But there's an awful paranoiac element sometimes in orgasm that suddenly releases not sweet genteel sympathy but some token venom that splits up in the body—I feel a great ghastly hatred of myself and everything, the empty feeling far from being the usual relief is now as tho I’ve been robbed of my spinal power right down the middle on purpose by a great witching force—I feel evil forces gathering down all around me, from her, the kid, the very walls of the cabin, the trees, even the sudden thought of Dave Wain and Romana is evil, they're all coming now—I leave poor Billie face in hand and rush off to drink water in the creek but every time I do something like that I have to run back to be sorry and say so, but the moment I see her again “She's doing something else” I leer and I dont feel sorry at all—She’s mumbling face in hands and the little boy’s crying at her side—“My God she should get to a nunnery!” I think rushing back to the creek—Suddenly the water in the creek tastes different as tho somebody's thrown gasoline or kerosene in it upstream—“Maybe those neighbors wanta get back at me that’s what!”—I taste the water carefully and I’m positive that’s what happened.
Like an idiot I’m sitting by the creek staring when Dave Wain comes striding down with one fish on the line and his big cheerful western twang as tho nothing unusual’s happened “Well boy I spent a whole two hours and look what I got! one measly but beautiful pathetic as you'll see holy little rainbow sea trout that I’m now going to clean—Now the way to clean fish is as follows,” and he kneels innocently by the creek to show me how—I have nothing else to do but watch and smile—He says: “Be prepared to be taken on tour of Farollone Island within next two years, boy, with wild canaries actually lighting on your boat hundreds of miles out at sea—See I’m tryna to save money for a fishboat of my own, I think fishing is bettern anything and I intend to entirely reorganize my life for this tho I see the stern image of Fagan shrieking with a Roshi stick, but you ought to see how fast you can bait up hundreds of herring and clean salmon in one and a half minutes, it’s a fact, and you walk around in hickory shirts and wool knit caps—Man I know all about it and I’m writing a final definitive article on how clean hard work is the saviour of us all—When you’re out there it’s a very primal light, fishing is—You’re a hunter—Birds find fish for you—Weather drives you—Foolish mind-hangs dissolve before utter fatigue and everything comes in”—As I squat there I imagine maybe Billie is telling Romana what happened in the cabin and Dave’ll know in a while tho he seems to know a lot that’s going on—He’s hinted several times, like now, “You look like you’re having the worse time of your life, that kid Elliott is enough to drive anybody crazy and Billie is sure a nervous little wench—Now here’s the way you scale, with this here knife”—And I marvel that I cant be so useful and humanly simple and good enough to make small talk to make others feel better, like Dave, there he is long and hollow of cheeks from long drinking himself the past few weeks, but he’s not complaining or moaning in the corner like me, at least he does something about it, he puts himself to the test—He gives me that feeling again that I’m the only person in the world who is devoid of human-beingness, damn it, that’s true, that’s the way I feel anyway—“Ah Dave someday you and me’ll go fishing in your abandoned mining camp on the Rogue River, huh, well be feeling better by then somehow gaddamit”—“Well we’ve got to cut down on the sauce a whole lot, Jack,” saying “Jack” sadly a lot like Jarry Wagner used to do on our Dharmabumming mountain climbs where we’d confide dolors, “yes, and we drink too many SWEET drinks in a way, you know all that sugar and no food is bound to upset your metabolism and fill your blood with sugar to the point where you aint got the strength of a hen; you especially you’ve been drinking nothin but sweet port and sweet Manhattans now for weeks—I promise you the holy flesh of this little fish will heal you,” (chuckle).
I suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death scheme is back only now I’m gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only an hour ago was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this and saying: “Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in the glad waters of life and now look at it, here’s where the fittin head’s chopped off, you dont have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to use it for our sacrificial supper so in fact when we cook it I’m going to say an Indian prayer for it hoping it’s the same prayer the local Indians used—Jack in a way we might even start havin fun here and make a great week out of it!”—“Week?”—“I thought we was coming here for a week”—“Oh I said that didnt I . . . I feel awful about everything . . . I dont think I can make it. . . I’m going crazy with Billie and Elliott and me too . . . maybe I’ll have to, maybe we’ll have to leave or something, I think I’ll die here”—And Dave is disappointed naturally and here I’ve already routed him up out of his own affairs to drive down here anyway, another matter to make me feel like a rat.