Clarence Major - My Amputations

He was spacing — not quite sure where he was: was this Zocalo and was he feeding the stupid pigeons peanuts—? Never mind: it was lonely being a fugitive. Had somebody slipped a different name into his little blue book? Say, Jack Verbb or Geechee McKee or Gauz Gazabo or Heavy Hebe or — Cut it out. He'd come through more tunnels, he knew. Italy? It had to be: then why this feeling of Mexico City — chatter, tinsel, beeps, rumble, screech. Gringo negro on the run! If only the Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlan were there to hide in, lie still in. You must have a bad, bad hangover: this is Italy! Italy I said! Sure, sure. And I'm on my way to the Empire of Genova, right. Correct. Roger. Check. One thing he needed was time. There was a cactus taste in his sour mouth just beneath the whim of scotch. The tavern smelled faintly of kerosene. He missed his Monet Fall surfaces, the Mediterranean: though it wasn't far. Finally, he saw the road sign: Pisa. Took exit. Tried to hold up the falling structure with all he had. Crowds of tourists cackled at his effort as he gave up, crawling to safety as the edifice tumbled. But it wasn't Pisa that he wanted was it. No, that Empire. Back in his vehicle he turned on the radio to try to short circuit the circle of his flapping fangs. The radio, in English, said, “Hi. I'm still your friend. Keep on trucking.” It turned out to be an American rock star making it big in Italy. Then there was an American punk star singing an interesting hit full of pals and gals guys and girls dudes and dames. It made him laugh till tears.

In Genova and totally a victim of vertigo Mason flapped his wings and threw his voice against an auditorium ceiling. If he could make his whirling voice true , being in brackets wouldn't matter: swastika and cross both could exist within the confinement of a triangle. He read: “He felt his heart had been cut out. He could still feel a draft where holes had been driven into his head. He was Still Life with Holes. Hard of hearing, he didn't listen to Florence whispering, the pineapple and chocolate lap of her bitter tongue. The flesh of his body seemed all he had — at the moment. His enemies — unclean spirits — tied him down and searched through, back far into, his cave, up into the flue of his flamed mind, down through his Coca Cola-cold blood, in the shoestrings and telephone wires of his being. They cut sharply not only along the flesh but deeper into the fanged bone. Devils! No yolk, no jelly! Only the ashes of an ancient West African village, a teepee pole, the scarred boots of an Irishman, the apron of an Irishwoman. He smiled. Alone in himself, things howled at him in the mineral night. First snow, through gray heat: he could almost see a white bank glowing in fog. Flakes wide apart. Black limbs of emotional trees with Springtime pink blossoms. He hoped for renewal, a kind of life, to unseat the lame-duck. Florence held him but not closely, not with feeling, with enjoyment. She also held a large bunch of artificial flowers. Going deeper into himself he found a jazzhall full of brass: nobody'd ever robbed this place: decked with scarred, juice-stained, tough furniture. But walking in the city — for him, as he remembered it now while lying in bed — was a comfort, a distraction: in front of an antique shop on a narrow cobbled street an old woman — Celt in disguise? — with a mullet-face wearing a tartan fumbled at the window of a bar he was about to enter. She couldn't see in there: wasn't wearing her specs. Flaccidly pretending to be seriously involved in life, she touched her tam-o-shanter gingerly then pulled her fifty-year-old dress unstuck from her girdle; found her rhinestone glasses then looked through her luster at the imitation figures moving around: he was one. A full silty sky was clamped firmly overhead. It was carnival time in these streets. Confetti floated from high windows. He looked into the woman's alarmist-eyes: they were paste and gem quartz: salmon tongue, spotted. She aimed her best eye at a big tree by the cathedral: it was just a way to avoid the piercing and derailing eye of Mason. What did he want? The state of his mind: noise. He liked it: it made him want to go to the center of the carnival, dream there, as though inside the delicate fluttering heartbeat of a nuclear holocaust: he'd ride a ferris wheel — oiled by faith and politics. He'd drink pig-tea from a wooden creosote-dipped cup, dip horse-snuff: it was always the same when he tried to reconnect with lost Celt or to find the root of C or the siren or Kangaroo Eye or Wind Voice or Chiro or—: they were each so distinct; interfaces yet interchangeable.

He got through the Genova episode somehow without remembering it: he did it well and nobody knew he wasn't there. At Hotel Cosimo near the opera house. A message from Professor Pauliani Poggi: “If you're up to it, my husband and I'd enjoy having you come to dinner tonight. Just buzz when you arrive… ” Dinner went so smoothly he hardly noticed he was there. And the lecture the next morning took care of itself: despite his strange hard-to-follow reference to conquistadores raping the be Jesus out of Indians and to Cortes and hidden eyes and what was meant to be a joke about the wallpaper in his hotel room (“… of the glittering sword planted in the neck of a defiant black bull — repeated eight thousand tiny times all around him on the wall… ”). Mason didn't let his bat-infested head spoil things. Although he'd gotten on well with pure Pauliani and guarded Gino, answered student questions and shaken hands with the faculty, he left with wild birds riding his back and monkeys clinging to his legs. He even stopped to rest, on his return to Nice, in a tree: a leafless old black tree. Demented goblins and unfortunate old women (referred to as toothless witches) danced in dank moonlight below. Mules and goats dressed in formal attire paid their moist respects to… Mason almost escaped the beauty of their strangeness when he was about to be dragged before a firing squad to be shot for imitating a… But at the last minute he was needed to fill a vacancy in a gigantic choir. Yet he didn't know the Medieval song they were ready to unearth.

February was the aftermath of magic. Noel and le jour de l'an had gone so-so for a lonely loner. Now it was Carnival time again. On the day before somber Lent began they all went to Luceram for the real traditional feast and festival. It was a little-known event Jean-Pierre knew (“in some parts of France these medieval ceremonies still take place… ”) and he led them there. In the Alps-Maritimes near the Italian border the village charmed Mason on sight: filled him with tin-glazed happiness… Shivering, they entered the restaurant facing the village center. It was just after noon and the place was crowded with peasants and other workers seated around long closely arranged tables. These old men and women and children and young people were having a ball: loud boisterous talk; knives, forks, spoons, clicked against bowls. Lots of lip-smacking enjoyment! Coughing! Sudden outbursts of traditional songs! Hand-clapping. Jokes! Back-slapping. All in that great warm darkness of this tiny restaurant where two old women shuffled about serving everybody endless wine and bowls of steaming hot guts, spicy livers, thick kidneys — cooked together in a massive stew — and served in crude clay bowls with — believe me! — old hot-water cornbread (just like they make in the South!). Mason sat squeezed between Monique and Jean-Pierre. He guzzled down the table wine and nearly choked himself on the strong innards. Up front at one of the long tables by the door a furious political argument broke out between two farmers. Within ten minutes the guys calmed down and were embracing and kissing each other's cheeks. Then a rock sailed through the front window. A boy swept the glass behind the door and everybody went on eating and drinking and talking and laughing. Then one gray old blue-clad farmer toasted Monique's beauty and handed her his glass to properly share the salute since she didn't have one in hand. That's how she became the Queen of the Feast and ceremoniously got the shared-cup going around the room. Everybody took a sip and the whole place eventually burst into song. Mason, not knowing the French lyrics, only pretended to sing. From where they sat they could see through the front windows the festivities increasing in the square. A group of youths and a couple of older men were stuffing the King. As fists beat on wooden tables for more wine and bowls were filled for the fourth and fifth times, Mason saw the awesome effigy being erected on a pole at the center of a pile of twigs, paper, boxes, branches, and old planks. The clowns were gathering around the King. It wasn't till Mason and his friends were ready to rejoin the festival that he noticed, carved into the table top at his right, this: Zizi/Nobody. Nobody? Wasn't that an English word? Just a passing curio. Then they went out, thanking the waitresses on the way. The dancing'd already started: they joined the gyrating maypole-line as it wobbled and giggled and bumped its way around the King. Already the sun had dropped behind the hills and somebody struck a big match to the rubbish. Smoke zigzagged up from the little spark. Smoke-smell quickly filled the square. Dancers danced harder to keep warm. The fire wasn't much yet. Kids from shadows were still throwing snowballs at those in the square. Dancers now were ideal targets but took it good-naturedly. Mason got bopped on the head once or twice. Monique got one in the eye — which caused her to stop for a few moments: the snowballs were like fishbones in delicious fish. In ten minutes or so it was dark and the flames were leaping taller than men. The King's trousers began to crackle and the smell of burning rags whirled about the dancers. When his crotch burned away the clowns and dancers and spectators all cheered. Snowball-throwers too came out of shadows and clapped. From here on out it was all joy and hysterics: everybody went apeshit when the King was consumed to the neck and had only a head left to offer. When the head fell all holy hell broke loose and the dancing and clowning, like the tiger chasing Little Black Sambo around the tree, turned them to butter: everybody was wiped out, spent…