VARI ElY
AT SEA WITH THE BEATS
My first contact with a
Brahma of the Beat Genera–
tion was on the
Ile de France,
where I met Gregory Corso.
Like myself, Corso was on his
way home after an extended
visit
in
Europe, with the one
difference that his passage had
been paid from funds raised by
a "Let's bring Gregory back"
campaign in New York. I was
up on all the literature by this
time, and viewed the movement
with a strained mixture of
curiosity and contempt, the lat–
ter an inheritance from my
university upbringing, and the
former spurred by a travel-bred
conviction that the academic
career skirts the mainstream of
life.
Partly because of this margin–
ality
in
outlook, and partly, I
suppose, because I was willing
to tender
him
the kind and
degree of attention he craved,
Corso and I hit it off from the
start. I developed a fondness for
the little man, who managed at
times to look like a fairy-tale
gnome - the good kind, who
speaks in cryptograms and per–
forms all the impossible tasks at
night for the sleeping shoemaker
-and at others seemed the in-
569
carnation of impish evil, of
that triumphant maleficence
which animates the winged
gargoyle at Notre Dame, or the
dandified dwarfs
in
Velazquez'
portraits of Charles II's court.
(Corso's unique appearance, of
course, was made legendary by
Time
when,
in
answer to his
boast before a Chicago salon
that he had never in his life
combed his hair,
Time
noted
there was not a single voice
raised in challenge.)
Of several memorable epi–
sodes in that voyage, the one I
expect to carry with me longest
was seeing Corso turn the tables
on a sententious but well-mean–
ing French doctor who, having
observed Corso's behavior for
some time, was trying to per–
suade him to visit a psychiatrist.
While the Frenchman scribbled
a therapist's name on a piece
of paper, and noted the most
conspicuous symptoms, Corso
began to unfasten his trouser
belt.
"Look - I don't need a
psychiatrist. Why should I?
I've got nothing to hide."
"I understand perfectly," the
Frenchman went on taking
notes.
"Look man, you're sending
me to a psychiatrist-Why? I'm
not sick- "
The doctor nodded. "Per–
fectly true. I'm only taking
down a few notes."
