Authors: Arty Nelson
Was I sleeping? Or was I hanging off the edge of a cliff for six hours? Either way, it’s over and the sun is up. I shoulda
gone jogging for the night. My teeth are stuck to my lips. My throat is raw and cracked like an abandoned concrete shoot.
I die a thousand petty deaths at the start of every day. I remember part of a dream, something about standing in a McDonalds
and it’s windy and I keep trying to order a Big Mac but I don’t want the Special Sauce. I just want ketchup, and the girl
behind the counter keeps saying, “You, Jerk! We don’t serve Big Macs with ketchup. It’s Special Sauce or forget the whole
thing!” She’s laughing in my face but I won’t take “NO” for an answer. It’s a stalemate. Everybody’s always laughing at me
in my dreams and nobody ever tells me why. I hear a phone ringing in the back of the restaurant. My eyelids roll open and
I see that the phone clearly IS ringing. I wait two more rings and then get up to try and answer it. I’m a good three steps
away from the phone when I hear the final choke of its bell. I walk back upstairs. Doobe is stretched out on a piece of grey
foam next to my nice box spring.
He opens a tired eye, spots me, and slams it shut in a sarcastic wink.
“Thanks for waking me up last night, James. Nice guy… That chair was real cozy at about 4:30 in the morning.”
It’s the old full name thing—a sure sign of some hurt feelings.
“Pal, it was so late… I barely even knew what I was doing and besides… To wake you up would’ve all but condemned me to a night
on the floor… I just couldn’t do it to myself.”
“You gotta a big heart, Jimi… I’ll give ya that, but I’m still waitin’ for the day when you use it on somebody other than
YOU.”
“Doobe baby, when the day comes! When my ship comes in, I’m taking you to Rio for Carnivale… I know I owe you. Don’t think
I’m not keepin’ track of all you’ve done for me.”
“Um gonna pray that day never comes. Who knows what else will’ve happened by then,” he says and jumps up off the floor. I
catch a short right to the ribs and he’s off towards the bathroom. “I’m leaving for breakfast in a half hour. With or without
you!”
I close my eyes, open them back up again, and Helms is standing over me, showered, shaved, and dressed for the day.
“Now ya got ten minutes.”
I get up and take a quick glance into a frightened dresser mirror. I can barely see my island tan through the green. Shower
time. I’ve seen better fleshtones on week-old produce. It’s cold in the hallway
and, I might add, it’s cold in London. I mean frigid, the hallway’s like a goddam morgue. I can’t believe that people live
like this all the time. It’s cold. It’s dank. It’s drafty. No wonder everyone around here always looks like they just got
dunked in a sweat bath. I run down the hall in a threadbare towel until I come to the bathroom, which I expect to be steamy
and toasty, but of course I’m brutally mistaken. The bathroom has a goddam breeze blowing through it. I could fly a kite in
the place if the ceiling was a foot higher!
The morning shower is sacred to me—one ritual that knows no prejudice. 8 to 80, blind, crippled, or crazy, doesn’t everyone
get a couple minutes of steamy solitude? Silky beads of water rolling down the old back. Comfort. A few minutes of peace before
it’s time to go out into the day and realize that those days of yesteryear, doing the Huck Finn thing down at the local sewer-steam,
were the best days. I mean shower—the point at which life falls into a coma. My head says, “Womb, asshole! Say WOMB!” But
I’m not gonna pretend to remember what it was like in the womb. I might still FEEL it, but it isn’t a thing I can TELL you
about. The shower is quiet compared to the sounds I hear every day, like logs on the fire that burns inside my head, raging,
sometimes a whisper, but always burning. Sometimes I think if I had an X ray of my brain, all it would show is a few goldfish
flopping around on a cold, cold floor, yelling something about fast food, saying
something about swimming again. I just want to know what cartoon did it to me. I mean how did it happen? Was it something
I ate as a kid, or what? Too many Lucky Charms, with all those marshmallows making me restless? I’m not bitter about it. I
just wanna know. It’s the age-old and completely laughable question, “What’s it all about?” that I seem to be dancing around.
Or was I dancing around a windy bathroom in London? Is it all about my dick? Does everything have to make me feel nervous,
stupid, or horny? I had a boss who used to say, “It’s all about your dick, Jimi. Unless you’re a queer, and then, it’s all
about my dick.” The shower is just so crucial to all of this. To all of these things that amaze and paralyze THE ME.
The bathroom, meanwhile, is a mess. I think basically somebody got so cold that they tried to start a fire and now all that’s
left is a huge black hole with a ring around it. There isn’t even a tub left, it’s just a ring. And the worst part? The worst
part is that there isn’t even a standard shower. Just this thing Londoners call a “Sha-bath,” or maybe it’s that the process
is called “Sha-bathing.” I don’t know. I don’t think the thing even deserves its own name. Let’s face it, it’s a nozzle with
a hose at the end of it, and that’s it! A cheap rubber hose with a fuckin’ lousy little nozzle at the end of it. No one should
feel like they’re doing something that merits its own term when they hold this hose and beg for a decent spray from its puny
prudish mouth. I don’t think the
Limeys have the guts to come clean on this one! They can’t admit that, even though they’ve had a country for centuries, they
never managed to come up with a decent shower. It’s not even usable! How’s a guy supposed to rinse, and lather, and relax,
and benefit from the pulsating stream, and masturbate, all at the same time? It’s too much work! I can’t be bothered with
all this HAND-HELD stuff! I’m trying to get a little relief, a little bit of a rush before I go out to face the sharks, and
I gotta hold my own shower head. It just doesn’t make sense. It might sound primitive, even ridiculous, but it’s me and the
facts are the facts! It’s just too much to do at once! I need that thing up on a hook. Christ, they figured out how to make
lamps, what’s so difficult about a shower? Imagine trying to spank the old monkey under the covers, while flipping through
a porn holding a lightbulb. That shit’d be dangerous! Why’s the shower so different?
Anyways, so I’m laying in this filthy bathtub. I got this stupid nozzle in my hand, which is starting to cramp up on me, and
I’m pulling hard ‘cause I got a strong wind at my back. The ambiance alone has my cock purple and huffing, not to mention
the watering it’s getting. Like it’s a posy I’m wishing over. Coaxing it to grow, begging it to become something it isn’t.
I almost wish one of my new feline housemates would walk in on me. I must look kind of stud-like with my Popeye forearm and
my flared nostrils. I could ask her to light me up a cigarette or something. If she really cared about me, she could hold
the nozzle. My arm’s
so cramped, I’m gonna need occupational therapy when it’s all over. It’s all just a little bit too weird for me, and it makes
me think that either I overemphasize the importance of my morning shower, or I just don’t know where to beat off on THIS side
of the Atlantic. It shouldn’t be so much work. I pulled a lot of muscles. I’m no Houdini! It’s finally over. I let out a raging
whimper, jump up, grab my towel, make a quick sign of the cross, and take my chances in a dead run back down the hall.
I look in Doobe’s drawer and find a nice stash of boxer shorts. The sock pickings are slim but they’ll do. I haven’t told
Doobe that I forgot socks and underwear. It’s my little secret and the longer it stays that way the better. I brought two
pairs of jeans: a black pair and my favorite old blues, like soft baby flannel. I put the blues on. My ass definitely looks
better in the blues. I reach into my duffel and fish out a T-shirt. Black, perfect, always maintain the Johnny Cash color
code, my sister says. I fell in love with a girl who worked for Chanel when I was 19, and I’ve been lookin’ like a lost episode
of
Dark Shadows
ever since. I give myself a good dose of Vaseline on the hair and carve out a fresh pompadour. Yeah, I might look a touch
green but it’s been working for Keith Richards for years. One last glance in the mirror, just long enough to catch the essence—a
quick cut. Zip up the fake Beatle boots and I’m out the bedroom door.
“I was beginning to worry about you… Thought maybe you had extensive WRINKLE damage from the shower.”
“From that shower? It was all I could do to hang in long enough for a little spank. No wonder everyone looks so greasy and
tense around here.”
“I don’t think they carry the guilt the way we do, Jimi.”
Doobe hands me a nice, fat, burning, hash spliff. Its smokey plume is waltzing throughout the entire room. The smell is user-friendly
and the feeling is ancient. Each taste of the sweet smoke washes away a little piece of my morning travails. The apartment
has high, high ceilings. I hadn’t imagined the place would be so big. Most of the rooms have a vacant feel, except for the
kitchen. A space filled with travelers. No one’s going out to buy curtains or a new couch. The kitchen has some nice italian
crockery and a spice rack, all filled, but that’s about as homey as it gets. The rest of the pad is done in Mid-Eighties Crack
Den.
We sit in the kitchen smoking the spliff while Doobe makes tea. No better way to start the day.
High. It makes the day, the world, glow with a lost promise. Something could happen that’s never happened before. A roller-coaster
ride in the mind in exchange for a small chunk of the soul. We throw down our tea and Doobe puts out the spliff. “We’ll save
it for late night. Let’s get outta here.”
We walk up to the Leland cafe—a generic little hole that somehow reeks of character, in spite of the fact that it looks like
it coulda been decorated by monkeys on tranquilizers. This place gives new meaning to the word, “cardboard.” There’s a fat
old lady named Lou who takes the orders and yells them through a window that looks into the kitchen. A table of locals drink
tea, yell and eat. I don’t see ten teeth between the four of them. Pale as ghosts, with no saving grace other than cool flannel
shirts.
“Bloody Lane, I got the tab yesterday and I won’t have it again!”
“You’re a bloody liar, Johnny… Come on now and pull out your end of the bill!”
“Lou darling, could we settle up with you another day?”
“You boys’ve been settling up tomorrow since you were ten, now come on with it.”
Helms orders the special and I follow suit. An egg, toast, beans, a rasher of bacon, chips and tea. Helms gets a side of black
pudding—butcher scraps and blood all fried up together. I pass on the pudding but agree to taste Doobe’s and I’ve got to admit
that the shit isn’t all that bad as long as I don’t think too specifically about its origins. We bury our faces in our plates,
stopping only occasionally to ask for salt or pepper. The “special” is thrown on the plate with no concern for esthetics.
The beans are everywhere but the quality is there and the hash’s got me hungry. I’m eating so fast that I’m out of breath
and I feel destined for a bad case of the hiccups. Breakfast at the Leland is good.
Before I know it, we’re outside the pub again—Lally’s, where we finished off last night. Sitting next to a couple of young
skate-nazis and their pit bull, swilling on a rich dark beer. With every gulp, I think less of the vicious dog next to me.
My throat is desperate for long sips of beer. English ale is full—chocolate cake with opium icing. A big red double-decker
comes chugging up the street.
“Down with it, Jimi boy… We can’t waste this good ale.”
I’ve never been much of a beer chugger, even though I was a fraternity boy, but the prospect of leaving behind this good ale
inspires me. It’d be like pissing on the Bible. So down the hatch and off on the double-decker. My life is becoming more of
a middle-class postcard every minute.
We wind through the streets of South London.
I’m knee-deep in history I never read and I’m filled with good beer, black hash and the Leland Special. The streets are jagged
and the bus has to snake its way through every turn, inching along, taking its time. The bus has a certain respect for the
streets. I don’t mind at all. It gives me time to see the world outside. Doobe’s quiet and I just watch. It’s a working-class
neighborhood. Nothing to get too excited about. It’s the part I love. It’s not that I’m all down-home, or that I relate all
that much to my fellow man. I just like to see what the nowheres look like. I give little imaginary histories to it all, mostly
the people. Who they love and where they work and how they sleep and what kind of face they make when they fart or come or
cry, or die. I LOOK at the people. I look into their eyes. I try to see their pain and their joy. I want to FEEL them. It
always makes me sad but I do it anyway. I wanna taste the ham they ate last night. I wanna read the mail that comes everyday
in all the colorful little mailboxes. I wanna see the schools. I wanna see the hottest girl in the neighborhood, the toughest
guy in the neighborhood. It’s my fantasy. I wanna see the houses of the rich and I wanna see the street corners that the hoods
and dealers hang out on. All the things that don’t change. All the things that make up the world. It’s alright seeing the
famous places, but it’s the non-points of interest that interest me the most. I like them the best.
The houses are all brick. Everything in London is
so fucking bricky, with wood trim painted all different colors, just like the mailboxes, and none of the windows are the same
shape. Some window guy probably made a fortune in this town. I look at each and every house, and I think there’s a world hidden
inside them all—an epic. I wanna pair of X-ray glasses so I can watch them all unfold. I could look at all the naked ladies:
their curves, their smiles, their hips, as they look at themselves alone in the mirror, beautiful. Every house is a stage,
and on it is a comedy, and a tragedy, and a romance, and a lot of in-between stuff. Yeah, a lot of in-between stuff.