Mike Carey, �Ultimate Elektra: Devil�s Due�
As I said in that last entry, after the realization with my shitty retail job, I knew I had to quit. I thought about it for the rest of my shift. One person asked if they could I could work for them the next week, and I said I couldn�t because I wouldn�t be here.
Which was true, but for a different reason � I was headed back to the mainland. Yes, after just three months, I was returning to my old stomping ground. I already knew I was going to be surrounded by smarmy friends with comments.
�So, Dean, what happened to never coming back?�
�Oh, I meant it, but I realized I forgot to tell you something, and I had to say it in person.�
�Me? What did you need to tell me?�
�Oh, I just needed to tell you to FUCK OFF! All right, then. Now I can go.�
Actually, I had a couple of reasons for returning besides the fuck off factor, and I combined them to fit my needs. A little yellow gumdrop ball was having a birthday. I knew I wouldn�t be able to visit my mom during the holidays, either on thanksgiving or Christmas because of work constraints and plane ticket prices. And finally, the dinner held in my uncle�s honor coincided with the birthday, so why not combine the two?
So really, my visit �home� wouldn�t allow for much time at my old home. I rectified that with two strokes � the first, bringing records with me to play at the punk rock dive bar night. And since that started at ten o�clock, why not work a full day at the bookstore, since that would pretty much recoup my losses for missing work for a week from the four other jobs combined.
God, you have no idea how much I hated typing that sentence.
But that came later. After an inconsequential lift to the airport and a havoc-free plane ride for once, I ended up in Oakland early in the morning. That night for the birthday celebrations we went to a place I suggested to her when she first arrived in California: The Tonga Room, located in the swanky Fairmont Hotel in the San Francisco.
The Tonga Room sensation needs explaining. Think of a motif with all the things I described in the review for Tiki�s. But imagine walking up the Mason Street hill in SF, ducking into the hotel only to find they�ve outfitted the walls with lava rock and tiki masks and tropical plants. See, in Hawaii, it makes sense. In San Francisco, it�s kitsch.
And kitsch is all well and good, but at the prices they charge they need a little more, despite the tables set along the edge of a pool.
They have more. At 30-minute intervals, thunder cracks, lightning flashes, and a tropical rainfall occurs in the middle of the room. During all this commotion, a raft floats out to the middle of the pool, whereupon a cheesy cover band plays contemporary classics.
Of course, this was all amusing to me when I was only a visitor the islands in the pacific. Now I�m a goddamned authority, and present myself as such. �Cherries? Cherries? You know how much these cost in Hawaii? More than this drink costs, and your drinks are overpriced! I�m just saying, if you�re tying to be authentic, well, then you should probably lose these as well as the Sade covers. Sade�s considered a race-traitor where I come from!�
And of course, I�m not the only person who managed to escape from San Jose, so I invite my former roommate to meet us there. Since there�s a birthday going on and he used to do balloon animals for parties, I instruct him to bring his balloon stash, which he does. I watch his face sink, his eyes swimming back to distant memories probably involving why he gave up the balloon trade in the first place as people at our table ask for a half-dozen variations of people and animals, all with the same caveat:
�Put a big thingie on it.�
He had to be thinking of all the modifications and tricks and skills he had to mold astounding representations that he could manipulate and shape with just some rubber and some air, all now played up for a cheap sex gag.
This is, I suspect, why all clowns are really crying on the inside. Also, why they tend to kill people.
Later in the week, I took the train back to San Jose and went to the bookstore � my beloved bookstore � who not only bought pizza from the best pizza place I know of, but somehow managed to clean up the place and make it not look like the disaster that I�m sure it�s been ever since I left. It was a kind effort, meant I�m sure to not make me feel bad for abandoning the store in the first place.
So.
I guess I�m not needed here.
Shit.
My strategy for working here for one day to make up for all the other jobs I�m skipped out on totally backfired, as I bought over fifty dollars worth of books, and spent another $40 to get them, as well as some boxes of my own books, shipped back to the island.
Whoops.
After all of this, it was time to do the DJ punk night thing. My old boss drops us off in front of the club. I walk up, taking note of the new entry door, which actually allows you to look into the club. A touch of class in a place far from classy. But there�s nobody inside. More important, there�s no DJ equipment inside.
Eventually, one of the regular DJ�s shows up and tells me they aren�t going to have any DJ�s tonight. It seems that a week prior, some people got shot at a nearby hip-hop club. The police, in trying to crack down on such incidents, quickly shoved a measure through the city council stating that if any fights happened in the street, and it was a situation that escalated from a certain bar or nightclub, said bar or nightclub would then have their liquor license revoked for three months, enough to effectively put them out of business. All the bar owners were terrified, and were doing anything possible to cover their asses. In this case, at this dive bar, covering their asses meant having no DJ�s.
�They�re gonna open up the jukebox and let us play CD�s� the other DJ told me.
I looked down at the 45 pounds of vinyl I carried across the ocean. �What�s the difference,� I asked, �between that and us setting up a turntable?�
He shrugged. �That�s considered entertainment,� he said.
�You know what I play,� I shot back. �It�s not entertaining.�
He shrugged apologetically and went inside. Despite me posting an announcement to my friends on myspace and here, there wasn�t really anybody inside that I was hoping to see. I borrowed a phone and called my old roommate.
�Hello?� the voice on the other line said sleepily.
�Hey, it�s Dean,� I said.
�Oh, hey Dean, you here now?�
�Yeah, I�m at Cinebar, Where is everybody?�
�I don�t know. I was just about to go to sleep.�
�Oh. Ok, then.�
Later that night, the person who took over my room invited us to stay at his house. The place where, three months ago, was my place. On the walk home, as we crossed the street, the strap on my bag broke from the weight of the records, spilling my vinyl all over the ground.
As we entered the house I used to live in, I saw my two seven foot tall bookcases I was forced to leave behind � beautiful, sturdy, proud-standing bookshelves. One was now being used by another roommate to house his collection of baseball hats. The other was sitting in the kitchen, the shelves facing against the wall as it sat unused.
Yeah, fuck you Thomas Hardy, you really can�t go home again.
And yes, I know it was Thomas Wolfe who said that. I just really don�t like Thomas Hardy.
