Larry,
Okay, I tried every possible way I can think to get in contact with you. Nothing seems to work. So I'll try this. A nice little letter. One word in front of the next, marching down the page like good army ants.
I will get right to the point. I want to come back and work for you. I want us to work together like in the old days, as a team. The truth is I miss you Bro. I want you to know that currently, I am clean. I've stopped using completely. In light of this, I would ask you to give my proposal some serious consideration.
At the moment I am working for a delivery company here in the Bay Area. They made me a sort of manager which means I'm running a small crew. The job basically comes down to long hours of manual labour. A healthy option for me. Besides this physical activity, which to my way of thinking is like being paid to go to the gym, I'm eating well and generally in the best mental and physical health of my life. I get most of my food from one of these organic co-op supermarkets. I eat handfuls of green beans all day. Why? You may ask. I read somewhere that green beans are chock full of manganese, vitamin C, dietary fibre and vitamin B2. This is what I am all about these days: exercise and only putting premium fuel into the machine.
I have a rented room in the mission. I am concentrating on a routine. I am sticking to a healthy pattern. A routine which involves plenty of sleep. I am dealing with my insomnia in a healthy way. And although I not associating people from the past, I am taking responsibility for my past actions. I am accepting the fact that although I can't change the past, I can make good decisions in the present to affect the future.
Environmental temptations don't concern me these days. I'm finished with all that. And rest assured, although there is plenty of temptation around here, I can walk right past it with my held up high.
I have a girl. She is another positive influence on my life. She lives in the same building as I do. She works as a counsellor in a shelter. I have learnt there is nothing like a good woman to keep you on the straight and narrow.
And so that's basically it. That is my life as it stands: early to bed and early to rise. Considering the amount of time that has passed since we last talked, I really wanted to talk to you on the phone. That way, I feel I could have reassured you how serious I am about taking my life in a positive direction.
I could have explained you were totally right when you fired me. Totally justified. I was completely out of control back then. These days I'm all about honesty and transparency. I have stopped lying. Stopped hurting myself and those around me.
In the last couple of weeks, while I was working with you, you were absolutely correct Larry, I had become a sneaky little addict. I was believing my own lies. I was telling myself that I was a recreational user but in reality, I was an addict. But like I say, I'm over all that now. And I am putting my energies into more positive pursuits. Every day is a new chance. It is simply a matter of making the right decisions.
And in the spirit of honesty, yes, I did show up at your apartment in LA. That was me. I was down there working, dropping off a truckload furniture at different locations around the city. And I thought, since I was in LA, I might as well drop in and try to speak to you.
There was no answer when I knocked. Neither did you pick up your phone. I have to wonder if you were there that day? I completely understand if you feel like you weren't ready to talk to me. Again, I completely understand that you need to look out for the welfare of the company because yes, I did steal from the company, I will be the first to admit that. And that was unacceptable.
As I am the first to admit, this kind of erratic behaviour was synonymous with my destructive addict behaviour in the past. And honest communication of this is crucial for me to come to terms with my past mistakes and feel like a complete human being again.
If I were to come back to work for you, this time, it would be with the appropriate maturity and coping skills required to deal with the temptations we are exposed to on the road. Coping mechanisms that would allow me to make the right decisions and not reach for the old glass pipe.
I am sitting in my room now, listening to an old Public Image Ltd album, Flowers of Romance, remember how we used to listen to that LP? I have just come back from, well, I just came back from 16th and Mission, in front of the big pharmacy, where groups of people were churning in and out of the BART station and a wailing car alarm wouldn't shut up, where I tried to call you from the public payphone, the one that stinks of pee, the one which, believe me, is much better than the payphone on 24th and Mission which reeks of human poop and yes, that was me trying to call you several times earlier on, getting the same old voice message, the stinky receiver pressed to the side of my head. And okay, admittedly you’re right, (always right) this wasn't that perfect day I was talking about earlier, the one where I make all the RIGHT decisions because I found myself at a fork in the road, and I did end up scoring a bag, a miniature zip-lock that now sits in the centre of my palm, waiting. Not that this has anything to do with my overall resolve, I mean, I can say with confidence that smoking a little bit once in a while can actually be beneficial because it allows me, for one thing, to work longer hours and, as you know, my alcohol consumption goes right down. Look, it is like everything in this life, isn't it? The golden rule is moderation, using the correct amount. And knowing when to cool off. Because too much of anything and you are liable to end up overwhelmed, your brain flooded with dopamine and before you know it you’ve turned into a jittery skeleton version of yourself. But here is the thing, using the correct amount, administered with discipline, it can actually help you and enhance your life.
The afternoon is a memory now. It's night time again. Time is the problem. Keeping hold of it, problematic in the sense that you can’t be expected to account for all the seconds and minutes as the hours glide by silent as black icebergs. Entire chunks of frozen time lost. Anyway the last time I looked at clock it was 11 pm but now it is closer to 2 am, which is a shock, and I'm sure the next time I raise my head to look, it will probably be 4 AM and I will need to be getting ready for work, thinking about taking a shower, cleaning my teeth, getting dressed, get organised, buying a pack of smokes from the Mexican bodega on the corner after my typically sparkling 'Buenos Dias señorita!' is ignored by the plump lady behind bulletproof plexiglass, her attitude street-hardened by the endless dawns spent dealing with bass heads, night crawlers and freaks. Admittedly a negative start to the day which I will not let flatten my spirits. After this, I will pick up a company vehicle, parked nearby in a local lot, before picking up the crew that I have been assigned to work with today.
Okay, again, I know, I'm not doing myself any favours here, in terms of my appeal to you because I have slipped a little bit. And yes, you can look back at all the forks in the road. And you can plot all wrong decisions back to birth but that kind of thinking will drive you nuts. A few hours ago I should have just chilled out a little bit but no, once again the hardwired pattern of self-destruction, so deeply etched my brain, took over and I find myself holding the little blow torch lighter under the already blackened bulb. And I flame the powder, which resembles a bed of microscopic diamonds before they start bubbling, turning black, crackling in a kind of agony, as these crystals convert from a solid into a gas, a chemical ghost with lazy white tendrils coiling and expanding as it rises up to fill the bulb of the pipe before being sucked down into my lungs, entering my blood stream through the lining of my lungs as I lock the smoke deep inside my chest, holding, holding, holding before releasing and realising I am in outer space, a floating cosmonaut, a man seeing himself at the end of a telescope thousands and thousands of light years away, frozen in the remote reaches this little room. And everything around me is flat and detached and suspended. In this darkness, I have a series of chilling X-ray visions which render the walls transparent so that I can see all the buildings' residents sleeping in their square cocoons. All of them, the entire building, breathing in unison, resemble the crew of a giant submarine moving under the surface of the ocean. But then, after some unknown period of time, after I feel more grounded, more myself, everything including the cheap furniture, the sink and all the objects in my room begin to take on depth and substance, have in fact, acquired a kind of hyper-focus. Fascinating though this may be, I am distracted because my thoughts are fracturing off in many directions at once. Breaking apart. And I become aware that the album, on cassette, the PIL album, has been playing on repeat for quite some time now because John Lydon is still singing, "I sent you flowers but you wanted chocolate instead". And as a result of this newly acquired super focus, my senses slowly explode out in all directions, pulling me into action by which I mean I am busy, busy, busy, busy, moving about my little room, cleaning things up, organising things, making preparations for the coming morning (Excuse this tangent Larry but you remember, of course that I am a great organiser, a natural-born neat freak when it comes to not only my personal life, but also whatever work situation I'm in. And before you get too judgemental about the direction this letter has taken, remember amphetamines affect me differently than most people, right? I mean for people with my kind of brain chemistry, getting spun actually throws those obsessive tendencies into reverse. That's what I'm saying here Larry, okay? These chemicals, bad for most people, work to level me out, to get me back in the middle again and away from the brittle edges).
Anyway, remember...ah Jesus, how did that happen? Is it really 4 am already? I really should have gotten some sleep but it's too late now because....actually, it's not at 4 am...it's 5 am, and the sun is just beginning to define the shapes of the surrounding rooftops, throwing a pale cast over everything and my little room is slowly beginning to acquire a new depth as weak colour bleeds into the murky black and white interior world, and I turned off the music and open the window, overlooking the airshaft, to get some fresh air into this room. And the cold air is like a slap in the face and I realise that I can see the old dude in the room directly across from mine, already sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the linoleum flooring, as the city slowly pivots into another day. A regular Rip Van Winkle this dude, mute, fossilised in his room (which is identical to mine only mirrored because it is on the other side of the building). A museum specimen. Anyway I need to get moving, grab that shower before the rest of the zombies start shuffling around, because if you leave it too late, the showers start to feel a bit grimy, with nasty question mark hairs in the drain and old guys coughing in the toilet stalls, but before that happens, before the piping hot shower, I should go downstairs to the first floor and see Enrico about getting another bag because there is nothing worse than coming down while you're driving along the freeway, dealing with the working day. This cannot happen. And after knocking very quietly on Enrico's door, he appears, his face creased with sleep, and says, 'Sure bro. I got something to get you through the day’. And I'm having some spatial issues because the hallway seems disproportionally long and I keep looking over my shoulder because the sound of my voice suddenly scares me as I hand over the money. And then I am moving through the streets of the outer Mission, the buildings and sidewalks painted with bright sunlight as I pick up the company vehicle so that I can transport the Irish lads out to the company yard, pick up paperwork and a company truck. I'm being shuttled from moment to moment without warning. NOW I’m walking down the street. NOW I’m behind the wheel of a car. NOW I have picked up the crew who today consists of Shamus and Ronan, both of these lads hunched over in their tracksuits with killer hangovers, the alcohol fumes coming out of their pores. Nevertheless, I'm in a chatty mood, the radio playing an old Clash song, while we vibrate over the disused railroad tracks near the vegetable market and go under the freeway overpass, heading out to the company lot which is situated out at the radioactive Naval Yards. And then we are balls-deep in our working day, delivery consignments of furniture around the Bay Area, the freeways feeding traffic in and out of the city, the sun pulsing down, and by 11 am I’m starting to get that sinking feeling again and I'm thinking, oh shit, I am approaching my edge here, and this being the case, do I have everything I need? But then I remember yes, yes, yes, I have the shizzle and the pipe and the mini blow-torch in my backpack, wrapped up snug in a nice thick tube stock so I'm pretty much set up for the day (crisis averted. Jesus, are those heart palpitations)?
Smash cut to me in a gas station stall hitting it again, the boys waiting out in the truck, before we continue our delivery run, driving around the city, slotting in and out of parking spaces, avoiding parking cops and real cops, views of the city rotating past our windows, sunlight flooding into the cab of the truck, the Irish lads talking about last night, talking about their girlfriends, talking about staying in America on their J-1 visas, worried about overstaying their visas. All of us talking about the people we work with, talking about the customers we work for, talking about music, talking about clubbing, talking about girls, talking about traffic flow and the best way through the city, talking about lunch, talking shit, talking about what's happening tonight, talking about some movie, talking about a boxing match, a trip to Vegas, not talking about the future. The future that I am constantly waking up because time seems to have become hollow again, something we are hurtling through at an accelerated rate like a bullet train cutting across the Japanese countryside. Or (stay with me here) a man falling down an endless elevator shaft, tumbling at terminal velocity. Talking shit, talking, talking, talking about going to Japan, talking about doing something else with our lives other than this shit, talking about some band on the radio. Suddenly I realise that the shadows have dragged out from beneath everything, have become longer, and that the city is draining as the commuter population move in reverse, heading back out to the suburbs. And Shamus is looking at me funny, saying, "What's up man?" And I'm like, "What? What do you mean?" And in the truck’s side mirror, I'm all strained neck muscles and gnashing teeth and blurred flesh, like I am trying to leap out of myself, like a hideous Francis Bacon painting. And I'm wondering when was the last time I actually ate some food? Or slept? And I realise that I'm starting to come down again so when the lads are off in the deli section of a supermarket, getting coffee, I'm checking the mirrors again, hunkered down in the cab of our truck, which has come to resemble a large white beetle skull reflected back in the glass facade of the building across the street, before hitting it a few more times, smaller tokes, maintenance doses really, being discreet, just enough to get me through the afternoon which seems like a reasonable enough strategy because everything is starting to wear on me. Specifically, I am starting to have this terrible feeling like spiderwebs are forming between my thoughts. And I think, how many more times can I get back up? You see the deficit is growing. It is depressing because I know I will have to pay it off with interest at some point. And I keep looking in the side mirror, expecting a cop to come up behind us, his lights flashing, but nothing like that happens. Just empty concrete streets and afternoon sunlight spiking off vehicle windshields. When the lads come back, Shamus, god love him, is looking at me again with a mixture of concern and disgust, saying, "You don't look so good, dude". I tell him about you, my big brother, how we used to work together for many years in LA, actually all up and down the West Coast, setting up lighting for different shows and how together we formed a company, bought cutting edge technology, got busier, more profitable. And I am just a surprised as anyone how readily this information comes spilling out of my mouth.
It is night now. Yes, somehow this happened again. The truck is empty and parked back at the company lot and we are in a bar. And I'm calling my girl who is back at the hotel, seeing what she's up to. As I mentioned, after smoking, I don't drink alcohol beyond maybe just one or two good whiskies on ice, because it's better to drink small amounts and really appreciate it, than to pound down the pints, one after the next like these Irish lads. And we're playing pool and I'm thinking back on the day, which is echoing out behind me, each event or stage I have described neatly folded inside the one that proceeds it. This is what I was saying earlier about time Larry. The how all those neat little increments get away from you and before you know it, you have been violently transported into this or that future. Silent icebergs, right? And hand in pocket, I realise that somehow I have nearly finished the bag Enrico sold me earlier on so I'm back at that crucial fork in the road where I have to be someone with self-discipline. Someone who had the fortitude to step off the ride. Or not.
Thank Christ Angie has something back at the hotel to help me sleep if I choose that option. But then I think, no, all that can wait, because right now I'm gonna play one more game of pool- actually three more games because I keep winning, making impossible shots, slamming balls in the pockets, seeing the trajectory of each shot before it happens, just before I release the cue and watch the balls ricochet across the table, but then, when I look around, I realise the Irish lads have already left (There is a vague memory of Shamus saying something like, "Man I need some sleep and you should get some yourself. And you should definitely leave that shit alone...."). And I think who the fuck are you to judge me? But this anger passes. And now I’m playing against some people I just met. Night creatures. Vampires. And the bar has taken on a kind of jittery energy I can easily identify as these people nervously organise the consumption of their own powders, in toilet stalls, on dirty porcelain surfaces, on the end of their car keys, on the webbing between forefinger and thumb, all the while talking endlessly about nothing, before they hit the repeat button again, each step of the cycle getting tighter and tighter as the hours tick on. But it's okay because now I'm back at the hotel, trying to get my head straight and okay, I'll admit it, you got me, there are definitely downsides to recreational use of this stuff, (lesson learned) as I realise I’m experiencing a kind of dripping paranoia combined with a manic, bone aching horny-ness which is basically an itch you will never ever be able to scratch. And of course, I won't be sending you this fucking letter because I know how you would judge me, shake your head in disbelief, say, he hasn't changed all, same old Arran, screwing up his life. So yeah, of course, I will delete everything after the first few sentences as if this day never happened. And I’ll start the whole damn thing over again. At the beginning.
And when Brenda turns up, she takes off her jacket, lays on the bed. And I say to her, do you think Enrico is around? She shrugs, lights a cigarette and looks out the window, and then she says, "He never goes anywhere so yeah, I'd say he is in his room." And I feel completely empty, drained, so this is where I leave you-god-damn moral policeman that you are Larry. Right now I'm standing at another fork in this road. Either take the sleeping pill that my lovely, compliant girlfriend has in her jacket pocket or go down the corridor and knock on Enrico's door again. Up or down? That is the dilemma. I know that you will be nestling your head on a fat feather pillow somewhere down there in Southern California. That your brain will be slowing down, operating smoothly at the recommended, factory settings of the righteous. That you will close your eyes and that the world will slowly, slowly fall away.
Okay, I tried every possible way I can think to get in contact with you. Nothing seems to work. So I'll try this. A nice little letter. One word in front of the next, marching down the page like good army ants.
I will get right to the point. I want to come back and work for you. I want us to work together like in the old days, as a team. The truth is I miss you Bro. I want you to know that currently, I am clean. I've stopped using completely. In light of this, I would ask you to give my proposal some serious consideration.
At the moment I am working for a delivery company here in the Bay Area. They made me a sort of manager which means I'm running a small crew. The job basically comes down to long hours of manual labour. A healthy option for me. Besides this physical activity, which to my way of thinking is like being paid to go to the gym, I'm eating well and generally in the best mental and physical health of my life. I get most of my food from one of these organic co-op supermarkets. I eat handfuls of green beans all day. Why? You may ask. I read somewhere that green beans are chock full of manganese, vitamin C, dietary fibre and vitamin B2. This is what I am all about these days: exercise and only putting premium fuel into the machine.
I have a rented room in the mission. I am concentrating on a routine. I am sticking to a healthy pattern. A routine which involves plenty of sleep. I am dealing with my insomnia in a healthy way. And although I not associating people from the past, I am taking responsibility for my past actions. I am accepting the fact that although I can't change the past, I can make good decisions in the present to affect the future.
Environmental temptations don't concern me these days. I'm finished with all that. And rest assured, although there is plenty of temptation around here, I can walk right past it with my held up high.
I have a girl. She is another positive influence on my life. She lives in the same building as I do. She works as a counsellor in a shelter. I have learnt there is nothing like a good woman to keep you on the straight and narrow.
And so that's basically it. That is my life as it stands: early to bed and early to rise. Considering the amount of time that has passed since we last talked, I really wanted to talk to you on the phone. That way, I feel I could have reassured you how serious I am about taking my life in a positive direction.
I could have explained you were totally right when you fired me. Totally justified. I was completely out of control back then. These days I'm all about honesty and transparency. I have stopped lying. Stopped hurting myself and those around me.
In the last couple of weeks, while I was working with you, you were absolutely correct Larry, I had become a sneaky little addict. I was believing my own lies. I was telling myself that I was a recreational user but in reality, I was an addict. But like I say, I'm over all that now. And I am putting my energies into more positive pursuits. Every day is a new chance. It is simply a matter of making the right decisions.
And in the spirit of honesty, yes, I did show up at your apartment in LA. That was me. I was down there working, dropping off a truckload furniture at different locations around the city. And I thought, since I was in LA, I might as well drop in and try to speak to you.
There was no answer when I knocked. Neither did you pick up your phone. I have to wonder if you were there that day? I completely understand if you feel like you weren't ready to talk to me. Again, I completely understand that you need to look out for the welfare of the company because yes, I did steal from the company, I will be the first to admit that. And that was unacceptable.
As I am the first to admit, this kind of erratic behaviour was synonymous with my destructive addict behaviour in the past. And honest communication of this is crucial for me to come to terms with my past mistakes and feel like a complete human being again.
If I were to come back to work for you, this time, it would be with the appropriate maturity and coping skills required to deal with the temptations we are exposed to on the road. Coping mechanisms that would allow me to make the right decisions and not reach for the old glass pipe.
I am sitting in my room now, listening to an old Public Image Ltd album, Flowers of Romance, remember how we used to listen to that LP? I have just come back from, well, I just came back from 16th and Mission, in front of the big pharmacy, where groups of people were churning in and out of the BART station and a wailing car alarm wouldn't shut up, where I tried to call you from the public payphone, the one that stinks of pee, the one which, believe me, is much better than the payphone on 24th and Mission which reeks of human poop and yes, that was me trying to call you several times earlier on, getting the same old voice message, the stinky receiver pressed to the side of my head. And okay, admittedly you’re right, (always right) this wasn't that perfect day I was talking about earlier, the one where I make all the RIGHT decisions because I found myself at a fork in the road, and I did end up scoring a bag, a miniature zip-lock that now sits in the centre of my palm, waiting. Not that this has anything to do with my overall resolve, I mean, I can say with confidence that smoking a little bit once in a while can actually be beneficial because it allows me, for one thing, to work longer hours and, as you know, my alcohol consumption goes right down. Look, it is like everything in this life, isn't it? The golden rule is moderation, using the correct amount. And knowing when to cool off. Because too much of anything and you are liable to end up overwhelmed, your brain flooded with dopamine and before you know it you’ve turned into a jittery skeleton version of yourself. But here is the thing, using the correct amount, administered with discipline, it can actually help you and enhance your life.
The afternoon is a memory now. It's night time again. Time is the problem. Keeping hold of it, problematic in the sense that you can’t be expected to account for all the seconds and minutes as the hours glide by silent as black icebergs. Entire chunks of frozen time lost. Anyway the last time I looked at clock it was 11 pm but now it is closer to 2 am, which is a shock, and I'm sure the next time I raise my head to look, it will probably be 4 AM and I will need to be getting ready for work, thinking about taking a shower, cleaning my teeth, getting dressed, get organised, buying a pack of smokes from the Mexican bodega on the corner after my typically sparkling 'Buenos Dias señorita!' is ignored by the plump lady behind bulletproof plexiglass, her attitude street-hardened by the endless dawns spent dealing with bass heads, night crawlers and freaks. Admittedly a negative start to the day which I will not let flatten my spirits. After this, I will pick up a company vehicle, parked nearby in a local lot, before picking up the crew that I have been assigned to work with today.
Okay, again, I know, I'm not doing myself any favours here, in terms of my appeal to you because I have slipped a little bit. And yes, you can look back at all the forks in the road. And you can plot all wrong decisions back to birth but that kind of thinking will drive you nuts. A few hours ago I should have just chilled out a little bit but no, once again the hardwired pattern of self-destruction, so deeply etched my brain, took over and I find myself holding the little blow torch lighter under the already blackened bulb. And I flame the powder, which resembles a bed of microscopic diamonds before they start bubbling, turning black, crackling in a kind of agony, as these crystals convert from a solid into a gas, a chemical ghost with lazy white tendrils coiling and expanding as it rises up to fill the bulb of the pipe before being sucked down into my lungs, entering my blood stream through the lining of my lungs as I lock the smoke deep inside my chest, holding, holding, holding before releasing and realising I am in outer space, a floating cosmonaut, a man seeing himself at the end of a telescope thousands and thousands of light years away, frozen in the remote reaches this little room. And everything around me is flat and detached and suspended. In this darkness, I have a series of chilling X-ray visions which render the walls transparent so that I can see all the buildings' residents sleeping in their square cocoons. All of them, the entire building, breathing in unison, resemble the crew of a giant submarine moving under the surface of the ocean. But then, after some unknown period of time, after I feel more grounded, more myself, everything including the cheap furniture, the sink and all the objects in my room begin to take on depth and substance, have in fact, acquired a kind of hyper-focus. Fascinating though this may be, I am distracted because my thoughts are fracturing off in many directions at once. Breaking apart. And I become aware that the album, on cassette, the PIL album, has been playing on repeat for quite some time now because John Lydon is still singing, "I sent you flowers but you wanted chocolate instead". And as a result of this newly acquired super focus, my senses slowly explode out in all directions, pulling me into action by which I mean I am busy, busy, busy, busy, moving about my little room, cleaning things up, organising things, making preparations for the coming morning (Excuse this tangent Larry but you remember, of course that I am a great organiser, a natural-born neat freak when it comes to not only my personal life, but also whatever work situation I'm in. And before you get too judgemental about the direction this letter has taken, remember amphetamines affect me differently than most people, right? I mean for people with my kind of brain chemistry, getting spun actually throws those obsessive tendencies into reverse. That's what I'm saying here Larry, okay? These chemicals, bad for most people, work to level me out, to get me back in the middle again and away from the brittle edges).
Anyway, remember...ah Jesus, how did that happen? Is it really 4 am already? I really should have gotten some sleep but it's too late now because....actually, it's not at 4 am...it's 5 am, and the sun is just beginning to define the shapes of the surrounding rooftops, throwing a pale cast over everything and my little room is slowly beginning to acquire a new depth as weak colour bleeds into the murky black and white interior world, and I turned off the music and open the window, overlooking the airshaft, to get some fresh air into this room. And the cold air is like a slap in the face and I realise that I can see the old dude in the room directly across from mine, already sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the linoleum flooring, as the city slowly pivots into another day. A regular Rip Van Winkle this dude, mute, fossilised in his room (which is identical to mine only mirrored because it is on the other side of the building). A museum specimen. Anyway I need to get moving, grab that shower before the rest of the zombies start shuffling around, because if you leave it too late, the showers start to feel a bit grimy, with nasty question mark hairs in the drain and old guys coughing in the toilet stalls, but before that happens, before the piping hot shower, I should go downstairs to the first floor and see Enrico about getting another bag because there is nothing worse than coming down while you're driving along the freeway, dealing with the working day. This cannot happen. And after knocking very quietly on Enrico's door, he appears, his face creased with sleep, and says, 'Sure bro. I got something to get you through the day’. And I'm having some spatial issues because the hallway seems disproportionally long and I keep looking over my shoulder because the sound of my voice suddenly scares me as I hand over the money. And then I am moving through the streets of the outer Mission, the buildings and sidewalks painted with bright sunlight as I pick up the company vehicle so that I can transport the Irish lads out to the company yard, pick up paperwork and a company truck. I'm being shuttled from moment to moment without warning. NOW I’m walking down the street. NOW I’m behind the wheel of a car. NOW I have picked up the crew who today consists of Shamus and Ronan, both of these lads hunched over in their tracksuits with killer hangovers, the alcohol fumes coming out of their pores. Nevertheless, I'm in a chatty mood, the radio playing an old Clash song, while we vibrate over the disused railroad tracks near the vegetable market and go under the freeway overpass, heading out to the company lot which is situated out at the radioactive Naval Yards. And then we are balls-deep in our working day, delivery consignments of furniture around the Bay Area, the freeways feeding traffic in and out of the city, the sun pulsing down, and by 11 am I’m starting to get that sinking feeling again and I'm thinking, oh shit, I am approaching my edge here, and this being the case, do I have everything I need? But then I remember yes, yes, yes, I have the shizzle and the pipe and the mini blow-torch in my backpack, wrapped up snug in a nice thick tube stock so I'm pretty much set up for the day (crisis averted. Jesus, are those heart palpitations)?
Smash cut to me in a gas station stall hitting it again, the boys waiting out in the truck, before we continue our delivery run, driving around the city, slotting in and out of parking spaces, avoiding parking cops and real cops, views of the city rotating past our windows, sunlight flooding into the cab of the truck, the Irish lads talking about last night, talking about their girlfriends, talking about staying in America on their J-1 visas, worried about overstaying their visas. All of us talking about the people we work with, talking about the customers we work for, talking about music, talking about clubbing, talking about girls, talking about traffic flow and the best way through the city, talking about lunch, talking shit, talking about what's happening tonight, talking about some movie, talking about a boxing match, a trip to Vegas, not talking about the future. The future that I am constantly waking up because time seems to have become hollow again, something we are hurtling through at an accelerated rate like a bullet train cutting across the Japanese countryside. Or (stay with me here) a man falling down an endless elevator shaft, tumbling at terminal velocity. Talking shit, talking, talking, talking about going to Japan, talking about doing something else with our lives other than this shit, talking about some band on the radio. Suddenly I realise that the shadows have dragged out from beneath everything, have become longer, and that the city is draining as the commuter population move in reverse, heading back out to the suburbs. And Shamus is looking at me funny, saying, "What's up man?" And I'm like, "What? What do you mean?" And in the truck’s side mirror, I'm all strained neck muscles and gnashing teeth and blurred flesh, like I am trying to leap out of myself, like a hideous Francis Bacon painting. And I'm wondering when was the last time I actually ate some food? Or slept? And I realise that I'm starting to come down again so when the lads are off in the deli section of a supermarket, getting coffee, I'm checking the mirrors again, hunkered down in the cab of our truck, which has come to resemble a large white beetle skull reflected back in the glass facade of the building across the street, before hitting it a few more times, smaller tokes, maintenance doses really, being discreet, just enough to get me through the afternoon which seems like a reasonable enough strategy because everything is starting to wear on me. Specifically, I am starting to have this terrible feeling like spiderwebs are forming between my thoughts. And I think, how many more times can I get back up? You see the deficit is growing. It is depressing because I know I will have to pay it off with interest at some point. And I keep looking in the side mirror, expecting a cop to come up behind us, his lights flashing, but nothing like that happens. Just empty concrete streets and afternoon sunlight spiking off vehicle windshields. When the lads come back, Shamus, god love him, is looking at me again with a mixture of concern and disgust, saying, "You don't look so good, dude". I tell him about you, my big brother, how we used to work together for many years in LA, actually all up and down the West Coast, setting up lighting for different shows and how together we formed a company, bought cutting edge technology, got busier, more profitable. And I am just a surprised as anyone how readily this information comes spilling out of my mouth.
It is night now. Yes, somehow this happened again. The truck is empty and parked back at the company lot and we are in a bar. And I'm calling my girl who is back at the hotel, seeing what she's up to. As I mentioned, after smoking, I don't drink alcohol beyond maybe just one or two good whiskies on ice, because it's better to drink small amounts and really appreciate it, than to pound down the pints, one after the next like these Irish lads. And we're playing pool and I'm thinking back on the day, which is echoing out behind me, each event or stage I have described neatly folded inside the one that proceeds it. This is what I was saying earlier about time Larry. The how all those neat little increments get away from you and before you know it, you have been violently transported into this or that future. Silent icebergs, right? And hand in pocket, I realise that somehow I have nearly finished the bag Enrico sold me earlier on so I'm back at that crucial fork in the road where I have to be someone with self-discipline. Someone who had the fortitude to step off the ride. Or not.
Thank Christ Angie has something back at the hotel to help me sleep if I choose that option. But then I think, no, all that can wait, because right now I'm gonna play one more game of pool- actually three more games because I keep winning, making impossible shots, slamming balls in the pockets, seeing the trajectory of each shot before it happens, just before I release the cue and watch the balls ricochet across the table, but then, when I look around, I realise the Irish lads have already left (There is a vague memory of Shamus saying something like, "Man I need some sleep and you should get some yourself. And you should definitely leave that shit alone...."). And I think who the fuck are you to judge me? But this anger passes. And now I’m playing against some people I just met. Night creatures. Vampires. And the bar has taken on a kind of jittery energy I can easily identify as these people nervously organise the consumption of their own powders, in toilet stalls, on dirty porcelain surfaces, on the end of their car keys, on the webbing between forefinger and thumb, all the while talking endlessly about nothing, before they hit the repeat button again, each step of the cycle getting tighter and tighter as the hours tick on. But it's okay because now I'm back at the hotel, trying to get my head straight and okay, I'll admit it, you got me, there are definitely downsides to recreational use of this stuff, (lesson learned) as I realise I’m experiencing a kind of dripping paranoia combined with a manic, bone aching horny-ness which is basically an itch you will never ever be able to scratch. And of course, I won't be sending you this fucking letter because I know how you would judge me, shake your head in disbelief, say, he hasn't changed all, same old Arran, screwing up his life. So yeah, of course, I will delete everything after the first few sentences as if this day never happened. And I’ll start the whole damn thing over again. At the beginning.
And when Brenda turns up, she takes off her jacket, lays on the bed. And I say to her, do you think Enrico is around? She shrugs, lights a cigarette and looks out the window, and then she says, "He never goes anywhere so yeah, I'd say he is in his room." And I feel completely empty, drained, so this is where I leave you-god-damn moral policeman that you are Larry. Right now I'm standing at another fork in this road. Either take the sleeping pill that my lovely, compliant girlfriend has in her jacket pocket or go down the corridor and knock on Enrico's door again. Up or down? That is the dilemma. I know that you will be nestling your head on a fat feather pillow somewhere down there in Southern California. That your brain will be slowing down, operating smoothly at the recommended, factory settings of the righteous. That you will close your eyes and that the world will slowly, slowly fall away.
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