Black Spring (22 page)

It was this evening, after the dinner, that it all came over me again-I mean about the musicians and the dance they are making ready. We had prepared a humble banquet for ourselves, Carl and I. A meal made entirely of delectables: radishes, black olives, tomatoes, sardines, cheese, Jewish bread, bananas, apple sauce, a couple of liters of Algerian wine, fourteen degrees. It was warm outdoors and very still. We sat there after the meal smoking contentedly, almost ready to doze off, so good was the meal and so comfortable the hard chairs with the light fading and that stillness about the rooftops as if the houses themselves were quietly breathing through the fents. And like many another evening, after we had sat in silence for a while and the room almost dark, suddenly he began to talk about himself, about something in the past which in the silence and the gloom of the evening began to take shape, not in words precisely, because it was beyond words what he was conveying to me. I don’t think I caught the words at all, but just the music that was coming from him-a kind of sweet, woody music which came through the Algerian wine and the radishes and the black olives. Talking about his mother he was, about coming out of her womb, and after him his brother and his sister, and then the war came and they told him to shoot and he couldn’t shoot and when the war was over they opened the gates of the prison or the lunatic asylum or whatever it was and he was free as a bird. How it happened to spill out this way I can’t remember any more. We were talking about The Merry Widow and about Max Linder, about the Prater in Vienna-and then suddenly we were in the midst of the Russo-Japanese war and there was that Chinaman whom Claude Farrere mentions in La Bataille. Something that was said about the Chinaman must have sunk to the very bottom of him for when he opened his mouth again and started that speech about his mother, her womb, the war coming on and free as a bird I knew that he had gone far back into the past and I was almost afraid to breathe for fear of bringing him to.

Free as a bird I heard him say, and with that the gates opening and other men running out, all scot-free and a little silly from the confinement and the strain of waiting for the war to end. When the gates opened I was in the street again and my friend Stanley was sitting beside me on the little step in front of the house where we ate sour bread in the evening. Down the street a ways was Father Carroll’s church. And now it’s evening again and the vesper bells are ringing, Carl and I facing each other in the gathering gloom, quiet and at peace with each other. We are sitting in Clichy and it is long after the war. But there’s another war coming and it’s there in the darkness and perhaps it’s the darkness made him think of his mother’s womb and the night coming on, the night when you stand alone out there and no matter how frightful it gets you must stand there alone and take it. “I didn’t want to go to the war,” he was saying. “Shit, I was only eighteen.” Just then a phono began to play and it was The Merry Widow waltz. Outside everything so still and quiet-just like before the war. Stanley is whispering to me on the doorstep -something about God, the Catholic God. There are some radishes in the bowl and Carl is munching them in the dark. “It’s so beautiful to be alive, no matter how poor you are,” he says. I can just barely see him sticking his hand into the bowl and grabbing another radish. So beautiful to be alive! And with that he slips a radish into his mouth as if to convince himself that he is still alive and free as a bird. And now the whole street, free as a bird, is twittering inside me and I see again the boys who are later to have their heads blown off or their guts bayoneted-boys like Alfie Betcha, Tom Fowler, Johnny Dunn, Sylvester Goeller, Harry Martin, Johnny Paul, Eddie Carney, Lester Reardon, Georgie Maine, Stanley Borowski, Louis Pirosso, Robbie Hyslop, Eddie Gorman, Bob Maloney. The boys from the north side and the boys from the south side-all rolled into a muck heap and their guts hanging on the barbed wire. If only one of them had been spared! But no, not one! Not even the great Lester Reardon. The whole past is wiped out.

It’s so beautiful to be alive and free as a bird. The gates are open and I can wander where I please. But where is Eddie Carney? Where is Stanley?

This is the Spring that Jesus sang, the sponge to his lips, the frogs dancing. In every womb the pounding of iron hoofs, in every grave the roar of hollow shells. A vault of obscene anguish saturated with angelworms hanging from the fallen womb of a sky. In this last body of the whale the whole world has become a running sore. When next the trumpet blows it will be like pushing a button: as the first man falls he will push over the next, and the next the next, and so on down the line, round the world, from New York to Nagasaki, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. And when man falls he will push over the elephant and the elephant will push over the cow and the cow will push over the horse and the horse the lamb, and all will go down, one be fore the other, one after the other, like a row of tin soldiers blown down by the wind. The world will go out like a Roman candle. Not even a blade of grass will grow again. A lethal dose from which no awakening. Peace and night, with no moan or whisper stirring. A soft, brooding darkness, an inaudible flapping of wings.

Burlesk

Now works the calmness of Scheveningen like an anesthetic.

Standing at the bar looking at the English cunt with all her front teeth missing it suddenly comes back to me: Don’t Spit On the Floor! It comes back to me like a dream: Don’t Spit On the Floor! It was at Freddie’s Bar on the Rue Pigalle and a man with lacy fingers, a man in a white silk shirt with loose flowing sleeves, had just rippled off “Good Bye Mexico! ” She said she wasn’t doin’ much now, just battin’ around. She was from the Big Broadcast and she had caught the hoof and mouth disease. She kept running back and forth to the toilet through the beaded curtains. The harp was swell, like angels pissing in your beer. She was a little drunk and trying to be a lady at the same time. I had a letter in my pocket from a crazy Dutchman; he had just returned from Sofia. “Saturday night,” it said, “I had only one wish and that was that you could have sitten next to me.” (Where he didn’t say.) “The only thing I can write you now is this-after having left the hustling noisy New York works the calmness of a town like Scheveningen as a anaesteatic.” He had been on a bust in Sofia and he had taken to himself the prima donna of the Royal Opera there. This, as he says, had given him just the right kind of rakish reputation to find grace with the public opinion of Sofia. He says he is going to retreat and start again a sober life-in Scheveningen.

I hadn’t looked at the letter all evening but when the English cunt opened her mouth and I saw all her front teeth missing it came back to me-Don’t Spit On the Floor! We were walking through the ghetto, the crazy Dutchman and I, and he was dressed in his messenger uniform. He had delivered all his messages and he was off duty for the rest of the evening. We were walking toward the Cafe Royal in order to sit down and have a beer or two in peace. I was giving him permission to sit down and have a beer with me because I was his boss and besides he was off duty and he could do as he pleased in his spare time.

We were walking along Second Avenue, heading north, when suddenly I noticed a shop window with an illuminated cross and on it it said: Whosoever Believeth In Me Shall Not Die…. We went inside and a man was standing on a platform saying: “Miss Powell, you make ready a song! Come now, brothers, who’ll testify? Yes, Hymn No. 73. After the meeting we will all go down to call on our bereaved sister, Mrs. Blanchard. Let us stand while we sing Hymn No. 73: Lord plant my feet on the higher ground. As I was saying a moment ago, when I saw the steeplejack painting our new steeple bright and pure for us the words of this dear old hymn rushed to my lips: Lord plant my feet on the higher ground.”

The place was very small and there were signs everywhere-“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” et cetera. The most prominent sign was the one over the altar: Don’t Spit On the Floor. They were all singing Hymn No. 73 in honor of the new steeple. We were standing on the higher ground and I had a good view of the signs on the wall, especially the one over the pulpit-Don’t Spit On the Floor. Sister Powell was pumping away at the organ: she looked clean and spiritual. The man on the platform was singing louder than the others and though he knew the words by heart he held the hymn book in front of him and sang from the notes. He looked like a blacksmith who was substituting for the regular preacher. He was very loud and very earnest. He was doing his best, between songs, to get people to testify. Every now and then a man with a squeaky voice piped up: “I praise God for his savin’ and keepin’ power!”

Amen! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

“Come now,” roars the blacksmith, “who’ll testify? You, brother Eaton, won’t you testify?”

Brother Eaton rises to his feet and says solemnly: “He purchased me with a price.”

Amen! Amen! Hallelujah!

Sister Powell is wiping her hands with a handkerchief. She does it spiritually. After she has wiped her hands she looks blankly at the wall in front of her. She looks as though the Lord had just anointed her. Very spiritual.

Brother Eaton, who was purchased with a price, is sitting quietly with hands folded. The blacksmith explains that Brother Eaton was purchased with the price of Christ’s own precious blood shed on the cross, on Calvary, it was. He would like some one else to testify. Some one else, please! In a little while, he explains, we will all go down in a body to have a last look at Sister Blanchard’s dear son who passed away last night. Come now, who’ll testify?

A quaky voice: “Folks, you know I’m not much for testifyin’. But there’s one verse very dear to me… very dear. It’s Colossius 3. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Just stand still, brothers. Just be quiet. Try it sometime. Get down on your knees and try to think of Him. Try to listen to Him. Let Him speak. Brothers, it’s very dear to me-Colossius 3. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.”

Hear! Hear! Glory! Glory! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!

“Sister Powell, you make ready another song!” He wipes his face. `Before we go down to take a last look at Sister Blanchard’s dear son let us all join in singing one more hymn: What a friend we have in Jesus! I guess we all know that by heart. Men, if you’re not washed in the blood of the Lamb it won’t matter how many books your name is registered in down here. Don’t put HIM off! Come to HIM tonight, men… tonight! Come now, all together-What a friend we have … Hymn No. 97. Let everybody stand and sing before we go down in a body to Sister Blanchard’s. Come now, Hymn No. 97…. “What a friend we have in Jesus….”

It’s all arranged. We’re all going down in a body to look at Sister Blanchard’s dear dead son. All of usColossians, Pharisees, snotnoses, gaycats, cracked sopranos-all going down in a body to have a last look. I don’t know what has happened to the crazy Dutchman who wanted a glass of beer. We’re going down to Sister Blanchard’s, all of us in a body-the Jukes and the Kallikaks, Hymn No. 7 3 and Don’t Spit On the Floor! Brother Pritchard, you put out the lights! And Sister Powell, you make ready a song! Good-bye Mexico! We’re going down to Sister Blanchard’s. Going down to plant our feet on the higher ground. Here a nose missing, there an eye out. Lopsided, rheumy, bile-ridden, sweet, spiritual, wormy and demented. All going down in a body to paint the steeple pure and bright. All friends with Jews. All standing still to see the salvation of the Lord. Brother Eaton’s gonna pass the hat around and Sister Powell’s gonna wipe the spit off the walls. All purchased with a price, the price of a good cigar. Now works the calmness of Scheveningen like an anesthetic. All the messages are delivered. For those preferring cremation we will have a few very fine niches for urns. Sister Blanchard’s dear dead son is lying on the ice, his toes are sprouting. The mausoleum provides a place where families and friends may lie side by side in a snow-white compartment, high and dry above the ground, where neither water, damp, nor mold can enter.

Moving toward the National Winter Garden in a yellow taxi. The calmness of Scheveningen is working on me. Letters like music everywhere and God be praised for his savin’ and keepin’ power. Everywhere black snow, everywhere lousy black wigs. WATCH THIS WINDOW FOR SLIGHTLY USED BARGAINS! MUST VACATE! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Poverty walking about in fur coats. Turkish baths, Russian baths, Sitz baths … baths, baths, and no cleanliness. Clara Bow is giving “Parisian Love.” The ghost of Jacob Gordin stalks the blood-soaked tundras. St. Marks-on-the-Bouwerie looks gay as a cockroach, her walls sweet minted and painted a tutti-frutti. BRIDGE WORK … REASONABLE PRICES. Moskowitz is tickling the cymbalon and the cymbalon is tickling the cold storage rump of Leo Tolstoi who has now become a vegetarian restaurant. The whole planet is turned inside out to make warts, pimples, blackheads, wens. The hospitals are all renovated, admission free, side entrance. To all who are suffering, to all who are weary and heavy-laden, to every son of a bitch dying with eczema, halitosis, gangrene, dropsy, be it remembered, sealed and affixed that the side entrance is free. Come ye one and all! Come, ye sniveling Kallikaks! Come, ye snotnosed Pharisees! Come and have your guts renovated at less than the cost of ordinary ground burial. Come tonight! Jesus wants you. Come before it’s too latewe close at 7:15 on the dot.

Cleo dances every night! !

Cleo, darling of the gods, dances every night. Mommer, I’m coming! Mommer, I want to be saved! I’m walking up the ladder, Mommer.

Glory! Glory! Colossius! Colossius 3.

Mother of all that’s holy, now I’m in heaven. I’m standing behind the standees who are standing behind Z for zebra. The Episcopal rector is standing on the church steps with a broken rectum. It says-NO PARKING. The Minsky brothers are in the box office dreaming of the river Shannon. The Pathe News clicks like a hollow nutmeg. In the Himalayas the monks get up in the middle of the night and pray for all who sleep so that men and women all over the world, when they awake in the morning, may begin the day with thoughts that are pure, kind, and brave. The world passes in review: St. Moritz, the Oberammergau Players, Oedipus Rex, chow dogs, cyclones, bathing beauties. My soul is at peace. If I had a beer and a ham sandwich what a friend I would have in Jesus! Anyway, the curtain is rising. Shakespeare was right-the show is the thing!