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>