A roaring drinking bout begins deep in the canyon—Fog nightfall sends cold seeping into the windows so all these softies demand that the wood windows be closed so we all sit there in the glow of the one lamp coughing in the smoke but they dont care—They think it’s just the steaks smoking over the fire—I have one of the jugs in my hand and I wont let go—McLear is the handsome young poet who's just written the most fantastic poem in America, called “Dark Brown,” which is every detail of his and his wife’s body described in ecstatic union and communion and inside out and every-whichaway and not only that he insists on reading it to us—But I wanta read my “Sea” poem too—But Cody and Dave Wain are talking about something else and that silly kid Ron Blake is singing like Chet Baker—Arthur Ma is drawing in the corner, and it sorta goes like this generally:—
“That’s what old men do, Cody, they drive slowly backwards in Safeway Supermarket parking lots”—“Yes that’s right, I was tellin you about that bicycle of mine but that’s what they do yes you see that’s because while the old woman is shoppin in that store they figure they'll park a little closer to the entrance and so they spend a half hour to think their big move out and they back in out slowly from their slot, can hardly turn around to see what’s in back, usually nothin there, then they wheel real slow and trembly to that slot they picked but all of a sudden some cat jumps in it with his pickup and them old men is scratchin their heads sayin and whining ‘Owww, these young fellers nowadays’ and all that obvious, ah, yes, but that BICYCLE of mine in Denver I tell you I had it twisted and that wheel used to wobble so by necissity I had to invent a new way to maneuver them handlebars see—”—“Hey Cody have a drink,” I'm yelling in his ear and meanwhile McLear is reading: “Kiss my thighs in darkness the pit of fire” and Monsanto is chuckling saying to Fagan: “So this crazy character comes down stairs and asking for a copy of Alisteir Crowley and I didnt know ’bout that till you told me the other day, then on the way out I see him sneak a book off the shelf but he puts another one in its place that he got out of his pocket, and the book is a novel by somebody called Denton Welch all about this young kid in China wanderin around the streets like real romantic young Truman Capote only it’s China” and Arthur Ma suddenly yells: “Hold still you buncha bastards, I got a hole in my eye” and generally the way parties go, and so on, ending with the steak dinner (I dont even touch a bite but just drink on), then the big bonfire on the beach to which we march all in one arm-swinging gang, I've gotten the idea in my head I’m the leader of a guerilla warfare unit and I’m marching ahead the lieutenant giving orders, with all our flashlights and yells we come swarming down the narrow path going “Hup one two three” and challenging the enemy to come out of hiding, some guerillas.
Monsanto that old woodsman starts a huge bonfire on the beach that can be seen flaring from miles away, cars passing across the bridge way up there can see there’s a party goin on in the hole of night, in fact the bonfire lights up the eerie weird beams and staunches of the bridge almost all the way up, giant shadows dance on the rocks—The sea swirls up but seems subdued—It’s not like being alone down in the vast hell writing the sounds of the sea.
The night ending with everybody passing out exhausted on cots, in sleepingbags outside (McLear goes home with wife) but Arthur Ma and I by the late fire keep up yelling spontaneous questions and answers right till dawn like “Who told you you had a hat on your head?”—“My head never questions hats”—“What’s the matter with your liver training?”—“My liver training got involved in kidney work”—(and here again another great gigantic little Oriental friend for me, an eastcoaster who's never known Chinese or Japanese kids, on the west coast it’s quite common but for an eastcoaster like me it’s amazing and what with all my earlier studies in Zen and Chan and Tao)—(And Arthur also being a gentle small softhaired seemingly soft little Oriental goofnik)—And we come to great chanted statements, taking turns, without a pause to think, just one then the other, bing and bang, the beauty of them being that while one guy is yelling like (me):- “Tonight the full apogee August moon will out, early with a jaundiced tint, and pop angels all over my rooftop along with Devas sprinkling flowers” (any kind of nonsense being the rule) the other guy has time not only to figure the next statement but can take off from the subconscious arousement of an idea from “angels all over my rooftop” and so can yell without thinking an answer the stupider or rather the more unexpectedly insaner sillier brighter it is the better “Pilgrims dropping turds and sweet nemacular nameless railroad trains from heaven with omnipotent youths bearing monkey women that will stomp through the stage waiting for the moment when by pinching myself I prove that a thought is like a touch”—But this is only the beginning because now we know the routine and get better and better till at dawn I seem to recall we were so fantastically brilliant (while everyone snored) the skies must have shook to hear it and not just foil: let’s see if I can recreate at least the style of this game:-
ARTHUR: “When are you going to become the Eighth Patriarch?”
ME: “As soon as you give me that old motheaten sweater"—(Much better than that, forget this for now, because I want to talk first about Arthur Ma and try again to duplicate our feat).