The bandages were helpful. L.A. County Hospital had finally come up with something. The boils drained. They didn’t vanish but they flattened a bit. Yet some new ones would appear and ri...

I took Tanya to the airport the next afternoon. We had a drink in the same bar. The high-yellow wasn’t around; all that leg was with somebody else. “No. You love sex and there’s nothing...

I finally, got a day off, and you know what I did? I got up early before Joyce got back in and I went down to the market to do a little shopping, and maybe I was crazy. I walked through...

live alone in a small room and read the newspapers and sleep alone in the dark dreaming of crowds.

Fay was all right with the pregnancy. For an old gal, she was all right. We waited around at our place. Finally the time came. “It won’t be long,” she said. “I don’t want to get there t...

I get many phonecalls now. They are all alike. “are you Charles Bukowski, the writer?” “yes,” I tell them.

At 3:30 a.m. my twelve hours were… I set the alarm so that I would b… “What happened, Hank? We thought… “I’m quitting.” “Quitting?” “Yes, you can’t blame a man for wa…

I blacked out after that. I guess I had consumed more whiskey than I thought. I don’t remember arriving at Nicole’s. I awakened in the morning with my back to somebody in a strange bed....

At Mt. Justin, biology class was neat. We had Mr. Stanhope for our teacher. He was an old guy about 55 and we pretty much dominated him. Lilly Fischman was in the class and she was real...

The first three or four days at Mears-Starbuck were identical. In fact, similarity was a very dependable thing at Mears-Starbuck. The caste system was an accepted fact. There wasn’t a s...

I was sitting next to a young girl who didn’t know her scheme very well. “Where does 2900 Roteford go?" she asked me. "Try throwing it to 33," I told her. “You say you’re from Kansas Ci...

sun-stroked women without men on a Santa Monica Monday; the men are working or in jail or insane;

I went to my place, started drinking. I snapped on the radio and found some classical music. I got my Coleman lantern out of the closet. I turned out the lights and sat playing with the...