Y’evr w’nder how many maître d’s were millionaires a week ago? June 22, everyone was there, everyone who was gett’n in that is, and they just kept com’n.
You can’t miss the mansion. The irony being no-one who comes out here ev’r gets to see the party. That’s somewhere out there in the darkness we’re all hold’n out for. The sacred dark. Maybe just the sound of the ocean.
Could still smell the heat of the day beneath all the chea’ perfume, warm ashes against white linen. Even the sky had a sheen to it, possibilities up there like precious minerals y’couldn’t help think’n. It’s a rarefied atmosphere when you’re still sane, more or less.
Music comes fr’m the beat-box. Massive thing big as a gas station, slick silver speakers size of Roman columns. If y’didn’t know bett’r you’d think it was a bunker or someth’n. Track list’s all AI o’course. There was this one song they kept on play’n over an over.
‘Midnight, one more night without sleeping
Watching till the morning comes creeping
Green door, what’s that secret you’re keeping?’
The ashtrays were polished crystal rather than glass. One of the thin’s I pride myself on s’knowin the distinction. Cryst’l’s a cleaner cut when slicing cheek to bone.
Crowd panic. S’metimes think it’s the heat that does it.
Other times I think this is noth’n but a smokescreen for an entirely differ’nt planet. Wouldn’t that be a gas? To think we might all just be a bunch a aliens in a drunk tank, noth’n but a bunch of em’ty dreams an cryst’l ashtrays. As if this party is all America could afford one lonely little planet.
‘There’s an old piano
And they play it hot behind the green door;
Don’t know what they’re doing
But they laugh a lot behind the green door
Wish they’d let me in
So I could find out what’s behind the green door’
Kinda reminds me of someth’n I saw off the Internet where NASA was broadcast’n sat’lite images of night on Mars. Vast blue and purple nebulas, full of tiny pricks of gamma radiation. An one by one the guests arrive to merry desolation, noth’n but smoke trails on eternities horizon.
‘Knocked once, tried to tell them I’d been there;
Door slammed, hospitality’s thin there
Wonder just what’s going on in there’
Who are you look’n for? No-one ever bothered ask’n for the guest list, but they should have, cause I mean who knows, right? It was’n the names so much as the arrangement of tipp’d over chairs an tables, ice-pick memories that came back day after day that were’n no memories at all, just the hangover invit’d to the funeral.
The food was good look’n but tasteless once you had it in your mouth.
There was a moon, but it was green and kin’ of watery, googly-eyed like the guy sat next to me abou’ to throw up.
‘Saw an eyeball peeping
Through a smoky cloud behind the green door;
When I said “Joe sent me”
Someone laughed out loud behind the green door
All I want to do
Is join the happy crowd behind the green door’
Laughter just kept gett’n louder with the music. Had to pretty much hollar in order to make yourself heard once it start’d.
There was one old gal who jus’ exposed herself to the entire table. Striptease, ev’r seen one of those?
I heard a girl of fifteen overdosed in the toilets a couple of weeks earlier. Yeah, there was heroin available, so long as y’knew who to ask for, but then no-one ever talked about a possible fatality.
It was an incredible sight though alright, a real bone fide Taj Majal. I heard the guy who own’d it was a spy or someth’n, next candidate for President of these United States, I mean nobody really believ’d that trash.
I’d never met the host, so when the guy said he was, I play’d along. His breath smelt fresh with vomit, prob’ly had some stooge to lick the crabmeat from his fingers.
I asked if he’d got an invite, an he smiled like he knew it was a trap, me ask’n him that or whatev’r. Then he says ‘Y’know kiddo, Prohibition never ended. It all just went into real estate’. An I thought Prohibition was like a hundred years ago.
‘That a real film star I see over there?” I said.
He idly unzipped the fly of his pants, then zipped it up again.
‘Comes in stages,’ he answer’d me, ‘Like cancer. Or the great American novel.’
He didn’t seem much interest’d in continu’n the conversation. Guy had a bored, distract’d look like he nee’d to pee. Got the feel’n the party didn’t really amuse him.
Caug’t him about a half an hour lat’r spitt’n out some’n into the swimm’n pool. Half chew’d octopus. I reck’n that’s what they call a real Renaissance Man.
So here I am wander’n round try’n to find someone else I migh’ actually recognise. Odd how the face of a stranger can sometime appeal more familiar than old friends and acquaint’nces. Faces in a crowd like faces in a magazine or minor celebrity.
They were practic’ly froth’n at the mouth.
I knew who they were, just not to talk to. Didn’t take long for the bar to get knocked over. Lost a whol’ line a credit cards behin’ those cocktail glasses. Way to wipe out a bunch of billionaires.
I guess that’s as close as we came to mak’n it.
Never thought I’d get to see one of these places for myself. Same way I always knew there was never a seventh wonder of the world because that would mean a connection. History you can believe in. Not like Prohibition.
Autohypnosis. S’metimes I think it’s the heat that does it.
I guess the parties I went to back in college had a different kind of rhythm. I still like to call myself a college man. Like I came from somewhere.
That was the old century. The Americ’n century that is. I used to have an old typewriter I call’d Daisy, and I’d say to myself one day I’ll use this old gal to write my memoirs. Or maybe I’ll just make up some adventures on a yacht. Had the notion I was someth’n of a writer back then.
Only you can forget the past in a place like this.
A generation goes to war and takes me with them. Maybe that had someth’n to do with it. The guest list I mean.
Woke up in a slump by the coat check and thought I could smell chick’n burnin. Turned ou’ t’be the fire jugglers. He hires em ev’ry week, whoe’vr he is. Ev’ryone’s a perfom’r here, y’betta b’lieve it. D’sfigurement goes han’ in han’ wi plastic surgery on the dancefloor.
Girl over there looking to build up her followers on OnlyFans told me the host gave her $100,000 for breast implants when he heard.
‘Heard what?’ I said.
‘That I needed’m done dummy,’ she hissed.
Ask’d her what he look’d like and she said she’d never met him. Nev’r told me if she was on the guest list.
Mass hysteria. S’metimes I think it’s the heat that does it.
Back in Afghanist’n we had clean desert mem’ry. But there ain’t no mem’ry no more.
That would mean feel’n when it come to wha’ I was think’n an I wasn’ think’n bout the guest list back then.
“Hey great to see ya.”
It’s a Hollywood camera speak’n, shining its hot light in my eyes so I can’t see who I’m suppos’d to be talk’n to. All I can see’s a mike with a han’ attached. Everythin’s so bright I think I’m go’n blind like that Saint on his way to Damascus.
“What is it you think that accounts for the success of these occasions?
A clipp’d female voice roll’d out like air conditioning. It was’n American, yet at the same time it couldn’t have come from anywhere else. It was a voice full of lollipops.
“I’d say it’s the tip of th’ icebu’g”
A new world like a soft rise of laughter behin’ a curtain that couldn’t disguise its raw panic. (‘Knocked once, tried to tell them I’d been there’)
“Well, you certainly look like you’re having a great time.”
“More ice,” I said, “It needs more ice.”
“An what do you make of our host Mr Beluga and his girls?” (Door slammed, hospitality’s thin there’)
I shook my head. Had no idea who the hand with the mike was talk’n about. The light extinguish’d itself. Now all I could make out was a bunch a shadows. (Wonder just what’s going on in there’)
Think names I said to myself beneath my breath. There has to be a guest list round here some place. Two girls in yellow adidas tops were sign’n autographs so I went ov’r and ask’d for one. When I look’d at what they’d writt’n it was noth’n but a price list in babyscrawl. Identical twins, both illiterate, I put em in my backpock’t. I couldn’t afford either let alone both.
It’s the little things I tend to notice. There were drinks everywhere man, more drinks than books in a library.
Y’know I us’d t’read a lot an it suddenly struck me funny grind’n the brok’n crystal into the grass of a stranger’s garden. I’m still only forty-six.
Now it’s 4 in the morning and what sounds like sirens from the freeway. Nothing looks like its winding down.
Phones are lighting up the blue lawns like fireflies.
Early morn’n everyone still hang’n on for one final surprise, the unexpect’d guest everyone’s been calling for this whole time.
She’s on her way, one of the girls in the yellow adidas tops tells me, (han’s on my crouch like she’s offer’n me a discount). Her mad king’s entourage awaits.
The impossible platinum blonde of those fireworks. Destroyers of cities. Way the night puts on its make-up. Cars stretch’n down that driveway’s freeway.
And people are still pour’n in all those rich white folks with nothing better to do than believe in their own legacy. I never had no legacy. Only want’d to see for myself how it fel’ like to be strap’d into that crowd. Strap’d into that crazy electric chair.
You tell y’self y’h shou’d leave but the ain’t no-one to talk to an nowhere to go.
You were never so young as you imagine.
I’m still only forty-six.
Used to be every weekend; now it’s a daily event. We come and go and keep scroll’n on down those fancy pink marble steps. ‘Midnight, one more night without sleeping. This is how I remember it, happen’n right now as it always will be happen’n at this very moment in time somewhere out on the cliff edge of the world. Watching till the morning comes creeping. Is that the dawn beneath a cloud I’m see’n? Too early to be that light. Best get back to that big silver beat-box, nobody truck’n with that and who knows maybe they’re op’n to tak’n requests. If I could just find a guest list, show I’m down to go down und’rground. Green door, what’s that secret you’re keeping?’