On Writing. Charles Bukowski

      [To Whit Burnett]

      August 25, 1954

      I’m sorry to hear, through a slip sent me from Smithtown a couple of months back, that Story is no longer alive.

      I sent in another story about that time called “The Rapist’s Story,” but haven’t heard. Is it about?

      I’ll always remember the old orange magazine with the white band. Somehow, I’d always had the idea that I could write anything I wanted, and, if it was good enough it’d get in there. I’ve never gotten that idea looking at any other magazines, and especially today, when everybody’s so god damned afraid of offending or saying anything against anybody else—an honest writer is in a hell of a hole. I mean, you sit down to write it and you know it’s no use. There’s a lot of courage gone now and a lot of guts and a lot of clearness—and a lot of Artistry too.

      For my money, everything went to hell with World War 2. And not only the Arts. Even cigarettes don’t taste the same. Tamales. Chili. Coffee. Everything’s made of plastic. A radish doesn’t taste sharp anymore. You peel an egg and, invariably, the egg comes off with the shell. Pork chops are all fat and pink. People buy new cars and nothing else. That’s their life: four wheels. Cities only turn on one-third of their street lights to save electricity. Policemen give out tickets like mad. Drunks are fined atrocious sums, and almost everybody’s drunk who’s had a drink. Dogs must be kept on a leash, dogs must be inoculated. You have to have a fishing license to catch grunion with your hands, and comic books are considered dangerous to children. Men watch boxing matches from their armchairs, men who never knew what a boxing match was, and when they disagree with a decision, they write vile and clamorous letters to the newspapers in protest indignant.

      And short stories: there’s nothing: no life. [ . . . ]

      Story had meant something to me. And I guess it’s part of the world’s ways to see it go, and I wonder what’s going to be next?

      I remember when I used to write and send you fifteen or twenty or more stories a month, and later, three or four or five—and mostly, at least, one a week. From New Orleans and Frisco and Miami and L.A. and Philly and St. Louis and Atlanta and Greenwich Village and Houston and everyplace else.

      I used to sit up by an open window in New Orleans and look down at the summer streets of night and touch those keys, and when I sold my typewriter in Frisco to get drunk on, I couldn’t stop writing, and I couldn’t stop drinking either, so I hand-printed my crap out in ink for years, and later decorated same crap with drawings to make you notice them.

      Well, they tell me I can’t drink now, and I’ve got another typewriter. I’ve got a job of a sort now but don’t know how long I’ll hold it. I’m weak and I get sick easy, and I’m nervous all the time and guess I’ve got a couple of short-circuits somewhere, but with it, I feel like touching those keys again, touching them and making lines, a stage, a set-up, making people walk and talk and close doors. And now, there’s no more Story.

      But I want to thank you, Burnett, for bearing with me. I know a lot of it was poor. But those were good days, the days of 438 Fourth Ave. 16, and now like everything else, the cigarettes and the wine and the cock-eyed sparrows in the half-moon, it’s all gone. A sorrow heavier than tar. Goodbye, goodbye.