Paul's Case III

Paul's Case III
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“the plot of all dramas,
the text of all romances,
the nerve-stuff of all
sensations was whirling
about him like snow-flakes”
—Willa Cather,
Paul’s Case, A Study
in Temperament

Improvised fictions—
tripping me up, old film palaces
Instead of horrible yellow wall-paper

I never went up—
Cordelia Street without
a shudder of loathing

I approached it to-night—
with the nerveless sense of defeat,
the hopeless feeling of sinking
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Sinking back forever—
into ugliness and commonness
that always had been home

The moment I turned into—
Cordelia Street I felt dark waters
closing above my head

After each of these orgies
of living—I experienced all the
physical depression of a debauch
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The loathing of respectable—
beds, common food, a house
penetrated by kitchen odors

A shuddering repulsion—
for my flavorless, colorless every-day
existence, a morbid desire to escape

Several of my teachers—
had a theory that my imagination had
been perverted by garish fiction
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But the truth was that I—
scarcely ever read at all and I was
never tempted by the usual dirty novels

How could books either tempt—
or corrupt my youthful mind, since
I was already tres decadent & perverted

I got what I wanted much more—
quickly from movies, any sort of movies
from film noir to tacky romantic tear-jerkers
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All I needed was a spark—
that indescribable thrill that made
my imagination master of my senses

I had no desire to be a movie star—
I felt no necessity to do any of those
Hollywood things that moviegoers do

All I wanted was to lose myself—
There in the darkness, floating on a wave,
carried away blue league after blue league
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After a night beneath the silver screen—
I found the school-room even more than ever
repulsive, depressing, demeaning to me

The bare floors and naked walls—
the tacky men who were never stylish
never violets in their button-holes

The women with their dull gowns—
shrill voices, and pitiful seriousness
about prepositions that govern the dative
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I couldn’t bear to have other pupils—
think for a moment that I took these
boring, bourgeois people seriously

I had to convey to them—
that I considered it all trivial and
nothing more than a sick joke, anyway

They were hard-working women—
most of them supporting indigent husbands
or riffraff brothers or ne'er-do-well sons
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And they laughed rather bitterly-
at having stirred me up to such fervid
and florid rather gay inventions

They agreed with the faculty—
and with my poor troubled stupid father
that mine was a bad case indeed

It was a little after one o'clock—
when I drove up to the Waldorf,
registering from Washington
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When the lovely flowers came—
I put them hastily into a vase of water
and then tumbled into a nice hot bath

Presently I came out of—
my white bath-room, resplendent in my
new silk underwear with my plush red robe

The snow was whirling outside—
I put the violets and jonquils on the
taboret beside the couch and sighed
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I threw myself down—
covering myself with a Roman blanket
and smoked a fat joint

It had been wonderfully simple—
virtually determined and merely a matter
seizing the moment as mine

The only thing surprising—
was my own courage, realizing well enough
that I’d always been tormented by fear
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A sort of apprehensive dread that—
the meshes of all the lies I’d told were
closing in around me at last

Claustrophobically pulling the—
muscles of my body tighter and tighter
until now when I finally broke through

I couldn’t remember the time—
when I hadn’t been dreading something
even when I was just a naïve little boy
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It was always there behind me—
or in front of me or on either side of me
always shadowing my every thought

The dark place I dared not look
something in the attic or closet seemed
always to be watching me, smirking at me

I’d done things that weren’t pretty—
pretty to watch, pretty to live through
or pretty to be seen by hypocritical others
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But now I had a curious sense of relief—
as though I’d at last thrown down the
gay gauntlet to the thing in the closet

Yet it was but a day since I’d been—
sulking back on Cordelia Street and
stealing the Denny & Carson's deposits

There was over $100,000 stolen—
My shocked father repaying the theft
The whole town saying “I told you so.”
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I spent more than an hour dressing—
watching every stage of my toilet so very
carefully in the huge expensive mirror

Everything was quite perfect—
I was now exactly the kind of boy that
I’d always wanted to be: a rich one

Violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley—
somehow vastly just as lovely and alluring
as me blossoming unnaturally in New York
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The Park itself below was a wonderful—
stage winter-piece, around me the glaring
affirmation of my omnipotence and wealth

I gazed into the mirror at myself—
drawing my shoulders together in a
spasm of realization of what I’d done

I was burning like a faggot in a tempest—
the only way I could have ever gone all
the way and finally become myself
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I went down to dinner with the
music of the orchestra floating up
the elevator shaft to greet him

My head whirled as I stepped into—
the thronged corridor and he sank back
into one of the chairs to get my breath

This certainly wasn’t the first time—
I’d steered my queenly self through
treacherous stormy str8t waters
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Let there be lights, camera, action—
it was like a bewildering technicolor movie
so intense that I almost wasn’t able to stand it

For a moment these were own people—
as I went slowly about the corridors & thru the
writing-rooms, smoking-rooms, reception-rooms

As though I were exploring the—
chambers of an enchanted palace, built and
peopled for only for me alone
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When I reached the dining-room—
I sat down at a table near a window with
flowers, white linen, many-colored wine glasses

The gay toilettes of the women—
the low popping of corks, the undulating
repetitions of the orchestra’s "Blue Danube"

It all flooded me like a dream—
bewildering in its radiance with the rosy tinge
of champagne was added to make it perfect
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That cold, precious, bubbling stuff—
that creamed and foamed in my glass
were there any honest men in the world at all?

This was what all the world—
was fighting for, I realized and this
surely was what all the struggle was about

I doubted the reality of my past—
had I ever known a tacky Cordelia Street
a place of fagged-out business men?
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Cordelia Street belonged to another—
time and country and all I wanted to do was
sit here night after night, not remembering

Looking pensively over the shimmering—
textures and slowly twirling the stem of my
glass, had it not always been this way?

I wasn’t the least abashed or lonely—
I had no special desire to meet or to know
any of these pageant wealthy people
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All I demanded was the right to cruise—
and conjecture, to watch the exquisite chic
Metropolitan movie unfold around me

My new surroundings explained me—
nobody questioned my gayness which I wore
passively, nobody around to humiliate me

His dearest pleasure was the—
gray winter twilight in my sitting-room
the quiet enjoyment of my flowers
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My stylish clothes, my wide divan—
My cigarettes, my sense of power and being
for a time when so at peace with myself

The mere release from the usual—
the necessity of petty lying, lying every day
and every night, my self-respect restored

I had never lied for pleasure—
even at school, but rather to be noticed
and admired, to assert my difference
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I felt a good deal more manly—
even more queenly as well, now that
there was no need for boastful pretensions

Now I could simply "dress the part"—
remorse didn’t occur, my golden days went
by without a shadow, as perfect as can be

The gray monotony stretched behind me—
the hopeless, unrelieved years, the tacky
yellow-papered room, the damp dish-towels
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Then it all rushed back on me—
with a sickening vividness, the sinking
sensation that the movie was over

Sweat broke out on my face—
I sprang to my feet, looking around me
the self-conscious mirror winked at me

The morning papers had my picture—
I suddenly lost my childish belief in
miracles which would surely save me
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There came upon me one of those—
fateful attacks of clear-headedness that
never occurred except when I felt doomed

I was physically exhausted and my nerves—
Hung loose down from my haggard face until
I closed my eyes and jumped from the balcony