Steve Erickson - These Dreams of You

“The management?”

“Ringing me up. . no, not the management, uh. . need to put a stop to it. Need to stop with. . ” he waves his arm at the pentagrams on the floor and blinds, “. . all this. It’s. . stirring up what should be left unstirred and now they’re ringing. . excuse me,” and at the turntable he puts the stylus back at the beginning of the record he’s been playing. The song begins again. He looks up from the chair. “What were we—”

“You fired—”

“Yes. Well, they really weren’t handling my affairs properly, were they? I believe that they’re stealing my money. It’s happened before, you know. It’s my fault, really. . I signed the contract, knew I shouldn’t. . ”

“That’s why Anna left?”

“Anna. . no, Anna and I. . that’s not why. This is fantastic ,” he says, leaning toward the record that’s playing, “I’m thinking of covering this song,” and now there’s a spark of something in his speech, “it’s from an old. . what was his name. . played Zorba the Greek, and Gauguin. Anthony. .” He’s wracking his brain. “God I hate it that I can’t remember anything. Anyway it’s from a movie with him and. . Anna Magnani perhaps? Of course I can never do it like Nina Simone, I wouldn’t bother trying. That’s about as perfect a vocal as anyone is going to sing — no affectation, no posturing, not a false moment. Perhaps I’ll do it like, you know. . Neu! or one of the German bands. . are you familiar with the German bands?”

“No.”

“Most Yanks aren’t. Bloody stupid. Not you, of course, but then you’re a homegirl, aren’t you,” he smiles.

“London.”

“There you go. . but that’s why I need you, you see? There they are, all the reasons. . for your very, very, very, very special combination of, of, of, of, of, of, of. . attributes . . ”

“I’m certain I don’t know what combination that might be,” says Jasmine. “What happened with you and Anna has nothing to do with me, does it?”

He looks at her completely mystified. “Why would it have anything to do with you?” He thinks. “Didn’t you and I just meet?” as though the possibility occurs to him, with some horror, that maybe they’ve known each other for years and he doesn’t remember. “I mean. . ” slightly alarmed, “. . didn’t we?”

“Yesterday.”

“That’s what I thought. At the train station, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He’s relieved. “Yes.” Then, “So what do you say? I’m leaving Los Angeles, of course.”

“You are?”

“Oh yes. Didn’t I say?”

“No.”

“That was part of it with Anna.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving this very, very vile place full of very, very vile people,” he says. “Vile. Place. Full of. Very. Vile. People.”

“Where are you going?”

“If I stay one more moment, I’ll be very vile too. Perhaps,” his voice falls to a hush, “I already am.”

In the same hush he says, “I’m holding onto reality by a thread, really. Don’t you know? And, and, and sometimes, sometimes I think I’m getting through, I think I’m getting things done, I think the work is happening. . and then,” he says, “then I realize, you know, hours have gone by, hours and hours and hours, and I’ve written, like, three or four or five bars of a melody and that’s all. It’s all I’ve done. It feels like I’ve written an entire song in minutes, when I’ve taken days to write the fragment of a single verse , and then I’ve written the fragment backwards and from the inside out and upside down. Do you know who I met here?”

“Are you going to answer my question?” she says.

“I am answering your question. Wait a minute. What question?”

“Where are you going?”

“Yes, that one. I am answering. Don’t get tough with me, young lady,” he says, half mocking, “I run things around here.” He laughs. “Do you know who I met?” He picks the needle up from the record and begins playing it again. “Can’t get enough of this bloody song,” he mutters. “It was in a movie — perhaps not Nina’s version, I’m not sure. Who was in that movie. .?”

“Who did you meet, then?” trying to keep him on any track at all.

“I said that, didn’t I. About the movie. Sophia Loren. No, Anna Magnani.”

“You met Anna Magnani?”

“No.” Worried. “Did I?”

“Someone vile, you said.”

“Not vile— very vile. Anthony Quinn . Mid-Fifties. No, not everyone here is very vile. Not every single last someone. Christopher Isherwood. Do you know who he is?”

“A writer?”

“My God! Another literate person in the music business, besides Jim and myself, that is.”

“Can’t say I know his work, mind.”

“That’s three literate people in the music business and we’re all in the same house . An aeroplane crashes into this house and the literacy level of Los Angeles plummets. . ” He shakes his head, the math eludes him. “. . plummets. . three hundred percent. By the way, I see that look on your face. Don’t discount Jim,” he nods toward the living room from where Jasmine came, “when he’s not being his iguanan self onstage, he’s better read than the two of us put together. Well, not me.”

“He was deep in the Wall Street Journal when I came in.”

“There you are,” he nods.

“Are you two. .?”

For a moment he’s waiting for her to finish the sentence, then, “What? Oh. No! No, we’re just trying to keep each other out of trouble. When we’re not getting each other in trouble. And he’s a huge talent. Huge influence on me, so if I can, uh, help. . ” He shrugs.

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well,” he shrugs again. “Jim is his proper name, of course.”

“Are you going to tell me, then, where you’re going? When you leave L.A.?”

“I was telling you. Christopher Isherwood used to live in Berlin. Back before the war. Wrote some very famous stories.”

“Is he a Nazi too?”

He stops. “Of course he isn’t a Nazi. ‘Too’?” Jasmine doesn’t say anything. “I’m not a Nazi,” he says quietly. “Would it matter if I blamed it on the drugs?”

“No.”

“No,” he shakes his head, “quite correct. You’re absolutely right. I made the choice to take the drugs, didn’t I, so whatever bloody stupid things I do or say when I’m on them, well, then it’s on me, isn’t it.”

“That’s actually very sensible,” she says.

“I’m. . I’m. . sabotaged by my impulse to be flamboyant about everything . But that whole sodding business about that so-called Nazi salute at Victoria Station,” he argues fiercely, “was bollocks! On the life of my four-year-old son, I was waving to the crowd. Look at the fucking photo! Look at my bloody hand — it’s no Nazi salute. A wave. Whatever other awful thing about me that you believe and that I no doubt deserve, you must believe at least that.”

Impressed by the ferocity of his defense, she says, “I do.”

“The whole Nazi business. . ” he says, trying to shoo it away like a fly, “I was just fascinated by. . by. . by the. . romanticism of it—”

“ Romanticism ?”

“Of course . Nazism is extraordinarily romantic. It’s King Arthur and all that. . and what was King Arthur anyway but Jesus in armor, with his twelve knights? I understand how grotesque and destructive it finally all became. . ” Defeated, he sees the look on her face. “I know it’s evil . I know what happened . Bloody hell,” he continues quietly, “look, Jasmine. Can I call you Jasmine?”