Memoirs of a beatnik Read online

  Mara slipped her lithe, elongated body between Petra and me, sliding up my torso like a snake, to kiss Matilda on the back of the

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  neck. Matilda slithered over me to meet her halfway. I passed my hand, wet with Matilda's come, over Mara's long, slim body, anointing her. Then I turned on my side, slipping out from under the two of them, gently depositing them on the floor between Petra and me. As I did so, I felt Eva's strong, warm hands on my back.

  I turned to face her, and with a hoarse, animal sound, plunged headlong into that warm, dark musky flesh, like plunging into the earth. I reveled in her full breasts with their large, blue-black nipples, her deep, round stomach, then gently parted her heavy thighs and licked at the crisp black hair of her mound, drinking in its rich, sweet odor. My tongue, with a life of its own, felt its way through the labyrinth of her hair, tipping her clitoris gently, outlining the shape of her cunt, while my hands kneaded her ass, her thighs. She came quickly, and I felt the tremors pass from her body to mine as her hand entered me from behind and set the life force on fire within me again.

  Almost against my will, the trembling in my body slowly built and ebbed and built again. I was spent, exhausted by my earlier encounter. I was sure as I lay there with my head on Eva's thighs that I was too tired to come again, but the orgasm built inexorably, wracking my spine and shooting across my belly and into my groin, until finally I lost consciousness and fell into a grey heaviness between fainting and sleeping.

  It was the chilliness of the room as the fire died from lack of tending that finally got us dressed, got the mussels steamed and eaten with red wine and French bread, while the fire spat pine sparks and Petra strummed a guitar. O'Reilley did not eat, but sat huddled in an armchair, her head in her arms, her long pale form curled around itself, her straight blonde hair making an aura around her, and it was then and there that Tomi fell in love with her-a love that since then had precipitated first her and then me out of the safe, closed world of "school" and into the hectic life of the city, where we had as yet found no haven, no place in which to shape our own life form.

  And now I had found the apartment, I reflected once again. My spirits had by now lifted themselves out of the doldrums into which Tomi's scene with her brother and all the sordid circumstances of

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  her Darien life had plunged me the day before. The day was delightful, the rocking of the boat enchanting, the bright sky and high little clouds conducive to ecstasy. I had indeed found the apartment, and now it only remained for me to tell Tomi about it and get us all together in it. And see what would happen next. My head reeled at the possibilities.

  We docked at the island and got our gear ashore. I was drunk with the air and the possibilities of the moment, and I immediately asked Tomi to come for a walk with me. Her conscience was still rankling over her scene of the night before, and she was anxious to please me in anyway she could. We strolled along the sunny, chilly beach until we were out of earshot of the family, and then I turned to her.

  "I've been waiting to tell you all weekend," I said, "that I've found a pad for us in the West Village, on Charles Street. It has two bedrooms, and a studio with a skylight, and—" I broke off when I saw her face.

  "Di Prima," she said softly-almost hoarsely-not looking at me. "Forgive me. I'm not coming with you. I'm not going to live with you and O'Reilley."

  At first I just didn't hear, I swept this away as an impossibility-had I not left school precisely to live with Tomi? Had I not embarked on this whole life with that in mind, so much so that the axioms and rules of the old life-of my childhood and school days—were something I could not even remember? But Tomi went on speaking, and as she did I turned to look at her small, dark ravaged face full of torment, and my eyes read in her face what my ears could not accept from her voice.

  "I can't leave Martha," she was saying, improbably, pleadingly. "Please try to understand. I can't leave Martha to Serge. William is no help, I can't leave her alone with Serge. I must be what she wants me to be. What she wanted to be, and never had the chance."

  She was crying now. Slowly I began to come to life. I moved my arms. I put my hands on her shoulders.

  "It's your life you're talking about now, girl," I said harshly. "Your whole goddamn life."

  She muttered a soft "I know it," and then, wryly, "di Prima, stop it, will you? Let's not have a goddamn scene."

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  I still held her by the shoulders, I still continued to gaze at her. I could not tear my eyes from that pain-racked face.

  She met my eyes, and tears started down her cheeks again. "Please," she said, "please."

  I drew her to me and held her close, feeling sobs shake her small body, while I rained kisses on her wet face and her crisp hair, like black fire to my lips. I, too, was shaking from head to foot.

  "OK," I said when I could speak again. "OK, no scenes. You do what you have to do."

  I released her, and she turned without another word and walked to the edge of the sea. She washed her face in the water while I waited, idly picking up pebbles and throwing them down again. I had no thoughts at all.

  A cloud had come over the sun and it was growing chilly. Tomi returned, and we walked in silence side by side, back to the place where the family was gathered.

  Martha and Helen had built a fire; hamburgers were broiling. Serge greeted us heartily, and thrust a can of beer into each of our hands. He was very happy. Like most vigorous, healthy men, at least half of his problem was simply that civilized life could not contain, or in any way use, his energies. The cool wind made him feel good. He was running around in shorts and shirt sleeves.

  I made for my sweater and pulled it on, struggling to put myself together, to erase everything from my mind except proper participation in this festive event.

  For the first and only time in my acquaintance with the Kleberts there was enough to eat, and nearly everyone was intent on stuffing themselves. Conversation was jovial, Martha's wit crackling like the wood she had gathered. Only Sweet William had withdrawn, sitting by himself on a rock in the water, munching a piece of celery and looking out over the horizon. Helen wrote it off for us with a joke about the trials of adolescence. I wondered if she knew how accurate she was, or had any inkling of what the trials were in this case. I hurriedly glanced at Tomi. She was pale as death, attentively lighting a cigarette, her hands shaking.

  After lunch the sun put in another appearance and everyone settled down for an hour or two of rest. Martha was reading In Country Sleep by Dylan Thomas, which had just come out. Helen was tatting a wine-colored lace tablecloth, which she drew sol-

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  emnly out of an old carpet bag. Serge had a whole book of old New York Times crossword puzzles. Tomi took out sketchpad and charcoal and pretended to be busy, and William-William just sat on his rock.

  I withdrew a little from the others, found a more or less private hill, and stretched out in the sun. The rules of the game made it impossible for me to seek further conversation with Tomi just now: to push a point when anyone was emotionally vulnerable was "uncool." But my head was whirling with the changes that had gone down for me in the past hour, and I wanted quiet and privacy in order to put things together. Over and over I thought, "I must think about this," but no thoughts came, even the "this" did not formulate itself, and after a short while I drifted into that painful, limbo-like sleep that emotional exhaustion and confusion can bring.

  I was awakened by the weight of another body on my own and a tongue in my ear. I pulled my head free and turned enough to see that Serge, complete with shorts and sunglasses, was lying on top of me.

  "Please," he whispered, and for an unspeakable minute he sounded like Tomi. "Don't make any noise. They're all asleep." His breath smelled of alcohol, and I was more than slightly repelled by his thick, older man's body. I twisted under him, managed to roll over on my stomach, and started to scramble away, intending to achieve a sa
fe distance, sit up, and have a cool, reasonable conversation with him. He was probably drunk, and if I could get clear I could handle him easily enough. If I could just get clear-But he was too quick, and caught me around the waist, at the same time jerking my pants, which he had unzipped while I was sleeping, down around my legs. I struggled silently to free myself, all the time thinking unbelievingly that this was rape, that I was about to be raped.

  Serge had somehow managed to free his rigid cock from his shorts, for I could feel it poking between my legs, looking for a way in. Suddenly his mouth was on my bare backside, I could feel that absurd moustache against my skin. And my fear and horror seemed ridiculous. This was Serge, poor silly Serge, who never got

  4&

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  to screw his wife, and if he wanted to throw a fuck into me, why I might as well let him. It wasn't going to hurt me. Not a whole lot. Anyway, it didn't seem that I had much choice.

  I stopped struggling. Serge immediately sensed my acquiescence. His hands released their vise-like grip on my shoulders, and slid under my sweater, under my blouse, and took hold of my breasts.

  My legs relaxed of themselves and opened slightly to receive him. He shoved his cock in expertly. In spite of myself, pleasure began to stir in my breasts under his ministrations. I shivered bare-assed and mostly bored in the cold wind as his loins slapped against me again and again.

  Then all the heavy sorrow in me turned into some crazed impersonal desire that cried out for appeasement. My cunt came reluctantly to life and I began to move with him, on my hands and knees in the grass, picking up rhythm as the energy grew.

  At last I threw myself face forward on the hill, bucking and trembling in an abstract mechanical finale that even then seemed ridiculous, and Serge came with me, lying heavily across my back and panting into my ear as he shot short, hot spurts of jism into my cunt.

  We lay there only for a moment, for as soon as I tensed to stir, Serge was up and off me, zipping up his fly. And before I could even turn over, his head was at the bottom of my buttocks, in the curve of my thighs, licking up his come and mine, and drying me off solicitously with a handkerchief. I was reminded abruptly of Tomi drying the mud off my feet with her panties the day before, and I spread my legs slightly to lend him better access, and pillowed my head on my arms.

  When he was done I rolled over, pulled up my pants and zippered them, and then sat up and started to straighten my hair. Serge kissed me once on the cheek, in a fatherly fashion, and I patted his arm before he returned without a word to the group around the fire.

  I lay there, trying to collect myself, but that strange, brief orgasm had numbed me: driving all thoughts out of my head and almost all the sorrow out of my heart-it was still there, but in some deep place, quite out of reach, like a boulder at the bottom of a

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  lake. The sun had gone in—for good this time, it seemed—and it was really too cold to lie there and brood, so I got up and went to find the others.

  I found them packing up to go back to the boat. I helped as best I could. My head was full of cotton wool and I was sure I walked funny. I was inexperienced at dog-fashion fucking and had probably torn the skin of my cunt a little. The tight jeans didn't help any. Tomi glanced at my quizzically one or twice, but I managed to avoid her eyes.

  We had no sooner set out than it began to blow. A real storm, a lulu of a storm, had come up. The boat rocked and wallowed, the rain came down, and nearly everyone went down into the cabin. As for me, I knew I couldn't face close scrutiny by either Tomi or Martha, so I climbed up onto the roof of the cabin and sat there hanging on with both hands and looking at the sky.

  Lightning broke again and again, thunder crashed. Serge stood at the helm, soaked to the skin, singing at the top of his voice. His wet, clinging shorts revealed that he had another erection.

  It was as if the weather and I were in complete agreement. I sat there, drinking it in, feeling for the first time in my life how much turbulence I could contain in quiet, what endurance was, being cleansed by the purity, the pure fury of the elements. Finally Serge became aware that I was there and, either out of concern for me or embarrassment over the events of the day, ordered me below, saying he could not be responsible if I were washed overboard.

  In the cabin they were all seasick; the roof was leaking. Martha sat holding a blanket like a tent over Sweet William who, huddled in foetal position, was trying to sleep. Helen and Tomi were trying to play cards, but after a while they gave that up and just sat there, Tomi, pale as death, making small noncommittal grunts in answer to Helen's incessant chatter.

  A picture flashed into my mind from a storehouse of memory, a story Tomi had told me about a music teacher she had had a crush on as a child of twelve. How the woman had finally seduced her one day under the walnut tree in front of the house. How Martha had seen them and threatened Tomi with reform school and the woman with the police if she ever came to the house again. Now, as I thought of that story, they all three appeared in my head in Victorian dress: Tomi and her friend standing formally, almost

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  classically, under the tree, Martha corseted and in a high ruff standing in the doorway of the house. Rather like Henry James, I thought. They think they're Fitzgerald, but they're like a mean Henry James. . . .

  There was no air in the cabin, and it was stifling hot. I picked up In Country Sleep, and read by the light of a flashlight. "Never and never my girl riding far and near. . . "

  We got there, though I don't know how, docking in Stamford finally, and by then I knew that I couldn't face another night of it, that I had to go somewhere, anywhere, out of there, out of that thick air, those woven lives. I knew that once I got away I would find the means to stay away, that I would not be seeing Tomi again.

  "Yes," she said, "you can catch the 9:20, but I thought you were coming back with us."

  I mumbled something about having just remembered some job or other that I would have to get to in the morning, some lame excuse, while Martha scrutinized me with those ultra-clear grey eyes.

  "All right then, we'll leave you at the station," she said with more kindness than I had ever heard from her. "Serge can bring in your suitcase when he goes to the city to work tomorrow."

  Tomi said nothing, but when we piled into the car she contrived to sit next to me. I was aware of the flesh of her thigh against mine, the understated harshness of her breathing. We rode in silence, and when I got out Tomi got out with me, to walk with me to the ticket booth and get me on the right platform. It was still raining softly.

  "Di Prima," said Tomi, "di Prima, talk to me."

  "What is there to say?" I asked her. "You know what you're giving up."

  I meant O'Reilley, but I meant light and freedom, air and laughter, the outside world—outside of the stuffy incestuous atmosphere of her "family life." I meant drawing tables in high white rooms, nights at the ballet or at some exotic restaurant, or simply wandering, exploring the neon streets. And mostly I meant laughter, the silliness and glee unscrutinized, one's blood running strong and red in one's own veins, not drawn to feed the uneradi-cable grief of the preceding generation.

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  "I'll forget her," said Tomi, meaning O'Reilley. "I can't do it to Martha."

  We were mercifully in shadow, and I took and kissed those small, beautiful hands again and again, before I turned and walked to the platform without looking back.

  And at last my tears fell, as the rain fell, endlessly, hopelessly, as I watched the old black Chrysler pull out and turn toward the Darien woods, carrying the small creature I loved better than anything else in the world.

  Some Ways To Make A Living

  down a recipe for poor food for me: something called "hopping John," made of brown rice and kidney beans with ham hocks.

  Bob was a bartender at a downtown Fifth Avenue bar. He was tall and beautiful and very black, and he did these gigs by day to pick up a little extra mon
ey.

  I sat there, tired and vaguely hungry, half listening as the three talked, and half letting my thoughts roam wherever they would.

  It was just a few weeks since I had moved into the apartment on the Lower East Side that I had found for myself after Tomi had decided not to join me. Without her, the Village studio I had found for us had somehow lost its point, and besides it was way too expensive. Instead I had taken a tiny "renovated" two and a half rooms, on Avenue A and Fifth Street. I had a forward-looking landlord, an ancient rabbi who had decided, way back then, that the East Side was to become the "new Village" and he had bought up a few tenements, cut down the apartments to appropriately small sizes, and was hoping to rent them to impoverished young people who thought as he did, or who simply wanted a haven, any haven they could afford, within walking distance of the bars, coffee shops and book stores.

  I was the only one he had found so far. Whenever I entered or left the smelly hall of that sad building, whose exterior bravely sported a new coat of grey paint, I ran the gauntlet of the small, suspicious eyes of literally hundreds of Polish, Ukrainian, and Hungarian women, who could not tell what I was doing in their midst, but did not like it, did not like it at all.

  Walking down Fifth Street from Avenue A, I first passed an incredibly odoriferous funeral parlor, then a small meat-packing concern whose sidewalk was perpetually stained and greasy from sausage fat, and then an equally rank bar, where I daily experienced the scrutiny and catcalls of the lewd, sex-starved men who belonged to the aforementioned narrow-eyed women. Proposals were there made to me, desperations held out, hopes whispered, that were somehow lower and more loathsome than anything I have encountered anywhere since.