Frank Palescandolo

The Last Beatnik: a Novel Frank Palescandolo

When I was taken to Bellevue Psychiatric Ward I was in a state of severe depression. I huddled within myself, bone against bone, trying to discover surcease in a living center of dead and numbing feeling. I remained in this condition weeks and more until one bright afternoon. I was sitting on a pavilion chair facing the East River swaddled in a gray blanket. A blanket corner flapped open revealing to my eyes a pattern of active ants encircling a cement flower pot. I was struck by a fearless wonder. As I reached out to them lovingly, they chained across the grinning muscles of my face and prickled my face. I crossed my arms as if to embrace them all. I stood tall suddenly, the blanket fell to the ground. I stood naked against the rusted railing of the pavilion. I was free of that clammy fear and most therapeutic of all I was told I began to sob violently that shook a once rigid body into a dawning acquiescence of that day. I was painting to create a distance between myself and the written word. A double view, some say the artist's irony. It is impossible to see irony in one's life without a view apart. A canvas on a distant easel. Is there a plot in my life, a prescription, a set course, a dead reckoning? Finally, I accepted the dictum of ancient source, Amor Fati. Love your life and allow it to play out is potentialities. North. North