The Village
There was no breeze apart from the dry carbon coughs from the yellow cabs, rattling the geometric ribcage of the city. Frank paused for a moment to light a cigarette and felt rather than saw the flood of pedestrians pull curtains of colour, sound and odours around him. Germany before the war had been characterised by long nights of wild decadence, excess of music, drink, style; but counterbalanced by the introspective wintry pessimism of a race chastened by centuries of barbaric internecine conflicts. The Germans never let themselves forget that it was they who had put an end to the Roman circus, so they watched their own decadence with a vague numbed sense of its own doom.
New York, and more particularly Greenwich Village was something else again. It was already, in 1960, populated with a mass of nationalities, pushing against each other and feeding off each other in a creative and cultural melting pot. There was no unifying protestant ethic, and only the flimsiest of moral codes. Frank let the lungful of Lucky Strike shimmer into the neon atmosphere and sought to find in the miasma of sensation the pulse of Jazz from the club behind. It was already a cliché, but he really was standing by a basement café with the smell of fine coffee and strong brandy mingling with the staccato bop phrases played on bass, drums, sax and trumpet. Tonight it was Art Pepper, a white boy but sharing the narcotic tastes of most of his black colleagues, and also their flamboyant sense of melody and rhythm. Frank checked his narrow tie and choreographed his descent to the fanfare that was “Smack Up”.
It was just after ten, so the club’s population was dominated by followers of the music, mostly white students or black or latin youngsters with their own bands learning and dreaming of one day being on stage themselves. The others were tourists, dealers or pimps waiting for their women to come back from work and spit dollars into their hands. Frank hardly knew which music he was really hearing; the percussive bop or the orchestration of social existence. Both were beautiful and, for him, objects of abstract inspection.
At this point in his career, and he regarded life number four as being a bit like the mid to late twenties, Frank was still shaking with the dawning realisation of what he had actually done. He didn’t mean by this his incredible achievements in biological science, he took them for granted along with his inexorable genius; no, he meant what he had done in the way a mother looks aghast at a clumsy child and utters the commonplace phrase. What he had done at the end of life number three had more than confirmed his misanthropy. When a relationship dies you hurt, you feel despair, empty and worthless (although Frank regarded empty and worthless as distinct as pH1 and 14), even a misery bordering on suicide; and then you get even. What had shocked Frank was that when he got even he did it in a way that was to take out millions of lives over the coming century or so.
In Germany the death camps had been a constant impingement on his consciousness, a sawing bowed bass line to acknowledge his present environment or a pervading scent like opium or diesel. He had lived with the knowledge of what was happening to the Jews, Gypsies, mental defectives etc. and could see it as some kind of primitive aesthetic gesture, a kind of action painting with blood. On reflection he supposed it had raised his sights, given him a glimpse of the power he had to make his sensations more real, more lasting; certainly more subtle and infinitely more refined than those of his Austrian model.
He ordered whiskey, Irish; the taste for which he had acquired along with cerebral substance of Professor O’Connell in 1916. Loud and familiar laughter from the lobby caused him to swing around and he was delighted to see three of his acquaintances enter the bar. They were seasoned bohemians, a man and a woman in their thirties and an older man approaching his fifties. The men wore the uniform of the demi-monde that Frank himself favoured, the two piece suit, black trousers and jacket, white shirt and thin plainish tie in a dark shade. The woman wore a long skirt featuring a large floral print and white man’s shirt rather than a blouse. She smoked only French cigarettes through an ancient mother-of-pearl effect filter.
“Ellsworth, Helen,” called Frank, shaking another Lucky strike from his pack, “Good to see you. Let’s grab a table. What can I get you?”
“Frank! There must be fine music here tonight if you’re hitting the spot,” replied the younger man. “I’ll have a vodka in honour of your Norwegian roots.”
“That’s Russia, Ellsworth. Norway is different,” protested Frank.
“Hush! Don’t mention the Reds. There’s an iron curtain across my soul and only your pure non-Commie Norwegian vodka can dissolve it tonight. Anyway, we’re celebrating with Morris here.”
Frank recognised the name. Helen had been deep into Morris for some time now, and although he was a lot older than the other painters, sculptors and writers that congregated in the village, word had it that his new work was going to make a big noise, move things on like Johns had. “A show?” he asked, moving to the bar.
“Sure,” replied Morris, “and most is already sold. Beer?”
Frank didn’t need to ask Helen what she was drinking. By now they had an agreed code of slight eyebrow movement. It was going to be two beers and another Irish whiskey. Helen blamed Frank for introducing her to the stuff, but he didn’t believe her. She went her own way. That’s why she had pursued Morris. Everyone assumed she would start to paint like him, but in fact it had turned out the other way round. Frank liked her. He found the idea extraordinary. He had never liked anyone, and after Jack he would certainly never love anyone again. Helen was unique and he was quietly determined that she would never know what he had done; not to save his own reputation of course, simply to respect her innocence. He looked at her, smiling seriously through the smoke, and imagined how she would laugh if she thought he was ‘respecting her innocence’. The Pepper Quintet blotted out conversational traces and improvised with the smudged skeins of meaning. The whiskey dissolved the rest.
There was no breeze apart from the dry carbon coughs from the yellow cabs, rattling the geometric ribcage of the city. Frank paused for a moment to light a cigarette and felt rather than saw the flood of pedestrians pull curtains of colour, sound and odours around him. Germany before the war had been characterised by long nights of wild decadence, excess of music, drink, style; but counterbalanced by the introspective wintry pessimism of a race chastened by centuries of barbaric internecine conflicts. The Germans never let themselves forget that it was they who had put an end to the Roman circus, so they watched their own decadence with a vague numbed sense of its own doom.
New York, and more particularly Greenwich Village was something else again. It was already, in 1960, populated with a mass of nationalities, pushing against each other and feeding off each other in a creative and cultural melting pot. There was no unifying protestant ethic, and only the flimsiest of moral codes. Frank let the lungful of Lucky Strike shimmer into the neon atmosphere and sought to find in the miasma of sensation the pulse of Jazz from the club behind. It was already a cliché, but he really was standing by a basement café with the smell of fine coffee and strong brandy mingling with the staccato bop phrases played on bass, drums, sax and trumpet. Tonight it was Art Pepper, a white boy but sharing the narcotic tastes of most of his black colleagues, and also their flamboyant sense of melody and rhythm. Frank checked his narrow tie and choreographed his descent to the fanfare that was “Smack Up”.
It was just after ten, so the club’s population was dominated by followers of the music, mostly white students or black or latin youngsters with their own bands learning and dreaming of one day being on stage themselves. The others were tourists, dealers or pimps waiting for their women to come back from work and spit dollars into their hands. Frank hardly knew which music he was really hearing; the percussive bop or the orchestration of social existence. Both were beautiful and, for him, objects of abstract inspection.
At this point in his career, and he regarded life number four as being a bit like the mid to late twenties, Frank was still shaking with the dawning realisation of what he had actually done. He didn’t mean by this his incredible achievements in biological science, he took them for granted along with his inexorable genius; no, he meant what he had done in the way a mother looks aghast at a clumsy child and utters the commonplace phrase. What he had done at the end of life number three had more than confirmed his misanthropy. When a relationship dies you hurt, you feel despair, empty and worthless (although Frank regarded empty and worthless as distinct as pH1 and 14), even a misery bordering on suicide; and then you get even. What had shocked Frank was that when he got even he did it in a way that was to take out millions of lives over the coming century or so.
In Germany the death camps had been a constant impingement on his consciousness, a sawing bowed bass line to acknowledge his present environment or a pervading scent like opium or diesel. He had lived with the knowledge of what was happening to the Jews, Gypsies, mental defectives etc. and could see it as some kind of primitive aesthetic gesture, a kind of action painting with blood. On reflection he supposed it had raised his sights, given him a glimpse of the power he had to make his sensations more real, more lasting; certainly more subtle and infinitely more refined than those of his Austrian model.
He ordered whiskey, Irish; the taste for which he had acquired along with cerebral substance of Professor O’Connell in 1916. Loud and familiar laughter from the lobby caused him to swing around and he was delighted to see three of his acquaintances enter the bar. They were seasoned bohemians, a man and a woman in their thirties and an older man approaching his fifties. The men wore the uniform of the demi-monde that Frank himself favoured, the two piece suit, black trousers and jacket, white shirt and thin plainish tie in a dark shade. The woman wore a long skirt featuring a large floral print and white man’s shirt rather than a blouse. She smoked only French cigarettes through an ancient mother-of-pearl effect filter.
“Ellsworth, Helen,” called Frank, shaking another Lucky strike from his pack, “Good to see you. Let’s grab a table. What can I get you?”
“Frank! There must be fine music here tonight if you’re hitting the spot,” replied the younger man. “I’ll have a vodka in honour of your Norwegian roots.”
“That’s Russia, Ellsworth. Norway is different,” protested Frank.
“Hush! Don’t mention the Reds. There’s an iron curtain across my soul and only your pure non-Commie Norwegian vodka can dissolve it tonight. Anyway, we’re celebrating with Morris here.”
Frank recognised the name. Helen had been deep into Morris for some time now, and although he was a lot older than the other painters, sculptors and writers that congregated in the village, word had it that his new work was going to make a big noise, move things on like Johns had. “A show?” he asked, moving to the bar.
“Sure,” replied Morris, “and most is already sold. Beer?”
Frank didn’t need to ask Helen what she was drinking. By now they had an agreed code of slight eyebrow movement. It was going to be two beers and another Irish whiskey. Helen blamed Frank for introducing her to the stuff, but he didn’t believe her. She went her own way. That’s why she had pursued Morris. Everyone assumed she would start to paint like him, but in fact it had turned out the other way round. Frank liked her. He found the idea extraordinary. He had never liked anyone, and after Jack he would certainly never love anyone again. Helen was unique and he was quietly determined that she would never know what he had done; not to save his own reputation of course, simply to respect her innocence. He looked at her, smiling seriously through the smoke, and imagined how she would laugh if she thought he was ‘respecting her innocence’. The Pepper Quintet blotted out conversational traces and improvised with the smudged skeins of meaning. The whiskey dissolved the rest.
2 comments:
jazz,cool
am playing catch-up on the hostel's connection.
New york new york. Can't wait to see how you've handled the south ;)
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