Big Sur/Chapter 30
I do understand the strange day ben fagan finally came to visit me alone, bringing wine, smoking his pipe, and saying “Jack you need some sleep, that chair you say you’ve been sitting in for days have you noticed the bottom is falling out of it?”—I get on the floor and by God look and it’s true, the springs are coming out—“How long have you been sitting in that chair?”—“Every day waiting for Billie to come home and talking to Perry and the others all day. . . My God let’s go out and sit in the park,” I add—In the blur of days McLear has also been over on a forgotten day when, on nothing but his chance mention that maybe I could get his book published in Paris I jump up and dial longdistance for Paris and call Claude Gallimard and only get his butler apparently in some Parisian suburb and I hear the insane giggle on the other end of the line—“Is this the home, c’est le chez eux de Monsieur Gallimard?”—Giggle—“Où est Monsieur Gallimard?”—Giggle—A very strange phone call—McLear waiting there expectantly to get his “Dark Brown” published—So in a fury of madness I then call London to talk to my old buddy Lionel just for no reason at all and I finally reach him at home he’s saying on the wire “Youre calling me from San Francisco? but why?”—Which I cant answer any more than the giggling butler (and to add to my madness, of course, why should a longdistance call to Paris to a publisher end up with a giggle and a longdistance call to an old friend in London end up with the friend getting mad?)—So Fagan now sees I’m going overboard crazy and I need sleep—“We’ll get a bottle!” I yell—But end up, he’s sitting in the grass of the park smoking his pipe, from noon to 6 P.M., and I’m passed out exhausted sleeping in the grass, bottle unopened, only to wake up once in a while wondering where I am and by God I’m in Heaven with Ben Fagan watching over men and me.
And I say to Ben when I wake up in the gathering 6 P.M. dusk “Ah Ben I’m sorry I ruined our day by sleeping like this” but he says: “You needed the sleep, I told ya”—“And you mean to tell me you been sitting all afternoon like that?”—“Watching unexpected events,” says he, “like there seems to be sound of a Bacchanal in those bushes over there” and I look and hear children yelling and screaming in hidden bushes in the park—“What they doing?”—“I don't know: also a lot of strange people went by”—“How long have I been sleeping?”—“Ages”—“I’m sorry”—“Why should be sorry, I love you anyway”—“Was I snoring?”—“You’ve been snoring all day and I’ve been sitting here all day”—“What a beautiful day!”—“Yes it’s been a beautiful day”—“How strange!”—“Yes, strange . . . but not so strange either, you’re just tired”—“What do you think of Billie?”—He chuckles over his pipe: “What do you expect me to say? that the frog bit your leg?’——“Why do you have a diamond in your forehead?”—“I dont have a diamond in my forehead damn you and stop making arbitrary conceptions!” he roars—“But what am I doing?”—“Stop thinking about yourself, will ya, just float with the world”—“Did the world float by the park?”—“All day, you should have seen it, I’ve smoked a whole package of Edgewood, it’s been a very strange day”—“Are you sad I didnt talk to you?”—“Not at all, in fact I’m glad: we better be starting back,” he adds, “Billie be coming home from work soon now”—“Ah Ben, Ah Sunflower”—“Ah shit” he says—“It’s strange”—“Who said it wasnt”—“I dont understand it”—“Dont worry about it”—“Hmm holy room, sad room, life is a sad room”—“All sentient beings realize that,” he says stenly—Benjamin my real Zen Master even more than all our Georges and Arthurs actually—“Ben I think I’m going crazy”—“You said that to me in 1955”—“Yeh but my brain’s gettin soft from drinkin and drinkin and drinkin”—“What you need is a cup of tea I’d say if I didnt know that you’re too crazy to know how really crazy you are”—“But why? what’s going on?”—“Did you come three thousand miles to find out?”—“Three thousand miles from where, after all? from whiney old me”—“That’s alright, everything is possible, even Nietzsche knew that”—“Aint nothin wrong with old Nietzsche”—“’Xcept he went mad too”—“Do you think I’m going mad?”—“Ho ho ho” (hearty laugh)—“What’s that mean, laughing at me?”—“Nobody’s laughing at you, dont get excited”—“What’ll we do now?”—“Let’s go visit the museum over there”—“There’s a museum of some sort across the grass of the park so I get up wobbly and walk with old Ben across the sad grass, at one point I put my arm over his shoulder and lean on him—“Are you a ghoul?” I ask—“Sure, why not?”—“I like ghouls that let me sleep?”—“Duluoz it’s good for you to drink in a way ’cause you’re awful stingy with yourself when You’re sober”—“You sound like Julien”—“I never met Julien but I understand Billie looks like him, you kept saying that before you went to sleep”—“What happened while I was asleep?”—“Oh, people went by and came back and forth and the sun sank and finally sank down and’s gone now almost as you can see, what you want, just name it you got it”—“Well I want sweet salvation”—“What’s sposed to be sweet about salvation? maybe it’s sour”—“It’s sour in my mouth”—“Maybe your mouth is too big, or too small, salvation is for little kitties but only for awhile”—“Did you see any little kitties today?”—“Shore, hundreds of em came to visit you while you were sleeping”—“Really?”—“Sure, didnt you know you were saved?”—“Now come on!”—“One of them was real big and roared like a lion but he had a big wet snout and kissed you and you said Ah”—“What’s this museum up here?”—“Let’s go in and find out”—That’s the way Ben is, he doesnt know what’s going on either but at least he waits to find out maybe—But the museum is closed—We stand there on the steps looking at the closed door—“Hey,” I say, “the temple is closed.”
So suddenly in red sundown me and Ben Fagan arm in arm are walking slowly sadly back down the broad steps like two monks going down the esplanade of Kyoto (as I imagine Kyoto somehow) and we’re both smiling happily suddenly—I feel good because I’ve had my sleep but mainly I feel good because somehow old Ben (my age) has blessed me by sitting over my sleep all day and now with these few silly words—Arm in arm we slowly descend the steps without a word—It’s been the only peaceful day I’ve had in California, in fact, except alone in the woods, which I tell him and says “Well, who said you werent alone now? making me realize the ghostliness of existence tho I feel his big bulging body with my hands and say: “You sure some pathetic ghost with all that ephemeral heavy crock a flesh”—“I didnt say nottin” he laughs—“Whatever I say Ben, dont mind it, I’m just a fool”—“You said in 1957 in the grass drunk on whiskey you were the greatest thinker in the world”—“That was before I fell asleep and woke up: now I realize I’m no good at all and that makes me feel free”—“You’re not even free being no good, you better stop thinking, that’s all”—“I’m glad you visited me today, I think I might have died”—“It’s all your fault”—“What are we gonna do with our lives?”—“Oh,” he says, “I dunno, just watch em I guess”—“Do you hate me?. . . well, do you like me? . . . well, how are things?”—“The hicks are alright”—“Anybody hex ya lately . . . ?”—“Yeh, with cardboard games?”—“Cardboard games?” I ask—“Well you know, they build cardboard houses and put people in them and the people are cardboard and the magician makes the dead body twitch and they bring water to the moon, and the moon has a strange ear, and all that, so I’m alright, Goof.”
“Okay.”