A Bukowski Kind of Week

I've got to get back to the typewriter, I thought. Art takes discipline. Any asshole can chase a skirt. I drank, and thought about it.

- Charles Bukowski

This first week of freedom. It hasn't been quite what I would expect. But what ever is?

I find myself in progressively stranger situations.

None of which I find more or less appalling than the one before, but all of which have come as a total surprise to me.

Freedom was a day earlier than I had anticipated. And I sent a message to the one person that I expected to be excited about it. I found a ride at 1am and found a place to stay for that night. I had work the next morning and rolled into it with about four hours of sleep. At one point in my life that wouldn't have been much of a problem, but either I'm getting older, or I had just gotten used to going to sleep at 9. But I was tired at work and wanting to die.

But I get a call from sM. saying, "Lets go to Denver and have some fun."

I say, "Sure."

Because I don't know what else to say. The person I was expecting to say that she wanted to see me had sent a message, "Are U out?"

To which I had said, "I'm at work right now, but I'm a free man!"

To which I had heard nothing.

So sM. and I are driving to Denver. There was a plan at one point, but that plan had swiftly fallen to the way side. A bar was chosen on the basis of karaoke. We start with some Tall Boys, and it turns out I'm a total light weight now. Two months in the pokey have made it so I'm feeling the Tall Boy hard, but nothing is going to stop me. I haven't had any kind of freedom for months.

So there is Denver laid out in all of its glory before us. A veritable whore of Babylon. So we are in the bar, people are singing and I'm getting progressive on my thoughts because I'm so lit at this point. I'm watching sM. do his thing with the karaoke and staring to make a move or two on ladies (all of which are failing to really make any headway). But then one seems to work all right. And the girl seems more and more interested as I get more drunk, even though she isn't drinking.

In my mind I hear Gallows, and I put my arm around her, and she doesn't shove me away. I get a kiss and then another.

She tells me that she has to go home because she has work, I tell her sleep is for the weak. She stays for a few more. Then says she really has to go. I offer to walk her to the door, and she eagerly says yes. Outside she tells me that she is only a few blocks away at a friend's house. So I tell her I will walk her home. And I do. Get a few more kisses from her and then let her go on inside.

Walking back to the bar I can't stop thinking about how strange things have gotten in just a few hours. Not really my kind of move to make. But I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. There is a strange guilt there, but I suppress it because I still have drinking to do. This is why starving men vomit out their first real meal. They can't restrain themselves from going insane on the food.

By the time I get back to the bar I have smoked a whole pack of Lucky Strikes for the night, and sM. is talking to some other girls. They are closing down the bar so we decide to walk a few blocks to get pizza. We talk to other people doing the same thing.

As we make it to pizza I have made a new friend. We stop and wait in line. For some reason sM. thinks that he got dumped that night. So he is spilling his guts to people about it broken heart, and one chad makes the mistake of scoffing at him. The chad pushes it when sM. tells him that he is about to receive a beating. And that is when I decide to step in. I have been free one day. I don't need to go back to jail. So I'm talking down this guy the whole time I'm fingering my brass knuckles, just in case the guy feels the need to make an issue of the situation.

He doesn't problem diffused.

The rest of the night is just eating and driving.

Then it is 7am and my dad is calling me.

I hurt all over, but you can't say no when dad calls. I go out to eat with him and then realize that I have hours before I have to be at work. My only solution is to go and get a new book to read. I'm drawn to Bukowski like a moth to the flame. So I pick up Women, and I start reading it then and there.

Home become the shade of a tree reading a book.

That is my comfort food.

Freedom and a good book.

There is more to this but I'll get to it later. I just drink a beer every few hours or so, but things are just strange. Lets just say right now, I'm in a camper sleeping, waiting to head up to the city tomorrow. Shit is just nutty right now. I need to settle but I can't seem to figure it out for some reason.

Tired now.

Don't know if that is from the rum or the PBR or the lack of sleep. Either way it is time for sleep.

Thank god I have some friends that are sane, and kids to remind me of why I'm going to move and work hard. If it weren't for a very few beacons of light. I'm almost positive I would lose my way. Forever. Not just for a night here and there.

Sleep and a new day tomorrow.

What do you think I should file it under...oh yeah vice.