by Van Quattro
When these things happen I can be damn solid for a while afterwards. I get all smiley and active with intentions to please and serve my penance. When I say a while, I mean usually a couple of weeks; long enough to prove to others I am a redeemable soul. And when I feel pardoned I figure I don’t really have a problem, which I don’t, Which I think is true. I believe what ever has happened is just an isolated incident and different from other frequent fuckups. Jill tells me what I had done was not so awful, and that she doesn’t like cocaine anyway, and I saved her from having to pretend enjoying it. And as far as the suicide thing went (which I’m not sure it even was a suicide attempt), she says it’s no surprise that I would want to die after being treated the way I did growing up. I ask her about the Misha thing and she says he is just a friend. She went out with him years ago but it didn’t work out. I guess I buy it; she really doesn’t have any reason to lie to me. I just think it’s really weird for people who were together to be friends. Plus, he had a sneaky accent, and seemed too damn sure of himself. She also says she likes the white patch in my hair from the bleach. I try to explain the bleach deal away by telling her I was trying to wash the floor for her. I am friggin glad she doesn’t question me any more on it. She says I am such a good person, that I wanted to help out even while I was dying. I’m not sure how I feel about this; I don’t want to take credit where it’s not due. This storm passes leaving rainbows.
The Clash show is here, now. Yes. I can be disciplined when I really want to. I only have three pints of beer in a pub near the Lyceum Ballroom because I don’t want to be so fucked up that I can’t remember anything. There isn’t an opening act and I am so fucking glad. Most opening bands suck, and so, then they suck the life out of the arena, then they fucking think people really want to hear an encore when we’re all just clapping to get them off the fucking stage, and then there always has to be a break for the main band to set up. Man, it’s so fucked up. But the Clash are smart, they don’t dilute their power.
They come on at nine and play over two hours. They’re like musical missionaries. They attack their instruments like they are tommy guns for peace and fury. The set is mostly from, Sandinista, with some scattered songs from prior albums. The crowd is insane, jumping and bangin around. I am too. People in front are head butting and stuff. I’m near the middle and can see them clear as day. I’m singing and stomping during every song. I want to be like them man: greatly talented with a passion and a cause. I think I can fill my life up being like that. I will never forget this show. Right up there with the stones in 1972.
Jill has to go out of town for five days for a film she’s doing. She can get pretty rattled worrying about acting. She’s afraid she’s going to suck and that she’ll never work again. I am, like really? You? You are so good and have done so much. She says she always gets this way and not to worry, but I don’t believe she’s doing okay. It shows on her body. She looks tortured. The lines on her face are deeper. I try to console her but she hangs on to it and I don’t even know what it is. I send her off being as nice as I can. It’s early in morning and the thick fog seems like it’s making Jill even more stressed. I like it and picture Jack the Ripper coming ducking down the cobblestones and I carefully help her into the limo before the murderer strikes. I save her and expose the ripper as Prince Charles. I become famous and David Bowie writes a song about me called, ‘Ripping the Prince’ and I become a famous actor and visit Brando on his island and fall in love with a native girl.
I wish I could go with Jill, but I don’t feel too bad, I have things I want to do; like visit with Charles to prep for my audition. I want to try to see Ava again, and hang with Brian and of course get fucked up. I’m going to stay at my place with Brian. Jill didn’t invite me to stay at her joint and that’s fine. I don’t want all the responsibilities that could go with that; you know dogs, mail, watering plants and all that.
At Brian’s I don’t have to do shit.
The limo pulls away and Jill is looking back at me sadly from the rear window, then the fog engulfs her. My heart pounds for a minute when I see her swallowed up.
I head home to Brian’s. I carefully let myself in and am so very quiet as I tiptoe around the living room, but I gasp as I look out the large window. The fog over the river is as thick as life and seems to have its own current. It’s moving like it has somewhere to go. It seems threatening, as if it’s delivering a message to or from a great evil. It captures me. I see me riding it like some ghost doomed to circulate through a never ending trail of unfulfilled desires. It’s as if I am a vapor. I stand silently watching, wondering how the fuck this comes up again when I hear a voice,
“Don’t you think you’re spreading yourself a bit too thin?” I jump out of my socks and turn to see Brian standing there with his bathrobe open wearing nothing underneath looking like he’s had a rough night’s drink and sleep alone, scowling like he belongs in front of me on the fog train.
“What the fuck man? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Well that’s good because you seem to be full of it these days”
“Huh? What did I do?”
“It’s what you don’t do.”
“Whaaat? What didn’t I do?”
“Yesterday was my birthday and I was very alone.”
“Oh man Brian, I’m sorry. Happy birthday. I didn’t know. Jill left for Hungary this morning.”
“Well good riddance.” I wonder what the heck he means by this. He always says he likes Jill. He sees my face then he says, “I don’t wish her any harm, but I hardly see you anymore. And mister man, I know for a fact she is a ball buster. She’s not so innocent.” I’m really wanting him to close his fucking robe up now but I think he’s punishing me.
“Innocent, for what? What do you mean innocent?” I’m not mad I just hate finding out things aren’t what I think they are. Especially when I can feel better than other people, based on what I thought things were.
“No, nothing my dear. Just keep your eyes open.”
“Okay now you have to tell me what you mean, you can’t be leaving me hanging. And your dick is hanging out.”
“Just read Osborne’s book.”
“She already told me about that. She says he is the devil.”
“And she was the devil’s wife.”
“Like what kind of things would she do?”
“She would loudly declare at parties that he couldn’t get a hard on.” I’m thinking he was probably drunk, ‘cause sometimes I can’t either. Maybe I’m a writer.
“And he hates her acting. I always love her stuff but he made nasty fun of her.”
So now I am questioning how I feel about her stuff. Man I hate when this shit happens. It’s like I have to decide how I feel about something when opposed by an equally powerful position. I actually wonder if John Osborne and I could be friends for a minute, maybe write about my life or something.
“She’s a great actress.”
“Never mind my dear, forget I ever said anything. Welcome home prodigal son.”
“Thanks.” I go and get ready for work, wondering what the hell all that was about.
The guys at work ask if I want to get together with them at some pub/club to party. I say hell yes. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time and I am excited. I’m looking forward to some young dude time. The joint is in the East End and it’s a pub but with a big dance floor. When I arrive most of the guys are here, even Liam the older Irish bloke. I am always glad to see him because he gets me. I mean we kinda get real when we chat sometimes. Damn, all they sell is beer at this place but that’s cool I am already hammered on some hundred proof rum and Tab. I use Tab because it has less calories than Coca Cola and I’m freaky about staying rock-star thin. Not many people in here except for a few girls on the other side of the bar. Some of the guy’s ladies are supposed to be showing up in a bit. Thank god, I am feeling good and want to impress. I have a few pints and hang with the blokes and we do cool male stuff like talk about fun
ny things that happen on the job, or something one of their girlfriends said about something they did that was real guyish. I told them earlier I was dating Jill and they where like, ‘what the fuck, no fucking way mate, she’s fucking famous, no you’re not, get the fuck...’ I never talk about thing Jill and I do. I think they believe me now. Man, it would be too cool if I could show them some magazine article of her and I together where I was wearing a suit at some opening of something, but there aren’t any yet. So when it comes to girlfriend talk I dummy up; even I feel a little weird about the stuff she and I would do, like fight.
A couple of the gals show up and that changes the dynamic.
I want to dance. The music is pretty damn good - they play Roxy Music, The Jam, Elvis Costello, and a bunch of other stuff I love. I go over to the girls on the far side of the bar and ask one to dance. She says yes and I feel like the, ‘Dancing Queen’ in the Abba song except I am the dancing king. I start to hit my groove and my groove is whatever happens in the second I feel the note, the chord, and the lyric, it’s beautiful. It’s the way I feel when I can get caught up in my acting.
I take a break from dancing and one of the guys asks me how come I get so trashed before I get to the pub. Well…I don’t know, maybe to save money? It takes me by surprise so I tell him it’s a primer. He says,
“Primer? Hell mate, you flood the bleeding engine.” I laugh it back at him. What the hell, doesn’t everyone do it that way? I am having a great time, then all of a sudden this song I hate comes on, it’s called, ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell. I mean just the name of the band bugs me, Soft Cell. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Some mushy body shit. The song sounds like the most posturing faggy crap I have ever heard. I mean, it just reeks of fist fucking. The original was from a singer, Gloria Jones and it had a strong backbeat with conviction. This new version sounds like it’s lubed up with Vaseline.
I get mad, I run to the dance floor by myself and start to prance and pose to the song like a cross between Liza Minnelli and a very feminine pony. I lean on tables, grope my own body, whatever the hell I can think of. The dudes are looking at me with disbelief but the chicks seem to dig it. I am too far-gone to do anything but more, so I dance like a walking ejaculation.
When the music stops I feel lost and a bit embarrassed, but so what. I walk back over to the guys, some are laughing and a couple are examining me with a serious, ‘you’re nuts’ look. Whatever, it’s done. Jill likes me so who gives a flying fuck. We don’t stay too late. I leave with Liam and ride the train with him. I feel dumb for dancing like a nut sack with him watching. We don’t talk for a while then out of the blue he tells me he likes me. Hey says he doesn’t like many blokes but he likes me. Every once in a while stuff like that happens. I give him a smile.
We are working on a job in Chelsea near my place. Liam and I take a walk to get some lunch. I ask him what he thinks of the Irish Republican Army.
“Oh van, I can’t say much on dat.”
“Oh really? How come?”
“I’m too close to it,” he whispers.
“Holy shit, Liam are you in the IRA,” I whisper back feeling as important as shit.
“God no lad, but I sympathize with dem. And that’s all I will say on dat.”
“Yeah, but blowing stuff up and killing innocent people?”
“Lad, they don’t go after innocent people, they go right to the poison. The bloody Brits should stay out of our beloved country and that’s all I’ll say on that Van.”
“They really don’t belong there? Isn’t Ireland part of England?”
“No it’s not and they better get ta fuck out, that’s all I can say.”
“Well damn, I agree with you then. People should stay the hell out of other people’s business. Man I find it so hard to understand the fact that a handful of men decide what millions of people do, and the way they live.”
“So right Van, it’s getting bad. What wad ya like to get for your lunch, Van?”
“How about…” A massive boom goes off that sounds like the sound barrier is being broken by something as large as Saturn but only a couple blocks away. I look at Liam, he looks back and shakes his head and mumbles something I can’t hear.
“Man, was that thunder?” There isn’t a cloud in the sky but it seems the only reasonable thing to say. Very slow and deliberately he says,
“No Van. That’s no thunder, that’s no thunder.” Then an air raid and police sirens.
“Liam, what do you think? Are we alright?”
“Yes, we’re fine Van.” I don’t question him any more because he looks troubled. Liam wears his woes like an old raincoat. Later on I see on the news the Chelsea Barracks had been bombed; a bus full of soldiers were ambushed and a woman bystander was killed. It was a nail bomb. Fuck, a nail bomb made a noise like that? We were two streets away from it. It got me thinking about how to fight oppression, say…what’s okay and what’s not. It seems real extreme to blow people up, but who knows what they’re going through and if they are even able to battle in a way that’s considered a legal war so they may have to have an illegal uprising or something. Shit people need to leave others the fuck alone. Quit trying to get them to believe what you do.
This bomb thing kinda shakes me, fuck. Not so much that I felt bodily harm from it but because of the desperate things we will do to find some kind of freedom. I have always deep down felt life should have togas and green pastures with lots of animals. I know it sounds dumb and I’m sure it is; even the women will wear them with nothing on underneath. I am for peace you ruling fucking assholes.
A couple of days later when I finish my work early I head over to Charles’ where we are going to work on a monologue from, Much Ado about Nothing. I know a little about the play because John, my dinner theater friend, did it and cast me as Don John. He used a bunch of young pups from the College and a Shakespeare teacher as well. She was very pretty and sexy. Don John was fun and I tried to scare the actors onstage by being real creepy. It all ended in a real mess after that show. I was using many drugs, heavily. I slept with the two lead girls whose boyfriends were in the play. I was very enamored with Benedict’s sister in real life and courting her. She was a pretty Irish girl, her name was Caroline, and I was thinking a real keeper. Pure as the Columbian blow I was hosing. I also slept with the Shakespeare teacher. I remember creeping out of her house on a sunny California morning as she was opening the windows declaring how beautiful the day was and what a good actor I was. I felt like I was in a Tennessee Williams play. Anyway things got all exposed and I was the dude in shame. It dripped off me like Sunday morning tequila from my pores. What stung the most was Caroline wouldn’t even talk to me. Even if I tried to see her in person she just walked away from me. It really hurt somewhere inside of me. She was the real thing. So there I lived.
I’m doing Benedict for the audition. It’s the part where he makes excuses for having bad-mouthed marriage. I understand what he is saying but I feel like I would never find myself being such a clever and frothy dude. I mean when I am in love I am willing to die for it. I don’t make random speeches about how I can take it or leave it. I have to be all witty and charming when I think charm is a disease that attacks and ravages the honesty bone like rickets. I’m trying this thing out in front of Charles and I’m sweating and stammering. I’m stuck in this fucking miserable swamp of feeling like the hillside strangler. I’m just lost. I do it ten times the same damn way, rum dripping from my armpits feeling like a pirate walking the plank, and Charles is the Captain. He’s starting to give me line readings, now word readings, and punctuation readings. Holy fuck. God, how much more humiliated can I get? I tell Charles I finally get what he is saying then I do the same weak ass putrid thing. I can see he’s about done with the whole thing, then he says,
“I think you’ve got it,” and claps his hands in finality. “How about a drink my boy?” I am trembling inside like a lamb that knows it’s born to be veal. I want to disappear. I refuse the drink say
ing I have something stupid to do. Now he’s going to tell Jill I suck, and Ava. Well…if he does that I’ll tell him Jill told me he’s not a very good friend and that he kisses Ava’s Hollywood arse. Which she did say. I can’t even look him in the eyes so I scatter glances like a convict. “You will be fine, just remember you are cocksure.” Then he tells me he played Don John in the BBC version and the Benedict wasn’t as good as I will be. Man he is way the fuck out in left field. Am I supposed to believe this? I am ripped in the heart. I want to be an artist. I know it with every one of my confused molecules. I feel so different than other people. This seems like it’s my only chance in this fucking world, so I cling with a soft grasp to what he says.
I need to leave because I don’t want to drink. I just want to be a tree or a duck or something. His phone rings and when he hangs up he tells me Ava wants to see me. I say goodbye as chipper as I can and head over to Ava’s, maybe she knows something better about me.
I ring, she answers from behind the door.
“Vaaan?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, hold on.” The door swings back and there she stands looking a bit disheveled. Her blouse is open two buttons lower than I have ever seen and her hair is all loose and hangs to the side. Her body dangles a bit but I like the way she looks. She seems very approachable. “Come,” she says. Her dog is doing the Tasmanian devil swirl again, running through the house and up the walls.
“Oh baby calm down it’s just Vaaan. We know Van, he’s our friend.” Somehow this is feels encouraging. She sways in to the large room and offers me a Pimm’s. I weakly refuse and she says, “Fuck it you’re having one for me baby man." What the hell? I say
“Okay, just one.”
“Okay, sure, just one. Sure baby just one.” She giggles and mixes. “So you were doing some acting thingy with Charles? He says you are very good.” She hands me the drink smiling and flips her goddamn hair. I think every woman in the world should have to flip her hair like that at least twice a day.