Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (13 page)

“Events of an ex
ci
ting nature get communicated,” he went on, “wouldn’t you say? All this elusive talk about communication being lost in our—how shall we put it—era of abeyance. Boring circumstances, of course, are forgotten, but significant bits of information,
preg
nant facts, people of a dynamic bent, these things get talked about, one might even say, praised.”

“Yes,” said Gnossos, knowing no more, picking up the uneasiness in the room, “but this important lecture; my roommate—”

“Beautiful, baby,” from Heap, his eye drooping in the direction of the slumbering Fitzgore, approving.

“Given individuals being more ad
ven
turous than the, oh, call them peasant stock, come to be thought of as, ha ha, sources of
en
ergy. Even more so if they travel a great deal, function in large urban, well, communities, such as, well, Las Vegas. People take
no
tice, want to par
take
—”

“He’ll be late, old roomie, hates being tardy—”

“Yes,” continued Mojo, seeming to ignore, still twisting the leather, “par
take
. Come to enjoy the same little
things
. As a kind of example—were we looking for one—and I could phrase this more eloquently, were you not so seemingly pressed in your studies; I say, as a kind of example of this person there is the, well, example of yourself. Yes. Could you, all
things
considered, for instance, have failed to attract the attention of Werner Lingam in St. Louis or Alexander Jelly in Venice West, both connoisseurs in their own right? Even Giacomo, with his quaint Sicilian manner, has heard much in a different way about you; quite apart from the little jobs you’ve done for his, well, company. So of course, knowing as we did last week, Heap and myself, that we’d be coming in this direction, even stopping over, as it were, for the week, and looking a
round
, our mutual friend Giacomo said to me—you know how he likes to keep track of his former clients and employees—he said, ‘Atheené, Atheené, shoo I got a fren’dere.”’ (Heap chuckling at the imitation, murmuring just under his breath, “What a gas.”) “‘You look ’im up, you look up Agnossos, I write ’im an introduction, he fix you up fine, ha ha,’ and I remembered your name in particular from Richard Pussy, another very
dear
friend from Vegas, who never stops talking about that very
tall
, long-legged girl from Radcliffe you were making it with, the one who used to go around, ha ha,
bare
foot, if you recall. And of course, Louie Motherball . . . ”

The pudgy fingers were going up and down on his belly again, and the momentarily forgotten cigarillo had grown a heavy ash, which inclined toward the floor. For a moment, in the pale reflection of the light through the sealed window glass, Gnossos saw a trickle of saliva at the corner of Mojo’s mouth, a curling, needle-thin bead of tiny, adhesive bubbles half an inch in length. The glimmering thread existed barely a fraction of a second before it was dissolved by the tip of a fat, pink tongue. His eyes blinking in twitches.

“
Bare
foot, you see, if you’ll understand my intent,” he continued, fixing his gaze on a piece of polarized dust suspended in one of the light shafts,
“and that
Negro
girl in North Beach, she used to wear
white
silk stockings all over her legs, which were, ha ha, black so to speak,
very
long. She was nearly six feet tall, from what we heard, communication being what it is and my knowing such an extraordinary number of people, a very
great
many, most of whom I meet after my readings. Although I
do
try to confine them to the women’s schools, it’s not always easy and you often take what you can get, don’t you? Depending on your particular frame of reference, the species of habit you cultivate, a certain amount of bravado, which you, for example, Pappadopoulis, don’t seem to be wanting, even in matters of
taste
, ha ha, that chic for example, wearing silk stockings, and those shoes with the extra long heels, even if the skirt wasn’t, wasn’t—”

“Leather,” provided Heap, snapping his fingers for punctuation.

“Or a given grade of suede,” said Mojo, the concept of the word stopping him suddenly, triggering some other degree of thought, causing him to come aware of the cigarillo, flick the ash on the Navajo rug, and take a noisy, sucking puff.

Gnossos stared at him.

“Your good friend Heffalump being another case in point, apart from his exceedingly
quaint
name and mulatto blood. That girl on the tabletop at Duke, that cheerleader, booster, whatever she was, wearing her
boots
.”

“Quadroon,” corrected Heap, snapping.

“Assuredly. And there was someone else too—who was that, Heap, the Côte d’Azur, at Pablo’s place, somebody knew Gnossos here, his scene?”

“Pablo?” asked Gnossos, suspicious.

“Yeah, Picasso.”

“The Buddha?” from Heap, not certain.

“No no, someone else. No matter, really.”

Gnossos looked at both of them again, the palms of his hands perspiring, the hammer forgotten. Heap was nodding curiously, his left eyelid drooping, his hair barely beginning to grow back, a gray shadow of prickly fuzz. Mojo said: “Make some coffee, Heap—no, you stay where you are, Mr. Pappadopoulis, don’t go to any trouble on our account, that’s all right, that’s perfectly fine, Heap makes an excellent cup of coffee, nice to have in bed, such a long time it’s been too, since Las Vegas probably, that, ha ha,
bare
foot, long-legged girl, if I’m correct.”

The morning after the atom bomb, the Radcliffe muse bringing him coffee at their motel.

“You sure you don’t want a cigarillo, Robbie Burns, I’m sorry, they didn’t have anything else at the campus store. Prefer Between-the-Acts generally, an Aquavitus recommendation. You need any shit?”

Oh ho.

So there it is. At ten-thirty in the morning. Into his briefcase again? Holy cow, look at the thickness. It couldn’t be—

“Grass,” said Mojo. “Mexican Brown. Very clean quality, I can assure you. Numbs the extremities. Certain percentage hash, about two to seven, you dig. Tangier hash. The kind they put in those chocolate bars.”

Gnossos unfolded the wrapping paper carefully, looking up at Mojo’s contented expression, the cigarillo pressed delicately between the kiss of puckered lips. He sniffed first, then looked down and examined.

It certainly was interesting-looking shit.

“My own mixture,” said Oswald Mojo, “I have it prepared by a musician acquaintance in Nashville, chap who blows electric oud, calls it Mixture Sixty-nine, very popular in certain
cir
cles, if you follow me.”

“What a beautiful kitchen, baby,” called Heap, “garbage and vine leaves all over the place. Where’s the coffee?”

Lie. “Don’t use it. Caffeine bad for the head.”

“Uuuunmphhf,” said Fitzgore, stirring as the word coffee filtered into his subconsciousness.

“Consider that a gift,” said Mojo.

“It’s nearly two ounces.”

“Yeah, baby,” said Heap, gliding back across the rug, “it’s beautiful.”

“Wha’timesit?” asked Fitzgore, looking up with his swollen redhead’s eyes. “I gotn’eleven o’clock.”

“Cool it,” said Heap.

“You’ll be late,” said Gnossos. “Up up up, time for school.”

“Uuuunmphhf. Who’re these guys? Wha’timesit?”

“Perhaps,” said Mojo, wrapping the bullwhip leash around his wrist and snapping the briefcase closed, then pausing with a thumb-flick, which meant Gnossos should follow him to the door and which he very nearly felt the physical force of, “perhaps we could get together later. You’ll be at the party tomorrow night, that goes without saying?”

“Party?” he whispered. Heap’s snapping fingers had abruptly stopped, one of them going to his lips in a hushing gesture. All three of them paused by the dangling rice-paper globe, looking at each other around the suspended white wire. The rucksack is not for sale.

“I’ve arranged a loft in Dryad, that very
quaint
village near here, you know the place well of course, the farm adjacent to the Dairy, ha ha, Queen.” Mojo leaned forward, an expression of intimate confidence in his pig-eyes:
“I try to keep these spaces available for little get-togethers in university towns. Space, after all, is such a significant
con
cept, so highly—we might call it—aes
thet
ic.”

“Space is beautiful, baby,” said Heap, whispering, his fingers snapping again, but with less force. At this closer distance Gnossos quite suddenly became aware that the eye under the drooping lid was made of glass and looked always through your head.

“There is a great
deal
of space in this loft, Pappadopoulis, but you must understand my position clearly when I say that this is my first, well, how shall we say,
soirée
in Athené, that I can’t be relied upon to produce
all
the people I’d like to have there. While of course I
will
provide refreshments and a certain amount of my Mixture, ha ha, Sixty-nine, if you follow me. Ummm.”

“He follows you, baby,” said Heap.

“Wha’TIMEsit, anyway?” called Fitzgore from behind the curtain, everyone ignoring him.

“I don’t know anybody,” said Gnossos.

Both of the men stared.

“I beg your pardon?” from Mojo.

“You want to get laid, go get a pimp.”

Heap ceased snapping his fingers again.

“A pimp?” asked Mojo after a moment of silence, pronouncing the word as if he’d never been aware of its existence, or if he had, that it lay at the outer reaches of some other untouchable experience. “A pimp? Oh no. No no nonono, Mr. Pappadopoulis, you must be careful not to misunderstand me; very careful not to misconstrue my purpose. A pimp, really.”

“Anybody can get laid, baby,” said Heap, the glass eye suddenly as rigid as a moonstone in the head of an idol.

“The
theme
, dear boy, is, how shall we say, open to the public. It is the vari
a
tion, you see, the addition of given decorations, as it were, which my friends and I—”

“Friends?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Have I failed to mention our traveling companions? Outside. Waiting in the microbus.”

“Minstrels, baby,” explained Heap, playing with a string on one of the bamboo window shades, “Poets. Beautiful cats.”

Gnossos went to the window and looked out. Parked at the curb was a Volkswagen bus full of zombis. Glass fogged from the inside, shape of bodies moving. Oh bad-ass scene, get them out of here.

“Look, man,” he said finally, pointing the forefinger of each hand at the noses of the men opposite, “I cool it here, dig? You never knew anybody so cool. I’m Emir Feisal in Constantinople in 1916, dig, that’s how cool I am. This whole scene,” with a gesture to include the Lairville complex as well as the university itself, “I keep at thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. Average.”

“Jeeschris’,” yelled Fitzgore, still half asleep, “whyn’hell don’ somebody tell me wha’timesit?”

“You see
him?
” asked Gnossos, leaning across the black plywood table, plucking the dangling wire to one side so he could be closer to Mojo’s twitching face. “You see that innocent mother with the red hair; you see him waking up in that bed?” With an exaggerated, lying whisper, “He is the nephew of J. Edgar Hoover.”

Heap’s hand was suddenly on the doorknob, Mojo’s was going up and down on his belly.

“And
I
am very, very cool, if you dig. Boy, am I cool.”

“Naturally,” said Mojo, hanging on, “I don’t want to jeopardize whatever little things you have going here, but if at the same time you could in any way manage to fill out this party with what you might call
our
kind of people, after all, Richard Pussy was very impressed—”

“JEESCHRIST!” yelled Fitzgore.

“Let’s split,” said Heap.

“It would be worth your while, so to speak—”

“Later, man,” said Gnossos, letting the lamp swing back, winking at them, jerking his head at Fitzgore, who was stumbling to his feet.

“Yes, of course,” said Mojo, “later. And my monographs, feel free to peruse—”

Gnossos closed the door firmly behind them, slid the brass bolt, and watched through the window as Heap slithered to the bus and got into the driver’s seat, Mojo waddling behind him, some mysterious figures in the back stirring with the activity, rubbing pale, puffy fists against the fogged glass in order to see the outside world. Here and there a face, white as a mushroom, wrinkling in the light.

“Holy Jesusmotherchris’,” complained Fitzgore. “What’n hell kinda roommate you, anyway, Paps? Guy’s gotn’eleven o’clock, roomie won’t tell ’im the right Jesuschris’ time.”

“Get dressed.”

“Wha’TIMEZIT?”

“Nearly eleven, c’mon hurry up, I want a ride to class.”

“Why’nhell did’n you wake me up inna firs’place?”

“Let’s GO, man,” stepping out of his fraternity-stolen sweatpants and shirt, walking through the kitchen, closing his eyes to the piles of unused vine leaves, moldy egg-and-lemon sauce, empty jars of feta, and sticky coathangers that had been used for shish kebab skewers. He paused in front of the bathroom door, stared at it for a moment, then sighed and went in. Got to keep plugging, so to speak.

“Who were those guys?” called Fitzgore, dressing.

“Selling vacuum cleaners.”

“Jesus.”

Gnossos had the brown package of Mixture Sixty-nine in his hands. He turned it over absently, sniffing at it now and again as he sat on the pot. How did they find me? That talk about the Buddha. Suppose they really know him? Oxshit. Suppose anyway. And Motherball. Worth it for the connection?

“Paps?”

“What?”

“How’s it going in there?”

“How’s what going?”

“You know.”

Sadistic wart. Still hates me for that dinner. Asking me every morning. Don’t answer.

“Paps?”

Restraint, think of something else. Mojo, ugh, almost an odor of evil.

“Paps?”

“What the hell do you want, anyway; and hurry up, it must be after eleven already.”

“I just want to know about your, unm, condition.”