Table of Contents
. . . Probably many a road scholar would testify this place makes good leavin and better comin back to . . . Place puts a hold on your soul, man, these streets call you like an old song . . . Yeah . . . Way downriver, heart of a swamp, she’s a city made of music, down soft ground between memory and dream . . . Ain’ no gettin down like the gettin down got down here, you gotta get it . . . Downriverway down womb of the land down subsealevel gets down as down gets, man—moon over this place puts heads thru changes . . . World comes in feedback rarefied down subsealevel, you get into this kinduva dream-am- I-dreamin-or-dream-dreamin-me sorta shuffle . . . Awta be official state headspace is what it awta . . . Deepspace propers down sameway pelicans get to be state bird, man, some quantum hype we’re onto here . . . Lord knows people up and down these streets make living proof does being here contact buzz immaculate . . . Only makes sense people holdin offthewall karma would funk off here . . . Yeah, we’ve seen the saga . . . Pilgrim don’t know you’re a pilgrim, y’know, you’re passin thru town . . . So you’re passin thru and you’re passin thru and you keep on passin thru, y’know . . . Days come round, you’ve gotten all but gone—somebody’s pilgrim done gone new wave native . . . Happens here like it happens noplace else . . . Regular function at the junction all these people having moments people have only here . . . Popular creed comes off any excuse for a party or parade . . . That’s howcome you see all this roleplaying, all these masquerade scenes around here . . . People get into it . . . Unlived lives break loose on these streets, man, whatcha don’t see here ain’t happenin . . . Shadows outta closets put stories on the streets that’s a preholy city true to form—man, you wear that out you ain’t never lied . . . . . . Weird . . . . . . Coulda swore I caught that thought on the fly, now I’m flashin on some other time I dreamed it . . .
—Hidden Dave Crossway
Jungian streetsweep
I
The Quarter
We weren’t spaced out, we were in this spaced out place, and we knew it . . .
—Brooklyn Bob Ravenscroft
Midsummer snakemoon blue on bluesiana
Down joint down old Decatur Street, place called The Boss Fix Jam. Passway backfume the Elysian Fields bus offbound winding low. Shrouded coffin overhung the bar shot spoof aura shadowfall a ceilingfan. Weddingparty aftermath somebody’s bridegroom spunout facedown in the weddingcake. Jukebox rhapsody “loving you has made me bananas.”
Vernon “Dickinthedirt” Rappaport pulpiteering: “Whodat bungholed by a loose canon called american dream?”
Thanks for the inspiration, brother Dickinthedirt
Big Jim Bullshit slingin that hootch—he’s about to pick up the phone: “Who ain’t here? Finney, you here?”
The Beadlady, in whitewig over mock polyester black, leans indoors with her new cajun a-rab impression: “Anybody owe me money?”
Big Jim Bullshit, hustlebustin face on, pointing street, ran her—“Fuck she think dis is? comin in here widdat jive coonass.”
“She’s talkin in tongues, BJimBu.” Voice of Matt Dockery drinking off discovery his untenured job was listed in the want ads (stone Joycefreak—claimed he could tell from the passage what the master had been drinking, sometimes even switches of pleasure thru rewrites). Couple live ones he had buttonholed, husband and wife out of Montreal. He’s waxing native son, talking his town—heels of The Beadlady, some man in peestained floodlength candystripe pants, bellying to the bar, puts a touch on:
“Would you believe it?”
“Probably not.”
“Sixty-nine cent more buys me a bottle of Mulekick.”
“Mulekick!”
“You betcha.”
“Sweet Jesus have mercy—blood spiked with that shit probably rids lice.”
“Done worse dry, brother.”
Big Jim Bullshit put the hook to the hustle. Dockery profiled slipping the man fivespot while the two live ones scrambled cameras ready.
Passing hoofbeats foregoing carriagewheels
(Her take) “The French Quarter is probably as old world as the old world itself anymore.”
(His take on her take) “Not to mention otherworldly as the next world at that.”
(Dockery’s pearl) “To a city true to its ghosts—”
Do me like you do, Big Jim
You want dat greasecutter, dawlin?
Gimme all ya got, honey
You got dat muthafucka! (slamdown hipside bottle to rockglass) I love it!
Compliments of the house for streetcrew. Minutes come midnight over coffee for the soul: Milo Kopke down on a jewsharp bought off some old man at the flea market; Beverly Griffin a paperback found in the street; George Forbert, to his wont, a pipe.
Bellylaugh out Bev, look cut Milo: “I see what you mean about the understated humor in this.”
Milo said, “Paperback trance in progress,” and turned twangs in a ditty.
Story over Milo’s head on this one:
. . . lift in a squad car, next exit ramp: skinhead haircut, ten days inside (busted for weirdness passed off a turnpike hitchhiking rap) . . . impounded backpack light a couple items (paperback trance to soften the rub of that nickelbag ditched highwayside) . . . proof of God no Selective Service trace . . .
Jukebox bangin Beethoven’s Fifth; backtable jewsharp accompaniment.
Chartbuster with a bullet!
Forbert grinning pipesmoke.
In sashays Shushubaby to the strains of “My Man” feeling-shape I heard that subscape Alvin Lee in her room with his shoes off Strutting city issue orangeflare over formfaithful jeans; workgloves one hand, cigarette and walkingcup the other: “These two dudes I just met turned me on to some amolnitrate.”
Milo said, “A friendship