208
DAVID JACKSON
with
him,
he often seemed so close as to be behind the subject.
"I heard ya laugh. I get it! Listen, I frighten you, you can't
take this love I'm oHerin." It dazzled, it intimidated. Above all–
it provoked. Candor having produced this atmosphere, a quick
switch to boyishness, to "yeah?" and "gee!" was usually enough
to get what he wanted: a beer, a convert, a fix (marijuana,
heroin, or opium), or at least a "connection," or money, or a
place to stay-a "pad" in the new jazz language. From New
York to San Francisco, Boston, Mexico, and points North and
South, these pads became the footfalls of his nights.
Nicolas's other talent was toughness, a verbal persuasion
when all else failed. "What d'ya mean you can't put me up for
the night?" his loud voice was heard in many crowded rooms.
"You too good for us around here?" Or from the platform he
would interrupt his reading of a poem to ask the audience, "You
people ever hear of this Alfred S ... ? Well, the other night ..."
(and here
he
would be interrupted by a perfectly timed cry from
a fellow Beatnik, "Read the poetry, get on with the poetry for
Chrissake!") and whatever had been denied Nicolas was usually
forthcoming. It was a kind of Action Blackmail and, as Nicolas
and his movement rose to fame with the help of their favorite
muse, Publicity, tracking them with her feet of column print,
threats, personal charms and abuse, etc. were needed less and
less. At last they could abandon former methods, former haunts,
even former fads like Zen Buddhism, Chinese poets and things
Eastern, or West American, and face that traditional theater
where so many Americans in the arts find themselves, Europe.
. But in these more celebrated times, Nicolas's profitable jail–
bird past made getting an extended travel passport difficult; not
al?
difficult as he imagined, for he had never entertained the idea
of going to a lawyer or the State Department, yet it would have
taken some doing to get his own passport. The Law, the State,
Authority, its Consequences, were among Nicolas's deepest seated
fears. Such fear accounted for some of his oddest lines:
