Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/21

Rh nightmares—A recurrent series of them all swirling around that mountain, seen the very first time as a beautiful but somehow horribly green verdant mist enshrouded jungle peak rising out of green tropical country in “Mexico” so called but beyond which were pyramids, dry rivers, other countries full of infantry enemy and yet the biggest danger being just hoodlums out throwing rocks on Sundays—So that the sight of that simple sad mountain, together with the bridge and that car that had flipped over twice or so and landed flump in the sand with no more sign of human elbows or shred neckties (like a terrifying poem about America you could write), agh, HOO HOO of Owls living in old evil hollow trees in that misty tangled further part of the canyon where I was always afraid to go anyhow—That unclimbably tangled steep cliff at the base of Mien Mo rising to gawky dead trees among bushes so dense and up to heathers God knows how deep with hidden caves no one not even I spose the Indians of the 10th Century had ever explored—And those big gooky rainforest ferns among lightningstruck conifers right beside sud- den black vine cliff faces rising right at your side as you walk the peaceful path—And as I say that ocean coming at you higher than you are like the harbors of old woodcuts always higher than the towns (as Rimbaud pointed out shuddering)—So many evil combinations even unto the bat who would come at me later while I slept on the outdoor cot on the porch of Lorenzo’s cabin, come circle my head coming real low sometimes filling me with the traditional fear it'll get tangled in my hair, and such silent wings, how would you like to wake up in the middle of the night and see silent wings beating over you and you ask yourself “Do I really believe in Vampires?”—In fact, flying silently around my lamplit cabin at 3 o’clock in the morning as I'm reading (of all things) (shudder) Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde—Small wonder maybe that I myself turned from serene Jekyll to hysterical Hyde in the short space of six weeks, losing absolute control of the peace mechanisms of my mind for the first time in my life.