that there was no other choice for me. I left Iris and went directly to the range. I had the Magnum in the trunk of the car in that bag and the .38 and the other little gun and I kept shooting. I must have shot a hundred times, bam, bam, bam, bam. To that effect just like that. The burning smell in my nostrils.
Home again I wrote in this journal: “Loneliness has followed me all my life. The life of loneliness pursues me wherever I go: in bars, cars, coffee shops, theaters, stores, sidewalks. There is no escape. Not to love is to die. All my work hides my essential unemployment.”
Wrote: “I am not a fool. I will no longer fool myself. I will no longer let myself fall apart, become a joke, an object of ridicule. I am not a square. There is no longer any hope. I cannot continue this hollow empty fight. I must sleep. What hope is there for me?”
I drove most of that night watching the world go by. Everybody matched up in pairs, me without. God for a friend to have a friend in my life. I . . . wandered from store to store in the morning to make acquaintance of the shopkeepers. Wandered about all over, on my feet, to be noticed, smiled at, exchange a pleasant word or two. Went to the bank. Just wandering along on my feet. I went to the bank, as I say, got five crisp hundred-dollar bills. Folded them up in a letter, put them in an envelope, addressed it to Iris.
“Dear Iris, this money should be enough for your trip. Take the trip immediately. Do not delay. By the time you read this I will be dead. Travis.”
I cleaned the apartment. Put everything neat and orderly. Shaved, changed my clothes. Went out in the street again.
The storekeepers were all grinning failure in front of their cramped little displays: Everybody was selling out, everybody looked sad: Business was slow. Life was something you shrugged at. Something you put up with. The books you might have read. The kids you might have loved. All the money you would have made if your mother had been kinder to you. The fun you could have had with a friend. From under their soft gray mustaches they produced little yellow plums of phlegm and recipes for happiness. They kidded me with gossip on the high cost of living, and the uncertain weather. Palantine was speaking in Brooklyn. No more time.
I thought long live death it’s all any of us believes in anyway.
Thought long live death.
Thought nobody can help anybody Palantine can’t help. He can’t be helped
Storekeepers couldn’t they couldn’t be helped they couldn’t.
Words to that effect. You don’t take the kid who steals coins from your newsstand and make him your cashier.
Hitler is a bum tiddle yum, tum, tum. To that effect. A little diddy from my childhood acres of truth to that. To that effect . . .
So then I refixed the metal gliders for the Colt .25 on my forearm and split the little kangaroo and the kukaburra too . . .
Lickety split splat just like that after fitting the .38 into my holster. Checking out the Magnum in the back of my belt.
Still had on this Army jacket. Couldn’t stop sweating. Sang as I drove an old Aussy song I learned in Nam about a kangaroo:
“I was traveling with my sheep
all me mates was fast asleep.
No moon or stars were shining in the sky.
I was dozing I supposed
and me eyes had hardly closed
when a very strange procession passed me by.
First there came a kangaroo
with his swag a blanket’s blue
he had with him a dingo for a mate.
They was traveling pretty fast
But they shouted as they passed
We gotta be getting on it’s getting late . . .”
Later, me high on the bridge to Brooklyn under the big stone archways as in a church back home I loved
In spider web riggings caught like a fly. I loved being so
Loved the brown sun on the water, that brown light
Propelled girder by girder in this yellow tube toward the mouth of my death
To bestow my blessings of death on this man I loved. Admired. The Senator, Charles Palantine, and this great nation America which taught
Home again I wrote in this journal: “Loneliness has followed me all my life. The life of loneliness pursues me wherever I go: in bars, cars, coffee shops, theaters, stores, sidewalks. There is no escape. Not to love is to die. All my work hides my essential unemployment.”
Wrote: “I am not a fool. I will no longer fool myself. I will no longer let myself fall apart, become a joke, an object of ridicule. I am not a square. There is no longer any hope. I cannot continue this hollow empty fight. I must sleep. What hope is there for me?”
I drove most of that night watching the world go by. Everybody matched up in pairs, me without. God for a friend to have a friend in my life. I . . . wandered from store to store in the morning to make acquaintance of the shopkeepers. Wandered about all over, on my feet, to be noticed, smiled at, exchange a pleasant word or two. Went to the bank. Just wandering along on my feet. I went to the bank, as I say, got five crisp hundred-dollar bills. Folded them up in a letter, put them in an envelope, addressed it to Iris.
“Dear Iris, this money should be enough for your trip. Take the trip immediately. Do not delay. By the time you read this I will be dead. Travis.”
I cleaned the apartment. Put everything neat and orderly. Shaved, changed my clothes. Went out in the street again.
The storekeepers were all grinning failure in front of their cramped little displays: Everybody was selling out, everybody looked sad: Business was slow. Life was something you shrugged at. Something you put up with. The books you might have read. The kids you might have loved. All the money you would have made if your mother had been kinder to you. The fun you could have had with a friend. From under their soft gray mustaches they produced little yellow plums of phlegm and recipes for happiness. They kidded me with gossip on the high cost of living, and the uncertain weather. Palantine was speaking in Brooklyn. No more time.
I thought long live death it’s all any of us believes in anyway.
Thought long live death.
Thought nobody can help anybody Palantine can’t help. He can’t be helped
Storekeepers couldn’t they couldn’t be helped they couldn’t.
Words to that effect. You don’t take the kid who steals coins from your newsstand and make him your cashier.
Hitler is a bum tiddle yum, tum, tum. To that effect. A little diddy from my childhood acres of truth to that. To that effect . . .
So then I refixed the metal gliders for the Colt .25 on my forearm and split the little kangaroo and the kukaburra too . . .
Lickety split splat just like that after fitting the .38 into my holster. Checking out the Magnum in the back of my belt.
Still had on this Army jacket. Couldn’t stop sweating. Sang as I drove an old Aussy song I learned in Nam about a kangaroo:
“I was traveling with my sheep
all me mates was fast asleep.
No moon or stars were shining in the sky.
I was dozing I supposed
and me eyes had hardly closed
when a very strange procession passed me by.
First there came a kangaroo
with his swag a blanket’s blue
he had with him a dingo for a mate.
They was traveling pretty fast
But they shouted as they passed
We gotta be getting on it’s getting late . . .”
Later, me high on the bridge to Brooklyn under the big stone archways as in a church back home I loved
In spider web riggings caught like a fly. I loved being so
Loved the brown sun on the water, that brown light
Propelled girder by girder in this yellow tube toward the mouth of my death
To bestow my blessings of death on this man I loved. Admired. The Senator, Charles Palantine, and this great nation America which taught
Similar Books
