Bukowski’s spit bucket

The estimate placed on Charles Bukowski’s unmarked spit bucket is expected to be pitched at $10,000- $15,000 but there’s already talk going round that Penn and Rourke are interested, which means it could go sky high.  The auction’s in New York so that adds dollar too. They don’t deal in garbage over there.

The spit bucket – actually a metal paint kettle, with handle, US manufacturer unknown, c1973 - comes with cast iron provenance from Buk’s estate. As you’d expect from anything belonging to the world’s greatest dirty old man, it has an illustrious past.

When it was put up for sale last year, the auctioneer asked me, a freelance investigative journalist, to do a write-up on the kettle’s history. I jumped on it, then a publisher got in touch about a little splash they wanted for one of their broadsheets. 

After a six-month dig into the paint kettle’s past, talking to people from all over, and a good few that knew Buk very well, it’s fair to say that this is probably the best recollection of how the kettle came to be such an intimate part of his life. Of the few that knew him back then, none could be certain of the exact year he found it, but it was just before he made it big after years knocking on the door. This is what I sent to the publisher.

‘Sometime in November ,1976, Los Angeles.     When Charles Bukowski saw that champagne bucket in the window of a thrift store he knew he had to have it. It was dented and beat up, put to task a thousand times, an empty vessel but for ice and water, a carrier of alcohol. In the window there, it looked like the most perfect accompaniment to his life as an ailing drunk. Indeed, by then, it was a necessity. 

Due to his smoking and drinking, his awful eating habits and terrific anxieties, Bukowski had developed a problem with phlegm. It kept coming up and he needed it out, otherwise it would go back down and potentially make him want to puke. If it stayed down it would destroy his innards so he knew he was in trouble. Aged 55 and with a body steadily putrefying, the phlegm problem had worsened, especially at bedtime, in the morning, and through the night most nights.
He’d had it with toilet tissue, kept forgetting it at the store. When he was out of it again, he threw an old t-shirt on the floor next to his bed and spat into that. In the morning he got up and took it through to the living room for his first smoke and more hacks into the t-shirt. Trouble with the t-shirt, it was impossible to get the phlegm off. It was so thick and gluttonous, from the deepest pit of his dreadful gut. When the t-shirt started to breed maggots he had to let it go.

Next time he was out of tissue, he decided to use a bit of heavily embossed wallpaper that had come away from one of the walls. That worked for a while but it was tricky to take to the toilet and get it gone. 

He needed that champagne bucket. It was eight dollars, quite a lot but with a good name attached, Moet, aluminium, all scarred and scratched and scuffed from years of abuse, just like him. Wading past the store withten bucks he knew eight of that had to be reserved for wine and cigarettes. The thought of not getting wine and cigarettes was laughable so he kept on walking and got the stuff for an evening’s writing and drinking, listening to music intermittently.

A few days later, with the wallpaper on its last legs, Buk sidled past the store and saw that the bucket was still there. It had even been marked down to five dollars. Maybe it was a sign. He thought about going in and asking them to put it by but then he decided that they’d laugh at him. He went in anyway and spoke to a man behind a counter.

‘I’d like that champagne bucket but I’m all out. Can you put it by for me?’

‘I can do that if you put down a deposit. Say two dollars?’

‘I don’t have two dollars. But I need that champagne bucket.’

‘What do you need it for?’

Cough. ‘To spit in.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so! My daddy used a flowerpot to spit in for years, you know the ones with the little old handle? You can get them at the garden centre for a buck and a half.’

‘Yes I know.  But that champagne bucket’s the perfect size.’

‘It is rather perfect, I admit. How about putting a dollar down? That way you’ll come back and get it for sure.’

Buk dug into his pockets and turned them out for the man, one after the other. The night before he’d won thirty bucks at the track, giving him a round fifty to play with. Now he had nothing.  

‘How about that jacket you got on? We could do a straight swap if you want. I’ll get about five for that.’

‘Sorry, the jacket leaves with me.’ It was his only jacket.

‘I’ll put the bucket by for a week.’

‘Thanks.’

‘That flowerpot lasted my daddy a good ten years before he went. Goddamn cigarettes kept him in bed the last five years, poor man. Aluminium don’t rust, see. What’s why the flowerpot worked so good. Light to pick up too.I’m sure the old thing’s still at home somewhere. Want me to dig it out for you? No charge.’

‘Thanks but I’ve got my heart set on the champagne bucket. I’m sorry to hear about your dad.’

When he got home the first thing he did was look around for a flowerpot-type thing. What could there be? A bowl? Too clean looking. He’d see all the phlegm sloshing around and then want to puke. A bowl would never be big enough to take a puke. He only had one saucepan and one frying pan and there was no way he was using those.The only other vague form of receptacle, apart from his only mug, was an old straw hat but he was far too fond of that. Otherwise it was a bust. He had no possessions to speak of other than a few items of clothing, the radio and the typewriter. 

Broke, Buk went to speak with a neighbour, who loaned him five dollars. With that he went to the liquor store for wine and cigarettes. On his way back he saw a paint kettle by a door on the sidewalk. It didn’t appear to belong to anyone so he scooped it up and took to the street for home.  

On inspection the kettle was found to be in good order, a few dinks and kicks was all. The handle worked fine and he reflected on how nice the little tinkle sounded when it bounced off the side of the kettle. It was a friendly sound, timid and cute like a kitten’s collar bell. After a quick wash it was put to immediate use, just there on the floor to the right of his chair at the desk. A little sideswipe of the head and the phlegm was despatched with aplomb, a little thud for confirmation. One down. His sewage had found a very capable carrier. 

Buk quickly learned how to maintain the kettle. Because there was no hot water at the apartment it wasn’t easy to get the phlegm balls out in the morning. Looking at them made him retch so he decided to leave a little water at the bottom. That way, it was easier to swill in the morning. 

The operation, conducted each new day on waking, would begin in earnest by throwing the worst of the day’s phlegm down the toilet, then leaving the kettle in the toilet bowl. By pissing into it, the warmth and pressure of the piss would help remove some of the more stubborn balls. Once done, he’d swill and chuck that, then throw the kettle back into the toilet bowl and flush, giving it one more swill before beginning the day afresh with a sizeable crap. By economising on tissue for phlegm it was much more likely that he had it for his ass. 

Buk squeezed another eighteen years out of life, which is a mean feat considering his appalling living conditions. That precious paint kettle followed him around until he finally settled into the easy life with his lady, Linda, at a house they bought in San Pedro, just far enough from the madness to breathe. The paint kettle was given pride of place in the kitchen there, his little reminder of the life he left behind.’

The kettle went for $22,500 in the end, anonymous bidder but word is it's Nicholson's now.