Sunday, October 12, 2003

The cover of ROADHOUSE TRAMP showed a beautiful naked redhead and declared itself to be the "French Classic of Pineywoods Passion". Inside were reproduced crude and vulgar drawings of the sort you find in toilet stalls. These were credited as 'the original illustrations by Raoul DuBuffet'. Remember this was before the publication of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (1973? maybe) and in paperback literature the inclusion of illustrations invariably communicated that the book in question was aimed at a children's market. I think this was the central focus of the subversiveness that ROADHOUSE TRAMP seemed to emanate. 2:05:23 PM    comment []

"If I was found dead then the Director would not have to worry about me at all. If the Senator's son was found dead, why then the Senator could escape the public glare in his private grief. Dead by our own hands. The admission of our wrongness. It'll make a nice two page spread. It'll satisfy some of the righteous public bloodlust. The Clear Error of Facism." "Are you planning on dying, Bubel?" the G-Man asked. "Eventually." 1:43:57 PM    comment []

"Pardon my fucking French, Harvey but that bitch wife of mine is going to mess things up proper if she carries on with this divorce," says Barnes to Harvey. They're out in the field which Harvey has chosen for his new tires and Harvey is supervising the arrangement of them by two of his negro boys from the station. "Ace," Harvey calls to one, "gimme a stack of about ten of them there. We can check it for height." Harvey has in his mind a very clear notion of how his tire pile is going to look. "What can I do?" Harvey says to Barnes. "She's got pictures of you screwing her colored girl which is likely going to convince a judge that you're not a very good husband. Which you ain't. Isn't. Aren't. Ace, try twelve." "You could kill her," Barnes suggests. "I wouldn't kill your second wife and I'm not going to kill this one." "Well, you could sleep with her. If I had pictures of you sleeping with her then I'd have some ammunition. Those pictures of me are such damn good pictures, that's the problem. There's one of them has captured me and my manhood so tremendous that I'm gonna get me a copy off that meddling private cop photographer after this trouble is over so I can have it to look at when I'm old that I might remember my glory." "Remember how you was always led around by your dick, Cousin Barnes." "Oh and you're a fine one to be talking about dicks and where they might lead, Harvey. So you'll try to sleep with this wife of mine, o.k.? This is the one you liked, remember? And she's a Baptist too." 1:22:53 PM    comment []

"You don't have go to school," Deela explains to Ginnie, "but if you don't and you're not a 'special case' like Boo Boo, then Injun Girl is mean to you and makes you clean toilets because that's all you're going to be able to do if you get old and Harvey goes bust." "Why is Boo Boo a special case?" "Boo Boo got some of the Black Irish Stimpson blood and there was trouble at school. You can go to school in town. They're not very nice to us in town but they're scared of Harvey. Or you can go to the Country School but its for babies. When Mrs. Philper doesn't know what to teach you anymore and when you've read all her books it gets boring. Then Mrs. Philper makes you clean toilets and you might as well be home with Injun Girl. " 'You have to go to school or else make money but not on your back', is what Harvey says," Deela has a very particular voice she uses in mimicing her father's pronouncements. "Annette works in a drugstore. Cairo hustles pool. Can you hustle pool?" "No," says Ginnie. "Then you better come to school in town with me." Deela says, reaching up to pat Ginnie's shoulder encouragingly. "Does your brother Charles ever say anything?" "Not really," Ginnie admitted. When her parents had been alive Charles' silence had not been a topic of conversation. "It's funny," confided Deela, "Ever since y'all got here Charles has been up in Mary's room. Mary doesn't usually let kids stay up with her. Mary doesn't usually momma a body." Deela says this somewhat wistfully. She's only nine. "Maybe Charles will be a special case. Do you want to see my dolls?" "I think I'm too old to play with dolls," Ginnie says mournfully. Deela snorts derisively. "Hell, Mary and Injun Girl play dolls. Pardon my french." 12:31:25 PM    comment []

"Every day is a new beginning," Harvey Stimpson brightly declared sitting down to the breakfast table resplendent in his checked suit and a tie of peacock motif. "Every day is a new beginning," chorused back the younger Stimpsons who had the antiphonal habit, Ginnie had already noted, of playing their papa's echo. Injun Girl put a great stack of pancakes before Harvey who then slathered them with cane syrup. Mary was absent. She rarely visited the dining room. The dining room was the long stroke of an L shaped structure that had once been a country Church. It had a steeple with a bell and the bell was tolled at mealtime though attendance was not prompt or apparently expected and mealtime mostly seemed to go all day. The Stimpsons lived not in one but in a multiplicity of houses. It was more like the Stimpson family was a small town. That Harvey was its beloved dictator was clear to Ginnie but not much else was. "Have you always lived here?" Ginnie had asked Deela. Deela was a thoughtful nine year old Stimpson who had taken an interest in Ginnie. The Stimpsons Ginnie's age had mostly ignored her. At one point a female Stimpson teenager had cornered Ginnie with a pair of imposingly blossoming breasts and demanded of her knowlege the anatomical character of which had quite defeated the innocent Ginnie. Ginnie had blushed and stammered and the teenager had smirked, stuck out her tongue and waggled it lewdly. "Don't mind them girls. They're all of 'em filth minded," comforted Deela, "No, we used to have a farm and only one house when I was a little, little girl. But then Harvey bought this place." The Stimpsons often referred to their father by his first name. "Once upon a time, Harvey and Barnes and Mary will all tell you, especially if they've been drinking, all of this land around here was King Cotton land and everybody was always working for the whiteness of it. But then the Boll Weevil come and the little towns around here died and went to Houston and Barnes was always saying that the highway was the future so when Harvey found this lake he felt just like Moses only luckier because he got to live in his promised land." 11:25:59 AM    comment []