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By Root 490 0

coming, also others, old Joe Fortier, so she rushed hastily to Parent’s to buy latenight snack meats (it’s now 9 P.M.)—she hurries, with big festive packages, on solid peasant feet, no wavering, like the mothers of Mexico hurrying barefoot in the rain with little babies bundled in little balls in their shawls. Sax and I hide back in the Coongo fence shadows to watch her pass–I feel like running and throwing my arms around her– But in the shroud of Sax I am frozen into objective humility and just stand there looking at my mother, just barely a small, shadowish, but more gleeful cackle escapes me– In the street walking beside her I see her Guardian Angel. It is a huge angel, very solemn, slightly hurt, with lowered mouth, but with great shining wings, that drop rich showers of cool flame rolling and merling in the Gershom cobbles– My mother walks right along, any old guardian angel’ll do and she will bless them when her time comes Holy Mother, Blest on High–

“Tis an odd old saying, my boy–in my travels from one jungle to another in the fetid marshes of the South, and my treks in the Plateaus of the Gold North, I’ve had enough occasion to recognize this truth: women own the earth, women own heaven too–it is a tyranny without words– and without swords—”

And there’s Nin, hurrying down Gershom hill from the brights of Satnite Moody and’s calling my mother “Hey Ma-a-a, attend mue”—(Hey Ma-a-a, wait for me)—and her cry rings with the cries of a hundred other daughters in the air, the wild scuffledowns of old eve-sun-down go-mammy-by-the-river-blues, the tired trumpet that must blow in the blues of little boys when they hang their head from a curbstone and hear their Maw’s a callin them–the Bloop Moon shining by a jackpine in Pawtucketville.

And my sister joins Ma, and they hurry home, talking about Sister Teresa at the convent and Blanche and the price of the new stockings in the window and–in f act–

MA: J’achetez des beau poids—(I bought some beautiful peas)—(fishing)— gard, (look)—

NIN: Oooh je veux le plus belle tite robe aujourdhui Ma!—(Oh I saw the most beautiful little dress today Mai)— a l’ava des belles boules d’or sur une epaule— (it had beautiful golden balls on one shoulder)—

MA: Way–way—des boule (Tor–pi? (Yay, yay, golden balls, and?)

MRS. BISSONNETTE (shaking out her mop from her porch): Ayooo Madame Duluoz–Angy?—ta achetez ton manger tardl (Ayooo Mrs. Duluoz, you bought your groceries late!) — Heeyah heeyah! (laughing)

MA: Oui Madame Bissonnette–fmai faite jouer un tour (Yes, Mrs. Bissonnette I got played a turn)—(We later lived in Mrs. Bissonnette’s flat, six rooms) (corner Gershom and Hilltop Fairy town Gamier St.)—Doctor Sax

and I crept on thru the buzzing arletarian tenement night, hearing a thousand voices, a thousand greetings and comments in the March night air–the roll of bowling balls from the alley, there’s my father in the door, talking to Zagg the Pawtucketville own drunk who looked exactly like Hugh Herbert and staggered around saying “Woo Woo!” because he knew it, but was really drunk– There’s Zagg with a mashed cigar in his face protesting with my father about how he won the high score, he bowled 143 and won the high score prize, where was the prize, and my father’s smiling and saying “I know Zagg, goddamit, I know you bowled 143—1 seen it in every strike you threw down the gutter–I seen it on that Japanese scoresheet you wrote–ha ha ha hal (cough, cough)—Zagg, it’s aw-right, won’t hold against you” and above, in the screen window of the top floor of the Club, old Joe Fortier, Joe’s pop, who’s been playing pool with Senator Jack the Bullshitter, looks down at Emil and Zagg in the yard and yells “Fer crissakes what are you two fuckin bums doin down there! Emil, poigne le par Tfond d’culotte pis leuve le ici, on va yarrachez la bouteille … (Emil, grab him by the asspants and lift him here, well take his bottle) … Zagg vieux chian culotte va’t’couchezW” (Zagg, you old shittypants, go to bed!)—In Blezan’s store twelve guys are massed at the pinball machine, tilting it-some are scanning thru the