Technicolor Pulp by Arty Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

it.”
    Helms orders the special and I follow suit. An egg, toast, beans, a rasher of bacon, chips and tea. Helms gets a side of black
     pudding—butcher scraps and blood all fried up together. I pass on the pudding but agree to taste Doobe’s and I’ve got to admit
     that the shit isn’t all that bad as long as I don’t think too specifically about its origins. We bury our faces in our plates,
     stopping only occasionally to ask for salt or pepper. The “special” is thrown on the plate with no concern for esthetics.
     The beans are everywhere but the quality is there and the hash’s got me hungry. I’m eating so fast that I’m out of breath
     and I feel destined for a bad case of the hiccups. Breakfast at the Leland is good.
    Before I know it, we’re outside the pub again—Lally’s, where we finished off last night. Sitting next to a couple of young
     skate-nazis and their pit bull, swilling on a rich dark beer. With every gulp, I think less of the vicious dog next to me.
     My throat is desperate for long sips of beer. English ale is full—chocolate cake with opium icing. A big red double-decker
     comes chugging up the street.
    “Down with it, Jimi boy… We can’t waste this good ale.”
    I’ve never been much of a beer chugger, even though I was a fraternity boy, but the prospect of leaving behind this good ale
     inspires me. It’d be like pissing on the Bible. So down the hatch and off on the double-decker. My life is becoming more of
     a middle-class postcard every minute.
    We wind through the streets of South London.I’m knee-deep in history I never read and I’m filled with good beer, black hash and the Leland Special. The streets are jagged
     and the bus has to snake its way through every turn, inching along, taking its time. The bus has a certain respect for the
     streets. I don’t mind at all. It gives me time to see the world outside. Doobe’s quiet and I just watch. It’s a working-class
     neighborhood. Nothing to get too excited about. It’s the part I love. It’s not that I’m all down-home, or that I relate all
     that much to my fellow man. I just like to see what the nowheres look like. I give little imaginary histories to it all, mostly
     the people. Who they love and where they work and how they sleep and what kind of face they make when they fart or come or
     cry, or die. I LOOK at the people. I look into their eyes. I try to see their pain and their joy. I want to FEEL them. It
     always makes me sad but I do it anyway. I wanna taste the ham they ate last night. I wanna read the mail that comes everyday
     in all the colorful little mailboxes. I wanna see the schools. I wanna see the hottest girl in the neighborhood, the toughest
     guy in the neighborhood. It’s my fantasy. I wanna see the houses of the rich and I wanna see the street corners that the hoods
     and dealers hang out on. All the things that don’t change. All the things that make up the world. It’s alright seeing the
     famous places, but it’s the non-points of interest that interest me the most. I like them the best.
    The houses are all brick. Everything in London isso fucking bricky, with wood trim painted all different colors, just like the mailboxes, and none of the windows are the same
     shape. Some window guy probably made a fortune in this town. I look at each and every house, and I think there’s a world hidden
     inside them all—an epic. I wanna pair of X-ray glasses so I can watch them all unfold. I could look at all the naked ladies:
     their curves, their smiles, their hips, as they look at themselves alone in the mirror, beautiful. Every house is a stage,
     and on it is a comedy, and a tragedy, and a romance, and a lot of in-between stuff. Yeah, a lot of in-between stuff.
    We arrive at Victoria Station and I gotta piss bad. I can’t think about anything but pissing. I’d blow off Armageddon if I
     had to drain my bladder. It drives me crazy and it makes me miserable. I can’t enjoy life with