WOMEN
I just read Charles Bukowski’s, Women, and really got into it. Maybe a little too much.
My friend, Mike, brought it over as part of a care package for me after I broke up with my girlfriend of two and a half years. He said it wasn’t as much a remedy or advice as it was a distraction, and just good. He also brought popcorn, ramen noodles, Honey Bunches of Oats, and a gallon of milk, probably what amounted to extras from his place. Bukowski would have said, “Where’s the booze?”
It took me about a week to read the two hundred and ninety pages of, Women. I started it on a Sunday. By Monday night felt a curious thing happening, I was thinking like Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s reoccurring fictionalized demented self. I was only fifty pages into the novel.
I made a cup of coffee at home and thought only, I made coffee. I went to the bathroom and thought to myself, I took a shit. My actions were nothing more than words on a page. I was measuring passages of time in units of consumption and thinking of people in terms of the mediocre projects they spend their time completing.
When I wasn’t reading I was trying my best to get over the break-up. Things weren’t quite as I imagined them to be when I used to fantasize about being single. I wasn’t being followed around by a harem of women. I didn’t feel particularly good, or even okay. In the book, Bukowski says a person can expect this six or eight times in their lifetime. I can’t handle too many more. I felt sick. I missed her, and the only thing I really cared to do is read.
By Tuesday night I was on page one twenty five. Three a.m. Wednesday night, I was sitting at the end of a bar not talking, thinking plain and cruelly honest thoughts and feeling great about it. I sat and wrote the summary of my night.
9/29
The contract ran out.
To be honest with you,
very few people impress me.
And that’s how I want it.
Nothing is cool anymore.
I sat and glared and relaxed and thought, I don’t like talking to people about things, their words become my thoughts too easily. But that’s exactly what had happened. I was Henry Chinaski.
I had a fifteen page, “learning assessment”, due for a prior learning workshop I am taking in which I had to prove the painting education I have provided myself is the equivalent to that of two college courses. It is supposed to resemble a research paper. I wrote it as a short story and am sure mine is the only portfolio containing the word, “shit”, anyone will be handing in for the class. Fuck ‘em. What would Chinaski do?
I read on not caring what kind of damage my morality must suffer; I was being driven forward by a sense of similarity between us. Bukowski had opinions. He hated mediocrity. On page one seven six, Bukowski talks about his bad spelling and contempt for grammar. He says the worst thing a writer could do is to know another writer. I agreed sitting back thinking, Man, Fuck my writing class. They have no idea what they’re talking about. I’m gonna drop out of school. Me and Bukowski, we really got it man. We share the same beautiful mad philosophy. Me and Bukowski, we suffer together.
By Friday I was all the way gone. I had to know what he looked like. I got to page two hundred and looked in the back cover for his picture. He had described himself as a two hundred and twenty five pound aging alcoholic. Mike had described him as looking, “simian”. He didn't look so bad to me.
I got to page two hundred and thirty where Bukowski says the most time you can hope for in a good relationship is two and a half years; my stomach wrenched to its tightest notch. Goodbye Allison.
Page two fifty. Chinaski has his big breakdown; he is naked and crying at Sarah’s house waiting for her to arrive home to tell her he has to break their Thanksgiving plans because his belly dancer from Vancouver was coming down to see him. Chinaski finally realizes himself. What had I done? I threw away the only love I ever had to join the ranks of Henry Chinaski, a miserable drunk old bastard. I knew people like Henry Chinaski, and I didn’t like them. He probably wouldn’t like me either. I am far too happy and good-looking for him to ever accept me into his drunk world. I like people and dancing, and even being sober sometimes. So Chinaski and Fish are not long-lost soul brothers reunited by this three hundred page ramble full of sex and drugs and unrealistically easy relationships.
There was nothing left to do but finish the book which just sort of just ended as opposed to concluded. I read the final chapter and closed the back cover. I ran one hand over the book while holding its weight in the other. I flipped back through, reviewing highlights in my mind. I sat the book down on my coffee table and looked up for the first time in hours. I was alone.
The End
My friend, Mike, brought it over as part of a care package for me after I broke up with my girlfriend of two and a half years. He said it wasn’t as much a remedy or advice as it was a distraction, and just good. He also brought popcorn, ramen noodles, Honey Bunches of Oats, and a gallon of milk, probably what amounted to extras from his place. Bukowski would have said, “Where’s the booze?”
It took me about a week to read the two hundred and ninety pages of, Women. I started it on a Sunday. By Monday night felt a curious thing happening, I was thinking like Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s reoccurring fictionalized demented self. I was only fifty pages into the novel.
I made a cup of coffee at home and thought only, I made coffee. I went to the bathroom and thought to myself, I took a shit. My actions were nothing more than words on a page. I was measuring passages of time in units of consumption and thinking of people in terms of the mediocre projects they spend their time completing.
When I wasn’t reading I was trying my best to get over the break-up. Things weren’t quite as I imagined them to be when I used to fantasize about being single. I wasn’t being followed around by a harem of women. I didn’t feel particularly good, or even okay. In the book, Bukowski says a person can expect this six or eight times in their lifetime. I can’t handle too many more. I felt sick. I missed her, and the only thing I really cared to do is read.
By Tuesday night I was on page one twenty five. Three a.m. Wednesday night, I was sitting at the end of a bar not talking, thinking plain and cruelly honest thoughts and feeling great about it. I sat and wrote the summary of my night.
9/29
The contract ran out.
To be honest with you,
very few people impress me.
And that’s how I want it.
Nothing is cool anymore.
I sat and glared and relaxed and thought, I don’t like talking to people about things, their words become my thoughts too easily. But that’s exactly what had happened. I was Henry Chinaski.
I had a fifteen page, “learning assessment”, due for a prior learning workshop I am taking in which I had to prove the painting education I have provided myself is the equivalent to that of two college courses. It is supposed to resemble a research paper. I wrote it as a short story and am sure mine is the only portfolio containing the word, “shit”, anyone will be handing in for the class. Fuck ‘em. What would Chinaski do?
I read on not caring what kind of damage my morality must suffer; I was being driven forward by a sense of similarity between us. Bukowski had opinions. He hated mediocrity. On page one seven six, Bukowski talks about his bad spelling and contempt for grammar. He says the worst thing a writer could do is to know another writer. I agreed sitting back thinking, Man, Fuck my writing class. They have no idea what they’re talking about. I’m gonna drop out of school. Me and Bukowski, we really got it man. We share the same beautiful mad philosophy. Me and Bukowski, we suffer together.
By Friday I was all the way gone. I had to know what he looked like. I got to page two hundred and looked in the back cover for his picture. He had described himself as a two hundred and twenty five pound aging alcoholic. Mike had described him as looking, “simian”. He didn't look so bad to me.
I got to page two hundred and thirty where Bukowski says the most time you can hope for in a good relationship is two and a half years; my stomach wrenched to its tightest notch. Goodbye Allison.
Page two fifty. Chinaski has his big breakdown; he is naked and crying at Sarah’s house waiting for her to arrive home to tell her he has to break their Thanksgiving plans because his belly dancer from Vancouver was coming down to see him. Chinaski finally realizes himself. What had I done? I threw away the only love I ever had to join the ranks of Henry Chinaski, a miserable drunk old bastard. I knew people like Henry Chinaski, and I didn’t like them. He probably wouldn’t like me either. I am far too happy and good-looking for him to ever accept me into his drunk world. I like people and dancing, and even being sober sometimes. So Chinaski and Fish are not long-lost soul brothers reunited by this three hundred page ramble full of sex and drugs and unrealistically easy relationships.
There was nothing left to do but finish the book which just sort of just ended as opposed to concluded. I read the final chapter and closed the back cover. I ran one hand over the book while holding its weight in the other. I flipped back through, reviewing highlights in my mind. I sat the book down on my coffee table and looked up for the first time in hours. I was alone.
The End
posted by Dr. Fish | 10:47 AM
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