Uamak’s Account (or, The Tiamat and the Lost Age)

(Part Two to the Uamak Saga)


I shill tell you of the Seer-cat Woman, and the Virus Word (and her compadre, Vii, the huge and mighty demon, and the Tiamat of old. You have heard the tale have you not, perhaps not, in many likenesses in which the hero was named Siren the Great, or Hercules, the Tiamat, Gwyllion (daughter to the Tiamat) Seth, Nimrod, Gilgamesh, Azaz’el, or even St. Christopher. But it was the Tiamat, herself, no other that had to face the hideous and demoniac thing called the Virus Worm. Which came out of the abyss when the earth opened up in an earthquake, and crawled out from amongst its opposed living quarters, deep in the crust of the earth, and here sprang the uncouth, and infamous tales of the ‘Curse of the Virus Worm,’ that took place in New Orleans, in the 77-day cult, that spread to the Midwest, to include Minnesota. This virus worm revolves down the ages, when the earth opened up, under the waters of the Red Sea, in the time of Moses. Although the substance of truth is lost in those deep and huge waters, lost and passes into the forgotten legends of those far-off days. But the essence of the worm has yet to be discovered, you will discover it now, as you read my account.

I know whereof I speak, for I was Uamak, the very one, the companion of the Great Tiamat and her daughter Gwyllion, and Vii at one time, this time I talk about was in ages past.
As I wait here on a cliff over looking the Icelandic sea, and deep down before me awaits my death, the demon of death he rows his boat, which creeps slowly along the rocky shores of this peninsula, tries to blind my mind, filled with glittering doom, he wants me to join his ill-racked life, in the forever lasting rowing of his boat, to and fro, to and fro, within the Icelandic waters, cursed to do so, like a one demonic parade, I too have been cursed here, to remain on this rock looking down at the demon of death rowing and rowing, as he makes company with me, and tries to make deals with me. He freezes me with his glimpses, far ahead of my escaping his wind—it is his job I suppose, his shadow-like atmosphere that surrounds me, his invisible manifestations of entanglement.

The Tiamat, Vii and his daughter Gwyllion came out of the vaults of hell, I had never been there, although a product, like Gwyllion, of a mother whom was seized by an angelic renegade, and thus, that renegade produced through my mother (like Gilgamesh and Christopher themselves), a semi (hybrid) demonic being.
Most human beings cannot bridge this gap between angelic, demonic and human, I am all of the above, yes indeed, even with those awful gulfs of blackness that surround me, and the ugly and unstable shapes I take, I have a spirit and soul, even an ego, spun underneath this truly flexible flesh, and behind all this is 8000-years of age, and 26,000-years of existence.


I can tell you the strangest tale of all, for I lived it. I have no reason to lie, the black wings of death, wait below me, I myself came to many souls upon the earth, in years past, in many shapes, like Vii and the Tiamat, I was not restricted to one, although the Seer-cat Woman was, her being as old as I.
I was this so called hybrid, a man, and in a race you now know, call it what you please, but those like me are restless, and in the beginning we were of a dark age, and our history is long. The arctic blood that ran through my veins back then no man could hold onto me but for a moment, a quick moment at that. I was a degenerated product of an ultimate civilization of demons that roamed the earth, 6008 BC, also.
Sinned was a man for his time, he lived in a city called Yort, he had powers over us demon (likened to Solomon), and he, to the Tiamat was her antagonist at the time, an outguessed future, or perhaps more like un-guessed for the Tiamat and for Sinned himself, she killed his father, both fathers, which included his step-father, the father his wife married after the first one died.
But it is of none of these things I would speak, I want to take you further back with me, into an age before Sinned, before the race of blue-eyes were created, when pre-man, became demon, and the wisest minds became wild philosophers, when there were boundaries between angelic forces and pre-man, and then abruptly we became slayers, when lovers became repine and wayfaring, somewhat like it is now on earth.
Thus came the Virus Worm into the world, and it was buried far and deep for it was infecting our shapes, the service of our skin, changed, altered, shifted our thinking, Azaz’el planted the worm by the gift of Satan, the ten-winged beast into our society (before time was time, called pre-history, and when he rebelled, he commanded us to follow.
And thus we were spread out to recognized landmarks and worldwide continents to do his bidding, for he was thrown out of heaven, yet he seemed always to go back, if not pleading for restitution, to blasphemy his once king of kings. He was powerful to say the least.
Oh, we were not fighters! Not in the least. Let me speak of Uamak, I saw that we were all crippled minded with Azaz’el, and his Master, Christopher escaped this and so did Gilgamesh, but the rest of us didn’t.
Our heads should have hung on loose ropes that once cut would bury us forever for the sins we committed back then, but God wanted to see, how many men would follow dead-idols (namely us), and he used us, and we knew he was using us, but to get out of hell, and under those rocks, and off those chains, Uri’el had placed upon us, this was our doom, or task if we did not want to be confined. Our trial of doom you might say, to follow the naked renegade wolves, for we were all naked back then, even before Adam and Eve, whom didn’t show up until the third era, we were the first, and the second, was almost doomed from the start, and the third, the Adam era, and then the forth, the Christ era. I saw them all.

But into the second era, it was a battle, one to madden all history, drunkenness and slaughter and fury, death and more death, and the supernatural against the wild cats, which the Seer-cat woman, ruled the land, and soon the cats, creating the age—perhaps better to say, she modified the second era, by infecting her cats with the virus worm, from the first era, that infected us, almost brought a standstill to the second era, killing all but 2000-humans on the face of the earth, and the earth was not as you know it now, it was surrounded by one ocean.
Thereafter, the cats became huge, superior with the Seer’s infiltration of spirit, and the virus worm inside of them, that gave them undreamed verbosity, ferociousness, that insisted them to war with the human race, in slaughter battles for days on end, without resting.
Blood-soaked the earth in those far-off lands, of what became Sumer, and Asia Minor, and Syria, and the whole coast of the Mediterranean to include as far north as artic circle, broke humankind down to live in caves and write their lost tongue on the walls, a quivering sentiment for the future flesh to read of this appalling and dreadful savage time.

Yet it would be wrong to say there was not an occasional touch of individual mercy—if one of us performed such a task, they were punished severely, I myself tired this once and only once in this especially valiant time, where the enemy was 10,000-cats, at 2000-pounds per cat, infected with the curse of the worm, which was the essence of Satan’s blood; and a million angelic renegades, and ten-million pre- Adamic men, to the human race many turned into ghosts, imps, and other ungodly figures, with mental distortions, and lustful cravings.

This era was so bad it glutted even my own lusting soul, and so I sought for an once of grace, that is why I did what I did: rigidly Vii followed me around, reporting back to the Tiamat of my intentions, for the Seer-cat had read my mind, she was from the superior race of the first order of hybrids like the Tiamat, I being of the second order, thus she was half-angelic, I being one third, Vii being one third, and cautiously I blindly went to help the hunting couple, who were experimenting with a stone and slingshot to kill the giant beast infected cats, trifle was their hunting battle gear, and weapons, and sad to say, ineffective.
And I explained to Morg, and his wife Rgom, a couple with several children whom lived in a dungy looking cave, along the high cliffs of what is now called Greece, this would not do, lying on the ground a great bow I had made with long piercing arrows, this I had learned from Amazes one of the Ten leaders of the two-hundred Angelic Watchers, who were sent to watch over mankind, yet did quite the opposite, they cohabitated with them, like Azaz’el, an archangel at one time, now an archenemy to Uri’el a Great Holy angelic being, and God himself.
The couple took the bow and arrow, and it was a mighty bow all of twelve feet in height (bones dangling around their necks for bravery, and they knew that their predecessors had been turned into shapeless pulp in trying to kill their kind, as these titan cats whom was cast from the ultimate mold of darkness, might vanish before the first arrow struck it target, and the closer they got to the titan cats, the more veil the air, the flying debris around them, all about them were colossal piles of shattered bones, broken from a hundred years of defeat, dirge over them, they were a crumbling society, now in shards).
The bow was higher than them in height, wider than their physique, and the arrow was balanced perfectly, to enter wherever it was pointed, for their hunt and kill, and they duplicated the arrows, and they shot a huge cat, rattled all the cats by them, Morg appeared at the side of the cat stood like a statue, at the edge of its jungle, painted his face, and looked ferocity in the face; the wild cats, they were impressed, but leniency, would not be granted me, for here I sit, at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Icelandic sea; yet this was the advent of a fearful end to an age—that age, the age of the Seer-cat Woman you might say (not the Abyss Virus Worm), for within twenty-years, the new generation of humans had forged their way to be the hunters no longer the hunted, nor the prey.

It was indeed the conquest of a lost age. And although I was sent here, I have hope, for perhaps scattered among these years, there will be a way to escape, for I helped rear a fallen race, from a monstrosity of dancing loathsomely demonic beings, dancing with demonic harps in madness, who lost an age due to pride, control and all at the end punished by what was presented: seventy-two deaths, this is perhaps one of them, the one I am presently living in.

In closing, I have two things to say, one: let my account be told from village to city, to continent, from base camps to isolated tribes, so that all men may know that the beast, and the devil and the Abyss Worm, and the demonic forces, prey on them in hidden places, for where once the bow and sword ruled, is no more, but the ghost of the past live in the invisible among mankind, and they know the destructive weapons they have, and they want him to use them upon themselves.
Secondly, I shall tell you where my companions went: Vii still roams the earth, last time I heard he was in New Orleans, with the cult I mentioned before, and the Tiamat, was cast to hell with her daughter, whom reappeared again in around 6000 BC., at the city of Yort, is Asia Minor, and again at the cult in New Orleans. And the Seer-cat Woman went to cobble with her master in Pergamun, in Asia Minor, and you all know where I am.

This account, Written by: Uamak, translated by Dlsiluk, Ed.D.




Uamak’s Ode

Thus, here I lay at the door of death
in-arms that tried to scorn the world
demonic beings, hairy, apish, with
pillars of horror and madness,
fearsomely roaming the plateaus
choked valleys, plunged on hillsides
with no sign, naught, of human life,
and down from the ride game the
wild cats of the second age—and
Uamak, in defiance, who hurled
the age to its feet, and put his heel
under the paws of the Beast…!

11-22-2008 No: 2520



Written throughout the day of 11-22-2008

Omaha Beach—and the Pathfinders

[June 6, 1945—POW]




From Minnesota to Omaha Beach


Buck Sergeant, Wally Siluk born in St. Paul, Minnesota, along the banks of the Mississippi, it seemed every one in the Army spelled his name differently, had said his goodbyes to his father Anton Siluk,, and was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. He was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France), he and 200,000 other troops, American and British. The pathfinders had already left, the men who were to light up the way for the drop zones of paratroopers and gliders, infantry. This indeed would be remembered as D-Day. Back home, back in America, his sister Elsie was with her new child Michael Edward, she was without husband, and working at the munitions plant. Her father was taking care of his restaurant, and Elise, like the rest of the world was holding their breaths to see the outcome of this Second World War [WWII].


The Pathfinders


H-hour, the assault-troops were crunched within Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] that raced for the shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boats on all sides, as they received direct hits from the Germans ashore, thus blasting boats in flames, mounds of flames, with groups of men that would never see the sun again, youthful officers and enlisted men alike, flames that digested the boats before they even got to shore, blasted to kingdom come, exactly where and on exactly what service they had done, nobody at the time would say, could tell (in the best of clarity, they became the target, allowing another boat to jealousy roar by, and prey thunderous prayers they did not meet with the same fate), therefore, like Sergeant Wally Siluk’s boat did, it passed immune in the uproar across the waters, the cheering cities of America back home, would only cheer for the victory on victory day, not for the souls, individual souls, that would be left for the individual families, in those boats that no longer looked like boats, but more like a totem pole of innocence, for another man’s war, a floating piece of melted metal, with hieroglyphs on the side of them, marking once a name given them, a number, now burning, like a lozenge slowly melted in the mouth of a German gunman.
Furthermore, the off shore sea, was covered with fire, an inferno blaze of metal sizzling (as if in a frying pan) in the waters, never before seen to that date. And those bodies fried to a crisp, never made it back home that was their hearse. But Wally said to himself, “This is war,” as if, what do you expect. And so the Anglo-Saxon war went on, the battle went on…

You could see weapons being held over their heads: the who, the soldiers in the cold green waters, soldiers from North America, trying to make it to shore—now in the waters, some survived the blasts, some jumped out of their boats in time, others hit other boats, clumsy was the invasion, and thus, soldiers were knocked out of their boats by their own kind, holding their weapons high over their heads; gear on their backs, many drowning before they got one shot, one round out other the weapons they practiced with for exactly this service, being the water was too deep, too much equipment to carry, too heavy and way too long carrying what they had to carry to fight a battle, a gutter-sweeping battle for Europe: them soldiers caught in the impossible reach for help, caught in the waves and flames, and fire overhead, all struggling just to get ashore, those men, permanently separated from mankind’s, manmade civilization, to fight animal, to kill for the practical purpose they were trained for, paid to do, for their country, and Europe, they did their best, whereupon—even up to death.
And yet the battle had barely started, Germans would be waiting for them, were waiting for them, meanness itself had failed, the very thing they were taught in Basic Training, had failed in actuality, war was different, it was intact and unbreakable in comparison to what they seen; war was ruin and destruction, no time for hesitation or argument, no sainthood available here, only heroism, and that was a remote place, merely because someone had to see you with some rank doing some impossible thing, and then, regardless of whatever you did, it would be to the advantage of the military, to suck more youth into their cause, to fight their war, to keep the munitions plants in America pumping out killer bees, so the rich could get richer. The earth did not falter, it was mankind.

Ambush

And so the Germans on shore, were waiting, ambush, it was set up to be an ambush, it was like an ambush, but save that one, Sergeant Wally, believed they knew the answer to this war, this battle, youth before family, country before youth, modesty and discretion, God is with us, we are the powerful, the potent, we are enough to win, we are the cushion between the two continents, we are the inheritors of Atlantis, but it didn’t stop the cold outrage of Germany, plucking boat after boat, soldier after soldier, in this ambush, as the Angel-Saxton wave, mass of soldiers drifted to shore, almost surreptitiously, so they thought, but for many his crucifix indeed was waiting, the talisman (the charm of needed victory on both sides) had set up the ambush (the Germans knew in advance, and so did the Angle-Saxons know of the slaughter that awaited them, the higher ups, industry, they knew the sea would be covered with blood).

Many would die, and be wounded before the day was over: before the battle really started, many, so many had died. What if someone would have said: I’m not firing, and a chain reaction took place, resulted in no one firing: God sent, but I think God these days said: “So be it, let it rest on your shoulders, as it has in your hearts!” And it was as it was.
Men from the 4th Division, at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then came the Artillery—one could hear the German made shells ‘88s’, explode among the troops still rushing out of the waters onto the beaches. The privacy of battle was over, the Germans had their hands full now, and they flung away the meager cardinal thinking that they were the candidates for consecration by the God of War.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and down Omaha Beach, the reason? Who knows? Wally fell to a shell, it blew, and he flew (as pantomime furbished out of the blood-filled literature that would be written about this battle in days to come); thus, he flew several feet in the air, the lower section of his leg now off, blown off, off from the upper part of the knee. He would be a POW for the rest of the war; it was a rough day, for both empires, both fighting against fore zenith of victory.
Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day. By dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Wally was pulled off Omaha by the enemy, and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Wally would remember of that day for a long, very long time was Father Edward Walters’s words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.


Note: Written in the summer of 2005 (St. Paul, Minnesota and modified, revised and reedited, 11-2008, in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru.

John Nobel and the Mac Camp Boy

John Nobel
[Voyage down the Mississippi, from St. Paul, on down to New Orleans—1925]

Part one of two Parts



At a little after seven, John Nobel came down-stars, from the upper deck of the riverboat, after a brief greeting from one of the other guests, he leaned over the vessel’s railing. A few other folk wondered through the door, called “Dinner is being served!” He had rather expected hat, a butler of sorts announcing dinner, and he also added, “…cocktails.” He put these thoughts back into his mind for later, figured the lounge would not disappear, turned his attention to some black folks in the distance, near the shore,

“Well, what do yaw make of that, Niggers singing and dancing on a woodened raft, must had drifted down the Ohio to the Mississippi, must be at least twenty of them,” said John Noble, to himself, out loud, a smirk—rather what tried to be a smirk, turned out to be a grotesque smile.
There were also some Negro babies he observed, women, and a few half breads, on the raft. Obediently, they paid little attention to him, jammed tight together, one bowed his head, as if to say hello, when John Nobel looked closer, staring that is, a little girl was standing up, arms spread out wide, eyes lifted up toward the stars.
The nose of the riverboat, bumped into a drifting raft, two other black souls were on it, had been on it, they had jumped off, had been sleeping evidently, woken up in time, jumping overboard just in time, it made some noise, and the raft tilted rakishly,

He, John Nobel, continued standing on deck, holding a book, “Windy McPherson’s Son,” by Sherwood Anderson, in his hand—the book had a marker in it, on page thirteen, as the boat got closer to the shores—closer to the point, so close one could see the moss growing along the banks, stacks of sugarcane and cotton and more Negro’s doing labor.


He got thinking of all the books he wanted to read, and had heard were coming out, or just been written: such as, Anderson’s new book coming out: “Black Laughter,” and the new writers such as William Faulkner’s, “Soldiers Pay,” already out, and Hemingway’s ”Torrents of Spring,” along with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby.” He had read pomes by Juan Parra del Riego, he liked them, and a new book was out, poems to his wife, and knowing he was ill, if not dead by now, the book would be scarce the very month this year it appeared (1925).
He was short of time, no time to read them not all of them, if any, yes, even at 47-years old, he could sense life was like a seagull flying out to sea on its last flight, and “Fast it’ll go…” he murmured.

If you would have asked him, he would have said he needed more time, maybe fifteen more years would do, but what would he do with those many years: read, read and read more books? It was a rhetorical question. He was the lone stone, in the valley no one ever hears when it falls and breaks off from a higher peak: cracks and rolls down the hill to the bottom, there it rests; people walk by and pay no attention to it, as if it was there a million years.
Yes, he was looking into an endless gulf of water, as far as you could see, or not see, the day now had turned into night as the Mississippi Queen chugged along, going down this endless river—empty except for water, his inner voice telling him what he knew, ‘Time was short, very short.’
He saw a pretty woman walk by, said to himself, ‘She has no form,’ then turned the opposite way, saw another, ‘That one has a nice figure,’ he looked at her mouth as she walked by, passionate vitality in her walk and balance, and the mobility of her mouth gave a constant impression of change, unrest, intense life, what he wanted, what he was now lacking.


He thought about his wife, it was night, of the next day—his wife, no children, Rosa, she died from childbirth, as did the child, years, and years ago—how many years past, he had forgot (he yawned, but he didn’t move, just stared into the black river). Rosa was his life, he called to the waters, several times, “Rosa, Rosa!” looking at the moon now a tinge slanted, or so it seemed to him, as it faded in and out of drifting gray clouds—mystic shadows, it was full dusk.
The Riverboat went down the river string-straight: slowly, slowly tugging along, through: frogs, fireflies, and crickets: he could hear them all yawning, and dogs yelping along the river banks, as the riverboat folks, slept in their rooms turning over those big cow-eyes, deep into dreams of what they’d be doing once in New Orleans, he saw a few fish jump out of the water along side the boat, ‘…curiosity even hits God’s dinner food,’ he chattered in the deep dark of the night, only the stars and moon for light, a world of near perfect ecstasy, and quiet.

Ever since he was a kid he had a notion to travel down the Mississippi like Mark Twain, right on down to New Orleans, only now he was dying, and when he thought of it he was quite young. Rosa was quite young also; Rosa, his wife was the sister to Ella (Mrs. Ella Sillvc: something similar to that, he couldn’t remember the name clear, or pronounce it—Russian, everyone pronounced it and wrote it differently).
He had noticed one of the Mac Camp boys were on the boat going to the same location he was: perhaps he was nineteen-years old he told himself, perhaps twenty, no older. His family came up from the South, or was it, a few of them went to the south, and the rest stayed here in the Middle West, or as they were starting to call it, the Midwest. They saw one another a few times, both acknowledging the other on the boat, both going about their day-dreaming; He—about writing the Great American Novel; and Nobel, about other things, and possibly reading that novel Mac Camp was wishing to write.
Later that night, early morning, the moon went down with an unruly churn under an umbrella of gray and doom like clouds, left a rustling in John’s chest.
It was a darkish-blue black night, and the pilot was a bit nervous; so John had noticed, observing him in the pilot’s cabin above him. He knew that the Captain was acquainted with the Mississippi like the back of his hands, but this river could change from one steam boat trip to the next, and there the old coot was, pacing the square cabin as if he was talking to a ghost.
“By Gad!” he yelped in a whisper, “they ought to put some of these crazy pilots, to rest, before they put the vessel off its course, it getting to be outrageous to watch him pace, and not pay attention to the river, talking to a ghost it looks like.”

Out of the deep-dark, came voices, Negro voices, that came in whispers to Nobel: thinking it was that raft of blacks he saw before, singing away, laughing as if not to have a damn care in the world: almost jealous the way they lived, free as a bee it seemed. Old man Günter Gunderson from St. Paul, Minnesota, had given him a loan; it was nice of him, he thought, it would come in handy, perhaps never get paid back, but Mr. Gunderson knew that. He kept the $500-dollrs hidden for this very thing, this trip. Not in the damn bank, but in his sock, underneath the wooden steps that went down into the basement of his rooming house. No one knew it. He sold him his shack of a house on the levee, a shanty, it wasn’t much, but the old man said he’d use it for someone he was thinking about, who might need it. He knew John had only a limited time to live; cancer was eating him up slowly, like a garbage worm, a maggot. He could have taken the railroad down along the river, faster, but this was more scenic he thought, more mystic, silent. Down to St. Louis, now down to New Orleans.
“Here I am!” John said (it was impossible to determine whether this question was a question, or a statement: ingenuous or malicious, but he said it cheerfully).



New Orleans


When John arrived at the Port of New Orleans, the place of his boyhood dreams, the place where he never thought he’d get to go to, he got off the boat slowly, and onto land, and walked right over to Jackson Square (Park): he still had over $400 on him.
“It’s a curious day,” he slashed suddenly out of his mouth, feeling like a trespasser, but who was bored with life, now this, an enormous thing had happened he had a slice of a dream, and it hit him in the stomach! He looked back at the boat, up the river then to the park, said “One minute I’m on the ship, the next here in the park, will death be like that?”

He had hidden in his socks, in his pockets, big pockets, his money now, where he also kept four bottles of homemade brew, strong whiskey he bought on the boat. With his book in his hands and with the wind blowing through his hair he found a place to sit in the sun, in the park.
It was 11:00 a.m., John Nobel had purchased a few sandwiches before he got off the boat, to eat for lunch, and so he sat in the park, looking back at the boat, the Mississippi River, taking a drink of his whiskey, eating his ham and cheese sandwich, and putting down another shot of whisky after each bite; looking at his book and the people in the park. A boy came by with pointed out a café, said they served a good lunch in an hour or so, and left to meet other prospects for the café.
“Jack London,” he said out loud, “I would like to read more of his stuff,” he liked especially the book, “Before Adam,” it was his favorite of London’s, then he ate his second sandwich, with another shot of whisky.
He had fallen to sleep now, for a spell, than woke up again, took a few more shots of whiskey, looked to where the boy had pointed out where the café was, he had to push, push hard, very hard the food down, it outwardly didn’t want to go down—it squeezed inside his heart, pained him to push it down farther, he looked at his book, opened it, it was on page #13, his face tired, and sleepy, almost drooping like a dogs, tired-droopy, he took another shot, the food now sloshed down, he rested his book on his lap, laid his head back caught some of that fine bright sun seeping through the leafier part of the trees, and never woke up again.



The Mac Camp Boy
[1925—New Orleans]


Part Two of Two Parts



The young lad, by the name of Mac Camp, had gotten off the boat just like Mr. Nobel had, but he went his own way, slim, milky-white skin from those long winters in Minnesota, blond hair, not tall, nor short, deep blue eyes. He hung around Bourbon Street drinking and doing what pleased him; going into the bars and listening to the Jazz Age come alive, the Fitzgerald age some called it; walking drunk down side streets giving tips to the street players that rested against the walls of the buildings playing their saxophones and trumpets, trombones, and drums; sleeping here and there, at houses—new friends he’d met in the bars.
A few women ended up taking him in for a week or two, taking their share of his money during the encounters: his glance and glare for the hookers fell more than casually on each and everyone he passed, women—became like loose branches from a tree, he had no end in trying to grab them, picking them up, he was like deep crusted ice; often he’d go over to the park, scan it, pick up tramps, so drunk at times his eyes squinted to see them, against the hard dimensionless glare of the moon.


It looked as if after several weeks of this dauntless city life—in the City of Night— wore his welcome out, as often we do when we have no more to offer the recipients, the so called friends—and thus, the doors were being closed to him, one right after the other. He got a few drinks though, from recent acquaintances, but only a few, as he was now down to the last few dollars, something dismal about this lad, just as he knew there was something gorgeous about life, it became dusty, he seemed self destructive, or caught up in the exhilaration of every moment of his day being filled with pleasure, drink and rich foods, becoming restless, and discontent he gave it all.


Consequently, he was becoming a burden to his friends, those friends he knew for only a few months, friends that had already been settled, in New Orleans—on this note his friendships ended. And he found himself increasingly alone, with no means to eat, drink or able to find shelter.
He looked for Mr. Nobel, but could not find him either (unaware he had died); nor was he told by anyone of his death. In consequence he had no place to go, nor knew anyone to help him, that would help him—yet he found a few dimes and nickels to buy a pint of whiskey, begging here and there, going to those old friends, beckoned them and yawned at them and started to respond with bitterness and narrowed eyes, he became to many of them an intolerable spirit.

Walking stiffly past the outskirts of the City, rigid faced with pride, unbecoming. He had been looking for an abandon house, or its equivalent: possibly an open door to an outside basement, potato cellar would also do, so he told himself. His posture and face was in despair, pale and thin, he seemed to have aged over night; it was vanity and stupidity that got him into this mess; yet he kept a jonquil-colored voice to the situation.
And like Mr. Nobel, he had nearly four-hundred dollars: I say had. A sum not to laugh at, yet he had nothing left to provide for his survival until he found work, and an apartment. He wanted to be a writer, and so, carried a pencil and pad of paper always writing poetry or something on it. It had come into sight that after a while he forgot the days, the names of the days to the week he was living in a stupor [a trance]; He even forgot the names of foods, but not for the taste.

It was close to 2:00 a.m., and he had just found a barn door open, a little ways outside the city—he had walked long and steady, past an old cemetery that had old seashells for tombs, molded into its marble like substance, crushed into its masonry to create mausoleums—
‘…evening in a barn, better than on a park bench…’ he told himself.
He looked hard and steady at the barn, from a distance, he was interested, with encouragement, and no malice intent, with indifference, and no disdain, he took innumerable little stops to the barn, convinced there would be no trouble should the owner see him enter it.
The wind must have opened the door, he thought. He could hear horses in there (he breathed deep and slow, feeling with each breath himself diffused, becoming one with the hay and loft, and horses, he was so very tired).
The sky was building up to a storm behind him, there in the countryside, were dark was as black as the blackbirds’ wings.
With no lighting except for the moon, and the house, a house that, was about three hundred feet from the barn, perhaps more…had no light in it either. But you knew someone lived there, it look so. It had curtains in the window; he could see that from the refractor of light of the moon beaming on them. Then suddenly it started to rain (as expected), not pour, just a medium-heavy rain, a few sparks of lightening, and a roar now and then that accompanies such lightening.

(He looked about as with a tremendous effort, as with a tremendous effort to find a place to rest, sleep, “Yes, O yes,” he said, in a whisper, with his suffocating voice, looking up to where the loft was.)

He climbed up the ladder onto and into the loft, it was filled with hay, and laid back, listened to the horses, two of them, letting them know he was there, they moved a bit to see who had entered, the wind woke them, disturbed them more than he did, as did the crackling of the door with old hinges. Then he laid back and fell deep into the hay, covered a portion of his body with it, his mind had lost orderliness, space and time was oblivious to him: except he knew it was raining, for he could hear it—it was a blur, but he knew it, and it was dark, very, very dark, so it had to be night.


The Visitors

It must not had been but thirty-minutes, and the lad was woken up to the singing voices of Negroes, so was his notion, that is what it sounded like, and so he laid back down again to sleep, giving it not much thought— whereupon, he ended up pushing his body up a bit, like a turtle coming out of a shell, most of the hay falling off his legs, his bare shoulders and unbuttoned pants, his shoes off, and his long neck showing.
But no sooner had he rested his head back on the hay, no sooner than five-minutes or so, the voices of the Negroes had entered the barn, and now the horses got a little more aroused, unsettled you might say, not all that much, to wake the people in the house up, but then the storm covered that noise pretty good, so everything remained stone-silent under the sounds of the storm.
All three of those huge middle-aged, black-bucks were stumbling about, drunker than a mule on local-weed, then one saw something move in the loft. Said the tallest of the three black man,
“I done heard a noise up in the loft, Lucas? Whut youall think it is?”
“The rat?” said Silas.
They all started laughing, voice deliverable.
For the young Mac Camp boy, it was loud and clear, matter-of-fact, he pushed himself back a bit to get out of their focus, but he looked even more like a female to the stumbling drunk Negroes, the more he moved, for the more he uncovered himself, he was still half drunk himself, and clumsy at that.
His hands now trembling as six-eyes stared up into the loft. He told himself, ‘be quiet,’ but out of fear and terror of being raped or death, he couldn’t help himself. Lucas caught a glimpse of his milky white skin, and didn’t think of how the white folks would treat him should they find out what he was thinking: hang him for raping a white women, he just started climbing up the ladder like a bulldog after a cat, like a cat after a bird—drunk as can be: in the heat, and saturated with alcohol, lust seeped out of his pours, like sweat on the back of a horse—to the boy, when he saw the huge Blackman he was but a flea on a bears tail—what man can be talked to or reasoned with—when intoxicated with both alcohol and lust, indomitable, he continued up the ladder with his two huge buck friends behind him.

Said Silas with a burning tongue, “…I ain’ never mess up ‘round white folk kaze da hang ya ef-in dey catch yaw wit’ a white woman…I goin’ to see things I ain’ wantin’ to’ see…she sho look white.”

Tad right behind Silas, saying, “Some niggers is mighty fool, dey is one, you Lucas, wes best get on out of her…!”

Lucas, likened to a camel in heat didn’t heard not a word, saying, “Some women sho’ do a heap of breathen… cuz I hear her cryin’ I hears it….”

Silas (knowing now he was going to go along with whatever Lucas did), whispered, “Don’t youall forget me! Oh, Lawd, have mercy on my soul…”

Tad, “Yawl bunch of helpless niggers, cuz you git a mind for murder…I knows it.”

Lucas, “White folks git my body; ef-in day finds me now, day lynch me anyway.”


Raison d'être


The horses were now standing—curious as to what the commotion was all about, and then all of a sudden, Locus had the young figure, framed within his vision. Long blond hair, covering his ears, and he must had shaved, or couldn’t shave yet, for his face was smooth, no one could tell, for his skin looked as smooth as a woman’s.
The boy, near nineteen, had forgotten for a moment on how to reason, he was thinking on how to rationalize his way out of this situation, but his head wouldn’t work, it was blank, as if he fell down some stairs, knocked himself out, he was in a daze looking into big black faces, big eyeballs—white and red, then he suddenly woke up a tinge more, more and more: something grabbed him…poignant, unforgivable, like a turbulence—it was like one of those rare times you are caught in a stupor, wordless, and he was being handled like a bushel of discontent,

“I’m no female,” shouted the boy, “Stop, stop,” but the big Negroes just jumped on him as if he was: He was already laying somewhat on his back trying to pull his pants up, as they had already pulled them halfway off him, and the other two, holding his hands, his legs—successfully, pulled his underclothes to his knees—and turned him over onto his belly, —Lucas, and the other two men, saw he was now just a pretty white boy living like a nigger in a loft, he grabbed him, which infuriated the boy, but what could he do…?
“You is a white fox, boy—“ said Lucas, “…you is a pretty boy… an’ I jes’ a fool nigger…” said Lucas with a sacrilege tone to his voice, turning the boy completely on his stomach, all peering over this young lad…thus started the sexual taboo; thenceforth was his boyishness broken, completely gone, feminized with fear, brooded fear…!



Notes: interlinking Chapters, written for the novelette ‘Look at Me,’ subtitle, Mississippi shanty Town, written, 2003. Written: July, August and September of 2005, reedited and revised 11-2008 (book originally called, “Mississippi Levee”