Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Charles Bukowski

into his own hands for a cause, that crime does not necessarily mean punishment.

      “This attitude has been spurred by demagogic and irresponsible words of so-called leaders in and out of office.”

      but, God, I can’t go on. it’s so dreary. the Father-Image with ye old razor strop to whip our ass. now the good governor is going to take away our toys and put us to bed without dinner.

      lord lord, I didn’t murder Kennedy, either one of them. or King. or Malcom X. or the rest. but it’s fairly obvious to me that the Left Wing Liberal forces are being picked off one by one — whatever the reason (a suspect who once worked in a health food store and hated Jews) — whatever the reason, the left-wingers are being murdered and put into their graves while the right-wingers don’t even get grass-stains upon their pantscuffs. and weren’t Roosevelt and Truman also shot at? Democrats. how very odd.

      that the assassins are sick, I will admit, and that the Father-Image is also sick, I will also admit. I’m also told by the God-fearing that I have “sinned” because I was born a human being and once upon a time human beings did something to one Jesus Christ. I neither killed Christ or Kennedy and neither did Gov. Reagan. that makes us even, not him one up. I see no reason to lose any judicial or spiritual freedoms, small as these may be now. who is bullshitting who? if a man dies in bed while fucking, must the rest of us stop copulating? if one non-citizen is a madman must all citizens be treated as madmen? if somebody killed God, did I want to kill God? if somebody wanted to kill Kennedy did I want to kill Kennedy? what makes the governor, himself, so right and the rest of us so wrong? speech-writers, and not very good ones at that.

      a very curious aside: I had no reason to drive throughout town June 6th and 7th and in the Negro districts nine out of ten cars had their headlights burning in daylight in tribute to Kennedy; driving North the ratio lessened until along Hollywood Blvd. and along Sunset between La Brea and Normandie it became one in ten. Kennedy was a white man, babies. I am white. as I drove my headlights did not burn. nevertheless, while driving between Exposition and Century, I got some cool and wonderful chills that made me feel better.

      but like I say, everybody including the governor has a mouth and almost everybody let go, ingraining their prejudices, making personal hay outa tragedy. those who got wanta keep and they are going to tell you how wrong everything is that might strip them of their golden drawers. I am apolitical but with these murky curve-balls these reactionaries throw, I might get pissed and into the game yet.

      even the sportswriters got into the game, and as anybody knows the sportswriters are the worst of the worst when it comes to writing and especially when it comes to thinking. I don’t know which is worse, their writing or their thinking, but whichever is on top it is a union which will only bear illegitimate and unendearing monsters. as you must realize, the worst form of humor takes its dreary tool in extreme exaggeration. so does the worst form of ego-patronizing and emotional-patronizing type of thinking.

      one sportswriter on our largest non-striking newspaper came on like this, in part (while R. Kennedy was in surgery):

      “The Violent State of America: A Nation in Surgery”

      “… once again America the Beautiful has taken a bullet to the groin. The country is in surgery. The Violent States of America. One bullet is mightier than one million votes …

      “It’s not a Democracy, it’s a Lunacy. A country that shrinks from punishing its criminals, disciplining its children, locking up its mad …

      “the President of the United States is chosen in a hardware store, a mail order catalogue …

      “Freedom is being gunned down. The ‘right’ to murder is the ultimate right in this country. Sloth is a virtue. Patriotism is a sin. Conservation is an anachronism. God is over thirty years old. To be young is the only religion — as if it were a hardwon virtue. ‘Decency’ is dirty feet, a scorn for work. ‘Love’ is something you need penicillin for. ‘Love’ is handing a flower to a naked young man with vermin in his hair while your mother sits home with a broken heart. You ‘love’ strangers, not parents.

      “I like people with curtains on the window, not people with ‘pads.’ The next guy that calls money ‘bread’ should be paid off in whole wheat. I am sick of being told I should try to ‘understand’ evil. Should a canary ‘understand’ a cat?

      “The Constitution was never conceived as a shield for degeneracy. You start out burning the flag and you end up burning Detroit. You do away with the death penalty for everyone but Presidential candidates — and presidents …

      “… Men of God become men of the Mob. The National Anthem is a scream in the night. Americans can’t walk in their own parks, get on their own buses. They have to cage themselves.

      “ ‘Get off your knees, America!’ people cry, but it is ignored. Bare your teeth, they say. Threaten to fight back. The lion bares his teeth and the jackals slink away. A cowering animal invites attack. But America is not listening.

      “… neurotic students with their feet on desks they couldn’t make, pulling down universities they wouldn’t know how to rebuild.

      “…it all begins with that, the deification of drifters, wastrels, poltroons — insolent guests at the gracious table of democracy overturning it on their dismayed hosts…

      “… Pray God our healers can repair Bobby Kennedy. Who is going to repair America?”

      do you want this guy? I thought so. too easy. pre-graduate purple prose colored only from a survival viewpoint of present position. do you drive a garbage truck? don’t feel bad. there are better jobs, done worse.

      lock up the mad. but who is mad? we all play our little game, depending upon the positions of the pawns, the knights, the castles, the king, the queen, ah, what the hell, I’m beginning to sound like him.

      and now we will have the headshrinkers, the thinkers, the panels, the appointed presidential boards trying to figure out what’s wrong with us. who’s mad, who’s glad, who’s sad, who’s right, who’s wrong. lock up the mad, when fifty-nine out of sixty men you meet on the street are cuckoo with industrial neuroses and wives and strives and no time to loosen up and find out where they are or why, and when money which has kept them boosted and blinded for so fucking long, when that’s no good no longer, then what we gonna do? come, baby, the assassins have been with us for a long time. only it ain’t been a blast, just a man with a face like sawdust and eyes like shitstains, so many men like that and women too. millions of them.