The Fan Man (5 page)

Here is the telephone, man, right by her foot, her little delicate oriental foot, which I caress with my sensitized dialing finger, dial … dial …

“Hello, man, this is Horse Badorties, how’s it going … great, man, run through another 5000 sheets … I’ll be in tomorrow with a school bus to pick it all up … right, man, and listen, there’s just one more thing, man … hold on a moment, man… hold … I …” Have to touch this chick, man, run my hand up her legs, man, lift her skirt up to her black Chinese underwear with red dragons on it. Man, I must get a shipload of this underwear to give out with fans to the entire CHORUS!

“Where can I lay my skirt, I don’t want to get it all greasy.”

“There must be a spot around here somewhere, baby … I don’t know … you better keep it under your arm.”

“Take that scratchy old jacket off,” she says, playfully removing my jacket.

“Be careful where you lay that jacket down, baby. I might not be able to find it again.”

We struggle around in the junk, man, trying to find a place to lie down, but it is not safe on the floor, even the roaches are going around in little paper boats. “We’ll have to do it standing up, baby.”

She reaches for my Horse Badorties pants, man, and I am knocked off balance, and we topple, down into the unknown impossible-to-describe trash pile. We are rolling around in the dark contents–old loaf of bread, bicycle tire, bunch of string in peanut oil, bumping weird greasy things and slimey feelings and sand and water, lid of a tin can floating by on a sponge. There’s my book on telepathy with a roach on page twelve reading about the Dalai Lama. I cannot get my prick into the chick yet, man, as I have just remembered another phone call which I must make, man. It should be made now, man, because one thing I don’t dig is
coitus interruptus
, so I’d better make the call before we officially begin balling.

“This will just take a minute, baby, I have to call a junkyard in New Jersey, the owner is waiting for me to confirm a school bus, just relax, baby, while I dial.”

Direct dialing, man, straight to the junkyard. My complicated life, man. There are so many things to handle at once when you are head of the Fourth Street Music Academy and must purchase a school bus to carry fifteen-year-old chicks around in, from state to state. We’re going to live in that school bus, man, and put beds in it and a washing machine.

“Hello? … hello, Mr. Thorne, how are you doing, man … this is Horse Badorties in New York City … yes, man, right … I wanted to tell you I will be over tomorrow to purchase the school bus, so please don’t sell it to any other traveling artist. Yes, I’ll be there about noontime … right … so long, man… .”

“Maybe if we go in the other room,” says the chick, “we could find a place to lay down.”

Possibly she is right, man, and so we fight our way across the abominable sea of trash … abominable, man, wait a second. “Dig, baby, there is my rented typewriter, right there, under that pile of used noodles, and dig, baby, I am going to write an article IMMEDIATELY for
Argosy
magazine about an enormous footprint found in Central Asia.”

“There’s even more junk in this room,” she says, looking into my Horse Badorties bedroom.

“Right, baby, but if we crawled up on top of these boxes of sheet music we could perform a fugue, come on, baby, let’s try.”

It is the perfect place to screw, man, because it is better than a music lesson, the chick will assimilate directly through her ass cheeks the music of the Love Chorus.

“That’s it, baby, just crawl up there, I’m right behind you.”

Crawling up from box to box, man, up to a platform of other boxes stuffed with sheet music, and now, man, NOW, high above the wet filthy floor, in our heavenly tower of sheet music, this fifteen-year-old Chinese chick is giving me her sweet little meatbun.

Man, what is that ripping sound, that collapsing wet cardboard tearing sound, it is the boxes, man, falling apart below us, man, and down, man, down once again into the darkness we are falling with sheet music flying in all directions, hitting other boxes we go falling through them breaking them apart and falling further down, into the water, splash, here, man, come the roaches with a lifeboat.

All right, man, we’ll just have to screw on the floor in a pile of old dishrags and a rubber overshoe. Now is the time, man, to give her the downbeat.

“I have to go,” she says, standing up.

“Go? Baby, we just got here. Come on, baby, there’s plenty of time.”

“I have to be home by ten o’clock,” she says, putting on her skirt. Fifteen-year-old chicks, man, do anything, fuck anybody, and be home by ten o’clock. I don’t have the strength to protest, man, I’ve lost my suit jacket, I’ve wrecked fifteen boxes of sheet music, forgot to buy teaballs, and as a result am not getting balled. The gods, man, arrange everything. Maybe they will arrange for her to return tomorrow night, when I have my school bus and can drive her home. Man, I’m so tired from climbing up those boxes and falling down. I’ve got to find my bed, man, and get some
zzzzzzz’s
.

Horse Badorties having dream: Dream he is running around in a circle with elephants, hippopotamus. Teaching them to sing harmony. And here’s a bear, man, riding a tricycle, carrying a hot dog umbrella.

Horse Badorties’ dream: Walking up great mountain of paper bags tin cans smoking bones walking up tremendous mountain of trash. The people of the village are afraid to climb the mountain of trash because no one has ever climbed it and lived to tell the tale. Impossible maze too much piles of junk everywhere you turn. Lose balance slip sink down through old eggshells, cardboard boxes, coffee grounds, melted plastic. Man went out there up to Great Trash Mountain and was never seen again. Thousand old sardine cans in a pile flashing blinding light. Stuff everywhere to confuse you and nobody ever found their way out of it.

Horse Badorties walks up it easy. He walks up the great mountain of trash one two three, man. Horse Badorties’ own backyard, that’s all this Mountain of Trash is, man. Simplest thing in the world to climb climbing up up up

Horse Badorties dreaming: Old medieval village, tell by thatched-roof cottages. Horse Badorties goes into sunlit meadow where old-type people in capes weird gowns cloaks stand together, holding precious valuable sheet music, and Horse Badorties is conducting them. Making perfect chords, Maestro Badorties is at the center of the golden meadow light with golden birds flying up in the sky

Dream Horse Badorties: Dreaming he is in a bathtub or toilet or some kind of water-basin. A dark figure above him, pushes a screen down over him, pushing him into the water. Where’s my fan, man. Horse Badorties will knock off all ugly mothers of imagination!

Horse Badorties waking up. Horse Badorties in fucking bed of pain. I’m sleeping all night in a bed of rocks, man, some kind of plastic sword in my back. What time is it, man, what universe am I in?

Horse Badorties waking up oh no not another day Horse Badorties, not another day of running around buying school bus, selling fans, going crazy. You don’t want another day. Go back to sleep in your junk pile, man, catch a few more
zzzzzz’s
. Snuggle back down into empty milk carton, valuable treasures, sink back down into. Remove wax from eardrums hear better, make small figures, start ear-wax museum. To sleep again Horse Badorties to sleep.

Horse Badorties dream he walking along and a flying saucer man is coming after him.

A knocking at the door, man, I have to get up and answer the door, man, stumbling falling across the room to the door.

“Yes, who is it?”

“Luke”

“Right, come on in, man,” Luke, man, cat lives down the hall in the only other occupied pad on this floor. The other two pads are empty, man, and I am going to get them, soon and somehow.

“I’m going to Japan, Horse.”

“You are, man? That means, man, we can get fans directly from Tokyo and eliminate the middleman, man. We can work a fantastic import-export deal, man, and not make any money.”

“I’m going to enter a Buddhist monastery, Horse. No more deals.”

“These fans, man, are religious objects. Half the time they don’t work, man. Nirvana fans, man, perfectly motionless. Consider them on that basis and send me a hundred as soon as you get there, for distribution here among fifteen-year-old chicks.”

“I don’t know where the landlord is, Horse. Will you give him the key to my apartment for me?”

“Gladly, man. I would consider it a privilege to serve you in this way, seeing as you are entering the religious life.”

“Thanks, Horse. Take care of yourself.”

“Just answer me one question, man: That little bag you are carrying, no bigger than a gum-bag, in which only a toothbrush and safety razor could fit–is that all you are taking with you to Japan?”

“That’s all, Horse.”

“Incredible, man. I plan to go to Japan myself, next year, when I buy a 747 super-fortress flying boxcar, man, to take all my stuff with me, and bring fans back. I’ll see you then, man, I’ll see you in Japan next year, man, stay cool.”

There goes Luke, man, down the steps for the last time, to a Buddhist monastery. He’s on the Path, man, and so am I, directly down the hallway to his pad, man. Opening the door, and going inside. How neat, man, just like a monk’s cell–bare, everything in place, only the essential objects. My new pad, man. All it needs is a few homey Horse Badorties touches. In fact, man, since the landlord has evicted me out of my Number One Pad, I will now move into this Number Two Pad. This is my lucky day, man, a brand-new pad. A new pad and a second-hand school bus, which reminds me, man, I must get out of my new pad AT ONCE and go to New Jersey, man.

Now, man, that I am outside my two-pads in the fresh air and on the way to New Jersey, let me sit down on this Tompkins Square Park bench and eat my newly-purchased container of yogurt. Take into my person tiny Transylvanian bacteria which will digest the valuable precious contents of my stomach for me. Where, man, is the spoon I should have put in my satchel?

No spoon, man. I must find one, that is definite. However, I do not wish to travel back to my Horse Badorties two-pads as I will only get locked in a repetitive cycle and be there all day. I must find a spoon out here, in the world. Shouldering my umbrella, man, I walk on, knowing that a spoon will turn up.

What is that music I hear, man, floating out over Fifth Street? That is fantastic saxophone playing, man. Somewhere in one of these buildings, man, I must find the source of that music and sign the saxophone player into the Love Chorus.

Where exactly is it coming from, man. Seems to be emanating from this brick building here which is falling down. Filthy half-starved wild dog in the doorway, growling over a chicken bone.

"Stand aside, man."

Definitely, man, the saxophone music is coming from up there, up these stairs. The music of a finished artist, man, like myself. Finished and done for. I wonder what music school he was thrown out of. I am getting closer to the sound, man, climbing up the stairs. How beautiful the way that saxophone drowns out the music of all the Puerto Rican radio stations playing in this building.

It seems to be coming from this floor. Yes, man, it is coming from that door at the end of the hallway. A very advanced sound, man, the river-flowing ego-gone supreme-school sound and I am beating on the door the orchestral tom-tom. Saxophone playing stops.

Door opening, spaced-out suspicious paranoid saxophone player staring at me, man, with his ax in his hand.

“Was that saxophone playing coming from here, man?”

“No, man, it wasn’t.”

“It was great playing, man.”

“All right, man, that’s different.”

“Exactly, man, and now that we understand each other, just tell me one thing, man, one especially important fact about your musical development, man, and that is, man, do you have somewhere in your pad, man, a spoon so I can eat this motherfucking container of Bulgarian yogurt.”

“Yeah, man, I guess I do, come on in.”

“Man, that yogurt has given me new strength and vitality, man, I’m ready to leap over a tall building in a single bound, help me to the door, man, I have terrible indigestion, man, from those motherfucking Transylvanian bacteria, man.”

“Why don’t you smoke a little of this, man?”

“You’re right, man. Let’s be civilized.”

The sax player takes out a stash of Peruvian mango skins, the mild vegetable stimulant to help you see the iguanas in your eyeballs.

“Allow me to ignite it with my Japanese match, man. ”

Scratch… scratch

“Here, man, try a wooden match.”

“Right, man … man… .” Smoking Peruvian mango, man, a green high, speaking of which, man, I have to get on the highway to New Jersey and buy my school bus. “Dig, man, I’ve got to split, man. I’ll see you tonight at St. Nancy’s Church on the Bowery.”

“OK, man, I’ll try to make it.”