A Six Sentence Beer with Bukowski

by Scot Young

It was three in the afternoon and we were the only two in the Frolic Room on Hollywood Boulevard. I sat two stools down from him and studied his face in the back bar mirror through the bottles of tequila and whiskey. He nodded toward the mirror, held up a High-Life, downed it in one Chianski gulp, slammed it down and said, "Another." I whispered to the bartender, who looked like every other actor waiting to be discovered, Tell him I'm a poet. Bukowski emptied another one, tapped it twice and went to the john; I leaned in to the bartender polishing wet rings on the bar: What'd he say? "He said, 'Who the hell ain't?'"

6S

Scot Young polishes wet rings on old bars and often has trouble with whole numbers.