Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/186

RV 176 (BIG SUR176) dark over my crib, staring at them not only enviously but lonely inhuman isolation from their simple sleeping minds—“But they all look dead!” I’m carking in my canyon, “Sleep is death, everything is death!”

The horrible climax coming when the others finally get up and pook about making a troubled breakfast, and I’ve told Dave I cant possibly stay here another minute, he must drive us all back to town, “Okay but I sure wish we could stay a week like Romana wants to do,”—“Well you drive me and come back”—“Well I dunno if Monsanta would like that we’ve already dirtied up the place aplenty, in fact we’ve got to dig a garbage pit and get rid of the junk”—Billie offers to dig the garbage pit but does so by digging a neat tiny coffinshaped grave instead of just a garbage hole—Even Dave Wain blinks to see it—It’s exactly the size fit for putting a little dead Elliott in it, Dave is thinking the same thing I am I can tell by a glance he gives me—We’ve all read Freud sufficiently to understand something there—Besides little Elliott’s been crying all morning and has had two beatings both of them ending up crying and Billie saying she cant stand it any more she’s going to kill herself—

And Romana too notices it, the perfect 4 foot by 3 foot neatly sided grave like you’re ready to sink a little box in it—Horrifying me so much I take the shovel and go down to dump junk into it and mess up the neat pattern somehow but little Elliott starts screaming and grabs the shovel and refuses I go near the hole—So Billie herself goes and starts filling the garbage in but then looks at me significantly (I’m sure sometimes she really did aspire to make me crazy) “Do you want to finish the job yourself?”—“What do you mean?”—“Cover the earth on, do the honors?”—“What do you mean do the honors!”—“Well I said I’d dig the garbage pit and I’ve done that, aint you supposed to do the rest?”—Dave Wain is watching fascinated, there’s something screwy he sees there too, something cold and frightening—“Well okay” I say, “I’ll dump the earth over it and tamp it down” but