Authors: Arty Nelson
Summer Love, what a BITCH come October… I sit across the table from her and I watch her. I watch her inhale and exhale her
cigarette into a delicate plume of smoke. I watch her laugh and wish I’d told the joke. I watch her think while she listens
to someone else speaking. Everything she does, every move, every sigh—captures me. I can’t believe I ever went out with this
girl, let alone lived with her. I study her from across the table, but she remains a stranger. She’s all I thought I ever
wanted in a woman. Seeing her for the first time, laughing, lighting a cigarette and tilting her head back, made me think
that life’s
full of things we don’t deserve… Gifts… Curses. I see her in my mind, walking down the street with her purse slung over her
shoulder, in a hurry, simple, and beautiful. I always picture her from a distance.
I sit at dinner and I wanna leave. We’re already just two people who used to know each other. I wanna cry and I want it all
to be a memory, safe and sad. The sooner I get away from her, the sooner I can remember it MY way, instead of sitting across
the table saying things like, “Could you please pass me the organically grown carrots… Thank you.” I’m in a NEW AGE HELL and
because I’m eating right, I’m gonna be in it forever.
Five Heinekens later, I’m standing outside the restaurant under a lamp, looking at her through the fog of my breath, wishing
I had the guts to take my hands out of my pockets. Jack’s waiting for me and Lisa’s waiting for her.
“Yeah… So I’ll give you a call from London… Or maybe I’ll write you a letter… I’m glad we had a chance to get together before
I left.”
“Me too, Jimi, I’m REALLY glad. Wasn’t that a GREAT dinner?” she says, as always too happily.
“Yeah, dinner was good.”
“Lisa and I are going to the student union to get some notes for our test. I’m so happy. Lisa understands everything about
all this modern art. I need THINGS in the pictures for me to remember them. Well, anyways… Call me,” and gives me a hug and
a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll miss you,” and pulls away.
I stand and watch as she and Lisa walk down the street. Watching them talk and laugh, just looking at them. A kiss on the
lips and an awkward friend hug and I watch as she gets smaller and smaller in the city night.
Jack and I walk and I’m too embarrassed to even look him in the eye. I’d raved so much about Lindsey and the chick had, at
best, treated me like some geek she went to high school with. Friends from another time in life. A Time Past. And I guess
we were because I felt that way too. It’s crisp out, and both the city and Jack are quiet, too quiet, giving me time to think,
which I just don’t want. All the wrong turns, every bad joke and forced fuck run laps around my head. I blew it. It was me.
Everything is my fault!
“So whatta ya wanna do… Go have a beer?”
“I wanna forget about that CUNT!”
“Cunt… I thought you liked her?”
“Jack, she devastated me and that’s all I know! I can’t take it. We were in paradise and then things got fucked up, and now,
I’m in HELL!”
“She seemed pretty happy to see you.”
“Happy! I wanted to move to Boston, sell shoes and live with that bitch! Open up one of those complicated
bank accounts with all kinds of long-term potential, grow a fuckin’ moustache! Wear loafers! Call it a life!”
The whole time I’m screaming, Jack’s kicking a can down the street. It’s making me edgy, like the clang of a hammer, over
and over again.
“Jack, it’s over.” CLANG! “We don’t laugh!” CLANG! “We don’t cry!” CLANG! “We don’t touch!” CLANG! “We don’t fuck!” CLANG!
“Jack!” I scream. “We don’t fuck anymore!”
“Well… Let’s just go home then, I guess,” he says, walking. “Look… It doesn’t sound too good but at least you’re not banging
nails for your old man like I’m doing.”
I’m bleeding through the heart and this guy’s giving me a Look At The Bright Side lecture. I’m supposed to be happy that I
don’t work for my dad, even though I just said good-bye to the girl of my dreams. Fuck work! Work is for people who can’t
lie! And I can’t even LIVE in the same town as my dad, let alone WORK for him.
“You’re right, Jack… Let’s just go home… I’m kinda tired and I gotta get some sleep. It’s my last night on the green vinyl
couch. I feel like we’ve become close.”
Jack and I’d gone to college together—hockey recruit. He blew out his knee and I fell in love with a bottle of bourbon. Real
bonding stuff, watching our careers never happen together. Jack went to New Zealand after college, but he ran out of money,
and now he’s home building houses with his father. The
guy’s got heart. His downfall’s his hair. The guy always has bad hair, ever since I’ve known him, and that’s never a good
thing to have.
“What time does your plane leave?”
“Six
A.M
.”
“We’ll have to leave at five.”
“I’ll probably still be up, thinking about how easy life was in junior high. The only thing that mattered back then was the
cut of my Led Zeppelin T-shirt.”
I’m laying with my back glued to the green vinyl couch, trying to peel an arm free so I can rest a hand on my crotch like…
ALL MEN DO and I hear a phone ring two weeks earlier. I pick it up. It’s Helms in London. He tells me to change my flight.
I tell him that my current facade is collapsing at breakneck speed and I’ve got to get out of town as soon as possible. He
tells me that Ray, our buddy, drove to a gorge outside of Aspen and hung himself. I meet Helms in New York and we go to the
funeral. Oh, the danger that lurks in my head on a quiet night.
I lay restless, feeling the pain, and the freedom. A deep burning rages silently, until all that’s left is charred and empty.
When I feel that emptiness, it soothes me. Sweet peace whispers in the desolation. I
see Ray, and I see Lindsey. I hear a song with Lindsey, lying naked on the beach under the sun. And then, life takes its course.
I have to go to Europe forever, I think. I can’t be back in the States in two months, telling lies and losing jobs all over
again. Growing up is bleak. More bills to dodge, less hair on my head, and GRAVITY. The world makes me old. I fight it, and
that kills me.
…. I dream that I’m in the East Village, sitting in a crack shanty with a black guy named Champagne and two nameless strawberries—one
on each side, rubbing my cock for hits of rock. It’s the night of Ray’s funeral and I’ve sworn off drugs but HERE I AM. I
decide to grab the stash and run. The whole time I keep saying to myself, “Why did you just do this? I can’t believe you did
this?” I got no choice but to run once I’ve started… I run and I run… I run down streets and I run up alleys… I run around
corners, through subways, and I see people I know everywhere… I wave to them all… Every-time I turn around, Champagne is right
behind me with an angry mob, shouting and running faster and faster… Every dealer in New York is chasing me! I begin to tire
and I start sinking into the ground with each step until I’m swimming waist-deep in concrete and the mob is on top of me.
They’re yelling, “Shoot the motherfucker! Shoot his ass!” And I’m sinking lower and lower, going, “I knew they were gonna
shoot me. I fuckin’ knew it! I’m such an idiot!” I can’t believe I tried to run,
completely trapped… A gun crackles… Not a TV gun boom, just a clean pop, and I feel a warmth in my back up at my right shoulder…
The crowd stands over me, laughing and joking for a minute and then somebody puts a gun behind my right ear… I hear Champagne’s
voice. “Do it!” he screams and I feel a click… Just a click, and I’m on a roller coaster, plunging, screaming into a carnival
of sirens and lights….
5
A.M
. The streets of Boston asleep. It’s quiet, quiet enough for me to ponder the magnitude of my journey. But I don’t have the
stomach for it just yet. I need at least two chocolate donuts before I can ponder anything deeper than the paste on the corners
of my mouth. I just wanna snooze as much as possible before I get to London, so I’ll have some juice for Last Call. I gotta
fly down to New York first, and then catch a jumbo across to the UK.
The flight to New York is no big deal, just me and a bunch of commuters—corporate hotshots and their oriental counterparts,
looking to swoop down on the Apple for a few gold-leafed worms. I’m hungry and all they have on the flight is some second-rate
orange juice and some leftover peanuts. I want
bacon and eggs. I want danish and plenty of it. I want pancakes with syrup, waffles drowning in fruit and I wanna go back
to bed. Slight pangs of fear tickle the rim of my sphincter and I don’t wanna think about it. I wanna think of it… As a simple
itch. Christ… I got a hundred bucks in my pocket! I hope I don’t find any bars I like or it’ll be all over in a day! Doobe,
friend that he is, told me not to worry, that everything’ll be OK, that all I gotta do is get there, so I tighten my cheeks
and squelch the fear as best I can. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. And besides… It’s too late.
We land at JFK and I find my way to the foreign departures section. It’s about 8, and the crowd’s beginning to buzz. New York’s
always good for a shot of chaos.
I find my gate and check in with the gay KEN DOLL-like flight attendant. The crowd at the gate fluctuates between the waiting
line outside a bondage bar, and the extras set of Mary Poppins. Lots of leather and nose rings, sprinkled with a few tweedy
british families walking around in order of height, like geese, like geese in plaid and wool. I settle in and a robot marches
over the loudspeaker. It’s gotta be a computer. I know things are bad but I can’t believe any HUMAN could own a voice so monotone
and soul-dead. Regardless of how long they’ve been on the pension plan.
“
LADIES. AND. GENTLEMAN… FLIGHT
. 7.8.1.
TO. LONDON. AND. FRANKFURT. IS. ONE. HALF. OF. AN.
HOUR. BEHIND. SCHEDULE… PLEASE. DO. NOT. LEAVE. THE. GATE. AREA
….”
I don’t even want to know why it’s late. Each syllable karate-chops my skull. I look for a space on the floor to try’n catch
a few winks. Last night’s death dream got to me. I want to sleep but I’m afraid to. How many times can I die in my dreams
and not at least wet my pants or drool all over my chest?
I haven’t even LOOKED at a map of Europe yet. I haven’t even READ one of those thought-provoking books like,”
SO YOU
’
RE GOING TO LONDON
.” The truth is that I don’t have much of a plan at all. I figure I’ll get there, go to a bar, get drunk, and things’ll work
themselves out. That’s what I do when I’m new in town. It always works, why won’t it work in London? The less I know the better.
I don’t want some cheap preconceived notion about the whole thing. I’ve heard a lot about London, but I can’t remember much
of it. All the people I know who went there had money and I don’t, so it’s gonna be a DIFFERENT kind of town for me. I wanna
forget about Lindsey and Ray or, I guess, DEAL with them, if that’s possible. I’m paralyzed. The sadness is on me like a cheap
brown leisure suit with big white stitch pockets. GRAND PICTURES. I got Grand Pictures. I remember it all bigger than it ever
was. LEGENDS. MYTHS in my MIND. Lindsey’s a Brigitte Bardot I actually fucked, and Ray is a John Belushi I actually got drunk
with. SUPERSTARS in my small SAGA, and each died a tragic death—living or otherwise. Ray’s dead but that’s
too real and I’m still too far away. Lindsey?… I can think about her….
I see her in front of me with those big proud breasts and those round juicy hips, that dark hair falling off her smooth shoulders
and that smile crying off her. Those breasts so proud, glowing like they each beat up Mike Tyson. I don’t know where they
get their power from or where this woman comes from—otherworldly. And I’m so THIS-worldly. The first time I saw her and that
body, I made a sign of the cross. I felt it was TIME to start looking for a god, or at least, a shower with cold RELIGIOUS
water. She made me smile, she made me throb. She was the only thing that ever stopped my running. I don’t know what I run
from… And I’ve never known where I was running to. All I know is that I never wanted to be WHERE I AM. The fat safe lie of
school is over and nothing has worked out the way I planned. The world hasn’t embraced me yet. Instead, I’m deep in debt and
out of my mind most of the time. Bouncing around America, chasing Cassady’s ghost and Kerouac’s empties. A sad state of funny
affairs. Thinking that life’ll be groovy but finding taxes and insurance and people who’ve given up. Becoming one of those
people, one of those lame fucks who sits around missing the Senior Prom. I was born, they stamped a nine-digit number on my
forehead, my parents paid for a while and now… THE DEBT’S MINE! The best thing I can come up with is to run to the islands
off Cape Cod and hide. Pretend I’ve found Heaven, but I haven’t,
not surrounded by a bunch of drunk fishermen with green teeth. All I’ve found is a decent place to wait it out. Then comes
Lindsey and now, I’m back on my trusty Palomino of Fear, 28 minutes away from a new beginning and another ending. I got a
car that’s hidden from its true owner, the Repo-Man, behind a clump of trees. What do I do? Where do I go? New York’s a big
old tired concrete whore that lays waiting to be fucked, never giving a fair price to anyone. L.A.’s like a big TV that smiles
and never believes itself—just a big inside joke. London’s GOT to be the place. I’m lost in this country, too lost not to
jump at a chance to get out. I’m on my way over to Europe where it all started for the whiteman. I need inspiration, stronger
booze, a change of scene. I need a different world.
I’m laying down along a wall, next to some chick with platinum hair and a pierced tongue that wags its obscene self, every
minute on the minute, across the lips and off the teeth. Pale skin wrapped in a black leather miniskirt and fishnets. Both
ankles and wrists sport linked chain. I sit next to her feeling like a Peeping Tom in a woman’s prison movie. On top, she’s
got a leather vest with nothing on underneath. Her breasts are of the extraordinary
nature. How long does it take for a guy to get off the nipple, I wonder? She’s reading an Anne Rice novel. She makes me horny.
She makes me wonder what happened to my world that’s got everyone dressing in homage to Bela Lugosi. As a rule, I don’t like
a woman unless she still has a hospital bracelet on. This starry-eyed dreamer has a gaze that harkens back to a world I DEFINITELY
missed in all my reincarnations. She makes me feel normal. I’m so unintrigued by my OWN insanity. I just wanna lay next to
her and purr….