image with the image of myself as a writer, which Monsanto without even thinking about it has accomplished at the drop of a hat)—Monsanto with his husky shoulders, big blue eyes, twinkling rosy skin, that perpetual smile of his that earned him the name Smiler in college and a smile you often wondered “Is it real?” until you realized if Monsanto should ever stop using that smile how could the world go on anyway—It was that kind of smile too inseparable from him to be believably allowed to disappear—Words words words but he is a grand guy as I'll show and now with real manly sympathy he really felt I should not go on big binges if I felt so bad, “At any rate,” sez he, “you can go back a little later huh”—“Okay Lorry”—“Did you write anything?”—“I wrote the sounds of the sea, I’ll tell you all about it—It was the most happy three weeks of my life dammit and now this has to happen, poor little Tyke—You should have seen him a big beautiful yellow Persian the kind they call calico”—“Well you still have my dog Homer, and how was Alf out there?”—“Alf the Sacred Burro, he ha, he stands in groves of trees in the afternoon suddenly you see him it’s almost scarey, but I fed him apples and shredded wheat and everything” (and animals are so sad and patient I thought as I remembered Tyke’s eyes and Alf’s eyes, ah death, and to think this strange scandalous death comes also to human beings, yea to Smiler even, poor Smiler, and poor Homer his dog, and all of us)—I’m also depressed because I know how horrible my mother now feels all alone without her little chum in the house back there 3 thousand miles (and indeed by Jesus it turns out later some silly beatniks trying to see me broke the windowpane in the front door trying to get in and scared her so much she barricaded the door with furniture all the rest of that summer).
But there’s old Ben Fagan puffing and chuckling over his pipe so what the hell, why bother grownup men and poets at that with your own troubles—So Ben and I and his chum Jonesy also a chuckly pipesmoker go out to the bar (Mike’s Place) and sip a few beers, at first
