"Чарльз Буковски. Дневник последних лет жизни (engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

business going is the sale of drugs. Hell, take that away and almost all the
young would be unemployed. Me, I'm still making it as a writer but that
could be shot through the head overnight. Well, I still have my old age
pension: $943.00 a month. They gave me that when I turned 70. But that can
die too. Imagine all the old wandering the streets without their pensions.
Don't discount it. The national debt can pull us under like a giant octopus.
People will be sleeping in the graveyards. At the same time, there is a
crust of living rich on top of the rot. Isn't it astonishing? Some people
have so damn much money they don't even know how much they have. And I'm
talking millions. And look at Hollywood, turning out 60 million dollar
movies, as idiotic as the poor fools who go to see them. The rich are still
there, they've always found a way to milk the system.
I remember when the racetracks were jammed wtih people, shoulder to
shoulder, ass to ass, sweating, screaming, pushing toward the full bars. It
was a good time. Have a big day, you'd both be drinking and laughing. We
thought those days (and night) would never end. And why should they? Crap
games in the parking lots. Fist fights. Bravcado and glory. Electricity.
Hell, life was good, life was funny. All us guys were men, we'd take no shit
from anybody. And, frankly, it felt good. Booze and a roll in the hay. And
plenty of bars, full bars. No tv sets. You talked and got into trouble. If
you got picked up for being drunk in the streets they only locked you up
overnight to dry out. You lost jobs and found other jobs. No use hanging
around the same place. What a time. What a life. Crazy things always
happening, followed by more crazy things.
Now, it has simmered away. Seven thousand people at a major racetrack
on a sunny afternnon. Nobody at the bar. Just the lonely barkeep holding a
towel. Where are the people? There are more people than ever but where are
they? Standing on a corner, sitting in a room. Bush might get reelected
because he won an easy war. But he didn't do crap for the economy. You never
even know if your bank will openin the morning. I don't mean to sing the
blues. But you know, in the 1930's at least everybody knew where they were.
Now, it's a game of mirrors. And nobody is quite sure what is holding it
together. Or who they are really working for. If they are working.
Damn, I've got to get off this. Nobody else seems to be bitching about
the state of affairs. Or, if the are, they are in a place where nobody can
hear them.
And I sit around writing poems, a novel, I can't help it, I can't do
anything else.
I was poor for 60 years. now I am neither rich nor poor.
At the track they are going to start laying off people at the
concession stands, the parking lots and in the business office and in
maintenance. Purses for races will decline. Smaller fields. Less jocks. A
lot less laughter. Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at
itself. Moving toward 2,000 A.D. I'll be dead and out of here. Leaving my
little stack of books. Seven thousand at the track. Seven thousand. I can't
believe it. The Sierra Madres weep in the smog. When the horses no longer
run the sky will fall down, flat, wide, ponderous, crushing everything.
Glassware won the 9th, paid $9.00. I had a ten on it.

10/9/91 12:07 PM