Doctor Sax - Jack Kerouac [29]
SCENE 7 Along the splashing puddles of grassyard, at worm level, that fallen branch looks enormous and demented on its arms in the hail–
SCENE 8 My little boy blue eyes shine in the window. I’m drawing crude swastikas in the steamy window, it was one of my favorite signs long before I heard of Hitler or the Nazis– behind me suddenly you see my mother smiling,– “Tiens” she’s saying, “Je tlai dit queta bonne les pommes (There, I told you they were good the apples!)”—leaning over me to look out the window too. “Tiens, regard, l’eau est deu pieds creu dans la rue (There, look, the water’s two feet deep in the street)— Une grosse tempête (a big storm)— Je tlai dit pas allez école aujourdhui (I told you not to go to school today)— WS tu? comme qui mouille? (See? how it rains?) Je suis tu dumb?(Am I dumb?)”
SCENE 9 Both our faces peer fondly out the window at the rain, it made it possible for us to spend a pleasant afternoon together, you can tell how the rain pelts the side of the house and the window–we don’t budge an inch, just fondly look on–like a Madonna and son in the Pittsburgh milltown window–only this is New England, half like rainy Welsh mining towns, half the Irish kid sunny Saturday Skippy morning, with rose vines—(Bold Venture, when May came and it stopped raining, I played marbles in the mudholes with Fatso, they piled up with blossoms overnight, we had to dig em out for every day’s game, blossoms from trees raining, Bold Venture won the Derby that Saturday)— My mother behind me in the window is oval faced, dark haired, large blue eyes, smiling, nice, wearing a cotton dress of the thirties that she’d wear in the house with an apron–upon which there was always flour and water from the work with the condiments and pastries she was doing in the kitchen–
SCENE 10 There in the kitchen she stands, wiping her hands as I taste one of her cup cakes with fresh icing (pink, chocolate, vanilla, in little cups) she says, “All them movies with the old grandmaw in the West slappin her leetle frontiers boy and smackin him ‘Stay away from dem cookies,’ Ah? la old Mama Angelique don’t do that to you, ah?” “No Ma, boy,” I say, “si tu sera comme ga jara toujours faim (No Ma, boy if you was like that I’d always be hungry)” “Tiens–assay un beau blanc d’vanilla, c’est bon pour tué (There, try a nice white one of vanilla, it’s good for you.)” “Oh boy, blanc sucre! (“. . . . .”) (Oh boy, white sugar!)” “Bon,” she says firmly, turning away, “asteur faut serrez mon lavage, je lai rentrez jusquavant’quil mouille (Good, now I’ve got to put away my wash, I got it in just before it rained)”—(as on the radio thirties broadcasts of old gray soap operas and news from Boston about finnan had die and the prices, East Port to Sandy Hook, gloomy serials, static, thunder of the old America that thundered on the plain)— As she walks away from the stove I say, from under my little black warm sweater, “Moi’s shfué’s fini mes race dans ma chambre (Me I’s got to finish my races in my room)”— ”Amuse toi (amuse yourself)”—she calls back —you can see the walls of the kitchen, the green clock, the table, now also the sewing machine on the right, near the porch door, the rubbers and overshoes always piled in the door, a rocking chair facing the oil heat stove–coats and raincoats hanging on hooks in corners of the kitchen, brownwood waxed panelling on the cupboards and wainscots all around– a wooden porch outside, glistening from rain–gloom—things boiling on the stove—(when I was a very little kid I used to read the funnies on my belly, listen on the floor to boiling waters of stove, with a feeling of indescribable peace and burble, suppertime, funnies time, potato time, warm home time) (the second hand of the green electric clock turning relentlessly, delicately through wars of dust)—(I