“Thanks, do me a favor, I was never here today, I never asked you any questions about Arthur Dodger.”
“Of course, I hope to be of assistance in the future. May I ask, is there anyone in particular I should avoid mentioning this meeting to?”
* * *
“Anyone within the department.”
“Fine. As long as we understand each other.”
* * *
Elisa was lying on top of her bed covers with Arthur’s most recent book in her hands. Two cameras were on her, the one hidden in her dresser transposed onto Captain Vincent’s largest screen. Her assistant had gone home. Perhaps she should just go along.
He had said: “It has never been perfect for me.” His hair was uncombed; he was grieving. She had been sent to work on him. She was the most persuasive of them all. Most were men. He had not needed any persuasion. He was teary eyed, brooding, eloquent, mad. He did look at her the right way. He did not see things. He was speaking too fast; she couldn’t keep up with him. He was not talking the same language. She was trying to touch his shoulder. Contact always got them. She had a kitten’s mask on. He was screaming, whispering. He shook, he was pleading. She made contact. He stared at her wrist like he wanted to cut it. She did not withdraw her arm.
“Why do we care about noise? Wherein lies the reason noise matters? Maybe it derives from the obtuse oddity of there being something such as noise in the world. The clang, the bang, the boom, the beat, the onomatopoeia, the whoosh, the wiz, the smack, the clack, the clap, the snap, the zip, the thud, the kaboom, the whistle, the whisper, the song, the melody, the note, the cry, the scream, the moan, the grunt, the wheeze, the cough, the sneeze, the squeak, the whimper, the gasp, the movement…. That such things could exist, that we have discovered how to put them in order, those yielding intervals of silence woven together with clusters of noise… that we have invented how to harness the span of the human mind into audible melodies and strings of sounds that signify so many various things, ideas, actions, inactions, et cetera, et cetera… and some say it was a mystery cult, the inventors of wine and love, that first brought noise down into our hearts… but who’s to say? Maybe it was the birds that taught us… albeit unintentionally… maybe we’re just animals who demand adulation and rapture… maybe we don’t have enough of it… god forgave us but left us pretty lonely and desperate… maybe we made it for ourselves… noise… the tower of babel was a cathedral of sound, an audible, alchemical device for transcendence… into what we thought we deserved… peer away from what is deficient, painful, deceitful, deadening, and turn it all into something else… explain it to me… sing it to me… tell me all about it… that’s something worthy of the yearn, something worthy of the mind and the opposable thumb…
"The wind… the wind beneath our wings. Those birds… they got it all… wind beneath their wings and nice singing voices… that arboreal dignity… that above-the-world haughty conceit… for it is the ground where things are buried… those little chirpers tumble like angels when they die and join us… on the ground… where things are lost and forgotten… religions, art, poetry, civilization, species… they’re all buried under there… history seeps into the ground like mud puddles in the sun… to forever be lost… never to be found again… or, if by chance, some mole discovers some fragment, its altered so, it’s so minute, it’s so carelessly there… it’s not the same thing… a crumbly skeleton of its self… like mass graves… like fissures… like fossils… stand your ground… under there… under there… is hell… hades… the underworld… do not enter… there are things in there we dare not guess… draw a line in the sand…
"Among the great exertions — good vs. evil, reason vs. ignorance, science vs. religion, love vs. death, there is an additional, little known conflict: here vs. there… the entrapment of roots and the release of flight… And if you are Beatrice, if you are this little wonder girl with ocean eyes and iris skin, whose thoughts can cross the boundaries, even the boundaries of skin, then perhaps you know every hole can be filled, every crack leapt over, every cavern avoided, and every underworld ignored, all boundaries would melt away under the heat of the sweetest tune… Off you’d wander, off away… neither here nor there… prancing and skipping and tumbling… on wondering wings…
“Beware the ground beneath your feet. This is a continent, this is a nation, this is a country, a home, a community… you are neither here nor there… Perhaps you don’t see the missing qualities of the bird’s song… These are not divine times, not our proudest moments, not our brightest hour… this is the time of the great cracks… when those underworlds begin to climb upward… seep onto the land… begin devouring… We’re at war… with terrorists, drug lords, street criminals, sexual predators, murderers, road ragers, juvenile delinquents, gays and lezes, women in general, runaway juries, mob bosses, unions, kidnappers, bumpers, psycho soccer moms, ravers, punks, degenerates, homophobes, white supremacists, anti-abortion bombers, anthrax mailers, you name it… The danger level is yellow, we’re on permanent alert, everybody hyper edgy… they’ll sue you for looking at them askance… they’ll shoot you down in a hail of gunfire for reaching over their white picket fence and touching one of their supermarket roses… a nation of fraidy cats… don’t spook ‘em for god’s sakes… gotta be careful who you say what to… keep the noise down… quiet… make no sound… silent as a cat… a cat burglar… cat on a hot tin roof… curiosity kills…
“Confusion is loss of particulars, to blur, to jumble, to mix indiscriminately, to make indistinct, to fail to differentiate one thing from another, to bring to ruin… the more simple, the less confusing… the less distinct, the more distinguishable… the more the same, the less concern… but the noise refuses to follow… its neither here nor there… chaos… anarchy… the end of the world as we know it… Suppose then, that that’s just it… Does dear Beatrice know it…? Suppose you could exist without particulars, mixing indiscriminately, indistinctly, failing to differentiate, bringing about ruin… noise… step out of the lines and mix it up a bit… AWOL from the whole thing…
“But who would do it…? Most would not… the world’s laundresses are pretty thorough… all the brains are clean… no turns, no parking, no dogs, no drugs, no boys, no girls, no birds, no loitering, no solicitors, no matter, no minds, no jumping, no picnicking, no camping, no panicking, don’t cross the line, wait in line, which line, take a number, take a seat, take a pick, pick a number, pick a insta-meal, pick a place, pick a career, pick a life, don’t offend, don’t judge, don’t question, don’t be a know-it-all, don’t be a pig, don’t be an ass, don’t be stupid, don’t be silly, do what I say not what I do, do what I tell you, do what you’re told, do what your brother did, do whatever your heart desires, don’t do that, don’t speed, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat, don’t fuck, don’t chew, don’t sing, don’t cry, don’t swear, don’t fear, don’t smile, don’t laugh, don’t think, don’t die…
"So, what if… what if you just did… just did do all those things and didn’t do all those things and fell right off the map… no man’s land… the wonderfall… the blessed land of the air… music everywhere… noise surrounding… sound rules all… breathing in and out the great chorus of chaos… a brother and sister to the birds…
“Oh dear girl… who will be the first to do it…? Does it matter if we jump or are pushed? Who goes first or second? And we can argue forever about why… We should… you can’t deny it, we should… We two pilgrims of sound…”