Ghosts of Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village ... Le Figaro Cafe ... Corner of Bleecker and McDougall ... banana and pecan cake and cream and coffee on the sidewalk and along comes a gentle, beggar ... so polite ... ‘Would you help a poor, hungry man, sir?’ I buy a Village paper ... ‘Insider’ ... and, giving him a dollar, look around me. Can it be?The ghosts of the Beat Generation? They talked up a revolution in letters on these very streets ... actually no sign now, just a Village cafe and, over there, on the corner, a bar and grill, called, unoriginally, as I remember, MacDougall’s. I wonder who MacDougall was? Who was Bleecker? Two young tourists, German, I think, ask a waiter where can they buy the ‘Village Voice’? The waiter points right, down MacDougall Street. One of the tourists gets up, goes around the corner, comes back with the paper, sits down. I go inside. There is no memorabilia on the wall. It is sepia in here out of the sidewalk sunlight. A waitress stands on a chair, writing on a board. It is now I hear those ghost voices.

‘What’s Burroughs doing now?’

‘He’s down in Texas with Julie and Joan. Got himself a farm in New Waverley.’

Suddenly it is 1947.

‘Where’s Jack?’

‘He’s on the road.’

The literature comes later and I am back in present time. The San Remo bar has long ago closed. I am in Chumley’s. Their photographs are on the wall. Celebrated now. And gone. Only the words remain. Dust jackets line the walls also. There’s Dr Sax over there.

Outside on Bedford Street two grizzled old guys play chess in the sunlight.

Later I pass a book store. A poster of Kerouac adorns the door. ‘I’m in here’ the caption reads. I guess he is. He was a writer.