03. STUDIO LIGHTS
Los Angeles: Thursday 24th May 1990.
I have my head shoved into the toilet bowl; my nose is touching the water beneath...... Not through choice....
..... I'm trying to block out the light from the outside world...... This is all.....
....... I need......... To.........
........ Block out the monsters..... There in the studio....... ...... Birdbrains..... Savages........
...... Block out the monsters in my mind- The demons that haunt me constantly......... Bastard tormentors.....
Pegasus......
Oh Jesus....
..... Pegasus........
I'm pretty sure that Toby is a figment of my imagination..... Some sort of paranoid delusion which my mind presents to speed up my downward spiral into self-destruction; the very thing every angst ridden writer claims drives them to write and be great.
With my head jammed into the toilet bowl, I have the peace I need right now. I can still taste the smoke, it's still choking me.....
I briefly catch my reflection in the toilet water as my head tilts and let's a small beam of light hit the surface. I see my eyes and the shadow from the bridge of my nose. It could be anyone.....
I plunge my head deeper into the bowl, now there's nothing.....
....... Nothing at all.....
.... For what feels like a brief moment in time, I'm at peace....
I close my eyes tightly and then open them, a beam of light hits the water and I'm back......... ....... Back in Portishead.......
Outside the lighthouse, Rufus is holding me. I can see the lighthouse beam blast out into the night sky. A long beam of light to guide the ships home. My skin is burnt, my skin is burning....
....... I'm choking again.
The black smoke is trapped in my throat, my eyes are watering. I can-
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Somebody is knocking on the cubicle door. Who the fuck is this? I'm choking. The smoke is-
"HEY ASSHOLE! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED BACK THERE?! THAT WAS PRIME TIME TELEVISION!"
Hymie.......
"Hymie, give me a minute..."
I pull my head out of the bowl, back to reality. I can still the taste the smoke, charred wood from centuries ago.......
"You okay pal?"
Under the cubicle door I can see Hymies loafers- A big gold buckle, alligator skin.....
"Hymie, mate.... Please... Just a minute...."
The loafers don't move. I pick my stick up off the floor. I'm still on my knees.
"I'm gonna kick the shit outta that asshole Len! That motherfucker has been-"
"HYMIE! GIVE-ME-A-FUCKING-MINUTE!" Please Hymie.... Just a minute.... Give me some peace......
Tobey is a daylight hallucination... Or god, paying his respects.....
"Okay Tony. I'm gonna shoot the shit with Max," Hymie says. I hear his footsteps echo off the walls as he makes his exit- Loudly. The toilet door slowly closes behind him. I slide the lock and step out.
Past the mirror and out into the corridor.
This feels like a dream..... Some sort of twisted nightmare.... My whole life has felt like..... A nightmare........
Night time in Los Angeles feels eerie. As I step out of the car park, I realise the taste of smoke has now gone.
For how long?
..... I need a drink.
I haven't had a drink in a few months. My doctor said it was it's a downer- Not good for people in my position......
Fuck him! Fuck the doctor!
Sometimes you have to trust your body and give into your cravings. Why else would you crave for something if you didn't need it?
I haven't had a drink for ages....
.............Inside the liquor store, my eyes take a moment to adjust to the light. The television above the counter is playing the Max O'Brien Show. Leather face is laughing at his own jokes; our encounter is far from his memory.
A pretty face speaks to me:
"Good evening Sir! Can I be of any assistance?"
The girl behind the counter looks young and rather innocent..... Too delicate to be working in a liquor store..... Especially in a city like Los Angeles... A city populated by creeps, bullies and criminals.... People who should be in a cage..... Fucking animals who should be locked away from the rest of the world.
I adjust my eyes to the light and respond:
"Rum.... I need a small bottle of rum....."
"Which brand would you like?" She asks, before continuing: "We have Maygrove Park.... The Sailors Captain.... The Port Of Saint Louis......"
"That'll do fine. Bag it please."
"Erm, which one?"
"The last one, the last one you said..."
Customer service at a time when it's not needed. Good ol' America....
... Home of the brave.....
"The Port Of Saint Louis? Are you sure? I mean-"
"Please just bag it my dear, thank you all the same," I mumble, beginning to let my thin veil slip away and reveal the wreckage beneath.
..... Right now.... I just need.....
A fucking drink.......
She bags it and I head out, my stick clanking along the polished floor. Then it hits me. The door.......
The glass door......
Tobey............
The bastard is there again.... Dancing and warping in the glass reflection in front of me.... Tobey.....
Yet, as I get closer, I see it's my own reflection..... Tobey faded as I got close. He's disappeared down the rabbit hole again.
..... Tobey.
Why won't you be my friend?
......... Outside, the lights from the passing cars are blinding and the smoke is beginning to choke me again. The small alleyway next to the liquor store is my own rabbit hole to scuttle down.
Around the back of the store is a load of bins and waste materials, all in one small square yard.
This will do fine...... This whole city is a dump......
I crouch down next to a wall between some bins and crack the cap open. No time to savour the aroma- I take a giant swing to blow the smoke away: The smoke from rancid, sea air damaged rotten wood; wood from the bleak fifteenth century; smoke that burns my throat and chokes me....
I can still see the car lights..... As the cars pass, the light hits the walls of the pathway and illuminates the square I'm perched in. I'm choking down the rum, feeling a different kind of burning in my throat- Sweet, acidic.....
Painkillers.....
They all taste the same.... Chemical...
For how many centuries has this worked? Worked for man?
Alcohol: The cure for all pain..... Millions of victims, dying slowly because of alcoholism.... Dying because they couldn't take the pressures of life or the gloomy past that haunts them..... People like me- Damaged goods.....
...... CUNTS.
I close my eyes tightly. I'm trying not to think about Tobey, or the dead kid in the cage, trapped at the bottom of the lighthouse. I'm trying to forget the fire that burnt me. I'm trying to forget-
The lights from the cars illuminate the whole rubbish area. For the snapshot moment, darkness turns to light and back to darkness again. Like lightning striking in slow motion.
I stare down at the bottle as the light hits the walls and gives me a blast. I look down at the bottle in my hand. Then I see it:
PORTISHEAD.
It takes me a minute. Did I just....
See what I thought I-
PORTISHEAD.
Again. Is this some sort of sick joke? Another daylight hallucination?
I pull the bottle closer to my face; I need to see the damn label! Am I dreaming? Did the bottle say what I thought it said? There is no light! This fucking city is choking on its own smog from to many fucking cars, and when you need one to drive by? Nothing.......
CUNTS! SHOWEEE ME YOUR FUCKING HEADLIGHTS!!
...... I hold the bottle close to my face. ....... Two inches..........
FLASH!
A car finally passes.
Illumination. Light.
PORT OF SAINT LOUIS.
It was in my head...... My mind playing tricks again.
I was imagining it. I'm dreaming..... My mind is playing tricks on me....... More light....
PORT OF SAINT LOUIS.
There's some black cunt laughing at me; the cunt on the front of the bottle...
..... The logo is a bug eyed black fella laughing- His big, white teeth and tongue poking out from underneath a low-slung sailors hat......
You can't fault the Americans, they'll never let the blacks have dignity... Even on a rum bottle!
Fucking bastards......
Hold on..... What am I talking about?....
The label on on a bottle of booze means fuck all.... It's about whats inside the bottle... Just another pain killer, regardless of the flavour.......
Stop thinking so much Antonio... Thats what Elleanor says.......
I unscrew the cap and take huge swigs, my mind thinking about the Tobey and the dead kid at the bottom the lighthouse. The kid trapped in the cage... The dead kid.....
Before I know it, I've marinated in my own paranoid sorrow and drained the entire fucking bottle.
I should just walk past the liquor store and head back to the hotel. Fuck him! Fuck the doctor........
............ I ask the girl behind the counter:
"Same again please."
She grabs The Port Of Saint Louis and stops in her tracks. She has a quizzical expression on her face....
She goes to say something and then stops. I smile, so she continues:
"Excuse me for asking... Weren't you the guy that was just on the Max O'Brien Show?"
Such a pretty young girl, so beautiful..... For a moment I'm lost staring into her beautiful brown eyes. It makes me shudder to think what could happen to her: Here alone, late at night; here in a robbery prone off liscence; here alone in a city that deserves nothing but to be burnt to the ground.... What if something happened to her? Something that could be traumatic. Something that could scar her for life. For the rest of her life.....
She doesn't seem like the regular Los Angeles types, she is definitely not a shaved baboon....
Not like the rest of them....
"Yes! That was me! The studio lights, the lights were too much to bare.... I......"
She continues to gaze deeply into my eyes. I am lost for words. She picks up the ball:
"Erm... I always thought that Max dude looked like a douche... Really flaky and...." She's on a roll.
"Go on..." I encourage her. "Say it!"
"....like some asshole who needs to lay off the-" ".....Sunbed?" I say, finishing her sentence.
We both laugh. She looks like an angel. An angel paying for her college degree by working in a liquor store at night....
An angel lost in a land of savages.....
...... We just gaze at each other....
She has beautiful, big eyes.... She's starting to blush......
We have a moment.... Now broken by the sound of a bell ringing.
The door opens..... I hand her a twenty and tell her to keep the change, which she graciously accepts:
"Thank you sir."
She bags The Port of Saint Louis and hands it to me. Then she turns her head away, looking at some old bum as he walks over to the fridges where the beer is kept.
Our moment is over.....
...... And I'm back out into the outside world..... Back amongst the baboons of Los Angeles.....