Book of Sketches (2 page)

into the diningroom. Out of
the ref. she takes ready
to bake biscuit doughs &
unwraps them from their
cellophane, stuffs waste paper
in the corner bag that
sits in a wastebasket
out of sight — She
prepares the aluminum
silex for coffee — never
puts an extra scoop for
the pot — makes weak
American housewife coffee
— but who’s to
notice, the Prez. of the
Waldorf Astoria? — She
slams a frying pan on a
burner — singing “I hadnt
anyone till you & with
my lonely heart demanding
it, f-a-i-t-h must
have a hand in it — ”

 

mistaking “fate” — Out
comes the bacon & the
yellow plastic
basket of eggs — What’s
she going to make? Under
the faucet she cleans
garden fresh tomatos
from Mrs Harris’ —
She’s boiling potatos in a
pot — they’ve been there a
half hour — Thru her
little kitchen cupboard
window, framed like a
picture, see the old
redroofed flu cure barn
of the X farm — weary
gray wood in the eternities
of time — rickety poles
around it — the tobacco,
already picked from
the bottom a foot up,
pale & fieldsy before the
solemn backdrop of
that forest bush —
One intervening sad English
cone haystack — The
little children of the
Carolina suppertimes see
this & think: “And does
the forest need to eat?
In the night that’s
coming does the forest
know? Why is that dish
cloth hanging there so
still — & like the
forest — has no name
I know of — gloop — ”
Carolyn Blake is making
bacon & eggs & boiled
potatos for supper because
lately the family’s been
eating up breakfast
foods — just cereal & toast —

 

“Hm what pretty bacon,”
she says out loud. On
the radio now’s the
Lone Ranger. Lingering
statics clip & clop
amongst its William
Tell Overtures — a
rooster foolish crows —
Hand on hip, feet
crossed, casually, a cig
burning out in the ashtray,
she picks the bacon over
with a long cook fork.
“Hum hum hum” she hums.

 

Paul, having fixed the Jack
lawn mower, is in the yard
finishing the part of the lawn
last overlooked. The
deep rich fat grass lies in
serried heaps along the
trail of his machine
with the ditch, the road,
& the white road sign
“Easonburg” & yellow
“Stop” sign beyond — &
signs on a post pointing in
all the directions — ←
Route 95 2 → US 64
↓ Rocky Mt 3 ↑Sandy
Cross 4 — Paul, hat off,
sleeves rolled, glumly &
absentmindedly pushes at
his work; the motor makes
a drowsy suppertime growl
like the sound of a motor-
boat on some mystic lake
— At the crossroads store
groups of farmers have
gathered & smoke & sit
now. Heavenly mystical
lights have meanwhile
appeared in the sky as
the great machinery
continues in the High.

 

Intense interest is being
shown in the lawncutter —
Jack himself has just driven
over (on his way to town)
& is parked on lawn’s edge
discussing it with a young
farmer in overalls & white &
green baseball cap who app.
w. to buy it — Little
Paul runs to hear them
talk — At the store
five people are watching
intently. Men are be-
mused by machines. Americans,
by new, efficient
machines; Jack had the
money to buy a deluxe
cutter — 2 Negros
& 2 white farmers stare
intently at Paul in his
lawn, from the store, as
he backs up the car
to get to the grass
underneath it — Not once
has he lookt up & acknowledged
his watchers — works on.
Jack has driven off proudly
— Still another man
joins the watchers — &
now even George steps
out to see — now that
Jack’s driven off to whom
he hasnt spoken in years —
his twin brother. In Southern
accents — “Thats whut
ah
think!” — they
discuss that splendid
grasscutter — Cars come
& park, & go — Cars
hurry on the hiway to
home,
“Wait till after
supper,” says Carolyn to
LP, “we’re ready to
eat now — ” as
he complains
“Ah — nao!”

 

but the complaint’s not
serious & doesnt last
long — And the air
is fragrant from cut
grass. “Come eat!”
And suddenly not a
soul’s at the store as
for other & similar &
just as blank reasons,
they’ve gone to
the silence
the suppers of their own
mystery.
Why should a chair be far
from a book case!
P: “Well that confound
yard is mowed.”
C: “Fi-na-
lee.
”
P: “Eat some supper
boy.”
C: — “What is it 27
now? 28? It musta
gone up, I thought
it was 26.”
P: (eating) (to LP) Eat
yr. beans, boy.
Better eat up chabeans, —
boy.

 

But all was not
always so peaceful with
the Blakes

 

When LP was born & lay
like a little turd in a
rich white basket in the
hospital (& the Grandma
& Uncle of his future peered
at him thru the slot in
the maternity door — &
the young nurse with glupcloth
on her mouth making
smiling eyes — & the
little mother half dead
in her bed. A premature
birth, he weighed 2 lbs.,
like so many links of
sausage or one modest
bologna; the ordeal cost
Paul $1,000 — which he
didnt have — Only a
miracle saved Mother &
Son anyway. The young
doctor said sententiously
“Long before Christ
there was a Greek who
found out why mothers
die from shock — ”
he emphasized “
long be
fore
Christ” in this natty
million dollar Duke Medical
Center where the only hint
of Christ lay if any in
the English-style ministers’
dormitory (students
for the ministry played
pingpong with their fiancees
in a fresh painted basement,
the emptiness of
modern Southern & American
life) — “
long before Christ”
said the young doctor — as
Carolyn lay in a coma
in the quiet shade drawn
room — & the presence
of his Meek & Sorrowful
Humility hung like
molasses with air —

 

That was when Paul was
being sent from one town
to the other by the Tel Co
& never had enough money
for all he wanted, they
had a house on the
other side of RM, making
payments at a debilitating
rate of interest that
would eventually force
the house from them —
Paul a veteran of Palau
& Okinawa, an infantry
man of the island jungles,
now being usured & screwed
by nonJew Southern realtors
with bibles on their mantle
shelves & respectable
white shirts — sure, sure, —
the dark rain splattered
on the lonely house as
he waited nights for C
& the baby to come home —
“She can never have another
child — ” & across the
road from the
house, in the thicket
woods, rain, rain of the South
washed the sorrow & the
deep & something mourned
— & something whispered
to Paul: “You were
born in the woods — your
father was a farmer —
son of these rains — this
wilderness — wretched
victim of usurers &
bitter pain — yr. wife
has had yr. heir — you
sit alone in night —
dont let yr face hang,
dont let yr arms fall —
Doom is yr name —
Paul Death is yr name —
Paul Nothingness in the
big wild, wide & empty
world that hates you
is your name — Sit
here glooming all you
want — in debt, dark,
sad — Alone — You’ll
lose this house, you’ll lose
the 5, 6 dollars in yr
pocket — you’ll lose the
car in the yard — you’ll
lose the yard — you’ve
gained a wife & child —
almost lost them? They’ll
be lost eventually — a
grave that sinks from
the foot, that telegraphs
in dirt the sinking of a
manly chest — awaits
thee — and they — &
thou art an animal
dying in the wilderness —
Groo, groo, poor man
— groo — only the
heavens & the arcs
will ac-cept thee —
& Knowledge of heaven
& the arcs is not for
thee — so die, die,
die — & be silent —
Paul Blake in the
night, Paul Blake
in the No Carolina
rainy night . . .”
It took years to make
up the death; C. came
back feeble, pale, nervous;
took nervous pains with
the frail & tiny child;

 

the months rolled — one
of the bird dogs died of
the St Vitus dance —
in the mud — Only
old Bob survived, sitting
in wait for his master
at gray dusks — The
Autumn came, the winter
laid a carpet of one
inch snow, the Spring
made pines smell sweet
& powerful, the summer
sent his big haze-heat
to burn a hole thru
clouds & swill
up steams from fecund
earth — lost earth —
The Co. transferred
Paul from town to
town — Kinston — Tar
boro — Henderson
— (home of his folks) —
back to Kinston —
Rocky Mt. — Little
Paul grew — & cried
— & learned to suffer —
& cried — & learned
to laugh — & cried —
& learned to be still —
& suffered — Groo, groo,
the heavens dont care —
It had not always
been so easy & calm
as now at suppertime,
in BE, 1952 —
Hateful bitch of a
world, it wouldnt
ever last.

 

Yes, Yes, there they are
the poor sad people
of the South on Saturday
afternoon at
the Crossroads store —
Not so sad as heaven
watching but all the
more lost — all the
more lost — That
poor fat Negro woman
with her festive straw
hat for a joke but has
to be assisted from the
store where she supervised
the week’s grocery
purchases — on her
crutches; and old
Albino Freckles her
gaunt ghostly farmer
husband, comes tottering
after on his cane
— & they are deposited
in the car, nephew Jim
slowly wheels the old
family Buick (1937)
from the store — groceries
safe in the old boot trunk,
another week’s food
sustenance for the clan
in its solitudes of
corn —
Sat Afternoon in
the South — the
Jesus singers are already
hot for come-
Sunday tomorrow on
that radio — “Jee-
zas — ” 4, Five cars
are parked on one
side alone of that
store — & a truck —

 

and a bicyle — The
purchases are going
strong — inside rumbling
business, George cigar-in-
mouth is storing up his
Midas profits — only
the other day he fired
Clarence for being
late after seeing his
father at the hospital,
after five times driving
his useless bucktooth
wife to & fro the hospital
— out there’s sadness
enough without having
to run into that —
Here comes a flat
wagon, mule drawn,
with fat Pop, son &
granddotter, black,
all sitting legs adangle,
they didnt want to
shop his prices at George,
coming from another
down-the-road store —
eating the bought tidbits
of Saturday, — poverty,
sadness, name yr beef but
Pop is eating & is big &
fat — sits, maybe, on
the warpy porch in the
woods, lets son do
all the work — muching
— The little girl black &
ugly like Africa eats
her cone — Old Mule
clops on — Son-Bo
has eye on crossroads
for traffic — , holds reins
loose, they turn, talking,
into Rt 64 — now son

 

doesnt even look ahead —
quiet road — Old Mule
is alive just as they, suffers
under same skies, Saturday,
Weekday, Sunday shopping
day, Weekday fieldpull
day, Sunday churchgoing
day — sharing life with
the Jackson family —
they will remember that
old Mule & how it lived
with them & slowly religiously
drew them to
their needs, without
thanks, they
will remember the life
& presence of Old Mule
— & their hearts’ll cry
— “Old Mule was with
us — We fed him oats —
he was glad & sad
too — then he died —
buried in the mule earth
— forgot — like a
man a mule is
& will
be —
” Ah North
Carolina (as they turn
into the countrified home
& slowly roll home with
the groceries of the
week scattered on the
platform) — Ah
Saturday — Ah
skies above the gnawing
human scene.

 

LP Mama slice me one
of am — slice me
this kind of am —
what is this —
Mama what
kind is this?
C Swiss!
LP I want Swiss
Nam nam nam
(hamburg frying) (radio
noon) (hot South)

 

Saturday afternoon in Rocky
Mt. woods — in a tankling
gray coupe the young father
crosses the crossroads with
his 4 dotters piled on the
seat beside him all eyes
— The drowsy store the
great watermelons sit disposed
in the sun, on the
concrete, by the fish box,
like so many fruit in
an artist’s bowl —
watermelons plain green
& the watermelon with
the snaky rills all
tropical & fat to burst
on the ground — came
from viney bottoms of
all this green fertility —
Behind Fats’ little shack,
under waving tendrils
of a pretty tree, the
smalltime Crapshooters
with strawhats & overalls
are shooting for 10¢
stakes — as peaceful &
regardant as deer in
the morning, or New
England boys sitting in
the high grass waiting for
the afternoon to pass.
Paul Blake ambles over
across the road to watch
the game, stands
back, arm on tree,
watching smiling silence.
Cars pull up, men
squat — there goes Jack
to join them, everywhere
you look in the enormity
of this peaceful scene
you see him walking, on
soft white shoes, bemused
— Last night a few
hotshots & local sailors
on leave grabbed those

 

reed fishingpoles &
waved them in the drunken
Friday night dark, yelling
“Sturgeon! — catfish!
— Whooee!” —
They’re still unbought
in the old stained
barrell — A trim little
truck is parked, eagerly
at the ice porch, the
farmer’s inside having
5 pounds of pork chops
sliced, he likes em for
breakfast — A
hesitant Negro laborer
headed home to his
mother & younger brothers
in the woods is speculating
over a hambone in the
counter — Sweet
life continues in the
breeze, the golden fields —
August senses September
in the deeper light of
its afternoons — senses
Autumn in the brown
burn of the corn, the
stripped tobacco — the
faint singe appearing
on the incomprehensible
horizons — the tanned
tiredness of gardens, the
cooler, brisker breeze —
above all the cool
mysterious nights —