Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Henry Miller

  “Most of us know little more than we were told. That isn’t very much, is it? Nothing to brag about, anyway. Now a child is born innocent. A child brings with it light and love … and a hunger to learn. The adult is looking toward the grave, or else toward the past. But the child lives in the present, in the spirit of the eternal. No, we’re not educating our children: we’re driving them, pushing them, shoving them around. We’re teaching them to make the same foolish mistakes we made—and then we punish them for imitating us. That’s not Nature’s way. That’s man’s way … the human way. And it leads to sin and death.”

  I often think of Greenwell’s words when my own two youngsters get to plying me with questions I can’t answer. As a rule I tell them the truth—“I don’t know.” And if they say, “Mommy would know,” or “Harrydick knows,” or “God knows, doesn’t He?” I say, “Fine! You ask him (or her) next time.”

  I try to convey the idea that ignorance is no sin. I even hint, softly, to be sure, that there are questions which nobody can answer, not even Mommy or Harrydick. I hope in this way to prepare them for the revelation which is sure to come one day that acquiring knowledge is like biting into a cheese which grows bigger with every bite. I also hope to instill the thought that to answer a question oneself is better than having someone answer it for you. Even if it’s the wrong answer! Only on quiz programs do we get the “correct” answers—but what do they add up to?

  The gulf between knowledge and truth is infinite. Parents talk a lot about truth but seldom bother to deal in it. It’s much simpler to dispense ready-made knowledge. More expedient too, for truth demands patience, endless, endless patience. The happiest expedient of all is to bundle kids off to school just as soon as they can stand the strain. There they not only get “learning,” which is a crude substitute for knowledge, but discipline.

  I’ve said a number of times, and I say it again—as a boy I led a happy life. A very happy life. I only remember being “disciplined” once, and that was at my mother’s bidding. Evidently I had misbehaved the whole day, to the point of exasperation. When my father came home from work that evening he was informed that he was to give me a sound thrashing. I could see from the expression my father assumed that he wasn’t overjoyed to perform this humiliating task. I felt sorry for him. When therefore he took off his leather slipper and whacked me with it, I pretended that it hurt and I bawled just as loud as I could. I hoped that would make him feel better. He was not a man to mete out punishment to anyone, let alone his own son. And so I collaborated to the best of my ability.

  In the eyes of the neighbors here I don’t rate very high as a father. For one thing, I don’t “lower the boom” often enough. I have a reputation for being too lenient, too indulgent. Now and then, when I’ve lost my temper, I have clobbered the kids. When they pushed me too far, as we say. When this happens I immediately feel repentant and I try to forget the incident as quickly as possible. I never harbor any feelings of guilt, nor do I promise myself that I will be more strict with them in future—so as to avoid a recurrence of these disgraceful scenes. The child lives in the moment, and I do my best to follow his example.

  When I particularly loathe myself is when I catch myself saying: “If you don’t watch out you’re going to catch it again!” I feel that a threat is worse than a blow. The healthier children are, the more bounce they have, the more frequent are the threats hurled at them. Normal, healthy children are natural-born hell-raisers. They were not made for the life we offer them, we who have given up the ghost, who conform every step of the way. Well-behaved children may be a delight to live with but they rarely make outstanding men and women. I make exception where the parents are themselves unusual, where they have created an atmosphere of harmony through the everyday practice of goodness, kindness and understanding. But how many homes radiate this kind of atmosphere? In the Western world the home is a battleground where husband fights wife, brother fights sister, and parents fight the children. The din is only drowned by the radio, which echoes the same situation, only on a bigger, more brutal, more perverted, more despicable scale. And if it isn’t drowned that way, it’s drowned in alcohol. Such is “home” for the child of today. In the civilized world, at any rate.

  Acting the doting father, I was the boy who remembered the wonderful, riotous times he had doing all the things he was not supposed to do. I cannot recall ever being seriously unhappy until the pangs of Weltschmerz set in.

  As a father I’ve also been somewhat of a mother, because not having a job like other honest citizens—writing is only a pastime!—I was always within earshot, always within reach, when the kids got out of hand. As a father who was also unhappily married, I had often to act as arbiter when there should have been no need for an arbiter. Whatever decisions I made, they were wrong, and they were subsequently used against me. At least, so it seemed to me.

  One of the minor aspects of this tragicomic dilemma was the fact that my wife believed that she was protecting me. Protecting me, I mean to say, from the annoyances which children are prone to inflict upon fathers who have nothing more important to do than write books. Since she did everything by the book, and to the extreme, the protection she was offering me usually worked more harm than good. Or so I regarded it. (I know I didn’t always see straight!)

  Anyway, it went something like this…. No matter what happened, they were not to disturb me at work. If they fell and hurt themselves, they were not to make a fuss about it. If they had to weep or scream, they were to do it out of earshot. (It never occurred to her, I suppose, that I would have felt much better if they had come and wept on my shoulder.) Whatever it was they wanted, they were to wait until I was ready to give them my attention. If, in spite of all injunctions, they knocked at my studio door—and they did, of course!—they were made to feel that they were guilty of committing a small crime. And, if I were foolish enough to open the door and give them a moment’s attention, then I was abetting the crime. Worse, I was guilty of sabotage. If I took a breather, and profited by it to see what the kids were up to, then I was guilty of encouraging them to expect things of me which they had no right to expect.

  By midafternoon I usually had but one thought—to get as far away from the house as possible, and take the kids with me. Often we would return home exhausted. And when children get exhausted they are not the most amenable creatures in the world.

  It was an endless circle. Punkt!

  When the separation came about I made a forlorn and desperate effort to be a father and mother. The girl had just started school, but the boy, her junior by three years, was too young to attend school. What he needed was a nurse or a governess. Now and then a neighbor—and here I think especially of that kind soul, Dorothy Herbert—came and lent a hand. In a short time I realized that there was nothing to do but to entrust the boy to his mother’s care, which I did, with the understanding that she would return him to me as soon as I found someone capable of providing him with the proper care and attention.

  Shortly thereafter an attractive-looking woman knocked at the door and said she had been told that I was looking for someone to take care of my children. She had two children of her own, about the same age as ours, and she had separated from her husband. All she wanted was room and board in exchange for her services. As she expressed it, she didn’t care what was demanded of her, if only she might live in Big Sur.

  Her arrival coincided with the arrival of my wife and boy, who had come to celebrate the girl’s birthday. What a stroke of fortune, I thought, as I explained the situation. To my astonishment my wife agreed that the young woman seemed suitable for the task, and after a few tears, consented to leave the boy in my care.

  It was a hectic day. From miles around the kids had come to celebrate and jubilate. Some of them brought their parents along.

  I forgot to say that a few days previous to this event my friend Walker Winslow had installed himself in the studio above. He had driven all the way from Topeka with his left hand, having cracked
his right shoulder blade some weeks before. Knowing of my plight, Walker had volunteered his services as cook and part-time “governess,” hoping, no doubt, that he would find a few hours a day in which to work in peace and quiet. (He had received a commission from a big publisher to do a book on the founder of the Menninger Foundation, where he had been staying.*) He also looked forward, no doubt, to repeating the pleasant experiences we had shared while at Anderson Creek.

  In the course of the merrymaking the young woman, Ivy was her name, discreetly withdrew from sight. She was shy and somewhat embarrassed, knowing no one present and having no particular role to fill. Strolling about by her lonesome she ran into Walker.

  As Walker related it to me afterwards, Ivy was on the point of leaving then and there. She was depressed, confused, and thoroughly ill at ease. However, after a cup of coffee and a quiet chat in the studio, he had succeeded in restoring her self-confidence. Walker is easy to talk to, and women particularly find him very understanding, very comforting.

  Later that day he took me aside to explain that I might have difficulties with Ivy, that she was emotionally disturbed because of her own unhappy life, and somewhat intimidated by the responsibility she was assuming. The situation was aggravated, for her, by the fact that she would be obliged to leave her own two children in her husband’s care.

  “I felt I ought to tell you this,” he said. Then he added: “But I think she deserves a tryout. She means well, I know that.”

  Walker was of the opinion that if the arrangement didn’t work out well he and I should be able to look after the children. I could take care of Tony in the morning and he in the afternoon. He would do all the cooking and the dish-washing too. But it would be better if Ivy proved equal to the task.

  Ivy lasted just about twelve hours. She quit cold, giving as her reason that my kids were “impossible.” My wife, of course, had already left and I was in no hurry to inform her of the turn of events. Walker had to drive Ivy and her two youngsters to town and rush home to prepare the evening meal.

  After dinner we had a short talk. “Are you sure you want to keep the children now?” he asked. I told him I felt up to it, if he would carry out his end of the bargain.

  The very next day the fun began. To devote a whole morning to a three-year-old boy full of piss and vinegar is a job for someone with six hands and three pairs of legs. No matter what we decided to play, the jig lasted only a few minutes. Every toy in the place had been taken out, used, and thrown aside in less than an hour. If I suggested that we go for a walk he was too tired. There was an old tricycle he liked to ride, but before the morning was out a wheel had come off and, though I sweated blood, I simply could not make it stay on again. I tried playing ball but his co-ordination wasn’t good enough; I almost had to stand on top of him and put the ball in his hands. I got out his building blocks too—several bushel baskets full—and tried, as they say, to have him do something “constructive,” but his interest in this pastime lay exclusively in kicking the house, or the bridge, apart after I had built it. That was fun! I tied all his choo-choo cars together, added a few tin cans and other noise-makers to them, and ran about like a zany while he sat and watched me. This bored the shit out of him in no time.

  At intervals Walker showed up to see how we were making out. Finally—it couldn’t have been later than ten o’clock, if that late—he said: “Go up and work a while. I’ll take over. You need a break.”

  More to recover myself than to work, I reluctantly obeyed. There I sat, in my den, poring over the pages I had just finished, but too dead to squeeze out another line. What I wanted, early as it was, was a nap! I could hear Tony shouting and screaming, shrieking and wailing. Poor Walker!

  When Val arrived, after school, the difficulties increased. It was nothing but fight, fight, fight. Even if it were nothing more than a rock which one of them had picked up, the other one immediately claimed it. It’s mine, I saw it first! You did not! I did too see it first. Caca pipi head, caca pipi head! (Their favorite expression.) It now demanded the full time of the two of us to handle the situation. By dinnertime we were always pooped out.

  It was the same old story every day. No improvements, no progress. An absolute standstill. Walker, being an early riser, managed to get some work done before breakfast. He was up at five, regular as a clock. After he had made himself a pot of strong coffee he would sit down to the machine. When he wrote, he wrote fast. He did everything fast. As for me, I would remain in bed till the last horn, hoping to store up an extra supply of nervous energy. (I didn’t know, in those days, about “rose hips,” nor about calcium and phosphorus tablets, nor about tiger’s milk.) As for getting any writing done, I dismissed the idea once and for all. Even a writer has first of all to be, and to feel like, a human being. My problem was—to survive. Always I nourished the illusion that someone would turn up to rescue me, someone who loved children and knew how to handle them. Whatever I needed usually came my way, when sorely pressed. Why not the perfect governess? In my dreams I always pictured my savior in the guise of a Hindu, Javanese or Mexican, a woman of the people, simple, not too intelligent, but definitely possessed of that one great prerequisite: patience.

  Evenings, after the kids had been put to bed, poor Walker would endeavor to engage me in talk. It was hopeless. I had only one thought in mind—to get to bed as soon as possible. Every day I would say to myself: “It can’t go on this way forever. Courage, you poor imbecile!” Every night, on climbing into bed, I would repeat: “Another day! Patience, patience!”

  One day, after he had been to town to fetch supplies, Walker quietly announced that he had looked up Ivy. “Just wanted to see how she was getting along.” I thought it was very kind of Walker to do that. Just like him, of course. The sort of man who looks after every one who is in trouble. And always getting himself into trouble.

  What I didn’t know, until after the next trip to town, was that he and Ivy had become close friends. Or, as he put it: “Ivy seems to have a yen for me.” In the interim Ivy’s problems had taken a new twist. Having no means of support, she had been obliged to surrender her children to her husband. She was supposed to be quite cut up about this.

  I had made the mistake of telling Walker that I never wanted to see Ivy again. She had left me in the lurch after a half-hearted effort and, like the elephant, I found it hard to forgive her. If her own children were well behaved, I said, it was only because their mother was a cold, ruthless bitch.

  Walker defended her as best he could, assuring me that I would change my mind once I got to know her. “She has her troubles too,” he said. “Don’t forget that.” But I was thoroughly unimpressed.

  Winter had set in and with it the rains. Ivy showed up unannounced one afternoon and remained a few days. She made no effort to help with the children, or even with the cooking and cleaning. Knowing that I disliked her, she kept out of bounds. Occasionally she would pop in toward dark to sit by the little stove and poke the fire. For some reason she had fallen in love with this stove, so much so that she kept it clean and polished.

  How the two of them managed in the studio above was beyond me. It was altogether without conveniences of any kind; there wasn’t even a sink in it. The woodstove, which I had found somewhere, smoked continually. The floor was of cement and over it, to keep his feet dry, Walker had strewn some filthy, discarded rugs, potato sacks and torn sheets. The sliding door, which used to be the entrance (when it was a garage), gaped at both ends, thus providing an unwelcome circulation of air. Overhead, between the plaster-boards and the roofing, the squirrels and the rats made merry night and day. What was particularly exacerbating was the sound of nuts rolling back and forth up there. Not only did the roof leak but the windows too. When it rained a pool of water collected on the floor in no time. Hardly a “love nest,” I must say.

  Ivy had hardly returned to town when the rains came down in earnest. Never have I seen it rain as it did that winter. For days on end it deluged us, like a punishment from abo
ve. During this period it was impossible for Val to go to school; the school was about ten miles away and the road from our house to the highway was virtually unnavigable. This meant that I had to keep the two of them indoors—and keep them happy.

  We worked at it in relays, Walker and I. When it came nap time I lay down with them. I hoped by doing so to replenish my powers for the second half of the day. What a delusion! All we did at nap time was to toss to and fro. When I thought “we” had enough, I would tell them to scram—and that they would do, like kittens scrambling out of a sack. Usually I was more exhausted after the nap than I had been before. The hours that lay ahead moved like lead.

  The room in which all the shenanigans went on was of ordinary size and fortunately not too cluttered with furniture. The main obstructions were the bed, the table and the little stove. I say “obstructions” because to make their joy unconfined I had given them permission to use their bikes indoors. The bikes were brought into play whenever they grew tired of games. To clear the deck (from front door to back door) for the races the floor had first to be cleared of all obstacles. Everything was thrown on the bed and the table. The table was piled with chairs, toys, tools and implements, and the bed with games, bugles, swords, rubber dolls, balls, klaxons, building blocks, rifles and toy soldiers. The rugs I rolled up and shoved against the big French windows where the rain water always collected. In the middle of the room, where the bed and the stove faced each other, there was always danger of traffic congestion. From whichever end of the room they began the racing they always collided between the stove and the bed. Naturally they engaged in the usual abusive arguments which traffic snarls provoke.

  They could keep it up for an hour or more at a time, the bike races. I had no place to sit or lie, so I stood first in one spot, then another, like a referee at a boxing match. Now children who are having fun hate to see a grownup idling his time away. It didn’t take them long to suggest that, since I had chosen to stand and watch, I might as well be a traffic cop. I was provided with a club, a rifle and a diminutive bobby’s hat which someone had made Tony a gift of. Oh yes, and a whistle! My job was to wait till they rode a few paces, blow the whistle, put my hand up—vertically or horizontally—and then blow again. Sometimes the change of pace was so abrupt that one of us would accidentally get conked with a club or a rifle butt. As to whether they were genuine accidents was always a matter of hot dispute.