Factotum

Henry Chinaski, an outcast, loner, and hopeless drunk, drifts around America from one dead-end job to another, from one woman to another, and from one bottle to the next. Reprint. (An IFC film, directed by Bent Hamer, written by Bent Hamer & Jim Stark, releasing August 2006, starring Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, & Marisa Tomei) (General Fiction)

Chapter One

I arrived in New Orleans in the rain at 5 oclock in the morning. I sat around in the bus station for a while but the people depressed me so I took my suitcase and went out in the rain and began walking. I didnt know where the rooming houses were, where the poor section was.

I had a cardboard suitcase that was falling apart. It had once been black but the black coating had peeled off and yellow cardboard was exposed. I had tried to solve that by putting black shoepolish over the exposed cardboard. As I walked along in the rain the shoepolish on the suitcase ran and unwittingly I rubbed black streaks on both legs of my pants as I switched the suitcase from hand to hand.

Well, it was a new town. Maybe Id get lucky.

The rain stopped and the sun came out. I was in the black district. I walked along slowly.

＂Hey, poor white trashl＂

I put my suitcase down. A high yellow was sitting on the porch steps swinging her legs. She did, look good.

＂Hello, poor white trashl＂

I didnt say anything. I just stood there looking at her. ＂Howd you like a piece of ass, poor white trash?＂

She laughed at me. She had her legs crossed high and she kicked her feet; she had nice legs, high heels, and she kicked her legs and laughed. I picked up my suitcase and began to approach her up the walk. As I did I noticed a side curtain on a window to my left move just a bit. I saw a black mans face. He looked like Jersey Joe Wolcott. I backed down the pathway to the sidewalk. Her laughter followed me down the street.

Chapter Two
I was in a room on the second floor across from a bar. The bar was called The Gangplank Cafe. From my room I could see through the open bar doors and into the bar. There were some rough faces in that bar, some interesting faces. I stayed in my room at night and drank wine and looked at the faces in the bar while my money ran out. In the daytime I took long slow walks. I sat for hours staring at pigeons. I only ate one meal a day so my money would last longer. I found a dirty cafe with a dirty proprietor, but you got a big breakfast -hotcakes, grits, sausage-for very little.