Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/95

RV 87 (BIG SUR87) old Scrooge is saving up a pawn hey? cak! I got ya!”—But while I’m sitting there discussing literature with McLear and Monsanto suddenly a strange couple of gentlemen nearby strike up an acquaintance—One of them is a youngster who says he is a lieutenant in the Army—I instantly (drunk on fifth Manhattan by now) go into my theory of guerilla warfare based on my observations the night before when it did seriously occur to me that if Monsanto, Arthur, Cody, Dave, Ben, Ron Blake and I were all members of one fighting unit (and all carrying canteens of booze on our belts) it would be very difficult for the enemy to hurt any of us because we'd be, as dear friends, watching so desperately closely over one another, which I tell the first lieutenant, which attracts the interest of the older man who admits that he’s a GENERAL in the Army—There are also some further homosexuals at a separate table which prompts Dave Wain to look up from the chess game at one quiet drowsy point and announce in his dry twang “Under redwood beams, people talking about homosexuality and war call it my Nepenthe Haiku”—“Yass” says Cody checkmating him “see what you can ku about that m’boy and get out of there and I’ll noose you with my queen, dear.”

I mention the general only because there are also something sinister about the fact that during this long binge I came across him and another general, two strange generals, and I’d never met any generals in my life—This first general was strange because he seemed too polite and yet there was something sinister about his steely eyes behind goof darkglasses—Something sinister too about the first lieutenant who guessed who we were (the San Francisco poets, a major nucleus of them indeed) and didn’t seem at all pleased tho the general seemed amused—Nevertheless in a sinister way the general seemed to take great interest in my theory about buddy units for guerilla warfare and when President Kennedy about a year later ordered just such a new scheme for part of our armed forces I wondered (still crazy even then but for new reasons) if the general