them any day now.”

somehow if you told them

you were a writer

they would put up with all

sorts of

excuses,

especially if you were

in your early

twenties.

(later on, it was a hard

sell

as I was to

find out.)

but I loved those

small rooms in all of

those cities with all

of those landladies

and Brahms

and Sibelius

and Shostakovich

and Ives

and Sir Edward Elgar

and the Chopin Etudes

and Borodin

Beethoven

Hayden

Handel

Moussorgsky,

etc.

now, somehow, after

decades of

those rooms

and half-assed barren

jobs

and after tossing out

literally 40 or 50

pounds of rejected

manuscripts

I still return to a

small room,

here,

to recount to you

once more

the wonder of

my madness

then.

the difference now

being

that while my writing hasn’t

changed that much,

my luck

has.

and

it was in those rooms

in the half light of

some 4 a.m.

a shrunken man on the

shelf of nowhere

was young enough to

then

remain young

forever.

rooms of

glory.

on the bum

moving from city to city

I always had two pairs of

shoes,

my looking-for-work

shoes and my working

shoes.

my work shoes were

heavy and black

and stiff.

sometimes when I

first put them on

they were very

painful,

the toe

hardened and

twisted

but I’d get them

on

on a hangover

morning,

thinking, well,

here we go

again

working for

miserable wages

and expected to

be grateful

for that

(having been chosen

from a score of

applicants).

it was probably my

ugly and

honest

face.

putting on

those shoes

again

was always

another hard

beginning.

I

imagined myself

somehow

escaping

it all.

making it at the

gaming table

or in the

ring

or in the bed

of some rich

lady.

maybe I got

that notion from

living too long in

Los Angeles,

a place far too

close to

Hollywood.

but going down

those roominghouse

steps

with each new

beginning,

the stiff shoes

murdering my

feet,

stepping out into

the early

sun,

the sidewalk

there,

the city

there

and I was just one

more

common laborer,

one more

common

man,

the universe

sliding through

my head

and out my

ears,

the timecard waiting

to check me in

and out,

and afterwards

something to

drink and the

ladies from

hell.

work shoes

work shoes

work shoes

and me

inside of

them with

all the lights

turned

out.

society should realize…

you consult psychiatrists and philosophers

when things aren’t going well

and whores when they are.

the whores are there for young boys and old

men; to the young boys they say,

“don’t be frightened, honey, here I’ll put it

in for you.”

and for the old guys

they put on an act

like you’re really hooking it home.

society should realize the value of the

whore—I mean, those girls who really enjoy their

work—those who make it almost an

art form.

I’m thinking of the time