went home to their new apartment on North Westmoreland Avenue. By morning he was vomiting blood and, as he had no medical insurance and no savings, the ambulance took him to the charity ward of LA County. He had a bleeding ulcer and needed a transfusion, but if he couldn’t establish any blood credit with the hospital, he was told he couldn’t get any blood. It seemed they were waging a war of attrition against him. Without blood, he would die. Once he was dead, he would cease to be a problem. Ironically, the one member of Bukowski’s family who did have blood credit was his father and it was because of Henry that Bukowski was given the transfusion which saved his life.
He went back to Jane afterwards and told her the doctors said if he ever drank again it would kill him, which was good straight advice, and maybe it was even true, but what the hell else was there to do?
‘We’ll play the horses,’ she said.
‘Horses?’
‘Yeah, they run and you bet on them.’
She found some money on the boulevard. We went out. I had 3 winners, one of them paid over 50 bucks. It seemed very easy.
(From: ‘Horsemeat’)
Hollywood Park was the track, a huge arena in Inglewood near Los Angeles airport. The crowd put Bukowski off at first; so many people and all apparently mindless, drunk, yelling like maniacs. Then he began to get interested in the psychology of gambling and factored the stupidity of the crowd into a system of laying bets. He figured that whichever way they betted was probably wrong and, if he watched the odds changing on the tote board in the final minutes before the race, he might pick the winner. It was a system, one of many he tried over the years.
The horses leapt from the gate and began pounding the dirt track, the crowd roaring them on, louder and louder as the horses turned into the final furlong and charged to the post – a crescendo of excitement – then a collective sigh of disbelief, of being gypped, because the crowd never won. But Bukowski found he held a winning ticket and, like many people trapped in low-paid work, he came to see racing as a way of getting free from everything that oppressed him. ‘I piss away time and money at the racetrack because I am insane. I am hoping to make enough money so I will not have to work any longer in slaughterhouses, in post offices, at docks, in factories,’ he said, explaining his love of the sport. ‘The track does help in certain ways – I see the faces of greed, the hamburger faces; I see the faces in early dream and I see the faces later when the same nightmare returns. You cannot see this too often. It is a mechanic of life.’
The great dream was that, if he studied the form and perfected his system (it was never exactly right), maybe he could quit the 8 to 5 and make it at the track. He tried it a couple of times, once enjoying a winning streak so long he walked off his job and followed the races round southern California, eating steak dinners in different restaurants each night, nice quiet places by the ocean, and then resting up in comfortable motels. He started to drink again, cautiously at first, diluting wine with milk in case the doctor had been telling the truth. But he didn’t die. So he had a beer, and then a whiskey. Soon he was drinking like old times. Even better, he was drinking and making it at the track. What did the doctors know?
But winning streaks always end and gamblers wind up broker than before. Rent money gone. Gas money gone. Busted. Things got so bad Jane had to get a job so they would have food on the table. But she began to suspect Bukowski was cheating on her, seeing another woman when she was out at work, so she left him. Now he had no money, no job and no woman. At least it helped his writing, as he explained: ‘After losing a week’s pay in four hours it is very difficult to come to your room and face the typewriter and fabricate a lot of lacy bullshit.’
3
DEATH WANTS MORE DEATH
T here was a period
He went back to Jane afterwards and told her the doctors said if he ever drank again it would kill him, which was good straight advice, and maybe it was even true, but what the hell else was there to do?
‘We’ll play the horses,’ she said.
‘Horses?’
‘Yeah, they run and you bet on them.’
She found some money on the boulevard. We went out. I had 3 winners, one of them paid over 50 bucks. It seemed very easy.
(From: ‘Horsemeat’)
Hollywood Park was the track, a huge arena in Inglewood near Los Angeles airport. The crowd put Bukowski off at first; so many people and all apparently mindless, drunk, yelling like maniacs. Then he began to get interested in the psychology of gambling and factored the stupidity of the crowd into a system of laying bets. He figured that whichever way they betted was probably wrong and, if he watched the odds changing on the tote board in the final minutes before the race, he might pick the winner. It was a system, one of many he tried over the years.
The horses leapt from the gate and began pounding the dirt track, the crowd roaring them on, louder and louder as the horses turned into the final furlong and charged to the post – a crescendo of excitement – then a collective sigh of disbelief, of being gypped, because the crowd never won. But Bukowski found he held a winning ticket and, like many people trapped in low-paid work, he came to see racing as a way of getting free from everything that oppressed him. ‘I piss away time and money at the racetrack because I am insane. I am hoping to make enough money so I will not have to work any longer in slaughterhouses, in post offices, at docks, in factories,’ he said, explaining his love of the sport. ‘The track does help in certain ways – I see the faces of greed, the hamburger faces; I see the faces in early dream and I see the faces later when the same nightmare returns. You cannot see this too often. It is a mechanic of life.’
The great dream was that, if he studied the form and perfected his system (it was never exactly right), maybe he could quit the 8 to 5 and make it at the track. He tried it a couple of times, once enjoying a winning streak so long he walked off his job and followed the races round southern California, eating steak dinners in different restaurants each night, nice quiet places by the ocean, and then resting up in comfortable motels. He started to drink again, cautiously at first, diluting wine with milk in case the doctor had been telling the truth. But he didn’t die. So he had a beer, and then a whiskey. Soon he was drinking like old times. Even better, he was drinking and making it at the track. What did the doctors know?
But winning streaks always end and gamblers wind up broker than before. Rent money gone. Gas money gone. Busted. Things got so bad Jane had to get a job so they would have food on the table. But she began to suspect Bukowski was cheating on her, seeing another woman when she was out at work, so she left him. Now he had no money, no job and no woman. At least it helped his writing, as he explained: ‘After losing a week’s pay in four hours it is very difficult to come to your room and face the typewriter and fabricate a lot of lacy bullshit.’
3
DEATH WANTS MORE DEATH
T here was a period
Similar Books
