for being together 50 or 60
years
who would have
so long ago
settled for anything
else
but fate
fear and
circumstance
bound them,
and as we tell them
how wonderful they are
in their great and enduring
love
only they
really know
but can’t tell us
that from their first
meeting
on
it didn’t mean
all that
like
waiting on death
now.
it’s about the
same.
eulogy
with old cars, especially when you buy them second
hand and drive them for many years,
a love affair begins:
you have memorized each wire on the engine
the dash and elsewhere,
you are overly familiar with the
carburetor
the plugs
the throttle arm
other sundry
parts.
you have learned all the tricks to
keep the affair going,
you even know how to slam the glove compartment so that
it will stay closed,
how to slap the headlights with an open palm
in order to have
light,
and you know how many times to pump the gas
and how long to wait
to start the motor,
and you know each hole in the
upholstery
and the shape of each spring
sticking through;
the car has been in and out of
police impounds,
has been ticketed for various
malfunctions:
broken wipers in the rain,
no turn signals at night, no
brake lights, broken tail lights, bad
brakes, excessive
exhaust and so on . . .
but for it all
you knew it so well
there was never an accident, the
old car moved you from one place to
another,
almost faithfully
—the poor man’s miracle.
and when that last breakdown arrives,
when the valves quit,
when the tired piston arms weary and
break, or the
crankshaft falls out and
you must sell it for
junk
—to watch it carted
away
hung there
wheeled off
as if it had no
soul, no
meaning,
the thin rear tires
and the back windshield
the twisted license plate
are the last things you
see, and it
hurts
as if some human you loved very
much
and lived with
day after day
had died
and you are the only
one
to have known
the music
the magic
the unbelievable
gallantry.
40 years ago in that hotel room
off of Union Avenue, 3 a.m., Jane and I had been
drinking cheap wine since noon and I walked barefoot
across the rugs, picking up shards of broken glass
(in the daylight you could see them under the skin,
blue lumps working toward the heart) and I walked in
my torn shorts, ugly balls hanging out, my twisted and
torn undershirt spotted with cigarette holes of various
sizes. I stopped before Jane who sat in her drunken
chair.
then I screamed at her:
“I’M A GENIUS AND NOBODY KNOWS IT BUT
ME!”
she shook her head, sneered and slurred through her
lips:
“shit! you’re a fucking
asshole!”
I stalked across the floor, this time picking up a
piece of glass much larger than usual, and I reached down
and plucked it out: a lovely large speared chunk dripping
with my blood, I flung it off into space, turned and glared
at Jane:
“you don’t know anything, you
whore!”
“FUCK YOU!” she
screamed.
then the phone rang and I picked it up and
yelled: “I’M A GENIUS AND NOBODY KNOWS IT BUT
ME!”
it was the desk clerk: “Mr. Chinaski, I’ve warned you
again and again, you are keeping all our
guests awake . . .”
“GUESTS?” I laughed, “YOU MEAN THOSE FUCKING
WINOS?”
then Jane was there and she grabbed the phone and
yelled: “I’M A FUCKING GENIUS TOO AND I’M THE
ONLY WHORE WHO KNOWS IT!”
and she hung up.
then I walked over and put the
then Jane and I pushed the sofa in
front of the door
turned out the lights
and sat up in bed
waiting for them,
we were well aware of the
location of the drunk
tank: North Avenue
21—such a fancy sounding
address.
we each had a chair at the
side of the bed,
and each chair held ashtray,
cigarettes and
wine.
they came with much
sound:
“is this the right
door?”
“yeah,” he said,
“413.”
one of them beat with
the end of his night
stick:
“L.A. POLICE DEPARTMENT!
OPEN UP IN THERE!”
we did not
open up in there.
then they both beat with
their night sticks:
“OPEN UP! OPEN UP IN
THERE!”
now all the guests were
awake for sure.
“come on, open up,” one of them
said more quietly, “we just want to
talk a bit, nothing more . . .”
“nothing more,” said the other
one, “we might even have a little drink
with you . . .”
30–40 years ago
North Avenue 21 was a terrible place,
40 or 50 men slept on the same floor
and there was one toilet which nobody dared
excrete upon.
“we know that you’re nice people, we just
want to meet you . . .”
one of them said.
“yeah,” the other one said.
then we heard them
whispering.
we didn’t hear them walk
away.
we were not sure that they
were gone.
“holy shit,” Jane asked,
“do you think they’re
gone?”
“shhhh . . .”
I hissed.
we sat there in the dark
sipping at our
wine.
there was nothing to do
but watch two neon signs
through the window to the
east
one was near the library
and said
in red:
JESUS SAVES.
the other sign was more
interesting:
it was a large red bird
which
flapped its wings
seven times
and then a sign lit up
below it
advertising
SIGNAL GASOLINE.
it was as good a life
as we could
afford.
a magician, gone
they go one by one and as they do it gets closer
to me and
I don’t mind that so much, it’s
just that I can’t be practical about the
mathematics that take others
to the vanishing point.
last Saturday
one of racing’s greatest harness drivers
died—little Joe O’Brien.
I had seen him win many a
race. he
had a peculiar rocking motion
he flicked the reins
and rocked his body back and
forth. he
applied this motion
during the stretch run and
it was quite dramatic and
effective . . .
he was so small that he couldn’t
lay the whip on as hard as the
others
so
he rocked and rocked
in the sulky
and the horse felt the lightning
of his excitement
that rhythmic crazy rocking was
transferred from man to
beast . . .
the whole thing had the feel of a
crapshooter calling to the
gods, and the gods
so often answered . . .
I saw Joe O’Brien win
endless photo finishes
many by a
nose.
he’d take a horse
another driver couldn’t get a
run out of
and Joe would put his touch
to it
and the animal would
most often respond with
a flurry of wild energy.
Joe O’Brien was the finest harness driver
I had ever seen
and I’d seen many over the
decades.
nobody could nurse and cajole
a trotter or a pacer
like little Joe
nobody could make the magic work
like Joe.
they go one by one
presidents
garbage men
killers
actors
pickpockets
boxers
hit men
ballet dancers
fishermen
doctors
fry cooks
like
that
but Joe O’Brien
it’s going to be hard
hard
to find a replacement for
little Joe
and
at the ceremony
held for him
at the track tonight
(Los Alamitos 10-1-84)
as the drivers gathered in a
circle
in their silks
at the finish line
I had to turn my back
to the crowd
and climb the upper grandstand
steps
to the wall
so the
people wouldn’t
see me
cry.
no luck for that
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest of
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that
space.
love poem to a stripper
50 years ago I watched the girls
shake it and strip
at The Burbank and The Follies
and it was very sad
and very dramatic
as the light turned from green to
purple to pink
and the music was loud and
vibrant,
now I sit here tonight
smoking and drinking
listening to classical
music
but I still remember some of
their names: Darlene, Candy, Jeanette
and Rosalie.
-Rosalie was the
best, she knew how,
and we twisted in our seats and
made sounds
as Rosalie brought magic
to the lonely
so long ago.
now Rosalie
either so very old or
so quiet under the
earth,
this is the pimple-faced
kid
who lied about his
age
just to watch
you.
you were good, Rosalie
in 1935,
good enough to remember
now
when the light is
yellow
and the nights are
slow.
love crushed like a dead fly
in many ways
I had come upon lucky times
but was still living in this
bomb-struck court off the
avenue.
I had battered my way through
many layers of
adversity:
being an uneducated man
with
wild mad dreams—
some of them had
evolved (I mean, if
you’re going to be here
you might as well fight
for the miracle).
but
at once
as such things occur—
the lady I loved
let off
and began to
fuck
around the block
with
strangers
imbeciles
and probably some fairly good
sorts
but
as such things occur—
it was without
warning
and along with it
the pitiable dull languor of
disbelief
and
that painful mindless
clawing.
and also
in the turning of the
tides
I broke out
with a huge boil
near
apple-size, well, half a
small apple
but still a
monstrosity of
horror.
I pulled the phone
from the wall
locked the door
pulled the shades and
drank
just to pass the time of
day and night, went
mad, probably,
but
in a strange and
delicious
sense.
found an old record
played it
over and over—
a certain roaring section of
the tonality
fitting exactly into my
cage
my place
my
disenchantment—
love dead like a crushed
fly,
I was reaching back and
wandering through my
idiocy, realizing that as a
being
I could have been
better—
not to her
but to
the grocery clerk
the corner paperboy
the st
ray cat
the bartender
and/or
etc.
we keep coming up
short and
shorter
but
ultimately
are not so terrible
as all that, then
get a girlfriend who
fucks
around the block
and
a boil near apple-
size.
remembering then
the chances
turned away,
some from lovely
ones (at that
moment)
not many
but some
fucks
turned away
in honor of
her.
ah, redemption and
remorse!
and the bottle
and the record
playing over and
over—
asshole, asshole, ass-
hole, be hard like the
world,
gear up for
disintegration—
what a record it was
as you stumbled over the beer and
whiskey bottles
the shorts
the shirts
the memories
besotted across the
room.
you came out of it
two weeks later
to find her
in your doorway
on a 9 a.m.
morning
hair neatly
done,
smiling
as if all occurrence
had been
blotted out.
she was just a
dumb
game-playing
bitch
having tried the
others and
finding them (in
one way or the
other)
insufficient
she was
back (she
thought)
as you poured her a
beer and
tilted the Scotch
into your early
glass
remembering
exactly and forever
the sounds of that record
heard again and
again:
the gift of her had
ended, new
failures were about to
begin
as she crossed her long
legs
made that smile
smile
and said,
gaily, “well, what have you