The Natural Order of Things (12 page)

Before Mrs. O’Neill can either chase him from the apartment or seduce him with an offer of rent-free accommodations, Will hastily collects his things, stuffing whatever he can into his book bag: his favorite T-shirt with the grinning skull, the rock wool and plastic trays he uses to grow his weed, a faded show bill tacked to the wall with the word “Zanzibar” printed in bold black letters set against a background of blue and green. There is nothing striking about the poster or about the band of the same name. Dozens of death metal bands compete for the same five or six hot spots in town, and many club owners insist that Will’s band, in order to distinguish itself from the competition, come up with a gimmick to draw larger crowds.

“You should wear masks and capes,” suggests one club manager from behind a makeshift desk of plywood and sawhorses. “Run around the stage with chainsaws dripping with blood. And you should definitely think of a new name. Zanzibar. Sounds a little fruity to me.”

Things may be bleak now, compromise can’t be far down the road, but regardless of his desperation for cash, Will still clings to his vaguely defined sense of artistic integrity. He is unwilling to turn his music into a ridiculous circus act to appease some smarmy manager, and he is too attached to the band’s name to change it. He believes there is something auspicious about the solidity of its syllables, the repetition of its hard consonants, Z, that superfluous letter, “Thou whoreson Zed,” mathematical symbol of unknown variables. He recalls hearing an ad on the radio, the narrator’s baritone, soothing and earthy like cinnamon and cloves, beckoning him to escape to an island paradise: “Zanzibar, home of Sufi mystics, munificent sultans, wise viziers.” When he found an
apartment at the Zanzibar Towers & Gardens, he knew right away that it had to mean something.

Because no one will book them in a big venue, the band settles for playing in small, concrete pits that smell of urine and beer, dreary places conducive to hard drinking, gambling, fighting, quick drug deals in filthy toilet stalls. His most recent gig is at the local brewery where a dozen or so customers, merchant marines on leave and longshoremen just getting off the nightshift at the nearby shipyards, heckle him as he screams into the microphone. After the band finishes its last set, the ruddy Irishman tending bar slinks over to the stage and, smiling sheepishly, doles out a few dollars, slips Will a couple of joints, a handful of big black and white pills. “Horse tranquilizers,” he says with a wink.

Sitting alone at the end of the bar, a man in coveralls and steel-toed boots turns to Will and says, “I been there, friend.”

“Where is that?” Will asks, not really caring.

“Island of Zanzibar. Real fucked up place these days. Islamic fundamentalists run the show.”

Blinded by the stage lights, his eyes stinging with sweat, Will finds it difficult to tell what the man looks like, whether he is tall or short, fat or lean. His voice has a certain richness and depth to it, like the low chords of an old church organ that has survived an air raid and is now in need of careful restoration; it’s the voice of someone who has participated in the nightmare spectacle of the world, has used his wits on some occasions and fled in naked terror on others. Before speaking again, the man gulps down the rest of his beer and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He drums his fingers on the bar, and Will notices that his right index finger has been sawed away with what must have been a dull blade.

“Let me tell you. I once seen a group of clerics in white robes take this poor sonofabitch out to the public square and hack off his cock and balls with a machete. Don’t know what he did to deserve that kind of treatment. Probably tapped someone’s old lady, I’m guessing. Well, that’s the order of things these days, ain’t it, brother?” The man stands up and moves closer to Will. “Hell, you look just like Freddie Mercury. Anyone ever tell you that? He was a Zoroastrian or some crazy shit, wasn’t he?”

Furious that anyone would dare compare him to a homo pop star, Will sneers at the man and says he has to take a leak. He gathers his share of pills and dope and then storms away, refusing to return until the man has left the bar.

Now with nowhere to call home, Will takes to the streets.

During the course of his wanderings, he sometimes thinks of himself as either a runaway from a particularly cruel Dickensian workhouse or the sole survivor of a long-forgotten war, an exile bound for a glorious but still unknown destiny, Aeneas in search of his Latium. He has his doubts, of course, especially during the dreary November afternoons when his friends have gone off to their part-time jobs at the fast food restaurants and rendering plants. Like everyone cursed to live in this dying city, he worries that he has no talent for rising in the world, that he expects more from life than is reasonable, but because he prefers self-righteousness to self-pity, becomes convinced that
only by living like a nomad on the brink of total destitution can he find the elusive Truth he has been seeking ever since he first picked up a guitar, and so homelessness becomes just one more part of his burdensome quest, another kind of suffering, sublime in its ability to wreak havoc with his already eroded confidence, but one that offers the potential reward of adoration from millions of fans willing to wait in long lines to see him play in stadiums and arenas. Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story, and on that glorious day when he grants
Rolling Stone
an interview, he will proudly boast of his misadventures on these wicked streets, how he survived on cans of cold soup and bottles of warm beer, and how he turned down solicitations in public restrooms from nervous, middle-aged men in suits and ties.

For a few days he crashes with the lead singer, then with the bass guitarist, who staggers through the back door drunk and irritable and slaps his girlfriend until the police show up with their truncheons and tasers. Those who offer him shelter don’t want him around for very long, maybe because, like a highly contagious pathogen, there is something viral about homelessness, more abhorrent than the medieval plague. Every time he passes a mirror, he sees angry pustules of defeat spreading across his face, leaving an indelible mark like the acne scars that cover his cheeks.

Will quickly commits to memory a new list of rules that, for pure soul-stifling masochism, surpass all of those pages of thou shalt nots from Leviticus, a turn of events that he finds ironic since he has spent the better part of his eighteen years circumventing rules of any kind. Regardless of where he stays, the rules remain the same: never take food from the refrigerator unless you’re invited to do so first; the same goes for beer, pills, and dope—don’t touch them or you’ll soon find yourself back on the streets; and if anything goes missing, anything at all—a comb, a guitar pick, loose change scattered on a kitchen countertop—suspicion immediately falls on you. Not that Will is beyond petty theft. Around every corner, new temptations lurk, and he must continually remind himself that there are consequences for disobedience.

Then one day he has a confrontation with the drummer over an empty pack of cigarettes.

“Hey, man, you still got that credit card?”

“No, I already
told
you,” Will answers, a bit embarrassed by how shaken he sounds, “my parents are tight with a dollar these days. They’re delusional, they’re like children. They think they need trips to Paris to visit the catacombs. Excursions through the Belgian countryside to buy cases of beer from Trappist monks. Hell, just give me a little mystic and my guitar, and I’m cool, I’m doing alright.”

The drummer tosses the crumpled pack of cigarettes at his chest. “You and your personal problems. Where’s your dedication, man, your goddamn
dedication
? When are you gonna find us another gig? We haven’t played a decent joint in weeks. And you haven’t written any new music in months. Stop your bitching and get us some work, man, some fucking
money
.”

He spends most of his time at the Stone Town Café.

Sitting in a far corner near the fireplace with his back pressed against the exposed bricks for warmth, struggling to write new material for the band, Will strums random
chords on his guitar. Despite his intense concentration, he can’t discover an original melody, a satisfying rhythm, a memorable riff. He’s beginning to think that he has finally hit rock bottom, but while things look pretty grim right now, he fears there are still greater depths of despair and misery yet to be explored. Unless Fate intervenes, and does so soon, he may find himself plummeting down an inescapable mineshaft of mediocrity. He considers walking next door to the pawnshop, getting whatever he can for his instrument, but he is prevented from doing so by a group of overserious poets who force him to listen to their rambling monologues on art and God and their own unrecognized talent.

“The muses cannot be summoned through sheer willpower alone,” they tell him. “Patience defines the true artist. You may have to wait for years, for decades, and even then you may never garner accolades from the unlettered herd.”

They are positively committed to self-deception, these failed scribes, always inventing clever excuses to put off their writing for another day while they wait for Inspiration to reveal her grand metaphysical vistas. They bide their time by lecturing Will, their sole pupil, in tones so utterly patronizing and devoid of insight that their voices, like the voices of all teachers and solipsists the world over, begin to sound like the steady hiss of the gas fireplace.

Only the barista treats him with respect. Each day she brings him unusual drinks and confections, “on the house.” The poets resent him for this. They have never been offered a free drink, not even a discounted one, and they see it as yet another form of injustice, another slight against their fierce genius. Some of them are so offended that they refuse to speak to Will again.

“That’s espresso cubano,” the barista tells him with a little laugh when Will’s eyes widen at the taste of its sweetness. Later she makes him a cup of ristretto, which is bitter, and a café coretto with two shots of cognac. She keeps a bottle hidden behind the counter, “survival gear,” she calls it, and sometimes pours the cognac straight up into his empty mug.

With the approach of evening, Will locks himself in the restroom, fires up a joint, the last of his stash, inhales deeply, and with the same black magic marker he uses to jot down forgettable and poorly arranged chord progressions in his notebook, he draws abstract patterns on the toilet stall, pretends he is charting his way through a treacherous maze of strange, cyclopean dimensions. When he emerges from the restroom, he finds the barista standing in the doorway, blocking his path.

“The odor,” she says, peering inside. Her eyes remain incurious and distant. When she speaks her lips barely move. Will doesn’t know if she is angry or amused. He finds the atonal quality of her voice mysterious, her thick accent difficult to read. “I just painted the walls,” she continues. “That is why the odor. Maybe you noticed? Chartreuse. Sounds very fancy. But still it looks green to me. Except it’s not. No, not quite. There is a little yellow in there. Maybe I am colorblind. The paint was on sale so I bought it. I don’t know why I bother. How many men notice the color of the walls in the restroom? Of course I have my fair share of critics. They always find something to complain about.”

Although he is a bit paranoid right now and has never been especially courageous around women of a certain station—pretty, reputable, demure—Will manages to focus his bloodshot eyes on the barista’s fine features and studies the tattoo of a brightly colored
bird on the side of her neck that she playfully conceals with her long hair and small lively hands.

“My name is Salme,” she tells him.

“Will,” he croaks. His throat is dry, raw. He can’t remember the last time he drank a glass of water. For five days straight he has been living on espresso and weed.

“You attend the Jesuit high school, don’t you?”

He shrugs in a noncommittal way. He hasn’t been to school in weeks and has no intention of returning. He is eighteen now, and no one can make him go back.

“You play in a band? Zanzibar?”

“Yeah, from time to time. Right now things are a little slow.”

“There must be a connection between us. I knew it when I first saw you.” She moves her hair aside so he can get a better look at the tattoo of the red and black bird on her neck, its head cocked, its eyes shining. “You don’t recognize it, do you? I thought maybe you would. It’s called a Zanzibar bishop. Its song is mysterious and beautiful. Like your music.”

Will, who isn’t used to compliments, feels his cheeks begin to burn.

“Would you have any interest in playing here? I can pay you. Forty dollars a day. Under the table. I wish I could give you more, but it’s all I can afford.”

Will listens carefully to her proposition. He is down to spare change, a handful of nickels and dimes, but what if this woman, with her immigrant schemes and duplicitous smile, is up to no good, what if she is luring him into some sort of trap? He understands that she isn’t simply offering him a job; she’s reporting the facts, and the facts are these: he lacks the talent and persistence and, most important of all, the luck to become a successful musician. A gig at a coffee shop is the best he can do, another proving ground, another clear indication of his creative paralysis.

“You have big dreams, yes, but you should give my offer serious consideration. Please, come with me. I wish to show you something. It may intrigue you.”

Off they go, past a swinging door, through the tiny kitchen, then down a creaking staircase into the basement. Above them, a twisted highway of groaning, clanking galvanized pipes hangs precariously from exposed iron beams. Brown spiders and silverfish scurry into dark recesses. Swirling tempests of dust shimmer through a shaft of opalescent streetlight that struggles through the glass block window. A single bulb dangles from a frayed wire and swings back and forth like a man from the gallows, casting a faint yellow glow across dozens of wooden crates stacked one on top of the other.