Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/168

RV 158 (BIG SUR158) 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, well 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