Her ass is no longer firm and she’s gone to pot. He can’t save Betty when they hook up again. He hooks up with a young chick and marries her, leaving Betty in the lurch. Henry Chianski likes to gamble on the track. They can be contrasted with the ordered Post Office world of Alan Johnstone, Please Mr Postman, in seventies London, who did much the same job as Bukowski in the sorting office and delivering mail, with overtime keeping him afloat.

The Howl of Ginsberg and the Beat Generation and anti-establishment. They are the type of buffoon, and generals, mirrored in Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk. Company men and women that make the little people’s life hell. ‘The subs themselves made Johnstone possible by obeying his impossible orders.’ The Stones of this world we are all familiar with. The Stone is Chinaski’s supervisor, a thirty-year veteran of the Post Office. ‘You’re 15 minutes late,’ said The Stone. I missed lunch, but still couldn’t make the schedule. I finished her off, zipped my fly and picked up my mail pouch and walked out leaving her staring at the ceiling. She was right, I got her pants down, unzipped my fly and got it in, then walked her backwards to the couch. I reached down and got one of her tits, then switched to the other. I dropped my bag, my cap fell off, and as I held a handkerchief to the blood she came up and raked the other side… Here’s one of his crazy customers he carries for and corners him. after screwing and singing all night long, and, almost, getting away with it.

It was gung ho for a new man, especially one who drank all night, want to bed at 2 am., rose at 4.30 am. That was the only advantage they had-except knowing the case by heart. The regulars wouldn’t tell you their little secrets. Each day it was another god damned thing, and you were always ready for a rape, murder, dogs or insanity of some sort. Here’s the character Henry Chinaski kicking off the sixties and subbing in a job in the post office.Įvery route had its traps and only the regular carriers knew of them. To simplify realism there’s lived experience and there’s stuff we read about and make up. The magic wand of publication is based on a myth-making lie. Bukowski would understand that we can’t be all sitting in an Edinburgh café writing about fucking boy wizards. Somebody took a chance on Bukowski and it’s the classic rags-to-riches story, which is so fucking depressing, because it’s the very stick used to beat the rest of us would-be writers ( and artists, in general with).

The largely autobiographical novel Charles Bukowski wrote in 1969 was a short book, Post Office, which sold over one million copies and gives all us other fifty-year-old bums that do a bit of writing a bit of hope.

Postman bukowski