the men phone and ask me that. are you really Charles Bukowski the writer? they ask. I’m a sometimes writer, I say, most often I don’t do anything.

The rainy season began. Most of the money went for drink so my shoes had holes in the soles and my raincoat was torn and old. In any steady downpour I got quite wet, and I mean wet-down...

was much easier to be a genius in… only 3 or 4 literary magazines and… or 5 times you could end up in Ger… you could possibly meet Picasso fo… maybe only Miró.

sleep at Lila’s and in the morning we get the breakfast special at th… then it’s up to her friend Buffy’s… Buffy has boy twins, father in dou… in a $150-a-month apt.

Then I was called down to personnel at the old Federal Build– ing. They let me sit the usual 45 minutes or hour and one half. The man walked me back to a desk. There sat this woman. She...

the weather is hot on the back of… which is down at Finkelstein’s who is gifted with 3 balls but no heart, but you’ve got to un… when the bull goes down

the old L.A. Public Library burn… down that library downtown and with it went large part of my

if you can’t stand the heat, he sa… kitchen. you know who said that? Harry Truman. I’m not in the kitchen, I say, I’… oven.

I went into the bends. I got drunker and stayed drunker than a shit skunk in Purgatory. I even had the butcher knife against my throat one night in the kitchen and then I thought, easy,...

It was about a week later around 7 a.m. I had lucked into another day off and after a double workout, I was up against Joyce’s ass, her asshole, sleeping, verily sleeping, and then the ...

she wrote me for years. “I’m drinking wine in the kitchen. it’s raining outside. the children are in school.” she was an average citizen