only $18.
in the 9th
I bet 10-win on Fleet Ruler
and 2-win on Forecast
then leave the track
stand out in the parking lot
listen to the announcer
who is hollering
Forecast is in f
ront
and here comes Fleet Ruler
it’s Fleet Ruler and Forecast
at the wire.
it’s evidently a photo.
I walk to my car to get out of there
before the crowd.
I have the radio
on the race result station.
I’m still on the Pasadena Freeway
when I hear the result:
it’s Forecast
and Forecast paid $90.70
so
the day wasn’t quite wasted.
but later
when I pull into the driveway
there’s the Manx cat
with his rudimentary tail and
with his tongue hanging out.
he refuses to move for the car.
I get out
pick him up and
throw him in the front seat.
we drive into the garage
together.
we get out
the other two cats are waiting
(lovers of fishheads, dreamers of
birds)
I open the door
and all the cats enter along
with me.
they run into the kitchen
I notice that Dallas and San Diego are now
playing. Danny White is at quarterback for
Dallas.
I always liked Danny White,
he’s a gambler.
I might watch a few quarters.
Sunday’s a day of rest.
all important things should be forgotten.
I decide to not even feed the cats
for a while.
and Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll start working
on my childhood novel
again.
I live in a neighborhood of murder
the roaches spit out rusted
paper clips
and the helicopter circles and circles
smelling for blood
searchlights leering down into our
bathrooms
searching for our two-lid cache under the
mattress.
5 guys in this court have pistols
another a
machete
we are all murderers and
alcoholics
but there are worse in the hotel
across the street;
they sit in the green and white doorway
banal and depraved
waiting to be
institutionalized.
here we each have a dying green plant
on our porch
and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.
we do so
in hushed tones
as outside on each porch
stands a small dish of food
that is always eaten by morning
we presume
by the
cats.
the bombing of Berlin
the Americans and English would come over, he told me,
there was nothing to stop them,
they had red and blue lights on their planes
and they took their time,
and it was funny, you know,
a bomb would take out an entire block
and leave the block next to it standing,
untouched.
once, after a raid, we heard a piano playing
under the rubble
and there was an old woman under there playing the piano,
the building had collapsed all around her,
buried her there and she was still playing the
piano.
after a while, when the planes came again and again
we wouldn’t bother to go underground anymore,
we just stayed wherever we were
on first and second floors and looked up
and watched
the red and blue lights and thought,
goddamn them!
well, he said, picking up his beer with a sigh,
we lost the war, and that’s all there is to
that.
all right, Camus
met this guy, somewhere, hell his eyes looked like a madman’s
or maybe it was only my reflection there.
well, anyway, he said to me, you read Camus?
we’re both in this womanless bar looking
for a piece of ass or some way out through the top of the sky and
it wasn’t working—there was just the bartender wondering why he’d
ever gone into the business
and myself, very discouraged with the fact that I had now been trans-
lated only
into 6 or 7 languages.
the guy kept talking—
The Stranger, you know, the book that depicts our modern society—
about the deadened man who
couldn’t cry at his mother’s funeral, who
killed an Arab or two without even knowing why—
he kept on and on
and on and on
telling me what a son-of-a-bitch The Stranger
was, and I kept thinking maybe he’s right—
you know, those awful speeches before the French Academy—
you couldn’t tell whether Camus was talking out of the
side of his mouth or
whether he was
serious. he certainly sounded no better then than
the guy next to me at the bar
and we were only looking for
pussy.
it was very sad—
all along The Stranger had been my hero
because I thought he’d seen beyond trying
or caring
because it was all such a bore
so senseless—
life a big hole in the ground looking up—
and I was wrong again:
hell, I was The Stranger and the book simply hadn’t come out the way
it was meant to
be.
quits
they made their first mistake when they
laid the champ
facedown
on the dressing room table—
it was a cancer
scream—
and then he cursed them in poor man’s
Italian and said
turn me over turn me over turn me over you assholes
turn me over,
and they did
and he said,
he broke every rib on my left side
he’s a murderer, he’s not a fighter,
and then he
said,
look, get me a gun, I’m going to kill that son-of-a-
bitch.
take it easy, champ, said his manager, it wasn’t for the title, you
still got the title. you can beat him
in the rematch. we ain’t signed the contract to
fight Sondelle yet. we’ll hold off on
Sondelle and get this guy in the
rematch.
I’m not fighting that killer again, said the
champ,
they ought to bar that dirty cocksucker from the
ring.
look, champ, said his manager, don’t be
stupid, we’ll get a real big
gate for the next
one, they’ll want to see if he can
do it again.
the champ cursed them
in Italian and then said,
you’ll never get me in the ring with that killer again.
look, champ, he’s a bum I tell you, a bum, he’s never beat
anyboby before. next time you
dance away, lay off the
drinking and fucking for a
week, he can’t
touch you when you’re right. he can’t beat
shit, champ.
he beat
me. I’ll never take another beating like that for
anyone.
you gonna quit, champ? you gonna quit?
I’ll fight anyone but that
guy.
all right
so, o.k., how about an X-ray of my
ribs? I can’t breathe, really, I
feel them poking into my
lung.
they took him out of there and drove him in a low
long black
limousine
to the private hospital where the
X-rays showed
no breaks.
they’re lying, screamed the champ, the fucking
idiots are lying! don’t you think I
can feel my own bones when they are
broken?
nobody said anything.
Adolf
I have a friend who has a
scrapbook devoted to Hitler
and his Nazi buddies
and the walls are
covered with old
snapshots of Al Capone
Fatty Arbuckle
Roy Rogers and
many many others.
the walls are limp with rotting glue
and memories, and there are
hidden switches that set off
a frenzy of colored
lights—
each pattern different,
never
the same—
and down in his cellar there are
tons of rain-fattened and rat-
eaten
papers; it’s very
dark down there
and there are many
half-finished paintings with
one eye staring up at you