Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [7]
whitewashed barrel & Raleigh
News & Observer mailbox
& telephone pole connecting
up house with 3 strands —
his withered corn in yard,
chimney, logs mixed with
white plaster, rococo
log cabin, horizontal
wood & plaster striped
chimney — Fruit tree in
back waving in faintbrown
of its California — Similar
house of neighbor where stiff
gentleman sits in Panama
hat in Carolina rockchair
surveying rusticities —
Then, in deepening shadows:
- (with him some
women with lap chillun,
Sun-afternoon, breeze, beez
of bugs, hum of cars on
hiway) — Far off in
pure blue an airliner
lines for Richmond —
— then the yellow diamond
Stop sign, back of it,
with brown wood pole
shadowing across it — A
stand of sweetly stirring
trees & then Buddy Tom’s
corn, tall, rippling, talkative,
haunted, gesturing, dogs run
thru it, weeds run riot,
trees protrude beyond —
Then his whitewashed
poles, chickencoop, doors,
hinges, rickety wire —
weeds — wild redflowers —
a tall stately pine
with black balls of
cone silhouetted against
keen blue — under
it an excited weeping
willow waving like
a Zephyr song — 2 cars
parked beneath it, blue
fishtail Cad — Tom’s —
stiff big red flower —
folks visitin, talking —
children — Lillian in
shorts (big, fat) dumps
a carton in the rusty
barrel — The base of
pine whitewashed — Buddy
Tom’s shed, just & peek
at interior shelf &
paint can — leaning
rake — Forest wall beyond.
They sit with the gold
on their hair —
SECOND BOOK
AUG. 5, ’52
The diningroom of
Carolyn Blake has
a beautiful hardwood
floor, varnished shiny,
with occasional dark
knots; the rag rug
in the middle is woven
by her mother of the
historic socks, dresses
& trousers of the
Kerouac family in 2
decades, a weft of
poor humanity in its
pain & bitterness — The
walls are pale pink
plaster, not even pink,
a pink-tinged pastel,
the No Carolina afternoon
aureates through the
white Venetian blinds
& through the red-pink
plastic curtains & falls
upon the plaster, with
soft delicate shades — here,
by the commode in
the corner, profound
underwater pink; then,
in the corner where
the light falls flush,
bright creampink
that shows a tiny
waving thread of
spiderweb overlooked
by the greedy housekeeper
— So the white
paint shining on the
doorframes blends with
the pink & pastel &
makes a restful room.
The table is of simple
plytex red surface,
with matching little
chairs covered in
red plastic — But Oh
the humanity in the
souls of these chairs,
this room — no words!
no plastics to name
it!
Carolyn has set out
a little metal napkin
holder, with green
paper napkins, in
the middle of her
table. Nothing is
provincial — there is
nothing provincial in
America — unless
it is the radio, staticing
from late afternoon
Carolina August
disturbances — the
vast cloud-glorious
Coastal Plain in its
green peace —
The voices of rustic-
affectated announcers
advertising feeds
& seeds — & dull
organ solos in the
radio void — Maybe
the rusticity of the
province of NC is
in the pictures on C’s
livingroom wall: 2
framed pictures of
bird dogs, to please
her husband Paul,
who hunts. A noble
black dog stepping
with the power of a
great horse from a
pond, quail-in-mouth,
with sere Autumns
in the brown swales
& pale green forests
beyond; & 2 noble
nervous white & brown
dogs in a corn-gold
field, under pale
clouds, legs taut, tails
stiff like pickets,
with a frondy sad
glade beyond where
an old Watteau would
have placed his
misty courtiers book
in hand at Milady’s
fat thigh — These
pictures are above the
little dining table —
Meaningless picturelets
over the bureau in
the other corner (put
there temporarily
by finicky Carolyn)
a dull picture of
red flowers & fruit
rioting in the gloom —
One chair: - a
black high-back
wood rocker, with
low seat, styled
in the oldfashioned
country way, hint
of old New England
& Colonial Carolina —
a hint lost to the
static of the radio
& the hum & swish
of the summer fan