Hank’s allure for me as a young man lay in his unhealthy resistance to modernist thinking, complemented by an aggressive unapologetic frankness.  

He viewed the world with a cynical eye, elevating himself above the rest, observing everything as if it were merely above it all. Hank shared perspective with a distinct rawness. His views on women, alcohol, and life’s station came with an, accept my true self attitude, and he cared little for conventional opinions. He was an iconoclast, disregarding both the mainstream and the counterculture.

While deriding Hemingway’s overt machismo, he was pretentious in his own right, struggling with his own sense of masculinity. For Hank, there was no anchor, no norm to adhere to, only his troubled way.

Charels in real life worked for the post office for over 10 years. “How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” But that title didn’t diminish the stories he had to share. His working for the post office didn’t define him. Hank narrated life’s experiences in his manner, writing with raw passion, bearing his flaws whether intentional or not.

He put in the fucking work. 

Now, for me, the wisdom in understanding Hank lies not in the celebration of his flaws or the way his passion may have consumed him. Hank was a traitor to most, an outsider, who communicated with the society he was born into.

Recognizing this doesn’t erase the clear critique of his own hypocrisy, displayed in his raw and self-centered style. Through his words, he gave life and a human essence to the individuals he resonated with, the freaks of their days in all their unraveled selves. He gave a voice to the lost souls who were shunned from their own tribes, looking for connection. He lived through his work and had the same fate as we are all destined to have.

 “We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t.”

Scott Wolf