Charles Bukowski, "Living On Luck � Selected Letters 1960s � 1970s, Volume 2"
(This is part 12 of an 18-part story, which begins here. Part 5 is here. And here is where you find part 10. Part 15? Right here. And the end of this entirely too long story is located here. After that, you�re on your own.)
The hike totally wore both of us out, and we were out of commission for the next day. I sat in a hammock chair for most of the day, not willing to move.
My father lives in a low-income housing facility, paying an insanely low rental cost for what is essentially a bungalow that�s a block away from the beach. The last time I was here was four years ago, and he had just moved into the complex. At that time, sitting in this exact same chair, a resident confronted me and demanded that my father come out and confirm my relation to him. But that guy is now gone, and this time around the native residents kept stopping by to offer me Hawaiian delicacies by the handful, featuring things like mountain apples, mangoes and papayas.
Seriously, doesn�t anybody learn from history? The first time they did this was to Captain Cook, and before they could say �White Male Arrogance,� all of the islands were converted to sugar cane plantations.
Sometime during the evening I forced my tired legs to take me down to the breakwater pier down the street from his house, making my way out to the very end where I sat on the rocks, the surf breaking against the side as my legs hung over. And there I sat for the next two hours, until the sun set over the side, turning the sky a half-dozen hues of purple, orange and red, all the while reading Bukowski and drinking all the beer I had shoved in my pockets before I left. I think Chuck would have been proud. Sure, it�s not a seedy dive bar, but it�ll do.
Though they tried to edit out the repetitive parts of this book, there was an awful lot of repetition. But still, every now and then there was a real jem, the kind of thing that reminded me why I liked Bukowski so much in the first place.
�So all I need are beer and smokes and half a swing and I�m writer,� he says in an early passage. Hey, I guess I�m a writer as well! There are worse things to be.
