The People Look Like Flowers At Last Read online

  the 1930s

  places to hunt

  places to hide are

  getting harder to find, and pet

  canaries and goldfish too, did you notice

  that?

  I remember when pool halls were pool halls

  not just tables in

  bars;

  and I remember when neighborhood women

  used to cook pots of beef stew for their

  unemployed husbands

  when their bellies were sick with

  fear;

  and I remember when kids used to watch the rain

  for hours and

  would fight to the end over a pet

  rat; and

  I remember when the boxers were all Jewish and Irish

  and never gave you a

  bad fight; and when the biplanes flew so low you

  could see the pilot’s face and goggles;

  and when one ice cream bar in ten had a free coupon in-

  side; and when for 3 cents you could buy enough candy

  to make you sick

  or last a whole

  afternoon; and when the people in the neighborhood raised

  chickens in their backyards; and when we’d stuff a 5 cent

  toy auto full of

  candle wax to make it last

  forever; and when we built our own kites and scooters;

  and I remember

  when our parents fought

  (you could hear them for blocks)

  and they fought for hours, screaming blood-death curses

  and the cops never

  came.

  places to hunt and places to hide,

  they’re just not around

  anymore. I remember when

  each 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord

  only got his rent

  when you had

  it, and each day was clear and good and each moment was

  full of promise.

  people as flowers

  such singing’s going on in the

  streets—

  the people look like flowers

  at last

  the police have turned in their

  badges

  the army has shredded its uniforms and

  weapons. there isn’t any need for

  jails or newspapers or madhouses or

  locks on the doors.

  a woman rushes through my door.

  TAKE ME! LOVE ME!

  she screams.

  she’s as beautiful as a cigar

  after a steak dinner. I

  take her.

  but after she leaves

  I feel odd

  I lock the door

  go to the desk and take the pistol

  from the drawer. it has its own sense of

  love.

  LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! the crowd sings in the

  streets.

  I fire through the window

  glass cutting my face and

  arms. I get a 12-year-old boy

  an old man with a beard

  and a lovely young girl something like a

  lilac.

  the crowd stops singing to

  look at me.

  I stand in the broken window

  the blood on my

  face.

  “this,” I yell at them, “is in defense of the

  poverty of self and in defense of the freedom

  not to love!”

  “leave him alone,” somebody says,

  “he is insane, he has lived the bad life for

  too long.”

  I walk into the kitchen

  sit down and pour a

  glass of whiskey.

  I decide that the only definition of

  Truth (which changes)

  is that it is that thing or

  act or belief which the crowd

  rejects.

  there is a pounding at my

  door. it is the same woman again.

  she is as beautiful as finding a

  fat green frog in the

  garden.

  I have 2 bullets left and

  use them

  both.

  nothing in the air but

  clouds. nothing in the air but

  rain. each man’s life too short to

  find meaning and

  all the books almost a

  waste.

  I sit and listen to them

  singing

  I sit and listen to

  them.

  acceptance

  16 years old

  during the Depression

  I’d come home

  and my possessions—

  shorts, shirts, stockings,

  suitcase and many pages

  of short stories—

  would be thrown out on the

  front lawn and about the

  street.

  my mother would be

  waiting behind a tree:

  “Henry, Henry, don’t

  go in…he’ll

  kill you, he’s read

  your stories.

  please take

  this…and

  find yourself a room.”

  but since it worried him

  that I might not

  finish high school

  I’d go back

  again.

  one evening he walked in

  holding

  one of my short stories

  (which I had never shown

  him)

  and he said, “this is

  a great short story!”

  and I said, “o.k.,”

  and he handed it back to me

  and I read it:

  and it was a story about

  a rich man

  who’d had a terrible fight with

  his wife and had

  gone out into the night

  for a cup of coffee

  and had sat and studied

  the waitress and the spoons

  and forks and the

  salt and pepper shakers

  and the neon sign

  in the window

  and wondered about it all,

  and then he went

  to his stable

  to see and touch his

  favorite horse

  who then

  for no reason

  kicked him in the head

  and killed him.

  somehow

  the story had some

  meaning for him

  though

  when I wrote it

  I had no idea

  what I was

  writing about.

  so I told him,

  “o.k., old man, you can

  have it.”

  and he took it

  and walked out

  and closed the door and

  I guess that’s

  as close

  as we ever got.

  life at the P.O.

  I huddle in front of this maze

  of little wooden boxes

  poking in small cards and letters

  addressed to nonexistent

  lives

  while the whole town celebrates

  and fucks in the street and sings

  with the birds.

  I stand under a small electric light

  and send messages to a dead Garcia,

  and I am old enough to die

  (I have always been old enough to die)

  as I stand before this wooden maze

  and feed its voiceless hunger;

  this is my job, my rent, my whore, my shoes,

  the leeching of the color from my eyes;

  master, damn you, you’ve found me,

  my mouth puckered,

  my hands shriveled against my

  red-spotted sunless chest;

  the street is so hard, at least

  give me the rest I have paid a life for,

  and when the Hawk comes

&
nbsp; I will meet him halfway,

  we will embrace where the wallpaper is torn

  where the rain came in.

  now I stand before wood and numbers,

  I stand before a graveyard of eyes and mouths

  of heads hollowed out for shadows,

  and shadows enter

  like mice and look out at me.

  I poke in cards and letters with secret numbers as

  agents cut the wires and test my heartbeat,

  listen for sanity

  or cheer or love, and finding none,

  satisfied, they leave;

  flick, flick, flick, I stand before the wooden maze

  and my soul faints

  and beyond the maze is a window

  with sounds, grass, walking, towers, dogs,

  but here I stand and here I stay,

  sending cards noted with my own demise;

  and I am sick with caring: go away, everything,

  and send fire.

  the minute

  “I am always fighting for the next

  minute,” I tell my wife.

  then she begins to tell me

  how mistaken I am.

  wives have a way of not

  believing what their husbands

  tell them.

  the minute is a very sacred

  thing.

  I have fought for each one since my

  childhood.

  I continue to fight for each one.

  I have never been bored or

  at a loss what to do next.

  even when I do nothing,

  I am utilizing my time.

  why people must go to

  amusement parks or movies

  or sit in front of tv sets

  or work crossword puzzles

  or go to picnics

  or visit relatives

  or travel

  or do most of the things

  they do

  is beyond me.

  they mutilate minutes,

  hours,

  days,

  lifetimes.

  they have no idea of how

  precious is a

  minute.

  I fight to realize the essence

  of my time.

  this doesn’t mean that

  I can’t relax

  and take an hour off

  but it must be

  my choosing.

  to fight for each minute is to

  fight for what is possible within

  yourself,

  so that your life and your death

  will not be like

  theirs.

  be not like them

  and you will

  survive.

  minute by

  minute.

  too near the slaughterhouse

  I live too near the slaughterhouse.

  what do you expect? silver blood

  like Chatterton’s? the dankness of my hours

  allows no practiced foresight.

  I hear the branches snap and break

  like ravens in a quarrel,

  and see my mother in her coffin

  not moving

  quietly not moving

  as I light a cigarette

  or drink a glass of water

  or do anything ignominious.

  what do you want?

  that I should feel

  deceived?

  (the green of the weeds in

  the sun

  is all we have

  it’s all we really have.)

  I say let the monkeys dance,

  let the monkeys dance

  in the light of God.

  I live too near the

  slaughterhouse

  and am ill

  with thriving.

  a future congressman

  in the men’s room at the

  track

  this boy of about

  7 or 8 years old

  came out of a stall

  and the man

  waiting for him

  (probably his

  father)

  asked,

  “what did you do with the

  racing program?

  I gave it to you

  to keep.”

  “no,” said the boy,

  “I ain’t seen it! I don’t

  have it!”

  they walked off and

  I went into the stall

  because it was the only one

  available

  and there

  in the toilet

  was the

  program.

  I tried to flush

  the program

  away

  but it just swam

  sluggishly about

  and

  remained.

  I got out of

  there and found

  another

  empty stall.

  that boy was ready

  for his life to come.

  he would undoubtedly

  be highly successful,

  the lying little

  prick.

  stranger in a strange city

  I had just arrived

  in another strange city

  and I had left my room and

  found myself walking along

  on what must have been

  a main thoroughfare where

  the autos ran back and

  forth with what seemed to be

  a definite

  purpose.

  that busy boulevard seemed to

  stretch away endless

  before me and

  appeared to run

  straight off to the edge of

  the earth,

  and then

  after walking awhile

  I realized

  that I was

  lost, that

  I had forgotten the name

  of the street my

  room was on

  or

  where it was.

  there was nothing back

  in that room

  but a week’s paid

  rent

  plus a battered

  suitcase

  full of my old clothes

  but it was

  everything I

  possessed

  so I began searching

  the side streets

  looking for

  my room

  and I soon became

  frightened, a

  numb terror like a fatal

  illness

  spreading through me

  as

  I kept walking

  up and down unfamiliar

  streets

  until my mind

  said to me:

  you’re crazy, that’s

  all, you should

  give up and turn

  yourself in

  somewhere.

  but I just kept walking.

  it had been a

  long afternoon and now

  it was slipping

  into evening.

  my feet ached

  in my cheap

  shoes.

  then it grew

  dark, now it was night,

  but I just kept

  walking.

  it felt as if

  I had walked

  up and down through

  the same streets

  over and over.

  then finally

  I recognized my

  building!

 
; and I ran

  up the steps

  and up the interior

  stairway to

  the 2nd floor

  and my room was still

  there and I

  opened the door,

  closed it behind me,

  and was

  safely inside.

  there was the

  suitcase

  on the floor,

  still full of my

  old clothing.

  I heard a man

  laugh

  in one of the other

  rooms and I suddenly

  felt a lot

  better.

  I took off my shoes,

  shirt, pants,

  sat down on the edge

  of the bed and

  rolled a

  cigarette.

  then I leaned back against

  the pillow and

  smoked.

  I was 20 years old

  and had 14 dollars

  in my wallet.

  then I remembered

  my wine bottle.

  I pulled it out

  from under the

  bed, uncapped it

  and had a good

  hit.

  I decided that I

  wasn’t crazy.

  I picked a newspaper up

  off the floor

  and turned to the

  HELP WANTED section:

  dishwasher, shipping

  clerk, stock boy,

  night watchman…

  I threw the paper down

  on the floor.

  I’d look for a

  job

  day after

  tomorrow.

  then I put the

  cigarette out

  satisfied

  and went to

  sleep.

  just another wino

  the kid was 20, had been on the road

  5 or 6 years and he sat on the couch

  drinking my beer, his name was Red,

  and he talked about the road:

  “these 2 guys were trying to treat me

  nice, keep me quiet, because I’d seen them kill a

  guy.”

  “kill a guy? how?”

  “with a rock.”

  “what for?”

  “he had his wallet, a good

  wallet, and 7 dollars. he was a wino. he was

  drunk and they hit him with the rock,