by Van Quattro
“I don’t think anything is running now.”
“Dang Doodle, I have to get to Highgate.”
“Oh well, not tonight. What’s your name?”
“I am Van. Bummer, I’ll have to find a bench or something. What’s your name?”
“Carrie Anne.”
“Ha, ‘Hey Carrie Anne, what’s your game can anyone play.’ The Hollies.”
“Yes, I am aware of that song. I love it”
“Carrie Anne, where are you coming from?”
“Having some drinks with my friends.”
“We have so much in common.”
“You an American?”
“I suppose I am. I was born there. Yup. L.A.”
“Wow, I always wanted to go to L.A.”
“I’ll take you, but you’ll have to wait twenty years or so ‘cause I’m not done here.”
“Why don’t you come over to my place?”
“Carrie, I will do that.” This woman is bright, fresh thinking, and sparkly and she wants me to come home with her. I am calm with her. It is right, for right now, and maybe forever.
Lovely ladies like her seem to last a short time in my life, they mostly leave in horror of something fucking stupid I did, or they take off with a sadness they wear like a shawl regarding my betrayal of some bond I couldn’t keep. Trying to get them back never works I grovel like an abandoned earthworm and it’s devastating because I’m forced to see the damage I created. I don’t like what I do most of the time.
Tonight the air is crisp and well spirited, the ghost in me is playful.
Her flat is well cared for. I can tell she likes life. Sometimes through my indifference to all things that are not me, I can appreciate other people’s careful and steady attempts to enjoy all things.
We quietly make love. It’s comforting, and special. She wants to know more about me. Not in a way to assess, but in order to share a dream or two. I open my heart.
She asks what I care about most in the world and I can’t answer. I want to give a shit about something and offer it to her to prove my value of life. But I come up with nothing. Here’s the thing though: I do, I fucking care about most everything. Most of all love, but I love like the fucking Wolf Man; I claw and bite and murder, then weep in the daylight hours begging to be saved.
“I like a lot of things, movies, music, animals. I mean I was a fisherman in Alaska and I felt bad for every fish we caught.”
“You are a special man.”
“I am?”
“Yes, you seem old though.”
“I do? Like how old? I’m twenty-seven is that old? How old are you?”
“I’m your age. I don’t know much about you, but…you seem to have given up. Like you’re betraying your soul. You are too young to not care.”
“I care. I mean, real hard sometimes.”
“I love that, ‘I care hard.” She leans in to me and I put my arm around her and hold her ready to slumber. I am so in peace yet thinking about what she said. I really don’t know what to believe. It doesn’t seem like I have given up. I mean, shit I’ll fight someone at the drop of a look, but I do always feel so fucking empty.
I start to doze into golden slumbers and the place starts shaking. Then a sound comes from the distance and grows serious, it rumbles closer and gets louder, the flat stutters and rattles as the noise lands on us. I jump out of her bed and try to pull her to the ground with me.
“It’s a fucking earthquake, get down.” The sound rolls by and disappears.
“No Van, it’s the train.”
“What the hell, it felt exactly like an earthquake…I mean wow.”
“We don’t have earthquakes in London. All is well.” I get back in bed, spoon her and stare at her tidy kitchen as she falls asleep. I think I want a kitchen just like this one-day with someone like her right beside me. Earthquake what the hell… how could it be anything else? A train. I’m still shaking. Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.
No shame but smiles when we wake. She tells me she has a breakfast date with friends. We gently say farewell without any false gesturing regarding meeting again, and it’s okay, very okay. She tells me to start living, I say I will but I don’t have a clue what to do. Carrie Anne, thank you for spending time with me today.
I think I live. I mean I know I do stuff, crazy stuff, but that’s living isn’t it? I probably live more than most, like, regular people, because I do stuff based on my need to go as far as my body and soul can endure. I will take situations to the last breath of life. Why? From what I can tell I really want to see what happens after this life, if we live or die after death. Also, I am a pure and simple sensation junkie. If one is good just think of what ten will do. And maybe I just don’t want to live. I’ve seen enough, I have many nights where I don’t want to wake up in the morning. I feel so null and void, like a bus ticket that’s been punched for a hundred years. That’s probably what Carrie Anne is talking about. I need a new ticket. WelI… I will still battle for love and fuel my war with booze and drugs because sometimes it works gloriously, but other times it fails, like using napalm for peace. A simple life is goddamn hard.
I am now a favorite worker bee for my contractor bosses. They sub some of their painting projects to me. Anytime I can I’ll work up to twelve hours a day. If the flat is empty I’ll spend the night there and work in to the wee wee hours and listen to my serious music like a sermon.
I start making over three hundred pounds a week. With all my working overtime I’m so busy I don’t feel the need to call the tequila gang. I’m just happy to be putting dough in my pocket.
I sure the hell could use a change of scenery for my shut-eye though. I have no idea how to approach Brian about his offer to live with him, he might not even fucking remember what he said. I wonder if he still loves me like he said. Weird huh? I am wondering if a dude still loves me. I’ll hold off calling him.
On the nights when I’m not working I go to some great clubs with fucking great music and cool ass people. I don’t pick up any chicks but it’s alright. I get very fucked up and dance like a simmering fool aware his pants are on fire and his butt is showing. I don’t give a flying…
I beg this DJ to play ‘Exodus,’ by Bob Marley because I’m feeling downright powerful and want to start some kind of movement. He says he will but it’s now five songs later and he still hasn’t. I stare at him hoping he’ll see how passionate I am, but his looks seem to indicate the song is old and not important today.
Man, I cling desperately to my revolutionary spirit like the branch of a tall tree in hell. My power is fresh, and I want to infuse my new energy in to this timeless message. So fucking there.
Hell yeah, I hear the guitar tapping my soul then the piano moves my feet. I look at him give a head nod from warrior to warrior; black power baby. I take the dance floor and start a gentle prance that becomes more severe with every beat. I am now pounding my feet through the first layer of earth and dancing with roots. I’m alone, but I don’t care, I continue my stomping with body gestations, bending deep with conviction to every syllable and raising my arms like a freed man. I swirl and hop until the song stops. I have freed myself. MOVE!
The DJ looks at me with a respect for my respect of equality and expression. It will never be enough. MOVE!
This is a new city, it’s like me time. I finish a job I was working on and take a day off. I spend the day in London to blow my dough. I go to record shops and clothes joints. I buy the new Jam album, The Gift. I’m psyched to hear it. I love the song they play on the radio called, ‘Town Called Malice.’ I also buy a ticket to see the Pretenders at the Hammersmith Palais. My favorite song off their new album is, ‘English Roses.’ If I were a woman I would surely identify with this song. I mean I’m a guy and it breaks my heart.
It strikes noon on some big ass clock somewhere, a good time to start drinking yes? I knock back a couple of beers and decide to call Brian. I have to make a move. MOVE!
“Hello, who’s cal
ling?”
“Hi, Brian, this is Van from the tequila party.”
“Van oh my dear boy…where have you been? We have all been worried about you. We thought maybe those Irish Catholics murdered you, or were holding you for ransom, or some awful thing like that. But they didn’t and here you are. Where are you? What are you doing? Are you still straight?”
“I have been working, my boss guys gave me a lot of work so I took it. I am in London right now near Notting Hill.”
“Dear man, I am so sorry you have to work. Come to my flat this instant. You are not far away at all. Just take the tube to Sloan Square and come down to Chelsea Embankment. The number is 82. If you see Mick Jagger, just ask him where his neighbor lives.”
“ Uh, okay. I’ll come now, thanks.” Mick Jagger, hell yes I’ll ask him.
Sloan square is busy and cool. There is this theater here called the Royal Court, and they’re doing a production of a play called, The Devils Gateway.
Chelsea looks like another hip place I can hang at. I walk down to the Embankment and look for Mick. There aren’t many people strolling around down here and the few that are look nothing like him. I start checking the numbers. The buildings are grand, lots or ornate stuff three stories tall with huge windows. I find Brian’s flat but don’t ring the bell. I stand on the landing waiting for the Stones to come home. I get very close to Mick’s door and check it for fingerprints. There’s a couple, I wonder if they’re his. I touch them and stare at the deep brown paint color running, ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ through my brain. My hand is cocked to knock but I can’t pull the trigger. What if he’s fucking a chick or writing a song or something? I run back down to the street to see if he may be coming, but nope.
I ring Brian’s door.
“Yeeeesss, who’s calling.”
“It’s Van.” Click, clack, push, chains unlatching. All the things you’d expect to hear form a door of this magnitude.
“Hello dear.” Here is his rounded face, slightly drooped in an aristocratic way. He uses more words like, “dear” and, “my boy,” and, “Darling” in five minutes than I have ever heard in my whole life. I am kinda liking all this drooling and baby stuff. He grabs my face and kisses both cheeks; a little to wet for me but I guess it’s okay ‘cause I’ve seen it in foreign movies and the guys weren’t gay.
“Hey, hi.”
“Come in, come in, here, let me show you around.” He makes a grand sweeping gesture and claims we are in the entryway. Duh, I know that but I say
“Wow, it’s a cool big entryway.” Then we walk in to the living space. It’s large and I guess you could say plush? I mean it’s got nice furniture with frilly type pillows and stuff. All stuff you’d never think of sitting on. There are tassels and real drapes and rugs that look pretty important. The view from the large window shows the Thames River and the park across the other side. It’s fucking beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I grew up collecting frogs from a large dry concrete hollow called the L.A. River.
He moves us in to the master bedroom the way Vanna White would.
“This is my cocoon.” It’s dark and dressed perfectly for some kind of color- matched orgy. Many things hang about with more tassels and I’m starting to wonder if I will now become a tassel man myself. We walk to a second bedroom that is smaller and lighter, more my taste. I can totally see myself living in here; a little froofy, but I most definitely won’t turn it down. He guides me by placing his hand on my lower back. I tense up like a cat at a dogfight. The kitchen is off the main room and is very nice; more kitchen than I’ve ever seen or figure I’ll ever need. I basically eat crackers and hummus for every meal these days. Just off the kitchen is a step down bedroom with built in dressers and cabinets for books and things, nice and clean but more like, basic than the other rooms.
“This will be your quarters if you decide to live at the Casa de Brian. It is the maid’s room, but I don’t keep a maid so there you are. If you want it, it’s yours. I do not want any rent until such a time wen you become a very famous and wealthy actor. Understood?”
“Wow, thanks, you sure?”
“Oh goodness, I have never been more sure of anything. It’s yours, go jump on the bed or something.”
“Na, that’s cool, I’ll do it when I move in. When can I move in?”
“As soon as you like lad.” He calls me lad and he can’t be more than ten years older than me, funny. I am fucking psyched, I can get out of the prison camp I’m living in and move to, here? Hell yeah. I’ll pack my suitcase and be in by the moon tonight. Totally bitchen, but I’m a little curious as to why he put me in the back room, and not the other room.
“This will be perfect for you, you will have privacy and access to the whole place. Now let’s have a drink.” Did he just read my mind?
He makes me a gin and tonic, very strong. I’m not sure I want to get fucked up today but what the hell here goes. I can’t turn him down, he just invited me to live in a fucking oasis, right?
He tells me he’s a kept man, but works as an interior designer all over the world. This apartment belongs to someone who lets him do whatever he wants to do with it.
“I have the good life.”
Gin is weird, it can turn on me, it can have me weeping for no real reason at all, or none that I know of. I fucking just start crying.
“Oh my, what’s happening dear man. Here let me fix you another drink that will help. Here take a hanky.” He gives me a real cloth handkerchief. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to really use these real ones are you? Aren’t they for show? “That is water from your soul. Are you homesick for your country, my lad? That’s okay. It’s perfectly understandable here you are in a new place, alone, except for us of course.”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that, maybe though. But I don’t think so.”
“Here drink this, you’re just an open wound right now with all the changes happening.”
“Maybe, I’m okay now.”
“I had to have my appendix out a few months ago…it was dreadful, but let me say something. They cut me open like a pig on a spit. I saw the incision directly afterwards and it was all swollen and sewn up. It looked ghastly, there wasn’t a connection yet. The skin hadn’t recognized its counterpart. It was just two raw pieces of meat introduced to each other. And do you know within hours the pieces had started to integrate and bond as if it was some kind of homecoming. Now, dear Van, we people, you, me, Ava, Charles, are those pieces of flesh. We are wounds looking for our matching cells. And when we see us, we infuse. Ha, we are infused Van and you are straight. How does it feel to be infused with a gay man? Feel any different? Ha, ha. Artists are that way, our souls bleed. Yes, I include myself because I design beautiful living spaces. Yes?”
“Yes, you are an artist. I have never seen a place like this. Very cool.” I guess he’s an artist, I mean not like a painter or something. I don’t even think actors are artists, are they? Anyway he includes me in their group and that is the biggest, good heart shot in my life, at least for belonging somewhere.
“Thank you.”
“Yes, tell me about yourself. How did you get in to acting?”
“Really? Well… I have this friend, Whammy, well, that’s his nickname. But anyway we would go out and party in Hollywood all the time and get in some strange situations. He likes movies and used to tell me I reminded him of Jack Nicholson the way I’d get us in and out of places and trouble. I mean we would always end up backstage at concerts, or I’d always end up in jail for fighting or causing some disturbance or something. I don’t know. Anyway, Whammy kept telling me I should be and actor.”
“Is that it? I can’t be. Don’t be shy now, my lost lamb, we need to know all about you. Please tell me more.”
“Well, I think deep down I really wanted to be an actor but had no idea what to do. Weird, I never played any sports since little league baseball and that’s like twelve years old when you play that. And when I was twenty-three I th
ought I would go to a Jr. college, and while I was there I tried out for football. American football. I’d never played any kind of organized football in my life, just some wild Sunday in the park tackle without any pads or anything. This is probably boring as shit.”
“Do not under estimate how much people want to hear you.”
“Alright, so anyway I made the football team and got my ass kicked most of the time. I mean these guys were pretty huge, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. But here’s the deal I guess, I had been kinda checking out the Drama department, not really like investigating it or anything, just walking by and seeing what people were there and what they were up to. To tell you the truth actor types in school bugged the shit out of me. I mean they were all open and bubbly and, you know, like quoting stuff from movies. I hate that kind of shit. I mean I want to be the one being quoted not trying to imitate someone else. I mean how many times can you hear someone say, “You talking to me?” I am the only one here. Know what I mean? Anyway the second season of football they wanted me to play center and that would mean I would have to put on like twenty more pounds and smash people. I already weighed 245. Right now I am 190, so imagine me at 265 or so. They said some college in Kansas was looking at me to recruit me. I said fuck it, I’m outa here, this is not me man. I lost forty pounds and took the theater class. It wasn’t really much of a class; we just did what we wanted. The teachers were partiers also. I still thought a lot of the people in there were weird but I was having fun being the new, like star, meat whatever. I did my first play the second week of the class and never stopped. Lots of fucking around in those classes, man. Chicks. That’s about it.”
“I’ll bet you are very good, and of course all the girls wanted you. What a sweet story, who needs the Royal Shakespeare Company right?”
“I guess.”
“You are part of our family now. We will take care of you. Now go get all your earthly belongings and come back.”
I suddenly feel revitalized and head up to north London to get my things. You have to remember now everything I do in London is fine. Finely sad, finely mad, finally here, finely beer. Ha. Whatever man, it’s still London. I love the tube, it’s an adventure, never a threat. I’m not afraid of much of anything except the shit that’s inside me. So the trains are a place to see new life. Faces so true to their demeanor. I watch where their hands rest, and where their eyes gaze. I wonder how they all live in themselves and if those faces are the same ones they wear in their homes, or if something all together different happens in private. Even the punks, is there a breakdown beyond the Mohawks and piercings? See man? There is all of this, a Magical Mystery Tour through the city that has roots to astonish, and new fruit to eat, stroking my desire to exist. High thoughts for a runt from California, but man sometimes I crackle with a feeling and I can find the words close enough to mean something more than I know.