I’m always in motion, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m still the opposite of Ben when I think about it. He’s everywhere and all at once, and so busy, and the scurrying barely stops. I mean, I almost wonder if Ben is real when I stop to think about it. I never see him. I feel like I imagine I hear him as much as actually hearing him, but yeah, the proof of him was definitely on display for a time. And the echo of him sure seems real. I feel like he and I have worked a pretty good system on this place now too — he’s probably more likely to be fully enjoying the run of the joint when I’m out. So I’m trying to go out more. But I also know I’m going nowhere very quickly
.
Bought a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow from a secondhand store, and I take it with me most places. It’s good. I mean, I am reading it, I do like it, I do get it, and all that. But it’s also a book most people you meet have no fucking idea about, or the idea they have is it’s too big for them, so I am able to bullshit about it with just about anyone. It’s the Ulysses for Generation X. Basically. I must remember to tell a bunch of people that, and with the conviction that’s my own idea too.
Hannah was in my dream last night. And I’ve had the dream before. About once a week I’d say at present. I run to her at the tree. I get there in time, but I call her Anna, she shakes her head as if to say that’s not her name, so the query cannot be for her. And I wake with her in the air, the rope around her neck. It’s got me drinking breakfast beers, at least when I have leftovers. I shouldn’t drink before lunchtime, or even before dinner time, but at least I’m too embarrassed to take my car anywhere, so I’m not in danger of driving again.
Instead I load up my Discman with this great new album, Rocket by Primitive Radio Gods. No one knows it, which is exactly why I love it. At best, people seem to know the single, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money In My Hand. Feels like a metaphor to me. Or just a scene I’m constantly walking right through. I first heard it in the movie Cable Guy, and it was perfect, if not that noticeable to many. But how could you not notice and love that song when it’s riding on a sample of B.B. King’s How Blue Can You Get? Only thing about relentlessly listening to this song is it’s not all that great for my mood. I start thinking about whether I’m gonna bump into Joolz, or Anna for that matter. Or that fucking girl that was with Esther and Liz. I mean I don’t think she knows I even exist, but yeah, I would say something now. I know I could. I’d ask her about Gravity’s Rainbow. Show her my book, which is so well-thumbed. Could even make out it was new to me, and it’s my constant re-reading that’s made it look all old and nearly ruined. Slick. I’m’a do that for sure.
Will and Glen want me to go record shopping with them, so I walk along with my Primitive Radio Gods, and I listen to Phone Booth three times, then skip it forward to Who Say, which is basically a different band, even though it’s actually the same one guy making all of the music. Sounds like Supergroove or something. I like it. But I’m telling myself I love it, just so I can have something no one else holds on to. Album of the Year I’m deciding. No one will pick this. But I am.
Inside the store, Will’s got all these old prog-rock records for a buck each, Genesis and King Crimson and CAN. He holds them up one by one, for me to say yes or no to.
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Genesis. “Yes.”
In The Court of the Crimson King. King Crimson. “Yes.”
Tago Mago. CAN. “Yes.”
Tales From Topographic Oceans. By the band Yes. “No.”
Well it gets a laugh from Glen. But then, “You’re a fucking snob, Jimmy. Wannabe fucking snob.”
“I’m not a snob, I just think Yes is the fucking pits. And Jon Anderson sounds like a frog. I mean, fuckssake, if you’re gonna buy that you might as well buy a Rush album.”
“They’re only a buck,” Will says. “So I think I’ll just get it anyway, eh.”
“Fine. What would I know,” I say.
“Indeed”, Glen says”. And he’s laughing.
“Well,” I say, “I would know that if you’re going to get anything from 1973, it better not be a fucking Yes record, and it absolutely should be a Thomas Pynchon novel.” I’m reaching for Rainbow from my backpack, and Will has his hand reverse-cupped across his forehead. Glen is just laughing even harder.
“Fuck up about that fucking book,” Glen adds.
“Just because you can’t read,” I say.
“I can read a room though,” Glen bats straight back. Can’t lie. This lands. I think he can even see that I’m wounded. Slightly.
“Fuck man,” I’m searching, buying time. “Fucking hell you dick, I mean shit, my fucking girlfriend killed herself.”
“Oh yeah,” Glen says. “But do you need to tell everyone you meet this instantly. And also, where is the evidence of this mate? I mean, tragic fucking story, but seriously, it’s like you kinda turned it on to suit, there’s no photos of you, no one to back you up on this. I am not saying it’s not sad as hell. It is. But there’s a weird angle too, if you’re grafting yourself to the story a little more than is true.”
“Cunt!” I had nothing. That was it. I walked straight out of the store, and straight into Joolz. Head down, and angry. Me, that is. I just ploughed into her, and of course, I say sorry. She looks up, deer frozen for a second. “Joolz!” I say. She pulls free from my very loose grip, my hands on her shoulders, apologising, gently holding her to make sure she’s steady. But nah. She’s having none of this. She shakes her head, as if I’ve got the wrong person, puts her head down and walks fast. I take three steps after her then stop. “Bitch,” I shout. And then instantly feel like a fucking dick.
At the bar, I’m lining up a beer and a bourbon. Americans call it a Boilermaker. I call it necessary. I hit most of the beer in one big slug. Then down the shot. Then back to neck the end of the beer. How is this happening to me. Why am I going everywhere and nowhere all at once and never? How am I the rocket falling in my own story?
“You look glum?”
“Thanks,” I say. “At least I’m doing something right, I suppose. Like, I feel like I should look glum.”
I know she’s paid to talk to me, but still. The barmaid says, “What’s that book you got there? Is that gonna cheer you up, or is that what’s making you sad? It looks,” she pauses, “huge!”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say thanks for noticing, but I’d only fuck it up. “Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon,” I say. No insight, no joke, no nothing. Just title and author.
“Oh, I’ve heard of that,” she says. And I don’t believe her. “Want another combo,” she adds, gesturing to the two glasses. “Tell me about the book,” and she’s already turning her back to refill the bourbon shot.
“It’s pretty dense, right. But it has a real humour to it, also a real metaphysical fatalism.”
“A meta-what-now?”
“If they get you asking the wrong questions, then they don’t have to worry about the answers.”
“So that’s a wrong question then?”
“No no, sorry, that’s pretty much a line from the book. I mean not verbatim, but close to it.”
“So you’re a sad guy, but a smart guy. Reckon you can actually explain to me what the book is about there, smart guy?”
“Classic paranoid countercultural stuff, high brow, low brow, the works. It’s a book about everything. And nothing.”
“Well,” she says, putting the pint down next to the shot of bourbon, “It should really be called Rainbow’s Gravity shouldn’t it? I mean that’s the pot of gold weighing it down, eh?”
“Oh my fucking god. It’s about rockets. That’s the space rocket’s arc. The rainbow. It’s a metaphor. It’s not really about density. The only density in the book is what you’re bringing to it. And it sounds like you’re bringing a lot!” As soon as I’ve said it, I think about how I botched every aspect of that. I’m a boring, rude cunt, and I cannot flirt. What the fuck was that?
“Hey, sad cunt? Drink your drinks and fuck off, okay?”
“Look, my girlfriend, she, um, she ah she took her life…”
“Is that because the only other option was having you being a patronising jerk to her? I don’t believe you. And I’m not going to serve you. You’re done. Finish that and piss right off okay. And I’ll tell my partner about you. So fucking watch it.”
The bourbon goes down easily and immediately, but I take one swig of the beer and it just feels off. Not the actual taste, but I can’t be here. I push the stool back, and it clatters to the floor, my feet vaguely caught in it, I nearly lose my balance.
“Get walking there, class act,” the barmaid serves a different kind of shot.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I say. And I’m already walking.
“You sure are,” she says. All but spitting the words at my back. I’ve turned and walked, and I’m not looking back. I stand outside and count the coins from my pocket into my hand, and then back into the other hand. I take the Primitive Radio Gods CD out from the Discman and file it in the case, and put it back in my bag, and grab Natalie Merchant’s Tigerlily. I can’t hear that Broken Phone Booth song again anytime soon. I’m basically standing there as if I’m in the song. As if the song is me. My life. My mood. The sum of it all. And I need to keep moving. I kick at nothing, as I walk the streets wondering where to go. And yeah, I skip straight to Carnival.
