men by running for Governor saying “Your tax money in my hands will be aptly used,” “You should realize how valuable I am and how much you need me, without me what would you be, not led at all?”—Forward to the big designed mankind cartoon of a man standing facing the rising sun with strong shoulders with a plough at his feet, the necktied governor is going to make hay while the sun rises—?—I feel guilty for being a member of the human race—Drunkard yes and one of the worst fools on earth—In fact not even a genuine drunkard just a fool—But I stand there with hand on curtain looking down for Billie, who’s late, Ah me, I remember that frightening thing Milarepa said which is other than those reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big Sur: “When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddesses and Mothers you will bring annoyance” and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand) but because if I dont write what actually I see happening in this unhappy globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I’ll have been sent on earth by poor God for nothing—Tho being a Phantom of the Opera why should that worry me?—In my youth leaning my brow hopelessly on the typewriter bar, wondering why God ever was anyway?—Or biting my lip in brown glooms in the parlor chair in which my father’s died and we’ve all died a million deaths—Only Fagan can understand and now he’s got his bus—And when Billie comes home with Elliott I smile and sit down in the chair and it utterly collapses under me, blang, I’m sprawled on the floor with surprise, the chair has gone.
“How’d that happen?” wonders Billie and at the same time we both look at the fishbowl and both the goldfishes are upsidedown floating dead on the surface of the water.
