Living on Skid Row: Factotum by Charles Bukowski

Book Review
Factotum by Charles Bukowski
First Published in 1975
This Edition Published in 2002 by Ecco (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.)

This is my fourth review of a book by Charles Bukowski. The day after I started reading it, I found out that a movie based on the book with the same name was being released starring Matt Dillon as Henry Chinaski, a.k.a. Charles Bukowski. So far the reviews for the movie have been average. Some of the reviewers on Yahoo suggested seeing Barfly instead.

As for the book, it is another masterpiece. Both the dialogue and narrative are amazing. Factotum is the story of Bukowski's life in his twenties and thirties, when he was travelling across the U.S. picking up whatever job he could get. All of his jobs were low-paying and in most cases he would get fired or be laid-off not very long after starting.

Here are snippets of some of the more memorable passages in the book:

"I got a job in an auto parts warehouse just off Flower Street. The manager was a tall ugly man with no ass. He always told me whenever he fucked his wife the night before.
‘I fucked my wife last night. Get that Williams Brothers order first.’
‘We’re out of K-3 flanges.’
‘Backorder them.’
I stamped ‘B.O.’ on the packing slip and invoice.
‘I fucked my wife last night.’
I taped up the Williams Brothers box, labeled it, weighed it, and affixed the necessary postage.
‘It was pretty good too.’
He had a sandy mustache, sandy hair and no ass.
‘She pissed when she finished.’"

**********

"I always walked to my room, it was six or seven blocks away. The trees along the streets were all alike: small , twisted, half-frozen, leafless. I liked them. I walked along under the cold moon.
That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long rides up winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to Europe. Fine women. Were they that much more clever than I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate it.
I’d do it too! I’d save my pennies. I’d get an idea, I’d spring a loan. I’d hire and fire. I’d keep whiskey in my desk drawer. I’d have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make the paperboy on the corner come in his pants when he saw it wobble. I’d cheat on her and she’d know it and keep silent in order to live in my house with my wealth. I’d fire men just to see the look of dismay on their faces. I’d fire women who didn’t deserve to be fired.
That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn’t improve art. It only hindered it. A man’s soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax. Once you realized that everything was a hoax you got wise and began to bleed and burn your fellow man. I’d build an empire upon the broken bodies and lives of helpless men, women, and children—I’d shove it to them all the way. I’d show them!"

**********

"Jerry was small and round, very round, a snug type. She pushed against me.
‘Jesus, it’d cold. Put your arms around me.’
‘Laura…’ I said.
‘Fuck Laura.’
‘I mean, she might get mad.’
‘She won’t get mad. We’re friends. Look’ Jerry sat up in the bunk. ‘Laura, Laura…’
‘Yes?’
‘Look, I’m trying to get warm. O.K.?’
‘O.K.,’ said Laura.
Jerry snuggled back down under the covers. ‘See, she said it’s O.K.’
‘All right,’ I said. I put my hand on her ass and kissed her.
‘Just don’t go too far,’ said Laura.
‘He’s just holding me,’ said Jerry.
I got my hand under her dress and began working her panties down. It was difficult. By the time she kicked them off I was more than ready. Her tongue shot in and out of my mouth. We tried to look nonchalant while we did it sideways. I slipped out several time but Jerry put it back in. ‘Don’t go too far,’ Laura said again. It slipped out and Jerry grabbed it and squeezed. ‘She’s just holding me,’ I told Laura. Jerry giggled and put it back in. It stayed there. I got hotter and hotter. ‘You bitch,’ I whispered, ‘I love you.’ Then I came. Jerry got out of the bunk and went to the bathroom. Grace was making us roast beef sandwiches. I climbed out of the bunk and we had roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, sliced tomatoes, coffee and apple pie. We were all hungry.
‘I sure got warmed up,’ said Jerry. ‘Henry’s one good heating pat.’
‘I’m plenty cold,’ said Grace, ‘I think I’ll try some of that heating pad. Do you mind Laura?’
‘I don’t mind. Just don’t go too far.’
‘How far’s too far?’
‘You know what I mean.’
After we ate I got into the bunk and Grace climbed in with me. She was the tallest of the three. I’d never been in bed with a woman that tall. I kissed her. Her tongue answered. Women, I thought, women are magic. What marvelous beings they are! I reached up under her dress and pulled at the panties. It was a long way down. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she whispered. ‘I’m pulling your panties down. ‘What for?’ ‘I’m going to fuck you.’ ‘Laura is my best friend. I’m Wilbur’s woman.’ ‘I’m going to fuck you.’ ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m trying to get it in.’ ‘No!’ ‘God damn it, help me’ ‘Get it in yourself.’ ‘Help me.’ ‘Get it in by yourself. Laura’s my friend.’ What’s that got to do with it?’ ‘What?’ ‘Forget it.’ ‘Listen, I’m not ready yet.’ ‘Here’s my finger.’ ‘Ow, easy. Show a lady some respect.’ ‘All right, all right. Is that better?’ ‘That’s better. Higher. There. There! That’s it…’
‘No hanky-panky now,’ said Laura.
‘No, I’m just warming her up.’
‘I wonder when Wilbur’s coming back?’ said Jerry.
‘I don’t give a damn if he never comes back,’ I said, getting it into Grace. She moaned. It was good. I went very slow, measuring my strokes. I didn’t slip out like with Jerry. ‘You rotten son of a bitch,’ said Grace, ‘you bastard, Laura’s my friend.’ ‘I’m fucking you,’ I said, ‘feel that thing going in and out of your body, in and out, in and out, in and out, flup flup flup.’ ‘Don’t talk like that, you’re making me hot.’ ‘I’m fucking you,’ I said, ‘fuck fucky fuck, we’re fucking, we’re fucking. Oh, it’s so dirty, oh it’s so filthy, this fucking fucking…’ ‘God damn you, stop it.’ ‘It’s getting bigger and bigger, feel it? ‘Yes, yes…’ ‘I’m going to come. Jesus Christ, I’m going to come…’ I came and pulled out. ‘You raped me, you bastard, you raped me,’ she whispered. ‘I ought to tell Laura.’ ‘Go ahead, tell her. Think she’ll believe you?’ Grace climbed out of the bunk and went to the bathroom. I wiped off the sheet, pulled up my pants and leaped out the bunk.
‘You girls know how to play dice?’"

**********

"‘Chinaski, you haven’t been pulling your weight for a month and you know it.’
‘A guy busts his dammed ass and you don’t appreciate it.’
‘You haven’t been busting your ass, Chinaski.’
I stared down at my shoes for some time. I didn’t know what to say. Then I looked at him. “I’ve given you my time. It’s all I’ve got to give—it’s all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.’
‘Remember you begged for this job. You said your job was your second home.’
‘…my time so that you can live in your big house on the hill and have all the tings that go with it. If anybody has lost anything on this deal, on this arrangement…I’ve been the loser. Do you understand?’
‘All right, Chinaski.’
‘All right?’
‘Yes, just go.’
I stood up. Mantz was dressed in a conservative brown suit, white shirt, dark red necktie. I tried to finish it up with a flair. ‘Mantz, I want my unemployment insurance. I don’t want any trouble about that. You guys are always trying to cheat a working man out of his rights. So don’t give me any trouble or I’ll be back to see you.’
‘You’ll get your insurance. Now get the hell out of here!’
I got the hell out of there."

**********

"But in spite of the unemployment checks and the backlog of racetrack money, my bankroll began to vanish. Both Jan and I were totally irresponsible when we were drinking heavily and our troubles kept arriving by the carload. I was always running down to Lincoln Heights Jail to bail Jan out. She’d come down in the elevator with one of the dyke matrons at her elbow, almost always with either a black eye or a cut mouth and very often with a dose of the crabs, compliments of some maniac she’d met in a bar somewhere. Then there was bail money and then court costs and fines, plus a request by the judge to go to A.A. meetings for six months. I too gathered my share of suspended sentences and heavy fines. Jan managed to extricate me from a variety of charges ranging from attempted rape to assault to indecent exposure to being a public nuisance. Disturbing the peace was one of my favorites too. Most of these charges did not involve actually serving any time in jail—so long as the fines were paid. But it was a huge continual expense. I remember one night our old car stalled just outside of MacArthur Park. I looked in to the rearview mirror and said, ‘O.K., Jan, we’re in luck. We are going to get a push. He’s coming up right behind us. There are some kind souls in this ugly world.’ Then I looked again: ‘Hold you ASS, Jan, he’s going to HIT us!’ The son of a bitch had never slackened speed and he hit us straight on from the rear, so hard that the front seat collapsed and we were thrown flat. I got out and asked the guy if he had learned to drive in China. I also threatened his life. The police arrived and asked me if I cared to blow up their little balloon. ‘Don’t do it,’ said Jan. But I refused to listen. Somehow I had the idea that since the guy had been in the wrong in hitting us, that I couldn’t possibly be intoxicated. The last I remember was getting into the squad car with Jan standing by our stalled car with the collapsed front seat. Incidents such as this—and they came along one after the other—cost us a lot of money. Little by little our lives were falling apart."

**********

"The Florida State Department of Employment was a pleasant place. It wasn’t as crowded as the Los Angeles office which was always full. It was my turn for a little good luck, not much, but a little. It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition. I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?
My name was called. The clerk had my card in front of him, the one I had filled out when entering. I had elaborated on my work experience in a creative way. Pros do that: you leave out the previous low-grade jobs and describe the better ones fully, also leaving out any mention of those blank sketches when you were alcoholic for six months and shacked with some woman just released from a madhouse of a bad marriage. Of course, since all my previous jobs ere low-grade I left out the lower low-grade.
The clerk ran his fingers through his little card file. He pulled one out. ‘Ah, here’s a job for you.’
‘Yes?’
He looked up. ‘Sanitation Worker.’
‘What?’
‘Garbage man.’
‘I don’t want it.’
I shuddered at the thought of all that garbage, the morning hangovers, blacks laughing at me, the impossible weight of the cans, and me pukeing my guts in to the orange rinds, coffee grounds, wet cigarette ashes, banana peels and the used tampax.
‘What’s the matter? Not good enough for you? It’s 40 hours. And security. A lifetime of security.’
‘You take that job and I’ll take yours.’
Silence.
‘I’m trained for this job.’
‘Are you? I spent two years in college. Is that a prerequisite to pick up garbage?’
‘Well, what kind of job do you want?’
‘Just keep flipping through your cards.’
He flipped through his cards. Then he looked up. ‘We have nothing for you.’ He stamped the little book they’d given me and handed it back. ‘Contact us in seven days for further employment possibilities.’"

**********

"I found a job through the newspaper. I was hired by a clothing store but it wasn’t in Miami it was in Miami Beach, and I had to take my hangover across the water each morning. The bus ran along a very narrow strip of cement that stood up out of the water with no guard-rail, no nothing; that’s all there was to it. The bus driver leaned back and we roared along over this narrow cement strip surrounded by water and all the people in the bus, the twenty-five or forty or fifty-two people trusted him, but I never did. Sometimes it was a new driver, and I thought, how do they select these sons of bitches? There’s deep water on both sides of us and with one error of judgment he’ll kill us all. It was ridiculous. Suppose he had an argument with his wife that morning. Or cancer? Or visions of God? Bad teeth? Anything. He could do it. Du mp us all. I knew that if I was driving that I would consider the possibility of desirability of drowning of everybody. And sometimes, after just such considerations, possibility turns into reality. For each Joan of Arc there is a Hitler perched at the other end of the teeter-totter. The old story of good and evil. But none of the bus drivers ever dumped us. They were thinking instead of car payments, baseball scores, haircuts, vacations, enemas, family visits. There wasn’t a real man in the whole shitload."