bottom of the ocean

Bottom of the ocean, thirty leagues down a canyon, a spindly glowworm glows in the water. In my descent I chance upon this glowworm – by the way, it’s me, in case you’re wondering, it’s Lui – I chance upon this glowworm and I note how opportune is this encounter, for it has been a lonely trek down, and more to the point, there has been no light anywhere for days. I have seen nothing and heard only odd gurgles and pings from the darkness below.

Solitary and without occupation, my mind, thankfully, has a raft of distractions to keep itself afloat: pictures of people, unfinished dialogues, special girls from the past, but also, the more rudimentary, time.

So it is with some excitement that I stretch out my arm now and catch the glow on my wristwatch to read that it is precisely two o’clock!

In a place like this, it is a treasure of knowledge to know even as little as that: on what side of noon or midnight the journey's made.

In my excitement, I attempt to be my own clock for a while and count down seconds as I descend, but I lose track quickly and get flustered and out of breath for all this concentration.

So I turn again to what is real and physical and simple.

Pressure has increased all along – such is water at depths – and yet my limbs feel almost like air. For some time I have felt close to weightless – cold, but weightless – and with no light anywhere and practically no sound but those gurgles and pings, it is easy to question whether one exists at all.

But I do not question… I continue my descent, my mind clinging to its raft, the glowworm like a lone-star above me.

woodwork

You’re birthed, toweled down, hung by your feet, butt slapped, breastfed, schooled, issued credit and put to work for thirty years. You get ledger and file, wife and kid, whisky and decanter, and for Christmas – half-drunk and rotten – you a cut a tree and carve a chicken.

It’s knife-sets and cufflinks now. It’s looking at the haze off your kid’s ipad and the guilt scurrying in your wife’s eye. It’s alarm clocks and medication, paid holiday and fighting fights in your brain, no longer down low and rough on the pavement.

So you get crazy. You shut the door – you slam that fucker shut – curse all and sundry in your mother tongue – tvoja majka je bolesno majmuna – pull your toolkit down from the attic, your bag of files, rasps, and jigsaws, and you build a fucking boat the size of a shoe, then a royal scepter from a log, and from that man-sized trunk in the yard, that crazy stump of oak, a human face.

Pheeeeeeew! Man! Christ that feels good.
And you look with satisfaction at the face.

But time elapses and you get lazy. You turn into a lazy fucker once more, you forget, you ignore, you seek distraction, you take up smoking, dump your wife, get a girl, screw around, pay up lawyers, buy a hammock, ditch shoes for slippers, meals for beer, drink no end and bray in the streets, 'til at last you throw up your hands at the heavens. What the fuck? WHAT THE HECK IS THIS!!?? WHAT THE FUH!

But the Lord is silent or is himself distracted. Either way, you get no answer.

So you lose yourself in woodwork once more. You lose yourself, and you ask yourself, you turn a question, like a lunatic, in your brain: would wood-work work? Would it work, this woodwork? Would woodwork work? And you file and you rasp and you drill, first a house, then a man, a woman, a breastfeeder, a cufflink, a royal scepter, but it brings no solace as before. And you file and you rasp and you drill some more, until you are covered in sawdust head to toe and your whole house, your whole fucking house is strewn and there is nothing more in life, not a single object left to replicate…

So now you have no choice, but finally, at long last, to CREATE!

And goddamn it that feels good.

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeew!

Paris

There used to be nothing else to do but eyeball each other in deep space. This was the dawn of time when thermonuclear explosions and flashing nebulae were the order of the day, but people are people, and people get bored. The wonders of the universe ceased to arouse any interest in anyone anywhere. People just wanted to eyeball each other, they wanted to stare out and see if there was someone on the other side of space. No one gave a rat’s ass about galactic explosions and sun flares – Lui, are you listening to me?

Yeah, yeah.

Why are you looking away then?

There’s a bird.

Forget the bird, Lui, you’re not a cat, you can ignore birds when you want to.

Ok.

Alright, where was I? Yes. Anyway, the problem is, after a while, even this eyeballing got boring. There was the odd wink and staring contest, sure, but nothing of real substance. But then someone had this brilliant idea. Someone said, you know what, screw this, I’m gonna to stop eyeballing everyone around here, I’m gonna turn my back on these shmucks and I’m going to eyeball this, this thing here, this beautiful, glistening, shimmering object I’ve just called into being, this radiant – this… this iridescent thing of beauty and I’m going to stare at it until everybody else stares at it too, until eyeballs in the furthest reaches of space can’t help but stretch out fingers of some kind to touch this ruby bijou I hold my hands.

It was a ruby?

Like the color ruby, Lui. Just run with it. So... what we have now is the onset of desire, of want, of need, and now things start to really change. Now eyeballs don’t just stare out anymore, now they start to look askance, and in some cases tears flow from them for days on end. Eventually – I mean in the long run – you get love, deceit, economics, and you get facebook and that sort of thing, but not for a while. First there is a another major milestone, the greatest I'd say – but I’m biased – first there's the woman!
That would be you?

Yes.

And the man, right? They’re simultaneous.

Maybe… perhaps. In any case, there’s certainly the woman. And it is for the woman that land masses would be brutally partitioned, epic battles fought in rivers of blood, whole kingdoms ripped asunder for gems to bestow up her and so on and so forth. And this is why you want to kiss me so bad, Lui. I’m your ruby…

mmmm... ok, but we’re also in Paris.

[smile]

[smile]

[We eyeball each other for a while. A bird flutters overhead...]

[...until it gets boring, and then… ]

why we stick to sandcastles

Say you take a grain of sand, that poetic grain of sand and you toss it up in the air, and then you toss another and another until you’ve cleared the Riviera, Copacabana and all of Huntington beach, until chicks in bikinis are stretched out on bedrock, and sandcastles on the shoreline are no more. Say you keep casting up sand like that and say you do this feverishly, though on a mission from God, say you spend most of your adolescence casting up sand in this fashion in vast swirls up into the sky, and say you manage somehow – by sheer force of will, by voodoo and telekinesis – say you manage to keep these vast swaths of seaside sand in suspension just out of gravity’s filthy reach, and say you keep them turning and swirling, spreading out further and further, expanding until the extremities gather into packets, like planetoids turning on their own axes, and say you keep doing this until the entire array pushes further upwards and outwards, higher and higher, so high the whole experiment becomes – how shall I say – practically a mirage, something indistinct but still visible like a whirlwind of interstellar locusts, a meteoric dust-storm, expanding in vast multiplying swirls of sand; and say that now and again – because maybe it gets boring after a few years – say that now and again you cast into this sandy mix the odd salvo: a stone, a dead crab, a can of sunblock – just for kicks, just to see the unholy chain of explosions it sets in motion, and say that – being a guy after all – you can’t help but check askance the gorgeous chicks on the Riviera and the volleyball babes in shades down on Huntington beach, say you just glance over to see if they’re impressed at all you can do with a dead crab, yeah, and say that indeed they are impressed, and say that right then you start to get all satisfied with yourself for being such a clever little thinker, such smart-ass little thinker– how macroscopic and genius, how boundless my imagination, how vast my scope.

But now you’ve stopped thinking about the swirls of sand completely, now you’ve totally taken your eye off the ball, and thus, at the height of your self-applaudisment (even inventing new words derived from French), brisk and adolescent though you may be, genius and philosophic though your thinking, the swirls of sand start coming down: first the Riviera in soft showers, then Copacabana and finally, raining down hard as hail, the courser grain off Huntington Beach.

A genius little prick you feel now, smothered thus in your own universe.

what I got

I got five bucks in my back pocket, a gold-coin hundred in my wallet and a quartz wristwatch worth ten. I got a belly full of goulash, a heart thirty years a’tickin’, and skull-load of ideas good to go. Yeah, these I got!

Plus, my friend, I got this body: I got these legs I can cross in tight seats, kick out in a squabble or scramble like mad when my life is under threat. I got two arms, two hands, two feet – feel that –I got those. And these little gems, my friend, I got them too, eyes to gaze at lush damsels in the spring and leer when I’m feeling dark & ghetto.

Yeah, these are mine: my dimpled cheeks, my busted molar, even this rogue lock of hair I’ve battled in earnest for years. Mine! I own this body. I don’t rent, it’s not on loan, it’s mine to do with as I may, to thrust at this world – helter-skelter – to thrust at this world with the fervor of a kamikaze, to throw into the air, to hurtle into space or drop into the fray.

I light a cigarette…

So now, my friend, I must tell you this:

This is my last cup of coffee in this great city. This rampart of the common. And I will miss it. I damn well will!

I will miss bigman under the brickwork; I'll miss the brigand gang of Kurds with their brass spittoons and mustaches. And I will miss the warm summer nights when the sky comes down in pellets of water and starlight. I’ll miss that. I'll miss you, Rotterdam City.

But I take what I’ve got now.
I take it all bundled up like this, like I said...

and I go.

chartreuse and jungle-green

Before I could walk I wove through legs – human and table legs – I gripped adult fingers and scraped along floors on my hands and knees. I was six months old, pretty anxious for the most part, but never disheartened with life because I knew only one fear and it had a specific and identifiable location: my stomach. Plus, when the enemy emerged, I knew what to do: I just shrieked like my life was damn near its end, and since I still remembered how life felt when it began – birth fresh in my memory – I just assumed its end must be similarly excruciating. So I just shrieked and shrieked like a f*!#&ing maniac… and I waited. And this was life.

My eyes and mind at this stage were still in apprenticeship and not much good to anyone. Nuance? Forget it. Man and woman, for instance, they were just Man. Chartreuse and jungle-green, that was just Green. But I understood even then that I must shriek some considerable length before that milky breast would be thrust into my face and the enemy inside placated. I understood that. I understood very quickly – stinky-shrieky Croat, six months of age – I understood the rudiments of time.

But when I began to understand time, right then, at that instant, a new danger arose, a danger I would come to experience in depth, a danger without bounds: boredom.

I got bored. And this – after existence itself – was my first true condition. And it sucked.

When you get bored, you start to think needlessly. You think too far and too deep until your thoughts become more real to you than even the crap in your own diapers.

Deep inside my tiny body – even as I appeared busily crawling about – I felt something was wrong, something beyond the enemy-stomach. I intuited it, I sensed it, and, of course, I thought about it. But for a long time it remained non-specific. It was still, you might say, just green.

Now, moving on…

The other night I was downtown Bruges at a place that serves steak, beer and pretty much nothing else. Opposite me was a Belgian man in his forties: glassy eyes, piss-blond whiskers and teeth approximately the same color. (Note for travelers: Belgians are a charitable folk; a tad medieval in more ways than just that one, but overall, a pretty friendly, unassuming folk.) So there I was: cozy corner, three-square-feet of oak, steak-frites and a pint of Chimay. And there he was: cheery man from West Flanderen downing his fifth pint on an empty stomach. He spoke most of the time and I could see in his face and how he clutched his glass – much like I gripped fingers back in the days – that most likely this guy was still fully battling the enemy-stomach. So, I just let him speak and only once did I interupt to mention what a nice necktie he had, dotted red on jungle-green..

this world of thugs

Half the street was hookers; the other half: Bulgarians fondling their belt buckles, fatso German truckers on the prowl and dwarfish men from the Belgian countryside. It was a shithole, the greatest darned shithole you will find. You will find such a place! Every major city has one.

There was crap in the gutter, wafts of urine all about and pigeons pecking squashed fries off the cobbles. The smell was human, but barely. I tell you, I was not here by choice. I took no pleasure watching spindly girls from Belaruse struggle on lacquered heels. I took no pleasure.

Rage is what I felt. I thought to grab some piece of piping off the ground and club these trolls, a hundred strokes each, then calmly straighten my cuffs and jacket like a made man… take that, you bonbon eating piece of... (to the Belgian dwarf ). And then with the same piece of piping, shatter the red-lit cages of glass, all of them, and release their thin-armed inmates to freedom.

I thought to myself, they'll run like gazelles through the streets.

But then I thought again. In every doorway a greasy ape fingered a cellphone. In every doorway such a man leered at his clientele – Bulgarian, German, Belgian – calculating in his oily skull the monies each will part with once they have partaken. You screw with these greaseballs and they don't hesitate, they snap your fingers back and smash your teeth with gold rings and Zippo-hardened fists. Make no mistake.

And so I thought again.

This place is a shithole, it is a well of shit, a fount! Nothing on Earth would have made me happier than to see these twenty gazelles leap to freedom on their lacquered heels. Nothing.

But freedom where? Freedom what? There are apes in doorways in every city. Here, in Bucharest, Bombay, even – yes – even Zagreb. No matter where, they are there.

Then the rage in my stomach became a firestorm and my mind turned into a blaze of nun-chukkas breaking every bone in this stinking alley – Man and ape alike – every bone like kindling wood.

HIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAARHG!
SWOOSH SWOOSH!
TAK!
SWOOOSH SWOOSH!

A dizzying wheel of strokes!!

TAK TAK TAK!!

CRAKX!!!

SWOOSH SWOOSH!

[German truckers in a heap; Belgian leches in the gutter; Bulgarians in a bulge before me; and all the greasy apes, all of them, begging, BEGGING for mercy.]

HIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAARHG!

SWOOSH SWOOSH!

CRAKX!!!


Meanwhile, there I was, pulling my trolley bag forward over the cobbles, minding the pigeons, minding my own business. And at the end of the street – nun-chukkas still in full swing – I thought of Bigman. I thought of him for a while because he calms me down.

***

Bigman, I thought, I understand why you only come out at night, why you are so careful to reveal yourself, why you smile but do not speak, and why you live so deep, deep underground. I understand.

The wells of shit, they are above ground.

ordinary lil' fauntleroys

After my body was scanned, my bag gutted for contraband and my person patted down; after baboons with badges cornered, tricked and questioned me, I was released with all my effects into the arrivals hall where lil' lord fauntleroys waved balloons on sticks and mothers heaved their heavy breasts looking flustered at all and sundry. After I’d woven through this crowd of luckies and the row of drivers behind them – J.R. Dental; Pierce Longsword; Hopkinson Smith on their placards – after I’d trolleyed my bag into the clear, after the waving, beaming faction was behind me, I realized – good heavens – how happy I was to be home.

I thought about the French fries I would thrust down my throat, the Doobie Brothers that soon would blast symphonic across my quarters; I thought on the joys of Mica’s calves, cheeks and bellybutton; I thought – Yes! – without shame or reservation– what a joyous, wondrous day.

And so I pardoned with a wave of the hand the fiddling fauntleroys for being such little twerps, and I forgave their bovine mothers too for being so flustered at all and sundry. And I thought to myself, let me resume my life here among you with a kind-hearted gesture.

After the fries had gone in a dozen a pop, after the quart of ginger-ale and the clutch of toffees at the duty free; after satisfying my most commanding Earthly needs, I ventured down into the bowels of Amsterdam International Airport and waited on the platform with the ordinary-Man, the pig in uniform, the hack in a suit. I waited for the bullet-train back to Rotterdam City.

Understand, dear reader, this may seem utterly ordinary to you, but understand that “ordinary” - for me - had just been stripped and skinny dipped into a tub of vitriol. Recall the eyeless gentlemen, recall the stack of biscuits breakfast-lunch-and-dinner, recall the sheer horror of wall-crossings and telekinesis. So forgive me if I enjoyed (more than is appropriate) the chocolate skinned starlets who sat across from me in the bullet-train home. Forgive the rapt expression on my face as I beheld the gold amulets at the foot of their heaving breasts – Shantala, Serena – in bubbly golden script. Indeed, forgive me all these heaving breasts, but I was beside myself with joy in this bullet-train, on this day, in the bowels of Amsterdam International Airport.

letter from the vortex

LISTEN CLOSELY.

I am served by two eyeless gentlemen – the same stack of biscuits, breakfast, lunch and dinner – and since my stunt the other night I’ve been observed by two other gentlemen, also eyeless. In truth, JK, I am also observing myself because my stunt – I crossed a solid wall of brick– was not deliberate and by no means expected. I am – praise all things holy! – shaken, JK.

In case you haven’t figured it out, it’s me, it’s Lui. And in case you are asking yourself where the hell I am, carry on because I can’t tell you, I have no fucking clue. Excuse my language JK – I know where you stand on obscenities – but I am uncomfortable here in every way conceivable. Forget the biscuits and eyeless gentlemen, this place – will you believe it – is stranger even than your evaporation chamber, your plasma tank, it is stranger, JK, than any locale or contraption you have ever conceived. I ask you, I beg you, JK, command one of your machines, materialize me, rub together your magnetizers, do what you do, but do it!

JK, I write to you because you are best versed in these matters. If I were trying to get laid I would seek counsel with Brendan Benchpress; if I were merely irked or vexed, I would turn to my heart, my Mica Spirelli, but as it happens, JK, I am out of Time – literally out of time – so it is your help I seek.

Something happened when I last awoke. Usually Time rolls out its carpet for me as a matter of course– flap flap flap – the days shines, twilights and then goes dark and my life transpires like clockwork. But on this day, JK, it’s as if the carpet did not fully unfurl, and I tripped over the fucking thing, tripped and found myself here. Found myself thus, JK.

I have been told a number of things, but all in a language as yet unintelligible, so forgive me if I omit to relay some critical details. I have not seen a single ray of natural light since my arrival, and all food has been, as I said, biscuits. But I have been informed by these gentlemen that all is well and that I needn’t worry about a single solitary thing.

HAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHHAAAA HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAA HA!

Excuse me if I find some of this amusing, but if you don’t mind – as a substitute for the terrific grief that rips through me – I laugh with all my teeth, all my tongue, until my gut is purged, and then I laugh again:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAAAAA AHAAHA HAHAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAH AAHA HAHA

And when I’ve had quite enough I become angry, terrifically angry and vent forth as follows:

Listen, you eyeless TURDS! My name is Lui Labas. Allies beyond this shithole will cast terror upon your hairless skulls – I wage my life on it – but that aside, think a moment on this: if I can cross partitions and walls of brick without a scratch, what barrier of any consequence can you erect? THINK for a moment!

But to you JK, I confide: I have crossed all walls but one, the last wall, not even the biggest nor thickest, but I am terrified, JK … for God only knows what lies behind it! God only knows!

Yours,

Lui Labas

Ps- I send this, as agreed, by emergency protocol, but my mind is jittery and unstable so the words above may reach you diminished of sense or perhaps altered completely. Make of them what you can, JK. What you can. Lastly…

...

…red or dark red, sir. It’s a fluid, sir. They’re full of this fluid. Anything happens to them – you rough them up, sir, and they spill this fluid from their skin and orifices. It’s very messy, sir.

So they say… so who do we have here?

His name is Lui Labas, sir. We picked him up off the street. There was a big tall guy with him too, a big hairy guy, but he looked irregular; we thought he’d be too much trouble, sir.

What’s he doing now?

He’s pacing up and down, sir.

Has he eaten anything?

Sir, he said today was “toosdae” sir, and on “toosdae” he says he’s supposed to have “waffls” with his sister, sir.

That does not answer my question.

No, sir.

Well get him some of those blasted “waffls” then.

He won’t eat them, sir.

And why the hell not!?

Sir, his sister, sir, Bee Labas. He won’t –

Shut up! Enough. You’re dismissed! Get out my sight.

Sir, one more thing, sir.

Quickly.

Sir, we found him in the hall last night, sir. He was –

Which one of you God-blasted incompetents forgot to lock his door?

Sir, that’s just it, sir… Sir, his door was locked, sir.

sex when it's dark

I couldn’t see a thing – the power was down, the whole block was down – and the moon that night (when you need her!) was a pale piece of crescent.

But Lui, reaching down panties, you can do that in the dark, man. Or is it brassier clips you struggle with?

Quit giggling Brendan. No clip ever held back an able-bodied Croat, and I can make my way one hand tied behind my back. But that’s not the point. The point is you want to see stuff, you wanna look down, you wanna – anyway, let me finish. It was dark. On the groundfloor under a flimsy duvet there was me and Mica. Two floors up JK was kick-starting his back-up generator, and outside on the streets there was rumbling going on, maybe Kurds battling Turks, maybe the pulse pushing up out of the underground. Who knows, but I wasn’t about to get out of bed , no sirree. And like I said, it was pitch dark and when it’s pitch dark strange things happen. Very strange things… or maybe it’s pitch dark because strange things happen, ever thought about that?

Christ, Lui, you’re about to have sex, man. Who cares!

Right! But, for your information, as my hand was moving down along Mica’s belly – soft as peach, my friend – as my hand was moving down her belly, at that particular instant, somewhere way out – I mean WAY OUT, Bren – some an unholy chasm ripped through space like a massive blackhole shuddering, and every piece of matter this side of the universe was under its spell!

What the -

That means me, Bren, that means Mica Spirelli, that means -

When did that happen? I didn’t feel anything. You're confusing things Labas. Remember, you're about to have s-

I’m getting to that, let me finish. So -bang- huge blackhole, everything shuddering, my hand roving down in the dark, Mica reaching up, JK’s gennie rattling upstairs -

Alright, go go!

Yeah, so it being pitch dark and all, I’m going by cues now , Bren, and these little cues from Mica they just keep coming, you see, and she’s soft as peach all over, and despite all that rattling and rumbling upstairs, and that shuddering in space, despite all that, when we made the climb completely in the dark, and when we slipped off the edge and cascaded down together, there was that moment – no cues, nothing– there was that moment when everything stood completely still.

… yes?

That’s it.

That's it!? Labas! Details, man, DETAILS!

the order of things

On January 28, 1975, Zagreb, Croatia, I slinked into the world at last, a tethered bundle of bone and fatty tissue. It is said I screamed for over an hour, but what do you expect, entered thus into the human race – an adversarial race for the most part; predators, backbiters, double-crossers – entered thus: empty handed, skin-naked, bewildered and thoroughly unmanly despite the disproportionate nutsack that comes part and parcel with male natal garb. And – note – defenseless: no teeth, no knuckles, no nails, nuthin’. A couple of clear-cut shapes like a wrist or a collar bone would have set me apart. Instead, I emerged pouffy, a blotchy neck-pillow, with zero motor skills and no clue about anything at all: not the light that flashed EVERYWHERE, not the rubbery hand that cupped my skull, and not the knife that clipped the cord that’d kept me alive and kicking for nine glorious months of relaxation and water sport.

How can I say…. I was pissed off.

One thing I had going for me though – one thing I’ve lost since – a setv of vocal cords so badass and shreaky I silenced mother, father and attendant staff for fifteen minutes. My first fifteen minutes I owned. This was my guitar solo, and I let loose! A good thing too because for the first fifteen minutes at least, I was nameless.

Eventually, it came: Lui Antun Labas.

Understand my frustration, though, I came from a very simple place: temperature regulated, sound muted, light unnecessary, food channeled in, and me all padded out in my little my capsule, proof against impact of all sorts, doorknobs, broom handles etc. And most importantly, my thoughts reigned supreme. I crossed deserts on foot, floated weightless through the void and threw javelins at meteorites. Now and then, for sport, I kicked my mom in the gut, but mostly I was adrift in realms of my own.

Right…

Now jump thirty-five years forward… watch your step.

What do you get?

I’ll tell you, my friend. You look here. I’ll tell you what you get. A whole bunch of crap you get. Crap-you-don’t-need carefully collected. Bric-a-brac, cardboard boxes, books I’ve never read, books I’ll never read, almanacs, wristwatches ticking and defunct, maps of the world, maps of Crete, maps of Rotterdam, folders of miscellany, bits and pieces, chips off chandeliers; I have bundles of letters, letters from Leticia, shit she wrote way back when she put her hand down my pants for “feels”; I have chessboards – I have three – I have shoulder bags with leather pouches! Belts in abundance; I have scarves, my friend, long, short, fagggot-ass, you name it. Christ so much shit. Do you have all this shit? Do you have all this crap down there Bigman? Corkscrews, shower mats? You have that shit in your burrow? I’ll tell you what, don’t you envy us, my friend, don’t you envy us. You see this silky thread here – feel that. You feel that? – between me and each thing here there is such a thread. A tether, Bigman. A silky tether.

Ever heard of Gulliver? You know Gulliver, right?

eating quiche doing squat all

I cut my quiche in eighths and think of fractions like back in the day when I did math puzzles for kicks. Also, a pint of Ribbenstock cider fizzes on the table – best shit in the world – waiting to come in and ferret out bits of salad and rhubarb caught between my teeth…that is, before I funnel it round into my waiting gullet.

Niiiiiiiiiice!

Little touch of alcohol back of my throat and Drago comes to mind: his belt-flask, his schnappsy breath and the string of fucks he used to weave in and out of his language like points de soutures (fucking happy to see you my friend. You are my fucking friend!).

In goes an eighth of quiche… the crust… the crumbs…. then an olive, a wrinkly, slippery little sucker I balance on my tongue, then waterpolo around my mouth for sport before I gut it of its seed.

Another gulp of Ribbenstock. A big foamy gulp I slosh around like it’s Biaritz all up and down my molars so the undertow can wash out the eggy-paste that comes with the territory quiche Lorraine.

All sounds good and fun, you say: Lui Labas sitting around eating quiche doing squat all; 7/8th left; crazy olives in a jar; Ribbenstock cider in abundance. My friend, I can’t complain.... except for outside temperatures which have stooped to new lows; the enemy creeps in with icicles through the cracks, my toes are curled up cold, my neck is cramped and my prick has retreated –

Hatchoum!

In my bathrobe borrowed from the Belgrade Intercontinental I sit for a moment with my Ribbenstock cider. Every now and then I pop an olive, but mostly I think of what I was thinking yesterday when I was babysitting JK’s mammoth cat… It went something like this,

Sometimes there’s just nothing going on. Sometimes there’s only what you’re doing right this minute! Heck, not even what you’ve done because nothing you’ve done was really lasting. You do this, you do that, you loll about, you slumber and life does that hopscotch over your butt, skipping you in its round of rewards. Like a cat on a couch... like you my friend, bewhiskered thing-with-claws...

But thinking all this doesn’t stop me from grabbing another eighth of quiche. So that’s what I do. 6/8ths and counting...

the A list

Give me a yard of yarn and a diabolo and I’ll amuse myself; I’ll dick around for a while, I’ll even try to catch that spinny sucker behind my back – chuck it up whoop and catch that thing like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Absolutely. And yes, it could be fun, I don’t deny it. Or show up at my house around dinnertime and feed me lamb chops and couscous with some of that fire-hot harisa sauce – same thing – I’ll eat, I’ll relish. No doubt about it. All true, all true, but none of this makes the cut, the diabolo, the couscous, not by a long shot.

At the end of the day – I’ll tell you – all stacked up, it’s people I love! Warm-bodied bipeds with nerves, knots in their stomachs, blushy faces, jittery hands and above all! stuff to say: Lui, my man, what goes in a bouillabaisse? A conversation about clams, for instance. Cleavage, Labas, on older women, what do you think? (Brendan) not my favorite, but beats a diabolo hands down.

In short: long-haired, short haired, male or female, people. It’s with people I live, people I mingle, converse, interact, intercour–

CUT!

(um… I hold a special and particular fondness for females– this is true – and a few even ignite fires in my groin and lower abdomen: redheads, girls from Split and Dubrovnik, classy chicks from Belgrade and so on, but this has been documented and is not the subject of this present exposé)

Where was I? People, yes, but not all people. We have here vast populations and among them, to be sure, there are some monstrosities too: six-hundred-pounders that can barely move (I speak not of the professionals that wrestle Sumo; they are incredibly agile). And there are people who are monstrous in a less visible, but equally disturbing way: some have demonic breath, others sweat like hogs. And there are even those that are monstrous in a way that is practically invisible, that can go undetected for years, but is deadly nevertheless. I speak of men and women who seed your thoughts with nettle and thorn-bush, who plant seedling quips and jibes until your mind is crawling with fucking brush and thorn, and you can’t see jack shit anymore for all the undergrowth, let alone move without scratching yourself bloody –

CUT!

My list… I was going to give you my list. My list of people hand picked out of a population of 6.692 billion and counting (I just checked). Some are alive, some are dead, some I don’t know, but all are class-A, stand-up, league-of-their-own types. Clams, cleavage, stock-chit-chat, anything goes with this band of greats. Here they are, in no special order, my people:


Labas, Bee: Sister. Dome-haired semi-professional bowler. Winner of “Best Sister” and “Best Sister… Ever” National and Hemispheric. Famous words: hit me with that little rake again little brother and you lose your balls.

Benchpress, Brendan: muscle-bound macho-man. Conspiracy theorist and philandering rake (other rake). Famous words: drop the brain Labas; it draws blood from where it is needed most.

Bigman: Creature of the burrows. Holder-down of the fort and gentleman of the night. Famous words: [none in known language].

Spirelli, Mica: Au-pair extraodinaire. Lithe-limbed princess of Ljubljana. Wearer of fleecy wool and sayer of sweet-somethings. Famous words: hold my hand you baboon.

Gonzaga, Luigi: Predecessor. Barefoot soldier of the spirit. Winner of “Coolest Medieval man-of-faith” and features in “Best Haircuts of the Sixteenth Century”. Famous words: keep your word and the path will clear itself.

Stanic, Drago: Serbian. Numerate gangster. Disembodied spirit. Holder of hotdog stand on galaxy rim. Famous words: Ignore the gun please, just give me the money.

Labas, Lui: Croat. Once-in-a-while nuisance. Land animal and ocean-faring spirit. Professional. Amateur. Admirer and defamer. “Best Brother” Hemispheric bronze medalist. Famous words: I’ll just show up if your turn me away.

meeting your maker

Sittin’ on my stoop – glass of pretzels – nice easy little day. A Turk or two puffing smoke and a bum on a scooter. Easy going. Ladeeda. Scratchy-scratch. Flick a bugger. Kick up dirt and check a cat make a run for it. All’s well this corner of the universe. All’s well. Dealt a comfy hand today. Yes siree! Comfy little hand. Sit down, have a pretzel…

Thus was my ease on this quiet afternoon… Thus was my ease when the shit came down.

Holy mother of God! Umpire of the infinite! Shit-kicker Galactic! What in Jesus H –

It came down on my skull like a godly jack handle, so hard, so fast I spit pretzels in a cone-shaped spray. My hands seized what they could. My bare feet jostled. My eyes did crazy laps in their sockets.

Fast I scrambled to adjust, but Time – rascally-ticker – pulled a Houdini on my butt and double-quick tied past, present and future in a smartass little knot I could not for the life of me unravel. And thus I stood, Lui Labas, a timeless figurine completely helpless to understand what the fuck just hit me, what needle, what ballpoint pen, what crayon came down from God-knows where to probe me in the skull, here on my own square of ground!

Then – in the flash that followed– Time pressed on. Pretzels dropped like Mikado to the ground. I sprang to my feet, I reached for the doorknob and with my other hand lassoed my scarf around my neck (my faggot-ass scarf, correct, but this is not apropos right this minute), with grace I lassoed that sucker as I spun, pretzels crunching underfoot.

Meanwhile, overhead, the sky crackled like fruit-de-mer on a grill, and on the ground Turks scuttled for shelter. THEN, just before the sky turned black, just before sound vanished fully from my ears, I managed a final leap to safety, into my cube.

As I arced over the threshold – frame by frame –I felt my body’s utter tinyness, utter fragility, as if my limbs could snap like balsa wood and my skull crushed like a tortoise egg.

I landed a finger-snap later, and that’s when I heard something behind me. The sound of feet and the fresh crunch of pretzels.

I was terrified. Utterly terrified. I dared not look. I could not. I stood completely motionless, pillar-of-salt, balsa wood and eggshell...

Lui? HELLOOO. Are you in there? My man! It’s me, it’s Louis. Sorry to barge in like this. I was in the area and I thought –

Jesus Christ LOUIS!! What did I tell you about this! Send me a text for God’s sake! I told you, this biblical shit pisses me off!

merging, in a fashion

I have a sleeveless sweater (or sweater vest) that I wear most days when the weather is on the fence. I wear it with my fence-corduroys which are corduroy everywhere except the knees and butt where they are worn practically to canvas. For these occasions I have a scarf too that Brendan calls (and I quote) my faggot-ass scarf because it is small and made of cotton… maybe muslin. Regardless, I do not take advice from Bren about clothes. About this I am categorical. Brendan rips the collars off his workout-t-shirts, he wears merino v-necks on bare skin and he pulls his trousers up around his waist like Jean-Claude van Damme. I’ve told him that his crotch bulges and that on most days the lay of his manhood is in the public domain. His response: “Yes… and?”

There are all kinds of reasons I don’t take advice from Brendan, but these are primary: ripped collar, v-neck on skin, muscles-from-Brussels. All three are cardinally wrong. If you have any one of these whatever else you do is irrelevant… to wit: Brendan’s belt has two sets of holes and thus two belt “forks” of stainless steel; the wallpaper on Bren’s phone is a picture of Chuck Norris kicking a giant Asian man in the face. You see where I’m going here?

But I digress.

I bring this up because the other day I wandered off into a conversation about the oneness-of-everything, that in fact we are all one, and that one day in the distant future we will all merge into a single consciousness… in a fashion.

I rejected this. I mean, I rejected it as a notion and as a possibility. The notion because it bugged me as a sentient being. The possibility because it will not happen. Why? Because I will fight it to the death, that’s why.

You have to understand that at the end of the day things could stack up terribly wrong. For instance – and this is real possibility – things could go the way of Brendan Benchpress. I cannot speak for you of course, but I will say this: I will not under any circumstance, cosmic or otherwise, wear my pants like Bren – God bless his soul – not here and not yonder in the oneness-of-light. And I encourage you to resist with me or we will all be ridiculous for rest of time.

Now, I mention this because I know how it’ll play out. First they’ll distract you, they’ll say, aaah, look here, a SUPERNOVA, a collapsing STAR – and then bang! they’ll pull a fast one on you. Your shirt will be shorn of its collar and your pecker pressed into a pant-leg, and that will be that. We will be One.

Not on my watch.

On my watch there will be differences and distinctions, there will be sleevless sweaters, sweeties and assholes. And if I merge into this oneness despite myself, if I am coerced or bamboozled, then I will go in kicking and screaming. I will bark across the galaxy into the face of this consciousness, vast and all-encompassing, and I will say to it (and thus to you!):

I am a Croat.
Yes!
But above all
(You listen)
I am Lui Labas,
An inalienable spirit!

the last tin box

When I was ten I stuck a tin box in the ground under the shrubs outside Stacić’s in Zagreb. I planted it down deep in the roots. I put my valuables in this box. A box of matches, a wad of prints, a shake-me-snowglobe. And in this tin box was another box – another tin box – and inside that one, another one, and so on, you see, like a Russian doll. But with each box things grew more valuable. From book of matches, to compass, to amber stone. Extrapolate on and… catch my drift? Box upon box until the last tin box.

So I stuck it under the shrubs for none to find. But the problem is, the whole neighborhood was crawling with thieving little runts, looking out for anything they could get their filthy fingers on. So I stuck it in the ground, deep down in the shrub roots and I packed it hard with earth and gravel because there was something in that last box. That last box, you understand, was the point of all this. Without the last box none of this would’ve been necessary.

Well, what was in it?

I spilt blood for that fucking box. I dug my nails into those marauders. I pulled out hairs and kicked groins for that last tin box. As a ten year old, Mica, I went to war.

My God, Lui.

You see here, Meek, my chin, you see this scar?

Yes.

These pillaging runts, ten, eleven, twelve year old, they went around with spiked sticks, probing the ground, spiking the shrubbery for my tin box. Every day, a band of these rovers. So I went after them. I threw myself at them. I fought them tooth and nail until one day, one of their spiked sticks was planted in my chin. Right here, you see... I bled profusely, but this goes without saying.

Lui!

A Montenegrin, a ten year old named Mulović. A beady-eyed worm of a human being. I wanted nothing more than to roast him on the spit he used to probe the grounds around my shrubs. He was obsessed. I was obsessed. All I could think of was that last box. I didn’t care about the crap in all the other boxes. It was the last box, Mica, to preserve the last tin box.

Well, why didn’t you just move it inside, Lui.

I couldn’t. Someone would see me. They were all over the place. They were my neighbors and their neighbors and so on. A ratbag of runts. A hundred eyes and spiked sticks, Mica. There was nothing I could do. And the thing is, after a while, I forgot exactly where I buried it.

Damn it, Lui, what was in the box?

That’s the thing, I don’t know anymore. I don’t remember.

How can you not remember - you’re lying - how can you not remember the content of the last tin box!

Really, I don’t know.

WHAT WAS IN THE BOX LUI? TELL ME!!

Mica, calm down.

TELL ME!!

Ooouuww! Meek, jeeeeeeez. Let go of my arm. Your nails! What’s the matter with you? Why are you so angry?

Why did you bring this up then if you don't remember?

Because, with all these shiny boxes under the tree, Mica, I remembered something today. Not what was in it, but where I put it. I know where to find it now. I know where it is!

minus twenty

There were no Turks in sight and no beast showed its hairy face. Not in this fucking weather. It was minus twenty. Easy.

I was on the corner with Mica Spirelli (Mica wrapped in woolly layers). She kept whispering vapory Lui's in my ear – Lui, lets go, Lui – until her teeth chattered and she fell silent again.

Minus twenty. The pavement hard as steel. The sky solid blue. Even the pigeons slowed their pecking. For a second I though of those yellow-eyed hares that’d eyed me underground, how they must be freezing their little rabbit butts now; and that demonic pulse further down – that crazy, maniacal pulse – I figured it too must slow its beat in this glacial cold (not so scary now, are we?!)

Mica whispered more vapor – Lui-Lui – and then off we went, through the salt-slush, through icy air, through the glare of snow downtown Rotterdam. We didn’t stop until we hit the river, and there we stood as still as stalagmites. It was frozen solid – the river – a beam of ice miles in length.

In the distance a man on skates slid towards us. A crazy bastard in a linen suit. It was JK. Of course it was JK. His jacket fluttered. His cigarette smoked and his body fumed with vapor.

Your lips are blue, JK! Put on a jacket jesus christ!

I’m wearing one, he said as he turned a ¼ pirouette.

That’s linen. That’s a summer jacket.

You mean this old thing, and he thumbed the lapels as if complimented.

Then I noticed his crotch-zipper wide open and my balls made a painful fist as I imagined his manhood chilled by these glacial winds. I was gonna say something , but he turned to Mica and cut me off:

You look beautiful in red wool Ms. Spirelli. Your eyes especially.

And you in linen JK.

He puffed smoke, finished his pirouette and skated off, unaware - this crazy bastard - that it was minus twenty and that as he puffed and sweated, most of Rotterdam stood completely still.

riveting jobs

There are jobs out there that are unbelievable. There are things people do that are unbelievable. Pedicurists chip at toes, they pick out deposit and gunk that is hard to get at, but this is a useful profession in my book. I’m talking about the millions – correct that – hundreds of millions who face monitors the better part of the day, who enter figures; figures which get transferred to different departments where they are reviewed by like-minded but “superior” beings, who in turn call meetings to discussed these figures in plenary sessions. So now we have ten, twenty people in a poorly ventilated room. Coffee is circulated and guys touch girls to pass the cream, thank you. Everyone watches one another until a visual is projected on a wall where the abovementioned figures are displayed. Blah blah blah blah blaaaah bleeuh and so on until an underling from the monitor-class interjects a comment about a pie-chart on the wall. Finally, a man at the head of the table projects authority and makes a “strategic” decision. Then coffee is circulated once more and guys touch girls for cream.

Meanwhile, from the bowels of space, a thousand trollish thugs thrust forward at just under the speed of light in an armada of gunships that rips through space-time as a single vanishing line. These thousand "men" – let’s call them that – are partly naked and have nails that need care. But they are not concerned. They are armed to the teeth. Some also face monitors, but most are in the mess hall dicking around, cleaning their guns. They are scheduled to land on or near the Arabian peninsula (not because it’s Muslim territory, but because it's flat and there’s lots of space) and from there they will disperse.

Senior-troll (taller than the rest and fully naked) rises and projects authority as he makes a strategic decision to increase the speed to just over the speed of light. Pressure suits are circulated, a button is pressed, a lever pulled and the armada and its thousand trollish men fold up in space somewhere, approaching in the skies yonder...

I’m kidding.

But – you know – who knows.

Ok, back to work.

Pie charts, people!

building a human being

You take the periodic table, Labas, you take the elements, yeah, you take zinc and nitrogen and carbon – you need carbon – and you throw an atom at it from the top of the table, a lighter one. Bang you got a compound. Then you stick this little baby in a vat of hydrogen and you spin the shit out of it in a centrifuge. You gotta pump out the debris you see – I’m talking rogue electrons, quark bits ripped off the nucleus and so on – and you hang this thing in a vacuum and you shake it, you shake it, you understand; don’t dillydally here Labas, you shake it hard – this can take years; you need a shitload of patience, I’m warning you. And when you’ve got a couple of these puppies lined up, you’ll see, they’ll come at each other, cling to each other like lovers – they do that, they love each other, all their electrons close and intertwined. So now you keep doing this until you got a cluster and the little dirtbag starts to move all by itself, kind of like a cell. Basically Labas, if you can pull out a paper, read all the op-eds and come back and it’s still moving, you’re good to go. Got it?

Yes. Ok.

Alright, now here’s the thing. Listen up, now you have to get off your butt and leap a few million years forward. So you just take giant-boot strides across time, Labas; don’t be sparing here, you just go; you just jump like a crazy-man, you don’t come back until you’ve put a couple of million between you. Ok? And when you come back –when you come back to the same place, guess what? Lookee-what-we-have-here, a hairy thing with arms – dumb as a box of rocks, but mobile and with eyeballs, a sentient thing with long limbs and big teeth. Don’t be afraid though, Lui, this guy doesn’t know right from left. You can screw him with your eyes closed and half your brain defunct. Alright?

Yes.

Ok, now comes the tricky part… Labas, are you taking notes?

No, I’m listening. I’m not going to do this myself JK.

Sure you are. Take notes. Alright listen up because now you have to throw some voodoo at it, now you have to get this dirtbag to talk, you understand, so you hit him with it, you do your thing, you throw the book at this sucker, you do what you have to, I have no rules here. Your guess is as good as mine. You invoke gods my friend, you invoke gods, you do what you have to do, but sooner or later – if you do it right – he’s going to talk back. They all do. Stop bustin’ my balls he said to me. They can be nice, but they can be pesky too. Either way, don’t complain because next thing you know – guess what? – he’s ignoring you. He’s sitting around, he’s got bouncy fluorescent things on his feet with a swooshy stripe and he’s fingering a cell phone sending text messages. Suddenly he’s talking shit Labas, spending money, screwing girls, getting in your face. Some are nice, but not all. You understand?

Wow. I guess so. That’s a lot of information JK.

I’ll help if you want. The hydrogen vat part is tricky. I’ll help you out. And I have space upstairs.

But JK, after the hairy arm phase, can you cool them down – I mean, get ‘em to talk nice?

I told you Labas, that’s the hard part, that’s the mysterious part. I do my voodoo on these suckers, but you get what you get. They’re their own man then. They plunge into the universe. They go their own ways. They are who they are. You have no say, you got it? You have no say.

Can’t you at least get them to be female and very tall, like three meters, and can’t you get them to stay hairy?

What the hell are you talking about Labas? You want a monster?

No, no, it’s for bigman.

Who the hell is bigman!!?!

on the bridge

Mica and I met on the Erasmus bridge down where it hits the south side of the city. There was tons of wind and her spiky hair was all over the place. You’re a funny human being Mica Spirelli, I said, and she dropped her hands which were up to shield her face from the wind, and she laughed. Mica Spirelli, au pair extraordinaire, bird of flight and princess of Ljubljana. When I was done saying her name to myself my knees turned to goulash, my eyes watered and I wondered in a flash what mysterious vibration emanated from inside this girl and whether it had anything to do with the spark in her eyes, the bounce of her body and the way her words shot out to targets I was scarcely aware of.

I wanted to hold her hand on the way to the Balkan restaurant, but she kept messing around, eating pistachio nuts, throwing the shells over the bridge and poking in me in the arm. When she stopped for a moment to get oriented, I grabbed her hand and then she stood still.

You vanished Lui, she said, you just disappeared.

Didn’t you get my message?

What message?

I sent you a message Mica.

I didn’t get it.

Didn’t you feel it?

… that was you?

That was me.

Wow Lui.

You liked it?

I loved it. But what were you doing down there… in the dark with all those hares?

I… I was trying to get to the bottom of things.

Very funny. Ha-ha-ha. No, seriously.

I am serious.

Well, did you?

I would have – maybe – but I got pulled up.

Huh?

Come Mica, Let’s get those lamb chops. Bulgadov is grill master tonight. He’s extraordinary. He does magic with mint. I told him we’re coming.

So there we were, above ground, the wind on our cheeks, her hand in mine, and all around – everywhere – her frequency, her vibration, traveling out in waves… beyond this bridge, beyond Rotterdam, and even beyond – I’ve no doubt – this enormous galaxy.

the pulse

I saw a string of light and then the ground shook beneath me. Chunks of earth dropped down from the burrow walls. There was earth in my hair, in my pockets, in my teeth. I felt lucky for a moment with my mouthwash and toothpicks, but when I was gurgling and spitting and cleaning out my gums, suddenly I felt something near, not a hare with yellow eyes, not another creature-subterranean… something else. It was like a tap on the shoulder at first, but quickly it became all encompassing, like a pulse from a groundswell deep inside these burrows. The toothpick dropped out of my mouth; the mouthwash out of my hands.

It was a dark pulse – dark not in color but in substance. It made my whole body shudder and my mouth run with saliva. My immediate reaction was to wish for JK and his contraptions to flash a gigawatt of charge at this mutherfucker – woooooooaaaaaaarghhh – but instead, uncontrollably, I went towards it, down.

I could not see my own hands, I could hear nothing of this soundless pulse, and my only active sense was the taste of earth between teeth. But so I went, down into the ground; here and there a set of yellow eyes stared out at me. In flashes I remembered who I was, and once the thought of Mica Spirelli fizzled through, and I murmured her name in full as I carried on… mica spirelli , au pair extraordinaire, bird-of-flight and princess of Ljubljana…

I would have gone much further towards the heart of this thing had a hand not appeared out of nowhere and pulled at me with a force that was not quite human. My arm was nearly wrenched out of its socket, and I was dragged up, down, round, over roots and rubble, down dirt chutes and funnels. I lost a shoe and everything else that was loose on my body. Dragged, pulled, thrust, pushed, until suddenly cold air washed over me and I emerged out of a spray of sand and brickwork… on my corner. My corner.

Against the back wall of the grillroom was a Turk drinking coffee. He did not seem surprised at the ruckus, or the pile of brick, or the man standing beside me, a man twice my size holding me by the arm. Yes, bigman.

We sat on the curb for about thirty minutes, and I wondered then whether Clay Dove and his men were after this; not a cache of gold bullion nestled somewhere in this maze, but this. This thing down there. Maybe this was it, this dark pulse that practically lifted me off my feet, cleared my brain and ran me like a puppet.

The pulse lingered like a strange atmospheric pressure. It took me two days to get a train of thought going again. Two days for a spark to come at the thought of Mica Spirelli. Two days to find my way. And two days more to decide what to do next.

Bigman didn’t say anything that night, but his hand on my shoulder spoke volumes: stay above ground my friend, and deal with what you know. I’m sure it was kindly meant but something inside me yearned to go back and get to the heart of this thing – this dark pulse – to get at it, to conquer it!

love-words to Mica Spirelli

Mica Spirelli – au pair extraordinaire, bird-of-flight and princess of Ljubljana – I bring you words of apology. I am underground, you see, and was not able reach you in time to let you know that our “date” could not transpire. If I had enough room here in these burrows I would kick myself, but I am cramped so I cannot. Forgive me, Mica, I punish myself enough and to console me I have only toothpicks and mouthwash.

Mica Spirelli – au pair extraordinaire, bird-of-flight and princess of Ljubljana – please carry on au-pairing for a few days more, time for me to wind out of this earthy maze.

I send these words as vibrations through the ground as I have no other means at present. It may feel funny in your toes, but these are words Mica Spirelli – au-pr extrdnre, brd of flght & prnc f Ljbljna – these are words.

I hope your français is improving très quickly and that –

Wait Mica! There.... a rabbit with yellow eyes.

I must go.

I send love (a peculiar vibration, no?)

Lui

the rabbit hole

I was meant to go on a date with Mica Spirelli, my first date in eons – eons! Was I looking forward to it? (Do Serbs eat pork?) Yes, massively, and I was prepared for it too: toothpicks, mouthwash, I bought a shirt with a collar, and I even rehearsed lines in the event of a blackout (me blacking out) – What do you say you and me we go for a walk Mica? – I even called Brendan for tips in the event of the theoretical i.e. if things get hot – Shift the paradigm, Labas. Change the whole geometry on her. Get horizontal. Got it! She’s au-pair, they like that stuff.

I was ready, but nervous too, so I went down to the German bakery on Bergstraat (Ulrich’s Brothaus) for a loaf of Schwarzwald – that’s Black Forrest sourdough – but on my way back something happened and I got sidetracked.

Imagine coming out of a German bakery with a loaf of Schwarzwald and a tall guy in a suit hands you a card that reads Clay Dove Esq. III – CEO, Banque Internationale and he motions to an open door on a blacked-out vehicle with a driver in leather gloves. Imagine that.

For a minute Mica was eclipsed; for a minute I was taking in all this leather and gadgetry. Then I turned to Clay Dove with a question: Mr. Dove, is your dad called Clay too since you’re the third… and his dad, and his dad.

Mister Labas, we would like you to focus. There’s a great deal at stake. Please.

Mister Clay Dove, I’ll tell you what’s at stake, I have a date with Mica Spirelli in exactly two hours and... twenty two minutes. So I don’t know what you have in mind, but – and then I took a bite out of my Schwarzwald and cut myself off.

As we drove over the Erasmus bridge I thought of Mica, her gap teeth, her spiky hair and the way her laugh warms my belly. Mica Spirelli – father Italian; mother Slovenian, from Ljubljana –It’s true she’s au pair, but I did not know au pairs dig the horizontal. Is this so?

Trick question Mr. Dove: how many J’s in Ljubljana? ... Sir?... Mr. Dove?

(A real bag of laughs these financiers.)

The meeting at Banque Internationale was held in a pretty small room for sixteen Esquires and Thirds. One guy had a tiny laser he was pointing at a screen with charts. He looked like he knew what he was talking about so I asked him, I said: sir, tell me, what is hyperinflation... I mean, exactly? (Brendan would have poked fun: that’s like when your jeans get tight around the crotch, no? But I’m not Bren).

Hyperinflation, mister Labas, is hugujeei strajasm the money supply lieah tiy urg. And this about how much sense it made to me. I said, thank you sir. Yes, please carry on. But my presence had shaken the room and laser-man could not carry on. He could not.

This is when Clay Dove the Third asked for my opinion on (and I quote) “the coming collapse of the dollar and the investment opportunities in a global depression”. My mouth was full of sourdough. I needed a moment to think.

(Like I said) there were sixteen of them around the table and in the middle of this mahogany donut was a rabbit hole going into the ground deeper than the eye could see. I said to one of them – not Clay Dove but an even taller man – I said to him, Sir, you seem like a reasonable man. I have a date with Mica Spirelli –

But he interrupted. Mr. Labas, we want you to go down the hole and tell us what you see. So I said, why don’t you go yourself, it’s your hole, it’s right there. Or does this have to do with size, because I’m so much smaller than you. And then this wellspoken man – he wasn’t black, but he could have been – he said, we’re not asking you Mister Labas. We want you down the rabbit hole, we want you to look. Laser-man nodded and then a few of others nodded too.

I left my Schwarzwald on the table and thought of bigman as I climbed into the ground. Up above, laser-man pointed the way with his laser and grinned.

Funny, but I was relaxed on my way down, and I even calmly went over some things in my head: Toothpicks (check); mouthwash (check); collared shirt (check); "How about you and me we go for a walk…

(…to be continued)

coming home

On a footpath in Yemen a man with a dog kicks up dirt as he takes a fig to his mouth. There is no shade for miles and the sun in Yemen, I suspect, is a nasty piece of work. I mention this man and his dog because at precisely this moment – with the fig – I show another man to the door of my cube here in Rotterdam City, a skinny little dude whose appeals for help I've just turned down flat. As I push him out – it’s come to that – he tells me I smell of horse’s penis and that my mother will beget children without heads, and children – anyway, all untrue, of course, my mother is too old to beget (period) and I shower regularly even by Western European standards.

I understand Yemen has customs different to our own, and perhaps Yemenis are generally more impulsive. But what the heck! He held a clipboard with signatures in wild Arabic script سید ابو الاعلىٰ مودودی عبد الحميد كشك‎ and with a pen, pointing to a blank line, he suggested I add my own: Lui Labas

Do I commiserate? Of course. Will I pay fifty euros and sign on to his campaign? No.

You smell of horse’s penis; your mother will birth children… etc, all the way to the front door. Don’t get me wrong, I understand his quarrel. The man with the fig and the dog is his brother, and I understand a fig is too little to keep a man together – too little anywhere, but especially under that nasty, blazing Yemenite sun.

I didn’t take it to heart, though. I checked my armpits and wondered for a moment at the smell of a horse’s penis, but imagined it must be like its urine and thus not exotic in any sense; then I thought of it no more. My head was still full of bright orange suits, water in gazillion liters, the cry of gulls and Roman’s stories of vulva in Riga. So the man from Yemen was not enough to knock me off course. It would take much more than a bit of Arabic script and horse piss.

You see, I was sipping hotdrink with bigman when this ingrate came barging in. Even bigman – who needs no money and has no real concept of it – smiled when Yemen raised the fifty bucks. I’m not saying it was a scam. Yemen probably does have a sunburned brother down to his last fig. I believe it, but that’s not the point.

The point is – the point is – I was home. Home! Deeply glad to be home.

When I returned from the sea and saw the grillroom on the corner, the Turks with their smoky noses; when I heard JK’s chisels and the crackle of his experiments, my heart lifted like an air balloon. I forgave JK the three hour blackout between nine and twelve and the long tongue of smoke that unfurled from his top window. Of course I forgave him. At this moment I would have forgiven my own assassin.

I was happy.

Not a feeling that shows its face much in the open . Usually, it comes wrapped in something: a redhead with nice gums, a bit of fun down in Dubrovnik, a plate of goulash from home… but here, in my candle-lit cube on this October night (a touch of smoke in the air) it came just like that. Plain and dressed down, an all-knowing, far-reaching kind of happy, as if all the world was practically within my reach. I felt Rotterdam behind me, hugging its massive harbor, twinkling in the lowlands. And my sister Bee – spacebird Bee – I felt her too, abuzz, lighting stuff up as she does, right, left and center. Even my friend Drago, on the rim of the galaxy, felt near. And, of course, In the back of my mind I could hear the soft cling-clang of Brendan’s dumbbells and the sound of Willy Nelson’s Highwayman.

To you bigman, I said raising my mug. Big looked like a bear in the darkness - a bear with a mug - and then he raised his mug too.

Home. Yeah!

the North Sea

I'm in an orange jumpsuit on a deck suspended twenty meters above water, except this water is like no water I have ever seen; this is not Aegean ultramarine, this stuff is a menacing grey, shifty, jittery, surfacy. This stuff smells of dead bird and old rags, this is the stuff that comes out of the pipe when the plumber unscrews, bent down under the sink. And it's everywhere because this place has no corners, it has no angles, it has no place to hide. It's a space-water dictatorship too vast to be earthly and too full of stuff you cannot see to be comfortable for a guy like me.

I’m on the bridge now, in Arie’s field of vision – that’s Captain Arie. You won’t believe me if I tell you he looks like Popeye, but he does. Tattoos, big forearms, a disappearing lip. Maybe his wife is spindly. I’d believe it, I believe almost anything out here. I believe Roman too when he tells me of all his women. Roman is Latvian. I drink in his stories looking down at the water, my head over the railing, my hands tucked in gloves (no mittens onboard). We are shoulder to shoulder, me and Roman. There're only five things you can do out here: sleep, eat, smoke, look at water and talk. We’re doing three, the last three. Like I said, Roman tells me of his women in Riga. My ten year old cousin Popic speaks more advanced English than him, except for a few words like vulva and pubic hair which Roman uses as fluently as hardhat and stainless steel. Word has it Roman’s the best welder onboard. Word has it Latvians are the best welders period. But don’t quote me on that; there are so many words floating around here. Put fifty guys in a confined space and that’s what you get. Dutch, Russian, Hindi, French, English, Latvian. Ta mère, j’la baise – wat een paarde lul – her vulva was quite good, and so on and so forth.

I smoke Rome’s ciggies like an amateur; the smoke is so strong it’s like salt in my eyes, but I insist. It’s one of the five things and four is just too little. After Rome has run through his women, there are no more words for a while and my cigarette’s dead, so we drop two and do only one of the five: we look at the water, and we wait.

Way down, past the light, past the falling debris and sinking fish, past the point beyond which there is no point going unless you are Jacques Cousteau or Ed Harris in The Abyss… way down there, a thinking creature with night-vision eyes is looking at a cigarette butt drifting down slowly, a crooked thing discarded by a thinking creature above, that would be me...

...but I am interrupted in my thought by Captain Arie over the intercom – All to muster point. Abandon ship exercise. All to muster point.

On my way to muster I think of the thinking creature, Arie’s disappearing lip, Roman’s loves in Riga, and me on this strange surfacy space that smells of dead bird and rags.

At Abandon-Ship there is no more thinking involved: fifty heavyweights – that would be us – padded-out in fluorescent floaters crowd into an orange capsule in the middle of the night. Under real, life-threatening circumstances this capsule would drop at the pull of a lever and plunge – with fifty hairy men strapped to seats inside – plunge ten, twenty, thirty meters down into the grey waters, past the light, past the falling fish, past the thinking creature. Would it believe its night-vision eyes? An orange capsule dropping down out of nowhere, fifty men with heavy jaws looking out through portholes: Captain Arie, a Latvian foul-mouth, the Indian brothers, the French bargemaster, the Dutch paardenlullen crew, and me, like Ed Harris in The Abyss, looking out into endless water…

But it was merely an exercise. We did not plunge this time. Not really.

heavy lift in Ålborg

Think of something – anything – think of it like it’s really there, like you’re about to grab it and pull it to your chest, like you own it – you feel that? You feel that!

***

I’ve been working on a construction yard lugging around objects with Serbs, crew-cut Poles and Danes from Jutland. Equipment, piping, stuff thirty times your size trolleyed around like toys. This week: steel-tube cathedrals for the sea hoisted whole into a massive Danish sky.

Me, I’m by the workers’ huts mostly, with my clipboard, my collar up, fjord-wind on my cheeks, hardhat and steel-cap boots. I note the angles when the cathedral rises, when it hangs and when it rests in the waters. It blows me away every time.

After the hoist, the Danes smoke amongst themselves and speak Danish – oodsk’de gansk’eurjeh’ twiege larsk – to my ear, sing-songs played in reverse, but I know it’s all crap, shit, fucker, whore, curses on Albania for the draw in the world cup qualifier the other night, the night we went out – the whole yard – forty-man strong strolling into Ålborg. I felt like a Viking conqueror. But Christ do these Danes drink! Holy mother of God! If the human spirit can be dissolved, these Danes know how.

In the yard, I stick with the Poles, and mostly with a painter called Vaichek, from Krakow. Paint-gun, gas mask and white pressure-suit. On his chest is a patch that reads VAICHEK that I keep reading every time we speak – VAICHEK VAICHEK VAICHEK – but underneath the gear, in his heart and mind, he’s a linguist – a scholar. Ai paint for de money, he says, producing seven fingers, seven times de money. I called him a sell-out once for fun, but he swung his gun around and debated me in seven languages. Vaichek, put it down, put down the gun, I didn’t mean it.

The first night, in the workers’ hut, I tried to think of something; I tried to think of it like it was really there, like I could own it, but nothing showed. So instead I reached for the money in my pocket and pulled it to my chest. Fresh money. Kroners. Call me greedy, but the first night it worked. The first night only. After that, I was left to my own devices, and had to conjure that stuff up all on my own, like those sparks out of JK’s boxes.

The trick is - I figured it out - the trick is you start with something small, a thing (people are hard; you do that later).

Tomorrow, another cathedral hoist. I’ll take angles again and talk to the Serbs – translate (that’s why I was hired) – I’ll tell them to get on with it, to get the hell on with it (foreman’s words), the whole day with my clipboard, my Bic, the sun poking me in the eye, fjord-wind on my cheeks and that something special, that something almost real – first a thing, then a person – close to my chest.

like so...

ode to disproportionate people

None of you have ever seen me. You don’t know how I look, what I do at what hour, with whom or “whoms”. If you have no fallen space matter in your backyard, no Turkish thugs in your midst, then we are not neighbors. But says that something? (as my Dutch friends say). No it says nothing. I have been sitting still a lot these days – this is true– but I move whenever I can, right, left, down the center, across the Earth’s crust, and up and down sometimes too. So – thugs or no thugs – I could be in your midst anyway. As we speak.

But that's just space – coordinates – and that's mostly irrelevant. The point is – what I mean is, I like people – persons – so I could potentially like you very much too. In short, I’m not fond of breathy-voices and I don’t like perms too much on girls (much less on guys) but I trust you have neither. For the rest I like all kinds: people with hair-lips and the giggles, funny toes and foibles; bouncy girls with bright eyes and guys with pat phrases – I kid you not. I like waving at small boats with off-board motors, and talking politics with Bren (we’re being jacked Labas, dicked in the rear by a dozen dudes in suits, I kid you not). What else? I like touching elbows with redheads at bus stops and terminals. I like… boy… so much in people that I like. So many people that I like. I could go on, I could go on... and yet, ultimately, it breaks down like this: there are people that I like – just like – and there are people that I LIKE, really and inexplicably, like bigman, for whom I have a fondness that is out of measure, doubly, triply, quadruply. These are the disproportionate people, arithmetically irresolute, bottomless fuel-tanks unto themselves – stand next to them and you refuel with that substance I traverse the globe to get my fill of. Like my sister Bee – another of the disproportionate – a fount of surplus and giver of free-Bees (sorry again for the head scar sissy, I was too young to know that a spade is a spade). These are the people I was thinking of flying over the Danish fjords two nights ago (in an aeroplane –yes– I have not yet Drago’s space-folding skills). These people mean something beyond what they mean. Don’t do the maths on them because they won’t add up (2+2=78.41); these people, they have axes going into the unknown, funny angles and blind-spots all over them. They’re special. They’re disproportionate. They don’t compute. Don’t bother. Just do what I do… just…. well, watch,

Hi bigman. Everything good? Boy, it sure is nice out this evening … Mind if I stand next to you for a while?

Thanks, bigman.

That’s it. Life-fuel. And – I swear to god – if I have any left in me at any time, I’ll give you what I’ve got. All of it. I’ll try to be disproportionate. I'll do it. And maybe – if you’re a redhead and we're at a terminal or something – we’ll touch elbows too.

the freedoms of land animals

JK rolled his Brontosaurus across his living room most of last night – I think he rides it – consequence is that I hardly slept. Instead I kept watch for tomfoolery on my block: Turks, junkies, riffraff and other land animals. Bigman didn’t show. I suspect he was in town resting against walls again, scratching his arms, kicking up his foot and dusting sand off his large body – the usual. He does this at different locations at different times of the night. We all have to keep busy one way or the other.

Then – very late; like at three – two Japanese girls strolled by. I was squatted in my doorway with a box of cookies. They giggled and walked bowlegged in an arc around me. Why the giggles, I thought, what is it? My “reptile” slippers? My y-fronts? or was it just the shadow of JKs prehistoric beast as it swayed past us on the sidewalk. Anyway, I gestured hello and they greeted back – like they do out east – nodding. Between us, on the ground, a pair of critters-with-teeth picked at the crumbs from the cookies I was eating earlier on. And across the street two Turks showed up from the Grillroom; older, mustachioed Turks with tea in tiny glasses, and cigarette smoke coming out of their nostrils almost non-stop. So there we were, the eight of us: the toothy critters, the girls, the turks, the roving bronto, and me. Land animals all. I made a mental note of this zoo, thankful to JK for keeping me up to bear witness.

Yeah, I was glad for all you land animals – glad to see you, I mean. I scratched my ribs like bigman and smiled. I was glad because my mind has been a watery thing of late, a vast, shifting sea: dark rolling waves; gale winds whipping up froth, salt-sting and wetness.

My work at the Plasma Center has been – mmmm… well.... the square of Delft in the window, the L-shaped desks bolted to the walls, the paper squiggles of Plasma Physics, the fire(meat)balls for lunch (one more fireball for Mr. Labas?) Enough! I’m done. I'm really done.

Crunching another cookie, I thought the obvious to myself, what are two Japanese girls doing here in the middle of the night? Kindly land animals from the East. The Turks too were puzzled I could tell. But then instantly in response I though, what the heck Lui, what about you? Caught in moon beams in the middle of the North Sea, salty spray on your Balkan nose, and sea stars in abundance overhead. Pretty unlikely too, but pretty soon that’s where you’re going be. You, land animal extraodinaire, hoarder-of-gravity and taker-of-ground-oaths. You... Lui... at sea.

practical mathematics

1) A swimming pool lies 10m off the foot of a high rise downtown Zagreb. On the roof, 100m* up, a desperate man stands in suit and tie, trembling, crying, shouting abuse in Serbo-Croatian, the foam of death on his lips. In his hands is a picture of a woman with blond hair, (probably peroxide) and breasts that look – how shall I say – well, fake. Anyway - irrelevant – the point is – the question is: what is the maximum speed he must stay under when leaping off the high rise to ensure his safe passage to the underworld i.e. the guy wants to die, not go for a swim. Note1: assume a perfect parabola and no air friction. Note2: We’re on Earth, so gravity – except around Labas’ meteorite – is approximately constant. Hints:

a) Drago Stanic – that’s his name; remember him? he called me from his yacht on the Aegean – is not a stuntman, nor does he wish to be one.

b) Drago and I used to play Mikado and number games in my yard after school. He was always good with numbers, then he got really good and turned criminal. Casinos and whatnot. He loved puzzles and food. Was he fat? Yes. But this is of no practical significance since air friction is zero.

2) Once desperate, now disembodied and strangely lighthearted, Drago must travel from the concrete at the foot of the high rise to a giant rock belt on the rim of the galaxy 300 light-years away. His punishment for whacking Serbs, beating Tania and stealing money is mild: he will run a hotdog stand for the Americans he so disliked on Earth, i.e. he will languish for the rest of eternity outside a football stadium, i.e. American football. Now, if Drago can travel at 30 times the speed of light (he's disembodied, immaterial, ectoplasmic – call it what you want – so he can do this now) how long will it take Drago to get there? Note1: disregard Special Relativity. Note2: ...and General Relativity. Note3: in fact, ignore all physics post 1916. Note4: Assume a straight line and no pit stops. Note5 Assume Drago hits no obstruction and has a working knowledge of blackholes. Note6: Even though Drago – as I remember him – is notoriously “distractable”, assume that for once in his godforsaken, fucked-up life he is going to concentrate on the task at hand and not wander around full of schemes to make a quick Dinar. No dollars or dinars in space Drago! Hints:

a.Drago and Tania – lady Peroxide – enjoyed a short but intense relationship. Tania cheated, but this is just for your information and of no practical significance.

b A light-year – like a relationship – is a distance traveled, not a duration.

3) This is a two part question. If regret is a wave that spreads out through space like a ripple in water, lighting up the disembodied as it encounters them (1) how fast would this wave have to travel if it left the bosom of the regreter downtown Rotterdam to touch Drago just before he reaches the rock-belt stadium? And (2) how long would it take for Drago to appear as a shooting star for this Earthlings to behold. Note1: light must travel back the distance before it can be perceived. Note2: When he called me from his yacht - despite the jokes and tomfoolery - underneath it was a plea for help. Come to Zagreb, my friend, please come! But this is just for your information and of no practical significance

Extra credit (for smart asses and cookies): What hemisphere would see Drago if he jumped…now!

Note: Use pen & pad. You may test waves of your own and look at the sky at any time. That’s not cheating, it’s encouraged.

(RIP Drago!)

*source: Snezana Eugenia Birckenwald-Lekic IV (Snezi)

back in Amsterdam

It was time to go to Amsterdam again. I hadn’t been back since before Buenos Aires. I missed the junkies, the tourists and the trip-me cobbles. And – truth be told – I missed Brendan a whole lot too.

First I went to see Julien near Westerpark. I smelled weed and heard Jacques Brel. First thing he did when I arrived was hand me one of his freshly printed business cards: Juste Julien – legal counsel with a French touche (typo or style?). I was curious what “French touch” meant in legal terms. He has a law degree – I think – but the only law Julien has ever known was being busted at the Belgian border with a pound of weed . With confidence he pronounced: I weel bee lawyur for expat wis mush monay. He seemed determined so we left it at that. Then we moved to the balcony with some Pastise to discuss his latest attempts to exercise his French touche on the opposite sex. In the background, Jacques Brel thundered Je t’aime, oui, je t’aaaaime. The sun shined down upon us. It was a fine day.

After that it was off to Brendan's. He came back from the gym when I arrived. In the kitchen he beat an eggy protein drink with a fork and downed it, keeping me laser-locked in the corner of his eye. Clearly, he had something in mind.

Lui, you look pale. You need to get laid.

This worried me.

You need action, Lui. Pronto!

Bren, you have egg on your lip.

It worried me because this guy doesn’t understand strategy. Bren knows only trial and error. He's the Thomas Edison of womanizers – he'll try every damn bulb filament known to man, every trick in the book, and one will light up. He’s about statistics, not stealth. Needless to say, I knew ahead of time that in my case the accent would be overwhelmingly on error.

Give me your hand, he said.

Wha - ?

Give me your hand! I handed it to him and he grabed it like a doorknob.

You and me, right here, we make a pact, a fucking covenant, yeah. You don’t leave ‘til we get you some action. We shake on it.

Bren, that’s bad idea. That’s a baaaaa – ouw, OOOOUW!.. ok ok ok!

It’s a deal then.

The American touch. A little coercion never hurt anyone.

An hour later I was at the Waldorf café with a drink in my injured hand. The humiliation began. Six drunk Brits from Sheffield shuffled in (every alloy known to man), enough fat on them for six more. A hen night. All morals left at the chicken coop.

Ladies, ladies, introductions, introductions. Meet my friend Lui. A lightweight, yes, but quality equipment. A Bang & Olufsen for your Samsungs ladies, he said pointing to the guys, right and left. With Bang he winked and nudged. I cringed.

Then two polish girls,

Polish!? that’s a amazing, what a coincidence, my friend here is also Balkan

(Oh god)

Lui, speak Balkan, go on. Speak it.

I cringed.

And so on and so forth…

Finally, near closing time, Sofia von Spitzenwald showed up with her Brazilian friend. Remember them from the Switcheroo. Bren suddenly simmered down. Turns out he and Sofia “know” each other; “benchpressed” her many a time, but still this Autro-Hungarian blue-blood has a hold on him it seems.

Sofia, good to see you, ravishing. What brings you here? Have a seat. And your friend too. Drink?

Brazil sat next to me. Chats went smooth: You’re pretty tall, aren’t you? I opened. This is relative, she said, you are a small man. And so on, but good. Smart cookie, Brazil. I bought her a drink for free and we drank from our respective altitudes knowing there was no danger here; we would never “know” each other.

In the morning I snuck out like a thief, in contravention of the pact, the fucking covenant. Still pale and unlaid, but sated nevertheless. Amsterdam had delivered! My headache and gut testified. It was all good, the trialing – even the erroring – so good that on the train back a haiku emerged unannounced:

Canal ladies in tights

Street-vomit on cobbles

Drunk dog barking at dawn

I was inspired.