Evie just in. Couldn’t stop talking, then crashed. She rode the subway. She met a group of young guys. They were going to paint the subway trains — graffiti artists. They took her to an underground yard where the trains are parked when they stop running for the night. They made a strange noise, Evie says, like a mechanical panting, a melancholy, musical clanking, the heat of their bodies cooling. She recorded that and the sound of the boys climbing the trains, calling out to one another, the rattle and spray of their cans, the hiss of the paint on hot metal.
That faraway feeling has not gone even with Evie near, sleeping. A mime is used to being silent. But not invisible. Not backstage. Writing helps.
11 Oct, Kansas City
Coming down with something like the Faulty. After last night’s gig — 11,000-seater stadium and only 180 people show up — they got me out front. Zed makes me up to look like D in character, lightning-slash cheekbones, refrigerated lips, hair cut and dyed burned orange and spiked like his. Stand outside all day, a statue of him, to draw in the kids. And they come. And they all look like me, or rather, me dressed as him, and not really him, but him on stage. Me an idol of their idol. I watch the show. The kids, all dressed like him, screaming at him. Him smiling back. I get scared. Leave. Evie wasn’t back. When she came in early this morning — out recording, an anti-war rally — she found me with my head over the sink, streaks of what looked like ink running into the plughole. ‘Sorcière’, it says on the bottle.
Pasted underneath this entry, without comment, is the following paragraph, carefully cut out from the page of a book.
You see, Oz is a great Wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. So that some say he looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say he looks like a cat. To others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. But who the real Oz is, when he is in his own form, no living person can tell.
26 Oct, San Francisco
We got to LA and I freaked out. I don’t know where I am I don’t where I am I don’t know where I am. Evie runs in to borrow a map from Jerry-The-Driver. Spreads it out for me. This is where we are, my heart, this is where we are. But so folded over, so used, that where she’s pointing there’s nothing but a deep crease and I bellow in fear.
We went on ahead, to San Francisco, to a b’n’b in an odd part of town with ice-cream coloured houses and steep, winding lanes. Beautiful girls and boys wandering the streets hand-in-hand. Girls with girls, boys with boys. We never felt so free. I write this lying here in bed with E, watching the light from that island prison sweep our walls, in counterpoint to Evie’s stroking of my thigh.
27 Oct, San Francisco
Yesterday. We’re given the most beautiful gift. Evie and I are passing a florist’s. The owner comes out, a flower painted on his face, presents Evie with a bunch of tropical-looking flowers. She charms them, these Americans. I only merit a glance. This glance, taking in my looks, looks no further. But with Evie they look and look. They realize she doesn’t know what she is, and this intrigues them. These Americans, so open, confident of what they are, find people like her a puzzle, those who are a mystery to themselves and are unaware of it. She’s that peculiarly English thing, to them: an eccentric. It’s in her face. Me, I’m invisible.
We chat with the florist. Evie tells him about her recording. He’s fascinated. And what about sounds you wouldn’t normally hear? The sound, he says, touching the flowers, of these birds of paradise singing? Oh, if I could hear sounds like that! And the florist says, You will. He gives us each a tab, and, Alice-like, we swallow.
We talked for a while until, from the corner of my eye, I saw the birds of paradise began to twitch. To preen, poised. Poisonous. Possessed. In their burned orange crests I saw D’s hair. The birds of paradise began to sing. His song. The florist gave us acid, Evie! Stick out your tongue and say Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh … Haaaaaaaaaaaaah, Evie! What fun we had! We thanked the florist and left him smiling, by his singing flowers. We wandered the streets till we reached the water. Water running in different directions, we stood staring, looking at this rush of water, in such a rush, where is it rushing to? we wondered. And then we see him. The dog. A ginger dog, lost. Tail hovering (how are you feeling? Oh so-so). You say, How do you know it’s lost, and I say, Cos it’s alone: dogs on their own are always lost. But what about cats? Cats are different, I said. But why? and I said, Because.
The dog nosed around our legs, sniffed our feet. We could keep it, maybe, you squat down, throw your arms around his neck, kiss his flat, greasy head. No, I feel deep in his bristly ruff for a collar. Look. A bronze disk. ‘Brumby’. That’s his name. He lives at this address. He must have been gone from home a while. He’s lost weight: look how loose his collar is. Brumby lifts his eyes from the pavement, they shift from me to you. His brown eyes have an orange glow. Like amber. No like yours, you say. Then, Who’s Amber?
Brumby licked the pavement. Do you think he’s hungry? Yeah, probably, But we don’t have any money. We should just get him back to his home and then he can eat. Before I realize what you’re doing you run up to a man in the street. You point to Brumby and look at the man, who digs in his pocket and hands you change. Then you run into a shop and run up to me, ripping the wrapper off a Hershey Bar. Brumby swipes his bit off the palm of your hand with his bacon rasher tongue then looks hopeful while we eat ours. We have trouble. This chunk of Hershey Bar is getting BIGGER in my mouth you want to say, but I can’t hear you cos the chunk of Hershey Bar is too big in your mouth and all I hear is grwmmmmgnnn and I say, Same here but all you hear is grwmmmmgnnn. You hold out sticky hands to Brumby saying, All gone, all gone. So Brumby licks your fingers and you melt. Try it, you tell me, Let him lick your fingers. We stand there a while, letting Brumby lick our fingers. It feels like he’s sculpting us with his tongue, like you do ice-cream in a cone. I am an ice-cream statue you say, Let me stand very still until I melt away. But the idea of statues freaks me out right now, Let’s take him back, I say. Let’s claim the reward. Will there be a reward? Oh yes, a big reward, he is a rare and valuable breed, and we snigger, poor Brumby looking up, trying to get the joke. We walk along the water, Brumby trotting at our heels or stopping to bury his nose into god knows what or just standing dead at the waterside looking deep into it. Sour, green. Can you taste that water? Yes, gooseberries. We screw our faces with the tartness. Brumby, what are you staring at? I drag him back by the collar. Fish, you say. There’s no fish in there. Later, we walk down an avenue of tall slim trees with smooth white bark and leaves that snap in the wind. Large leaves, red, white and blue
The entry is incomplete, and there follows several pages with doodles of flowers, giant tropical flowers that often look like birds.
Dania, Atlanta, Nashville
In Dania, or Atlanta, or Nashville, we saw a bus close its doors in the face of a young black girl. Plaits, yellow ribbons, Sunday shoes. She ran a good way down the road, shouting. Evie wanted to get out and record her.
In Dania, or Atlanta, or Nashville, I was spat on by a middle-aged black woman who walked past me and Evie. We were not holding hands.
In Dania, or Atlanta, or Nashville, I picked up a young white boy who was hanging out at the stage door, hoping to see D. He was dressed like D. I took him round the corner and fucked him. Later, in the washroom of a bar, I saw that some of his make-up had come off against my cheek. That same night, in that same bar, in that same city, I got punched by a cowboy.