Last Words

It is not the truth that hurts, it is the outrageous lie.

If a man has spent years on a book, to fit it together like a symphony, one says:

“This ill-conceived so-called novel, obviously slopped together in a few weeks, has no serious claims even to criticism.”

That’s what gets a writer’s Angora goat. “Why have I spent seven years on [this] book—”

“slopped together”—

What we are up against: liars with no honesty or integrity or decency, just plain bastards, like the people try to run down squirrels or cats or Gila monsters (an endangered species) or cut up manatees with their speed boats:

“Ha Ha Ha.”

January 4, 1997

Just reading Hersey, and other Hiroshima accounts, and got mad as Ed Anger in The [Weekly World] News again.

That lying bastard Conant of Harvard defends dropping the bomb. In his tendentious article he does not even mention radiation sickness: “the Atomic Plague.”

Scene: Conant at podium, all seems very decorous very, very Harvard, then …

“Mr. Conant, you don’t mention radiation sickness in your article? Were you aware of this syndrome when you wrote the article in question?”

All over the hall, voices:

“Yes did he know about …”

And someone has smuggled in a magic lantern, projecting horrible burns.

“No, he didn’t know about nothing.”

Conant visibly reels. He is not accustomed to such treatment.

“Well it was a short article—I could hardly be expected—”

Voice:

“He could hardly be expected—”

Shrill, piercing voices:

“And you knew nothing of Japanese overtures for surrender?” …

Voices:

“He knew nothing …. He was a good nigger, knew his place and kept in it.”

“Good nigger …”

“Knew his place …”

These voices dispersed through the audience, suddenly burst like a bomb in waves of sound—five hundred tape recorders—five hundred voices:

“Get off the stage!”

“Lying cocksucker!”

“Crawl off the stage! Don’t want your type in here!”

“Boo! Boo! Hiss! Hiss!”

Vain attempts to restore order. Conant hustled out by security, pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes—in a state of collapse.

January 7, 1997

Memoirs—what you wouldn’t want anyone to know.

“My past was an evil river—un fleuve maudit.”

Without tenure—who wants an unemployed teacher of Creative Writing.

So write: the law is Love.

In simple form: a feeling for.

Par exemple, I feel no feeling for a centipede. For an abandoned kitten, I feel much sympathy.

Where did the centipede come from?

And what betrayal of the human species could have led some sonofabitch to feed live baby mice to a caged centipede?

Centipede—come from very hot place, from very hot place which formed the centipede … the OVENS, the Ovens, the Oooovens …

Well, forget [it], who cares anymore.

As Sri Aurobindo said: “It is all over.”

January 8, 1997. Wednesday

Another dream of going through Customs with drugs or guns. Definite fear of arrest and imprisonment.

Walking by marble statues, mutilated—a finger here, a prick there.

I hope tomorrow I will be in a luxury or decent hotel, not in a jail cell.

Strong feel of combat. Get up and fight or Die.

Lying bastards from some do-what-we-tell-you orders: