Recovery (9 page)
Authors: John Berryman
âThis dream was supposed to be a picture of my true life; but all it is is
a
picture of my illness
and delusions (grandeur etc).'
a
picture of my illness
and delusions (grandeur etc).'
As on wore the long day, dreary, and a pitiless dinner, and a three-drunkalogue âlecture,' the worse he felt. Shortly after ten he took the pad on his thigh and set briskly down:
Â
âRevision
of Dream
of Dream
âPractically everything in the dream is wrong.
1.
I would put together the borrowing of money to go drink, and the
not
telling Dr Rome's group (which I minimize and bypass); interpret them with Gene's idea that my “honest” last-minute doubts about the first part of Step One was a defence to get out of treatment.
I would put together the borrowing of money to go drink, and the
not
telling Dr Rome's group (which I minimize and bypass); interpret them with Gene's idea that my “honest” last-minute doubts about the first part of Step One was a defence to get out of treatment.
2.
I would wipe out all the sex stuff as a pathetic attempt to prove to Julitta that my sex life
is so
relevant here. (It's not.)
I would wipe out all the sex stuff as a pathetic attempt to prove to Julitta that my sex life
is so
relevant here. (It's not.)
3.
I would refuse to be the amphitheatre; or, if I agreed to try, I would fail. Alan looks like hell, with his mysterious mission
(“supposed
to be”) and then his con-man outfit (vest and all); but as a matter of fact,
I
am
him.
We need an entirely new dream. I leave that up to my mangled (by me) but surviving and adorable “child.”
I would refuse to be the amphitheatre; or, if I agreed to try, I would fail. Alan looks like hell, with his mysterious mission
(“supposed
to be”) and then his con-man outfit (vest and all); but as a matter of fact,
I
am
him.
We need an entirely new dream. I leave that up to my mangled (by me) but surviving and adorable “child.”
âI was
surprised
Friday by my
surprise
at being so comfortable as an amphitheatre; since “that is what I am.”
surprised
Friday by my
surprise
at being so comfortable as an amphitheatre; since “that is what I am.”
âYesterday and today, I
am still
surprised, but for a very different reason: didn't the deluded son-of-a-bitch
recognize
his delusion?!'
am still
surprised, but for a very different reason: didn't the deluded son-of-a-bitch
recognize
his delusion?!'
Â
He relaxed in his chair with a sense of angry out-of-the-woods triumph but also with disappointment at the level of
grief. Just one failure more! Many months would pass, not until one rainy morning nearly ten months later would he be able to write, with sudden realization: âYes. Contract One
was
indispensable. So long as I considered my self as merely the medium of (arena for) my powers, sobriety was out of the question: no care for self (“You were not responsible for
yourself,”
as Vin said).
grief. Just one failure more! Many months would pass, not until one rainy morning nearly ten months later would he be able to write, with sudden realization: âYes. Contract One
was
indispensable. So long as I considered my self as merely the medium of (arena for) my powers, sobriety was out of the question: no care for self (“You were not responsible for
yourself,”
as Vin said).
âThe even deeper delusion that my science and art
depended
on my drinking, or at least
were
connected with it, could not be attacked directly. Too far down. The cover had to be exploded off, then the under-madness simply withered away, for lack of sustenance and protection.
depended
on my drinking, or at least
were
connected with it, could not be attacked directly. Too far down. The cover had to be exploded off, then the under-madness simply withered away, for lack of sustenance and protection.
âNo effect, maybe, on the
apparent
difficulty, the stated Contract. So what? Who ever
died
of mismanagement of his fame or lack of peace with it or my impediments to its shameless enjoyment? It's only Whiskey kills.'
apparent
difficulty, the stated Contract. So what? Who ever
died
of mismanagement of his fame or lack of peace with it or my impediments to its shameless enjoyment? It's only Whiskey kills.'
Severance was a conscientious man. He had really thought, off and on for twenty years, that it was his duty to drink, namely, to sacrifice himself. He saw the products as worth it. Maybe they wereâif there had been any connexion.
Â
An electrical storm, trivial compared to Long Island's but a very decent try on its own (Bâ), imposed the survival of the outside world briefly on Ward W and Severance was interested in the duologue that ushered Harry out into itâOld Harry, he thought of him as, though it was to turn out much later that Harry was several years younger than Middle-aged (Old he thought of himself as, but Younger) Alan.
Harley began Group on Thursday with, âHarry. You took your Fifth Step yesterday.'
âThat's right.' Harry looked like a benign lizard, long, half-drowsy, low-keyed, Permian.
âHow was it?'
âSeemed to go all right. He gave me some advice. Not bad at all.'
âWe're discharging you today. You'll check in with Ray right nowâyou know where his office is? and then the Cashier over in Main and you're off. How do you feel about going home.'
âBe nice, I guess. Never liked the food here.'
âWhat are your plans?'
âNo great plans. Work a little maybe. Keep out of trouble.' He grinned.
It seemed to Alan Severance a
hell
of a Programme but he had to admit Harry was utterly relaxed. He wished he was. After all, he took it in as if afresh,
tension
was required to make a recovering alcoholic drink. How could tension be avoidedâhis life was built on it.
hell
of a Programme but he had to admit Harry was utterly relaxed. He wished he was. After all, he took it in as if afresh,
tension
was required to make a recovering alcoholic drink. How could tension be avoidedâhis life was built on it.
âNo problems, eh?' But Harley was smiling too.
âOh, I'm very worried, but I don't let it worry me none.' He winked at Mary-Jane, actually winked. And that was it.
Long afterward, when he had grown to feel the power of Harry's long, distinguished silences, this little scene recurred to Severance's mind one afternoon and without knowing why, he applied to it the remark of some great conductor, that he would require a far larger orchestra than had ever yet been assembled, in order to produce real silence.
THE LAST TWO
FIRST STEPS
FIRST STEPS
The eternal gates terrific porter lifted the northern bar.
Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown.
Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown.
Â
Â
I
RREGULAR PROGRESS but, undoubtedly, some. Too many plus-strokes pistoning in from qualified sources for entire doubt. Of course the big tests had not come yet, and his private struggles with the ack-ack First Step were, so far, privateâhe reported faithfully, without any attempt at fullness, to Ruth every evening or so, but she did not take in at all what he was talking about in that stratosphere. Otherwise they were getting on brilliantly. Cozy over the on-coming Him or Her. Only one blow-up: the interviews. In Group, the red heart after all, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was going like a house afire, confronting and levelling, helping everybody reachable. No doubt he was talking too much, as ever, but not only had nobody said so but Keg had actually complimented him while leaving one twelve-fifteen, though he couldn't recall what on. Ten o'clock was almost a pleasure. His Jewish studies were fascinating Severance. his disciplines were rigorous, his room was shipshape, his talks three mornings a week with Dr Gullixson were banquets of approval, only (really) his scrotum was bothering him to any serious degree. It was so sensitive he could hardly walk. He widened his thighs and went slow. Why hadn't he complained to anybody, he wondered. After all he was
in a hospital. Severance was aware that he stood pain remarkably well, considering the delicacy of his nervous organization, short of course of the crushing of his greater occipital nerve (in a muscle spasm apparently) that had put him in hospital for two months the year before, out a few weeks in daily massage-and-heat and then when they began traction, back in hospital on Demerol; he gave himself no credit for this; he considered his stoicism (various people had used the word off and on for years) idiotic; he knew he was a fool for not seeking help. Why suffer? But he did. He had not examined it, even in the shower either yesterday or the day before or today. He had not, certainly, examined it. No indeed. The less he heard thought saw imagined and above all
felt
about it, the better. It would probably
not kill
him. In fact he expected it to go away, any minute, and felt hurt, or outraged rather, as it mysteriously and worseningly didn't.
RREGULAR PROGRESS but, undoubtedly, some. Too many plus-strokes pistoning in from qualified sources for entire doubt. Of course the big tests had not come yet, and his private struggles with the ack-ack First Step were, so far, privateâhe reported faithfully, without any attempt at fullness, to Ruth every evening or so, but she did not take in at all what he was talking about in that stratosphere. Otherwise they were getting on brilliantly. Cozy over the on-coming Him or Her. Only one blow-up: the interviews. In Group, the red heart after all, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was going like a house afire, confronting and levelling, helping everybody reachable. No doubt he was talking too much, as ever, but not only had nobody said so but Keg had actually complimented him while leaving one twelve-fifteen, though he couldn't recall what on. Ten o'clock was almost a pleasure. His Jewish studies were fascinating Severance. his disciplines were rigorous, his room was shipshape, his talks three mornings a week with Dr Gullixson were banquets of approval, only (really) his scrotum was bothering him to any serious degree. It was so sensitive he could hardly walk. He widened his thighs and went slow. Why hadn't he complained to anybody, he wondered. After all he was
in a hospital. Severance was aware that he stood pain remarkably well, considering the delicacy of his nervous organization, short of course of the crushing of his greater occipital nerve (in a muscle spasm apparently) that had put him in hospital for two months the year before, out a few weeks in daily massage-and-heat and then when they began traction, back in hospital on Demerol; he gave himself no credit for this; he considered his stoicism (various people had used the word off and on for years) idiotic; he knew he was a fool for not seeking help. Why suffer? But he did. He had not examined it, even in the shower either yesterday or the day before or today. He had not, certainly, examined it. No indeed. The less he heard thought saw imagined and above all
felt
about it, the better. It would probably
not kill
him. In fact he expected it to go away, any minute, and felt hurt, or outraged rather, as it mysteriously and worseningly didn't.
He sat with spread legs in Group while Wilbur tried to explain to Harley and Keg, especially Keg, why he called his even more elderly parents two or three (or four and fiveâthe number magnified with the pressure on him) times every single day. The telephone was a topic on Ward W. There was only one, and its use was discouraged. Severance had tried to get the Group to agree to just one call a day, limited to five minutes, for the Repeaters that is, and had had some support but not enough; Harley had asked him, with a twisted happy smile, if he was applying for a job as Counsellor. The point was:
associations outside
âthere should not
be
any. Everybody, or all who spoke (Jeree and Mary-Jane, at their opposite ends of the well-ing spectrum, were silent), agreed; except Wilbur. After he had finally been harried and battered into the admission that he spent
a good part of every day
on the phone to his goddamned parents (Wilbur was sixty-odd, and, believe Severance, it was hard to imagine that he had ever been married, though two wives had left him), the
question could be taken up of Why. âThey need me,' he said many times. His father, drunk from morning to night, was urging him to come home, and Wilbur was anxious to goâalthough they fought like madmen right through every call and it was perfectly clear to everybody but Wilbur that he got a
bang
out of holding his own against his frightful Dad from a safe telephone distance (Father's ax, kept in the kitchen
where he
drank: âI'll chop you, Wilbur, late one night, I'll chop you.'), revelling too in the fact that he himself was not only sober at the moment but being
treated
for the disease that was killing them both. âThey need me,' he said stubbornly. âThey need you sober,' Keg threw him. âNext time you drink you're fired for the last time, right? How the hell at this point in the U.S. economy, with your record, do you expectâdo you
ever
expect, Wilburâto get another job. You'll all three starve.' âDad has his pension.' âYou can live on it.' âNo. No, he won't give me a cent.' âSo
you'll
starve.' âThey need me!' âYou need yourself, you fucking deluded bastard. You'll be drinking within twenty-four hours, and we won't take you back. That's a promise. You've got to get your mind off your parents and work on a Programme that will give you, after five treatments isn't it, here and in Illinois and Minnesota, a ghost of a Chinese prayer of a chance to stay dry long enough to be of some real
help
to your miserable parents.' It was never possible to be certain whether Keg was really angry or was making with it to bring the patient out, but Severance saw him here as exasperated, at a loss. He glanced at Harley. The senior Counsellor was staring at Wilbur with what the scientist realized, with a start, was something like hopeless love. He had never seen anything quite like it. He saw that Harley the Hound, Author of Drouth in this part of the death-prone addicted country, saw himself, saw Harley of old a hundred and a hundred times, where Wilbur wasâand hurt. The guy had a heart of gold, for God's sake, he was
full of
grief
for Wilbur. So was Severance, he had to confess, but not in that degree. His not-responsible heart was comparatively a stone, he just felt
sorry
for Wilbur. There was pain all around the room.
associations outside
âthere should not
be
any. Everybody, or all who spoke (Jeree and Mary-Jane, at their opposite ends of the well-ing spectrum, were silent), agreed; except Wilbur. After he had finally been harried and battered into the admission that he spent
a good part of every day
on the phone to his goddamned parents (Wilbur was sixty-odd, and, believe Severance, it was hard to imagine that he had ever been married, though two wives had left him), the
question could be taken up of Why. âThey need me,' he said many times. His father, drunk from morning to night, was urging him to come home, and Wilbur was anxious to goâalthough they fought like madmen right through every call and it was perfectly clear to everybody but Wilbur that he got a
bang
out of holding his own against his frightful Dad from a safe telephone distance (Father's ax, kept in the kitchen
where he
drank: âI'll chop you, Wilbur, late one night, I'll chop you.'), revelling too in the fact that he himself was not only sober at the moment but being
treated
for the disease that was killing them both. âThey need me,' he said stubbornly. âThey need you sober,' Keg threw him. âNext time you drink you're fired for the last time, right? How the hell at this point in the U.S. economy, with your record, do you expectâdo you
ever
expect, Wilburâto get another job. You'll all three starve.' âDad has his pension.' âYou can live on it.' âNo. No, he won't give me a cent.' âSo
you'll
starve.' âThey need me!' âYou need yourself, you fucking deluded bastard. You'll be drinking within twenty-four hours, and we won't take you back. That's a promise. You've got to get your mind off your parents and work on a Programme that will give you, after five treatments isn't it, here and in Illinois and Minnesota, a ghost of a Chinese prayer of a chance to stay dry long enough to be of some real
help
to your miserable parents.' It was never possible to be certain whether Keg was really angry or was making with it to bring the patient out, but Severance saw him here as exasperated, at a loss. He glanced at Harley. The senior Counsellor was staring at Wilbur with what the scientist realized, with a start, was something like hopeless love. He had never seen anything quite like it. He saw that Harley the Hound, Author of Drouth in this part of the death-prone addicted country, saw himself, saw Harley of old a hundred and a hundred times, where Wilbur wasâand hurt. The guy had a heart of gold, for God's sake, he was
full of
grief
for Wilbur. So was Severance, he had to confess, but not in that degree. His not-responsible heart was comparatively a stone, he just felt
sorry
for Wilbur. There was pain all around the room.
But everybody was his own hot topic too, and you could almost see painârecede. They sat there. Nobody said anything. Gradually everybody forgot about Wilbur, including Wilbur. A long time passed. Nobody was looking at anybody. A sense began and grew in Severance of Trouble on both sides of him and across and around and up and down and outside and
inside
and Harley said pleasantly, âIt's nice to know that all of you are cured. Why don't you all go home?'
inside
and Harley said pleasantly, âIt's nice to know that all of you are cured. Why don't you all go home?'
Stung under the general lash of this, Severance let go. âI've been
fed up
for five minutes. We're all cowards. We might as well be in the Lesser Antilles, slopping rum.' To his surprise, nobody hit him. But nobody else spoke, either. Mary-Jane was slumped over, grim, depressed. âTout le monde, ou du moins bien du monde allait dans ce salon, et il n'avait rien de banal' (not exactly!); âon y respirait, en entrant' (and
staying),
âun air de discrétions et de mystère.' Sainte-Beuve on Mme Recamier's. That was the trouble, nobody dared
in
discretion. âWhat's with you, Letty?' Harley finally asked tiredly. It was the worst session they had had, and noone looked at anyone after they joined hands for the Serenity Prayer (âthe courage to change the things I can') and went slouching out.
fed up
for five minutes. We're all cowards. We might as well be in the Lesser Antilles, slopping rum.' To his surprise, nobody hit him. But nobody else spoke, either. Mary-Jane was slumped over, grim, depressed. âTout le monde, ou du moins bien du monde allait dans ce salon, et il n'avait rien de banal' (not exactly!); âon y respirait, en entrant' (and
staying),
âun air de discrétions et de mystère.' Sainte-Beuve on Mme Recamier's. That was the trouble, nobody dared
in
discretion. âWhat's with you, Letty?' Harley finally asked tiredly. It was the worst session they had had, and noone looked at anyone after they joined hands for the Serenity Prayer (âthe courage to change the things I can') and went slouching out.
At lunch, which reminded him of the two most unpopular dishes at his preparatory school (fisheyes-in-glue and Purple Passion), he listened with relief, for the fourth time, to old Alice's frenzied, gleeful recitation of how she had once done Hildegarde's hair when the singer was in Akron, âand she was just like you and meâso sweet.' Severance and several of his cronies could not understand how Alice had become an
alcoholic,
a concentrated resolute person after all, with a certain malign dignity, whereas
Alice scattered in all directions like her own white wisps and flagrant streamers, but like everybody else he was fond of her and hoped to God she would make it, if they ever let her out. (They did, a week later, and she wandered in, the following afternoon, blind-drunk, âjust to make a phone-call,' she said, as they locked her in her not yet occupied room, safe with anti-convulsant and sedative, before transferring her to Sevenâpsychiatric.) Poor old Alice, probably a better human being than he was, and in fact he knew it.
alcoholic,
a concentrated resolute person after all, with a certain malign dignity, whereas
Alice scattered in all directions like her own white wisps and flagrant streamers, but like everybody else he was fond of her and hoped to God she would make it, if they ever let her out. (They did, a week later, and she wandered in, the following afternoon, blind-drunk, âjust to make a phone-call,' she said, as they locked her in her not yet occupied room, safe with anti-convulsant and sedative, before transferring her to Sevenâpsychiatric.) Poor old Alice, probably a better human being than he was, and in fact he knew it.
Brooding on a passage in one of his Jewish books (âEven selfishness, the most dangerous of human traits, has its proper place. A modicum of it is a
sine qua non.
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” asked Hillel, going on, however, to add, “If I am for myself alone, what do I amount to?” ') he underscored âfor myself alone' and was late as usual to lecture, had to sit in the back, heard only random words, not enough to discover what the subject wasâno doubt he had heard it before, though he couldn't remember the lecturer, an intense young-middle-aged woman with a long nose and a forefingerâand was thoroughly bored. Impediments!
sine qua non.
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” asked Hillel, going on, however, to add, “If I am for myself alone, what do I amount to?” ') he underscored âfor myself alone' and was late as usual to lecture, had to sit in the back, heard only random words, not enough to discover what the subject wasâno doubt he had heard it before, though he couldn't remember the lecturer, an intense young-middle-aged woman with a long nose and a forefingerâand was thoroughly bored. Impediments!
He spent an hour in his room with the Big Book, Chapter V. Meat all over. If only he had had his brain with him at Howarden. Easing his awful crotchânot the crotch precisely, somewhere southwest on the scrotum, an acre of the scrotumâhe read slowly. âWe were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker,
as we understood Him
(no trouble there, thank God himself, Father Boniface, and Vin): “God, I offer myself to Theeâto build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. [Double margin-marks.] Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.” '
(Thy
Way of
my
life. A heavy saying, as Origen described, âMany are
called, but few are chosen.') â“May I do Thy Will Always!” We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves [double underscoring] to Him.' The opening words of the Step drifted into Severance's open mind, and he realized âwith a physical startâthat he had never actually
âMade
a
decision
to turn our will and our lives over to the care of.' He had tried to
do
it, all right, off and on, off and on, but the
decision?
He
stood up,
feeling quite unlike himself, and went and opened the door and hurried down the corridor to the nurses' station and right and crossed in front of the elevators to the chapel door and opened it and entered and without genuflecting knelt down in the first pew on the right and without even crossing himself leant his elbows on the rail and clasped his hands very tightly and bowed his head and took the Third Step. Christ. Afterward he probably prayed for a long time, who knows, feeling easy and light and amazed at not having ever done this before and, âjust the
decision
ânow it's up to Him tooâI can't do it allâHe
knows
that, for Christ's sake, He made me up, He knows what's possible to me and what's just
not
(at this point) possibleâGod and I are a majority, as somebody said,' and when he finally stood up in the dusky empty chapel he felt as if a weighty knapsack had been hoisted off from between his shoulders, he felt
possible.
âHurrah,' he said in a low voice to the light on the altar as he genuflected and turned back out.
as we understood Him
(no trouble there, thank God himself, Father Boniface, and Vin): “God, I offer myself to Theeâto build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. [Double margin-marks.] Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.” '
(Thy
Way of
my
life. A heavy saying, as Origen described, âMany are
called, but few are chosen.') â“May I do Thy Will Always!” We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves [double underscoring] to Him.' The opening words of the Step drifted into Severance's open mind, and he realized âwith a physical startâthat he had never actually
âMade
a
decision
to turn our will and our lives over to the care of.' He had tried to
do
it, all right, off and on, off and on, but the
decision?
He
stood up,
feeling quite unlike himself, and went and opened the door and hurried down the corridor to the nurses' station and right and crossed in front of the elevators to the chapel door and opened it and entered and without genuflecting knelt down in the first pew on the right and without even crossing himself leant his elbows on the rail and clasped his hands very tightly and bowed his head and took the Third Step. Christ. Afterward he probably prayed for a long time, who knows, feeling easy and light and amazed at not having ever done this before and, âjust the
decision
ânow it's up to Him tooâI can't do it allâHe
knows
that, for Christ's sake, He made me up, He knows what's possible to me and what's just
not
(at this point) possibleâGod and I are a majority, as somebody said,' and when he finally stood up in the dusky empty chapel he felt as if a weighty knapsack had been hoisted off from between his shoulders, he felt
possible.
âHurrah,' he said in a low voice to the light on the altar as he genuflected and turned back out.
Bravo you tardy bastard, he bade a happy farewell to himself, wondering if maybe one-sixteenth of it would stick. Submission, eh? Not so clear sailing for
pricks
cursed with intransigence and power like Baby, but anyway he was on record, and he didn't plan to forget it. Returning to his neat room for one minute, he wrote the Third Step below the First Step inside the front cover of his 24-Hour Book, where he had already put the names of the thirty-odd people most prominent in his treatment. Slogans were
jabbed in there too, and âAmends' notes, and he read it all carefully every morning before he read the three texts for the day. Then he trotted gaily down to the Snack Room and told Jeree, Mike M, George, and Delores stories.
pricks
cursed with intransigence and power like Baby, but anyway he was on record, and he didn't plan to forget it. Returning to his neat room for one minute, he wrote the Third Step below the First Step inside the front cover of his 24-Hour Book, where he had already put the names of the thirty-odd people most prominent in his treatment. Slogans were
jabbed in there too, and âAmends' notes, and he read it all carefully every morning before he read the three texts for the day. Then he trotted gaily down to the Snack Room and told Jeree, Mike M, George, and Delores stories.
Severance was, though he had never developed a special system of breathing-just-
before
-concluding (like his old friend Jean Stafford) to keep from losing the floor, an able storyteller. He said that most of the time Ward W reminded him of the legend carved on W. C. Fields's gravestoneââI'D RATHER BE HERE THAN PHILADELPHIA' âthough on the other hand he also felt about it what that elegant veteran Maurice Chevalier replied to a reporter: âOld age is not so bad, when you consider the alternative.' Nobody knew the pineapple-juice story. âFields not only had a refrigerator-bar built into his limousine, to ingratiate himself into his roleâthat is, himselfâon the way to the set, but he drank steadily on the set: martinis. A pitcher of them. He did not however call them martinis. He called them pineapple juice. One day some wag, while Fields was on-camera, emptied the pitcher and filled it with pineapple juice. When next he went to his throne to refresh himself, he sputtered, gagged, andâhaving, like most great comedians, no more sense of humour than a flatwormâexploded. “Who's been putting pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?” ' This pleased one and all, so he went on to mention a personal experience of the sincere delusions of quite ordinary bar-drinkers, most of them probably not even alcoholics. He had done some devoted drinking in West Side bars around 23rd Street after his first wife left him, and was fascinated in some can by the column of graffiti about a certain âMary Jane.' (He winced at the incongruity of name but it was out, and true, and no matter.) Outstanding and epiphenomenal sexual qualifications, tastes, and achievements were attributed to her, beginning about seven feet high on the wall and descending, in many calligraphies, to below one's kneeâwhere some
realist had knelt down to record at the bottom his opinion. â“I don't believe,” he wrote soberly, “Mary Jane exists.” ' Non-alcoholic stories were at a premium on the ward, so this too made a hit, and Severance went away recharged to further his newest campaign against the First Step, glad that he had refrained from boasting about his Third Step insightâwhere in his chair at the end of half an hour's work he looked up suddenly from his note-making with incredulity: all his labours had been wasted or nullified.
before
-concluding (like his old friend Jean Stafford) to keep from losing the floor, an able storyteller. He said that most of the time Ward W reminded him of the legend carved on W. C. Fields's gravestoneââI'D RATHER BE HERE THAN PHILADELPHIA' âthough on the other hand he also felt about it what that elegant veteran Maurice Chevalier replied to a reporter: âOld age is not so bad, when you consider the alternative.' Nobody knew the pineapple-juice story. âFields not only had a refrigerator-bar built into his limousine, to ingratiate himself into his roleâthat is, himselfâon the way to the set, but he drank steadily on the set: martinis. A pitcher of them. He did not however call them martinis. He called them pineapple juice. One day some wag, while Fields was on-camera, emptied the pitcher and filled it with pineapple juice. When next he went to his throne to refresh himself, he sputtered, gagged, andâhaving, like most great comedians, no more sense of humour than a flatwormâexploded. “Who's been putting pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?” ' This pleased one and all, so he went on to mention a personal experience of the sincere delusions of quite ordinary bar-drinkers, most of them probably not even alcoholics. He had done some devoted drinking in West Side bars around 23rd Street after his first wife left him, and was fascinated in some can by the column of graffiti about a certain âMary Jane.' (He winced at the incongruity of name but it was out, and true, and no matter.) Outstanding and epiphenomenal sexual qualifications, tastes, and achievements were attributed to her, beginning about seven feet high on the wall and descending, in many calligraphies, to below one's kneeâwhere some
realist had knelt down to record at the bottom his opinion. â“I don't believe,” he wrote soberly, “Mary Jane exists.” ' Non-alcoholic stories were at a premium on the ward, so this too made a hit, and Severance went away recharged to further his newest campaign against the First Step, glad that he had refrained from boasting about his Third Step insightâwhere in his chair at the end of half an hour's work he looked up suddenly from his note-making with incredulity: all his labours had been wasted or nullified.
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