House Of Leaves - House of Leaves Part 16
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House of Leaves Part 16

Day 2: 16:01 [Inside tent]

There once was a poor man who walked around without shoes. His feet were covered in calluses. One day a rich man felt sorry for the poor man and bought him a pair of Nikes. The poor man was extremely grateful and wore the shoes constantly. Well after a year or so, the shoes fell apart. So the poor man had to go back to running around barefoot, only now ail his calluses were gone and his feet got all cut up and soon the cuts became infected and the man got sick and eventually, after they cut off his legs, he died.

I call that particular story "Love, Death & Nike." A real cheer me up story for Mr. Monster. That's right! All for you. Oh and something else: fuck you Mr. Monster.

Day 2: 16:42 [Outside tent]

The seven dwarves went to the Vatican and when the Pope answered the door, Dopey stepped forward: "Your Excellency," he said. "I wonder if you could tell me if there are any dwarf nuns in Rome?"

"No Dopey, there aren't," the Pope replied.

Behind Dopey, the six dwarves started to titter.

"Well, are there any dwarf nuns in Italy?" Dopey persisted.

"No, none In Italy," the Pope answered a little more sternly.

A few of the dwarves now began to laugh more openly.

"Well, are there any dwarf nuns in Europe?"

This time the Pope was much more firm.

"Dopey, there are no dwarf nuns in Europe."

By this point, all the dwarves were laughing aloud and rolling around on the ground.

"Pope," Dopey demanded. "Are there any dwarf nuns In the whole world?"

"No Dopey," the Pope snapped. "There are no dwarf nuns anywhere in the world."

Whereupon the six dwarves started Jumping up and down chanting, "Dopey fucked a penguin! Dopey flicked a penguin!"

Day 2: 17:18 [Outside tent]

Here's a riddle: who makes a better house? A framer? A welder? A form builder? Give up? A grave maker! 'Cause his house lasts until judgment day! Okay that's a stupid joke. An old Sunday school joke, actually.

Day 2: 18:28 [Inside tent]

Now Mr. Monster looks like a frog, a little gribbbb-it frog when suddenly 00000h, little frog has become a... uh... piglet.

[By carefully positioning his halogen lamp, Tom is able to cast hand shadows on the back wall of his tent. He conjures up a whole menagerie of creatures.]

Yes a piggy wiggy creature just olnking along when... uh-oh an elephant! Look at that, the piglet has turned into an elephant. Jesus and look at the size of that elephant, it could... ooops, well I'll be, it's turned into a woodpecker, oh, now it's a snail, hinmm or how about a praying mantis, a sea urchin, a dove maybe, a tiger, or even this... a wascawwy wabbit, and then all of a sudden... oh no Mr. Monster, don't do that... but Mr. Monster does, turning into a dragon. Yup, that's right folks, a mean, no game playing, flesh eating dragon. And you say you want to eat me? Sure, sure... Except for one thing, just when Mr. Monster thinks he's gonna turn Tom the hefty into Tom the short rib, Tom unleashes his secret weapon.

[As the dragon on the tent wail turns toward Tom and opens its mouth, Tom gets ready to turn off the halogen with his foot.]

Ah ha, Mr. Monster! Bye-Bye baby!

[Click. Black.]

[249-Taking into account Chapter Six, only Tom's creatures, born out of the absence of light, shaped with his bare hands, seem able to exist in that place, though all of them are as mutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange little bestiary lamenting nothing, instructing no one, revealing the outline of lives really only visible to the imagination.

And tonight as I copied this scene down, I began to feel very bad. Maybe because Tom's antics only temporarily transform that place into something other than itself, though even that transformation is not without its own peculiar horror; for no matter how many creatures he flings on the wall of his tent, no matter how large or how real they may appear, they still all perish in a flood of darkness. No Noah's ark. Nothing safe. No way to survive. Which may have had something to do with my outburst at the Shop today.

I was in some weird kind of jittery daze. Everyone was there, Thumper, my boss, the usual visitants, along with some depraved biker who was in the middle of getting an octopus carved into his deltoid. He kept blathering on about the permanence of ink which I guess really got to me because I started howling, and loud too-real loud-spit sputtering off my lips, snot shooting out of my nose.

"Permanent?" I shouted. "Are you fucking loopy, man?"

Everyone was shocked. The biker could have taught me a thing or two about the impermanence or at least the destructibility of flesh-in this case my flesh-but he was also shocked. Thumper came to my rescue, quickly escorting me outside and ordering me to take the day of f: "I don't know what you're getting messed up in Johnny but it's fucking you up bad." Then she touched my arm and I immediately wanted to tell her everything. Right then and there. I needed to tell her everything. Unfortunately, there was no question in my mind that she would think I was certifiable if I started rattling on about animals and Hand shadows, mutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange be- aww fuck, the hell with the rest. I choked down the words. Maybe I am certifiable. I came here instead. Which in an odd and round about way brings me to the Pekinese, the dog story I mentioned a ways back but didn't want to discuss. Well, I've changed my mind. The Pekinese belongs here. With Tom's Hand shadows.

It happened last December, a month before I'd ever heard of Zampano, on the tail end of what had proved to be a rather dramatic November, All Souls Day commencing with Lude's acquisition of a great deal of Ecstasy, a portion of which he sold to me at bulk rate.

"Hoss, this is our pass to paradise," Lude had told me, and of course he was right.

Who cared if it was fall, it felt like spring. Lude led the way, zipping from club to bar, crashing Bel Air fetes, desert raves and any after hours open house Malibu mansion madness we could find out about. Remarkably, no matter how zealously guarded these events were-velvet ropes as impossible to transcend as concertina wire without a hand grenade-the pills were our hand grenades. Velvet blown aside with the release of just one tab. They got us in everywhere. Even if noses were already bloody with coke, lungs black with Cannabis or throats dry with bourbon. x was still something else entirely, a spine shivering departure from the regular banquet, offering plenty of love-simulated bliss-bloated diversions. And so it happened that that month-Novem nine and all mine November-Lude disappeared into his own bower of bentdom, while I wandered off and promptly found my own.

Not too long afterwards, Lude made a great show of sharing with me his official and most prodigious tally for that month. Something which, for some reason, I felt compelled to write down.

LUDE'S LIST.

11/1 - Monique. 36. On her washing machine. She came during the rinse cycle. He came during the spin cycle. Drier broken.

11/3 - Morning: Tonya. 23. Hispanic. Twice. Evening: Nina. 34. Leather choker. Thigh high boots.

11/4 - Sparkle. 32. In a gazebo above the party.

11/5 - Kelly. 29. Dancer. In some host's sauna.

11/6 - Gina. 22. Said "please" before making the weirdest requests.

11/8 - Jennifer. 20. Naked at midnight on the diving platform at USC.

11/9 - Caroline. 21. Swedish. On her Nordic track. Later, some guy dating Monique (11/1) caught up with Lude. Turned out he only wanted some E.

11/10 - Susan. 19. Surprised him with a golden shower. He surprised her with a raincoat.

11/11 - Evening: Brooke. 25. Midnight: Mann. 22. Poured champagne all over the bed and told him to sleep in the wet spot.

11/12 - Noon: Alison 24-28???? Evening: ????? 23. Did it in wet suits. Neoprene smeared with Astroglide. She kept calling him O'Neil.

11/13 - Holly. 24-34???? vietnamese.

11/14 - Dawn. 19. Leslie. 19. Melissa. 19. From San Diego. They went to The Pleasure Chest together and bought a vibrating dildo for the first time.

11/19 - Cindy. 20. Waitress. "I get bored when I can't use my mouth."

11/20 - Erin. 21. Jewish. In a changing stall at The Gap.

11/21 - Betsy. 36. After sex, wanted a pearl necklace. Lude told her he was broke.

11/22 - Michelle. 20. Catholic. Informed him that all anal sex requires is Vaseline and a pillow. She had both.

11/25 - Stephanie. 18. Black.

11/27 - Alicia. 23. On top of her stereo speakers. Big speakers. Big woofers. Apparently very intense. Plenty of woofing.

11/28 - Thanksgiving. Dana. 28. Navel pierced. Nipples pierced. Clitoral hood pierced. Danced for Lude on her bed, then masturbated until she came. An hour later, sex. He couldn't come for the second time. She called a girlfriend. They 69'd and then played Russian Blow Job-a variation on Russian Roulette. Lude was the gun, they took turns, thirty seconds at a time (he timed); Dana's girlfriend lost (or won; depending on your tastes) Y N [Y N.

100 tabs of X; 12 AA batteries; half a dozen tubes of KY jelly; 4 boxes of condoms (ribbed and ultra thin; all w/ Nonoxynol-9); 3 loads of laundry; 2 wet suits; and 1 bottle of champagne.

Quite a month.

Note: This section also elicited several e-mails: Lude was such a Jerk and a shitty fuck. You can tell him that.

- Clarissa April 13, 1999 Lude was so much fun. Give him my new number: 323 ____- _____. Do you know what happened to him? Did he leave LA?

And what about Johnny? What was all that crazy stuff in the introduction about guns and blood? I mean if it wasn't his blood, whose was it?

- Natalie May 30, 1999 Hey kids, it takes two to tango.

- Bethami June 6, 1999 -Ed.]

Though clearly not as epic as Lude's, I too had my encounters that November.

Three.

Gabriella was the first. Her body was covered by a terrible birthmark which ran from her collar bone across one breast, over her belly and down both her legs. You could see traces of it on her wrists and ankles. But you couldn't feel it. It was textureless. Purely a visual shift. At first she turned out the lights but after a while it didn't matter. She was gorgeous and gentle and I was sad to see her go. She left for Milan the following morning.

Barbara came next. She'd been spending alot of time at the Playboy Mansion. Said she didn't want to be a centerfold but liked the atmosphere there. When we got on her bed, she tore my shirt open. I could hear the buttons skitter across her floor. By midnight she was saying she loved me. She said it so many times, I stopped counting. By morning, despite numerous hints, she couldn't remember my name.

And then I hooked up with Clara English. For just one night but at least it had started off well. Plenty of drinks, the buzz happy thrum of our newly ingested X-ray vision, lap dances for both of us at Crazy Girls, and then back to her place for a whole lot of fucking, only there wasn't that much fucking before there were a whole lot more hesitations and even tears set off by a series of interior tics I couldn't see. My fault for asking to see. I shouldn't have been curious. Should have left the blinders on. Probably could have made it through the tears. But I didn't. I pulled out the old Question Mark (QM) and Clara English didn't even think to answer with a joke. She didn't even conjure up some ridiculous story. She just took one sentence to tell me about the rape.

That stopped the tears. Replaced now by well practiced meanness. I guess I can't blame her. Who knew how I was going to respond to that kind of confession, though she didn't exactly give me the chance to respond. Suddenly she hated me for knowing, even though she'd been the one to tell me. Though I had asked. I had asked. When I called her the next day, she said she was finished fucking around with guys who belonged in a zoo. She hung up before I could ask her if she saw me with the cats or the birds.

I guess I still think about her. Fixed smile. Those removed gestures. That terrified gaze whenever it wasn't lost to something dull, angry and broken, an image that invariably returns me to the same question: can Clara English ever recover or is she permanently wounded, damned to stagger under years devoid of meaning & love until finally the day comes when she stumbles and is swept away?

I haven't seen her since. Maybe she's already been swept away. Now though when I look at Lude's list I don't see what I wrote down back then. I pencil in additional thoughts. They're made up of course. All of them born out of Clara's memory.

Strange.

Back then November had seemed like nothing but fun. The drugs robbing it of any consequence. The sex erasing all motives. Now, however, thorns have surfaced. Sharp thorns. My blissful bower's fallen, overrun by weeds and deadly vines. So is Lude's. Spiked with hurt. Heavy with poisonous bloom.

LUDE'S LIST REVISITED.

Monique - Husband recently left her.

Tonya - An ex- and a restraining order.

Nina - Silence.

Sparkle - Rage.

Kelly - When she was only eleven, her mother had forced her to perform oral sex on her.

Gina - Hiding from a stalker. Her fourth.

Caroline - Grew up in a commune. Had her first abortion when she was twelve.

Susan - Said "Who cares" two dozen telling times. Hole in the roof of her mouth from too much cocaine.

Brooke - Numb.

Mann - Uncle would come over and finger her.

Alison - Father killed when she was eighteen.

Leslie - Raped by gym coach when she was fourteen.

Dawn - Date raped last year.

Melissa - Ex-boyfriend used to hit her. She finally had to get a nose job.

Erin - Walked in on her mother screwing her boyfriend.

Betsy - A reduction left jagged scars running around her nipples and through both breasts. Ashamed before. Ashamed now.

Michelle - Engaged.

Alicia - Lost her virginity to her father.

Dana - Prostitute.

And as for my list, my Gabriella and Barbara, to say nothing of Amber & Christina, Lucy, Kyrie, Tatiana, the Australian gal, Ashley, Hailey and I suppose others-yes there have been others-who's to say. Scratch in your own guesses. No doubt your postils will be happier than mine, though if they are, you clearly don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you have got it right. I mean if you've lasted this far, maybe you do know what I'm talking about. Maybe even better than me.

People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been just another word for darkness. Blind encounters writing sonnets no one can ever read. Desire and pain communicated in the vague language of sex.

None of which made sense to me until much later when I realized everything I thought I'd retained of my encounters added up to so very little, hardly enduring, just shadows of love outlining nothing at all.

Which I guess finally brings me to the story I've been meaning to tell all along, one that still haunts me today, about the wounded and where I still fear they finally end up.

The story of my Pekinese.

By the time December came around, I'd run Out of B and energy. For at least a week, I was hung over with no sense of what lay ahead, plenty of untraceable guilt and a mounting sense of despair. One thing was sure though, I needed rest.

Lude didn't care. A 10 PM call and an hour later he was dragging me to the Opium Den, into the harangue of voices and amplified rhythms, all of it mixing, on ice, with a combination of cheap bourbon and better bourbon, though surprisingly little talk or smiles; feast to famine; or was it the other way around?, until towards the end of the night, Lude, noticing my isolation but secure in his own AM plans, pointed across the room - "I think she's a porn star" he yelled at me, though the music turned his yell into a whisper. I glanced over at the bar and immediately knew who he was talking about. There were plenty of girls milling around, ordering cosmopolitans and beers, but she stood out, literally, from all the rest. Not height wise, mind you. She couldn't have been more than 5'5". A petite figure, platinum hair, way too much eyeliner, nails as long as kitchen knives and lips stuffed with god knows how many layers of tissue collected from the ass of some cadaver. But her tits, they were what told the whole story: enormous, and that's an understatement. We're talking DDDD, entire seas sacrificed to fill those saline sacks, Red Sea on the left, the Dead Sea on the right. Given the right storm, they could probably take out coastal townships with no guarantees for inland villages either.

"Go talk to her" Lude urged me.