I'm living in another rooming house in Philly. Down the street from the old place that never quite recovered from a fire. The ol' Greek landlords remodeled the place with the insurance money. They kicked out the drunks, the mentals and the hopeless eccentrics. But all they could get as new tenants were fast-talking kids on their way to being zillionaires.
At least the old losers had ballast. Now I'm in another rooming house above a Greek diner. I've been passed along the grape-vine. That's the benefit that comes from not hating my landlords in the usual way. Now I'm back in the society of real weathered loonies who have an espirit de corps. Survivors! One old guy, who's now a midnight janitor, worked as a clerk at a XXX store just like a kid in one of Bukowski's books. Other guys I remember as gawkers, standing around the beer store as their buddies panhandled and extorted money. I pretend not to remember their cheap follies and bullying by proxy.
But my dirty little secret is this: I really wish I was one of those guys that Bukowski hated. I'd love to be an effete English teacher at a local college. I'd be a traitor in a heartbeat! But they won't have me.
At least the old losers had ballast. Now I'm in another rooming house above a Greek diner. I've been passed along the grape-vine. That's the benefit that comes from not hating my landlords in the usual way. Now I'm back in the society of real weathered loonies who have an espirit de corps. Survivors! One old guy, who's now a midnight janitor, worked as a clerk at a XXX store just like a kid in one of Bukowski's books. Other guys I remember as gawkers, standing around the beer store as their buddies panhandled and extorted money. I pretend not to remember their cheap follies and bullying by proxy.
But my dirty little secret is this: I really wish I was one of those guys that Bukowski hated. I'd love to be an effete English teacher at a local college. I'd be a traitor in a heartbeat! But they won't have me.