SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER  2009

fiction

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"Cellular Age"

Excerpted from

HOTEL RAJ DE LUXE

A Tale of Sex, Drugs,
Rock 'n' Roll and Flying Pigs

By Jonathan Evans  

Illustrations by Beth McCoy Evans

PART 1
EUROPA

CHAPTER 4

CORNWALL

   Roger’s drive down to Cornwall had not been very enjoyable, although he had made good time.  The rain didn’t let up until he hit the A30 at Exeter , and turned west.  The MG’s canopy had jammed, and he eventually had to give up the struggle to raise it.   Reflecting on old sports cars, he observed that they looked great and mostly ran great, but had typically rugged, individualistic English minds of their own.  He had spent a small fortune rebuilding the engine of his beloved car, and serviced it religiously but still he couldn’t get the bloody canopy up.

    Consequently, he was completely soaked and shivering as he finally drove down the narrow back road towards Gavin’s place.  He wished he’d brought a joint or two with him for the trip but knew that Gavin would sort him out on that score.  He was following directions that he’d taken down on an envelope, now sodden.  It was completely dark and the road wound past high, impenetrable hedges so that Roger could see virtually nothing.  The road was so narrow that Roger wondered if two vehicles could pass one another if one should come towards him.  Holding the steering wheel in one hand, he tried to read his directions by the faint dashboard light. Pass a large white barn on the right, watch for a row of oak trees, and then look out for the red postbox set into the wall, he read. Fucking hell, he thought, what kind of a world is this?   He reached a T- junction and instinctively, for he was completely confused and lost at this point, turned left.  Oh, wait! There was a white barn, lots of big trees and a driveway with a postbox to the right.  This had to be it, he thought, and turned into the driveway.

    The driveway was longer than he had expected but he figured that Gavin had chosen a place far off the beaten track, for obvious reasons.  Finally, he drove through an impressive stone gateway and drew up in front of a very large rambling house.  It seemed to have both a tower and battlements.  Lights were on in the house and his spirits rose in anticipation of his welcome.  Another successful mission completed, he thought; now for a hot fire, a hot drink and a smoke.

Dartmoor in Autumn. Batik painting by Beth McCoy.

    In spite of his complexity as an educated, thinking human being, Roger was in some respects a wholly instinctual creature who liked his creature comforts.  Although his comfort cravings had been his downfall on several occasions, he managed to remain blissfully ignorant of this particular shortcoming.

    He got out of the MG, grabbed his soaking bag from the back, and stepped into ankle-deep mud.  His left shoe came off and he stepped, in his sock, into more mud.  Fuck, he thought again, what kind of world is this? Bloody country!  He staggered around in the darkness searching for his shoe, found it and somehow managed to put it on again over his muddy sock.  Then his other shoe was sucked off by the mud with a soft squelch and he found himself standing in the mud, quite unable to make a move in any direction.  Suddenly, lights came on and he stood there transfixed like a panicked deer in a spotlight. 

   “I say”, said a rather fruity voice,” is there someone out there?”

   “It’s me, Roger”, Roger managed, feeling somehow that things weren’t quite right.  The voice was not what he had expected.

   “Roger?  Don’t know a Roger”, came back the fruity voice.

   “I’m Roger, Roger Wilkinson; I’m looking for Bridle Cottage. I’m a friend of Gavin and Gilly’s; I thought this was their place. Sorry to crash in like this.”

    A figure materialized close by.   He saw a man, about his age and height, wearing a dirty sweater, baggy jeans and high Wellington boots.  He had longish hair and was rather scruffy-looking.

   “You’d better come in then,” said the apparition, “watch out for the moat on your left. And you’d better put your shoe back on again. Not that it’ll do you much good around here. Wellies are what you need in these parts. I’m Richard Fry, by the way, this is my pile you’ve found.  Those people you’re looking for live down the road.  But you’ll never find them on your own.  Come in and warm up a bit and we’ll see what we can do for you.  Piggy”, he called out to the house, “we’ve got a visitor!”

   Roger found himself being lead by the arm to the rambling house, past a barn, sheds housing what looked like several vintage cars, a gazebo and some strange shaped bushes which, on closer inspection, turned out to be topiary sheep.  Unprotesting, he was led to a glass-covered porch area and then through a door into the house.

    Better get those shoes off, old chap - Roger is it - I’ll find you some slippers, no mud in the house is the rule,” his savior said.  Roger couldn’t help noticing that his host kept his Wellington boots on and was tracking mud all over the rather beautiful oriental carpet that covered the floor. One rule for the rulers, another for the masses, he thought automatically, his socialist ideas never far from the surface.

     He entered a large living room, with doors leading off in every direction.  A huge log fire burned in a fireplace, while the walls were covered with large, old-looking paintings.  There was a lot of rather shabby furniture around the room and a sideboard loaded with decanters and bottles.  Several dogs were lying on the floor next to the fire but they barely lifted their heads at the new arrival.

   “I say, you’re soaked, better get some of those clothes off right away. I’ll see what I can find you to wear,” said his host.

   Richard Fry was a strange fish, Roger thought.  He spoke in an upper-crusty accent and was friendly and accommodating but never actually met Roger’s eyes when he spoke to him.  Roger, meanwhile, hadn’t opened his mouth since their initial exchange.  He was beginning to warm up a little and to recover his wits.  It had been a long, cold, wet drive and an emotionally exhausting day. 

   He pulled himself together enough to say,

    “I’m terribly sorry to bother you this way- I guess I’m lost. I was trying to find my friends at Bridle Cottage who are expecting me tonight.  I’ve just come down from London , got caught in the rain.”

   “Don’t worry, Roger, it’s no problem.  We rarely get visitors around these parts, and it’s always good to see a new face.  Let’s get you a hot drink and out of those clothes and then we’ll see what we can do for you.”  This was all spoken by his strangely awkward host while staring somewhere to Roger’s left.

   “Piggy,” he suddenly shouted, “we’ve got a visitor! Needs some hot tea. And how about some warm clothes, the poor fellow’s soaking.”

   The door at the end of the room opened and a small, blond-haired woman entered carrying a tray with a pot of tea, a cup on a saucer and some biscuits on a plate.  She smiled as she came across the room.

   “I’m Jenny,” she said with a slight American accident. “Welcome to Lunceston House.  Have some tea and warm yourself up.”

She put the tray down on a side table and extended her hand to Roger who shook it limply.

   “It’s always a pleasure to see a new face. You’re wet.  I’ll hunt you out some fresh clothes in a minute.  You look about Richard’s size.  Sit yourself by the fire and get warm while I do that.”

Roger did as he was told, too tired at that point to protest.

   “I’m Roger Wilkinson”, he explained again, “just down from London to see Gavin and Gilly Macintosh, some old friends of mine.  Apparently I came to the wrong house. I’m sorry to put you out at all.”

   “No prob,” said the blond woman, “just drink your cup of tea and warm up.”

   She was rather attractive, Roger registered, had a nice smile and did seem pleased to see him. And her accent did sound American.

“Are you from the States?” he asked, “I noticed your accent.  West coast, is it?  I did a lecture tour there a couple of years ago. I really like California and the weather can’t be beaten.”

“That’s right,” Jenny - or was it Piggy? - said. “Born and bred in LA but I’ve lived in England for years.  Ever since I met Richard.  And I know what you mean about the weather.  Worst thing about England , the weather, we try to get away as often as poss.”

Devon Sunset. Batik painting by Beth McCoy

She had a very English way of abbreviating some of her words which reminded Roger of Magnolia.   Magnolia, what was that silly woman up to?  He hastily put that errant train of thought out of his head to focus on the current situation. He allowed himself to be seated in a huge sagging armchair next to the roaring fire and drank some tea which indeed did make him feel better.

Richard was pouring himself what looked like a double whiskey from a decanter on the sideboard and offered one to Roger.

“Want something stronger, old chap, Roger?” He gazed at a painting of what appeared to be an 18th century sailor as he spoke.

   Roger decided that the man reminded him of a somewhat shabby Prince Charles - or maybe that was what the Prince looked like when he was off-duty.  He spoke with the same clipped accent and had the same awkwardness when dealing with people. Chronically shy, Roger thought, or perhaps not prepared for real relationships. The man exhibited what he would describe as poor social skills.  He didn’t know how to relate to ordinary folk, poor guy.  Too much money and a limited public school upbringing, probably.

  “Yes, thank you, I’ll have that drink,” he said forcing a smile.

“This is your place, Richard?  Lived here very long?  The house seems to be pretty old. What is it, 17th century?”

   “Actually Lunceston House is registered in the Domesday Book- that’s 1086 - parts of it, anyway.  It’s been added to over the years, of course.  But basically my people have been living here for over a thousand years.  Old family, the Frys.  We’re in the history books.

The family came over with the Vikings, grabbed some land and we’ve been dug in here ever since.”

   That stopped Roger in his tracks a bit.  This disheveled man, dressed in muddy Wellington boots and dirty jeans, came from really old money, from the heart of old England .  He couldn’t compete with that!  Better keep his trap shut and get out of here as quickly as possible, said the old socialist within him.  These were not his kind of people. And where the devil were Gavin and Gilly?  They couldn’t be too far away, and he really did need to find them.

   The stiff whiskey he had just downed gave him new energy and courage.

“Do you mind if I use your phone?” he asked, “my friends must be worrying about me.”   “Sorry, Roger,” spoken to the ceiling, “the telephone’s been out for days.  We had a bad storm a week ago and the line came down. Haven’t been able to get it fixed yet. Things move very slowly around here.”

    His host changed the subject abruptly.  “So what do you do with yourself?”

“I’m a psychologist in London ” said Roger, “the work is interesting and it pays the rent.   I deal with all kinds of people.”

   “Ah yes, must be interesting, all those people you must meet,” Richard spoke without really seeming very interested.  He went on, “I get up to town every now and then, mostly on business or on the way through when we go to the States.  We’ve a development in Florida that we have to keep on top of.  We’ve got a little finca in Ibiza , where we sometimes go for a break. And there’s the chateau in France , near to Carcassone, know the place?”  Richard mentioned his houses as he, Roger, might talk about his CD collection.

Roger had never been to Carcassone, though he vaguely remembered that it was an old medieval town somewhere in the south of France .  Christ, he thought, these people had to be loaded.  Way too much money, he thought; wait till the revolution comes, mate, it’ll be the chop for folk like you. 

   Roger had a rather polarized attitude towards money, one that he and Magnolia both shared.  He both despised money and coveted it.  He criticized those that had it and secretly envied them.  Was that champagne socialism or what, he wondered?

He thought again of how he could get out of this situation and find Gavin.

As if reading his thoughts, Richard spoke again.

   “Sounds like the rain’s really coming down again.  I don’t think we can let you out tonight.  Much better you stay here for the night, warm and dry, and we’ll show you where your friends are in the morning.  Piggy and I will be happy to put you up.  Lots of space here.”

   Put like that, Roger had to surrender to the inevitable.  Better just give in and make the best of it.  Tomorrow would be another day.  He’d move on in the morning – if these strange people would let him, that is.  He felt like he’d strayed into a film in which it was far easier to check into the hotel than it was to check out.

   A couple of hours later, dressed in fresh clothing which smelt faintly of mothballs, and feeling warm, slightly drunk and resigned to his situation, Roger was lead by Jenny/Piggy up a long, winding staircase to a small bedroom on the second floor.  It, like the rest of the house, was a little shabby but quite adequate.  Another dark painting of some ancient Fry family member stared down at him from the wall. 

   “I do hope that you’ll be comfortable here.” she said with a smile, “the room hasn’t been slept in for awhile but I changed the bedding and put the fire on.  Bathroom’s next door, and I’ve put you out a towel.   Sweet dreams, and we’ll see you in the morning.  Breakfast’s at half past seven, we like to get an early start.”

   She retreated, leaving Roger in the dimly lit room.  He had no real sense of Jenny.  She was polite and friendly but reserved, especially for an American, he thought, slipping into an old stereotypical idea about Americans.

    It had been a strange, awkward evening with nothing consequential said by either side.  Richard and his wife had barely spoken to one another.  They were an odd pair, he thought, but maybe that’s what landed gentry were like.  He had no experience of this neck of the woods, after all.

    He climbed into the rather hard bed without undressing, and lay back on the pillow.  A small book lay on a side table by the bed with the title ‘Travelers Tales’.  As he opened it, a small card fell out.  He picked it up and read:         Hotel Raj De Luxe

                Almora , India

                2 ½ Star facilities

        Best Himalaya Views, Once Seen never Forgotten.

Then under that, in smaller letters, it read:

            “Where all Dreams come True.”

    Now where did that come from, Roger thought drowsily.  He settled down in bed and fell instantly asleep.

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More batik paintings by Beth McCoy Evans can be seen on the Art page

Cell Phone novels are already a big hit big in Japan, where they have been published and sold in bookstores. So with the economic crisis, the publishing deglitz, a $2.5 million book deal for Sarah Silverman, and the memoir freeze, I thought “what if..."  

 A New Literary Genre
 For The Cellular Age

by Phyllis Mass

            She’s back.

I’m still reeling from the text message my sister sent announcing that literary super agent Amanda “Binky” Urban is interested in turning her cell phone memoir into a six figure book deal. I guess I’ll answer her eventually; after hours of deep breathing and intense meditation; when my colon relaxes, my shoulders un-hunch and the blood flows back to my brain and I can think clearly. The text message was surprising, absolutely stunning, in fact, because my sister who plagued me for most of my life, not because she wanted to emulate me as I once thought, but because she wanted to be me, she once confessed, has one- upped, two-upped, and even three upped me. 

            You always told me that knowing what you wanted was the first step toward attainment, 

her text read. Now she has not only accomplished her goal, she has even surpassed being me.

            Ironic isn’t it that someone who never read a newspaper or so much as scribbled a card, or a brief note on a PostIt, let alone written a full-blown letter, has somehow managed to compose a cell phone memoir worthy of publication in these dark days of economic downturns and print misery. At a time when austerity measures are  undulating throughout the publishing industry;  when Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announces it is not buying any new manuscripts from the likes of Philip Roth and his literary ilk for the rest of the season; when Simon and Shuster and Random House all vow to “look at acquisitions through the prism of a reduced and hurting retail market;” when hundreds of memoirs, including my own, languish in the offices of literary agents or reside as unopened PDF files on their hard drives, my sister’s cell phone memoir is deemed print-worthy. How is that possible? Irony alone can not be the answer. It’s as if a bakery suddenly announced that it would no longer bake and sell fresh bread bread henceforth baking and selling only frozen products.

            I have to give her credit, she did have an interesting life; much of it though, self-created torture, manufactured for maximum effect. If you phoned her, you should have visited, if you visited, you should have emailed, if you emailed, you should have sent a card, if you sent a card, you should have called. Her extreme mood swings were as capricious as gusts of wind and twice as lethal as tornados in their far-reaching devastation. I was the actress, but she was the diva, the ultimate mercurial, real-life drama queen who once requested impromptu visit from my parents early in her marriage to help her clean up a fractured jar of pasta sauce which she claimed “committed suicide by leaping from the top shelf of her kitchen pantry.” She deemed a supervised cleanup to be in order; did what any member of the royal family would do. She summoned the serfs for the task at hand.

             Don’t know if that moment is immortalized in her memoir, but even without it there is still much to mention, discuss, dissect. And let’s not forget the enormous cast of hapless beings upon whom to heap blame and point fingers. There was her first great love affair which she claimed was scuttled by my parents who wanted her to “do better;” her hate-filled, almost chaste marriage to a fertility expert with the sex drive of amoebae; her second great love affair with an older, handsome Mafia Don, which included marathon bouts of pasta and sex, and in which she performed her finest role: that of a gourmandizing  femme fatale.  Then there was the ill-fated mutual contract she and her lover took out on their respective spouses; her numerous hospitalizations for bipolar manic depression; the electroconvulsive shock therapy which erased

just enough of her memory for me to convince her that she was the older sister; the fourteen years of therapy and self-absorption which would make even Woody Allen envious and which had the dubious effect of transforming her therapists into narcoleptics.                                  

            Ultimately, she morphed into an Uber Oprah self-help guru whose self- prescribed sixty-seven visits to the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera served as a cure for her depression. Her framed ticket stubs attested to her claim that whether she had standing, sitting, or dozing tickets for the show, Phantom somehow miraculously healed her affliction. An abortion and her amazing triumph over breast cancer and reconstruction all the while caring for her Cry Baby doctor husband, she often accused of trying to steal her thunder, added more mystique and street cred to her already bulging Curriculum Vitae. Though she and her clueless hubby did not share many togethernesses; they did cancer and chemotherapy ensemble. My sister performing her pas de deux with immense dignity, courage and little complaint. The good doctor bemoaning his fate, beating his breast and keening as if he had already expired. Finally, there was her bout with lung cancer that ultimately claimed her life. And, that is the biggest surprise of all. The fact that my sister, having succumbed to lung cancer three years hence, is no longer among the living. Her text came from beyond the grave.

            From the many lovely rejections I collected during my own quest for someone to agent my memoir, there emerges a theme. The need for something unusual and/or different. It’s the answer to question “How can one be published today?” Being different, standing out from the pack ensures publication. It always did, but today the “different” bar is set higher than ever. Higher, perhaps, than the moon. How else to explain James Fry’s falsified account of enduring lengthy rehab stays in A Million Little Pieces, or the latest Holocaust love story by Herman Rosenblat whose alleged encounter at Buchenwald with the woman who would become his wife  is the basis for his ersatz memoir, Angel at The Fence. Both memoirs were vigorously endorsed by Oprah. Rosenblat’s tale was pronounced “the single greatest love story in twenty-two years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air.” Both memoirs, it turns out, were heavily embellished. All of which begs the question: Aren’t the real facts horrible enough? Why make them more painful? Why not write it as fiction rather than memoir?  Is it because we all want to read incredible accounts of someone else’s real sufferings; of someone who managed to endure unimaginable horrors, defy all odds and ultimately triumph over adversity? Is that it? Is that why Slumdog Millionaire is such a big box office hit? Cautionary tale spoiler: Slumdog is a film. It’s fantasy; it’s entertainment; it’s feel good escapism. What it is not is memoir.

             One agent told me after reading my account of mother’s six months in hospice , which she praised as a “truly lovely read,” that she could not sign on “not because of what the book is, but because one just has to have an incredible surge of optimism about something new  . . . since this market has tightened up terribly in the fall and is now frozen . . .”

             I’ve always contended that any kind attention, be it negative or  positive, was good. As if  proof of this were needed, my sister’s memoir should serve as affirmation. Here’s how her agent “Binky” Urban phrased it my sister said in her text. “Your voice is so new and different. It is unfiltered and unedited. It is revolutionary and not surprisingly so is your subject matter. And the best part is that as a person ‘deprived of life,’ you have created a new literary genre for the cellular age and it’s going to be a blockbuster.”

            “Binky” forgot to mention the best part. Since my sister is a person devoid of life, “Binky” can significantly reduce the bottom line by eliminating author cash advances and royalties.

            With nothing to do these long three years and freed from earthly responsibilities as we know them, my sister decided to write about her life and her death.

             I thought about what you said. How you often teased me about how I had done everything in life but death. Remember? Well, that was then. So now that I’ve done it all what was there left for me to do but write it all down?

            She’s been writing practically uninterrupted these last few years. What else does she  have to do?

            I don’t eat, don’t work, don’t breathe and don’t shop. Can’t sleep all the time. So I write.  Besides, I find the soft tapping sound of my cell phone keyboard reassuring and comforting during my alone time. Now if only my daughter had thought to bury me with my iPod, I would be a contented camper.”  

            Old habits die hard.

            Isabella knew how attached I was to my phone. I was never without it. We spoke to each other at least 10 to 15 times a day, not to mention all the other conversations I had in a 24-hour period. Sometimes only minutes passed before Isabella and I would call one another again, having just ended our previous conversations.

             So like the Egyptians who buried their dead with objects they thought to help them navigate the underworld, my niece refused to separate her mother from her beloved cell phone.        

            “What if Walt Disney was right,” Isabella announced at her mother’s funeral, hands upon hips and swaying side to side as if performing non-rhythmic aerobics, “and years from now people can be reanimated from a frozen state?”

            Using that logic as a template, Isabella saw fit to bury my sister with her phone on the off chance that one day she would have sufficient time and enough bars to figure out how to communicate from the dead zone.

            Remember how I went over my cell phone plan by 2,000 minutes? LOL It was really a big deal back then. Cost me an extra $1500. God, how I loved to talk. Well, voice does not work here.  Found out after an enormous number of tries. Apparently, I am the only one who has a phone. Everyone else is sooooooo envious. So anyhoo, before giving up on communication completely, I tried texting. It turned into this memoir which I posted in installments on the site www.gonebutnotforgotten.com. That’s where my agent found me. She says texting, is the wave of the future. She says that most people on earth would rather email or text than speak on their phones. Not I. But I have no choice.

            It appears that while my sister’s memoir deals only somewhat with her life on earth, most of it concerns her journey to her altered existence and her interactions in the great hereafter. From what she tells me, her community is comprised of people who died the same year she did.

             That’s how the after life is arranged. One can get a pass to visit persons in other realms  but one must return to one’s own neighborhood and one’s own domicile eventually.

            So instead of visiting with the great minds of centuries past, my sister chose a sentimental favorite; a visit with our mother who died a year and a half after she did. 

             Who’d  want to read your memoir when they could read mine?  Surprised that I know about your ms?  Well don’t be. I’m a Twitterer and I’ve been ‘following’ the tweets you send out on Wine For Breakfast.

             While my manuscript deals with the last six months of my mother’s life on earth up until her death, my sister’s memoir picks up after our mother dies; which renders my memoir a mere  prequel.

              Why  would anyone want to read your tedious book about suffering and dying when they can fast-forward, and read my firsthand account of what’s in store for them when they leave their earthly existence?    

             Ah, yes. That trip to “that undiscover’d country, from whose bourne no traveller [had previously return’d.”] In that respect, with the incessant tapping of her cell phone keyboard, my sister, like Oprah’s unwitting endorsement of those bogus memoirs, has rendered all traditional forms of memoir obsolete.

Phyllis Mass is a contributing editor to ragazine.cc. (See "About Us")

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