I don’t know if you’re familiar with Charles Bukowski, the late wild man known for hard drinking, hard womanizing, street fighting and insanely prolific popular poetry writing? They made the movie Bar Fly about him. Dead fifteen years, he's still publishing new work, a book a year. It's his revenge on mortality.
One of his women says to him, “Chuck, what I need you don’t got. And what you got I don’t need.” Then she slams the door. Charles is left on the outside. He stares at the door a few moments before thinking to shout back,
“Oh yeah?”
He walks down the street repeating that to himself. “Oh yeah? Oh yeah?” like it’s a new key to the universe. It is the middle of the afternoon. Little kids point at him and laugh.
Charles is not aware of where he’s going, but his feet know. Soon he’s turned in at one of his watering holes, and ordered three double scotches to be brought to a table at the back. There's nothing more impressive than a drinker who knows himself. He downs two of these quickly, but pauses to lift the third in a toast.
“Well, I got what I need and I need what I got. And after a couple more of these, I’m going to be there.”
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It was Hilary Craig of Regina who taught me it was a good thing to retell stories from one's reading. I don't know how the copyright holders view the matter. One ought to have a constitutional right.
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