Here’s a favorite of mine:
I always obey my nurse
I always care
For wound and fracture
Because I am always broken
I obey my nurse…
I have a book in the van, at least I think it’s still in there — unless I’ve loaned it out, which I’m almost certain I didn’t because mostly I lend my books to impoverished kids or homeless folk, and this one wouldn’t be high on that list — it has the somewhat daunting title of History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. How’s that for pedantry! Now, I’m a Catholic but each faith struggles under the yoke. The OED tells us sacerdotalism is the assertion of the existence in the Christian church of a sacerdotal order of priesthood, having sacrificial functions and invested with supernatural powers. These were the Middle Ages… there is an absolute profusion of intriguing texts from that time by the so-called Christian mystics — Hildegard of Bingen (the monks here are completely gaga over Hildegard. Sinéad O’Connor would have made a great Hildie B), The Scale of Perfection, Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Teresa’s The Way of Perfection (lotta striving toward perfection in those days), and my own personal fave, The Cloud of Unknowing—and O! Better not leave out Jacobus de Voragine’s The Golden Legend…
Sorry to digress. I think I have a case of nerves, that’s why I’m chattering away. I’m usually not such a motor-mouth. It’s just that I guess everything’s building up, all that’s been unspoken for so many years. The whole kit and caboodle, as Mama used to say.
A break for lunch. As we settled in, he excused himself. When he returned, he wore a sheepish smile. His face was blotchy, as if from crying.
I had to “make my toilet.” Splash some water on my face…
What was I saying?
The Christian mystics—
Kipling! Kipling also did his time in the City by the Bay, oh yes. Mind you, there was no love lost between the two — not between Kipling and Twain, but Kipling and the city. He was a flinty, finicky man, and most decidedly “on the road.” What do you think the Beats would’ve made of him? Now there’s another play — my third of the day! — the meeting of Kipling and Kerouac. “Kipling/Kerouac,” that’s what you call it. Or maybe just “K2”… K-squared! Yes. I like it. On the Road with Jack and Rudy. Stendhal said something marvelous, that a novel was nothing more than a man holding a mirror as he walks down a road… it reflects the sky above and the mud below, and woe to the man who carries it in his rucksack and captures nothing but the mire! For he will be pilloried.
I was saying. Kipling didn’t care for San Francisco a whit. If he didn’t leave his heart, he certainly left his spleen, or some other mess to clean up. Had a reputation for being a real pisser. Thought everyone was rude, particularly hotel workers. Isn’t that funny? I guess that’s understandable, he was used to India where the English were treated like gods. I have an old Kipling in the van, I know just where, green cover, introduction by Henry James. (Come to think of it, I’ve a very pretty Le Rouge et le Noir.) There’s a chapter in there, if memory serves, called “American Notes,” subtitled “Rudyard Kipling at the Golden Gate.” Apparently, the thing he absolutely could not tolerate about our beautiful city was all the white people! Too many white people. Not enough blacks and fellaheen. (Oh, the Beats were great fans of the fellaheen!) There was just this very long list of complaints. The querulous Lord K had no truck with the custom of the day, which allowed that a fellow who bought a drink would get his food for free. The man even hated cable cars! Moreover, he was of the mind that Americans plagiarized English authors without compensation or acknowledgment, and to make things worse, willfully perverted the pilfered texts. On the topic of copyrights, he was apoplectic. A drooling hound from Hell… but we forgive Genius its prickliness. And he was a prickly pear. Some of my best friends are prickly pears.
Kipling actually wrote about the Cliff House. You know the Cliff House, Bruce? You said you lived in the Bay Area when you were a boy… that took me by surprise. The very Cliff House I — we! — remember from our youth! We lived south of LA, see, in Orange County, and would drive to Point Lobos and Sausalito… our little unhappy family. Those dreadful, benumbing, contentious vacations. Good Lord! We’d go to the Cliff House and my big sis and me climbed the hundreds of steps to that positively Brobdingnagian indoor slide — remember? — made out of slippery, buttery blond wood. I was so struck with fear, my tiny face all scrunched up in tears, like I was heading for the gallows. I never looked down, only straight ahead, at the ass of whoever was in front of me, yet couldn’t help but see from the corner of my eye the sliders whooshing past, the joyful screaming, the chute wide as a highway, like some monstrously tilted bowling lane waiting patiently to strike me out. To avoid the paralysis of vertigo, when I finally reached the top I gave my full attention to the spreading out of my smelly burlap sack, the threadbare magic carpet that would carry me to Hell. You couldn’t take too much time with preparations because a cackling crowd was endlessly summiting behind you, anxious to fling themselves down that bizarre man-made mountain. So you’d plunk yourself on that useless mat and — Geronimo! — off you’d go, hoping to catch up with your stomach at slide’s end. All the while knowing I’d have to immediately begin the climb again, or be called a fag, and be publicly ostracized—
I know, I’m off-track. It’s just the butterflies…
We’re not in a huge hurry, are we?
I just need to work up to it. I’m finding my way. Promise.
All right, and do forgive: the Kipling/Twain rendezvous in New York. As it turns out, the two shared a common passion: copyrights. Ha! According to historical reports, Samuel Clemens had lots to say about this particular issue. Copyrights! Mania of the Titans!
Kipling was an absolutely superb reporter, even referred to himself as a newspaperman. (Jack London had his own view of the papers. Called them “man-killing machines.”) Kipling was known as a human tape recorder, capable of flawlessly transcribing from memory. Capote used to say the same thing, but Capote was more full of shit than a sewer pipe. Lord Rudy quoted Twain, a little speech I spottily committed to memory, as it touches on a topic mentioned earlier and which I am certain we will soon explore, which acted as a balm at the time—
A conscience, like a child, is a nuisance. If you play with it and give it everything it wants — spoil it — it’ll be sure to intrude on all your amusements and most of your griefs. Just treat it as you would anything else. When it’s rebellious, spank it. Be stern! Don’t let it come out to play with you at all hours. That way you’ll end up with a good conscience, one that’s properly trained. But a spoiled one destroys all pleasure in life! I’ve done an excellent job in training my own; at least, I haven’t heard from it for some time. Perhaps I killed it from being too severe. It is wrong to kill a child… though in spite of all I’ve said, a conscience does differ from a child in many ways.