The Eden Express (23 page)

And it wasn’t just music and musicians. Poets, painters, writers, historical figures, movie stars, old friends. Some I invited, some showed up all on their own.

Pain and anguish was all that came from trying to maintain contact with the world as I had known it, a world I was no longer able to do anything or be anything in, a world where Virginia and my father were dead and all sorts of other awful things were happening. The nice thing happened when I just gave up on all that.

TIME TO GO. My father and others had wanted to tell me but things moved too fast. There was no way to get word to me through normal channels, but somehow I had caught on. Not fully maybe, but enough.

One big clue was a line in my father’s last letter to me. He was talking about his teaching at Harvard and how he was giving it up. “At least it gave me a chance to get to know people who are at home on Earth.” If he wasn’t at home on Earth, then where was he at home? Was I too not really of the Earth? Did he owe allegiance to some other place? In the crunch, would he sell Earth down the river? Was I going to have to choose between Earth and my father?

The overall tone of the letter was apologetic. His overall tone for the past couple of years had been apologetic. What was he apologizing for? He knew I didn’t dig his New York City fame and fortune bit and the shit he was putting Mother through. He was always saying he had been a not so hot father, which was absurd. But there seemed to be something else he was apologizing for. Something much bigger.

He and some of the other voices kept trying to get me to curse him. There were numerous indications that that would make things a lot easier for me, but I couldn’t get into it. There’s a Thoreau quote I like: “No man ever profited by cursing his father, no matter how much a curse his father was to him.” And my father has been anything but a curse to me.

It was time for everyone who wasn’t really at home on Earth to split. If only we could get the hell out of the way and let things take their course. We were nuns milling about in between two opposing armies, keeping both sides from seeing each other except through our eyes. Between man and God, between the living and the dead, the past and the future, between blacks and whites, young and old, men and women.

Maybe a good battle would clear the air. After the dust settled something better could be built. But no matter what side I chose, no matter how the lines were drawn, I was pretty sure that I’d be purged afterward. My interests were in the ambiguity. I had nothing to gain
by things becoming clear and everything to lose. That’s why I was milling around unarmed in the middle of all those battlefields.

But the time when ambiguity could stay was past. I either had to be as big a jerk as everyone else or get the fuck out of the way.

 

FEBRUARY 14: VALENTINE’S DAY. Oh, God, it was awful. The end. So fucking hopeless, so fucking lonely. And getting more and more so and worse and worse. And harder and harder to hang on. And oh, Mother, how did your poor son end up in such a depressing hopeless meaningless mess? And oh, Father, what’s gone so terribly wrong?

No more chances. No more people, trees, music, dogs. No more anything.

But then suddenly I had allies. “I thought you guys would never get here.” Simon and my father, or damn convincing hallucinations, were holding me up and talking about getting me the hell out of that apartment. I hadn’t been allowed outside since my nude sprint around the block.

We were in a car going somewhere. The fuckers didn’t have me yet. My waiting game had paid off. I had allies.

I’d give almost anything for a tape of my ride to the hospital. My father had a lot on his mind, but still, not to have brought along a recorder verges on criminal neglect. My finest rave is lost forever unless you believe in that big cassette in the sky.

I didn’t think my rave was being lost at the time. I didn’t know it was just a normal day with a normal father and a normal friend of his son taking his son who had gone crazy to the sort of place you normally take someone who’s gone crazy.

It was bop talk. Like a ’50s DJ. I wasn’t thinking, it was just all there. Words a mile a minute. No second thoughts. No need or time for them. Music.

Wazzzzzzzzzzzz Wassa what I thought my rave-a-rap a’ doin’.
Passwords. Getting through to different teams and getting them to climb aboard. Start a bandwagon. For what to start a bandwagon? For to show those fuckers for to keep life going. I had something that made H-bombs look like ladyfingers. I had rhythm. And ain’t no mother fucker nowhere nohow gonna take it away.

“Hey Giuseppe, how good you think that joker swim with some nice new cement booties?”

“Get the fuck out of the way. The team is coming together, coming through. Anybody I ain’t talkin’ to ain’t gonna get talked to by nobody. Climb aboard or get run the fuck over, Jack. Get with it, Jack, or get off it.”

I had some modest goals. Like letting a few people know I wasn’t dead, that I was still in there somewhere. That I was salvageable. I had some immodest goals, like saving the world.

One thing a tape of my ride to the hospital would show was how I was responding to outside events. It was a dialogue. I’d give some sort of a blues rap and then there’d be some horn or something which was a “yes” or “amen” from all blues freaks. I’d do a Mafia thing and they’d answer a woman’s thing and they’d say yes yes. A video tape would be even better. Flashing neon signs and I had some very good raps. Jackhammers had some very encouraging things to say. And big diesel trucks and fire sirens. Who would be dumb enough to try to mess with me and Mack trucks, sirens, electricity, jackhammers, and traffic lights all on my side?

Hospital. Back at the apartment Simon had asked me if I was ready to go to the hospital. Sure I’m ready to go to the hospital. I’ll go anywhere. Father seems very worried, very nervous. I guess there’s no time to ask questions. Maybe everything will be explained at the hospital.

Remember Lot’s wife. Full speed ahead. This train is bound for glory. Simon’s driving beautifully, the car’s running perfectly. Who’s against us? How can we lose? We’re on our way, great God, we’re on our way.

The shifting is music to my ears and the lights are all turning green.
Hold on tight, we’re goin’ to make it. We’re passing everything on the road, and I hear myself rapping, cursing nonstop, hitting every password just right.

And Simon gives a “Wa hoo,” double-clutches down to third, and passes another car. What a ride!

Why are they taking me to a hospital? Why is everything whizzing by faster and faster? Why am I holding my breath? Why do I feel so strange? Whatever is wrong is very strange. This will doubtless be a very strange hospital.

When the car finally came to a stop, the place looked like the Hyannisport Kennedy compound. I complimented Simon on his driving. My father and Simon turned and looked at me somberly.

When they left me, when three guys dressed in white started walking me down that long hall, half holding me up, half holding me down, I understood. I had gone too far. I was putting too much on the line. Simon and my father couldn’t go the whole way with me.

In a way, it was a relief not having any allies any more. Now if I fucked up, I fucked up on my own. I wouldn’t drag a lot of people through the shit with me. But maybe it was just a holding action. They were putting me in cold storage and going out to get more allies.

Clunk, into that little room. Cuzzzunk, a huge mother bolt ran the whole width of the door. A separation chamber? No one could breathe the sort of stuff I had to breathe to keep alive.

A soft voice through the door: “Mr. Vonnegut, would you like something to eat?”

“If you can cook it, honey, I can fuck it.”

 

One of the many worst things about being nuts was being so goddamned important. Who was I that such powerful mysterious forces were buggering around with my life? One team would come through cramming my head full of new knowledge, the next would sneak in
and erase all the new stuff plus a lot of the old. I’d be crucified and resurrected several times a day.

If I died lots of wonderful things would happen. If I died lots of awful things would happen. I was a rag doll between two bull mastiffs with very little way to know which one I wanted to get me, let alone have any say in the matter.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR GODS TO STAND UP FOR BASTARDS. The voice didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me it was Shakespeare.

As usual, it seemed like the voices were trying to help, trying to give me some clue about what was going on. As usual, it didn’t help much. Who was and who wasn’t a bastard? What sort of things are gods and bastards going to do? When is now?

“Now is the time for gods to stand up for bastards.” Hmmmm. Is this good news or bad news? Am I a bastard or am I one of the guys the bastards and gods are going to kick the shit out of? How do you tell? Even biologically it’s hard to be absolutely sure, and I doubt that that’s what’s the issue. It seems too petty for the gods to get caught up in.

If bastard just means mean nasty people, I don’t see why the gods would feel the need to stand up for them. Mean nasty people seem to be doing just fine without any help. After a certain amount of time of the gods standing up for a bastard, wouldn’t he stop being a bastard and become more and more legitimate? And then wouldn’t the people the gods had not stood up for become bastards? Is a bastard’s legitimate issue a bastard or legitimate? A bastard’s bastard?

Some sort of social upheaval? It’s only fair but it will probably be pretty violent and ugly. Bastards aren’t called bastards for nothing. But all in all I’m more or less inclined to go along with the idea. It’ll give everyone a chance to walk around in the other guy’s shoes.

Philosophical sympathies for and against gods standing up for bastards aside for the moment, just where does this leave me? Inasmuch as I am a white middle-class American heterosexual male, I guess I’ll
get my ass kicked in. Inasmuch as I’m a down-under hippie revolutionary, alienated from the reins of power and persecuted by cops, I imagine I’m eligible for some sort of aid under the gods-for-bastards program. I guess what it boils down to is whether or not I’ve shat on more people than have shat on me.

If there’s going to be any fairness to this thing at all, it will have to be on a situational basis. Though I suppose bringing fairness into it will probably be considered whining and not very wise, as most notions of fairness and morality are used against bastards to support the status quo.

My best bet is probably to rid myself of any notions of entitlement I might have hanging around. Just a little added incentive to carry out the sort of overhaul I’ve always had in mind. What I’ll really get my ass kicked in for is any notion that I’m Virginia’s legitimate lover. That makes Vincent eligible for support under this gods-for-bastards program. The same probably holds true for poor Ma in the Pops-and-new-woman situation. I should just forget Virginia and go bust up someone else’s thing.

I was sorry I inherited money, but glad my bundle wasn’t a super-whopper. Sorry I owned a car, but glad it was just a VW.

 

HOLLYWOOD HOSPITAL. WHAT’S IN A NAME? If you were terribly confused, desperately trying to get your bearings without the faintest idea of where you were or what was happening, if you finally got your mouth and tongue to work right and finally managed to ask “Where am I?” what would be the worst possible thing someone could tell you?

I suppose that, my mind being in the shape it was, I would have managed to get something strange out of whatever anyone said. I would have anagrammed almost any name into something perfectly wonderful or perfectly terrible. But Hollywood?

That one didn’t need much work. It didn’t call on my knowledge of medieval mysticism or Russian lit.

After chewing on that awhile and getting my words to work right again: “Hollywood where?”

“Fifth Avenue.”

I was too dazed to manage another question but the orderly volunteered some additional information. “New Westminster.”

“Tower of London, man for all season.” At last, a use for my liberal arts education.

If being in Hollywood on Fifth Avenue in New Westminster isn’t being caught in a time-space warp, what is?

“It all fits except where is Iowa City?” But the orderly was gone and the door was locked.

 

Well, so here I am in a mental hospital. It took a while for it to sink in. In a way, I knew it all along. Simon and my father had talked about it and I had been able to pick up on some of what they were saying. The nurses and orderlies, the little room, the needles in the ass, it all added up: mental hospital.

It took a while before I was able to pay much attention to the fact. I was all taken up with voices, visions and all. I vaguely knew I was in a mental hospital but it wasn’t any different from being anywhere else. Where I was was beside the point.