Technicolor Pulp

by Arty Nelson

  I give him a last squeeze and I walk up the runway to the plane. I think he meant it… That I’d always be welcome on his couch… But I know it’s over. Whatever IT is, I know IT’S gone. I can’t be showing up on their couches anymore—all these people I used to know, went to school with, hung out with. My tour of yesterday is over. I’ve milked it out: boarding school, college, the whole east coast schoolboy party circuit is way old. I gotta blame it on that, on them. There aren’t too many other things I can point the finger at. The show’s over, and I’m still taking bows like there’s a full house in front of me.

  PUIP 54

  “Jimi… Why didn’t we make love last night?” she says, rolling over, up and outta bed, deftly avoiding my sleepy lunge. “Oh shit… I’m already late for class.”

  Back in Hell and it’s colder than ever. Two months of enlightened self-annihilation hadn’t meant shit. Hostage to HER emotions and MY pain-lust. She’s pacing the room in a frenzy, throwing dirty panties, trying to unearth a cigarette, and I’m wondering what’s happened. As IF it could change. As IF ME going away was going to change her, or it, or this, or me. TV shows go on hiatus and so does bad love… And they both always pick up right where they left off.

  “I don’t know, Linds… I think it’s HARD for two people to fuck when ONE of’m is running circles around the room… A question of physics really.” What am I supposed to do? Act as puzzled as she is? She’s not puzzled at all. She just hates me and doesn’t realize it. I see it, though… I think I even feel it myself.

  “Do you always have to use the word FUCK… You’re really a pig!”

  “Lindsey, of all the ridiculous things I STILL do… Saying that you and I make LOVE is not one of them.”

  She stops moving and stares at me with a set of eyes that only Charlie Manson would call sexy. Pure hate. I’m held down by the gaze as if each eye is a spike holding me, running through me, pinning me to the mattress, piercing my lungs and making me real scared. That’s it… REAL SCARED!

  “You’re just so morbid!” and spins out into the hallway.

  Spikes removed, I claw my way to the end of the bed with a jaundiced eye on the bathroom.

  Standing in the bathroom, listening to the spray hit, and jerking my way through a full-on pee-shiver, I see the back of her head storm through the room and bound back out, accompanied by a series of disgusted groans. It’s painful to look at the bitch from any angle. It’s funny. It’s actually just funny. I can’t help but laugh… The emotions… The time… Even Europe all seems like such a waste because I did it for her. Jimi Banks became an expatriate because he was lovesick for a girl who just really isn’t happy when he’s around. The piss hitting the bowl, splashing back up in my hand. Always dirty, always getting dirty. Puke on my face… Piss on my hands… Shit on my nose. It’s all so beautiful… And it’s just so filthy. I could hope all I want, that some cosmic eclipse would erase every mishap, every misword, every misfuck, but I just don’t think it matters anymore. The hate had taken on a life of its own. When our eyes meet, puppets come up from out of our psyches and spit on each other. FUCK IT… SHE’S SUCH AN ASSHOLE ANYWAYS… WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?… BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM… THANK FUCKING GOD… IT DOESN’T MATTER… I’M AN ASSHOLE TOO… IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO’S WHO OR WHAT’S WHAT… I mean… There’s no doubt I’m a selfish drunken bum fag coward liar and whatever else fits. But at least I’m not stringing this shitty thing along and pretending I don’t see it. I see. I see. And now I’m fucking out of here.

  I walk out of the bathroom and there she is, buzzing around the living room all pissed off. I start to laugh out loud.

  “You’re happy I missed my class, aren’t you, Jimi?”

  “I wish it were that painless… This laughter’s taken months, miles, and so many dollars to muster.”

  “What?”

  “I shoulda laughed this laugh back in July… It’s been rotting inside of me and choking me because I’ve been afraid to let it out.”

  “Oh now, we’re gonna have THIS talk again… !”

  “I was standing in the bathroom looking at every angle, every little wall, every brush, every bottle, every THING in there, and all I saw was us, and none of it was any good… I hate every bit of it… Linds, I’m goin’ back to the island… We’re through… Not that that’s any BIG news to you… I’m just saying it out loud for my OWN good… I gotta get outta here.”

  “OK… Well… You know,” she says, stopping, “… Call me or maybe I’ll call you… I mean someday… I wanna know what you’re up to… You know….”

  The moment. The moment when it’s finally been said and a small piece of truth creeps back in. The faces relax, and the eyes soften, and I see again. Lindsey becomes a human again. No longer a goddess or a monster… Just the girl I fell in love with. I run my fingers through her hair and down the side of her face. The anger subsides for the first time in months.

  “I do… I gotta go, Linds.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t really want to though.”

  “Something’s gotta change… This is hell on both of us, Jimi.”

  “I’m afraid to leave you.”

  “I think it’d be better.”

  Looking at her face as I stroke her hair. Talking to her again. No shadowboxing, just words. It doesn’t matter what the words mean when they’re put together. It’s just nice to hear them again. Hoping I can make something from nothing, wishing.

  “Can we make LOVE one more time, Linds?” Hating that I said it, but feeling a need to say it. Trying to find some last piece. “… And then I gotta go… I gotta leave here… This place makes me sad anymore… I’m fucked up about it… Can we do that?”

  “Ah… Yeah… OK… I’ve already missed my class anyways.” And gets back in bed.

  I get in next to her and start to give her kisses. Our tongues occasionally brush past one another. Lindsey’s got her sweater on and I’m naked. I’m at the Final Chapter and she’s missing her lecture. IT’S HORRIBLE. AND IT’S PERFECT. I kiss her down her bare thighs until I get to the inside of her. I lick and kiss the folds. I take each lip into my mouth and suck on it. Pulling her apart… Thinking of other things… Thinking of other times… Trying to be tender… Her body feels tense and cold… But there’s warmth inside of her… I peek up at her face… The eyes are closed… She’s left me… I hate myself for trying to make this something new again. I should’ve just kissed her and left, but that little piece of me still hopes. The HUMAN in me. Going back to what once was… Remembering the laughter… Remembering the good… Thinking just maybe… She begins rubbing herself while I rock inside… It lasts a couple of minutes and then we come. The desperation rolling down my body in frozen beads. I give her a kiss.

  “Is there anything left here? Anything at all?”

  “No, Jimi… You were right before.”

  I get up and put my clothes on. It’s still early in the morning. Early enough for me to get out to the island without ever having to deal with any REAL world.

  Lindsey follows me through the apartment to the front door. I turn around as my hand twists the knob. I wanna cry but I feel like I’ll pass out or something weird if I let it all loose. Lindsey looks serene, calm. I can tell by the stillness that THIS is how it should really be. The birds outside. I hear them. The sun. I feel it. Nature tells me. I remember the first time I saw her, sitting on the Navigator porch in her waitress outfit, laughing and drinking with her friends. I take her hands in mine. They’re warm.

  “You know… I’ll never forget the first time I saw you… I thought you were the most beautiful girl to’ve ever come out to the island… Here it is… The summer’s over… You and I lived together… And now, we’re saying good-bye… It was beautiful, wasn’t it?… I mean I remember it all being so good when it was happening….”

  “Jimi…” she says, and squeezes my hand just tight enough for me to feel her one last time. “… It was a nice summer…” and lets go of my hand and turns
away. “… It really was.”

  I walk down the stairs and out of the building. A stray cat runs in front of me. The air is crisp, the sun is climbing. There’s no wind. Cars hurry past me on the street. I hoist my bag over my shoulder, straightening my jacket under the strap, looking for a train or a bus or anything to leave on. All the other people seem to be walking down the hill, so I turn right and start after them. I look over my shoulder up at her window, trying to catch one last glimpse… Maybe just a shadow, anything, a last tiny piece… And then I leave….

  PUIP 55

  Standing out on a narrow stretch of beach with high grass to my right, watching the ocean roll in when I think of it, drinking buck-fifty bottles of red wine, reliving the joys, and then tasting the bitter. In and out… Over and over… Synchronicity… A gulp of juice… A picnic on the beach… The last time I saw her… A telephone I can’t pick up… The waves roll in and take it back out, only to wash it back in again. How many times can I tell her I’m sorry and how many times will I not accept the apology?… A shell is forming around me… A beard on my jaw… A smile on my mouth… A joke on my tongue… I’ve retreated… The sand sparkles and shines in front of me… A strip of light across my vision… I lay in wait under the shadow of a bottle I hold over my head… I’ve been to this place before… But I always lied and told myself I had somewhere else to go… The sea is my movie… Thinking something must happen… And knowing it won’t come from me… Waiting….

  PUIP 56

  The island clears out with the weather. LATE FALL. Work’s hard to find. Islanders hold on to their work. If there are only two houses to paint, then they do it alone and stretch it out over the winter. If they don’t know me, they don’t care. If they do know me, they won’t hire me. It’s a small place and a reputation can ruin. My rep is “he’s an OK guy to get drunk with, but don’t hire him for anything.” They buy me a drink, hand me a couple bucks, and casually tell me to shut up. As long as I get the drink… I DO shut up. It goes like that for weeks. A couch here, a buck there, a free meal—just enough to stay conscious. Finally, Joe Duffy takes me on as his mate and I become a lobsterman.

  Galloping across the water on the roof of his 31-foot rig with R.E.M. cranking, smoking a joint while Joe steers through the roof with a broomstick. We rise up and then drop in with each swell. This ain’t the Love Boat but it sure beats raking leaves for a ham sandwich and a six-pack—my last gig. We’re a piece of driftwood out here, ducking and jiving like a scared flyweight. I’m as small as I suspected. NOTHING. The depressing french guys are right. We work all day, sometimes I clear a C-note. Sometimes I make twenty. Either way, Joe buys me two poached with hash every morning, and a bucket of beers every night. Fuck the car payments, they can have it back if they want it.

  Being out on the water gets confusing. Nothing to do but think, and yet, one loose rope catches an ankle and it’s over. It’s about Lindsey. It’s about money. It’s about Ray. It’s about an empty trap landing in front of me. I open the trap, tear the fish in half, jam it into the bait box, close the trap and throw the trap off the back of the moving boat. The traps are strung 7 or 8 together, so there’s no time to stop. Joe’s already throwing the next trap back at me. A string of traps will snap your leg like it’s a dry twig, pulling you into the water before you even know it. The bait fish sit rotting in the sun in 100-gallon drums until I open them every morning with a stomach full of last night’s booze. When I tear them in half, the spines snap and pierce my heavy rubber gloves, so my hands are always infected and bleeding.

  A couple of times a day, Joe pulls up a trap and there’s a sea eel caught inside. Joe dumps it out in the boat and either stomps on its head, or lets it swim around on the floor. “You little raunchy cunts! How do ya like me now? How do ya like me now with a squashed head!” All the time yelling, “Ahoy matey” or just howling in general. I don’t like the eels at all, alive or dead. They’re big… 3… 4… 5 feet long and thick like fire hoses. Mean, with hate in their eyes and mouths. All they want to do is get back in the cold dark ocean and get on with their lives. But they can’t. They’re either too retarded from Joe’s boot to the skull, or they haven’t found the little drain hole yet. Sometimes, they’re too fat for the drain hole and they have to wait for the next big wave to come over the side and set them free. They writhe between my legs and scowl at me as I tear rotting vile fish in half. My stomach jumps like a volcano on angel dust. Back and forth between my legs, rubbing on my boots, waiting for me to lean too far over, waiting for me to be next to them. Joe could care less, they don’t bother him. They bother me though… They know they can get to me.

  Joe’s from Boston. We tended bar together over the summer. I think he got sick of hearing me bitch back at the bar. I always thought he hated me, so one day I mustered all my courage and told him to FUCK OFF… Then he started to love me. The best thing about Joe, other than his girlfriend, who I desperately want to fuck, is a long J-shaped scar that he has down the line of his jaw, on the left side of his face. I don’t know how he got it. It’s so big that I’m afraid to ask. It had to be something horrendous, and I’ve got an honest respect for Joe’s insanity, especially now that he’s got MY life in his hands every day. When we’re out on the water, I don’t ask him about his girl, or his big scar, I just tear the fish.

  “Joe… Don’t you ever get lonely out here?”

  “No, Jimi me boy… But I do get horny sometimes.”

  Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. Joe thinks he’s like Ahab or something, with the “Ahoy” and the “me boy” stuff… Who knows?

  “How’s that bitty, Lindsey… Do ya ever hear from her or anything?”

  “Not really… I… We… Broke that thing off when I got back from London.”

  “That’s a shame, matey… She had such lovely BUOYS… Wasn’t a real smart girl though….”

  I’d never thought about whether or not Lindsey was smart. I don’t know WHAT I thought about her as a person. All I ever saw was my little image, just part of some movie I’m trapped in. With the eels, and the water stinging the cuts in my hand, and the stomach churning, that’s where Lindsey is, in my stomach, all just part of what’s making me sick—some mix of nausea and emptiness.

  “… Are ya gonna see her again or what?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Ya mean that?”

  “I don’t know… Do I?”

  “Look, I don’t wanna be one to pry… But I AM feeding your drunken ass these days… And I gotta tell you that you’re dying… Maybe it’s not her… Maybe I’m all wrong… Maybe I’m just a BIG ASSHOLE… I mean, I know I’m THAT any-ways… But you better figure out whatever it is and get the fuck on with it….”

  “I don’t know, I mean… We said good-bye and I think we BOTH knew that it was definitely over… We haven’t spoken since.” Right then, a swell hits the boat and water rushes over the side. There’s action on the boat as trapped eels heave themselves about, trying to get back into the sea. I get thrown over, across the boat, and Joe grabs me. There’s a second where our eyes meet… This guy… Helping me, trying to keep me up and me wavering… Too weak to stand on my own… Joe looking at me like he doesn’t trust me.

  “Thanks man!” I say, spitting out a mouthful of ocean.

  “You gotta see those comin’… I told you to watch the fuckin’ swells… They come in sets… You’da been dead in 45 seconds if you went in that water… Yur like a fuckin’ zombie!”

  The boat settles back down and I look over the side. A string of traps trails under the hull of the boat, like tiny shadowy coffins on a leash.

  “That water’s cold isn’t it?”

  “Fuckin’ right it’s cold… Lemme tell ya some-thin’, me boy… What you need is some fresh pussy… The only way to forget the old stuff is to kill it with somethin’ better…” he says as he throws an empty cage at my head. “… Sometimes I fuck a broad just to keep some distance between me and the old lady… Nothin’ like some side pussy to keep t
he steady pussy in line… But that isn’t what you need…” Another trap comes sailing. “… You need somethin’ to make you forget… You’re losin’ it… And out here on the water, it ain’t safe for either of us, if you’re all lovesick…” Another trap lands at my feet, as I jam a bloody shred of a fish into the trap in front of me.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right…” I say as I toss the cage over the back and open the next.

  “PROBABLY… I AM RIGHT… Some fresh pussy’ll help heal the wound… But I’m tellin’ ya, in two weeks, I won’t need you anymore out here, and the island’ll be empty… Nothin’ but scary clam-head pussy out here in the winter… With the sun goes the fine cunt!”

  “So whatta ya think I oughta do?”

  “Get some money from somebody and GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!”

  PUIP 57

  Small problems have a way of growing up into big problems. Money’s that kinda thing. Time’s just the opposite. One minute, I got money in my hand and life’s beautiful, and the next thing I know, time’s up, and I need money. The days get shorter and the bar tabs get longer and the lobsters learn to hide better and I gotta start makin’ calls. It’s a sensitive thing. You gotta call a person up, make them feel special, ask about their life, be happy, tighten the bond. Everybody’s got a little extra money to lend, it’s just a matter of becoming worthy of the deed. It’s a whole game, a mind-set. I knew it was inevitable. Time and money. Time and money. Time to find the money.

  I make a few preliminary calls to some old standbys, just to get a feel for the terrain: old roommates, uncles, sisters. There’s always mom and dad, but that’s a whole other can of worms. The trick IS to get money from people you don’t really have to deal with all that much. I try to borrow a couple hundred from the parents, and who knows what kind of strings might be attached. I might have to make a promise that entails a haircut or something. I mean, the thought HAS crossed my mind, but as a rule, MOM AND DAD ARE THE LAST RESORT. Every day I roam the streets and the bars, saying my hellos, bumming shots, and flipping through the Rolodex of my mind. A call here, a message there, NO LUCK. One day, as I sit at the end of the bar at D. Ryan’s, trying to turn a fiver into a blackout, BINGO! Who is it… Who is it that feels responsible for my well being? Who is it that’s gotta deep paternal vibe for me… Maybe even loves me? BINGO… The Godfather!