Doctor Sax - Jack Kerouac [65]
“Pour dessert” I put in, “on arra une grosse tates chaude de cerises avec d’la whipcream—”(For desert we’d have a big hot pie of cherry with whipcream)—
“Lendemain matin pour dejeuner on arra des belles grosses crepes avec du syro de rave, et des sousices bien cui assi dans Yassiette chaude avec un beau gros vert de la—” (The next morning for breakfast we’d have some nice big crepes with maple syrup, and sausages well cooked sitting in the plate hot with a big beautiful glass of milk—)
“Du la chocolat!”(Chocolate milk!)
“Non non non non, s pas bon ca–du la blanc– Boy sa waite bon.”(No no no no, that’s no good–white milk-Boy it’s gonna be good.)
“Le suppers de ce jour la, cosse qu’on vas avoir?’ ( The supper of that day, what we gonna have?)
“Sh e pa—”(Dunno)—she’s already turned her attention to other things, to watching the women hang up the area-ways of wash in the great shining alleys of famous Moody Street–
“Moi fveu un gros plat de corton—” ( Me I want a big bowl of corton) (meatspread) —”des bines chaudes, comme assoir, Samedi soir–un pot de bines, du bon pain fra de Belgium, ben du beur sur mon pain, du lards dans mes bines, brun, ainque un peu chaud–et avec toutes ca du bon jambon chaud qui tombe en morceau quand tu ma ta fourchette dedans–pour dessert je veu un beau gros cakes chaud a Maman avec des peach et du ju de la can et d le whipcream —ca, ou bien le favorite a Papa, whip cream avec date pie.” (—And hot beans, like tonight, Saturday night–a pot of beans, good fresh Belgium bread, lots of butter on my bread, lard in my beans, brown, just a little hot–and with all that some good hot ham that falls apart when you put your fork in it–for dessert I want a beautiful big cake, hot, made by Mama, with peaches and the juice from the can and some whipcream–that, or else Pa’s favorite, whipcream with date pie.)
Thus we rushed along, and came to the bridge … we’d almost forgotten the Flood–
2
HUGE WASHED OUT NOON’S shining on the river day. Great marks show how high the river was. Forests in the pebbly shore are all mudbrown. A cold high wind blows, the sign of the store at the end of the bridge, on pawtucket, creaks and cringes. Whipping bright skies wash over the sight of the earth. Over in Rosemont you see great pools of despair still reflecting clouds … six blocks long some of them. All Lowell sings beneath our sight as we dance across the bridge. The flood is over.
I look to see towards the Castle on Snake Hill and I see the gnomic old figure gnarled in its vlump on the keen desirable hill far away. Blazing heavens shine on its knobs.
3
THE CASTLE IS REALLY DESERTED—no one lives there–an old sign sags in the overgrown grass by the front gate–not since Emilia and her pals in the 20’s did we see any signs of a car or a visitor or prospective buyer– It was a heap. Old Boaz endured in the woodsmoke cobweb hall–the only inhabitant of the Castle who could be seen with mortal eye. The kids who played hookey, and the occasional people who walked around in the moldy cellarly ruins inside did not realize that the Castle was Totally occupied– in the reality of the dark dust the Vampires slept, the gnomes worked, the black priests prayed their Litanies of the perfidious Damp, the attendants and Visitors of the Nark said nothing but just waited and workmen of the underground mud local were ever loading trucks with bare shoulders below– When I walked on the Castle grounds I always felt the vibration, that secret below– This was because the location was not far from my birthplace hill Lupine Road… I knew the ground whereof I thought & tread. That sunny afternoon I Visited the Castle, kicked at a broken glass in the side cellar window, and then retired to a bed of grass beneath a crabapple tree by the lower picketfence–from where I lay I could see I could see the regal slope of the castle lawns with