chapter 22

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-      -    -   -  -   - - - – - -- –-- poolshow -– - - -  -   -    -     -

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We came to a sign sayin and turnd in.

De Ville

it wasnt a club, it was an apartment complex. a two story thing
from the sixties, or whenever it was they were makin shit outa
yellow bricks.

there was definatly a swiminpool. i couldnt see it yet, but i could already hear the telltale scream-splash combo.

at the car nexto us, there were some dreddy kids smokin a bowl, dressd in full hippie regalia, including fancy hats.

forgot to warn ya a-l, its gona be way hip tonite D

were practicly in hipeetown.

whatre you talkin about? yall are hippies i said

were townies dude, we are not hipees. if i ever say

right on and give you that creepy-vacant smile you hafta shoot me in the head, i dont care if you dont gota gun, you can borow one from vince.

the pools in the middle of the complex, surrounded by apartments with balconies overlooking it. to get there you walk between two of the buildings and theres a fence but its not realy a fence cause its been knockd over and partly burnd.

it was prety segregated— hippies in the pool, and townies around the edge and on the balconies. the hippies were packd in tight. naked, mostofem. or almost naked. someofem still hadon their hats.

hipee soup andy

shit, their multiplyin D

it seemd like a buncha random folks atfirst. but i started pickin peeple outa the crowd, ones id met at bluesky or downtown. i saw jesse whosevrywhere, he started to walkover, but he ran into somebody else and i didnt see him again til the next place we went. then i spied julien, on the other side of the pool waving us over.

Julien had a picnic blanket spread poolside, it was some prime
real estate.

so this is why you werent downtown D

you gota get here erly if you wana good spot julien

julien i love the shit outa you, i take back evrything i said before.

julien slicedup a watermelon hed grown himself. it was an airloom, the yello kind, hed thought ahead and chilld it. i hadnt enjoyd watermelon like that since i was a kid. we had a seed spitting contest but instead of distance the object was to land it in the dreds or hats of certain hippies.

taylor, still woozy from nyquil, was comin up with a new
movie idea evry five minutes which, since his hands were tied, he enjoind
us to take down for him. i wrote down the first one before handin over
the reins to jondavies—

Luke Skywalker in alternate universe. He didn't meet Obi-Wan. Instead, he got really good at martial arts. No, he learned to read minds. No, he discovers earth.

a variety of peeple wanderd into our picnic and some of em endup hangin out with us, like the Polish guy, piotr, i dont wana forget him. he showd up with two shotglasses and a botle of some traditional polish elixir whose chief draw was that it was eighty percent alcohol. piotr had a deal goin where he would match anybody who did a shot, which was evrybody exepfor me and jondavies.

when it was down to us, piotr said—

if you two guys dont split the resta this with me. . .

he slapt the botle in his palm. i gues that was the end of his sentence.

then jondavies came to my rescue. it was prety smooth and
i never gotaround to thankin im, what he did was he grabd the bottle
and turnd it up, probly did halfashot but he pretended he was chugging.
jondavies is not exactly practiced at the art of deception so it didnt fool
me, but it was enuf to fool piotr—

heyheyhey— save some for me!

oh theres plenty left jondavies more than

you could drink.

MORE  THAN  I  COULD  DRINK?!

jondavies said the magic words.

piotr snatcht the bottle—

draind it in two hard swallows—

wiped his mouth—

belchd.

im drunk!

join the club andy

no no no no, you dont understand. im drunk. not

‘american drunk.’ polish drunk. real drunk.

whats the diff? D

youll see,

piotr said, and we would see—

but not til after the poolshow.

all of a sudden evrybody got quiet and the hippies started gettin outa the pool.

as soon as the pool was clear, a chick waded in, wearin a modest brown one piece swimsuit and holdin a little guitar, it lookd like a toy, or maybe a kids guitar.

i recognized her. from the manhatan.

i left that part out, but while i was lookin for jesse to givim back his phone, i went into a place calld the manhatan and got into a convee with this guy named pete, and he introduced me to the bartender. thats who she was, the girl in the swimsuit. her name was madi.

madi climbd into oneof those inflatable pool recliners, like benjamin braddock woulda had if hed graduated in the eighties.

somebody gave her a p u s h p u s h p u s h   she floated out to
the middle of the pool.

cleard her throat,

and said in a little voice

that was somehow also loud—

this is my first. . . poolshow.

somebody shouted—

vool pirgin!

and

drown her!

madi said—

here goes.

she made that litle guitar sound huge. i almost
wana callit folky, but there were obvius punk influences in the way she beat
the strings. and when she started singing, it was exuberant. urgent even.
not earnest, mind  you, cause she wasnt afraid to laugh at herself and the
ridiculus figure she cut floatin in the swiminpool with that little gittar.
she seemd a little embarasd actualy, that evryone was payin atention.
but they were payin atention. evrybody. even the hippies who were
givin eachother backrubs.

and dudes if your wondrin as i probly would be, altho it seems
beside the point to me now— yes she was pretty. but for some
reason i wasnt atracted to her, maybe cause i was so taken by
her art. i wouldnt be at all suprized to find that therein lies
the key to my problems with women.

D leand into me—

shits tite.

i allowd that it was.

D and andy held a wisperd convee, but only when there was a break between songs or an instrumental part. so this took place over sevral songs.

she cant fight for shit but she shure s shure got a

pair of lungs.

. . .

would you call this postneutch, D?

. . .

i would. but only in the sense of ‘inspired by.’ next

tank of gas she started makin music causa the record.

. . .

no thanks. you can take your sucker bet to al.

you in, a-l?

for what?

she waited till the song was over.

a frendly wager— next tank a gas says madi started makin music

causa the record.

suckerbet andy

which record?

aeroplane. catchup.

how would we know?

well ask her. whado you think, wikipedia?

i took the bet, i dont know why, maybe to shut her up.

i could say it was a good show, or even a great one.
but it wasnt just that. it also made me think about music in a slitely
difrent way. it was like shed figured out how to take all the energy
of the night—the crazy debaucherous insanity, and the yearning
beneath it—and spin it into gold.

when she was done, i swear you could still hear her voice echoin off the walls of de ville.

as soon as madi was outa the pool, the hipees got back in [ D was right, they were multiplyin ] and started smokin pot and doin tai chi and maybe even havin tantric sex, some of em, altho i tried not to look tooclose.

the hippie vibe mixd with the booz was makin the townies surly. not fightin surly, but definatly talkin-too-loud-throwin-p-b-r-bottles-in-the-pool surly. piotr had to be lockd in a room after he lit a couch on fire and threw it off a balcony, nearly crushing one of the hippies and doing irreparable damage to sevral of their hats [ he eventialy broke out, i heard. but thats a story for another day ]

johnson said—

thiss about to get ugly.

or beauty full, dependin on how you look at it D

yall ready to bounse? andy

we bounced.