08. THE NEON MAZE
Los Angeles: Friday May 25th 1990
Avon Hill still haunts me.....
Avon Hill still haunts me in my dreams.......
Nightmares or whatever you might call them.......
My mum's sister owned a large, beautiful house which had this butchers shop at the bottom; her husband was a bloke called Frank....
Uncle Frank wasn't fond of me, or my mum for that matter.....
He thought interracial relationships were a curse- I was from 'bad stock'..... Wild apes who hadn't evolved like the white man... His words.....
I overheard him telling my mum one christmas when he was pissed:
"You can take the monkey out of the jungle! You can't take the jungle out of the monkey!" When your a kid, its the last you want to hear. I knew who he was referring to......
Things like that can scar you deep down.... .... Burn you on the inside.....
Can another human being truly believe that one of his own relatives is no better than a common ape?
A monkey?
Nobody wants to be thought of as the lowest denominator...... Nobody........
The house itself was beautiful- I was in awe of its beauty and grandeur....
I wanted to live in a house like that. Maybe if I lived a place like that, people wouldn't say those horrible things, I reasoned...
I knew Uncle Frank cared for me, it was just he couldn't hide his frustration at his wife's sister having a child by a black man. It was like he couldn't put it together in his head.... None of it made any sense. White and black people procreating was completely alien to him. It was all... Wrong....
Uncle Frank was just racist I suppose...... So many people were back then....
Especially from around those parts- Especially in Avon Hill; the social elite of the West Country.....
Most people are racist deep down, they just don't know it. They disguise it with religion or politics.......... It lurks in our genetics. It's just there.....
Always will be too I suppose......
Uncle Frank would always hold these large dinners at his house; being a butcher he had the best joints of beef, pork, lamb..... He gave my mum the best cuts to take home when we headed back. Back to the flat. Back to........
....... Uncle Frank bought me a load of skinhead and mod gear. I think it was his way of trying to make me more white, his way of helping me, his way of saying sorry for all hurtful things he'd said. It stuck with me a long time, the clothes and the words. Things changed after accident. I escaped Portishead and went to London. Studied English and became a writer. The shush money supporting me through the degree....
...... The gag shoved down my throat.
This lecturer said:
"Writing ultimately sets you free, it removes the obstacles that keep us bound."
I was sat with a load of middle class wet bags.... Made their day to hear that shit. They thought it was the gospel truth.....
Nothing could be further from the truth.
...... Nothing.......
Uncle Frank, I don't.... I mean....
.... Fuck.......
........... I fled Portishead. The things that had happened previously, before the accident, had made me want to leave.
I was stuck there. Stuck in a miserable town I didn't want to be in. Like most people in Portishead, I made do with second best and moaned about it in the pub after work.....
Drunk in a gloomy seaside town........
The accident and the great fire made sure I could never return. The fuse had been lit. I fucked off...
Sharpish....
I was gone..... A ghost.
...... I never looked back.. ...... Never want to either.
............. Maybe thats the problem.
Uncle Frank could be dead for all I know...... ....... I dream of Avon Hill.
I dream of Uncle Frank.......
......... People tell me its a lucid dream. It means I know its a dream, but I can do nothing to awake from it. Nothing to change anything.
Elleanor tells me:
"You have demons that are inside you, eating you alive. Seek help Antonio...." It's good advice..... I should take it.... But I don't....
..... So the dreams continue....
And there are I am... Walking into the butchers shop.
........ Uncle Frank leads me up the stairs of the long, narrow house. The brown carpet is still there, and all the dark wooden panelling on the lower walls of the staircase. I can still see the same photos that hung on the walls for years... Never moving. The photos were static, frozen in time..... Probably still there now......
....... Unkle Frank explains the house needs maintenance; he asks me to help as he can't do it on his own.
I agree, as always, sensing some sort of impending trouble that I am powerless to stop. That's the strange thing about these dreams- Some are based on memories, but I can never remember what's about to happen....
....... We enter the top of the house, the living room that looks over the park.
Uncle Frank turns to me:
"We need to steady the floors boy."
He points to a small door in the wall that I don't remember ever being there.
He tells me the floors are held by springs, long springs that are connected to the walls. These springs need to be taightened......
I tell him:
"Theres nothing behind these walls! The floors are connected to the walls."
He opens the door and points:
"Look Tony, inside boy!"
And there it is. Outside of the room are springs holding the floors. The springs are attached to the brick walls. There are thin, wooden beams that run between the springs.
Uncle Frank hands me a heavily rusted spanner, instructing me to walk along the beams to where the nuts and bolts hold the springs. Before I can explain about my missing foot we're off, along the beams to the nuts and bolts in the wall.
Rust everywhere- The spanner in my hand; the long springs holding the floors; the nuts and bolts in the walls.... Everything is rusting. Everything is slowly decaying. The air is just a thick, musty odour.
"House was built a long time ago boy," Uncle Frank says, attaching his spanner to the bolt and twisting with ease. He smiles at me and motions for me to do the same.
As I grip my spanner, I feel the rust burn in into the pores in the palm of my hand- The pores absorbing the dead, decomposing metal....
Scratching....
Hurting...
Burning......
I twist the spanner, but the nut around the bolt won't move.
Uncle Frank says:
"Push harder boy! You have to push harder!" I push harder.
Then I lose my balance. I fall......
..... Past hundreds of empty floors.
The rusty springs pop as I fall through them. Down and down and down.
As I try to break my fall, the rusty thick springs tear the flesh from my hands, all my finger bones are exposed, open.
Then I hit the bottom, face down in a corner, below the bottom of the butchers shop. Unable to move or roll over.
The dust from god knows how many years burns my sinus as I breathe it in.
My burning sinus! My buring hands!
.... My missing foot......
...... I can't get up, my hands-
I'm fucking paralyized, unable to move.
I have the dream over and over again. Always when I don't expect it.
The worst part is that I seem not to be able to remember it when I'm dreaming and I fall to the same fate every time.
....... I was having that exact same dream when Hymie woke me up. Banging on the door.
It was the late afternoon. I dozed off in the dank, Californian heat after a couple of drinks. Hymie said nothing. He just sat and stared straight ahead in the car. Not one word. Nothing......
We drove across Los Angeles in that dank heat; we walked into a rather official looking building....
Hymie said nothing.
Nothing.....
I could feel his eyes burn through the two way black screen as the guy explained to me what a polygraph test is: A lie detector.
He asked me if the lighthouse was real.
YES.
He asked me if I was captured and tortured.
YES.
He asked me if I managed to escape.
YES.
The whole time I was answering the questions, I could feel Hymies eyes burn through the glass, into my soul.
Hymie was a nervous wreck....
Back in the car back he looked pale and distracted. Hymie was shaken.
Badly shaken.....
He stopped at a liquor store, bought a bottle of Port Of Saint Louis. He cracked the cap, took a swig and passed me the bottle. He made no eye contact. He said nothing.
He grabbed the cigarettes from my blazer pocket and lit one, his hands were shaking as he lit up.
"Fuck!" He finally said. "It was all true, every bit. You passed every fuckin' question! You aced the damn test!"
He rubbed his head and tapped the dash:
"I had to know Tony..... You know that right?" Of course I knew, and I told him.
I would have done the same thing myself. Now Hymie knows.
He knows the truth. It hurts him.
"Y'know Tone..... I think Jeff was the lucky one...... I mean, he never got taken underneath that damn lighthouse," Hymie says, staring into the distance. "Vegas....."
"What?"
Hymie has the annoying habit of switching the topic of conversation in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes mid sentence.
"Vegas! Casinos, girls, booze.... Vegas!"
I sit there stunned:
"What the fuck are you talking about Hymie?"
He rolls his eyes. Hymie rolls his eyes when you frustrate him and he wants you to feel stupid.
"Look, you're here to plug the book right?"
"Right."
"Lets take a vacation. I feel bad about making you take the polygraph n shit y'know... Vegas! On me! You and me, we'll turn the strip red!"
"Thats what I'm afraid of Hymie!"
"C'mon Tone, let me make it up to you," he says, flashing those pearly whites.
"No drugs Hymie! I'm fucking serious!"
"Not even a bit of blow?" He laughs, unscrewing the bottle cap.
"Hymie, I'm serious..."
"Just a little coke?"
"Jesus Hymie, your like-"
"A little coke?..... With your Port Of Saint Louis?" Hymies in hysterics- I'm stoney faced.
I hate it when he doesn't take me seriously, when he doesn't listen.....
"Ahhh c'mon asshole! Lighten the fuck up Tone! You basketball throwing apes love pussy and weed!" He says before breaking into the same terrible Rastafarian accent he does constantly:
"Yeahh mohnn, grab de light and blaze dah ju ju reeeeferrr....."
Now he's pissing me off. Big time:
"Firstly, I'm not Jamaican. Secondly, what about yous lot? Spend your lives counting money, wearing stupid hats and growing beards."
I've regretted what I've said before I've finished the sentence- He's brought me down to his level. Hymie chokes on the booze and spits some of it over the dash board. He can't breathe he's laughing so much.
I can't stay serious.
Both of us are laughing our heads off.....
Hymies trying to speak between laughing and trying to breathe:
"We're all fucked man..... The Jews are mean as shit... The blacks are.... Basketball throwing apes..... The Irish are alcoholics..... The English are racist...."
I can't breathe either, I'm caught in a whirlwind of hysterics. The laughter has blown away the tension and shock.
Hymie continues:
"We're all fucked! Each and everyone of us! Fucked dude......"
I look out of the window, gazing at the hotel as the evening draws in:
"Okay.... We do Vegas! But two things: Firstly, let me go and do some writing..... In peace..... Secondly, no drugs.... Deal?"
"Sure thing Tone," Hymie salutes, "it's good to see you've lightened up!"
"I could say the same for you!" I respond, snatching back the bottle and a huge taking a swig.
"Tomorrow?"
"Yeah dude..... 'Bout 2.... I'll pick you up......"
As I exit the car, an elderly lady approaches, asking for the time. She barely has time to ask the question- Hymies interrupted:
"HEY LADY! WHAT ARE DOING TALKIN' TO THIS BASKETBAWL THROWING APE?! HE JUST WANTS TO SELL YOU REEFER!"
And with that?
He driven off. Speeding down the road, his arm out of the window flipping me the bird. Fucking Hymie.... Pure class.....
I'll probably live to regret this trip to Vegas. The poor woman is frozen is shock.
I leave her with the time and head back inside. Past the receptionist who politely nods. ..... Back to my room to be alone.
...... Before I can hit the typewriter, the phone rings. ........ He we go......
The worst part is that I know what's happening- I'm having another daylight hallucination. I know what it is, but I can't stop myself from picking up the phone.
"Hello?"
I can hear voices.....
..... Voices from the past.
It's me and Tobey talking, back in the hospital canteen... Back in 1982. I'm shaking as I hold the receiver in my hand. ..... The devil himself is taunting me....
I can hear the conversation. Tobey is telling me about tattoos he's going to be getting. I remember the conversation. I've relived it over and over again in my head..... Wishing Tobey was alive; wishing he was still here; wishing we hadn't gone to the party that night....
..... Wanting to start over, genuinely wanting to start all over again.
My hands are shaking- I can barely keep the receiver to my ear.
All I wanted to do tonight was write. I have the typewriter set up, a sheet of white A4 set in it already....
Here I am....
Dreaming of a dead kid.......
Dreaming of Tobey..... His life was just beginning, 18 years old..... Dead...
Because of me.....
Regardless of what the courts say; regardless of what Hymie says.....
As the conversation is going on, sad piano music seems to be playing in the background. Now I am being taunted, it's the same piano music that I hear in my nightmares.... Nightmares about Tobey.....
I see visions inside my head; I see snapshots of Tobey in the pub and at work; I see his mums mantlepiece with photos of Tobey as a baby; photos of him and his dad.......
Torture.....
This is TORTURE!
Just as I am about to break down hearing his voice, I start choking again.
MY THROAT IS BURNING! THERE'S SMOKE TRAPPED IN MY THROAT! SMOKE FROM OLD WOOD! WOOD FROM CENTURIES PAST!
I need to calm down... I can't-
I'M CHOKING! I'M FUCKING CHOKING! THE WOOD IS BURNING! MY SKIN IS BURNING! THE LIGHTHOUSE IS ON FUCKING FIRE! BURNING AWAY.... THOSE CUNTS ARE BEING BURNED ALIVE!! SMOKE TRAPPED IN MY LUNGS!
C'mon Tony! Focus son!
I'M CHOKING! I'M CHOKING! I'M FUCKING-CHOKING!!
As I lie on the floor of the room, I close my eyes. Light.
I'm blinded by the beam from the lighthouse. The beam shot out into the night sky!
I'm back on the wet grass, listening to waves crash, seeing the light in the black sky as my skin burns.... Rufus may have put the fire out, but-
...... I crawl along the carpet to the bathroom and try to stand up.
.... Steady myself....
I'm shaking, hands clutching the sink in the bathroom. I look up.
There he is.
TOBEY!
This time, I don't want to turn around so he can disappear down a rabbit hole.
I want to speak to him:
"Tobey......."
He glares ahead into the mirror..... Those big, black holes in his head where his eyes used to be....
"Tobey......"
I haven't turned the light on, the light from the room outside gives a strange orange glow.
"Hows Jeff?" He asks. "Hows Jeff?"
"Jeff is in a hospital," I tell him. "How are you Tobey?" "Cold," he whispers. My heart breaks with that word.
"What can I do to make you warm?"
He says nothing, just stares ahead....
He looks exactly like he did on that night.... Back in '82.....
That fucking horrible, cold night in November.....
The night that changed my life forever. The last night I had both my feet.....
I just stare at him: Thin, pale face and shaven head; two large, gaping black holes where is eyes used to be....
"I look up to you Tony, I wanna be like you!" He says.
I remember those words, I remember him saying it the first time I took him to the pub after work.
He was pissed after two drinks. He said he wanted to be like me: Good clothes.... Girlfriends....
Popular......
"Not like me Tobey, I'm not the same. I'm not Tony anymore.. He's dead too! That Tony is dead too!"
He stares ahead.
I continue on:
"I'm a cripple now, I use a cane to walk.... My hair has turned grey. Tobey I'm sorry...." He stares straight ahead.
"Tobey, I'm fucking sorry........."
He cracks his head right back and lets out a strange gargling sound. Its disturbing and I want him to stop.
Immiediately!
I turn to face him.
Just to face him, make him stop that terrible sound. He's gone again.
....... Back down the rabbit hole. Lost somewhere in a moment in time.