That was just perfect! I still hope the pianos are beyond repair, but
now it makes sense.
On Jun 20, 2004, at 3:09 PM, zoe marsh wrote:
This is a bit from 'Not Fade Away' by Jim Dodge, one of my favourite
writers. It's about two blokes, one of whom is a horn player, wrecking
a car for insurance, and seemed to�be somehow relevant�- zoe
I put the Merc in Neutral and cramped the wheels to the left. Big Red
and I put our shoulders to it, a few good grunts at first, and then
she was rolling on her own weight. When the front tires dropped over
the edge, the back end flipped up, but rather than nosing straight
down it dragged on the frame and tilted sideways slow enough for us to
hear all the cans sluicing towards the drivers side, and then she
cleared the edge and was gone. The earth suddenly seemed lighter. It
was silent so long I figured we hadn't heard it hit, that the sound of
the impact had been muffled by the surge and batter of the waves
below, and I was just about to peer over the edge when it smashed on
the rocks KAAABBBBLLLAAAAAAM.
Big Red stood there, rooted, eyes closed and head thrown back, swaying
slightly from side to side. He was obviously lost in something, but,
though I hated to interrupt, it didn't seem wise to hang around
appreciating the sonic clarity of a new Mercury meeting ancient stone
in the middle of a felony.
I touched his arm. 'Let's hit it.'
'You drive,' Big Red replied - a command, not a request.
Silent, eyes closed, Big Red didn't twitch from his reverie until we
were coming back across the golden gate. I was half depressed with
spoilt adrenaline, half pissed that he'd withdrawn when I felt like
yammering, so when he finally opened his eyes and asked 'Did you hear
it,' I was a little cross. 'Hear what? The waves? The wind? The
wreck?'
'No man, the silence. The gravitational mass of that silence. And then
that great, brief, twisted cry of metal.'
'That sound isn't high on my hit parade, Red. I like cars, trucks,
four-bys, six-bys, eight-bys, and them great big motherfuckers that
bend in the middle and go shooooooosh shooooooosh when you pump the
brakes. It'd be like throwing your horn off the cliff.'
'Yes!' He grabbed my shoulder, 'Exactly!'
He was so pleased that it seemed cruel to admit my understanding was
the accidental result of petulant exaggeration, if not outright
deceit.
