Jeanette has perfect brown skin and her hair is the greatest Afro I’ve ever seen, an enormous mat-black living turban. The chick herself is as real as her hair. She’s a Cancer, but a truly evolved Cancer with a moon in Capricorn. She’s been to college, graduated cum laude in language, and makes her living translating letters and reviews for a literary agent. She works at home and she’s so good at it, it only takes her a couple of mornings a week. Her best language is French, but the language of her life is pure black. Not Pearl Bailey either. Even better. Simpler. More peaceful. Not so ego-trippy. This morning she and I were talking about this fabulous education of hers and she said, “That’s all a bunch of shit, Witch. What I dig most is keeping things straight.” I asked her what she meant and she said, “You know, drawers, cupboards, closets. My head, too. I just like to keep it all straight.” She’s got Peter’s books all catalogued and the entire family record collection is in perfect order. She also likes sewing and beading, and Sally’s teaching her embroidery.
If I’m going to do this thing right, I’d better describe Percy the Cat. Even though technically he doesn’t belong to our family, he’s always here. His owner is an Italian lady named Mrs. Goldoni, who lives next door, but she only sees Percy at mealtime. He comes and goes through the window next to the fire escape. Percy is black, actually a kind of sable color, and he moves like a tamed panther who’s gotten fat and lazy from living in captivity. Also, the jewels have been removed from his poor little scrotum and this must have something to do with his total lack of feline initiative. He’s an ankle cat. He’s always rubbing his ears against ankles, hoping for a massage. I suppose any definitive portrait of Percy has to include some reference to his flatulence. It’s absolutely radical. He farts every time you pick him up and hold him. And his brand is special. They don’t just rise up and blow away, they have staying power. Even when the room is full of patchouli and frankincense, Percy’s farts hang in the air like lead clouds.
The only other living being in this house is a ghost. Nobody’s actually seen it but everybody’s convinced it’s here and it seems to be located in the hall outside the Big Room. Sally described it as a column of cool air, and often when she passes by it she has the feeling it’s alive. Nyoom has had the same experience and so has his girl friend, Mary. No one seems to mind. They’ve just gotten used to the idea of sharing the place with this invisible tenant. Ever since I heard about it, I pause in the hall when I pass, hoping to pick up some ghost vibes. Last night on my way to bed I actually felt something. My head’s too programmed now to be objective, but I had the feeling there was this gentle little pocket of lonesomeness there, and it made me vaguely sad. When I got to bed, I told Roy about it. He said, “Did you say good night to it?” I hadn’t. So I got up and stood at the head of the stairs and smiled down into the dark. Nothing seemed to be smiling back up at me, but I flashed a peace sign and said good night, just in case, and went back to bed.
Nyoom brought his woman to dinner. Her name is Mary something. She’s a super-blond ex-WASP and he’s jet black, so they look great together, very Yin and Yang. Also they’re opposites in other ways. Nyoom loves to hold forth and Mary loves to listen. They seem to be a perfect couple in every conceivable way. (I’ll bet they’re fantastic together in bed!)
Mary doesn’t call him Nyoom either. She gets it right, pronouncing every little nuance of his soul’s name exactly the way he does, Neyeurme. She teaches bookkeeping at a high school in Brooklyn. You can tell she’s intelligent by the questions she asks—but she never pushes herself forward in a discussion. You always have the impression she’s sitting at Nyoom’s feet, encouraging him to be brilliant. Furthermore, it works.
He was so brilliant tonight explaining the Black Panthers, the entire table was spellbound. He says they’re actually engaged in Street Theater and their most powerful weapon is the TV camera. The plot of the play is to force the white power structure out into the open so the whole world can see the tactics it uses to hold the black man down.
Nyoom feels he knows exactly what’s going to happen in the world during the rest of the century. He’s got an entire timetable in his head. At first it sounded too fantastic, but I noticed Roy listening so intently I decided to pay closer attention. It goes like this:
Between now and 1972, we catch the government in more and more lies, most of them just as shitty as Vietnam. For instance, all the secret wars like Laos and Cambodia get exposed. Demonstrations. Counterdemonstrations. People beat each other up right in the streets. Much bombing. Crime rate zooms, everybody ripping off everybody else. Schools close down. Rich ladies hire armed guards to take them to the delicatessen. The whole country becomes as dangerous as the ghettos have been for years. Chaos up to here. Nixon and Agnew lay the whole thing on the students, the blacks, the peace movement, etc. The cops get caught on TV gunning down the leaders of radical movements. Word leaks out that shoot-to-kill orders have come from Very High Up. This causes mass public freak-out. (Nyoom called it “cultural shock,” but Roy translated.) Scads of government employees all over the country split their posts in disgust. Nobody buys a single word uttered by any public official. This creates a “power vacuum.” (Roy’s translation: “Nobody left to do the dirty work.”) So the police and the Army move in. Nyoom says they already run the whole thing secretly, but by 1972 they quit pretending. They just move right into the old White House, guns and all, and declare a national emergency for themselves. Half of the public thinks this is just divine, but the other half doesn’t dig it at all. Civil war starts. Naturally, the generals cream. They’ve been revving up for this for years, and they know perfectly well the poor revolutionaries haven’t got it together at all. Instant slaughter, quick roundup of dangerous types (like us! ), and the whole thing’s over. Very short war. Then the New Dark Age begins. Martial law. Armored tanks in the streets. Curfews everywhere from Sutton Place to Gung Ho, Texas. Old ladies out looking for their cats after dark found shot to death in the A.M. Students caught listening to Beatles records suddenly disappear, never to be heard from again. Super uglies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Informing. Sabotage. Reprisals. Meanwhile, the rest of the world’s getting it together for a change. Because the Pentagon’s too busy making fascism work at home to do much exporting. America is finally isolated by its own bullshit, and Third World forces have to move in to liberate us. Do they get to us before the looneys push the button? Nyoom says it’s touch and go, because the whole system’s rigged for self-destruct.
Later, in bed
Roy earned $3 today. There’s a sign painter on the street floor of this house, and Roy made a delivery for him. It’s the first money he’s ever earned and he’s practically hysterical with pride.
I didn’t do much about getting work myself. Spent most of the afternoon with Sally at the launderette. She taught me how to run the machines. They’re easy. All we had to do was fold things. And talk. Is Sally always high? I’m beginning to think so. And she hardly ever smokes!
Peter called from California while we were having dinner tonight. His father hasn’t died yet. Nyoom happened to be the one to answer the phone. When I found out it was Peter, I told him to say something about Roy and me, and to ask if it was all right if we stayed till he got back. But Nyoom can’t do anything simply.
He said, “The population of this Canal Street Experimental Station en route to Utopia has increased by two examples of the genus homo sapiens, and, er, uh, the, uh, foundlings in question are indulging in a certain shall we say anxiety as to their status here. However, Sally Sunflower, that stunning example of celestial flora, has done what she could to assure them that the matter . . . ” And blah blah blah.
Peter must be a saint to let him run on like that long distance. Anyway, I guess it’s cool for us to stay till he gets back.
CANAL STREET, SEPTEMBER 11, 1969
Haven’t been into a writing thing for three solid days, so it feels good to have this notebook in my lap again. It’s been raining all day. Cary Co
lorado’s out looking for wood. He wants to build a fire and do his Yoga in front of it. It’s not at all cold, but it’ll be lovely to see the fireplace working. Percy the Cat is curled up at my feet and the whole scene is so old-timey and cozy I’m having Emily Brontë flashes. Sally Sunflower is Charlotting in the kitchen. It’s her day to cook. On my days she’s always out there showing me macrobiotic secrets, but on her days she doesn’t seem to mind doing it all alone.
Peter and Doris are still in California. They phoned last night to get in on the mealtime Zap. Peter’s father is lingering on and on without showing any signs of getting better or worse. I caught myself hoping he’d die, so Peter and Doris could come back, and it didn’t bother me at all to catch myself being so selfish because I knew it was only a flash and entirely human.
Roy’s upstairs helping Jeanette clean out Peter’s attic. They want to have it all painted and spruced up as a surprise for when he gets back. I’ve never seen Roy work so hard. The sign man downstairs hasn’t had any more deliveries for him to make, but since that first $3, he’s been obsessed with the idea of paying his own way. He volunteered to help Jeanette do over the attic, and the notion of repainting it was entirely his. It’s strange. On the one hand, he won’t even push the thumb tacks all the way in on our Desiderata poster, and yet he’s painting the attic of a man he hasn’t even met. I suppose he’s trying to build up a little insurance against getting thrown out when Peter comes back. Also, I notice he digs being with Jeanette. It seems like whenever he’s not with Archie Fiesta, he’s with her, and I’ve sort of been missing him. The only time I see him is at dinner and in bed.
The attic is my favorite part of the house. The stairs right above the alcove where Roy and I sleep open into this sort of loft that Peter uses for talking with people in private. I suppose it’s actually his consultation room. The only furniture in it is an Oriental rug, two easy chairs and a mattress. Off to the side there’s a little blue Buddha, some votive candles, and an incense burner, all on the floor. Also little stacks of books here and there and scads of newspapers and magazines, both underground and overground. On one wall is a bulletin board with a little of everything on it. You could stand there for hours (and I have) finding new bits and pieces that various members of the family and other visiting brothers and sisters have tacked up. Some are original and some are copied from other sources. I’ll copy the whole bulletin board in here someday when I haven’t anything else to write, but at the moment I want to get the titles of these books.
Peter’s Books
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Politics of Ecstasy. Timothy Leary
The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe
Reality Therapy. William Glasser
The Wretched of the Earth. Franz Fanon
My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Errol Flynn
Principles of Accounting
The Other Side. James Pike
Woodstock Nation. Abbie Hoffman
The Teachings of Don Juan; A Yaqui Way of Life. Castaneda
The Prophet. Kahlil Gibran
The Whole Earth Catalog
I Ching
Education and Ecstasy. George Leonard
Centering. Mary Caroline Richards
Post-Prison Writings and Speeches. Eldridge Cleaver
A Stranger in a Strange Land. Robert Heinlein
The Phenomenon of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Thus Spake Zarathustra. Friedrich Nietzsche
Mandate for Change. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal. Howard Zinn
Points of Rebellion. William O. Douglas
Growing Up Absurd. Paul Goodman
Childhood’s End. Arthur C. Clarke
The Ultimate Revolution. Walter Starcke
Periodicals
I. F. Stone’s Weekly
Buy-Lines
The Minuteman News
Scanlon’s
Playboy
Dr. Strange
Consumer Reports
National Observer
The Realist
Win
Now that I’m sort of into it, I might as well describe the rest of the house. The street floor doesn’t count, because it’s commercial. The sign man has his shop down there, and we have the top three floors. Our first (which is actually the second floor of the building) has three rooms. The one I’m in now is called the Big Room. Practically everything happens here—living, eating, listening to music, etc. Then there’s the kitchen at the back, and off to the side a tiny bedroom where Sally Sunflower sleeps. The second floor is nothing but two enormous bedrooms and a big bathroom in between plus the little cave under the attic stairs where Roy and I sleep. And that’s it. Except that in the attic there’s also a bedroom where Doris and Peter sleep.
The style of the house is groovy ramshackle. Everything’s either falling apart from age or on the verge. The toilet, for instance, has to be flushed by drawing a bucket of water from the tub and dumping it into the bowl. Nobody minds any of this because the rent is super-cheap, $150 a month, and the deal is that we agree not to ask the landlord for anything, no matter what, even if the roof falls in. But we can do anything we please, even build greenhouses on the roof, as long as we don’t bug him.
Why am I writing all this stuff? I seem to be in a Jeanette mood today, sorting out little drawers in my head, telling where everybody is, describing the house, etc. I’m avoiding something of course.
And I know exactly what it is, too. I’ve been noticing lately that the minute I ask myself a question like this, the answer’s sitting right there staring at me.
Hi, Archie, you prick.
I might as well go whole hog and start from the beginning.
The first time I saw him, the morning after Roy and I moved in, he was sitting here on this very couch listening to a Steve Miller record, the one that starts with “Quicksilver Girl,” a song I always think of as my very own. I was hardly awake yet, but when Sally introduced us, I nearly fell over in a dead faint, he’s that beautiful. Puerto Rican and Italian with a little German thrown in, and the combination is utter pornography. His handshake alone is an aphrodisiac. And no woman should look at him head-on without sunglasses unless she wants to run the risk of making a fool of herself on the spot. Witch Pisces Me wanted to jump right into his lap, but somehow Witch moon-in-Scorpio Me has been able to maintain a certain cool—until this afternoon. Now I’m wondering how badly I blew it.
I have some secret thoughts about Archie Fiesta that I wouldn’t divulge to a living soul, not even Roy. The thought of causing even a hint of dissension in this perfect, sacred family destroys me completely. Besides, Roy has taught me to dig the Eighth Commandment. Rather than break it, I’d undergo an abortion without sedation by a doctor using ice tongs.
But I’m not called Witch for nothing. I get definite flashes about people, and I trust them. They are whispered into my ears by angels or something probably. Who knows? But everything I am tells me Archie Fiesta is on a death trip. Furthermore, he wants company!
God, what a horrible thing to write down.
The really awful thing is that he’s so excruciatingly attractive. And not just to me. He’s got this entire family in a bag slung over his shoulder and just walks away with us in any direction he chooses. So great for instance are the prerogatives of beauty that he takes money out of the Grocery Pig while everybody else is putting it in—and no one seems to mind in the least. I can’t help thinking if he really wanted us to live in peace, he’d mess himself up a little so we could all stop quivering about him. His hair is the reddish black Grandmother O’Malley used to try for with her henna packs, only on Archie it’s real. His skin is even more translucent than mine, and his lips! I’d just as soon forget his lips. But it wouldn’t help—it’s his whole head and bod. He looks as if somebody had hired the top 25 greatest sculptors and painters of all time and said, Go to it, the sky’s the limit—and what they came up with is Archie Fiesta. But I still can’t
forget his lips. They’re curly and a little too big, and the skin on them is so thin you can see right through to the red, which is the red of ripe strawberry with the faintest hint of beige at the edges. And now, having lingered on them for a full minute, I’m ready to faint again. I hereby instruct myself to stop thinking about Archie Fiesta’s lips. I must steel myself and proceed to his eyes. One of them moves straight into yours when he looks at you, but has a slight cast and seems somehow to be off on a trip of its own. The total effect is that Archie Fiesta is half here and half somewhere else, hung up on some glorious mystery. You get the impression he’s remembering life on some other planet, or this chick he left back on Mars.
Along with all these radical physical assets, what really undoes people is his cool and his rap. He claims his cool comes from harmony, inner harmony. And that, in a nutshell, just about sums up his rap.
The first time you hear it, it sounds pretty good, but the second time it rings hollow. It’s like he got hold of this magic code word, Harmony, and because he’s so cool (stoned out of his mind is my guess—I’ll bet my ass he munches mescaline for breakfast! ) and so wildly good-looking, everybody seems to want to believe it. I wonder if Peter does?
Could I be wrong? Could it be just this mad physical impact of his that makes me feel he’s simply got to be a con man? Scorpios are often suspicious of the people they want to go to bed with. But I’m hip enough to myself to take that into account.
Season of the Witch Page 9