TCOTNK 8 Walking Fridges
Power hung like a heavy perfume round the visitor. A kind of casual threat to which Michelangelo’s heart responded. He knew the type.
Walking fridges
Michelangelo wasn’t part of that event. The male activities in the tent were a reason for him to go do something else. And because Scarlotte was sleeping he set off to spend that evening walking. The clear night would empty his head. Allow some distance from all the plans. Maybe it would give some insight, some ways to proceed with the modeling. The big project. Because the actual execution of the wild plans was now gaining momentum.
The thinking walk didn’t really work. It was too quiet. He left the woods crossing the road, following the meandering levee. After a mile or so he put on his headphones and looked for something suitable to play.
He was tired, listened to music made half a century ago that was better than anything of recent years. Not because the past was better. It wasn’t nostalgia. They were the originals. From a time with far more originals then there were now. And maybe he was no longer up to date but it seemed to him everyone chewed the cud for decades now. With few exceptions, it was all revival, reliving, looking back. Nothing more than repetitions in disguise. You can’t repeat an original. Again and again you had to invent, practice, conquer, discover, remember. And he saw the world was forgetting. Actually making you forget. In a thousand ways. He saw that it wasn't about demolition or uprooting or burning down. You didn’t end faith by cutting down the holy tree. No, it ended because people forgot how to get to that place. Lost the memory of how an original is made. They lost the memory of how. Christ, he was tired. His hiking boots were worn down. His last pair. Only barely walkable. In dry weather.
Life is like making music, he thought, the tape is spinning and the microphones are positioned mid air. Ready to register. But only the real now. Only the authentic was caught. Everything else didn’t get on there. Empty tape. Except for noise.
At one end of the terrain stood an old company building with a residential attached. They used it as storage, as a material bank, and it was where the nerve center of the festival came on gradually. It was almost midnight. In the office the lights were still on. Parked next to James’ gaudy ride, was a monster of a four wheel drive. An extended version. All black, including the mirroring windows. Moonlight polished the shine. It was parked backwards. Michelangelo took off his headphones. Pressed pause.
Through the blinds he could see the large desk. Opposite Joe sat a man with a bald head whose face he couldn’t see. But something in the attitude of the two men told him there was conflict. Power hung like a heavy perfume round the visitor. A kind of casual threat to which Michelangelo’s heart responded. He knew the type. This wasn’t a social call but a carefully planned visitation at a vulnerable moment for Joe.
The night was lit with sharp shadows because of the bright moon. He made an encircling motion. Using the deep darks under the trees he tried to see down the corridor next to the illuminated window. The spring on the self closing door was disabled by a chair stuck under the door handle. Two men stood in the dark hallway. Big guys. Arms crossed. Chin to chest. Watchdogs. Paid guards. Suddenly the car on the high wheels started the engine with a subcutaneous growl. Michelangelo crouched. He would be fully exposed if the headlights were ignited. He retreated a bit. Apparently the owner of the dogcart was almost ready to leave.
It was a short stub of a guy. Especially compared to those walking fridges. The driver opened the sliding door and before the man in his golf apparel got in, it seemed as if his eyes pierced the darkness and looked straight at Michelangelo. While his bodyguards were alert, scanning all directions, the bald visitor had his own sense. A chill spread in Michelangelo’s chest.
The heavy car was grinding the gravel and graciously left the scene. Only on the public road did the headlights come on. Shedding a cold glow on the trees.
Michelangelo was still watching them leave when Joe joined him. The skinny man was nervous. Overly laconic. Michelangelo half expected a well-that’s-sorted-then, but something different came out.
“You know,” Joe said waving the now vanished car goodbye, “when I check out tomorrow, that’s fine. Totally fine. I am enjoying every second I can get my hands on.”
Sighing he wiped his forehead.
“And that’s a strange sensation. My guest sensed that perfectly.”
Joe considered his visitors for a moment.
“The power of this kind of man is huge, but they are all scared to death,” he chuckled, “of dying. Because that means losing control. Handing in the power. Everything in their existence is aimed at holding on, you know? Stuff, youth, women, slaves. All to be chained, and if needed locked in to their cellars and bunkers. Everything needs to be checkable. Controllable. All must obey. All must be known, identified. And that’s now for what? Eight-hundred years? So awfully long. They still are knights you know? We’re still in the dark ages. Nothing modernity, nothing Industrial Revelation.”
Joe turned off the light and locked the office door. Together they closed the iron gate, then drove back towards the tents in the yellow golf cart. Hobbling and bouncing. Not talking at all.
The site seemed deserted. Even the striped tent was empty. Joe revived the fire. A seasoned pyromaniac.
“Is it going well?” asked Michelangelo. A sly smile appeared on Joe's rough face. “Keep calm,” he said, “nothing is under control.”
He leaned back in a pile of sheepskins, hands behind his head.
“We think we need so much. Like chicks in a nest, we keep our mouths wide open to be fed. Demanding. Bottomless. And we don't grow up anymore, we don't become independent hunters anymore. Today's eagles spend their lives on the nest. In front of the TV. What do you need, Raphi? Or should I say Mikey?”
Joe rolled a joint.
Michael thought of the time when he called himself Raphael. The years before Charlotte. Names are weird, he thought. He didn't know what he needed. Not much. The whole world wanted everything from him. But the other way around?
Joe was smiling at him. "You have the same, don't you?" he said.
“Perhaps you are also a hunter, Michelangelo and you don't know it yet. Hunters don't need much either.” He tilted his head. Lighter at the ready. “Michael the dragon hunter, the one with the wings you know? And the legend of the dragon is different from what most people think.” His petrol lighter flashed and he took a long drag. "Everything is different than most people think," he groaned through a fit of coughing. "We're all so goddamn wrong together..." Then he blinked furiously and blew rings from the next gulp. "Well," he said, leaning back, "that's sorted then, biute."