Beal Street

Dr. John playing back-up for a very hot female blues singer. Cool late night, altogether quiet, with a hint of tree-rain, very dark. I'd napped on the sofa, when a pack of hounds exploded on the ridge. Good looking dogs, two Red-Bones and a Black Mouth Cur. They sounded soulful. Engine noise then headlamps, the coon hunters trying to corral their dogs. I know them, to nod to, and we chat for a few minutes, as if it's not two in the morning and everyone is armed. I tell them their dogs should out come out on Upper Twin, down where the church used to be. They know exactly where I mean. There are times that communication amazes me. They head off and I decide to make an early breakfast, fish cakes with flounder instead of cod, and left-over mashed potatoes, rolled in bread crumbs and fried in butter. With a perfect fried egg on each, and a piece of toast slathered in blackberry/onion jam. I could, well nigh at that point, have conquered the world, but it seemed pointless; better I should get a wee dram and curl up with a decent book. Poems by Stephen Ellis, they blow me away. What should be dawn is a gray unveiling. Eventually you can almost see. There's a mist, not quite a fog; but trees in the distance are somewhat obscured. Maybe it's just that eyesight fails, but I can only see clearly what is right in front of me. A disorder of some type, but I can't find myself in the DSM. Maybe that's a good thing. A love-hate relationship with an outhouse. The fox is sly, and pert, and quick to judge danger. I love her, in so far as one does. And I love the sound of tree-rain, and the gentle breezes. It takes a while to calm down after being disturbed. You have to sit very still and pick up the melody, where it lies, fragmented, piece together a chorus, something in Church Latin, an Ave Maria; then Gardly Loo, bless her heart, confronts the percussionist face to face. The word 'fuck' is used eleven times in three sentences. They can't seem to agree about something, and she's at of point of stabbing him with a drumstick. A metaphor hot and greasy. I can see it in my mind's eye. Later, over drinks, everyone has calmed down; still, it seems, there's some anger carried over, that someone hadn't supported someone, the usual failures. My third Luna Month this year, and I can't get to her, so I turn off the light and go to bed, before she beats herself to death against the window. Another dripping morning, no sun. I plow through 100 pages of notes at the end of the first volume of the new Mark Twain Autobiography. I read the first volume second because that was the order B gave them to me. It's been a slog, but worth it. Then finished another book that he loaned me that I have to get to him because it'll be due, and inter-library loan is expensive if you're late. A strange book about the longing some people have for the far north. The Idea Of North, Davidson. Then went into editing mode. Forgot to eat. Made a splendid mushroom omelet, fried potatoes, toast, another cup of coffee. I have to clean up, before I go out tomorrow, but I have lots of water. If the rain holds off for a couple of hours, I can get the books down to B, and make a run to town for supplies. Need to stop at the library. I'm glad the Utah Kid understood why I hadn't commented on the book he had sent, it pretty much fell apart. Still, I did enjoy the rendering of the physical terrain. I stomped around there for a decade. He got a great many of the vocal intonations, the metaphors, the colloquialisms, exactly correct. Just not a successful book. I ran across an excerpt from a chapter I'd written about Mississippi in an obscure magazine 20 years ago. I actually liked it. A flat naturalism, and I had put my voice in someone else. I need to think about that. I'm attached to my voice.