I am careful to read every word when I read a book – not just the chapters, but also the dust jacket, the author’s biography, the dedication, the foreword, the prologue or epilogue, the bibliography, etc. When I’m finished reading, I want to be able to say I’ve read the entire book. I’d read The Captain is Away and The Sailors have Taken Over the Ship in less than a week, a pretty miraculous feat given my writing schedule and the unusual way the days flow with young children in the house. This afternoon, though the holy feeling swept through me, I knew that I hadn’t read the entire thing.

I sat the book down a second time where my chin would touch if I feel asleep. Page 25 in the copy that I placed on reserve from the Johnson County Library’s copy was missing. All that remained was a frayed sliver near the binding. The page was removed on purpose, and my mind imagined it to be the most beautiful passage in the book.

I almost turned over it without noticing, but the page didn’t lay right. The book is written as a series of journal entries. Bukowski skips several days in between most entries, but it didn’t read right as I moved through the story. I read the entire book anyway. His experiences at the race track, his drunks and writing into the early dawn were interesting to me as a writer and as someone who wants to ensure the writing experience continues to be pleasurable. Bukowski enjoyed writing. He found his refuge in a study on the second floor of his house writing along with classical music.

The time to write is hard to find anywhere in this house during the week and especially on weekends. Sundays belong to the good Lord in the heartland and while my afternoon came with its own religious experience, the morning didn’t begin any differently than usual. The same blue light filled the windows as it always does and helds there leaving the halls and stairwells in shadows. The animals didn’t seem to move with any added awareness for the day but knew only that a new day starts as soon as their masters’ feet step down from the bed.

The kitten climbed my neck. Stepping lightly across my chest, he drug his tail around my chin until its length ran out then whippped me across the face. I heard him jump softly down to the carpet. He leaped back up again at my feet and walked the long valley between the two bodies under the sheets on patrol for a bare ankle or wrist to spike with his claws.

The child who is normally up when dawn breaks was awake and reading in her bed. The dog had to go out first thing. I stopped on the stairs and opened the door. The morning was wet and blue. I walked across the slatted-wood deck to the gate. I pushed it open and watched him run to his food bowl frozen over with ice. He nuzzled it, sniffed and licked it as though he was a deer and it was a salt block.

The morning came to life with the usual spit and hissing sounds from the coffee machine in the corner. I came downstairs to write and as soon as I finished a paragraph, I heard feet coming down the stairs. The rest of the morning we lazed away. I eyeballed the book, read a couple pages while I got dressed for the day, and we left for church.

Marked by a small business card, I came back to the book’s the last few pages that would be easy to read in Bukowski’s straightforward writing style. I didn’t want the book to end, but I suppose I will be reading it again one day. I’ll reserve another copy from the library and hope I am forwarded a complete copy this time. No one just randomly tears out a page. Some high school kid must have stolen it to show his friends the obscenities in bold black print available to anyone who walks in the book stacks and pulls it from the shelf. Larger matters are more apprpriate prayer subjects, but I thought about expending one this afternoon so that I could lie in the sunshine a moment longer and read what must surely be the best page among the other 200 or so.

I’ve read in your own works and those written by biographers that you led a rough life of homelessness and gambling addiction, and that alocoholism was your method for coping. I’ve read that your promising writing career was sidetracked for.a decade by bars and liquor stores and alleys where you slept off hangovers, but I now realize that the art form itself might have been one among lesser addictions that made your downfall so steep.

So many fall victim to it, this disease called writing. We share the same dehabillitating conditions with those we don’t know, whose names appear on book spines or above the copy blocks in newspapers and magazine. With anyone who scribbles in a journal or writes a simple letter or e-mail message, we share it – with anyone who has gone to the well and found the bucket empty and the source dried up except for the rotten leftover marsh at the bottom. This false lover called writing has romanced (but more often teased) me for the better part of 20 years, despite my faithfulness, my commitment to it and the profession.

Here’s the recent bitterness I’ve tasted: Yesterday, on the final day of the year – one that has been the best for me professionally and that I might have made the most significant strides in my abilities as a writer – I practically had to wrench words from my mind. I was working on two stories on deadline as I have been all week. The problems began even before the initial drafts, which is usually when I spill out all my thoughts, no matter how incongruent nonsensical, just to put them on paper. During the days leading up to deadline, I almost always scribble notes or sentences – sometimes entire paragraphs – when inspiration strikes, but this month, the place where those words were stored had been robbed. I know that must be hard for you to believe – a bard who takes a few sips of beer or a pull of whisky and taps the typewriter keys comfortably and careless of what comes out. If only I had the time to leave my work spilled on the floor and, after recovering from a hang over later in the day, toss out the pieces that miss the mark and keep the ones with a line or two of brilliance. I admire the fluidity in your approach and sometimes even the drunkeness. Most days, I’d trade my health for a few beautiful lines.

I would like to blame my recent lack of passion on the holidays, but I wasn’t looking forward to last few days in the year dwindling away. It has been so good to me. I suppose I am worn down, Mr. Bukowski, and if I knew where to find your gravestone, I’d gladly pour us drinks and bring a racing program for us to look over together.