Coy
Part Twenty-Three
"Old New England Traits"
(B)
"Placed"
A
judgment?
Of
I.
By
One John? I did not lift the cloth
(shroud) covering the mirror ‘to see’.
EVER.
I know better; I know to ‘not do
that’. It is a dragon.
THERE
IS A DRAGON.
The
lawn tractor is still running; it is ‘on’.
Pry
bars? THERE ARE TWO OF THEM? ‘At hand’. “READY”?
Seconds
tick
By.
STANDING
THERE ‘before’
One
John’s FACE behind a SHROUD upon a
Mirror?
I
WANDER
For
two more seconds.
HELEN
MOVES
To
be before the old shroud upon the old ...looking glass
AND
LIFTS THE SHROUD
AND
SCREAMS
AND
DROPS THE SHROUD
Back
down it falls
Covering
One
John’s face?
I
“YOU SAW HIM?”
“NO!
“Just
MY face”
“HA,
Ha, ha ...HA”
“THAT’S
UGLY ENOUGH. I’m GETTING my
COFFEE.”
Says
Helen.
And
she’s gone.
I
look at the shroud covered looking glass.
It is a looking glass. It is a clunky, dark wood... with darkened old
finish, awkward form; a ...decadent-in-design descendent of the earlier gilt
gold Federal or Sheraton looking glasses... THAT IS absolutely proper and
correct to find HANGING right exactly where it is in this estate. EXACTLY, exactly, exactly.
Except
for the shroud
That
hides... the dragon’s face.
He
cannot watch me?
HE
CANNOT WATCH ME
“GO
TO HELL” the room is still screaming.
I
shut off the lawn tractor... in my mind.
I...
put the pry bars outside the door; leaning up in the hallway?
In
my mind.
I...
hear Helen coming back.
Then
she’s back;
Through
the doorway
With
her coffee.
“She
doesn’t hear the screaming?”
The
screaming HAS STOPPED.
The
room is a memorial
‘Placed’
Cased
in cement?
So
it cannot be carried off?
WHO
PLACED IT?
It
doesn’t matter.
In
chapters six [B] AND [C] I bring to ...I... and the reader by THEIR reading
discretion... my sense of notice of ...memorials placed to oneself ...by
oneself and the subsequent ‘pitched’, ‘turned up side down’... but... ‘still
there’... OF THOSE ‘memorial placed’ and, again, MY SENSE OF NOTICE of...
‘placed’. I, here, in the daylight
glow from the edges of the windows’ drapes SENSE OF NOTICE a PLACED... and a
PLACED... MEMORIAL to a dragon of self with that SELF, too, PLACED... as a
shroud-covering-looking glass ‘memorial’.
TOO.
I
‘just feel it’:
This
old room.
Is
a garret
Is
an... old trunk locked
With
its old key lost
Cased
in a cement
To
protect it from
Being
carried off.
I
am a mouse.
Helen
is a mouse.
We
have gnawed
A
hole (whole).
We
are very tiny.
But
we destroy
As
we gnaw.
We
can
Carry
off.
Too.
“We
need to PAY ATTENTION to this room right away.” I say to Helen’s back. She is looking toward the outside
wall’s rear corner and holding her coffee cup out from her left side, in mid
air.
“I
KNOW THAT but WHERE am I going to PUT ALL OF THIS” she says.
“PUT
THIS?” I say.
“CLEAN
IT OUT,”
“No!”
“WHAT? THIS MESS...: It’s STACKED... FIRE... WOOD.”
“I...
no... DO NOT see it THAT WAY.
DON’T CLEAN IT. ... Don’t
TOUCH IT I say... AM SAYING.”
“WELL
YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE.”
“First
one?”
“To
NOT want it CLEANED OUT.”
“I
am? There are OTHERS in here?”
“NOT
LIKE YOU but THEY ALL have ADVISED ME.”
“Advised
you?”
“It
really would be a VERY NICE ROOM once I CLEAN IT OUT.”
“I...”
hear myself say while my inner-inner mind recites “rummage, ransack, loot,
carry off” and then... too... “had the dislocation of the one and the tatters
of the other repaired”***. I hear myself... saying nothing as I
scramble to verbally create a ‘coy façade of fabricated myth’ that somehow
says:
“It
is a spirit rope tied back upon... and often woven into... itself. One will
find all this clear when one is actually IN that true New England attic. Otherwise this spirit remains ‘beyond
the reach’ of one’s finger tips.
It is not found in an old New England attic that has been... turned up
side down.” (Part Six [C])
I
AM IN THE (Savage mansion) ATTIC.
THE
WHOLE SAVAGE ESTATE IS the attic.
“How
do I?”
SAY
“THIS
IS WORTH A FORTUNE. IN HERE. Just as it is.”
Helen
turns and looks at me... still holding her coffee cup off to her left in mid
air
“REALLY? You SAY that?”
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