Jack’s Merrimack River,
Jack’s ancient stream damn steamed river. Rough, white-capped torrents flowing
without a break, coming from some unknown springs, creeks, rivulets, brooks and
whatnot, storm-tossed in winter, rock-stepping rough, pock-marked with broken
trees causing gushes and gaps in the steady stream, boulders pocked too up by
the painted sprayed cliffs near the University, cliff names (Jimmy loves Janie,
sigma phi forever, Mary sucks , complete
with telephone number, the Acre rules), etched in paint (Day-Glo now some odd
formula then) going back to Jack time,
(then, Jack time, just friendly old Lowell Textile, strictly for the textile
trade wonks and wanna-be, not Jack-worthy), undertow dragging against foolhardy
feet for the unsteady and first understandings that the world IS a dangerous
place but also, without embarrassment, that the river is the river of life. And
no fears, no god fears, no mother church catholic fears, no consequence from
those pagan sentiments. Bridged, river
bridged, bridged at strategic points bridged, brawny steel and trestle bridged
to take on all traffics rumbling across the torrent below river, granite
foundations stones placed, how placed a mystery, a construction mystery that
some bright Lowell Tech guy (old days now U/Mass, ah, Lowell) could figure out
in a minute just like how he got that rock-bound Jimmie loves Janie rock
sprayed, in such a way as to defend against rising rivers, hurricanes, wars,
and other earthen disasters.
Bridged, not metaphor
bridged, Jack would no heard of it, would smirk that devil’s smirk and dismiss
you and your damn metaphor out of hand, would speak of golden colored bridges
spanning , and name the colors, and the shades when they reflected against the
day, fierce seas, name the seas, name the ships on the seas, name the parts of
ships, name the horrors and beauties of the turbulent seas, would speak of
traffic, of commerce of delivering goods, near and far, of bridge sounds,
rumbles, honks, gnaws even, so no to some
Hemingway mind-wrought big two-hearted
Idaho idyllic river but real bridged, Jack London old time bridged, Call Of The Wild nights of the long
knives bridged between poor, working poor, working textile poor Lowell on one
side and the desperately, or repeatedly poor like clan Kerouac, chronically
unemployed, semi-chronically drunk and disorderly, poor, Acre poor.
Blessed Saint Jeanbon, Ti
Jean, among the brethren, cross his big
god-head heart, un-anointed, hell
unadorned Adonis patron saint of the Acre poor, the Acre poor, scrabbly working
poor (and throw in some lumpen criminal vagabonds,
scavengers, con men, lifeless corner boys , and just plain thugs to boot, they
thrive in the easy pickings Acre, and a thousand other Acre places too) known
to kindred poor Josh Breslin (mother, nee LeBlanc, the LeBlancs from up Quebec
City way, and north Saint Lawrence north toward the Gaspe ) in the French
–Canadian Atlantic Avenue Acre over in Olde Saco, Maine and well-known as well
to Irish stews Peter Paul Markin down in Acre projects in Adamsville,
Massachusetts way. Yes, Saint Jeanbon, patron saint muse of the Acre poor,
wherever they are located. The back-biting, bitching, somewhere over the
rainbow poor, the Botts diner after midnight heavy-lidded after manly bouts
with fugitive whiskey bottles poor, the pick up the fags (okay, okay here
cigarette butts) from the Merrimack Street ground, and cadging (while the
bartender is not looking) half- finished manly whiskies (or, hell, by midnight
whatever is left on napkin-soaked tables and counters), poor. And one thousand,
maybe one million other unspoken, always unspoken, pathologies, tics, and
whatnots, never allowed to air in the sometimes fetid (although near no oceans
or marshes but from mixed and matched industrial chemicals), damn stinking
Lowell industrial summer night. And cold, pale blue cold winter too, except
maybe not fetid. Pick a cold word, okay.
Jack rough river, working-
class Jack rough all brawny and bustle, flowing to great unseen Atlantic shores
(where real fetid smells, nature smells from churned seas and drowned marshes,
periodically stink the air) and from there to great American homeland England
before the fall and real homeland, France, ageless France bountiful and smart
long before the bloody Anglos were made hip to using spoons for porridge, before
Arcadian Plains of Abraham falls and hard English burnt offering exiles. And damn cursed native tongues (patois they
called it) banned just like with the gaelic Irish, the Breton wild men, and the
celtic brogue Scots, what madness in Empire, that seaward sun never sets empire
thumbing it beefsteak nose at culture brought from courtly France and well-bred
manners. And strangers in a strange land (Longfellow homage poem exiles anyway)
when Canad soils gave out, or no work prospects loomed, or the lore of two
dollars a day (in real money, Anglo-derived money, damn) sent half of Quebec
streaming down to the paper and textile mill towns, river towns, Olde Saco,
Manchester, Nashua, and sainted, sunned, stunned, acid- stained canal strewn
river flowed Lowell.
Merrimack (Jack play word
Mary Mack, Markin play word Mary Mack all dressed in black), home town river of
youth, callous youth, question, going into young manhood. Hanging around corner
boy Leclerc’s Variety, mom and pop
variety store cadging quarters from working men streaming out of the second-shift
mills, occasionally stealing odd lots of penny candy (funny habit, always
describing sweet tooth things, immense marbled cakes, chocolate frosted, hugh
bread puddings heated and served with whipped creams, shimmering jellos of six
different flavors, also whipped creamed, hearty
apple pies ladened with syrupy ice cream melts and on down to mouth-
watering movie time milk duds, for
chrissakes, making word hungry eyes food hungry, cheap sugar food hungry), you
know Baby Ruth, Butterfingers, Snickers (or, snickers), Milky Way, to avoid the
heavy tariff at the Bijou Theater come Saturday afternoon double bill, double
trouble, matinee specials. And Ma, Mere called so in the old-fashioned back
home Montreal way from whence she came trotting for those dame yankee dollars, having to sneak quarters to Mr. LeBlanc to
cover those sweet tooth penny candied larcenies . And you thought you were so
clever, Jack old boy, old dog. But that was the life, the corner boy life small
stealing, small cadging, jack-rolling some drunken kid for his quarters (doled
out by his Mere for his penny candy Bijou extravaganzas). Boys, always about
boys, and adventures and thinking, and forever writing, writing just in case.
Later dream stories, at those
same corners or maybe further the river toward Pawtucketville across from Father
Kerouac’s social club (and drinking bout hang-out) but always eternally corner
dream stories now long gone to malls and fast food courts and no loitering, no
trespassing, no skate-boarding, no breathing human unkind trances. To speak about
jail break-outs, about small town prison escapes, the young always seeing even
New York City as too small for their
outrageous appetites, and good luck, letting Lowell sun eat the dust of
your tracks fill the night air, about big time jobs and celebrity (once the word
was discovered). And then the talk turned serious as the wisp of a beard showed
(more than five o’clock shadows for Jack, dark, French-etched two times a day
shaved Jack) turned to manly shavings
and childish voice turned to deep bass, serious talk about girls, about what
they were made of, and more importantly what made them tick. A lifetime of
wonders and sorrows to spill the river-laden night. A clue though, a clue worth
a king’s ransom would have been worth all that lucre if they could just figure
out what the hell they wanted. The girls, okay. They, the corner boys, all
sized, shaped, smarts, greek, French, ethnic corner boys (who else would
inhabit the Acre in those days, the bloody Irish lived in Irishtown, just like
they did in Olde Saco and Adamsville, down in Irishtown south Lowell way, down
Maggie Cassidy way but more on that later)
found out soon enough after a few bouts of love dust at the old
Starlight Ballroom, now famous, town famous, since Benny Goodman and his band
had set its 1939 foot in the front door and blasted everything to be-bop,
beepy-be-bop don’t stop, mad man music including soon to be front singing
Jack-enflamed red dress Paula. Yah, that was where she got her start (okay,
okay start with Jack on moonless nights singing, singing the then known
American songbook, Tin Pan Alley songbook but that didn’t count. The moonless
singing that is. The afternoon red dress and high heels come hither, yah, that
counted, Maggie counted too but later.)
Jack’s river of sorrow, of Mere
hurts and Maggie Cassidy hurts too. (I told you I would have more on her, of
lace curtain vanities and father train conductor dreams of some little white cottage, a dog,
and three point four kids, nah, not Jack-sized, not Jack-sized at all ). Forgotten
now Paula (forgotten even forgotten of red dress seductions which made him toss
and turn many a night, many a night before Maggie devoured sleep). Forgotten Mere
(and her old-fashioned Montreal French-Canadian, and before that some Gaspe
wind-swept farm stories, that he would use later to bulk out his own stories
when his brain ran dry, or maybe sad, big sad wet), forgotten although always hovering as a stark
and real cut knives presence (and mixed in as with all mothers , mothers since
Eve, generous helpings of immense love gifts bought with shoe leather- stained
hands from working at that damn old mother-twisting shoe mill) really until the
Maggie fever had subsided, subsided several years, later but that is a story
for another time, a time after New York City
lights, Village mysteries, sea adventures and searches for the blue-pink great American West night, and of
Neal Cassady golden-haired cowboy west romps, and next million word adventures.
What mattered now though was
that our boy, our Jack O’Kerouac, or Jack McKerouac, or Jack, hell, let’s leave
it at Jack Celtic got himself all balled up over an Irish colleen, from over down
in Irishtown down by the Concord River, history river not all brawny and dyed
like Jack’s Merrimack river, well away from the Acre, and Acre small dreams,
and well away from handy corner boys to hold his hand when old Maggie turned up
the heat. Yes, Maggie, blessed virgin Maggie, of the pale blue eyes, of the pale
blue heart, and of the lace curtain appetites. Of white picket fences, and
houses, white too, to go with them, a spotted dog and a few stray whining kids
to keep the cold nights warm. No sale, no Jack of the river sale, not our boy
in the end but it was a close call and maybe if she had turned down those white
silken stockings just once he would have wound up white fence- picketed through
his heart in some cozy bungalow close by Dracut Forest, or hell, up and coming Chelmsford
(and then no one the road, no dharma, no big sur, not Mexican nights, tangier
nights, just Maggie and pipe, tobacco pipe nights.
Yes, Jack would know manly
hurts, huge manly hurts imposed by hard-hearted women, and men, after that one
but not before clowning himself before
her with feats of modern athletic daring against black ravens , against arch-rival
Lawrence gridiron, Lawrence also of the river and of history, of strikes and
struggle of a different kind, of bread and roses. Of clowning corner boy
clowning, deciding stay or go, stay or go, of drunken dance floor episodes (no,
not when Benny Goodman, Hail Be-bop Benny, held forth and made the Starlight
Ballroom quake, but other times, other Maggie pouting times, or Maggie tired
times, or Maggie “friend” times, the list was endless, and he endlessly
patiently impatient as each phase of the Maggie moon turned into ashes. And
into Jack death pyre).
Interlude: Jack’s low sun
going down behind the river and before that the tree- strewn, living tree
strewn river upstream, upstream where it all began and where Jack began.
Pawtucketville, the Acre, South Lowell, the trolley tracks end, and the endless
winter snow walks, the endless summer river ebb walks, the fret Maggie walks,
the no dime for carfare (quaint word) walk, the walk to save for penny candy
walk, the million word walk, the first school dance walk, the no money for prom
car (or car or license, okay) walk, the night before the big game walk, walked
in Dracut Forest to avoid mad crashing fans who wanted to know glory up close ,
if only Jack- reflected glory, yes, walk, walk too, get out of the house when
Mere cursed his dark night.
But really prelude, training,
cosmic training, okay to million mile
walks from New Jersey shores, looking out from broken down, oil-stained, oil
smelled eastern piers and dreaming hookah Tangiers dreams, from Time Square
dope blasts with every faux hipster who could afford a string tie, soft shoes,
midnight sunglasses and a be-bop line of patter, pitter- patter, really, from
rockymountainhills walks sliding down to Denver town in beloved Cassady country
poolrooms and juke joints, from ghost dance walks in saline deserts channeling
ancient Breton hurts and shamanic wanderlust, from dark bracero Mex walks
waiting on broken down senorita love in some stinking Imperial Valley bean
field, from Presidio fast by the golden gate bridge, fast by North Beach walks,
from Big Sur hunger for oneness with the sea walks, from life walks, from death
walks. Walks, shoe leather- eating walks, okay.
******Jack of Lowell hometown, Jack of some Micmac-traded ancient Canad French-Canadian fur trader beyond time and back to Breton woods and great fields of serf fellaheen peasants plowing, cowing, milking, harvesting, corvee-ing some milord’s land seen in some far distance, since with river running. Ownership burned out in the Yankee mill night, the time-owned night, the day too. Mainly now of narrow (narrow life-making) triple and double-deckers squalid flats constantly changing renter-ship, constantly babies squabble in six languages, but above all patois, beautiful lilt keltic fringe hard Atlantic seas and torrents of rain Breton coast patois. And so they established an outpost here, among the mix of mill town hands, making mill things, dreaming non-mill things, and for the men working, working hard and long and then off to some card-playing (as disguise for heavy drinking, cheap cigar- smoking and rude talk of women, the ethnics, hah, and the world gone to hell in hand basket) Franco-American Club, no women, no children, no kikes, no micks, no English (absolutely no English for there is a swollen Montcalm bone to pick over that on one), no oppressors unnamed and unloved allowed. A man’s life as befits a man whose people came down from places deep in Quebec woods and along the mighty Gaspe Saint Lawrence.
Those are ancient myths of
gentile beggar fellaheen birth among the Canad and pedigree not to be touted in
non-pedigree Americas, and certainly not in non-pedigree Lowells (except by
certain mill owners who spoke only to god, or to Cabots maybe). And so they mix
of fellaheen patois, of roasted fires, of sweet gentle wines to that good
night, of sober work, of somber life explained the fate of that American mix,
Lowell style. And explained too the greek, french, irish, break-out of
ungrateful sons (and daughters but not as well seen). Sons with words to say,
with American songs to sing, not Whitman song, that was another time, another
place and another America but songs against mill stream night, songs against
the death of personal dreams , of
wayward sons, well-meaning wayward sons but wayward.
Ah, Lowell setting sun Lowell
and its time of great decline, great decline on Jack’s birth river. The stink
of tannic acid, the blue dye, the red
dye, hell, the yellow dye river dying for lack of work, for worked-out mills,
for moved to cheap jack cheaper labor southern ports of call. And so the Lowell
setting sun turned in on itself, turned to be-bop music and Botts midnight
diners with guys, guys who used to work
the midnight shift, and restless, now lingering over mad cups of joe to
ward off the worthless sense of non-self. Fixed in place and the younger ones
seeing that said no mas, not me, and spoke of flights of fancy, and of real
flights, flights from Merrimack river roads to trash-strewn asphalt highways
west.
Lowell, water Lowell, canal
Lowell, fresh-faced farm girl Lowell hands weaving the wicked weave of the loam
and then to other pursuits none the worse for wear at least that was the call,
the advertised call that brought them from Acton, Concord, and Littleton farms
or maybe before those places had names, town names, just Farmer Brown’s
rosy-cheeked daughter from over there where that dusty road intersected the
corner of Brother Brown’s land. Later gentle waters, gentle confluence waters
from high hill brooks and bramble, from flow Concord, Lowell sing, not some
sing-song Shepard’s sing, not some cattle- lowing sing, not some elysian fields
sing but the sing of great bobbed machines whistling late into the night, hell
what night, whistling into daybreak and fearful noises for those poor tenement,
double and triple tenement, dwellers who form the perimeter of the mill mile,
sweet cloth and money-making mill mile.
And Jack born, born and
raised, to term an old phrase, a mere stone’s throw away along that same river
bend as it curves up the cliffs near Pawtucketville, the old time Mere and Pere
French quarter where Jack would get his fill of double and triple-deckers. And
rosy tales of those ancient Breton fields and thieving thriving French fur- traders amid the scream of broken
whiskey bottles, a few broken by him, murderous wives bent on murder for having
too many children, too many children close together, too many short paychecks
and too many long grocer’s bills, too many drunken husband nights without him
or with him all sex hungry and stinking of anglo whiskies or greek anise, or
just murderous to be murderous in fear of the lost Hollywood dream and no
chance to pull a Mildred Pierce or even a lite Lana Turner twist against some old drunken greek short order chef
seaside road diner hell fate.
Jail-break midnight teenagers
looking for quick quarters for the jukebox to play Artie Shaw, Benny
Goodman or some latest be-bop daddy,
standing around in front of the Bijou Theater or the Starlight Ballroom to see if
there are any dreams being manufactured inside, and looking for a way to make sense of a world that they didn’t
create. That Jack, that Jack teen age boy, teen age corner boy like all the
others didn’t create, that played and that ate at him, ate at him from crawl
time to crawling down the gutter time. But if you are going to bust out you had
better have something more than halfback hero’s good looks, if you are going to
go toe to toe with the gods (and we know he was aching, bleeding really, to go
toe to toe with them, for a while anyway). So he started, started early, a
million word journey used stubbled pencils, and squirrelly inks until, until he
got the hang of writing non-stop with a roll of newsprint and a squirrelly old
typewriter. Praise Brother Remington
And funny growth too, the
sturdy, durable fleet youth, all black hair and oo-la-la French good looks,
verified, verified first by wistful small-breasted French-Canadian girls with
long thin legs, also from the old Canad descended and maybe a few rascally
fur-traders in the background too. Later wild red-headed Irish girls trying, a
little, to break from heathen brown-haired sexless, sex-hate Irish boys
murmuring novenas, stations of the cross, and smelling of altar wines and
priest pokes would toss and turn dreaming of oo-la-la Frenchmen read about in
some school girl school book, or heard on unsavory streets from the older
girls, the girls who no longer had the sign of the cross when they passed Saint
Joseph’s, or Saint Jean-Baptiste, or Saint Brigitte’s, or Saint Germaine’s or
Immaculate Conception, or Sacred Heart, Saint, saint, saint, Saint Mary’s,
okay, or any of the three billion (but I exaggerate) other Lowell holy, holy
places where a man can turn from saint Jack to shaman Jack in a wink of an
eye.
And that is when she came by,
she Maggie she, but call her all girl-kind, no, womankind, with her pale white
skin, her pale blue eyes, her dark hair
and her well-turned ankles, and disturbed his sleep. And he never got over
that, that way that she could keep him on a string while every other girl was
ready to throw herself to the ground for him (in order that he could have the
stamina to beat Lawrence on Thanksgiving Day, in order for him to write some
little ditty for her, in order for him to dance with her at the school dance, in
order, one girl claimed she had to “do it” in order to improve her voice so she
could sing with some faux- Benny Goodman [all the rage then in the late 1930s
be-bop night] quintet, in order, hell, at the end it was just in order to, what
did they call it in Lowell High School Monday morning girls’ lav before school
girl talkfest about what did, or didn’t happen on Friday or Saturday night, oh
yah, to say they had been jacked by him).
Later, later when the reasons
changed but the girls (no, women then) still thought jacked thoughts he feigned
lack of interest, feigned writer’s cramp, feigned zen Buddhist abstinence,
feigned, not so feigned maybe, drunk or drugged impotence. But no man, no real
man, or fairy (term of art forgiven, please) or even lowly Time Square whores,
hookers, drifters and fags (term of art,
not forgiven) knew that he had had his insides torn out by old Maggie, Maggie
the cat with no downy billows ending long before Tennessee Williams ever put
pen to paper. So say a prayer for Jack, Jeanbon Jack, if you are the praying
kind and curse hellish dark-haired Irish colleens.
Spinning wheels, million
football goals scored, million girls jacked, million drinks drunk with clownish
corner boys from age six on, million yards of pure textile loomed enough to
satisfy even the haughtiest Lowell Textile School professor, million words
written, million smokestack fumes emitted into the cold Lowell air night.
Finished, town finished, Maggie finished, corner boy finished, home finished.
Break out time, break out to great northern seas to write like some mad monk
plastered on cheap jack vineyard wines, homemade, pressed fast and sipped fast
(and on the sly). Neon sign break-out, New Jack City beckoned.
Interlude: Four in the
morning cold coffee slurps, percolator (quaint word) on the stove brewing up
another break- speed batch to endure hours more of non-stop, non-connected,
non-punctuated writing. Writing of Trailways bus stop waits, waits for
continental visions (if one does not the mind the company, the inevitable, to
be kind ,too large company in the next seat), in search of that great blue-pink
American West night (and later the international blue-pink night) in dirty
washrooms filled with seven hundred manly stinks, and six perfumes to kill the
smell, the urinate smell, street-wise rest room for weary travelers, hobos,
bums, and tramps, take your pick, maybe some hung over soldier trying to decide
on AWOL or frantic rush back to base and evaporated dreams, nightmares really.
Of seasick sailors running overboard at the first wave heave, or first
explosion in the dread Murmansk run North Atlantic icy waters night one sailor,
seasick, no, sick of the sea, writing, writing in disregard of heaves, and
lifeboat-worthy explosions.
Of Village flophouse lofts filled with
chattering (to vanish fear) expatriate exiles, native born from Iowa, Minnesota,
Denver, maybe, in ones and twos, trying to hold out against the impending red
scare cold war night, the death night to destroy the promise of golden age
utopias. Of Scollay Square whores ready to take your pain away, no questions
asked, filled with stories, small dream from small town stories about easy lost
virginity and local scandal, with jack-roller ready pimp/boyfriends just in
case things got rough, or some easy dough was to be had.
Of some mad notion that
writing two million words would take that pain away as easily as that whore
promise, and finding some jack-roller instead when the brain ran dry, the pen
ink ran dry, the newsprint roll ran out and there were no Mere or Gerald memory
blasts to fall back on. Of some ache, some unfound ache to find that Adonis
double (Janus, maybe, blond they say, maybe) zen master, gear master, chariot
master that everybody in that Village loft, that San Francisco North Beach
bungalow, that Malibu henhouse, that Tijuana whorehouse, that Tangiers opium
den, hell, even that Trailways stink bathroom was waiting on.
********New York City, Time Square of course, Columbia of course(before the heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a brazen, bare knuckles city), the Village of course (those who need to know what village just move on), of movies and movie theaters, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats stinking or urine or Thunderbird wines, of drifters, grifters, grafters, midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you liked the last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and car beams night and day, of trash spread every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered against 42nd Street hurts, of Howard Johnson’s frankfurts eaten by the half dozen to curve hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak their name, of Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, of fags and fairies, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell and can write too, write one million words on order, and of stalinite-worthy betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of the mind, and of second million word writes all while riding the clattering subway to and fro, and not to speak of Soho or the Village. And of junkies, of every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules face down in some dusty Sonora town failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand forgotten murders. Jesus, suffering humanity.
And of men met in New York,
really Times Square jungles (post- Maggie girls, women, frills, frails, dames,
bitches, etc., etc., of no serious consequence except as pillows, weeps,
dreams, and such). Of word magicians, maybe not two million but enough, of
great earth-devouring fags (no offense here), chain-smoking New Jersey
sodomites, reading Walt Whitman by day and wine drunk and man horny at night
(or maybe day too) but mainly reading and infernal writing always writing like
that was all that life could be except enough experiences to write about. Of
Allen om Ginsberg. Of breaking out of silly Eliot great modern bean- counting
words in need of glossaries of comprehension, of jazz-inspired be-bop high
white words to take the whole red scare, cold war stalinite night away, and to
calm the nuclear blast headed our way, butt up (no sexual reference intended
and no spite) and chronicle each and every experience with that broken down
typewriter, and that roll of low-grade paper ripped out of the be-bop 1950s
night. And of Adonis all-american golden boy, Neal, meets all-american
dark-haired boy in some Denver saloon, or pool hall yelling, shoot pools , make
some dough and off in some 1946 Studebaker in straight forty-eight hour
gears-grinding search of the great blue-pink American West night, or maybe just
Maggie, that eluded fugitive fragrance that he could never name of Maggie, who
knows. Yes, the father that we knew, the father that we did not know. Jack,
Jack of the Merrimack.
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