The Obligatory Bukowski

The days ran away like wild horses, but to Dan this was nothing new. After losing a wife, having a kid, becoming a father to his father and scrambling to find some source of income to keep it all together, Dan knew what to expect from these days of diminishing light. Although Dan was able to handle his life, he wasn't without his vices. The man would drink, he would smoke and he would fuck the women he met in bars. He had a round face, with youthful traits but they were buried behind acne scars, and life scars and the black bags of sleepless nights that grew throughout the week. Dan had broad shoulders and stood about six foot two. His black hair poked through his scalp only slightly as he preferred to keep it short. He was an intimidating presence, even when dressed in his Boathouse uniform.

This is how I met Dan. I began working at the Boathouse shortly after deciding that college wasn't for me.  I was ready to work, make some money and sleep in well past noon. I'd go to work, go out to a bar with the people from work, drive home drunk and sleep in until I had to go to work again. Things came and went quickly during this time of my life. I don't believe they moved quicker, I think I just limited my time to savor them. It was fitting that I began working at the Boathouse in November and ended up being fired in March two years later. The time warp coincided perfectly with the mind-fuck of 4:45 pm sunsets. Light didn't matter much at this time. In fact light was the enemy. All the money was to be made during the dinner shifts and only the chumps got stuck working lunch. It was in the night that I began getting to know Dan.

In the back corner of the wait station, across from the salad bar, Dan sat on the countertop wedged between the iced tea bucket and the wall. His shift had started and his section was full, but he had it under control and took a minute to open his book. I walked in and he began reading out loud:

these things that we support most well
have nothing to do with up,
and we do with them
out of boredom or fear or money
or cracked intelligence;
our circle and our candle of light
being small,
so small we cannot bear it,
we heave out with Idea
and lose the Center:
all wax without the wick,
and we see names that once meant
wisdom,
like signs into ghost towns,
and only the graves are real.

I had never actually spoken to Dan before. Other than the few instances of us bumping into each other and him telling me to bus his table, I really hadn't had much interaction with him at all. But there I stood, with a handful of wine glasses, listening to him recite Bukowski so passionately it was if he had written it himself. He looked up and asked, "What the fuck are you staring at fag?" He grinned, jumped off the counter, slammed the book against my chest and told me to give it back before I quit. I put the book inside my apron and felt it rub against my leg for the rest of the night. I couldn't wait to read it.

Dan never went out with the staff after work. I knew he lived 30 miles away and had a son to take care of, but I also knew he didn't go home after work. On the rare occasion that he did come out, the girls would sit around him with glazed over eyes like he had slept with all of them and he probably had. I remember feeling uneasy when I noticed a couple of the girls I would mess around get that same glazed look whenever Dan would come around. I got over that quickly though when I realized we both played the same shallow game. Him, with his brute, intellectual, crass ways, and me with my ever so innocent to young to screw you over vibe, played on opposite ends of the same flat lined game. I began to see myself in Dan little by little. I found it odd that I could identify with a 39 year old man who probably had seen more shit, done more drugs and doubted himself more times than I ever would.

The pattern continued. Work late, party late, sleep late. This had been going on for about a year now and I was completely in tune with its monotony and actually embraced it. I had whole heartedly fooled myself into thinking that making money was life, and if I was making as much money as a 26 year old college graduate who moved from Missouri to pursue their dreams of becoming an actor, then I was 6 fucking years ahead of the game. I thought I had time. I bought into this notion so hard that I started caring even less. In the beginning when I first started to feel the effects of life in the dark I'd take a drive. My normal destination was this rock inside of Mulholland Highway that I'd sit on for hours and write down every thought that came to my mind. Sometimes I'd string them together and call it poetry, but most of the time it was just pages of ideas. Other times I'd sit there as still as possible until I began to shiver. I'd play a game with myself and not move until my nose would drip and hit the exposed rock between my indian style legs. Eventually these drives were diverted to other areas less favorable for escape from the night.

The deeper I got into this world of recurring patterns, the more I became obsessed with figuring out why I identified with Dan. By now Dan and I had become pretty close. Or at least as close as you can become within the confines of a wait station. It was also around this time that our friend and co-worker Chris had driven himself off a cliff.

After the news of Chris's death spread through the Boathouse a hue, opaque in color, yet thick enough to grasp, settled in. I'd walk through tables and literally feel this weight pulling me down, ever so slightly. I knew that the Boathouse was sinking with me inside of it. No surprise, Dan knew this too. Chris was Dan's best friend and with his departure, Dan escaped as well. I was left aboard to fend for myself. I could no longer live this fantasy, this false ideal that because I was in the same place as people older than me, I could continue to settle, and pretend I didn't feel the need for more. I didn't quit though. I continued working at the Boathouse for a few more months. I had a few more drinks and messed around with a few more girls, but the end was inevitable, even if I wasn't the one to make the move.

It was February now. Valentines day had passed, but its desires had lingered for a few more days. I was driving out to Malibu for a bit of belated celebration. As I drove along the water a feeling of emptiness came over me. The moonlight cascaded over the black sea ripples and formed an army of on lookers to judge my descent into the depths of obscurity. I felt their eyes, watching me and swaying back and forth in disgust, yet I pressed forward anyways. I parked my car, approached the house and went to knock. As I reached for the  door, my eyes were penetrated with gray, white and black dots. They squirmed around in circles and shapes unknown to me. My body was engulfed by billions of chills and I began to wobble. I was warped. It was as if my moldy existence in this instance was being transformed into the penicillin I needed to cure my sickness.  My breathing rotated around my chest cavity instead of flowing in and out and all I could do was press tight on the sides of my head, slowly sliding my hands into my eye sockets attempting to form the warp into something less sickening. My valentine opened the door. I'm sure she said something suggestive, but honestly I couldn't hear a thing. The beating of my heart and the circular breathing pattern I had assumed clogged my ears. She took my hand and pulled me into her parent’s bedroom. I hit the sheets as if I had fallen out of a second story window to the concrete below. My head began to pound. She put her legs around my waist and began kissing my neck. It felt like death. I began to think of Dan. His face, covered in scars and then it hit me. What I saw in Dan was the burden of regret. It wasn't so much that I saw myself in Dan; it was more that I saw a message within him. Dan's face, the scars, they were a warning. I laid motionless, nothing moved, not even the blood through my veins. I was a brick. The past two years, this one night, they were scabs that would quickly turn into burden filled scars unless something changed.

I rolled out of the bed and literally ran to my car. I heard screaming in the background, but all I wanted to do was drive. I drove to the rock in Mulholland and began writing down every Idea I had neglected to give birth to over the past two years. On the top of that list was leaving the Boathouse. I showed up the next morning, March first,  and decided to have a piece of cake for breakfast. The regional manager happened to be visiting and saw me help myself. He called me into the back office and fired me for stealing from the company. I didn't say a word. I walked out, got in my car and began to cry because sometimes life is so right.

I never did return that book to Dan.

I fucked up the last line.