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time with a pretty doll, and's brought his surf casting gear planning a big
day -- And we've brought a lot of good food -- The only trouble is there's
no more wine so Dave and Romana go off in Willie to get some more anyway at
a store thirteen miles south down the highway -- Billie and I are alone
talking by the fire... I begin to feel extremely low as soon as last night's
alcohol wears off.
Everything is trembly again, the trembling hand, I cant for a fact even
light the fire and Billie has to do it -- "I cant light a fire any more! " I
yell... "Well I can" she says in a rare instance when she lets me have it
for being such a nut -- Little Elliott is constantly pulling at her asking
this and that, "What is that stick for, to put in the fire? why? how does it
burn? why does it burn? where are we? when are we leaving" and the pattern
develops where she begins to talk to him instead of me anyway because I'm
just sitting there staring at the floor sighing -- Later when he takes his
nap we go down the path to the beach, about noon, both of us sad and silent
-- "What's the matter I wonder" I say out loud -- She: 'Everything was
alright last night when we slept in the bag together now you wont even hold
my hand... goddamit I'm going to kill myself! " -- Because I've begun to
realize in my soberness that this thing has come too far, that I dont love
Billie, that I'm leading her on, that I made a mistake dragging everyone
here, that I simply wanta go home now, I'm just plumb sick and tired just
like Cody I guess of the whole nervewracking scene bad enough as it is
always pivoting back to this poor haunted canyon which again gives me the
willies as we walk under the bridge and come to those heartless breakers
busting in on sand higher than earth and looking like the heartlessness of
wisdom -- Besides I suddenly notice as if for the first time the awful way
the leaves of the canyon that have managed to be blown to the surf are all
hesitantly advancing in gusts of wind then finally plunging into the surf,
to be dispersed and belted and melted and taken off to sea -- I turn around
and notice how the wind is just harrying them off trees and into the sea,
just hurrying them as it were to death -- In my condition they look human
trembling to that brink -- Hastening, hastening -- In that awful huge roar
blast of autumn Sur wind.
Boom, clap, the waves are still talking but now I'm sick and tired of
whatever they ever said or ever will say -- Billie wants me to stroll with
her down towards the caves but I dont want to get up from the sand where I'm
sitting back to boulder... She goes alone -- I suddenly remember James Joyce
and stare at the waves realizing "All summer you were sitting here writing
the so called sound of the waves not realizing how deadly serious our life
and doom is, you fool, you happy kid with a pencil, dont you realize you've
been using words as a happy game -- all those marvelous skeptical things you
wrote about graves and sea death it's ALL TRUE YOU FOOL! Joyce is dead! The
sea took him! it will take YOU! " and I look down the beach and there's
Billie wading in the treacherous undertow, she's already groaned several
times earlier (seeing my indifference and also of course the hopelessness at
Cody's and the hopelessness of her wrecked apartment and wretched life)
"Someday I'm going to commit suicide, " I suddenly wonder if she's going to
horrify the heavens and me too with a sudden suicide walk into those awful
undertows... I see her sad blonde hair flying, the sad thin figure, alone by
the sea, the leaf-hastening sea, she suddenly reminds me of something... I
remember her musical sighs of death and I see the words clearly imprinted in
my mind over her figure in the sand: -- ST CAROLYN BY THE SEA -- "You were
my last, chance" she's said but dont all women say that?... But can it be by
"last chance" she doesnt mean mere marriage but some profoundly sad
realization of something in me she really needs to go on living, at least
that impression coming across anyway on the force of all the gloom we've
shared -- Can it be I'm withholding from her something sacred just like she
says, or am I just a fool who'll never learn to have a decent eternally
minded deepdown relation with a woman and keep throwing that away for a song
at a bottle? -- In which case my own life is over anyway and there are the
Joycean waves with their blank mouths saying "Yes that's so, " and there are
the leaves hurrying one by one down the sand and dumping in -- In fact the
creek is freighting hundreds more of them a minute right direct from the
back hills -- That big wind blasts and roars, it's all yellow sunny and blue
fury everywhere -- I see the rocks wobble as it seems God is really getting
mad for such a world and's about to destroy it: big cliffs wobbling in my
dumb eyes: God says "It's gone too far, you're all destroying everything one
way or the other wobble boom the end is NOW. " 'The Second Coming, tick
lock, " I think shuddering -- St Carolyn by the Sea is going in further -- I
could run and go see her but she's so far away -- I realize that if that nut
is going to try this I'll have to make an awful run and swim to get her -- I
get up and edge over but just then she turns around and starts back... "And
if 1 call her "that nut" in my secret thoughts wonder what she calls me? "
-- O hell, I'm sick of life -- If I had any guts I'd drown myself in that
tiresome water but that wouldnt be getting it over at all, I can just see
the big transformations and plans jellying down there to curse us up in some
other wretched suffering form eternities of it -- I guess that's what the
kid feels -- She looks so sad down there wandering Ophelialike in bare feet
among thunders.
On top of that now here come the tourists, people from other cabins in
the canyon, it's the sunny season and they're out two three times a week,
what a dirty look I get from the elderly lady who's apparently heard about
the "author" who was secretly invited to Mr Monsanto's cabin but instead
brought gangs and bottles and today worst of all trollopes -- (Because in
fact earlier that morning Dave and Romana have already made love on the sand
in broad daylight visible not only to others down the beach but from that
high new cabin on the shoulder of the cliff) (tho hidden from sight from the
bridge by cliffwall) -- So it's all well known news now there's a ball going
on in Mr Monsanto's cabin and him not even here -- This elderly lady being
accompanied by children of all kinds -- So that when Billie returns from the
far end of the beach and starts back with me down the path (and I'm silly
with a big footlong wizard pipe in my mouth trying to light it in the wind
to cover up) the lady gives her the once over real close but Billie only
smiles lightly like a little girl and chirps hello.
I feel like the most disgraceful and nay disreputablewretch on earth,
in fact my hair is blowing in beastly streaks across my stupid and moronic
face, the hangover has now worked paranoia into me down to the last pitiable
detail. Back at the cabin I cant chop wood for fear I'll cut a foot off, I
cant sleep, I cant sit, I cant pace, I keep going to the creek to drink
water till finally I'm going down there a thousand times making Dave Wain
wonder as he's come back with more wine -- We sit there slugging out of our
separate bottles, in my paranoia I begin to wonder why I get to drink just
the one bottle and he the other -- But he's gay "I am now going out surf
castin and catch us a grabbag of fish for a marvelous supper; Romana you get
the salad ready and anything else you can think of; we'll leave you alpne
now" he adds to gloomy me and Billie thinking he's in our way, "and say, why
dont we go to Nepenthe and private our grief tonight and enjoy the moonlight
on the terrace with Manhattans, or go see Henry Miller? " -- "No! " I almost
yell, "I mean I'm so exhausted I dont wanta do anything or see anybody'...
(already feeling awful guilt about Henry Miller anyway, we've made an
appointment with him about a week ago and instead of showing up at his
friend's house in Santa Cruz at seven we're all drunk at ten calling long
distance and poor Henry just said "Well I'm sorry I dont get to meet you
Jack but I'm an old man and at ten o'clock it's time for me to go to bed,
you'd never make it here till after midnight now') (his voice on the phone
just like on his records, nasal, Brooklyn, goodguy voice, and him
disappointed in a way because he's gone to the trouble of writing the
preface to one of my books) (tho I suddenly now think in my remorseful
paranoias 'Ah the hell with it he was only gettin in the act like all these
guys write prefaces so you dont even get to read the author first') (as an
example of how really psychotically suspicious and loco I was getting).
Alone with Billie's even worse -- "I cant see anything to do now, " she
says by the fire like an ancient Salem housewife ('Or Salem witch? " I'm
leering) -- "I could have Elliott taken care of in a private home or an
orphanage and just go to a nunnery myself, there's a lot of them around --
or I could kill myself and Elliott both" -- "Dont talk like that" --
"There's no other way to talk when there's no more directions to take" --
"You've got me all wrong I wouldnt be any good for you" -- "I know that now,
you want to be a hermit you say but you dont do it much I noticed, you're
just tired of life and wanta sleep, in a way that's how I feel too only I've
got Elliott to worry about... I could take both our lives and solve that" --
'You, creepy talk" -- 'You told me the first night you loved me, that I was
most interesting, that you hadn't met anyone you liked so much then you just
went on drinking, I really can see now what they say about you is true: and
all the others like you: O I realize you're a writer and suffer through too
much but you're really ratty sometimes... but even that I know you cant help
and I know you're not really ratty but awfully broken up like you explained
to me, the reasons
... but you're always groaning about how sick you are, you really dont
think about others enough and I KNOW you cant help it, it's a curious
disease a lot of us have anyway only better hidden sometimes... but what you
said the first night and even just now about me being St Carolyn in the Sea,
why dont you follow through with what your heart knows is Good and best and
true, you give up so easy to discouragement... then I guess too you dont
really want me and just wanta go home and resume your own life maybe with
Louise your girlfriend'... "No I couldn't with her either. I'm just bound up
inside like constipation, I cant move emotionally like you'd say emotionally
as tho that was some big grand magic mystery everybody saying "O how
wonderful life is, how miraculous, God made this and God made that", how do
you know he doesnt hate what He did: He might even be drunk and not noticing
what he went and done tho of course that's not true" -- "Maybe God is dead"
-- "No, God cant be dead because He's the unborn'... "But you have all those
philosophies and sutras you were talking about" -- 'But dont you see they've
all become empty words, I realize I've been playing like a happy -- child
with words words words in a big serious tragedy, look around" -- "You could
make some effort, damn it! "
But what's even ineffably worse is that the more she advises me and
discusses the trouble the worse and worse it gets, it's as tho she didn't
know what she was doing, like an unconscious witch, the more she tries to
help the more I tremble/almost too realizing she's doing it on purpose and
knows she's witching me but it's all gotta be formally understood as "help"
dingblast it -- She must be some kind of chemical counterpart to me, I just
cant stand her for a minute, I'm racked with guilt because all the evidence
there seems to say she's a wonderful person sympathizing in her quiet sad
musical voice with an obvious rogue nevertheless none of these rational
guilts stick -- All I feel is the invisible stab from her -- She's hurting
me! -- At some points in our conversation I'm a veritable ham actor jumping
up to twitch my head, that's the effect she has -- "What's the matter? " she
asks softly -- Which makes me almost scream and I've never screamed in my
life -- It's the first time in my life I'm not confident I can hold myself
together no matter what happens and be inly calm enough to even smile with
condescension at the screaming hysterias of women in madwards -- I'm in the
same madward all of a sudden... And what's happened? what's caused it...
"Are you driving me mad on purpose? " I finally blurt... But naturally she
protests I'm talking out of my head, there's no such evident intention
anywhere, we're just on a happy weekend in the country with friends. "Then
there's something wrong with ME! " I yell -- "That's obvious but why dont
you try to calm down and for instance like make love to me, I've been
begging you all day and all you do is groan and turn away as tho I was an
ugly old bat" -- She comes and offers herself to me softly and gently but I
just stare at my quivering wrists -- It's really very awful -- It's hard to
explain -- Besides then the little boy is constantly coming at Billie when
she kneels at my lap or sits on it or tries to soothe my hair and comfort
me, he keeps saying in the same pitiful voice "Dont do it Billie dont do it
Billie dont do it Billie" till finally she has to give up that sweet
patience of hers where she answers his every little pathetic question and
yell "Shut up! Elliott will you shut upl DO I have to beat you again! " and
I groan "No! " but Elliott yells louder "Dont do it Billie dont do it Billie
dont do it Billie! " so she sweeps him off and starts whacking him
screamingly on the porch and I am about to throw in the towel and gasp up my
last, it's horrible.
Besides when she beats Elliott she herself cries and then will be
yelling madwoman things like "I'll kill both of us if you dont stop, you
leave me no alternative! O my child! " suddenly picking him up and embracing
him rocking tears, and gnashing of hair and all under those old peaceful
blue-jay trees where in fact the jays are still waiting for their food and
watching all this -- Even so Alf the Sacred Burro is in the yard waiting for
somebody to give him an apple -- I look up at the sun going down golden
throughout the insane shivering canyon, that blasted rogue wind comes
topping down trees a mile away with an advancing roar that when it hits the
broken cries of mother and son in grief are blown away with all those crazy
scattering leaves -- The creek screeches -- A door bangs horribly, a shutter
follows suit, the house shakes -- I'm beating my knees in the din and cant
even hear that. 'What's I got to do with you committing suicide anyway? "
I'm yelling -- "Alright, it has nothing to do with you" -- "So okay you have
no husband but at least you've got little Elliott, he'll grow up and be
okay, you can always meanwhile go on with your job, get married, move away,
do something, maybe it's Cody but more than that I'd say it's all those mad
characters making you insane and wanta kill yourself like that -- Perry... "
-- "Dont talk about Perry, he's wonderful and sweet and I love him and he's
much kinder to me than you'll ever be: at least he gives of himself -- "But
what's all this giving of ourselves, what's there to give that'll help
anybody'... "You'll never know you're so wrapped up in yourself -- We're now
starting to insult each other which would be a healthy sign except she keeps
breaking down and crying on my shoulder more or less again insisting I'm her
last chance (which isnt true)... "Let's go to a monastery together, " she
adds madly... "Evelyn, I mean Billie you might go to a nunnery at that, by
God get thee to a nunnery, you look like you'd make a nun, maybe that's what
you need all that talk about Cody about religion maybe all this worldly
horror is just holding you back from what you call your true realizing, you
could become a big reverend mother someday with not a worry on your mind tho
I met a reverend mother once who cried... ah it's all so sad" -- "What did
she cry about? " -- "I dont know, after talking to me, I remember I said
some silly things like "the universe is a woman because it's round" but I
think she cried because she was remembering her early days when she had a
romance with some soldier who died, at least that's what they say, she was
the greatest woman I ever saw, big blue eyes, big smart woman... you could
do that, get out of this awful mess and leave it all behind" -- "But I love
love too much for that" -- "And not because you're sensual either you poor
kid" -- In fact we quiet down a little and do actually make love in spite of
Elliott pulling at her 'Billie don't do it don't do it Billie don't do it"
till right in the middle I'm yelling "Don't do what? what's he mean? -- can
it be he's right and Billie you shouldnt do it? can it be we're sinning
after all's said and done? O this is insane! -- but he's the most insane of
them all, " in fact the child is up on bed with us tugging at her shoulder
just like a grownup jealous lover trying to pull a woman off another man
(she being on top indication of exactly how helpless and busted down I've
become and here it is only four in the afternoon) -- A little drama going on
in the cabin maybe a little different than what cabins are intended for or
the local neighbors are imagining.
But there's an awful paranoiac element sometimes in orgasm that
suddenly releases not sweet genteel sympathy but some token venom that
splits up in the body -- I feel a great ghastly hatred of myself and
everything, the empty feeling far from being the usual relief is now as tho
I've been robbed of my spinal power right down the middle on purpose by a
great witching force -- I feel evil forces gathering down all around me,
from her, the kid, the very walls of the cabin, the trees, even the sudden
thought of Dave Wain and Romana is evil, they're all coming now -- I leave
poor Billie face in hand and rush off to drink water in the creek but every
time I do something like that I have to run back to be sorry and say so, but
the moment I see her again "She's doing something else" I leer and I don't
feel sorry at all -- She's mumbling face in hands and the little boy's
crying at her side -- "My God she should get to a nunnery! " I think rushing
back to the creek... Suddenly the water in the creek tastes different as tho
somebody's thrown gasoline or kerosene in it upstream -- 'Maybe those
neighbors wanta get back at me that's what! " -- I taste the water carefully
and I'm positive that's what happened.
Like an idiot I'm sitting by the creek staring when Dave Wain comes
striding down with one fish on the line and his big cheerful western twang
as tho nothing unusual's happened "Well boy I spent a whole two hours and
look what I got! one measly but beautiful pathetic as you'll see holy little
rainbow sea trout that I'm now going to clean... Now the way to clean fish
is as follows, " and he kneels innocently by the creek to show me how -- I
have nothing else to do but watch and smile -- He says: "Be prepared to be
taken on tour of Farollone Island within next two years, boy, with wild
canaries actually lighting on your boat hundreds of miles out at sea -- See
I'm tryna to save money for a fishboat of my own, I think fishing is bettern
anything and I intend to entirely reorganize my life for this tho I see the
stern image of Fagan shrieking with a Roshi stick, but you ought to see how
fast you can bait up hundreds of herring and clean salmon in one and a half
minutes, it's a fact, and you walk about in hickory shirts and wool knit
caps -- Man I know all about it and I'm writing a final definitive article
on how clean hard work is the saviour of us all -- When you're out there
it's a very primal light, fishing is -- You're a hunter -- Birds find fish
for you -- Weather drives you -- Foolish mind-hangs dissolve before utter
fatigue and everything comes in" -- As I squat there I imagine maybe Billie
is telling Romana what happened in the cabin and Dave'11 know in a while tho
he seems to know a lot that's going on -- He's hinted several times, like
now, "You look like you're having the worse time of your life, that kid
Elliott is enough to drive anybody crazy and Billie is sure a nervous little
wench -- Now here's the way you scale, with this here knife" -- And I marvel
that I cant be so useful and humanly simple and good enough to make small
talk to make others feel better, like Dave, there he is long and hollow of
cheeks from long drinking himself the past few weeks, but he's not
complaining or moaning in the corner like me, at least he does something
about it, he puts himself to the test -- He gives me that feeling again that
I'm the only person in the world who is devoid of human beingness, damn it,
that's true, that's the way I feel anyway -- "Ah Dave someday you and me'll
go fishing in your abandoned mining camp on the Rogue River, huh, we'll be
feeling better by then somehow gaddamit" "Well we've got to cut down on the
sauce a whole lot, Jack, " saying "Jack" sadly a lot like Jarry Wagner used
to do on our Dharmabumming mountain climbs where we'd confide dolors, "yes,
and we drink too many SWEET drinks in a way, you know all that sugar and no
food is bound to upset your metabolism and fill your blood with sugar to the
point where you aint got the strength of a hen; you especially you've been
drinking nothin but sweet port and sweet Manhattans now for weeks -- I
promise you the holy flesh of this little fish will heal you, " (chuckle). I
suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death
scheme is back only now I'm gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into
it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only
an hour ago/was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this
and saying: "Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in
the glad waters of life and now look at it, here's where the fittin head's
chopped off, you dont have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to
use it for our sacrificial supper so in fact when we cook it I'm going to
say an Indian prayer for it hoping it's the same prayer the local Indians
used -- Jack in a way we might even start having fun here and make a great
week out of it! " -- "Week? " -- "I thought we was coming here for a week"
-- "Oh I said that didn't I... I feel awful about everything... I dont think
I can make it... I'm going crazy with Billie and Elliott and me too... maybe
I'll have to, maybe we'll have to leave or something, I think I'll die here"
-- And Dave is disappointed naturally and here I've already routed him up
out of his own affairs to drive down here anyway, another matter to make me
feel like a rat.
But Dave's making the best of clomping up and down the cabin preparing
the bag of cornmeal and starting the corn oil in the frying pan, Romana too
she's making an exquisite big salad with lots of mayonnaise and in fact poor
Billie is mutely helping her setting the table and the little boy is
crooning by the stove it's almost like a happy domestic scene suddenly --
Only I watch it from the porch with horrified eyes -- Also because their
shadows in the lamplight gone casting on the walls look huge and monsterlike
and witch-like and warlock-like, I'm alone in the woods with happy ghosts --
The wind is howling as the sun goes down so I go in, but I go out at once
again madly to my creek, always thinking the creek itself will give me water
that will clear away everything and reassure me forever (also remembering in
my distress Edgar Cayce's advice "Drink a lot of water') but "There's
kerosene in the water! " I yell in the wind, nobody hearing -- I feel like
kicking the creek and screaming -- I turn around and there's the cabin with
its warm interiors, the silent people inside all noticeably glum because
they cant understand anyway what's with the nut wandering in and out from
cabin to creek, silent, wan faced, stupefacted, trembling and sweating like
midsummer was on the roof and instead it's even cold now -- I sit in the
chair with my back to the door and watch Dave as he lectures on bravely.
'What we're having is a sacrificial banquet with all kinds of goodies you
see laid in a regal spread around one little delicious fish so that we all
have to pray to the fish and take tiny little bites, we only have about four
bites apiece and there's all kinds of parts of the fish where the bites are
more significant -- But beyond that the way to properly fry a freshcaught
fish is to be sure the oil is burning and furiously so when you lay the fish
in it, not burning but real hot oil, well, yeh even burning, hand me the
spat, you then gently lay the fish into the oil and create a tremendous
crackling racket" (which he does as Romana cheers) (and I glance at Billie
and she's thinking of something else like a nun in the corner) but Dave
keeps on making jokes till he actually has us all smiling -- While the fish
is cooking, tho, Romana as she's been doing all day is constantly handing me
a bite to eat, some hors d'oeuvres or piece of tomato or other, apparently
trying to help me feel better... "You've got to EAT" she and Dave keep
saying but I dont want to eat and yet they're always holding out bites to my
mouth until finally now I begin to frown thinking "What's all these bites
they keep throwing at me, poison? -- and what's wrong with my eyes, they're
all dilated black like I've had drugs, all I've had is wine, did Dave put
drugs in my wine or something? thinking it will help or something? or are
they members of a secret society that dopes people secretly the idea being
to enlighten them or something? " even as Romana is handing me a bite and I
take it from her big brown hands and chew... She's wearing purple panties
and purple bras, nothing else, just for fun, Dave's slappin her on the can
joyfully as he cooks the supper, it's some big erotic natural thing to do
for Romana, she believes in showing her beautiful big body anyway -- In fact
at one point when Billie's up leaning over a chair Dave goes behind Billie
and playfully touches her and winks at me, but I'm not of all this like a
moron and we could all be having fun such as soldiers dream the day away
imagining, dammit -- But the venoms in the blood are asexual as well as
asocial and a-everything -- "Billie's so nice and thin, like I'm used to
Romana maybe I should switch around here for variety, " says Dave at the
sizzling frying pan I look over my shoulder and see at first with a leap of
joy but then with ominous fear an enormous full moon at full fat standing
there between Mien Mo mountain and the north canyon wall, like saying to me
as I look over my trembling shoulder "Hoo doo you. "
But I say "Dave, look, as if all this wasn't enough" and I point out
the moon to him, there's dead silence in the trees and also among us inside,
there she is, vast lugubrious fullmoon that frights madmen and makes waters
wave, she's got one or two treetops silhouetted and's got that whole side of
the canyon lit up in silver Dave just looks at the moon with his tired
madness eyes (over-excited eyes, my mother'd said) and says nothing I go out
to the creek and drink water and come back and wonder about the moon and
suddenly the four shadows in the cabin area all dead silent as tho they had
conspired with the moon.
"Time to eat, Jack, " says Dave coming out on the porch suddenly -- No
one's saying anything -- I go in and sheepishly sit at the table like the
useless pioneer who doesn't do anything to help the men or please the women,
the idiot in the wagon train who nevertheless has to be fed Dave stands
there saying "Oh full moon, here is our little fish which we are now going
to partake of to feed us so that we shall be stronger; thank you Fish
people, thank you Fish God; thank you moon for making our light tonight;
this is the night of the fullmoon fish which we now consecrate with the
first delicate bite" He takes his fork and opens the little fish carefully,
it's beautifully breaded and fried and centered in a dazzle of salads and
vegetables and cornmeal johnny-cakes, he opens a funny gill, goes under,
removes a strange bite and projects it to my mouth saying "Take the first
bite Jack, just a little bite, and be sure to chew very slowly" I do so,
oily delicious bite but nothing delicious any more in my tongue -- Then the
others take their little holy bites, little Elliott's eyes shining with
delight at this wonderful game that however has started to frighten me --
For obvious reasons by now. As we eat Dave announces that he and I are sick
from too much drinking and by God we're going to reform and see to it that
we shape up, then he launches into stories as usual, ending in a talkative
ordinary supper that I think will sorta straighten me out at first but after
supper I feel even worse, "That fish has all the death of otters and mouses
and snakes right in it or something" I'm thinking -- Billie is quietly
washing the dishes without complaint, Dave is gladly smoking after-dinner
cigarettes on the porch, but here I am again mooning by the creek hiding
from all of them each five minutes tho I cant understand what makes me do
it... I HAVE to get out of there... But I have no right to STAY AWAY -- So I
keep coming back but it's all an insane revolving automatic directionless
circle of anxiety, back and forth, around and around, till they're really by
now so perturbed by my increasing silent departures and creepy returns
they're all sitting without a word by the stove but now their heads are
together and they're whispering -- From the woods I see those three shadowy
heads whispering me by the stove -- What's Dave saying? -- And why do they
look like they're plotting something further? -- Can it be it was all
arranged by Dave Wain via Cody that I would meet Billie and be driven mad
and now they've got me alone in the woods and are going to give me final
poisons tonight that will utterly remove all my control so that in the
morning I'll have to go to a hospital forever and never write another line?
-- Dave Wain is jealous because I wrote 10 novels? -- Billie has been
assigned by Cody to get me to marry her so he'll get all my money? Romana is
a member of the expert poisoning society (I've heard her mention tree
spirits already, earlier in the car, and she's sung some strange songs the
night before) -- The three of them, Dave Wain in fact the chief conspirator
because I know he does have amphetamine on his person and the needles in a
little box, just one injection of a tomato, or of a portion of fish, or
drops into a bottle of wine, and my eyes become mad wide and black like they
are now, my nerves OO ouch, this is what I'm thinking Still they sit there
by the fire in dead silence, when I tromp into the cabin in fact they all
start up again talking: sure sign -- I walk out again, "I'm going down the
road a ways" -- "Okay" -- But the moment I'm alone on the path a million
waving moony arms are thrashing around me and every hole in the cliffs and
burnt out trees I'd calmly passed a hundred times all summer in dead of fog,
now has something moving in it quickly -- I hurry back Even on the porch I'm
scared to see the familiar bushes near the outhouse or down by the broken
treetrunk -- And now a babble in the creek has somehow entered my head and
with all the rhythm of the sea waves going "Kettle blomp you're up, you rop
and dop, ligger lagger ligger" I grab my head but it keeps babbling.
Masks explode before my eyes when I close them, when I look at the moon
it waves, moves, when I look at my hands and feet they creep -- Everything
is moving, the porch is moving like ooze and mud, the chair trembles under
me -- 'Sure you dont wanta go to Nepenthe for a Manhattan Jack? " -- "No"
('Yeh and you'd dump poison in it" I think darkly but seriously hurt I could
ever allow myself to think that about poor Dave) -- And I realize the
unbearable anguish of insanity: how uninformed people can be thinking insane
people are "happy', O God, in fact it was Irwin Garden once warned me not to
think the madhouses are full of "happy nuts', "There's a tightening around
the head that hurts, there's a terror of the mind that hurts even more,
they're so unhappy and especially because they cant explain it to anybody or
reach out and be helped through all the hysterical paranoia they are really
suffering more than anyone in the world and I think in the universe in fact,
" and Irwin knew this from observing his mother Naomi who finally had to
have a lobotomy
... Which sets me thinking how nice to cut away therefore all that
agony in my forehead and STOP IT! STOP THAT BABBLING! -- Because now the
babbling's not only in the creek, as I say it's left the creek and come in
my head, it would be alright for coherent babbling meaning something but
it's all brilliantly enlightened babble that does more than mean something:
it's telling me to die because everything is over -- Everything is swarming
all over me. Dave and Romana retire again by the creek for a night's sweet
sleep. under the moon while Billie and I sit there gloomy by the fire -- Her
voice is crying: "It might make you feel better to just come in my arms" --
"I've got to try something, Billie after all I've told you I cant make you
see what's happening to me, you dont understand" -- "Come into our
sleepingbag again like last night, just sleep'... We get in naked but now
I'm not drunk I'm aware of the real tight squeeze in there and besides in my
fever I'm perspiring so much it's unbearable, her own skin is soaking wet
from mine, yet our arms arc outside in the cold -- "This won't do! " --
"What'll you do? " -- "Let's try the cot inside" but maniacally I arrange
the cot all screwy with a board on top of it forgetting to put sleepingbag
pads underneath like I'd done all summer, I simply forget all that, Billie,
poor Billie lies down with me on this absurd board thinking I'm trying to
drive my madness away by self torturing ordeals... It's ridiculous, we lie
there stiff as boards on a board -- I roll off and saying "We'll try
something else" -- I try laying out the sleepingbag on the floor of the
porch but the moment she's in my arms a mosquito comes at me, or I burst out
sweating, or I see a flash of lightning, or I hear a big roaring Hymn in my
head, or imagine a thousand people are coming down the creek talking, or the
roar of the wind is bringing flying treetrunks that will crush us -- "Wait a
minute. " I yell and get up to pace awhile and run down to drink water by
the creek where Dave and Romana are peacefully entangled -- I start cursing
Dave "Bastard's got the only decent spot there is to sleep in anyway, right
there in that sand by the creek, if he wasnt here I could sleep there and
the creek would cover the noise in my head and I could sleep there, with
Billie even, all night, bastard's got my spot, " and I kick back to the
porch
-- Poor Billie's arms are outstretched to me: "Please Jack, come on,
love me, love me" -- "I CANT" -- "But why cant you, if even we'll never see
each other again let us our last night be beautiful and something to
remember forever. " 'Like a big ideal memory for both of us, cant you give
me just that? " -- "I would if I could" I'm muttering around like a fussy
old nut inside the cabin looking for a match -- I cant even light my
cigarette, something sinister blows it out, when it's lit it mortifies my
hot mouth anyway like a mouthful of death -- I grab up another batch of bags
and blankets and start piling myself up on the other side of the porch
saying to Billie who's sighing now realizing it's hopeless "First I'll try
to take a nap by myself here then when I wake up I'll feel better and come
over to you" -- So I try that, turning over rigidly my eyes wide open
staring full fright into the dark like the time in the movie Humphrey Bogart
who's just killed his partner trying to sleep by the fire and you see his
eyes staring into the fire rigid and insane -- That's just the way I'm
staring If I try to close my eyes some elastic pulls them open again -- If I
try to turn over the whole universe turns over with me but it's no better on
the other side of the universe -- I realize I may never come out of this and
my mother is waiting for me at home praying for me because she must know
what's happening tonight, I cry out to her to pray and help me -- I remember
my cat for the first time in three hours and let out a yell that scares
Billie -- "All right Jack? "... 'Give me a little time'... But now she's
started to sleep, poor girl is exhausted, I realize she's going to abandon
me to my fate anyway and I cant help thinking she and Dave and Romana are
all secretly awake waiting for me to die -- 'For what reason? " I'm thinking
"this secret poisoning society, I know, it's because I'm a Catholic, it's a
big anti-Catholic scheme, it's Communists destroying everybody, systematic
individuals are poisoned till finally they'll have everybody, this madness
changes you completely and in the morning you no longer have the same mind
-- the drug is invented by Airapatianz, it's the brainwash drug, I always
thought that Romana was a Communist being a Rumanian, and as for Billie that
gang of hers is strange, and Cody dont care, and Dave's all evil just like I
always figured maybe" but soon my thoughts arent even as "rational" as that
any more but become hours of raving... There are forces whispering in my ear
in rapid long speeches advising and warning, suddenly other voices are
shouting, the trouble is all the voices are longwinded and talking very fast
like Cody at his fastest and like the creek so that I have to keep up with
the meaning tho I wanta bat it out of my ears -- I keep waving at my ears --
I'm afraid to close my eyes for all the turmoiled universes I see tilting
and expanding suddenly exploding suddenly clawing in to my center, faces,
yelling mouths, long haired yellers, sudden evil confidences, sudden
rat-tat-tats of cerebral committees arguing about "Jack" and talking about
him as if he wasn't there... Aimless moments when I'm waiting for more
voices and suddenly the wind explodes huge groans in the million treetop
leaves that sound like the moon gone mad -- And the moon rising higher,
brighter, shining down in my eyes now like a streetlamp -- The huddled
shadowy sleeping figures over there so coy So human and safe, I'm crying
"I'm not human any more and I'll never be safe any more, Oh what I wouldnt
give to be home on Sunday afternoon yawning because I'm bored, Oh for that
again, it'll never come back again Ma was right, it was all bound to drive
me mad, now it's done What'll I say to her? -- She'll be terrified and go
mad herself -- Oh ti Tykey, aide mue -- me who's just eaten fish have no
right to ask for brother Tyke again " An argot of sudden screamed reports
rattles through my head in a language I never heard but understand
immediately -- For a moment I see blue Heaven and the Virgin's white veil
but suddenly a great evil blue like an ink spot spreads over it, "The devil!
-- the devil's come after me tonight! tonight is the night! that's what! "
-- But angels are laughing and having a big barn dance in the rocks of the
sea, nobody cares any more -- Suddenly as clear as anything I ever saw in my
life, I see the Cross.
I see the Cross, it's silent, it stays a long time, my heart goes out
to it, my whole body fades away to it, I hold out my arms to be taken away
to it, by God I am being taken away my body starts dying and swooning out to
the Cross standing in a luminous area of the darkness, I start to scream
because I know I'm dying but I dont want to scare Billie or anybody with my
death scream so I swallow the scream and ju'st let myself go into death and
the Cross: as soon as that happens I slowly sink back to life -- Therefore
the devils are back, commissioners are sending out orders in my ear to think
anew, babbling secrets are hissed, suddenly I see the Cross again, this time
smaller and far away but just as clear and I say through all the noise of
the voices "I'm with you, Jesus, for always, thank you'... I lie there in
cold sweat wondering what's come over me for years my Buddhist studies and
pipesmoking assured meditations on emptiness and all of a sudden the Cross
is manifested to me -- My eyes fill with tears -- "We'll all be saved -- I
wont even tell Dave Wain about it, I wont go wake him up down there and
scare him, he'll know soon enough -- now I can sleep. " I turn over but it's
only begun -- It's only one o'clock in the morning and the night wears on to
the wheeling moon worse and worse till dawn by which time I've seen the
Cross again and again but there's a battle somewhere and the devils keep
coming back -- I know if I could only sleep for an hour the whole complex of
noisy brains would settle down, some control would come back somewhere
inside there, some blessing would soothe the whole issue
-- But the bat comes silently flapping around me again, I see him
clearly in the moonlight now his little head of darkness and wings that
zigzag maddeningly so you cant even get a look at them Suddenly I hear a
hum, a definite flying saucer is hovering right over those trees where the
hum must be, there are orders in there, "They're coming to get me O my God!
" -- I jump up and glare at the tree, I'm going to defend myself -- The bat
flaps in front of my face -- "The bat is their representative in the canyon,
his radar message they got, why dont they leave? doesnt Dave hear that awful
hum? " -- Billie is dead asleep but little Elliott suddenly thumps his foot,
once -- 1 realize he's not even asleep and knows everything that's going on
I lie down again and peek at him across the porch floor: I suddenly
realizing he's staring at the moon and there he goes again, thumping his
foot: he's sending messages -- He's a warlock disguised as a little boy,
he's also destroying Billie! -- I get up to look at him feeling guilty too
realizing this is all nonsense probably but he is not properly covered, his
little bare arms are outside the blankets in the cold night, he hasn't even
got a nightshirt, I curse at Billie -- 1 cover him up and he whimpers -- I
go back and lie down with mad eyes looking deep inside me, suddenly a bliss
comes over me as the sleep mechanism takes sinking hold -- And there I am
dreaming me and two kids are hired to work in the mountains on the same
"ridge" as Desolation Peak (i. e. Mien Mo Mountain again) and start with a
cliffside river crew who tell us two workers have apparently sunk in the
cliffside snow and we must lean over sheer drops and see if we can "dump
them out" or haul them in -- All we do is lie there on crumbly snow a
thousand foot fall to the river crumbling the snow off in slabs so big you
wouldn't know if men were trapped in em or not -- Not only that the bosses
have special shoes on sliders that are holding them to the safe shore (like
ski clamps) so I begin to realize they're only fooling us poor kids and we
could have fallen too (I almost do) -- (did) -- (almost) -- As observer of
the story I see it's just an annual ritualistic joke to fool the new kids on
the job who are then dispatched to the other side of the river to slump off
more snow from sheer banks in hopes of finding the lost workmen -- So we
start there on a big trip, downriver first, but en route all the peasants
tell us stories of the God Monster Machine on the other shore who makes
sounds like certain birds and owls and has a million infernal contraptions
enough to make you sick with all the slipshod windmill rickety details, as
"Observer of the story" again I see it's just a trick to make us scared when
we get there at night and hear actual natural sounds of birds, owls, etc.
thinking as green rookies in the country it's that "Monster'... Meanwhile we
sign on to go to the main mountain but I promise myself if I dont like the
work there I'll come back get my old job on Desolation -- Already our
employers have shown a murderous sense of humor -- I arrive at Mien Mo
Mountain which is like Raton Canyon again but has a large tho dry rot river
running in the wide hole and down there on many rocks are huge brooding
vultures -- Old bums row out to them and pull them clumsily off the rocks
day -- And we've brought a lot of good food -- The only trouble is there's
no more wine so Dave and Romana go off in Willie to get some more anyway at
a store thirteen miles south down the highway -- Billie and I are alone
talking by the fire... I begin to feel extremely low as soon as last night's
alcohol wears off.
Everything is trembly again, the trembling hand, I cant for a fact even
light the fire and Billie has to do it -- "I cant light a fire any more! " I
yell... "Well I can" she says in a rare instance when she lets me have it
for being such a nut -- Little Elliott is constantly pulling at her asking
this and that, "What is that stick for, to put in the fire? why? how does it
burn? why does it burn? where are we? when are we leaving" and the pattern
develops where she begins to talk to him instead of me anyway because I'm
just sitting there staring at the floor sighing -- Later when he takes his
nap we go down the path to the beach, about noon, both of us sad and silent
-- "What's the matter I wonder" I say out loud -- She: 'Everything was
alright last night when we slept in the bag together now you wont even hold
my hand... goddamit I'm going to kill myself! " -- Because I've begun to
realize in my soberness that this thing has come too far, that I dont love
Billie, that I'm leading her on, that I made a mistake dragging everyone
here, that I simply wanta go home now, I'm just plumb sick and tired just
like Cody I guess of the whole nervewracking scene bad enough as it is
always pivoting back to this poor haunted canyon which again gives me the
willies as we walk under the bridge and come to those heartless breakers
busting in on sand higher than earth and looking like the heartlessness of
wisdom -- Besides I suddenly notice as if for the first time the awful way
the leaves of the canyon that have managed to be blown to the surf are all
hesitantly advancing in gusts of wind then finally plunging into the surf,
to be dispersed and belted and melted and taken off to sea -- I turn around
and notice how the wind is just harrying them off trees and into the sea,
just hurrying them as it were to death -- In my condition they look human
trembling to that brink -- Hastening, hastening -- In that awful huge roar
blast of autumn Sur wind.
Boom, clap, the waves are still talking but now I'm sick and tired of
whatever they ever said or ever will say -- Billie wants me to stroll with
her down towards the caves but I dont want to get up from the sand where I'm
sitting back to boulder... She goes alone -- I suddenly remember James Joyce
and stare at the waves realizing "All summer you were sitting here writing
the so called sound of the waves not realizing how deadly serious our life
and doom is, you fool, you happy kid with a pencil, dont you realize you've
been using words as a happy game -- all those marvelous skeptical things you
wrote about graves and sea death it's ALL TRUE YOU FOOL! Joyce is dead! The
sea took him! it will take YOU! " and I look down the beach and there's
Billie wading in the treacherous undertow, she's already groaned several
times earlier (seeing my indifference and also of course the hopelessness at
Cody's and the hopelessness of her wrecked apartment and wretched life)
"Someday I'm going to commit suicide, " I suddenly wonder if she's going to
horrify the heavens and me too with a sudden suicide walk into those awful
undertows... I see her sad blonde hair flying, the sad thin figure, alone by
the sea, the leaf-hastening sea, she suddenly reminds me of something... I
remember her musical sighs of death and I see the words clearly imprinted in
my mind over her figure in the sand: -- ST CAROLYN BY THE SEA -- "You were
my last, chance" she's said but dont all women say that?... But can it be by
"last chance" she doesnt mean mere marriage but some profoundly sad
realization of something in me she really needs to go on living, at least
that impression coming across anyway on the force of all the gloom we've
shared -- Can it be I'm withholding from her something sacred just like she
says, or am I just a fool who'll never learn to have a decent eternally
minded deepdown relation with a woman and keep throwing that away for a song
at a bottle? -- In which case my own life is over anyway and there are the
Joycean waves with their blank mouths saying "Yes that's so, " and there are
the leaves hurrying one by one down the sand and dumping in -- In fact the
creek is freighting hundreds more of them a minute right direct from the
back hills -- That big wind blasts and roars, it's all yellow sunny and blue
fury everywhere -- I see the rocks wobble as it seems God is really getting
mad for such a world and's about to destroy it: big cliffs wobbling in my
dumb eyes: God says "It's gone too far, you're all destroying everything one
way or the other wobble boom the end is NOW. " 'The Second Coming, tick
lock, " I think shuddering -- St Carolyn by the Sea is going in further -- I
could run and go see her but she's so far away -- I realize that if that nut
is going to try this I'll have to make an awful run and swim to get her -- I
get up and edge over but just then she turns around and starts back... "And
if 1 call her "that nut" in my secret thoughts wonder what she calls me? "
-- O hell, I'm sick of life -- If I had any guts I'd drown myself in that
tiresome water but that wouldnt be getting it over at all, I can just see
the big transformations and plans jellying down there to curse us up in some
other wretched suffering form eternities of it -- I guess that's what the
kid feels -- She looks so sad down there wandering Ophelialike in bare feet
among thunders.
On top of that now here come the tourists, people from other cabins in
the canyon, it's the sunny season and they're out two three times a week,
what a dirty look I get from the elderly lady who's apparently heard about
the "author" who was secretly invited to Mr Monsanto's cabin but instead
brought gangs and bottles and today worst of all trollopes -- (Because in
fact earlier that morning Dave and Romana have already made love on the sand
in broad daylight visible not only to others down the beach but from that
high new cabin on the shoulder of the cliff) (tho hidden from sight from the
bridge by cliffwall) -- So it's all well known news now there's a ball going
on in Mr Monsanto's cabin and him not even here -- This elderly lady being
accompanied by children of all kinds -- So that when Billie returns from the
far end of the beach and starts back with me down the path (and I'm silly
with a big footlong wizard pipe in my mouth trying to light it in the wind
to cover up) the lady gives her the once over real close but Billie only
smiles lightly like a little girl and chirps hello.
I feel like the most disgraceful and nay disreputablewretch on earth,
in fact my hair is blowing in beastly streaks across my stupid and moronic
face, the hangover has now worked paranoia into me down to the last pitiable
detail. Back at the cabin I cant chop wood for fear I'll cut a foot off, I
cant sleep, I cant sit, I cant pace, I keep going to the creek to drink
water till finally I'm going down there a thousand times making Dave Wain
wonder as he's come back with more wine -- We sit there slugging out of our
separate bottles, in my paranoia I begin to wonder why I get to drink just
the one bottle and he the other -- But he's gay "I am now going out surf
castin and catch us a grabbag of fish for a marvelous supper; Romana you get
the salad ready and anything else you can think of; we'll leave you alpne
now" he adds to gloomy me and Billie thinking he's in our way, "and say, why
dont we go to Nepenthe and private our grief tonight and enjoy the moonlight
on the terrace with Manhattans, or go see Henry Miller? " -- "No! " I almost
yell, "I mean I'm so exhausted I dont wanta do anything or see anybody'...
(already feeling awful guilt about Henry Miller anyway, we've made an
appointment with him about a week ago and instead of showing up at his
friend's house in Santa Cruz at seven we're all drunk at ten calling long
distance and poor Henry just said "Well I'm sorry I dont get to meet you
Jack but I'm an old man and at ten o'clock it's time for me to go to bed,
you'd never make it here till after midnight now') (his voice on the phone
just like on his records, nasal, Brooklyn, goodguy voice, and him
disappointed in a way because he's gone to the trouble of writing the
preface to one of my books) (tho I suddenly now think in my remorseful
paranoias 'Ah the hell with it he was only gettin in the act like all these
guys write prefaces so you dont even get to read the author first') (as an
example of how really psychotically suspicious and loco I was getting).
Alone with Billie's even worse -- "I cant see anything to do now, " she
says by the fire like an ancient Salem housewife ('Or Salem witch? " I'm
leering) -- "I could have Elliott taken care of in a private home or an
orphanage and just go to a nunnery myself, there's a lot of them around --
or I could kill myself and Elliott both" -- "Dont talk like that" --
"There's no other way to talk when there's no more directions to take" --
"You've got me all wrong I wouldnt be any good for you" -- "I know that now,
you want to be a hermit you say but you dont do it much I noticed, you're
just tired of life and wanta sleep, in a way that's how I feel too only I've
got Elliott to worry about... I could take both our lives and solve that" --
'You, creepy talk" -- 'You told me the first night you loved me, that I was
most interesting, that you hadn't met anyone you liked so much then you just
went on drinking, I really can see now what they say about you is true: and
all the others like you: O I realize you're a writer and suffer through too
much but you're really ratty sometimes... but even that I know you cant help
and I know you're not really ratty but awfully broken up like you explained
to me, the reasons
... but you're always groaning about how sick you are, you really dont
think about others enough and I KNOW you cant help it, it's a curious
disease a lot of us have anyway only better hidden sometimes... but what you
said the first night and even just now about me being St Carolyn in the Sea,
why dont you follow through with what your heart knows is Good and best and
true, you give up so easy to discouragement... then I guess too you dont
really want me and just wanta go home and resume your own life maybe with
Louise your girlfriend'... "No I couldn't with her either. I'm just bound up
inside like constipation, I cant move emotionally like you'd say emotionally
as tho that was some big grand magic mystery everybody saying "O how
wonderful life is, how miraculous, God made this and God made that", how do
you know he doesnt hate what He did: He might even be drunk and not noticing
what he went and done tho of course that's not true" -- "Maybe God is dead"
-- "No, God cant be dead because He's the unborn'... "But you have all those
philosophies and sutras you were talking about" -- 'But dont you see they've
all become empty words, I realize I've been playing like a happy -- child
with words words words in a big serious tragedy, look around" -- "You could
make some effort, damn it! "
But what's even ineffably worse is that the more she advises me and
discusses the trouble the worse and worse it gets, it's as tho she didn't
know what she was doing, like an unconscious witch, the more she tries to
help the more I tremble/almost too realizing she's doing it on purpose and
knows she's witching me but it's all gotta be formally understood as "help"
dingblast it -- She must be some kind of chemical counterpart to me, I just
cant stand her for a minute, I'm racked with guilt because all the evidence
there seems to say she's a wonderful person sympathizing in her quiet sad
musical voice with an obvious rogue nevertheless none of these rational
guilts stick -- All I feel is the invisible stab from her -- She's hurting
me! -- At some points in our conversation I'm a veritable ham actor jumping
up to twitch my head, that's the effect she has -- "What's the matter? " she
asks softly -- Which makes me almost scream and I've never screamed in my
life -- It's the first time in my life I'm not confident I can hold myself
together no matter what happens and be inly calm enough to even smile with
condescension at the screaming hysterias of women in madwards -- I'm in the
same madward all of a sudden... And what's happened? what's caused it...
"Are you driving me mad on purpose? " I finally blurt... But naturally she
protests I'm talking out of my head, there's no such evident intention
anywhere, we're just on a happy weekend in the country with friends. "Then
there's something wrong with ME! " I yell -- "That's obvious but why dont
you try to calm down and for instance like make love to me, I've been
begging you all day and all you do is groan and turn away as tho I was an
ugly old bat" -- She comes and offers herself to me softly and gently but I
just stare at my quivering wrists -- It's really very awful -- It's hard to
explain -- Besides then the little boy is constantly coming at Billie when
she kneels at my lap or sits on it or tries to soothe my hair and comfort
me, he keeps saying in the same pitiful voice "Dont do it Billie dont do it
Billie dont do it Billie" till finally she has to give up that sweet
patience of hers where she answers his every little pathetic question and
yell "Shut up! Elliott will you shut upl DO I have to beat you again! " and
I groan "No! " but Elliott yells louder "Dont do it Billie dont do it Billie
dont do it Billie! " so she sweeps him off and starts whacking him
screamingly on the porch and I am about to throw in the towel and gasp up my
last, it's horrible.
Besides when she beats Elliott she herself cries and then will be
yelling madwoman things like "I'll kill both of us if you dont stop, you
leave me no alternative! O my child! " suddenly picking him up and embracing
him rocking tears, and gnashing of hair and all under those old peaceful
blue-jay trees where in fact the jays are still waiting for their food and
watching all this -- Even so Alf the Sacred Burro is in the yard waiting for
somebody to give him an apple -- I look up at the sun going down golden
throughout the insane shivering canyon, that blasted rogue wind comes
topping down trees a mile away with an advancing roar that when it hits the
broken cries of mother and son in grief are blown away with all those crazy
scattering leaves -- The creek screeches -- A door bangs horribly, a shutter
follows suit, the house shakes -- I'm beating my knees in the din and cant
even hear that. 'What's I got to do with you committing suicide anyway? "
I'm yelling -- "Alright, it has nothing to do with you" -- "So okay you have
no husband but at least you've got little Elliott, he'll grow up and be
okay, you can always meanwhile go on with your job, get married, move away,
do something, maybe it's Cody but more than that I'd say it's all those mad
characters making you insane and wanta kill yourself like that -- Perry... "
-- "Dont talk about Perry, he's wonderful and sweet and I love him and he's
much kinder to me than you'll ever be: at least he gives of himself -- "But
what's all this giving of ourselves, what's there to give that'll help
anybody'... "You'll never know you're so wrapped up in yourself -- We're now
starting to insult each other which would be a healthy sign except she keeps
breaking down and crying on my shoulder more or less again insisting I'm her
last chance (which isnt true)... "Let's go to a monastery together, " she
adds madly... "Evelyn, I mean Billie you might go to a nunnery at that, by
God get thee to a nunnery, you look like you'd make a nun, maybe that's what
you need all that talk about Cody about religion maybe all this worldly
horror is just holding you back from what you call your true realizing, you
could become a big reverend mother someday with not a worry on your mind tho
I met a reverend mother once who cried... ah it's all so sad" -- "What did
she cry about? " -- "I dont know, after talking to me, I remember I said
some silly things like "the universe is a woman because it's round" but I
think she cried because she was remembering her early days when she had a
romance with some soldier who died, at least that's what they say, she was
the greatest woman I ever saw, big blue eyes, big smart woman... you could
do that, get out of this awful mess and leave it all behind" -- "But I love
love too much for that" -- "And not because you're sensual either you poor
kid" -- In fact we quiet down a little and do actually make love in spite of
Elliott pulling at her 'Billie don't do it don't do it Billie don't do it"
till right in the middle I'm yelling "Don't do what? what's he mean? -- can
it be he's right and Billie you shouldnt do it? can it be we're sinning
after all's said and done? O this is insane! -- but he's the most insane of
them all, " in fact the child is up on bed with us tugging at her shoulder
just like a grownup jealous lover trying to pull a woman off another man
(she being on top indication of exactly how helpless and busted down I've
become and here it is only four in the afternoon) -- A little drama going on
in the cabin maybe a little different than what cabins are intended for or
the local neighbors are imagining.
But there's an awful paranoiac element sometimes in orgasm that
suddenly releases not sweet genteel sympathy but some token venom that
splits up in the body -- I feel a great ghastly hatred of myself and
everything, the empty feeling far from being the usual relief is now as tho
I've been robbed of my spinal power right down the middle on purpose by a
great witching force -- I feel evil forces gathering down all around me,
from her, the kid, the very walls of the cabin, the trees, even the sudden
thought of Dave Wain and Romana is evil, they're all coming now -- I leave
poor Billie face in hand and rush off to drink water in the creek but every
time I do something like that I have to run back to be sorry and say so, but
the moment I see her again "She's doing something else" I leer and I don't
feel sorry at all -- She's mumbling face in hands and the little boy's
crying at her side -- "My God she should get to a nunnery! " I think rushing
back to the creek... Suddenly the water in the creek tastes different as tho
somebody's thrown gasoline or kerosene in it upstream -- 'Maybe those
neighbors wanta get back at me that's what! " -- I taste the water carefully
and I'm positive that's what happened.
Like an idiot I'm sitting by the creek staring when Dave Wain comes
striding down with one fish on the line and his big cheerful western twang
as tho nothing unusual's happened "Well boy I spent a whole two hours and
look what I got! one measly but beautiful pathetic as you'll see holy little
rainbow sea trout that I'm now going to clean... Now the way to clean fish
is as follows, " and he kneels innocently by the creek to show me how -- I
have nothing else to do but watch and smile -- He says: "Be prepared to be
taken on tour of Farollone Island within next two years, boy, with wild
canaries actually lighting on your boat hundreds of miles out at sea -- See
I'm tryna to save money for a fishboat of my own, I think fishing is bettern
anything and I intend to entirely reorganize my life for this tho I see the
stern image of Fagan shrieking with a Roshi stick, but you ought to see how
fast you can bait up hundreds of herring and clean salmon in one and a half
minutes, it's a fact, and you walk about in hickory shirts and wool knit
caps -- Man I know all about it and I'm writing a final definitive article
on how clean hard work is the saviour of us all -- When you're out there
it's a very primal light, fishing is -- You're a hunter -- Birds find fish
for you -- Weather drives you -- Foolish mind-hangs dissolve before utter
fatigue and everything comes in" -- As I squat there I imagine maybe Billie
is telling Romana what happened in the cabin and Dave'11 know in a while tho
he seems to know a lot that's going on -- He's hinted several times, like
now, "You look like you're having the worse time of your life, that kid
Elliott is enough to drive anybody crazy and Billie is sure a nervous little
wench -- Now here's the way you scale, with this here knife" -- And I marvel
that I cant be so useful and humanly simple and good enough to make small
talk to make others feel better, like Dave, there he is long and hollow of
cheeks from long drinking himself the past few weeks, but he's not
complaining or moaning in the corner like me, at least he does something
about it, he puts himself to the test -- He gives me that feeling again that
I'm the only person in the world who is devoid of human beingness, damn it,
that's true, that's the way I feel anyway -- "Ah Dave someday you and me'll
go fishing in your abandoned mining camp on the Rogue River, huh, we'll be
feeling better by then somehow gaddamit" "Well we've got to cut down on the
sauce a whole lot, Jack, " saying "Jack" sadly a lot like Jarry Wagner used
to do on our Dharmabumming mountain climbs where we'd confide dolors, "yes,
and we drink too many SWEET drinks in a way, you know all that sugar and no
food is bound to upset your metabolism and fill your blood with sugar to the
point where you aint got the strength of a hen; you especially you've been
drinking nothin but sweet port and sweet Manhattans now for weeks -- I
promise you the holy flesh of this little fish will heal you, " (chuckle). I
suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death
scheme is back only now I'm gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into
it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only
an hour ago/was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this
and saying: "Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in
the glad waters of life and now look at it, here's where the fittin head's
chopped off, you dont have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to
use it for our sacrificial supper so in fact when we cook it I'm going to
say an Indian prayer for it hoping it's the same prayer the local Indians
used -- Jack in a way we might even start having fun here and make a great
week out of it! " -- "Week? " -- "I thought we was coming here for a week"
-- "Oh I said that didn't I... I feel awful about everything... I dont think
I can make it... I'm going crazy with Billie and Elliott and me too... maybe
I'll have to, maybe we'll have to leave or something, I think I'll die here"
-- And Dave is disappointed naturally and here I've already routed him up
out of his own affairs to drive down here anyway, another matter to make me
feel like a rat.
But Dave's making the best of clomping up and down the cabin preparing
the bag of cornmeal and starting the corn oil in the frying pan, Romana too
she's making an exquisite big salad with lots of mayonnaise and in fact poor
Billie is mutely helping her setting the table and the little boy is
crooning by the stove it's almost like a happy domestic scene suddenly --
Only I watch it from the porch with horrified eyes -- Also because their
shadows in the lamplight gone casting on the walls look huge and monsterlike
and witch-like and warlock-like, I'm alone in the woods with happy ghosts --
The wind is howling as the sun goes down so I go in, but I go out at once
again madly to my creek, always thinking the creek itself will give me water
that will clear away everything and reassure me forever (also remembering in
my distress Edgar Cayce's advice "Drink a lot of water') but "There's
kerosene in the water! " I yell in the wind, nobody hearing -- I feel like
kicking the creek and screaming -- I turn around and there's the cabin with
its warm interiors, the silent people inside all noticeably glum because
they cant understand anyway what's with the nut wandering in and out from
cabin to creek, silent, wan faced, stupefacted, trembling and sweating like
midsummer was on the roof and instead it's even cold now -- I sit in the
chair with my back to the door and watch Dave as he lectures on bravely.
'What we're having is a sacrificial banquet with all kinds of goodies you
see laid in a regal spread around one little delicious fish so that we all
have to pray to the fish and take tiny little bites, we only have about four
bites apiece and there's all kinds of parts of the fish where the bites are
more significant -- But beyond that the way to properly fry a freshcaught
fish is to be sure the oil is burning and furiously so when you lay the fish
in it, not burning but real hot oil, well, yeh even burning, hand me the
spat, you then gently lay the fish into the oil and create a tremendous
crackling racket" (which he does as Romana cheers) (and I glance at Billie
and she's thinking of something else like a nun in the corner) but Dave
keeps on making jokes till he actually has us all smiling -- While the fish
is cooking, tho, Romana as she's been doing all day is constantly handing me
a bite to eat, some hors d'oeuvres or piece of tomato or other, apparently
trying to help me feel better... "You've got to EAT" she and Dave keep
saying but I dont want to eat and yet they're always holding out bites to my
mouth until finally now I begin to frown thinking "What's all these bites
they keep throwing at me, poison? -- and what's wrong with my eyes, they're
all dilated black like I've had drugs, all I've had is wine, did Dave put
drugs in my wine or something? thinking it will help or something? or are
they members of a secret society that dopes people secretly the idea being
to enlighten them or something? " even as Romana is handing me a bite and I
take it from her big brown hands and chew... She's wearing purple panties
and purple bras, nothing else, just for fun, Dave's slappin her on the can
joyfully as he cooks the supper, it's some big erotic natural thing to do
for Romana, she believes in showing her beautiful big body anyway -- In fact
at one point when Billie's up leaning over a chair Dave goes behind Billie
and playfully touches her and winks at me, but I'm not of all this like a
moron and we could all be having fun such as soldiers dream the day away
imagining, dammit -- But the venoms in the blood are asexual as well as
asocial and a-everything -- "Billie's so nice and thin, like I'm used to
Romana maybe I should switch around here for variety, " says Dave at the
sizzling frying pan I look over my shoulder and see at first with a leap of
joy but then with ominous fear an enormous full moon at full fat standing
there between Mien Mo mountain and the north canyon wall, like saying to me
as I look over my trembling shoulder "Hoo doo you. "
But I say "Dave, look, as if all this wasn't enough" and I point out
the moon to him, there's dead silence in the trees and also among us inside,
there she is, vast lugubrious fullmoon that frights madmen and makes waters
wave, she's got one or two treetops silhouetted and's got that whole side of
the canyon lit up in silver Dave just looks at the moon with his tired
madness eyes (over-excited eyes, my mother'd said) and says nothing I go out
to the creek and drink water and come back and wonder about the moon and
suddenly the four shadows in the cabin area all dead silent as tho they had
conspired with the moon.
"Time to eat, Jack, " says Dave coming out on the porch suddenly -- No
one's saying anything -- I go in and sheepishly sit at the table like the
useless pioneer who doesn't do anything to help the men or please the women,
the idiot in the wagon train who nevertheless has to be fed Dave stands
there saying "Oh full moon, here is our little fish which we are now going
to partake of to feed us so that we shall be stronger; thank you Fish
people, thank you Fish God; thank you moon for making our light tonight;
this is the night of the fullmoon fish which we now consecrate with the
first delicate bite" He takes his fork and opens the little fish carefully,
it's beautifully breaded and fried and centered in a dazzle of salads and
vegetables and cornmeal johnny-cakes, he opens a funny gill, goes under,
removes a strange bite and projects it to my mouth saying "Take the first
bite Jack, just a little bite, and be sure to chew very slowly" I do so,
oily delicious bite but nothing delicious any more in my tongue -- Then the
others take their little holy bites, little Elliott's eyes shining with
delight at this wonderful game that however has started to frighten me --
For obvious reasons by now. As we eat Dave announces that he and I are sick
from too much drinking and by God we're going to reform and see to it that
we shape up, then he launches into stories as usual, ending in a talkative
ordinary supper that I think will sorta straighten me out at first but after
supper I feel even worse, "That fish has all the death of otters and mouses
and snakes right in it or something" I'm thinking -- Billie is quietly
washing the dishes without complaint, Dave is gladly smoking after-dinner
cigarettes on the porch, but here I am again mooning by the creek hiding
from all of them each five minutes tho I cant understand what makes me do
it... I HAVE to get out of there... But I have no right to STAY AWAY -- So I
keep coming back but it's all an insane revolving automatic directionless
circle of anxiety, back and forth, around and around, till they're really by
now so perturbed by my increasing silent departures and creepy returns
they're all sitting without a word by the stove but now their heads are
together and they're whispering -- From the woods I see those three shadowy
heads whispering me by the stove -- What's Dave saying? -- And why do they
look like they're plotting something further? -- Can it be it was all
arranged by Dave Wain via Cody that I would meet Billie and be driven mad
and now they've got me alone in the woods and are going to give me final
poisons tonight that will utterly remove all my control so that in the
morning I'll have to go to a hospital forever and never write another line?
-- Dave Wain is jealous because I wrote 10 novels? -- Billie has been
assigned by Cody to get me to marry her so he'll get all my money? Romana is
a member of the expert poisoning society (I've heard her mention tree
spirits already, earlier in the car, and she's sung some strange songs the
night before) -- The three of them, Dave Wain in fact the chief conspirator
because I know he does have amphetamine on his person and the needles in a
little box, just one injection of a tomato, or of a portion of fish, or
drops into a bottle of wine, and my eyes become mad wide and black like they
are now, my nerves OO ouch, this is what I'm thinking Still they sit there
by the fire in dead silence, when I tromp into the cabin in fact they all
start up again talking: sure sign -- I walk out again, "I'm going down the
road a ways" -- "Okay" -- But the moment I'm alone on the path a million
waving moony arms are thrashing around me and every hole in the cliffs and
burnt out trees I'd calmly passed a hundred times all summer in dead of fog,
now has something moving in it quickly -- I hurry back Even on the porch I'm
scared to see the familiar bushes near the outhouse or down by the broken
treetrunk -- And now a babble in the creek has somehow entered my head and
with all the rhythm of the sea waves going "Kettle blomp you're up, you rop
and dop, ligger lagger ligger" I grab my head but it keeps babbling.
Masks explode before my eyes when I close them, when I look at the moon
it waves, moves, when I look at my hands and feet they creep -- Everything
is moving, the porch is moving like ooze and mud, the chair trembles under
me -- 'Sure you dont wanta go to Nepenthe for a Manhattan Jack? " -- "No"
('Yeh and you'd dump poison in it" I think darkly but seriously hurt I could
ever allow myself to think that about poor Dave) -- And I realize the
unbearable anguish of insanity: how uninformed people can be thinking insane
people are "happy', O God, in fact it was Irwin Garden once warned me not to
think the madhouses are full of "happy nuts', "There's a tightening around
the head that hurts, there's a terror of the mind that hurts even more,
they're so unhappy and especially because they cant explain it to anybody or
reach out and be helped through all the hysterical paranoia they are really
suffering more than anyone in the world and I think in the universe in fact,
" and Irwin knew this from observing his mother Naomi who finally had to
have a lobotomy
... Which sets me thinking how nice to cut away therefore all that
agony in my forehead and STOP IT! STOP THAT BABBLING! -- Because now the
babbling's not only in the creek, as I say it's left the creek and come in
my head, it would be alright for coherent babbling meaning something but
it's all brilliantly enlightened babble that does more than mean something:
it's telling me to die because everything is over -- Everything is swarming
all over me. Dave and Romana retire again by the creek for a night's sweet
sleep. under the moon while Billie and I sit there gloomy by the fire -- Her
voice is crying: "It might make you feel better to just come in my arms" --
"I've got to try something, Billie after all I've told you I cant make you
see what's happening to me, you dont understand" -- "Come into our
sleepingbag again like last night, just sleep'... We get in naked but now
I'm not drunk I'm aware of the real tight squeeze in there and besides in my
fever I'm perspiring so much it's unbearable, her own skin is soaking wet
from mine, yet our arms arc outside in the cold -- "This won't do! " --
"What'll you do? " -- "Let's try the cot inside" but maniacally I arrange
the cot all screwy with a board on top of it forgetting to put sleepingbag
pads underneath like I'd done all summer, I simply forget all that, Billie,
poor Billie lies down with me on this absurd board thinking I'm trying to
drive my madness away by self torturing ordeals... It's ridiculous, we lie
there stiff as boards on a board -- I roll off and saying "We'll try
something else" -- I try laying out the sleepingbag on the floor of the
porch but the moment she's in my arms a mosquito comes at me, or I burst out
sweating, or I see a flash of lightning, or I hear a big roaring Hymn in my
head, or imagine a thousand people are coming down the creek talking, or the
roar of the wind is bringing flying treetrunks that will crush us -- "Wait a
minute. " I yell and get up to pace awhile and run down to drink water by
the creek where Dave and Romana are peacefully entangled -- I start cursing
Dave "Bastard's got the only decent spot there is to sleep in anyway, right
there in that sand by the creek, if he wasnt here I could sleep there and
the creek would cover the noise in my head and I could sleep there, with
Billie even, all night, bastard's got my spot, " and I kick back to the
porch
-- Poor Billie's arms are outstretched to me: "Please Jack, come on,
love me, love me" -- "I CANT" -- "But why cant you, if even we'll never see
each other again let us our last night be beautiful and something to
remember forever. " 'Like a big ideal memory for both of us, cant you give
me just that? " -- "I would if I could" I'm muttering around like a fussy
old nut inside the cabin looking for a match -- I cant even light my
cigarette, something sinister blows it out, when it's lit it mortifies my
hot mouth anyway like a mouthful of death -- I grab up another batch of bags
and blankets and start piling myself up on the other side of the porch
saying to Billie who's sighing now realizing it's hopeless "First I'll try
to take a nap by myself here then when I wake up I'll feel better and come
over to you" -- So I try that, turning over rigidly my eyes wide open
staring full fright into the dark like the time in the movie Humphrey Bogart
who's just killed his partner trying to sleep by the fire and you see his
eyes staring into the fire rigid and insane -- That's just the way I'm
staring If I try to close my eyes some elastic pulls them open again -- If I
try to turn over the whole universe turns over with me but it's no better on
the other side of the universe -- I realize I may never come out of this and
my mother is waiting for me at home praying for me because she must know
what's happening tonight, I cry out to her to pray and help me -- I remember
my cat for the first time in three hours and let out a yell that scares
Billie -- "All right Jack? "... 'Give me a little time'... But now she's
started to sleep, poor girl is exhausted, I realize she's going to abandon
me to my fate anyway and I cant help thinking she and Dave and Romana are
all secretly awake waiting for me to die -- 'For what reason? " I'm thinking
"this secret poisoning society, I know, it's because I'm a Catholic, it's a
big anti-Catholic scheme, it's Communists destroying everybody, systematic
individuals are poisoned till finally they'll have everybody, this madness
changes you completely and in the morning you no longer have the same mind
-- the drug is invented by Airapatianz, it's the brainwash drug, I always
thought that Romana was a Communist being a Rumanian, and as for Billie that
gang of hers is strange, and Cody dont care, and Dave's all evil just like I
always figured maybe" but soon my thoughts arent even as "rational" as that
any more but become hours of raving... There are forces whispering in my ear
in rapid long speeches advising and warning, suddenly other voices are
shouting, the trouble is all the voices are longwinded and talking very fast
like Cody at his fastest and like the creek so that I have to keep up with
the meaning tho I wanta bat it out of my ears -- I keep waving at my ears --
I'm afraid to close my eyes for all the turmoiled universes I see tilting
and expanding suddenly exploding suddenly clawing in to my center, faces,
yelling mouths, long haired yellers, sudden evil confidences, sudden
rat-tat-tats of cerebral committees arguing about "Jack" and talking about
him as if he wasn't there... Aimless moments when I'm waiting for more
voices and suddenly the wind explodes huge groans in the million treetop
leaves that sound like the moon gone mad -- And the moon rising higher,
brighter, shining down in my eyes now like a streetlamp -- The huddled
shadowy sleeping figures over there so coy So human and safe, I'm crying
"I'm not human any more and I'll never be safe any more, Oh what I wouldnt
give to be home on Sunday afternoon yawning because I'm bored, Oh for that
again, it'll never come back again Ma was right, it was all bound to drive
me mad, now it's done What'll I say to her? -- She'll be terrified and go
mad herself -- Oh ti Tykey, aide mue -- me who's just eaten fish have no
right to ask for brother Tyke again " An argot of sudden screamed reports
rattles through my head in a language I never heard but understand
immediately -- For a moment I see blue Heaven and the Virgin's white veil
but suddenly a great evil blue like an ink spot spreads over it, "The devil!
-- the devil's come after me tonight! tonight is the night! that's what! "
-- But angels are laughing and having a big barn dance in the rocks of the
sea, nobody cares any more -- Suddenly as clear as anything I ever saw in my
life, I see the Cross.
I see the Cross, it's silent, it stays a long time, my heart goes out
to it, my whole body fades away to it, I hold out my arms to be taken away
to it, by God I am being taken away my body starts dying and swooning out to
the Cross standing in a luminous area of the darkness, I start to scream
because I know I'm dying but I dont want to scare Billie or anybody with my
death scream so I swallow the scream and ju'st let myself go into death and
the Cross: as soon as that happens I slowly sink back to life -- Therefore
the devils are back, commissioners are sending out orders in my ear to think
anew, babbling secrets are hissed, suddenly I see the Cross again, this time
smaller and far away but just as clear and I say through all the noise of
the voices "I'm with you, Jesus, for always, thank you'... I lie there in
cold sweat wondering what's come over me for years my Buddhist studies and
pipesmoking assured meditations on emptiness and all of a sudden the Cross
is manifested to me -- My eyes fill with tears -- "We'll all be saved -- I
wont even tell Dave Wain about it, I wont go wake him up down there and
scare him, he'll know soon enough -- now I can sleep. " I turn over but it's
only begun -- It's only one o'clock in the morning and the night wears on to
the wheeling moon worse and worse till dawn by which time I've seen the
Cross again and again but there's a battle somewhere and the devils keep
coming back -- I know if I could only sleep for an hour the whole complex of
noisy brains would settle down, some control would come back somewhere
inside there, some blessing would soothe the whole issue
-- But the bat comes silently flapping around me again, I see him
clearly in the moonlight now his little head of darkness and wings that
zigzag maddeningly so you cant even get a look at them Suddenly I hear a
hum, a definite flying saucer is hovering right over those trees where the
hum must be, there are orders in there, "They're coming to get me O my God!
" -- I jump up and glare at the tree, I'm going to defend myself -- The bat
flaps in front of my face -- "The bat is their representative in the canyon,
his radar message they got, why dont they leave? doesnt Dave hear that awful
hum? " -- Billie is dead asleep but little Elliott suddenly thumps his foot,
once -- 1 realize he's not even asleep and knows everything that's going on
I lie down again and peek at him across the porch floor: I suddenly
realizing he's staring at the moon and there he goes again, thumping his
foot: he's sending messages -- He's a warlock disguised as a little boy,
he's also destroying Billie! -- I get up to look at him feeling guilty too
realizing this is all nonsense probably but he is not properly covered, his
little bare arms are outside the blankets in the cold night, he hasn't even
got a nightshirt, I curse at Billie -- 1 cover him up and he whimpers -- I
go back and lie down with mad eyes looking deep inside me, suddenly a bliss
comes over me as the sleep mechanism takes sinking hold -- And there I am
dreaming me and two kids are hired to work in the mountains on the same
"ridge" as Desolation Peak (i. e. Mien Mo Mountain again) and start with a
cliffside river crew who tell us two workers have apparently sunk in the
cliffside snow and we must lean over sheer drops and see if we can "dump
them out" or haul them in -- All we do is lie there on crumbly snow a
thousand foot fall to the river crumbling the snow off in slabs so big you
wouldn't know if men were trapped in em or not -- Not only that the bosses
have special shoes on sliders that are holding them to the safe shore (like
ski clamps) so I begin to realize they're only fooling us poor kids and we
could have fallen too (I almost do) -- (did) -- (almost) -- As observer of
the story I see it's just an annual ritualistic joke to fool the new kids on
the job who are then dispatched to the other side of the river to slump off
more snow from sheer banks in hopes of finding the lost workmen -- So we
start there on a big trip, downriver first, but en route all the peasants
tell us stories of the God Monster Machine on the other shore who makes
sounds like certain birds and owls and has a million infernal contraptions
enough to make you sick with all the slipshod windmill rickety details, as
"Observer of the story" again I see it's just a trick to make us scared when
we get there at night and hear actual natural sounds of birds, owls, etc.
thinking as green rookies in the country it's that "Monster'... Meanwhile we
sign on to go to the main mountain but I promise myself if I dont like the
work there I'll come back get my old job on Desolation -- Already our
employers have shown a murderous sense of humor -- I arrive at Mien Mo
Mountain which is like Raton Canyon again but has a large tho dry rot river
running in the wide hole and down there on many rocks are huge brooding
vultures -- Old bums row out to them and pull them clumsily off the rocks