my father walked in.
“oh, shut up!”
he said.
“Why did you do
that?
Why did you watch?”
“I told you to shut up!”
I walked out of the room
and into the
bedroom and closed the
door.
I could still hear them
screaming,
it went on and on.
then there was the sound
of
breaking glass,
then the slamming of a
door.
I walked out into the front
room.
my mother was sitting on
the couch,
the tears were still running
down her face.
she looked at me.
“why did he do that?
my god, why did he do
that?”
“I don’t know,” I told
her.
then I turned and
walked back to the
bedroom.
again
now the territory is taken,
the sacrificial lambs have been slain,
as history is scratched again on the sallow walls,
as the bankers scurry to survive,
as the young girls paint their hungry lips,
as the dogs sleep in temporary peace,
as the shadow gets ready to fall,
as the oceans gobble the poisons of man,
as heaven and hell dance in the anteroom,
it’s begin again and go again,
it’s bake the apple,
buy the car,
mow the lawn,
pay the tax,
hang the toilet paper,
clip the nails,
listen to the crickets,
blow up the balloons,
drink the orange juice,
forget the past,
pass the mustard,
pull down the shades,
take the pills,
check the air in the tires,
lace on the gloves,
the bell is ringing,
the pearl is in the oyster,
the rain falls
as the shadow gets ready to fall again.
the World War One movies
were best, the aviators drank at the bar
every night, fighting over the one or two blondes,
and it was gallant because in the dawn they
might die going after those Fokkers with their
Spads, so they lined up along that bar
and slugged them down.
we kids loved those movies, the men weren’t
like our fathers, those men laughed and fought
and loved slinky blondes in long tight dresses.
each dawn was glorious, they’d go to their Spads,
pulling on their goggles, a quick wave of the hand and
a long white scarf flowing out behind them. They
grinned and flew off into the blue.
and then came the Germans high above the
clouds.
they’d spot the Spads, the leader would give the
signal and they’d dive downward with a roar,
coming down through the clouds, their machine guns
spitting fire,
and the Spads would see them
but not before one of the planes would be hit
and roar down in flames—usually
the guy with the sense of humor, the guy who
had made everybody laugh at the bar—
there he’d go, his hands rising in the
flames, then oil splashing his goggles, he’d
wiggle trying to free himself to parachute to safety
but it was always too late—
you’d see the Spad crash into a hill
exploding in a mass of flame.
the dogfight was a real spectacle, the hero
would have a Fokker on his tail, have to pull
an Immelman to get him off.
then he’d be on the other guy’s tail
and the bullets would rip through
the German, his mouth would open, a
spurt of blood and his plane would head
toward the earth with a WHINING roar.
the dogfights were exciting and lasted a
long time but the Germans always lost
and one or two of their remaining planes
would limp off and that would be it.
then the Spads would begin their
journey back to the airfield.
this was always very dramatic because
one or two of them would be shot up,
crippled, being nursed back, often
the pilot hit by 3 or 4 bullets but
determined to bring the plane back
in and land it safely.
the ground crew would be
waiting and they would count the Spads
as they came in: one, two…6, 7,
8…but there had been ten…
the ground crew would be
badly shaken.
the crippled planes would come in first,
followed by the
others.
it was a very sad time.
but that night the remaining pilots would
be back at the bar with the slinky blondes,
even the aviators who had been shot were
there.
they had their arms in slings, their heads
bandaged but they were drinking and
making the slinky blondes
laugh.
outside the movie theaters they displayed
parts of a Spad, a huge wing, a
propeller, and at night there was a
searchlight probing the skies, you could
see it for miles.
all we boys loved those World War One
movies
and we built our own balsa wood
model airplanes, Spads and
Fokkers.
most kits cost 25 cents
which was a lot of money in the
1930s but somehow
every kid had his own
plane.
we were in a hurry to grow
up.
we all wanted to be
fighter pilots,
we wanted those slinky
blondes, we wanted to lean
against that bar and gulp
down a straight whiskey
like nothing had
happened.
we had dogfights with our
model planes and they
sometimes developed into
fist fights.
we fought until we were
bloody and
torn.
we fought for our
honor
while
our fathers watched us
and
yawned.
to hell and back in a buggy carriage
that was one of the popular sayings, I didn’t
know what it
meant, standing on a corner in the mid-thirties
with a cigarette dangling from my mouth like the
tough guys in the movies, scoring for some beer
was the big thing and once in a while
some whiskey but there was no money anywhere
for fathers or sons or anybody and we were all
bluffing, tough, nothing else to be, we stood
around flexing our muscles, getting down to the
beach now and then but the young girls ran with
the rich guys with cars (even in bad times
there were rich guys), kids driving canary yellow
convertibles, pulling up to corners, opening doors,
laughing, I could kick any of that ass but it meant
nothing to the girls, they were off with those richies,
their hair flyin
g in the wind, it was a crappy time
for us, standing there on the street corners, our
cigarettes dangling, nothing to be tough about,
nothing near enough to fight and hating our
fathers who sat in chairs or read newspapers
all day, they couldn’t find work, their guts hanging
out and their lives hanging out—dried, dead, useless.
dinners of beans and canned meats, still we
grew, inching out of our old clothes, leaving our
homes late at night to stand under street lamps or
sit on park benches sucking at wine, beer, gin,
talking, smoking, going to hell and back in a
buggy carriage.
we were tough with nothing to be tough about,
we were the depression kids
and we swore we’d never be like our fathers
or our fathers’ fathers.
we’d break through the crap and the
fakery.
we knew something.
we knew something, sitting in the dark,
drinking and smoking.
it was all a matter of which one of us
got there first.
the ends of our cigarettes glowing in the
dark.
as perfect as we could get.
the laughter like knives cutting the
stupid air.
Los Angeles 1935.
stages
back then, you’d go through stages,
one of them being that you’d get so
deeply tanned it was almost horrifying,
and you’d lift weights, learn
acrobatic techniques,
and all of this was done with
a demonic zest—it was a matter of
fighting back against the stifling
forces everywhere and you had
huge tanned muscles
and you walked like an ape
trying to hold a load in his buttocks.
when you walked into a room, all
conversation stopped, you looked
dangerous, indeed, and you had a
way of staring at people with an
off-hand disdain, and you were not
the only monster from hell, there
were usually one or two others with
you.
you would walk down the street
as if your very feet could break the
sidewalks.
you would work little routines, like
walking up to a fruit stand with the
clerk watching,
you would pick up an apple with
one hand and crush it,
then smile at him and
replace the crushed apple on the
stack.
you ripped phone books in half,
picked up cars by their front
bumpers.
the stronger you got the more
you wanted to use it.
and you not only had strength
but an ultra-quickness—
you caught flies in mid-flight,
shadow-boxed with frightening
speed—left jab, left jab, zip, zip,
right lead, right hook, left hook,
uppercut, you had a pair of red
boxing gloves and you
laced them on with great calm
as your opponent waited, his
eyes jumping with fear.
that was the first stage, the
other was when you gave it
all up, the muscles shrank,
you paled, slouched,
assuming the worst
posture imaginable, smoking
cigarette after cigarette, coughing,
masturbating, drinking
endless coffee and all the
booze you could steal.
you had more friends that
way, now you really looked
dangerous and people hung
on your every word, you were
now the ultimate discontent,
your mind a dirty saber
which cut through all the world’s
crap.
you found that this stage
garnered you far more
attention, not only from your
peers but from your parents,
the neighbors, the girls and
the teachers.
you were always in the
principal’s office, not because
you had done anything
heinous but because you
looked like you might and,
actually, you felt like you
might.
“It’s your ATTITUDE, Mr.
and out of class.”
“huh?”
“Do you want to
graduate?”
“I dunno…”
“Don’t you care?”
“’bout what?”
“Mr. Chinaski, you will now go
and sit in the phone
booth and you will remain
there
until I tell you to come
out!”
“o.k.”
it was his phone booth
torture chamber.
I’d go in there, rack my
knees against one wall,
loll my head back and
pretend to go to
sleep.
it pissed him something
awful.
I graduated, still in the
2nd stage,
and I think that I have
been stuck there
ever
since.
escape
the day you were starving and watching the
swans in the park,
it was truly not a bad day
watching them circle,
it was quiet,
you looked at their feathers, their necks,
their eyes.
for a moment you thought of
catching one, killing it, eating it.
but
you had nothing to cook
one on.
and you knew you couldn’t do
it anyway.
there were many things you
couldn’t do.
that’s why you were starving
in a public park.
then there were voices, a
young lady in her summer
dress, and she was with her
young man and they were
laughing.
you looked at them and made
them dead,
you placed them in their
grave,
you saw their bones,
the skulls.
then you got up from the
grass and left them there with
the swans.
you walked out of the park,
you were on the boulevard,
you began walking,
walking seemed sensible
and it wasn’t a bad
day,
just another day,
walking the sidewalk,
the world slanting through
your brain—
a white shot of
light.
being alone you decided, was a
magnificent
miracle.
nothing else made any
sense at
all.
woman on the street
her shoes themselves
would light my room
like many candles.
she walks like all things
shining on glass,
like all things
that make a difference.
she walks away.
CONFESSION OF A COWARD
God, she thought, lying in bed naked and re-reading Aldington’s Portrait of a Genius, But…, he’s an imposter! Not D. H. Lawrence, but her husband—Henry—with hi
s bauble of a belly and all the hair he never combed and the way he stood around in his shorts, and the way he stood naked before the window like an Arabian and howled; and he told her that he was turning into a toad and that he wanted to buy a Buddha and that he wanted to be old and drown in the sea, and that he was going to grow a beard and that he felt as if he was turning into a woman.
And Henry was poor, poor and worthless and miserable and sick. And he wanted to join the Mahler Society. His breath was bad, his father was insane and his mother was dying of cancer.
And besides all this, the weather was hot, hot as hell.
“I’ve got a new system,” he said. “All I need is four or five grand. It’s a matter of investment. We could travel from track to track in a trailer.”
She felt like saying something blasé like, “We don’t have four or five grand,” but it didn’t come out. Nothing came out; all the doors were closed and all the windows were down, and it was in the middle of the desert—not even vultures—and they were about to drop the Bomb. She should have stayed in Texas, she should have stayed with Papa—this man is a goon, a gunnysack, a gutless no-nothing in a world of doers. He hides behind symphonies and poetic fancies; a weak and listless soul.
“Are you going to take me to the museum?” she asked.
“Why?”