Technicolor Pulp Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1995 by Arty Nelson

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: October 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56588-2

  To Hilary Beane

  Contents

  Copyright

  PUIP 1

  PUIP 2

  PUIP 3

  PUIP 4

  PUIP 5

  PUIP 6

  PUIP 7

  PUIP 8

  PUIP 9

  PUIP 10

  PUIP 11

  PUIP 12

  PUIP 13

  PUIP 14

  PUIP 15

  PUIP 16

  PUIP 17

  PUIP 18

  PUIP 19

  PUIP 20

  PUIP 21

  PUIP 22

  PUIP 23

  PUIP 24

  PUIP 25

  PUIP 26

  PUIP 27

  PUIP 28

  PUIP 29

  PUIP 30

  PUIP 31

  PUIP 32

  PUIP 33

  PUIP 34

  PUIP 35

  PUIP 36

  PUIP 37

  PUIP 38

  PUIP 39

  PUIP 40

  PUIP 41

  PUIP 42

  PUIP 43

  PUIP 44

  PUIP 45

  PUIP 46

  PUIP 47

  PUIP 48

  PUIP 49

  PUIP 50

  PUIP 51

  PUIP 52

  PUIP 53

  PUIP 54

  PUIP 55

  PUIP 56

  PUIP 57

  PUIP 58

  PUIP 59

  TECHNICOLOR PULP

  PUIP 1

  26 and I’m at the end of the line again. Running scared down a dusk-soaked alley, the bricks whirl by me like black and red on a roulette wheel. I’ve run down this alley a thousand times thinking everyone is waiting to see my next move… Another crossroads… I think it matters and it doesn’t! None of it matters! It’s all meaningless! Uh oh?! Who the fuck am I? An existentialist?… Look… I’m not some greasy european-looking guy, with a bob haircut, sitting in a cafe smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, plotting my own demise. I’m hiding. I’m running. I’m throwing up screens. I’m doing the dance. The Great American Novel’s been squeezed through weak cheeks too many times. All I got is this story. A story of drifting. It’s not my story. I’m just a small piece of it, sitting in Jack’s apartment in Boston, listening to the old man’s voice over the phone. It’s an old building with dirty stones, all pretty, and ivy spilling off the roof. The windows are tall and skinny with chipped white sills cutting the sun off into a thousand glances. From inside, the windows look out over the city, down south of the building. Cars scream and honk off in the distance. Children laugh and play, and I hear the voice. I’m sitting on a green vinyl couch with one ear on the phone, one finger in my nose, and my head in China. Every once in a while, the voice raises in pitch and cuts off sharply, it’s my turn.

  “So yeah, anyways, um leavin’ tomorrow, Pops.”

  “I guess it sounds great, Son… I’d like to go with you but I have to stay and work,” he says with a fatherly mix of envy and sarcasm. I cringe slightly and wish I smoked cigarettes.

  “Maybe I’ll find some work over there, Pop… I don’t know. I gotta chance to go to Europe and I gotta take it.”

  “Well, do you know anyone who might be able to help you get a job?”

  Details! Details! The BASTARD always wants details!

  “Doobe said he might know some people, but I gotta get there first… You can’t set this kind of stuff up until you get there.”

  “You know more about these things than I do. I hope for your sake it works out,” he pauses. “How are things with that girl you were going out with… What’s her name again?”

  “Lindsey.”

  “Yeah, how is she?”

  “Things aren’t too good actually, Pops. As a matter of fact, they suck.”

  “Well… You’re both pretty young, maybe things’ll turn around.”

  “Pop… If there’s one thing um sure of right now, it’s that things won’t turn around with Lindsey.”

  The truth is that Lindsey’s lost all desire to even touch me, let alone love me. Things are bleak. I can’t really blame her. I’ve become a drunken pig and I don’t think I’m fucking all that well anymore, either. I’m fat, bloated, angry, I don’t have a job, and those are the obvious problems. I’d lose interest too, but… I’m the only interest I’ve got. I’m in love and I’m not in love. I’m free and I’ve never felt more trapped in my life. Good times are lean and these ARE the good times. Money is harder to find than a true blonde, and I can’t tell the old man much of anything. I’m just trying to give him some vague suitable answers so we can both get a decent night’s sleep. I adjust myself in my chair, arching slightly to stretch my back. I settle back in and yawn, studying the floor in front of me, glancing occasionally out the window at the children screaming. Even lying’s become too much of a chore.

  “Son, all I can do is wish you the best of luck. My life was different at your age,” he pauses, “I didn’t think about things the way you do. I became a lawyer because I didn’t want to become a doctor and to tell you the truth, I don’t know if the decisions I’ve made in my OWN life were the right ones. At the time, I didn’t feel like I HAD much of a choice.”

  Yeah, it’s time now for my latest rendition of “My Great New Plan In Life” by Jimi Banks. Sung sweetly through the gold-plated pipes of yours truly to any number of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, parents of friends, bartenders, godfathers… Whoever. Whoever’s got the cash… Whoever’s buying. Right now, I’m giving Dad a chorus of, “I know things look pretty stupid and aimless but it’s all just part of that kookie, roundabout path to success I’ve chosen.” If he claps, then I’ll give him a little encore of, “It’ll happen to me, just wait and see.” It’s all in the phrasing. I’m a regular Frank Sinatra of failure. All I need is a little dental work.

  “Europe holds all the possibilities, Pops… And since I’m not there yet… It’s tough for me to really go TOO into detail. I gotta good feeling about it though.”

  I don’t wanna tell a complete and utter lie to the guy because, as long as we don’t live on the same coast, we get along OK. You know, when I was younger I always wanted to tell the truth, but more and more, the truth got complicated and vague, if not downright UGLY. So much arguing over things that just don’t change. I’m not ready to change and I don’t feel like fighting about it. I have NO desire at all to be a rebel. I don’t believe in anything enough to rebel against it. Who are these jerks that get all worked up and take over countries and start wars when they’re, like, 23? I thought being young was all about having fun, and falling in love, and chasing dreams, and fucking. I don’t wanna FIGHT about anything! I wanna FUCK! And anyways… I’m lazy. A busy day to me is three hours of phone calls to old friends, pleading for money to bail myself out of “some flukey jam that I just never even saw coming.” When I was little, I wanted to be a pro hockey player when I grew up. Now I just like skating.

  “I wanna find some hot duchess or something to take me under her wing and make me her pool boy.”

  “Sounds good to me, Son. Sounds better than what I’m doing.”

  The guy likes me, I think. I’ve really proven to him that I got the magic. He knows that life basically sucks. I’m like a cosmic soda jerk, serving up fantasy floats. Doing the things he only
dreamed of as a youth. Beckoning to the child that romps deep in dad’s soul. I have him back on the playground and I’m about to drive to the hoop for two… Or maybe five. We both need it. We both need to feel young again.

  “So whatta ya think, Pops? I could really use a small loan to make this trip perfect. Maybe four or five hundred for that rainy day, or month, between jobs in London?”

  There it is, so smooth, with that funny lead-in. I should be a pro. It’s gonna happen, I think. Today’s a good day. The pensive silence falls and my uni-brow moistens….

  “Son,” he says, with restraint, “I never wanted to have to say this to my own kid, but I’m starting to lose respect for you. I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life. I never have… But I don’t want to finance it anymore, either.”

  Just like that. THE FALL. Jimi takes a deep blow that staggers him and sends him reeling. I recover, but only enough to retreat. I don’t wanna throw any more jabs, not today. The father-and-son bout lasts a lifetime.

  “Look, Pop, I’m OK. I got cash. A hundred bucks to be exact. Forget I said anything.” Sugar Ray Robinson would’ve been proud of my backpedal, like a cagey deer.

  We hem and haw for another two minutes and then it’s over. LEAD BALLOONS. I hang up the phone. I’ve unconsciously popped up out of my seat and I’m circling around the room. I settle back down on the pea-green vinyl couch—the kind of couch that uses back sweat like superglue. I’ve been sleeping on it for three days. Every morning, I peel myself off it. It makes me feel loved. It makes me feel like the two-hundred-pound maladjusted decal that I am. The Cosmic Soda Jerk. The Dancer. I look out at the kids again. They’re still yelping and running around free. Happy, and waiting for Bugs Bunny to come on. Getting chased by cute little girls, yelling and laughing through their chocolate ice cream beards. I could be like that. I’m just a couple hundred away. A wallet full of twenties and I’d be free again….

  PUIP 2

  “Hello?”

  “Hi…” I stammer. “Lindsey?”

  “Jimi!” she forces happily. “You finally made it off that rock of an island.”

  “Yeah, it was easy except that there was this baby on the bus in from the Cape that cried the entire trip. Two hours, straight through… Sounded like nipple deprivation.”

  She laughs. I hear her light a cigarette and exhale.

  “So where are you now, baby?”

  I hear “baby” and my head begins to convulse with delusions of amour. She loves me! Did you hear the way she said it! Life is beautiful. She loves me! She really does! I had it all wrong, maybe the old man was right! “Baby”! She said it with such meaning! I think I even heard her sigh!

  “I’m at Jack’s place in New Brighton… I don’t think it’s all that far from where you live?”

  “Far? Baby, it’s right up the street.”

  She said it again! Fuck London! I’m staying here with my girl!

  “I know a great pasta place right around the corner from there—light veggie stuff—Why don’t we meet there in two hours?”

  “Lindsey, how do you know it’s ‘right around the corner’? I haven’t even told you what street Jack lives on.”

  “Yes, you did, Jimi. You told me the other night when you called from the island… Remember that ‘middle of the night profession of eternal love’? I’m the one who remembers all the highlights,” she laughs, in control. Her voice always calm and soft, even when she’s sad. Like she knows what she’s doing on this planet, in this world. I feel like my own voice is always paranoid and sketchy, unless I’m telling a lie or having sex. Maybe that’s just how I feel, how I reek, when I listen to myself.

  “Jack’s address was one of the ‘highlights’ of that phone call?”

  “Well… Maybe not a ‘highlight,’ but I did remember it. Look, baby… I gotta run and make this study group for my Art History class… It’s my major and I’ve barely looked at any of the material—postmodern stuff. It’s really hard for me to remember any of it. Two hours… Don’t get lost, and bring Jack. I can’t wait to meet him… I’m gonna bring Lisa… You’ll love her. See ya,” and gives me the name of some nouvelle place down the street from Jack’s.

  “See ya” she says, all cute, and tells me to bring a friend. “See ya”! She’s so comfortable with it all. She’s so over it. So… Not what I am! I need passion. I need love. I need a good sweaty fuck to kill the pain, and she says, “See ya”! Her last words come down on me like a stone anvil, like a last chop to a rotting tree trunk. Bring friends, that dirty bitch! She knew just what to do. She knew I wanted to have a big Gone with the Wind scene and she killed it! I put down the phone. It’s like some kind of masochistic tool. I’m some kind of masochistic tool! I’m dazed! I don’t even want to go to Europe anymore! I’m only doing it to look cool to Lindsey! I could give a fuck about Europe! I don’t even get a farewell Fuck and Cry session before I leave! I wanna carry the torch for this broad. I wanna cross the Atlantic with her picture taped to my boot! I wanna write her bad poems and wander the streets, starving, with only thoughts of her to nourish me! And she has to study for a fucking midterm! Doesn’t she realize the gravity of this moment? Of our last night together before I begin my quest for Allah with a single bag of fish and chips under my arm?

  Summer Love, what a BITCH come October… I sit across the table from her and I watch her. I watch her inhale and exhale her cigarette into a delicate plume of smoke. I watch her laugh and wish I’d told the joke. I watch her think while she listens to someone else speaking. Everything she does, every move, every sigh—captures me. I can’t believe I ever went out with this girl, let alone lived with her. I study her from across the table, but she remains a stranger. She’s all I thought I ever wanted in a woman. Seeing her for the first time, laughing, lighting a cigarette and tilting her head back, made me think that life’s full of things we don’t deserve… Gifts… Curses. I see her in my mind, walking down the street with her purse slung over her shoulder, in a hurry, simple, and beautiful. I always picture her from a distance.

  I sit at dinner and I wanna leave. We’re already just two people who used to know each other. I wanna cry and I want it all to be a memory, safe and sad. The sooner I get away from her, the sooner I can remember it MY way, instead of sitting across the table saying things like, “Could you please pass me the organically grown carrots… Thank you.” I’m in a NEW AGE HELL and because I’m eating right, I’m gonna be in it forever.

  Five Heinekens later, I’m standing outside the restaurant under a lamp, looking at her through the fog of my breath, wishing I had the guts to take my hands out of my pockets. Jack’s waiting for me and Lisa’s waiting for her.

  “Yeah… So I’ll give you a call from London… Or maybe I’ll write you a letter… I’m glad we had a chance to get together before I left.”

  “Me too, Jimi, I’m REALLY glad. Wasn’t that a GREAT dinner?” she says, as always too happily.

  “Yeah, dinner was good.”

  “Lisa and I are going to the student union to get some notes for our test. I’m so happy. Lisa understands everything about all this modern art. I need THINGS in the pictures for me to remember them. Well, anyways… Call me,” and gives me a hug and a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll miss you,” and pulls away.

  I stand and watch as she and Lisa walk down the street. Watching them talk and laugh, just looking at them. A kiss on the lips and an awkward friend hug and I watch as she gets smaller and smaller in the city night.

  PUIP 3

  Jack and I walk and I’m too embarrassed to even look him in the eye. I’d raved so much about Lindsey and the chick had, at best, treated me like some geek she went to high school with. Friends from another time in life. A Time Past. And I guess we were because I felt that way too. It’s crisp out, and both the city and Jack are quiet, too quiet, giving me time to think, which I just don’t want. All the wrong turns, every bad joke and forced fuck run laps around my head. I blew it. It was me. Everything is my fa
ult!

  “So whatta ya wanna do… Go have a beer?”

  “I wanna forget about that CUNT!”

  “Cunt… I thought you liked her?”

  “Jack, she devastated me and that’s all I know! I can’t take it. We were in paradise and then things got fucked up, and now, I’m in HELL!”

  “She seemed pretty happy to see you.”

  “Happy! I wanted to move to Boston, sell shoes and live with that bitch! Open up one of those complicated bank accounts with all kinds of long-term potential, grow a fuckin’ moustache! Wear loafers! Call it a life!”

  The whole time I’m screaming, Jack’s kicking a can down the street. It’s making me edgy, like the clang of a hammer, over and over again.

  “Jack, it’s over.” CLANG! “We don’t laugh!” CLANG! “We don’t cry!” CLANG! “We don’t touch!” CLANG! “We don’t fuck!” CLANG! “Jack!” I scream. “We don’t fuck anymore!”

  “Well… Let’s just go home then, I guess,” he says, walking. “Look… It doesn’t sound too good but at least you’re not banging nails for your old man like I’m doing.”

  I’m bleeding through the heart and this guy’s giving me a Look At The Bright Side lecture. I’m supposed to be happy that I don’t work for my dad, even though I just said good-bye to the girl of my dreams. Fuck work! Work is for people who can’t lie! And I can’t even LIVE in the same town as my dad, let alone WORK for him.

  “You’re right, Jack… Let’s just go home… I’m kinda tired and I gotta get some sleep. It’s my last night on the green vinyl couch. I feel like we’ve become close.”

  Jack and I’d gone to college together—hockey recruit. He blew out his knee and I fell in love with a bottle of bourbon. Real bonding stuff, watching our careers never happen together. Jack went to New Zealand after college, but he ran out of money, and now he’s home building houses with his father. The guy’s got heart. His downfall’s his hair. The guy always has bad hair, ever since I’ve known him, and that’s never a good thing to have.

  “What time does your plane leave?”