The sixth had been seven hundred miserable Rotary lunches.
The seventh had been avarice – seeing the riches of the earth and over-seeking them. Cupidity.
The eighth had been his ever-present willingness to succumb to the harlot itch – to leap the fence of restraint.
The ninth had been turning his back on God’s Prophetic Clock which was ticking away.
The tenth had been his willingness to even consider coming to this forsaken country to advise the franchise men – too far from the action. He’d lost altitude.
The eleventh had been the heat of the forsaken summer of the forsaken country which overactivated his thirst and lust.
The twelfth had been the fibro towns and the cities that looked like they should be metropolises but underneath were towns. The Coca-Cola signs were a disguise.
The thirteenth had been dancing with a transvestite who had put a hex on him. It had been a mistake, he’d mistaken the transvestite for a girl.
The fourteenth had been lying to himself about mistaking the transvestite for a girl. He’d known all along.
The fifteenth had been weakening the stockade of his existence – the motel – by opening the window that day to allow Terri to swing her leg over it and climb in.
The sixteenth had been life’s gradual smudging of his sartorial standards.
The seventeenth had been taking off the sunglasses of his soul to anyone, least of all, Terri.
The eighteenth had been listening to Terri’s personal story with lust in his heart.
The nineteenth had been taking Terri, reeking of sex, barefoot to a business party.
The twentieth had been letting Terri out of his sight long enough for her to write ‘Becker Sucks Cocks’ on the wall of the bathroom.
The twenty-first had been forgiving her.
The twenty-second had been letting Terri get him into the lavatory at the office for a blow job.
The twenty-third had been the foolhardy incaution of being seen pushing Terri through the louvre window of the lavatory.
The twenty-fourth had been someone telling Sam. Firstly telling Sam about the message ‘Becker Sucks Cocks’ which he’d denied any knowledge of, and secondly, about the lavatory incident which he had not denied.
The twenty-fifth had been Sam’s abiding despair.
The twenty-sixth had been him leaving the office for ever with a glazed Sam gently stabbing the desk with a paper knife.
The twenty-seventh had been going to Terri’s flat that same afternoon full of bourbon and the release of absolute defeat – freed from the battle.
The twenty-eighth had been Terri saying, ‘Come on, Becker, honey, come away with me, come away with me on a trip, on a trip, to an acid wonderland where we’ll find what sexuality is all about, and what God intended.’
As far as Becker could remember there were 28 signs which Jesus said to watch for.
Jesus, he should have watched for those signs. Oh boy – the distance he’d travelled, the many signs he’d passed, unheeded, to this.
On his trip he became a little boy at Terri’s munificent maternal breast.
He tasted once again the sweet sustaining milk, hitting his lips like electric glucose.
The flesh of her breasts and the all-yielding rubbery nipple gave a milk odour so reassuring that all fears and woes subsided.
Terri’s maternalism lifted him high and embraced and held him.
Her enveloping legs and the immense soft hairiness of her crutch swallowed him.
He was swallowed and locked in her groin.
He was washed by her pungent flooding.
His stomach and lower thighs were enveloped by the moist warm suction of her womb.
She drew his sperm from him in a long steady unpulsating stream, like a child peeing.
For a micro-second he rested.
After resting he grew, his penis a sapling, and he saw, for the first time, his muscles rippling.
Sap came through his body, in a rapid hurry.
His penis filled her to the point of pain, she opened and closed in moaning reception.
The fluid of her vagina was hot, lubricious.
He burst into her, pulsation after pulsation which lasted until he fell, drained, exhausted, crying on her hair, feeling that he had almost totally expelled himself into her, to the edge of disappearance.
He wept for his lies.
He wept for his knowledge.
He saw the fires of hell but they weren’t for him.
Not today, anyhow.
Later in a great silence and tiredness Terri and he lay in a bath.
Apart, points of their bodies touching.
Now and then his mind trembled through his body.
She said she’d had other private feelings at some times, away from him. But she’d been his mother at the time of the suckling and his woman at the end.
Well, Jesus, what now?
In a deck chair, Becker read the interview.
An American jazz pianist, Mr Beckar from Atlanta, Georgia, has been hired to play for a season of twelve weeks at the Silver Spade, Surfer’s Paradise.
(The manager had said, ‘If they like you, you stay – if they don’t, you’re out. We ain’t never had jazz before.’)
Mr Beckar, aged 35, was formerly a member of a group in Atlanta known as the Bourbon Hot Mother Blues and a member of Atlanta Dixieland Jazz Society.
(The Bourbon Hot Mother Blues had consisted of him, his piano, and a bottle of Old Crow.)
He also played at Ruby Red’s Warehouse, well-known as a jazz centre in Atlanta.
(You may not remember me, Ruby – but I did break down your piano one night after the band packed it in. So had most of the audience.)
He told our reporter that he had retired from business to be come a professional musician.
(‘Retired’ was their word – he’d left it vaguer than that.)
‘I learned to play the piano by mail order,’ he said. ‘I wrote for lessons by filling out a comic book coupon.’
(The Lone Ranger, to be precise.)
‘Piano jazz until recent years has had a doubtful reputation among some jazz people – but you have many great jazz pianists.’
He said that in his opinion the masters were Fats Waller, Pine Top Smith, Jimmy Yancey, and Cripple Clarence Lofton.
‘I play a lot of very traditional works,’ he told our reporter, ‘the usual twelve bar blues – using the left hand as walking bass – the right for rhythm – a lot of cross rhythm – very traditional.’
(No funky-hard bop for old Becker.)
Mr Beckar said he would like to pay homage to the music of Fats Waller.
‘He’s often criticised for being too commerical by people who don’t like popular music.
‘Fats managed to give an unaffected, bantering style, even poetry, to otherwise sentimental songs.
(Well, he guessed he’d said something like that.)
‘And anyhow what’s wrong with making money?’
Mr Beckar said that his own style owed much to the celebrated Fats Waller.
(Forgive me, Fats.)
Becker wears maroon bow tie, fancy arm bands, floral braces and drinks Old Crow while he plays.
His average weekly earnings are about eighty dollars with a free suite at the motel.
Becker often thinks that he would like to rest his head in the lap of authority – say, the lap of Billy Graham – but cannot surrender.
He finds that he still admires the organisation of the Southern Baptist Convention as a way for the world – no church congregation is bound by the Convention. Each goes its own way.
Apart from wanting nothing of it, he has no strong feelings about Vietnam. He is, however, part of a pipeline which looks after deserters from Vietnam. Thanks to Terri.
His mother and sister write. ‘What went wrong?’ ‘When are you coming home?’ ‘What about your position?’
He lies around a lot. He doesn’t exercise. He surfs reluctantly, unenthus
iastically.
Terri waitresses at the motel. She has begun painting again. She is as unstable as jazz.
Terri says he is free now.
That is a joke. But Terri speaks like that. He has an inkling that stress and pollution are what the world is all about.
He sometimes misses stress and pollution. He sometimes misses Sam, Coca-Cola.
He has a scheme for manufacturing cassette programmes of unusual material which would be delivered with the milk on Sundays.
He is fond of saying, ‘If we are the last of the bourbon generation, let’s be good at it.’
He also likes to say that he is the best jazz pianist from Atlanta who has ever worked for Coca-Cola.
Becker wears maroon bow tie, fancy arm bands, floral braces and drinks Old Crow while he plays at the Silver Spade.
FINALLY …
The Letters to Twiggy
Dear Twiggy,
I guess you must receive thousands of letters from men who start their letter, ‘you must receive thousands of letters from men like me.’ I guess you might even receive letters from men who start their letters, ‘I guess you must receive thousands of letters from men who start their letters …’
I know the opening sounds … well … but I left it because I thought it might appeal to your ‘zany’ sense of humour.
Why do I write? Why do I write to you? Why-do-I-write-to-you, Twiggy? If I said it was because of your elfin beauty that would be true but poorly expressed and too simplistic. If I said it was because I loved you, that would not only be premature but would betray a certain lack of full understanding, on my part, of the meaning and import of the word love. I hope that we can discuss this vexed question of love because I hold it as terribly important that two people who say they love each other should know what they mean. Are they Frommian or Reichian or Christian-Judao or do they run the de Rougemont line of ‘troth that is observed by virtue of the absurd’? (de Rougemont, Passion and Society, Faber and Faber, London, Paris, 1956, p. 307.) I know at this stage of your life you probably have little time for books – you have the bright lights of camera flash in your eyes!
I suppose that I am trying to say to you that I am not just another crazy mixed-up teenager. I am a person who has seriously thought about the implications and importance of human relationships. I want also to rush to assure you that you are not simply some kind of fantasy for me – I see you as a real person, fully dimensioned. So many of us these days are chasing dream people – fantasy people – and there is a sad tendency for people to subtract those human facets which they are not willing to accept and add those features they want and then think that the sum total is a desirable person when it is nothing more than unreality. It occurred to me that you must have terrible difficulty in ‘show business’ finding people who like you for yourself – as you are. Of course, you could ask how I feel I know you. All I can say is that I have read every available reference. I have a file of articles about you and another file of photographs. These two files permit me to feel that I know you, if not intimately, then certainly ‘in depth’.
Most importantly I have looked behind the photographs (and found more than the studio name) and have read between the lines of the written word (and found more than the watermark of the paper).
But I have raised the matter of love – and that was premature and ungainly. I have a tendency to do that – to rush at the heart of a matter. I need to curb it – but to revise the letter would be dishonest. I would be concealing from you the type of person I spontaneously am. I will not revise any of our letters. In a face-to-face relationship one cannot revise. What is said is said. The letters remain then what they are – the expression of another human being with all his weaknesses and failings (and I hope, modestly, strengths). No facade – no false persons.
I raised the word love to show you I am a serious minded and intentioned man. All human beings are seeking love (let’s bring it out into the open!). And we would not be fulfilling our personal stewardship if we didn’t give ourselves the widest and fullest opportunities of finding it.
I have often put it to myself this way: if I want to dine well I go to a great deal of trouble to select a good restaurant – I attempt to ensure that I make best use of the catering facilities of the city. But I have observed that I have not always done this in finding for myself a love relationship – which is, of course, a much more important goal.
I hope Justin has not snatched the letter away from you at this point. I want to rush to tell you that I am not a poor frustrated old man. I lead a full life, in fact, I feel bound to tell you, with the risk of being indelicate, that I do have ‘sexual encounters’ from time to time. On the other hand, I am certainly no ‘playboy of the Western World’. I have a relationship with a rather lovely woman and we have been close friends for nearly three years. Her name is Donna. I was under the impression that Donna and I had a highly satisfactory relationship until you came along. When I saw your photograph on the cover of Newsweek April 10, 1967, I knew then that Donna and I had a shallow representation of a relationship. You looked out from the cover and saw through Donna’s and my relationship. You with the blue eyes of Athene (Athene is frequently referred to as glaukopis which probably meant ‘blue-eyed’). I knew instantly that I had been practising self-deceit. I realised, too, a sexual dissatisfaction (I may as well grasp the nettle!). I feel a little guilty talking of sex to you at your age but I am sure that ‘show business’ makes you more a woman of the world than many girls twice your age.
Most importantly I realised that I had not been putting myself into the search (i.e. for a love relationship) with the vigour and determination which I indeed applied to other tasks. When, for instance, I felt myself attracted to girls in my lectures, or on buses, I would hold myself back and go home feeling wretched with guilt. Instead, I should have made bold moves.
When I saw your eyes and envisaged your glabrous body I knew I had no alternative but to make a bold move. So here I am.
Your eyes on April 10 looked out from the cover of Newsweek and brought me to what I feel is the end of my search.
Well, now for a little about myself. Obviously the first letter – from one pair of searching eyes to another – is a difficult one. You will no doubt be surprised to learn that I am a Senior Lecturer at the university here – in History – age 36. But I don’t want to frighten you – I know your interests are not academic and you’re not bookish. Your remarks about de Gaulle and the Common Market made me chuckle. If you’re reading this, Justin, please assure Twiggy that university people, too, are human.
The enclosed photograph was taken last year at a picnic. The fish I’m holding I caught myself – quite by accident – through the tail! I’m pleased to say that since the photograph I have lost a few pounds (Mother’s diet). I generally pride myself on being a man who is concerned with his appearance, and, as a model, I’m sure, Twiggy, you’ll appreciate that in a man. I don’t have to wear my glasses all the time – only for reading – or catching fish.
I feel that at this stage I can say little else. I anxiously await your reply and the beginning of our relationship.
LET THE RELATIONSHIP BEGIN!
Yours,
Dear Twiggy,
Naturally, you have to be careful – in fact I would insist – that you safeguard yourself against perverts and other objectionable people. Consequently, I under stand that your photograph and the note ‘Twiggy thanks you for interest in her career and wishes you all happiness in life’ is more or less a formal reply. Again, you haven’t the time to reply fully to every first letter. However, I did notice that you signed it personally and I prefer to look upon it as an encouraging, if tentative, reply. I have placed great store on the fact that you did sign it and I do not consider this unreasonable. I have a file ‘Twiggy Photographs’ which contains about forty-two photographs of you and another file marked ‘Twiggy Articles’ which contains seventy articles and clippings. I have now started a file ‘Twiggy – Person
al Correspondence’ and placed your personally signed note to me in it.
I guess the first thing you’d like to know is how things are with me. I have just completed marking fifty-five essays on ‘The Decline of British Imperialism’. The students are certainly more knowledgeable these days but at the same time they seem to become politically more intolerable. The subject being British imperialism, they write about American imperialism in Vietnam! And about the Third World – whatever sort of concept that may be. Not that I’m cutting myself off from the younger generation. Heavens forbid! I’m not even placing myself among the ‘older generation’. I am aware that on paper there is a considerable difference between your age and mine but what does it matter when there is affinity?
However, I rush to give you an example which shows me in a less conservative light and which will prove to you that I’m not an old ‘fuddy duddy’. We were discussing marking [of examination papers] in the common room the other day and some of the so-called progressive younger members of staff asked me if I used a scale for marking (I suspect they thought they would lampoon me). I said of course not. One should be able to tell from the first page whether the student has an understanding, has historical perspective, has read sufficiently, and is thinking. I told them this. They attacked me – new staff members – and said that objective marking could only be achieved by elaborate formalised scales. And as they argued, I thought, I’m the ‘swinger’ – not they. They’re the formalists and I’m the existentialist. Anyhow I said, ‘Hells bells’ and launched into them. Marking, I told them, is more in the realm of art than science and one had to have a ‘feel’ for the mind, not a knowledge of mathematics. The formal scale, I told them, is a way of measuring information, not a way of assessing the thinking mind.
Looking back on the last paragraph, my dear Twiggy, it occurred to me that you are probably not acquainted with this sort of discussion. I try to imagine what you would talk about with Justin and the girls you meet in modelling. I imagine the questions ‘What motivates fashion?’ and ‘What is beauty?’ are commonly discussed. (I can imagine with almost relish those dressing-room debates.) But I don’t wish to encourage you to become ‘academic’. I see you as a free animal spirit – don’t misunderstand me – I don’t mean to suggest that you are an animal in the farmyard sense (ha ha) but in the forest sense – grace and nature-ness. I wish sometimes I had more of the animal in me, that I were able, as it were, to enjoy the things of the senses without becoming tangled in various moral and intellectual considerations. It is a failing, I fear, of the academic. Although, I must say I felt a little of the animal stir in me when I launched my attack on the formalists in the common room. I banged my tin of Nescafe on the table for emphasis and used my teaspoon with a great deal of flourish.
The Americans, Baby Page 22
