Doctor Sax Read online

  The Wizard, with a loll of his sensual tongue, dislodges a piece of meat from his front teeth, deep in folded-arm meditation at the head of the gutted bird.

  He still bears the horrible marks of his strangulation and occupation by the Devil in the 13th century:—a high collar in the old Inquisition style he wears to partially conceal signs of ravages by Satan in the long ago–an ugly twist–

  22

  IN THAT ORIGINAL DREAM of the wrinkly tar corner and the doorway of g.j., lousy, Vinny, scotty and me (Dicky was never in this gang) (moved to Highlands) there stands across Riverside Street the great iron picket fence of Textile running around the entire grounds connected by brick posts with the year of a Class on it, fast losing posts to space and time, and great shrub trees rising clear around the football and track field part of it–huge footballs transpired in bronze autumns in the field, crowds gathered at the fence to peek through the shrubs, others in the grandstand planks of pipe shrill keen afternoons of ruddy football in fog-bloom pinks of fantastic dusk–

  But at night the waving trees made a swish of black ghosts flaming on all sides in a fire of black arms and sinuosities in the gloom–million moving deeps of leaf night–It’s a fear to walk along it (on Riverside, no sidewalk, just leaves on ground at roadside) (pumpkins in the dew of Halloween hint, voting time in the empty classroom of November afternoon)- In that field … Textile let us play in it, one time a friend of mine masturbated in a bottle in the back field and strung it out with jerks of the jar into the air, I scaled a rock at the Textile windows, Joe Fortier slingshot twenty out of existence, tremendous ingratitude to the authorities of the school, at supper summer dusk we rushed out for games of scrub and sometimes double play right on the diamond . . . high grass waved in the redness, Lousy piped from third base, flung me the double play ball, I pivoted on a hinch and flung around back to first with a hitch and dip of my shoulders and a whomp into first high hard straight,—Scotty at short on the next tap scoops up his grasscutter with a motion as still as an Indian about to shit, holds the ball gravely in his meat hand before I know it and is flipping me a softie over the keystone which I have to come in charging synchronized with the Scotty ball a foot off ground, which I do with meat hand and still running (and with passing foot-tap at sack) flick under my left side with all my might to join the firstbaseman’s mitt with my straightline loop of reasoning hurl–which he (G.J., eyes semiclosed, cussin, “That fuckin Jack sinks me on purpose with his dusters”) scoops mid of earth with a flop of his long leftleg and his other bent in for stretch, a pretty play highlighted by Scotty’s calm and his understanding that I would appreciate a place on second soft and loopy-

  Then we–I invented–I took apart the old Victrola we had, just lifted motor out, intact, and pasted paper around turntable, measured “seconds” and theoretical time-laws of my own related to “seconds” and took it outside to the park, crank and all, to time the athletes of my track meet: G.J., Lousy, Scotty, Vinny, Dicky, even old Iddiboy Bisson-nette who’d sometimes join our play with grave seriousness and iddyboy joy (“Hey Iddiboy!”)— others–semiseriously grunting out 30-yard dashes to see their “time” (which I had as close to 4 seconds and 3.9 seconds as possible) and to amuse, or cater, to me–to mollify me, I was always giving orders and called the ‘big punk’ by both Billy Artaud (who is now a loudmouth union leader) and Dicky Hampshire (dead on Bataan)— Dicky wrote “Jack is a big punk” in chalk on the boardfence of a French Canadian Salem street alley as we walked home for noon recess from Bartlett Junior High–

  A school which has since burned down–rich trees–on Wannalancitt Street, name of a King–an Indian chief– Pawtucket Boulevard, name of a brave nation– The tragic ice house that burned down also and me and Jean Four-chette offered to help the firemen, we moved hoses, we had walked all the way from Dracut in pyro-maniacal excitement, drooling, “Gee I bet it a good fire, hoh?” (“Boy mon boy, m’a vaw dire, c’est un bon feu, ce feu la, tu va woir, oui, mautadit, moo hoo hoo ha ha ha”)—he had a maniac laugh, he was an idiot, underdeveloped mentality, sweet and kind, tremendously dirty, saintly, goofly, hardworking, willing, did chores I guess, a monster idiot Frenchman from the woods– He used to watch those Textile games on Saturday October afternoons through the trees —”moo hoo hoo ha ha, boy mon boy, he sure smear that guy, moo hee hee hee–hoh?”—

  I had so (finally) perfected my timing-clock we grew more–we held great gloomy track meets in Textile field at sunset with the last event after dark–a regular cinder racetrack circled the field– I see G. J.—I’m on the sidelines timing him–he’s running the Five Lap “Mile”—I see his tragic white shirttails bobbing in the flapshroud of 9’o clock at summernight far across Textile field somewhere in the shadows of the orange brick castle of its halls and laboratories (with broken windows from Textile homeruns)—G.J. is lost in Eternity, when he rounds (when he flaps on straining in his heartbreaking void trying to catch time with feeble tired boy legs hell—) I-Ah G.J., he’s rounding the last turn, we hear him huffing horribly in the dark, he’ll die at the tape, the winds of evening ripple hugely through the shrub trees of the Textile fence and on out over the dump, the river and the summer houses of Lowell–the streets of flashing shadows, the streetlamps–the halls of Textile half-cut in a huge stab of Moody Street light through traceries and mockeries of star and shadow and twining limb, comes clover from Pawtucketville scenting, the Cow Field dusts of ballgames have settled down for the Pawtucketville summernight love of huddled standers– and fallers–G.J. comes twapping down the cinders, his time is miserably slow, he’s done all that running for nothing-

  He gets sore and sick of my machine– He and Lousy start wrestling— (Meanwhile little George Bouen has started off on his 5 Flap Mile and I started machine and directed takeoff but now I turn from my duties as track official and inventor and leader of commands and puffings) —in this sorrowful huge summer dark with its millionfold stars milking up the pit of night so steep and inky deep with dew– Somewhere in Lowell at this moment my father, big fat Pop, is driving his old Plymouth home from work or an afternoon at Suffolk Downs or in the Jockey Club at Daumier’s–my sister, with a tennis racket, is 1935 in the swisheries of tree-haunted courts when tennis is over and the tennis ghosts pad whitefoot to the home, by water fountains and waterfalls of foliage– The Huge Trees of Lowell lament the July evening in a song begins in meadow apple lands up above Bridge Street, the Bunker Hill farms and cottages of Centralville–to the sweet night that flows along the Concord in South Lowell where railroads cry the roundroll–to the massive lake like archeries and calms of the Boulevard lover lanes of cars, nightslap, and fried clams and Pete’s and Glennie’s ice cream–to the pines of Farmer Ubrecht Dracut way, to the last craw call crow in the Pine Brook heights, the flooded wilds and Swamps and swims of Mill Pond, the little bridge of Rosemont fording a Waterloo mouth of her backwood Brook in eve remnant mists–highway lights are flashing, I hear a song from a passing radio, the crunch of gravel in the road, hot tar stars, apples to pop signs with crabapples for posts– In the gloom of all Lowell I rush up to wrestle with G.J. and Lousy–finally I have Lousy on my shoulder like a sack, whirling him–he gets tremendously mad, never get Lousy mad, remember the balls, hanging helplessly in my grip upsidedown he bites my ass and I drop him like a hot worm— “Fucking Lousy bit Jack’s ass, did he bite his ass!” (sadly)—’lie bit his ass–did he bite!”—as we laugh and wrangle, here comes Georgie Bouen finishing his mile, unknown, ungreeted at the tape, comes puffing to the finish line in solitary glooms of destiny and death (we never saw him again) as ghosts wrestle–goof—laugh–all mystery Huge dripping on our heads in the Antiquity of the Universe which has a giant radar machine haunting its flying cloud brown night spaces of dull silence in the Hum and Dynamo of the Tropic–though then my dream of the Universe was not so “accurate,” so modem–it was all black and Saxish–

  Tragedies of darkness hid in the shadows all around Textile–the waving hedges hid a
ghost, a past, a future, a shuddering spirit specter full of anxious blackish sinuous twiny night torture–the giant orangebrick smokestack rose to the stars, a little black smoke came out–below, a million tittering twit leaves and jumping shadows–I have such a hopeless dream of walking or being there at night, nothing happens, I just pass, everything is unbearably over with (I stole a football helmet from Textile field once, with G.J., the tragedy is in the haunt and guilt of Textile field) (where also someone hit me in the brow with a rock)—

  In the fall my sister would come see me play football with the gang, sock, crash bang, tackle,—I’d spin touchdowns for her, for her cheers–this was behind the grandstand as the Textile team scrimmaged with Coach Rusty Yarvell–great iron reds in the sky, falling leaves flying, whistles–raw scuffed cold horn chapped sidehands–

  But at night, and in summer, or in an April windy rain wetly waving, this field, these trees, that terror of pickets and brickposts,—the brooding silence–the density of the Pawtucketville night, the madness of the dream,—the race being concluded in a vat gloom, there is evil in the flashing green round of brown night– Doctor Sax was everywhere in this–his glee supported us and made us run and jump and grab leaves and roll in the grass when we went home– Doctor Sax gets into the blood of children by his cape … his laughter is hidden in the black hoods of the darkness where you can suck him up with air, the glee of night in kids is a message from the dark, there is a telepathic shadow in this void bowl slant.

  23

  I SLEPT AT JOE FORTTER’s—many’s the time I could feel the goose pimples of his cold legs or the leather of his tar black heel, as we lay in dank barns and attics of his various homes in the Doctor Sax midnights of ghost stories and strange sounds–

  I first met Joe when he lived on Bunker Hill Street a stone’s throw practically from West Sixth and Boisvert where the brown bathrobe warmed me in the sky at my mother’s neck– His mother and my mother worked side by side at the great St. Louis Paroisse bazaar–together they once visited the stone mansion castle on the Lakeview hill near Lupine Road that is symmetrical to Snake Hill Castle (and among the serried black pines of whose slope-grounds Gerard had slid in snows of my infancy, I remember I was afraid he’d hit a pine tree)— His mother and mine went in the “Castle” to see about some church affair, they came out saying the place was too spooky for the bazaar–my mother said there were niches of stone in the halls (the old sun must have shone red through hallway dusts on these stone hollows in the Hook, as I was being born across the pines outside)—

  Joe and I explored all the possible haunted houses in town. Chief of our great houses was when he lived on Bridge Street near 18th, in an old gray rickety manse in a V of leafy streets in autumn–across Bridge Street, over the stone lawn wall, rose the slope side of pines and drearies, exactly like the lawn of the Lakeview Castle–to the Haunted House which was but a shell, a wreck of plasters, beams, broken glass, shit, wet leaves, forlorn legs of old centerpieces, rusted piano wires in a ping (like in an old abandoned freighter used as a buoy you still find Captain’s Mess has scrollwork in the beams, and the sun shines in all joy mom of sea like it did off Malaya or Seattle so long ago)— There were ghosts in that old House Shell–roofs decaying–pissing was a thrill among these decadent beams and bulge crack walls– Something namelessly, shroudily obscene and wild–like drawings of great cocks of the length of snakes, with dumb venom spittles–we tugged at boards, shifted bricks, broke fresh plaster islands, kicked out glass chips and–

  At night, summer’s nights, with the family downstairs in the big kitchen (maybe my own mother or father there, others, a young priest just down from Canada who loves to woo de ladies–we are four levels up to the attic, we only hear faint roars of laughter below)—in the Lowell night we lay relaxed in pissy mattresses, with treeswish at the window, telling stories (“Shee-cago! shee-cago!”), playing with our ding dongs, squirming, throwing legs up in air, rushing to the window to look out at commotions–to look out at our Haunted House in the multiform black and white flashing Lowell night… What owls? hoos and voodoos in the midnight? What old maniac in white hair is come to pluck the rusty piano springs in a maze of midnight? what Doctor Sax crawling along the black, shaded, cowled, pe-loted, zinging speedily at low-height to his mysteries and fear-

  Together, by huge afternoon of world clouds, we explored reservoirs in the hill of Lowell so high, or made camps outside sewage pipes in brown tragic matted fields —in the backfields of St. Louis school–in a tree we sit, call it Fresh Air Texicab,- I fly kites in the field-

  Joe comes to my house one Sunday morning after church but I’m eating breakfast so in his white knickers while waiting he goes down the cellar and shovels up a pail of coal for my Ma–we pose outside with Henry Troisieux and my cat, in dull Sunday afternoon,-behind us wave the Doctor Sax trees … the record of old nights in the sleeping barns, in the cold attic, in the mystery, in the dream, Joe and me– Old buddies of the lifetime of boyhood– Yet Joe avoided shrouds, knew no mystery, wasn’t scared, didn’t care, strode along, lumberjack boots, in rainy mornings in church, Sunday, he’s spent last week exploring a little river, wants this afternoon to find his cave in the pine woods–go build a tent, fix the car in rainy dim-mists all day with cans and smudge rags and no refreshments-

  Joe had turrets and attics in his house but he wasn’t afraid of sailing ghosts … his phantoms were reality, work and earn money, fix your knife, straighten the screw, figure for tomorrow. I played dismal private games in his backyard, some mythic hassel with myself involving how many times around the house and water–while he’s busy fixing something for his use. Come night, shadows creep, Sax emerges, Joe just rocks on the porch talking of things to do and every now and then leaning over and scratching his leg and going “Hyoo hyoo hyoo! you shore did get sore that time–hoo hoo!”

  24

  THE NOISE OF THE BIG FAMILY PARTIES could only be heard faintly up in Joe’s fourth story attic but o! when it was at my house, the cottage on West Street earlier or later on, wow, the whoops and screams of the ladies as madcap Duquette would get Blanche to put all the lights out and start playing spooky music on the piano, up riseth a face powdered in white flour, framed in an empty picture frame, with flashlight under chin, oogoogoogoo, the bursts of howling laughter would just practically knock me outa my bed one flight above– But at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that no real shades would come to get me in the midst of such strong adult mockery and racket-Gad, that was a gang: they called themselves La Maudite Gang until one of the couples died leaving them twelve couples instead of thirteen so it became The Dirty Dozen-Poor priest LaPoule DuPuis was involved with them, he was the last unmarried son of a huge Quebec family that according to tradition felt it would be damnee if someone in the house didnt belong to the priesthood so madcap sexfiend LaPoule was retired piously behind the cloistral wall, to some extent, a woman wasnt safe in the same room with him– One Saturday night he got dead drunk after pirouetting with all the ladies at a big roaring party and passed out before midnight (woulda stopped drinking at midnight anyway, as he was saying Mass in the morning)— Come morning Joe’s father hauls LaPoule into the shower, shoves black coffee down his throat, then calls the whole gang to come see the fun at eleven O’clock Mass–

  They’re all there, the Duluozes, the Fortiers, the Duquettes, the DuBois, the Lavoisiers, the lot, all in the front pews, and out comes LaPoule in chasuble with the solemn altar boys and weaves and totters to his work– Every time he turns his bloodshot suffering eyes to the front pews, there’s my father or Joe’s, or Ma and the other crazy women giving him surreptitious little mocking waves of the hand (like in some hilarious blasphemous French movie not yet made) and he in turn waves back as if to say “For krissakes keep it low” but they think he’s spoofing back at them and all through the Mass Joe’s father you can hear his spluttrous inheld explosions of dont-laugh– My father makes everything worse by waving his strawhat between his legs, or
Blanche crosses her eyes at LaPoule just as he’s raising a host at the communion rail–mad gang–the poor fellow laboring to kneel, altar boys clutching at his arm as he almost falls over, as good a man of gold and God I’d say as the most postrous Bishop ever levied frowns on his flock —LaPoule at our wild parties loved to tell the joke (which was actually a true story) about the parish priest in Canada who wouldnt pardon some guy for a sin and in revenge the guy smeared shite on the rail of the pulpit so here it is Sunday morning the priest is about to begin: Today, ladies and gentlemen, I want to speak about religion, la nature de la religion–Religion,” says he, beginning, putting his hand on the rail,”religion… “he brings his hand up to his nose, puts it down again … “religion is—” once again he brings his hand to his nose, frowning in preplexity, “la religion–mais c’est d’la marde!” Which joke was one of those that used to send off Joe’s big happy mother Adelaide into such a scream you could hear it clear down the river rocks and inevitably blasted my cat off my pillow and sent me wondering out of dreams– The mad gang, the time they had a party at the beach and after the near-tragedy of Pa and Mr. Fortier swimming out too far and almost drowning (Salisbury Beach) even then enough gayety in the gang, that, as Mrs. Fortier is frying the porkchops on the camp cottage stove and everybody’s feeling kinda gloomy, Duquette comes up in his bathing suit, plucks pubic hairs from under his trunks and sprinkles them into the sizzling pan saying “They need a little spice”—so that the gang laughter rang by the sea, and talk about your modern day neighbors complaining to the police about noisy parties, these parties were revolutions and cannonades, it’ll never happen again in America (besides all the swishing trees have been cut down, so dreaming boys cant lean their chins on midnight window-sills any more)—O Moon Lowell– And my mother making coffee in our old 15-cup drip grind aluminum pot, and the poker games in the kitchen lasting till doomsday–Joe and I’d sometimes come down and peek from the staircase at all this Riot Loveliness–