Remembering Charles Bukowski

When I saw the man standing on the corner of Bush & Van Ness, I wanted to stop to tell him that I liked the way I thought he was looking at things, by looking at them until they become what they are.

But the light changed and he was gone in a flash.

He looked a little like I remember Charles Bukowski looking, a little primordial, like he knew he was living in a jungle.  

I used to see Charles Bukowski in McCowan's supermarket in San Pedro in the early-1980's when we were neighbors there. I had a house at the bottom of the hill and he had a nice house at the top. His next door neighbors--Jan & Chuck--called him Hank.

When I went to Michael Meloan's wedding to Cathy Roberts in the mid-80's, I sat next to Hank at the reception. We talked sports--horse-racing which he followed and I knew nothing about and basketball which I followed and he knew nothing about. "Basketball players are freaks," he said in that way he had of saying things, of drawing out the word or words he wished to emphasize so that the word "freaks" became the only word you heard. He smoked Indian cigarettes that smelled of clove, one after another.

When the band began to play Lea Ann asked him to dance. She wore a red dress and looked very beautiful. Bukowski said "no," and smiled, a shy man who was nevertheless flattered.

I remember waving to him once: I was outside my house on Sepulveda Street street washing my old Volvo. Bukowski passed by on his way to the track, Hollywood Park, where he went almost every day to play the horses. Our eyes met and I waved and he waved back. He drove a gold BMW 2-door, if I remember correctly.