Big Sur (14 page)

31

S
O 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 dont 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 Milarepa 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 dont 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 dont know”—“Did I kill the 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 dont understand you Perry, I 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 I 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 Jacky 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”—“I'll 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, dont you see that we're meant for each other from the beginning, didnt 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 him and in fact I dont like you 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 sing-song 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 GOOFBOOK, 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 aint 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.”