Postcard 170

Cut up Poetry/Dialogue from article on Anchor-Outs of Sausalito

'I've been I love with cats for fifty years
They've always been part of my scene'

'Ah, a disciplined man,
we don't get many of those out here.'

'They're some hardcore people out there.
Heavy duty people. People
that have done some shit. A lot
of old smugglers, probably
some dope dealers. Its not
an easy life out there
--especially for women.'

'I came for the opportunities,'
she told me

'Her boat sank and she had another baby
I think some other boat might have hit it
-- might have put a hole in it.
They got it up a few times but
then they had to let it go. She wanted
to go home anyway.'

'Some guy got stabbed on it,' she said,
'its just a bunch of crazy shit
in this nice town.'

'It had happened a few months earlier.
The anchor-outs,' Dream said,
'sent him out as they did anyone
who ended up among them.
They built him a boat,
set it on fire, and
pushed it out to sea.'

'They make a boat for you.
Everyone puts what they got to say to you on it.
And they push it out and light it on fire.
Its a pretty good send off,' he said.
'Its like the Indians. They put
the ashes on the boat. If you keep
the ashes in an urn, you keep
the man locked up, and
he might come back someday
Shit, he might be back now.'

'Its hard to say,' he responded,
'Why do you love anything?
A friend of mine called the other day
and asks --"Do you love your wife?"
-- I thought, wow what a question.
I had to think about that. I meant
to ask him why he asked me that
I'll have to ask him, or maybe not.
There are some things you don't ask about.'

'But its not enough,' she said.
'So I'm trying to become famous.
-- Its the only way.'