The Cool School

by Glenn O'Brien

  She turned toward me.

  I have never been able to connect with strange women except if they are in distress or in some way hung up. She looked abysmally happy.

  “You live in the boarding house, don’t you?” she asked. “Yes, I think you’re the only one who is permanent there.”

  I wasn’t able to answer, a common fault of mine.

  “What do you do? I mean, we’ve all been wondering what you do. You look frail and timid, like some great thinker or something. That’s what I think, anyway. My husband thinks you’re recovering from some romantic disease. Who’s right, him or me?”

  She sat down on the black rock. The rain was drenching us. I was unprepared for such a downpour, being dressed in white seersucker pants, white paisley shirt and finely-woven linen shoes. I stood near her, waiting, but resolved not to give out with any information. If pressed, I might improvise on one of my memories. One should have an electric mind, I decided right there, not a tepid half-awake coping mind.

  “Walk me down the beach,” the girl said. “I’m so wet. We’re both so wet. You don’t mind, do you? I’ll tell you a secret, we call you Dr. Angst because of the gloom on your face. You don’t mind, do you?”

  I walked with her. I was, in fact, deeply offended, not by being called Dr. Angst but by being noticed that much. Words began to spill out of me, quite out of my control. “Why try to know anything about a place? The customs, the size, the weather, the people, the economy, the politics, the fish, the suntan techniques, the games, the swimming. It is better to stay indoors and not mess around with useless experiences. A small room in a boarding house. Anonymous. Eat each meal at a plastic counter. Smitty’s will do. Do nothing, want nothing, if you feel like walking, walk; sleeping, sleep. Do you know how hard that is? No memories; if they start to intrude, invent them. Three is sufficient. I use only three. New York for adventure, beaches for relaxation, the octopus and Nog for speculation. No connections. Narrow all possibilities. Develop and love your limitations. No one knows you. Know no one. Natural rhythms, my dear. That’s the ticket.”

  She had wandered off to pick up a mussel shell. She came skipping back. “I use them for collages. I paste them in; shells, colored pieces of glass, driftwood, anything.” She giggled. “Did you know that today is the Fourth of July?”

  “No.”

  “We’re having a party. You’re invited. Everyone is coming. Well, not everyone, but Timmons and Harry and the man who runs the gift shop and one or two others. My husband too, of course.”

  I put my arm around her. Her behavior seemed to allow for such an embrace as long as nothing called her attention to it. But she stepped away, giving me a quizzical glance. I am unable to cope with quizzical glances.

  “I know you,” I said decisively, trying to struggle away. “Ten years ago in New York; I don’t remember your name, but I might have even slept with you. It scares me, stumbling onto a part of my past like that. You were more emaciated then, of course, with your hair very ratty. You were carrying a sign in some kind of demonstration when I met you, that’s you, very political. Am I right?”

  “I’m from Baltimore,” she said with a quick glance down at her awful feet. “I’ve never seen a demonstration of any kind. We moved out here when Ollie got a job working with an agricultural firm. They transferred him. We like it fine.”

  “I won’t press,” I said. I have retained a certain amount of old-fashioned dignity. “Who you are and what you do are your problems.”

  We walked on in silence. The silence, in fact, was fierce. And, I was proud to think, not one piece of information had I given away. No history, therefore no bondage. I have known myself to give out with facts, numbers, names, stories. I am that nervous sometimes. But as I said before, I am faster now. It was a joy to walk beside her with only her self-conscious distrust of me to handle. She was thinking I was only a little weird, possibly diseased; she was too simple, too nice to think anything more. And I’m too haggard to produce sexual fears; my ears are too huge and my lips too thin and uncontrolled.

  We pressed on in the rain. I was all for delaying the walk as much as possible, but she was too determined to get home. Just before the house she had proudly marked as hers, we passed an old man in a First World War hat, struggling with a heavy log. He was bent and puffing as he tried to shift the log on top of a low makeshift sea wall.

  I stopped. He was remarkably ugly and defiant.

  “Colonel Green,” the girl said. “He lives in that big three-story house next to ours. He has a grandson in there and some kind of a woman, but they hardly ever show themselves. It’s not a good policy to talk to him. He comes out in every storm. A maniac about the sea. He must be eighty, honest, and Ollie says that all that’s keeping him alive is this crazy war he has going against the sea. Everyone thinks he’s a blight on the community.”

  “Grab hold,” Colonel Green ordered. He marched up and shouted in my ear. “Goddamn water rising at three hundred miles an hour. Too dumb to see it? Flood the whole town before anyone shifts ass to do anything about it. Fact. Lift her up.”

  I helped him lift the log onto the sea wall. He was dressed in a yellow mackintosh and big fishing boots. His furiously weathered face was sunk deep into his neck, and his tiny blue eyes, like two pale robin’s eggs, protruded into the night, unblinking and beautiful.

  “People,” he yelled again into my ear.

  I helped him with another log. We labored and swore, but the log kept slipping back onto the sand. Finally the colonel ordered a halt and sat down on the sea wall, wheezing and kicking the wet sand with his boots. I could only pick out every third or fourth word the colonel said, the wind was so strong and his voice had sunk to such a rasp. “Hear . . . no retreat . . . only . . . bastard sea . . . kicking up higher . . . iron woman . . . What . . . ? What . . . ? What . . . ?”

  I went up and yelled in his ear. “Right. A huge operation. Biggest operation in years. Massive. Mounting up out there. Ready to initiate general collapse. Anytime.”

  We yelled back and forth. Then he punched me amiably in the stomach, and we struggled with the log. This time we made it. After another rest, we walked down to the sea for a better evaluation. “Jeep,” the colonel yelled, coming up to my ear again and grasping me by the neck so I wouldn’t turn away. He only had, after all, so many words in him. “Good thick sand tires. Drag every piece of maverick wood to the stronghold. Dig in! Protect the road!”

  I nodded and followed him up the beach to his house. Before very long, however, I took a sharp turn to the left and ducked out of his line of march. As it happened, I was unfortunate enough to be standing in front of the girl’s large bay window. She was standing with several other people, looking gaily down at me. I didn’t, of course, want to have anything to do with anyone. The evening had already been too much of a lark. It might possibly set me back for months. I wanted only to get to bed and pull the covers over my head. A few sips of whiskey, that would do me fine. Just to listen to the storm with a memory or two. To go over once again a few details about the octopus. My clothes were drenched. I had long ago taken off my shoes and shirt. I was suffering from chills. They were waving. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I had done very well that night. I had talked far too much but was rather amazed at how well I had managed. Nothing had been said. It was all right.

  A hand grabbed the upper part of my arm and escorted me into the house.

  “It’s about time,” a low, modulated, terrifically friendly voice roared. “I’m Ollie, of course. Glad to have you aboard. You’re quite the stranger around here. I won’t even ask what you were doing with that old maniac out there. It looks like we got to you just in time. What’s that? Look here, Sarah, this poor fella has had it. Get him some dry clothes. Better still, get him into my terrycloth bathrobe. That’s it. Get in there now. That’s the boy.”

  I followed Sarah into the bedroom. She smiled at me, and I took off my clothes.

  “Now wait,” she said, very fast. “Listen
. I don’t know you. That bathrobe. The bathrobe is hanging in the bathroom.”

  I went into the bathroom and stood, shivering, behind the door. I too was a little ill at ease. After all, at first sight I’ve been told I’m not exactly pleasing to look at. “I was a track man,” I yelled into the bedroom. “Four-forty under fifty-five seconds. I assure you.” There was no answer. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but to give out with some information. “Slipping out from New York, everything going too fast. Left and wandered out to Coast. Met Nog and bought octopus. Traveled to county and state fairs, developing wonderful aversion to people and trips in general but at the same time a growing obsession with octopus. Hard to even talk about it. Was afraid to let go, surrender it, walk away. Settled down here just to sit, you understand, wanting nothing at all. Waiting it out. Then thinking of beaches, developing that memory up to par with other two. Beaches, you understand, beaches where most of life has dribbled away, past beaches, future beaches and now right here a . . .”

  I ventured a peek out the door, but she had left the bedroom. I preferred to think she hadn’t heard me; that, indeed, she had never heard me. I could still slip out. The terrycloth bathrobe was hanging behind the door. I put it on and turned to investigate the bathroom. It was a beautiful bathroom. There was a huge green tile tub, a new toilet and washbowl. I opened the cabinet over the washbowl. I couldn’t stop looking at the objects on the top two shelves: suntan oil, Anacins, cold cream, three pink hair curlers, two yellow toothbrushes, one of which was very dirty, Dramamine pills, Itolsol eye bath, Ban, Kolex cold capsules, Ammens Medicated Powder and a small box of Benzedrine pills. I stared at each object and then went over them again. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide fell from one of the lower shelves. I dumped the contents of every bottle in the cabinet into the bathtub except for the Benzedrine pills, which I put into the pocket of the terrycloth bathrobe. I turned the water on. It was a reviving thing to do. Then I turned the water off and stepped into the bedroom. The bedroom was painted a pale mauve. There was a king-sized bed, three small watercolors of clipper ships, a dresser, a sewing machine, two night tables and a television set. It was pleasant. I felt very relaxed. I got into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  I thought of Nog. He would be wandering over the Sierras probably, that yellow light streaming from his chest. I haven’t been able to think too clearly about the octopus since I had come to the beach. I had given it a chance, it wasn’t as if I had deserted it. I had driven through the Northwest, the Southwest and the Midwest. Thousands of people had looked at it, and many had even thought it was real. I had made money. But once off the road I could never go out behind the boarding house and look at it up on the truck bed. It was the last thing to throw away. Lately I’ve imagined its eight tentacles wrapped around my head slowly smothering me.

  I must have fallen asleep. A hand shook me. “Now look. It’s perfectly all right if you come in and use my terrycloth bathrobe and even take a nap in the middle of my bed, but why violate my bathroom?”

  I slipped my head under the covers.

  Ollie pulled the covers off the bed. I looked up at his face. It wasn’t too bad a face. It was broad and handsome in a puffy way. Ollie was about to say something when Sarah took him by the hand and led him to the doorway. They whispered together. Finally Sarah came back and said, sweetly, “I’ll bet you would like to join the party. We’re going to have fireworks. Please, it will be fun.”

  Between the two of them I was escorted to the edge of the living-room rug. There were only five people. There might have been more in other rooms, but I counted five. I took care not to notice anything else. I sat down.

  “The last time was in New York,” I said.

  “Is that right,” a fat man said. He was eating an egg- and shrimp-salad sandwich and drinking bourbon and water.

  “New York is an active place. Not as much action as you might have been led to believe, but still, an active place. I lived in a sort of penthouse. Beautiful furniture. Turn-of-the-century stuff.”

  “What exactly is your line?” I was asked.

  “I’m a cultural impresario. Nog is the name. I’m investigating cephalopods or, as they say here, octopi or octopuses. Timid creatures, really, much maligned.”

  The man excused himself and went into the next room.

  The wind battered against the window. I remember that very well, the wind battering against the window and the hum of conversation. I pulled the curtain over the bay window to protect the room from the terrible racket of the storm.

  There was boisterous talk about fireworks and drinking and last year’s Fourth of July party.

  Sarah advanced toward me, smiling bravely, “Having fun?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m having fun,” I replied.

  “Would you mind telling me what you do?” she asked.

  It was obvious that they were closing in on me. I was forced to throw out a series of delaying actions.

  “You may ask,” I said, being extremely polite. “Of course you may ask. I’m making a survey of the West Coast. Marine animals mostly. Did you know fossils of cephalopods have been found in rocks that are believed to be at least four hundred million years old? They are harmless. Most people don’t want to know that, but they are harmless, even rather stupid . . . I am also making a survey of the Sierras and another, more general survey on Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Barbara, to name a few. I am also, on the side, so to speak, investigating totems.”

  I remember dancing.

  I remember sitting for a long stretch, looking at television.

  I was able to become more anonymous. I ate roast beef and drank Seven-Up.

  I remember no more until I was asked down to the game room by Ollie. “Now, Mr. Mysterious,” he said, laughing and slapping me on the back. “You can tell me what you do.”

  “A survey of beaches,” I replied quickly. “Taking ten to fifteen years. The best years of my life consumed in this project. All over the Western world. Marvelous and fantastic stories. Over eight beaches noted so far, actually eighty-seven. To name a few: Far Rockaway, Montauk, Las Palmas, Harrison’s Landing, Brighton, Antibes, Westhampton, Orient, Marblehead, Malibu, Coventry, Truro, the whole of the Ceylonese coast, Tangier, Tunis and Ceuta, that whole stretch, Ibiza and Formentera, Vancouver and two beaches in Rhodes and Hydra, three in Crete and only one in all of Ireland. The beach here, the present one, is calm, wide and sandy, few sharks, and a good class of swimmers. Weather mostly good. Except, of course, for tonight. Tonight there is a storm.”

  He handed me a Ping-Pong racket. We played Ping-Pong.

  At first I just shoveled the ball back, trying to be polite. I managed to get the ball close to his racket. But then he grew angry and shouted at me to play ball. I put little twists on the ball and chopped back on the serve. He slammed back harder. Several times it appeared that he wanted to say something, but we were playing so hard there was no time to talk. I kept him hopping. There were backhand smashes for him to contend with, forehand chops, tricky cross-court serves, sleezy slices. Balls sprayed around the room, but he had a plentiful supply from a large wicker basket that hung from the ceiling on a wire chain. We played even harder, and I rolled up the sleeves of my terrycloth bathrobe. Finally, wheezing and perspiring, he stood still, squeezing a Ping-Pong ball in his hand. He appeared to be stuck in some way. There was nothing else to do but grab the basket of Ping-Pong balls and fling them at him. That started him off. He yelled. I threw my paddle, catching him in the throat. Then I tipped over the table. He was left sitting on the floor.

  I walked out of the game room and into the storm.

  Colonel Green was still working on the sea wall. He had managed to move one more log.

  “Getting you down?” I yelled at him. “Worst storm in years. Watch battle fatigue. Absolutely all right.”

  The colonel surveyed the beach, his hands on his hips.

  “Crashing . . . now
. . . 1937 . . . the drift . . . up later . . . no help . . . tatters . . . tatters . . .”

  I grabbed the end of a log. “Where do you get these logs?” I yelled. “What do you do, push them back when the storm is over?”

  “Selfish . . . 1937 . . . four-door sedan . . . stand tall . . .”

  We labored some more but couldn’t move the log. I went back to my room and went to bed.

  What I should have done was get rid of the octopus, what I have been trying to do is get rid of the octopus, what I am beginning just now to remember was that I did get rid of the octopus. I see it now for the first time. I either took it back to the party and put it in the bathtub or danced with it on the beach. No, I did bring it back to the beach but not to dance with. I took off my terrycloth bathrobe and ran down to the truck and got the octopus out of the bathysphere, its tentacles waving all over me. Struggling in the rain and wind, I dragged it back and pulled it up on the sea wall. Such a spectator gave the colonel enough of a jolt to finish the sea wall. Then together we threw it in the sea, and I went home and went to bed. It was something like that, I can remember something like that, a storm, a party and then the octopus. There was an octopus, although I know deep down that the octopus is still up on blocks. I know, too, that nothing happened and I haven’t traveled with the octopus. But I shall move on anyway, perhaps to New York. I remember great things about New York.

  Nog, 1969

  Brion Gysin

  (1916–1986)

  I’m declaring the British-born Brion Gysin an honorary American, as a Beat founding father and a son of Canadians. A painter foremost, he was expelled at age nineteen from the Surrealist Group by André Breton; published A History of Slavery in Canada; studied Japanese calligraphy; and moved in 1950 to Tangier, where his circle included Paul Bowles and William Burroughs. Moving back to Paris in 1958 he took up residence in what became known as The Beat Hotel. With Burroughs he developed the “cut-up technique” of rearranging existing text to create new text, and with Ian Sommerville invented “the dreamachine,” a stroboscopic device based on the frequency of alpha waves. He was the actual source of the Alice B. Toklas brownie recipe. This is a chapter from Gysin’s Saharan novel, The Process.