Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/183

RV 173 (BIG SUR173) 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 endeavors to hold control, every thought I have is smashed to a million pieces by millionpieced