BUM'S RUSH IN MANHATTAN
33
from books came cascading into my brain, Dank tarn of Auber,
I
am
falling through centuries of swampy night into the dank tarn of Auber,
misty mid region my stomach.
Get a grip on yourself. Get somebody to talk to. Get a grip, a
grippe, Agrippina was Nero's mamma, she made him emperor so he upped
and killed her. There was an old lady of Hyde, from eating green apples
she died. Within the lamented they quickly fermented and made cider
inside her inside. Agrippina, the soldadera. At least Germanicus was good
to her, he wouldn't have! let her hang around otherwIse.
Now
I
know what was the matter with those Mexicans in Torreon,
no wonder they stared so. That was supposed to be their appealing
naivete and divine indifference but it wasn't.. They were hungry and they
sat in the square too with their blankets and their bleak, disconcerting gaze.
The style of the moment in movie actresses demanded this same intent, in–
scrutable gaping but they looked from under long, artificial lashes affixed
into dropping eyelids and surrounded by bony, androgynous features, very
attractive and awesome. The lady who started all that was shortsighted.
An artist for whom Eileen posed had painted her so we knew, but some
dope had explained El Greco on the grounds of defective vision too and
accused Cezanne of astigmatism.
Peculiar thing,
I
did not feel faint, on the contrary, my grip on the
arm of the chair was powerful and normal but there was this whirling
space in my head which dulled or at least altered my sensitivity and made
objects and passersby appear in grotesque lights and shadows. The pigeon–
hole, honeycomb buildings of New York University engulfed and vomited
students on the Square and the ringing of the gongs marked these con–
vulsions. The men who lined the benches followed passing students with
their eyes and in their eyes there was no lustre of envy or hate. The
solitary students walked fast. The couples and the groups laughed as
they went by and some sat to have their shoes shined by the little boot–
blacks.
A red faced, yellow toothed, red haired man shuffled to the bench
with the slow, hesitant steps of the unemployed and asked for tobacco,
I
emptied my pouch into his palm and he licked the dry dust out of the
creases and from between his fingers.
He said, "A body can bum himself tobacco before they'll give him a
nickel. Just hit town ?". He eyed my bundle.
"Yes,"
I
said, "Where's the nearest breadline?"
He said the Bowery was my best bet to get food cheap
i~
I
had a
little money, then he told me how to go to the Municipal Lodging House
