Doctor Sax - Jack Kerouac [84]
And there went the Castle collapsing. And there, out came the great mountainous snake head slowly seeping from the earth like a gigantic worm coming out of an apple, but with great licking green tongue spitting fires that were as big as the fires of the biggest refineries you’ve ever seen on man’s earth… Slowly, hugely piling out with the Castle spilling off its scales like scale itself– On all sides I could see tiny people flying in the air and bats and circling eagles and noise and confusion, showers of noise, things falling, and dust. Count Condu was in his box, was being skewered to Eternity in the coals of the Pit where he and ten thousand gnomes fell headfirst moaning–with Baroque, Espiritu, Boaz Jr., Flapsnaw, La Contessa, Blook the Monster, nameless countless others-Old Boaz ran down to the river, lassoed a piece of floating something that was taking up the rear of the flood but very slowly and profoundly dragged him into the river–he had the misfortune of having tied the rope around his waist–nobody knows why, what it was– Dust of the uproars, dark world–
And suddenly I saw Doctor Sax standing behind me. He had taken off his slouch hat, he had taken off his cape. They were on the ground, limp black vestments. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, they were just poor old beatup trousers and he had a white shirt underneath, and regular brown shoes, and regular socks. And hawk nose–it was morning again, his face was back to normal color, it turned green only at night– And his hair fell over his eyes, he looked a little bit like Bull Hubbard (tall, thin, plain, strange), or like Gary Cooper. And he’s standing there saying “Goddam, it didn’t work.” His normal voice is rueful. “Funny thing is, I never knew that I would meet Judgment Day in my regular clothes without having to go around in the middle of the night with that silly cape, with that silly goddam shroudy hat, with that black face the Lord prescribed for me.”
He said “Ah you know, I always thought there’d be something dramatic in dying. Well,” he says, “I see that I have to die in broad daylight where I go around in ordinary clothes.” He had wrinkles of humor around his eyes. His eyes were blue and like big sunflowers in Kansas. There we are, on this poorass field, watching the tremendous spectacle. “The herb didn’t work,” he said, “nothing works in the end, you just–there’s just absolutely nothing —nobody cares what happens to you, the universe doesn’t care what happens to mankind… Well, we’ll let it go at that, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
I felt sick. “Why can’t we have another–why can’t we have some more–why do we have to go through all this—”
“Well I know,” said Doctor Sax, “but—”
We both watched. Showers of black dust made a shroud of wings and droop-drape bierlike background in the clear sky like a thundercloud without sense, in the center of its darkness darkly and more high rose the Mysterious Head twirling and squirming with a dragon’s felicity, the hook and curl was sure alive. I could hear girls of eternity as if screaming on rollercoasters; over the water came the hysterical symphony honks of some sad excited commotion in the bustling bosom earth. Into the beautiful glary pale of giant massclouds that had come to cover the sun, leaving a snow White hole, rose the mighty venom headed Serpent of Eternity–clouds formed at his slowly emerging base. I sat on the ground completely stunned, legs spread. Unbelievably slow heaps of castle were flowing down the Mountain Head’s sides… Shuddering huge roars.
12
BUT SUDDENLY GRAY CLOUDINESS CAME over–a swift darkness flew in from the South. Doctor Sax and I looked up into the sky. At first it was a massy thunderhead and then it was a strange