David Fewster

 

ON DISCOVERING BUKOWSKI’S EAST HOLLYWOOD BUNGALOW WAS NOW A REGISTERED LOS ANGELES LANDMARK, POSTING A PICTURE OF IT ON FACEBOOK, AND BEING TOLD BY LARRY CRIST IT LOOKED ‘BOURGEOIS’

 

For one thing, Sunset & Normandie,

the major intersection a couple blocks away,

can safely be called ‘seedy’ without

the denizens feeling particularly slandered.

On the short stroll to our destination one Saturday afternoon,

we passed a shopping cart homeless guy

and heard a loud girl/boy fight in a nearby vacant lot—

the girl providing most of the volume in what sounded like

recriminations for hopes and expectations dashed.

(Remembering all the while William Burrough’s admonition

“Never get in the middle of a boy/girl fight.”)

After a wrong turn down a blind alley

with a lotta construction work going on in it,

we arrive at 5124 De Longpre Avenue.

There was a huge metal fence across the parking lot!

“Oh no!” I thought. “They turned it into a gated community?!”

Peering thru the bars, one could make out

a gray plaque on the front archway—‘BUKOWSKI COURT’,

followed by the addresses of the nine units within.

The inside of the courtyard didn’t seem especially posh,

nor the squeals of the urchins playing in back.

Reflecting on the matter, we decided the gate was a good idea.

Otherwise, kids from the four corners of the globe

would be taking selfies of themselves 24/7,

drinking beer on the doorstep, pissing and puking all over,

and in general turning it into the new Jim Morrison’s Grave,

which I’m sure is not what

the Los Angeles Historical Landmark Society had in mind.

 

Luckily, we discovered the huge white cement apartment building

next door had an open walkway facing the complex,

so we ended up getting a good look at the bungalows—

Buk had the one in the very front,

a couple yards from the sidewalk

(as related in his story where he falls down drunk and can’t get up

when a cop stops and he’s like

“JUST ROLL ME 5 FEET TO MY PORCH, PLEASE…”)

Anyhow, truth be told, the bungalows were kinda cute,

with their faded orange stucco & red tile roofs,

and  potted cacti on the porches and the walls draped

with creeping shrubs that may well be

that tournefortia stuff dangling in the title of

my favorite book of Bukowski poetry.

Shit, I don’t know. I’m a poet, not a botanist. But I digress—

The point, Larry, is what the hell is wrong with that?

You want he should live in a tar paper shack

just to make you happy?

He was a respectable blue collar worker

for the USPS, for chrissakes,

not some gutterbum.

 

And maybe if, while sitting in his kitchen,

basking in the late afternoon sunlight

on a pleasant Saturday in January a half-century ago,

Charles Bukowski experienced

a fleeting moment of contentment contemplating the beauty

of what John Fante called “this pretty, pretty town,”

please don’t condemn him, Larry.

We are all weak sometimes.