Doctor Sax - Jack Kerouac [21]
Joe and I explored all the possible haunted houses in town. Chief of our great houses was when he lived on Bridge Street near 18th, in an old gray rickety manse in a V of leafy streets in autumn–across Bridge Street, over the stone lawn wall, rose the slope side of pines and drearies, exactly like the lawn of the Lakeview Castle–to the Haunted House which was but a shell, a wreck of plasters, beams, broken glass, shit, wet leaves, forlorn legs of old centerpieces, rusted piano wires in a ping (like in an old abandoned freighter used as a buoy you still find Captain’s Mess has scrollwork in the beams, and the sun shines in all joy mom of sea like it did off Malaya or Seattle so long ago)— There were ghosts in that old House Shell–roofs decaying–pissing was a thrill among these decadent beams and bulge crack walls– Something namelessly, shroudily obscene and wild–like drawings of great cocks of the length of snakes, with dumb venom spittles–we tugged at boards, shifted bricks, broke fresh plaster islands, kicked out glass chips and–
At night, summer’s nights, with the family downstairs in the big kitchen (maybe my own mother or father there, others, a young priest just down from Canada who loves to woo de ladies–we are four levels up to the attic, we only hear faint roars of laughter below)—in the Lowell night we lay relaxed in pissy mattresses, with treeswish at the window, telling stories (“Shee-cago! shee-cago!”), playing with our ding dongs, squirming, throwing legs up in air, rushing to the window to look out at commotions–to look out at our Haunted House in the multiform black and white flashing Lowell night… What owls? hoos and voodoos in the midnight? What old maniac in white hair is come to pluck the rusty piano springs in a maze of midnight? what Doctor Sax crawling along the black, shaded, cowled, pe-loted, zinging speedily at low-height to his mysteries and fear-
Together, by huge afternoon of world clouds, we explored reservoirs in the hill of Lowell so high, or made camps outside sewage pipes in brown tragic matted fields —in the backfields of St. Louis school–in a tree we sit, call it Fresh Air Texicab,- I fly kites in the field-
Joe comes to my house one Sunday morning after church but I’m eating breakfast so in his white knickers while waiting he goes down the cellar and shovels up a pail of coal for my Ma–we pose outside with Henry Troisieux and my cat, in dull Sunday afternoon,-behind us wave the Doctor Sax trees … the record of old nights in the sleeping barns, in the cold attic, in the mystery, in the dream, Joe and me– Old buddies of the lifetime of boyhood– Yet Joe avoided shrouds, knew no mystery, wasn’t scared, didn’t care, strode along, lumberjack boots, in rainy mornings in church, Sunday, he’s spent last week exploring a little river, wants this afternoon to find his cave in the pine woods–go build a tent, fix the car in rainy dim-mists all day with cans and smudge rags and no refreshments-
Joe had turrets and attics in his house but he wasn’t afraid of sailing ghosts … his phantoms were reality, work and earn money, fix your knife, straighten the screw, figure for tomorrow. I played dismal private games in his backyard, some mythic hassel with myself involving how many times around the house and water–while he’s busy fixing something for his use. Come night, shadows creep, Sax emerges, Joe just rocks on the porch talking of things to do and every now and then leaning over and scratching his leg and going “Hyoo hyoo hyoo! you shore did get sore that time–hoo hoo!”
24
THE NOISE OF THE BIG FAMILY PARTIES could only be heard faintly up in Joe’s fourth story attic but o! when it was at my house, the cottage on West Street earlier or later on, wow, the whoops and screams of the ladies as madcap Duquette would get Blanche to put all the lights out and start playing spooky music on the piano, up riseth a face powdered in white flour, framed in an empty picture frame, with flashlight