After catching crabs from her, Henry doubles the time prescribed for the cure, badly burning his abdomen, legs and genitals. Acrophobia and distaste for manual labor again cost him jobs, and he returns to Los Angeles, where he reunites with Jan. When Henry dreams that he has killed a man at the racetrack for taking their seats and flirting with Jan, he decides he must get away to Miami. Henry and Jan live on the betting bankroll, have sex, drink prodigiously and bail each other out of jail. Long lunches and leaving early for the track loses another job for Henry, and with World War II over, jobs become scarcer. As a bookie, Jan finds him less desirable. Henry gets a raise from his boss in a bicycle warehouse when he shows he can keep quiet about petty larceny. Henry seems sad to part with Laura, but soon meets Jan, a prettier version of Laura, although oversexed, argumentative, and compulsively unfaithful. Life becomes a round of food, liquor, and sex until the benefactor dies. Henry returns to Los Angeles and Fate introduces him to an eccentric millionaire who needs the services of a librettist.
While there, he achieves his first literary triumph, selling a short story to a prestigious magazine. Louis in the dead of winter, feeling depressed, but again finds relative happiness among friendly people. There, in a crowded bar, Henry washes Venetian blinds, unexpectedly makes friends, and demonstrates generosity with his modest earnings. He quits one job and another that exhausts him physically, and moves to Philadelphia. Henry escapes to New York City, which he hates intensely.
Henry moves to a rooming house, where a prostitute viciously rapes him. Life with his parents instantly goes bad as he goes drinking and lands in jail. He abandons that job during a stopover in his hometown, Los Angeles. He quickly goes through a job and catches a westbound train as part of a section gang. This is unlikely, as Henry likes his wine, dislikes the humdrum existence of a paying job and drifts along mildly suicidal and solitary. Henry Chinaski arrives in New Orleans, depressed, hoping a new city will make a difference. Factotum by Charles Bukowski has Henry Chinaski telling the story of how, in a perennial alcoholic fog, he drifts from city to city, trying and discarding jobs and women.
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