Podcasts killed the radio star. Nick Drake. "Preposterous." Laura Veirs. Hitchin' a ride. Elliott Smith. High of 68. Gloved hand carries lam
New episode of my pretend radio show. With Mina, Nick Drake, Laura Veirs, Elliott Smith, Bibio, Bad Bunny, Mitski, Steely Dan. And a special offer for listeners.
Sit down with me
And tell me how you're feeling
Sit down with me
And look into my eye directly
And tell me how you're feeling
Something's gone wrong
Something is wrong
I feel that we're not alone
We're not alone
Sit down with me
And ask me how I'm feeling
Sit down with me
Here at the nice kitchen table
As the light breeze runs through the room
Something's gone wrong
Something is wrong
I feel that we're not alone
We're not alone
And if we're not alone
It means the freakshow has begun
Sit down with me
See those hills
Smoke is rising over there
Sit down with me
Have you seen your reflection lately baby
Just dissolving into the mirror
Something's gone wrong
Something is wrong
We're not alone
We're not alone
And if we're not alone
It means the freakshow has begun
And if we're not alone
It means the freakshow has begun
A man was driving late at night. He was very tired. All he wanted was a room to sleep in but for the last hundred miles he had not passed a single place to stay.
At last he saw something in the distance -- a crooked hotel on a hilltop. He drove toward it, parked, and walked to the front entrance. He noticed a sign on the door: No Vacancy. He went in anyway.
There was a bone-thin man at the front desk. "Good evening," he said.
"Hi," said the weary traveler. "I saw the no vacancy sign -- but at this point I'd be willing to sleep anywhere. Even if you'd let me sleep in your lobby for just a few hours, I would be very appreciative."
"I'm sorry," the bone-thin man said. "We don't let people sleep in the lobby."
"You don't have anything at all?"
"I'm afraid all the rooms are occupied. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Forget it," said the bone-thin man. "It was nothing."
"No, no, it seemed like you were about to say something."
"But nobody would..."
"Nobody would what? Please, I'll take anything you've got."
"The room I was thinking of... it's just a little room at the very top."
"Room at the top. Sounds good."
"No one has stayed there for quite some time. Not for many long years."
"As long as it has a bed I'll be fine," said the traveler. “I’m not picky.”
"Do you see that door over there? Go to it. Open it. Once you have done so, you will find a narrow, winding staircase. It goes up for exactly one hundred steps. Walk up those stairs. At the hundredth step, you will find another door. Open it. And there is the room. It's not a terrible room, I seem to recall, but I imagine it might be a little... dusty."
The bone-thin man laughed. Or was it a cough? The traveler was not sure. Perhaps because he was so very tired, and perhaps not thinking clearly, he laughed, or coughed (he wasn’t sure which) along with the bone-thin man.
The bone-thing man stopped laughing, or coughing, very suddenly, and he said: "It's nice to laugh, isn't it?"
So it must have been laughter, after all.
"Yes," said the traveler. "I mean, no. I mean -- "
"One thing. You must pay me in advance. And there will be no refund, if it turns out you don’t like the room."
"How much?"
"One hundred dollars."
"That’s pretty steep for the worst room in the house."
"It’s not the worst room, exactly," the bone-thin man said. "Only -- how can I put this? -- it is not to everyone's taste. So I'll be needing that money. It's for Johnny, actually."
"Johnny?"
"Did I say Johnny?"
"Yes. Just now."
"I don't think that's correct."
"I definitely heard you say Johnny."
"Isn’t it funny,” the bone-thin man said, “how we all believe we are in the right, when we're in the middle of a little dispute? I suppose it’s how we get through the days.” He raised a gray eyebrow. “And nights.”
The traveler took the hundred dollars from his wallet and slapped the bills on the front desk, saying, "Here's your money."
"And here's your key," the bone-thin man said. "Remember, it's one hundred steps to the top.”
With his suitcase in one hand, the weary traveler trudged to the door and opened it. The hinges creaked. He saw before him, in the darkness, the first few steps.
"Isn't there a light in here?"
"Just take it one step at a time,” the bone-thin man said. “You'll find your way. I’m sure."
"It's dark. Way darker than I thought it would be."
"That's why I told you the number of steps. Count them as you go. When you reach one hundred, you will know you are where you need to be."
Where you need to be... where I need to be... where I........
The traveler set his right foot on the first step... and placed his left foot on the second step... and he lifted his right foot and, testingly, allowed it to come to rest on the third step. It smelled musty, as if the air in this staircase had been trapped for ages.
The traveler could no longer see anything at all, not even his own feet, but he kept going upward, counting each step silently to himself as he walked... four, five, six... thirteen, fourteen, fifteen....
The suitcase was weighing him down. It bumped against each step. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty....
Now it was utterly black... his heart was pounding... sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three... And now the man wanted to turn back. He felt afraid. Very afraid. But he reasoned that it was now a shorter walk to the top than it was to the bottom. So he kept going, forward and up.
The stairway curved even more tightly. The man's right shoulder rubbed against the wall. Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one....
Oh, it would have been better to have slept the night in the car!
Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine....
He was sweating. He was out of breath.
At the last step he said out loud: "One hundred!"
He reached out with his free hand and petted the flat surface of a door. Then he found the doorknob and took hold of it. It was cold to the touch. He tried to turn it. It seemed to be locked. He fished in his front pocket for the key. He found it. After some fumbling, he slipped it into the keyhole.
He turned the key. There was a click. The door came open with a whining creak. And now, at last, the man could see again, for the room had many windows, and the moon was shining in.
It wasn't much of a room -- a narrow bed against the wall on one side, a toilet and sink behind a partition on the other side, with a rough wooden table inbetween -- but it looked all right. He flicked the lightswitch -- nothing. The ceiling light bulb had burned out. Oh, well, at least he had the moonlight.
The man used the bathroom and then took off his clothes, except for his boxer shorts. He got under the covers and waited for sleep to come down.
At first it was the room's stillness that seemed to be keeping sleep away. If only he could hear a sound -- anything to break the silence.
And then he did hear something -- the howling and yipping of distant coyotes, or wolves That made him feel a little better... but then the howling and yipping seemed kind of sinister, as if those animals had just hunted down a fellow creature, a deer perhaps, and were celebrating their kill as the blood dripped from their fangs.
The noise continued to stripe the air. The man wished for the silence that had so unsettled him only moments earlier.
He noticed, just then, an object on the rough wooden table – it appeared to be a framed photograph of someone.
Who was in the picture?
He got out of bed and took it in his hands and studied it closely in the moonlight.
It seemed like a very old picture... cracked in places... taken in black and white... and it showed the face of a fellow with large ears and short, fuzzy hair.
The eyes were big and round. The traveler had never seen such round eyes before on any human being. They looked like animal eyes -- bear eyes, perhaps, or wolf eyes. And those ears... were like giant bat-ears.
And, strange to say, it was hard to tell if the person in the photo was a small child or a man of seventy.
The weary traveler squinted, hoping the face would come clear. And then, under the glass, at the very bottom of the picture, he noticed a scrap of paper with something written on it in black ink. This is what it said: "Johnny."
So the creature in the picture must have been Johnny.
"Johnny," the man said out loud.
Hadn't the bone-thin man at the desk mentioned the name Johnny?
So who was this Johnny?
Did he live somewhere in this crooked hotel?
Or was he someone who had lived here many years ago, and was now dead?
The man got under the covers again. He was shivering.
Calm down, he told himself. It's only a photograph.
After a while he could feel his heartbeat slowing. His eyelids went heavy and finally closed. He was about to enter a dream when he heard something go bump. Maybe it was more of a thump. And he heard a voice. A thin, high-pitched voice. A screeching voice. And this is what it said: "Johnny on the first step."
The weary traveler sat up in bed. He heard another thump...
....and then: "Johnny on the second step." in the same screeching voice...
Another thump, and again the voice: "Johnny on the third step."
What was going on?
Thump. "Johnny on the fourth step."
This was impossible.
Thump. "Johnny on the fifth step."
How could... but why... ? ? ?
Thump! "Johnny on the sixth step."
No. No. Please. The man started to shake. Please oh please.
Thump. "Johnny on the seventh step."
Could it really be the Johnny in the picture, that strange-looking manchild beast?
Thump. "Johnny on the eighth step."
Was he really, right this moment, climbing the steps of the steep dark winding staircase?
Thump. "Johnny on the ninth step."
Was he really coming closer and closer?
Thump. "Johnny on the tenth step."
Was he a killer?
Thump. "Johnny on the eleventh step."
The man thought of running away...
Thump. "Johnny on the twelfth step."
But where could he run to?
Thump. "Johnny on the thirteenth step."
The man pulled the covers over his head and he stuck his fingertips inside his ears so that he would no longer hear the thumps on the steps or the screeching voice that must have belonged to the... the person.... the creature in the photograph.
The man stayed like this for a long time. But then his curiosity got too strong. He took his fingers out of his ears... and, heart palpitating, he listened. And this is what he heard:
Thump. "Johnny on the ninety-sixth step."
Oh no please God no
Thump. "Johnny on the ninety-seventh step."
Only three more to go now.
Thump. "Johnny on the ninety-eighth step."
Thump. "Johnny on the ninety-ninth step."
Help me help me help me help me
Thump. "One hundred!"
A pause ... ... everything was still again ... ...
The door came open with a whining creak.
And from under the covers the man could hear footsteps c o m i n g c l o s e r ... and closer ... andcloser ...
The man felt a light tapping on his shoulder. Like this. Tap-tap-tap
He lowered the covers so that he could see. And there, standing inches away, was a small person whose face was the same as the face in the picture. The eyes were round, like bear eyes or wolf eyes. His hair was short. The ears were like bat-ears. And this is what he said:
One thinks of the beach in summertime as a haven for two distinct types: sunbathers and swimmers. But there is a third, less-noticed group: the sand-diggers. They spend their happiest hours on the damp sand, moving this most malleable of earths into new forms. While the lazy sunbathers prefer low tide (more room to lie down), and the frolicsome swimmers like it high (bigger waves), the amphibious sand-diggers live for the inbetween tides, when the waterline is not so fixed. Forthwith, my diary of a day spent among them.
9 a.m.
I spy a man who digs with a steadiness of effort, a mound of sand growing beside him. I approach him gingerly and ask if he would like to make use of my shovel, a tin thing I have purchased at a beach shop for $2.79. “Not really,” he says. And this he says with such
finality that the little shovel in my hand strikes me as just another useless bauble of the civilized world. What clods we are, with our “tools,” our “implements” and “instruments”! Look to the sand-digger, him with his bare hands losing themselves in the earth. Look to him and learn!
11 a.m.
But the lack of a shovel in itself does not a sand-digger make. This I learn the hard way while observing the rising generation, a group of boys between the ages of six and eight. Less “pure” than their elders, they are armed with buckets and large shovels to aid them in their happy endeavor of making a varied world–tunnels, mountains, castles–out of a flat sandscape. When I ask these “young lords of the sand,” as I think of them, why they do not simply chuck their shovels and buckets, the better to feel the sand’s multitudinous grains, they reply not with words but by raising their shovels high and chasing me down the beach, with cries of “Get him!” and “Quit bothering us, you idiot!” A lifeguard intervenes.
2 p.m.
A sand-digging patriarch fashions a large rectangular hole. His apprentices, a boy and a girl, help out. Soon, the children leap into the hole with an eagerness characteristic of their tribe. Now the man fills in the hole, using the sand he has just dug up to do so. The result is a nightmarish sight: two small heads atop the earth. For someone who has not witnessed the painstaking effort that went into the making of this grim spectacle, the effect would be bone-chilling. Oh, to come upon two living heads–the innocent heads of children, no less–seemingly unattached to bodies! And how they smile! A more heartless brand of comedy I have not seen.
4 p.m.
A sand-digging beauty holds a wet sand clump in one hand and squeezes out an essence of grains and water. She is making the delicate structures known, in the sand-diggers’ colorful argot, as “drip castles.” They have the appearance of pebbles lopsidedly stacked atop one another. By their very nature these lovely things cannot last.
I imagine a romance… but could her sand-digger’s love of precariousness, her wild acceptance of the ephemerality of all things, exist in harmony with my longing for solidity and permanence (or my illusions thereof)? I think not!
This hunch of mine is hammered home when a sand-digging male sits down beside her. At six-foot-four, and wearing a tiny Speedo that cannot help but put one in mind of the humorous phrase “banana hammock,” he is quite the specimen. He takes her in his arms and, leaving no doubt on the matter of who holds her affections, breaks away from the kiss, turning to me, and he says, with that particular sand-digger’s bluntness that I have come to treasure, “What the hell are you staring at?” The tin shovel in my hand seems to wilt. Never has the line between myself and the sand-diggers seemed more distinct.
6 p.m.
The lifeguard stand is down. The sunbathers and swimmers are gone. The hearty sand-diggers stay on. Ah. Ah!
They would not miss this time for anything–for now is when the tide rolls foamily in.
Idly flinging sand with my little shovel, I watch a gang of adolescents building an elaborate castle. They use specially shaped buckets to create turrets. Here comes a pounding wave! And what was once a palace becomes a wet lump. Are these youngsters dispirited? To the contrary! The destroying wave has elicited from them huzzahs of happiness.
Strange creatures, these sand-diggers. How I admire them.
9:30 p.m.
The beach is empty of human life, save for me. Stars dangle mobile-like over a black ocean as I read over my copious notes. What a day it has been.
I am not so deluded as to bestow upon myself the title of “sand-digger,” but I believe I do not deceive myself in thinking that, for a few happy hours, at least, I shared in their way of life.
Let me therefore carry with me a smidgen of their spirit. And so I cry into the mighty, moonlit waves, “God bless the sand-diggers! God bless them, every one!”
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