Being a Serial in Four Parts
In the time I had known him, my friend’s night-blooming disposition had been quite reliable. Quite often had we indulged in lengthy telephoned conversational analyses of syndicated episodes of Gilligan’s Island or Good Times, (including erotic speculations concerning Thelma, Ginger, Maryanne, and, in our most morbid moments, Lovey Howell,) the broadcasted declaiming of televangelists, or the live sales of such product as knick knacks, starter coin collections, and, of course, sets of kitchen knives. Thus I found it quite strange, one witching hour, when I telephoned my friend, only to find him asleep! And if that were not sufficiently outlandish, his manner of speaking seemed to reprise the caricatures he had left on my answering machine, as previously mentioned.
“’Allo, then? Now ‘oo thee ‘ell is this?”
However, these alien inflections were seemingly different than those he had used previously. They were damnably suggestive of an authentic Anglican accent.
I was on the verge of identifying myself, but, before my vocal mechanisms could be put into motion, found myself the target of a stern rebuke.
I was asked whether I was aware of the time of day, or if, in fact, the employment of a clock had ever been taught me. An inquiry was made as to my potential “’alf-witted” nature. Assessments of the various uses I put my “bum” to, as well as of my presumed affection for bulls’ testicles were carefully outlined. It was only a mouth-breathing intake of air on his part that allowed me to assert who I was. I was comforted by the fact that no warm greeting was offered. That, at least, had not changed.
I asked my friend if he had been sleeping.
“Of course I been sleepin’? ‘Ave you looked at the clock? Shagass!”
‘Tho this last word seemed curiously out of place, I focused on the clockface found on the center of my video disk player, useless for two months prior, as a movie had become wedged inside it. A cruel turn of fate had it that the film in question was Grumpier Old Men, which, in the sort of herbal-smoking haze often conjured in the poetry of Lord Dunsany, I had ordered from Netflix. By a unhappy chance, I would be stuck looking at Jack Lemon’s disturbingly flabby ass on any occasion that nothing could be discovered in the labyrinth of late night television, which was, essentially, always.
Studying the digital clock display, I saw that it was 1:46 a.m. Puzzled, I asked my friend how this time, so within the traditional temporal boundaries of our evening communiqués, was inappropriate.
“’Ess the middle of the afternoon, Stave! You fuckin’ sow!”
I had lost my patience. I admitted that it was true that his normal insomniacal regimen was mirrored by the kind of daylight sleeping routines so (very very) horrifically depicted in John Carpenter’s Vampires. Nevertheless, I quite sternly argued, that his sense of the hour was wholly removed from the clear mandate of the clock upon my DVD player. (Itself governed by the sane laws of established physics.) I maintained, however, that his chronological awareness seemed to have suffered some sort of twelve-hour upset.
“Thee only thing thatss opset is my fuckin’ bowels, yeh poof. Eh thets yore fault, innet?”
With a shriveling of my scrotum, an unidentifiable feeling of dread gripped me. Something was wrong here besides my friend’s unprecedented late-night slumbering. His clumsy but whimsical fumblings after a British accent were sounding… well, still pretty, fake… but it seemed, nevertheless, as ‘tho my friend was speaking in these stereotypal Anglican tones without consciously trying to.
“Nyow. I’m going to go back to sleep, with yo leave of cause. Oll cawl you aht a maw sane hour. Arright?”
I was struck dumb by what he said, and so acquiesced without demanding an explanation of this strange soporific alteration, nor of what a “sane hour” might be, seeing as its nature seemed to’ve changed.
I sat there with my mouth agape and my open cellular phone in my hand. What had unsettled me so greatly—more than these other matters—was again that blasted accent, and how in the second sentence of the last paragraph of his speech that I have transcribed here, it had led my friend to avoid dropping a ‘g’ from one of his present participles for the first time since I had known him.
What’s more, it occurred to me that my friend’s affectations might’ve contributed toward his chronological disorientation, though the idea seemed outside the confines of rational thinking. What if his apparent obsession w/ all things English permeated more deeply than the depths at which one might find linguistic capabilities? What if my friend were experiencing reality through some monstrous British kaleidoscope? Clearly, it might be deduced, that my friend had not actually become British. One need only consider his “accent”—not to mention the limitations of known reality—to find that such a transformation was impossible. The idea of such Anglicization was touched on in monstrous and nearly unreadable texts that had been shuddered and yawned over by only a very few students of musical esoterica. Accursed volumes, such as the frightful Dreamweapon of Eric Morse, Michael Bonner’s monograph “Interstellar Overdrive,” and the American translations of the abhorred magazines 3 AM, Melody Maker and the NME offered vague hints of certain survivals of Anglophilliac worship. However their ideas were considered to be so blasphemous as to have been exiled from the sane confines of contemporary musical journalism.
Most disturbing was this concept of hypnomonotony. It was said that this force could lead one through endless, twisting chasms of protean feedback to the very center of the universe where a mindless idiot blob writhes amidst a circle of daemon guitar players, whose horrific insectivally droning music and really bitchin’ effects pedals might allow them to achieve incarnation as misshapen alien things, each inspiring a zealous mania amongst both critics and fans of guitar-based rock n’ roll music.
These beings, however, could only achieve this incarnation under certain conditions of popular taste. Otherwise they fell into a necrotic, and perhaps narcotic, sleep. But when musical styles shifted, and the stimulants were right, they might walk the earth again. And puke in the backstage catering plate. I found myself haunted by these and certain other morbid thoughts, as I reclined on my sofa, fading, in front of the TV eye, into a most uneasy sleep.
In looking back, I find it odd that I found it odd that my friend did not return my call as he had asserted he would. It was not uncommon for our conversations to encounter breaks that might last for several days—weeks, even, in cases where dander had been raised by an all too common and all too obviously earnest “fuck you.”
Notwithstanding the previous night’s forebodings, what might have triggered such disquiet was the electronic mail my friend sent me in lieu of a call. This message contained an apology for the demeanor with which he had greeted my call. This expression was not only coherent, but was also damnably suggestive of actual remorse.
He went on to offer regrets that we might be unable to resume our conversation for some days. It seemed that he had developed a bronchial ailment that had wholly weakened him to a point where he found even focusing on a simple discussion to be quite difficult. No doubt, he added, it had been this very assault that had led him to become confused about the hour last night. He would, though, he assured me, contact me as soon as he was well. He had discovered certain aspects of the music of Spacemen 3, and he was quite eager to seek my learned opinion on them as soon as he was “on the mend.”
Couched as it was a storm of perplexity and uneasiness, it was only later that the fact that he had written the message in a strange approximation of his new manner of speech seemed curious to me. Anglicisms such as “colour” appeared far too often to be mere typographical errors, specifically British verbiages, such as “loan us h’appence quid when we next see you” were employed—giving me cause to wonder whether anyone, in fact, says “h’appence” anymore, or if he was spelling it right—but worst of all, he had written many of the words out in a loathsome approximation of how that might be pronounced if rendered verbally. “Whatta yoo thenk then?,” he wrote near the end of his note, and then went on to conclude, embarrassingly, by actually signing the message, “Evah yo mate, (despite th’ fact that you are a fuggin’ shagasss,”) and then supplying his name as though it were a charmingly archaic epistolatory letter.
As my friend’s behavior was otherwise conforming to certain established standards, I gave it little thought, until a peculiar anecdote was relayed to me by Abe. As the tale emerged, it became clear that the “super” was possessed by the unmistakable fear experienced by one who is trapped in the most shrouded territories of nightmare.
Hidden in the stygian depths of the cellar of my friend’s apartment building lies an improbably luminescent chamber. Contained as it is underground, its light seems particularly unnatural—like that of some monstrous phosphorescent fungus. In it rest 3 laundry washing machines and 2 companion drying units. (These proportions had always struck me as particularly perverse, as dryers always require more time to fulfill their function than do washers in the first place. Here, it seemed inevitable that the most maddening of delays must follow if one party has its articles of clothing placed within the dryer when another shows up to begin the laundering of its own.)
It was in this unpleasant locale, Abe said, that he found himself one Friday night.
“I vuss fixin’ day lentrap.” He seemed to think for a very long time, producing, after a moment, a pint of Stoli from one grimy trouser pocket. “Hutt do people doo to datt ting? I min, what de Sem Hell day be pootin’ true day-uh-er? Men, I tell yer. Pipple bay pootin’ they are noot sax in they-ah-em-er.” A nod or two at the bottle convinced him to drink. Such imbibing seemed to be the only way to encourage the fellow to go on w/ his story in a more expedient manner. Unfortunately, it also had the effect of slurring speech made already nearly indecipherable by virtue of its foreign inflections.
“Anna who. Em pooling a frekken par-uht flegg outta they-ah-em-huh-are, uh sway are. Nah. Relllly. Like a fool July Rogger. Yah noo: Deffy Jonze en da Moonkeys en You set of Me Sim en Junnee Dipp.” Another nod at the bottle prodded him onward. “Weel dut’s ven yore frennt com en wit hiss berskett off loonydree. Issa wekker berskett ya new? Don’ see dat wan too mooch dees daze, duh yuh?”
I nodded, eagerly, in hopes that this charmingly antique vessel might be a concrete detail that might anchor his rememberances in a more coherent narrative.
“Cha see? Dare voos onnly uz down day-er, en de light, doo nose who itt kin gut. Ahn he beerly sed hooloo, zo I vander whuss de fekk isk rung. Ess uh lootle creppy, yooo no? Iss ice iss zo derk zo coold—effen fer hee-yem—uhn he yeahs hair much stringier uhn greezier. Allsoo toe he semmtimes hass a widdle body order preblem, dis time ee like relly smules lekk shut.
“Ann eye Luke eddem rill cloose
“En det’s vinn I azathoth.”
“You what?”
“I azathoth!”
“Sorry… one more time, please.”
“Azathoth! I Azathoth! Iä! Azathoth! Wooder chew, deff?”
I had no mortal idea how to respond to his demand, and so, probably, did appear to be deaf. Or catatonic.
“I hazza thougthth.”
“Oh! You had a thought!”
“Hey doobie meggin foolk ub me eye ex-aunt?”
“Um. Of course not. I think”
“Whale too bitter knobby.”
“Hemingway, detroit det ih hed voose dert jer frinn luke lekk shut, smills lekk shet, moosa beeya shutt.”
His coarse laughter was cut mercifully short by the encouragement I gave to him to drink.
“Cum on, men, weight cha Levin? Wart boot jer frane? Mennet goo I warse de foony van. Sooks to bijuou. Knob, boot surrealiously… Yer otter be waried bootcher frung. ‘E ‘s fugged ob. Ern yuk kook kwame edit.”
As can be seen, his articulative faculties were decaying by the moment—at least when it came to the English language. It became clear that I would have to prod him more forcefully and rapidly if I was going to receive the material I most desperately wanted.
I tugged gently but firmly at the stained button down shirt he wore, and he leapt from the chair where he had begun nodding off, nearly splashing his libations across the room.
“Vet?” He was pissy, as any inebriate tends to be at this point in a cycle of drinking, and went so far as to bat at phantoms with one flaccid arm—as one so often finds television drunkards doing. Then he looked about himself, scratched at the belly of his soiled shirt and sniffed.
“Yog, sothiss frune effyern… Welsey turt egghead wurf det ee utmost dern’t leg leg eemself. Dern’t joos menn dat in der colloquial menner ider. Ee relly leg leg soon won elf. Leg, ee were de sem cloose. Unt F chew leg rooly cloose, jerp cud sea das et vare M. Butt duh looner use bead leggin et hurm, chew stutt ta noodliss det hiss teep curder ned blushing, N den chew nudist det abby mirror den snatt. Es teep er relly duty. Leg dare freggin derk grain. N plooze vern yug leg clooder, yurp sea dettert ain choos der culler eff dem teep, es det ders diss earful chenge ter der shabe. Leg durm utmost wassail hew mean.
“Gnaw, Ivan Herbivore—toejam times—lutting ass oil vase bun ‘lil crepe pay. Desi oonly too burbs—en, vel, ‘ope juice dome B dune hair wind at hup’pence. Curse Y Ono, Mine stutts two plate Trix ona ewe. Burt, ernie won Ken go true dat. All un lekk dert, derek-lee-one legg det. Kent see zoe git. And debasmement yam Wanda Yoplaitess—yap nose—were alla debt giz wars.
“Soup, dizz dime d’oh—wuzz lake, yerp notes, Jage offs Letter, wizz Thames Rubbins, fur Annie Wan news her heeee wads. Erp okk.“
Clearly his inebriation was about to render him noncommunicative. I felt ready to shake or nudge him more forcefully, but he continued to mummble.
“Kleeze dorf. Banana wades, En dupp moofie, hay stutts ter see chit dup gooze un too lungs fur et toobie yust hiss Margorine Nation ruining ofay widda hem. (Durt’s dez besst soong, men. Ur swayer. Tops es wade butter den Temps. Scepter Vader suckin’… voss det de Tops er de Temps? Shutt, datas Reel E gunner bugger minnow.)
“Enya way, lurk Jager’s letter? De moofay eh voss telkin’ butt? Wart hoppin’ tube Tem Rubbins? Das esk S vault hip end two me. Eye serr thes chench urn hem. Ee wuss nut yer frond. Is glessy stairs. Is early herr—bote wade beyunt Annie Ding es slubbiness lead too inna p-ass-tit. Chaw cut C debt upfrog, butt yer mind mutt stall igloo wet yoooo. De Cungoo ain’t jest ur river in Eeee-gipped, yug no. Bert de teef…
“Sweet Matre! Who ken I meg yupe udder stan? How could those teeth change like that? Debt’s de quay-shun I poot to you, Jung Certs! Tail me! How could those Cyclopean grey snaggled horrors spring into existance, seemingly overnight?!!!??!”
He was becoming quite overexcited, with his earlier furtive glances now growing into rabid staring, first in one direction, then in another, as though he felt that, at any moment, some unimaginable cosmic malevolence would grasp him from some hidden corner. I thought it most expedient to end our interview. I patted the poor trembling fellow on one shoulder, pressing his bottle at him as I implored him to call me at any further manifestations of the abnormal. Vague fears had arisen in me from the “super’s” brief anecdote, but for the moment, I was distracted by visions of the Elizabethan popsicle my friend held, and was so, uh, eager to return to my apartment to relieve certain ineffable forces that were building up within me.
