Lorax had gone off. She said she had met some people and she was going off with them. Camel considered this. Where had Lorax met some people? She never seemed to leave the house. It didn’t matter. Camel had packed his pipe with some rich homegrown. He sat, meditatively puffing on it, while a wobbly 33 was spinning out a song called “Magdalene, My Regal Zonophone.” Camel believed he understood the song. Herbal insight. The record wobbled so much the singer sounded as if he was gargling. Camel thought this was the way the song was supposed to sound because, for him, it had sounded that way for a long time. On Camel’s lap lay the screenplay to Memphis Movie. He had read it 14 times. And to its jerrybuilt structure he had added two aperçus and one bit of poesy that he filched from an old Lawrence Ferlinghetti paperback. Was this how I used to write? he asked himself. Yes, I always kept open books next to my legal pad, words of thaumaturges and friends and poet-priests. It’s called inspiration.
