Technicolor Pulp (19 page)

The days melt into weeks, the weeks into a slow-motion blur. Wake up every morning with the brain pumping ugly thoughts and
it never stops. Will it be bourbon? Or will I start off with a draft
to lube it up? Maybe some weed? Anything’ll do, nothing’ll matter. Hiding out on a shut-down island, calling in old debts
from my bartending days, and trying to make new ones wherever I can. Torn dirty khakis stick to the insides of my legs. A
faded blue sweatshirt and a grey felt hat that I stole from Helms. I hang out. Waiting. I don’t make phone calls, I just show
up places. Looking to kill a few months with a TV remote in one hand and a bottle in the other, alone. No work left. Looking
for that odd twenty-spot, wondering who to ask. The number’s getting harder and harder to come up with. Good luck, I got good
luck in a bad way. The sun shines, the rain falls and life passes by, spiralling down like the last piece of shit in a toilet
bowl. I think about the past and I think about that next twenty. No point looking beyond that, there’s just another twenty
waiting to be found, right behind it. My old bar throws me free drinks until the paying folks show up, then I gotta get lost.
I stumble back to the kitchen at that point, and see the head cook, Paul. I used to feed’em good scotch back in the days when
I could, and I don’t let’em forget.

“Paulie… Buddy… How’s about a little sang-witch to fill my stomach with… I’m fuckin’ hungry!”

“No Jimi… I’m sorry pal… Enough’s enough.”

The warmth of the kitchen starts my body shaking. I didn’t realize how cold it is. My hands’re
swollen, the air outside, grey and heavy, pushing in through the window. It’s too small, it’s all too small in here.

“Come on, Paulie… You wouldn’t let Jimi starve, would you?”

“I’m not letting YOU do anything… YOU BUM… Why don’t you get a fuckin’ job!”

“I would get a job, but there aren’t any left out here!”

“Well then… Why don’t you take a fuckin’ hint and leave… Whatta you, retired?”

The window’s pushing in, the cold air, the grey, heaviness, everything feels so heavy, my chest, my hands all swollen, my
feet all wet, my head all fucked up, I gotta leave this island, the same song day in and day out… My stomach’s burning… Acid
washing around inside… “Get a job asshole,” the cook next to him says, and starts to laugh… I hear it… I see those big teeth
laughing… Moving up and down… I hear them clapping together… Come on man, I’m gonna leave this island, just a bite of something…
Get a life, hahaha… I’m fuckin’ trying, man… Hands purple and swollen… You’re tryin’, well it isn’t working out, hahaha… What
about all those good scotches I gave you… Fuck ‘em, hahaha… Just a little something, I reach with the hands, anything… Here
you go, asshole, take this and chew on it… Carrots start to fly at me, bouncing off my face, stinging me. I cover my face
and duck down, I begin picking up the carrot ends and chewing
them. They’re filthy, sand, mud, rocks, dirt, in my mouth, grinding, my hands aching, nails scratching on the cold tile, wishing,
wishing I was anywhere, the air all cold, the feet in front of me, no more aces up my sleeve, laughter, laughing at me again,
dirt in my mouth, chewing, acid in my stomach, everyone hates me, nobody likes me anymore. My fingers stretch out for another
carrot, dirt in my mouth, crunching, they hate me, a tree in my mind, dirt in my mouth. I wanna be free, I wanna, I wanna
be, purple fingers reach, a tree, a noose, what do I do, swallowing, chewing, a body in a tree, everyone laughing at me, throwing
food at me, hating me, fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s hanging in a noose, dirt in my mouth, Ray’s hanging in a tree, dirt in my mouth,
reaching out to touch, laughter and sneering, me unable to be anywhere else, scratching for food, for carrots, for dirt, clawing,
carrots come stinging with laughter, beyond shame, hitting off my head, off my face, unable to hide inside, can’t tell them
to stop, it’s not them, it’s me, it’s not them, it’s me, it’s not them, it’s me… I… Am him, he is me, I am… A ray. I am ray.
I am Ray, I hang from the tree… EPIPHANY… I look up through my hands and see all the little movies of my life running through
the webs of my fingers. Carrots fly through my weak shield. A child. I was once a happy little boy. All I tried to be, escape.
Run, run, run, run over the waterfall I tried to run from. Dirty carrot heels stinging my face. Stop time. Hiding deep in
my breathing corpse, watching the final
scene. Helpless. Can’t leave my chair. Can’t be anywhere but here, in me. Trapped, being him, knowing him. My life, an answer
to a riddle, “Whatever happened to…?… Well lemme tell ya, let me show ya, let me BE him!” A ray of light, of hope, of death,
of truth. Slow motion, through fingers, carrot ends soar like shovels of dirt on top of me, our small tragedy, my little tail.
A shared moment, defenseless, watching in silence while fate pelts my face over and over, stinging and laughing. Can’t stop
it, don’t want to. Seeing who I never grew up to be. Down on knees, hands fallen at my sides. No more movies, no more cool
songs, just me. Tears carving cold ruts in my face. Dirty carrots raining on me. Unable to fight, to care. No more tricks,
just truth. Over and over. Laughter and pity. A radio blares on through the brittle grey air. WINTER. The loneliness of finally
knowing, of finally seeing. No whistle loud enough to keep me company. Not wanting to be him, but relieved that I finally
am… Seeing. Alone. Being. I am Ray… Shame… Tears… Surrender… Silence….

I’m standing at the mouth of the Russian River where it opens out into the Pacific and I’m so far
away from all that. There are about thirty seals lounging on the beach just beyond the tide. It’s cold. It’s fall. I just
quit my job and left L.A. STILL RUNNING. 257 days. Nothing but blood running through my veins. The seals could care less,
but I do. Somebody told me about the seals and I got to thinking that I needed to see it with my own eyes. Just laying there,
happy. Every once in awhile they stretch and roll around a little bit, just like my cats. I drove 500 miles to see these seals.
Really see them, see something other than me. Drove 500 miles to see something beautiful. They look like big wet dogs. I’m
about 3 feet away from them. Maybe I’ll move here one day. I start thinking about Doobe and London. I think about Paris. 500
miles to see something. Beauty feeds me. I wonder what Harry did when he found those socks? I hope he laughed. I laugh now,
I let out a nice big laugh. Happy to laugh, heals me. I think about Lindsey… And yeah, I think about Ray. We both died. I
am alive. Maybe I’ll always think about Ray. Hope I always remember. All those people and all those places and I’m wondering
if I should pet these seals. 257 days. Nothing but blood running through my veins. NO POISON. Trying to live, sick of not
dying, sick of quitting. I think about Diane and I wonder if seals bite? Whatever happened to so many people? I think about
Rosie and I wonder if she ever found love? No one writes… No one ever writes anymore… We all lose touch… Maybe I should call
someone? The water comes in and the seals all roll
around a little. In and out, in and out, rolling around. I see one yawn. He’s got big white fangs and long black whiskers.
Oh yeah, Doobe’s in South America. I’d like to call Lindsey, I think she’s in Chicago now. I’m standing in between all these
roly seals and I’m still pretty lost… But I’m alive. I’ll probably go back to L.A…. I never thought I wanted any of it to
end… 257 days… Looking for another beginning… Looking for a new place to start….

Los Angeles, CA 1993

Arty Nelson, born Pittsburgh, PA, 1965. Suburbia. Kent School. Colgate University. Work appeared in
Caffeine, bikini, Tales of the Heart.
Lives in L.A.

“I don’t want to do anything but sit on a barstool or run away. I’m in a rut and I can’t SEE it any other way… I only SEE the End… I’m blind to the beginning…It all just start and I’m alraady looking back on it.”

TECHNICOLOR PULP

With a pocket full of borrowed money and a head full of rain, Jimi sits in a pub in London, where he has traveled for no reason except that London isn’t Boston, or Manhattan, or the college where Jimi wasted four years, or the brick alleyways where he’s puked and made love and crawled and laughed at the night.

Jimi Banks is 23: went to school as a hockey player and now just skates; diseased and innocent, criminal and pure. His summer love that started on a posh island crashed on the dusty mainland. And his best friend is dead.

From London in a cloud of hashish and tobacco, booze and beer… to Paris to stay with the daughter of a banker who wants to be a patron of the arts… back to London, broke again, where a man named Rosie declares his undying love and it’s all right with Jimi if it just comes with a meal…. Jimi Banks is dodging shadows. There’s his friend, Ray, who hung himself in a gorge outside Aspen; his family who won’t return his phone calls anymore; and the vast quantities of booze he has to drink to call them.

Out of money, out of favors, Jimi is just not out of places to run.

With a work that echoes musically of Kerouac’s
On the Road
and the novels of Henry Miller and Martin Amis, Arty Nelson has written an extraordinary first novel—the first “slacker” novel and a stunning literary portrait of a disaffected generation at the end of a Technicolor century.

Michael Bröemer

A
RTY
N
ELSON
, born in Pittsburgh, PA, I965. Suburbia. Kent School. Colgate University. Works appeared in
Caffeine, bikini, Tales of the Heart.
Lives in L.A.

“TECHNICOLOR PULP
is hysterical…. Meeting Jimi Banks is like looking into a twisted mirror…. Chaos, rage, anxiety, and self-destruction wrestle for space on every page of this book.”

—David Navarro, guitarist. Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Clearly TECHNICOLOR PULP explores the spirited characters who have come to define our generation. With a fresh new perspective, the voice of Arty Nelson not only guides us abroad, but leads us on travels that transcend space and end on a journey into our souls.”

—Rob Weiss, filmmaker,
Amongst Friends

“Arty Nelson is one of the best minds of the Los Angeles coffeehouse generation, and an emerging bard.”

—Steve Appleford,
Spin
magazine

“Nelson is destined to rule the literary world.”

—
bikini
magazine

“A Henry Miller version of today’s world—a scoundrel’s tale—with
hilarious details and modern situations which, like a train wreck, you’d rather read about than experience. And here, luckily, you can.”

—Eve Babitz, columnist for
Harper’s Bazaar and
author of
Black Swans
and
Slow Days, Fast Company