In the Shadow of the American Dream (14 page)

The difficulty I have at times is in wondering whether to trust my vision—my image and view of things and why they exist, rationalizations, you might say. I realize the ease with which anyone might find reasons to support whatever viewpoints they hold or to support whatever actions they may wish to make … How more or less true or real is this from any alternative way of seeing or believing?

… ain't it always a silly mess of senses, really now, all this shoulda been spared from the typewriter … I wonder if I'm alive years from now will I appreciate this or scorn the very idea of it … this self-searching in the face of a world that kills people with bombs …

April 19, 1979

The gray sea dawn silvery like a television screen flickering through the windows at various times in the night and morning. Waking several times on my back and arms uplifting to ward off the night, the morning, the hopelessness of no sleep, the images of closed eyes still running as I return to them, turning over heavily in the sheets: I'm in some suburban town, a New Jersey sense in the air, old houses and colonial-style pillared boxes and most of them white with soft glow among the night trees and lanes, I'm moving through, soft whisper of shapes of people in cars and on foot moving in and out of darkness on their ways home or to bars or to other houses, looking for a bar that's open, seeing the blush of red neon down some tree-swept street and figuring on buying a pack of cigarettes. Somewhere in these scenes, dogs bark and children move along and I meet Syd, the Jersey lawyer who was my second dad during Times Square street routines, met him hustling and we traded our minds bare from then on in various hotels, various states, states of mind, states of distance, he's really grown so much older as I have too, he hands me a couple of letters that he's written to me, I see staples in one, something affixed to the back of the letter, money I imagine … I stuff it into my pocket, too embarrassed to read it and look to see what's affixed on its back in front of him. I'm alone and moving through the streets, wind tossing dark trees almost invisible in the perspective of night, in the foyer of some house, I meet Syd's wife, we talk real friendly, though I've never met her before, she's very nice and we talk loose and then I pull something, cigarettes maybe, out of my pocket and when I turn away for a moment and then turn back, she is standing there in the near darkness of the living room unfolding one of the letters Syd gave me, I can see his name and his handwriting and his law firm letterhead on the paper. She recognizes it immediately. I rush over and feel an acute pain in my senses and rip it out of her hands, she turns and looks at me sadly, a bit shocked, not knowing what the letter was, not having time to read it, but knowing it was from her husband to me, I feel terrible and try to explain to her, it's something she wouldn't understand, that it belongs to me, I'm sorry for having to take it away like that. She finds the second letter on the floor, I take that from her with equal force, feeling even worse, she knows something is wrong, still doesn't quite know the exact truth, I feel it's better she doesn't. Syd is on the phone, she goes over wiping her hands on her dress or apron, speaks to Syd on the phone in the kitchen in the near dawn, I'm looking for an exit, wondering how Syd will handle this one, feeling terrible for all of us, wanting to leave and not be seen again … she comes off the phone unexpectedly fast, talks to me as if none of this has happened. I leave afterwards, somehow Syd's wife becomes my stepmother and Syd becomes my father, I avoid him in this urban sort of town, citylike … I think he's drunk but he really isn't, I feel bad to talk to him, just want to go away from them all … I am too different from them, they could never understand my life. At the top of a large large hill, a little black kid is running around … I steal some things or find them or am given them, run down the hill fast, round the corner, my dad's sitting there, almost leave again thinking he'll be drunk and nasty, he isn't, he looks at me with a calm sadness, we exchange soundless words …

(evening)

… in realizing how much I love him, the horrible sense in leaving …

All things passing, all things coming to ends, more things beginning, soon themselves to seek or grow towards some kind of end, as if all things are made up of some inner core, some seed as that which lies within the heart and ticks away more and more faintly towards its own discreet and particular end, as if the seed is made of stones like those shaped and worn smooth by the sea, by the shift and roll of sands, by the coarse air and the smooth heels of vagabonds, by the passing of so many feet, so many miles, so many days … Ah these sunsets and sunrises, dawns and dusks that pull so much from our eyes, from our foreheads and arms growing soft and furrowed beneath age. And tell me for what reason the animal body passes through these tall grasses, along the ledges and windows of day and night, why these leaning red flowers still opening and closing with the wind and the night, why these silver images flickering from far windows down through the alleyways, why this sense of solitude in rooms filled with people, why the sense of loneliness as arms stretch away from the body of a lover, why these quiet moments of desperation along the coast, the standing platform on the wall of the sea, the shift of sands and winds, the continual rippling of waters, the indigo that claims it all—water wind sea skies and the deepest corridors of the heart—just one reason I can claim for my own, one sound of syllables that will press like dampened cloth against sweating brows, why these battlefields of dreams, these wounding nights and sleeplessness, these steel carriages that carry us to and away from the sun, the howling dogs down by the dumps, the fagged ones limping through busy thoroughfares, why these senses of grayness that pierce arrow swift along so many visual regions, why these clocks on everyone's arms, why these calendars along endless cheap room walls, why these philosophies emptying characters of armor and dreams, why these foolish characters along every age, why the thrust of senses, acceleration of the heart in so many cities, why the beginning and end of savage desires, why the light in the eyes that passes in time, why the sense of touch on one's shoulder that eases into familiarity, why never the constant and furious sense of loving for all time in all places and endless, totally endless, why these nations and borders and coincidences, why these moments passing into hours and unfurling like flowers into hideous days of ending, why these ends, these passings, why.

May 7, 1979

Dreams in the last month have been like slides clacking into an old viewer snap snap snap—scenes characters associations life—rhythms reasons forms all change fast.

In this one I was in a shadow-filled house more than a two-story ramshackle suburban monolithic structure—wood walls floors doors—old but preserved enough to lend an old-styled grace and beauty. They have come to the house: Your son has arrived. I'm startled; didn't know I had a son. It's actually a whole glad rush of senses and I can't wait to see him. Steve, my brother, is there; he tells me that my son is outside will come in shortly. I see this little kid about eleven years old maybe a lot younger maybe nine years old with slightly dirty blond hair. A kid, I suddenly feel grabbed in the heart happy as hell that he's actually my son. Don't remember having a son and with whom. Kid comes into house running around through rooms in particular kid play, attention's diverted constantly by shape and movement of world. I avoid him for as long as possible because suddenly I realize I don't know his name, don't want to hurt him by asking him what his name is, after all, I'm his father!! I ask people, What is his name? No one answers and I get increasingly upset though I don't show it outwardly. I go up to Steve, the kid has come in and is over against a far wall sitting on a ledge over a group of reaching people. I ask Steve again and he bends over to my right ear and whispers the boy's name. I realize suddenly I am somewhat deaf in my right ear and I keep asking him to repeat the name. Finally I say, Tell me in my left ear, I can't hear you in this one. He bends like a doctor and starts examining my bad ear. I'm getting frustrated as hell, I wanna talk to my son but have to know his name. Finally he tells me the kid's name is Hun or Huné. Huné is name of bookshop in St.-Germain. Hun is the Attila I've been reading about in Tares(?) history book. I think Hunê is more gentle so I go over toward where my son sits, feel all this love for him and it's awkward. He looks up from playing with his fingers and a shyness comes over him: this is his dad he's heard about. We talk a bit and he jumps down from ledge and both of us stroll outside making loose talk, he has some drawings he was working on …

I'm in what seems like a Goodwill store looking over racks of coats trying to find a nice jacket—leather or denim—to trade for this big lumpy coat with hood that Pat & J.P. bought for me for Xmas. I hate the thing, want something lighter and sans hood so I can move without feeling like second grader all puffed up in clumsy coat pushed out the door into the world while everyone else has coats they feel comfortable in. I suddenly realize it's a police station, all these men on benches being booked and fingerprinted for unknown “crimes.” I go over to a wall rack, pick a coat, a man comes over and hands me a stupid coat with a hood. I say, Naw man I don't want another coat like that, I hate that kinda shit. Wake up.

May 31, 1979

Felt the strangest I've ever felt—leaving Paris tomorrow for New York—did a half-ditch attempt at cleaning up the apartment, packing, sorting out memories of all of this. Brian went out in the afternoon to look for a gift for Donna. I sat here in the gray light, sudden downpours, clearing, typing out on a piece of paper a good-bye letter to Jean-Pierre. In the middle of it, kids in the school yard screaming, I broke down swiftly—last week of stunned sense in leaving, all of it came out, wailed over them fuckin' type keys, flashed on Normandy and night J.P. went back to Paris, me typing the weekend out on paper to avoid emotional scenes in solitude, it happened anyway. Trying to keep the fucking letter simple, telling him over and over what I feel for him as a human being, dog barking at me 'cause I'm crying, later Brian came home with a
PARIS
scarf for Donna: It's got a metro map on it so she won't get lost when she comes. I took off, went to the jardin, walked around for ten minutes or so, felt so displaced, wondering why these fucking experiences come, how important is the growth when it's gotta come to an end, seeing so suddenly my faults laid bare, how I coulda done it all differently.

By the time I get it together will things remain the same—wanting to come back to him, how long will it take, basing hopes on future things, doing something as a writer that makes it possible? Am I fooling myself? I ain't capable of pulling my energy together and being a banker or slick-suit businessman, doing anything flashy for big bucks, just dunno how, don't wanna know how and yet there's a big fucking landmass and waterways to get through to even see him again for a
long
period of time. On metro up to Pigalle saw a guy with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist with a huge prison tattoo of a crucified Christ, done with pins and ink, amazing head with blood pouring out and malformed chest and arms. Pigalle newsstand—major drug scenes/exchanges going on. Toothless hoodlum rushing back and forth. Transvestites waving from third-floor windows at me to come up. I feel rearranged.

Went with J.P. late in the night to the room on Bourdonnais to drop off some things of his there. I feel kinda weightless like in any such transition period only worse than ever, weightless and sad and removed as if everything was rushing by me. I thought of past scenes, everything flashing as we moved through the streets in the auto, flashes of the sense in which I've been involved with him. We got to the room. I had the note that I'd typed out to him alone, with the snake rock I'd done in Normandy, the one I had done for myself. Only thing I could think of to give him as I know he liked it and it represented something important to me/of me that I could hand to him. We unpacked the boxes of food and pots and pans, clothes, kitchen utensils, coffee grinder, etc. I slipped the wrapped stone and letter onto the table. He found it there after a while and looked at me: Is this for me? Yeah, I said and laid out on the bed, the mattress under the window holding a dark sky with no stars. I felt tense and beautiful and vulnerable and sad. I thought of plane crashes and endings, the bloodlessness of my once loving arms, a deep sleep something warm and enveloping to make me forget … I watched his back, his hidden side illuminated in the small wall lamp's light, he read for a long time, I wondered if he didn't understand what I had written, if the language was too difficult, he turned finally after slowly folding up the letter, noiselessly and deep in thought, he turned and said, It's beautiful and it makes me feel strange. We embraced and held each other as strongly as possible. He lifted up his head and looked me in the eyes and said, I never told you how much I love you because I was afraid to make it too heavy. I thought you might one day leave and I didn't want it to be difficult. I held him and felt such a harsh love for him, a thick fist rising in my heart, he said, You know I'm sad you go back to America, but I'm happy. I'm happy I had the chance to love you for this time. You are … We wept on each other's shoulders and made a slow love together for the last time, just being with him for those last hours made me feel better, knowing that I would have an hour or so in the morning with him kept me from any kind of craziness.

June 1, 1979

Morning we woke together and I made coffee while he shaved. We sat and talked quietly while Brian slept. Talk was difficult as we knew for the first time so clearly where we stood in regards to one another. 9:00 rolled around. He got up to leave and we embraced and I walked him to the elevator and it surged, fucking hot tears coming up from my passioned insides, constricting throat, touched each other's hands as the elevator door was closing. His face was white. I wept in the bathroom in a towel to cut the noise. Pat and Jean Pillu arrived from Germany. More crying. Realizing how much I love Jean-Pierre, how much I love Pat and how beautiful she's been towards me. How well she understands my senses at this point especially concerning Jean-Pierre.