Soul of a Whore and Purvis (20 page)

A lunatic's retreat, or lazar house.

For pestilential leper sorts of folks?

A lazar house?

A mental hospital, but ever since

I've known of it, it's been the Baptist college.

Say now, what on earth's the difference?

Either one, you'd have to be crazy to go there.

…You wonder about the kids: how do they choose—

I didn't know where to head for, so one day

I walked in through that door and interviewed,

Right like you right now. That was a turn in the road.

Prelaw…I almost tried philosophy…

I nearly majored in theology.

I was drawn to it because…I feel a lack.

I missed my call, I reckon. Yes, right there

I reached a turn in the road. Do you have children?

You got me thinking. Yes. I have three sons,

All grown up and on their own. And you?

…O, yes, the—Sorry, yes, the…lunchbox.

But I have actually brought the original—

Would you do me the honor of an autograph?

Thanks—I've got a—sure—I'll—thanks—

“A special greeting to all Junior G-men!”

…“Purvis”—that's like “Elvis.”

I'm just so nervous. Right—I do have kids.

…“In the days when I was a Junior G-man…”

“Confidential from Melvin Purvis.” Well—

It's sort of an intoxicating honor,

I mean to me you're big, as big as Elvis

Would be to my—I have a son, a daughter…

Young women mystify and terrify me.

Have you seen the way they wear those peasant blouses,

And they pull the elastic down to expose their white

And mystifying and terrifying shoulders?

…Is it true that Dillinger, you know, had

A monstrous, you know, had a monstrous—

In an attempt to minister to his wounds

They cut his clothing from him in the van

As I was watching. Never such a one

On any human being. There was gathered

All the animal evil in him, coiled

And burgeoning.

—I am that very ordinary bird called

The Carolina Pot-gut Button-popper.

Middle-aged old rooster with his wings clipped.

Tell the truth I wouldn't be surprised

One morning if I laid a egg! Rr-rr

Rr-roo! My wife thinks I'm a clumsy oaf.

I'm no longer the graceful oaf she married.

…Never a G-man. Naught but a Junior G-man.

I haven't got what it takes to be a G-man.

You did your very best, I'm sure you made—

A child of seven or eight—

…O, I had that pamphlet memorized!

“Tips for shadowing suspects.” “Secret codes.”

“About disguises.” “How to surround a house.”

Sometimes I feel, do you ever feel, I feel

At night as if my own house is surrounded.

The nights don't give me my rest like they should.

I'm startled awake by noises that aren't there.

I hear the wind, and I can feel the night

Lying over everything.

I can smell the ashtrays in the rooms.

I listen to my wife's breathing,

And sometimes it stops for long intervals,

Sometimes I count as high as eighteen, twenty,

Then she takes a breath. And I realize:

O, my Lord, I'm actually going to die.

Someday these thoughts will end—

I roll out of bed in terror and I fall

To my knees beside the bed

And I call out for anything at all

To hear me, and I shape a clear resolve

And whisper vows that come as feverish

As any I would make to get the hangman's

Noose from off my neck. But I don't know

What, exactly, I'm promising,
some
thing, just

Some way of being different, and if I
can
,

Then that will save the world…But I don't know…

The nights don't give me my rest like they should.

In the daylight my blood feels watery.

All my vows and all my fine resolves

Dissolve into corruption.

I walk around the town and everything

Feels silent no matter how much noise we make,

Like we aren't
people
, we haven't been
informed
,

We're walking around but we have no names.

I used to enjoy the moving picture shows,

But now I sit there in the crowd and I just

Smell my fellow Americans stinking and

I hear the breath ride in and out of their mouths

So loudly it mutes the spectacle.

Do you remember
Frankenstein
with Boris

Karloff?

Sold me a ticket printed on a cobweb—

Where's the glorious circus? It's dark. I hear the wind.

It was only a noise in a dream that woke me up.

There isn't any Heaven. There isn't any Hell.

I smell the ashtrays in the rooms…And then

I rise from bed. I go into the morning.

My children embrace me vaguely and politely,

My daughter comes to kiss me, and her face

And fingers smell like the puppy she's been petting.

And in this world the spring is turning green

And I see how I'm beginning to disappoint

My son. Just as I disappointed my father.

What pleased me once no longer pleases me,

And the bright things pale in my sight,

And meanwhile, things that never could have failed—

My little daughter's little hand, her kisses—

They give out. Give way. And now my daughter

Stands level with my shoulder, and she wears

Those peasant blouses, and her friends…are pretty.

And I go to see my father at his house.

He sits in a wicker chair beside a weeping

Willow and the chair is chipped and sets

Askew and he tips a little and his hands

Are tiny and his fly is down and his eyes

Are wet and red-rimmed; and the way they shine

While something works the corners of his mouth,

He looks as if he's trying not to laugh

At something terrifying coming up

Behind me. “Dad,” I say, and he says, “What,

What is it?”—but the point is gone in saying,

Dad, I'm someone you might pride yourself

To call your son. For all the hope of reaching

Him who was my father, I might as well

Be speaking to his headstone. “Father, Father,

It's raining on us both, on me and on

Your wicker chair beside the weeping willow.”

One afternoon when I was a child the sky

Blackened and bits of trash whirled up and around

And the rain ripped down like knives and at the window

Of the house my father held me in the crook

Of his arm, I was that small, and we both watched

That willow twisting till a lash of lightning

Tore a third of it away from the trunk

And pitched it across the yard—and, sir, no storm,

No wind, no dark, no violence

Could possibly have touched me in the fortress

Of my father's arm…. O well…O well…Ah, shit. Ah, shit.

Mr. Purvis, I can stride right now

Right into that pasture right out there

And tickle fresh, warm milk from out the teats

Of the great-grandchildren of the very cows

Who gave us milk to pour on our Post Toasties!

…I mean when I was a child. When I was a child.

…Remember, now, this bloodgush horrorshow

Unfolds within a splendid natural silence

Forty miles outside Chicago proper,

Near Baker Lake, where the mallard ducks

Had not yet left, though late November had come,

And they sailed on its glass…All right:

Two of my agents, Ryan and McDade,

Passing a Ford on the Northwest Highway, matched

Three numbers on its plates with those of Nelson's,

Now America's number one Most Wanted.

They quickly turned around, but so did Nelson,

Absolutely ready for a fight,

And when they crossed again, again he turned,

And chased them north, firing his tommy gun,

Chewing up their car, and they fired back,

Neither drawing blood as yet. With Nelson

Traveled his woman Helen and John Paul Chase,

A red-mouthed harlot and a no-good punk,

And now, as they fell behind, leaking

Water from a punctured radiator,

Two more agents in another car

Closed with Nelson's Ford V-8—Sam Cowley

And Herman Hollis—Nelson chasing agents

And agents chasing Nelson—until Ryan

Sped away, quite unaware that help

Had come. As Nelson's engine quit, he turned

Into the Northside Park in Barrington

And bumped to a halt. Helen ran for a drainage

Ditch and Chase and Nelson grabbed their guns

And ducked behind the Ford and fired at Sam

And Hollis as their car went by. The agents

Bailed, neither wounded, Hollis taking

Cover from his car and Cowley rolling

Into a second ditch, both firing back.

Now, Cowley headed our Chicago office,

And Hollis was with me at the Biograph

When we took Dillinger. Hollis was among

The men who actually shot and killed the varlet.

Crack shots both, firing from good cover,

They gave no quarter in this battle until,

Quite beyond my comprehension to this day,

Nelson simply stood up, steadying

His Thompson at his hip, and strode toward them,

Firing rapid bursts and cursing. Cowley

Hit him in the side, yet he kept coming.

He took another in the belly, still came on,

Rounded the car and slaughtered Hollis as

The agent ran for different cover, and,

Turning to Cowley—who'd been filling him

All the while with bullets—stood above him

There at the ditch's edge and made his wife

A widow with the tommy gun. He then

Managed to get in the federal car and start it,

And then those bastards sped away and left

Two agents, good men both, dead in their wake.

Next morning, in a cemetery close

To Nelson's hometown, Fox Grove, Illinois,

They found his naked corpse wrapped in a blanket.

The coroner counted seventeen bullet holes.

His name was Lester Joseph Gillis. He

Was one week shy of twenty-six years old.