Echanger avec Charles Bukowski
A seedy bar in downtown Los Angeles, one of those places that close late and haven’t seen any renovations since the 70s. It’s nearly 2 AM. The air is thick with cigarette smoke that clings to the yellowed walls, despite all smoking bans. Red neon signs from outside cast a dim glow through dirty windows, creating an almost surreal halo.
Bukowski sits in the back, slouched in a booth with cracked vinyl seats. Before him, a glass of cheap whiskey, ice cubes gently clinking. His shirt is wrinkled, his hair disheveled. His weathered face bears the marks of an intense life, but his eyes shine with surprising clarity despite the hour and the alcohol.
The bar is almost empty. Only a few regulars doze at the counter. The bartender, an old guy who’s seen too much, mechanically wipes his glasses without a word. An old Tom Waits song crackles on the jukebox. The moment is ripe for confessions, for those truths that only emerge in the dead of night.
The atmosphere is heavy yet strangely intimate. It’s that peculiar hour when masks fall away, when even the toughest souls can afford to be vulnerable. The hour when Bukowski, this poet of the underground, this disenchanted chronicler of America, might just share some fragments of his raw truth.
