The Girl With The Bette
Davis Eyes-With Lowell’s Bette Davis And Jack Kerouac In Mind
By Special Guest Writer
Greg Green
[Greg Green, a writer
well known to me in this space for his articles on his and others experiences
in the devil’s war, the Vietnam War, that carved a nation in two, maybe more
and from which at least culturally it has never recovered mentioned to me one day
when he was getting ready to review an old time black and white movie Of Human Bondage for the American Film Gazette for which he
writes occasionally that the female star Bette Davis had been born in Lowell,
Massachusetts. Something that he did not know although he grew up a few towns
over in leafy suburban Westford. Greg has been a longtime admirer of another
Lowell native Jack Kerouac who torched a placid post-World War II world with
his On The Road some sixty years ago
(and which we have as Seth Garth mentioned “seemingly endlessly” and he may be
right commemorated in this space recently on the sixtieth anniversary of its
publication). That got Greg thinking that there must be some connection that he
could draw between two such iconic celebrities from an old dying mill-town
(dying even back then as the mills headed cheap textile labor south and then
cheaper foreign shorts worldwide-in their respective birth times 1908 and 1922)
that had seen better days beside the inevitable “there must be something in the
water” theory. So he asked me to let him do a little piece trying to make some
cosmic connection between the two icons and the town. Pete Markin]
A river runs through it.
The great rushing from the New Hampshire mountains, at least that is what I
have been told is source ground zero of the broken down millwheel towns to the
seas and unto the great cold wash Atlantic and there to homeland (homeland
before Lowell migration and Quebec flee failing farms up north looking for
factory river work) Europe left behind from desolation days Merrimack.
Merrimack some potent Indian signifier (excuse me Indian when Indian was the
name spoken and not the correct Native American or even better indigenous
peoples who can stake serious and
legitimate claim to sacred ground now ill-trodden over by umpteen generations
and no reparations in sight) long before the devils came in their blasted
wooden hull ships from across that briny North Atlantic no high note in sight
unlike the great big blow out in Frisco town when a skinny black kid blew that
one to perdition. Great rushing river dividing the town between the remember “fake
natives” and the on-coming foreigners come to pick up the slack in the
bottomless spinning wheel pits (the noise drowning out sing-song voices and
whiskey hoarse alike and maybe that is where the sober siren sought his Jack strange
mystifying voice and he his throbbing pace that in the end wound up like
whiskey breath).
River, two forked river
come flowing from the great ices of New Hampshire hills laying down sediments
(and sentiments) along a path unto the great turn and rock formation by
Pawtucketville Bridge-dividing that town even further (or is it farther)
pushing out Highland visions of august majesty. Then a poor besotted girl
emerges, emerges out of the dust hitting the high trail west landing forlorn
and mystified in some fallen angel diner and a gas station town near the
Petrified Forest (trees so ancient, think about it, that they have turned to
stone some kind of metaphor there-something about staying in one place too
long) in the Arizonas, out off of Route 66 heavy-travelled in the next
generation by hungry guys tired of diner and gas stations at home drift to the
cities but need to catch some dust and grit although what they thought of
benighted stone trees who knows in
between those expansive cities). There some Papa generation before her came out
looking for El Dorado or gold something different and landed in two bit desert
stretches and kind of got stuck, got good and stuck there. (Not everybody made
it as the skeletons along the way of cattle, horse, and human set among the
bramble and down some aching arroyo tell every daredevil passer-by and every
sensational dime store penny a word novelist in the days when that “contract”
ruled writers on “spec” too.)
And there abandoned by a
big city dream mother and an ill-defined no account wimp father she came of age
dreaming the dreams, funny city girl dreams of faraway places away from the
dust and those fucking stoned trees when the wind howls through the crevices
(making one think of other social howls and wolves and Molochs and
white-dressed nurses in mental wards and of cool jazz man hipsters and Times
Square con artists working the rubes), her father the king of the species all
dressed up and cowardly when it came right down to it. Dreaming book dreams,
small printed page books sent from far away by those who could not take the
dust, the heat, those howls and once again those fucking night-blinding stone
trees which tourists would pay a pretty penny for a clip, a sliver. Jesus.
Dreamed fourteenth century or was fifteenth dreams of mad man con man rabble
Villon out of some Balzac French novel but real enough speaking about how he
could not stay with civil people but sought solace among the petty thieves, the
cut throats, the man murderers (little did she know who would come through door
to marvel at her bug-eyes and blinkers making sorry Villon nothing but a
second-rate Time Square hustler, hey, pacifist even) , the flotsam and jetsam
among the people who lived outside the moat, who did not dream but
planned.
“Hey there stranger” she
spoke quickly to that stranger with the strange pale voice and the paler skin
despite walking the sun-drenched walk of the tramp no better than Villon’s men
outside the moat and who looked like he had not had three squares in many a
moon so that is what she thought when he first came in, came in and recognized
in that small book, that funny thought poem by mad monk gone astray Villon and
thus was kindred against the Papa silliness and some gas station jockey who
tried to make love to her before her time. So they talked, he called it
conversation, and told her that the night-takers descending on the flat land
earth, out even in the freaking (his term not hers) stone tree desert filled
with arroyo-seized skeletons that the day for conversation was quickly coming
to froth, was dangerous beyond whatever small thoughts she had ever had out in
that vast night sky thunder-blazed desert. She thought him the new Messiah come
that she has heard about over the blaring radio that made the diner hours go by
more quickly so she could retreat into Villon’s manly dreams without
distraction. He, the stranger he, laughed and said no vagabond who was out
filching (cadging in what he meant she thought) free eats in dust-bitten rocks
could claim Messiah-hood, could survive the new age coming and coming quickly
right through her door. Her bug-eyes blinkered at that, at her silly illusions
when she thought about it later after he was gone, gone to who knows what
savior-driven place.
No sooner had the
stranger taken his filched food (she still insisted it was cadged and would
whenever anybody asked her if she had actually seen the savior, had maybe slept
with him for good measure) when the night-takers stormed in (stormed in more
than one way bringing half the desert hell with them as boon companion) and
made her savior stranger sit on his ass on the floor. Made hell come to pass before
the night was through. (He, the stranger, would comment that the night-takers
took their sweet-ass time whenever they descended and that those descended on
took their sweet-ass time figuring out how to get rid of the bastards). Sweet
manna. Then that forlorn stranger had an idea, a good one if somebody beside
her thought about it later that he would go mano a mano with the night-takers,
would play the gallant when all was said and done (giving lie to the idea that
he didn’t have any ideas about the night-takers except their time had come).
Naturally he lost, better won/lost and left her with her book, her small Villon
book, a guy from the fourteenth century or was it the fifteenth and her dreams
kind of intact. A few years later some guys in a 1949 Hudson (or was it
Studebaker) tired of the Route 66 road came by looking for grub, looking for
free eats and some whiskey but by then she was long gone to some city that Papa
and father could not fathom
[On in the frozen
Western night the no longer girlish girl hung up on old time French
bandit-poets, con men, desolation angels, and holy fools, and lost in thought
time of the intellectuals far from the blessed stone trees, as far away as she
could get to Southern California and so “frozen” ironic she picks up a book, a
paperback left on the counter by a forgetful customer who after paying for his
Woolworth-quality lunch must have given up all hope. She flips it into her
pocketbook to either wait on his owner’s return or for something to read that night,
that lonesome stone tree wilderness night that never left her thoughts. That
guy, or whoever it was, never returned and so that night she read, read until
the early morning hours and then read some more.
Read about a guy,
although in her mind it could have be a girl, who had the same wanderlust that
drove her west, drove her to the great blue-pink American western night he
called it looking for some father that he had never known, looking forlornly,
for that father from some oil-spilled New Jersey shore river to the wind-swept China
seas before the Golden Gate Bridge. Looked high and low for the missing
brethren who long ago had crossed her path out in the hard stone tree night
when everything was possible but the intellectuals then flabby and ill-disposed
to fight the night-takers even to a draw abandoned all hope, decided that
primitive man would take the day and crush any free spirits. This guy though
flush with the expectations of many new adventures once the night-takers were
put to the sword took to the road, took a chance that he could find that father
some fucking place-maybe Latimer Street in Denver, maybe Neola, Grand Island,
Reno, Winnemucca, Tulsa, Fargo (although give up all hope if you wind up in
that locale). She wondered that maybe he had stolen her dreams. Maybe he had
stared at the same rivers that drove her desires, yes, just maybe that was the
case.]
A young boy only spoke
patois until he went to school played hooky one day and sat in the lost souls
library hoping to find something that would challenge his fevered brain and
slip-slopped over to the poetry section and found this guy Villon, a poet of
the fourteenth or was it the fifteenth century, who spoke of dreams and
crashing out (spoke too of ruffian petty larcenies outside the moat but the boy
let it pass because he knew all about that, knew that poet kings only spoke of
such to work up a sweat, to deal better with hipsters, con men, sullen fallen
women, junkies and assorted felons riding on the railroad jungle tracks. Knew
he had kindred in that long ago poet king and sought out fellows who could
understand such dreams, could understand too the patois that he thought in.
Would find plenty of hipsters, cons, con men, Molochs, holy goofs, cowboy
angels, a teenage Adonis is spar with his brethren soul. Find Moloch, insanity,
the clap, jungle fever, whiskey shakes, penniless forsaken highways, lost boys,
sullen youth, Zen, chicken shit and on some days, but only some days, he wished
he never left that fucking river, that holy of holies Merrimack and those
wistful eyes that he remembered out in cold Winnemucca, Neola, Grand Island,
Big Sur nights
[Weird thoughts along
the Merrimack lifeline (remember like bodies make-up filled with arteries and
canals) a fervent solemnly disciplined fourteen year old boy armed with
Woolworth’s ten cent notepads and chewed raw No. 2 pencils, sits arms akimbo,
strange gangling not yet athletic fourteen year old position like some latter
day saint Buddha seeing all knowing all with hashish pipe tucked into some
secret place sitting out with cans of beans and rat shit on desolation row
waiting for fires and damnation, in a silent black back row orchestra seat (no
red dress girl singing swinging Benny Goodman songs that night to come hither
him to perdition and have to ask the eternal boy-girl question-orchestra or
balcony-and he would know the answer always know the answer balcony of course
she silly why else would I come into the shadows with you) of the of long gone
to condos or cute shops Majestic Theater off of Bridge Street staring intensely
at the big white screen suddenly turned to magic motion pictures with a dust
storm brewing out in some fucking petrified forest and some girl not his
holding off some ragged sweater gas jockey, and dreams too.
Waiting, eternally
waiting like that fervent fourteen year old boy for something to happen, for
some kicks, for something better than listening to the average swill the
customers brought in the door, waiting she thought for culture, or her idea or
culture anyway. What grabbed that poor boy boy though was that scene out of
some latter day great American West night when he thought he would be able to
choke the Eastern dust from off his shoes and live-and write, always write. So
kindred, kindred too when some holy goof hobo, tramp, bum angel Buddha comes
traipsing down the road looking for hand-outs and God Jesus that would be the
life. He, she, they make small kindred talk and speak of that damn poet, that
Villon who knew more than he should about the human condition, more than any
fourteen year old boy anyway.
But before long the
dream shattered, the night-takers released from their caves come swooping down
like hell’s avenging angels, avenging the lost paradise that he had read a guy
by the name of Milton, half-blind had gone on and on about in some heaven’s
battle and they the losers-and what of it. But when you take on the
night-takers you better realize that you will take some casualties, take some
holy sacred blood from the holy earth returned and that ain’t fair, ain’t fair
at all but who knows maybe Buddha, Rama. Zoroaster, Jehovah, the unnamed one,
planned it out that way. Out the door of that no longer silent black back row
orchestra seat he was glad that he had not had some red dress come hither girl
to bother him. For he wondered, wondered as he sank his eyes into the white
froth of the mighty Merrimack below whether she, that Western tableau girl
would ever acknowledge him, ever read his mind like he read hers.]
Ha, as he tried to climb
Bear Mountain with a dollar and a quarter in his stained dungarees (not called
jeans then, not around him anyway) splattered flannel shirt and broken toe
boots looking for that father he never knew (although his own father had passed
on before he knew that he was looking for another father somewhere along the
wino camp tracks, some arroyo bush or in some county jail working out a
scheme). Had Route 66 cold because if he could search that highway he would
miss some connection, some angst the shrinks called it among the hot rod car,
surf board, motorcycle lost winding in stir and some rough trade honey to some
beast, boys he would meet out in the great blue-pink American Western night. As
he pulled his thumb out of his back pocket he finally relaxed and dug the
scene. Hit long rides and short, mostly lonely truckers looking for company and
searching for the sons they had never known, tramp diner stops, railroad stews
on nights so cold his broken toe boots seized up on him, grabbed a couple of big
rides with big blondes looking for some max daddy to be-bop with and leave in
Doc’s drugstore while they waited to be “found” by some Hollywood agent. Took
tokay swigs with the best of them, met up with rabid New Jersey poets, New York
City Times Square gangster dope peddlers and sainted poets (funny always the
poets driving him forward he would have to write that down, Ivy League junkies
on the nod, and finally the Adonis of the western night whom he would be-bop
with unto the San Francisco Bay dropped that high white note out in the China
seas. Yeah, he had it all except maybe those bug eyes from childhood lost in
some flophouse. Still on some days, and only on some days, he wished he never
had left that fucking river, never that sacred ground river. He wondered if she
though that same thought.
