Читать книгу Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire - Poe Ballantine - Страница 17

9.

THIS IS THE STRANGE PART ABOUT COLORADO SPRINGS: I have made no friends yet. Usually I’m automatically social. I come from that generation that uses drugs or “the party” as a form of instant tribal cement. We are all brothers, pass that joint, what was your name again? But I’m hesitant now. I’m suspicious of my patterns, my lethargy, whimsy, and hypocrisy, my fear and refusal to mature. If I make friends it will be the Tooley boys all over again and I’ll be running away shortly with no money to a place I don’t really want to go. I’ll stop reading and thinking. I’ll lose sight of my goals, chief among them to master my consciousness. First I must read all the great books and acquaint myself with their ideas. Second I must accumulate practical experience. Third I must continue to travel and to pay attention to all that goes on around me. Fourth I must take risks and not be afraid of death, for consciousness, the very brain waves of the Creator, even if lost for a moment in the pursuit of its promotion, will only be restored to me again.

No, it is better to be alone. No more drugs or excessive drink. I want to be an adult, intellectually complete, comfortable with myself, with reliable friends who’ll come to my birthday party. Whatever associations I make from now on will be based upon word and honor. It will take a while, I realize, to do all this: I have lost—no, wasted—so much time.

More and more I think of my good friend, Mountain. My parents (who are without explanation not angry about my running away from school, because they apparently think this is some natural adventurous phase in the sequence that will somehow lead to success) reported that Mountain called looking for my whereabouts, and said they’d given him my address and work number. He has not written to me, however. I keep hoping to see him at my door. I’d write to him if I had his address, and if I wasn’t saving money, I’d get a phone, just so I could talk with him.

When spring arrives I seem to have gathered little momentum to leave the country. I have over four hundred dollars in the bank, and my feelings about America haven’t changed, but I wonder if four hundred is enough. Also I’m learning a trade. I’ve learned how to sharpen knives and make a roux, how to broil lobster tails and flambé. I don’t know if I’ll ever enjoy cooking professionally, but at least it’s honest work. What does a lawyer do when he gets home, pull the wings off flies? When I get home I can cook anything I like. If I could pluck up the heart to ask a girl out on a date, I’d make her a nice meal. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. With my advance in sobriety, I seem to have retreated in confidence. Maybe I never had confidence. Maybe it was only the bogus bravado of alcohol.

And now the tourist season has begun. Summer and immeasurably busy nights are upon us. Tonight I am standing over a giant iron skillet, grease popping and burning my wrists as I flick stiff, glassy-eyed trout back and forth, waiting for that last trace of pink to leave the spine. The tourists never tire of rainbow trout meuniére, which is not trout in its own dung, but simply fried trout with brown butter and lemon. Chef Bruneaux regards me strangely as he informs me that I have a telephone call. No one ever calls me. He must think of me as a pitiful and inept loner. I wish I could explain it to him. Would he care if I were reading the complete works of Aristotle? Would he share with me his insights on Augustinian reflections on time and form? I wipe my hands down my apron and stride across the kitchen to answer the phone.

“Deadwood?” Mountain bellows, his voice wavering and crackling, as if he’s calling me from a walkie-talkie.

“Mountain?” I shout back over the clank of dishes and bawling of waiters, my heart trilling. “Where are you?”

It sounds like he says Paris, but I can’t make it out exactly.

“Where?” I shout, desperately jamming a finger in my ear.

Blythe, a waitress who is always slugging me in the shoulder, passes and threatens me with her pig knuckle of a fist. I would slug her back if I did not hope to sleep with her. Fortunately this is mistaken for chivalry. This is perhaps the essential microcosm of chivalry.

“You didn’t get my card?” he says amid the tangle of crackle and fuzz.

“No!”

“Goddamn it. Hey, you were [garbled].” A whistling drowns his next few words. “[Static] out, man,” he says. “I gotta [place?]. You’ll love it.”

I gesture at a passing waiter to let me use his pen. “Give me your address.”

“Yeah, it’s—“

The connection is lost.