A tittle for the new book. Sat out at the track trying to think of one. That's one place where one can't think. It sucks the brains and spirit out of you. A draining blow job, that's what that place is. And I haven't been sleeping nights. Something is sapping the energy out of me.
Saw the lonely one at the track today. „How ya doin' Charles?“ „O.k.,“ I told him, then drifted off. He wants camaraderie. He wants to talk about things. Horses. You don't talk about horses. That's the LAST thing you talk about. A few races went by and then I caught him looking at me over an automatic betting machine. Poor guy. I went outside and sat down and a cop started talking to me. Well, they call them security men. „They're moving the toteboard,“ he said. „Yes,“ I said. They had dug the thing out of the ground and were moving it further west. Well, it put men to work. I liked to see men working. I hand an idea that the security man was talking to me to find out if I was crazy or not. He probably wasn't But I got the idea. I let ideas jump me like that. I scratched my belly and pretended that I was a good old guy. „They're going to put the lakes back in,“ I said. „Yeah,“ he said. „This place used to be called the Track of the Lakes and Flowers.“ „Is that so?“ he said. „Yeah,“ I told him, „they used to have a Goose Girl contest. They'd choose a goose girl and she went out in a boat and rowed around among the geese. Real boring job.“ „Yeah,“ said the cop. He just stood there. I stood up. „Well,“ I said, „I'm going to get a coffee. Take it easy.“ „Sure,“ he said, „pick some winners.“ „You too, man,“ I said. Then I walked away.
A title. My mind was blank. It was getting chilly. Being on old fart, I thought it might be best to get my jacket. I took the escalator down from the 4th floor. Who invented the escalator? Moving steps. Now, talk about crazy. People going up and down escalators, elevators, driving cars, having garage door that open at the touch of a button. Then they go to health clubs to work the fat off. In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along like tumbleweeds. Each species destroys itself. What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate everything around and the had to eat each other and that brought it down to one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.
I got down to my car, got my jacket, put it on, took the escalator back up. That made me feel more like a playboy, a hustler-leaving the place and then coming back. I felt as if I had consulted some special secret source.
Well, I played out the card, had some luck. By the 13th race it was dark and beginning to rain. I bet ten minutes early and left. Traffic was cautious. Rain scares the hell out of L.A. drivers. I got on the freeway behind the mass of red taillights. I didn't turn on the radio. I wanted silence. A title ran through my brain: Bible for the Disenchanted. No, no good. I remebered some of the best titles. I mean, ot other writers. Bow Down to Wood and Stone. Great title, lousy writer. Notes from the Underground. Great title. Great writer. Also, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Carson McCullers, a very underrated writer. Of all my dozens of titles the one I liked best was Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts. But I blew that one away on a little mimeo pamphled. Too bad.
Then the freeway stopped and I just sat there. No title. My head was empty. I felt like sleeping for a week. I was glad I had put the trash cans out. I was tired. Now I didn't have to do it. Trash cans. One night I had slept, drunk, on top of trash cans. New York City. I was awakened by a big rat sitting on my belly. We both, at once, leaped about 3 feet into the air. I was trying to be a writer. Now I was supposed to be one and I couldn't think of a title. I was a fake. Traffic began to move and I followed it along. Nobody knew who anybody else was and it was great. Then a great flash of lightning crashed above the freeway and for the first time that day I felt pretty good.