Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski

when most of the students can get to see you.”
    We drove along and that’s when I knew there was never any escape. There was always something that had to be done or they blotted you out. It was a hard fact but I noted it down and wondered if there would ever be any way to escape it.
    â€œYou don’t look like you’re going to make it,” said Belford.
    â€œMake a stop somewhere. We’ll get a bottle of scotch.”
    He pulled into one of those strange-looking Washington stores. I bought a half pint of vodka to try to get straight on and a pint of scotch for the reading. Belford said that they were fairly conservative at the next place and that I’d better get a thermos to drink the scotch out of. So I bought a thermos.
    We stopped for breakfast somewhere. Nice place but the girls didn’t show their panties.
    Christ, there were women everywhere and over ½ of them looked good enough to fuck, and there was nothing you could do – just look at them. Who’d ever devised such an awful trick? Yet they all looked pretty much alike – overlooking a roll of fat here, no ass there – just so many poppies in a field. Which one did you pick? Which one picked you? It didn’t matter, and it was all so sad. And when the picks were made, it never worked, it never worked for anybody, no matter what they said.
    Belford ordered hotcakes for both of us, side order of eggs. Over easy.
    A waitress. I looked at her breasts and hips and lips and eyes. Poor thing. Poor thing, hell. There probably wasn’t a thought on her mind except raping some poor son of a bitch out of every dime he had ...
    I managed to get down most of the hotcakes, then we were back in the car.
    Belford was intent upon the reading. A dedicated young man.
    â€œThat guy who drank out of your bottle twice at intermission ...”
    â€œYeah. He was looking for trouble.”
    â€œEverybody’s afraid of him. He’s flunked-off campus but he still hangs around. He’s always on lsd. He’s crazy.”
    â€œI don’t give a damn about that, Henry. You can steal my women but don’t play with my whiskey.”
    We stopped for gas, then drove on. I’d poured the scotch into the thermos and was trying to get the vodka down.
    â€œWe’re getting close,” said Belford, “you can see the campus towers now. Look!”
    I looked.
    â€œLord have Mercy!” I said.
    As soon as I saw the campus towers I had to stick my head out the side of the car and I began vomiting. Smears of vomit slid and stuck along the side of Belford’s red car. He drove on, dedicated. Somehow he felt as if I could make it, as if I were vomiting as some kind of joke. It kept coming.
    â€œSorry,” I managed to say.
    â€œIt’s all right,” he said. “It’s almost noon. We have about 5 minutes. I’m glad we made it,” he said.
    We parked. I grabbed my travel bag, got out, vomited in the parking lot.
    Belford tromped ahead.
    â€œJust a minute,” I said.
    I held to a post and vomited again. Some students walking by looked at me: that old man, what’s he doing?
    I followed Belford this way and that ... up this path, down that. The American University – a lot of shrubbery and paths and bullshit. I saw my name on a sign – HENRY CHINASKI, READING POETRY AT ...
    That’s me, I thought. I almost laughed. I was pushed into this room. There were people everywhere. Little white faces. Little white pancakes.
    They sat me in a chair.
    â€œSir,” said the guy behind the tv camera, “when I hold up my hand, you begin.”
    I’m going to vomit, I thought. I tried to find some poetry books. I played around. Then Belford started telling them who I was ... what a grand time we had together in the great Pacific Northwest ...
    The guy held up his hand.
    I began. “My name’s Chinaski. First poem is called ...”
    After 3 or 4 poems I began to hit the