r 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. 35 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. 36 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. 37 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 and start feeding them like pets, bites of red meat or red mite, tho at first I thought the eccentric old town bums wanted them to eat or to sell (still maybe so) because before I study this I look and see hundreds of slowly fornicating vulture couples on the town dump ... These are now humanly formed vultures with human shaped arms, legs, heads, torsos, but they have rainbow colored feathers, and the men are all quietly sitting behind Vulture Women slowly somehow fornicating at them in all the same slow obscene movement -- Both man and woman sit facing the same direction and somehow there's contact because you can see all their feathery rainbow behinds slowly dully monotonously fornicating on the dumpslopes -- As I pass I even see the expression on the face of a youngish blond vulture man eternally displeased because his Vulture Mistress is an old Yakker who's been arguing with him all the time -- His face is completely human but inhumanly pasty like uncooked pale pie dough with dull seamed buggy horror that he's doomed to all this enough to make me shudder in sympathy, I even see her awful expression of middleaged pie dough tormentism -- They're so human! But suddenly me and the two kid workers are taken to the Vulture People respectable quarter of town to our apartment where a Vulture Woman and her daughter show us our rooms Their faces are leprous thick with softy yeast but painted with makeup to make them like thick Christmas dolls and dull and fuzzy but human expressions, like with thick lips of rubber muzz, fat expressions all crumbly like cracker meal, yellow pizza puke faces, disgusting us tho we say nothing -- The apartment has dirty beatnik beds and mattresses everywhere but I walk thru the back looking for a sink -- It's huge... An endless walk thru long greasy pantries and vast washrooms a block long with single filthy little sink all dark and slimey like underground Lowell High School crumbling basements... Finally I come to the Kitchen where we "new workers" are s'posed to cook little meals all summer -- It's vast stone fireplaces and stone stoves all rancid and greasy from a monthold Vulture People Banquet Orgy with still dozens of uncooked chickens lying around on the floor among garbage and bottles -- Rancid stale grease everywhere, nobody's ever cleaned it up or knew how and the place as big as a garage -- I push my way out of there pushing a huge greasystink foodstained tray of some sort hurrying away from the big stinky emptiness and horror -- The fat golden chickens lie rotten upsidedown on littered stone slabs -- I hurry out never having seen such a dirty sight in my life. Meanwhile I learn the two boys are studying a hamper full of Vulture Food for us and one of them wisely says "Blisters in our sugar, " meaning the Vultures put their blisters in our sugar so we'll "die" but instead of being really dead we'll be taken to the Underground Slimes to walk neck deep in steaming mucks pulling huge groaning wheels (among small forked snakes) so the devil with the long ears can mine his Purple Magenta Square Stone that is the secret of all this Kingdom -- You end up down there groaning and pulling thru dead bodies of other people even your own family floating in the ooze -- If you succeed you can become a pasty Vulture Person obscenely fornicating slowly on the dump above, I think, either that or the devil just invents the Vulture People with what's left over out of the underground Hell -- "Beans anyone? " I hear myself saying as thump! I'm awake again! Elliott has thumped his foot just at that moment on the porch! -- I look over there!... He's doing it on purpose, he knows everything that's going on! -- What on earth have I brought these people for and why just this particular night of that moon that moon that moon? I'm up again and pacing up and down and drinking water at the creek, Dave and Romana's lump figures in the moonlight dont move, like hypocrites, "Bastard has my only sleeping spot" -- I clutch my head, I'm so alone in all this -- I go fearfully casting about for control back inside the cabin by the lighted lamp, a smoke, trying to squeeze the last red drop out of the rancid port bottle, no go -- Now that Billie's asleep and so still and peaceful I wonder if I can sleep just by lying beside her and holding her -- I do just this, crawling in with all my clothes which I've put on because I'm afraid of going mad naked or of not being able to suddenly run away from everything, in my shoes, she moans a little in her sleep and resumes sleeping as I hold her with those rigid staring eyes -- Her blonde flesh in the moonlight, the poor blonde hair so carefully washed and combed, the ladylike little body also a burden to carry around like my own but so frail, thinnish, I just stare at her shoulders with tears -- I'd wake her up and confess everything but I'll only scare her -- I've done irreparable harm ('Garradarable narm! " yells the creek) All my self sayings suddenly blurting babbles so the meaning cant even stay a minute I mean a moment to satisfy my rational endeavours to hold, control, every thought I have is smashed to a million pieces by million pieced mental explosions that I remember I thought were so wonderful when I'd first seen them on Peotl and Mescaline, I'd said then (when still innocently playing with words) "Ah, the manifestation of multiplicity, you can actuall