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THE REBEL MAGAZINE
SPRING 1965
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THE REBEL MAGAZINE
VOL. VIII SPRING 1965 NUMBER 3
MORTON GOULD IMPROVISATIONS 2
JERRY TILLOTSON My Brother’s Bed 14
DONALD SEXAUER Etchings and Prints 15
CHARLOTTE MCMICHAEL Seance 23
JAMES FORSYTH Norman Mailer’s American Dream 24
SANFORD PEELE Poems 26
PAT OUTLAW COOPER All Acts of Separation 32
Editor, Thomas Blakeslee Speight
Associate Editor, Dwight W. Pearce
Copy Editor, Ann Regan Barbee
Book Review Editor, Bob Malone
Business Manager, Jan Sellers Coward
Typists, Ida Andrews
Published three times a year at East Carolina College, Box 2486, Greenville,
North Carolina. Subscriptions, $2.75 or $1.00 single issues.
MORTON GOULD IMPROVISATIONS
LECTURE AT
EAST CAROLINA COLLEGE
Morton Gould came to the East Carolina 4th Annual Contemporary Music Festi-
val to give a lecture, with examples, on composition, to conduct the E.C.C. Symphonic
Band in his Symphony for Band, and to hear the E.C.C. Symphony Orchestra play his
Spirituals.
At his lecture in the Music Hall, Mr. Gould stood before the microphones and talked
expansively. Without interrupting himself, he frequently walked over to the piano and
interspersed his talk with a few or a number of notes, as the occasion demanded. His
improvisations are printed here in part, due to the kindness of Carol Honeycutt, who
transcribed them from tapes. Dr. Martin Mailman, Composer in Residence, made the
introduction.
Thank you, Martin, for that nice and complimentary introduction. Let’s go right in
on the target. The subject, if I remember correctly, is “How a Composer Composes.”
Well, I must tell you that when Mr. Mailman said what we were discussing yesterday
on the way in from the airport, I really have been waiting to be invited to talk about
world diplomacy and things like that, so nobody really asks my advice on these things
and I find myself always talking about music. So, being that I am trapped with the
subject of how a composer composes, we will start on that road and I will attempt to
talk and demonstrate the creative act in music — just what is it? How does it happen?
In one sense, of course, nobody knows what the creative act is, what it is that makes
certain people wake up in the morning and write music or paint or write poetry. This
is a mystery and I won’t attempt, wouldn’t be presumptuous to attempt, to solve this my-
stery. But assuming, now, that the person has this compulsion to create music, what goes
into this? We might not be able to analyze the mystery, but we might be able to talk
about some of the specifics.
I think the intriguing thing about the musical creative act is that it starts from
nothing. Right now, this silence that we hear, outside of my voice, has in it incipient
musical sounds. The sound itself is a part of the creative act, because musical com-
position is really sound through time—allocated, disciplined, over a span of time. Anoth-
er intriguing thing about the musical act is that in the hearing of it, the audience, you
as the audience, are creators in reverse — backwards, along with the composer who
creates going forward, and I'll tell you just what I mean. Were I to play a phrase,
just a simple couple of notes, you wouldn’t know what this was until I finished it. You
have to put this back together in retrospect, you see, because when I play the first note
or even the second or third note, it means nothing until there is a certain phrase, let’s
state it, and then you hear it backwards and you put it together. So that when you
hear a new work, a new piece, in that sense you sort of hear it backwards, because you
have no idea what this piece is going to do or say, and it’s only in retrospect... .
This, to me, is one of the fascinating things about music, and in a creative act, in a
sense the composer is both going forward and backward in the chronology of his notes.
Now I don’t know how many in this room are composers or interested in composition,
and of course for an advanced compositional student, there are many things that can
be spoken of and discussed in terms of the technology of music. This I will stay away
from and I’d like to talk very generally.
Everybody, in a sense, is a creator; all of you in this room, believe it or not, could
be called composers. I’ve had people say to me, “I hear music, I hear things in my head,
’
but I don’t know how to put them down,” and they’re usually self-conscious about it —
you know, they say it as if it’s not really true, so they’re apologizing for the presump-
tion on their part that they might even consider themselves a composer. But it’s not
presumptuous at all, and it’s very true, because a lot of people do hear sounds. A per-
son or a child can go like this and just bang the keys. Now, you know what? This
is a composition; I mean, there’s no law that says that it’s not. As a matter of fact,
I’ve heard some works that were pretty close to that; not as clear, perhaps. The differ-
ence — what makes a composer, really, is the act of discipline, the act of selection, of
discrimination, and of control, as against a person who can just hear sounds in a kind
of spasmodic or spastic expression, without any real, conscious control over where these
sounds are going, without any discipline.
Now what I want to try to do, rather than talk a lot — which I like to do, by the way,
and I’m most reluctant to now sit down and start to demonstrate with musical examples
— is to get the facts of composition. We deal with sounds, and we deal with notes —
sounds on pitch. All of you can make notes. All of you can go over to the piano and
pick out many kinds of notes. A composer can work with any kind of notes. The art of
symphonic writing —the developed forms in our music — always are based on the idea
of the development of a germ, the development of a germinal thought, or germinal
thoughts. So that the act of symphonic composition is not the act of writing a melody.
You know, very often people say, “Why don’t composers use more melody?” They hear
a contemporary piece and then say, “Where’s the melody?” Well, there ain’t no such
thing, because melody is subject to all kinds of interpretations. And as an example,
what I might think is a melody and what you might think is a melody, or a beautiful
melody, might be two different things. The symphonic structure, the so-called serious
forms of music, is based on the idea of development and variation and expansion of a
germinal thought, and this germinal thought can be just a few notes. That’s all you
need. A composer can take any notes and make a composition out of it. Now how good
the work is and what kind of work he produces of course depends on his own par-
ticular chemistry, on his own talent. Talent you cannot control. You might have a
little bit of talent, you might have a lot, medium, and so on. You’re stuck with that.
However you are born, that’s it; there’s nothing much you can do about it. What you
can do is develop whatever talent you have as a composer to its fullest capacity. And
develop it with as much craft as possible, and with as much imagination. Now, to de-
monstrate.
I can move this blackboard, can’t I? No, the reason I ask is because I did a series
of television programs that have to do with different aspects of music, and in a studio
you don’t dare touch anything. You have to have an official blackboard mover. When
I started to move this, I thought my God, I probably . . .
Now, I’m going to ask for just a few notes. Would somebody start by calling out
any note.
“C-sharp.”
Another one.
“Gq”
I shouldn’t have started this.
“A”
“D-sharp.”
Well, I think I’ll erase this whole thing and go home.
Now, these are the notes:
}
*
2
os
I
s
es ¥
These four notes can be made into many different shapes. You see, as they stand
now, these are just four notes; they have no particular character. Now what a com-
poser does is to take these notes and give them character, give them shape. As an ex-
ample, through a rhythmic variation, you can have: n ess
+ sca a
Sic a Sem
tL} C2 }
| ot
e
Or, you might use it like this: ct |
"
if
i j
rT ro} u o
if
at
po Z a
Now, along with the act of taking your basic material —in this case, it’s these
vane
Yi
four notes, unfortunately — there also comes into play of doing, you see, against these
four notes, all kinds of other devices. You can harmonize them, you can use these
four notes contrapuntally, you can add other notes onto this; that is, in contrast to these.
As an example, if I wanted to extend this, I would do something like this:
) 4 item ae | i’
| | al ar MNCS OR
rn a r be Se a 2 jth,
— Le j ah a
ore t t i $ t t id I ¥ ay z
r tt t 5 t t T nt t + {
ea acer t z } t + t T - rt
3 “ -
Now there is a tune, there’s a sentimental tune, and it’s a melody; so, if you like
that kind of thing — there, you can have it.
Now, what happens to these notes on the part of the composer? The composer is
conditioned by, as I said before, his particular talent, his particular direction, the time
in which he lives — which brings in the idea of style; you see, a composer in the act
of composition must have a style in order to have any value. Style is sort of a vague
word, like all words that have to do with aesthetics, and you can question every word
that one uses. You know, you can say, “Just what do you mean?” Don’t question me,
because half the words I use, I’m not sure that I know what I mean. I am most comfort-
able, obviously, when I’m handling musical notes. When I’m talking about them, I am
not too sure, but I hope that I sound impressive. Now on the question of the composer
and his time and his period and style, if I said to you that this might have been writ-
ten, as an example, in the romantic period of music, the nineteenth century let’s say,
around the time of Chopin — because, you see, Chopin was one of a school of composers,
of an approach to musical composition. These four notes might have sounded something
like this if done by a composer at the time of around Chopin —this period:
= , ae a i. + ab OD | }
a | ui Din, . a ee A Cane Sey » ch SR \
= a eee ee ee
, BI zZ o- bart eat wen ea _ saa ars
t a ae oe oe ‘
| WAT
L Be ae & Mec
Ba Cm } b Peli 8 hi n Eid Z [7
Taal if a es } we j lk, j Se
Sa a Be St BE naan. SCY ile ‘ 1 A ea | L
2 i nai 2 lo) e va} Z hut it e2
a \
"renee e nee. aS a
—_* a - —_on' ‘
se a a ea a ee a ee
t ert ere * Seca er nee ao Woe al
7 “—\ F ? i v ev 4
SESH so RM REORD STOLE BE pg :
a Pe aay ° + '
ac 2 ee Be eit. TF vet lo 2p aa
ss eee 5 ET PTE y mi AT AN eH rsa
| a j ati \ oe \ (is | be ‘ \ \ Lh Re 2. 4 ig. it }
Y a dom ——_ \ a m T ie a ¥ t 3 j
ra r ORR ET 7 = met SEE SP z\ i } +
- ’ ¢ ' x
4
Ty
am =e -
RE ERBE ome \
+a \ } \
7 al Hi ae le OR it
— _— -
a A Me st a f-7—-*
oe nant | (tad — = it ou
J = ¥F cf ola = |
"=
\ 4 4 nN be a z LA,
PON ES I Ba } ——_ | il } 1 Cd 2 ca
5 al Ed \e 2 ~ sti as 28 a \ b Li CJ a 1 th A a
| } a \ ; oF eae RR Wy, 4 1 it » Bh
“¥ i as ay t ul Ary
ah ‘ae - _*
+ ¢°
e
and so on and so forth.
On the issue of style, and with a kind of illegitimate Chopin — the piece that I just
did before, which, incidentally, I thought was fairly nice except there’s only one prob-
lem, and that is that it was already done; I mean somebody else did it— a number of
other people did it.
By the way, I just want to make one thing clear: what I am doing here is impro-
vising. I hope you understand that. In other words, I’m composing spontaneously, on
the spot. I have just as much idea as to what is going to come out as you have — except
you’re probably not as worried. You have nothing to lose and I obviously have every-
thing to lose. And what you must remember is that all these things that I’m putting to-
gether here, I’m doing it, you see, on the spur of the moment, restricted by what I am
working with, which happens to be — sometimes I get notes that are a little more easy
to handle. This has such a definite harmonic kind of implication that in a sense makes
it difficult to manipulate it to prove certain points. Of course, I can solve it by not
proving the points I thought I’d prove. As a matter of fact, maybe I will talk about
Viet Nam. Using these four notes.
Now to get back to —I talk in circles, I want you to know, and I make no pretense
of ever necessarily getting out of the circle or getting back to what I started to say,
so I just hope you go with me, because in a sense, this is part of what a composer does.
See, you start out, and although I said that the act of musical creation is an act of
conscious discipline and so on, it’s also an act of adventuring, and part of what I’m
demonstrating here, even of what I’m doing and the way I’m talking, has the element
of you’re not sure sometimes of just where you’re going to go. See, you explore. That’s
why the creative composer is somebody who is always doing something else, some-
thing different. I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about some of the great contem-
porary composers. They say, “Why doesn’t he do what he always used to do — you
know, when he was young, he wrote wonderful pieces. Now, when he gets older, he
writes impossible things; nobody understands them or likes them.” Well, the idea is
that he wants horizons — you’re always going over the horizon. You always want to
know what is beyond there. Once you get there, you go further, further, further. You
don’t stop. And the important creative force is the creative force that’s always mov-
ing, that is always restless, that never sits still.
This was really a very involved way of asking you to be tolerant of my talking
in circles. You can now relate that back to this idea, because I talk in circles under
the pretense of supposedly, perhaps, exploring by talking — new horizons. It’s very
unlikely that I will do that in my talk....
Now to come back to the point of the idea of style where I did sort of a Chopinesque
kind of improvisation. If I said to you that these four notes were done by a 19th cen-
tury composer around the time of Chopin, and this is the way he would have done it:
( eax Ba. eee et. at aaa yon
t mbe § T —_ i ee a Yas — tae | i } it \
ad CR TREE ES | oe 2g? Rte RU EE ee i
Tr PEGE TTT | 7 es ee a Rae
am ~ Ps = iu efi 2 2nF Am ae Ty oa
+ aw " xe
s
$ $ = :
oe ah = n r + 4 2
en 1 NS EL a SER RNR be n rn =
+ Om: EE PRU! it a T 1. r 2 APEC SEE REY: t
Z as : ¢ : Oa TEE 7 é
~a=t Ne
ats cee PEE Let Fed Si
hy SARE 1 = | IE, ES HG MRR
=z ie oe dT acon
— > me 2 ] > \ r
o ——t + 7
J a EE
> i
is. 4.
= Nw 7° Ss _— : r
Ss am 9 DEL T = Sha PRED CIEE 4 =
+ SN ES | t Mm OF : SIE | €
LOC t + ¥ a | it
and I said this was written by a romantic composer, you know, around 1832 or 1840, I
think you’d feel that something was wrong, because, you see, this could not have been
written at that time, because this kind of vernacular was not part of the musical lan-
guage, so that the question of style very often has to do—a composer’s style —
has to do with the things that are available for him to use. You see, all composition
basically started with popular music, with popular songs, even some of your supposed-
ly pure, purest music, a great deal of your baroque music — those of you who’ve studied
music, you see the titles. You know, you have all kinds of dance forms: sarabande, al-
lemande, gavotte, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And these are all very crazy names.
You know, they mean dances. I mean, I suppose in that day they were the equivalent
of the —I don’t know, what is it, the frug and, you know, the monkey, and all these
things I see my kids doing, and I assume that one day this will also become part of the
. a hundred years from now, a very grim musicologist will examine something that
we have written, and read in it all kinds of things and it will turn out that the roots
of what was written had to do with certain popular expressions that are taken, trans-
formed, and developed into larger forms, into more elaborate factors.
Now, one of the things that a composer works with is taking four notes like this
and using different lines: namely, counterpoint. You know. A round, as you all know,
is the most obvious form of counterpoint, a straight obvious kind of imitation. If
I do this:
ee
| | ok 4
wal oat \ } 4 } Pu be RM acer ~
| ee Se } it it Bos } } oe at wl Me beac =
L val ~~ at yea } + ics taal
in Hp m8 if hen o 2
"T *e al
a
ia m > a Sa
irr j i io 4 y eR ME tS am
as j \ = = i 1 s ra ah \ i
WP \ | A BF i 1 i a! a
< j = i x
1
this is what I call idiot counterpoint.
However, counterpoint has much more fascinating uses than merely the obvious repe-
tition, because what you can have is an idea of lineal music, of lines going simultan-
eously around, across, and against each other, and you create all kinds of different
tensions. You see, you can do, as an example—and incidentally, for those of you who are
not professional music people, I hope you understand that when I play these four notes,
these can be transferred into any different register. You see, I mean that, in other
words, that’s still cricket in musical composition. You can take this and play it on differ-
ent parts of the piano or orchestra, if you write for the orchestra, and then, of course,
you can also take what I did at the beginning and you can elaborate on this basic
idea. Now I just wanted to make that very clear, so that perhaps some of you will
have something to hang onto and perhaps feel that I haven’t gone too far off this.
Now, let’s try and see what comes out of this. I’m not sure that anything will, but
let’s take a shot at it. If we take this:
h P
1 PENN | t 7. sr ooie
Rete t am Tt = Se a
7 ru +A se ? t an —s
7 afl T RENEE aE
: . iia
Re t 1 j 1 \
ae es a r T t T n
7 Tae Tt o T - t T T tT : Tt n
Z I dude +—}- T 7 OSE TEER: T mi = t
> - >
# be Za was aF \F Z
a —
1 a aE ee ae a
or pO, a \ Fa ee
A ea eR ces ——~ B BO ae t ee ee ee ee St
a4 see reer eR Ce eee cate x oh ae iin ERE? att
+7 faz F 72 = . Bhst a 5 Be
?
i
S i \ ra
t t y t 1. +
ery : 2 t T n T T t t t
Z 1 y ms E t T 7 I Dr [
= = = Be — ane - a
a ie ee a
ph S i, oe Pee ae =
SRE AB ce ==——— ~ went tT ett ; - T <=
7 ae ee ee Te" Pinan ee SH aS Sk om i a RON T
a 1 ES est Ta TP OS | ee ee oe BT ee at = 1} st t
2 aI Sl ek as 7 t {
-¢ _ = ae
¥y , i { Miedo 8s LA t >
\ | a \ " rn
— t oa y r t t
> rt z t 2 te, zZ r T T r
pot ae 4 + a + + 4 + + ko o }
; a ee aes
3 ~
. i RS AP | [_ | tae Nia
} KR \ ya ae Set, & i — tie ee “OH é
He a. ai aOR so lth ee ee » lie es > ee ee i =
w + + ta HBR RM oe i j N 7 at 2
+ ial 7? - “a ~ = OO ¢g a
\ ™ ~~ #5) “A nals, ¢
\
\ —T 1 \
1 We + j \ 1 , 4- 4.
os te Tt Nae F - 1 f | \ H n : i
Bi See a } er i j n \ j_ 2) @ \_ 2
ia J 2. = i Pinel | 1 PA if \ . dae ba
Z \ sa a. + ro © _ | it ee.
ed Ty ro
t 1 is + Re ~) MY \ ‘ + Be WS
ee RF > X
a
_ i | n Fe | ee j
aS if \ j j \ iui ni yY! |e
a \ mo ra } \ ‘ i t ) oe \ se Z al Bt Ait
he \ Bin ¥ ~ £ it + \ boa . a L + I | 2 x
= al La + >! + v $ = 3 4 {
; | ‘e
i i N ox iY 1 ‘oa... a Se . Read ene
Ye 1 io J om i R j j aL INE \ } , ae ae
wisi Pet 4 i" _ ZL ae Fens SN i of. ~ ny a ae } if a ue +
as La } sees a Ra j bat | ai AER ATO th it ei 7 1 a
Pid +- a AT Zz | J zZ a 2 + hed i
+ at a rs | B: ES 3 7
#+ +
Now, what I did with this was to take those four notes and use it as a ground.
There’s.a formal, there’s a very formal procedure that you can do. And now I'll be
very honest with you, and that’s called a passacaglia — a passacaglia, you know, all it
means is that you take a couple of notes and you stay with it and you just build all
kinds of variations on those notes. This was not literally that; I started with that and
then I thought the hell with it. However, were this a formal act of musical composition
on my part; and in which I, you know, suddenly decided that if I went in for a more
formalized kind of version, I would have to sort of take a quite little different approach
for an improvisation on it, plus what time it is. I know some of you have to be out of
here by two o’clock. If I were sitting home in my studio and writing, I would not be
affected by these things, and I would approach this differently, so all of this that you
hear is merely a very general —I keep on emphasizing this — just a general direction
of how a composer works, because in the seclusion of one’s studio, see, there are certain
factors that are with a composer that do not exist here, because here, in a sense, I am
also responsible, not so much for composing, but in a sense for keeping you interested
in what I’m doing and what I’m saying, so therefore I will do anything — I’ll compro-
mise, anything in order to keep that interest, because at the moment that is the impor-
tant thing. After all, as I said before, the technique of composing — the actual technolo-
gy —is a very difficult and arduous kind of disciplining which you cannot explain by
just getting up and talking it. You cannot explain any of man’s complex expressions
through entertainment, really. It doesn’t have to be great, but if you laugh too much,
then I don’t know how much yovu’re learning. So, with all these reservations, let me go
on a little more.
Let me skip, because there’s no time. You see, I can take these notes and do an ex-
tended, serious work in the sonata form, out of this, but, as you know, sonatas take
a lot of time as those who attend concerts know only too well, sometimes to our dismay.
10
el
So, I do not think that now is the time nor do I think you are disposed to sit here and
listen to me ramble for, you know, an hour, and get lost in a maze of development sections.
But, before I close, I’d like to sort of jump over very quickly and just talk and per-
haps demonstrate the contemporary scene. What is important to remember about so-
called contemporary music, in other words, music that’s being written today —in our
time — is that we must try to meet it on its own grounds and understand what the
ground rules are and realize that sometimes the ground rules are not the ground rules
that we assume they are, or that are ground rules. Now, one of the things that’s hap-
pened in the development of music has been the breaking away of music in tonal pat-
terns from the concept of voice. You see, all the things that I’ve done so far as examples
are in the classical style. For instance:
a awe t ae ks i a CteeLttLLe a Ss SaaS
1 SE OY SP ME BW AL t Som a
ee ee ee Sa bid = ee ae
7 #F ? ~~ os he
ii 2. _— ~ P ns 2 +> oF wy + a
: a 2a ae Mid bead | AS tl $ ‘ n = =
Se ee ON a ee ee ee ee oe eee
{ Mame T = ae
eT Z rx ——— z r ta =— }
pet ik e de , eT. Mee Cae ieee
a kal an eee EA ea, a ae 2.
A A RS AEN 2. ee ae eee oe ae ak ee ee ee ee a
\— CJ +, a
en oe nse —_£ See oe bas awe at
\ +
4 a Ld 2 om s 2. A. eth | _,
= ek RE EY a ERE a RS SEIN OS CF Th ANSE. PRI BEE hd ; T
¥ | A BS ES AE AN A NS a RE UO re rt Sea
a en on on on oe coe Sn ee co Od ce al co x eam. t
. ———— ) ee ee oe a oe ~ ~— nm a : ra
And so on and so on. Now this is singable — you can comprehend it. But if I do this:
Dom
| +
ia PS j
ee 4 i
rs p]
¥3
i
ae 2 S } 2
ei sos \ aT
. a
43
Now, you know what? These notes are the the four notes, but, you see, I pushed them
out. I now will use them not on the assumption that they must fit what we can sing.
Here is where the trap about the melody comes in. In other words, a lot of people say,
“Well, I know it isn’t a melody because I can’t sing it.” Well, you’re not supposed to. If
there is anybody in the room who can sing this, as a matter of fact, I’ll take them
back to New York.
Now, we must listen to music. We have music which ranges over the whole
register of musical sounds and it’s still connected —I mean in a good composition,
11
you see, there are still lines that go between these, but they are now a little more com-
plex and a little more far-ranging, a little more out in space. As an example, let’s see
if you can follow these notes —or if I can follow them, as a matter of fact; that’s
more to the point —in a kind of contemporary exploration. Now, I’ll start with the four
notes, but in different places, except I’ll compromise: the first note I’ll play where it
is:
9 foo Bue
va& @ id
* ve ak = #3
bs i aE A i” 1 AE 4 b¢@
“oe OR Bieber } a A \ a § eS 4 be L4 }
ld LU nN < \ e RER A. Atte ) he ig - 4 4 4
ii : 4 } al ‘4 1
\ -~ sey '
\
a be
PE Sl Ay 2 x
don 1 ES \ 5 4 ‘4 * 3 aie 4 \ a rn
seer Lt m3 il 2 a Pa 1 yy} < } ie
-_ m! “a 4\} - ~ 4 a\_|
j ? 5 = i 77
4% # ?
Now, you see, this was, I think, quite a different listening experience from what I
played before. Whether it’s better or worse or makes more or less sense to you, of
course that’s all a matter of personal reaction. But what is important, I think, to know
is that when you listened to this last, you had to be listening to something different than
what you were listening to in the early part of my demonstration. Now, the examples
are endless, you know, I can take these four notes and do — you see, there are other
contemporary expressions which are already classically accepted. For instance, you
know, if you take one of the most potent influences —a man like Stravinsky — these
four notes in that school —in the backwash of this school — might be:
4/
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Bell rings for 2:00 classes.
This is a little touch I always put in. I must apologize —this was supposed to
come in the piece before this. This sort of threw me. As a matter of fact, this was
the most creative act of this program. This is what is known as random music. And
strangely enough, you see, this very thing that happened, this bell going off, this is part
now —this is another part of the contemporary scene; the idea of chance, the idea of
random things happening. I started to say before, one could go on and on with all the
different possibilities. You see, I can do things inside of a piano, I could hit the bot-
tom of the piano. At the beginning I pointed out that even the silence is part of
music, so that I can sit down and say — and, by the way, this has been done —I can
12
say, “I will now finish with my latest work, which is called Silence.” Now, there have
been concerts done in which the composer sat beside the piano for five minutes. You
see, the music, in our lives, is the things that are happening around us. The idea —
I have children, and my sons —to them, going to the moon is a very logical thing. Why
not? I still am not quite sure how the electric lightbulb works. But none of us, I think,
should stand still just by our own limitations. Because there again, as adventurous as
I might be in music, if the world depended on me for the amenities of life and for
technical progress, we would not have reached the wheel yet. It might be on the way
because I am a fairly, I think, progressive and liberal person, in my own way, but
we wouldn’t yet have the wheel. So, in music it is important for the creator to explore
and for the listener to explore. And, of course, the ideal combination is the two togeth-
er, where both the creator and the listener can explore to their mutual advantage and
their mutual stimulation. This closes the formal and stuffy part of my lecture.
et ne
13
MY BROTHER’S BED
Come ... we cannot lay here.
This is my brother’s bed.
It is autumn. The sky is like
A dying leaf.
The spread is unwrinkled. There
Is nothing on the bed, but a polished amulet
A string of stones.
Come, we cannot lay here . . . you can go away.
It is nothing.
This is my brother’s room for long ago he lived here.
Now he has forgotten these fading shadows on his bed,
As he lies asleep in the huge cities of Granada, chalked with
Ash.
Autumn is here. A scarf hangs by the window,
Rancid from years of gardenia and sachet.
He found his amulet among the children’s tears
And secrets; when he grew older it was polished to a glow;
His curious fingers rubbed the incantation smooth.
The string of stones? Who knows.
He picked them from the road the day he searched for father,
Later he threw them at the scarlet houses,
With the gingerbread men who danced and sang a secret.
I stand old, old, and turn into a curtain.
Wavering, wavering, I am never still.
A cloth shadow dances alone where there were
Whispering figures.
I touch the amulet with old hands
And shake the string of stones.
Stone upon stone echoes an icon upon his ears.
But his ears are deaf... and he walks alone upon
The rain-slaked streets of Granada.
Come... we cannot lay here. . . this is my brother’s bed.
JERRY TILLOTSON
ETCHINGS AND PRINTS BY
DONALD SEXAUER
Formal education: Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary,
1952-54; B.S. degree at Edinboro State College, Edinboro, Pa.; M.A.
degree in printmaking and painting at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.
Exhibitions and awards, 1963 and after: Madison Gallery, New York City,
1963, First Prize in printmaking at the 1963 National Show for the As-
sociation of Academic Artists, Springfield, Massachusetts; 1964 North-
west Printmakers 35th International Exhibition in Seattle, Washington
and Oregon; First National Print Exhibition at Western Michigan Uni-
versity; Ultimate Concerns 5th National Show of Drawings and Prints
at Ohio University; Academic Artists Award for Printmaking at the
15th National Exhibition of Realistic Art, Springfield, Massachusetts;
The Group Gallery, Jacksonville, Florida; First Regional Paint and Draw-
ing Exhibition at the Mint Museum, Charlotte, N. C.; Fourth Annual
Mercyhurst Graphics Exhibition, Erie, Pa; One-man show at the Florida
Gulf Coast Art Center, Clearwater, Florida; The Forty-Sixth Annual
Exhibition of the Society of American Graphic Artists, New York City;
Anonymous Prize for Printmaking at the 140th Annual Exhibition of
the National Academy of Design, New York City; 1965 Northwest Print-
makers 35th International Show, Seattle, Washington; The 43nd National
Graphic Arts Drawing Exhibition at the Wichita Art Association, Kansas;
The Sixteenth National Exhibition of Contemporary Realism at the
Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts.
17
SEANCE
She would stay
in her room alone
and sometimes the walls,
fading, stared across her face,
pulling the white bee
along her neck until
the choke stopped
her hands from tears.
She smells her hair
while wind breaks curtained —
labor back to when he came
in thought, touched her side
for lying down to his leaning
and the weight upon her mouth,
like solitude, embedded her
for love.
Her neckline speaks
down between her breasts
for milder enclosure,
forming her waist
to a quieter glide
and taking her tan nectar
reticent for more drink.
Her cramped remembrance
forced a newer mark
upon her mind;
that fraction of him
releasing a mellower bird
winding its song to his need
and succulent for more wind
to tread her rightness,
to expose his fine
riding semblance
of love; she wrapped
her feet in cloth.
On the dampness of her bed
sleep found its own
and her thoughts rested
for dreaming.
CHARLOTTE McCMICHAEL
23
NORMAN MAILER’S AMERICAN
DREAM
JAMES FORSYTH
I have always been a bit hesitant about reading
a new novel by an established writer, more out
of the fear of disappointment than anything else.
Reading something new by Norman Mailer is
worse than most of the others because I believe
that he may have it in him to write that Big Book.
On the other hand, he can come out with just
about as much nonsense per square inch as any
Southern politician.
So, it took a long time to finally get around to
reading An American Dream. The thing stayed
around for days before I even opened it. The
design on the dust jacket is terrible and the pic-
ture of Mailer on the back is almost frightening.
The novel first appeared, in slightly different
form, in eight issues of Esquire and is published
collectively by Dial Press. On the flap of the dust
jacket it says: “Mailer undertook to write An
American Dream under the same conditions of
serial deadline that Conrad, Dickens, and Dos-
toevsky met in their day.” Sounds like a helluva
comparison, but that is the sort of stuff that pub-
lishers come up with.
My reaction to the book is mixed. Mailer has
a talent for being good and bad at the same time.
An American Dream, written in the first person,
is a study of the real and imaginary Hell of
Stephen Richards Rojack, who served with dis-
tinction in World War II, was elected for a term
24
in Congress, wrote a book titled The Psychology
of the Hangman, was a college professor and @
television performer, and married an extremely
wealthy girl. Sounds incredible. But that }§
not even half of it.
Rojack met his wife, Deborah Caughlin Ma?-
garavidi Kelly, on a double date with, of all pe?
ple, Jack Kennedy, who had been a year ahea
of him in college. In reality, Mailer was a year
behind Kennedy at Harvard and they did know
each other after the war. But since the elections
of 1960, Mailer has worn that a bit thin. — i
From here the plot gets complicated. Roja¢
is separated from his wife, whom he sees —
once a week. He goes to a party and decides a
visit her at her apartment. It is pretty stralg 2
so far, except that he is, or seems to be, unde
some sort of trance and thinks that the eo 9
is telling him to come. Yes, fly to the moon. lee
he gets to his wife’s apartment, they get 1” x
an argument and he kills her, which I supPo®
is a natural thing for Mailer to think of puttin’
here. But instead of disposing with the er
before he does anything else, he is seized by cea
trance again and goes into the room where a
maid Ruta, a German girl, stays. Naturally ©
seduces her. Then he goes back to his wilt
apartment, throws the body out of the window
sort of an answer to the force of the moon whi¢
has been calling him, telephones the police and
tells them that she has jumped. This is all in
the first chapter. The novel only covers 36 hours.
The police suspect that he killed her, and they
have some evidence. But they let him go. In
true form, Mailer complicates things even more.
Deborah’s father, Mr. Kelly, is the one who gets
him off the hook by using his influence and prob-
ably a little money. The first thing Rojack does
when he goes out is meet another woman, Cherry,
who was on the street when Deborah fell. Anoth-
er seduction scene. This is getting pretty bad.
The short time which follows is Rojack’s trip
through Hell. In this time he finds that Ruta
had been employed as Deborah’s maid by Mr.
Kelly. Not only has Kelly slept with Ruta on a
number of occasions, but he has seduced his
daughter as well. He did this when she was a
young girl and never wished to completely end
the affair, so he hired Ruta to keep an eye on her.
As repulsive as this may be, it does give the
author plenty of room to enter the trappings of
his subject’s mind and watch him play Satan
against God. For what it is, it is good. But not
as good as Mailer could do. The thing which held
the novel together for me, that is, made it read-
able, is Mailer’s writing. He can do more with
the English language than most writers could
think of doing. Through his complicated sentence
structure, he somehow gives the words a fluid
character which reads with ease. I do not like
his use of parentheses, which he uses very often.
A master technician like William Faulkner, who
used parentheses to create flashbacks, can use
them profitably. But when they are used only
for explanatory purposes, they damage the tone
of the prose. When phrases are set off paren-
thetically, they carry a tone of depth or serious-
ness which is greater than that of the rest of
the writing. For that reason, most novelists are
wise to avoid them.
Mailer’s talent is a disgusting thing. Unfor-
tunately, his first book, The Naked and the Dead,
sold enormously and is hailed by many as a
masterpiece. And that is his problem. He proba-
bly feels that he really has not got the talent to
write another book as good as that. So he claims
that he has written the best book since World
War II and will not bother to write another good
one until someone else writes one just as good.
Naturally he will never admit that someone has
surpassed him.
This is not an isolated problem. John Stein-
beck became popular too soon and left his art
for making money. Although what he writes is
better than what most critics usually give him
credit for writing. James Jones got fat too soon
and has turned out nothing of any value since
From Here to Eternity. Probably the only way
to get them to work is to strand them on an island
and take their liquor away from them until they
can do something better. But there are laws
against that sort of thing.
Since Mailer’s initial work, he has produced
a number of books which are not very good but
show glimpses of genius. Barbary Shore was his
next piece of work and he believes that it may be
superior to the others because “it has in its high
fevers a kind of insane insight.” But it met a
cold public and was panned for its vulgarity.
Aside from his latest work, his only other book
of fiction is The Deer Park, a noble idea which
never worked out. It was supposed to be part of
an eight-volume novel with a short novel prologue
called “‘The Man Who Studied Yoga.” The idea
fell apart. There is also a book of poetry and short
prose called Death for the Ladies and Other Dis-
asters, which is interesting and at times very good.
In 1959 he came out with Advertisements for
Myself. The libraries, for some reason, list it as
an autobiography. It contains short pieces that
he has written over the years, excerpts from two
novels and his long essay The White Negro, and
each piece is preceded by an “Advertisement”
which either tells something about the work or
his state of mind when he wrote it. Advertise-
ments for Myself is an interesting account in
somewhat of an orderly fashion of what he has
done and what he would like to do. It shows
the growth of a writer along with his opinions
of what others have done. Surprisingly enough,
Mailer has a good critical eye for works other
than his own. He has no trouble in spotting the
weaknesses and strong points in the work of
others, but his evaluation of their work as a whole
is lacking.
The question still remains whether Mailer will
ever take the time to apply himself to something
long enough to do it right. From all the indica-
tions he has given, it is reasonable to say that he
will not. This is probably the fear of putting all
he has in a book and its being a failure.
25
ROSEMARY
Perhaps men are all we said they were
And in their climbing shed all those rings
Of savage love like spirits wholly given
Up to what they cannot care to keep.
Perhaps they are and this was like moonlight,
A license to be cruel,
To hold love’s wisdom a little wild
Behind her elegaic urn.
These men and their fabled women who climb
Among our stars, who are stripped bare
Like wind of all the small famille familiars
That give brother unto brother commingling
An ache of their origin in love,
One grave specific like rosemary,
Always and every way rosemary,
And bartered history keep. Cold as on the tombs
They drift among their roses of the resurrection
Cold composed with what must always seem
Some greater vision than our own,
Some seeing past the place where merely breath
Walks supposing what they knew or must know
To be like paradise — a place of golden abnegation;
We feel an air holding the birds against
The breast of heaven,
A high tumultuous turning of small wings.
26
These then, the shaggy legs are always and our own
Given up to weariness and sleep.
And though all and every dancing master knows
The fiddles tune their magic by the moon
And drums are hot and heavy with midday,
Be still and hear the resurrecting dead
Who know eternal the peasantry of pleasure
Take up themselves their marrow bones
And make the green earth ring
Above their dark encrusted nails.
SANFORD PEELE
27
28
FABLES
I
There, where the still sun wheels
perpetual at twelve and the lips
of all green things stand open and aroused,
your body bends its white line back
inscribing you upon the pointed grass
sleep.
I have dreamed of floating a breath above your hair,
my curved horns tipped by the turning sun.
sleep.
Birds that never were
spread an irridescent splendor
like the pine, blue, and blue green
upon our centrifugal earth.
II
Still: I cover you with pine
until you are spiked with green
and gently budding cones.
In my narrow mask of white hair and dull eyes
I bury the outraged bone of you,
turning in small whining circles.
Ill
Our long necks twine and the slow winter fiies
make silky movements in the shafts of our deep breathing.
If we step now upon the white crust of December,
our hooves will sink like broad hearts down to sleeping earth.
You turn, and the unsettling snow
frosts your dark mane and small ears.
IV
The window remains, loosed to the sun’s coming,
frayed wood falling gently away
and the dark naked nails gathering the years against their forgotten purpose.
Naked, your feet placed wide apart
you coiled the white stem of you
toward the coming sun
and combed your dark hair downward.
So much hair! I thought the room might drown between you and the sun.
V
The panes are gone,
no jagged teeth to mark their absence.
If the star-shaped ivy
could grow in this stiff earth
it would mount and in its curving hold slip darkly through
where the sun came,
then, each morning, as sudden and sure as birth
spreading the gold and rosate fingers
of wild incredulous children.
VI
How everything is loosed in sleep,
the free moon, forgotten, finds you here,
curved into my side —
I am still and cannot turn to where
your soft mouth glancingly bestows
the pendulum carol of your deep breathing
upon the foliate curve of my own hidden heart.
SANFORD PEELE
29
30
CHRYSANTHEMUMS
(For Elizabeth Gartman)
At six I went to school
And having lived six years with flowers
Carried chrysanthemums to give away.
The colors were important colors as I remember.
They were planted by my father, cut by my mother
And given to me as the gift to give that other
Kindest person I had come to know as special.
I climbed that day into the yellow bus,
One speller, one reader and a dozen sheets of heavy paper
Ruled with horizontal lines as large
As the vein that stood out in my father’s forehead
And the flowers wrapped in a cornucopia of waxed paper.
I don’t remember the riding there
But I believe it was uneventful
Though I must have said something to someone.
We stood in line until the bell rang and she came out
To ask us in, into the low red building so unlike a house
And someone whose face I cannot now see
Stepped suddenly out and took the cornucopia away
Not quickly stolen, but borrowed-like
As though to impress with the possibility of return.
I turned away and watched wide the sun
Until the corners of the air were filled with flowers
Falling in a dark October rain
Most every one found marvelous.
I should have cried, done some final thing
Been meek or found it funny, but breathing clawed
Upward through my throat, hand over slipping hand
Until the harm turned white and fell away.
I don’t look at things head on; I didn’t then
But see them from their corner turn
With slow insignificant tide
Moving sideways and invidously lovely out.
Now, at the pearled center of a perfect sleep
I hear the high wind of my world’s birthday
Come down among the chrysanthemums she cuts
Her and him who made me, there, twined in their green
Turning gold and I rondo-ringing round them, until
Are wounds as sure as though October had no wind,
And might leave the fragile epitaph forever fallen
In the field of vegetable dismay.
They are gone, gathered in the throat and it is once again
October of the first day, in the first year
And my mother gives me once again
The dark chrysanthemums of peace.
I wear them in my hair, upon my lips and eyes
And cannot care that the yellow bus moves through every October
Since that first, crowned with the skull of childness
Filled with chrysanthemums of fire.
Sleep repeats their purple center,
Enfolding, the frost-frond outer edge of grief is here
Raw in the rumpled wind of winter.
I lift myself out of the winding heat of them
Tipsy to the floor-tugged feet of sleep
And open me to darkness, saying the rosary of their good names
Brother, mother, sister, father, friend
Until the stars slip down my face
And burn upon the coldness of the floor.
SANFORD PEELE
31
ALL ACTS OF SEPARATION
A SHORT STORY BY
PAT OUTLAW COOPER
He wasn’t real thin and he wasn’t real young
anymore, and when he bent over in the tobacco
field to break away the lower leaves from their
stalks, he had a tendency to stay down longer than
was necessary. When he finally lifted his shoul-
ders out of the foliage, he came up exceedingly
slow for a man of thirty-two. He laid an armful
of tobacco leaves in the narrow body of the tobacco
truck and removed a cigarette from between his
lips. He looked at it, replaced it, and, squinting
his eyes, drew deeply from it. He listened to the
crinkly burning of the cigarette paper and made
a mental note of where it seemed to stop burning.
He straightened his shoulders and loosed the wet
blue shirt sticking between them. He wiped his
forehead with the upper part of his rolled-up
sleeve. The itching in his eyebrows was relieved.
He was cooler and ready to bend over again to
the leaves.
His name was Napoleon, but it was a long time
since anybody had called him that. They called
him Buddy.
May Lene tended to the mid-day meal. She
82
turned down the beans to simmer to keep —
warm. She dipped up the cabbage from the ees
ed aluminum pot and placed it in a large ¢¥° a
bowl; with two knives she cut the small Y
wedges to bits. Then she took the piece of oe
side-meat she had cooked with it, which was yg
less than the size of her own hand, and rn
thick, and sliced it thinly. She put it in a ce
saucer that had once belonged to her grandmone
and set it in the middle of the table near pa
vinegar and salt. She dished up boiled pota nts
with another saucer and flipped the gee
cornbread onto a platter to cool. She took ie
plates from a stack on the wall shelf nearest ae
stove and placed them face down on the t@ ae
It was twenty past eleven. It was ten ger
before they would eat. Dinner was always S€?
at exactly eleven-thirty.
May Lene passed through the sitting ro far
joining the kitchen. She took a seat at the
end of the long front porch.
What had gone wrong with everything, °
it all wrong from the very beginning? ceed it
tried to do the best she could. Could she he!P
om ad-
r was
nad
>: eee oe
if he hadn’t listened to her? That’s what came
of bad blood . . . not her blood, but her husband’s.
Then it wasn’t her fault. She could not have
made him any different no matter what she had
done. The Sunday School lesson yesterday had
been about just that ... the sins of the fathers.
She had forgotten now how Miss Crompton had
interpreted that. It really didn’t matter. She
herself understood from her own personal experi-
ence. Wasn’t that the best explanation for any-
thing .. . personal experience? She felt perspira-
tion in her hands. Rust on the swing chain had
rubbed off on her right hand. She swabbed it
with a hankerchief kept handy in her pocket.
Looking through the window of the sitting
room, May Lene saw the place where he had lain
dead in his coffin two weeks ago. She saw his
face, the still, long fingers of his hands, one hand
folded over the other. She thought about his hair.
It hadn’t looked dead, but it was dead and stiff
too when you touched it, and she had. It had
been dark and shiny like her own. She remem-
bered what they always said: the hair grows on
for a while after one dies. The nails grow on.
How long would they grow? Were they growing
now ... like they didn’t know he was dead? She
wished she didn’t know it. She wished he weren’t
dead and it all hadn’t happened. She suddenly
wished her children were small again and she
had her time to go over with them. She would
make things be different. She would make him
be different.
She didn’t like to cry. She had never been one
for crying, but she was alone now and she threw
her hands awkwardly up to her face and cried.
After a while she got up and dried her face on
her apron, remembering the rust on her hanker-
chief. After dinner she would wash it and press
it and put it back into a clean apron. Everybody
said that she was a clean and neat woman, and
she was proud that they could say that about her.
Buddy walked through the dirt yard of his
mother’s house. He didn’t like to walk through
her yard, but that was the only way to get to
his house. He still called his mother’s house
“home.” He wanted to get out of the habit, but
it was hard to do. Everything about his mother’s
house had been homey and comfortable, he
thought. He could hear her footsteps in her
kitchen as he neared the back porch. She moved
quickly and every movement counted for some-
thing. She was not wasteful with her energy.
She had always said that time and energy were
the same as money. He wondered why she had
so little money if this were true. He didn’t like
to think such thoughts, as the thoughts them-
selves were acts of disloyalty. He had never liked
to question her. A man ought to trust his mother
completely.
Ever since Donnie was killed by that crazy,
jealous man, things had changed. Maybe, Buddy
thought, I am getting old. Maybe that is why I
dread to walk through my mother’s yard. I
would like to be a child again, eating at her table,
resting on her porch after dinner was done. I
would not be going to the house of an unfeeling
woman, my wife, trying to make a place feel like
home and finding that it can’t be. He was seized
with concern for his mother and her grief. He
felt a throbbing pang of loneliness for his brother
who was dead, but whom he had seldom seen
in life since the two of them had grown up.
Buddy had stayed at the grave and seen with
his own eyes how they lowered Donnie into the
earth. Buddy had gotten out of the Cadillac fur-
nished by the Bronze-Winer Funeral Home for
the family to ride in to the funeral service and
had gone and stood by his brother’s grave until
the casket was lowered and the pall bearers had
thrown their white carnations on the top of it
and turned away. He had turned away with them
and walked to the automobile. He had been aware
of the eyes of his neighbors on him and he had
been aware of the white flowers falling into the
open pit.
“Come in, Buddy. Eat with us. I have plenty,
such as it is.”
He had truly hoped to escape her, he thought
to himself, but already he was on the porch.
“T can’t, Mama.”’
But all the time he was walking in and waiting
to be asked again.
“T’ve got to go on to the house. Celie Ann will
be looking for me. She has probably got the
sandwiches ready by now.”
He didn’t bother to add that he thought she
might also have some complaints to go along with
the sandwiches. He did not think he wanted to
hear his mother’s remarks on that score. She
always took his side and made out Celie Ann
to be even worse than she was. Women, he
thought to himself. If I could just understand
them a little. And better still, if I could just
walk away from them all and forget everything
I ever knew about them. He looked at his mother
33
— " — el
SSS ee”
again and felt guilty.
“Why, Mama,” he said, seeing that she had set
his place at the head of the table while he had
been busy thinking, “You shouldn’t have done
that. Putting me a place and all. I can’t eat
here with you. I have to go home.”
“No, you don’t go. It seems so good to have
you here. Celie Ann won’t care. She’ll know
where you are.”
It was settled. Celie Ann would know where
he was.
Buddy went over to the shelf that projected
from the north wall. He proceeded to pour water
by the dipper-full into the enameled basin. He
washed his hands with a clean white rag and
box-lye soap his mother provided. Then he poured
the water, slick and greenish from the tobacco,
out the back door and refilled the pan. This time
he splashed water on his burning face and wiped
it clean in a guano-sack towel.
Yes, he thought, I’d like to be here again, the
way I used to be when Pa used to come home
drunk. I couldn’t ever see why he wanted to do
that. I would have to look after Ma to make
sure he didn’t get hold of her. He could have
killed her when he was in his rages, but I was
always here and she would say that she didn’t
know what she would do without me. I’d listen
to her afterwards when Pa had worn himself out
and had gone to sleep and she would tell me
that if it weren’t for me, she couldn’t stay here
at all. I don’t know if it really was that she needed
me so much, but she needed me some and that’s
more than at my wife’s house.
He looked at his mother, and somehow she
seemed more independent than he had remem-
bered her to be and more independent than he
seemed to himself. She moved expertly and confi-
dently, pulling out the wooden chair for him. This
was his father’s chair, and, though it was his
whenever he ate with them, he always felt a
little foolish sitting in it. He heard his father’s
steps on the uneven back porch and thought may-
be he ought to get up and offer his father his chair
when he came in, but he knew he would feel
awkward doing that. So he put his elbows on
the table and relaxed.
His father did not speak, but poured water in
the basin, as he had done, and washed his hands
in the same way. And splashed his face too with
clean, cool water. His father looked around while
drying his face and hands on the guano sack. He
looked at the other chair which belonged to the
34
table and the stool which May Lene had added for
another seat. The stool was generally used ”
hold May Lene’s favorite fern, but sometimes,
like today, it was used for an extra table chair:
He seemed undecided which of the two seats
to take.
It is as if he doesn’t know his place, Buddy
thought. It is like he just followed along. Mama
is the real leader. And suddenly he hated “9
father for never having known his place soe"
for never having been the leader. His father ha
flopped down in the chair on Buddy’s right side,
and Buddy could smell him, hot and sweaty like
tobacco when it is still green and full of bitter-
ness and sticky gum. He hated the smell of h!s
father, even though he knew he carried the gue
smell himself. He looked at his father’s face a?
studied the loose flesh, which had fallen and gone
to wrinkles. The mouth was partly open, .
though it had to be for him to breathe. A lot -
his teeth were gone and had not been ——.
and never would be, because his father ~—
care enough to bother about getting it done. r
looked last at his father’s eyes. They were ee
ish and glassy, without luster. They sugges”
endurance. As quickly as Buddy had felt hat
that quickly had it gone away.
After the meal, Buddy’s father went back .
the tobacco barn. Buddy and May Lene we?
to the front porch where he stretched out sol
shut his eyes. He rested his head on an old ig
down pillow that was kept there in summer a
that purpose. It was as old as Buddy could .
member. His mother sat in the swing and mov
it just enough to keep up a creaking noise. a
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she said, 4
waited for some kind of response from Buddy.
He opened his eyes. 3 nap-
“T just can’t see what makes some things =a
pen like they do. You do the best you can- dren
try to be a good woman and raise your chil¢ os
the best way you know how, and then thin
turn out like this.”
He closed his eyes. . fault
“T don’t see where it could have been my ae
— what happened to him. I never could see easel
he had to be the way he was, even when he a
just a child. And us looking for him and pa
being away a whole year before we found “
where he was. You remember, Buddy? We oe
ly got a postcard. Just one, mind you. And -
the next time we saw him, he was grown 4
married to a fair-woman.”
May Lene spat out the word “fair.” She was
talking more to herself now than to him. She
must have realized it because she paused. The
swing creaked rapidly. She held to the swing
chain with one hand, but now she was not aware
that her hand perspired.
She said, “Well, you can’t help it if you have
bad blood. That’s one thing you can’t help. He
had it and I figure that must have been the reason
he was the way he was. That man who killed him
didn’t know he couldn’t help being the way he was.
It’s too bad he didn’t know — maybe he wouldn’t
have done it. But I tell you, Buddy, as much as
I hate it happening like it did and all, I know I’m
going to see more peace with him dead than I’ve
seen since he was born. I hate to say that, but
it’s so. He never brought me nothing but worry.”
This out, May Lene stopped the creaking of
the swing. She took her hand off the swing chain
and rubbed it on her apron. She was not con-
cerned about rust or stains. Her heart didn’t
beat as fast now, and she could take a deep breath.
Buddy, with his eyes closed, had not paid much
attention to the first part. He had heard it too
many times before — bad blood causes bad things.
He had accepted it a long time ago. But when
May Lene had gotten to the part about seeing
more peace with Donnie dead, Buddy had taken
notice and dwelled on her words, each one sep-
arately.
He thought about Donnie and the man who had
killed Donnie. Somehow, he felt that if this man
had known their mother, he might not have killed
Donnie. The man had been jealous of his wife
and Donnie. They had laughed and walked off
together and the man had gone after them with
his shotgun. He had killed with reason. Buddy
knew how it was to be jealous. He had always
been jealous of his mother. Sometimes he had
been jealous of his wife too, but it had been most-
ly his mother. He had always thought that deep
in her heart his mother had loved Donnie more
than she had loved him, even when Donnie had
left her for the fair, and for the fair-woman, and
then the last woman. Sometimes, after Donnie
had first gone away, Buddy had prayed that he
would not come back. That had been a long time
ago when Buddy was only about ten. Now he was
Sorry. It was like his jealousy made him guilty,
too. He wanted to look at his mother.
Instead, he stretched his body, flexed his arms,
and adjusted the down pillow so that the stiff
corner of the ticking did not dig into his cheek.
He turned his mind to the farm and work to be
done, turned to his father, turned to Celie Ann
making dinner to eat alone; turned, settled, and
centered on Celie Ann. “Celie Ann, I think I’ve
made a mistake. I ought to have gone home to
dinner. I really should’ve. Ma, here, she’s had
me fooled about a lot of things. I don’t know
now that she ever loved anybody. I hate to say
that, Celie Ann, ’cause it might mean I didn’t
either. I’m a lot like her, you know, and I’d hate
to say I never loved nobody because I thought I
did. I thought I loved you when we got married.
I could have swore I did. And now, I don’t know.
I’ve been pretty mean myself . . . I mean leaving
you and staying to eat with Ma anytime at all
and not letting you know. I reckon I treated you
like a dog sometimes.” And then he thought about
the dog, Crumbles. Crumbles probably got what
would have been Buddy’s dinner of baloney sand-
wiches. That’s what Celie Ann would always say
when Buddy stayed to eat at his mother’s house.
“The dog got your dinner.” And he had never
cared. Not until now.
May Lene had gone back to creaking the swing.
Buddy tried to concentrate on his father. He
pictured his father at the barn adjusting the heat
in the hot barn. Then he pictured him counting
out sticks for the afternoon’s work ahead. They
hoped to get three hundred sticks full of tobacco
that afternoon and his father by now may have
already counted out the twelve bundles of twenty-
five sticks each. They always counted out the
sticks and placed them in bundles by the looper’s
racks and had them ready so as not to waste
time once they started. Buddy thought that he
really ought to go down there and help his father.
He thought he really should’ve before now. The
notion seemed compelling. He didn’t see how
he could have been so neglectful of work that
was rightfully his, too. After all, didn’t they
share the crop equally?
Buddy opened his eyes, and sat up suddenly.
“Did all that talk sound funny, Son?” his
mother asked. “Maybe I ought not to have said
what I did about Donnie. I hope I didn’t scare
you, talking like that. I know it’s not becoming
to me.”
“No, Ma.”
“I’m glad you don’t hold what I say against me,
Buddy. I don’t know what I’d do without you
sometimes. I reckon I’ve always thought so much
of you because I could speak my real mind to you.”
35
It seemed to Budy that his mother was really
speaking her own mind to her own self. She
wasn’t even looking at him.
“Well, Ma,” Buddy got up from his sitting po-
sition on the edge of the porch and stood leaning
against the porch post, feeling the dryness of
the splintery post absorbing some of the dampness
from 1's shirt, “I ought to go down there and
help Pa. He’s getting too old to work near about
clean through the dinner hour.”
May Lene was glad to be by herself again. She
could rest and think. She always could think bet-
ter by herself. It occurred to her that she had
never really been by herself until now.
Buddy walked down the dirt path to the to-
bacco barn. On either side of the path dog fen-
nels grew high. He broke one now and then and
they popped, so full they were of summer juice.
He felt the hot sand come up on his shoes as he
walked, and he had to lift his feet high with silat
step to clear his shoes of the sand. As he ener:
the barn, Buddy could see that his father ha¢
finished the work of counting out the sticks a”
was sitting on the edge of a tobacco truck, fanning
himself with his battered old straw hat. He
looked more tired than Buddy had ever seen him.
“Pa, I was just going to help you with the
sticks,” Buddy said. ; all
“It’s all right, Boy. I’ve got everything 4
ready. It’s still a quarter till one.”
Buddy straddled the middle of a looping rack
and leaned against one end of it, propping his
feet on the other end. He tried to think of some
thing to say. There was nothing he could thin
of that would not sound put on, or maybe be
put on. He wanted something that would be true
and good.
CONTRIBUTORS
Jerry Tillotson, former student, member of East Carolina College Poetry
Forum
Charlotte McMichael, student
James Forsyth, student
Sanford Peele, English instructor, director of East Carolina Poetry Forum
Pat Outlaw Cooper, Atlantic Christian College alumna, Wilson housewife
36
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