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

"He borrows money," he told me.
"But doesn't he run out of lenders?"
"He finds new ones. You know his favorite expression?"
"No."
"When does the bank open in the morning?"
I guess he just wants to be at the racetrack, somehow, just to be
there. It means something to him even if he continues to lose. It's a place
to be. A mad dream. But it's boring there. A groggy place. Everybody
thinking that they alone know the angle. Dumb lost egos. I'm one of those.
Only it's a hobby for me. I think. I hope. But there is something there, if
only in a short time frame, very short, a flash, like when my horse is in
the run and then it does it. I see it happening. There is a high, a lift.
Life becomes almost sensible when the horses do your bidding. But the spaces
in between are very flat. People standing about. Most of them losers. They
begin to look dry as dust. They are sucked dry. Yet, you know, when I force
myself to stay home I begin to feel very listless, sick, useless. It's
strange. The nights are always all right, I type at night. But the days have
to gotten rid of. I'm sick too in a way. I am not facing reality. But who
the hell wants to?
It reminds me of when I stayed in this Philadelhia bar from 5 a.m.
until 2 a.m. It seemed the only place I could be. Often I didn't even
remember going to my room and coming back. I seemed always on that bar
stool. I was evading the realities, I didn't like them.
Maybe for this fellow the racetrack was like the bar was for me?
All right, you tell me something useful. Be a lawyer? A doctor? A
congressman? That's crap too. They think it isn't crap but it is. They are
locked into a system and they can't get out. And almost everybody is not
very good at what hey do. It doesn't matter, they are in the safe cocoon.
It got kind of funny out there one day. I'm speaking of the racetrack
again.
The Crazy Screamer was there as usual. But there was another fellow,
you could see that there was something wrong with his eyes. They looked
angry. He was standing near the Screamer and listening. Then he listened to
the Screamer's predictions for the next race. The Screamer was good that
way. And evidently Angry Eyes was betting the Screamer's tips.
The day wore on. I was coming out of the men's room and then I saw and
heard it. Angry Eyes was yelling at the Screamer, "God-damn you, shut up!
I'm going to kill you!" The Screamer turned his back and walked off saying,
"Please... Please..." in a very weary and disgusted manner. Angry Eyes
followed him: "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Security arrived and intercepted Angry Eyes and led him off. Evidently
death at the racetrack was not to be condoned.
Poor Screamer. He was quiet the remainder of the day. But he stayed the
full card. Gambling, of course can eat you alive.
I had a girlfriend once who said, "You're really in bad shape, you go
to both Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous at the same time." But
she really didn't mind either of those things unless they interfered with
bed exercises. Then she hated them.
I remember a friend of mine who was a total gambler. He told me once,
"I don't care if I win or lose, I just want to gamble."