As soon as M showed up the two boys went down to the liquor store to grab some beer and whisky, walking shoulder-to-shoulder, taking long strides, down the Kearney street stairs before turning left and continuing along Broadway. They threaded through half-registered, overlapping pedestrian conversations, passed restaurants and the strip clubs. Places fronted by female barkers in fishnet stockings, boots, chokers and lace-bodices. Show you a good time honey....come on. Don't walk by like that....come on in baby....Come out of the cold and in the warmth. Lapdance? Sure. Best looking girls. Fully licensed. I got something to show you honey. Broadway was heaving with neon promiscuity and excitement. Once inside the liquor store, the large no-pay-no-play Samoan served them, a matchstick in the corner of his mouth, taking their cash and sliding their purchases into the open mouth of a brown paper bag. And when Lucas and M got back to the hostel, they drank in the office, the little room out behind the main ballroom, where Lucas usually worked, counting coins taken out of the hotel vending machines. M was sitting on a crate full of old invoices and Lucas kicked back on an old roller chair in front of a desk. The rest of the room was crammed with boxes of door handles, tools, miscellaneous hardware, candy bars and decorative brick-a-brack. Lucas and M talked about the hostel and about work. M worked in a dive bar on 16th and Misson. A place that had been taken over by hipsters, turned in the trendy watering hole. He spent his nights slouching in the cold doorway dealing with drunks and crackheads. Later on, when M finally made good on his threats to move back to New York City, Lucas would take over M's shifts at this bar. They also talked about the girls they were involved with. Or wanted to be involved with. Or didn't have a chance with. Platonically and otherwise. Lucas had a wife, Tammy, whom he married eight years prior. Currently, M was on and off with a blonde girl he'd met at college. A paint company heiress. There seemed to be an abundance of such people floating around California. Trust kids. The blessed boys and girls of the wealthy slumming it with their inheritance safety nets. Lucas and M drank their bottled pale ale and smoked Winston Lights, the brand M prefered, filling up the office with drifting grey bones of smoke, both of them talking, explaining, elaborating, tapping into the ideas that were currently making them excited, kicking back. And a short time later, they smoked some weed in M's one-hitter, a brass bullet which unscrewed for the purposes of loading and cleaning. The Bic lighter flared and the flame darted like a fish, sucked down into the nozzle of the device, sounding like a miniature jet engine. It was strong shit. This was apparent because, after only two tentative hits, Lucas felt clammy and cold as The Fear crept over him. Oh man, here we go, he thought. He wasn't even sure why he bothered. Wasn't the booze was enough? Why do I always feel the need to keep up with M? Now I gotta sit here all spooked out...Lucas's heart began to pound slowly in his chest as the raw information transmitted through his senses started to become distorted and warped. A few moments later, the whole world seemed off key and out of kilter. No choice now: he had to ride it out. Trusting that alcohol would balance him out, he necked his beer and opened another one. He would acclimate but it would take time. Outside the sky had begun to transform. One moment faded denim blue, the sky was now shot through with pink, purple and deep red tendrils. A flotilla of clouds, underlit by the technicolour conditions, drifted over the Transamerica building while down below, as seen through the ornate window, the streets of North Beach were starting to bulge and strain with Friday night traffic. Cars and taxis pouring in over the bridges. Headlights probing along Broadway. Tourists and corporate people coming up from the East and South Bay. People zoning in, vying for their spot in the constricted grid of streets. For their little piece of the action.
Lucas and M left after consuming the six-pack of beer. They walked back across the ballroom, down the Kearny stairs again but this time, they crossed the intersection of Kearny and Broadway. They headed down to the Cocodrie, a hole-in-the-wall bar about halfway down the block, situated in a nondescript building fronted by a marquee which sometimes (when the management could be bothered) advertised the bands that were playing. They went inside and ordered drinks. The bar's pitch black interior was interrupted by intermittent pools of light. The plan was to get the night started properly with a few games of pool. A band was setting up on the stage: a group of shaggy boys dressed in the usual grunge uniform. The plaid shirts, boots and ripped jeans. The goatees and noserings. Tattoos. The lead singer was muttering 2-2-2-2 into the microphone, his voice burred through the amplified sound system. The other musicians were wandering around the stage, tweaking their instruments, taping down electrical cords and adjusting amps. A smattering of people, comprised it seemed of girlfriends and friends, were hanging out near the edge of the stage, waiting for the show to begin. And a Stone Temple Pilots song played in the background. Interstate Love Song. Scott Weiland's rusty voice crooning over the laidback slide guitar. M plugged the necessary coins into the pool table and the mechanism released the balls with a bang! And he racked up, drawing the balls up into the black plastic triangle, locking them in place while Lucas chalked up and began running the cue experimentally back and forth across the bridge of his hand. Back and forth. And then, once M had finished racking up, the cue lept across the felt, striking the white ball directly, delivering its payload of energy into the pack. M stood back to watch, his arms folded, a cigarette between his fingers, smouldering, the smoke spilling upwards, folding into the air. The balls cracked apart, scattering in all directions. And then Lucas and M were into it proper, circling the table and each other, locked into the game as they line up shots and began to gently rib each other. Man, you're dreaming...you'll never make that one. Oh yeah? Watch this.....watch and learn sonny boy...watch and learn. Damn man that was pretty good but seriously....you can't get by on flukes forever....eventually skill is gonna win out. Skill? What skill? You're like a blind man stumbling around in the dark. Mark my words.....You are witnessing natural talent, my friend....Please. Please!....stand back...make way sir....I can not perform my magic with you breathing down my neck. I appreciate how those kinds of cheap intimidation tactics might fly in whatever degenerate pool hall you came up in but I am an artist. Make way....The trick was to visualise the outcome before executing each shot, to see it unfold, and then just let it happen. And in the middle of their first game, Lucas goes, see? Right here, man. This here is what I was talking about. A night like this one. Or maybe an amalgamation of nights like this one. This is what I should be writing about. Imagine it...following two guys around....two guys like us...I mean, of course, they would be heavily based on you and me. I'm thinking this could eventually become a complete chapter in a novel. M nodded, smiled and goes, Ah...and there he is ladies and gentlemen...Meta boy! No man said Lucas...this would be cool. Think about it...an extended scene with two guys wandering around this particular neighbourhood. Waiting for Godot meets Rosencrans and Goldenstein meets....I don't know...John Cassavetes. Two guys just drinking and talking or whatever...Like a single unbroken Steadycam shot in a movie. Transformative grace. Like painting a picture with a single fluid brushstroke, the reader being seamlessly led through streets and bars and alleyways. M chalked his cue, blew the excess off the tip. This is my concern....said M, with what you're saying. It’s already been done. Face it. Our youth...what remains of our youths...has already been appropriated and fed back to us. We think all this (he gestured around the bar) is something original but really we're just grooving on some shit that has already been captured in a movie or a book...complete with accompanying soundtrack......Wow, now that is a cynical point of view man.....Maybe. Okay maybe it is....you know....cynical but there you have it. We missed the boat, man. We blew it. See? Our experiences are constantly being informed by popular culture...not the other way around....At least that's what it feels like sometimes. Lucas nodded. He lined up his next shot and thought about the rave he'd been to recently. A club south of Market, in an aircraft carrier-sized space full of lights and lasers, music thumping out of tall speaker stacks and the crowd all dressed in daft costumes, dancing around with glow sticks. It hadn't been much fun. Not just because Lucas didn't quite understand the repetitive, robotic music but because it all felt pre-choreographed. An established pattern of fun. Going through the motions. The crowd seemed hypnotised or in many cases, feigning a state of hypnotic bliss. As far as Lucas was concerned, most of them looked like dot.com people. Khaki and chambray warriors. Weekend ravers. And seeing all this, it occurred to Lucas that they were indeed going through a dead patch. A point of safe repetition in the artistic landscape. And that maybe he himself was stuck on some fairly exhausted artistic strategies and ideas.
M lined up and dropped his next shot with considerable ease before moving on. We have become too clever, too referential. I mean as a generation. You say 'Steadycam shot' and right away I'm already thinking about a Richard Linkletter films. Or Good Fellas. Or maybe, since we are talking about writing, some stream-of-consciousness literary cowboy who graffitis up the page with unbroken observations and dialogue. Greedy, monolith paragraphs, sucking in everything in like a black hole of indecision: music, sex, drugs, fashion, architecture....whatever. Calling that shit literature. People don't even be bothered with real stories these days. They just shove the reader inside some vile character's mind, some fictional alter-ego full of bile and self-doubt all the while claiming that he or she....the character.....is a product of our society. Not my fault! My character is merely a reflection of society. Bullshit. You wrote the fucking thing. M sunk another ball, corner pocket, sending the white ricocheting around the table before it came to rest perfectly positioned for his next shot. I take your point man but it seems a shame to squander all these... these experiences you know? And not to record them. Not to do something with them. Write a diary....seems a bit silly, doesn't it? And it was like this night after night, or so it seemed, an endless series of conversations about writing. In effect, a rehearsal for the real thing. Hanging out. Ponderously trying to work out how to convert good intentions into concrete action. Or maybe Lucas truly didn't care? Maybe he was content to delay decisive action for as long as possible? To play the part of a struggling writer without actually ponying up the goods? He couldn't decide. Perhaps, like many people, he feared the possibilities of change. Who knew what waited around the corner? Failure or accomplishment?
The game came down to M on black and Lucas with one ball left on the table, a stripe lingering unhelpfully close to the cushion which meant Lucas would have to pull off some rare magic to sink it. Luckily M screwed up and his mistake left Lucas in with a chance. Lucas managed to pot his last ball and tuck the white in nicely behind the black for an easy victory. Lucas put the black away with just enough force: he didn't want to mess up such an easy shot. As soon as it went down, M was impatiently racking up again. And now, warmed up and feeling competitive, M won the next game. This was fairly typical: Lucas and M started out pretty much equal but then M would pull away and begin to control the table. To win the second game, M cut in fine on the black, ever so gently rolling it into the side pocket, his touch delicate enough so that the ball seemed to hang on the rim of the pocket before dropping in, before clanging down through the guts of the table, while in the background the band finished setting up. And a drug dealer and his drug dealer dad walked past the table, both men holding pints of beer. The son nodded at Lucas. It was rumoured that the father sold heroin and this spooked Lucas. Not that he would ever do skag. (He was terrified of needles). It spooked him because several of his friends had already used recreationally and he'd seen a girl turn blue one night when he'd been working at the hostel. And maybe seeing these two brought home the clammy fact that the neighbourhood was more like a small village than a part of a large city, a village containing many interconnected lives and histories which meant you vaguely knew everybody's damn business whether you wanted too or not. The drug dealer dad was the head of a sprawling, noisy family that lived in Lucas's building. His younger kids were always running down the stairs, screaming their heads off, leaving hobbling plastic toys in the hallway and scrawling snaggle-toothed cartoon figures and spaceships all over the walls with their crayons. The self-same crayons that got mashed into the stairs along with the dried turds their two dogs left around from time-to-time. Lucas got another round of drinks from the bar and people kept drifting in, dressed in hoodies and thick coats. It was cold out there, the fog rolling in, blanketing the city. These new arrivals had to pay a cover to see this band. A girl had set up by the door with a cash float. By the time Lucas returned with the drinks, a pool shark had zoned in on M. Clean cut and wearing a bowling shirt, this guy was all top cat swagger, natty rat pack styled, lining up coins to challenge. Sure. Why not? So M started playing this shark guy for drinks. Low stakes for sure, just a little something to make the game slightly more interesting. M was truly warmed up by that point and he beat the shark easily. And in response, an expression developed on the guy's mug like, shit man, this wasn't supposed to happen. No sir. No, this wasn't the fucking Tom Crusie movie he had envisioned in his head. This had definitely not gone down according to the script. The area attracted a lot of these self-mythologising types. On cue, as soon as M won, the band fired up, the drummer counting them in before the stage exploded with the sound of a big, choppy guitar while the singer began to growl and wail. At which point M and Lucas decided it was time to go because hadn't anyone told these guys? Grunge music died in 1994. It was over. No one was singing about suicide and heroin anymore. It was over. It was done.
Outside they ran into Stan, Amanda and Brenda. Brenda with the thick dreads like tarantula legs spilling down her shoulders and the legendary sex libido. The tattoos and nose ring. Huddled in their coats near the doorway, they talked while people pushed past, walking in and out of the bar, the lights flashing from the peepshow palace across the street. And it was all: hey what’s up? How's it going? We're heading over to Vesuvio. What about this band? They're okay. Not my cup of tea but...they're fine. I heard they were good. They're fine. Cool. Hey, I haven't seen you in ages. Where have you been? Still living in the Haight? No, I moved... I'm over to Cole Valley. A new place.....have you heard about so and so? No. When did this happen?..... His roommates found him. Ah man...that's crazy. I hope he's okay.....Induced coma for a week. No shit? That's right....and they still don't know why. Makes you think. I mean...what was waking up like? One minute you're doing whatver...and the next you're staring at a hospital ceiling....and someone leans in and tells you a week has passed. And the whole time you've been fed through a tube.....And at that moment Lucas was reminded that never really liked Stan. The guy was a mooch, a sponge, always present and accounted for when it was someone else's round. Without fail. And he was always absent when it was his round. Funny that. Whose round is it? Oh, it's Stan's? Where is he? Haven't seen him? That would be right. And what's more, he was intrinsically miserable just like the place he hailed from, fucking Seattle. All gloomy and damp. Lucas had been up there a few times with Tammy but he had never gelled with the place. Too much precipitation. That permanent drop ceiling of cloud overhead, suppressing the energy. No thanks. And that's the way it was with such a large social group. There were people, certain individuals, who under ordinary circumstances Lucas would have never struck up, let alone sustained, a friendship with. He'd have taken one whiff of their personality and backed away. Quicksmart. Thanks but no thanks. The point was, far as their circle went, the natural processes of social culling did not occur. People just hung around. Endlessly. Typically, some feckless, goodnatured hippie chick like Amanda or Jacky would take a shine to some loser who'd showed up one night and that was it. Once he got his foot in the door, that loser would hang around forever. You simply couldn't get rid of the guy. It never ceased to amaze Lucas just how much bullshit girls were willing to put up with when it came to their men.
After a brief chat, the Lucas and M took off while Stan, Amanda and Brenda went inside the catch the band. We'll be at Specs, later on, someone called. Cool. Sure. See you there. The boys cut a diagonal across the street, threading through parked cars and parking metres before turning left on Columbus and walking past the miniature flatiron building, Copala's iconic building. They hiked up Columbus, skirting the rotten arteries leading into Chinatown, past Mr Bing's and the 24-hour doughnut store, up to Vensivios Cafe, the famous Beat bar near the equally famous bookstore. They went inside, past the bouncer, Mike, a local artist who looked like a plump 1950's hepcat Elvis. The warmth and noise enveloping them. They found a place at the bar, shoulder-to-shoulder with the regulars and tourists, anchoring themselves to the spot and ordering some drinks. Whiskies in nervous glasses accompanied by beer backs, all served up nice and neat on a little paper napkin. It was too loud in the bar to have any kind of decent conversation, the crowd roaring drunkenly around them, a collective hammering of human noise. And so, conversation not being possible, they hung back, observing as the scene began to evolve and unravel. Occasionally they'd shout comments into each other’s ear but mainly they just drank and observed the people lining the bar and upper gallery. Beautiful women throwing back their heads, their mouths exploding with laughter and healthy American teeth. The men nodding, standing square, grinding their jaws, guarding their ground. People leaning against the bar, propped up on elbow or hip, telling stories, their face contorting with expression in the torrents of conversation. People getting loose, weighing the social compromises against the tenuous pleasures, raising their glasses to their mouths, scratching their heads, leaning in closer, shouting, talking, explaining, gesturing, chewing up the oxygen and filling the room with their words while the Pogues played on the jukebox. The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn. Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground. But you'll stick your head back out and shout "We'll have a nother round". At the graveside of Cuchulainn, we'll kneel around and pray. And God is in His heaven, and Billy's down by the bay.
Many of these faces were familiar to Lucas. Neighbourhood people who he saw around. People with whom he never quite got around had a conversation. Faces hardened by the drinking life. Souls subjected to a heavier form of gravity. Buoyant in this boozy-woozy moment, with alcohol lighting up their systems, but generally speaking, weighed down on the morning concrete, dragging torpid shadows. Some of them were ex-bartenders. Retired or aged out of the game. Some had not been able to handle being on the compted drinks side of the bar for an extended period of time. Either way, they were all regulars: men and women who frequented the place, professional drinkers, all part of the extended family. Should have seen the people who use ta come in here man. That's was a real crowd....not this soft bunch of pussies. I am talking artists, gangsters, writers, longshoremen, dirty cops, explorers, aristocrats....whatever. This is before all this gentrification crap.....Gentrifa-what?....Shut up, man. I didn't ask you.....what the hell is wrong with him?.....He got kicked out of his place....what again??? His wife had enough....you heard about Nick? 86'ed. Again. That guy needs to learn to keep his mouth shut....I'll tell you, boy, the rats are closing in. They are eating all the cheese. Mark my words.....Don't talk to me about modernisation motherfucker. I just bought a new typer. Beautiful machine. Vanilla ice cream coloured skull with alphabet teeth. So perfect.....the way they used to build things compared to today....you need to get with the times old man. Not everything from the past is good....or better....you're just painting it that way to suit your own sad-ass narrative.....Bullshit. What do you know? Nothing! You, my friend, are a mere blip in my narrative. No, actually that's too generous. You're not even a footnote....Hey, you hear about Danny Rocco? Bowery brawler my ass. He's sitting here one day, at the bar and this dude comes in...hands him a business card. The card reads, private detective. The dude, the PI, goes, "Your mother employed me to track you down. My message to you is: call your mother." Turns out Danny is from this prestigious family up north. Ships or steel or some such bullshit. Motherfucker gets a trust fund payment every month. Money piling up in the bank. What I'm saying is, he chooses these problems.....So what? Who cares?....I'm just saying...he has a choice.....So? You got a choice. I got a choice. We all have "a choice". Wealthy or not...no one is forcing you to raise that glass to your lips. In one way or another.....Anyway like I was saying......I saw this....object of beauty in the financial district. Just sitting there in the window on a piece of velvet. Amongst all the jewellery and timepieces....like it was being presented directly to me. And at that moment, a beam of sunlight comes down, through the buildings, through the cracks...and hits the window just so....yeah I'll have another drink. Jim, same again....hows the play going?..... It was a sign from the great beyond. The shaft of an arrow shot directly from heaven above. Striking the earth at this point. A finger pointing the way. So of course, I had to buy it, man.....I had no choice in the matter. Typed my first poem on today. Wanta hear it?..... Yeah, in a moment. I'll gotta leak the lizard.....You seen Jerry? Or the Hook? Ah man....I stay away from The Hook these days.....And on it goes. On and on. The faces and bodies under the gaslights, spliced together, clashing and buffeted in the low-down hustle of the crowd.
Afterwards, Lucas and M went out into the cold and, standing in front of the historic bookstore, they were lured to the glass by the glowing window display. And Lucas was saying, everything I write feels so....derivative. And he waved his hand at the pretty editions on display in the window. This is the problem man....we are too fucking aware of everything that has come before.....Is that it?......Yes. We’re like big fat cultural sponges. It's the postmodern dilemma....right? You have to write about IT, okay?....Ah man, you're not gonna start talking about postmodernism, are you?....Now hold on, it's true....if you write about a modern character, you have to be realistic about his or her understanding of the culture. Of the world in general....it has to be factored in....unless they're living in the woods. A fake Waldon or whatever. What I'm saying is....everything is a knock-off man. I mean, how can you ignore the avalanche of shit that came before us? Think about it...how much cultural information have we consumed in our lives? Compared to people from previous generations. Endless movies, cartoons, news reports, archival footage of atom bombs and other war atrocities, books, literary criticism, music, MTV, Playboy bunnies, art, then everything undermined by the ugly ironic sneer of higher education cynicism...It's kind of endless when you think about it. How do you pack all that....stuff into a character? Lucas's eyes drifted back to the window, to the crown jewels on display, the new editions of the old beat writers. Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac. Bowles and Bukowski as well. Beautiful editions. At that moment a bus jolted past, the passengers caught under harsh emergency room lighting, sitting on orange moulded plastic chairs, reading newspapers and books. And then someone shouted at Lucas and M from across the street. And just down the hill, there was some sort of commotion in front of the bar, a pair of drunks being kicked out of the bar, shouting at each other, flailing in the alleyway. Everything Lucas wrote in his little room felt derivative.
Sometimes, he got the feeling like his entire life had already been defined by the writers he admired. He honestly wished he'd never read some of them. Like that time, a few months ago, when Lucas and M had driven down to Mexico with Dave, the exiled trust fund dope fiend. Dave who modelled his character on Rimbaud. Down south they all went, rattling along the grey corridor of the 101, through LA and on to the border in the silver station wagon Lucas's mother had bought for him. A vehicle that kept breaking down every time you turned on the headlights or the radio. The alternator was fried, among other mechanical problems. Putting aside their erratic progress, at least it made for an interesting road trip. The first round of repairs ended up costing Lucas five hundred bucks which he reluctantly handed over to a mechanic in a greasy boiler suit down on the edge of the Salton Sea. A barren, cinematic location where they spent a night sleeping out in the open, their camp made up of sleeping bags and flattened beer cans. And even after this initial outlay of cash, the mechanical issues persisted, meaning that they had to coast down the final hill into San Filipi, the little town on the Baja Peninsula. The following morning they drank tequila on the beach, passing the bottle back and forth, watching local kids do somersaults into the ocean. They walked streets lined with dusty buildings and taco carts, the sun bearing down mercilessly. And one night, they drank beer sitting up on the titled deck of an abandoned fishing trawler while the tide came in, lapping against the rusted vessel's hull. And on another night they drank beer while wandering around a decrepit funfair, the rides powered by farting diesel generators and seemingly held together by bits of wire and ducktape. And there were times when Dave would disappear, returning hours later stoned to the point of narcolepsy, nodding out, his eyelids drooping, his speech slurred. And when he wasn't high, he was manic, talking a mile a minute in the rearview mirror, his greasy face grinning horribly, as the poisons leaked out of his system, talking, talking, talking. Brother, we're gonna party on my family's boat. In San Diego boys. This'll be the payback for all the money I borrowed from you guys, yeah? Speaking of which....can you spot me another 20?.....Anyway, I'm telling you, dude, it's gonna be great. Really great. Can you picture it? All of us sitting on my dad's boat, sucking down margaritas. And the girls! Man, I know girls I can call. Babes! I'm talking about the high life boys. That's what it'll be. The god damn high life. And throughout it all, Dave must have been working full-time to scam morphine out of the local pharmacies. They stayed in discount hotels, rooms with outdated 1970's decor. Large tile expanses, faded curtains and sad car parks. And they drank in a pool hall, a roughshod place with scarred pool tables and wooden pegs lining the walls so that the mariachi musicians could hang up their instruments. Three weeks of cheap travel, drinking and drifting down the peninsula, jump-starting the ailing vehicle along the way, in the mountain passes, in the backwater towns, watched by snotty faced little kids in doorways and old men with hands like twisted branches. And at the end of it all, Lucas just couldn’t figure out how to write about these experiences because it all seemed like a rip off of 'On The Road'. Burdened by this pre-existing template, Lucas felt like he was being forced into self-parody before he's even written a word. Or some love stuck fanboy homage. How do you ignore the things that you really admired, that have greatly influenced you? How do you write in a cultural vacuum? You couldn't. It just wasn't possible. And lately, more than ever, it seemed like writing had necessitated forefronting all the hairy mechanics of the storytelling process. You couldn't ignore it. Impossible. To pretend a story was an earnest, stand-alone thing and ignore the little guy working the levers and controls, the guy behind the curtain, was simply naive. and so they all had to bang on about how and why everything worked, the story of the story, because Gen X were all such clever people, weren't they? And they understood the rules and they just couldn't resist letting everyone know about it with a snide wink, a knowing aside. I have of late lost all my originality. And who knows? Maybe they were all being groomed for an imaginary audience in the future? His generations' main let down was accepting the fact that maybe, just maybe, their voices might not be as fascinating, as individualistic as they had been led to believe. Psychotherapy, written memoirs, confessional television, auteurship, DIY aesthetic....(and later on social media) dictated that everyone deserved to be heard. (But who could have imagined that smartphone bullshit is 1997? Having a freaky little device in the palm of your hand that connects you to everyone else on the planet). A voice. Voices jolted him out of these conjectures.
Hey! Look who it is. Two figures were fast approaching, two women, from across the street. It was Lucas’s wife Tammy and her friend Nicky zoning in on their position, the girls laughing, both looking tough in black high waisted Gap jeans, chokers and boots. And it was all, well, well.....what have we here? The boys!.....What's up? Nothing much. We're heading over to Specs for a beverage. Well, what a coincidence! So are we. What are you two talking about? Nothing much....we're talking about books (eye roll from Tammy. Sometimes (actually most of the time) Lucas would bang on mercilessly about the books, conveying the entire plot of some novel he was currently reading. And sure, it was good to have a creative man but sometimes Tammy wished he would diversify a little bit. Find some other kind of outlet. Anything would do. Kayaking or karate. Just to keep a sense of balance. I just bought a Leonard Coen book of poems, someone was saying. Any good? Some of the poems are good. I mean, they read like his song lyrics. And then Tammy was telling Lucas about her day at work, at the hostel. She was working illegally in the US as were most of the people they knew. There was never a shortage of under the table jobs to be had. Business owners were more than happy to keep their employees benefits free. Lucas slung his arm around his wife, drew her in close. She smelt good. And Nicky was talking to M, bemused and appraising, flickering her hair out of her pretty eyes, as she rocked back and forth on her heels. M was almost twice her size. He practically had to bend in half to meet her eye as he ran through his comic routine, making her laugh. M has an inordinate amount of charm and charisma when it came to women. Still talking, they drifted over to Specs bar which was situated at the corner of the little alleyway across from Vesuvio Cafe. They pressed in, moving through the crowd and found a table near the back just as Stan, Zoe and Calum turned up. Calum was already well on his way to being shitfaced, that cocky, half stupefied look on his face as the booze took control. They drank Guinness and old fashions and shots of whisky as people pushed past to get to the toilets or to use the payphone out back. The din of the crowd continued to mount. And for a time they were adrift in this sea of faces and bodies and voices clattering violently throughout the low ceiling space. And as usual, Calum started to antagonise people around them. He started with the group at the next table. A collection of people who were simply minding their own business, trying to have a good time. And even though his general obnoxiousness was entirely predictable, moment-to-moment you never knew exactly what Calum was going to do. Piss on someone's leg? Or reach over and tweak some jock's nipple? Casually lob a few olives at someone? The important thing was, after a certain number of drinks, Calum needed to antagonise other people. Drink brought the absolute worst out in him. Cutting through what he perceived to be the bullshit, Calum thought he was being "real" when, in actual fact, he was simply being a bit of a dick. As previously established, because their social circle didn't cull, Calum was cut way too much slack. Oh, that's just Calum, the more forgiving members of the group would say, when in actuality, they should have conducted an intervention. M was talking to Zoe, a girl he knew from the hostel. Zoe was blonde with a faded hippy tattoo on her forearm. Another illegal Brit working for tips. Zoe with her large blue eyes and the unflappable attitude. Her English geezer boyfriend was there as well. Bret. A furniture mover. Not a bad guy.
Detaching himself from a conversation which had exhausted itself, basically gossip about some absent acquaintances, Lucas went outside to have a chat with Tammy in the alleyway. He wanted to have a cigarette and talk to his wife in private because lately, what with their conflicting work schedules and all the bar hopping, it seemed like they barely saw each other. The truth was, they were beginning to grow apart. Living in the hostel had become a fairly toxic adventure and at times ran counter to maintaining a healthy marriage. Misunderstandings and temptations abounded. Alcohol consumption was beginning to corrode the bonds and inevitably resulted in fights. And oh Jesus me started on the fucking fighting. It was becoming insane. It threatened to completely overwhelm the good parts of their story, those times in the past when they had been alone, driving. for example, around New England, getting lost on either side of the Canada border and screwing in hotel rooms. Taking Polaroids of waterfalls, evergreen trees and the kitsch interiors of hotel rooms. But that was years ago. Now they were talking outside the bar and it seemed near impossible to get time alone these days. Sure they had reprieves but generally speaking...We could go away, she said. He nodded and goes, yeah, let’s do that. Sure. Just you and me babes. We'll rent a car and have a break. (And maybe, just maybe, we could forget about the bullshit in the past and concentrate only on the good parts, edit out the pain and the misery that two people can inflict on each other....Sure, we could do that. Just as soon as we talk about that time when you....Hold on, Why? Why do we have to talk about THAT?.....Because I want a resolution.....Excuse me but it seems like you don't. Not really. It seems to me like you just want to perpetuate the damn thing.....No, I want to be reassured that you understand that....and on and on....down that slippery slope...). But mercifully, at that moment, they were able to concentrate on the positive. As such, they talked about a possible trip down south. Remember the last one? That had been a good trip. A rental car. That spa in the woods, near Big Sur, the surf pounding on the cliffs and the smell of salt. The chiming, mind clearing vistas of the Pacific Ocean stretching all the way over Hawaii and beyond, to Sydney. American road tripping. Drifting across the continent. Hotels. Keeping on the move. Your day to day requirements jammed in a suitcase. Maybe we could go up through Santa Rosa to Guerneville? Winding up the coast, stopping off in all the small, forgotten country towns. Just the two of them. Get time off work. Time away from the hostel. Sure. Why not?
And then, true to form, someone came barreling out of the bar and joined their conversation, saying hey, are you guys going camping? We should all go to Burning Man this year. Anyway, what are you guys talking about? And more people came out of the bar. Hey hey! We were wondering where you guys got to. And that was it. Once again they were absorbed by the group. And everyone was talking about moving on to another bar. And Chloe needed to get up for work in the morning and Sam was thinking about heading over to the Height to pick her boyfriend up after he finished his shift. He'd mentioned something about a house party over there. Anyone interested? All the way to the Haight? I don't know man...And this was the way it was: there was always someone wandering into the middle of your conversation, picking up some erroneous thread rabbiting on. Restless and swept up in the momentum of each others' company, the group began moving along the street, up to the corner of Columbus and Broadway which was a confusion of dented newspaper dispensers, gum spotted concrete expanses and painted lines, bowing traffic lights and people. The neon beckoned and the traffic poured like slow lava flow through the tunnel and down the hill. People moved in all directions at once because this was one of the world's true intersections. It was more than just a place where a few streets met: this was a place where you could run into anyone at any time. A place that felt like the centre of things. The bullseye on the map.
Walk, said the sign, so they did, cutting across the headlights at the intersection. And once across Broadway, the streets fractured into smaller alleyways and the European sized roads that comprised North Beach, the section of town that covered the north side of Telegraph Hill. The group numbered twelve now that Mike and his spooky meth-head girlfriend had joined them. They were moving under street lights, past scenes taking place in doorways and on street corners. People talking, laughing, kissing, smoking....past the record store and the organic food store. And running beneath their interactions were all the sexual and personality dynamics that created tension within the group. The usual and inevitable bullshit that happens when people gather to drink and take drugs. The Grant and Green bar was none too appealing that night. There was a definite heavy testosterone vibe to the place. Tech jocks in chinos and local meatheads were crammed inside. A pair heavy set goomba bouncers guarded the doorway and sweaty blues music pumped out onto the night. George Thorogood. Bad to the bone. Anyway, the girls weren't into it. Thanks but no thanks. And really, at the end of the day, it was about appeasing the women. Keeping their numbers up. With this in mind, the group turned left and headed down the block to Gino and Carlos, a traditional neighbourhood bar.
They entered the place in high spirits, drifting past the line of drinkers pressed up against the bar, past the old school jukebox, all the way to the back, where two pool tables dominated the space, on old scuffed checkerboard linoleum flooring. Bang! The balls dropped and they began playing doubles, prowling around the table, lining up shots, in search of that magic geometry, as they executed jump shots and banked balls off the cushions. The girls were talking and laughing. You ever see that guy anymore? Naw, he left. I heard he stole a shit load of money from Kent. Kent, who was the owner of the hostel. A great guy when you were in his good books and a total dick when you fell foul of him which, could happen without warning. Kent's favouritism was completely unpredictable. Kent who wore his hair in Indian pigtails and had tobacco-stained teeth. Anyway, this Eddy guy had the whole thing figured out, you see? He ended up scamming Kent out of a shitload of money. I mean really, he took all of us for a ride. He was a busy boy! Did you know that while he was still living and working in the hostel, he was also dealing drugs?....Yeah?.....And fucking with various girls. I meant mentally and physically. Psychosexual mind games. I heard from Carmilla he was a real bastard....I always thought he was a bit shady.....Did you?....I did. There was definitely something about the little prick. It was something...I don't know...I couldn't put my finger on it. Ah man....you keep everyone at arm's length. I do not. I am decerning. Eventually, I let people in. Once I trust them....Anyway, I heard they he was using Kent's credit card in Scotland of all places. He made it that far, did he? Yep...And did anyone get the grand total? The amount he actually managed to run off with?...Tens of thousands. That's what I heard....No. (Tammy was nodding). Wow....I have always said...Kent, he puts his trust in the wrong people. Almost pathologically.....Another drink? Whose round is it?
Everyone was having a good time at Geno and Carlos. The night had entered into that warm, glowing phase, each drink going down in a pleasurable way, the mood stable, the end of the party still a-ways off, still virtually impossible to contemplate. For the most part, they were all good friends, enjoying each others company, getting sloshed. At one point a Dean Martin song came on the jukebox: the music crackling to life as the 45 plopped onto the turntable, the needle lowering into the groove. How lucky can one guy be? I kissed her and she kissed me. Like the fella once said. "Ain't that a kick in the head?" And all the wise guys at the bar (authentic or wannabes) stood around talking and drinking their Italian liquors and beer, adding to the old-world neighbourhood vibe. You know who I can't stop thinking about? John Cassavetes. I'm obsessed, slurred Lucas. This section of the novel could be like that, right?....like one of his films. Scenes spliced together in a haphazard way. I like writing that works that way. The unvarnished style man......God almighty, are you still talking about that novel?.....I am.....I'm confused because a little while ago you were talking about an "unbroken Steadicam shot". I have too many ideas....Maybe you should just go ahead and make a movie? Instead of this......novel, you keep talking about. This thing, in my head...at the moment its a novel.....Okay fine. Look, man, I'll read it....your book....when you actually get around to writing something. How close are you by the way? To having something I can actually read?.... Nearly. I'm getting there......"Nearly?" "Getting there". You have been saying that ever since I first met you.....Ah, look these things take time man. They cannot be rushed......I don't know. I figure I'll move into journalism, said M. Fiction is dead, man. Besides, eventually, I wanna get paid for my writing. I'm just going to start applying for editing jobs and then go from there. I have come to the realisation you have to have a plan, otherwise... I mean...what are you doing? I mean really...? You're writing for your own masturbatory pleasure. That's it....Sure, maybe, said Lucas.....Hey, did you hear about Elderage? He got some work writing these little product blurbs for porno movies. Some company down near the airport....he was telling me this the other day....I haven't seen him in ages.....Well, he's wised up and started actually doing something with his life. That's what you have to do. It'd be easy to hang out in a bar for the rest of your life....Yep. He says he's going to move on to travel writing. Eventually......That guy....he is fucking hilarious. He told me that....basically...So what he does....he has to watch a part of these movies....to get a sense...so he can provide the lurid details....he does this in an office. Full of women. Apparently it completely weird. He told me, he is sitting there, right? Looking at hardcore fucking on the screen and....you know....over the top of his monitor he can see fully dressed people going about their business...That guy will always get himself into weird job situations....Yep. I had a university lecturer. Back in Australia....a very....regal kind of woman, you know, respected. And she was responsible for monitoring all the porn that came into Western Australia. For the government. She had to watch it all...All of it? I'm assuming she skipped through with a remote control in hand...I think she said there were...it was something to do with state government legislation...I can't remember...Sure. Anyway, a plan! That's is what is required. A direction. I have this theory that writing won't matter in ten years. Not in the same way it used to. No one will be reading any more. It'll be computers. That's what all my tech buddies tell me.
Time in the bar was beginning to accelerate forward at a rapid rate, the minutes draining away into hours, the hours moving swiftly past. And suddenly it was midnight and new restlessness had overtaken the group. A change of scene was required. Besides which, Calum was becoming unmanageable. He was starting to seriously fuck with people. He felt it was his right, his duty, to challenge what he perceived as the earnest pretensions of American life. This being the case, it was time to exit before any real trouble transpired. So now outside, the air was cold, emanating out of their mouths like soft cartoon balloons as they walked up to the intersection of Columbus, Stockton and Green street. Bus cables converged overhead, forming a black web over the intersection and taxis prowled along the curb. There was the faintest odour of brine on the wind and a distant foghorn sounded like a mournful, deflating trumpet. M and Lucas were striding along, talking about books again, the endless trivia Lucas could recall about the writers he admired: their writing style, their working methods, the lives they led. Lucas had spent his twenties attempting to write the great American novel, if, in fact, such a thing was possible anymore, pecking away in cramped rooms with windows that for the most part looked onto nothing. Or little more than nothing. Brick walls or the wooden siding of neighbouring buildings. Perhaps a mean little sliver of sky visible through the cracks and steam leaking out of roof vents. Fragments of the world outside. Lucas always suspected he was shortchanging himself, missing out on life but not know what else to do. What about those four days spent in a Vegas hotel? Waiting for a sign, searching, scratching at the keys in the vain hope of channelling the ghost of H.S.Thompson. Praying for the thunderclap of inspiration that never came. Drinking and walking aimlessly up and down the strip, sickened by the manufactured nature of the place, wondering why exactly he was there, watching, observing the casino zombies. And that's the thing, isn't it? About ironic observation of a place like Vegas. At a certain point, you have to own the fact that maybe you're just as pathetic as the poor fuckers who think they are having fun. After all, you were there of your own volition....no one put a gun to you're head. And that's how it had been: little rooms, using a clunky manual typer until only recently when Sammy the sous chef had sold his first laptop, a machine that by today's standards was a complete clunker. Quantity was never a problem. He could fill a page, the words stacking up in neat paragraphs, but man, somehow its never felt right. Writing is a fabrication, a telling of the truth through the processes of construction. Through the selection of events while adopting a specific tone for effect. And despite all this, you were expected to tell your story with a sense of truthfulness. It was something Lucas could never quite get his head around: creating a fictional truth. Man, I just don’t want to end up like one of these unfulfilled old guys...who you see at the bar...someone who nearly did something with their lives, you know? I hear you, man. Does make you wonder though...what do you have to do? I mean to actually write something that will catch an editor's eye. These days it seems like you have to smoke crack in the Tenderloin and bang whores. Like that new guy...what the hell was his name? The critics loved him....I can't remember his name. Voltman? Not him, but yeah...he's another one. God, did you see his latest....slab? The thing about....you know, the hookers.....the Royal Family it was called. I picked it up, flipped through it...Man, that's all that dude writes about...whores. You seen him? I mean on the dust jacket? He is one ugly mother. I heard he was a real creep.....Sussan met him last Christmas when she went to this...ah....workshop thing he was running.....Or maybe you have to write some giant fuck'n tome full of irrelevant details that no one wants to read. Books just keep getting bigger and bigger....you noticed that?....and people are reading less. In the distance, the lights of Nob Hill were twinkling. And the wind came up from Fisherman's Wharf, buffeting and darting around the group, pulling at their clothing and their hair, and up ahead, a Chinese restaurant rose up out of the fog and came into focus, the interior overbearingly lit by strip lighting. M was saying he wanted to head down into South America. Yeah man... that would be the real deal. The way to do it.....find the story in reality. Not the other way around. I personally do not intend to do one of these....umm....plot lit, self-indulgent, semi-autobiographical things that all young writers always seem to put out....some book that no one will give a fuck about...I hear you, man. But what if that is like...the first step to...I don't know....getting beyond all this immature stuff? Putting it all to bed? So you can move on and do something significant. Hum....maybe you have a point there....I don't know man. It's just not for me....
They arrived at Hawaii West and went inside, all the way to the back. Despite the candy coloured Christmas lights, the dive bar chic decor and Don Ho singing on the jukebox, the place had a cheerless atmosphere. As usual, apart from the staff, it was empty. And this being the case, they took over, made it their own for an hour or two. Drinks were ordered. A catering sized tinfoil tray of suckling pig was on offer. A few people went off to the toilets snort rails of coke. Lucas found himself wedged in a vinyl booth, talking to Tammy and Nicky. The women were telling stories about their childhoods, finding the commonality of a 1970's suburban upbringing, and then Chad, one of Nicky's friends from New York turned up. Chad was making a movie. And then, shortly after Chad had settled in, Frank appeared, dressed in his iconic 60's hipster leather jacket. And Frank was straight onto Lucas about his own writing. Most of the time Frank was able to put aside the distractions of nocturnal play and get down to the business of actually writing and not just talk about it. Ah man, that Faulkner is one interesting writer but Christ he is impenetrable. I mean, he doesn't make it easy for ya, does he? You have to work so hard and I'm not sure the pay off is worth it....All that murky south gothic guilt. It fascinates me but ah man, it's like wade through a swamp. I just finished Auster. The New York thing....its good but man, is he just gonna keep doing the same thing novel after novel? I mean, it's a clever trick but what's wrong with a straight down the line honest to God story? (M slammed his hand down on the table, someone knocked over a beer. Don Ho continued playing on the jukebox).....See that’s what I’m talking about here? Everything has been done. Auster's already flogged the postmodern thing to death. Again, we're too late. No no, people always say that man. "Everything has been done". And then someone comes along and figures out something new. Besides, I'm starting to believe less and less in invention....you know? Making something out of thin air. It's bullshit. Everything is built on top of something else. We're always digging through the cultural scrapheap....always reconfiguring and recycling shit.....taking somebody else's idea so that we can we use it...for our own ends. Anyway, that's my theory.....You're looking for something illusionary if you think your gonna invent a new way of writing. Everything is derivative. You just got to stop being such a snob and give yourself permission to rip someone else off....You want another beer?....Hey, I read this thing from....whats-his-name? Borges. Borges said....."I sometimes wonder if I exist. Maybe I'm just all the people I have met and the cities I have lived in..." I like that idea man. We're nothing but experience.....The way I see it, you spend the first forty years running around, sucking up life, breathing it in....the world....and then you gotta spend the rest of your life analysing it.....Hey, I was dating this chick. I met her after one of my shows. She was covered in tattoos man.....I mean all over....I didn’t know if I should sleep with her or read her.....There is definitely a story there. About a woman covered in tattoos? "The illustrated woman", by Frank Wortham. Frank wrote long monologues which he performed at performance spaces around the city. He had the cojones, there was no denying that. Lucas had always said this. Frank puts his money where his mouth is. And his shows were pretty damn good. Simple stories, tales of youthful urban folly, all based on his experiences. Extremely congenial stuff. More often than not, you found yourself being carried away. Frank's main influence was Sam Shepard. Absolutely. Frank tried to embody that same American verbal storytelling tradition. The wandering modern literary cowboy archetype. Anyway, Frank was still talking about this chick which was uncharacteristic of him because Frank was not the type to brag about his sexual conquests. The thing was, recently, he'd reached a new level of success on the old spoken word circuit. As such, he'd started encountering literary groupies. The tattoo and nose ring crowd. Scrawling their innermost thoughts in their black diaries. It's a problem right? continued Frank, don't you find it a problem? Writing about sex? I mean what am I? Henry Miller? Writing about my sexual escapades in excruciating detail?....I read that....what was it called? Colossus of Maroussi? Down in the desert. Five days sitting on the edge of an ice cold swimming pool. It was better than the other novels....in my opinion. I do love old Henry but man he can go on.....Ha! Maybe it's a problem for you!....Not for me. What? What are you talking about? "How do I write about all the nookie I'm getting?" Boo hoo. I'm not getting any....Look, don't get me wrong. I'm not exactly Hugh Hefner man....No, maybe, but you have groupies!!! Tell me more about the tattooed girl. Ah....it was fine. She was fine. A lot of sharing of deep thoughts....You had sex though, right? Hot groupie sex....Yeah, but then....well....then there was all the spooning and then we had to communicate in great detail. I was expected to say profound things (mock, dramatic booming voice of wisdom). And sometimes she interpreted the stupid shit I said as profound....which was embarrassing. And then she started reading me her poetry. Which was hideous. So what I'm saying is, it may have started out all rock and roll but it soon developed into a one-woman show...Again, I am crying for you man. You had to commend Frank for getting his stuff out there, for doing something and not just talking about it. And Tammy turned from her conversation with Nicky and Chad, and Lucas put his arm around her. Lucas was trying to the do the right thing by her but he often screwed up. As far as he was concerned, the main point of contention, the root cause of their disputes, was the ongoing miscommunication that occurred in their relationship. Nothing was easy. Most of the time he felt completely overwhelmed by the concrete history of his misdeeds. The bright and shining future felt unattainable, always just out of reach with that kind of weight around his neck. How to move forward? When he was stuck in the past in so many different ways? But now, in this drunken moment, they were talking and everything was okay. Peace had become intermittent, an archipelago poking up above treacherous waves. And a Radiohead song started to play....but I can't help the feeling. I could blow through the ceiling. If I just turn and run.....
The bar was closing and they were out in the cold again, under dark skies depopulated by stars and scraped clean by the wind coming off the Bay. And they were bunched together, trying to decide what to do, buried deep in their thick coats. And the endeavour was coming apart, losing steam. The less dedicated party people were beginning to lose conviction and peel off as non-vampiric, daylight bound responsibilities began to pile up. At that moment, the group began personal calculations which involved the number of drinks consumed balanced against the available hours of sleep required to get through another day of work. For those working early, things were starting to look very bleak indeed. Even though they were all still young enough to conceal and battle through terrible hangovers some had started to wise up on this front. Was it worth getting obliterated every single night? As far as working at the hostel, Lucas had a dangerous amount of leeway. He could clock-in with a vicious hangover and no one would bat an eyelid.
Lucas, M, the girls and a few other dedicated souls decided to go back to the hostel. They made their way along Vallejo, before turning right on Kearny street which was like arriving on the top of a giant slalom ramp that would fling the skier straight into the financial district. They went into the ballroom, where they had spent many a night, surrounded by plaster dust and the ghosts of the Italian Social Club. Gold Rush era dead men, glaring back from a black and white photograph nailed to the wall. Among the ghosts of the whores that used to occupy the place some twenty years ago when it had been a three-storey brothel. Among all the more recent ghosts of the backpackers who'd become trapped in the stoned inertia of endless days spent lingering in the ballroom. Youth wasted on the youth. Trapped in an ongoing conversation about nothing. And thank Christ someone had the forethought to pick up some beer. A twelve pack of Coors. Cold aluminium tubes to extend the buzz. Calum disappeared upstairs with a German girl who'd been following him for the last couple of days because even when he had puke in his beard Calum could still pick up. He just had an unearthly magic quality when it came to women. The rest of them sat beneath the large ornate window, the room filling up with a predawn, gritty darkness. And outside, a garbage truck rolled up the hill, its lights splashing across the facades of the buildings. Buildings that leaned dramatically into the hill. New people began to filter in from other destinations. Some of them familiar, others not. People arriving from the clubs south of Market. From bars in the Haight and the Mission. This was the last junction of intoxication. The last chance to have a chat and scrounge up a drink. Their voices drifting in the dark while overhead, the ballroom's baroque ceiling silently crumbled. And the mummified cat that some journeyman hippie positioned above the greyhound lockers watched them with glassy-eyed contempt. Young now but so was I. Once. A mere kitten. Everything ahead of me. Now, look at me. And Don't let those days go by, moaned the British guy from Bush over the ballroom stereo. Another poet of their generation channelling his angst and shallow pain into a readily consumable anthem. Someone sparked up a joint and those people who were drawn to such substances began to crane their heads around, nostrils quivering, zoning in on the sweet, pungent odour. And throughout it all they continued to talk, their voices rubbed raw by too many cigarettes and weariness. More time flittered past in this low gear until, in one last-ditch attempt to stave off sleep, to reinvigorate the party, it was decided that they should all go up to Coit Tower. To watch the sunrise. A plan other than sleep had been hatched! And thank god! A few minutes later they were outside again, staggering back up the hill, the dreaded certainty that one's physical and mental resources were finite had been suppressed for a little longer. And by the time they got up to Pioneer Point, the edges of the sky were beginning to lighten as the city began to emerge slowly out of the night, revealing itself, a clean, white honeycomb hive, little boxes on top of boxes, obediently clinging to the flexing topography. Up and down. Down into the gulches and valleys and rising up to hilltops crowned with expensive hotels, churches and communication towers...all with the glorious Bay in the background. And Alcatraz and Sausalito beyond. Marin County. The bridges like giant neglected pieces of furniture. At that time of day, the whole sleeping panorama somehow artificially intimate, drawn into a painfully sharp focus. The optics of sleep deprivation, inebriation and youthful giddiness producing a kind of super clarity as if it were possible to see into all the distant windows and understand the dreaming lives of the people within.
The group sat on the concrete wall, their voices waning as the sun crept over the horizon burning away the chill. Tammy was saying, this reminds me of Greece. When I went there in '87. Tammy had already seen half the world. She had very clear green eyes at that moment. She was the smartest person Lucas knew, certainly the most literary, at least in terms of classical literature. She hated experimental writing and gimmicks. Or anything that could loosely be referred to as 'modern writing'. As the effects of the booze and weed were beginning to recede, Lucas found himself drifting into a state of pleasurable fatigue, a feeling of being raw and stripped down to the most basic version of himself. He felt lucid but also half-crazed by that clarity. Lucas kissed Tammy on the neck and then on the lips. And for a while, he wasn’t thinking about anything except the world coming back to life around him as the first truly warm licks of sun dispelled the chill from his granite bones. And all those loonie-toon barroom scenes from the night before now seemed to have taken place a million years ago, in some other lifetime. And now the birds were beginning to twittering in the trees, a strange noise that sounded natural and artificial at the same time. Considering the brilliance of the sunrise, it would be a shame to sleep through such a day but of course, sleep was inevitable. At some point, you had to give back the time you'd stolen. In those days Lucas was always trying to cheat time, to squeeze more out of his nights, ignoring the fact that no matter how much you tinkered with the body clock and the mind, eventually you had to give up the ghost.
And years later, when Lucas thought back on this night, he would wonder why and how he'd spent so much time fretting over this novel. A decade and a half imagining, planning, scrawling, drafting, editing and re-editing the novel that lived inside his head. The novel that existed in pieces, like chunks of ice floating in the Arctic, cracking in the silence, breaking apart, separating from the ice floe, coming back together, as he searched for a cohesive whole. And sure he'd gotten there in the end but was it worth the toll? All those years searching for the right tone, something between coarse honesty and the refined use of language. That night of drinking in North Beach, which was unique but would, through habit, be replicated many times over, did become the basis of his lousy autobiographical novel. The novel that emerged so slowly and assumed so many different forms along the way. The novel which, even after his relationship with Tammy broke down and he lost track of M, he could never quite let go. Even when he vowed to focus on other things in a bid to lead a more rounded off life. Even when, in a drunken fit, he destroyed it one night with matches and lighter build. Even when the reality of work consumed him for long periods of time. Throughout it all, the novel, as germinated from that night of wandering the back streets of North Beach, was always there. And eventually, Lucas did manage to prove that his fears were unfounded. The process did not go on forever. Unlike the cabbie Lucas once knew, the Bostonian who drank Irish coffees and scrawled in an endless supply of yellow legal pads, the regular at Specs who'd surrendered to his own inability to finish anything he wrote, eventually Lucas got there. Eighteen fat chapters. A beginning, a middle and an end. And years later, when his life had settled in predictable and unforeseen ways, Lucas would trace the route his group of stragglers had taken that night on Google Street View. Levitating over the streets, he would shuttle back and forwards with sudden swooping movements produced by his obstinate tracking pad. And below, the faces of the people he saw, both in his memory and on the computer screen were eerily scrubbed out, muddled, their identities masked. And due to his sticky internet connection, the buildings he moved past failed to render properly, remaining gelatinous and partially deflated. Mushrooms. Melting cakes. While the streets morphed into black taffy. As far as Lucas was concerned, the transitory nature of everything was now evident on many levels. The planet seemed to be in grave danger. News of social and ecological instability leaked into his life through the computer every day. Lucas was becoming a slave to clean living. Fear of his own mortality made him do it. "Chill out man," his GP had advised. "Just stick to two drinks a day and you're golden....and try to include more fibre in your diet". Floating over North Beach, invisible in the slippery here and now, with this hallucinatory God-like technology at his disposal, Lucas ghosted this old neighbourhood on several occasions. A stroll down memory lane. He would re-track the group's progression once they'd left Pioneer Point that morning, moving down Filbert Street and on to Washington Square Park. Six people in their late twenties wearily searching for a conclusion to this evening. And maybe, for once, not entirely unappreciative of their most valuable asset. Time. All that invaluable time sprawling out before them. Real gold. The sun hitting the water. Pine trees raking the wind. And with this appreciation came a bittersweet sadness. All of them momentarily aware that somehow time will give you the slip. The minutes and hours will get away from you. 1,2,3,4...becomes 10. Hours. Months. Years. And other peoples' lives begin to blur around the edges as the past becomes a fiction you tell yourself in order to fill in the necessary details.
They walked down to Washington Square Park. By that point, the group had given over to a flat delirium, wonderstruck as they were by deep blue Pacific skies and the beauty of their neighbourhood as buildings continued to rise steadily out of the shadows. A window rattled open. A car engine failed to turn over. A man walked past playing the lute (Yes, such implausible things do happen in American cities because Americans, especially San Franciscans, feel they it is their birthright, their duty, to express their implausible individuality be it day or night). These minor disturbances only served to emphasise the fleeting the silence. Soon enough the streets would fill with people and traffic and the whole business would start up again. And the sun was really starting to bear down now. It was going to be a hot day. They came down the hill, moving below the roofline, below the forest of metal exhaust vents and TV antennas. They all looked completely wiped out. It was still pretty much a novelty to turn your life upside down, to hang like vampires from the lower branches and see the entire city pivot around on itself. And at that point, they were still innocent enough so that the idea of extending their drinking efforts with a Bloody Mary down at Vesuvios Cafe or through chemical means was not really an option. Once they reached Washinton Square Park, they sat on a bench facing the church. The first morning joggers were already out, bounding along the path, around the perimeter of the park. A bus moved past, zinging the overhead electric cables as it headed down to Fisherman's Wharf. We should go down to the doughnut shop, said M. Get us a nice big fat bear claw. Yeah, let's do that....Coffee would be good. Some half n' half...I gotta go to sleep. No. No No. No sleep.....I like sleep......Sleep is for quitters baby. People who quit. You don't want to be a quitter, do you?.....I'm falling asleep as we talk. 'Sides, I got to be at work in a few hours......I gotta get a new job....Let's go. Come on, I'll walk you back to the hostel. (Nicky was yawning deep, rubbing her hands between her thighs)....Look at that guy. My favourite bum. That guy has two moods...either he's the happiest guy in the world or he's ready to rip someones head off! I saw him attack these two yuppies the other day. He just went off......They'll all be down here in a few hours, playing volleyball like its spring break....who? The bums?....The yuppies. You know what I could really use?..... Some Chef Gia Kung Pow Chicken...Man, that is some tasty shit. Little pieces of savoury dynamite on your tongue. They don't open until noon. At least. No, no, shortly I'll be heading off to the land of Nod, says M, in a Tom Waits-style.
They made it as far as Caffe Trieste on the corner of Vallyaro and Grant and Grant. And this was where the girls separated from Lucas and M. Don't wake me when you come in, said Tammy. They hugged and the girls took their leave. Gone. Up the alleyway. And old men were already waiting in line at the cafe, the sun streaming in through the stencilled lettering on the plate glass window. Behind the counter, the Algerian boys were busy smashing out the wet coffee grinds before loading up the espresso maker afresh. The pungent smell of roasted coffee hit you in the doorway, the espresso machine hissed, the milk roared in the steel jug. Okay, okay, okay, here we are. Here we are, my man. For you a....coffee. Now you....what you want? Americano? Sure. Sure. Pay the lady and I fix you up. Here we go. Good morning. These guys were fast, consistent and confident in their work. On those occasions when a local nutjob decided to cause some shit, they were out the door like a shot, towels flipped over their shoulders, ready to defend the place. No doubt about it, they had each other's backs. The point being, day or night, this was yet another one of those city corners which facilitated a weird confluence of people....You seen the Witch of North Beach lately? Naw....I saw her karate kick a tourist in the arm. No warning...she just lashed out....I, for one, would not fuck with that woman. She is pure evil. And what about The Suit? Another one you simply don't fuck with. Who put money on? In a fight? The Witch or the Suit?.....(The Suit, a dapper gent, always wore an immaculate three-piece suit and was typically seen having cheerful little conversations with himself on random street corners and in the doughnut shop. A congenial enough individual until you crossed him. At which point the thin veneer of civility would drop like a curtain falling and craziness would ensue). Lucas and M got fresh raspberry rings with their coffee. They sat outside on the metal street furniture to smoke and drink their coffee. What a night.....(M nodded, surveyed the street). I'm thinking about going down to Fisherman's Wharf, having a look around.....Not me......I'm coming to the end....(Lucas took a sip of his coffee) Funny how you get trapped in a specific neighbourhood...when you live in a city. I mean the whole city is here....at our disposal. We barely use it.....I do. More than you....Yeah, I suppose. You work in the Mission. Live downtown. Maybe that's what I should do. Diversify a bit. Get into something different. Man, I have gotten so lazy. I have been stuck in this one little neighbourhood for three years now....Wow. It's going to be 2000 soon....I know....I'll be down in Mexico. I read somewhere that all the computers are going to go berzerk on New Year's Eve. They say planes will fall out of the sky and financial records will be wiped out....Self-preservation muttered Lucas. Maybe that was the reason why Lucas remained stuck in the same neighbourhood. As a way of dealing with the sheer volume of people. Establishing a predictable routine in the face of the city's overstimulation. The morning foot traffic was picking up. People were now walking past on their commute to work. After finishing his coffee M scrubbed his face with his hands and then he stood up. I really have to go get some shut-eye. I will catch you later.....Alright, dude, I'm not far behind you. They shook hands and then M was on the move, turning the corner, gone, Lucas's best friend. Lucas remained where he was, the wall at his back heating up, taking in the warmth, his eyelids slipping, getting heavier. There was a kind of pleasure in hanging on in the face of the inevitable. The Fisherman's Wharf idea was not going to happen. He lit another smoke. It tasted fucking terrible. People came past. Voices. Elongated, scissoring shadows on the pavement. Cars and trucks double parking. A business guy with a tennis racket under his arm went past. A once famous but now retired musician. A shoe salesman. A woman in exercise clothing toting a ridiculous little dog, a mottled Pomerania licking its balls. A war vet hunkered in a nearby doorway. Lucas sat where he was, thinking, if this were early in my book, my novel, this night of wandering around, then what was next? Just keep going? Endlessly describing events as they occurred? Writing in real time. As it stood, the idea was that he would begin this novel with their arrived in SF. After they had crossed the Rockies on the Amtrac. This would be followed by an introduction to the hostel. Fill in the backstories of various key characters. Maybe each chapter should be written in a completely different style? Or from a different perspective? Anyway, how to end it was problematic. How could you know where to end such a thing? When you were in the process of living it? Being young, life seemed shapeless and inexhaustible. As such, it had very little in the way of uniquely defining events. I'm on a plain. I can't complain, thought Lucas. Day after day stretching off to the horizon. In this way, freedom and lack of responsibility became a kind of solipsistic mirror-lined prison. Lucas looked down at the raspberry ring on the table. There was a bite left. A glorious combination of doughy and crispy pastry. Jam and flakey icing. The pastry went very well with the coffee. There! He thought. "The pastry went well with his coffee". Why can't I just do the Hemingway thing? "It was a good pastry". What's wrong with that? Simple sentences. One after the next. Build up the story. Isn't that enough?...No you don't. No, no, no, no, no. Now you know full well that you got sidetracked for weeks writing in that style. Remember? It just doesn't bear any resemblance to the way you think or speak. Face it: reduction is counterintuitive to the way your brain works. You're all about blowing things up. Endlessly unpacking everything. God almighty, no wonder the old boy blew his brains out. It would drive a man crazy to see the world in such a submerged way. Lucas extinguished his cigarette and rubbed his eyes. He finished his last bite. And the pastry, as Lucas chewed and swallowed it down, might have become his Proustian madeleine, a specific taste that would trigger memories of this time and place in the future. A way to come back, to loop around and once again encounter his twenty 28-year-old self, sitting on a sunny street corner after a night of drinking in North Beach.
Unable to hold on any longer, Lucas headed home to bed. Up Vallyaro St. Walking through the alleyways and the street gate. Climbing the apartment stairs before unlocking his front door. At that time of day, the apartment was completely silent and still. He walked down the corridor, past the door of the couple they shared the apartment with, stepping gingerly in an attempt to minimalise the creaking of the floorboards beneath his feet. He went into his and Tammy's little room. The manual typewriter, the one he'd bought from the Chinese guy at the garage sale on Polk, was still set up on his desk. Lucas hadn't quite gotten around to tossing it out despite the fact that now he almost exclusively used his new laptop now. The typewriter was an old friend. A chunky 70's office model with a daisy wheel, it's contours brought to mind the sturdy optimism of the 1970s. A machine that, once you threw the switch, hummed violently to life, sending an insistent vibration travelling up through the bones in your hands. Typed pages lay piled up on the desk. Neat, double-spaced columns of text, riddled with typos and corrections. Never happy with the musicality of his words, sentences were constantly being pried open, expanded, reduced, crossed out, grafted onto other sentences. Be careful dude, an inner voice said, this fiddling could go on for years. What if this story you are trying to convey had no beginning and no end? What then? No, that's incorrect. He could always begin a story. That wasn't the problem. The problem was his best efforts, at the beginning of the day, always seemed to taper off into nothing. An afternoon quagmire. What's more, his hangovers had begun to sap his creativity. More often than not, he was battling through a bad one to write. This, paired with his natural indecisiveness was maddening. Maybe what I need to do is start fooling around with poems? Play with the spatial use of language....e.e. Cummings.....but then again...poetry seems so arrogant, doesn't it? So self-important. Precious word presented on the page. Okay then...short stories. Good, honest short stories. Yes!...then again...I don't know. The form does tend to bring out my melodramatic side. I'm always excluding information in such a self-conscious way. Shouldn't have read all that damn Raymond Carver. Anyway, how in the fuck do you cram the entire world into 1100 words? Is it even possible? ....and so, time and time again, Lucas had returned to the idea of writing a novel. Probably the worst thing a young person could attempt to do. Looking back, he realised that he probably should have put that particular aspiration on the back burner, revisit it in his mid-to-late thirties when he actually had something to say. Still, at the time, you don't know, do you? You think maybe, just maybe, I can do something with these two hands. Something that'll make a difference.
The curtains were drawn, dampening the distant sound of traffic. There were CDs, books and clothes piled up on every surface. A few framed photographs from their time back in Australia. They were living in a more basic and confined way now. In Australia, they had a house with a yard. Now they live a shoebox. Still, it seemed important to be in this city. Tammy was sleeping in their queen sized bed, half under the quilt. Lucas got undressed, down to his boxers, his skin pale and goose bumped. He was skinny as a coat hanger. He got in next to her, moulding himself into the curves of her body. She stirred but didn't wake. He closed his eyes. He breathed her in and out.
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