Meriden

just a little thing i wrote sometime last year that i dug up recently and thought I'd share.

I

The suburbs of Meriden. I spent a few days there, looking among roaches and empty bottles, cruising the hilly housing district with Duba and Chris Ward and moustache Dan (who had had a facial hair crisis) and Mary Jane. The hanging hills of Meriden. This is not my world. I am a grandchild of immigrants. I am a native of south-east Asia, and the reticence of those people is in my blood. And these people with a tendency toward substances and rock and roll are as removed a people from me as anybody in the world. Alien habitats - rows of wood-walled houses and green lawn, the great expanse of ambition.

The hanging hills of Meriden. I spent two years serving in the Singaporean army, mostly against my will, hacking through jungles. I encompassed the unfamiliar, the wide streets and cold forests that were everything except my crowded high-rise country. I was compelled to leave by the sharp corners of the unfamiliar. So this is my world, and these are my people. The poetry of Dylan and Garcia, Hendrix, the itinerants of the evergreen nation.

We spent St. Patrick's day making music. We sang songs that we had written. We drank and played an Italian card game and passed out and threw up in the sink. I spent the night in someone else's bed. What are we looking for. Nobody is looking for anything. We will wake up in the morning and laugh at the excesses of the night and take the train back home to New York City, where we live beside a church and a bank. The eternal pilgrims, hawking their trade by lamplight and jesus by sunlight and cutting down trees.

There is a ringing in my soul. I am tongue-tied outside the world of my childhood, as if words sprouted from the stones of an old home and were ripped from my throat as I tore through the upper atmosphere, headed west. Frankfurt, JFK: The slow progression of the soul. The sprouting of the soul. I am also hesitant to be sentimental but something inside me calls out to the trees - I want, more than anything, to be at home, to breathe the air of home, to be held and to be whispered to that everything will be alright. Too much strangeness in this country, too much freedom.

To wake up and laugh the night off. That is my desire. The warm air of Singapore. The embrace of trees. The short, brightly-lit highways. The smell of hawker food. The great expanse of ambition. To wake up in America and scrape the paint off the walls with my eyes, looking for the spirit in the mortar. The smell of cigarettes. The frantic clutching for meaning. To wake up in Singapore. I am composed of the streets of my homeland.

Perhaps there is nothing here - all was left in England by the Puritans. I have only come, then, to look for something that is not something. I have perused bonfires and leafed through the arches of New York City in the night time. I am the son of Aristotle. Perhaps the sight of moonlight on a lake through clouds of smoke is only the reflection of an alien yearning. We took the train home, smiling to each other. The pilgrims came for the New World, but they soon discovered that no world is forever new unless you are forever lonely.

II

1. Nicholas : I don’t know what’s up with Adam. We gave him some of the sweet leaf and he’s been sitting in the car all this while just staring ahead at the back of Chris’s seat. I asked him if he was alright and he just nodded and continued staring. I think he’s just far too high, the poor bird, he never took a hit for twenty years while he was in South-East Asia.

We’ve been driving for about an hour now, working through the last of that quarter ounce we got from the Doctor. I hope Adam comes out of that stoner coma, he’s usually pretty fun, but he listens to some weird music.

2. Dan : I’m glad they let me drive. I hate sitting in the back. It’s nice to be doing things when you’re baked. Just gotta remember that left turn before Chris’s… Every time Adam says something I jump a little because I keep forgetting he’s there, except he seems to have a cold perpetually and he keeps sniffling. But he doesn’t say anything, I wonder what he’s thinking about. Maybe he’s just really high.
3. ‘Hey, Dan. Put on the, uh, put on some Wolfmother. No, the first album, before the line-up changed. Man, they rocked the shit out back then, I don’t think I like them as much now. Put on ‘Woman’. Remember when we covered that at the first session last year? We rocked that shit. Pity the singer’s such a cunt. I heard he took all the rights and fired his bandmates claiming that he wrote all the songs. Well, yeah, he wrote the words, but most of those songs is the rest of the band. It’s the fucking rock and roll. Hey, Adam, now that you’re playing bass we should try ‘Woman’ again. Do you like this song?’

4. ‘So what happened to the moustache?’

‘Oh, that thing I had in New York? Shaved it off, man. The girlfriend didn’t like it.’

‘Jesus. I barely recognized you.’

‘Which one is Andrew’s car?’

‘A blue Hyundai. That’s what he said.’

‘Blue Hyundai… he’ll be up in a few seconds.’

‘Is that him?’

‘No… wait, there he is. Roll down the window.’

‘ANDREW - Get in.’

5. Andrew : It is so crowded in here. I’m so confused right now. But everybody seems nice… yeah. Everybody seems alright. I didn’t think Adam would come all the way here from the city - he’s usually just alone. I thought he didn’t like us very much… but maybe they’re just all that way back in Singapore. He seems pretty good right now though. Hey, brother, been smokin’ some of that reefer, man? Yeah man, it’s pretty groovy. It’s REALLY groovy, in fact. Right on, brother. Peace. I should put on the Dead. I think he’d like that, maybe ‘I know you rider’. Jerry Garcia, man. Really really fucking groovy.
6. I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I’m gone. I know you, rider; gonna miss me when I’m gone. Gonna miss your baby, from rolling in your arms. Laid down last night, lord, I could not take my rest. Laid down last night, lord. I could not take my rest. My mind was wandering like the wild geese in the west.
   
   
   III

We were all pretty high, so the reporting of events may be a little compressed in time or a little confused. Nonetheless, I’m fairly certain that all of this actually happened. Eric called – he was in town. We drove for forty-five minutes to his house, another twenty to the dealer’s, who dropped us a few dimebags’ worth from his second-floor window. Then we were in a basement for some time.

Somebody said, ‘Hey, it’s pretty late – why don’t we go down to the lake? Is there a road there, Eric?’

Eric said ‘Yeah, there’s a road, it’s like five minutes away.’

Then we were on a dismantled bridge that spanned halfway across the lake, now more of a pier than anything. There was a huge backhoe abandoned amidst the broken concrete and mud; we clambered over the treads and stood on the cab, looking at the moonlight coming off the water. We were quiet for a few minutes. Somebody asked if anybody wanted the rest of the blunt. I think nobody said anything – we just kept looking. It was so still. There was a cold wind blowing. I hadn’t spoken much in the last three hours, anyway – there wasn’t much to say. I was so far away from anything I knew how to talk about. But this moonlight, this lake – yeah, I was pretty baked, but so what? It was nice. Not a lot of nice things happen these days.