I didn’t know exactly what he was getting at but the song almost put me into a trance, it was so beautiful and mysterious and sad. Afterwards, Dr. Ledbetter broke it all down for us, everyone scribbling in their notebooks, but I was wishing he would just leave it alone.
The record store owner I spoke to later over the phone had never heard of any Leonard Cohen. “What is he?”
“How do you mean?”
“Folk? Rock? Blues? R and B?”
“Hard to say. He’s Canadian, I know that.”
He took my number and a week or so later he phoned and said he had something called The Songs of Leonard Cohen.
What a perfect title.
And what a perfect face he had. It was on the cover, a perfect poet’s face, long and sad and deeply sincere. I ran with it all the way back to my dorm, and was so glad Larry wasn’t in.
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river …
I walked up and down between the two beds, loving every song, every sad lovely one of them, both sides. Some of the lyrics gave me trouble, a lot of them in fact, but I understood his voice, the place it came from, deep inside, deep down, where it hurt:
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn …
I was playing the whole thing over again when Larry came barging in. I said to him, “Hi! Hey, what’s up?” I felt embarrassed, like I’d been caught.
“What the hell is that?” he said, meaning the music.
“Oh, just … something somebody gave me. I was just checking it out.”
“Sounds like he’s fucking dying, man.”
I laughed. “Doesn’t he?”
“Somebody gave you that?”
“Some chick.” I took it off.
After that, I only played it when I knew for certain Larry wouldn’t be back for a long while, Saturday nights for example.
Since then, Leonard Cohen had put out two more albums just as good, cutting just as deep, and he still meant just as much to me, with his off-key voice and his long sad poet’s face.
When I got back to the theater it was still a little early and I hung around outside, smoking. Maybe there’d be a small, sad-eyed girl in a raincoat and we would recognize each other immediately and go in and sit together.
She didn’t show. Hardly anyone did. I went in just before it started and took an aisle seat in the back. The lights were lowered. I sat up straighter.
The movie turned out to be pretty old, all about the early Leonard Cohen, before the songs, when he was still just a poet. It showed a crowded city street, where I picked him out right away, in a trench coat, hands deep in the pockets, and as the camera moved in closer the narrator said, “Leonard Cohen is a poet.”
It showed him crossing the street.
“He is a constant wanderer.”
It showed him gazing at a female mannequin.
“He has an enormous curiosity …”
It showed him gazing at a movie poster.
“… and a hypersensitivity.”
It showed him gazing at the gray sky.
I didn’t understand—were we supposed to think he didn’t notice the camera a few feet away from his long sad face?
“Cohen works his talent very hard.”
He was at a desk now, laboring over a poem.
“He writes for several hours a day.”
He looked off, tapping his mouth with his pen.
“He writes …”
He wrote something.
“… and rewrites.”
He crumpled up the paper and began again.
I couldn’t take any more of this.
Outside I went walking around, walking fast, head down. But the camera had followed me out, the narrator intoning, “He is a constant wanderer …”
I headed back to my apartment. When I got in, I set a pan of water on the stove and dropped a hot dog into it. While I was waiting I put some music on, his second album, Songs from a Room, just to see.
Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir …
Well, I still liked the guy. How could you not? He probably knew he was partly full of shit, probably knew better than anyone.
I have tried, in my way, to be free.
THE EXORCIST
I was asleep when the phone by the bed went off. I sat up and looked at the clock: 2:45 a.m.
“Hello?” I said carefully.
A raspy voice shouted, “Yourmothersuckscocksinhell!”
“What? I’m sorry, my what? I didn’t—”
“Your mother!”
“What about her?”
“Sucks cocks!”
“My mother …”
“In Hell!”
I didn’t understand. “Do you know my mother?”
No response.
“Who is this?”
“Satan.”
“Right,” I said, “okay,” and told him to go to hell. But as I was putting the phone down I could hear him shouting in there, “Wait, don’t hang up, don’t hang up!”
I couldn’t, somehow. “Who is this.”
“It’s not really Satan,” he admitted in a normal voice— he sounded about seventeen. “You don’t know me. I dialed whatever. You’re whatever. I didn’t mean that about your mother, it just came out. It’s from the movie. Have you seen it yet? I’ve seen it five times.”
“What movie. What’re you talking about?”
“The Exorcist. You haven’t seen it?”
“No.” I’d seen previews and it looked pretty scary but not in a very enjoyable way.
“Listen to this,” he said. “I can speak backwards. Check it out: ‘Natas si eman ym.’ Know what I just said? ‘My … name … is … Satan.’”
Okay, I instructed myself, just be nice, and get off. “That’s pretty good,” I told him.
“Thanks.”
“But I’m afraid I have to go now,” I added.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“It’s very late.”
“I have to tell someone.”
“Maybe another time.”
“Please?”
“Be quick,” I told him.
“I’ve got all the symptoms: bedwetting, speaking backwards, green vomit, levitation, evil thoughts—you wouldn’t believe some of the shit I think about doing.”
“Like prank phone calls?”
“This isn’t a prank, it’s a cry for help, asshole.”
“Okay, that’s it. Goodnight.”
“Right. Go back to bed. In the morning you’ll think you had this dream about some fucked-up guy thinks he’s possessed by the devil, calls you up wanting to know if you’d like to go see a movie some time. Would you, by the way? Just curious.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. “Are you asking me out?”
“Yes or no, pal. What’s it gonna be?”
“It’s gonna be no,” I told him.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “Know what I do to fags? What I’d like to do? Wanna hear?”
“I’m hanging up now, okay? Goodnight.”
“Wait. Know what happens? Satan leaves the little girl and gets inside the priest, the young one, so you know what he does? Jumps out the window and breaks his neck. He didn’t have any choice! See what I’m saying? What I’m tryna say?”
Ah shit, I thought. “So that’s what you’re gonna do?”
“What, jump out the window? Right, I’d fall about three feet, ya dumb fuck. I’m sorry, that was way outa line. You mad at me now?”
“Listen …”
“Oh don’t say ‘listen’ like that. I hate when people tell me to listen. Why don’t they ever listen? Go ahead. You were saying.”
I told him carefully, “Quit, seeing, the stupid, fucking, movie.”
“It’s not stupid, you’re stupid. People don’t think there’s a devil but that’s what he wants them to think. Know what she does? The little girl? Masturbates with a crucifix. Does that turn you on? If it does, you are one s
ick fuck, my friend. Plus she barfs green vomit in his face, and her head turns allll the way around, and when he flings holy water on her it burns, it burns. You gotta go see it.”
“Yeah well, meanwhile I think maybe you should go see something a little more lighthearted, y’know? A little upbeat?”
“Like what.”
“I don’t know …” I tried to think. “Singin’ in the Rain or something.”
He laughed. “Singin’ in the Rain?”
“Something like that, I’m saying.”
“How old are you, man?”
“All right, y’know what? It’s going on three o’clock in the goddam—”
“Wanna go together? See something together? A musical comedy? Whaddaya say?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Want me to jump out the window?”
“It’s only three feet,” I reminded him.
“Want me to hang myself?”
“Look …”
“Oh don’t say ‘look’ like that. I hate when people tell me to look. What’s your name, by the way. Can you tell me that much?”
I didn’t see any harm. “John,” I said.
“Mine’s Luke, short for Lucifer. Not really. So what’s your number, John? I don’t even remember what I dialed.”
Thank you, Jesus, I thought.
“Lemme grab a pen,” he told me. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Y’know?” I said, as if having thought it over. “I think I’d probably rather not.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Why do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you. I don’t even—”
“Can’t you understand? It’s not me, it’s him. It’s him.”
Satan, he apparently meant. I told him as nicely as I could, “I really think you need to go talk to someone, Luke.”
“I am talking to someone, I’m talking to you. Aren’t you someone?”
“I was thinking more like, you know, someone professional.”
“Like a shrink, you mean?”
“Well …”
“I don’t need a shrink, I need a fucking priest, you dickwad.”
“Well I’m not a fucking priest, all right? So—”
“Fine. You’re off the hook. Go on, go back to bed. Goodnight. Goodbye.”
“Wait,” I told him.
He waited. “Well?” he said.
“So how ‘s it end?” I asked.
“What, the movie?”
“What happens?”
“I told you, the priest jumps out the window, breaks his neck.”
“What about the little girl?”
“She’s fine. All smiles. Doesn’t even remember.”
“Well then,” I said to him, putting a smile in my voice. “See? Happy ending. It was looking pretty grim there for a while, right? Pretty dark?”
“Yeah?”
“But then, finally, somehow, everything all worked out, didn’t it.”
“So what’s your point.”
“I’m saying, it just goes to show: things have a way of … you know …”
“Working out?”
“‘All smiles,’ you said. The little girl was ‘all smiles.’”
He was quiet for a moment, like he was thinking. Then he said, “What’re you, some kinda nutcase?”
“Excuse me?”
He spoke carefully: “It’s a movie, man. Okay? We’re talking about a fucking movie.”
“Yeah and a pretty idiotic one, I’d say.”
“Fuck you, you haven’t even seen it.”
“Well, it sounds idiotic—green vomit and the rest.”
“Pancake batter, okay? Okay?”
“That’s what they used? Pancake batter?”
“With green food coloring, okay?”
“Huh.” I admitted that was kind of interesting.
“She gets him right in the face, man.” He started laughing now. “The shit’s all over his fuckin’ glasses, and the mother’s like, ‘Oh, hey, sorry about that, Father.’” Laughing harder he managed to ask me, “Whaddaya say? Wanna go? It’s kind of a comedy actually, lotta slapstick, kind of a musical comedy.”
“There’s singing?”
“Not as such. Anyway, how ’bout it, wanna go?”
“Not really.”
He was quiet.
“Sorry,” I added.
“Yeah, you’re sorry all right, you’re about the sorriest—by the way, did I mention? Your mother sucks cocks in Hell.”
“So you said.”
“Your own mother! Sucks cocks!”
“Okay, Luke.”
“In Hell!”
We were quiet, both of us.
Then I said to him, “Y’know, speaking of memorable lines? I’m reminded of a pretty good one, a pretty profound one actually. It’s from the final scene in one of my all-time favorite—”
“Hey man, it’s three in the fuckin morning,” he informed me, and hung up.
HIGH NOON
There was this barber I was going to, a big relaxed guy named Fred, owner of Friendly Fred’s, a little one-chair shop a couple blocks from my apartment, and he was friendly to all his other customers, telling jokes, gabbing about the weather, sports, politics, his car troubles, his wife troubles, or whatever was on the little TV by the window—the Cubs game, General Hospital—but when I got in the chair he’d say, “How ya want it?” and that would be it, not another word the entire haircut.
Or else—and this is what really pissed me off—if a customer was waiting, reading a magazine, while I was in the chair? Fred would talk to him, sometimes even stepping away from my head for emphasis:
“I don’t suppose you heard about those astronauts that found a restaurant on the moon, did you?”
“No, Fred,” the guy would say. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, it seems the food was all right …”
“Yeah?”
“But the place didn’t have much atmosphere.”
Big laugh from the guy, Fred returning to my head, chuckling, repeating the punch line: “Said the place just didn’t seem to have much atmosphere.”
And if I responded—“That’s pretty funny,” or, “That’s a good one, Fred”—here’s what he would say:
“Beg pardon?”
This finally started getting to me.
“I mean, what’s his problem?” I said to my older sister Cheryl, over the phone.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
“What he got against me?”
“It’s probably not even about you, John.”
“I just don’t get it.”
“What about tipping him?”
“Pay him to talk to me?”
“You don’t tip him, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Maybe that’s all it is.”
“A tip.”
“Try it next time.”
“What, fifty cents?”
“Give him a couple dollars.”
“Jesus, Cheryl.”
“Just to see. But meanwhile?”
“‘Try not to obsess,’ right.”
So after the next haircut, after giving him his seven dollars, I said, “And here’s a little extra for ya, Fred,” handing over two more ones. “Now, don’t spend it all in one place,” I added, with a laugh.
“Beg pardon?”
“I was just saying, don’t … you know …”
He waited, his head cocked to one side.
“Never mind,” I told him, and walked out.
“Felt like a goddam fool, Cheryl.”
“What about just going to another barber—is that an option?”
“Okay but see, that would be admitting this whole thing bothers me. And it doesn’t, not really. So my barber won’t talk to me. Big deal. What’m I, desperate?”
“All the same, wouldn’t it be a lot—”
“It just bothers me, that’s all. I mean, what have I done to him? What horrible thing?”
“
You’re giving this guy too much power, John.”
“Or is it just my essence he despises.”
“Way too much power.”
Another thing. I’d been seeing Fred every few weeks for about six months now, and every time I sat in the chair he would ask me, “How ya want it?” And my answer was always the same: “Just a trim.”
“How ya want it?”
“Just a trim.”
Every time.
So wouldn’t you think by now, instead of asking me how I want it, he would say something like, “The usual?” I mean, even if he wasn’t going to talk to me, wouldn’t you think he’d at least acknowledge that he’s actually seen me before? But every time I sat in the chair it was like I fell there from the moon—where those astronauts found that restaurant.
I told Cheryl I was beginning to feel like maybe I really was from the fucking moon.
“Listen,” she said, “I was thinking …”
“Like some kind of alien, you know?”
“What if you tried talking to him?”
“A stranger in a strange land.”
“John?”
“What.”
“I was saying, what if you tried talking to him.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just, you know, ask him how he’s he doing. ‘How ya doin’, Fred?’”
“Right. He’ll say, ‘Beg pardon?’”
“So then you try again. You say, ‘I was just wondering, how’s it going?’”
“Force the issue, you’re saying.”
“Not belligerently, but—”
“Firmly, right. I like that. Let’s try it. ‘How ya doin,’ Fred?’”
“‘Beg pardon?’”
“‘I said—’”
“No, John, see …”
“Right, right.”
So the next time I went I took Cheryl’s advice and tried talking to him. It took me a while. There was no one else in the shop so it was utterly silent, not even the television, just the sound of his scissors. I sat there struggling through almost the entire haircut. Then finally, as he was combing me down, I said to him, “So. How ya doin’, Fred?”
“Beg pardon?”
“I was just, you know, wondering …”
“Yeah?”
“How’s it going?”
“How’s what going?”
“Well … your car, for one thing.”
“How’s my car going?”
“Running okay?”
“Running fine. Why?”
Crying at Movies Page 6