Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/82

RV 74 (BIG SUR74) out of him—In fact every evening after supper in the cell he shared with the quiet gunman he’d bent his serious head to a daily letter or at least every-other-day letter full of philosophical and religious musings to his mistress Billie—nd when you're in bed in jail after lights out and you're not sleepy there’s ample time to just remember the world and indeed savor its sweetness if any (altho it’s always sweet to remember it in jail tho harder in prison, as Genêt shows) with the result that he’d not only come to a chastisement of his bashing bitternesses (and of course it’s always good to get away from alcohol and excessive smoking for two years) (and all that regular sleep) he was just like a kid again, but as I say that haunting kidlikeness I think all ex cons seem to have when they’ve just come out—In seeking to severely penalize criminals society by putting the criminals away behind safe walls actually provide them with the means of greater strength for future atrocities glorious and otherwise—“Well I’ll be damned” he keeps saying as he sees those bluffs and cliffs and hanging vines and dead trees, “you mean to tell me you ben alone here for three weeks, why I wouldnt dare that must be awful at night  looka that old mule down there man, dig the redwood country way back in reminds me of old Colorady b’god when I used to steal a car every day and drive out to hills like this with a fresh little high school sumptin”—“Yum Yum,” says Dave Wain emphatically turning that big goofy look to us from his driving wheel with his big mad feverish shining eyes full of yumyum and yabyum too—“S‘matter with your boys not making extensive plans to bring a bevy of schoolgirls down here to wile away our conversation pieces thar” says Cody real relaxed and talking sadly.

Behind us the Monsanto jeepster follows doggedly—Passing thru Monterey Monsanto has already called Pat McLear, staying for the summer with wife and kid in Santa Cruz, McLear with his own jeepster is following us a few miles down the highway—It’s a big Big Sur day.