Late Arcade

by Nathaniel Mackey

  Time, perfect or syncopated time, is when a faucet dribbles from a leaky washer. I’m more than sure an adolescent memory can remember how long the intervals were between each collision of our short-lived drip and its crash into an untidy sink’s overfilled coffee cup with murky grime of old cream still clinging to the edges or a tidy rust stained enamel sink that the owner of such has given up on the idea that that maintenance man is ever going to change the rhythm beat of his dripping faucet by just doing his job and changing that rotten old rubber washer before time runs out of time.

  Musicians partly come into the circle of various blame which encompasses much more than leaky faucets, rotten washers, or critics. Wow! Critics! How did they get here?

  I know. It’s Freudian. Faucets and old rotten washers. The innocent audiences that are sent in the direction of premature musicians—critics who want to play and some who play and study at music and can only encompass soul-wise and technically about someone else what they themselves can comprehend.

  It was none other than the passage from Mingus’s liner notes to The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady that had crossed Djband’s mind earlier, could “earlier,” down this corridor in which time, faucet leak notwithstanding, was ancillary, be said to matter—no less dangerous, if so, than “always.”

  Shingle more than wall though neither shingle nor wall, it was a sandwich board the poster was pasted on, not a shingle or a wall Djband was but a sandwich board Djband in fact wore, Mingus’s admonitory note gracing both boards, back and front, counseling passersby both coming and going. It was a long, detailed message for a sandwich board. Printed in large letters, it barely fit.

  Djband had clearly let its water-off-a-duck’s-back aplomb fall by the wayside, answering the review with the sandwich board, fighting back, answering “Monk salad” with Mingus. It was clearly involved, clearly invested, to the point of uncool even, the ensemblist equivalent of a sandwich man, anything but blasé, nothing if not caring, standing on the street advertising its message. Djband laughed at itself, realizing that insofar as to bear a message was to be a balloon it had become a balloon, balloon and sandwich man both, both rolled into one. Djband had not only bumped into B’Loon but become B’Loon, pressed and possessed by the spirit of caption and contention, the former manifestly, the latter more implicitly, bearing on which and whose caption fit. The review itself, one saw clearly now, was nothing if not a caption, nothing if not a balloon, nothing if not a message-bearing bauble, the bane of Djband’s proprioceptive audition. It happened quickly, in a flash, balloon and sandwich board bound up as one.

  “Myself When I Am Real,” Djband reminded itself right after it laughed at itself, Mingus’s title more to the point than ever before. A pointed mix of aim and arraignment, “Myself When I Am Real” said it all, could any five words be said to’ve said it all.

  Djband turned toward where the sound of another car horn came from and saw the driver of a Mazda GLC headed west on Melrose give a thumbs up, in approval of the Mingus quote it was clear. How the driver so quickly read so long a text Djband couldn’t say but happily nodded to acknowledge the approbation. The sandwich board was making a difference already.

  Djband turned sideways between the boards, lifting its arms, elevating the boards as though they were wings. It was now Lambert who stepped forward and spoke. “I want a straw to fall and fill up with air and float,” he said. “I want float to be what unlikeliness does. Due to itself or in spite of itself, I want that to be what goes on, float’s new leaf turned over, float’s new reign and regret.” Djband agreed, echoing, “Float’s new reign and regret.”

  “Whatever comes up,” Lambert continued, “it will beg the question it costs itself—float lure, float intended, float intransigence. Reed a wet stick in my mouth, I want more, flutter-tongue abandon’s new almanac, float’s lush life begun.” Djband agreed and took up the tailend of what Lambert said, repeating, “Float’s lush life begun.”

  “Float nothing if not a barge I’d be borne along on,” Lambert continued, “I want each lick to incubate what float would be.” Djband agreed again and repeated, “What float would be.” Lambert stepped back and blended in again.

  The sandwich board had brought an element of reduction in, Djband brought down to the reviewer’s level, fighting fire with fire, balloon with balloon. Lambert’s invocation of flight or flotation thus arrived right on time, albeit flotation, Djband was well aware, carried a balloon suggestion one could hardly miss. Still, lift and levitation won out over balloon rut, balloon mire, the bone “float’s new leaf ” picked with “Monk salad” notwithstanding, that bone the very filled-up, floating straw itself perhaps.

  More no doubt than perhaps, Djband decided, embarrassed, underneath it all, by the sandwich board, needing to make a move. Disambiguating float from what balloons do was that move, float’s association with balloons its new regret. Float’s new reign was nothing if not a resolve to overcome inflation, nothing if not a bone proffering puncture. It remained a willingness to abide by high jive, high jubilation, a resolve to reside on high even so.

  To say that at exactly that instant Djband smelled roses would be going too far. Roses did come to mind and they did so in a flash, their characteristic perfume no doubt bound up in the thought but not to the point of Djband actually smelling them. L.A. was way more than a stone’s throw from Pasadena but Melrose might as well have been Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s morning, so large did Lambert’s barge now loom, float parting company with balloon.

  It was a visual not an olfactory image, an address of the mind’s eye, not the mind’s more distant nose. Djband saw Lambert’s roses-bedecked barge for an instant, easing down Melrose, Lambert atop it waving to the crowd. Yes, it was New Year’s morning, float’s new day begun, float’s new leaf turned over, float’s new reign and regret.

  For only a moment were such premises afoot, parade premises. The moment they arose they subsided. Melrose was back to being itself as on any other day, Djband a sandwich man pacing the sidewalk, a modest parade if it could even be said to be that—no barge, no float, no roses. No sandwich board either, Djband quickly decided, lifting the sandwich board over its head and lowering it to the sidewalk, propping it against the newspaper vending box.

  Rained-on parade was the theme but Penguin, stepping forward, would have to do with it only ostensibly, obliquely, bending away from it as what he had to say built. “I want a front-row seat at the Apocalypse,” he said. “No,” he said, quickly correcting himself. “I meant to say at the Apollo, James Brown on his way up, in his prime.” “In his prime,” Djband chimed in and Penguin went on, “I want to have lost someone or to sing and scream and shout as though I had. I want shout to mean to run around in a circle, led by immanent splendor’s allure.”

  “Immanent splendor’s allure,” Djband agreed and echoed and Penguin continued, “I want the rump of the cosmos in front of me, barely up against my nose or a bit farther away perhaps, all but in touching distance, infinitesimally out of reach. I want to call out to it, calling it Regenerate Rose Reborn.” Djband echoed and agreed again, “Yes, Regenerate Rose Reborn.” Nose wide with cosmic whiff, cosmic what-if, Penguin stepped back and again blended in.

  Before Djband could do what it would do next, Drennette stepped forward, cosmic vamp and commanding virgin rolled into one. “Yes, do remember,” she agreed and exhorted, “how the smell of the cosmos’s behind pervades all extension, how the smell of cosmic loins penetrates all space.” “Penetrates all space,” Djband thought to echo and agree but quickly thought better of it, remaining silent as Drennette, noticing the withheld echo and agreement but not needing it, continued, “Do remember how these two smells enter your nose and take hold of your scrotum.” It was a footnote, a blurb, an outburst, a balloon. Djband withheld echo and agreement again. Drennette stepped back and blended in.

  Djband reeled and staggered, all but overcome by wafted cosmicity, up-fro
m-under pitch and posteriority, belt and bouquet. It was a ploy, a feinting play on exhaustion, even so. Drennette, Penguin, Aunt Nancy, Lambert, Djamilaa and N. were each only a face on the wall Djband was, the wall Djband affected it was, the exhaust wall it earlier staggered along but now steadied and took inside itself. Immured against hearded audition, a wall against rained-on parade, Djband took a stand and stood tall against critical caption, the review’s upstart balloon, cartoon acuity.

  What Djband would have done next had briefly been put on hold by Drennette’s impromptu boast (which is what, underneath it all but not so underneath after all, it all was). Reeling and staggering standing tall, it did now what it would have done next. It issued a collective, composite swipe of sound aimed at wiping the slate clean, a return to pre-caption premises, an airy gesturality or gist it wanted to say was what life itself is, an airy gesturality or gist gotten or gotten at by nothing quite like music, albeit to say so, to go from wanting to say, was to tie up with tar-baby balloon, tar-baby boast, as though Drennette had simply jumped the gun.

  Drennette had in fact jumped the gun. That there was a gun to jump tempered Djband’s recoil from cosmic waft. Reeling and staggering standing tall as though she’d held a finger out to be sniffed, a finger it knew underneath it all was coming, Djband issued a funky-butt, low-register burst, Mingusesque, a second swipe of sound, going the other way. This was also, it seemed it wanted to say, what life itself is.

  Such expounding upon life, oblique though it was, attracted a crowd. Passersby stopped and looked on. They stood a short distance away, staring at Djband, able to read its thoughts evidently. They heard the music Djband inwardly rehearsed evidently, nodding their heads, popping their fingers, patting their feet. Yes, this was life, they seemed to agree, the what-is of it.

  Djband knew there was no wiping the slate clean but made as if to do so anyway. Accretion was all, it knew, whatever would-be cleansing wipe a further murk or mucking up, palimpsestic supplement, palimpsestic struff. In this case, funky-butt struff spoke directly to the claim of a “détente between containment and contagion” the review advanced, agreeing with it only to complicate or contaminate it, wipe running one with swipe in more ways than one. Palimpsestic add-on plied boast on boast, waft on waft, whiff, what-is and what-if rolled into one.

  Palimpsestic struff was nothing if not infectious. Several of the onlookers who’d gathered began to dance, squatting low to the ground at points, letting their asses graze the sidewalk. Reveling in rump cosmicity, they delighted, they let it be known, in having asses, delighted that there were asses to be had. Close to declaring ass what-is’s what-if, they drew short of that, lifting skyward from the squat’s low point with a pelvic thrust, saying something like what they begged off saying. Lee Morgan’s “The Rumproller” had nothing on what they did or on the music they heard or thought they heard Djband rehearse.

  “I want not to have seen it all,” Djamilaa stepped forward and said. “I want not to have seen this movie before.” “Not to have seen this movie before,” Djband agreed and repeated, part antiphonal add-on, part set-aside. Djamilaa paused.

  “I want,” Djamilaa went on after pausing, “the clean slate I know we can’t have. I want the meat of our being here truly met, true meet’s tally, no mere funky-butt largesse.” Djband agreed and repeated, “No mere funky-butt largesse.” Djamilaa’s advancing meat, meet and romance (cosmic tail, cosmic tale, cosmic tally) went on with her saying, “I want the rose’s perfume where pendent cheeks meet, funk sublimated upward, astral crevice, crease.” Djband not only echoed and agreed, “Astral crevice, crease,” but added, “Ass as in astral, amen.” Djamilaa stepped back, again blending in.

  The more booty-invested of the dancers, hearing Djamilaa’s admonition, dialed it down. A couple of them stopped dancing altogether, stepping back into the crowd, content to nod their heads, pop their fingers, pat their feet.

  The now more precisely calibrated serenade made it crystal clear that Djband was no Parliament, no Funkadelic, no Zapp and Roger—crystal clear even as it grew to be pearl opaque, for the review, irritant pebble to Djband’s oyster, was coming to be accreted over, contained, gotten over, a tribute to palimpsestic add-on, palimpsestic struff, stick-to-itiveness. The music grew to be pearly smooth as well as pearl opaque, much less bumpy than funk.

  It was now a precisely telepathic serenade, the heard rather than hearded audition every band so deeply wants. Sensing this, Djband saw no further need for the sandwich board and picked it up from where it lay propped against the newspaper vending box. N. stepped forward to flip it inside out so that Mingus’s words no longer showed and then stepped back and blended in again. Djband again propped it against the newspaper vending box. The blank sides of the two boards glared in the sun.

  The crowd of onlookers had grown larger, all of them nodding their heads, popping their fingers, patting their feet. Looking out at Melrose, Djband saw that traffic in both directions had slowed, drivers and passengers looking over at the goings-on around the newspaper vending box, Djband telepathically holding forth, the onlookers looking on. They too, the drivers and passengers, looked on, nodding their heads, popping their fingers and (Djband imagined rather than saw but couldn’t have been more certain) patting their feet.

  Parade was back. The cars, vans, buses and trucks proceeded at parade pace, not so much cars, vans, buses and trucks as floats, titrating, ever so exactingly, the ideal roost and repose Lambert had adumbrated earlier.

  Parade was indeed back, as much on the sidewalk, it turned out, as on the street. Emerging from the opening between the two boards of the sandwich board was none other than B’Loon, out in the open for everyone to see—the eyelashes hovering above the head and brow, the poorly defined limbs and extremities, the wistful, noncommittal mouth and all.

  B’Loon, small at first but steadily inflating, grew to be as big as the giant balloons at a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, rivaling Superman, Kermit the Frog, Snoopy and the rest, floating high above the sidewalk, lifting.

  Everyone stared into the sky at B’Loon drifting higher. The crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk stared skyward, as did those in the cars, vans, buses and trucks, leaning out their windows and bringing traffic to a stop. Djband as well stared skyward. Was B’Loon’s lift mere exhibition or possibly more, possibly exorcism? It was hard not to wonder.

  B’Loon floated higher and higher. Heads tilted farther back and hands became visors as B’Loon drifted higher, everyone more and more straining to see as the image got smaller. Less visible the farther away it floated, B’Loon soon couldn’t be seen at all. Thus B’Loon exited the house the intersecting avenues could be said to be.

  For a long time after B’Loon floated out of sight everyone kept looking into the sky. The crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk stood staring skyward. Traffic remained at a standstill, those in the cars, vans, buses and trucks continuing to lean out their windows looking up into the sky. Djband continued looking up as well.

  Everyone went on staring into the sky, lost in thought. It had all been only a bubble, a moment in the sun, a quick boon, barely embraceable, blown up to be let go.

  Copyright © 2017 by Nathaniel Mackey

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Late Arcade is volume five of From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, an ongoing work. Volumes one, two, three and four are Bedouin Hornbook, Djbot Baghostus’s Run, Atet A.D., and Bass Cathedral.

  Sections of this book have appeared in Amerarcana: A Bird & Beckett Review, Blues for Smoke, Conjunctions, Current Musicology, Fence, Floor: Poetics of Everyday Critique, Golden Handcuffs Review, Hambone, and Women
& Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory.

  The author would like to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, whose award of a Fellowship for the year 2010–2011 contributed to the completion of this book.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP1368) in 2017

  eISBN: 9780811226615

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

  new directions presents

  A Simple Story

  by Leila Guerriero

  translated by Frances Riddle

  Obsession and mastery in their purest states: the story of one dancer's attempt to win the biggest contest of his life.