Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter VI
The pets run into the hallway; Johnny's footnote turns to Zampanò's cats and the old man's death.
Automatically, without thought, like a reflex.
They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts.
Beating or throbbing with a regular rhythm.
They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being .
Very strong pain or distress of the mind.
They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over.
Ernest Becker (1924–1974) was an American cultural anthropologist. The quote comes from The Denial of Death (1973), which won the Pulitzer Prize.
Becker says animals live without knowledge of death, and humans must carry that knowledge all their lives. The chapter is about the family pets and the house.
But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one’s dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that’s something else. — Ernest Becker While the pragmatic space of animals is a function of inborn instincts, man has to learn what orientation he needs in order to act.
Practical; about acting in the real world, not about ideas.
But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one’s dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that’s something else. — Ernest Becker While the pragmatic space of animals is a function of inborn instincts, man has to learn what orientation he needs in order to act.
Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926–2000) was a Norwegian architect and architectural theorist. The line comes from Existence, Space and Architecture (1971).
He says animals find their way in space by instinct, and humans must learn orientation. The pair of epigraphs sets up the question of how animals react to the house.
… the most sun-filled days—that’s something else. — Ernest Becker While the pragmatic space of animals is a function of inborn instincts, man has to learn what orientation he needs in order to act. — Christian Norberg-Schulz When Hillary, the grey coated Siberian husky, appears at the end of The Navidson Record, he is no longer a puppy.
A strong dog of a northern breed, used to pull sleds.
… Becker While the pragmatic space of animals is a function of inborn instincts, man has to learn what orientation he needs in order to act. — Christian Norberg-Schulz When Hillary, the grey coated Siberian husky, appears at the end of The Navidson Record, he is no longer a puppy.
A cat with striped or spotted grey or brown fur.
Mallory, the tabby cat, vanishes completely, and no mention is made about what happened to him.
In the USA, the TV networks showed animated series for children on Saturday mornings. The detail sets an ordinary family morning before the event.
The incident took place on August 11th, 1990 a week after Will Navidson’s secret exploration of the hallway. Saturday morning cartoons blare from the kitchen television, Chad and Daisy munch down their breakfast, and Karen stands outside smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone with Audrie McCullogh, her shelf building accomplice.
To make a loud, harsh sound.
Saturday morning cartoons blare from the kitchen television, Chad and Daisy munch down their breakfast, and Karen stands outside smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone with Audrie McCullogh, her shelf building accomplice.
To eat with steady, loud chewing.
Saturday morning cartoons blare from the kitchen television, Chad and Daisy munch down their breakfast, and Karen stands outside smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone with Audrie McCullogh, her shelf building accomplice.
A friend of Karen's, named here as her partner in building the shelves. Karen talks to her on the phone about the house.
Saturday morning cartoons blare from the kitchen television, Chad and Daisy munch down their breakfast, and Karen stands outside smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone with Audrie McCullogh, her shelf building accomplice.
A partner in doing something (usually something wrong; here said as a joke).
Saturday morning cartoons blare from the kitchen television, Chad and Daisy munch down their breakfast, and Karen stands outside smoking a cigarette, talking on the phone with Audrie McCullogh, her shelf building accomplice.
Feng shui is a Chinese tradition that arranges buildings and objects to improve the flow of energy (qi). Turtles, dragons, lions and goldfish are common feng shui charms.
Karen tried it to fix the bad “energy” of the house, and she says it failed.
The topic of the moment is Feng Shui and all it has failed to do.
Of the sky or of heaven.
“No matter how many ceramic turtles or wooden ducks, goldfish, celestial dragons, or bronze lions I put in this goddamn house,” she rants.
A person who drives an evil spirit out of a person or a place.
Or an exorcist.
Hillary, a Siberian husky puppy, and Mallory, a tabby cat, are the Navidson family pets. Their names point to two real Everest climbers: Edmund Hillary, who reached the summit in 1953, and George Mallory, who disappeared on the mountain in 1924.
Note the pattern: Mallory the cat also vanishes without a trace.
Sure enough Hillary and Mallory are in the backyard.
Interview is a real American magazine, founded by Andy Warhol in 1969. The author and the article are invented.
Zampanò cites it as the source for what Hillary looks like at the end of the film.
Endnotes 79See Selwyn Hyrkas’ “The End of City Life” in Interview, v.
A strobe is a flash unit that gives a short, very bright burst of light. Tom and Navidson use it to photograph the dark hallway.
Meanwhile in the living room, Tom helps Navidson take some still shots of the hallway using a strobe.
A flash lamp that gives very short, bright bursts of light.
Meanwhile in the living room, Tom helps Navidson take some still shots of the hallway using a strobe.
A loud, sad cry of a cat or dog.
Suddenly, somewhere in the house, there is a loud yowl and bark.
To bite lightly and quickly.
An instant later Mallory comes screaming into the living room with Hillary nipping at his tail.
An invented four-thousand-page study of The Navidson Record. Harvard University Press is a real publisher. The OCR and some printings show the title as “All Jn All”.
The joke: a huge book gives the pets only a third of a sentence, cited on its page 1,302.
For something so startling, it seems surprising how little has been made of this event. Bernard Porch in his four thousand page treatise on The Navidson Record devotes only a third of a sentence to the subject: “, (strange how the house won’t support the presence of animals).”8° Mary Widmunt leaves …
A long, formal written study of one subject.
Bernard Porch in his four thousand page treatise on The Navidson Record devotes only a third of a sentence to the subject: “, (strange how the house won’t support the presence of animals).”8° Mary Widmunt leaves us with just one terse question: …
An invented critic and an invented essay. Louisiana State University Press is a real university publisher.
Her single casual question is set against Porch's thousands of pages. Both scholars ignore the pets.
Bernard Porch in his four thousand page treatise on The Navidson Record devotes only a third of a sentence to the subject: “, (strange how the house won’t support the presence of animals).”8° Mary Widmunt leaves us with just one terse question: “So what’s the deal with the pets?”8!
Footnote 82 (pp. 76–79) is Johnny's. It starts with the pets, turns to Thumper and the tattoo shop, and becomes one very long sentence about Zampanò's cats and his death.
Short and abrupt; using very few words.
… page treatise on The Navidson Record devotes only a third of a sentence to the subject: “, (strange how the house won’t support the presence of animals).”8° Mary Widmunt leaves us with just one terse question: “So what’s the deal with the pets?”8!
Complete and perfect; very skilled.
Even Navidson himself, the consummate investigator, never revisits the subject.
A short period of too much drinking or eating.
… while I would like to offer you my own interpretation I am a little high and alot drunk, trying to determine what set me off in the first place on this private little home-bound binge.
People and places from Johnny's own story, met in his earlier footnotes. Thumper is a stripper and a client of the tattoo shop where Johnny works. Lude is his friend. Johnny is afraid of the shop's storeroom since he fell down the stairs.
For one thing, Thumper came into the Shop today.
Quiet and not showing strong feeling.
My boss kind of tiptoes around me, playing all low key and far off, his demeanor probably matching his old junkie days.
The way a person behaves and looks.
My boss kind of tiptoes around me, playing all low key and far off, his demeanor probably matching his old junkie days.
To join pieces of metal with melted metal. Johnny makes tattoo equipment.
Even his friends keep their distance, everyone for the most part just leaving me alone to sketch and solder, though I’m sketching far less these days, I mean, with all this writing.
To take a risk by doing or saying something that others may not support.
Recently though I did get this crazy idea: I decided to go out on a limb and show her that sappy little bit I wrote about her—you know with all that coastal norths and August-sun scent-of-pine-trees stuff, even the Lucy part.
Too sentimental; silly and soft.
Recently though I did get this crazy idea: I decided to go out on a limb and show her that sappy little bit I wrote about her—you know with all that coastal norths and August-sun scent-of-pine-trees stuff, even the Lucy part.
A living thing that changed from the normal form; here a mild insult.
… don’t know what I expected, but she opened it right on the spot and read it and then laughed and then my boss grabbed it and he sort of winced—"Now look who’s the dumb mutant” he shuddered—and that was that.
Adidas is a German sportswear brand. A beeper (pager) was a small device in the 1990s: you dialed a number, typed your own number, and the owner called you back later.
Thumper handed me her flip flops and Adidas sweat pants and stretched out on the chair.
Mad enough to be put in a mental hospital.
Lude had warned me I'd be certifiable if I showed it to her.
An idea or story that comes from wild imagination, not reality.
I should of stayed away from such flights of fancy, stuck to my regular made-up stories.
A pager: a small device that tells you a number to call back.
It was a beeper.
A ghost; also a shadow. Johnny uses both senses for the cats.
So many shades slinking out from under that dusty place like years, his years, could they be like my years too?
Weak in mind because of old age.
… hmmm, how shocking, they still are there, disconnected but vital, the way memories reveal their life by simply appearing, sprinting out from under the shadows, paws!-patterpaws-paws!, pausing then to rub against our legs, zap! senile sparks perhaps but ah yes still there, and I’m thinking, has another missing year resolved in song?— though let me not get too far from myself, they were after all only cats, quadruped mice-devouring …
An animal that walks on four legs.
… zap! senile sparks perhaps but ah yes still there, and I’m thinking, has another missing year resolved in song?— though let me not get too far from myself, they were after all only cats, quadruped mice-devouring mote-chasing shades, Felis catus, with very little to remind them of themselves or their past or even their tomorrows, especially when the present burns hot with play, their pursuits and their fear, a …
A very small piece of dust.
… sparks perhaps but ah yes still there, and I’m thinking, has another missing year resolved in song?— though let me not get too far from myself, they were after all only cats, quadruped mice-devouring mote-chasing shades, Felis catus, with very little to remind them of themselves or their past or even their tomorrows, especially when the present burns hot with play, their pursuits and their fear, a bright flash …
The scientific Latin name of the domestic cat. Johnny uses it in a mock-scholarly tone.
… but ah yes still there, and I’m thinking, has another missing year resolved in song?— though let me not get too far from myself, they were after all only cats, quadruped mice-devouring mote-chasing shades, Felis catus, with very little to remind them of themselves or their past or even their tomorrows, especially when the present burns hot with play, their pursuits and their fear, a bright flash to pursue (sun …
Evening (literary).
… song?— though let me not get too far from myself, they were after all only cats, quadruped mice-devouring mote-chasing shades, Felis catus, with very little to remind them of themselves or their past or even their tomorrows, especially when the present burns hot with play, their pursuits and their fear, a bright flash to pursue (sun a star on a nothing’s back), a dark slash to escape (there are …
The two kinds of light-sensitive cells in the retina of the eye. Rods work in dim light, cones see colour. Johnny imagines the cat's eye taking in the world.
… a star on a nothing’s back), a dark slash to escape (there are always predators . . .), the spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust …
In small parts or fragments (a rare word).
… back), a dark slash to escape (there are always predators . . .), the spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and …
An echo of Noah's Ark and of God's covenant with Noah after the Flood (Genesis 6–9). Johnny mixes the words into his description of the cat's vision.
… dark slash to escape (there are always predators . . .), the spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague hope of …
A formal agreement or promise, especially one with God in the Bible.
… dark slash to escape (there are always predators . . .), the spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague …
A large boat; Noah's boat in the Bible story of the Flood.
… escape (there are always predators . . .), the spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague hope of color …
In philosophy and literary theory, “the Other” means what is outside and strange to the self. Johnny uses it for the unknown dark that the cat watches.
… spry interplay of hidden things and visible wings flung upon that great black sail of rods and cones, thin and fractionary, a covenant of light, ark for the instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague hope of color into a rhapsody of motion and meaning, albeit momentary, pupil …
A strong, free expression of feeling; also a free musical piece.
… instant, echoing out the dark and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague hope of color into a rhapsody of motion and meaning, albeit momentary, pupil pulling wider, wider still, and darker, receiving all of it, and even more of it, though still only beholding some of it, until in the frenzy of …
Although.
… and the Other, harmonizing with the crack-brack-crisp-tricks of every broken leaf of grass or displaced stick, and so thrust by shadow and the vague hope of color into a rhapsody of motion and meaning, albeit momentary, pupil pulling wider, wider still, and darker, receiving all of it, and even more of it, though still only beholding some of it, until in the frenzy of reception, this mote-clawing hawkfearing shade …
To see or look at (old or literary).
… and the vague hope of color into a rhapsody of motion and meaning, albeit momentary, pupil pulling wider, wider still, and darker, receiving all of it, and even more of it, though still only beholding some of it, until in the frenzy of reception, this mote-clawing hawkfearing shade loses itself in temporary madness, leaping, springing, flinging itself after it all, as if it were possessed (and it is); as …
A state of wild, uncontrolled activity or excitement.
… a rhapsody of motion and meaning, albeit momentary, pupil pulling wider, wider still, and darker, receiving all of it, and even more of it, though still only beholding some of it, until in the frenzy of reception, this mote-clawing hawkfearing shade loses itself in temporary madness, leaping, springing, flinging itself after it all, as if it were possessed (and it is); as if that kind of physical response could …
To go slowly along a winding way (literary).
… very little matters enough to prevent the try—all of which is to say, in the end, they are only cats but cats to talk to just the same before in their own weaving and wending, they Kilkenny-disappear, just as they first appeared, out of nowhere, vanishing back into the nowhere, tales from some great story we will never see but one day just might imagine (which in the gray …
An Irish folk story tells of two cats from Kilkenny that fought until nothing was left of them but their tails. Johnny makes it a verb: the cats “Kilkenny-disappear”, they vanish completely.
… matters enough to prevent the try—all of which is to say, in the end, they are only cats but cats to talk to just the same before in their own weaving and wending, they Kilkenny-disappear, just as they first appeared, out of nowhere, vanishing back into the nowhere, tales from some great story we will never see but one day just might imagine (which in the gray of gentler …
A cereal grain plant.
… hearts full, our ages full; fullness and greater fullness and even more fullness; how then we will laugh and forget how the imagining has already left us) slinking back into that place of urban barley, grass, fennel and wheat, or just plain hay, golden hay, where—Hey!
A plant with yellow flowers and a taste like anise.
… our ages full; fullness and greater fullness and even more fullness; how then we will laugh and forget how the imagining has already left us) slinking back into that place of urban barley, grass, fennel and wheat, or just plain hay, golden hay, where—Hey!
Johnny slides from “hay” to “Hey!” to “hay days”, a pun on “heyday” (the best time of someone's life). The sound play is part of his drunken, loose mood.
Hey-hey! Hay days gone by, bye-bye, gone way way away.
A Pekinese (Pekingese) is a small Chinese dog breed. Johnny says the story of this dog is too dark to tell, and he does not tell it here.
Well, there are no dogs except for the Pekinese but that’s another story, one I won't, I cannot tell.
A sudden wish or idea without a serious reason.
It’s too dark and difficult and without whim, and if you didn’t notice I’m in a whimsical (inconsequential) frame of mind right now, talking (scribbling?)
Playful and led by sudden ideas, not by reason.
It’s too dark and difficult and without whim, and if you didn’t notice I’m in a whimsical (inconsequential) frame of mind right now, talking (scribbling?)
Not important.
It’s too dark and difficult and without whim, and if you didn’t notice I’m in a whimsical (inconsequential) frame of mind right now, talking (scribbling?)
The first letters of each question spell W-H-I-M. Johnny plays with the word “whim” (a sudden idea done for no reason), which returns in the last line of the chapter.
… dark and difficult and without whim, and if you didn’t notice I’m in a whimsical (inconsequential) frame of mind right now, talking (scribbling?) aimlessly and strangely about cats, enjoying all the rules in this School of Whim, the play of it,—Where Have I Moved?
Happy, lively play.
Who Have I Met?—the frolic and the drift, as I go thinking now, tripping really, over the notion of eighty or more of Zampano’s dusty cats (for no particular/relevant reason) which must implicitly mean that no, it cannot be …
An idiom for very heavy rain. Johnny takes it literally: the courtyard is dusty, so it cannot be raining cats and dogs, so there are no dogs.
… and the drift, as I go thinking now, tripping really, over the notion of eighty or more of Zampano’s dusty cats (for no particular/relevant reason) which must implicitly mean that no, it cannot be raining cats and dogs, due to the dust, so much of it, on the ground, about the weeds, in the air, so therefore/ ergo/ thus (.*.): no dogs, no Pekinese, just the courtyard, 77
A mathematical sign of three dots that means “therefore”. Johnny piles up “therefore / ergo / thus” and the sign, in a parody of formal logic.
… no particular/relevant reason) which must implicitly mean that no, it cannot be raining cats and dogs, due to the dust, so much of it, on the ground, about the weeds, in the air, so therefore/ ergo/ thus (.*.): no dogs, no Pekinese, just the courtyard, 77
“Therefore.”
… particular/relevant reason) which must implicitly mean that no, it cannot be raining cats and dogs, due to the dust, so much of it, on the ground, about the weeds, in the air, so therefore/ ergo/ thus (.*.): no dogs, no Pekinese, just the courtyard, 77
The time of greatest success or strength (Johnny spells it “hay days”).
Johnny's word for a lazy, timeless middle of the day.
Zampano’s courtyard, on a mad lost-noon day, wild with years and pounce and sun, even if another day would find Zampand elsewhere, far from the sun, this sun, flung face down on his ill-swept floor, without so much as a …
A sudden jump to catch something, as a cat does.
Zampano’s courtyard, on a mad lost-noon day, wild with years and pounce and sun, even if another day would find Zampand elsewhere, far from the sun, this sun, flung face down on his ill-swept floor, without so much as a clue, “No trauma, just old age” …
Badly or seldom cleaned with a broom.
Zampano’s courtyard, on a mad lost-noon day, wild with years and pounce and sun, even if another day would find Zampand elsewhere, far from the sun, this sun, flung face down on his ill-swept floor, without so much as a clue, “No trauma, just old age” the paramedics would say, though they could never explain—no one could—what they found near where he lay, four of them, six or …
A trained medical worker who gives emergency help, usually in an ambulance.
… sun, even if another day would find Zampand elsewhere, far from the sun, this sun, flung face down on his ill-swept floor, without so much as a clue, “No trauma, just old age” the paramedics would say, though they could never explain—no one could—what they found near where he lay, four of them, six or seven inches long and half an inch deep, splintering the wood, left by some …
Johnny's spelling of “awful” that stresses “full of awe” (fear and wonder).
… say, though they could never explain—no one could—what they found near where he lay, four of them, six or seven inches long and half an inch deep, splintering the wood, left by some terrible awe-full thing, signature in script of steel or claws, though not Santa, Zampand died after Christmas after all, but no myth either, for I saw the impossible marks near the trunk, touched them, even caught …
Of a wound: to become infected and painful; of a feeling: to grow worse over time.
… the impossible marks near the trunk, touched them, even caught some splinters in my fingertips, some of their unexpected sadness and mourning, which though dug out later with a safety pin, I swear still fester beneath my skin, reminding me in a peculiar way of him, just like other splinters I still carry, though these much much deeper, having never been worked out by the body but quite the …
Turned hard like bone or stone by calcium.
… him, just like other splinters I still carry, though these much much deeper, having never been worked out by the body but quite the contrary worked into the body, by now long since buried, calcified and fused to my very bones, taking me further from the warm frolic of years, reminding me of much colder days, Where I Left Death, or thought I had—I am tripping—overcast in tones December …
Of the sky: covered with grey cloud.
… long since buried, calcified and fused to my very bones, taking me further from the warm frolic of years, reminding me of much colder days, Where I Left Death, or thought I had—I am tripping—overcast in tones December gray, recalling names,—I have tripped—swept in Ohio sleet and rain, ruled by aman with a beard rougher than horse hide and hands harder than horn, who called me beast because I …
Johnny mentions a hard man from his childhood in Ohio who called him “beast” and was not his father. He refuses to tell the story here.
… taking me further from the warm frolic of years, reminding me of much colder days, Where I Left Death, or thought I had—I am tripping—overcast in tones December gray, recalling names,—I have tripped—swept in Ohio sleet and rain, ruled by aman with a beard rougher than horse hide and hands harder than horn, who called me beast because I was his boy though he wasn’t my father, which is …
Rain mixed with ice or snow.
… me further from the warm frolic of years, reminding me of much colder days, Where I Left Death, or thought I had—I am tripping—overcast in tones December gray, recalling names,—I have tripped—swept in Ohio sleet and rain, ruled by aman with a beard rougher than horse hide and hands harder than horn, who called me beast because I was his boy though he wasn’t my father, which is another …
The hard material of an animal's horns; a symbol of something very hard.
… Death, or thought I had—I am tripping—overcast in tones December gray, recalling names,—I have tripped—swept in Ohio sleet and rain, ruled by aman with a beard rougher than horse hide and hands harder than horn, who called me beast because I was his boy though he wasn’t my father, which is another story, another place I’m here to avoid, as I’m certain there are places you too have sought …
A woman who read to Zampanò tells Johnny about a frightening shadow she saw after leaving his flat. The memory mixes with one from her childhood in Santa Cruz, a coastal city in Northern California.
… sons and cats & dogs, all of it distressing her, saddening her, confusing her, and thus leaving her completely unprepared for the memory she was about to find, abruptly returning from her childhood in Santa Cruz, even as she was trying to reorient herself in a familiar setting and the comforting routine of a long walk back to her car,—it had been raining there; pouring in fact; though not on …
Franklin Avenue and Whitley Avenue meet in Hollywood, Los Angeles. This is near Zampanò's building.
… even as she was trying to reorient herself in a familiar setting and the comforting routine of a long walk back to her car,—it had been raining there; pouring in fact; though not on Franklin & Whitley—suddenly noticing the unnatural heaviness of a shadow slipping free from the burnt dusk, though not a shadow at all, later translating this as the sight of an enormous creature trespassing on the curve of …
The dark, orange-grey light just after sunset.
… comforting routine of a long walk back to her car,—it had been raining there; pouring in fact; though not on Franklin & Whitley—suddenly noticing the unnatural heaviness of a shadow slipping free from the burnt dusk, though not a shadow at all, later translating this as the sight of an enormous creature trespassing on the curve of a Northern California night, like the shadow she saw hiding in the bottom …
To go onto a place where you have no right to be.
… not on Franklin & Whitley—suddenly noticing the unnatural heaviness of a shadow slipping free from the burnt dusk, though not a shadow at all, later translating this as the sight of an enormous creature trespassing on the curve of a Northern California night, like the shadow she saw hiding in the bottom turn of Zampand’s stairwell, moving too, towards her, and so causing her to panic and scramble into …
Sea smoke is a fog that forms when very cold air moves over warmer water. The reader remembers “ropes of sea smoke” and a flash of blue.
… that gloom, until only many hours and many drinks later could she finally fall asleep, her hangover the following day leaving her—“gratefully,” she said—with only a fleeting memory of something white with ropes of sea smoke and one terrifying flash of blue, which was more, she told me, than she could usually share even if—which she wouldn't share—she knew it still wasn’t even the half of it.
Johnny's word for a stream of moonlight.
In the moonstream of my imagination.
Johnny returns to the scene of the old man's death, told in his Introduction: four deep marks in the wood near the trunk. The pun “claws” / “Claus” brings in Santa, because Zampanò died after Christmas.
Not able to die; living for ever.
It is immortal.