Страница:
so much, he is a tempestuous lost tossed soul just out of Soledad State
Prison for attempted robbery with a boyish face and black hair falling over
it but powerful chick muscular arms that I realize he could break a man in
half with -- His name is strange too, Perry Yturbide, I immediately say: "I
know what you are, Basque" -- "Basque? is that it? I never found out! let's
call my mother longdistance in Utah and tell her that! " -- And he rings up
his mother way over there, on Billie's phone bill, and here I am bottle of
port wine in one hand and butt in mouth talking to a Basque ex con's mother
in Utah telling her in fact reassuring her "Yes I believe it's a Basque
name" -- She's saying "Hey, what you say? who are you? " And there's Perry
smiling all glad -- A very strange kid -- It's been a long time in fact in
my literary sort of life that I've met a real tough hombre like that out of
jails and with those arms of steel and that fevered concern that scares
governments and makes officials pale, that's why he's always put away in
prison this type of man -- Yes yet the type of man the country always needs
when there's a little old war started by an aging governor -- A real
dangerous character, in fact, Perry, because tho I appreciate his poetic
soul and everything I realize looking at him he's capable of exploding and
killing somebody for an idea maybe or for love. Some of his own friends ring
Billie's doorbell, everybody seems to know I'm there, they come up, they are
strange anarchistic Negroes and ex cons, it seems to be some sort of gang, I
begin to wonder -- Like a ring of fevered sages, the Negroes are intense and
crazy and intellectual but they've all got those strong muscular arms again
and all have jail records yet they all talk as tho the end of the world
depended on their words -- Hard to explain (but will do). Billie and her
gang in fact, with all that fancy rigamarole about spiritual matters I
wonder if it isnt just a big secret hustler outfit tho I also realize that
I've noticed it before in San Francisco a kind of ephemeral hysteria that
hides in the air over the rooftops among certain circles there leading
always to suicide and maim... Me just an innocent lost hearted meditator and
Goop among strange intense criminal agitators of the heart -- It reminds me
in fact of a nightmare I had just before coming out to the Coast, in the
dream I'm back in San Francisco but there's something funny going on:
there's dead silence throughout the entire city: men like printers and
office executives and house-painters are all standing silently in second
floor windows looking down on the empty streets of San Francisco: once in a
while some beatniks walk by below, also silent: they're being watched but
not only by the authorities but by everybody: the beatniks seem to have the
whole street system to themselves: but nobody's saying anything: and in this
intense silence I take a ride on a self propelled platform right downtown
and out to the farms where a woman running a chicken farm invites me to join
her and live with her... The little platform rolling quietly as the people
are watching from windows in groups of profile like the profiles in old Van
Dyck paintings, intense, suspicious, momentous -- This Billie business
reminding me of that but because to me the only thing that matters is the
conceptions in my own mind, there has to be no reality anyway to what I
suppose is going on -- But this also an indication of the coming madness in
Big Sur.
Strange -- and Perry Yturbide that first day while Billie's at work and
we've just called his mother now wants me to come with him to visit a
general of the US Army -- 'Why? and what's all these generals looking out of
silent windows? " I say -- but nothing surprises Perry -- "We'll go there
because I want you to dig the most beautiful girls we ever saw, " in fact we
take a cab -- But the "beautiful girls" turn out to be eight and nine and
ten years old, daughters of the general or maybe even cousins or daughters
of a next door strange general, but the mother is there, there are also boys
playing in a backroom, we have Elliott with us whom Perry has carried on his
shoulders all the way -- I look at Perry and he says "I wanted you to see
the most beautiful little cans in town" and I realize he's dangerously
insane -- In fact he then says "See this perfect beauty? " a pony tailed ten
year old daughter of the general (who ain't home yet) "I'm going to kidnap
her right now" and he takes her by the hand and they go out on the street
for an hour while I sit there over drinks talking to the mother -- There's
some vast conspiracy to make me go mad anyway -- The mother is polite as
ordinarily -- The general comes home and he's a rugged big baldheaded
general and with him is his best friend a photographer called Shea, a thin
well combed welldressed ordinary downtown commercial photographer of the
city -- I dont understand anything -- But suddenly little Elliott is crying
in the other room and I rush in there and see that the two boys have whacked
him or something because he did something wrong so I chastise them and carry
Eliiott back into the livingroom on my shoulders like Perry does, only
Eliiott wants to get down off my shoulders at once, in fact he won't even
sit on my lap, in fact he hates my guts -- I call Billie desperately at her
agency and she says she'll be over to pick us all up and adds 'How's Perry
today? "... "He's kidnapping little girls he says are beautiful, he wants to
marry ten year old girls with pony tails" -- "That's the way he is, be sure
to dig him" -- In her musical sad voice over the phone.
I turn my poor tortured attention to the general who says he was an
anti-Fascist fighter with the Maquis during World War II and also a guerilla
in the South Pacific and knows one of the finest restaurants in San
Francisco where we can all go feast, a Fillipino restaurant near Chinatown,
I say okay, great -- He gives me more booze -- Seeing the amusing Irish face
of Shea the photographer I yell "You can take my picture anytime you want"
and he says sinister: "Not for propaganda reasons, anything but propaganda
reasons" -- "What the hell do you mean propaganda reasons, I aint got nothin
to do with propaganda" (and here comes Perry back through the door with
Poopoo holding his hand, they've gone to dig the street and have a coke) and
I realize everybody is just living their lives quietly but it's only me
that's insane. In fact I yearn to have old Cody around to explain all this
to me tho it soon becomes apparent to me not even Cody could explain, I'm
beginning to go seriously crazy, just like Subterranean Irene went crazy tho
I don't realize it yet... I'm beginning to read plots into every simple line
-- Besides the "general" scares me even further by turning out to be a
strange affluent welldressed civilian who doesn't even help me to pay the
tab for the Fillipino dinner which we have, meeting Billie at the
restaurant, and the restaurant itself is weird especially because of a big
raunchy mad thicklipped sloppy young Fillipino woman sitting alone at the
end of the restaurant gobbling up her food obscenely and looking at us
insolently as tho to say "Fuck you, I eat the way I like" splashing gravy
everywhere I cant understand what's going on
-- Because also the general has suggested this dinner but I have to pay
for everybody, him, Shea, Perry, Billie, Eliiott, me, others, strange
apocalyptic madness is now shuddering in my eyeballs and I'm even running
out of money in their Apocalypse which they themselves have created in this
San Francisco silence anyway.
I yearn to go hide and cry in Evelyn's arms but I end up hiding in
Billie's arms and here she goes again, the second evening, explaining all
her spiritual ideas -- "But what about Perry? what's he up to? and who's
that strange general? what are you, a bunch of communists? "
The little child refuses to sleep in his crib but has to come trotting
out and watch us make love on the bed but Billie says "That's good, he'll
learn, what other way will he ever learn? " -- I feel ashamed but because
Billie is there and she's the mother I must go along and not worry...
Another sinister fact -- At one point the poor child is drooling long
slavers of spit from his lips watching, I cry "Billie, look at him, it's not
good for him" but she says again "Anything he wants he can have, even us. "
"But kid it's not fair, why doesn't he just sleep? " -- "He doesn't
wanta sleep, he wants to be with us" -- "Ooh, " and I realize Billie is
insane and I'm not as insane as I thought and there's something wrong -- I
feel myself skidding: also because during the following week I keep sitting
in that same chair by the goldfish bowl drinking bottle after bottle of port
like an automaton, worrying about something, Monsanto comes to visit,
McLear, Fagan, everybody, they call to me dashing up the stairs and we have
long drunken days talking but I never seem to get out of that chair and
never even take another delightful warm bath reading books -- And at night
Billie comes home and we pitch into love again like monsters who dont know
what else to do and by now I'm too blurry to know what's going on anyway tho
she reassures me everything is alright, and meanwhile Cody has completely
disappeared -- In fact I call him up and say "Are you gonna come back and
get me here? " -- "Yes yes yes in a few days, stay there" as tho maybe he
wants me to learn what's happening like putting me through an ordeal to see
what I have to say about it because he's been through the ordeal himself.
In fact everything is going crazy. Perry's visits scare me: I begin to
think he must be one of those "strong armers" who beat up old men: I watch
him warily -- All this time he's pacing back and forth saying "Man dont you
appreciate those sweet little cans? what does it matter how old a woman is,
nine or nineteen, those little pony tails jiggling as they walk with those
little jigglin cans" -- 'Did you ever kidnap one? " -- "You out of wine,
I'll make a run for you get some more, or would you rather have pot or
sumptin? what's wrong with you? " -- "I dont know what's goin on! " --
"You're drinking too much maybe. Cody told me you're falling apart man, dont
do it" -- "But what's goin on? " -- "Who cares, pops, we're all swinging in
love and trying to go from day to day with self respect while all the
squares are putting us down" -- "Who? " -- "The Squares, putting down Us
... we wanta swing and live and carry across the night like when we get
to L. A. I'm goin to show you the maddest scene some friends of mine down
there" (in my drunkenness I've already projected a big trip with Billie and
Elliott and Perry to Mexico but we're going to stop in L. A. to see a rich
woman Perry knows who's going to give him money and if she doesn't he's
going to get it anyway, and as I say Billie and I are going to be married
too) -- The insanest week of my life
-- Billie at night saying "You're worried that I cant handle marrying
you but of course we can, Cody wants it too, I'll talk to your mother and
make her love me and need me: Jack! " she suddenly cries with anguished
musical voice (because I've just said "Ah Billie go get yourself a he-man
and get married'), "You're my last chance to marry a He Man! " -- 'Whattayou
mean He Man, dont you realize I'm crazy? " -- "You're crazy but you're my
last chance to have an understanding with a He Man" -- "What about Cody? "
"Cody will never leave Evelyn" -- Very strange -- But more, tho I don't
understand it.
I do understand the strange day Ben Fagan finally came to visit me
alone, bringing wine, smoking his pipe, and saying "Jack you need some
sleep, that chair you say you've been sitting in for days have you noticed
the bottom is falling out of it? " -- I get on the floor and by God look and
it's true, the springs are coming out -- "How long have you been sitting in
that chair? " -- "Every day waiting for Billie to come home and talking to
Perry and the others all day... My God let's go out and sit in the park, " I
add -- In the blur of days McLear has also been over on a forgotten day
when, on nothing but his chance mention that maybe I could get his book
published in Paris I jump up and dial longdistance for Paris and call Claude
Gallimard and only get his butler apparently in some Parisian suburb and I
hear the insane giggle on the other end of the line -- "Is this the home,
c'est le chez eux de Monsieur Gallimard? " -- Giggle -- "Ou est Monsieur
Gallimard? " -- Giggle -- A very strange phone call -- McLear waiting there
expectantly to get his "Dark Brown" published -- So in a fury of madness I
then call London to talk to my old buddy Lionel just for no reason at all
and I finally reach him at home he's saying on the wire "You're calling me
from San Francisco? but why? "... Which I can't answer any more than the
giggling butler (and to add to my madness, of course, why should a
longdistance call to Paris to a publisher end up with a giggle and a
longdistance call to an old friend in London end up with the friend getting
mad? ) -- So Fagan now sees I'm going overboard crazy and I need sleep --
"We'll get abottle! " I yell -- But end up, he's sitting in the grass of the
park smoking his pipe, from noon to 6 P. M., and I'm passed out exhausted
sleeping in the grass, bottle unopened, only to wake up once in a while
wondering where I am and by God I'm in Heaven with Ben Fagan watching over
men and me.
And I say to Ben when I wake up in the gathering 6 P. M. dusk "Ah Ben
I'm sorry I ruined our day by sleeping like this" but he says: "You needed
the sleep, I told ya" -- "And you mean to tell me you been sitting all
afternoon like that? " -- 'Watching unexpected events, " says he, "like
there seems to be sound of a Bacchanal in those bushes over there" and I
look and hear children yelling and screaming in hidden bushes in the park --
"What they doing? " -- "I dont know: also a lot of strange people went by"
-- "How long have I been sleeping? " -- "Ages" -- "I'm sorry" -- "Why should
be sorry, I love you anyway" -- "Was I snoring? " -- 'You've been snoring
all day and I've been sitting here all day" -- "What a beautiful day! " --
'Yes it's been a beautiful day" -- "How strange! " -- "Yes, strange... but
not so strange either, you're just tired" -- "What do you think of Billie? "
-- He chuckles over his pipe: "What do you expect me to say? that the frog
bit your leg? " -- "Why do you have a diamond in your forehead? " -- "I dont
have a diamond in my forehead damn you and stop making arbitrary
conceptions! " he roars -- "But what am I doing? " -- "Stop thinking about
yourself, will ya, just float with the world" -- "Did the world float by the
park? " -- "All day, you should have seen it, I've smoked a whole package of
Edgewood, it's been a very strange day" -- "Are you sad I didn't talk to
you? " -- "Not at all, in fact I'm glad: we better be starting back, " he
adds, 'Billie be coming home from work soon now" -- "Ah Ben, Ah Sunflower"
-- "Ah shit" he says -- "It's strange" -- "Who said it wasn't" -- "I dont
understand it" -- 'Dont worry about it" -- "Hmm holy room, sad room, life is
a sad room" -- "All sentient beings realize that, " he says sternly --
Benjamin my real Zen Master even more than all our Georges and Arthurs
actually
-- "Ben I think I'm going crazy" -- "You said that to me in 1955" --
"Yeh but my brain's gettin soft from drinkin and drinkin and drinkin" --
"What you need is a cup of tea I'd say if I didn't know that you're too
crazy to know how really crazy you are" -- "But why? what's going on? " --
"Did you come three thousand miles to find out? " -- "Three thousand miles
from where, after all? from whiney old me" -- "That's alright, everything is
possible, even Nietzsche knew that" -- "Aint nothin wrong with old
Nietzsche" -- " "Xcept he went mad too" -- "Do you think I'm going mad? " --
"Ho ho ho" (hearty laugh) -- 'What's that mean, laughing at me? " --
"Nobody's laughing at you, dont get excited" -- "What'll we do now? " --
"Let's go visit the museum over there" -- There's a museum of some sort
across the grass of the park so I get up wobbly and walk with old Ben across
the sad grass, at one point I put my arm over his shoulder and lean on him
-- "Are you a ghoul? " I ask -- 'Sure, why not? " -- "I like ghouls that let
me sleep? " -- "Duluoz it's good for you to drink in a way "cause you're
awful stingy with yourself when you're sober" -- "You sound like Julien" --
"I never met Julien but I understand Billie looks like him, you kept saying
that before you went to sleep" -- "What happened while I was asleep? " "Oh,
people went by and came back and forth and the sun sank and finally sank
down and's gone now almost as you can see, what you want, just name it you
got it" -- "Well I want sweet salvation" -- "What's sposed to be sweet about
salvation? maybe it's sour" -- "It's sour in my mouth" -- 'Maybe your mouth
is too big, or too small, salvation is for little kitties but only for
awhile" -- "Did you see any little kitties today? " -- "Shore, hundreds of
came to visit you while you were sleeping" -- "Really? " -- "Sure, didn't
you know you were saved? " -- "Now come on! " -- "One of them was real big
and roared like a lion but he had a big wet snout and kissed you and you
said "Ah"" -- "What's this museum up here? " -- "Let's go in and find
out'... That's the way Ben is, he doesnt know what's going on either but at
least he waits to find out maybe -- But the museum is closed -- We stand
there on the steps looking at the closed door -- "Hey, " I say, "the temple
is closed. " So suddenly in red sundown me and Ben Fagan arm in arm are
walking slowly sadly back down the broad steps like two monks going down the
esplanade of Kyoto (as I imagine Kyoto somehow) and we're both smiling
happily suddenly
-- I feel good because I've had my sleep but mainly I feel good because
somehow old Ben (my age) has blessed me by sitting over my sleep all day and
now with these few silly words -- Arm in arm we slowly descend the steps
without a word -- it's been the only peaceful day I've had in California, in
fact, except alone in the woods, which I tell him and says "Well, who said
you werent alone now? " making me realize the ghostliness of existence tho I
feel his big bulging body with my hands and say: "You sure some pathetic
ghost with all that ephemeral heavy crock a flesh" -- "I didn't say nottin"
he laughs -- "Whatever I say Ben, dont mind it, I'm just a fool" -- "You
said in 1957 in the grass drunk on whiskey you were the greatest thinker in
the world" -- "That was before I fell asleep and woke up: now I realize I'm
no good at all and that makes me feel free" -- "You're not even free being
no good, you better stop thinking, that's all'... "I'm glad you visited me
today. I think I might have died'... "It's all your fault'... "What are we
gonna do with our lives? " -- "Oh, " he says, "I dunno, just watch em I
guess" -- "Do you hate me?... well, do you like me?... well, how are things?
" -- "The hicks are alright" -- "Anybody hex ya lately...? "... "Yeh, with
cardboard games? " -- "Cardboard games? " I ask... "Well you know, they
build cardboard houses and put people in them and the people are cardboard
and the magician makes the dead body twitch and they bring water to the
moon, and the moon has a strange ear, and all that, so I'm alright, Goof. "
'Okay. "
So there I am as it starts to get dark standing with one hand on the
window curtain looking down on the street as Ben Fagan walks away to get the
bus on the corner, his big baggy corduroy pants and simple blue Goodwill
workshirt, going home to the bubble bath and a famous poem, not really
worried or at least not worried about what I'm worried about tho he too
carries that anguishing guilt I guess and hopeless remorse that the
potboiler of time hasnt made his early primordial dawns over the pines of
Oregon come true -- I'm clutching at the drapes of the window like the
Phantom of the Opera behind the masque, waiting for Billie to come home and
remembering how I used to stand by the windows like this in my childhood and
look out on dusky streets and think how awful I was in this development
everybody said was supposed to be "my life" and "their lives'. -- Not so
much that I'm a drunkard that I feel guilty about but that others who occupy
this plane of "life on earth" with me don't feel guilty at all -- Crooked
judges shaving and smiling in the morning on the way to their heinous
indifferences, respectable generals ordering soldiers by telephone to go die
or drop dead, pickpockets nodding in cells saying "I never hurt anybody, "
"that's one thing you can say for me, yes sir', Women who regard themselves
saviors of men simply stealing their substance because they think their
swan-rich necks deserve it anyway (though for every swan-rich neck you lose
there's another ten waiting, each one ready to lay for a lemon), in fact
awful hugefaced monsters of men just because their shirts are clean deigning
to control the lives of working men by running for Governor saying "Your tax
money in my hands will be aptly used, " "You should realize how valuable I
am and how much you need me, without me what would you be, not led at all? "
-- Forward to the big designed mankind cartoon of a man standing facing the
rising sun with strong shoulders with a plough at his feet, the necktied
governor is going to make hay while the sun rises -- ? -- I feel guilty for
being a member of the human race -- Drunkard yes and one of the worst fools
on earth -- In fact not even a genuine drunkard just a fool -- But I stand
there with hand on curtain looking down for Billie, who's late, Ah me, I
remember that frightening thing Mila-repa said which is other than those
reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big
Sur: "When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be
proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddesses and Mothers you
will bring annoyance" and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer
doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean
anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand)
but because if I don't write what actually I see happening in this unhappy
globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I'll have
been sent on earth by poor God for nothing -- Tho being a Phantom of the
Opera why should that worry me? -- In my youth leaning my brow hopelessly on
the typewriter bar, wondering why God ever was anyway? -- Or biting my lip
in brown glooms in the parlor chair in which my father's died and we've all
died a million deaths
-- Only Fagan can understand and now he's got his bus -- And when
Billie comes home with Elliott I smile and sit down in the chair and it
utterly collapses under me, blang, I'm sprawled on the floor with surprise,
the chair has gone. 'How'd that happen? " wonders Billie and at the same
time we both look at the fishbowl and both the goldfishes are upsidedown
floating dead on the surface of the water.
I've been sitting in that chair by that fishbowl for a week drinking
and smoking and talking and now the goldfish are dead.
"What killed them? " "I don't know" -- "Did I kill them because I gave
them some Kelloggs corn flakes? " -- "Mebbe, you're not supposed to give
them anything but their fish food" -- "But I thought they were hungry so I
gave them a few flicks of corn flakes" -- "Well I dont know what killed
them'... "But why dont anybody know? what happened? why do they do this?
otters and mouses and every damn thing dyin on all sides Billie, I cant
stand it, it's all my goddam fault every time! " -- "Who said it was your
fault dear? "... "Dear? you call me dear? why do you call me dear? "... "Ah,
let me love you" (kissing me), "just because you dont deserve it" --
(Chastised): "Why dont I deserve it" -- "Because you say so... "
-- "But what about the fish'... "I dont know, really" -- "Is it because
I've been sitting in that crumbling chair all week blowing smoke on their
water? and all the others smoking and all the talk? " -- But the little kid
Elliott comes crawling up his mommy's lap and starts asking questions:
"Billie, " he calls her, "Billie, Billie, Billie, " feeling her face, I'm
almost going mad from the sadness of it all -- "What did you do all day? "
-- "I was with Ben Fagan and slept in the park... Billie what are we gonna
do? " -- "Anytime you say like you said, we'll get married and fly to Mexico
with Perry and Elliott'... 'I'm afraid of Perry and I'm afraid of Elliott"
-- "He's only a little boy" -- "Billie I dont wanta get married. I'm
afraid... " -- 'Afraid? " -- "I wanta go home and die with my cat. " I could
be a handsome thin young president in a suit sitting in an oldfashioned
rocking chair, no instead I'm just the Phantom of the Opera standing by a
drape among dead fish and broken chairs -- Can it be that no one cares who
made me or why?... "Jack what's the matter, what are you talking about? "
but suddenly as she's making supper and poor little Elliott is waiting there
with spoon upended in fist I realize it's just a little family home scene
and I'm just a nut in the wrong place -- And in fact Billie starts saying
"Jack we should be married and have quiet suppers like this with Elliott,
something would sanctify you forever I'm positive. " 'What have I done
wrong? " -- "What you've done wrong is withhold your love from a woman like
me and from previous women and future women like me -- can you imagine all
the fun we'd have being married, putting Elliott to bed, going out to hear
jazz or even taking planes to Paris suddenly and all the things I have to
teach you and you teach me -- instead all you've been doing is wasting life
really sitting around sad wondering where to go and all the time it's right
there for you to take" "Supposin I dont want it" -- "That's part of the
picture where you say you dont want it, of course you want... " -- "But I
dont, I'm a creepy strange guy you dont even know" -- ('Cweepy? what's
cweepy? Billie? what's cweepy? " is asking poor little Elliott)... And
meanwhile Perry comes in for a minute and I pointblank say to him 'I don't
understand you Perry, 1 love you, dig you, you're wild, but what's all this
business where you wanta kidnap little girls? " but suddenly as I'm asking
that I see tears in his eyes and I realize he's in love with Billie and has
always been, wow I even say it, "You're in love with Billie aint ya? I'm
sorry, I'm cuttin out" -- "What are you talkin about man? " -- It's a big
argument then about how he and Billie are just friends so 1 start singing
Just Friends like Sinatra "Two friends but not like before" but goodhearted
Perry seeing me sing runs downstairs to get another bottle for me -- But
nevertheless the fish are dead and the chair is broken.
Perry in fact is a tragic young man with enormous potentials who's just
let himself swing and float to hell I guess, unless something else happens
to him soon, I look at him and realize that besides loving Billie secretly
and truly he must also love old Cody as much as I do and all the world
bettern I do yet he is the character who is always being put away behind
bars for this -- Rugged, covered with woe, he sits there with his black hair
always over his brow, over his black eyes, his iron arms hanging helplessly
like the arms of a powerful idiot in the madhouse, with the beauty of
lostness pasted all over him -- Who is he? in fact? -- And why doesnt blonde
Billie washing the homey dishes there acknowledge his love? -- In fact me
and Perry end up we're both sitting with hanging heads when Billie comes
back in the livingroom and sees us like that, like two repentant catatonics
in hell -- Some Negro comes in and says if I give him a few dollars he'll
get some pot but as soon as I give him five dollars he suddenly says "Well I
aint gonna get nothin" -- 'You got five dollars, go out and get it" -- "I
aint sure I can get any" -- I dont like him at all -- I suddenly realize I
can leap up and throw him on the floor and take the five dollars away from
him but I dont even care about the money but I am mad about him doing that
-- "Who is that guy? " -- I know that if I start fighting him he has a knife
and we'll wreck Billie's livingroom too -- But suddenly another Negro comes
in and turns out a sweet visit talking about jazz and brotherhood and they
all leave and me and Billie are alone to wonder some more. All the muscular
gum of sex is such a bore, but Billie and I have such a fantastic sexball
anyway that's why we're able to philosophize like that and agree and laugh
together in sweet nakedness "Oh baby we're together crazy, we could live in
an old log cabin in the hills and never say anything for years, it was meant
that we'd meet'... She's saying all kinds of things as an idea begins to
dawn on me: 'Say I know Billie, let's leave the City and take Elliott with
us and go to Monsanto's cabin in the woods for a week or two and forget
everything" "Yes I can call up my boss right now and get a coupla weeks off,
Oh Jack let's do it" -- "And it'll be good for Elliott, get away from all
these sinister friends of yours, my God" -- "Perry aint sinister. " 'We'll
get married and go away and have a lodge in the Adirondacks, at night by the
lamp we'll have simple suppers with Elliott" -- Til make love to you always"
"But you wont even have to because we both realize we're bugs... our lodge
will have truth written all over it but tho the whole world come smear it
with big black paints of hate and lies we'll be falling dead drunk in truth"
"Have some coffee" -- "My hands'll grow numb and I wont be able to handle
the axe but still I'll be the truth man... I'll stand by the drape of the
window night listening to the babble of all the world and I'll tell you
about it" "But Jack I love you and that's not the only reason why, don't you
see that we're meant for each other from the beginning, didn't you see that
when you came in with Cody and started calling me Julien for that silly
reason you told me about where I look like some old buddy you know in New
York" -- "Who hates Cody's guts and Cody hates him" -- 'But dont you see
what a waste it is? " -- "But what about Cody? you want me to marry you but
you love Cody and in fact Perry loves you too? " -- "Sure but what's wrong
with that or all that? there's perfect love between us forever there's no
doubt about it but we only have two bodies" -- (a strange statement) -- I
stand by the window looking out on the glittering San Francisco night with
its magic cardboard houses saying "And you have Elliott who doesnt like me
and I dont like myself either, how about that? " (Billie says nothing to
this but only stores up an anger that comes out later) -- 'But we can call
Dave Wain and he'll drive us to Big Sur cabin and we'll be alone in the
woods at least" -- "I'm telling you that's what I wanta do! " -- "Call him
now! " -- I tell her the number and she dials it like a secretary "O the sad
music of it all, I've done it all, seen it all, done everything with
everybody" I say phone in hand, "the whole world's coming on like a high
school sophomore eager to learn what he calls New things, mind you, the same
old singsong sad song truth of death... because the reason I yell death so
much is because I'm really yelling life, because you cant have death without
life, hello Dave? there you are? know what I'm callin you about? listen
pal... take that big brunette Romana that Rumanian madwoman and pack her in
Willie and come down to Billie's here and pick us up, we'll pack while you's
en route, honey's on, and we'll all go spend two weeks of bliss in/
Monsanto's cabin" -- "Does Monsanto agree? "... "I'll call him right now and
ask him, he'll say sure'... "Well I thought I'd be painting Romana's wall
tomorrow but maybe I'd a just got drunk doin that anyway: sure you wanta do
all this now? " -- "Yes yeh yeh, come on... " "And I can bring Romana? "
... "Yes but why not? "... "And what's the purpose of all this? "...
"Ah Daddy, maybe just to see you again and we can talk about purposes
anywhere: you wanta go on a lecture tour to Utah university and Brown
university and tell the well scrubbed kids? " -- 'Scrubbed with what? "...
"Scrubbed with hopeless perfection of pioneer puritan hope that leaves
nothing but dead pigeons to look at? " -- "Okay I'll be right out... first I
gotta get Willie's tank filled up and an oil change too" -- 'I'll pay you
when you get here" -- "I heard you were eloping with Billie" -- "Who told
you that? " -- "It was in the paper today'... "Well we'll start off by
getting into Willie again and dont bring Ron Blake, we'll be just two
couples dig? " -- 'Yeh -- and lissen I'll bring my surf castin rod and catch
some fish down there'... "We'll have a ball... and listen Dave I'm grateful
you're free and willing to drive us down there, I'm down in the mouth, I've
been sitting here for a week drinking and the chair broke and the fish died
and I'm all screwed up again" -- "Well you shouldnt oughta drink that sweet
stuff all the time and you never eat" -- "But that's not the real trouble"
"Well we'll decide what the real trouble is" -- "That's right" -- "Methinks
the real trouble is those pigeons" -- "Why? " "I dunno, remember when we
were in East St Louis with George, and Jack you said you'd love those
beautiful dancing girls if you knew they would live forever as beautiful as
they are? " "But that's only a quote from Buddha" -- "Yeh, but the girls
didn't expect all that" -- "How ya feeling Dave? what's Fagan doing tonight"
-- "Oh he's sitting in his room writing something, calls it his G O O F B O
O K, has big wild drawings in it, and Lex Pascal is drunk again and the
music is playing and I'm real sad and I'm glad you called'... "You like me
Dave? " -- "I ain't got nothin else to do, kid" -- "But you really have
somethin else to do really? " -- "Lissen never mind, I'll be up, you call
Monsanto right away tho because we also gotta get the corral gate keys from
him" -- "I'm glad I know you Dave" -- "Me too Jack" -- "Why? " "Maybe I
wanted to stand on my head in the snow to prove it but I do, am glad, will
be glad, after all that's right there's nothing else for us to do but solve
these damn problems and I've got one right here in my pants for Romana" "But
that's so sick and tired to call life a problem that can be solved" -- "Yes
but I'm just repeating what I read in the dead pigeon textbooks" -- "But
Dave I love you" -- "Okay I'll be right over. "
We pack up little Eliott's pathetic warmclothes and put food together
and get the hamper all set and wait for Dave to come sadly in the night --
And we have a big talk... "Billie but why did the fish die? " but she knows
already they probably died because I gave them Kelloggs cornflakes or
something went wrong, one thing sure is that she didnt forget to feed them
or anything, it's all me, all my fault, I'd as soon be rusted by autumn
too-much-think than be dead-fisher cause of those poor little hunks of
golden death floating on that scummy water -- It reminds me of the otter --
But I cant explain it to Billie who's all abstract and talking about our
abstract soul-meetings in hell, and little Elliott is pulling at her asking
"Where we going? where we going? what for? what for? " She's saying "And all
because you think you don't deserve to be loved because you think you caused
the death of the goldfish tho they probably just died on their own
accord'... "Why would they do that? why? what kind of logic is that for fish
to have? " -- "Or because you think you drink too much and therefore every
time you're feeling good on a little booze you give up and say your hands
hang helpless, like you said last night when you were holding me with those
hands blessing my heart and my body with your love, O Jack it's time for you
to wake up and come with me or at least come with somebody and open your
eyes to why God's put you here, stop all that staring at the floor, you and
Perry both you're crazy -- I'll draw you magic moon circles'll change all
your luck" -- I look her dead in the eye and it is blue and I say "O Billie,
forgive me" -- "But you see you go there talkin guilty again" -- "Well I
dont know all those big theories about how everything should be goddamit all
I know is that I'm a helpless hunk of helpful horse manure looking in your
eye saying Help me" -- "But when you make those big final statements it
doesnt help you" -- "Of course I know that but what do you want? " -- "I
want us to get married and settle down to a sensible understanding about
eternal things" -- "And you may be right" -- I see it all raving before me
the endless yakking kitchen mouthings of life, the long dark grave of tomby
talks under midnight kitchen bulbs, in fact it fills me with love to realize
that life so avid and misunderstood nevertheless reaches out skinny skeleton
hand to me and to Billie too -- But you know what I mean. And this is the
way it begins.
It sounds all so sad but it was actually such a gay night as Dave and
Romana came over and there's all the business of packing boxes and clothes
down to the car, nipping out of bottles, getting ready in fact to sing all
the way to Big Sur 'Home On the Range" and "I'm Just a Lonsome Old Turd" by
Dave Wain -- Me sitting up front next to Dave and Romana for some reason
maybe because I wanted to identify with my old broken front rockingchair and
lean there flapping and singing but with Romana between us the seat is
pinned down and no longer flaps -- Meanwhile Billie is on the back mattress
with sleeping child and off we go booming down Bay Shore to that other shore
whatever it will bring, the way people always feel whenever they essay some
trip long or short especially in the night... The eyes of hope looking over
the glare of the hood into the maw with its white line feeding in straight
as an arrow, the lighting of fresh cigarettes, the buckling to lean forward
to the next adventure something that's been going on in America ever since
the covered wagons clocked the deserts in three months flat -- Billie
doesn't mind that I dont sit in back with her because she knows I wanta sing
and have a good time -- Romana and I hit up fantastic medleys of popular and
folk songs of all kinds and Dave contributes his New York Chicago blue light
nightclub romantic baritone specialities -- My wavering Sinatra is barely
heard in fact -- Beat on your knees and yell and sing Dixie and Banjo On My
Knee, get raucous and moan out Red River Valley, "Where's my harmonica, I
been meanin to buy me a eight dollar harmonica for eight years now. " It
always starts out good like that, the bad moments -- Nothing is gained or
lost also by the fact that I insist we stop at Cody's en route so I can pick
up some clothes I left there but secretly I want Evelyn to finally come face
to face with Billie -- It surprises me more however to see the look of
absolute fright on Cody's face as we pour into his livingroom at midnight
and I announce that Billie's in the jeep sleeping -- Evelyn is not perturbed
at all and in fact says to me privately in the kitchen "I guess it was bound
to happen sometime she'd come here and see it but I guess it was destined to
be you who'd bring her" "What's Cody so worried about? " -- "You're spoiling
all his chance to be real secretive" -- "He hasnt come and seen us for a
whole week, that's in a way what happened, he just left me stranded there:
I've been feeling awful, too"
-- "Well if you want you can ask her to come in" "Well we're leaving in
a minute anyway, you wanta see her at least? " "I dont care" -- Cody is
sitting in the livingroom absolutely rigid, stiff, formal, with a big Irish
stone in his eye: I know he's really mad at me this time tho I dont really
know why I go out and there's Billie alone in the car over sleeping Elliott
biting her fingernail -- "You wanta come in and meet Evelyn? " -- "I
shouldnt, she wont like that, is Cody there? " -- "Yah" -- So Willamine
climbs out (I remember just then Evelyn telling me seriously that Cody
always calls his women by their full first names, Rosemarie, Joanna, Evelyn,
Willamine, he never gives them silly nicknames nor uses them). The meeting
is not eventful, of course, both girls keep their silence and hardly look at
each other so it's all me and Dave Wain carrying on with the usual boloney
and I see that Cody is really very sick and tired of me bringing gangs
arbitrarily to his place, running off with his mistress, getting drunk and
thrown out of family plays, hundred dollars or no hundred dollars he
probably feels I'm just a fool now anyway and hopelessly lost forever but I
dont realize that myself because I'm feeling good -- I want us to resume
down that road singing bawdier and darker songs till we're negotiating
narrow mountain roads at the pitch of the greatest songs.
I try to ask Cody about Perry and all the other strange characters who
visit Billie in the City but he just looks at me out of the corner eye and
says "Ah, yah, hm, "... I dont know and I never will know what he's up to
anyway in the long run: I realize I'm just a silly stranger goofing with
other strangers for no reason far away from anything that ever mattered to
me whatever that was... Always an ephemeral "visitor" to. the Coast never
really involved with anyone's lives there because I'm always ready to fly
back across the country but not to any life of my own on the other end
either, just a traveling stranger like Old Bull Balloon, an exemplar of the
loneliness of Doren Coit actually waiting for the only real trip, to Venus,
to the mountain of Mien Mo -- Tho when I look out of Cody's livingroom
window just then I do see my star still shining for me as it's done all
these 38 years over crib, out ship windows, jail windows, over sleepingbags
only now it's dummier and dimmer and getting blurreder damnit as tho even my
own star be now fading away from concern for me as I from concern for it...
In fact we're all strangers with strange eyes sitting in a midnight
livingroom for nothing -- And small talk at that, like Billie saying "I
always wanted a nice fireplace" and I'm yelling "Dont worry we got one at
the cabin hey Dave? and all the wood's chopped! " and Evelyn: -- 'What does
Monsanto think of you using his cabin all summer, weren't you supposed to go
there alone in secret? " -- "It's too late now! " I sing swigging from the
bottle without which I'd only drop with shame face flat on the floor or on
the gravel driveway -- And Dave and Romana look a little uneasy finally so
we all get up to go, zoom, and that's the last time I see Cody or Evelyn
anyway.
And as I say our songs grow mightier as the road grows darker and
wilder, finally here we are on the canyon road the headlights just reaching
out there around bleak sand shoulders -- Down to the creek where I unlock
the corral gate -- Across the meadow and back to the haunted cabin -- Where
on the strength of that night's booze and getaway gladness Billie and I
actually have a good time lighting fires and making coffee and gong to be
together in the one sleepingbag easy as pie after we've bundled up little
Elliott and Dave and Romana have retired in his double nylon bag by the
creek in the moonlight.
No, it's the next day and night that concerns me.
The whole day begins simply enough with me getting up feeling fair and
going down to the creek to slurp up water in my palms and wash up, seeing
the languid waving of one large brown thigh over the mass of Dave's nylons
indicative of an early morning love scene, in fact Romana telling us later
at breakfast "When I woke up this morning and saw all those trees and water
and clouds I told Dave "It's a beautiful universe we created"'... A real
Adam and Eve waking up, in fact this being one of Dave's gladdest days
because he'd really wanted to get away from the City again anyway and this
Prison for attempted robbery with a boyish face and black hair falling over
it but powerful chick muscular arms that I realize he could break a man in
half with -- His name is strange too, Perry Yturbide, I immediately say: "I
know what you are, Basque" -- "Basque? is that it? I never found out! let's
call my mother longdistance in Utah and tell her that! " -- And he rings up
his mother way over there, on Billie's phone bill, and here I am bottle of
port wine in one hand and butt in mouth talking to a Basque ex con's mother
in Utah telling her in fact reassuring her "Yes I believe it's a Basque
name" -- She's saying "Hey, what you say? who are you? " And there's Perry
smiling all glad -- A very strange kid -- It's been a long time in fact in
my literary sort of life that I've met a real tough hombre like that out of
jails and with those arms of steel and that fevered concern that scares
governments and makes officials pale, that's why he's always put away in
prison this type of man -- Yes yet the type of man the country always needs
when there's a little old war started by an aging governor -- A real
dangerous character, in fact, Perry, because tho I appreciate his poetic
soul and everything I realize looking at him he's capable of exploding and
killing somebody for an idea maybe or for love. Some of his own friends ring
Billie's doorbell, everybody seems to know I'm there, they come up, they are
strange anarchistic Negroes and ex cons, it seems to be some sort of gang, I
begin to wonder -- Like a ring of fevered sages, the Negroes are intense and
crazy and intellectual but they've all got those strong muscular arms again
and all have jail records yet they all talk as tho the end of the world
depended on their words -- Hard to explain (but will do). Billie and her
gang in fact, with all that fancy rigamarole about spiritual matters I
wonder if it isnt just a big secret hustler outfit tho I also realize that
I've noticed it before in San Francisco a kind of ephemeral hysteria that
hides in the air over the rooftops among certain circles there leading
always to suicide and maim... Me just an innocent lost hearted meditator and
Goop among strange intense criminal agitators of the heart -- It reminds me
in fact of a nightmare I had just before coming out to the Coast, in the
dream I'm back in San Francisco but there's something funny going on:
there's dead silence throughout the entire city: men like printers and
office executives and house-painters are all standing silently in second
floor windows looking down on the empty streets of San Francisco: once in a
while some beatniks walk by below, also silent: they're being watched but
not only by the authorities but by everybody: the beatniks seem to have the
whole street system to themselves: but nobody's saying anything: and in this
intense silence I take a ride on a self propelled platform right downtown
and out to the farms where a woman running a chicken farm invites me to join
her and live with her... The little platform rolling quietly as the people
are watching from windows in groups of profile like the profiles in old Van
Dyck paintings, intense, suspicious, momentous -- This Billie business
reminding me of that but because to me the only thing that matters is the
conceptions in my own mind, there has to be no reality anyway to what I
suppose is going on -- But this also an indication of the coming madness in
Big Sur.
Strange -- and Perry Yturbide that first day while Billie's at work and
we've just called his mother now wants me to come with him to visit a
general of the US Army -- 'Why? and what's all these generals looking out of
silent windows? " I say -- but nothing surprises Perry -- "We'll go there
because I want you to dig the most beautiful girls we ever saw, " in fact we
take a cab -- But the "beautiful girls" turn out to be eight and nine and
ten years old, daughters of the general or maybe even cousins or daughters
of a next door strange general, but the mother is there, there are also boys
playing in a backroom, we have Elliott with us whom Perry has carried on his
shoulders all the way -- I look at Perry and he says "I wanted you to see
the most beautiful little cans in town" and I realize he's dangerously
insane -- In fact he then says "See this perfect beauty? " a pony tailed ten
year old daughter of the general (who ain't home yet) "I'm going to kidnap
her right now" and he takes her by the hand and they go out on the street
for an hour while I sit there over drinks talking to the mother -- There's
some vast conspiracy to make me go mad anyway -- The mother is polite as
ordinarily -- The general comes home and he's a rugged big baldheaded
general and with him is his best friend a photographer called Shea, a thin
well combed welldressed ordinary downtown commercial photographer of the
city -- I dont understand anything -- But suddenly little Elliott is crying
in the other room and I rush in there and see that the two boys have whacked
him or something because he did something wrong so I chastise them and carry
Eliiott back into the livingroom on my shoulders like Perry does, only
Eliiott wants to get down off my shoulders at once, in fact he won't even
sit on my lap, in fact he hates my guts -- I call Billie desperately at her
agency and she says she'll be over to pick us all up and adds 'How's Perry
today? "... "He's kidnapping little girls he says are beautiful, he wants to
marry ten year old girls with pony tails" -- "That's the way he is, be sure
to dig him" -- In her musical sad voice over the phone.
I turn my poor tortured attention to the general who says he was an
anti-Fascist fighter with the Maquis during World War II and also a guerilla
in the South Pacific and knows one of the finest restaurants in San
Francisco where we can all go feast, a Fillipino restaurant near Chinatown,
I say okay, great -- He gives me more booze -- Seeing the amusing Irish face
of Shea the photographer I yell "You can take my picture anytime you want"
and he says sinister: "Not for propaganda reasons, anything but propaganda
reasons" -- "What the hell do you mean propaganda reasons, I aint got nothin
to do with propaganda" (and here comes Perry back through the door with
Poopoo holding his hand, they've gone to dig the street and have a coke) and
I realize everybody is just living their lives quietly but it's only me
that's insane. In fact I yearn to have old Cody around to explain all this
to me tho it soon becomes apparent to me not even Cody could explain, I'm
beginning to go seriously crazy, just like Subterranean Irene went crazy tho
I don't realize it yet... I'm beginning to read plots into every simple line
-- Besides the "general" scares me even further by turning out to be a
strange affluent welldressed civilian who doesn't even help me to pay the
tab for the Fillipino dinner which we have, meeting Billie at the
restaurant, and the restaurant itself is weird especially because of a big
raunchy mad thicklipped sloppy young Fillipino woman sitting alone at the
end of the restaurant gobbling up her food obscenely and looking at us
insolently as tho to say "Fuck you, I eat the way I like" splashing gravy
everywhere I cant understand what's going on
-- Because also the general has suggested this dinner but I have to pay
for everybody, him, Shea, Perry, Billie, Eliiott, me, others, strange
apocalyptic madness is now shuddering in my eyeballs and I'm even running
out of money in their Apocalypse which they themselves have created in this
San Francisco silence anyway.
I yearn to go hide and cry in Evelyn's arms but I end up hiding in
Billie's arms and here she goes again, the second evening, explaining all
her spiritual ideas -- "But what about Perry? what's he up to? and who's
that strange general? what are you, a bunch of communists? "
The little child refuses to sleep in his crib but has to come trotting
out and watch us make love on the bed but Billie says "That's good, he'll
learn, what other way will he ever learn? " -- I feel ashamed but because
Billie is there and she's the mother I must go along and not worry...
Another sinister fact -- At one point the poor child is drooling long
slavers of spit from his lips watching, I cry "Billie, look at him, it's not
good for him" but she says again "Anything he wants he can have, even us. "
"But kid it's not fair, why doesn't he just sleep? " -- "He doesn't
wanta sleep, he wants to be with us" -- "Ooh, " and I realize Billie is
insane and I'm not as insane as I thought and there's something wrong -- I
feel myself skidding: also because during the following week I keep sitting
in that same chair by the goldfish bowl drinking bottle after bottle of port
like an automaton, worrying about something, Monsanto comes to visit,
McLear, Fagan, everybody, they call to me dashing up the stairs and we have
long drunken days talking but I never seem to get out of that chair and
never even take another delightful warm bath reading books -- And at night
Billie comes home and we pitch into love again like monsters who dont know
what else to do and by now I'm too blurry to know what's going on anyway tho
she reassures me everything is alright, and meanwhile Cody has completely
disappeared -- In fact I call him up and say "Are you gonna come back and
get me here? " -- "Yes yes yes in a few days, stay there" as tho maybe he
wants me to learn what's happening like putting me through an ordeal to see
what I have to say about it because he's been through the ordeal himself.
In fact everything is going crazy. Perry's visits scare me: I begin to
think he must be one of those "strong armers" who beat up old men: I watch
him warily -- All this time he's pacing back and forth saying "Man dont you
appreciate those sweet little cans? what does it matter how old a woman is,
nine or nineteen, those little pony tails jiggling as they walk with those
little jigglin cans" -- 'Did you ever kidnap one? " -- "You out of wine,
I'll make a run for you get some more, or would you rather have pot or
sumptin? what's wrong with you? " -- "I dont know what's goin on! " --
"You're drinking too much maybe. Cody told me you're falling apart man, dont
do it" -- "But what's goin on? " -- "Who cares, pops, we're all swinging in
love and trying to go from day to day with self respect while all the
squares are putting us down" -- "Who? " -- "The Squares, putting down Us
... we wanta swing and live and carry across the night like when we get
to L. A. I'm goin to show you the maddest scene some friends of mine down
there" (in my drunkenness I've already projected a big trip with Billie and
Elliott and Perry to Mexico but we're going to stop in L. A. to see a rich
woman Perry knows who's going to give him money and if she doesn't he's
going to get it anyway, and as I say Billie and I are going to be married
too) -- The insanest week of my life
-- Billie at night saying "You're worried that I cant handle marrying
you but of course we can, Cody wants it too, I'll talk to your mother and
make her love me and need me: Jack! " she suddenly cries with anguished
musical voice (because I've just said "Ah Billie go get yourself a he-man
and get married'), "You're my last chance to marry a He Man! " -- 'Whattayou
mean He Man, dont you realize I'm crazy? " -- "You're crazy but you're my
last chance to have an understanding with a He Man" -- "What about Cody? "
"Cody will never leave Evelyn" -- Very strange -- But more, tho I don't
understand it.
I do understand the strange day Ben Fagan finally came to visit me
alone, bringing wine, smoking his pipe, and saying "Jack you need some
sleep, that chair you say you've been sitting in for days have you noticed
the bottom is falling out of it? " -- I get on the floor and by God look and
it's true, the springs are coming out -- "How long have you been sitting in
that chair? " -- "Every day waiting for Billie to come home and talking to
Perry and the others all day... My God let's go out and sit in the park, " I
add -- In the blur of days McLear has also been over on a forgotten day
when, on nothing but his chance mention that maybe I could get his book
published in Paris I jump up and dial longdistance for Paris and call Claude
Gallimard and only get his butler apparently in some Parisian suburb and I
hear the insane giggle on the other end of the line -- "Is this the home,
c'est le chez eux de Monsieur Gallimard? " -- Giggle -- "Ou est Monsieur
Gallimard? " -- Giggle -- A very strange phone call -- McLear waiting there
expectantly to get his "Dark Brown" published -- So in a fury of madness I
then call London to talk to my old buddy Lionel just for no reason at all
and I finally reach him at home he's saying on the wire "You're calling me
from San Francisco? but why? "... Which I can't answer any more than the
giggling butler (and to add to my madness, of course, why should a
longdistance call to Paris to a publisher end up with a giggle and a
longdistance call to an old friend in London end up with the friend getting
mad? ) -- So Fagan now sees I'm going overboard crazy and I need sleep --
"We'll get abottle! " I yell -- But end up, he's sitting in the grass of the
park smoking his pipe, from noon to 6 P. M., and I'm passed out exhausted
sleeping in the grass, bottle unopened, only to wake up once in a while
wondering where I am and by God I'm in Heaven with Ben Fagan watching over
men and me.
And I say to Ben when I wake up in the gathering 6 P. M. dusk "Ah Ben
I'm sorry I ruined our day by sleeping like this" but he says: "You needed
the sleep, I told ya" -- "And you mean to tell me you been sitting all
afternoon like that? " -- 'Watching unexpected events, " says he, "like
there seems to be sound of a Bacchanal in those bushes over there" and I
look and hear children yelling and screaming in hidden bushes in the park --
"What they doing? " -- "I dont know: also a lot of strange people went by"
-- "How long have I been sleeping? " -- "Ages" -- "I'm sorry" -- "Why should
be sorry, I love you anyway" -- "Was I snoring? " -- 'You've been snoring
all day and I've been sitting here all day" -- "What a beautiful day! " --
'Yes it's been a beautiful day" -- "How strange! " -- "Yes, strange... but
not so strange either, you're just tired" -- "What do you think of Billie? "
-- He chuckles over his pipe: "What do you expect me to say? that the frog
bit your leg? " -- "Why do you have a diamond in your forehead? " -- "I dont
have a diamond in my forehead damn you and stop making arbitrary
conceptions! " he roars -- "But what am I doing? " -- "Stop thinking about
yourself, will ya, just float with the world" -- "Did the world float by the
park? " -- "All day, you should have seen it, I've smoked a whole package of
Edgewood, it's been a very strange day" -- "Are you sad I didn't talk to
you? " -- "Not at all, in fact I'm glad: we better be starting back, " he
adds, 'Billie be coming home from work soon now" -- "Ah Ben, Ah Sunflower"
-- "Ah shit" he says -- "It's strange" -- "Who said it wasn't" -- "I dont
understand it" -- 'Dont worry about it" -- "Hmm holy room, sad room, life is
a sad room" -- "All sentient beings realize that, " he says sternly --
Benjamin my real Zen Master even more than all our Georges and Arthurs
actually
-- "Ben I think I'm going crazy" -- "You said that to me in 1955" --
"Yeh but my brain's gettin soft from drinkin and drinkin and drinkin" --
"What you need is a cup of tea I'd say if I didn't know that you're too
crazy to know how really crazy you are" -- "But why? what's going on? " --
"Did you come three thousand miles to find out? " -- "Three thousand miles
from where, after all? from whiney old me" -- "That's alright, everything is
possible, even Nietzsche knew that" -- "Aint nothin wrong with old
Nietzsche" -- " "Xcept he went mad too" -- "Do you think I'm going mad? " --
"Ho ho ho" (hearty laugh) -- 'What's that mean, laughing at me? " --
"Nobody's laughing at you, dont get excited" -- "What'll we do now? " --
"Let's go visit the museum over there" -- There's a museum of some sort
across the grass of the park so I get up wobbly and walk with old Ben across
the sad grass, at one point I put my arm over his shoulder and lean on him
-- "Are you a ghoul? " I ask -- 'Sure, why not? " -- "I like ghouls that let
me sleep? " -- "Duluoz it's good for you to drink in a way "cause you're
awful stingy with yourself when you're sober" -- "You sound like Julien" --
"I never met Julien but I understand Billie looks like him, you kept saying
that before you went to sleep" -- "What happened while I was asleep? " "Oh,
people went by and came back and forth and the sun sank and finally sank
down and's gone now almost as you can see, what you want, just name it you
got it" -- "Well I want sweet salvation" -- "What's sposed to be sweet about
salvation? maybe it's sour" -- "It's sour in my mouth" -- 'Maybe your mouth
is too big, or too small, salvation is for little kitties but only for
awhile" -- "Did you see any little kitties today? " -- "Shore, hundreds of
came to visit you while you were sleeping" -- "Really? " -- "Sure, didn't
you know you were saved? " -- "Now come on! " -- "One of them was real big
and roared like a lion but he had a big wet snout and kissed you and you
said "Ah"" -- "What's this museum up here? " -- "Let's go in and find
out'... That's the way Ben is, he doesnt know what's going on either but at
least he waits to find out maybe -- But the museum is closed -- We stand
there on the steps looking at the closed door -- "Hey, " I say, "the temple
is closed. " So suddenly in red sundown me and Ben Fagan arm in arm are
walking slowly sadly back down the broad steps like two monks going down the
esplanade of Kyoto (as I imagine Kyoto somehow) and we're both smiling
happily suddenly
-- I feel good because I've had my sleep but mainly I feel good because
somehow old Ben (my age) has blessed me by sitting over my sleep all day and
now with these few silly words -- Arm in arm we slowly descend the steps
without a word -- it's been the only peaceful day I've had in California, in
fact, except alone in the woods, which I tell him and says "Well, who said
you werent alone now? " making me realize the ghostliness of existence tho I
feel his big bulging body with my hands and say: "You sure some pathetic
ghost with all that ephemeral heavy crock a flesh" -- "I didn't say nottin"
he laughs -- "Whatever I say Ben, dont mind it, I'm just a fool" -- "You
said in 1957 in the grass drunk on whiskey you were the greatest thinker in
the world" -- "That was before I fell asleep and woke up: now I realize I'm
no good at all and that makes me feel free" -- "You're not even free being
no good, you better stop thinking, that's all'... "I'm glad you visited me
today. I think I might have died'... "It's all your fault'... "What are we
gonna do with our lives? " -- "Oh, " he says, "I dunno, just watch em I
guess" -- "Do you hate me?... well, do you like me?... well, how are things?
" -- "The hicks are alright" -- "Anybody hex ya lately...? "... "Yeh, with
cardboard games? " -- "Cardboard games? " I ask... "Well you know, they
build cardboard houses and put people in them and the people are cardboard
and the magician makes the dead body twitch and they bring water to the
moon, and the moon has a strange ear, and all that, so I'm alright, Goof. "
'Okay. "
So there I am as it starts to get dark standing with one hand on the
window curtain looking down on the street as Ben Fagan walks away to get the
bus on the corner, his big baggy corduroy pants and simple blue Goodwill
workshirt, going home to the bubble bath and a famous poem, not really
worried or at least not worried about what I'm worried about tho he too
carries that anguishing guilt I guess and hopeless remorse that the
potboiler of time hasnt made his early primordial dawns over the pines of
Oregon come true -- I'm clutching at the drapes of the window like the
Phantom of the Opera behind the masque, waiting for Billie to come home and
remembering how I used to stand by the windows like this in my childhood and
look out on dusky streets and think how awful I was in this development
everybody said was supposed to be "my life" and "their lives'. -- Not so
much that I'm a drunkard that I feel guilty about but that others who occupy
this plane of "life on earth" with me don't feel guilty at all -- Crooked
judges shaving and smiling in the morning on the way to their heinous
indifferences, respectable generals ordering soldiers by telephone to go die
or drop dead, pickpockets nodding in cells saying "I never hurt anybody, "
"that's one thing you can say for me, yes sir', Women who regard themselves
saviors of men simply stealing their substance because they think their
swan-rich necks deserve it anyway (though for every swan-rich neck you lose
there's another ten waiting, each one ready to lay for a lemon), in fact
awful hugefaced monsters of men just because their shirts are clean deigning
to control the lives of working men by running for Governor saying "Your tax
money in my hands will be aptly used, " "You should realize how valuable I
am and how much you need me, without me what would you be, not led at all? "
-- Forward to the big designed mankind cartoon of a man standing facing the
rising sun with strong shoulders with a plough at his feet, the necktied
governor is going to make hay while the sun rises -- ? -- I feel guilty for
being a member of the human race -- Drunkard yes and one of the worst fools
on earth -- In fact not even a genuine drunkard just a fool -- But I stand
there with hand on curtain looking down for Billie, who's late, Ah me, I
remember that frightening thing Mila-repa said which is other than those
reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big
Sur: "When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be
proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddesses and Mothers you
will bring annoyance" and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer
doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean
anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand)
but because if I don't write what actually I see happening in this unhappy
globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I'll have
been sent on earth by poor God for nothing -- Tho being a Phantom of the
Opera why should that worry me? -- In my youth leaning my brow hopelessly on
the typewriter bar, wondering why God ever was anyway? -- Or biting my lip
in brown glooms in the parlor chair in which my father's died and we've all
died a million deaths
-- Only Fagan can understand and now he's got his bus -- And when
Billie comes home with Elliott I smile and sit down in the chair and it
utterly collapses under me, blang, I'm sprawled on the floor with surprise,
the chair has gone. 'How'd that happen? " wonders Billie and at the same
time we both look at the fishbowl and both the goldfishes are upsidedown
floating dead on the surface of the water.
I've been sitting in that chair by that fishbowl for a week drinking
and smoking and talking and now the goldfish are dead.
"What killed them? " "I don't know" -- "Did I kill them because I gave
them some Kelloggs corn flakes? " -- "Mebbe, you're not supposed to give
them anything but their fish food" -- "But I thought they were hungry so I
gave them a few flicks of corn flakes" -- "Well I dont know what killed
them'... "But why dont anybody know? what happened? why do they do this?
otters and mouses and every damn thing dyin on all sides Billie, I cant
stand it, it's all my goddam fault every time! " -- "Who said it was your
fault dear? "... "Dear? you call me dear? why do you call me dear? "... "Ah,
let me love you" (kissing me), "just because you dont deserve it" --
(Chastised): "Why dont I deserve it" -- "Because you say so... "
-- "But what about the fish'... "I dont know, really" -- "Is it because
I've been sitting in that crumbling chair all week blowing smoke on their
water? and all the others smoking and all the talk? " -- But the little kid
Elliott comes crawling up his mommy's lap and starts asking questions:
"Billie, " he calls her, "Billie, Billie, Billie, " feeling her face, I'm
almost going mad from the sadness of it all -- "What did you do all day? "
-- "I was with Ben Fagan and slept in the park... Billie what are we gonna
do? " -- "Anytime you say like you said, we'll get married and fly to Mexico
with Perry and Elliott'... 'I'm afraid of Perry and I'm afraid of Elliott"
-- "He's only a little boy" -- "Billie I dont wanta get married. I'm
afraid... " -- 'Afraid? " -- "I wanta go home and die with my cat. " I could
be a handsome thin young president in a suit sitting in an oldfashioned
rocking chair, no instead I'm just the Phantom of the Opera standing by a
drape among dead fish and broken chairs -- Can it be that no one cares who
made me or why?... "Jack what's the matter, what are you talking about? "
but suddenly as she's making supper and poor little Elliott is waiting there
with spoon upended in fist I realize it's just a little family home scene
and I'm just a nut in the wrong place -- And in fact Billie starts saying
"Jack we should be married and have quiet suppers like this with Elliott,
something would sanctify you forever I'm positive. " 'What have I done
wrong? " -- "What you've done wrong is withhold your love from a woman like
me and from previous women and future women like me -- can you imagine all
the fun we'd have being married, putting Elliott to bed, going out to hear
jazz or even taking planes to Paris suddenly and all the things I have to
teach you and you teach me -- instead all you've been doing is wasting life
really sitting around sad wondering where to go and all the time it's right
there for you to take" "Supposin I dont want it" -- "That's part of the
picture where you say you dont want it, of course you want... " -- "But I
dont, I'm a creepy strange guy you dont even know" -- ('Cweepy? what's
cweepy? Billie? what's cweepy? " is asking poor little Elliott)... And
meanwhile Perry comes in for a minute and I pointblank say to him 'I don't
understand you Perry, 1 love you, dig you, you're wild, but what's all this
business where you wanta kidnap little girls? " but suddenly as I'm asking
that I see tears in his eyes and I realize he's in love with Billie and has
always been, wow I even say it, "You're in love with Billie aint ya? I'm
sorry, I'm cuttin out" -- "What are you talkin about man? " -- It's a big
argument then about how he and Billie are just friends so 1 start singing
Just Friends like Sinatra "Two friends but not like before" but goodhearted
Perry seeing me sing runs downstairs to get another bottle for me -- But
nevertheless the fish are dead and the chair is broken.
Perry in fact is a tragic young man with enormous potentials who's just
let himself swing and float to hell I guess, unless something else happens
to him soon, I look at him and realize that besides loving Billie secretly
and truly he must also love old Cody as much as I do and all the world
bettern I do yet he is the character who is always being put away behind
bars for this -- Rugged, covered with woe, he sits there with his black hair
always over his brow, over his black eyes, his iron arms hanging helplessly
like the arms of a powerful idiot in the madhouse, with the beauty of
lostness pasted all over him -- Who is he? in fact? -- And why doesnt blonde
Billie washing the homey dishes there acknowledge his love? -- In fact me
and Perry end up we're both sitting with hanging heads when Billie comes
back in the livingroom and sees us like that, like two repentant catatonics
in hell -- Some Negro comes in and says if I give him a few dollars he'll
get some pot but as soon as I give him five dollars he suddenly says "Well I
aint gonna get nothin" -- 'You got five dollars, go out and get it" -- "I
aint sure I can get any" -- I dont like him at all -- I suddenly realize I
can leap up and throw him on the floor and take the five dollars away from
him but I dont even care about the money but I am mad about him doing that
-- "Who is that guy? " -- I know that if I start fighting him he has a knife
and we'll wreck Billie's livingroom too -- But suddenly another Negro comes
in and turns out a sweet visit talking about jazz and brotherhood and they
all leave and me and Billie are alone to wonder some more. All the muscular
gum of sex is such a bore, but Billie and I have such a fantastic sexball
anyway that's why we're able to philosophize like that and agree and laugh
together in sweet nakedness "Oh baby we're together crazy, we could live in
an old log cabin in the hills and never say anything for years, it was meant
that we'd meet'... She's saying all kinds of things as an idea begins to
dawn on me: 'Say I know Billie, let's leave the City and take Elliott with
us and go to Monsanto's cabin in the woods for a week or two and forget
everything" "Yes I can call up my boss right now and get a coupla weeks off,
Oh Jack let's do it" -- "And it'll be good for Elliott, get away from all
these sinister friends of yours, my God" -- "Perry aint sinister. " 'We'll
get married and go away and have a lodge in the Adirondacks, at night by the
lamp we'll have simple suppers with Elliott" -- Til make love to you always"
"But you wont even have to because we both realize we're bugs... our lodge
will have truth written all over it but tho the whole world come smear it
with big black paints of hate and lies we'll be falling dead drunk in truth"
"Have some coffee" -- "My hands'll grow numb and I wont be able to handle
the axe but still I'll be the truth man... I'll stand by the drape of the
window night listening to the babble of all the world and I'll tell you
about it" "But Jack I love you and that's not the only reason why, don't you
see that we're meant for each other from the beginning, didn't you see that
when you came in with Cody and started calling me Julien for that silly
reason you told me about where I look like some old buddy you know in New
York" -- "Who hates Cody's guts and Cody hates him" -- 'But dont you see
what a waste it is? " -- "But what about Cody? you want me to marry you but
you love Cody and in fact Perry loves you too? " -- "Sure but what's wrong
with that or all that? there's perfect love between us forever there's no
doubt about it but we only have two bodies" -- (a strange statement) -- I
stand by the window looking out on the glittering San Francisco night with
its magic cardboard houses saying "And you have Elliott who doesnt like me
and I dont like myself either, how about that? " (Billie says nothing to
this but only stores up an anger that comes out later) -- 'But we can call
Dave Wain and he'll drive us to Big Sur cabin and we'll be alone in the
woods at least" -- "I'm telling you that's what I wanta do! " -- "Call him
now! " -- I tell her the number and she dials it like a secretary "O the sad
music of it all, I've done it all, seen it all, done everything with
everybody" I say phone in hand, "the whole world's coming on like a high
school sophomore eager to learn what he calls New things, mind you, the same
old singsong sad song truth of death... because the reason I yell death so
much is because I'm really yelling life, because you cant have death without
life, hello Dave? there you are? know what I'm callin you about? listen
pal... take that big brunette Romana that Rumanian madwoman and pack her in
Willie and come down to Billie's here and pick us up, we'll pack while you's
en route, honey's on, and we'll all go spend two weeks of bliss in/
Monsanto's cabin" -- "Does Monsanto agree? "... "I'll call him right now and
ask him, he'll say sure'... "Well I thought I'd be painting Romana's wall
tomorrow but maybe I'd a just got drunk doin that anyway: sure you wanta do
all this now? " -- "Yes yeh yeh, come on... " "And I can bring Romana? "
... "Yes but why not? "... "And what's the purpose of all this? "...
"Ah Daddy, maybe just to see you again and we can talk about purposes
anywhere: you wanta go on a lecture tour to Utah university and Brown
university and tell the well scrubbed kids? " -- 'Scrubbed with what? "...
"Scrubbed with hopeless perfection of pioneer puritan hope that leaves
nothing but dead pigeons to look at? " -- "Okay I'll be right out... first I
gotta get Willie's tank filled up and an oil change too" -- 'I'll pay you
when you get here" -- "I heard you were eloping with Billie" -- "Who told
you that? " -- "It was in the paper today'... "Well we'll start off by
getting into Willie again and dont bring Ron Blake, we'll be just two
couples dig? " -- 'Yeh -- and lissen I'll bring my surf castin rod and catch
some fish down there'... "We'll have a ball... and listen Dave I'm grateful
you're free and willing to drive us down there, I'm down in the mouth, I've
been sitting here for a week drinking and the chair broke and the fish died
and I'm all screwed up again" -- "Well you shouldnt oughta drink that sweet
stuff all the time and you never eat" -- "But that's not the real trouble"
"Well we'll decide what the real trouble is" -- "That's right" -- "Methinks
the real trouble is those pigeons" -- "Why? " "I dunno, remember when we
were in East St Louis with George, and Jack you said you'd love those
beautiful dancing girls if you knew they would live forever as beautiful as
they are? " "But that's only a quote from Buddha" -- "Yeh, but the girls
didn't expect all that" -- "How ya feeling Dave? what's Fagan doing tonight"
-- "Oh he's sitting in his room writing something, calls it his G O O F B O
O K, has big wild drawings in it, and Lex Pascal is drunk again and the
music is playing and I'm real sad and I'm glad you called'... "You like me
Dave? " -- "I ain't got nothin else to do, kid" -- "But you really have
somethin else to do really? " -- "Lissen never mind, I'll be up, you call
Monsanto right away tho because we also gotta get the corral gate keys from
him" -- "I'm glad I know you Dave" -- "Me too Jack" -- "Why? " "Maybe I
wanted to stand on my head in the snow to prove it but I do, am glad, will
be glad, after all that's right there's nothing else for us to do but solve
these damn problems and I've got one right here in my pants for Romana" "But
that's so sick and tired to call life a problem that can be solved" -- "Yes
but I'm just repeating what I read in the dead pigeon textbooks" -- "But
Dave I love you" -- "Okay I'll be right over. "
We pack up little Eliott's pathetic warmclothes and put food together
and get the hamper all set and wait for Dave to come sadly in the night --
And we have a big talk... "Billie but why did the fish die? " but she knows
already they probably died because I gave them Kelloggs cornflakes or
something went wrong, one thing sure is that she didnt forget to feed them
or anything, it's all me, all my fault, I'd as soon be rusted by autumn
too-much-think than be dead-fisher cause of those poor little hunks of
golden death floating on that scummy water -- It reminds me of the otter --
But I cant explain it to Billie who's all abstract and talking about our
abstract soul-meetings in hell, and little Elliott is pulling at her asking
"Where we going? where we going? what for? what for? " She's saying "And all
because you think you don't deserve to be loved because you think you caused
the death of the goldfish tho they probably just died on their own
accord'... "Why would they do that? why? what kind of logic is that for fish
to have? " -- "Or because you think you drink too much and therefore every
time you're feeling good on a little booze you give up and say your hands
hang helpless, like you said last night when you were holding me with those
hands blessing my heart and my body with your love, O Jack it's time for you
to wake up and come with me or at least come with somebody and open your
eyes to why God's put you here, stop all that staring at the floor, you and
Perry both you're crazy -- I'll draw you magic moon circles'll change all
your luck" -- I look her dead in the eye and it is blue and I say "O Billie,
forgive me" -- "But you see you go there talkin guilty again" -- "Well I
dont know all those big theories about how everything should be goddamit all
I know is that I'm a helpless hunk of helpful horse manure looking in your
eye saying Help me" -- "But when you make those big final statements it
doesnt help you" -- "Of course I know that but what do you want? " -- "I
want us to get married and settle down to a sensible understanding about
eternal things" -- "And you may be right" -- I see it all raving before me
the endless yakking kitchen mouthings of life, the long dark grave of tomby
talks under midnight kitchen bulbs, in fact it fills me with love to realize
that life so avid and misunderstood nevertheless reaches out skinny skeleton
hand to me and to Billie too -- But you know what I mean. And this is the
way it begins.
It sounds all so sad but it was actually such a gay night as Dave and
Romana came over and there's all the business of packing boxes and clothes
down to the car, nipping out of bottles, getting ready in fact to sing all
the way to Big Sur 'Home On the Range" and "I'm Just a Lonsome Old Turd" by
Dave Wain -- Me sitting up front next to Dave and Romana for some reason
maybe because I wanted to identify with my old broken front rockingchair and
lean there flapping and singing but with Romana between us the seat is
pinned down and no longer flaps -- Meanwhile Billie is on the back mattress
with sleeping child and off we go booming down Bay Shore to that other shore
whatever it will bring, the way people always feel whenever they essay some
trip long or short especially in the night... The eyes of hope looking over
the glare of the hood into the maw with its white line feeding in straight
as an arrow, the lighting of fresh cigarettes, the buckling to lean forward
to the next adventure something that's been going on in America ever since
the covered wagons clocked the deserts in three months flat -- Billie
doesn't mind that I dont sit in back with her because she knows I wanta sing
and have a good time -- Romana and I hit up fantastic medleys of popular and
folk songs of all kinds and Dave contributes his New York Chicago blue light
nightclub romantic baritone specialities -- My wavering Sinatra is barely
heard in fact -- Beat on your knees and yell and sing Dixie and Banjo On My
Knee, get raucous and moan out Red River Valley, "Where's my harmonica, I
been meanin to buy me a eight dollar harmonica for eight years now. " It
always starts out good like that, the bad moments -- Nothing is gained or
lost also by the fact that I insist we stop at Cody's en route so I can pick
up some clothes I left there but secretly I want Evelyn to finally come face
to face with Billie -- It surprises me more however to see the look of
absolute fright on Cody's face as we pour into his livingroom at midnight
and I announce that Billie's in the jeep sleeping -- Evelyn is not perturbed
at all and in fact says to me privately in the kitchen "I guess it was bound
to happen sometime she'd come here and see it but I guess it was destined to
be you who'd bring her" "What's Cody so worried about? " -- "You're spoiling
all his chance to be real secretive" -- "He hasnt come and seen us for a
whole week, that's in a way what happened, he just left me stranded there:
I've been feeling awful, too"
-- "Well if you want you can ask her to come in" "Well we're leaving in
a minute anyway, you wanta see her at least? " "I dont care" -- Cody is
sitting in the livingroom absolutely rigid, stiff, formal, with a big Irish
stone in his eye: I know he's really mad at me this time tho I dont really
know why I go out and there's Billie alone in the car over sleeping Elliott
biting her fingernail -- "You wanta come in and meet Evelyn? " -- "I
shouldnt, she wont like that, is Cody there? " -- "Yah" -- So Willamine
climbs out (I remember just then Evelyn telling me seriously that Cody
always calls his women by their full first names, Rosemarie, Joanna, Evelyn,
Willamine, he never gives them silly nicknames nor uses them). The meeting
is not eventful, of course, both girls keep their silence and hardly look at
each other so it's all me and Dave Wain carrying on with the usual boloney
and I see that Cody is really very sick and tired of me bringing gangs
arbitrarily to his place, running off with his mistress, getting drunk and
thrown out of family plays, hundred dollars or no hundred dollars he
probably feels I'm just a fool now anyway and hopelessly lost forever but I
dont realize that myself because I'm feeling good -- I want us to resume
down that road singing bawdier and darker songs till we're negotiating
narrow mountain roads at the pitch of the greatest songs.
I try to ask Cody about Perry and all the other strange characters who
visit Billie in the City but he just looks at me out of the corner eye and
says "Ah, yah, hm, "... I dont know and I never will know what he's up to
anyway in the long run: I realize I'm just a silly stranger goofing with
other strangers for no reason far away from anything that ever mattered to
me whatever that was... Always an ephemeral "visitor" to. the Coast never
really involved with anyone's lives there because I'm always ready to fly
back across the country but not to any life of my own on the other end
either, just a traveling stranger like Old Bull Balloon, an exemplar of the
loneliness of Doren Coit actually waiting for the only real trip, to Venus,
to the mountain of Mien Mo -- Tho when I look out of Cody's livingroom
window just then I do see my star still shining for me as it's done all
these 38 years over crib, out ship windows, jail windows, over sleepingbags
only now it's dummier and dimmer and getting blurreder damnit as tho even my
own star be now fading away from concern for me as I from concern for it...
In fact we're all strangers with strange eyes sitting in a midnight
livingroom for nothing -- And small talk at that, like Billie saying "I
always wanted a nice fireplace" and I'm yelling "Dont worry we got one at
the cabin hey Dave? and all the wood's chopped! " and Evelyn: -- 'What does
Monsanto think of you using his cabin all summer, weren't you supposed to go
there alone in secret? " -- "It's too late now! " I sing swigging from the
bottle without which I'd only drop with shame face flat on the floor or on
the gravel driveway -- And Dave and Romana look a little uneasy finally so
we all get up to go, zoom, and that's the last time I see Cody or Evelyn
anyway.
And as I say our songs grow mightier as the road grows darker and
wilder, finally here we are on the canyon road the headlights just reaching
out there around bleak sand shoulders -- Down to the creek where I unlock
the corral gate -- Across the meadow and back to the haunted cabin -- Where
on the strength of that night's booze and getaway gladness Billie and I
actually have a good time lighting fires and making coffee and gong to be
together in the one sleepingbag easy as pie after we've bundled up little
Elliott and Dave and Romana have retired in his double nylon bag by the
creek in the moonlight.
No, it's the next day and night that concerns me.
The whole day begins simply enough with me getting up feeling fair and
going down to the creek to slurp up water in my palms and wash up, seeing
the languid waving of one large brown thigh over the mass of Dave's nylons
indicative of an early morning love scene, in fact Romana telling us later
at breakfast "When I woke up this morning and saw all those trees and water
and clouds I told Dave "It's a beautiful universe we created"'... A real
Adam and Eve waking up, in fact this being one of Dave's gladdest days
because he'd really wanted to get away from the City again anyway and this