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T H A N K Y O U
J.Q.D.
m.v.d.
💙
Curtains Part:
EXIT MUSIC █ ENTRY LIGHT
LOCAL CREW █ SHOT ON SITE
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𝙓𝙀𝙉𝙊𝘾𝙃𝙍𝙊𝙈𝘼
PRESENTS
█
in association with
the 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓
█
a subsidiary of Eɢᴏ ᴅᴇᖴ/ＩＬＬＵＳＩＯＮ
a cagliostrophic picture-play
█
as invoked defined dissected arranged and realized by JAMES QUENTIN DEVINE
█
in questioning time
█
a series of cracked vignettes
█
seeking ends.
█
YOUR SEARCH IS OVER
1.
INT./EXT. MINOR MANSION (HILLSIDE MODERN)
Downtown burns in the distance.
Emanating banks.
All that money.
And its interest.
Drunken fools splash and grope one another in a narrow pool.
Drinks to the side or in hand.
Lit cigarettes.
Joints.
Getting bent.
It’s one of those.
Get to the point.
Get to the plan.
Here, fine —
Buckets of beer.
Tables of wine.
The night is long.
And may well extend without end.
Powders appear.
Money is spent.
Go up, sideways.
Maybe diagonal.
“Just don’t flatline.”
Nervously.
Look around the room.
Swivel, sentinel.
Who’s doing lines?
Spotlight.
Who’s got the capsules?
Whose photo’s captured?
Compromised now.
In toxic fate.
Cupped in a hand or popped in a jowl.
Chemical miracles.
Smirk of a scowl.
Designer drugs.
And clothes as well.
Passed around like jellybeans.
And the boys and girls the same.
Surf the swell.
All’s well.
Well—
Your heart’s thumping from the weed or the speed or the gleam in some strange eye.
Hell,
What’s your going rate?
Feels like 160 bpm right now.
But maybe it’s just cold.
Los Angeles has a particular coldness.
Alien and distinct.
And here you are outdoor patio plain-T-shirted bare on a February evening foolish, playing at games of status and wealth, with scions and hangers-on with hang-ups about where they’re from.
Stealth mode or wide open.
Phoned in.
Gone-long.
Play the game of tells and tones.
The devil pins a tail unknown.
Calling spots and shots.
Lighting up the lot.
Flick, flick flick.
And they flock.
A Winston a spliff and a whiff of Backwoods.
Snorting and puffing up ill-gotten bad-goods.
All-gone.
Not a crumb.
Midnight rolls over.
Over and on.
A new day begun in sameclothes dragged-on.
Fresh air.
And fouled too.
Breathing fire.
The hourly few.
What will kill you’s already inside you.
Some predisposition.
Program.
Or tendency.
Something in the blood.
Something in the memory.
The overflowing banks of A and B and O and negativity.
Your proclivity for frolic and frivolity.
Came here to be entertained, did you?
Didn’t you?
Hell, why wouldn’t you.
A swirling carousel of banter and patter.
Frantic anecdotes.
Canned laughter let loose.
Ha-ha-ha.
Ho-ho-ho.
Hee-hee-hee.
Comes in threes.
Menage a folie.
Artistry.
Brilliant.
The light hits.
Like any other drug.
In layers and levels.
It’s incredible.
Indescribable.
But we try.
Swash of sabers.
Voices quaver.
A new spell cast in legal waivers.
Draw order.
Establish the unstable.
Shaky cameras and cocked angles.
Sofa castigated.
So far gone.
Fucked.
Abide me, heed me, and take leave of me,
𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖉 𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖑:
Imbibe of fame’s rivers at your peril.
It’s a waterfall.
They’ll have you over a barrel.
Wonderful.
2.
THE EYE DANCES
The camera floats roves and wanders.
Perpetual.
Frantic piano music accompanies.
Accomplices
Splices.
Faces blur.
Identities collapse.
Drinks are dropped.
Glasses smashed.
Accidents.
Happenstance.
Shattered vessels don’t stop the dance.
Ｃｕｔ-ｕｐ, ｃｕｔ-ｕｐ, ｃｕｔ-ｕｐ —
Cider-drunk and apple-soused.
New cups fill.
The crowd is roused.
She’s come back round again.
Someone’s ordering food.
There’s already food.
There’s going to be more food.
More.
Now.
A buffet, a bevy.
Order’s in, order’s in.
More coming.
We’re all at standing wobble drug-standard mind-boggled half-meant sweet nothings, preaching castrated gospel to the other hopeful cast members, imagining at the lens’ tilt and the flit of the light, all the while ignoring the hard flare of Actual Surveillance Cameras, present and intrusive, necks bent to survey the alien tableau, all-beamed-up Oh who the fuck knows where it goes, an issue for God’s Mind or Skynet or a spy web, tightly-orchestrated, clockwork watching over, God’s Eyes and Helicopters, light aircraft, lighter than air and everywhere, all-seen, all-scene, scammed-on shammed-up crooked and taken, money, money, money, a big fucking pile of burning money, and dead bones burnt hoisting surveyors, overseers and onlookers, reporting back to the cruel master headquarters home, that Grand Autarch sat upon a gilded throne, amused with the invention of Guilt and Shame, punch-pleased with the inhibiting effects on the shamed naked ape, fad-cladded and neurotic, shoes looking exquisite, life lacking shape.
You know.
Shit.
It’s hard to talk over the din, so you’ve gotta become one with it.
Unify.
Undo you.
A river of images.
3.
ANIMALS
Sergio sniffed deeply of Chiara’s ass, then hacked.
Dry, just the sound.
Kyack!
A percussive gag.
“You’re so lame for having pets that look like you.”
“They’re my familiars.”
Chiara’s a mewing lap-dunce, eyes bugged-out from a rhythmic pet, cheeks drawn back to reveal teeth extended in length and longing for meat-gristle, glistening otherworldly in returned diodes.
Sergio’s scooting his ass across the carpet, front legs firm and rear legs extended, exorcising his doggie hole of some irritant bungsting.
Animals at play.
They exist in the moment.
Rather than in memory.
Seeing what is in front of them.
Smelling what’s around.
Aware.
They are ancient beings.
Immune to technology.
Mimicking you for food and for friction.
Serving your expectations back to you.
Polite fictions.
A skunk’d got to Sergio some days ago so he’s bath-fresh and soft.
Chiara’s a bag of skin like any of us.
Suede touch.
Wise ridge brow.
“Sergio come here.”
And then Sergio’s a curl.
A sleeper on the sofa.
4.
FLOATING TONE POEM
Big nose on her.
Re-arranged features.
She’s everyone and no one.
Every time you look there’s a hint of a shift.
But never an answer.
Jolie laid.
That’s the term.
And you probably pronounce it wrong.
Gulliver echo.
Jolly lad.
A character beauty.
Some stories are sad.
More interesting that way.
Scars are exposed seams.
Pretty ugly’s what it means.
Adjectives.
Pretty ugly.
Like a Gainsborough.
You know.
A sort of thoroughbred.
5.
IVÁN’S POV (Vignette)
This girl keeps repeating herself.
She’s drunk.
I think her name’s Kat but it might be Cat.
No idea if it’s Katerina or Catalina or.
“This is so crazy! This is so crazy! This is so crazy!”
“Oh my god.”
Grabs your arm.
“Oh my god.”
Grabs your arm.
“Oh my god.”
Grabs your arm.
“NO WAY. NO WAY. NO WAY.”
Makes that face.
Kat is fucking annoying but she’s what’s happening.
The time to leave this party was hours ago.
Lucida’s in the next room being talked at by some rich guy with a Netflix type job, like he might have his own office, like, with, like, a door; and he’s showily showing off his showy expensive jazz records, making sure to note each disc’s rarity and costliness.
Exquisite.
I am drinking all of his scotch.
Analog warmth.
He’s brought Laphroiag.
I’ve become amphibian.
I feel a bit of amphetamine.
We’d split some MDMA.
And you know that’s always cut.
It’s a little speedy.
1-2-3 me.
3, 2, 1.
Three easy pieces.
Kilbong’d had it.
I don’t know where he’s gone.
I don’t know where he went.
Lost track of him a while ago.
He was talking to some girl’s friend.
You know what I mean?
Anyway I’ve got a low sweat I hope passes for glowgleam in the dim-lit entryway.
“Whose house is this? Whose house is this? Whose house is this?”
Catalina? Katalina.
This island of a girl.
Hurricane Kat.
She’s repeating herself.
I’m defeating myself.
“Whorehouses.”
I answer.
The bent echo my head’d offered.
Because it kind of sounded like “whose house?”
For which I’d selected.
God knows why.
It’s all I can offer.
It’s all I can do.
“Whose house is this? Whose house is this? Whose house is this?”
Her faultline jaw.
Jittering nonsense.
She’s still going.
Wants to follow the money.
Who fucking doesn’t.
Unconscionable conga.
We’re all independent pinkertons.
Why not pry loose all that’s nailed in space?
Pull up to the curb with the blinkers on and rob this fucking place.
Stab Hollywood in the face.
Chelsea carvings in a backalley chase.
OR AN AQUEDUCT.
Iván’d come here, to L.A., because it was the sum of all imagery.
The culmination.
The terminus.
The totality of television.
Stacked, knocked over, re-racked.
Fake Ohio Pasadena.
The false moon beach.
Backlots become snapshots and the memories leach.
Reality’s muddled with the screen image’s meddle.
Platonic captives in cave-in’s rubble.
You are what you wear.
And what you can pull off.
Wool over the eyes of a wolf gone soft.
You are what you can stand up straight and make eye contact in.
What you can speak from your chest in.
A guest of a guest of a guest in:
Oh, hell.
Mind’s collapsed.
What’s the fucking term?
Memories, absences . . .
Architecture, apses . . .
What the fuck is this?
An atrium?
A foyer?
A parlor?
I grew up in an apartment, man.
A vestibule?
An antechamber?
Portico?
Is this a portico?
Lucida’d know.
But she’s getting a lecture about a rare Dorothy Ashby pressing.
From pamper nepo.
Out back patio Kilbong’s laughing smoke.
Two girls.
Holding court.
I wanted to leave a while ago, but I feel duty-bound to drain these fools of their excesses, so I help myself to more scotch.
Kat? Cat?
Says, asks:
“What’s that?”
With the grace and bearing of a four year-old.
“It’s Scotch.”
“Izst whiszky?”
She slurs, approximating false Czech.
Like the name of a forgotten painter or puppeteer.
Who knows.
You make your own fun, you know.
You know.
“It is whiskey. But, like, different.”
She leans in, grabs my shirt collar.
“Izst SZPISZY whiszky?”
It’s all become a bit spittle-flecked and wreck-inflected.
I’m a car on fire.
“It is a spicy whiskey. I would say, yes. Do you like peat?”
“THIS IS PETE’S HOUSE?”
She sobers slightly at some verboten Pete unknown, in the process tipping the remains of her Riesling on the grooved hardwood, unnoticed.
I don’t bother to correct her for her fumble.
Those with glass goggles gotta stay humble.
“I don’t know whose house this is. I don’t think this is Pete’s house.”
She clutches at her chest, dramatic.
“Oh thank god.”
Eases back into drunkenness.
I’m impressed with it.
In and out, on and off.
It’s like when someone can fall asleep really fast.
Always takes me forever.
The music doesn’t stop.
The carousel.
The dream never ended nor began.
And here I am.
“Who’s Pete?”
She’s back to sprayed pawing:
“Gimme szumthe whiszky I’lltellyaallabout Pete . . .”
She’s laughing at fuck knows what.
“You know, this is a very expensive bottle.”
I lie, sort of.
Guess it’s all relative.
“Laphroiag.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve pronounced it correctly.
“Twenty-five years.”
Got that part right.
"“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
She’s alight.
“That’s crazy. That’s crazy. That’s crazy.”
Alright.
I grab someone else’s empty glass from a credenza top, pour.
She’s looping:
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
Hand it over.
“What is it?”
I break the spell.
“I love Freud and I’m 25.”
I stare blankly.
Suppressing.
Silent.
“Get this. Get this. Get this.”
I await.
“AND I was a psychology major.”
That’s crazy.
“That’s c r a z y .”
I smile.
Vaguely.
She emits a sharp noise.
Outdoor voice.
Indoor.
Some smokers drift in.
Leaving the door cracked to night air.
The canyons call to me.
Coyotes and casualties.
We speak mostly tonally.
At 3 AM and eternally.
No one’s paying attention to the words.
They’re just blurting through the blur.
And woe unto me, thwarted troubador.
Lines worth less than ever before.
6.
SPEAK; FOR THY SERVANT HEARETH
Every line’s a song.
That’s how it is for Iván.
Hears it in his head.
Suggestions.
Whispers, murmurs.
He’s a musician.
Chose him.
By disposition if not pay-for-trade.
Courting clout in a cloudy age.
Impoverished and imperiled.
Doubtless.
Whipstitched double-barreled.
Bewitching.
Ink-thin and poured into black denim.
He’s got the look.
But at the end of the day, what are we but our work?
So he wonders at his stock.
Even as he sits in riches.
Iván Vega.
Not one to work for a wage.
He’s got Lucida.
Lucida Amargosa.
The backbone of the operation.
A striver.
Like Iván.
Looking to change what’s On.
Drag draw and quarter the DJ.
Disable the mainframe.
Put it in freeplay.
He wants the AUX.
She wants the walls.
You know that hunger.
If you want at all.
Every bornwrong aristocrat needs an enabler.
H e l p.
The class lines, though faulty, couldn’t be stabler.
So it’s cheat-to-win.
Every man.
Child, woman.
For himself, her.
They them theirs.
Mine.
Filed down.
Lucida’s a sophisticate herself.
Trickle-down wealth.
Came to it through conventional means.
West-side home-owning family.
Nothing crazy.
A viscountess of sorts.
Not to discount her merits.
She’s cool.
Of course.
They’d met at a bad rave downtown.
The bad kind of bad rave.
Not the other.
Dregs of the scene filtering in 4 AM ugly-lit.
Arriving in shared rides.
Iván and Kilbong had been there already, furiously dancing to music they hated.
It was what there was to do.
They were good at that.
The doing of is.
It was how they’d met.
All fucked up at some art gallery downtown afterhours.
Riding the wave.
Where the deals really get done.
Late like this.
Dizzy and compromised.
Lucida’d been deep-drunk trying to find her friend, a terrible decision-maker named Val who’d run off to the outdoor portable toilets with Some Guy wearing a nightmare outfit of hood-up hoodie, orphaned thrift shop suit jacket and aviator sunglasses indoors near-dawn, looking like Ted K. Hole.
She searched the floor for Val but her gaze set on Iván.
Moving fluidly amidst a shuffling crowd.
Vitality drew her.
And all the black clothes.
All they ever wore, Lucida and Iván.
Black-on-black-on-black.
Staid darkness’ ease.
They looked the team they were.
It felt inevitable.
Two of a kind.
The psychic twin sought, found.
The end of odds.
Iván’d been properly goth in his schooldays.
Lucida’d toyed.
They kept the look up.
If not the make-up.
Dyed void.
Just a tinge of scene.
A tingle.
Dark electric.
And elegant.
Wack gabber music played in the warehouse.
Irony level unknown.
She danced up to him.
Graze of a breast.
He noticed.
She noticed.
And it was over.
A fated meeting.
They’d more or less lived together since.
That night turned into the next day turned into the next week sort of thing.
Things were simple:
He didn’t work, and her job was fake.
Simple.
Cafe days and cocktail nights.
Fucking for fun or teasing a fight.
They’d kept most of the energy up.
Ten years.
Though time does wear.
Creases form.
But they tend to iron out.
Business handled in-house.
Not aired out.
No.
Not like some of these morons.
Being worshippers of death their fucking was for sport and game.
Sometimes other options entertained.
→
“I’d never want to bring a human child into this post-reality shithole.”
He’d once scoffed.
“What if you could fuck me and I birthed something inhuman?”
She’d offered.
“Like what? A goat?”
“Why would it be a goat? I don’t want anything with horns coming out of me.”
“Do all goats have horns?”
“I think so.”
A search engine was not consulted.
The nonsense ensued.
“They’re born with the horns?”
“Believe so.”
“I could put a goat in you.”
“You’re such a corny Satanist wannabe.”
Iván, tempting hexes, mockingly formed an occult symbol with his hands.
“Maybe I could get you pregnant with An Idea. An Immaculate Concept, if you will.”
“Very Marshall McLaren of you.”
“It’s Malcolm McLuhan.”
“That’s what I said.”
. . .
“Did you hear that Kilbong almost got mugged the other day?”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Man, it’s been a while since we’ve seen him.”
“Yeah, it has . . .”
She put her feet up on his lap.
And wiggled her neon toes.
7.
INT. BOHEMIAN APARTMENT HOME
Books about screenwriting and camera angles and posture and posing and music and Tokyo cafes wrap the room.
Architecture.
Aspirational.
They’re renting.
A long lease.
Otherwise they’d be out of Los Angeles.
Cooked golden geese.
Hang your halo elsewhere.
It’s a character home.
Bungalow ranch style.
Built for farmhands.
Pickers, likely.
Then actors.
Film-flickers.
Flim-flam men, too.
You’d wager.
If you were a gambler.
Are you?
Iván Vega’s hair’s gone just a little silver at its black ends.
He keeps it close-cropped.
Boyish.
His outfit resembles him.
Black gone grey.
All bought used.
Like just about everything in this house.
He’s a DJ trying not to be a cook or a cleaner or a minder or a miner or waitstaff or a welder.
He’s trying not to resort to crime.
It works some of the time.
Iván doesn’t, though.
Not built for it.
Lucida’s holding it down.
Sturdy, steady.
She’s got the Big Girl Job.
Lets him keep his bullshit act up.
The allowance of outfits.
Get-ups.
Permission for letdowns.
Get down.
They’re dancing.
The music is on.
Minimal techno thrub.
They’re a couple in love.
It’s a sight to behold.
8.
NIGHT PORTERS
These motherfuckers showed up in a matte black Lincoln, long and mean.
Two of ‘em.
No idea if they were twins or real good friends.
A real “brothers or lovers?” situation.
Could be both, I guess.
Uncouth to suggest it.
They were in black velvet evening jackets, shirtless.
Black velvet trousers, belted.
Boots.
A strong look, to be sure.
Lean and ropey, ageless.
A rough 45 or vampiric 70.
Who the fuck can tell.
L.A.
One held the money and one held the drugs.
They didn’t introduce themselves.
Didn’t speak at all.
Just a hand-off to King John.
And the passing of money.
A bag for a bundle.
9.
IVÁN & KILBONG WORK THE ROOM
“So, what do you like, do, for, like, a living?”
He’s stoned in Yohji trying to social climb.
He’s on his way up off a crooked line.
“So — what do you, like, do? Like, for a living.”
His denim jacket’s splashed with liquor.
He’s hanging on-and-out; he’s a scene fixture.
"So, what do you like, do for, like, a living?"
This one seems soft but it might be a trap.
Drink your neck from the seat of your lap.
"So what do you, like, do for like a living?"
Pointed shoes and a quick wit.
A thickened tongue, gin-slicked.
"So . . . what do you like, do, for like, a living?"
Her lids are heavy.
Her looks are good.
"So—what do you like do, for like, a living?"
Should you, would you?
I think you could.
"So; what do you like do for, like, a living?"
Then that one’s got a cute haircut.
Little bob and a kitten strut.
"So: what do you like do for like, a living?"
She’s got style, she’s got grace.
Why are you making that fucking face?
"So, what do you like do for like, a living?"
It’ll get stuck that way.
You’d be fucked that way.
"So what do you like do, for like—a living?"
Then this boy’s drunk and causing trouble.
Baby-faced beneath the stubble.
"So, what do you like do—for like, a living?"
His hardness is an act.
He’s hardly up for any of that.
"So what do you like do for like a living?"
A sober man is in the corner.
Lurking from the drugged disorder.
"So . . . what do you like do for like... a living?"
Thinks to himself:
Party days’re over.
"So - what do you like do for - like - a living?"
The scene’s a wreck.
It can never recover.
"So, what, do you like do for, like, a living?"
That girl over there is on the fucking moon.
Silvertongue wagging, yakking up the room.
"So what do you like do for like a living)?"
She can’t shut the fuck up, and no one will stop her.
I think her dad’s an important doctor.
"So what do you, like, do for, like a living?"
That’s the rumor, but my mind’s full of holes.
Some guy no one knows showed up looking Old.
"So, what do you like, do for like, a living?"
Wonder if he’s supposed to be here but I’m not a cop.
If he’s come in from the rain he’s in the right spot.
"So, what do you like do, for like a, living?"
There’s that tiny girl won’t make eye contact.
Seen her a million times never did interact.
"So, what do you like do for like, a living."
Maybe tonight’s the night.
Then there’s those leather guys.
"So? What do you like do for like a living?"
I think they’re from Mexico.
One of them might be famous, but really I don’t know.
"So . . . what do you, like, do? For like, a living?"
I don’t know.
10.
LUCIDA INTERLUDE
“I don’t even smoke.”
This isn’t me.
Cigarettes and weed.
Then the drip feed of alcohol.
Steady.
Sailing.
Inhales.
Exhales.
Stale.
Chemical blood.
Toxicology stunts.
That girl over there’s staring.
And her bangs are too blunt.
Hate that scene-girl run-off shit.
Hate the jeans, hate this girl’s outfit.
Fuck her.
Take a drag.
Point one finger.
Four back.
Let us speak no more of that.
Manicure’s set on panic-room.
Nailsbit down to impending doom.
Compound interest like a Manson girl.
Spawned in the sallows of the canyon’s swirl.
Bound by duty:
Lucida’s a believer in beauty.
She grew up with it.
Trusts her own eyes.
And instincts.
Truly.
She knows Iván’s a bum.
But she can float him for a while.
He’s booked in Berlin soon.
He’s gonna blow up global style.
Truly.
Next month.
They all were.
Kilbong’s got that gallery show coming up.
At that new space, over off Western.
Lucida’d just been published.
And had photographs in a magazine.
They were all headed to the stars.
Gone sight-seeing.
11.
IF THAT’S YOUR GIRL (AMANITA)
“I’m the fungus plug.”
Dorky-looking guy.
Caps and stems in hand.
“My name is Ferguson.”
Ferguson is from Scotland, I think.
I can probably impress him by guessing it.
“You’re from Glasgow Ferguson?”
I know two cities in Scotland.
His jaw drops.
“You got me!”
He speaks in a moderately-thick Scottish accent, but the loud music makes it difficult for me to accurately process him, so please understand that Ferguson’s a more colorful character than I’m giving due, this is a genericized Ferguson for the purpose of intelligibility, okay.
“Well, I could tell you weren’t from Edinburgh . . .”
Jaw drops again.
It’s so easy to impress foreigners as an American.
Like being a dog who can kind of talk, in that way where no one actually believes the dog is talking, but it gets close enough that you can pretend at the dog’s talking, you can will the dog’s vocalizing into verbalizing and will yourself to want to understand What That Dog is Saying, and you can allow that dog to speak directly to you, to communicate with you and persuade you, to give you Commands, you could commit that dog’s will, and—
God damn, those mushrooms were strong.
I don’t know where the fuck Ferguson went.
If he was even here.
There’s Kilbong.
“Hey have you seen Ferguson?”
“No Erickson already left.”
“No, Ferguson.”
“Like, Michael Brown?”
“No. Fuck. No. The mushroom guy.”
“No, that kid got killed by the police. Why are you bringing this up? You’re bumming me out. I took mushrooms!”
“Yeah, yeah. The mushroom guy. You met the mushroom guy?”
“Torquil.”
“Ferguson.”
“Torquil was cool.”
“Fuck okay man.”
“That’s a weird name though. He sounds like medicine.”
“I guess he kind of was.”
“Are you getting any effects from it?”
“Lost time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like UFOs. Like alien abduction. Like I was driving down a rural road and dissolved.”
“Oh. Sick.”
“Kind of spooky.”
“Yeah. I’m just getting that wavy shit off the plants. That monstera’s been saying prayers for me. It’s all kind of spiritual.”
“Badass.”
“Yeah, man.”
“I feel at ease.”
“I’m kinda nervy.”
“What’s got you worried?”
“Everything . . . Everything.”
“Fuck it, let’s go dance.”
“Alright.”
12.
LOOK UP HERE MAN, I’M IN HEAVEN
It’s the Big Ship Dream again, but it’s real life.
The weed and the MDMA and the mushrooms have taken hold, floating a sunk sea of booze, carelessly mixed, Scotch and cider and wine and beer as the hours wound down.
Everyone you’ve ever known is here.
All your schoolmates.
Coworkers.
Loves, lost and found.
Friends, foes.
Those kept close.
And those estranged.
Unwanted sights and hunger pangs.
Acquaintances.
Fixations.
Frustrations.
Blood relatives.
Night relations.
The Grand Ball.
The faces all shift and slur and blur in realtime, slaw.
Your head’s a balloon but your feet move supernatural.
Captive in the rhythm of rapture.
Cavernous.
Paranoia spliced with bliss.
You don’t know it but this will be your last dance.
Now you do I suppose.
I hate to be a spoiler.
I hate to disclose.
Take the oxygen while you can.
You’ve got one life to lose.
13.
BASS MUSIC AND THE PROMISE OF ASS
The voice said it because it meant it.
Very rare nowadays.
Wasn’t just clucking.
Making noise.
There was content.
If disconcerting.
“I’m marbles.”
“Marbles?”
“You know, rolling.”
“Nobody says ‘marbles.’”
“I just did.”
“I don’t think you’re gonna get that one moving.”
“Fuck off.”
14.
WE DON’T SHOW UP
They’re all dead, every single one of them, but they still talk over each other.
Like time or air may run out:
“Well, I guess I’ve got to get used to living this way.”
“Not living.”
“Right, yeah, I— shit, yeah. Not living . . .”
“Am I flickering or solid?”
“You were always flickering.”
“I wonder if we can fly.”
“Float maybe? Levitate?”
“Like Jesus . . .”
“I wanna fly.”
“Could Jesus fly?”
“That’s what got us here . . .”
“Wait, seriously — did Jesus fly?”
“The zootgeist.”
“Like in the stories, I mean. Not in real life. I know Jesus isn’t real.”
“He’s as real as we are, now, I guess.”
“But could he fly, though? Or did he? Or he could and he chose not to?”
“I’m a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Well you’ve got a long time to change your mind.”
“I’m the ghost of Jesus.”
“We all are, you know, if you think about it.”
“Do ghosts think? Or are we just thoughts?”
“Are you high?”
“I mean, we were.”
“Can ghosts get high?”
“I guess we could try and find out . . .”
“Don’t you need, like, lungs to get high?”
“You can see me, right? I can see me. I mean I can see my hands and everything.”
“I always saw myself externally anyway. Like, on camera. Being watched . . .”
“Maybe it was satellite TV from God.”
“Could be.”
“Or maybe you had depersonalization derealization disorder.”
“What’s that?”
“Yo, it’s crazy that we’re talking about ourself in the past tense.”
“Ourselves. I think this experience settles the collective consciousness discussion.”
“What discussion?”
“Like two months ago, you got hold of those mushrooms from those Cal Tech kids you met at whatever that, like, Burning Man shit you went to was—”
“Those weren’t Burners.”
“Whatever, you wouldn’t stop going on about how all humanity’s a superorganism.”
“Yeah, if we were the ghost of a superorganism we’d be, like, a blob, like, or a Voltron thing, right? I guess.”
“Right, we’re still just us, so I think the individualism argument wins.”
“That wasn’t Burning Man shit. Just so you know.”
“Close enough.”
“You just didn’t like the way those people dressed. You didn’t mind their drugs, though.”
“Whatever, they were friendly.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”
“You’ve got all the time to learn to forgive, too, I suppose.”
“Maybe it’s cool to be dead, because you don’t have to compete for resources anymore.”
“You are resources.”
“Gross. I don’t like to think about that.”
”I guess we’re has-beens now.”
“At least we aren’t washed.”
“Were you baptized?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. Iván? — I forget if you were.”
“Nope.”
“Well I guess that wasn’t a prerequisite to get wherever we are.”
“Or maybe you guys fucked up. Maybe you failed some final judgment.”
“Did you see the Lord and his kingdom? I didn’t.”
“I can’t remember . . .”
“Me either.”
“Do you think Sergio and Chiara will try to eat our corpses?”
“We have that automatic feeder. We should be good, I’d think.”
“I don’t know, I’ve heard cats will eat their owners pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, Chiara’s probably tried snacking on you while you were sleeping.”
“Sergio’s a good boy, though. He would never.”
“Dogs are different.”
“He must be so sad.”
“God, I was so fucking scared . . . You’d both already, uh, died, and I— I had just the presence of mind to make a dash for the tray with the coke on it, or whatever we got into—”
“Coke+.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, the Coke Plus, I could feel myself going, uh, flickering, like you said, and I knew I had to get it up off the table, move it on top of the cabinet, away from Sergio and Chiara.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, I mean, you remember what happened to Johnny and Brett’s cat, what was it called?”
“Isadora.”
“Yes, Isadora.”
“That was fucked up.”
“Maybe we can visit Isadora now.”
“Should we see if mirrors work?”
“I mean, they work, but do we show up?”
“We can’t, right? We’re immaterial.”
“Group hug?”
And they stumbled right through each other.
15.
EXTRA DEATH
We are Halloween decorations setting one another off.
Less conversation more triggered samples.
“You know all my life I was forced to write for people who’d have panic attacks at the site of paragraphs or blocks of text. I wanted to write big fluffy pages. Pancake pages.”
“Fuck I miss food already.”
“And I had to make low music . . . Adapt shapes that didn’t suit me . . . Appeal to formats . . . Now I’m formless.”
“The ether . . . The shit that makes your soul burn slow.”
“Do you think we have souls?”
“We are souls.”
“What else could we be? Projections?”
“Emanations . . . Instances.”
“Deep shit.”
“We’ll never be in trouble again.”
“Never need to eat.”
“Fuuuck! Man, I miss food. Already . . .”
“Too bad, man.”
“I want to eat!”
“You can’t. You couldn’t.”
“They don’t make ghost food.”
“We’re dead meat.”
“What legends are made of.”
“True. I guess my art stands a better chance of making an impact now.”
“True.”
Kilbong laughed.
“You always worried too much.”
“I can’t lie. I feel released. I didn’t really like people. I tried to. I wanted to. I did a lot of drugs to convince myself. Ego death . . . I’d died before, I’ve died before. I’d seen it. Felt it. “
“How did the real thing compare?”
And the chattering fell, briefly.
“You know I’ll never have to sleep again.”
“We are sleep.”
“Sleep’s cousin.”
“Estranged.”
“Removed.”
JAMES QUENTIN DEVINE exhibits an amalgam of lush fascinations at the nexus of lust and death.