Blue Hands
ore brain squirming fiction by John Owen.
According to DSM-IV’s diagnostic criteria for a spiritual emergency, a delusion is a “false personal belief based on incorrect inference about external reality and firmly sustained despite what everyone else believes…or evidence to the contrary.”
Recently Lane felt the need to let himself relax more. He’d been really stressed lately with all the pressures on the Dreyfuss account, and frankly he’d begun to spend too much time dwelling on how little of his old personality was left. Lane was pretty well set for the year financially so he could afford to be spontaneous, but could he remember how? His friends, reveling in their certainty that they knew what was best for him, insisted he take some time off, escape the city, break his routine, maybe even have a fling. Did they detect something?
So Lane allowed himself to become a little random. He stopped shaving and by the third day had broken his own eleven year record for beard growth. He practiced his Johnny Depp stubble smirks in the mirror. As he watched himself it occurred to him that he wasn’t merely impersonating Depp but expressing an attitude he himself had and had quashed thousands of times on the job. He stared at his mouth, thought it beautiful and whispered, “I can outsmirk you, punk.” Lane imagines Depp having the same thought whenever assaulted by the paparazzi and notes that comparing himself to the star pleases him.
You know how it is… somehow the little day to day distractions and procrastinations, somehow they all clump together and start to weigh you down? Lane was devoting more and more thought to the idea that the only true vacation was a moral one, a quest towards enlightenment without the snazzy ego enhancers. ‘They were only souvenirs you used to display yourself to your social circle anyway.’
He researched the smaller luxuries first. Not flossing, not recycling, not watching fat intake. He saw a pair of absolutely hideous polyester maroon plaid bell bottoms in the E.V. one day and bought them in 12 seconds flat, grinning all the way back to his apartment. ‘Never wore ‘em once but that’s fine, that’s not the point… Allowing one’s self to become open, to not resist the onslaught of constant distraction, indeed to embody that very chaos…’ Lane’s diatribes had become tedious save for one technicality: nobody actually ever heard them for Lane now talked only to himself - 24 hours a day.
More ideas were really entering Lane’s head these days. There weren’t enough hours in the day for keeping the systematic journals of his thoughts, sketches, dreams, and of course the lists. A guilty pleasure was The Shitlist: a collection of
Men Who Need To Be Hurt & Why
Bruce Willis that Smirk
Andy Rooney that Whine
Ron Jeremy that Swine!
Clarence Thomas Liar
Pauly Shore Weasel
Regis Philbin Perkiness!
Phil Collins Cloying
Gilbert Gottfried Annoying
Michael Medved Obsequious Wimp
Rush Limbaugh ‘Buffoon-slash-Blimp’
Cutting little pictures out of magazines, continuously taping PBS and CNN shows, labeling and filing the little pictures and cases of tapes are tedious, time consuming affairs. They consumed the bulk of his day and since Lane was easily bored, he soon fell way behind in his cataloguing. How could that compare to the spontaneity of sitting down at the Mac and dashing off an essay comparing the intertwining helical parabolas of the soaring guitar solos of some band on Sub Pop to seasonal rainfall statistics in the Portland, Seattle, Puget Sound area spiced up with sensational case histories of despondent teenager Prozac nightmares?
Lane had discovered one of life’s karmic ironies: SELFISHNESS IS MORAL. The ticket for that swinging singles cruise his friends had pitched in for resurfaced one day; its window of validity had lapsed four months ago. Lane thought, ‘That was when I was Depp,’ and sauntered over to the Big Board. On his living room wall he’d mounted a 6 by 8 foot piece of white plexi, basically a timeline of the events in Lane’s life since he’d begun to take time off. Since Lane had actually done very little (those friends who bought the ticket had long since ceased to call) it was more a diary of his attitudes, obsessions, pet hates, etc., divided into periods Lane cleverly named with song titles from his favorite CD’s. Lane entered ‘Tkt Fnd’ on the board in grease pencil, then slouched on the sofa and checked the ticket’s price: $2,168. That afternoon Lane wrote an essay to his friends (exactly 2168 words: he used Word Count… under Tools) as to how much more valuable his current research was than any vacation. Upon completion he felt he’d more than validated their friendship. He then entered the essay’s title, Friendship: A Renewable Resource, on the Big Board. It never occurred to him to actually mail the letter or ring the old friends up. ‘Too busy, they’d understand.’
Convinced that his highly evolved self-awareness was one of the foundations of success, Lane initiated a new set of practices. He stopped paying rent and utility bills. This was blood money anyway and the bastards could just try and get him. Once the phone and cable TV were shut off he felt a lot better. ‘Maybe they’re not so bad, if you send them the right signals, they’ll eventually come round to your way of thinking.’
It was during this period that Lane rediscovered a long forgotten joy from his childhood: blueberries. On one of his brief excursions outside he’d noticed a cute freckled redhead at the little farmer’s market on Greenwich St. She was from upstate and sold natural jams and fresh fruit off a simple wood table. He cruised over to her, stared just a little too long at her breasts, and paid $3 for a box. He ate almost all of them and forgot the rest. The fridge was not even cool anymore so they didn’t last long. Lane became obsessed by how they looked decomposing and couldn’t understand why the cute redhead didn’t share the same fascination when he wordlessly presented the moldy, pulpy mess to her the next Saturday afternoon. As he left, vowing to now purchase food only at the Food Emporium, he thought he heard several people discussing his teeth. He bought six boxes on the way home. Climbing the steps to his apartment he got an idea. Once inside Lane stripped and eased himself into the filthy bathtub. He crushed the blueberries on his thin, pale body, concentrating on his face and crotch. He began to masturbate. As he felt himself come, he gripped his cock harder and looked at himself in a small hand mirror, sneering as he muttered the phrase ‘hot speckled hyena bitch,’ definitely intensifying his orgasm. He then drifted into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Lane was awakened by a pair of hands encased in surgical gloves rudely shaking his left arm. He opened his eyes to see the bathroom filled with EMS guys, the landlord, a cop, others. A petty bureaucrat for the city was taping everything on Hi8. Somewhere a flashbulb went off and he heard his super’s accent, “Always polite, quiet, kept to himself…” Thus began a new era of freedom for Lane.
After spending the weekend in Belleview, Lane was released a little cleaner and slightly sedated. His face and hands still retained a faint blue pigment. Being thrust into the streets was a definite eye-opener for Lane and he was grateful for that. For the first couple of days he’d dragged the Big Board around but found it cumbersome to say the least. He ended up erecting a little shelter with it down under the FDR Drive. Lane loved being by the water. Each day when the sun came up it shone through the plexi, illuminating his thoughts, even though most of the words had rubbed off. Emerging from his fragile river abode each day, Lane felt like The Prehistoric Fish that had to crawl out of the soup in order to evolve. It was a sunny, humid morning in late July. Lane stretched, smelled the East River, and smiled. ‘A coupla blueberries’d hit the spot right now,’ he thought. But first he walked among the makeshift shacks and woke his neighbors. He felt an overwhelming urge to speak again. “Brothers and sisters of the river, lift up your heads! We are not the castoff human refuse media would have you believe. No, we are the very essence of boundless potential. We’re free, free to do whatever we want!” Lane paused as one of his comrades in rags disgorged a huge oyster-like mass from a nostril, and began to inspect it closely. “We have dared to take that first step. We have X’d ourselves outta their white world! We are the unreturned phone call from the Soulless Conformist Hell of Materialist Corporate America. Hooray for neo-tribalism, abstinence, and moral superiority. God bless us!” Blank stares. Silence then muttering. One said, “Muthafugga’s been at dem berries agin.” Another lobbed an empty wine bottle in Lane’s direction. Lane looked down upon his flock with pride and surge of love. They cared about him! A spitball hit him in the cheek. Their rough edges and crude language merely the true traits of man as furry animal, all humanity unplugged! Sounds of someone violently barfing. Their sensitivity, as exhibited by their desire to spare him their embarrassment at his florid excess [a grizzled Popeye now begins to urinate on the Big Board] filled Lane with a sentimental sense of belonging. However, Lane was becoming really hungry so he left.
Lane began his treck over to the Seaport where the tourist pickins would be great. Six block stroll, pleasant. All he could see in his mind’s eye were the blueberries, $3/box. Lane was, when the occasion demanded, a cupshaker. Besides being spieled out from the morning’s effort, Lane had that innate sense of politeness and social distance. Lane believed if some suit (or pantsuit) was going to give you a quarter, you were better off as an abstraction in their mind. Lane’s M.O. was simple: he’d sprinkle the cup’s bottom with pre-change from his pocket, average: 68¢. He’d jingle in a mild musical rhythm, nothing too snazzy. When someone approached with a donation, he’d halt the shaking for a moment; the pause was the acknowledgment. That space of silence was Lane’s thank you. He was sure they understood. He spied an empty Our Pleasure To Serve You and was on his way. Lane amused himself with self-debate lite; Joan Fontaine: Smart Tart or Naive Saint?
Then it happened. Right out in front of him pranced a cute little Jack Russell Terrier leashed to an even cuter Gen X schnauzer. Lane slid out of sight and began to follow her. She was about 5’3,” thin, blond and extremely pale. No wait, it must be some new kind of matte whiteface. A fuckin’ mime, for Christsake! No doubt headed for the Seaport as well. But Lane was evolved, and thus complimented himself with having the self-assurance to accept his initial attraction for the girl, in spite of her obvious brain damage. The little mutt was even walking on two legs out of sheer canine perkiness! Then Lane realized he’d have to work quick. He’d have to cop the sympathy dollar before it became an entertainment dollar. Forget the New Age shit, this was survival. ‘She aint makin’ a buffoon outta me! Fuck Her, she’s over!’
The square was laid out in cobblestones, bounded by various food vendors and preppy clothing stores. A sickening mist of seared meat kabob and honey roasted peanuts drew the children and their parents like rats. Urban trailmix. Rounding the corner, Lane spied an unused pouch of ketchup on the ground. He snapped it up, opened it with his teeth, and artfully added a bit of dirt. He applied the goop to the knuckles of his cup hand and the lid of his left eye. Sizing up the mood of the crowd, the Man of a Thousand Faces positions himself near Haagen Dazs where the guilt will be highest. He squints and cringes pathetically. Shake shake shaka-cup.
With his good eye, Lane slyly clocked the progress of his rival. She literally skipped over to the kabob geek, who could have been separated at birth from Leroy Neiman, and charmed him out of a few scraps of meat for her mutt, Fabio. This was rapidly becoming a tableau, a Hallmark Card, a pre-show warm-up as Fabio strutted obscenely on the cobblestones, his cute furry dogpecker defying civility. Toddlers were plainly delighted, instamatics were poised. Lane was livid. Only $1.12 into the game and he was being pre-empted by a circus act straight outta Norman Rockwell! He’d better do something, and quick.
Mimi (what else?) was now quickly getting into costume and beckoning a small audience. Lane wracked his brain for a plan. He saw a small boy jettison half a corndog and lunged for it, then headed for Fabio. Halfway across the square he began to feel funny. Things didn’t seem like they were moving at the right speed. His feet were shuffling but it wasn’t an act anymore. Audio textures changed. This was getting scary. All Lane could see were the two wet brown eyes of Fabio, staring right at him. Lane knew he’d had a plan to betray Fabio using the corndog somehow. But reality had started to slide and Lane was losing control of his thoughts. You ever have the feeling you were about to experience something that would forever alter your perception of everything? Like your whole life had been building to this moment but you weren’t exactly sure of the outcome? It seems to Lane like Fabio’s trying to put thoughts in his mind. Then the dog spoke, enunciating quite distinctly. It said, ‘Have you lost the path, traveler? Why do you forsake me?’ Lane let the corndog slip from his fingers. Fabio approached with a cautious semi-crouch, all the while staring intensely at Lane. When the terrier got to Lane’s feet, it carefully picked up the corndog with its teeth, stood up on his hind legs and returned the food to Lane. Again Lane’s mind heard the dog’s voice, ‘Go! Leave at once… doggone it!’ Lane thought, ‘Begone yourself, hound of Satan!’ but stood paralyzed. From somewhere far away a child asked its mommy if the man was a clown too. Then Lane heard the voice of an angel. He looked up and saw Mimi smiling at him. Everything was in slomo. She was tying her hair in a ponytail, her clean and perfect white armpits exposed to him. Her eyes were inhumanly blue, lovelasers of Ice Blue Aqua Velva. She said, lips not moving of course, ‘I feel we are two special people. We understand each other don’t we?’ Lane’s gaze drifted down to her breasts. Her nipples became erect before his very eyes, straining against the form fitting white tuxedo shirt. Time stood still. Mimi’s nipples were exquisitely large and seemed to be begging to be licked, flicked, nibbled, bitten, pinched, tongue-whipped, or otherwise tweaked in every conceivable manner. He imagined them in extreme close-up in the style of stark hyperrealism. Tiny crying mouths appeared in the craters of these nipples. They spoke to his mind and said, ‘Traveler! Do you require nourishment? We need to be sucked… Suck us, Please! It is Our Pleasure To Serve You!’ Lane had at last achieved that state known in courtrooms throughout America as temporary insanity.
What then filled Lane’s brain was a Pink Floyd Opera of an Ecstasy Sequence, initiated by the singing of a heavenly choir and all the colors going gold and melty. He sees an impossibly vast grassy plain. Superimpositions of a tanned and virile Lane chasing Mimi nude in slow motion, her breasts and ass bobbing delightfully. She mock pretends to be afraid of him, Mr. Scary Satyr Man. Her bush is incredibly thick and hairy. They romp through sylvan glades and splash in virgin waterfalls. Lying on her back under a tree, Mimi squeals with glee as Lane crushes fresh blueberries on her firm squirming body. The two innocents smear each other blue with their passion. In the amber glow of sunset they gaze into each other’s eyes meaningfully and kiss, their auras merging into one. Their glow becomes more intense as their bodies begin to disappear. When they are completely invisible (or consumed) the light drips through the night air, collecting on the dark surface of a babbling brook, there reconstituting the outlines of their magical embrace. A small school of minnows dash to the surface and gobble up the last glimmering memory of Lane and Mimi. Could this be love?
Pain. Blackness with gross orange-magenta pulsations. Unrelenting skull splitting agony. Lane debated God, then summoned his reserves of courage to crack open an eye. Familiar faces came into view. He was back at camp, the foul faithful of the river peering down at him. Popeye, Mousie, Doc Weaver and the others. “Wha happen?” Lane croaked. “Baseball bat up backa yuh head, psycho! Shiskerbob fuck clocked ya good, he’s a mean sumbitch!” grinned Popeye. “You wint awf, holmes,” spat Mousie, “bout ripped the clothes off dat lil’ clown ho bitch!” Lane grimaced. It felt like someone had used his head to paint the center line in the freeway - at 70 mph. “If Doc Weaver warn’t on his way for more juice… who knows?” concluded Popeye philosophically. Satisfied that Lane would live, the group became instantly disinterested and moved on. Lane felt a shadow on the corner of his eye. A small figure stood at his shoulder, a Pakistani boy of about eight. Lane had not seen him before. He wore only Addidas shorts and sandals and had big brown eyes just like Fabio. Lane got a weird vibe from him. The boy turned and began to scribble something on the Big Board, unnoticed by the others. Lane struggled to focus:
Men Who N d Tc e Helped & Whv
LANE PSYCHIC
Lane’s hand lashed out and grabbed the child’s arm like a rattlesnake at the peak of its career. “Who are you, kid?” he rasped. Those big wet eyes remained as serene as a Buddhist monk’s. Then the child spoke for the first time, “One who knows.” Lane’s heart skipped a beat. “Knows what? Don’t talk to me in riddles, boy!” The boy bent down and placed his hand on Lane’s brow. Instantly Lane felt calm, soothed as if caressed by the Saints. The next sentence entered Lane’s brain without passing through the boy’s mouth or Lane’s ears.“Knows that you are The One prophesied by my people. My path is to care for you.”
No one saw Lane for about six weeks. When he emerged in mid September, as Manhattan busied itself with the new fall season, few noticed. He seemed profoundly weak. He resembled a trendy 90’s Baudelaire down on his luck. Young Habib was always at his side. Lane spent most of his time prone on a section of cardboard, stationed somewhere on lower Broadway. It’s really amazing how much comfort can be derived from inserting just one eighth of an inch of cardboard between your ass and the concrete. Lane had renewed his oath of silence while in hiding and would shuffle along mute, his right hand resting on Habib’s shoulder. Together they made a pitiful but unique sight, and in the city where originality is everything, business was brisk.
Thousands trod, jogged, slogged, sauntered, staggered, schlepped, limped, or otherwise passed Lane and Habib each day. A few became regular contributors even though Lane never uttered a word. Once in a while Habib would reveal to people some tidbit about Lane with all the auspiciousness of a shaman interpreting goat entrails. Lane had long since ceased listening to what people said to him. It was only through Habib’s care that he had any human contact, and indeed survived at all. Human speech had become noise to him, but the everyday sounds of a huge city had become an ethereal space music, filling him with wonder and joy. Sound became liquid caused by the pulsations of liquid. With each breath Lane inhaled liquid, with each glance he emitted liquid. Approaching footsteps were ovals of liquid lightly kissing squares of liquid. It was through liquid that the thoughts of others visited Lane and he learned to read minds.
Some slowed when they passed him, most didn’t notice or denied themselves the sight of him. Those who looked at him, who saw, gave over to him in an instant. As the multitudes streamed by, Lane’s heart swelled to almost bursting: ‘…if you’d only invested… live chickens empty onto a conveyor belt that leads to a darkened room… under Section 2524.2 (c) the Landlord is still prepared to accept your… Who asked you to butt in, Charlie? Mother! Why don’t you just let me live my… resources it needs to undertake this necessary expansion… when the shark makes its first attack on Quint! Circle Line Sniper Shoots Tourist… is a model and avid dancer… refused to respond to questions about her husband’s infidelity… khaki linen three button… citing CNN as the worst offender…’ Lane could not stop or control the flow of humanity’s inner babble. It was all he could do to surf the constant tsunami of emotion and psychosis that had become his eternal here and now. Of course none of the pedestrians of our fair city realized that for two or three seconds they’d become a minute reality bite, a spec in the giant Seurat painting of Lane’s existence. It was purely his own Hell. And it was the kind of Hell he felt he alone was uniquely suited for.
‘…Bronx’s chief sanitary officer… slid steadily against the yen… too shaky for the return of refugees… thanks to an experimental prostate implant… listen to the purr of its 24-valve in-line six. Christ, baby I’m doin’ the best I… softened the rhetoric through the prism of his good-guy persona…’ On and on the ceaseless chatter continued. Lane had heard it all. And within the hearing there was knowing. And deep within the knowing there was feeling. Buried feelings of hurt and loneliness and the remembered snubs of a million variations on a few simple childish themes. Feelings of inadequacy and yearning. Yearning for meaning or justice or love/happiness/contentment or plain simple relief.
Then it happened. It slid liquid into his nostrils, then entered his brain through the long neglected proper passageways and began rooting around in musty drawers for its own name, finally discovering it: blueberry. Thousands of skeins of crusty muslin are rent as they are pulled across a thousand pairs of unblinking reptilian eyes. Perfect dusty indigo spheres dance across the kodachrome Disney lawn of Lane’s memory. Particles of liquid light swirl in a tornado as delicate as moth wings, forming in Lane a totally new human emotion. This clot, this knotty nimbus then speeds out those same liquid passageways and arcs across six and a half feet of Broadway airspace and into the mind of Benny Moscowitz, on his way back to Flatbush with his box of fresh blueberries purchased moments before at a Korean deli up the block. And yeah, just then somehow Benny feels a little better. ‘Not bad, really, considering the shitty day I had. Can’t quite explain it but who’s complainin?’ Benny gazes up at the clouds in the sky, pans down to a windowbox of blazing vermilion geraniums three stories above street level. Benny appreciates the clear autumn light as it illuminates the fabulously symmetrical one-point perspective of Broadway, and catches his foot in an eroded part of the pavement. A single blueberry tumbles from its place under the cellophane, bounces off some random elbows, evades heavy foot traffic to jump up onto Lane’s chest. With tapered translucent fingers Lane brings the orb to his lips and smashes it against his soft mossy teeth. Lane smiles up at Benny, blessing him with spiritual healing, love and acceptance. Benny stumbles to a halt and stands transfixed and baffled. He is unable to hate, indeed forgets how to hate this man on this afternoon. ‘Weird, this kind of creepo I normally go awf on…’ In those few seconds Benny’s hate molecules start to break down. The chemistry of the dissolving helixes warms his brain, beginning an irreversible process. On the subway home Benny even thinks about it some more.
What happens next is one of those ‘only in New York’ urban phenomena of the late Twentieth Century. You see, Benny’s a very superstitious guy; that night he hit on the Pick Six. “Eyyy, no Getty, but $2,168 aint nothin’ to sneer at.” He tells his whole family the Koreans’ blueberries on lower Broadway brought him luck. Benny has a BIG family. “Pretty soon Moscowitzes from all five boroughs AND Jersey is buyin’ blueberries on lower Broadway like there’s no tomorrow!” And though none of them realize it, they all walk past Lane on their way to the train. And soon enough, they all start to feel great. They tell more people (those Moscowitzes are a kindly lot) and so on and so on. Lower Broadway becomes a swirling mosh of warm & fuzzy. Viperous Soho art-hags unpinch their faces and get over themselves, NYU students decrease their rhetorical inquiry, skateboard kids have their clothes altered to actually fit them, and seventeen squeegee bums pool their quarters and charter a one-way bus to Idaho. The Village Voice dispatches its new Lifestyles cub reporter to write a puff piece on the whole scene. Her name is Mimi.
11:08 am: Mimi sets out from the office to the Peppycenter, the cute nickname she’s invented for her article. Six block stroll, pleasant. She’s quite fetching in a new black suede jumper and, as she catches a glimpse of herself in a store window, notes that it pleases her. She reminds herself to get a receipt for the blueberries, $3/box. Maybe later she’ll bump into friends and pump them for witticisms for the article over a couple of caps at Dean & Deluca, also deductible. She buys her blueberries a readies her Pearlcorder to record Mr. Kim’s pearls of wisdom. Being Korean, Kim is reticent on the issue and its larger ramifications. “Berry good for business, ha-ha!” is about all Kim can bring to the party. Mimi calculates the probability that this pun could possibly be intentional. She lights up a Camel Light, figures her next move. Killing a few minutes in front of the store, she notices all the blueberry buyers inevitably head downtown. ‘Well, D & D’s that way anyway…’ and she motors on. She spies a little cluster on the sidewalk ahead, thinks it to be a three card monte situation in progress and almost crosses Broadway. Almost. At the last second she changes her mind without knowing why. Nearing the cluster, Mimi senses the vibe as utterly un-monte and draws closer. Gold glints suddenly blind her. Habib’s sporting a lamé turban and adroitly accepts the morning’s donations. Lane now rests on an old Persian rug and wears a wreath of small white wildflowers from upstate. Those who linger converse happily; no one’s a stranger this morning. Then Mimi sees Lane.
‘Hello, Traveler.’
‘Hello.’
Somewhere a street performer gently strums an acoustic guitar, a baby cries a wise man dies. Mimi is overcome by a sudden lightness, cholesterol dissolves in her arteries, nicotine evaporates from her lungs like perfume, worry lines leave the corners of her pretty mouth and fly off her face, becoming tiny benign mosquitoes. She has never seen a man with more beautiful eyes. Lane smiles at her and Mimi instantly hallucinates. The world around them melts away. The two innocents stand close together in a field of small white wildflowers. Lane drops to his knees before his goddess. Her ripe breasts spring forth from her diaphanous muslin peasant blouse and squirt twin white arcs of warm sweet milk into Lane’s smiling mouth. Nourishing, nutrient-packed, life sustaining woman’s milk. Lane’s teeth gleam, his hair is long and lustrous, his skin is as burnished copper over his beefy pecs and ripped abs. He stands now, letting the milk cascade in twin rivulets down his chest. He reaches into a leather pouch at his waist and reveals a handful of fresh blueberries. Mimi giggles mischievously in anticipation. Tenderly he begins to crush the berries against her cheek and neck. Mimi takes his hand in hers and brings it to her mouth. Looking into his eyes, she licks the blue pulp from his wrist. Lane lowers his own mouth onto her freckled shoulder and nibbles the fruit there, working his way down to devour the juicy clumps gathered in the shallow inlet at her collarbone. The sounds of slurping and their own breathing is all they hear.
John Owen lives in Brooklyn, NY.