Notes of a Dirty Old Man (excerpt from Factotum) (1975)
Story (1975)
Excerpt
Notes of a Dirty Old Man (excerpt from Factotum)
Janeway Smithson, a little grey-haired bantam rooster, took nine or ten of us all in one cab and rolled us down to the bottom of the L.A. River. Now the L.A. River is a lie — there's no water, just a flat cement runway and the bums lived down there in little alcoves beneath the bridge. They lived off canned heat and out of the residue of the garbage heaps, and some of them looked much better than the average Los Angeles businessman. Those bums down there had no problems with women, income taxes, burial expanses, dentists, car repairs, or climbing into a voting booth and pulling a curtain...
Appears in Magazines
- Los Angeles Free Press - no. 548, January 17 1975, pg. A