If a cop hustled him off, he hustled, and disappeared, and if yard dicks were around in bigcity yards when a freight was pulling out, chances are they never got a sight of the little man hiding in the weeds and hopping on in the shadows. He is the kind of thin quiet little bum nobody pays muchĪttention to even in Skid Row, let alone Main Street. "Most every day." He talked not much more than this, didn't amplify on the subject of Saint Teresa, and was very modest about his religion and told me little about his personal life. "Oh, I cut it out of a reading-room magazine in Los Angeles couple of years ago. The little bum in the gondola solidified all my beliefs by warming up to the wine and talking and finally whipping out a tiny slip of paper which contained a prayer by Saint Teresa announcing that after her death she will return to the earth by showering it with roses from heaven, forever, for all living creatures. I had not met Japhy Ryder yet, I was about to the next week, or heard anything about "Dharma Bums" although at this time I was a perfect Dharma Bum myself and considered myself a religious wanderer. But then I really believed in the reality of charity and kindness and hu mility and zeal and neutral tranquillity and wisdom and ecstasy, and I believed that I was an oldtime bhikku in modern clothes wandering the world (usually the immense triangular arc of New York to Mexico City to San Francisco) in order to turn the wheel of the True Meaning, or Dharma, and gain merit for myself as a future Buddha (Awakener) and as a future Hero in Paradise. Because now I am grown so old and neutral. Since then I've become a little hy pocritical about my lip-service and a little tired and cynical. I reminded myself of the line in the Diamond Sutra that says, "Practice charity without holding in mind any conceptions about charity, for charity after all is just a word." I was very devout in those days and was practicing my religious de votions almost to perfection. He ate the cheese and bread and drank the wine with gusto and gratitude. I'd bought the cheese three days ago in Mexico City before the long cheap bus trip across Zacatecas and Durango and Chihuahua two thousand long miles to the border at El Paso. "Sure thing." He spoke from far away inside a little meek voice-box afraid or unwilling to assert himself. I took pity on him and went over and said, "How about a little wine to warm you up? Maybe you'd like some bread and cheese with your sardines." The little bum was sitting crosslegged at his end before a pitiful repast of one can of sardines. But it was late afternoon and bound to get cold soon. I ran back to my freight train which had another fifteen minutes to wait in the now warm sunny scene. I jumped over the side and ran across Highway 101 to the store, and bought, besides wine, a little bread and candy. "Will you watch my pack while I run over there and get a bottle of wine?" Pretty soon we headed into another siding at a small railroad town and I figured I needed a poor- boy of Tokay wine to complete the cold dusk run to Santa Barbara. Both the little bum and I, after un successful attempts to huddle on the cold steel in wraparounds, got up and paced back and forth and jumped and flapped arms at each our end of the gon. By and by they blew the highball whistle after the eastbound freight had smashed through on the main line and we pulled out as the air got colder and fog began to blow from the sea over the warm valleys of the coast. He established himself at the other end of the gondola and lay down, facing me, with his head on his own miserably small pack and said nothing. Gondola as we headed into a siding to give a train right of way and looked surprised to see me there. Somewhere near Camarillo where Charlie Parker'd been mad and relaxed back to normal health, a thin old little bum climbed into my It was a local and I intended to sleep on the beach at Santa Barbara that night and catch either another local to San Luis Obispo the next morning or the firstclass freight all the way to San Francisco at seven p.m. Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down with my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated the clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara. Signet/New American Library, New York, 1959.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |