chapter 21
- - – - - – - – - –-- cantaberry tailin -- - - -
There
were
a ton of people millin around outside the engine room.
seems someone was driving on the sidewalk. or atempting to drive.
they couldnt get anywhere cause nobody would move outa the way.
it was a police car, dukes of hazzard-era, but they spray painted
over the logo—
this was the style of car that
woulda had the lights on top,
but the lights were gone and someone
made fake ones outa cardboard.
a disheveld-lookin man leand out of
the window with a megaphone—
—BWOOP-BWOOP. BWOOP-BWOOOP!
[ he was sayin that, he didnt actualy have a bwooper ]
nobody moved, so he tookout his spotlight and shined it in
peeples faces.
when that didnt work, he went back to the megaphone.
—YOU ARE ALL. UNDER. A REST.
—isnt it illegal to impersonate a cop?
—thats vince dude⋞ D said ⋟he is the cops.
we were only a block from the car. but it was not
a quick block. they were constantly runnin into people they knew.
sometimes literaly running into them. they have a word for it here,
the way we made our slow inexorable progress— cantaberrytailin:
verb. to proceed in the manner of the pilgrims of canterbury tales.
as in, we cantaberrytaild it to D’s car.
D was leadin the way, turnin around evry five seconds to tell us the proper way to do somethin— from what time to showup at an afterbarty [ four at the earliest ] to the ethics of farting [ your butt should be closer to your own face than to anyone elses face ]
Andy had taken a likin to walkin on his hands and was now atempting to make it the whole way to D’s car without the use of his legs, tho without anybody holdinim up he was always falling. he insisted we include him in convees, but when we adressd him he’d say—
—my eyes’re downhere.
Johnson was runninaround like a kid at sixflags.
on a dare from andy he sang songagainstsex all the way thru, he even
did a kickass mouth-trumbone solo.
Kathleen next, workin on a double slutcup, makin sure evryone knew she had already reachd sixpointfive on the slutscale [ dont get too excited, she s only a slut for dave ]
Bringin up the rear was me dave and jondavies, carryin taylor over our sholders like a canoe altho due to the nyquil he wasnt actin like a canoo, morelike a giant fish. he didnt seem to mind tho, he was fond of telling passing girls that he was king of townieville and tonight he would be holding auditions for queen.
Fermina even made an apearance.
stuck her head outof D’s pruss and tried not to choke on her tung. did a
pretygood job of it actialy.
Course nobody mentiond where we were goin. til jondavies finely brought it up—
—are yall goin to that deville concert?
—whadaya mean yall?⋞ D ⋟
—no, i’m going too.
—and its not a ‘deville concert’ jon, its a poolshow. quit actin
like your from outatown.
—ive only been here ten months.
—thats basicly forever.
i waited til D was distracted to ask jondavies
what a poolshow was.
he shrugd.
—a show in a pool, i guess.
We made it to the car eventialy. which meant decision time for me.
i mean its onething to come downtown, when i could leave at any moment and walk back to the hotel.
entirely another to get a ride to god knows where,
to put myself at the mercy of these athenspeople i doubted i’d get back
before sunrise, then there was no way i’d make it back intime to pickup
claire, even if it was just the battery—
who’m i kiddin? there already was no way. i made that decision a while ago, by puttin it off until it was too late. this is a common tactic for a certain type of human being of which i am an exampl, maybe you are too.
i want to say that it had a sobering efect, thinkin about claire. but that conjures a metafor which i’m not sure is in order because the claire issue [ as i’d begun to thinkofit ] was not like sobriety, more like reality, like wakin up from a dream, but athens wasnt like a dream so i’m gona drop the metafor and get back to me at the yugo, hesitating—
but i call bullshit on myself. i didnt realy hesitate, i just pausd long enough so that i could say i hesitated. how bout this—
i jumpd into that carful of crazy peeple. i couldnt wait to see what would happen next.
D was drivin ofcourse. andy rode shotgun. i was in the back with jondavies and johnson. and taylor was in the hatchback area, happily dozing. but where were dave an kathleen? ohright, they took llamas.
so outside the fortywatt there was this hippie hangin out with two llamas. it musta happend fairly regularly cause evrybody knew the llamas by name— liggle and ulp. we held an indepth convee with the fellow and his llamas, who couldnt talk but were adept at expressing delite and revulsion thru facial expressions.
but kathleen, as soon as she saw the llamas, she knew
thats how they were gettin to the poolshow. this was not cool with
llama man. not at first.
but kathleen, understand, is a persuasiv girl.
the yugo wasnt exactly thrilld at the prospect of all this extra weight. as soon as D shifted into second, it cutoff.
D patted the dashboard—
—c'mon yugi, make yer mama proud.
yuggie started up .
D shifted into second, gave it some gas.
the transmission engaged—
and we were outa the parkinlot.
the first thing that happend was we almost ran over this guy who was standin in the middle of the road with his hand infront of his face. D stopt the car so jondavies could hop out and move im outa the way like you would a turtle.
as soon as jon was back in the car, andy turnd
around to adress him—
—whats your anser jon?
—my answer to what?
—to the question.
—what question?
—oh right— the question. do you promiss, to stop doin
whatever peeple tell you to?
—but if do that, andy—
—i dont care what your god says jondavies,
i’m your god now! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w ! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w ! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w ! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w ! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w ! i ' m y o u r g o d n o w !
jondavies finaly agreed to atleast try not to do whatever people told him to. tho that wasnt enuf for andy, D had to forcibly change the subject, she elbowd andy in the breadbasket and said—
—jondavies i cant believ your breakin the sabbeth to ride in a car.
—i can ride in a car on the sabbath. i just cant drive.
—but you drank a beer. doesnt the baby jesus cry when you drink beer
on the sabbeth?†
—you said you were gona pour it on al if i didnt.
—i bet if i d threatend to pour it on you, youda let me⋞ D ⋟
—probably. i need to wash my hair anyway. h u - h y a a - h a ! h u - h y a a - h a ! h u - * h a h a h a ! h u - h y a a - h a ! h o o - h a h a h a ! h o o - h a h a h a ! h o o - h a h a h a ! h o o - h a h a h a !
the street we were on was calld plasski. it cut a dark path between rows of crumbling victorians with ancient pecan trees in serius need of pruning. creaky limbs hungout over the street, threatnin to snap at any moment and takeout a power line or a car, there were alota cars, evry third house was havin a party it lookd like.
eventialy i gotaround to askin if any of them had been here when neutralmilk happend. johnson spokeup—
—saw evry show in athens and atlanta. that includes houseparties
as well as clubs. and the broadriver thing.
—and who told you about the broadriver thing?⋞ andy ⋟
—says the guy who slept thru doug s haloween party.
—i’m gona askya a question johnson⋞ andy ⋟and i want you
to anser it strait, without any caveats. and you have to be
completely honest, and you cant—
—spititout andy.
—who do you like better? guided by voices? or neutralmilkhotel?
johnson lookd like he’d been punchd in the gut.
—you mean total career? or. . .
—your stalling⋞ andy ⋟
—oh is that how it is?⋞ johnson ⋟then who do you
like more, neutralmilk or bobdylan?
andy drew in his breath.
—now whos stalling?⋞ johnson ⋟
—for one second j-man. you stalld for like five.
—in that case⋞ i interjected ⋟i gotcha both beat.
johnson and andy lookd at eachother.
andy said—
—he cant help it.
—no excuses, sorry a-l⋞ johnson leand into my personal
space, a drop of sweat rolld off his nose and landed in my lap, plop ⋟you cant be a
superfan if you never saw em live. its o-k, we still love ya.
—i respectfuly disagree.
—yall hush⋞ D ⋟i want a-l to hear this part.
D turnd up the ticknot.
when the baby is crying,
he needs some atension.
he needs his mother to hold him.
if the mother is thinking of other things
the baby will not be comforted.
the mother has to put aside other things
and just hold her baby.
—i didnt know you were into the self help, D.
[ taylors voice wafted in from the back ]
—aint nothin wrong with a littl self-actialization
taylor, yknow what terry-e said.
—the point is pointlessness.
—thats not the only thing he said dude, didyou atleast
read the conclusion?
—i skimd it.
—if you even read the paragraph that comes from, youd know
this one— a-l pay atension, its on your list, terry eagleton the meaning of life
and he’s not bein ironic— self realization but only thru a loss of self in the
whole—
—D-marxy⋞ andy ⋟
—thats what led him to conclude the point is pointlessness, or more
acurately what we need is a form of life which is pointless and so is free to
delight in itself, which is exacly why i been tryin to warn ya, a-l⋞ she eyed
me in the rearview ⋟be on the lookout for anything that tries to hijack the
point— capitalism, the god metaphor, standard rotten english, you must
be
vigilant!
v
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v
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v
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—more ticknot, less propaganda⋞ andy ⋟
—play greeting pain with mindfulness⋞ johnson ⋟
—greetingpainwithmindfulness!⋞ andy ⋟
—aright, aright. holdon.
D fastforwarded til she found it.
he was talkin about how he deals with depression.
even ticknot has it, its not the enda the world. this is what he says when
he feels it comin on, and i’m quotin verbatim cause i wrote it down, tho
ive pretymuch got it memorized now—
hello. goodmorning my little depression.
i know you are there.
you are my friend.
i will take good care of you.
it works, too. try it.