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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780914590552 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 01/01/1979 |
| Edition description: | First Edition, First Edition |
| Pages: | 116 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Holy Smoke
By Fanny Howe
Fiction Collective, Inc.
Copyright © 1979 Fanny HoweAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-914590-55-2
CHAPTER 1
Last night I dreamed I had a name. It was Anon.
My parents gave it to me. They sat in the back of my cab.
I saw them, alive again! through the rearview mirror, soft and smiling. Where I was taking them, I do not know.
Where they came from, a mystery. Why they said, "Your real name is Anon," I'll never know.
We drove through a landscape I'm sure I've seen before:
On the right (East) a deep river, black and thick.
On the left (West) green sloping fields.
My longing to turn to speak to them was haltered by a terrible anxiety: we might drive into that river, should I turn my head.
In this rigid frame of mind, I drove on to daybreak. The crash of garbage pails.
J was found dead today. He is always being found dead, of course, but I never dared write it down before.
But now that I have a name, I know I must write.
"Song is existence. Easy for the gods," wrote Rilke.
I'm scared, but feel it is time to be really bad.
The Blue Boys came, as always, with J's mug shot, and asked,
"Is this your man?"
Yes, I said, since it always is.
Later Jimmy himself told me he would turn me in, if I wrote anything down, — or leave.
So I wrote it down and feel like Euridice returning with a sword. The Muse who slew the Singer!
My little statue of the Virgin Mary said: "What is mightier than the sword? The pen is, the penis, or the pun is. Take your pick, lady."
She's a character.
I'm a virgin again at last.
There may not be a new hymen, there may still be a scar where my skin tore in labor, but fifteen years of celibacy must add up to some kind of freedom.
James approves of my condition, but condemns the attitude behind it.
"You must want everyone to say how good you are," he says, "because you've turned your back on the people, on revolution. You need a sweet image to compensate."
But I don't care if people think I'm good. Only strong!
"Ha. Everyone cares. Only a few people dare be overtly nasty. The heroes."
What am I doing wrong?
"The books you read — poetry, esoteric shit, philosophy. You've dropped out."
What difference does it make what I read?
"On your death bed, will you be able to say, I helped the poor in their struggle for justice? Or will you only be able to quote Baudelaire?"
Either case would be pompous.
"You understand, I'm here to quarrel, not to praise."
Yes, yes, I understand.
I pulled in fifty bucks today. Mostly messenger service, which means I get some exercise on the elevators. I'm building up a regular clientele. Once I've got that, I won't need to hustle, no more. Black veins at daybreak on the windowpanes, skin of my home, one tree's black webbing.
Once I've got what I want, will I want what I have? This pursuit of money is a tribulation. Now I can say I am doing it for my daughter, but when she leaves, which will be soon, what can I say? What will I have to live for? The pursuit of truth and wisdom is a full-time occupation, but I'll have to make money too. I'll have to drive the car around Manhattan, I'll have to talk to strangers, I'll have to listen.
The other night I took an elderly railroad worker home, and he was quoting e.e. cummings all the way uptown. "The country hasn't come to terms with cummings yet," he told me with great spirit, "too much attention on Whitman." So we had to continue this conversation over whiskey, in an Irish bar, for we were both stunned by our lack of solitude.
Today was a glorious day — the January thaw — blue sky — sunshine & warm. Every season but fall is a pain in this city. It was a day just like this when James the First was wasted. And the day before, when we were planning the hold-up and he kept saying, If the apple's ripe, Time falls. It was fall. And the day after, when I was in the slams, didn't have the kid any more, they had taken her screaming off to Separation City. And when she left her name was Pepita, and when she returned her name was Pepsi. Six years old, and nearly a stranger, having all the mannerisms of a family I never knew. How all our parents are strangers Time selects for us, and how children survive the most dreadful people!
Still I say it's a glorious feeling, though the prison sensation never leaves me. You pass through all the locked doors coming out and lock the car door, going away, and space has locks & keys, apartments, friendships, minds and words. Home is just your chosen prison and the only freedom left comes from feeling you are on the track of Truth.
THE MATERIAL WORLD
Just as antlers appear to bear no relation to the soft body of the deer, so the snowy petals of dogwood appear to bear no relation to the leaves & branches from which they spring. Red cardinals flash through the trees, again composed of strange material certainly not wooden. Dogwood snowing on the china blue sky. Green leaves brilliant and transparent in the spring. My green might be your blue, but the patterns would be satisfying, and the same. Certain monkeys have speckled reddish hair that approaches feathering. Out of the dirt, comes grass. "The flag of my disposition," Whitman calls it. And he is not one for metaphors. If you separated each well-formed particle of life from its origin, you would have as good as you've got. Feathers growing on trees. Fish with beaks. Fountains spurting from the temples of elks. Dogwood petals fluttering from the cheeks of monkeys. And once you had analysed the property of each particle, it would all make perfect sense!
January 14th. Freezing cold, a film of ice on the rooftops & trees. At six a.m. a gentleman called to say that Jimmy had been found dead — This time in the hopper of a Penn Central train, travelling between New York and New Haven. I was asked to identify him at the morgue, but said I couldn't handle it.
"Can you give me some unusual feature," asked the man, "for positive identification?"
Then I went out so I wouldn't know either way. But then I came back in, wanting to know. It was him. The gentleman said that J was travelling on the 6:10 train from Penn Station, was found about an hour later by a ticket collector who saw him go into the hopper right after the train took off, thought he was a deadhead trying to bum a free ride. He was shot in the head this time. They took his body off at Bridgeport.
"Dispose of him as you would any old indigent," I said.
I know he was on his way to Boston, with all the others, to participate in the busing rally there. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day.
January 15. Bitterly cold but bright. Pepsi had no school, so she came down to Penn Station with me. In the meantime, Josephine packed up J's clothes, so I wouldn't have to see or touch them, but his papers she was not allowed to touch. Pepsi and I decided to pretend we were J's wife and child, then ride the train to New Haven, talking to people. Early morning, the station crawling with bag ladies and doped-up individuals in rotten clothes. I found a slick conductor who knew all about it. He drew us over to a quiet area near the phone booths to avoid a scene. Pepsi looked like a real orphan in her blue jeans and leather, black curls falling down from under her cap, mooning.
"Look," said the conductor softly, "Your best bet is to hop the next train to Boston. You'll find a young man in the club car, comes from France or something. The sleazy type. He knows what happened."
So we got on the 8:10. Settled in the club car, and ordered tea & Danish. The guy was there all right, just like the other jack described him. He must have been around twenty, slender, oozing & sensual, he took a fancy to Pepsi, and sat with us, when I told him who we were.
"Oohh, I'm very sorry what happened," he said.
What did happen, I asked. His eyes were two muddy pools of obsequiem, if there's such a word, as he told his tale.
"I saw him slip into the water closet," is how his tale began, "and I kept an eye on the door, it's what we are supposed to do, you understand, and then I saw another person slip in after him, a beautiful woman, and this was pretty bizarre, because, you understand, it is a water closet for one, heh, heh, and then she came out, but he did not, so I mentioned this to Ronald the brakeman, who went into the john and found your husband there, and he had his round trip ticket in his hand —"
Okay, okay, I said, but what about the woman? Did you tell the cops about her?
"But of course!" he cried, hands up. "And I can tell you, in strict detail, how she resembled. She was dressed in a soft, maybe cashmere, cream-colored coat with a rabbit-fur collar. High heels. Slim ankles. Blond frosted hair. Red lipstick and nails. She was just carrying a purse, no baggage, an alligator purse, so she was, you understand, a wealthy kind of woman. On the other hand, her face, you see, was very dark, possibly belonging to a woman of African origin, though I only got a quick look, it was all so fast. She did not look like the kind to shoot anyone, no, but you can never tell, can you."
Never, I agreed, but wished I could lay eyes on this extraordinary woman. Maybe a spurned mistress, maybe a spy, but a woman all the same. I was going to smile when I saw his ankle rubbing up against Pepsi's, under the table. I gave him a sharp kick, and we got off the train at Rye.
Back home, I found, in Jimmy's papers, a quote (his or whose?) reading: "Our lowest, or least perfect, actions are attempts at originality. Our best are conscious imitations of those we admire."
IS DEATH EVIL?
If there is a Life before life, probably Death is not evil, but simply a temporary condition. If, however, life begins at conception, Death is evil, because it obliterates the little we have learned. Not fair! One does not wish to make contact with Death, by murder or by illness, we all know this, and only those who believe there is a Life before life can handle the dread of Death. In other words, most of us feel, instinctively, that Death is evil, that it, literally, describes Evil. And so we will do anything to avoid it. We will not kill men or flies. Yet villains abound! The carriers of Death. Twisted & diabolical people. Out of pain, they inflict more pain. And who can shower them with pity, forgiveness, love? They should be ashamed of themselves. But only their victims have the right to forgive them; no one else. And it is the victim, alone, who understands that there is a Life before life — even if that Life is called History — and that victim is the only one who understands that Death is a temporary condition, as pain is, as Evil is, as Christ was simply a condition arising from Mary's virginity. The victim is the most powerful individual on earth, when he or she decides to use that power to conquer the villains. The carriers of Death. I am that victim.
(Who wrote this?)
Pepsi is upset for many reasons. First, she is later than any of her friends, getting her period. But it's now about to come. And second, the endless comings and goings of J are aggravating. She grieves and recovers, grieves and recovers, and blames a lot of it on me. "You don't know how to handle him," she tells me. Or, "I wish they'd use a more effective weapon on his head. Why don't you tell them that?"
But it's out of my control, and I have no relationship with Thems of any sort any more. Byron said, "In solitude we are least alone," but Burke said, "An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror." Mr. Simms said, "The true life of man is in society." Von Zimmerman elaborated, saying, "Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody and are liked by nobody." But the Virgin Mary countered these gentlemen with her usual grace, saying "Blessed are the lonely, for they shall speak to statues."
"You are entirely gonzo nutso bananas," Pepsi said, "and I think I'll run away."
In an hour she got in bed with me and asked me to read aloud the Marguerite poems of Matthew Arnold.
Perplexing, unresolved weather today. In a little notebook, Jimmy had written:
Richard Nixon has been a Communist since the late Forties. Am I the only one who knows?
A pale, snowy day, Monday, drear and damp. Wet streets, had to be careful gliding through the park. Quit with $32 in my bag and a filthy hangover. Went home, took Alka-Seltzer and got in bed with Rilke. On the inside of the jacket, J had scrawled: "People think they have to obey all their instincts! But you don't have to, just because you want to! Wow!" And then the phone rang. It was a man called Lucas, sounded like a life insurance salesman, full of beans, a musical fruit, said he wanted to come see me about the Jimmy business. I got out of bed, swilled a beer and waited.
Lucas shuffled in around two and made himself right at home in the livingroom, like one of my elderly neighbors coming in to talk about the pipes. Small and stuffy with dilated nostrils, delicate fingers. He opened a briefcase and took out a walkie-talkie, among other objects.
"This is to keep in touch with my buddie outside," he explained politely.
Then he produced some snapshots — two mug shots, some family scenes, one beside a car, one in a California setting.
"Are you this woman?" he asked.
Some of them I am, some of them I'm not, I said.
"Don't get hysterical, Dear, please. We're not out to hurt you, whoever you are. But you were a friend of James List, alias Jimbo Lightfoot, J.B. Ford, Jaime Lopez —?"
His eyes twinkled merrily. My ears felt like hands on the accordian of my brain, squeezing and pulling out strange, loud melodies.
"Did you know he was a fugitive?" he asked.
No.
"Grand larceny. Arizona."
What's that got to do with me?
"Don't look so scared."
Wouldn't you?
"I wouldn't ask for trouble like you do. I wouldn't consort with hippies, drug addicts and radicals. I wouldn't marry a third-rate bank robber. I wouldn't end up in the clinker. Not if I was a mother first. And you're a mother first, aren't you, Dear?"
Sure thing, I said.
"James List was not just a big-time burglar. He was a paid informer. He was working for us in exchange for a clean record. We think the Cubans might have killed him."
Why don't you ask the French waiter?
"That was no French waiter, Dear. That was a Cuban. He's gone. Took a train south after you spoke to him, we can't trace him."
So, get to the point.
"You want to get back in the mainstream, right?"
Right.
"It's like talking to a man talking to you, Dear, I like that."
I bet.
"We could use your help."
I've got a big mouth. I'll tell my friends.
"You don't know who your friends are, Dear, that's the whole point," and he chortled.
My ears began to thrum strange melodies again. Fear is unfitting to a woman in my circumstances, so I got up and asked him, please, to leave.
"I'll leave, but it would save you mucho time, if you would cooperate. I mean, truthfully, Dear, it's not going to be a case of wine and roses, if you don't give us your help. We need your friend Jim's property. His papers, notebooks, clothes. We need it now, in order to track down various individuals. Please be a lamb and say yes."
No.
"But why not?"
He left it to me. It's all mine.
"Bullshit."
Out!
I pointed an imperious finger down the hall and he packed away his papers and rose to his feet.
"You'll be sorry," he said, like a little boy.
No way.
"You said you were a mother first. Well, that's not going to be the case for long."
Out!
He left. I've been sitting around since, eating Oreos, thinking: He will pluck the meat from the shell. He will scrape the honey from the pot. He will drain the water from the pool. He will pull the placenta from the wall. He will eat the egg inside out.
A wet Saturday, drenching rain, grey & warm, seems like spring, causes people to do weird things, like buy lipstick or go insane. So in order to forget about the man's threats, I went shopping for underclothes. Bought silk panties for the kid, then stopped at a deli for lunch. A middle-aged couple, obviously mental patients, eating at the next table. The stooped bodies of prisoners, misshapen skulls, as if from trying to squeeze their way out through the bars, both overweight. Sloppy with the food. The man wild-eyed despair, the woman moronic and pale. But they spoke ordinary English to each other, mayonnaise all over their chins. They knew how to do things, but didn't seem to like doing them. "The indifferent universe." When no one loves you, the world is a blank stare. Those two must have met in the hospital. Both wore rings. Maybe marriage had brought them to this state — marriage to others or to each other, it doesn't matter. The irreparable damage caused by forced acquaintance. When the other does not become invisible, does not become habitual. Instead, a busted shoe, a blister. I began to get that overshaded feeling, watching them. Then my car gave out on 43rd and Broadway. Felt the trouble coming for days. No breakdown lane on Broadway. Left a note on the windshield and ran to the garage. When I came back, a rookie cop was leaning on the hood. He waited, with me, for the tow truck, then asked me to have a drink. You can never be dowdy enough. Or fashions in people change too.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Holy Smoke by Fanny Howe. Copyright © 1979 Fanny Howe. Excerpted by permission of Fiction Collective, Inc..
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