Big Money

The Camera Eye (49)

walking from Plymouth to North Plymouth through the raw air of Massachusetts Bay at each step a small cold squudge through the sole of one shoe

looking out past the grey framehouses under the robinsegg April sky across the white dories anchored in the bottleclear shallows across the yellow sandbars and the slaty bay ruffling to blue to the eastward

this is where the immigrants landed the roundheads the sackers of castles the kingkillers haters of oppression this is where they stood in a cluster after landing from the crowded ship that stank of bilge on the beach that belonged to no one between the ocean that belonged to no one and the enormous forest that belonged to no one that stretched over the hills where the deertracks were up the green rivervalleys where the redskins grew their tall corn in patches forever into the incredible west

for threehundred years the immigrants toiled into the west

and now today

walking from Plymouth to North Plymouth suddenly round a bend in the road beyond a little pond and yellowtwigged willows hazy with green you see the Cordage huge sheds and buildings companyhouses all the same size all grimed the same color a great square chimney long roofs sharp ranked squares and oblongs cutting off the sea the Plymouth Cordage this is where another immigrant worked hater of oppression who wanted a world unfenced when they fired him from the cordage he peddled fish the immigrants in the dark framehouses knew him bought his fish listened to his talk following his cart around from door to door you ask them What was he like? why are they scared to talk of Bart scared because they knew him scared eyes narrowing black with fright? a barber the man in the little grocerystore the woman he boarded with in scared voices they ask Why won’t they believe? We knew him We seen him every day Why won’t they believe that day we buy the eels?

only the boy isn’t scared

pencil scrawls in my notebook the scraps of recollection the broken halfphrases the effort to intersect word with word to dovetail clause with clause to rebuild out of mangled memories unshakably (Oh Pontius Pilate) the truth

the boy walks shyly browneyed beside me to the station talks abouthow Bart helped him with his homework wants to get ahead why should it hurt him to have known Bart? wants to go to Boston University we shake hands don’t let them scare you

accustomed the smokingcar accustomed the jumble of faces rumble cozily homelike towards Boston through the gathering dark how can I make them feel how our fathers our uncles haters of oppression came to this coast how say Don’t let them scare you how make them feel who are your oppressors America

rebuild the ruined words worn slimy in the mouths of lawyers districtattorneys collegepresidents judges without the old words the immigrants haters of oppression brought to Plymouth how can you know who are your betrayers America

or that this fishpeddler you have in Charlestown Jail is one of your founders Massachusetts?