Technicolor Pulp
Authors: Arty Nelson
Copyright © 1995 by Arty Nelson
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56588-2
To Hilary Beane
Contents
26 and I’m at the end of the line again. Running scared down a dusk-soaked alley, the bricks whirl by me like black and red
on a roulette wheel. I’ve run down this alley a thousand times thinking everyone is waiting to see my next move… Another crossroads…
I think it matters and it doesn’t! None of it matters! It’s all meaningless! Uh oh?! Who the fuck am I? An existentialist?…
Look… I’m not some greasy european-looking guy, with a bob haircut, sitting in a cafe smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, plotting
my own demise. I’m hiding. I’m running. I’m throwing up screens. I’m doing the dance. The Great American Novel’s been squeezed
through weak cheeks too many times. All I got is this story. A story of drifting. It’s not my story. I’m just a small piece
of it, sitting in Jack’s apartment in Boston, listening to the old man’s voice over the phone. It’s an old building with dirty
stones, all pretty, and ivy
spilling off the roof. The windows are tall and skinny with chipped white sills cutting the sun off into a thousand glances.
From inside, the windows look out over the city, down south of the building. Cars scream and honk off in the distance. Children
laugh and play, and I hear the voice. I’m sitting on a green vinyl couch with one ear on the phone, one finger in my nose,
and my head in China. Every once in a while, the voice raises in pitch and cuts off sharply, it’s my turn.
“So yeah, anyways, um leavin’ tomorrow, Pops.”
“I guess it sounds great, Son… I’d like to go with you but I have to stay and work,” he says with a fatherly mix of envy and
sarcasm. I cringe slightly and wish I smoked cigarettes.
“Maybe I’ll find some work over there, Pop… I don’t know. I gotta chance to go to Europe and I gotta take it.”
“Well, do you know anyone who might be able to help you get a job?”
Details! Details! The BASTARD always wants details!
“Doobe said he might know some people, but I gotta get there first… You can’t set this kind of stuff up until you get there.”
“You know more about these things than I do. I hope for your sake it works out,” he pauses. “How are things with that girl
you were going out with… What’s her name again?”
“Lindsey.”
“Yeah, how is she?”
“Things aren’t too good actually, Pops. As a matter of fact, they suck.”
“Well… You’re both pretty young, maybe things’ll turn around.”
“Pop… If there’s one thing um sure of right now, it’s that things won’t turn around with Lindsey.”
The truth is that Lindsey’s lost all desire to even touch me, let alone love me. Things are bleak. I can’t really blame her.
I’ve become a drunken pig and I don’t think I’m fucking all that well anymore, either. I’m fat, bloated, angry, I don’t have
a job, and those are the obvious problems. I’d lose interest too, but… I’m the only interest I’ve got. I’m in love and I’m
not in love. I’m free and I’ve never felt more trapped in my life. Good times are lean and these ARE the good times. Money
is harder to find than a true blonde, and I can’t tell the old man much of anything. I’m just trying to give him some vague
suitable answers so we can both get a decent night’s sleep. I adjust myself in my chair, arching slightly to stretch my back.
I settle back in and yawn, studying the floor in front of me, glancing occasionally out the window at the children screaming.
Even lying’s become too much of a chore.
“Son, all I can do is wish you the best of luck. My life was different at your age,” he pauses, “I didn’t think about things
the way you do. I became a lawyer because I didn’t want to become a doctor and to tell you the truth, I don’t know if the
decisions
I’ve made in my OWN life were the right ones. At the time, I didn’t feel like I HAD much of a choice.”
Yeah, it’s time now for my latest rendition of “My Great New Plan In Life” by Jimi Banks. Sung sweetly through the gold-plated
pipes of yours truly to any number of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, parents of friends, bartenders,
godfathers… Whoever. Whoever’s got the cash… Whoever’s buying. Right now, I’m giving Dad a chorus of, “I know things look
pretty stupid and aimless but it’s all just part of that kookie, roundabout path to success I’ve chosen.” If he claps, then
I’ll give him a little encore of, “It’ll happen to me, just wait and see.” It’s all in the phrasing. I’m a regular Frank Sinatra
of failure. All I need is a little dental work.
“Europe holds all the possibilities, Pops… And since I’m not there yet… It’s tough for me to really go TOO into detail. I
gotta good feeling about it though.”
I don’t wanna tell a complete and utter lie to the guy because, as long as we don’t live on the same coast, we get along OK.
You know, when I was younger I always wanted to tell the truth, but more and more, the truth got complicated and vague, if
not downright UGLY. So much arguing over things that just don’t change. I’m not ready to change and I don’t feel like fighting
about it. I have NO desire at all to be a rebel. I don’t believe in anything enough to rebel against it. Who are these jerks
that get all worked up and take over countries and start wars
when they’re, like, 23? I thought being young was all about having fun, and falling in love, and chasing dreams, and fucking.
I don’t wanna FIGHT about anything! I wanna FUCK! And anyways… I’m lazy. A busy day to me is three hours of phone calls to
old friends, pleading for money to bail myself out of “some flukey jam that I just never even saw coming.” When I was little,
I wanted to be a pro hockey player when I grew up. Now I just like skating.
“I wanna find some hot duchess or something to take me under her wing and make me her pool boy.”
“Sounds good to me, Son. Sounds better than what I’m doing.”
The guy likes me, I think. I’ve really proven to him that I got the magic. He knows that life basically sucks. I’m like a
cosmic soda jerk, serving up fantasy floats. Doing the things he only dreamed of as a youth. Beckoning to the child that romps
deep in dad’s soul. I have him back on the playground and I’m about to drive to the hoop for two… Or maybe five. We both need
it. We both need to feel young again.
“So whatta ya think, Pops? I could really use a small loan to make this trip perfect. Maybe four or five hundred for that
rainy day, or month, between jobs in London?”
There it is, so smooth, with that funny lead-in. I should be a pro. It’s gonna happen, I think. Today’s a good day. The pensive
silence falls and my uni-brow moistens….
“Son,” he says, with restraint, “I never wanted to
have to say this to my own kid, but I’m starting to lose respect for you. I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life.
I never have… But I don’t want to finance it anymore, either.”
Just like that. THE FALL. Jimi takes a deep blow that staggers him and sends him reeling. I recover, but only enough to retreat.
I don’t wanna throw any more jabs, not today. The father-and-son bout lasts a lifetime.
“Look, Pop, I’m OK. I got cash. A hundred bucks to be exact. Forget I said anything.” Sugar Ray Robinson would’ve been proud
of my backpedal, like a cagey deer.
We hem and haw for another two minutes and then it’s over. LEAD BALLOONS. I hang up the phone. I’ve unconsciously popped up
out of my seat and I’m circling around the room. I settle back down on the pea-green vinyl couch—the kind of couch that uses
back sweat like superglue. I’ve been sleeping on it for three days. Every morning, I peel myself off it. It makes me feel
loved. It makes me feel like the two-hundred-pound maladjusted decal that I am. The Cosmic Soda Jerk. The Dancer. I look out
at the kids again. They’re still yelping and running around free. Happy, and waiting for Bugs Bunny to come on. Getting chased
by cute little girls, yelling and laughing through their chocolate ice cream beards. I could be like that. I’m just a couple
hundred away. A wallet full of twenties and I’d be free again….
“Hello?”
“Hi…” I stammer. “Lindsey?”
“Jimi!” she forces happily. “You finally made it off that rock of an island.”
“Yeah, it was easy except that there was this baby on the bus in from the Cape that cried the entire trip. Two hours, straight
through… Sounded like nipple deprivation.”
She laughs. I hear her light a cigarette and exhale.
“So where are you now, baby?”
I hear “baby” and my head begins to convulse with delusions of amour. She loves me! Did you hear the way she said it! Life
is beautiful. She loves me! She really does! I had it all wrong, maybe the old man was right! “Baby”! She said it with such
meaning! I think I even heard her sigh!
“I’m at Jack’s place in New Brighton… I don’t think it’s all that far from where you live?”
“Far? Baby, it’s right up the street.”
She said it again! Fuck London! I’m staying here with my girl!
“I know a great pasta place right around the corner
from there—light veggie stuff—Why don’t we meet there in two hours?”
“Lindsey, how do you know it’s ‘right around the corner’? I haven’t even told you what street Jack lives on.”
“Yes, you did, Jimi. You told me the other night when you called from the island… Remember that ‘middle of the night profession
of eternal love’? I’m the one who remembers all the highlights,” she laughs, in control. Her voice always calm and soft, even
when she’s sad. Like she knows what she’s doing on this planet, in this world. I feel like my own voice is always paranoid
and sketchy, unless I’m telling a lie or having sex. Maybe that’s just how I feel, how I reek, when I listen to myself.
“Jack’s address was one of the ‘highlights’ of that phone call?”
“Well… Maybe not a ‘highlight,’ but I did remember it. Look, baby… I gotta run and make this study group for my Art History
class… It’s my major and I’ve barely looked at any of the material—postmodern stuff. It’s really hard for me to remember any
of it. Two hours… Don’t get lost, and bring Jack. I can’t wait to meet him… I’m gonna bring Lisa… You’ll love her. See ya,”
and gives me the name of some nouvelle place down the street from Jack’s.
“See ya” she says, all cute, and tells me to bring a friend. “See ya”! She’s so comfortable with it all. She’s so over it.
So… Not what I am! I need passion. I need love. I need a good sweaty fuck to kill
the pain, and she says, “See ya”! Her last words come down on me like a stone anvil, like a last chop to a rotting tree trunk.
Bring friends, that dirty bitch! She knew just what to do. She knew I wanted to have a big
Gone with the Wind
scene and she killed it! I put down the phone. It’s like some kind of masochistic tool. I’m some kind of masochistic tool!
I’m dazed! I don’t even want to go to Europe anymore! I’m only doing it to look cool to Lindsey! I could give a fuck about
Europe! I don’t even get a farewell Fuck and Cry session before I leave! I wanna carry the torch for this broad. I wanna cross
the Atlantic with her picture taped to my boot! I wanna write her bad poems and wander the streets, starving, with only thoughts
of her to nourish me! And she has to study for a fucking midterm! Doesn’t she realize the gravity of this moment? Of our last
night together before I begin my quest for Allah with a single bag of fish and chips under my arm?