Thursday, March 04, 2010
Tuffy the Drug Dog
Dude, this is unbelievable, this is incredible, dude, I cannot tell you how insane this is, I cannot believe it myself. After we left Denny's yesterday -- man, that Grand Slam was good, I was full! -- when you went to work, I went home, and I was going to do something, I forgot what, and Weisendorf called and asked if I had any pot. And I did -- those two joints you gave me that I asked you for, 'cause, like, the whole day was ahead of me and I didn't have much to do, so, like I told you, I thought maybe I'd want to smoke some. So Weisendorf asks me to bring 'em over, because his parents were out on a cruise -- they'd won a cruise to Alaska on a game show! -- and he had a bunch of people over, and they'd run out of pot. So I figured what the hell and I went over. Well, when I walked in the door, it was obvious: Weisendorf and his friends, few guys, a few girls, had been sitting in his parents' living room for days, probably, just hittin' the bong. They were practically comatose. So I walk in and Weisendorf has already forgotten that he called me and why he called me, he's just sitting there, him and his friends are looking at each other, kind of, just completely stoned out of their minds. Get this, this is where it gets good: Within a minute of me walking in there, I hardly had time to take in the scene, to put it all together, to say to myself: Check this out, Weisendorf's parents are on an Alaskan cruise, and he's been sitting here for days just gettin' wasted, this is a riot, I was barely formulating that thought, even, when BOOM BOOM BOOM there's this pounding on the door and a big voice says "POLICE OPEN UP!" Well the cops don't wait for anyone to open the door, I hadn't locked it behind me, maybe that's good, otherwise they would've just broken it down, maybe, and these cops just storm the place, you know, like you see in movies some time, five or six cops stomp into Weisendorf's parents place -- and it's pretty nice, have you been there, up at the top of Hatteras, the two-story with the modern architecture? Nice view up there. Anyway, they start shouting at us, "EVERYBODY SIT ON THE FLOOR," so we all sit on the floor and then I see -- they've got a dog. A German shepherd. And not just any German shepherd. Tuffy. The department's new drug dog. See, I had read an article in the newspaper last week about this dog. They trained this dog to sniff pot, heroin and hash and whatever the fuck other drugs they want the dog to find. And the dog, you know, sense of smell, the dog can find drugs hidden anywhere. So I know: I'm going to jail. I've got two joints stuck in my sock. When they let that dog go that dog is going to run straight to me and sniff my sock and the cops are going to pull the joints out of my sock and take me to jail. This is so fucked, I'm saying to myself, while the cops are yelling at everybody: "Whose house is this? Where are your parents? Why aren't you in school?" Weisendorf is trying to answer them, you know, like anybody would, he's telling 'em that he graduated from high school last year and his parents are letting him take a year off to decompress. Pretty cool of them, you know. My parents wouldn't let me do that. I had to sign up for city college. Did I tell you about my report card? "Units Attempted: 1. Units Completed: 0." It's classic. Jenny told me I should have it framed. So Weisendorf is telling the cops that his parents won a cruise on "The Price Is Right" but they're not really listening, which I thought was weird, because, c'mon, somebody wins a cruise on "The Price Is Right," that's funny, y'know? I thought the cops would think that was funny. If I were a cop, I'd think it was funny. You come into this house, a bunch of kids are all stoned out of their gourds, the parents are away on a cruise they won on "The Price Is Right" ... Anyway, the cops are looking around, they're checkin' us out, I don't know why they're there, maybe some neighbor called the police? Maybe they thought there was dealing? Maybe they had the music loud the night before? I'm thinking all this, and also, I have to pee, because I drank a lot of coffee at Denny's and I forgot to pee when I went home, and I'm sitting on Weisendorf's floor and I'm thinking, shit that dog is going to find the joints in my sock and the cops are going to take me to jail. So this is bad. One of the cops points to the bong on the coffee table and says “What’s that?” like he didn’t know. Weisendorf plays along. He says it’s a water pipe, but just for tobacco. So the cop loses patience, enough of this bullshit, he says, and he tell the cop with the dog to let the dog go. And like I said, I know that dog is going to come right over and sniff at my sock and I’m going to jail. So they took the leash off the dog, and the dog is ready to do his thing, but then … he just looks around. “Go Tuffy Go!” the cop says, all encouraging-like. But Tuffy is just standing there, looking around. He looks confused. Then he walks over to the couch, he sniffs at the couch, he looks at the cop who had him on the leash, like he’s not sure about what’s going on and what he’s supposed to do, then he walks over to a spot on the carpet, he sniffs that, then he walks over to a wall, he sniffs that. I figured out what was happening before the cops did: Weisendorf and his friends had smoked so much pot since his parents went on the “Price Is Right” cruise that everything in the house was covered in smoke residue. It covered the walls, it had soaked into the couch, it got absorbed into the carpet. Tuffy was wagging his tail. He was finding pot everywhere. There was so much pot that got smoked in that house that the smell covered up the two joints I had in my sock. The cops started laughing. “What’s the matter, Tuffy?” one of them said. “Can’t find anything?” They turned to make fun of the guy with the leash. “Wow, Sterling, that dog sure does a great job.” So the cops are wondering what to do next, Wiesendorf and me and his friends are still sitting in a circle on his living room floor, and Tuffy is walking around the house, wagging his tail and barking every now and then. Completely useless. So I take a chance: “Officer, can I go? I just came over on my way to class to borrow a notebook, I gotta go to class, I don’t wanna miss my class.” The cop says sure but as I’m walking out the door he says, “Wait a minute.” Oh shit, I say to myself, the gamble didn’t pay off, he’s going to bust me now. “What about your notebook?” he says. “Oh, that’s cool, I can see it’s a bad time, I’ll just use the ole noggin’.” So then I go. I was going to go home and pee. But, get this, this next part is amazing, too, my day isn’t over: As I’m walking down the sidewalk back to my van, up comes Marshall Cadence. Tall blond guy, nice looking, the girls love him. I tell him, dude, turn around quick, the cops are at Weisendorf’s house with Tuffy the drug dog. So he turns around and walks away with me. “Got any pot?” he asks. So I tell him I’ve got your two joints and he tells me to hop in his car and we’ll go smoke ’em. Fine, I say. Where we going? So he tells me what he wants to do. Check this out. This is what this guy does for fun. He goes down and drives by the transvestite prostitutes on Santa Monica Boulevard. Oh yeah. Just what I wanna do – not. He sees the look on my face and he’s all, “Whoa, I’m not gay, I just like lookin’ at the freaks when I’m stoned.” By now, we’re getting on the freeway, and I’m thinking, fuck, I just missed getting busted by Tuffy the drug dog and now I’m in this car with Marshall, and his idea of fun is checking out tranny hookers. So we get to Santa Monica Boulevard, and like he said, there they are, walking the sidewalk and Marshall’s all “Check ’em out, check ’em out.” And I’m like, whatever man, yeah, cool, now let’s go home. But he’s all, no let’s go talk to one! And that was it. I told him no way, you can get busted for that, and he’s all no, man, no, I’ve done it, it’s fun. And he’s: “I’m not gay,” and then I had enough and said: “Dude, sounds pretty gay to me,” so I make him let me out before he gets us both arrested for soliciting tranny prostitutes on Santa Monica Boulevard and I walk back to Cahuenga and wait at the Greyhound station for an hour -- finally, I use the head and take a pee, I've had to pee all this time, it was getting hard to hold it in at the end -- and catch the bus back to the Valley. Had to have my sister come pick me up at the gas station on Topanga and Ventura and drive me back to the van at Weisendorf’s. Can you believe that? First, I almost get busted by Tuffy the drug dog, then Marshall takes me to Santa Monica Boulevard for the tranny hooker tour and I coulda got busted down there, too, if I’d followed him around doing his stuff, whatever the fuck he does. Let’s go back to Denny’s for breakfast. I’m up for another Grand Slam. Remind me not to drink so much coffee, though. Sorry to wake you, again, man. You got any more pot? I don’t have anything to do today, either.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Last Time
I dreamed I was in room and the room was in a house and I climbed through the window of the room but I wasn’t outside, I was in another house, because the first house was inside another house, and then I woke up and I was in a room but in another house, and on the wall of the room there was a painting, and the painting was of a horse, and the horse was in a field and on the horizon there was a house and I looked closer and closer and the house got bigger and bigger and then I climbed through the window of that house, the house that was in the painting, way out in the distance, and I was inside that house and then I woke up and I was inside a different house, but this one was upside down so I was standing on the ceiling and there was a skylight and I broke the skylight with a rock that was suddenly in my hand, then I jumped down through the skylight and I was in another house, but this house was moving, it was on the back of a truck and the truck was carrying it across a country road in Italy, I could see the farms on the hills through a window, then the truck stopped and I climbed out the window and I walked across a field and there was a house on the horizon like the one that was in the painting and I walked to that house and I knocked on the door and then I woke up and I was on a boat and the boat was sailing to Catalina, I could see Catalina in the distance, and there were dolphins swimming alongside the boat, arching their dorsals out of the water the way dolphins do when they swim, and then I woke up again and I was in another dream and the other dream was on a stage and I was playing piano – Debussy’s “First Arabesque” – and I woke up again and I was in another house in another dream and there was a beautiful woman with me in bed, she had long, wavy blond hair and she was looking up at me lovingly and I kissed her and she kissed me back and I undressed her and I climbed on top of her and I was about to penetrate her when I woke up and I was at work and I was typing this and I closed my eyes to go back to sleep so I could make love to that woman but when I fell back to sleep I was in a house, and I went from room to room looking for her but she wasn’t there so I climbed out of a window and I was in another house, a house that contained the one I had just left, a house that held another house like the other one I had dreamt, and I went from room to room again looking for her but she wasn’t there again and I would’ve called out her name but I didn’t know her name and then I woke up again and I was in my bathroom and I was on the scale and I was weighing myself and I saw that I had lost 10 pounds and I told myself that I lost that weight because I was eating less and that thought made me hungry so I went downstairs to see what was in the fridge and that’s when the earthquake hit and I saw my living room chandelier sway and I lost my balance and everything in my kitchen crashed down from all the cabinets and I thought “oh no this is going to take HOURS to clean up” but I didn’t have to because I woke up again and I was in another dream in another house and this one was empty and I went from room to room looking for that woman again but she wasn’t there and as I turned a corner I put my hand on a wall and small furry animal bit my hand and held on and it hurt and I tried to shake my hand so the animal would let go but it wouldn’t and it didn’t and I woke up again and I was in another house within a house and a dream within a dream and the telephone was ringing but I couldn’t find and the answering machine picked up but it wasn’t my answering machine and the greeting wasn’t in English or French or German or any other language that I recognized and then I walked out the door and onto a patio and I saw that the garden hose was leaking from its nozzle and I thought I should fix it and I tried to find where it screwed into the spigot so I followed the hose around the corner and then around another corner and then another corner and the hose kept leading me around corners, three, four, five, six, seven corners, then it led me into another house where it disappeared under a crowd of people and the people were dancing, it was a party, but then it wasn’t a house, it was a strip club, and there was a girl in black bra and panties and high heels and she had a nose ring and a tattoo on her back, she was dancing on the stage, the way strippers dance when they dance, she was twirling around a pole, and I tried to see what the tattoo was but I couldn’t get close enough and she was twirling faster and faster and then I woke up again but I wasn’t me, I was you and you were reading this and then I woke up and I walked away from my computer and I looked out my window and the sky was blue with white wispy clouds and I was awake and I thought I wasn’t dreaming but I was, because I woke up again and I was in a different house and there was a mirror on the wall and I could see myself and I looked older and my hair was thinner and I could see my blue, blue eyes staring back from the mirror and I woke up again, but I was asleep, and I knew I was asleep because I was floating above myself and I was watching myself asleep on my bed and it was raining outside and then I woke up again and I was in bed and I saw myself floating above me and then it was raining inside and each raindrop was a mirror and I could see my face reflected in each raindrop, older, with thinner hair, and the rain started falling harder and harder and each raindrop showed my face, hundreds, thousands, millions of raindrops were falling, each one reflecting my face, and the water was rising in my room and I saw that I was still floating overheard and the water kept rising so I got out of bed and slid open the glass door and the water gushed out and I rode down with it the way a kayaker rides down rapids, twirling the way a stripper twirls on a dance pole, arching my back as I jumped out of and back into the water the way a dolphin swims alongside a boat, and I rode the flood down a flood channel, and the waters of the flood channel were churning more and more fiercely, and I woke up and I was in a room and there was a painting in a room and the painting showed a clipper ship on the ocean against a dark sky and the ship was being tossed high up on a wave and the painting came to life, the way a movie does, and I woke up again and I was young and I was back in the house where I grew up and my dad was there and my mom was there and it was daytime but the sky was black and I went to ask my dad something but he was gone and then I went to ask my mom something and she gone, too, and I went downstairs and I heard a knock on the door and it was you, and you were looking for me just like you told me you knew you’d be looking for me one day, and that you knew that one day when you were looking for me I wouldn’t be there for you and I didn’t answer the door and you kept knocking and I didn’t answer and I thought I was going to wake up but I didn’t wake up, and you kept knocking and I didn’t answer, and you kept knocking and knocking and knocking and I kept thinking I was going to wake up but I didn’t wake up because it wasn’t a dream anymore and then finally you stopped knocking and walked away and I still didn’t wake up and I’m still awake and that was the last time.
Monday, June 15, 2009
My Red Loves
I went to Elena’s apartment when I got to Barcelona. She had lived next door to a friend in Santa Monica, but moved to Spain to teach English and sent me her address because she knew I’d be coming to Europe that spring. It was a big apartment; she was sharing it with a group of other teachers. Some of their friends were visiting too, so we all went out to dinner, got drunk on red wine, told jokes and ate rabbit. When we went back to the apartment, I rolled out my sleeping bag on the floor of her bedroom, we said goodnight and shut the lights.
I woke up the next morning when the sun shone through her red lace curtains.
“Sleep well?” she asked me.
“Yeah, you?” I was still drowsy, but I saw she had been awake for a while; her eyes were wide open.
“OK. The floor must not be comfortable, though. Too bad my bed is so small.”
I thought for a moment.
“I’m not all that big. Neither are you. I could fit.”
I took off my T-shirt and my jockey shorts, went to her bed and pulled her red blanket down. I climbed in and wrapped my arms around her. She wriggled out of her red sweatshirt, we kissed and then made love all morning.
Two years before:
Hannah walked up to me on the quad. I was about to go home after my 11 o’clock class; it was my last one of the day.
“Hey, could you give me a ride? I don’t have my car today and it’s a long, long bus trip.”
We walked to the parking lot and hopped into my red Fiat sedan.
“Got any pot?” she asked. “I’d sure love get stoned.”
“At home. But I live in the opposite direction. Do you have time?”
“Sure, I don’t have to be at work until five.”
At my place, we sat on my bed, fired up my red bong and got stoned while we listened to a Ralph Towner record, airy improvised classical-style guitar over a jazzy bass and drums. She took off her red platforms and lay down. On the wall above my bed there was an art nouveau advertisement showing Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Medea. She had just slain her son, who was sprawled at her feet, and her eyes were wide open in horror. The tip of her dagger was red with blood.
“Wow,” Hannah said. “Check that out.”
“I know.”
“But come here and look at it from this angle.”
I lay down next to her. She rolled over a little, closer to me. She was wearing a red paisley halter dress. I pushed aside her long dark hair, caressed her shoulder and told her she was so beautiful. Her bare back was inches from my lips.
I thought for a moment.
I touched my lips to her shoulder and untied the knot at the nape of her neck. The top of her dress slipped off when I pulled it down, then I ran my fingertips across her breasts. She spun around and slipped her mouth onto mine. In a minute we were naked and I was licking her. When we were done with that, I pulled myself up, propped her ankles on my shoulders and we reached another round of ecstasy. Then she used those gorgeous red lips to finish me off.
The month before:
Kiana was walking across the lawn on the north side of the campus, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We waved to each other and she came to sit down next to me on the freshly cut grass.
“Have a look at this,” I said, handing her an article I had just finished for the college newspaper. She started reading. I didn’t want to be staring at her, I didn’t want to be gauging her reaction to each line, I wanted her to tell me what she thought when she had finished. So I looked away from her, toward a redwood sculpture by the promenade. It was a warm day, not too hot, and a perfect light breeze blew over us. And then a strange thing happened.
I felt something I’d never felt before. Electricity in the air, an invisible red current enveloping us both. It was almost frightening. I looked up at her and she was staring at me with a fierce intensity. And I knew it wasn’t because of anything I’d written.
I thought for a moment.
Then I reached over, pulled her neck toward me, and kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone before. We were deep in some other place, some red world, for what could’ve been hours but was probably not even a minute.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We walked back to the red Fiat and I sped to her house. We slid each others’ clothes off and jumped into bed.
I kissed her from the top of her head down to the red polish on her toenails. And for the rest of the afternoon I pleasured her in all the ways a man can pleasure a woman and she pleasured me in all the ways a woman can pleasure a man.
The year before:
It was our last year of high school. Mike’s parents were out of town, so he was having a party, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. I was driving home from my job at the record store, and at the last second, I turned my red Karmann Ghia onto Red Rock Avenue, parked and went in to Mike’s red-tile roof house. The party had been going on for some time. Couples had already formed and had taken some of the bedrooms. Cary grabbed my hand and said she wanted to talk to me.
She lived around the corner from me. She was petite, with long dark hair, and she was very, very pretty.
“OK,” I said.
“Alone,” she answered, in a red hot tone.
That meant finding a bedroom, going in with her and doing more than just talking.
I thought for a moment.
I took her by the hand, went upstairs and checked the maid’s room; it was available so we went in. Before I could even make an attempt at the pretense of “talking,” she had me on the bed and unbuttoned my pants. I unzipped the back of her red dress and pulled it up over her shoulders, then unhooked the clasp of her red bra and pulled her red panties down to her ankles. We rolled around the red bed, kissing and caressing, then kissing and caressing some more. It was a cool December night, so I pulled off the red bed cover, we got between the red sheets and had at each other until we couldn’t anymore. By the time we were done, everyone else had gone home. When we came out of the bedroom, we were able to find our way out was because Mike had left a red night-light glowing in the hallway.
Thirty years later:
Those are four of my red loves. I have more, but those were the ones I picked for this story. I call them my red loves because they never happened. Each time that I thought for a moment, I didn’t act. So those experiences that I could have had were stricken from my life, the way an editor deletes sentences with a red pencil. Why?
That night I got to Barcelona was Elena’s birthday, she was a beautiful, kind and smart woman and I would’ve easily fallen in love with her, but she was 40 and I was 20, so where would that have led? Of course I still wonder how great it would’ve been to climb under that red blanket with her.
Hannah was fun and sexy. But she’d been dating Lee, a classmate. “We broke up,” she assured me that afternoon on my bed. “It’s over.” But Becky had told me the same thing a year before: that she had broken up with her boyfriend, my friend Will, so it was OK for us to make love. And we did. But I saw Becky and Will together a few days later. “Oh shit,” I’d said to myself. “I had sex with somebody else’s girlfriend.” So how could I be sure Hannah had really finished with Lee? He told me later that it was true – they had broken up. Of course I still wonder how great it would’ve been to take off that red paisley halter dress and feel her body spasm with ecstasy in climax after climax as I held her in my arms.
Kiana and I had known each other for years. She was pretty and had an exquisite body, which she normally didn’t show off. But one day I had gone to her house to pick her up to take her to a play that I had to review for the college paper, and she’d just gotten out of the pool and was wearing a red macramé bikini. So I could see she was slender but perfectly curved. If I’d have kissed her on the lawn that afternoon and made love to her, would we have gone from being friends to something more? I wasn’t sure I was ready for a girlfriend. Later, I asked her about that electricity I felt. “I looked up and your hair was glowing in the sun and you were just so beautiful, sitting there cross-legged in your red pants, I was just, I was just – you looked so good.” Ah, how great it would’ve been if I’d reached over and kissed her and taken her home and made love to her.
Cary had been dating a friend of mine, Russell. She suspected he’d been cheating on her with his old girlfriend so she asked Rick, an old friend, to take her to my house and see if I would tell her the truth. Which I did, thinking that it was in confidence, that she’d just break up with him and leave me out of it. But she told Russ what I’d said, he called me, and I had to go over to his house and apologize. I saw Russ and Cary together in front of her house the next week. I wasn’t happy that they’d dragged me into their false drama. There was no way I was going to go to bed with Cary. Still, she was very, very pretty and I just loved it that she let me know she wanted me – or more precisely, that I could have her if I wanted her. Of course I still wonder how great it would’ve been to take her up to a room at Mike’s house, get her naked, pull her on top of me and watch her riding me.
But each time I thought for a moment, I asked myself: What happens after? And I thought that it wouldn’t work out well. So I didn’t do what would’ve been so exquisite. Once, twice, these three times, four times, more times; more times than I can count.
But not all the time. Because I had other loves, too, that were not red loves. Those were the ones I thought would work out. And they didn’t work out, either. So maybe I was wrong, and maybe any one of the red loves, the ones I wrote about here or the ones I didn’t, would’ve worked out better than the other ones, the ones that happened.
I didn’t start out writing this story. It was just going to be about Elena, about what would’ve happened if I’d climbed into bed with her that morning in Barcelona. But then I decided I’d add Hannah and Kiana and I’d write about what it would’ve been like to make love to them. I had grabbed a redeye on my way home from work and was staying up all night to try to get my red story started. I was wearing my red sweats and I was looking at the toy cat on top of my computer. He’s holding a red ball in his mouth, with a red bow tie and two red hearts on his paws.
Then Cary found me on Facebook. “Do you remember me?” she asked. “I think I remember you.” She’s living in another country, on the other side of the world. She opened a chat window on my page and told me what was going on in her life.
“I’m married, but unhappy. I think I’m getting divorced. I’d really like to come back to the states. Do you think I could find a job there?” Hmm, bad timing, I told her. Layoffs everywhere. She might as well have been saying “Save me.” But I couldn’t: I have long hours at work and an hour commute each way. I don’t have time to save anyone. And I wouldn’t: She didn’t really remember me, she was just looking for some man to help her get out of a bad marriage. But I do love you, Cary, in my red love way, love that could have been but never was. And so now you’re in my red story, too.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Self Repair
Yeah, me too, I love it that the company has its own gym and we can pop in like this before we go home. We’re lucky. But even with all the hours that I spend working out here, I can’t get this weight off. I’ve still got the same butt and thighs. … No, come on, not “me too,” you look great … Thanks, but I want to lose 20 pounds, to get back to where I was when I was young, and no matter what I do … I know, but still … And all the other women our age around here, they’ve had “some work done,” too, huh? You know, the facelifts, the Botox … Oh, come on, you don’t need it, but I do, even though I’m not sure it would help …
Because with me, it’s different, with what happened to my face. … Well, this side is paralyzed … That’s nice, but come on, everybody notices … Really? You mean that? … That’s great… Of course, I still notice every time I look in the mirror, even after all these years… I thought everybody would, but, hey, great … No, not a disease, I know what you’re thinking of, Bell’s Palsy, where half your face gets paralyzed … That’s not what happened to me … You don’t know? I thought everybody knew! You’ve worked here, what, two years now? … Wow, I thought someone would’ve told you. I guess people don’t talk about it as much anymore.
It was ten years ago. Almost eleven years, now. I had my own software company. My brother was working as an aerospace engineer when I was in high school and he told me to get a college degree in computer science. It was hard. Harder than I thought. That was before a lot of people were doing it. But I did it.
Then I worked at a small company for a year. It was going nowhere, but I met my husband there – you’ve seen him, he comes to pick me up at work sometimes. We got married and started our own company.
I was doing the R&D. We were looking for what they used to call the “killer app” – you know, something like VisiCalc. Software that could change the way people worked, something everybody would need to do their job. We were working on a bunch of things, programs that everybody uses today, computerized troubleshooting and self-repair. We were really close to finishing a self-repair program. That was the goal, a product like that. They’re common today. But not back then.
Meanwhile, we were doing consulting for about a dozen clients. My husband was running that part of the business. He was installing their computer systems. Freight companies, small newspapers and magazines, a lot of companies with a hundred or so employees that needed to get their accounting systems off the ledger books and onto computers. We were growing twenty percent, thirty percent a year. We were making serious money. Things were great.
I had two assistants, two gals, interns from the college where I’d studied. We were working late one night, we were all getting tired, so I told them to go home. We had an office out in the suburbs. They didn’t want to leave me alone. But it was a low-crime area, everybody always said it was the safest city west of the Mississippi – FBI statistics – so I wasn’t worried. I didn’t lock the door when the other girls left.
About ten minutes later, this guy came in. I knew right away. A vibe. They say a chill goes up your spine, but I’d never felt that until then. It’s true. A chill does go up your spine.
“We’re closed,” I said.
“I don’t care if you’re closed,” he said. “I’m here to kill you.”
And he came toward me and I knew if I didn’t get away I’d be dead. So I tried to run around my desk to the sliding glass door to get out on the balcony and jump over the side. Fourth floor. That’s how scared I was. It was worth a chance. But I didn’t make it.
He hit me on the side of the head while I was trying to get to the balcony. Maybe with his fist, maybe he had a club or something. Then he grabbed me by my hair, from behind, and he cut my throat. Here, see? Then he must’ve hit me again, because that’s all I remember.
Then he raped me. Oh gee, you’re turning white. No, no, no, it’s OK, I don’t remember that part. They told me that later. They told me he took off my pants and he raped me. They think he got turned on by doing violent stuff. Or that what he wanted was sex with dead people. …. No, I didn’t even know it happened. I have no memory of it, none at all. And it was so long ago. Don’t cry.
My husband was out of town, he called home, called the office. After two hours, it was getting late, he couldn’t find me, so he called my brother, and my brother went to the office and found me there. The ambulance came. I had lost almost all my blood. As soon as they got me to the hospital, I flatlined. No pulse. No nothing. For four minutes. Gone. They thought I was dead. They were doing chest compressions and they got a pulse again.
I was in a coma for two months. They induced the coma so I could heal. After that, it took me, oh, something like three months to learn to walk again, and six months to learn to talk again. It was slow progress. It was a year or more before I got back to normal again. Well, I never got back to normal completely. Never got back like before. This side of my face is still paralyzed. But after a year, I could do most stuff.
We lost everything. The company, the house. My husband had to take care of me full time. Even with insurance, and insurance was better in those days, there were extra things I needed that weren’t covered. But I got better. Almost all better. That’s the important thing. Right?
No, they never caught him. Everybody asks that. The detectives worked really hard on the case. They had me look at thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of mug shots over the years. They thought that he’d get arrested eventually for beating up some woman somewhere and his mug shot would make its way into the books. But no, I never saw anyone.
The four minutes? That’s funny, nobody asks about that. Everybody asks if they caught the guy; nobody asks about the four minutes. I don’t know; I don’t remember. But here’s what they told me: When they brought me back to life, I started sobbing and crying, and they thought it was because I was in pain, but I guess not, I guess it was something else. Because they told me I said:
“Why did you bring me back? It was good there! It was BEAUTIFUL there!”
… Yeah, that is something to think about, isn’t it? But I swear I don’t remember. I wish I did.
Uh huh, it was great that my husband took care of me. I have a great husband. He always said it didn’t bother him, what happened to me. But we had money then. I wonder if he hired a private detective, found the guy and had him killed. The first few years, I was bitter, so angry that it happened to me, that I lost so much. And my husband was always really Zen about it. A little too Zen, sometimes, if you ask me.
The statute of limitations ran out a long time ago. One of the detectives made a joke about it. He said: “Maybe we can pop the statute by saying he killed you. There’s no statute on murder. And you were dead.” … Yeah, quite a sense of humor. I guess you’d need one, dealing with cases like mine all day. Otherwise you’d go insane, right?
… No, we couldn’t start another company, we fell behind in the technology. We couldn’t put in the hours. And by then we knew that even if we’d finished our self-repair program or made some other killer app, Microsoft would’ve reverse-engineered it, then put it in Windows and driven us out of business. That happened to some people I went to school with who started their own company the same time I did. Ruined them. They called me and told me all about it. … Hah, right, that’s exactly what I said, too. After what I’d been through, I heard that story and I said to myself: Big deal.
You just do the treadmill? And that works, that keeps you trim like that? We’re about the same age, and you look so much younger. So you don’t do the other machines, that chair you bend over in? Have you tried that? That’s supposed to tone up the butt and the abs. I’ve tried. Half an hour, forty-five minutes. Nothing. … Yeah, I know it’d be worse if I didn’t work out. But still, I’d like to see some results. I’d like to get my body back looking it did when I was young. … I know, we all do, everybody does. But I want to really, really badly. I really want to get back to the way I was when I was young. That’s why I work out so much. It’s so important to me. You understand.
Because with me, it’s different, with what happened to my face. … Well, this side is paralyzed … That’s nice, but come on, everybody notices … Really? You mean that? … That’s great… Of course, I still notice every time I look in the mirror, even after all these years… I thought everybody would, but, hey, great … No, not a disease, I know what you’re thinking of, Bell’s Palsy, where half your face gets paralyzed … That’s not what happened to me … You don’t know? I thought everybody knew! You’ve worked here, what, two years now? … Wow, I thought someone would’ve told you. I guess people don’t talk about it as much anymore.
It was ten years ago. Almost eleven years, now. I had my own software company. My brother was working as an aerospace engineer when I was in high school and he told me to get a college degree in computer science. It was hard. Harder than I thought. That was before a lot of people were doing it. But I did it.
Then I worked at a small company for a year. It was going nowhere, but I met my husband there – you’ve seen him, he comes to pick me up at work sometimes. We got married and started our own company.
I was doing the R&D. We were looking for what they used to call the “killer app” – you know, something like VisiCalc. Software that could change the way people worked, something everybody would need to do their job. We were working on a bunch of things, programs that everybody uses today, computerized troubleshooting and self-repair. We were really close to finishing a self-repair program. That was the goal, a product like that. They’re common today. But not back then.
Meanwhile, we were doing consulting for about a dozen clients. My husband was running that part of the business. He was installing their computer systems. Freight companies, small newspapers and magazines, a lot of companies with a hundred or so employees that needed to get their accounting systems off the ledger books and onto computers. We were growing twenty percent, thirty percent a year. We were making serious money. Things were great.
I had two assistants, two gals, interns from the college where I’d studied. We were working late one night, we were all getting tired, so I told them to go home. We had an office out in the suburbs. They didn’t want to leave me alone. But it was a low-crime area, everybody always said it was the safest city west of the Mississippi – FBI statistics – so I wasn’t worried. I didn’t lock the door when the other girls left.
About ten minutes later, this guy came in. I knew right away. A vibe. They say a chill goes up your spine, but I’d never felt that until then. It’s true. A chill does go up your spine.
“We’re closed,” I said.
“I don’t care if you’re closed,” he said. “I’m here to kill you.”
And he came toward me and I knew if I didn’t get away I’d be dead. So I tried to run around my desk to the sliding glass door to get out on the balcony and jump over the side. Fourth floor. That’s how scared I was. It was worth a chance. But I didn’t make it.
He hit me on the side of the head while I was trying to get to the balcony. Maybe with his fist, maybe he had a club or something. Then he grabbed me by my hair, from behind, and he cut my throat. Here, see? Then he must’ve hit me again, because that’s all I remember.
Then he raped me. Oh gee, you’re turning white. No, no, no, it’s OK, I don’t remember that part. They told me that later. They told me he took off my pants and he raped me. They think he got turned on by doing violent stuff. Or that what he wanted was sex with dead people. …. No, I didn’t even know it happened. I have no memory of it, none at all. And it was so long ago. Don’t cry.
My husband was out of town, he called home, called the office. After two hours, it was getting late, he couldn’t find me, so he called my brother, and my brother went to the office and found me there. The ambulance came. I had lost almost all my blood. As soon as they got me to the hospital, I flatlined. No pulse. No nothing. For four minutes. Gone. They thought I was dead. They were doing chest compressions and they got a pulse again.
I was in a coma for two months. They induced the coma so I could heal. After that, it took me, oh, something like three months to learn to walk again, and six months to learn to talk again. It was slow progress. It was a year or more before I got back to normal again. Well, I never got back to normal completely. Never got back like before. This side of my face is still paralyzed. But after a year, I could do most stuff.
We lost everything. The company, the house. My husband had to take care of me full time. Even with insurance, and insurance was better in those days, there were extra things I needed that weren’t covered. But I got better. Almost all better. That’s the important thing. Right?
No, they never caught him. Everybody asks that. The detectives worked really hard on the case. They had me look at thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of mug shots over the years. They thought that he’d get arrested eventually for beating up some woman somewhere and his mug shot would make its way into the books. But no, I never saw anyone.
The four minutes? That’s funny, nobody asks about that. Everybody asks if they caught the guy; nobody asks about the four minutes. I don’t know; I don’t remember. But here’s what they told me: When they brought me back to life, I started sobbing and crying, and they thought it was because I was in pain, but I guess not, I guess it was something else. Because they told me I said:
“Why did you bring me back? It was good there! It was BEAUTIFUL there!”
… Yeah, that is something to think about, isn’t it? But I swear I don’t remember. I wish I did.
Uh huh, it was great that my husband took care of me. I have a great husband. He always said it didn’t bother him, what happened to me. But we had money then. I wonder if he hired a private detective, found the guy and had him killed. The first few years, I was bitter, so angry that it happened to me, that I lost so much. And my husband was always really Zen about it. A little too Zen, sometimes, if you ask me.
The statute of limitations ran out a long time ago. One of the detectives made a joke about it. He said: “Maybe we can pop the statute by saying he killed you. There’s no statute on murder. And you were dead.” … Yeah, quite a sense of humor. I guess you’d need one, dealing with cases like mine all day. Otherwise you’d go insane, right?
… No, we couldn’t start another company, we fell behind in the technology. We couldn’t put in the hours. And by then we knew that even if we’d finished our self-repair program or made some other killer app, Microsoft would’ve reverse-engineered it, then put it in Windows and driven us out of business. That happened to some people I went to school with who started their own company the same time I did. Ruined them. They called me and told me all about it. … Hah, right, that’s exactly what I said, too. After what I’d been through, I heard that story and I said to myself: Big deal.
You just do the treadmill? And that works, that keeps you trim like that? We’re about the same age, and you look so much younger. So you don’t do the other machines, that chair you bend over in? Have you tried that? That’s supposed to tone up the butt and the abs. I’ve tried. Half an hour, forty-five minutes. Nothing. … Yeah, I know it’d be worse if I didn’t work out. But still, I’d like to see some results. I’d like to get my body back looking it did when I was young. … I know, we all do, everybody does. But I want to really, really badly. I really want to get back to the way I was when I was young. That’s why I work out so much. It’s so important to me. You understand.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Song for John
“A few good times, before it ends,” I say, and we raise our glasses. “So let’s drink to that.”
We’ve been getting together at an Indian restaurant near my house at the beginning of every season; our quarterly dinners, I called them. But these days life has gotten too hectic even for that, so now it’s more like twice a year, summer and winter. A bunch of us from high school – we played in bands together – and some of the girls we knew. “Girls” – women now, with grown children, one an attorney, another a composer, a few others. I still call them “girls,” because they were girls then. And we were boys.
First I call Bob, to see if he’ll be available, because he tours with a classic rock cover band sometimes, and when he’s not touring he’s got gigs playing guitar at country-western bars around town or recording. The rest of us work day jobs; one at a bank office, a few teachers, a salesman, a computer animator, a farm owner and some others. Bob and I pick a night when he’s in town and free, then I e-mail everyone and most show up. About six of us. Sometimes eight or nine. It’s pretty fun.
It started after Barry’s funeral. Barry was a prop master on Hollywood movies. I’d seen him ten years before he died, when I was walking down a street in Venice. A booming voice called my name from the shadows inside a huge trailer. I instantly knew it was him, even before I saw him as he stepped out into the sun. He was a huge guy, maybe six-foot-five and at least 250 pounds, with a helmet of black hair and wire-frame glasses. I’d last seen him when we were 18, he had terrible health problems, but he hadn’t changed in fifteen years.
“Hey, watcha workin’ on?” I asked, stepping in to have a look at his trailer. It was filled with monster masks, fake guns, holsters for them, sports equipment, hats – a rolling house full of odds and ends that someone might need for a movie.
“A Christian Slater bang-bang,” he said. It was called “Kuffs” and it still shows on cable sometimes.
A few years out of high school, Barry shot up heroin with a few of his friends at someone’s apartment one night. They shared the needle. Within weeks, he got a staph infection that landed in his heart and ate up one of the valves. He had to have it replaced with a pig’s valve, and suffered from bad circulation for the rest of his life; toward the end he was traveling to film shoots wheeling the stand for his I.V. bag. He died at 43. He always claimed it had nothing to do with the heroin and the shared needle. None of us believed him.
Mike called to tell me about the funeral, and I called Fred and some of the others. When I told Fred about the funeral, he reminded me that B. wasn’t just a big goofy guy. Barry was deep. Fred remembered seeing Barry in front of high school one morning wearing a black armband. He asked him what it was for.
“Kent State,” Barry said. It was the anniversary of the day the National Guard shot and killed four students protesting the Vietnam War. Four students Barry didn’t know, and who had died years before and many miles away. But he cared. Fred and I cared, too. A lot of people cared. But Barry cared enough to wear a black armband.
Mike and Barry had been friends most of their lives. Mike remembered the first time he saw Barry, washing his hands in the bathroom of their elementary school. Barry was huge even then, twice the size of the other kids, and he was wearing his Cub Scout uniform. They were in second grade.
Later, teenagers, they got arrested at Disneyland while they were on acid. The official charge was “being minors in danger of leading an idle and dissolute life.” I didn’t know that was a crime. In any case, it’s obviously a law that’s selectively enforced. They spent the night in a cell at the Orange County Jail with two other friends, Scott and Jeff. Barry had punched a Disneyland employee in the face when they argued about a magazine the worker thought he was stealing from a shop – he wasn’t, he just didn’t realize he had it in his hand. Mike had to ask passersby to call for an ambulance while he and Jeff were walking through the parking lot to their car, because Jeff was turning blue and said he thought he was going to die. Mike describes their trip this way: Picture an M.C. Escher drawing, animated, backwards and upside down.
Mike and I and a few of our other friends from the old days all went to Barry’s memorial service. I didn’t go to Barry’s parents’ place afterward, though, but most everyone else did. Mike called me later that night.
“I felt so guilty!” he said. “It was Barry’s funeral, and I was having the best time I’ve had in months – maybe years – because I got to see everybody again!”
Fuck that, I said, not angry at Mike, but at life, at myself, for not picking up the phone and inviting my friends to dinner every now and then. “We’re not going to get together just for funerals anymore,” I promised. So I started setting up the quarterly dinners, which are now semi-annual dinners. But at least it’s not just funerals.
We’re all impressed with and grateful for each other’s attendance at the dinners. It’s built up to where most of the people we used to hang out with in the old days come every time.
Most of the people. Not all.
The name that comes up at just about every dinner is John’s. “Why isn’t John here?” someone will ask. “Have you called him?”
John. We all shake our heads and laugh a little. I call him every time. I spoke to him once. Since then, he doesn’t pick up so I just leave a message. On his answering machine, you can hear him play the guitar chords for “Tequila” and whistle the melody. Then he growls: “TEQUILA!” Then you hear the tone. I leave a message, telling him when and where we’ll be meeting for dinner.
But he doesn’t return my calls and he never comes.
---
We were all in high school music history class together. John was a tall guy with braces, shaggy hair and granny glasses. We got to talking about music and he brought his guitar up to my house one day and taught me how to play a song called “Mister Moonshine” on my Vox organ, and he sang and played guitar. We had a pretty good time. Then we drove down to have coffee at a doughnut place where L. worked. She was a blond pianist in our class and he was in love with her. John didn’t know that I was, too, but he realized something was up while we were with her. On the way home, he started yelling at me.
“I’ve finally found a girl I like, one who can talk about music, and I’ve got to compete with you for her! That’s so fucked! My life is so fucked! That figures! My life is so fucked!”
“John, I swear, I’m not getting anywhere with her. She’s not interested in me. I’ve tried in a dozen ways to let her know, to ask her out without it being like a ‘date,’ you know, just a concert together or something where we could meet, but nothing. All clear for you, big guy. She’s all yours if you can get her. Go for it! Don’t worry about me! I’ll be happy for you if it works out!”
That calmed him down. Whew. I was worried there for a few seconds.
Mike had told me John could be intense.
They had stayed up late one night smoking pot and watching TV. A commercial came on, showing a lot of numbers, orange, blue, yellow numbers, floating on a white background.
“Wow,” Mike said. “Numbers.”
“They’re so fucked,” John said. “I hate ’em.”
“They don’t lie.”
“YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT, DON’T YOU!” John snapped at him.
John didn’t get anywhere with L.
“I don’t really want a girlfriend,” he told me. “I just want the lower half of one. Just the legs. Just to fuck.”
“That’s all you want to do with a girl? Really?”
“No.” He thought for a second. “I’d take her riding on the back of my motorcycle.”
“Do you have a motorcycle, John?”
“No, but if I had a girlfriend like that, I’d get one!”
John and I took a humanities class together that summer. The teacher was pretty hip, for an old guy. Mr. Rifkind. He had us build our own instruments from kits you could order. John and I both did kalimbas – African finger pianos. John’s came out nicely, mine was awful. Two girls who lived on his street were in the class, too. They flirted with me, but I wasn’t interested. So when they’d see John outside his house, they’d shout to him: “How’s your gay friend?”
After a couple of times, he got tired of it, so he shouted back:
“Just because he doesn’t want to fuck your fat ass doesn’t make him gay.”
That took care of that.
Two actors came to our school and performed Ionesco’s “The Lesson” in the auditorium.
“What did you think?” I asked John as we left.
“What did you think?”
“I liked how the dynamics changed as the play went on. The student was submissive at the beginning, then became more and more confident, until she was a threat to the teacher and he had to kill her.”
“Yeah, well,” John said.
“Well what?”
“You know, if you’re going to do an Ionesco play, then you have to do an Ionesco play. It was too timid. It wasn’t crazy.”
I had glossed over the surface; John distilled the essence.
I went up to Don’s house one afternoon a couple of months later. John was on acid. He was sitting in a chair and looking at an art book. I sat on a couch near him and started talking to Don’s girlfriend, Jenny. Suddenly something hit me in the chest.
“Time for Miro!” John shouted. He had thrown the book at me. It was a pretty heavy book.
“John! That hurt!”
“I’m sorry!” he said with a big smile.
I saw him again a few months later when I started college. He was walking down the promenade. He had shaved his head. I called out to him.
“New hairstyle, huh?”
“I don’t want to do art anymore,” he said. “I want to be art. I’m interested in extreme art. Have you seen photorealism?” He pulled a book out of his backpack to show me. It was the first time I’d seen photorealism. “And I want to do art that most people wouldn’t think is art.” He also had a book of photographs by William Wegman, that guy who posed his Weimaraners in odd positions and costumes and took pictures of them. It was the first time I’d seen Wegman’s dogs, too. I thought they were really funny. I don’t think they’re funny anymore, though.
Mike and I put a band together, we covered some jazzy rock songs by Jeff Beck and Steely Dan. Rick asked us to play a party at his house one night when his parents were out of town, but our bass player – Barry’s younger brother, who now plays double-bass for an orchestra in Amsterdam – couldn’t make it, so we asked John to sub. Hundreds of kids flooded Rick’s cul-de-sac as the party got started. We played for about an hour, then the cops came to break up the crowd. John took a legs-spread stance, dropped his bass onto his thigh and thundered away on it as if he were a rock star in an arena. A cop walked over to his amp and unplugged it. John laughed.
John lived next door to Hank, who was a few years older than we were. He was finishing law school. John’s father, a rocket scientist, was having an affair with Hank’s mom, a secretary at the defense contractor where they both worked. John and Hank would follow the unfaithful couple to the parking lot of the missile company and watch them make out like lovestruck teenagers. Both families broke up.
I was naïve. I didn’t know what a divorce could do to people. I thought it would just be traumatic for little kids. But the day Hank went to take the Bar exam, he couldn’t write. He just froze. Then he couldn’t speak. I don’t know what ever became of Hank. That was about the time I left L.A. I was going to ride my bike across Europe for eight months, stopping to work at restaurants or hotels or harvests every now and then, but I found a job in London, stayed there for a year, then traveled some more, then studied in France and got a job there.
I had to come back to L.A. to get my student visa for France. That’s when Mike and Jenny told me what had happened to John after I’d left. He had been sent to Camarillo State Mental Hospital. They let him out after his three-day evaluation, though. Doing fine, they told me at the time.
I had a friend, Tony, who was about 10 years older than I was, I met him when we worked together at a porno theater, he became my mentor in literature, movies and music, he turned me on to Nathanael West and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and a lot of other writers, filmmakers and jazz musicians. He knew most of my crowd because they had worked at the theater before I did. He agreed that John was obviously the smartest of all of us. I guess it made sense, then, that John would be the one to get thrown in the psych ward. Even if it was just for three days. That’s how it goes: I think it’s toughest for the smartest, the ones who can grasp things the rest of us don’t.
I was in Europe for about eight years. Then I moved back and I stayed at Mike’s house for a while. John dropped by. He was on his annual pilgrimage to the old neighborhood, to visit Terry’s parents. Terry was a friend of his from high school, another tall guy, sharp dresser, though, styled hair. Terry disappeared one day. Gone. Picked up hitchhiking and killed? Or did he just run away and assume a new identity? No way to know. Truly bizarre.
John’s mom had bought some apartment complexes by the beach with the money she got after the divorce. John was living in one of the units. He would put on his wet suit and take his boogie board out to the surf every day to ride a few waves. He could do that most days because he worked odd hours as a directory assistance operator. Classic case: He was too smart to do anything besides a mindless drone job. Probably too intense, too.
I hadn’t seen him in eight years.
“So I hear you did some time in Camarillo,” I asked. “Like Charlie Parker, huh?”
I wondered if he would get mad at me; I hoped he didn’t think I was making fun of him. But he was proud of his experience. He explained what happened:
At the time of his parents’ divorce, he was – unsurprisingly – not ready to move out on his own and was severely stressed out about it. He went for counseling at a county mental health center. That’s where the trouble began.
He lit a cigarette in the waiting room. There was no ashtray. He asked the receptionist for one. She ignored him. He pulled a Kleenex from a box that was on the table next to the old magazines, cupped his hand and ashed his cigarette in the tissue.
It caught on fire.
He threw it on the ground and stomped it out. The receptionist saw him and told the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist brought him into his office.
“How long have you been starting fires?” the psychiatrist asked him. “Do you start fires often? Is that how you deal with stress?”
John laughed and tried to explain that it was just a little accident with a Kleenex and his cigarette. But he saw that the psychiatrist had written “PATIENT STARTED FIRE IN WAITING ROOM; THEN PATIENT LAUGHED” on his notes. He realized he was in trouble.
The psychiatrist told him to report for a 72-hour evaluation at Camarillo the next morning or there would be a warrant issued for his arrest.
After he checked in at Camarillo, he walked down the hallway where a 300-pound woman was singing opera.
“May I have this dance?” John asked her. She was delighted. They danced down the hall while she sang.
“I did it,” he told me. “I can honestly say I waltzed down the hall of Camarillo with a 300-pound crazy woman while she sang opera,” he said, smiling widely and nodding. John’s bragging rights.
“What else happened there?”
“Well, there was this really cute girl who came up to me later and said, ‘Hey, see that wall out there on the other side of the field? Meet me there later, right after dark.’ Then she walked away. So I thought: All right! This is great! I danced with the crazy opera-singing fat lady and now I’m even going to get laid!”
“Did you?”
“Right after that a guy came up to me and asked what she said to me. I told him and he said I shouldn’t go. ‘Why not?’ I asked him. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said.”
“So you didn’t?”
“No. That was pretty scary. Would you have gone?”
“I guess not,” I had to admit.
The doctors there quickly realized he was perfectly sane, or at least not insane enough to commit to the mental hospital, so he got out after his three days.
They closed the hospital. It’s a college campus now. California State University Channel Islands. Or C-Sushi, for short. These days, the mentally ill live on the streets or get taken to jail.
The year after he told me the story of his stay in Camarillo, John stopped at Mike’s house again on his way home from his visit to Terry’s parents. He pulled a washtub bass out of his car trunk, set it up on the driveway and played it for Mike, singing an old hillbilly lament, really loud. Mike loved it.
Years went by. Time passes.
John called Mike, told him he was on antidepressants and was really happy as a result, really feeling good. He played him some Stones licks over the phone and asked for Bob’s number: He wanted to tell Bob that he was proud of him for having made it as a professional musician. He said he’d seen Bob with a guitar case outside a recording studio in North Hollywood. Mike didn’t have Bob’s number so he called me to get it; I didn’t have it either, so I called Fred. Fred gave it to me, and called Bob to tell him that John would be calling and why.
Bob was baffled. He hadn’t been to North Hollywood anytime recently. John must’ve imagined it, he said. Then he realized something:
“I’ve been astral projecting,” Bob told Fred. “Maybe John was astral projecting, too, and he saw me on the other plane!”
As it turned out, John was astral projecting, too. I was surprised to learn I had two friends who were astral projecting. Not too surprised, though.
But John didn’t think he’d seen Bob on the other plane. In fact, he remembered distinctly seeing Bob on this plane, in North Hollywood. When they chatted on the phone, they compared notes and realized the discrepancy was related to time, not space.
“That was years ago,” Bob told Fred, somewhat puzzled, the next time they spoke.
“But John described it as if it had happened the day before,” Mike said to me later.
“A misunderstanding,” I said. “Or maybe they really did meet on the next plane.”
John called Mike every now and then; he’d play some guitar on Mike’s answering machine. Mike would call him back and play some guitar on John’s machine. Musical messages.
More years went by; time kept passing.
My friend Mark’s wife Nikki died of bone cancer that spread through her body. Tony died of a brain tumor. A girl named Karin I used to work with got married, moved to a Caribbean island with her husband, had a baby and then drowned in a current at the beach one day. With Tony gone, Mark had become my closest friend. He took too many sleeping pills with his gin and tonic one night and never woke up. That all happened in less than two years. I call them the hell years.
Then Barry died and the rest of us started getting together for those dinners. Another one of “the girls,” Betsy, came once or twice. She was a friend of John’s sister, Sylvia. Betsy works in the building across the street from where I work and we have lunch together every now and then. So that’s how I found out what was going on with John, and that’s how I got his phone number again.
John’s mother died. John, Sylvia and their brother Pete inherited her property, including the apartment where John lived. Sylvia was having an attorney liquidate the assets so they could divide the money three ways. But that meant selling the complex where he lived, so John wasn’t happy. Betsy told me he threatened Sylvia and he threatened her attorney. Meanwhile, he got in a huge battle with his bosses at work. As a result of an e-mail of his complaints that he sent to the entire corporate directory, he was placed on stress leave.
Sylvia’s attorney arranged the sale of the apartment complex in a way that allowed John to remain as a tenant. Sylvia, John and Pete got a lot of money. Not millions and millions, but an amount that would allow most of us to live comfortably the rest of our lives.
I called John to invite him to one of our dinners. When he called me back, he asked me to help him find a writer to document his battle with Sprint. His plan was to turn his story into a book and call it “Working for Sprint Drove Me Completely INSANE!” He would self-publish it and then advertise it in the New York Times. Hey, he had enough money, he said, so why not? He told me he would pay a good freelancer a generous sum.
“John, write it yourself,” I told him. “I’ll edit it. You can pay me a little to edit it.”
“I’m not a writer,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. Just get it down on paper. I’ll help you turn it into a book. Just gimme something to start with.”
“Hmmmmm.” He thought for a second. “Yes! GONZO! I will tank up on coffee and JAM! Stream of consciousness! … Like Jack Kerouac! I’ll get a legal pad, drink lots of coffee and stay up all night!”
“Exactly! Meanwhile, come to the dinner next week. We all want to see you. Your name comes up almost every time. We all love you. Someone asks every time: Where’s John?”
I had heard John was something of an agoraphobic. I suspected that’s why he wasn’t coming. He confirmed it.
“I get anxious when I go out, and I just know how I’ll feel while I’m driving out to see you guys. I’ll be worried about what you think of me.”
“John, I promise: Unconditional love. I promise. No need to worry what we think of you.”
“There’s a great taco stand by my place, though. I guarantee the best carne asadas you’ve ever eaten! You should come by anyway. This friend of mine has set up his Swedish bells in my apartment and we’re recording with them!”
Like all those years before, I thought to myself, when I first got to know John, playing “Mr. Moonshine” in my room and then going to the doughnut shop to visit the girl we were both in love with.
I practically begged him to come out my way, because getting us all together in his neighborhood would mean too much of a drive for some people in the group. I guess he just couldn’t. That’s the last time we spoke. I’ve left a couple of messages since then, but I haven’t heard back from him.
John’s brother Pete was a heroin addict. If you know about heroin addicts you will have already guessed what happened as a result of the windfall that followed his mother’s passing. He bought more heroin that he’d been able to buy before, shot up more than he’d ever shot up before and died of an overdose. That happened within weeks of his getting all that money.
I think of the English translation of a Jacques Brel song: “Death waits to allow my friends a few good times before it ends.” But then ….
---
This time we decide to meet at a Japanese restaurant instead of the Indian place. My friends and I all click our cups of hot sake. “To John,” I say. “And the passing time.”
We split the check, say goodnight and I make the short drive home. I get in bed, I close my eyes and float up slowly, slowly, then out the window. It’s the night of the Perseids, and I am heading northeast, toward the shooting stars. I glide over the city lights twinkling below and I see John in the distance, sailing toward me. When he’s close enough for me to hear him, he whistles the melody of “Tequila.” I call back to him: “TEQUILA!” Then we float off in opposite directions. I look over my shoulder and I see him fade into the dark night sky.
We’ve been getting together at an Indian restaurant near my house at the beginning of every season; our quarterly dinners, I called them. But these days life has gotten too hectic even for that, so now it’s more like twice a year, summer and winter. A bunch of us from high school – we played in bands together – and some of the girls we knew. “Girls” – women now, with grown children, one an attorney, another a composer, a few others. I still call them “girls,” because they were girls then. And we were boys.
First I call Bob, to see if he’ll be available, because he tours with a classic rock cover band sometimes, and when he’s not touring he’s got gigs playing guitar at country-western bars around town or recording. The rest of us work day jobs; one at a bank office, a few teachers, a salesman, a computer animator, a farm owner and some others. Bob and I pick a night when he’s in town and free, then I e-mail everyone and most show up. About six of us. Sometimes eight or nine. It’s pretty fun.
It started after Barry’s funeral. Barry was a prop master on Hollywood movies. I’d seen him ten years before he died, when I was walking down a street in Venice. A booming voice called my name from the shadows inside a huge trailer. I instantly knew it was him, even before I saw him as he stepped out into the sun. He was a huge guy, maybe six-foot-five and at least 250 pounds, with a helmet of black hair and wire-frame glasses. I’d last seen him when we were 18, he had terrible health problems, but he hadn’t changed in fifteen years.
“Hey, watcha workin’ on?” I asked, stepping in to have a look at his trailer. It was filled with monster masks, fake guns, holsters for them, sports equipment, hats – a rolling house full of odds and ends that someone might need for a movie.
“A Christian Slater bang-bang,” he said. It was called “Kuffs” and it still shows on cable sometimes.
A few years out of high school, Barry shot up heroin with a few of his friends at someone’s apartment one night. They shared the needle. Within weeks, he got a staph infection that landed in his heart and ate up one of the valves. He had to have it replaced with a pig’s valve, and suffered from bad circulation for the rest of his life; toward the end he was traveling to film shoots wheeling the stand for his I.V. bag. He died at 43. He always claimed it had nothing to do with the heroin and the shared needle. None of us believed him.
Mike called to tell me about the funeral, and I called Fred and some of the others. When I told Fred about the funeral, he reminded me that B. wasn’t just a big goofy guy. Barry was deep. Fred remembered seeing Barry in front of high school one morning wearing a black armband. He asked him what it was for.
“Kent State,” Barry said. It was the anniversary of the day the National Guard shot and killed four students protesting the Vietnam War. Four students Barry didn’t know, and who had died years before and many miles away. But he cared. Fred and I cared, too. A lot of people cared. But Barry cared enough to wear a black armband.
Mike and Barry had been friends most of their lives. Mike remembered the first time he saw Barry, washing his hands in the bathroom of their elementary school. Barry was huge even then, twice the size of the other kids, and he was wearing his Cub Scout uniform. They were in second grade.
Later, teenagers, they got arrested at Disneyland while they were on acid. The official charge was “being minors in danger of leading an idle and dissolute life.” I didn’t know that was a crime. In any case, it’s obviously a law that’s selectively enforced. They spent the night in a cell at the Orange County Jail with two other friends, Scott and Jeff. Barry had punched a Disneyland employee in the face when they argued about a magazine the worker thought he was stealing from a shop – he wasn’t, he just didn’t realize he had it in his hand. Mike had to ask passersby to call for an ambulance while he and Jeff were walking through the parking lot to their car, because Jeff was turning blue and said he thought he was going to die. Mike describes their trip this way: Picture an M.C. Escher drawing, animated, backwards and upside down.
Mike and I and a few of our other friends from the old days all went to Barry’s memorial service. I didn’t go to Barry’s parents’ place afterward, though, but most everyone else did. Mike called me later that night.
“I felt so guilty!” he said. “It was Barry’s funeral, and I was having the best time I’ve had in months – maybe years – because I got to see everybody again!”
Fuck that, I said, not angry at Mike, but at life, at myself, for not picking up the phone and inviting my friends to dinner every now and then. “We’re not going to get together just for funerals anymore,” I promised. So I started setting up the quarterly dinners, which are now semi-annual dinners. But at least it’s not just funerals.
We’re all impressed with and grateful for each other’s attendance at the dinners. It’s built up to where most of the people we used to hang out with in the old days come every time.
Most of the people. Not all.
The name that comes up at just about every dinner is John’s. “Why isn’t John here?” someone will ask. “Have you called him?”
John. We all shake our heads and laugh a little. I call him every time. I spoke to him once. Since then, he doesn’t pick up so I just leave a message. On his answering machine, you can hear him play the guitar chords for “Tequila” and whistle the melody. Then he growls: “TEQUILA!” Then you hear the tone. I leave a message, telling him when and where we’ll be meeting for dinner.
But he doesn’t return my calls and he never comes.
---
We were all in high school music history class together. John was a tall guy with braces, shaggy hair and granny glasses. We got to talking about music and he brought his guitar up to my house one day and taught me how to play a song called “Mister Moonshine” on my Vox organ, and he sang and played guitar. We had a pretty good time. Then we drove down to have coffee at a doughnut place where L. worked. She was a blond pianist in our class and he was in love with her. John didn’t know that I was, too, but he realized something was up while we were with her. On the way home, he started yelling at me.
“I’ve finally found a girl I like, one who can talk about music, and I’ve got to compete with you for her! That’s so fucked! My life is so fucked! That figures! My life is so fucked!”
“John, I swear, I’m not getting anywhere with her. She’s not interested in me. I’ve tried in a dozen ways to let her know, to ask her out without it being like a ‘date,’ you know, just a concert together or something where we could meet, but nothing. All clear for you, big guy. She’s all yours if you can get her. Go for it! Don’t worry about me! I’ll be happy for you if it works out!”
That calmed him down. Whew. I was worried there for a few seconds.
Mike had told me John could be intense.
They had stayed up late one night smoking pot and watching TV. A commercial came on, showing a lot of numbers, orange, blue, yellow numbers, floating on a white background.
“Wow,” Mike said. “Numbers.”
“They’re so fucked,” John said. “I hate ’em.”
“They don’t lie.”
“YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT, DON’T YOU!” John snapped at him.
John didn’t get anywhere with L.
“I don’t really want a girlfriend,” he told me. “I just want the lower half of one. Just the legs. Just to fuck.”
“That’s all you want to do with a girl? Really?”
“No.” He thought for a second. “I’d take her riding on the back of my motorcycle.”
“Do you have a motorcycle, John?”
“No, but if I had a girlfriend like that, I’d get one!”
John and I took a humanities class together that summer. The teacher was pretty hip, for an old guy. Mr. Rifkind. He had us build our own instruments from kits you could order. John and I both did kalimbas – African finger pianos. John’s came out nicely, mine was awful. Two girls who lived on his street were in the class, too. They flirted with me, but I wasn’t interested. So when they’d see John outside his house, they’d shout to him: “How’s your gay friend?”
After a couple of times, he got tired of it, so he shouted back:
“Just because he doesn’t want to fuck your fat ass doesn’t make him gay.”
That took care of that.
Two actors came to our school and performed Ionesco’s “The Lesson” in the auditorium.
“What did you think?” I asked John as we left.
“What did you think?”
“I liked how the dynamics changed as the play went on. The student was submissive at the beginning, then became more and more confident, until she was a threat to the teacher and he had to kill her.”
“Yeah, well,” John said.
“Well what?”
“You know, if you’re going to do an Ionesco play, then you have to do an Ionesco play. It was too timid. It wasn’t crazy.”
I had glossed over the surface; John distilled the essence.
I went up to Don’s house one afternoon a couple of months later. John was on acid. He was sitting in a chair and looking at an art book. I sat on a couch near him and started talking to Don’s girlfriend, Jenny. Suddenly something hit me in the chest.
“Time for Miro!” John shouted. He had thrown the book at me. It was a pretty heavy book.
“John! That hurt!”
“I’m sorry!” he said with a big smile.
I saw him again a few months later when I started college. He was walking down the promenade. He had shaved his head. I called out to him.
“New hairstyle, huh?”
“I don’t want to do art anymore,” he said. “I want to be art. I’m interested in extreme art. Have you seen photorealism?” He pulled a book out of his backpack to show me. It was the first time I’d seen photorealism. “And I want to do art that most people wouldn’t think is art.” He also had a book of photographs by William Wegman, that guy who posed his Weimaraners in odd positions and costumes and took pictures of them. It was the first time I’d seen Wegman’s dogs, too. I thought they were really funny. I don’t think they’re funny anymore, though.
Mike and I put a band together, we covered some jazzy rock songs by Jeff Beck and Steely Dan. Rick asked us to play a party at his house one night when his parents were out of town, but our bass player – Barry’s younger brother, who now plays double-bass for an orchestra in Amsterdam – couldn’t make it, so we asked John to sub. Hundreds of kids flooded Rick’s cul-de-sac as the party got started. We played for about an hour, then the cops came to break up the crowd. John took a legs-spread stance, dropped his bass onto his thigh and thundered away on it as if he were a rock star in an arena. A cop walked over to his amp and unplugged it. John laughed.
John lived next door to Hank, who was a few years older than we were. He was finishing law school. John’s father, a rocket scientist, was having an affair with Hank’s mom, a secretary at the defense contractor where they both worked. John and Hank would follow the unfaithful couple to the parking lot of the missile company and watch them make out like lovestruck teenagers. Both families broke up.
I was naïve. I didn’t know what a divorce could do to people. I thought it would just be traumatic for little kids. But the day Hank went to take the Bar exam, he couldn’t write. He just froze. Then he couldn’t speak. I don’t know what ever became of Hank. That was about the time I left L.A. I was going to ride my bike across Europe for eight months, stopping to work at restaurants or hotels or harvests every now and then, but I found a job in London, stayed there for a year, then traveled some more, then studied in France and got a job there.
I had to come back to L.A. to get my student visa for France. That’s when Mike and Jenny told me what had happened to John after I’d left. He had been sent to Camarillo State Mental Hospital. They let him out after his three-day evaluation, though. Doing fine, they told me at the time.
I had a friend, Tony, who was about 10 years older than I was, I met him when we worked together at a porno theater, he became my mentor in literature, movies and music, he turned me on to Nathanael West and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and a lot of other writers, filmmakers and jazz musicians. He knew most of my crowd because they had worked at the theater before I did. He agreed that John was obviously the smartest of all of us. I guess it made sense, then, that John would be the one to get thrown in the psych ward. Even if it was just for three days. That’s how it goes: I think it’s toughest for the smartest, the ones who can grasp things the rest of us don’t.
I was in Europe for about eight years. Then I moved back and I stayed at Mike’s house for a while. John dropped by. He was on his annual pilgrimage to the old neighborhood, to visit Terry’s parents. Terry was a friend of his from high school, another tall guy, sharp dresser, though, styled hair. Terry disappeared one day. Gone. Picked up hitchhiking and killed? Or did he just run away and assume a new identity? No way to know. Truly bizarre.
John’s mom had bought some apartment complexes by the beach with the money she got after the divorce. John was living in one of the units. He would put on his wet suit and take his boogie board out to the surf every day to ride a few waves. He could do that most days because he worked odd hours as a directory assistance operator. Classic case: He was too smart to do anything besides a mindless drone job. Probably too intense, too.
I hadn’t seen him in eight years.
“So I hear you did some time in Camarillo,” I asked. “Like Charlie Parker, huh?”
I wondered if he would get mad at me; I hoped he didn’t think I was making fun of him. But he was proud of his experience. He explained what happened:
At the time of his parents’ divorce, he was – unsurprisingly – not ready to move out on his own and was severely stressed out about it. He went for counseling at a county mental health center. That’s where the trouble began.
He lit a cigarette in the waiting room. There was no ashtray. He asked the receptionist for one. She ignored him. He pulled a Kleenex from a box that was on the table next to the old magazines, cupped his hand and ashed his cigarette in the tissue.
It caught on fire.
He threw it on the ground and stomped it out. The receptionist saw him and told the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist brought him into his office.
“How long have you been starting fires?” the psychiatrist asked him. “Do you start fires often? Is that how you deal with stress?”
John laughed and tried to explain that it was just a little accident with a Kleenex and his cigarette. But he saw that the psychiatrist had written “PATIENT STARTED FIRE IN WAITING ROOM; THEN PATIENT LAUGHED” on his notes. He realized he was in trouble.
The psychiatrist told him to report for a 72-hour evaluation at Camarillo the next morning or there would be a warrant issued for his arrest.
After he checked in at Camarillo, he walked down the hallway where a 300-pound woman was singing opera.
“May I have this dance?” John asked her. She was delighted. They danced down the hall while she sang.
“I did it,” he told me. “I can honestly say I waltzed down the hall of Camarillo with a 300-pound crazy woman while she sang opera,” he said, smiling widely and nodding. John’s bragging rights.
“What else happened there?”
“Well, there was this really cute girl who came up to me later and said, ‘Hey, see that wall out there on the other side of the field? Meet me there later, right after dark.’ Then she walked away. So I thought: All right! This is great! I danced with the crazy opera-singing fat lady and now I’m even going to get laid!”
“Did you?”
“Right after that a guy came up to me and asked what she said to me. I told him and he said I shouldn’t go. ‘Why not?’ I asked him. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said.”
“So you didn’t?”
“No. That was pretty scary. Would you have gone?”
“I guess not,” I had to admit.
The doctors there quickly realized he was perfectly sane, or at least not insane enough to commit to the mental hospital, so he got out after his three days.
They closed the hospital. It’s a college campus now. California State University Channel Islands. Or C-Sushi, for short. These days, the mentally ill live on the streets or get taken to jail.
The year after he told me the story of his stay in Camarillo, John stopped at Mike’s house again on his way home from his visit to Terry’s parents. He pulled a washtub bass out of his car trunk, set it up on the driveway and played it for Mike, singing an old hillbilly lament, really loud. Mike loved it.
Years went by. Time passes.
John called Mike, told him he was on antidepressants and was really happy as a result, really feeling good. He played him some Stones licks over the phone and asked for Bob’s number: He wanted to tell Bob that he was proud of him for having made it as a professional musician. He said he’d seen Bob with a guitar case outside a recording studio in North Hollywood. Mike didn’t have Bob’s number so he called me to get it; I didn’t have it either, so I called Fred. Fred gave it to me, and called Bob to tell him that John would be calling and why.
Bob was baffled. He hadn’t been to North Hollywood anytime recently. John must’ve imagined it, he said. Then he realized something:
“I’ve been astral projecting,” Bob told Fred. “Maybe John was astral projecting, too, and he saw me on the other plane!”
As it turned out, John was astral projecting, too. I was surprised to learn I had two friends who were astral projecting. Not too surprised, though.
But John didn’t think he’d seen Bob on the other plane. In fact, he remembered distinctly seeing Bob on this plane, in North Hollywood. When they chatted on the phone, they compared notes and realized the discrepancy was related to time, not space.
“That was years ago,” Bob told Fred, somewhat puzzled, the next time they spoke.
“But John described it as if it had happened the day before,” Mike said to me later.
“A misunderstanding,” I said. “Or maybe they really did meet on the next plane.”
John called Mike every now and then; he’d play some guitar on Mike’s answering machine. Mike would call him back and play some guitar on John’s machine. Musical messages.
More years went by; time kept passing.
My friend Mark’s wife Nikki died of bone cancer that spread through her body. Tony died of a brain tumor. A girl named Karin I used to work with got married, moved to a Caribbean island with her husband, had a baby and then drowned in a current at the beach one day. With Tony gone, Mark had become my closest friend. He took too many sleeping pills with his gin and tonic one night and never woke up. That all happened in less than two years. I call them the hell years.
Then Barry died and the rest of us started getting together for those dinners. Another one of “the girls,” Betsy, came once or twice. She was a friend of John’s sister, Sylvia. Betsy works in the building across the street from where I work and we have lunch together every now and then. So that’s how I found out what was going on with John, and that’s how I got his phone number again.
John’s mother died. John, Sylvia and their brother Pete inherited her property, including the apartment where John lived. Sylvia was having an attorney liquidate the assets so they could divide the money three ways. But that meant selling the complex where he lived, so John wasn’t happy. Betsy told me he threatened Sylvia and he threatened her attorney. Meanwhile, he got in a huge battle with his bosses at work. As a result of an e-mail of his complaints that he sent to the entire corporate directory, he was placed on stress leave.
Sylvia’s attorney arranged the sale of the apartment complex in a way that allowed John to remain as a tenant. Sylvia, John and Pete got a lot of money. Not millions and millions, but an amount that would allow most of us to live comfortably the rest of our lives.
I called John to invite him to one of our dinners. When he called me back, he asked me to help him find a writer to document his battle with Sprint. His plan was to turn his story into a book and call it “Working for Sprint Drove Me Completely INSANE!” He would self-publish it and then advertise it in the New York Times. Hey, he had enough money, he said, so why not? He told me he would pay a good freelancer a generous sum.
“John, write it yourself,” I told him. “I’ll edit it. You can pay me a little to edit it.”
“I’m not a writer,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. Just get it down on paper. I’ll help you turn it into a book. Just gimme something to start with.”
“Hmmmmm.” He thought for a second. “Yes! GONZO! I will tank up on coffee and JAM! Stream of consciousness! … Like Jack Kerouac! I’ll get a legal pad, drink lots of coffee and stay up all night!”
“Exactly! Meanwhile, come to the dinner next week. We all want to see you. Your name comes up almost every time. We all love you. Someone asks every time: Where’s John?”
I had heard John was something of an agoraphobic. I suspected that’s why he wasn’t coming. He confirmed it.
“I get anxious when I go out, and I just know how I’ll feel while I’m driving out to see you guys. I’ll be worried about what you think of me.”
“John, I promise: Unconditional love. I promise. No need to worry what we think of you.”
“There’s a great taco stand by my place, though. I guarantee the best carne asadas you’ve ever eaten! You should come by anyway. This friend of mine has set up his Swedish bells in my apartment and we’re recording with them!”
Like all those years before, I thought to myself, when I first got to know John, playing “Mr. Moonshine” in my room and then going to the doughnut shop to visit the girl we were both in love with.
I practically begged him to come out my way, because getting us all together in his neighborhood would mean too much of a drive for some people in the group. I guess he just couldn’t. That’s the last time we spoke. I’ve left a couple of messages since then, but I haven’t heard back from him.
John’s brother Pete was a heroin addict. If you know about heroin addicts you will have already guessed what happened as a result of the windfall that followed his mother’s passing. He bought more heroin that he’d been able to buy before, shot up more than he’d ever shot up before and died of an overdose. That happened within weeks of his getting all that money.
I think of the English translation of a Jacques Brel song: “Death waits to allow my friends a few good times before it ends.” But then ….
---
This time we decide to meet at a Japanese restaurant instead of the Indian place. My friends and I all click our cups of hot sake. “To John,” I say. “And the passing time.”
We split the check, say goodnight and I make the short drive home. I get in bed, I close my eyes and float up slowly, slowly, then out the window. It’s the night of the Perseids, and I am heading northeast, toward the shooting stars. I glide over the city lights twinkling below and I see John in the distance, sailing toward me. When he’s close enough for me to hear him, he whistles the melody of “Tequila.” I call back to him: “TEQUILA!” Then we float off in opposite directions. I look over my shoulder and I see him fade into the dark night sky.
Friday, August 01, 2008
The Starving Artist and the Chimp (Part V)
Libretto for an Opera
Act V
Francais and the Chimp are on stage. The chimp is at a desk and he has a laptop. There is another desk with a computer near him. On a bookcase shelf is a CD player, a fruit bowl with bananas and grapes, a jar of nuts, a bottle of soda, a telephone.
Francais
Later that night
I returned home
What did I find?
A chimp was there
What a strange sight
I was surprised
And like the chimp
In the story
Of the beach house
This one could write
And he had his
Own computer
I asked: “Who are You?”
He said: “Henry”
I said OK.
He pointed to my desk
He pointed to his keyboard
He challenged me to write
Write better than a chimp?
Well, I hope I can
I guess we’ll soon find out
Francais and the chimp hold their hands above their keyboards.
The Chimp:
One two three GO!
They both start typing
Francais
The name of my story is:
Changing Channels on the Multi Verse.
And it goes like this:
My brand new Panchronotic Multi-Versal TV
Was delivered to my home today
Complete with its remote control joystick
Now I will know what I might have been
Now I will see what I could have been
A screen displays nine squares; images in the squares appear and disappear as Francais describes them.
On the first channel I am a man in a lab
I am wearing a white lab coat
I can see that is the path I did not take
I can see that this is the one my parents wanted
And now I can see that ‘me’ on the TV
How many animals did that ‘me’ kill
All in the name of science?
The next channel shows ‘me’
Watching the new TV, wearing my clothes
Not these, different clothes
It’s a different day on that channel
On the next channel, too
I’m watching TV
On the next channel too!
So my first lesson is:
I watch too much TV
On the next channel
Whew – I’m reading a book.
The next channel, too!
And so on and so on
Same book, different clothes
Same book, different days
I type a random number
And on a new channel
I’m back in the lab
The next one, too
The next channel, too
The next one, too
But then: Ah! What’s this?
I’m on the deck of a ship
In a blue wetsuit
With diving gear!
I use the joystick
To pull the view back
And away from the boat
In the water: more divers!
One is climbing back
Onto the ship
I zoom in for a closeup
Of the diver on the ladder
Then I shift the joystick
For a wide view of our ship
I see ‘me’ and the divers
Take off our gear
We rinse it, then rack it
I don’t really want
To watch myself shower
So I bookmark the channel
The next channel shows
New views of me on the ship
The next one, too
The next channel, too
And the next channel, too
But on the next channel
I’m underwater
I watch for a while
And start to wonder
If I’m really having
As much fun as it
Looks like I’m having
The Chimp jumps up and points to his computer.
The Chimp
Look what I have written!
You owe me a banan’!
I’m sure that it is better
Than what you did, man!
Francais takes a banana from the fruit bowl in the bookcase, hands it to the chimp
Francais
OK, let’s have a look
Are you the chimp
Who can write a book
… Wait! What is this?
A screen displays the chimp’s text; each word appears as he reads it.
The Chimp
upsetting oscillAte quine scrawL
ast hornbLende aYe wedge
clOUdburst NosE morphing dEarth
nurture Dummy warble taketh
yank cItation Salsa per diem
buzzsaw orkney raveL wedge
wander scramsax hintered fasten
restOre knee ostrich VEry
Francais
What? That makes no sense
And no I’m not dense
Give me back that banan’
You get only half, man!
Francais takes back the banana splits it half, eats half, gives the other half to the chimp. The chimp takes half the banana, eats it and raises his middle finger.
Wouldn’t you know it?
Give a chimp a keyboard
And he thinks he’s a poet
Francais looks at the text again
But wait, now that I read
The letters that he’s upper cased
But wait, now that I see
What these letters spell
The stories all make sense now
The letters that he’s uppercased
The stories were all saying
The same thing, the same thing
The stories were all the same
The lowercased letters on the screen disappear, leaving the letters:
A L L Y O U N E E D I S L O VE
The orchestra plays the opening line of ‘La Marsellaise’
The Chimp
ALL!
Francais
ALL!
The Chimp
YOU!
Francaise
YOU!
The Chimp
NEED!
Francais
NEED!
The Chimp
IS!
Francais
IS!
/The Chimp
|
|LUHHHHVE!
|
|Francais
|
\ ... LUHHHHVE!
Francais and the Chimp dance
I put on my Beatles CDs
And we sang and danced all night
I broke out the soda and the grapes
And everything was alright
Francais and the Chimp dance around the stage, passing the bottle of soda and a bunch of grapes back and forth. The chimp picks up the telephone and dials a number and chants into the telephone:
The Chimp
Go! To! The! Window!
The Chimp hangs up and they laugh.
Francais and the Chimp:
Go to the window, the kitchen window!
The cast enters stage left, snapping fingers, joining the chant, assembling center stage.
All:
Go to the window, the kitchen window!
(repeat seven times)
Francais:
Are we not all
All
The starving artist
Sheisty
The starving artist
All
And the chimpanzee
IAA
Who fears fulfillment
All:
Both of them slaves to humanity
Talker:
In the light of day
All:
All of them slaves to humanity
Tapas
And are we not all
All
All of us slaves to humanity
The Chimp
The chimpanzee, too
All
The chimpanzee
Ghost
In the dark of the night
All
And the starving artist
IAA
With our physical needs
All
Both of them slaves to humanity
Francais
Our anger, our fear
All
All of us slaves to humanity
Sheisty
And our love
All
In our love, we’re slaves to our humanity
/Men:
|The starving artist
|
|Women
\The starving artist and the chimpanzee
/Men:
|They are both
|
|Women:
\They are both slaves to humanity
/Men
|But we are all
|
|Women
\But we are all slaves to humanity
/Men
|Like the starving artist …
|
|Women
\… Like the starving artist and the chimpanzee …
Men
… And the chimpanzee
FIN
Act V
Francais and the Chimp are on stage. The chimp is at a desk and he has a laptop. There is another desk with a computer near him. On a bookcase shelf is a CD player, a fruit bowl with bananas and grapes, a jar of nuts, a bottle of soda, a telephone.
Francais
Later that night
I returned home
What did I find?
A chimp was there
What a strange sight
I was surprised
And like the chimp
In the story
Of the beach house
This one could write
And he had his
Own computer
I asked: “Who are You?”
He said: “Henry”
I said OK.
He pointed to my desk
He pointed to his keyboard
He challenged me to write
Write better than a chimp?
Well, I hope I can
I guess we’ll soon find out
Francais and the chimp hold their hands above their keyboards.
The Chimp:
One two three GO!
They both start typing
Francais
The name of my story is:
Changing Channels on the Multi Verse.
And it goes like this:
My brand new Panchronotic Multi-Versal TV
Was delivered to my home today
Complete with its remote control joystick
Now I will know what I might have been
Now I will see what I could have been
A screen displays nine squares; images in the squares appear and disappear as Francais describes them.
On the first channel I am a man in a lab
I am wearing a white lab coat
I can see that is the path I did not take
I can see that this is the one my parents wanted
And now I can see that ‘me’ on the TV
How many animals did that ‘me’ kill
All in the name of science?
The next channel shows ‘me’
Watching the new TV, wearing my clothes
Not these, different clothes
It’s a different day on that channel
On the next channel, too
I’m watching TV
On the next channel too!
So my first lesson is:
I watch too much TV
On the next channel
Whew – I’m reading a book.
The next channel, too!
And so on and so on
Same book, different clothes
Same book, different days
I type a random number
And on a new channel
I’m back in the lab
The next one, too
The next channel, too
The next one, too
But then: Ah! What’s this?
I’m on the deck of a ship
In a blue wetsuit
With diving gear!
I use the joystick
To pull the view back
And away from the boat
In the water: more divers!
One is climbing back
Onto the ship
I zoom in for a closeup
Of the diver on the ladder
Then I shift the joystick
For a wide view of our ship
I see ‘me’ and the divers
Take off our gear
We rinse it, then rack it
I don’t really want
To watch myself shower
So I bookmark the channel
The next channel shows
New views of me on the ship
The next one, too
The next channel, too
And the next channel, too
But on the next channel
I’m underwater
I watch for a while
And start to wonder
If I’m really having
As much fun as it
Looks like I’m having
The Chimp jumps up and points to his computer.
The Chimp
Look what I have written!
You owe me a banan’!
I’m sure that it is better
Than what you did, man!
Francais takes a banana from the fruit bowl in the bookcase, hands it to the chimp
Francais
OK, let’s have a look
Are you the chimp
Who can write a book
… Wait! What is this?
A screen displays the chimp’s text; each word appears as he reads it.
The Chimp
upsetting oscillAte quine scrawL
ast hornbLende aYe wedge
clOUdburst NosE morphing dEarth
nurture Dummy warble taketh
yank cItation Salsa per diem
buzzsaw orkney raveL wedge
wander scramsax hintered fasten
restOre knee ostrich VEry
Francais
What? That makes no sense
And no I’m not dense
Give me back that banan’
You get only half, man!
Francais takes back the banana splits it half, eats half, gives the other half to the chimp. The chimp takes half the banana, eats it and raises his middle finger.
Wouldn’t you know it?
Give a chimp a keyboard
And he thinks he’s a poet
Francais looks at the text again
But wait, now that I read
The letters that he’s upper cased
But wait, now that I see
What these letters spell
The stories all make sense now
The letters that he’s uppercased
The stories were all saying
The same thing, the same thing
The stories were all the same
The lowercased letters on the screen disappear, leaving the letters:
A L L Y O U N E E D I S L O VE
The orchestra plays the opening line of ‘La Marsellaise’
The Chimp
ALL!
Francais
ALL!
The Chimp
YOU!
Francaise
YOU!
The Chimp
NEED!
Francais
NEED!
The Chimp
IS!
Francais
IS!
/The Chimp
|
|LUHHHHVE!
|
|Francais
|
\ ... LUHHHHVE!
Francais and the Chimp dance
I put on my Beatles CDs
And we sang and danced all night
I broke out the soda and the grapes
And everything was alright
Francais and the Chimp dance around the stage, passing the bottle of soda and a bunch of grapes back and forth. The chimp picks up the telephone and dials a number and chants into the telephone:
The Chimp
Go! To! The! Window!
The Chimp hangs up and they laugh.
Francais and the Chimp:
Go to the window, the kitchen window!
The cast enters stage left, snapping fingers, joining the chant, assembling center stage.
All:
Go to the window, the kitchen window!
(repeat seven times)
Francais:
Are we not all
All
The starving artist
Sheisty
The starving artist
All
And the chimpanzee
IAA
Who fears fulfillment
All:
Both of them slaves to humanity
Talker:
In the light of day
All:
All of them slaves to humanity
Tapas
And are we not all
All
All of us slaves to humanity
The Chimp
The chimpanzee, too
All
The chimpanzee
Ghost
In the dark of the night
All
And the starving artist
IAA
With our physical needs
All
Both of them slaves to humanity
Francais
Our anger, our fear
All
All of us slaves to humanity
Sheisty
And our love
All
In our love, we’re slaves to our humanity
/Men:
|The starving artist
|
|Women
\The starving artist and the chimpanzee
/Men:
|They are both
|
|Women:
\They are both slaves to humanity
/Men
|But we are all
|
|Women
\But we are all slaves to humanity
/Men
|Like the starving artist …
|
|Women
\… Like the starving artist and the chimpanzee …
Men
… And the chimpanzee
FIN
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Starving Artist and the Chimp (Part IV)
Libretto for an Opera
Act IV
Sheisty is at a desk in the middle of the stage. The chimp is on a platform to Sheisty’s left. Francais enters stage left.
Francais
I started a new job the very next day
As an editor at a book company
Once my assistant had showed me around
I looked at what some writers sent for me
It’s called the slush pile and I dug right in
One manuscript quickly caught my eye
It was wrinkled and marked with stains of wine
That was very strange; I wondered why
It seemed to be written as if the author
Were held somewhere against his will
An angry rant by a hungry captive
It was typed, I thought, by someone on pills
This is quite crazy I said to myself
It reminded me of the lost notebook
So I went back to the Craigslist forum
To see what was there, to have a quick look
Sheisty was writing about a chimp
Could his tale lead me to identify
The person whose notebook I found in the park?
So I read his text with an inquisitive eye …
Sheisty:
I have rented this house on the beach
It’s cheap, so on booze I don’t have to scrimp
I can write all day, enjoying life
If I can just put up with the owner’s chimp
/If I can just put up with the owner’s chimp
|
|The Chimp
|
\… And I am one hungry, noisy chimp
Yes, I am one hungry, noisy chimp
And I want some food and I want it now
Bring me a sandwich, make it baloney
I’m hungry dude, come here with the chow!
/I’m hungry dude, bring the chow now
|
|Sheisty
|
\… He’s hungry and he wants his chow now
I could get used to this good life
But that chimp makes too much racket
You think he’d be happy when I bring him food
But he makes me a target for his chimp-shit!
/Yes, he makes me a target for his chimp-shit
|
|The Chimp
|
\… Downstairs he is typing away
He spends his day typing away
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, what more can I say?
Sorry, it’s just that I’m built this way
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, all through the day!
/I’m hungry, I’m hungry, all through the day!
|
|Sheisty:
|
\… He’s driving my crazy, that’s all I can say
I took him to the beach to help me pick up chicks
But he made obscene gestures; really sick
Even when I told him I’d make a sandwich thick
When we got back home … what a chimp-prick!
/A sandwich thick … what a chimp-prick!
|
|The Chimp
|
\… I know one thing and I know it well
One thing I know and I know it well
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, bring me a treat
But he just types away all of the day
And whenever he wants to, he can eat!
/Whenever he wants to, he can eat!
|
|Sheisty
|
\… I have a deadline, he jumps around
He jumped so much a vase shook off the shelf
Fell on the keyboard, broke the space bar
This is a disaster, it means I can’t finish
The novel that would pay for a nice new car!
/The book that would pay for a nice new car
|
|The Chimp
|
\… He can have food, but he wants a new car!
When he wants food he can open the fridge
And help himself to some wine or bread!
I can knock this guy out and switch places with him
I’ve got this plan in my little chimp head
Sheisty stomps up the steps to the chimp’s platform
/Yes, I’ve got this plan in my little chimp head
|
|Sheisty
|
\… That’s it, I’ve had it, you broke my space bar
I’ve had it now, you broke my space bar
You’ll have to pay for what you’ve done
We’re gonna box and when I connect
You’ll see stars, it will not be fun
Sheisty and the chimp circle the platform, rolling their fists at each other, ready to fight.
/You’ll see stars it will not be fun
|
|The Chimp
|
\… Lights out for you, I’ll lock you in the room
The chimp punches Sheisty, he falls to the ground. The chimp goes downstairs, takes some grapes and a bottle from the fridge and starts to read Sheisty’s manuscript.
Lights out for you, you’re locked in my room
Where you kept me while you worked on your book
First, a stop at the fridge and then I’ll read
What you’ve been writing – here, let’s have a look
The chimp studies the manuscript, eating and drinking. Then he sits down at the table and starts typing. Stage lights dim, then return. Sheisty awakens, realizes he’s been locked in the room and pounds on the door.
Sheisty
Where is that chimp? Where did he go?
Now I’m locked in here. Where is that ape?
I can’t jump from the window, it’s too far down
I can hear him! He’s eating my grapes!
/I can hear him! He’s eating my grapes!
|
|The Chimp
|
\… I’m eating his grapes and they taste so good
Yes, I’m eating his grapes and they taste so good
With salami, Jack Daniels and I’m thinking
I am down here with the food that I love
He is up there where the shit is stinking
The chimp climbs the stairs to the room and confronts Sheisty.
/He is up here where the shit is stinking
|
|Sheisty
|
\Here he comes now! I’ll teach him a lesson
Here you come now, I’ll teach you a lesson
I’m a human and you’re a chimpanzee
That means I’m smart and you’re a dumb beast
Now for a rematch! We’ll see what we’ll see
Sheisty and the chimp circle each other, preparing for another boxing match.
Sheisty and the Chimp:
Now for a rematch, we’ll see what we’ll see!
Sheisty runs from the room and slams the door behind him.
Sheisty
I’ll never let him leave that room again
He can die in there for all that I care
Now back to work on my novel I go
I had written up to the chapter where …
He pours himself a glass of wine and read from his manuscript.
Wait, there’s another chapter here
I thought I’d stopped at page ninety-nine
And it seems to be written in my own style
Could it be that the chimp wrote this while …
/Could it be that the chimp has written this while …?
|
|The Chimp
|
\… He was blacked out, so I had a go
While he was blacked out, I gave it a go
He thinks he’s smart and he thinks I’m dumb
But truth is hard and illusion is easy
Who does he think he’s descended from?
/Who does he think he’s descended from?
|
|Sheisty
|
\... And look, he even fixed the space bar
He’s even fixed the keyboard’s space bar
I can finish my book, and it will be great!
But hey, what the chimp wrote is pretty good
Better than anything I could create
Writers block has begun to afflict me
I have an idea I think you’ll enjoy
Let’s see if it works! You know what I’ll do?
To finish the book, the chimp I’ll employ
Sheisty returns to the chimp’s room, they fight, Sheisty lets the chimp knocks him out without much of a struggle. The chimp goes downstairs, pours some wine, sits at the computer and types. Sheisty awakens. The chimp brings a sandwich to Sheisty, goes back downstairs and types some more. Then the chimp opens a bottle of whiskey, picks up a cigarette and stares into space. Sheisty listens for the chimp’s typing, but hears nothing. He looks out the window.
I didn’t make noise, I let the beast work in peace!
At first he was typing almost all day
But now I can see him from the window
He’s down at the beach! Time’s passing away
/He’s down at the beach while time’s passing away!
|
|The Chimp
|
\ …I’m down at the beach, wasting more time today
Writers block has afflicted me, too
I’m smoking and drinking or just sitting here
Staring off into the distant horizon
I cannot finish this book, I fear
/I cannot finish this book I fear
|
|Sheisty
|
\… He cannot finish the book, that’s clear
I pound on the walls, I scream in frustration
Smoking and drinking, that’s my style, too!
Staring off into the distant horizon
When the muse takes her leave, that’s what I always do!
The Chimp
Smoking and drinking
Sheisty
That’s my style too
The Chimp
Staring off into
Sheisty
The distant horizon
The Chimp
When the muse takes her leave
Sheisty and the Chimp
What else can you do?
When the muse takes her leave
What else can you do?
Francais
So I picked up the manuscript
I had seen earlier
The one that was crumbled
Unformatted, stained
I turned to the last page
To see if it ended
But it just trailed off
And faded away …
The writer did not sign his name
Nor provide a return address
Who do you think could have written this book?
I can’t be sure, but I do have a guess
I can’t be sure, but I do have a guess.
Sheisty and the Chimp
How about you? Want to venture a guess?
Act IV
Sheisty is at a desk in the middle of the stage. The chimp is on a platform to Sheisty’s left. Francais enters stage left.
Francais
I started a new job the very next day
As an editor at a book company
Once my assistant had showed me around
I looked at what some writers sent for me
It’s called the slush pile and I dug right in
One manuscript quickly caught my eye
It was wrinkled and marked with stains of wine
That was very strange; I wondered why
It seemed to be written as if the author
Were held somewhere against his will
An angry rant by a hungry captive
It was typed, I thought, by someone on pills
This is quite crazy I said to myself
It reminded me of the lost notebook
So I went back to the Craigslist forum
To see what was there, to have a quick look
Sheisty was writing about a chimp
Could his tale lead me to identify
The person whose notebook I found in the park?
So I read his text with an inquisitive eye …
Sheisty:
I have rented this house on the beach
It’s cheap, so on booze I don’t have to scrimp
I can write all day, enjoying life
If I can just put up with the owner’s chimp
/If I can just put up with the owner’s chimp
|
|The Chimp
|
\… And I am one hungry, noisy chimp
Yes, I am one hungry, noisy chimp
And I want some food and I want it now
Bring me a sandwich, make it baloney
I’m hungry dude, come here with the chow!
/I’m hungry dude, bring the chow now
|
|Sheisty
|
\… He’s hungry and he wants his chow now
I could get used to this good life
But that chimp makes too much racket
You think he’d be happy when I bring him food
But he makes me a target for his chimp-shit!
/Yes, he makes me a target for his chimp-shit
|
|The Chimp
|
\… Downstairs he is typing away
He spends his day typing away
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, what more can I say?
Sorry, it’s just that I’m built this way
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, all through the day!
/I’m hungry, I’m hungry, all through the day!
|
|Sheisty:
|
\… He’s driving my crazy, that’s all I can say
I took him to the beach to help me pick up chicks
But he made obscene gestures; really sick
Even when I told him I’d make a sandwich thick
When we got back home … what a chimp-prick!
/A sandwich thick … what a chimp-prick!
|
|The Chimp
|
\… I know one thing and I know it well
One thing I know and I know it well
I’m hungry, I’m hungry, bring me a treat
But he just types away all of the day
And whenever he wants to, he can eat!
/Whenever he wants to, he can eat!
|
|Sheisty
|
\… I have a deadline, he jumps around
He jumped so much a vase shook off the shelf
Fell on the keyboard, broke the space bar
This is a disaster, it means I can’t finish
The novel that would pay for a nice new car!
/The book that would pay for a nice new car
|
|The Chimp
|
\… He can have food, but he wants a new car!
When he wants food he can open the fridge
And help himself to some wine or bread!
I can knock this guy out and switch places with him
I’ve got this plan in my little chimp head
Sheisty stomps up the steps to the chimp’s platform
/Yes, I’ve got this plan in my little chimp head
|
|Sheisty
|
\… That’s it, I’ve had it, you broke my space bar
I’ve had it now, you broke my space bar
You’ll have to pay for what you’ve done
We’re gonna box and when I connect
You’ll see stars, it will not be fun
Sheisty and the chimp circle the platform, rolling their fists at each other, ready to fight.
/You’ll see stars it will not be fun
|
|The Chimp
|
\… Lights out for you, I’ll lock you in the room
The chimp punches Sheisty, he falls to the ground. The chimp goes downstairs, takes some grapes and a bottle from the fridge and starts to read Sheisty’s manuscript.
Lights out for you, you’re locked in my room
Where you kept me while you worked on your book
First, a stop at the fridge and then I’ll read
What you’ve been writing – here, let’s have a look
The chimp studies the manuscript, eating and drinking. Then he sits down at the table and starts typing. Stage lights dim, then return. Sheisty awakens, realizes he’s been locked in the room and pounds on the door.
Sheisty
Where is that chimp? Where did he go?
Now I’m locked in here. Where is that ape?
I can’t jump from the window, it’s too far down
I can hear him! He’s eating my grapes!
/I can hear him! He’s eating my grapes!
|
|The Chimp
|
\… I’m eating his grapes and they taste so good
Yes, I’m eating his grapes and they taste so good
With salami, Jack Daniels and I’m thinking
I am down here with the food that I love
He is up there where the shit is stinking
The chimp climbs the stairs to the room and confronts Sheisty.
/He is up here where the shit is stinking
|
|Sheisty
|
\Here he comes now! I’ll teach him a lesson
Here you come now, I’ll teach you a lesson
I’m a human and you’re a chimpanzee
That means I’m smart and you’re a dumb beast
Now for a rematch! We’ll see what we’ll see
Sheisty and the chimp circle each other, preparing for another boxing match.
Sheisty and the Chimp:
Now for a rematch, we’ll see what we’ll see!
Sheisty runs from the room and slams the door behind him.
Sheisty
I’ll never let him leave that room again
He can die in there for all that I care
Now back to work on my novel I go
I had written up to the chapter where …
He pours himself a glass of wine and read from his manuscript.
Wait, there’s another chapter here
I thought I’d stopped at page ninety-nine
And it seems to be written in my own style
Could it be that the chimp wrote this while …
/Could it be that the chimp has written this while …?
|
|The Chimp
|
\… He was blacked out, so I had a go
While he was blacked out, I gave it a go
He thinks he’s smart and he thinks I’m dumb
But truth is hard and illusion is easy
Who does he think he’s descended from?
/Who does he think he’s descended from?
|
|Sheisty
|
\... And look, he even fixed the space bar
He’s even fixed the keyboard’s space bar
I can finish my book, and it will be great!
But hey, what the chimp wrote is pretty good
Better than anything I could create
Writers block has begun to afflict me
I have an idea I think you’ll enjoy
Let’s see if it works! You know what I’ll do?
To finish the book, the chimp I’ll employ
Sheisty returns to the chimp’s room, they fight, Sheisty lets the chimp knocks him out without much of a struggle. The chimp goes downstairs, pours some wine, sits at the computer and types. Sheisty awakens. The chimp brings a sandwich to Sheisty, goes back downstairs and types some more. Then the chimp opens a bottle of whiskey, picks up a cigarette and stares into space. Sheisty listens for the chimp’s typing, but hears nothing. He looks out the window.
I didn’t make noise, I let the beast work in peace!
At first he was typing almost all day
But now I can see him from the window
He’s down at the beach! Time’s passing away
/He’s down at the beach while time’s passing away!
|
|The Chimp
|
\ …I’m down at the beach, wasting more time today
Writers block has afflicted me, too
I’m smoking and drinking or just sitting here
Staring off into the distant horizon
I cannot finish this book, I fear
/I cannot finish this book I fear
|
|Sheisty
|
\… He cannot finish the book, that’s clear
I pound on the walls, I scream in frustration
Smoking and drinking, that’s my style, too!
Staring off into the distant horizon
When the muse takes her leave, that’s what I always do!
The Chimp
Smoking and drinking
Sheisty
That’s my style too
The Chimp
Staring off into
Sheisty
The distant horizon
The Chimp
When the muse takes her leave
Sheisty and the Chimp
What else can you do?
When the muse takes her leave
What else can you do?
Francais
So I picked up the manuscript
I had seen earlier
The one that was crumbled
Unformatted, stained
I turned to the last page
To see if it ended
But it just trailed off
And faded away …
The writer did not sign his name
Nor provide a return address
Who do you think could have written this book?
I can’t be sure, but I do have a guess
I can’t be sure, but I do have a guess.
Sheisty and the Chimp
How about you? Want to venture a guess?
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Dancing Shoes
Yes, you made it. Didn’t think you would, did you? That’s what most people say. There are so many challenges, so many choices, so many ways to go wrong. Congratulations! You didn’t kill anyone – or at least not too many people. … Ha ha, just a joke. One of my favorites. Ah, I never get tired of that one. Just to see the reactions. That raised eyebrow you gave me. Superb. What a riot. I crack myself up.
Uh huh, this is it. Pretty much as you imagined, huh? No, I’m not “Peter.” You know it’s those other people who believe in “Peter.” Not us. What? Oh, I wouldn’t know. Maybe there is another place like this for them, with “Peter” at the gate. Could be. I haven’t thought about it much. But both stories can’t be true, can they? And where are you standing now? So what does that tell you?
I know, that’s the first criteria. That you believe. Of course you believe. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.
My name? It’s not important. No one remembers my name, anyway. But you’re asking too many questions. You only get to ask one. Take some time to think about it. There must be something you want to ask about this place ¬– or anything else.
What? That’s your question? Well, that’s an interesting one. I don’t hear that one often: Why did He rest on the seventh day? A few of us were talking about that very subject a few months ago – or maybe it was a few decades ago; it’s difficult to keep track of time here. It was down at the Strato-Cumulus Bar over beers, as I remember. … Of course there’s beer here! You know where you are, right? It’s the other place where there’s no beer. Just coffee. Coffee breaks every couple of hours. And then back on your head! Good thing you didn’t kill too many people, huh? Hahaha … ah, I tell you, that one never gets old, never.
Yeah, a lot of people are surprised we serve beer here. I guess everyone thinks we just fly around all day playing harps. I wasn’t a good musician anyway. I never had a good ear. Maybe that’s why I got this job.
So, if you had the ability, the power, how hard could it be to create the universe? Like building a sandcastle, maybe? So why would you need to rest afterward?
And for a whole day? And why not the sixth day? Or the fifth? These are all good questions, and our discussion was quite lively. But most of our discussions get quite lively, as they’re accompanied by many pitchers of beer. Sometimes too many. Wine? Yes, you can have some wine when you like, but you’ll see that most of us prefer beer. It doesn’t dehydrate you as much. Most of the bars carry excellent microbrews. Try Celestial, Infinity or Eternity. Those are my favorites. Infinity has a nice woodsy flavor. Let me know what you think.
So back to your question, how did it go? The heaven and the Earth, then the light, then the dark of night, right? That was the first day. Then the sky on the second day. After that I get mixed up. He gathered the waters on the third day, and the dry land appeared, and then He made the flowers and plants and fruits and trees. Wait, was that the third day or the fourth day? I’m getting tired just trying to remember the order of everything He created.
When we were talking about this over Infinitys that time at the Strato-Cumulus, Michael said that creating it all wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was thinking it all up. After all, if there were never water before, how would you invent water? How would you know that water is what you wanted? How would you know to create a mountain, before mountains existed? How would you know to make a giraffe? And why a giraffe?
But then you wonder if He had spent a lot of time thinking about it before he actually started working, like a writer planning his story. There was an Italian novelist who said it only took him a few days to write one of his best books. But he admitted he’d thought about it a long time before he sat down at the typewriter. I’ll bet that writer was tired after he’d written that book. I’ll bet if he spent six days writing that book, he’d want to take a break on the seventh. But let’s get back to the creation of the universe and everything in it.
Maybe He didn’t think it all out beforehand. Maybe He just got some ideas in his head and then improvised, like a jazz musician. If Charlie Parker were jamming for six days, he’d want to take a breather on the seventh, too. Yeah, I know about the heroin, but let’s assume he had as much as he needed, enough to play for six days in a row without having to go out to score. No, there’s no heroin here. And I said you only get one question.
So where were we? First day, the Earth and the light and the dark, second die the skies. On the third day, water, and plants and trees and fruits. On the fourth day … hmm, you’d think I’d know this by now … oh, yeah, the sun, the moon, the stars, the seasons. Fifth day, the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky. Sixth day, the giraffe and all those other animals, then finally man and woman. Right? Whew.
Now that sounds like a lot of work to me. But – and this is what we talked about with Michael and the other guys and gals that day – let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it was easy. Well, you know how when you’re at work, and you don’t have anything to do, it’s boring and time passes really slowly? And you get home and you’re even more tired than you are after a busy day? Let’s say it’s like that. Either way: He was tired so he rested. No mystery. Right?
But wait, there’s more. Because look at what it says in the book: There was evening and there was morning. We’re just talking about what He did during the day. It makes no mention of what He did at night.
And let me tell you something. You’ll find this out for yourself. You usually think of Him from the texts, always serious and usually angry; commanding this, commanding that, arguing with Moses. Set that aside. Because this is a guy who throws one helluva party – pardon the pun, sorry, couldn’t resist. When He gets in the mood, this place gets rockin.’ The beer flows, there’s music – not just harps, there are a lot of good guitarists and drummers up here, keyboardists and horn players, too – and we dance and sing all night long.
So imagine back then, in the beginning. I’m thinking once He had what he needed to make beer, he opened a keg and celebrated each of his creations. I’m thinking he drank all night. Yes, you usually bless Him for creating the fruit of the vine, but he created the barley of the fields, too, and as I mentioned, beer is the beverage of choice here.
So after a week of creating all day and partying all night, I’m sure he needed a rest. That’s right, I’m speculating. Of course it’s just my opinion. I said you could ask one question. I didn’t say you’d get an answer.
It was nice to meet you, too. Make yourself at home. The nearest bar is the Nimbus. Go that way and turn right when you see Venus. Be sure to try the Infinity beer. I’ll bet you’ll like it. See you at the next party. When? Oh, pretty often. Every week or so, or maybe every year or two, I can’t keep track. But bring your dancing shoes. You’re gonna have a great time. And always remember: Why are you here? Because you didn’t kill too many people, right? Ha ha ha. But seriously: It’s because you believe.
Uh huh, this is it. Pretty much as you imagined, huh? No, I’m not “Peter.” You know it’s those other people who believe in “Peter.” Not us. What? Oh, I wouldn’t know. Maybe there is another place like this for them, with “Peter” at the gate. Could be. I haven’t thought about it much. But both stories can’t be true, can they? And where are you standing now? So what does that tell you?
I know, that’s the first criteria. That you believe. Of course you believe. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.
My name? It’s not important. No one remembers my name, anyway. But you’re asking too many questions. You only get to ask one. Take some time to think about it. There must be something you want to ask about this place ¬– or anything else.
What? That’s your question? Well, that’s an interesting one. I don’t hear that one often: Why did He rest on the seventh day? A few of us were talking about that very subject a few months ago – or maybe it was a few decades ago; it’s difficult to keep track of time here. It was down at the Strato-Cumulus Bar over beers, as I remember. … Of course there’s beer here! You know where you are, right? It’s the other place where there’s no beer. Just coffee. Coffee breaks every couple of hours. And then back on your head! Good thing you didn’t kill too many people, huh? Hahaha … ah, I tell you, that one never gets old, never.
Yeah, a lot of people are surprised we serve beer here. I guess everyone thinks we just fly around all day playing harps. I wasn’t a good musician anyway. I never had a good ear. Maybe that’s why I got this job.
So, if you had the ability, the power, how hard could it be to create the universe? Like building a sandcastle, maybe? So why would you need to rest afterward?
And for a whole day? And why not the sixth day? Or the fifth? These are all good questions, and our discussion was quite lively. But most of our discussions get quite lively, as they’re accompanied by many pitchers of beer. Sometimes too many. Wine? Yes, you can have some wine when you like, but you’ll see that most of us prefer beer. It doesn’t dehydrate you as much. Most of the bars carry excellent microbrews. Try Celestial, Infinity or Eternity. Those are my favorites. Infinity has a nice woodsy flavor. Let me know what you think.
So back to your question, how did it go? The heaven and the Earth, then the light, then the dark of night, right? That was the first day. Then the sky on the second day. After that I get mixed up. He gathered the waters on the third day, and the dry land appeared, and then He made the flowers and plants and fruits and trees. Wait, was that the third day or the fourth day? I’m getting tired just trying to remember the order of everything He created.
When we were talking about this over Infinitys that time at the Strato-Cumulus, Michael said that creating it all wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was thinking it all up. After all, if there were never water before, how would you invent water? How would you know that water is what you wanted? How would you know to create a mountain, before mountains existed? How would you know to make a giraffe? And why a giraffe?
But then you wonder if He had spent a lot of time thinking about it before he actually started working, like a writer planning his story. There was an Italian novelist who said it only took him a few days to write one of his best books. But he admitted he’d thought about it a long time before he sat down at the typewriter. I’ll bet that writer was tired after he’d written that book. I’ll bet if he spent six days writing that book, he’d want to take a break on the seventh. But let’s get back to the creation of the universe and everything in it.
Maybe He didn’t think it all out beforehand. Maybe He just got some ideas in his head and then improvised, like a jazz musician. If Charlie Parker were jamming for six days, he’d want to take a breather on the seventh, too. Yeah, I know about the heroin, but let’s assume he had as much as he needed, enough to play for six days in a row without having to go out to score. No, there’s no heroin here. And I said you only get one question.
So where were we? First day, the Earth and the light and the dark, second die the skies. On the third day, water, and plants and trees and fruits. On the fourth day … hmm, you’d think I’d know this by now … oh, yeah, the sun, the moon, the stars, the seasons. Fifth day, the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky. Sixth day, the giraffe and all those other animals, then finally man and woman. Right? Whew.
Now that sounds like a lot of work to me. But – and this is what we talked about with Michael and the other guys and gals that day – let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it was easy. Well, you know how when you’re at work, and you don’t have anything to do, it’s boring and time passes really slowly? And you get home and you’re even more tired than you are after a busy day? Let’s say it’s like that. Either way: He was tired so he rested. No mystery. Right?
But wait, there’s more. Because look at what it says in the book: There was evening and there was morning. We’re just talking about what He did during the day. It makes no mention of what He did at night.
And let me tell you something. You’ll find this out for yourself. You usually think of Him from the texts, always serious and usually angry; commanding this, commanding that, arguing with Moses. Set that aside. Because this is a guy who throws one helluva party – pardon the pun, sorry, couldn’t resist. When He gets in the mood, this place gets rockin.’ The beer flows, there’s music – not just harps, there are a lot of good guitarists and drummers up here, keyboardists and horn players, too – and we dance and sing all night long.
So imagine back then, in the beginning. I’m thinking once He had what he needed to make beer, he opened a keg and celebrated each of his creations. I’m thinking he drank all night. Yes, you usually bless Him for creating the fruit of the vine, but he created the barley of the fields, too, and as I mentioned, beer is the beverage of choice here.
So after a week of creating all day and partying all night, I’m sure he needed a rest. That’s right, I’m speculating. Of course it’s just my opinion. I said you could ask one question. I didn’t say you’d get an answer.
It was nice to meet you, too. Make yourself at home. The nearest bar is the Nimbus. Go that way and turn right when you see Venus. Be sure to try the Infinity beer. I’ll bet you’ll like it. See you at the next party. When? Oh, pretty often. Every week or so, or maybe every year or two, I can’t keep track. But bring your dancing shoes. You’re gonna have a great time. And always remember: Why are you here? Because you didn’t kill too many people, right? Ha ha ha. But seriously: It’s because you believe.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Starving Artist and the Chimp (Part III)
Libretto for an Opera
ACT III
Francais is at stage left, in a spotlight.
I went to work
It was my last day as editor of the opinion pages
At the local Herald
My plan was
To spend the day cleaning my desk
Throwing out old files
But the receptionist
Paged me to the front desk
A man was there
Bill enters stage left, stands next to Francais.
Hello, my name is Bill
I think you will want to publish my poem
In tomorrow’s paper
Francais:
Nice to meet you Bill,
I’m Francais and I will consider your poem
For the op-ed page
Bill:
Oh Mister Francais
I am sure that you will do more than
Just consider it
Bill exits stage right.
Francais:
I went back to my desk
I didn’t think too much more about Bill
The newsroom was abuzz
Someone had opened
All of the cages at the local zoo
And the animals were out
Gazelles wandering
And snakes slithering around town
Down the streets
Then I remembered
The notebook I found and the story
Of the artist and chimp
The Notebook writer mentioned
The Literary and Writing forum
On Craigslist
So I logged on
To see if I could find a way to track down
The Notebook Writer
And I read
IAA’s version of the Starving Artist
And the chimp
IAA enters stage left.
IAA:
The high had lasted weeks
Bill crept from under stoops to attics
To back yards
He wrote poetry
In the bushes with stolen pen and paper
He lived for art
Women loved him
Some nights one would take him home and feed him
Then he would leave
After all
A starving artist looks just like
A rich kid slumming
One day he woke up
And rummaged through a dumpster
But couldn’t find food
At that moment
He became obsessed with the idea
Of Henry Miller
Bill enters stage right:
Bill:
Henry Miller
Henry Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Miller
I said to myself
All day long
Henry Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Miller
Henry Miller
And into the night
I asked himself why I had become
So obsessed
I took a bus
To St. Anthony’s for a free meal but
They had stopped serving
I said to myself
I’m hungry here just like Henry was hungry
In Paris
The church doors
Were closed and I thought I might never
Eat a meal again
Tall Bum and Short Bum enter stage right.
A puff of smoke
Rose above two men who were
At the side of the church
Tall Bum:
You jonesin’?
Bill:
I don’t need drugs, I’m just very hungry.
Short Bum:
Here’s 10 bucks.
Go get us some food
Three burgers from Carl’s Jr. And some fries.
Tall Bum:
Hey, not so fast
Why don’t you leave your bag here?
But first smoke some weed
The three men smoke together. Bill exits stage right. The two bums take his bag and exit stage left. Bill returns stage right with a Carl’s Jr. bag.
They took my bag!
They stole my bag, my poetry
And now I’m stoned
Bill sits on the floor and starts eating a burger.
IAA:
He ate the food
The three burgers were good but then
The high wore off
He grew aware
Of his bleak situation
His desperation
Bill:
I have become
A street person, a derelict
I said to myself
My plan has gone wrong
I gave my possessions away
I faked my own death
At the beach I watch
The seagulls flying, seeking scraps
I’m a gull too
I live on scraps
Hey, that’s pretty good, should I
Write it down?
IAA:
“Are you a painting?”
It was a voice in his head
Asking him that
Is this art?
Are you a living work of art?
Said the voice in his head
Bill:
I need a muse
I will hide at my aunt’s house
On the way there
I passed the zoo
That would be a good place
To plan my next move
So I went back
Later that night with wire cutters
I stole from a shop
IAA:
He climbed the wall
Got into the zoo, wandered around
Under the stars
Bill walks back and forth across the stage, looking out over the audience as if they were animals in the zoo.
Bill:
I have found
A new kind of poetry tonight at the zoo
It’s animal magic!
The chimp enters stage right, holds up her hands in fists as if she were clinging to the bars of her cage. Bill approaches her. He brings his face to hers. She kisses him.
Bill:
I will free you
And all the rest of the chimps
Other animals, too
Dancers with animal masks enter stage left and perform. Bill takes the chimp’s hand and they exit stage right. The dancers complete their ballet and exit stage right. A table with a fruit bowl on it is placed on the stage. Bill and the Chimp enter stage right and sit at the table. The chimp takes a persimmon and eats it. Bill is writing.
IAA:
The chimp was full
And Bill wrote his poem about the night
He freed all the beasts
Their fate was
The same fate as the artist
The very same fate
They are all
Slaves to humanity, animals and artists
Slaves to humanity
He’d made his statement
And signed his masterpiece
With his real name
And brought it to
Every newspaper with circulation
In the tri-county area
Francais holds up the manuscript.
IAA
Then Bill moved back
To the basement of his old
Victorian flat
He wired it up
Filled it with light bulbs
And brought the chimp
It was warm, it was bright
The chimp came and went as she pleased
Bill wrote and wrote
Bill wrote his poem
He framed an indictment of modern life
He spoke for us all
For the abused
For robots, for artists, for women
Humanity’s slaves
All of us are
Slaves to humanity, slaves to humanity
All of us
As night would fall
The chimp climbed in his arms
To hold him close
Francais
Two and two I can do
So I read the poem Bill gave me
And it’s all true
Bill: (aria)
I, Bill C. Schneiderman, do hereby declare
From this year forth, this date shall bear
The name Animal Freedom Day
Across the mighty nation of U.S.A.
And that is in honor of what I created
By seeing the beasts liberated:
In the name of all robots and slaves
I freed giraffes from their pens, the chimps from their cage
Flamingos, go! Polar bears, dare!
Each zoo animal, no matter where
Shall know what it is to be free
To roam the streets, to climb the trees!
And so from the depth of our inhibited beingness
We shall recognize all of our animal needingness
To burst forth from our cages, real and unreal
To breathe, to see, to touch, to feel
The lesson we take from the zoo liberation
Is that, like beasts, we crave validation.
And what did I learn as I followed my bliss?
There is nothing so sweet as a chimp’s gentle kiss.
So each year we will gather and set the beasts free
And teach the children this example of glee
Bill exits stage left.
Francais:
I decided
I would not publish this poem
For Bill’s own good
So his work,
Like many other great poems
Will remain unread
As I walked home
I sensed a presence as I passed
An alleyway
A pair of eyes
Or was it my imagination
Glowing yellow eyes
Down the alley
Amid trash, rags and cardboard
Glowing reptile eyes
Watching me
Or was it my imagination
Glowing yellow eyes
ACT III
Francais is at stage left, in a spotlight.
I went to work
It was my last day as editor of the opinion pages
At the local Herald
My plan was
To spend the day cleaning my desk
Throwing out old files
But the receptionist
Paged me to the front desk
A man was there
Bill enters stage left, stands next to Francais.
Hello, my name is Bill
I think you will want to publish my poem
In tomorrow’s paper
Francais:
Nice to meet you Bill,
I’m Francais and I will consider your poem
For the op-ed page
Bill:
Oh Mister Francais
I am sure that you will do more than
Just consider it
Bill exits stage right.
Francais:
I went back to my desk
I didn’t think too much more about Bill
The newsroom was abuzz
Someone had opened
All of the cages at the local zoo
And the animals were out
Gazelles wandering
And snakes slithering around town
Down the streets
Then I remembered
The notebook I found and the story
Of the artist and chimp
The Notebook writer mentioned
The Literary and Writing forum
On Craigslist
So I logged on
To see if I could find a way to track down
The Notebook Writer
And I read
IAA’s version of the Starving Artist
And the chimp
IAA enters stage left.
IAA:
The high had lasted weeks
Bill crept from under stoops to attics
To back yards
He wrote poetry
In the bushes with stolen pen and paper
He lived for art
Women loved him
Some nights one would take him home and feed him
Then he would leave
After all
A starving artist looks just like
A rich kid slumming
One day he woke up
And rummaged through a dumpster
But couldn’t find food
At that moment
He became obsessed with the idea
Of Henry Miller
Bill enters stage right:
Bill:
Henry Miller
Henry Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Miller
I said to myself
All day long
Henry Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Miller
Henry Miller
And into the night
I asked himself why I had become
So obsessed
I took a bus
To St. Anthony’s for a free meal but
They had stopped serving
I said to myself
I’m hungry here just like Henry was hungry
In Paris
The church doors
Were closed and I thought I might never
Eat a meal again
Tall Bum and Short Bum enter stage right.
A puff of smoke
Rose above two men who were
At the side of the church
Tall Bum:
You jonesin’?
Bill:
I don’t need drugs, I’m just very hungry.
Short Bum:
Here’s 10 bucks.
Go get us some food
Three burgers from Carl’s Jr. And some fries.
Tall Bum:
Hey, not so fast
Why don’t you leave your bag here?
But first smoke some weed
The three men smoke together. Bill exits stage right. The two bums take his bag and exit stage left. Bill returns stage right with a Carl’s Jr. bag.
They took my bag!
They stole my bag, my poetry
And now I’m stoned
Bill sits on the floor and starts eating a burger.
IAA:
He ate the food
The three burgers were good but then
The high wore off
He grew aware
Of his bleak situation
His desperation
Bill:
I have become
A street person, a derelict
I said to myself
My plan has gone wrong
I gave my possessions away
I faked my own death
At the beach I watch
The seagulls flying, seeking scraps
I’m a gull too
I live on scraps
Hey, that’s pretty good, should I
Write it down?
IAA:
“Are you a painting?”
It was a voice in his head
Asking him that
Is this art?
Are you a living work of art?
Said the voice in his head
Bill:
I need a muse
I will hide at my aunt’s house
On the way there
I passed the zoo
That would be a good place
To plan my next move
So I went back
Later that night with wire cutters
I stole from a shop
IAA:
He climbed the wall
Got into the zoo, wandered around
Under the stars
Bill walks back and forth across the stage, looking out over the audience as if they were animals in the zoo.
Bill:
I have found
A new kind of poetry tonight at the zoo
It’s animal magic!
The chimp enters stage right, holds up her hands in fists as if she were clinging to the bars of her cage. Bill approaches her. He brings his face to hers. She kisses him.
Bill:
I will free you
And all the rest of the chimps
Other animals, too
Dancers with animal masks enter stage left and perform. Bill takes the chimp’s hand and they exit stage right. The dancers complete their ballet and exit stage right. A table with a fruit bowl on it is placed on the stage. Bill and the Chimp enter stage right and sit at the table. The chimp takes a persimmon and eats it. Bill is writing.
IAA:
The chimp was full
And Bill wrote his poem about the night
He freed all the beasts
Their fate was
The same fate as the artist
The very same fate
They are all
Slaves to humanity, animals and artists
Slaves to humanity
He’d made his statement
And signed his masterpiece
With his real name
And brought it to
Every newspaper with circulation
In the tri-county area
Francais holds up the manuscript.
IAA
Then Bill moved back
To the basement of his old
Victorian flat
He wired it up
Filled it with light bulbs
And brought the chimp
It was warm, it was bright
The chimp came and went as she pleased
Bill wrote and wrote
Bill wrote his poem
He framed an indictment of modern life
He spoke for us all
For the abused
For robots, for artists, for women
Humanity’s slaves
All of us are
Slaves to humanity, slaves to humanity
All of us
As night would fall
The chimp climbed in his arms
To hold him close
Francais
Two and two I can do
So I read the poem Bill gave me
And it’s all true
Bill: (aria)
I, Bill C. Schneiderman, do hereby declare
From this year forth, this date shall bear
The name Animal Freedom Day
Across the mighty nation of U.S.A.
And that is in honor of what I created
By seeing the beasts liberated:
In the name of all robots and slaves
I freed giraffes from their pens, the chimps from their cage
Flamingos, go! Polar bears, dare!
Each zoo animal, no matter where
Shall know what it is to be free
To roam the streets, to climb the trees!
And so from the depth of our inhibited beingness
We shall recognize all of our animal needingness
To burst forth from our cages, real and unreal
To breathe, to see, to touch, to feel
The lesson we take from the zoo liberation
Is that, like beasts, we crave validation.
And what did I learn as I followed my bliss?
There is nothing so sweet as a chimp’s gentle kiss.
So each year we will gather and set the beasts free
And teach the children this example of glee
Bill exits stage left.
Francais:
I decided
I would not publish this poem
For Bill’s own good
So his work,
Like many other great poems
Will remain unread
As I walked home
I sensed a presence as I passed
An alleyway
A pair of eyes
Or was it my imagination
Glowing yellow eyes
Down the alley
Amid trash, rags and cardboard
Glowing reptile eyes
Watching me
Or was it my imagination
Glowing yellow eyes
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