be starting back, " he adds, 'Billie be coming home from work soon now" -- "Ah Ben, Ah Sunflower" -- "Ah shit" he says -- "It's strange" -- "Who said it wasn't" -- "I dont understand it" -- 'Dont worry about it" -- "Hmm holy room, sad room, life is a sad room" -- "All sentient beings realize that, " he says sternly -- Benjamin my real Zen Master even more than all our Georges and Arthurs actually -- "Ben I think I'm going crazy" -- "You said that to me in 1955" -- "Yeh but my brain's gettin soft from drinkin and drinkin and drinkin" -- "What you need is a cup of tea I'd say if I didn't know that you're too crazy to know how really crazy you are" -- "But why? what's going on? " -- "Did you come three thousand miles to find out? " -- "Three thousand miles from where, after all? from whiney old me" -- "That's alright, everything is possible, even Nietzsche knew that" -- "Aint nothin wrong with old Nietzsche" -- " "Xcept he went mad too" -- "Do you think I'm going mad? " -- "Ho ho ho" (hearty laugh) -- 'What's that mean, laughing at me? " -- "Nobody's laughing at you, dont get excited" -- "What'll we do now? " -- "Let's go visit the museum over there" -- There's a museum of some sort across the grass of the park so I get up wobbly and walk with old Ben across the sad grass, at one point I put my arm over his shoulder and lean on him -- "Are you a ghoul? " I ask -- 'Sure, why not? " -- "I like ghouls that let me sleep? " -- "Duluoz it's good for you to drink in a way "cause you're awful stingy with yourself when you're sober" -- "You sound like Julien" -- "I never met Julien but I understand Billie looks like him, you kept saying that before you went to sleep" -- "What happened while I was asleep? " "Oh, people went by and came back and forth and the sun sank and finally sank down and's gone now almost as you can see, what you want, just name it you got it" -- "Well I want sweet salvation" -- "What's sposed to be sweet about salvation? maybe it's sour" -- "It's sour in my mouth" -- 'Maybe your mouth is too big, or too small, salvation is for little kitties but only for awhile" -- "Did you see any little kitties today? " -- "Shore, hundreds of came to visit you while you were sleeping" -- "Really? " -- "Sure, didn't you know you were saved? " -- "Now come on! " -- "One of them was real big and roared like a lion but he had a big wet snout and kissed you and you said "Ah"" -- "What's this museum up here? " -- "Let's go in and find out'... That's the way Ben is, he doesnt know what's going on either but at least he waits to find out maybe -- But the museum is closed -- We stand there on the steps looking at the closed door -- "Hey, " I say, "the temple is closed. " So suddenly in red sundown me and Ben Fagan arm in arm are walking slowly sadly back down the broad steps like two monks going down the esplanade of Kyoto (as I imagine Kyoto somehow) and we're both smiling happily suddenly -- I feel good because I've had my sleep but mainly I feel good because somehow old Ben (my age) has blessed me by sitting over my sleep all day and now with these few silly words -- Arm in arm we slowly descend the steps without a word -- it's been the only peaceful day I've had in California, in fact, except alone in the woods, which I tell him and says "Well, who said you werent alone now? " making me realize the ghostliness of existence tho I feel his big bulging body with my hands and say: "You sure some pathetic ghost with all that ephemeral heavy crock a flesh" -- "I didn't say nottin" he laughs -- "Whatever I say Ben, dont mind it, I'm just a fool" -- "You said in 1957 in the grass drunk on whiskey you were the greatest thinker in the world" -- "That was before I fell asleep and woke up: now I realize I'm no good at all and that makes me feel free" -- "You're not even free being no good, you better stop thinking, that's all'... "I'm glad you visited me today. I think I might have died'... "It's all your fault'... "What are we gonna do with our lives? " -- "Oh, " he says, "I dunno, just watch em I guess" -- "Do you hate me?... well, do you like me?... well, how are things? " -- "The hicks are alright" -- "Anybody hex ya lately...? "... "Yeh, with cardboard games? " -- "Cardboard games? " I ask... "Well you know, they build cardboard houses and put people in them and the people are cardboard and the magician makes the dead body twitch and they bring water to the moon, and the moon has a strange ear, and all that, so I'm alright, Goof. " 'Okay. " 31 So there I am as it starts to get dark standing with one hand on the window curtain looking down on the street as Ben Fagan walks away to get the bus on the corner, his big baggy corduroy pants and simple blue Goodwill workshirt, going home to the bubble bath and a famous poem, not really worried or at least not worried about what I'm worried about tho he too carries that anguishing guilt I guess and hopeless remorse that the potboiler of time hasnt made his early primordial dawns over the pines of Oregon come true -- I'm clutching at the drapes of the window like the Phantom of the Opera behind the masque, waiting for Billie to come home and remembering how I used to stand by the windows like this in my childhood and look out on dusky streets and think how awful I was in this development everybody said was supposed to be "my life" and "their lives'. -- Not so much that I'm a drunkard that I feel guilty about but that others who occupy this plane of "life on earth" with me don't feel guilty at all -- Crooked judges shaving and smiling in the morning on the way to their heinous indifferences, respectable generals ordering soldiers by telephone to go die or drop dead, pickpockets nodding in cells saying "I never hurt anybody, " "that's one thing you can say for me, yes sir', Women who regard themselves saviors of men simply stealing their substance because they think their swan-rich necks deserve it anyway (though for every swan-rich neck you lose there's another ten waiting, each one ready to lay for a lemon), in fact awful hugefaced monsters of men just because their shirts are clean deigning to control the lives of working men by running for Governor saying "Your tax money in my hands will be aptly used, " "You should realize how valuable I am and how much you need me, without me what would you be, not led at all? " -- Forward to the big designed mankind cartoon of a man standing facing the rising sun with strong shoulders with a plough at his feet, the necktied governor is going to make hay while the sun rises -- ? -- I feel guilty for being a member of the human race -- Drunkard yes and one of the worst fools on earth -- In fact not even a genuine drunkard just a fool -- But I stand there with hand on curtain looking down for Billie, who's late, Ah me, I remember that frightening thing Mila-repa said which is other than those reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big Sur: "When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddesses and Mothers you will bring annoyance" and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand) but because if I don't write what actually I see happening in this unhappy globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I'll have been sent on earth by poor God for nothing -- Tho being a Phantom of the Opera why should that worry me? -- In my youth leaning my brow hopelessly on the typewriter bar, wondering why God ever was anyway? -- Or biting my lip in brown glooms in the parlor chair in which my father's died and we've all died a million deaths -- Only Fagan can understand and now he's got his bus -- And when Billie comes home with Elliott I smile and sit down in the chair and it utterly collapses under me, blang, I'm sprawled on the floor with surprise, the chair has gone. 'How'd that happen? " wonders Billie and at the same time we both look at the fishbowl and both the goldfishes are upsidedown floating dead on the surface of the water. I've been sitting in that chair by that fishbowl for a week drinking and smoking and talking and now the goldfish are dead. "What killed them? " "I don't know" -- "Did I kill them because I gave them some Kelloggs corn flakes? " -- "Mebbe, you're not supposed to give them anything but their fish food" -- "But I thought they were hungry so I gave them a few flicks of corn flakes" -- "Well I dont know what killed them'... "But why dont anybody know? what happened? why do they do this? otters and mouses and every damn thing dyin on all sides Billie, I cant stand it, it's all my goddam fault every time! " -- "Who said it was your fault dear? "... "Dear? you call me dear? why do you call me dear? "... "Ah, let me love you" (kissing me), "just because you dont deserve it" -- (Chastised): "Why dont I deserve it" -- "Because you say so... " -- "But what about the fish'... "I dont know, really" -- "Is it because I've been sitting in that crumbling chair all week blowing smoke on their water? and all the others smoking and all the talk? " -- But the little kid Elliott comes crawling up his mommy's lap and starts asking questions: "Billie, " he calls her, "Billie, Billie, Billie, " feeling her face, I'm almost going mad from the sadness of it all -- "What did you do all day? " -- "I was with Ben Fagan and slept in the park... Billie what are we gonna do? " -- "Anytime you say like you said, we'll get married and fly to Mexico with Perry and Elliott'... 'I'm afraid of Perry and I'm afraid of Elliott" -- "He's only a little boy" -- "Billie I dont wanta get married. I'm afraid... " -- 'Afraid? " -- "I wanta go home and die with my cat. " I could be a handsome thin young president in a suit sitting in an oldfashioned rocking chair, no instead I'm just the Phantom of the Opera standing by a drape among dead fish and broken chairs -- Can it be that no one cares who made me or why?... "Jack what's the matter, what are you talking about? " but suddenly as she's making supper and poor little Elliott is waiting there with spoon upended in fist I realize it's just a little family home scene and I'm just a nut in the wrong place -- And in fact Billie starts saying "Jack we should be married and have quiet suppers like this with Elliott, something would sanctify you forever I'm positive. " 'What have I done wrong? " -- "What you've done wrong is withhold your love from a woman like me and from previous women and future women like me -- can you imagine all the fun we'd have being married, putting Elliott to bed, going out to hear jazz or even taking planes to Paris suddenly and all the things I have to teach you and you teach me -- instead all you've been doing is wasting life really sitting around sad wondering where to go and all the time it's right there for you to take" "Supposin I dont want it" -- "That's part of the picture where you say you dont want it, of course you want... " -- "But I dont, I'm a creepy strange guy you dont even know" -- ('Cweepy? what's cweepy? Billie? what's cweepy? " is asking poor little Elliott)... And meanwhile Perry comes in for a minute and I pointblank say to him 'I don't understand you Perry, 1 love you, dig you, you're wild, but what's all this business where you wanta kidnap little girls? " but suddenly as I'm asking that I see tears in his eyes and I realize he's in love with Billie and has always been, wow I even say it, "You're in love with Billie aint ya? I'm sorry, I'm cuttin out" -- "What are you talkin about man? " -- It's a big argument then about how he and Billie are just friends so 1 start singing Just Friends like Sinatra "Two friends but not like before" but goodhearted Perry seeing me sing runs downstairs to get another bottle for me -- But nevertheless the fish are dead and the chair is broken. Perry in fact is a tragic young man with enormous potentials who's just let himself swing and float to hell I guess, unless something else happens to him soon, I look at him and realize that besides loving Billie secretly and truly he must also love old Cody as much as I do and all the world bettern I do yet he is the character who is always being put away behind bars for this -- Rugged, covered with woe, he sits there with his black hair always over his brow, over his black eyes, his iron arms hanging helplessly like the arms of a powerful idiot in the madhouse, with the beauty of lostness pasted all over him -- Who is he? in fact? -- And why doesnt blonde Billie washing the homey dishes there acknowledge his love? -- In fact me and Perry end up we're both sitting with hanging heads when Billie comes back in the livingroom and sees us like that, like two repentant catatonics in hell -- Some Negro comes in and says if I give him a few dollars he'll get some pot but as soon as I give him five dollars he suddenly says "Well I aint gonna get nothin" -- 'You got five dollars, go out and get it" -- "I aint sure I can get any" -- I dont like him at all -- I suddenly realize I can leap up and throw him on the floor and take the five dollars away from him but I dont even care about the money but I am mad about him doing that -- "Who is that guy? " -- I know that if I start fighting him he has a knife and we'll wreck Billie's livingroom too -- But suddenly another Negro comes in and turns out a sweet visit talking about jazz and brotherhood and they all leave and me and Billie are alone to wonder some more. All the muscular gum of sex is such a bore, but Billie and I have such a fantastic sexball anyway that's why we're able to philosophize like that and agree and laugh together in sweet nakedness "Oh baby we're together crazy, we could live in an old log cabin in the hills and never say anything for years, it was meant that we'd meet'... She's saying all kinds of things as an idea begins to dawn on me: 'Say I know Billie, let's leave the City and take Elliott with us and go to Monsanto's cabin in the woods for a week or two and forget everything" "Yes I can call up my boss right now and get a coupla weeks off, Oh Jack let's do it" -- "And it'll be good for Elliott, get away from all these sinister friends of yours, my God" -- "Perry aint sinister. " 'We'll get married and go away and have a lodge in the Adirondacks, at night by the lamp we'll have simple suppers with Elliott" -- Til make love to you always" "But you wont even have to because we both realize we're bugs... our lodge will have truth written all over it but tho the whole world come smear it with big black paints of hate and lies we'll be falling dead drunk in truth" "Have some coffee" -- "My hands'll grow numb and I wont be able to handle the axe but still I'll be the truth man... I'll stand by the drape of the window night listening to the babble of all the world and I'll tell you about it" "But Jack I love you and that's not the only reason why, don't you see that we're meant for each other from the beginning, didn't you see that when you came in with Cody and started calling me Julien for that silly reason you told me about where I look like some old buddy you know in New York" -- "Who hates Cody's guts and Cody hates him" -- 'But dont you see what a waste it is? " -- "But what about Cody? you want me to marry you but you love Cody and in fact Perry loves you too? " -- "Sure but what's wrong with that or all that? there's perfect love between us forever there's no doubt about it but we only have two bodies" -- (a strange statement) -- I stand by the window looking out on the glittering San Francisco night with its magic cardboard houses saying "And you have Elliott who doesnt like me and I dont like myself either, how about that? " (Billie says nothing to this but only stores up an anger that comes out later) -- 'But we can call Dave Wain and he'll drive us to Big Sur cabin and we'll be alone in the woods at least" -- "I'm telling you that's what I wanta do! " -- "Call him now! " -- I tell her the number and she dials it like a secretary "O the sad music of it all, I've done it all, seen it all, done everything with everybody" I say phone in hand, "the whole world's coming on like a high school sophomore eager to learn what he calls New things, mind you, the same old singsong sad song truth of death... because the reason I yell death so much is because I'm really yelling life, because you cant have death without life, hello Dave? there you are? know what I'm callin you about? listen pal... take that big brunette Romana that Rumanian madwoman and pack her in Willie and come down to Billie's here and pick us up, we'll pack while you's en route, honey's on, and we'll all go spend two weeks of bliss in/ Monsanto's cabin" -- "Does Monsanto agree? "... "I'll call him right now and ask him, he'll say sure'... "Well I thought I'd be painting Romana's wall tomorrow but maybe I'd a just got drunk doin that anyway: sure you wanta do all this now? " -- "Yes yeh yeh, come on... " "And I can bring Romana? " ... "Yes but why not? "... "And what's the purpose of all this? "... "Ah Daddy, maybe just to see you again and we can talk about purposes anywhere: you wanta go on a lecture tour to Utah university and Brown university and tell the well scrubbed kids? " -- 'Scrubbed with what? "... "Scrubbed with hopeless perfection of pioneer puritan hope that leaves nothing but dead pigeons to look at? " -- "Okay I'll be right out... first I gotta get Willie's tank filled up and an oil change too" -- 'I'll pay you when you get here" -- "I heard you were eloping with Billie" -- "Who told you that? " -- "It was in the paper today'... "Well we'll start off by getting into Willie again and dont bring Ron Blake, we'll be just two couples dig? " -- 'Yeh -- and lissen I'll bring my surf castin rod and catch some fish down there'... "We'll have a ball... and listen Dave I'm grateful you're free and willing to drive us down there, I'm down in the mouth, I've been sitting here for a week drinking and the chair broke and the fish died and I'm all screwed up again" -- "Well you shouldnt oughta drink that sweet stuff all the time and you never eat" -- "But that's not the real trouble" "Well we'll decide what the real trouble is" -- "That's right" -- "Methinks the real trouble is those pigeons" -- "Why? " "I dunno, remember when we were in East St Louis with George, and Jack you said you'd love those beautiful dancing girls if you knew they would live forever as beautiful as they are? " "But that's only a quote from Buddha" -- "Yeh, but the girls didn't expect all that" -- "How ya feeling Dave? what's Fagan doing tonight" -- "Oh he's sitting in his room writing something, calls it his G O O F B O O K, has big wild drawings in it, and Lex Pascal is drunk again and the music is playing and I'm real sad and I'm glad you called'... "You like me Dave? " -- "I ain't got nothin else to do, kid" -- "But you really have somethin else to do really? " -- "Lissen never mind, I'll be up, you call Monsanto right away tho because we also gotta get the corral gate keys from him" -- "I'm glad I know you Dave" -- "Me too Jack" -- "Why? " "Maybe I wanted to stand on my head in the snow to prove it but I do, am glad, will be glad, after all that's right there's nothing else for us to do but solve these damn problems and I've got one right here in my pants for Romana" "But that's so sick and tired to call life a problem that can be solved" -- "Yes but I'm just repeating what I read in the dead pigeon textbooks" -- "But Dave I love you" -- "Okay I'll be right over. " 32 We pack up little Eliott's pathetic warmclothes and put food together and get the hamper all set and wait for Dave to come sadly in the night -- And we have a big talk... "Billie but why did the fish die? " but she knows already they probably died because I gave them Kelloggs cornflakes or something went wrong, one thing sure is that she didnt forget to feed them or anything, it's all me, all my fault, I'd as soon be rusted by autumn too-much-think than be dead-fisher cause of those poor little hunks of golden death floating on that scummy water -- It reminds me of the otter -- But I cant explain it to Billie who's all abstract and talking about our abstract soul-meetings in hell, and little Elliott is pulling at her asking "Where we going? where we going? what for? what for? " She's saying "And all because you think you don't deserve to be loved because you think you caused the death of the goldfish tho they probably just died on their own accord'... "Why would they do that? why? what kind of logic is that for fish to have? " -- "Or because you think you drink too much and therefore every time you're feeling good on a little booze you give up and say your hands hang helpless, like you said last night when you were holding me with those hands blessing my heart and my body with your love, O Jack it's time for you to wake up and come with me or at least come with somebody and open your eyes to why God's put you here, stop all that staring at the floor, you and Perry both you're crazy -- I'll draw you magic moon circles'll change all your luck" -- I look her dead in the eye and it is blue and I say "O Billie, forgive me" -- "But you see you go there talkin guilty again" -- "Well I dont know all those big theories about how everything should be goddamit all I know is that I'm a helpless hunk of helpful horse manure looking in your eye saying Help me" -- "But when you make those big final statements it doesnt help you" -- "Of course I know that but what do you want? " -- "I want us to get married and settle down to a sensible understanding about eternal things" -- "And you may be right" -- I see it all raving before me the endless yakking kitchen mouthings of life, the long dark grave of tomby talks under midnight kitchen bulbs, in fact it fills me with love to realize that life so avid and misunderstood nevertheless reaches out skinny skeleton hand to me and to Billie too -- But you know what I mean. And this is the way it begins. 33 It sounds all so sad but it was actually such a gay night as Dave and Romana came over and there's all the business of packing boxes and clothes down to the car, nipping out of bottles, getting ready in fact to sing all the way to Big Sur 'Home On the Range" and "I'm Just a Lonsome Old Turd" by Dave Wain -- Me sitting up front next to Dave and Romana for some reason maybe because I wanted to identify with my old broken front rockingchair and lean there flapping and singing but with Romana between us the seat is pinned down and no longer flaps -- Meanwhile Billie is on the back mattress with sleeping child and off we go booming down Bay Shore to that other shore whatever it will bring, the way people always feel whenever they essay some trip long or short especially in the night... The eyes of hope looking over the glare of the hood into the maw with its white line feeding in straight as an arrow, the lighting of fresh cigarettes, the buckling to lean forward to the next adventure something that's been going on in America ever since the covered wagons clocked the deserts in three months flat -- Billie doesn't mind that I dont sit in back with her because she knows I wanta sing and have a good time -- Romana and I hit up fantastic medleys of popular and folk songs of all kinds and Dave contributes his New York Chicago blue light nightclub romantic baritone specialities -- My wavering Sinatra is barely heard in fact -- Beat on your knees and yell and sing Dixie and Banjo On My Knee, get raucous and moan out Red River Valley, "Where's my harmonica, I been meanin to buy me a eight dollar harmonica for eight years now. " It always starts out good like that, the bad moments -- Nothing is gained or lost also by the fact that I insist we stop at Cody's en route so I can pick up some clothes I left there but secretly I want Evelyn to finally come face to face with Billie -- It surprises me more however to see the look of absolute fright on Cody's face as we pour into his livingroom at midnight and I announce that Billie's in the jeep sleeping -- Evelyn is not perturbed at all and in fact says to me privately in the kitchen "I guess it was bound to happen sometime she'd come here and see it but I guess it was destined to be you who'd bring her" "What's Cody so worried about? " -- "You're spoiling all his chance to be real secretive" -- "He hasnt come and seen us for a whole week, that's in a way what happened, he just left me stranded there: I've been feeling awful, too" -- "Well if you want you can ask her to come in" "Well we're leaving in a minute anyway, you wanta see her at least? " "I dont care" -- Cody is sitting in the livingroom absolutely rigid, stiff, formal, with a big Irish stone in his eye: I know he's really mad at me this time tho I dont really know why I go out and there's Billie alone in the car over sleeping Elliott biting her fingernail -- "You wanta come in and meet Evelyn? " -- "I shouldnt, she wont like that, is Cody there? " -- "Yah" -- So Willamine climbs out (I remember just then Evelyn telling me seriously that Cody always calls his women by their full first names, Rosemarie, Joanna, Evelyn, Willamine, he never gives them silly nicknames nor uses them). The meeting is not eventful, of course, both girls keep their silence and hardly look at each other so it's all me and Dave Wain carrying on with the usual boloney and I see that Cody is really very sick and tired of me bringing gangs arbitrarily to his place, running off with his mistress, getting drunk and thrown out of family plays, hundred dollars or no hundred dollars he probably feels I'm just a fool now anyway and hopelessly lost forever but I dont realize that myself because I'm feeling good -- I want us to resume down that road singing bawdier and darker songs till we're negotiating narrow mountain roads at the pitch of the greatest songs. I try to ask Cody about Perry and all the other strange characters who visit Billie in the City but he just looks at me out of the corner eye and says "Ah, yah, hm, "... I dont know and I never will know what he's up to anyway in the long run: I realize I'm just a silly stranger goofing with other strangers for no reason far away from anything that ever mattered to me whatever that was... Always an ephemeral "visitor" to. the Coast never really involved with anyone's lives there because I'm always ready to fly back across the country but not to any life of my own on the other end either, just a traveling stranger like Old Bull Balloon, an exemplar of the loneliness of Doren Coit actually waiting for the only real trip, to Venus, to the mountain of Mien Mo -- Tho when I look out of Cody's livingroom window just then I do see my star still shining for me as it's done all these 38 years over crib, out ship windows, jail windows, over sleepingbags only now it's dummier and dimmer and getting blurreder damnit as tho even my own star be now fading away from concern for me as I from concern for it... In fact we're all strangers with strange eyes sitting in a midnight livingroom for nothing -- And small talk at that, like Billie saying "I always wanted a nice fireplace" and I'm yelling "Dont worry we got one at the cabin hey Dave? and all the wood's chopped! " and Evelyn: -- 'What does Monsanto think of you using his cabin all summer, weren't you supposed to go there alone in secret? " -- "It's too late now! " I sing swigging from the bottle without which I'd only drop with shame face flat on the floor or on the gravel driveway -- And Dave and Romana look a little uneasy finally so we all get up to go, zoom, and that's the last time I see Cody or Evelyn anyway. And as I say our songs grow mightier as the road grows darker and wilder, finally here we are on the canyon road the headlights just reaching out there around bleak sand shoulders -- Down to the creek where I unlock the corral gate -- Across the meadow and back to the haunted cabin -- Where on the strength of that night's booze and getaway gladness Billie and I actually have a good time lighting fires and making coffee and gong to be together in the one sleepingbag easy as pie after we've bundled up little Elliott and Dave and Romana have retired in his double nylon bag by the creek in the moonlight. No, it's the next day and night that concerns me. 34 The whole day begins simply enough with me getting up feeling fair and going down to the creek to slurp up water in my palms and wash up, seeing the languid waving of one large brown thigh over the mass of Dave's nylons indicative of an early morning love scene, in fact Romana telling us later at breakfast "When I woke up this morning and saw all those trees and water and clouds I told Dave "It's a beautiful universe we created"'... A real Adam and Eve waking up, in fact this being one of Dave's gladdest days because he'd really wanted to get away from the City again anyway and this 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 you