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

one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.
I got down to my car, got my jacket, put it on, took the escalator back
up. That made me feel more like a playboy, a hustler-leaving the place and
then coming back. I felt as if I had consulted some special secret source.
Well, I played out the card, had some luck. By the 13th race it was
dark and beginning to rain. I bet ten minutes early and left. Traffic was
cautious. Rain scares the hell out of L.A. drivers. I got on the freeway
behind the mass of red taillights. I didn't turn on the radio. I wanted
silence. A title ran through my brain: Bible for the Disenchanted. No, no
good. I remebered some of the best titles. I mean, ot other writers. Bow
Down to Wood and Stone. Great title, lousy writer. Notes from the
Underground. Great title. Great writer. Also, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Carson McCullers, a very underrated writer. Of all my dozens of titles the
one I liked best was Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts.
But I blew that one away on a little mimeo pamphled. Too bad.
Then the freeway stopped and I just sat there. No title. My head was
empty. I felt like sleeping for a week. I was glad I had put the trash cans
out. I was tired. Now I didn't have to do it. Trash cans. One night I had
slept, drunk, on top of trash cans. New York City. I was awakened by a big
rat sitting on my belly. We both, at once, leaped about 3 feet into the air.
I was trying to be a writer. Now I was supposed to be one and I couldn't
think of a title. I was a fake. Traffic began to move and I followed it
along. Nobody knew who anybody else was and it was great. Then a great flash
of lightning crashed above the freeway and for the first time that day I
felt pretty good.

9/30/91 11:36 PM
So, after some days of blank-braining it, I awakened this morning and
there was the title, it had come to me in my sleep: The Last Night of the
Earth Poems. It fit the content, poems of finality, sickness and death.
Mixed with others, of course. Even some humor. But the title works for this
book and this time. Once you a title, it locks everything in, the poems find
their order. And I like the title. If I saw a book with a title like that I
would pick it up and try to read a few pages. Some titles exaggerate to
attrat attention. They don't work because the lie doesn't work.
Well, I'm done with that. Now what? Back to the novel and more poems.
Whatever happened to the short story? It has left me. Here's a reason but I
don't know what it is. If I worked at it I could find the reason but working
at it wouldn't help anything. I mean, that time could be used for the novel
or the poem. Or to cut my toenails.
You know, somebody ought to invent a decent toenail clipper. I'm sure
it can be done. The ones they give us to work with are really awkward and
disheartening. I read where a guy on skid row tried to hold up a liquor
store with a pair of toenail clippers. It didn't work there either. How did
Dostoevsky cut his toenails? Van Gogh? Beethoven? Did they? I don't believe
it. I used to let Linda do mine. She did an excellent job -- only now and
then she got a little piece of flesh. Me, I've had enough pain. Of any kind.
I know that I'm going to die soon and it seems very strange to me. I'm
selfish, I'd just like to keep my ass writting more words. It puts the glow
in me, tosses me through golden air. But really, how much longer can I go