Big Sur

by Jack Kerouac

  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 dont 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 around 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’ll 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 havin fun here and make a great week out of it!”—“Week?”—“I thought we was coming here for a week”—“Oh I said that didnt 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 sh
owing 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 wasnt 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 are 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 doesnt 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 johnnycakes, 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 with-out 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 amphetomine 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 heat 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 are 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 t
here 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.”