In 1990, the year that Iraq invaded Kuwait and Nelson Mandela was released from a South African prison, the promotional geniuses at NASA thought it might be a swell idea to ask Charles Bukowski, by then known as the Poet Laureate of Skid Row, if he wanted to do a ride-along on the next Space Shuttle mission into space. One can only hope that Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike made the short list.

“Any broads gonna be onboard?” Bukowski asked the man from NASA.

“Negative, sir,” the young man replied with military crispness.

“Booze? Beer?”

“Well,” the NASA recruiter said after a considerable pause, “we’ve never tested the effects of alcohol on the human body in space. I can certainly bring it up at the next meeting.”

“I’ll think about it and call you back,” Bukowski said briskly. He hung up the phone and returned to his IBM Selectric.

Two days later Bukowski called the NASA recruiter. “Yeah, I’ll do it. What the hell.”

Bukowksi was flown to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and set up in a decent room at the Holiday Inn. He watched TV and drank beer for two days before anyone called for him. When NASA finally did send someone to fetch their potential ride-along, it was a kid in his twenties with a crew cut and lopsided ears who chauffeured him to the Astronaut Selection Office at the Space Center. The unshaven, shaggy-haired writer was directed by a prim secretary into a cubicle of an office. He sat in a hard metal chair that hurt his ass and was informed that the psychological evaluation phase of the selection process would commence shortly.

“Mr. Chinaski, I presume?” the NASA psychiatrist said with a sly smile, taking his place behind the gray government-issue metal desk.

This wise-ass has read my stuff, Bukowski thought.

“I spoke to Merrill Bartlett, Mr. Bukowski, just a moment ago, in fact,” the shrink said with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

“Who the hell is Merrill Bartlett?” the old man grumbled. He badly needed a beer.

“He is the gentleman who recommended your recruitment.”

“Uh,” Bukowski grunted. “Nice kid.”

“Indeed he is. Merrill tells me that you agreed to this recruitment despite the knowledge that there would be no alcoholic beverages aboard — he told you that, I believe, when you accepted the offer — and, further, that there would be no shuttle commanders of the female persuasion aboard the shuttle.”

“The female persuasion?” Bukowski mocked. What an arrogant prick, he thought, I’d love to ram that stick even farther up his ass.

“Mr. Bukowski,” the NASA evaluator continued, “I’m compelled to deny your application.”

“Why?” He pounded a fist on the desk. “I want to go into space, goddamnit!”

“Mr. Bukowski, your agreement to the terms set by Mr. Bartlett indicate to me that you are at present psychologically unsound. But thank you for coming, anyway.”

An hour later he was propped up in bed at the Holiday Inn with a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He was stripped down to his boxers and dirty black socks. Bukowski considered the events of the afternoon carefully.

“Fuck!” he barked aloud, “Maybe I shouldn’t reveal so much about myself when I write.”

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