The story that changed my life happened where they still
bury people above ground. Part of it, anyway. New Orleans, you'll guess, and you'll be
almost right.


 


 But, I heard the story
on a Christmas eve right after one of the wars. It was in one of those dirty,
dimly-lit places on Third Avenue -- Reilly's, Kelly's, Teague's, O'Rourke's --
I'm not exactly sure -- but they had one of those electric reindeer in the
window blinking on and off and an old barfly named Mary drinking bad gin and
feeling mel an cho ly (as she puts it). "Where are your gloves, you
goddamn idjit? You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do you?" Give
a penny to the old girl and sit down. You're in the right place. 


 


My name's Marlow/e. You know me. Who I am is why I live
here. What I want to tell you o pall of the pals of Labovtown and patron of the
Peacock theatre is how I was changed, changed utterly that night. How a
terrible beauty was born.


 


 It was a terrible day
as I remember it. Rain over Rahoon and a dull drizzle over Long
 Island. I spent the day drinking with Eddie Poe at the Tomb of
Ligea -- a gin mill over on Bleeker
  street. Eddie got sick as usual and I ended up
taking him home. I had nothing else to do so I called up Daisy B. She wanted me
to come out but I can't stand Tom. I ended up in some be-bop joint listening to
some melusines who called themselves "The Rainy Pleiads." They sang
to me but I guess I wasn't in the mood. "I did not think that breath had
undone so many," I told them. They liked that. I couldn't believe it.


 


 By the time I got to
Reilly's, Kelly's, Teague's, or O'Rourke's I was feeling pretty down. Reilly,
Kelly, Teague, or O'Rourke there and then there is Mary: "Where are your
gloves, you goddamn idjit? You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do
you?" Ah, my sweet Christ. But it _was_ Christmas eve and a few of the
lonelier members of the Narrator's Club always get together to have a few
drinks, tell a few stories, and complain about their authors and characters.
Sometimes an author or character will even show up. 


 


But the really good authors are all over at the Mermaid and
the characters are a sad lot indeed. 


 


I won't even talk about the critics.


 


 It used to be that
they stayed home drinking eggnog with the gentlemen in dustcoats. Those guys
are mostly dead. These new sons of bitches roam the meaner streets with their
AK47s and Twa Corbies and woe woe woe unto any poor author unlucky enough to encounter
them. Before they know it they're one with the wind and the west moon. Even on
Christmas eve. So, we were all there waiting the coming of the infant God. In
order serviceable. 


 


There was a guy named Joe, a neuresthenic sort with a 10ft
long scarf chainsmoking Pall Malls and staring at his liver spots. Joe -- not
the scarf. There was a guy called "The Beadsman" from "The Eve
of St. Agnes." A shot of rye. "Ah, bitter chill it is." There
was T. Crofton Croker: "By my word a drop of good liquor would be no bad
thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him." There was the citizen
who toasts the memory of the dead and shouts "Sinn fein amhain!"
"Ay. Ay," says Joe.


 


 A dapper little
fellow in ratskin gloves who said his name was Mother. Two of the ducks that
Holden wondered about in _Catcher in the Rye_ were there along with the pig the
man comes in with in the joke. The Lamia,
Mary, Barbara Allen, Walter J. Ong, and me, Marlow/e, made up the rest of that
not- too-visionary company. 


 


A few drinks. The ducks sang "Oft in the Stilly
Night." A few more drinks and I was just beginning my tale: "This too
was once..." when the door blew open, the gaslight flickered, and Fate
came in the door. 


 


Fate was this pooka who called himself Mr. Harvy. Claimed he
was from a Kate Chopin story and looked the part -- bad teeth, sidewhiskers,
horseleather perfume, a pearl-handled derringer sticking out of the sidepocket
of his waistcoat, a copy of Byron under his arm. But, the rabbit ears gave him
away. You could tell the poor son of a bitch had been bell booked and candled
by some reader or critic. Without a word to the company he sat down next to the
pig and lit up a foul smelling cheroot. 


 


The pig muttered but kept his peace. He was used to worse.
"Well, go on, Marlow/e," growled Walter J. Ong. I just shook my head.
There was a dampness in my soul and I felt like Deor's Lament. "No. no --
maybe later, you curse of priest-ridden Ireland," I said. "Give
us a poem." 


 


The little guy's eyes lit up. "I'll do that you wordy
son of a bitch. I'll give you one of my special Christmas poems."
"Nah," I said. Do the one about the moon a ghostly galleon." But
he just glared at me and began:


 


 "Once there was
Childermas Gazelles asleep in the green chapel 


and food! food! food! and great clipper ships 


and President Taft leaning out smiling and smiling into
symbolic quantities of small arms fire!


 


 There was median and
modulus. The promise of parrallel universes! of a color called panelume! 


 


And we were all magic paradisoadoration jukebox perfection
Crhistmas Titian cortex flung out in the wild blue yonder with a shoeshine and
a smile.


 


The young Goethe
plays with his toy theatre! 


The Tsar accepts all these restraints with extraordinary
serenity and moral grandeur!


Jack Ruby gets some good
coke! 


Henry James writes a letter to his friend! 


 


But now we are void alphabet eggs at best waiting for the
spasm war 


when there will be gulftown galactic lamentation hometowns
with 


bones bones bones and there will be no modulus 


except deep under Cheyenne
mountain where the joint chiefs dream the long dream 


Unsyllabled Poontang!"


 


 All of us gave a
little cheer and had a few more drinks. Everybody, that is, except for Mr.
Harvy. He just sat there sucking on that cheroot and curling his sidewhiskers
with his fingers. Every once in a while his tongue shot out like a lithe
proboscis and captured a bit of tobacco from his upper lip. I couldn't keep my
eyes off him. 


 


I overheard the Lamia
asking Walter what unsyllabled poontang meant and him replying that it was his
phrase for the ontological longing of the West. "It's why all you girl
characters are what you are," he was saying when my attention was caught
by one of the ducks claiming that Ted Williams was the best American poet.
"Gregory Corso said that, you phony," quacked the other duck. It
sounded like the beginning of a long argument, but, just then Joe grabbed their
beaks. 


 


Then there was a silence. Mother tittered. The pig looked
around nervously. All of us were shocked. "Wassail." said the
Beadsman as he took another shot of rye. Joe fell back in his chair, his hand
trembling, spittle on his lugworm lips. 


 


I felt momentarily lost -- as if the sedge had withered from
the lake and no bird sang. I looked at Mr. Harvy and thought I could see his
whole form trembling but it was as if his features were hidden behind a black
veil like one of those Hawthorne
characters one encounters of an October night. "Let's have a song,"
piped T. Crofton Croaker and he began to sing in a quavering voice: "When
the pods went pop on the broom, green broom." 


 


The citizen began to join him in that ancient carol when Mr.
Harvy suddenly lurched up and cried out in a voice like the River Scamandrous:
EXTERMINATE THEM ALL! NUKE THE BASTARDS! He fell in a dead faint at my feet.
Everyone except Mother jumped out of their chairs. Old Mary ran for some
smelling salts. I thrust them under his hairy nostrils and we soon had him with
us once more. 


 


The ducks began fighting over the cheroot. The Beadsman and
I helped Harvy into his chair. "Rum," he muttered. "Bring me
rum." "Yo ho," said Joe, and brought the bottle. The poor fellow
drank and drank again and then, fixing us with his glittering eyes, began this
tale. "I was born in a bad novel. Never mind what novel -- that's my
business. All you need to know is that I woke up one day on the slaving vessel
the _Bestial Villany_ bawling `Let's have a song, mates!' as I marlin-spiked
the true Duke of Erl and the jolly topmen scrambled into the futtock shrouds.
`Drunk as a dogge againe, you Greenwich
scupper,' I howled and ordered the duke gyved to the topmast and his fine
clothes flung into the foul, reeking orlop. `Yer aboard a slaver now, me fine
gentleman and there will be no need for yer foppery in the Bight
 of Benin. Belay and Bedad!' `You, sir, are not British,' the Duke
croaks. `I am the Duke of Erl whatever you do!' `The Duke of Erl?' I sneer.
`YOU are not the Duke of Erl. Why, you little smart ass, it was your cousin
Clarence, the Duke of Erl, who signed ye aboard this pretty vessel! Har!
Har!'" He grinned rakishly and took a deep draught of rum. "God, it
was great. The whole voyage I got to torture that pompous ass. When we dropped
anchor in Benin
I sold him to a half-caste Portugee who sold him upriver to Chief Mwalimu who
took a fancy to his shapely calves. Har! Har! Har! The little Lord was fending
off the attentions of the Chief while I was doing the Limbo with my mistress
the fair Madonna of the Tortugas. There is no gainsaying that I was hanged at
the end and the little upstart lived to become the true Duke and count his
receipts from his Welsh coal mines wile he hummed "Ladies of Spain." 


 


I didn't mind. Hanging only lasts a few seconds but every
time some empty-headed swain would rent my book from a circulating library I
got to put it too that lubberly jerk againe. And the Madonna was such a
toothsome lass ...and then, ah! then..." He hefted the bottle in his great
paws and guzzled greedily. "Then it happened. That bitch Kate Chopin read
my book while loafing about the live oaks. The next thing I knew it was adieu
and adieu you fine Spanish ladies, goodbye Bight of Benin,
and I was stuck in a short story called "The Kiss." Faugh!!"! 


 


He took another drink from the bottle. "Oh, she made me
what she wanted me to be, damn her eyes. Someday I'll have the cat on her! No
longer did I rip the bodice of a likely wench. Instead I pressed "an
ardent, lingering kiss" upon the lips of a southern belle never rung while
she flirts with some milksop of a millionaire. She spurns me, the little cat,
and then lies to and marries the millionaire. The fool tells me at the wedding
that he doesn't want to interrupt the "pleasant intimacy" between us.



 


Sends me over to kiss her." Drinks again. "The
other fool, her name is Nettie, thinks she can have it all. Me and the
millionaire. There are some hints that we are more than friends, but old Kate
had a powerful female sexuality trapped within an elaborate code of manners and
hang me if I remember us doing anything." Drinks and spits. "You know
what Happens Next. Like the prissy Anglo Mandingo I am, I spurn her."
"I don't kiss anymore," I lisp. "It's dangerous. Then I walk
into oblivion. Kate adds a stupid pompous coda to the story and that's it."
Drinks. "The vile baggage of midnight!
To think what life used to be like! Squeezing tangerines over the bosoms of
trollops named Vanity! The ecstatic yip I uttered as I plunged my cutlass into
the bowels of this or that naval lieutenant with a well-modulated baritone
voice. Sneering and spitting as I stood at Tyburn tree. 


 


And now I am reduced to this! At any moment someone could
pick up the story and it will all begin again." He looked imploringly at
the company and spread his hands. The bottle of rum, now completely drained,
fell to the floor. "And this, the final insult. That diabolical wench had
to name me Harvey and that senile old bastard, Jimmy Stewart, read her story
and got me confused with the rabbit! Look at me! Look at me!" 


 


We all looked. What can you do? Here was a strapping fellow
who looked like a Sabatini villain gentrified by the imagination of a repressed
Maid of Orleans and there were two rabbit ears sticking out of his head. We all
laughed. Mother began it with a titter. "Lay your sleeping head my love
human on my faithless arms and quit your blubbering."


 


 Suddenly, we were all
laughing. Even the ducks. Mr. Harvy stopped blubbering. He jerked a derringer
from his vest pocket. We stopped laughing. The pig squealed. Croaker began a
protest but Mr. Harvy cut him off. "Shut up, youm loose baggy monsters.
Shut up all of you or I'll kill the pig!" None of us moved. He gestured
with his gun to the pig. "Front and center, you marvelous sow," he
spat. The pig squeaked and tried to hide behind Mother, but he scurried out of
the way. Mr. Harvy strode the few feet to her and pulled her by the ear. 


 


The pig gave an ontic oink as he dragged her up against him
and leveled the derringer at her head. "Yes, you heard me. The marvelous
sow. I know who she is and I'll kill her if any of you kittylitterateurs
moves." The pig squealed. Universal moans. 


 


Mr. Harvy looked straight at me. "You see, I know who
she is, don't I, me smarmy fellow?" I tried to bluff. "Whatever can
you..?" He cut me off savagely. "Shut yer trap, Marlow/e, you wordy
son of a bitch. I KNOW who she is. The marvelous sow. The origin of all
literature. If she dies, literature dies and you, all of you, return to the
faint flat emanations of things as they are. Har. Har." "But, she's
only the pig in the joke," I squeaked. You know, an Irishman comes into a
bar carrying a pig and so on. How can she possibly be the origin of all
literature? Let her go and have a drink." He laughed wildly. "I know
who she is, Marlow/e. That joke begins everything. You want to hear old Kate's
story? A boy asks a girl to dance. She says no. He says, "That's ok. I
just wanted to see if pigs could talk." Same story. Same pig. And, look
here, Marlow/e. I know the Irishman's name." He paused. I waited. Oh, the
horror. The horror! "Shem!, he screamed. "Shem! Shem! Shem!" He
began to press the trigger. I screamed and hurled myself on him to protect the
long loveliness of sow. I took the bullet through my heart. The pig screamed
"Not this pig" and made for the door. I died. I was changed. Changed
utterly, Benjy. I am now a bit of Spanish moss hanging from the old oak near
the golf course. But, you don't understand, do you? Put on your gloves you
idjit. Ah, Benjy, I am the earl of epiphytes, released from the great chain
gang of being. I may look like Spanish moss but I feel just like Jesse James. 


 






      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping