Intriguing the nothing is all that comes easy to Stoney.

- Pam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabriel Orgrease" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 19:03
Subject: [BP] Goons & Gongs & Not Quite There


> Becker, Dan wrote:
>
> >>And there was a radio program that seems to
> >>have gone on for a long time called, The Goon Show.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Any relationship to the mother of all nitwit TV shows, The Gong Show?
> >
>
> Dan,
>
> I don't know yet... it is new territory for me and I'm still trying to
> figure out the connections.
> I like Roger Lewis' style. I'm not sure where he is going half the time
> and that, for me, is pleasurable.
> But with about another 400 pages to go I'll find out and report back.
> It was one of those books that comes along like this... in the bookshop
> I need to find something about the music business... Oh, what is this?
> "Being There", both movie and novel have an increased significance for
> me over the last few years.
>
> ][<
>
> NOT QUITE THERE
>
> ONE
>
> It was Monday. Stoney was in the quarry. He moved slowly, pushing the
> rusty wheel barrow from one path to the next, carefully watching the
> rocks. Very gently he passed the wheel of the barrow along the worn
> path. Rocks are not like people; they need nothing, they lay around
> peacefully when not disturbed, they do not ask questions.
>
> Yet rocks are like some people, they are vacant and empty of importance
> -- like Stoney. No rock is able to think about itself or able to know
> itself; there is no mirror in which the rock can recognize its face; no
> rock can do anything intentionally: it cannot help sitting, and its lack
> of motion has no meaning, since a rock cannot reason or dream.
>
> It had often been unsafe and insecure in the quarry, the region of
> dynamite explosions and flying stone shards separated from the road by a
> high, chain link fence with warning signs, and the sounds of the passing
> trucks had disturbed what little peace there was. Stoney ignored the
> sounds -- over time he had grown deaf. It came upon him slowly and he
> did not notice like the eating away of lichen on the surface of an old
> stone. Also, the sounds and the turmoil and the explosions had
> diminished from day to day as the quarry business went under. Though
> Stoney had never stepped outside the quarry, he was not curious about
> life outside the fence. He was not curious about life inside. He was not
> curious.
>
> It was Monday. Stoney was in the quarry. He moved slowly, pushing the
> wheel barrow from one path to the next, carefully watching the rocks.
>
> The building at the front part of the quarry where the Boss Man worked
> might just as well have been another part of the universe. Cars parked
> around it. People went inside and outside and drove off. In the rear of
> the maintenance shed facing away from the quarry, and away from the
> world, Stoney had his small room and his bathroom and his path leading
> to the heart of the quarry. When the rain struck upon and rattled the
> corrugated metal roof Stoney did not hear it. In the shelter from the
> weather he would hold onto his collection of special rocks. His
> favorites, he would hold them close to his breast. He would nestle with
> them in his bed and on cold nights sleep with them curled beneath his
> thighs.
>
> What was particularly nice about the quarry was that, at any moment,
> standing in the narrow paths or amidst the broken rock, Stoney could
> start to wander, never knowing whether he was going forward or backward,
> unsure whether he was ahead of or behind his next steps. All that
> mattered was moving the barrow in his vacant time, like a never tumbling
> rock.
>
> Once in a while Stoney would sit on a rock and not think. Nothing was
> easy for Stoney and like a sun basking lizard he could sit for hours.
> The wind, mindless of direction, intermittently pushed up clouds of
> quarry dust that settled evenly, whitening the flat surfaces, which
> waited patiently to be rinsed by the rain and dried by the sun. And yet,
> with all its stillness, even at the peak of noon, the quarry held a
> mysterious and intimate biosphere. Under every rock lay a centipede or a
> lonely spider. Stoney did not care to know which was more important: the
> quarry's muted surface or the life growing within it. Stoney did not
> care. It was all the same to the rock.
>
> For example, there were some stone slabs cut for retail, then forgotten
> when the deposit check bounced, stacked over near the south wall.
> Beneath them lived a family of chipmunks in complete disregard of the
> bustle and noise of the quarry. Like albino fish in a cave, like Stoney,
> they were deaf chipmunks adapted to their environment. Stoney did not
care.
>
> Stoney set in his own light, in his own color, in his own time. When he
> placed his hands down upon the rock he followed the law of gravity that
> forever pushed all limbs downward. Everything for him in sitting with
> the rocks was as one. In this vacant world, the vibration of the bedrock
> in the quarry was the lone hearing aid of a deaf man.
>
> By changing the pressure of his hand upon the surface of the rock, first
> lightly touched then hard pressed, he could change himself. He could go
> through phases, as the quarry wind and the driving rain went through
> phases, but he could change as he wished by twisting his palm backward
> and forward with varied pressure. In some cases he could spread out his
> consciousness into the rock without stopping. By moving his hands
> against the rock Stoney could bring the world of the rock inside. Thus
> he came to nothing.
>
> The rock looked like Stoney.
>
> He sank into the rock. Like sunlight and fresh air and mild rain, the
> being of rock entered Stoney, and Stoney floated into the rock, buoyed
> inward by a force he did not hear or speak.
>
> He suddenly saw the yellow front loader moving above his head and the
> face of the straw boss at the controls. Reluctantly he got up, carefully
> lifting his hands free of the rock -- taking it slowly to become himself
> now separate from the quarry -- and stepped to the handles of the
> barrow. The straw boss was leaning out of the cab of the front loader
> flapping his arms. Stoney did not like the straw boss. Mike Pernit had
> come to work at the quarry as a cutter some time after Julio Gutierrez
> had gotten hurt. Mike was a last hold out. He was fat. He was from the
> local community. He smelled of bad cheese. Stoney did not understand.
> How could he? As a rule Stoney had little to do with the straw boss, and
> he had never eaten cheese except on the crackers that he on some days
> got from the roach coach. Now Mike wanted Stoney to come up to the
> office quickly.
>
> Stoney pushed the barrow along the upper path leading towards the quarry
> office. He did not trust the lower path since the time Julio Gutierrez
> had been trapped beneath a stone fall for hours before they had to
> amputate his legs. Stoney pushed the barrow along the upper path until
> he reached the rear entrance of the office.
>
> The last time he had seen this part of the office the walls of the
> quarry, now tall and lofty, had been quite small and insignificant.
> Catching sight of his reflection in the large glass window, Stoney saw
> the image of himself as a small pebble and then through the window the
> Boss Man busy on the phone in a huge chair at his desk with papers and
> folders and empty beer cans piled on top. The Boss Man's hair was gray,
> his hands wrinkled and shriveled. The Boss Man breathed heavily and
> smoked a cigar. The Boss Man smelled of tobacco and moldy underwear.
>
> Stoney set the barrow down then walked through the entrance door. The
> offices seemed empty; the blinds of the windows barely admitted the
> daylight. Slowly he looked at the desks and copy machines and telephones
> covered over with plastic. Beneath flickering fluorescents he looked at
> the walls where the yellow paint had turned to gray smudge. He looked at
> the carpet that bore stains of stone dust.
>
> There were no words between Stoney and the Boss Man. There could be
> none. Stoney could not hear, and he could not read, and he could not
> write and the Boss Man was not very good at pantomime. Stoney was like a
> rock, and it was the Boss Man himself who had sheltered him in the
> quarry ever since Stoney was a child. Stoney's mother had died a few
> minutes before he was born. No one could tell Stoney who his father was.
> No one could tell Stoney where he was born. No one could tell Stoney
> that he had once had parents. No one could tell Stoney much of anything.
> Stoney would never be able to understand much of what others were saying
> to him or around him. Stoney was to work in the quarry, where he would
> push the barrow peacefully. He would be as one of them: quiet, a rock
> set in the sunshine and heavy with dampness when it rained. His name was
> Stoney because it was. He had no family. Although his mother had been
> ugly as sin, her mind had been as solid as his: the dense compaction of
> his immovable brain, the bedrock from which all his thoughts froze, had
> been stalled forever. Therefore, he could not look for a place in the
> life led by people outside the quarry gate. The limit of Stoney's life
> was his quarters and the quarry; he must not enter other parts of the
> quarry or walk out into the road. His food would always be from Bob's
> roach coach. No one else besides the straw boss was allowed to enter the
> quarry. Only the Boss Man himself might walk and sit in the quarry.
> Stoney was often forgotten.
>
> *
>
> It was Tuesday. The straw boss was shouting into the phone. He turned
> and, seeing Stoney, pointed to the desk. Stoney approached. The Boss Man
> in his executive chair was propped against the wall and seemed poised
> intently, as if he were listening to the ring of a stone wedge struck by
> a hammer. His shoulders sloped down at sharp angles, and his head, like
> a heavy stone, hung down to one side. Stoney stared into the Boss Man's
> face. It was gray and only one eye remained open, like the eye of the
> sick crow that could often be seen in the quarry. The straw boss put
> down the receiver. He went to the desk and pulled out a lower drawer and
> removed the cash box, emptied it out. He then went outside and got in
> his pick-up truck and drove away.
>
> Stoney gazed at the Boss Man for nearly two hours then walked out. The
> Boss Man smelled funny. Stoney sat on a rock in the quarry and was one.
>
> TWO
>
> It was Thursday. Sitting on a rock in the quarry Stoney did not hear the
> sounds coming from the office. He looked up and saw the ambulance and
> the police cars parked in the lot just inside of the quarry gate. Hidden
> behind a large cube of cut stone he watched them carry out the Boss
> Man's body. When they left they shut the gate behind. Stoney sat on a
> rock and was one.
>
> Days passed and no one came. Not even Bob's roach coach. Stoney ate
> sardines, stale pretzels and spoons of uncooked lemon-lime gelatin. Each
> morning he rose early and went into the quarry and pushed his barrow.
> Everything was in order. It had rained during the night. He sat down on
> a rock and dozed in the sun.
>
> As long as one does not look at it the world will not exist -- it only
> began to exist as it is when one turned to look at it. One is
> responsible for all of this. Otherwise like a mirage a few more Mondays
> are nothing. Only when looking by one does the world stay in one's mind
> before being erased and blank. The world is as a dead rock or the eye of
> a sick crow. The same is true of Stoney. By one looking at him he can
> exist, otherwise his image will blur and fade out to nothing and be
> forgotten. Stoney is missing from not being watched by one.
>
> Stoney had no presentment of a future. He was contented. The Boss Man
> had died. There was nothing to be known good or evil from this death, or
> from any death. It simply was not life. Stoney, like a rock, did not
> know anything of life or death but he was hungry just the same.
>
> When Stoney saw the gate pushed open by the child he sat and watched and
> did nothing. His barrow had a flat and he was tired from pushing where
> it would wander off the path and crush and scrape against the bare rock.
> In the past whenever the barrow had a flat it was repaired by the straw
> boss, and before that by Julio Gutierrez. Stoney had not seen the straw
> boss for more than a week. There were tools in the maintenance shed with
> which to make the repair but Stoney did not know them. The workshop of
> the shed was dark with no electricity and smelled of oil and burnt
> straw. There was not the life of warm sun on rock inside the shed and
> Stoney staid outside. The trespassing child picked up and threw a rock
> at the plate glass window of the empty office building. The window was
> broken. The glass shattered. Stoney sat silent in the sunlight as one
> with the rock.
>
> It was Wednesday in the morning when Stoney put on his working clothes,
> his jeans, a pair of large sunglasses, his canvas coat, and his hat. He
> filled a cloth sack with empty tubes of toothpaste and his favorite
> rocks. He carefully trimmed and combed his hair. This morning Stoney was
> driven by his hunger. He wandered over to the barrow and felt of the oak
> handles, lifted the weight of the metal body. He set the barrow down.
> All was peaceful there. He set the sack down and then he set himself
> down on the rock and felt of it.
>
> It was Friday in the morning when Stoney put on his working clothes.
>
> It was Monday. Stoney was leaving the quarry but he did not particularly
> know this. Outside the quarry the world was gray. Other than for the
> gate and the fence there was no boundary distinction between one place
> and another. Gray is gray. It had taken Stoney several hours of
> meandering around the quarry from his room to the gate to his room to
> the quarry to the gate. He would stop and sit on the rock and feel one
> with it. The rock did not move, and hardly did it seem that Stoney would
> move any faster. The instinct of life, unlike with a lifeless rock,
> pushes one around and Stoney eventually found himself standing on the
> shoulder next to the road outside of the gate. He did not know how he
> had got there and he did not know where he was going. He was outside the
> gate.
>
> Stoney remained standing alongside the road, not knowing what to do. The
> sunlight dazzled his eyes. The road was a darker shade of gray; it might
> have been a slab of stone. For some time he stood along the road looking
> around lazily in the morning sun. Around him he saw rocks that he had
> not yet seen in their lives and their lines were unfamiliar and their
> angles oddly shattered and without pattern. They seemed to reach toward
him.
>
> There was a lumber truck come along and as it passed a large board fell
> off the back, bounced on the asphalt, then flew up and hit Stoney in the
> left shin. He was struck. He had not been looking and he did not jump up
> out of the path of the bouncing board. Stoney was in pain, he could not
> stand on his leg and he fell over onto the hard ground. He felt a
> piercing pain, and cried out. Stoney felt of his pain and he felt of the
> rock that vibrated calmly beneath him.
>
> THREE
>
> When Stoney came as one to see the world once again he rose up on his
> good and on his bad leg and he left behind him on the shoulder the bag
> of empty toothpaste tubes and his favorite rocks as he limped his way
> back into the quarry. The rocks of the quarry stood silent and erect.
> Stoney felt with his fingers their edges. Then he walked back to his
> room at the back of the maintenance shed where he slept.
>
> When Stoney came to see the world once again he was not surprised: the
> road, the rocks, the birds, the smells were all new and as such they
> were neither expected nor anticipated. He had the feeling that there was
> nothing to them. They meant nothing to Stoney. He began to walk. He was
> limping. In the middle of the road, he became conscious of the weight of
> the bag of empty toothpaste tubes and his favorite rocks and of the
> heat: he was walking in the sun. The road went up a rise and slowly
> around a curve and shimmered in the afternoon heat. Now he could never
> return to the quarry. When there is truly nothing in front of a person
> is the time when there is nothing absolutely behind. Behind Stoney was
> the bag of used toothpaste tubes and his favorite rocks that he no
> longer had the energy to hold high as he dragged the bag along making a
> trail in the dust behind.
>
> There was a gas station with two bays and an office small enough to hold
> a coffee pot and a candy bar dispensing machine. There was a car up on
> the hydraulic lift with two mechanics and a gas jockey. Stoney was
> thirsty and hungry and limped his way into the office.
>
> "Where the hell you going old man? " said Raul the gas jockey.
>
> Stoney did not reply to Raul. Stoney would not have replied because
> Stoney did not see Raul and he could not hear him. Stoney proceeded to
> pour himself a cold coffee into a dirty cup. He tasted of the coffee and
> found it bitter. He poured a few tablespoons of sugar into the coffee
> and twice as much non-dairy creamer. There was an unwrapped tuna fish
> sandwich sitting on wrapping paper next to the coffee pot. Stoney picked
> up a half of the sandwich and sniffed it. It did not smell foul, but it
> was a new smell the smell of fish. Stoney bit into the sandwich. Raul
> Menendez who had come in behind Stoney then hit him in the back of the
> head with an empty gas can. Everything spun around him; then his mind
> blanked.
>
> He awoke in a room flooded with sunshine. He lay on a very large bed.
>
> --
> To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
> uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
> <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
>

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>